Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Yes, we are still alive.....and kicking at that :-) AND I have a new look, it appears that the masses were getting restless with the eye popping polka dots......hahahahahahahahaaaaa and throw in a giggle and a snort along with that! In case you feel like you are an outsider in all of this, you will just have to look at my last comment :-)

I would LOVE to write a bunch more, more about what's been going on around here and some deep and thoughtful things as well, but it appears that my brain is on vacation. I am very serious. It is a sad, sad thing to behold. But the results of mega hormones racing through my body! I know not everyone was able to get a letter from us this Christmas, so for those of you who don't know yet, we are expecting our sixth blessing!!!! It appears that the due date is July 4th! How cool is that? Although that would make three of our 6 children's b-days in July! A busy, busy month.

I have a funny little video clip to share on homeschooling, also my original version of my arrow story that we didn't put in our newsletter, I still want to write about the conference, also Christmas pictures and I'm sure there are other really deep and meaningful things as well. BUT until my brain comes back, it may have to wait :-)

Have an awesome NEW DAY!

Please check out the girls' blogs

On the left hand side are the links to Isabella's and Moira's blogs. Please stop by and leave them a little note. I know they would love that!

The dreaded flu

We all, yes, ALL have the bonifide flu!! So all this sickness has truly been horrid. Ha, ha...I've always heard that most people who think they have the flu, really don't. So besides the time when I had the flu some 8 years or so ago, I have never thought that we had it....till this past week. After a weeks worth of fever for one child and a few more with days and days of a high fever, deep coughs, runny noses galore (can you say 10 boxes of kleenex....and no I am not kidding), red, red eyes, pain, and more pain......well I have to say this time I thought, this may really be the flu. But I wasn't so bold as to say it out loud. But now we have confirmation. Isabella was so sick yesterday (Sunday) that we had to take her to urgent care. There they did a swab test and it was positive for the flu. Because she was so sick they put her on antibiotics, as there was a question as to the possibility of her starting pneumonia, and they gave her Tamiflu. You are supposed to start the Tamiflu within 48 hours after exhibiting symptoms, and the doctor said there was only a 20% chance that it would help her since she had already been sick for 5 days. But today she is a bit better. A big sigh of relief. Especially since the doctor told us that if she did not get better in 2 or 3 days we were to take her to the hospital! Yikes!

We called our regular family doctor today to see about getting the other kiddos some of the flu drugs. He didn't suggest them for the girls, but did urge us to get them for Jedidiah. So far Jedidiah seems to be fairing the best of us all! However with his compromised immune system he said it could take *weeks* for him to get over it! Not a pleasant thought. So Jerry will be heading out to the pharmacy soon to get a lot more meds. We have decided to get them for the other girls as well. Moira is on day 3 of high fevers, and the meds are not bringing them down, just like in Isabella's case. So far Flannery is responding to fever reducing medicines, but since she just started hers yesterday she has the best chance of making a much quicker recovery from this.

We have been eating all prepared meals these last few days. The funny thing is that no one really likes them! When you don't eat convenience meals and then have to eat them everyday, well it;s a bit weird. I can taste the loads of salt in them. Although they haven't been a fancy for the taste buds (or pocket book!) they have been a great relief to me as I have not been able to cook.

I am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Although I think this whole week will be dedicated to recovery. I've decided to cancel all our appointments and we'll have to pick up where we left off next week.

Jedidiah is walking!!

Looky, looky at this cute kiddo. Excuse the messy clothes. He had just gotten done eating. A few days ago he took about three steps, and again yesterday. But today...well he just took off!



I haven't forgotten the post I said I would write. We have all been terribly sick over here. I don't remember being this sick in years! So it will be a bit longer. But I just had to share Jedidiah's big accomplishment.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=1023f0c951b3e3f118fb

Coming soon....

Coming soon will be the briefing of our fabulous conference weekend. It was busy, busy, busy, but also a blessing beyond measure. It will take me a bit to get to writing about it. Today will be focused on getting us back on schedule. I also need to make a grocery list ( a couple hour task!). Plus I need to spend lots of cuddle time with Saoirse as she has come down with "something". She has a high fever, headache and her eyes look all sick. Poor thing. Please pray she will recover quickly and that Jedidiah will NOT get this. We really need him to get back to gaining weight. He was on target to hit the growth curve for his 18 month check up (one month away), but now his curve is falling away from the growth chart, due to the fact that his net gain for the whole last month is actually negative 2 ounces! UGH! So we really do not need anything "helping" him lose any more weight.

Until then, have a great day.

If you give a baby some pudding...

Some of you may have read the "If you give a Mouse (moose, pig) a cookie (cupcake, pancake)" books to your kiddos. In light of that here is our version.

If you give a baby some pudding, he'll want a spoon to go with it.

And chances are if you give him a spoon he'll want to feed himself.

If he decides to feed himself you'll want to get a bib for him.

And putting on the bib will remind him of the time he made a GRAND mess.

He'll want to out do himself this time and will proceed to dig into that pudding.

He will smile at you all sweetly as he looks out of pudding smeared eyes.

He'll need a bath.

So you'll need to take the pudding away and take off his bib.

That will remind him that it is bedtime and he will want to protest.

But with promises of a fun, warm bath you may win his favor.

And you will be able to tuck him into his bed with the blessing of sweet dreams.

Here are a couple of pictures to accompany our story:

Too funny! He is really getting better about feeding himself. But he really got into that pudding!!

