Still Alive

Yes, I'm still alive. Jude is 11 days old and not sleeping great so I've been sticking to the bare minimum. I did catch up on the laundry and ironing today...only 2 weeks worth. It was good to know that we could make it 2 weeks and still have clean clothes. Caleb has been a TON of help which has been really nice! I wouldn't have survived without him. Also, a BIG thanks to Kris for helping me so much with Silas and Elias. I'm too tired to be witty or funny... just writing to let you know we're still kicking along.

Life Has Changed

We thought we were doing a pretty good job of updating or blog regularly. That all seemed to change once Jude came to our house. Actually, he has been sleeping like baby. He sleeps for 30 minutes and wakes up screaming. He has been doing a lot better the last few nights and Tami has actually been able to sleep at night for a few hours instead of 30 minutes here and 30 minutes there.

Elias had his best football game yesterday on offense. He had a great run on the option. We were just happy he caught the pitch and then he turned the corner and he actually ran fast. I guess speed changes depending on the size of the guys chasing you. In the past few games, the only time he came off the field was when they did kick off return. (Sadly, that happens quite a bit with his team) Yesterday they put him on kick off return too. He told me the only time he came off the field was at half time and at the end of the game. It is always easy to pick him out on the field because the average weight of the team is around 80-90 pounds. Elias brings that average down with a weight of 63 pounds.

I went to Isaac's first soccer game on Thursday.

Silas doesn't play sports yet but he really likes going to go to the games and play with his friends. He gets mad if we leave him.

I guess I should elaborate on Isaac's soccer game. The first two minutes were great. Isaac took the ball all the way down the field a couple of times and almost scored. After that, he was tired and wanted to come out of the game. I think he could use a little conditioning. I will say that they only need a field the size about 10 kids with a little bit of spacing. Every time the ball would go somewhere, both teams would swarm together and go to the ball. I don't think they understand spacing yet. Of course, I don't understand soccer so maybe that is part of the feel good, everyone is a star, don't hurt feelings game.

The boys wanted to earn money so I told them I would pay them to wash my pickup and to wash Tami's car. Both of the vehicles are too tall for them wash the top so I did that part for them. After Isaac kept trying to scratch the vehicles with the nozzle and Elias washed only parts of each panel, I decided that I would cut their pay in half and help them. They vacuumed the vehicles too but you would never know it. Elias vacuumed my pickup but never took out the floor mats or anything else that was on the floor. It really cut down the time it takes to vacuum though.

We used to have Monday and Thursday nights free so that we could have a little time off from sports but now Isaac has practice on Monday and games on Thursday. We will just have to enjoy the two hours we have on Sunday afternoon. Besides, we would all be bored if we didn't have so much going on.

Just pictures (four boys)

One more boy (but we are excited)

Jude Caleb was born September 13th at 2:12 PM. Everything went great. Tami and Jude are both doing really well and they are now relaxing at home. He was 7lbs 11 oz and he was 20 3/4" long. He is our biggest child yet and ever. Everyone keeps telling us that if we would just have one more we could have a basketball team. I tell them that having five kids that will never be over 5'5" tall really doesn't qualify as a basketball team so we will just have four.

The good thing is that the mold that we used for the first three wasn't broken. He looks just like the rest of them. Come to think of it, he looks just like all newborn babies. Anyway, everyone is doing great and we are all happy to be home. I don't want to speak for Jude yet but I think he is happy too.

One more thing....I got to help deliver Jude. After his head and shoulders cleared the doctor had me step in and grab Jude. I think he does that so we don't complain about the price we pay the doctor. He is worth every bit of it. I can't imagine doing that with someone other than your own child.

Kid's Wisdom

Tami left early this morning for the hospital to get all the paperwork done and to get things ready. Once the kids head to school, I will drop Silas off at Kris' and then head to the hospital. I keep wondering if there is anyway that they will start without me.

Isaac explained everything about having a baby to me yesterday. He said that once mom has the baby, she will be able to eat a lot more. Right now she can't eat very much because her belly is already full. Once she has the baby, her belly will already be stretched out and then she can eat more. I never knew it before but I guess I must have been pregnant at some time in my life too.

Eating Breakfast

Silas came into our room this morning and he was spitting and trying to get something out of his mouth. He obviously had a bad taste in his mouth that he was trying to get rid of. He was rubbing his tongue trying to get the thing off. He told us that he licked Elias' belly wiper. We had no idea what a belly wiper was so Tami asked him to go and show us what he licked. He took Tami to the bathroom and showed her Elias' deodorant stick with a big bite chunk out of it. So if anyone was wondering, deodorant tastes bad.

Elias had his first football game yesterday. They got beat something like 37 to nothing and the other team got a safety. They don't really keep score and they don't kick field goals so technically, they got beat by 5 touchdowns and a safety. Elias weighs 63 pounds. The biggest kid on his team weighs 120. The other team had two kids that played line and they had to weigh at least 160 pounds. They couldn't really move at all but you wouldn't have known it. I think our kids were more scared than anything.

Isaac starts soccer tomorrow. I would say that we have two kids playing sports but that would mean that soccer was a sport. All kidding aside, we are excited that Isaac is taking up a hobby that is only two days a week. He can play football next year.

He thinks he is really funny because he figured out how to leave messages on our home phone. He calls our number and then leaves messages for Tami. She is always checking to see if we have messages and she was surprised to have two messages when she never heard the phone ring.

The time is coming up shortly for Tami to have the baby. She is scheduled to go in on Thursday to be induced. I tried to get out of being there for the delivery but she wouldn't let me. I want to go back to the days when dads had to wait outside. I would be just fine with that.

We will post some pictures once the baby arrives. Tami is really excited about having her picture posted right after having a baby.

Payback

First let me say one thing. This is not a skateboard. After all those years of making fun of skateboarders I could never get on one. I don't really believe in Karma per say but I'm sure I would get some type of payback. The boys had ripsticks and I wanted to get on one of them but I really didn't want to do it in front of anyone. I held on to the basketball hoop pole and started rocking back and forth a little bit to try it out. (that was after I looked around to make sure no one was watching) I really liked doing it so we went and bought a fat person one that holds up to 250 pounds so that I could ride it. I had to skip breakfast so that I wasn't over the weight limit. It was either skip breakfast or ride naked so that I could be under the limit and I assumed the neighbors would appreciate option #1 a lot more than 2. Elias loves having someone on a ripstick that is terrible because it really makes him look good. I'm glad that I could be the one to boost his self esteem. He also likes to cut right in front of me to mess me up and make me fall. Elias, Isaac and I went for a ride this morning and I thought I was going to have to get off and walk because I was so tired. We rode by a lady walking her dog and she told me that I needed to have some elbow pads, knee pads etc. I told her that I would just make sure I fell backward and I would have plent of cushion for landing.