My horrible memory

I can't believe how horrible my memory has gotten this pregnancy! I remembered for over a week that I had a child dev. fair to take Trinity to, I remembered yesterday morning, I remembered early in the afternoon while organizing the calendar, but at fair time....... it was gone. And Clifford, Ronald McDonald, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were there! UGH!!!! Why can't I remember things?????
I hope this clears up after I have the baby because I can barely function this way.

Brr........ I can't wait to get our furnace up and running for the winter! Its nice to snuggle in with family and try to keep warm, but Trinity is not exactly snuggly with her boney elbows and my growing belly, lol.
Tonight I'll be taking Trinity to a community fair for preschoolers to see Clifford and some other childhood favorites. Several of my friends with little ones will be going, also. Hopefully, she will enjoy it and stop being the little terror she has been every afternoon lately. I'm hoping to meet some young mothers to befriend in the community this year. I want to be a mentor and witness to someone, and I just haven't met people who are not Christians that I have been able to strike up a relationship with.

The clock

When Donnie and I first married he moved to Germany and found a place to live and I followed later. He bought a clock for our first apartment. It was a big picture of the Nueschwanstien Castle in Bavaria. It is beautiful. Over the years the clock mechanism quit working. We replaced it once, but it hasn't worked in a decade now, and its been packed since we moved into this house a year ago.
Now that the kids are off to school we need a clock in the living room to keep them moving on time. So we bought a clock that matched our new decor, but it doesn't work! I was planning to exchange it, but then decided that I could just buy a new mechanism for our old clock with the money. It doesn't "match" our living room, but it'll be fine in here anyways.
In discussing it with Donnie and Drew this morning about where it should go and such I mentioned that I wanted to use that clock, since we'll never get rid of it anyways, we should just fix it and use it. Donnie says "I could give or take the clock, no biggie." I started crying!!! "Thats the OUR clock! The clock you bought for me to welcome me to our very first home!"
Where did that come from? LOL I don't have to get rid of it, he just didn't care! Why did that bother me? LOL Hmmmm, could I be pregnant????
The clock will be going up on the wall today, working or not.

Nice day...

Today was such a nice day. I had a friend over with her two little boys. So I got to chat with someone while not getting to do much, and listen to our 2yo's fight over toys, lol. I guess we need to do more play dates. Trinity doesn't do that at church, so I didn't think to prepare her to share with her friend at home. Its apparently different when they are your own toys, hehe.

Is there ANYONE out there in blog world reading this??? I would love to hear from someone that our teens eventually do GET IT and shape up. Drew seems to think that even though the chart says practice ends at 4:45, coming home at 6 and saying the teacher misprinted it is not going to make me mad. After every day telling him that he better not be late, that he better call if schedules are changed, grounding him, yelling at him, fighting with him, threatening to take him out of drama......... he still thinks he can just say "but...." and we'll just let it go like he's not breaking the rules. No biggie.
For now I'm making him do 3 loads of laundry if he is late without letting me know. I can't do laundry on bedrest, so that'll get done now, because we know he won't start following the rules.

On the bright side, Donnie thinks there may be an answer to the financial junk his work has been pulling for the last 1 1/2 years. I don't know what it is yet, as he hasn't come home, but I hope they aren't just pulling another "have patience, I'm working on it" garbage just to lull them over for another few months like they have been doing. I need to pray that I will be encouraging in this and not add to the stress by pressuring Donnie. If I could work to relieve the burden, I would. But I can't due to pregnancy, who would hire me, and I'm on bed rest, then I'll have a baby to care for along with a toddler, who could afford to pay me enough? And then there's Donnie who absolutely does not want me to work. I think I may take Trinity to a friend's house one day and get a typing test and work from home typing 4 hours a day. I can do that, and its no baby sitting. Donnie wouldn't concider that "work" so I wouldn't be upsetting him, either.

In the meantime, I'll have to figure out how to afford the rest of the cloth diapers I need so I can save money that way. I'd probably be ok on diapers if I had a 10lb baby, lol. I don't have enough that would fit a newborn, much less a small newborn like Samuel is likely to be. Ebay just stinks at this point. I put 14 outfits on auction and sold ONE for $.25. The fees cost me around $8. Thats a fun one. I may try selling the things in groups, but I hate to waste more precious money trying to figure it out. Yard sale is out, too, with bedrest.

Man, I'm whiney today! I'm actually not down in the dumps, either, just thinking through things. There's got to be something I can do to make money and save money around here.

The end of my freedom!

