Weight gain

I weighed Jonah again today. Hey at least I am not being obsessive and doing it every day! I am holding off every 3 or 4 days! But I do believe I can just let it go as it is clear that this little guy does not have any weight or feeding issues. He weighed in at 8lbs 7.5 oz. Way to go kiddo! I did not get to weigh Jedidiah as he was having a melt down. I tried to take that spoke wheel picture, and that just did not go over well. So we just went on with our day and I figured I would weigh him tomorrow.

Here is a funny. We have this wonderful tincture for colic called Colic Ease (from Wish Garden Herbs) that I have been using for Jonah. Jedidiah has been very enamored with anything I have for the baby and will usually pick it up, look at it and then hand it to me. Well one day he picked up the colic drops and I expected he would just hand them to me. However he didn't and I kind of lost track as to where he last had them. I knew they were in my room somewhere and I figured I would look for them later. Well that later came as I drank some store bought milk, which does not agree with Jonah (or any of my other kiddos as infants for that matter), and I could not find them. I looked high and low. So seeing as how I couldn't find them, plus they were two years old (although not expired) I went online to order some more. I asked Jeremiah to pick them up on the way home and mentioned that knowing Murphy's law I would probably find them before he got them. Yup, how true, how true. I am sitting low on the bed changing Jonah's diaper. My nose is a bit runny from shedding a few tears while watching Little House on the Prairie (can we say hormones!) so I reach for my small box of tissues. How weird that it feels so heavy for a box of tissues I think...until I look inside....Colic Drops!!!Ha, ha, ha. Oh well now we will have a back up bottle.

Ok, off to see if the girls are picking up their mess. Then hopefully we will enjoy a quiet evening together.

Loving our baby

I am just loving, loving, loving having a new baby in the house! Really, it truly does not get old! Jonah is just the sweetest thing. I love how floppy babies are, how they smell, how soft their skin is, how they look at you, a nursing baby is just too precious, their cute feet, their cute little sounds, how Jonah quiets right down when picked up or hears my voice.....oh I could go on and on. I was holding Jonah for quite a while this afternoon while the girls were in the pool. I sit on the couch and watch from the window. And he and I sat there very content for almost an hour and a half.

Things are going well over here. I do have to say that the worst of having a new baby is the lack of routine. That has been very hard to deal with this time around. I think it is harder only because we spent the past half a year with a predictable routine. And now its a bit chaotic. I really think the kids do much better on a routine. I am NOT a schedule kind of person, as I have tried that and I just can't make it work. However we do have a routine of getting certain things done in a certain order. But with a newborn, well that all goes out the window :-)

I have been reading more on that wonderful blog I have a link for in one of my recent posts. I have been sooooo encouraged. She had a post on frugality (imagine that, being frugal with 14 kids- I'm joking here) and she mentioned another site that has a cookbook and CD on frugal living. I am really looking into getting it! Some of you may have seen the episodes on TV of large families, one of them being the Jeub family. Here is the link to their book:
http://jeubfamily.com/

I don't have any new pictures to share. I really want to get a picture of all the kiddos on the floor in a spoke wheel fashion. We took one when Saoirse was just a baby. It's time to get an updated spoke wheel!

I had a wonderful friend come over and bring us dinner. She is the person that I get our goat's milk from. She made this wonderful chuck beef over rice. Get this...it was from their own cow! No growth hormones in there! It was very delicious. Not only was the dinner wonderful, but she stayed and talked for a bit, and the fellowship was sweet as well. It is always great to have another perspective on a situation. Sometimes when you are in the thick of things you feel like you are in a deep, dark hole that you will never get out of. It was great to be able to talk with her and just get that renewed spark, that God's mercies are indeed new EVERY morning. As of late I feel like by 8 AM I have out lived those mercies!!!!

We have Jed and Jonah in bed, and Jeremiah is finishing up the girl's history. Then we will spend a bit of time in family worship. Then this big girl is off to bed herself. I have been very fortunate that Jonah does well during the night, but waking and being awake for almost an hour every night, then getting woken at 5:30 AM for the morning feeding....lets just say my eyes are a bit heavy come 9 PM at night :-) Goodnight all!

Last July Birthday

Mine! It was a good day. We Skyped into church. Then it was a pretty lazy day afterwards. I took Jedidiah out on the porch for a while to play in a tub of water. Jeremiah went out to pick up a few things. We ate lunch, cleaned up a bit, went back outside for an hour, put Jed down for his nap, then the girls went in the pool. Phew, breathe....ok, then we had a wonderful family come and bring us dinner. After that we brought out the Death By Chocolate Ice Cream Cake! OOOhhhhh, yum, yum. I know you are all jealous! I got some wonderful gifts. Jeremiah picked me up some new sneakers on his outing. My last pair I had bought at the beginning of Jedidiah's pregnancy. With a 50 pound weight gain, then loosing it, then going through this pregnancy, a 46 pound weight gain, my old shoes were shot. It explains why I was getting shin splints the past two months! So a new pair was in order. Then Jeremiah's parents got me a cook book and a whole bunch of serving utensils. Totally needed! I was very excited. I was always using my regular spoons, which don't quite measure up. After that we went outside for a bit, but the girls were wearing me out so we came back in for a more quiet evening. I got on here and read some inspirational material. I have to share with you the site I was reading. Go there and click on her homeschooling link on the right. I was just inspired. She has a ton of good stuff on her site. I think I will be visiting again soon. Check it out:

http://ladyofvirtue.blogspot.com/

Here are a couple of pictures from tonight.

We thought this would make a funny picture. Here I am with one of my new large serving spoons digging into the cake! Ok, I really didn't use it, but we thought it was funny!

Look at those faces!!! The cake was a hit by all. We ate early enough, before Jedidiah's feeding time and he actually ate some of the cake! More than he ate at his own birthday! As a side note Jedidiah does not normally eat while sitting ON the table. He was just up there to get close to the action of checking out the cake as it was being cut. As we were passing out the cake he just kinda stayed there.

It is very late....Poor Jeremiah has been trying to figure out our other computer and it has been a no go. Very frustrating. He was trying to put Linux on the other computer but it is not working with our wireless router. So he just informed me that he's scrapping the whole Linux idea and installing Windows. Ah, sounds like a plan to me. I'm not partial to any particular plan as all computer stuff is greek to me!!! But hey, if it works for him, then it works for me :-) Good night all!

Finally some picture with Jedidiah in them

Here are a few new pictures. Jedidiah decided to be more himself today in front of the camera. In Jedidiah news I weighed him today. I was very happy to see that we are almost back to our highest weight. He was 20lbs 6 oz. His highest so far has been 20lbs 8 oz. So we are very close. I also have been weighing Jonah. I have been a wee bit more concerned about baby's weight this time around. I am glad to report that at one week old he has regained his birth weight plus and ounce, making him 8lbs 1oz. Yeah for growing boys!

