Boot Camp Graduation

Today Aaron graduated and is officially a United States Marine.

I was in the Navy, I have brother in the Air Force and two in the Marines. Now I only have one to go. Wonder which service he will choose.

Took the youngest four kids to the ceremony and they did pretty good.

I took a contrast picture with my two "little" brothers - at one time I was taller than both of them!

I was wondering if Taniyah came up to Aaron's kneecap. She does but not by much.

The picture is Aaron 22, Taniyah 14 months and Brent 27.

Wednesday post

Rod went to his follow-up appt and just called me.

His right eye is worse than when they started yesterday.

Somehow the flap that they lay back down has wrinkles in it.

They are redoing the procedure and putting in a contact.

He will go back tomorrow to see if it worked.

If not then they will have to scrape off some of the epithelial cells.

Similar to a PRK which he didn't want done because it is VERY painful.

Like they give you narcotics painful.

Poor guy.

Eye surgery

Rod had Lasik eye surgery today.

He had a hard time seeing after it was done.

He seems to be doing better now although he says that his right eye is really blurry.

Something doesn't seem right.

He HATES the eye drops as he says that they really burn.

Not so much in the left eye but more in the right.

Hopefully everything is alright.

Five, Eight or Ten?!

Seven

I know I'm number seven,
but the fact you can't deny
is that God, Almighty Giver,
is the author of my life.

My soul is no less special
and my spirit no less great
than those that came before me,
be they one, or six, or eight!

So many eyes are blinded
by the whispers of this world--
to them, there is no miracle
in a human life unfurled.

A baby's just a plaything,
a burden, or a chore,
and we must proceed with caution
to prevent to many more!

Only a fool would trust the Lord
to give as He desires
and live a life of trust in Him-
whatever that requires.

A new car may be exciting;
a new house may be a prize,
but my new life is better
than anything that money buys.

So all the world may roll their eyes
when seven now they see--
But I can't wait until I meet
the fools who welcome me.

by: Jennifer Wilson

As you may have guessed by the poem we are expecting again!! The title of the post is as it is because this is our fifth birth child, our eighth permanent resident unless we are blessed to be able to adopt our two foster girls, then this will be number 10!

I was going to change the poem to reflect the number of this baby but I haven't had the time although I think that the poem rightly portrays people's ideas of large families adding ONE MORE!!

We are excited to be adding another baby to our family to love and enjoy although I have to wonder at God's timing on this one. I know that God's timing is always perfect BUT Rod is supposed to be in Bahrain when this baby is due to arrive Sept 12th. I hope that this is not one of those - husband goes off to war and baby is the last remaining piece because the husband dies. Can you tell I'm a little emotional?

I know that my hubby will return home to a beautiful new (well not exactly new but new to him!) baby and all will be well. Have to keep those thoughts out of my head.

So if you are reading this and have anything negative to say then just mosy on your way! Otherwise rejoice with us in the blessing that God has given us. If you are hesitant about rejoicing then let it sink in, pray about it and then rejoice!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAKKIAH!

Makkiah turns five years old today. We will be celebrating his birthday next week though since he seems to have a touch of the flu. No fun eating birthday cake when it just comes back up:-( Will post pictures of the birthday boy when we have his party. And I'll even attempt to write a longer post!

Support Group Meeting

I hosted my final support group meeting tonight. The college decided that since we haven't had 5 people show up in the last 5 months it was time to call it quits. Doesn't bother me as I have plenty of hours of training. It's to expensive to pay a trainer to come out for 1 or 2 people to show up.

So the decision was made.

And guess how many people decided to show up tonight?

NINE!!

Oh well.

Vocal Cord Spasm

Makkiah has been having these "episodes". He will look as if he is choking, drool, face turns red. Then he starts coughing and coughs up clear foamy mucous. Not a good thing to have happen and certainly NOT a good thing for a mother to have to watch.

I called his pulmonary specialist who says that it sounds like Vocal Cord Spasms. This is the only thing online that I could find on Vocal Cord Dysfunction and is not what I wanted to read about what my child might have. I'm choosing to think better thoughts - hmm - what better thoughts could I think about all of this? I need some help here!

They asked at school what they should do for him if it happens at school - all I could say was - "If he's having a hard time OR he stops breathing call 911!" They weren't to thrilled about that one and neither was I but honestly I don't know what to tell them. I'm at a loss.

