A lot to catch up on

Phew! What a week. It has been busy and full. We are enjoying our time off of school. I have been able to accomplish a few things, although it always seems that when you accomplish one thing another thing decides to come undone. Oy. We had a very quite Christmas Eve. I felt out of sorts seeing as how I believe it's one of the first times we did not celebrate it traditionally. Normally there is turkey and perogies. This time we had sub sandwiches! The girls opened their gifts from my parents. You can see them below with their new dresses on. We also received a wonderful telescope from my Aunt. The girls are so excited to see the night sky up close. We gave Jedidiah his gifts from us on the 24th as well. He seems to really enjoy chomping on the cooled teethers. Speaking of Jedidiah, he is doing well with his weight. We gave him his first solid food today. It was rice cereal. You can look at the pictures below and judge for yourself if he liked it or not. Christmas Day Jerry's parents came over to celebrate. WE had a traditional meal that day. They gave the girls an incredible gift. Their very own puppet theater. Unfortunately the pictures didn't come out too great, but you can get the idea of how it looks.
I made a skirt for Flannery. I started on it last night and finished it this morning. I love it! It came out exactly how I wanted, it is very easy to do, no paper pattern to have to work with. And practically no cutting (you tear the stips). They have similar skirts that we bought for them last year that are worn out because they wear them all the time. This is much cheaper and they can have them in any color they want. I am sure there is a bunch more that I am forgetting to write about. But for now I have to get the girls some lunch. Enjoy the pictures.





















Isabella's Christmas outfit.





















Moira's Christmas outfit.





















Flannery's Christmas outfit.





















Saoirse's Christmas outfit. With a silly look to go along with it!
















Jedidiah playing with his just opened Christmas present. He looks too cute.
















Jedidiah is not too sure about this big boy thing. He's wearing Jerry hat.
















The production cast and members. The girls played out the Christmas story (the Biblical one, not the "shoot your eye out one") for all of us.





















Jedidiah getting a taste of some "yummy" rice cereal. I think there is a reason why adults don't eat this stuff.




















If babies could talk I am sure Jedidiah is saying something along the lines of: You've got to be kidding! I'm supposed to eat this stuff?!?




















Flannery's 3 tierd skirt. I plan on making all the girls one with the fabric I have on hand, then we will go to Walmart to buy some of the material that Flannery's skirt is made of. They had the same pattern in different colors. This way they can wear "matching" skirts without me having to figure out whose is whose (I don't plan on putting tags in them).

Jedidiah's gaining weight

We had our midwife come over today to weigh Jedidiah. He was an even 10 pounds two weeks ago and today he was about 10 pounds and 7 ounces. So that's a bigger gain than he's had in quite a while. My midwife had mentioned how some moms take their babies to the chiropracters for adjustments and have seen improvements with their latch on. So Jerry had an appointment for himself this evening and I asked him to call to see if the adjust babies. They do and told him to bring the baby in when he came. So there was just his very top vertabrea that was out of whack. I didn't even notice that she adjusted him, but she had. She said its a very little movement. She told me to expect him to be fussy this evening, but that he wouldn't be in pain. I am glad she told me that because he was one fussy little muffin tonight! Oy! But he's asleep now and I am hoping he will get some good rest in.

We just started our two week break today. We started our day with having to go to the farm nearby to get our milk. While there some of their goats and sheep decided that the grass was greener on the other side of their fence and escaped. The girls had a lot of fun with the farmer's kids rounding up the animals. Plus they had made soap and we got to take home a free bar. The soap is made almost entirely of the things they have on the farm, or from other farmers. I can't wait to use it. I still really want to make my own someday. I need to start looking for the equipment at the Good Will or garage sales.

So then after our farm adventure we had our midwife come over. Then I decided we really needed to dive into some training sessions. The neat thing about the sessions is they can be really fun. I have a few new ideas to try this time around. The girls have been having a hard time talking kindly to one another. So I brought out our ABC tiles. I had them take turns picking a letter tile and then they had to think of a word that starts with that letter that could be something nice to say about someone. For example the letter "L" they thought of "love" and used it to say I love you.

I am not sure if I have any other pictures to share. I've lost track. I have been trying to continue reading the online book. Not to mention that we are really going to revamp our diet. I have had a hard time trying to figure out the exact type of diet that I want to go for. I think I have come to a good mixture of what I've read. If my copy/paste is still working I'll link you to the site. I think I would want to make sure there are more raw foods each day, but I do want to make sure to "treat" my grains and make keifer and other homemade milk products with our raw milk. The first article was called Nutrition 101. If you visit her site soon it should still be on the first page at the bottom. If not then it may get put to another page as she puts up new posts. But it's a neat site. Go to: http://musings-of-a-mountain-mama.blogspot.com/index.html

We are still here

It's been a bit since my last post. We are all well, just been busy. I spent two full days cleaning like mad! I shoved all (almost all) the girls' toys in one room and locked the room. Then Jerry and I attacked our bedroom. And we actually have a real bedroom and not a storage room! Yeah! I have been keeping up with school as well. My next "project" to tackle would be to start training the girls in their chore cards. I will also be training them in general as well. We have a lot of work to do. Things have been a bit slack here lately. I took a bunch of pictures over the week and wanted to share. I will try to see if I can put captions under them. I have an idea of how I can do it, but it may take me a while.

BTW---Angie, I tried to send you message on your blog, but it was down. I've been reading it.

And----April, I received your letter and wrote you one as well, but it's still sitting on my kitchen counter to be sent out. I really need to get a system down for mail. I'll get it to you soon though.

Ok so here's our week in photos:




















Isabella and Moira took it upon themselves to clean the kitchen. They got a nice reward for their effort.
















