Saturday, September 27, 2008

Birthday pictures


Eric was playing with the camera. Taking pictures of Grandma washing dishes.


James

Every mothers day and birthday I get my favorite cake.
Chocolate chip chiffon cake
this time James and Kendra made the cake. How many 9 and 10 yr olds can make chiffon cake?




Paul and Eric


Eric

Our nice roast beef dinner. That's Kendra sitting in the front.

Maria and Michael

To make a heart cake you just take a square and circle.

47 yrs old! Couldn't ask for more in life. The Lord has truly blessed me.

baby pictures

These are the two boys born on the same day. First time we had to use the 2nd birth room! I am so thankful that God provided me with a perfect house for a birth center. It's really hard to find a house in Libby with 2 bathrooms and all on one floor. We sure needed the room for these 2 guys.

This sling that the baby is laying on is for my scale. It's a hanging scale. You put the baby's in the sling and it hangs by hooks on the scale. This way I can weigh the baby right there on the mom's bed. Our goal is to keep baby with mom all the time. We never take the baby anywhere. Everything is done right there in the birth room.


Big sisters happy for the little brother.
Well those are the 3 latest babies. We have one more birth center birth this month, 3 due next month. It's been really fun, challenging births lately. Praise the Lord he brings life to this little ones.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

birthday continued

I just was thinking that I missed some things from my last post.
I feel sooooo blessed, I'm just overflowing! Maybe it's the economy crashing, the excitement for getting some things on the house, seeing how God can turn bad things like the fire, into good.
Sometimes I get so frustrated with keeping a house clean, money problems, teenagers giving us a hard time or watching them ruin their lives with dumb choices. It's so easy to get overwhelmed with life in America. We have so much, so many choices that it makes life complicated. We run around doing so many things thinking we are doing them for our family and in the end we seem to neglect our family.
So needless to say I often get overwhelmed and wonder if having so many children was a good idea.
But then there are times like my birthday. I enjoyed my day with my children so much. Our family is really close and we all really love each other alot. If there are arguments between family members it's because someone is really worried about someone else and they feel they need to control them. But it all stems from love.
I am so blessed! I live in my dream house (never finished, not fancy, but practical). A place that we are close to town, but out in the country. A place where children can be safe on our 5 acres. My very best friends are my daughters. I love being a grandma. I love being a midwife. My sister lives up close now, and I love having family close. Every month I go to Kalispell to visit and June, April, Martha, Moriah and sometimes others get together for lunch and try to catch up on our lives. It's a special time.
Here I am 47 yrs old and am overflowing with a wonderful life. God has been so good to me. I am thankful for everyone of my children, my grandchildren, my sister, my niece. Rick has a job, we have plenty of food, we don't even have to wear socks with holes in them anymore. We can pay all our bills, not always easy and it's stressful, but generally life is pretty good. The Lord is working in our lives. What more can I ask. Thank you Jesus!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

birthday and baby

I had a wonderful day!
I must have been missing family. About 2 or 3 weeks ago I emailed everyone and asked if they could come to my birthday. It was sort of weird to plan and invite people for my own party. But I really wanted to see family. So I had been planning this ahead for a long time. 9 of the 11 children came and all the grandchildren.
I still had 2 lady's over due and as much as I wanted them to have their babies, I was asking God for the one day for me to be able to be with everyone. Sat someone called and said they just feel awful, but they are not in labor. "feeling awful" is usually a pre-labor sign! sigh........Sure enough Sunday morning at 2:30 I get a call “she says, do you want to deliver this baby so you can still have your time with your family?” So I head to the birth center. She labored so nicely all night, and as time ticked away I’m thinking “ can I make it to my own birthday party?” Well she had the baby about 8:30 am. Sherry and Karen were there, and the mom was doing so well, she had already been up and showered and was waiting till she could leave for home.
So I left, went to church with the family (almost fell asleep), Went home and had a wonderful roast beef dinner. All 11 children were there except Gina and Miriam. All the grandchildren. It was so much fun. I gave a little presents to everyone, showed them our new investment house, did a personality test and normal for our family, everyone talked, interrupted, and talked some more. We always have so much to say and catch up on.
The personality test was fun, it was one that was related to how we work with people. Rick and I are total opposites. Maria and Mishael or more like Rick. Moriah and I are very close. I wondered how Maria would be seeing she is so logical yet emotional.
Michael gave me a funny card, about chocolate, and of course a box of chocolates. Moriah made me a framed picture with Eric, Joe and her. Maria gave me a gift card for TJ max, because she knows I like household items. Martha gave me a book on tape (another sister chick’s) chocolate, and more, plus Rick's parents gave me $100. I always enjoy that $100. I love to buy a new quilt for my bedroom every couple of yrs. That's what I will probably do this yr.
I got to hear every ones opinions on carpet color too. I love to have every ones opinions.
So even though the baby was born on my birthday, the Lord still provided me with a wonderful birthday.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Our house is falling apart!

