All or Nothing

As 2012 draws to a close, my mind, like many others, turns to the New Year. For some this means a new start and a new beginning with lots of resolutions. Sometimes these are the best intentions to change themselves and make a difference in their lives. I think that this is a great idea, but I think we are too hard on ourselves sometimes. I think that most of the time we feel like it is an all or nothing sort of deal. We either keep the resolution all the way or just junk it all together. I think that there has to be some middle ground there. I think that this year I am resolving to do many things, but most of all I am resolving to be better than I was the day before. I want to do things better than yesterday. I want to be more patient today than yesterday. I want to smile more than I did yesterday.....well you get the idea. I don't think it needs to be an all or nothing deal....just be better than yesterday. Take one day at a time and enjoy that day.
So as the year is ending, I am starting fresh. I have many things I would like to see happen in this new year and I am going to strive one day at a time to try and make those changes that will make me a better person and hopefully make my family better too. Happy New Year!!!

Oh Brother!!

Every once and a while I can catch these moments.....today I caught two!

I caught Jacob reading a story to Henry. Henry was loving it! Jacob would read the page and then show Henry the pictures....it was priceless. Henry was "talking" to Jacob as well and getting so excited. I think he was telling Jacob what an awesome brother he was being today.

Then later I caught Wyatt doing this:

These 3 boys were actually sitting and watching Blue's Clues....James' favorite. But I think it was awesome just to see them doing something together and not fighting.
Brothers are just the best!

Christmas Updates

There are just too many things going on during the Christmas season to make blogging one of my last priorities....but now that the year is almost done, I am trying to update so I don't forget anything.

Mariah had her Christmas concert and did a wonderful job. She was playing the part of a snowman and was too cute thanks to the art teacher who helped to paint her face.

Wyatt also had a Christmas concert for band. His was combined with Amanda's so that night was a LONG one for us. We started the concert at 6 and weren't home until after 9. But there was an hour long intermission in there as they were thinking the first part of the concert would be longer. Next time the instructors said that there wouldn't be that long of a break. I am going to have to sit through the entire concert from now until Amanda graduates as they combine the middle school band concerts with the high schools....which makes for a long night for the rest of the family as they don't seem to enjoy listening to the bands as much as I do.

Henry is getting bigger every day and much to my dismay he found his thumb....this isn't a very good picture, but I knew it was probably going to happen. This is one baby that is too much like his oldest sister. She wouldn't take a pacifier either and was sucking her thumb by 3 months. Henry absolutely refuses to take a pacifier and will start gagging if you make him try too many times. The funny thing is that he won't even suck on my finger (he used to earlier). He has found his fist and occasionally will find the thumb.....but it is happening more and more often. These are just a few pictures that are too cute not to share.

We had Christmas and the kids enjoyed the holiday. We have started waiting longer to put up the tree.....it has sort of become a tradition now that we wait to put up the tree until the kids are officially on their break from school. We were really blessed to have a Secret Santa drop off some presents for the kids. We are grateful to them as they made Christmas just a little sweeter for the kids. Somehow the Santa knew the deepest wishes for my kids and came through.

We are gearing up for the New Year. We know we are getting old as we have started a tradition of ringing in the New Year on New York's time. This way we don't stay up so late!

It sucks

to be the youngest.

The story behind this picture:

We were getting ready to eat dinner and dishing up the kids' plates. Gabe walks into the family room to check on Henry and finds this pose. He then tells me to find the camera and get a picture of this....post it on the blog and entitle it "It's hell to be the youngest". I changed it a bit,but I did it. This was a totally non-posed picture.....Henry was doing this all by himself.....but it makes for a great picture. He is just too cute for his own good right now. I think the other kids are going through picture withdrawals because I don't take their picture as often now. But who can deny this cuteness?

Are you serious?!?

Okay so we have our baby, but who said time could speed up? I mean seriously. I know I have talked a lot about how time can fool us. Sometimes it seems like it takes forever for something to happen and time is moving S-L-O-W-L-Y. But then sometimes it just seems like moments have gone by and time moves so FAST that you can't even comprehend it. So this is one of those moments.....time has flown.....and my littlest man is already:

I mean how can this be? It seems like the last month of waiting for him to come was agony and that it was taking FOREVER. But now that he is here.....how can a month have passed already?

I was thankful for this thoughtful gift from my friend R. She found these stickers that you can just put on their shirts and take your pictures. Then when you are done, the sticker comes off and you move on. Well, since my little man was sleeping I decided just to put the sticker on him and have at the pictures. I didn't want to wake him up putting the sticker on. This will be something fun and different that I never did with the other kids.....not because I love this little man any more than the others, but because I never thought about it.

