Reason to be Proud

Being a parent is hard. Sometimes there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Day after day of toiling in the dark can be discouraging. But yesterday and today, I saw a tiny light. Yesterday, we were in the car on our way to meet our new niece at the hospital. On the way there, Bryce mentioned to us that he had told our neighbor boy, Daniel about hell and that people who are bad, etc have to go there when they die. I immediately assumed that he had probably told him this because of our recent discussions about hell and that it's not a bad word to say it, etc. So I asked, "Bryce, were you telling Daniel about hell because you wanted to be able to say the word hell without getting in trouble?". He said no. He said that he wanted to tell him about hell because he had never been able to tell anyone about Jesus before and he really wanted Daniel to know about Heaven and hell. Well, our hearts certianly were glowing!

Today, I witnessed another very mature and considerate decision that Bryce made. Last night we had promised to take the boys bowling, but were unable to go because we decided to go to the hospital instead. We promised that we would take them the next day (saturday). Well, as it turns out, we are probably not able to find a baby sitter for the girls tonight, so I asked Bryce if he would prefer to go tonight without me, or if he would rather wait for an opportunity for me to be able to go with them. He thought long and hard about this and couldn't make up his mind. Then he asked me if my feelings would be hurt if they went without me. I was surprised at even the question. I told him that my feelings would not be hurt, but I would be kind of sad since I would like to go with them. He thought again for a long time. Finally, he said that he wanted to wait and go when we could all go. He put my feelings ahead of his own! Wow! I was so blown away that I started to get tears in my eyes. I was so proud.

I thank God for these little blessings on the road of parenthood. Maybe I'm not going to screw up my kids after all.

Randomness

What a stressful morning! I'm glad it's over. It's about 2pm and I'm finally just sitting down to have my "morning" cup of coffee. My sister-in-law Shelley came and picked up the boys and took them to a backyard Bible club for the afternoon. Thank God for that! Yesterday I went to the grocery store. Wal-Mart to be specific. As I was there I was having all these random thoughts so I pulled out my shopping list and turned it over and started writing them all down as they came so that I could blog about it. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy the inner workings of my mind....

*Where the heck are the fish sticks?
*For the last week or two I've had this crazy craving for onions...sweet grilled onions. This is weird because I've never cared for onions in the past. But now I want them every day.
*Few people may know this about me, but I probably write a new blog every day in my head. Most never get published.
*I am a lot funnier in my head than what comes out in my blog. In fact, I'm one of the funniest people I know. Sometimes other people just don't get it.
*Josh thinks I'm funny. I crack him up all the time.
*Channel 24 is not allowed on in my house.
*I have always heard talk about people being emotional eaters. I never thought that I struggled with this particular issue...that is until I started living in stress. I am a stress eater. I guess the good news about this is that I'm not stressed most of the time.
*I'm getting old. Today I bought my very first eye cream. I noticed wrinkles around my eyes the other day.
*I have taken it personally that we have not had much interest in our house. I love my house. I have put my heart and soul into decorating it. Why doesn't anyone like it? You can take a tour of our house at http://www.openonthenet.com/ click on 'Tours' and then click the house with the address 2485 NE Cleveland.
*Despite how you all out there who read this, feel about this particular issue- I feel like there is a lot of spiritual warfare surrounding our move. I feel like God wants us to move and Satan is trying to stop it.
*I admit it...I love Cambell's bean with bacon soup.
*Is it wrong that I buy Pam cooking spray for the one reason that it is shorter than the others and fits in my cupboard?
*Wal-Mart desperately needs more checkers on Sunday nights...every time I come, the lines are huge and long!
*Does anyone have moving boxes we can use?
*I think it would be interesting if when we got within 5 feet of a person or so we could hear their thoughts. Although I wouldn't want others to hear my thoughts...I'm afraid that I wouldn't seem as good of a Christian if everyone could hear my thoughts. I guess God had the right idea after all.
*God usually has the best ideas.
*Although, I totally disagree with Him about the whole 9 month pregnancy thing. I think it should have been 6 months max.
*I think it's funny the things that Josh finds sexy. He's not into lingerie at all. He thinks the sexiest thing I could possibly wear are those short cotton shorts that are so popular right now.
*I wonder if I could pull off black hair.
*I love flowers. All kind of flowers. Really, plants in general. They make me happy.
*Grocery shopping is my alone time.
*I just spotted a strange convenience food. Individually wrapped and packaged green beans. Seriously. Who would buy fruit cup type packages of green beans. Gross.

