All in a day

I thought it was time to give an update on all of us, though I know most of you are primarily interested in the three little people.

My days are  filled with lots of laundry (mainly diapers), food planning...I declare, the only thing these people think about is food...reading to my little bibliophiles, and nursing. I have a couple of ongoing projects, such as organizing my recipes, that I'm working on in fits and starts. It takes me almost as long to find a recipe as it does to cook it, so I'm getting tired of all the scraps of paper stuffed into a recipe book. I'm working on typing out all the recipes I use, sliding them in protective sheets, and putting them in a three-ring binder. I'm also working up the gumption to start my kick-boxing workout DVD. Though I'm back to my pre-Zion weight, I'd like to get back to my pre-baby, baby, baby weight.

Benjy is still working hard at the hospital. He has been working a lot of overtime. In just about every spare minute (when the kids aren't climbing over him, which would be mainly at naptime), he's been cutting down and milling some trees off our property. Our plan is to move further west, have more acreage, and build a new house within the next few years. Benj plans to do most of the work on the new house himself, and he'll do the doors and finish work with this lumber.

We've been enjoying Benjy's mom and dad being out of school and able to come visit. Benjy's dad returned to his roots and helped Benj drag the logs up to the wood stack with the tractor that belonged to my great-grandfather. Below is the stack of lumber that Benj has milled himself with his Alaskan sawmill. I believe he's milled around 400 board feet so far this spring.

The children are all busy, busy, busy. Mercy and Judah love their baby brother. When Judah gets up in the morning, one of the first thing he does (besides grabbing an armful of cars and trucks out of the playroom) is say "Zion!" and point to our bedroom. Then, "Shhhh!" Mercy loves to hold Zion and asks nearly every day. Judah usually isn't interested in holding the baby, as that requires sitting still for more than a nanosecond, but on this day, he climbed up in the chair and held out his arms to take his turn:

Mercy-girl is full of life. She spends much of her day running through the house, asking to help mommy, and if daddy is home, wallowing all over him:

She continues to amuse us with her anecdotes. A few days ago, she was tickling Zion's toes, and said thoughtfully, "I don't like it when Daddy bites my toes. It's disgraceful."

Mercy loves to dress up in her gaudy princess clothes and shoes, to which she adds a purse, sunglasses, and a baby doll flung over one arm. She has taken an unfortunate (for me) interest in all things creepy crawly. We bought her a bug-catching set, and she likes to examine all manner of disgusting worms, bugs, and scared-silly toads in the magnified jar. Judah only mildly shares this interest. He's actually a little squeamish. Mercy  brought a nightcrawler inside and set the jar in the living room. Judah picked it up and held the jar upside down right in front of his eyes. The nightcrawler, succumbing to gravity, fell from the bottom of the jar to the magnified lid. I suppose the worm looked grotesquely huge right in front of his eyes like that, and Judah jumped, shuddered, and threw the jar down. I admit that I unkindly laughed.

Judah is still obsessed with anything with wheels and spends a good part of every day running his train, trucks, or cars along any flat surface. He is also developing an amazing vocabulary. He is probably closing in on 200 words. The other day, I was changing his diaper, and I said  "Oh, Judah. When are you going to do this in the potty!" He said "Phewy! Phewy! AWFUL! AWFUL!"

And yes, I know that he needs some direction with his sartorial skills. (Check out the shoes.)

Zion is doing his job: getting fatter by the day. He's approaching 17 pounds at just 10 weeks. Even though he suffers from reflux, just like the other two, he is a smiley, content baby. And he sleeps like...well, like a baby. he takes two 2-3 hour naps a day, and sleeps from 8 pm to around 4 am, eats, then goes back to sleep for several more hours. I just about started shoutin' hallelujah when I typed that. A baby who sleeps! I thought they were a myth!

He's been rolling over for several weeks, and I caught him in the act here:

My smiley boy: