Two Year Anniversary!

I can't believe two years ago today Jason and I met. I remember it like it was yesterday, but I'll skip recapping it because last year I posted the story of how we met. Today I'm going to just focus on how far we've come. When we met Jason made it clear he could never love a kid who isn't biologically his, it was a bit of a slap in the face seeing as I had kids. I realized we would never be in a relationship and just focused on raising kids to be good people. Little did I know that while I was raising the kids, Jason was realizing he couldn't fight the love he had for kids who happened to not be biologically his. It's actually kind of funny to think about this, because the moment Skyler was born Jason was in love with her. He was the third person to hold her, the first to get her to smile, they just have this connection and have had it since the moment she was born. Despite the obvious reasons of why I was happy he made the decision that he does in fact love these kids, I was also happy he was just following his heart instead of doing what he thought he wanted. I honestly don't know where we would be if he hadn't made that decision, I do know we wouldn't be in a relationship and I probably wouldn't have adopted Ryker. It's super weird to think about that, because as I write this Ryker is sitting next to me playing with cars. Despite all of the things life has thrown at us, we have overcome it and I can't wait to see where life takes us, because I feel like it's going to be amazing.

IVF Ban?!

Because Trump is such a great President and has already made me cry to the point I had to quit Facebook for now. For those who don't know what he did, he signed a bill that could possibly ban IVF. This effects me and so many other people so much and it's heartbreaking to think that people out there still think this man is a good person. I'm not saying that he has to support all the things I do, but I don't think it's fair he's taking away some people's only way to have a child. For me personally, if this pregnancy fails we are going to IVF and the thought of not being able to do that is killing me inside. You have no idea how hard it is to hear the words "You may never have a baby together" there are so many couples that hear that. I really don't understand why they would ban something like this, it doesn't use taxpayers money and I'm 90% sure that insurance doesn't cover it either. It's paid out of pocket by most couples, there are grants available, but yet again those aren't covered by taxes so it doesn't effect people at all. With how much money IVF brings in you'd think Trump of all people would be for it. IVF does nothing negative and should be made more affordable if anything! I can't even think of words to comprehend how I feel about this, my mind is spinning and I'm an emotional mess. So many couples and even single women who want to be moms are going to be extremely effected by this and unable to do anything there are no other options for some of us and IVF was our last source. I am hoping and praying that, one this pregnancy goes well, but even more that IVF isn't banned because I can't imagine my life without my kids and my heart breaks for the people going through this. To anyone who is dealing with this news, I am here for you and I will fight for you. To Trump, IVF should NOT be banned-not now-not ever.

Raising Proud Girls

With all the stories going around about women and their rights and how us liberals are damaging our children I thought it was important to talk about raising proud girls. Over the passed few days the Women's March has been all over the news and social media, obviously my daughters have no way of seeing these things unless we show them. Not going to lie, we did. We showed them there are people all over the world fighting for their rights. They're standing up for our oldest daughter and her right to be a girl, this is a huge deal in our house. To see 3 million people standing up for her it's an overwhelming moment and I can't even sum it up in words. We're teaching our daughters that they have to fight for things, that they have to stand up and say "This is what I want, I am going to get it.". Despite what the President thinks, he can not tell my daughters what they have the right to do with their own body. Yes, I'm even talking about abortion. Anyone who knows me knows I am 110% prochoice. Why? Because it's not my job to tell someone else what they can and can not do with their own body. It's not up for discussion of wether you agree or not, because nothing will change my mind. I have five daughter, five little girls who are affected by every single thing going on right now. I have one that will be more affected than the others and I get anxiety thinking of all the possibilities of what can happen to her. Despite the fact they're five, three, and one I know that teaching them to be feminists starts now. They're taught that it's their body, their choice to do as they please, they've been raised to know that their voice matters. They know we will listen to whatever they have to say, even if that thing is how hot they think Shawn Mendes is and how they plan on marrying him. Whatever it is, it matters to them so it matters to us. They know not everyone will share our amazing parent skills of listening to their children, so they know sometimes kids at school will make fun of them because that's what they're taught. We've taught them to just be kind, even to those who are rude to them because fighting fire with fire never works. I am hoping and praying as my girls grow up they use their voices to fight for the right things, that they use their voices for what matters to them , that they stand up and tell people how they feel. We need more nasty women out there and they start with our girls.

