New School Year

We are starting our new school year next week. Last year being our first homeschooling year was a trial, I described it to some of our kids as our caterpillar year. We inched along trying this and that, dropping what wasn't working, overcoming obstacles... This summer we took a break (well most kids, some either wished to work ahead or had to catch up on what they were behind on before we started homeschooling). Every single child met all their goals this past year. I felt like I could breathe again. I think my biggest fear homeschooling was somehow I would end up with at least half a year behind and too many antisocial people :) However to my surprise (seriously I was surprised) I have 7 kids either up to grade level or beyond! I have kids who have friends, hobbies, interests and we haven't had a lot of trouble (from most). So I have named this year our butterfly year. We are going to burst forth from our summer cocoon and take off this school years with less worry that this whole homeschool thing works. Granted I know it will get stressful, so I am not being naive! Whats actually been stressful for me has been trying to figure out where I fit in when it comes to relating to others. I am definitely not an on the go mom, I really don't need to feel like I get out every day. Not that I am a total hermit :) I do enjoy visiting with friends or meeting up for lunches or coffee. I enjoy the occasional trip to the zoo or the park. However I have noticed that homeschooling parents are as diverse as public school parents. Some are involved in activities every day, whether its field trips or lessons. Some are very conservative and they don't do any tv or movies. I have a hard time finding my own place. Here's the confusing part, in my home I know what I think I should be doing, but I have this bad habit of comparing my situation to those around me. Then I feel guilty that I am not more like this one or that one, but to either extreme. Whenever I try to do what so and so did just for the sake of being "normal" or "better" I end up feeling stressed or annoyed and I cannot capture what looked so inviting about their ways. I have always said I am a "grass is greener" person. I am happiest being home caring for my family, having my little garden and my many meal preparations. I am most stressed when we have a full calendar and people need to be at this field at this time for this practice. I miss my family when we get too busy. I am not sure the point of this now......got kinda off track. Anywho so this is our butterfly year. I am hoping that God brings us some new family members this year! Not sure who or how, but its always in my heart :)

Birthday!

I had another birthday! I turned 33 this year and was quickly asked by my 7 year old son if cars were invented back then. My husband made dinner, my 13 year old made the cake and my sister and her family joined us for dinner. It was a special night! In fact my 6 year old daughter even decided to beatbox while they sang Happy Birthday! It got me thinking today how blessed I am. I really can't think of any other life I would rather be living. Some days are hard or sometimes I am guily of wanting more or less but over all I am a very blessed lady. I have no idea what this year will bring, not sure I want to. I have learned that sometimes not knowing is exactly what we need to depend on God. I know we will be homeschooling, this year will be a little easier knowing I have one year behind me! We are fully homestudy ready, but I have no idea if anyone will join our family. Once you get this big its harder to find people who have children to place who are open to bigger families. I hope by this time next year to have a garden in the back yard and maybe a pool!

The People Zoo

Alex and I were doing a devotional book together and one of the questions asked if I wrote a book about our life what would I name it......so I said .....The People Zoo. So now true stories from our people zoo.................

One child actually decided to lick the toothpaste stuck on the inside of the sink.............EWWWW

Same child on an excited jaunt from the bathroom to the sprinklers outside deposited her clothes in a path leading down the hall.

Same child decided to pinch another child twice and then was told to go to time out, but to save time since she was in a chair on wheels, we just wheeled her to the time out spot.

A different child went to take a shower, only remembering pjs.........forgetting towels and undergarments, which I needed to deliver

While delivering said items, my husband had told a different smaller child that he was going to get his shower ready in a minute.....as we were about to move a dresser into another room, which moving that we notice a totally naked little one ready for his shower running through house to let us know!

Some families get jazzed about the unveiling of the latest vacation spot......no not us, the kids and I were all excited for the unveiling of the new chore chart for the new house (seriously some kids were super excited.)

This morning I awoke to a certain 4 year old walking quietly over to my bed to let me know he was up, why so quiet?? He found his older brothers baseball socks, had hiked up his pj pants and pulled them up to his thighs.

Ahhh its a glamorous life ;) Wouldn't trade it for anything!

We are in!

