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!

It's been a while

No, I haven't fallen off the planet, at least not yet. Some days it does seem that I am only being held down by a very thin string, that may snap at any given moment, which would send me twirling out into outer space.....ya know, now that I think about it, that might not be such a bad idea.....:-) I have a ton to write about! But right now is not the time. I am waiting for Jedidiah to get done with his tube feeding so I can go to bed and get up in two hours to give him his next feeding! But do be on the lookout for a new post coming up that will catch you up on how we have been. Jedidiah turned one this month!!!!!!!! I can hardly believe it!!! Moira just turned eight, and in a few weeks Isabella turns double digits!!!! I have pictures of some things to share, and an update on how Jedidiah is doing health wise. So you all stay tuned. Hopefully it won't take me long to throw a post together.

a couple of pictures

I think I wrote about the girls playing "Old Fashioned Times". They decided that it would be g=fun to do things like wash clothes by hand. This was totally their idea! I had nothing to do with it. The funny thing was that when they were done Isabella comes inside and tells me that she *knows* why they made washing machines! It's so that you can do the wash faster. Ummmm, very astute of her I would think :-) So I took some pictures of them washing and hanging the clothes to dry.

We went to church yesterday! It had been at least 6 weeks since we last went. It was great to be back. Jedidiah did well. Although giving him a tube feeding in the van just does not work as well as when we are at home. It moves way tooooooo slow! (the feeding, not the van)

We have a quiet week here. Just schooling, cleaning and preparing. I am trying to prepare some fun themes for a "summer camp' to do here after our school year is over. We end June 29. We will have a three week break before we start our next school year. We will be trying a year round approach this year. We'll see how it goes. We are also preparing Isabella for her first away from home experience. She will be staying with Jerry's parents for about 4 days at the end of the month. We will then all go down to get her on the 4th of July. She is so excited! She is making a paper chain to count down the days.

In less than on week our little man will turn ONE years old!!!! Oh my goodness how time flies! I am so amazed at how far he has come, and at the same time, how far he has to go. We went to a graduation party this weekend and met up with a family we used to go to church with about two years ago. The wife was immediately asking questions about Jedidiah. She then shared her own experience of having found an orange sized tumor inside of her that the doctors gave her 6 months to live. Well it's been six months and she looks totally healthy. She said she went to a homeopathic doctor as she didn't trust the regular doctors. It was by following the regular doctors advice that she got the tumor. Long story short, long term use of benedryl can cause these rare tumors, the kind that she had. So she sought alternative help. She will be giving me his name just to see if he can do anything for Jedidiah. I'm game. I'm not sure if I wrote about the medicine we gave Jedidiah this past thursday/friday. The GI doctors gave him this antihistamine that has the side effect of increasing appetite. Well it worked! However, it also totally altered his personality! He wouldn't smile or interact, was constantly fussy. So we said, no way! And so our saga continues.

Well I have some pita bread to make and laundry to fold and kids to school and.....well you get the idea. Have a great day!

Scrub a dub dub two girls and their tubs, washing their clothes away....

Along came their sister, who sat down beside them and washed her clothing too.

Here they are hanging their clothing up. Isabella rigged up the clothing lines between the porch steps and the soccer goal, and between the wheel burrow and steps.

Here's little man working on his balance. His feet look so tiny in this picture!

It looks like Jedidiah has something to say! Here he is with some of his fan club.

an update and dinosaur flies

Happy boy! He was had a great time playing with this box.

Look Ma, I'm standing. Granted he didn't get there by himself, but standing there is a huge feat for him. He is really wanting to get around and was thrilled to be standing.

Creatures from the dark side.....her from under cabinets I mean. Read the exciting story below.

First the update on Jedidiah. He had two days of tests this week at Duke. The first day was for a stomach empty test and an upper G.I. x-ray. Both tests came back normal. The x-ray did show some reflux, but the doctor said everyone has a bit of reflux and what he had on the x-ray was nothing significant. I am not going to halt his reflux medicine at this time however. Then he had an endoscopy on Thursday. They had to put him under with general anesthesia. They failed to tell us what to expect when he was falling asleep. Something along the lines of : oh don't worry if you see him flailing his arms/legs and heaving his chest like he can't breath is all normal. Yeah that would have been really great!! Nothing like thinking your child is dying in front of your eyes! He came out just fine and the findings did not show anything abnormal. We will have to wait for the biopsy results to come back next week though as not everything can be seen visually. He has lost weight due to having to fast before the procedures! Ugh! We just can't seem to win. But hopefully with the pictures below you can see just how happy he is in spite of his small size. He is getting stronger. He is trying to move around on his own in what ever means he can. He doesn't get really far, but he has determination :-)

