Rocketry and Basketball Weekend

Sean won his basketball game 41 to 30!  He did great and we are so proud of him.

We picked up Matthew from Rocketry weekend and he had a blast (literally).  He had an awesome weekend and we loved watching his rockets go off.  He can't wait to go to the next event.

Here is the video of Matthew's 2 stage rocket going off...it was awesome.  Might be a little hard to see in the video because the parachute is so small, but it's there! 

Awesome weekend in general and can't wait for another weekend like this one.  Next CAP outing is laser tag.  I am sure they will have fun with that one!

Our 14th Anniversary....

Fourteen years ago today, I married my best friend and love of my life.  So today, as we celebrate 14 years of love, laughs, tears, fights, make ups, holidays, births and so much more, I'd like to thank Kevin for all that he has done for our family.

So much of my life consists of our kids.  Because these days, my kids are my life.  As a homeschooling and stay-at-home mom to an almost 14 year old, a 12 year old, an almost 5 year old and almost newborn, it’s pretty safe to say that that they take up the majority of my time.  Since we also own our own business that has been taking up more time than I care to put into it, Kevin has really picked up my end of some of the work.  And I love him for that, especially since that gives me more time to put toward the kids, which is really what I want to do.  If I don’t have to work at a desk I don’t want to, but realize that it needs to be done.  One day I dream of hiring someone to take my place, but I don’t think they would work as well with Kevin as I do :-)

 

We have been blessed that Kevin works from home as well, and although we try not to bother him during the day, there are sometimes that one of us goes out into the office and interrupts him.   Especially, if I don’t watch Kyle every second, he will slip out there and start a conversation with daddy.  I know these are the times that we will remember the most, so I don’t get mad at him, but I do explain to him that daddy is trying to work.  I can’t imagine what that will be like once our baby girl gets here.  I can see that he won’t get much work done at all on some days!  

Our Doctors appt went great....The baby measures 35 weeks and I am at 37, so she is small, but doing great. They are estimating that by the time she is born she will weigh about 6-1/2 to 7 pounds. She should weigh at least 5lb 8oz to be born in the birth center, so the Dr. told me to hold on to her for another week and a half. We will see, they have lessened my activities, so I can't do as much as I was doing, but can still do most stuff, just not all at once :-) That's hard for me with three active boys, but we will manage!

The boys did their first PT (physical training) class last night with CAP and they did great, but stunk when they got in the car :-)

CAP and misc......

I didn't realize that the CAP stuff would take soooo much of my time!  I knew it would keep the boys busy, but I have spent 4 hours sewing on patches, 2 hours ordering and measuring for their uniforms (only the camo's right now, the blue ones will come later this week), 3 more hours studying rockets with the boys so they are ready for their test on Tuesday, another hour creating their accounts and setting them up so they can take some of the tests online and that is only the start!  We drive an hour this Friday night to drop Matthew off for Rocketry Bivouac and pick him up Sunday morning.  Sean isn't going since he was chosen for the All-Star game in basketball and it happens to be the same weekend.

Encampment has been changed, but they haven't released the final dates yet.  They may not be able to go if it interferes with our North Carolina trip, we will have to see.

The baby is doing good and sitting low!  We have another Dr. appt this Wednesday and I am looking forward to see how much she has grown.  We will post pictures soon of some of the stuff that we have done the last few weeks.  I ordered the kids' school books for next year, we went to the science museum twice, got a chance to get my hair and nails done before the baby comes, we added the leaf in the table, got Faith's room ready and re-arranged the house again!

Dr. Appt and Misc stuff....

We had our 34 week appointment today.  I love how the doctor sits down with us and listens and answers our questions and does not try to rush us out.  We were in there for 30 min today and not once did she act like she had to leave to get to the next person.  Our next appointment is May 9th and from there we will go every week.  Faith sounded great today and is doing wonderful.  She is still in the head down position like she has been from the beginning.  So, that tells the doctor that she is not a stubborn as most babies :-)  We are getting the finishing touches ready for her.

