I never thought I would be like this.

As I was sitting her, just cleaning up from lunch and laying Sawyer down for a nap I was thinking about my life and how different it is than I ever imagined it to be. I always knew that I wanted to get married and have my kids young, I knew that I wanted to be a young mom and hopefully a young grandma. I never imagined that I would be married when I was 20 and be expecting our 5th child when I'm 26. It has just been an amazing ride! The thing that is most different from what I imagined was the fact that I love being home with my children. I always thought I would just work full time and then do the mom thing on evenings and weekends and that I would be ok with that. Ha...wrong! As soon as I held Brodie in my arms, I knew that I needed to do whatever I could and make whatever sacrifices I needed to to be home with my babies. It has been a long journey! I thought that working full time in the lab was going to work out well, I went in from 3am-11:30am and was home the rest of the time. After 4 years of that I grew tired and unhappy and knew that it was not enough. I wanted to be there for all of my kids good mornings and good nights. Now, I'm at the point where we took a huge leap of faith and I'm home and I love it. Whatever sacrifices I have to make, I'm willing to do it. God has always taken care of us and I have no reason to doubt that he will continues to do the same. I can honestly never see myself working full time again.

It's a girl!

Wow, even writing that is taking some getting used to! We had our ultrasound today and it looks like we are having a sweet, perfect, healthy. baby girl! Wowsa! Talk about a shock!! I am just so used to boys and so comfortable and happy with them, that this is taking just a minute to sink in! I am so, so excited about having a daughter. I look forward to that special bond we will share and I look forward to how she will fit in so nicely with the rest of our family. The boys are very excited about having a sister already and Jason has already said, "That girl is never going to leave my arms!". We went to the girl department at Target for the first time today and bought her a little dress and another little outfit. I almost feel like a first time mom again since this will be such a change for us!! We are thrilled that we are going to have a daughter. Elliot Isobel :)

Tomorrow is the BIG day!

Tomorrow, at 3:30pm, we go for our anatomy and gender ultrasound!! I am bursting at the seams in anticipation. The closer it gets the harder it is to wait! I am just so excited to find out who is in there and starting calling him or her by their name and start buying some things. It will just make everything seem more real. I honestly and truly do not care if it is another boy or our first girl. There are positives about both!

If we have another little boy, I will feel very relaxed! Jason and I kind of fell like we have this whole boy thing down pat. We have a definite boy vibe going on in our house and I would love to have all sons. It is nice to be the only woman in the house (well, except for Zelda) and boys just love their mommas so, so much. Even though the boys are small they just really look out for me already and I know a 5th son would do the same. Also, if we have another boy, I would have absolutely nothing to buy! Except for cloth diapers, because I'm going to do that this time around.

If we have a girl, it will be very scary for me and will take me a bit to get used to! I've never had a girl and, even though I am one, I don't really know what to do with a baby girl. It would be nice though to have another girl to bond with, talk with , shop with, plan a wedding with, etc. So the thought of having that mother daughter relationship does sound pretty appealing!

Either way, we'll know tomorrow!!

My "calling" in life.

Jason and I have talked about this a lot and we seems to share the same idea on it. It seems like a lot of people think they need to try and do something great with their lives, and by great I mean something BIG. Be the best at something, be president, etc. Some people are called to be surgeons, some people are called to be doctors, some teachers, etc. Jason and I feel that God has called us to be parents. That's the BIG thing we are to do with our lives. Who knows if someday my great-great-great granddaughter might find a cure for cancer or win the Nobel prize and she wouldn't even be here were it not for me being a mom to my children. I feel like it is my calling to instill in my children the values that I hold dear such as loving every human and treating people with respect and kindness and who knows what that will blossom into? Now that I have finally come to this realization, I feel very content with my life. It seems like I used to always be searching for something. "What can I be?" "What can I do?" But now that I know, I love what God has called us to do.

A new family member and a day at the patch

We have a new member of our family! We got a baby puppy on Friday and the boys are in love with her! She is a rat terrier and we named her Zelda. She has been such a nice addition to our family and it just shows me that love continues to multiply and not divide. We all just love her so much and are having a good time with her. Her is a pic of her on the day we brought her home:


This Saturday we all went up to the pumpkin patch in Amazonia. By we I mean, my family, my mom and dad, my brother, my aunt and uncle and 2 of my cousins! What a fun time! We have gone there every fall since before Brodie was born so it has kind of become a tradition. The boys rode a little train, we took a hay ride, they went through a hay maze, we got to cook food over a fire, and they go to run around in the pumpkin patch! Whew! They were worn out by the time we got home. Of course Brodie found this HUGE pumpkin that he wanted and my dad can't tell him no s now we have a huge pumpkin on our front porch! I think I did pretty well. Usually going places like that puts me on edge and I just end up being mean and crazy to everyone. I was pretty proud of myself and we all had fun!

Are things finally looking up?

It seems like things in out life may finally be starting to look up!! I have been so depressed and just ugly these past few weeks and I feel sorry for all of the people who live with me! Anyway, I got the call today saying that I got the job with Parents as Teachers!! I am so unbelievably excited about this! I feel like this is the right job for me and it just feels right. I can see myself doing this as a career and it is something that I am going to be proud to do. We so love our parent educator and so do the boys and I cannot wait to form those bonds with other families. I cannot wait to be there and be a support system for them and encourage them. Besides the job itself being wonderful, the "perks" of the job are great, too. I get to set my own schedule, I do visits on my time. Since I work for the school district, I will have all holidays, breaks, and snow days off with the boys!! I go to Liberty for training the last week of October and I can't wait! I haven't been able to wipe this smile off of my face all day!

The most terrifying morning of my life...

Let me start out by saying that everyone is fine now, but here is what happened to us this morning...Everything started out normal, we took the boy's to their dentist appointment, dropped Brodie off at school, and came home. I was in the kitchen starting some laundry and hanging up the boy's new school paper's on the fridge. Sawyer was int here with me, just hanging out. I noticed that he started making a funny noise and when I looked down he was gagging and choking. His face was turning red, so I grabbed him and ran to the bathroom. He was not making a sound like his airway was blocked by something. I swept his mouth and nothing was there. He gagged a little, but the sound was muffled. So I screamed for Jason and called 911. By this time he was starting to turn purple. Jason was rubbing his back and patting him and he started making more noise but was still coughing. He then started coughing up something mucusy and started breathing much better. By the time the ambulance got there he was breathing just fine and he never did cough anything up. The paramedic checked him over and told us to call our doc so he could check him out and get some x-rays to see if he swallowed anything. So, here we are waiting an hour until our doc appointment. He is doing much better now, but I have never been so scared in my whole life. We have been pretty lucky *knock on wood* and this was the first time anything involving an ambulance has happened to us. Made me realize how fast something can happen even if you are right there....