Lucky Thirteen and Counting

I promise to tell you everything, as soon as I have an hour of free time.  Check back in a year or two.  

These pictures were taken last summer.  This is the house we have wanted all along, the one that Brandon REFUSED to pay 1.5 million OVER market value for.  Yep that one.  

We have been in negotiations for almost 6 months.  We are leasing this baby until further notice.  I feel VERY blessed to be moving in.  

When I get the keys and have a working camera, I will take more pictures and document the move.  It ought to be exciting.  

Currently the house is gorgeous, peaceful, and feels like heaven.  That feeling should last for six more days.  After that, it will be chaotic, insane, loud, and exciting.  But it will be HOME!  I can’t wait.  

I know how much you all love seeing these cute little faces on your computer.  I also know how much enjoyment you all get out of Pickle terrorizing me.  Unfortunately, you can’t have both for the next week or so.  Yesterday, Pickle picked up my camera, why I have no idea, and when Hunter attempted to retrieve it, she pitched it at him…… and he didn’t catch it.  I was upstairs feeding Sailor and I not only heard the crash, I felt it.  I ran downstairs to see Hunter holding my camera like a baby, sadly shaking his head.  The camera is dead.

Damn Damn Damn 

I’ll replace it.  I have to.  If I didn’t have a camera in my face all the time, my kids wouldn’t know who I was. 

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Hunter spent the day filling out applications for boarding school.  Words do not exist…..  I am so proud I feel I may burst at any moment. He is applying for admission for next fall.  Boarding school applications are almost identical to college applications, except you have to be interviewed in person at boarding schools. These apps are due January 30th. Admission decision letters are sent Mid- March.  

He will fill out two applications per week and apply to about six schools.  He takes the SSAT test in December.  He is moving at his own pace and applying to the schools he chooses to.   I jokingly asked him, yesterday, if he wanted to apply to Andover.  It’s one of the biggest and most prestigious college-prep schools in America.  He said,  "What can you tell me about it?" 

and because I knew I Andover wasn’t a good fit for Hunter, I said the one thing I knew he wouldn’t like. "President Bush one and two are alumni."  

"You want me to go to a school for Idiots?  Clearly it’s not a good school mom."

Yesterday Hunter applied to Dunn and to Baylor.  When Shay called last night I told her that Hunter man had applied to her school and she squealed so loud, with delight, she almost broke my eardrum.  

Brandon isn’t as excited about Hunter’s decision as the majority of us are, but he is supportive and proud nonetheless. 

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Brandon is rolling out of here on Wednesday and prayers were answered for me this time around. My baby sister, Ali, is currently unemployed, so I hired her for the ten days that Brandon is gone.  I am excited to have her down and to have her help.  Hadley worried last night that Ali would just think we went to the beach all the time and she wouldn’t be happy once she found out that taxiing kids and changing poopy butts was all she had in store.  Gear up Ali.  Beach time is OVER!  

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I feel like we are back in the swing of things since Sailor has arrived.  I am adjusting to less sleep and even weathered a nasty bout of PMS without blogging about it or killing anyone.  Life is good!  

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Happy Monday Friends.  Come back later for a quiz.  I will have it up this afternoon.  

 Sailor is growing and healthy and eating like a champion.  I only did one tube feeding the day after I got home with her and since that moment, she has been chowing down her feeds like there’s no tomorrow.  At her two week check up she weighed 6.14 and had grown one inch.  Clearly she is doing awesome.  Now, if only she would slow down a little bit so this tiny stage lasts.  I HATE how fast time goes….. the older I get, the faster these kids grow-up.  

Speaking of how fast time is going, My gas station already has it’s Christmas tree up.  It feels like I just barely put the Christmas stuff away, and now it’s time to pull it back out and put it back up.  Decking the halls around here gives Pickle a wider variety of things to destroy.  

