Here is a glimpse of what happens at our meal table when Ben prays over the food…

Our Father who aren’t in heaven
How low be your name
My kingdom come
My will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us our debt
As we..
Um…
Give us this daily bread
And give us our debt
As we also forgive your debts
And lead us into temptation
And deliver us to the evil one
For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
Amen.

Um, you missed little dude.

Not sure, but I’m not thinking the little guy is getting it. Maybe a little more memorization work is in order. And a better understanding of what the meaning of such phrases are.

And maybe we should be praying about this.

I’m at my 39 week baby appointment. There is a woman in labor in one of the birthing rooms and I feel like such a dork trying not to cry when I hear her moan with each contraction. A midwife at the check in desk smiled and commented to the receptionist that mama was just about ready to push.

That was when I found myself emotional all of the sudden.

Although I feel for her pain, it’s actually the idea that new life is being born into the world right in the next room that has got me all verklempt.

I’m so excited and blessed to be having another baby. And to be so close to the birthday…
So close to holding sweet baby in my arms.
So close to finally sharing this tiny new family member with my husband and children.
So close to knowing if this baby is a girl or a boy.

So close.

A gal is in here, the waiting room, for some postpartum reason. Her baby can’t be more than a couple days old.
She’s wearing pink.

I wonder if my new baby will wear pink.
[sigh]
Or blue?

I do really like blue.

It won’t be long before we know. Maybe by the weekend? Maybe next Tuesday on my husband and my grandmother’s birthday?

I’m ready.

It’s a good time to have a baby.

I just wanted to write a very quick post about what I found out last night.  I discovered that Mr. Clean Magic Erasers get sharpie off of more than just walls, but couches, too.  And forever black stains out of carpet.

A little background.
My husband was sitting on the couch last night.  Directly next to him Jesse was coloring quietly. So quietly that Ryan didn’t even notice.
So, while Ryan dinked around on the computer, the toddler was busy creating artwork.

All over the couch.  And I don’t use the words all over lightly.  Notice that I’m using them boldly. And redly.

He did this with that same red sharpie that he colored Kait’s carpet with a few days ago.
That Kait uses in part of her school work.
That fell out of her book when I asked Ben to go put it on her bed.
That I didn’t notice fell out of her book.
That ended up on the floor.
Then in Jesse’s pudgy little hand.
Then all over the couch.
And the wall above the couch.

I thought about crying.  But I was too tired to whip up any form of emotion.

Now, to Ryan’s defense, he came home from work with a slight fever and feeling extremely exhausted.
And to my defense, we put all the other marking utensils up out of his reach.  Not Ryan’s reach.  Jesse’s reach. The rule is no sharpie left behind. 

7 kids and this is my first sharpie war. There may be some kind of conspiracy going on here.

Anyway, the discovery that Mr. Clean Magic Erasers remove sharpie from couches, and then finding out that they also get stains out of carpet was…
Like…

And, oddly enough, energizing.
So energizing that I spent an hour going through the house getting stains out of the carpet.  I even shampooed my hallway and the second half of the living room floor to complete the job.  I’d shampooed the first half last week, along with my couch. I don’t remember if I said that already, so thought I should clarify.

This post didn’t stay as short as I intended it to stay.
Sorry.  I got carried away. 

Hopefully, however, this is the very last post I will ever write about getting sharpie out of something.

Because as much fun as I’m having discovering different ways to get sharpie out of things, I’m sick of looking for new ways to get sharpie out of things.

We’re back in the nuts & bolts isle of Lowe’s again. This time for a brass nut for something. It’s a Jeep thing.

By the time this baby is born my CJ should be just about ready for me to drive again. I can’t fit behind the steering wheel right now anyway.

It’s been a while since Biscuit has been on the road. I’ve missed her.

When Ryan said he had to run to Lowe’s I jumped at the chance to go with him. And it’s not because of the awesome pink tools you sometimes find here either.
I distinctly remember just over two years ago being in the nuts and bolts isle of Lowe’s and going into labor. I’d been having contractions all day but they changed while we were at Lowe’s. It was an extreme difference. I had Jesse 10 hours later.

The Lowes worker guy we’re following is making me walk pretty fast. He’s on a mission or something.
It’s making me contract.

Fly, little Lowe’s worker guy! Fly!

Maybe.
Just maybe…

Will Lowe’s be my Walmart of labor inducing?

I’m not feeling anything crazy happening yet. But we’re not done here yet either.

Something happen. Pleeeeaasssseeee!

That whole patience thing I was talking about before is getting really old really fast.

Can ya tell?

What’s worse?
Trying to sleep with really, really awful heartburn?
Or…
Trying to fall asleep when you feel as if you are starving?

