Family Detox

And I'm not talking about any forms of spiritual detox. Nope........this would be referring to the real life, purge your body of all toxins, flush it down the toilet detox. I now consider myself quite the expert on how NOT to start ALL of your children on coconut oil on the same day. I am so sold on coconut oil and the benefits that have been reaped that once I saw how effective it was with my allergies and how I have avoided any kind of sickness while I take it...even my constant bouts of mastitis had completely subsided....that I determined to start the children on it. After this last round of everybody having been sick I knew they too needed to be on it. BUT......there is one important thing that all coconut users should take note of BEFORE starting 6 children on it in 1 day. That would be the fact that it acts as a detoxifier for your body and it cleanses pretty much everything. Yep..........even kids' bodies. So, in my happy little effort to give my family the best nutrition possible and keep their little bodies in top performing condition I eagerly fixed everyone of them a big ole bowl of oatmeal and merrily dumped in 1 T of coconut oil p/ child along with some Rapadura. They LOVED it and all ate it up. I thought I loved it too until about an hour later when it started coming back to haunt me.......and haunt the commodes. I have never in my life seen so many kids poop so much within a 4 hr period. Never in my life do I wish to see it again. And apparently coconut oil goes through breast milk since Gavin got a healthy dose of some inner bowel cleansing with his siblings. Granted, I've been on the stuff for some time now but apparently he was sympathizing with his fellow members being detoxified. I lost count of the amount of times I wiped butts and I really lost count of the amount of diapers I changed......certainly no less than an entire box full for the 2 still in diapers. The older 3 that I gratefully don't even have to see as they carry out their bodily functions just succeeded in helping royally stink up the house. But they all had more energy and were quite the happy and gleeful crew. Apparently coconut oil is a mood booster too.

So, in our inadvertent, unplanned for detoxification, of course, one of them shoves, what we think, is waaaaaaaaay too much paper in and tried to flush. This is definitely not going anywhere good. Out of 3 bathrooms 1 toilet was already out of commission and had been for a long while. We innocently assumed it was due to septic issues and were waiting on some funds to have a plumber bless us with his plumbing skills. Plumbing skills that I do not have and never intend to acquire..........ever. In fact, I intentionally stay miles away from the bathroom when he visits since I do not even come close to wanting to learn anything about it. So....here we are with a ton of pooping kids and 1..........yes, 1..........working toilet now. But we manage and bowels are finally fully cleansed. After numerous outfit changes on the smaller ones and 4 toilet paper rolls down the worst had passed. But........it didn't solve any of the whole 1 toilet 9 person family issue. I can honestly say that for the 1st time ever we had lines longer than 3 people at the bathroom door in our own house for almost an entire week. Maybe this is good preparation for RV travel?




Part 2: Inner Secrets of the Toilets


We finally got one of the fire guys that has a plumbing business on his off days so he headed on out. If I'd thought about it I might would've taken some pics of his efforts to solve our toilet issues. But suffice it to say that it can't be a good thing when they work and work and finally have to just take the whole freakin commode outside in the yard. I didn't dare ask why, but just continued on getting ready for my eye dr appt. After some time spent slaving on one they move on to the next. Again they roto rooter it and again nothing is accomplished. Hmmmmmm...........surely not. But yep........out goes that toilet into the yard to join its friend. I couldn't help but wonder what the neighbors thought as they passed and saw 2 out of 3 toilets displayed in our front yard. And everybody in this town knows what the inside of everyone else's house looks like so every passerby knew 2 out 3 sat crippled in the grass....in the front yard grass. Then the thought fleetingly crossed my mind to just leave it and begin using it in its new location to avoid anymore clogging issues. Cause we've had our fair share of plumbing related issues in both houses.

Still getting well

The plumber came back in and announced to Brad and I the problem with pot #1. He said, "Well.........so far in that one I've dug out a coke bottle top, purple ball, plastic spoon and hairspray cap." That was keeping the mounds of poo from flushing????? Oh my disgusting gosh! In order for those to be holding up the flush they themselves had to come into contact with what was needing to be flushed. (wretching) Then he starts freakin asking the children what is in pot #2. I'm thinking, "Well, now that's kind of rude. The 1st commode has been rendered useless and out of commission for some time now so the whole little Toys R Us located within it was gross but happened awhile back. Pot #2 just started having issues during our family bowel cleansing, detox day. So, it's definitely toilet paper and he's blaming them already!" I huffed about it for a minute as I continued getting ready, trying to work around him while he took up the whole bathroom working on the now barren hole that went straight into the ground. It rather resembled an indoor outhouse with just that black hole staring at me. Entirely sick. I went into the closet just as he shouted out, "Got a cell phone." I about puked. I didn't even try to go see the shape it was in. It makes me gag just thinking about it now. But somehow that day Garrett, I suppose, found it intriguing that nobody could stay out of the bathroom so he frequented it too and found some other uses for it since he, afterall, could not put it to use with his fellow siblings at this point. That whole thought about the front yard outhouse was suddenly really starting to appeal as I realized the crap covered toy inventory that had just been discovered. I can't help but imagine what state the sunken treasures were in upon their discovery. Ugh! That is just so sick.

