Finally, a computer on the internet!

So here we are, in the end of July already!  Now I will start blogging a bit more regularly since we finally  got a computer on the internet.  We have gone a couple years with no computers on the internet because we tended to forget to renew our antivirus/antispyware and we would get viruses eventually on our computers.  We just signed up with a new phone and internet service that offers free antivirus/antispyware.. Now we no longer have to worry about renewing our subscription for it...it's just there! Up to this point we've been using our phones or other small hand-held devices to get on the internet.  They are too hard to post on a regular basis with..

So, on this homefront, I am starting to prepare for a new baby.  I'm trying to get through our whole house and get rid of all that we don't need and organize all that we do.  We also have our oldest girl going to a confirmation camp tomorrow which she will attend for 1 1/2 weeks.  We will then be going there, to MI, to attend her confirmation activities for the weekend at the end of the camp.  Then it's only probably about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 weeks after we get home that we will have a new baby!  So exciting but also nervewracking cause I feel like there's no way I will have gotten through everything I need to for our upcoming school year and a new baby before she's born!  Yikes!!!  But if I don't, she will still come, we will still be in our glory having a new baby and all the rest will fall into place!

Well, time to sign off.  I am not getting much done sitting on here! :)

Oh, so hard to blog..

I wish so dearly I could get myself to blog regularly. This is supposed to be my way of journaling for my kids. If I ever think to sit down and blog, my mind just draws a blank. So, I decided I'm just going to write about nothing....

I don't think I've officially blogged this yet but I will, just for the journaling record. I'm pregnant! :D I know, you guys already know that, but....

I've had an ultrasound and found out that my due date is a little earlier than I thought it was...only five days but that is so much better than it being later than I thought it was! So, I'm due September 18th. Although I always wish for twins each pregnancy, I already found out that there's only one baby in ther..one cute little wee one that was already sucking it's fingers.

This pregnancy has been a very mild one...no morning sickness at all except one morning when it hadn't even crossed my mind yet that I might be pregnant, I had one sweep of nausea and that was it for the entire career of this pregnancy! However, I am still super, super tired and majorly lazy. I mean LAZY! I don't clean, don't do laundry, hardly cook...well, that was even before...just kidding, I don't cook as often as I usually do. Rrrgh, I don't like feeling like this. I hate seeing the house deteriorate even worse than it usually does. Our house is beginning to really stink and I don't even have the oomph to start scrubbing out the corners. It then depresses all of us. The very, very good side of it is that the older girls have really learned how to pull their weight and get it all done when need be. They even started to sort out a load of clothes for themselves and their buddies so everyone gets a few clean outfits again this week.

On the brighter note, I am so happy I still have been able to run to an extent. Not as often as before and not as far and even not as far within the run before I have I walk for a bit due to being short of breath...but, I am still getting it about four times per week. Plus, I'm still doing both martial arts classes and keeping up, despite a whopping ten pound weight gain already in 13 weeks of being pregnant! :(

Well, that's all I can think of...

Oh, except our baby has begun to walk! One day, she went from standing to taking five steps..not one step first, but five! The soon that same night she was taking seven. That was about two weeks ago. Now, yesterday, she took up to fourteen steps two different times,men a few times, six a couple times! I don't know who's more excited, us or her!

Alright, more later!

Trying to change my profile picture..the other one was ore two years old!

Only problem is, I can't figure out how to get this to move into the profile picture area! Hmmm...

Baked, from scratch

I came home from work today...house was sparkling and a couple of the girls had combined their efforts and made cupcakes from scratch AND frosting for them from scratch....and decorated them for everyone! What a treat!!! They are so awesome anyway, but this is the icing on the cake, so to speak. :)

A nummy creation by my lovely brown-eyed daughter

Party ready to begin!

I should learn to post these I reverse order...the last two should have been switched around.

Valentine's party prep under way...can't wait!

My little guy..pjs, paci, cowboy boots, Mohawk hat..what a combo

Some current pictures...

I decided to post this so I can try use this for my new profile pic. It's a little more current than my current pic... We'll see if I figure it out now. It's different to operate this blog using my iPad than a regular computer (which we don't have for Internet use).

Another baby on the way!

As I'm sitting here, slowly starting my morning, I decided I should take advantage of my typical first trimester putziness and get some blogging in....

