It's official.

A select few have known our secret for a few weeks, including our oldest daughter. She has been driving us nuts since March asking when/if the next baby will come. So we had to tell her. I am 13 weeks along and Lord willing we will have a little bundle by the end of March. My due date, by the book, is March 7...but my midwife bumped it back to March 21 since I have been consistently two weeks late.

Gracie and this little one will be 20 months part, my closest yet. No complaining here, that is great spacing! I haven't been sick, other than being tired and coffee disgusts me. For the first time we are not worried about our vehicle not fitting us! We have 7 seats to fill yet! Yeah!

After family devotions last night Daddy was praying for those with request in our church and at the end of the prayer asked for the Lord to watch over the new baby he has placed in mommy's tummy and keep it safe and mommy safe and healthy. I heard two little gasps and as soon as Daddy closed Jessie slapped her forehead and sighed "Finally! I can talk about it!!" The other kids got up and starting jumping around. Micah asked me"You gotta baby in yer tummy mamma?" I said "yup!" He said"Oh good, it will come out some day and cry"...Yup, your learning little man.

I really feel like the more I have, the more excited I become and we cherish each pregnancy more than the last. In a world of much barrenness we have no more right to have children than all the couples out there who can't, so it is nothing to be proud of. But we can be thrilled at the gift he has seen fit to give us. Humbly thrilled. The Lord Himself choose to give us another human soul that will either spend eternity in heaven or in hell. That is just huge to me.

For those of you who like riddles...

I have one, it is more of a scavenger hunt than a riddle.

1. First word of the riddle is the second word in the title of the post on 7/14

2. Second word of the riddle is the 6th word in the title of the post on 7/26

3. Third word, can you guess? Is the third word in the title of the post on 6/1

Leave a comment and let me know what you guess the answer to be...

4 minute Delicious Kettle Corn

Wanna make your children all smile? Make kettle corn at home! Jacob got a bag of kettle corn for his birthday and well, it went waaaaay too fast. I went to AllRecipes.com and found this very simple quick recipe and even added some tips.

1/2 C unpopped popcorn

1/4 C white sugar

1/4 C oil

Do not double recipe, remember it fills the pot when popped so make several batches if need be. Have a popcorn bowl ready to dump freshly popped corn into.

To cook; Put the oil and 2 kernels of corn in a large pot(I used my stainless) and heat on med high. As soon as the first kernel pops you add the sugar and stir it around quickly. Then add the popcorn and put the lid on the pot. IMMEDIATELY shake the pot back and forth for 3 seconds on then 3 second rest over and over until popping ceases. It takes about 30 seconds for the popping to begin and maybe a minute for all the corn to pop. Immediately remove from burner and dump in large popcorn bowl. Salt the daylights out of it, call your husband, run in the bathroom, lock the door and eat a whole bunch if the children haven't smelled it yet and are not standing there with puppy eyes. Then return to the kitchen, call the children and serve the rest. Remind them that this deserves hugs and kisses.

The Birthday Party

9 pre-teen boys is a LOT more energy than we had expected. WOW. The party was a hit largely due to the great group of boys. I just shake my head at how wonderful of a church the Lord has provided us. Of all these age 9-12 yr old boys for the 2.5 hours we had them never did we hear an off color word or phrase. Never a reprimand. Never an unkind action or exclusion...really, we are awed by this. Daddy ran the show. He gave honor where honor is due by thanking Jacobs true Father and giving a sweet devotional from Boyhood And Beyond. Every aspiring godly boy MUST be read this book, preferably by his Daddy. After the reading and prayer the festivities began!!

I googled *Boy Scout Games* and came up with a plethora of big boy games. The first of which is called Tea Boiling. The boys are divided in groups of 2-3, given a tin can with an inch of water and a book of matches(what boy wouldn't like this game already) As their eyes lit up Paul told them they had unlimited time to created their own fire in the driveway and the first group to boil their water, wins.

These are the B. brothers, absolutely a kick in the pants.

These two won the game all too quickly.

Rhett(with a smile on his face) informed Mr. J that his mother and he had just driven past a fire station and a county wide burning ban was on....thanks Rhett. So anyway, happy happy young men!

The winning fire!