He kind of looks like the new up and coming Brad Pitt

So, Brad stayed home with the children while Mother and I took off for town to run errands and go to my eye dr appt. Along the way we discovered Wal Mart does not carry toilet locks but Lowe's does indeed have them. I drained their stock of toilet locks. You know....never in my life have I believed in child proofing your home. I'm of the whole mindset "Don't babyproof your home.....homeproof your baby" theory. Obviously, some form of common sense is accompanied with that....what little common sense I have left. But I don't have the whole coffee table guard, fireplace guard, corner of the wall guard, door pinching guard, dishwasher lock, dryer lock, washing machine lock, adhesive to adhere furniture to the wall stuff, closet rack reinforcers, plastic tarps over my furniture and so on. Admittedly, I do have the frig lock.....only cause they kept going through a 6 pack or 2 of yogurt per freakin day. But I have since lowered myself to new toilet locks. I can't be everywhere at once and the habit of flushing away our toy collection is quite the expensive fascination.....not to mention just gross in every way. And I can't really stand toilet guard all through the day. So it is that we now have a little collection of plastic clips protectively clamping our commodes shut. Lovely. It's just gross to have to have anything sitting on the underside of the rim of any commode. I'm still getting used to that one. That's about like those little under the rim air freshener things that every little 90 year old lady has in her house. And you know they just get peed all over constantly. So, realistically how much good do they really do if they sit all day and just get peed on? Ugh. Commodes are just sick things.........especially when little hidden treasures are unexpectedly dug up. Hidden treasures of ALL kinds....the biodegradable kinds and the not so biodegradable kinds. And we certainly have enough people flushing both kinds around here.

Sweet kisses...........even with hair in the face

Alright......onto the more sophisticated, more hygienic, less sewer related side of life. Goats apparently get laryngitis. At least our goats do. But then I've discovered our goats are quite unlike any other goats anybody has ever owned....maybe due to our total lack of being able to brainstorm what is wrong with them every other hour....or even keep them alive, for that matter. In our attempts to help out the baby goat that now croaks the gate was unknowingly not latched completely. And since we have discovered that goats have very flexible, pliable fingers that are quite adept at opening gates and freeing themselves that's exactly what they did. We headed inside with them safely within their pasture.....or so we thought. Grayson and Evye set off for the post office and I realized a good 15 minutes later that Garrison could not be found. Realizing he had every intention of accompanying them on their trek I raced through what I remembered him wearing. Yep.....he had on shorts, a tank top and flip flops and it was no more than all of 45 degrees. So, I pulled on my mud boots, found the keys to Brad's truck, since he had the Suburban, and took off. I suppose the disturbing part in this is that it wasn't quite the thought of Garrison freezing but more the thought of what the town must be thinking as my 3 yr old traipses around with blue lips. I caught the 3 of them leaving the PO with Grayson and Evye on bikes and Garrison on foot. I still haven't quite figued out what point the bikes served. They had to ride so freakin slow to stay with him they couldn't even keep their bikes up straight. So, I opened up the passenger door and shooed him up into the warmth of the blasting heater that was now burning my eyeballs and had only been going for all of 2 minutes. I drove slowly, allowing Grayson and Evye to ride alongside the truck........until I saw what looked like 3 white trash bags in the yard. I made a mental note to get onto Grayson for not putting the trash into the trash cans yet again. But as I drew closer I realized the sacks were kind of blowing and moving around....or more like, milling around. Surely not. Reality I sought to continually deny was now inevitable and once again it was apparent that we were in for a goat roundup. Crap. I sped up to what is probably an illegal speed out of sheer irritation only to come to an abrupt halt before running them over. The thought did cross my mind to just plow them down. But.......no. In my pink fluffy houseshoes I haul my butt out of the truck and into the freezing weather and begin rounding up goats. I certainly could've won an award for the most ridiculous looking adult as I chased around crapped out goats in my pink houseshoes in the sinking mud. It is quite the sensation to feel cold sinking mud on scantily clad houseshoed feet. Kind of like when cold fingernail polish meets fingernail. With all 3 goats finally back in their securely locked pasture and the little goat still croaking at us we headed inside. I deposited Garrison in his carribean attire in front of the heater and I shed my now sad, brown houseshoes that had begun to resemble a wet dog.

Baby kisses

I have to say though.........this goat rounding escapade was quite shorter than what the last few have been. So I suppose we're improving to some extent on that end of trying to do this whole goat thing.

He loves the Bumbo......his early Christmas present!!!!

And I mentioned my eye dr appt. I do get glasses. Saying that I "get" glasses sort of implies that I am actually looking forward to this new side of life. Ummmmm.................no. But seeing as how I couldn't freakin pass the little eye test for my driver's license it kind of couldn't really be avoided at this point. So it is that they have said that I don't see well at night. I had to go to a dr to tell me this????? And I can't see things far away. Again...I kind of wouldn't be at the dr if I didn't already know this. And speaking of depth sightedness.....why in the world do they say you're near sighted when you can't see anything far away. Wouldn't that be far sighted???? Even if it does make sense, which I'm sure it will to someone, it still would be so much easier if they'd just simplify and say "you're far sighted so that means you can't see far away". Not say "you're near sighted so you can't see far". What the crap is up with that? Anyway, so here I sit awaiting my new scholarly look.

