I can't believe it's been nearly 2 months....Part 1

So much has happened since the girls got home from the hospital that I can't possibly do it justice in one post, and I won't go into details (it's all a blur now anyway!).  Here are photos and some descriptions of the insanity that was our merry life from Thanksgiving to just before Christmas!

First of all there was Thanksgiving but I have no photos.  But we were very thankful indeed as two of my dear friends and their mother came around noon to deliver a complete Thanksgiving dinner for all of us!  I was still swamped with medication schedules and getting up all night to do breathing treatments.  I had threatened that Thanksgiving might just be chicken nuggets and tatortots!  But we had a wonderful, homemade turkey dinner with all our favorite dishes!

Soon it was the Christmas season, but we were in the thick of wedding preparations.  It was the second week of December before there was any "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" going on in our home, But little by little we got our act together.  We were socked with a bad cold (that ended up croup with the 4 youngest girls) but no one had to be hospitalized, so we just limped along as best we could.  Dress by dress, decoration by decoration, we began to be more and more prepared for both Christmas and Jessica's wedding.

O yeah - Jessica began a courtship last June, got engaged at the end of August and got married on January.....but I'm saving the details of the courtship/engagement for a very special co-authored post coming here soon!  I will post photos of the wedding here in part 3 of this series though, so hang tight!

Here is Jon and Jessica.  They had Little Earthing Photography do their
engagement photos and Renee did a fantastic job!

We truly enjoyed watching Christy change after her surgery.  She had more energy, she was more relaxed and she was biting less!  She had some sleep issues still, but was better at night overall.  She loves to laugh and loves to play with her siblings.  She can get Esther giggling like no one else can.  Esther loves her and whenever she sees Christy she goes to her and says "Hi, NG" - that is her name for Christy!  They are such a blessing to each other!

Carese has taken to picking up my camera and taking random photos, mostly of her feet or ours as she lowers the camera as she presses the shutter!  The above photo of Esther and I was taken by Carese!

The children got to open one set of gifts early - new pillows and sheets/pillow cases!    The pillows came in HUGE boxes, so wraping would have been silly and storing them until Christmas was not practical.  So we had them close their eyes and we dropped the boxes on their laps - two kids per box!

This spawned some serious bed making and bedroom cleaning.  Here are some photos of some very happy kids all snuggled down for a long winters nap!

Here are also some photos of the super neatly made beds - the boys actually made their own beds and made me come take photos!!  I should have done this years ago.  But alas, the newness has worn off.....


One interesting thing has happened with Christy.  I have struggled to get her three meals by mouth along with three cans of formula into her during her waking hours.  If I succeeded with the formula she was hardly hungry at mealtime.  So I decided to try having her sleep on a wedge and get tube feedings during nap and night time.  This has worked out so very well!

By doing this (and it took several attempts to create a sling that would hold her in place on the wedge) it has also helped her sleep better.  I now believe that a lot of her wakefulness at night has been due to reflux!   I this photos you can see that the head of her crib is elevated.  There is a contraption called a "sling" that goes over the end of the mattress and then along behind her back and around her sides.  Then the end comes up between her legs and up to her armpits, where it velcroes shut.  I have had to modify this after this photo as she figured out how to undue the velcro.  Now the velcro is at the sides and the front tucks over and behind the velcro.  You can google "Danny Slings" and purchase them ready made, but I couldn't do that!  I did order the wedge from Amazon though.

This is the first attempt with the wedge on top of the mattress - she is so strong she just sat up and lifted the wedge right off the bed! Now the wedge is under the mattress and her sling is "slung" to the mattress!


She was actually laughing in this photos as she was so pleased that she had thwarted my attempts to keep her in one place at bed time.  She still fights it and rocks and occassionally gets loose, but I have tweaked things so it hasn't happened for a while!  She is a little Houdini, that is for sure!

 I'll leave you with some photos of me working on the wedding decorations.  I created nearly 50 corsage type decorations for decorating the church, plus about that many unique corsages for the people involved!  I also made the tossing bouquet!  It was fun to learn, but man it was time consuming!  But learning this skill with my first daughter's wedding will reap great benefits with so many more daughters yet to be married!
And here is the last - watching Seahawks and the engaged couple while making corsages at our sons' apartment.  GO HAWKS!!!!

Wednesday Weight Loss and Wedding Plans!

I am so happy to share that our oldest daughter, Jessica, got engaged on Labor Day! She and Jon have known each other for nearly two years, and he shares an apartment with our two sons, and works where my husband and one son works, and attends our church - he joke that he was under 24 hour surveillance for a year before their courtship began!   They are planning a wedding for January 3!

I am super short on time (like the craziest, never at home week of my life), but I wanted to get this posted and do my Weight loss Wednesday this too, but it will all be short and sweet!

They got professional engagement photos done by my friend, Renee of Little Earthling Photography!  She did an amazing job!

Life has now kicked into high gear with wedding plans and trying on wedding dresses!

Christy has also had some health issues come up so we have had lots of Dr and specialist appointments - in short we are addressing her issues with sleep apnea and swallowing/aspiration problems.  I'll post an update next week as then we will have the results from the sleep study that is happening tonight!

Here's my quicky Weight Loss Wednesday up too:

Did I overeat this week on any given day?
Nope - been survival eating since I've been so busy.  Eating too little has been more of a problem!

Did I move more and exercise regularly?
Moved more but have had no time for doing my workout, sadly!