The girls will be heading out to splash in the pool. Jeremiah was able to get it cleaned out. They have been looking forward to swimming for a while now. I am hoping they can be out for an hour or two, getting some of the pent up energy out! I have found a quiet activity for them to do here in the house when I need them to be sitting quiet. I think I linked to this site in the long past. But I will give it again. This is where I was able to print out a ton of paper doll clothing and paper dolls. I bought some poster tacky stuff at Walmart. They just need a tiny bit to put on their dolls to hold the clothing in place. It works great! Check it out. We printed a whole bunch of stuff!

http://www.makingfriends.com

At the VERY top of the page you will see a link to paper friends. Click on that to the paper dolls.

So here are the pictures:

Moira and her baby brother. Everyone trying to get a turn holding him and getting a picture with him.

Flannery and her baby brother. He was content to be in her arms for a bit, before he decided that he wanted to go to sleep. And that means he wanted to nurse. Which explains why the baby is not happy in the above photo with Moira, and why the other two girls didn't get a turn today.

Brotherly love. Here is Jedidiah finally willing to hold Jonah. He thought it was pretty neat.

This is the warm up to holding Jonah. Jedidiah thought it was a blast to try to catch Jonah's feet. The baby was kicking and Jed was trying to catch his little feet. He kept laughing about it. Too cute.

pictures

These are in no particular order as I as I really do not have the patience since I spent a lot of time waiting for these pictures to be uploaded. I am not sure what is going on at Blogger but the last few posts I've made with pictures have not gone smoothly. Oh well, on to better things.

Here is the new love of our lives. He is just a cutie! We did find out that he indeed looks like one of us. We found some old fashioned paper pictures (all baby pictures of Saoirse and before are on paper, how ever did we manage before digital :-) ) and low and behold he looks JUST like Saoirse as a baby! Go figure! In this particular picture he looks like a cross between Saoirse and Isabella as babies.

The proud parents. This was taken about two days later at like 7 in the morning. The girls wanted to start taking pictures right away.

The oldest three girls and I. This is still the 7 o'clock hour and Saoirse does not wake up that early. Jedidiah is not in any of the pictures as he wouldn't sit still. He did not want to be a camera ham these past few days. I really want to get Jedidiah holding Jonah. He really loves his baby brother. He will blow him kisses, rub his head and be very gentle around him. Very sweet indeed.

Two proud sissies. No shortage of hands around here to hold the baby! Now they have a new thing to fight over....who will be the first to hold the baby for the day.

This seems like an odd picture, but it really expresses how I was feeling. This is just about 10 or so minutes after the birth. And this says: I am SSSSOOOOOOO relieved to be done, I am SSSSSOOOOO happy to be holding my baby, I am in bliss, I am thankful, I am so happy that I can now just relax, I am.....well you get the idea. Total mommy bliss!

And just another cutie pie picture. This is our nursing champ. He actually latched on to Jeremiah's neck!!! And I mean LATCHED on! Way too funny. Do not get anything near this child's mouth when he is rooting, or it will be sucked in!!

I have a few tid bits to share about the birth, but it is getting late and I need to see Jedidiah off to bed. But I am feeling rather bad that I didn't mention one of the most important things I was doing during labor. And that was prayer! I did a LOT of praying while I was in labor. I was praising the Lord for the opportunity to have this child, for His peace, for His strength, etc. It was a special time. I love how I could labor as I wanted. Jeremiah and the midwives sat in darkness and in silence as I walked, prayed out loud, stood still, cried out (they were silent, but I wasn't!) and did what I felt my body needed to do at that moment. They were there for me the moment I needed anything. It was an amazing experience.

Ok, off to get some kids to bed, so we can have a little quiet around here. I sent the kids out to play, but they had to come in within minutes due to a really bad storm that came through. These guys need to get OUT to run off some major stored up energy! I'll be checking the weather channel!

The Whole Scoop

Or in other words, Jonah's birth story. This story is for those who, like me, like the nitty gritty details. If you are of the male gender you may prefer the below post, which gives you the baseball card basics :-)

