Happy Second Birthday Joseph

Blow!
The only way to eat a cupcake... I mean, honestly, do you expect him to get his hands dirty?! LOL

Oh... like this!?

Joseph LOVES his new ride!

Happy birthday sweetie! We love you!

A Praise to share with you all!

Joseph was nursing 5 or 6 times per 24 hour period when Luke had his accident. I am one of those 'prone' to mastitis if I go 12 hours without nursing. This was, of course, a huge concern when I was at the hospital with Luke. The last thing I needed was mastitis.

The accident was Monday late afternoon. Joseph had nursed around noon. That night, around midnight, the nurses brought me an electric double pump to use. I pumped for 20 minutes and got Not A Drop of milk. My milk was gone. Poof. Just like *that*. Tried everything, hot shower, hand expressing, everything. There was just nothing there. Not a drop.

Really an answer to prayer.

We got out of the hospital on Thursday. Joseph nursed just about as soon as we got back to the S's house. Man did it hurt. Nursing while completely empty is very painful to me. There was no milk there. None. I continued to allow him to nurse when he asked but made the sessions very short as I was very teary with pain at each session.

By Sunday my milk was starting to come back. By Tuesday it was back in full-force.Isn't God so good! I know Joseph doesn't *need* to nurse and I was resolved with him weaning and very much at peace with the whole thing. Then God restored my milk ... what an extra special blessing this is to me. Nursing is so dear to me and I am so thankful!

Our newest family picture

Our precious "niece" Lauren took this picture last week.

Welcome to our Home ~ The Playroom

Welcome to our Home! I've been meaning to show you around for a while so let's start with the Playroom. Here's the right side of the room (if you are standing in the dining room). Those double windows face east. The canvas bins hold Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Playmobile, etc...

Here's the left side of the room. First is the children's computer area and the large cupboards. The first cupboard holds art supplies and extra school books and supplies. The second cupboard holds bins with sorted toys, dinosaurs, horses, doll house furniture, etc... The door to your right opens into our living room.
The end wall, the one you are facing has a long narrow closet. This is what MaryVance uses for her 'nursery' and 'kitchen'.

This is the backside of the shelves holding the canvas bins. I finally took the time to organize the books!
The tall shelf has chapter books on the top shelf. The other shelves are fiction books sorted by author's last name. The spines are all labeled.

These shorter shelves are organized as follows:

"Bible" books and Bible-related books are labeled with a red sticker.

"Animal", "Science", "History", "Geography" have a green sticker.

The baby board books are not labeled (bottom shelf left and part of right) and the remaining bottom right shelf are "Other" and labeled with an orange sticker.

I did the alphabetizing for fiction because I wanted an easy way for the little ones to reshelf books and I thought it would be a good way to reinforce alphabetizing. I decided to do general categories for the others for ease in reshelfing.

At the top of the photo you can see our dining room. This is where we do the majority of our schoolwork. See our giant dry erase board!

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our home. I'll try to post one room a week. (For those of you who have been to our home before -- this is the room on the front of the house that was originally our library and most recently our sewing room:-) )

"Thank you" seems so inadequate...

but I don't know what else to say.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. They were really felt.

We got home last night and are still in 'vacation recovery mode' today.

I hope to get a complete update written soon but I did want to post to tell you all how much your prayers meant to all of us.

Luke is fine. He is 100% back to his sweet self. Thank you Lord!

Thank you all so much. You are all so dear to me!
Dana

My Husband...

I was talking to my friend several weeks ago about my husband. I was telling her how much I love him and what a good husband, father and provider he is. I was telling her how proud I am of him and how he is so quick to make changes when he feels led to do so.

And I realized I need to tell him those same things too.

So, my sweet husband, I want to tell you how much I love you. You are a good provider for us, you are a thoughtful and loving husband and a very involved father. There are many things I love and respect about you but the biggest is this: When you feel convicted to make a change in your life You Just Do It. I don't know how you do. I'm not wired that way. But you do. You just make the changes and move on. That is one of the aspects of your personality that really inspires and motivates me. I want to be like you in that area.

I want to thank you for loving me when I'm not very lovable ;) and I want to thank you for the commitment you have to our marriage.

I love you!