He, by far, has played with his feet more than any baby we've had. It's sooooo cute. He turns into a little roly poly ball like this.

More field trips.....more historical markers to add to the book. Not that you can really read it in the pic.

Note the buffalo in the background

These gigantic things are pets. We got to love them and they come pretty close to massive dogs.

He is soooooooooo cute!!!!!

and sooooooooo happy!

Trying to figure out how he's sitting up

Alright, it seems like I had more to say but I can't really remember at this point.

Oh yes, here's a little funny to laugh at. If children weren't so entirely innocent it wouldn't be nearly as funny. But upon hearing from Grayson that Aunt Abby had to put her Great Dane to sleep Evye came to me. In a very adult, 16 year old way with a voice to match her newly acquired jump in maturity she said seriously,

"Mom, did you know that Gracie got laid?"

I turned to her trying not to laugh and asked,

"What was that, Evye?"

Again she said,

"I said Gracie got laid."

At that point I couldn't keep from laughing. Still serious she said,

"I thought that meant she died. Is that funny?"

I tried to gain some form of composure and said,

"Evye, she got put to sleep. She didn't get laid. And, yes, that means she died and, no, it's not funny. But you need to say that she was put to sleep......not that she got laid"

It was definitely worth a little laugh.

My Early Christmas

I've been in town all day but just had to post quickly. It seems when I go days without posting on here it's because things are really rolling on this end.......not because there is nothing to report.

But in Brad's ingenious creativity he knew how badly I wanted my blog redone and this was his Christmas present to me. I've been working on it with Jen at Blue Yonder Blogs for a few weeks now. This incredible page is the end result. I am sooooooooo excited. Is this not the most incredible thing ever???? I love beautiful things and this is absolutely a source of complete inspiration and the pinnacle of writing in complete beauty.

I picked the 3 pictures a long time ago and this page has been a long time in coming. I searched the world over for the right person to do it. And she managed to capture absolutely everything I wanted.

-The red door is simply because I love everything red in life and there is something so utterly captivating about a red door. There is something that begs one to open, just peek and then just beckons you to enter in. Something that just makes you wonder what could possibly be on the other side.

-The journal and pen is the story of me. It is how my love of writing began and how I wrote for so very many years. Oh, the binders and binders I have of my teenage writings.......my journals. The hours and hours I spent bent over my pastel, little girl green, childhood desk writing page after page, transforming a piece of plain average notebook paper into the story that made up those many years.

-And the inside of the cathedral.....representing my 7 cathedrals that I am building each and every day. My 7 incredible, beautiful cathedrals that I pour myself into each and every hour of every day as I work on building them one day at a time.


Thank you Jen for everything you have done with this. You are wonderful!

Thanksgiving Tales and A Week of Warfare

I think Brad and I have finally found the happy medium of holiday travel bliss and the warmth of hearth and home for holidays. I have loved every minute of the traveling we have done. Maybe because I just think it's fun to be on the road......even with 7 children in tow. Somehow it makes the holidays come alive with love, excitement and expectation.......healthy expectation, of course, since there are those few family members in every family that drive absolutely everyone completely nuts and make each sane member doubt their own sanity. And those same said members that are observed and tolerated every holiday also spur deep ponderings of the soul as to the physchotic and neurotic nature of people you are actually related to. But, in the end, it was all worth the effort, planning and fun of traveling to reach them all.

An early morning.......about to hit the road for home

And on a wintry holiday note before I even get started........as I sit here bundled up in fleece lined clothes and my sweet tiny baby coos, swings and sleeps in his swing bundled up in blankets and warm cuddly soft flannel clothes the snow continues to fall. I cannot even begin to remember the last Thanksgiving holiday that we saw snow. But in the unusual early cold blast of winter the sleet started to fall last night and the snow falls today. The world is covered in a wintry white Thanksgiving wonderland that has left us anticipating Christmas. It has again wrapped us in the enchantment of everything associated with cold days spent shopping or curled up in blankets with the children drinking hot chocolate and reading stories I read when I was little. As I marvel over the cold white day I have begun to wonder just how long we will be here in our tiny little town. A town that used to be so much of a dream but has since turned into a place that we feel we may be called to leave. Brad and I both have learned in our growing nearer to the Lord and learning to listen to His direction that nothing in life is ever permanent. If we approach life from that perspective it makes everything so much easier to let go of........easier to leave. There is a time to arrive and there is a time to leave......a time to come and a time to go. A time when you belong and a time when you become a foreigner.





