we have pigs now. 2 to be exact. i'm not exactly excited about having 2 instead of just one, but the lady we bought them from wouldn't sell just one. she didn't want them to get depressed. i don't think that bebe was depressed last year, but i can kind of see her point. her pigs were so friendly. i hope they do well here.

the lady we got bebe from last year, she was in the paper over the weekend. i guess she's been indicted for embezzlement. nice huh? she had her assets frozen or seized.

i've been really busy lately. doing what? well, mostly reading.

i think the new chicks will be here this week. we have been getting 2 or 3 eggs a day now. mostly green, but we also have been getting brown, and 1 white egg so far. the kids have been so happy to go out and take care of the chickens now. i don't even have to threaten them anymore. we'll see how long that lasts!

josh is coughing a bunch again. i think it's the weather. poor kid.

not much else to tell right now. if i can think of something exciting or worthwhile, i'll be back!

i am so depressed about the mail i've been getting.


i think i've gotten more coupons and offers for baby products in the last month, than i did with all 5 babies put together. my baby is three years old! i'm not having any more. why do they have to rub my face in it? i told my hubby to just throw them away before i see them. he's the one getting the mail. what dummy is selling info saying i have a baby the age for using "first year" items.

it just sucks.

in the last 4 days i have had 2 kids down with a stomach bug. not the nice kind where you throw up once or twice...no, they had the "puke on the floor/couch/bed/mom" kind. lovely, i know. they couldn't hold down anything. the littlest sip of water would cause them to start all over again. in fact, when i got "it" it was still cold. zack had snuck someone else's tea, and it didn't even get time to warm up to body temp. how sad/disgusting is that? i am hoping and praying that it ends here. i am washing all the blankets and the couch today, scrubbing the floor, and probably taking multiple showers today. no extra kiddos today. i called all the parents yesterday and told them what was going on. they decided they didn't want it in there houses. friday, i was up with grace until 5am. she not only was puking, but couldn't make it to the bathroom and i guess forgot about the bowl she had to use. so i had to clean the floor/couch for her a couple of times.


i guess the good thing about having puking kids is that i'm not hungry...in the slightest. i had to force myself to eat, and even then didn't eat much. hard to have much of an appetite when i've been cleaning that up. so no snacking between meals for me!


funny but embarrassing story. i found out one of my children has a very big mouth. my sister in law was telling me about how one of my kids was telling her that "mommy and daddy lock the door to their bedroom alot". hubby's family is pretty funny. they started laughing hysterically, and my face turned BRIGHT red.

the we played cards. and they found other things to laugh about.

on monday i went to the library and picked up 3 books. they were a bunch of short stories. charlaine harris had some "sookie stories" in each one so i thought i would get them and read all the stories. um, i returned them today, after reading all of them. some of the stories were, well, not so great. some made me want to just skip ahead, and some made me want more. more from those authors. i don't usually care for short stories. well, i take that back...i like them if they are done right. there were a few that reminded me of something i would have wrote in high school. B-O-R-I-N-G! i love to read, but i'm not so great on the writing part. in fact, in my creative writing class that i took (the teacher ended up running off with a student a few years later...or so the story goes) and had to write a children's story. i wrote about a ghost chicken. a rooster to be exact. and he saves his little girl (the girl that owned him...not another chicken) from a fire. yeah, um, she didn't like it. i had words like "vegetarian" in there. she didn't think it would be "age appropriate". whatever.


authors i want to read*...
laurell k hamilton, stephenie meyer**, rachel caine, vickie taylor, toni kelner, patricia briggs, and carrie vaughn.

the books i read were Bite, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, and Many Bloody Returns. bite didn't have a particular theme. well except vampires and werewolves. W&B was that and christmas, and MBR was that and birthdays. they were definitely worth reading.



*i don't think anyone really cares what authors i plan on reading...this list i more for me. i forget like nobodies business. so if i have them here on my blog, i can at least look them up!
**well, stephenie meyer didn't actually write any of the short stories in the books i read, but she has been well recommended.

josh

my josh is 5 now. it just doesn't seem possible that my babies are all growing up so fast. what can i tell you about my boy?

he's a big boy. bigger than most of the other kids his age. in fact, he's as big as some 1st graders...and he's just a pre-k kid.

he was my smallest baby. he was 8lbs 2 oz. my doctor induced me 2 weeks early so that he wouldn't be too big. he and alex are the only kids i didn't have major bleeding issues with.

he loves cars, trucks, and tractors. he can play by himself for hours as long as he has some of them to play with. he makes all the different noises, and i even hear him talking in voices for the people in them.

he has one heck of an imagination.

he is so smart...he's the only one so far to know his letters this young. not that the other kids aren't smart too, but he's the only one that was that interested in them. it amazed me when he was picking out letters off of signs and asking me what words they made.

he has the biggest, most beautiful blue eyes. it makes it so hard to say "no" to him!

he used to have a special blankie and suck his first 2 fingers on his left hand. i think he was 2 or 3 before we were able to get him to stop sucking his fingers. when his blankie "disappeared", he stopped sucking his fingers.

he and zack are best buddies. they play with each other all the time. i hope that they stay this close as they grow up.

he idolizes his big brother. he loves being with the big boys.

his favorite color is blue. like his eyes. and his room. and his sheets. and his towel.

he loves that he has chickens. he is so proud of how cool they look, and that they are going to lay green or blue eggs.

he's the only one of my kids to lose a fingernail...so far. it was one of the most disgusting experiences of my life.

his teacher loves to tell us what a great kid he is. how well behaved and quiet he is in class.

he still crawls into be with me at night. in fact he doesn't sleep in his own room. he sleeps on the floor in my room...until he crawls in mine while i'm sleeping. he's the only one that isn't always ready to spend the night somewhere. don't get me wrong, he loves to spend the night...but there are still days/nights that he will tell whoever to take him home, he's tired and wants to sit on his mom's lap.

he is so excited about going to school with the big kids next year. and making friends. he's excited about t-ball too. and that his daddy is going to be his coach.

5 is a big year, but i think he's going to handle it well. i love this kid like crazy! he's handsome, smart, funny, and talented. how i got blessed with a kid like him, i'll never know!