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!

My new love

I've needed a new camera for a long time. Ever since the unfortunate camera sitting episode. This isn't exactly my dream camera but it's the most I could stand to spend on something that I'm not very good at using. Once I've mastered this ( and it could be a while, the manual is 143 pages long and so far I can't take a picture off of auto) then I might splurge on something better.

Lately I've had some great things to take photos of so I'm getting a little frustrated that it's taking me so long to get the hang of this camera.

Last weekend Wayne and I went to a show.

Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy (Wayne's favorite). It was a really great show. Very funny. Honestly, anything would have been great considering it's been so long since we went out on a real date that I cannot remember the last time. We might have to make real dates a tradition.

While we were out Mahaley went to a dance with some friends.

Aren't they pretty girls!

Best of all, we got a new (to us) car!

I was really sick of my gas guzzling 12 passenger van with it's million and one "little repairs" so I was secretly glad when it finally kicked the bucket.
We had planned to get a more efficient 8 passenger minivan, but after driving around in my sister's van for a few days I knew that I could not live life as a sardine.
So now I am the proud owner of a not quite so gas guzzling Chevy Suburban. I bought it last weekend while it was 75 degrees and sunny. If it ever stops sleeting today I will take a couple of pictures of it.

We love mail!

My kids really do love mail, they fight over who gets to check the mailbox and if ever something arrives for one of them it is like Christmas morning. So you can imagine how excited they were when we got packages today.

Now imagine their dismay when it turned out to be school books and clothes.

The clothes were for Emma and Leah so they got over being disappointed pretty quickly.( well sort of, Leah still doesn't look too happy)

I got a great deal on these clothes at Lands End. Two pairs of jeans and four dresses and skirts. I got them all on clearance and then had an additional coupon for 30% off plus free shipping. I ended up getting the skirts for around $3.50. I love a good deal! When my girls were smaller they thought clearance was an actual store. They used to say " Mama, will you buy that for me at clearance".

Here are some cute pictures of my other girls:

Beautiful Betsy

Mahaley hates this pic, but I think she's adorable.

Rosie's "surprised" face, totally fake.

Emma's Birth Story

Emma had her birthday party over the weekend but today is her actual birthday.

Emma was due on January 10th, my midwife joked that maybe she would come early and we would get a 2000 New Years baby. Yeh right.
On January 24th I went to my regular appt. and told them that I could NOT carry around a two week old baby for one more day. My doc took pity on me and sent me over to the hospital. By 11:00 am I was hooked up to pitocin and on my way to being in labor. If I had known how long and hard contractions were with "the pit" I would have kept carrying around my two week old. By dinner time I was asking for drugs. They gave me an epidural, which never started working. By the time they realized the epidural catheter had come out and made plans to give me another one it was too late. I went from five centimeters to ten in 1 hr.
Emma Leann was born at 1:47 a.m., weighing 7lbs 6oz.
She came so fast that the doctor never got her gloves on, she covered her hands with her scrubs and caught Emma seconds before she would have ended up on the floor. Emma's entire face was bruised from the pressure of the quick entrance.
The thing I remember most is how amazed I was at how beautiful she was. I couldn't stop crying. I kept telling everyone in the room to "look at her, look how beautiful she is, look just look, can you believe how pretty she is".
 And she was. And she still is. And I can't believe how lucky I am to get to be her mama.

(And I'm really glad that she loves crab so that we get to have crab legs on her birthday.) Thanks baby

Things we love about Emma:

She has the biggest, prettiest eyes ever.
She is really sweet to Rosie and lets her play with her stuff.
She has a great witty sense of humor.
She makes charming miniature drawings.
She is very crafty, she makes awesome clay art and cool paintings.
She is really, really good at puzzles.
She loves to read.
She is talented at building with things like k.nex.

Nicknames we have for Emma:
Emmaboo
Miss Em
Emma jean
Emily ann
M
Boobaby

.

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated Emma's 11th birthday today! We had a simple birthday lunch of hot dogs, along with cupcakes and ice cream cake. Lots of friends and family came over. Emma got some great gifts including.....

Momo, the newest member of our family.

After the party we decided to have a "sleepover" night. All of the kids got to have a friend stay over. That means there are 11 kids in my house. It's going great, really it is. The Duggers have nothing on us. I could totally handle 19 kids:)