4th of July

For the 4th we went over to a friends house for the afternoon and evening. We all had a great time! Our friend barbequed and we all brought picnic type sides. Our kids had so much fun playing with all the kids that were there. It rained buckets in the evening but they still did some fireworks at the Air Force Academy that we were able to watch from the back deck. It was a great day!!!

Micah newest acheivement

This week Micah started rolling over! He rolls from his back to his stomach and once he gets there he can't get back so he just starts crying! He seems so young to me to be rolling over but I guess it's just because I'm not ready for him to be growing up at all. He also shows interest in table food but I am NOT going to start him on solids yet!

Carrots!

I was given 15 lbs of baby carrots that were close to their expiration date. They are a great blessing but I wasn't sure what to DO with that many carrots. I spent some time online and found out how to freeze carrots. Then I spent all afternoon Saturday chopping, blanching and packing up my carrots. It is such a good feeling to get them all done and know that they are there in my freezer when I need them.

Summer Fun!

Last week was very warm, over 90 most days so I decided to let the kids run in the sprinkler. :-) They had so much fun!!! Josiah was by far the most adventurous, even trying to stop the sprinkler with his feet! Monkey see, monkey do, once he did that then Elijah and Emmaline had to try it too. Jeremiah stayed at the perimeter and was fine so long as he did not get water on his face. They have all been asking every day since when they can do it again, but unfortunately we are now in a "cold snap", overnight it went from 90 + to mid 50's! It has been raining a lot too so it will probably be awhile before they can.

Elijah's 6th Birthday

We celebrated Elijah's birthday today. What a day! We had 14 adults and 19 children come. It was pretty crazy. The party started at 3:30 but the guests started arriving at 2:45 and the last ones arrived at 4 so we had a HUGE window of time where everyone was just sitting around. Fortunately we had quite a few who liked to talk to so that helped to keep things going. For the first time ever I tried to have a game for the kids. That was a fiasco, none of the kids wanted to follow any sort of rules and just ended up throwing things all over the place. Then we served up the cake and ice cream. That went better than expected, all things considered. The kids all ate out back which kept the mess to a minimum. After everyone was done with their cake I wanted to let the kids play a bit to run off some energy before we did the gifts. We had some decorative border blocks out back and one of the kids (we don't know who) moved them all into our play castle. Then, one of the girls was in the castle and the tower of blocks collapsed and sliced open the side of her knee. We cleaned it up as well as we could with antiseptic cream and band aids but she will probably need stitches. :-( We opened gifts and then it was like a switch was hit and everyone had to leave at once. For me it was a very stressful time, I think we might be done with birthday parties. Although I asked Mark how he thought it went and he said fine and Elijah had a great time, so we will just have to see...

This weeks toys

I keep several bins of larger toys and once a week I change them out. Today was the day to change it so I got out a new bin, all the little people sets. It always amazes me how long the kids will play with a toy that they haven't seen for a week :-). The bins that I have are lincoln logs, large legos, little people sets and dress up clothes. I tried changing them out every day but for my personality it works better to do it once a week. When we do it this way all the toys get played with but I don't have to have them all out at once. :-) As for the smaller toys, stuffed animals, books and games, I have half of them packed up and the other half out. Once a month I switch them all out. I got this idea from a friend and it works very well for us. Again, all the toys get played with but we are not overrun with toys. :-)

First Black Eye...

Jeremiah had a little run in with the concrete patio out back yesterday and got his first black eye. It looks terrible! Poor guy! He is just getting the hang of walking and tripped over his own feet. Ouch! At least it wasn't one of his siblings fault. :-)

Scary times

This morning while I was nursing Micah we had a very scary thing happen. Jeremiah was on the floor throwing a temper tantrum like he often does. We have learned that it does no good to spank, it only makes him more upset, so in general we just ignore him and he gets it all worked out of his system. But today, I looked over at him and instead of lying still like he usually does he was twitching convulsively. I called Mark to come and look at him, since I couldn't get up to check on him (it's hard to move when nursing a baby). Mark came over and picked Jeremiah up but Jeremiah continued to convulse and his eyes were rolling around. He didn't respond to his name and then he started having difficulty breathing. Mark and I were so scared. I laid Micah down and went running to call 911, while Mark continued to try to keep Jeremiah breathing. The firemen were here within 5 minutes, the longest 5 minutes of my life. I stayed on the phone with the 911 dispatcher and watched Jeremiah in Mark's arms continuing to convulse. Just as the firemen arrived Jeremiah's eyes rolled back in his head and he started drooling on Mark's shoulder. The firemen laid Jeremiah on the couch, stripped him down to his diaper and gave him oxygen. It only took about half a minute for the oxygen to start helping Jeremiah calm down and start breathing okay again. The ambulance arrived while we were giving Jeremiah his oxygen. The paramedics told us that it sounded and looked like Jeremiah had a seizure, but they weren't sure what would have caused it, so they thought it would be best to take him in the ambulance to the ER to be checked out. Mark went with Jeremiah and I stayed at home with the other kids. Mark kept me posted on what was happening at the hospital through text messages. The hospital staff took blood for several tests and also ran a CT scan. It took forever to get the results but they finally came back clear, Jeremiah is completely healthy. The doctor told Mark that Jeremiah probably just held his breath long enough to cause himself to have a seizure. The doctor said it's not normal for that to happen but it's also not something that he has never seen. So, after all that we are supposed to watch Jeremiah carefully for more seizures, try to keep him from throwing temper tantrums and just in general be more cautious. I'm so glad that he is okay and healthy and that everything turned out fine. Praise the Lord!

Broken Window!

I was on the phone yesterday with Mark when all the kids came running in from the backyard where they had been playing. Emmaline told me that the window was "broken" and Elijah chimed right in with the same info. I didn't hear any glass shatter or anything like that so I thought that they were exaggerating, until I went downstairs... half of the sliding glass door was cracked into a million pieces and was still cracking. Fortunately it was safety glass and double paned so it didn't just fall onto the ground or worse blow out into the house. There was a large rock lying on the ground in front of the window so it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened, but figuring out who threw the rock was quite a bit more difficult. Elijah persisted in saying that Emmaline threw it, Emmaline insisted that Josiah threw it and Josiah kept saying that he didn't know who threw it. After MUCH discussion it finally was determined that Emmaline was the culprit. In a houseful of boys it had to be the only girl that threw the rock! Who would have thought a girl could be such a handful!!!

Easter 2010

We spent Easter at my parents house. It was a good day. Both my brothers were there and my sister in law who is pregnant and due any day. It was a lot of fun to spend time as a family, it's hard to get all of us together these days. Mark was able to fly one of his planes, which was a nice treat. It was altogether a really good time. :-)