Here is a cute one on Jedidiah admiring the Christmas tree. We still need to take some pictures of the tree, but we wanted to get Jedidiah's reaction to it first. Every morning he points outside and says "something" about the trees. He kind of says the same thing when he is in awe. It's kind of like "ooooo oooootah". I have been translating it as "look at". So he thinks having a tree right in the house is really neat.

Jedidiah showing us the baby

Ok, we tried earlier to post a video. It's not high quality and only lasts all of 10 seconds, but we wanted to see if the video feature was working on Blogger. Our first attempt didn't pan out, so we have tried again. This time we loaded the video to Godtube. I just uploaded it and they say it needs to process and will be available within the hour (it is now 11 am). So hopefully you will be able to view it soon.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=46d1349d05506fa26ed4

check out my new features

Ok, one doesn't work still, but I added my favorite links off there to the left. I only put up Isabella and Moira's blogs. When I have time I will add a bunch more. Please visit the girls sites and leave a little comment. It will really make their day. Isabella wrote up a post and it is not there. She may have saved it as a draft. So if you see that her last post was written 6 months ago, give her a bit of time and she will have a new one up.

We put up our Christmas tree. It is half way decorated. Only the bottom half is decorated. We needed to get new lights and bought 2 sets (we had the same two sets for the past 5 years). Well it seems that there are not the same amount of lights on the new set as there were on the old set as they only get half way up the tree. Ugh. I'll take some pictures when it's finished.

After Thanksgiving post

Here it is the day after Thanksgiving. I hope you all had a great day! We had a wonderful day! I will say my morning wasn't very pleasant, but everything turned around and the day was great! Jerry's parents came over, bringing a yummy dessert called pumpkin surprise. Not sure why it's called that, but it is sooooo yummy. All the food turned out great. We made the chickens in our roaster oven and they came out great! Juicy and brown, with little basting and no having to fenagle putting tin foil over them. After his parents left we decided to take a little walk up our road. It was only about 70 degrees out! At first the girls were freaked out walking in the almost total darkness. The moon was peeking out here and there to help guide the way. But by the time we were back they all wanted to go again. Then when we got inside they all started wanting to "do" something. I was thinking, yeah me too, like lay back and take a snooze! But that wasn't what they were thinking. So I pulled myself together and pulled down a bunch of craft stuff for us to make some ornaments. We plan on putting up our tree today, so now we will have some great new ornaments. They turned out really cute. You can see them below.

Jedidiah is just totally improving day by day in how he handles food. We bought him a massager the other day to continue the same therapy that the OT does with him. And he actually ate mashed potatoes yesterday! This is really huge! He wanted to also show off for Nana and Grandpa yesterday and he ate (all by himself I might add) three quarters of a jar of baby food. He was in show off mode and didn't want to turn off! It was nap time shortly after Jerry's parents arrived, but Jedidiah would NOT go to sleep! I had to eventually get him up. He held together very well all day. He is such a people person. Whenever we go anywhere he will wave to EVERYBODY! I mean people aren't even looking our way and there he is waving his hand as hard as he can at them. It is sooooo adorable. Every once in a while someone notices and they will wave back at him.



This wasn't taken yesterday, but here is Jedidiah eating all by himself. He really enjoys it.

Here's Moira's teddy bear ornament. Very cute and creative. I didn't tell the girls what to make, they came up with these ideas themselves.

Isabella's very cute snowman taking a ride on her sled (and sharing it with Moira's teddy bear).

I had a bunch of wooden stars in a bag. So we colored them with markers (I was not willing to bring out the paint) and used glitter to dress them up. We also used beads as well. The girls had such a blast. It was a big clean up, but worth it.

Now off to start our day!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy Thanksgiving! I had some pictures to share but our

USB hub is not connected. And since Jerry has been refenagaling (is that a word?)the computer I am afraid that plugging it in may make the computer explode or something! So they will have to wait.

I suppose I need to get up and get some things done. We did most of the cleaning yesterday, just need to spot clean. I am keeping the menu simple: two chickens (no turkey this year), mashed taters, homemade stuffing, the healthier version of green bean casserole, canned cranberries and for dessert apple dutch pie. So off I go to get ready.

Checking out the new slideshow feature

I just logged on and saw that Blogger has a new feature. I am going to attempt to figure it out. Just beware.....I may fail, someone cover me, I'm going in.....


And I FAILED, but it looks like I am not the only one. When I went to the help feature other people were asking how in the world you are supposed to do this. So for now, I have a slide show of just some nature pictures or something generic! UGH! Computers frustrate me so. Don't these programmers know that there are computer illiterate people out there who need things to be a bit more simpler? Oh well, I'll try again later.

Well if you go to this link it should take you to the photos that I wanted on my slideshow. If you click on the "i" in the middle of the first picture it will make the captions pop up under the photos. This is the best I can do for now. Bummer.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21041660@N03/show/

Jedidiah's first haircut

Well Jerry still hasn't been able to get to our info on the other burnt out computer. But I did have these few pics of Jedidiah's first haircut. I miss his little wispies.

Here is his before picture. He's so cute!




Here he is after, so handsome. I had some other photos of inbetween, but blogger is having issues and won't let me down load them. I am trying another hosting site on the side to see if they work better. If it does I will transfer everything over to there. But I only have so much time to check things out......

Our last few days have been productive and busy. Jedidiah had his physical therapy yesterday. He is doing so well. We also went grocery shopping. It is amazing to me that sometimes my cart is very full and other times it's not, but that the smaller cart full can cost so much more! Ugh!

Today we will tackle school. Then we may go off to BJ's and then the library. Maybe even the park. I am trying to get the girls out and running around as much as possible. I think they do better overall when they have that outside time.

