The Whole Truth: Who Raises the Kids?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Abbie

Caroline asked: Do you make your older daughters help raise the younger children and thus rob them of their childhood?

Good questions Caroline! I’m sorry it’s taken like six months to get back on this band! I can’t believe more of my peeps haven’t asked…I so would…even anonymously!

Let’s start with the first one. Well, I only have one older daughter and the younger is two so she wouldn’t qualify in the “raising the younger children” scheme. Raising our children in the fear of the Lord is our (Mark and I) job as parents. We do give our other children responsiblities to make the house run smooth but that doesn’t mean they constantly on younger sibling watch, etc. They run, laugh, play, and wrestle with their friends (yep, they have friends out side of our family…but that’s a secret).

When our children turn seven, and there’s a baby, then they will get the baby as a “buddy” when that baby no longer needs me to do a lot of their things. These responsibilities include buckling them up, unbuckling them, helping them get dressed, help them put away clothes…and eventually, helping them learn their chores (i.e. picking up, unloading dishwasher, putting things away…that’s around 18 months or so). When their buddy is walking very independently, they are required to hold their hand in the parking lot and making sure they don’t take off without the rest of us. Now, since my children’s ages are 9, 7, 6, 4, 2, and 1 that means there are only two who are old enough to be “big buddies.” And the seven year old is still slowly getting those responsiblities since he is a he and his buddy is only 18 months old. We are currently teaching them that if their buddy doesn’t obey then to come to us and we’ll take care of the situation. It is not and never will be their place to discipline their siblings.

Again, it’s not all work and I believe the older ones get more privileges than the younger ones. For instance, Zoe and I occasionally go out for a meal and for a time to reconnect, get away and enjoy some yummy food (we both love the same kinds of meals she’s more adventurous in her orders than requesting McDonald’s). She also gets to stay up later than her siblings and watch movies on occasion. Ace gets his special time out with dad and is slowly getting to stay up later.

I guess, in summary, we are not in the parent camp that believes children should just be kids and not learn to work and contribute to the home. We expect all our children from the time they can toddle to be willing and joyful helpers about the house doing age appropriate chores and activities. We have no qualms in requiring our older children to help look out for their siblings as we have no problem looking out for all of them. This is teaching them to be loving, gentle and helps them think of the needs of others before themselves (a Biblical model that we are striving for…JOY…Jesus, Others, You). It’s our prayer that in teaching them these Christian character qualities that they will grow up willingly and lovingly and sacrificially sharing Christ with others.

This is quite long, so I’ll leave it at that. The short answer is “no, we don’t have our olders raise our youngers.” The long answer is above!

Leave a comment on this post or here if you have a question you’d like for us to answer about our bunch.

Never Boring

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Abbie

I know I haven’t posted much but trust me, it’s not because we’re sitting around staring at each other. It’s been rather busy here. We’re preparing for a baby for goodness sake.

So, for example, this weekend, we traveled a couple of hours away (in cold rain) to some friends’ child’s birthday party. Not just some friends. These are friends from back in Mark’s college days (and mine too, although I didn’t go to the same college). It was wonderful to see them all and how much their kids are growing and I’m sure you’d like to see pictures. But I didn’t take nary a one. Yeah, we were good like that. I blame it on the rain, cold, and trying to doctor up bruises and bumps from playing in the most awesome indoor three story play place ever.

Sunday, in between meals and church, I worked on some sewing. My discomfort level is growing a tad so my sewing time is getting very limited. I did get a cover done from this tutorial I pinned on pinterest (tell me you’re shocked!).

Source: diymaternity.com via Abbie on Pinterest

‘Cept I didn’t add the ruffle. Didn’t really see the purpose in it. But the pocket. I’m in love with! I can’t wait to use it. And yes it’s big so that means hopefully enough coverage of the baby belly while nursing! I’ll show off my version (with all the other fun stuff) when it gets closer to baby time.

I also made a super comfy maxi skirt to be worn post baby (okay, and pre too). And I found the tutorial for it on…just guess…

Source: elleapparel.blogspot.com via Abbie on Pinterest

Just pretend that’s me. Tall, blonde, thin and barely a bump to speak of! I made this skirt for my Christmas outfit (go to our actual blog to see). The first time I made it, the waistband was a bit too small and uncomfortable for the bump. This time, too big. So, I’m making readjustments again and hope to have it on and comfy by the end of this weekend. One day I’ll figure out how to measure my waist.