Pulmonologist told me call him back next week and let him know how Makkiah's doing. If it gets more frequent or he has longer episode that's more scary than the ones he's had take him straight to the ER. OK so what do I do in the meantime?!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Parties, Candy and Cards oh my!

One thing about homeschooling I never had to worry about doing 20-30 cards for each class times 5 kids!

Can you guess how I spent last night?

Writing classmates names on fruit roll up and gummi hearts!

Got everyone sent off with the appropriate number of pencils and candy for their classmates, I hope and now get to sit back and enjoy the leftovers!!

Dolphin Encounter

Makkiah was invited by his pediatric pulmonolgist to go out and see the Navy dolphins. Unfortunately the doctor didn't make it as he was on-call at the PICU up at the hospital. We missed seeing him.

Another doctor came and took 3 families down to the docks to see the dolphins.

First they brought one of the dolphins up out of the water onto this large mat that they use to transport them out into the open water for training. Makkiah was the only one of the three kids brave enough to go into the boat and feed the dolphin. He even touched the dolphins tongue!

Then they put the dolphin back into the water so he didn't dry out.

Then they showed the kids how to get the dolphins to do tricks. Makkiah had them spinning in circles, giving high 5, "talking", waving (this entailed getting wet!), jumping, touching his hand with their nose, and playing frisbee. To play frisbee Makkiah would throw the frisbee out into the water and the dolphin would bring it back to him! After each trick Makkiah would throw the dolphin some fish or squid. Sometimes the dolphins would say NO by shaking thier heads when you told them to do a trick!! So much like my children although I must say that the dolphins did listen so much better than my kids most of the time.

Makkiah even got to "pet" the dolphins bellies and see how they train them to do thier exams. It was definetly a fun experience and I'm glad he got to go do it.

I'm putting pictures in my Flickr account and will out a few video clips on Taniyah's page.

Sleep

The new topic of the week is sleep. I don't know about all the other large families but bedtime at our house goes something like this.

I lay on the couch eating bon-bons and get a massage from my hubby. I tell the kids to get ready for bed and they all go brush their teeth, take a shower, put on pj's and all are in bed by their 8pm bedtime.

Oh wait...that's just my dream bedtime. I guess you all want to know reality bedtime!!

All the kids brush teeth after dinner and do chores. This involves checking and rechecking until it's done right. Then showers for whoevers day it is to shower that day. Everyone gets pajamas on while I change babies and put thier jammies on. I also help Angie and Makkiah get into jammies.

At 8pm it's bedtime for all the littles -12 and under- and medication time for Makkiah who usually comes to remind me that he needs his evening meds.

Ellie gets put in bed, Angie to bed, Makkiah to bed, and Brayana,Destini, and Jaleel all comes give hugs and kisses before bed. Then Angie and Makkiah get put back in bed because they forgot that they didn't give hugs and kisses.

After the first 6 are in bed I sit down to nurse Taniyah and then put her to bed, usually by 8:30. In the meantime I've sent or taken Angie back to bed a handful of times and told her to stay there.

At 9 pm Tyreque and Ladaria go to bed and HOPEFULLY Angie and Makkiah are in bed and asleep by this time.

Everybody in my house sleeps all night and I have to make the rounds in the morning to wake everyone up. Thankfully ALL of my kids are sleepers once they stay in their bed for longer than 2.5 seconds to fall asleep!

Nothing exciting at bedtime here.

I'm usually in bed by 10 or 11 or I've fallen asleep on the couch trying to get in a whole, complete, uniterrupted tv program. I usually don't make it though!!

Organization

Chris and Carmen's question of the week on how we run a large family is on organization.

For some reason people seem to think that because you have a lot of kids that you must be very organized. That folks is just not true.

In theory moms of large families may have the desire to be organized but being the mom of a large family in reality means that you have more people who most likely do NOT have the desire to be organized!

My world functions better with organization- I'm happier, calmer and much easier to get along with when things are clean and organized.

You would think that this would somehow give the other members in my immediate (meaning those who live IN my home) the desire to keep things neat and organized BUT it seems to have the opposite effect on them.

In keeping with the theme of Chris and Carmen I will show you what I have done that works for our family and not all the things that I have tried that didn't catch on very well.

Not to say that what I have done that works was not accomplished without much screaming and gnashing of teeth. But hey, whatever works, right?!

My kitchen is fairly organized because I designed it and had all the cabinets installed where I wanted them. Thanks to my Mom's tips it came out better than can be expected. Now if I could just get everyone to stop using it to store their crap it would be great!