Henry is a great baby. I am thankful for him as he is a wonderful sleeper at night. I can put him to bed at 10 and he will sleep until 4! I have needed that as I have recovered from the birth. But the trade off is that starting about 8 or 8:30 all he wants to do is nurse. I guess he is just trying to make sure that he has enough for that huge time. I don't think I have ever had a breastfeed baby sleep like that at night and he has been doing if for like 3 weeks now! He loves to be cuddled and held close. He is also starting to smile at you and try to "talk" to you. Of course the kids can't get enough of him. James is still so protective of "His Henry" that the other kids have to be a bit sneaky to get their own Henry time. This is one loved little baby right now. Everyone is fighting over holding him, burping him......yes (I know they must be desperate) even changing his diaper.

And Yes, I am serious......Henry is that old already!

What a crew!

Trying to get good pictures of this many kids can be really hard.....especially when a grandpa is standing right behind me making them laugh!

This is the first time I have had a chance to take pictures of all my kids. What a better time that right after church on Henry's blessing day? What a great bunch of kids!

What a blessing.

It has been such a blessing to have this little man in our lives:

Today we had his blessing....hence the suit he is in. It was a great blessing and I am thankful that Gabe did a great job. Henry looked so awesome in his suit. This suit is pretty special in this family. This suit was given to us when Wyatt was this small....so we have had it for 11 years! It is amazing to say that each of my boys has worn this suit to be blessed in.....4 boys. Thinking about this I should find all those pictures and post them together.

My handsome boys. These moments bring joy to my heart.

What I have been doing....

Lately I have been doing a lot of this:

Mainly because I can't do much of anything else.

Someone asked me if I needed anything....to come in and clean my house specifically and I told them that right now I am ok with kid clean. Why, you might ask? Well for a couple of reasons. First is that if my house is "kid clean" then that means that my kids are helping out. Second, if my house is being cleaned then that means that I have taught the kids HOW to clean in the first place. Kid clean might not be perfect, but it does make things presentable when company comes over.

The waiting is over!

Ok, so the waiting has been over for a while, but this is the first chance that I have gotten around to blogging about it. Since I am the author here, I am going to tell the story like I want to.....I know you are just dying to know what we had, but you will have to read the story to find out!
 10 days ago.....was Sunday, November 4,2012.....which also happens to be Gabe's birthday. So it was a pretty special day to begin with. We have church at 9 AM. I was tempted not to go, just because I was tired of all the questions from well meaning people about when the baby was going to come. But I went anyway. It also didn't matter to me that I was contracting, they weren't consistent enough for me to worry about. I will note that I was contracting about every 10-15 minutes but if I walked around they spaced out. So it was only consistant if I sat still. So off to church our brood went. Throughout the whole meeting block I was pretty uncomfortable, but I grinned and bore it because I honestly didn't think that we were going anywhere with this. I had driven the kids to church myself as Gabe had meetings before the block and so therefore drove us home. After we got home, I had a pretty major contraction that started me thinking that maybe it was today! I think that Heavenly Father was looking out for me as my parents actually were on their way home from my Grandfather's 90th birthday celebration and were passing through town. They stopped and we decided to have lunch. In the preparations for lunch my mom decided to also make us a lasagna that we could have for dinner the next night. I thought "Awesome! I don't have to cook!"....but I was going to help her make it anyway.....that never happened. I kept having contractions but with the contraction was the feeling of pressure, it was worse if I stood up, so I just stayed sitting down. Finally I decided that maybe we better go see what was going on as the pressure issue had me concerned.
Gabe and I drove to the hospital. He kept telling me that we were too early and that we would be there a while. I told him that I just felt like we needed to go. So we went. When we got there we were ushered to the maternity ward. I didn't want to ride the wheel chair. When we got there, the nurse who walked with us (I guess standard hospital policy) told the OB nurses that she was worried as I had had 2 contractions in the 5 minutes it took us to get down there. I guess when someone comes in pregnant with #8 it is par for the course as studies say that they tend to come faster the more you have. I was again being watched after as I was the ONLY patient there at this time. They took me in and checked me out.....8 cm!!! HOLY SMOKES! When the nurse told me that I was glad that we came in when we did. Then she asked about presenting parts.....well last week in the office I had been told it was a head. They couldn't tell. So when the OB doctor got there, he couldn't tell either. So out comes the ultrasound machine and much to my horror......we weren't head down. We weren't even breech! This baby was transverse in my pelvis meaning that we were sitting sideways and weren't even ready to come out. Then my whole world seemed to come crashing down on me when he told me that I wouldn't be able to have this baby without a c-section. They discussed it with us and told us that we couldn't risk the baby's health. Apparently all the aminotic fluid was low in my uterus and there wasn't hardly any up by the baby, so not a good situation for having a baby turned. Then to top it off, the bag of waters was so close to breaking that if it had we could have had an emergency on our hands instead of control. They really didn't want it to break and have the umbilical cord or something else come out before the rest of the baby. As much as I didn't want to, I consented to have the c-section. It was more important for me to have a healthy baby than to have the birth that I dreamed of. Thankfully, Gabe was there for the whole thing and that was a comfort. (He wasn't there for Amanda's c-section). So they prepped me for the section and I was excited and scared at the same time. So excited because it was Gabe's birthday and here we were going to meet our new baby.....yet scared because I didn't want the birth to go this way.
Let me spare you the details of surgery other than to say the staff was AWESOME and took great care of me. I will tell you that this little baby didn't want to come out. On top of being transverse, their arms and legs were curled up under them and the doctors had to do A LOT of pushing and pulling and such to get them out. So this was NOT a fun delivery at all.
They finally got the baby out and I was so happy to hear crying and screaming from the baby. Now for my theory. I had looked at all my kids and when they were born and had decided that if the baby was born on any day other than the 5th or the 9th that it would be a girl. So since we were getting a baby on the 4th, my theory stated it was a girl.......needless to say my theory is busted!!! We welcomed our 8th child, a boy, into the world at 3:32 PM.
Gabe stayed with him as he left my side to go to the nursery. I was able to touch him briefly before he left and feel how warm he was. I was happy to have a baby, not so much as what it took to get him here.

