Trick or Treat

The weather was beautiful for this years trick or treating. The kids had a wonderful time. We certainly had no need to worried about Keari going up to the doors to get her treats...she pushed people out of the way to get there. LOL Everyone thought she was the cutest thing in her bat costume. Of course there were a few times that we had to call the older ones back because the baby bat was trying to fly solo but for the most part we were able to keep track of all 11 kids (had 3 neighbor kids with us) without too much trouble. Here's a few pics of them...



And this is the mountain of candy that the kids came home with. What in the world are we supposed to do with it all??

Happy Halloween!

Birthday Gifts

I received a number of my b'day gifts early this. Since everyone was together for Adam's baptism, my parents and my in laws gave me my gifts then along with a small cake. I had to wait to get my gift from my family until my actual b'day, though...they weren't into the early gift giving. ;-) Besides money from my in laws and a pretty silver chain from my family, I also received these gifts...

Happy Birthday to me! =)

Kenzie and Bekah made this picture for me and taped it to my bedroom door.

Snow Clouds?

or just normal rain clouds? Either way, it looks pretty ominous outside. I think it's going to be one chilly night to be playing soccer. Connor has a makeup game tonight for the game that got rained out on Saturday. Glad it's Andy taking him and not me. I really hate cold weather.

Brr

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we were outside in shorts enjoying a gorgeous day and today it's 42 degrees, cloudy, gray & drizzly. Glad we took advantage of the nice weather yesterday while we could.

Beautiful Day

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. After oversleeping and missing getting the kids to Sunday school, I decided that there was no way I was letting them stay inside all day in front of the tv playing games. Alex, Connor, Bekah, Keari, Adam and I all headed to Terrapin Beach for a nice walk...the rest of the kids went with Andy to Virginia for Kenzie's softball tournament (her team ended up losing the first game 3-1 so they were done for the day but decided to stay to watch her old team play). Here's a few pics from our walk today. Pictures aren't the best because they are from my cell phone. I had my camera with me but the batteries decided to die just as I took the first picture.

Spirit Week

This past week was Spirit Week at Alex's school. They had a different dressup days planned for each day. What's nice about Alex going to such a small school is that just about everyone participates when they have events like this. Monday was Las Vegas Day and Alex dressed up as a Black Jack dealer. Tuesday was Color Day. Sophomores are yellow so the class all bought yellow sweatpants that have 2011 down the side. Alex also wore a yellow sweatshirt so he was very yellow that day. LOL Wednesday was Cowboy Day. Can you believe that not a single store around here had a cowboy hat as part of a halloween costume? I finally was able to find a kids foam cowboy hat that looked like the one in Toy Story. Alex was a good sport and wore it anyway.
Thursday was 70's Day. I dug out a green and yellow paisley shirt for him to wear with his jeans and bandana. I had a pink paisley shirt but he wouldn't go for that one. His spanish teacher really like the one that he wore which is the one I remembered to take a picture of. Friday was Blue & White Day which are the school colors. In addition to dressing up the also had events like tug of war, pep rally etc.
Friday night ended with a huge bonfire and Saturday was the Homecoming Dance. Alex didn't take anyone this year and it turns out he didn't even dance...he sat around and played black jack all night with a bunch of other kids. Too bad they were only playing with play money as it sounds like he was doing pretty well. ;)

A New Driver

Uh oh, Alex got his Learner's Permit today so he's the first of many new drivers in our family. I sure hope my nerves can take it. I think he looks entirely too happy about that little card he's holding. ;-)

Congested

I have been so congested these last few days. My head hurts, my eyes are scratchy and I just don't feel well in general. I think it's weather related...it's finally gotten cold here and every time there is a change in weather it totally screws up my head.

I went to an IEP meeting for Bekah's speak. It was with the school principle, speech teacher and head of the special ed department. They didn't discuss anything in the meeting that I didn't already know. Basically Bekah has articulation problems with certain letters and while she can say the letters by themselves, when they are in words, she substitutes other sounds for them. She's making improvement but it's slow going at the moment so her teacher is recommending that she continue with her twice a week independent sessions. We tried a couple of sessions with her in with a group of kids but it didn't go well. Her teacher thinks it's because the other kids were older than her and that she was intimidated. She's doing much better now that she's back to individual lessons.

They can make some stupid designs for humidifiers. I bought a new one last night because Adam is starting to sound congested. I set it up in our room and didn't think about it again until Andy came home from softball practice with Kenzie at which point they say that water has leaked out all over the floor. Now that's bad news since our room is carpeted and it was soaked. Talk about being pissed...and I was already feeling crappy so the last thing I wanted to do was to clean up a waterlogged carpet. An hour later, I finally get it dried out. I haven't a clue what happened to cause the humidifier to leak all over the place but this particular humidifier has slits all around the base with just a tiny reservoir to hold the water. If any water comes out of the reservoir it will immediately flow out the holes in the base. I didn't notice this design when I bought the humidifier otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. You can't even touch the thing without having water spill out. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Andy tried testing it to see if he could figure out why it leaked and the container that holds the water ended up breaking so needless to say it got returned this morning as a worthless piece of junk.

Interesting

I've seen many different types of alerts come through weatherbug for our area but I can't say that I've ever seen this alert before...

Baptism

Today was a beautiful day for Adam to be baptized. Weather was gorgeous even if it was a bit on the nippy side. Our whole family came over to witness his special day. He was so good during the ceremony...slept through most of it although he did open his eyes to check things out when the water was poured over his head. He decided that was okay and promptly went back to sleep. LOL
Alex and Kenzie are Adam's godparents and they were so excited. This is a picture of them laying their hands on his white garment. Click here to see more pics of the entire family on Andy's blog.

