Tooth-fairy-less...

Well, the "toothfairy's" days have been numbered around here for some time now, but I think her gig may finally be up (at least until Matthew starts losing teeth!). Over the last year or so, Josh & Noah have been questioning her "realness"- not only trying to "trick" her, but also lying to us to try to get the real scoop ;-) Yep, they've been doing everything from hiding their teeth in strange places to not even telling us that they've lost a tooth!!

So, last night, I had to run out to pick up some meds, and I came home to Josh holding a bloody molar in his hand. Gee Josh, I didn't even know it was loose! Not only was I surprised to see that he had pulled it- usually when the kids have a loose tooth, it becomes a week-long event of wiggling and talking about just how loose it's getting- but it was late and I honestly didn't have time to fully think through the whole situation....... translation: I completely forgot that I had to play "toothfairy" last night!!! And then, when Josh finally went to bed, there was no discussion at all about putting it under his pillow, or how much we thought he might get, etc! Plus- not to make excuses or anything- it was a Saturday night, we weren't in our "normal" routine, and the boys went to bed pretty late..... so, all that, combined with the fact that I hadn't expected him to lose a tooth in the first place, sort of threw me off my game ;-)

Fastforward to this morning..... the first thing I hear when I open my eyes at 7am is Noah- well, that just PROVES there's no toothfairy! I shot up. DANG IT!!!! I forgot all about the money!!! After about 30 seconds of letting Noah's "comment" sink in, I fell back into my bed and thought fine then, that's it, there's no toothfairy- good, it's over and I don't have to play this game anymore!!! YAY!!!

Well, that feeling only lasted a short time. While I know that Josh is almost 12, and it's high time for him to fess up and admit he KNOWS there's no toothfairy, Noah is only 7 and still has many, many visits from the toothfairy to come. And while I know that Noah is very smart and very clever, there's nothing wrong with being naive for just a little longer ;-) So, I got up, went downstairs, and quietly slipped Josh his money, telling him that the toothfairy had given me something to give to him and giving him a wink. I then happily strolled into the kitchen and announced to Noah that Josh had "found" his money! Noah, of course, wanted to know where it had been, to which I happily lied why, it was INSIDE his pillow case- he just didn't look hard enough! So, is this the end? Probably- Noah's just too smart. But, at least I tried ;-) Ahhhh, they just grow up too fast!!

And speaking of growing up.... a couple other members of The Gang made a big leap yesterday when we received this special and long-awaited delivery....

oooooo, ahhhhhhh!! Check out those new beds! WOW! And a matching dresser to go with them.....
Nice! Yes, gone is all the nursery furniture, and it's been replaced with big-boy stuff! Today, we plan to get busy doing some decorating and making this room perfect for our little cowpokes (we have a cute cowboy theme planned)!

We also made the final decision yesterday to go forward with our house addition, and, after speaking with our contractor (who is also our really great neighbor!), we may be starting in just a couple of weeks, with the goal being to get the whole thing done before baby arrives...... what have I gotten myself into?! Stay tuned for more details ;-)

Emily's new digs...

Well, I may be sick today- ya know, the works.... throwing up, diarrhea, can't eat, can't drink- but at least I dont' have pins sticking out of my toes....
Geesh! Don't know if I'd like that!! But Em's tough....
And she can handle it!!! Today, she got her first cast off. I was happy to let Zack take her, since I tried to take the boys to school this morning and ended up throwing up in the car on the way home!
If you've never had a cast, then you might not know that they remove it with a small saw...
Almost there...
It's a process...
But then.... voila.....
No, it's not Frankenstein's foot!! But it's pretty scary.....
After the cast comes off, they take x-rays and then cast #2 goes on....
This time, Emily gets to pick the color! Actually, Matthew went with them today, and Emily let him choose....
It will be green for this week, and then next week we go back to get the stitches out and another new cast! Ah, good times!!

Baby BUMP!