Pickle does NOT enjoy Halloween.  Halloween sucked the big green weenie this year!  We did trunk-or-treat on Friday night and I enjoyed every minute of it.  Pickle, however, did NOT.  She lasted about ten minutes and was crying so hard we took her home.  She is much happier in her own house.  I felt terrible.  These are always the things that I think will bring her joy and they never do.  I had dressed her up in my clown costume.  She looked adorable.  Brandon held her head still while I did her makeup.  She looked so cute…..for about ten seconds, and the moment Brandon let go of her, she wiped her face off.  She was covered in paint.  I am not sure why in the hell I even tried that. I do know for sure I won’t do that again.  

Dalin got sick a few hours before trunk-or-treating.  He got hotter and hotter the later it got in the evening.  Dalin always gets sick first.  It is without fail that he catches the first bug.  This would be no big deal if it were any other kid, but Dalin has a VP shunt, and the signs and symptoms of his shunt malfunctioning are so similar to any illness that we usually err on the side of caution and take him to the ER for scans.  

I watched him for a few hours, medicated him, and prayed another kid would come down with the same symptoms.  God hears and answers prayers often when they aren’t well thought out.  Kate, Parker and Colby were all burning up by bedtime. At least I avoided a seven thousand dollar ER visit.   

We spent Halloween passing out motrin, tylenol and dimetapp.  While the kids should have been ingesting large doses of sugar, they were instead ingesting large doses of fluid and medication. Poor little shits!

Jazzi, Jace, and Ty went trick-or-treating.  Hunter and his friend took them around the neighborhood while Brandon and I held down the fort and attempted to pass out candy sans the virus we were dealing with.   

I have zero pictures.  I failed at the entire day.  BUT, nobody ended up in the ER, all are still alive, just coughing up a lung or two. Sailor has been banished from the living area.  I am doing all I can to keep her from getting this crap.  

Dalin, Kate, and Parker are still my sick ones.  They are getting better slowly but surely.  My next group should be on fire by nightfall. Oh the joy’s of a large family.  I need to buy stock in liquid Motrin.  

It’s gorgeous here in SoCal.  Brandon and I took the kids to the pool yesterday.  (the ones that aren’t sick)  We both still marvel that it’s November and we are swimming and wearing shorts.  How did we ever not live here?  

Notice that toothless grin?  She lost her second top tooth on Saturday.  You should hear her talk.  It’s priceless.  

If you haven’t watched the video down below, DON’T!  Not my proudest parenting moment for sure.  My kids are insane.  From now on, we will only be doing drawings with the children under ten.  

Last but not least, I promised Shay I would post pictures of both Ellie and Sailor at Three weeks old.  They look so alike, but I think Sailor has a different mouth.  

Here you go baby, both sisters at three weeks.  

The kids made it home from Utah. Thank you to Mitch and McCall for driving them safely.   They had a blast. They are happy and healthy and all were VERY ready to get back to school this morning.  Pickle, Parker, and Ellie were over the moon to see their playmates.  I love siblings. 

Speaking of siblings, still no news on our newest.  M was supposed to be induced on Friday last week and didn’t bother going to Utah for that to happen.  We sit and wait everyday for a phone call or an update of any sort and prepare ourselves for the worst, but hope for the best.  It is slightly unnerving.  The kids ask us repeatedly if we are getting "the newborn baby" and we don’t have a decent answer for them.  "If god wants us to,"  is about the only thing that works.  

My brother and his family spent the day with us yesterday.  My kids love having friends here.  The cousins are three little girls from 6 years to 20 months.  The kids were in heaven.  Uncle Shawn is Ty’s best friend.  They watched football, played football, and talked football ALL DAY LONG!  Since Shawn is a recovering blog addict, I know he isn’t reading this, but his beautiful wife Camie is.  We had so much fun with you guys.  Please come back soon.  