I’m also busy reading Large Family Logistics and totally getting overwhelmed in spots. I had to take a week off for my brain to process and see how her suggestions would fit into our world. My impulse…to jump in and do everything but I know that I would go insane with that and getting ready for a baby. So, I’m trying to apply some things that I know will work a little at a time. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” as they say. For now, I’ll say that this book is a must read for any mom…not just those with a bunch of kids. I know I’m not going to finish it all this month but it will be complete by year’s end. And, look on here for tidbits that I’ve gained and will be applying.

Oh, we’ve also got house projects too…like Igor and a bike shed and deck decorating and the like…and field trips and school and freezer cooking and the like. And watch out. Mark is getting me a smartphone. Don’t ask me what kind. I’m still not 100% sure. But it should make labor day quite interesting as we duel blog 🙂

Yes, life here is never boring!

Meet Igor #1

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Abbie

Okay, so it’s not really Igor, it’s actually this:

Source: amazon.com via Abbie on Pinterest

It’s a kids’ hammock/swing called Ekorre from Ikea that we were crazy enough to ask for for Christmas from my parents! And they were crazy enough to get it for us! Not just one, but two! No joke.

Mark had to put up reinforcers in the ceiling to make it hang safely but he got them up and now we will introduce you to what we lovingly refer to as Igor.

Bryant wasn’t too thrilled with it…hence no picture of him. Mark just go the second one up and we now are awaiting the shrills from the kids of “Wow! Mom and Dad a swing in our living room! You guys are the coolest.”

Still waiting…

Happy Birthday Liam!

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Abbie

Liam turned six right before 2012! It was a fun day and his request this year was to go to Chuck E. Cheese. Not that we have anything against Chuck E. Cheese but going on a winter night to celebrate a birthday…not something we plan to do again. But, he had fun nonetheless (except when we lost him and when I found him I let it be known not to run off from us again…yeah, that wasn’t so fun).

After his Chuck E. Cheese trip we came home, ate ice cream cake (and for some reason didn’t get a picture) and opened gifts. I think he had a fun full day!

We got him a bigger bike. Without training wheels. His reaction, unfortunately, was not as excited as we thought it would be. His main problem, he can’t ride it alone yet. After we explained that daddy would help, he cheered up and was super excited!

I can’t believe six years ago I held a tiny baby (okay, tiny for me…7 lbs 4 oz after having one over 8 1/2 lbs is tiny). Now he’s getting to be so grown up!

Pinterest Attacks…Again

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Abbie

It started with this inspiration from Pinterest.

Source: sugardoodle.net via Abbie on Pinterest

Which turned into this:

Since we create three menus each year and rotate them throughout the year each month (one for January, one for February, one for March), I knew I could make this menu board work for us. I worked on it the last week in December and was able to finish it in a couple of days (that’s with many interruptions, etc). FYI, the only place that had this kind of calendar with bulletin board on bottom was Target…don’t check Wal-Mart or OfficeMax!

The blog I found this on has a great tutorial with step by step pictures. She even posted some of her recipes. Here’s how I adjusted it.

I kept the order of different colors for different types of dishes. Right now, I only have my dinner dishes for the year listed with hopes of putting up our favorite breakfast dishes, desserts, and appetizers (since we have mucho get togethers at church…we need lots of those…not that I’m complaining. Food is yummy). I also made a set of cards with the menus for each rotating month listed. I also laminated the recipe cards and recipe names…we all know I’m not the neatest of cooks and need these suckers to last. I put magnets on the back of each of the recipe names instead of just using magnets to hold the cards up. Kids, me, and lots of activity means they wouldn’t stay in place and recipe names would have gotten lost.

This has worked out great, as we had a freezer cooking day the first of the month and I just pulled out the recipe names and listed them on the side along with writing in the meals already in the freezer. When March comes, I’ll move them over to the appropriate place and pull things out of the freezer as needed!

More Christmas…

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Abbie

Mark’s parents traveled up the week after Christmas to help with yet another project, celebrate Liam’s birthday, and celebrate Christmas with us. It was a busy but fun few days to say the least.

Papa’s always got room for one more in his lap!

Patiently waiting to open the gift!

Gift time!

And this book catches us up on our Trusty series! Josiah was really excited despite the expression.