Gabe had teased me as we got in the truck to go to the hospital as I had brought our iPad with us. I am glad I did as our first pictures of the baby were taken with it.

This was the first picture that we have of him, and the first I got to see anything other than his face all wrapped up in the blanket. They were giving him a bath when I was wheeled down the hall and didn't get to see him for a while. If you are familar with me and my family, we don't pick out names before our children are born. We don't even know which gender to focus on because we don't know what we are going to have until they are born....so now we needed a name. This is something that I have enjoyed watching Gabe for. Usually he takes the baby in his arms and says names while looking at their faces. This time we did this together. We decided that this little man would be named:

Henry Lyle 

so there you have it. We welcomes Henry Lyle into the world (on his daddy's birthday no less) on November 4th 2012 at 3:32 PM. He weighed in at 8 pounds 13 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long.

We are both home and doing well. I am cooping with a c-section and have had lots of helpers coming in. I am so very blessed to have the friends and family that I have to help me out. This hasn't been an easy birth, mentally or physically.....but so worth it.

Henry is a cuddly boy. He loves to be swaddled and cuddled close to you. He is a great eater. The rest of the kids can't get enough of him. James calls him "His Henry".  

Waiting......

Waiting is so hard to do. We wait for busses, appointments, dates, birthdays and Christmas.....all sorts of things, but this waiting for a baby is hard work. Why?? For starters we know that these other things we wait for have an exact date.....Christmas always comes on Dec 25th. The hard part for a baby is that there is not really a set date/time (unless you are having a C-section) for this to happen. Yes, you do have a due date, but that isn't any guarantee that baby will be there on that date. Sometimes doctor's call it an Estimated due date.....estimated, meaning that they don't know exactly when it will happen either. I have a due date of Nov 7th....that date is fast approaching, but we still don't know if baby will come early or late. So we are waiting........
Now the other hard part is that we aren't the only ones who are waiting for this baby. We have friends and family that want to see and meet this baby just as much as we do. I have people who will tell me that the 2nd is a good date to have a baby.....well is there every a BAD day to have a baby? I would love for the baby to come today. Why? Well, for one, I am done waiting....but also because today is my Grandfather's 90th birthday. How cool would that be to tell this baby that they were born on their Great-grandfather's 90th birthday? But then again there is the 4th (coming very fast) which is Gabe's birthday. How cool would that be to share a birthday with your dad? Heaven forbid, but Katherine's birthday is coming up too (the 13th)....but, not so cool to share a birthday with your sibling. That one is a little harder than sharing with dad, grandpa or say a cousin.
So to say the least, we are still WAITING......and will continue to do so until the baby decides the s/he is ready to join the family. I know I won't be pregnant forever......but it sure feels like it. And, yes, you will know when the baby comes as we will shout it from the roof tops and publish it as we are excited to welcome this new little person to our home.

Helpers

Coming from a large family and having such a large family myself I understand that there are lots of opportunities for work to happen. The other day we had some shingles blow off the roof and Gabe was able to fix them.....but he had lots of "helpers".  I have lots of "helpers" everyday as I try and do my daily chores. But this picture really touched my heart. I didn't get the exact shot that I wanted, only because I was too slow in getting the camera out there. There was a point when they were helping daddy that they were all faced away from me and that was the shot I wanted.....instead this is the one that I got:

And let's face it....once they know that you are taking pictures it is hard to get that perfect shot as they start posing and the spontenity is lost. I think that I love just capturing those moments the best....you know, when no one knows you have the camera and us just take the picture.

The kids LOVE helping daddy and they always want to go with him to do things. They think that he is the greatest on earth (I do too). It really melts my heart as their mother when I see him taking them under his wing and showing them how to do these things that I have never done.

