Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you all. We pray that each of you has a personal relationship with the ONE who gives us the reason for this season, Jesus Christ. As we left church yesterday we noticed one of the churches in our town had a sign saying they were not having a service on Christmas day and that struck me as so very strange. Now I know that people may choose not to attend church if Christmas falls on a Sunday, maybe visiting family etc. but for a church to choose not to have a service just struck me as strange since the reason we have Christmas is because of CHRIST. Anyway, I do hope you had a great day. We chose to open our gifts today, Monday, not only to avoid a very busy Sunday but also because our oldest and his fiance both had to work yesterday, medical people just don't always have the option to not work on holidays. We had a very nice relaxing day today with the children.

Again, Merry Christmas and we hope you all have a Happy Jesus loves you New Year.

ps Sister Kristy I would love to be invited to read your blog:)

JOY

Isn't this the most joyful time of the year? A time for us to be joyful about our Saviour, Jesus, who came to this world as a helpless baby and then He died on a cruel cross to take the punishment for our sins so we could be reconciled to the God who created us and loves us so much. Why wouldn't we be joyful at the thought of this. But are we joyful? Am I joyful?

The Lord has been bringing that word to me lately...Joy. Do I have joy? Or do I let the cares of the day rob me of my joy? Am I crabby and short tempered? I must admit that ,yes I am. I blame it on lack of sleep etc. but it just boils down to choosing to be UNJOYFUL. Is that even a word? Well now it is. One of the things I blame my lack of joy on is my children's crabbiness. But then I realize that they are only crabby because they see mama being crabby.

So for our Advent readings this year we are focusing on Scriptures about Joy. Last nights verse was from Nehemiah 8:10, the second part, where it says...

"Do not sorrow, for the JOY of the Lord is your strength"

The notes in my Bible concerning this verse, which is actually speaking to the Isrealites as they are hearing the Law read to them by Ezra, say that the joy of the Lord is the joy that springs up in our hearts because of our relationship to the Lord. It is a God-given gladness found when we are in communion with God. When our goal is to know more about the Lord, the by-product is His joy.

So what I am taking away from this is that we in America try to manufacture our joy during the Christmas season. We sing about Joy, we may even read Scriptures about joy but if we (meaning me) are not in God's Word DAILY then we will ever be striving to find our JOY. Only in Christ Jesus can we have that because everyday will have trials that want to rob us of our joy. And He is the only constant thing.

I was planning on writing out my favorite poem about my children mirroring me and how I need to have joy if I expect them to have it but then I realized that I had already written it. So if you want to refresh your memory of it or never read it to begin with, click on Poems on the side bar. I think it is an excellent reminder to us that our children will become what they see in us(most of the time).

Again, I ask us, "How's your joy?" Can I challenge you and me to daily find our joy in the Lord? Can I challenge each of us to find someone we trust to hold us accountable to be in God's word daily and to practice the joy that we know we should be exhibiting? How can we reach others for Christ when we show no joy in the life that He has given us?

I hope we each have a JOYFUL Christmas season and beyond!

Noah Update

As I am sure you can tell, my days don't leave alot of time for blogging. Mostly I am walking through the days in a fog of sleeplessness. Noah seems to have the typical nightowl problem that most newborns have. He sleeps great during the day with all of the noise going on around here but come nighttime he is a grunter. He does sleep but he grunts and fusses most of the night and only sleeps well if he is in mom's arms. We usually end up on the couch sleeping together in hopes that dad will get some rest since he is on night duty with Audrey. He goes back to work this week so my nights will be quite interesting as I try to get up with both of them and then throw in the 2 year old who still wakes up some nights. Other than that he is doing great. He is gaining weight like crazy. We took him in with me for my postpartum checkup and he weighed 6lbs 13 oz which was up from 6lbs 1 oz only a few days prior to that. Then he went in for a two week check up two days later and he weighed 7lbs 2 oz. So despite being labeled a preemie, he is weighing more like a full term baby and is still as cute as a bug's ear in my opinion...

Noah Walker

I don't usually post names of our kiddos but I did want you to know his name...for those of you who don't read my girls blogs.....Baby Noah arrived on Wed. Oct. 5th, almost 5 weeks early. I don't have alot of time to type since I am sitting in the NICU of a local hospital but I wanted to tell you of the Lord's goodness before heading, bleary-eyed, to bed for a couple of hours.