I have been MIA because we have been moving. We are finally in our new house. Almost all the boxes are unpacked and we are settling in. The house is great. It has the greatest bathtub EVER. Its huge, so big I am pretty sure I could bring in a floaty or 2. The kids were great through the move helping clean and carry boxes. In someways having 7 kids makes big things easier, yard work, moving...... Its nice to have a place to set roots. We are going to be putting in a big garden in the back and starting a composting bin. Some of our children have trouble with transitions, even when moving within the same town. So this past week my days have been filled with lots of limit testing. I am though not gifted in decorating houses, so I have a few boxes left with pictures and things that I wander around the house with and then eventually return it to the box. It will find its place eventually! My favorite room in the house is our new homeschool room. I will post pictures soon!

Looking in the rear view mirror

I tend to view life that way. You know it looks small and distant and you see the familiar stuff you passed along the way. You can't see all the details and like the last sock in the hamper it is forgotten and memories are piled on top. I have lived a bit of the gypsy life the past few years. Well the past 12 years. We have moved almost 8 times in the last 12 years. (I say almost because in 3 weeks we will be making our 8th move). We have moved from MA to CT to NH to MA to TX to IL to TX......My original home is in MA (I did live a few years as a child in FL) but most of my growing up years I spent in Massachusetts. Its home and will always be home. I know the towns, the good beaches, where to get REAL ice cream (which doesn't exist in TX), the accents......... Living in Texas has awesome perks, the people are super kind, the ice doesn't stick to the roads for too long and the prices down here are a LOT lower :) Yet some days like today while I was watching coverage of some storms up in New England, I feel homesick. Homesick to understand by town name whats going on. Memories of working here, or living there. Where I met Randy, where we took Alex. I miss having lots of family around to visit and celebrate with. But then I also have to remind myself when we look back in the rear view mirror a lot of stuff is lost. For one I hated the winter. I like the snowstorm near Christmas, but other then that I feared driving in all that! The cost of living was so high Randy often traveled over an hour and for a few years 2 hours, just to get to work each way losing lots of family time. Lastly if I had stayed put and not followed my gypsy life I wouldn't have Caley, Riley, JD, Zeke and Hannah.....So yes I miss the past, but who knows what the future holds. Hopefully this next move is our last for a long long time, perhaps by then I will know my Texas geography better and have a new accent and give the kids a new hometown to look back on someday :) Sidenote...Texas isn't bigger in everything they don't have bigger ice cream cones then Massachusetts!

Disorganized big thinker!

A little confession.......I don't care much for detail. I am a good enough type of personality. I can think of grandiose plans and come up with great ideas, but I lack the organization of brain to complete them. Its not I don't want to complete them, but I don't know what to do first or next or last for that matter :) I don't mind doing it when someone says first do this then that.....etc... Luckily the creator who made me also made a perfect partner in Randy. He is a details guy. If you need a spreadsheet he's got it. Some examples, we are moving soon. I wander around the house thinking about what to pack only to end up back on the couch with nothing complete. Although in my scatter brain, I did throw some laundry in, then washed the sink in the bathroom as I walked by and tossed some long lost legos back into a bedroom. Or if I do pack a box, everyone knows it, because I somehow manage to fit a whole bookshelf in a small now distended box that weighs somewhere near 250lbs. Yet Randy can get a bunch of boxes and in a few hours have them packed neatly and orderly. My idea of cleaning is going room to room dusting, then back sweeping or whatever. He can be in the kitchen for a long time focused until it shines and finally puts away my pile of not knowing what to do with it papers. Lets not get in to grocery carts, me shopping alone looks like a balance science experiment with the stupid toilet paper continuously falling off the bottom of the cart making the cart come to a screeching halt while I try not to catapult over it. He stops in each aisle to arrange it all so it fits in a way that makes it look like a lego structure with each piece clicking in neatly to the last. I used to envy his ability to focus for longer then 10 seconds, until he told me he needed me to think of the big stuff because his brain doesn't and then it gives him something to work on. I have had big dreams and we have worked to make many come true. See a perfect match! So now I will go back to aimlessly wandering around the house in attempts to find something to clean or pack.