This is a picture of Drew and I with our friend whom we lovingly call "Orlando."

Well, my doctor ended my freedom yesterday. I thought that as laid back as he is that he would be on my side here and say that these contractions aren't doing anything so I'm fine, but no, he wants me on bedrest. I was very mad at him, and actually decided I wasn't doing it, but on the way home the contractions started back up, lol. I can't win. He thinks my water broke on Thursday, though it is sealed up or was a "fore bag", so it isn't like I'm endangering him by not having him. But I am measuring 3 weeks behind where he is due. I don't know if that comes from losing the water, or he is small, or he stopped growing or something.

The good thing now is that we started counselling with our pastor and our oldest son today. It went really well! Drew won't talk to us when we try to deal with some issues, and we just hate that he can't wait to get away from us, and I'm sure he can't stand that we are so "controlling." Today only got our pastor some information about what is going on, but Drew is very open to him helping us, and we know the "rules" about talking in his office, so Drew gets his say without me jumping in on him. And our pastor just seems to get the right questions asked, we know it comes from the Holy Spirit! We no longer will have to drag Drew with us to councelling! I know our pastor will help us mend things, even if it is ME who has to change. I just want the stress to end, my body obviously can't take parenting a teen and carrying a child.

Today

God did provide a way for us to get the rest of the money we need without going into debt! Its going to be a little while before we can get to it, but hopefully we'll have this all taken care of before Samuel decides he can't wait anymore.
Which, it seems, he can't! yesterday I was in the OB ward for 4 hours stopping contractions. The ended up giving me 3 shots to stop it before it finally made the contractions 30 minutes apart instead of 3. At one point they were right on top of each other, not even going all the way down between them. It seems that the big deal was more that I had a c-section than how bad the contractions were. I didn't like the talk of doing a c-section yesterday or being shipped to the cities because he was too early for our hospital. But, praise God, they did not cause me to dialate! So, I was able to come home and not even be on bedrest, well not doctor ordered bedrest, dh and kids don't let me do much of anything! I appreciate that, I know they love me and care about me and really care about Samuel, too.

Trinity went to a friend's house yesterday so I could go in to get checked. She had never been there before and didn't even know the mom, really, but she had so much fun! I was worried about her being scared, she looked a little worried driving off with someone else. But she did great and told us she had lots of fun.

Today has been a nice day of getting the house cleaned up. I'm not supposed to, but I keep doing it before Donnie realizes it, lol. He's working from home today to make sure I'm ok and don't overdo it. I'm actually feeling pretty good, cleaning and cooking, even.

God's provision!

I'm just so in awe today! I can't wait to see how God is going to help us the rest of the way! We are more than half-way to our immediate financial need. I was in tears this morning finding yet another dead end, then it came about in just the right way.
Only God can get us through this, we are just not able. We'll work hard, but it will take outside help to deal with things. And a bit of humility and pain thrown in to encourage us in the future!
My husband told me last night about something he'd heard on the radio about a couple who had heard that during football season there were more homes tp'd, and the guys wife said she hoped they were tp'd. He didn't get it, but she said that would mean someone was thinking of them. So he said yeah, I would rather be tp'd by God than not have Him thinking of them. Donnie said we are being tp'd by God now. I think we tp'd ourselves, lol. God is helping us clean it up.
But still, to never have problems would be awful. You'd never get to see God's miracles. His loving involvement in your life. His amazing love for us naughty sheep who want our own way.
I hope to get to update today how God has provided the rest of the way for us. Although we did get some good information about how to deal with it, but nothing is quick, not even today's provision. At least another week of no hot water.

Grace of God

I thought I'd better write this down before I forget, because I am not able to remember a thing lately.
I am learning about the names of God in church, and one of them is Shephard and Lamb. Jesus is our shephard, but he is also the Lamb. We are also His sheep. Sheep are stupid and easily led astray, and the Shephard calls them, guides them, seeks them and finds them. Sometimes He uses a rod, and that is not a fun experience, but the end result is so worth it.
Anyways, I realized that we are doing that with our kids. We are the shephards and they are the stupid sheep going their own way and we are sticking our rod in their paths to keep them from going astray, or guiding them back, or occasionally smacking them with it to get some smarts in their heads, hehe. Sometimes I feel so bad limiting what they can do, when it seems harmless to the world, but we see that it is spiritually distracting to them, and harmful to their character. I feel as though I am mean and cruel to them, keeping them from "fun", and I want my kids to have fun and be happy, but I want them to be on fire for Christ, heaven bound servants of the King. I can't keep them from regrets in life, but I can show them that there are higher standards out there for them and that they should accept no less. The righteous shall stumble 7 times, but shall rise again. There is grace and mercy for those mistakes.
And, oh, do we need it right now! I found great encouragement in this area, great hope, as I read a wonderful blog today. We need some major intervention right now, and no way to get it without God. It becomes more and more obvious that only God can cause the miracle we are needing. I have seen and experienced that My God is able to do more than I can think or imagine, so I know that He can perform this miracle for us.