And as far as dinosaur flies go..... I do believe I wrote about them last year. You have your deer flies, then horse flies and then there are the flies that I believe fit more to the size of a dinosaur. I had one in the van with me. Not a good combination to be sure. I have to say I was glad that my van as a mess as I had something to whack it with ( a tennis racket to be exact). I thought it had flown out the window, but as I opened the passenger door today there it was in the foot well. Dead of course, the best kind. So I told Moira to go and get the camera and a quarter. She wanted to know why I needed a quarter. I told her that way people could see how big it is as you really can't tell with it being in a picture all by itself. You need something to compare it to. She said I didn't need a quarter as she could just hold it in her hand. Then she proceeded to pick the disgusting thing up! Now mind you Moira is a girly girl. She loves kitties, and anyting pink, and wouldn't mind being a ballerina....AND she is the only one who will willingly handle bugs, dead and alive! Surely she is not related to me!!!!

So here are the pics: Oh bummer I can't find a few of the pictures on my computer!!! We had some technical difficulties and sent some of the pictures by email to Jerry's email account and now they are not on our computer anymore. Maybe I will be able to find them later. The last picuture above was what Saoirse saw when she opened the cupboard underneath the bathroom sink to get some toilet paper. The poor thing came to me and said in a quivering voice, "Mommy, come here, there is a big spider in the bathroom." Then she said, no, not a spider a big bug. I went in opened the cupboard and let out a scream. That made the girls come running to see. They saw it a screamed and then Daddy came to the rescue to rid our house of such a creature. Life is never dull around here!

Ok, so I found the lost pictures. Here is the dinosaur fly!

Here's Isabella bird watching. It is her new hobby.

Here are our brand new, VERY stable stairs. We are very glad to walk down and not think that the stairs may sway out from underneath us. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but compared to these stairs they seemed that bad. Jerry has been working hard to get these done.

This is proof that these girls are not related to me. Well I suppose it would help to know what it is that they are doing that make them not my daughters. In that bucket happen to be 4 very unattractive grasshoppers! Not only are they looking at them, but they are touching them and they named them!! Saoirse's favorite was Lemon. Yeah, they are totally not related to me. I only named worms when I was a child, which is far more acceptable than grasshoppers hands down.

14 pounds again

Finally, Jedidiah has regained the lost weight. I am a little apprehensive to stay excited though as we won't know how long he may stay this weight. He goes for his first round of G.I. testing tomorrow at Duke. He will have a stomache empty test and an upper G.I. x-ray done. Then he has his first physical therapy session on wednesday. And last but not least he has his endoscopy on thursday. I am so very thankful that someone from our church will be able to watch the girls for us then. Jerry has to go into work that day and has a doctors appointment himself later on in the afternoon. I am hoping to make it to the weekend all in one piece :-)

The oldest three girls get to go see a professional soccer game on friday. They are looking forward to it. We are pretty sure that we will be able to return to church very soon. Hopefully this coming Sunday. It will depend on Jedidiah's test results.

So my house if pretty clear of toys as of today. After two days of nagging and nagging the girls to pick up their mess we decided it was time to "help" them learn how to clean up after themselves. So we put all thier toys in the attic. They got to keep out one toy. Things like coloring, puzzles, board games and outside toys were exempt from being banned to the attic. So if they can keep their one toy taken care of then we will let them have two toys, and so forth. I assure you they still have plenty here to make a mess with though!

Well I must be off to get their schooling done. Then make dinner. TTFN

GOODNESS!!

My how time flies. I wish I could say it was all fun as well, but not so. Some amazing things are happening here, some good some bad. I think I have a novel in my head of all the things that I want to write about. Of course I can only write so much in whatever time I have before Jedidiah wakes up from his nap.

