We're Back!

We drove back yesterday from Ohio, and it was such a dreary day! The one spot of excitement was as we were merging onto I-70 from I-68 in Maryland. It goes to one lane, and a semi had overturned in the median between where we were merging and where the cars coming south from Breezewood on I-70 merge. There were ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars, plus a bunch of people milling around. The police officer had set out some flares, but other than alert us to the fact that something was going on ahead, they didn't clearly lead us anywhere. There was a pickup truck ahead of us, and he was really zipping along. It was actually a miracle that he didn't hit the police officer, who had to jump backwards as the guy zoomed past. I just followed along, but as we passed, I saw a paramedic holding his hands up in the air, like he was asking, "What is going on?!" Then I looked back and realized that all the cars behind us were stopped. So obviously the policeman was trying to stop traffic, and we were the last vehicle to get through! Whew! None of us were in the mood to just sit on the highway for however long!

Our book on CD was The Mysterious Benedict Society, a book which I actually had not read before. I also had out Tom Sawyer, so there was some debate about which book to listen to when we started. The book ended up being quite interesting, with lots of little puzzles to figure out, so I was glad we picked one I hadn't read! Also, it is very long--13 hours--so we still aren't done with it. We have a little trip next weekend up to Philadelphia with our jr. high co-op (field trip to the Penn Museum of Anthropology and Archaology), so we'll be able to finish it on that drive.

So now we are back home. I spent the morning unpacking and trying to get the house back in some semblence of order before everything starts back up next week. I was able to get a little bit ahead in Latin while we were gone, so that should be helpful. I still have some prep work for science on Tuesday, though. Tomorrow is the last day of Upward basketball games, so we have 3 games to attend. Then we have church on Sunday. It will be good to see everyone, but I do confess I am not looking forward to it. Hopefully kinks will have been worked out, but it was just so terrible last time. Oh well--stiff upper lip and all that. I want Sunday to be a good day--it's Lukie's 12 year birthday! We're actually celebrating at Bible study tonight!

Vacation is over--back to the real world!

Fun in Ohio!

Well, it has now been a week since I last posted. We definitely had a much different (and better!) weekend this time. We packed up and drove to Ohio on Friday! It is the winter break for our co-ops, and it was definitely time for a vacation!

The weather was absolutely beautiful for driving (although Luke did comment that it was a better day for playing outside, rather than driving, LOL). Our book on CD was Cheaper By the Dozen, one of my all-time favorites. There was a tiny bit of language that was a lot more noticeable to me when it was read aloud, as opposed to me just reading it. I guess I just skipped over it. Still, it is such a funny book, and as we have more and more kids, I can relate more and more to the book! We'll be painting Morse code messages on the walls and listening to language recordings in the bathroom in no time! Ha!

We are staying with my best friend Amy for the weekend, which has been so much fun. Satruday was a day of basketball. We went to Jacob's Upward game at 11:00, and then on to Zach's middle school game at 12:00. The weather was still nice, so the boys played outside all afternoon long while Amy and I caught up. Then we met my parents at Young's for dinner and ice cream before heading over to Cedarville to watch the last regular season basketball game at the university! The Yellow Jackets won handily, and we got to see Zachary L. cheer, so it was a very fun evening!

Yesterday Zach woke up running a fever, so he has not been up to par yesterday or today, poor guy. But the rest of us all went to Amy and Jason's church, where there was plenty of seating and no threatening black curtains, LOL. Nice! The service was nice, and their assistant pastor preached an excellent sermon. Afterward, ew came back here, where Amy had a delicious meal of chicken and noodles waiting for us in the crockpot. Amy and I go to do a lot of scrapbooking yesterday afternoon/evening. I finally got Faith's little album started--actually, it's almost finished! Now if only I wasn't 3 years behind on my regular albums. Maybe this summer I'll have some time to work on those.

Some time today we'll move over to my parents' house for the next few nights. They actually lost power last night and are still without it this morning, so we'll wait until it comes back on before making the big move! In the meantime, the kids are all playing nicely, and I am contemplating exercising. Ahhh . . . I can feel the stress melt away! So relaxing to not have to do anything or go anywhere!

What a Day

We've had quite a time here today. We're still dealing with some sort of mild bug, which apparently only strikes on the weekend. Luke, Faith, Grace, and I were all sick last weekend. Friday Nathan wasn't feeling 100%, and eventually he did throw up once Friday night. He felt better then, and was fine Saturday. Saturday night, however, he awoke around midnight, thought he had more time than he actually did, and sort of vomited while turning his head. Some did make it into the trash can next to the bed, whil some sprayed in a lovely fan on the carpet. Then, in a complete surprise, Luke threw up at 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, and 6:00. What in the world?! Luke is never sick, and now 2 weekends in a row?! When Caleb woke up this morning, he said he wasn't feeling good either, so we let all 3 older boys stay home from church. Nathan and Caleb seem fine now, but Luke is struggling more. He basically just laid on the couch all day today and ate a bit of applesauce and toast. Hopefully tomorrow he'll feel more like himself. And hopefully no one else will get this second round.

It turned out to be just fine that the boys stayed home from church, as that was a huge source of stress for our day as well. Our church meets in a school auditorium because we outgrew our actual church building a few years ago. The nice thing about the auditorium is that everyone fits with no problem! But this past week the powers-that-be (PTB) decided they want everyone to squish together, so they were going to rope off the back sections. Originally when we first moved, they had done this as well, but as more big families came in, we needed the back parts of the auditorium, where the rows are shorter, so we could have access to the aisle, and so we would just move the ropes aside as needed. But this time they cooked up this idea to have huge black curtain/screen things all along the back where they were blocking off the back rows. So now if you move the ropes, you would be sitting behind a big black screen so you wouldn't be able to see anything.

Of course they said they would leave a few rows in the back section, but those rows were quickly filled. We got there this morning right on time, but we have to sign kids up for children's church, put Faith in the nursery, drop food off for fellowship meal, etc., so we can't just waltz in to the auditorium and claim our huge row of seats. When I saw the curtains this morning, I got so upset. I literally started crying, which is rare for me, but I am feeling quite hormonal and emotional lately. This was like the straw to break the camel's back.

I'm sure the PTB have reasons for this that they consider are perfectly important and reasonable, but for me, all I see is one more day of stress. We have to get to church early so we can claim 9 seats (on the aisle no less, so that pregnant me can get out to use the restroom during our 2 hour long service), or else our family is going to have to be split up and spread out everywhere, just like in the old small building. And if we are late, then we will be punished by not having seats, so that is stress, and if we are early, then we are just causing another family to have to be split up or just stand in the hallway or whatever. VERY stressful for someone like me who already hates being late, but unfortunately is responsible to get a lot of other people out the door, as well as have my house ready for our small group to come over right afterward 2 Sundays a month. So they can say it's not about me, but it certainly makes for a day where it is easier to choose to just stay home, rather than face the stress and humiliation of not being able to sit anywhere. This probably all seems like such a tiny deal, but there really is nothing less welcoming in a church, especially for a big family, than walking in and realizing you just don't fit anywhere.

So what ended up happening today: we only had Jonathan, Anna, and Grace, since we left the older boys at home. We went in to find seats after my little meltdown, only to find, of course, that the only seats left were up in the second row. I immediately turned around and walked out, way back to this area in another hallway that is curtained off for nursing mothers. I sat there in a rocking chair all by myself and relaxed. It was nice and quiet. Bob took the kids up to the second row, where the music was so loud Jonathan put his hands over his ears and shouted "NO!" So they got up too and went outside the auditorium where they have a TV screen set up so moms with little kids can be and still watch the service. The good news is that in only 8 more weeks we'll have another baby, so I guess it will be natural for us to be there, since that is where I see us unless they open up more rows or something.

