its official

It only took 9.5 years but its official....I'm a mom.

I just said, 'Listen to what I MEAN! NOT what I say.'

And they officially are laughing at me.

evidence of FUN!

Love her in all baby-ness

Love her in all her goofy grown-up-ness!

Love her in all her sweet 3 year old sassiness!

Love her in all her cuddly, question-filled, loveliness!

Love him in all his goofy, weird grin, silliness!

the countdown

(Beware...ranting here...but also includes adorable pictures of someone in a pink swimsuit and pink cowgirl boots...and encouragement at the end!)

The big countdown is on.

School starts in less than 3 weeks.

The kids are getting excited. And they are fighting more. And driving me rather crazy. So I know we are getting close.

Im excited.

And I'm dreading it.

Like most parts of them growing up.

Its been a good summer. But there are a lot of things I wish we'd done that we didn't. I meant to have more one on one time with each of the older kids. I didnt. That's hard to do with a baby.

I felt like I said to myself, 'next year will be an easier summer'...a lot. And I hate that. I hate living for 'next year'. I want to live for now. And while we did that a lot...I didnt enough.

I said, no a lot this summer. No, we cant do that, the baby is napping. No, we cant do that because I cant take all of you AND the baby to do that without daddy with us and he's at work.

No, no, no.

I hate that. Hate saying no.

I want to be FUN!

One day Avery said, 'sometimes I wish that we didnt have so many kids in our family so I could just have more time with you.' She didnt say it snotty, just stating the fact of how she was feeling.

And what I heard was, 'Wow, EPIC fail mom. EPIC FAIL!

And I know she doesn't really mean she doesnt want her siblings...I know that by the smiles and laughter I hear pouring out of her as they play together. I know by watching the bond between her and Lauren and the similarities between her and Contessa. And I know, I know that eventually she will be happy she has a big family to surround her with love and support for the rest of her days. I know that...because I have been in her place. But I also want to give her so much more of myself than I can give right now.

Having a five kids is a lot. I love it. But I feel torn 5 different directions at almost every point of the day. And those are just the directions of the kids...not to mention my job, my house, my friends, my extended family, my HUSBAND!

And Satan really likes to attack me when I feel overwhelmed and like a failure. He can play the 'yes, you are a big fat failure' card at just the right moments! He's a clever one.

And Im really not complaining. I just want to remember. To remember that this summer was wonderful just like it shows in all our pictures. We've had awesome times and made great memories. But this summer with a 9, 7, 5, 3 and baby was also exhausting...and made me feel rather inadequate at many points.

What I love is how my kids seem to possess some magical ability to forgive me. It seems that with each new sunrise they have forgotten my failures the day before...they are not nearly as hard on me as I am on myself.

And even better than that...God's mercies are new each morning. When I fail He doesn't want me to wallow in it. He wants me to start the new day renewed in his strength. Raising my kids with all my power and patience and love as a glory to Him.

These verses give me strength and hope for tomorrow and not just that...but for TODAY!

Lamentations 3:22-23 'The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.

Exodus 15:2 'The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation, this is my God, and I will praise Him, my father's God, and I will exalt Him.

Psalm 21:13 'Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength! We will sing and praise your power.'

Psalm 28:7 'The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped, my heart exalts, and with my song I give thanks to Him.'

Psalm 59:16 'But I will sing of your strength, I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuse in the day of my distress.'

sorting

one of the hardest things for me to keep on top of with 5 kids is their clothes...and I dont even mean cleaning them.

it seems that I always need to clean out their drawers and closets because they are always out growing things.

with the start of school drawing near I kind of had a little freak out today and gutted the girls bedroom. I came out with two garbage bags of garbage. scraps of paper, wrappers, sunday school flyers, notes, broken toys, pen caps, feathers, rocks, one entire bag of unwrapped and partially eaten candy, old makeup, junky parade paraphernalia. The list of garbage could go on and on. And this did not include any of the 'treasures' that they kept that didn't really fall into the 'garbage pile' but definetly did not belong in the 'keep pile'.

I was exhausted before I even got to their clothes.

when I finished with their clothes I was sad to discover that Lauren will have to have an almost all new fall wardrobe. I should feel grateful that last year she was able to wear many things from the previous year but this year we are not so lucky.

after their room I moved onto Sully and Tess's. I discovered Sullivan is in the same boat as Lauren. ugh.

