Birthday today

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAOIRSE!!!!!

Baby girl is 3 today!!!! She had a great day. Today was the girls last day of soccer and they had a few of those moon walk thingies there. So they all got to play on those for a while today. Then we came home and cleaned up a bit. The girls set the table with the plates, cups and napkins. Then after dinner it was cake time and present time. A great fun day. I have a few pictures to share of the day.

The last one was taken about two weeks ago. I have to share a funny. Isabella decided to put on a puppet show for the girls and made up some stories that had morals to them. WHOA!!! Scary stuff!! If I was a kid I would make sure to listen to my parents after hearing those stories. All of them had gruesome endings. Here is one:

There was a koala who would climb up trees acting all crazy and knocking them over. His mom finds out he knocked the trees down and went out to put them upright again (hey you can do that when they are playmobil trees). So she tells the koala that he can not do that again. Well the kid koala decides to disobey and does it again. He goes out climbs around acting all crazy and knocks the trees over again. So the Mom finds out and scolds him and sends him to his room for disobeying. Well the kid koala is in his room and comes up with the idea that it would be fun to sneak out and climb the trees by the river and tease the alligators. So he sneaks out, climbs the river trees, but knocks it over into the river where the alligators come and eat him up for dinner. Yum.

So there you have it, make sure those kiddos of yours don't fool around on trees by rivers that have alligators in them :-)

toofers!

Umm, ok, that would be, "a tooth" in mommy language :-) Little man finally has a tooth coming in! We are so excited, especially seeing how he is going to be 10 months old next week! My, where does the time go? We heard back from the early intervention people. They will come out next week to do an evaluation to see what Jedidiah may need help with. The poor little guy has been sick. The kiddos all got a cold. Saoirse had it for like 2 days, Moira had it for about 5 days, but Jedidiah has had it for 10 days now. He needs to get better.

The girls have their last soccer game this saturday. Then next Saturday Isabella has a tournament. They have all done very well this spring season. This Saturday is also Saoirse's birthday. Three years old! She is all excited. I took her to Walmart to pick out a cake. She picked a Barbie princess cake. I'm just glad they didn't have a camo one ;-0 (ha, ha). She's been asking to open her present for the past few days. Too funny.

Ok, I have to get the kids to bed. 'Nite

13 pounds!!!

Yes, he has FINALLY hit 13 pounds!!! We have hit a few bumps in the road along the way getting to 13 though. We seem to take 2 steps forward and one step back. Even now, he doesn't have his feeding tube in because he pulled it out a couple of mornings ago. Jerry didn't have time to help me put it in before he left for work. He said he would do it when he got home. No biggy i thought as that only meant two feedings without it. However i noticed he was doing this 'little' cough. I figured it was due to him pulling out his tube, and maybe he didn't get it up all the way at first and had irritated his throat. No, that wasn't it, he was getting sick! By the time Jerry got home it was a congested cough and he had a fever. UGH!!! But even with his sickness he went up in weight! Thank the Lord! I am only concerned now because when we put the tube back in he may get the runs again. And that puts his weight at a stand still. Over all he is doing well. His solid food eating skills have been improving immensely. He is almost sitting up all by himself now! He claps and is waving bye-bye too. Sooooo cute.

The girls have only two games left in their soccer season. We will have to come up with a game plan for the rest of the spring and summer. They need to keep active. Flannery was just born active :-) She is always on the go! Saoirse's activity level would be more of a normal active. But he older two....well they are below normal in activity level. Moira has always been that way. She has always walked slow, moves slowly, is quiet... Isabella used to be a whirlwind, but sometime around 4 years old she stopped. Hmmm, not sure why. But we are working on that now.

I had been concerned about being two weeks behind in their schooling (due to being in the hospital), but when i was working in their lesson plans for the month, we still come out ahead. We may have to still continue schooling the first two weeks of our summer break just to get in the 180 days required of us, but they will be ahead in lessons. As a matter of fact Moira starts the next level math book next week. And Isabella starts her next math book in about 3 weeks. So they will be a few months ahead in math by the end of the school year.

Not much else to write about for now. Saoirse, Jedidiah and I will be heading to the park in a bit. Our midwife started a homebirth meetup in this area. That should be fun! Have a great weekend.