After we got home, Bob and I were so tired after our interrupted night that we took a nap. Eventually Anna came up to inform us that Grace had cut her hair with scissors, NOT the paper, like she should have been cutting. Anna was quite upset about this. We called Grace up, but it was dark and I couldn't really see anything different, so I figured she had trimmed some little piece of hair with the little kiddie scissors. Wrong! After we got up and went downstairs, I could very clearly see that Grace had cut 2 big hunks from the back of her hair, almost down to the scalp. The hunks are separated by a long hunk of hair. There really is no way to repair it, short of buzzing the entire back of her head. I can hardly stand to look at her. I had wanted to get pictures taken before the new baby comes, but I don't see how that will work now. Her hair grows so slowly. This will literally take years to grow back. It is very upsetting to me, on top of everything else for the day.

So that was our very bad day. I'm still weepy, and I'm not feeling up for another week. I ate a ton of chocolate this afternoon, so now I'll probably have an 11 pound baby. Tomorrow Luke is supposed to get his second set of braces on, bright and early in the morning. And Friday we're supposed to drive to Ohio for about a week. I do need a vacation. And at least we won't have to deal with church next weekend.

Forced Slow Down

I have really been trying to accomplish a lot this past week, and I did make some progress. I got the basement storage room cleaned up, and I went through the first few tubs of baby boy clothes. We actually don't have that many things anymore, so I will definitely be shopping at some of the spring consignment sales! Sunday afternoon we were scheduled to have our church small group over in the afternoon, so Saturday we really cleaned the main floor and the basement (in between Upward basketball games!).

I think I was overdoing it, though. I had already commented to Bob that I could really feel a difference in how I was feeling between, say, 29 weeks pregnant and now 31 weeks pregnant. I stayed up late baking banana frosted cookies for growth group, but when I finally went to bed, I had a hard time falling asleep. I just felt so full, like nothing had digested. At 3:00 I woke up and knew I was going to vomit. Sure enough, I was right, and I was also right about nothing have digested, LOL. I did not really feel good all day Sunday, and I basically just laid around on the couch all day, interrupting that with naps in my own bed.

Now the whole thing didn't come as a total shock to me. After we got home from Bible study Friday night, Luke came back downstairs to say he wasn't feeling good. He threw up around 11:00, and then he went to bed. He wasn't quite as perky the next day, but he went ahead and played a great game of basketball in the afternoon and pretty much ate normal food. When we got Faith up Saturday morning, it was quite obvious that she too had vomited sometime during the night, although not too much. She also bounced right back and was eating normal food by the afternoon.

I had a harder time bouncing back! I was definitely not up for basketball the next day, and I just nibbled things like crackers, chicken noodle soup,and a banana all day. Even when I went to bed Sunday night, I was still thinking, "Boy, I hope that little bit of smoothie I just drank doesn't come back up, because it sure feels like it might . . ." But I went off to sleep, and when I was rudely awoken by cries from Anna and Grace's room at 3:00 AM, signifying that Grace had thrown up, I felt fine! It had totally passed! (Grace was fine the next day too, and so far no one else has gotten this bug.)

It was actually kind of nice to just lay around and rest on Sunday. I have noticed that I have basically not napped at all this entire pregnancy. I just haven't had time. So I guess it takes a mild stomach virus to get me to rest when I need it! I didn't exercise Monday either, continuing my "take it easy" theme. I think I am just going to have to let some of my "to do" list go by the wayside. It's hard to do that because I really want to be more organized, with less clutter, but things like laundry, cooking, school, and exercise are taking up most of my time and energy right now, and it looks like trying to force myself to do more is not a good strategy!

Faith is 2!!

Wow, I can't believe Faith turned 2 today! It seems like just yesterday that we were speeding to Bethesda, not sure we were going to make it in time!

She's getting to be such a big girl--she definitely thinks she is, anyway, LOL. She is talking a lot more, and she is really playing with Anna and Grace now. She has become quite enamoured with one particular baby doll, so she has started even sleeping with this babydoll. She does not want to be left out of anything--she wants to be in the middle of all the action! Her big brothers take such good care of her, and she definitely adores them! The picture above is of her in the ballerina leotard that I used as a model for her cake.

We had our big co-op day today, and then Bob and Nathan went to Civil Air Patrol this evening, so we decided to celebrate her birthday tomorrow night, with presents and ice cream. Faith is enjoying being the birthday girl, so I am sure she wouldn't complain about extending the whole celebration one more day, if she even understood time, LOL.

Happy Birthday!!

Friday night we brought a birthday cake to Bible study to celebrate my birthday (Feb. 7) and Faith's birthday (Feb. 8).
Although you can't really tell here, Faith was actually very excited about being sung to! She did not, however, know what to do with the candles. Luke had to come over and help her blow them out.

The cake was modeled after a little pink leotard she has that she loves to dress up in.

It was not my finest work. I forgot to texture the "sleeves" to make them look more like the skirt (because they are tulle, like the skirt), and I also didn't proportion it right. The bodice should definitely be skinnier. Oh well. It's all gone now!

Lemurs and More Varenga

Every 2 years our Tuesday morning co-op does a writing unit. For the 5th and 6th graders, they write a research paper and then do an oral presentation, complete with a display board. Two years ago, Nathan did his report on Madagascar. This year the theme was "animals", and Luke picked lemurs.

Lemurs are native only to Madagascar, which turned out to be handy. For the meal afterward everyone had to bring in a dish related to their animal--either something the animal eats, something made from the animal (so hard to find a good cut of lemur though, LOL), something from the country where the animal lives, or (the cop-out last option!) something in the shape of the animal. Someone made absolutely adorable cupcakes in the shape of koala bears! We brought our old standby of varenga--the boiled, roasted shredded beef dish over rice that we also brought in for Nathan's meal. Never thought I'd use that recipe twice! It's actually pretty good.

Luke did really well on his presentation. He made eye contact and spoke slowly, covering all his points but not relying too much on his notecards. He was able to answer the questions people asked after the presentation. He looked confident up there, a far cry from a few years ago, when he would dissolve in a silent puddle of tears when in front of a group of people!

Here's a closer look at his display board. Lemurs are cute little guys, for the most part (well, not the freaky aye-aye so much). He had an interesting paper and talk! These kind of experiences are why it is nice to be in a co-op. It's so much different giving an oral report in front of 17 other classmates, plus random parents and siblings, as opposed to just one's own siblings and parents!

Digging Out

Yesterday the kids and I dug out the big van and Bob's minivan. Bob flew back yesterday afternoon, and we had an appointment at 4:00 to drop the big van off at the dealership because it was making a funny noise. Of course that meant we needed to be able to drive it out of the huge snowpile it was in! And if we dropped the big van off, then Bob's van needed to be clear as well, so we could all go to Bible study last night, since we don't all fit in the Sienna! Here you can see what we were starting with:
The snow clumps in the top were so heavy and hard to break up, we just started picking them up with our hands and tossing them! Luke played some rounds of snow basketball.

Even Faith "helped" out. She knew what to do with the shovel, even if she didn't get very much, and didn't toss the snow in the right place! She also wouldn't keep her mittens on, so she (and Grace) again were the first ones inside.

Success! Even a path for the mailman! That bit of shoveling took us about 40 minutes. Then it was on to Bob's van.

Fortunately the minivan is not so big, so we didn't have to shovel as much snow. It was a good thing, too, since we lost most of our helpers! Caleb, Jonathan, and Anna had discovered that they could slide down the slight hill in our front yard and go up on the big snowberm we had just made. Fun! So it was just Nathan, Luke, and me to finish off the shoveling.

Success here too! This bit of shoveling only took us about 15 more minutes. I sure was tired by the end of it all though. No time on the treadmill for me yesterday!

A few months ago I bought 2 new shovels at Walmart, thereby guaranteeing, I thought, that we would get no significant snowfall this winter, LOL. I was very glad we had them the past few days--it meant that Nathan, Luke, and I could each have a big shovel, and the other kids could share the 4 little shovels we have. Very nice! One of the new shovels even has the curved handle, which I really like. I thought it helped a lot with the wet, heavy snow. Of course, what we really need is a Wovel . . .