Last weekend I started having some contractions that were a bit bothersome to me in their frequency so I talked to my midwife. We had already decided a few days earlier that we should go back to the Perinatologist for another growth ultrasound for baby since he had a two vessel umbilical cord instead of a three vessel cord. My original appt was for the 10th or 11th of Oct. but we ended up moving it to Friday the 7th. Unfortunately Mark wasn't going to be able to go with me that day so I decided to give the dr.s office a call and ask if there was anyway I could come in on Wed. the 5th instead. I was able to get an appt. so on Wed. off we went.





I was still having some contractions off and on but nothing too serious. While the ultrasound tech was doing the scan she excused herself and came back with the doctor. I knew something was wrong at that point. The doctor proceeded to tell us that baby's heart rate had some periods of dipping down lower than he liked to see it. He suggested being monitored in the hospital for a few hours. We weren't thrilled with the idea as we had some things we wanted to get done that day but consented to it. DH and I decided that while I was hooked up to the monitors he would run our errands and then come back about the time I should be ready to head back to the dr. for him to tell us what he saw. While being monitored baby had several episodes of dropping heart rate for 3 or more minutes. When the second one happened with in a minute my room was flooded by nurses and doctors and I was quickly put up on my hands and knees to try to get baby to change positions and move off of the umbilical cord. Right at that moment is when Dad came through the door, shocked to see what was going on. I am sure he was expecting me to be just sitting demurely in the bed hooked up to the monitor. We were very quickly educated on the C-Section process, risks and benefits. They didn't have to convince me, I knew I didn't want to experience his heart rate dropping again like it had. That was very scary and I just cried out to the Lord while on my hands and knees for Him to bring baby's heart rate back where it needed to be.

Apparantly while they were getting me ready to go back to the OR baby had another drop in heart rate, which I didn't know about so they sped things up and wasted no time getting me in the OR. Dad had to wait a bit to come back until they had the anesthesia in place. God provided a wonderful staff in the OR. I had a student nurse at my side holding my hand and quoting Scripture to me the whole time until Dad was able to come in and then she came back to my side when he left to go with baby to the NICU. We didn't know until later that night that baby's APGAR score when he was born was a 1 which is the lowest you can get before there is nothing. His umbilical cord was wrapped 4 times around his neck and he had a knot in his cord. The OB Dr. who did the c-section said that if I had waited to come in even one day the outcome of his delivery would have been drastically different, meaning we probably would have been looking at a Stillbirth. Everyone in the OR was amazed when I told them that I actually wasn't supposed to have come in until Friday. We have been able to share with alot of people while here the Lord's hand in all of this and we have had alot of Christian nurses which has been wonderful.

There are so many babies here that need prayer and their families too so if you think about it, pray for the NICU babies. That is how I fall asleep each night while here. Tonight we will be sleeping in the family room with Noah which is a last step before being discharged tomorrow, Lord willing.

B# 7 Turns 4

On Saturday, B#7 turned 4. Hard to believe he is already 4. We just stayed home and celebrated his birthday as a family. He was pretty specific in what he wanted for his birthday and with some preplanning and shopping at Goodwill we were able to find what he wanted. He asked for a big boy bike, which I found brand new at Goodwill, some little boy roller blades which I also found at Goodwill and a lawn mower which we had purchased and put away months ago since Wal-Mart usually only carries them in the summer. B#1 bought him the movie WALL E which the little boys were very excited to get. So we watched that in between riding bikes and roller blading. Now we are ready to plan a family bike riding day when the weather gets a tad cooler. B#4 made him these adorable cookie monster cupcakes. She only made enough for the little ones because she said they were kind of a pain to make.

Happy Autumn

I just love Autumn. It seems to me that most people do. Usually everyone calls it Fall and I like to call it fall too but I love the word Autumn. It sounds so much nicer. If the next baby had been a girl I would have loved to name her Autumn although I am sure that would have guaranteed about 11 vetos. Today is the first day of Autumn. Unfortunately here the weather isn't feeling much like it. I think it is in the mid 80s today. UGH! I would be happy with nothing warmer than 75 but hopefully that will be coming next week. Today we put out what little "fall" decorations I have, which I thought I had more. Then we made some chocolate cupcakes to snack on. Maybe this weekend if the weather feels "fallish" we can have doughnuts and apple cider with Dad. I still want to work on some outside decorations but those will probably wait for a week or so.