The girls made up shops. This is Isabella's "The Baby Shop". She got out all of Jedidiah's clothing and put them on the chairs to be bought. Moira made a pet shop as you can see below. She used the chairs as little cubbies for the animal.
















Flannery shopping in Moira's Pet Shop.




















Jedidiah and Moira. Jedidiah is sporting his new Winnie the Pooh outfit from Dziadzi and Grandma Jo. It's a 0-3 months size, which he still fits into!!




















Saoirse being cute. She has been watching her sisters put on their kerchief and wanted one on for herself, but she put it on backwards. Too funny.




















Isabella being a big sister and holding her little brother. A cute match.

So that's all I have for now. Jedidiah is being a bit fussy today. I think he has the same thing his sisters had this week, some stomach pain. Thankfully it was only tummy pain and not the all out stomach bug!

F.M.I.T.

Now what do those letters stand for you may be asking yourself. I couldn't decide between F.M.I.T or F.M.A. for a while, but chose one finally. If you scroll down to see the pictures I've tacked on to this post, you may have an idea. If not I'll let you know: Future Mommies In Training. The other one was for Future Mommies of America. But since there is soooo mych training that goes on I thought my final choice was more fitting. The girls have been carrying around their baby dolls all day. They have nursed them when I nursed Jedidiah. They have changed their dolls' diapers. They have put them down for naps....etc. They did this all on their own by the way. They told me that they want to learn how to take care of babies so they would do everything I was doing. Not only that but they even helped me cook dinner with their babies in their slings!!! I wish I had gotten pictures of that.

We have had a much better day than yesterday. Jedidiah was back to his normal self after spending the whole day yesterday being overtired. I have been trying to tackle the house and at the same time spend bits here and there getting the Jesse tree ornaments made. I need to catch up. One of the snags I had encountered was that the "tree" we used was felt glued to felt. Well the glue didn't hold up during the year of storage and I decided to sew it on. But that just takes more time. Plus I have to sew the snaps on around the tree so we can "hang" up the ornaments. But all this work is paying off. The tree looks great and the girls are having fun with it.

Speaking of fun. It seems we are taking a good turn towards our goals for our family. I don't want to make this too long as I need to get Flannery to bed. Last year or so we had purchased a book by the Maxwell's called "Summer with the Moodys". It is a children's chapter book that is very wholesome and Christian. Well at the time the girls had been watching too much T.V. So every time it was time to read the book they would whine about it. Well a few months later I was on the Maxwell's site (www.titus2.com) and saw that they had another book out to make a series to the first. This one was called "Fall with the Moodys". I was excited about it as I really enjoyed to first book. I figured that the girls would balk at the idea of getting it though. I showed them the book (on line) and they kept asking if we could get it. I wondered why as they didn't seem to enjoy the first one. So the second book came and by this time we had cut way back on our T.V. intake. They really enjoyed it and looked forward to reading it. Well we just got done reading the third book in the series (anyone want to take a guess at it's title? ...."Winter with the Moodys"). This time around we are not watching any T.V. I can't believe the difference in their attitudes about this book!!! They were begging me to read it! When I couldn't read it due to allergy problems, Isabella took over. Not only that but they have been acting like the Moody children. Which I assure you is a REALLY GOOD thing. I found Isabella in her bed reading her Bible on her own. They have been very attentive to serve others at the dinner table and other things that they have read in the book. It is amazing! They will have a "Spring with the Moodys" coming out sometime and I will be right there ready to order it when it comes out!

Ok need to go. Here are our Mommies in training:

Spokes of a Wheel

I took this cute picture just a minute ago. We took a similar one when Saoirse was a newborn. I didn't have them lined up just right, but you get the idea (where my post's title comes from). We will have a busy weekend of cleaning. Isabella has a birthday party to go to. Plus grocery shopping. I still have to finish making the Jesse Tree ornaments. We were supposed to start the tree this week but every night something has come up. We will be starting it tonight, and then on Sunday we will light the first Advent candle.

The things kids think up

We had gone out to dinner last night and the kids each got a kids meal. At the place we went they give the meal in a old fashioned car. The girls came home and decided to make an entire city out of the living room for their cars and drivers. Now normally the markers are for drawing, but here they have turned them into a road. Check out the parking spaces in front of the doll house!! Too funny. I have included a cute pic of Jedidiah.

I have been doing a ton of reading on failure to thrive babies. I am not sure if that is the case with Jedidiah, but he is just so small. My midwife will be coming over after the weekend to weigh him. She'd come sooner but she is sick. Once I know if he's gaining properly or not will help me to know if we need to do anything extra for him on an ongoing basis. I am still going to keep the extra fat in my diet as he just needs more! He's a skinny little fella. Jerry found a site that went into detail about MSPI which stands for milk/soy protein intolerance. It seems to fit the bill. It says that each child you have will have a worse case of it. I know if I even have one small sip of milk Jedidah will be crying for hours the next day. So it will be worth it to cut out all possible milk and soy products. Not that I have much (sour cream, some parmesean cheese) but some of it may be hidden in the foods I eat. It can't hurt to try.

Well I need to go start my day.....

Some finds

Well the past few months since we've moved we have visited two parks. The one we used to go to, which is now 15-20 minutes away, or one that is about 8 minutes away. The closer one has a basketball hoop, and climbing structure, but no swings. The one farther away has swings but no basketball hoop. Well the other day we wanted to take the girls out to ride their bikes. Jerry thought we should just go to the church that was 1 mile away. So we did, and we found out they have a playground! It has swings AND a basketball hoop. The basketball hoop is important to Isabella who has taking a liking to basketball. But the other kids want to be able to swing. So a big win!

