Keeping the Laundry under Control

Remember my post about Mastering the Laundry Chaos?

Well, I have a new suggestion to add: music.

I recently added speakers and my old iPod to my laundry room, and it's really kind of funny... but now I love to be in my laundry room, music playing, folding laundry.  It has transformed laundry folding from dreaded chore to "me time".  It's amazing really.

So if, like me, you enjoy good music, May I recommend setting up a mini sound system in your laundry room? It just might make all the difference!

Introducing Titus!

Better late than never, right?

Our fifth child, another precious boy, was born six weeks ago.

Titus Stephen Elliot was born April 3 at 2:41am weighing 8lbs 1oz.

We're all smitten!

And now, 6 weeks later, he's eating well, sleeping well (often going 5hrs straight at night), and has gained close to 5lbs!

Praise the LORD!

Keeping it real

Just in case you thought my life sounded a little too rosy after my thankful post a couple days ago, here is a dose of our unedited daily reality.

We cook a lot over here.  Three meals a day plus baking and snacks. For our six people plus whoever else wanders through our doors.  And so my kitchen usually looks like this.

And yes, guests are always welcome despite the mess - so long as you're willing to take us as we are, messy kitchen and all.

healthy baby, healthy momma

I am now 18 weeks pregnant.  Many of you who have been following my blog for long will know that all of my pregnancies have had fairly significant complications.  The most recent (and continued) concern is regarding the rare antibody that I received via a necessary blood transfusion when our oldest, Micah, was born.  Our last pregnancy was smooth: after only two visits to the perinatalogist he gave me the all clear and told me to stay away from doctors.  I then was able to have a wonderful home birth, free of complications.  (The pregnancy before that involved near monthly ultrasounds and bloodwork - and also resulted in a healthy home birth.)

This pregnancy is my first full pregnancy outside of the big city and with my new midwife.  When my initial bloodwork came back that I still have the antibody, we were concerned over the possibility of having to drive down to the coast to see the perinatalogist, possibly multiple times this winter.  Far from ideal.  I wasn't worried about the outcome of the tests, because all has been well for the last two pregnancies, but more just the stress and cost and safety of multiple long trips in the winter just for a brief appointment.

A couple weeks ago, we heard back from the perinatalogist (where my medical records had been sent), and given my history of healthy babies, they were able to give me the all clear -- without an appointment!  We are so relieved!  And again, praising the LORD!

So for all who may have been wondering - babe and I are healthy and doing well.  We get our first sneak peak into the womb in three weeks!  Looking forward to it.

thankful

Once again, we are growing.  Both in belly size and number of children.  Funny how that goes hand-in-hand.  :)

We are feeling very blessed to be entrusted with another child by our gracious Lord.

At the same time, of course the idea of a fifth child (in six years) is a little bit overwhelming at times.  But God has been so faithful and so gracious and sustained us through all the craziness that has come with having children so far... and so I rest in Him, knowing that He will continue.  Even when the laundry piles up, and the kitchen is so messy you can't find open counter space, and we so badly need to vacuum... God is good!  And sometimes He sends His people to help in amazing ways!  For most of the last school year, I had a lady from our church volunteer to come every week to fold and put away laundry for me.  A few weeks ago my kitchen was the worst mess it has ever been, and two teenage girls came and spent an evening washing dishes and making it sparkle again.  Just to bless us.    We have started paying babysitters to watch our children so we can go out on dates or to do ministry...because someone is anonymously giving us money specifically to pay for babysitting.  I am seriously blown away sometimes by the way God uses His people to bless and serve us.

It's been neat seeing how God supplies all of our needs; how He orchestrates our lives just so.  We live in a community where big families are common, where living is affordable, where our church  congregation is so generous toward us, and where we have extended family (blood relatives and otherwise) to do life with.  And just three years ago I could not have even fathomed this to be a reality for us.  I was stressed, wondering where we would live that could both contain our growing family, and be affordable.  We wanted Stewart to be working full-time in Christian ministry, somewhere, somehow, but didn't know what that should look like for us in this season.  I really wanted him to be around more, and able to be more involved in the family, but commuting to work in a big city took so much time.  We loved the idea of living more intentionally in community with extended family (related or otherwise) more involved in our lives, but again, in the big city this simply wasn't a daily reality.

And now, here we are.  So blessed, and so thankful.

