Pictures of our weekend

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A fun weekend and a glitch

...but no pictures to share of it, at the moment. I am waiting for them to download and will not be awake before they do. So Friday we had a bonfire. Those are always fun and always accompanied by s'mores. We had a friend staying the weekend, so he got to share in the fun. Saturday was soccer. But it was also our glitch day, which I'll get to in a moment. Saturday evening we just vegged and tried to prepare for Sunday. Sunday after church we had a birthday party to go to. It was held at a farm nearby that has a lot of other attractions. It was so much fun. We got to go on a train ride, a hay ride, slide down an 80 foot slide, go in a hay jump and a corn play room. The kids had a blast. They also got to take home a pumpkin. We were surprised to have to shoo off yellow jackets as it was quite chilly. Jeremiah single handedly killed at least 8 of them, at last count! Poor Jed was in one of his 'sensitive states' and was really freaking out about the bees. It is possible with some other things that have been going on with Jed that his remedies have been antidoted. Can anyone say 'roller coaster ride'? Jed over all has been doing well, but we've hit a wall in his sensory issues and that can be stressful on everyone.

So about that glitch.....Saturday morning I am getting everyone ready for soccer. The last thing for me to do is get Jed's feeding pump ready to go. So I got the pump in the backpack, filled the bag with formula and I turned it on so that I could prime it, which is the last step. But what's this? Where is the bouncing kangaroo, the flash of green, yellow and red lights, the triple beep? Surely I must not have hit the power button hard enough, so I re-hit it....nope, no beeps, no kangaroo, nothing. I was pretty positive that when I went to get his pump that I had to unplug it from being recharged. But to make sure I went and got the plug to plug in the unit to see if maybe the battery hadn't recharged. I go to plug the adapter into the back of the unit, but something funny was going on with the plug, it was all wobbly. I take a look to find that there is a piece missing from the unit and now the plug adapter won't sit firm to stay in contact with the unit to recharge! So later on Jeremiah rigs something up to get it to stay in there, but alas we now get the unit to turn on but with an error that won't let us proceed and it makes the machine power down! In case that was all gibberish to you, as I know I don't always make sense, in plain English: Jed's feeding pump is busted!!! Let me just say that this is NOT good!! With a capital N, capital O and a capital T. NOT good. We are still able to give him his feedings by doing bolus feeds. The good news is that as long as we take our time, he is keeping them down (a problem in the past). The bad news is that it takes me being *right* there to manage it.

Now the game begins to see how this will get resolved. His home health service says we have to contact the manufacturer to see about the machine's warranty. I can only imagine the possible go around we may have. So I am earnestly praying that this is resolved quickly, in a God way. Because I truly believe it is going to have to be a 'God thing' for this to get taken care of in a quick fashion. As it is it is past midnight and I am up because I have to give Jed his feeding bit by bit so as not to overwhelm his stomach.

We are also in prayer concerning his speech therapy. I have sent in the paper work some two weeks ago and we are still awaiting a call or letter that will tell us the next step. We really need to get Jed set up with therapy soon.

A praise though, we have found multiple sources for goats milk for the winter!! Our friend who supplies us with goat's milk for Jed has her goats dried up. Last year we had to buy pasteurized goats milk from the store, and even had to buy powdered milk (which did a number on his pump!). I was praying that we wouldn't have the same problems this year. And praise the Lord He has provided a couple of families willing to give us their goats milk, as they have not dried up their goats. Yeah!!!

So lots going on. I can't wait to show you the cute pictures we got of our farm outing. We were also able to obtain another memory card so that I can make those videos. It wasn't our camera that was messed up, just the memory card. Which is a relief. Memory cards are MUCH cheaper than cameras! :-) We will be borrowing this card until we can get our own. I am so thankful! Now I can show you all how Jed talks.

I need to finish up here and give Jed the last bit of his feeding so I can go to bed myself. I do have another interesting story to tell you all, but I will save it for later as I am too tired to type it out. It has to do with Isabella and a tummy bug. Very interesting indeed!

Banging head against wall

Ok, well, I thought the camera was fixed! It really and truly was. But somewhere between when Jeremiah fixed it the other day and today it no longer works!!!! It may have something to do with the children taking pictures with it. I am sure they are pushing a button that shouldn't be pushed or something. Jeremiah is off with two of the girls at soccer, so I will ask him to take a look at it when he gets back. I had no less than 300+ pictures to delete.... all of dogs! Oh, wait and a few of the girls trying to catch a picture of another girl in mid air (while jumping off the couch). I'm thinking a camera for Christmas is in order for them!

We had a pleasant day today. We got outside for some fresh air and a lot of dirt....a lot of dirt. So two muddy boys and two muddy girls got baths when we came in. I got a lot of my schedule stuff done, but still not finished. It was nice that when it was clean up time a few of the girls were pleasantly surprised when there wasn't much to clean! Yes, that is how it goes if you actually put things away right after you use them, and you keep little boys out of things :-)

Off to do more laminating :-)

Hair cuttings

I think I may have mentioned this, but we finally got the camera's video mode working! It may be another day or two before I can get around to videoing the things I had in mind. Right now I feel like I am coming down with something. I would take the colloidal silver, but if this ends up being a wee cold, I don't want to 'waste' it. We still have a ways before winter even hits over here and I want to save the good stuff for when it counts :-)

Due to the baby being ill and just our busy weekends the house was a bit untidy today. I spent most of the morning typing up various schedules and cleaning routines. Most of them were just revisions of previous routines. It would be really great if ONE routine would work forever and ever! But, depending on the season, depending on whether there is a newborn in the house, depending on whether there is a tornado of a toddler in the house, depending......well you get the idea, things CHANGE around here and so must I to accommodate the changes. I printed everything up, now I need to cut some things out, and laminate....I'm a laminating junkie....Hi, my name is Kerri, and I'm a laminating junkie. I can't let papers just be papers, they must be encased in a smooth glossy finish....HA!!! Ok, enough joking. I am hoping to get those routines all finished up. I still have a long list of other printables that I need to do. I want to put the girls school work assignments on a spreadsheet to keep better track of their work. I have been looking into PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) for Jed. But from what I have read a lot of children do better with 'real' pictures instead of symbols or cartoonish pictures. So I want to start putting together some pictures of our actual stuff for that project. I am pleased we are seeing progress with the fish oils, but we still will have a long road ahead of us. I am also very pleased that he knows a lot of signs and we will continue to learn more. However, he is getting older and not everyone knows sign language. I know that 99.5% of the time he will be with Jeremiah, myself or one of his sisters, who all know his signs. But I would like him to be able to communicate without an interpreter as well. So I am hoping to incorporate the pictures so that he can also "talk" to other people. This will be a big project.

