Friday, July 31, 2009

No Surgery




There will be no surgery for this baby boy!!  Thank you Lord.  The doctor felt confident that doing surgery would not be beneficial so we are going to leave well enough alone!  YAY!  Trust me Joel was thrilled in his own baby sort of way!  I cannot believe it but Mr. Joel William is going to be 2 years old tomorrow...my baby's not a baby anymore!

On a side note have ya'll seen these car seats?  It's a Radian 80 by Sunshine Kids.  We are in love with these car seats.  They have a five point harness that will fit a child up to 80 lbs. AND they are very thin, so thin in fact they are made to fit three across in a car/van.  These have been a life saver for us.  Thanks to Dave Ramsey we won't be buying a new vehicle so we will be shoving all five children in the back of our trusted Honda Odyssey.  My children are all fairly petite so it will be years before they don't need some sort of restraint system.  Really I'm okay with this, I like to know they are as safe as possible, but have you ever tried to buckle three boosters on a bench seat in the back of a van, impossible!  Thank goodness for Sunshine Kids!!

Have a great weekend!!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Were you starting to think we were lost forever??

Gosh it has been forever since I posted last.  Almost a month!!  I think it's because I'm in full nesting mode and because we were in Kentucky for almost 2 weeks, not to mention hauling kids all over Virginia for Civil War and Dinosaur Dig camp!  It's been fun, but life is starting to take a toll on me.  Ya'll I'm TIRED and my pelvis feels as though there is 50 lbs of pressure on it.  Oh the joys of 5 pregnancies!

To start catching ya'll up I thought I would post pics from the last couple of weeks:


My boys travel so well.  It took us 11.5 hours to get to Halfway, KY and no joke I don't think there was one complaint.  We stopped three times to potty, ate breakfast and lunch in the car and even enjoyed some super quiet time when both Gabe and Joel fell asleep.


We had a big time in Halfway.  Greg's parents live on his grandmother's farm.  They have a huge garden, cattle to look at, a go-cart, a golf cart and plenty of cousins to play with.  The boys had a big time!  Joel was especially found of Great Granny.  They played cars together and he especially liked trying to push her around in her wheel chair.  He also LOVED to kiss her:


I was afraid he was going to snatch her ears off trying to plant a big one on her!  God love him, he is such a sweet boy.  

After four days in Halfway, we headed up to Louisville.  The boys were a little tired of being in the car.  Can you tell?




We had a fabulous time in Louisville too.  The highlight of the week for me was my baby shower!  Mom is a phenomenal hostess and the place couldn't have been prettier:



We totally stole this from Holly's blog, but isn't it soo cute!!

And the food, YUMMY:


Ya'll I don't think this is even half of the food!  It was so good and we were so blessed by so many people.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of you who came out to join with us in celebrating the birth of our very first daughter!

This past Wednesday we started to head home.  Greg was super anxious to get back (more on that later) and we immediately started home improvement projects.  We got the boys new bunk beds which meant their room needed to be painted ASAP before we could put them up.  Greg paints best at night when we are all sleeping and since he was in their room this is what I had to contend with:  


Let's just say, at about 11 I made two pallets on the floor and put two big boys to sleep down there!

One of the rooms we have really been working on is Miss Abby's bedroom.  Now that we have the bunk beds we can start thinking about moving Joel in with his brothers and really start working on Abigail Grace's room.  I found some fabulous ball fringe at Tassels in Louisville and hot glued it on yesterday afternoon.  I have a lovely blister to prove it.  OUCH!!  Here is a sneak preview of her room:  


It is SO not done but I'm really starting to love it.  When I get finished I will take a ton more pics and tell you where everything is from!!  Holly has been so wonderful to work with.  I totally recommend her.  Her prices are SO reasonable and I have totally gained a new godly friend in the mean time!

In other Spencer house news, ya'll we need some prayer.  Do ya'll mind?  I don't usually share this kind of stuff on the blog but my brain is on thinking overload and I just need to share.  Here is what is going on in our house that I need some prayer warriors to lift up to the Lord with me:

1.  Joel goes on Thursday to see a doc about a minor surgery he needs.  One doctor thinks it might be a little more minor then we initially thought which would mean a second surgery.  I should know more on Thursday.  It's really not a big deal (I don't want to post details for fear I may ruin his political career one day LOL), but finding time for doctor's appointments and pre-ops and surgery, etc is always stressful.
2.  I have yet to tell Sam, but on August 4th, he has to go in for a dental procedure to expose his top teeth.  Basically, since he knocked them out three years ago, his gums are so calloused that the teeth cannot break through on their own.  I had soooo many dental procedures as a child and this will be the first of many for him.  The dentist is already talking about pulling baby teeth after this visit.  My heart aches for him.
3.  On August 10th I head up to Bethesda to talk to the surgeons about having my gall bladder out after baby girl is born.  I have heard two horror stories in the last week about gall bladder surgery and my neighbor had hers out in June and mentioned that it was no walk in the park.  I'm pretty stressed about this.  I cannot imagine being out of commission for two whole weeks, YIKES!
4.  Sometime in August my Dad will be going to Kuwait for 6-8 wks.  Please pray for safe travel and for my Mom's sanity while he is gone.  I've already told him that I will be really ticked off with him if he goes and gets himself killed...sheesh I've sent my husband to the sandbox twice, enough already.
5.  September 9th is when Baby girl should be here.  Please pray that she comes as easily as her brothers.  I'm very nervous about having "drugs".  I loathe the thought of having another baby naturally, but the thought of ANOTHER (I've had tw0) spinal headaches is almost more then I can handle.  Please pray for Greg and I, I often refer to army L & D floors as MASH for good reason!
6.  We found out 2 weeks ago that there is a VERY good chance that we will be moving in the spring.  Greg was just accepted to George Mason's two year MBA program and we were really excited about being in Virginia for another three years.  Evidently the Lord has a different plan for our lives so now we are preparing our house (why Greg was anxious to get home) to either sell (PLEASE LORD) or rent.  Please pray/beg the Lord to find us the perfect buyers that want to buy our house and that we will be able to walk away without owing a dime.  Once we get an RFO I will post more details.    

Shooey, that was a lot.  I feel better all ready just sharing everything....on a closing note I just had to post this picture of Joel:


For some reason this picture totally strikes me as Ethan.  Bless his heart!!

(Can ya'll tell I've been in Kentucky??  How many times have I said ya'll!!)