Chocolate pudding beard

This was the first time Liam had fed himself anything with a spoon. It was chocolate pudding. Boy did he enjoy that!

Face painting compliments of Chuckie.

This is what happens when some of the kids in the house are sick and others are not. The kids who are well feel bored and need to put face paint on each other. It was entertaining for those of us that were sick, even if we kept having to wipe our noses with the medicated kleenex I bought. Dylan did Taylor's face and Taylor put Dylan in an outfit and painted a butterfly on his face. Boy was that a mess to get off!

Chuckie can stop giving now.

I broke down and took Austin and Liam to the doctor today. They tested positive for influenza. Not much you can do with that information except watch and pray. Austin seems to be doing better. The doc put him on Tamiflu and he already seems better. He's just very tired and very congested.

Liam was doing better but then he took a turn for the worse yesterday and is very tired, congested. The good news is his apetite is up and the steam baths seem to be helping his congestion. He's coughing more now so I hope that's a good sign that his body is trying to rid itself of all the gunk. I spent $2 a box on puffs with vicks medicine on it and boy do those work. Liam's mucous dries up for a while afterwards. They are my new best friend...besides Lysol.

Revenge of Chuckie

My kids hate Chuck E. Cheeses. Everytime they go they get sick. My refugee friend, Qudsia invited us to go to celebrate her kids' birthday party. They went on the condition that Dana would give them each a bottle of their own hand sanitizer (I'm sure they're not OCD). We went two weeks ago on a monday. By that Saturday Taylor had a fever of 102.5 and body aches. By Wednesday Liam had the same thing. Thursday had me and Austin feeling the same way. Today I laid in bed and basically did nothing but sip fluids. Austin lost his voice and had a hard time breathing at one point. Bill had to get him to cough up a huge lugie and then he was fine.

Needless to say, Chuckie had his revenge but next time I don't think they'll go no matter who asks them.

Liam feeding himself

It's so amazing to think that he's old enough to feed himself now. He loves scrambled eggs. Of course he's quite messy doing it but it will come in time. I enjoy seeing him relish his new skills. He also got on all fours today so it won't be long before he starts to move and groove. I better get on childproofing! Where are Dana's kids? They will be my testers.

Toy of the year giveaway.

Cool giveaway! Wouldn't you love for your toddler to have one of these? Go to :http://www.5minutesformom.com/2831/mustang-pedal-car/trackback/ and comment to win it. I did. I can just see Liam riding it with his blonde hair blowing in the breeze. It's over $200 retail so if I don't win it, I'll just have to imagine it.

locks of love

Hey, guess what my daughter did the other day? She cut twelve inches off her hair and donated them to chemo patients. Isn't that amazing? It's so traumatic to lose hair but to do it for a good cause is more heartwarming. She's so sweet to do it. She is really excited to show off her new haircut. Someone left a rude comment to her about liking long hair better but I think she's just great for what she did. Isn't she cute in her new do?

Announcement!!!!!!!

Okay, the reason I like number five is that I'm going to have five children as of September! Ahh! I'm so excited. Taylor of course is hoping for a girl but that's out of my control. We are so grateful that God blessed us with another child so soon.

I told Bill by saying, "Guess what I found out about Liam today?"

"What," he asked.

"I found out that he's going to be a big brother."

It took a minute to register but then his eyes got wide with surprise and he said, "OOOHHHHH!"

I'm sure we're in for a round of "Are you crazy?" and "Don't you know what causes that?" but I don't care. Bill and I view children as blessings and rewards now so any He sends our way will be cherished.

My other children are so excited. Taylor was happy to be able to tell her grandparents the news. She felt so grown up. She's already busy picking out names. Bill's suggested Ayatollah, or Jezebel. Nice try! He's such a stinker with names.

I guess we'll be pouring over the baby name book again. Unfortunately my two favorite girl names were stolen by Shannon! Boo! Now it's back to the drawing board.

My due date is Sept. 27th. I'm officially through my first trimester March 15th. Yeah! That's definitely not my favorite trimester (other than the day you find out and tell people.)

Thank you to those of you who've already called to congratulate us! It's so appreciated.

The Number 5

I like the number five. Why? If you really want to know email or give me a call...I'll fill you in. ttfn

Grateful it wasn't worse

One of my biggest fears is actually having to do the heimlich maneuver on someone. Unfortunately I had to face that one today. Liam was sitting next to me on the floor when I heard a noise. Keep in mind that he's a noisy kid but it was one of those things that I knew something was wrong. I looked down and there he was not breathing trying to get something out of his throat. I didn't think I just grabbed him, threw him over my legs and started pounding on his back. He then started crying so hard that I thought it was still there. I realized that he was crying and was okay and I looked on the floor and saw a 1/2 inch piece of lego on the floor by my feet so I guess that's what he was choking on. I was shaking for about two hours afterwards. I was also close to banning legos from our house forever.

