I was looking for an old post on the blog this week and ended up scrolling through tons of these iPhone photo posts from weeks 210-220. It was SO fun to see what we were doing 100 weeks ago (Evan was getting head stitches, I wore Lincoln in a lot of wraps, Caroline smiled). So even though this is a full 2 weeks late, I’m vowing to catch up and do better in 2017.

Sunday:

Baking day!

Helpers

Most of these are gone now.

Monday:

You go to the bus stop, I’ll stay on the porch out of the snow.

Penguin wearing

Making kale salad (which was delicious)

Tuesday:

Kitchen helper

Seriously, my kids LOVE cooking

At the Polar Express

Wednesday:

Cute brother time

King of Bedhead

More cooking

Thursday:

Blanket? Scarf? Blanket scarf!

I keep wearing this kid so I never get to wear the baby

Cookie makers

Friday:

Very patient cat

Snoozing through the Velvet Mill Holiday Market

Stuffing his face with dinner cupcake

Saturday:

They asked me to take their picture and posed

Again, this was at Caroline’s request

BEBEH SUSPENDERS

That last picture is from the day we took our family photos so I could order Christmas cards. Today, most people should GET our Christmas cards in the mail, thanks to my quick editing, remembering to buy stamps last week, and Minted’s amazing addressing service (not sponsored, I paid them a ton of money for cards, but the envelope address printing is SO WORTH IT). Almost all the wrapping and gift buying is done too, so most of this week I just get to relax and do Christmasy stuff like more baking, planning fancy Christmas appetizers, and watching Christmas movies. I might even get a long winter’s nap or too, because E has most of the week off. IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

This was my first attempt at twinkle light bokeh photos, almost exactly 5 years ago. 

Here is the best one. It was a total accident because I had no idea how to use my camera.

I took some more for our Christmas card in 2014, but for some reason I never blogged them?! That seems very unlike 2014 Suzanne. She blogged everything. Not like this lazy cow 2016 Suzanne who can’t even do once a week. But I’ve looked through every post from the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 and can’t find them.

For posterity, here’s the best one from that set:

And this year, I attempted them with all FOUR of my children. Finnegan is still super skeptical of group shots and being held by his siblings. He is pretty sure that’s neglect, and I should rethink my life choices for allowing it.

But capturing matching jams and twinkly lights is my favorite and I’m going to take this photos every year for as long as I have even one child who will cooperate.

This year’s jams were a gift from my friends at Gymboree, who are the best. Finding jams that fit ages infant to big kid isn’t always easy, but we’ll be able to match for years in gymmies.

(Also, I’m actually sort of horrified by how much bigger my children are. This is not ok. Why do they grow so fast?!)

Here’s my quick 30-second list of tips if you want to take twinkle light photos yourself.

1. White lights on white cord on a white background.
2. The further away from the lights you can place the kids, the blurrier the lights will be.
3. Set your DSLR camera on A or AP (so you control the aperture) and use the smallest number your lens allows.
4. Use natural light (besides the Christmas lights) if possible, otherwise your photos will be really yellow.
5. Don’t be afraid to crop after the fact – if the edge of your backdrop shows, just cut it out when you’re editing/looking at your pictures on the computer.

Let me know if you try, I LOVE this kind of pictures!

I’m a week late, but in my defense I have four kids. That’s basically the reason for everything these days. Why does your hair look like that? Why is there a hole in your pants? Why are you eating corn chips for breakfast? Why can’t you remember to mail Christmas gifts? How come your Christmas tree looks like it’s losing a fight?

Four. Kids.

Sunday:

Christmas!!

I did not do this OR take this picture

Brothers

Monday:

Linc is obsessed with Octonauts

He also really likes my nativity

Tuesday:

Watching Octonauts

TBH we BOTH fell asleep face down on the couch

Gross weather

Wednesday:

Sleep smirking

We brush their hair and it STILL looks like that

Raise your hand if you are 3 months old

Thursday:

Pre-coffee tantrums are intolerable

Linc says these are Peso pajamas

I don’t even love them but this is REALLY good

Friday:

Skeptical of his hedgehog shirt

Perhaps rightly so

Piano lesson car selfie (why is it SO DARK at 5 pm??)

Saturday:

Horse drawn carriage ride in Mystic

Prettiest advent calendar I’ve ever had

Demanding more Octonauts

It feels like we – especially Linc – watch a lot of TV these days. But that’s because four kids. If there’s a chance Finn will sleep for an hour or two we are definitely staying home and I need them to not act like wild animals. TV is really the only way that happens. 6 months from now we’ll be at the lake every day again and they’ll forget what TV even looks like.