Oh, yeah...Tracy.... we'll have to take you up in your offer to help us stock up in camo :-) I bought some camo material to make a tierd skirt for Isa out of it. But it is the desert camo. Although I don't think she cares what kind it is! We will be getting a toy bow and arrow for them soon. How and when did my life not become my life anymore? I always imagined pink, princesses, dress up as in "dresses" dress up, makeup.....now I have cowgirls, horsies, hunters, camo......very strange indeed :-)

It's all Uncle Jame's fault!!!!

Ok, we have determined the source of Isabella's love of camo...... It all started when she was 11 months old....here is the proof. This is Uncle Jame's hat, so therefore it is his fault, perfect logic!

The picture is blurry due to the fact that it's a picture of a picture! But you can get the jist.

Southern Peaches Farm

Life on the farm.....well our "farm" is a bit on the unusual side. Here we have cowhand Flannery riding on Australian Stock Horse Isabella:

Then there's cute farmer Jed:

We even have our farm patroled, ya gotta watch out for them thar squirrles:

And then some of farm hands learning the ropes:

I need to get a picture of Isabella doing her new found "hobby"....archery. No I am not joking. she took the bag that the folding lawn chair came in (it is tube shaped), found some sticks that have "y" notches on one end and put them in the bag. Tha bag goes over her shoulder. Than she found a large stick, tied a bunch of rubber bands together and attatched them to the ends of the large stick for her bow. It really shoots! She has been setting up all sorts of targets. She also has planned a camp for kids and families to come and make their own bows and arrows. At the end of the camp they will go hunting with their bows and arrows. She's got it all planned out on paper. So much for princess stuff!!! I have consoled myself with saying she's a Princess Warrior. I've got to do what I've got to do to have hope :-) Gotta go feed Farmer Jed. By the way he looks great with no tube in him in the above pic. However it was just short lived. We were waiting for Jerry to come and help us put the tube back in. We;ve had problems with them not staying in place.

PS...click on the pic of Jedidiah and check out his hair color!!!! I think we have another red head!!

A quick update

I finally am able to get on here. But not for long! The kids are getting dressed to go outside to play, and we are losing daylight to do that.....I will try to write more later on tonight, but I have baths to give and meals to prepare....so we'll see. Everyone is doing well. Jedidiah is gaining. He's been a bit fussy lately. I think it may be the new tube I put in him. I really can't put my finger on it, but am probably going to put a new tube in anyways to ease my mind. The tube has been in for about 5 days and after 5 days of fussing I'm thinking it has to do with the tube as his fussing started then. We have switched him from a 3 hour routine to a 4 hour routine. That has been really good for his naps, but he is having to adjust to the food intake difference. He is taking in more at one feeding. He is also taking in solid foods on a regular basis.

Some great news is that we qualify to receive therapy for him without us having to pay for it! There is a program that is for children birth to three years old. The idea is to catch problems in these early years and intervene if there are problems so that when they get to school age those problems have been dealt with already and the kids are not trying to learn skills that they need for school during the school year, putting them behind.

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Ok, I wrote that yesterday and I never posted it. We had a wonderful Easter. Nanna and Grandpa came to celebrate the day. The kids had an egg hunt and then put on a reading show. They love to put on a play or read something they have written. It was a bit chilly out, but it warmed up enough for the egg hunt.

I am reading a book called LEAN Kids. We need a bit of help in this area. I know what to do for an adult who needs help with their weight, but not with kids. I know that children are not supposed to lose weight, but grow into their bodies. I have gotten some good ideas and the needed encouragement to implement some changes. It will be a few days before I gather those thoughts into a workable plan though. We have a few errands to run today and school to accomplish.

I have been feeling a bit of a failure recently. It is normal for me to feel like a failure as a mother as it seems I can't act and do the very things I want to act like and do. I have been praying about that lately and the Lord has been good to help me see the baby steps I need to take to change that. And then it just kind of snowballed from there into feeling like I have failed in all that i have done. To be more acurate I haven't failed in what i "have"done (except in the mothering/wife department) but what I have "not" been doing. You see before we had kids I had "ideas" of how I wanted things to be. Some of my thoughts were: All natural foods, no sugar, open ended natural toys, gardening, lots of outside time, and other things......But the idea here is that I haven't stuck to my convictions. These are my non spiritual convictions, which are indeed secondary to the spiritual ones, but important non the less. I think seeing how big Isabella is now has had an impact on the feeling that time is slipping away. I know that I already have regrets. I would like to minimalize those if I can, because if not they are only going to grow bigger.

Ok, I best be going. We need to get some milk and other groceries and then take Jedidiah to his dysphasia appointment.

Have a great day! I'll try to get some pictures of the kids somtime soon.