Gabriel Is 1 Month Old Already!

Mr. Gabriel is officially 1 month old! I really am amazed! The pregnancy flew so now, of course, his LIFE is starting to proceed quickly! Life with 6 is a constant and busy beehive of activity, thus I can't just sit and stare at his handsome little self very often! At two weeks he had gained a pound over his birth weight. Now as I weigh him with me on the scale he is up 2 1/2 pounds! He has been attentive to his little lion toy that you can see in the bassinet picture. He has reached for it several times which is pretty early for a baby. Today he smiled while WIDE awake and being held by Jacob. He wasn't looking at anyone in particular, but it was adorable, of course!

They Say the Darndest Things

Dan: "Mom, Is your milk like the milk with the red lid?"

Dan again: "I just want to get a look at Gabriel's adorable face" (He knows the baby is said to look like him)

Dan again: "Mom! The fish is on the floor!" When our Betta fish, Cotton Candy, decided to leap out of the bowl and I had to pick it up and rescue it!

Jacob: "On Wednesday, we decorate, please?" (For Christmas, mind you!) (Everything is Wednesday with him!)

Leah: "whant hold babyol" (She calls Gabriel "Babyol" and climbs up on the couch and puts the Boppy pillow around her waist)

In Praise of Grandparents!!

My mom arrived to help me 6 days before my scheduled induction. My dad came 3 days later. The truth of it is, my parents come here to Florida 4 times a year for 2 weeks each time-give or take on some trips. They figure once they have flown 3,000 miles and changed 3 hours of time zone, they may as well stay for a while! We estimate that they spend more time with us and our kids than they do with my brother and his kids who live 35 minutes away from them in California! I guess it was a good thing we moved so far away.

Anyhow, my parents came early because they know that a 9 month pregnant woman loses steam at the end! They wanted to help me with the kids before as well as after Gabriel's arrival. What a HUGE blessing they were to us! My mom went early (5:45a.m.) to the hospital with me since Marc was willing to stay home and sleep in our stead, then get the kids over to the sitters for the labor and delivery. Because I was delayed at the hospital, my dad actually took the kids to the sitters by around 9:30 a.m., they he and Marc hung out at the house until we called at 11:30 a.m. for them to come since the induction had begun! My parents rubbed my back and encouraged me all through the longest labor of my life, brought me Starbucks each day (including fall pastries!) and brought the kids to visit (since Marc had to get back to work.)

Normally, our home runs on several schedules. We have school schedule, food schedules and chore schedules. My parents jumped into those and did them the best they could with flexibility. The did such a good job! When I got home from the hospital they continued to play with the kids, make the meals (when one wasn't delivered from someone at church), care for me, hold the baby, take the kids out on dates, errands and shopping trips. They went to the grocery store and Costco repeatedly and my dad even worked on our mortgage issues for us with our loan company! Dad took the kids fishing and did a 12 item long "Daddy-Do" list that I had waiting for him! Mom diced up fruite and veggies for the kids in ways I never do-what a blessing for their health! They put up with all the kids ups and downs, crabby 1 1/2 year old, crying 3 year old, pestering 5 year old, and kept the 8 and 9 year old on task. They were caring and patient (honestly, it can be quite trying to the patience to have that many kids at home 24/7) loving and completely serving! Servants really is the term that described how they acted while at our house for 2 weeks. They served all 8 of us in every and any way they could. They deeply love Marc and I and every grandchild that we have now given them! They feel almost as blessed as Marc and I do that God has sent these 6 amazing personalities into our lives.

My parents deserve some praise and I am happy to post it here that they are the best grandparents in the world and they are a blessing to us in so many ways, both temporal and eternal! I love you dad and mom!