Thank you, Heavenly Father!!  You are so good.  And so good to us.

We're Homeowners!

We've landed.  It's ours.  We moved in to our own home --our own home-- nearly three weeks ago, and it's been a blur.

We've been busy, busy removing decals, mudding, sanding, painting, building, drywalling, uninstalling, spray-painting, re-installing, cleaning, scrubbing, carpet-cleaning, and, oh yes, unpacking.  To me, it feels like it's all taking forever.  Last night Stewart reminded me that it's actually gone pretty much as fast as possible given that we have four small children and he works full time.  Right.  I guess I've just gotten used to our move-in-clean-unpack-hang-pictures in less than 24hrs routine.  But since this place is ours, we're putting some effort in to really make it ours.

And despite how long it feels like it's taking, it's been fun.  I'm loving it, really.

Pictures to come, but not until we're closer to the finished product.  (Are our homes ever really finished?!)

--
And yes, we survived the crazy homeless stage.  Praise the LORD!  But, so glad that's over!

Soon-to-be Homeowners!

Yes, we bought a house!

I guess it's not ours quite yet, but the paperwork is done, and as of June 25 we will be homeowners.

What we ended up buying is not the same as what we set out hoping to buy... but we are satisfied in our purchase.  We hoped for a small acreage with a big(ish) house.  At this time, there are none available in our price range.  So, we "settled" for a big house in town on a double lot.  This means we won't be able to have chickens, a pig, or a cow... but we have lots of space for hosting people, overnight guests, and a big fenced yard for our many small children to enjoy.  And best of all, it will be OURS (or technically the bank's).  And our 10 year plan is to move out of town to a small acreage.  :)

It's already been so much fun planning, pinning decorating ideas, future renovation plans, picking paint colours, and all-around getting excited about our first real home.

We will be out of this house in about three weeks (eek!), and thus homeless for approximately 8 weeks before we can move into our new place.  This unfortunate gap leads to me being repeatedly asked "what are you going to do?"

Riiight.  Four kids.  Two adults.  A lot of stuff.  Eight weeks.  Hmmm.

The answer is still a little tentative.  Some travel.  Some camping.  Some presuming upon family and friends.  And a big dose of adventure.  We're choosing to make this a fun family experience, rather than drudgery.  I might need to be reminded of that about 4 weeks into our "adventure".  Or maybe just a week in.  ;)

Meant to Be

Last night I came across the song "Meant to Be" by JJ Heller.  I'm loving her music right now.

Enjoy!

Okay, I can't help myself. Here's one more. And do yourself a favour and browse the rest of her music videos on youtube. ;)

Still looking

It's official now: the house we've been renting has sold. And not to us. We now have about six weeks until we're homeless.

We've looked at pretty much every house in the area that's in, or even near our price range.  There is no obvious "perfect" home for us. We've really been hoping to buy something out of town but really close to town and it looks like that's just not realistic.

At this point I feel pretty good about the prospect of buying a house at all...but still sad to (probably) be giving up the dream of a little acreage.  And yes, "not right now" doesn't mean "never". But I'm still sad.

Please keep praying for us as we consider our options and make decisions about housing for our family.

Dreaming of a home

So much has happened in these past six months. So much.  Moving and baby are the big ones. Huge ones. But still life marches on at breakneck speed.

We have been renting since we moved north, and are hoping to buy a house up here. We've looked at so many houses! Lots are immediately stricken off the list  of possibilities...and some we keep thinking about, keep reworking the numbers...keep dreaming.

We're in the thick of winter up here, but I keep thinking toward spring. Thinking about the garden I want to plant (that I can't in this house), about the dog we want to get (that we can't in this house), about the desire to finally have our own space, and land with room for the kids to run and explore.  Spring is coming and we'd love to move and finally settle into our own place.

The problem is that there is no clear "right place" just yet. A few leads, but nothing that feels right.  We keep hoping, praying,  looking at every possibility that presents itself.  We know it will happen eventually, but we just feel so ready to settle! I personally have lived in fourteen different houses (not counting temporary living situations and all the different dorm rooms) in the past fourteen years. I'm ready for one last move, so we can settle in and not move for a few years.

Would you join us in praying for a house? A place where we can settle in and stay a while.  Much appreciated.

