Ruth talks!

These words are not exactly new, I just finally got around to making a video of them. It took a while to get her to do what I wanted, as I just made this video now, at 10:30pm. Tired girl was not wanting to completely cooperate. Daddy did let her stay up a little later than normal, after all. You'll also get a glimpse of the adorable Maxine, whom has grown a lot since we got her. Hope you enjoy!

Last day of first grade

Wednesday was Elli's last day of first grade. Pretty bittersweet! She was very excited for school, can you tell?

And these were the first day of school, she's grown a lot!

So, in somewhat related news, Elli has decided she does not want to go back to Rainier next year. I am actually relieved, as this will solve a lot of issues, like the more than doubled cost, the extra time in the car (no carpool), and getting up so early every morning while very pregnant/with a brand new baby. It's taken a lot of pressure off of me, and honestly, we're looking forward to homeschooling again. Going to join a co-op so Elli can still have some social time, although due to our late decision to homeschool, that may end up not happening until January. We'll have to wait and see.

Uh oh.

It has been a trying week for me. I am currently on day four of a migraine. Thankfully, with the exception of yesterday when I had to have Rich stay home, they have been at least somewhat tolerable, even if they are still miserable. When today's hit, I decided I had had enough, and was preparing to find a way to go to Urgent Care, but chose instead to go ahead and call the consulting nurse when I realized it wasn't going to be a completely debilitating one like yesterday. I was on the phone with them for quite a while, as they had a lot of questions to ask then had a considerable amount of trouble finding an opening for me, ultimately ending in them double booking a time. (To whoever's appointment I double booked, I apologize, I know how irritating it is on your end)

This is what I found when I got off the phone.

A couple things to note. Ruth is teething, and is doing something she never really does, drooling, so the marker on her face was worse to begin with. This came from sucking on one of those toddler markers. Also, just because you do not see the older two kids, do not assume this was anybody's doing but their's. They brought the markers in, and Tobiah is the one that colored all over Naomi and the chair.

Oh, speaking of the chair. That was Elli's heirloom rocking chair that plays "Jesus Loves Me" on a built in music box, that she got for her first birthday (or maybe Christmas-her birthday is in December, so I don't remember). Yes, that marker won't come off. Yes, I was pretty upset about it. I'm over it though, we're going to paint it and it will be a fun project.

Tobiah also got marker on the sleeve of his button up I spent far more than I wanted to on, because I wanted it to go with the adorable sweater vest. Oh well. Kids will be kids.

In other news-isn't Ruth a cheese?! She kept running in front of Nae to get her picture taken! I <3 that girl!

ETA: Please excuse the banana peel and juice boxes in the pictures, that was some other stuff they got into. Sorry for the blurry pictures, those girls did not want to hold still, and I do have a migraine, so chasing them for the perfect picture is not high on my priority list. Lastly, Nae is wearing underwear in the first picture, you just can't see them. Lately that is all she will wear at home...

Things I thought I would never do

I hate meat. I have nothing against eating animals, I just find it gross. I don't like the taste of red meat, either. Raw meat disgusts me, and meat on the bone is almost as bad. It has always been hard for me to handle, and I have done everything in my power to avoid dealing with it.

In my attempt to feed my family healthy, whole food on a budget, I finally took some advice from my cousin and bought a couple chickens to cook in the crock pot to shred for multiple meals. I was actually kind of excited about the whole thing until I actually bought the chickens and got them home. My old squeamish ways quickly returned, and I shoved them in the fridge and wanted to forget they existed. I couldn't waste that money though, and I couldn't disappoint my husband who has been looking forward to the good meat. So, tonight I took the leap. Mostly. I still made my husband take out the insides to toss them since I refuse to make gravy out of them (seriously, I HATE gravy...) and stick it in the crock pot. Totally used the excuse I had a migraine. (I really did, but I *probably* could have dealt with it long enough)

The time came to take it out, in fact, I think I left it in a tad long. I went in the kitchen and looked at it, and tried to think of a way to justify putting off dealing with it until later, but alas, I knew what had to be done, despite it being almost 11pm. I took it out, almost dropping it, set it on the cutting board, and took a deep breath. When it actually came down to it, it wasn't so bad. I stood there a good 25 minutes pulling every usable scrap off the bones, also separating out the skin and fat and setting it aside for the cats. I even saved the broth, putting it in the freezer to make soup with later. When I was done, I was very satisfied with what was in front of me, and I actually picked up the skin and fat in my bare hands, caring it across the house to put it in the cat dish. Charlotte was ungrateful and tried to use the chance to run out of the bathroom where they are currently sleeping at night, but Maxine was sniffing the air before I had the light on.

