I am happy to announce that the baby has been born!

That means the giveaway is closed. If you came here from Prizey I apologize as I cannot seem to find a way to remove this giveaway from their site.

I’ll be announcing the winner soon!

---

I’m going nuts waiting for this baby so, to help pass the time I thought it would be fun to have a neato giveaway to one of my most favorite online stores ever.  The Lemonade Stand.

Over Christmas I wanted to do a giveaway for a Kim &  Jason Lemonade Stand gift card for $25.  I simply love their blog and store.  Plus, Kim and Jason are just good people.

However, things being as they were, I didn’t get around to actually posting the giveaway. So I’m going to do it now. 

But there is a quiz involved. 

Answer two questions.  Get them both right and you get a $25 gift card to Kim & Jason’s super fun store. 

1. Our baby is due on Valentine’s Day. That’s February 14th for those of you who are date challenged. What day do you think he or she will be born?
   Possible useful information – baby #1 was 2 weeks early.  Baby #2 was born on his due date.  Babies 3 through 7 were all between 2 and 6 days late.
2. We have chosen to not find out what we’re having this time.  What gender do you think this baby is?
   Possible useful information – baby #1 was a girl.  Babies 2 through 7 were all boys.

Rules:

• Leave your answer in the comments.  You can only guess once.
• More than one guess per family is fine - for example, if you and one of your kids and your husband wants to guess, this is perfectly acceptable.  Just leave a separate comment and name for each guess.  Small children don’t count though.  Your 6 month old can’t leave a guess. Sorry.
• If more than one person guesses both answers correctly than I’ll choose a winner via a random number generator.  Possibly one of my boys.  Or Random.org.  I’ll make it as fair as possible.
• If nobody guesses both answers correctly, nobody wins and I’ll save the gift card for another giveaway later.
• The gift card is online only and will be sent to you via email.  If I can’t contact you and don’t hear from you within 14 days I’ll have to cancel your win.  Sorry, but I can’t hold onto it forever.
• You can’t win if you don’t enter.  So enter.  I like a good, juicy giveaway so leave a comment with your guesses!
• This giveaway will close once I announce the baby’s birth or on February 23rd.  Whichever comes first.

 Have fun guessing away!!!

P.S. I am receiving nothing in exchange for offering this gift card.  This is simply a case of I truly love this store and the people who run it and I want to support their awesomeness.

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I’m trying to get used to honey in my coffee instead of sugar. It’s not gross, but it isn’t what I would call yummy either.
I know that a lot of people like honey in their coffee.  Honey and cinnamon are actually somewhat popular in the more natural coffee drinker’s circles and are said to have terrific health benefits.

But I find it weird.

I don’t recommend it.

I’ve been drinking a lot of red raspberry leaf tea lately.  I’m told that it will help with labor and delivery. 
I’m skeptical because I’ve read about women who drank the stuff and took the pills and it didn’t change anything.  But enough women swear by it that I decided to give it a try.  I already have two big containers of the leaves so it’s not like it’s costing me anything.   Plus, the stuff is tasty.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

My diet lately has been quite limited and has consisted of mostly cheese omelettes with a dash of milk for fluff.

Just in case you were wondering, I can make a mean omelette.

Ryan bought me deli turkey last night hoping to drive me to change it up a little bit.  The turkey tasted really good.  But I still just don’t have an appetite.

It’s sad.  I’m feeling cruddy and huge and it would nice if I could self medicate with something chocolaty.

Or bacony.

Or both.

My head is telling me that I like food.  My stomach is telling me that I need food.  But the rest of me is saying that I don’t want food.

Except Chinese food.  Garlic chicken from the restaurant down the road…
Yes, please.
But you know, there is money involved in that.  For the cost of a garlic chicken dinner for one, I can make two entire meals for my family. 
And then there is the art of explaining something to somebody who doesn’t speak English. 

I only speak English.

3 weeks, people.  3 weeks. 
Puff, puff, chug, chug… I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Sam(3): Ben said this Lego head doesn’t have a brain in it.
Does it have a brain in it?

Me: I don’t know.  Ask Kaity.

Sam: Kaity, does this Lego head have a brain in it?

Kaity: Um, let me see.
I don’t know.  I can’t really tell, buddy.