Trick or Treat!

This year Halloween was different. For the first time in a long time our ward didn't have a trunk or treat party....I was a little disappointed as we usually hit that party and that satifised the children's urge to go trick or treating. So instead we let the kids go out in our neighborhood. I snapped pictures of the kids in their costumes before they left and let me say we had one neat looking group of kids. The nice thing about this year is that I really didn't spend a lot of $$ on the costumes or even candy for that matter. I spent $5 for some pretzels that we gave out and because we didn't have many, we made sure the lights were all out so it looked like no one was home....I know very un-Halloween like. The kids had fun, and that is all that matters.

Spooky Music

This time of year is fun for the kids. They get to dress up in silly costumes and act crazy. It makes it even more special when they can combine it with something that is a little more practical too. Every year for a while the music teachers in our area have gotten together and done a Halloween Recital for the kids. They let the kids play the spooky music and dress in the costumes. It is not a recital like any that I remember growing up. This year Wyatt and Bethany had the opportunity to play. I told the kids that the most special thing about a Halloween recital is that if you do mess up.....no one will know as it will just sound all the more spooky and mysterious! The kids did an awesome job....Bethany especially since (I didn't realize it) it was her very first recital ever!!

Stitches?!!?

So the other day I get a call from the school. I don't know why, but everytime I pick up the phone and see a number from the school district I cringe....this was no exception. The only problem is that I have 5 children in the public schools and they don't label the schools' numbers as which building it is coming from, so maybe that is why I dread it. This time it was Jacob's school. It was actually my sister-in-law, who is their school nurse. She told me that Jacob had an accident on the playground....(holding my breath because the last playground accident resulted in a broken arm)....and he has cut his eye and might need stitches. Another cringe. Since I had children napping, I called Gabe and discovered that I would have to wake the children as he was pouring concrete and couldn't get away. The whole time I was waking up kids and getting them ready and in the car and the trip to the school to get Jacob, I was planning. IF he really needed stitches I would have to take him, and I couldn't take him with the other kids in tow....so I would go get Amanda out of school and she would trade me cars and take kids home to babysit while I took  Jacob to the doctor to get his eye fixed. So I picked him up and took him to where Gabe was so that we could decide if we needed to take him in or not. We decided that it wouldn't be possible for the doctor to do any better than what his eye was doing on it's own. As the cut was actually on his eye lid....not near his eye like I had thought. So we left it. He had a black eye for a few days, we put neosporin on it to keep the germs at bay, and watched it heal.....very nicely as a matter of fact. Yes, he will have a scar, but I think it would have been worse if we had taken him in. His nickname is now Bruiser....

New blankets

For some reason everytime we have a new baby, I feel like I need to make them a new quilt/blanket. With the last 2 I think I just made a blanket but this time I decided to make a quilt. I had this fabric that I fell in love with and I just couldn't decide how to put it together.....until I had an inspiration. Our family is a bit chaotic at times, so why not have really no pattern at all? But in a way I did. I had found this pattern that is based off the Suduku puzzles....you know the ones that I mean right? Well I took that and ran with it and I really like the result. Gabe suggested the color for the binding and I guess (since we still don't know the gender) it will work either way.....purple is my favorite color and it just looked really awesome with the quilt.
This is a picture of the whole thing.

 Here is a look at the back with the purple binding really evident.

Antelope--revisited

I neglected to post about Amanda's antelope. She too was successful in harvesting her antelope. We are grateful for the extra meat that it puts in our freezer. And you can't beat the smile it puts on her face!

Picture Day!

This could be any day at my house as the kids are always doing something cute and funny....but I don't take as many pictures as I could or prbably should because you all know what happens when they see the camera....yea, you get the silly faces and then all the spontaneity leaves and it just isn't the same. Something that I really like and will continue to do, I learned from my mother. (Aren't mothers awesome like that?) My mother had (still does) an 8x10 frame for each of us children. They have always been in a prominent place in the house so everyone can see them. Each year when the schools had school pictures she would make sure that we each had our picture taken and we would fill those frames. I always remember the day when it was time to change those pictures. Mom would take down the frames and we would start with the oldest. We would take out all the pictures (at one time she kept all the older pictures in the frames too) and we would lay them out on the table. Then we could see the person as they grew older and changed from year to year. Then Mom realized that they frames wouldn't hold all the pictures and they were starting to stick to each other....so she moved to having all the older pictures in a binder in page protectors and just the new one in the frame. She did this every year until our senior year. This is when the pattern changed. She then had our senior picture there (and it is still there). We bought an extra tassel when we got our graduation stuff and now as you walk down the hall in her house.....all you see are senior pictures with the tassel from the year that we graduated.