I have been reading a book called Nourishing Traditions that I had only skimmed over before. It is a huge book. Part recipes and part information. It is so hard to figure out what we are supposed to be feeding our bodies. This book does seem to make some good points, with lots of research to back it. I may try my hand at making some of the lacto fermented products. This means we may need to go back to getting our raw milk. I also am very motivated to get our own chickens. I would love to have our own fresh eggs each day. Lots to think about and ponder.

I am still working on the leg warmers. I also started a wrap skirt for me. It is SO EASY to make!! If only I would have used the proper thread to begin with! I am ripping out my stitches right now to redo it. But there is a tutorial on line (I'll have to find it). You only need three yards of 60 inch wide fabric, a measuring tape, pins and something to cut with (and your handy dandy sewing machine of course). I will post pictures as soon as it is done.

Off to start the day!

a real post....not yet

Ok, I thought I would get to that real post, but realized that the pictures I wanted to add are on the "other" computer. Jerry re-did the computer and all my fav's and pics are on the old one. He is working on retreiving my stuff for me as I type, but with having to get kiddos in bed and a very busy next couple of days I may not get to it.

Tomorrow I have a Bible study to go to. I am reallly excited about it. We will be reading Nancy Wilson's book, "The Fruit of Her Hands". I read it a few years ago, it will do me good to re-read it. They will have the older kids in one room doing their school work and the younger kids in another, playing. The girls are really excited to see their new friends. Then we have to leave the study early as we have an occupational therapist coming to evaluate Jedidiah. She will determine if she is capable of helping him learn to eat. He can take his pureed baby food, but nothing "more" than that. Any kind of chunk or piece leaves him gagging or choking. And then we may even try to go to the prayer meeting tomorrow night. We shall see how everyone has held up during the day.

Thursday will be shopping day. That makes for a LONG day. On top of that Jedidiah has his physical therapy later in the afternoon. I think I am getting worn out just thinking about it all :)
I think that leaves Friday as a chill day!

As prep work I got the van cleaned out. We have the house all cleaned. The children are all bathed. We just need to get their bags ready for tomorrow, and their clothing all put out.

gotta run....Jerry needs the keyboard. Have a great night.

stay tuned for a real post

Sorry for the long absence. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still alive :-) I'll have a few things to post soon. One of which is Jedidiah's first haircut! My cute baby doesn't have his wispy curls anymore (boo- hoo), but he still looks handsome! We are doing well. It may be tomorrow before I get to post pictures and what not. We had a wonderful Sunday, Jerry and the older two are at Bible study, Jed is in bed and it's just me and the two youngest girlies. I want to go have some fun with them before the big kids get home. Have a great night!

Some cutie pie pictures

Tomorrow, well, um actually today (I'm up really late) is Jedidiah's tube to button change. We go to Duke this morning for him to get some loopy medicine and then the doctor will litterally just yank the tube out of him and then put in the button. Seems a bit barbaric to Jerry and I, but unless we have him fully sedated there aren't any other options. If he was knocked out they would still just yank it out of him, but then he would have had to have an IV (plus they never get it the first time, so multiple sticks), and need to recover from the anesthesia. Ugh! I will update you all on how he did when we get home.

Here are just a few pics of the kiddos. The first ones are of Jedidiah on his beloved push toy. He is a speed demon! He loves to be pushed fast. And as you can see he has many devoted pushers! That outfit he is wearing is size 6-9 months! I can hardly believe it fits him. I mean he should be wearing some baggy 18 month old size by now.....oh well. We are happy that he is growing, slow as it may be :-)

Then there is a picture of just Moira. I know she takes after me in looks, but when I saw this picture (taken by Isabella) my eyes really popped. She looks just like me in that one! Wow, scary.

Jedidiah is in love with stuffed dogs. He loves to put their faces right up to his and hug/snuggle it. Very cute indeed. Here he is posing with Isabella's dog and Flannery. He was very sleepy and needed to go to bed, but the girls wanted to give him a few rides back and forth across the living room. He loved it and was laughing. Well as long as they didn't stop! Then he started on them for stopping! That kid has a bit of an attitude starting!




I think he had just had a fit about Flannery not pushing him quickly enough and so he was a bit teary eyed, but he looks so cute....

Ready.....set.....hold on!! Yes, they found out the hard way that you really do need to hang on to Jedidiah when you push him. Thankfully he wasn't really hurt, just mad he fell and wasn't cruising.

Here's Moira, looking like me.

I let the girls each have a turn taking some pictures. I thought I would put a couple up so they could be excited to see "their" picture. I'm not sure what type of face Saoirse is making here, but I like how they are all standing in a line.

Flannery and Moira with their puppy dogs.

Well it was bound to happen, silliness that is. Isabella taking a picture of her nutty sisters :-)

Ok, off to bed I go.

Sew Crafty Friday

I did it! I posted on time :-)

I am just about done with Isabella's second leg warmer. Here is a picture of it. I have to sew it up yet. I then have a picture of a wash cloth and a pot holder I made last week. They have already been used and washed so they lack that 'new' look. I was a bit nervous about how the pot holder would work, but it worked out great! Make sure to check the post below for last weeks work. I posted late.

I'll have to let you know how Jedidiah's 15 month check up went. I'll have to do that later as I have the little guy in my lap which means I am typing one handed. He's doing well.

