"Babies in my tummy"...

no not me!!!! HAHA :)

Last night Molly caught a glimpse of my hysterectomy scar and was very impressed by how it has become so small. These days she is full of conversation.... it made me laugh it was so cute I have to share.

Molly: "That scar is from them taking away your baby parts right?"
Me: "yes molly"
Molly: "How do you get babies in your tummy? (this is the part where I choke but she cant stop talking, so answers herself) Oh, yeah you pray to God for a baby in your tummy. No way am I praying for a baby in my tummy. That has got to hurt? Did you cry when they took your tummy babies out? I am not praying for a tummy baby. I am gonna pray for adopted babies. I like plane rides more than pain"
Me (still choking): "you know it doesn't have to hurt. They can give you medicine."
Molly: "Oh good, well if I change my mind I will pray for a tummy baby and a lot lot lot of pain medicines cause I don't do pain."

reconsidering...

So after much thought, prayer and thinking I have decided to not go private. I will continue to post (hopefully a bit more frequently) and we will not hide.

For those of you who do not know, it was a crazy summer for us. Tom left our family several months ago leaving me as a single mother of 5. He decided that he no longer wanted the "burden and responsibility of a family, wife, kids, and house". He has chosen a different life. The kids and I are doing good. We are in the midst of some changes at the moment, but life will settle down soon. We continue to be amazed by all of our blessings. We are so grateful to those of you who have reached out in love, support and care over the last few months. We know how blessed we are to have such wonderful friends and family.

So, we wont go private. We are family. We have each other. We wont hide.

going private

ok I know I have been a very bad blogger... NO UPDATES. .. so sorry. Due to some privacy issues my blog will be going private for a time beginning next week. Please leave me a comment if you would like to receive an invitation to continue to view it.

Life is busy around here... football, volleyball, 5 kids, 4 schools, 1 mom. Not a whole lot of bonbon eating time around here. Life is good . We continue to count our blessings.

now it is not broken.

I am late in posting this, but we heard last week that indeed molly's foot is not broken. The radiologists that read the xrays are out of state (the wonders of computers). They did not have the info that Molly has "foot issues". So the bone in question is not broken- just doesn't look like a typical bone of a normal foot. (I could have told them that!) Molly has been released from her kneepad transportation and we are all much happier to not have to carry her around. Although at chore time she usually develops a sudden pain...

Indoor soccer

I now know why I had the good common sense to OUTLAW playing ball in the house. While tending to an issue that had to be dealt with I asked Noah to "entertain the littles upstairs- play a game maybe". I forgot for a brief moment that a "game" to Noah would mean a soccer game... without shoes... in the hallway upstairs... they had a great time. Until Molly missed the ball and landed her toes directly into the wall. 2 hours in the urgent care later and sure enough she has broken "big foot". We always worry about her "little foot". I never thought about how she would be impacted if something happened to "big foot". The doctors are puzzled as to what to do... normally where she broke it they dont cast. Unfortunately, because of the foot issues Molly Shen has, her big foot takes all of her weight and balance. They kind of scratched their heads and sent us home to keep her down until Monday... right. How do you keep down a strung out monkey????? Today she has taken her big sisters kneepads and pulls herself across the wood floors and has been caught going up and down the stairs on her knees... or lays on the couch barking out orders... this will soooo not be good for her bossy personality.

we are back...

We are home. What a great week at fair. We got all 5 pigs - excuse me- 4 pigs, Buzz, and Fairy Princess (the duck) loaded and taken into fair. Thank you Kerri... Addie and I couldnt have done it without you. I drove with Buzz in my trailer and prayed the whole way that I would get him there safely. He is Addie's baby after all. We got to the scales and realized that Buzz had layed on the duck cage during the trip which had pinned the duck to the floor of the cage. Close call!! 2 pigs made weight- so both kids had a market hog to sell!!!

Tuesday 12:00, we are checked into fair and the work begins. By the end of the day Addie and her friend Jesse had washed 7 pigs and body shaved 5. Noah began Wednsday off by winning GRAND CHAMPION duck (there was only 1) and then taking Grand Champion overall waterfowl. Molly was pretty proud that her duck already had 3 large purple ribbons and 1 trophy!!! By the end of fair the duck had 3 trophies and 7 ribbons. There will be no living with him in the barn now! When it came time for Molly to show her duck on Saturday, the judge couldn't get anywhere near her. Everytime he leaned in to talk to Molly, Fairy Princess would hiss and try to attack the judge. As long as he kept his distance from Molly everything was fine. Noah won Grand Champion showman and was able to participate in the small animal round robin tournament.

The kids did good. We didn't place so high with pigs this year, but learned alot... this new judge likes something completely different than the last judge... and luckily next year we will have another new one... so who knows. The kids had so much fun hanging out with their friends. The pig kids did a great job working together.

Addie ended up fairly sick... By day 2 we realized that she wasn't just working too hard in the heat and she wasn't just overly stressed. I checked her temp and found that she was running a temp of 102.5. There was no getting her out of the barn, although we did make her come back to the trailer for a little bit and her wonderful friends snuck back to the barn and snuck her pigs out for a bath. Even one of the boys who is too young to have a pig came up to me to tell me to not wake Addie in the morning for early morning chores. He said he would muck out her pig pens for her. How sweet is that? She stayed sick all week, but didn't stop. We went to the dr the day after fair and she had lost 5 lbs and they were threatening to put her in the hospital on IV fluids... some nasty virus (we jokingly said we thought she had the swine flu- sick joke I know). She seems to be over the hump now.

County Fair 2009 is over and we have to consider it a sucess. We came home with 2 pigs fewer than we went with and the same number of children...

And so we are off...

Where has this summer gone? I have hardly even posted... I do need to catch up, and plan to. There are so many great pictures of fun times this summer- company from out of state (including ours 10 kids/4 adults), Yordi's birthday, Addie's graduation, pool fun... but that will have to wait. We are outta here- off to county fair tomorrow am. Here are the stats:

me
5 kids (gaining an extra or 2 once there)
4 market hogs (please God let them be 230 lbs or more)
1 stubborn Buzz
1 duck
100 lbs of feed
groceries to feed all of us for 1 week
36 pairs of shorts
36 tshirts
42 pairs of undies
6 pairs of barn boots
6 pairs of show boots
7 show outfits
1 set FFA OD
2 sets complete animals records
2 show sticks
3 sets of completed Daily feed records (with all feed fed in 60 days documented- as well as rate of gain and cost per pound per animal)
tent trailer
5 pair clippers
5 bottles of shampoo/liquid bluing
6 feed pans
2 waterers
6 stall card signs


and whatever else we might possibly need...

Here is a glimpse of how it looks:
Day 1: notice the barns DO smell
Day 2: notice the barns don't smell as bad as previously thought
Day 3: notice the trailer smells like the barn
Day 4: notice that WE smell as bad as the barn
Day 5: settle for sorta clean clothes, debate if showers really are necessary, and then decided that it really doesn't matter
Day 6: shower? no. Clean clothes? forget it. WHEN DO WE GET TO LEAVE?????

Really, it is a highlight of the year. Today the kids are excited... they work so hard. They will be in the barns every morning at 6:30 am, work all day, show all evening, hang out until curfew with friends in the barns, bed by midnight and start all over the next day.
So, my next post will be once we are home... and have found our way to the showers and over the heaping piles of laundry. But there will be pictures...