So Friday morning through afternoon my braxton hicks were coming every 5 minutes. I decided to call Jeremiah to let him know, but not to come home as these were definite braxton hicks. The girls were really excited. After their afternoon outside time they needed to get washed up. Well Isabella and Moira were getting all dressed up, asking me to do their hair in braids. I asked them why they were getting all decked up and they said it was because this was going to be the last night of eating dinner together as a family of seven, and they wanted to be all pretty for when Daddy came home for dinner. I explained to them that these contractions may mean nothing, like all the other ones I had been having all week long. None the less they got dressed up. By late afternoon the contractions stopped, much to everyone's dismay. So on we go with our evening. We got started late with our family worship time and so it was late when we were wrapping things up. The last 10 minutes of family worship I had three contractions that were painful and not like the braxton hicks. But I figured it could just be the way I was sitting or some other odd known reason, certainly I was not thinking I would ever go into labor at this point :-) We get kids off to bed and its 10 pm. I have another painful contraction. Hmmmm, maybe I should head off to bed to catch some zzzz's in case this is the real thing. I have a couple more by the time I hit the pillow. They were totally irregular. The funny thing is that was the one clue that this may be it!!! All my braxton hicks were totally regularly spaced out. Not these ones, and by golly they hurt! Trying to sleep didn't work. I got up and decided to make up the birth bed and then clean out the pool. I told Jeremiah that I thought this was it. He got up and cleaned the pool for me as I tried to time some of the contractions. They were still totally irregular. By 1 am I am wondering what to do about calling the midwife....wait, call now to let her know, tell her I'll call her later, not call.....so on and so forth. I decided for my peace of mind to call her. She showed up about 1:45am. By about 2 I asked her to check me as I wanted to know where I was in this labor. If I was in the early stages then I wanted to get in the pool to see if I could slow things down and maybe catch some sleep. I was highly disappointed to find I was only 3-4 cm and 50-75% effaced. That's it!?! After some 4 hours of painful contractions I'm not even fully effaced? I had a bad feeling about that news! So I decided to get in the pool. After all EVERY one of my other labors I found great relief in the tub/pool. NOPE not this one! I got in and the contractions got worse! After 10 minutes or so I got out. No more of that! So on I go laboring. At some point the assistant midwife shows up. I'm feeling all bummed out that this labor is so painful. The only way for me to handle things was to be standing up. Around 3 am or so things were getting harder. Then about 4;30 am I hit transition. Now certainly with this being my 6th child transition should only last at MOST 20 minutes, right? I mean there should be laws about these types of things! No such law yet, as transition was an hour and a half, and it may have been longer except that I had my midwife check me and I was fully dilated, and my body was just waiting for the bag of water to break. I'll tell you what I was not feeling like I could take one more contraction!! I told her to break my water.....NOW! I am very thankful she did. I had been in the living room almost the whole labor propping myself up by the piano. I had tried some contractions hanging on to Jeremiah, but I was most able to tolerate the contractions by leaning on the piano. As soon as I knew she was going to break my water I made it lickety split to the bedroom and the midwife was shocked to see me on the bed so quick! ha, ha! I was serious I was not willing to go through one more contraction. So she broke my water and it had meconium in it. She said it was more than they like to see, BUT that the baby's heart rate the whole time had been great so she wasn't worried. She was taking the baby's heart tones at least every 10-15 minutes those last three hours of labor, when the contractions were harder. So I start pushing, and pushing, and pushing and, well you get the picture. Again there should be another law that says anyone that has more than a certain number of children should only have to push three times before their baby is born. I pushed for almost an hour. I started pushing at 6 am. I had Jeremiah call someone to come and watch the children not knowing how long this was going to be. Jedidiah decided to wake up early ( I am sure it has something to do with him sleeping in the same room I am trying to push a baby out into this world). I had Jeremiah wake up Isabella to watch him until our wonderful helper would get here. All the girls came running into the room to watch. About 10 minutes before the baby is born our helper comes. She watches Jedidiah as all the girls are glued to their spots waiting for the baby to pop out. I was really getting worn out! They don't call this labor for nothing!!!!! Finally, finally I feel the baby start to move past the inner pelvic bone, a sure sign that he/she will pop out in a minute. On the next contraction I had determined that I was DONE with this labor thing and this baby was coming out! Sure enough I push and push and just about after the contraction ended I almost had the head out, so I just pushed even though I didn't have a contraction because I was not waiting for another contraction. Out comes his head. I am of course screaming my head off (I've done so with all my births) Thankfully I had prepared the girls that I would do that, but I think it still freaked out Saoirse. On the next contraction I knew the shoulder would be born and I was certain like all my other births the baby would slide out like jello. Yeah, I am sure you are guessing the trend here....no, it took more than just a push to get his shoulder out. He wasn't stuck, it just didn't come loose in one push like all my others. And then once the shoulder was out I STILL had to push to get the rest of him out! He didn't just slide out! Silly boy, certainly he didn't read the memo about how a birth should go :-) I have him on my tummy and I have just never been so happy to be DONE!!!!!! I was soooo tired and I really wanted a rest. The pushing contractions kept getting closer and closer at the end so I had less rest each time. I held him a minute before I was ready to turn him over to see if he was a boy or girl. I told Jeremiah that I wanted us to all find out at once. But I guess he and Isabella both saw that it was a boy as he came out. I am very thankful that they kept that to themselves. I know it sounds silly, but I think I would have been devastated had they announced it. I really wanted to see for myself. And so I rolled him over to see that he was all boy :-) We covered him with a towel to keep him warm. He was completely covered in vernix and meconium. The odd thing was that it was old meconium. The midwife said it was so old that it had time to actually stain his cord! It was hard to assess his color since he was so yellow from the vernix and meconium. But his apgares were 8 and 10! He didn't want to nurse for quite a while. And this boy has some lungs!! He was crying about everything. He finally stared to root. I latched him on and I was brought to tears, happy tears, that he was a nursing champion!!! I had already went over my feelings of bringing Jedidiah's nursing time to an early end towards the end of this pregnancy. I had really cried about it all over again during that time. Jedidiah never could latch on right, and although he ate because he had to I knew it wasn't something he really wanted to do. It is kind of hard to describe. So here is this new baby, with the new hope that he would be better able to nurse. And I was just crying tears of joy to see how well he did! And he didn't stop there, he stayed latched on for like an hour and a half!!! The midwives were totally shocked. And to round off this birth story we had to wait for the placenta! It decided to make it's arrival an hour after delivery. My midwife gave me some Angelica Root to bring on some contractions to get the placenta out. Right after that is when Jonah decided to latch on so I had some really strong contractions! The placenta was a normal size (praise God) and in one piece. Then it was time for me to take a big deep breath, knowing it was all over. I was done, I had my precious baby, and I made it through the labor. The labor was only 9 hours long. I had 5 hours of early labor, 1 1/2 hours of working labor, 1 1/2 hours of transition and 1 hour of pushing. Really all in all, that is not bad. The bad thing was not knowing how much longer this was all going to take whilw I was in the middle of it! The really weird/odd/ neat thing about this labor was that I knew if the next contraction was going to be a hard one. I am not sure how I knew that, as it was well before the contraction started that I would know to prepare myself for the next one to come. Very odd. We have a new baby to figure out, and thankfully we are figuring him out much sooner than later :-) This baby was born hungry, and thankfully for him, my milk came in this morning, 48 hours after his birth. He is so much more content now. And the other thing is that he sleeps wonderfully if he is touching us. He has to be up against us and he sleeps like a dream child. Hey, I can work with that for now!

The girls are totally loving on him. I really highly recommend all people have a lot of children. It just gets better with each one. Isabella came into the room this morning and had been helping out with getting breakfast, getting Jedidiah started on his feeding, starting laundry, etc and she says to me, "I just LOVE having a new baby!" I have been so very blessed that everyone here is helping out so much! We have also been blessed to have a hot meal every night since the very first day on Saturday! And will continue to have one for two weeks! I am thankful I had frozen all those breakfast meals as it has made things much easier for everyone else to be helpful. After all even Saoirse can get a muffin out and defrost it. Jeremiah has been directing and taking care of the children. He has done an amazing job!! At one point Jeremiah needed to sleep and I came out to sit on the couch for a bit. I saw a few things needed doing and found a wonderful little way to help get them done. The girls are much happier if they know what specifically they need to pick up. So I got out my post-it-notes and wrote each child's name on one. I wrote down what they each needed to do. They stuck the note to their shirts and went off without complaining to do their work! It really has been an amazing time to see everyone working together.

Well I am sure there were lots of little things to add, but this is novel length already! We are all doing well. I hope to get up more pictures soon. Right now I am on a lap top so the pictures will have to wait.

Introducing....

