Merry Christmas Family!

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Abbie

Per our family Christmas tradition, we traveled to visit with Ge & Granddaddy and were also able to squeeze in some visiting time with Granddaddy’s sister and their family. That made for a few kids. But it was so fun to see them all playing and having a good time.

Our Ge & Granddaddy celebration:

I have no idea what cousin E was doing but he had four out of the five boys’ attention.

My “seester,” Aunt Yaya, made this sign for me. Isn’t she talented?! I was so thrilled. Especially since we were gifted a nativity set for the yard last year and this year Mark made a stable and manger for it. We will have quite the decked out yard next year.

Zoe and Ace were thrilled at some one’s present. I love this look of delight on their faces.

A very happy Ge with the “world’s ugliest dog.” That poor dog was 7 pounds when they rescued him. He’s still very tiny but thinks he’s a big dog.

Our future doctor with her doctor kit. FYI, she barely knows who Doc McStuffins is but loves the pink and purple medical bag. I have a feeling when she graduates medical school (or nursing school), I’ll be scouring the world for one just like that.

Tree Farm

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Abbie

This year we started a new tradition at a different tree farm. The year before, we had gone to our local tree farm and were not impressed with the selection. I am not sure that they even sold fresh cut trees this year.

So, we traveled a good distance away to another farm. And wow were we impressed. Acres and acres of all sorts of Christmas trees to choose from. We didn’t want to spend a ton and, fortunately, that made it easy. Our tree cost less than the one we got last year and was about twice it’s size. We’ve never had one that large and we thought we were getting one on the smaller size.

Forgive the blurry pictures. They had a hay ride that dropped us off in different locations and picked us up (and cut the tree for us).

Malachi loved the hayride. And, as you can see, it was such a nice day that we were still in t-shirts!

Baking Day

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Abbie

November done. On to December. Kristina and I decided to have a baking day with the kids at the start of December. That’s eleven kids and two moms and lots of sugar.

And lots of helpers!

I finally decided we would try our hands at dipping pretzels. This was a great activity for all the kids to do and surprisingly not too messy.

After awhile, the boys had to venture outside. In the misty rain.

And the two older girls had to braid their hair. Together.

Emmie Update-32 Weeks

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Abbie

That would be Miss Emmie’s face…it’s hard to see and I’ll tell ya more about that in a second.

First, an answered prayer (lady details here) at 20 weeks the placenta was low lying and really too close to the cervix. So, this check up was to see if the placenta had “moved.” We are praising God that it has. It’s even better news because it is also anterior (in the front), if it had not moved up and I have to have a c-section, that would not have been a fun recovery, etc.

We were also to confirm that Emmie is indeed Emmie. I don’t remember looking with the other girls but it is definitely very clear at 32 weeks. Just an FYI there.

My glucose levels are slightly high (from my fasting times) so Dr. J has me monitoring and maintaining through exercise and diet. It’s not been too bad and the nice result is I’ve lost a bit of weight. I think the lab tech lady was a bit off on the numbers so I don’t think it is as much as she says, but I have lost. And that’s just a little something nice…and totally justified my cheating tonight (pizza…yummy and pizza dessert…even better).

Now more prayers please. While the placenta is in the clear, we are now looking at our first ever breech baby. Her rear is down and her feet are up by her face (as well as her hands). That is one reason our picture is not exactly clear. I have been going to the chiropractor regularly since before I was pregnant. She is a great chiropractor and is going to do what she can to help Miss Emmie face the right direction. We’ll work at home too to get her going right too. Dr. J, in his calm demeanor is not concerned and because I have a “well exercised” uterus said she has a ton of room and will probably go back and forth a few times. He’ll check her out at 36 weeks and from there we may have to do another ultrasound and then discuss options.

So, pray, please, that she turns and stays turned. Mark and I are at peace with whether she turns or not. We’re perfectly happy to see what God has for us and this little one who is growing now. We just laughed when we saw her on the ultrasound and suddenly my belly poking out occasionally made a lot of sense.

Thank you for the prayers and joining us (virtually or in real life) on this fun adventure of parenthood.

November Randomness

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Abbie

Last year, our church purchased a property that included an outbuilding, three acres of land, and a large house. We have been renovating it (members mostly) since August. It’s slow going and for good reason. Our goal is to get it done without acquiring another loan. So, work progresses as finances come in. I praise God that there are several skilled men and women in our church who are able to provide the labor (and lunches) for the work that needs to be done.

In the meantime, we are meeting in homes. Another big praise, is that our home (and thankfully neighbors) are more than accommodating. We’ve all now settled in to a pattern where we divide up the meeting space with another family that has a larger great room area.

We love having a beautiful and talented pianist every time we meet at our house. Our piano gets played and Malachi gets serenaded.

Bryant’s hair when we are trying to grow it long for the winter. There is no hope that mop will lie down until it grows longer.

Um yeah…this is Josiah. He acts just like his dad.

I had to post two because, well. He’s adorable. We attended a Thanksgiving party with our local homeschool care group. The kids had a blast and Malachi wanted to see the “big tuck.”