My kids are obsessed!

If you have access to Internet(which you must, because you are reading this), you have probably seems tons of videos slime. Yup, slime videos are the new "in thing". Our kids are totally and completely obsessed with it, even just watching the videos of people making slime makes them happy. It's truly an odd thing to think about, but this is what I live with. So anyway, on Saturday we made our first batch of slime and only slightly failed. I have to say it was a very fun activity, but it apparently doesn't end with just one batch of slime. They've already looked up a bunch of different kinds of slime we can make-thanks Youtube! As much as it annoys me that they can find tons of different things to do, I'm also beyond happy that they are doing other things that don't involve video games. I just really want to know who thought of slime and how it became such a big deal! This is just one of the many obsessions our kids having going on right now and I can't wait to see what they get into next, as long as it's safe and fun! For now, we'll stick to all the slime recipes Pinterest has to offer us.

We Witnessed History!

Yesterday we got a new president, but I'm not giving him the satisfaction of having a blog post all about him. Instead I want to reminisce about Obama. I was in 8th grade the first time Obama was inaugurated and I remember it like it was yesterday. Growing up I knew that African Americans got the short end of the stick, but didn't really understand why. It wasn't until 8th grade, I realized how prejudice people were though. When Obama first announced he was running for President, my mom read up on what he stood for-you know like a normal person who wants to elect a President-she ignored the fact he was black and just focused on what was important. I remember reading peoples' Facebook statuses and some said things like"Vote right, vote white" no, "white" was not anyone who was running, it was just the color of skin that people wanted their President to have. Yup, this was in 2008 long after Martin Luther King JR and his "I have a dream" speech. No, I am not saying that Obama was the best President in the world they ALL have their flaws! I am just simply saying I am very glad I had the opportunity to witness history! We elected our first African American President-TWICE! I hope and pray that Trump somehow makes history for something amazing, because after all I live in this country and want to see us stop being the laughing stock of the entire planet. But, to Obama-thank you for proving that skin color is just simply a color. I appreciate all you did for the LGBTQ community, thanks for helping my daughter feel better about herself and being supportive. We will miss you.

Getting pregnant after a miscarriage

It's a weird thing to talk about, getting pregnant after miscarrying a child. It's almost like you're replacing the child you lost, but that's not it at all. When we had our miscarriage people kept telling us that we could just "try again" and all would be good. Little did they know that we were getting tested to find out why we miscarried and why we couldn't seem to get pregnant. Dealing with infertility was without a doubt the hardest thing I've dealt with to date. I could honestly deal with so much, but being told you might never have a child with your husband is devastating and my heart broke into five million pieces at that moment. I get it, we have kids already and a lot of people would argue that we don't need another one. That's not the point, the point is we wanted this and it was really hard for us to do. We were told we could keep trying and trying and this may very well never happen for us. We were just about to give up and turn to fertility treatments when we found out we were expecting. It is super early in my pregnancy, probably earlier than most people tell anyone however I learned something with my miscarriage. It doesn't matter if the whole world knows that you're pregnant, it doesn't matter if only a handful of people know you're still dealing a loss and you still lost a child. If I could redo our last pregnancy, I would tell everyone. Because then when we lost Nolan I would have someone to talk to about everything going on. So this time we're sharing it in hopes that we can have some prayers along the way and we can go through this together, because just being the two of us didn't work last time. I am hoping and praying that this goes better than last time and I hope you guys are ready to be on this journey with us, because this wasn't easy for us at all.

Losing a sibling

A few days ago my in laws received a phone call that no parent should ever have to get. They were told their daughter was in a bad car accident and in critical condition. Like any good parents they stopped what they were doing and flew to be with her. Unfortunately, yesterday she passed away. This is a feeling like no other and my heart is broken in five million pieces for this family. This woman was probably the nicest person I ever met, I actually had to get her permission to date Jason! She was so protective of him, like any good older sister would be. She helped us through so much and was a great friend to me. This morning before school I had to tell my kids that their aunt passed away. Their little faces broke my heart as they cried for her. They wanted nothing more than to be with her and sadly we can't afford to be there. They loved her more than anything. People always seem to forget when someone dies, it hurts every single person that was in their lives. No matter how big a role they had in their lives, they are affected somehow. She was more than just "Jason's sister". She was a friend, a sister to six, a daughter, a wife, and her most important role- a mom. She left behind her beautiful ten month old son and I can't began to think of how this will affect him as he grows up. It has already been a hard few days, Jason said he's been asking for both parents(his dad was also in the accident). I am hoping and praying that her husband pulls through and is able to raise their son the way she would have wanted. It's going to be a long next couple of weeks. This isn't something we can just put a bandaid on and call it a day and we hope you guys bare with us as we go about this unfortunate change.

