10 days

Until we sign for the new house. I'm excited because once I knew we were moving I started packing. So we've been living with a mound of boxes for a month now and I'm ready for it to be over. I can't feel settled when I know change is coming so I've been packing.

The kids finished up 1st, 3rd and 5th grade last week and are ready to move up. They all seem to have mastered what I wanted to see from them. They are enjoying a little break since we're moving. Otherwise we would have jumped right back in to the next school year so we could take a break when Tony goes to school in the fall.

Mason turned 3 months old last week and weighs in at whopping 16lbs. He did amazing fighting off a sickness the rest of us had with just a tiny cough. He's ready to take on the world and have a lot more stimulation. I feel bad but I only know so much to say to a 3 month old. He will smile at his siblings. He jabbers up a storm (when in a good mood). He's trying very hard to roll over and for a little boy who doesn't spend much time laying on the floor he's almost there. We have only tile downstairs so even with his playmat it's not soft enough for long play. Yesterday he scooted completely off the mat and was just laying on the tile floor. I was sitting with him but he was so quick.

This upcoming weekend we will be celebrating Zayden's 9th birthday. His birthday isn't until the 12th, but that is the day before we sign for the house and we want to finish getting everything packed that day so that we can start taking loads over at signing. His presents are all here and most of them are wrapped. Poor kid always gets a move around his birthday. In 2008, 2010, 2013, and now 2014. Hoping this will be the last move for at least 2 years, but I had so much fun moving last summer from WA to TX, I'm ready when the orders say so.

On the move again.

After living in this house for not quite a year we will be moving to a different house in El Paso. We weren't sure what we were going to do at lease renewal, but with a $10 rent increase it was answered for us. We only have 3 bedrooms and a loft here and we really need the 4th bedroom to be enclosed. When we selected this house last year it was our second choice as well as $75 above the budgeted amount we wanted to spend and we didn't know Mason was coming. We got on the housing list before we arrived at Bliss last year, but didn't like the options given to us when we got here then. When I got the lease renewal I went in to just see what we could be offered if we choose to take an offer and we were offered a nice single family home in one of the nicer neighborhoods. We took it and will be moving in the middle of June.

While we could have stayed and paid more rent this house exceeds our housing money in the summers and we break even during the winter. But we just decided having a 4th complete bedroom was what we needed. We have yet to decide what the exact split will be of the kids and if Mason's bed will still fit in our room. However Tony and I are both just excited that we're still moving together and will be together.

Tony is out in the "field" during training exercises and has been for the last few weeks. He was able to come home last weekend which happened to be his birthday. Having decided that we were moving before he came home changed our plans of do nothing (relaxing and celebrate his birthday) to get some stuff to paint and buy boxes so I can pack. But we had the most amazing weekend. We just spent the whole thing together and it was so nice. It really was a renewing weekend for us that usually doesn't happen on the weekends.

His big birthday gift was a grill/smoker/roaster and he very much enjoyed getting it set up and grilling on it. We actually just sat outside Sunday evening being together him, the kids, and me. We ate some food and goofed around. It was down time we don't usually get to take with all the crazy stuff in life.

Now I'll be packing until he gets back, we'll fix some painting issues in the house, clean it and move to our new house together. 5 weeks until we move.

10 years and life

On Wednesday Tony and I celebrated 10 years of marriage. It seems like so much longer than that, but only 10 (plus the 2 1/2 before were married). It is also 10 years of military service for Tony this month. He'll be celebrating that in the field next week. It has been a wild and crazy ride and sometimes I forget to slow down and enjoy the moments. We have 6 amazing, happy and healthy children. We have a wonderful commitment to each other. We have stable lives with an income we can live on. I love the place we are in life and I need to slow down and just live in the moments instead of waiting for the next big thing. However I am excited to spend the rest of my life with my husband raising our family the best that we can.