We took the boys to a CAP class last night, well at least Matthew and Sean.  Kyle is not old enough yet (you have to be 12).  It is quite a drive for us every week as it is in Tampa.  The CAP class is a Civil Air Patrol class.  It teaches them the basics of being in the Air Force and they have a ton of opportunities being involved.  The first one they get to do is Model Rocketry.  That is a weekend in May that they leave on a Friday night, build their rockets on Saturday and they get to launch them on Sunday.  They also have weekends that they get to do robotics, and fly in a glider plane as well as a real plane.  One of the kids last night got accepted into Space Camp too.  What a wonderful opportunity for all of the kids involved.

They will help with Search and Rescue missions, hurricane relief, as well as different opportunities here locally to help the community.  Once they turn 18 and are no longer a cadet, they can start helping the Customs and Border Patrol with drug busts.  They learn how to march, follow orders, leadership, moral values, how to shoot a gun, how to fly a plane, how to direct the planes into the airport, how to camp and a lot more.

The schedule goes like this: Week1; they teach a leadership class and perform inspection and drill. In Week 2: they have an Aerospace Education class and then Practice for Color Guard competition, Week 3: is their PT Test (Physical Training) which includes a mile run, sit-ups and push-ups. Then we conduct a Emergency Services task training.  Week 4: they have their Promotions ceremony and their Moral Leadership class with their Chaplain.

The boys loved it!  They had to salute and request permission to sign in.  It felt like home there, not sure why but I am glad the boys liked it so much.  They are looking forward to the activities each month and since they started early, if they practice and train hard enough they can actually get their pilots license before they are 18 and they could receive the Mitchell Award (which I thought was cool) so they can get accepted into the Air Force at a higher level.  And if they don't want to they don't have to go into the Air Force at all.  It is completely up to them at that time. 

So, look for pictures sometime next month with our boys in blue (at least 2 of them)!!!  Well, and their favorite part the camo's too :-)

Update on Baby Faith

We saw the Dr. last week and the baby is doing wonderful.  We are going every two weeks now.  She moves a lot still, but that is a good thing.  The Dr said her movements will slow down soon.  By May 9th the car seat needs to be installed and we start our appts every week.  She will need to wait to come until at least May 19th, or we will have to go to the hospital to have her.  Which none of us want to do.

We are still slowly purchasing the remaining stuff off of the registry.  Only a few more things to go....

I also had to buy a dresser to add to her and Kyle's room to accommodate the clothes and blankets that everyone got her.  Does a baby really need 10 blankets?  We only have 2 towels for her, 2 changing pad covers and 2 sheets, but 10 blankets?  I guess we can dry her off with blankets and hope she doesn't pee on the changing pad and sheets too much!  But after adding the dresser, now my rocking chair won't fit in her room.  We will either have to move Kyle to the boys' room, which I don't think is a good idea since we tried that before (they talk too much).  Or move the baby to our room, which I really don't want to do either.  None of our kids slept in the same room with us and this one won't be any different.

We really need to just figure out a lot of things I suppose.  We pray for God's guidance and have a lot of faith that we will be where He needs us to be soon and we can get on with how we want to change our lives.  We are hoping in the next couple of months that things will open up for us and we will have some answers.

In the meantime....our maternity pictures came back and I posted a few below:

Ultrasound #2 for Faith Ann

We had our last ultrasound done today.  I could have posted Kyle's ultrasound pictures and you wouldn't have known the difference :-)  She is smaller than Kyle was at this point though.  She looks a little smaller than he was at 27 weeks and she is almost 31 weeks, but they look identical.  She did not cooperate much with the picture taking today, they even gave me juice and had me walk around to wake her up.  Didn't work.  She covered her face most of the time and did not like the pushing from the ultrasound tech.  That just makes her mad I think.  But, by the time we got home she was moving a lot.  She is definitely a homebody like Kyle is. 

