I have received some great comments on my vaccination post! I was pleased, as
I was a bit worried, as it is such a hot topic. I wanted to put my sisters
comment here in a post to be read by all. She is an RN and her insights into
this controversy is worth reading. I didn't want anyone to miss out on it! Ok, off to eat lunch
and
clean, clean, clean!

Well your dear sister here just couldn't NOT post a comment here after
reading all these other wonderful comments. As an RN, I feel like I am a
hypocrite going into work. It's not just about vaccinations, but about all
synthetic drugs massed produced and pushed onto people. I have to administer
these drugs in my job, but I do not believe they are doing anyone any good
(like
vaccinations). SO while I feel I am doing more harm by administering
these
drugs, I do my utmost to "preach" about natural healing, herbs, and
doing things
the way God intended us to do. Not only do I preach to the
patients, but also
their families and co-workers. Now I have found myself in
a predicament. We
are
highly encouraged by the hospital to get our flu shots (they are FREE after all
-
please note the sarcasm!). But I will be refusing mine. The sad thing is most
people I work with are shocked at my decision as they will view me as a
carrier
and probably the cause of any of our patients contracting the flu (I
work on the
respiratory floor). It is very sad that doctors and some nurses
cannot
understand that people with already compromised immune systems are
more likely
to die after getting a flu or pneumonia vaccine as they are if
they got the
disease in the first place. Vaccines temporarily suppress
your immune system (for
how long is still debatable), so if one
is already ill with something else,
then having one's immune system
suppressed even for a short time can open the
door for some serious problems
to occur in the body. So the entire problem for
me is I will be out of a job
by next year (which is fine as we only plan to have
me work for one year).
But just knowing I will be fired if I refuse my flu shot
is completely
unacceptable to me... by next year word is that flu shots will be
mandatory
for all hospital workers (at least here in Rochester). This year we
have to
sign a waiver if we refuse-which of course being the trouble maker that
I am
I will try to get away with not signing it! Anyway keep sticking to your
beliefs and of course the most important thing for all to know is KNOW YOUR
RIGHTS. We may live in a "free" country, but our rights our violated all the
time. And if someone "talks" to you more than 2 times about vaccinations and
you
have made your point very clear, just threaten to sue for harassment, because
that is what it is...pure harassment. Gee I cannot wait to get my license to
practice as a naturopathic doctor!!!!!

a great site

My friend Bethany put together two wonderful posts on vaccinations. She has a bunch of links that I have never been to. I am excited about checking them out. Well, excited as one can be learning that I put toxins into my children.....ok, you know what I mean (at least I hope you do!). Anyway, please stop by her blog and check out her posts here and here.

This week I will be a bit busy. That's putting it mildly. I am undertaking the reorganization of our house. Not for the faint at heart! OK, it's not that bad, but I did request help from our church as I have not been able to get anything done due to all the normal everyday stuff that takes up my time as it is. I had our wonderful helper, Grace, come today. I got the whole family room done and almost the changing room done! Yipee! I have plans on writing a post on the plans I have to revamp our family situation. You see we have lazy children. We have disrespectful children. We have disobedient children. Trust me, it's not pretty. Well, sin never is. So Jeremiah and I have plans to turn things around. The plans are flexible as life always likes to throw you a few unknowns. And we know that without the Lord nothing we do will work. Yet at the same time the Lord commands us to train our children and to teach them diligently the ways of the Lord. Something we have obviously failed in. So when I get the chance I'll write that out on my blog. It will be neat to see what we do, what worked, what didn't, etc.

Off to get some granola bars made for tomorrows snacks.

Have a great day!

