It's a Two Bath Day!

These are the days when I hate letting toddlers learn how to feed themselves! It's no wonder she's getting thinner when she wears all of her food instead of eating it! But who can resist taking a picture of that cute little face covered in oatmeal. She's learning the natural beauty tricks early! I tell you.. she's a girly, girl! We love you soooo much Reese... even when you make a huge mess... these days just go by too quickly!

Our life in pictures...

NO GAS!!! There is a serious shortage of gas in Charlotte and all the surrounding areas and they are now saying it may be 7 - 10 days before some stations get more gas. There are a few stations that are still able to get small shipments and the lines are miles long with people waiting to get more gas. It's horrible. They reported on the news last night that people were even having fist fights over filling up. Looks like we will have plenty of time at home to organize and dejunk! Nowhere else to go when there is no gas and if you do find it, you'll pay $4.00 per gallon and wait and hour to get it!

Nice haircut Mark - now he's 2 inches shorter! He finally got sick of the thinning hair on top and went back to the ultra buzz cut instead. It was hilarious to see Reese touch his hair and look at him all weird. She was about 7 months old when he started growing his hair out for the pageant. She definitely did not remember her Dad with a fuzzy head!
Party Popper Fights!!! We survived Brennan's birthday party sleepover.. even though we had to delay it a week due to sick kids. Most of the boys were able to come and we all enjoyed some late night bowling and a movie. They made it to bed around 2AM... and were up by 7:30AM... ugh!!! We introduced the boys who slept over to breakfast burritos and pancakes with chocolate chips, strawberry jam and whip cream! YUM! Brennan has some great friends!
Caught! Brock thought it would be funny to give the Princess a sugared donut! She LOVED it! If only we could get her to eat other things... she is soooo picky!!!
Tanner and Mark had fun at our friends house on the unicycles. It has now started an epidemic at our house and I do believe that Tanner has talked to every bike dealer in the Carolina's trying to find himself one... and he has spent countless hours shopping online for the perfect deal. He was VERY good at it and was able to get his balance after just a few tries. AMAZING!!! Mark... well.. let's just say that he won't be joining the circus anytime soon.. but he might need to visit a chiropractor. Good thing he has a day job! Thanks Hafener's for a great time and a wonderful 1st birthday party for Miss Abby!

Excuse me... WHAT did you just say???

It's not often that I have blogged about other people, but this mornings walk made for a good reason to start! Today has been absolutely beautiful so Mark and I took Reese in the stroller and went for a walk in the neighborhood. It was such a great time to talk and enjoy the cool weather and just relax... UNTIL... a certain person in our neighborhood decided she would greet us with the most bold and stupid comments I have ever heard in a long time. This person started her own photography business last year and photographed our family last fall. Last year she made a huge stink... in a very sarcastic, and rude way about how LARGE our family was. She commented several times about how she would have to move back to fit such a huge family into her lens and how she just didn't know what to do with so many kids. At the time, I was not impressed, but I was very happy to finally be getting some photos of the entire family and truthfully I just let her comments roll off my back.

Today however... she couldn't stop herself, and went too far. As we walked by today.. she shouts from her mini van as she loads one of her two daughters into the car..."Hey, I'll have to take your pictures again, UNLESS you've got another one coming ...sigh of disgust...(in the same breath...) Are you done yet???... Do you think you'll have anymore??? How many more DO you think you'll have?" HELLO... do I ask you why you stopped after two girls? Do I rag on you for only having TWO children... I hardly even know you... what makes you think you can shout out to the street questions about how many kids I have and then determine whether or not you'll take our pictures. Why do you even think that it's your business to ask me about the size of my family? Well I can PROMISE you that she will never be burdened with having to try and fit our LARGE family into her little camera lens ever again!!!

Mark and I love these children with ALL of our HEARTS!!! I certainly think we are doing a fine job of raising our LARGE family and wouldn't change a BIT! Yes it's challenging at times, and yes we are as busy as can be, but we LOVE every minute of it - even the not so pleasant minutes. We make mistakes as parents all the time, but I can assure you that NONE of our children are mistakes! We have a blast together. There is no perfect number of children for a perfect family. Everyone is different and we can all handle different things.. I just hope that she knows that I know EXACTLY how many kids we can handle. Sadly.. her business name is "In His Image"... I just don't think she gets it! It is all part of His plan that leads us to such a beautiful family!!!

We're getting better!

Hooray! We are crossing our fingers, but it apprears that we are finally getting better! All the boys are in school this week...yippee... no calls from the school nurse..hooray... and Reese is doing much, MUCH better. She seems to be back to her usual self and has even changed her sleep habits to a much more tolerable early bed time. That's is certainly worth celebrating. Hopefully this trend will continue. We feel so blessed to have everyone feeling better and can only hope and pray that Reese's tests will all come back normal and then I can finally take a deep breath.

Please STOP the Merry Go Round.. We Want OFF!

