3 years later

Here we are.  A lot has happened in the past three years.  Namely, we added another baby to the mix.  Her name is Ada and she's not even really a baby anymore.  She's two!  Not sure I'll really start this blog thing up again or not, but I'm leaning towards it.  I miss journaling like this.  This post is not much, but it's a start!

It's a new year!! And Christmas break!

It's January, it's time for resolutions!  So after a very persuasive Relief Society Meeting the other night, I have decided to take up blogging again, if only for a family journal and so friends and family can keep up on our happenings.  But I'm also going private!  Lately I've received comments from strangers and I'm not so comfortable with having my families life out their for all to see.  So now that I know this is just for a select few, I'm ready to write!

Here is our lame attempt of a Christmas card this year!

We tried a few times to get a picture and finally after the ornaments were up on the tree, and we were all dressed for church, Ryan grabbed the tripod and we took a couple of shots and this is what we ended up with.  Oh well, it's black and white because the colors we were all wearing we simply appalling as we were stuffed together next to the tree.  So there we have it!  At least we're all smiling, except for Nelson, and you can't win it all!!!

Christmas itself was very nice.  And it was great to be with Nate and Jill and their kids and also our friend Perry.  I also was happy to be a church on Christmas day.  It was wonderful to be apart of the choir, especially the song the children sang with the choir.  It was beautiful!

At the last minute Ryan and I decided that we should go somewhere to spent our week off of work and school.  We really wanted to drive out to Utah, but we didn't think it was quite feasible.  So Katie and her family were the lucky ones to host us! (LOL)  We drove the 19 hours there and the 19 hours back and spent 3 wonderful days there.  It was a blast!  The cousins had a great time getting to know each other better and just playing great all the time!  Ryan was able to take a few kids fishing and to play mini golf, and Katie and I did what we do best, we talked all day long!  It was so much fun, it's a shame that we don't live a bit closer.

I do have to say, 13 kids in one house is a bit crazy.  But it's a good crazy!  Wouldn't you agree?

To go or not to go, that is the question

When I was in my in my 20's, and was childless and single and had all the answers to all the questions, I went to church with my friend and her sister and the sister's two little boys. As my friends sister was struggling with her adorable children she sighed with a big "why do I even come to church?". I was appalled. How could anyone say such things? Of course we go for a variety of reasons! Why would you stop when you had children?

Well, have I mentioned I have seven kids now? Guess what, I have asked that same question to myself and on more than one occasion, and the latest being this past Sunday.

As our services started I'm sitting there oh so calmly on the pew when I look to my right and Garrett had found a bag of cheerios. I should rephrase that, it was a bag of former cheerios, it was a bag of dust and crumbs. He proceeded to dump them onto the bench. I cleaned them up as best I could and set the baggie onto the floor. Next he took a little sip of water out of the water bottle we had left over in the diaper bag from basketball games the day before. Leia tried to take the water away and as his noise levels increased I removed Leia as she yelled, "He's going to spill it!". I was trying to hand Leia over to Ryan when I felt wet. I quickly turned to see Garrett dumping the water right in the middle of the pew and there was a nice little river running both directions right behind my entire family. Soon most of us were wet. As we were trying to remain reverent and not disturb those around us, which was too late by the way, I sent Gabbie for paper towels and Ryan took Garrett out of the meeting. As I'm trying to dry our soaked bench, Leia is vigorously rocking the baby in his carrier. I quickly rush to his aid only to kick the previously mentioned cheerios/crumbs/dust all over the floor. AAGGHH! At this point we are not even 10 minutes into the meeting and I want to return home.

I start thinking of all the excuses to go. "Garrett has not been feeling well", that's a good one, "Nelson is teething", that would work too. Maybe I should just go. I'm soon nursing Nelson and lamenting to a friend who has 8 children of her own and she proceeds to tell me that it's my come-up-ence for having my first four children be so well behaved. Her first 5 were all apparently like Garrett. I'm not so sure I felt better.

As I then roamed the halls with Nelson and Garrett I'm still thinking of the numerous reasons I should leave and I tried to block out all the reasons I should stay. Before I know it and have any control, Sacrament meeting has ended and Emmett is ushering Garrett off to nursery. I relent and head off to Sunday School.

Nelson doesn't cooperate. I stay in the halls with my teething, grumpy baby. The next hour during Relief Society I continued to pace the halls until he finally fell asleep. I sat down to hear the last 20 minutes of our lesson. It was wonderful. I felt uplifted, I felt encouraged. I was renewed. And then at 3:45 I saw a women leave. I knew immediately she needed to go listen to one of her children participate in the children's meeting next door. Then I realized, one of my own children was suppose to have said a talk and hour prior. Not only did I not go to listen/help her. I hadn't even prepared a talk for her to give. So my poor little Mia with the help of a Primary Teacher gave a talk, through tears of nervousness and I'm sure embarrassment and sadness, she stood up anyway and gave a talk. I felt horrible.

We made it through our 3 hours of church and when it was all said and done, I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Should I receive the Mother of the Year Award. That answer is an obvious NO! But I'm glad that even though I had water and cheerios, a grumpy baby, a missed talk, I was able to feel fellowship from others, and the spirit as our teacher testified of Christ. So in that 5 minutes of peace there really were rewards.