So here we are, expecting our ninth baby (I can't resist, I have to add hopefully our ninth and tenth..yes, I am again holding out for twins). I feel really very good but o matter how good I feel, I always still have the touchiness of what I eat, when I eat, am super tired, can't drink much to stay hydrated (I get very queasy drinking plain water). E is so sweet, he found out that one thing I can drink is iced black tea with lemonade, so one thing he got me for Valentine's Day was a box of K-cups of black tea/lemonade....Mmmmmm! I'm sipping on one now!

On a homeschool note, we have just begun a classic literature class with the oldest girls and alongside it, I am reading to the kids Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. We also watched a documentary on Charles Dickens, which was very interesting. The cool thing is, in the classic

lit course (it's a homeschool dad and scholar who gives the course on DVD) it is mentioned that every story ever written is a piece of that author's life, be it an actual piece of their life, or a character based on the author himself/herself or someone else they knew, or even something they have vividly imagined or dreamed of (for example, if it's about a make believe land). So, it was interesting then to see this documentary and learn that all of his novels were directly a reflection of pieces of his life. One character was based on a young sister-in-law whom he adored that died young, David Copperfield was as close to an autobiography as a book could be, he used to work in a lawyers office and hated it and learned to really dislike lawyers. So, unsurprisingly, in all his novels, lawyers we portrayed as loathsome fools. What a fun way to learn to really appreciate literature!

On the home front, after a pretty brutal weekend of a couple pretty sick kids while we were out of town for a wedding, everyone is doing pretty well. Yody and Izzy have a newly found friendship. Yodi teaches Izzy some pretty unladylike behavior, which she loves, and she hauls him into playing house and recruits him to be a babysitter or parent with dollies or sits and "reads" to him...

We really enjoyed having a bit over a week of having my sister and girls here! We got a rare outing to MOA and most of the kids got to get wristbands for five hours of unlimited rides at nickelodeon universe. We shopped til we dropped one day, enjoyed visiting when we could getting in, I got in on a ladies' nite, complete with sauna...we went up north for a family wedding and got to visit many relatives and old childhood friends..mmmm, it was great! I think I gained about four or five pounds over this short time period. Ouch. But it was worth every ounce! :)

Well, it's time to get going on Great Expectations again!

Ahh, a new year!

I feel like the year is off to a very good start! I'm not sure why, I just do! I mean, we just had a tummy bug sweep through the household, swiftly and severely enough to merit me calling in to work the next a.m. That was still in 2011 though, AND that's one thing off the checklist now of things to do. "Major flu bug?" "Check!" Now we can move forward into the new year.

Another big plus, I've gone out and run both days of the new year. Santa geared me up to run safely this winter, so I have no excuse. I got a flashing red light to clip on me, some foot accessories involving carbide spikes to put over the bottom of my running shoes, and I got a "worker jacket." I will include a photo of that possibly tomorrow. Suffice it to say that if anyone sees me running in that thing, they may think there's a fleeing utility worker and glance around nervously for the utility box that's about to explode. It's actually really cute and I love it..super comfy and perfect, right down to the zippered outside pockets I can use for a flashlight in one and my cell phone in the other, the soft cuffs that do a swell job at keeping the arctic air out and a hidden hood I can pull out of its zippered compartment to act as a wind breaker over my stocking cap on the really blustery days! It's an honest-to-goodness utility jacket. Oh, the "worker guy" thing...it's what one of my kids said when I opened it Christmas morning, "Oohhhh, that looks like a worker guy jacket!". It is, Dearie, it is. And I....I could be considered a worker guy!

Today it really helped to have a little mutt...I mean, pup...barking so loudly it honestly hurt our ears! As brutal as it seems to have to brave the elements and do what we have to do to burn this high energy dog's excess energy, believe me when I say it, it's truly more brutal to have to endure his barking! Going on a run with him Is well worth the trade-off of him being quiet for a few hours. And, going on a run with him is worthy of a post entirely devoted to that to topic! I will have to post about that when I post the pic of my running gear.