The other "find" was a game. We are reading a great Christian kids book series. In the recent book the two boys play Battleship. I told the girls how my sister and I played that when we were kids. Then a toy catalog came in and Isabella pointed out that they sold Battleship. I thought it would be a neat game for them, but we couldn't get it right now. Then it dawned on me. You can play Battleship on paper. We have graph paper. So I pulled out a few pieces and now Isabella and Moira want to play that each day!

Ummm, an explaination

Ok, OK, SOME People...(aka my sister!) brought up the fact that my children do not have any bed sheets on their beds in the below picture. I thought about that after I loaded the pics to my blog, but thought no one would notice. Well that was my hope anyways :-) So for all those interested in knowing and thinking they have to send my poor deprived children sheet sets for Christmas, my children do in deed have sheets. They had taken them off to change them, but got distracted, had company and we had to just toss their "stuff" up on the bed so it would be off the floor. Soooo that is just the temporary state of their beds. And believe it or not Jerry found all the rest of our "missing" sheets the other day. I had packed them one of the bins that had something like 9 mo. baby girl clothes in them. There was extra room at the top so I loaded it up with our sheets, no reason to take up one of the other cardboard boxes when we were moving. But alas I had forgotten I did that, and we had been lacking in sheets (they still had some, but just one per bed).

OH, a big PTL (that's Praise The Lord).....Jedidiah is up to 10 pounds now!!! Yeah!!!! So all the extra protein and fat that I am adding to my diet is working! I am so happy. He's been so small for so long that I can't imagine him being any bigger than he is.

Ok, the weekend seems to be shrinking before me and I still have a ton of stuff to tackle.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ok, so I am a little late. Better late than never! We had a great day. I made the menu a little lighter this year. Not lighter in calories, just not so much food. It made getting things together much easier, especially since Jedidiah was so needy. He has been having tummy problems for a few days now. But I finally figured out what was bothering him so he should be getting better soon. Even last night was better than the few nights before. I have a picture of our place cards. The girls colored them in. And while Jerry's parents were here they took a family picture of us, so I'm putting that up as well. I thought I had another pic to share, but I don't remember right now. Jedidiah is doing better with his weight as well. I am very happy about that . I is back up 2/10 of a pound. It;s not much, but at least we are headed in the right direction. IT is very weird to have to actually think/plan about getting more fat and protein in my diet. Usually it's the opposite. Not much else to talk about. I am planning on getting the whole house cleaned and decently organized by the end of this weekend. Jerry plans on getting the dog hut finished this weekend as well. So we'll be busy.

Oh, yeah, now I remember the other picture I wanted to share. I would title it: If Walls Could Talk. Yeah, what do you think Isabella and Moira's walls are saying? Ha, ha..

Great website

I had heard about this website on the MOMYS email list. I checked it out and have done some reading. It is a ministry for women. On the side bar on the home page is a link to free e-books. Click on it and they have like five books. One on restoring relationships, one on being a worker at home, another on homeschooling and one with restored marraiges testimonies. Check it out!
http://www.restorem.org

We had a busy day, and will continue to have a busy week. Little man was not a happy camper for half the day. I had some green onions the other day and that made his tummy upset. Poor little guy. Speaking of little.....Jedidiah has not been gaining weight. But a talk with my very smart and wonderful sister helped me to see what was going on with him. I don't want to try to write it all out. But sufice it to say I need to add more fat and protein to my diet. So I dropped out of the Biggest Loser contest. And for the record I was not doing anything unusual or extreme, just the same thing I did after my other four pregnancies. But because of his low birth weight and his need for extra fat the things I were doing were causing him to not have enough of the right fat and proteins. The good thing is that I will only need to up my fat intake for the next two months and then by then he will have his own fat stores to keep his body working like it should. He is doing great otherwise, just not gaining. Still happy as can be.

I did a bunch of cleaning today, but there is still a ton more! We are having a good friend of ours stay over tomorrow night. So I want to get most of it done before he gets here. Then we have a church fellowship on sunday and then Thanksgiving is on thursday.

Well not much else to write about. Need to go do some more cleaning, then I am hoping to read some more of those e-books. In the "Worker at Home" I skimmed the chapter on Toys and I plan on implementing her idea. I have heard about rotating bins of toys per month. Well hers is a bit more drastic. You sort each toy set into a bin of some sort. Then you put the bins in a closet and LOCK the door! Then each day you bring out ONE set for the WHOLE day for them to play with. This fosters creativity, and there is only one set for them to clean up! I LOVE IT!!! Now if I can only get organized enough to get their things into bins!

Have a great night.

Butterfly kisses

I'm not sure how many of you know the song "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle, I believe. I haven't heard that song in a long while. I was driving tonight by myself (now that's hard to imagine!) when it came on. I was about to turn it off because it always makes me cry. But I thought, hey it's been a while, I am sure I can handle it. NO! WRONG!! I wasn't crying......I was BAWLING!!! This is no joke. I think I cry more each time I hear it. I would write about what the song is about, but I know I will start crying, and I don't feel like crying right now. Maybe google it, buy it or listen to K-LOVE (request it to be played) so that you can hear it.

I had done a huge grocery shopping today. I made multiple runs and am shopped out. I picked up this set of fraction cirlces from Walmart. I am always having to cut out circles and fractions of the circles for Moira's math and decided to get something that would better represent what they are trying to teach in her lesson. After all the cirlce fractions are supposed to be *equal* sized pieces, and for some reason I fail miserably at that . So tonight Isabella decided to teach Flannery about fractions. Then she decided to teach Saoirse the numbers 1-10. I snapped a few pictures of them. So here are our resident teachers/students. Moira had joined in on being a teacher as well.

I also added the last picture because you can see Isabella and Moira's hair wraps. Isabella only has a half of one because she didn't like how long it was taking. The wraps are on their right side of the head, behind their ears. Flannery had one as well, but we have taken it out.

My blog's colors..