Cold

We have a service contract on our furnace that enables us to get it inspected each year and have any problems with the furnace itself fixed for just the cost of the contract...of course how many times is the problem with just the furnace?? We always schedule the service prior to it getting cold so that we know the furnace is in working order when we need it. We started this process last week when during that inspection it was discovered that the exhaust vent motor had burned out and needed to be replaced (one of those instances where the problem isn't with the furnace unit therefore not covered by the contract). This also meant that the inspection couldn't be totally completed because of the burned out motor. The part was ordered and they came on Tuesday to install it. As the guy was leaving after doing the repair, he commented on us being ready for the cold weather that was supposed to hit the end of this week. So I'm thinking everything is good but I should have known better. Andy turns on the furnace, or I should say, tries to turn on the furnace last night but nothing happens other than the vent coming on. So needless to say it was a chilly night with no heat here. Andy calls this morning for an emergency appt to get things fixed and after the furnace perplexes the workman for awhile, he is finally able to figure out that the problem is due to some broken wires in the furnace. So, I'm concluding that the last workman never actually tested the furnace after he installed the vent motor 3 days ago because there no way it would have worked with those broken wires. We always, always have problems with this furnace...no matter what we do, it just seems to want to work correctly and always takes multiple phone calls to the servicing company, almost always on an emergency basis, to get them to come out and fix it. The good news is that, for now at least, the furnance is working and we should all set for the 35 degree night we are expecting tonight.

And now I'm off to bed...it's been a long day of cleaning the house to get ready for Adam's baptism tomorrow and the houseful of people we will have. Still have a few odds and ends to do in the morning but the majority of stuff is done. Thank goodness.

Last Day

Today is my last day of paid maternity leave that my company offers. It's hard to believe that on Monday Adam will be 6 weeks old. This time went by so fast. Thankfully, I have leave of my own so I won't have to go back into the office until December 1 so I still have some time at home. It's sad to think that it's half over already though. Adam's doing great. He sleeps about 5-6 hrs at night now and he's starting to coo...that's always fun. I think he scares himself when he starts cooing because he'll jump sometimes. LOL

We might get lucky with Adam's baptism pictures...his acne is going away so maybe, just maybe, he won't be completely spotty come Sunday. He'll still have his nice lump on his head, though, but that will be hidden under his hat. ;) And let's hope that he'll fit into the baptism outfit...he'll be wearing one of the twins outfits but they were a few pounds lighter at their baptism than he is. I'm sure he'll be fine (she says with fingers crossed LOL).

Looks like the weather has finally decided to get with the right season here. The last few days have been absolutely gorgeous here with temps in the upper 70's/low 80's but that's definitely not fall weather. Today it's in the upper 50's so much more in line with what it should be. Still a beautiful day though.

Wave of Light

Light a candle at 7 pm and please join in. We are all in this together. Whether your loss was early in pregnancy or you lost a newborn, we all grieve for our lost babies. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you today and always.

Lighting in memory of my two losses.

Long Night

Sheeze, we went from one extreme to the other. Last night Adam was up every 1 1/2 hrs. I'm glad I didn't go to bed last night with the expectation of him sleeping the entire night because I would have been sorely disappointed. The one bright spot was that I wasn't in pain last night. LOL

Adam had his one month check up today and he weighed in at 11 lbs 14 oz and 21 7/8 inches. He's just growing up a storm. Still have his hemotoma which the dr is still claiming will go away...we'll see...and he still has his acne but that's starting to improve. Won't be gone by this weekend though but nothing can be done about that.

Keari also had a drs appt for here two year check up. She weighs 25 lbs 6 oz and is 31 1/2 inches tall. I made this appt for her today because she was supposed to get a second shot but the drs office counted wrong and she wasn't able to get it...the two shots need to be done 6 months apart and it's only been 5 months. If I'd known that, I would have waited another month to take her in. And combined with having to argue with the office about the filing of one of Adam's claims totally put me in the wrong mood for the visit today. I totally love the pediatrician but the lady that handles the claims submissions leaves a lot to be desired. I get so sick of hear "you need to get me someone to talk to" or "you need to call and get it straightened out". Just because I work at the company where I have my insurance doesn't mean that I have anything to do with the way claims are paid and it shouldn't be my responsibility to have to straighten things out. I'd already made a call to company to find out why the claim paid incorrectly but there drs office didn't think that was good enough. Grr!

All Nighter

Adam slept from 9pm to 5am last night. That's wonderful for him but terrible for me since I'm nursing him. I woke up about 1am in a severe amount of pain and finally had to get up at 1:30am to pump out some of the excess milk as I couldn't stand it anymore. Boy did I feel much better once I'd done that...could actually go back to sleep after that. The night before he slept 6 hrs...wonder if he's starting a new pattern. We'll see how he does tonight.

Family Pictures

We picked up our family pictures that we have done at our local firehouse each year. They turned out much better than last years. I only have the group shots right now as they did something different with the packages this year (which totally pissed Andy off)...they decided to give other styles of prints besides just color, so some of the pics were in black & white and some were in sephia. They looked great that way except we didn't have all the kids pics in any one style...a couple were color, a couple more were in b&w and the rest in sephia...makes for an odd looking collection when you put them all together. So we ended up having to order the kids that weren't in color but here is our full family pic and one of all the kids together. Poor Adam looks likes he breaking his neck in the all kids one. Luckily he was asleep and really didn't care. LOL

Happy Birthday, Keari!