As we have begun to embrace the fact that we may be called many different places in a lifetime we have come to learn to stay close to the voice of the Lord when He is calling us elsewhere and where He is calling us. So, I gaze out the windows of this dear old home and I wonder what is in store for us. I wonder where we will be next Christmas. Will we be here? Or we will be located and reunited with nearby family? Or could it be that we would dare be hundreds or thousands of miles away from where we are now.......away from everything we hold dear and familiar? Where will we be called next? From the barrenness of El Paso to the deserts of Arizona to the mountains of Montana to the farms of Vermont to the coast of Maine to the sprawling hill country of Texas to the suburbs of Dallas. It is all a possibility when we have so completely given ourselves and our direction over to the Lord to place us where we can be used most mightily for His service. What an adventure life is. What unknown things are still left undiscovered and unturned........waiting, still waiting, to be lived. And how dear family becomes in that light. How precious and how sweet family is. There is a balance of holding on to everything that is near and so dear to our hearts but letting go in order to follow any direction we are given. A balance of the children being able to know intimately and maintain the relationship with Mother. A balance of the children being able to know and value the true friendship they have within their own cousins.....yet being able to leave it all to pick up and go where the wind of the Lord blows. And, for me........for me, the willingness and ability to leave Mother......the only person outside of Brad that knows me better than even I know myself, that loves my children as much as I love them and would die for any one of them as Brad and I would die for them and that next to Brad is the very best friend I could ever in my life have.......and relocate miles away if we are so called to do that. For me it is learning to be open to leaving things behind in order to discover things ahead. To leave Jackie and the friendship that we have in each other...everything we hold dear and funny that comes from having lived so many of our years in life together.

Sweet smiley Gavin

Where will we be? What mountains will have been forged and rivers will have been crossed? As we search the heart of God for direction my heart begins to wonder where we are being called. We both have begun to know deep within our spirit that our time here is coming to an end. So, where now and what next? I embrace the excitement and adventure of the unknown, the bittersweetness, and even sadness, of a chapter in life coming to a close.


Enough of the deep thoughts.....on to everything I have yet to get caught up on.

Handsome Garrison

This past week started by an all out attack on the family. Satan knows better than anything that sickness within our family will wear me down quicker than anything and bring absolutely everything to a halt. Due to sickness we put church on hold, outings on hold, pretty much life on hold. Garrison had been running a high fever and fought congestion all of the end of last week. After a sinus infection was diagnosed I decided to plow onward and go to church. It was the evil working of the enemy that was trying to hold us home and I was bound and determined to overcome. So, I decided to take Garrison, in pj's if I had to, and have the church pray over him and for protection over everyone else's health for the rest of the family. With Brad on shift I dressed everybody and put Garrison in comfortable clothes and we set off, picking Mother up on the way. Arriving a little late I filed the children in on our row and we begin to sing and join in the praise and worship. We'd been there maybe all of 10 minutes and I was nursing Gavin when Garrett puked up the entire 10 ozs of milk he'd had for breakfast. No one had even had any stomach related issues at all and out of nowhere he just pukes. So, undeterred in my convictions to overcome this Mother swept him up, took him out and cleaned him up. I threw a diaper rag over the bench he'd just puked all over and continued singing...not about to take anybody home at this point. At the end of the service we all went up there to have Garrison and now Garrett prayed for. But........we arrived home only for Garrett to continue puking. Grayson and Evye had gone home with Mother after church but as she brought them home we both decided it would be best to remove them from the sick scene to minimize the exposure to it all. So, after cleaning up more puke she whisked them away to spend the night with her. Brad got OT on Monday so I was left to make judgement calls. By noon Garrett had gone 24 hrs without a wet diaper and I knew things weren't looking too good on his end. After consulting Brad and coming up with every possible way to avoid the ER I finally loaded the 5 I had up and we headed to town to meet Brad and then make our way to the ER. He was seen almost immediately and we were given the option to admit him or have them give him an IV and possibly let Brad go home and watch him at home. We opted for that route if they chose to even release him after his IV was given. With all 5 children Brad and I sat in his little ER room from 1pm until 7 pm when they finally finished the IV and decided he could be released to go home. During our 6 hr stay the other 4 became little hospital mascots as the nurses took turns doting on them and bringing them cokes and snacks. The entire ER portion of the hospital stood in amazement that 5 children were holed up in our little room and things were so calm and quiet and that they had the manners they did. Garrison ended up falling asleep sitting up in the chair while Grant fell asleep on the bed with Brad holding Garrett. The boys ended up waking with 103 fever there in the ER. By this point things started to look pretty bleak to me as I thought about our Thanksgiving plans. I began to give in to the feelings of depression and I could feel Satan exulting in triumph over what he was seeking to accomplish.

Evye looking so much older these days

It was by no accident that the spiritual warfare waged all around us at the exact same time. This is the 1st Thanksgiving in many many years where complete healing has taken place and Jackie and Curtis agreed to come. And at the very same time we sat in the ER with 3 sick kids, one bordering on admission, Mother was being told she no longer has a job with the county and Jackie and Curtis sat in an ER far away with one of their's struggling to breathe while being diagnosed with neumonia. The air was indeed very heavy with warfare in the heavenlies. So, we stood against it. Mother packed up what little she needed and stopped by to pack up a few of Grayson's and Evye's things and she headed for Fort Worth. Grant ended up with croup and both boys ran fever into Wednesday. Brad and I both prayed protection over Jackie's and Curtis' children and that nothing we had would be contagious. We made the call to go ahead and push forward with our Thanksgiving plans. In the meantime, they called to say Maggie did not have any type of pneumonia and she was in no way contagious, but just fighting off severe allergies that presented like pneumonia and they were free to come. Brad and I packed up a sack that rivaled Walgreen's inventory and headed to east Texas Wednesday morning. I had dosed so many kids by the end of that night I couldn't even remember who had gotten what and was tempted to make a chart. I decided against it as I stood in faith that this was an all out attack and we would overcome and push through it.

