4 down... 5 to go!

I am always amazed,

though I shouldn't be...

how I fall so completely and madly in love

with each new child.

From the moment I know it's there,

I am so completely amazed and thrilled.

It is all brand new.

There is nothing ordinary about the miracle of life.

Sometimes I feel such an overwhelming sense of gratitude

that it brings tears to my eyes.

I wonder at times how it is possible to live with so much joy.

To listen to the heartbeat brings a thrill I cannot describe!

I always wonder at the heartbeat.

Today I heard it said

that the heart is the first organ to start working,

and the last one to stop...

that is what I think about when I listen to this child's heart beating...

that this miracle,

this tiny heart is beating.

Maybe it is because I remember so well the pain

of not hearing a heartbeat last year,

that the thrill of it now is overwhelming!

I was told that this child is a gift,

and that I should rejoice in the gift,

because it will bring our family so much joy.

It already has.

Great joy!

So much joy that I fear my heart will burst sometimes.

The pain of loss

seems like a distant fog now.

I am not sure I will truly breathe until I hold this baby in my arms...

but it is true that after a trial of your faith,

the miracle comes.

And the joy in that miracle is completely indescribable!

I believe in miracles.

The miracle of a beating heart.

The miracle of love...

love that grows,

and becomes so much greater than you ever imagined.

4 months down...

5 to go!

Let me count the ways...

How do I love him?

I could count a million reasons

in a million different ways.

Mostly I love him for the way he loves me.

For the way he wants to make me happy.

Because I can tell him I love flowers,

and the next day they arrive on the doorstep!

With a teddy bear!

And chocolate... and yummy smelling bubble bath...

and because he is always willing to clean the bathtub for me!

I love him for being my best friend.

I love him for being my fairy tale come true.

I love that he makes me laugh

even if it was when I wanted to cry.

I love that he will dance with me in the laundry room.

I think I fell in love with him all over again

as he told me of his joy over having another baby.

That he feels so happy, and so much joy and peace at

the opportunity that we have to be able to welcome

another baby into our family.

For this, and a million other reasons

I love him.

For now

and

Forever!!!

Food storage shelves, part 1

We have been working hard trying to figure out how we can get all of the food storage we need, and mostly, a place to store it. Yesterday Thayne worked to get some shelves up in the laundry room downstairs. It's the beginning of our big 'beef up the food storage' plan we have for the year. It's only the beginning, but I hope to have the whole 'plan' finished by the end of the year, or at least see the bulk of it done.

Thayne got the shelves up and we started moving things around. He is going to tile the floor in the next few weeks and maybe if we get really ambitious we will get the walls painted nice. The tile is the biggest priority here though. We have been cleaning and organizing the cupboards upstairs and moving more things around and next month we are hoping to attempt our once a month cooking/menu plan. Thayne is excited and ready to do it, and I figure I might as well take advantage of his enthusiasm! We plan on getting another freezer, an upright this time so we can keep the once a month cooking organized. My biggest hope/goal is to get not just one, but possibly two uprights and then get a generator. And if I get all organized with the once a month cooking now with Thayne's help, maybe we will have a couple of months planned for when the baby comes and I can be really lazy! :)

Next job is the storage area in the garage that Thayne is going to do. Hoping to make it a room in the corner so we can control the temp somehow, and to get two huge water tanks to complete our water storage. We are ordering a few hundred more pounds of wheat and will have a full years supply of that. The garage storage will not only keep our 3 month supply but also the long term storage we have out there already.

I was talking to a friend today and we both expressed our strong desire to get truly prepared... not out of a sense of fear or worry, but more a sense of urgency to really have peace in knowing that we have followed the instructions we have been given through our church leaders for many years now. We have always heard if we are prepared we have no need to fear. Kailee said today that a woman at work told her it seemed like a waste to have extra food in the house. Yet we have heard the our stores would be wiped out in a matter of a day if the trucks could not deliver. On top of that, as gas prices rise, food prices continue to go up. It's a big vicious circle. I had read somewhere a woman say that they have 4 wheel drive so if they have a big snow storm they can still 'get' to the store. But what if there is nothing at the store. We have heard it over and over during a natural disaster when the stores were empty, or people couldn't get water or the basic things they need to live. It feels good to know that we are getting somewhere... starting somewhere is still a start. Buying a little extra now may be a huge blessing later.

So part one is complete... several more steps to go to get where we need to be, but it's a start, and it feels good!

And making sure that we have a year supply of Hershey's chocolate for baking is THE most important thing... after all, if there is ever a real tragedy you will need chocolate to remove the stress!!!

Hayden could live an entire year on Ramen noodles... I will go ahead and eat the green beans... but he will be happy!

What would the world be like???

I have been thinking about this picture, and a conversation that Kinzee and I had today when I picked her up from school...

