Rich called me and said that they were on the way to the ER when Caleb started throwing up…so the paramedics decided to go to other, bigger, city hospital “hot”..turned on the sirens and went as fast as they could.  I’m unclear as to what they did for Caleb, I know he got some oxygen and medicine to open up his air ways, then promptly fell asleep.  He never passed out but he’s been laboring for breath all last night and today, poor boy, and is exhausted.  Now Rich waits with him at the hospital, to see if he gets croupy again after the medicine wears off.  He may be home tonight but he might have to spend the night if he isn’t better.

Meanwhile, Seth is also sick w/the same thing so my friend Caroline went to fill his prescription for us and her husband graciously agreed to go to the hospital to get them later (or tomorrow) when Caleb is released.  Please pray that Seth gets better instead of worse.

I’m weak with relief that Rich was home to take care of us (he just got home yesterday afternoon from his trip).  I am so thankful that the Lord spared me from having to deal with all that on my own (with a toddler, a newborn, and four other children as well)!

Thanks for praying!  I really appreciate it.  Seth is down for a nap now and Sarah is asleep.  I’m full of adrenaline (but oh so tired) so I am going to make some tea and try to settle down with a book, praying all the while for my poor little Caleb……I’ve had sick children now for over a week!  I’m so thankful that they are usually healthy, this has been awful.

I was just wondering of you all would pray for Caleb.  We had to take him to the doctor’s this morning b/c he was having trouble breathing.  The doctor called the ambulance (while giving him a breathing treatment for croup symptoms).  I knew what ER they were taking him to, so Rich went in the ambulance w/Caleb.  When I got to the ER w/Sarah and Seth, they were not there.  They went to a bigger, more modern ER and at this moment I don’t know why.  I came home and am waiting for Rich to call me….I am about to call the ER to see if they can give me info.  Seth is sick w/croup, too…but not as bad as Caleb.  You can imagine how worried and shaky I am.

Thanks~Shanda

I got up last night at 1:45 to nurse Sarah-dumpling and found a hot feverish Caleb flopped on the couch, sound asleep.  He is the latest sick child.  Jacob is still sick, Ethan is almost totally recovered, Grace is recovered but is now afflicted with poison ivy, David is sick and can’t talk (lost his voice), Caleb is sick, Seth is FINE, Sarah is FINE, Mama is FINE.

And of course, as you know, Rich is away but I am feeling joyous today because he’ll be home tomorrow afternoon!  I am thrilled that he can come right home instead of having to go into the office to finish up the day.  HE said he could be here as early as 2:30.  I can’t wait to see him.

I woke up this morning at 6:30 and found Caleb and David awake and watching a cartoon.  The day started too early but I got a lot accomplished so far;  pancakes and cheese scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Babies changed and dressed (and one had a bath).  David had a bath.  I made hummingbird solution for my feeders, which is something I’ve needed to do for about a month.  I watered my hanging baskets, cleaned up the kitchen, took my shower, and went to the library (I took Ethan and he watched S and S while I was in the library.  I had to pay for a book……and check out more, along with some videos as a treat for the sickies.

On the way home from the library, I stopped by Mr. G’s garden produce stand to buy tomatoes.  I noticed he had some perfect cucumbers so I bought a whole lot of those, and some dill.  I came home and boiled up the brine to make more refrigerator pickles.

The kids are all watching Toy Story 2 and Sarah is asleep, so here I am for a moment!!!

I wanted to post some more pictures from our weekend back home, almost 2 full weeks ago now.

These are all from my parent’s house.  We got together on Saturday evening.  Two of my brothers were there, and my sister was also there.  We missed our youngest sibling, Isaac, he couldn’t make it out this time.

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Dear Dad, patting little Sarah.  My sister Amanda is showing Naomi Sarah’s little feet.  We were all outside together, my brother David grilled some meat and we had a picnic dinner.  It was a gorgeous evening.

My handsome brother Nathan, with his cutie pie daughter, Makayla Lynn~

My brother, David, and me…holding my two babies~

Mom gave us a garden tour.  She absolutely LOVES to garden.  Whenever I can’t reach her on the phone, I think she’s out in it, working.  The book, The Secret Garden comes to mind….

