Making our House a Home

Ever since we moved in, we have been treating this house like a temporary home since we had planned on buying this summer. Well, life had other plans and who knows maybe it's for the better. Regardless, I decided it's time to truly make our house more "home" like. This means actually decorating and getting simple things that I've been putting off because "we might not need that in our new home". It's pretty exciting to actually get to work on this to give everyone a little bit of comfort, plus it will keep us busy. Since Jason is home during the day now I have decided he gets to do most of the house work so my "honey-do" list has become a lot of different ways to make this feel more like home. Part of m wis afraid to get comfortable here, despite the fact I know we're not moving anytime soon. Every time in the passed like six years I've gotten comfortable somewhere we end up moving right after it and I'm not going to be very happy if that's the case with this house as well. This house is pretty good for our family right now, we have enough bedrooms and a basement for storage-it's not like were really squished in here, it's just human nature to always want more. Part of becoming a minimalist is learning to use what you have and that includes our house. Now, don't get me wrong I don't see this being a house we can live in forever-five girls in one room when they're five and under is okay, but when they're 16, 14, and 12 in the future it won't be as easy. So part of this is to save money for the future and get a bigger house that our future 16 year old daughters can fight over the bathroom in. Just the thought of that slightly freaks me out(by slightly I mean it's super worrisome). Anyway, I have very important things to do now, like help with homeschool and tell Jason how to use our washer(I wish I was kidding). See you guys in March!

A Bump in the Road

If you're friends with Jason on social media, you already know this but for those of you who aren't-Jason lost his job last week. This came as a bit of a shock to all of us, but regardless we have to deal with it. We are in the process of making some changes in our family that were going to happen anyway, it's just now they are happening a lot faster. We were planning on scaling back on a lot of different spendings and teaching our kids to enjoy the little things in life instead of needing the latest and greatest of everything. So, because of the circumstances we have been handed we are going to be focusing on that even move. For the most part, our kids don't know what happened and honestly only the people super close to us truly know what happened with his job. However, they know he's going to be home more and they're excited for that-what they don't realize is they're trading dad time for all of the things they will be wanting in the future. In the long run, I think everything will work out. Currently all of our kids have more than enough clothes, they have more toys than they know what to do with, we're able to pay our bills, and we can afford food. We are fine for now, hopefully by the time the kids grow and need new clothes Jason will have everything figured out and we can go back to "normal". I am hoping and praying this goes smoothly, because at the end of the day it's not just about us we have nine kids to worry about. We have made it through a lot worse though, so I know we can do this.

Being Good Co-Parents

We had a meeting today with my ex, his girlfriend, and our social worker. Our custody schedule was put in place and we talked about how to make holidays fair. Because of our schedule he gets them every weekend, that means- Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day, and Easter-the holidays that ALWAYS fall on Sundays-he will have them. He agreed that it wasn't fair and that we should figure out how to make it fair for our kids. I was impressed, this is the same guy who found out he was getting out and told me he would get 100% custody and never let me see the kids again. I guess the little talk with our social worker really paid off, because he realized it's not about him. That's something we all needed to realize, this isn't about us. It's about those kids who just want to be kids! They didn't ask for this and it's up to us to make it easy on them. So it's been decided that every birthday, despite what day they actually fall on will be celebrated with all of us. Every Easter, he will let me have them for a little bit to do our Easter things-dying eggs and I know he's happy about getting out of it he hates it. Baby steps for now, we have to figure out what exactly works for our family, but I'm glad he's willing to work with me instead of against me. That is truly the secret to being good co-parents in my opinion, if you can work together that outcome will be amazing.

Becoming a Minimalist in a Large Family

When I brought up becoming a minimalist to Jason he laughed, he was confused because of the amount of people we have. Despite his attitude towards it, I was determined to do this. It started little by little, I got rid of handfuls of things at a time....until last night. Last night I went a little crazy and filled up around three garbage bags full of clothes, because really who needs last much clothing! We found a healthy medium for how much of everything the kids needed, it was a long process(it's actually still going on) but I know the outcome will be beautiful-I hope. So far my kids have asked a lot of questions, the most commonly asked between them all is "are we losing our house?" no, we are not. This is more about showing my kids that "things" don't make us who we are. There were so many times I found myself worrying about what to buy for the next holiday instead of enjoying the moments I had. Ever since we started purging of all of our stuff I realized I wasn't thinking nearly as much about those things as I used to. That alone has been a huge perk for our family. We now have more money to do fun things and make actual memories that we'll have much longer than a toy that they beg for and then forget about ten minutes after getting it. I really honestly can't wait until we are done purging all of the extra junk we have. This is so exciting that it's not even funny.

