Babies, babies and more babies

One of the encouragements of the time spent at the Cutler's are all the new babies born and new babies about to be born. Some of these people you only see once a year at this event so by the next year you can have a baby and no-one will have known you were pregnant. Lena was loved by all. First thing Saturday morning there is a knock at our camper door by a 16 year old girl from a family of 10, soon to be 11 in December. She came to see if I needed any help and especially if I needed help holding the baby! If I didn't have her then Molly did.

We were the only campers up on the hill this year and it was quite cold. We didn't start the heaters the first night as it was comfortable when we went to bed but baby was cold the bazillion times she got up to eat. I guess she knew she wasn't home. The second night we got smart and started the heaters up. Baby slept all night until 7:30 a.m.! But !!!!!!! Gideon fell out of the top bunk head first at 4 a.m. My legs were jello for a couple hours after running to get him. He was completely fine but every cough or noise made I jumped up to see if he was OK. I guess I'm not meant to have any sleep! :)

The Cutler's built a new building down in the valley that holds this shindig. It is a beautiful multi-purpose building that will have a bedroom, recreational room, and place for a church service, eating indoor or other. We had church inside Sunday morning and watched a wonderful video about God's glory. It was amazing the way God created the stars and then he talked on how he created us. A protein called Laminin holds all of our cells together. It is also in the shape of a cross. Colossians 1:17 He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. (NIV) I am always learning something new that shows the awesome power of God and how He is the Creator and Author of all. I just googled the word laminin like the speaker told us to and you have to do it too and you will see what it looks like.

A Camping we will go...

We are preparing to go camping this weekend. We promised the kids all summer that after the baby was born we would for sure go to the Cutler's big hayride bash. It's here. And so is my brother's wedding reception. We are taking our van along with the camper so we can come back for the reception on Saturday night and then go back camping. Kevin's having a bit of heart failure at the idea of using so much fuel but there isn't any other option except not to go camping. Try telling that one to my kids right now!!!

Many of you have seen the bus on here before but for those who are new to us, we turned a bus into a camper. It has been to the Black Hills and Washington state with us. The other family who owns it with us has taken it many places too. It is a fun way to travel with kids. They can lay down in the bunks and read or play or anything without being upright and buckled. It sure beats a tent, which by the way I haven't done since we had just 4 kids. This camper is the way to go for me because I don't like camping!!!! I try not to tell the kids that too much. I don't want them to remember me as a complainer. I just don't sleep well and when I don't sleep well no-one really has any fun. I'm not a "fun" person without some basic sleep. Unfortunately, I'll have to try hard this weekend to be fun because I didn't get hardly any sleep last night:(

Have a good weekend all who read this. I will be enjoying my visiting with all the other families that come to the Cutler's. It is getting bigger every year!

A moment of sweetness..

Brother took Lena to settle her down and she fell asleep and then he did too.

Hello again

Hi, last time I wrote things seemed so challenging. Three days of rest, vitamin C and lots of water and I was in great shape. I feel really good.

I am busy today updating our family profile to include Lena Mae in it and getting it made into a book again at Kinko's. I was going to leave this morning and now it is 12:45 p.m. and we haven't left yet!!!! Baby keeps wanting to eat plus some other interruptions. I'm sure you all can relate to these kind of days.

We keep praying for God's plan to be revealed with the adoption. We are checking into a couple of "leads" as you could say. We'll keep you posted if anything turns up. Our biggest challenge could be that we have a new baby. I know this may sound cliche but God is in charge so I know he can work around it if this is His path for us.

What next?

That is what Kevin asked as he was tearing into the broken toilet and found he has to replace a lot more than the seal, perhaps even the whole floor around it, which will entail taking out the sink and vanity. Thankfully, we got a new sink for Christmas last year and it just hasn't been put in. Not the way he wanted to do it though. This is after the broken dishwasher, broken down lawnmower and broken window, I'm sure I could think of a few more things. It would be tragic if it wasn't so funny how so many things go wrong at once :)

Now, I am saying what next? Isn't no sleep and a prolapsed uterus enough? I woke up with mastitis this morning. Lena slept from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. and so did I and I wake up with flu-like symptoms, a headache and a massive sore lump. Please pray for healing. I am taking mega vitamin C, resting lots and plan on using cabbage leaves. I also will try some yarrow tea (major yuck if any of you have tried it you know what I mean). Anyone else have some natural remedies they've used and had work when they have had this?