Life on the road

Thanksgiving day came and was filled with tons of family and fun fellowship. Just from Granny and Grandpa and their 3 children the family now totals 35. It's amazing to me how 2 people can create so much life....bring together so many marriages and so many children and grandchildren that did not exist before the two of them became one. It's just amazing. The group picture is quite astounding and entirely comical. I'll post it when I get copies of it. If each of our 7 children had 7 children of their own we would have 49 grandchilden.......not to mention spouses of each of our 7 and then eventual spouses of our grandchildren. I laugh at the thought. What joy there is in life and having been used to create so many more to accomplish such a purpose and be surrounded with such love.

Busmaster Brad

We finally succeeded in getting Garrett back to total rehydration and then his fever kicked in late Thursday night. The trip home was long as we brought Evye back with us and Grayson continued on with Mother and would return home Saturday. But I found it absolutely educational that once home on Friday Garrett awoke that morning and sneezed out every bit of congestion and no one ever ran anymore fever from that point on. I saw at that point how entirely successful satan is in accomplishing his purposes with sickness. Once Thanksgiving was over and he was entirely defeated, after we all pushed through it and showed up despite it all, everyone's sickness came to an end. It is amazing to me that not even one of them is coughing anymore. It was like a light switch being turned on and then just turned off and the storm completely ended. I still sit in awe over how quickly it started and how quickly it came to an end.

swinging at the lodge in comfort

But.........despite the fact everyone is not only well but shows no signs of ever having been sick Mother still does not have an income at this point. The situation that ended it is so absurd that it has been hard for all of us to overcome. But it boils down to the same thing that Keller boiled down to. It was just time to go and that was the avenue that the Lord used to end it. The entire endeavor was a witch hunt and had it not been this situation they would've found another. So, after many tears on all parts she is packing to return home to Fort Worth. Finding work is a foreign thing in this part of Texas and getting paid anything even close to decent is a joke if something is found. So, she returns home....everything completely ordained by the Lord as Brad and I feel led to move on from this place also.

waiting for Daddy...almost home

Tuesday morning as the warfare continued to wage Brad took Aubrey to the eye dr. I have known for a long while she needed to be seen but it was easier to pretend it didn't exist and that she would "outgrow" it. As it become more and more obvious in pictures and while we have great insurance I knew in my heart the time had come to get over myself and take her in. I was glad for Brad having been home and needing to run errands in town so that he ended up taking her. As I stayed home with sick kids he was told that Aubrey not only is far sighted but that she has a severe and rare muscle problem.....one that both Brad's grandmother had and that Mother suffered from when she was young. Whether it is hereditary we're not really sure but we are breaking generational curses none the less. The gloomy predictions were downright depressing and I got off the phone and cried. Stuff about being re-evaluated after 30 days of glasses and then in 4-6 months if they hadn't improved enough than needing eye surgery on the muscle and another possible surgery at 16. After battling feelings of total defeat, everything I have read the past few months begin to ring in my ears and I begin to stand against all of this. I do believe in total and complete healing. I began to speak against everything that has been diagnosed and speak complete healing to her eyes and command them in Jesus name to function properly so that surgery is not even needed. There is indeed healing in the name of Jesus and we are given complete power to use His name. As we wait for her healing she wears her little glasses and we continue to pray over her and speak life to her eyes. It's a stretch for some people and even way out there for most but after witnessing some of the stuff I have seen, hearing the teachings we have heard and reading voraciously through many books I believe more now than ever that Christians stop entirely short of living in the fullness of Christ. Most Christians stay within their boxed comfort zone and never fully experience the wholeness of knowing what it is Jesus came to accomplish and the power that we have been given by the Spirit. I want to push forward into the Holy Wild and break the chains of living in the typical mediocrity of the average Christian life. There are so very many Christians that only ever touch the very tip of the iceberg. In fact, I know very few that have ever chosen to dig deeper and get out of their Bible thumping box of practical insight on everything average. I want Brad and I to be one of those few that dig so deep that it stretches even the everyday Christians around us. I want to live in the fullness and wholeness of a God that still performs modern day miracles. I want to have a faith that will move mountains.

Aubrey's new look

And many thanks to Helen, Brad's aunt, that sent all of these pictures and some of the above of our Thanksgiving with Brad's family. Since our camera shows no signs of improving it looks like we are needing a new camera. In the meantime, I can get a few of here's and there's but am also posting those that family members have thought to take. All of these were taken by sweet Helen...who adores the children.

Brad's mom, her mom and Brad's sister w/her new baby

Brad's parents with all of the grandchildren. Pam is holding Abby's baby in her lap and then the rest of the kids are, of course, our's! From left to right: Evye, Grant, Pam holding Abby's baby Milo and Garrett, Garrison, Gary holding Gavin, Aubrey and Grayson.

Pam's mom with the newest grandchildren additions....Gavin on the left and Milo on the right

Sweet happy Gavin w/ Pam's mom

Brad with Gavin, Abby (Brad's sister) with Milo and Gary (Brad's dad)

Dear Family

We're back and I'm already so far behind in the happenings around here. Brad is on shift tomorrow so I'll have lots of computer time to get caught up and hopefully write til my heart's content. We left Wednesday morning for east TX to be with family and didn't return home until late last night. What a Thanksgiving it was!!! One to be remembered for a very long time. And one in which there were many, many things to be thankful for.