It does feel good to have that job complete and it felt really good to go down to the basement and open tubs to find literally piles of clothes for Avery, Tess and Torrance...but honestly, its my least favorite job. I should do a little each month...instead of waiting till fall and spring. Maybe this year I'll do that...of course I have said that every single year....

ask a silly question...

I said, 'Tess, what do you think we should do tonight?'

She answered, 'Well, I want to go to Christmas and see Halloween. Then go to Cinny's house and then Baub's house and have my party again and then come home and go to sleep.'

(she never calls her grandmas 'grandma' she calls them just by their first names only and she pronounces them Cinnyand Baub...I dont want to forget that.)

I really wasn't expecting an answer from her. I will know better next time.

She has very specific ideas on what she wants to do these days...I should have known.

And I cant blame her...she chose to celebrate two holidays, visit both her grandmas, have a birthday party and then go to sleep. If I had to choose I think I'd pick those things too!

Love her.

my summer love

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that its really sad to me that she is my last baby to see in a tiny swimsuit and hat. I think I might have taken like 75 pictures of her in this today. There's nothing like a baby girl all dressed up!

nine months old!

Someone turned 9 months old today!

Sullivan wanted to throw her a party. We really should!

At 9 months Torrance is really just fun!

I think she is such a happy easy baby because she is constantly entertained!

She is going to be a sad baby when school starts.

She loves food...eating 3 meals per day plus snacks.

She is eating more table food and seems to want just about everything she sees us eating.

She is a great sleeper - going to bed about 8 and getting up about 7:30.

She continues to take 2 naps per day - am being about an hour or so and pm being about 2.5 hours. I'm ready for it to drop to one but she is not.

She is into EVERYTHING. Climbs on everything and stands to everything!

She also thinks she can let go. But she cant...and she's taken some nasty falls this week.

We need to get some balance!

She loves her siblings and is starting to become quite a little ham.

I can see her 'youngest child' spot being a good fit for her...she just loves to have them laugh at her.

Her latest trick is to 'slap' herself in the mouth with her hand or forearm and make noise.

She finds it very funny. She also loves to blow raspberries. Especially while eating. I do not love that. Messy!

She sucks her fingers and especially her thumb.

She's adorable!

And her eyes are so blue.

She gets really excited to see Jordan when he comes home each night and lights up for him.

But she is my first honest to goodness mommy's girl.

Don't think I'm not enjoying that!

She officially has 4 teeth and I can see 2 more working in.

check out the fang!

She's easy going and funny.

Not a cuddler though...too busy.

Tori we love you sweetie. What did we do before you were with us?

Happy 9 months!

so hard to believe!

thankful thursday. laundry edition

its thankful thursday so i just have to say;

that i can choose to see that pile of laundry in the previous post as a huge burden.

or i can choose to see it as a big, huge pile of a blessing.

it represents that im a mom many times over. blessed.

it represents that we have seemingly limitless amounts of clothes. blessed.

it represents that i am well off enough that i have time to be stressed by laundry. blessed.

and im well off enough to own laundry baskets! blessed.

it represents that we get to go swimming...a lot apparently from all the swim suits and swim towels. blessed.

it reminds me that i am home to tackle this and not thinking about it while sitting at work. blessed.

it is a great big pile of blessings.

seriously.

what burden can you choose to turn into a blessing today? ask Him to show it to you.

Deuteronomy 28:2 'And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord they God.'

Fold me.

The scary part?

That's not all of it.

Willow and Torrance

So I can tell that I am really DONE having kids.

How?

Because I want a dog.

It seems to be what people do...finish having kids, get a dog.

Since I know I am not getting a dog I love other peoples' dogs.

Like Cassie's today.

Willow, oh Willow.

She's huge. I love huge dogs.

She's beautiful and those eyes.

She's precious.

Are you even kidding me?

She's totally part human.

Torrance does NOT love dogs.

She usually screams and clings to us.

But I'm not really sure she knew Willow was a dog.

She loved her.

And they kissed.

And became quite good friends.

She definetly loved Willow.

She is freaking out here screaming and kicking trying to get to her.

Brigg is restraining Torrance from eating Willow's face.

And Cassie is restraining Willow from basically licking Torrance to pieces.

One more hug!

That helped...

The kids and I traveled to Muscatine today to visit Cassie and her crew.

It was so what I needed.

Cassie might always be what I need.

I love to laugh with her.

And seriously, 10 years ago this year we were bonding together over our first borns.

