Charity got her cast off!

Today was the big day! It was somewhat anti-climatic though since they gave her a brace. I probably shouldn't post all the details, they're boring, but I want to. They took off her cast, did the x-ray and then after a LONG wait, he came back in to say that it was "healed, but not all the way." That's annoying. I was SURE it would be healed after 4 weeks, Charity's got good strong bones, and it was four whole weeks! So then he says, "I'm going to leave this decision up to you, as her mom, you know her activity level. We can either re-cast her arm for another few weeks, or you can just make sure she is very cautious and takes it really easy for the next few weeks." WHAT???? leave it up to ME?? I thought you were the doctor! Charity's been counting down the days to get this cast off ever since she got it and will probably have a nervous breakdown if I choose to re-cast it. In fact she was mouthing, "no, no, no, no, no...." to me when he mentioned that option. So then he chimes in with, "there is one other thing we could do, we could send you home with a brace, and she could just use that during the day for the next few weeks." Well that sounded a little more realistic. It was still kind of tough because I KNOW that Charity is not going to take it easy. I had images of her hanging from the monkey bars a few weeks ago WITH the cast ON. But ME choosing to re-cast it! That would just be heartless! So anyway. We went with the brace. It's not as permanent and she CAN take it off, but we've decided taht she will keep it on as much as possible for at least the next 2 weeks. If nothing else, to remind her that she needs to be careful with it. Still no bike, trampoline, monkeybars, etc. so that's a bummer, but she's a little more liberated with just a brace :) Hopefully she doesn't hold this all against me later :) I need to get my kids to drink more milk.

The Maynes Family will soon be growing by two more feet!

Technically the two feet are already growing :).

I've tried to wait to post this so that I could tell most of you in person (those of you who when you opened this post and started feeling annoyed that I hadn't already told you.... that was for you), but I think it's just not going to happen! I feel so busy these days!! And frankly, I'm a little socially retarded right now..... more than usual. But we're really excited to announce that

WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!!

I am about 18 weeks. Due November 20th

(obviously it will be a week or so before that.... c-section ya know)

The baby seems to be growing fine and looked great on the ultrasound at our first visit back in May.

I am excited to announce that I have finally felt the baby move and that was a very thrilling moment for me. It's funny how no matter how many times you've felt it.... it still feels new and exciting!

We are very excited for this baby.

I feel like I'm already getting anxious for this baby to be here. I don't usually get so anxious at this point, I'm usually still in the "what are we going to do with one more" stage.

But we are all really looking forward to being a family of 8.

(Kelly keeps telling people that if we

"just have 2 more kids, then we will have TEN people in our family!"

good job on the math there Kelz :) I love the "just 2 more kids" part)

I wanted to announce this before we find out the gender so you can all have a chance to guess. At our last visit, when we were scheduling our ultrasound appointment (for June 29th) he jokingly said, "we'll have the ultrasound so you can find out you're having another boy" :) HA HA! We'll see :)

I have kind of felt like this one is a boy, but Nate thinks it's a girl- we've both been wrong before. Charity and Kelly are SET on a girl, I think they'll cry if they get another brother :) and Brad's already named it Batman, so I think he's hoping for a boy. Luke's answer changes everytime I ask him :) He's undecided. Noah's so busy trying to stay the baby himself that he doesn't acknowledge the whole baby in the tummy business :).

So anyway. This pregnancy sure has given me a run for my money. Much harder than I remember it ever being. That was another reason I hadn't posted this yet.... I thought it would be best to wait until the morning sickness and all that yucky stuff was over so that I wasn't using my blog as a venting station for that stuff. I think the morning sickness is over for the most part, but I don't really feel that great yet..... still waiting for that. This baby is a sweet little blessing though and I don't want to sound ungrateful for that, so I promise I'll try not to complain too much.

And just for the record, I didn't SWALLOW the baby.... it IS in my uterus. Regardless of how I look. I'm not sure what happened, it's like my body pushed all my insides (chubs included unfortunately) UP like it's supposed to, but it did it before there was baby to take up the space it made! So I look weirder than usual. Hopefully that won't last too much longer, it's not my favorite thing.

It's crazy to think that we will have 6 kids before the year is over!!!

The more the merrier!