Rich took this, because I wanted to be in the picture.  That’s my tall son, Jacob, next to me, along with Ethan, my sister in love, Maria (David’s wife), and niece Abbie.  My mom is wearing purple and is showing Abbie the growing things.

My sister in love~ Melissa ~ (Nathan’s wife)

Jacob picked a container of yummy cucumbers~

There are lots of wild blueberry bushes and all of us spent some time picking, including Seth.  This was only Seth’s second time at Grandma’s house, I am sorry to say.  I can’t believe how fast time flies by.

But Seth loved the berries and soon figured out how to pick them and eat them.  Too bad he eats both the ripe ones AND the green ones!   Mom sent us home with a bag of berries and they sure tasted WONDERFUL in pancakes and muffins.  A taste of home, for sure.

We had a little bonfire so that the kids could roast marshmallows and makes s’mores.  Once again, Uncle Dave was in charge and he did such a good job making sure they each had a turn and things didn’t get too crazy.

So, they thought it would be funny to stick a cucumber on a twig and roast that, too.  We all encouraged Nathan to try it…turned out to be quite entertaining.

Mom laughed so hard.

Naomi gave Sarah a ride in the stroller with her doll:

We went back over on Sunday before we had to drive home.  I got this one last picture of MOM, with Caleb and Sarah~

It was so good to be home again for a little while.  I can’t wait to go back again soon.

Okay now that I am officially homesick I think I’ll try calling Dear Dad to tell him the pictures are up.

((love)) Shan

Please keep us in your prayers this week as Rich travels on a business trip (he’ll be back on Friday).  He is on a plane right now, to California, clear on the other side of the USA.  He should be here, with me, of course, but duty calls.

I took these pictures just as he was leaving this morning:

Goodbye, my love. 

*sigh*

To make myself feel better, I dressed Sarah up in a sunflower hat and took her picture.

She thinks her hat is silly.  She thinks her Mama is silly. 

Hats?  Let the party begin!  I wonder how much “trouble” I can get myself into while my husband is away?!

Rich just put the children to bed and baby Sarah is swinging in her swing.  We have four sick children.  I should have known they would get sick after the week we had last week…VBS every night and then a hotel stay in NY as we visited our family.  It’s some kind of virus with a bad sore throat, low grade fever, strange headache, and general feelings of tiredness.  Grace had it first, and now Jacob, Ethan, and Davy have it.

The good news is that Rich was able (with the help of the kind Norton people on the phone) to clean our computer and it is now over it’s terrible infections.  I’m so thankful we were able to get it fixed.  The children are in bed and Rich is working on his Sunday School lesson that he is teaching tomorrow, so I am free to sit and blog about our visit with Grandma.

This was a significant visit, because we found out last year that Rich’s dear Grandma had bone cancer.  We went to visit her last September, shortly after we heard the news, and a couple of weeks after our visit, we discovered that I was pregnant.  Grandma had been so close to our hearts as we prayed for her that it seemed right and fitting that we name our baby daughter (born May 30) Sarah, after Grandma.  As soon as we settled on the name, I was praying that we could go with our baby, to see Grandma, and that Grandma wouldn’t be too sick to enjoy her.  And God was pleased to answer those prayers.

Grandma Sarah Lillian, holds our Sarah Joy.

Miss Grace Lillian, and Grandma Sarah Lillian.  (Even though her first name is Sarah, everyone has always called her Lillian)…….

(Pay no attention to the Star Wars light sabor next to Grace!  I wish I could remove it somehow, but part of me also realizes it’s just the way it is with boys in my life….may as well smile and be thankful….)

Grandma spent some time talking carefully with Grace.  In this next picture, she is going through a little booklet that she put together with pictures and captions of our family history.  Grandma told her about each person, and how Grace was related to them.  She had Grace write in some extra information in the book.  I could hear her say things like, “Yes, that’s right.  Good job, Grace.  You write so nicely!”  “Now, let me see, this would be your…..Great….great….great….grandfather.”  And, “Oh, we should stop.  I don’t know if you are interested in this.  You can put this booklet away and someday, when you want to know, you could get it back out again and look at it.”  Grace would say, “I’m interested!”  And Grandma would start talking again where they left off.