I will have to go back and further break up some of the pieces (read that as most), as it was so hot I already burnt the tips of my pointer fingers badly enough that they still hurt 45 minutes later, so it was just too hot to break into small enough pieces. It feels really good knowing I have a whole chicken worth of meat ready to shred smaller and stick in several meals, a start on the broth for our chicken noodle soup next week (even after the second chicken, I am sure I will need some canned stuff, I think next time I will wait until I have cooked 4-6 chickens before putting soup on the menu), and a feast for my kitties, all that for less than $5, as it was a little over $9 for both chickens. Oh, and did I mention that I did all this for the first time while PREGNANT? Never thought I'd finally overcome my disgust of touching meat while pregnant, when the feeling is stronger than ever.

When quiet moments become not so quiet...

Yesterday, after a long, crazy, busy, but absolutely wonderful day, the kids were peacefully playing together in the playroom, and Rich and I were taking the rare chance to sit back and relax. Then, one little monkey came out of the playroom and climbed up on me. Followed quickly by a second, then a third. Then Ruth woke up from her nap. My quiet, peaceful moment of relaxation quickly turned into this...

Complete

Lately I've been thinking about how wonderful and perfect my life is. I have the best kids in the world, a wonderful husband, who has this magical power over me that even when I am irritated with him, seeing him makes me so happy inside, good friends, a great church family, even a pooch that I love despite him being a pest, the sweetest adult kitty, and the littlest, most perfect fluff ball of a kitten. What more could a women ask for? Perhaps a baby...

When I was little, probably around Elli's age or a little younger, I wanted 14 kids. Seven boys and seven girls. As I got a little older, I still wanted a large family, but then decided I wanted seven kids, and this stuck with me for a long time.

My motivation for wanting a big family came from the wonderful family that are my Grandmother's neighbors. I feel very guilty, but have honestly lost count of how many kids they have. When I moved to Seattle, they had nine kids, but they have adopted quite a few since then. I rather unfortunately have not seen them much in the last few years, and it's just hard for me to remember when I have only briefly, if at all, met most of their adopted children. Anyway, I digress. I spent a lot of time playing with the kids from this family growing up, in particularly the girl that is just a few months older than me. I loved going to their house so much, because there was always somebody to play with, even if my best buddy couldn't play. Coming from a family of two with an almost four year gap between my older sister and I, this was just wonderful. My sister and I never had much in common, and really did not play together much after I was about six. So, I knew from a young age that I wanted for my children what this family had-lots of playmates!

When I met my husband, one of the many things we talked about was how many kids we saw ourselves having. I made it clear to him I wanted a large family, and that it was important to me. Over time, he did wear me down, and we settled on the number five.

It's funny how you can have your heart set on something, then life happens and you begin to question everything. When I was pregnant with Tobiah, I talked many times with Rich about how soon we would have another child. I expressed my concern and desire to have our babes close together, as my sister and I (and also Rich and his older brother, whom is seven years older than him) had little in common and did not ever really spend time together, and I felt a big part of this was the age gap. It broke my heart many times over that Elli would be further in age by a couple of months from her first sibling that my sister and I are (and trust me, this has caused Elli heartache, however my kids are amazing, and Tobiah is Elli's best buddy), and I wanted to ensure that they would be the only kids to have that age gap. So, we agreed we would start trying when Tobiah was around four months old. When he was eight months, we got pregnant with sweet Naomi.

My pregnancy with Naomi was very hard. I had around 50 migraines, horrible morning sickness, horrible sciatica, and to top things off, several large stressers happen right at the end of my pregnancy. Then when she came, all of the medical problems started. Then the eczema started. She spent her first summer constantly ripping her face off (literally), and she was so small from refusing to eat. It was, by far, the hardest thing I've had to go through as a parent. The constant worry about what was wrong, if she'd ever grow... I honestly found myself questioning having more kids, and knew at the very least I wanted to wait a few years.

Then the unthinkable happened, and when Naomi was just four months old I found out I was pregnant, despite efforts to prevent it. I regret to say I had a horrible attitude about the whole thing, and was rather mad at God. I did not feel capable of handling another baby at that point in my life, and felt so overwhelmed. Then we saw the ultrasound at 20 weeks, and that all changed. I couldn't wait to meet my newest daughter. However, despite finally being happy about our unexpected joy, as I have called her since then, I decided at that point that I was done, and I did not want more children. I very nearly made sure that would never happen again, but decided at the last minute that the medical risks because of my young age were a little too scary for me, and didn't do it. Let's just say, I am happy I chose not to!