I decided to set up this plastic playpen that Melanie gave me up and that is a lego free zone. Austin has to play with them across the room from this area. Actually Liam loved it. It's very colorful with lots of mirrors and things to look at. He was happy for the rest of the day.

When I was whining to God about my morning He reminded me that I should be grateful that He had kept Liam safe. Yes, good point. Thank you Lord.

Trial by fire

Okay, I know that I have a temper problem and I have prayed and prayed for God to take this away from me. Apparently He's decided that the best way to have me do that is to have me face lots of things that make me angry.

1. My name is wrong on my new health insurance cards so I had to call to get it changed. I LOVE calling insurance companies! At first I get stuck in voice mail help (without the p) and it can't understand my id number that I'm repeatedly saying into the phone. By the fourth time I'm saying things like, "I hate you...you are stupid. Get me a real person!" My children, of course are horrified because they think I'm talking to a real person. No, just a computer. Finally the computer deams me too disabled and gets me a real person. When they get on the phone (after I'm reassured for 2.5 minutes that my call is very important to them) you need to imagine the following conversation with an indian accent.

"Hello, Ms. K. I'm _____________ (insert unpronouncible Indian name). How can I help you?"

I explain the problem and she says, "No problem, may I get your id number?" I say it and I have an M in it. "Is that N as in Nancy?"

"No." I then go on to repeat it very loudly and slowly. My children are laughing and think this is amusing...me not so much.

She then tells me she'll change it and is silent. "Will you be sending me a new card?"

"Yes in 7-10 business days."

Okay that wasn't so painful. Let's move on to scenario number 2.

2. My children's savings account never were properly opened due to the fact that every time I opened one the bank was a victim of a hostile takeover by an institution with different rules. I can only access two online and have left them neglected for so long that now they're feeing me for inactivity. When I complained about this they replied that if I would just deposit money into them that wouldn't happen. Gee, I would if I could have access to them online. The thought of dragging the four kids into a bank branch is about as fun to me as a proctology exam and root canal on the same day. No problem to access them, apparently my husband wasn't ever on one of the accounts so I just need to add him. Now I need to go into the branch....dum, dum dum!

I go into the branch and leave the kids in the car since the baby is sleeping. I don't like doing this but I do it anyway as I have the feeling I'm going to lose my cool. I explain to the personal banker what is the problem and then he proceeds to look up my profile. Apparently both of us being on the kids' bank accounts is illegal so now he has to take one of us off. Keep in mind that I originally needed my husband on the one to access it online. I start talking more intensively (not yelling, but close. Those that know me know I can yell a lot at a very loud tone!). "So you're not going to help me with my original problem you're going to make more work for me to take one of us off?"

"Mam, I'm trying to help you but your yelling at me isn't the way to do that." Oh my word. You want yelling?

"This is why I hate this bank. Everytime I try to get an answer about a problem I get a different answer depending on who I"m talking to. I have just spent two hours of my life just this week to try to clear this up."

He apologized for how frustrating this situation must be but he needs to deal with the first situation. Okay, so now I need to take me off the accounts and have my husband's name put on them.

3. I pull into the gas station with the low light burning. As I tell them to fill it up they tell me that the pumps aren't working. So now I have to drive 5 miles away(hope I can make it) and pump it myself in the rapidly dropping temperatures.

4. I'm out of formula so I need to get it. Not maddening but just another I need to do before dinner.

5. I have to pick Taylor up from dance and get to the homeschool support meeting. I take her dinner when I do this. I'm late so I put her cup of milk between my teeth, have my books, coat and keys in hand when the cup flips and douses my face with milk. It's dripping from my hair, coat, eyelashes. I put Taylor's tupperware of soup down to clean the milk and it turns out that the lid wasn't on all the way and it leaked soup everywhere on the floor where the milk was. I think at this point I'm laughing because things just are so bad!

Finally, now it's time for blogging and bed. Okay, I surrender God. Hopefully I won't blow a gasket tomorrow.

Babushka baby

Liam doesn't normally like things on his head but he loves the scarf. He also loves his potato man arm to suck on too! The kids find him hilarious like this. Then he laughs. Such a fun time!

Kissing cousins!

The Kienbusch family is very interesting with the age span of children. The grandchildren span from age 31 years to 8 mos (Liam is the youngest). This picture shows Olivia, daughter of Shannon the oldest grandchild, next to Liam the youngest grandchild. They are only one month apart but Olivia's older. Liam wasn't too impressed with her wanting to kiss him all the time.

We joke that the great-grandchildren are older than the grandchild! In fact Bill's parents told us that Shannon was expecting and so they would have two great-grandchildren. Bill said, "You'll have 15 grandchildren soon."

"No, you're confused. Olivia's our great-granddaughter."

"Well Wendy's pregnant so you'll have 15 granchildren."

Boy were they surprised. It's the first time I saw Bill's dad speechless!

It's great though to see all the generations at family gatherings. It's amazing that Bill's parents are both only children and yet they have so many decendents now. What a wonderful legacy they leave.