Oh yeah, a lovely event that happened the other day: our deep freeze was meddled with and we did nt discover it until one fine moment when one of the kids went to retrieve a food item from it and returned saying that the freezer smelled downright rotten. Yes indeedy it did! All our meat had rotted and the freezer smelled like we were storing cadavers in it. Thank you little toddler boy! I know you did it! BUT again, it happened in 2011. Done with. Another thing to check off our list. "Get rid of all our frozen foods! Time to start fresh for the new year!" "Check! Done deal!"

So, all in all, a very good start to 2012. A very good start indeed!

Testing

Okay, so now I can see if I can start posting images on my blog again..

See why I never post pics of myself? Eww! Oh well, like someone so kindly reminded me, "Cameras never lie!" Gee, thanks! In other words, no that is not a bad picture of you, you just always look that bad. :/

Mom, you have a BIG butt.

Just the other day, I went into the bathroom to prepare a mop bucket. My reigning princess was sitting upon her throne (the porcelain one). I bent over the tub to run the water, rinse the mop, and so on. Apparently my rear-end was right in her line of vision so she had no choice but to inspect it...and come to the conclusion that, "Mom. You have a big butt." I replied, "Yes I do. And you, Miss Izzy, have a small butt." She then said, in her little dramatically wistful whine, "Ohhh Mooom, when I grow up I want to be a mom just like you!" Then a pause, then, "Even if I do have a big butt. That's okay, right?" I said, "Yeah, that part's pretty unavoidable. When you get to be a mom like me, your butt is just going to be big."

An outing

Tonight, I decided it was high time to take a couple of my daughters out after the little kids were tucked in. These two fine young ladies babysit every Tuesday and Thursday night while I and the two oldest girls go to our martial arts class. E has been traveling the past many weeks, otherwise he is here when we go but they still do the majority of the work when we are gone to class.

We had so much fun tonight! We first went through MacD's drive-through and ordered small peppermint hot chocolates for them and a peppermint mocha for me. Mmmmm. We just sat in the parking lot in a toasty warm car, reminiscing. They remembered many things, "Remember when I ran away, Mom?" Me: "Um, which time?" "The time you had to call the cops to help look for me." Me: "Uh...yeah, I think I faintly remember that! Yeah, I very clearly remember that!" Also, "Remember when you climbed up on the roof and put Christmas lights all along the eaves of our house?" Me: "Yup. I remember that. I loved our house that Christmas." Fia: "I so badly wanted to come up there with you!" Me: "Yes, and I remember clearly fearing you would. You were a kind of fearless little gal." Fia: "Remember when Dad made you hot chocolate while you were up there?" Me: "Yes. And I scooted over along the roof to that skinny kitchen window and you guys handed out the hot chocolate. Then we drank our hot chocolate together, me outside the window, you guys inside. It was a very chilly evening and my hands were really cold. That hot chocolate was perfect!" Fia: "I so badly wanted to climb out that window and come up on the roof with you and help you with the lights." Me: "Yes, and I remember clearly fearing you would. I half expected to see you climbing out that window once you realized you could. And I remember you begging Dad to come out there."

Then, we took off for a little drive around town. We ended up slowly lally-gagging through this most amazing, idyllic neighborhood with houses that look like giant dollhouses and wonderfully landscaped front patches of yard...almost every house with a darling set of porch rockers or porch chairs on their beautiful porches. So then we dreamed of getting either into a larger house or a place with some acreage to roam...and to have a dog...and chickens...and gardens...and apple orchards. Mmmm, dreaming!

Onward to talk of IF we get another puppy, a Golden Retriever/Husky mix. They are called Goberians, I think. From what I read later, they would be very, very good personality dogs for small children, all people, other animals, etc. THey just require very good exercise or they can be very hyper. We plan to have it as a running companion and a sled puller in our yard in the winter, just to give it "work" to do (pull kids in sleds). We dreamed, we schemed, we planned, we plotted. Mmmmm, dreaming! :)

Then we came home to nearly everyone, including the big girls, sleeping!

What a good outing!

Out of the mouths of....Princesses!

Izzy (lying on the bathroom floor as I was getting ready to go to our martial arts class): blah, blah, blah...lying...blah, blah. And you can't lie, right? Cause that's hell, right? When you lie, that's called hell...right?

Me, suddenly tuning in: Uh...oh, you mean lying is a sin, right?

Izzy: Yeah, it's a sin...and blah, blah, heaven, blah, blah, you can burn there, right?

