Stuff I've been doing

 I'm really tired. Too tired to think of a title obviously. Yesterday I went to the grocery store to buy the milk that I forgot the last time I went and I got stuff for spaghetti also, thats what I always make when I'm too tired to remember to thaw something out for dinner. Then when I got home I realized I forgot spaghetti noodles. I had nothing else that I could make and Mahaley's friend was coming over (NOT boyfriend, I am sticking by my firm belief that we do not need to do the boyfriend/girlfriend thing until the kids are ohh about 24, even though Mahaley will tell you she's already had about 8 different boyfriends...but I digress) and I had to feed them something. So I cooked up the spiral, colored noodles I bought ages ago for our "make a model an animal cell project" that we haven't yet gotten around to doing because I'm TIRED people. They were supposed to be mitochondria (look it up, those are important little buggers). Dried pasta doesn't go bad does it?
 Anyway dinner went fine although some little people complained about green noodles, I shut em up by covering them with grated parmesean, the noodles not the kids. Then I had to stay up until midnight to pick up Wayne from work because his truck quit. Is a new clutch expensive?
 Today I took Jamie to the orthodontist to get an estimate on braces. They had great news, Jamie has a "good bite" so he will only need brace for 18 to 24 months. The cost for that, $4700.00. I was not quite as thrilled as the dentist seemed to think I should be.
 I bought the kids frozen pizza and then took a nap when I got home, a long nap, apparently the good news wore me out.
 I've been cleaning out the kids bedrooms and rearranging them some. I'm one of those people who cannot clean anything without making it way worse first so I've spent days up to my ankles in "kid crap". I've made a resolution to declutter our house by half.  Today I finished one room and threw away four 30 gallon trashbags of things they'll never miss. Think they have too much stuff? I would give you a before picture but I'm afraid dfacs might use it against me in court. At this rate I might be done by summer.
 I'm going to bed now, have I mentioned that I'm tired?

P.I.N.

 Pregnancy induced narcolepsy. C. Jane writes about it here. Yeah, I have that. This week I have managed to forget girl scouts, Chris's doctor's appointment, Jamie's art class, dress up story time, and to start dinner, TWICE. I also forgot to sign the check for my water bill and they sent me a nasty letter and I still forgot to go give them a new one so tomorrow I will probably have no water. Every time I get still for ten seconds I fall asleep and then when I wake up I can't remember what time it is or what I'm supposed to do that day.
 On the plus side I'm almost through my first trimester and have had NO morning sickness at all! Yay!! This is a very big deal because I have often had such bad nausea that I have lost weight and generally have felt like I've been poisoned. With my first pregnancy I lost so much weight that I weighed less when I went into labor than I did when I got pregnant.

Here are a few cute pics I took last week when I could still stay awake till bedtime.

I was however too tired to say no to ice cream and a movie.

Guess who we met today?!

Here we grow again!  We are very excited to be having our 10th child, WOW!  Baby is growing great and is expected to arrive in late October. Of course our babies are always late so early November might be more realistic.

Welcome to the family!

My brother, Brandon, and his wife, Kristen, had a sweet baby girl!

Abigail

Brandon, Kristan, big brother Gavin and Abigail

Congratulations, thanks for adding such a pretty girl to the family!

An extra picture of Gavin, just because he's so cute.

Storm Of The Century

O.k. So not really, but we did have a big storm which caused a lot of damage in our area. Including this:

Some pine trees blew over and took out our utility pole and transformer. The power lines, cable and phone were ripped right out of the house. So we were without power, and then phone and internet for a while. The kids loved it. It was like camping at home they said. They got to eat Pop-Tarts (which I never buy) for breakfast and we grilled out. Then they got to play with flashlights after dark. What an adventure!

Happy Birthday Rosie!

Today my baby is TWO! I can't believe that her babyhood has gone by so quickly.

