These and, I’m sure, other words have been used to tell my loving hubby about the expected bundle I currently carry. I’m mean, when you’ve done this 11 times, what else can you say. (Go ahead, rub your eyes, clean out your ears, whatever you need to do, YES, I said 11…)

No, not all 11 have gone all 40 weeks. No, I don’t have aspirations to be a rival to Michelle Duggar. But I still get looks from the nurses when we start doing ultra sounds, or when it comes time for the birth… and then I have to go into, we have 5 kids, 2 boys 3 girls and we have had 5 miscarriages, all around 6-7 weeks… and no, they don’t really seem to be less shocked then you, they just have better poker faces.

I find it funny that each pregnancy is as different as each child is. From cravings and feeling ill to the movement of each child, each has their own personality from the very beginning. Sometimes the differences comes down to the anatomy: for each boy, I have had major cravings for tomatoes,, had lots of morning sickness and dealt with Gestational Diabetes. These issues makes the girl’s pregnancies a breeze for me – the girls have given me WAY more drama after they were born than before.

How did we come to this point? Well… sometimes I ask myself the same question. And sometimes I’m not really sure of the answer. I wanted 4 kids. Two girls and two boys. And along that road, we lost 5. With three, and dealing with the last 3 miscarriages, T told me he could be done. Three. I knew that I knew that I knew, I was not done. It was big stress for us for a while. Then my sweet K came alone and I was GOOD! T, however, held that sweet little bundle, looked at me and said, “I think we need another.” Um, what??? Who are you and what did you do with my husband??? And in the middle of THAT conversation (which lasted two years) I became pregnant with A.

Then watching those 4 sweet kids welcome A (and hearing then 2 yr old K tell 9 yr old J, “Don’t touch MY baby!”) T began to question… at first to himself, then with friends and then with me, “Who are we to tell God no?” Come again? Six??? I signed up for 4, remember??? Again, in the middle of THAT discussion, T turned 40 while on a business trip. I made the trip to the city he was in to surprise him for his big day. And we came home with a surprise for us…

So we will welcome number 6, boy #3, into the family in July. And as of right now, I don’t know where the road leads. Right now, I’m just trying to get through the last month. Stay tuned for further updates!

How did I go from November 2010 to June 2011??? I can tell you, it went fast!

When I wrote my last post, I was in the middle of planning a surprise for my hubby’s 40th… he was at a conference in CA, and I enlisted family and friends to cover me and take care of our kids, and I flew to CA to be able to spend his birthday with him. Well, long story short, God had ANOTHER surprise in mind…

When we finally arrived home (a good 12 hours late after sleeping in the Denver airport), our then 5 yr old daughter told us she had a dream that night, a dream that I was pregnant. I laughed. So did God. About 4 weeks later, I found out, in fact, she was right. All I could think was, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” 40 and pregnant????

And to top it off, we knew the baby would be our third son very early. For whatever reason, boys are SO much harder on me then girls are. So, yep, first trimester was rough. It’s tough to keep things quiet when you feel yucky and you need to pretend otherwise. Adjustments keep us hopping.

We now are trying to figure out the best way to work an 18 month old into a big bed in the same room with a 6 yr old and 3.5 yr old (who doesn’t like to go to sleep!) and change the nursery from pretty in pink to bouncy blue. Our older boys are so excited to have another boy coming. Our girls are adjusting to the thought, (though my 3 yr old told a friend of mine she didn’t “want to be a big brother!” she is now getting excited to hold her little brother.

So, July 29, we will welcome another little one… and it’s coming fast!

I’m done. Had it. Over it. Want off the ride. You name it, I’m there. Let me catch you up…

Some of you may remember, last August, when we moved into our lovely home, we found a few brown recluses. I say a few, because I think we had 4 or 5 in that first week… I was NOT happy about it… I’ve lived in the Nashville area 17 years, and never actually seen any outside of the zoo. I called the people who are supposed to be good at killing things like that and was told we didn’t have a problem… ummm really? There are bugs in my house who can do DAMAGE to my kids and I don’t have a problem???

I was told that with 5 kids said bugs would not want to be around, and within six months they would move out because there’s too much noise… there’s a reason they are called RECLUSE…

Well, after that first week, we didn’t see any for a while… then my boys would find one or two in their room, or we found on in the baby’s room… I honestly don’t remember them all…

Then there was a weekend I don’t think I’ll ever forget… about two weeks ago… I sent my boys up to bring down their dirty clothes, and they came down telling me they found another spider. They trapped it so Daddy, who was not home right then, could see it. He came home, look at it, then rid our house of the vermin, and we all jumped into the van and drove a good 20 minute drive, ate lunch and were sitting around a couple of tables, kids playing, laughter, and chatter. I don’t even remember what we were talking about. What I remember was feeling like there was a hair… shall we say, in my shirt? I, rather nonchalantly, reached from the top of my shirt down to grab said hair, and pulled out… A SPIDER!!! I, with baby in one hand and spider in the other, jumped up, and threw the offender down. Yes, I had a brown recluse in my BRA!!! My husband came over and rescued me by killing it. Something was said about him being jealous of the spider’s view… MEN!!!