This week we have been working on potty training Abbie. Whoever said girls were easier was full of it. It took us longer to get her to even pee on the toilet than any of the 4 previously potty trained boys. However we are now on day 4 and things are getting better. She is in underwear at the house and will go willingly on the toilet. She is still catching on to her body cues, but so am I and then I can help her avoid an accident. We still haven't gotten her to poop on the potty, but hopefully that will be coming soon. The biggest challenge will be finding her pants to wear since she is so skinny. And for dresses underwear are too revealing for Tony or I to feel comfortable out in just a dress.

Taking a school break

After much deliberation I finally decided that the kids and I would take a 4 week break from school. We had only taken 1 whole week off since we started school in September. It has also given me time to work on next year's curriculum. I have most of it figured out except the English and History.

For English I'm trying to find a program they can mostly do by themselves as well as one we can afford times 3. Many get quite expensive and then you have to pay for the teacher's guide which confuses me. If I could see the curriculum I could decide if I needed the teacher's guide or not. However since I have to order online it is hard to get a good feel for the layout and requirements. I do not like the books we used this year for English and Zavier didn't even have an English curriculum as a first grader his was mostly encompassed in other stuff. I also don't want to go to cheap and end up with having to supplement their learning as English is something I don't want them to fall behind in.

For History I would love something that has visuals, e-books and cd's. I do think that is out there I just need to figure out what it is and if we're interested. I read to the kids daily when the littles go down for nap so I need something that can be read on the ipad since I sit in the dark and sometimes have to juggle nursing or just cuddling Mason or Abbie. Also being able to listen to info in the car would be nice. The kids enjoy listening to books on CD. I would also prefer the interesting parts of History and not the droning on of boring stuff. I know if I'm bored with it the kids are even more bored and that's no fun.

We have 5 weeks left after we return at the end of April to finish out this year and then we will jump into next year starting in June with another month off in September. It gets pretty warm here so doing outside stuff during the summer is exhausting so we'll school all summer and then take more breaks in the winter/cooler season to maximize our outdoor activities.

Baby Mason is growing like a weed. He's about 3lbs from doubling his birth weight and he's only 6 weeks. The kids have all done well adapting to having him in the house. The hardest part for me is cooking as he seems to want to be held or nurse every time I go to cook a meal. He will occasionally let Tony or Zachary hold him so I can get it ready, but then I'm usually stuck eating over his head. Last night I ate spaghetti over his head. He is a big cuddle bug. He sleeps pretty well at night as long as we're snuggled up. Which as long as he's sleeping I can handle. Tony is getting ready to go to a little over a month in the field so Mason will have his own half of the king size bed. Now if I could just get Zander and Abbie to stay in bed all night and sleep until 7 we'd be set.

The big kids are enjoying the break from school, but I do think that they are a little bored as the fighting has increased. They have gotten to play the xbox more since that is something that we usually never allow as we prefer they play outside or with hand on toys.



Abbie turned 2 on the 1st of April. We had a nice family party for her where she got her girly dress up clothes and her fun girly toys. However the boys love playing with her girly toys and will fight her for them. She's a very naughty little girl as she is constantly getting into things she's not supposed to. Like all day long we get her out of stuff. Everyone in the house is tired of getting her out of things. She's quite the little talker though and she's so cute. She says her ABC's and counts skipping a few letters or numbers, but pretty well. She really is a fun change of pace from the boys (other than the constantly getting into stuff). She pretty smart so we no longer can out smart her with putting things up or locking cabinets. Although we do have our glass cabinet tied with a green army sock. Her hair is really starting to grow out and we need to get her more used to having a clip or a top knot to keep it out of her eyes. I keep telling her when it starts getting in her eyes she'll have to have something in her hair all the time to keep it out.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Mason, Abbie, Zander, Zavier, Zayden, and Zachary. The older 5 picked out their shirts. It's been a while since I got all the boys new shirts so we got new ones this year as I was tired of looking at the old ones.

