On a Winters day

Cade & I got out of the house yesterday for a little "date". *insert angels singing from the heavens here*   "MIRACLE!"  (A big shout out to my father-in-law & mother-in-law for tending the kids for a few hours.)  We went up past Apple Valley and tried to traverse some muddy dirt roads in our 2wd Suburban -not such a good idea.  Luckily we didn't get stuck (this time), but we had to turn around at one point, and we weren't able to go the exact location that Cade had in mind.  It was still a nice time though, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous!

We were attempting to go up by Dutton Pass (don't ask me - no idea where it is, or why we were trying to go there), but ended up somewhere west of it by maybe 3 miles.  Cade was having a grand time thinking that we were in a small Jeep.  I think that he thinks that "the beast" can do anything a small four wheel drive vehicle can do. Not so.  We were skidding all over the place, sliding in the mud & snow.  It was nuts.  So what does he do when we start getting stuck in some mud?  He reverses, making me think that we are going to turn around and head back, but no, we're not turning around!  He guns it, and we go flying through the mud, sending showers of the red stuff everywhere!  (Ethen had a good time kicking the mud off of the mud flaps this afternoon. lol!)  It's a small miracle that we didn't get stuck...and it would not have been the first time that we had done so. 

We hiked around, saw a lot of rocks, some footprints of a little bobcat maybe, and even spotted a few arrowheads.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous!  There was a bit of snow on the ground (mostly on the north side of the hills, or behind the shadows of brush), but it was probably close to 60 degrees.  I only wore a t-shirt & a jacket, and actually ended up taking my jacket off, because I was too warm. 

I'm so lucky that I have an awesome husband that thinks of cool places to go explore!  I love hiking around our beautiful part of the country with him.  <3 

 Cade & Calum

At it again.

I see that it's been almost an entire year since the last time I blogged.  I've decided that I need to get back on the wagon, so here I am...  I will try to be better, but I'm not going to commit to too much.  lol  When you have eight kids, a husband, a puppy and are a student, you'll understand why I'm reluctant to commit. 

A few days ago we took the kids out to "hunt" for dinosaur tracks at Warner Valley (if you want to know more, go here, and there is even a map: http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/st__george/more/heritage_resources/public_use_sites/warner_valley_dinosaur.html )
The kids thought it was pretty cool, for like 5 minutes, and then they were over it. We took the puppy, Vespa, and I'm fairly certain that she had a more enjoyable time than any of us!  Well, I take that back.  Vespa and Calum had the most enjoyable time.  Calum will sit in his little pack on Cade's back all day, just chillin'.  He loves it.   I love being out of the house, hiking (or when you're with kids, I prefer to just call it "kicking up dirt", because there really is no hiking involved), and enjoying each others sillyness.

Roxie's foot in the dinosaur footprint

See, doesn't Vespa look thrilled?  :)
 

The Birth Story

Don't give me a hard time!  I know Calum is 10 weeks old today, but geesh, between a new baby, 7 kids, school, and Cade ;) I have a lot on my plate!  I usually feel that if I have time to blog, I should probably be doing school work instead! 

Alright, so it starts like 2 weeks prior to January 20th.  I'm having pretty consistent contractions throughout these 2 weeks, and they were totally playing games with me.  Sometimes they would come every 5 minutes apart, then they'd slow down to 15 minutes apart, and then I would go to bed and they wouldn't be anything to make note of. 

36 weeks the doctor does his first exam.  At this point I'm already 4+ centimeters dialated and 70% effaced!  My doctor lets me know that he would be more than happy to induce me at any time (he was ultra worried about my kidneys because of all the problems I had during the pregnancy), but I declined.  I had 4 other babies completely natural, and I wasn't going to do this last one any differently. 

I head home from the OB appointment, with hard contractions, thinking that for sure this would be the day I would have a baby.  That's what happened with Roxie, I had an exam and it helped labor along, by the next morning, Roxie was born.  Well, that didn't happen with Calum!  Of course! Because why would two births EVER be similar?!  I went home with hard contractions coming 5 minutes apart...all night....until midnight.  And then they just stopped.  And I went to sleep. 