Ruth has been my God child. God gave her to me when I didn't think I wanted her, because He is perfect and knew she is exactly what I needed. She has changed my view on so many things, and has shown me and reminded me that we serve a merciful God, a loving God, and a God who cares for our deepest desires. Over and over again, He has given me everything I ever wanted in a parent-child experience with Ruth. I came very close to having a third induction with her, despite desperately wanting to experience the "it's time" moment when you know the baby is coming and you go to the hospital (with Elli, I went to my regular OB appointment, and they wheeled me to labor and delivery, then two inductions, so silly as it may seem, I really wanted that experience since I had never had it). We had just spoken to the midwife a couple of hours prior, and she had said she'd induce two days later assuming everything looked good the following day at my appointment, then we had the "it's time" moment, and she was born the following morning, a day before I would have been induced. Another example, I desperately wanted to nurse all of my babies exclusively to a year, and never had. Elli was supplemented from the beginning, T was weaned at four months after being hospitalized, and Nae... like I said, medical problems. It never really worked with her. Well, Miss Ruth weaned about a month ago, after 13 wonderful months of breastfeeding. There are many other examples, as well.

Like I said, Ruth has been my God child. God has given me my deepest Mommy desires with her, and it's been wonderful. I've also cried many, many happy tears watching her gorge herself after all the trials with Naomi. I will never again take for granted a baby that eats!

Anyway, when Ruth was about 11 months old, I found myself longing for one more baby. How wonderfully easy she has been has made me feel much more capable of handling number five, despite the fact that not all of my children are that easy. *coughNaomicough*

So, lately I have been truly contemplating how perfect my life is. Perfect, and with my number five on the way, complete.

I'm a horrible blogger, that's all there is to it.

It's the first day of June. It has been more than four months (that's a third of a year!) since I blogged last. A lot has changed.

I gave up couponing for the most part. I realized that to eat the way I want my family to, couponing just is not always compatible. I will still use coupons and search for deals on products we do use, but I have been searching out other ways to save money and feed my family healthy, whole food. I will (hopefully) be blogging more about this in the next few weeks. :)

Naomi graduated food therapy just to start speech therapy. She also went through autism testing. She has been diagnosed with a fairly bad learning delay. It breaks my heart in many ways, as Ruth is more advanced than her in a few areas. However, with the speech therapy, Naomi has made a lot of improvements, and we've been working with her daily, and prayfully considering our options for what will be the best continued course of action to give her the best possible results in life.

Due to the financial pressure, we won't be sending Tobiah back to Rainier. I will have him attend a local preschool that a lady from church runs in her home, and I am hoping that Tobiah will not be too sad if he doesn't see his friends again. Yesterday was his last day, and I'm just not sure he really understands what that means. Create a fair is next week, so I hope to get phone numbers for his friends so perhaps we can do playdates and stay in touch.

Elli will still be going to Rainier, at least for next year. I don't have the heart to yank her before she has Katie as a teacher. We will reevaluate the best schooling option for Elli at the end of next year, and decide the best course of action to take. Only wrench being thrown into my "at least one more year" plan is that Katie may switch to 3rd/4th grade teacher, and if that is the case, it would be at least two more years. We are also loosing our carpool, so this really has turned into the huge mess I feared it would from the very beginning, and I am a little frustrated that the people that talked me into sending her are unwilling to help. I'm continuing to pray for a better attitude regarding this.

I guess the biggest news is we're expecting number five on Rich's birthday. I want a boy so badly, but am trying to prepare myself for the probability that it is a girl. We'll find out sometime around July 17th what we are having.

I've also decided, at least for now, that I will homeschool the younger kids. Elli will continue to go to school, at least for now, as I think that is what is best for her. She and I do not work as well together as we could, we're too much alike, and she's such a social creature that she really has done well at school this year. I know Tobiah will do better with me, and would really benefit from working at his own pace (he already knows all the letter sounds, learned it from a Leapster game, he really is a sponge) and not being held back by a class. Naomi will likely be forced into special ed in a public school if we go the school route (or at least that is what it is currently looking like, that could change by kindergarten age), and I just don't think that is what is best for her. The easy part is because of how close in age she and Ruth are, I should be able to get away with teaching them together for a couple of years.

Last Friday we also welcomed a new member to the family. Her name is Maxine, and she is an orange and white, currently tiny, fluff ball. I finally got my orange tabby, and I am completely in love.

Those are the highlights of what has gone on in the last 1/3 year. I hope, as always, to do a better job blogging for the one or two of you that actually read this.