Vaccinations

Donna had asked me a question regarding vaccinations. What do we do with them? Good question! With our first two children we had them fully vaccinated. However, towards the last couple of shots with our second I had been doing more research on the matter. I was uneasy about what I had read and we spaced them out some more. Then with our third child, along with doing a whole lot more reading and having a midwife who was against vaccinations we decided not to give her any. I have to say, to this day, she is my child that somewhere deep inside of me I feel something would have happened to her. Maybe not severe, but something. I have never been able to shake that feeling whenever I continue my research. I have had a doctor try to scare me into them. He would not let up, so we left the practice. With all the doctors visits with Jed I was sure it was going to be an issue, and with one doctor it was. The doctor who admitted us to the hospital never said a word about it....until afterwards on a return followup visit. The visit was supposed to be about how we were going to manage Jedidiah's feedings. However, the whole visit was nothing but vaccinations! I kept going back to the topic of how I was supposed to feed my child (the doctors at the hospital wanted that to be between our doctor and me so this doctor was the one who was supposed to be giving me how much, when, and all that other feeding info I had been waiting for..). He would literally start a sentence on the topic of feeding and stop, and then go on and on about how we don't vaccinate. I NEVER got the information I really needed! He's worried that my child MIGHT get some horrid disease, BUT never mind that he WOULD die if I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to feed my child. Um, yeah, that makes a lot of sense :-) He told me that if Jed was to come down with a fever that I would have to take him to the ER, as he was not willing to see him because we didn't vaccinate. Ok, sorry for the little rant there, maybe I just had some pent up emotions from the whole ordeal :-) We currently have a wonderful doctor. He told us when we first visited that if we wanted vaccinations that we would have to get them somewhere else as he did not have enough patients to stock them. And he's never said a word about it since! He's the kind of doctor who actually listens to you!!!! A very rare novelty!!!! I told him even if we moved half way across the state I would still keep him as our doctor. He is fine with me trying our natural remedies. And he knows my hard stance on antibiotics. That is why I respect his opinion. Last winter when we were all getting the flu he told me that the Jeremiah, the girls and I were fine to ride it out but that although he wouldn't tell us what to do he felt very strongly that Jed take the Tamaflu meds. And ya know what, we did! I was able to take his advice because he knows how I feel about meds and wouldn't recommend them if it weren't truly necessary. Ok, now I'm off on another tangent.

My best advice, Donna, would be to really ask around. Maybe find a homebirth meetup as a lot of women in them are usually more into natural remedies and ask them who they see for their doctor. And I would also recommend that you always continue researching. I know that if we were to go out of the country that I would have my children vaccinated. Only because at that point a lot of factors change. I believe that God has made our bodies to work. Yes they fail at times because we live in a sinful world, but he gave our bodies mechanisms to fight disease. Also, I have read enough to know that proper nutrition and good hygiene go a long way to fight off illness. But other countries may not have those God ordained sanitary conditions to fight off disease. So I am not a total die hard antivaccinationist (is that a word?). No matter which decision we make regarding vaccinations, we are taking a risk. Which risk are we willing to live with? Which is also why I feel that it is my duty (to my children) to feed them well. I recently mentioned that we have had more sugar in our diet than I would like. Sugar is a big, bad, no-no. It totally renders your immune system useless for a few hours. You have some sugar at breakfast, then at dinner, then at.....it really adds up, leaving your body without its proper defense.

There are so many aspect to talk about regarding vaccinations. For example the number of people who still come down with the diseases that they have been vaccinated against. Or the fact that some of the diseases have been making a comeback, but they have mutated, so now vaccinations are not effective against it. Or the pro-life factor, that there has been vaccines made with aborted fetal tissue. It doesn't matter how "watered" down it is now, some poor aborted baby was used to make it. And of course all the issues that vaccines hinder your immune system. I mean, how many people do you know have ever had 7 diseases attack them at once? Yet they give that all-in-one shot that has 7 vaccines in it. It may only be 5 vaccines in the all-in-one, but I know they were trying to get one approved for 7. I mean 7!!!! And this is on infants, a wee little person, who's body is still forming at a rapid rate, and it's body is learning how to work with the world. So lets inject them with a bunch of poisons. Yes, those poisons are in very small quantities, but it's also going into a very small person. Never mind all the doctors and nurses who won't even get some of the newer shots coming out now. Why is that? Oh, am I going on and on again? I'm sorry! I hope I even answered your question with all these babblings!! If not, or if you have any others, feel free to ask.

On a side note we went to our church's reading of Deuteronomy. I didn't get to listen to all of it as I had a fussy baby. But even still it was really neat to see all the families gathered together reading great lengths of God's word. Children sitting, listening as well. Although some children colored, or fell asleep. Even some of the older girls and some of the women were knitting or crocheting as they listened. There was a small break for some snacks. The evening went from 6 pm until 9:15 or so. I wish I could convey just how special I think our church is. We are not perfect to be sure, but there is just something about having the families as a whole participating. There are a lot of us in the church who did not have a Christian upbringing. There are many times when we are trying to find our footing. And what a blessed thing to be able to go to an older woman or another family who may be generations strong in the faith to turn to. It is really amazing. And I also love that I will get the truth, as hard as it may be, as much as I don't want the truth at that moment. But that truth is given in love. It's not watered down, nor is it shoved down either. We also have a diverse body, with interesting talents and interests. I just heard that one of the ladies knows how to cut hair. She had told someone else that she would show her how to cut her boys' hair. I said, "Hey, lets make it a class! I need to learn too!" Another lady just told me today that she would help me pick out paint colors for our house. She told me that when I was ready that she would come with me to pick out the colors! Then there are a bunch of women who sew, or knit, or......the list goes on. One young gentleman came to help us with our computer. And lets not forget all the wonderful hands that help with the young ones. I usually don't know where Jonah is on Sundays! He's off with one of the many girls waiting 'in line' to hold him :-)

I seem to be in a rambling mood this evening! I must be off to bed. Even though Jed may have gone to bed later than normal, that doesn't mean that he will sleep in later than normal.