The next week goes by with the same ritual, contractions happening regularly, but not enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.  Cade and I were having more "relations" than we have had during the whole pregnancy, trying to get this thing moving along.  We even took a bouncy suburban ride up to the "H", and if you're a local, you know what I'm talking about when I say, "bouncy."  Nothing worked. 

My next doctors visit I'm 37 weeks.  He checks me, and I'm 5+ centimeters dialated and 80% effaced.  How can I possibly have those two numbers (5+ and 80%) and NOT be in labor?!?  UGH - I was getting so frustrated!  Again he suggested induction, and I declined.  At this point he informs we that he was going out of town on Friday, and wouldn't be back until Monday.  It was currently Wednesday.   :(    So basically, I have to have the baby that night or Thursday, or else I would have to wait until Monday.  Talk about stressful!  This OB has delivered all of my babies.  I trust him with my life.  I don't want someone else to do the job!  He tells me that if I want, he will give me just a bit of pitocin to get my contractions more regular, and then maybe I won't need anymore, and I can do the rest without the pit.  I have until Thursday around noon to decide.  In the meantime, he stripped my membranes to see if that would do the trick. 

I went home and mulled my choices over - to be induced, or to not be induced?  Cade and I kind of went to bed thinking that if the baby didn't come by the next day, I would go get induced....but I really didn't want to.  I should also mention here, that earlier in my pregnancy I had got some pretty intense contractions by eating horseradish on my prime rib.   Sooooo, I made Cade make me some steak with horseradish that night!  ;)  I was trying my hardest to eat that stuff like candy.  Even after my steak was gone, I was dipping my fork into the horseradish and licking it off.  Hey, what can I say? Desperate times, call for desperate measures! 

Luckily, that decision never had to be finalized!  :)  I woke up around 3:30am with some pretty intense contractions, and I just knew.  I got up and dinked around the house, cleaning up some last minute things, getting all the kids clothes ready for school for later that morning, finished packing my hospital bag.  At approximately 4:15, I woke Cade up and told him it was time to go.  He made some weird guttaral sound, abruptly sat up in bed with this very odd look on his face like I'd just slapped him or something, and asked if I was serious.  No, I always wake people up at 4 in the morning to tell them I'm going to have a baby...   While I'm waiting for him to get ready, I go fold some laundry that was waiting for me in the dryer.  15 minutes later, I go in the bedroom, and Cade's STILL in bed!!!  sleeping!  At that point I'm like, "Am I going to the hospital by myself, or what?"  He jumps out of bed, and what does he do?  Get's in the shower!  Nerd.  As I'm getting things all set to go, and he's in the shower talking to me about this & that, I finally said to him, "honey, these suckers are coming about 4 minutes apart.  You might want to hurry."  I guess that's what it took for him, because from that point on, he was in psycho mode - he hurried to get dressed, and then, on the way to the hospital, I couldn't get the man to lift his foot off the gas pedal even slightly! 

We finally got to the hospital around 5:30am.  The nurse checked me, and let me know that she could break my water with her finger nail, it was so thin.  She immediately called my OB, and escorted me to the delivery room.  Shortly after that, the doctor showed up.  We joked a minute about how he could go out of town now, and then he broke my water.  (Something about my births that has been the same:  the OB has always had to break my water, but a baby has always come out within 20 minutes of doing so. always.)  The OB puts his water-proof jacket thingy on (see picture, lol), gets his utensils ready, fidgets around for a few more minutes, turns around and tells me to push.  2 pushes, and the loudest screams I've ever screamed (and I'm a birthing screamer) and we had a beautiful baby boy!  He was born at 6:22am on January 20th, 2011.  He weighed 8 pounds and 9 ounces and he was 20 inches long.

So ladies, if you ever want that baby to come out, eat some horseradish! 