Our Sixth Blessing

Our Second Son

Jonah Timothy

Born at home on July 19th

8 pounds even

22 inches long

I'll give all the birthing details later. Both baby and I are doing great! The kids love him. Just tonight Jeremiah was taking all the kids out and Jedidiah put his first two words together, "Bye-bye baby"! How sweet is that?

this baby is doing something

So we decided to run a few errand tonight. Everyone was feeling up to it, including me. I think with being house bound for so long even my hormones that usually tell me not to leave the house were not complaining! Jeremiah had me pick a couple of things for my birthday. Speaking of which I do believe the person who suggested that the baby should come on my birthday be banned from my blog :-) Hee, hee. Ok, so I chose two T-Tapp exercise DVD's, the Hit the Floor/Hit the Floor softer combo and the Step Away the Inches 50 minute version. I do believe I will be needing them after this baby comes! And the other thing I really wanted were some Bible marking pens. The Bible highlighters that are out there are the florescent kind, and I'm just not digging those colors. So we ran to Michael's Art store and I found a small pack of nice colored pencils. Crayola wasn't going to work as the leads are too hard and in order for them to make a dark of enough line you would damage the pages. So I got a set of 12 soft leaded colored pencils. I'm really excited about them and digging in once again to mark things in my Bible. I've just been using a pencil for now. Then after that we got some dinner. And after that we ran to Walmart. There are 70 page notebooks on sale for only 5 cents each!!! Run to your nearest Walmart to snatch these up. At the end of this year we ran out of notebooks and I had to go buy 3 or 4 of them. The normal price is 97 cents. Well we just bought almost 50 (yes, I did say 50) for $2.50!!! I'll be looking at those 97 cent ones in a different way now!

Ok, so what happened to the baby news that the title reads.....As we were driving around this baby was doing *something*!!!!! I know that tells you a lot. The only way to describe it was he was trying to wriggle on down or something. He (HE I said, my darling sister ;-)) is really low right now. I mean, low. What does this mean. Well for one, it could mean NOTHING. How encouraging that would be. OR it could mean that he is engaging and getting ready to come out. In which case I really should be in bed by now because it is late. I'm off to take my herbs and go catch some ZZZZZ's. Night all!

Granola bar recipe

OK, before I give out the recipe does any one else notice that floating baby over there with the big fat ZERO under it???? Yeah, I did to! I think that I should be in such a state as to not have seen it. You know the one, lying in bed, propped by pillows, nursing a newborn, sipping water.....not on a computer seeing that there are zero days left till my due date :-) Oh well. So here is the recipe I talked about. Everything in parenthesis is what I add to my granola, everything else is the original recipe.

Granola Bars
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup almonds, chopped
1/4 cup oat bran (I add flax seeds instead)
(1/4 cup sunflower seeds)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup honey
(large spoonfuls of peanut butter, I just scoop it in, maybe a half cup)
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp vegetable oil

1. heat oven to 350
2. Combine oats, bran, almonds, cinnamon (and any other dry goods) in a bowl
3. In another bowl mix oil, honey and extracts (and any other wet ingredients)
4. Pour liquid into the dry mix, and stir
5. Press mix into a 7x9 inch pan
6. Bake 12 minutes
7. Cut into bars
8. Bake another 3-5 minutes, until golden
9. cool on rack

Oh, Yummy! I just had one myself before I typed this up. This is a crunchy granola bar and not the soft chewy kind. But for some reason they are really hitting the spot for me these days.

So looks like another house bound day. I am hoping to get the kids outside. Yesterday I ran out of energy to do that. I need to spray them with some bug spray as the mosquitoes have made their appearance here lately. And that means they need to get washed up afterwards, something I had no energy to do. But Moira is lying on the couch really feeling yucky right now. Hopefully with some Motrin she'll be feeling up to getting some fresh air later.

I had a small job for Isa and Moira to do later, but I may have to do it myself if they are not feeling up to it. For hand dish washing, and for cleaning I use washcloths instead of sponges. We buy the utility pack at Walmart. I do not like the large size so I cut them in half and sew up the raw edge. It has been a while since we last did this and my current wash cloths are literally falling apart. So I had Jeremiah buy some new ones the other night, and I cut them in half. Saoirse had the fun job of cutting all the little tags off! Now we just need to sew them up. This is how I will be keeping myself busy until the baby comes. Doing little things here and there. Yesterday I overextended myself and I am very happy that the baby decided not to come last night as I was tuckered out. I got a good nights sleep last night, and will make sure not to repeat that same mistake yesterday!

Off to start the day!

Money saving ideas

Now here is a change. Between all this sickness and contractions I'm making a post on money saving! BTW the contractions are still coming, but much less intense. Which is a good thing for now as 3 of the 5 kiddos are sick. I did get a good nights sleep last night and I feel like myself today! I am SSSSOOOOO thankful for that! As the girls were getting ready for bed I hoped on the computer. I came across a blog that has money saving ideas on it (specifically in the food budgeting area). You have to scroll down quite a bit to see it, but do check it out. In that post or the one before it she shares some other blogs that have more ideas as well. I was blog hopping and having a blast! Wow, some neat info. Anyways I will post the original blog and you can do your own blog hopping. I am really lazy when it comes to linking things, sorry!!!

http://homeschoolblogger.com/mominpa

Check her blog out, you won't be disappointed. Off to start our day. The first hour was just trying to comfort Jedidiah who was clearly, clearly feeling miserable. Poor little guy. He is feeling better now with a dose of Motrin. I then put together some homemade granola bars. So YUMMY!! I am just loving them. For whatever reason the girls don't care for them, and I say....More for me!!! I found a healthy recipe on line and add a few different goodies, and yummy, yummy. One day when I get the chance I will post the recipe. Now I am off to make some waffles I think. Waffles take much longer than pancakes to make, but the girls really love them, I think more so because we don't have them as often.

Have a great day everyone. I will make sure to post an new news of baby's coming when it comes up.

prayers appeciated

Hi everyone. A second post for today, but a much needed one. Here is the run down. I have been having strong braxton hicks contractions all day. The intensity this evening has gone down, but their frequency hasn't. Now most of you are saying, well thank goodness you can have that baby now! However all day today, with the exception of a couple of hours I have been totally worn out due to this illness. Not a wonderful way to enter into labor. BUT that is not all! This afternoon Isabella came down with a very sore throat. And then I had a yucky feeling in my stomach (aside from the tummy thing I have been dealing with--roll eyes) when I had to wake up Jedidiah from his nap a whole half an hour later than usual. My fears were founded when an hour later he started a fever. He is asleep in our bed, a whole hour earlier than normal. Not to mention he lost his dinner a half an hour into it. SSSsoooooo we need some prayer. At this point the baby may be safe from this cold since I already have it and have antibodies to pass on to the baby. However as mommies we all know that sick kids need their mommies! Obviously I will have nothing to do but sit with children if the baby comes, but you can imagine the stress this puts on the having a newborn situation. I am not really holding out hope that everyone else will escape this, and we are looking at a week long illness. I just wrote an email to our church loop to see if any of the older girls would be willing to come here to watch the kids while I'm in labor. Our first plan was to send them to someone elses house. But then you are exposing a whole household to this bug. Hopefully I will hear back very soon, as it may be very soon that I go into full blown labor. It is possible that the contractions are from the herbs I have been taking. In which case I am making sure not to take any tonight. I am hoping that will give me a good nights rest. All in all we need prayer. I am not sure how this will all work out, but I do know that God is still in control, and I would do well to lean on that!

Thank you all!