Have a blessed day!

A day at the fair

Oh, boy, am I tired! Jeremiah called me from work on Monday to say, "We're going to the fair this Thursday!" The last time we were at the fair Moira was a baby! It was a very chilly morning, in the 30's and 40's. So we had to wear layers, which we shed most of by the time we left. We spent a lot of time looking at the animal exhibits and some old farm machinery. Both boys had gone through their first change of backup outfits with in the first half hour! The girls got to go on one ride each. We were very blessed by a woman who came up to us in the parking lot asking if we had ride tickets yet. She had bought a bunch in advance at almost half the price and wanted to know if we wanted to buy some off of her. Wonderful! We were also able to get admission cheap as it was can food day, where admission is 4 cans of food per person. All of the older three girls went on the ferris wheel. TOTALLY not my choice!! Those dare devils :-) They went on with Jeremiah and a neighbor friend of ours from a few years ago. We also came across two other people/families from two past churches of ours. Pretty neat! A great time was had by all. I have to admit after a half day keeping track of 6 kiddos in a VERY crowded place, I was ready for home. Poor Jonah man is totally overstimulated. I think he has finally konked out. Jeremiah tagged teamed me for baby care. Jonah does great when we are out and about, but when we get home, he comes totally undone. He just screams and screams, and....well screams until he finally passes out from exhaustion. This is why we haven't been going to prayer meeting and Sunday night study at church, as he just can not handle it. He will outgrow it, it will just take some time.

So yesterday as I was making mental notes of everything we would need for fair day I realized that Jonah did not have a winter hat. It finally did get to 60 degrees today, but for the most part it was breezy and chilly. And if you are a wee babe with no hair....you need a little covering :-) So what does one do when they realize their child has no hat? With no transportation to get said hat? Make one! So I got on the computer where I knew I had saved some patterns. But then I got the notion of making a "fancy" hat. Call me silly, go ahead. And what does one do when they don't find a suitable pattern online for said fancy hat? Well you make it up! Yes, that is what I did. And by golly I think it is the cutest thing! I suppose I am not being very humble here am I? Ha, ha! And what makes it even cuter is when you put it on the baby! I don't have pictures of him wearing it, but I do have pictures of the hat solo. You'll have to take my word for it that it indeed looks even cuter on the baby.

I was able to take out a frozen meal to pop in the oven. And even though the girls were up early today and walking all day, they are in the house bouncing off the walls!!! Calgon, take me away! Here are a few pictures from the day and other miscellaneous ones:

A very studious Jedidiah. He likes to pull out the Bible and sit on the couch to "read" it. You can also find him throughout the day sitting here and there throughout the house reading books of all kinds.

Who's teaching who? Bible time with Daddy :-)



Saoirse out by our birdfeeder. She is such the ham! She loves getting her picture taken.

Here is the "fancy" hat I made. It's a dinosaur. I thought it was pretty darn cute.

This here is a man in a little caged "room" with some honey bees! I know you're loving this Tracy :-) Anyways we were able to ask him a lot of questions about beekeeping, something we are interested in. We go through a lot of honey. A lot. So why not get our own bees? The 'sad' thing about this time with the beekeeper were when school groups (or part of school groups) would come up to watch. They had these questionaires with them that they were to check off as they went along. So they came up and asked the predesignated question and went on their way. Now, I'm not against prompting children with ideas to think on, or questions to ask. However this was most definitely a case of what I would call, 'canned procedure'. There was no thinking on the children's part, just ask the required question and move on. Our family was asking all sorts of questions, including Jeremiah and myself. But this wasn't just because we are interested in bees. As a matter of fact the girls were really eyeing the horses on the other side of the building at the time. But they still were engaged with what was in front of them. Ok, sorry to go on about that, just an observation that I made during the day.

Here are the dare devil girls! The girl between Isa and Moira is one of our past neighbors. It was great to see them again. It was funny because Jeremiah asked the Mom to convince me of naming one of our future girls (if we should be blessed with one), Fiona. Fiona, happens to be the Mom's name :-)

This was one of the calves there at the Fair. It was sooooo cute. It kept sticking its head out of the fencing and trying to munch on the girls dresses! They had signs all over to not touch the animals, but even I wanted to give this cute calf a pat on the head.

