Be Still and Know

Clean white moonlight streams through paned windows illuminating small silhouettes in silvery light. Tree branches arch and stretch across walls as shadowed leaves dance in warm summer wind. It's a peaceful place to be. A sweet, contented, quiet place to be in life. I watch my children sleep and embrace the solace and this quiet time in life....so far removed from where we were in life a mere 12 months ago...an eternity gone yet only yesterday. Hot summer days bring with them memories of those torturous months we survived yet there is much healing that comes with both time and needed pause of silence. There is not much to be be said...not much to say as I ponder all of life. Maybe someday this will all turn into a grand testimony and I will find words to tell of the works He has done in our lives, that He continues to do so many months after the fact. But, for now, I embrace the quiet and I feel no need to speak....no need to fill this journey up with words that only serve to clutter the brain at this point.

I gaze at the sleeping children that surround me in moonlit room. How swiftly the years turn chubby, cherubed cheek babies into long sprawling children of youth. I savor this time in life...how fleeting it all is, how short in the overall span of life are the days spent in the presence of them. My eyes fall on beautiful boy.....bronzed skin stretched taut over muscles well defined by hours spent shoveling dirt, axing down trees, days spent heaving fifty pound bags of feed over young shoulders carrying it out to beloved, money making chickens. Long lean body inhales, exhales in rhythmic breaths as long blond eyelashes rest gently on sun kissed skin, feet haphazardly kicked out from under covers...feet now 2 sizes bigger than that of even firefighting husband's. How much I love this strong willed, outspoken, hard working, growing boy of our's. Oh the things I see in him and the work God is doing in his life. The protector that he is, the tenderness displayed as he dotes on his two youngest siblings, the leader he has so easily become to little brothers that mimic his every move, the friend he is to them. His intensity, passion and brute strength that is still so raw and jagged and unrefined as he grows. Oh what it is to see the work of God in his life as he is chiseled and molded into the role and all that God has planned for his amazing life. Does he know how much I love him? Can he even begin to fathom the breadth and depth and height of the love that my heart holds for him? How fast he grows.

My eyes fall on two long haired girls, soft feminine profiles perfectly silhouetted in white moonlight. The beauty of their innocence...the sweet gift that they are to all of life. How different they are in body, in personality, yet how bonded they to each other and the sea of brothers that surround them. How amazing it is to watch the relationships between them all from oldest to youngest. My heart aches with the love and devotion I feel for these 8 beautiful people.

Four little boys, sleeping in pairs. How little they still look...blond and red heads laying peacefully on pillows in the quiet of the night. Not so many years ago this was older boy sleeping here. And in not so many years these boys will be long, tan man-children just as the one that sleeps above them.

Thoughts can't help but turn to the squirmy, wiggly little boys that wrestle playfully within. Everyone awaits their arrival. I wonder who they are...what they will look like...if more pale red heads will emerge or if they'll be blond and tan...which brothers they'll resemble...if they'll look anything like their daddy just as littlest boy does. Only weeks from now their late night, playtime vigil will consist of holding them in my arms, loving them, smelling them, nursing them long into the early morning hours. How loved they already are. How anticipated their arrival and their presence within the family. Who are these little boys that will someday be men that grow within?

I turn from this moon drenched, nursery rhyme, fairy tale setting. The reality I wake to every morning stands drastically opposing this quiet night time interlude. These 5 boys will fill the house with the vibration and noise of heavy footfall on pier and beam floors, raise the roof with their rowdy laughter, cloak the floors in colleche dust and messily fill the clean counters with fresh cups of "flowers". Not so adept little hands will turn geckos loose in the house and leave trails of die cast cars and army men in their wake. Girls will turn meals into restaurant sized affairs in the clean and scrubbed kitchen that glistens in the present moonlight. And a feisty little girl will raise the noise volume within the house by voicing her very definite dislike of rules and boundaries set before her. The now quiet hours will turn into the hustle and bustle of grand central station as a new day starts and a sleeping house comes to life as it begins to awake.