Eight kids will do that to you...

If you have 8 kids, you know what I'm talking about. Oh what, you don't have 8 kids? That's right, I'm right up there with that 18 (or whatever number of kids she has now) Kids and Counting lady...NO ONE has 8 kids, unless you're that lady or you're from a family of polygamists...well, except ME.

I'll give you an idea of what it's like to have 8 kids.
Imagine you're taking a shower. You crank the knob as hot as you can handle, because that's the closest thing you're going to get to a day at the spa (you can't actually leave the house, because who wants to watch 8 kids?!). Just as you are getting relaxed, some snot-nosed kid comes pounding on the bathroom door, "Mmmmm, sss--httt-eee!" You yell back, "I'm in the shower, I can't hear you!" The child says it again, and this time you just decide to ignore the pest like a fly that won't go away, and hope for the best.

Just as you start washing your hair, you hear some banging on the wall. No, this time it's not the door, it's the actual wall. Probably some child trying to get away from the bully child. (Every family of 8 simply MUST have at least 1 bully, I'm quite sure. I know ours does, but I won't say which child that is - you'll have to figure that out for yourself.) Once again you yell, "Quit busting down the dang walls!" and hope that they might actually have heard you. The banging continues. Guess they didn't hear after all.

As you come to realize that your "day at the spa" isn't quite going how you planned, you turn the water off, wrap a towel around your hair, and just as you're wrapping your robe around you, some lovely little child comes barging through the bathroom door stating how badly they need to use the toilet and when you ask why they can't use their own, they act completely offended that you would even ask and respond with, "because so & so is in our bathroom and they're taking forEVER!"

So you want to take a bathroom break? Nope. You better wait until the very last minute, when you're either going to wet your pants, or do "#2" in your pants, because you get exactly 1 minute, or less, to sit down, do the job, wipe, flush and wash your hands. If you don't do it in 1 minute, some little kid will come running in to see what you're doing. It never fails. As a mother of 8, you are not allowed to have more than one minute alone. Not allowed!

Let's see....how else can I describe being the mother of eight? Ah yes, intimate relations. They don't exist. The time is never right- ask Cade. haha :x ...which, considering that we have 8 kids, it's probably a good thing that the time is never right. It's like a really good form of birth control. You either have a crying baby, a child that cracked his or her head open, or the kids won't quit banging on the door (see previous paragraph about not having more than 1 minute alone). Even if you try to do "it" at night, chances are that atleast one of your kids will come in crying for some reason. It could be anything- crying, fell out bed, bad dream, threw up in their sleep - take your pick. It's always something!

Mealtimes! It's more like a crazy food frenzy than an actual meal time. You get each of the kids food dished onto their plates, bless the food and then it begins! The very minute that you think you might get to shovel a spoonful of food into your mouth, a child asks for more chicken nuggets. After you give them a few more, you sit down to resume your attempt at eating dinner, and immediately, immediately, another child asks for more chicken. Why they can't ask you for chicken nuggets when their sibling did is beyond me, but this ritual never fails. Soooo, you get up and give them some more chicken nuggets. Then another child needs more milk, another needs more peas, another needs some bread, another just spilled their milk, and so on and so forth. This process just keeps repeating itself until mealtime ends. I've pretty much given up even eating with the children, except on rare occasions.

And what do you do before mealtime? You wash your hands! We have 2 bathrooms in this house. One is mine & Cades, the other is the kids. That's right, eight kids share one bathroom. We actually had to make bathroom rules. Rule #1: One kid in the bathroom at a time. Rule #2: Stand in a line against the wall outside of the bathroom until it is your turn. Rule #3: If you have to pee, and it's meal time, you go to the end of the line so that every other kid doesn't have to wait for you. We have one specific child that thinks the bathroom is her sanctuary. She will spend a good 15 minutes in there if you let her. I don't know exactly what she's doing in there, but she sings while she does it. Everyone else will be standing against the wall, waiting to wash their hands, and she's in there humming a tune. Hence, rule #3.