Today is Keari's 2nd birthday. What a big girl she is. Well, actually she's a little girl...a petite little girl which I never realized until my dad said something about how little she was last weekend. When I added her height to our growth chart today I realized she's a good 1 1/2 inches shorter than all her other siblings at this same age. My nephew had his 1 yr checkup today and he is the exact same height as Keari except he's a year ypunger. They are both 31 1/2inches.


Here's picture of her with her birthday cake. I think she's pretty excited about it.

This Day in History

Not often that you see your last name in a Day in History (from The Free Dictionary)... ;)

The Spiegel scandal of 1962 (German: Spiegel-Affäre) was one of the major political scandals in Germany in the era following World War II.

Essentially, the scandal boiled down to a conflict between Franz Josef Strauß, then Federal Minister of Defense, and Rudolf Augstein, owner and editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel magazine, Germany's leading weekly political magazine. The affair would cost Strauß his office and put the young German democracy to its first major test.

The two had clashed already a year earlier, when, in 1961, Spiegel raised accusations of bribery in favor of the FIBAG construction company, which had received a contract for building military facilities. However, a parliamentary enquiry then found no evidence against Strauß.

Der Spiegel No. 41/1962, which triggered the scandal

The quarrel then escalated when Der Spiegel, in its October 8, 1962 issue, published an article called "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("partly prepared for defense"), about a NATO manoeuver called "Fallex 62". The piece uncovered the sorry state of the Bundeswehr (Germany's army) facing the communist threat from the east. At that time, the army had been given the grade "prepared for defense to only a limited extent", the lowest possible NATO-grade.

The magazine was accused of treason. At 9 p.m. on October 26, 1962, the magazine's offices in Hamburg were seized and (together with the houses of several journalists) searched by 36 policemen, and thousands of documents were confiscated. The offices would remain shut down for weeks. Augstein and the then-editors-in-chief Claus Jacobi and Johannes Engel were arrested. The author of the article, Conrad Ahlers, who was vacationing in Spain, was seized in his hotel during the night. Augstein would be jailed for 103 days.

Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor) Konrad Adenauer was informed of Strauß's actions. However, the Minister of Justice, belonging to the smaller coalition party FDP, was deliberately left out of all decisions. The injustice of the arrest caused riots and protest throughout Germany. Strauß initially denied all involvement, even before the Bundestag: Adenauer, in another speech, famously complained about an "abyss of treason" ("Abgrund von Landesverrat").

Strauß was finally forced to admit that he had phoned the German military attaché in Madrid and urged him to arrest Ahlers. This was clearly illegal — as Minister of the Interior Hermann Höcherl famously paraphrased, "etwas außerhalb der Legalität" ("somewhat outside of legality"). Since Strauß had lied to the parliament, on November 19, the five FDP ministers of the cabinet resigned, demanding that Strauß and Volkmar Hopf be fired. This put Adenauer himself at risk. He found himself publicly accused of backing the suppression of a critical press with the resources of the state.

On November 26, the police ended its occupation of the Spiegel offices, while Augstein, Ahlers and three others remained under arrest — Augstein until February 7, 1963. In December 1962 Adenauer formed a new cabinet without Strauß.

On May 13, 1965 the Bundesgerichtshof (highest German court of appeals) refused to open trial against Augstein and Ahlers, ruling that during the affair Strauß had violated the boundaries and committed Freiheitsberaubung (deprivation of personal freedom); however, because of his belief of acting lawfully (Verbotsirrtum), he was exempt from punishment. The case also came before the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, which issued a groundbreaking ruling that laid down the basics of the freedom of the press for decades to come.

The scandal temporarily halted Strauß's political career and was remembered by many when Strauß ran for Bundeskanzler in 1980, clearly losing against his SPD opponent (and incumbent) Helmut Schmidt. However, it is mostly remembered for altering the political culture of post-war Germany and — with the first mass demonstrations and public protests — being a turning point from the old Obrigkeitsstaat (authoritarian state) to a modern democracy.

One Month

Adam is one month old today. Hard to believe that he's already been here that long. He sleeps pretty good at night although he seems to thing that when he wakes up around 4-5am that it's time to be up and play for awhile. I try to discourage him as best I can. LOL He has a serious case of baby acne...covers the top of his head, face, and top half of his chest and back. I'm hoping that most of it will be done by the 19th as that's the day he gets baptized. If not, he'll just have some blotchy pictures. LOL Anyone that's in our neighborhood that day feel free to stop by, we'd love to see you.




Here's a picture of Kenzie making Adam smile.











And one where Connor wrapped him up like a cocoon.

Nests

Two nests were found today and they weren't the kind that hold cute little baby birds. These two wasps nests were discovered in our furnace's exhaust vent while the annual maintenance on the furnace was being done. Guess it's a good thing for him that we scheduled our maintenance now and not in the middle of the summer. So the good news is that we got our vent cleaned out...the bad news is that the motor to the exhaust fan is burned out and will cost us $600+ to replace. When it rains, it pours. :(

Proud Big Sister

I think Keari loves her little brother...what do you think?

Happy Birthday, Bekah!

Today is Bekah's 4th birthday. We started out with cake and presents at home in the morning. Then we set out to go to my sister's house for my nephew's birthday party. We didn't make it very far before discovering that there was an accident on the other side of the bridge that had traffic on our side virtually at a standstill. So back home we went go to wait it out. After waiting 1 1/2hrs, we set out again with better results and we are able to make it to my sister's albiet a little late. It was a beautiful day for an outside party. There's was tons of food of which I ate way to much of.



A cute pooh bear cake for Josh...here's a pic of him enjoying his cake.