I love my family. I love my life. I am so thankful for extended family that I remain close to even after all of these years. I am so thankful for cousins that continue to be great friends and aunts and uncles that care for and love us like their own children. I am thankful for family that has the same sense of humor and that I can laugh with and love year after year even when we do not see each other as often as we would like. I am so entirely thankful that they have embraced Brad and that he feels so much a part of my family and that they love him like he is their's too. I love that he loves Mother so much and I am so thankful that he loves my aunts and uncles as much as they love him. I love that my cousins love to spend time with the two of us as we have all grown into our marriages and parenthood together. I am grateful that Mother, Jackie and Curtis, Scott, aunts, uncles and cousins love and cherish our children and dote on them endlessly. I love how much we are loved and how full of love and how very thankful Brad and I are for them. I am so entirely thankful beyond measure that we finally spent another Thanksgiving with Jackie and Curtis and their crew and that our children knew what it is to be surrounded with cousins and family all day long. I loved seeing my cousin Kristi and her husband Paul and holding their baby Christian and just sitting nursing our baby's together while we got caught up on all of the latest. I love how much Scott loves the children and how entirely much they love him to pieces and look forward with utter anticipation, intense excitement and delight to seeing him. I love what I have been blessed with in my family......in Mother, Daddy, Jackie and Curtis and their kids, Scott, Granny, and on into my extended family who I dearly love and we continue to stay very close to. I am thankful that my children know Granny and even Nanny and Pawpaw, Brad's grandparents, as well as they do since I never was able to know any of my great grandparents. There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful for the gifts in which I have been given in every way.

I love my children more than life itself and I marvel over what Brad and I have been blessed with in so many ways. I stare into sweet little Gavin's eyes and I hear him coo all through the day as he mesmerizes family members with his magnetic personality and his joy and I wonder at how perfect life is.

To bed. Many stories to come of this past week.

We've Graduated......

........up to redneck.

We are now sitting in the lap of luxury with this monstrous beast! I think we have now completed the picture of town freak show. The people here think it is absolutely the funniest thing that's taken place in the town in a long while. They laugh when they drive by. I laugh when I drive up in my own driveway! Who wouldn't????!!! I had to keep everything under wraps until we made our Thanksgiving trips. We picked it up this past Thursday evening and took it on its first family fun trip just yesterday. It is soooooooo much fun and we have been so entirely blessed. The way it even came to us was a miracle and what we paid for it was the work of an Almighty God working on our behalf. It is the most fun, craziest, off the wall thing I think we have ever in a lifetime done. It's what keeps our life so much fun, interesting and merely entertaining. And if there was ever a doubt before......we know more now than ever that the Lord does indeed have a hysterically funny sense of humor.

We were both painfully aware that we have long sense outgrown the Suburban. We make it work and are so committed to living out of debt that we are being still and waiting on the Lord. We refuse to go into anymore debt so the Suburban continues to serve us well. But, the logistics of the Suburban occur when we face road trips. It is now down to taking 2 vehicles or we don't go. After figuring up what we would spend in gas taking his diesel truck and the Suburban we quickly realized we would be spending the same amount feeding Bertha, the lead rocket.....as Brad has affectionately named it. So, here we sit as the overwhelmingly blessed owners of her.



I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in all of my life as Mother and I followed Brad home the night we brought her home. She tops out at a phenomenal 62 miles an hour. As we wound our way through the west Texas hills in the dark he was messing with controls trying to figure it all out. Suddenly we'd be driving down the road at a whopping 50 miles an hour going uphill and the big yellow blinking slow down lights on top of either side of the bus would start lighting up the night in a school bus yellow glow. Just the mere thought that we owned it now was hysterically funny in and of itself and when paired with the obnoxious yellow blinking lights blinking like a railroad track sign I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Life and its twists and turns is just funny....especially when you have so many kids that you need this thing to get around in. It's a 66 passenger, 3/4 bus so I figure we're 7 kids down so just 59 more to go. How much better....or funnier........does it get??!!





So.....on to our first trip in this beast. We were able to throw absolutely every riding toy we owned into the back of it and Brad only had to take out one seat. It fit both scooters, all 4 toddler riding toys, both Grayson's and Evye's big bikes and then the bouncer for Gavin. It was heaven! We then piled up tons of blankets and pillows and the children set to work making a tent over a percentage of the seats. Garrison, Grant, Garrett and Gavin were all in carseats that Brad had rednecked securely in with a winch rope. I need to get pics of that too. You can't help but laugh. Garrett had an initial fear of his life being in jeopardy the 1st few times he rode in it but he warmed up to it pretty quickly once he had his carseat. It seems funny to me how children love boundaries. Once he was strapped in and back to being the life of the party I remembered back to reading the book "Boundaries with Kids" and was reminded how children thrive in life with boundaries because it means safety and security in their little worlds........the very reason that the children that are allowed to run free with few and far between rules are some of the most insecure bullyish kids that grow into insecure bullyish adults.