 Rosie was due around Valentine's day but my babies are notoriously latecomers. Sooo due to the fact that I usually deliver quickly and we now live very far away from the hospital I decided to be induced on February 26th. I got to the hospital early and was receiving pitocin and having contractions by noon. I got an epidural early so I was actually feeling really good most of the day. I had lots of people there, my mom, my sister, my cousin, and most of my kids. We talked and played Scrabble while I was in labor. By 5:30 I was ready to push and Madison Rose was born at 6:01 pm, she weighed 7lbs 4 oz. She had big chocolate brown eyes and lots of dark hair. She was perfect.

Although Rosie seemed healthy I knew that she didn't look quite like my other babies (who all looked alike) and she wasn't nursing like I expected her to. I wasn't surprised when the pediatrician came from the nursery to tell me that she had a cleft palate that would need to be repaired. The hospital gave me almost no information and sent us home the next day with a baby who wasn't eating. Once we were home I knew right away that she wasn't able to nurse and she couldn't suck from a bottle. Babies with a cleft have no suction. I cut a large hole into the nipple on a bottle and squeezed expressed milk into her mouth. We went home on the weekend and as soon as I could I made an appointment to take her the craniofacial team at our closest children's hospital.  It was a long few days. She was hungry, she had a stomach ache from swallowing a lot of air, and she couldn't lay flat on her back and still breathe well.

 Rosie's cleft palate team turned out to be great. They explained that her jaw was very recessed which probably caused the palate not to close properly (pierre-robin sequence) although we would have to do genetic testing to rule out some possible syndromes. The small jaw and cleft caused her tongue to block her airway, affected her ears drainage and kept her from sucking. They gave us special bottles (Haberman feeders) to feed her which was our immediate concern.

 Over a year's treatment Rosie had jaw distraction surgery to lengthen her jaw and improve her breathing, ear tube surgery, distraction removal and jaw stabilization surgery, and a cleft palate repair. She was on a high calorie formula to help with her slow weight gain. She now has speech therapy.



Rosie with her distractors in place



 Rosie was and is the best natured baby I have ever seen,.She is very laid back and happy, she rarely cries. She has a very smart sense of humor and she loves to do silly things. She loves her baby dolls and her paci and she has a great imagination. She often pretends things like a much older child.

 Rosie loves to sleep, if she's tired in the mornings she'll ask to go back to bed. She likes to arrange her crib just right with certain animals and all of her little blankets.

Rosie is a joy to have around, she loves to be entertaining. She has a great little grin, a cute dimple in her chin and the MOST gorgeous hair I've ever seen.

Nicknames we call our little girl:

Maddy
Maddy bug
Rosie
Rosie posie

Pebbles

Being Silly

Happy Girl

Our Life, In Pictures

We've been:

Daddy's gifts for his girls

Jamie's waffles (made with his gift)

Enjoying some Valentines treats

Betsy

Rosie

Enjoying the great weather

Beth's abstract art

Storytime clown art

Enjoying art class

Emma and cousin Jace

Mahaley and Michael

Sydney

Mahaley and Jace

Enjoying friends and family


Not enjoying dentist visits, colds, doctors visits, and car repairs.

Jamie's new do

 I hate to tell my kids how they can wear their hair but........

Jamie's hair has kind of taken on a life of its own. It's very thick and wavy and a little crazy.  I think he was going for a Wolverine look.

So I finally convinced him to tone it down a bit. So...

                                                            

                                                                        Before

During

And after

I think he looks very handsome!

Growing and growing

I took Miss Em for her 11 yr checkup yesterday. The kid is huge. I'm not kidding, she is in the 99th percentile on the growth charts. At 5'2" she is only 3 inches shorter than me. At this rate by adulthood she could top six feet. Definitely model material!

 The other kids have gotten in on the growing action too. Jamie and Beth have grown an inch in a month and Leah and Rosie have grown two inches each. I think I should stop feeding these kids miracle grow.




Leah



Beth

 

Rosie




Mahaley



Jamie

Books and art and cards and friends

We went to the library and stopped for lunch:

Emma and Leah started a new art class:

Leah's art

We made valentines:

We had friends over:

And Jamie bowled 285 in his bowling meet. WOW!