He is Risen

What a fun day today. We started off by eating our Easter cookies. We made cookies last night and the cookies stay in the oven overnight much like Christ remained in the tomb. The cookies are hollow in the center just like the tomb was empty when the Marys arrived. This was a fun way to help the kids to understand what Easter is about.

The kids then "opened" their Easter baskets. Then the race was on to bathe and dress all 12 of us to get to church on time. I am allowed to make up the amount of people to get ready especially when we are time crunched to get somewhere.

Off to church, new dress shirts for the boys and new beautiful dresses for the girls. Mommy made the dresses and they turned out very cute.

Rebekah hasn't made it through an entire service at church since she was very little, but today she lasted the entire service in the nursery. It felt a little funny sitting next to Alicia during church. Either she is with Rebekah or I am teaching in the orange class (9 and 10 year olds) so we don't sit with each other in church very often any more.

Off to my grandmothers house to celebrate the day with extended family. This all seemed to be going too well . . . speed bump. The van has been overheating, so we stopped about 2 minutes away from home and called my mom to help us get up to Gram and Papa Dean's house. So now we are without two cars . . . sort of. We are borrowing Alicia's Mom's car while she is on a missions trip and my Dad, S'Mom, and brother left this morning for a week to California to visit my grandmother and Aunt and Uncle in Sacramento, so we can borrow his van the next few days while our van is being looked at.

The good news is that Jesus is Risen and my simple problem of not having a car in my name that runs seems like such a non-issue in comparison to what Jesus did for us on this day.

Again off to Gram and Papa Dean's. Great food, great family, and great Easter Egg hunts. We have a color coded system in place so each child looks for their own color and I can hide them based on each child's ability. My wife is incredible for coming up with this idea for the egg hunts. This allows my 10 year old nephew, Nicholas, to not end up with all of the eggs intended for the 2 year old.

And some BIG news . . . Rebekah started to crawl today. She was born on the best day (7/7/07) so maybe her major milestones will come on important days. She just took off as if she has been doing it for weeks.

Back home with tons of food and desserts in tow. A few more egg hunts with the kids then off to bed for them. A quick look to see my disaster of a bracket for March Madness. Now it's time to be in bed an hour ago, but I am procrastinating sleep to inform you all of such a good day.

Shalom,

Joel

Some not so little news

So, I'm not really sure if anyone has found this blog yet since I haven't "announced" it's presence, but because it feels "safe" we'll go ahead and share our news here first.

For a little over a month, Joel and I have known of the next little one's presence, but we weren't sure we were ready for the news and knew that we weren't ready to be sharing it just yet. Based on dates and symptoms, we were pretty confident that I was indeed expecting, but we thought for sure that our due date was in early to mid October. This put the difference between Rebekah and #6 at 15 months, which is our average spacing between kids and even though we were being really careful, it still seemed to make sense that this was what God had for us.

While I was pregnant with Rebekah, I felt like God told me there was one more child for our family and I felt fairly strongly it was going to be a boy (so we'll see about that) and if there was only going to be one more, we would want them to be close to their brothers and sisters and not the lone ranger child who is 5 years younger than the gang.

Well, the big surprise from yesterday was that we found out even though I should be 9 weeks along according to the October date, the little guy is about 13 weeks "big" so, my due date is now September 13th. The change in due dates doesn't really affect us too much, it just makes the pregnancy 1 month shorter, which no woman would ever complain about, and means Rebekah and this one will be 14 months apart. The baby looked healthy, had a strong heart beat, and was kicking his legs quite a bit during the ultra sound.

So, there is the unofficial, official announcement. If you find this before we tell you than good sleuthing skills! We are excited, nervous and overwhelmed but know that God has a plan and is blessing our family of 8!

Overwhelmed and frazzled

This is a reflective post on what has been happening the past week. Last Thursday night Joel called on his way home from work saying his car was acting funny and that he wasn't sure he would make it home. His route that day drove him past our mechanics, so he thought he should just drive it there and I should pick him up. Well, he never made it to the mechanics, the car died getting off the highway and would not restart. So I picked him up on the side of the road and we had the car towed the 3/4 mile or so he was from the shop.

On Friday, we got the call, we weren't expecting great news, but the news we received was even worse than "not great." His engine was blown. It could be replaced, but the cost of fixing the car was greater than the value of the car by several thousand dollars. WOW, we were not expecting that!

I feel like God has abandoned us. It's been very emotional and depressing. Our financial situation is very grim and we are scraping by one day at a time and so far God has sustained us, but this seemed like the final nail in the coffin, as the saying goes. How can we be down a car? We can't afford a new car for Joel. It is possible for him to drive the van to appointments, but it doesn't seem wise when you factor in gas mileage and wear and tear on a van that is already sputtering and spitting and in need of a good check up.

I don't know what to do or where to turn or what to believe or how to feel. Emotionally I was a wreck on Friday and Monday and now I just kind of feel numb. I don't want to think about it, I don't want it to be our reality. I feel lost.

The other major factor is looking ahead in our financial future and feeling like we are on the brink of something very negative. Joel needs a new job, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the works that would work for him. The offers we've received so far don't seem a ton better than where we are and the only jobs that might be better financially seem like they would be death to our family life. I realize it is sometimes necessary to make sacrifices in order to get ahead, but with 5 kids to care for I need a husband who is available to share in some of the household/childrearing responsibilities.

Should we look into a second job for Joel or a part time job for me? I don't know. What is out there right now doesn't seem like the right fit. Jobs I've been offered are daytime jobs and we don't have a child care option. Joel has considered a paper route, but isn't sure about the 7 day a week 3 am commitment. We want to be wise with our time, I want to trust God has a plan, I want to have faith that He won't fail us. I don't know if I can take much more.

Why I never leave the house!

So today we ventured out to a "critter show" at the mall. It was free to "pet" the animals (snakes, lizards and a tarantula!!) There was also a craft of painting a flower pot and planting seeds, getting your face painted and balloon animals. All of which were free activities. Sounds like a really fun time, and to some extent it was, but it was SOOOO crowded! There were 100's of kids and mommies and a few brave daddies and the whole event was fairly chaotic. I set the ground rules for the kids in the car before we got there and for the most part the did very well staying with me and obeying without too much whining.

Josiah got to touch a snake, Josh was picked to pet a lizard and then we waited in line (for an hour) to get our faces painted. I ended up with two spidermans and a flower butterfly. We then had a "picnic" lunch at the food court and then made our way home.

I AM EXHAUSTED! This is why I never leave the house. It is a lot of work to make sure I don't forget any of them anywhere, to make sure no one is touching something they shouldn't be touching, to keep everything as even and fair as is humanly possible to avoid a meltdown in the middle of the mall. At home I am still the mom, but my standards are a bit more relaxed (probably because their aren't 100's of other people for my kids to bother, just me and their siblings.)

So, as fun as it was, we'll have to see about venturing out next month to the puppet show at the mall. I know my kids enjoyed it and with my girlfriends help (I NEVER could have done it without them) we all survived the event.