Laundry is fairly simple. Once you are twelve you do your own laundry and have your own laundry basket and your own laundry day. For everyone else there are two hampers in the hallway to put your clothes in and I wash them all. Fold them on the kitchen table thus forcing them to be put away before we sit down to dinner. Once you are six you put your own clothes away. Before that I do it and once you approach that age I start teaching you how to do it.

Clothes storage. We don't have any dressers in our house. They take up to much room and aren't as sturdy as they used to be. So all of our kids have storage things from IKEA and they are all in the same place. One whole wall and half of another house these. Bins are cheap to replace if they need to be and it's easy to put clothes away and out of rooms this way. Church clothes are hung up in your closet in your room.

Each child has a storage thing that holds 3 bins next to their bed which holds toys or whatever miscellaneous things they want to put in them. At least that is the idea. The only exception to this is the baby girls' room which has a bookshelf with blankets and toys in baskets. I can get them out to let them play in their room but mainly use them to store toys that rotate out from the coffee table.

In the kids bathroom we have two shelves with hooks underneath the bottom one. Each person has a different color towel that hangs on the hook. Each person also has a hygiene baskets that holds their toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, airbrush, shampoo, soap, face wash, razors, shaving cream, lotion and shower scrubby. These baskets are stored on the two shelves - bigger kids with things like razors on the top shelf and younger kids on the bottom shelf.

In the hallway we have another bin holder (these are all from IKEA) that holds a small bin for each child. This is for them to put homework that needs to be finished and their AWANA books. The idea is that they can easily find these items when they need them, again, this is JUST the idea!

Our coffee table is another storage area. The baskets on the bottom hold baby toys. This allows them easy access to their toys and maybe, just maybe I can teach them to be more organized than the others. OK I can hope though, right?! The top middle basket holds diapers, butt cream and wipes. The baskets on each side hold mail, magazines and whatever miscellaneous things get put in there. We also have end table with baskets that hold books that are being read, puzzle books and again whatever miscellaneous things are thrown in there.

Finally a picture

My Mom has been asking me for a picture of Taniyah with her birthday present that she sent. Since I'm sitting down in between loads of laundry I decided that I could upload some new pictures onto Flickr.

So the long awaited picture!


There are others on Flickr also!

Morning Routine

Chris (The Big Yellow House) and Carmen (Mom to the Screaming Masses) did their morning routines on Wednesday. Well I finally made it over there to read their question of the week and decided -even though I am almost a week late - to join in. Tomorrow I will try to get over there to read the new question of the week about raising a large family.
I used to homeschool like Chris but after 5 years decided it was time to send them off to school so my morning routine is more along the lines of Carmen.

5am-5:30am Alarm #1 goes off. I stumble to the bathroom while hubby goes to retrieve alarm #1 from her bed. I turn off alarm #1 with nursing while hubby gets in the shower.

6am - Alarm #2 goes off and I hit snooze, deciding if I really want to get up and shower or lay and sleep for another 9 minutes.

6:09 - I get up trying not to disturb alarm #1 and head to the shower. Grab a mini candy bar and try to get the light to stay "on" in the "off" position (remember we live in a fixer upper house and it's something we haven't fixed yet). Hop in the shower.

6:30 Out of the shower and dressed. Hubby is usually still sitting on the toilet with his towel wrapped around him, contemplating the task of getting dressed.

6:35 Start making rounds to get everyone out of bed - my high schooler SHOULD be up and gone by this point. I don't get him up as I'm to lazy to get up any earlier. I just tell him good bye before he goes to bed at night!!

6:40 Get Ellie from her crib and deposit her into her high chair with cheerios. Get Taniyah (AKA alarm #1) from my bed and deposit her in to her high chair with cheerios. Hope that they don't protest to loudly.

6:45 Heat up a cup of coffee and go back through rooms to pull blankets off of any stragglers who still lurk in their beds.

6:48-7ish Get Angie and Makkiah dressed for preschool. This entails taking one of them into the livingroom and dressing them quickly before the other one seems them "naked". Hope that the other one doesn't come into the livingroom as we then have a major meltdown that somebody saw them "naked" - even if they are half dressed. Then inventing something for the dressed one to go look for while I dress the other one, who jumps behind me anytime they hear anyone near the livingroom to make sure that no one seems them "naked".