Nate is very protective of Gabe. As in he watches over him like a little mother hen and makes sure that Gabe doesn't get into anything he shouldn't and he worries about the stairs. Now... I keep an eye on Gabe and the only time he is interested in going down the stairs is when his grandpa is down there. But yesterday grandpa was downstairs and Gabe spent a lot of time yelling for him at the top of the stairs. Nate spent the entire time... guarding the steps like this....

He was DETERMINED to protect Gabe. And I thought about how much he loves him, and how he goes out of his way to protect him and take care of him. He shares with him... nothing he has is of any value if Gabe is unhappy and so he willingly shares whatever it is that Gabe wants. If Gabe is unhappy, Nate wants to know why, and what's more, he wants to know what he can do to fix it.

Kinzee was telling me about a conversation she had with someone who was making fun of a kid at school. The kid had a big scar on his face. The kid making fun of him actually deals with horrible acne, and yet he was making fun of a kid for the scar on his face. Kinzee said that she told him to knock it off. That he had no business making fun of somebody for any reason, but how dare he hurt someone like that! What made him feel the need to bully another kid that way? The bully was angry that Kinzee stood up for this boy. Later the boy told Kinzee why he had the scar. He had a tumor removed. I told Kinzee it is far better to have an outward scar, then to have a scar on their soul that makes them ugly! But I thought about why people feel the need to be bullies. What makes them so unsure inside that they have to go after others and find fault with their lives. The boy being bullied had a scar that you could see... the bully obviously has scars too. From what? It's hard to know. But they are there all the same! And then I thought of the picture of Nate... guarding the stairs to protect his little nephew from pain. Wouldn't it be really amazing if we were all willing to stand guard for others? Wouldn't it be an amazing world if we took responsibility, just because, to care for others who are less able to protect themselves? What would the world be like if we all stopped seeing the scars, and starting loving others and treating each other kind. We find ourselves when we stop looking within, and start looking outside of our own lives to see who we can help. The boy who was doing the bullying is sadly the one that probably needed the help the most... but maybe we can stand guard on the steps and prevent even him from falling down! I want to live in a world like that! I don't' want to LOOK for scars on the face of others... I just want to love them like they don't have any, and hope that they do the same for me!

Willie's cake...

I finally found my cord for my camera so

Willie...

here you go!

Your cake!!!

Well... and you too!

Love you Willie, you are amazing!

Snowman

Nate loves the activities that go along with school.

He goes for speech therapy but also gets to join in on the preschool activities.

He is always so proud of himself and the projects he gets to bring home.

He loved making the snowman,

loved that he got to glue on buttons and popcorn

and eyes so his snowman can see!

William Kade

I feel like I am always saying it, but it's true... so I will say it again. Where has the time gone! I can't believe that Willie is 14 years old! 14!!! How did that happen? Wasn't it just yesterday we were checking into the hospital looking forward to his birth? After 3 girls in a row I was excited for another boy, had bought him a whole new wardrobe and was so excited to meet the little boy that I had dreamed about since before my first was born. He is my original bandit boy. This little man knew how to get in trouble from the time he was big enough to figure out how to get in trouble. And it was long before he even started walking! He kept me hopping. I always thought maybe my uncle Willie was looking over his shoulder telling him all of the things that would make me crazy, just for the fun of it! Willie's world seems to be constantly in motion. He has so much energy and is so full of life. He has a great work ethic. He can outwork some adults I know. He is a very kind hearted person who accepts others and loves to help out. He is the one that in second grade told a little girl that was struggling with her work put his arm around her shoulder and tell her that they were going to figure it out together. He is also the one that worried about not having a big family when he was in second grade. I teased him about it but he got really serious about it and told me he wanted a big family, bigger than ours, but the girls these days, he just didn't know if he could find one that would have more than 6 or so! We weren't sure which was funnier, that he was asking girls how many kids they were willing to have when they grew up, or the fact that he thought 6 kids was a small family. He is a joy and we are so grateful that he is part of our family!

Happy birthday Willie Kade... so glad that you are ours! (And yes I have cake pictures but I can't find my camera cord so sorry Willie, I will just have to blog again when I find it!) This was the cake our friends made for Willie's blessing day. Jerry and Deb made it... Deb said Jer did most of it. It is special to us to have this picture knowing that 3 months later Jerry's life would be taken in a tragic way. It means a lot to have memories of the really great people in our lives.

My sweet William Kade. It's funny... I knew that I would have my own Willie even before Garrett was born but each time we found out we were having a boy I knew that it wasn't him. 2 weeks before I found out I was expecting Willie I had gone to see my grandma who was dying of cancer. My grandma was my best fan. She had 10 children of her own and whenever someone said something about me having such a big family she would tell them to leave me alone, and that I was a good mom. That meant so much to me. I remember talking to her right after uncle Willie had died. He was only 20 and was her youngest, and 10th child. She told me that she would willingly go through the heart ache of losing him just to have had those 20 years with him. We talked about how she felt uncle Willie being close to her and I told her when she saw him again to tell him to hurry my Willie along to me. She told me she would. The day she died I found out I was expecting and I knew the moment I heard that she had pulled some strings and my Willie was on his way! I am so grateful to be able to be this young man's mom. He has added great things to this family and I look forward to seeing the man he will become!