Insight

Here is Luke's bit of insight into the feminine mystique yesterday:

"When the girls are in bad moods, the way to get them happy again is to tell them how pretty they look, or how pretty something is on their dress, like 'Oooh, look at that pretty flower!' That distracts them."

Definitely a good place to start!

SNOW!!

Finally!! We have been waiting for a good snow, and finally we got one yesterday. It started off just as rain, and a lot of people didn't take the threat of an actual storm very seriously! I, however, am a faithful follower of the Capital Weather Gang ever since we had all those big storms last February, and they said snow would begin falling between 3:00 and 4:00, and that we would have significant accumulation, although it would differ by region. Well, starting a little before 3:00, it began sleeting, and in another hour, the snow started coming down very heavily--a couple inches an hour. It was the worst time for a storm, right as rush hour started, and tons of people spent hours and hours--I've heard as many as 12 hours to get from downtown out to Leesburg--trying to get home. Our good friend Tim P. left his office at 4:30, and by 10:00 he had made it one mile. So he turned around and drove on side streets back to his office (took half an hour), where he spent the night on the floor of his office. You can read his first hand account (and see all his awesome photography) on his blog here. Bob is TDY this week, however, so he did not have to deal with the commute! I was so happy about that! We all enjoyed the sight of all the snow falling while eating chocolate chip banana bread fresh from the oven! We went out last night after dinner to shovel the driveway, since the snow was very wet and heavy. We measured with a ruler, and we had 9 inches!

This morning everyone was so excited about playing in the snow! We did a little bit of school (amazing how much more motivated everyone is to finish in a timely manner when there is fresh snow to play in), and then they suited up. I am very pleased that 5/7 kids can get themselves completely dressed for snow all by themselves! Very nice!

My goal for Faith was to have her spend at least as much time outside as it took to get her dressed. We ended up being out there 45 minutes, so she was much happier about snow and snow clothes than she was last year!

The boys and Anna spent most of the day sledding at the end of the cul-de-sac with our neighbors. Caleb is looking happy here, but this afternoon he flipped his sled, hit a tree, and now has a lovely goose-egg on the back of his head.




Faith and I took a little walk around the neighborhood, with me pulling her on the sled. Nathan gave her a quick spin as well.

Here is the aftermath . . . tons of wet suits, jackets, gloves, and boots. My friend Kim gave me this great hint last winter--put a felt-lined plastic tablecloth on the floor to catch all the wet stuff. It's a great idea!

Everyone is totally tired and will sleep well tonight!

Bad Week For Fingers

So I just finished soaking my middle finger and thumb in salt water for about 30 minutes. Earlier this past week I reached into the dishwasher to stick one more piece of silverware into the basket, and a fork stabbed me under my fingernail! I couldn't believe the flatware was defending the dishwasher, LOL. And then a few days later I was cleaning a big pot that I had used to boil pasta, and a stubborn piece of bowtie pasta poked under my thumbnail!

Starting Thursday, my poor middle finger has been hurting so badly! I can hardly have anything touch it! The whole situation is definitely bringing back bad memories of my staph-infected middle finger back in March 2008. My thumb hurts as well, but I don't seem to use the tip of that as much, so it's not as bothersome. I keep telling myself, "This is surely the worst day . . ." but it's not getting better. So I thought I'd better start soaking it to make sure nothing bad happens. Bob is going TDY this week . . . the similarities are scary, LOL. At least I know to ask for the ER doc for anesthetic if anything has to be lanced--I learned that lesson, LOL. And I'm a lot more careful when sticking things into the dishwasher now as well!

Allergy Follow-up

Back on Dec. 22 Caleb had a scary allergic reaction, and we never could pinpoint what caused it. He had a follow-up appointment at Walter Reed this afternoon. We saw a different doctor, as well as his resident (intern? I always get mixed up, LOL). They were both extremely nice, and they went and consulted with the doctor we saw the last time, who set up Caleb's milk challenge, as well, so we had many minds considering this problem! They all agreed it was pretty unlikely that it was the coffee.

In thinking over the situation the past few weeks, I came up with a few more differences that might have made a difference. For one, Caleb ate a slice of pepperoni pizza that was left-over for lunch that day. We had gotten it from a local restaurant the night before, but he had only eaten pineapple/ham pizza that night. Also, Caleb ate the last of a fruit salad with lunch. The salad only had fresh pineapple and grapes to begin with, and by the time Caleb ate it, there were only grapes left. But they would have been sitting in pineapple juice, and he has had issues with fresh pineapple before. Nothing like this reaction, of course, and only when he ate a lot of it on subsequent days, but still . . . he is a little sensitive to pineapple. Maybe, combined with the increased sensitivity from the dog and cats he was exposed to all day the day before, it was enough to trigger a big reaction?

So we have an appointment for Feb. 28, and we are supposed to bring in some fresh pineapple/grape fruit salad, a slice of pepperoni pizza from that same restaurant, and some of the Folger's coffee, like he was drinking that day. They will do some skin tests and have him eat the stuff and see if there is any reaction. I'm thinking there won't be, and we'll just have to be content to not know exactly what the problem is. But who knows--maybe something will show up.

A Flexible Day

Tuesday is our co-op day, but we had a bit of an ice storm last night. The younger kids' morning co-op was cancelled, but we decided the roads were fine, once we got out of our subdivisions, so we would go ahead and have our junior high co-op. We decided we would meet a little bit later, though--10:00 instead of 9:30. I dropped Nathan off at Christine's house, and she drove Isaac and Nathan, along with her 1 year old Elena, over to our church to meet Eric and do history (Theresa, our literature/writing person who usually teaches first, has a big hill in her driveway and absolutely could not get out).

As they were almost at the church, Elena threw up all over herself and her carseat. At the church, Christine examined the situation and decided going home to clean up was the better course. So she picked up Eric and headed back to her house. She was going to clean up Elena, then do about 45 minutes of history. Then I would stop by her house, pick up the 3 boys (and drop off some of my own so we would still all fit in the small van, the only one I felt like I could scrape this morning!), and head over to the church to do science. I had already decided that with the later start, we wouldn't even really go through the chapter--we would just do the lab, which was the frog dissection. Christine would bring everyone else in her van in time to eat lunch. Then we would do Spanish.

A few minutes later, Christine called again. Elena had thrown up again, and she didn't even want to put her back in the car seat (which she still had to clean). As we were talking, the boys came in to inform her that her van was sliding down their driveway! Ack! Time for yet another plan!

So I ran back over (good thing we live close!), picked up the 3 Rivendell boys, and brought them back to my house. We all ate lunch, and then we leisurely did the frog dissection at my kitchen table. It was so nice! I didn't have to lug anything into the church and back out again! Siri came about 1:30, as we were finishing up, and she did Spanish over here. We just skipped memory work (although I will email it out), and Theresa emailed out her assignments for literature. Luke did point out that "It's no fun to just read and not have the discussion" though!

The frog dissection was fun! I was glad I had just done a frog dissection with Lynnea's and Kari's kids a few weeks ago. Their specimens were much larger, as well as dye-injected, so I was a bit worried about how clear everything would be with these scrawny little guys we had today. No worries though--everything was there, just as it should be! The funny thing was that all 4 of our specimens today were females, as well as the 6 specimens I did with Kari and Lynnea! I was hoping for at least one male, but no such luck. The one I did before were all very ready to reproduce, with bellies full of eggs, and really large oviducts. Today's specimens were not at all in that season of life, so no eggs.

Today's specimens did have one thing going for them--full stomachs! All the ones I did the other day pretty much had empty stomachs--maybe because they were injected? Or maybe just a coincidence. Anyhow, when we sliced those stomachs open, we saw nothing interesting. Today, however, the boys were pulling out recognizable bugs from the stomachs! Eric's frog had a caterpillar, and Nathan's frog had not one, but 2 Japanese beetles, one still in prime condition! Isaac's had a bug as well, but it was more digested, and we weren't able to definitively tell what kind it was. I thought everyone would be interested, so I made sure to take a picture of Nathan's beetles. The one in front in the complete one.

