breathless.

Heart stopped. Eyes welled up. Breath taken away. With one image.

Thank you Jon, you have given me such a precious gift.

i do love a good fart joke.

time needs to slow down!

This little guy is growing way too fast.

He is sooo close to crawling; he's at the get on all fours and rock stage. While it's adorable and exciting, inside I'm mourning the passing of my itty bitty baby.

He is teething AGAIN. He's already got four teeth (the top two and bottom two), but a fifth is trying to make it's appearance (one of the teeth right next to the top teeth).

He eats solid food like a pro. He is not picky AT ALL and shovels in whatever I give him. However, about half of his food still ends up on the floor so Yula's favorite place in the house is right beneath the high chair.

This kid has so. many. clothes. The combination of keeping everything from Max, plus all the extra stuff I bought Nick ('cause baby clothes are cute!), plus the stuff I've bought just for him (because I'm sorry, but baby fashions change too. And six years is an eternity in the fashion world). Paige, you better pray your firstborn is a boy because you'll be set.

I'm his absolute favorite person in the world still, thank goodness. Nothing compares to the way his face lights up when he sees me. Granted, this can be a pain too if I'm trying to get stuff done or, heaven forbid, need to use the bathroom. He does not like me out of his sight.

While I'm his favorite, there is no denying how much he loves his dad, brothers, and Yula. And vice-versa. He is surrounded by love.

He has to be the center of attention at all times. And when we go out he usually is. But there have been a lot of babies born recently and he does NOT like them getting any of his attention. Not at all.

His eyes are most definitely blue. I love it.

Unfortunately, he is not a red head. I was hoping so hard, but he's a brunette with a reddish tinge in the sunlight.

I can't get enough of his cheeks and thighs. Such yummy goodness.

He is such a love and I can't believe I got so lucky to be his mom.

And like it or not buddy, you'll always be my baby.

so good.

This is awesome:

Reasons My Son Is Crying


Every parent can relate.

what's been going on around here.

(having fun with their pom-pom pets, courtesy of kiwi crate.)

Presented in bullets.

-My children are growing like weeds. Not only do they consume an insane amount of food given their size, they also keep growing out of their clothes. This makes me very scared for when they are teenage boys. (I keep picturing this scene from 17 Again.)

-I am the new FRG Leader for Rob's company since most of the leadership is single. It's crazy and I don't know what I'm doing, and has been very time consuming recently between taking the necessary classes and the fact that before me the FRG has been pretty much non-existent so I'm having to start from scratch. BUT I got a good response at our first FRG meeting so it should be good!

-Oskar has been teething hard core. Which means lots of fussing, lots of drool, and lots of rough nights. But on the bright side, on the nights he does sleep he doesn't wake up until around 5! That's like 7 hours straight people!!

-Thanks to an awesome tax return (sometimes having to dig a new well at a rental house the same year you have another child pays off.) we got our backyard landscaped! We still need to finish a few things, but once it's all complete there'll be pictures. It's kind of crazy what a difference a little bit of concrete and a lot of rocks makes.

-Does anyone else's baby fight sleep? Every time I put Oskar down for a nap he cries like I'm shattering his heart into a million pieces and he'll never recover from it. When I know he WANTS to sleep since he was falling asleep on me but couldn't get comfortable. Babies.

-I got a new calling at church (a calling is what we call assignments we are asked to do), I am now the Relief Society music director. So I get to stand in front of everyone and direct the music. I love it. It is prefect for me at this stage in my life (it's very low-maintenance). And it allows me to pitch in where I'm needed for activities and stuff since I'm not consumed with other duties.

-The past week I've been doing great at keeping the living areas of our house picked up. (knock on wood) Now I need to shovel out all the bedrooms and keep them clean and I'll be good to go.

-I'm failing miserably at most of my goals for this year. At least the monthly ones (like sew something every month and shoot a roll of film a month). Oh well. I'll have plenty of time to focus on that stuff when the kids are grown.

-My sister is getting married!!!!! It's kind of ridiculous how excited I am, but hey, I've been the lone married/child birthing one for NINE years (by the time she gets married). I think I'm allowed to be excited. But it's killing me to be so far away while she plans the event, there's so much I could help with (like sewing her wedding dress) if I were there!

-When we aren't having sandstorms the weather has been GORGEOUS here! We spent so much time outside in our new backyard Wednesday and it was glorious.