Me: Oh, you mean if you go to hell instead of heaven, you could burn there. Yup.

Izzy: And there's that Level that lives there. It's that Evil Level guy that lives there, right?

Me: Yup. It's that Evil Level that lives there....

End of Discussion

Someone had a deep discussion with her, I guess.

Well, what do you know?

I'm on a roll. Two days in a row of blogging. I think I will give myself a Diligence Award!

What can I say about today? Hmmm...we currently have some logs being sawed by a few people in this house. I do wish I could join them. I am tired.

Well, tomorrow is going to be a busy day, like usual for Thursdays. I guess it will even be busier than usual. We have PT for Baby at 1pm. That means we need to have this house in presentable shape by then. THat can be a feat in itself. We also need to work a little harder on some of the exercises with her because I don't want the PT to feel like it's a waste of her time to be coming out here.

Also, we have our usual Ao Denkou Jitsu class at 5 but tomorrow night I need to pick up sparring equipment for our karate class and help run the beginners' class as well as our intermediate/advanced class that our girls are in. That means I miss ADJ again....but am still running the girls there, dropping them off and a sis-in-law will pick them up afterwards. From there, I run to another town close to ours, pick up the gear and paperwork, and run to the town we have karate in, set up, run the two classes, get the paperwork together afterwards to send with one of the adult students that lives near our main instructor...

Then off to bed so I can get up early FRiday morning for work....I have a 12 hour shift Friday. Then I'm off for the weekend! :)

Well, I'm being beckoned to help go through some pics my oldest is going to edit.

Ta-da!

Oops! I forgot!

I was supposed to blog every day! I've probably thought about it every day but never realized so many days have slipped by since I blogged last.

Hmmm, so much goes on in this life but when I sit down to write about it, my mind flat-lines.

I was knocked down flat the other night and all day yesterday due to a stomach ailment of unknown origin. None of my kids were sick so that should rule out any tummy bug 'cause I just don't get sick unless I've had all 8 kids rotate through some nasty bug 3 times each, taking turns at it for a week straight, ill with ill symptoms day and night...then finally, after enduring all that goes with tending to children that are ill with ill symptoms, not sleeping a wink for 168 days (as it would add up if each of the 8 children was ill for a week straight then repeated the rotation 3 times..), I finally collapse and get ill, with ill symptoms myself...Since all THAT didn't happen, I wonder if it was a food-borne illness.

It. was. horrible. To say the least. I woke up at about 1:something a.m. with knife-like stomach pain that would double me over. I went to the bathroom and emptied my insides of a pure-water-like-substance...multiple times... I went to lie down for a bit only to have to make a run again for the bathroom. By this time E was up, getting ready to run out the door to the airport for his 4th week in a row work trip. He sat and rubbed my back as I was lying on the couch, groaning, then holding my breath, then groaning, curled up in a ball as wave after wave of knife slices went through my stomach.

Well, to make my long story short, I was curled up in a ball all day yesterday, sleeping, groaning and sitting on the toilet.

Today proved to be a much better day, provided I didn't try push my luck and eat a tiny dabbling of ice cream (that brought on the knife pains again, just not as severe).... I sat out of my martial arts class and watched and learned (a lot, I might say) from the sidelines since I was so wiped out and still had water-like stool throughout today.

That's all I have to say about my stool-laced adventures! :)

Our house is a disaster zone! BUT, I've finally decided that, since it's gotten considerably worse since I've started working again but our finances have finally started to get considerably better, so that we are finally getting caught up again after 2 months of me working again...I'd much rather be losing control of the house than losing the house due to lack of finances. This is a much better option. AND, guess what! I work ALL day shifts now!!! Can you believe after all those years of working nights, I work days? I just got onto that schedule where I work every Friday, 7a-7p and every other Saturday and Sunday, 7a-7p. Then, I have another client that has 8 hour shifts that has many openings every week that I can pick up shifts with the weeks that E's work in slow and he's in town. So, as much as I resisted going back to work, it's actually going pretty well...the kids seem to understand that it's essential and are being pretty good about doing their jobs while I'm gone too. It's just that certain tasks, like dishes and laundry are my jobs while they pretty much cover the rest of the main living area...so my jobs, if E isn't around, get left undone. Usually E is home Fridays, so that's why I've chosen to work them. Then he can help with the homeschooling a bit, although I try to plan most of our work M-TH, with Fridays being independent work day...I assign them Math and then whatever they need to catch up on...usually handwriting and maybe Science.