And just in case you want to briefly review your high school biology, the liver is the 3-lobed organ near the top of the cut, and the stomach is the J-shaped organ under it, with the small intestine coming off the side. We found lots of other organs and glands, but that's all you can see!

Ahhhhh . . .

I am pleased to report that I started out this weekend more relaxed than I've been in . . . well, a really long time. My massage was WONDERFUL! Sooooo worth it. I told the lady that my main problem areas were my shoulders/upper back, and that is what she worked on for probably 45 minutes. It was heavenly. I could just feel the knots work themselves out as she did deep-tissue massage on the affected areas. As soon as she started working, she said, "I can see why you are having shoulder problems!", as the knots were that obvious! I laid with my shoulders flat, but hips turned a little to one side, and a pillow under my belly/one leg. It was very comfortable, and it enabled her to work on both shoulders. I floated home, and in fact, I still feel a bit like I am floating! I slept better last night than I have since I started having these numbness problems with my arms--6 uninterrupted hours!

Feeling more relaxed also allowed me to be a lot more productive yesterday. I systematically went through the bookshelves in the study, which is where I keep all our homeschooling stuff. I have been in desperate need of time to rearrange and organize in there, because I am running out of room on my shelves. Yesterday I took out a ton of material that we simply are never going to use. I can admit it! I think we've been homeschooling now for going on 9 years, if you start with Nathan's kindergarten year, and I pretty much know what works for us for the elementary years. And I have no energy to do anything extra or just try new things for the fun of it! So one big box of stuff is sitting in the middle of the study floor, and my shelves are so much more organized. Hopefully we'll have a used curriculum sale at the end of our co-op this year, like we did last year. If not, it's still going somewhere else!

Unfortunately, all this cleaning did not turn up 2 things that are missing. One is an answer key to the Henle I book we just started. It is mildly annoying that I can't find that book, especially since I know I have seen it around, but no big deal--I have to put in a Rainbow Resource order, so I'm just going to order another one for $5.50. The other big thing we are missing is a library book on apes and gorillas (and lemurs, which is the reason we had it out in the first place). Luke has to do a research paper on an animal, and he picked the lemur. He needed 3 sources by Jan. 4, so right before we left for Ohio, we went to the library and got out 3 books. When we got back home from Ohio, and co-op was starting up again, we couldn't find any of the 3 books! After much frantic searching, we discovered 2 of the books shelved on our bookshelves, along with all our books. Whew! But . . . where could the third book be? We thoroughly searched each shelf on the bookshelves, as well as the usual places--under the couch, coffee table, and beds, behind the couch, in the playroom, etc. Luke and I have both spent quite a good deal of time searching for this book, and it is not in any of the obvious places, nor in quite a few very unobvious places! It's a big, green, hardcover book--you would think it would not have been so easy to lose in such a thorough way! Grrr . . . there is not much that bothers me more than having something missing. Although I will say that it has bothered me less after my massage, that's for sure, LOL. Still, I was disappointed that all this cleaning and decluttering did not turn up at least one of the missing items!

I am hoping to continue using the weekends to declutter. We just have so much extra stuff around, it seems. It's hard to keep things clean, and it's hard to keep track of things we really do need! And hopefully I will continue to have more restful nights, because I am sure I will be more able to actually do things like declutter if I have a tiny bit more energy.

***Update*** Well, what do you know?! I walked into the family room, and I noticed that Grace had gotten some books out of the bookshelf, which were scattered on the floor. On top of the pile was . . . 100 Things You Should Know About Monkeys and Apes. What in the world?! Luke and I BOTH looked through all the books on those shelves! My jaw about hit the floor! Okay . . . well, that gives me hope that other missing things might mysteriously turn up out of the clear blue sky, LOL. And in the meantime, we are all praising the Lord for this little miracle!

Two Unrelated Recipes

I said awhile back that I was going to post the recipe for the sausage/egg/hashbrown crockpot casserole I made for Christmas morning. Well, my brain is like a sieve, and I never got around to it. Until now!

Crockpot hashbrown sausage casserole

30 oz. package plain frozen hash browns
16 oz. sausage, already cooked (or leftover ham)
1/2 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 1/2 c. shredded cheese
12 eggs
1 c. milk
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Spray inside of crockpot with cooking spray. Dump in the whole package of hashbrowns and spread them out evenly, breaking up any clumps.

In a mixing bowl, mix the dozen eggs with the milk, salt, pepper, and cheese, sausage, green pepper, and onions. Pour everything on top of hashbrowns.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours. And that's it! It's all ready to eat in the morning!

And now, for a second recipe. I am always on this quest to find different ways to use up old bananas, especially when I have an event to which I need to take a dessert! We had our monthly fellowship meal after church last Sunday, and I wanted to take a dessert as well as a main course. I wanted to make some sort of banana cake or bars, so I started hunting around on the internet. I found a recipe for a "chocolate frosted banana cake" that sounded good, so I printed that one off (obviously before our laptop decided to no longer speak to the printer, LOL). It was good! Very moist. It looked really pretty too, although it definitely looked like it would have a very chocolate-y flavor. It doesn't, with the banana in there, so it was a little bit of a shock. But it was very tasty! And it used up 4 bananas. Woo-hoo! (As a side note, let me just say that whoever posted the recipe on the internet needed to take one of Mrs. Harner's technical writing classes to learn how to make directions. There basically were none, as far as how the wet ingredients went together, so I was the one who decided to cream the butter and sugar, and then add stuff. Feel free to do whatever you want!)

Chocolate Frosted Banana Cake

2/3 c. milk
1 T. vinegar
1 c. softened butter
1 1/3 c. brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c. banana, mashed (I used 3 bananas)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. flour
1 c. cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350. Oil a bundt pan really well. Cream butter and brown sugar, then add the milk, vinegar, eggs, banana, and vanilla, mixing well. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. Don't overmix--it should be a bit lumpy. Spoon batter into the well-oiled bundt pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes until a knife comes out clean. Cool.

Frosting

1/2 c. cocoa
1/4 melted butter
1/4 c. banana, mashed (I just used almost another whole one)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 T. milk (however much you need to make a good consistency--more if you use less banana)
3 cups powdered sugar

Mix together cocoa, butter, banana, milk, and vanilla. Whisk in the powdered sugar until combined and smooth. Spoon over cake.

Tired . . .

I can tell I am approaching my third trimester, as I am definitely getting more and more tired! Each night, I sit down on the couch with the laptop and think, "I should blog!", but the mental energy needed is simply not there. I still am having some troubles with my arms falling asleep when I sleep, but things are definitely better, now that I am not doing as much as I was before Christmas. Also, I figured out that I just can't sleep on my right side. Something about that side (which is the side where I had my rib removed) is just screwy. I'm getting an early birthday present on Friday that I hope will help even more--a massage at my chiropractor's office!

I still haven't heard anything from the OB clinic about my 1 hour glucose test. Each time the phone rings, and it's a "301" number, my heart jumps though, LOL. I am still faithfully exercising about 40 minutes a day (another reason for the fatigue . . .), so we'll see.

I am finding myself ever-increasingly irritated about little things. We are in this spate of losing things--a library book, the Latin answer key, Nathan's mp3 player, etc. It is driving. me. crazy. I am not dealing well! Also, we have several laptops, but the only one we can print from has decided, for whatever reason (we for sure can't figure it out) that it doesn't want to print. Again, driving me insane. Such little things! I just feel like I am very edgy about everything. I really wish all the kids would go away for a week so I could just clean and organize! (Of course, I don't have extra energy . . . so I'm sure I would actually get anything done, LOL. But it's a nice thought!) It sounds like I'm not 27 weeks, but 37 weeks!