I didn't want poor Kimberly over at Raising Olives to be all alone, so I decided to post yet another picture of my "baby bump"- even though most of you just saw it a couple of days ago when I posted about the baby's gender! I have to admit that, while I would NEVER wear this outfit out in public, I am thrilled to be able to still fit into a favorite sweatshirt- but I'm pushin' it!!! In my defense, I did spend the entire day at home washing all the sheets and towels, not to mention taking care of Allie (who's very sick and stayed home), Emily (who is still in recovery from major foot surgery and is in a cast), and of course Matthew and Jacob (our very busy 2 & 3yr-olds!)!! Please remember, this IS baby #8, and NO, it's NOT twins (it just looks like it!)! I can't even begin to compete with Kimberly's nice little bump- I looked like that at 6 weeks ;-) Unfortunately, after seeing her, I can't really blame it on the fact that I've had so many can I?! After all, she's on #10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, for the record, this week marks the beginning of my third trimester- only 13 weeks left to go!!!

A Splash Award!

Oooooo- now THIS is a cool award! It's called the "Splash" award, and I LOVE it! It was given to me by Tania over at "Larger Family Life" - a huge thanks to her!

And now that I've received it, I have the honor of passing it on! So, here are the blogs that I can't wait to share this award with:

Raising Olives

The Trenches of Motherhood

We Are That Family

Nathans Fight

Mom's the Word

Alabama Slacker Mama

Following Him

Rudy Family Rukus

Hope you'll check them all out- they're all wonderful and I so enjoy keeping up with them!


Now, to pass on your new award, here's what you need to do:

~Copy the Splash logo into a new post on your blog

~Nominate up to 9 blogs that allure, amuse, impress, or inspire you

~Let them know they have been "splashed" by commenting on their blog

~Be sure to link back to the person who "splashed" you

That's it! Thanks again Tania for the award- it's so nice to know that people actually enjoy reading about our crazy life ;-)

It's a..........

...... GIRL!

Or is it a BOY?!





Today was our big "gender-reveal," and we FINALLY found out what we're having! Soooooo...... if you REALLY want to know........ keep reading.......... it's a..................











BOY!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey everyone- meet baby #8......

CALEB ABRAHAM

And I know it's a little hard to see, but he's looking RIGHT AT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

America Rising!

I vote with the Republican party, but I AM A CONSERVATIVE FIRST.....





But......an even bigger problem lies within the DEMOCRATIC PARTY.......





I mainly use this blog as a record of our family memories, but sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe in! Last spring, my husband and I took our 7 children to a TEA Party- I'm happy we did. It's time to stand up for what we believe in. I hope more of you who I KNOW are out there will begin to use your voices as well...........

Barf bowls...

We should have known something was up when we came home last night from dinner (Zack & I had a quick "date night" last night) and found this at 7pm...

Emily had an excuse, just having had major surgery on Friday, but Mr. Jacob should have been running around like a madman, especially since he had taken a 2-hour nap earlier in the day.

And our second clue should have been when Noah came up to us and told us he had thrown up 7x while we were gone......

But somehow, it was still a shock when I set Jacob up on the counter after his bath (because he wouldn't let me put him down and he's WAY too heavy to hold these days) and he threw up ALL over the place! Yep, I've been to Niagra Falls, and let me tell ya, the amount of vomit that came out of that child was an even MORE IMPRESSIVE display!

So, after about 3 rounds of vomit, Zack gave Jacob his second bath of the night, and I gave him this...

Yes, our poor little 2yr-old has graduated to carrying his own barf bowl! But he wasn't the only one.... Noah had his own barf bowl as well! And whenever the boys barfed, we simply gave them another bath, washed out their barf bowls and then tried to mentally prepare for the next round! Here's Jacob after bath #3...
And then Josh started feeling sick....
It was THEN that we knew we were in for a long night. And when we went back into Noah's room and were hit with a terrible smell, we discovered that he had not only thrown up all over his pillow and slept through it, but he had also had diarrhea and was sleeping in that!

At that point, it was about 9pm.

I asked Zack to lug out the old carpet cleaner, to which he responded it's broken.

WHAT?!

YEP, didn't work last time I tried to use it.