A Wood working frolic

For quite some time now we have had a pretty large pile of logs on our property that needed to be sawn, split and stacked before winter comes. Unfortunately in our family we just don't have the "boy/man power" to get it all done now that B#1 works full time and B#5 just isn't old enough to handle the chain saw. Dad did try to teach some of the girls but they just weren't ready for the chainsaw either so that left Dad to try to get it all done by himself, not to mention, we do not own a wood splitter. Praise the Lord for good friends...on Saturday some very good friends of ours came over with their 7 strapping boys, 3 very hardworking girls, several chainsaws and their wood splitter. I had thought they might get most of the logs cut, some splitting done and no stacking since there was such a lot of wood to be done. Well they started at about 12:00 and even with a break for a yummy lunch of clam chowder they finished every single bit of wood by 6:00ish. Not only was it all cut, it was split and stacked in our shop. Then everyone came in for some really really yummy pumpkin cheesecake that B#4 made and some peach cobbler.

I'm still here:)

Summer is just zipping by and honestly, I just haven't had much desire to blog lately. I haven't even been reading much on the computer lately. What have we been doing??? Well, I think I might have mentioned that we started school already, so we have been busy with that. We had a fun outing a couple of weeks ago. The place where I had my ultrasound offered us the opportunity to come back and have a 3D/4D ultrasound of baby so we decided to let all the kids come with us to that and then go out to eat afterwards. Now our typical "eating out" usually involves eating at Wendys or maybe Costco since eating out for a family our size can be quite expensive. But Dad had gotten a gift card from work to Newport Bay which is a local seafood restaurant so we were able to treat the kids to eating out at a nice place. We all enjoyed it very much. B#4 and I are taking a cake decorating class together from a friend of ours. She has taken a one day class in the past but is looking forward to a refresher. We made these cakes for a baby shower at church. Mine is the white and blue one and B#4's is the fun chocolate one. We have also decided to make and sell cupcakes together so we have been busy working on business cards and a website, which I will tell ya'll about once we finally get it set up. We both decided after making these cakes that we much prefer making cupcakes over cakes, much much easier.

When we were out shopping last week B#4 found these PJs at Costco and just had to get them for the boys...our little monsters. They just love their footy jammies and I have had to threaten to pack them away until fall because they always want to wear them.

B#9 is getting so big the last few days and being very silly. Here she discovered a pot to put herself in. She is so little that it is hard for me to grasp that there will be another new little one who will make her seem so big but she is getting to be such a big girl.

We are all counting down the weeks until the baby comes. I haven't mentioned this on the blog, but we are seeing a specialist every few weeks for the baby. The umbilical cord only has two strands instead of the typical three strands which can be indicative of other birth defects but at each visit we have an ultrasound and the doctor is very encouraged by everything he sees. We will continue to go see him until the baby is born to watch his growth and make sure all is well. Somehow that makes the time until we can hold him stretch on and on. He is very active and seems very healthy. The big argument around here is what his name will be. The girls have convinced the little boys that his name is going to be Ryan Walker, which mom is not okay with. If you ask B#7 what the baby's name is he will whisper "Ryan Walker, but don't tell mom". And if you ask B#8 he will start yelling "Ryan Walker, Ryan Walker" over and over again. Needless to say we have our work cut out for us convincing them that isn't going to be his name. It is really hard to please this many people who are all excited for his arrival.

Video of B#9

July

July is usually a busy month for us and this year was no exception...Birthdays for girls, both big and small,

B#2 turned 19 ...

And B#9 turned 1....,

Trips to the Aquarium....

Trips to the beach....

It was such a perfect day for a picnic at the beach.

Lots and lots of cleaning and starting to get ready for B#10 to arrive in a few months and starting school today so we will be able to take time off after baby arrives.