A busy week....and a belated Sew Crafty FRIDAY

I missed sew crafty again!!! But I was very productive. So I will put up some of our creations. The girls got these neat little books when we went out to eat the other day. they have a bunch of cute craft ideas and recipes. So we worked on some. Isabella single handily made a batch of yummy tarts. Then we made up a bunch of paper boxes. We also made a welcome sign for our front door, which I do not have pictures of at this moment. Then I finished Flannery's leg warmers...well almost. I have to tie in the ends. So in a moment of restlessness I realized that there was enough yarn left over to make her a matching hat. I searched for a pattern online and took a couple of patterns and meshed them. I LOVE the hat. I mean it was fast and it is absolutely adorable. Well, maybe it's just the kiddo that is so darn cute ;-) We just got some yarn today for me to start on Moira and Saoirse's leg warmers and hats. I am almost done with Isabella's leg warmers. Hers is made with a different pattern and are all one color. So I may take those to be mine if she would prefer colorful ones like her sisters. We'll see.

Today after church we went to a baptism. An 'old fashioned' baptism that is. The church gathered down at the lake, had lunch (which we missed) and the 5 or 6 people to be baptised gave their testimonies, then we walked down to the lake where they were completely dunked! It was very moving. There is a growing number of Karen refugees here in the area that attend the church. In their country when they do a baptism they sing. So it was pretty neat that they all started singing (in their native tongue) at the lake side. It was very special. You could imagine yourself on the banks of the Jordan river and John the baptist there in the middle of it....

Ok, so for our pictures:

The yummy tarts Isabella made. They really did taste great. They bubbled over so they don't look great. I think it would be neat to buy those mini muffin pans and make little baby tarts.

Some of the paper boxes we made. The girls were making so many they needed to get a cardboard box to put them all in!

Isabella working on her project. She wants to make a shawl. However this is the first time she is knitting and it is going slow. So we decided that she can make this into a head scarf. That way she will get the satisfaction of a completed project sooner!

A close up of Isabella's knitting. It is a cute pattern. You keep making an increase in the beginning of each row. You stop when you get it to the size you want. So in a few more rows it will be a head scarf, or in a few hundred rows it will be a shawl. Or you can get it to the size you want and then decrease it until you get a square. You can leave it small for a wash cloth size or big for blanket size. Great pattern! Lots of versatility.

Flannery's leg warmers. When we are in the van on the way to church during our VERY freezing cold winters :-P the girls complain of their legs being cold. The thing is if they wear thick tights they are too hot inside. So I thought this was a good solution as they are very stretchy and will fit over their shoes for easy take on/off.

Here is her matching ear flap hat. It has a picot edging and braided ties which you can sort of see. I made a cute hat topper which is below. They really add some character to the hat:

And then we had Saoirse who wanted to try it out as well. Because the original hat pattern was for a preemie baby I was just going on the basics to make it big enough. Although the hat fits Flannery, it fits Saoirse better. So for the other girls I will know to make it much larger.

Well that's it for now. It is almost bed time for the girls. Although Moira has been sleeping for some time since her tummy wasn't feeling very well. I felt bad for her. I was really tired out from our busy day and we had just gotten done eating when she comes up to me and starts wimpering that her tummy hurt. UH OH!! Now most of you won't know what that means. Of all the children to have to get the tummy bug, Moira is NOT the one you want to have it. She started her 'whinning/crying/moaning/wimpering.....' ordeal and I told her that if she continued that I would have to leave the house. It is that BAD!! Thankfully she was wise and stopped immediately. I can not tell you how many times we have had the following conversation during these tummy ill problems:

Moira: Crying/moaning/wailing (yes she really does wail!).....

Me: Moira, does crying like that help to make you feel better?

Moira: (In her very whiny, crying, wailing voice) NOOOOOOoooooooo! But it huuuuurrrrrrrtssssssss! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Me: Well since it doesn't make you feel any better and it only makes the rest of us really stressed out, why don't you stop crying and lay down.

Then Repeat, repeat, repeat.....until she finally feels better or falls asleep.

So tonight, I really could not take that whole senerio, so I just told her I would have to leave the house. She stopped, layed down and fell fast asleep!

Now the internet is a wonderful thing *well, it can be* and sometimes things like tone of voice, motive and the like are lost in "translation" (going from real life to blog posts). Sooooooo just for clarification, the above senerio was said calmly and firmly. I dote on my children when they are sick. I get a comfy couch sick station made up for them and get them their favorite blanket, and any other things to comfort them. I also sit and stroke their hair or rub their feet, or read stories or a million other little things. Just in case anyone took the above situation out of context and thought I was being an evil mommy :-)

Good night!

PS Please make sure you stop by Shereen's blog to check out other peoples crafty Friday. Everybody there gets theirs in on time :-) Check out her new 'store', she has a lot of neat fabric. And please pray for Shereen, you can scroll down her blog to find out why.

http://w8ng4him.blogspot.com/

I'm still here....

No I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth! Just been busy. There is a lot of things I have been working on, so some of that busy-ness has been doing 'things' and sometimes it is my mind sorting out a ton of things that the Lord is showing me. I have a few pictures to share. They are from the past few weeks. Jedidiah just started pulling himself to standing! We have had a bit of a set back as his tummy can't seem to handle the increase in food volume we were doing. The sad thing is we were only increasing it by 2mls per day (that's less than half a teaspoon!!!). So we moved things back. The good news is that he is gaining weight. I weighed him today and he was 16 pounds and 10.5 ounces. He's just in the slow and steady crowd I suppose :-)