But life is going on, whether I can find things or not. Someday I'll be organized again (right? RIGHT?!). In the meantime, everyone is eating regularly and wearing clean clothes, and we haven't drowned in papers yet. Rivendell is going well, and I also just started teaching Nathan, Luke, Isaac, and Caleb McC the first year of Henle Latin. I know I just need to focus on what IS going well, but when things are getting lost, etc., I feel like the wheels are going to come off at any minute, and I am not doing a good job of keeping everything together! Deep breath . . . hopefully that massage will be really great, LOL. I think my expectations for this one poor massage are getting a little too high!

Happy New Year!

If you aren't a Facebook friend, you might have thought we never even made it back from Ohio! In fact, we made it back just fine, albeit less like the well-oiled machine we were on the way out! We stopped right before the OH/WV border for lunch, at a place where there is a Wendy's and Taco Bell right next to each other. Caleb is not a huge Taco Bell fan, so we always get a hamburger for him first, then go next door and the rest of us eat at Taco Bell. Of course, this was Friday, New Year's Eve, and the strip mall these restaurants were located in was BUSY at lunch time! Both place took forever to get our food, although Taco Bell won first prize. We didn't order enough tacos the first time, so I went back to order 5 more soft tacos. It took them 20 minutes to make those 5 tacos! And there weren't many people in front of us in line, either!

Grace also had some issues there. She "couldn't" go potty, even though we tried twice. Well, I knew she had been drinking water in the morning, as well as at lunch, so I put a diaper on her! She wasn't happy about that, but I didn't want to deal with an accident, and I knew she was going to be uncomfortable later! So later on, she started fussing around in the car. Hmmm. We did eventually make a stop at a rest area, but there's really not that many places to stop in WV or western MD! I could not refrain from telling her, "I told you you would have to go!"

We did not get gas at lunch, because there is no gas station at that exit, and of course there was no gas at the rest area . . . so a little bit later, I happened to glance down and I realized the gas light was on! So we had to make yet a THIRD stop for gas! Talk about fits and starts! At least we were listening to a good book on tape--Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stephenson. Nothing like a rollicking good pirate tale to make the miles go by! I was glad I saved the longer book for the way home. It was 6 hours long, so we didn't even finish it by the time we got home. We had to finish it up on the way home from co-op on Tuesday!

So we did make it home, and we picked up our guacamole and chips and headed over the New Year's Eve party at the L's house. That was a fun time, although I was pretty tired! I slept well that night and did not even remotely consider staying up until midnight to ring in the New Year!

The rest of the weekend I tried to unpack and get organized. I had limited success, LOL. Come Monday, I still didn't feel ready for school to start back up again, much less co-op the next day. And I still have some laundry that needs to get folded. We did a light day of school, and I prepared for Rivendell, where we were doing our first dissection, an earthworm. I also typed up 6 week's worth of memory work and got that all copied, plus 6 weeks of maps for mapwork, at Office Depot, so I am feeling very organized in that one area!

Today I had an OB appointment in the morning, and then I stayed and took my 1 hour glucose test again. I have no hopes of passing it, since I haven't passed a 1 hour one since I was pregnant with Anna, and since we are coming off Christmas, where I ate plenty of toffee and peppermint bark! Oh well. Then this afternoon I did a frog dissection with the kids of my friends Lynnea and Kari. They're the ones I did the earthworm dissection for back in December. That was fun! Frogs are much more rewarding than earthworms, LOL--much more to see and identify! Lynnea and Kari made us dinner, which was incredibly nice, so that is why I am sitting here with my feet up, on the computer--soup is heating up on the stove for us, and there is fresh bread as well! Yum!

So we're right back in the swing of things. Maybe some day I'll feel caught up and on top of things . . . It's always hard to start back up again!

Packing Up . . .

We've had a wonderful time, but it's time to go home. The time flew by, as usual!

We got here Sunday afternoon around 4:15 , having left at 8:00 in the morning (an amazingly early time for us, LOL). We were worried about snow, which is why we left early, but that turned out to be a false alarm, thankfully. It flurried starting in Cumberland, MD until we got into Ohio, but the road was never bad. We made one stop, for lunch, in Cambridge, OH. I did need to go to the bathroom earlier, but it was cold and snowy, it's a hassle to get everyone in and out, and we were listening to a good book on CD, so I just held out. The book we were listening to was another one by Richard Peck called On the Wings of Heroes. It's about a boy growing up in a small town in the U.S. during World War II, and it was a interesting look at life during that time. We all really enjoyed it, and it certainly made the miles fly by.

Monday the kids were all excited to play out in the snow. My parents only had a few inches on the ground, but it was more than in Virginia or Texas! We had brought a huge garbage bag full of snow stuff, so we got everyone dressed up and out they went. For a few minutes anyway. It was quite cold, and Grace and Emily both had troubles keeping their gloves on, so they were not fans of the cold or the snow. The boys stayed out awhile longer, but the ones who stayed out the longest were Anna and Amy, the Korean girl who is living with my parents for a year, along with her mom, while her dad finishes his PhD back in Korea. They sledded down the little hill in the yard for such a long time!

Dan and Melinda took Nathan, Grace, and Emily for a special trip to Trader Joe's, and then out to lunch at Marion's Pizza. Nathan thought it was good, but too expensive for our family, LOL. Then Dad took Dan and the boys to an AOG party at a local restaurant to watch the USAFA bowl game. The Falcons won, and everyone had more pizza, so a good time was had by all. The Air Force song broke out several times, it was reported! Jonathan was the only boy who decided he didn't really want to go, so he stayed home with all us girls.

Tuesday Dan and Melinda, going for "super-uncle-and-aunt" status, took Nathan and Luke to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3-D. They all enjoyed the movie, although none of them were that impressed by the 3-D part of it. I got a haircut in the afternoon, and then we all went to Youngs for dinner and ice cream. This was the first time Caleb could have ice cream, and he sampled a few flavors, but he ended up getting green apple sorbet, just like old times.

Wednesday my parents took Caleb and Jonathan out to breakfast at Mimi's, to make up for them not getting to see the movie. They thoroughly enjoyed chocolate chip pancakes (Jonathan) and pancakes in the shape of a mouse (Caleb). Melinda and I went mall-walking in the morning, bringing back good memories of my moms' walking group back in Colorado. Then we came home and I made dough for sugar cut-out cookies. I tried a new recipe because I didn't have one I loved. This one . . . well, I didn't love it either, LOL. I had such a hard time making it not too sticky! Even after chilling it for awhile, it was still fluffy, so I added more flour and powdered sugar. That helped some, but the kids had quite a hard time rolling it out. We had to use quite a bit of extra flour as well as helping most of the kids. Ten kids . . . sticky dough . . . tons of flour. I think you can imagine the scene! Finally all the dough was used up, and the cookies were baked. Bob actually called while the last batch was cooking, and I totally got distracted and forgot to take them out. Whoops! Those ones were pretty crispy! After dinner we decorated the cookies. That was another sticky mess, LOL. After much frosting and sprinkles were used, the cookies were finally done, and we could actually clean up the mess! They did taste good--and hopefully the memories were good too!

Today Melinda, Mom, and I went out to brunch at First Watch. After we got home and got the kids fed lunch, we had a little party to celebrate Emily's 4th birthday. Her actual birthday isn't until Jan. 4, but hey--it's always a good day to have a party with all your cousins! They all had princess cupcakes, and then they got to hit down a princess pinata. The boys enjoyed that part, LOL. For our present, I made a photo book on Snapfish for Emily--"My Cousin Book". It had pictures from the time we were all together in July, plus some other pictures of us. It was fun to make! I also got a great gift idea from an old Family Fun magazine. A mom had written in about how she had a big extended family who were all spread far apart, so she got full-length photos of everyone and put the photos on magnetic photo paper, and then cut around the figures. I did this with out family, making a set of magnetic dolls for the fridge. I also typed out our names and put them on magnets as well, so Emily can match our names and pictures. The dolls turned out so cute! My girls really liked them too, so maybe I'll have to make our own set. I got the magnetic photo paper from Amazon. I thought it was a really good idea for family members who don't see each other all that often!