The Other Woman!

When you have a blended family you end up dealing with a lot of different things that you probably never thought about before. One of those things is dealing with your ex's new girlfriend. Yesterday we had that situation, because my ex will be moving in with his girlfriend when he gets out. They went with their grandparents(his parents) while I was at work and met her at a restaurant, arcade type thing. From my understanding it went well, they are still nervous which is expected but haven't expressed hatred(with Callie that's a BIG deal!). My fear however, is that she will either A. Break their hearts or B. Replace me. Let's face it, it would be hard not to-she's dating their dad, I'm not their biological mom, it would be easy for them to bond. I know I'm thinking too much into this, but I'm supposed to be resting more right now and I have a lot of time to just sit here and think about stuff. I know that I have to be the bigger person here though, so I let them go shopping with her today(and their grandma as a chaperone) to get things for their room at her house. I remember having a stepmom and wishing she would have done this with me, so I'm glad she's doing it for them. All I wanted was to truly be treated like her child, so I'm hoping and praying this woman is able to do that. I know first hand that it's harder than people think to just welcome in a new child especially when they're five years old! My hope is that these two just gain an extra mom just as they gained an extra dad. These kids are so lucky and they probably don't even realize it, some kids have no one loving them and these kiddos have two sets of parents. I just hope I can remain as mature as I have been for the passed two days and keep on letting her love them.

So many medical bills!

One thing I have noticed about having a child with Turner Syndrome is the crazy amount of medical bills we have. Don't get me wrong, insurance covers a good chunk of it but a lot of it we pay out of pocket. I was actually just on the phone for an hour getting on a payment plan through our doctors office because between Ryker, Callie, Brooke, Hunter, and Zayden we have pretty much financed any big purchases our pediatrician has made-YOU'RE WELCOME! I never realized until I had kids how truly expansive everything is. I just thought they needed some toys, clothes, and love but no you like actually have to pay for stuff. Luckily, we had a super nice lady on the phone who understood that we had a bunch of back due payments(cause she could see them and saw we hang out there a lot) and was nice enough to make our monthly payment not too insane. However, that doesn't help with all the other things we pay out of pocket for Brooke and her Turner Syndrome. One of the things we spend a lot of money on is diabetes care, if you know anyone with diabetes you know it's a super expensive disease. Depending on your insurance most of these things are covered, for ours we were the unlucky ones who didn't have much coverage. Her insulin pump was covered, thank God! But, her glucose monitor was not covered and we decided it was something she really needed it because of her age and the fact she had been using one in the hospital and was pretty in love with it. The glucose monitor we have is the Dexcom, we love it and can't imagine doing this without it however it is more than $5,000 per year for her to have this. Our insurance is only covering part of that and we still pay around 2,000-3,000 per year for this device. I am still hoping and praying that we find a cure for diabetes so I don't have to worry about how we'll continue to afford this, because I sense the next few years getting more expensive. I already know insurance plans will be changing and I'm scared about it, this isn't something you should have to worry about. To worry if your kid is going to live or die because of money? How is that fair? It's time for a cure for Type One.

We love you guys!

With today being Valentine's Day we are obviously feeling a lot of love today. It has also made me think of how much we love and appreciate you guys so much. Since starting this blog we have had a lot of messages, texts, phone calls, and emails both good and bad. Luckily, the good out way the bad and they are normally filled with love, support, and prayers. We will never be able to full express how much those words mean to us, you have truly all become part of the family. It's kind of funny, I won't even let Jason post some things on Facebook until we make a blog post about it! Thank you all for being on this beautiful journey we call life, I remember last years blog post so vividly and remember the support we got after it. It was about Callie and her worry about if anyone will ever love her. Because of the love and support we have received from that post and the hundreds after, we are happy to say her self esteem has sky rocketed and she accepts herself which is the most important thing in the world. You guys are the ones who helped with that the most, thank you from the bottom of my heart for loving my child. For supporting her, for showing her there are people out there that will have her back no matter what. I hope you guys have an amazing Valentine's Day and you all get showered by love! Happy Valentine's Day!- Love, The Butler Bunch

Spreading the Love!

