Puppies!

Charlotte came out around 5:45 to tell us that Meadow was "acting like she had to poo and I think she's about to push.." Gotta love the oldest in a large family, she'd make a great midwife. Nothing phases her! We went in and found that,yep, she was having a puppy -- the first arrived at 5:48pm! (The last was born at 8:09pm - goooood Meadow!)

We sprang into action with warm towels, heatlamp, is puppy breathing?, and so on. Everyone pitched in. We kinda knew it'd be soon because she was shivering and panting today.

At three puppies we thought she might be done. I felt her tummy and there was a little kick.. we waited on number 4 to arrive.

Not to be outdone by the six two legged kiddoes.. Meadow gave birth to six four-legged kiddoes of her own! 4 boys, 2 girls. They were all born effortlessly and she's an awesome Momma. She set to work cleaning them and taking care of business. All cleaned up and being sorted while Meadow heads to the potty and eats. They're now all settled in a nice warm box with their Momma.

This is the littlest of the litter. He's got a lot of white and is so cute. He has white from his chin down to his belly button.

This is one of the two little girls. Tomorrow evening I will try to get better individual pics. We took quick snapshots so we could label them. Some have very wrinkled and flat faces, others have long tails, some are almost all black, others have brown legs. I know at least one has white "boots".

Whew.. more tomorrow! We're tuckered now and have a quilting bee to host in the afternoon.

Rag Quilt and Back to School

This was an afternoon project over the weekend. Bethany did a lot of the stitching with me. It is a rag quilt made from baby flannel. The kitty cats alternate with pooh bear and piglet. The result? A bright pink quilt! We think Naomi is going to enjoy this as a Christmas gift. We enjoyed making it. Each of the seams is snipped and then the quilt is washed, giving it the ruffly raggedy result!

It is back to school til the end of December. What we lack in motivation we make up for with procrastination! hehehe Hopefully after this initial monday hump we'll get back to working steadily. We're working today, it's just not pretty.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Naomi celebrated her first Thankgiving (outside of the womb) with sweet potatoes and a little bit of cranberry sauce. She is the baby that usually refuses to eat solid food. Apparantly we just needed to add some butter, corn syrup, and brown sugar to the mix! (can you say 'sixth child doesn't follow the baby book'?). She had a grand time squishing up her food and provided nice entertainment.

I hope our family and friends had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was a lot of fun. We had another family visit and really enjoyed the time together.

The day after Thanksgiving we (older girls & myself) snuck out for some shopping. We desperately needed a toaster and the coffee pot broke last week too! Kohls opened at 4am... so by 3:30am we were OUT the door and at 3:48am we were standing in line. Woohoo! It was COLD. They also left the sprinklers ON! How is that for rolling out the red carpet? "Here, come shop, but we're gonna freeze ya at the same time". We zipped in there, grabbed up a toaster oven and coffeepot.. then chatted for about 15 minutes while waiting to check out. After we went to JCPenneys to get a game that Bethany had her eye on.

The girls have been babysitting, in our home, for baby Elias. They're earning money as "mother's helpers" and have been carefully plotting how to spend it. We ended up going back out yesterday to Michaels. We planned to hit the bookstore, but my frugals decided to go to the library later this week instead. :) Charlotte found watercolor pencils, a new watercolor pad, and is trying a new craft -- model ship building! She's working on a ghostly pirate ship (we'll have pics later). Bethany is trying her hand at latch hook again and it's going beautifully. I plan to start my Dear Jane quilt this week. I'm going to do the sampler while I still decide upon the fabrics I want to use for the main one.

God has been so good to us. I recently posted on MOMYS Digest (Moms of Many Young Siblings) about a blessing that didn't seem like one at the time. Surely our "blessing" this year has been in the vehicle issues. Our lives have slowed down and we're definitely practicing a lot more hospitality. We've really been enjoying our time together as a family, and with getting to know others better. Also - we recently found out a good friend is expecting (yay!) We've met quite a few other families with 5+ children - that's been so fun! Currently we're 'behind' another local family with 7... and now we're tied with 3 others at 6.. hehehe

Jim is enjoying his new project at work. They moved to a different building. I don't know anything about what floor he's on, the folks sitting next to him, or even if the parking is decent.. but I do know they have a great cafeteria with a bunch of nice food ;) He was like a kid on their first day of regular school -- he even sent me his weekly menu. Hurray for good lunch food! hehe.

We're getting closer and closer to Puppy Day. We're thankful that was NOT on Thanksgiving Day, but wondering now when it will happen. I guess if it happens on Thursday (sewing day) we can count it as a homeschool science co-op.

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the LORD , all the earth.

Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the LORD is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations

Unexpected blessings

Over the years I can see where many of my disappointments really turned into blessings instead. This has happened with job changes, moves, and so on. Often I prayed for one thing and got a whole different answer -- yet the blessing is so clear. We prayed to be able to live in the area with our family. God firmly closed that door. Instead He moved us south.. which opened us up to homeschooling, moved us closer to Christ, led to a church where Jim accepted Christ and so on. If I had my way who knows what would have happened?

We've had this over the past year with vehicles. We had a major repair to the van, followed by a major repair to the truck. The trucked died a few weeks later. We sold the truck and felt blessed to get a car - save gas, etc. The car died a few weeks later. We worked like crazy at trying to get another car. Many of you in r/l and on yahoo lists with me remember those prayers in the summer. I desperately wanted to be able to see my family in July. We really wanted to see our family!! It was a daily prayer and we praised God when we found another vehicle. We did make it on the vacation and had a wonderful time. We were able to see grandparents and get closer to my sister's six children -- Joseph *still* talks about his "buddy" Alex!

