weekend fun

This is my mom with Harper. She tends to be a little bit fussy in the evenings, but when grandma is in control, everything is sunshine and rainbows!
(I mean that Harper tends to be fussy in the evening, not my mom).

Friday evening we went to my brother's house for my niece's 5th birthday. She got a webkinz - and Preston was helping her with it online....I am thinking he might be a little bit of an addict? It was a fun evening, and happily it only took us 15 minutes to get home this time as opposed to an hour in the blizzard on Christmas eve!

Saturday was 4-H county club day. Mallory, Madison and Colin were all in the club's line dance group this year. They danced really well, and ended up getting top purple. They will be dancing again at regionals in a few weeks. They have worked really hard and I am very proud. They did a much harder dance this year, and it turned out really great! The dedication and practices have been pretty demanding, so it was great to see them do so well!

Madison was also on a gavel games team, and they also got a top purple. They will be working hard before regionals to get their program a little longer! They had 30 minutes - their program consisted of a lot of parliamentary procedures, but they were all squeezed into about 7 or 8 minutes!

I mentioned that Jim took the kids to the circus. Even though I didn't attend with them, I think I have heard enough to say that they had a great time! Jim's grandpa was a Shriner, and when he was alive, he always sent the kids tickets to the circus. We hadn't been for a couple of years, and I thought maybe some of the older kids would have outgrown the desire to go....but I was once again wrong! They all had great memories of circuses past, and all came home with a new favorite part. I didn't think I would ever get Quincy into bed last night, she was so excited telling me all about everything she saw, and got to do! Apparently her knack for meeting people paid off when the guy in front of them felt sorry for her and bought her some cotton candy!

Preston, Quincy and Cam also rode an elephant...Quincy reported to me that this makes your rear end hurt.

I am so happy to see that March is here tomorrow! Madison starts track practices next week, so I am saying that these things mean that spring is here. I am sure that we are in for warmer weather, green grass, time outside, track meets, and starting baseball practices. I couldn't be happier!!

Why I love this man...

Tonight Jim took all 6 of our older kids out to dinner and then to the circus and gave me a night at home, controlling the remote control and rocking our baby. It was delightful!

To say that this was a sacrifice is beyond an understatement considering that there was a KSU game on tv - which I watched all by myself!

Thanks daddy!

insanity factory

I have decided that my house is a factory of insanity. This would be part of the newest line of photos of Miss Harper - by the famous photographer Mallory - complete in her bikini top belonging to Quincy over her pj's with a headband? Really? This poor baby!

A few weeks ago when taking the boys to religion ed I hit a dog. I felt really bad, but when I got turned around to go try to see whose dog it was, it was gone. This week when going to pick the boys up from their RE class, I saw 4 deer on the road. Luckily, I didn't hit any this time!

I was also posting about lent recently and how I had not gotten off to a great start. Well, today I am picking up some beef we ordered - on a Friday. Luckily, I remembered it was Friday, so I am not planning to cook any! Cameron has decided to give up chocolate for lent this year. I have been very proud of him...this family likes chocolate! Girl Scout cookies are in and surprisingly, every single box I ordered contained some sort of chocolate! Sacrifice!

The weekend is looking a little bit on the nutty side, but I will post more about that later if I survive it all!

Mid way

This week has been an exciting one - OK I lied, it has been a run-around, accomplish little, lose days, more bad weather, not sure where the time has gone again week. Saturday night we attended the 4-H BINGO night, and even though I had every intention of winning a processed hog, it wasn't meant to be...instead I won a wonderful coffee mug and some coupons to Chili's. Sunday, I planned to go to mass and then go watch Colin wrestle. Actually, it was the first time that we could all go to a tournament as a family and cheer him on. BUT, we had a pretty good amount of ice on Saturday night, and I didn't feel safe driving all of us around, so we stayed home from church and I figured we would skip wrestling as well, but Jim decided that the roads would be ok if they drove slowly, so he took Colin. Colin got 3rd place. He has been wrestling a lot of the same kids week after week. There is a girl in his weight class that is a tremendous wrestler - she placed at nationals last year. She has been giving him fits this year. He was really excited when he got home because even though she beat him again, this time he avoided being pinned by her and she only won in points. Progress??!!??

