Cruisin…Part 1

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Abbie

I’ve got lots to share from our cruise so I thought it would be easier on the eyes to break it up into a few parts.

First of all. The day before we left for the cruise I had a check up and got the all clear from Dr. J to resume normal activity and to stop progesterone the day before we set sail. We were thrilled.

On Thursday, we made sure we were all packed. Mark worked half a day and I did my best to ready the house for Papa & Grandmere to watch the kids. But I felt nasty nauseous the whole day. Not fun. We persevered and that afternoon set out on a six plus hour drive to get to port by 1 the next day. But, not before realizing that since I was pregnant, we had to have a letter from Dr. J stating that I was okay to travel and how many weeks, etc, I was. A quick call before we left and an amazing office and trip in to town, we were set.

Obviously, we stopped for the night since it was only a ten hour drive. We drove several hours and made it to Cocoa Beach. We also took some good advice and stopped at a rest station to grab the hotel coupon books. We settled on the $50 chain hotel that we’ve used before and offered a continental breakfast.

This is what we got:

A hotel for the vertically challenged! Sorry for the fuzzy picture. Mark had brushed his teeth the next morning on his knees. We were cracking up at the size of everything. Lest you think it may have been a handicapped accessible room, well, we were on the second floor and there was no elevator in sight.

Seriously, even our pillows were made for small people.

After a hardy breakfast of the standard “make your own waffles” and cold cereal the next morning, we headed out for the second leg of our trip to Miami and our ship.

In case you are wondering, the next day the nausea was still there. I think I rode the entire trip with a pillow on my lap and a bag on top to “catch” anything should I lose my lunch.

Lilla Rose Black Friday Sale

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Abbie

Two days only! Sale ends at midnight on the 30th. A special holiday flexi will be released and the December Flexi-of-the-month will be available for back order (but there is no guarantee it will arrive before Christmas).

Speaking of the December flexi…

Isn’t it lovely!?!

If you are looking for a special gift for that hard to find young lady, Lilla Rose may have just what you need. Check it out now.

September Randomness

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Abbie

While I was retreating, the kids made an amusement park of the digestive system (part of their Science curriculum…I kid you not).

Zoe and I were finally able to work together to finish her messenger bag. She did all the machine sewing on it and was very excited to have it finished.

These two are just goofy little monsters.

Retreat! Retreat!

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Abbie

In September, I was blessed to travel to the mountains with some of the most amazing women I have been able to know and love. The ladies of our church went on a retreat to the Georgia mountains. Lots of laughter and tears and running through the rain to shop! A blessing indeed.

This was the river near our cabin.

Turn to the side and you’ll be able to barely make out our cabin. We hiked down a trail to get to the river and then back up another way. Lots of fun and no ticks to be had. I think.

August Randomness

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Abbie

Dress up time at our house looks like this:

And this:

The boys had been making paper airplanes. Lots of them. This was found on the girls’ bedroom door one afternoon. That was Zoe’s jurisdiction and apparently she had had enough. Either that or she was seeking a way to earn a quick nickel.

I made fried okra. Like real fried okra. We don’t actually fry food but one day, after our okra bush yielded a crop and a half, I decided to try it. Tasted just like my mom’s!

I promise, Kristina and I will get a marriage between our kids. Somehow, someday. This day we were working on Josiah and Megan’s courting contract. Okay, really, they were playing on Kristina’s iphone.

And these two were just being goofy and wanted a picture.

Among Friends

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Abbie

Some of our college friends made a trek to visit us in August. They have three very fun, active boys. Combine that with seven in our crew and I got the above action shot. That’s it.

But we did make them pose on the front steps before they headed back home.

And then we lost all sense of self-control and the silliness took over.

Off we go

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Abbie

I ventured out to Ge & Granddaddy’s alone. Okay, not alone but without Mark. We went for a day trip because it had been too long since we went to visit.

The kids had a blast.

At some point in the day, Granddaddy showed me some mats he had that we thought might work for the Awana room. He moved them to see how big they were and we found this:

That’s a possum in the corner of the mat. A baby one. And it kept moving and freaking us out. Eventually, we scared it enough that it scampered up a tree. The goal was to keep Ge’s dogs away from it while it made it’s escape. We succeeded.

Then Ge put the kids to work moving rocks. You would have thought they had hit jackpot. My boys love to show off their muscle!

