Updates and Blessings

I know you are all wondering how I can go from multiple posts in one week to no posts in well a long time. I felt that we all needed to linger on Farve's greatness for just a bit longer. That and it has been crazy busy around here lately. Camden has begun to travel. He began with a type of army crawl some months ago, quickly progressing to a full on crawl. With in days of the crawl, he started pulling up and walking around furniture. He is now 9 months and will let go and stand alone and just yesterday he climbed up the stairs. Well only 2 before falling backwards. So needless to say he is keeping me on my toes!! Aside from all of this mobility, he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth! With three big brothers, keeping all of the chokables off the floor is a full time job. He is still as sweet as can be and he is loving being outside. We can put him in his walker in the driveway and he just laughs as he watches his brothers play. It is too cute!!!
The rest of the brood is doing great. Jacob and Tyler have 25 days of school left, and I couldn't be more excited to have them home again. The are both doing EXCELLENT in school but I love when they are home. So does Sam. He is so bored without his brothers. All day long he asks me when they will be home. I will not miss that question!! Sam and I have been enjoying our spring weather with lots of trips to the park and lately lots of garage sales. We love those!
Speaking of garage sales, I am having a massive one tomorrow. That is if the weather cooperates! I have so much stuff it is sick. 18 bins of boy clothes, 5 strollers, 4 swings, 3 car seats, 2 bouncy seats, a bassinet and too much other stuff to even try to list. On top of that my cousin is joining me with ALL of her stuff too. It has been a lot of work to put this together so we are praying for a decent day so I can get rid of as much as possible!!!!

Today is a great day. Today I have been married to the love of my life for 9 years! I can't believe it has been that long. I love him more today than the day I married him, and 9 years ago I didn't think that was possible. He is an amazing husband and father. He works so hard for us and then comes home and loves us all with every ounce he has. I can't imagine my life without him. We had a very rough first couple of years, so each anniversary I get the privilege of looking back on the goodness of God in our lives. It is ONLY because of his grace that we made it this far. And only his grace that will see us through the rest. I am so thankful that the Lord gave me Jay and I can't wait to see all that awaits us. Each day has been an adventure, one that I would DEFINITELY do again. I love you Jay! Thank you for all that you do and all that you are!

Football will never be the same again

The sport of football will never be the same again. Yesterday came the announcement that the greatest quarterback to ever play the game of football has decided to retire. I am not saying that I am upset by this, it is probably time, he is 38 years old. I would rather see him go out on top. I am simply sad to see the end of an era. The bar has been set, the bar is high. Every single quarterback from pop warner to the NFL wants to be him, but all are looking at his back. His records are the ones to beat, his integrity is that to be modeled, his dedication is unmatched, his ability undefinable.
I will leave you with just a glimpse at his greatness.
He has started in the NFL for 16 of his 17 seasons. In regular season W-L he is 160-93, he has had only 1 losing season, he has made 11 playoff appearances with a W-L record of 12-10, he has won 7 division titles and appeared in 2 Super Bowls.
He holds the record for most TD passes at with 442, behind him Dan Marino with 420; He has thrown for 61,655 passing yards, with Marino behind at 61,361; He has the most QB wins by a starter with 160 with Elway behind him with 148; He has 5,377 completions in 8,758 attempts.
He has started in 275 CONSECUTIVE games. He is football at its finest.

You may hate the Packers, most of my Chicago readers do. You may hate Farve because his skill caused your team to lose many times. But you cannot deny great football. He is what makes this sport the greatest ever. He is the Michael Jordan of football. He is Brett Farve!!

What I learned from a GSN marathon

What else can you do when you are down for several days other than a non-stop marathon of Game Show Network? I don't know.

I have enjoyed the classics and grown to enjoy some new ones as well. I have cracked up at the outfits and hairdos of the 70's and 80's and wondered how being a contestant on Lingo effects your "chick magnetism." From Lets Make a Deal, to Press your Luck, to Card Sharks, Who Wants to be a Millionaire (original Regis version), How Much is Enough?, and many others there has definitely been a progression of what is considered a "Grand Prize" over the years. In 1963 on Lets Make a Deal, a GRAND prize was a 22 inch console tv valued at $400. People went nuts over this. Also entire electric kitchens ( in avocado green, I might add) worth a whopping $2000. Even a brand new car, a 1964 Pontiac Tempest, was valued at $3,927.