Well it seems that "some" people were wondering why I changed my blog colors. The answer: Because I can. Yup there you have it. It has to do with a sense of control. This is my little world over here and I can make it any color I want to! So there :-) For those of you who don't know my sense of humor, what I just wrote was all in fun. And that "some" people, was actually my sister. Yes, I decided it was time to for a change. You see I am really itching to paint my walls. ALL of the walls in our house are only primed. That means every thing and any thing sticks to it. So I went to Sherwin-Williams to check out paint colors (on line that is) and they have the COOLEST tool!!!! You gotta go check it out! You drag the color from their vast collection over to the wall of a desired room and it "paints" it on there so you can get a feel for the color! How entirely cool. I was totally in my element. Isabella and I were having a blast "painting" yesterday. So I talked to Jerry about paint and it seems that we can probably get one can of paint a month. So it will take me a couple of months before I can start painting anything and I was feeling restless about it.....so I "painted" my blog instead. Ahh, relief. Well sort of, until I start noticing all the lovely finger prints all over the place!

Ok, gotta go take a shower and go to Walmart. The white noise maker isn't working!!! It worked fine last night, and then this morning I went to turn it off and it wouldn't shut off. So I unplugged it. When I plugged it back in to use for one of Jedidiah's naps it didn't work at all! UGH! I am hoping it is just a defective unit and not a fault with all of them. And in case my Mom is reading this, I took the one from the back!! Hee, hee.

Toodles!

My blogging anniversary

Well tomorrow will be one year that I started this blog. You can go back to that first post and see how things have changed!

We finally found a noise maker. I know, it's not like we don't have enough noise around here to begin with. We needed a white noise maker to drown out some of the ups and downs of the laughs, screams and other banging going on over here for Jedidiah's sake. We had our fan going, but that is causing Jerry's allergies to act up. We looked on line and for a noise maker that sounds like a fan was about 50$'s! Someone at church has one and I asked her where she got theirs. At Target for under 20$. Hmmm, sounds like a deal to me. But Target didn't have it. I had looked tonight and was frustrated that no one could help me there. So I had a few more things to get but decided that Walmart was cheaper and I knew the layout of their store (I felt lost in Target). I took a look-see to see if Walmart had the noisemaker and they did! It was under 15$'s ! Yeah!! It has settings for babbling brooks, rain and other fancy shmancy noises, but we just needed the whitenoise setting. It works great!

So we have almost been in our house for 3 months already! Today the girls and I went down to the creek. It's the first time since we moved. The girls had a BLAST!!! They want to go back tomorrow. I think the next day or two will be warm enough. The reason we haven't been down there earlier was due to the ticks. But with the cooler weather they go into hiding and we were free to have fun down there. They were jumping off the little bridge into the water. Then Isabella climbed on a tree limb that overhangs the creek and jumped in from there. I really love it here!!!

Thought I would share a picture of our efforts to memorize scripture. The first one is of Moira coloring in this weeks verse. I add on a verse each week. We memorized Psalm 23, which is "The Lord is My Shepherd". Now we are memorizing the 10 commandments from Exodus 20. We are memorizing the whole passage. I found that by putting the words to pictures my girls have no problem memorizing scripture. The second picture is my memorization. I am memorizing Proverbs 31:10-end. I didn't want to spend my time on the treadmill being fruitless. And I would love to listen to some semon tapes or other types of seminars while walking but I need to listen out for the girls. So I decided to hang up large pieces of paper and memorize scripture myself. I have 1/3 of it memorized in two days!

Must go get the girlies off to bed. I can hear them "playing" out there. Have a great night.

backyard fun

Jerry has been building a dog hut. Don't worry I didn't know what one was either. A dog hut will be a covered structure for the dogs to get out of the rain and wind when outside. I really need for them to be out of the house. The girls where outside with him and they had a blast playing out back. I really want to get them a swing or two to put up between two trees. If anyone knows the how to on doing that please let me know. They need something to do out there. It looks so different around here now. This is our first fall here in the house and as the leaves fall we can see more of our neighbors. Not a lot, but just more of the land. It is so pretty out here. Not much else going on. Oh, wait, yes there is. We may have a reason why all my kiddos have had tummy problems. Jerry went to the doctors the other day and the doctor believes he has something (which Jerry can't remember the name of) that can be passed on the the kids. It's a bacteria that gets in the intestines that causes pain and other unpleasent things. He will be getting a blood test to determine for sure. But that would be great if we had something to go on. Maybe the kids can get treated. Jerry is just very happy that someone was able to give him hope that he can be cured.
Ok, here is a pic of the kiddos and Jerry climbing on the downed trees in the back. They didn't want to come in for dinner!

Jedidiah is doing better!

Phew! Soooo glad he is doing better. He was starting to scare me! You see, he smiles ALL the time. Ok, not every single second, but pretty darn close. Big smiles too, like the one a few posts back. Well he was obviously just miserable with the hives because I can count how many times he smiled all day yesterday!! He is back to his little happy self today. I put all my clothes in the laundry to be re-washed. Hey, I needed more laundry!! I never seem to have enough to do (insert big rolling eyes here). I just plan on washing all our clothing in Dreft. When that runs out I will try the All Free and Clear and see what happens.

I have been spending some of my "free" moments making new Jesse Tree ornaments. I will post pics of the two I have finished and the one in the making. There are 28 ornaments in all for the tree, so I have a bit of work to do. The good thing is if I make two a day then I'll be done right before the Advent season starts. Here is a link or two on the Jesse tree. I have used several places to get the info I needed.
http://www.domestic-church.com/CONTENT.DCC/19971201/FRIDGE/FRIDGE1.HTM
http://www.teachingmom.com/features/advent.html
I can't seem to find the link that had the daily readings! I have it saved in a Word document, but didn't write the link down with it. I don't think I saved it to my favorites because I just decided to save it in Word.

