Moving up

In our family the kids have unintentionally been divided in three groups - the Bigs, the Mediums and the Littles. Recently one of our sons declared himself a Medium instead of a Little. You see, he had a birthday. As we celebrated with him I once again found myself contemplating the gift of each of these wonderful young people God put into our family. What an amazing task to raise these people to follow God and to become people after His own Heart. I am so glad this is a job we don't have to do alone - God gave us this job but He is always there to guide us.

Cake and Ice Cream - the best way to celebrate!!
Legos theme for a Lego crazed boy

Yahoo - more things to build!!

Happy birthday, sweetie. Mom and Dad love you - you are the best!!

Due Date

Today was the Esther's due date. I was going to have everything ready and waiting for baby's arrival. God had a different plan and the last three weeks have been bliss - snuggling and loving on our newest little one. She now weighs 7 1/2 lbs. Such a big girl now!!! I thought I'd share some pictures a friend at church took of sweet baby.

We are so very thankful and blessed by God with our quiverful!!!

Papa and Grandma

This weekend we had visitors. Very, very special visitors. Esther got to meet her Grandma and Papa for the first time. We had a wonderful time. We did a little shopping, a lot of visiting, plenty of eating and some celebrating with yummy ice cream sundaes. Mostly this was get- acquainted time for Esther and grandparents. What a gift grandparents are. Mine, as of earlier this summer, are all now living in heaven. While I know that I will have forever to enjoy their company someday - right now I miss all of them. I am so thankful my children have time with their Grandma and Papa. It was hard to say goodbye this afternoon - but they will be back in a couple of months and we already can't wait.

Getting to know each other
Such a comfy shoulder

Snuggling up

Thank you Grandma and Papa for coming to see us - we had a SUPERB time :0). Can't wait till your next visit!! We love you!!

What?!!

What is this potty doing outside?!!! On the FRONT porch?

This is my husband's project for the week. He likes to have things to do - just staying home without a plan is difficult for him - so he has lots of plans for his remaining time off. This one involves fixing some water damage in our kid's bathroom (or the frog bathroom as they call it). The job ended up being a bit bigger than I thought it would be - a little hard for me as the need keep my home tidy is very strong at the moment - a belated nesting instinct I guess. Anyway, this fix required new vinyl flooring (there was wet wood underneath the old stuff), new drywall for the ceiling - so new paint as well. I decided that white walls weren't a good idea for a kids bathroom so I picked a green color to go along with the frog theme - I picked the color in about three minutes - that is huge for me I usually take weeks to pick new colors :0). So basically my Hubby remodeled the bathroom in just a few days. It's almost done - really just hanging up stuff and putting things back. Good job, honey!! So that is the explanation for the potty being on the front porch for that last few days.
What a mess!!! This looked quite daunting to me the first day!!

New paint job - the walls look so nice without the grubby fingerprints everywhere Installing the new molding

Potty back where it belongs - almost done

So this has been a busy week at my home and it's only Wednesday - I wonder what the next couple of weeks will hold as hubby starts further down his list of plans.

My Spots

Today I am stealing an idea from my friend Simplystork. Last week she wrote about her spot in her kitchen where she does almost all her meals for her family. It made me think about the places in my home that are my "spots". I mainly have two spots that the family recognizes as "my" places. The first one is my place in the kitchen where I do all the meal preparations for my family. It is the perfect place for several reasons:

It's an open, cheerful space.
Lots of room for helpers and bouncy seats Everything is only a couple of steps away - on the counter
or up in the cupboard.
This is my other spot - this cozy corner of the couch. It's a bright, sunny place that's perfect for nursing babies - doing devotions, reading or knitting (and I admit - some TV watching - although less and less of that lately.)
Looking at these pictures I noticed that I like corners - maybe cause they're cozy. I have one other special place that is new to me - my bedroom. That story is for another day - but I will say it is a place I love to go to relax and rest. So these are my spots - maybe it's habit or routine to go to these places but they are comfortable, cheerful and home for me.

Imagination

This weekend I noticed my youngest son busy playing with the same four things. He was very busy and he was very careful not to lose these four items. I could tell he was deeply involved in his play. He even asked me to play with him and his four toys. He took them to bed with him and carried them in the car with him and has generally held on to them for the last three days. He asked me to take a picture of his treasures so I did.

A boy's special treasures.
Playing the drums.
More imagination play. (He said he was sharpening a knife like Daddy in the kitchen)
My children have plenty of man-made toys but God-made toys (sticks etc.) always seem to capture their minds more. These sticks were many different things all weekend (at one point I had to talk into one as it was a telephone for a while). I love to watch my children use their imaginations - I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to share this growing time with them!!