Some of this, some of that

Apparently there is still no baby....I can only hope soon as I was an emotional wreck earlier today. It seems that congrats on the baby turning may have been premature. The good news is that the baby DID indeed turn, but I do believe he is back off to my side once again. So I am at least hopeful that it is possible to get this baby in position when labor starts. But I wasn't feeling that way earlier, hence the emotional breakdown. I have to say of all my pregnancies, this is the only one that I am DONE with. No more, I quit. And not because of any discomforts or anything like that. Just this baby position stuff is wearing me out. I need to get some knee pads if this baby doesn't come out soon.

An interesting side about the garlic lemonade. I am making the assumption that it was the lemonade that had this effect on me, but now actual evidence. Over the past few weeks I have not had ankles. Ok, I have them, ,you just couldn't see them. Now I am only comparing this to what is normal for me. I have pretty bony wrists and ankles and it was odd not to see those bones poking out. Not to mention my feet were puffy. So after the first day of all that lemonade I started throwing off water. And I now I ankles again! I have to look up and see if lemons are natural diuretics. Either way, I have my ankles back. I wasn't expecting them back until about three days post partum.

In Jedidiah news, it just gets worse. I didn't write that I weighed him the other day and we are back to square ONE, where we started before he started on the Nystatin. His is still throwing up once a day or every other day. Either way it's too much. I decided to try a more natural remedy on his g-tube as the Desitin seemed to only do so much. Well not half a day goes by and it looks worse!! Shall I scream now.....or how about.......now? To top it off it seems that when his weight gets too low compared to his height, he is once again top heavy. He took two falls today. One he actually tripped on something, landing face first on the floor, producing a fat, bloody lip. The other he was running outside and his head got ahead of him and he took a dive. Thankfully he just got dirty and wasn't hurt. All of this has been getting the best of me today and it was just extremely upsetting watching him get hurt. All kids trip and fall, but his head is too heavy for him to catch before it hits the ground. Ok, enough of my having a pity party.

Ok, I lied, I have one more pity party tid-bit. I finally made Saoirse an apron. All I had left to do was sew on two buttons and cut the button hole. I tried cutting the first button hole and it proved difficult since there was multiple layers to cut through. So I try, and try and then decided I needed to obviously put a little more oomph into it. And I put too much oomph into it and cut about three inches of the top of the apron strap. I repaired it by zig zag stitching it, with the consolation that nobody will see it since it's in the back. But I just about cried. The apron did come out cute. I can't say that I care a lot for the pattern. I am not sure if it's because the pattern didn't fit the material I had bought for it, or that I don't care for how the waist band attaches to the apron. It's just not a favorite. I would make it again if another child wanted one, but I'm not too keen on it. I made a couple of adjustments. The pattern calls for lace edging and I decided to put a bias tape edging on the bottom and a rick rack edging on the top, plus I added rick rack to the pockets. I had this pink fabric with some whimsical flowers on it, but Saoirse ran into the back room and pulled out the below fabric instead. For some reason when I see this apron I first think of my great grandmother on my father's side. I'm not sure why, and it's not a bad thing as it brings back many good memories and smells. But it's kind of weird!

So here are some pics from tonight.

Here is Saoirse with her new apron on. I made it in the size 5-6. With patterns you never know what fit you will get. That is why it is essential to measure before hand. I did not do that and am happy that the size is pretty true to what we would consider 5-6.

The apron on its own. Thankfully you can't see the mess up I had with it. It's a cute apron.


Flannery wanted in on the picture taking. Not sure why she is standing like she is. She's one silly cookie sometimes. She is a camera ham! She loves getting her picture taken!

Here are the oldest two with dad, ready to dive into their history lesson. Isabella has been growing out her bangs and all of them, except that tuft, can now be pulled behind her ears.

This is a picture of Moira's apron I made for her. The long thin straps criss cross in the back, and go through the dark blue ribbon loops and then tie behind the back. The ribbons are a cute idea, but not practical. I will already have to replace them as one has ripped out. I think I will just make a loop from some of the extra left over material. Overall I like how it came out. I do think the pockets could be larger. This pattern said it came in multiple sizes. I was expecting to be like Saoirse's with *many* different sizes. But it came in two, one for a child up to size 8 and then misses. I made the misses for Moira.

Garlic Lemonade

This in particular is for my friend Isabelle. But I thought I would just put it up here as I had a feeling I was going to get more requests for it :-)

Garlic Lemonade:
4 cups of water
4 bulbs of garlic
1-2 lemons
4-8 tbs honey

Bring the water to a boil. While waiting for water to boil, peel and coarsely chop the garlic. Once boiling, take the water off heat source, add the garlic and cover the pot. Let steep at least 30 minutes (I let it steep longer). Add lemon juice from lemons, and add honey to taste. I personally use only 4 tbs and find it sweet enough. Sip throughout the day while sick. I have really found it helpful!

Another thing I have been doing is a "breathing treatment". I bring a pot of water to boil, then add 1 tsp of ground goldenseal. I then use a towel to put over my head to create a tent and breath in the steam. I can not take goldenseal internally as it could start labor (I'm thinking that wouldn't be such a bad thing!). And I had heard you could do this instead. I had burning in my sinuses and this took it away. I have been doing it three times a day. The deal with natural remedies is that they work the best if started at the first sign of illness. Waiting till you are totally miserable won't get as great of results. Not that there won't be any results, but not as pronounced. Jeremiah, who is much sicker than I and had been sick for a few days (he went on antibiotics, but they are not working) has been doing the garlic and it has helped him.

In other news I have been spending a lot of time to get my half way posterior baby to turn its back to my front. It was discouraging to read that most baby's placentas attach to the back of your uterus and that babies favor facing their placentas. My placenta is attached to the front of my uterus. And so the baby has spent the past four months off the my left side, not fully posterior, but not in the optimal anterior position for labor and delivery. I'm thinking I didn't need to have read that information! Oh well, I am still doing all I can to get this baby to turn. It is not the most comfortable to be head down when you have a cold! Off to do more hands and knees!

More birthday celebrations

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOIRA!!!


Today Moira turned nine! It turned out to be a decent day, although not the most perfect. Jeremiah and I are both sick, and we spent a lot of time on the couch. But the girls got to decorate the dining room, make and decorate the cake and then go outside to play with the water hose. We had a steak, mashed potatoe and cranberry sauce dinner. Jeremiah gets a kick out of the fact that each girl asks for cranberry sauce for their birthday dinner. After dinner Moira got to open her gifts. Then we ate cake. The cake is a picture of a collie, a theme Moira picked for her day. So here are the pictures of the celebration:

Here is the birthday girl with her birthday sign. She wanted a dog theme, and she got it!


Here is the clan (minus Jeremiah who is taking the picture) in our decorated dining room. Compliments of Isabella.