I have some other projects as well that are in progress, such as typing in all my recipes into Word. I went through them to weed out the ones I really don't use, or will never get around to trying. Then the oldest two girls and I have been spending time, here and there, typing them into the computer. That will help with a lot of paper clutter in the long run.

So, today after all my work on the routines, we did school, and a bunch of tidying up. However this house can get in untidy mode faster than you can say, "tidy"!!! I had baked up a bunch of potatoes, some that were used for tonight's dinner and some that will be used for a dinner later this week. And as they were baking Moira had come in from playing outside. She has hair just like mine. It was down to her lower back and it was a rat's nest!!! I told her to brush it and it took her a good long while to get it all decent. I knew it was long past time to get her hair cut. It is so pretty long, but oooohhhhh so hard to upkeep! So I asked her if she wanted me to cut it. She said yes! Oh, scary!! :-) Ha! Well I have to say it actually looks really great now! I parted her bangs (which are about the same length as the rest of her hair now) off to the side and the hair cut looks really charming on her! It's just a long bob, but it really suits her. Flannery wanted her hair done as well, and hers came out really cute too. Her bangs are really long, and a bit wavy, so I wasn't sure what to do with them. She didn't want me to cut them, so I let them be. I know that their shorter hair will be much easier to care for. Isabella really, really wants her hair cut shorter as well. However that girl has thick, THICK hair! I dare not touch it! She really needs to get it thinned, so we will be having someone else cut it for us. I am not kidding when I say I call her a water dog as water just beads off her hair! Washing it is really hard to do. With it being so long it has been just about impossible for her to wash it properly. I've done it and it really took a lot of effort! So snip, snip and thin, thin coming shortly for her.

Well it is late, I need to tidy up a few things before getting Jed's feeding ready. The rest of our week will be trying to keep on track and tackling some of these projects. Not to mention we are supposed to have some really nice weather that we need to get out and take advantage of.

Flannery's hair awaiting the scissors! Her hair has been difficult as it is wavy. Even her bangs have some wave in them, which always gives the appearance of it being unkept. The last time I cut her hair I put layers into it which really helped. So I was a bit nervous that she wanted a bob like Moira.

A side view of her lenghth.

Now the finished product :-) Her hair really was even when wet, but here it had some time to dry and it looks uneven....again the wave action. But she is very happy with it, and I think it turned out great.

I parted her hair to the side, which I think helps. Her hair is still only half dry at this point. It looks great this morning all dried.

Here is Moira's new look. I don't have a before shot, but I am sure there are plenty of pics in previous posts to know that her hair was LONG.

A side view. I think I snapped it at an odd moment...oops.

And the back. Her hair was all the way down to her lower back. I think I cut at least 8 or so inches off!

lot of pictures!

I am really not happy with Blogger lately. I'm not sure if there is some upgrade that I know nothing about. I posted my before and after pictures of my haircut, however it won't let me rearrange my pictures, so the after picture is first! Oh, well. I also had a ton of other pictures to share and decided to put them in a montage. Before the montage I give you a run down of what you will be seeing :-)

"It" happened, just like I thought it would. That "it" being sickness! So I got the house all done (with the exception of a box of game pieces that need to find their rightful home). I happened to get it all finished about 5 minutes before we were leaving for our camping trip. When we came home I had the girls help me bring EVERYTHING back inside from the van. I was pretty sure we brought everything but the kitchen sink. I was wrong, we left the kitchen sink and the wasp spray at home! Our camping trip will need a post of it's own. Anyways, this was a Sunday and the girls reminded me (in hopes of getting out of this huge task) that it was the Sabbath and how we shouldn't be working on it! Well, yes, that would be the general rule, however you can't leave wet things in a van, or food in there as well. And by golly I knew they would head out to the van to "get one thing" and I would find myself knee deep in "one things" before the day was out. So we got it all out of the van, into the house, and I had them immediately put it all away. So far so good I thought! Monday came and Jeremiah was home from work, his last day of vacation. I tried to wrap my brain around making up a plan to keep the house running smoothly, we went shopping, did school and the like. There was no hint of anyone being sick. We went to bed, only for me to be awakened at 3 AM to a toddler who was burning up! Now usually when my kids are sick their fevers wane come morning, and then build back up by evening. Not to mention that besides some fussiness, and some extra sleeping, they pretty much go about life as normal. Well this little guy was sick! His fever ran strong, night and day, even with meds. He was either nursing, trying to sleep, or crying! He had maybe 30 minutes of "play time" all day for the first two days. His play time consisted of him getting down grabbing an object, then crawling back into my arms to continue his fussing or nursing. But the thing that really settled it in my mind that he was really sick....he wouldn't eat solid foods! This is Jonah we are talking about! This is my meat and potatoes kid, this is my 'everything in life is good now that I have some food' type of kid. He didn't want to eat. Now that's bad. So I was able to get in to see our alternative practitioner. Her testing revealed that he has the swine flu *gasp*. I'm joking about the gasp part :-) She gave me a remedy for all of us should we fall ill this winter. I was to give him a dose every hour. Well by that night my boy was eating, and running and laughing! Don't get me wrong, he's still sick, but much, much improved! He woke up with a fever of maybe 99. His eyes were red, but now only one is pink. The only thing is he's still really fussy. But he is down and playing with toys and walking around. So I will continue giving him the remedy every hour today and hopefully by tomorrow he'll be more like himself.

Because he's still fussy I will need to get off of here. Here are my 'after' and 'before' pictures. Nothing drastic, but it's a nice change:

This is a self portrait as everyone bigger person was out of the house at the moment :-)

The long layers that you see in the 'after' picture are how long my hair is. I didn't get a back view, but I think you can see just how much was taken off.

And here is my explanation of some of the pictures you will be seeing, it is in order, but not every picture is taken into account. Hopefully it is evident when you see the montage.

