On my mind

I managed to catch a couple pictures before Church on Sunday. They are not the greatest, but we were running late (which is usually the case these days). I love how Lincoln is poking his head up behind Levi in this picture. It captures, perfectly, how where Levi is, Lincoln is close by :) Lincoln just kisses his little face off all day long. I love it.

Jim gave Levi a beautiful blessing on Sunday. The Spirit in the meeting was so strong. Jim, me, Taylor, Blake, and Juddy all bore our testimonies. It was a perfect meeting and a great day. We all gathered for lunch at Granny's afterwards for chicken alfredo. Yum.

After much debate, Levi ended up wearing Lincoln's blessing outfit. We had a different one for him to wear, but Lincoln insisted that Levi wear his.

I love how Diddy is more interested in her waffle than taking pictures. Everyday she says, "Mom, can I have a waffle in my hand?" That means she wants it "to go" and doesn't want to bother with sitting down and eating it with syrup.

I haven't had 2 minutes to myself to sit down and post on the blog, but I have still been catching up on all your cute blogs via iphone while feeding the baby :)

So, catching up...

This is how you will find Diddy all day long. In her underwear playing Wii. I had to cover her up with a blanket for the picture. She is obsessed with Super Mario Bros., and she is really good at it.

Lincoln listens to music on the computer all day, dressed like a "gangsta" as he calls it. This "gangsta" pose was his idea. He sings along and plays air guitar to his favorite songs for hours. Somehow, he manages to squeeze in playing Wii, teasing his sisters, and loving his baby brother of course.

Taylor and Blake rearranged the furniture in their room. I just let them do it. Frankly, I am too tired to protest

I don't know how someone who gets to lay around and nap all day can look so mad all the time :) This is what Levi does all day, and then he likes to eat every 2 hours in the middle of the night. Nice. The second little man makes a peep, he has 5 older siblings rushing over to feed him or change him or give him his binky.

Kelly & Brandon moved to LA, because Brandon got cast as Buddy Holly in California. It's an amazing opportunity for him, but we will miss them both. After his run with this show, they are moving to New York :( Brandon is off to be a big star...you can check out his website here:
http://www.brandonalbright.com/fr_index.cfm

My husband has been up all night waaaayyyy too many times working on this http://www.allmyshortsales.com/ Seriously, he is a genius. Now he's a web programmer??? Anyway, if you are a realtor and you do a lot of shortsales, you need to buy a subscription to this website. Please, please, please. I could really use a cleaning lady :)

On my mind...

My family room carpet and furniture are really gross. When your dog is eating stuff out of the cracks in your ottoman, it's time for new furniture.

I need to find the motivation to go back to the gym. I am tired of wearing the same 2 pairs of jeans...Plus side- I weight 10 lbs less right now than I did when Brooklyn was 6 months old. I don't have far to go. I just don't have anything to wear.

I need a landscaper. My yard is waaayyyy out of control. I have 17 palm trees in the back yard that need to be trimmed. It looks like a jungle back there, and it is too overwhelming for me.

My car could use a good detail, too. But, my house looks great despite track break with all 6 kids home!

When I was pregnant, I didn't care and was totally unmotivated to do anything. Now, at least, I can recognize that things need to be done. That doesn't mean that I have the energy to do any of it just yet :)

I don't know if I'm ready for the kids to go back to school. It is so nice being able to sleep in a couple of extra hours in the morning while my girls are taking care of the baby. They are so good with him.

We have this creepy crippled bird stalking our house. He sits on our doorstep in the corner, and freaks us out everytime we get home. The kids even found him in the garage yesterday. Seriously, creepy. I can do bugs, but I birds and mice freak me out.

Lately, I have been craving In-n-Out Burger. It's the only thing that sounds good. Usually, I crave Taco Bell, but I could care less if I go to Taco Bell. I just want a Double Double from In-n-Out.

I think we are single-handedly keeping Red Box in business.

We are obsessed with "Cake Boss" at our house. We all gather around to watch it. Blake wants to be a pastry chef when she grows up. Thank heavens she doesn't want to be a Ventriliquist anymore. But our little "Blake-arella" can't stop baking. She is begging me to help her make fondant. But, frankly, I'm exhausted. We have made cake pops, brownies with mint chocolate chips, chocolate covered strawberries, all thanks to this website (which Blake is obsessed with)http://www.bakerella.com/

Taylor is obsessed with clothes. All she will wear are skinny jeans from H&M. I think I've

created a monster.