My sister made sure that Bekah wouldn't be left out on her big day by getting her a little cake all for herself. She was thrilled. Here's a picture of her enjoying her cake.






And a pic of her sporting her brand new b'day outfit that her aunt and uncle gave her...she loves it!

Afterwards, we ran by Andy's parents for a bit...did presents for Bekah and Keari (Keari's b'day is Friday) and then headed home. All in all, it was a good day.

More Eye Appts

Today it was Andy, Kenzie and Connor's turn to go for their eye appts. This visit only cost us $350+. Guess it could have been worse...we only got new lenses for Andy and Connor so that saved us the expense of new frames. And thankfully, Kenzie still doesn't need glasses...let's hope that continues for a long while. After all this, I don't think I want to make and appt to get my eyes checked...can't afford it...although I did skip last years appt. I'm not having any trouble with my current prescription so I might just put it off for awhile. I think next time we'll have to check on Kristin's Zinni's website.

Taylor and Tyler's glasses were in so they came home sporting a brand new look. Taylor has had the same oval style glasses since he started wearing them when he was 3. This time he went with rectangular glasses...gives him a different look but I like them on him. He's having a little trouble adjusting to them because they are shaped different from what he's used to. Hopefully it won't take him too long to get used to them. Tyler absolutely hate his new glasses...and it doesn't help any that his siblings keep making comments to him about them. He also got a rectangular shaped pair which look good on him although I think they are a tad wide...or maybe it's just that I'm not used to seeing him in glasses. I'll take some pictures of the new looks whenever I can catch them staying still long enough.

Happy Birthday

Happy 1st birthday to my nephew, Joshua. He's come a long way from the babe that started out in the NICU. Hope you enjoyed your big day, sweetie. Here's a picture of him enjoying his birthday cake. We'll be heading to my sisters on Sunday for his birthday party...which just happens to be Bekah's birthday. October is a busy month in this family with 6 birthdays starting with Josh's, then Bekah, my neice Lauren, Keari, my sister and last but not least mine! Whew, that's a lot of birthday cake. =)

Wicked Headache/Interim Grades

And no, my headache wasn't brought on by the grades. LOL Alex's first semester interim grades came out yesterday and so far he's doing great with 4 A's and 3 B's. Two of the are 89 & 88 so very close to being A's. He's having the hardest time in Honors Chemistry right now but I think that's mainly because he hasn't been putting the effort into studying for it. Hopefully getting two failing grades on quizzes will have opened Alex's eyes to the fact that he needs to study more and his grade will improve in that class. Luckily, his teacher decided to throw out the lowest quiz grade so that brought Alex's average from a 65 to and 80.

I think my headache was brought on by the change in weather we've been having. We had a thunderstorm come through last night. I'm guessing it wasn't too severe as none of the kids woke up. My headache is better today...I can at least move my head without it hurting...but I can still feel the ache behind my eyes. Hopefully it doesn't get any worse.

Eye Appts

Andy took Taylor and Tyler for their annual eye exams yesterday. We knew that Taylor was going to need new glasses...there's only so many times that frames can be twisted back into shape before needing to be replaced. What we didn't know was that Tyler was going to need glasses...turns out he needs them for distance. So, an hour later and $600+ poorer, Andy and the boys returned home. Andy, Kenzie and Connor have their eye exams on Friday. I hate to even think what the bill is going to be for them.

Growth Spurts

Adam seems to be right on track with his growth spurts so far. The first growth spurt is supposed to hit between 7 - 10 days and on day 10 he started eating like crazy. The second spurt hits about 3 weeks. He's 3 weeks today and yesterday all he wanted to do was eat, eat, eat...and that's saying something for a baby that already eats every 2 hours round the clock. Poor mom is definitely feeling like a cow now. LOL

I want to know how babies can sleep like this. Now matter how many times I straighten him, he always ends up back in this same position. I'm glad he likes it. Can you imagine how we'd feel when we woke up after having our necks crinked over like that? I don't even want to think about it.

Rain, rain

and more rain. What a terrible day to take a drive. The day started out with just enough rain to cancel all the sports activities for the day so we took advantage of the free day by going to have our family portrait done. We were done with that by lunchtime, so decided to head over to Andy's parents so they could see Adam. Well, if we had known it was going to be raining cats and dogs on the other side of the bridge, we would have just stayed home. And it continued to rain cats and dogs the entire way over to their house. We got soaked running from the van to their house...it was crazy. The rain was coming down so fast that it couldn't drain off the roads fast enough so there were rivers running down the streets. Ugh! No fun! But it was a nice visit and the rain finally decided to let up about the time we were leaving so at least we didn't have to face the deluge on the way home too.

Brr!

It's definitely not summer anymore. It's downright cold today...and very blustery. Makes me feel like Winnie the Pooh in the Blustery Day story. I think we've skipped driectly from summer to winter which for us is pretty typical. It's a shame though cause I love fall. Temps through the end of the weekend look like they will be in the mid 70's which is nice but they are calling for rain everyday so that's no fun. With put a crimp into the scheduled softball tournament and soccer games that were scheduled. Guess we'll just have to wait and see if it rains the way they say it's supposed to. I'm a little skeptical about weather forecasters because they are typical wrong. It's grey, dreary and rainy right now so they might actually be right this time.

Drs Appt

Adam had his 2 week checkup today and he's doing great. His weight is now 9 lbs 10 oz. The dr just laughed when he saw his weight and said whatever I'm doing is working and to keep it up. Unfortunately, I think it's really all Adam's doing and his 2 hr around the clock feeding schedule. He'd make a great alarm clock, if you were so inclined to want to get up every 2 hrs throughout the night. He's very punctual. LOL He's still slightly jaundiced but nothing to worry about and is most likely due to the combination of breastfeeding and the cephalohematoma...which has gotten a little bigger and will still takes weeks to resolve itself. Poor little guy. I'll be very glad when he no longer has a lopsided head.