*cowboys

*decluttering the computer room-before-well actually I should say "during"

*decluttering "after"

*our first egg!! (from one of our own chickens)

*an egg comparison-on the left a store bought egg, on the right, ours. Notice the color difference. Our egg yolks are actually orange. The darker color means more nutrients. So our we are feeding are chickens right :-)

*soccer girls-each girl in the soccer garb on the field

*tent practice-the girls slept out in a tent on our porch

*outside play time--our own petting zoo, tent building

*our museum adventure-notice Flannery jumping from a rock!

*our camping trip-unfortunately those are the only pictures I got! Ugh.

*last picture is for comic relief-make sure to look in the blue bin!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Jed's Apraxia

I am trying to get some videos uploaded about Jed's apraxia. I also did a house tour....finally. But yet again something happened and the video didn't upload to the computer properly. Unfortunately with the other videos I was trying to do I erased it off the camera. That means I need to do another one! I'm not sure when that will be coming. Poor little babe has a fever and was up a lot last night. He may have an ear infection, but not sure at this point.

Anyways, I have been doing a lot of research on apraxia lately. Jedidiah has not been doing well in speech. He had actually "lost" words that he used to say. From my reading I found that is common with apraxia. I've been trying to make a lot of books/games for Jed to encourage him to speak. I went on YouTube to look up apraxia to see how other kids talk. We haven't met anyone in person with it so it is hard to gauge how good/bad Jed has apraxia. His speech therapist told us he was bad. After all on the testing she did all of Jed's scores were at the 2 percentile or less! But still, those were just numbers and without some idea of what that meant in the real world it was hard to process. Well we came away from those videos a bit dismayed. Jed really is bad! So I started reading as much as I could to see what I can be doing here at home (besides what I was already doing). I have read that there has been some good success with fish oil supplements with children who have apraxia. We had been giving him some in the past and we didn't see any changes. However on one site that I was reading they said that some kids need only 1ml per day but other kids may need 10mls per day! So I increased the amount we had been giving him. I'm not sure if its coincidence, or the fish oils, but last night Jed had a speech explosion! I need to get a video of him talking so that we will have a reference to compare to over the coming months. But last night he said three new 'words'. He said, "yes", "down" and "moo". Now each of them was not said properly, but they were close. Besides the word "up" Jed doesn't put any consonant endings on his words. But he said the /s/ sound in "yes" last night! For "moo" it sounded more like maaaaaaa. But he has only ever said "mmmmmmm" for the sound of a cow, so this is an improvement. And for the word "down" he said it more like "don". But Jed hasn't even been trying to say words for the past couple of months so this was very exciting!

Hopefully I'll get him to talk on video today. I am hoping to redo the house tour as well. Each video takes forever and a day to upload to YouTube though, so it may be a day or two before I get them on my blog. I am also hoping to update my tags to make things easier to keep track of. I want to start a tag for apraxia, and a tag for homeschooling resources. I've come across some neat sites that I have been getting a lot of ideas from that I want to pass along to everyone. Now that I have my house done I need to work on my next task, which is getting us organized with routines/schedules. It would be so nice if, when you saw a system you liked, you could just implement it and it would work! Ha! But as you will see in my house tour I point out a long the way what is working for us, and what I've learned after trying to make it work, what doesn't work for us and how I need (or think I need) to change it. It is definitely a process in work.

Until the next time, have a wonderful day.

Just busy, busy

I do wish I took the time to at least post snippets over the past couple of weeks. The past week I have been privledged to have a bit of an energy boost. Not sure why, I wish I did so that I could reproduce it when necessary. I was just talking to my sister about it yesterday. I have my house almost done (decluttering) and I have a 'fear' that sickness will soon strike. It never, NEVER fails....once I get things organized we are hit with some sickness that undoes all my hard work. I actually thought about not finishing up the work I have left to do in hopes of keeping sickness at bay.

Most days I usually look forward to the baby going to bed so I can get stuff done. However I never have any energy to do anything by the time I get him to bed. ( I just realized that the first sentence in this paragraph sounds pretty bad! I love the little guy to pieces, he just happens to be a little tornado and all my efforts -in the past- have failed to get caught up. So I would try to do damage control until he went to bed, and then hope to actually get ahead, which had not been possible till this last week.) For some reason though this week from the moment I woke up until midnight I was able to go, go, go! So a lot has gotten done around here!

But I have been making sure to get as much done as I can, not knowing how long this energy burst may last, and therefore have not been spending much time on the computer. Hopefully when I am finished I will be able to have a nice long post to catch up on everything that has been going on around here.

"see you all soon"!

goings on

I need to get some pictures off my camera, but alas as usual, the cord is on one computer and I am on the other :-) I was able to get my hair cut and it came out really nice. I'm surprised that the ends tend to curl in the way they should without work on my part. I was on a real role decluttering. A friend of mine put together a yard sale and we took a bunch of stuff over to sell. We got rid of a lot of stuff from the house! A lot of it was from the attic though. Nonetheless I have been decluttering in an attempt to make our lives run a bit smoother. I have some before and after pictures. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to post the before pictures! Ha!

In other news I am excited about a trial we are facing. Granted it isn't much of a trial, more of an inconvenience. It's our van. The transmission is going out. One gear has already bit the dust. So we will be saving any van rides just to church or emergencies. Transmissions cost a lot. So it will really have to be a God 'thing' to pull this off. It may mean having only one vehicle for a while. But seriously I felt actually excited about this. This is so NOT like me! And that made me even more excited! When the feeling comes from the Lord, you know it will all work out. I may feel at the end of my rope, or get a bad case of cabin fever, or.....insert a million other options, but for now I want to be happy that I feel the way I do. Plus when that feeling goes away I can come back here and get my perspective straight. We had a few things planned, like a visit to friends and a camping trip that will not be. We are really bumming about that. But somehow I feel that the Lord has something else for us.

The baby caught whatever bug Moira has. We were thinking that maybe Moira had just some allergies.....nope. The baby was up throughout the night with a stuffed up nose. And being under the weather meant that he stuck to me like Velcro :-) And for the record, NO we have not started our garlic.... we just got it in, after Moira started her cold....just in case any favorite sisters were wondering :-)

In Jed news...I was able to weigh him today. Something we haven't done in over a month as I loaned out our scale. It wasn't good. I think he had just tipped the 25 pound mark and mid day, with a diaper on he was 24 lbs 14.5 oz. Ugh! Now granted he had diarrhea for a long time due to different reasons. And he has made big improvements in other areas, just not in weight. I hope to make a better effort to change that. Although there is only so much I can do. I will try to add in avocado, or something with fat. Jed's problem is that his body can't break down the fat. It is very frustrating to know what his body needs, and have the ability to get it into him, only for his body to not process it! I'm not stressed about it,for once! It's just a fact of life right now. I think I have been so pleased with his other growth that the weight issue really doesn't bother me.