Lincoln has grown about 4 inches in the last 5 months. He is looking so tall and grown up. He won't be the smallest one on the baseball team for long. He is about to pass Blake up.

What else...I guess that's it. Enough random thoughts for today. Hope I didn't bore you all to death. Or maybe you just stopped reading... :)

3 weeks old

I couldn't decide which ones to post, so here are some of my favorites :) It's my blog.

Levi is a doll baby. He is a good baby. He has had a few bad nights, but we can't complain. He would probably sleep longer if he wasn't starving all the time. He is already drinking 4oz at a time, and he is at 6 1/2 lbs. He is still in premie clothes, though. I hope he stays little for a while. He is slightly OCD. He does not like to be poopy, naked, or pretty much bothered at all. We are trying to get back to normal, slowly. We (Jim & I) are very tired :) but I know from experience that it doesn't last forever and we just take it one day at a time. We love our little man.

Pause

This is the only picture I have for today. I have not had my camera out much, and have not really even been on my computer all that much. This picture was taken the day after Levi was born...on Brooklyn's birthday, actually. I love this shot. It just captures what we have all been doing for the last 11 days.

A couple nights ago, I was thinking how I wish I could just push pause on life for a while. I want to keep my kids this age. I was looking around the family room, and Taylor was doing her homework, Blake was reading a book, Lincoln was holding the baby, and Brooklyn & Dylan were watching cartoons. It was quiet. I was grateful for that moment.

I feel blessed to have a supportive husband, who I am crazy in love with, and I know he feels the same about me. I am blessed to have 6 beautiful, amazing, helpful, loving children who bring me more joy than I could ever have thought possible. It feels good to be happy. I just want to push pause.

I have a hard time with change, and it seems like I have had alot of it lately. I don't ever change my hairstyle, I always order the same things at restaurants, I don't like trying new brands of food at the grocery store.

We had some changes in Young Womens recently that I am so sad about. 3 of my leaders are leaving to go be the new Primary Presidency. I am sad to lose them. That shows you the calibur of leaders I was able to work with in the YW. So, once again, we are changing things, and I will soooooo miss my friends :(

We had a successful dinner/auction fundraiser for YW's over the weekend. Although, I didn't do much to help, I am glad to check it off the list and move on. I am so thankful to the leaders who worked so hard to pull it off.

Speaking of change....I am going to try to change my license plate this week :)

I am soooo glad we are finally on track break. My kids are a HUGE help with the baby. I feel like we have all been pulling together lately to try to keep up with things. I have to say, though, having 6 kids is not much different from having 5. If you have 5 kids, you can definitely handle 6. I am quickly falling behind on cleaning on laundry. That darn never ending laundry. It seems like all I do is laundry, yet nobody ever has clean socks. Why is that???

I decided that I am giving myself permission to slack off. I am lowering my expectations. HA! There...I said it. Even though, I don't think Jim will believe me. I am giving myself time before everything has to be perfect again. I may even wait the whole 6 weeks before I start going back to the gym. That is my little gift to myself. Is there really anything wrong with laying around watching Dr. Phil, Oprah, and TLC shows all day long???

Life goes on. We are back in Spring season of Little league. The girls had Junior Festival yesterday. They both did really well, but we didn't stick around for their scores. We will find out tomorrow at piano lessons. Brooklyn had a really fun birthday party, despite her baby brother trying to steal her thunder. She will get her own birthday post soon.

I didn't really know what this post was going to be about, but I guess it is just random thoughts from a crazy mom :)

Levi James Berkabile

This is baby Levi, just minutes old. We are in love with him already. It didn't take me long to go into labor after being off my medication. He was born at 36 weeks & 5 days. I'm glad we were able to hold off my labor for as long as we did. He is very healthy, and we got to take him home with us. He is an angel. Such a good baby :) He was born 3/3/10 at 11:40pm. 20 more minutes and he would've been born on Brooklyn's birthday. He was 5 lbs 13 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. He is a teeny tiny thing. We are so happy he's here. I have a ton of pictures I could post, but I am just.too. tired :) More to come later...