Last Day of Summer

And what a beautiful day it was. Too bad I was in such a crabby mood. I think the late nights and running around has finally caught up to me. But it was nice to get out for a little while in the gorgeous weather and watch Tyler play football. I found a nice tree so Adam was in the shade and hung out with Taylor during the game. Andy and the rest of the crew came by for a little while before they had to head to Chestertown for Connor's soccer scrimmage.

Busy Day

Whew, nothing like running around all day. I know Andy is going to say that he had the roughest day because he had to be out of the house by 7am to get Kenzie to her softball tournament...she had 4 games today...but at least once he got to the field, he was there to stay for the day. I, on the other hand, spent the day running back and forth to the fields to get Taylor and Alex to their soccer games, running to the shopping plaza to meet Connor's coach so he could get a ride to his soccer game, then running the boys back and forth to church to serve tonight. Talk about totally disrupting Adam's eating/sleeping schedule, not to mention Keari's naptime. And I still need to get the girls to bed without disrupting Adam too much since Andy won't be home til late.

So far, Tay and Alex's teams lost their games today, Connor's team won and Kenzie's team tied their first game and won their next two. Haven't heard about the last one yet.

Well, they won their last game so the got their first 1st place trophy of the new season. Way to go Riviera Beach girls!

Back to School Dance

Alex attended his first after school function for the year in the form of the Back to School Dance. It's more of a get together rather than a dance as they play video games and other stuff while there but there is some dancing that goes on as well. And it's quite loud...you can hear the music as you turn off the highway to go down the road to the school. Seems like he had a good time even if he did go dateless...hung out with a few guys and a ton of girls. The girl he was seeing last year transferred to another school so they are no longer together...although I'm not quite sure either one truly understands the concept of boyfriend/girlfriend since they both seem to think they are still together yet they haven't seen each other since early summer.

Getting Alex to school functions is always a challenge since his school is so far away and there aren't many kids from our area that go there making carpooling a challenge. Andy did drop off duty last night after running by the soccer field to drop Kenzie and Connor off for their soccer practices. That left me with pick up duty. It was my first trip out of the house without Adam and he was a little angel. I was able to feed him and put him to bed before I left and he slept the entire 1 1/2hrs that I was gone. What a sweetie! But I don't want to be doing too many late night trips right now as I'm not getting much sleep yet.

Drs Appt

Adam had a drs appt today as a follow up from his hospital stay over the weekend. He is looking so much better than the orange pumpkin he looked like on Friday. His coloring is much much better...still slightly yellow around his chest area and his eyes are a little yellow but the dr says it's nothing to worry about as long as he continues to eat & poop the way he has been. He also has a nice bump on the one side of his head from where the vaccum was used on him. Every dr that's seen him...his pediatrician right after birth and the drs that examined over the weekend...have said that it's nothing to worry about and that it will eventually go away. Because its blood that's caused the swelling, that's also contributing to his jaundice as his liver is having to work harder to break down the unwanted blood cells. I'm glad that it's nothing to worry about but I'll be glad when it's gone because it constantly reminds me that I did that to him. =(

On a good note, his weight has gone from 8lbs 14oz at discharge last Wednesday to 9lbs 2oz at his weigh-in today so the little munchkin is growing. =)

Back in the Hospital

Adam had a drs appt today to check on his jaundice. Based on his coloring...a nice yellow/orange color, his pediatrician recommended that we get his bili #'s checked so off to the hospital lab we went. We were in and out pretty quickly and after a couple of hours wait at home, we get a call from the drs office saying that his numbers are pretty high (23) and that he thinks it's best that he gets admitted for treatment. So back to the hospital Adam and I go. The nurses we expecting us when we got there and ushered us right into a room. He had his vitals checked and then was put under the bili lights....which he absolutely hated! He cried and cried and cried. Poor thing. And when he would finally stop crying and fall asleep, he would have knocked his glasses off which meant that I needed to readjust them to cover his eyes, which would wake him up and the whole crying process would start again. The nurses finally got him a different set of glasses that stayed on his head a little better so he did better after that. It's funny though, cause most babies love being under the lights...it's nice and toasty under there. Here's a couple of pics of him under the lights and one on the day we left.
They tested his numbers every 6 hours and about about 12 hrs under the lights, we could start to see a drop in the numbers. They ended up keeping him til Sunday although they did take him off the lights at midnight Sunday morning and tested him at 6 am to make sure that his numbers wouldn't go back up once he was off the lights. Thankfully they didn't and we were able to come home.

A Day to Remember

Hard to believe that it's been another year since our nation experienced the worst act of terrorism on our soil. So many innocent lives were lost that day. I'm sure everyone remembers where they were on this day in 2001. I was working in DC at the time, directly across the river from the Pentagon. You can click here to read my story from that day.

We're Home!

So nice to be out of the hospital although it is a tad bit chaotic around the house. ;)

Was an interesting delivery to say the least but I'll have to write about that at a later time. What's important is that we ended up with another beautiful little boy...who looks exactly like the rest of his siblings. Certainly no denying he's ours. LOL

I know alot of people having been keeping up with things on my hubby's blog. Thanks so much for all the well wishes and congratulations!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I'm posting a belated happy birthday to my mom since I was busy with other things to post one on her actual birthday...namely bringing this little munchkin into the world. Doesn't he just look like the picture of contentment? LOL I think he was a little upset that we forced him out into this great big world. I think my mom was happy with her birthday present. ;)

D-Day...