The girls have their last day of soccer (until the spring that is) tomorrow. Isabella has been planning all sorts of parties. She wanted one for her soccer team, but we told her she should wait till the end of the year, not the season. And speaking of Isabella...she has decided she wants to fly. And no, I am not talking about in an airplane. She is making plans for some wings. I'm very serious! She plans on running down our road (downhill) to take off. If that goes well, she'll take off from our roof. She must of talked to me about it for at least an hour today. I "helped" tweak her plan. Well, for example, she decided that she needed to make each wing 9 feet long. But our little gravel road in not 18 feet wide. Small problem. Now Jerry told her that it's just not possible. But I'm thinking this would be a GREAT physics class!!!! Talk about hands on!! So if anyone has any ideas for her, I'm sure she would love to hear them. I don't know the first thing about flying matters. I told her God gave the birds wings, not me, so therefore I figured I shouldn't be flying. Makes sence to me. She just gave me an "Oh, Mom!!!" in that exasperated tone, a little roll of the eyes. Not in the bad sence, just in the 'your'e so old' sence. Ahh, to be young and know it all. I'm sure *I* was never that way.......HA! good night all

new blogs to look at

OK, I made a blog for Moira as well. But these blogs are all on my account so in the info area it will have my name. Her blog is at:
http://moirasfriendsandfamily.blogspot.com

I will have to go change her comments setting as well. I changed Isabella's last night.

Poor little man is having on heck of an allergic reaction this morning. His skin is broken out with red bumps everywhere!! The only thing different is that I changed MY laundry detergent. I was using the cheap generic brand and decided to give Tide a try along with Downey softner. I still wash his clothes in Dreft. Big NO-NO. He wasn't sleeping well for naps yesterday at all and was only breaking out a little bit. This morning he woke up at 6 a.m. and it's almost 8:30 a.m. and it's way past his time for a nap. But I think he's just feeling miserable. I worked out a dosage for some generic benadryl for him and gave him some. Hey, my sister and I were talking about all the things we had to learn in school that were totally irrelavent. But here we have a good reason to learn math! So glad we had to spend 12+ years to learn that one :-)

And Flannery has an almost shiner! I put our folded clothes on a big table to sort and she had climbed up on it to get her clothes for the day and fell and hit one of our school chairs right by her eye. The school chairs are very hard. Not wood and not metal (although it is made of metal in parts). This morning it is all black and blue and looks like someone socked her! Poor girl.

But overall things are going well. I have a bunch of cooking to do today for our fellowship dinner tonight. I plan on making twice baked potatos, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. I would really love to have some of the pumkin pie, but it's not a normal pumkin pie. It's really creamy as it is made with pudding and cream cheese and whipped topping (and pumkin of course). But it also has milk. And the pie is not baked so I can't have it :-( Bummer. But I can have some of the apple pie :-) which all in all isn't good for me anyways! Oh well, I'll start that raw deal later ;-)

Ok, gotta go start my day. Oh, I have to show you all how much the girls have "GROWN"! Ha, ha, I don't know who thought this one up, it was either Moira or Flannery. Too funny.















Here's one of the girls and their soccer jerseys and soccer pictures. Saoirse is in it just because she wants to do what her big sisters do. The purple jersey all the way to the right is an old one of Isabella's. And Isabella got caught blinking at the wrong time, but I only took one photo of the set up so here it is:

I'll call it a day

No, nothing bad happened. Just the usuall. Except that poor baby man wouldn't sleep for naps! I do believe he is down for the night though. I forgot to share that Saoirse had been stung by a bunch of red ants a couple of weeks ago at church. They said it was fire ants, but I know a lot of people say that when in truth they are only red ants. But they hurt, and blistered up. Poor thing. Thankfully they had benadryl cream at the nursery. We were able to get that on the bites until we got home. She had around 50 stings! Mostly on her feet and ankles. She is all better now, and unbelievably, not afraid of ants.

So I have been thinking that I really want to buckle down and change to eating more raw foods, for me and the kids. Then today I have read of a few people that I have either read their books, or blogs that have cancer. I mean everyone seems to have it!!! It is really getting scary. I am sure part of it is the ability to broadcast that you have it on the internet, so more people can know. But the other is due to the fact that it has indeed grown more and more common. So I will try to impliment some changes a bit at the time. It seems like it may be easier to just go cold turkey, at least easier on the budget. I have done a lot of reading on this subject and know that we need to make the change. One of the things that got me reading, besides my love of reading up on health issues, is the scripture in Genesis that says that man's days shall be 120 years. How many people do you know personally that have lived to 120 years. So I figured one of two things was going on. One, God lied, which I know is not a possibility. Or two, we have fallen away from what He had planned for us in regaurds to how we live and eat. I'm leaning towards the second. There have been societies, and maybe a few left, that have indeed lived routinely to 120. And the common thread was that they ate raw foods, worked hard outdoors and drank plenty of water. And to think that as far as I know these were unbelieving groups of people. So the matter of health seems to be like a law of physics. We all know that if you put a penny in your hand, lift your hand above your head then turned your hand over that the penny will fall to the ground. Unless of course you put it directly over your head and it fell on your head. But in both cases the penny will fall. It's a law that God made. He made physical laws and spiritual laws. Now obviously it is more important that we adhear to God's spiritual laws. But I don't see why we can't do both. I know that sometimes when I talk to people about health issues they will bring up the fact that we are all going to die anyways....Yes, this is true. And indeed it is true that heaven will be immensely more glorious than this earth. But I do believe we can find blessings in living out our earthly time in health and energy. I find it a bit saddening that many Christians are being layed up due to numerous health issues. We spend our time in prayer for things that I believe can be avoided. Now PLEASE do not take me the wrong way!!!! I will always pray for those whose needs come my way regaurdless of the nature of their situation. I just think we have been blinded by the money makers of this world who want our dollars and who could care less if we are dying because of it. I would love to one day give talks on health to churches so that people can see that what ails them is caused by what they are eating. But for now I have to live it!! Isn't that the hardest part? We can know what to do and how to do it, but its another thing entirely to actuall DO it. I confess, I'm weak. Chocolate knows me by name.