The dare devils rolling past us. I uploaded the wrong picture, I meant to put the one up of all of them waving.....so just imagine that they are doing that here :-) I really hate waiting for the pictures to upload....yes, just call me lazy.




This is the ride that the two younger children chose. Jedidiah got all giddy when Jeremiah put him up on the horse. He was all smiles!

There you have it. Our day at the fair. I am hoping everyone will go to bed early. I want to hit the hay! Tomorrow night our church is doing a reading of the book of Dueteronomy. We will go to that for a bit. Well I must be off, Jed is asking me to read him a book.

I used to be smart....

at least that is what I have been telling myself today. We weighed Jed just the other day to find out that he has LOST two ounces! Um, ok, now what are we doing wrong? Well it appears that I happened to have forgotten a very, very, very crucial element of this whole mission to gain weight. And that is this: Once Jed has gained weight his current calorie needs go up. So we need to periodically check to make sure that we are meeting his calorie needs. I think because he spent so much time NOT gaining weight, and with the new additions of homemade formula and a handful of supplements (that take quite a bit of time to prepare) I had forgotten that rather simple, but VERY important concept. Until today. It finally dawned on me that with his recent weight loss that I should check his current calorie needs. Um, yeah.....we are only like short some 300 mls- or thereabouts. I can be thankful that he has only lost two ounces. So today we increase his feedings. I am hoping that he will be back on the rise soon :-)



Saoirse woke up with this horrid sounding coughing thing going on....think croup. But within a few minutes she was ok, and hasn't coughed again all morning. Isa had a sore throat yesterday and so I am assuming that has something to do with Saoirse. It looks as if the fight is on to keep everyone well. I have to say that I have been lacking in the healthy menu area. It's not that its really bad or anything, just letting more sugar creep in than I should. But, hey, there is only so much I can do!



Here is a funny: Last night the girls and I were looking on the web about the couple who just had identical triplets. I have always been fascinated by multiples, and what would be more exciting than multiples that are identical? So we are looking at a video on YouTube and on the side bar there is a video on conjoined twins. The girls asked to watch it. No biggie, or so I thought. Afterwards I sent them all off to get ready for bed. Flannery comes back to say goodnight, then proceeds to sit down in a chair next to me. I tell her she has to go to bed. She remains sitting with "the look". The look she gets when she is freaked out about something. She tells me she is scared. I ask her what she is afraid of (she had recently been afraid of her closet, so I was expecting something along those lines). She tells me, as she is crying, that she is scared because of the movie. Movie? What movie? The one we just watched she tells me. Hmmmm, the movie we just watched....you mean the one about the conjoined twins? Yes, and she starts bawling. I ask her why she is afraid. Come to find out that she thought that this sort of thing could happen to anyone at anytime. Poor thing! I think she was afraid she was going to wake up with another person attached to her. I assured her that was not possible. I explained, with a drawing, how this sort of thing happens. She was still a bit freaked out this morning as she herself wasn't feeling well and asked me if I was sure that things like that wouldn't happen. Ahhh, children :-)

We are in the throws of organizing. Things are going pretty well. I have to do what I can in between feeding children, and taking care of the baby. At least the house looks decent at this moment. So I am able to tackle little areas at a time. I will take a pictures around our house when I am through.

And one last note. An odd one I am sure to some. I am not even sure how to word it, and really it probably isn't something that needs to be "talked" about, but it has been on my mind now for days. I don't have a lot of time to make comments on other peoples blogs. I usually just read and am on my way. I only leave comments on my family and friends blogs. But every once in a blue moon I will make a comment or more likely ask a question on someone elses blog. There is a blog I visit regularly. I have learned soooo much from her writing. There are things she writes about that I don't always agree with, but that is not a problem to me, it's her blog :-) However, lately, she has had a lot to write about the "End Times". The whole "Great Tribulation", rapture and what not. I wrote to her to suggest that everyone re-read those scriptures that talk about those 'matters' in light of who Jesus was actually talking to, and when He Himself said those things would take place. That is all I said, along with telling her how much I loved her blog. My comment was not published. I was bummed. I was a bit upset only because I know that a lot of people read her blog, some who are new Christians, and others who are not. I have been reading a book on this matter called "End Times Madness". And one theme that runs through the book (at least as far as I have read) is that when Christians start making a big deal about what they perceive as the "signs" that they see that say the end is near and then the end doesn't come....well that discredits the Bible. But the end, at least the end that Jesus was talking about, already happened! It wasn't the end of the world, it was the end of the old covenant, and that end was going to consist of Jerusalem being judged for crucifying the Messiah. So the events in Matthew 24 and Revelation have already taken place. We are not waiting for these things to happen. And each generation has been able to take their current events and wrap them around Scripture to say...."Look, the end is at hand!" But the end already came. So for anyone who has worries or has questions on this matter I would guide you back to the Bible to see what it has to say for itself, and also the book I mentioned. Not to say we don't live in scary times, but they don't have anything to do with the "end times" Jesus was speaking of.