As in delivery day...is scheduled for Monday, 9/8. That's assuming that this munchkin stays put and doesn't decide to come on his own before that. This date made my mom extremely happy as it happens to be her birthday. Of course, she wasn't too happy when I told her she had to be up at the crack of dawn so she could come watch the kids while we went to the hospital but she was willing to sacrifice. ;)

New Chicks

Here's some pics of our 5 new chickies. According to Kenzie, they did okay overnight...she found them all huddled in one nestbox this morning, guess they were keeping each other company.

These little ones were very thirsty...


This one was roosting on the arm of a chair...


and this one was running around the pen crying...guess he was having trouble finding his friends.

Labor Day

I hope everyone is have a fun and relaxing Labor Day. Not much is going on here other than Andy and Kenzie picking up a few new chickens...as if we need anymore chickens. They are so small compared to the ones we already have but the bigger ones are pretty much ignoring them at this point, so that's good.

Wordle

Thanks to Velda, now I've Wordled too...

Two Weeks and Counting...

I'm officially coming to the end of this pregnancy...only two weeks to go and hopefully it will be sooner than that when I have my appt next week. I had an appt yesterday and things are starting to progress although the baby is still really high. The dr thinks he is head down but that doesn't mean much since my baby's tend to flip around until the very end.

For once, I'm not anxious to have a baby. Usually by this point, I'm ready for them to be out but I'm really hoping this one stays put until at least 9/2. Due to a terrible accident a few weeks ago, they have been doing inspections of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and as of midday Tuesday determined that immediate repairs need to be made to the jersey walls. In order to do these repairs, it's requiring the right lane of the bridge to be shutdown permanently for at least the next 2-3 wks and possibly up to 10 wks once they do a full inspection of the bridge. Needless to say this is wreaking havoc with the traffic (took me 3 hrs to get home today instead of my normal 1hr) and since the holiday weekend is just about upon us, trying to travel across the bridge is going to be a nightmare. I'd just as soon not have to worry about going across the bridge to get to the hospital until after the holiday. So here's hoping the little munchkin decides to stay put until at least Tuesday. The one bright spot to this traffic nightmare is that it will keep me working from home until no need to worry about my 2hr roundtrip commute for awhile.

Summer is Officially Over

at least for our oldest. Alex started back to school today carrying with him about 30 lbs of books. It's amazing how much stuff he needs for his classes. It seems like he had a good day although he did come home with homework in his geometry class...no easing into school there. LOL He's decided not to play soccer so it was nice having him home early in the afternoon.

The rest of the kids won't be starting back to school until after Labor Day although Andy doesn't seem too keen to want to start school at all this year. I think everyone has been enjoying their time off even though we haven't done much this summer.

Award

Thank you, Henny and Bre! You both are such sweethearts! Now I really need to start blogging again so you'll have something to read here.


The rules of the award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on her/his blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you’ve nominated.

Here are people I give this award to:
Martha
Leah
Megan
Lisa
Pauline

Adventure Park

Twice a year, the department I work for gets everyone together for an outing. Our summer outing is our "fun" outing, while our winter outing is more work related. Today was our summer outing and this time we went to Adventure Park USA, a little park located outside of Frederick. It was a cute little park although there wasn't much for a pregnant lady to do, unless you like arcades...which I can only handle so much of. We played miniature golf when we first got there, which was a good thing since the game took us 1 1/2hrs and by that point it was starting to get really hot. I think the Go Karts were a big hit as I know many of my coworkers drove them multiple times throughout the day. The rollercoaster also had a number of riders although I'm not sure that I would have ridden that even if I hadn't been pregnant...it was a tad rickety looking. All in all, it was a good day. A nice day to get together with fellow coworkers outside of the normal work environment...and I even made it home before the beach traffic backed the traffic up too badly at the Bay Bridge.

Hot, Hot, Hot

It is only the beginning of June, right? The temps the last 3 days have been incredibly hot for this time of year...95 degrees with a heat index over 100. Was a good weekend to stay inside in the air conditioning. Unfortunately, that was not be the case on Saturday. The day started off with Andy and Kenzie leaving to go to Laurel for a tournament that was to last all day. They ended up playing 6 games...well 5 and the start of a 6th which ended up getting called due to a nasty storm that came through. Kenzie's team was ahead 1 - 0 so they ended up as Champions. Yay Lightning!

My day started with having to get Connor to a Wade-In where he was volunteering. Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication on where the Wade-In was being held but I managed to finally get him there, albeit a tad later than we'd said. This is an annual event that is held at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center. The objective of the wade in is to see how far you can walk into the water before you can't see your shoes anymore and then to measure the depth. The hope is that each year you can walk in a little further which would mean that the bay is getting cleaner. Connor ended up being the kid from his youth group that showed up to volunteer which was disappointing but they were very thankful that he came.

The twins had a baseball game at 3 and boy was it hot and there wasn't a hint of a breeze. It took over 1 1/2 hrs to play 2 innings at which point the other coach asked his team if they wanted to play another inning or quit then (games have a 2 hr time limit) and I was very thankful that they all voted to stop them. Of course, the twins coach wasn't happy about the decision...he wanted to keep playing...but I could have cared less at that point. Everyone else wanted to go home. Taylor got to pitch in the first inning for the first time and he did a great job...got two strike outs, walked a couple, and had a few hit off of him. Tyler ended up making the third out of the inning which I thought was pretty cool. Then in the second inning, Tyler made an awesome throw from third base all the way to first base and ended up hitting the running on the helmet as he stepped on the bag. It was pretty funny! and just goes to show you why you wear helmets during the game.