Strawberries

Today the kids and I got up early and went strawberry picking. Some people we know have lots of strawberry fields and had some U-Pick Strawberries for $.50/lb. Usually we go there and glean, which is where you can pick the leftovers for free but it is usually a lot harder to find good berries that way so this year we decided to see what it was like to do the U-Pick. I am sold on doing it that way from now on. There were lots of berries to pick and before we knew it we had picked about 75lbs of strawberries. I don't think we were even there for more than an hour and a half and some of that was spent visiting with the two other families that went. It was a fun morning and the weather was wonderful, just a bit overcast and cool. I had hoped to get pictures of the boys picking berries but they actually spent their time playing in the van, windows rolled down of course. But B#8 sure enjoyed eating a bowl full of unwashed strawberries all the way home.

I survived

Everyone big in our family went on a hike yesterday, leaving mom home with three toddlers. The girls alternated between being sorry for leaving me alone and reminding me that I have done this before. Yeah, about 15 years ago I reminded them. I'm not that young anymore. But things went very well. Here is my day in pictures...

The boys helped me make brownies.

B#8 thought you just plopped the butter in the mix instead of into a different bowl for mom to melt.

Mixing with not too much slinging of mix around.

Apparently you have to lick the spoons every time you make something. Thank goodness the brownies got cooked at a high temp. to take care of the germs B#8 left behind after double dipping his spoon.

Getting into everything while mom tried to clean up the kitchen.

Still getting into everything but they changed spots.

B#7 was such a big helper to me. Here he is dragging our flour bucket back to the pantry for me. It is very heavy.

We managed to make homemade hamburger buns for dinner. Here is B#8 rolling his dough.

And all the while that we three were working, B#9 either slept peacefully or sat in her high chair eating. What a sweet girl she is!

Father's Day

The guys in our family spent Father's Day on a building project. Not sure this is how I would want to spend Mother's Day but apparently dads don't mind grilling their own dinner and doing a building project for their children.

We had been talking for a while about building a play structure for the children but now that we have three little ones ready to play and another boy on the way we knew it was probably time to do more than talk about it. We don't get out and about too often with gas prices what they are and we spend alot of our days in the backyard with the children so this was an investment for us.

This is the finished project and yes, that is a goat in the yard, one of B#2's newest additions who loves to poke herself through the fencing to join the play.

Our Anniversary

Today is our 21st wedding anniversary. WOW. I have been married to him for more than half my life. Pretty amazing to me, but it is definitely only by God's grace. We went to the coast for a day out on Monday to celebrate since DH had to work today. Below are some pictures from our 20th anniversary party last year that a dear friend and her family gave for us. They told us we were coming to a BBQ so neither one of us dressed up, but our kids knew and they didn't encourage us to dress up either. Oh well, it was a wonderful party anyway. And I could actually say that I was barefoot and pregnant at my wedding, or rather our vow renewals.

Cutting the cake.

Renewing our vows with our pastor.

Gender party

Today was the day that the kids threw a Gender Party for DH and I. Basically, when we had our ultrasound done last week we asked the technician to put the gender of the baby into an envelope which we brought home and gave to the kids without looking:). They made a cake for us and colored the batter the correct color of the gender of the baby (ie pink for a girl, blue for a boy). They also took the younger children shopping for little gifts for the baby. When DH and I got home from a day at the beach for our anniversary which is this week, we cut into the cake....So the baby is a....



Even numbers now:)

Baby #10

Finally, I can write about why I have not been blogging much of late. Baby #10 is keeping me very tired. We are expecting him/her on DH birthday, November 4th. We don't know the gender yet but our kiddos do and they are planning a family party for us tomorrow to find out. So stay tuned and I will let you know whether this baby will even out the number of boys vs. girls or if the girls will still be in the lead:).

Children and Eternity

Some would gather money

Along the path of life.

Some would gather roses

And rest from earthly strife.

But I would gather children

From among the thorns of sin;

I would seek a golden curl

And a freckled, toothless grin.

For money cannot enter

Into the land of endless day.

And roses that are gathered

Soon will wilt along the way.

But, oh, the laughing children

As I cross the sunset sea,

And the gates swing wide to heaven,

I can take them in with me.

