Daniel Seems to Be Missing

My sweet second child can sometimes get overlooked since the girls(squeaky wheels) on either side of him, and the two toddlers who are in constant need of discipline, keep me so occupied. So in honor of Daniel, I am posting this picture of him and declaring to all that he is a joy to parent, he teaches ME a lot and that I love his sweet little(but growing huge) self!!!!!!! He is my indoors child who's favorite pasttime is building Lego's and playing on the computer. He is such a great big brother and LOVES babies. Now that Jacob is 3 the two of them are starting to play together. They shoot each other with the nerf guns and now they like to wrestle each other! Daniel is the epitome of gentle with his brute-size 2 year old brother. I hope he always stays sweet-he will make a great husband and father someday!

Weeklong packing

I had full intentions of starting to pack for our month-long trip to California at least a week ago. It is 5 days before the trip now and I haven't even gotten the suitcases out of the attic!
I think this is a bad habit left over from college when I would do all the easy homework before tackling the big project right before it was due. . . . now I am consumed with daily life, last week's yard sale, this Saturday's Women's tea, etc, and I haven't packed a stitch of clothing yet!
This morning it is 5 a.m. and I can't sleep since all of these thoughts are running around in my head. I got up and rotated the laundry that is a week behind so I wouldn't lie in bed wondering when it would actually get done once the kids were awake. Now I am thinking of cancelling Sarah's orthodontist appt. today so I don't waste 2 hours driving back and forth twice to the Gramma sitters and an hour at the ortho. Ramblings of a tired mom at 5 a.m. . . .

Climbing a Mountain While I'm Sitting Still

They say that when you are pregnant, your body is working as if you are climbing a mountain, even though obviously, you are not. Now that I am done feeling "uck," though still fighting my pregnancy-lactose-intolerance, I am supposed to be in the energetic second trimester. As of yesterday I am 18 weeks along and the desire to "nest" or clean up my house is there, but the actual energy is not! I told Marc's grandma Sally that I wondered where the energy I was looking forward to was. She said, "Why did you think you would have that when you are taking care of 5 other kids every day?" Point taken. I guess with the first few kids it was there. Now I wonder if I'll even get off the couch past 30 weeks now that I am pregnant with #6! Guess I'd better get all my projects and beach trips done by then! At least I can say for this week that I:

1. Moved 1/3 of the kid's books to the kid's book area so now they are all in one place!
2. Color coded the bindings of my Sonlight Curriculum homeschool books by year like I was supposed to do starting 3 years ago! Yeah-now we can tell which books are for school or not!
3. Sorted the house for yard sale items.
4. Cleaned the garage so people don't ask to buy the stuff I am NOT selling.
5. Got Sarah to clean out her desk and hutch to sell at the yard sale!
6. Climbed up in both attic spaces to find yard sale items
7. Remembered my 5 year old's play date 20 minutes south, even though that non-pregnant mom forgot!
8. Made dinner every night but Wednesday. ( I wasn't this good when prego with #1!)
9. Took Leah to get her 18 mo. pictures today.
10. Did the "usual," laundry, homeschool, observe chores, prep kids for AWANA and Latin, diapers, potty cheerleading, discipline, talk to husband, go online, watch favorite TV shows.

So why couldn't I fall asleep for a nap today??????

Easter, Eggs and Naples (and I Don't Mean Italy!)

"The Lord Is Risen, just as He said!" Lizzy let me know that I had her memorize the WRONG verse for Cubbies. I guess I missed the memo that said we were doing the special Easter page in the back!

We had a wonderful week of celebration in honor of the Lord. Spending time with family and friends who share your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is such an encouragement!

Our family was invited 2 1/2 hours away to Naples, Florida, to celebrate Grace Bible Church of Naples first Resurrection sunday! Marc preached there over the course of the fall and winter until their new pastor arrived in February. On Easter Sunday they welcomed in their first group of members, had an enormous meal with all of us and thanked Marc and Matt for being their fill-in preachers. When they gave us a signed picture of all of them, I got goosebumps for the testimony of God's work around and through us.

We typically spend Easter with the Wragg crew and since we were going to be out of town, they rearranged our egg hunt tradition to Saturday before we trekked to Naples. This was Leah's first hunt and after the first few eggs she finally figured out that she should collect them and not just shake them! There were over 200 eggs for about 13 kids, so the pickings were plentiful! Our kids also received their baskets on Saturday since we didn't want to stuff them in the car for the trip. As you can see in the picture, Sarah got an extra special basket stuffer of the matching outfit to her American Girl doll. She already had the doll outfit and when the girl outfit went on sale, we splurged.

It was actually really nice to have them do their baskets on Saturday because then we had no distraction from Christ and church as we prepared for our time of worship. The kids thought they were on vacation since the church put us in two hotel rooms. I don't think they have stayed in a hotel room for over 2 years and they thought it was awesome! It was just a holiday inn, but we did realize that we need to be on the first floor next time for my husband to maintain his sanity. The kids kept running and he was concerned for the people below us.

Anyhow, I got a picture of the kids as we headed off to church, but Leah didn't want to stand still and get her picture taken(18 months with a 2 year old 'tude). Excuse her scream!

A Fish Tale

I had one of those mom moments I hope I don't soon forget. It was just so funny! As a mom of 5 it is SO easy for me to forget what I'm doing. I find 1/2 finished tasks all over the house and realize it was HOURS ago I worked on them. How could I forget for so long?
So when it comes to cleaning out the fish pond in the front yard, I try to always set a timer so I don't pay for hours of water running from the hose. We bought 20 new feeder goldfish a few weeks ago and we couldn't see them anymore because the water had become murky. The way I clean our pond is to overflow it with the hose. I was concerned the newbie fish would flow out with the water, but I went ahead with my plan to clean it and set the timer in the house for 12 minutes.
Well, lets just say I didn't hear the timer go off. By the time I realized the pond was still "cleaning," the whole ditch in the driveway was filling with water! I ran out to turn off the water to the now crystal clear pond and saw a glint of orange in the floating mulch!!! Oh, no! The fish DID flow out! I ran back in the house for the little fish net and back out to the yard. I saw two gold fish and one white one. I chased them with the net-trapping them next to rocks and such. They were determined to evade me! After getting the 3 fish into the pond I started running my fingers through the floating mulch to see if I could find more fish. Since it was late afternoon most of the fish were hiding in their pvc tunnel, so I had no idea how many of the 14(those that survived living in our pond) had escaped! At this point my neighbor "D" came over to see what in the world I was doing frantically looking through my mulch! It was too funny, really! I spent 20 minutes searching for 13 cent goldfish because I couldn't stand the thought of killing a living thing that wasn't a bug! I knew the kids would be so upset if one of our fish died because it ended up flopping around in the mulch in suffocation! After a while we gave up and I am happy to report that the next morning at feeding time we counted 14 fish!
I have included a picture here of our pond with Domino the cat and Leah. Thankfully in almost 5 years of living here, only Lizzy has fallen into the pond-and that was a month ago when she was trying to help Jacob get his ball! Yesterday we went to my cousin's baby shower where they had vases of dyed water with goldfish in them. Guess who's daughter's brought home 11 more fish for the pond???? Yep, I am the proud owner of 25 pond goldfish, 3 betta's, a Florida box turtle and one very independant cat named Domino! This is the life!