Max's first 5 weeks

I didn't start teaching preschool back up until Max was 5 weeks old. During that time we just survived and adjusted. Max eats and needs attention so much in the night that Chris would get up and get the big kids off to school by himself. One day he came home for lunch and found me rocking two sleeping boys. Freddy really misses the big kids and wants to be in the same room as me all the time. He is surprisingly very good at being quiet and entertaining himself on my bed with pillows.  When he gets tired of that, he'll snuggle up on the arm of the rocking chair while I feed Max on the other side.  Probably a better mom would have enjoyed every second of this... but I think the words out of my mouth when Chris saw me was, "I'm trapped." I can feel pretty tethered when I'm nursing a newborn. 

Max's umbilical cord didn't take long to fall off so pretty soon we could do a real bath. I was able to get the water pretty warm and he LOVED it.

I keep reminding myself that Maxwell is probably our last baby. My last baby to snuggle and rock and hold and kiss. I can't help myself from kissing him CONSTANTLY. He just has such squishy cheeks. Sometimes I wonder if I were Max, would I want to be kissed that much?

It no longer surprises me that Charlie is one of the best helpers with a new baby. He's not afraid of crying or changing diapers, or slobber or anything really. He's going to make a GREAT dad someday. 

Maxwell seems super aware and loves to stare at our faces while we talk to him. Its like he's trying so hard to understand us. Finally his skin has started to look less yellow..and its losing its tanned look. I was kinda worried about it before his 2 week visit, but the doctor said everything looks great and to not freak out too much about germs and getting the flu or whatnot because newborns usually have super immunity and don't yet put their hands or other things in their mouths. 

In the mornings on Saturdays, we'll get all the kids in our bed, excited to see Max. Often, Max is in our bed already from a 5:00 feeding or something.  Knowing there's little time for sleep left, I will nurse him laying down so I can try and go back to sleep myself.

I'm not positive I'm totally ready to start preschool back up, but Freddy is. Chris worked from home for the first couple of preschool mornings and took care of Max who slept for most of it.  Freddy and I both enjoyed showing all the preschool kids and parents our cute little baby and it was the perfect reason to study Babies/Nursery Rhymes, Favorite Stories and Fairy-tales as the first theme. 

snow!

Only 1 week after we were back in school from winter break, and one day after getting out of school for Martin Luther King Jr. day, we had 2 and a half days off for a winter weather.  We all LOOOOOVE snow and were so excited to see the white flakes falling outside.

But without more than an inch or so there wasn't a whole lot we could do to play in it besides slide down the slides on sleds.  It was quite cold and very dry snow. The 2nd day, we saw some deer in our yard really close to the playground when Alec was outside. He quietly and quickly climbed up into the fort and was able to be super close to them for a while. Pretty fun.

Quick trip to Texas

Chris was out sick for the first few days of 2018. I tried to take care of every like he had done for me, but I wasn't quite able to handle it all without complaint. :( I am so sleep deprived and nursing was still pretty painful even though it had been 2 weeks.  But it is so hard to think about missing out on Jackson's baptism. Chris really didn't want to miss it, so he pushed through his last day of sickness to drive us all out to Texas. Max had a good crying spell a few times but other wise did pretty good. It was good to be able to support Jackson on his big day of getting baptized, also we loved getting to show new baby Max to Chris' parents who had come out to Texas for Jackson's baptism too.

Chris' fever came back in full force our last day there and was BARELY able to make it through participating in the confirmation of Jackson without passing out and leaning on his dad completely for the last few sentences was the only thing preventing him from feinting. He pretty much slept for the next 15 hours. We had to leave right after sacrament meeting the next day so we could be home in time for school and work on Monday.

Apparently, I only got one picture on this trip... the one on the car ride out! Charlie was mad about something and hiding from the camera. I'll have to steal one from Brittany.

New Years, and time with Grandma and Grandpa Betteirdge! (and help remodel a bathroom)

Max started off likely his first bath:

  And then he didn't like it:

We all love holding him.