7-7:15 Brush Brayana, Destini, and Angie's hair. For anyone who has tenderheaded, drama "princess" girls you know how this dance goes. Brush hair while the current princess is screaming and hopping around. You must be quick on your feet and very skilled to complete this task with not one but three of these beautiful princess girls.

7:15-7:20 Give Makkiah his medication. Refill cheerios on baby trays or give them shredded mini wheats for a change of pace and a little peace and quiet.

7:20-7:25 Make the rounds a third time to remove any stragglers from their beds, in front of the TV or computer to make sure they are 1)Dressed in appropriate clothes that weren't worn yesterday 2)they have brushed their teeth and hair 3)they have washed their faces and put on deodorant 4)they have socks on their feet and 5)that they have any of the miscellaneous 5 million papers that get sent home on any of the assorted days that need to be sign, filled out or completed and returned to school that day or they will "be in so much trouble and their teacher won't like them and life will be miserable".

7:25-7:30 Sign, fill out, and complete any of the miscellaneous 5 million papers that get sent home on any of the assorted days that need to signed, filled out or completed and returned to school that day or they will "be in so much trouble and their teacher won't like them and life will be miserable". Question again why they didn't give me the papers when they got them only to be given the answer of "you didn't ask!"

7:30-7:40 Round up Angie and Makkiah so that I can play the "I-know-I-should-let-you-brush-my-teeth-but-I-don't-really-want-to-do-that" game and wash their faces.

7:40-7:42 Brush my teeth while Angie and Makkiah look at me in amazement that "you brush your teeth too Mom!"

7:43 Make sure that the babies in their high chairs have sufficient cheerios to hold them over for the next 10 minutes

7:44 Tell Brayana, Destini and Jaleel that it is indeed time to get shoes on to go to the bus stop and end Destini's never ending question of "Is it time to go yet?" I swear she would have us standing at the bus stop at 5am if she could just to make sure that she wasn't late for the bus - which for the record she never has been late for!

7:45 Walk Brayana, Destini and Jaleel to the bus and stand around with a bunch of little kids whose parents aren't there so they think they can act stupid.

7:53 The bus comes and I can go home, releasing my children into the safety of the bus driver. (For the record, I still walk them to the bus since we have a large homeless population at the park near our house and I just don't like the idea of my kids being out there with no adult. Seems I'm the only one who feels that way but "oh well")

7:55-8:05 Walk home and get the two babies along with Angie and Makkiah loaded into the small van with the help of my 14 year old. Make sure that Angie and Makkiah have their backpacks with extra clothes for preschool.

8:05-8:13 Drive Angie and Makkiah to preschool and wait outside the door for preschool to open

8:15-8:20 Herd Angie and Makkiah into preschool and sign them into their respective classes while 14 year old sits in the *warm* van with the babies.

8:25 Drop 14 year old off in parking lot down the hill from her school because I'm mean and hate getting into the whole dropping off/picking up traffic hysteria that comes along with driving a child to school.

8:30 Get home and unload the babies from the van and lug them into the house

8:40 Feed the babies real food for breakfast and eat some breakfast myself.

9:00 Start one of many loads of laundry that I will do throughout the day, change/bathe/and dress babies, and try to check my e-mail while they play in the living room.

Since I only have the two babies at home from 8:15 to 11:45am I try to get as much as I can done. Unfortunately I don't get as much done as I would like because I still have two babies in the house who need supervision.

Hallway!!

We finally have a hallway all the way down the hall!

One of our bedrooms (Ellie and Taniyah's) you had to walk through to get to the back of the house - kitchen, master bedroom and laundry area. We had a long pole and shower curtain up to make a "room" for the two babies but if you walked down the hall while they were sleeping, well you didn't have a sleeping baby anymore.

So, on Saturday night Rod & I went and picked up our order from IKEA. We now have a "wall" of linen closets. They go from floor to ceiling and open into the hallway. If you walk down the hallway they look like closet space and it provides a great barrier between the hallway and the bedroom. And since they are white they don't make the hall look to dark or dreary.

I will post a pic when I get some taken. I need to go put all the shelves in so I can utilize my new space:-)

Teething Pain

Tanoyah is getting her 4 molars in.

ALL at the same time.

And in true Taniyah fashion they are taking FOREVER!

I swear they only go a cm a week!!!

Just shoot me now!!

Oh that's right I'm not the one in pain.

Just sleep deprived!

