Deck the halls!

Well, there are no "boughs of holly" yet, but we did get a good start at putting up the Christmas decorations this week-end. We always have a great time putting up the tree. The kids love helping Rob put the tree together. We all enjoy pulling the ornaments out, remembering when we each got our special ones. It is so cute to see the kids pick the "perfect" spot for each of their ornaments.

Each year the youngest capable child gets to put the star on the tree after we've put all of the

other ornaments on. This year was Miss J's turn, but she had a cold and was not in the mood to do it, so Mr. S was more than happy to step in and help us out!

Rob hung all of the stockings up on the piano for us. I think they look so cute there. After we do our gingerbread house we'll put it on top of the piano to fill in the empty space up there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a fun Thanksgiving this year. We expected it to be a bit quieter, but we ended up having some extra guests! It is fun to see who God brings into our home each year. This year a friend from church who could not be with her husband because of military assignments got to join us. Also a family that we had been stationed with in Virginia came over (it is an interesting story, we had no idea they were here, but through the need for a computer monitor and craigs list we met up just before they moved on. They would have been spending the holiday in their hotel room otherwise.) It was nice to have them all here with us.

We all had a great time. Nana spent much of the morning holding Miss C or playing legos with the big kids. We all enjoyed the wonderful meal, dessert and plenty of play time together!

Rob's first pig!

Rob went hunting at the ranch yesterday and got his first pig! He had so much fun, and was quite excited. He got to go hunting with our pastor; the two of them had been looking forward to this hunting "trip" for a while now. Rob is also learning to bone/butcher a pig, and took the kids with him today to finish up the job. They were so excited for their Daddy (cheers arose around the house when I read the text to them that he had got the pig), and thought it would be great fun to see the pig! Miss E even got to help.

So, along with our Turkeys we'll have plenty of pork this year in the freezer! Rob made up a little bit of wienerschnitzel soon after he got home last night to try out his pig. She shared with me and my mom, and it was very good!

2 Weeks!

Wow, two weeks sure have flown by! We've been having fun loving on Miss C and having some great family time too! I've been getting plenty of rest and I'm slowly getting back to "normal".

*Rob changed all of the sheets at one time, these two enjoyed the pile of la las and cuddles together for a while! You can see the piles of quilts/sheets in the back ground.

Miss C is doing GREAT! I took her in for her 2 week well baby appointment today. I was excited to see that she now weighs 8 lbs. 5 oz! That is 9 oz past her birth weight! She is sleeping fairly well at night (for her age/weight). She takes one 4-5 hour stretch each night and after that she goes to every 2-3 hours, mostly I'm just happy that she is making steady improvements on her sleep patterns. She is falling into a nice schedule during the day too. She is a very easy going baby, though she is not afraid to let us know if she really does not like something. Mostly she just loves to cuddle with mommy, and I am more than happy to cuddle with her!

Miss J is still in love with her new baby, maybe even more so now! She still comes in every

morning to check on "baby" and asks several times a day to hold her too. She loves to pat her head softly and kiss it and to point out her eyes/ears/mouth/nose/head/hands/toes! All of the

other kids are still enjoying her too, but mostly I think they are just enjoying having Daddy home and having him teach them for a change! Rob has been taking them on little mini hikes

and pulling out some of our camping gear to let them practice some outdoors/survival skills.

*this picture is of Mr R putting together his camp stove with his eyes closed!

German food and shaving cream

Rob's computer is having problems, and that is the computer I use to post pictures to this blog, so no pictures for a while. :( I'll add some later for this post....

Rob made German food for dinner last night! He mentioned about a month ago that that was something he would like to have soon, but knew it would have to wait a while since I would not be up to cooking it. We realized though, that since he quite capable in the kitchen that maybe he could make the dinner! So, he made jager schnitzel, wiener schnitzel, and spatzle for us! It all turned out well and the whole family enjoyed the meal! Is he great or what?

Then today he told the kids he had a fun activity planned for them. I had no idea what he had planned either so it was a surprise to everyone. It was a simple activity, but the kids had a great time (at least some of them did). He pulled out a couple of cans of shaving cream and had the kids "finger paint" on the table! Not surprisingly Mr. R and Miss J were not too interested in participating. They don't like getting messy, even if it is for fun!

Look ma...

..no training wheels! Mr. S has been working on this off and on for a few months now, the training wheels have been off and on a couple of times. This last time he asked that they be taken off Daddy would not put them back on. We've known he could do this for a while, he just did not think he could. Rob has been working with him more seriously the last couple of weeks. Today he finally got it! By this afternoon he was zipping up and down the street on his own and even getting himself going on his own! What a big boy he is getting to be!

*Miss C is doing well. She is starting to get into a bit of a routine with eating and sleeping and is having more awake times. She seems to be a fairly easy going baby, and we are all enjoying having her here!

My Guys

I've got a bunch of wonderful guys here! Rob is an awesome husband and father, and is teaching his sons well!

Rob has been taking such good care of all of us these days. He is letting me get the rest I need so that in three weeks I'll be set to go back to caring for six kids, doing home school, running the house, and feeding everyone (he is taking two weeks off, then my mom is coming for a week). He is feeding and caring for everyone and doing school with the kids, and he is doing it all with a smile on his face and a happy heart (and I think he is getting in some of his PhD work/reading too)! God is so good to have given him to me!

Today was errand day, and Rob took four of the kids with him to the commissary (it went well, I'm told). Mr. R asked if he could stay behind since it is his special helper day. He wanted to take care of Mommy and Miss C! How sweet it that? What a thoughtful young man he is! Now, I'm sure that having the playroom to himself to build with legos was a big draw too, but he was quite the eager helper! We shared a special snack of sliced apples with carmel dip while we watched Miss C sleep, but mostly I rested and he played with legos.