Nothing accomplished.......

I hate days like this. I have so far gotten nothing accomplished. I did part of this, a bit of that, I want to do that but won't be able to finish because I have to do this..........
Today is the birthday party day. I'm not really interested in spending the day with the teens, but I guess we have to follow through. ;-) Maybe we'll set them up bowling and we'll head to Walmart for some shopping. I don't think I spent enough money there last night.
Trinity could certainly make life easier if she would just potty train! She KNOWS how to do it, and does fine away from home, but at home she PREFERS to poop on the floor and spread it around. She knows the trouble she'll be in, because today I found her under the crib pooping. She's always had a thing for playing in poop, spreading it all over her crib and walls and body. Every single day. I thought she had outgrown it, but I guess with the baby coming she grabbed back onto that.
Actually, all the kids could make life easier. Drew could just behave. Devon could take his pills and stop annoying people and back talking us and arguing every tiny little detail to death. Kaytlin could stop having PMS 24 days out of the month, hehe. Cody could stop being a whiner about every little thing that touches him and about playing more and more and more video games. Hope-Anne could stop trying to "help" by taking everything apart and leaving a disaster and stop interupting us and stop jumping in to do things that we are trying to do. And Samuel could stop doing head spins on my cervix. And they could all just DO THEIR CHORES!!!!
But who am I kidding? Life would be boring then.

The nursery is done!

Whew! One more task out of the way! I am glad that this is out of the way, but I never want to paint again! My thighs are so sore from squatting and standing to get all of the walls painted. I can barely walk down the stairs right now, it hurts so bad! LOL I can't scrunch down to look in cupboards or I scream in pain.

Its funny how I get this nursery set up on my first baby's 17th birthday. Could make a person meloncholy. Luckily he makes the day miserable enough that I'm not sentimental about having him, lol. He wants a "party" with his friends, most of whom we don't think are great influences on his morals, though they aren't "bad" kids. We said to invite friends from church, too, but he doesn't "get along with them as well" so refused to invite them, even if it means no party. So we said, ok, how about no girls, only guys, or us as chaperones. No go on either of those. He wants to be away from us, and he won't do the party without girls. Hmmm. Doesn't want Christians or parents there and insists on having girls. Am I imagining something here? I'd need a helmet if this didn't disturb me.
Well, he finally decided that he'd let us chaperone. So, we'll be going to a movie and bowling with a bunch of teenie-boppers. Not our favorite option, but we like movies.
We got some pie and ice cream to celebrate for today with his siblings. I hope he felt a little appreciated today. We did leave out his birthday spankings, but of course, the night isn't over yet............. whaaaa-ha-ha-ha! It'll probably take everyone to hold him down to let Trinity spank him, hehe. Last year I ended up with bruises, so maybe I should let the tradition die and not end up in labor!

The nursery!

I broke down and got the paint yesterday to paint the nursery. I am so compulsive about getting things done when I want it done. I couldn't stand not being ready for the baby, so I had to get the painting done, so I can get the crib up, so I'll feel ready. I know, I have 7 weeks still, but there is a lot more stuff I have to do. I want the last weeks to be for deep cleaning, not trying to deep clean and get ready for Sam. Painting makes a huge mess, so it would drive me nuts to do that if I was trying to get things spotless, lol.
I picked two colors of blue that are in the baby's quilt and I am using the Woolie to color mesh them. It is turning out like old jeans, its perfect! I have to make a final decision about what color to paint the crown molding, light blue, dark blue, white again, or a pink that is in the quilt. It is a nursery, not just a boys room, and Trinity is in there, too, so pink won't be bad. Trinity has a Spiderman bedding set, so the blue is perfect for her, too. I don't think its too boyish, but my husband does. I may even paint her dresser blue, it will probably be passed to Sam when she gets bigger and moves to a room upstairs.
Well, my pear is gone, so break is over. Back to painting!