Welcoming Gabriel Marc Wragg

Gabriel is here at last! I cannot believe my pregnancy days are over! We were supposed to induce him at 6 am. on Wed, Sept. 16th, but there was a miscommunication with the hospital and they had to keep me waiting in the recovery room until almost noon waiting for an open delivery room. My Doc didn't want to start an induction on a sixth baby in the recovery room, just in case I went fast. In the end, she could have started it at 6 am, because the labor took the other approach and went longer than any other I've had! I progressed very slowly throughout the day and even Marc's grandma had to head home to get some sleep because she couldn't make it through. Sadly, she didn't make the birth! My parents and Marc hung in there for the long haul and around 1:30 in the morning on Thursday I was finally complete and ready. My doctor, on the other hand, was home in bed. I have never had to wait to push before so that was a whole new experience and I ended up feeling like a first time mom in the delivery phase! He was born at exactly 2 am, which is a fun fact and was my smallest baby at 7 lbs, 10 oz, 20 inches long.
The other kids had an emotional week. I made the mistake of telling them that they would see the baby on the day I delivered, assuming it would all go as previous deliveries had. They went from Christmas Eve-like elation to depressed tears when they had to go home with the babysitter after AWANA and were not able to see their brother who had yet to be born. Then on Friday when Sarah and Dan were slotted to come visit me again, they both had come down with head colds and I wouldn't let them come to the hospitel-not for Gabriel's sake, of course, since he was coming home to them, but for the rest of the moms and babies on the maternity ward! They cried hard on my parents but Daddy rewarded them on Saturday when they were feeling better, and for the first time ever, they got to come help Daddy pick up Mommy and Gabriel at the hospital and bring us home!
My parents are here until the 28th and are a HUGE help! There is a lot to do around here with toddlers, homeschool, 3 meals a day, laundry, etc, etc, but they are being troopers and I couldn't believe how relieved my mom looked when I told her today what a good job she is doing! A reminder that we all need lots of encouragement in these high-chaos acts of parenting! Not only do Marc and I have to learn how to raise 6 kids, but my parents end up learning the juggle as well when they are here to help! What a reminder that God isn't finished with our influence when our own kids are raised. We are still useful and teachable when we are serving the next generation as grandparents!
So we are home and doing very well! I am certainly not up to speed yet and have to rest several times a day, but what a joy it is to have a new little baby around the house. The kids are continually asking to hold him and all Leah wants to do is get a binkie in his mouth! Marc held him on Saturday afternoon for his first football game, but other than that continues in true Marc fashion to wait for this baby to grow up to walk and talk before he is truly interested in him. He is thrilled, however, that God gave us a third boy, the one he choose to name after an angel. His middle name, Marc, means warrior, so we have high hopes for our warrior angel and as sooon as I get the picture from my friend, I'll show you how he already laces his fingers together in prayer :-). Love to all of you who prayed for us and are praying. We are SO BLESSED with our 1/2 dozen!

Pregnancy Comes to It's Final Days

So the days had come for her to give birth to her sixth child . . . OK, so a mild paraphrase of the gospels. The truth remains, I am expecting to have Gabriel on Wednesday-3 days from now! Gabriel has been squirming around in his confined quarters, anxiously awaiting freedom I'm sure. I will enjoy having space to bend over as well, though we have started a great new habit around the Wragg home of Mommy pointing to things that CHILDREN can pick up!
I am trying so hard to enjoy these last 3 days of being pregnant, the kicks, the squirms, the intense pressure at times. Gabriel will be our official last baby. Marc has plans this month that I'm not allowed to talk about but you all know what I am talking about! Pregnancy has always gone pretty well for me. I don't feel sick longer than the first 3 months and my deliveries have all been pretty similar: 7-8 hours induced. I am content now to know he is the last, I wasn't ready when any of the others were born, but I am now. 6 kids is a lot of work and a lot of blessing, to be sure! It is also a LOT of fun to have 3 girls and 3 boys in an every other pattern. God has abundantly blessed Marc and I above all we could ask or imagine. We did not know when we first married and talked about having kids how it would all go. And here we are, at the end of the pregnancy stage of life, ready to move on to more parenting, teaching, discipling and loving!