This earth is so not our home!

post-baby body image: a shared struggle

Life after baby is blissful in many ways.  The smiles, cooing, snuggles, the warmth of sweet baby breath. And then you look in the mirror.  A quick glance is okay, but if you linger too long, it's easy to have your self-esteem come crashing to the floor around you.

Most days I can handle it.  "I have four kids, and really overall I'm doing pretty good" I find myself thinking.  Of course I'm going to look a little different than I used to.  I don't expect, or even want, to get into my tiny-size-four clothes from before I ever was pregnant.  But some days, especially when I just can't find something that fits right, it's easy to lose perspective.  Shopping was so easy when anything I tried on seemed to look good. I guess twenty-year-old-never-had-babies bodies are like that.

But now, instead of a twenty-year-old-never-had-babies body, I find myself in an almost-thirty-carried-and-birthed-four-babies body, and it doesn't look quite the same.  Things have rearranged and stretched and all-around gotten bigger.  It's not all bad, by any means.  But it is different, and change can be hard.

"I look at my body in the mirror, and the familiar internal conversation begins. First there is the still present feeling of surprise. That’s me? Then comes the uncontrollable feeling of disgust constricting my throat. But on its heels the thought: wait a minute, these scars are sacred, they represent one of the most significant stories within my story, something I don’t want to forget, and there, right there is evidence of my own rebirth into something more. But I hardly take a breath before my hands are moving to my stomach to stretch it out flat and make it look like a long-gone me. If I could just change this one part…" (These are the Lines of a Story by Mary Martin Wiens).

I write this simply to say: you are not alone.  I believe this is a struggle we all share.  We've had babies and our bodies will never be the same.  Nor should they be.  My hope is that the more we talk about the struggle, the more we encourage one another, flaws and all, the more normal and acceptable our post-baby bodies will be.

To end, a quote from one of my favourite authors, Rachel Jankovic:

"...our bodies are tools, not treasures. You should not spend your days trying to preserve your body in its eighteen-year-old form.  Let it be used.  By the time you die, you want to have a very dinged and dinted body.  Motherhood uses your body in the way that God designed it to be used.  Those are the right kind of damages. ... Scars and stretch marks and muffin tops are all part of your kingdom work. ... So realize that your body is a testimony to the world of God's design.  Carry the extra weight joyfully until you can lose it joyfully.  Carry the scars joyfully as you carry the fruit of them. Do not resent the the damages that your children left on your body.  Just like a guitar mellows and sounds better with age and scratches, so your body can more fully praise God having been used for His purposes. So don't resent it, enjoy it." (Loving the Little Years, pp. 58-60).

Birth-y Musings at Christmas

As a mother and a doula, I often find myself wondering over the missing details of the Christmas story. Was Mary really alone with Joseph when she gave birth? I doubt it. The little that I know and understand of the culture of that time, and the culture of birth throughout history leads me to think there must have been a midwife present, or at least another woman. But as a lover of a good birth story, I want to not justbspeculate, but know exactly how the greatest birth story of all actually happened.

How long did Mary labour?  How long were Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem before she went into labour?  Was it the effort and exertion of the trip that pushed her into labour, or did it start gradually the morning after they arrived? Who was with her in labour?  Did the wife of the innkeeper come when she heard there was a young woman in labour? Did she  fetch the local midwife? Or was it really just Joseph with her as she struggled to give birth to her firstborn, as movies and pictures usually depict.

I will never know the answers until I get to heaven, but this Christmas season my heart is full of wonder at the virgin birth and how unique and amazing it was and still is.

Not only the unique circumstances of Mary giving birth in a barn, but the whole event. A virgin birth. God, born as a man. Entering frail humanity, becoming one of us, to save us. The absurdity of shepherds being visited by angels and coming to worship a baby. And how bizarre this all must have appeared to anyone else who overheard the story but didn't witness the angels. The baby born in the barn is a king? And angels visited shepherds - only shepherds - to tell them the Good News? How strange.

And yet, how true. Amazing. Miraculous. Wonderful.

"But Mary treasured up all of these things,  pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). As I snuggle my own little baby boy this Christmas, I too am pondering these things, and treasuring my Saviour and His miraculous birth.

And looking forward to the day when I can get all the details in my heavenly home. ;)

My Annual Cheesecake

I'm a bit of a traditionalist, and for my birthday that means cheesecake.  Some years my mom (or someone else) has made one, some years we've bought one, and some years I've made my own.  Because a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do! Especially when cheesecake is on the line.