I took my mom to the hospital to have a little procedure done on Monday. One thing I have learned about hospitals is that they don't get in any hurry (unless you are in labor and supposed to have a c-section). We were there for a pretty good chunk of the day, and I had taken Harper and Quincy with me. Harper was good - Quincy was good too (wink wink). Quincy does not wait well. Patience is not her virtue. She quickly grew tired of "riding" my mom's hospital bed, watching tv, and coloring. To ask her to play with the tremendous amount of toys she brought was out of the question! Luckily, mom wasn't feeling really bad and she was entertained with her antics! While my mom was having her tests etc. done I took Harper to her 2 month checkup. She is up to 12 pounds 6 ounces now! My big girl! She is healthy and all is going well with her - our doctor didn't want to put her on medicine for the reflux just yet, so we are trying some over the counter stuff for her. So far, I have not been impressed! When we were there, I had our doctor look at Quincy as well, since she had been complaining of ear pain. She has another ear infection. This is the 9th one in 2 years, so we will be seeing our old buddy the ear nose and throat doctor to see if he wants to put in tubes! I am not sure how I feel about this, I guess I will wait and see what they can tell me about it. I don't want her to have hearing loss or antibiotic resistance, so I think we are at a point that we will not have a choice.

Mallory and Madison report to me that they are going to get to pick out classes for high school this week. I told Jim that they must be geniuses because I am sure that they are entering high school at the age of 7. And wasn't it just a week or so ago that I was picking out classes for MY freshman year? WOW! They are really excited, and seemed to be making rational choices about what classes they should take, what will prepare them for college and all that. I was proud of their thinking skills! Still can't believe they will be in high school, but proud nonetheless! Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't blink, they will all be grown up and my nest will be empty!

Thoughts from the weekend

Cameron played his last 'regular season' game this morning. He still has a tournament coming up, and then he will be done with basketball. Harper was really excited to watch him play!

Cam's team had a rather rough time this morning, and even though they played pretty well, they lost. Cam made several points and got in some tremendous rebounds! We are proud of how much this team has learned this season and how much better they are playing!

Jim has gotten several of the stud walls together and even has some of them up. His progress came to a screeching halt though, as he caught the flu that the rest of us had this week. He is feeling a little better. So far, I haven't helped him at all other than carrying some of the wood into the basement. He has a new assistant it would seem, as Colin has taken a real interest in helping, and they seem to work pretty well together. We are going to have a lot of junk to clean out of the basement before we can move anyone down there though! Colin is hoping that dad will be feeling good enough to work some this afternoon and evening - he is excited about getting a bigger bedroom!

Colin is wrestling tomorrow in a tournament in Topeka. I am excited because it is an afternoon tourney and since Cam played today and he wrestles tomorrow, Jim and I can attend both things. Neither Jim nor I like missing out on the kids events!

Tonight we are attending a BINGO night for the 4-H livestock auction fundraiser. The grand prize is a processed hog. I am hoping that I can win that! Of course, I am not so lucky with that type of stuff, so I guess just knowing our money will be helping the 4-Hers is enough! I guess the bonus is that I don't have to cook dinner! Still, a nice ham and some pork chops sound pretty darn good!!! It is getting close to time to start thinking about baby pigs to raise too, and this has got me to thinking about that. I look forward to that because it means that spring, and warmer weather must be around the corner!

Lent

Why is it that lent had to start in a week that the kids and Jim had Monday off, so today seems like a Tuesday? I started out Ash Wednesday with eating a sandwich for breakfast - a sandwich that had sliced deli chicken on it. UUG! I NEVER eat sandwiches for breakfast! I didn't make the fasting and abstinence last for 5 minutes! Once I realized what day it was things went better. I have to serve communion and Colin is acolyte at church tonight, and we will get rolling on this lent issue! I know that lent is a time to focus and do better with our lives, and I will, I just got a late start this year! Thankfully, ours is a loving and forgiving God!

Miss Harper has had a rough few days with her stomach. She has her 2 month checkup next week and I am going to request that she be put on some acid reducing medications. She just cries after she eats and balls herself up. She has a hard time and it doesn't seem to matter what I eat, she has stomach trouble. The good news is that she is still sleeping most of the night.

Other news which isn't exciting, but it is frustrating is that my washer is about to bite the dust. This is not an old washer and I am oh so disappointed in Whirlpool for building a plastic piece of junk that I was dumb enough to pay premium amounts of money for. I had the repair guy out yesterday because it is SO LOUD - he told me the bearings are going out and that there is no way to fix it - and that ordering the parts will cost me more than the washer is worth. He suggested to me that everyone he knows that has this model is disappointed. He said to keep using it until is stops working. I don't know if it will last a month or a year, but we have laundry so I am plugging my ears and using it anyhow. I guess I will start a savings account and start researching tougher models!