Speaking of Jedidiah....he's the one who is not so good :-( We are going to see a pediatric gastrointerologist (sp?) tomorrow. Three or four weeks ago when we started feeding him all his food all of the time, he started taking in less and less on his own, which made me have to give him more tube feedings. Then the week after he started refusing to nurse on both sides and not eating his solid food. so I switched around when he ate his solid food and that took care of that, but he still only eats half of what he used to. Then this past week he started throwing up. I thought it was because he outgrew the dosage of his reflux medicine. Although that is still a possibility he never even used to spit up let alone throw up! He threw up his feeding tube on Thursday which was traumatic for him and I. I tried putting in our last tube on Friday and when I opened the package the tube was defective! Ugh! Of course it was after hours and the health care company that we get our tubes from couldn't help us. So I was really hoping that we could hold out till Monday before having to get a tube, but I could tell he was not putting out enough fluid to make it the weekend. Not to mention his soft spot on his head has sunken (it's not actually sunken, as it is usually bulging, but it sunk from where it normally is). So Jedidiah and I got to spend the morning in the ER yesterday so we could get a new tube in. A three hour wait in the empty waiting room first. Then we were out of there two ours later with some very expensive tubes. Expensive in the fact that buying them is only 14 dollars but the emergency visit will be more than that! Ha! We would have been out of there an hour earlier but there was a lack of communication between the doctors and nurses. Because Jedidiah has neurological issues (his big head and the past history of the scans yada, yada, yada..) the doctors wanted to make sure this was a gastro issue and the throwing up wasn't because of increased pressure in his head. Once they determined that is was only gastro they failed to give the green light to the nurses to give us the feeding tube. Oh well we are home. Possibly only temporarily though. The receptionist for the G.I. doctor told us to be prepared that Jedidiah may have to be admitted to the hospital if they can't do all the testing that they need to in their office. Oh joy. You know I am looking forward to that possibility! But hopefully we can get some answers and fast. Jedidiah was up to 14 pounds 1.5 ounces and today he was at 13 pounds 8.5 ounces. I could just cry. Every time we go forward we have to go back.

The girls had their end of year testing a week ago. It went pretty well overall, but their shortcomings were definitely evident. I already knew where they needed more work, but if I had doubts before, I don't now. Isabella did great in math and language, and resources. But the reading comprehension is lacking. It's not even that she can't comprehend what she is reading, it's just she doesn't take the time to read carefully and look back for answers. Ugh. Moira did well in math and reading, but did poorly in spelling and her timed math. She can do all the math problems in the timed section. However if you tell her she is being timed (about anything, even in a game) she freaks out and "can't " do it! I already knew spelling was going to be a sour point. She can read well, but she can't spell. There seems to be a disconnect with her hearing something and being able to do it or spell it. She has always been this way. She can read a word, but give her that same word to spell and she can't. This will be our last month of school. Then we will have a three week break before the new school year starts. I decided to take the year round approach as that seems more beneficial to the seasons and them retaining their past learning. It is so hot here in the summer it didn't make sense for us to waste our inside time, when we could be learning.

The other big news has been pretty amazing to see develop. It has come time to adopt. Well, starting the process at least. We always knew we would adopt, but it was always, someday. However God told us it is now. I had been praying over the years on and off that I would have the same love for our adopted children as our biological children. I was afraid that I wouldn't and there would always be a difference. Well I happened to visit someones blog the other week. I went there to read what she had to say about nutrition. It just so happens they have two adorable boys they adopted from Ethiopia. The first picture I saw on her blog was of the youngest. He reminded me so much of Jedidiah. He has a big head, small jaw, those beautiful happy eyes....oh my I had to read their story. I searched back through her blog to read about their adoption story and all of a sudden I knew we had children over there that are ours to raise! I can not explain it. My heart was burning to hold our children. I have this love for children I have not met yet. I really wanted to tell Jerry about it. But I thought it would be best to let God convict him in His own time. Well that would have been only a few hour wait!!
Jerry came to the table with a very serious look on his face. I was terrified he was going to tell me he lost his job! He said a few things about how he know God was telling him we would be going into ministry sometime in the future. Hmmm. Ok, I thought. I wasn't really sure what to say as he was obviously very overcome with what ever thoughts or convictions he was having. So I decided to wait till he was ready to tell me. Then after dinner he was on his laptop and he turned it around to show me what had convicted him. It was a picture of a starving African child. Oh, how my heart started burning again. He went on to say that he didn't know why God gave him this love for these children. Well I thought I knew, it was because he was convicting both of us at the same time! So we've been looking into it. My heart is with the Ethiopian children. Jerry has a burden for the children of Liberia. So I thought it best to look up other peoples blogs about adopting from Liberia as I wanted to be on the same page as Jerry. I didn't find too many. But I found on in particular that documents their whole journey. And oh the horror of it over there! I don't think I can go into it. Sixty percent of babies under a year die there. There is no running water or electricity. The atrocities being done to children there are horrid. The poverty is overwhelming. It is so bad. So my heart is turning to Liberia. Although somewhere in my heart there is an Ethiopian child waiting :-) Like I said we are in the very beginning stages. There is a long road ahead of us. It seems almost impossible that it will happen. There's the saying: Where there's a will, there's a way. Well I was thinking that is really is more like: With God's will he makes the way. I am eager to see how He makes the way for us to adopt our children from Africa.