We with nowhere to go this week (actually we had a busy week planned, but don't have the ability to go anywhere), I am hoping to finish up my fall cleaning/ decluttering /organization stuff.

growing up

Saoirse just keeps on growing up. Today she lost her first tooth. Earlier in the day she was a bit worried as she was wriggling it around and she asked me if it was going to hurt for her tooth to come out. I told her that I hope it wouldn't but we wouldn't know until it came out. So imagine my surprise at lunch when she was holding something up in the air, talking in a very excited voice about something (I couldn't understand her), and then I saw blood coming from her mouth. Phew! It happened painlessly! I was very happy for her. Goodness knows we've had our share of drama over lost teeth and it is so nice to have one go out quietly :-)

Jedidiah is really getting into pretend play. He has been a bit obsessed with dressing up as a cowboy. I took a bunch of pictures with him in his gear, but they are on our back computer. I'll have to post them later. Jed had speech therapy today and he did very well!!! Yeah! It is so neat to see him making strides. He did very well making the sounds that we have been working on. His therapist said we can start adding a few other consonants now to work on. Jed also said two new words yesterday. One was 'table' and I forgot the other. I have to say it is so refreshing to see the cognitive growth that he has been having.

We have a pretty open week this week. We are planning on having a family over for dinner on Wednesday. And we may have plans for Friday as well. Right now we have had a lot of stuff on our plate. Emotionally it has been taxing. So a lot has gone undone over here. But for the last day or so I've been trying to get back on track. I took all the kids out for a walk this morning. And I am hoping to make that a part of our routine. We are in serious need of some direction over here. I am taking things slow, and am hoping that I can take it step by step to get some order back. Sometimes it seems so easy in my mind, but making it happen is another story! Right now I am trying to just keep the basics with homeschooling, making decent meals (although I really want to get back to eating more veggie than we have been), and keeping the dishes and laundry done. That's it. My standard bar is not very high right now. Ha!

Well off to sleep. My pillow is calling my name :-)

a new montage

Things have been crazy over here. Some day I may be able to tell you all about it, but for now just suffice it to say it's been one crazy month. Never mind that things may get even CrAzIeR over the next few weeks. But I really wanted to share our pictures with you all. I put them in a montage since there were so many. There are pictures of the kiddos building their message boards at Home Depot. We have Isabella and Moira's joint birthday party. You will see them playing pin the tail on the doggie, trying ever so hard to break the pinata and them with their cake. Plus there are some cute pictures of the boys at the end, mostly of Jonah. Today I have to get ourselves back on track with just some normal everyday tasks. I hope you enjoy the montage. I usually take the time to work out the 'effects', but I don't have time today, so I left it as is.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

How our GI appt. went

Well Jed had his six month check up with GI. We were there for two hours, but the time we spent with the doctor was four minutes. And no, I am not exaggerating! He looked at his tube, showed me how Jed is following his growth curve, said that the nutritionist was still fine with our homemade formula and then asked if I had any questions. I told him about Jed's apraxia (as it is a brain thing and that maybe it had something to do with his feeding issues) and he told me that it had nothing to do with his feeding issues. Ahhh, OK then.....Then he told me that since Jedidiah is so stable that we can wait to come back in a year! yahoo!

In non Jed news Saoirse has her first loose tooth! Whoa! Wait, that can't be! But apparently it is true :-( She is growing up just too fast. The poor thing was really freaked out over it. She came up to me whimpering that her tooth was loose. I felt it and verified that it was and then she broke down crying that she didn't want to have a loose tooth. Weeeelllllll, sorry honey but there's no getting out of it! She was not pleased. Thankfully today she seems better about it. I am really hoping that her experience will be better than Flannery's first few loose teeth. Oh my oh my, you'd have to go back and read about those drama filled days of Flannery loosing a tooth.

I would put up pictures, except that I can't find my camera right now. I asked the girls about it and they said they didn't know where it was either, but that they did know the batteries were dead. Hmmmmm that's a bit suspicious! Well sooner or later it will turn up. We have a busy week here, I hope to update you all on Jed's kinesiology appointment goes. I really enjoy going to visit with the kinesiologist. She is so encouraging and so knowledgeable.

Kefir smoothies

First I want to just say a very big thank you to all the wonderful comments I received on my 'challenge post'. I am very glad that I am not alone :-) I am very excited to see how the Lord works all of this out.....an adventure in the making! I will continue to share my thoughts and the results that come out of all of this. I am sure right now they will stay thoughts, like Bethany mentioned, I don't want to swing to the opposite side of the pendulum :-)



I have been making kefir smoothies now for the past few weeks. There are two that we rely on. I am looking forward to trying to come up with new concoctions. Here is our new favorite:



Orange creamsicle

2 cups kefir
2 cups milk
2 frozen bananas
1/2 can of frozen orange juice concentrate
1 dropper of liquid stevia (maybe 20 drops worth?)
1 TBS vanilla extract

Put all into a blender and enjoy. This came out with a wonderful frothy texture. Yum!


Our next standby:

Chocolate smoothie

2 cups kefir
3 spoonfuls of unsweetened cocoa powder
3 spoonfuls of peanut butter
1 dropper of liquid stevia
1 TBS vanilla extract

The next two ingredients I just put in until I think is the right amount I am looking for (I like this to be thick like a milkshake).

maybe 3-4 cups of milk
maybe 4 or more frozen bananas

Mix this all in the blender. Be nice and share :-)



In other news I got another wonderful comment this morning (most of this post was written last night and I am finishing this morning), and it happens to be someone who "randomly" found me from another blog, who happens to be a missionary in Uganda and knows of Katie the missionary's blog I spoke of in my last post. Coincidence? I think not. Boy, you really have to be careful what you pray for :-) I am hoping to get to know this family and see what life looks like in Africa.

Have a great day!

A challenge

ANY READERS UNDER THE CARE OF THEIR PARENTS (UNDER 18) PLEASE DO NOT READ! PLEASE HAVE YOUR PARENTS READ THIS FIRST BEFORE CONTINUING!!


