Best Friends

all of the older kids getting candy for cleaning up

Johnny and Joseph. They have been good friends since they were 3!

Katherine, Ruth, Rachel, and Kate. They had so much fun. They hardly wasted anytime with sleep.

Rachel, Anya, and Mary. Even the little girls played well together!

Adam and Samuel

Last weekend we had our good friends from Wichita, the Kitchen's come and visit with us for 3 days. They have kids all of our kids ages except our 2 youngest boys because, they stopped at 6 for now. Oh and we both have a Kathryn (Katherine), a Rachel, and a Joseph who is named after Joseph Smith. Our girls and our boys all get along splendidly. Naomi and I have so much in common, we stayed up well past midnight just chatting every night. I think our older kids did too, even though they were sent to bed.

We had an odd coincidence. About 12 hours after Joshua's fall their 9 year old son, Joseph, fell off the top bunk bed in  a camp cabin onto a cement floor. He fractured his skull in two places, and was really sick. Their Joseph had a concussion and had to get CT scans. But after 24 hours, he was doing better. This was also the first time either of us had any children with broken bones. So we had 2 kids with head injuries that needed to be watched carefully during the visit. Bishop Kitchen held Joshua for us a lot, and all of the kids tried to find games that Joseph could play that didn't include running around or being rough. I was surprised at the compassion the kids showed the injured boys.

We had a a lot of fun having the Kitchen's come over. I will miss Naomi, and my kids will miss their kids. It is sad to move away from such good friends. I am glad they took some from their vacation to visit us. Now, I know I will have to go back to Wichita to see them again sometime.

Big Scare

Friday morning, Joshua threw himself out of his bumbo seat and off of the kitchen counter onto the floor. I was standing right there, but I was turned around getting the other kids their breakfast. It took Joshua about 15 minutes to calm down. Then he ate and I checked him over. He seemed to be acting fine. He ate fine, his eyes looked fine, he was communicating fine. So I decided to keep a close eye on him and call the doctor if I noticed anything odd. After about 45 minutes, I noticed  that the side of his head that hit the floor was starting to get a large swollen spot. I called the doctors and spoke to the nurse. I was able to answer all of her questions in a positive way. He didn't have any fluids coming from his nose or ears; his eyes were fine; he had not been sleepy at all; he ate fine; he hadn't vomited at all; he was rolling around, making eye contact, grabbing for things and smiling. The nurse said that all sounded great, but she wanted to check her paper in case she forgot anything. She came back and asked if his bump was bigger than his palm. Yes, it definitely is, so I brought Joshua into the doctor's. The doctor looked him over. He passed all of the tests expect for that big bump. The doctor said that he thought given the size of the bump and the mushiness of the bump Joshua probably has a linear fracture on his skull. He said that in most cases the baby would need to spend the night in the hospital to be watched in case something happened. But because Joshua had no signs of a concussion, he sent him home with me and instructions to not let him sleep for more than 3 hours for the first 24 hours after the fall. This could have been very tragic! We have been very blessed. And Joshua still seems completely fine.

Child Neglect

While I was writing the previous blog, Joseph was throwing books at me and announcing to all of the other kids that it was story time.

Robertson Family Reunion 2011

We are still in recovery! The Robertson's are AWESOME!!!!! We went up Friday night, unpacked our stuff in Jeremy and Rosanne's basements and went over to Grandma's for the beginning of the festivities. We swam, ate a really yummy BBQ chicken dinner, talked, joked, played games, got bitten by plenty of mosquitoes, and probably watched a movie or two before returning to Jeremy's basement at 1:30am to NOT sleep with two babies on top of us. We woke up from our not sleep and returned to Grandma's. Again we ate, swam, played made awesomely creative pinewood derby cars, raced said cars, spilled plenty cans of soda, ate more, and returned to Jeremy's basement at 2am. We somewhat slept with only one baby on top of us. We woke up at 10am or 12pm (depending on which sleep shift you had) and made it to church with Jeremy and Rosanne and crew around 1:10pm. Then it was back to the Robertson's for more yummy food. Of course being at the Robertson's we had to have a special dessert ready so we could manage to not eat the real dessert before dinner. So we ate pre-dessert, dinner, dessert, played and talked more, made more messes, and then had a cute family talent show outside. We ate more, played more, talked more and went back to Jeremy's basement about 1am. We slept with two babies in completely separate rooms from us (we can learn) and actually slept. We woke up around 10am, cooked a yummy breakfast, cleaned and packed a lot if we weren't already playing soccer. Everyone went back to Grandma's, except I took our duds home and made our beds at home. Then it was more swimming, talking, playing games, watching movies until the Driveway of Fire!! We lit a million sparklers (using the spakler boxes for a mini bonfire works well to light 12 sparklers at once!) Then some of us threw a million or so flowers and it started to rain. At first the rain was nice and light. But then we were wet. So we paused on the fireworks and went in for some awesome homemade icecream and the first 10 minutes of MegaMind. Then it was back to some absolutely amazing rocket fireworks. Back in for more I'm too tired to get my fat bottom in the car chitchat. Finally getting said bottom into car and going home, arriving at 1:30am. We took one day of to do laundry, then back up to Grandma's to say our goodbyes, swim, get sun burns and bee stings, play more games, make more messes, mourn the end of the very fun holiday and home by (drum roll please) 12am!!!!

