Happy New Year! (A little late!)

Love these little ones!  I'm a little late in posting this but better late than never! :)

David had to work on New Year's eve.  I stayed home with the munchkins who as you can see were all up and happy to celebrate at midnight!  Xander was in MI with his Grama and Papa, aunt and uncle and cousins.  We talked with him just after midnight over facetime.  David called home from Dave & Buster's to count down the ball drop and wish us a happy new year!  It was a nice relaxing night at home.  We're excited about what this new year will bring for our family.  It's already going by so quickly.  I can't believe that its already the end of February!

I'm hoping for a lot of things this year but most of all I'm just praying that we get through it healthy, with happy memories and less clutter :) 

Setting Up Shop

Love waking up to these smiley faces everyday.  That doesn't mean that doing it is easy!  Having five kids is a lot of work, noise and chaos but its also a lot of hugs, laughs and love, too.  There's not a day goes by that one of my children doesn't say "I love you, Mommy!"  How awesome is that.  Brandon and Xander are always telling me they love me and giving me hugs.  They are my big helpers.  It seems like they are so "big" because they are the oldest.  Brandon always seems so big to me because he's the oldest.  Every once in a while I get a reminder that he's only 8... almost 9.  He's so excited about his birthday coming up in 10 days.  At first he didn't want to have a party but then he changed him mind.  He wants to invite friends over for dinner and ice cream like we did last year.  They all get so excited about birthdays.  Not just theirs, they get excited any time its someone's birthday.  I'm looking forward to celebrating with him. 

 

Today the kids were playing "store."  They were so cute, setting up shops and pretending to buy things from one another.  Isabella had a dress shop and practically emptied out her whole closet and hung them around in her store.  I love to see them using their imaginations and playing nicely together.  The boys were just gathering random things to sell.  They borrowed some change so they had money to buy and sell.  Rosalie loves to play with her siblings.  The boys will fight with Isabella sometimes but they baby Rosalie.  Whatever she wants, they will generally give her.  I think a lot of that has to do with the age difference.  Rosalie still seems like the "baby" even though she's two and half and talks and plays with them now.  They remember when she was born.  She was their baby.  Now Michael is their baby and he is smothered by all!  They all love him and want to hold him.  The boys help with him a lot.  He's starting to pull up and crawl!  He'll be playing toys with them in no time. 

 

When I put the girls to bed tonight Rosalie said her usual prayer: "Thank you God for food.  Thank you friends and family.  Jesus name, Amen!"  I gave her a hug and told her I loved her.  She touched my face and said, "I love you, too, Mommy."  She's so sweet.  I told her as I always do, "Jesus loves you, too."  She said, "Jesus loves me?"  Yes, he does.  The Bible says he loves all of us.  As she prayed I thanked God for her.  I was overwhelmed by the thought that God trusted me to be the mom of each of these children.  I want to be the best mom that I can be.  I'm so thankful for each of my children and that they have the opportunity to know Jesus and follow him.  I pray that we will all be together in eternity.

2014 Came and Went...

Looking back through this blog today I realized that I didn't post a single post in 2014.  Life hasn't gotten any less busy.  Amazingly, I think its gotten busier.  In 2014, we moved to a new house, had a baby, celebrated our 10th anniversary, continued to grow Bobi Biederman Photography and homeschool!

We absolutely love our little Michael David who was born July 28th.  He is adored by all of his siblings and anyone who meets him.  He's got a smile that will win anyone over! 

I continue to have the desire to do more than I'm possibly capable of doing each day and its exhausting.  I'm slowly learning that I have to choose what it is that is most important to me to accomplish each day and most of the time I don't even get that done!  With five children eight and under there are a lot of demands on my time.  I know that this is just the stage of life that we're in right now and that's fine.  One day at a time.

Answer to Prayer?

I was reading through some old posts in my blog tonight.  Honestly, its been a while since I've posted much of anything on here.  There always seems to be more important things to do.  Whether or not that's true, I always enjoy going back and reading through my old posts.  Afterall that's what this blog is all about for me, preserving memories for the future.  I came across a particular post that brought tears to my eyes.  http://biederwoman.blogspot.com/2011/08/sorry-son-daddy-has-to-go-to-work.html

It's a short post about my son pretending to be his dad "going to work."  The boys missed their dad and always looked forward to his days off.  They would pray "that Daddy can play games with us."  David was working a lot back then.  He spent as much time as he could with them but it wasn't enough.  That was August 2011.  Fast forward to January 2012 and he lost his job.  Fourteen years with the company and just like that.  Boom.

It wasn't easy.  God had another plan for us.

It's been almost two years.  The boys still ask, "When is Daddy's day off?" but they get to spend so much more time with him.  He's able to be so much more a part of their everyday life than he was before.  They love their daddy and he loves them.   Did God answer their prayers?  I think He did.

Just another Midnight

All four kids are in bed asleep.  What to do? What to do?  Laundry?  Clean the kitchen?  Clean, clean, clean and clean some more?  No.  Even though I have a laundry list of stuff to do, I can't.  I've been cleaning and taking care of four kids all day and I'm too tired to do it half the night, too.  I need time to sit down and relax and often my time sitting down is spent on the computer (no, not just on facebook!) working on my photography - reading guides and tutorials, editing photos or working on my website.  There is so much to do that I feel like I can NEVER get caught up... EVER. 

Some days its really frustrating especially when I visit someone else and their house is all neat and clean. I come home and look around and think am I the only one who can't get my crap together.  How do people do it?  I just don't know how people do it...especially people who work full time.  Do they ever sleep??