-It's kind of funny how different my parenting style is now compared to when Max was a baby. I've always been very chill, but it's crazy just how much more so I am now. Forget spoon feeding Oskar special baby food, here's a pile of spaghetti noodles. Or a pizza crust. Or peas. And he just goes to town. (disclaimer: he did get spoon fed for a couple of months, but as soon as he was able to grab things and get it to his mouth and had a few teeth popped out I started letting hom feed himself. He is not at risk to choke, but even if he did I'm right there the whole time)

-Yula is one-ish (from what we can tell since we don't know her actual birthday) and crazy. Well, I say she's crazy but she's really pretty good. Just very energetic. And spoiled rotten. But she is so fluffy it makes me so happy and has to tolerate me burying my face in her fur all the time. I also keep the fur that gets brushed off of her and plan on making things with it. (I bought this book and it has served as my inspiration.)

-Rob goes to the Captain's board this month (or his stuff does, he doesn't physically go anywhere) and it'll be a few nerve-racking months until we hear if he makes it or not. Fingers crossed and lots of prayers that he does!

-I've come to the conclusion that we can get stationed anywhere, as long as there is an IKEA within an easy drive of where we are. (like 3 hours or less) Being so far away from one is torture.

-Lastly, I started doing the Brazil Butt Lift workouts! They're awesome, but I stink at them. I have no rhythm so I pretty much just fling myself around my living room hoping I'm working something out. And praying I get my Bum Bum out of it! (that's what a gorgeous Brazilian butt is called. Pronounced "boom-boom")

So that's what's been going on around here! I've left stuff out since I forget everything these days, but I've covered the important stuff I think. What's been up with you guys?

updated.

Thanks for the "pep talks" on the last post! This week has been better, and I ended up with a free afternoon/evening yesterday so that helped a lot. The very long naps two of the three took yesterday afternoon were awesome too.



I took advantage of finally having some "free" time to do some long-overdue updating of business stuff. Of course the plan was to have this done with the new year, but life got in the way. So here we are almost into April with it done! (well, most of it. I still need to update the blog, we're missing two members of the Harmon Squad outside of the posts)

First, I finally updated my pricing!! I worked soo hard (with lots of tweaking over the past few months) to get it where it is, and I'm hoping it means seeing more faces through my lens. To see 2013's pricing you can go to the information page on my website, find it on the Jax Harmon Photography + Design tab here on The Harmon Squad, or find it on my facebook page.

Speaking of the facebook page, it got a complete facelift and now hosts a lot of information. Check it out to see all the new tabs, and if you are so inclined please like it! I'm no social media genius, but I'm slowly getting better at using them. (although I still haven't taken the twitter plunge. It still confuses the snot out of me)

And that's that. SO exciting, I know. (that's sarcasm) At least for you. I'm beyond excited to finally complete some things that have been hanging over my head for months!!

Now to tackle some more things on my to-do list...

(insert my children laughing)

trying to find balance.

Life has been a whirlwind lately. There is always so. much. to. do. And as much as I try to keep all the balls in the air, a few always get dropped.

Recently a friend posted on facebook about how life with three kids was suffocating; between school, after school activities, homework, housework, cooking, etc. there wasn't really any time left over for dates with friends or leisure activities. And I can attest that's pretty accurate. But while she said suffocating in a positive-ish way, a lot of the time I feel suffocated in the negative way.

Everyone has needs. The kids all have their needs. Rob has his needs. The dog has needs. I have needs too. But no matter how hard I try I can't meet them all. So I feel spread thin a lot, and feel like I'm failing at my job. I read this article toady and found myself tearing up because it describes my life right now so perfectly.

Thankfully this is not everyday. I do have good days where I get lots accomplished and everything seems to go smoothly. But the days I feel like I need everyone to go on vacation and just leave me at home alone so I can get stuff done have been happening a lot recently.

I should point out right now that I am not depressed (don't worry!), just overwhelmed. And everything that fills up my time is good stuff, nothing to worry about there. It's just as an extreme introvert too much human interaction can feel suffocating. (that includes interacting with my children) Perhaps that's why I'm a night owl; I really relish the time when everyone else is in bed and I can work without anyone bothering me. But at the same time too many conversations with a six year old and a two year old makes me a little desperate for some adult interaction. There's always that battle between child vs. adult conversation and people vs. alone time.

And since it doesn't look like things are going to be letting up soon, or maybe even ever (I have a feeling this is just what happens as your children grow), I will keep on seeking that ever-elusive balance. I know I may never find it, but it's all about the journey, right?

I think wishing for more hours in the day or the ability to run on little sleep will never stop though. It would make things so much easier.

Anyway, hugs to all of you out there struggling too!

I do know enough that if someone looks like they have it all together they are probably just really good at hiding the crazy. We're all in the same boat.

Right?