First the front porch, then this fire, now we had something leaking so bad in the basement and we couldn't tell where it was from.
I ended up calling a plumber, and he just had to tear the house apart. We put a couple holes in the bathroom, pulled out the fridge to see if the ice maker was leaking, put a hole in the laundry room and took the toilet off in my bathroom. The plumber left, with all my holes and the floor was still leaking!
After he left me with all my holes, it turned out to be the ice maker. I paid $50 to a plumber to tear up walls!
So now besides soot everywhere, and no microwave, toaster etc, now I have no toilet upstairs and we turn black still all the time.
I’m so discouraged. Probably still tired, with midwifery stuff too. Too much work right now.
Crazy life, everything happening at once.
Today I can hopefully get something done.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Radical but fun day with 2 births!

We ended up having 4 lady's due all at the same time. Actually 3 were over due and one is never late. So we were expecting yet still hoping that they will give us a brake between births.
With my house still black from the fire, the garage cleaning still not done, a house in the works for an investment, Gina's home leave, Miriam needing to borrow Rick's car, my Toyota van broke (although Toyota gave me a rental van), to say the least we have tons going on right now, including all these births.
So the first laboring mom called 7 am Thursday. She's a first time mom, so we knew we had time. Her contractions didn't really kick in till after midnight. But we were pretty much up all night taking heart tones, and filling tubs, and giving instructions.
When we are tired we do the funniest things. I had fallen asleep for a little while and woke up to go get Heart tones on the baby. The mom was in the pool when I last was in the room. So I walk in the room sort of sleepy and no one is in the pool. I see her lying on the floor. I say out loud, "there you are, lying on the floor, on your back even"
I sit down next to her and I'm about to pull off her covers, but I think, it doesn't even look like she's pregnant, this is so weird. Suddenly I realize that she's in the bathroom and it's the husband laying on the floor! I almost took FHT on the husband!
So during her labor about 10 pm I get a call from another mom that says she is in labor. I told her to try to sleep and see if it's the real thing. She called me back and midnight and said it's the real thing. Ok, here goes, we need our 2nd room birth fro the 1st time ever. Her birth went great and she had a nice big baby boy!
Well then we went back to the other birth. I had some huge decisions to make and I was pleased I made good decisions in the end.
2 hours later this family also had a nice big healthy boy.

So something I was always worried about of 2 people in labor at once, turned out tot be great. We were all there, I had enough towels and supplies, we even had time to sterilize instruments in between.
It was fun! It reminded me of being at Casa.
These are the kinds of births you walk away from saying "I love being a midwife"
So we still have 2 more to go this month. Oct is another busy month too.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

finnally one if labor

We had the fire last weekend and all the millions of jobs that is creating, we hadn't quite finish cleaning the garage, we have some mystery leaking water in the basement, a house covered with soot, wiring that we are not sure is safe at the moment, an investment house I'm trying to buy, winter coming, which always brings lots of normal jobs, but this yr we have to build a front porch still. We still need to get our pellets. Rick loaned his car to Miriam for a week (because she hit a deer in her Jetta), then I brought my van in to get something fixed and they broke something else. So they gave me a rental van.
Now on top of all this..... I have 3 overdue women and one due this weekend that says she has never been late! That means we could have more then one mom in labor at the same time or no sleep for many days or.......
So one mom called this morning and says something is starting. :)
Well so much for my cleaning day, but baby's always come first.
I'm so thankful for God's all sufficient grace!

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Fire!


Well I decided this weekend was the week to clean the garage. Last yr when we did our kitchen we really messed it up. So last fall we straightened it up enough to fit both cars in, but it was tight,and not really clean and organized. So I knew we needed to have a real cleaning. Oh the dreaded thought!