So as my kids have been getting older and such I have been keeping up the tradition. I had a slow start with Amanda, as she is the oldest and I didn't take her to the schools for pictures as there was no one to send them home with. But we do have a few of her in her younger years. Wyatt was a different story, and so have the rest of the kids. I remember one year calling the school and asking if they did preschool pictures before the school kids got theirs and them telling me that they didn't think that any of their school age kids had preschool brothers/sisters! I had one year that I brought in my kids (I think I had 3 at the time for preschool pictures) and the photographer asked me if I wanted to do all the kids in one picture.....um, I don't think so because that would defeat the purpose of my trip (although it would have saved me some $$).

I must realize that after this year a couple of things are going to change. First is that next year will be Amanda's last picture....she will be a senior next year!!! And the second is that as soon as this baby is born, I am going to have to find another place to put their pictures. Right now they are all sitting across the top of our entertainment center in our family room....I guess all but Amanda's as hers got knocked off and the glass broken and I haven't replaced it yet. But there is only room for 7 and we will have 8 soon.

But, back to the point of this post today was picture day, at least for one school. That has been another nice thing.....all the schools (and I have kids in 4 different schools this year) have had their picture days on different days and spread out enough that it hasn't messed too much with our budget. Hooray for that!!! Today happened to be Jacob's schools turn. I took Katherine and James and Jacob (he didn't have to ride the bus and the other kids were a bit mad). We went and had the pictures done. Now, with everything going digital I actually got to preview Katherine and James' pictures. Katherine of course was great, and had a wonderful smile. James, on the other hand.....serious as can be. We tried to get a smile, but I am okay with what we got, as the photographer was a stranger, what more could I ask. When we got home, I decided that this was one time when I wanted to do some of my own and pulled out the camera. And sure enough I got the silly faces and the lack of spontaneity. But I did get something that the photographer didn't get out of James....a smile!

Are you serious??!

(See...at the very bottom of the calander....that little number 7???.....that is my due date.....it is on the same page as today's date....whatever that might be).

So when you are expecting an event (doesn't matter what it is), in my case the delivery of our 8th child sometimes it doesn't seem real. For the past 6 months I have been telling everyone that this baby is due in Nov.....or various forms of that....as our offical due date is Nov 7th. But it doesn't seem real...it just seems like it will never get here and you really don't think about it a whole lot. I know that I have a lot of things that need to be done and get done before baby, but I still have time right. Sometimes I feel like Mr. Incredible when he is fighting crime before his wedding, after every successful aprehension, he looks at his watch and says "I still have time". I still have time. But for some reason when I woke up and looked at the calendar on Oct 1st (yea, I know several days late on this post) and then at the bottom of the calendar I see Nov 7th.......I had a mini panic attack. It hit me that I am running out of time. I don't have as much time as I thought. This baby could be here before the end of the month! I haven't packed a hospital bag, I don't have anything out for the baby, I don't have the baby's dresser up in my room and filled with the clothes.......I don't even have any newborn diapers in the house!!!! So, then I took a deep breath, and started to work. I now have a hospital bag packed. I have a couple of outfits within reach that the baby can wear when we get home, until that is we find out the gender and can get out either all the pink frilly things, or the rough and tumble things that it seems like James just grew out of and we put away. The crib has been up, ironically it really has never been put away since Wyatt. The dresser still isn't upstairs, but I think that it too can wait until I know which gender of clothes to put in it. One thing that I like to do too, is make the baby something. I know that we have a ton of things that have gone through sometimes 7 kids already, but it is always fun for the baby to have something to call their own. As I have been looking through things sometimes the kids ask about certain items and I can tell them, "that was given/made for YOU when you were a baby" They have a sense of pride when I tell them that and they don't have a problem when the new baby gets to use it, but they will be quick to tell someone else that this outfit/blanket was theirs first. This time I decided to make a quilt. Not just a recieving blanket, but a quilt (baby sized of course). I am in the process of making that and will post pictures when I am done, but I too like to have a little pride when I can say that I made that for my baby.

Homecoming 2012

I love living where I live because Homecoming is a big deal. There is only one high school and they plan for the week for activities after school, sometimes for the whole community, and we get to have a parade! Since Amanda is in the band, I know where she will be during the parade. But I usually only get to see one or two of my other children in school because they aren't all sitting in the same places around the parade route. This year, I decided that I wasn't going to search out any of my children for the parade as I usually don't find them. I knew that because of the route the parade would take that 2 of them would actually be close to their school (which is a LONG ways from where I park). So I was just going this year. I actually lucked out and as I got to the parade route I hear a "MOM!". Of course any mom within hearing of that is going to turn. I turned and saw a familiar face waving at me....Wyatt! Way cool. So we camped out with Wyatt, which turned out to be a great thing as I still had Katherine and James to look out for....and when you have high schoolers throwing candy and 2 young children, that could be a dangerous combination.