I turn and make my way back down old creaky hallway, bare feet on cool wood floors. I stop and stare at shadow of self, cartoonishly large and more rounded with babies than it's ever been. I stand, amused by its size, feeling strangely feminine and sexy yet fighting off the urge to laugh at the freakishly blimpish proportions now evident on the wall. Finally climbing into bed careful not to wake sleeping husband my hand traces the the large muscles of his legs, eventually finding their way up to his arms. He stirs and I curl up into him consumed in contentment. How grateful I am to be here, no longer drowning, suffocating, in the sea of last year's grief. What peace there is in the present.....right here, right now.

Self Inflicted Absurdity

With special thanks to our up and coming cosmetologist that saw the need to paint the nails before doing any picture taking. Since this morning's picture session it has now turned a true deep purple...a gratifying color since it now actually looks like I endured as much pain as I did.

Pictures don't do it justice. They never quite seem to. I think I've had a few stupid injuries in life but none quite this stupid, this painful or this inhibiting. Instructions were to stay in bed with foot propped up for 72 hours....and I actually reveled in the thought of being handicapped for a whole 3 days.....but it was quite ludicrous to think it would ever truly happen. A mere 24 hours after rolling around in the floor in agony I'm back to cooking and cleaning.

There's a few pretty accidental things that take place around here...but usually it involves lots of little kids being way too rowdy and someone eventually walking away with a black eye, a massive bruise or some amount of blood in the deal. And when adults are involved...which is rare....it usually involves air born baby monitors expertly pitched by a certain little 19 month old girl. But, nope. This was completely in its entirety an embarrassingly stupid self inflicted injury. Those kind where you just walk into a door facing for no apparent reason. Suddenly that unmoving object has come into bodily contact with a body part. Maybe I was just under the impression it was going to move. Obviously so.

So, I just walked right into it but toe hit before head actually did. I'm thinking that the head may have fared a little better than the toe did had head made contact first. I immediately hit the floor in pain thinking I had just stubbed my toe and the pain would be fleeting. About 2 minutes into the ordeal and with an eager crowd of 8 around me I was beginning to realize the pain wasn't as fleeting as it should've been. With the joys of nausea and heat flash coming on swiftly due to pain, instructions were given to get me a trash can. Right about then Garrison cheerfully chirps...."Hey!!! Look at her toe!! It's sticking out sideways!!!" I finally glanced at the pinky toe in agony and, much to my shock, it really was sticking out of my foot completely sideways. It gave the appearance of an L shape...something toes should never in their lifetime do, I might add. I went to walk to the bed to survey the damage but only managed to get to my feet before feelings of nausea overcame me once again and after that little incident I could feel the world fading. From somewhere Grayson said, "Hey, mom? I think you're going to pass out. You should sit down, I think." I slid my back down the door facing once more and just sat in overwhelming pain. How on earth can an appendage that little on your body wreak that much havoc and cause THAT much pain???? In a very mortified manner in all of my glory I crawled my butt to the bed and finally managed to make it to the mattress. I called on shift husband and told him of my predicament. I assured him it needed some form of help and we could drive in to figure out what to do. Everyone hurriedly got dressed and threw shoes on. It took about ten minutes to figure out I couldn't even make it to the bathroom door not to mention trying to make it out to the van and then actually drive with that foot. So, they called in a guy to cover sweet husband and he headed home. I was quite certain at this point that it was totally broken since it was now no less than 3 times it normal size and turning a funny color.

We weighed out ER options but I couldn't bring myself to spend at least 1,000.00 for someone to yank my toe back into place. You can't cast a broken toe, they don't give pain meds for a broken toe and you pay an astronomical amount for someone to pull what already hurts. A total waste of money, if you ask me. He assessed it when he got home, we looked it up on the internet and confirmed it probably was not broken but just severely dislocated. By this time it'd been about an hour since I'd so lovingly rammed it into the door and it was so swollen it was starting to stand up straight once more instead of sticking out so entirely sideways....and it was blissfully going numb.

Again, we discussed options and the ER would involve having to wait for Mother to arrive to care for children....and I was just kind of mad at myself for the ridiculousness of even being in this boat. I asked if he could set it back into place and he said he could. So, with every kid banished from the room he proceeded to pull it back into place. To say it was a painful experience doesn't really fully explain the misery involved. He backed away, assessed and then made the determination that all was still not well and proceeded to do it yet again until it was fully realigned. And I must clarify that there is a massive myth circulating that when a dislocated body part is realigned there is immediate relief...because immediate relief does not exist when one is in that much pain. So, I laid there and it burned for long minutes after the fact and I tried to refrain from using every cuss word I know.