Ending the game early worked out well since I had to get Tay, Ty and Connor to the high school for select soccer tryouts. We were able to go home and get changed without having to rush around like chickens with out heads cut off.

After I dropped the boys off, I decided to walk across the field to where my parents were participating in the Relay for Life. I chatted with them for about an hour before it got too hot for me and I had to leave...ended up back there an hour later when I came back to pick the boys up from tryouts. They enjoyed having a short chat with their grandparents. The relay ended up getting cut short at about 11pm due to some pretty nasty storms that came through the area.

The good news from the soccer tryouts is that Connor got picked up by one of the teams. It's a team that he had actually practiced with a little last fall and the coach has decided to officially pick him up for the coming season. That's great news except it means we have to travel to Centreville for practices every Wednesday night. Maybe my parents will feed me dinner since they only live a few miles down the road from where they will be practicing.

We finally made it back home and jumped in the pool just in time for it to start lightening. Grr! That's the only sure way to get the kids out of the pool fast...usually you have to forceably drag them out. I did have a little time with Keari in the pool before the lightening started and she loved it. I think she's going to be another little fish.

Today, most everyone except me, Alex and Keari, went kayaking on the river....even some neighbor kids came along. From what I hear, everyone had a great time kayaking and swimming. They all came back and jumped in the pool for awhile.

I felt kind of bad for Alex...he spent the entire weekend studying for his finals which start tomorrow. He had to write two essays and a timeline for history which took him forever to do, the it was on to Biology. Those will be over with tomorrow, then it will be gym (which is a paper that he's already done) and Religion on Tuesday, Spanish and English on Wednesday and Math on Thursday. Hopefully Thursday will be a nice day because his class is getting together for an end of year party after the last exam.

Retirement

Tonight was mom's surprise retirement party and she was very surprised. Everyone did a great job of keeping it a secret. It was held at The Narrows which has a lovely waterview that you can enjoy while eating. There were about 30 people there that she works closely with everyday and everyone was commenting on how strange it was going to be not to have there at the start of the school year in the fall. She's been there for 30 yrs and I know it's going to be strange for her not to be there for the start of school. On the other hand, I know she's really looking forward to not having an agenda to follow everyday. She'll have the time to put into her flower beds, crafts, bike riding, etc...things that she has to try and fit in now...she'll be able to enjoy at her leisure soon. She got some lovely gifts...one of which was a hand crafted bracelet that was designed by a guy she's work with at Josten's for years. She doesn't officially retire until June 30 so while she held up very well at the party today, I know the 30th will be hard for her. And I'm totally jealous as I'd love to be able to retire but that is nowhere in my near future. ;-)

A Good Day to be a Duck

So far we've had almost 2 inches of rain since last evening. Everything was already saturated from the rain we had the other day so the water is having a hard time finding places to go. Our corner was completely flooded out earlier this evening...brought back memories of Hurricane Isabelle. Here's a picture of the latest approaching storm...nice dark clouds heading our way...which have reached us at the time I'm typing this and are dumping tons more rain on us. I'm just very glad I'm not driving in it...did that on the way home but at least it was light out then. It took me an extra 45 minutes to get home.

Crownless

I had my dentist appt this after

.noon to fix my broken tooth...which didn't end up getting fixed. He took a look at my tooth...checked out the edges to make sure they were sealed, checked to make sure my filling still looked intact. That all being good, he said he would prefer to wait until after I have the baby before doing the crown. Even though the numbing agents haven't been shown to have any ill effects on an unborn baby, he'd prefer to error on the side of caution. He did say to let him know if I started having any pain with tooth, at which point he would go ahead and do the crown regardless of whether we'd had the baby or not, but he's not expecting to have any issues. Let's hope he's right. So my visit took all of about 10 minutes during which we talked and filed my broken tooth a little so that it wasn't quite so rough...it feels much better. And now I'm off the hook for a few hundred dollars until hopefully the end of November. ;-)

And an unexpected bonus was the extra of working at home...and with gas prices the way they are now, I sure won't complain about the.

Piano Recital

Today was the last piano recital for this school year. It always ends with a recital that their teacher hosts where all his students play a song and then he does a summary of all the activities done over the past year. Students either get recognition or awards for performances done throughout the year. Kenzie was unable to attend this years recital but Taylor and Connor participated. It was a good thing too, since Connor received a number of awards this year. I didn't realize how many things he had participated in until his teacher kept calling his name.

Below is a picture of the awards he received. He received one for getting 3rd place (Honorable Mention) in the Solo Festival & Competition, one for have the highest score on the National Guild Auditions, one for highest average amongst his teachers students, one for playing in the Young Musician's Solo Festival, one for participating in the Chamber Music Festival and I can't remember what the others are for.
And here is a picture of Taylor's awards...he was nervous about performing this year so didn't participate in too many performances. His award was for particpating in the Young Musician's Solo Festival.
And these are Kenzie's awards. She also didn't participate in too many this year due to conflicts with softball games. I can't remember what her two awards were for.

Broken

This is starting to become routine...I just broke another molar...my third one in two years. I know I'm getting older but good grief...this is starting to get ridiculous. Luckily I'm not having any pain due to missing 1/4 of my tooth so I think I'll be safe until I can call the dentist Monday but then I get to look forward to the two lovely appts it will take to get a crown put on...not to mention the expense associated with it...something we don't need at this time.