Now I need to go find that church bag that holds the cheerios and make sure they have finally been discarded. And there is no way in the world that a water bottle will be left in the diaper bag next week!

What's worse than the dentist?

This week we had a couple of "teacher-work days" which means, no school for the kiddos. We didn't plan anything fun and exciting except for a family trip to the dentist and some long awaited family pictures. After two mornings of outings I will take the dentist ANY day of the week! Especially our dentist. He's quick, he doesn't do anything extra, we just go in get our teeth cleaned and we're out of there. I love it! To take our entire family (that means 7 cleanings, and 3 sets of x-rays) we were in and out of the office in.... get this... ONE HOUR!!! I kid you not. I love our dentist.

Day two, family pictures. You've got to be kidding me. Garrett, who is two years old, apparently doesn't like getting his picture taken. He was a nightmare! He covered his eyes or ran away. It was great fun. Nelson looked totally nervous the whole time and Leia, cute little Leia, after taking her individual picture and pictures with her sisters she pulled the cute little flowers out of her hair and started chewing on her shirt, which no one noticed because we were too busy with Garrett and Nelson. So when it came time to take the family picture her shirt had a big old wet spot right in the middle of her chest. So we quickly turned her shirt around and took the pictures. Oh well. Luckily none of the mishaps made me mad. Ryan and I laughed the entire time. I figure no family picture is going to be perfect right? Not when you've got 7 little ones and 3 of which really don't want to cooperate at all. Oh well, such is life. After it is all said and done, the pictures weren't really all that bad. Thank goodness, because it just may be another 3 years before we do another one!

Nuggs

Here is the latest reason why I will never earn the Mother of the Year Award.

My friend sent out an email saying that she was trying to help her daughter find a new home for her cat Nuggs. Somehow when I read this email I forgot of my uneasiness with animals and felt like this would be a great pet for my children. Call it what you will, I'll call it insanity, but I talked to her and decided to try this cat on a trial basis.

Now let me first say this. Nuggs is a GREAT CAT! I'm not kidding. He would sit and let six of my children pet him all at once. He is totally easy going and likes people and wants attention. What more could you ask for. That is.... if you're a cat person.

I have known my whole life that I could live perfectly content and never own an animal. This is just who I am. But for my children.... I would do anything. Really? Anything?

Nuggs sheds. I shouldn't be surprised, all cats do.

Nuggs sleeps during the day and is awake at night. Again, this is typical for cats.

I apparently can't handle these two things.

Thank goodness for the trial basis. Nuggs is now gone. Hopefully Susan will be able to find him a good home.

I have some very, VERY, sad children. So to help them ease their pain, you'll never guess what I did. Yes, I told them I'd get them a dog! So once again, I will plead insanity, because I don't really like those either. Luckily for me I gave some conditions so the dog won't be here too soon. At least I hope not!

Christmas is coming...

Today we are going to get our Christmas Tree. I love going out to Hank's Christmas Tree Lot to cut down ourperfect and often way too big tree. But today I was thinking about our trip to Utah this summer. We had a lot of fun, and the drive wasn't really all that bad. The worst part about the trip was that our camera wasn't working except for a handful of pictures we took in the car on our way out and a few worked on our way home. These pictures were from our homebound excursion.

You can see that some of us were tired... Some of us were silly...
And some of us had had enough...

Although our drive to get the our perfect tree is a little far away it will be nothing compared t our adveture this summer.

We have a new camera now, and if I remember I will be taking pictures of us cutting down our Christmas tree. We'll see how it goes.

Ramblings and a recap

These are my children. They look well enough, and happy enough. And most of the time I believe they are. But let me tell you there are days...

I've been debating as to where to start. You see, I haven't written about anything for almost a year, so do I try to remember everything that's happened the last year and bore you to death or should I try and highlight the good stuff? Maybe it will be a little bit of both seeing that this is meant to be more of journal and a way to stay connected to others. As you know I'm not a professional writer, nor will I ever be, but I'm hoping to write a few little things worth remembering.

Over the last few days as I have been observing some extended family relations I have come to the conclusion that my parenting days are NOT numbered! I will be a parent forever. Depending on the day I have this thought I may clap my hands or go cry in a corner. I look at this picture of my little ones and they are young and cute (most of the time) and they have so much ahead of them. They will have trials and hardships, they will have laughter and joy. Some of the stuff they will go through will be no fault of their own and some will be of direct consequences of bad decision making. More then anything I want to teach my children that it is ALWAYS easier to do the right thing first. It's never better to screw up and then try to fix the wrong. I hope to instill in them a desire to want to make good choices, to want to do what is good, to want to help others, to want to not try and get away with something but just do what is right. I pray for this every day.

As for the subject of prayer. I know it works. It worked today.

No more sermon.

I still am not sure how I will restart this blog, but hopefully I'm making some progress by just typing what comes to mind. I do have some pretty good stuff that has happened this past year, some really cool accomplishments that my children have made, some pretty funny stories that I am supplied with almost every day as the kids grow and learn. We took a great summer vacation this year and drove across the country to visit family and friends. Emmett's class won a trip to Orlando to the Harry Potter Grand Opening. We also had that very adorable baby I mentioned yesterday, Garrett calls him "Buddy", that in and of itself is a story.

So much to say, and now I just have to make the time to say it!