Richardson Report

... led the big parade.  As promised...parade photos.  Such a bunch of cute kids I've got!   Love Logan's Indiana Jones hat.   :-) Sunday afternoon naps - standard for me.  Not so standard for Natalie.  I woke up to find her curled up on the floor below (and running a fever).  Poor baby was sick the ENTIRE week.  She's still not 100%, but she is doing a lot better.   She's a cuddle bug, but this was excessively cuddly even for her.   The Brynster looking thoughtful Say, what? Life has been fairly quiet this week, especially with a sick Nat-bug.  I had to get Josh to come home early one day because the older kids needed to be ferried to and fro, but Nat was just not up to it.  I woke up Monday morning with a hankering to get the younger girls' bedroom ready to share with the new baby.  So....I went and got the wall paint and did the entire room that day....

We've survived the first two weeks of school.  So far the consensus is that life is good. Logan: although technically he did have his first trip to the principal's office, it was the result of a misunderstanding and not something he did wrong.  Still, worried me for a half a second until we got to the bottom of it.  He's in a Lego Robotics group that meets after school.  He begs his teacher for more assignments (although that may be slowing down) and got 100% on his first math and spelling tests this week.  Yay, Pal!  Brynne: has made some friends.  Loves having art class every Friday.  She isn't one to share too much of her feelings, but she's not complaining, so I think she's okay with her new situation.  Hannah's high school teacher teaches two of Brynne's classes (history and literature) and I think Brynne is enjoying that.  Ms. K is our favorite person in this house! (see the new braces??) Hannah: is o...

On Monday my life will change in a dramatic and drastic way. On Monday I will send my three big helpers off to school at the crack of dawn and face the rest of the day alone with two young children. I know I've done this before; this whole stay home with little kids thing. The problem is, I can't remember what it was like. Couple this with the fact that I am growing rounder, slower, and more tired by the minute these days, and I'm sure I'm going to face an extreme lowering of standards in terms of what gets accomplished each day.  It should be interesting.  I mean, who is going to clean the breakfast dishes?  Or rotate laundry when the garage feels too far away?  Or who will get toys down for the little girls or read them a story while I finish working on my Young Women lesson?  What about the grocery shopping and the doctor visits...do they have to go too, now?  I am a little nervous.  I remember in the old days I had a lot of friends with young...

 Click on the photos to see them in all their full-sized glory! July: Surfing Cousins and grandparents! So we decided to take a large family picture.  I put Jackie in charge of my camera (she did a decent job).  What with kids, poopy diapers, misbehaving husbands...you know how it goes, we were standing for far too long.  I almost passed out and had to sit on the grass for a bit.  Thus, I earned myself a chair to sit in for the rest of the photos.  Uncle Nathan getting smiles for the photos Siblings and parents in their natural state August: We had such a fun time in Utah. Antelope Island (which also has bison!)  We saw the antelope, bison, and a fox while we were out there, which was pretty cool.  It is so deserty.  You forget that all the trees in Utah were PLANTED by the pioneers.  Antelope island is what I imagine the entire salt lake valley looked like when t...

So....I'm not going to go over our recent trip here as I'm not quite ready and the photos are still on our camera. But July. So much happened in July.  It was 31 days of crazy fun. One night, for example, we had 25 people sleeping in our house (including us).  I figured I could survive one night.  ;-)  And I did.  My kids had a blast seeing so many of their cousins all month.  They see Jason's kids about once every year or two, so this almost-daily contact was a special treat. So now we have two weeks left of summer.  Yes, we start BEFORE labor day.  Shouldn't that be against the law?  Could it qualify as child endangerment?  I mean, it's putting a serious cramp in summer vacation!! This week I'll have to work on getting the photos off our camera.  I just had to pop on.  I can't believe it's been over a month since I blogged.  Crazy. Baby update - by the way - I'm six months pregnant now.  This pregnancy ...

I was going to add to my last post.  Sorry for any repeated statements!   Josh's prediction of a girl was, of course, right.  He's been right every time.  ;-)  The baby moved through the entire 60 minute ultrasound, which made it take a lot longer than it should have as the tech had to keep chasing her around to get the proper measurements.  After 20 minutes of this I was in so much pain.  My thoughts were running along the lines of "what are we having" of course, and "I hope I don't start to pee because once I start there will be no stopping it".  Yes, that full bladder for the ultrasound can be beastly!   When she finally let me up (after at least 40 minutes of pushing on my full bladder) I could barely walk.  Then we had a little more stuff to do, but that at least was bearable.  So yeah!  We have a highly active little girl in there.  We got really clear shots of fingers, toes, heart, kidney, arms and legs as they...

Officially 20 weeks pregnant (halfway!!).  And having a girl.  Everything still seems very surreal.  This little baby moves a TON.  I was suspicious of all the kicking I'm already feeling, but it was shown for real during the ultrasound.  60 minutes of constant kicking and tumbling showed that we've got an active one on our hands.  She also was always smacking her lips together.  So funny to watch!  It took forever for the ultrasound tech to get the pictures she wanted.  She had to keep chasing baby around. No pity for Logan.  He's going to continue to rank as favorite brother/son in our family!