I have been busy cleaning and organizing the house. When I was in the hospital Joe, my sisters dh, put all the kids to work and I came home to a clean house. That was a life and sanity saver! Unfortunately it didn't stay that way. It slowly deteriorated to craziness. But I finally have my wits about me....well most of them anyways :-) That has been the other 'busy-ness' that has been taking my time. I really didn't expect to be drawn into this....hhhmmmm....I'm at a loss for words on how to describe it....I guess I have been drawn into this next phase of our little family revival. There have been many things on my heart lately and I just couldn't figure out what to do about them. So I have earnestly been praying for the Lord's direction. I remember reading about this one mom's situation where she had put all things aside as she was going through this 'season of renewal'. I thought, oh no I could never do that, I have so many other things to do! But you know what....it came down to a strong conviction sent by God to take that time. It was something my sister had said to me regarding my kiddos that stopped me in my tracks. I had already been wrestling with a bunch of stuff in my heart. But this just BLEW me away. I KNEW God was saying that it is time to get with it! So I prayed that He would show me, and he has been faithful to do so. I will have to bring you all along on my journey if I can. It will take me a while to get some of this worked out and there is still stuff that the Lord has not revealed to me, it is a process.

So with all of that I will need to post some pictures and start on putting things into a schedule of sorts to see how all these things will work out.

Here's a picture I tried to get of Jedidiah's mouthful of teeth. You can see 3 of the top 4 new ones. And here he is having fun with his dinner.

This is one of Jedidiah's favorite toys!! His therapy ball. He gets soooo excited when he sees it. Although his new all time favorite is his push toy that he can hang on to and walk along with. Although he doesn't know how to steer it, so someone needs to go along with him to help him out. I will have to get a picture of that soon.

We have our own track in our back yard. Ok, not a running track, but an agility track....for the dogs. Here is Isabella working hard to get it all put together. She also made some jumps and a teeter board.

Here she is trying it out. Maybe she is even giving the dog a lesson. I think our dog has ADD! Ha, ha! That lazy dog is laying in the middle of the track! Actually though Isabella has been training the dogs to jump and do other 'stunts'. It's pretty amazing.

I hope everyone has a great day. I am hoping to participate in the Sew Crafty Friday next week. I've been working on a few things all along, I just haven't gotten around to photographing any of them yet.

Sew Crafty Friday

Here is my almost finished blanket. I just have to weave the string ends in and it will be 100% complete. This was a blanket that I started to make for Jedidiah when he was in the hospital back in February. I had all the squares made. Just this week I sewed the squares together and put a border around it. I really like how it came out.

Then I have a few other projects in the works. I got some knitting books out at the library and fell in love with a whole bunch of designs. I chose to make the dishcloths and a bath mat. The bath mat below is made in the likeness of a log cabin design. It is hard to see here as I am using all one color. But I do plan on making a knitted log cabin blanket with the new Vanna White yarn by Lion Brand.








Here is the dishcloth/wash rag. I love the design, so spunky and refreshing. That's nice over the boring white cheapo Walmart cloths I have right now.

Please make sure to go check out what others are working on by clicking on here: http://w8ng4him.blogspot.com/


In other news Jedidiah had his GI follow up. All went well. He does have a bit more "stuff" coming out of it than there should be, but the doctor said he wasn't concerned. If it doesn't clear up in a week I will have to call back and he'll give me an antibiotic for it. But overall the doctor was very pleased with how everything is going.



Isabella is looking forward to tomorrow. She has been waiting a whole YEAR for this day. You will NEVER guess why. Two years ago about this time of year we just happened to come upon a flyer for the AKC dog companionship day. So we went. And of course it was the highlight of Isabella's life. So she was looking forward to going last year. However with Jedidiah being so small and it too hot out and so on and so forth we couldn't attend. She has literally been looking forward to this all year. It is tomorrow and she is ready to go!



Well I need to go get Jedidiah up to eat. He had a long day of no formal naps. I'm hoping to gather the energy to clean. I'm sure I can find some energy around here somewhere.... :-)

A picture of our Borg Boy

I think it was on Star Trek that they had the Borgs. Half human half machine. It seemed fitting to call Jedidiah, Borg Boy as his tube coming out of his side is so long. I took a picture of it. He was playing with a hat so you can't see his tube free face. Maybe next time.

He was a bit fussy this morning. I hadn't given him any medicine through the night. He slept all night, but he may have been uncomfortable once he was moving around. He is not pleased when I have to clean it. Poor thing. I feel like the big bad evil mommy when I have to do something that hurts him :-( Hopefully it will not hurt too much longer.

I wanted to post some pictures of all the cousins together. But all the pictures are blurry!!! Boo hoo. I guess that means we will just have to get together again so that we can get some good pictures :-)

I broke my fast yesterday, a day early. I needed to or I was going to crash. I was out doing a long day of grocery shopping and my body said, NO MORE. so I listened and ate an apple. But I am proud of myself. My first juice fast accomplished. I was able to do it for 13 days. I wish I had some profound experience to share. I did clear up a few health issues (small ones). The amazing thing was that I was never hungry the entire time!! I am sure that made it very easy for me. I did waiver when I was making some yummy dish, but once I had it done and walked away I was fine. I stayed the course. Now that I am eating a bit more food I feel more perky. It will be a challenge to continue to eat healthy. Not that I eat poorly, but just making the healthiest choices all the time. I seem to slip in to eating less quality foods once I start eating them here and there. Then I want to eat them all the time. It was amazing to see the number on the scale today! I lost 10 pounds during the fast. Most of that will come back quickly as I am able to work out more and the increase in calories. I didn't need to actually lose any weight, but that can't be helped when you're fasting. If we are not expecting in another month I may do another fast. Not sure how long, maybe only a week. We shall see. I would like to put more emphasis on the spiritual side of a fast the next time. I was surprised to "learn" a few things during this fast. Again, nothing profound, but something to put more emphasis on the next time.