absolute quiet

Well, not absolute quiet, the bird is calling me for attention and the fish tank is noisy, but other than that, my house is quiet. The kids are at school, our house guest is on the way to the airport, and Trinity is sleeping. I don't get quiet often with 6 kids in the house. Most of the time my kids aren't noisy, they are actually pretty calm and quiet, but there is always something going on, like a tv or computer game or talking somewhere. What am I going to do with myself? This is the first day of this school year without our house guest (a 16yo boy) here, so I am alone with Trinity for the first time for the school year.
Its a happy and sad time for me. I love having my kids home with me, homeschooling them. I miss them when they are gone. Of course, if they don't go away, I can't miss them, lol. But on the other hand, with them in school I get time to take care of me. Even with a toddler, that is possible. I need some "me" time, time to get my spiritual life in order, time to get my house in order, time to deal with any issues I may have, etc. I'm human, so lets face it, I have issues, lol.
I need to decide what I'm going to do this year. I want to join the community mom and toddler time activities to meet women who need friends. I need to reach out and lead others to the Lord. I'm also working with some women in our church starting a mothers group, which will take some time to build, and I am very excited about it. Then there is a Bible study with some women that I have grown close to last year, but between the once a month Moms group and having a baby coming, and finding a sitter for Trinity, I'm not sure if I should get involved. On the other hand, I need a Bible study! I am going to start going to a women's Sunday school class on the names of God, which I am excited about.
I'm indecisive. I want things, but I know I have limits.
I also WANT to paint the nursery, like yesterday, so I can get the room all set up, but money gets in the way......... Not to mention being pregnant and huge and having problems when I do things. I want him to come early, but This is too early. I hopefully will be able to do it this weekend. Make Donnie and the boys move the furniture for me, and the kids can even help paint, though that was a disaster last time they "helped." I now have yellow spotted wooden floors in my room. Donnie is at least behind me getting the room painted, and even agrees on the colors. I painted the crib to match a color in the bedding, and it turned out so cute! I had to have the paint specially made to match it, and I cried when it turned out perfect! I cried in the store, lol, my dd's were mortified. I can't wait to get it set up!
Plus I need to find the mattress for my bassinette. It got lost in the move here somehow. I think its in Hope-Anne's room somewhere. I need to completely go through her closet, and all her boxes of junk she keeps in the room. She's a bit of a collector...... I think once I get the bassinette taken care of and the room painted and the crib put together, I will feel ready to have the baby. I am planning to try cloth diapers, but they are pretty expensive at first, so to keep from stressing Donnie out about the money, I may have to forgo buying for a little while. In the END, we'll save thousands of dollars in diapers, and be able to resell for more than half of what we pay for the cloth, but coming up with the investment in the beginning is a big bite to chew. Maybe I will stick with disposables for the newborn stage.
I am so chatty this morning! And talking to myself in the cyber world....... hmmmm......... I feel a little bit like a loser, lol.
I can't wait until my kiddos get home!

Oh the hormones!

Pregnancy hormones are so crazy. I am ready to be sane again, but I'm not ready to have the baby, and he certainly isn't ready to be out in the world yet. (7 weeks, 4 days to go)
I guess it started last night, which started months ago, truth be told. We are strongly against dating, but our son was very much swayed by a young lady and begged for the chance to prove he could date responsibly, follow the rules and remain pure as he had pledged to the Lord. We did not like this at all, but it became such an issue that we knew the Lord did not want us to bring our child to wrath. So we decided that we would allow dating with strict guidelines, and he agreed to them. Unfortunately, many of those rules were broken before he ever reached 16, which was the age we decided he could start. It only got worse, with lying, decieving, sneaking around, disobedience and outright disrespect. It broke our hearts!
We prayed for so long over this and what we could do. We watched his character go downhill, his grades go downhill, his Christian friendships slide into the background as they couldn't stand him with his girlfriend. The Lord kept telling us to put an end to the relationship, but we just couldn't. We kept telling ourselves we'd end up with a rebellious kid, a runaway, or any other horrid things. But it finally came about that not doing what God wanted was not working. We'd grounded him from everything and everyone at one time or another, made him work his tail off, and nothing worked. We had nothing left to do. So, in June we said "No more" to the girlfriend thing, no more even talking to her, emailing, chatting, etc. Of course he snuck around, which we expected, but the most amazing thing was that he started being respectful to us.
We caught him several times, and he was repeatedly punished. But then we found out that his girlfriend's mother was helping them lie, decieve, sneak around, and was lying to ME herself! I was devastated, to say the least.
Well, then his girlfriend called me up, told me lies, which I called her on, and that was it. We knew it was over for good. So we forced the issue. Last weekend we told him that he had to break up for real, he could be friends with her, but that was it, or he would lose speech team and a number of other things. So he did decide to break up with her, thinking he could then do things with her again, just not call her his girlfriend. Wrong! He can be FRIENDLY with her in the halls, he cannot chat online, talk on the phone, go out with her, etc. He is clearly not a good Christian witness to her right now, and her and her mother encourage and help him with the very sinful behaviors he is being disciplined for, so they clearly are not a good influence on him.
So last night is a big fight. Basically, if we don't allow him to see her socially, he will fight us constantly. I said if he fights me, I will homeschool him, keep him from speech team, and then I will remove his driver's lisence. And he said fine, he'd get emancipated or turn us in for child abuse. I let him know to go right ahead, he can't get emancipated because he can't support himself and his parents aren't willing, and he can't get away with "abuse" just because he wants to see his girlfriend, and if he does that, I will turn him in as a runaway and I will press charges for stealing my car and assault for hitting me with the car. Then he goes to juvie, and still doesn't see her.
Ugly.
We made him make his choice, stay or go, and we'd call right then. He chose to stay, so he says. But that girl has a grip on him something fierce.