Memorial Day 2008

Another First

another First Communion...this time for Tay and Ty. There were 10 kids in this group to receive their First Communion and they were the last of their second grade class to go through the ceremony. It was nice to have such a small group. And even though it is Memorial Day weekend, I didn't hear any complaints from the family members on the traffic being awful to get to us so that was good.

Kenzie has a softball tournament in Hagerstown this weekend, Saturday thru Monday, and because it is the twins special day, they got to accompany Kenzie and Andy for the outing. Should be a good time for them as it's not often that they are able to something without their older siblings around.

Of course, that leaves me with the two oldest and two youngest...will have to find something to do that will be fun for everyone...Terrapin Beach, maybe.

Awards Banquet

Tonight was the Academic & Services Awards Banquet at SSPP. Alex wasn't sure that he was going to go until a teacher called a couple of nights prior to tonight and personally invited him to come. It was held in the gym of the school and the place was packed. I wasn't expecting there to be that many people there. They gave out all kinds of awards thoughout the night, from perfect attendance to participating in the debate team...but I didn't realize they were going to pick one student from each subject (Math, Science, History, Theology, etc) to honor. The very first subject award was for Theology and Alex got the award for Excellence in Freshman Theology. How exciting! And it was such a surprise for him...he had no idea. He got a certificate and The Prayer of Jabez book. In addition the awards, they also served us dinner which was okay but the desserts were delicious and very, very plentiful. LOL

It's Official!

Had my 20 wk ultrasound today and the baby is most definitely a boy. I guess this means we really do need to move the crib from the pink room back into the yellow nursery. LOL He looks great...they checked out his heart really closely and it looks wonderful...no problems that they could detect. His measurements were right where he should be...although some were a little hard to get since he was being uncooperative and was moving all over the place. Poor tech followed him all around my belly trying to get one of the measurements. LOL Now to come up a name for the little tyke.

Honorable Mention

Connor played in a piano competition this weekend. It was for middle school students so this was Connor's first year competing in this particular competition. When I asked how he thought he did (I wasn't able to hear him play since I had Keari, Bekah, Tay & Ty with me) he commented that he had messed up on one note in one of his songs. He thought he did okay with the second song. As it turns out, he did great! Out of 7 kids competing, all of which were older than him, he came in third, getting an Honorable Mention. 1st & 2nd place got money but you can't complain about a third place finish his first time out. Way to go!

Happy 12th Birthday!

Today is Connor's 12th birthday. It's amazing how much he has grown during those years. His abilities continually astound me. To think he's gone from someone who could barely get through playing one piano song at his first piano recital to someone who actually competes in piano competitions. I'm very proud of all the accomplishments you've made so far and I know there are many more to come in the future. Happy Birthday, sweetie!

7 Things Meme

I was tagged by Meari to share seven random facts about myself.

Here are the rules: Each player tells 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they have been tagged and to read your blog!

The Rules:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the Rules on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged

Seven Random Facts About Me:
1. I had my dad as my 7th grade math teacher.
2. When I was little, we used to live in a big farm house that had two big rooms on the first floor divided in the middle by the staircase. When my parents weren't home I used to ride my bike around in a big circle through those two rooms. As far as I know, my parents never found out.
3. I'm currently pregnant with our 8th child
4. I hate, hate, hate to be cold
5. I used to run cross country in Middle School
6. I love doing math at work but hate to do it at home
7. I used to live on a pig farm when I was little

I tag Sara, Tammy, Velda, Martha, Michelle, Jen and Patty.

Drs Appt and Ultrasound

I had my ultrasound for the nuchal fold test which is a check for down's syndrome this morning. Everything looks great there and baby is measuring right on target...he's measuring about a week before my due date so he's growing well. And yes, I did say HE as they are thinking that this one is going to be a boy. Things are still pretty tiny so it's hard to say for sure but it definitely looked like there was something there. We should be able to find out for sure at my April 11 u/s assuming that he is as cooperative as he was today. They were done the test in less than 5 minutes whereas last time it took almost 1/2hr to get Kearsyn into the right position to the measurement. They said he was laying in the perfect position today. Also had my 12 wk drs appt this afternoon although he laughed and said there really was no need for it since all he was doing today was listening for the heartbeat and since I'd already seen this morning, it didn't really matter.

Here's a couple pics of him. He looks like such a tiny little thing in the 3D pic.

I sure hope this boy likes a pink room and pink carpet as that's currently what color the baby's room is. Guessing we'll be painting at some point before he gets here. LOL

Another Repair Bill

There are times when I really hate my car and this would be one of them. Seems like everytime I turn around we are having to make more repairs on it. We just did a big repair on it 3 months ago and now it needs another one. Grr! This latest trouble started Tuesday afternoon as I was leaving work. I'm pulling out of the garage and notice that my check engine light has just come on. Not knowing what exactly this means I pull over to try and decide if this is a warning light that can survive 60 mile drive home or if it's something more serious. After reading in the manual that it has something to do with the emissions control system and that the car is safe to continue driving but should be taken in to be looked at as soon as possible, I continue my drive home. I make an appt to drop my car off the next night so it can be looked at on Thursday. Of course this would be the evening of our snow dusting that turns into a 4.5 inch downfall but we make it to drop my care off without incident. They must have had a lot of cancellations due to the weather because they called with the news about my car early Thursday morning. So $1000 later and two new 02 sensors later (whatever the heck they are), I have my car back in running order.

A Dusting

That's what the weathermen were forecasting for us today in the way of snowfall. An Alberta clipper was supposed to zip through our area around midafternoon - evening and drop a dusting to an inch of snow. If this is a dusting, I'd hate to see what a significant snowfall looks like. We are currently at 4 inches and counting.