Ok, well that was some post hey?

We are having a quiet week. I like it! We have church Bible study tomorrow. We eat dinner together and then have the Bible study. Then the girls have their last soccer game this saturday. I would like to start making some new ornaments for our Jesse Tree. We started that as a new tradition last year and I love it. But I found out about it late and made some of the ornaments REALLY quick!! I will still have them made of felt, but I would like to sew them instead of glue them as the glue kept coming undone last year. If you do an internet search with the words "Jesse Tree" you will see what it is. It's a great way to keep the focus of Christmastime on Christ. I also would like to get a "real" advent wreath with candles. We had a make shift one last year and lets just say it's a bit of a fire hazard. But the girls loved lighting the candles each evening at dinnertime.

Ok, must be going now. Didn't mean to write a novel. I was waiting for the girls to get done with their showers and so had a few minutes to write. Hope you all have a blessed day!!

Oh, here are some misc. pics of the girls creations. The first two are of Flannery and Moira's playdough creations. Flannery's are donuts or cupcakes. And Moira made a tea set with fork and spoon included. She even made a teddy bear to enjoy the tea set. Then the last is of Isabella's lego creation. It is a horse stable suitable for two lego horses. She is still a horse lover through and through!!

A P.S. I will be setting up blogs for Isa and Moira. We have Isabella's blog address, but there are no posts yet. You will be able to see her at:
http://Isabellasfriendsandfamily.blogspot.com
Please stop by for a visit and leave her a comment. I will have to disable the section that makes you log in to comment, so check back if later if it isn't done yet.

another post

I thought I would just put another post up here, just because I can!!!!So there!!! Yes, I was in withdrawl for the past two months, so now I have to make up for it.

It is Saturday and the girls have soccer. The older three play in the local league. They are having a great time with it. And at first it was a bit overwhelming for me, but now that Jerry has been taking them it's been easier. For one thing Jedidiah can't handle being out for so long. The games are one after the other, so Flannery needs to be there for 8:45 am to warm up and then by the time they get home it is 1:15 in the afternoon. It's a long morning. They love it, but for little man, he needs his naps. And I'm sure if he could talk he would tell you he needs his nap in his BED. He is not one to nap on the go.

So this year we went to our church's Reformation Day Celebration. It was a blast. The girls loved it!! Refomation day is to remember Martin Luther and the 95 thesis that he pinned up to the Cathedral of Wittenburg's door. That would be the extreme condensed version of what happened anyways!! Martin Luther was tried in Germany in the city of Worms (hey, my favorite!), and the council that tried him was called a Diet. So they made this game up at the church called "The Diet of Worms". They put some gummy worms into the bottom of a bowl, then put a bunch of dry noodles on top of them. Then with the kids' hands behind their back they had to try to eat the gummy worms (without tipping over the bowl). It was a bunch of fun.

I'll try to find a few pics to put up. And then I have grocery shopping to do. and then maybe I'll call my sister a couple of times today, just because I can!!! Ha, ha!! I'm not sure if she'll be ok with that, but hey, I have a PHONE!!! Yippeeee!!! So I have to use it!

Ok, so I uploaded a few pics. One of Isabella on her birthday. She turned 9 this summer. We had jsut moved in here like three days before her birthday. She made her own cake for her birthday as well!! It turned out well. Then there's a couple of ones of Saoirse. One of her helping me with dishes, the other one is just her being cute. Then there's Moira and Flannery with Jedidiah. Flannery asks me often to take pictures of her and Jedidiah. This is a much better transistion than she had made when Saoirse was a newborn. Then again she is two years older as well. I think if we had given Saoirse away, Flannery would have celebrated! Now she can't get enough of her little brother. She is CONSTANTLY touching him, singing to him, talking to him, asking to hold him and get pictures of them together. It's great!!! Then the last one is a picture of a coloring page that Saoirse was doing. Yes Saoirse colored that. I think it's amazing since she is only two!!! She colors with in each boundry before going on to the next. So even if she colors something all on color, she didn't just scrawl up and down the page, she actuall colored the legs first, then the feet, then the body..... Now the funny thing is I was talking to my sister one day and she told me that her kids draw like once or twice a WEEK. Now that is a foreign concept to me as my kids draw about 4 hours each DAY. No joke! They just draw and draw and draw. I have to find hiding places for our printer paper or they would use it up in a few days. I am seriously not joking. We have rolls of paper, that we got for fREE. But they don't like that kind because they like the nice neat borders of an 8x11 piece of paper gives them. We need to get one of those paper cutters we used to have in our classrooms in school. Then I could cut the paper down to size.

Ok, I must be off. I need to get Flannery up for her to get ready for soccer.

Mr. Smiley

Here's our Smiley boy!!

We have internet!!!!!

