Some Belated Christmas Photos

                                            
                                           I think she likes it...what do you think?

Poor B#5, his belt fit fine but the BDUs that we ordered him didn't fit. We ordered another pair but not much better there so we are still trying to find a good pair.

 B#1 and his wife(what should I call her on the blog?)...I think she knows who her secret sibling is!!

                                                     Another winner, I believe....

 The boys were thrilled with their authentic ABUs from their secret siblings. Bet you can't guess who they were?

                                        Isn't he so cute all crouched down like that? The baby, that is.

Little Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than 2!

          
                              B#8 guessing who his secret sibling is...and B#6 admiring her hair pretties.

 

I was talking to my mom the other day and mentioned to her that maybe I should do a post about some of the large families that I follow on my blog. I realize that, for us, large families really aren't that big of a deal but for my parents, friends or readers it probably seems pretty strange. Our church has about 6 or 7 large families, which may seem like alot but out of a whole church it really isn't very many. Below are some of the large families that I read about or keep up with. Maybe reading about some of them will be of some help in some way.

 

www.raisingolives.com

www.raisingarrows.com

 http://www.artfulhomemaking.com/2013/01/tired-but-trusting.html

(the lady in the above blog has 5 children and writes a good post here showing that daily life with a large family can be tiring but it is so worth it). I love her pictures. I wish I could take such lovely photos.

Then of course there are the Duggars and the Bates families who both have or had their own show. Not don't get all scared that we are out to have 19 or 20 children but we do agree on letting the Lord plan our family size.

www.duggarfamily.com

www.thebatesfamily.com

 

Anyway, maybe you will take the time to visit some of these pages or maybe you won't but I thought I would at least make them available should any of you be interested. Guess I better quit blogging and go tend to a crying baby:).

 

Why Would You Keep Having Children in Such a Scary World

I ran across a great post this morning about why to keep having children in such a scary world and wanted to share it with you guys. I know that our family's choice to have lots of children can be strange to many of you so although this post doesn't answer the question of what we believe it might help you to understand the question about why we still desire children when our country is in such a bad state.

You can find the article HERE.

Shortbread

Sundays after church are generally a day of rest for us. A rest from the never-ending laundry...a day for naps or just whatever. Today I had a hankering for shortbread so that was how I decided to spend my day of rest. I love shortbread, preferrably dipped in chocolate but today I was running low on chocolate, probably due to the Larabars I made. So B#4 took pity on me and melted what we did have and drizzled it over the shortbread. It still tastes yummy!

Protein Bars

With this pregnancy, I have been trying to be much more mindful of getting lots of protein in. During pregnancy a woman should have at least 60 grams of protein. I like to spead it out through out the day if I can. I read label after label of all the "protein" bars. I must have looked ridiculous as I stood in Wal-Mart reading labels in the pharmacy section where they keep the protein bars. Of course there are all kinds of bars available with tons of protein. I actually took one to show DH which was like a snickers bar that had something like 30 grams of protein. In the end I just couldn't bring myself to buy them because of the huge list of ingredients, most of them I couldn't even identify. What is soy protein isolate anyway?!? Then I tried buying some Kashi bars but they weren't really any different, maybe a smidge better. Then DH suggested I try the protein bar aisle at our grocery store. There I saw Larabars for the first time. I remembered bookmarking a page on my computer that mentioned them so I thought I would check them out. They don't boast the huge protein content that the others do, at a relatively low 6 or 7 grams of protein but when I looked at the ingredients list I decided to be brave enough to give them a try. The first one I tried was the Peanut Butter Cookie bar. The ingredients were: Dates, peanuts and salt. WOW! Three things. But would I like dates???  I actually did. Now DH and B#4 absolutely did not like them. But that's okay, the other kiddos did. Not that I plan on feeding them to the whole tribe at $1.32/bar. I have a hard time spending that on me so I decided it couldn't be that hard to make from scratch.