This was one of those years.

I couldn't decide between plain cheesecake with berry sauce or a more decadent chocolate cheesecake. In the end I decided to take my usual plain cheesecake and swirl it with chocolate.

It smells amazing.

And based on the taste of the batter (which you shouldn't eat due to the raw eggs...I know, I know), it tastes pretty amazing too.

Charisa's Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Crust
1 cup graham crumbs
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 Tbsp sugar

Cake
3 packages cream cheese (250g each)
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs

4 oz dark chcoolate
2 Tbsp cocoa powder

Topping
3/4 cup whipping cream
4 oz semisweet or dark chocolate
2-3 tsp honey, to taste

pinch salt

 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Combine crust ingredients.  Press into 9" springform pan. Bake 10 minutes. Let cool. Turn oven to 425 degrees.

Melt 4 oz chocolate on low heat and set aside to cool slightly (must still be runny).

Soften cream cheese in a large bowl and add sugar, flour, lemon juice, vanilla. Mix until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and mix to combine.

Pour half mixture into cooled crust.  To the other half add melted chocolate and cocoa powder. Combine.  Pour into crust on top of plain batter and run a knife through gently to swirl.

Bake for 10 minutes.  Reduce heat to 250 degrees and continue baking another 45 minutes or until centre of the cake is firm to the touch.

Let cool at room temperature. Once cooled, store in fridge until you top it - at least two hours prior to serving.

Combine whipping cream, chocolate, honey, salt in a medium pot over low heat. Stir until smooth. Cool slightly.  Pour over centre of the cake to fill any cracks, and spread to within 1/2" of edge. Chill until topping is set, about 1 hour.

Let sit at room temperature for an hour before serving.

Enjoy!

Adapted in part from Decadent Chocolate Cheesecake from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.

Oh, and happy birthday to me! ;)

My Favourite Budget Meals: Dal Makhani

This is the beginning of a mini-series featuring some of our favourite frugal meals.  Some recipes I will post here, and some I will simply link to; this is one of those days.

Dal makhani is one of our favourite Indian dishes, and simply by nature of being vegetarian,  it's very cheap to make.  This creamy lentil dish isn't spicy, just rich and flavourful.  Dal and rice on the dinner table makes for a very happy family in my house.  And a happy wallet too!

You can find the recipe for Dal Nirvana over at Budget Bytes, and it is similar to dal makhani at our favourite Indian take-out restaurant.

Our Winter Storm in Photos

Micah and his Great Grandpa built a snow castle!

It took a long time to dig out the driveway.

the view from our front door!

A Winter Storm

We've spent much of this last week digging ourselves out from an incredible snowstorm. Anything I had previously considered a winter storm pales in comparison.  It snowed non-stop from Tuesday night to Friday morning, with the bulk of the snow falling on Thursday. We had about three feet of snow dump on us.

Along with the mass amounts of snow came power outages.  Many, many power outages.  At our house the outages were reasonable; I think the longest was five hours.  But many people in our town had no power for 24 hours, or even up to 72 hours in some areas. The snow stopped falling several days ago, but the power outages have continued as trees still heavily laden with snow topple onto power lines.

And it was cold!  In the couple days following the snowfall it reached -38C on more than one occasion. You can imagine that a house left without heat in -30 for 24 hours or more is not a good situation.  When the power was out the grocery store closed, and neither of our two gas stations could pump gas.  We, as a region, quickly slipped into survival mode, and our community facebook group was flooded with offers of warm shelter and food (by those fortunate people with either wood heat or generators).

My grandparents live just down the street from us, but their half of town was among those without power for 24 hours.  So we enjoyed their company and the kids got lots of snuggles and stories while we waited for their power to come back on and then for their house to heat up.  (Without heat the inside of their house dropped to just three degrees.)

I was amazing to see our little village band together as a community.  We are so blessed to live here.  Although the weather is cold, the community is indeed warm.