Ben(6): Sam, Lego heads don’t have brains in them.
[shakes head]

Sam: No, Ben.  Not real brains.  Lego brains.

Needless to say, we were unable to answer his question. But, I was wondering if maybe one of you lovely readers have had any experience in Lego anatomy and can help out here a little.

Do Lego heads have brains in them?  Not real brains.  Lego brains.
Sam would really like to know.

Anybody?
Anybody?

I cannot believe I haven’t coughed or sneezed myself into labor yet.  Every cough causes sharp pains in my lower belly and I feel like somebody is sticking me with a very pokey pin.

I’m gonna pop.

Today Ryan and I made a quick run to Walmart to pick up a few last minute baby supplies.  I feel completely prepared now, and because I’m fully prepared, I’m sure this baby is going to be born early.  But we all know better than that now, don’t we.

And since I’m feeling a little under the weather it’s probably best for the littlest one to hold off at least a few days until I’m over this stinky cold.

So, patient I will be. Not because I’ve learned anything over the last seven pregnancies.  But because I have no other choice.  This baby will be born when he or she is good and ready and not a moment before.

I have a 37 weeks picture to add but I don’t like it so I’m not.  I’ll see if Ryan or Kait will snap another, less…
um…
just a better one and post it with another update soon.

Yesterday we got close to 3 inches of rain.

During this torrential downpour Ryan and I drove to Publix to fill up our three 5 gallon water bottles. As we have to do every three or four days because the kids still think having a water cooler in the house is awesome and constantly find it necessary to fill up yet another cup with ice cold water.

I wouldn’t complain about this if they were actually drinking all the water. As it is we usually end our day with no less than 12 half empty dirt and peanut butter finger printed glasses of water on the table.

We have a big family, but not that big.

So, here we are in the Publix parking lot. I was in the van and Ryan had loaded our freshly filled water bottles into the back. Our Publix has none of those convenient cart returns in the parking lot so that meant that to return our cart to the appropriate place Ryan would have to walk back through the rain again.
You know those people who leave their carts in the parking lot?

My husband is definitely not one of those people.

So, Ryan took off at a brisk walk/trot thing to return the cart to the store.

I’m watching him go, rain still falling, and I saw him slow down at the crosswalk expecting a lady driving by to see him standing there in the rain and let him cross.
No.
Not only did she not stop to let him cross but she slowed down to almost a stop when her car was directly in front of him. He started to just go around her but then she started driving again.

She seemed to be taunting him.

I was finding this so very funny in a I’m really sorry that lady made you get all soaked sort of way.

Ryan wasn’t laughing so much.

Me: So, Ben, now that you’re six years old don’t you think it’s time you should get a job?

Ben: I don’t have a job. 
[looks at me like I'm nuts]

Me: Oh.  Not really the answer to my question but okay.  
         So, what do you want to do when you grow up?  Any career ideas floating around in your head?

Ben: Yeah.  I want to make a ring with powers in it.

Me: You mean like on Lord Of The Rings?

Ben: Yes.

Me: You know they had to destroy that ring because it was evil.
[he's not actually seen the movie]

[pause]

Ben: No, not like that ring.  A different ring with powers. 

Me: How is it going to get it’s power?

Ben: God.  I’ll make a blue thing that will have powers and put it in the ring. 

Me: What kind of powers are we talking about here?

Ben: Chinese moves
            cartwheels
             jumping higher
             um…
             and some other stuff.

Me: Hold on a minute cause I gotta write this down.  This is some good stuff.

…

Cartwheels?

Sam, why do you have an x on your head?

…

It takes him a second to work up his answer.

I ran into Claire’s teeth.  And now I have her teeth marks in my head.

Sam(3) and his friend Claire(4) were walking through her kitchen, Claire in front of him.  She suddenly turned around but Sam kept walking straight.  The collision caused instant crying on the part of both kids.  When the bleeding still hadn’t stopped after 2 hours and a trip to Walmart, My friend Marseilles helped me butterfly bandage his head, which worked like a charm.  He wanted an X so I added a second one to create that cool dead look everybody is going for these days.  Sam just thinks he looks like a pirate.  I don’t see the connection but, he’s 3, and to him X says pirate.

And Claire, though not bleeding, didn’t fare any better than Sam.  She spent the rest of the day with sore teeth.