Oh how I wished I had it all secretly tape recorded.  Grandma’s voice and Grace’s voice, discussing family.

She also gave Grace a copy of a poem.  Her mother had recited a poem to her when she was a child and she could remember the beginning of it so clearly.  Recently, her daughter (Aunt Phyllis) found the whole poem for her online and copied it off for her.  It’s called Minuet.  There are also some poems in the same folder that were written by one of Grace’s early ancestors, whose name was Elizabeth Young.

Grace carried the folders around with her all weekend.  It’s a wonderful keepsake.

This quilt was made by Grandma’s Granddaughter, Charlene.  She put pictures of all the family in the quilt.

This is wonderful Aunt Phyllis.  She has always been so friendly and warm to me, and she is so good with the children and loves them.

We spent some time outside.  Seth was a busy boy, as you can see here.  I am so used to this behavior that I took a picture before I went to rescue him.  By the time I got there, he had already gone back up on the porch again.

To the right of him you can see Grandma’s green tomatoes in a pot.  Two of them were picked while we were visiting and I felt so bad.  She said that they could still be used.  One of them had little teeth marks ALL over it.

This is Grandma’s garden.  Rich’s Dad (her son) made her this big platform container so that she could work on a garden easily.  She has all sorts of things growing in here and told me proudly that she had just picked her first ripe zucchini that morning.

Caleb and David:

Seth and Caleb.  That’s bee balm in the background.

I’ll never forget Grandma’s happy face as she watched Rich and I kiss for this photo.  She thought it was great.

Grandma sent me a handwritten letter this week and she wrote about her nice memories from the visit.  She wrote that she could  “still see Seth getting into the tomatoes, and still feel soft Sarah in her arms. . . .”

She also wrote that she could still see this memory clearly in her mind, as well:

This was taken right before we left.

Wasn’t it wonderful of the Lord to give us such a nice visit?  We spent about four hours together and we valued every moment.  We plan on getting together again in September, for a family reunion.

Thanks for praying for Grandma.  I know that God has done so much for her and we thank Him for His love and care. 

Our upstairs computer (the one I play with my pictures on) is not working at all.  I can’t email, I can’t transfer photos, I can’t go online…..(I’m on my laptop right now).  I’m going to take a break from blogging until my husband gets a chance to fix it.  Hopefully that will be tonight.  But, just in case it takes a few days I wanted to leave a note here letting you all know that we are fine and dandy.  We went back home this weekend and Sarah met her Grandma Sarah for the first time.  Grandma was honored and so happy to see her great grandchildren.  I’m afraid that by the time we left she was all tired out.  But it was worth it to be together.  I can’t wait to post the pictures I got of our visit with her and Aunt Phyllis.  We also got to spend time at my parent’s house.  It was the first time the children have been there in over a year. ( I didn’t travel to NY the entire time I was pregnant with Sarah, and we only went one time with baby Seth.)  The wild blueberries were ripe, we walked around the gardens, we made s’mores, played catch, talked, rocked on the porch, so fun!  Pictures will be posted as soon as possible.

I caught up on things here at home yesterday and……I made more pickles!  I made the refrigerator pickle recipe from our family cookbook:

10 large cucumbers
4 sprigs of dill
6 cloves of garlic
6 cups of water
1 1/4 cup vinegar
1/3 cup salt
1/2 cup sugar

Wash and sterilize 4 1-quart jars.  Cut cucumbers into quarters.  Add 1 sprig of dill, and 1 1/2 cloves of garlic per 1-quart jar.  Boil water, vinegar, salt, and sugar and let cool.  Pack jars with cucumbers, pour liquid over cucumbers.  Cover an refrigerate at least 48 hours.

I made one batch but we haven’t tried them yet.  I know they will be delicious because my Mom had some made at her place this weekend and the children all ate them like they were candy.  Mom was happy.

Have a wonderful day, friends!  I’ll be around to visit when I have the time, using my laptop.  And I’ll be back to blogging soon, when our other computer is fixed.

Love, Shanda

Just a quick post, with some pictures of our little baby girl.

*Sarah is 2 months old today*

We are very thankful for her and love her more than words can say.