What You Really Need for a Baby

As I've mentioned before, Stewart and I lived very simply and very frugally for the first few years of our marriage, while he was in college and I was a stay-at-home-mom.  Among other things, this means that we've often made do without a lot of baby gear--even things that many others consider necessary.  And so we find ourselves, with our fourth baby and still without a crib!  From our experience so far, here's our list of essential baby gear (followed by our list of unnecessary items).

we love our Phil & Ted's double stroller

Every baby needs:
-a carseat
-diapers
-a bed (bassinet/playpen/crib)
-sleepers and onesies (or pajamas and undershirts, depending on what you call them!)
-blankets (some big flannel ones for swaddling, and some warmer ones)
-a good stroller
-baby carrier of some type (sling/mei tai/beco/ergo/etc...)

Seriously.  That's it for essentials.  Well, and food of course, but for breastfeeding moms the food is free and built-in. :)

Three items that we have found helpful, but not necessary are a bouncy seat for a newborn, and a Bumbo and an Exersaucer for an older baby.  These are items that each baby only uses for a few months, so they are often items you can easily borrow from a friend.  (With our first three babies we used a borrowed Bumbo - a different one each time.)

Lastly, my list of items that we personally have found to be unnecessary (ie: we've never needed):
-crib (we have used a bassinet/playpens instead - easier to haul around)
-diaper genie (just empty the garbage often)
-baby bath (just use the kitchen sink or bathtub)
-change table (we just got one for free and I rarely use it)

And a word about baby clothes.  They are cute.  And adorable.  And totally unnecessary!  It's fun to have baby clothes and dress them up sometimes.  But really, it's totally okay for a baby to wear onesies and sleepers for the first few months of life.  Baby clothes are very cute and tempting to buy but the reality is, if you want to, you can definitely do without them.

Is there anything you can add to my list of essentials?  Or any baby gear that you've found unnecessary?  Leave a comment!

This list is not meant to condemn anyone who has more baby gear than us.  We have been asked many times by couples considering having a baby, about what a baby actually needs, so this is simply intended to answer that question from my perspective.

Mastering the Laundry Chaos

Laundry. It's one of those never-ending chores, like cooking and cleaning the kitchen.  Everyone needs to do laundry,  but once you have a baby the amount of laundry grows like crazy, because not only do they get their clothes dirty, they get your clothes dirty too!  And I've found that the more kids we have, the more out of control the laundry seems to get.

As I sit here, there are six--wait, make that seven--piles of sorted laundry on the floor of my dining room, waiting for their turn in the machines.  That is a pretty easy laundry day for us right now! Last week I did nine loads on laundry day.

keeping it real!

I don't think there is (unfortunately) any one tried-and-true solution to the laundry chaos.  Over the years I've tried a few different strategies to try to keep up, each having its merits and being effective for a time.  So I'm offering you the various methods I've employed at different times, hoping someone might find it helpful.

Regardless of our the laundry strategy I'm using, I always have a missing sock bin. Usually, as I fold laundry, I toss all the socks directly into the bin. When I'm done with the rest of the clothes, I dump the socks on the floor and have the kids help me find pairs. We call it the sock matching game and they love it!  You could even make it a competition to see who can find the most pairs.  Then, of course, all the socks without a pair go back into the bin.

Along with a sock bin, I also have a bin for each child. As I fold clothes I immediately sort them into the bins as I go, so they are ready for the kids or I to take to the bedrooms and put away. If I am only washing a load or two at a time, I leave the bins in the laundry room and put clothes away once they're full (after a few days). In the meantime the clothes are still easy to find if you're looking for something. 

Sometimes I have tried to wash only one or two loads a day and fold each item as I take it out of the dryer. This keeps me from even getting started with the dreaded clean laundry pile (which in my house sits there forever before getting folded).

I have also tried to immediately sort but not fold clothes as I remove them from the dryer. I put them into the kids bins,  and when a bin gets full, I fold it as I put it away in the bedroom.

Currently, I have a big laundry day once a week. I gather and sort it all and keep the machines humming pretty much all day long. It usually takes me 7-10 loads!  As they finish in the dryer, I make a massive pile of clean clothes on the couch.  The pile is rather daunting, so I often would enlist Stewart's help and we'd make an evening of it. However, for now, I have a friend who has offered to fold laundry for me once a week (I call her my laundry fairy). I work to get it all washed and heaped on the couch, and she folds and puts away.  (She is a huge blessing,  especially in this season of four little ones!)

the massive pile :)

My final laundry strategy is to only fold what's necessary.  That said, in my opinion, almost all clothes fall into that category.  However, I generally do not fold kids underwear, cloth napkins (I can fold them as we use them if it's a special meal or for guests - see this post), or rags.