Then it was on the the 70's and 80's when I enjoyed Card Sharks and Press your Luck. Nothing like a bunch of middle aged men in one piece leisure suits with bad comb-over's screaming NO WHAMMY to brighten spirits. Big bucks was $1000 ( and a spin:) and the host of the show was a quick wit with his poetry about the whammy. The trivia portion of the show was ridiculous and has anybody else noticed that the whammy bears quite a resemblance to hmmm Satan??
Card Sharks was one of exceptional difficulty. Not only did you have to answer a mind boggling trivia question such as," we asked 100 Catholics are you offended by football commentators using the term hail Mary to describe a last-second desperation pass. How many said yes?" then you had to determine if the next card was higher or lower than the top card. The skill involved in making the high low determination really impressed me. What also impressed me was the incredibly intelligent women they found for that show. These poor ladies didn't even seem to know that every one was laughing at them. And while on the subject, the level of sexual harassment dished out to all women on these shows would certainly have put Wink Martindale behind bars now a days.
All in all though these shows seemed to be so innocent, you know other than a vacuuming satan erasing your $1400 cash and wicker furniture. People got genuinely excited over what seems to me to be small amounts of stuff. Their grand prize was what most people make in only a week or 2. Flash forward to the shows of today. Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Greed, How much is Enough?, Deal or No Deal. Enough is never enough. So many contestants leave these shows with NOTHING because it was never enough. How sad I say. Or how spoiled I say. Our idea of a blessing has changed from anything to anything significant. Are we blessed with a dollar even though we already have 10? Or is it only the $100 that blesses us? Or more than that? I want to jump for joy over an avocado green electric kitchen and not always be so willing to trade it in for what might be better. I want to be a grateful person, content in any and every situation.
That my friends is what I learned from GSN!

My kids learned to share this week!

I guess at this point I have about one reader left ( thanks mom) and the rest of you have probably given up on me. I really do mean to keep up with this blog, my intentions are good, but like everything else in my life, good intentions don't seem to get the job done.

I survived my week of 9 kids. Really it wasn't as bad as I expected. They were all really well behaved and the best part of all is that they all slept well at night. I can handle anything before 10pm and after 7am, but in between those times I cannot be held responsible of anything! Thankfully they are all great sleepers! Which is a good thing because they will all be back for a few days this month when their mom has her baby.

On Sunday of last week, Tyler got a fever. No other symptoms really, just a fever. He missed school on Monday and Tuesday and went back finally on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Samuel got a fever. Again no other symptoms, just fever. His lasted until Friday or so. Wednesday night I was playing cards with my girls. This is an event I look so forward to each month. We play twice a month, hopefully if nothing else gets in the way. It is so much fun to just play and hang out taking with me only the child whose meals are served from my body. On these card nights I am usually out pretty late. Well 10:30pm is pretty late for me anyway. This week by 8pm I was yawning so much that before 9pm I had to quit and head home. I was just so tired I could not keep my eyes open. I awoke on Thursday morning with.... A FEVER!!!! After all the moments of teaching my kids to share, now they decide to:) Now when my kids get fevers the might slow down a bit, but a little tylenol and they are good to go. I felt like I had been run over by a truck. Thankfully my mom was off work on Thursday so she came over to help me so I could take a nap. On Friday I woke up feeling a bit better so I went on about my business as though Thursday never happened. Bad idea. Better only lasted so long before I was down for the count with a high fever again. This flu is no little cold. It is "knock you on your butt and don't even think about getting up" bad. Fever lasted all day Saturday and Sunday and I woke up with it again this morning. I think Jay was probably pretty excited to get in the car and drive to work this morning after spending the weekend caring for all five kids alone and his big baby wife! He did wonderful though. Never complaining just getting my drinks, medicine, doing laundry, feeding everyone, changing everyone. I am so blessed to have him!!!!!

Well I am starting to have a headache again and I am feeling my fever going back up. I better find my way back into my bed. Hopefully I will be back with you before April!!!!!

Help I'm drowning in kids!!!!!

Due to an unexpected surgery of a friend, I have 5 extra kids staying with us this week. Yes that makes 9 kids under the age of 10!!! I have a 10 year old, two 8 year olds, a 7 year old, a 6 year old, two 4 year olds, a 2 year old, and a 6 month old! Things are going surprisingly well. I suppose the more kids you have the more organized you have to be. And organization is NOT my gift. I was able to get 4 kids ready for school and waiting for the bus with 20 minutes to spare!! Funny thing is that just last week my 2 kids missed school because we didn't make it in time for the bus! All of the kids have been very well behaved, that is a gift from God! Well I must go now due to my brood of hungry youngins'. I'm sure I will return next week with some stories about our adventures. I already have those posts brewing in my brain. Hopefully I will be able to remember!

Who are you going to vote for???

With all of the voting going on in other states and ours just around the corner, I thought I would share this cool website with you. Do you know who you would vote for? Does the one you have in mind really share your views or have we been swayed by "political spin?" Thought it was really informative. Check it out!

Click here

I had a dream

It is no secret that my kids love to eat. They eat obscene amounts of food and they eat all foods. They love herring, avocado, eggs, broccoli, and just about every other food that makes most kids squirm. For this I am blessed! The first questions my kids have when we do anything is what are we going to eat and whenever they go anywhere the first story we hear upon returning is what they ate. That being said, this obsession with food has now infiltrated the dreams of my 4 year old. He woke up this morning and was telling me he had a bad dream....

Sam: Mommy, I had a bad dream.
Me: Oh boy do you want to tell me about it?
Sam: Ok We were being chased by hot dogs.
Me: Oh my
Sam: They were trying to attack us and the only way to stop them was to eat them.
(insert Sam's tears)
Sam: Mommy I tried my best, but the chili dog got Tyler.
Me: (doing my best not to laugh) What is important is that you tried your best, right buddy!

Sometimes I really wish that I had the gift of dream interpretation!!!