Belated Father's Day

We spent a day with Jay doing what I had hoped for LAST Sunday. We had sick kids, so it got postponed until yesterday. After church, we went to Perkins with mom and dad and then off to the Mall of America. I had made an appointment for him to do an hour in the flight simulator at Flying Aces. Mindy had gotten him a gift card for Christmas a couple years ago and he had never used it until now. We got him checked in and then I took the boys and we walked around for an hour. We went to the Jelly Belly candy store and I let them all pick out a few treats. That was fun since they had tons of different flavors and all sorts of candies from the past when I was a kid.....like Zotz! Remember those?! The hard candy that has a fizzy center. I didn't have one, but I got one for Jay. It's funny the little things that can bring back memories. Then we tried some samples of cheese at the WI cheese store and I bought a couple different kinds. After making a quick stop at the dollar store, it was time to get back to Jay. He had a blast and said it was even more fun than he thought it would be.

I'm more stressed out than usual these days. I have an unannounced visit from my licensor coming sometime this month. I am up for renewal by Aug. 1st, so any day now she'll knock on my door and expect everything to be in tip top shape. UGH! That never happens, so all I can do is have it at it's best and be in compliance with allt he rules. Blah!

I made a decision about something that does relieve some of the stress of all these hours. I asked Kelsie if she would be interested in being a substitute for me on days when I need to get out of the house for something. Dr. appointments, dentist, salon work meetings/classes. I can never make any of them....even the kids' field trips. With her as a backup, I can make some of these mornings out and not worry about taking kids or being stuck in the house all week. As soon as her background check comes back, we're good to go. I'm thinking twice a month or so would be so great! Ask me why I didn't do this sooner.

Don't repeat this in public

Tanner keeps walking around the house for the past 2 days saying "I really need some alcohol".......He means the ginger ale that we bought for the kids' tummy aches. HA!! I'm waiting to be in public when he says it sometime.
Innocent?? Hmmmm.....Maybe he knows EXACTLY what he's saying......Nah.

Pics from the past week

My boys..

Tyler caught his first northern this weekend. He caught a second one later that day.

Timmy's poor face...


The boys meet baby Christopher for the first time.

Home sweet home

As much as I like to get away and have a week of relaxation, there's always something nice about just being home. My own bed, my own everything. We came home Friday night since I had to work Sat. morning and that worked out best. I was able to get up at a normal time rather than try and leave the cabin at 5:30am.
Trae and Tanner weren't feeling well by the time we were leaving and within a second of walking in the front door, Tanner threw up in the foyer. Molly and Sam were sick at the beginning of the week and now 3 of the kids and myself, I think, have come down with the same thing. Kinda hard to avoid when we're all in such close contact for a week. The only good thing about catching a sickness from someone else is that you sort of know how it's going to pan out. Like we all have sore throats, but I hesitate to get strep tests for all since I know that wastn't the case with Molly and Sam. The other symptoms are all the same too. I'm thinking after a couple days, we'll all be good as new. Tomorrow will not be fun with 10 kids here.
One good thing....when I walked in the door on Friday night, between getting Tanner to the bathroom and cleaning up the floor, I remember thinking....Geez, I don't remember the house being so clean when I left. Well, it wasn't. HA! Turns out, Cindy and Erin came over while we were gone and cleaned the whole house. Jason knew all about it and gave them the key to get in. What a treat that was to come home to!! The house definately needed some work, but the things they did that I just love are those things that I never get any time for. It was one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me.

still relaxing

Day 4 of our vacation and we're having a really good time. The weather wasn't great yesterday but we made the most of it. We headed into Nisswa in the morning and went to the shops. I ended up buying a really cute purse at the princess store. It was much cuter than the kinds I normally buy at Target. I never buy stuff like that for myself so it was fun to pick it out and get all my stuff transferred into it last night. Man...just writing that makes me realize just how unexciting my life is. Haha.
Last night, Jay and I along with dad, Pat, and Lindsey went to the casino at Mil Lacs. We didn't even get there until about 11pm. Jay and I got a rewards card cuz they had a special when you sign up, you get 10 free dollars. So, before we even began, we were up $20. I put my $10 in a poker machine and won $25 on my first hand. I thought that was good, but then Jay put his $10 in another machine and on his first hand he got 4 aces!!! It paid him $400!! In the first 5 minutes we were there. He was so amazed, he said..I'm done, let's go.
We cashed that out and then after walking around a bit, I went to play some blackjack. After about 1 1/2 hours, I got up with $325 in chips. Holy cow, we now just made enough to pay for our whole cabin for the week. We were done, we were excited..and we were hungry, so we went to the cafe and got something to eat. Thinking we were leaving soon, we went to find everyone only to see that they were still playing. Soooo....I decided to sit down at the same table I had earlier. One hour later, I got up with another $340! We just made almost $1000 in one evening at the casino. I'm beginning to wonder if I should quit my daycare and go gambling full time. HA!
We got home at 4am and went to bed happy at the night's events. It was a good time.
Today's been fun. Just chilling, making some mixed drinks, daquairis, ice cream grasshoppers...mmmmmm.
On the lightside today......Tony was telling Kaylee that all the people in his family have a name that starts with a T except mom, dad, and Trae. I told him that Trae also had a name that began with T. Tony thought for a bit and said "CH..CH..CHrae....CH..CH..CHrae?" He totally thought that his name started with a CH sound. Too funny! Two minutes after I had told Pat that story, he called Tanner into the house. "Channer, come here...Channer?" HAHA!!