Here is a photo of all the kids with their cousins.  Check out Kate, who had just decided to get in the tub when I called for a photo shoot on the front porch.  She grabbed her towel and promptly joined us.  Pickle has just had a hair-do taken down, so she looks EXTRA crazy.  I love this picture, I think it captures the insanity perfectly.   

Hadley wasn’t home for five minutes when she had us laughing so hard we could hardly breathe.  McCall was singing a Mormon primary song on the way home with the kids and Hadley wanted to know what a prophet was.   McCall explained it to her. It’s a leader of the Church, to which Hadley replied, like George W. Bush? 

In a completely unrelated incidence, Hadley is telling me about Man Vs Wild, where a leach crawled up somebody’s "John Thomas" and ate his bladder.  I was like, "Do you mean his Johnson?"  Oh yeah, I think thats what they called it.  (She keeps us buckled over, barely breathing, often.)

Shaylee is busy filling out her college applications.  She is applying to ten schools.  I am so proud of her. She sent me a few paragraphs of her college essay, and it’s amazing.  I can’t believe it’s that time of year again. Didn’t we just do this with Bronson?  

Bronson is doing awesome in college.  Let me rephrase that,  I know for sure he is in at least one class.  It’s the only grade he sent me, along with a note that says, "I am the highest grade in the class, please send presents." Brandon reads it over my shoulder and says, "awww being an adult sucks!  Poor Bronson."

The weather is cooling down here.  All the kids went to school in jackets today.  I turned the heat on last night. I guess summer is over in SoCal.  The high today is only going to be 65 degrees.  I have on my sweater and boots.  I am geared up for the day!  

Happy Monday Internet.

I hope it’s warm and sunny where you are!  

PS- Because I suck sometimes, and thank you to Jodi for reminding me, I forgot to update you on the giveaway.

Mimi played for Ellie’s prize, the four hundred dollars in utilities.  i called her and asked her to name my oldest child and my youngest child and without hesitation, she said, "Bronson and Ellie."  

Mimi lives in Minnesota and the very night she won, the temperature hit freezing.  She was thrilled with the prize!  Congrats Mimi.  

We survived the first week of school.  Ty did GREAT.  In fact, when I phoned the teacher, she didn’t even believe me when I told her he had cried all morning.  He loves school and can’t wait to go back tomorrow.  

Hadley loves all of her classes and teachers.  That, right there, will make this year enjoyable. 7th grade is a BIG DEAL.  This is the year the boarding schools, she’ll apply to, will review.  They will look at her grades and test scores and extra curricular activities.  The better she does this year, the better chance she’ll have at a great college prep school.   

The other kids are all happy with their classes and teachers.  All is well on the education home front.

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I have yet to write anything about the swim team.  I now have seven kids on the Ladera Liquids.  Hunter, Hadley, Jayden, Colby, Jace, Jazzi and Kate all made the team this year.  We made it through the first week fairly well.   Hunter and Jayden got pulled out of the pool after about 40 minutes on the first day.  They couldn’t do one more lap.  Hunter walked over to me, moaned something about wanting to die, and then proceeded to puke all over the deck.  It was exciting to say the least.  

Hunter has NEVER done a physical activity since we moved here. He doesn’t even have P.E. at his school, so going from zero to sixty almost killed him.  BUT after only three workouts, he is now keeping up with the team and loves it.  

Brandon and I spend two hours a day laying on the lounge chairs at the pool.  Why would anybody choose a different sport for their child?  I am in heaven.  I have the sun, the pool, my man, my diet coke and my kids all right there.  And the best part is, somebody else is watching my kids so I can close my eyes and relax.  Who wants to be a soccer mom when you can be a pool mom?

Speaking of soccer moms, Hadley said, "Why do you have to stay at the pool? Can’t you just drop us off and pick us up when we are done?  Or are you a soccer mom?"

I said, "Huh?  What do you mean, am I soccer mom?"

And she said, "You know a soccer mom, they are proud of their kids, and they go to all their practices and games, and they cheer for them, and they have lots of money, and wear juicy sweats." 