I wasn't really good at taking pictures. Here are a few that we have.

Dieting, Jobs, Swimming, and 13

1. Last weekend, I tried the eat whatever junk food I wanted and then only vegetables for meals diet. I don't know if I was not getting enough calories, or just not enough proteins, fats, etc for Joshua. But he wanted to eat every hour and after two days of my veggie plus some chocolate diet, he stayed up all night crying and hungry. So I ate normally the next day and he was happy and eating and sleeping regularly. Having done this, I have come to a major (for me) decision. I am going on a real diet. I want to lose the baby weight. I still have not gotten rid of my size 6 jeans, so I will make them my goal. I was 135-ish pounds when I bought them. I am 160-ish pounds now. So my diet will be no junk food. I will eat as much healthy food as I want, and obviously enough to satisfy a nursing baby boy. The last time I was able to lose a bunch of weight quickly, I had only changed one thing in my diet. I only ate desserts on Sundays and Mondays. I lost 10 pounds in about a month. This was just before I got pregnant with Anya. At that time, I put my whole family on the diet. But right now, a major way of saving money on food is baking homemade cookies, brownies, muffins, or rolls every day. We cannot have our food budget go up to accommodate as much fruit as my kids can eat (They still eat around $200 of fruit a month) and I can't lose weight on daily cookies and bread. So I am going to eat the veggies while my kids eat cookies. We can afford the veggies because we get all sorts of veggies from Bountiful baskets and some of those go bad every week. I will snack on the surplus we don't use. So, we shall see how this goes. Obviously, I know, this is stupid to do right before a holiday and a family reunion. But it doesn't change that I need to make a life change. So I am giving up on my I want to lose weight by eating cookies method.
2. John's company is closing down Aug 1st. They were very nice and told everyone June 1st. So we have pay through August, and we will get paid for whatever holiday time John has on the books that he has not taken. So again, we are at another jobs cross roads. John has been applying for jobs, and he is now starting to get interviews. I don't think we will be tragic and without pay this time around because John has been working for good people and they let him know in plenty of time to find another job. The company is closing for a rather interesting reason. The company was funded through the military. They had five years of funding left until Congress got rid of earmarks. Apparently, the military funding was coming from an earmark on some law somewhere. So no more earmarks means no more funding. 
3. My four oldest kids have had swimming lessons last week through this Friday at the rec center (paid for in May). I have been so jealous of my kids watching them swimming and diving everyday. I think I have forgotten how much I love swimming. I have also been very impressed with the pools at the rec center, so I am going to buy a one year family pass when John has another job. The kids are loving it, even if they say differently. Adam is young enough to openly admit he loves it. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny will say otherwise, but you can tell how much they are enjoying themselves through what they say and by watching them in the pool. Which brings me to number
4. I now know that 13 is a painful age for the parent as well as the child. Yesterday I had a tough day because every time I spoke to Ruth she scowled at me. Every time Ruth walked by me she scowled. If I asked her to do anything well, I had to hide in the army barracks first. Plus, every time I talked near Kate she had to argue that I was doing the wrong thing. Joseph whined all day because he was kept up by a hungry crying baby, and no matter how hard I tried, Joshua would not nap. Adam was being aggressive with everyone most of the day too. Five all day moody kids is tough. A friend of mine told me you have to go kiss your twelve year old while she/ he is sleeping the night before the 13th birthday because you won't see that happy kid again for a few more years. I was hoping my kids would be the exception.

Summer Fun: Liberty Park

Walking A lot

Playing in the water

Trying to get  Johnny wet

Trying to get Dad wet

Child Abuse :)

Cheesey Smiles

The Park is also a great place for me to have fun taking pictures of my kids.

 

I really do have a lot of kids.

 

One Reason to Love the Internet

One reason I love the internet is I could easily get back in touch with two of my roommates and best friends. We got to schedule a little time for our families to get together and it was so fun. It still seems like college when we get back together minus all of the little kids running around.