First year homeschooling-half way done!

I can't believe our first year of homeschooling is almost done, I feel like it was semi successful for being our first time. I'm not going to lie when I first brought up the idea of homeschooling to my family I was nervous, I realized what it would take to be a good homeschooler and didn't know if I had it in me. I'm not the most organized person in the world and to be honest I didn't enjoy school growing up, but I do enjoy teaching. I like watching my kids learn new things and love knowing that I helped them learn everything they know. Despite how well I feel like we did, we have been struggling this year. The books we used(there's a video on our Youtube channel about them) would be perfect for kids who weren't being taught from the moment they started comprehending things, but that isn't the case with our kids. Ever since they were little we have been talking to them and teaching them anything and everything. If they asked a question we would answer it in an appropriate way and let them decide if they wanted to know more. Most of the time they did and they became more advanced than most kids. Anyway, back to the books-they are made amazingly and allow for open discussion and you can use outside sources to expand on the subjects. We did all these things and our kids still just killed the books. Brooke is actually almost done with all her kindergarten work that we got for the year! It's insane! I don't want to rush her by putting her into first grade, but at the same time I don't want to hold her back. So what am I supposed to do? Being a parent was hard enough, now adding the role of the teacher has made it twice as hard. The wrong decision could make or break her educational life-I know I sound dramatic. The point is, I'm running out of ideas for kindergarten work. I'm hoping next year is easier and we can find more ways to keep our school work on track. I did say this is our test year for homeschool and I wasn't kidding. If anyone else out there homeschools I'd love to know what you guys do! Let us know.

The Minimalist Life is Hard!

My goal for 2017 is to become a bit of a minimalist. I'm not sure what possessed me to do this, but I'm blaming my friend Taylor. See, Taylor was homeless for five years and finally got an apartment and all he had was the clothes on his back and a few things we were able to get him. His Christmas tree stood about four feet tall and only had four ornaments on it, yet he and his son were beyond happy. They had fun decorating their own tree because they had never had one before! His son didn't complain that his bed was used and it was old, he was fine with it. He just smiled and showed me around his room. It was at that moment that I truly realized how dependent my family was on things, just random things. We found excuses to keep anything and everything, even if we had never used the object before we still insisted we needed it! We were sure it had some kind of use and would fight tooth and nail to keep it in our house. After this experience I was done with all of that. The first few days, it was a fun adventure of getting rid of things, but now half way through the month I feel so overwhelmed and like I'm getting rid of too much! I feel like we're going to need the things I'm getting rid of even though we clearly haven't used them in years! But, I also know how this works. I get rid of baby things, we have a baby. It happened with our last two and I know that it will happen again. I keep reminding myself, stuff is replaceable but it's just crazy to think there are people who have less than me. There are people who would kill to be in my position of having too much stuff, to have stuff that is worth keeping. I never realized how hard it truly is to be a minimalist and I'm so glad I'm not going full on minimalist because I don't think I could personally do that. I applaud people who have more will power than me and can do it. Maybe one day I'll be less of a hoarder, baby steps guys. Now, time to get back to cleaning out my house!

One on One Time?!