That spinning thing!

Rod, Ladaria, Tyreque and I are sitting and watching American Idol. Watching all the people who think that they can sing but really can't is always great entertainment.

So Tyreque turns around and I'm not sure where it came from but he says that he's always wanted to go on one of those things that you hold onto and they spin around when someone pushes them.

Rod and I laugh. A merry-go-round!! One of those playground staples when we were YOUNGER!! Never even thought that my children have been deprived by not having them around anymore.

We reminisced about jumping on and off of them, holding the middle bar and putting our feet out while it spun around and the infamous puddle around the outside that you inevitably landed in no matter how hard you tried jumping over it.

So now I feel old!!

ACTION

Brayana, Destini and Jaleel are now on the Aim for Faith Junoirs Team. Last night was the first practice for the new younger team and they really seemed to enjoy it. They wanted to practice when they got home and they all got up early this morning so they could practice before school! We'll see how long this last!
So far they have two presentations that they will be doing. As they practice more they will be able to do more things but first things first.
I've been busy here at home. Sorting clothes that were given to us and washing them before they either find a home with my children or I pass them on to someone else. Sorting through curriculum to list on E-bay and working on Children's Ministry stuff. Rod and I are also taking a class on Tuesday nights at the church. It's an evangalism class which also includes homework. I should be doing mine but instead I'm updating this so some people will stop complaining:-) I try to get as much done as I can while I just have the two babies in the morning but the time seems to pass way to quickly!
Hope that everyone is having a good week and I will try to update again soon.

The start of a weekend

Rod and I went to a leadership conference at our church last night and this morning. It was really good and I learned some things.
THen we went to Big Lots. We are looking for some shelves to put in Brayana and Ladaria's room so that they have places up higher to put things they don't want the babies to have. I think I found what I want at Walmart but thought I'd check out Big Lots first.
I also told Ladaria that I would braid her hair this weekend so I have top find a couple of hours to do that. I braided Brayana's 2 weeks ago and it's time to redo it. It's so nice to not have to fight with her everyo morning about brushing her hair. Makes my life easier.
I will try to get some new pics on here and will install the CDROM so that I can put the vacation pics on here.
Checking things off my list!!

I'm still here

I'm sure you all thought that I fell off the face of the earth. Nope didn't happen. I've just been busy - doing what I'm not sure but I'm sure that I have accomplished something in the last two weeks. If nothing more than cathcing up on laundry and making sure everyone has been fed!!

Yesterday Makkiah had a pulmonary appt. Just when we think things are looking up that kid throws us a curveball.

He's had croup episodes three times since Thanksgiving. These episodes have gone on for days at a time. Needless to say he is back on all his meds - Flovent, Atrovent, Nasonex, Singular (up to 5mg tabs), Zyrtec, and Prelone (5 days at a time and thank God this is his fifth day). He was also started on Prevacid for his reflux. Up unti lJune he was on Prilosec which was a total pain in the butt because it has to be compounded and refrigerated. Therefore it can't be mailed but has to be picked up from the pharmacy. That entails at least a 45 minute wait, sometimes almost two hour wait, for a medication that just needs to be taken out of the fridge and handed to me!! It was SO frustrating!!!!!!!

The prevacid we open up and dump the little, teeny, tiny balls onto yogurt, pudding, etc and then he has to swallow it. No chewing allowed.

The things about his steroids (prelone) is that it causes him SEVERE mood swings. Usually it makes him very aggressive. This time it seems to be making him cry at the drop of a hat. I swear he is worse than a girl going through PMS!!! But there is nothing that he can do about it and he needs it to breath SO we push on.

He'll be trialing the prevacid for a month and if we see no decrease in the croup symptoms then it's back for another bronch with the peds pulm and peds ENT. Everybody cross your fingers and pray that it works. The brocnhs don't bother me but if he doesn't have to get it done it's so much nicer for all of us but mainly for Makkiah.

Hope everyone is having fun and enjoying winter. Personally I'm ready for summer!

A Lazy Sorta Day!

We've had one of those lay around and be lazy sorta days.

I figured that we were allowed at least one during Christmas Break.

I made some phone calls that needed to be made,

attempted to upload all the vacation pics to Flickr,

played the Game Cube,

and that was about it.

Sometimes I suppose it's good to sit back and relax.

Doesn't happen very often around here.

Always things that need to be done after the lazy day.

I figure I might as well get it all done to begin with.