Our vacation so far

Well, it's Monday and we've been at the resort since Saturday afternoon. We got up here around 3pm and got the keys to the 3 places we're renting. Two were great...but one smelled so badly of stale smoke, no one wanted to stay there. It wasn't just a little that had just been from the last people staying there..it was obvious this had been a regular thing. We spoke to the owners and they were nice enough to switch us to another cabin that is really nice and new.
Yesterday the weather was beautiful. We were down at the water most of the day getting plenty of sunburn amongst all of us. We didn't put sunscreen on right away and were paying for it last night. It's all good though, I could use a little sun.
So after dinner, the adults were sitting on the deck at our cabin while the kids played at the park behind the cabin. We heard some crying and then it turned to screaming. Jay and I got up and all the adults came around the corner...as we did, I saw Jay take off running which scared me so much that I started running too. All the time, the kids were screaming. I knew something bad had happened.
When I got around the cabin, all I saw was Timmy laying on the ground in a ball holding his face yelling "my eye". Then I saw his face. It was completely covered in blood. I yelled to the others to quick get a towel. I couldnt' tell where he was bleeding from....then I saw it. On his right cheek less than an inch away from his eye, was a gash that was open and pouring out blood. Jay picked him up and got him in the van while I ran to get my keys. We raced to the ER, he laid his head on my lap the whole time. His head was pounding and he was really hurting.
The long story short is that he ended up needing 6 stitches. It was really hard to watch and he was so scared. He got through it though and will be okay. Thank you God...it could have been so much worse.
Turns out he was on the teeter totter with Trae and when Trae got off too fast, Timmy slammed down and hit his face on the metal pipe that was used for the handle. It's interesting cuz we had all commented on that teeter totter when we arrived the day before. It was so big that the ends raised up almost 7 feet high when one side was up all the way. We had told the kids to be careful on it. Sometimes, I hate being right.
On a side note...Mike and Kristin had already gone to the ER and were there when we arrived. Molly and Sam were so sick that they brought them in. There was no one else there but our family. Not exactly what we had in mind for our trip.
On a much lighter note. When we were coming on Sat. a deer bolted out in front of the car and I had to break hard. The kids were all excited to see it and I was saying it was a good thing we didn't hit him. Tony says from the back seat.."mom, they should put a deer crossing sign there....that way we know when the deer are coming" Haha. He's so funny.
I'll post pics of Timmy's face after we get home from the cabin. OH, I forgot to mention. This morning Jay went the the owners to talk to them about what happened and about what a bad liability that was.....within 20 minutes, the guy was outside disassembling it.

Our newest arrival

Yesterday we had a new addition to our growing family. Christopher James was born at 10:44am and looks great! Jay and I went last night after I got off work to see him. He is sooo adorable. His little face is all crooked from being smooshed up against Amy's ribs for so long...he was a feet first baby...so she had to have a C-section.
Dan and Amy found out back at week 20 that he has club feet and would need some casts, braces, and therapy for his first year at least. I've seen pictures of it, but never in person. After holding him for a bit, Dan wanted to show us his toesies. It was the most precious thing I've ever seen. His little crooked feet with all 10 toes pointed towards eachother and sort of overlapped. It almost got me choked up....I told Dan 'I want to cry, but not in a bad way'. I just meant that it was almost a cry that you have for a child that you first meet that you love so much already....not sorrow for his little imperfect feet, but almost a protective sort of "it's okay baby..you're perfect to all of us" He's just precious.

More proof....

..of my theory on what Timmy thinks of he and Trae. I always say that he wants to make sure everyone (especially Trae) knows that he is bigger, stronger, older. Well, this was in his backpack this morning. It's kinda funny when you see how Trae is portrayed in this family portrait....he's even smaller than Tanner.

The visit

We went to see Sr. Teresa last night. We had such a nice visit, she was so good...like the Teresa we've always known. You'd never know from the way she looked/acted last night that she was so sick. If she was hurting, she hid it well. If she was tired, we never knew it. In fact, when I finally said 'we really should get going' she was surprised when she looked at her watch and it was about 9:45. I expected we'd stay til 8:30 or so, but time flew and she was in good spirits. She had bought 2 bouncy balls earlier that day so the boys could play. We had brought Subway and then ate out in the backyard of the house she lives in. The boys played the whole time and we had good conversation. We went inside after a while when the mosquitos started to get bad and sat in a common sitting room. There was a table and chairs where she had brought paper and markers for the kids and there was a little wooded toy frog and a little toy birdhouse that she gave to Tony and Tanner. When we first got there she told me happy early birthday and gave me a candle holder and a little booklet to read.
She gets such a kick outta the kids...especially Tony. She just kept saying how cute he was and how much she liked him. He gave her a big hug when we got there and when we left, I know she liked that.
While we were sitting in the yard, we asked her what the house behind there was. She said it's the guesthouse and that I should come and stay sometime. She had asked me this back in January or so when we had emailed back and forth a bit and I had mentioned how tiring my schedule was and how exhausting it is to work this much. Then she got sick and then we got in these crazy months where we haven't had a free weekend forever. Now, once the 4th is over, we have no more set plans for the remainder of the summer. She told me to just schedule it....that if I just say I'll do it and don't set it up, it will never happen. Very true. I think I'm going to do that. I'm going to take a Saturday off and go for 2 nights. She told me what we could do together and how I could really just relax. I think it would be a very peaceful weekend and I would love to spend some real one on one time with Sr. Teresa.
Today, I have GOT to get more packing done. The kids are done with school after today, so I'll have them all home tomorrow. The more I can get done today before heading to job 2 tonight the less stressed I'll be tomorrow. Now, if I could just wake up, I could get something started.