So, today I try to be calm, but my sweet dh acts like a child and humiliates me and I can't get over it. Not that he was trying to, he just doesn't get it. So basically my attitude today is "If I'm giving off the vibe that I'm rational, non-violent, and approachable, I'm sorry, because I am NOT." My hormones are just beyond being nice at the moment. I wanted to scream at a manager at the store because they were all out of Nut Rolls in all the aisles today! I was on the verge of angry tears! Its insane, and I am ready to be able to deal with my emotions again.

I hope this baby comes a little early!

The blog world

I was randomly going through blogs yesterday, and was both fascinated and horrified! There are some messed up people out there! Yikes! I did find some fun ones, too, though.
I can't imagine being as nasty as some people are. People may read these things. And the personal information people give out! Ok, I'm being judgemental. But it was really hard to find any that I would want to read again or that even shared interests with me. One homeschooling one, but apparently not Christian, and almost nothing about homeschooling or kids. Some were similar political views that were amusing, but more Donnie's style of reading, I don't care too much about politics, or find it interesting to really talk about anyway. Infertility issues are interesting to me, but the posts were strewn with profanity and way too much sexual information! I felt bad about saying my dh was a comic book nerd and computer geek, lol, which he didn't find offensive at all, whew! I would be in trouble for talking about our sexual positions and such!
So, where does that leave me? I would like to find some interesting blogs to read, but don't know where to look, and randomly coming across them is disturbing. (now I'd be the one with the porn on the computer when we do a search on what we've been looking at! And it wasn't on purpose!)

Mom and dad pics

I guess I have to be fair and post pics of Donnie and I, too. The left is me at 31 weeks pregnant. The right is Donnie with Devon and Trinity and their super heros at Islands of Adventure. And yes, getting pictures taken with super heros is more fun for Donnie than the kids, lol. He's a comic book nerd. There are worse things he could be, like a City of Heros geek. Oh, wait, he's that too, lol. I love him anyways.

School is here, again...........

I'm happy and sad to see the school year start. Its nice to have a schedule again, but I miss having the kids home. (most of the time) Drew and Kaytlin are going to school full day right now doing all their electives, and then later their online classes will start. Drew will be taking several college classes! I'm pretty happy with the way it looks like school will be going for them.
The other 3 are pretty happy with school starting. It does take a few months before Hope-Anne and Cody start begging me to homeschool again. I hope they really enjoy school this year, I hated making them go when they wanted to homeschool. Then I hated homeschooling while they begged to go back to school, saying how it wasn't that bad.
Devon never wants to come back home, so that is good, I never want to homeschool him again, either. It was just so hard always fighting with him. The public school keeps me out of his schooling so that we can just have a good relationship with him! It is so nice for all of us this way. Devon plans to have a great year this year, and I hope all works out for him.
Trinity even seems to be having a great time with all of them out of the house. Last year she cried all the time when the bus would come and cart off her siblings. I thought she'd be pretty upset and clingy all day, but she's not. And she will have plenty to occupy her when Samuel comes. I will have plenty to occupy me, too, keeping him safe from her, lol.
Sam is growing. He is strong and playful. I'm attaching an ultrasound pic of his arm, he looks all muscular, lol. We call him "Big Buff Dude" now. 8 weeks and 1 day to go until his arrival!