It didn't take long at all to fall in love with traveling in such bliss. The freedom of being able to get up and move around to get to stuff that was not buried under seats was just incredible. And then to be able to reach the kids was another novelty. It seemed rather ironic to me though that we now have 33 rows down each side of this bus and somehow somewhere along the way the un-carseated kids all ended up on the 1st 2 rows of the bus. Why is that????????? I finally turned around and looked at them in sheer disbelief and told them they have rows upon rows of heavenly vehicle bliss and we are all crammed up on the front 2 seats together breathing in each others hair. What's up with that???!!!!! So, they were banished to the back to make up bus games and do other bus things.





And at some point in their banishment came another unbelievable turn of events. So, we have these 33 rows..........or however many there since the forever mathematically minded Grayson has counted them.......and on a back one not far from the back door I wedge in the 2 pans of sweet potato casserole I had made on Friday. Tucked neatly up and secured with pillows and blankets we watched them the 1st few miles to make sure they were going to stay. All was well. I never gave it a 2nd thought. But as I was going from the back of the bus from laying down and playing with the children to the front of the bus to chat with Brad over the roar of the engine...and roar it does......I happened to pass by the pans of casserole. And astonishingly......yet not so astonishingly......one of the 2 pans had 3 child size foot prints now within it. After getting over being mad about it I just laughed. It seemed to complete the picture any of holiday attempt we take on.....where you are assured at least one thing will go really wrong. Still kind of mad about it I asked who the guilty one was. Of course, no one really paid attention to where their feet landed so no one could really say who did it. Finally after going back and forth between the 3 of them Grayson finally just said, "Mom, just have everybody stick their foot up there and compare foot sizes to the prints." Seeing the humor in it I finally laughed it off and just became grateful for the foil and plastic sack that covered it. It was saved from a disastrous end due to the foot just making a huge imprint but never coming into contact with the food itself. So it was that the pecanless sweet potato casserole was eaten despite the 3 large footprints that screwed up the topping.

Nothing like enjoying life with a few of your closest friends...especially when there's a new toy to play in

Arriving at Brad's parents' was just as fun as this entire thing has been. Since the neighbors seemed to be having a garage sale of some sort parking was severely limited in every way....of course, making this whole thing even funnier. Being the expert on driving monstrous size pieces of equipment Brad expertly parallel parked Bertha in between large amounts of cars. I couldn't quit laughing. Everytime he braked and had to back up to fit it in the air brakes hissed and squeaked obnoxiously and it began to sound a little reminiscent of a train hissing and groaning to a stop. By this time Brad was laughing right along with me. It successfully brought out the neighbors. As the children began exiting the bus it became quite clear to the neighbors who we were. Some came and greeted us and wanted to know names and ages of the children. They thought the bus was great and found it just as funny.





The day got even funnier as Brad and Grayson unloaded everything.....including all of the outside toys. It looked a little like the Cat in the Hat. The entire bus exploded with all kinds of crap and the children played hard, spreading it all out throughout the day. Then just as suddenly as it had exploded it was just as suddenly picked up and put back on board and we were pulling out with no signs of having ever been there. It was kind of like the bus just threw up and then sucked it all back in and it was over.





Brad's mom's mom and his aunt came, which we haven't seen since Ben died. It was good seeing them. It felt good to have so much praise showered upon the children from his aunt. It makes everything we do here at home so entirely worthwhile. She said that they are absolutely beautiful in pictures but she never expected them to ever be so well behaved, good and happy. She said not only are they beautiful on the outside but they are just as beautiful within too. She repeated over and over throughout the day how amazed she is by them and how incredible they all are....from their manners to their happiness to their social graces. There are days in time when it feels like everything in the world that you do starts to fall into place and it all comes together at one time. This week has been one of those times......from the field trip we took with our fellow large family homeschoolers on Thursday to having friends over on Friday to the trip Saturday and then church this morning. I am starting to see in the children what we have strived to attain for so very long. And I know that it is not just me that sees the effort and hardwork that has gone into it all.


Ands on a side note.......this is not the daycare passenger van! We have been so incredibly blessed in every regard. This bus just came out of the blue and here we are as the owners of this thing. I called the daycare lady this past Tuesday and was overwhelmed yet again by the goodness of God. Not only is the board getting ready to meet on the 26th but our family had come to her mind the very day I made the phone call to her. She said our family is on all of their hearts and they are looking forward to discussing it. The van and our family is one of the first things on the agenda to be discussed. We live in faith of what God is capable of doing and wait in hope with excited expectancy because of how much He loves us and how blessed we are for living in obedience to what He is telling us to do.

Farewell Ode to Bear

I have always considered myself the practical, no BS kind of parent. The parent who tosses things......whatever they may be and however treasured they are......if they lay in the floor for one too many days. If something gets missed at pickup time, and after they have been fairly forewarned, it is headed towards the trashcan. I really don't see myself as a parent that gets emotionally or sentimentally attached to any sort of thing since I firmly believe in a simplistic, minimal lifestyle.....though the heavy laden closets may argue that fact. The less the better.....not to mention how sick we all get of picking up crap absolutely everywhere. We're about to go overhaul the playroom since, at this point, it is nothing but a storage room full of long forgotten toys they string out everywhere. Course, I guess if they're long forgotten they wouldn't be strung out since stringing them out entails playing with them to some degree. I'm to the point where I just like sticks for toys. Kind of like the whole cardboard box theory.