The next day boys found another one in their room. This one was dead. And then I went to change the BABY’S sheets… and yes, as I lifted the mattress to put the sheet on, found yet another UNDER THE BABY’S mattress… UGH.

Tonight the boys found yet another in their room. It is only by God’s grace we have not had anyone bitten. There are spider traps all over this house… and they have picked up a couple. For those counting, we’ve now been the in the house for 10 months… and still they are here…

I’m so ready for them to be gone. And yes, I still feel like I have something crawling on me… so if you see me put my hand in my shirt… please forgive me for being rude, but I’m checking for spiders!

Yep… had one of those today… Oh, it was fun for a bit. Baby A took an early (and LONG – yay!) nap. I was apparently in need of a make-over… Or so 5 year old S thought… and 2 year old K was quick to join in.

This means, they were using kleenex wraps on my feet, plastic lipstick on my lips, a dirty sock to put blush on my cheeks and forehead… They then moved to using a plastic brush and tweezers in my hair (and in the hands of the two year old none the less!), and then…

I’m not really sure how they were discovered, but S and K found my make-up brushes. This, of course, lead to the discovery of my make-up. I, however, had it under control, and told K that was not to be used. I even told S to put the lipstick back where she found it… AND THEN…

Then the phone rang. And I got just a little distracted… This is what I found when I got off the phone:

For the record, she’s crying because she DOESN’T want her picture taken… go figure!

I’m not sure how it happened… really. I know Daddy came home… he’s been gone for a week, so everyone was pumped! Kids were running EVERYWHERE… seems more like 10 kids then 4. And loud… wow. We finally got them to listen a bit and go upstairs. Mom, T and I were sitting at the table finishing dinner and talking about all that happened this week.

The S came running in to tell me that G was bleeding. I heard no tears… so I told her to tell him to come talk to me. Pretty soon he did so… and showed me a skinned little toe. I guess he scraped it on the wall (he’s a boy who’s almost six… I don’t ask) and did make it bleed. S, being the “bandaids will fix everything” kind of girl she is, ran to get him a bandage.

With that ordeal out of the way, T went outside to look at the places we had two trees removed from. Mom and I were still talking and the kids were off playing. Then S begins to say something about baby medicine  and K playing in it. I really wasn’t paying attention, but it started to sink in. Grandma began to repete S to make sure she understood what she was saying. At the same time I turned to mom… “Do I smell baby powder?” We got up and went to the hall.

Then we went a little deeper.

Then we rounded the corner.

Oh, yeah… that’s big fun to clean. And so are the covered children.

Apparently, when S got the bandages, she handed K the baby powder. K quickly discovered it was lots of fun to dump on the floor. Grandma, T, the boys and I discovered it’s not so much fun to clean. I am sure the house will smell like baby powder for weeks on end… maybe that’s not a bad thing when people come to see the house???

Between Nashville and Chattanooga there is a big hill (when you grow up in the Rockies it’s hard to call much else mountains!) you have to drive over. The rocks had to be cleared in order to put the road in. The result is rock walls bordering the interstate. They are very pretty.

Since we’ve had a good bit of rain lately, everything is rather wet. There were several places where the running water created waterfalls on these bordering rocks.

After seeing several of these, J said, “It’s like when Moses struck the rock and brought out the water!”

For dinner on Saturday we went to Medival Times and had a great time! While we were enjoying the dinner knights were participating in their tournament. They also started passing out carnations to the ladies in the audiance. After the first pass of flowers, S really wanted one. Our Yellow Knight, spotted her, and called her “Precious.” The second pass and S was trying to get his attention… to which he responded, “I’ve got something for you.” And she, ever the drama queen, pouted because she didn’t get one.

After one of the tournament games, our Yellow Knight came right up to S, joust in hand, and pointed at her. Tied to the end was a scarf. We pulled it off, and S blew him kisses. When we untied it, it read, “Queen of Love and Beauty.” Very sweet!

Once she got over the idea that it was not a flower, we tied it around her neck, where she proudly wore it the rest of the evening.

As we exited and walked to the van, S was excitedly telling me how much she like the Yellow Knight and all that we did for the evening. Only she wasn’t watching where she was going. “Watch out S. S watch out!” But she didn’t watch out… she ran face first into a pole in the sidewalk. OUCH!

One more thing to top off the weekend: As we were looking for a place to eat breakfast/brunch/lunch, I jumped out of the van and ran into Cracker Barrel to find out there was a 30 minute wait… don’t think so… So back to the van… to find the window in the passenger seat down… when I question T about it he described a “loud noise” that he thought was too much pressure on the window. He tapped the switch to open it a crack… and it went all the way down… and would not come back up. At first it was a horrible grinding sound and then nothing… it would not go up, it would not make any noise. So yes, from Atlanta to Nashville with the window open… I think my hearing is almost back.

And tomorrow I will spend my day, with four kids, in the mechanic’s office…