1 year old Counting

Leah will be 2 in mid-October. At the Lagoon the other day she was counting shells for my sis-in-law Amy and I.

She counted, "One, Two, Mommy!"

She repeated this same count every time I asked her. I am happy to be her #3 if God and Daddy are #1 and #2!

HomeSchool Begins

It is amazing to admit, but homeschooling, year #5, has begun! I can hardly believe that I have been at it this long. So much has changed in the way we school, what I teach, how many diapers require changing right in the middle of math . . . you get the picture! After the first year, several things have remained the same, and that is our love of Sonlight Homeschool Curriculum, my $15 book to teach reading called, "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons," our use of Saxon Math and of course, our schedule of organized chaos!

This year, Sarah is in 4th grade, Daniel in 3rd and Lizzy is a K/1st grader-though she just knows she is in Kindergarten, but she does mostly 1st grade work. Jacob is 3 and Leah almost 2, so they still get to play all day and take great naps! Their world rotates between Duplos, Lincoln Logs, puzzles, play-doh, preschool music and coloring.
We pretty much still did school 2-3 days a week during the summer trying to finish up last years' math and history. We were able to do 3 days of the new school year before Papa and Grammy came for a visit. While they were here we took the kids to The River Center in Burt Reynold's Park off of the Loxahatchee River (sounds important, right? It is actually a very tiny place here in Jupiter, but it has a fun touch tank!) There the willing kids and Papa were able to hold a Pencil Urchin(see top pic), a sea cucumber, a very large hermit crab and see regular sea urchins and how they "stick" shells to themselves as camouflage!

Sarah has appointed herself mommy #2 as well as teacher #2 around here! She is teaching Lizzy her Kindergarten math and we'll see if she can keep it up when we start Lizzy on the 1st grade math in November. Sarah is doing her own 4th level math with a CD-ROM "teacher" and all I do is correct it now-this saves me a whole hour a day! On top of this she does a creative writing journal, a writing copywork program, Easy Grammar and Daily Grams, Latin, piano, spelling level 5 and readers that are mostly non-fiction early American History. She can read many books in just one day and is DEVOURING books!

Daniel puts up with his required schoolwork in between building Legos and wrestling with Jacob. He is working on learning cursive, copywork, creative writing journal, spelling level 4, Easy Grammar and Daily Grams, readers, Latin, piano and Saxon Math level 4 as well.

I teach Sarah and Dan Science before lunch and we have been studying the classification order in science (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species) and how the cell works. After my nap and while the little ones are still sleeping, we are finishing up Ancient History from Level 2 and are getting ready to start modern history in South and North America beginning with the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. At night, from 8-8:30 when the littler ones are in bed we do a read-aloud book. They are hand-picked from Sonlight and are at a higher reading level than the kids, but at their listening level. This summer we have read, "A Cricket in Times Square,"
"The Twenty-One Balloons," "And the Word Came with Power." 3 VERY different books! One is from animal perspectives, one is based on a true story about early 1900's hydrogen balloon travel and the explosion of the island of Krakatoa, and the last one was about a Wycliffe Bible translator in the north end of the Philippeans! The kids were transfixed on each one and Marc and I had to admit to craving to "hear what happens next!"

Lizzy's K/1st day is pretty simple. She reads to me from the Beginner's Bible and then tells me what to write for her in her Kindergarten level journal. After I print in it for her she draws a picture of what I wrote. She is doing early sounds grammer in a series of workbooks called Explode the Code and learning her lower case letters in her handwriting book. I also read aloud to her and Jake after lunch. We are currently reading "The House at Pooh Corner," and "Hero Tales" about missionaries.

In two weeks we are expecting Gabriel Marc to join us and I know that will make our already scheduled life tested. Hopefully having the practice of schedule and schoolwork will make the transition easier. I want to take this moment to say that I really have 5 wonderful children that fill up my days to the bursting point, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't imagine even one of them away at school all day, despite the noise, chaos and discipline of having 5-almost 6-kids in this small house 24/7.