Another week bites the dust

The teacher's float - Preston and Quincy liked it best because they threw 'good' candy.

Quincy was a ton of help getting apples in the freezer!

Cam's first flag football game...Cam is the one with the red stripe on his shorts. Yes, my son got put on a white team again this year...whose idea is it to print up white shirts for football? I see a lot of stain stick in my future!

The theme of my life lately seems to be "what happened to the week?" I find myself asking this question every Sunday. This week has been a bit of a mess. My mom is in the hospital with an infection. My grandma had a mastectomy on Thursday, and is home from the hospital and doing really well, however she will now need to go through chemotherapy and radiation. We are waiting to find out when she will start treatment. My kids have been busy as ever with all their activities and my house seems to always take a back seat to the activities of the day.

This weekend was a whirlwind of football games (I forgot my camera for Colin's game on Saturday, but he made a very nice touchdown and had some great blocks!) The girls and I put a ton of apples in the freezer. I had a lot more help from Quincy than I needed, but she seemed to enjoy running the peeler. Colin ate most of the skins that we peeled off, until he got a stomach ache and had to quit!

This weekend was our high school's homecoming. We took the kids to the parade on Friday, and I am starting to realize that we live in a parade happy town. We have a parade for 4th of July, 2 fair parades, a homecoming parade this week, a Santa Fe Trail days parade next weekend...the list of parades seems endless, but fun none-the-less!! Jim took Colin and Cam to watch the homecoming game, but our team lost. It was a very close game though.

Cameron had his first flag football game today. I couldn't believe how warm it was, and I even got a bit of a sunburn on my nose! Cam played really well, and got in several flag pulls as well as scoring a touch down. I really enjoy flag football, I think it is more difficult to pull a flag off a running guy than it is to tackle someone.

Things that I am thinking about this week, for those of you keeping track, I am now 27 weeks pregnant. This may not mean anything at first, until you realize that I am due on Christmas Day. This means that there are only 13 weeks (roughly 90 days) until Christmas. For those of you who know me very well, you will know that Christmas is not my favorite holiday. The downfall of having a baby due then is that I have a running countdown of how much longer I have to get my shopping started! Not that my friend Terri doesn't keep me posted about that enough!

The other thought that I have been having all afternoon came from our new priest, Father Anthony, who is so very gifted. His homily today was about not loving our gifts more than the One who gave them to us. Boy, am I guilty of that most of the time. Now I have something else to work on! Funny how when life is the craziest, we can realize how much we have been given. And when we are crazy, it is so easy to forget to take the time to be thankful.

Relay and more...

Well, I was right, this has been a maniac festival of a weekend. But it has also been very fun! The kids loved participating in the Relay for Life again this year, and were proud to say that $58,600 was raised for cancer research. All of the big kids spent the night walking with Jim. They all logged quite a few miles, but Cam was especially proud that he managed to make it 100 laps which is 25 miles! They all have sore tired feet and legs today though, but it was for such a worthy cause!! Preston, Quincy and I spent the evening there and then came home for a decent place to sleep! It was a lot of fun for everyone.

I am now in the process of catching up on some paperwork and planning and getting ready for another week. We managed to go pick apples at my grandma's house today and spent some time visiting with her. She is having her surgery this Thursday, so lots of prayers are needed! Preston, Quincy and Mallory helped me pick apples, and now I will spend some time freezing them. Nothing beats hot apple crisp in the winter! I also managed to get several quarts of tomatoes in the freezer, and we made pear butter, which turned out great - but pears really bake down when you cook them, so I didn't get as many quarts as I originally thought I would. We also made salsa, and although I thought since I tripled the amount of jalapenos it would be pretty hot, and I thought it was pretty warm tasting, my wonderful husband thought it was pretty mild. I am feeling very domestic lately, although again, I am thankful for the help from the girls in getting things done!

Mallory and Madison will be making their confirmation at church, and will be starting classes for that in a couple of weeks, but we learned today that they will not be confirmed until next October, which is fine, but for some reason I thought it would be in the spring. Either way, I just hope that they will have a good experience in the classes and that they will learn alot, and be touched by the Holy Spirit. They have to perform 40 hours of community service...they thought that sounded like an AWFUL amount - until I pointed out that they got in 12 hours last night! Really, with how active they are in church and 4-H it won't take them nearly as long as they are thinking!

I had a meeting on Friday for Preston to get speech therapy at preschool. As a part of the meeting, they asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up. My very creative son looked at them straight faced and replied "I want to be a light bulb." That's when they called in the crisis intervention team (just kidding!). Honestly, though, I am not sure how you respond to an answer like that - the school psychologist (who happens to be the same one who was there when I was growing up) responded that in all her years she had never heard that answer before!

