Jeni Begins a New Blog with Pictures!!!

go to My Cool New Blog with Pictures

I will explain the name and get more pictures on and tell about my birth experience in the kiddie pool and make some whole wheat bread later...

Yet will I praise God....

Posted by Jeni at 9:43 pm ~ There is zero note [ Add ]

Jeni delays her birth story

Okay. I've started this great blog about my home birth experience, but I haven't had the time to finish it. And now, the battery is dying, so I am going to delay a bit longer and write about Bradford instead.

Tonight, when Benjamin scraped his knee, he was on the couch wailing. GracE was in her bouncy seat crying off and on. Bradford brought Benjamin a couple of band-aids and was busily nursing his brother, when GracE starting wailing. He turned to her and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Grace, you're not bleeding."

Life with 4 kids is very busy. I truly must be a stay-at-home mom. But we're doing lots of fun new stuff here. I am now grinding wheat into flour to make my own bread, and a friend from church is helping me plant a garden. Both of these activities are non-essential, and probably not the best hobbies to pick up with a newborn, but so it goes. And I'm blogging again. So, I must not be too busy, right?

The homeschool update:

Bradford and Benjamin are both doing Kindergarten work. Bradford is wonderfully artistic and inventive, but in a school setting he would be lost. So we work on his reading and math for about 20-30 minutes each day, and that is school. We're raising butterflies again, as well as planting a butterfly garden. And then he's free to do the things he does really well...drawing, inventing, dreaming, swinging, and aggravating his brothers.

Benjamin, on the other hand, would do great in school. He's only 4, but he can easily tell me the answer when I ask him "Hey Ben, how old will you be when Bradford is 91?" ...two second pause... 89!! Now he's working on how old he'll be when Grace is any given age, which means adding and subtracting 4. The kid counts to 100 on a regular basis for pleasure. He loves to work on his phonograms and reading, too. And today I caught him looking through the Greek reader. Good grief! By the time he's ten he'll know more than me.

Nathaniel is only three, but he seems be a combination of the best qualities of his brothers. He does an amazing job at drawing.

I'd say more, but my battery is about to go...

Posted by Jeni at 9:31 pm ~ There is one note [ View ~ Add ]

I come back to blogging

Let's see...

Had a baby girl. Grace Elizabeth was born at home on August 26. Being at home was by design rather than accident, unless you consider a shower curtain on my sliding glass door and a 5 foot kiddie pool in my kitchen an accident.

More later

J

Posted by Jeni at 9:04 pm ~ There are 4 notes [ View ~ Add ]

A Vacation is Remembered for Bodily Discharges

Did I mention that Nathaniel decided he wasn't going to wear diapers...five days before we left for vacation? At the time, I was needing something to occupy my mind, so why not? Let me tell you why not...

He pretty much got the #1 thing down right away. After his third day, he insisted on going totally diaperless, and has not peed on the bed one time. Good boy!

But oh, the problems with #2. The day Mark smashed his nose and had to go to Urgent Care (another story, probably not worth relating), he happened to go in the toilet. But at our friends' house in Orlando, he went in his undies. I put him into the tub to clean him up, and he went again in the tub. Clean the tub, take him upstairs, put him in another tub, and he went in that tub, too. Gracious host and mommy that Linda is, she sprayed and wiped down the toilet and went back to eating lunch with the other 5 kids. I think he's gone into a toilet about 3-4 times since he started this whole process. I can only hope that he'll get the hang of it before the baby comes.

Okay, I said this vacation would be remembered for bodily dischargeS, plural. It seems that both Nathaniel AND Benjamin were sick on Monday night. I was busy with laundry all day Tuesday because of it. Wednesday night, Bradford threw up. He was sleeping in the basement with Benjamin and Grandma, and my mom kept it from going all over the place. Mom went to her bed to finish out the night, and I stayed with Bradford. Poor thing kept having to run to the bathroom. It was so sweet and a bit pathetic to hear him pray "Dear Jesus, please help me to never throw up again." I explained that throwing up was his body's way of getting rid of the germs that were making him sick, and he changed his prayer to "Dear Jesus, please help me not to throw up again until tomorrow." This was at about 2:30 am, and I'm sure he was exhausted. I wasn't feeling well myself, so I told him that I was praying that we didn't need to use the toilet at the same time.

We didn't need the toilet at the same time. I didn't need it until the next morning. Yuck. Mark got the bug, too, but it just made him achy for three days.

So that has been my vacation. It has actually been enjoyable. I don't feel any urges to dust (not that I feel them at home, but here I experience no guilt), and I don't have to think about meals at all.

Tomorrow is Easter, and Mark still needs to decide where we'll be attending worship. My parents' church is just WAY too big for us. They have to go to some conference center or theater or somewhere really big for Easter service. I have this idea that I want to worship without getting into a traffic jam. And for all of you who attend my home church, you are absolutely not allowed to tell me about how nice the services are. It would be too cruel.

Now the four boys are cleaning my mom's SUV and our van. I guess it's a sight to behold, so off I go. I just hope I don't get wet.

Posted by Jeni at 11:27 am ~ There are 3 notes [ View ~ Add ]

Bradford Goes Fishing and Catches a Tree

We are at my parents house for Spring Break. All the grandkids are here, so we've been very busy. Uncle Jerry came from Mississippi just to go fishing with the boys. They all got poles, except for Nathaniel, who was equipped with a dowel, fishing line, and a bobber. Grandma gave the boys the poles on Sunday, and Bradford spent 4 hours practicing his casting. He wore out the reel.

Monday was the real day. We went to the lake, but no one saw a single fish. Bummer? No. Bradford enjoyed casting, Benjamin found an old toy gun, and Liam and Nathaniel were busy throwing pinecones into the water and watering the bushes. As soon as we got back home, Bradford went out and began to "fish" over the deck. He's gotten a little too good for my parents' backyard, though, and he has caught a tree or two.

Today was hiking, but Nathaniel and I didn't go because he threw up all over Benjamin last night about 11 pm. Fun. I stayed home to finish the laundry.

Posted by Jeni at 4:49 pm ~ There is one note [ View ~ Add ]