Gotta go, I've got a fussy baby on (or I should say, IN) my hands :-)

We are still here

....at least I am. Jeremiah took the girls and Jed all out. It is just Jonah man (who is sleeping) and I. I really have to take this time to get some stuff done. Our house has totally gotten out of hand! UGH!! Today was a better day of tackling it all. We were out all day on Wednesday. We had to pick up three older boys (to help with the wheat order), drop of Jeremiah to work, go to the park, pick up the wheat, and drop off the boys. We ended up staying at our friends house until it was time to pick Jeremiah up from work. Needless to say that busy day totally overstimulated poor baby boy. It took him an hour to calm down and go to sleep. But we had a great time fellowship. I know I was going to blog about a few other things that went on this week. And I would if I could *remember* them! Hmmmm, maybe it will come to me later. Probably when I am in the middle of something and I don't actually have the time to post! But of course.

Jeremiah and I listened to a great, GREAT lecture/sermon tonight. Not sure if any of you have heard of Dr. S. M. Davis or not. We listened to his talk on how to stop the curse of the rebellious child. I also listened to a talk by him earlier today (as I was eating lunch and cleaning) about breaking family curses. Yeah....I/we needed that. And we will keep needing it. It is definitely something we will listen to again and again. I've been listening to a talk by Victoria Botkin on homeschool. It is great stuff. I was kind of able to breathe a sigh of relief. Sometimes I start to wonder.....am I doing this right? Am I missing something? We got some great ideas for the girls schooling and I am looking forward to hearing the rest of the talk sometime soon. Homeschooling is never static, nor should it be. We are always evaluating and re-evaluating what we are using and doing. We've been having some trouble with the history program we have been using this past year. I still think it is a great program, just not with a lot of children, IF you want their literature to match up with their history content. Sonlight takes a lot of time, and there isn't enough time for each child to be in their own level. So we have had Isa and Moira doing the same level. However Isa's literature is American History related, but the girls are in the Ancient civilization level in the history section. So this talk we have been listening to may just help us go the uncharted course. And it is reassuring to know that it can be done, and that it works. I'll try to remember to let you all know what we decide to do about it later on.

Right now I feel....um....hmmmm....not sure of how to word it all. It seems that my mind is just one big muddle right now. I know we need more of a routine/schedule. However in order for that to work I need to have children who are obedient. And that takes time, and a lot of work. In the mean time we are re-evaluating curriculum. And I seem to have a million and one things that I would like to teach them, or do. So I feel like I am being pulled in a million directions. I am thinking part of this feeling may be hormonal. The baby has been doing 7 hour stretches at night. This may be stirring up some hormonal soup or something, as evidenced by my wild dreams I have been having! I'm not sure if anyone else has crazy dreams when their hormones are wacky, but I do. So I need to hang on for the ride and wait for my mind to slow down.

Ok, this post seems totally nonsensical (is that a word?) Off I go to do some cleaning. Oh fun, oh fun!

My Montage 10/11/08

THE ZOO

Finally the zoo post, plus if time allows a few more interesting items. We had a great time at the zoo. It was a family celebration of our 14th wedding anniversary. By the time we arrived at the zoo it was about 12:30. We had 4 and a 1/2 hours to look around. The girls were looking forward to seeing the red wolf. It is at least half way through the zoo. It turned out to be a bit disappointing as he just lay there. Last time we went to the zoo he was wandering all over the place. The children really love the playground there. It is set up as if you are ant size in a garden. Really fun. This day however about half the schools in NC were there, ok, probably not, but is sure seemed like it! So the park was crowded. A new addition to the zoo is a carousel. That was a hit as well. We were all worn out by the time we got to the end of the trail. The biggest hit for Jedidiah, of all things, was the bus ride back to our van!! He was totally thrilled and overcome with awe to be riding a bus. Very funny.