No, I don't have BAD things to say or share, but I do have a lot of my crazy thoughts to share and I am not comfortable with sharing them with a younger crowd if their parents are not OK with what I am about to share :-) So if you are a young one and you are still reading....then GET OFF :-) You can come back another day and enjoy our crazy life in pictures when I finally get them off my camera!












OK, if you ever thought that my posts were unorganized and a bit scattered well you haven't seen anything yet :-) I just feel this big ball of thoughts/emotions/and what not building and I want to get them all out. After all this is a journal, and one mainly for my family. But I know, only from my favorite sister in the whole world who tells me how things are truthfully, that I seem to come across as if I have my life together. I have to tell you I really thought I would laugh out loud (oh wait, I did) after hearing that. And so this post is to show you that I do NOT have my life all together. And I would like to record my crazy thoughts for posterity's sake (ha, ha, ha). This will be a crazy ride as I don't even know where to start as these thoughts have been building for some time.

A few things happened the past couple of days that kind of popped a bubble. They were small, and to anyone else may seem quite odd to have had such an effect. I guess I will start with these things and work my way back. My sister put up a post about deodorant. Ok, it was more than that, but she used that to make a point. You see, anti-perspirant has aluminum in it. Your skin, being your largest organ, absorbs the aluminum. And said aluminum can/will effect your kidneys. I am not sure if there are hard and fast studies done on this but there are writings out there that talk on the dangers of this aluminum from antiperspirants. Your kidneys will function just fine until they have been destroyed to only 10% working capacity. What this means is that you will have no clue that you have a kidney problem until it is too late. However your body will show signs, in seemingly non related ways, but it WILL be affected. Now what does this have to do with me? Well you see I read all that some 17 YEARS AGO! Yes, you heard right, I've known this for 17 years. Now, let me say this first, if you are family and you had anything to do with what I am about to say, let it be known I don't hold anything against you :-) Ok, so lets take a little time trip back 17 years and see what this looked like when I said the same thing.........[imagine a swirl of colors, clouds, a sense of falling through space....we are in NY now] I have read the info on this health concern and decide to take action. I went and bought what was known and maybe still known as a deodorant rock (or crystal). I was reading a lot about health stuff and saw that things were not as rose colored as the advertisers want you to believe it is. However I was alone at the time in this journey, and what I was met with is what I will call "the stare". The one where I am sure once the person turned their back to me were rolling their eyes. Come on, admit it....you rolled your eyes at me. Like I said, I don't hold it against anyone, after all it does seem odd. But if you think it is still out there and that the FDA has only our good in mind then please stand up and go to your antiperspirant bottle and read the back. About half way down you will see something that reads like this: Consult with your physician before using this product if you have kidney problems. I kid you not....go read it yourself. You may still be asking, OK Kerri this is a nice little story but what is the point? The point is after a lot of "grief" about my strange ways I started putting them by the wayside. A little here and a little there and I now find myself wondering where did *I* go. Yeah, all from some deodorant, who would have thought? Ok, obviously there is sooooooooo much more to it than that, but still it is a part of it all. But this ties in with soooooo many other areas in my life and I will try to share some of it with you. As the years went along I have found myself trying to follow a lot of rules. Now, hear me now, rules are good for us, ones in particular....the ones God made. However I was trying to make my life safe with those rules. I was always a bit......well I guess I would describe myself as always being "one beat off". For those of you who knew me some 17-18 years ago you know exactly what I am talking about. I enjoyed following the beat to a different drummer. I liked looking at things in a different light than the masses. Now granted there were still a lot of people like me, but I didn't follow the crowd. I was ok being different. But at some point I didn't. I felt like I needed to change for the sake of being more normal (whatever that might be!). Add a couple of children and I felt like I needed to do things right. And being a bit odd, well that just didn't seem like the 'right' thing to do. And so I continued to fill my life with rules. Lots of them. And the result of that is: A very joyless home and life. No, really, you can step into my home and just feel it. Or I should say the lack of it. And here is where another thing that came my way hit home. I was sent a link to a blog that had another link on it that I visited. And I can give a big thank you to my good friend, M, for that....although I am not sure if she is on my side or my hubbies :-) She knows what I am talking about :-) Anyways this is what I saw.....a young girl (21 or 22) she dresses in jeans and a tank top (rule number 24 being broken right there....the sad thing is and this is VERY VERY sad to me,my children will look at her and say, she must not be a Christian because she is wearing jeans....and no I am not joking, and no that is NOT what I wanted them to learn!! but again, I am sharing with you how my life is NOT put together right), not only that she is an unwed mother (rule number 41 being broken), she doesn't homeschool (rule number 5 broken), and she is not living at home (rule number something or other being broken) BUT, BUT, BUT you want to know what she has that is totally , COMPLETELY right?....the LOVE of CHRIST. This young lady is mom to 14, yes 14 orphans that she adopted, she lives in Uganda as a missionary and feeds the hungry and schools children who can't afford an education (education in Uganda is not run by the government and so all schools are private and you need to pay). She takes orphans home to clean them up, as some have NEVER had a bath in their 5, 6, 7 years of living on the earth. She holds them, cares for them and prays for them. Now, just to say a little to some people who are discontent with the way things are in the US, this young woman wouldn't be able to school or feed the hungry or be in Uganda if it wasn't for the financial support of people in the US. The Lord does have us work in different ways, as not all of us can be the hand or all of us be the foot...we each have different works to do. And even though there are a gazzilion things wrong with the US the Lord is still using some of us to accomplish His work :-) Ok back to my main thought (if there is a main thought). I have tried to build this fence to make my life work 'right'. But instead, since it indeed was by my own hands, I have made things go terribly wrong. I have children who are judgmental, who hate ( I do mean hate) work of any kind---school or housework, who even at times hate each other, who do things only if it will benefit them and so on. Now I am not pointing out my childrens' sins/weaknesses to point the finger at them....but to point it to ME. We do a lot of 'right' things around here. Please note that the word, right, is in quotes. We dress modestly, we homeschool, we go to church and I am sure the list goes on, but we don't have the love of Christ. I may not be a Bible scholar but I am pretty darn sure that that is what Jesus intended when he walked the earth and died for us. I mean how many times does he point to the Pharisees and condemn their ways? I'm a really, really great Pharisee. I am sure I could walk with the best of them. They did a lot of 'right' things, but they lacked in the most important THING.....love.

