Our Family Today

We are a family of 8! Well, 9 if you count our dog! James and I have 4 boys and 2 girls and life is crazy! Ezra is 11, Makai is 9, Deklan is 7, Brynlee is 5, Brielle is 22mo and Koda is 4mo. Our dog is Zazu. He's a King Charles Cavalier and Poodle mix and we love him! He was born October 10th, 2017 and he joined our family on December 17th, 2017 as the kids early Christmas present.

We are currently living in Sahuarita, AZ. We moved here last October with an internal job transfer. So far we love it. It's still super hot here, but the evenings are great and the weather for most of the year is beautiful. We live in a great neighborhood. I never thought my kids would have the freedom to go out and play, or that we'd ever live somewhere where kids would come knocking on the door asking if my kids could play, but we have that here. Sometimes too much of that here. lol. It's so fun!

We also live close to my mom's best friend for the past 35 years, which feels like we're closer to family. And we're only a long days drive from many more family members in Utah, Idaho and California. In fact, last year, I braved the drive by myself with 5 kids to go to my niece's farewell when she was leaving on her mission to El Salvador. It was actually really good. My kids were so excited to see cousins that they handled the drive well. Then again last summer, we went back to visit cousins and we had a blast! And James got to come that time! I'm sure there are many more trips north in our future. 

I will do an introduction to each of the kids and what they're into in separate posts, but here's a quick summary:

Ezra is our responsible oldest. He has started babysitting for us and that's helping the chaos of life so much! He just got a phone from Santa this past Christmas and he suddenly seems so much older. He will be getting Priesthood in a couple of days and can start passing the Sacrament at church and attending the temple to do baptisms for the dead. It's very exciting. Ezra is also starting into this obnoxious pre-pubescent stage of life, so that's fun..

Makai is our care-free soul. He is unorganized and forgetful, but he loves what he loves and gets excited about little things, so that's fun to discover. His favorite thing is exploring and creating. He loves stories, art, and anything that requires an imagination. 

Deklan is still a little stinker, but is getting better. He has fewer outbursts. He is my most empathetic child. He loves crafting and anything physical. He can't wait to start Tae Kwon Do or Ju Jitsu. He is making leaps and bounds in school with reading, though he says he doesn't need to read anymore because he already knows how. lol. 

Brynlee is my little sassy girl. I seriously am worried for her teenage years. She is loving and sometimes sweet, but mostly she's fiesty and sassy. She does what she wants and is unapologetic. She's content riding her bike all day or sitting on the couch snuggling all day. She is very social and roams the neighborhood finding friends to play with. She's the one walking down the sidewalk in her high heels, fake nails on, lipstick everywhere, her hair in a mess and carrying some sort of purse. 

Brielle is my little doll. She's trouble and into everything. She's the first of all our kids that we needed cabinet locks for. She moves stools around to get what she wants, climbs everything and dumps stuff out all the time. She's talking more and more. She's at my favorite age where they're still innocent and learning so much at such an obvious rapid rate and I just love seeing it all.

Koda is our squishy baby. His smiles make my bad days get so much better. He doesn't sleep much, but I love him anyways. He's been our most colicky baby, but I think that's getting better and he's mostly happy now unless he's hungry or tired. He hates to be snuggled and mostly prefers to face outwards to see the world. He notices when I leave a room. He's a total momma's boy, as every little boy should be!

And that's us for now. A quick start to my catch up, but it'll do ;)