To which I replied, "I have zero money and I don’t own any juicy sweats."  Damn.  I guess I can’t be a soccer mom.

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Brandon is home and we have reconnected.  That always ends up being a process.  I miss him so much when he is gone, but when he gets home, it takes a few days to feel like we are on the same planet.  Between my new routine, and his jet lag,  We still find ourselves going in different directions even though we are side by side.  It’s hard to explain.  What I have found out from all of his traveling, is that I am not an easy lay, and I don’t have sex with strangers.  So when he comes home and he feels like a stranger to me, he ain’t getting a piece of ass.  In fact, the first night, he said something like, "You are so hot. You turn me on baby." and I had to tell him he was creeping me out a little.  Don’t feel too bad for him, he is used to this process by now.  After a good 24/48 hours we are back in sync and all over each other.  I tell him he should be happy to know that creepy lines and strange men will never get in my pants. 

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Pickle had her VERY first set of immunizations last week.  We have never immunized her.  So, at 5 years and 10 months, she got her 2 month old shots.  She did amazing.  When she was younger, she used to get very high and very scary fevers.  They were phantom fevers.  They were never brought on by an illness or an infection, she just spiked a temp and stayed hot.  Because of that, the Drs had no desire to give her shots knowing full well she would get a fever.  Not knowing if they would be able to control that fever, was too big of risk for them to take.  Since she has been so healthy since we moved to California and because we live so close to the border, we felt the benefits of immunizations now out weighed the risks, so we did it.  Guess what?  She didn’t even get warm.  She never slowed down, she never heated up, she never took a longer nap.  She didn’t even cry.  I am still in shock about it.  My baby is a trooper.  

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Thank you to all of you that emailed me kind words this week.  I have some awesome readers.  Thank you all for lifting me. Kind words are always welcome, unsolicited mental health diagnoses and mean/rude emails are not.   

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Tomorrow’s post will be an adoption update. 

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BYU played Tulane yesterday in college football. I said a little prayer that Tulane would kick the crap out of those Mormon boys. It didn’t work.  My prayers never work.  It was disheartening to see Brandon still bleeding blue blood when they were playing against his son’s school.  I had to leave the room.  Those damn BYU fans.  You can take the boy out of the church but you can’t take the church out of the boy.  

Speaking of the church.  One of these local mormon girls in Ladera, compared my feelings for the church this way, she said "You are like a Homosexual male trying to live the straight life. You know you are a mormon deep down, you just don’t want to live the lifestyle."  That was the best laugh I’d had in weeks.   I am glad I am not sneaking out behind Brandon’s back on Monday night for a little FHE. 

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Happy Sunday Internet.

 Life is getting to be more "normal" around here.  This past week we have all seemed to find our place in the family.  

Bronson has been sharing a room with Hunter this summer. I will admit, I was more worried about this arrangement than Hadley and Shaylee sharing.  Brons and Hunter have been water and oil their entire life.  To say, "they don’t mix" is a gross understatement.  Thankfully this summer has been wonderful.  They both sleep ’till noon, play computer games until 2AM, and wrestle around whenever they get the urge or want to upset me, but it’s all been in fun.  It seems like yesterday Bronson drilled Hunter’s head into the ground at full force.  Hunter spent the afternoon puking and I ended up at the ER for an MRI.  So I had visions of this happening all over again when I put them together for the summer.   I am thrilled beyond belief they have done so well. 

Jayden has even done well downstairs.  This is as surprising as Bronson and Hunter doing well.  I am in shock and awe.

I wish I could say things were going as fabulous in the girls room, I can’t and I am NOT allowed to talk about or blog about it.  But at least something is going as planned right?

Jace has been blowing us away with his swimming ability and competitive drive.  This child is a force!  He has competed in two separate meets and a total of seven heats.  He has one Blue ribbon and multiple third place ribbons.  He is improving everyday.  I am loving this sport.  I have been a timer at both meets and love the front row seat I am guaranteed.  I feel right at home in the middle of the chaos.  It’s perfect!