Captain had let him go without charging him sick or holiday time if he returned as soon as possible. So, with a lingering kiss and encouraging words over how well I had done he disappeared once more and headed back to town. And I continued to lay on the bed completely unable to walk. It wasn't until he called on his 32 mile trip back in that I was informed that they DO give pain meds for that in the ER, people have actually called 911 for such injuries and he has actually transported people for dislocated fingers and toe injuries. But then again, people call 911 for many, many amazingly stupid things and the majority of them usually get transported out of sheer desire to go to the hospital. Something I'll never quite understand. I can't really say it was worth an ambulance ride to the hospital, as I was far from dying...though it certainly didn't quite feel like that at the moment......but it was definitely painful enough to be hospital worthy. It was strangely comforting knowing that my misery was not imagined and that I was not rolling around in agony due to sheer imagination and just being pathetically girly and wimpy about it all.

Mother made it over to help with the rest of the day while I stayed in bed. Due to the fact it was almost impossible to walk I had to stay in bed....which I am just not such a pro at doing. But because I could not walk it didn't give me many options. By the end of the day I was surprisingly miserable. I think I may want a day in bed and I dream of a day in bed until I actually have to do it. Hugely pregnant I quickly learned that no movement severely inhibits digestion and heartburn is capable of hitting levels I have never known with lack of movement. My back hurt along with every other body part that could hurt due to being completely sedentary, lack of movement and just lazy. I think it's a hobby I foresee never taking up in my lifetime.

I managed to stay in bed until 10:00 this morning while Evye made oatmeal for everyone, Grayson did all outside chores and Aubrey dressed everyone. But after 10:00 it was over. With the aid of Tylenol I limped around and put needed sheets back on beds, supervised everybody to make sure everything got done and made dinner for the masses.

And let it be known that I never in my life realized just how much my feet get stepped on in the course of a day until now. By the time dinner rolled around that one toe had been completely smashed no less than 284 times since 10 this morning. I am quite certain that yesterday's efforts performed by loving husband were all for naught and as of today it has been completely obliterated. I haven't looked at it yet because I am quite sure it is completely flat at this point....if it's still even attached. Amputation is not really a far removed thought and might actually give better results than what I achieved today....if it is still hanging on. And given the pain factor I am quite sure it is still attached.

In all honesty...it does feel a little better. The more I'm up on it the worse it hurts so I'm thinking after a good night's sleep...only interrupted by 140 trips to the bathroom.....it will feel much better...especially since it will have gone 8 entire hours without being stepped on.

And just so you know...it feels entirely, pitifully, amazingly, ridiculously, absurdly stupid to be rolling around in your closet floor, moaning and groaning, massively pregnant while holding your toe....the toe that you can barely reach and certainly cannot see.

You can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. It looks like a fat little pig with a little tiny pink head. Not that I think feet are just a lovely part of the body anyway...but this really emphasizes just how unsexy feet really are....especially when you've got an oversized, discolored one in the mix.

And some random summer day pics

A pond full of pigs

....or a pool full of kids.

28 Weeks

Much of my life seems to revolve around babies right now and their impending arrival. I'm afraid I've become a very boring blogger due to it since I continue to remain preoccupied with all of life and what is taking place within rather than without. Appointments have now gone to every two weeks. The closer it gets the more I find myself unable to concentrate on much of anything else besides children's daily routines, a clean house and....babies. I think my heart has longed for this for so very long that I find it hard to contain the excitement over what is to come. The excitement and lightheartedness within the family is contagious as the children realize we do not have very much farther to go.

Despite the fact I've only picked at food over the past week due to being sick with some stuff I somehow managed to put on another 5 lbs in only 2 1/2 weeks.

And I discovered today why I have just cause in feeling a bit like an oversized load at this point. Despite the fact I usually measure behind with single babies and measured right on with my gestational weeks with twins I think my uterus remembered all too well what is required of it when there are two in there. Instead of trying to hold it in even slightly it just gave in and gave babies all the room they need at an earlier date. At a grand 28 weeks I am measuring 24 cm in fundal height.....the farthest ahead I've measured this pregnancy, I think....and 6 cm farther ahead than I ever did with Garrison and Grant. My growth record with this twin pregnancy goes something like this..