OK, we got new fiber optic phone lines today. I thought this thing (computer) would work somewhat better because of it and I just tried 8 times to load a new picture of baby. Sorry, I give up!

Here she is...

Here she is with her braces off. 2 1/2 years from start to finish isn't bad I think. She is eating a bowl of popcorn right now, something she didn't dare before or a bracket might come off. You were allowed two broken brackets and then there was a charge for each one after that. I am happy to say we only had one broken bracket and it was really due to having the braces adjusted that day and the wire being too tight. Her teeth show so much more now. She had many ready smiles this day.

We also met with Becky, the midwife and she weighed Lena Mae. She is now 9 lbs. 4 oz. She is a good little eater:)

I am still struggling with resting and laying down. My uterus isn't making great progress in getting back in place. Yesterday and today I took it a bit more serious. This week I am hoping to do more than try to get off my feet. I really don't want to be laid up too long. Pray for me to let some things go and just relax. Pray for this thing to get better. Thanks!

They are coming off today!

In less than 2 hours Jordan will be done with her braces! What a wonderful day for her! We are going to celebrate with a very chocolatey cake from Sam's Club. She wants to eat an apple without cutting it up. You can't quite see the braces here because her teeth are back where they should be:)

Not my fault...

It's not my doing that I have't updated. Our phone line is getting replaced and the current line got pulled apart when they were trenching. We don't have new line yet but at least we have phone now, I think I like that. I believe it was a God-send. Thurday, Friday and Saturday ended up being so busy last week. I wasn't able to sit much and especially lay down. Sunday, I felt fine but when I got home from church my uterus wasn't where it should be. I called our midwife right away after I panicked a little (inside panic job so as not to worry the children). I guess I prayed before I called her and then took a two hour nap while I waited for her to call me back. The first thing she asked is if I thought I was overdoing it Saturday. Well, uh, yeah, I guess I was but I was really trying not to!!!! I need to get off my feet and my rump and lay down and do a ton of kegels to get that uterus back in place. I haven't had another incident like on Sunday but I am not 100 % yet. Again, I am trying to take it easy and let the kids do more for me but that is so hard with school, laundry, broken dishwasher so we have to wash everything :( :( :( The kids are so spoiled and me too that we haven't been without one for so long. I was a couple weeks from Gideon's birth when our last dishwasher died. The one we have is a second hand one so I am grateful for the use I got out of it.



Baby Lena is doing great. Great eater, great sleeper (not at the right time always) but she does sleep well and for good amounts of time. She's healthy and gaining and started smiling in her sleep. Oooooh, it is so cute. Haven't been able to catch it on camera yet. She keeps her eyes open for longer periods of time too. Like last night from 2 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. I started watching Lord of the Rings. Good movie but I now know why it is not for younger children. Yikes! Talk about violence!



I am in need of a lie down! Baby is sleeping. Veggie soup for canning is simmering. Supper is made thanks to a meal from a friend. Lunch was from another friend. Couldn't have come at a better time since I'm trying to take it easy.



Erin, if you are checking this, I tried to comment on your blog but my computer is still too slow. Congrats on the baby news!!!! We know how God moves in his own ways and not ours. Lena is proof of that. I am interested in those babies but don't know how much it costs to call Canada and then we had phone trouble, etc, etc. I'm not sure if they are still available to check into. Maybe if you left the info on here or emailed me :) Thanks for thinking of us! God Bless You on this leg in the journey.

The love of two brothers...

The last time we had a baby the boys were all quite young and not too interested in any baby that was born. Well, now they want their fair share of this little girl whom they cried and fought about before she was born. They cried and fought that she was going to be a he. They really wanted a boy. Right now I was sitting at the computer checking emails when the two oldest boys decided she needed a diaper change. They were arguing back and forth on how to do it. Then they were getting after their other little sister about putting her finger in the baby's mouth saying "You didn't wash!" Then one was holding her while the other got the blanket laid out just right. They wrapped her up and walked around with her. They don't like that she is crying. One boy is saying "The little princess is crying."

I just fed her and am hoping she'll settle down, I was going to try to get a little more space between feedings. She'll go two hours or more and then eat every 20 minutes for a couple hours. It is quite sporadic. I'm not much into a schedule when I nurse but thought I'd try what I could. It was touching to my heart to hear these boys loving on her and caring about her so much. They call her cute, sweet, little and call me over to look at her cuteness quite often. Caleb took her on a tour of the house yesterday explaining all the rooms to her that she hadn't been in yet! She'll be well taken care of! :)