Coffee date

These two girls got a special coffee date with mama for memorizing the ENTIRE first chapter of James in the Bible. I was never good at memorizing and I must confess to having some serious doubts as to how this would go but the kids have done great. I am so impressed at their hard work (although a special treat of their choice as a reward doesn't hurt!). 

Trick or treating

When you have this:

You get this:

We have got to have well over ten pounds of candy. And no, the kids don't get to eat it all. 😉

Where on earth are we?

That is a very valid question. 

It is also one I find challenging to answer. Of course, I know where we are. But it is not exactly where we expected to be when we packed up eight people, a dog, and a cat. 

We've spent the last seven months living in my in-laws' partially finished basement. They have been so gracious to allow us to stay with them while we wrestled with housing. 

Housing is rather difficult for a family of eight, apparently. We initially planned on buying a house. But all of the houses that were large enough (meaning they had four bedrooms where at least three could fit two twin beds) had no yard whatsoever. We finally came to the conclusion that it would be best to build a new house. With that in mind, we purchased 35 acres east of Denver. The location is ideal for Mark's commute and we'll be part of an established community who have already been so neighborly when we've been out to play on our land. 

And then we hit a roadblock. 

We did not purchase land until we had done due diligence as much as possible. We found a builder we liked, drew up plans with an architect, and made sure building would be within our budget based on estimates from our builder. After we purchased our land, our builder came back with a firm bid that was $100k higher than the initial estimates. That was a no-go. 

We've since found another builder whose firm bid is in line with our budget but there are still several obstacles. In the meantime, we've moved into a four-bedroom apartment on the southeast side of Denver. It's great to have our own space again and to have the kids in their own beds (most of them have been sleeping on the floor the last several months!). The kids are excited because the complex has a pool and playground and they've rediscovered all of the toys that have been packed away. 

Overall it's been a good summer. We've celebrated four birthdays here and already fit in a visit back to Missouri for camp, doctor appointments, and visits with friends and family. Alex has started growth hormone, Emily has started her palate expansion, and we've joined a homeschool group in south Denver. Here are a few pictures from the last few months (and yes, that's Emily with coffee!). 

Heading west

The big news of the new year for us is that we are moving to Colorado!

Mark has accepted a job in Denver and will start in early February. The kids and I will move when our house sells (so if you know of anyone looking for a 6-bedroom, 3-bath house send them our way!). Our Colorado family is super excited to have us closer and our Missouri family is a little sad. We have lots of mixed emotions too!

We've been busy cleaning house and getting it ready to go on the market. I'm working hard to trust God with all of these changes and the crazy chaos of trying to sell a house and move with six kids. Prayers are always treasured and appreciated!

Happy new year!

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you."

--Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings

Post-op yet again

Well we made it about a year. Emily had surgery this morning to do some scar tissue repair from her previous surgeries. Her orthodontist needed the extra tissue removed before we can start her palate expansion. Surgery was supposed to be in January but I asked to be put on a cancellation list so we could get it in under this years' deductible. I'd say that's a bad reason, but if we have to do it anyway better do it economically! 

Sleeping off the meds...

Emily's prayer

We have prayer at the end of our morning reading and it's always insightful.

Emily: "God, please help mama's cold to go away so she doesn't cough or sneeze or blow her nose...and the snot running down her nose should probably stop..."

It continued for a few more minutes and I wish I'd had an audio recording (as I usually wish with Emily's prayers!) but after that phrase I had such a hard time not laughing that I stopped listening closely. Laughing would have caused me to cough and need to blow my nose...and apparently have snot running down my nose.

What exactly does "hip" taste like?

Quite frequently, finding humor is the only thing that keeps me from breaking down during the day. Sometimes our multitude of special needs and appointments (current and future) get a little overwhelming.

Today, Emily had an appointment with her plastic surgeon. This was just a basic follow up but I wanted to ask him some detailed questions as her orthodontist is wanting to start her palate expansion in the next few months. This will make the hole in her palate bigger and I wanted to make sure I understand how all of this will work before we start the expansion.

While we were discussing the expansion, Emily's future bone graft came up. This will be a bone graft to fill in the missing bone in her jaw where her cleft is (left front of her mouth). This is something they will plan on doing around age 10, so in the next year or so. 

And it's a surgery...which is still a huge trauma trigger word for Emily so as soon as she heard that we couldn't discuss anything else. In the process of explaining it to her she asked where the bone would come from and we told her her hip. 

To which she replied: "Ewww, my mouth will taste like my hip!"

An day unexpected

Today Alex was being tested for growth hormone. We were told it would be a 1.5 hour test, but when we got here we found out it would actually be 5.5 hours! 

I am so grateful to Mark (and his coworkers) for him being able to have the morning off because three of the girls also had speech and occupational therapy this morning.

