Lois Abigail Qualls

The biggest (and cutest) change in our family in the past 2+ years is our fourth child, Lois Abigail.

Lois Abigail Qualls arrived on April 2, 2012. 8:11pm. 7lb 3.5oz. The fastest, easiest, most peaceful (Ben would disagree on that one) birth of the four. And she was born at home. It was a challenge finding a midwife who would be willing to deliver over an hour from her office location, but I finally found one who I not only really liked, but she actually used to live in TN, too! It was amazing how much we had in common. Technically, though, she didn't actually catch the baby, Lois was too quick for that. Her assistant was closer and got her gloves on faster.

Lois is the only baby to not be born with dark hair - but she did continue the trend of a head-full of hair. It started red and is now strawberry blonde.

Lois currently likes princesses, tu-tus and babies. She has begun talking much more and expressing herself. She has finally started saying 'Lucas' and 'Lois' - apparently she didn't want to try until she knew she could.

 Cute and Cozy

June 2012

Patriotic Cuteness

July 2012

Her hair is so red in this picture!

12-24-12

Summer-time Haircut

May 2013

September 2013

July 2014

A New...Well...Lots of Things

There are so many things that have happened in the last...um...2 years. I could summarize, or I could give myself many reasons to continue posting. Frequently.

For starters, we bought a house! With having a new home-based business (more on that later), we quickly realized that keeping records and designing shirts from the comfort of our (way too cluttered) couch was not a good business/family strategy. Which is a nice way of saying Mommy is finding it frustrating trying clean around all the (not so) well organized piles of paper. That and the fact that four kids (yes, that's four now - another thing I should post about) is just too much energy for our small house convinced us that it was past time to start looking for a home that fits us rather than a place we can try to fit into - which is what we have been doing for the past 10 or so years.

Our criteria: 4 bedrooms, a living room large enough for the sectional couch that was given to us that we have never been able to put together because our current living room was too small, 2 car garage (not that we were actually planning on putting both cars in the garage), a front door that did not open with a view to the kitchen or family room - preferably with the office near the front door, carpeting throughout the house (not typical in the desert - most prefer tile or laminate), cinder-block wall around the back yard (typical for AZ), and in our price range. What we found: all of the above. This place is perfect!

We moved in the beginning of May 2013.

The perfect sized hallway for hyper kids!

Spacious kitchen with lots of cabinet space 

(though, somehow it's still not enough - someone explain that to me!)

This is what the front of the house looked like when we moved in over a year ago...now that I see this picture, I think I need to get the hedge clippers out again.

And our living room complete with a running track...I mean couch.