Well I need to get going. It is a beautiful day today. Although we can't go anywhere as a family as we are keeping Jedidiah home until he heals.

We are home

We are home from the hospital. Although we almost didn't make it out yesterday! My sister came with me to the hospital. We actually got in on time and they took him back for the procedure 15 min. before they told me it was scheduled for. I had assumed that the time they gave me was for when they would start all the prep work. So I was pleasantly surprised that things went much faster. They said it should only take 25-30 min. They told us that for the endoscopy as well, and that had took over an hour. So once again I was surprised that they called us into the consult room after 25 min. The doctor said things went soooo well that it was scary. He said it was the easiest one he had ever done. Wow, I thought, I hope his recovery goes just as smoothly. But NO it had to be one of the "hardest". Ugh. Jedidiah was really out of it for quite some time. It took them a while to get us a room. We got up there around 4:30 or so. He was running a bit of a fever in the recovery room, which is not odd, but something they needed to keep an eye on. They gave him and IV antibiotic, so it should not be an infection I was told. So all evening he was sleepy. Then the night time fun began. He was a bit fussy and needed meds, then he spiked his fever. It went up to 102.9! The nurses and docs were concerned. They gave him some tyenol but that didn't help it come down, so they were more concerned. So the doctors (residents really) wanted a blood draw. Not a big deal, except for the fact that it was 3 AM in the MORNING! And Jedidiah was SLEEPING. I asked them about how he could have an infection if he was already on antibiotics. I mean, if he has an infection wouldn't they keep giving him the antibiotics anyways? And if it was a viral, there wasn't anything they could do? Um, yeah, I'm just a lay person, I obviously don't know what I am talking about (actually I was right and they were being incredibly silly). And I would have stood my ground, but it was 3 AM. So they tried in his foot, ,but no go. Then they had to do an arterial stick in his wrist, no go....then they tried his other wrist, they got just enough for their "all needed test". Thankfully Jedidiah was still really out of it. He was crying, but not hysterical. Then he was able to go back to sleep. He woke up around 6:30 or so and I decided to jump in the shower. He started crying and crying. And crying....and crying...pretty much all day. It was really more of an on and off thing. Crying for 10-20 minutes and then sleeping for 10-30 minutes and start over. It was from the gas pains. They had to inflate his tummy with gas for the procedure and what goes in has to come out.... He was in more pain from the gas than from the procedure. Due to his fever there was a scare that we might not have been able to go home that next day. That would have been BAD. The girls would have freaked out! But thankfully his fever broke by the afternoon. Then he was able to have his feedings go well, and I learned how to care for the new tube and the guy from our home health equipment company came to give me the pump and other supplies. And then we were able to leave! We had an awesome nurse who was doing what she could to get us out of there.

And I came home to a very clean house! Uncle Joe put all those kiddos to work! My sister and brother in law unfortunately found that we have a mildew problem. We can't smell it at all, but my sister is VERY allergic to it and could smell it on our clothes and towels. It was a bit of a blow to find this all out at this time, but a blessing as well as this may be causing a lot of "issues" that various family members here in the house have. It may even be a reason for Jedidiah's issues! We won't know for a while since it will take a lot to get rid of it. It will be especially hard since we can't even smell it! We won't know if what we are doing is working...until we see some changes in allergies around here I guess.

We are so thankful for my sister and her family for coming. It was soooo great to see her kiddos. All the kids got along great and had so much fun. Their help was so very much appreciated and needed. Jerry was able to work on Thursday and then he and Joe watched the kids on Friday. We got home around 7 or so last night, maybe later. Jedidiah was still doing his crying thing. He looked so pitiful. He was already all puffy from all the IV fluids and his eye's were all purple and puffy. I thought he may never get to sleep. But after a few lullabies from auntie Tracy he was off to la-la land and slept ALL night long! Yeah! And can I just tell you I LOVE the new pump. Right now for the next few days I will have to get up once to just dump some more formula and then I can go back to sleep. But the new bags that will be sent to us will have a pocket for an ice pack, so I just hang the bag and put it on and can sleep ALL night long too!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!

Ok, I better get going. There is some grocery shopping that desperately needs to get done. Thank you to all that have prayed for Jedidiah. Please continue to pray that the site heals well and that he will have no future complications from it. THANK YOU!

Getting ready

I have been in the kitchen all day. LITERALLY! I have been trying to cook ahead to make things easier for when I am with Jedidiah in the hospital and the week afterwards. So I made a bunch of waffles, 4 large pizza crusts, about 14 or so mini pizza crusts, a ton of garlic bread sticks, 2 dozen blueberry muffins, 4 french bread baguettes, a bunch of pita bread, and 3 loaves of bread (which I still have in the oven rising). I think that is it. I made up the grocery list for the first two weeks of Sept. I made sure to make things simple. I plan on making two of a few things to make the later dinners easier. So a lot of work up front, but it will pay big time later :-)

I have only cleaning to do now. My sister thinks that they will be able to come down still. They were having truck issues and it looks like things are ok. Please pray for their safe travel and that all the kiddos will be good.

Ok, I am tuckered out. I need to get the girls into bed. Jerry took BOTH feedings last night. That really made a big difference in how I felt today. I am sure that is why I was able to get so much done. Now he's all tired! So I am taking the 3 AM feeding. Which has been made worse since we went back to Alimentum. He kept throwing up on the soy formula. We are SSSOOOOO bummed about that for a few reasons. Number one, the soy formula is thinner and will go down quicker and the second, soy costs a lot less than the Alimentum. Oh well. I will need to put into practice some of the more extreme frugal practices :-) Like making my own laundry detergent, maybe hanging our clothes out when it isn't like 98% humidity, cut a bit back on AC, try using more beans and rice in our dinners, things like that. They are not really extreme, but they are being added to some of the things I do already.