Oh, and the plumber came for the finish plumbing as we were leaving--while Mark  was at a dentist appointment. Does it seem like we're in a few too many places at one time? Kind of felt that way, too. 

So there was a little rearranging sine I wasn't planning on being at the hospital past lunch. Mark made lunch and brought it up and then went back to work. The other kids have been in the lobby while Alex did this:

The test made him really tired and he slept through most of it. It's almost 2 now and he's eating lunch. The test had the potential to make him sick to his stomach  and I am so grateful it didn't. Yay for being headed home!

Halloween

Despite it being a bit chilly, we did go trick-or-treating this year. Danielle's latest obsession is Elsa from Frozen so she (like many other little girls this year) wanted to be Elsa for Halloween. I made the somewhat (in hindsight) not very bright suggestion that the kids could all go as Frozen characters which meant lots of costume improvisation for me! 

So above are Kristoff, Sven, Hans, Elsa, Olaf, and Anna!

At this moment...

We are done with our schoolwork (minus some history reading I'll do at lunch). I'm making lunch in a castle with a queen...

who is protected by soldiers and a friendly poisonous dragon (being trained by one of the guards).

In the background are a robber in jail and two soldiers preparing their weapons. 

I had nothing to do with this play scenario but I must say that homeschooling certainly seems to be good for developing their imagination!

Traveling

We've spent the last two weekends out of town. It's been a nice change but a little stressful with school starting this week. Two weekends ago was a stay at Mark Twain Lake with some family friends. The kids loved driving the boat, tubing, and being thrown off of the boat by Mark!

And just hanging out together...

Six Flags

This is the third year we have gone to Six Flags with the kids. Once again we managed not to lose anyone and no one threw up so I consider it a successful day. ;)

The kids are finally big enough to ride almost everything. I remembered to take ibuprofen this year to prevent some of the aches and pains of so many roller coasters!

I don't have a lot if pictures but here are a couple.

Getting ready to ride Superman

Done with Superman!

Chick-fil-a dress like a cow day

Oh, yes, I am crazy enough to take six children out to eat AND dress us all up like cows. (And no, I am not the giant cow!)

Operation "liberate Mama" has commenced

That title should really read something like "operation make-children-independent has commenced", but it's kind of one and the same. 

One of my goals for this summer (there are always too many!) is to teach the kids to do their own laundry. It's a little more complicated than it ought to be with our current laundry set up. We have a frontloading washer on a pedestal drawer. The whole thing sits on a concrete pad about 6" above the level of the basement floor.

What that really means is that I have to stand on tiptoe to see when I add soap to the dispenser. None of the kids can even get close. So I've been stocking up on laundry soap pods that get tossed directly into the washer drum.

I started with the boys and this is the third week they have done their laundry themselves. I go down with them in case they have questions (or forget to add detergent!) but they do it all by themselves. Since they don't really have a full load each week they are stripping their sheets and washing those, too. I'm all about killing two birds with one stone!

They think they're super independent (and all the girls are begging to do their own laundry, too!) but since they're only doing one load a week it's not burning them out.

Even better...it's two less loads for me!!

Fourth (fifth) of July

We didn't make it to fireworks on Friday night. The ones we usually watch weren't starting until 10pm and there was NO WAY I was keeping the kids up that late.

An awesome friend mentioned that her family would be going to a fireworks show at a local park only a few blocks from our house but on Saturday. 

How we could not have known about this amazing fireworks show so close to us? It was awesome and worked so well. The only downside was that because it's a neighborhood display we were really close to the fireworks.

As in a hundred feet from the firing zone! I got a few pictures of the fireworks but none of the great face painting Sara did on the kids.

Happy Independence Day!

Recent activities

Our summer (like every summer) just seems to fill up.

There's helping in the kitchen...

Getting Cardinals tickets...

Going to the park...

Lots of reading...

Snuggling the pets...

Going to parades...

And playing with Mama's camera!

I think she answered it herself!

On Thursday we were getting ready to head to Children's for a couple of hours of speech therapy when I got the following question from a frustrated child:

"Why do we need go a lot of speeches?"

Mama is alone!

The kids are in a day camp for the next few days.

I can't decide whether I'm excited or really nervous. (The coffee isn't helping!)

I've got lots of things planned (painting, anyone?) but we'll see how much I actually get done. I spent the first few hours of their camp out in the lobby of their camp center.

Hover much?

This is new for them and me, but I think they will have a good time and really enjoy it. It's just hard to leave when they have fears of being abandoned.

And those fears are legitimate.

Off to run some errands!

Hooray for a second toilet!

On Father's Day, of all days, Mark installed the necessary flooring and then re-installed the toilet. I guess it shows what an awesome dad he is that he would give up a day of rest and relaxation for the comfort of his family!

The plumbers are coming on Thursday to do the rough-in for the new shower so we're getting closer to having one more room done!