Papa and Grandmere gave Ceili Rain a book where they are reading prayers and scripture to her. It’s awesome to have but a little eerie when I walk down the hall and hear their voices coming from her room. She definitely treasures this book though.

If you don’t have a smencil you must not a be a kid! All the boys enjoyed this special treat! They are basically pencils that smell…and they are nice smells too!

Bryant likes to ham it up for the camera.

Christmas with a Bunch of Characters

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Abbie

Christmas day, we got up late, as usual, ate breakfast, and then had time to open stockings before church. And might I say, we all enjoyed attending church on Christmas day…what a way to celebrate Christ’s birthday!

Our tradition is candy and dvds or books for stockings. Mark gets peanut M&Ms and I get the chocolate turtles. Everyone was super excited about their videos this year.

After our church worship, we snacked like crazy at church and then headed home. Since we were full on sweets we waited to each lunch and some opted to change back into pjs and we opened gifts.

It’s a bunch of Characters train!

Yay! They let me tear paper! And then he’d say, “Tash? Tash?”

The kids do a sibling shop every Christmas. I purchase items at ~~cheap~~ discount prices and then we set them up in our bedroom. They draw names and can come in and select toys for who’s name they’ve drawn. When they get older we’ll let them actually go to a store to buy them but for now, this works. A couple of years ago, we made a trip to the big box store the week following Halloween and I found costumes for $1.50 and less! So, I snagged the good ones that weren’t demonic and this year they were the hit! Ninja and viking costumes were what was bought!

The boys got small gifts since they got a brand new room. They were thrilled none the less.

Pilgrim’s progress, we start ’em early.

Believe it or not, these were the first set of wooden ABC blocks we’ve ever gotten. My kids are so deprived. Ginger (the dog) has even left her mark on a few.

If I had moved it a little to the right, this would have been a really funny picture!

Mark was faking the surprise. I have no idea what I bought him but he had told me he wanted it and since he had gotten his gift at the end of October, I felt bad that he didn’t have anything to open, so I got it for him. But, being that we share email addresses, he knew what I had gotten. I got him though. I knew what I had gotten too, so there.

How to Fit Five Boys in One Room

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Abbie

Welll, this was an issue we started discussing as soon as we found out Seven was really Malachi. So, I went to trusty Pinterest to gather my thoughts all in one place. We started with these ideas:

Source: fabric.com via Abbie on Pinterest

Fabric sample

Source: fabric.com via Abbie on Pinterest

Another fabric sample.

And an idea for beds to include this:

Source: theinspiredroom.net via Abbie on Pinterest

And this:

Source: remodelista.com via Abbie on Pinterest

Our decorating and color ideas came from this bedding that we already had:

Source: target.com via Abbie on Pinterest

But before any of that could work in a room with five boys, we had to paint…and before we totally took the room apart, we remember pictures!

Sorry about the spots, not sure what was up with the camera.

Totally ignore that disheveled looking closet, the curtains for it will be coming later. Ugh, I cringe when I look at that. It does look much better now but still not fun to see every time you come in a room.

Before all the painting started, Mark and Granddaddy put their heads together to come up with bunk bed plans. Granddaddy got the wood and cut it and even pre-drilled the frame and delivered it on Piano Recital day (cause he rocks).

I’m tempted to stop here and make ya’ll all wait until tomorrow to see what took place but then I think someone would come up with the cyber version of rotten tomatoes to throw at me so I won’t!

And this started…

Mark and I realized about an hour into bunk bed building night that two people, one of whom was in her third trimester were not really adequate enough to hold up these sturdy pieces of wood to build two levels. So, reinforcements were called in by way of a neighbor down the street (he always comes to help…we really are wondering why he hasn’t ran away far far from here now). So, thanks, S for helping with the project!

Not going to show the finished project yet…I had some art up my sleeve to do as well as a bit of refinishing. And while I worked on canvasses, three very sad looking male faces appeared and requested ever so sweetly to paint one. I couldn’t resist those big blue and brown eyes so an afternoon of painting commenced on their very own canvasses.

Not sure how we didn’t get a picture of Josiah in action, but he was there painting his square too.

And, when we visited Granddaddy Thanksgiving weekend, he showed us a chest of drawers he had picked up for $35! No kidding. Solid wood. Just needed to be painted. For those that don’t know, my parents are pickers on the side. They have a booth at an antique mall where they sale their finds. But this, this I was not going to let get away and gladly accepted it!