Love being a mom of 6

I know it is all still new, but I'm loving being a mom of 6. Maybe it is because I was just so miserable being pregnant, but I feel so much better with him out of me. I can actually keep up with the house as much as I want and don't have to just lay and look at the dirt and filth like I did when I was pregnant. Mason is so far a very good baby so I'm able to cook and clean as needed. However he does like to eat when I do so he does end up with food on him sometimes. I try to spend a few hours every afternoon devoted to just holding and cuddling with him as I know these newborn moments don't last long. 

Abbie has turned into a terrible 2 year old (she turns two in two weeks). That is probably the biggest problem I have is being able to keep her out of stuff while I'm feeding or holding Mason. Tony has started offering to take her with him when he does things on the weekend to get her out of my hair for a bit. She's a fun feisty little thing, but she just is into stuff all the time. And she has already learned how to get the bigger boys in trouble when they get her out of stuff (she screams like she's being hurt). 

Overall I guess going from 5 to 6 wasn't that hard (at least not yet).

Mason had his 2 week check-up this week and weighed 9lbs 15oz. He is quite a big boy. He nurses great and sleeps well at night most nights. I do think he overeats and spits up more than I like, but with an oversupply there isn't much he can do about it. 

Being team green.

Before with most of my other pregnancies I thought going team green was crazy. Who wouldn't want to know what the sex of the baby was if you could? We attempted to not find out with Zavier, but only because I didn't want to hear what people had to say about the "dreaded" third boy. However that lasted as long as our u/s appt and by the time we got home we opened the envelope to see he was indeed our third little boy.

After having Abbie we we're finally on the other side of having boy stuff and girl stuff and it no longer really mattered what the baby was. S/he was exactly what God created for our family and we'd find out at delivery. Tony was a little less on board originally and I too thought I would waver and not stick it out. During my first appointments with my midwife I said that we wanted to be team green. She jumped on that and without her I probably would have found out at our u/s, but she had made it very clear to them that we didn't want to know. (However looking back the u/s tech did call him a "he" several times which is the same thing the tech did with Zavier, and as the mommy I knew they were calling them correctly each time.) Tony held out hope though that this was our second little girl, but I just knew it wasn't.

Now as far as feelings through the pregnancy, it was an emotional wavering roller coaster. I'd have moments that I didn't care what baby was and then moments later be all crazy with emotions not "knowing who baby was". I spent a lot of time not knowing who baby was because I couldn't call it by name. I didn't really call him much during my pregnancy. I did go back and forth with our boy and girl names.

While we were pretty set with our girl name or its alternative we struggled a lot with a boys name. Having the 4 boys already that all started with a "Z" I wasn't sure I could leave that. I have tried with Zander and a little with Zavier, but Tony kept saying "they were last". Haha. I finally decided it was up to me to just pick something we liked and name him that. While one of Tony's siblings is bent out of shape that the pattern of family naming didn't include them, I decided that it was a risk we'd have to take. We decided pretty early on that we weren't going with a "Z" name. We originally talked about Asher to stick with "A" theme with Abbie, but the "A" names I liked we had used with the other boys (Anthony, Aaron, Alexander-Zander). Even though I greatly considered using some of them again and trying to decide just how close Alexander/Zander were. I wanted to just use Joshua, but Tony wasn't as sold on it as I was.

One day I was taking a bath and was scanning boy names in my head and Mason just popped in the list. I then mentioned it to Tony and he said he really liked it. While I think he was set before I was it was now our front runner. I still tried to go with Joshua as soon as we were out of the tub after birth, but Tony still wanted Mason. That made Joshua second (his biblical name). We took the next 4 days before we took the time to discuss what his other middle name would be. We even almost didn't give him one. We finally decided to use Robert as it was Tony's grandfather's name.

While we say we're done with babies team green was really fun. I loved announcing it when he was born. If we have any more children I will again wait it out and find out at birth because it was something fun on delivery day, a day that is super painful for me.

And I must say he fits his name and it fits him. I call him Mace or Macey (which will wear off and he won't always be called a girls name ;) )