So now I'm pretty much done packing up, except for last-minute stuff tomorrow morning. I doubt I'll get up anywhere as early as I did when we left Virginia--I'm hoping we can get out of here by 9:30! We do want to get back so we can go to the L's annual New Year's Eve party, so we will be motivated to get out the door! Wow--hard to believe 2010 is already done! We're looking forward to what the Lord has for us in the new year!

A Fresh Look

Hey, change! Everyone who knows me knows that I am not really big on change. I've been blogging now for 5 years, and about the only thing I have ever done with the actual blog template is add a list of blogs I follow. That involved HTML, and that was the extent of my ability, LOL. But I have admired what other people could do on their blogs, and I even asked a few people how they did some things--but everything involved modernizing my blogger template. I was afraid that I would lose all my posts or something, so I never took the plunge. But now we are here at my parents' house (yes, we made it safely with no problems!), along with my brother, who is a computer person. He has recently started blogging again (at Hotel California), and he spent a good deal of time last night upgrading his template. He didn't lose anything, so I thought I'd give it a shot today.

I have really wanted to be able to go back through and find particular posts by the tags I have given them, as opposed to trying to remember what month it was I was writing about a certain thing! So now if you have a question about, say, gestational diabetes, you can click on that link and see all my posts on the subject! There's also a search function so you can search my blog for a term. Hopefully these things will be improvements. Maybe more will be forth-coming! We'll have to see how motivated I am . . .

And sometime hopefully in this next year, I am going to make my blog into a little book and get it printed off. Blurb.com is one site that does this sort of thing. I love to go back and read old entries, since I have usually forgotten all about the little things the kids did 5 years ago! A little book would be like a family diary, and I think it would be a fun thing to pass down.

Merry Christmas!!

I hope you all have had a wonderful day celebrating the birth of Jesus! Our celebration started yesterday with something that I think will become a new tradition for us--we had our big meal on Christmas Eve! I made turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, sweet potato casserole, garlic green beans, and cran-apple-pear sauce, and we ate around 4:00. Then we cleaned up and went to the candlelight service at our church. When we got home, Nathan helped me put a sausage/hashbrown/egg breakfast casserole into the crockpot for this morning while I made cinnamon rolls using Elizabeth L.'s recipe. Since Caleb couldn't have them, I never thought it was worth the bother. How nice that he can enjoy them now!

This morning it was SO nice to have breakfast totally done! All we had to do was take the lid off the crockpot! It was good too--I'll post the recipe when I have more time. And the cinnamon rolls were delicious too! I let them rise the second time in the fridge overnight, then cooked and frosted them this morning. Very tasty!

We ate after the kids had opened their stockings. I try to get them something to do (Michael's dollar bins are a great place to find little crafty-type things), so the boys put together these little cars while the cinnamon rolls were cooking. Then we opened presents after I showered. The boys were very excited to receive bows and arrows from my parents, and Bob later took them out to an empty field not far from us to let them shoot into a box filled with wrapping paper trash! Other than that, they got a Lego Creationary game from us, as well as a book for each of them, some cool spy-type toys from Aunt Melinda and Uncle Dan (and Aunt Melinda's mom--thank you, Barbara, for finding and sending them!!) and some Legos and assorted things from each other. The girls were very excited to get a dollhouse from my parents, which Bob will hopefully be able to assemble this next week! We gave them a little shopping cart, which they are already enjoying playing with, and a Little Mermaid bath toy, and the boys got them some little things from the dollar store. It was fun stuff, and not overwhelming, so that is a good thing!

I took a nap after present-opening. I stayed up too late last night! What I was doing was finishing wrapping a few last presents, and I realized there was one last video that I had ordered, and I knew it had arrived--where was it?! I looked very thoroughly through my closet, and I couldn't figure out why the video wasn't with the other books that had come from Amazon, because I knew I had seen it with them! I must have looked for 30 minutes, growing ever more frustrated, when finally it occured to me that maybe I had been really organized and wrapped the video already. I went to bed at that point, but this morning, there was the video, under the tree! Good grief! I would have saved myself time by not wrapping the crazy thing early, and just doing it on Christmas Eve, if I am going to waste 30 minutes looking for it! I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere . . .

This afternoon I spent busily packing because the kids and I are driving to Ohio tomorrow, Lord willing, so see my parents, as well as my brother and his family, who have driven up from Texas. There is supposed to be a big snow storm here in D.C. tomorrow, so I am hoping we can get out early and not have problems from it. Please pray for our safety! Bob will be holding down the fort here, but we're only going to be gone a few days. So with that, I had better sign off and get to bed so that I am not too tired to drive tomorrow! Merry Christmas!!!

Another Unsolved Mystery

We had a bit of a scare today with Caleb. He had an allergic reaction to something, and we really can not figure out to what he reacted. He had his usual cereal and soy millk for breakfast, and then for lunch he had left-overs--things we have had the past few nights, and with which he has had no problems. He had a slice of pizza, as well as a "chicken packet", which is basically chicken and celery mixed with a little bit of cream cheese and baked in a crescent roll with bread crumbs on the outside. Both things have milk products, but he's had a lot of stuff since he passed his milk challenge, and he has had zero problems whatsoever. The only thing somewhat unusual was that he had some coffee (Folgers decaf) during the course of the morning. He's had coffee before though, and not had any problems.

So at around 1:00, he came to me and asked if his eyes were swelling up. I told him they looked red. He also said his throat was hurting. A little while later, his eyes were definitely more puffy and watery, and he said the "lump" in his throat was bigger, making it hard to swallow. I gave him a chewable benedryl pill, figuring it was an allergic reaction. He took a second pill not long after, and he laid on the couch for a few minutes. I had a chiropractor appointment at 2:15, so I was preparing to leave and drop Nathan and Luke off at the L's on my way, so they could play Wii with Amanda. I kept checking on Caleb, but the benedryl were not really stopping the reaction at all. His eyes were really puffy and red, with bumps around them and his mouth. More worrisome, the lump in his throat was getting bigger, and he was having trouble swallowing, along with some wheezing. Fortunately, Bob was home, so he ran Caleb over to the closest ER, which is about 5 minutes away. We didn't give him the epi-pen, but I was prepared to. If the hospital wasn't so close, we definitely would have.

They got him right in and gave him an epiphenephrine breathing treatment, as well as starting a steroid IV drip. Then we all started trying to figure out what possibly could have been the problem. The weird thing is that the reaction didn't start with him eating something. There was no tingly mouth, or any other warning symptom. Pecan is one of his highest allergens, and he accidentally ate a bite of a cookie with pecan in it back in August, but he right away had a tingling tongue, so he didn't eat any more, and he took a benedryl. That stopped the reaction pretty immediately, and all he had was a bit of an upset stomach. This was such a more violent reaction, and to have it come on just out of the clear blue sky was very unsettling, to say the least.

One other possible factor is that yesterday he spent the day at a friend's house. The friend has 2 cats and a dog, all of which Caleb is allergic to. Last night he told me he needed his inhalers because he was wheezy, and he had to take them twice. He does have a pattern of having more severe food reactions whenever he is having some environmental reaction--like he's already sensitized, so everything is worse. Still, this was a lot worse . . . and with no clear trigger. Scary.

Anyway, he is doing fine right now. We have to make an appointment at Bethesda tomorrow (and hopefully get the ER visit cleared with his PCM and Tricare), so we'll see if they have any insights. I'm not holding my breath though! We're praying for no more excitement tonight, LOL. He looks fine, albeit very pale, with circles under his eyes! Here he is showing off his IV bandages.