And now we are this.

That's a lot of kids hanging on us!

We had a total blast hanging out at their pool.

The kids got to learn the beauty of floatation devices and other fun toys!

Avery and Sully both went off the board.

He was SO excited to tell Jordan about his bravery...with the girly intertube around his belly.

I'm pretty sure Lauren would have floated here ALL. DAY!

And Tess, well yes, she is always this cute!

Its HOT

A few things you should know about me:

1. I dont handle heat well. It brings out the worst and I mean, the worst side of me. I am blaming it for the mood I have been in for the past 2.5 days. Cranky doesn't really begin to describe it. 115 degree heat index - I loathe you. It makes me understand why crime rates rise in the heat. Seriously. I cannot imagine how people survive without air conditioning. All I could think of today was how in the world Scarlett EVER survived at Tara in those huge, heavy dresses.

2. I sweat like a man. Like a large, burly, man. Who has just ran a marathon in 100 degree heat. It is not pretty. Again, I would not have won the heart of Rhett if I were running around Tara in this heat. Jordan and I started dating in the fall...by the time he saw my 'sweat issue' the following summer he was too infatuated with me to leave. (wink)

3. I get kind of delirious in the heat. Which is evident by my writing in this post.

And when this heat wave breaks I will come back to blog something positive. Unless I melt before then.

Baby Beauty

I swear her eyes can put me in a trance.

Baby Vampire

There are many parts of babyhood that are just not fair.

Teething being probably the cruelest.

Torrance got her first tooth in May...and seemed satisfied to let it remain solo.

Until last week when she started working on THREE at the same time.

I'll have to say that we've lucked out in that none of my kids have complained much about teething. Drool and an increase in spit up seem to be about the extent of it.

Luckily they dont interrupt sleep or make them irritable.

We see a lot of this right now...gnawing on anything in site.

Including people.

Her first tooth was her bottom left, middle.

Then the bottom right, middle poked through and was followed quickly but the top left incisor!

Who gets their teeth in that order?

And now the next one is her top right, middle...its just starting to work its way out.

So for now, she is a vampire.

She might as well be named Renesmee

(couldn't resist the Twilight reference!)

Can you see that little white dot up there?

Yep, she's a baby vampire.

And her bites HURT!

But wow, cuteness!

Gnawing on a blanket...bad photo quality but had to document it.

Here she was expressing her displeasure with the # of pictures I was insisting on taking.

Seriously...adorable!

'Well mommy, I found your lens cap.'

'And if you are not going to stop taking my picture...I'm going to eat it.'

'Ok, I know I'm cute but really?!'

'I cant stop the drool mom...so your pictures will have to include drool.'

Fancy Jammies!

Contessa's one request for her birthday was 'fancy jammies like Avery's'.

And Grandma came through.

She was so excited about them and danced and danced around the house.

And just guess what her favorite part is?

'Slippers mommy! There's slippers!'

Never want to forget how something like 'fancy jammies' could make her blissfully happy!

Or that tonight when I was so so tired from VBS this week, her joy could give me more strength.

And her bedtime prayer tonight; 'Thank you that I got new jammies (pause) and that I got them because I blew bubbles in my church today.'

(what? they were a birthday present and second, we did not blow bubbles today, at church or otherwise.)

She's the best.

And its turning out that 3 is pretty good...even if its not 2. (wink)

Kiddie Parade 2011

Our town's annual festival started today.

The kids favorite part is the Kiddie Parade.

It might be Grandma Cindy's favorite part too!

She always comes up with the greatest costumes and ideas for our 'float'.

This year's parade theme was 'Groovin' with Mr. Good Cents'

Mr. Good Cents is the mascot for the bank's kid club...and the bank is the sponsor of the parade.

So to get a few brownie points with the sponsor and judges we went with a theme to follow - Peace, Love & Happiness or Saving $ is cool!

Whatever the theme - the costumes were Far Out!

And the kids were Super Cute!

She's gonna out grow the kiddie parade soon...and I will be so sad.

All the cousins on Jordan's side always join in the fun.

The babies are always so cute and tolerate our fun so well.

These two...my goodness.

I think they were my favorite part...I just love this age so much.

They held hands the whole parade route.

Here they come!

Yep, still holding hands!

The whole gang!

After the parade we all eat up town at the food vendors and enjoy the music from the bandstand.

These three were just too pretty to not take a picture of!