On April 30th we celebrated our oldest son turning 12! I officially have a pre-teen! Yikes! Eli is still a sports lover. However, for now, he is narrowing it down to loving basketball the most! This started our string of birthdays as the kids b-days are about every 2-3 weeks starting with his. Yes, the kids birthdays are in April, May, June, July and August.
A week after Eli's birthday we gave birth to our newbie, Samuel. Wait, did I say "we"???? Let me re-phrase! I gave birth and it was not a fun experience! Showed up at 6 a.m. to be induced, doc broke my water and left to go do his office visits (30 minutes away), hoping to come back during his lunch hour to deliver. Nurse goes ahead and administers the petocin; and I, because I am a wimp, went ahead and got my epidural. I was enjoying having my parents and most of my kids there with Derrick and me, and we were just chatting away, even though I thought it was odd that my epidural was very minimal. Still had all feeling in my legs, which according to the past three, this was NOT the case! As the pain began increasing, I kept pushing the "administer yourself" button until I realized it completely shut off. Pain became unbearable, petocin was kicking in full force and I was not a happy camper! Asked my parents and kids to exit, nurse called anesthesiologist to come back, he was "too busy", and I went from 4 cm dilated to 10 in about 5 minutes. The nurses quickly call my doctor to come back and meanwhile, the nurse shuts down my epidural machine realizing it's doing no good, yanks out my catheter, and proceeds to hold my baby inside of me, as I'm screaming bloody murder, for the next 25 minutes. I begged for them to get another doc to deliver him and they proceeded to tell me that there was no one else in house that could deliver. Are you kidding me???? Needless to say, I have now experienced a natural child birth...just wish I wasn't jacked up on petocin for the whole thing and wish he could have come out when he was ready! Also found out that the labor and delivery department at the hospital I gave birth in is shutting down! Go figure! Despite all of this, I have a precious new son that is beautiful and I am very blessed!
Ciera turned 4, 2 weeks after Samuel was born. She is a mess! She loves to sing and she pretty much runs the household...or tries to anyway!
Carmen turned 9, 3 weeks after Ciera's b-day. She is 9 going on 16. I think God knew what he was doing giving me only 2 girls! I think girls are born with the drama side! She also loves to sing and play with her friends.
Jesse James had his b-day a couple of weeks after hers. He turned 7. He got an electric guitar for his birthday and plans to be a professional skate boarder/guitarist/drummer! :/ He loves life and is still...living up to his name.
Isaiah ends the string of b-days and he turned 11 this year! He is still our reptile kid! He now owns 2 snakes and a tarantula. Never would have thought I would have creatures like this in my home, but he loves them! He volunteers every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. at a reptile store in town and his passion in this shines through! However, I have told him no more until he is on his own! :)
So we made it through the summer with all the kids being well as can be until 2 days before school starts. Now, for the last 2 weeks, we have had 5 out of six get the tummy bug, one get a bad cold and then one brake his collar bone just after he got over the bug.
I have started helping out at the church office since our administrator just moved to Germany, so I am wearing one new hat for now. Things are going well at church and we are embarking on a brand new adventure at East Coast Church! Excited about what the Lord has in store!
Well, thank you for allowing me the time to catch up on documenting my crazy life! I have to say, I can't imagine doing life without my faithful Savior seeing me through!