Jonah's sleep training is going very well. Today is day three. On the first day he cried for 9 minutes for each nap. It was a real cry. Yesterday he fussed for 4 minutes each nap. Only fussy, not crying. And this morning he fussed for 1 minute and this afternoon only 10 seconds! He is doing great. I really love this approach, taken from the Baby Whisperer. I am there with him the whole time, patting his bottom. I talk very softly, letting him know that he is tired and learning to fall asleep. It will be a little bit before I can just walk in and lay him down and leave, but we are on the right path. It only takes him a few minutes now to fall asleep. This is an improvement as it was taking 45 minutes to nurse him to sleep laying down with him. What a big boy!

And one last interesting matter. Tests. Yes, tests. Not the school kind, but the testing of your faith kind. Maybe not of our faith, but a refining test. Yes, that's it. You might recall our ice cream matter a few days back. We really felt that God spoke to us, telling us we did the right thing to commit to tithing. AHhhhh and it is soooo like the Lord to test ya to see if you are serious. So the other day Jeremiah comes home from work. He looked really, REALLY upset. He told me it was a very, VERY bad day. YIKES! My first thought was that he lost his job. I mean he really, REALLY looked upset. Thankfully that was not the case. It was 'only' his truck, and that it was undriveable, that it needs its whole clutch system replaced. This is no small ticket item. We had just gotten done going over the budget a few days ago so we knew we wouldn't be able to get it fixed anytime soon. So we go back over it to see where we were going to pull money from to pay for this fixer upper job. Wouldn't ya know that the amount we would need (thereabouts) is the amount of our monthly tithe. Hhhhmmmmm. For some reason I totally saw this as a test. We could get it fixed in another two weeks......if......we don't tithe. Or we can tithe and wait till mid January to get it fixed. You know those broadcasts that say, "this is a test, only a test, for the next minute.......if this were a true emergency...." and then you get to listen to that really annoying noise? Yes, I really saw this as a test. So we determined that we were going to stick to our conviction. That means Jeremiah will have to take the big van to work, and I will be left vehicle less. And the weird thing is that I'm totally fine with that! I was sitting there that night nursing Jonah in our darkened room. Just he and I in quietness, and I was just overwhelmed when I started counting my blessings. We are indeed rich! VERY, VERY RICH. Compared to others in the USA maybe not rich, but to the rest of the world we are. And we are rich in other areas besides our possessions. We are rich with children, we are rich with a wonderful body of believers that we fellowship with each week. We are rich in so many, many ways. And to go with out a van for a few months paled in comparison to what others have to do without. I was thankful it was his truck that broke and not our van. At least we will still be able to go places as a family! Ok, enough rambling!

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Our first stop was to the alligators and swamp creatures. We are all fresh and ready to hike the zoo trail.

Moira with Tort the tortoise. Jed was actually a bit freaked out by him. The ropes you see are the only thing keeping the turtles in, and so maybe he thought they could get out of their pen?

The girls in front of the zoo park. They were actually done playing here. They would have loved to play a lot longer. But I can only handle keeping track of them in a large crowd for so long. Plus we only had so much time on our side before the zoo closed, and this is in the beginning of the trail.

Saoirse wasn't too sure about this slide. It was rather steep. But once she went down there was no stopping her.

Moira taking Jedidiah down the slide. Jed loves slides! He had a blast!

Moira and Flannery on a squash. This is as close to a squash as Flannery might get in her life time. She has a thing about veggies.....she hates them.

Jedidiah wasn't too sure about this gourd. I think there was a bug in there and he didn't like the close proximity he was in with it. Hmmm, not sure. He only stayed in there but a minute.

Isa, Moira and Flannery on a praying mantis. Ooooohhhhhh, Isabelle, I am sure you can be proud of me to not freak out about my children sitting on a praying mantis! Hey I've gotten a lot better about things like that. As long as they don't come in the mail!

Jedidiah walking along a vine with Daddy's help. It was so cute to see him trying out all the neat things to do at the park.

Daddy and Jed. Nothing like a huge lady bug to stomp on.

Moira was the only one willing enough to stay on top of the buffalo long enough to get a picture of. It really didn't seem like his head was too high up, but each girl freaked out when Jeremiah lifted them up onto it. And it really is odd the things that Moira is willing to do. She is such a girly girl and really was our most afraid child. But she's turned that around and will do things the other girls wouldn't do.

A group shot with the buffalo. It was much better on the ground :-)

Isabella made a bee line to the wolf at the carousel. Her she and Saoirse are enjoying themselves.

Do you think that Jedidiah is a *little* excited? Apparently he loved the ride!

Isa and Flan with the lions. We were almost to the end here.

Jedidiah in his glory on the bus!

Jedidiah sat next to Isa. Here he is looking out the window. We didn't get pictures of when we first got on when he was just about freaking out he was so excited. We wished we had taken video footage of it.

Little Jonah man all ready to head home. What a cutie pie.