Good night all. I will have to tell you later about my experience of juice fasting. I am in the middle of a two week juice fast. Nothing too exciting, but something I have wanted to do for a few years now. But you can't if you are nursing or pregnant. And I have been either/or AND sometimes both for over ten and a half consecutive years! I am doing neither at the moment so I saw this as my chance.

Talk to you all later.

A crafty week

Some bloggers have what's called "Sew Crafty Friday". It's Saturday, but......well ok, so I'm late. A couple of weeks ago I felt the need to make something, so I pulled out my stash of yarn. I got a whole bunch of them at Walmart that they had on clarence. It was too good a price to skip out on (like 25 cents a piece!). I didn't know what I would do with it at the time. But here it all is, made into a cute little blanket. I don't have the dimensoins of it. It;s not big enough for an adult to use for covering up, but it works great for the kids.

The countdown is on for Jed's surgery. I am trying to make meals ahead of time to make things easier. The bummer is that we will be home on friday and Jerry will get paid on Saturday. I only buy groceries for the two week pay period, and then everything runs out and we need to go shopping come pay day. So I need to add on my to do list to make up a grocery list. That way Jerry will be able to do the shopping come that Saturday. It will all work out, but it's just bad timing. My sister is still hoping to come down. They have had some issues with their vehicle that may prevent them from doing so. Right now we will wait till the weekend is over to see how their truck is doing. I am sure there is other stuff going on right now, but I need to get going and get some stuff done. Hopefully I will write later.

Ten Years Ago Today.....

I gave birth to our first blessing! We can hardly believe that Isabella turned ten today! We called her the 'double digit girl'. She thought that was pretty cool. I will hopefully put up some pictures of the day. I still need to take one of her next to her birthday sign. I forgot to get one of Moira on her birthday. We went out to eat and she got to get her favorite meal. Then we went home and had cake. She designed the cake herself, and with the help of a few hands she made it herself as well. It is pretty impressive. It is an apron cake. It was very delicious. Tomorrow we will stop by the art store for her to get some scrap booking supplies as her gift. She is looking forward to it.

We had Jedidiah's MRI the other day. It went ok, except that they had to stick him too many times to get the IV in. I have to get the kiddos bathed and ready for church tomorrow so I don't have time to go into detail. We called today for the results and the on call doctor said that everything was normal. So that's good. We have a date for his g-tube. It will be on the 30th of this month. It works out perfectly for my sister to be here!! Yeah!!! Joe already had off a few days around that date so it will work out perfectly for them to be here for the 29th till the morning of the 1st. I won't be able to spend much time with them. But we will make that for another time. I am just so happy that they will be able to be here. The girls are so excited. I know they have been worried about us going into the hospital again. Although it is only an overnight stay, I think it brings back bad memories of his hospital stay in Feb. So they seem more relaxed about it as they have something to look forward to. Well let me get those pictures up. I have to say I am apprehensive about the g-tube, it seems to be a lot more work to take care of. Although it will make the actual feeding easier to deal with. And I am really looking forward to just looking into my little boys face with no tape on it! He's a tube taped to his face almost half of his life! I know there are MUCH worse things out there, don't get me wrong. But I am looking forward to seeing his glorious smile unimpeded by a tube and it's trappings.

The birthday girl and her birthday sign.

A picture of Isa with her cake (sideways) and the paper next to it is her planning sheet for the cake design.

All of us, minus Daddy as he was taking the picture. Poor Isabella had cut her thumb while cutting the Twizzler candies. Not a great thing to happen on your birthday.

She was very excited to receive this book!! She is only a 'little' obsessed with dogs, yeah just a little (the previous statement would win the understatement of the year award!).

When looking for a box to use as a base for the cake to rest on the girls brought down this HUGE box. That was a bit too big! So they played in it! Jedidiah thought this was great fun.

Just being a cutie pie. I have to figure out how to get videos on my blog. He looks so cute crawling. I need to get a video of him before he gets the crawling thing down pat.

Jedidiah is crawling!!!! And.....his neuro appt.

It finally happened! Jerry and I were sitting on opposite couches talking. I had put Jedidiah on the floor with his box of toys. He will usually find himself in different spots from all his scooting and pushing himself backwards across the floor while on his tummy. But as of yet he did not go forward. So we are chatting when we both see him out of the corner of our eyes move forward. We both stopped talking and asked if he just crawled? We thought he did, but weren't sure. So we put a tempting object in front of him and he crawled!!!!! I was so happy I started crying. I know, silly Mommy. It was just soooooo neat.

In other news we had his one year neurology appointment. I figured it would be a quick in and out, he's doing great, ,see you in six months kind of appointment. But not so. When you first come in they take his vitals, measure and weigh him and check his head circumference. Then off you go to the examining room, where you wait for the doctor to come. I knew something was up when another nurse came in and said she just needed to measure his head again.....hmmmmm... and why would that be? Oh, just to double check our numbers she replied. Oh, great, that can't be good. And it wasn't. Nothing too terrible, but his head is continuing to climb up the growth chart, as in climb up in percentile numbers. She said that she was concerned about the disparity between his head size and body size. His body size curve is the same shape as the other curves, just that his his way below all the other curves. Jedidiah has his own curve :-) So his body is growing, but his head is growing more so. So she called in another doctor, who was surprised he was so alert and active. (?????) He kept asking me if I was sure that Jedidiah hadn't lost any development or skills. I assured him he hadn't. So I wasn't sure what the doctor was thinking. He then asks if I can stay for them to get a urine sample. Come to find out that during his hospital stay months ago he had an abnormal result come back on his proteins, or something like that. So they wanted to recheck. Supposedly that could cause a road block of sorts and if it was happening in his head, could be the reason for his large head. Although he followed that up with the fact that he was surprised he was so alert and active. So I am assuming that a child with this protein problem would be exhibiting more symptoms than just a large head. And to be sure to cover their bases he will have another MRI tomorrow. So we get to do the no eating thing, and sedation and waiting for him to come to tomorrow. The actual MRI takes less than 10 minutes, it's everything else that takes so long. I am praying for favorable results. We are waiting to be scheduled for the g-tube. They need to coordinate with both GI doctors first. So it may be a few weeks.