Normally the conversation of how many kids we have goes one of two ways. It either goes down the how do we afford it path or the quality time path. People have asked time and time again how it is possible that we spend quality time with each of them individually. It's kind of funny people ask us that, because honestly I feel like we spend more time with our kids than some people with one or two kids do. It really isn't rocket science when it comes to this, it's an easy thing and we just kind of do it. We spend time together doing various things, it could be us just washing clothes together and talking about our day or it could be something major like taking one of them ice skating. It doesn't have to be some fancy event, kids don't need fancy they just need you. That is something we have learned with having so many kids, we've realized that all the fancy pants Pinterest ideas we have been trying don't really matter. We make sure we have some kind of date night with each of our kids per month, yea it gets a little hectic, but it's beyond worth it. I honestly feel like I would fail as a parent if I didn't make the extra effort to bond with each of our kids and get to truly know them. I love the fact Jason and I can tell you everything about our kids, what they like and what they don't like. I always find it funny when parents tell me they have no clue what kinds of things they should get their kids for holidays, like it's kind of obvious for our kids-we buy the toy they've been talking about all year! I'm very thankful for all the little dates we have had so far and can't wait to see what we end up doing this year.

Family Time is the Best Time!

This year is filled with new traditions, some of which I am very excited about. I have to say I'm most excited for Sunday night family nights. Yup, we're bringing back family nights. My kids have already rolled their eyes and complained about this idea, but you know what this is the one thing I want! I have pretty vidid memories of playing games with my family and still to this day I love bringing out board games to play with my siblings. It's just really awesome to sit down with the entire family and spend time with each other. Because Jason loves me and is able to convince our children to do pretty much anything, we got them to cooperate and we played Clue JR and watched Finding Dory. It only resulted in two fights, once because Zayden kept moving Jackson's piece and the other because Callie didn't want to be the figure she was because it was an old lady. I decided the fighting was perfectly fine considering they're all still pretty young and really fighting is part of game night. Despite how poorly everyone seems to think our first attempt at this went, I will still be forcing everyone against their will to participate in this new tradition. Next week I'm just hoping the adults will stay awake for the adult portion of family game night-we literally all fell asleep two seconds into Harry Potter. I think it's safe to say we were tired and needed the sleep, but still it put a damper on family night! I'm pretty excited to see what trouble we can get into in the future family nights we have huge shout out to Pinterest for having so many awesome ideas of how to torture my family by making them spend time with each other! There will be a gofundme account set up to save our children from this torture, I promise you can help make their future better. In all seriousness I am hoping one day at my funeral they say "Thanks mom for making me play with my siblings" because that's what I'm aiming for right now! Let's do this thing!

Lazy Saturday!

Our family got some bad news regarding one of kids yesterday. We decided not to share it publicly, at the request of the child. With that being said, what else do you do when you get bad news? You spend time as a family. This morning I decided after chores were done we would just hang out and do crafts. We would be lazy! Normally we do some kind of activity outside of the house on Saturdays, but all of them just wanted to stay inside and be with each other. So that's what we're doing. Santa was very nice and brought our kids a lot of craft stuff for Christmas-don't ask our kids are totally into crafts right now-and they're enjoying breaking into their sets. Sometimes I feel like we get so caught up in what we're doing and forget to do what's important. Nothing is more important to me than those nine kids sitting in my living room. If they need a lazy Saturday once in awhile then so be it, we'll just relax today and try this life thing again another day. I hope everyone else has a wonderful Saturday and enjoys their weekend!

Happy Gotcha Day Ryker!