Yesterday was such a nice Saturday for our family. We had a relaxing time and did our FHE(Family Home Evening) activity. Our lesson was on love, for the obvious reasons. We read a Bible verse about love and read a story from our church's magazine geared at children. At the end of the lesson it had a craft idea of doing paper hearts with reasons we love each other, this is something I had done for the kids every year and didn't expect them to start doing it just yet. I was pretty surprised when they said they wanted to do it too, so that's what we did. It was so interesting to see all the different things kids were writing about each other and their awesome parents as well. Anyway, back to my point, seeing my kids make these little hearts with reasons they love each other made me think about how often I forget to express my love for them. I feel like every parent has this issue and if you claim not to, you're lying. I wish there was more time in the day so I could truly show them how I feel about them, because 24 hours just isn't enough! I may sound crazy for saying this, but I want to start focusing on showing them I love them more. I'm not sure how, but I am going to do it! Please wish me luck because with nine kids it may be hard to find ways to show love and to know how these kids need to be loved because every single one of our kids is different.

Coparenting Struggles

For the passed few years, my ex and Hunter, Callie, and Skyler's dad has been in jail. I don't want to get into details about why he was in jail, but he deserved it. Moving on, he gets out in a few weeks. That means our custody arrangement needs updated. We were fighting to get 100% custody of them and not have any issues, but we were denied that for the older two. They feel it would be unnecessary stress for Skyler since she is two and the only dad she knows is Jason, however the older two remember their dad(sort of). So with that being said, we had to sit down with an attorney AND Callie's specialist and figure out what is the best for her. This is a little more complicated than your "normal" kids because her dad still sees her as his little boy and addresses her as "Noah". So this is something we have to seriously think about, how it will affect her and the progress she has made. We decided on 70% 30% for the custody-for now. However, I am afraid for any "anti LGTBQ" comments he may possibly make because I know him well enough to know he will say it to anyone. He really honestly doesn't care about how it makes anyone feel and has no filter, I know it will make Callie feel bad if anything were to happen in this situation and she would take it very personally. This is a really big change for us and I'm afraid of how it'll go. I am hoping and praying he proves me wrong and does his fatherly responsibilities because I have witnessed him be a dad and I know he can be a kick butt dad when he tries. Hunter is already looking forward to his dad getting out but has expressed concern about how it'll make Jason feel-he doesn't want Jason to feel left out! It's pretty awesome to see him get excited about something though, he is a very calm child and doesn't excite over much! So, to my lovely ex please prove me wrong and make me eat my words I will be more than happy to be wrong about you this time.

Happy 4th Birthday Savannah Ranae!

Today our little Savannah is four years old! I honestly can't believe it. She was just about two years old when I met Jason and she and I had a really great bond from day one. I have had the great opportunity to watch this little girl grow up so much and I love it. She has went from a little tiny, timid, toddler to a funny, outgoing, sassy four year old it was seemed to be a blink of an eye. This little girl tends to get left out from time to time, everyone else has someone born close to them and she's all alone. However, she has never let that effect her, it seems to have made her even more outgoing and funny. She doesn't care what anyone thinks and she marches to her own drum. I'm always interested to see what dress up outfit she will be wearing every time she runs up to the attic because I know that means an outfit change is happening. The outfits are never "normal" and it sums up her personality so well. She is truly our most carefree child and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have to say, my favorite part of her birthday is when Jason retells the story of how she got her name. Her mom's favorite show was Glee and she loved how outgoing Santana Lopez was, so they planned on naming her Santana. Jason normally tells people Savannah was a compromise, but that's not quite what happened. You see, Savannah was born via c-section so mom was a little out of it and left Jason in charge of saying the name-he was apparently very tired. He told them Santana and the nurse said "Savannah?" and he said "Yup!" so, now her name is Savannah. No going back now! I have to say though, Savannah is fitting for her it's just perfect for this girl! Now onto our fun little family tradition of naming our four favorite things about this little girl. First, I love that she doesn't care what people think. She went out in a Harley Quinn dress up shirt, Power Rangers PJ bottoms, and rain boots a few days ago-she got some comments and she proudly said "I picked this out!". Second, I love that she always finds something to do-I've been sick the passed few weeks and she will keep not only herself busy but will get Ryker and Skyler involved too-today after preschool she was teaching them the words to "I'm a little Teapot". Third, I love the way she loves everyone. She will make cards and crafts for people in our family just because it is so cute! Lastly, the fourth and final reason we love this girl, she is the most creative child I have ever met. All she wanted for her birthday was craft supplies and dress up clothes! She isn't big on toys but dress up clothes and crafts are her favorite things ever. She will just dress up for hours and it's the cutest thing ever. I can't wait to see what this girl does with her life because I know it'll be amazing. Happy birthday Savannah!