A lot of people told me that once you have three kids, adding any more is basically no big deal. You’re already outnumbered and have been practicing zone defense for a while. You probably already drive a minivan. You’re used to multi-tasking while being perpetually tired. The bigger ones can help with the smaller ones.

Although all of those circumstances are true for me, going from 3 to 4 has not been easy. At all. I’m getting my ass kicked a little bit. There’s a Jim Gaffigan bit where he talks about having five kids: “Imagine you’re drowning. Then someone hands you a baby.” I feel like four kids might be the point where I’m still treading water but seriously wondering why the shore is so, so far away.

When I went from one to two, Evan was still a toddler with no commitments. If everyone was tired and wanted to sleep in, we all slept in. When he napped, she napped, and then I could nap. He ate basically nothing but goldfish crackers and cups of milk. We owned 243% fewer toys that could be spread out over the entire house. It was still hard, because taking care of kids is hard, but it wasn’t daunting. By the time I went from two to three, both Evan and Caroline were in school, so although I had to get them up and out the door every day once that was done I just had one newborn to keep alive which I could do entirely from the couch. Linc and I could handle errands or chores or work thanks to babywearing and an infant who started sleeping 8+ hours a night around 6 weeks.

Now I have both big kids who have to be dressed and fed and packed and put on the bus; a toddler who wakes up too early, is trying to give up his nap, needs to be fed a constant stream of pb&j sandwiches; and then I also have a helpless baby who isn’t much of a fan of sleeping.

Being a stay at home mom has always been a weird mix of always having way too much to do and long, boring periods of nothing. There is always something or someone who needs to be cleaned, so my work is never really done. There is so much laundry it feels almost comical – how can we own so many things that constantly need to be washed?! It’s so much mindless work. I can’t trust Linc alone with Finn for very long, so I’m not taking as many showers as I probably should be. (I don’t think he’d hurt him on purpose, but sometimes he gets the urge to just SQUEEZE HIS HEAD BECAUSE HE’S SOOOOO CUTE and doesn’t know that’s not a good idea.) I am currently serving as a 24 hour buffet for the baby, so having to feed everyone else too seems ridiculous. Can’t they all just feed themselves with food that magically appears in our kitchen? I used to love cooking, now it’s tedious. The level of being touched-out has reached new heights – Finn is a very cuddly baby, especially at 2 am, but Linc is also a very cuddly toddler. There are So. Many. Diapers.

I know in my head that this is all super temporary. We missed a lot of our favorite October stuff this year because I was too tired to wrangle everyone out of the house, but there will be 18 more Octobers where I have at least one child at home to do fun fall things with me. Right now I need to choose the less stressful option, maybe let myself be more lazy than I’m usually comfortable with, perhaps do just a little less for the holidays so I don’t end up freaking out completely. I’m hoping my friends and family can grant me some grace for not being as thoughtful and timely with their gifts and thank you notes and baked goods and holiday cards.

One day, in a future I can’t quite imagine yet, having four children will be totally normal for me. It won’t take me 30 minutes to get everyone settled just so I can go do laundry for 5 minutes. I won’t constantly run out of food because I forget how much 6 people eat. I will sleep more than 3 hours in a row and it might even be in my bed instead of on the couch. There’s even a chance I will go to Target and won’t lose ANY of my kids. For now, I will keep my head above water however I can and not pretend I’m doing it very well.

I can, however, occasionally force them into photos.

This was two weeks ago. I keep failing at this “post more, in a more timely manner” way. But I finished my photography work this weekend – at least the shooting part, now I just have to edit – so hopefully I can catch up and finish the four posts I have in drafts. Although they’re all about how having 4 kids is hard, so maybe I’ll make it one post.

Sunday:

One of my favorite fall spots

Beautiful evening for a photo shoot

I came home to video games and no pants

Monday:

This is why I hardly blog

They’re obsessed with our Halloween decorations

I’m not crying, you’re crying

Tuesday:

Smirk captured by Lincoln

CHUBS

His hood has fox ears

Wednesday:

Portrait mode – cool, but lousy in low light

He fell asleep on me…

…but didn’t budge when I got up to make dinner

Thursday:

Shenanigans

Lap naps

Edit edit edit edit

Friday:

These are my favorite jammies

Hand me downs are her favorite

Movies in the car during piano lessons = game changer

Saturday:

SNACKS ARE HIS FAVORITE

End of soccer season reward

Pumpkin shopping

Oh look, I’m almost finished and now the baby is awake again. One day I will get a full hour of free time.