Me and Like A LOT of Kids

 I realized the other day that I haven't taken very many pictures of this baby belly. So for the sake of memories for baby 7 here are a few pictures! Baby is finally head down! Love feeling those kicks in my side verse straight down! Although, I am questioning whether he is crooked in there. He feels like his head is more angled toward my left hip! I love that Myles is copying me in this picture! To bad he's cut off a bit. He still has a puppy dog nose painted on from a ward party! Always hard to imagine how the youngest will act towards the new addition! It never gets easier for me trying so hard to make the youngest feel excited about the baby. I try to include them in all baby stuff when the baby arrives. It can be so nerve racking but I think it's so important.  He says he's excited for baby brother. I hope he stays that way! I'm getting so anxious for the end of this pregnancy! I'm 36 weeks. Earliest I've gone into labor ...

Kenzie had her first orchestra concert of the year. It was so fun to watch them play and see how much they have progressed! They dressed up for Halloween. Kenzie dressed up as a zombie!

Saying good bye to our first house. Sometimes when you meet people and start talking to them, you get that feeling that you just get each other. You click! Last week, at Wylie's last soccer game, a woman on the sidelines watched me arrive at the game with my bunch of kids plus a couple extra. I probably looked like a frazzled mess because we were running late and I'm hauling all these kids around while hugely pregnant. It's a good look...just saying. After we settled down on the sidelines she came up to me and asked me if this would be baby number 7 or 8. I explained it was 7 but some of the kids with me at that moment weren't mine. She smiled with understanding and told me she had 8 kids. Keep Trying! We continued to talk for a while about coming from big families, raising big families, getting counted in public, transitioning to a 12 passenger van, and all the funny and rude things that come with carting around a million kids. Then she mentioned th...

Myles loves juice. I didn't have a button pad on him and his juice he was drinking starting running out his stoma (the hole his button is in that goes straight to his stomach) and down his belly. At first it made him nervous. Then he just wanted to show everyone.  I really need to change his button. He's had this one in for several months. His GI doctor recommends replacing it every 3-4 months or if it accidentally comes out. Thankfully, that has never happened! We had to go to a training at Primary Children's Hospital on how to care for and change his button. The first time I was lucky enough to change it at the GI doctor office with the doctor overseeing me make the switch. I felt more confident he was right there walking me through it. Still nerve racking though! The second time we swapped out a button was at home and made me a bit more nervous! For the moment, I just checked his balloon port. Then emptied and refilled the water and that has helped th...

Myles has an ear infection and got pink eye on top of that. He has been so cuddly. Just wanting Mommy all the time. He's such a family oriented soul anyways, that when the kids are in school he just follows me around and wants a lot of attention.  But, when Myles is not feeling well, he really wants to be held and cuddled. He stayed up half the night with me last week miserable. We think he got a tiny bit of dairy and got a stomach ache from it. He can't have any dairy. Ear infection on top of tummy issues, equaled one extremely sad kid.  Although he's not feeling well, he still gave me lots of kisses. He is the perfect example of mourning with those that mourn. When someone is feeling down, most people try to make them feel better, lift them up, or fix the problem. This is fine, but sometimes you just need to cry it out and not have someone trying to "fix" things?! I had a few emotionally rough days during this time frame. I usually don't like th...

I'm so proud of Kenzie for trying new things! She really enjoyed cross country and is looking forward to doing it again! Districts were last Friday and all the middle schools competed against each other. They split each school team up and made a varsity and junior varsity team. Kenzie really wanted to be on the varsity team even though she's only a 7th grader. She's done so well this season and has kept improving! Before districts they announced the teams and she was thrilled to be included on the varsity team! Go Kenzie!  MaKenzie did awesome in the district meet! She got 20th place overall and came in 6th place on her varsity team! She also made a new personal record of 10:29 for the mile and half! The girls varsity team won districts by 1 point! I was so happy to have Kenzie be part of such a great group of people. She learned a lot from the kids around her. They really are a good group of kids! She was surprised and I was so impressed when she told me th...

Happy birthday to this sweet boy of mine. I love him to pieces! The day before Wylie was born I was reading my scriptures and came to Alma 48:17-18 in The Book of Mormon. Yes, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As soon as I read these scriptures I had the distinct impression that Wylie had a strong testimony and wanted to be raised like these "men of God." Baby Wylie Alma 48:17-18 17 Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men. 18 Behold, he was a man like unto Ammon, the son of Mosiah, yea, and even the other sons of Mosiah, yea, and also Alma and his sons, for they were all men of God. I felt I had my work cut out for me. Wylie is a leader and has the desire to follow Christ and wants to be raised like this. I felt I had learned so...

Feeding Myles is...... an adventure. An always changing new adventure. Sometimes he doesn't mind, sometimes he hates it, sometimes he tries to help, sometimes he tells me to feed his button, sometimes he makes silly faces, sometimes he tells me he's going to puke, and sometimes he does puke. Get the idea?! Always an adventure! This is a bolus gravity feed. Basically, after mixing his special formula, I hook up his extension set to his button in his tummy. That gets hooked up to a 60 ml open ended sryringe. I slowly let the formula run through into his tummy. He "eats" about 9 oz at a time and it took a VERY LONG TIME to work up to 9 oz! He's a happy boy for tonight's feeding. He won't ever drink it. YES, we've tried. This boy has been through so much and still amazes me. He's brave and tough and loving. Presently, he thinks his button is his super power. I want him to always be happy with who he is. He's ok with s...

I really love decorating for Halloween! It's not even my favorite holiday but I love decorating for it anyways! When we moved into this house a year ago, we hadn't even unpacked but we still decorated for Halloween. The kids were so excited to fill the windows with monsters. This house has a lot more windows but the kids were up to the task to make a million monsters to hang up.  Finalized front view of house. For some reason the green back rounds are not showing up well in the picture. Last year the kids had several friends come over and make monsters with them. They had so much fun! I was looking for ways to make the move easier on them and this was such a great activity! That spiderweb is actually out side on the front porch in front of this window. Their is a baby doll hanging in the web that looks like part of the silhouette. My mom hates that we have a baby doll hanging in it...sorry mom. Hanging these up was quite a family project this year. It took almo...