Sickness won't go away!

I thought everyone would be well by now but now I am coughing and my throat hurts. Kaitlyn and Alex are the only ones left of the kids who still have a cough so that is good. I really wanted to get out yesterday and see my friends at park day but I didn't want to get them sick. This week has been pretty busy, maybe I wore my immune system out! LOL I have been going through alot of the stuff in the garage and taking it upstairs to the attic. Boy what a job!! It's hard when you have a belly getting in the way!! Speaking of bellies, I am 28 weeks so I entered into my third trimester this past week. That is exciting. Jason and I both are looking forward to bringing Andrew into the family. The kids can't wait! I have had to stop eating just raw foods because I couldn't gain weight-crazy huh? I am enjoying what I AM eating though-hehehe. It's mostly vegetarian with a piece of steak thrown in for iron. My Dad had his knee surgery this past week and I am waiting to hear an update on him. Last I heard he was recovering well. I am so glad that he finally got it. He has been in pain for a long time. He has a job that is very demanding on the knees so it's important to his livelihood. I will update soon as I hear. This weekend we are planning on taking it easy. We will see. We always end up doing more than we should have and wearing ourselves out!

Rearranging

Yesterday was dedicated to changing the house around. I put Alex in the bedroom with Summer and Toby now! He didn't sleep well last night but I think he will get use to it. I also changed the living room and fireplace room around. We put the couches in the fireplace room and everything else in the living and dining room. What I mean by everything else is the computers, pianos, sewing machine, and the kids toys. In other words-all the toys. LOL I am hoping this will solve our problem of having toys scattered everywhere. Jason really wanted at least one room to be clutter free. I am REALLY trying to make this happen but it is hard! I am putting the school stuff upstairs in Alex's room. Andrew will sleep with us in our room when he gets here.
My plants are growing well! i am going to pick a tomato today. I grew cherry tomatoes and there is about 7-8 of them right now. I am also growing several herbs. My favorite plant right now is the Thai Basil. It is beautiful! I will get a picture today.

Patience

I teach patience to my children but I don't think I have learned the full meaning of the word. I was thinking/praying today about what God wanted me to do with my life BESIDES raise my children and be a good wife. I haven't received an answer back and I think it's because this IS what he wants me to do right now. Not sure yet but I think that he will present the next thing to me in the right timing. So, what's my job right now? I guess it's to prepare and be ready for whenever he calls me to something different, without neglecting my purpose for right now. Is this hard? YES! The reason it's hard for me is because I desire to do more, to open myself up, let my creative juices flow, and feel that surety that says "this is my sweet spot". I feel an emptiness, anxiousness, and stirring within me. Does this mean that God will show me soon what he wants me to do? NO! I have felt this way my whole life. There have only been a couple of times when that hunger inside has been quenched-dare I say from what? Not here, for fear that I am wrong. FEAR- the f word that destroys the most passionate of people. I think it should be labeled a curse word!LOL

Ok, enough soul searching! Jason stayed home again yesterday in the hopes that he will get better. I am tired as well. This has been a couple of hard weeks for me. I am praying that God will lift me up like he has done so many times before. He is faithful. The baby is growing big! He is about 2 lbs now and is really kicking alot. The kids already know him by Andrew so that will be his name. Summer even comes over to me and rubs my belly and gives it a kiss and says "Hey Andrew, Love you". How adorable!! I am going to get them out of the house today because they have been staying in since being sick. Everyone is getting cranky!

New projects

When my Mom came down the other day she gave me a dress that she had bought that doesn't fit anymore. It is really cute. In fact, I think I am going to try and make a template out of it and make some more that might expand with my growing belly. Also, I got alot of plants this weekend and I can't wait to see if they flourish or die miserably. I don't have a very good track record with plants so we will see. They are sooo pretty right in front of the dining room window! I love to open the blinds and see all the green!

Still Sick

Everyone is still sick except for me. I have all sorts of energy from eating raw and nobody to enjoy it with. :( I am going to take the kids out later today to get Jason some more medicine and maybe he will take my advice this time and rest! He keeps staying up so late that his body is not recovering. Today I re-potted some plants and we got to see a praying mantice. It was pretty funny because he kept licking the OFF! I hope it doesn't hurt him. I got a couple of pics before we took him off.

Sickness

Unfortunately we are all sick today. Everyone except me has a terrible cough. I have a mild headache and foggy feeling. I hope I don't come down with the full blown cold. We did do school today but took yesterday off. Jason stayed home so that was great. I think he is going to take tomorrow off as well because he is really not feeling well. I am sooo glad. I picked up a free kitchen for the kids today so they have been enjoying that for a while. I have been encouraged by several family members concerning my Mom and it has helped but I am still dragging myself out of her sinking sand. I am hoping that everyone will be well by Sunday so that we can go to church. I think that will help. Thanks to all my wonderful family who have encouraged me!!

Sarah Ban Breathnach's Mrs. Sharp's Traditions

This was not a book that I would read through completely. It has some great suggestions for establishing traditions. I agree with the aurthor about the importance of traditions and bringing back the roles of women(taking care of the house, making it homey, etc..) and I liked that she had suggestions for things for each month of the year. I don't think I like the fact that these types of books teach the importance of comfort food and memories of that food. Not that this book says that food is the only good memories we should instill in our family but in general, these types of books tend to lean that way. I think that there should be comforting memories that are NOT surrounded by food. We could establish a time for reading, music, playing games, etc... Ok, gotta go get the kids up. Maybe I will write more about this later!