It needed to be a family affair. So we all started at 11:30 and worked till we were too tired at about 5:30. Killed 100's of hobo spiders, and swept up huge piles of dirt. We still didn't get quite done. We have so much garbage and not enough trash can's. So we got stopped in our tracks and we were too tired to go on.
We decided to go to Pizza hut for dinner. Mishael is up here in Libby, and she can get us dinner for half price and we were way too tired to cook dinner. So we were off to dinner, dropping off stuff at the second hand store and paint cans at the birth center to store in the basement. then spent about 1 hour or so eating dinner. When we got home Rick opened the door and black smoke came billowing out. He said there is a fire somewhere, all the smoke alarms are going off. We have a big house and it took us a while to figure out where it was coming from.


The "top of our basement stairs" counter is a 5 foot counter top between the kitchen and living/dining room. On this counter is the toaster, microwave, a hot water tea thing, a one shot coffee maker, and toaster oven. It has a tile counter top.
This is where the fire was. It looks like one of the coffee pots started a fire. They are both totally gone. There were still smoldering embers, but the fire was miraculously out. I also had some of that syrup for making Lattes, sitting there. a couple of the bottles were broken and the syrup burned, the other 2 bottles were hot and black but still fine.

It’s so discouraging this morning. Everything we touch is black. The soot is lining everything all the way up to my bathroom, the toilet is black, and in my medicine cabinet even.
Soot is oily, and water wont wash it. You have to use soap or alcohol and water. My computer is now black and right after we wash our hands as soon as we touch something, we are black again. I’m not sure how we are going to get clean for church. Even our clean clothes are soot covered. I’ll have to wash everything in the house.
Yet I’m so so thankful that the house didn’t start on fire. Although there was a good spot of fire, it died out on it’s own. We are all safe and besides the soot there is very little real damage.



Every wall is covered with black soot. All my new paint, should wash. Except for ceilings because we painted those in flat paint.


This is at the top of the upstairs. You can see how the smoke was coming up the stairs too.

The toaster has been the best toaster we have ever had. I used to go through a toaster a yr. Then I found this old sunbeam at a garage sale. It's lasted me about 13 yrs now. I won't be able to replace it will I?

This light fixture is a copper/brown color around the edge, and the ceiling is normally white.

All the tile protected from quite a bit of damage. The back splash is cracked, but the granite is still fine.

This picture is the plug . It had one of those 6 plug outlets plugged in.
So the Lord in his great mercy saved our house. I'm overwhelmed now, but if the insurance comes through, in the end I should end up with a cleaner house.
Well we will see.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

I was determined to finish a project

Jon and I are really good about starting projects. We actually get a lot accomplished. But......we have a terrible time finishing projects. Of course Rick won't start a project till we have everything completely ready, enough money, enough time, all the tools, etc. Needless to say in our house that never happens. So he just ends up frustrated with all our unfinished projects!
He was not too happy when I started my upstairs family room project.
I wanted to rip out a wall and make a family room upstairs. It's a room that used to be a bedroom to the apartment. It was divided, and one section was a little sewing room, that was so small that it ended up a junk room that you couldn't even walk in. the other room was just a walk through to Rick's office, (the old apartment). It had exercise machines, junk, and was wasted space.
So one day we ripped down the wall, moved the sewing to the basement, got rid of junk, and then I had a project that needed to be finished.
We had to tape, texture, paint, rip out old carpet. we made a neat hole in the wall for a TV to sit. The idea up here is to have nice carpeted room for children to play when grand kids come over. A pull out couch for an extra bed, and the exercise machines so we can exercise this winter. It will be a great room if we can really fit all that in. It's really not big enough for all that.
Well I was determined to finish it, but we didn't. The room got painted. but we still need to touch up the ceiling. I have to somehow get the carpet home that I bought and somehow get it installed. Can you believe they want $7 a yard to install carpet? I don't think I paid that much for the carpet!
Well my whole house has unfinished projects. Of course the kitchen. But I feel helpless with that. I am dependant on others, and I can't afford to hire someone. I had a trade worked out with one of my clients, and I was so excited, but it didn't pan out after all.
So my on going projects will continue........