Holy Toledo Batman, It's December!

Where did the year go? Seriously, it was this time last year when we found out we were pregnant. Jason had just been laid off and the blessing of the pregnancy was lost in the worry over finacnes and the holidays and the worry of another miscarriage and all of that. Now, we have 2 gorgeous babies to share the holiday with. The money worries are still there. Jason is working again, but for less money and less hours and my child support was cut in 1/2 because my ex lost his job too. We're making it through with help from family and friends and by continuing to believe that tomorrow is always worth going through what today has given us.

This past year has taught me something about pride and thankfulness. About swallowing pride and accepting the help and love that others want to give you when they see that you need it. Humans are a community animal. We need and thrive with others around. It stands to reason that we have it built in to us to offer help and hope and caring when we see that those around us are in need of it. Pride tends to make us say no to those offers. "Oh, we're fine, we don't need that" when in fact we do. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is simply say "Thank you, I appreciate that, it really does help."

The twins have taught me so much about accepting help. I'll be the first to admit that I simply can not care for 2 young babies by myself. Very often they will both need something at the same time and I'm only one person. Or I'll be busy taking care of Izzy or working with one of the other kids and one or both babies will need something. I will say I'm glad that the twins were our grand finale and not the 1st act. I think it makes it less intimidating. If I were not willing to accept help, I'd honestly never sleep. I'm not sure when I would eat or use the bathroom either. And the older kids would run the streets for lack of supervision and parenting.

I have a lot of pics to post that were taken toward the end of November. I got in to a bit of a depressive funk and I just didn't do much of anything than goof off on facebook or one of the message boards I belong too. I was also trying to spend less time on the computer. All the reminders of Christmas and how we just wouldn't be able to do anything for the kids were just too hurtful. Hurtful to that pride. To my sense of responsibility.

Jason figured out how to have Christmas for the kids AND be able to pay the bills and to those helping us with that, thank you. I don't know when we'll be able to repay you, but I want you to know it is appreciated. I told everyone in my family back in October that if it can't be made at home, it's not being a gift this year. I'm sticking to that statement. We have a lot of stuff around here that can be made in to some really great gifts. Homeschool for the next couple of weeks will be focusing on that.

With this being a predominantly Christian holiday I struggle to find the meaning for myself in all of it. For us, it's not the celebration of a past religious leader. Unfortunately, I alson don't know what it IS. Many people have suggested finding the "reason for the season". I want to share with my children the reason. For it to have more meaning than just going and "being beggars" to our family members as I so crudely put it a couple of weeks ago (in a conversation with Jason). I want to discover why it is that WE give gifts to the children. What makes it special for us.

I don't want the kids to grow up as godless heathens with no belief system. The belief system is part of the conscience. After all, it's part of the right/wrong thinking. This country (being the United States) was founded on the Christian belief system. I find many of the teachings are good and sound. Those also happen to be the teachings that overlap with other religions. My difficulties have always come about when it means excluding others because of differences, however that is another post for a different day.

I believe in a higher power. Not specifically male or female, but I think both. I don't think just male or female alone can create equality, it needs to be both, and not necessarily in the same "being". I believe that you accept others for who they are, no matter how different it is from yourself. Differences can be good, but should also be looked at as positives, not negatives. My prejudices are close mindedness and self induced stupidity. You can be anyone from anywhere having lived any life to posess those qualities. I will admit to having the standard "American" pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality. I firmly believe that if you want to do it, you CAN do it.

How does all of that convey in to a season that is presented as one of greed and self centeredness? Why do I have a sense of guilt for not being able to provide presents for under our tree what I believe doesn't even follow those same lines? How can I teach my children the meaning of the season, the magic of it all, when I just don't see it myself? My children know there is no Santa. They've always known that. I've never carried out that myth. The same with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I don't remember believing in those as a child. I don't remember them as magical and fun filled.

I do know my mom arranged to have our presents put under our tree while we were snowed in 2 hours south at my Grandpa's house. To this day, she STILL won't tell us how she did it. I was about 6 when she did it. She left a note under Grandpa's tree, in her handwriting (I knew it was her's, she tried to pass it off as "Mrs. Claus" writes all of Santa's notes) that our gifts were waiting, and they were. Every way that I've guessed that she could have done it she denies. Is that the magic? I think of it more like a riddle or a puzzle needing to be solved.