Seriously, I'm hoping this is just a phase of my life.  Someday, my daughter is not going to rip all of her clothes out of her drawers just to get dressed in the morning... or the afternoon... or get her jammies on.  Someday, they're not going to leave their toys laying around for me to tell them twenty times to clean them up.  Someday, they'll get showered, dressed and brush their own teeth.  Someday, we'll have a class room so there won't be school stuff all over the kitchen table.  Someday, things will be different.  That's what I keep telling myself anyway....

Then I remind myself that I have four beautiful, healthy kids.  I woke up this morning with so much to be grateful for.  I can't let things like a messy house or a temper tantrum ruin my day.  I am so blessed to have a husband that loves me and works hard for our family.  I am so blessed to have healthy children and to be able to spend my days with them.  For the most part, I do what I want to do when I want to do it.  Sometimes its harder with little ones but they won't be little forever and from what I've experienced so far it doesn't get easier when they get older - it just gets different.  The best way I've heard it described is it goes from being physically demanding to mentally demanding.  No one said being a parent was easy.  And it's not!  It's what I wanted and its what I still want.  I wouldn't give up any of my children for anything in this world.  I think sometimes its easy to get wrapped up in the day to day drama of life and forget about the big picture.  I want to be a mom.  That's what God called me to do.  I can feel it in my bones.  Thankfully, he didn't expect me to do it alone.

My Sweet Girls

Wow! Time really does keep on ticking whether you want it to or not.  I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't been making all of those great decisions that I planned to and here comes Christmas a mere 27 days from now.  I'm not even close to my goal.  However, just as I predicted my sweet Rosalie is much bigger and smilier!  She's almost sitting up all by herself and she's rolling from back to front.  She's adorable and loved by all who meet her.  She wins them over with her tonguey grin!  Her brothers and sister all love her and enjoy having her around.  Isabella still likes to copy her and is slipping into a "baby" phase.  I don't make too much of a big deal out of most of it because I know it's just her two year old way of handling having a baby sister who gets a lot of attention.  She will sometimes put a pacifier in her mouth to try and get a reaction.  She is more attached to her bottle than ever.  She wants to dress like her baby sister and use "baby" spoons to eat her food.  Tonight we discovered that they just don't work too well with spaghetti! 
In spite of all her "babyness" Isabella is successfully training to go potty on the potty and not in her diaper!  Yay!  Potty training is tough.  It's a messy job but it's got to be done.  She's doing great!  Week one down.  I waited until she let me know she was ready.  She did this by wanting to purchase some Dora underwear at the store.  She's wanted underwear before but this time seemed different.  She opened them in the car and couldn't wait to get home and wear them.  I let her put a pair on when we got home.  She wore them the rest of the night without a single accident (going on the potty three times!) and then didn't want to wear a diaper to bed.  I let her go to sleep in them but quietly changed her into a diaper after she was fast asleep.  She didn't protest as much when she was sleepy.  The next day she did great except for pooping in her underwear and the day after that the same.  I set up a sticker chart for her.  She puts a sticker on each time she goes on the potty and when she gets 10 in a row she gets a small gift.  It's working!  She wouldn't poop on the potty and after several days I was desperate to find something to motivate her.  I went into the attic and got one of her wrapped Christmas presents.  I showed it to her.  I showed her her name on it and I placed it on the bathroom sink.  I told her when she went poop on the potty that it was hers.  Within a few hours, she finally pooped in the toilet!  She proudly called for me and informed me that "Now I can have my snowman present!" Motivation.  That's all she needed!  She still has a couple of accidents a day but she's going regularly and will even tell me she has to go when she has a pull-up on and we're out.  Hopefully this whole process will not take too long! :)

Using the Slight Edge To My Advantage

Still wearing maternity clothes because I
can't fit into regular ones yet.  Rosalie is
2 1/2 weeks old in this picture :)

I gave birth to Rosalie Faith on June 7th at 10:18 a.m. She is such a blessing!  She came into this world weighing 8 lbs and 20 1/4 inches long.  Even though she is much bigger than her brothers and sister were when they were born, she is still so tiny and fragile.  My beautiful baby girl is almost three weeks old.  To me she still looks like the same adorable little newborn that we brought home from the hospital, but each day she is changing and growing.  I see her everyday so I don't always see those tiny changes. 

One of my favorite books is Jeff Olsen's "The Slight Edge."  If you haven't read it, you should.  It will change the way you see life and time.  Time is always going by and whether we like it or not, the decisions that we make everyday are making tiny changes in our life.  Before I got pregnant with Rosalie I was already overweight.  I gained 40 lbs during my pregnancy.  So far I've lost 27 lbs since I had her.  My goal is to lose 73 lbs by Christmas therefore I have 46 more lbs to lose. 

Forty-six pounds in six months.  How do I plan to do it?  By using the slight edge to my advantage.  By making better decisions in my eating and activity everyday I will be able to lose this weight by Christmas.  My sweet little Rosalie is changing in tiny ways everyday that I can't see but when I look at a picture of her from when she was born to when she is a month old those changes will be obvious.  By the time she is six months or so she will be learning to roll over, sit up or scoot.  Her body is getting bigger and stronger everyday.  In a year, she will be learning to walk and talk and I'll think as many parents do, "I can't believe she's a year old already!"  That time is coming.  Every minute that goes by she gets closer to being a year old.  I don't want that time to come and have regrets that I didn't do the little things that could add up to big changes in my health and body.  In one year, when I celebrate my baby girl's first birthday, I plan to be in the best shape of my life!