Bringing June to a close

Well, its hard to believe that July is here! June went by so fast. Here are some pics of us bringing it to a close.

Here's Jason and Charlotte pushing the littles



Me and Alex chillin in the sand



Summer looking beautiful as always



Toby stopping for a pose for Daddy.



Kaitlyn having fun and posing at the same time!



Charlotte taking cues from Daddy to get a good shot! Success!



We had a great time this weekend but most everyone, except me, is sick. I hated that! I had so much energy and really want to do more in the yard. We did get a little bit done but not enough! These green smoothies I have been drinking are awesome!! My big sister has started drinking them as well and she seems to have a lot of energy too! I hope that they do her well. She is a single mom and needs all the energy she can get!! Here's to a great start for the week and July!!

Million Dollar Smile

Here is Summer's million dollar smile.



Here was my lunch. I wasn't too hungry because I had eaten a handful of nuts and 1/3 of my daily shake. This was cucumber-advocado soup.



This was Spelt bread that I made today-from scratch! I ground my own spelt, how cool is that!! It turned out really yummy. I would have gotten the whole loaf but the kids woudn't wait! LOL

Library Fun

The kids had fun taking a pic with a group of school kids who wanted to take a pic of them for a school project they were doing.

The Call

For those who like writers like C.S. Lewis and Paul(out of the Bible), you will love this book. It really is awesome. I must confess that I didn't read a couple of chapters but I did "skim" them. I am thinking about checking the book out again just to finish what I didn't really get into. This book is not one that you can read while tired! I really enjoyed it though. The concepts in this book are deep and might just make you think twice about the way you live. If you struggle to know what your "calling" from God is(apart from being called into his family), then you really should read this book! I am currently reading Romans as well and I must say that my belief in predestination/selection has grown stronger! It is a sad but humbling belief. Also, in the last chapters of Romans, Paul talks about the Israelites and Gentiles. In a nut shell, the salvation came to the gentiles to make the Israelites jealous. I have so much respect for them now! We were grafted into this family, unlike the Israelites. Humbling thoughts....

Refrigerator Repair to Repair the Repair....

Well, we have the Frig man coming out again today. He is supposed to replace a pan under our frig. Waiting patiently....

Simple and Delicious

It was awesome..simple but soo good!



I also made some whole wheat bread for the kids. They enjoyed that.

Beautiful Love Song

I thought this was a beautiful song! You don't find them like this anymore...

First attempt at a green shake

Well, this was my first attempt at making a green shake and it was REALLY good! It is 2 collard leaves, 1 banana, 1 pear, about a cup of young coconut water, 1 tsp pulp from young coconut(I think I could have left the coconut out completely), and a serving of raw hemp protein powder. I made this in the hopes that I can replace my Odwalla shake. They are pretty expensive.


Next we have lunch. This is the tortillas I was talking about. It has "sour cream" made out of sunflower seeds as well as some veggies. I have "chips" too.

What's "cooking"

I thought I would upload some pics on what I've recently "cooked". I am going 80-90% raw foods and so I have had to be creative! The first pic is of our beef jerky we made in the dehydrator.



Then we have "sour cream" made from sunflower seeds, lemon, salt, water.


Then I have a collard wrap(all raw) with some Bragg's marinated zuchini and onions.


Next is the wheat grass I am growing.Notice the dew on top of the leaf? Isn't that beautiful!


along with Amaranth.

Today I am having flax crackers as well as flax and avocado tortillas. I will get some pics up of those as well.

Falling Trees

Today we are supposed to have 5 trees taken down! I am not looking forward to hearing that scary crunch sound as they fall. Last week our neighbors had 15 pine trees taken down and one of them fell in our yard. It scared me to death! We are supposed to have the refrigerator man come by AGAIN for our leaking frig. It's not that bad but it could ruin the floor eventually. My sister came for Alex's b-day this weekend and it was so nice to see her. She seems like she is in a much better mood/spirit. I know that she is facing hard times right now but I honestly believe that God has a reason for it all. I love her dearly and wish I knew what to say to her sometimes. When I talk to people who are in rough spots sometimes I think I sound like this nieve and inexperienced fool! But I just want to share my heart and encourage. Maybe I will get better at that as I get older! LOL

On the positive side, I think we have found us a church! It's http://www.3rbc.com/. I really liked the sermon that he preached yesterday! If you want to read it, it should come up under the sermons link. They also had a visitors luncheon yesterday that was great! Toby and Summer stayed in the nursery, which was a big shocker. I think they really enjoyed it. I am taking the kids this Wed to see how they do. This week should be fairly busy but I am hoping to get more in the grove of schooling. Last week we did school but I had to leave out a couple of things because I didn't have the scanner.

Alex is One!!

Saturday was Alex's birthday. Here are the photos from that day...

Doctors appt

Here is a pic of the kids peaking out of their new play thingy. Well, today I had my first appt with a new doctor close by. He was VERY thorough to say the least! He suggested several things that I will not take(one of them being progesterone shots for preterm births) I figured my last birth lasted a while so hopefully this one will be even better! I really like him though. Today was a day of preparing for the weekend because we have Alex's b-day but I feel like I didn't get anything done! I hate those days where you run 90 miles an hour and look back and go, I didn't get anywhere, I can still see where I departed from. Oh well.

We had a blast last night while Daddy finished up washing the walls(after stripping off the wallpaper). Here are some photos I took of the kids dancing. Excuse all the toys. We had to put them in the this room while we finished up the other one.