Monday's crazy fun

Kelly dancing to the music at Leatherby's

Monday was a pretty packed day. I had had a doctor appointment on 9000 South in the morning and we had wanted to meet up with some of Nate's family at Leatherby's in the evening, so we decided to just spend the whole day out that way. It ended up being a pretty fun (busy) day. Nate and the kids went to the Daybreak park while I was at the doctor. I loved the sound of my cute little family in the waiting room when I came out. I seriously have to laugh because the main thing I heard was cute little Luke singing "where is Daddy, where is Daddy, here he is...". Sucha cutie. But also the girls of course came running when they saw me. And Noah's little eyes lit up. (can't help but feel the love... I love it!) Then we had a little pb&j picnic before heading over to the dollar theater. I cannot believe how well our kids did during that movie! Race to Witch Mountain isn't exactly a little kid movie too. I had to keep covering the girls' eyes, and Brad keeps telling us he liked it except for the scary parts. But they just sat there the entire time! After the movie we went down to Murray Park and played our brains out. Does anyone else think it's funny to listen to the kids' conversations on the playground? I think it's hilarious. Kelly and Luke both got bullied several times, but Luke's pretty good at sticking up for himself (and he's got his BIG brother SuperBrad) and Kelly had Daddy come to her rescue. (seriously, she was sitting in the little spinning toy thing- completely incapacitated basically- and this little hoodlum comes over and starts spinning her WAY faster than she wanted to go and then picks up handfuls of woodchips and starts chucking them at her while she's spinning. She was crying by then and Nate was on his way over there when the kid started pinching her...... can you believe that!!! The annoying kids' dad was on the phone and when I heard his daughter go tattle on the kid about what he had done to Kelly the Dad says, "it's okay, he's just being a boy" !!!!!!!!!! I don't think I need to say how annoyed I was about this.... should be assumed. But nobody's perfect and I've really been trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, so.....) anyway. After the park we went to Target where Kelly spent her gift card from Aunt Jen and bought her puppy "Fluffly Angel" that's the name she gave it. She hasn't parted with it since. We also bought some underwear for Luke because he's finally in need of some new ones. (the accidents continue, but he's going potty enough on his own to make up for it in my opinion) Then we went and got some cheap food at Wendy's for dinner. The kids were hilarious there. They just kept doing funny things. I said, "should we go get you a high chair" to Noah as I walked over to the high chairs, and he actually piped out a cute little, "YEP!" Maybe it's not funny on here, but in person.... it was adorable! Then later, Bradley needed some more honey mustard (which he usually calls "bee sauce" for some reason) so I told him he could go up and ask the guy for some more- he and Kelly find every excuse to go up and ask for things at the counter- and as he hopped down to go do it, Luke hops out of his chair and says, "I going go ask that guy for some chicken nuggets"--- he had wanted some chicken nuggets rather than the hamburger he got LOL. Like it's that easy to get some more food. He's a nut. He also got locked in the bathroom....the door was too heavy for him to open from the inside apparently. We heard screaming. How traumatizing!! To be trapped inside a Men's Restroom.... I'd die. Luke took it pretty well. Charity had laid down across Kelly's chair while Kelly was in the bathroom (yes, they do spend more time in the bathrooms at public places than anything else) and Noah had quietly reached over and knocked over Kelly's water RIGHT where Charity's head was..... BARELY missed her! That was pretty exciting. And I think the perfect example of how tired we all were getting at this point, Nate and I both just sat there.... nobody jumped right up to clean up the ice water..... it still makes me laugh when I think about it. We were really like, "huh. oh well." But anyway. After Wendy's we went to Leatherby's for our ice cream with Nate's parents, Beth and Matt and their cute kids, and since Meg's water broke that morning.... that was it :) (Congratulations Meg!! I was so glad for you that you ended up having him on Monday afterall!!) It's been fun to see Beth and Matt and their family. I kept trying to remember my camera when we were hanging out this last week, but I finally did and just got these measely pictures.



I still think Reagan is just getting prettier and prettier everyday!! And she was a gorgeous baby! She and Charity and sometimes Kelly all get along pretty well. It's fun to watch them get all excited to sit by each other and stuff, even though they hardly know each other (thanks to the distance! move back Beth!!!) - cute cousins.

Lukey got to sit by Grandpa Russ....hopefully Grandpa didn't mind. Luke can be overwhelming from such a close distance when he's had such a big day. He actually spent most of his time in the bathroom there as well..... threatening to poop on me while he was going. Ya gotta love the talking while you're in the stall going.... I could do without some of it.

I was simply too lazy to stand up to get this picture.....should have I guess.

hugs goodbye!

After Leatherby's we came home. It was a big day for us. Lots of fun.

Carnival

Nate's parents invited us to a carnival that their neighborhood was putting on. They ended up having to do it in the community center because of the rain, but it still turned out pretty fun (and free I might add) the kids had a blast! When we got there, we quickly got our free popcorn and cotton candy (and we were glad we had because the line for them later was out the door). Then Noah and I ate everyone's leftover popcorn while we waited in the line for face painting (I can't count how many long lines we have stood in for face painting.... my kids just love it for some reason.....it was free this time though, so how could I let them down). The older kids all went with Daddy and cashed in on all the games. Bradley was the first person of the night to win the ring toss and got 2 prizes for it :) He was so proud of himself, it was cute. Then the kids all got their faces painted.

Kelly got a butterfly of course.



Brad's was spiderman.


Luke was going to get a dinosaur but ended up telling the lady, "dino-spider" and then the lady asked him if he wanted a spider or spiderman, he chose spiderman :) I thought the lady that did his did such an awesome job.

Charity got a dog.