Claire is really cute and wasn’t foaming at the mouth or anything so I decided to forgo rabies shots.

My good friend Marty, who happens to be Claire’s mama, snapped the above picture of Sam for me. And the picture of Claire is hers too, of course. 

She’s got mad photography skillz. 
I’ve got a cool cell phone that I can’t take a decent picture with to save my life.

You should see the pictures she’s taken of Jesse over the last 2 years.  Very awesome!

Last night we celebrated Ben’s 6th birthday. 
We always do a clue-based treasure hunt for birthdays so Kait had put together 5 clues and Ben had to use the clues to find his gift. 

This was funny.

The last clue took him to his closet where Ryan had put his birthday gift, a new 16″ bike.  Ben opened the door to the closet and was so set on finding another clue that he totally missed the big bike sitting right in front of his face.  We all stood there giggling until finally Ryan said, Ben, is there something in your closet that doesn’t seem to belong?

He got really quiet for a second.  And then he saw it.

Suddenly he was shocked.  The gift went over quite well.

Ryan had taken the training wheels off before we gave it to him since Ben is past that. 

He was so happy he wheeled the bike into the hallway, got on it, and took off into the living room.  I raced after him, sure he was going to crash into something and bust his head open and spend the rest of the evening at the emergency room getting birthday stitches.  But he didn’t.

We told him not to ride his bike in the house again.

Poor guy though.  Today it is going to be 70 degrees but it is going to rain all day long.  He’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow to take his bike out on the open road.

Ben is 6 years old today.  He was born in the middle of my very first blizzard.  We had to drive to the hospital in somewhat dangerous conditions.  I am thankful my husband is comfortable driving in madness such as it was.  I was raised in Charleston SC.  Just the possibility of ice on the road shut down the entire city. I’m definitely not comfortable in those conditions.

So now he’s 6. 

I’m going to refrain from saying the normal things people usually say like:

I can’t believe how fast time flies by.  Where did all the time go?  It feels like it was just yesterday that he was this little guy who couldn’t even hold his head up.  I blinked and all the sudden he went from a barely walking toddler to a 6 year old boy! 

Yeah, I’m not going to say any of that.

What I am going to say is that Ben wasn’t a planned baby.  We weren’t sure we were going to have another baby.  We already had 4 and that seemed like a nice even number.  But, as it happens often, God had something to show us.

We don’t really know what will make us happiest.  And He does. 

Ben was that child that started a mental change in both Ryan and myself.  Our attitude towards children was markedly different after he arrived and God has continued to change our hearts even more in the years that have followed.  He was the beginning of a new era of ideas and understanding for us.

I look back and I’m amazed at how different we are now as a family, as a married couple, as parents, and Christians. 

And don’t misunderstand.  What God has taught us has absolutely nothing to do with having  a lot of kids.  It’s about enjoying life in all its abundance.  In all God’s blessings – in the one child God has filled your quiver with, or the twelve. 

It’s about embracing what He gives, even if it isn’t what you had planned for yourself.

This is what God has used Ben to teach us.

Happy 6th Birthday Benjamin! 

Saying you mean a lot to us is an understatement.

Today I’m sick, like I said in my earlier post.  I’m tired and need a nap but there was something I just had to do before I could even think about shutting my eyes for a little while.

Today I began the arduous task of filing our taxes.
And finished said task.
In about 15 minutes.

[sweating from the grueling mental workout]

Yes, I did this even though I’m doped up on Benadryl.  I don’t usually take any medicine while I’m pregnant, not even Tylenol, but today I did.  I was desperate.  Every part of me is uncomfortable and Benadryl spelled relief, even if that relief comes in the form of sleeping good for a couple hours.

Look how easy I get sidetracked.
Returning to our scheduled subject…

Filing our taxes is a feel good for us.  It’s like eating a whole package of chocolate covered bacon with zero regret.  It’s like finding out that we won something nice.

It’s like chicken soup for our debt free plan.

I may be sick.
I may be tired.
I may feel like my entire being is under attack by some of those green blob-like virus creatures.

But we’re shedding the weight of our debt away so stinkin’ fast I can’t even believe it’s actually happening.

Plus, I’m not in the car.

What a good day.