Then I lucked out again. I knew from talking to Amanda that she would be marching on the same side of the street that I was on, so I wasn't worried about that. I was more worried that I wouldn't be fast enough on the camera to get pictures as they marched by. But, once again, they stopped right in front of where I was, and with my new camers I was able to get some really good pictures of her. (Did I mention how much I LOVE this new camera and my sweet husband for getting it for me for my birthday?) I am not sure why (I should just blame the hormones) but lately seeing my baby girl doing things like this makes me cry. I almost started crying as I see her marching away.....I am so proud of her.

I must say that this year's homecoming wasn't as hard as the years past. I am a transplant to this area and so growing up my heart was blue and gold all the way. I have noticed the last few years, especially as Amanda has gotten into high school, that my heart is slowing turning red and black. I will admit that I still have a big soft spot for my alma mater and the blue and gold.......but there is something about the Big Red that makes my heart melt now. So good luck in tonight's game and GO BIG RED!

Baskets

James is my busy body/helper. Sometimes I don't know if he is helping or just being busy. I have to watch him closer than I did my other kids as he finds things to do that maybe he really shouldn't do. He is my thinker. He sees a stool and doesn't just climb up and sit on it, he thinks to himself...."what can I do with this? Where can I take it and what can I get by using this?" From the time he started to walk, he started to crawl up onto things and get into stuff. Nothing in my kitchen is safe from this man if he has a stool. So what he did the other day doesn't surprise me. I just don't know how he got the job done.
So let me set the stage. I have a seperate laundry room in my house. And since I am the mean mom and make my kids fold their own laundry, I have a ton of baskets. Each of the 5 older children (for those that have forgotten it would be: Amanda, Wyatt, Bethany, Mariah and Jacob) have their own basket. As I am folding laundry, if I come across anything that is their I put it, unfolded, into their basket. As part of their chores they are to fold and put away their laundry. Now as fate would have it, on the day that this happened, we had just had a mass putting away of laundry and so everyones baskets were empty. The kids also have a basket in their rooms to put dirty laundry.  I also have 2 baskets that I put downstairs in the kitchen and bathrooms for the dirty stuff and 2 that I use for holding laundry until it is taken care of that stay in the laundry room.....so if you are keeping track that is 9 baskets.

So on Wednesday (the 19th) I was doing some work on the computer and James was playing in the laundry room with the baskets. I remember seeing him take the pink and purple ones (they usually do downstairs) out of the laundry room. I thought to myself, that he was just going to take those back downstairs. He really likes to have things in the place where he thinks they should be. The next thing I know we are getting ready to leave for somewhere (I don't even remember) and we needed his crocs.....see the previous post for the story about those. So up to his room we go to get them and when I walk in this is what I see:

He had taken every basket from my laundry room and even found an empty one somewhere else and taken them to his room. I am not sure what he was thinking, or what possessed him to do this, but he did. I was shocked and glad that it wasn't something more than just moving the baskets around. No harm, no foul right? I guess I am going to have to get better at watching what he does, as I didn't realize that he had all the baskets, I thought he only had the pink and purple ones.

Shoes

Shoes seem to be something that I must not have gotten the good genes on. I own 5 types of shoes.....my tennis shoes, church shoes, sandels, a pair of loafer type shoes and my hunting boots. I know and have heard of women who say that they have a closet full of shoes and still don't have something to wear....Really?? For me shoes are necessary. I can't go outside without having shoes on or I hurt my feet. Although I do love to walk around on grass barefoot. I am not one of those people who can walk on any surface barefooted, if you know what I mean. James is a boy after my own heart. He also has very few shoes to choose from, but I will tell you he has his favorite pair. And when I say favorite, I mean he doesn't take these things off willingly. This little man sleeps with these shoes on.

We were given this pair of shoes by his Aunt Heather. She said take them and I thought well this will be fun because I could already tell that they wouldn't stay on his feet for very long....I mean think about it 2 years old and they aren't able to be tied so therefore they will come off. But James has surprised me in many ways. The first is that he can actually put these on himself. That is a bonus at this point, as I can't even bend down to put my own shoes on, how am I supposed to be able to help him? Then since he can put them on himself, for some reason he has grown really attached to them. He won't go anywhere without his crocs. He has to wear them to church and all over the house. I tried the other day to put his tennis shoes on.....he threw a fit because he wanted his crocs. I am mildly surprised that they are on the right feet in this picture as generally (since he puts them on himself) they are not. He has always had a thing for shoes....putting any pair on that he can get his hands on, but since these came into his life, that has all but stopped. I am not sure what I am going to do when he goes out of these, or they wear out......and I am probably not doing him any good by letting him wear them to bed, but he loves them and for right now I don't see how having his favorite pair of shoes with him could hurt.

Antelopes, again?

