Cuties

Jovianne

Jovianne is now almost six weeks old, but I couldn't bring myself to blog about her until now. It's weird, but you know how newborns are just so sweet and precious and pure? I think I felt the need to protect her fragile little self for awhile. If I'm not going to allow her out of the house, why should I allow her on the web? Okay. I know you readers are just my family and friends; I guess I'm just a little illogically protective when it comes to new babies. So. Here she is!

She is definitely a good mix of our kids. 7 pounds, 5 ounces, 20 inches - perfect baby. She has been extremely well-behaved. These pix were taken when she was two weeks old by my amazing photographer friend Haylie Bowler. All-natural light . . . ahhh. They are really amazing photos.

My recovery has been easy; the pregnancy was so hard that from the day I got home from the hospital, I've felt better than I have for nine months. I really do feel excellent. And especially in love with this little gal. She's been a smiley baby from the start (good dreams and good milk, I guess), but just in the past couple days has really begun to smile in response to me. So cute it makes me weak.

Her daddy adores her, of course. I'll catch them just sitting there, staring at each other. She turns her head when she hears his voice.

Irelynd is enamoured as well. She actually attended the birth, which was a cool experience, so she's been lovin' her from the start. If Irelynd had her way, we would sit and play with Jovianne all day long.

Drake also digs Jovi. He tells me that her skin is softer than homemade ice cream. (And we all know how soft that is!) He is especially good at watching her for me if I have to run upstairs for something. I'll come back down to find him singing to her and bouncing her like a pro.

Zander says that Jovi is "a freakin' cool baby," and is constantly reminding me that he loves the baby more than he loves me. "But just a little more." He loves to hold her, too. Whenever I sit down with Jovi, he runs up and settles next to us, and asks if we can "spend some time together - just you and me and the baby."

Amari doesn't so much like Jovi. She is more of an inconvenience than anything. It's constantly, "Give it to Dad," or "Put it down." My Aunt Janet and Uncle Rick came to visit shortly after she was born, and as they were leaving, their daughter Ericka asked if she could hold Jovianne one more time. Amari took one look at Ericka, holding Jovi by the door, and asked, brightly, "You gonna take it with you?" (No, Amari. We're keeping her.) If I ask Amari about her little sister or try to talk to her about it, she completely ignores me, usually just changing the subject and overall, refusing to acknowledge the baby's existence. And I understand that Jovi has thrown off her groove of being the babiest baby ever, so I am trying to give Amari lots of extra attention. I'm sure things will turn out fine, and they will become good buddies. It just hasn't happened yet.

So I'm lovin' being the mom of a newborn again. There is just nothing else in life that compares, in my opinion. I'm just soaking in every moment with her. Babies are bliss, I tell you.

Fun with Ramen noodles

I walked in the kitchen today to see Amari making a big mess of her lunch, as usual. But today, she was patiently holding a noodle over the serving bowl. Jason asked her, "What are you doing?" To which she replied, "Fishing." Funny girl.

Pennsylvania and my sister, Valerie

Irelynd, Amari, and I recently had an awesome vacation visiting my big sis in Pennsylvania, which is gorgeous, by the way. Here we stopped for a picnic lunch at a cool fruit stand: peaches were in season. I think that covers it right there.

They had this cool sandbox that contained not sand, but feed corn. Ingeniuous. I don't know which Amari enjoyed the best - the box or the peaches.



The delightful Goates family consists of: Audrey, the beautiful, fair-haired, brilliant best buddy of Irelynd. They are only six weeks apart in age and have always loved to play. Imagination comes easily with these two, as for a majority of the stay, they were either spies, or creating star buddies.

Next comes Marian, the spunky, funny, best-hugs-in-the-world, bone marrow transplant survivor and thriver. She cracks me up and makes my heart happy. She can hang out with anyone, any age, and have fun.

And youngest, but not least, precious Reuben, smiley boy, cancer-fighter, bouncer. After four rounds of chemo, he is going in for surgery today to remove a tumor in his shoulder. We are praying. He is a little guy with his own rhythm in life. He is always either bouncing, dancing, or slapping his leg all the time.