Happy lent everyone - good luck on re-focusing our lives and re-thinking the things that we are doing! Its going to be a good one (now that I know its here that is!).

2 months old!

Harper is 2 months old today! I can't believe how fast time is flying by! She is a really good baby, and except for some stomach and reflux trouble, we hardly hear any complaints or crying from her! The kids really love their little sister, and we are all adjusted to having her around now. We are very lucky that she is such a good baby and likes going places and seeing people!

We had another typical for us crazy weekend. Colin wrestled in Lenexa, and had a pretty good day...he got 3rd place. It was a tough tournament, and Jim says that the seating and accommodations left a little to be desired. Apparently they had 10 mats of wrestling in a gym with only half a gym of bleachers. Yahoo maps also let them down and they were later than they wanted to be so getting one of the seats didn't happen. But they did make it there, and Colin had a good day so that is all that really counts in the long run. They were even able to find a salesman who was selling the headgear that Colin had been looking for...and I had promised him we would get a new one as soon as we found what he was looking for, so that worked out good - no trips to town for that!

Cameron had a basketball game this weekend too. I took him and his team won. It was a pretty good game, Cam made 4 points and had a lot of great rebounds. It was fun to watch.
Sunday after mass I took Mallory and Madison (and Harper) and we went on a shopping excursion for their birthday. I am not the world's best or most willing shopper, so I was a little worried about the trip, but it was all the girls asked for as a birthday party this year. I took 5 teen aged girls to eat pizza and then we shopped until I dropped (actually Harper and I spent part of the time sitting in the car watching it snow), and then we went to Sonic for drinks and came home. As birthday parties go, it was definitely not the worst one we have ever had! The girls had a good time and I did not embarrass them too much I don't think! (Because I am a cool mom after all!) They actually have always had pretty nice, well rounded friends so I feel that as mom duties go, I got off pretty easily!
Our church is being re-modeled. This was the first weekend of us trying to hold mass in the basement of the church. Father Anthony joked that it was a great sacrifice for lent, but truly, it is going to be very difficult to be squished together on folding chairs. I will be very happy when they finish! I will say though, that they started in the basement and they did a terrific job! For the first time since I have been teaching religion, we sat in the church basement and didn't have to wear coats during the class. It will be great when it is all done! I am thankful that they didn't start this process before we got Harper's baptism done last weekend!
This week is looking especially busy, and Jim and I have also decided to try to finish our basement. So far, he is doing a pretty good job of building up some stud walls, and we are going to attempt to build a couple of simple bedrooms. Our goal is to put the boys and Mallory downstairs. This will free up some space for Harper and Quincy to have a bedroom and separate Mallory and Madison. Since we are planning to build, but what we want to build is a little out of our budget at the present time, this is the cheapest solution to having more space. Pray for our safety and marriage as we have never tackled a project quite this big before! I am sure it will end up being great when it is done! The kids are definitely excited! I will try to do a good job of taking before and after photos.

Friday at last!

This of course was the week for Valentine's Day parties at school. Quincy couldn't even get her coat off before she had her stash dumped and was taking inventory yesterday! She had most of her candy eaten before lunch, and is anxiously waiting for the big kids to get home so she can see what goodies they got today!

Madison sat for about 1/2 an hour taking photos of herself wearing Quincy's barbie glasses last night. I am not sure why she felt the need to do this, but I decided if she was going to make the effort, I should post at least one of the photos!

Harper is getting so big! I love this picture of her with her double chins and her little dimple! Of course, the best photo we have taken of her in a while has to be on the middle of my kitchen table amongst the paper and clutter! Oh well, that is the true us I suppose!

It has been a little bit of a tough week. Some of us have been sick with a wicked but fast moving flu bug. Harper has been a little under the weather, but we can't tell if it is a flu or if it is from the antibiotics that she was on for the ear infection. She has finished those, so we will see if her stomach calms down a little - I told Jim we should just nickname her laundry-maker. Poor baby!

We are looking forward to a 3 day weekend (for the kids anyhow). I wish I could say we were going to have a nice time staying home, but that is never the case on weekends this time of year!

Happy Birthday girls!

Yesterday was Mallory and Madison's 14th birthday! I can hardly believe that my 'babies' are so old already! Mallory wanted a red velvet cake - I think I know why now - nobody but her likes red velvet so essentially she gets a cake all to herself! I am very proud of Mallory - she even had to work on her birthday yesterday! She is a sweet, art loving, tender hearted, great big sister! She is a lot of help to me and I really do appreciate it!