I love all these pictures.  The first one is what she looks like after a good long meal.  Pure contentment is written all over her face.  Grace took the picture just as she was done nursing.  The next photo is of her sweet smile at me, as I sit and play with the baby and ignore the laundry there in the background.  Next, is her bubbly bath photo.  I use Burt’s Bees baby soap & lotion on her and it smells so yummy.  I love giving my babies a bath and holding them close to warm them up after they’ve been all cleaned, washed, scrubbed, dried, lotioned and dressed again.   And the last picture….She is so cute with that bright happy look on her face and the way she’s holding her tight fist up by her chin.  She looks really beautiful in pink.

Thank you, heavenly Father, for our darling baby girl.

We used to have a double stroller when Jacob, Ethan, and Grace were all preschoolers.  I used that thing so much that we wore it out.  I got rid of it and didn’t replace it because by that time we were spacing our babies out.  By the time the next baby came along, the old baby was old enough to walk with Mama.

Well, here we are:  Jacob is 13, Ethan is 12, Grace is 10….David is almost 8, Caleb is 5.  They all know how to walk like proper duckies behind their mother duck.

But, Seth (17 months) does not.  Seth wants to go his Own Way. 

Baby Sarah (2 months) is just a baby.  She can’t walk.  She doesn’t even stay awake during walks. 

I like to go on walks but I needed help with the little ones.  I’m a mom of seven and I understand that there are lots of near-impossible feats that women can accomplish with youngsters.  However, going for a lovely walk, unaided, with a newborn and a toddler is something that I personally would not ever encourage.  Unless it is a walk of a very short length (10 feet or less)………

Hence, the wonderful NEW WHEELS:

Jacob, Ethan, Grace, David, and Caleb have had Vacation Bible School all this week.  On Sunday night, while they were attending night #1, my handsome husband and I went and bought ourselves a shiny new double stroller.  The first time I used it on my own (at the library) I had to call him at work because I could not figure out how to fold the thing back up. 

I really like the bright, cheerful red color.  It is very easy to push and it turns corners on a dime.  The seats easily lift out so that we can turn them to face each other, the front, or the back. 

Right now Sarah faces us.

And Seth faces front so he can look at things as we walk along.

It’s been such a nice week.  Taking the children to VBS every night has been crazy (it’s a half hour drive to church) but fun.  Instead of going home to enjoy his quiet house, Rich has been driving to church after work to meet me and we’ve gone on dates (with the little ones) each evening –dinner and then a nice long walk around the neighborhood.

We talk and laugh and last night on the sidewalk, as cars were driving by,  I received the nicest long romantic kiss!  Now that we have this awesome stroller we plan on walking (and kissing) after dinner as often as we can.

I was running around, in the midst of a very busy morning, trying to clean up the house before it got out of control, not really listening to little boys who were following me around, just aching for a bit of my time……

After a while, I realized what I was doing and I stopped the scrubbing.  The house work I had accomplished that morning was good enough. 

“Davy, do you want to go for a walk with me?  Let’s go to the field and see if we can find some caterpillars!”

“Okay!”

We left the house with Jacob in charge of the sleeping babies and away we went.

The two of us.

We held hands.

We looked at the stream.

He talked a lot and I listened, really listened.

We admired a big huge pine tree and Davy climbed it.

We saw a fallen down tree across the trail.

We admired the wood, noticed the many layers inside, and took a piece home with us as a souvenir.

The field was lovely, spicy, buzzing, and hot.

We didn’t see any caterpillars.  We did see some interesting bugs.  David said that he wants to learn more about interesting bugs.  These particular ones were long, red with black spots, and had long black antennae. 

We found a couple red ripe raspberries at the edge of the woods.  We ate them.

There are no apples growing on the wild apple tree this year.

We found some mysterious round purple berries.  We didn’t eat them.

Saw a beautiful butterfly.

And another interesting bug: a colorful beetle that proved to be camera shy.

Admired the moss in the woods.  It was like a carpet! (said David)

Enjoyed the lovely pine woods that belong to us, on our property.  “We should bring a picnic table back here!” (said Mama)

We walked back home and that little walk has brought a smile to my face whenever I think about it. 

I’m so thankful for moments like that during these busy days.