Run for the Prize and The National Bible Bee

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Abbie

Pardon me for doubling up but I want to get ya’ll to our cruise. So, here is a two-fer.

Our pastor is pretty amazing. He gives us Awana people a break during the summer and runs a summer program. He’s been developing this program for several years and each year there is a different theme. This year it was Run for the Prize. The kids continue to work on memorizing verses relevant to the theme and at the end of the year they get recognized for all their hard work.

Bryant was thrilled to be a part of the program at the end of the summer!

Ceili Rain worked on Run for the Prize verses AND Bible Bee verses. If you ever want to hear the most precious recitation of God’s word, just listen to her quote. She has a very good memory and I can see her giving Zoe a run for her money when she gets older.

Our pastor is also a tad cheesy and goofy.

And Zoe. Well, before Bible Bee started, she decided she would just go ahead and memorize all of the Run for the Prize verses so she could focus on Bible Bee. And she did. Then she memorized 24 passages for Bible Bee.

And on to that. This was the first year our kids competed in the National Bible Bee and the first year our church hosted it. It was a ton of fun and we got to meet and host a family the night before the competition which was even more fun (thirteen children and four adults actually made it to the competition with minutes to spare…oh yes we did).

The National Bible Bee competition consists of local hosts church holding a competition in August. The kids, ages 7 to 18 (and broken down by age categories) take a written exam of 200 questions based on the book of the Bible that was studied over the past 12 weeks. This year it was 1 John. After that, each child, meets with two judges and are given a scripture reference. The child recites the scripture and is scored based on the accuracy. Zoe and Ace competed in Primary this year. Zoe won.

She loves to have her picture taken.

The night of the summer program recognition, we found out Zoe not only won our area bee. She also qualified for the National Bible Bee. Of course, this being our first year, we jumped at the chance! She has been working since August to memorize over 70 passages (of course, she is not quite there but she is working on it) and we are studying Ephesians. This month, we’ll travel as a family to the National Bible Bee where she will compete with 120 other kids. We are so excited to be able to experience this together as a family.

Take me out to the ball game!

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Abbie

August brought yet another adventure to our Summer of Staycation! A baseball game. Actually, the kids all completed the library’s summer reading program. Included in their prize packs were free tickets to a local ball game.

Mark and I were excited. We’ve lived in this area for over ten years but had yet to make it to a game. So, with just a few dollars spent for our tickets (at discount prices) we were off.

Not everyone was thrilled about the game but they all eventually got in to it. The fireworks afterwards were a big bonus.

Ceili Rain’s favorite part was finally meeting the mascot. She kept her eyes on him the whole game until he made his way up near us.

Oh, and the team won! It really was a fun game once it got going and the runs started coming up.

Second Trimester! Woohoo!

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Abbie

Yesterday marked 13 weeks. Nausea is slowly (ever so slowly) going away and the energy is slowly (ever so slowly returning). Which means, I might actually get our August and September update done soon and then ya’ll can see and read all about our cruise and my kids exploits while we were traipsing around the Caribbean.

I was able to get a new laptop (thanks Lilla Rose) and we are working on swapping over our dinosaur pc to be a server of sorts. Which means pictures are slow coming. Hopefully, we will get those up soon.

And a baby update: We went to the doctor the day before we left for the cruise and had another ultrasound. I was just at 10 weeks which was when we found out we had lost the last baby. Yes, I was a bit panicked but trusting the Lord and praying. A lot. It was a quick scan. Saw baby and his/her heartbeat and everything looked great. Not only that, we saw no signs of the hematoma. Dr. J took me off progesterone the day after (which was supposed to help with the morning sickness on a boat. Um, yeah, no.) and told me I really had no restrictions. That really helped us to relax on our cruise. By the way, apparently, the progesterone doesn’t really effect my nausea and fatigue. That’s just standard ol’ first trimester funsies. The nausea, food aversioins, and extreme fatigue these past few weeks have all put me at ease for this baby. We go back soon for another standard check but doubt I will update on that one.

We have first names picked out for this little one and the boy and girl name both start with E so we are referring to this baby as Baby E. Good luck on trying to figure out what the first names are. Ernest (while one of my favorite plays, is not it).

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get my laptop and dinosaur to talk better and get pictures up soon.

Just a Bunch of Characters

Musings of everyday life in a house full of Characters.

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