It's been a while

So I was looking at the blog today to see if I could find something about Ben that maybe we had kind of forgotten or whatever and wouldn't really remember if we hadn't recorded it (for his church lesson tomorrow) and saw that it has been over a year since I last posted. Most of what I record about the family is now on facebook where it's more instantaneous and easier to find for family and friends, so I forget about the blog.

I did love going back and reading some old posts though. A few things I had forgotten about or remembered a little differently from what really happened.

I'd say though that the last year and half have been pretty eventful. I'm sure I can't remember all of it. Here's a quick summary of some of the biggest changes:

Ben started middle school in August 2013 and almost ended the year with a 4.0. He had one B in the 4th quarter, so it was close. He liked middle school better than elementary.

We moved from the house we lived in for 8 years to one much, much closer to Bryce's work. It's also bigger and has a big yard (almost 1/2 an acre). We've enjoyed the new house a lot, especially being closer to Bryce's work and being able to see him more often. He went from a 35 minute commute to a 3 minute commute. We still own the other house and have some friends renting it from us, and they are interested in buying it probably next spring or summer.

With the move, Ben went from a middle school to a junior high, so he's once again in the youngest grade in the school. We live a lot closer to the school though, so we are in the walk area and he doesn't have to ride the bus anymore, which I think is probably his favorite part of it. And he really likes that we moved into the same school district as his friend Kyle who used to live across the street from us at the old house, but moved a little more than a year before we did.

Abby started kindergarten this year, so all 5 kids are in school now. The 4 are at the elementary school together, which is also much closer, so I typically walk them to school in the mornings and walk to pick up Abby when kindergarten gets out before noon. But now that it's getting a bit colder and the kids are having a harder time getting ready on time, I've been driving them a bit more.

Some big news is that we are expecting our 6th baby. Yes, we had told everyone that we were done, and we really wanted to be. We felt for a long time that maybe there was another baby waiting to come, but we were in denial and didn't want to accept it. But when we moved to a bigger house with more room, we started to rethink it a little bit. It didn't help that people in our new ward kept thinking we had 6 kids and even our kids were starting to tell us that someone was missing. So we finally decided to just give in and see what happened. Our newest baby boy is due on the 26th of December. Abby was so mad when she found out it was a boy. We actually all thought for sure that this one would be a girl and had a girl name picked out, but we were bound to be wrong at least once. Abby has gotten over being mad and is getting quite excited to meet her little brother.

So far the titer levels with this baby have been pretty good. It started at a 2 and then went down to a 1 and has just gone back up to a 2, so I get to go in to the lab an extra time to get the titer level rechecked to make sure it's not deciding to jump up significantly. And even though I'm on the old side to be having a baby, this pregnancy has been relatively easy. The heartburn has been crazy lately, but I've been taking Zantac at my doctor's suggestion and have been amazed at how much it helps.

So there's all our big events over the last year and a half, at least the ones I can remember off the top of my head.