Well, I knew that it was on its last legs, but I didn't realize it was that bad off. And knowing that we were in for more horrible leakage of bodily fluids, there was only one thing to do....

I headed out to Target.

It was now 9:30.

Target did not have the model I wanted in stock. (If I was gonna spend money on a carpet cleaner, you bet your buttons I was gonna get the top of the line model with the multiple rows of brushes and 2x the heat!!!)

I headed to Wal-Mart. Open 24 hours.

Wal-Mart had it.... and they also had my most favorite Blue Bell ice cream- coffee flavor! The kids may have been sick, but I'm pregnant ;-)

I headed home. It's now 10:30.

Noah is still throwing up. Jacob is still throwing up. Matthew is looking really rough. And now Sophie is feeling sick.

Fast forward to this morning.

This is what the floor looked like- we weren't about to lug the carpet cleaner out in the middle of the night, so we simply threw wet towels on all the barf....

We were smart enough to put both Jacob & Matthew on the floor in sleeping bags, setting their mattresses up against the wall (we're in the process of redecorating their room and are waiting for the new furniture to arrive!).....
And first thing on the agenda this morning was, of course, carpet cleaning.....
And Sophie ended up barfing half the night- thankfully she's old enough to get to the bathroom on her own!

No one really ate breakfast or lunch today, and by early afternoon it was nap time again....

Yesiree, throwing up is hard work! Here's more of the gang around 2pm....
Sophie couldn't make it up from the basement, and Allie was lounging in her room. Guess it's just one of those days!

We hope it's over..........

Lost generation...

A palindrome reads the same backwards as forward. This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite.
This is only a 1 minute, 44 second video and it is brilliant. Make sure you read as well as listen…forward and backward.

This is a video that was submitted in a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50" by AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and watch it..

Here we go again...

I'm getting a little tired of these...

Between Allie & Emily, we've been through 3 surgeries in the last 5 months. Emily had her first surgery at the end of August on her left foot to correct her hammer toes and get rid of her bunions. Then, just before Christmas, Allie had surgery to determine if she indeed has endometriosis.... she does. And today, Emily had the same surgery that she had back in August, only this time it was on her right foot...
SHE'S SMILING THROUGH THE TEARS!!! Today is the first day in a long and painful recovery for her. She will be in this first cast for a week...
Then she will go see the doctor and get a new cast next Friday- at least she'll get to choose the color of her cast next time...! Although I seriously doubt this cast will stay white for long...
The rest of The Gang gets home from school soon, and then it will be open season on Emily's cast- I have the sharpies ready to go ;-)

And for those of you that missed out on Em's last surgery and all the fun pictures I so kindly shared, here's what they did to her poor toes....

Oh yes, those are pins sticking out of the tops of each of her toes!!! When she goes back for her 2wk appt, she will have the pins removed (if all looks good on the x-rays), and then she will be given her third and final cast that will stay on for 2 more weeks. From there, she moves to a walking boot (that goes almost to her knee) for about a month, and then she finally downsizes to a special shoe for a few weeks- WHEW!!! She is just now completely weight-bearing on the foot that she had surgery on back in August, so it's quite a recovery process. We're so very proud of her, as it's an incredibly painful surgery, and she is missing out on so much this year. If you don't know, she's at home this year (sophomore year) and doing school on-line just so that she could get all the surgery and recovery done at once.

Anyway, I had to run over to Target to fill her pain med script, and I picked up a couple of little treats for her...

The Harry & David chocolate-covered cherries are a favorite of Em's, and the chocolate-covered fortune cookies looked like fun- not to mention that they have her name ;-)

On another note:

Yesterday, I took Sophie & Josh to the orthodontist and got the good news *insert sarcastic laugh*..... both Sophie and Josh will need braces! YEP! And they're not wasting any time either- Sophie has her first appt next week and then will have her braces on in 2 weeks. Josh still has 5 baby teeth, so we get to wait another year or so for him- phew! I don't know that we can swing $9000 just for braces in one year ;-)

(Those of you that want BIG families- think of THIS moment!!! Not that I would ever discourage it, but it can be tough sometimes!!!!)