Valerie's hubby, Nathan, is my personal hero of the trip, as he spent four hours with me at the airport as I arrived, waiting in lines, entertaining the kids, and patiently not complaining as we tried to locate my luggage. He is also a good daddy and he likes to ride bikes.
And lastly, the coolest is Valerie. She is this amazing mom with boundless patience (though she would never admit it). She is a craftasaurus and can do anything. But not like dumb, tacky crafts - the coolest crafts you can imagine. Like incredible pottery creations, dying her own material, and stamping it with natural dyes, needle-felting adorable creatures like root babies, sewing and embroidering tiny animals, monsters, and fairies . . . and the list continues. You should check out her blog and her shop on etsy. All this, and she still has time to drive hours picking and dropping off at airports, not to mention endless hours driving to and from hospitals . . . I can't imagine doing the things she has to do, accomplishing the things that she accomplishes that are extra, being the mom and wife she is, and still remaining sane - well, relatively sane. ;) Wow, I say.

Well, I spent more time telling about the family than the actual trip. But really, those details are what made the trip great. It was so good to see them. I'm still hoping for a Christmas visit from them!!!

The trip was great. I can say that now, after a few weeks to forget the horrors of the airline company, and to remember the great time with my sis. I wish she lived nearer.

How would you like it if someone crushed your house and killed all your babies??!?!

No kidding. These were Drake's exact words when I told him we'd have Dad get that wasp nest taken care of. It's huge. And nasty, crawling with wasps. And right by the stairs going down to the lower patio. And we've dealt with wasp stings several times before - none of them a happy memory. But now I have a naturalist son who disapproves of harming anything in nature. We discussed it and argued until tears came to Drake's eyes - so I backed off and thought about his point of view a little. This whole standoff took place Sunday morning, a couple weeks ago, and here's the latest: The wasp nest is still there.

Drake has taken an interest lately in insects, especially, and his Uncle Paul has only fueled his love. Paul's last weekend before he went to Mongolia was spent with Drake visiting Paul's lab at BYU and creating the beginnings of Drake's own insect collection. Paul gave Drake all of the necessary tools and supplies to keep it up, and Drake has added a couple, but he mostly likes to catch the little creepy crawlies and then let them go within a few minutes because he doesn't want them to die. . . . This all brings up memories of a story I heard about Drake's daddy when he was Drake's age: seeing his brother shooting birds with a BB gun, running inside to find his own BB gun, and shooting his brother for hurting the little birds.

In fact, lately we have been having trouble with birds flying into our big windows on the west side of our house. Some of them get up and fly away . . . some of them don't. But recently we had a little baby robin smash into the window, and it was still fluttering a little, so Jason went and picked up the bird and put it somewhere safe where it could hopefully recover. He was a little sad about it, and went to check on it a couple of times before he happily announced that it flew away! I have softies for boys in my family - that's all I can say. Of course I love it.

Oh, Honey!

I swear I don't remember leaving Amari at the counter alone.

Since she's a "big girl" now, we've tried to let her sit on big girl chairs, which means she can climb onto the counter at will. So, after running to my room to put something away, I came back to this. I'm not sure if she was really in any danger of falling, because her little bum was stuck quite forcefully to the counter when I tried to pick her up. A little sticky to carry her to the bathtub, but after a good warm wash, no harm done! (Actually, I have to correct myself. She was easy to clean; but I have mopped my floor three times now and still can't seem to get all those sticky spots!)










P.S. For those of you who have read "The Secret Life of Bees," doesn't this remind you? hee hee

Consequences

Drake is turning out to be a pretty great little guy. One of his duties, in his mind, is to make sure everyone else in the family is behaving. He frequently tells us what we should be doing. He's getting good practice for when he's a daddy. But along with being in charge of the world, he also knows everything. Whenever Zander asks a question, or a topic comes up for which he has special knowledge (which happens frequently), he adopts his patient teacher voice and explains all to us - especially to Zander. Zander maintains that Drake is the only one in the world that is smarter than him, so I guess it must be working. The other day, Zander was receiving a consequence, and he asked what that word meant. I tried to explain it to him, then Drake piped in with, "It's like if you try to shoot someone with a laser gun, and they're holding a mirror, so when the laser gets to them, it bounces off them and comes back and blows you up. It's your fault that you shot that laser." Profound. Drake has lately been making a huge effort to be a good big brother to Amari. It's so cute because of how hard he tries. But it has paid off. Amari thinks Drake is pretty cool. They had some great quality and quantity time together while Drake was off track, so when he went back on track, Amari kept asking me where he was, and saying sadly, "I miss Dake." I love it.