Better

For the last several days, I have been in a constant state of stress. I am not normally a stressed out person, so this was very different for me. I don't like stress. It does crazy things to my body. It all started from about the time we made the offer on the house. I was stressed because I didn't know if they would accept it. In addition to that, I knew we had Soo much to do to get the house ready to put on the market. In addition to that, Bryce's birthday party was Saturday night and I had a lot to do to get ready for that. Josh got home early on Friday and immediately we got to working. We worked solid through the weekend. We dropped to bed at night completely exhausted. Unfortunately for me, being so busy during the day doesn't allow my brain to process things. This is unfortunate because that means that as soon as I stop working (aka: while I'm trying to go to sleep) my brain has all this catching up to do. So I would lay in bed, physically exhausted for hours unable to go to sleep. This is frustrating. We put out a call on Thursday for friends and family to come and help if they were able. We got one friend come and park his trailer so we could load up some burnable items that were "junking" up our side yard. My father in law came and did a couple drywall repairs. That was it. I won't go further than that. I'm very thankful for the help we did get. But....

Anyway, Josh and I got a lot done over the weekend. More than I imagined we would. However, Monday I was still stressed out. Our house was officially on the market and things were not done. I called my friend Christine and she dropped everything that she had to do that day and came to my rescue. I was still stressed. We worked hard until about noon and then we decided to take the kids out to Burger King. Here's where things get a little more interesting. Upon returning home, I put the girls down for their nap. I then went in to the boys' room to put Jayden down for his nap. I noticed that there was a milk jug that had been full of water sideways in their room. It was a brand of milk that I don't buy. Their window had been open and I thought maybe our neighbor boys had thought it would be funny to throw it in while we were gone. I didn't think it was funny. Then I noticed that there were two big rocks in their room as well. Okay...whatever. Annoying, yes. I figured I'd talk to them later about it and kind of shrugged it off. Later that night after Josh got home, I went to peek out our window shades and noticed a crack in our window pane. What the heck? I pulled open the shade only to discover that our outside window pane was completely shattered. Josh came running in at my exclamation. We looked outside and realized that there were two or three big rocks under our window in addition to all the broken glass. We're 98% sure that it was our neighbor boys. Josh left a note on their door about it...but we haven't heard from the parents yet. Add another thing to our list of things to do.

Today has been better. We've gotten all of the big stuff done and we're mostly in a mantainance faze. Maintainance is easier. Still a lot of work. But easier. I actually got to have some down time today and last night and it really did me some good. I think I'm back to almost my normal self. So far our house has been on the market 2 days and not one single call about it. Kind of disappointing. But I feel so strongly that God is leading us in this direction that I'm not worried yet. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go overdose on chocolate milk, banana cake and whipped cream.

Offer Accepted...Check!

Just a quick little blog to let everyone know that our offer on the house was accepted. I just found out! There wasn't even a counter offer..they just accepted it! Yay us! Our house will go up on the market on Monday. Whew! Monday! The day after tomorrow! We've got a lot to do so I'm making this short. Have a great day.

HOLY CRAP!

So. Later on today. Josh and I are writing an offer on a house.

I'll let that sink in for you all.