Yes, again. As I said before this year we drew 3 antelope tags. Gabe has already filled his, see the previous posts for that. Amanda and I both have tags and so we needed to do another hunting trip. The nice thing about the area we drew for antelope is that it is really close to home (about 30 minutes or so) and so we don't have to take days off or wait until the weekends to make a try and getting our tags filled. Saturday was spent helping family so we didn't have a chance to go, but we did plan for our next trip. We decided that Monday afternoon would be a great day for ME to go with Gabe and try my hand at getting one. Now I have to remind you that I am pregnant and I was not sure that I could do this. I knew that I had the skill in handling the gun (see last years posts on our hunting trips) and that I could do the trip itself......it was that at 33 weeks pregnant my belly is there (if you know what I mean). I wasn't sure if I would be able to, as Gabe says, put the sneak on them. If you have never been hunting, that usually entails crawling on your belly to crest a hill so they don't see you and run away before you have a chance at shooting. Then I wasn't sure if my stomach would be able to handle the smells that can occur while cleaning the animal for transport.
 We made arrangements for Amanda to watch the rest of the children while we were gone (have I ever told you that I am going to be REALLY sad when she goes to college as she is my built in babysitter). After school was out I was ready. I wanted it to be a one time thing, go out just this once and get it done.....not because I don't like to hunt, but because it is hard for me as the mother to make the arrangements needed to go hunting.

It was a nice cool afternoon and as we set out, I just kept praying that things would go right and that I could get this done. I wasn't out for the biggest buck/doe that I could find.....I just wanted to shoot the first thing that crossed my path that I could legally shoot. We saw a few prospects, but as this is the fourth or fifth day into the season, they are pretty skittish and nothing would stand still and/or present the right shot. So we kept moving around and finally got to the point where I was desperate. The sun was starting to go down and I still didn't have anything to show for it. We made one last try and guess what I GOT ONE!!!!

And yes, it is bigger than Gabe's!! I was so happy, but nicer than getting one, was the fact that I dropped him with one shot!

This picture (no, not just for the scenery) shows the truck from the kill site. It was about 200 yards away. I purposely didn't zoom at all on the camera so you can get a better idea of how far away he was. The truck is in the center of this picture.....see if you can find it.

I was thrilled and so happy that I was done. I was able to help Gabe clean him up and didn't have the problems that I thought that I might. I can't believe that I did this at 33 weeks pregnant! Sure it isn't a marathon or something like that, but it was big for me and I am proud to say that I did it!

Forest Fires

Normally not a subject that I like to talk about, but when there are so many going on around you, it tends to change your views.....especially the sunsets and sunrises. The other night the sun was overshadowed by so much smoke that it made for one amazing sunset....and of course since the new camera is so handy, I snapped some pictures. These past few days have reminded me (not nearly to the extreme) of the 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park. I remember those fires and how the ashes were falling on my hometown that summer. How the sun, and even the moon, would always look blood red. It was not a fun summer.

Again, just because of the way that our house is situated on our lot, our sunsets are always behind our "chrome forest".....but to me that makes them even more beautiful.

This one almost looks like something from a science fiction movie. It just looks so surreal and I can almost picture the swirling of the smoke etc.

Playing at the park

 Last Saturday I had a rare treat in that I only had 4 of my 7 children home with me. Amanda went to the University Of Wyoming football game that day with the band as it was their "Band Day". Gabe took Wyatt and Bethany to help his grandmother with a new roof. So I had Mariah, Jacob, Katherine and James and what did we do? We shirked our chores and went to the park for a while. While we were there I took a few pictures as the smiles on their faces were priceless. Of course it helped a ton that we basically had the park to ourselves for the first 45 minutes.

Antelope Hunting 2012

This year Gabe decided that he wanted to try something different....and now I think that he is hooked. He bought himself a bow a year or so ago and has been having fun just practicing with it. Last year his friend took his antelope with a bow, so I think this year he decided he was going to have a go at it too.  How did he do?

Gabe is awesome! He took this little lady down with one arrow and was so proud of himself. He actually didn't want anyone to really know about it, only because he went out the morning of Mariah's birthday/baptism day. He wanted that to be her day, not his in the glory of taking his first animal with a bow. He is going to try and get an elk tomorrow by bow with a good friend of ours. I really wish him luck....more because elk season starts in Nov and that is when our baby is due. If he can get one tomorrow, then I don't have to worry that he will miss our baby's birth.

Now this post marks the first in our series of hunting exploits but most of them this year will feature Gabe and Amanda. As I am pregnant I have chosen only to hunt antelope this year and nothing else. Antelope season for me (as I don't bow hunt) doesn't start until later this month. Deer and elk season would be impossible for me to do as they are too close to my due date for comfort.