News on the Home (Business) Front

Short Version of the Story:
We are the proud new owners of Wonder Unders. Check it out at www.wonderunders.com

Long Version of the Story:
Stacy (previous owner of Wonder Unders) is on HearthKeepers (a message board we are both part of). She had decided to sell the business and posted it on HK. (They have a maple farm business and she has five children and the oldest wasn't quite five when the fifth was born ... she decided to sell Wonder Unders to have more time to help with the maple farm, etc...)

Where was I? Oh yes, she posted in on HK and I read her post. I felt this immediate peace that this was for us. I didn't say anything to Tony but casually showed him the thread when he got home. He felt the same way. We didn't tell each other... I didn't say anything because I already had this "perfect business model" in my head an WU did / does not fit the bill. At All. Same for Tony.

But it kept coming up. The Lord kept pointing us to it and we kept saying "nah..." must not be God. Must be 'just a good idea'... blah blah blah... Finally we went ahead and put our names in the hat. We were second in line. We spent a lot of time praying that the woman ahead of us would buy the business and that way we could know For Sure what God's will was for us.

We waited.

And waited.

She passed. Now what? We spent another week praying and asking Stacy dozens of questions. We tried to revamp our "perfect business model". We tried to see what the Lord was doing here. He just made it so clear.

So, here we are.

My days are busy but I see to get a lot more accomplished when I am busy than I do when I am not busy...

I already have a backlog of four orders to get sewn and out next week. Life is never boring... :)

Everyone on Sunday morning

To everything there is a story...

Three summers ago I bought these aqua polos at Macy's. Loved them.

So happy that they had them in such a broad range of sizes.

Never found anything to match for the girls so the shirts just hung in the closet for a year.

Last summer I found this lovely fabric!

I made a dress for MaryVance (can you tell is has a smocked bodice?) and a jumper for Molly. I also made a romper for Joseph and a John-John for Isaac from aqua gingham. Lovely. Really. It looked very nice together.

This year I really wanted MaryVance to be able to wear this dress (because I put a lot of time into the smocking of it). Molly's jumper didn't fit her. It looked like a maternity jumper. Her shape is changing... So I took it apart, fitted the bodice and cut a new skirt from the old one. So far, so good.

Now to find something for Joseph and Isaac to wear. Of course last year's outfits don't fit and Ike's from last year is too big for Joseph this year.

Sigh.

The boys XL still fits Caleb (which is very surprising as he wears mostly S or M in mens). I decide that a pale to medium yellow polo for the littlest boys would fit the bill.

I'm on a quest.

Can't find them anywhere.

No where.

Yellow must be *out* for this year.

Sigh.

So what do I do? I go to my trusty friends at HearthKeepers and ask their opinion. They are great! Kelly sends me to The Children's Place where there are several options. [Thanks again Kelly!!] I really didn't want to order online because I wanted to be able to see the colors in person and I can never tell about Joseph's size until I see the shirt.

Tony to the rescue. He finds a Children's Place in Tallahassee. We are headed there anyway so...

Saturday we head to Tallahassee (remind me to tell you the story about our trip to Sam's Club if I forget...)

Kelly mentioned that she didn't think the 'azure' blue would be a close enough match but she would go with green. I wasn't sure about green and aqua... But when we got there and looked at everything all together I really liked it!!!

Whew! Now you want to see the photo?

Here's a closeup of the original shirt and the dress. See the leaf green in the dress? It's the same color as the green shirts!

and a close-up of some of the smocking...

Puppy Outfits

He likes it.
Really.
He does.



I promise.

The children are all well!

We are officially FLU-FREE here!

Thank you Lord!

I am, however, battling a nasty sinus thing.... it's much better than the flu though!!

Health Update

We finally figured out that the children have the entire 'symptom set' for the flu. It didn't really occur to me that it could be the flu because when I had the flu I felt like I had been Hit By A Mack Truck. I don't remember nose/throat/chest stuff at all...

Here are the children's symptoms:
high fever, cough, headache, sore throat, stuffy nose, body aches, and some have had diarrhea...

According to the CDC website:
"Influenza usually starts suddenly and may include the following symptoms:
Fever (usually high)
Headache
Tiredness (can be extreme)
Cough
Sore throat
Runny or stuffy nose
Body aches
Diarrhea and vomiting (more common among children than adults)"

Sounds so similar, doesn't it?