Getting the "Turner" Diagnosis

From day one Brooke has always been super tiny. She weighed around three pounds when she was born, but other than that she was completely healthy. She had no major issues to our knowledge and we couldn't be happier. However, every single time we would take her to the doctors for any kind of appointment we would be asked why she was so small and we never had a good answer. I just normally said it was because she has small parents-with dad being a little over five foot and mom being around 4 foot 11 it seemed legit to me. The pediatrician however was never pleased with that, she had failure to thrive and I was again-fine with that explanation of her height and weight. When she was around two years old the doctor informed me that failure to thrive doesn't effect toddlers-I was 19 so for all I knew he was 100% correct-he wanted to do more tests. At first, I wasn't pleased with this idea but after being accused of child abuse and neglect I felt it was 100% necessary to get to the bottom of all of this. No one wants to see their kids get poked with tons of needles, but I knew it had to be done. After I don't even know how many tests I was told my daughter had Turner Syndrome. That was pretty much all I was told as they handed me packet of information and I went on my way. I wish I knew then what I know now, that not getting this diagnosis would change our lives so much. I am so glad that pediatrician spoke up and kept after me until I caved and got her tested. Despite how much I hated feeling like a failure for not noticing, I know there is no way you would know these things until you live through it. So thank you to our pediatrician, you may have saved my child's life.

My Child is a Bully!

With it being Black History Month, I wanted to take this time and talk to my kids about the importance of equality. Little did I know, I was going to be learning a bit about my kids. For instance, my one child is a bully. I won't name the child, but I will say the bulk of today has been me explaining what a bully is. Back story-the child told me a girl on their sports team is bullied for being different, not just the color of her skin but for other things as well. My child argued that because they never said anything directly to her they aren't a bully. This is where the fine line is drawn, if you are standing by watching someone be bullied in my opinion you are just as bad as the person doing the bullying. After explaining this to my child who was at this point in tears from defending themselves(note I didn't actually raise my voice once in this conversation), I told them that it takes one person to change someones life. I explained to them that this girl on their team might not have a good home life, she might not have anyone on her side and they need to be the one person to take a stand. Being as the child in question is still young I made the suggestion we invite the girl over for a playdate(which was answered with a sigh and eye roll because sass starts young). So long story short, we are beating up this bullying thing NOW! I am not about to write this off as just a kid thing, this is when it starts being so important to teach them to be kind to one another. After all of this and a playdate the child in question has told me the girl is nice and fun! They also learned that they just have to be kind. I'm hoping this lesson teaches all my kids that I take the bullying thing seriously and they have to stand up for people when people are being unkind to them. My goal is to raise kids who tear down Trump's wall of hate and it has to start now.

Turner Syndrome Awareness Month!

Happy February guys! I can't believe it's already February, I feel like it was just Christmas! Regardless of how I may feel, it is getting closer and closer to spring which is beyond exciting. This month has a lot of fun things going on, the first being that it is Turner Syndrome Awareness Month. I bet a lot of you are reading this wondering what the heck that is. So Turner Syndrome is a chromosomal conditions and it effects the development of females. Brooke was diagnosed with this when she was two years old after two years of fighting with doctors about why my kid was so tiny and trying to prove to them it wasn't neglect. I'm not going to lie my knowledge of Turner Syndrome was slim to none, I have a friend who has it but she never talks about it so I knew what it was but not what it caused if that makes any sense. Turner Syndrome can cause a lot of different issues some of them being a higher risk for diabetes, trouble with math(I don't pretend to understand that), heart defects, and kidney problems. Those are some of the very long list of issues you can have, I chose to specifically focus of the ones that Brooke actually has. Because of the complex issues that it can cause it's hard to explain exactly what it is, but one of the ways Brooke sums it up is"It makes me short". Yup, this lovely syndrome is to thank for her height(although mom and dad didn't help at all by being short). She has been on growth hormones since being diagnosed, but we recently stopped until we can figure out how to balance both diabetes care and the injections. It's not a huge deal for me if she's tall so I'd rather focus on her diabetes at this time. The other major thing that happens to almost all girls with Turner Syndrome is their inability to sexually develop properly. This means she will not go through the typical changes girls go through with puberty which is sad and kind of exciting. She will never be able to biologically have a child, but I'm hoping that she is learning through her family that DNA doesn't make a family and there are other options to having children-if she wants kids that is. I'm not going to lie, I cried when we got this diagnosis. It's scary anytime your kid gets sick, but to be told this is a life long issue that will change her life in many ways it was so beyond scary. I am very glad now that we got the diagnosis and we are able to help her in anyway she needs. As she gets older I know it will become more challenging for her to deal with these things and I'm glad we're able to tackle them now. Through out this month I will be sharing some of our journey with Turner Syndrome and I hope you guys are as supportive as you always are.