Next we gave each new group of boys a 1 gallon zip lock bag with assorted *stuff*. I stole this from BakersDozen blog(link to right). They were told they had 15 minutes to created a *thing* - name it and state it's function. This was a robot sent to another planet to fetch some thing and return it to earth, their explanation was much more detailed. 3rd place.


This team created a catapult along with a 5 min story about Egyptians and Romans fighting each other so they created this catapult to break down the walls of the fortress. 1st Place.

Close up of the catapult.

A radar bug. It's radar(the spoon on top) tracks enemies and uses it's amazingly long tail to whip and catch the enemies therefore turning them over the the police forces. 2nd Place.

Then we had canoe races where two boys had to pack a canoe out around the old sandbox and back through the yard. Any chance to show off strength.


Next was a scavenger hunt. Again, a hit. The list was something like this - chicken feather, 3 blackberries, thimbleberry, horse hair, mushroom or fungus, quartz rock, nail or screw, three leaf clover, bird nest, mud, pine cone, birch bark, a bee in a bag and much more. Within 15 minutes two teams had found all but 1 item!


Time for gifts. Jacob is my sentimental one. He will shake your hand, but would rather have a hug. I was a little on edge wondering if he would just shake hands or go for the gusto and hug these boys and hmmm...how will they take that? So right off the bat, he gets his first gift and goes over to the boy and shakes his hand and uses it as a tool to pull him into a big bear hug. I cringe inside thinking "OH! He needs to get over this!" But you know what? All the boys were willing to hug back and not one acted "too cool" for a hug. They must know Jacob by now. I am resolved to let my son hug, so what? That is who he is.


By the last few gifts, everyone would jump in and give a hug to the gift-giver with Jacob. It was a great time. My son, the hugger. I can think of worse.

We finished with a game of clothespin tag and prayer. You know, we had asked the Lord for good weather and it was rained all morning. It stopped for the duration of the party, it misted, but did not rain, then returned to rain as soon as the last boy had left. We had much to be thankful for!

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Danny was born to work in the shop with his Daddy. Ever since he was itty bitty he would toddle out to *work* with Dad. Picking up every tool , pushing every button, staring at every working part. Daddy asked him to come do big boy work and Danny was VERY excited. Here are all the pipes Daniel measured and cut with a loud scary saw thing. He is quite meticulous and Daddy can explain things once and trust Danny will set to the task without mistakes and diligence.

Measuring 60" on the dot.

Cutting the poles. The sparks are the best part says Daniel!

Finally, two sons to work with him. Happy boys & a less burdened Daddy.

Tomato Sandwiches

No really, you have to try this before you wrinkle your nose. My neighbor lady told me about these a couple years ago and now we are hooked! Thanks Dee!

2 toasted slices whole wheat bread
butter
several 1/2" slices of red ripe tomatoes
pepper

The butter waterproofs the toast, short-term. Place your tomatoes one layer(or 5 layers thick) and sprinkle with pepper, don't hold back pour on the pepper. No ones seems to care for pepper in our house, however, we use a gob on T.S. The kids LOVE this! Enjoy

The Dentist "Broke if you do, broke if you don't"

I made appointments for the five oldest to be seen today. Then after thinking about it scratched the three year old...why? I can see his teeth are fine, they still recommend it...but I win, I'm the mamma.

So, our dentist is GREAT. We finally have insurance, which I'd take dental ins over medical any day(and we do). It's right across the street from a quaint little espresso booth(score!). They had all four children done in 1hr 15min. Pretty good. Headphones and a remote for the flat screen overhead...pretty happy place for those of us without T.V.!!

They are all really, really nice people at the office, except Mr. Dentist seemed to have a small issue with our decisions(no fluoride treatment, not spending thousands on cosmetic dentistry) therefore he was a little grumpy today, but all is well. He'll get over it, he really is a nice guy. We had two with cavities, two without. Of the two cavities one was preventable, one was not so I feel pretty good about today's visit. Each assistant came out and said our home care is spectacular, makes me feel like all that nagging is worth it morning and night!
Our family is goofy. Why you say? It seems Paul + Me = children with missing permanent teeth. Lateral incisors to be exact. To tell you the truth the dentist said this is a pretty common congenital defect. So far Jessica has two missing top teeth and Jacob 3, with the warning that the others are at a "risk" of having this too. The dentist was bothered that our daughter isn't getting implants and braces NOW. I see no reason, we take things slow especially when implants and braces together cost upwards of 15k...um no thanks. After much deliberation over the last few months Paul and I have decided to find an orthodontist in Canada(MUCH cheaper, same high quality work and they love US cash, even it it worth less) and pull her teeth forward to fill in the gaps. It will look something like the picture below. Not bad.