Ok, I think I better end this novel. I'll let you all know how Jedidiah's appointment went.

catching up

i had a bunch of cute things to share. Unfortunately I forgot most of it! I will share some pics that are cute. I tried making a video of Jedidiah sitting, his new skill, but our camera is messed up. It won't let us download the video to our computer.

We have a bunch of head hunters here. There is a reward of $5 per siting that leads to the "capture" of each enemy. That enemy being black widow spiders. We didn't see any last year so I thought we were going to be in the clear. But not so. Isabella has made 15 bucks so far! One of them was on the outside of our house near our back door. The other two were near the house. I read up on them. I think we are seeing a lot of them now because they are looking for a new home. Once a female black widow finds where she wants to build her home she doesn't leave her web. You will also find her upside down in her web as well. Interesting stuff. The good new is that they are not agressive, and very rarely lethal. But non the less dangerous!

I had Isabella take the picture of Jedidiah all messy. This is a very encouraging sign....making messes! The fact that he didn't ever want to touch his food, and when he did he would freak is a sign of his reflux. This was the first time he decided to dig in and explore. So I let him! It might of helped that he didn't care for the meal. Otherwise he eats his food right up.




We have put ourselves in isolation. Jedidiah had been losing some weight due to many colds back to back. It has been VERY frustrating. So we decided to not go anywhere for a month. No church, no library, no park, no grocery store.....As hard as that is we have been rewarded with the fruits of our sacrafices--He's gained weight!! In the past few days he's gained 6 oz. We are very pleased and will continue with what is working.


Isabella and Moira have their year end testing next week. This will be Moira's first year of testing. I thought Isabella would grumble when she found out that testing was next week, but she is excited about it. She says she likes reading the stories and seeing pictures of animals.



I've been making small changes in our diet. I personally would really like to go cold turkey and switch right over to eating mostly raw foods, but no one else is with me :-) So I felt that doing something would be better than doing nothing at all, and that eventually we would make our way to eating mostly raw. The girls really love the whole wheat pancakes

I make, but I hated that we were drowning them in 'toxic' syrup. So I started making some froit toppings to put on. At first they protested, but eventually they caved and ate it, and lo and behold they like it! Their snack time has been healthier as well. I would really like to do away with store bought yogurt. It's toxic as well. Anything with that much sugar is toxic. I want to start making my own yogurt. Then their bodies can actually benefit from the good bacteria.



Well Little Man is supposed to be napping.....notice the words 'supposed to'. So I will have to write more later.

A Devo wanna be. Actually this is what happens when you leave the baby in Daddy's care :-)

Both Flannery and Saoirse could tell you how to put a feeding tube in a baby amd explain how you use the tube. I'm praying they won't have to use that information in their future.

I suppose people would look at us strangely if the girls took their dolls out in public. Their dolls all have feeding tubes! I took some pictures but they didn't come out too well.

A heavy heart...

My words escape me. I am not sure how to say it in a way that makes it ok....because it's really not ok. My Babci (my grandmother) passed away this evening. I have a ton of thoughts running through my head, but they can't seem to get out. So I thought I would make a list of all the things I remember about her.

Pop. (for you southerners, that is what northerners call soda) She always kept a large selection in her frigde, and if not she would always tell us where to get it, on the basement stoop.

Pajamas, we could always count on some awesome new jammies for Christmas. I always loved them.

Slippers of papchas (not sure how to spell it, but the Polish word for slippers). She always wore her slippers in the evening getting ready for bed.

Then there was the stickia (another Polish word for dish towel). Doing dishes with her.

I remember staying overnight one time and my sister and I getting in big trouble for talking in bed!

Sitting on my grandparents porch, trying to catch a summer breeze. She would be calling out to her neighbors who would be passing by.