I am sure you are wondering how deodorant and a blog about the life of a missionay in Uganda have anything in common. In my crazy world they do :-) And this brings us to the reason I titled my post, "A challenge". As I was pondering my loss of 'one beat off-ness' I came across a site for some dresses and aprons. I know you are really wondering how that ties into things :-) But oh, they were so lovely, so neat, so different, but not different in a big way. Go here to see what I mean. Check out the Verity Hope dress and this apron, I love them, they are *me*. However if anyone knows me in the real world I am sure your eyes are a little wide right now with wondering, "what?" that is not Kerri. It is me in my mind and heart. But many things, including my rules and things like financials make me present in a different light. When I think of a garden I do not think of a few boxes of dirt with veggies in them. Or rows of veggies. I think of different shaped boxes put into a lovely pattern with little trinkets hung up to ring in the breeze, color here and there to liven up the place, a little fence and a colorful chair.....I know I've had pictures of my garden up here and you know mine looks like the former! But alas, how does one reckon these things in light of other pressing desires? I long to make a cozy wonderful nest right here. But there are things that the Lord has put on my hubby's and my hearts that don't exactly fit this mold. For the time being our hearts are set on helping a certain people, but just not in the same way :-) And so I have started to pray that either his or my heart would change so that we would be on the same page. I have mentioned before of my desire to adopt. I may have also mentioned that Jeremiah has a desire to be a missionary in Africa. We want to help the same people, but I want to do so by adopting, and he wants to do so by moving there and starting an orphanage and teach. I assure you this brings a great divide in our house over this :-) Jeremiah says we can move there and do both. Um, that brings us to a very big and real problem.....or I should say problemssssss. The Lord would have to move in a big way for me to get over the bug thing. Then there is the very real danger of disease. People would automatically say...vaccinations....but that is a problem all of its own. Now I do think it is rather an odd coincidence (NOT) that I prayed about this for the first time this week and the day after my friend sends me the link to the African blogs. (she does know my dilemma on the whole African thing, so this wasn't totally unexpected that she would send me something like that...but still). So I am reading with my heart yearning mostly to have a heart filled with love like this young woman does. Right now I would settle for having that same heart for my own children. Don't get me wrong I LOVE my children, but unless you have read her blog I am not sure if I could adequately explain. I pray that my heart changes in such a way, first towards my own family and then that it would overflow outwards to others. But here in lies the challenge...how do I reconcile my desire to make things beautiful and orderly herein the US when there is a young missionary woman with 14 adopted children who are cutting back (yeah, imagine 'cutting' back in Africa!) so that they will have more money to feed the hungry children. So I am leaving it to the Lord to work out, where it should have been all along....even 17 years ago ;-)

So where does this leave me? Will you be seeing me in jeans and a tank top? Will I pierce my nose next? You can laugh, but that was a desire of mine for many years! You can all breath a sigh of relief....the answer is no :-) But I do want my heart to be totally abandoned to the Lord, I want a love for my husband and children like I never have. I want a desire for the lost and abandoned of the world. I want to know that I can do great things for the Lord, right here and right now. I want to know that those little desires I have, like living healthy, are not kooky. Of course there are a lot of people now, who because their bodies are experiencing breakdown from a life of packaged non food, are now seeing that changes need to be made. I just happened to be trying to make them years ago. I need to stay the course, even if I am walking the path alone. But that does get hard to do after awhile. I can be thankful I am not alone now :-) I need to realize that although rules are good, and serve a purpose, I need to live by the most important rule of all.....love. And that will not happen without the Lords help! So there you go....a long, drawn out post about my crazy thought life! See, I am not put together! If only I had pictures of my house to prove it! Trust me, it's not pretty :-)

And if anyone is interested in reading this young missionary's blog you can visit her here. Go and be inspired. We all can't go to Africa, but we can all do great works, through the Lord, when we pursue Him.

And I apologize if you are a grammar nut and have hair on the back of your neck standing on end due to my lack of grammar and organization :-)

And one more thing....this is only half of my thoughts, hey I didn't want you all to keel over on me! Maybe I'll write more later. I'll be back to share some pictures of our "normal" life ;-)

Finally the cake

So we were well enough, temporarily, to indulge in some birthday cake. I wanted to make a checkerboard cake for Jonah's birthday. We didn't get pictures of the inside of the cake, which is where the checkered pattern is. Oh well, it came out, but not very well. I needed to make three layers and so decided on making the batter from scratch. I was not very impressed with the cake. It was dense and so the layers were very short. It tasted really yummy, but it was missing that light, fluffy texture that I was looking for. Oh well, we live and learn :-) Jonah dived into the cake with his little fist and shoved it in his mouth.....a proper response I would say!

We are trying to get back on our feet from this tummy bug. We are now on a three day modified juice fast. It won't be all juice, some yogurt, kombusha, kefir (notice the theme of fermented liquids?) and some homemade chicken broth with brown rice. I am hoping to get our bodies back on track. A lot of things have gone undone over hear and we have our work cut out for us. I am stalling.....can you tell? Actually I have done quite a bit today, but it is in the area of food prep than cleaning. So off to clean and school :-) Have a great day!

Birthday bash (that wasn't) round 3, DING!

Well it was Jonah's big first birthday today. The poor guy got a bit short changed on the celebration part of it due to us still being sick. So we put off the cake till later in the week. We did give him his birthday present as we had hoped it would help keep him (and Jed) occupied while we tried to rest on the couches. It was a pitiful site I tell ya. But it seems we have turned a bit of a corner and I am hoping that we will all have a good nights sleep. We have been trying to get more in the habit of not going to the store on the Sabbath. However, with us being so sick someone had to go get some gatorade and popcicles. So I ran out and bought a bunch of, well, junk :-) There is just no way that I will be able to cook the next couple of days, and seeing as how my oldest two daughters are ill as well that leave no one to cook (Jeremiah is sick too!). So I bought some flavored rice, noodles, waffles, bread, crackers, juice and popcicles. That should hold us over for the next couple of days. We got some recommendations on some natural remedies to try and we started on those as well.

