hersch's first revolution around the sun

it's not only hard to fathom that herschel has been with us for 1 year, it's hard to fathom that he's with us at all. his unexpectedness is still surprising to me. i find myself pausing and saying, "i have four children!", like it's a new revelation. it blows my mind. or i look around the car and count four heads and i think, "i guess that's right! 4 kids!" other times it's like he's always been with us. when athena blythe was a tiny baby, i was over the moon in love with her. i had bonded with her quickly and i had repeated feelings of wanting another baby. but that's crazy talk! i had a baby right in front of me! but the feelings persisted. i recall several times while i was running early on saturday mornings with no one else is the world awake, that i was not alone. that someone was running with me, but not in the creepy, scary way. sometimes i would have conversations in my head with this person. after a while, life got busier and things with thomas's job got more and more unexpected and i stopped having those feelings. plus, i was ridiculously busy with three kids! of course i wasn't pining for one. then we decided to move to atlanta to pursue more stable prospects and i discovered that i was great with child. the timing was terrible. i never thought about having more children at that point. it was nearly devastating news to me. i felt reluctant and unhinged. how could i move my children, reestablish myself in a new area with a special needs child, deal with thomas being out of town almost constantly and be pregnant! i've not had a more trying time in my life. yuck! no thanks!  when will my trial be great wealth? but everything worked. i was sick almost constantly. the kids had no after school activities because i simply couldn't handle it and when i finally thought i was coming out of my fog, i got extra sick and herschel was born. it was worth it. i feel lucky enough to have experienced it. blessings abounded while i was pregnant, blessings abounded after hersch was born. i still haven't been to hawaii but i have seen the Spirit of the Lord completely entrenched in my life so i guess that's a pretty good trade off. hersch is a dream. a surprise that i guess i knew about all along. i feel like hersch was with me on all those early morning runs, waiting for me to slow down and be ready for him. 

hersch's new carseat that athena blythe had to break in. 

and the inevitable box adoration.

boogers and wrinkles at the park.

i was getting tired of taking pictures but herschel was insisting!

the kid fits right in around here.

for hersch's birthday i made this dump truck cake and we watched ghostbusters. because i can't handle any more animated talking animals. 

i was hoping for a more fudgy frosting but my proportions were off and so it was more powdered sugary and frothy than i like. 

no one can resist dancing to the ghostbusters theme song. try it. you can't. you're singing it now! dena dena dena de nanana.

we almost delved into a birds and the bees type conversation when scarlett and reagan were questioning why louis tully was the keymaster and dana barrett was the gatekeeper. i think i'll keep this movie on hand when we delve deeper into the logistics  and anatomical parts of the coming of age family conversations. 

poor 4th child had to deal with christmas wrapping paper. 

i think hersch was also hoping for better fudgy frosting because he just wasn't that interested in this sugary mess.

in other news, scarlett and athena blythe have darling coordinated, matchy but not matchy, bedspreads for their shared room. they are both in plastic bags in the linen closets because they both prefer other blankets. scarlett likes a flannel byu blanket and athena blythe likes an oooold bedspread that i used in college. athena blythe also prefers to sleep on the floor like a dog. i often say, "goodnight, puppy." and scratch her head goodnight. i'm raising a couple of bohemian hippies. 

we also took a less than 24 hours trip to knoxville, tennessee on sunday night to see our cousin, caroline, get baptized. the hotel was as fun as you can imagine with these three dum dums in a bed. i finally had to pull athena blythe into bed with thomas and me because she was being so ridiculously obnoxious (imagine that). 

FAKERS!

caroline was baptized in a contemporary baptist church. it was a great learning experience because i have so few sabbath day experiences with other churches. lots of similarities. biggest similarity was athena blythe's fantastic behavior. at one point i was carrying her down the hall on my shoulders. good times.

the best friends. where you find one, you can find the other. like when athena blythe was letting herschel out the front door with such a glow of satisfaction on her face when it was "snowing" and only 25 degrees. 

the end. we love herschel. God is right. we usually are not. but He keeps giving us more chances.