A big lift

Well moving some furniture around and even getting rid of a few pieces has helped tremendously. The rooms are much more open even when they are crammed full of little people. :) We still have piles of thing on the stairs to take care of but overall everything looks great. :)

Tomorrow Paul's mom goes in for surgery to repair a whole near her small intestine. She has been in the hospital for a few weeks prior to this so she is pretty anxious to get this all behind her. Any prayers for her would be awesome! We are praying that her surgery goes well/quick as well as her recovery so she can be back spending time with her grandbabies. :)

It is a cloudy day with 40% chance of rain. It's always nice to get a cloudy day around here once in awhile. The temp was 80* yesterday. WOW! I am ready for spring but am hoping we don't spring right into summer which can happen here. The kids are already wearing shorts most of the time. Seems like winter was a blink of an eye this year.

Well, I am going to go curl up on the couch and enjoy the smell of chimichungas simmering away. Have a wonderful day!

Happy Orgainization Day!

I was reading a friends blog this morning and she inspired me to celebrate organzing today. Here is her link if you want to check it out. http://www.twelve-paws.com/ She is a super sweet mom I met on Diaperswappers. She has a little girl born on the same day as Preston so her blog is always fun to read along with.

So today I am organazing aka PRESTON proofing our house. He is into everything.. I am thrilled to have him as a healthy and happy little boy but mama needs a little bit of sanity back. He is the first baby to require child locks on our cabinets. I don't think it is him as much as it is we are far more busy at this point in our life than we were when the other kids were smaller. I love his curiousity but we need to make sure he is safe too.

So today I will be going through and removing items that are easily within reach and just trying to make more sense of the layouts of each room. heheh as I type this I can hear Paul in the kitchen telling Preston, "Dude, you have the longest arms ever man!?

I just need to find out a way to make our days more functional and less frantic. It might require moving some furniture but it will be worth it in the end. .....I hope :)

Sick......

So now that I am in the 2nd trimester and turning the corner on the all day nausea.....I have a cold with a cough that has caused me to throw up just as much. TMI....I know. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. LOL I am just praying the kids don't catch it. My mom and dad have it and so does my sister. My incredibly cute niece said "I think nana's turkey was sick and got us sick." She is too funny. By the way mom, we all think the turkey was fantastic! Where are my leftovers for turkey a la king?

We celebrated Jac's bday a week before Thanksgicing and Garrison a week after. We took Jac to Chuck E. Cheese and all the kids had a really nice time. Garrison chose to go see Bolt for his birthday. Paul took the kids to a late night showing and I stayed home with Preston. They too had a really great time and Paul has already added it to our must by when it comes out on DVD. He is such a sucker for a Disney flick.

We had some family drama go on over the last few weeks but all has subsided for now. Amen! It was a very stressful time but God also shared some amazing blessings with us too. His timing is always PERFECT!

Where we've been...

It is just crazy how fast the days seem to go by right now. Between school, household chores and a very busy 1 year old our days fill up pretty quick. I wanted to add a few pics today and I realized I have been seriously slacking in the picture taking department. I did find a few to share though but I'll save those for the end. :)

Christmas is less than 2 months away. Can you believe it? We have already started to plan out some gifts for family. Cathy and I are doing family gifts for each other this year. This will help ease the financial aspect on both of us. I am going to work on a digital scraphook for her family. They are a beautiful and fun family so this will be an easy task. :) I might do a book for my mom too. My dad (and myself) are big Tony Stewart fans and he will be changing cars next season. So this will be a great time to grab some cool new Tony gear for my dad. :)

This is his old #20

We are going to miss you #20

Here is the new Old Spice #14

We think it's pretty cool! By the way Cathy, we hope you enjoy all these lovely pics.

Cathy is the only a Jeff Gordon fan. :)

As promised a few pics of our fab 5.

