{PHFR}

This weeks edition will not be in order. I am having the heck of a time with photos in blogger. I know you're supposed to be able to click and drag them around, but I guess I'm doing it wrong or something-urgh! Thanks for stopping by!

{real}

bills, bills and more bills...we are in an insurance mess trying to add Nina to coverage. I'm sure all will be well in the end, but the mess in the meantime is exhausting.

{pretty}

my pretty girl with her pretty girl! Lainey's holding Tiffany, our sweet black cochin.

{funny}

The kids are really loving the chickens. They love to play with them and show them to friends. Until we can follow our dreams to a small homestead, we are trying to be content with our suburban options.

Thank God our city allows backyard chickens! My hope is that we will all learn with these first 3 and be able to care for an even bigger flock someday. In the meantime we have happy kids and some funny cuteness. I mean. chickens in a baby buggy? Tell me that's not stinking cute!

{happy}

Of course it's been so hot here the kids have been playing with chickens in the morning and retreating inside in the blazing afternoons. Hot wheels have been the attraction lately and along with some friends they've built several cool car cities.

Yarn Along: 1

I'm excited to share in my first yarn along! I'm not much of a knitter, but I do like like to crochet. This project is one I made up after being inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. It's going to be like a papoose or cocoon that Josephine will snuggle in like a sleeping bag. I love the whimsy of the mermaid fins!

I forgot the picture of what I'm reading. Right now I'm in the middle of book 3 in the Outlander series, Voyager. Some friends of mine are super die hard fans and it's been fun to get into the series so I can talk and squeal along with them! The main male character, Jaimie, is just so wonderful, but I have a hard time relating to the female main character though. She's growing on me a bit now. I think there are at least 4 books in the series.

Thank you Ginny, for hosting the weekly Yarn Alongs

Chicken mania!

After months of planning, plotting, reading and dithering, I finally acted and we are now the proud owners of 3 chickens!

MaryClare is holding Amy, a Buff Brahma. We also have Isabelle, a Barred Rock, and Tiffany, a Black Cochin. The kids named them. I guess it was an 80's theme? We're getting used to them and vice versa. They are just teenagers, pullets, and won't begin laying for a few more weeks. I am surprised at how not big of a deal it all is.

Truly, they are very cute and funny. I'm not sure why I tend to complicate things, but I'm glad we finally just did it! The kids love the chickens and the other day I came out and saw Luke and Laine each had one perched on their heads and were laughing hysterically. I wish I had a picture of that!

Poor Baby!

Poor Nina was in the hospital week before last. (7/18/11) The big kids were going to an arts camp and as I dropped them off I noticed Nina felt very hot. of course it's been very hot here lately, but she felt hot and was also very lethargic and had been sleeping more than usual that morning. That may not sound like much to go on, especially as new babies are pretty sleepy, but something just seemed wrong.

I said goodbye to the kids and took her to the doctor. The triage nurse took her temperature under her arm and said she was fine. As I was holding her though she still felt abnormally hot! We finally saw the doctor, our regular pediatrician whom I really like, and he examined her. There really was nothing really wrong, but he said she felt hot too and then we took a rectal temp. and it was over 102!

We headed off the to the ER and to make a long story brief she was diagnosed with a UTI and then blood sepsis and because of her age she was admitted to the children's hospital to receive IV antibiotics. We finally came home on Thursday.

I feel terrible that she was so sick and had to have such intervention. I worry that I didn't catch it soon enough, although the doctor assured me it comes on very fast. I am deeply thankful to have the resources to get her the urgent medical care she needed to heal and that she recovered so quickly.

{PHFR}

{pretty}

Lainey went to a horse camp as a birthday gift and she has a wonderful week. She was glowing at the little show they put on the last day.

{happy}

MaryClare will be 6 on Sunday and this Tuesday we celebrated a bit early because some dear friends were visiting with their new 6 year old. It was great to celebrate together, but I think MaryClare got a bit gypped on blowing out the candles. Looks like he blew out both sets!

{funny}

No explanation necessary!

{real}

This picture was a part of the group I downloaded today. Did I mention it's been awhile since I downloaded off the 'good' camera? Yes, um, this is from Christmas morning....

Faster and Faster

Isn't it funny how when you're a child Christmas takes forever to arrive and then as an adult it seems that just as you've finished putting away all the Christmas decorations it's time to haul them out again?

I just imported all of my old blog posts from my previous blog. Sifting through them I was struck yet again how fleeting time is.

I am always planning and dreaming, reading and talking about what is next. I am truly going to commit myself to being focused in the present. Of course a girl ahem, a mother of seven cannot simply stop looking ahead and become queen of spontaneity, but I will be consciously trying to soak up the joy and love that is happening all around me right now. I think a part of this new commitment also has to be a resolution not to get stuck in the dreaming and planning mode and to actually Do Stuff.

This new blog is evidence of my commitment!

To illustrate the warp speed that time is currently racing by us, I offer these photographs as evidence:

exhibit a: Nina at the beginning of June

exhibit b: Nina at the end of June

Really, the evidence speaks for itself. Now go! Be present!

Adding

We have eight children. Seven on earth and one soul in heaven, a child we never met because of a miscarriage.

Our seventh child arrived on May 2! Nina was 36 weeks gestation. She weighed in at a whopping 4'11 oz., but surprisingly to us she did not need any intervention or extra help at all. her apgar scores were 9/9. It's hard to see in this photo how truly tiny she was. Look at the shirt though, that's the regulation hospital shirt and it just swamped her.

Tomorrow she'll be 6 weeks old and at her dr's appt. on Friday she weighed in at 7'14oz. I am thrilled! She is still small, of course, but she's filling out and looking cuter every day. As Lee said it's an unspoken truth that scrawny little preemies, as precious as they may be, are just not as cute as plumped out babies.

MaryClare and Nina (almost 6 weeks)