Am I ready for the weekend?

Quick! Someone call Drew Carey and tell him I found Mimi!!

This weekend is shaping up to be a maniac festival! The kids 4-H club is walking in the Relay for Life, Colin has football practice, there is a parent meeting for those whose kids will be making their confirmation at church this year, I have to do the ordering of the prizes for the school carnival (which is complicated by the fact that we are now 3 schools together so I have no idea how many kids to expect). I have a baby gift for a friend's baby which is now a month old but we have been sick and so I have been reluctant to go see the baby! I need to make sure to deliver that before the baby outgrows it! My house is a disaster, my laundry has been washed and dried but not folded for days on end, and I have been given lots of produce that I need to finish canning and freezing, and my grandma's tree is covered in the most amazing apples which she is begging people to come pick before they go bad. Thinking of it all kind of makes me want to crawl in bed, pull the covers up over my head and take a nap!



The good news? I have help! Thank God for his wisdom in sending me 2 lovely assistants (aka Mallory and Madison) and one awesome husband who has graciously agreed to spend the night at the Relay for Life with the bigger kids so I can come home and get a decent night's sleep!

Mystery Guest

Well, I had a sonogram this morning. #7 looks beautiful in every way, containing all the right parts in all the right places, at least those we could see. However, #7 does not wish for us to know if it is a boy or a girl, and kept its little legs tightly crossed during the whole 1/2 hour that we were looking! The lady performing the sonogram told us that she could not see and did not feel comfortable wagering a guess at it! So...we know that our due date of Christmas day is right on with how the baby measures, and we know that #7 weighs 1 pound and 14 oz. We know that it can throw us a "thumbs up" sign, and we know that it is highly squirmy! We also know that it likes surprises! And I now know that Jim and I have to come up with a little girl's name to go with the boy's name we have decided upon! I also know that I will be searching for neutral clothing since #7 decided to remain our little mystery blessing!

meet "Jay Lizzard"

This is our newest family member. The pet store in Topeka had exactly one green anole to choose from. Cameron was very excited! He has named his anole "Jay Lizard" and Jay has already preformed one escape when we were trying to transfer him from the pet store box into his cage. Luckily, Cam is pretty quick and had him captured again in no time! Jay also didn't waste any time eating his 2 cricket diet, much to the delight of 3 children who thought watching him eat was the neatest thing ever! Taking photos into a small plastic enclosure doesn't do his beautiful green complexion justice though!

What did you do today?

I spent my day helping Cameron build a vivarium for a green anole. We had to go shopping for a container, and we purchased a couple of cheap plants. We then planted the plants, found rocks, dirt, and sticks for an anole loving environment. We also looked up some valuable information on line about how to care for an anole. We wanted to purchase his anole today as well, but the pet store in Lawrence was sold out. Luckily, we have to go to Topeka for my sonogram tomorrow, so we can hit the pet store there. He was a little disappointed that they didn't have any today. He is excited about having his own pet! This little project is for his science unit where we are studying ecosystems, environment, and predator/prey relationships. It also will teach some responsibility I hope!

new week...

It is now a new week. All of the kids are back at school and seemingly healthy. Jim is back to work and seemingly healthy. I am feeling good. I hope this is here to stay!
Colin missed his football game this weekend since he was running a fever. It caused him some emotional trauma, but I think he will recover.
We will have a sonogram tomorrow, and will be finding out the sex of #7. There are many bets going on at our house. I guess they all have a 50-50 chance of being right! I kind of feel that this baby is a girl, but am sort of hoping for a boy since we have a boy's name picked out and we won't have to have a million discussions about that!! Not that we won't be happy either way! We really are only interested in the baby being healthy!
Homeschool is going really well by now. We have settled into a routine, and Cameron seems to continue to work really hard for me. He is a pretty good student! We have committed to taking him to speech once a week in Lawrence. His speech teacher is really nice, and we don't mind the drive up (I tend to use the time to run all our errands which I used to run in Topeka). We have also enrolled him in Overbrook's homeschool group which meets once a week and they have music, art, home ec., do science experiments, and social studies. He really enjoys being with the kids in the group, and seems to be having a lot of fun with that. The coolest part of the program is his Spanish class. It is almost all done online, and it is a lot of interactive games. I am amazed at how much Spanish he is picking up, and how much he loves it...he begs to play the games over and over, and he wants to start out each day with Spanish. He also begs to work ahead and it is pretty neat to see a kid so excited about learning!
I will post some sonogram photos tomorrow and let you know which group of kids at our house wins the bets!

sometimes...

the road is bumpy

This has not been one of our better weeks. The kids have been sick, the husband has been sick, things have not slowed down like I wanted them to, Colin's football team lost their game, the weather has been yucky, work is not going well because of the weather, and I am feeling a bit crabby!