It had those missing drawers, I just had already taken them off to get the hardware off so Mark could sand it.

So ya’ll want to see the finished product huh???

As you enter you can see that beat up dresser all done. Mark did add the knob to the door. We kept the solid wood sturdy big dresser we already had and got rid of (well, it’s sitting in the schoolroom right now) the beat up smaller dresser. We took the knobs off of that dresser and put them on here. I already had the fabric for the boys’ beds and we had plenty of paint leftover from painting the previous dressers. So, total cost was $35 for the dresser! That’s my spaceship canvas that I freehand drew from looking at the pattern on the boys’ crib.

Bryant helped with the photo tour and please ignore any toys, this was prior to clean up time. This is Josiah and Liam’s bunks.

And this is Bryant’s and Ace’s. See the sweet little head peeking out. Bryant got his mattress this past weekend and has transitioned pretty well to his big boy bed. (This is the part where I don’t admit that we tried to give up paci but Mark nor I could stand the screaming so he still has that and it’s probably a big part of the transitioning well. Yeah, it’s going bye bye before Malachi is born though.)

We put gutter bookshelves on the footboard of each bed and a push light (which is battery operated and they have to buy the batteries…some of them are already in need). At the headboard we put their name canvasses that I did with their life verses on them. Have I shown those yet?

My other canvas that I made…freehand…yay me.

This was the boys’ artwork. I thought it turned out really well. In an effort to control the art, I did sketch off the ship they wanted and outlined it and they did the rest. I resisted any desire to control how they did it but I did limit their color choices to what we were using in the room. Really, I did! The end of the legs of Liam’s ship is fire coming out. And my control of Bry’s hand was mainly to keep the paint on the canvas not on the house or me.

Verdict:

I was kind of bummed that we didn’t get to do the beds L-shaped. When we put them in the L-shape, there was no room to put two dressers and a crib so we had to think and rethink. My dad and Mark wanted to make sure they were sturdy enough for, well, boys. And that meant using a bit bulkier wood. But ya’ll, these things will last for a long time! We also had to factor in that the beds were tall enough to hit the fan. Mark willingly volunteered to chop off a bit to make it work but we came up with this configuration and it worked. I’m really happy with how it all turned out and the curtains on the beds are a super hit! This room was a month long project and every time the boys woke up it was kind of like Christmas. They spent four days sleeping in the living room (on the sleeper sofa) and so they were truly surprised each time they awoke to find their room a little different. It was a great treat for them and I’m so excited that they love it.

Now, I realize this is a long post, so next time we do a big project, should I just post as we go or wait until it’s done? I love waiting so everyone could definitely see the finishing touches. Sometimes I forget to post the finished product when I post as we go.

Our Attempt at Cool Pics

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Abbie

Tracy Carr (aka Aunt Tracy) met up with us in between our stops across the Southeast and did pictures for us for Christmas cards. She also got some maternity pics and a few great candid shots. I was so excited about these pictures! She gets more and more better with each time. We giver her lots of practice too!

Merry Christmas from a Bunch of Characters!

Yep, this is our family…everybody running everywhere!

A great looking bunch of siblings if I do say so myself!

Note the tongue action on Ace!

Never one to miss out on a swinging good time. One of the reasons Mark needs to win “Daddy of the Year!”

Check it out…Ceili Rain and Bryant know where their bellies are! Except Ceili Rain thinks there is a baby in hers.

She’s growing up too fast!

Probably one of my most favorite pictures of Ace. He’s getting to be a young man. Sniff, sniff.

Spanish moss and a toddler…what could be better.

These are my most favorite maternity pics.

And this is us making fun of all those “professional” maternity pictures where the mom to be looks like she hates the idea of a baby much less being a mom…seriously…it’s pretty awesome..smile moms!

Dramatic, no?

Christmas Celebration Part 1

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Abbie

After the American Girl blast, we enjoyed a fun Christmas time with Abbie’s family.

Ace taught Bryant how to smile for the camera.

Bryant just loved the “horsies.”

Granddaddy’s lap was always full of children.

And then gift time came!

There is a Ceili Rain in there somewhere.

Hands down she was the cutest. We started a new tradition last year where the kids all open one gift at a time. That way, they can all see what each other got and get properly excited about it. Ceili Rain would open a gift and ohh and ahh and then ask to see each of the other kids gifts and then exclaim, “Oh my goodness!”