How We Do–Crossing the Street

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Abbie

Going out has, believe it or not, gotten a bit easier. As the older kids can help the youngers and “fend for themselves,” my main job is making sure we get from A to B without karate chopping any bystanders.

I typically will wear a baby up to about 9 months. When grocery shopping, that means that the shopping cart is free for the youngest. The other children know to stay near by.

When we are crossing a parking lot or street, children three and younger have a buddy. Very early on, they learn to walk holding a buddy’s hand. No protests allowed. If they do arise, we go back to the car immediately and address the situation and try again. As of now, Malachi is still learning, so his main teacher is me. He’s gradually getting the idea and will hold his buddy’s hand for short periods of time. The problem now is that he wants to hold two buddies hands. Since Ceili Rain is older and sticks with us, she usually will grab the other hand.

Buddies are also in charge of buckling up their little buddies.

Crowds freak me out when I am out with my crew. We have several ways we negotiate crowds or cramped spaces.

1. Ducklings: When there is a crowd and very little wiggle room and Mark is with me, we call, “Ducklings.” The kids have learned to line up behind daddy “duck” and I bring up the rear counting about every two or three seconds.

2. T-shirts: When we can prepare ahead of time (and I actually can remember) we wear matching t-shirts. When we went to D.C. a couple of years ago, we wore red sibling shirts. We now have matching “school” shirts. Those were worn when we headed to the homeschool conference last year. Yes, we get lots of compliments and shocked stares, but my main goal is to make sure I see seven to eight (if Mark is with us) little red or orange shirts bobbing along.

3. Grab Your Buddy: If it’s not too crowded but an unfamiliar place, we have the kids buddy up. We still have one and half who don’t really have a buddy (Liam is still part time since Malachi can be stroller bound if needed to wrangle him). They stick close to me (or Mark) when we are moving and grooving.

Check out how Vitafamiliae makes it through a parking lot without squashed kids.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Abbie

This past Thanksgiving was spent at Papa & Grandmere’s house. We were able to visit Granddaddy & Ge but for some reason didn’t get those pictures save one…

Malachi helped clean up.

There were a couple of masked marauders.

Papa’s nose had to be caught.

Sweet smiles (with a photobomb).

Books were read…surprised, anyone?!

Bryant constructing and building at Ge & Granddaddy’s. I think we were busy eating and watching “the” game.

I wonder…

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Abbie

Since Zoe didn’t make semi-finals, we were able to check out of our rather expensive hotel room and check in to a nice timeshare that some friends so graciously set up for us. That gave us the opportunity to explore other things in Pigeon Forge. After we checked out, we headed to Apple Barn restaurant and enjoyed an amazing lunch with Ge & Granddaddy. It was cold and wet and we’ll use that as our excuse for why I didn’t get pictures.

The next morning, we decided to do Wonderworks. Aunt Yaya and her family had gone to this museum on a previous visit and we were told it was well worth the cost.

So, off we went.

It was totally worth it!

The kids really enjoyed all the activities. We played and played. Left for lunch and then came back and played some more. It’s basically a giant, hands on, science museum. Totally counted as school.

Wet n’ Wild Bible Bee

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Abbie

In between Bible Bee activities, we managed to have a little fun. It just so happens that Wilderness at the Smokies has an indoor waterpark. The kids had a blast and I enjoyed chasing toddlers around the toddler area. It was a bit cold for me but the kids loved it and played until they had purple lips. Mark enjoyed it too. Except for going down backwards in the funnel ride. Something he made sure not to repeat on subsequent trips down.

Obviously, my pictures are limited because it was a water park. But I made sure to capture this:

Zoe, Ace, and Liam loved the flow rider. We had seen one at the waterpark we went to this past summer but it cost extra. This one was included in our stay. I think they enjoyed it as much as they thought they would.

A fun bonus was seeing so many modest swimsuits. Usually, we are in the minority when we go to water activities as far as dress is concerned. This time, we were the majority. That was just a fun extra to our activities.

How We Do Laundry

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Abbie

Time to talk about how we do things with our bunch. This week Vitafamiliae is talking about laundry. Sorry for the lack of pictures, having trouble getting

We currently do two big laundry days, Tuesdays and Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Those are our clothes days. We do towels, sheets, napkins, and diapers in between but those are usually only one or two loads at a time.

So, we have one child who runs the washer, currently that’s Ceili Rain. Josiah swaps the clothes from the washer to the dryer and from the dryer to the master bedroom floor. Then three kids who fold clothes. Zoe, Ace, and Liam usually will fold clothes when the littles go to bed that morning. I confess. Clothes some times do not get folded until the next day (or day after). But eventually, they get folded.

The kids clothes are sorted and put in their laundry bags. I picked these babies up online and had some awesome friends embroider the kids names on them. Love these bags!

The kids from Josiah up can put their clothes up on their own. Ceili Rain and Bryant are still learning and, honestly, I have not been consistent in teaching them how to do it. I’m getting there.

As far as clothes storage, we hang up their church clothes. The girls have one dresser they share. Two boys share a dresser and three boys share a larger dresser. So far, this has worked. As the kids get bigger we’ll had to change our system (and when we add a third girl to the girls’ room).

Just a Bunch of Characters

Musings of everyday life in a house full of Characters.