The Story Behind Baby #5

For those of you who have known us for years (or at least have read my blog for years), you are probably fully aware that Thad was going to be our last baby.  I have 3 heart conditions and my biggest heart problem is exacerbated when I'm pregnant and then is made slightly worse after each delivery.

But let's be honest.  Having 4 kids is hard anyway.

We felt a lot of peace being done with 4.  Until December 1st, 2015.

Sometimes I have inspired dreams.  Sometimes I have really weird random dreams.  And sometimes I can't tell which is which.  I have passed off inspired dreams as random dreams before and then watched the whole dream unfold in reality later on.  It has been a many years long process to learn how to understand my dreams, and I have had to learn to rely heavily on the spirit to guide me.

As morning was approaching on December 1st, I started having a special dream.  In the dream, I was sitting in a hospital bed, looking down at a baby in my arms.  My doctor and a couple of nurses were also in the room with me.  The normal things that happen in your hospital room after you have a baby happened.  There was no huge event that happened, I just remember feeling so much joy as I looked at the baby in my arms.

I didn't really "wake up."  My dream and reality kind of blended together and all of a sudden I was just "aware" of what I just experienced.  I felt this overwhelming sense of peace, even though I normally would have been panicking at that point.  I immediately got on my knees and prayed to know whether this dream was inspired or not.  My answer wasn't yes or no like I was expecting.  My answer was that I needed to get a blessing from the bishop.  So, awkardly, I emailed our bishop and told him what happened.  He agreed to give me a blessing during our family's tithing settlement.

We had to wait a few days before the blessing, and Ben and I prayed the entire week for an answer.  We went back and forth as to whether or not the dream was inspired.  In all honesty, it would have been so much more convenient for us if it was not inspired.  But we didn't want to possibly dismiss counsel directly from Heavenly Father.

When the bishop asked us if we had figured out whether the dream was inspired or not, we both shook our heads because we were still in shock from the idea that we could possibly have another baby.  The bishop then gave me my blessing.  In it, he talked all about how Heavenly Father is having a difficult time finding good homes that are actually willing to take extra children.  He told me that my body would be blessed "to fulfill the measure of its creation."  On, and on and on, he said thing after thing that spelled out that our family was not yet complete.

When the blessing was done, Ben, the bishop, and I all looked like deer in the headlights.  Our bishop is one of the happiest people I have ever met, and I'm pretty sure this was the first time I have ever seen him not smiling.  I will never forget that look that was a mix of sympathy and compassion.  As we headed out the door he sweetly told me, "Sometimes I really hate being the mouthpiece for the Lord."  I laughed.

Long story short, Ben and I came to reality that we were going to have another baby.  We understood that I needed to get my answer through the bishop because we both needed to hear the same words with our own ears.  We decided that we needed to have a Nephi mentality instead of a Laman and Lemual one.  We needed to be obedient without complaint.

A few days later I had my IUD removed (when I landed in the hospital from hemorrhaging).  But then something really special happened.  Ben's Cisco manager mentioned a new position that Ben would be perfect for.  This was the job we have been waiting years for.  After several weeks of interviewing, Ben was given the job.  Ben and I feel strongly that this job is a direct blessing for our obedience.  I don't say this to brag, I say this to prove how much Heavenly cares deeply about each of us.

This new job has been the biggest blessing we could have asked for in return for having another baby.  Our new insurance coverage is so much better and we have switched from paying $750/month to $230.  And my favorite part of the deal: 3 weeks of paid paternity leave.  The kids are excited and we are excited.  Heaven help us come November 13th!

Ben's Clone

There is an infamous tale from Ben's childhood of a time when his mom walked past the bathroom just in time to see Ben accidentally drop his comb in the toilet.  In true Ben fashion, he pretended like it was nothing, pulled it out of the toilet, and kept combing his hair.  "Real men use toilet water," he told his mom.

Fortunately, Thad doesn't use toilet water.  Instead, he uses Ella's princess comb and Lily's cup of water.

Lily is a writer.  She writes whenever she's not playing.  We find her journals and random notes all around the house every day.  We found one the other day that described each person in our family individually.  Under each of our descriptions she wrote, "but we all love snuggles."  Very, very true.

Classical Conversations Graduation

A week ago the kids had their Classical Conversations presentation.  It was precious.  We only have 16 kids in our group and so everybody knows everybody.  It's great.  

They sang songs for us and did a great job.  

Skyler's class with Miss Nicole.

Lily's class with Miss Ginger.

The kids received certificates for finishing up the year and then I was surprised to find out that I was receiving one as well!  Since we moms are our kids' main teachers, we also completed the year in our own way.  

We are done with CC until August, but we still have school until the end of May at home.  This month the kids are reviewing what they've learned and will be testing.  I can't believe how quickly this year has gone by!  I think the biggest surprise of this whole homeschooling adventure has been how much I have appreciated it, not to mention how much the kids love having several extra hours to ride their bikes each day....

Easter

Our kids are a little strange.  Easter is as big of a deal to them as Christmas.  They have a countdown and everything.  

Poor early morning light + lightning speed children = really bad pictures.

ENJOY!

Ella's hair.  I'm its #1 fan.

Lily finding hidden eggs in the windows and motioning for the babies to come find them.

The kids had an egg hunt at our homeschool co-op that week and Thad proved to be way more interested in getting right into the candy inside the eggs instead of hurrying to find more eggs.  Every kid was supposed to end up with 12.  He ended up with 10 because he was the last one (by a loooooong shot) and we couldn't find the last 2.  LOL.  This time around, he was a little better.

The highlight of this hunt was that all 4 kids helped each other find eggs and then gave them to each other during the hunt.  Ben and I definitely didn't prompt them to do this, and it was an amazing thing to just stand back and watch.

We were able to spend the day at church and then had dinner with my parents.  It was a beautiful day that was focused on Christ's resurrection.  Before dinner we watched The Lamb of God with the kids and Ella kept covering her eyes and saying, "I can't watch this!" But really she was peeking through her fingers.  After the movie was over she said, "I was just pretending to be scared.  I actually really liked the movie.  Can we watch it again?"  Oh, Ella.

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter spent with your families.

Garden Boxes

This summer we are taking on a big project: our entire backyard.  We've known it has needed work since we moved in almost 3 years ago.  But something else was always more important, in the way, needed to be done first, or too financially straining.  This year we decided that it is our yard year.  We are one of the absolute lowest houses in our pretty huge neighborhood.  We actually kind of sit in a ravine.  There is literally a 15-20 foot cliff back behind our fence that leads up to the next neighborhood, hence why there is a creek back there.  You can imagine all the water we get in our backyard when it's rainy.  So last year (or the year before?) we installed french drains that connected our gutters and driveway/front yard runoff to the creek.  That helped a lot.

This year we are building garden boxes where we get some of the heavier runoff.  We chose a place where the rain flows well and wouldn't just be standing water.  Hopefully it should take a small dent out of our water problem.

Since our builder completely stripped our property of its topsoil, we are going to be installing 30+ tons of it ourselves and then seeding zoysia to match the front yard.  Zoysia requires seeding at the hottest time of the year.  Yay for working in the worst possible NC heat!  We're so excited!  Hopefully having lots of grass should help with drainage as well.

"Hi Daddy.  This is so much fun.  Do you need help with that?  Don't mind me here.  This isn't awkward at all."

Hopefully we are not the only parents who have experienced this.  ;)