After the face painting we headed on over to Grandma and Grandpa's bean bag toss game because the line had finally died down. The kids won way too many prizes over there :) and then Noah and I began standing in line for the balloon making clown (even though Beth warned us that she had been in that line for 40 minutes). I believe it was about 7:30 at this time. I figured we could bear to stand in line for an hour while the kids played the games a few more times. Little did I know we would be standing in that line for 2 hours! They were sweeping up the place, moving tables, getting things ready for the movie that followed while we were still standing in that line. They finally came over and passed out tickets to ONLY the people that were in line.... if you weren't in line you didn't get a balloon. Luckily my kids were right there with me when they passed out the tickets. I couldn't bear the thought of missing out on FREE balloon animals! You don't get too many opportunities like that!

My kids got a lot of practice tossing the bean bags....they'll be pros for the next carnival we go to.

(Noah stealing popcorn.... such coordination)

I did finally get Noah out of his stroller when there were less people there so he could walk around a little. He kept wanting to play with the water from the duck pond.

When we got to the front of the line they had limited the selection to butterfly, flower, or sword. Luckily Kelly had wanted a butterfly and Brad a sword. Charity had wanted a dog but was fine with her butterfly and funny little Luke used his big smile and happy little hop when asked, "butterfly, flower or sword?" to say, "SNAKE!" His cuteness won out and he got a snake :) I thought it was cute:) He made snake noises at all of us for the next 5 minutes sticking his snake in everyone's faces.... how adorable. So we finally went over and said goodnight to Grandma and Grandpa as it was now 9:30 and took a picture

and of course went potty (I love how they're all mid-potty-dance in this picture!). As we were leaving a big storm was picking up and the wind up there in Daybreak is just incredible. The kids were all a little freaked out (Charity's paranoia and questions really don't seem to help the younger kids much :)), but they were all just frantically trying to hang on to their balloons and worry about the rain and wind and lightning all at the same time. Finally I just told them to all hand their balloons to me (we were parked a little ways away) and I became the keeper of the balloons. It was a very stressful job! I don't even think Nate could have related to that moment (mainly because he was clear up ahead of us with Noah, unlocking the car LOL, jk), but it was nerve racking being responsible for those balloons. I could just see them popping from the wind or dropping and popping on the grass. And I don't know if it was all just because I knew it would devastate the kids, but I had just stood in line for 2 hours for those things, I wasn't about to see them ruined from some dumb storm!! I was tough though, and we stuck it out.... the balloons were tough and they stuck it out. In the car was another panic attack for all of my children. They weren't sure if it was better to have the windows down or up (duh) and then they didn't know if the light was going pop them or if the floor would..... it was intense! Finally we got things all figured out and there was a calm amidst the storm. Then about 4 minutes into the drive home we heard a loud POP!!! Charity's cute little butterfly had done it's time. It was done. She cried. Kelly offered Charity hers (awww!!!) which Charity refused (thank goodness!! As much as I like them to share, it's really just not a good idea..... they always want whatever they gave back! offering is just as good as sharing for my kids right now). Charity was quick to get over it though- SO IMPRESSIVE!! I was relieved and the rest of ride home we just oooohed and ahhhhed over the lightning that we could see over the whole valley. I just love lightning. The kids made Nate pull up into Grandpa's garage so that they wouldn't get struck by lightning. Someday this fear will end right??? It was a fun day. I don't want to forget it.

Girl Power

On Monday morning we decided to do a "game" to do some much needed cleaning in our house. Boys against girls (we named our team "Girl Power"), whichever team could clean the most rooms the fastest got breakfast in bed the next morning from the opposing team. It was so much work!!! As embarrassing as this is to say, it took 6 hours to complete the whole "house". We were trying to do some really deep cleaning, but I still think that's too long for such a small place. Either way.... The boys actually woke up early and got a head start, and me and the girls were stuck in their room for QUITE a while (it was a disaster, so we ended up rearranging it too), but somehow we pulled it off :) I'm pretty sure it's because I actually had real help from my teammates..... Brad and Luke were pretty much out after a couple of rooms and Noah.... well....... Both teams had finished 3 rooms and were both working on the fourth at the same time, so it was down to the clock. I kept trying to drag it out a little and found more things in my room to do, because I wasn't sure if the boys would handle us kicking their trash as much as we were about to..... I couldn't hold out too much longer though, poor Nate had chosen the Kitchen which....... well, I won't go into any detail..... it just needed a lot of work. I think we were still doing damage control from all of mine and Nate's being sick lately.
Anyway, we had a really good time for the most part and the girls and I enjoyed our Victory breakfast, pancakes and orange juice in bed, the next morning :) A clean house and breakfast in bed (which also implies sleeping in)..... does it get better than that? I don't think so.

Nate took these pictures for me (I was busy stuffing my face with the fluffiest pancakes ever), and I just had to point out that my kids look different in pictures that Nate takes..... not sure what it is, but it's different :) Kinda cool though.

I think we'll have to try this game when there's not as much to do..... it was pretty fun and I'm happy to say, we've done really well at keeping it nice.