As my kids get older, I plan on teaching them to each do their own laundry. My oldest is almost five years old, so the day that I am back to being responsible for only the laundry for Stewart and I is a long way off!  In the meantime, I've found it helpful to intentionally pick a strategy and try to stick with it for a while; it helps me feel like I have a plan of attack and am not just constantly swimming upstream.  :)

Do you have any laundry tips and tricks?  I'd love to hear them! Leave me a comment. 

--
I have learned many of these ideas from other moms, including:
Lindsey Edmonds at Passionate Homemaking (specifically this post)
Mary Ostyn in her book A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family
Michelle Duggar in their book The Duggars: Twenty and Counting
My good friend, Cherilyn, mom of seven kids

Winter Baby-Wearing

Baby-wearing seems to be the best way to keep Judah warm while we're outside,  but it's been tricky to bundle up enough to cover both of us...until today.  With some gift money from a couple of our grandparents,  I ordered a jacket adapter from MakeMyBellyFit.com. It zips into my jacket to make room for either a pregnant belly or a baby carrier.  We tried it out this afternoon, and it fit great and kept us both cozy. If you wear your baby much, I would definitely recommend buying one!

Train up a Child: A Portable Bedtime

We've had people tell us over and over how remarkable it is that our children are able to go to sleep fairly easily in places other than their own beds.  To me, I see this as a natural result of the purposeful steps we have taken to teach them this skill. Now, I don't take full credit, because some kids are naturally better sleepers than others. But overall, we work to instill in our children from the very beginning the skills, abilities and attributes we want them to have later on in their lives, and so I am not surprised at their ability to sleep.

Even I was impressed with Jackson's nap in Costco this summer!

Just as Proverbs 22:6 states "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." I believe there are many skills, abilities and attributes that we need to be working to teach our children even from a very young age.  Of course what we work on teaching a newborn is different from what we teach our toddlers, which will be very different from what we teach our pre-teens.  But the principle remains: as parents we should be looking ahead to the attributes we want our children to possess and start teaching those lessons while they are still young.  (I'm not saying that teaching your children to sleep anywhere is a skill all parents should teach, but we've been asked about it so many times, I thought I'd share it as an example of something we've tried to be intentional about.)

As parents of small children there are a few practical life skills we have intentionally worked to teach them, and are already working to teach Judah as a newborn. The very first skills of this nature relate to sleep. We want our children to be able to go to sleep anywhere, and even with a moderate amount of noise.  We do this by putting our babies to bed in various places right from the newborn stage.  I make sure that even at home, the baby doesn't sleep only in his or her crib.  Starting when Micah was a little baby, I would put him to nap on a blanket on the floor, or on our bed, or in his stroller, so he didn't grow to need his own bed as a sleep cue. Then as he grew a little bit older and we created a bedtime routine for him, we purposely chose to incorporate only activities that were portable.  For example, we didn't bathe him every night before bed, because we couldn't always do that if we were out somewhere.  What we did do was get him in pajamas, brush teeth, read a story, sing a lullaby, and say the same words each night, then put him in bed. This way we provided consistency even within the flexibility of going to sleep in various places.

Along with putting our kids to sleep in various places right from the beginning, we also did our best to get them used to sleeping with noise. We purposely keep making noise and aren't quiet during baby nap times, so that noise becomes normal.  I've heard it said that the sounds in the womb are as loud as a vacuum cleaner to a baby, so as newborns they are used to loud background noises. I believe babies lose this ability as we tiptoe around them and train them to need quiet.  With our first baby I purposely did loud activities and put on music while he napped. Now with three older kids, I have Judah nap on the main floor and we don't have to put any extra effort into making noise!  I think this is why Jackson is our best sleeper yet - the background noise in our house is near continual. 

We repeated this with each of our children, and the result is that we are able to go out in the evenings with the whole family, and still maintain a usual bedtime for the kids.  Earlier this week we had a lovely adults-only dinner at a friends house, by first feeding our kids and putting all four to sleep there.  The older two shared the bed with a head at either end, and Jackson slept in his playpen, while Judah napped on a living room chair.  Each of the older three were happily cuddled up with their own special fleece blankets that we bring with us every time they sleep in a place other than home.  And I found myself again thinking how thankful I am that our children have the gift of portable sleep.