We had a little issue with this one assistant. She obviously does not care for large families. She made this face(you know, jutting out the bottom jaw while raising the eyebrows) when I had to kindly interrupt as my little one from running away from me in the waiting room, like I was wasting her time. Never smiled. Not a happy camper. As she was explaining how if we cared about our children they would have braces right now(o.k., that is my interpretation) she stated that Jacob's missing teeth are not "life threatening".....I didn't know whether to laugh out loud or pretend to take her seriously, I opted on the latter. Life-threatening missing teeth????

Jacob is on his birthday date with Grandma where he gets to eat lunch anywhere he pleases with is 2nd favorite lady. He picked Chinese food. Then off to Fred Meyer to spend all that birthday money on Legos.

So, today Danny, Ems and I picked blackberries and made another pie. Jessie sat on the couch all day with a flu-like headache, Danny now says he has a headache so I think our first Fall 2008 flu bug is rearing it's ugly head. Tonight is Bacon, eggs and pancake night so I have it easy! Oh and another reason to be happy...it's Tuesday, DQ Blizzard night. Yum.

Short lived disappointment - revised

We missed church today because yesterday was too busy and I never got bathing done or clothes set out, plus we all were just pooped. We had a wonderful home service instead and I even played my guitar...and it sounded o.k. Pastor Daddy is the best pastor.

My children normally wake up around 7:30am. Jacob was up at 6:30 itching to shoot his bow. They went out, set up targets, and commenced shooting in the rain. 15 arrows were shot and this is what happened.

We already emailed pics to the manufacturer and will wait to see what they want us to do. Paul could see obvious weak points in the molding where it snapped. What a bummer. All he wanted to do today was shoot!

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The reason I say short lived disappointment is because a friend of the family called this afternoon and asked if he could fly-in a gift for Jacob at our local airport. Jacob adores this man and holds him dear. Just the fact this man would DO this for a ten year old boy tells you something. So we packed up and watched him land at the Lynden airport. He gave Jacob a storybook *just* for boys, which Jacob is devouring as I type and we sat and chatted for a short while and off he flew into the wild gray pouring nasty skies(nothing like the blue yonder today...am I complaining?). What a treat! Thanks friend, we really can not tell you enough how special your family is to our family.

Saturday

Today we celebrated Jacobs birthday with our family, my Dad and Mom and Pauls Dad. His birthday is actually tomorrow, but we won't be home in the evening so we decided to do it tonight. My son is turning ten, and he also stepped on the scale and was so proud to announce he hit the big 100. He thinks that is the coolest thing! I can't believe I have a 100lb son! Wow. Can I make him stop growing? Please? He has defined muscles in his arms and he can pick me up. He moves over 200lbs of firewood from our field to our woodshed every day...yes, everyday. He baked his own birthday cake. He can shoot clay pigeons out of the air almost as well as his daddy. This morning he hooked a fish, his only fish, soon before they left the lake. He handed his pole to his little brother because he felt bad that Danny hadn't caught a fish and let Danny reel in HIS fish then praised him on what a nice fish he caught! He takes his baby sister on walks in the yard, cradling her in his arms when she is fussy. He sits with a 3 yr old on one side and a 5 yr old on the other while he reads them books in the afternoon. He is an awesome big brother with a big heart and we humbly come before the Lord and thank him for choosing us to raise this child. What a privilege.


Jacobs custom made birthday dinner. English muffin pizza, blueberry mini-muffins, BBQ garlic shrimp, a large pot of mandarin oranges and a Kerns apricot nectar juice. It was all very yummy.

He made a cherry-chip cake with cherry frosting.

Cool tool

One happy young man. G-pa gave him a compound bow complete set-up and we bought a bale of straw for target shooting and also checked into archery classes in Nov. He can not wait to practice tomorrow!