12 wks - 10 cm in fundal height

16 wks - 17 cm

21 wks - 23 cm

22 wks - 25 cm

25 wks - 28 cm

28 wks - 34 cm

That's 6 cm of growth in a little less than 3 weeks. Needless to say, babies are both growing and thriving. Positions could also be responsible for some of the drastic increase in size due to the fact the babies are a bit "stacked" at this point. It was finally determined that Baby A is still very much head down though B is lying at an angle with possibly head on my left hip and butt in my right rib cage, therefore crossing over the top of A. It was never really determined as to whether he is head up or down, as defining body parts with 2 is proving to be a bit difficult at this stage.

This is such an amazing journey. I suppose I just always assumed a second twin pregnancy would be about like the first....just so much more enjoyable since I did not have the medical profession scaring the crap out of of me for 20 entire weeks. This pregnancy has been an amazing journey in that regard because we all possess the freedom to just sit back and enjoy the ride, get to know our babies and love this growing time instead of obsessing over what might go wrong. But the differences between the pregnancies are an amazing thing also. I could not even get a positive test until a week later than normal for any pregnancy, I stayed horrifically sick the entire first 14 weeks when I never suffered in the least with any sort of of sickness with our 1st set of twins, and even now, babies do not lay in vertical side by side positions but criss cross...and do things I never experienced the first time around.

This is still such a surreal journey. To know that two beautiful, amazing little boys await us at the end of this journey. To know that the end of this pregnancy is the beginning of a life of raising twin boys again. What joy there is in what God has given us in our 8 children and what amazing joy there is in these two little lives growing within. We are indeed very, very blessed.

The Great Baby Name Debate is Over!

So we have come to a definite decision on names. I never could bring myself to actually announce it due to the fact I knew we would probably just continue to change our minds. But as time has passed and we have prayed over these babies and their names it became quite apparent that we know who these sweet babies are.

We also have a great conviction about a different path we are to take with these 2 boys. I felt a bit bad for just randomly grabbing names out of a name book this time around and having no real direction for their names. As we began to pray the Lord was faithful to lead us in an entirely new direction. We will stick with the G's, as it seems a bit odd now to have 5 boys with G's and then suddenly go off and have an L and a W or something. But as we have read through the Bible and really realized the symbolic aspect of names and how the Israelites named places and children surrounding the events of what God was doing in their life at the time we realize the extreme importance God places on names. Much like them building a monument to be a reminder to the generations of what God was doing at that time, so are the names throughout the Bible. As a result we began to research Hebrew names, their origin and meaning. Both Brad and I are both feeling convicted and compelled to give each of these boys a Hebrew name in addition to their traditional name. Just as Grayson has 3 names before his last so would these boys. We feel that after what we have endured over the past year of our life their names would be a testament to what He has done in us, what we have overcome through Him and the amazing thing He has done by blessing us with not just one but two more children. We are still praying about the specific Hebrew name each of them are to be given. We have narrowed it down to a short list and are praying over what the Lord has in mind for each of these babies.

As for their first two traditional names we finally made the decision to honor Brad's family with the boys' initials. We are very close to Brad's paternal Pawpaw and his initials are WG. Brad's dad's initials are GW. So, Baby A, the firstborn, will have WG initials in honor of the patriarch of the family. Baby B, second in line, will have GW. Both boys will go by their G names. We have several children that go by their middle names and not their first so this is not really an issue for us.

Baby A and Baby B are definitely and respectively

Warren Graham

and

Gatlin Wayne

Their 3rd Hebrew name has yet to be revealed to even us. We will be revealing that in time as we pray and it is laid upon our hearts. We are certain He has a definite plan in the monument He seeks to raise up in their names as our lives and those of our children seek to honor Him and memorialize what He has done over the course of the last year that we have lived.

So it is that we will welcome Graham and Gatlin into our family sometime in October.

You Know You're a Large Family When....

Soooo.....there's 2 in that growing stomach up there. And I let them all pick their own people and amazingly they all wanted to look alike. So much for individuality or any kind of personal identity!