Well it seems to have been like forever! We just got it in this evening. I am sooooo excited. I missed my email and the few blogs and sites I visit often. I have a ton to tell you all. But hey, there are only a few more hours left to the night and I need to get some (ok, a lot) of cleaning done. But wanted to share that I will be back and share a few pictures. If I can manage that. I got a really great one of Jedidiah. I'll put that up first, and then one of all of them that came out so-so. Flannery has been hamming it up lately in front of the camera. She's too funny. We are all doing great. I have been on top of homeschooling. I'm ususally on top of the house work. And my Biggest Loser contest just ended and during the 12 week contest I lost 15 pounds!!! I am soooo excited about that. I love the fact that my clothes fit me now. I still have a bit to lose and because of the upcoming holidays they are going to run a shorter (8 week) maintenance contest that I am joining as well. So since the birht of Jedidiah (4 months ago) I have lost 34 pounds of the 48 pounds that I gained during the pregnancy. Not bad if I say so myself. I'll post my before and after shots if I can find those as well. Ok, I found the pics. I put Jedidiah's up top. Then the one of all of them at the end of the post. I next put up my before pis then added the after pics. After I hit the submit button I have no idea how they will be arranged on the screen. Ok, the pics of me with the bit of staircase/railing in it on the left is the after pics.
I'll write more soon.

We'll be having internet soon

only a min. to post. Baby is crying and we are in a parking lot picking up a signal as we wait for some pizza to be made. Things are going well. We've had a busy week. Jedidiah is getting baptized tomorrow. We had a few days off of school and we were very busy and I didn't get the organizing done that I wanted to. Oh, well.

Talk to ya all soon.

We are getting better

slowly. My voice still sounds bad, but I feel much better. Poor Jedidiah is having issues with his tummy. I am thinking it has something to do with me being sick. We have been able to keep up with school. The girls also have soccer. They have games tomorrow. Hopefully Isabella will be able to play. She has a small patch of poison ivy breakout on her ankle that is very painful. Maybe with some pain medicine she will be able to. She has a nack for picking up poinson ivy/oak. This is like the 3rd or 4th time she's had it!! We should have a big poster in her room of what those plants look like :-)

Well I need to get going. We have a full weekend ahead of us and need to get a bunch of work done.

Bugs, bugs, bugs

ok so not the squirmy kind, the germ kind!! We ahve all been sick. I have lost my voice, and poor little man had his first fever at 10 weeks old!!! Saoirse is just starting it, she is the last to be getting it, so hopfully this will all be over in about 10 days. I am on day 5 and I still feel yucky. So that is why I have been quiet over here. Will get back to you all soon, I hope.

Life is Full

I wish I had the camera to share some pics, but its at the new house, and I am at the old one. We still don't have internet there and it will probably be a while before we do! Ugh! I suppose I need more lessons in patience. We started school yesterday. It went well. Even today, we have to run some errands and we are all done with the exception of history reading and it's only noon! Yeah!!! I made up my master schedule last night and I was worried I may not have scheldued enough time for everything, but I think we will have more time open! That's a good thing. I think the major differences this year is that Isabella's math is much simpler to teach. I am soooooo excited about that . I really like Saxon, but the early grades are time consuming. But once you get to the 4th grade level the approach changes and it is mot so time consuming. So only Moira's will be time consuming. The other difference is that they have an incentive to do thier work in a timely fashion ( I think I spent half the day riding Isabella to get her work done). They get a computer coupon if they do thier work on time with a good attitude. So far so good, they have each earned computer time.

Little man is doing well. He's still a wee one, only seven and a half pounds! He's still not as big as our biggest newborn (8lbs). Soon enough though I am sure.

The weight loss is going slow and steady. Which is good as I would be concerned to loose too fast as Jedidiah is gaining slowly. He was gaining slowly before the contest started so it has nothing to do with that. I am eating very well, exercising 6 days a week, and doing toning exercises and believe it or not I am drinking a lot of water!

Well I need to check my email and then run to the store and get home to clean up.

We're moved in......Sorta.....

Well just about all our stuff is there. A very big thank you to the 15 people (from church) who showed up to help with the move. They got the moving truck packed in 40 minutes!! Wow, I think that is some sort of record. I have to say, we have this moving thing pretty down pat (not that I want to use those skills ANYTIME soon!!). Despite having 5 kiddos to watch, feed, clean....and one being a newborn still, we actually had everything packed!!! Not to mention Jerry put just about all the boxes out in the garage. Not only that but he organized the garage in sections, so all of the stuff going into the house was in one section, all the things needing to go in the atic, in another section, etc. I am pretty impressed.

Now for the *sorta* in my title. We still have no electricity in our new house. The good news is that it should be done Monday. ("should be" are key words here) It's a very long story, but we are very pleased that we will have it so soon. Now we are trying to convince Time Warner to give us cable. Both of our neighbors have it. But when we called for service they told us they have no intentions of bringing service to that area. Ummmm, then can you please explain why are neighbors on either side of us have it??? Thanks to Jerry's persistant calls (like two times a day) they are relenting, and are giving us price quotes to bring the lines in. I am eager to get our stuff unpacked and get our life going again. I am sooooo, soooooooo, SSOOOOOO ready to get back to a routine. And SSSSSOOOOOOOOOO ready to crack down on the child training!!! Things have been a wee bit out of control around here. Which I totally expected. I mean we just have a baby, then we put a move on top of it. That's enough fuel to feed unruley children.

Jedidiah is doing great. He's getting bigger. He's a whole 7 pounds!! He went from the 3rd percentile to the 5th!! Woohooo!! It's so weird that he is 6 weeks, but still a newborn size. He is still not as big as our biggest newborn (that being Flannery topping the scales at 8lbs). Saoirse was born at 7lbs, but three weeks later she was 10 lbs! What were we feeding her? He is just starting to give us little smiles. His face lights up when he sees us. I love that :-)

I am taking this week off of the BL3 contest. Another long story, but it coincides nicely with our move. So that is one less thing to think about. I will continue to exercise and eat as I should, but will not have to do the challenge or the task for the week, which will free up my time. Definitely what I need right now.