This is a gift from Isabella. One day Moira asked her what happened to Isabella's dog and Isabella told her that she left it at someone elses house. Smart thinking. The dog and her new owner. Happy together.

Here is a gift from Nana and Grandpa. She got a book (in front of her) and this beautiful red headed doll. The funny thing is that Jedidiah was just as excited as the other girls were to see her. The girls all have baby dolls and Jedidiah has NEVER taken one iota of an interest in them. But this little doll....he just kept asking for it. Too funny.

Here is the birthday girl and her sisters. Moira is wearing my gift, which is an apron. It is hard to see the top as it blends in with her green t-shirt. I am very glad that it fits well.

Here are Isa and Moira modeling with their cake creation. It is a picture of a collie head. It is hard to make out the nose, but they did a very good job. Moira was excited to use the letter candles. They melted very quickly! Hurry, sing quick before the cake burns! Ha, ha.

So it was a wonderful evening. Things are winding down. I am very much looking forward to bed. Not because I am actually tired, but my body just feels worn out from trying to kick this illness. Our new brew here is garlic lemonade. It sounds weird, but actually tastes decent. You drink it warm. The garlic has lots of illness fighting good stuff, and the lemons have lots of vitamin C. It is sweetened with honey to taste. It is a very comforting drink. Jeremiah and I have downed quite a few cups of it since last night. We will all be staying home from church tomorrow. On a regular day going to church wears me out. I LOVE going, but between getting all the kids ready on time, and getting a lunch meal to take with us for the buffet fellowship we have afterwards, then afterwards just watching the kids outside....well by the time I get home I am worn out. So in an effort to continue on towards health before this baby gets here we will be staying home. Thankfully we can Skype in! So we can listen live to our service. Very neat!

The Pictures I Promised

I know you were all holding your breath! Ha, ha. By the way, no baby yet. I do have a picture we took today of me very pregnant. I don't think the picture shows just how big I *feel*. My midwife's guess is that the baby is only about six and a half pounds right now. I'm thinking more like seven and a half. We'll see who is right soon. We have been very blessed to have my aunt send us her camera to use. We couldn't get one right away, and would have missed Jedidiah's birthday, and the possibility of this baby's birthday as well. But we did get another one in. I used it today for the first time. I got a really great shot of Jedidiah. Totally cute! And don't worry Aunt Annette, your camera will still be in very active duty :-) I won't ramble on too much more :-)

Here is Isabella modeling the new chair/ironing board/step stool combo thingie I talked about earlier. This is in it's chair mode. I have a better picture of the chair, but was getting really impatient for Blogger to upload my pictures and this will just have to do for now.

Here is our lovely model again being silly. This is the ironing board mode. If you continue to flip the back of the chair downwards you will then have the step stool. It is a nice high step stool. Good for me, bad for children if they fall off.

And here is little miss peach, Saoirse. She is a ham in front of a camera. This came out really cute. I love the look of her eyes. So full of life, and joy. She is one happy kiddo. As long as none of her sisters cross her path that is!

Here is the really great picture of Jedidiah. Oh, he is just too cute for words here.

A boy and his car....and blocks. He loves blocks. And he loves anything with wheels on it. So here he is with both! Just a cute picture.

And here is the resident pregnant lady. Most of the time people will say that a picture didn't do someone justice, well I think I was given a lot of grace with this one. I was surprised to see that I don't look as big as I feel. At least from the camera's angle. Not too much longer. My midwife asked if I wanted to make another appointment for next week. I really hesitated. I mean if I make one then that might mean I'll *have* to keep it, meaning the baby won't be here. But if I don't make one then the baby can come before that appointment time (that I didn't make). Please note we were totally joking about this. I did make an appointment, which happens to be two days after the baby is due. There will be issues if this baby decides to hold out till then :-) Well there you have it. I can't wait to share Moira's birthday sign and gift with you all. That is if we don't have a baby tomorrow or on her birthday. I'll be too busy if that is the case. Moira thinks it would be the neatest thing to share a birthday. I'm thinking that she may think that now, but give her a few years, and we'll see how she feels then! Ha, ha. Night all!

Update on Jed's infection

So I got the call today from the nurse. His g-tube site is infected with a bacterial infection (the fungal test will take another week and a half to get back). I was first told that it is a common GI bacterial infection that is resistant to all antibiotics. She said that the two creams we had though should take care of it. I told her that it just got worse with those! I asked a few questions and she just got back to me this afternoon. Here I was trying to figure out what natural means we were going to use to eradicate this bacteria.....come to find out that the bacteria is a normal part of your GI tract. But for Jedidiah it got into his skin, I suppose it is supposed to stay put in his tummy. So we are to continue with the current treatment plan, which is the hydrogen peroxide/ water wash and the Desitin cream. So far we have had the most success with that. The one side is still a bit pink, but much better than what it had been. So that still does not answer why he has been throwing up. He threw up yesterday morning. I seemed to notice that if I put his feeding down to 250 mls he does not throw up, but if I put it up to 300 mls he does throw up. This is a real bummer as he has been at the 300 volume for a few months now. I guess we will keep him at the lower level for now over the next two weeks or so and then slowly build back up. I really am at a loss as to why he would be throwing up now. He's been off the antibiotic for a week now, so that can't be it. And he's been off the Nystatin for the last three days. Sooooooo, it's more of the waiting game, and trying this, and trying that to see if we can't get back to where we were which was gaining some really great weight. I think I will weigh him again in a day or two and see if he is back at making progress. OK, enough rambling about Jed's health issues. This does help me to record these things though because then I have dates, weights, and things that we are trying (what is or is not working).

On other fronts, poor Jeremiah is sick with some throat thing. He's feeling really bad. I'm thinking of putting everyone in a bubble so no one else gets sick :-) I really, really do not want to be sick myself while in labor. And you know only a mommy can do in a time of sickness and if we have a house full of sick kiddos, and a one or two day old baby.....well.....all I can say is I did NOT sign up for that :-)

I have everything ready here at home. All the meals are done. The cleaning is done. Not all the spring cleaning necessarily, but the general cleaning. I do not want to tackle anything heavy knowing that this baby is coming any day. I am doing a couple of little things on the spring cleaning list here and there, but I am definitely not in full all out cleaning mode. Speaking of baby, today was the day I picked for this baby to be born. And well, we do have quite a few hours left in the day....but there seems to be no sign of a baby coming. Don't ANY of my children listen to me? LOL They start off disobedient right in the womb! I tell ya! Well the next date picked was Moira's birthday which is this Saturday the 12th. We shall see what happens. I really, really (did I say really?) don't want to go late. That would be torture for sure. So this baby has been served it's eviction notice, let's hope that it complies :-)

I hope to put up some pictures tonight. I have an appointment with my midwife tonight, so I'll see how awake I am to do so. I really wanted to make a quick apron for this Saturdays trade day. Someone from church is setting up one day a month that we can all make something to trade. We will get so many tickets based on the value of the item/s we come with. Then we use those tickets to "buy" other peoples goods. It sounds like a lot of fun. We may have to wait till next months trade day.