I ran across this here and laughed as I read. I also was emailed even more that I added onto this. Is it odd that we actually can say yes to pretty much absolutely every one of these things?? Somehow we don't ever seem that large until I read something like this.

And the 2 yet to come!

People ask if you have two sets of twins. Or about your triplets. You don't have either.


You get in line for a tour at a museum and they give you your own tour guide.


You hear, "You've got your hands full" at least 3 different times while you're out in public with your children.


You hear at least twice while you're out, "If you keep going you're going to catch up to the Duggar's."


You get told constantly, "You could have your own TV show."


You actually have people willing to nominate you for your own TV show.


You start reading a story to one child and end up reading stories to three of four.


You buy a family pass to a museum but have to add extra for all of your children. Or you buy multiple family passes to save money.


You really DO have two sets of twins. And/or triplets.


The only vehicle you fit into as a family is a 15 passenger van.


You read the fine print on the "kids eat free" offers.


Everyone you know has less children than you do.


You go to the grocery store and buy 36 bags of cereal.


Your everyday table seats more than 10.

Four pounds of bananas only lasts a day...or any fruit for that matter.


You make four dozen cookies and they're all gone in 2 hours.


You have to do a head count before leaving to go anywhere.


You have more than 2 sets of bunkbeds in one room.



Someone asks where the boys are and you ask, "Which ones?"


You say eight different names before you get the right one.


When you have 6 people in one bedroom. (....umm, so we're kind of going on 8 for this one)


You cook with equipment made for restaurants.



Everywhere you go people ask, "Are these all your's?"



You take up 2 pews in church.


You have to double any recipe. (we quadruple most stuff...scary)


You remember when something happened by the baby that was born that year.



You have 3 bathrooms and they are always full.



Everything you buy is in bulk.


You go through a drive-thru and order and they ask you to repeat your order 4 times.

You do 8 large loads of laundry a day and you're still not done.


You go through 2 bags of cereal for breakfast.


2 dozen eggs are consumed in one meal.

When the bedtime routine takes 2 hours.

...and my own new personal addition.....


You own a 15 gallon canister, 4.5 hp shop vac for your main household vacuum cleaner. We just resorted to this and I must say.....I am in love and have no idea why we didn't do it sooner.

This is the cat that killed the rat

.......that lay in the house that Jack built.

Yesterday we all set to work on the house preparing for the arrival of different contractors coming to give bids on some house issues. Closets stay pretty clean and organized but there's nothing quite like people looking in every closet you've got to bring out the critical eye harbored within. The girls' closet was tackled first. Since we have no clothes in closets due to the everybody closet the 2 remaining empty closets have become storage, for the most part. They house mostly school curriculum and a few out of season clothes along with children's personal cubby space. Evye's tends to get a little out of control due to her desire to make a memoir out of absolutely everything, from sentimental construction paper to blades of grass. Once again, we paired it down and brought it back under control...allowing her to decide and prioritize what exactly had meaning and what was just crap.

Having completed the girls' closet with girls working hard and rearranging nursery furniture I moved on to work on the boys'. The boys' closet is housed in the children's bathroom since the "girls'" bathroom is, for all practical purposes, out of commission in every way. The sink doesn't drain, the bathtub doesn't run hot water and the commode regularly overflows. It's basically a waste of a space the size of a small closet....seeing as how I can't even fit in there at the current moment with my twin sized stomach. The boys' closet would be where the mouse resides. In all of my ignorance and lack of brain function I never really thought about the possibility of the mouse actually showing up in my cleaning endeavors. The more I cleaned the more grossed out and appalled I became at the sheer amount of mouse poop all over the closet. Despite the fact we had cleaned when the mouse was discovered a week ago I drug out absolutely everything yesterday and discovered pounds of poopage that had gone previously undetected. The more I found the more determined and focused I became. So, I sat to work moving and vacuuming and cleaning and disinfecting in every way. When I discovered it on all of the shelves I finally called shop husband in and asked him if one sticky trap was really all that was needed since it was scattered on floor to every shelf up to the very top regions of the closet. He said we definitely needed at least one more, if not two, and set out to go fetch some more traps. He'd only had time to make it as far as the living area before an entirely fat, gray, largely sized mouse went hauling butt across the bathroom floor. Let it be known that pregnancy does not inhibit movement in any way when a mouse shows up on the scene. I screamed, danced a jig and went running. Unafraid husband stood there laughing, quite entertained by the whole scene that greeted him. He said to grab Poppy...the cat we named thinking HE was a she....as husband went striding in there in all confidence, ready to wage war with the ominous and evasive mouse/rat. I opened the door and chunked the sleepy Poppy within so cat, mouse and husband could do their thing. Poppy sent out horrific sounding meows over the injustice of being awakened from a good nap, thrown into a bathroom and having the door shut on him. Long minutes went by as I tried to envision the scene taking place within with husband, cat and mouse. Apparently cat was totally disinterested in mouse. Sooo....why exactly do we keep these animals around????