After the vacation... the car died a few weeks later.

Notice a theme?

We didn't give up, but we did stop for a while. I admit, my pride was a challenge. I knew it meant giving up park day. Our park day has been a vital part of our homeschooling! We have been doing it for almost seven years in various locations. I posted about it weekly, encouraged many moms to attend, and so on. It was (is!!) very important to me. It was upsetting to drop it from the calendar and just pray that someone would take it over. Due to being an 8 member family with a 7 seater minivan we can't share a vehicle.

God is good!! A few moms have KEPT it going - yay! We look forward to joining them again when possible. I'm so thrilled that park day hasn't been dropped... not only that, but it has grown. I know it is a blessing to many, it has always been a blessing to me.

With a great big leap of faith I talked to Jim about doing a weekly open house. Hospitality is not my gift. I know people with the gift of hospitality - they're amazing!

Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 1 Peter 4:9-10

Hospitality: The act or practice of receiving and entertaining strangers or guests without reward, or with kind and generous liberality. American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster, 1830.

After reading that definition I have to wonder if I'm practicing hospitality at all! Maybe not? I know I'm rewarded by it. :) Our reward has been huge! Just today we were rewarded with fun sweet playmates, laughing moms, and yummy food to share.

I'm very humbled that these moms are willing to make the trip to my house weekly. I love sharing one day a week with them. The quilting is fun, but the fellowship is key. The friendships are priceless. I always thought I'd practice hospitality when everything else fell into place - perfect house, landscaped yard, nicely matched dishes, flylady flying, and so on. That was never going to happen. God is good. He found a way for me to get over my hospitality hangups ;)

And just today I learned a brand new family to SC (moving tomorrow!) is coming to our home for Thanksgiving dinner. It won't be Martha Stewart, but it will be our version of hospitality. Would I have ever gotten over this hump if we had two vehicles - or even one that fit everyone? Maybe not. I was really happy with our weekly park day out. I couldn't imagine inviting folks to drive way out in the sticks to my place. Yet, that's exactly what happened. God is good. Have I mentioned that?

This Thanksgiving already feels like a special one. We're thankful for having a home we can open to others. I'm also thankful to be able to return a blessing to another family. When we first moved to SC a family invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. The mom totally flubbed the turkey (she started from frozen), we couldn't fit all around the table, and dinner was quite late.. but we all had a great time. Maybe because we don't have family in the area we treasure our friendships all the more. We're also missing a church fellowship due to vehicle issues.

So, we're blessed. Even when the world says I should be feeling less than satisfied, I can see where that's so not true. We have six wonderful children - and we're open to God to bless us more! We have a home that will fit extra folks, even when it seems impossible (5 moms and 15 children today!!). We have Jesus who showed us real sacrifice. We have a God that encourages us and equips us for whatever challenge set ahead of us. I'm also thankful to have the maturity to realize that this year isn't what I had planned.. yet His plan was SO much better.

Thank you God for blessing our family. Thank you for our friends. And thank you for the lessons we've learned this year as we remember to let YOUR will be done, not ours.

Babysitting

First of all, we're not responsible for the bruise :) hehe. He's an energetic baby and gets plenty of daredevil scrapes and bruises at his house!

The girls are helping out a friend by babysitting her little guy at our home. He wasn't interested in napping, but desperately needed one.. so Charli popped him into the didymos wrap! (He will be 1 in January and he's a BIG guy!) Within just a few minutes he was snoozing soundly. We unwrapped him gently and put him down for a nap.

Hurray for babywearing! It works even while babysitting. :)

The quilt frame has arrived.. and more!

Snoedels! This has been our project lately. It's been a lot of fun.


This is a picture of Naomi, almost 7 months, sleeping with her Snoedel. He's well-loved. For those wondering, she's snuggled into her amby bed. Daddy was the mean person who took the picture of the sleeping baby! Snoedel, amby, and "fummie" (thumb) are all she needs for a good sleep!
Here is our Naomi with one of the mini-snoedels. It is a strawberry shortcake fabric.

In other news...

The quilt frame arrived! Hurray! We've already started some of the quilting, with Bethany chiming right in. It's so much fun to see the quilt frame ready and waiting in the house. The top picture shows the quilt top that is being worked on. The measuring tape was out to show how there should be 6 stitches per inch for beginner.. and then 10-12 for 'experienced'.


Where is the best place for a cat to snooze in a busy house? Under the quilt frame of course! I'm sure Sugar agrees it was nice of us to build her a little home. Oh.. and the quilt frame *is* made out of PVC. It makes it lightweight and the rails are ultra-snug. This is a great material for a quilting frame! I'll get pictures of the quilting ladies around it next week.

Wow Wednesday!

This is the perfect face for a Wednesday! Once again, this picture was taken by Charlotte. Noah is always a willing subject (unless he is running away...)

We have exciting news soon! Nope, not a baby (not yet anyway!) but exciting anyway. Hopefully we'll share that in the next few days. We're working hard here to get it underway. (It's a project I'm doing with the girls - so don't think outlandish here.. we're not moving, adopting triplets, or other big things).

Charli's Rainbow

We tried to post this yesterday, but blogger wasn't agreeing with us! Here is a gorgeous picture of a rainbow that Charli took a few weeks ago.

Later today we hope to post a FULL update on us! We're in the swing of school and trying to keep to a good schedule. Naomi has her first tooth, but she's still not interested in being adventurous, she's happy to be a lap baby and loved.