And on a final note:

Quick bible update- if you don't "follow me" on Twitter, then you might have missed that I switched over from my original 6-month plan to read the bible to a new and more straightforward approach that will get me through it in about 4 months! I really didn't like the other plan (reading one chpt. from several different books of the bible each night)- it was confusing and I found myself re-reading almost every chapter just to refresh my memory from the night before. By switching over to starting at the beginning and just reading straight through, I feel much better about remembering what I've read, and I'm getting a whole lot more out of it!!! In fact, I read several extra chapters last night- couldn't bring myself to stop! As I mentioned in a "tweet," the book of Genesis kind of reads like a trashy novel- quite a soap opera isn't it?! Gee, wonder why I waited so long to do this....!!!

Beauty...and the beast!

This morning, I had a little accident....

(NO, that's not blood).... and it was courtesy of my 2yr-old! You see, sometimes beauty can be a bit of a beast!

Translation.....
LOCK UP YOUR NAILPOLISH LADIES!!!!
...or suffer the consequences! Today, mine went in the trash after Jacob decided to open them, spill them on the carpet and spill them on his pants...
And that's the SECOND pair of pants he's ruined in the last week....
Yep, those he ruined when he rubbed himself all over the wall that Zack had just finished painting!!

Needless to say, I had to make an unplanned trip to Target today to pick up some more nailpolish remover since Jacob also dumped mine out all over the bathroom floor a couple of weeks ago ;-)

The really fun part of pregnancy...

Of course I'm talking about shopping ;-) I mean, what did you think I meant?! Unfortunately, I still don't know what gender I'm shopping for- I say "unfortunately" because we didn't want to know when we had the opportunity to find out, but we have since changed our minds and now have to wait until next Tuesday!

I am being scheduled for ultrasounds once every four weeks until I deliver, with my next one being Tuesday, so there should be plenty of opportunities to "see" what we're having!

My mind was finally changed when my mom pointed out that the really fun part of being pregnant is, of course, shopping! Once the baby's born, there's no time for that, so... yes, you waited and were surprised at your delivery, but now you don't get to enjoy all the shopping anticipation- WHAT was I thinking?!?!

Well, I may not know the gender yet, but I wanted to get a jump start on my registry- yes, even mommy's of seven still need new things for baby #8!! So today, the boys and I headed out to our favorite baby store and got busy ;-) First stop once inside the store....

Yep, we had to have gumballs and skittles to survive our trip! Then we picked up our scanner and started scanning! Wow, I didn't know they made "organic" diapers! What's next?!
We've never bought an entire set of nursery furniture. We have always had cribs and then added some sort of changing table, and we usually don't have dressers until our kids are a little older (opting instead for plastic stacking storage tubs in the closet due to space).

Since our current plan is to add an addition onto our house and move Emily into the basement with the other girls, the baby will have its own room, and I will get to decorate a brand new nursery!!!!!

I've been looking at several different sets of furniture, and I am really excited to see how functional they really are. It sure will be nice to have a crib that turns into a full-sized bed and a changing table that sits on top of the dresser and can be removed- wow! I really love black furniture, and this is the crib in a set that I found today...

Oh yeah, and Matthew too ;-) He even got into the shopping a little bit...
Jacob had to sit in the cart :-(
We spent about an hour browsing and scanning, and we even bought some baskets for the changing table that is now in my room...
This is the table that we've used for both Jacob & Matthew, and we decided to use it in our room for the first few months with this baby. It will be great for nighttime changes- plus, we won't be able to start construction until sometime in June, so it will be awhile before we have a new nursery to move the baby into! It's beginning to look a little like a nursery in our room these days....
Jacob is loving all the new stuff! Oh yes, he's been such a helpful big brother- trying everything out to make sure it all works ;-) Fortunately, next week, he will be getting his own new furniture to try out! The boys bunkbeds and dressers come next weekend, and they can hardly wait- especially since we sold their old cribs yesterday.....
right out from under them!!! For now, they're sleeping on twin mattresses on the floor. Not much left in their room, but it does have a fresh new paint job! Can't wait for the furniture!

Awwww....