Do I feel lighter than I did at this time last week?
Nope, about the same.

Did I eat in secret or out of anger/frustration/happiness?
No - but I did have a few things that were "off plan" due to having to eat in unusual circumstances but they were mostly whole wheat type things, not sugar, so I do not feel guilty about it (well, there was that white pizza crust).


Did I feel that, at any time, I ran to food instead of to God?
No - too busy to do anything voluntarily!

Before I hopped on the scale, did I think I'd had a successful, God pleasing week?

Mostly - I just really felt that my eating was mostly not in my control.  I've been eating away from home more than at home and it's really tough.  I'm keeping next week's calendar as open as possible so I can get a handle on my eating (like more variety - peanuts are getting old!).

What were the measurable results?

I gained .7 pounds, but lost 1.5 inches, so I'm OK with this week.  

Gotta Run!  Nap, Packing and then off to drive 2 hours to Christy's Sleep Study Appointment!

And now

Jeremy and Sam's Wedding!

I just realized today that with all the craziness of leaving for Eastern Europe just days after Jeremy's wedding, I totally forgot to blog about it!  So, here is that day, almost 2 months ago now!

I LOVE Costco's dresses!

It really started early in the morning, with my sister, Beth, getting some hair done for our girls.  Rebekah, Rachel, Elizabeth, Esther and I all had our hair done at home, and then she left with me and the girls to go to church where she fixed Jessica's hair.  She did an amazing job!  We all looked marvelous!!!!  Daryl brought the boys with him.

Beth also took lots of photos for me, most of these are her photos, and the other are from the photographer who was hired, Furry Portraits.

Not sure she recognizes herself!

I had brought all the children's clothes to the church when I went for the rehearsal, as I had a nightmare earlier in the week about forgetting the clothes at home.  This actually worked very, very well.!  So once we arrived at the church I began the process of getting the little girl's dressed, and spending some fun time in the bathroom with the girly part of the wedding party.  Bringing in the little girls all dressed up was a highlight of my morning!

Oh my!  Amazing beauty

Man, my sister's got talent or what???

All my family looked their best.  The girls in their new clothes were amazing.  The three oldest young men of mine were so stunningly handsome in their tuxes!  My husband, all decked out in his new, first ever, suit was amazing too!  I had fun shopping for him - all new everything!

We were all ready ahead of time, but that worked amazingly well.  The family of the bride were having a little trouble getting everyone ready, so we had our photos with Jeremy first, and then the brides family did theirs.  They did no do any photos of the bride and groom together ahead of time as they had planned for Jeremy to see Samantha in her wedding dress for the first time as she came down the isle.

Here's my little sweety!

What a handsome young man!

After the photos, Jeremy was sent to hang out in the conference room, so he wouldn't accidentally see his bride.  I did the motherly thing and brought him some pain killer for his headache and made him drink some water.  I also got to pin on his boutonniere earlier!





We did steal into the auditorium to see the bride and watch some of the photos. It was amazing.  She was beautiful. The bridesmaids were so pretty!  The love between the bride and her parents was tangeable.  It was beautiful.



 Then we had time to just hang around and greet the guests.  The little girls stole the show, I must admit.  We also had two women helping me by watching after Esther and Carese, mostly in the nursery, but taking them out and about and where they needed to be for photos and such.  This worked so well. I really didn't have to worry about them at all.  They did an amazing job of keeping them happy all day.

Then before we knew it, I was told it was time.  My entry with Jeremy was the signal that things were beginning.  I was supposed to look happy, say witty things to Jeremy on the way up and then sit down.  I have no idea what I said to him, except something about being so very, very proud of him.  Then spontaneously I kissed him on the cheek before sitting down, surprising both of us, but I'm so very glad I did it!

Then I sat down between my husband and my mother, holding hands with both of them and trying to not cry!  I can't just wax nastalgic though, as after the mother of the bride, my friend Julie, sits down, both of us have to, in sync, walk up onto the stage and light the unity candle! We pull this off without a hitch, and I even spontaneously hug after lighting the candles.  She shared with me later that it did her good, helped her to calm down.  I just know it was the right thing to do at that moment.  We've been friends for a long time now (around 10 years) and it was so wonderful to have our children go through such an amazing, God honoring courtship, and now to be getting married.  It was just amazing...

And then it was time.  The bridesmaids made their entrance.  Jessica looked like a model or something.  Graceful and beautiful!  The adorable little flower girl tripped going up the stairs, but the pastor saved the day and got her where she belonged.  Then there was Sam, coming down the isle, looking radiant!

The ceremony went perfectly.  And you could see everyone's excitement as the moment approached...their FIRST EVER KISS!  This was, for both of them, the first kiss of a lifetime.  They did a great job, as you can see.  Another friend of mine sent me this photo that she took with her phone.!

Before I knew it we were taking more photos, and they got more kissing practice too!  After that, it was time for the reception.  It was fun, and the games made it very enjoyable.  The nice part about being a parent in a wedding is that you always get front row seats!  I loved everything about that day.

Jeremy and Sam looked so in love that day.  Their sitting so close together at the reception (for the first time too), was endearing.  I just couldn't take my eyes off them.  Then it was time to say good bye, and then they got to leave, after emptying the Mustang of a million balloons first, for their honeymoon.

God has richly blessed us with an amazing son, and now an amazing daughter in law!