Holy Crap! I barely got any sleep last night because it was impossible to turn off my head. I'll tell you the story. As you know, Josh and I have been looking for a house in Corbett. We haven't been actively looking for a year, but it's been about that long since we'd decided that that's where we wanted to live. But for the past several months, we have been actively searching. I think I blogged a while back about my "sense of urgency" that I was feeling. That feeling has sort of eased over the last weeks. Nonetheless, I believe it was from God. For the last couple weeks, nothing new has come up on the market that was in our price range or for whatever reason was a good fit for our family. I truly had kind of decided that maybe it would be better to hold of on the idea of moving right away, but still keep getting our house ready to put on the market so that when we did find something we could move quick.

Two days ago, a house came up on the market. It is in a great location. The square footage is good. The property...well, it's not as big as I would have wanted...but we can't have everything in our price range..we'd already discovered that! But the property is like big yard size so it is adequate. But the cherry on the top is that is has a photography studio. It's not a photography studio yet. But the layout and size of it is absolutely perfect for one.

On Tuesday, the day it came on the market, my realtors and I were able to go. Unfortunately, there was no one home and no lock box so we didn't get to go in. But we walked all around the yard and looked at the outside of the house and in the "photography studio". It was the first house we've looked at that felt like home. But still I didn't get my hopes up (okay, well maybe I did...but I tried not to.) Last night we were able to go and look at the inside of it with Josh and the boys. I guess since this post is getting longer that I anticipated, I will cut to the chase. The house was dirty, ugly, full of junk...but I loved it. We got in the car and Josh asked me what I thought. I said I thought we should make an offer on it. He said he thought so too. Do you know how huge this is? I had to drag Josh kicking and screaming into our current home purchase. He's glad for it now, of course. But at the time I think he was scared. Not that I blame him. It was a huge jump for us financially. So I have never seen him in love with a house before. I know it was the "photography studio" that did it. That is his dream come true. We know that this won't be a house that will be our forever house. But for the next 5-6 years it will be great.

So please pray for us. There are a few obstacles. First of course is the fact that we have to make a contingency offer. Our realtor told me that 70% (I think) of contingency offers are rejected. Second, if the offer is accepted, we have to haul a** to get our house ready and on the market. We thought we had time and were taking it. Now we have to cram a near impossible amount of work into a very short period of time. Third, our house has to sell. (I'm not too worried about this..in fact, I think this is going to be the easiest part.) Fourth, um, I have 5 kids. Enough said.

*I had to add this because I thought it was so funny. I was asking the boys about what they thought about the house we looked at last night. I told them we were going to try and buy it and Bryce said, "how much dollars is it?" I told him and I could see him kind of boggle over the number. And then he said, "it should be cheap because it's dirty inside." Little does he know that it IS cheap!

Attendance and New Blog

*Okay People, I'm seeing almost 40 hits on my blog since I wrote this and only 3 comments! Come on! Show your faces! Who's out there lurking?*

Hello All! Okay, I totally stole this cartoon, but it is so relevant for my post!

So Josh installed this google thing on my blog so I can see how many visits I get and where they come from and all. So there's more people reading this than I thought. Soo...in light of that I am going to copy an idea from another person's blog and do a roll call. If you are reading this, let me know. You don't have to say much..just "here!" I'm interested to see who's out there. Also, I love, love, love getting comments..even from people I don't know, so if you have something to say, please say it. Even if you disagree about something. (Although, I know that would never happen.) =)

Also, I wanted to let everyone know that Bryce started his very own blog. He's not even 7 yet and he's already a blogger! Anyway, he does his own posts completely by himself and they're so cute and funny! I believe there's a link on the right to his blog. If there's not his blog is: http://www.brycemckenney.blogspot.com/

Check it out!

SuperMom Returns

It is time for another episode of SUPERMOM!

In the last episode we left SuperMom defeating 3 hungry babies, diarrhea, and tax evasion. It today's episode...well, things haven't changed much for SuperMom..This is one of the things that makes SuperMom so strong and so heroic...doing the same things over and over until a lesser person would lose their mind. Not so with SuperMom..not only can she continue to do the same thing day after day, but the past week she has does it even in a state of weakness. For alas, SuperMom's kryptonite...The Dreaded Sickness.