Homeschooling has been getting more and more random, which makes me nervous at times, but at the same time, I notice a lot of the informal stuff we do has actually lots of learning laced into it. And the girls seem to be loving it and I see a big inner shift in a lot of them when we are homeschooling. Very good character building, self-motivation, leadership skills, self-discipline, super good interpersonal skills have been developed between all of them....all those good things that they actually work on in school. And this is in a very natural, real-life situation where emotions and tempers can oftentimes run high and uninhibited, unlike in a school setting, where most nice kids are on company-behavior mode (and not-so-nice kids aren't).

I've seen a lot of maturing and confidence develop in these guys. And we still have a lot of time to cram in the academics once the snow flies...which we tend to do.

Well, now, off to bed.

The End

This is it! I'm going to blog EVERY day!

Well, I will try to anyway! :) I got woken up this morning by little J, crying and thrashing and so on, at about 4:something a.m. He fussed and thrashed off and on until I finally got out of bed at 5:something a.m., then he quit! He was feeling cramped in MY bed with ME in it I guess!

E is out of town and all of us last night could NOT get our beloved Izzy to sleep after hours of trying. She, as a result, kept the other Littles awake with her noise, and her whispering, and her restlessness. I finally gave up thinking I will stay up late and clean...and tucked the Twins (Izzy and Yodie) in bed by me. Well, I guess there were too many in our bed for Yodie's liking so I had to go! And, I figured, that was fine 'cause now I could clean in a peaceful house....except the minute I start cleaning in a peaceful house, my rustling wakes the Littles up again, no matter what time it is. I decided I would find a quiet activity to do so they wouldn't wake up. THat can't include sweeping, cause they are all sleeping downstairs and you can hear even a crumb crawling up here from down there. I decided I would wash walls...but first need to look up dimensions on a cabinet from Ikea....started reading a blog, and decided it's time I blog again. Well, in my defense, it IS a quiet activity....and not one Little has woken up! :)

Yesterday we had troubles with a syrup jug. We buy almost all foods in bulk now. Including syrup, of course. Well, I opened one of the huge jugs of syrup on Monday morning. Tuesday morning I was juggling jugs of milk around the "milk shelf" in the fridge to try make them all fit and then put the syrup on the front of that shelf, hoping no one would knock it out of the fridge the next time someone came to get milk. Well, I'm sure you can guess what happened! About 5 minutes later, someone went to get milk and knocked the syrup onto the floor. That's no biggie usually, except this time I heard a bit thud, then a, "OH NO!" and a, "Quick, Mom! I need help!" I went in to see one of the big girls holding up the jug of syrup that now was sporting a large gash across the middle of it....syrup just chugging onto the floor. We got it to chug for a bit into a large bowl, then escorted it to the sink, where it continued to chug. BIG cleanup job ensued. Well, The Syrup Story Part II: We went to Ao Denko Jitsu (I KNOW I spelled that wrong but am too lazy to get up and see how it's spelled on my certificate) class, came back and walked into the kitchen to have my feet STICK, STICK, STICK to the floor....my slippers were staying on the floor with each step! That syrup jug had gotten left in the sink and one of my babysitters that had stayed home was kindly doing her dishes turn, took the jug out, walked absent-mindedly around the kitchen trying to find a spot on the counters to put the big jug, not realizing that the whole time she was walking, the jug was emptying onto the floor.....and the mopping job that ensued! ANd she was home dealing with our highest maintenance kids at the time...I don't blame her for not getting all the stickiness. I mean, I had to super-slop-mop it about 4 times before that layer of stickiness came up...and still there are little spots of stickiness my slippers are finding this morning!

Well, that's the end of my story telling!

Do You Love Your Children Even?

This was the random question of the day, asked so nonchalantly of her father by our Princess Izzy G. E looked at her with amusement and just as nonchalantly answered, "Of course I do...Do you love your parents?" Izzy looked at him blankly, batted her eyes, and asked, "What are those? I don't even know what they are." E begin explaining, "Dad is your parent, Mom is your parent..." "..and Molly is too?" she asked.