I just have to tell you all about an amazing blessing that we received recently. There are a lot of projects that need doing here on the homestead. Jeremiah and Joe (my b-i-l) were making up a list. One of the big items was to get the back yard cleared. Jeremiah had already cut down a bunch of trees, but the stumps were left and we had a bunch of really small thin trees/shrubs around. Well the other day as Jeremiah was driving home he came upon a date book with papers swirling all over the road. He got out and picked it up, trying to catch as much as he could. When he got home he had to go through it to see who it belonged to. He said that it looked like it belonged to someone who did tree removals. So he gave a call and the man was overjoyed that he had found his planner and told Jeremiah that as a thank you he would give us free service. Jeremiah told him that just days before he was talking about the need to clear our backyard. He basically said, count it done! He came the very next day and cleared our back yard!! We still have a lot of small brush (that could be mowed down), but oh my goodness, what an amazing blessing! I'll have to find a "before" picture to show the comparison sometime.

On to a couple of pictures :-)


Jedidiah, just looking cute. He got this new digger shirt and carried it around for a while before he would let me put it on him. He is starting to try and get dressed himself and he puts one arm in at the neck hole and then out of the arm hole and comes up to me wondering why it isn't working :-)

We managed to get Jonah's birthday sign made last night. The girls were picture happy! I never got around to hanging it up and just had the girls hold it up for the picture.

The cousins. From left to right we have Georgia (4 next month), Isabella (12 next month), Emma (6), Flannery (7), Saoirse (5), Moira (10) holding Jonah (1!), Remmington (7) and Jedidiah (3). Jonah was obviously not in photo op mode. Poor guy.

Here is Moira with her birthday sign, I had not posted it in her birthday post. I try to get creative with their signs, but this year I've been lacking in creativity. Hey, they at least got a sign :-)

a quick stop in

Tomorrow we have another birthday to celebrate, Jonah's first! I am really, really hoping that we are all well by then. We have caught a tummy bug that a couple of us have, including yours truly. We had a wonderful, wonderful visit with my sister and her family. Unfortunately some of them got sick as well! I hope they are all better by now :-) Anyways it was so great to see them all as it has been too long since we last saw each other. That last time was when Jed had his g-tube put in and they came down to help out. It was a whirlwind and stressful two days and then they were off, not a wonderful way to spend a visit, so I was happy to have had this one where we all had time to enjoy each others company. My sister was able to see the holistic care person that Jed is seeing. I am SO excited for her!!! She finally, FINALLY has answers to her health concerns that she has lived with for so very long. I have written some about our appointment and if you would like to visit my sister blog (link on the side bar) you can read about hers. She told my sister a story that makes my hair stand on end. A lady with cancer had been going the regular chemo/radiation route, but not getting much success. She decided to try an alternative care person and she was healed of her cancer. She went back to her oncologist for testing (I am assuming to get confirmation of it's remission/healing) and her oncologist was amazed that she was better and wanted to know what she did. She told him as she was very excited about the results and thought that the oncologist's inquiry was for that same reason. But not so, the oncologist went on to SUE the alternative care person for LOST WAGES!!! Tell me there's not something totally wrong with that picture! Anyways, that has made us a bit more apprehensive about sharing details as we wouldn't want to see anything happen to the person we are seeing.

I am on our back computer so I don't have access to the pictures that I took of our visit (I only got a few). I will be back, maybe tomorrow or Monday. Hopefully I'll have b-day pictures as well. I just remembered that I need to make a birthday sign for baby boy! I better get to work. I am hoping we will be able to make church tomorrow, but it's looking sketchy. Although I am feeling better at the moment as it seems that food is starting to make me feel better for short bouts of time, but then I feel sick all over again. Let me just say that I do NOT take kindly to stomach bugs! It's been 48 hours, which is 48 hours too long :-)

Birthday bash, round 2

UGH! I am really hating blogger at the moment as I still can not move my text or pictures around. This has been going on for a couple of weeks. Grrrrrr. I prefer to write my post above the pictures and then put my pictures in order. However you'll have to have the pics first (out of order) and then read.


Moira posing with her beloved sisters and birthday gift (back pack, colored pencils, markers, crayons, paints, brushes and pallets.

Moira again, looking so very 10!

Cutting into the yummy cake.

The cake close up. It really was pretty! Here it was a bit melted. But that didn't alter the taste.

We only got a couple of pictures of Jonah at the lake. Too busy watching children to take any other pictures. But what a cutie, walking around!

So Moira turned double digits! The Big Ten! We celebrated the day before her actual birthday as it was going to be too busy on her actual birth day. We had to grocery shop in the morning, not the funnest birthday activity :-) Then we got home, and Moira started making her cake. I started on her birthday dinner, sweet and sour meatballs, and the beloved cranberry sauce. Moira had a great idea for her cake. Unfortunately something happened to it and it was lopsided. She made a white cake. In between the two layers she spread marshmallow fluff. Then we topped the cake with vanilla ice cream. Then she frosted the whole thing and decorated it. When I was growing up ice cream cakes were made entirely of ice cream. But down here ice cream cakes are half cake and half ice cream. Odd I tell ya.

I had told Moira she could pick a park to go to and she asked if we could go to the lake to go swimming. So we ate an early dinner and headed to the lake. It was 6 pm when we got there. It was perfect as it wasn't too hot. We stayed for an hour, as that is all my nerves can handle, trying to keep track of 6 children in a large body of water. Isabella lost an earring while there, and Flannery went underwater for the first time! So some good, some bad. Jonah LOVED the water. He was getting to be a little dare devil, so Jeremiah took him up to the towels and let him play in the sand. Then Jed became daring, so I figured it was time to take off to home for some cake. After the yummy cake Moira opened her gift. She had asked for this boxed art set, but after reading some reviews of the product we figured we needed to take another route. So we bought a bunch of art supplies and put them into a nice back pack. She loved it!