His first Christmas... and he wasn't too impressed with Santa at the company party!

He is still a Cowboy's fan! Win, lose or draw... but he is a little competitive so the losing part kind of makes him sad!

The famous vaseline picture! This kid found more ways to make messes than I could even keep up with! Things like dumping a gallon of milk and adding red kool-aid and a 5 lb bag of sugar just to see my face when I walked into the room. Right after Wyat was born he came into my room while I was making my bed to check out his baby brother. And then walked around the corner into my bathroom. He was out of sight for 2 minutes... I was talking to a friend of mine in Montana and told her I better check and see why he was so quiet. I found him with his hands in the bottom of a large, brand new, but now empty vaseline jar. He was COVERED! While my friend laughed until she was ready to fall over I told him not to move while I went to get the camera to take a picture of his last day on earth. When I got back and snapped the picture he said, "Cheeeeeeeeessssssseeeeeeee!" He hadn't moved a muscle! This child has taught me so much. Like how to get vaseline off a brand new flannel shirt and brand new Osh Kosh overalls. And how to remove vaseline from hair, nose, ears, mouth... yep, I have learned so many useful things!

My sweet Willie Kade!

Right before getting his tonsils out. He is one tough boy! He has always been all boy, finding his way into more messes, and ending up in the ER for stitches time after time for thinking he was some sort of super hero!!!

Reasons my kids make me laugh....

There are days when I just sit back and laugh at the things the kids

say and do!

They are so much fun, and they have the best personalities.

I may be a bit prejudice but really,

my opinion of them is the only one that truly matters!!! :)

My kids love music.

They love all kinds of music.

We can listen to classic country,

then on to 80's rock and then all of the stuff that plays on the

radio today

all in one road trip.

Nothing better than listening to your 3 year and your grandson

rocking out to 80's music in the back seat!

We like a variety.

Yesterday while we were eating dinner the kids were talking

about listening to Conway Twitty's

Don't Cry Joni.

Kami pipes in about how she LOVES that song

and before we know it

Kailee has it playing on her phone.

Because you know,

they all have music on their phone.

Nate even has an old phone full of music so most nights

I see him plugging it in next to my bed making sure it is charged

so he can listen to his music.

But, back to Joni...

The kids are now singing Don't Cry Joni at the top of their lungs.

They know every song.

Kami is into it like she was born to sing classic country.

And then Nate gets into it.

They are singing their little hearts out and we are laughing so hard at it all.

But as the song finishes,

Nate goes running through the kitchen where he sings to Caitlyn...

"And Caitlyn you married my best friend GORDON!!!!"

We all just stared at each other as he ran into my bedroom.

And then we bust out laughing.

He keeps singing that Caitlyn married his best friend Gordon!

It was funny, it was cute,

but honestly it was one of the sweetest things ever,

because it is so true.

Jace is Nate's buddy... his best buddy!

He loves Caitlyn, always has!

But he sure punished Jace for a couple of months that he left him.

I couldn't help but think how much these kids know,

even when they are so young, they know so much.

Thanks to all of my kids for making me laugh...

life is to be enjoyed,

and you give me a million reasons to enjoy it every single day!!!

January???

Is this January? I double checked the calendar today because it just doesn't seem possible to be enjoying weather in the 60's and it is only the end of January. It was BEAUTIFUL! Blue sky, warm! It felt so much like spring I am actually a little worried what the real spring is going to be like! Guess global warming finally caught up to us??? Is this a little strange or what? At one point 49 of the states have snow, and now the kids are playing outside at the marina without a coat?

Thayne and I went to the movie this afternoon. Country Strong. Bad choice! I should have just went to the marina instead! Walking out of that movie left a feeling of dark clouds and depression... yuck. The marina would have been a much happier place to be!

Because it was so warm the kids couldn't stand it, they had to get out and go to the marina. Nate was so happy to be there and kept telling Kailee to go higher on the swing. What a wonderful day... we will enjoy the spring weather when we get it, because tomorrow it will probably snow! Swinging...

Kami loving the weather...

Best sisters... Kami loves her big sisters, looks up to them so much. And they love her right back. They are so lucky to have each other!

Is it obvious??? :)

As I was getting ready to leave last night

I asked Thayne,

"Does this look obvious?"

He gets this look on his face and said,

"Oh my heck, you look pregnant? Are you pregnant?

When were you going to tell me?"

Oh I love that man!!!

13 weeks...

Every day Nate brings me the doppler

and asks to listen to his 'brudder'....

He also tried to listen to the baby in dad's belly too!

He hasn't told me if that one is a boy or a girl.

But he is certain the one in my belly is his brudder!