Must be going, I need to make a bunch of stuff today. Pancakes, waffles, small pizza crusts, granola bars and blueberry muffins. I want to freeze most of it so that on our busy doctor visit days I have something to just pull out and warm up.

Some new do's

Ok, I have a minute. Well sort of. We started a new routine and I actually didn't put computer time on it! Yikes, what was I thinking :-) Anyways I thought I would show you the before and after pics of Isa and Moira. And tell you just a bit about Jed. As a side note we don't actually call our children by their abbreviated names. It is just easier for me to write them that way.



Ok, here are the girls before we got their hair cut:

And now how they look after. This was right after they got it cut and so it took another day for their hair to 'settle'.

They love their new styles. And let me just tell you it has been wonderful for Moira as it was always a screaming fest around here come hair brushing time! Now she can brush her hair herself in a minute.

Now for a bit of an update on Jed. We went to see a kineseologist about two weeks ago. She also does chiropractic care as well. We have come to the end of our rope as far as getting answers for Jed. So we decided to seek alternative medicine. Well after one visit there was a huge change in Jed! He was a boy who wouldn't eat any real food (except pureed baby food). He wouldn't even put it in his mouth. He didn't put his hands or toys in his mouth except on a rare occasion. He was very quiet and didn't "talk" much. Well he had his first visit. Afterwards we went to get a snack and I was about to eat a granola bar. Jed reached out and grabbed it from my hand and stuffed it in his mouth!! Now he doesn't know how to chew, but he mouthed that thing and licked it and sucked on it for a long time. I was in total shock! Did you know that babies learn to chew by all the mouthing they do of their toys and hands? That is why Jed doesn't know what to do with food once it's in his mouth. Anyways after that he needed to be wiped off. HE always freaks out when you wipe him off with a wet cloth. So I was prepared for it, except it didn't happen, he actually started licking the wipe!! Unreal! Since then he has been putting all sorts of food in his mouth. And he is much more vocal! He is really telling us what he likes or doesnt' like. So that is it in a nutshell. We will continue to see the kinesiologist as she is the only one who has made a difference for Jed. We will still be going through with the g-tube. We are hoping he will be able to get it by the end of August. I am not looking forward for him being in the hospital (only an over night stay), or him being in pain for a week, but I am looking forward to our lives becoming more normal. It will be nice to not have everything we do revolve around his feedings :-)

Ok, gotta go wake up some kiddos.

The Birthday Boy!!!

Jedidiah turned one on the first. I can hardly believe it. It does not seem real. He is still a baby. We met Jerry's parents at a park in the early evening. Isabella was going to stay with them for a few days and we were meeting them half way. We decided to celebrate Jedidiah's birthday at that time. The girls and I had gone to Walmart to get him a cake a few days prior. It was really odd to be picking out a boy's cake. I mean it's been almost 10 years of all girly girl cakes! We all chose the John Deere tractor cake. We went to Golden Corral dinner. We sang and dug into the cake. Everyone that is EXCEPT Jedidiah. He wouldn't even let us put some frosting on his lips to taste! Silly boy. But with a first birthday cake Walmart gives you this free little round cake. So we let him dig into that. He really enjoyed that. We continued the tradition of our children "forcasting their futures". It is ALL in total jest and fun. It is something my mom told me that she had us kids do. You put out four objects in front of the child and whatever they choose, is what they will be when they grow up. The objects are a coin (to be rich), a piece of fruit (a farmer), a rosary (ministry), and a shot glass (well, not the one you want them to pick!). So wouldn't ya know he picked three things almost at once. He chose the shot glass, the rosary and the fruit. Now that is some future :-) Too funny.

So here are some pictures of that day:

The girls on the dragon's head. We hadn't been to this park in a few years and they had a great time re-exploring it.






Sisters enjoying the hot day.



A cutie pie.

Playing in the grass. Something that Jedidiah wasn't too sure about. The grass was a bit overstimulating for him. But he got used to it and had fun.

Little man's cake. He played with the tractor. At least he did when his sister's weren't hogging it :-) Boy toys are a novelty here.

His future vocations.....

Digging in!!! That's what birthdays are all about!

The happy birthday boy!!! Although he wasn't too happy to have to get cleaned up!

I'll have to write more about some improvements that Jedidiah has had. Also have some pictures of Isabella and Moira who look totally different from the pictures above. They both donated 10 inches of their hair to Locks of Love. But it is time to get the kiddos in bed and then myself in bed so that I can get a few hours sleep before his 3 a.m. feeding. Thankfully Jerry and I have worked out a plan that is making it easier on me. He takes the 11 p.m. feeding and I take the 3 a.m. feeding. I was doing both for months. That got to be too much for me to handle. A person needs more than 4 to 6 hours of totally broken sleep to be able to function. Goodnight all!