tummy buggy

We had been doing so great......health wise that is.....until last night. Jedidiah was acting a bit funky yesterday, nothing that I could put my finger on. He's been eating really great (for Jed) lately and so I did think it was odd that he didn't want any noodles at dinner last night. He sat there, rather quiet, not really involved with our dinner talk. And then it happened....he threw up. It's been quite a while since he's done that. We are sort of out of practice with getting towels and what not. Not that I mind being out of practice, truly this is not something you want to have a lot of practice with :-) I was hoping that maybe he was reacting to the new supplements that we have him on. We were supposed to go swimming at a friends house today and all the girls were eagerly looking forward to it. I didn't hook Jed up last night as I wasn't sure what the cause of the tummy problem was. He woke up and the VERY first thing he did, with in seconds of seeing me was to ask for water. I got him a cup of water and proceeded to watch the poor fellow try to drink it. I say try because the poor boy was shaking so bad that he could hardly get the cup to his mouth :-( He found that if he held his upper arms tight to his body he had better control over the cup (he wouldn't let me hold it for him). I got him hooked up right away so that I could get some calories into him. But he was only 1/3 into the feeding when he threw up again. Ugh! I called my friend to say that we would not be coming. We talked about how it could be the supplements, and she said I should just wait to see what would happen over the next couple of hours. But I knew this was not a reaction to supplements when I saw that he fell asleep on the couch, and he had only been up 2 hours! As I type this at 9 pm Jed is asleep and has been for about an hour and a half! Needless to say the girls were very disappointed. But we do have plans on going over to swim on Monday. Before we swim we will learn how to milk my friend's goats. We will be taking care of them when they go away. And on top of that we will have my sister and her family come visit us this coming week! Yeah! We are REALLY looking forward to their visit. This coming week will be bookended by two birthdays, each on Sunday. So LOTS of things to look forward to this week. I think I am getting the hang of making kefir. I made a chocolate one today that the girls actually enjoyed drinking. I think one of the problems is that I have too many kefir grains! I was recently told that you only need about a tablespoon for the amount I am making, I think I have a half cup. So if anyone out there wants some, let me know and I can send them to you. Just leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do to get them to you. Yes, people send them through the mail :-)

Well off to make a grocery list. I am hoping to get a jump start on our day tomorrow by hitting the store early. Then pick up a library book that I am really looking forward to reading. It's supposed to help with teaching your children sign language. On a side note, the girls and I have been learning to sign one of the songs we sing at church. We learned on a few weeks ago, and now we are learning a new one. I think I will try to video us signing it! Trust me it is apparent that we are not experts ;-) But we have fun with it, and it helps us to learn more signs. Ok, after the library we will do a bit of cleaning, then hopefully have the evening to have fun at the park (as long as Jed is feeling OK). Off to see about making a video.

Our 4th Weekend

Well you will have to see what I wrote below as I can NOT get the pictures to move, nor can I copy and paste my post above the pictures. Something is going on with blogger and it is driving me insane! As I explain below, here are some pictures of me brewing some kombusha....


What you don't see in the picture is the 12 cups of water boiling on the stove. While your water is boiling you can gather your other supplies, shown here. We have a gallon glass jar with 1 cup of sugar in it, 4 black tea bags, and a bottle of RAW or LIVE kombusha tea.

When your water comes to a boil, pour it into the glass jar and stir till the sugar dissolves. Add the tea bags and let brew until the water comes to room temperature. Then when it cooled you open your bottle of kombusha and pour the whole thing in.

And there in the upper part, the white film, is the baby SCOBY. I liked my first baby SCOBY that I had as it was really cute, this one is just a film, not very cute. Oh well as long as it makes my tea transform into kombusha I'll keep it :-)

The girls wanted hair wraps for the 4th. However, only Moira had the patience to get one. Here it is in red, white and blue.

Moira preferred to wear her wrap across her head like a hair band. It was really cute.

Here are our kittens, cute little things....anyone want one?

We spent our 4th of July with a wonderful family from church. The kids played some games, and they got some fun little goody bags. The hit of the night were glow sticks! After dinner of homemade pizza, salad and juice we went out for fireworks. Everyone, except Jed, enjoyed the fireworks. The baby was really tired, but thought the fire works were pretty funny. The girls ran around the field we were in getting to twirl their glow sticks and hold sparklers. Jedidiah on the other hand refused to look at the fire works! He didn't cover his ears with the noise, but he would NOT look in their direction. Poor guy. We went home to gobble up some yummy dessert, which was just some pound cake with berries and whipped topping. Then it was off to bed for a bunch of tired kiddos.

While our company was here I was showing Mrs. H my kombusha. Wouldn't ya know my kombusha mushroom was sprouting mold! How embarrassing. Due to some health issues we will be adding a bunch of fermented foods to our diet on a regular basis, kombusha being one of them. I've been brewing kombusha for a year, but not on a regular basis. I also acquired some kefir grains and we will be having some today.....hoping that the shorter brewing time will make it a lot less sour. So come along with me on a very exciting kombusha tutorial...

First Birthday of the Month

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY JEDIDIAH!!

It was a busy day here for the birthday boy. We had a few appointments in the morning. Then we had to run to get his birthday dinner as I seemingly forgot to add those items to our grocery list! It was a dinner of hot dogs, tater tots and the beloved cranberry sauce. I am sure most of you will know where the idea for the cranberry sauce came from....the girls! we had a wonderful young lady take care of the children today while we were out and about. She put together the cookie cake ingredients. So all I had to do was pop it in the oven. And let me follow in my sister's footsteps, and give you all a tip of what NOT to do in the kitchen.....When making a large cookie make sure there is room on your cookie tray for expansion. It was not a pretty site, unless you are the sort of person who enjoys seeing flames on the bottom of your oven. After we extinguished the fire we sat down to eat. By then the cookie had cooled off. We set about decorating it....with lots of help :-) Then Jedidiah got to open his presents. The night before we gave him one gift (hoping it would distract him at his appointment the following day). It was a Halo figure. For his actual birth day we gave him two puzzles that make noises when you put the pieces in. One is of animals, the other is for vehicles. We got to listen to it over and over and over and over and over and over.....did I say over? And each time Jedidiah wanted us to say something about it.....like name the object or say the sound. Over and over and over...wait I said that already didn't I? I think you got the idea. The funny thing is that the puzzle works when the little receptor is covered and it has to be exposed to light first, but Jedidiah wouldn't lift the puzzle piece up far enough to make it work. So I told him to hold the piece up to his head. I was amazed that he did it as he has a hard time with positional words. So now you will see him lift each piece to his head, making sure to gently touch it, and then lower it to the puzzle. I am sure that if you didn't know the story behind it you would think it a very odd way to work a puzzle :-) While were were gone at our appointments the girls drew up Jedidiah's birthday sign. It is very colorful! They couldn't find the blue streamers, so Jed just had some white ones.





The beloved birthday sign.

Jed was entranced with the ABC's candles. Saoirse is waiting for Jed to open his gift from her.

I can't get my pictures in order so here is Jed clapping after he blew out his candles.

Jed all excited about his candles. He wasn't interested in the cookie cake, but the candles, candles, candles! Too funny!

The wonderful cookie cake. All decorated by girly girls. They helped pick the sprinkles, thus a little less on the boy side of things :-) Jed didn't seem to notice!