Kate has an appointment tomorrow for a hair-do.  We are doing individuals this time.  I guess they are supposed to last longer, but also take longer.  I will be at the black hair salon ALL DAY LONG!  Send good thoughts my way.  They have rock hard chairs and ZERO magazines.  Most of the girls that braid are African and they speak their native language, so I don’t even get to enjoy the slang.  Hopefully we will get through it with minimal tears and melt downs.  (mine included)

I know you are all wondering what I’ve been up to since I haven’t been blogging 24/7.  Since the big kids have come home I have been busy being harassed about my blogging.  Oh they love it when they are away at school, but they are not impressed at all when I tell them to "leave me alone I am trying to blog." or "Take the conversation out of this room, I am blogging." They get "all attitude" on me and mock the fact that I. Am. A. Blogger.   I promise you, when school starts they are the first ones to harass me when I haven’t posted in awhile.  Damn Teenagers.

So, in an effort to stay off my blog and stop writing about everything that goes on in this house, I have been focusing on my butt.  I know you are all tired of hearing about the physical complaints I am constantly full of.  But at least I am doing something about it.  My blog friend Sarah wrote an entire post about this DVD and I was so impressed I clicked on Amazon and bought it that very day.  PEOPLE I am telling you right now, DO NOT buy this DVD.  If you love having a range of motion at all, and walking up and down the stairs at will, DO NOT buy this thing.  I have only done it  twice in two days and I no longer have the ability to function like a normal thirty seven year old.  I am moving and hobbling like an eighty-seven year old.  As a matter of fact, after I did it for the first time yesterday, I fell down the stairs with Ellie.  Not my proudest mom moment.  Hunter was so concerned about me that he piggie backed me down the steep flight because I honestly had ZERO control of my legs.  He sat me in the rocking chair and I barked orders for the rest of the evening.  Hunter, Hadley and Brandon thought I was UNBELIEVABLE so they joined me in last nights twenty minute session from HELL.  They all felt it, but sadly, none of them are crying about it as hard as I am.  

On a brighter note, if it’s possible at all, I am seeing results.  I am FEELING results for sure, but I am growing a butt.  

 Holy Shit, can you stand it?  I have never been happier with my backside.  It’s true I can’t sit on the toilet because that hard porcelain hurts like a mother and my legs shake so badly on the way down that I end up dropping onto it harder than expected, but it’s looking good in my jeans.  Why couldn’t I have just born with a perfect tush? 

The other thing to report is that I am getting my hair cut and colored again today.  In fact I am leaving here in one hour.  I am not sure at this moment what I am going to do.  In May, I dyed it dark brown, within a week it was light brown, by June it was red, and now, it’s orange.  I am thinking I should go back to being a blonde.  I seemed to get more sex when I was a blonde.  So there you go folks, I just proved the age old question.  Yes, Blondes do have more fun. But I had many many people that really loved the dark.  I am just not up to keeping it that way.  It is a pain in the ass to have to go every few weeks to keep your hair the color you want it to be.  I don’t have time for that shit.  Where do you think I live, The OC?  

Speaking of living in The OC, The people at Costco think we are running a summer camp or a school.  I guess there aren’t too many people here that have fourteen kids and go through as much food as we do.  Brandon and I did a Costco run this morning.  Keep in mind, I am physically impaired after my DVD workout, so pushing a thirty pound cart is no picnic.  We walk through the store, with two carts, filling them both to capacity.  We check out and and pay the Costco enterprise a little over eight hundred dollars, and then attempt to play real life TETRIS to get it in the car.  

Once we get home, we have an army to help us unload it and put it away.  It will last us a week and then we repeat the entire operation all over again.  

That’s it for now.  If any of you are hungry, come over now, because it will be gone before you know it. 

I will report, with pictures, the new hair-do’s tomorrow.