She was covering her face up here.... 

And here is her foot...

We had maternity pictures done today as well.  We won't get those back for a week or so.  We will have newborn pictures done as well.  They were all included in our ultrasound package :-)

It's been a Whole Week Already????

We have family that came in for the baby shower and family that wishes they could have been here for it.  We do love you all!!!!  We will miss the ones who can't be here and enjoy the ones that are.  We will take lots of pictures and be sure to share them so everyone can see what a great job that Aunt Mary, Mom and Kim did.  Debbie and the girls helped as well as the boys and Kevin.  Thank you all for ALL of your help!  Until the next update....

As We Get Busier . . .

...and busier and busier....God only gives you what you can handle....How many times have you heard that phrase? How many times have you said it? Over the past 3 months especially, I've repeated that phrase more times than I care to count.

...if God only gave us what we can handle, there really wouldn't be much on our plates. As a whole, we are rather unprepared for the stuff that life throws at us. You really can't prepare for everything. You can TRY. But how it plays out in your mind is NEVER close to the reality of it all. But I'm off track here. Getting back to God only giving us what we can handle.

If He only gave us what we could handle, we wouldn't need HIM. I think he INTENTIONALLY gives us more than we can handle because it forces us to rely on him. Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day."

The little things in life - the ones we can handle - we don't think we "need" God to help us in those things. We get so full of ourselves and our abilities to handle the stuff that comes at us each day that we turn a blind eye to the possibility of bigger stuff rolling our way. And I think God uses those to get our attention and remind us that we really cannot handle it without Him.

The next time you find yourself getting ready to tell someone that God only gives us what we can handle, think about what you're saying. There really should be a caveat attached to that - He only gives us what we can handle WITH HIM and THROUGH HIM.

Two weeks before the end of last year I told Kevin that I could feel that this was going to be a great year for us and that we would have a lot of opportunities come our way.  He asked me "How do you know?"  I said I didn't for sure, but that I could feel that it was going to be great and we would all be okay.

Since that conversation between us almost 3 months ago, we have had the opportunity to take on some work for our own company.  The first project was quite large and it took about 2 months to complete.  That one was due the first part of March and is installed, but working out a couple of things with that one still, which is part of the normal process.  The next project wasn't that big, but it took a week or so and that one is all said and done.  We finally felt like we were going to get a small break.  Then last week a call came in and we actually turned down the work, after all we have a lot on our plate between sports and a new baby coming.  That same afternoon a different call came in and it was more work.  We did decide to meet with that company and gave them a quote and they want to move forward.  What a shock, but at the same time scary.  This is another 2 month project, that will be one of the hardest that we have had to do.  This means a HUGE moving forward for our family and our lives.   This is the first of many steps to actually be in business just for ourselves and no one else.  Eventually, it will come down to that, I hope anyway :-)

We have been trying to figure out if we add on to our house or we move.  We have decided that adding on would not be the most financially responsible thing to do since we do live in a neighborhood that is primarily 50+.  Although, there are families that live in our neighborhood, they are just not large families.  The usual family size in our area is 2 kids.  Where we move to yet I am not 100% sure, but I do know that this is what we will do instead of adding on.  So, if you know of anyone who wants to buy a house let us know, lol!!!

We will try to write more as we get closer to the baby coming to keep you all updated, I hope it works that way!  Our last Dr. appt, she is doing great and measures right on schedule.  Heart beat sounds strong and she is moving everyday.  I had the glucose and iron test and are awaiting the results.  Our next appt is in two weeks now.  Kyle loves asking me if the baby is awake or asleep.  If I say she is asleep, he will tell everyone in the house to be quiet so the baby can rest.  If she is awake he rubs my tummy and talks to her.  He is going to be such a great big brother!

Guess it's been a little while....