We will be going out to dinner tonight as I have to unpack my pans from the other house to bring back here to use for the next few days. We won't be doing much tonight, although the temps are great right now. Maybe after dinner we will do a tiny bit. We have to run by and open the fridge doors. We dont' want it to get moldy in there. I had the doors open, but needed to close them to put some stuff away and forgot to open them. Ugh. Have a good day.

Contest begginings and "killer" Parmesan cheese

Ahh, ya gotta love my titles! So creative don't ya think? JK Ok, so the Biggest Looser contest starts today!! Yeah! I have been getting back into the swing of things these past 5 days. I have been going for a walk every morning. Plus I have juiced 4 out of the past 5 days. And eaten a salad for lunch each day as well. So I am doing well. So here is my starting stats:
weight: 154
measurments:
waist: 37 in.
hips: 42 1/2
thighs: L-24 1/2 and R-24 1/4
Another goal I have is to lower my blood pressure. For some reason ( I am sure the 48 pound weight gain had something to do with it) my blood pressure kept creeping up during this pregnancy and it hasn't gone down. My top number has come down, but not the bottom. My last reading was 120/90. I start my resistance exercises on monday. Check out the Jorge Cruise books from you library. I like the different type of exercises and the best part is that it's only 8 minutes a day to do. Now I am adding a few of his different books' routines in all together, so it will take me longer than the 8 minutes. But I am hoping that it will make a big difference in my ummm, saggy body!
Ok, now about the killer Parmesan cheese. I was in the bathroom, when I hear this *sound*. Not quite sure how to describe it, but it made my Mommy warning sirens go off. I could tell it was coming from Saoirse, so I called her to me. She came in covered with this white stuff all over her face, shoulders and chest. Not to mention she had gobs of it in her mouth. Hence the sounds. She was gagging and very scared. I didn't know what it was at first. I had a cup in the bathroom that I wanted to use to give her some water. But I first had to make sure it wasn't something poisonous that she had all over her. I scooped out her mouth first, then smelled some of the powder. I knew it was something familiar, it took a second for it to register that it was Parmesan cheese!! So there you have it, a warning, beware of Parmesan cheese! I went to the kitchen to find the fridge foor open and the cheese bottle on the floor. We happened to buy the extra large bottle this time around. The opening is very large and she must have tipped it back to eat some and it came POURING out. Poor thing. But she is fine now. Back to her ol' self.

Ok, little man work up so I need to get going. He is doing great by the way. He's up to about 7 pounds now! Yeah!

Here's my before pictures:

Our first challenge

Well I was looking at the templates for a purple background, but they don't have one. I'll stick with the blue for now. We got our first challenge for the BL3 contest (Biggest Loser). We have to have a plan. So here is my plan:
Water: drink 64 oz a day (and that isn't going to be easy! For me that is!)
Exercise: 30 minutes of aerobic exercise (walking or a video), plus toning exercises daily (The 8 min. workout, Joyce Verdal or T-Tap). We have to exercise 5 days a week or we lose points.
Food: One veggie juice or veggie/fruit smoothy. One large salad a day. One cooked meal and one partially cooked meal. No refined sugar, except for the two birthdays and our once a month church fellowship meal.

Our goal had to be specific so that we could report that we did or did not accomplish it that week. Some women are doing Weight Watchers, or the South Beach Diet or other programs. Mine is isn't a program. I am trying to go towards eating more raw foods. When I was I had a TON of energy and lost weight easily. So I am going to use that as my strategy :-)

I'm Back!!

I know you all missed me! :-) I can finally get on to my own blog! Our internet filter decided one day to make it a blocked page! So I had to go through the proper channels to get it unblocked. After church today we went over to the new house to see all the work that Jerry has been doing. WOW! It is really amazing. Now I wasn't sure what to expect as he has never built anything like this before. It looks great! He has the deck up and was working on the steps. Then he has to put in the railings and it will be finished! We are really hoping to move in the second weekend in August, which is only two weeks away. I am really excited to be moved in. Some neighbors of ours just dropped off a bunch of boxes for us as they just helped someone move into thier house. So the next two weeks I'll be tossing things into boxes when I get the chance.

The Biggest Loser contest starts this coming friday! I am really excited. I am on the Eggplant team. There are four teams with 12 women each, and our teams have the name of a vegetable. So our team color is purple. We have our first weigh in on friday and then we get our first challenge after the weekend. So I best be getting into the routine of working out! I haven't exercised at all since Jedidiah's birth. And that is as it should be as I need to make sure to fully recover. But this friday will be 5 weeks since his birth and I am very ready to get this weight off. I have 30 pounds to lose. We had to take a before picture and I will put it up here as well. Then when the contest is over we have to take an after picture. So anyone who wants to "join" me I will be posting the challenges and you can lose along with me.

We have a good friend of ours coming over tonight for dinner. He is bringing his son, who is heading off to Germany with the military, and his fiance. You would think he is a national celebrity the way our girls are so excited. Then tomorrow one of Moira's friends is coming over for the day.

I'll talk to you all later.

The Birthday Party

We started our day with going to church for the first time since Jedidiah was born. It went surprisingly well. We even got there a few minutes early! It seems that these past few days that Jedidiah's wakeful time happens to coincide with church time. So Jerry and I tag teamed with walking duty.

Then after church Jerry's parents came over to see Jedidiah and to celebrate Moira's b-day. We had cake and a fruit tart. Moira got a beautiful outfit from Nanna and Grandpa. It was a pretty pink shirt and flowery skirt. Very Moira. I put a pic down below. Then we gave her our gift, which was a princes castle by Playmobil. The girls really love Playmobil's. There are so many kits to choose from. And they play with them ALL day long!! We only have a couple of Playmobil kits, but they are very treasured. The day was wonderful, even with one very loud, tired Saoirse! The baby slept the entire time. Now if Nanna and Grandpa came at 10pm, well they would have seen Jedidiah in full action.