Our Christmas Holiday.

Opening the first few things.

Not afraid to get right up to her elbows.

Little Ruby and her favorite present: a binder with paper, dividers and sheet protectors.

Lillie with her "puppy hat".

Happy Ruby.

Grace furiously organized her gifts into sections and keeps scrupulous track of every single thing.

Broke her concentration from her motherly duties for 1.4 seconds.

I think this belongs in National Geographic or something.

Girls with new vests, Grace riding her new bike.

Off they go.

Swingin' with a beautiful profile.

Laughing out loud at that fun "swinging" feeling.

We had a lovely Christmas and weekend. I simultaneously feel very blessed and extremely fatigued! We spent Christmas with just us and our four babies. We were so excited on Christmas eve. Each of the gifts we passed between us, wrapped and talked about each of the girls' personalities. We talked about memories we had of past holidays when we were young and all the things our parents did for us. It's with great honor that we exercise similar traditions and excitement now with our own girls.

January is coming and as hard as it is here in Utah with the clouds and gloom, it's also a fun month. The calendar is pretty empty, there's no gift-buying scheduled, and I can hide in my house for days at a time undetected! Hooray!

I hope everyone experiences lots of joy and love this weekend. 

xoxo

Naps.

It's not apparent here, but this baby girl is a total maniac. Lillie will skip into the living room with a shirt that she wants to wear in hand. Tada grabs ahold of the shirt like an american bulldog and doesn't let go. Even when Lillie pulls back with all her might, it only causes her little sister to hold on through the dragging and twisting and turning.

She's given up naps completely. She did about a month ago. There are many problems with this, including the fact that she walks around from 5-7pm like she's had a few too many. She runs straight into things. Or falls backwards for no reason. She really enjoys that euphoric overly fatigued feeling. Sometimes she even walks around the house with her eyes closed. The older girls are quick to save her life... Thanks, girls.

She is the most precious thing and gives the juiciest kisses.

'Night, Tadd, sweet dreams. See you at 7 when you wake me up with a face slap.

It's hard to find the motivation to visit this space, my little blog. It's interesting how slowly my mind has progressed, moved on, from these confines. There's so many things that have distracted me. Among those, the longing for a bit more privacy, and that I'm so busy photographing families, and that my little ones are excited for a certain Christmas morning of which we are now the parents in charge. We've gone and grown up and had our own family, and as the Christmas cards arrive in my mailbox, I realize that everyone else is growing up, too. And being a "full-fledged family" as my sister-in-law Rebecca calls us, takes more mental energy than I was ever told it would!

I'm always behind. I've got someone's shoulder to rub or hand to hold or someone's angry that I'm not paying attention to them, and people are hungry, tired, dirty, sad and it is most definitely my job to fix it. And the neverending email and calendar and reminder chatter, plus doing something for people that have it way, way, worse than me. I finally get my babies fed, washed up and mentally stable... they climb into bed and all is quiet. I look around and there are little piles of clothes everywhere. Pieces of paper, pencils and toys scattered into the corners. I save it for another day.

That's not to mention documenting our lives. Lives that go by so quickly that sometimes I swear it's just a dream. A jumble of toes and words and warmth, phone calls, weather, laughter, vacuuming and dinner. It's such a good life, such a great fountain of freedom and creation. I love it. I plan to find a balance between work, enjoyment and documentation. I know I can.

Tada Talking.

This is our littlest one talking. She has been a really slow talker and only says a handful of words. Here she is saying "Ruby" and "Grace" for the first time!

Sunday Photos.

It gets harder and harder to blog every week. It would be easy to give up if it weren't for those big beautiful blog books sitting on my bookshelf. With photographs of our last few years of kids and birthing and sleeping and playing. It makes me so happy that I can record our lives.

Late last night Ruby was fast asleep but moved around her bed like a caterpillar. I smelled her hair. And her neck... and I realized I searched for that Ruby smell, the one she had as a baby. I found it there, in her collarbone crease. I hoisted her up her body and moved through the dark toward the bathroom.

There in the blackened hallway, I could feel the proximity of my sleeping family. Grace slept on the edge of her bed, to make room for her possessions that she keeps there in piles. Lillie had taken an eternity to fall asleep and I had just tucked her in. She is so still and peaceful when she sleeps. Tada sleeps in her crib with no side. Dad built a safety rail so she won't fall out. When I look at her sleeping, she looks older and bigger than I remember.

I scooped Ruby from the bathroom and brought her back to bed. Her little body curled upon contact with her cold sheets and I tucked the comforter around her back.

I walked into the living room and looked again at the most magical tree we've ever had. I complained to Jake about the subject of trees earlier this weekend, so he drove to fetch one. It is the most beautiful, magical thing I have ever seen. Truly. And it smells like a forest.