Now for our update! Everyone is on the mend. Caleb and Isaac were the last to get sick and are the last two with fever. Caleb's is a little higher than Isaac's but they are both over the hump and on their way to well. I would say Joseph is 100% today and the others are following closely behind.

Thank you for your prayers!

....nice....

So the mail lady drives up to the house to bring our mail and says "I see you got it too... someone got almost all the mailboxes on this road last night".

Sigh.
Fun. Fun.

Ultrasound this afternoon...

stay tuned...


UPDATE:
Most importantly... wee babe is Healthy and Normal! Thank you Lord!!

There's only one wee babe in there!

And....
Well, when I called Jaynie to tell her the results she said "You are so predictable!" -giggle-

Yep! Our seventh son!!!!!!! Isn't that just amazing?!

See his profile? Abdomen and head, the darkest areas are fluid and the whitest parts are bone. See his forehead?

Okay, follow me on this one. You have a baby laying down to change his daper. Cock your head to the right. You see his legs bent at the knee and his hiney (the dark white lines are leg bones). Between his hiney you see his boyness. Do you see the little arrow pointing to a sticky-out thing? That's it!

I have sick children... UPDATED

Started Saturday night with Joseph. Fever. No other symptoms.
Monday morning Molly woke up with fever.
Tuesday afternoon Elijah came down with fever.
Wednesday morning Sam... and then MaryVance.

Please pray for us. Thank you!

UPDATE:
Thursday... Caleb
Friday... Isaac

That should be everyone! This *thing* is starting as several days of high fever and morphing into cold/allergy symptoms for most of them. Sore throat, itchy eyes, coughing, nasal congestion...

Today is day seven for Joseph and he's not 100% better yet.

I'm so thankful that it's not anything serious...just annoying :)

an Ike-ism...

(a funny from Isaac)

The other day Isaac came up to me and said, "Did you know babies like to be in their mother's tummies?"

I said "They do? How'd you know that?"

He replied, with a serious expression "I read it in the newspaper."

LOL

Wanna see a belly pic? or two?

Mama... these are for you :-)

10 weeks 6 days(excuse the silly face...)

14 weeks 5 days

And since I know you are wondering.. I've gained 6 pounds ;-) Yes, -nodding my head- that's very odd for me??

Fun at Three Rivers State Park

Our sweet children... in case you can't remember who's who... on the left: Caleb is holding Isaac, MaryVance, Luke is behind MaryVance, Molly is holding Joseph, and Elijah is in Sam's lap. Got it? There will be a test later. -giggle-
Caleb. He's not blurry in real life... 15 years old. sigh.
Molly. She's 13 and a half and a half...
Sam. Just turned 12.
Luke. aka 'Texas' (lives in this hat. sleeps in this hat. it stinks. how do you wash a cap?!). Luke is 9 + + .

Miss MaryVance. 7. still. till May. :-)
Elijah. All that. and 6 years old to boot!
Isaac. Ike. -snap- "I'm outta here". -snap- again "I'm outta here again." Yep, he's four.
Joseph. Too cute for just one pic.
There. Does that give you a Joseph Fix? He's 20 months full of lusciousness!!

Aahhh.... I think I'll have another... giggle. Check back in September for that pic!

Joseph and Chocolate Pudding.

He is such a Big Boy.... feeding himself.

This was his first time to have chocolate pudding.

I think he likes it!

School Day at Lewis Academy :-)

Notice the teacher's chair is vacant? Well, of course... she's the photographer! -giggle-
Hard at work!
MaryVance doing a pretest in her new math book. She tested out of the first 17 pages -- Way to go Mare!!
Caleb was Isaac's teacher today. He's learning to write "B".
Sam & Molly... Such concentration! Aren't you proud?
Look at that! Reading all by himself! Yeah Elijah!
Luke is pondering...

A pretty typical school day!

Picnic in the backyard

Yesterday the little boys were in desperate need of an Adventure. I had the bright idea to have the big boys set up our smaller tent for them to play in at the back of our backyard. It was a big hit! Elijah wanted to have a picnic lunch there too! I thought you'd enjoy some pictures :)

Just call her Funyan Face.... hahahahaha

They played in the tent for hours and hours and had a blast. Now they want to sleep in it tonight! We'll have to see what Daddy says about that ;).