I understand why people have faith when times are difficult. It helps to have the belief that somehow you will get through. That the prayer will bring you the answer. I think all of that, but I don't credit it to a higher power. The credit is for those who are doing the living, not those who do the observing. I am the one waking each day and making the best of the day that I can. Some days are more trying than others for various reasons, but at the end of it, when I go to bed, I know I tried my best with what I was dealt. I'm always thankful for another chance to do it again.

So is there a point to this long ramble? I suppose so. It's to say thank you to all of you who have helped us in the past year especially, and continue to do so. It's to say that accepting help is a hard pill to swallow because pride gets in the way. It's to say I need to find a reason for the season so that I have some kind of belief to give to my children. I think they need the direction as much as I do.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm hoping that you all have your reasons for the season and are able to swallow the help pill without pride choking you up.

Entered a Contest

I entered a contest that a mom from a large family board (Lots of Kids, look in the sidebar over -> ) and I said I'd post a link to it here. So here it is, from me to her. Blessed with Seven

Have a great rest of the week everyone. I have some pics of James coming up and the ones of the babies in their costumes that I still need to edit.

Stat Counter and Back Dated Posts

I'd like to start using a more specific stat counter. Right now I have SiteMeter which tells me how many people come here weekly, and breaks it down by day and hour. However, I'd like to have one that tells me HOW the people came here. I've tried googling it (just think, 10 years ago, googling definately was NOT the verb that it is now) and I wasn't having much luck. Can any of you, faithful readers, tell me which way to go?

Also, I've added some backdated posts for the month of October. They all include pics, so you may want to go a searching! You can just click "October" over on the sidebar menu that has my blog history and they will all pop up for you. There are quite a few pics so give it a moment to load correctly.

I was wondering something. I recently got a personalize font from Sugar Frog Fonts and I was thinking about how cool it would be to have that as my default font for my blog. So I'm wondering if anyone out there knows if I can do that? And if I can, how do I do that?

Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope you have a wonderful day!

Update on Jason's Dream

Today, it's been bugging me, so I asked Jason what the zombies were using to pay for their brains with. Without a beat he says "Credit cards."

" You didn't even have to think about that."

"Nope. Zombies aren't any good with cash. Well, they aren't any good with credit cards either, they keep swiping them the wrong way." Jason then shows me how the zombies kept swiping the cards the wrong way and grunting in frustration.

"Huh. You are SO strange."

"Yep, and you married me."

Enjoy your day everyone. I have new pics of the babies, some candids of James and Izzy, and some great posed fall shots of Jayden to edit and post in the next week.

Jayden

I bought Jayden a new outfit. She was so anxious to wear it that she put it on as soon as I got home. Jason had the day off and it was a gorgeous warm fall day that I had him take the camera out and get some shots of Jayden. She was more than willing to play along. After all, she got attention from Daddy all by herself AND she got to have her picture taken!

Being my daughter, she found herself very funny and getting a serious or simple smile from her is not an easy thing. Jason took a couple of hundred pics, and no I'm not kidding, and these 16 are definately the cream of the crop. I will admit that it was difficult to narrow it down to these.

The backdrop is our back yard. Instead of raking all of our leaves to the curb to be taken away we are piling them all over the yard where we want them to mulch down. This is a big pile of them in the back corner of the yard. Jason had her standing to begin with. When I went out to check on the progress, I had Jayden sit down. To begin with she just wanted to lay in the leaves. By tossing them at her we got her to loosen up a bit and be more animated, though she was rather concerned about her earrings.

Enjoy Jayden and all her silly and pretty glory. As she gets older I can see that she will indeed be a looker and I'm going to have my hands full with a child who is so, well, so much me.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you all have had some decent fall weather before the winter hits.

Jason's Halloween Dream

I'm still laughing so hard from this, so I had to share.

Let me set up the scenario. Jason is home from work. I'm laying on our bed, trying SO hard to read (currently reading "Julie and Julia") and relax. Jason is trying to organize dishes so he can wash them. However, he keeps coming in to the room and talking to me. Our bedroom is directly off of the kitchen. It's an old house and the way the rooms are set up really doesn't make much sense in a "modern" way of thinking.

Keep in mind, I love that we can talk, especially after all the kids are in bed. We haven't had much time lately to do that. I have a headache from Izzy dumping out a 1/3 of a bottle of rubbing alcohol on the carpet. The only way to clean that stuff up is to just let it evaporate. The kids have been rather "trying" today. I'm tired and sleep deprived. My sleep schedule is still really screwed up because even though the babies are now sleeping in 8 hour blocks at night, I'm still stuck on the awake all night thing.