Today's episode starts on a national holiday. The FOURTH OF JULY! (insert loud echoy voice here.) The day starts out normally enough. It appears to be a weekend day in the middle of the week since Dear Husband gets the day off from work. But does this throw SuperMom off? No Way! SuperMom can handle it! It has been decided that today will be a special day for SuperMom to spend with Dear Husband, Eldest Son and Youngest Son. Early in the morning before the festivities begin, SuperMom flies off to get some shopping done. She knocks that right out. POW! Upon arriving back home, it is now time to fly into high gear to get ready for the rest of the day. A picnic lunch needs to be made. POW! Boys need to find shoes. (Always a challenge for SuperMom) BANG! BANG! Finally everyone is ready and the sitters for the girls have arrived. Instructions are given and it is time to fly out the door. As SuperMom, Dear Husband, Eldest Son and Youngest Son are on their way, suddenly a decision needs to be made. Can we conquer Multnomah Falls? Thinking about her lingering weakness from The Dreaded Sickness, SuperMom has only one answer. WHY NOT? OF COURSE I CAN! SuperMom attacks that mountian. It is hard in her weakend state, but the mountian is like dust under her feet.

After returning home, Youngest Son goes down for a much needed nap. BAM! SuperMom takes a shower. POW! Then, after remembering a prior commitment, SuperMom realizes that she must make a cake. For Tonight! Oh no! Will SuperMom make it? Will there be enough time to make the cake and do everything else to get ready for the BBQ? NO PROBLEM! SuperMom whipps around the kitchen to make the cake. Finally, it is done and in the oven and now it is time to make bottles for the Three Hungry Babies. BAM! BAM! BAM!

Bottles in hand, SuperMom enters the Babies' room. It is hot. A terrible smell assults SuperMom's nose. What has happened? SuperMom quickly turns on the light and is horrified at what she sees. Baby Kynden has unfastened a diaper and there is poop everywhere. OH THE HORROR! There is poop on her bed. There is poop on her bedding. There is poop on her hands. There is poop on her face. OH THE HUMANITY! SuperMom frantically calls to Dear Husband in the other room. It is a good thing to have a sidekick on days like today. He comes quickly and assess the situation. He begins to run a bath for Baby Kynden. Meanwhile, Baby Ellyanna and Baby Adelynn are hungry for their bottles. So is Baby Kynden, but she will have to wait. SuperMom gives the Babies their bottles and begins to work on Baby Kynden. She carefully strips off her clothes as she screams. SuperMom plops her into the bathtub and begins to scrub. Will all this poop ever come off? Meanwhile, Dear Husband is working on the bedding. Finally, the dried poop has been conqured. SuperMom dries Baby Kynden off and puts on clean clothing. Baby Kynden now shares a bed with her sister as she works on her bottle.

SuperMom suddenly realizes that the timer is going off for the cake. Oh no! Will the cake be burnt and ruined? (Well, maybe a little...SuperMom can't do everything) Do not fear. The cake is still edible.

It is now time to leave for the BBQ at SuperMom's mother's house. As quick as possible the children are loaded up and ready to go. Later on SuperMom encounters another disturbing problem. At Mother's house, there are no high chairs. And the Babies are hungry again! What is SuperMom to do? A towel on the floor in the kitchen is tried first. SuperMom should have known. The Babies don't hold still. They attack SuperMom and spew carrots on her legs. What else can she do? Ah Ha! The bathtub! Perfect! The Babies are packed up and set into the bathtub. Do your dirtiest, Babies, for you are no match for SuperMom and the bathtub! The Babies are fed, cleaned and now they can have their bottles.

After the Babies go to bed and it finally gets dark the Fireworks begin. Eldest Son has a good time helping Dear Husband light the Fireworks. He may have a bit of his mother's pyromaniac tendancies. But shhhh...that is a secret about SuperMom.

The day is finally coming to a close. Just another day in the life of SuperMom.