Birthday and Baptism

Man, how these things sneak up on you sometimes. I was telling Gabe around the first part of August that Mariah's birthday was coming up (Sept 1) and that she was going to be 8. For her this is a special birthday as it means that she is able to be baptized. I suggested to Gabe that maybe we should start planning for that as it was coming up fast.....he said, don't worry we have plenty of time. Her birthday actually fell on a Saturday this year, perfect for holding a baptism and also perfect for her to be able to remember the day she was baptized as it would be her actual 8th birthday. The Sunday evening before her birthday, Gabe and I realized that we needed to get on the ball if we were going to get this done on Saturday as there are many people to call, an interview with our bishop for Mariah, the arrangments to make sure the church is open.......(you get the idea). Thankfully things just seems to fall into place and work out that the building was free, we got the interview taken care of, but I think that I fell short in calling those who should/could have come to the service. But regardless we were able to have Mariah baptized on her birthday and what better gift could she have gotten? We are so proud of her to have chosen this option and the things that it leads her to know and how she seems to have grown so much. After the baptism we had a BBQ for those that wanted to come share it with us. We had a lot of fun and many thanks to those who helped with the food.

I can't believe that she is 8 already! She is an amazing little girl.

First Day of school 2012

 So I have been looking forward to this day for a long time.....well, I guess more so in the last few weeks, as my kids have gotten tired of playing nicely together and needed more structure than I could provide. I am not a morning person, but this year will be a little easier as Amanda is able to drive herself to early morning seminary. The other children ride the bus and that means that they have to be ready by 7 AM. I know I could give myself some extra sleep by driving the children to school, but I have decided that it isn't worth it to try and get the youngest ones up and ready so we can all go and then the hassle of the traffic around the schools at that time......besides I have 4 different schools this year! As the kids were getting ready for school this year I got the camera out and snapped those typical pictures but this is the one that I got the most kick out of. All of my kids needed new tennis shoes before school started. I got lucky because they also needed pe shoes too. 5 kids off to school times 2 pairs a piece.......that is a budget nightmare. Thankfully KMart also had a sale about the time of buy one get one half off. My lifesaver! Although I wish it had been a buy one get one free sale. So each of the children were able to pick their own shoes and this is what we got:

I loved the fact that they were all so brightly colored and brand new.

I do take pictures of the kids individually, but rather than bore you with all of those I will just post one of all the kids (minus Amanda who had to leave for seminary before I could remember to get this one):

From left to right we have Jacob 1st grade, Mariah 3rd grade, Bethany 4th grade and Wyatt 6th. Of course James isn't in school, but he was up and wanted to be in on the action as well. Some may be asking where Katherine is:   she slept through this entire process and I let her as she didn't have anywhere special to be!

And just so Amand isn't left out, here she is ready for her junior year of high school!

So the first day was mostly uncomplicated for the kids. They arrived home from school and as typically happens all the homework falls on my shoulders because of the information updates that you have to do. They want to know every phone number in the book in case of emergency. Each child had the same form to varying degrees and each one had about 6 papers that needed to be filled out and signed. Try doing that five times over! Next year it will be worse as I have Katherine starting kindergarten!

The only funny story I have about today is also embarassing for Amanda. Yesterday was the first day she drove herself to seminary and then to school. She calls me from the school about the time she should have been pulling into the driveway, and she was upset. I asked what the problem was. She told me that she left the lights on the whole day and the car wouldn't start. She asked if I would come and jump start the car. Thankfully, this is something that Gabe has taught me how to do and I KNOW how to do it. So I told her I would. As I was mentally preparing a list of what would have to happen so I could do that, she told me that one of the teachers had some cables and would help her out. Great! That saved me a trip to the school. Then when she told Gabe about this, he reminded me and informed her that she already had the jumper cables in the trunk! I had totally forgotten that she did. All in all, she is okay other than her bruised ego and it could have been much, MUCH worse right??

So we are off and running with all our school activites and homework!

This is how we help

I was washing the sliding glass door and this is what I saw on the other side:

No wonder nothing stays very clean around here!

Green thumb

 Jacob has a green thumb....no not literally, but he does have a great knack for growing things. This spring he came home from school with a red solo cup.....full of sunflower seedlings. I put them in the window and we let them grow there until they got a bit bigger. Then I told Jacob that we needed to move them to a bigger pot so they could grow. We moved those seedlings to a bigger pot.....and they died. Jacob was so upset that I went out and bought another package of sunflower seeds so we could replant. Then as those were doing so good, the dog got to them and half of them died. So we again replanted....and waited. Jacob made sure those seeds were moved when the dog was outside and made sure that they got the right amount of water. Then, they got tall and started to show signs of blooming.

We waited and waited until it started to bloom. Just the very day that it fully opened disaster struck again. Jacob had been putting the pot up on the BBQ grill while the dog, Benelli, was out. Last night it was on the grill when the wind picked up and blew it off. Sadly, the tallest plant (the only one blooming right now) was broken. I was quick to notice and cut it off and brought it inside. Now we can enjoy this bloom and wait for the rest of them to finish.

Hopefully the rest of them bloom before something else bad happens.