Enter Google. Need a recipe, go to Google. Turns out lots of people are making them from scratch. If you are interested in trying your hand at it you can find the recipe I used HERE. B#2 and I just love them and they were really easy to make and while dates in and of themselves don't have much to recommend them in the nutrition department, aside from calcium and magnesium, they do a good job of substituting sugar and giving these bars something to hold them together. I would say the protein in these "protein bars" comes from the nuts that you add in. When I made them I used almonds because that was what I had on hand. I also added chocolate chips because you can never go wrong with chocolate chips!

I would love to hear if you have ever tried Larabars and if so what you thought of them.

Day 4? and an Announcement

Well last night didn't go as well as the night before but still pretty good overall. B#10 woke up around 4:30 but didn't seem to want to go back to sleep until around 5:00. So while I am still thankful that he only woke up 1 time instead of 5 I do need to figure out what to do when he seems to think he has slept enough and wants to stay awake for a while. Any suggestions that do not involve letting him cry it out?

And now for our announcement:

 This is a picture of B#11 taken about 8 weeks ago. We haven't really shared it too much while waiting until I was farther along in my pregnancy. Now some of my blog readers have told me that they can always guess when we are going to have a new baby because of my lack of posting. Well I guess I didn't disappoint this time since I just didn't feel up to blogging for quite a while. Now that I am in my second trimester I am feeling much better. We are excited to be blessed with another little one and look forward to July when he or she is due. Dad says he doesn't want us to find out ahead of time what it is and that is going to be so difficult for us girls as we love to sew and shop for new baby before he or she arrives. 

Quick Update

Sorry, no pics for this post...Just wanted to tell you about our night last night. B#10 went to bed at 8:30 and slept....FOR 12 HOURS STRAIGHT! I was the one who was awake last night:). I kept thinking that he would be waking up any time now and then I would go in there and check to make sure he was still breathing. I actually woke him up for breakfast this morning! Whoever it is that is praying...keep doing it.

Night #3

Well night #3 of weaning B#10 went very well. He only woke up 1 time around 3am and quickly went back to sleep, still being rocked at this point. His naps are even going better. He is still asleep now and it has been almost 2 hours. Typically he would nap for about 40 minutes to an hour then wake up crying only to have to be rubbed or patted back to sleep. Keep praying for us that it continues to go well and that last night wasn't a one time thing. Of course the goal is for him to start sleeping through the night without any rocking involved. He is such a smart boy that I am sure he will get this figured out, in time. He is already starting to talk a bit and follows directions just as well as his older siblings. He loves to say "Hi" when he sees us.

Aren't children such a blessing? Where would we be without them?

Weaning B#10

I haven't nursed B#10 during the day for quite a while but I have been unable to wean him from nursing at night. Some nights he would wake up as many as 5 times to nurse and honestly I don't think he was getting any milk. It has just become a well ingrained habit for him. Dad and I agreed that it was time to do something so a couple of nights ago we started weaning him. I am not one that can stand letting my babies cry it out, at least at night. We did do that for his nap times to get him to stop needing to nurse to sleep during the day but there is just something different about doing it at night, for me anyway. So I decided that a good compromise would be that everytime he wakes up either I or dad would go in and rock him back to sleep. Now that isn't as easy as it sounds since he was so accustomed to nursing back to sleep. He cries and pushes on me until he finally settles down. It doesn't usually take long, a couple of minutes or so of crying. But I feel like I can handle this crying because I am right there with him, holding him and rocking him. Maybe we are just starting a new bad habit but I felt like this was at least something that I could work towards and hopefully it will break his need to nurse.

We have done this for two nights now and it really hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. Last night he slept for 5 1/2 hours straight, which is a record for him. He hasn't nursed at all since Friday night so I am counting it as progress. I'll let you know how it goes.

Just a Note to Say

I am still alive...just haven't felt like blogging. Will try to do a new post soon with some pics of the kiddos.