This was taken at the park for our P.E. day :)

Here is one of Preston practicing his left turns. :)

Still here :)

Man, it is HOT here. We have been in the 110's for DAYS AND DAYS. The kids are climbing the walls. My mom and dad stopped by today to drop off a fridge for Paul's office. While they were here I think my mom realized that I needed a little breather from the overly rowdy bunch. So Paul and I left for about 2 hours to run errands and have dinner. It was such an unexpected little treat. I came home feeling refreshed and renewed.
While at Target Paul and I checked out the summer nonpool options. :( Hopefully next summer will bring a large water source of summer delight to our backyard but for this year it will be coming in the form of 6 supersoaker water guns. Why 6? 4 kids+2 childlike parents= tons of fun. So sometime tomorrow we will take the crew outside and hope to have an amazing time in this incredible heat.

I did miscarry 2 weeks ago. I was devistated. I really thought after Carter I wouldn't have to go through something like this again. But I did. I had a really hard time with it. I had some days where I was pretty angry with God. It just didn't make any sense to me at all. Lots of tears were shed. But now our sweet little boy has a sibling by his side now. We have always wanted our kids to be close in age. The girls are 19 months apart and the boys are 16 months apart. We are praying that Preston has a buddy (girl or boy :) ) God even gave that to our little angel boy. What an awesome GOD!

Let's go to the Zoo! There's lots to see and do :)

Sunday morning Paul and I were cleaning up the kitchen mess and I mentioned it would be a great day for the zoo. We had a wonderful cool front blow through and our temps were only in the upper 70's and low 80's. Totally unusual for us this time of year. He immediately said yes which really surprised. On weekends we always try to stick around the house and "get things done". I think he knew I could use some time out of the house as well as the kids.

It was a perfect day. It had been raining the last 2 days but Sunday was sunny and clear. The animals were amazing. So many of them were right next to the fences. I think they were really enjoying the fresh cool air too. We were able to get some really cute pics.

Choices

Every day seems to be filled with choices. From the time I open my eyes in the morning until I tiredly close them at night, the amount of choices made is incredible. There are some choices that seem win win no matter what. Like sitting in the drive thru at Dairy Queen choosing between a Snickers' or M&M blizard. I mean seriously, there are no losers here. :) Other times it seems no matter which way you toss the coin, you're bound to lose.

This week I had to make the choice between having a surgical D&C to remove what was to have been our beloved Christmas baby or I can wait to naturally miscarry. On Friday we went in for our 8 week ultrasound. Our laughing and joking of how many babies would there be this time was quickly silenced by a very blank screen. I could feel my heart get heavy and my words though on the edge of my lips could not be spoken. My heart was crying out "not again, please not again". I knew what I was seeing but also knew I needed to ask to be sure. Oh how I didn't want to have to speak those words in fear of hearing the answer.
"It's not right is it?" I asked.
"No, when did you get your positive pregnancy test?"
"4 weeks ago"
"There is no baby. There is a yolk sac for the baby but that is all. I'm so sorry.:

My doctor started talking about why this happens but my head was spinning. It's like I could feel myself in that very moment when we knew we had lost Carter. A scenario so similar to this but so different. That feeling like you are watching someone else's nightmare unfold right before your eyes. So surreal.

So I was sent off for bloodwork which was to be followed up on Tuesday. Paul had already taken Friday as a vacation day to make a funfilled 4 day weekend. Tuesday seemes to be 48 hours long. Waiting and waiting for the phone call to give us the news we were dreading. Finally the call came and the news was not good. My HCG Friday was 14,XXX and Tuesday was 18,XXX. They should have at least doubled in that amount of time. I was heartbroken and numb.

I told the nurse that while my numbers are not what they should be, with them increasing at all I cannot go through with a D&C. So now I will have repeat bloodwork done next Tuesday and follow up with my dr. then. Where this road will lead, only God knows.

So now I am making the choice to trust. It's not only all I can do it's the best I can do. I can trust in the Lord with ALL of my HEART and lean NOT on my OWN understanding. Proverbs 3:5

I have always loved that verse and have sang it to myself in various situations in my life. Never has that verse been so real to me as it is now. As each day goes by I just pray for strength. Sometimes I let my head run away with thoughts of why. Why even let me get pregnancy if this was going to be the outcome? Why? Why? But, I am chosing to trust. In this life this may never ever make sense to me. I am just so blessed to be a child of God in the stormiest of days.