That is the what eight kids will do to you. It's done it to me, and I wouldn't trade it for the world....but a nap would be nice. ;)

The life of a Nurse-Maid

There has been so much illness going around this town lately, and unfortunately we haven't been immune to it. :/
So the other day my lovely sister-in-law was asking, via facebook, how we were doing, because as of today, we've had the Influenza B virus in our house for three (yes, I said THREE) weeks! As I was typing out my response to her, I saw how absolutely absurd it looked! I must be crazy, truly. I've copy & pasted my response to her, so that you can see how absolutely crazy I really am:

"Well, Roxie didn't run a fever for over 24 hours, so I thought she was better. Sent her to ballet, she ate lunch, went down for a nap and when she woke up it was back to 102. :(

Calum isn't running a fever anymore, but has been throwing up and pretty crabby.

Colby started running a low grade fever today and woke up with the cough/congestion.

Asher, Cailin & Kelly are on the mend. Today was Cailin & Ashers 1st day back to school, so they are beat - it wore them out. Kelly went back to school yesterday, and Ethen is back to his normal self.

Sorry you asked? lol

I forgot Tajia! lol She's fine. ***knock on wood***

And as a self-professed germaphobe, I'm numb. After 2 1/2 weeks of this crap, I don't even care about the germs anymore. Let's make Tajia get it, and get it over with already!
I've gone through 2 containers of disinfectant wipes & almost a whole bottle of lysol spray. lol Not to mention the other household cleaners. And paper towels! I haven't been using hand towels, because with 8 kids, I'm sure they're harboring all sorts of lovely germs, so we've gone through countless rolls of paper towels. Good thing I buy them at costco. ;) "

Crazy enough for you? It's now been confirmed.

And I realized that along with the paper towels, disinfectant wipes and lysol spray, I've also made more Jell-0 (did you know they make pineapple flavor, as well as strawberry banana? ya, they have quite the variety), Ramen noodles and toast than I have in my entire life, and that is no lie!

There was one day last week when I was sick, and I had 4 sick kids. Needless to say, I cried that day. hahaha I also cried last Monday when Calum started running a fever. It was 100.4 and these sweet little babies are supposed to head to the doctor the minute it reaches 100.2. I was devastated. I tried so hard to not get this little babe sick, and all my efforts were a big fail. Luckily, thanks to the gift of the priesthood power, my wee one never got it as bad as some of the others. He had a fever Monday and Tuesday, he was throwing up on Wednesday and by Thursday he was back to his sweet little self. He never even got the congestion and cough that the rest of us had!

We're still waiting for Tajia to get it. So far, somehow, she has managed to evade it. I honestly don't know how, as she shares a room with three other little girls and those three other girls are a bundling mess of coughs, snot & lovely little germs. She must have an immune system of steel.

It's that time again...time to blog, that is!

Cade has all but 2 kids watching Indiana Jones, so I have a free minute or two to do some much needed blogging.

I got to have another vacation at the hospital the Sunday night after Thanksgiving. This is horrible, but it really is sort of a vacation for me. No kids to look after, no house to clean up, drugs to take away all thoughts of everything that needs done at home...maybe this is the Lord's way of telling me to chill out and take it easy! lol! It's just too bad that I have to be in so much pain while I'm laid up in the hospital. Not to mention that their beds aren't very comfy. ;)

So, the day I'm being released from the hospital, the DCFS caseworker calls me. Of course, I was coming down from a morphine high so I didn't answer, but I did call her back just as soon as I felt I was coherent enough to understand atleast some of what she was saying.

Can I just say, this caseworker is awesome. She really is. I've had minimal issues with her from the moment we took these kiddos in 7 months ago. Caseworkers generally get a bad rap, but I'm glad that we had the opportunity to deal with this one.