Luckily, God gives us a new week, and here's hoping that next week is much better than this one has been!

Fishing derby

No opening ceremony would be complete without a ribbon cutting!

Preston caught 3 nice sized fish, this was the first which was 17 inches long.

Colin had a much slower day than he would have liked, but he did reel in this 18 inch really big beauty! He also technically caught the first fish in the new pond, however he forgot to wait until the whistle blew, so it didn't count!

Cam had a great time - but I never saw any of the fish he caught because he decided it was too crowded where we were fishing (I decided between my bladder and Quincy being new to potty training we should stay on the side of the pond near the bathrooms).

The girls had not wanted to fish today, but both ended up taking turns trying to help Quincy, who is not a patient fisherman.

Luckily, every kid got a medal today - even the ones who caught ZERO fish and destroyed her pole....but we aren't mentioning any names!

Every successful marriage I believe, is successful because there is open communication, love and people understand their own roles in the marriage. Today, Jim was very busy with helping run this derby, but I also want to point out that fishing is Jim's department. I am not afraid of touching a fish, a worm, liver etc, I am not squeemish of any of these things, but Jim really likes fishing and he knows how to do it well. I on the other hand, after 15 minutes am pretty well done, ready to go home, I do not understand the whole idea of standing around for hours trying to catch a fish that may or may not want to be caught. Jim is fully in charge of the fishing duties in our household!

11 days

Well, last year Colin missed the 2nd day of school because he was sick. Today was the 12th day and Madison stayed home with a fever. The way I figure - we had 11 days in before our first illness, so we are in much better shape than we were last year!

I took Quincy to get her preschool physical today, and she has another ear infection. She has had many ear infections over her little 3 years of life. Our doctor would really love to think about putting tubes in her ears. I am really not sure how I feel about this. I can't imagine my wild little Quincy having to wear ear plugs etc in order to get in the tub. My sister tells me that they don't really have the restrictions that they used to have, but I still don't know. We will see how the rest of the fall goes, if she continues on her infectious path, then we might not have a choice. I knew she hasn't been feeling well this week, but I thought it was just a virus. When they started to check her ears and she started howling like a banshee, I knew.

On an unrelated note, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer today. Please keep her in your prayers as we move forward to see what type of treatment she will be needing and what type of surgeries she might be need. She is such a rock in my life, and a great example of faith, and I am very worried about her.

On a happier note, #7 seems to have moved a trampoline into my uterus. This is absolutely the squirmiest baby I have ever carried! We will be having a sonogram soon, and then we can begin the great name debate. I am pretty sure we have settled on a boy's name. The girl's name that we like, however, I feel is becoming too popular, and so I am starting to not want to use it. When we had Madison and Mallory, I really thought that we had picked sweet, yet unpopular names....little did I know that Madison would be on the top of the charts for most of the late 90's and is still being used pretty regularly today! I like names that are a little less common, but not so weird that people can't remember what you named your kid. When I was pregnant with Preston, Jim really wanted to name him Frank, and my grandpa Robert told me "Frank- now there's a name I could actually remember!!" It still makes me smile!

We have a fun, but wild holiday weekend planned. Jim has helped plan out a fishing derby for the grand opening of the children's fishing pond at the new city park. Colin, Cameron, Preston and Quincy are all planning to fish in the morning. I will be sure to take lots of photos. Quincy thinks she will win a trophy for catching a pink fish. If she manages it, I will take tons and tons of photos!

Sickos

I'm not blaming this...
but this kid

and this kid

have been sick all week. Fevers - nothing else. Weird little virus, which is causing misery in our household.

The older kids don't seem to have it, Jim seems to be ok (except for his back is bothering him) and I have never kicked that stubborn cough that I have had for the whole month of August, but Preston and Quincy are not well. I feel bad for them. They just seem to be interested in sleeping on the couch, watching a little Dora, and drinking some water. It is so sad! Of course, we have been giving them some ibuprofen, and that seems to perk them up for a couple hours, and then it is right back to fever time when the medicine wears off. I guess there is a lot of this stuff going around...but I feel that it is much too early for cold and flu season to be starting!