Madison had a chocolate cake, and this family loves chocolate! We had slices of cake, Madison went to take a shower and when she came out, Quincy had successfully eaten the rest of the frosting off the top! Madison is a sweet, tender hearted girl with a passion for neatness and order. I appreciate this quality more than I could ever say, and I will admit that there are days where if she wasn't here to motivate me our dishes would not get done! Madison is also a great big sister, and Preston is definitely a lucky little boy to have her always looking out for him!

Yesterday I was telling the girls that on the day they were born I have never been more scared in my life. It was not an easy day! They were born blue - I had no idea that babies could be the color of smurfs, but they were! They weren't in the room very long after delivery before they whisked them away because they were premature and Madison was very sick. When Madison was only hours old she was taken in a helicopter to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. I am a control freak, so this was not at all in my plans for my newborn baby! We are very blessed that they got all the medical treatment that they needed, and have had no setbacks in their lives. I am very proud of their accomplishments and I am thankful every day that God has given me the gift of such wonderful daughters!

We also discussed the fact that they have missed the cutoff for getting a learning permit for driving at 14. They missed this deadline by a mere 6 weeks. Jim and I had to admit that we were not overly sad by this missed opportunity, as neither of us is quite ready to have daughters behind the wheel - we aren't ready emotionally and we aren' t old enough to have kids this age!

Superbowl weekend

We started out our weekend with Madison and I getting in a much needed trip to the salon. I am now able to get a brush through my hair! I always feel good after going there - should go way more often. Following our beautification, we watched Cameron's team play basketball. His team lost, 13-18 with Cameron making 9 of their 13 points. They are playing pretty well, and are learning a lot so that is what is important!

Colin is not wrestling this weekend, so we were happy to have a Saturday without having to get up at 4 a.m. - sleeping in felt really good!

This was a special Sunday for Harper, as she was baptized at church. She did a really nice job of not crying! Since her Godfather was a victim of the non-ending bad weather and because I failed in my quest to kill a groundhog, Uncle Jay was not able to come up for the event, but never fear, Cameron stood in for him. It was a nice day and we were happy that the weather here cooperated enough to be able to get the baptism done and lunch in before the non-ending snow shows up again tonight.

This was almost a nice family photo, if only Quincy had stood up - we are finding one of the difficulties of having a large family is getting a photo where all of us are in it, and someone is not looking totally dorky is next to impossible!!

This is Aunt Amy with her 2 Godchildren! (Rough crowd?)

Sometimes I would love to know what a baby is really thinking! To me this says - Hey Mom get me the heck out of here!

We are now getting ready to host a Superbowl party for a couple of friends and cousins to come over and watch the game. We had to limit our guests to those who live here in town due to the forecast of another 8 inches of snow tonight. Although people are welcome to stay with us anytime, you would have to be a little nutty to willingly get snowed in here!!

First Bleck

Well, as I strive every day to win mom of the year, I am thinking that this week I am not it! I noticed on Monday as I took Preston to the dentist that Harper was sort of fussy - but hey, we went to Wal-mart and who doesn't get fussy when going there? Other than the little fussy spell in that awful place, she has been fine. Tuesday I noticed that she had some really gross waxy stuff in her ear, but I cleaned it and we went on. Wednesday same story, Thursday it dawns on me that this isn't normal so I finally take her to the doctor. She not only had an ear infection, but she had burst her eardrum. Boy do I feel like a dork! Of course, she hasn't been overly fussy, she hasn't had a fever, and she didn't seem out of the ordinary in any other ways, so I guess I am not sure how I would have known. I do feel bad that she suffered for a few days before I realized it though. Our doctor thinks it is a result of her reflux - which she seems to really suffer from. She is quite a spitty baby! Of course that doesn't bother her either...she just spits and smiles. We are now trying to keep her head elevated -especially when she sleeps to see if that helps her. They do have some medications available to help if elevation doesn't.

Other interesting events of the week. we went to kindergarten round up today with Preston - it would appear that he is rounded and ready to go. Also, Overbrook had a high speed chase and a man who escaped police (those things never happen here). And I had a moment or two of panic this morning as I was hearing that there was a fatality accident on the highway after I dropped my kids off for school and they were on that same highway on a bus. The buses were not involved, and I pray for comfort for the families of the ones who were involved.

Groundhog Day

I am planning a little road trip to Pennsylvania. My mission - I am going to hunt down that dang groundhog and eat him for dinner! Have you ever noticed that he sees his shadow EVERY year? Could they not mix it up a little and say for once that winter is over already???? Anyone want to ride along?