Please.... we are now heading into week four of constant sickness at our house and frankly... we are SICK of it... no pun intended! My goodness this has made us really appreciate our health and the times when everyone feels well. Reese's fever finally ended on Friday followed by an amazing lacy rash that cover her body. With three trips to the doctor for her last week, chest x-rays, and blood test (not pleasant on a 1 year old), the doctors still feel that she just has a virus. By Friday morning as she was returning to normal, Brock woke up with a stomach ache and diarrhea and by noon Tanner had called from the middle school with an awful sore throat and stomach ache too. Hello! This was beginning to become comical in a way.

With the doctors warning me that Reese was probably susceptible to getting sick again with her immune system down, I decided I would stay home from church with her, Brock and Tanner but get rides for Tate and Brennan. Then this morning, much to my dismay, Tate woke up with a nasty cough and running to the bathroom and Brennan had an awful cold. I feel like we are being pummeled with dodge balls and we have no defense!

Oh and did I mention that on Friday, just before I took Reese back to the doctor she pulled a can of green beans out of the cupboard and it landed on her big toe causing the nail to lift and gush blood everywhere. Ouch!!! She screamed for a loooong time... and then seemed to calm down until she would look at the bandage on her toe and it would start all over again. She really is starting to be quite the Drama Queen. She has inherited my lovely pouty bottom lip and man can she use it. I remember when I was a kid my Mom would tell me that a bird was going to come and poop on my lip if I didn't stop pouting. It's hilarious to see her now use her little lip as bargaining power. Especially when Daddy is around. After the toe incident, needless to say, Mark felt really bad since I have been asking him for weeks to get the baby proofing locks on in the kitchen. We'll be starting that project first thing Monday morning for sure.

If there is any consolation to all this madness... I'm not spending at money shopping and we certainly are saving gas money by not driving anywhere. One that note... most of the gas stations in Charlotte are currently out of gas thanks to the horrible hurricane Ike that hit Texas. However the price gouging started the day before the hurricane hit. When I drove Reese to the doctor on Friday I passed a station that had gas at $3.61 for regular... an hour later on the way home it was up to $3.89. To make matters worse, when Mark went over to get gas 3 hours later, it was at $4.29... and GONE! He drove to another station closer to home only to find their prices the same and LONG lines and very grouchy people. ( We'll save that story for another day.. but let it be known that Mark was waiting in line for ever despite the rude comments and horrible tantrum a lady through at him when she though he was cutting in line.) There is great prudence in being prepared for storms long before they occur... people get NASTY when they are desperate! And that was only gas... I can only imagine how people would act when it was a fight over food. Stock up that Food Storage.. angry people are waiting!

Well we can only hope for this virus to pass quickly and get things back to normal around here. We had to cancel Brennan's birthday party that was supposed to be on Friday night and now it's rescheduled for this next Friday. Hopefully this week will work much better! Ahhhhh...

It's the Most Wond-er-ful Time...of the Year!

Remember that old Staples office supply commercial where the parents are singing the Christmas carol... "It's the most wonderful time of the year..."??? It's my new theme song! Well if you remember it...the father is singing away as he rides the shopping cart through the store buying school supplies while the kids are sadly walking as slow as can be with such grumpy faces. I am sure that Mark and I are far more excited for the kids to be back in school than they are now. I think the novelty is wearing off for them and reality is setting in. Early mornings... homework... projects... early bed time.. you know, all the GOOD stuff.

Now that the kids for the most part are getting healthy again, this was my first week to not have any sick kids at home with the exception of Reese. You can imagine the excitement at our house this week. FINALLY... I have been able to conquer the house again. After a summer full of wild, mind-blowing, mess-making, tornado-trashing kids running around the house, I was more than ready to regain control of the house in every which way possible. It truly had been months since I felt like I had the laundry and clutter under control and I can't remember how long it has been since I was able to decided what to have for dinner before.. hmm... 5pm. I guess it has unfortunately helped that Reese had been very sick again this week with a fever and we have been stuck at home too. I get a lot of things done when I am home all day with just a little one around. We are all breathing a sigh of relief to have the house back in order...There is much wisdom in having a house of order. And on that note... back to the dishes. Grrrrumble, Grrrrumble!

The Big DOUBLE Digits!

Happy Birthday Brennan! Yep.. Brennan hit the big 1-0 on Friday! Brennan had a party weekend and will continue the fun next weekend with his friends. Wow! That's a lot of celebrating... but hey, he's 10! Actually, we had a very quiet celebration on Friday going out to the Olive Garden for dinner and then home to watch a movie.. College Road Trip. We were all so full from the dinner that we decided to wait and have cake on Saturday night. His choice was ice cream cake for this weekend and I'm not sure what he'll want me to make for him and his friends - it sure made my life easier to buy his cake from DQ!!! This next Friday, he is having several boys come for a sleepover and to go bowling, etc. This should be interesting.. We've never done sleepovers with more than 2 friends so... I think we may be in for a little bit of trouble. It's already like a sleepover here every night just trying to get all four of the boys to get in bed and to sleep each night... add five more boys all Brennan's age and I think we have a recipe for a really wild night. We'll have to report more on that later. Brennan is a great kid with such a huge heart! He is such a blessing to all of us and we are so grateful to have him in our family!