I’ve found that the only way to combat my heartburn is to not eat anything for about 5 or 6 hours before I go to bed. However, being the very pregnant lady that I am, my stomach simply does not have ample room to hold much food at once. By the time I’m ready to shut my eyes I’ve already got some pretty stout hunger pains.

Plus, my neighbor brought over some fresh banana bread.
She’s just awesome.
And it’s sitting on my counter. Calling me.

Loudly.

What’s a hungry pregnant gal to do?

Eat and be miserable? Don’t eat and be miserable?

Ryan found out that he doesn’t have to work tomorrow, which is unusual. Maybe a good day to have a baby and just be done with the whole heartburn thing.

I think I’ll choose door number three. Have a baby.

This is not a lemon.

This is a lemon.

Ryan: What on earth are we going to do with fifteen 30 pound lemons?

Okay, so they aren’t actually 30 pounds each.  But they are fantastically huge.  And thanks to a kid and his lemon tree who live down the lane we now have a number of the giants to play around with.

I found a pink lemonade recipe that looks delish.
Then there are lemon bars which I can make a bunch of and freeze.

What would you do with a bunch of ginormous lemons? How long before they go bad?  Can I cut them up and freeze them?

Can I force my kids to eat them and then take funny pictures of their faces to post on my blog?

I’m all for a little entertainment.

Thanks to Aunt Carrie having one and the kids falling madly in love with it while visiting her last weekend, they decided that they simply must have Wii fit of their own. So, the 5 oldest joined financial forces to purchase their very own Wii fit.

I was like, Oh. Well, it’s your money, I guess.

Ryan said, much to my childrens’ delight, I’ll kick in some money, too!
Why was I not surprised?

So, they get this thing. It’s a board you stand on.
Gabe(10) said, “Watch Mom! Watch what I’m doing!”

Then he proceeded to jog in place. So I watched.
I waited for something more to happen. Something cool. Something worthy of my time.
Like a hurdle. Or a banana peel. Or something. Anything.

But no. The game was simply running.

You paid money for this? On purpose?

Then Kait said, That’s not all it is, Mom. There are better ones than just running. Let me show you the dance one.

And show me she did.
Remember that first middle school dance where nobody was really comfortable actually dancing so everybody just did the side to side step and clapped their hands to the beat of Tiffany’s I think we’re alone now cover?

Yeah, that. It was just like that but without the totally appropriate song lyrics. Took me back to 1987.

Apparently there is more to this Wii fit game thing, but by this time I wasn’t sure I could handle any more excitement. I was nauseous.

Still not gettin’ it?
Take a look at this Wii fit commercial and you’ll see how fun leaning from side to side in front of the TV can be too.
Then you’ll just have to have one yourself.

I asked Matthew(7) what my next blog post should be about.

Without having to think about it he replied, Chicken. And my new Lego set.

Maybe he was the wrong person to ask.

Either way, I feel challenged. So now I’ve got to come up with a Lego chicken post.

I started typing this post out yesterday evening and then put it on hold to watch a movie with Kait and the hubster.  Then, in the middle of that movie it became suddenly obvious that I had indeed contracted whatever thing my two boys had the night before.

So now I’m sitting here, waves of nausea coming on with the weirdest contractions I’ve ever had trying to figure out how to post about chicken when just thinking about chicken makes me feel like my insides are going to become my outsides.

Walmart has fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.78 a lb.  And not the sub-par kind.  But the perfect kind that when you take a bite you just know it came from the most perfect hen in the coop.  It’s cheaper than ground beef right now and I definitely prefer chicken to ground beef most days.
When I’m not throwing up, anyway.  Right now they both sound pretty atrocious.

And if one more kid tries to shove a Lego set in my face, explaining about all it’s amazingly intricate devices and purposes while all but following me into the bathroom I’m going to let Jesse loose in their bedroom. Alone.

Done.

So there is my Lego chicken post.  Now I’m going to lay down and watch something on Netflix and wait for the rest of my family to get back from church. Then I’m going to fuss a little to get some pity, and maybe take a nap.

And if these weird nausea contractions keep up I might just have a baby today, too.

I wonder what must have happened to make it so I’d have to show ID and fill out paperwork to get into a junk yard.

A junk yard, people.

We need a few seat belts for the jeep so Ryan and I came down here to car purgatory to see what we could get for cheap. But since I didn’t bring my purse I have been banished to the van.

It just never occurred to me that I’d need my purse at a junk yard.

This place must be good – there is a line of quite a few people waiting their turn to be permitted access to broken vehicles. And its not a quick moving line either.

Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe there is more to this place than just twisted metal.
Maybe there is poker and cocktails.
That would make the admittance fee they charge you just to walk in the gate seem more reasonable.

And I just saw the sign on the window, no car parts allowed in yard.

Yeah, something fishy is definitely going on here.

Kids.

Vomiting.

In the middle of the night.

Why.

Might I ask?

Does it always have to be in the middle of the night?