But, I have long since known I greatly need to wean Aubrey from her beloved bear. The same bear she has slept with, drug around, traveled with, played with, formed an intense bond with and that she has intensely loved since she was old enough to hold something in her sleep. I attempted to wean her from it once before but grew weary of hearing her cry for it. So, in my not so patient, long suffering ways I handed it back over in an effort to have peace again.

But, as of almost a week ago now, Bear disappeared....and not from my doings. he got lost occasionally but always turned up a day or so later. The longest he went missing was for 3 days, which were sheer torture for Aubrey. But it is now going on a week and we have turned the house, Suburban, truck and outdoors upside down to no avail in our search for him. The kitchen trash can looms ominously in my mind as I envision Garrett and his overjoyed glee at chunking stuff in it. Surely not. If Bear does somehow miraculously appear it will indeed be the end of her days with him and he will be put away as a keepsake....but the more days that pass and the longer the clock ticks away the days the more I am coming to realize that we may never locate him. How sad that is to me. How is it that both parent and child can become so attached to something? And how is it that you can assume something so wrongly of yourself and are actually just as attached as your child? I always think in terms of being so minimalistic and always paring down and then something like this hits home and I realize how much needless baggage I hold onto. How much more free could I be in life without toting around the past or longing to hang onto it. I found it hard to grasp that knowing we may not find him was almost to me like losing a part of Aubrey. And, in all honesty, what would I have done with him had I just taken him away? I would've put him up on a shelf and kept him........savoring what? Aubrey? Why do people hang onto so much of the past? To bring it back?.......cause it'll never come back. To cherish it and make a god out of it? In all reality it'll just sit there and collect dust and Brad and I can look at it and do what? Take a jaunt down memory lane? Obviously, I would rather hold her sweet little body next to me and make the most out of every minute with her than to hold onto a raggedy pink bear sitting on a shelf that brings back memories of love, long ago days and maybe even some regrets of whatever things I wish I had done differently with her.

The Lord seemed to say to me through this....as I have found it probably more painful than Aubrey......to let go of the baggage. The excess stuff that weighs me down and inhibits me from becoming wholly devoted to the Lord...both spiritually and physically serves no purpose but to look back. I don't want to be one of those people always looking back and never, or maybe only slowly, moving forward. I want to be so free that I can recognize when a chapter in life is over and move on to the next incredible thing that is in store for us....without dragging all of the crap from every year before that with me. I find it comical as I remember Mother and I boarding Amtrak as we neared the end of our travels in getting to Maine. Up until NY we had baggage service like what is expected on an airline. But once in NY we retrieved our baggage and were then responsible for carrying it on with us for the remainder of our trip, when we reached New London, CT. And having both been somewhat vulnerable and susceptible to overdoing it we had no less than 5 heavy carryons and suitcases each. It was a horrific, hysterically funny travel nightmare. We were quite the sight. They even had to delay the train as we hauled it all on. It was embarrassing, to put it incredibly mildly.

I remember that and I remember the feelings that filled me while trying to drag it all onto the train. Feelings of being overwhelmed, of total exasperation, of having so much stuff that I could physically never get it on the train in time...which we didn't, feelings of regret of having dared think I wold need so much stuff. This girl, the same girl, who went on 4 international mission trips and even more national mission crusades and had taken the very minimum amount of clothing and fit it into 1 lone suitcase was now burdened by such excess that it was pretty much impossible to move from place to place. Between the two of us our baggage took up the entire back seat of our rental car and was stacked so obnoxiously high that we could not see out the rearview mirror. It ended up that we shipped 500.00 worth of it back home in an effort to enjoy our trip much more thoroughly and to be free of the weight we had inflicted upon ourselves by our stuff....our extra baggage.

Here I sit once more realizing how capable I am of weighing myself down with the details, the surplus, the sheer excess. And once again I am reminded not to burdened down by carrying emotional attachments and memories with me into the next phase of life. I hold the memories of days gone by closely within my heart but I give away freely in an effort to stay free and weightless as we journey from place to place with where the Lord takes us in every way......physically, spiritually and emotionally. I look at George Mueller and how is wife gave absolutely everything in her life away in order to move with him and follow him in every way. She gave up her right to hold onto her treasured hopechest of things and all of her possessions and together they stayed free of being weighed down by earthly possessions so that they were free to move wherever it is God instructed. I want to be that person. I want to be that free, that willing, that unencumbered by material possessions so that our family, however small it stays or large it becomes, is free to move wherever the wind of the Spirit blows us.

So it is that Aubrey is officially without her bear. She is growing in every way and this is just the start of a new chapter in her childhood as she grows and becomes more of an older girl and less of a little girl. She somehow, in an effort to understand the loss of her beloved bear, came up with a sweet story....however wrong it is. She declared that her bear went to heaven and God just took it up there because He needed it now. She informed us that God was sleepy and wanted her bear to sleep with. After God woke up Bear sat in his lap while He told stories to the little children in heaven. And so it is, according to Aubrey, that Bear sits in heaven on the lap of God and listens to stories with all of the other little children.