And finally a family shot. We only got one. We lifted Jed out of the stroller to find that his pants were soaked!! Thankfully I came prepared with a few changes of clothing for him. But we didn't have time to change him before we got the picture taken. It's so funny because people think we have this huge family. But even looking at a group shot I just don't feel like I have this *HUGE* family. Strange.

Well that's it. I hope it was worth the wait. Off to clean some more. I was supposed to get together with a friend tomorrow to learn all about her living organisms in her kitchen (lacto-fermented foods), but we have to reschedule as we won't have a van! I'm so bummed! She did send me the recipe for the sourdough bread and once I secure a large amount of rye berries I shall undertake making my own. Maybe by then we can get together to compare notes. I have not had any good results when trying my hand at sourdough bread.

Some neat herbal remedies

I am very excited to be getting together with a friend of mine later this week to talk about herbs, natural remedies and nourishing traditions food ways. I was up late over here, as Jeremiah, who normally hooks Jedidiah up to his night time feeding is not well and went to bed early. So I got online and went to the Bulk Herb site. They have 'recipes' sent in by readers/customers. Wow! Simple stuff, but tried and true. I prefer those things that I would have on hand and are easy to make up. I am really excited about these recipes so I thought I would share. I have recently received two inter loan library books about herbs. I've been skimming through them to get a feel for the books. I am hoping to have an herb garden next year and wanted some ideas of what herbs cover a wide spectrum of issues. I've been very fond of the Practical Herbalism book for that information. Anyways, do check out the Bulk Herb Store for the recipes for all sorts of illnesses. Let me know if you've tried any and the results.

I do hope to put up a post about our zoo trip with pictures. I spent my day being very diligent in child training and haven't had the time. And tonight I just didn't feel like waiting for the pictures to load up. It is time to hook Jed up to his night time feeding. He is doing pretty well. He was very intrigued by the moon tonight, bringing Jeremiah and myself over to the window to look at it with him, ,very cute! And last but not least I have finally dug into sleep training with Jonah today. It has been put off for many different reasons over the past couple of weeks. Today was the day. He did very well. He cried for a bit both times. But I am right there patting his back the whole time, telling him that he is ok,and he is a big boy learning how to go to sleep, etc. He was starting to get increasingly fussy throughout the days and I knew it was time to sleep train him. Normally the girls could walk or rock him to sleep if I couldn't but even that wasn't working this past week, making for a very long week!

Night!

Going to the zoo, by Flannery

Hi I am Flannery. I Love

going to zoos.







Here is an alligator and some buffalo at the zoo.





















Here is a cougar. My favorite part of the zoo was the carosel. I rode on a cheeta. We took a quick look in the gift shop. It was fun.

Love Flannery

God Speaks Through Ice Cream

Ok, this is not like that fiasco on ebay for the grilled cheese sandwich which supposedly looked like Jesus. And it wasn't like we opened a box of ice cream and out came the Lords voice.....so read on to find out what really happened, right here in our own home.

Some background leading up to the scene:

Jeremiah and I had been having a discussion on finances. The topic was: our budget. Or more importantly the lack of actually following the budget. It's one thing to be on paper and another to actually be living by it. So we are discussing ways in which we can implement the budget in everyday life and what sacrifices we needed to make. (By golly he was not impressed with my idea of a straw bale house. I do think you all need to look those up as they are actually quite neat!) A little more background on our finances. We have been VERY, VERY blessed that Jeremiah has a very good job, one that pays well. We are however still living on one income. And we do have debt (I'm not talking about our mortgage), most of which are medical bills. And as we were going over each item we were faced with a temptation. To tithe or not to tithe. Basing the tithe on 10% of Jeremiah's income makes a rather nice lump of money, which in our weak moment was very tempting to put towards our debts instead of where God intended it. This is faith being walked out in real life. Trusting that God knows best, and His ways are always right. Humanly speaking it is absurd to take that money and give it away when we have bills that need paying. And the bills will get paid, just very slowly. It was very tempting to say, hey--we could knock off all these bills in x amount of months and be done with it! But I remember reading something this past year that kept repeating in my head as we were discussing this issue. It goes something like this: God can do more with 90% of your income, than you could do with 100! This is true, I know this in my heart, but my mind was arguing. So now we come to the ice cream. As we put all of this in print and laid out the plan it was very evident as to why we are always falling behind!! So we determined that we needed to lay low and sacrifice some things. We were planning on going out for ice cream that night. And now we realized that although that is a small trifle, it would go against our budget (please note that we had just gone to the zoo the day before, using all available family fun budgeting monies). So we quietly went about cleaning and not wanting to break the news to the kids that there would be no ice cream tonight. Not 30 minutes later we heard a knock on our door. We opened it to find a friend holding out a grocery bag with something inside. He said, "I was out shopping and figured you guys just needed this." I looked inside......yup, it was ice cream, two half gallons of it!!!!!! Jeremiah and I were just about speechless. We looked at each other in total disbelief, in total awe of knowing that the God of the heavens just spoke to us!! We indeed, going against human wisdom, did the right thing. Giving to God the things that are His. In His word He says we are to give of our first fruits. They are His to begin with. Wow, I am still in awe when I think of the ice cream.

