A sister's love

So, tonight Jaylyn left for her very first overnight trip with her small group from church. She has been so excited, I know she will have a great time. I had to take her to swim practice and right from there I had to drop her off at the church. I had all the kids in the car so I had to run in and drop her off. I got a little teary eyed as I said goodbye. It just seems like yesterday she was a baby! I get through the public goodbye without any tears and get to the car when Jessie asks me when she will be back. I break down and say tomorrow night.

Next thing I know I hear hysterical crying from the back of the van. Jessie is besides herself with sadness. She wanted her big sister so bad. It broke my heart. She cries just about the whole way home. I finally got her happy with pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert and bribed her with a movie. :)

I put all the kids to bed and when I put her to bed, Jessie asked if she could pray for Jaylyn. I said sure. What I heard her pray, I will never forget:

God,

I pray that Jaylyn has fun.

I pray she is safe and comes home tomorrow afternoon.

I pray that God is with her.

I love you.

I was brought to tears...again. What did I ever do to deserve such a blessing? :)

Summer, summertime

I am not blogging as much as I would like but I think you'll understand why by the end of this post...

This summer has been wonderful. I was fortunate enough to spend the majority of it home with my kids. We kept pretty busy playing and hanging out at the house most times but we did take a drive and have lunch with Daddy one day every week. It was fun and we even ended the summer with a picnic at a park where a squirrel kept coming over to us and wouldn't leave us alone. :)

We took some trips, one to New York, one to the beach and one to Florida. Talk about lots of driving...in the car...with 5 kids! They did amazingly well. We are blessed with good car riders!
Since all these trips were so great, I want to post on them separately but as a whole, this summer was fantastic.

Looking onward, fall is by far, my most favorite time of year. It is the start of the school/homework/sports practice routine and earlier bed times! It is the start of football season, even though I am not a big fan, it does allow me some weekend naps while Howard will be up and can watch the kids :) I have such memories of when I was a child sitting with my Dad while he was watching football.

Thinking back on all that we've done this summer, it makes me sad that it is over. But to look on the bright side, if I had so much fun during my least favorite season, I can only imagine how great the fall will be!!

Where does the time go???

I can't believe it has been two and a half months since Jaeger was born! See how cute my little baby is....

The last two and a half months have really been great. The kids LOVE their new brother. I have so many helpers, too many at times! He is a really good baby and is sleeping through the night, a lot sooner than most of his siblings. He looks exactly like his daddy and nothing like his older brother, go figure.

I didn't really know how chaotic things would be with four kids and a newborn, but trust me, they are! Even though it is CRAZY, I just have such a feeling of peace like this is exactly how my life is supposed to be. I absolutely adore my kids and am so thankful God has blessed me with them.

Please forgive me but this post will be short, I need to get back to packing. We are leaving tomorrow to go camping with all of Howard's family for a few days. Seven people in one tent, pray for us :)

Tomorrow is the big day....

Tomorrow we get to meet our latest addition...Jaeger Devere "JD" Forrest!

I am being induced at 6:30am. If you can spare some prayers, we would appreciate it. We will let you know all the details when we can!!

The makings of a GREAT weekend

*Not having to get up at 5:00 and drive 2 hours on Saturday like the one before
*Watching Jessie at her last basketball playing her heart out
*Watching Jaylyn at her basketball game and score 4 points!
*Witnessing my aunt and uncle surprise my cousin for his birthday
*Enjoying a nice two hour nap while our babies slept
*Catching up with old friends…and realizing how much you have missed them
*Spending lots of time with family

And most importantly…
**Watching UNC beat Duke!!

The Babies

Jovie and Jax are our “babies.” We started to call them that when Jax was born since they are just twelve months apart-it seemed like we had two babies!

Jovie is our little blondie. I don’t know where the blond came from but one of Howard’s brothers was born with blond hair and it all fell out and came in black. I am sort of hoping Jovie’s does the same. That way she would look a little more like her sisters. Right now, she is also into singing. “No One” by Alicia Keys and “Apologize” by OneRepublic with Timberland are her two favorites. Also very funny is the fact that she calls her cousin Dylan, not by his name but Gordon. No one can figure out why, I suppose she is just substituting her Gs for Ds and Ds for Ls. I am sure she will get it right one of these times.

Jax is your typical boy and gets into EVERYTHING. You have to have your eye on him every second. It really is great to have a boy finally though. I remember finding out we were having a boy like it was yesterday. I was preparing myself and the girls for another girl, just going with history. We brought them all to the ultrasound along with my parents. When the technician said it is a boy, Jaylyn sprung off the couch and screamed out a big YEAH!! We were all so shocked and some of us, I won’t name names, were in tears. I’ll never forget it.

Now, Jovie is 2 and Jax is 1, not so much babies anymore. I wonder what we should call them once the new baby comes. Any suggestions??

Just the right amount of crazy...