The boys are just as eager to come see Miss C every morning as the girls are (maybe even more

so?). They are very protective of her and always want to make sure she is okay. They love to hold her, or even just look at her and talk to her. I found Mr. R playing "peek-a-boo" with Miss C this morning, I guess she had started crying in her bassinet while I was in the shower and he had decided that this was the best way to calm her, and it worked! Her eyes were so big, just watching him!

What great guys God has given me!

A knot

There was a "True Knot" in Miss C's cord at birth. It was pulled tight. We have no way of knowing when the knot happened or when it was tightened (though the Dr. suspects the knot was tied months ago). We are thanking God for his protection of Miss C and allowing her to be with us. My Dr. commented on how blessed we were that her cord had not caught on anything and been pulled tighter. This is an extra blessing considering how much she was spinning around in the last month or so. God is so good to us!

Since she is just fine, Rob was thrilled to see that his daughter was showing an early interest in knot tying and is looking forward to teaching her some more knots to tie in the future! I think they will use 550 cord instead though!

We took a picture of the knot....

Just wanted to warn you, since I'm posting it here.....

Yesterday Rob took all of the big kids to church and I stayed home with Miss C to rest. It was so nice to have the kids coming and going all morning and afternoon to visit with me and cuddle with Miss C in my bed. Miss J spent quite a bit of time with us. It turns out that she and

Miss C have quite a bit in common and they have become buddies- they are both "babies", both love mommy's bed, both have tag "la las", and they both LOVE milk! How cool is that? I'd say

its the start of a life long friendship!

she is here!!!!!!

Miss C (e-mail me for full name) arrived yesterday at 11:39 am! She was 7 lbs. 12 oz., so she falls right in the middle with Mr. M as far as size goes. She is healthy and cute as can be!

This birth would qualify as one of my longest labors, but could also be one of my shortest. I never did get into a good labor pattern at home, even though I'd been up for about seven hours before we left the house around 7:30 am. I had contractions all night, but none were painful, just enough to keep me awake. I could tell I was going to be having her soon though, and figured we may as well head in and get things moving. My doctor broke my water at 8:30 and that was all it took to get things going, but still nothing got painful really until just before Miss C was born. So, if I were to count all of the time I spent awake that night this would be about and 11 hour labor, however if I were to just count the time I spent in active labor this would be about a 2 1/2 hour labor. Either way it was not bad since I really only had about 30 minutes of the more intense contractions, and even those were not too bad since after one of the worst I jokingly said "this is when I think maybe I should have had an epidural"!

We did have a "bump" in the plans though, Miss E did not get to attend the birth. Due to the H1N1 virus the hospital had just instituted a policy of no visitors under age 18. We had thought about bringing her and making an appeal to the administrators (we were told that was the rout to go), but a couple of our kids had been a bit off this week (99.5 temp, hardly anything but Mr. S had his hives get gets AFTER a virus) and we felt we could not honestly make such an appeal. Miss E was fine with this since this allowed her to spend the morning playing with her friends! My friend (who was supposed to be Miss E's buddy) did come along anyways and it was nice having her there.

We were out of the hospital at the 24 hour mark and on our way home to introduce Miss C to the kids. Our wonderful new neighbors (the ones we got the piano from) watched the kids while Rob got us, they left as soon as we arrived though. Everyone was so excited to see Miss C. Miss J has done fairly well, though I can tell she is a bit confused. She is trying to figure out her role

in all of this. She has such strong mothering instincts though, so she is trying to take the role of care taker for Miss C. She loves holding her, patting her, finding her hat, giving her blankets, all that sort of stuff. She does not even care when Miss C cries, she thinks it is cute and signs "cry".

Mr. S is trying to remember what it is that babies can do, and is finding out that its a very short list (and he is not a fan of the crying)! The big kids are just thrilled with her and they are all loving having their turns holding her and looking at her.

I'm looking forward to getting some rest now that I can get comfortable. Rob is going to be handling things around the house for the next couple of weeks and I'll be spending quite a bit of my time upstairs in bed with Miss C.

Thanksgiving

I was so glad when we got to November, we're taking it easy this month! I have planned very little school for this month, but we are keeping up a bit of the routine just so that things don't fall to chaos around here! We're still doing our morning chores and circle time. Today I put up our "Thanksgiving tree" that will be part of circle time. I have foam leaves that will stick on there, and we each write something we are thankful for on one of them everyday. By the time we get to Thanksgiving our tree should be full of leaves!

I announced at breakfast yesterday that we would not be doing as much school this month, but we would be doing quite a bit of P.E.- this was greeted with blank stares- physical education- more blank stares- "you'll be spending quite a bit of time playing outside and riding your bikes"- cheers arose around the table! The weather is great around here and the kids love getting out to run, play, ride bikes/scooters etc. They can do all of this while I sit on the porch and rest, or we can all go for a nice long walk if I'm up to it (that is what we did today). We're staying away from the playgrounds for now though to avoid catching a bug.

As another distraction I put away our regular rotation of living room toys and instead put out

some fall/thanksgiving things for the kids. Its not much, but they are quite happy with it. We don't have many Thanksgiving books, but tomorrow we will be picking up a bunch that I have requested from the book mobile. The kids like handling the corn and the gourds, something I remember my mom leaving out for us to play with too (I'm thinking it was Auntie B that encouraged her to do this!). Since we also have a bunch of Christmas toys the kids will not see their regular toys for two months. This will be nice when we are trying to get back to "normal" after Miss C's birth and the holidays.