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O.k., really, this irritates me. I never knew this happened. My daughter rigged this all up, got my camera and took these pictures. This really happened tonight and had I known...

Emma is fully clothed, long flannel dress, socks, the whole works. There was sand all through my house tonight, even on our dinner plates! I couldn't figure out HOW it happened, until Jessie told me to look at the pictures she had taken earlier. Then it all became so clear.

Notice Em's long HAIR is even buried. I now hear Micah was buried next. Nice. Real nice, that is the reason for the "What is in your hair?!" "How did all THAT get in your underwear?" Quick, throw him in the bathtub before we have Jacob blow out the candles! Some days, I tell ya.

Races, dead fish and burrbelts...

The scorekeeper.

The scorebook.

The cheerleader and the racers & the finish line. This had been going on for sometime before I came home this afternoon and I still watched about 15 *races*.

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Daddy took the oldest three fishing again this morning. They together caught 5 fish, not as great as last time, but not skunked nonetheless. I was so proud. Before Daddy even told the boys they were ripping out their picket knives and cutting the heads off the fish and gutting them! They did a mighty fine job I must say.





Daniel is intrigued by touching/feeling examining things, that is how he learns best. He MUST touch, take apart, put together, take apart, put together, take apart...an experiment type of kid. Remember he is the one who was found electrocuting flies on the window with two bare wires? He is also the son I will find half inside the dishwasher spinning, turning, rolling every moving part to see how it works. Really, give him an old toaster and a screwdriver and he will be happy for hours. After the fish were gutted and in the fridge he came in the house and asked if he could *play* with a fish. "Play?" I asked, "Yes, mamma, i want to hold it and play with it." "Sure, go wash your hands." he did and I plopped a slimy fish in his hands. He flexed every fin, looked closely and ran his fingers all over the fish, scrapped the scales off ect. I think we have to go to the library now.

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Jacob just came up stairs with an all new design in fashion. He calls it his "burrbelt". A chic new style of belt marketed to them country types. Made of 100% burrs found in yer backyard and assembled around yer belly. When yer done and yous want some entertainment, put them on yer cats tail.

Tomatoes, frogs and Nanas

This first picture is for you Dawn! A ripe tomato...my FIRST! I have five gihugerous bushes with tons of maters on them, but they refuse to ripen. I had one today, and I selfishly ate it before my three year old saw it. He will get the next one. So Dawn, this will end all those phone calls to see whether you or I have ripe tomatoes yet. I doubt much more will come on before Fall hits strong. It's just been a bad year. It sure was tasty though ;-)

On to the dahlia garden. I have 5-6 vases of fresh dahlias I keep at all times around the house. I was out clipping off beauties when I came across a friend patiently waiting for a winged pollinator to be his next meal. I wouldn't say he has the best camouflage, lol, but he is patient.


My lil darling "Little Beeswings" my pride and joy of the garden.


Today is bitter sweet. Jacob had to cancel his party because of the rain, not a tear nor a sigh, he took it like a man. We rescheduled for next week. How reassuring is to know the Lord controls even the rain that came on Jacobs birthday and that it we can trust the Lord to always do what is best for us, even when we have to cancel a party. The sweet part of it is Nana, Paul's dear mother, is going to come spend the afternoon with the children. How could they NOT be happy!

Separation of Blog and State?

Not.

Click Here for primary governor election updates for those of you who care. Obsessed? Nah, just excited. Go Dino,go!

It is raining hard outside. To keep things simple, our children only get parties with friends on big birthdays...1, 5, 10, 13, 16. Jacob turns 10 on Sunday & has quite a party planned tomorrow with 9 friends from church. Since over half of them are traveling a ways to get to our house I invited all the families to stay and play. I love having a big old yard full of kids and that's what I hope to have.

I do not like to plan parties. I have this friend, however, that is *the bomb* when it comes to partys/activities/making kids feel great. She inspires me often. She is the mamma of the blog Baker's Dozen, a link on my sidebar. I like to think I am busy and planning a party isn't in my schedule, but against her, I can not begin to whine.

If it rains the party is cancelled, please help me pray for sun from 1-3:30 tomorrow? I reeeeeeally hope we can pull it off.

Go Dino, Go Dino!!!

Ah man, the suspense is killing me! Dino HAS to get in.