Something funny happened the other day. Jaylyn had a friend, Kyra, over and when we were getting dinner around for them, we talked about how crazy our house was. This is how the conversation went:

Us: Isn't our house crazy, you wouldn't want to be all the time?
Kyra: No, I want to stay here, you have just the right amount of crazy here.

That pretty much sums up our lives now, just the right amount of crazy!!

Our second-born

Jessie Grace is our second born. We had originally wanted to have our kids two years apart so when Jaylyn was a little over a year we started trying. We thought since it really didn’t take too long to get pregnant with Jaylyn, it wouldn’t take too long this time. We tried and tried and tried with no success. After two years we decided to go to a fertility clinic. I was diagnosed with PCOS and started on medication. Still nothing happened. It was onto the next step. We tried something new the next cycle with no success and it was onto the final option. Because of how that cycle progressed, the outlook of success was looking very dim. To make things worse, at the beginning of that cycle, my grandmother passed away. We were all so sad at how things were turning out.

Amazingly, there was success in that cycle. I still remember to this day waking up in the morning and taking that pregnancy test. My parents were staying with us and we were all getting ready for church. I remember knocking on the bathroom door and telling my Mom and just crying with sheer joy. We found out around 20 weeks that we were having a girl and we didn’t even really need to think of a name. It was a given, we would name her Jessie Grace, after my grandmother. It was perfect.

Today, Jessie is a very energetic 5 year old. She is and always has been our most sensitive child. She loves to cuddle and is the most excited for the new baby. She LOVES soccer, basketball, anything sports while still being a real girly girl. She is our most personable and loves to ask people to tell stories. She gets so involved in learning other people’s stories, it is really fascinating. In a lot of ways, she really does remind me a lot of my grandmother.

We are so blessed to have her, and I am so happy we are able to keep a part of my grandmother alive in her.

Our first-born

We got pregnant with Jaylyn the first month we had officially started trying. The pregnancy was fine until 31 weeks when I developed pre-eclampsia and was put on strict bedrest. I remained on bedrest for 5 weeks and had steroid shots twice a week to help her lungs develop. Little did we know, those steroid shots would probably save her life.

When Jaylyn was 10 days old, she stopped breathing and turned blue, multiple times. We took her to the ER the first time it happened and the doctors did not believe us and sent us home. We then drove her to the pediatrician’s office as soon as they opened. I don’t think that doctor believed us until he witnessed an episode himself while he performed a spinal tap on her. I will never forget sitting in the waiting room during the procedure and seeing an ambulance pull up, just knowing it was coming for her.

The next 33 days are not a complete blur, but pretty close. I remember one nurse soon after we were admitted saying it was probably just an infection and she would be home as soon as we knew it. I also remember just a few hours later, the doctors putting Jaylyn on a respirator and asking our priest to come and baptize her in the NICU. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with her for the first few weeks and we actually celebrated with them once we knew her diagnosis of pertussis!!

Looking at her now, it is hard to imagine how sick she was back then and during her early childhood years due to several bouts with croup and other infections because of scar tissue from the respirator.

Today she is a wonderful and caring daughter.
Today she is a devoted Christian and loves God with all her heart.
Today she is the best big sister to Jessie, Jovie, Jax and is adored by all of them.
Today she is just about a straight-A student despite diagnosed with ADHD.
Today she is a determined swimmer who just made her first B time.
Today she is our miracle, just as she was eight years ago as she fought to stay alive.

She is such a blessing to our family and we thank God for her everyday.

A day in the life

We have a big family and LOVE it. I guess that is pretty important since we will not only be raising an 8, 5, 2, and 1 year old but a newborn as well shortly. One of the best things about having a big family is there is always something to do. One of the worst things about having a big family is there is always something to do. :)

Being as busy as we are, it is difficult to remember the important things in life. We decided to start a blog to help us focus on what is important since most days come and go in the blink of an eye. Just to illustrate this, check out our Saturday:

7:00-rolled out of bed and get all of us fed and dressed for Jessie’s basketball practice
8:00-9:00-attempted to watch Jessie’s practice while wrangling the other three kids
9:00-9:45-grabbed a quick bagel with Mimi and Papa while noticing all the stares we get because of all the kids
10:00-10:30-went to watch our nephew earn his white belt in karate (go Dylan!)
10:30-11:30-attempted to watch Jaylyn’s basketball practice, see 8:00-9:00
12:00-2:00-rushed home to watch the Tarheels crush State (yeah!)
2:00-3:00-supervised all the kids trying to drive a Barbie Jeep around the neighborhood
3:00-5:00-went bowling with all the kids plus Jennifer, Ryan, Michele, Dylan, Mimi and Papa…a birthday request of Jessie’s
5:00-5:30-rushed home to pack Jaylyn up and get her to a sleep over birthday party
6:00-8:30-made dinner and gave showers to all the kids, gave Jovie her first haircut, got all the kids to bed
8:45-Howard and I finally sat down to eat our dinner and settle down to watch a movie which I will inevitably fall asleep watching (I wonder why!)

Yeah, our lives are crazy…but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Come along for the ride.