Jedidiah's doctors appointment

So the appointment went as expected. Our family doctor took two cultures, one for bacteria the other for fungal. Jed only has one day left of the Nystatin and so the plan is to finish it off. His g-tube site is looking better, so we are to continue with the peroxide/water cleaning and then put on Desitin. Yes, Desitin, the diaper cream. The cream has zinc in it which can fight off bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Our doctor has recommended this cream for a number of ailments. The funny thing is I never really found it to work really great. Then yesterday he said to make sure we got the *original* Desitin, not the creamy one as that one doesn't work. Ahhhhh, we've been buying the creamy one, so that explains it! The grand plan is to wait till the cultures come back to see what the next step will be. There are a couple of possibilities as to why Jedidiah was throwing up. And until we get the cultures back we would just be making stabs. And those stabs could cause more problems. So we wait. While we were there I wanted to ask a quick question about Flannery. Her lymph nodes were swollen under her ears, and the left side was painful. I thought maybe it could have been from getting her ears pierced. And just wanted to know if that was the problem. My goodness I think that took up most of the appointment! Her ears were completely blocked by wax. The doctor wanted them to be cleaned out so he could get a look in there as he was very surprised at how big one of her lymph nodes was. Well we couldn't get that wax to come out. Not to mention Flannery kept crying that it hurt. And getting your ears cleaned should not hurt. So going on those things it is highly probable that she has an outer ear infection that is residing behind the wax. This explains why only recently she has been freaking out about getting a bath. She's been afraid of getting water in her ear. So we are doing some things here at home to try to break up the wax, and then have to put some antibiotic drops in her ears as well. Goodness, what a day it was. To top it all off I got sick that morning with some tummy thing, and was couch ridden for a while. Then I was feeling better, but the afternoon of the doctors and heading to the store totally wore me out, putting me on the couch all evening. Jeremiah cooked dinner for me, so I just had to get up and eat. I hit the hay very early and I feel like myself again. Phew!

This morning I was up early and getting some small things done. We have a messy house to clean today. Before I began I figured I would cut out an apron pattern for Saoirse. When I had made the girls their aprons she was only a baby, so she is the only one who doesn't have one. I got some cute material to make one for her while I was out at Joanne's the other day. Well wouldn't you know that the makers of the apron pattern messed up. The pattern pieces do NOT fit the material at all!!!! I don't know what these people were thinking. I will have to wait till I can make another trip to buy some more of the material that I have so I can make it. I may just have Jeremiah take the piece I have and get it after work soon. As I don't have much time left before I will be VERY busy and not able to make anything. All my day will be consumed with is feeding, diapers, dressing, washing.... :-) It is amazing how much work one little bitty person makes :-)

Ok, off I go to tackle my work. I started taking pictures of the new ironing board combo thingie, but the camera batteries died. The other ones we had charged do not work anymore, so I charged some more last night. They do work, but I don't have time to take pictures, download them etc. Maybe later tonight.

Our 4th of July weekend

We had a wonderful weekend. Jeremiah had Friday off. It started off kind of blah actually, but the day turned around and we all had a wonderful rest of the day. We got some things done here, then went to Walmart to get the kids another kiddie pool. The adopted cat popped the last one. Silly kitty. We also got some sparklers for later that night. It was really muggy out and I was wilting. This is pretty big as I don't tend to wilt :-) But after 15 minutes outside I had to go in. We were on the porch for those 15 minutes with a new bubble blower for Jedidiah. He LOVES bubbles. He was having a blast. Then Jeremiah took the girls in the pool. We had some hamburgers, potatoe salad and a lovely decorated pound cake. I have pictures to hopefully share. Our computer has been having problems with our USB port. We were kind of hemming and hawing about going to fire works as it had been sooooo muggy out. But a storm was coming and it was actually windy outside and it was a wonderful night for bug free, cool, fireworks. Yeah! Jedidiah loved them! I am sure our girls made the most noise there! We came home and everyone crashed into bed.

Saturday I got my bathroom cleaned, FINALLY. I really wanted that done before the baby came. Jeremiah and I were looking online for a gift for Moira. We couldn't find one that we liked, and the ones we did like were too expensive. So I went off to Joanne fabrics, all by myself I might add, to buy a pattern and material to make a gift myself. You will all have to wait till her birthday this weekend before I can share what it was I made her, along with pictures. The girls read my blog, so I can't share any secrets :-) It was a quick and easy project. I worked on it last night and this afternoon. With the exception of a very small finishing touch, I am done with it.

Today, Sunday, was church. It was a small crowd with lots of people on vacation, or in one case one woman was in labor. The funny thing was there was a mix up about a supposed order we made for this chair/step stool/ironing board combo. Jeremiah had wanted one, but he didn't actually order one. Well we got one today! A young man (14 maybe) makes them. He and his family are from Virginia. They were a wonderful family to talk to. I have to take a picture of it soon. It is getting too late to do so right now. I am really excited about having an ironing board. And the step stool is higher than what we have here, which can really come in handy. PLUS we now have an extra seat to pull up to the table when company comes! Can't beat the combination!

Tomorrow I will be making an appointment for Jedidiah with our family doctor. I am hoping to get a culture done on his g-tube site due to what has been going on with him. Too long to go into at the moment. The poor kiddo threw up this evening. At least is wasn't every feeding all day, but still! I did notice that he has outgrown his sandals! So he is growing. I have to weigh him tomorrow and I am dreading that. I am afraid to look to see what the numbers will say. Hopefully we can get this sorted out very soon, as in before the baby comes!! As it is Jedidiah has an appointment with Neurology the day after my due date. I really want to get as much under control before the baby comes. I would really like to see this get sorted out and get him back on track to gaining weight. Clearly the Nystatin did something wonderful as he gained such great weight. But now the Nystatin or a bacterial infection is causing problems, which I believe is why he is throwing up. I was thinking it was due to the antibiotic, and it very may well be, but in a different way than I first thought. But hopefully a culture will give us the information we will need to go forward.

Ok, it's late. Later than I had expected to stay up. Even though I am not really tired, I do have to be careful as I won't know when I will go into labor and being as well rested as possible is the wisest thing to do at this point.

The girls and their decorated pound cake. That cake was demolished soon after!

This is the reason we do NOT leave our porch light on at night. Because if you do (which one of the girls must not have read that memo) and you open the door, well things like this come in!! Monster fly! We had five of them in here. Not all that big, but still, YUCK!!

Jedidiah has really taken to doing somersaults, and jumping and climbing, and.....Here he is having some fun.