~Anonymous~

Sickness

It was recently pointed out to me (Thanks Auntie M.) that I haven't posted anything since Mother's Day. I guess I will claim as one reason that we have had a terrible stomach sickness running through our family. As you can probably imagine, it is bad enough when one or two people get it but when it starts through a family of 11 sometimes there seems no end in sight. For most of the ones who have gotten it, it has only lasted about 12 hours or so but with B# 8 it has taken all of about 5 days with two visits to the pediatrician. He just couldn't seem to kick it and keep anything down. The pediatrician basically gave us a set amount of time to get some fluids in him or he would need to go to the ER for an IV. Praise the Lord he finally came around and we were able to find a Pedialyte popsicle that he liked. Between that and some antinausea medicine he finally started keeping things down and even eating peanut butter. Although you wouldn't normally think of giving a sick one peanut butter, he had lost so much weight for such a little guy (4lbs 3oz) that the Dr. wanted to get something in him with some fat and calories and he was willing to eat peanut butter. So far 8 out of the 11 of us have gotten it. Only DH, me and B#1 haven't been sick. I certainly am praying that it ends here and the last of us will be spared but time will tell.

Mother's Day

Dear Hubby brought me home these beautiful peach roses for Mother's Day. Peach roses are my favorite.

B#4 made this triple layer chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting for us to eat after dinner, which the kiddos and Dad made for me. It was a nice relaxing Mother's Day. Hope you all had a good one as well.

Character

I read this quote on one of the blogs that I follow and since I can figure our how to put a direct link to things I thought I would just write it out for you....

Character, for the most part, is a product of our everyday life and those things which we allow each day will become the building blocks that will eventually shape the character of our children.

Jeff and Marge Berth

Oh that I could remember this everyday as we are raising our children! Why is it that we as a culture think that we can allow garbage and whatever into our children's lives and not think it will affect their character?

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Yesterday I was reading a blog that I follow and the lady had a post on a recipe for Chocolate Almond Biscotti. I love biscotti but I am kind of strange in that I don't really like it to be rock hard. I love it when I get one that is hard on the outside but softer on the inside. I looked at the recipe and shockingly, I had all of the ingredients that were needed to make them. So I gave it a try. It was so quick and easy to put together. After baking them for the first 25 minutes you are supposed to let them cool for 15 minutes, slice them and put them back in the oven for another 20 min. I decided to keep one "log" out of the oven after the first 25 minutes and then put the other "log", sliced of course, back into the oven as the recipe said. I only cooked them for 15 additional minutes but the came out so hard that even dipping them in milk didn't help a whole lot. But the recipe was definitely worth the effort as the batch that I didn't cook twice was wonderful. I left out the almonds for my non-nut-eaters but the chocolate and chocolate chips in it were great. We all scarfed the soft batch down so I had to quickly make another batch for after dinner. If you would like the recipe go to www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/01/chocolate-biscotti/

My Birthday

I kept thinking I would post through out the month. I can't believe it is almost May now and I have only done one post. This month has flown by. I have been extremely exhausted of late and just haven't had the energy to post, please forgive me. After B#1's birthday comes mom's birthday. The girls always worry that daddy doesn't have any plans but he usually does just fine. This year was a good birthday. DH says that my birthdays keep getting more lucrative. Fun for me:). This year all I wanted was for my van to get a good washing and waxing. Sounds silly I know but if you haven't seen my van then you just can't appreciate why I had to ask for this as a birthday gift. I drive a big red 15 passenger van but of late it has turned more of a pink color instead of a lovely bright red. So in and of itself just washing something that big is a chore but then to wax it to its original bright red made it something I had to ask for as a birthday present. The kids and DH worked on it most of the morning of my birthday and it looks wonderful. I had hoped to post some pictures of it but it has rained here almost constantly since then so I haven't gotten any yet. My mom had sent me some of those little people stickers that you put on your back window and I really wanted to put them on but I didn't want to do it until the van was clean. So once it was all shiny and new looking B#4 went out and put them all on for me. They also gave me a digital photo frame and preordered the Duggar's new book for me so I will have another gift to look forward to in June or so. B#1 and a friend of his went in together and bought me an IPOD Shuffle so I can listen to my own music or sermons. I have been enjoying that quite a bit, like when the older children and dad are watching a movie that I don't want to watch. I can just plug it in, listen to some pleasant music while reading some of my favorite blogs. For dinner we had our first cookout of the year with some hotdogs, hamburgers and brats(for DH). It was a nice dinner and night with my family. I am very blessed to be the mom of these many mennes

20?!?! Really??!?!

Am I really old enough to have a 20 year old? It just doesn't seem possible but b#1 turned 20 this week. It seems so strange to have a 20 year old and then to be starting over. Such amazing differences!

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