Trae just called......he forgot that he was supposed to bring a bag lunch today cuz they're doing an outside picnic. Um...okay....I'll just swing by and bring that to you. I already have 7 kids here.....this should be interesting. **insert rolling eyes here**

Camping trip

Well, we are home from our first camping trip with the new pop-up. It wasn't quite what we expected. It rained the entire time and was freezing. We had to use the heater in the camper by day 2 after nearly freezing to death on the first night. I think the high on Sat. was 52'. Nice.
We made the most of it. The boys were really disappointed because they were hoping to go swimming and do some fishing. The only thing that made the it not so bad is the fact that we are going to the cabin in 6 days. YAY!
If it weren't raining..I'd be more bummed that the weekend went so fast. Next time we go will be the 4th of July and that will give us more time to enjoy it and enjoy our time together. We had some family game time and fun with Chuck and Amy, but it will be nice to have it sunny and not so rushed next time.

This makes me sad

As I looked at this picture again tonight....I suddenly noticed something that I hadn't the other day. Timmy seemed more long and lean to me, I chalked it up to the way the pic had to stretch to fit my desktop. Then I looked closer......
....he is standing on his tip toes.

So, that made me look closer at this one.....


...and this one....

...same thing. Poor guy. He's so self conscious of his height.

Grrrrr!!

How is it possible to love children so much and yet get so mad at them that you throw things at them? I lost my temper in the van tonight. They were so loud and obnoxious in the back seat...wouldn't quiet down...wouldn't stop argueing....wouldn't give us a moment's peace....so, WHACK! I whipped a DVD case back at them...it hit the ceiling hard and came down in the middle of the oldest 3. THAT got them quiet. Quiet enough to hear me lose my mind! Two guesses on whether or not they made a SOUND for the next 15 minutes.
It's so comforting to know that resorting to violent outbursts will get their attention. They don't teach THAT in any of the parenting books.
God, help me.

More bad news

I've been talking to Shannon's mom every day as she's been the one dropping off Hannah. She has kept me posted on Caleb and every day the news gets worse. First, the tumor, then the surgery to remove it. They went in there and found out that half was too deep and could not be removed. Not good. Yesterday was the worst part though when she told me that the biopsy showed that it is cancer. :(
I"m just so upset about it. He just turned 24. Shannon's obviously distraught. I don't know from here what will happen to him. I'm assuming some sort of chemo or radiation to shrink it, but I can't imagine it's ever a good prognosis when you have an inoperable brain cancer. **sigh** Life's never so bad when you compare it to something like this, huh. Thank you, Lord, for my family's health.

On a lighter note....This morning when I went in to wake Tony up (much to his displeasure) he looked at me and with total sincerity asked, "How come I never hear the rooster?"

The wedding

We got home last night after traveling to IL for Chris's wedding. We had such a good time! The boys danced until midnight.....all 6 of them. The reception was at the hotel we were staying which was attached to a casino, so I snuck out of the dance a couple times to try my luck at blackjack. I ended up winning $400! So, that paid for our trip completely. Others were going out there as well throughout the night and some got lucky and some didn't...like Lil.

gotta bring tony to school.....to be continued.....


Okay, it's now nighttime. I started this in the morning and had to leave it for the day. I just downloaded the pics and they turned out really cute. There are a lot that Tony and Tanner took cuz I gave them the

Oh my gosh, it's now Tues. morning. HAHAHA!!! I stopped last night in mid sentence and just got back to it. Too funny...today's...er...yesterday's post is really a good metaphor for my crazy life.

Okay, so where was I? Oh, the wedding. We had fun. LOL.
Here are some pics that I took. Of course, the boys all matched. Actually, when we got the clothes out of the suitcase, I realized that I somehow left Trae's shorts at home. They all had khaki ones for their outfit. So...he put on his black ones, went to the wedding, and we bought new ones before going to the reception. It made me so happy to spend $14 on a pair of shorts that we have 3 of at home. UGH!
They danced all night and blew bubbles that the bride and groom had all over.

In front of the cake table

The cool dudes

This was a candy table they had for the kids. It had about 15 different kinds of candy and treats for the kids so they could fill up BEFORE dinner and get on total sugar highs all night. No wonder they weren't tired.