Boy the Lord was gracious to Paul and I tonight. Don't read this Luanne, you will be ashamed ;)
We lost our ballets in our mail heap. Then tonight, for whatever reason I asked Paul if he'd seen the ballots. "No, we need to find those though" "Yeah" I said. 10 minutes later I stumbled upon them(after casually looking for them for a week), totally ignorant of the fact it IS primary election day. Then Paul picked his up and saw, oh crud, this IS election day...they must be postmarked today....hmm...that won't work it's 6:30pm. Quick! Google ballot drop-off locations!.... The Library, o.k., open until 8pm. We sat down and voted, we knew all the names so voting was easy. AND thanks for our Eagle Forum letter whose advice we take very seriously. Every Christian family should sign up to receive Eagle Forum's election letters. So we voted and Paul jumped in his truck and ran them into the Library. BIG sigh of relief, I can't believe we almost let Dino down....

November elections can't come fast enough....

Recipe Hunt

I plan all my dinners for one month, then shop all at one time. I write my menu out for the month and post it on the fridge so the children(and Daddy) can look forward to ??? tonight. Tuesdays are always breakfast night, Fridays are usually bbq hamburger night with Saturday being Garbage Soup night, never knowing what left-overs are going to eat from the freezer!




BUT I need new recipes. I LOVE church cookbooks, so if you happen to have one/some you do not use pleeeeease consider donating them to....um....me. I have noticed there are quite few of you people out there reading my blog. Hmmmm who are you all? I'm curious. At our family reunion I found two more people who said they read my blog regularly that caught me off guard.



That said, I want your favorite recipe idea. I am looking for energy efficient(cooking at 350 for 1 hr or less) with common household ingredients/meats. Can you just leave 1 recipe in the comment box? My family will thank you. 80% of our meals consist of casserole, veggies & bread. Casseroles are cheap and yummy so I don't mind casseroles. I also love my crockpot...So there. Throw me a new one!



Off to teach the kids how to prune raspberries.

International Space Station

I meant to write this a couple weeks ago. My boys LOVE K'Nex, not only do they keep older boys completely entertained for hours like no other toy will, they are very educational. We have the complete space set which has the ISS or International Space Station. With the set comes a fact book that is just great. That was all they needed, it set the boys off on an infatuation with the ISS.

So, that leads me to my story. The first week of August all the kiddo's were tucked nicely in bed, presumed to be sleeping when Jacob knocks at our bedroom door. "Yes?" Paul says. "Daddy I just saw the ISS it has three lights and one is blinking and it is going really fast!" or something to that affect all in one quick and excited run-on sentence. We know he sleeps by a window, but didn't know he counts satellites, and watches the stars. We patted him on the head and said, "Sure it was. Now get in bed sweetheart. " You know, like he reeeeally knows what it looks like anyway, right?

He insists it was the ISS, knowing Dad and Mom aren't convinced. I look at the clock and tell Jacob it is 9:31pm on Aug ?, we will go online, see if we can find a tracker tomorrow and confirm your suspicions. That made him somewhat happy and he went back to bed.

In the morning he rises and quickly reminds me to check on that. We Google "ISS tracker" and come up with this http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/skywatch.cgi?country=United+States Obviously you have guessed he was correct because I am blogging about it! Sure enough, for 4 minutes on that night from 9:29- 9:33pm the ISS was visible from Bellingham , Wa. He was one beaming young man.

Cooler weather means the baking bug...

What is easier than picking 5 C of blackberries for a fresh pie? Having your CHILDREN pick 5 C of blackberries in your backyard while YOU make the pie crust. What a concept. Not that it is a feat or anything, I just never thought to ask them to do it. They pick amazingly fast when you tell them it is for a pie that they will taste after dinner. I don't think 10min passed and I had 6 C placed on my counter. The blackberries are coming on strong, & we looove them.

I rarely make pies, so please, no critiquing.

In the blink of an eye Gracie was taste testing flour....ewe.

Ta-da! Yummmm.

Then for lunch we made a double batch of donut holes. I didn't have veg oil, only olive, so they may have cost us an arm and a leg, but boy were they yummy! Lunch was donut holes and watermelon, a far cry from our usual healthy lunch.

I took this last night, the picture turned dark, but still pretty.

There were five different layers of purple mountains.