Our week so far

Good day to you all! We had a busy weekend and these first few days of the week have proven busy as well. Saturday was the Responsible Dog Ownership Day. Then Sunday was church. We had church under the tent as our church hosted a father/son retreat that weekend. It was fun to be out all day. However just as we were leaving Saoirse decided to stop and check out this really neat green ball of a plant.....turned out to be a cactus and she learned the hard way! The poor thing had a ton of prickers in her hand. We borrowed some good tweasers and spent a long time picking out the prickers. I had read that after you pull them out you should put a thin layer of elmers glue over the area and cover it with some gauze. When it dries it will pull off the remainder prickers that you didn't see or were too small to grab. So we went to the store to get some glue as all I had were glue sticks. She is recovering just fine. Though we do have the problem of Flannery who will NOT sleep in her own bed because Saoirse sat on it and now Flannery is afraid that the prickers came off of her and got on her bed. I am certain that one day in the future this will all be very funny to me :-)

Monday was a cleaning day in preparation for some dinner guests. We had a wonderful family over (from our church, and by golly I think all of the families are wonderful!). What a blessed night of fellowship and mentoring. I got some great advice in my quest of finding answers to our child raising woes.

Tuesday was grocery shopping day. And what a day it was. I wasn't too thrilled at how the children were behaving in the store. I did remember what my friend at last nights dinner said, about how as the children learn more we raise the bar higher. So I took the time to think back to how they behaved a year ago and knew that compared to them they have indeed improved. I suppose I just expect more of them now. Anyways, here I am in the checkout line really looking forward to being done. After our shopping in Walmart we were going to grab some subs (our shopping day tradition) and head to Harris Teeter to pick up some fresh fruit and veggies. I had Soirse and Jed in the stroller and Jonah was in his baby sling on me. The other girls were looking at stuff, or putting things from the cart onto the belt. Our stroller was in the way of the people behind us so I told one of the girls to move it. I then proceeded to grab a bag off the carosel thingie and did not see that they parked the stroller RIGHT behind me. So I took a small step back as to have room to pull off the bag and I stepped on the strollers wheel. I fell back. I tried to catch myself. It was like slow motion. But with the weight of the baby and the bag that swung back with us I could not catch myself and I fell on the floor. Thankfully that baby was in the wrap as he stayed attatched to me. However his head bounced off of my chest and that was very scary for me. He was asleep the whole time. He stirred briefly. By the time we got to the sub shop (right there in Walmart) he was waking. He nursed and then sat there smiling at me. I assumed he was ok. I, however, was mortified. I was shaking, and a bit sore. I was also thankful that he wasn't hurt. That evening he was very fussy. I was afraid he had shaken baby syndrome or something. But after talking with a friend today it probably was just the stress chemicals that got into my milk. He was much better today. I was a little bit sore, nothing major. I will have to look out for sneaky strollers!

Well it is late and i have to pack for tomorrow. We are spending the day at the zoo. It takes about three hours to get there. We'll spend the day there and then have dinner out. We are celebrating 14 years of marriage!!!!! Some people may find it odd to celebrate an anniversary with children. However, what better way to show how much we value marraige than to celebrate it with them. Isabella packed a change of clothes for herself and her sisters. I have to pack the diaper bag with the boys' things. So off I go. I leave you with two pictures.

Here is Jonah man in his cute dragon outfit. I got a smile in there too. He is a smiley babe. He is getting big fast. This is a new outfit, 3-6 month size and it just fits! Yikes! I brought down winter stuff in sizes 3-6 months and I am afraid that I will have to go up to the next size before the season ends.

This was TOO FUNNY!! The girls decided to play house and the cat was the baby. Poor Morris. I'm not sure how much he enjoyed being the baby. I am always afraid that he will be fed up with us and not come around anymore. But there he was on our porch the next morning meowing for his breakfast.

Here's Daddy with the baby. Ha, ha! Look at that face! They wanted to get pictures of him in the baby doll crib. We didn't get any of those. Maybe another day.