This is what is saving me!!

Update on us. As many of you know Ryan finished his residency in June. He accepted a job in Coos Bay OR and although it is not the ideal location for us we are excited to move back to the west. Job hunting was harder than we had anticipated and in the end we feel pleased with the opportunity that Ryan has at his new job. Coos Bay was the first practice to contact us and after lots of pleading for other opportunities it turned out to be Ryan's top choice. We are excited to see what is in store for our family there. We are so happy for all that Ryan does to support our family. Well enough about him afterall this is my blog hehe!

Last month Ryan moved to OR by himself while I have stayed behind with the kiddos to try and sell our house. As I have feared,is has turned out to be the hardest part of this life changing year (new baby, new job, cross-country move, selling a house). So how am I faring?? Not to bad actually. While it is not in the plan for us to have the blessing of selling our house right now, I must say that we are receiving so many other blessings We have been able to stay very busy this summer doing lots of fun things many of which are in our price range of Free! It has been nice and hot which I love and will miss when I move to the cool OR coast. We have so much support from friends and neighbors, and we are completely in our comfort zone.

However reality is I have 5 kids and the oldest is 8 so no built in babysitter just yet. So what is my secret. Well it is something my SIL taught my a few years back. It is these cute little beans. We only use beans in the summertime they are our reward system. This summer especially they are saving my life. All I have to say is "I will give a bean to whoever will____" Usually I have multiple kids begging me to do the chore. Also if they are looking forward to earning a special privilege they ask me "Mom what can I do to earn a bean" Yes that is right they ask to do a chore, and it cost me nothing. I LOVE IT!! Beans are also taken away for inappropriate behavior. Beans have helped Mason to read better, Spencer to get his pjs on quickly, and Brooklyn to be held more often. Unfortunately beans have no effect on Devon and so he still may be the cause of my unravelling, but for now I am happy, and doing just fine. Thanks Krystal for teaching me about beans.

So here are the little cuties!

OK that is a bit of a fib. Here are the little crazies. Which is a more accurate description most of the time. Gotta love them.

Finally

My house in finally on the market. Thanks to Bronwyn's talent and decor it looks beautiful. It has been up for almost three weeks and I am so happy to have it done. So I thought after I had it put up life would be great. Since we have put it up it seems like everyday something went wrong. First my kids spilled black paint on the carpet (thank goodness it was in the basement), one night a light bulb just shattered in the fixture, at 4:30 one morning we woke up to a loud crash and some plates on the wall had fallen off and shattered, my window boxes fall off every few days, Devon peed on the carpet (don't tell our future buyers), McKena melted at plastic bag on the stove. . . . the list could go on. Today nothing went wrong, but tomorrow is another day so I will not count my lucky stars yet.
Throughout this process I have received so much service. I could never thank everyone enough. Here is a shoutout to you all. Thanks you Mom, Bronwyn, Brenda, Amy, Angie, Lisa, LeeAnn, JoAnna, Drew, Larry, Pat and Gary, Eddie, and anyone else I am missing. (don't hate me if I forgot you)

Maybe I was wrong

Most of you know that we did not find out what we were having with this pegnancy. I guess we have decided it is fun to wait those nine long months for that surprise. The whole time as I was carrying this little baby inside of me I was torn when people would ask what I thought it was or what I wanted. I guess I wanted a girl for McKena, but I was really wanting another son. I just wanted to have 4 boys. Well I think I could have been wrong. The minute Ryan told me what we had I just knew that I wanted another little sweet girl in our family. I know you cannot choose what you get and healthy is the most important thing. I guess I just felt it stronger than with any of our other surprises. So here she is

BROOKLYN MICHELLE

She arrived on Feb 16 2010. She was a little less than one month early. She weighed 7 lbs. and was 19 in. long. She is our biggest baby this far. She has these adorable little dimples in her ears that make them look like they are pierced.

Here she is coming home. She is wearing the same outfit that McKena wore coming home. We are so happy to have her.

This lady gave me quite the workout!!