So here Jason is, interupting my relaxing reading. I've read the same line, not even the same paragraph, the same line 4 times. Jason walks in again and says "Did I tell you about my zombie dream?" This is an unusual statement for a couple of reasons. Aside from the obvious one of it being a dream about zombies, it's a dream that Jason actually remembers. He knows he must dream, because everyone does, but he very rarely remembers what he dreamt.

"I'm afraid to ask, but no, you didn't. Zombies, really?"

"Yeah, zombies. In the dream, it was the night before Halloween and I was watching President Obama on the news. It was a big splay up on Yahoo. He was telling everyone to stay home and lock the doors and board up windows and do all that usual zombie preparedness stuff."

I interupt him and say "Why do they always tell you to stay home and lock the house down? The zombies always break in to the houses."

"Yeah, I know. Anyway, THEN some Wal-Mart guy comes on and says that they are so dedicated to their customers that they are going to stay open! So I have to go in to work"

"That doesn't surprise me ONE bit."

"Nope, me neither. I go in and by some miracle, Wal-Mart as secured a shipment of brains because that is what the zombies keep saying they are after. Now these aren't fresh brains, but brains in a can, like a spam can. It has a picture of a brain on it and says "BRAINS" across the side. And they are all expired. So I'm helping unload this truck at work full of brains."

"Wal-Mart got brains?"

"Yeah. So we set up this huge display of brains. And here come the zombies. They are all saying "Brrraaaaiiinssss" and just keep coming". While Jason is telling me about what the zombies are saying, he's walking in a little circle showing me how the zombies are stiffly walking in to Wal-Mart. "One zombie has a gimp leg and gets on the Amigo and uses that while driving it around saying "Brrraaaiiinnssss". He smashes in to a display and things go falling everywhere!"

"He gets on the cart?"

"Yep. One zombie comes up to me and grabs me by the shirt and breathes right in my face "BRRRRAAAAAIIIINNNNSSSSS" and I say "Oh yes sir, we have those right over here" and I start walking over to the big display of the brains with the zombie following right behind."

"Huh"

"So then the zombies are trying to use the self check out, and THAT didn't go well AT ALL. They just couldn't get it to work right."

"Um, so not only did Wal-Mart get a magic shipment of brains, and the zombies behaved in the store, but the zombies were trying to PAY for their brains?" I'm laughing pretty hard at this point, absolutely boggled by the thoughts churning through my husband's head.

"Yeah, but that's not the weirdest part. So after all of that, the zombies write a letter to Wal-Mart, complete with pictures, thanking Wal-Mart for serving them so well."

Uh, yeah. By the end, I'm laughing so hard, I just got right out of bed, leaving my book, and wrote this all down before I forgot it.

Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope that you all can find something as amusing in your day as I did.

Back Dated Posts

Over the next couple of days, as a distraction from the love making I should be doing with my sewing machine, I'll be putting up some back dated posts for this month. I have a talking post about an author, and a couple of pic posts. Just an fyi so you may want to go back and take a look see. I'll update this post when I've added the backdated ones.

And the sewing machine thing, it's 2 days from Halloween and I have costumes to make. Should be self explanatory, no?

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you have a great Halloween.

James and Izzy

Just a few quick pics of James and Izzy. On the same day I was taking the pics of Jack and Abbey the boys were very interested in what I was doing so I took some quick shots of each of them. I haven't posted pics of them in a while so here they are.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you have a great weekend!

3 Months Old!

How is it possible that Abbey and Jack are now 3 months old? Where did the time go?

They are both cooing and trying to talk to you. Jack has kind of discovered his hands. Sometimes I'll see him sitting in a bouncy seat just staring at them. The other day he accidently poked himself in the eye. It was amusing because the look on his face after he did it said "Hey, how did THAT happen?"

Both of them are trying to giggle on occassion. Abbey REALLY loves to watch people. Jack is happy to lay on the play mat looking up at the toys, however Abbey would rather be sitting in the bouncy where she can easily watch everyone and everything that is going on. At their 2 month appointment, which was late I admit, however it was the 1st appointment that was available for the both of them at the same time, which was on October 21, Jack was 11 pounds 8 oz and Abbey was 8 pounds 12 oz.

While Jack occassionally sucks on his thumb, Abbey is a die hard thumb/finger sucker. She refuses to take a pacifier at all now, wanting only her thumb and first finger. She will shove the pacifier out of her mouth to suck on her hand like that. I was hoping to avoid that because it is so much easier to get rid of the sucky than it is to stop the sucking of a hand.