Okay, so back to my story. I called the caseworker back and she informs me that the Attorney General feels it would be good for Cade & I, or atleast one of us, to be at mediation Wednesday morning. EEK! I can't even begin to tell you how nervous I was about this. Initially we were told it was not necessary for us to be there, and now I was going to have to go alone (Cade had to work) and face my Brother-in-law, the kids' mother, and their lawyers.

Oddly enough, things didn't go how I had planned. At all. I was sweating bullets, literally, as I went into the mediation room. Then when I get as comfortable as is possible under the circumstances, the mediator asks me how Cade & I would feel about the parents remaining in contact with their children if we were give permanent custody. uhhhhhhhh...not exactly the line of questioning I thought was going to occur.

SO, after much ado, and going before the lawyer last Thursday morning, we are now officially the parents of 8 children. :)

I'm so grateful for the Lord in my life. I truly know that he looks after me and my family. After years of praying for these kids' safety and well-being we can finally know that they ARE safe. I also know that without the Lord there are many days when I could not go on. I never thought I would be the mother of 5, let alone 8, kids. Heck, I didn't want ANY kids. Now I have an army.

I just have one more thing to say, "be careful what you wish for." Clear back when I was pregnant with Ethen, or when I had first had Ethen, I clearly remember telling my mother-in-law that I would take as many kids as the Lord trusted me with. By the time I had Asher, my mind had definitely changed. When I found out I was pregnant with Roxie, I cried. haha! (Turns out she was my best baby!) And now, when we find out we're pregnant again, we also find out we're going to have 3 additional kids added to the family. I guess my prediction 9 years ago was right...I will take as many kids as the Lord will trust me with. However, I know the Lord has given me enough and we will NOT have more than 8 kids. :P

Randoms

This is my totally and competely random post. It will be filled with complete and utter nonsense, which will probably mean nothing to anyone but me...but you're welcome to read it anyway!

Random #1: Don't you love it when it's payday and you didn't even remember?!? That's what happened to me this morning. Too bad that once I did remember, I had to pay all those bills piling up, and now that payday money is GONE. Oh well, such is life. Atleast I had the money in the first place, even if it was for only a few mere hours.

Random #2: Cade (and I blame it on him, because it is his dog) left the dog outside last night when we went to bed. Poor little Gary. He's so small, he was probably freezing!

Random #3, which coincides with Random #2: At 4:15am. I, impregnated as I am, had to relieve my full bladder. I did my little thing, go back to bed, and of course, the baby decides it's time to wake up and do an acrobatic number in my uterus. I was wide awake from 4:15 to approximately 6:30 this morning for no good cause. However, in a way, it's probably a good thing, because I heard Gary scratching at the closed doggy door. At first, in my half-awake brain, I was thinking there was a giant desert rat scratching in our closet, lol (that scenario was probably drawn up in my brain, because of some freaky show I started watching on Discovery, or some such channel, called Ratzilla. We all know how pregnancy brain makes for very strange pregnancy dreams...you just didn't know you could think those things while half awake too. lol). So, being that I am pregnant, and it's not that easy to just roll out of bed with this extending belly, I woke up Cade and made him go see if it was indeed the desert rat...or dog, whatever. Cade opens up the doggy door, and in barrels Gary. Then he was so excited to be back inside where it's nice & warm, that he starts doing acrobatic numbers throughout the house! You should see this dog. If you've had the privilege of doing so, you know what I'm talking about. His little weiner dog self can run so dang fast, and then you add in some somersaults, side flips, and you have a literal acrobatic dog...as bad as a baby in your uterus, I tell ya'! He must have had quite the adventures outside last night, because he is totally passed out in his doggy bed right now.

Random #4: Foster Parenting classes aren't very fun. Four hours of sitting in a classroom in very uncomfortable chairs (doesn't help that being pregnant magnifies the discomfort) isn't my idea of a good time. We've gone to two classes this week, and I will admit that we have learned some new things, but I will be very excited when the classes are over.

Random #5: If anyone is in dire need of a candy fix, I can help you with that. 7 kids + trick-or-treating= 4 bowls of candy! We have an excess of candy, it's ridiculous!