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.....