In other news, this is the first picture on our new camera! Our other camera, which we got 5 years ago this month, has been having some problems, so we knew it was about time to get another one. I really wanted another Canon PowerShot, since our last one is so easy to use and has been remarkably faithful. So that's what we got--a PowerShot SD 1300. Last night I got it out of the box and charged up the battery so we'd be all ready for Christmas. It works fine, and it is nice that I am already familiar with the buttons!

A Visit With Jasmine!

On our way home from Great Wolf Lodge, we stopped in Richmond to visit Bob's niece Christi, her husband Andres, and their brand-new baby Jasmine! Jasmine was born last Friday night at 11:08 PM, so when we saw her on Wednesday, she was less than 5 days old! Jasmine is a beautiful baby with a head of dark hair. I enjoyed holding her, and so did Caleb! The girls loved looking at her.

Faith was particularly taken with Jasmine's cute little baby toes. "Toes . . . ba-by toes," she kept saying. And she kept wanting to take her hat off to see her hair as well. She was very interested in the baby! She'll be a good big sister too, I'm sure! But she won't get to see any newborn baby hair though, LOL--that's not how we grow them!

Here is a family picture with proud Grandma Ann, Bob's sister! We were so glad we could stop by and meet Jasmine while she was still such a tiny newborn. So precious and sweet!

Grace's Great Waterslide Adventure

I mentioned how Grace worked up her courage to go down the waterslides in the kiddie area, and she did enjoy going down them. But she is not one to really get her face, hair, or even the top part of her swimsuit wet, so she always wanted me to be right there. Also, just about each time, she would sit at the top and think about whether or not she really wanted to go down, before finally making the big plunge.

But there was this one time . . . It was Tuesday after dinner, and I was trying to get Grace to try something new. There was a big fort-type thing in the middle of the park, with a bunch of climbing ropes and other things to do on it. I told Grace to go climb on that thing for awhile, along with Jonathan and Anna. Faith was pretty tired, so I went up a few steps, holding her, and watching the other 3. It wound around in there, so it was hard to see exactly where everyone was. Soon I saw Anna climbing back through the ropes. Breathlessly she told me that Grace was going down the waterslide at the top, and "she is really scared!" I assumed she meant Grace was sitting at the top of the slide, not wanting to slide down, but I really couldn't get up there, with my pregnant self having to climb on ropes, holding Faith and dodging water. So I hollered to Jonathan to go see what the problem was with Grace and tell her to come back down the way she came. Next thing I know, I see Grace come around the bottom of the structure, sobbing away, sopping wet! She had indeed gone down the big orange slide, and she was NOT happy about it one bit! She kept talking about the scary slide she didn't like, that she "accidentally" slid down, LOL.

So . . . how do you accidentally slide down a big water slide? There was a life guard at the top, so it certainly wasn't like she slipped and tumbled down! We never could get a straight story out of her, and both Jonathan and Anna had gotten distracted by filling buckets and doing all these other water-related things along the way to the top, so they weren't there to see anything either. I guess she just marched up to the top and sat down on the slide, probably expecting to be able to sit there awhile and cogitate about whether or not she actually wanted to go down. And then when she decided "no", she would just get off the slide and go back down, or something. But instead, when she sat down, she must have immediately started sliding, and away she went! I wasn't even there to catch her! Poor girl! She had no interest in even going back up on any of the climbing things that night or the next day, LOL.

Some More Random Pictures

Anna at the bottom of a waterslide. You can see her infectious enthusiasm!

Three bathing beauties!

Jonathan waveboarding. This was not a time he fell off and had to have the water stopped, LOL.

Nathan and Luke coming out of the "Alberta Falls" waterslides, where you race. It looks like Nathan was just a TINY bit faster!

Every evening in the lobby, they had a cheesy story in the evening about the rhythm of nature. At the end of the show, there was "snow" in the lobby! It was actually soap bubbles, but the kids enjoyed it.

Great Wolf Lodge

We left last Sunday after church to drive down to Williamsburg, to the Great Wolf Lodge. Our homeschool support group has been getting a special deal for the past few years to go down in December, but quite honestly I just wrote it off each time I would see the email. Things like that don't work out for our family! We're too big! It's too expensive! But this time Christine McC told me that the hotel was giving us ALL the suites for the same price of $139, including one that sleeps 8. That answered my objections, so we made reservations for all three nights of the deal. Secretly, though, I still thought it was too good to be true, and so I threw 2 sleeping bags into the van, just in case.

When we got to the room, however, I was very pleasantly surprised by how big it was! It was actually 3 rooms--one room with a queen size bed and attached bathroom, where Bob and I slept, along with Faith in her pack-n-play; a second bedroom with 2 queen beds where Anna, Grace, Caleb, and Jonathan slept, and a third sitting room with a fold-out sofa where Nathan and Luke slept. There was also a hallway with a counter and a microwave and small fridge, as well as a second bathroom! VERY spacious! Since we had more than 5 kids, we haven't stayed at a hotel where we all actually had a bed!

(Picture from the kitchen hallway, looking into the bedroom with one bed and the sitting room. The other room is off to the left.)

Monday was a really fun day because the other 2 families in our Rivendell co-op were also there. The boys had a grand time playing together! Here they are all getting drenched by a big bucket that pours out thousands of gallons of water every 5 minutes or so. Notice my girls are nowhere near this. They were all terrifed of the big bucket, and they steered a wide berth around the whole area the entire time, LOL.

The waterpark was really nice, albeit really hot and humid. They keep it at 84 degrees year-round in there, which is great if you are exiting a water slide, but not so nice if you are pregnant and trying to relax by reading a book! I had to keep dipping my feet in. When the girls were down, I had to be right there with them, but sometimes Bob would take them up to the room (they were definitely "done" with water much more often and quickly than the boys!) and I could just relax. The boys just sort of did their own thing, with me trying to keep a vague idea of where they were always. The lifeguards at all the areas were super-vigilant.

I was able to read The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I read the whole thing during the 3 days we were there, which tells you how much wonderful time I had for relaxing and reading! So nice! I really enjoyed the book--I thought it was very well-written, and it told the story of a volatile time in our country's history, but not in too harsh or idealistic a way.

Since we were there until Wednesday, everyone got plenty of time at the waterpark to do whatever they wanted to do! It was interesting to see the different personalities come out, as far as what they each enjoyed. Nathan and Luke went on every single waterslide multiple times. They didn't want to leave! Caleb didn't go on one single waterslide, despite (because of?!) insistent pleading from his older brothers. He did really enjoy the wave pool and the water basketball. Jonathan was quite independent, maybe even a bit TOO independent, LOL. He rode some water slides with the older boys, but he also enjoyed waveboarding and the wave pool. One time he also ingested a lot of water one time in the waveboarding place, and they had to turn off the water so he could get out! That didn't phase him--in fact, he never even mentioned the incident to me, and I would never have known if Bob hadn't filled me in!

Anna was also pretty independent. She rode on several slides with her older brothers, and she definitely is a little fish, taking after her father and his side of the family! Grace, being more like me, was much more cautious in the water. She eventually got up the courage to go down the water slides in the kiddie area, as long as I was right at the bottom of the slide, touching it, to catch her. Faith also went down the slides in the kiddie area, and she had a good time splashing around. The waterpark has a ton of life jackets of various sizes around the facility on hooks, so we usually put one on her, much to her great dislike. Grace and Faith both enjoyed the wave pool, although Grace only really enjoyed it during the cycles when the waves were off, LOL. Then I would give her and Faith rides in the nice calm water. Anna loved getting in a raft and fighting the waves!

You can sort of see how curly Faith's hair is. It was actually very, very curly. Even Grace's hair curled up a bit on the ends! All that humidity! I brought all the swimsuits I could find for the girls, and I was so glad. We would go back up to the room for lunch, and they would usually stay there for a little while while Faith napped, and at least Grace would color or look at books. Then they could all put on dry suits! No one likes putting a wet suit back on, LOL.