When you have a large family it seems like you always have some kind celebration going on. Tomorrow, January 6th is no exception. That is probably one of the most important days in our family. It's Ryker's "Gotcha Day". If you don't know what gotcha day is, it's a day celebrating the anniversary of one's adoption. This day is one we want him to celebrate, we want him to know we love him and he was meant to be with our family. It's crazy to think back to last year, he was a different kid. I remember the day we left I had triple checked our diaper bag to make sure every single thing was in there and kept changing his "coming home outfit" like fifty times before Jason was done in the shower. My anxiety level had sky rocketed and I was freaking out about if this little guy was going to love us or not. The whole way there we talked about our little boy and what he might like. We wondered if he would be like his older brothers and be 100% boy or if he would have other interests. We wondered if he was going to be okay with so many siblings and how he was going to react to each of them. Then the time finally came, we were handed our little boy. A gorgeous boy who had beautiful blue eyes, just like his sister. Those blue eyes filled up with tears when he was handed to us and his foster family, who had him his entire life and despite how poorly they may have treated him-they were his family-left him. His poor little baby mind was racing and he didn't know what to think. Before leaving the foster family asked for the outfit he was wearing back, I took him and changed him into a new outfit and diaper while he screamed his head off. I felt like a terrible mom, he didn't know me and I was trying to sooth him and I had no clue how! After officially saying goodbye to his former family, we decided to feed the cranky little guy. Where do you take a baby who is screaming? We didn't know what he liked, we didn't know if he knew what certain foods were! We were winging it. We went to McDonald's-yup! Fed my one year old McDonald's the moment I got him! He calmed down a little bit when I gave him some food, but we quickly realized he wasn't able to chew very well. Our day seemed to be getting longer and longer and more stressful by the moment. Luckily, I had some of the fruit pouches in the diaper bag and gave him one. That cheered him up, until we put him back in his car seat. Oh lord that boy HATES his car seat! Still to this day he screams like crazy when we put him in it. Regardless, he had to be in it. He screamed for about 15 minutes before I took out the iPad and found Paw Patrol. I figured since all of our other kids liked Paw Patrol, he would too. I was beyond right, he calmed down and his eyes grew about five sizes. I don't really recommend shoving an iPad in your toddler's face, but I needed him to not cry and not hate us. The following days were hard for us, we tried getting him to interact with his siblings without forcing it and tried to get him to trust us. It was clear that even though he was so young, he had been hurt in the passed and wasn't about to get hurt again. He knew what he was doing. He was seeing if we would go the extra mile for him. I am so happy we stuck with everything, Jason and I have tried every thing we could imagine to bond with this boy. I am happy to say a year later, he cries when we leave him at school and yells "Mama" when he sees me and "Da" when he sees Jason. He LOVES his siblings, especially Skyler and will look all over the house for her when she's with her dad's family. He is starting to trust more, maybe a little too much! He now gets in trouble at preschool for kissing the other kids! He is a garbage truck loving, hyper, adorable little boy and I'm so happy he's mine.

Getting Back on Schedule

Christmas vacation was beyond fun, but it was also super hectic. Between our weird custody arrangements with four of the kids and my work schedule I didn't think we'd ever get any family time. It just seemed like every time we tried to do something we had something getting in the way. Not going to lie, I have had panic attacks at the thought of losing family time! Our family runs on a schedule and it's beyond time for us to get back on track. I'm guessing my kids won't be too happy with our schedule coming back because I was so nice and made sure we had time to do chores everyday before school. I know, we are very fun family and you are all super jealous. If you haven't already seen my video on my goals for 2017, go watch it and then you'll understand why I need to squeeze in time for chores. Even though it's only the third day in the year, I truly feel better already. We've already cleaned more than we have in the passed few months and we're getting our Bible study in before school again-this is a HUGE thing Jason and I wanted to make sure we always had time for! It's so nice to just spend time with each other before we all go our separate ways. I'm hoping we stick to our schedule and don't end up falling behind like we have done in the passed. My kids are growing up way too fast and I want to enjoy every moment I can. Wish us luck!

Happy New Year!

It is officially 2017! Which is so exciting and kind of sad at the same time, our kids get older this year which means we get older I'm not okay with this. So, Jason and I have somewhat of a tradition every New Year and it's not a very exciting one. We make a new budget! Yay budgets!! So the main reason we need a new budget is because last year Jason made significantly more than he is this year and I made significantly less last year and we made some very large purchases throughout the year. This year our budget is going to be pretty strict because we are saving up to take the kids on a pretty awesome vacation. So Jason and I made a promise to each other this month we are only buying groceries and our anniversary gifts, nothing else. That little thing alone will help us save a lot of money and we already know it. We are also going to attempt planning our meals ahead of time, this something I always claimed we would do and it never happens. If I can at least know a handful of our meals ahead of time it would be super helpful! This budget will honestly make or break a lot of the things we have planned for the year so it's super important to keep it. This year our family is changing, no we're not pregnant(to my knowledge) and not adopting, but we have some other awesome life changes going on. They happen to be life changes that require money-doesn't everything? It's just super crazy to me to think that it's actually 2017 already, I seriously feel like yesterday we were posting our first blog, we were getting ready to adopt Ryker. We were planning what to do with 2016, now BAM it's 2017 and here we are doing the same thing for 2017. I hope everyone had a very safe and happy New Year's Eve and that 2017 is a lot better than 2016! Happy New Year!