Apparently her big sister is in the same ranks as her other parents! :)

As I came in the house after karate last night, Izzy was waiting for me. "Mom, while you were gone I was sad and I had tears and blurry eyes....(and when I had no immediate response)...Do you want to know why I was sad and had tears and blurry eyes?" I said, "Yeah, tell me why you were sad!" She said, "I was sad 'cause Hillukka Dorothy died and I missed her and wanted her to come to our house again and 'cause the marks wouldn't come off (gesturing to marks all over her arms from markers).." Wondering why she had said she wanted "Hillukka Dorothy", to come to our house again, when she hadn't ever been here before, I asked her, "Have you seen her here before at our house (thinking maybe she was mixing her up with someone else)?" She said, "No. And neither have you. Right? 'Cause she's never been here before." *Just in case someone reading this doesn't know, she's referring to my mom, who died when I was 8 years old...I'm not sure why she refers to her "Hillukka Dorothy"...I've never heard anyone else call her that before.*

Last night: Izzy started writing her name and as she wrote each letter, they got bigger and bigger...Finally, she just sighed with a big huff to Molly and said, "Molly, I just HATE this pencil! It won't let me write small!"

The other day: Izzy and Molly again...Izzy, writing with a pencil in her workbook, "Molly, I don't like this pencil! It keeps dryin' out!" (the lead was really dull and wouldn't write on one side) Molly, "Go show Mom!" Izzy, "Can she fix it?" Molly, "Go ask her!" She came running downstairs and said, "Mom! I need you to fix this! It keeps dryin' out!" I just grabbed her a new pencil and said, "Here, try this one!" She ran back upstairs and Molly asked her, "Did Mom fix it?" Izzy, "She gave me a new one, with flowers on it!"

Today, drawing pictures in her notebook: "Mom...do you want to know what I'm drawing?" I said, "Yup!" She said, "See? Here's a picture of me in a photocopy with a dress on, with a lollipop and an ice cream cone and really cute hair...." (not sure what a photocopy is in her mind) :)

Testing, Testing, 1-2-3

I haven't blogged for so long, I have to check if I still know how!

I've had an eventful while now. In the beginning of May I signed up for this twice/week boot camp with a friend, Kathy, to whip myself back into shape since I hadn't so much as taken a walk since my baby had been born. There are 8 classes per month. I made it faithfully to the first 5 in May, then for some reason or another, missed the last 3. I was SO bummed!

Well, I decided in June I'll make another go at it and combining this class with Weight Watchers, I will be sure to have a good start to a very sound and healthy life...I made it to the first 2 classes, then my baby got very sick for a week straight. She had very high fevers that kept me up day and night....not straight but I was up so often at night I hardly felt like I slept. During the course of that week, I noticed that I started to have plugged milk ducts on the right side but was able to unplug them here and there with hot packing nursing. Soon I had some red streaking but that would nearly go away when the ducts would unplug. Finally, on Sunday, I realized that the severe aches and pains I had been feeling for awhile were the signs of an impending infection. That night I began burning with fevers and the next morning I called an OB doc to get started on antibiotics.

Long story short: the fevers kept up in the 103's mostly, up to 104, despite the fact I kept myself continuously medicated with Advil and Tylenol round the clock. Finally, Tuesday night I became severely nauseated and began the slow road to dehydration and starvation (or so it felt like) due to the inability to eat or drink anything. By Wednesday, I called the doc and they said it's time to be seen...I, from there, got sent to the hospital and stayed in there through the following Sunday. I didn't respond to IV Vancomycin, which is very strong. So, the oral antibiotic failed, the first IV antibiotic failed....I didn't have an elevated white count, the right side wasn't even warmer than the left, although it was flaming red, swollen, etc. It got the OB doc in the hospital thinking it could be breast cancer. She got a breast surgeon involved, who also said that breast cancer can present in a way similar to breast infection. I had a breast biopsy Saturday morning, which was negative for cancer *whew*.

So, needless to say, I haven't been able to participate in my boot camp all month after the first two classes. I have been so bummed but what do you do? I've lost weight but also muscle mass and such. I'll have to just focus on keeping my nutrition where it should be and when my strength is back, I'll begin working out again!