I guess it has been over a week since our last post.  Man, how time flies.  Two things we learned this week....you can take a 1/2 cup of popcorn and put it in a brown paper bag, fold it over twice and place in your microwave.  Hit the popcorn button (it may need a little longer as we had to up the time a tad) and you get a bag full of popcorn without all of the oil and bad butter.  We add our own melted butter here and maybe a little cheese sometimes.  But it turned out great and it was so easy.  The other thing is to get our clothes smelling like a baby all I need to do is add 10 tsp of baby scent to our bottle of homemade laundry detergent.  It smells just like dreft but only costs us less than a dollar a bottle. And something about the baby scent I added I don't need to keep putting vinegar in with our laundry to act as a fabric softener.  The baby scent does that on its own so we are saving even more. 

Things are going great, but we are very busy.  Getting ready for finals and making sure the kids are doing school can be challenging.  Kyle is doing great with reading, I'm so proud of him.  Kevin's one big project is almost done, it gets installed next week.  And then we have another right behind it, but it's all good.  By the time the baby comes, he will have time to take off and help.  Kyle can't wait for the new baby to come, he keeps saying he is happy that she will be here to share his birthday :-)  He is going to be such a great big brother.  Even though we have been busy, I did get enough time to drag the family to the fabric store to get more thread so I can make a couple of pillow cases.  I picked up some nice fabric too.  I may pickup a couple more pieces of fabric with some more terry cloth to make a few more burp rags.  The ones I made I love, and we haven't even gotten to use them yet.  Besides the burp rags and the pillow cases I will probably take it easy with the sewing at least for a bit to see what we receive from the baby shower.

We still have not come up with a definite name yet as we are still looking at a few names.  We will let everyone know when we come up with one for sure.  We have also not found that perfect outfit to bring her home in.  Her bedroom is pink and black, we used this picture we found to help us with the colors:

The really neat part is that the heart with the wings is our Skyle Tech logo without the shield.  And, it's hard to see but inside the stars are a blue/green color that almost matches Kyle's bed spread.  So, it worked perfectly.  We spent more than an hour at babies r us to look at bedding and stuff again.  Deleted everything we had picked out and just went simple.  It works for us.  I got a bed skirt in the mail today that I don't really care for.  It is has a too many ruffles on it, but we will see if it grows on me.

I have another dr. appt in a couple of weeks, but the baby is kicking a lot and is most active when I try to go to sleep at night.  This week she can open her eyes and can respond to light.  I know she already responds to loud noises.  She doesn't like them at all, but I don't think the boys really did either.

I Love Sewing.....

I'm one of those people that if you give a project to I like to finish it before the end of the day just to start the next day fresh :-)  Well, we went to mom and dad's on Sunday to have dinner with them and mom got to show me how her sewing machine worked so I could stop sewing everything by hand :-)  I started with burp rags yesterday ....

and did 8 of them, but I couldn't stop there I had to start the nursing cover because I was anxious to see what it would look like.  Well, at 11:30 last night I finished it!I love it...it has boning in it so I can see the baby and it has adjustable straps :-)

So, I got up this morning and started at it again.  I fixed a towel that I had been neglecting with frayed edges.  Then, since it is laundry day for Kyle and the baby I washed one of the blankets that I made last month:

See all those knots that I tied?  Well, in the washing machine they ALL came apart...lucky me :-)  So, since I had the sewing machine it now looks like this...

Nice straight sides that are very washable :-)  But why stop there you ask?  Because I ran out of thread :-(  So, now I have to go back to the fabric store and get thread.  One evening I will go and see what else I can grab there that I can sew.  This is fun, wish I started it before :-)

I did finally convince Kevin to take me to Hobby Lobby since he wouldn't let me go by myself (it's an hour away).  I first fell in love with Hobby Lobby's in Ohio when we visited last year and found a little square blanket for Kyle and a TON of Christian stuff to put around your house.  Anyway, we found the little square blankets for girls this time and picked up a couple of other things...

So, now the colors in the new baby's room are pink and black and we are still thinking about a name.