He didn't have to save me

The other night as I was laying down to go to sleep, I had a very vivid memory. Not sure why it came to mind, but I was remembering a particular night when I was pregnant with Alex. I was 26 weeks along and had started having contractions. They sent me to the hospital where they gave me some medication to stop the contractions, soon they realized it wasn't working and the contractions were still coming. They eventually transferred me to a bigger hospital in Boston where they had a NICU for babies this premature just in case. So fast forward a day they have me on a new medication magnesium sulfate...awful stuff! While on it I seemed to have aspirated and got fluid in my lungs the fluid increased greatly until it was in my lungs and around my heart, so they transferred me to the respiratory ICU. So here I am 6 months pregnant a non-re breather mask inflated on my face, crazy stockings on my legs that keep inflating, a maternity nurse next to my side 24 hours a day monitoring Alex in my womb. This night that I was thinking about was a scary night, I had fallen asleep when all of the sudden all sorts of beeping noise starts going. I realized I couldn't take a breath, at least not a very deep one. Nurses and doctors came running in and all I remember is total confusion people telling me to calm down adjusting this and that and putting stuff in my IV. I remember being scared for me, for my baby and for my family. Fast forward shortly after they told Randy I probably didn't have much longer and they plan was to take Alex by c-section if it came to that and try to save her at 26 weeks. Mind you I was 19 and Randy was 21. This wasn't quite the life we had planned. Something humbling about going from being a 19 year old girlfriend to a 19 year old asking said boyfriend to help with a bed pan. Anyway I was thinking about what it must have felt like for my parents, they sat in the waiting room and came in to visit and cheer me up. I can't imagine what its like to see your child with that going on. Miraculously, and I can say that because its what the doctor said, the fluid started to go away, they didn't know why or what had happened, but a few days later I was stable, still pregnant and ready to go home. I wasn't saved at the time,I had no relationship with Jesus. I was thinking this week about that very fact. I wasn't just a few moments from dying, I was also a few moments from being eternally separated from Jesus. I wasn't a bad person as some would describe, I was in sin, the very fact of being pregnant before marriage can attest to that. However God never says in His Word that we have to be decent or good enough for salvation. He actually agrees, yep we all sin, no one is immune. He already said that the wages of sin is death. Way before I sinned this was His way. I don't pretend to know the whys of His ways because He tells us His ways are higher then our ways, so it would be futile for me to rationalize it. I do know God is proven to be just, fair, righteous and since he can't contradict his nature, his ways are true. So back to my thinking. In my sin he saved my life. He had no obligation to save me that day, no obligation to save Alex. In fact weird enough when I woke up after that awful night, the song stuck in my head Love Lifted Me. It wasn't a song I listened to and I had no idea where it came from, but it played in my mind. A few years later I miscarried a baby and I begged God to save that baby, it didn't happen and then 2 weeks later I learned I was pregnant with AJ. At the end of that pregnancy at 34 weeks I developed HELLP syndrome a severe form of pre eclampsia. Again my life was at risk and the only option was to deliver AJ, and at 4lbs 6ozs AJ was born. He was in the NICU with tubes in his throat, I was in my hospital bed sobbing feeling like I had let him down. The doctors said he might be in the hospital for up to 6 weeks. His stay ended up being 5 days. He grew, he breathed on his own and he ate, and we were able to bring him home. Again in my sin God had no obligation to heal me or him, but he choose too. Shortly after that my brother explained to me what Jesus meant when he said we must be born again of the spirit. I prayed to God confessed I was a sinner in need of a savior, that I couldn't do anything to "get" salvation, I couldn't earn it or create it. I needed Jesus to enter my life and accept what He did on the cross and turn from things I was doing and follow Him.

Why its all important. Jesus promises in the Bible that those whom call on Him for salvation can never be plucked from his hand. That His act of dying on the cross is the only way sin can be forgiven and the only way we have access to the Father. I am not making it up! Look in your Bible and see! God gave me a second and then a third chance to live. I have surrendered my life to the one who saved mine both physically and spiritually. I have had my eyes opened this week to the depth of my gratitude. He didn't have to save me, but he did. I hope I never lose sight of this and live my life as someone who has nothing else to live for but His purpose and I hope my story leads someone else to know Christ. I am always happy to answer any questions about what it means to follow God and what my faith is all about!