Bobcageon (spelling?). Where we went almost every summer as a kid. We would have a cabin and then there was Babci and Dziadzi's (Polish for grandfather) cabin. It always seemed to smell of coffe. I remember her making fish there. Sitting around the bon fire, as the adults chatted away.

Then there was the time that she came to take care of us while my Mom went to the hospital to give birth to my youngest brother, Ryan. Tracy and I were about 10 and 11 years old. And as you know at that age a person posseses all knowledge :-) Babci didn't do anything right! Well we didn't think so anyways. We kept telling her we didn't do things that way, we did them this way, and I think she got a little tires of hearing that as I remember her telling us that while she was there we would be doing it her way :-) I seem to remember calling my Mom at the hospital and asking her WHEN would she be back?!?

She always cooked great food. I am thankful that I have her pierogi recipe and her pineapple squares recipe.

Of course she coined the phrase, " you're so bootiful"

She said the word 'thousand' as 'tousand', it always bugged me out when she did that :-)

Her playing cards. The adults would play cards in the evenings at gatherings. And of course they had to speak Polish half the time so that you didn't know what they were saying.

Well I am sure there are a bunch more, but it is late, the kids are still up (except Little Man). I need to get them off to bed as they were up early today.

Amazing feats,banana ice cream for breakfast and chicken pullups

Now there's an interesting title! Now for this amazing feat. My immediate family members will totally understand why this was such an amazing feat. Three of the girls needed allergy medicine. We got pills for Isabella and liquid for Flannery and Saoirse. Well I go to pick it up at the store. They only had Isabella's med and it was like 75$!! Whoa there! Thankfully it was because they didn't have our insurance info. So Jerry went back the next day to pick up the other girls liquid med and I told him it should be about 30$. Well it was like 150$. With insurance! Ok, so it's all the same med, just in a different form, and so our insurance won't pay for it. So I told the pharmacy to give me pills instead. They asked how they were going to take it, especially the 3 year old. I told them I would put it in applesauce. We get home and I put it in the apple sauce but Saoirse wouldn't take it. Flannery said, here give me mine. I told her how to put the pill in her mouth, follow it with a sip of water and swallow it all. Saoirse says, I want to do that too. Ok, i thought what is there to loose, but one of her pills. I give it to her and you would have thought she had done this before. Sip, swallow, she giggles, and runs off to play. Now I am still standing there almost with my jaw to the ground. If you have ever seen me take one pill, you would understand!!!!

Chicken pull ups are something new around here, sort of. It's not a recipe though. Saoirse came up to me the other morning and was mumbling something about chicken pullups. What? I aked her if she needed a new pull up as she is potty training and we have switched from diapers to pull ups. She says no, gets all frustrated and keeps talking about chicken pull ups. So i ask her if she wanted to eat some chicken, to which she just got more frustrated. Finally Moira chimes in that she wants one of her new pull ups (I bought a new package before we have used up the old one. The new ones have Tweety Bird on them). Moira said that Saoirse thinks that it's a chicken! Ha, ha! Ok, then chicken pull ups it is.

And for banana ice cream. We have really cut back on the amount of tv/movie time the girls have. They are obviously going through withdrawls as they asked to watch one of my videos called Rejuvenate with Serene. It's about eating raw and it has Serene showing you how to put some recipes together. One of the recipes is for ice cream. The girls kept bugging me to make it. They had asked to watch the video a few more times. They like to pretend they are doing a cooking show as well, when they are watching it. I told them that any raw food recipe that tries to mimic a cooked food recipe does not taste the same. That doesn't mean it tastes bad, but it's not the same. So I warned them that I would make the ice cream, but it wouldn't be the same. First I made a "chocolate sauce", which Saoirse really loved, the other girls didn't seem to like it much. Then for the ice cream. Frozen bananas, soem vanilla, a bit of milk (just a tiny bit), whirl it up in a food processor. They LOVED it. I made myself some (I can't have milk) with some bananas, water, vanilla and some almond butter (like peanut butter, but made with almonds). OH MY!! It was divine! Mind you I have only had some ice cream (made from soy) twice since Jedidiah was born, since I cant' have milk. This ice cream we made was awesome. This morning I didn't have time to eat what I've been eating for breakfast, as we were trying to get out the door to Isabella's soccer tournament, so I made some of the ice cream. Hey, it beats the normal breakfast fare!! It's actually great for you. :-)

Jerry took some really cute pics of Jedidiah the other day. I'll try to put them up later.

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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.