Sometimes Life is Hard

Well, I probably just titled this with the biggest understatement in life! Obviously, everyone knows that life is hard sometimes!

This has been a difficult week for me. Last weekend we had the garage sale that I talked about in my last blog. All week long, I was busy pulling stuff out and pricing things and getting everything prepared to go out. On Thursday, I was trying to get all the last minute stuff ready but all day I was just not feeling well. I was tired and my throat was sore and I was getting a headache. But I did my best to keep working. By the evening time, I was achy, my skin hurt and I had a fever. I had to make Josh do a lot of the work getting the garage ready. Friday morning I woke up without a fever but a raging sore throat. It felt like it was bleeding. It continued to hurt all day long but I toughed out the sale. It has since hurt every day since then. Today is going on my 6th day of having a sore throat and a headache. I hate being sick! In addition to my sore throat, in the middle of the night last night I woke up with my left eye glued shut and my eye red, swollen and sore. I called the doctor and thankfully she didn't even make me come in, she just prescribed me some eye drops and Josh was able to get them on his lunch break.

Okay, I'm done with my whining. Well, maybe not...It's really hard to take care of 5 children when you're not feeling well. I wish that sometimes I could call in sick. No such luxury, here! On top of not feeling well, the boys seem to be fighting a lot lately. It sort of starts out as "wrestling" but ends up with fighting and/or someone crying because they are hurt. Sometimes it's hard to judge when it's innocent playing and when it's malicious fighting. And Bryce seems to think that the louder he screams "OW" the more trouble Jayden will be in. When mostly, I get more frustrated at him for yelling so loud and being so whiny.

Today, I got the "brilliant" idea that since the boys seemed to have so much time to spend fighting, that maybe I should "find" something for them to do. So I made them do chores. Why is it so dang hard to get kids to do work? Why does it take bribery? I threatened that whoever whined and complained about having to do their chore was going to have to spend the rest of the day in their room. Well, Jayden ended up having to be in his room for the rest of the day. He did get off lucky though...I said he'd have to be in there until Josh got home from work and he ended up coming home about an hour earlier than normal. Lucky Jayden.

Something occurred to me a couple weekends ago. I detest weakness. I'm not saying that as something that I'm proud of...because it's not. It's a character flaw really, and I'm not quite sure what to do with this realization except acknowledge that it's there. Here's an example: When I was pregnant with the girls, my church made a list of people who were willing to come and help me. Either around the house or to do things such as errands, etc. After the girls were born and came home, I never even looked at that list. Why? Well, there were other reasons of course, but it was partly because I hate being "needy". I want to be able to stand on my own two feet and deal with what life gives me and I want to do it myself. I want people to look at me and my life and think, "Wow, she's amazing. Look at everything she can do." Heck, I want to be able to say that about myself! If I accepted help, I couldn't say that. For some reason it is very important to me to be tough.

I signed up with a personal trainer at CAC a couple weeks ago. I've only so far had one workout with him. Supposedly, he's a very tough trainer, but also very good. People kept saying things like "don't eat before you come" and "are you sure you know what you're getting into?" During my workout with him, he kept telling me that usually people don't make it through the entire 30 minute workout. And he kept telling me to make sure I told him when (not if) I started to feel dizzy or nauseous and we would stop. I was determined to be tough and force myself to finish the 30 minutes. I lasted 25 minutes until I had to stop. Which, really, was probably good for my first workout. He even said that to me. However, I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself for getting nauseous. I wanted to be tough.

It's just so hard to be tough and sick at the same time. That's probably why I hate being sick so much. It's weakness. It's needy. It's everything that I don't want to be. That's proably especially why this week has been so hard for me.

On another note, my friend Carrington just gave birth (on Sunday) to triplets! She made it to (I think) 34 weeks. Talk about tough! The babies are doing great! Congratulations Carrington and Garrett! I can't wait to meet your new family members! I'm so excited for you! The fun has just begun!