We also brought tons of food, so we could eat breakfast and lunch in our room, as well as have snacks. That worked out well and saved a ton of money. Monday night we went out to Golden Corral with the McCs and another family in our homeschool group, who had 4 kids. After swimming all day, all the kids, boys especially, were STARVING! The restaurant lost money on us that evening! The next night we ordered in pizza, which was delicious.

We're still alive . . .

I'm sure you have all been wondering if in fact we all did succumb to whatever was wrong this weekend, but in fact, we all recovered perfectly well, LOL. We've just been insanely busy with the holiday season, and that has shown up as "no blogging".

I ordered a ton of chocolate from an online place, and that arrived early this week. So Wednesday and Thursday we spent making peanut butter cups, more peppermint bark, and more butter toffee. I always think it won't happen, but every time it does--after spending a day in the kitchen dealing with chocolate, I truly have no desire for it. Of course, that only lasts a night or so, LOL.

Friday morning we had our co-op ice skating party. This is always eagerly anticipated by all the boys, and Nathan was able to go as well. Last year the kids and I were in Ohio for it, except for Nathan, who was back here helping Bob and my dad get our house ready to sell so we could PCS to Guam . . . ah, what a difference a year makes! The year before that, Caleb got a lovely goose egg almost as soon as he set foot on the ice. Thankfully, we had no such incidents on Friday! Everyone had a great time, even Anna, who got to ice skate for the very first time! Christine watched Grace and Faith for me, and I drove her boys. She let Anna borrow a pair of strap-on double blades. Those were amazing! Anna was so confident in them! She steadily plugged away, around and around the rink. At first the boys took her, and then several of the girls who are a little bit older were around her like a bunch of mother hens! She had a ball. Christine, Bob, and our Polish friend Ania all said they learned how to skate with those same kind of double runners. They are such a good idea!

Friday afternoon I baked a bunch of Andes mint cookies for a cookie exchange this afternoon with some ladies from church. The exchange was a lot of fun. It was a smaller group of ladies--only 6 of us--but sometimes smaller groups are nice because you can really get to know people more deeply like that! I took home a bunch of cookies, and now there are only about 10 left. They were all delicious, and we have a bunch of eager samplers here at home!

This morning we had a workday at our church with our little junior high co-op families. We were only there for a little over 2 hours, but we really got a lot done! The menfolk all worked outside for the most part, cleaning up leaves and stuff like that. We ladies worked inside deep-cleaning the baathrooms and kitchen, as well as the nursery, and Christine and Theresa bagged a ton of bags for the food pantry Christmas service, which is going to be tomorrow. The younger boys eventually came inside and helped us wipe down baseboards and walls. After we were done, we went out for pizza with the McCs. Our 2 families demolished 4 16-inch pizzas! There was none left over!

So now you have an idea of why I haven't had time to blog at all! Next week promises to be busy as well, but then things should settle down the week before Christmas.

A Trip For the Books!

We got back yesterday from a visit to PA to see Bob's family. We got to his parents' house about 2:00 Saturday afternoon. Bob's brother Paul came over a little later with his son Brandon, and his daughter Sara came down from college to see us as well! Bob's sister Jane and her husband Terry also came over, and we had a great time visiting with them, playing card games, opening Christmas presents, etc. Bob, his dad, Jonathan, Grace, Faith, and I even took a little walk around the block to look at Christmas lights!

The only problem was that I was not very vigilant in monitering the kids' food intake. Usually they are pretty self-regulating, but not this time, LOL. We had stopped for lunch at Chick-Fil-A around 11:30, but when we got to Bob's parents' house, his mom was ready for us to eat again. So we fixed plates of ham, pierogies, vegetables, and other stuff, but no one really ate too terribly much because no one was hungry yet. By the time 5:00 rolled around, people were getting munchy again--and that is when Jane and Terry came in, bearing dozens of delicious cookies! Yum! Soooo . . . leftover chicken and ham--or chocolate turtle cookies and oatmeal M&M cookies?! Obviously the choice was easy, LOL.

We left around 8:00, and I recognized that ham at 2:30 and cookies at dinnertime would not do the trick for me, so we stopped at Wendys on our way to the hotel and got hamburgers for everyone. We ate those at 8:30, and then the kids were bouncing off the walls for a little while we we got the pack-n-play, sleeping bags, and fold-out sofabed set up. We all went to sleep at 10:30.

And then at about 11:40, Bob and I awoke to the very unwelcome sound of someone throwing up. It was Jonathan, who was kneeling over his pillow (well, the hotel's pillow--whew!) and really letting loose. Ah, lovely. It was actually a huge blessing that he threw up all over the bed, instead of the carpet. We bundled up the mess, and Bob took it down to the front desk. He brought up 2 blankets and some sheets, and Caleb and Jonathan slept on pallets on the floor between the beds. We all went back to sleep . . .

. . . until about an hour or so later, when Jonathan appeared at my side again and said he needed to go to the bathroom, because he still wasn't feeling well. Okay. At least he didn't need me. But around 2:00, Grace started whining around. I took her potty and then sat on the floor with her for awhile. Eventually she went back to sleep without anything happening . . . until 3:00, when she tossed her cookies (HA! I crack myself up!). She has had plenty of practice vomiting, so she easily made the trashcan. I tied that up and set it by the door, moved the other trashcan over by her sleeping bag, and went back to sleep . . .

. . . until about 5:00, when Nathan leaped out of bed to go to the bathroom. In a fit of prescience, he grabbed the trashcan by Grace's sleeping bag on his way to the bathroom, and he ended up needing both. Great! Now both trashcans have vomit in them, and I started searching our suitcases for any extra walmart-type bags we had around. Fortunately I did find a few.

Nathan threw up again around 6:00, and Grace threw up again at 6:30 and again at 7:30. I felt like the night would never end, and Faith did her part to make it even longer and less enjoyable by randomly crying out throughout the whole night. I think things were just too restless for her to get in a good deep sleep, but of course, every time she cried out, Bob and I went into full wakefullness mode as we tried to figure out if anyone was throwing up. It was definitely "the night that would not end".

At 7:30 I told Grace (and Anna, who had gotten up to go potty) to just go back to sleep, and thankfully everyone slept until 8:45. We had planned on going swimming and then heading back over to Bob's parents' house for awhile before heading home, but we were so ready to just be home (and definitely out of the hotel room, LOL). So we ate breakfast and packed up, although we couldn't actually leave the hotel until close to 11:00, due to people still having digestive issues. I was quite worried about the drive home, and it was snowing outside, making weather a concern as well!

We stopped back by Bob's parents' house to pick up the presents we had left there the night before. We didn't want the kids to come inside, in case it was some kind of virus (although even then we were thinking it was simple "eating too much sugar"). So we loaded up the van--and then the van wouldn't start up again. Yes, the battery was drained! I could not believe it!! Thankfully, Bob's dad had jumper cables, and he and Bob were able to jump it. Still--crazy van.

So we were able to leave around 11:30, and pretty much no one (who had not been feeling well) ate anything on the way back except for some bananas Bob's mom had sent with us. The rest of us ate trail mix, but we didn't stop for any fast food--that was not an appetizing thought, and I don't think I'll be eating at Wendy's again for quite awhile! Praise the Lord, no one had any issues on the way home. I was worried because we took the turnpike, which has service plazas only every so often, so there was the potential for great disaster! And the weather, although snowing and blustery, also did not cause any problems. Whew!

So we made it home yesterday afternoon, and the kids all played with their new toys. And then we all went to bed early. No one woke up at all in the middle of the night, and everyone is feeling much more refreshed this morning! Nathan, Jonathan, and Grace definitely have what I would consider the weakest stomachs of all of us. You can bet I will be much more careful about watching what everyone eats next time! Balanced meals at regular times for all! It was certainly a trip we will never forget! Seriously though--I have dealt with more vomit in these last 3 months than in the entire rest of my life! What in the world?! I am ready for this phase to be done!