We had one last hurrah with Thom and Brittany before they left and had a Raclette Cheese night.  I loved showing mom and dad this fun Archibald tradition.

 We loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa playing games, watching movies, doing puzzles, reading books, snuggling on the couch.  Grandma and I took care of regular stuff while Dad and Chris tackled a bathroom remodel. I could tell Chris wasn't super excited about this but I just couldn't let a whole week of Dad being here with all his experience and NOT do a project. We're trying to get our house all finished up and in a good spot within the next year just in case its our last one here.  For New Years mom helped make a lot of special foods, like cheese balls, fruit bread, little BBQ smokies, chips and dip. etc. We counted down with a Netflix countdown timer at 10:00 for the kids. We face-timed with Hailey for a long time and actually stayed up till Midnight.  It was nice. I LOVE my parents and were soooo sad to say goodbye to them 2 days later.

Here's more information on the entryway bathroom remodel. The sink was a 4 foot cabinet which took up WAY too much room in the small bathroom and barely gave a small person enough room for their knees as they sat on the porcelain throne.  We had plans to make this awkwardly shaped bathroom feel better by putting in a pedestal sink but we were limited with where the water came out of the wall. We debated on trying to leave the tile in, but ended up needing to take it out. We ran into so bumps as we realized we needed to redo the tile, and had a hard time getting the right tools to cut the tile. Dad was able to change out some of the plumbing that made it easier to get a sink in the right place, but we didn't like any of the pedestal sinks at Loews so we came up with a new plan to build a little wainscoting-looking shelf to hide the water pipes and found a small but nice looking sink. Dad helped us change out the light fixture, replace the broken toilet, install the sink and get the tile down. Unfortunately Chris got hit with the same bug that the rest of the family got over Christmas Break. (only little Max was spared ... breastmilk win!) He wasn't able to help out on Dad's last day here and so we didn't get it all done but we're confident we can finish everything up ourselves. 

Alec's Birthday!

We made yummy french toast with challah bread, egg nog, chocolate milk and pears for Alec's birthday breakfast.  We also opened all his presents from Chris and I and other family members on his very day. We had plans for a few friends to come over on Friday for a video game birthday party. It was Alec's idea and it was a perfect one since I could just let the kids play video games the whole time..keeping it simple for this postpartum mom. 

 
Alec's cake with his friends was a minecraft style cake. Two friends from school and one friend from church came. They ate pizza and played minecraft on the computer, wii in the landing and xbox in the living room.

My mom went out and got a few extra presents at the store the day of and Alec was pleased to have soo many presents to open. My mom is so great at making people feel special and loved. She's amazing.

Alec is a wonderful older brother.  He is always coming up with fun games to play and can focus for a long time on his own building things. He loves to draw and has a great sense of humor. He has masterfully combined those with a comic strip series entitled "The Julio Show" he makes at school about this guy 'Julio' who teaches kids how to do things but always ends up getting hurt in crazy funny ways.  Alec is a great student at school and is well liked by his classmates and teachers.  He tries SO HARD to never get in trouble and his teachers confessed to us this year that they sometimes don't even notice him. He's working hard on expressing his emotions appropriately at home. He gets to play legos and draws once a week with a sweet gal, Mary, who is helping us all be a little bit better with feeling angry and frustrated.  Alec and I have special one-on-one time each Wednesday night while the other kids are in bed and Chris is at YMs. We watch a BYU TV show called Granite Flats and its fun to have something special with him. 

Alec  loves to spend time kicking soccer goals out back, coming up with obstacle courses, building with legos, k'nex, or magnets or even duplos.  He likes to make surprises for people, read, make people laugh, watch Studio C and Dude Perfect. He's such a fun person to talk to one on one and is growing up to be a fine young man. I can't believe in 1 year he will be turning 12 and getting the Priesthood. I wonder if he'll be taller than me by then too.  We love Alec so much!