These pictures were done shortly before they turned 3 months old, but it's close enough for me.















Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope that you all have a great weekend and a wonderful holiday on Saturday.

Blue

Over at The Women's Colony, we are talking about BLUE. We are supposed to take pics of all things blue and share. Well here in Serial Land what always comes to mind when I think blue is 2 pair of blue eyes.

First up we have the ice blue of Jayden's eyes. Before her, I'd never seen eyes like this. They are gorgeous in my humble and rather biased opinion.




Secondly, we have Jack's baby blues. I get the impression that they may "ice over" like Jayden's, but it's still a little too early to tell for sure.




Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful week. And do tell, what does blue look like to you?

Trip to Grandpa's

Yes, I know the post is post dated, however I like it when it fits right in where it is supposed to. Not to mention, I'm a little busy and editing photos and posting them usually doesn't happen in a timely manner.

Anyway. My mom picked Jayden, the babies, and me up and brought us down to see my grandpa. She was going down anyway and Jason happened to have the day off so someone could sit with James and Izzy. Originally Jayden was going to stay home too, however Mom asked if she could come so that someone could sit in the back with the babies to help with bottles and pacifiers while we were on the road. I brought Katy's portable DVD player to keep Jayden company while we were at Grandpa's.

Grandpa's house is about an hour and a half or so from my place. It's a straight shot down, so that is helpful at least. I knitted while Mom drove. It kept my hands occupied and still allowed me to engage in idle conversation. I'd never experienced "Hands Free" for the cell phone before, that was pretty cool. Mom recently got a new car. It's nice. I forget what kind it is though, a Subaru of some sort or another. She got a great deal on it with her trade in of her old car and the "Cash for Clunkers" program and a discount from her credit union.

I asked Jason to take a some pics of Jack and Abbey before we went down to document their cute coordinating outfits. I always swored I'd never do anything so "corny" as coordinating outfits for the twins. Well, that was until I actually HAD twins. Go figure.





I didn't take many pics while at Grandpa's house. You'll notice that the babies aren't wearing their green shirts in the pics. It was 82 in Grandpa's house. Yep, 82 INSIDE. I know that because next to Grandpa's chair was one of those digital thermometers and that is what it said. UGH. To say it was stifiling is an understatement. Mom picked up deli fried chicken and sides for lunch, which was nice. When we go to see Jason's grandpa, I cook for the guys. Mom said that they prefer the premade stuff like KFC, so I'm all for that!



Jack is named for my grandpa, as his name is Jack (which I'm sure I've explained in at least one previous post). The twins also have Grandpa's birthday. He'd been asking my mom when he would be able to see them. Jason and I had planned on going down at some point on our own, we just didn't know when, so it worked that Mom brought me down.



Grandma Jackie is Grandpa's 3rd wife. He has burried the last 2. My mom's mom passed within a year before I was born, I'm never certain on the dates. The Grandma I grew up with, that Grandpa married within a year of Grandma's passing, was my mom's step-mom and she passed when I was pregnant with Jayden. Grandpa married later that year, about 6-7 months later. My mom says that my grandpa is a man that can't be alone. He's 90 now, so understanding what I do about the era he grew up in, it makes sense to me.



Mom absolutely adores the babies. It seems that she is particularly taken with Abbey, though she is very tickled at Jack being named for her dad, and them sharing a birthday. I think part of it is that she realizes that these very well could be her last grandbabies. I'm not having any more kids, and the way things are going, neither are any of my siblings, step or otherwise. So after these two, it's a waiting game for great-grandbabies for her. Honestly, being the mother of the oldest grandchildren as well as the youngest, I'm certainly hoping that those great-grandbabies of hers hold off for quite some time because I certainly am not ready for that!



Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you all have wonderful weeks. Remember to enjoy and cherish everyone in your family, from the oldest to the youngest.

Just Jack!

Yep, I know. I loved Will & Grace when it was on T.V and every time someone says "Just Jack" when talking about my Jack, I think of the show. Here he is, as a few days past 2 months old. You can watch as he falls asleep. There are a lot more of the yawning pics, but I didn't edit those for one reason or another.





















Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful week. After looking at the sleeping baby, I think I need a nap!

Gratuitous Abbey

It's that simple. I don't have much time to sit and write well organized thoughts. It's just the nature of the beast at the moment. I'm taking a minute while I'm waiting for Jayden to finish drying the dishes to put this post up. Enjoy!