Hot Day

What do people do on record hot days in the Pacific Northwest? Make mud puddles, of course. Doesn't everyone? I wonder who is going to wash up these children and their swim suits (or mud suits, in this case)?

Produce

While Daddy and baby were taking a nap this afternoon (they look so cute snoozing away) I decided to take a walk through my garden and look what I found!!:

Romano and French filet beans, pickling and slicer cucumbers and a yellow zucchini
and about fifteen baby sugar pumpkins (yum!!)

No we didn't find her in the cabbage patch - I just have a hard time resisting putting up pictures of her. I also know there are Grandma's and Poppa's lurking around here waiting for photos of sweet pea to show up - Hi, Grandma and Poppa - can't wait to meet you :0) Anyway back to the garden subject - it is a delight to go outside and pick produce for my family. I know nothing has been sprayed on these veggies and I know they are incredibly fresh. God has blessed me so much to be able to have this bit of land to garden. When I go out there this time of year I often wonder what Eden looked like - incredible I'm quite sure!!!

Feet

Look at these summertime feet!!! Yuck!!! I don't know WHAT they do to get them so icky every day. These toes get scrubbed every night before bed.

Little kid feet - ewwwwww!!
Tweenager feet - not so dirty - cute shoes!!

Mommy feet - must have pretty toes

The cutest feet of all!! Aren't they sweet?

Laundry time

Since my hubby got my Mt. Neverrest Laundry pile under control we are attempting to restart my laundry schedule. Laundry is normally my least favorite chore - mainly because I am always behind and the job is never really done (although my schedule helps incredibly). During the summertime I actually enjoy laundry time. The secret is my clothesline. There is something so neat about hanging out freshly washed clothes and then gathering them and folding them outside - all sweet smelling and toasty warm from the sun. An added bonus to line drying clothes is all natural stain and germ remover and lower energy bills (something everyone probably appreciates about now!!)

Ready for the line.

This clothes line looks lonely

My view while I hang the clothes

Time for the sun to do its job.

I had planned to take a picture of my laundry basket all full of sweet, clean folded clothes but these pictures were taken the day I decided to have a baby - so these clothes actually stayed on the line an extended amount of time :0). So this is my secret for enjoying laundry in the summertime - now if there was something for winter laundry....

More Baby Stuff

While I have been ordered to lay around and be pampered my hubby has been Mr. Mom. He's awesome. The laundry is caught up :0)!!!
And he's even been doing this: This object hadn't seen the light of day for awhile!!
I am so thankful for all his hard work.

Here's another sweet Esther picture

To prove we do have teens in the house:

Big sis really likes little sis

More big teen brothers:

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Esther Louise

Here she is!! Our sweet surprise!! Esther came yesterday at 6:00 p.m. My mind is boggled - my eighth baby and she arrived with me really having nothing ready. I've never had an early baby - they have all been late (except the ones induced but I had warning and they weren't nearly this early) This time there was No warning - one minute going through my day the next water everywhere and we were flying off to the birth center - three hours later our tiniest baby made her appearance. She weighs 6 lbs 4 ozs. over 2 lbs smaller than her sibling were. She beautiful and very healthy. God has blessed us incredibly!! We are thrilled she is here!!!




Falling in love!!!

Looking for her thumb

Her ears are about the size of a quarter. So very tiny!!!

Surprise!!!

Remember when I said yesterday (or was it this morning?) that due dates don't mean anything? I was right. Only when I wrote that I had no idea what that really meant. Guess why I am still awake at 1:00 a.m.? That right - this evening (yesterday evening) at 6:00 pm our new little one arrived!!!! Baby Esther came 3 weeks early healthy and beautiful. Needless to say I am still awake while everyone is peacefully sleeping because I am utterly and completely overwhelmed - I had a baby with nary a newborn diaper in the house. How very silly is that!!! I will post pictures and details later - if my sweetie finds me out of bed I will be in trouble - he is committed to keeping my down for three days - I don't envy his task - that seems like a long time to be in bed!!!! I will sneak some pictures on some time today after some sleep!!!

Countdown

Today begins the 20 day countdown until my due date (not that due dates mean much!!!) I am beginning to feel nesty. My husband assures me that the house is not very messy at all but I just see stuff that must be done everywhere. We are starting to get stuff out and getting together the things we need for a new little one. After all these years of having babies one thing we have learned is that babies don't really need as much as Babies R Us says they do. They don't really care if the are changed on a fancy table or on Mommy's bed. Just as long is Mommy and Daddy are close!!:0)



A sweet friend made these darling socks for baby and gave them to me last week.
Aren't they cute?!!!
I bought these last week also - just getting in the mood!!
Don't know if baby is a boy or girl so I got both.
Have a wonderful and blessed day!!