Last week we went on a little field trip to see the Statue of Liberty. I had only seen it from the ferry when we were in NYC in 2002. McKena has been asking us to take her for awhile now, so it was a must see before we leave the area. I felt fine taking the kids by myself my only fear was driving there. Lucky I have an amazing friend that is as good as a husband when it comes to getting me places. I just blindly follow her and she always gets me to my destination in safety. What an easy life I have.
Here are all of our kids on the ferry ride from New Jersey to the statue. I think that cities are beautiful so I love NYC in the background. It was a little cold but not too bad when the sun was shining. The decent weather definitely made the trip a lot easier.

We went to Ellis Island first and learned about all of the immigrants. I honestly had no idea that so many people immigrated here. They have a great museum there. Then on to the statue. They have a small museum before hiking up. Here is Spencer doing a check of Liberty's toenails. I think they are intact and healthy. Like father like son.

We just hiked up to the pedestal where you can go out and get another great view of the city. We had wanted to go up to the crown but it was hard to get tickets and there was a height restriction so only McKena and Adam would have been able to go. McKena was upset about this but I now know it was for the best. WHAT WAS I THINKING!!! I actually thought I would have been able to make it all the way, which was another 200 steps or so. Yeah right!! Just to the pedestal it was 168 steps (or 186) and let me tell you I was panting. OK panting is an understatement. In my defense I was carrying Devon and I am 33 wks. along, but come on. It was worse going down. The stairs are very narrow and I could not see my feet. I just knew that I was going to trip, drop Devon, fall on my tummy and then bounce around like a basketball. None of that happened, thank goodness!!! It was a fun trip thanks LaMonts for going with us.

On your face, or in the case

This is our new favorite thing to say.

Mason has had a little bit of an issue with being cross-eyed for a while now. Last May when he went in for his yearly check-up his sight was not as good in his left eye and so I determined that I should finally take him into the eye Dr. Well we had to wait for our optical ins. to kick in so about 8mos. later he finally went in. This is the result of his appointment. He is very excited about his new glasses and so far does a good job at keeping them on. He does say that he is kind of embarrassed because he is missing a tooth and has glasses. Those two things make him look funny I guess.

Maybe you shouldn't say that!!

I am not sure what has happened this time but everything has gotten much bigger much faster. I understand the concept the more kids you have the faster you show but seriously it just really seems out of control this time. So here are some things that maybe should have gone unsaid.
*Are you having twins (when I was 3 months)
*You are only five months along (come on that is more than half way, right)
*I thought you were close to being done
*As we were going to FL to stay at the Wilsons. Ryan asked how far along Amanda was. I responded about 2 wks further than myself. So he said "Now don't feel bad when she is a lot smaller than you, I just don't want you to be sad" (ok so this did not really bother me I knew he would be right)
*Another Ryan (as he was working in the ER) "Tonya I have seen so many women with really bad stretch marks, you have to be careful so that you do not get any" This was when he was encouraging me to drink less soda, the only thing that made me somewhat happy.

So here I am with #5 24 wks along. I have given up on wearing my own pants as of Sat. when I had to change midday out of the last pair I thought I could wear. I have not been able to see my feet for a while. None of this has stopped me from enjoying ample amounts of Halloween candy since I could finally enjoy chocolate again.

Honestly I am not an easily offended person so luckily most of the comments have just rolled off my back. I even don't mind when Mason pats my tummy and says "Wow mom your belly is getting big!" On a happy note I am getting great use out of all of my maternity clothes.

Mason birthday

I have let too many birthdays pass. At the first of this month Mason turned 6. His birthday was very easy this year. We had just returned from our vacation and so we kept it low key. I was amazed at how happy he was about it. I even forgot to decorate, I hope that does not scar him for life. I was nervous because he was not getting many gifts. He surprised me by being so excited to receive his lego sets. I had no idea he would love legos so much. Boy, I got lucky with that one.

Mason is learning how to be a good older brother and I am grateful for that. He finally seems to like playing with Spencer & Devon. He is usually a pretty easy child. At times I think he is a lot like me, except for the fact that he is actually coordinated. He loves to play sports and does well at them. He loves to play with toys. He comes to me often telling me how he has used his imagination to build something. What a fun thing to hear from my kids. I hope he always uses his imagination. Happy Birthday Mason!!