All fall down! Look at that precious laugh! Excuse his unbuttoned bottoms. It is sometimes easier to just leave them undone. Between his feedings, diaper changes, extra g-tube cleanings, AND baths (due to throwing up) it seems pretty pointless to button them only to turn around 10 minutes later to undue them again.

Have a wonderful day!

A busy day

Whew! What a busy day we had yesterday! I am hoping that today will be just as busy, but with other goals to be met. Before I go on, please all stop by Moira's blog, she put up a new post.

So yesterday was full and here is what I was able to accomplish:
At breakfast I made up an extra batch of pancakes for the freezer. The girls did school, I checked their work. We went outside for a bit, it was very nice out. Jedidiah played in a muddy puddle most of the time :-) So it was baths all around when we got in. I made bread for our lunch. We folded up and put away all the laundry. I had about 4 loads waiting to be folded. We had to run out and get our goats milk. We stayed for just a bit to chat. When we got home I was able to use the milk for some recipes that I was waiting to get to. So I made two dozen blueberry muffins, for the freezer. I also made up our dinner, which was twice baked potatoes. I made extra so that we have two dinners worth in the freezer. And I put together three dinners worth of sloppy joes. We were going to go to prayer meeting, but it was getting late. And unfortunately at the very end of my pregnancies I hate to be separated from my family. I was going to stay home with Jedidiah and the two youngest girls since Jedidiah didn't have a nap today, and his tummy was upset (from his meds I believe). But Jeremiah decided on another plan.....we all go out for ice cream! Yum! So out we went, then home we came. Got Jed to bed and we did family worship before sending the girls off to bed themselves. And as Moira says, "The End."

So my focus today is to rearrange my freezer. There is NO room left in it. Part of the space is being taken up by bread products to go with our meals. I suppose I should have just waited till we needed them. The only problem is I don't want Jeremiah to keep making store runs every other day after the baby! There are a couple of things that I will take out to eat this week, not any of the precooked food. I want to make up two more dozen blueberry muffins. And when our bananas ripen I want to make four dozen banana muffins. Muffins are a great snack the kids can get on their own. Along with any extra pancakes we have left over with our breakfasts, that is all the extra food I intend to make before the baby comes. Then I want to tackle the cleaning of the bathrooms, and mop the kitchen floor. I also have an appointment with my midwife. She had to cancel out Saturday appointment as she had a birth to go to. Today marks 38 weeks, so only two weeks left! Although I am thinking I will go about a week to 4 days early. Just my guess. Jeremiah's guess is the 7th and all the girls are rooting for the 12th, which is Moira's b-day. I told Moira that if that happens she will be having a late birthday party :-) But she says she doesn't care, because she'll have a baby for her present. LOL I want to get the kids outside as well, since this coming weekend we have days of rain forcasted. I am sure it is only the evening storm type of rains, but still, it would be good to get them out with the nice weather.

Ok, off to make a yummy breakfast.....juicy eggs and hash browns, YUM!

An interesting picture

For anyone who has followed our laundry saga, this picture will make complete sense to you. And if not, you can still appreciate it if you are the laundry care taker of your home :-)



What do you notice about these laundry baskets? Anyone? Maybe you said, "Kerri, with the exception of one pink shirt, they are EMPTY." Well by golly you would be right, they are EMPTY!!! It has only taken me two weeks and a couple of days to get ALL of our laundry washed/re-washed (and multiple times I might add to try to kill off the mold). I just ordered that new product I talked about earlier. It should arrive in a week. I am very eager to try it out. For now I am washing things with our regular laundry soap with some added drops of tea tree oil. Then drying as usual.

The Rest of the Birthday day

It was too late to post the rest of the Birthday pictures. It was shopping day all around (for Jeremiah and I), so we had a late dinner. I was thinking we might have wanted to go with the cake first, then dinner, just because once Jedidiah's tummy is full....well it's full! And I was right. We ate dinner first, and he ended up taking a few licks of icing off the cake and that was it. The girls planned, cut and decorated the cake, which was a tractor. They did an awesome job. Jedidiah loved, LOVED his birthday gifts. He got a few books, a hat, some toy trucks and balls. ALL his favorite things. He is just beside himself with glee. When we wake up each morning we usually just hang out on the couch for a bit, or he may get down and just kind of find this or that to busy himself with quietly. Not this morning!!! As soon as he laid eyes on his birthday toys he pushed himself away from me to get down, then ran over and has not stopped going, going, going since :-) Here are the pictures:

The birthday tractor. The smiley face cup cake is the farmer. That's the piece that Jedidiah got.

Here's Jedidiah waving at the candle. I'm not sure what he was doing, but he was having a lot of fun doing it!

This is how Jedidiah was looking at us while we were singing "Happy Birthday" to him. I wonder what that says about our singing?

Here's Jedidiah's lick of the cake! He was pretty happy to have his own piece of cake. He just didn't actually eat it. Oh well, maybe next year. He didn't eat his birthday cake last year either. I will be so happy when he eats like a normal child!

Jedidiah's new hat. He loves it! He fell in love with another boy's hat from church, and he had cried and cried when we had to leave and he had to leave the hat behind. So now he has his own.

And this is what he did whenever he wore the hat. He kept running around in circles, we think he was pretending to ride a pony.

I wish I could have gotten a better angle so you could see his face. He was sooooo excited when he opened this gift.

Here's an action shot. I think he got a kick of the football as it's not shaped like a normal ball. He tried them all out. Thankfully we don't have any breakable things hanging out around the house!

Reading time with Daddy. He got some new books about vehicles, and one about eating.

One of his new trucks. He sat there forever just pushing it back and forth. He just sat in that one spot, moving the truck back and forth. Too funny. You can see he had one truck for each hand. He was generous enough to let the other truck be played with by someone else :-)

We also got him some stacking cups, as he loves to stack and knock things down. I was able to get him in the middle of knocking down this tower. He had a great evening. I let him stay up a bit late so that he could have some time to play with his new toys. But by bed time he was tired. When I told him it was time to stop playing and go to bed he let out a disappointed whine, but stood up and climbed on the couch to get a diaper change, and the rest of his bedtime routine. He was one sleepy boy.

It's Birthday Time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEDIDIAH!!!!!

I put up Jedidiah's birthday sign before I went to bed last night. I was awoken to sounds of roaring. I guess the big difference between when girls and boys get excited is that girls squeal with delight and boys roar with delight! It was too cute! He loves his sign and kept pointing to it and saying his word for tractor. We have a busy day ahead for us, and I wanted to be sure to at least get his birthday sign picture up.

Here's Mr. Smiley! He was very eager to be a ham this morning :-) He's the BIG 2!!!

I was trying to catch him pointing to the tractor, which he did many times, I just happened to not catch any of those times. This was immediately after he pointed to the green tractor on the bottom of the sign. I am wondering if he will be able to go to sleep for his nap with so much to look at. LOL