With mouse going completely psycho at this point it sought protection behind shower curtain. With Brad giving blow by blow descriptions it seemed this wasn't going so well. He lifted the shower curtain to reveal mouse to cat only to find mouse was no longer behind curtain. He shook the curtain about the time the mouse fell off the shower curtain. I thought I was going to puke. He CLIMBS our shower curtain at night????!!!! Mouse hit the floor once more and went running directly under cat. Distraught cat suddenly started to figure out he might be in there for a reason and within a mere second had mouse in mouth. Brad yelled triumphantly behind closed door.."He got it!!! He really got it!!!!" Me, on the safe side, continually asking...."Is he dead yet??? Is playing with him or did he kill him yet??" After a few very long seconds...probably close to a whole minute...husband finally says, "Yep...he's definitely dead." I cautiously open the door and a proud cat struts out with prize in mouth and proceeds to plop down on the living room floor with it. Just plain nasty in every regard. Kids go after cat to toss his butt outside but cat goes running with mouse still in mouth. The chase was on to catch cat and somehow I get the honor of corralling him and carrying him to the backdoor. Holding him at arm's length I toss him out the backdoor and he proceeds to lay down right next to the door and devour the mouse. And he licks our kids???!!! Ugh!!!! Eager little boys continually running in and out to give gruesome details on the state of the mouse and just how much was gone. Finally. After cat had his fill he sauntered back into house, plopped back down on the couch he'd been so rudely awakened from and went right back to sleep.

But.....we no longer have a mouse in the house. Now to hope he has no cousins in the deal.

Fire Drills

No, it's not October nor is it anywhere near fire protection month but I just happened to remember to get pictures of it today. I thought I'd post some of the more important but beyond the daily routine things that we do.

Pretending sleep, waiting for the drill to begin

I have come to the definite decision that every household needs a fire escape plan....especially those with young children or many children....or many young children. Our house is laid out in such a way that the hallway is long and could easily separate the one and only passage between our bedroom and reaching any and all children. Frightened children could easily head down a burning hallway trying to reach parents in the chaos of smoke and loud alarms so we have taught them over time what to do in the event of a fire. We do fire drills regularly to assure that it is ingrained in them what to do and to assure that they know what the smoke alarm sounds like, what it means and how to escape without injury...leaving no one behind.

The other waiting half

We've trained that the person sleeping closest to the door, Grant, is responsible for making sure the bedroom door is shut, in the event it was left open to a middle of the night bathroom go-er, to give them more escape time. Grayson is first man out and responsible for getting to baby....or soon to be babies....in the nursery. Evye supervises the exit of everyone in the bedroom and aids in them making it out the window while Grayson breaks the nursery window and gets in. Aubrey is responsible for holding the younger ones' hands and guiding them all to their designated meeting spot. After the everybody bedroom has been cleared Evye meets Grayson at the nursery window so that Grayson can hand off baby, or babies, to her and they both run to meet everyone at the meeting spot. So far the longest it has taken with cranky, tired kids was 1:31 but usually they have everybody out and the house is empty in 58 seconds. Today I actually thought to get pictures of the whole event while we practiced.

The alarms go off. Grayson's already made it out the window.

Evacuating

Evye handing Gavin off to Aubrey since he can't quite jump out the window yet like the other boys can.

Getting to Ivye

Her rescuer

Handing her out to Evye

Everyone running to the meeting tree

Thumbs up. Everyone's accounted for. Time 58 seconds for house to be evacuated. 1:08 for everyone to meet and be accounted for.

Racing back in the summer sun after 4 drills to cold a/c, cups of ice water and fans.