Skiddy-marinky-dinky-dink!

After a long busy weekend in which we celebrated our nation's birth and independence from England 233 years ago, and a few longs drives later, my youngest son was out. I mean, out like passed out. I plucked him from his carseat and he flopped over onto my shoulder, draping his arms around my neck and slept on.

I carried him into the house to his bedroom where I momentarily stood over his crib with his limp, sleep-laden body in my arms when I decided not to put him to bed. I gingerly tip-toed to the sky chair hanging in the corner and lowered us slowly into the hammock-like seat.

The rest of the family busily getting ready for bed, I sat. The moments when this baby has slept in my arms are few and far between and tonight I needed to take advantage of the opportunity to feel the weight of a sleeping babe in my arms. Time flies and this little one is already older and bigger than I dreamed he could be this soon.

For no less than 20 minutes I held him. I listened to his slow, steady breathing. I felt the warmth of his little body. I breathed deeply his scent. I gazed at him in the light of the moon that fell softly over his face. Drink deeply Mother Me, for he will only be a little boy for another blink, and then a few more blinks before he is a grown man off to spread his wings.

I love you in the morning
and in the afternoon,
I love you in the evening
underneath the moon.

Skiddy-marinky-dinky-dink,
skiddy-marinky-doo
I love YOU!

Wordless Wednesday - Baby Love!

Two for Two!

Isn't he the CUTEST?!

Yes, he did get BOTH cupcakes and he gobbled them both up and asked for more!! No, he did NOT get more! :)

Two years ago, at precisely 1:11pm I gave birth to this unexpected miracle. He is the personification of God's healing balm in our lives, the means by which God gave us back the years that infertility stole from us.

Todd and I struggled to have four children. For fourteen years we fought a disease known as polycystic ovarian symdrome (PCOS), a hormone imbalance that prevents ovulation. My PCOS got worse over the years and after our fourth child was born we knew that we were done. There would be no more fertility treatments. No more children. And then one day I started feeling pregnant. We simply could not believe that it could happen. Todd even told me that he thought I must just be imagining it. But a home pregnancy test proved him wrong!

Through all the years of infertility I had hoped and dreamed that one day, somehow, we would get pregnant without assistance, you know, the old fashioned way. But the reality was that chances were slim. And that's when God stepped in. I can't even begin to explain how deeply infertility hurt me, nor how wonderfully God used this baby to soothe those wounds, and to heal the part of me that felt horribly, helplessly broken.

What a joy and a pleasure it has been to be Izaak's mommie.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

"Not Me!!" Monday.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I am absolutely certain that this perfectly sweet boy...

did NOT give this boy...

this black eye...

in the cart at the grocery store. And I did NOT completely ignore the crying associated with this injury! Nope, not me!!!

What didn't you do this week?

Happy Father's Day!

Allow me to introduce to you my Honey, whom I love. He has been a father for nearly 13 years. He loves his children and is very involved in their lives. I love him all the more for it!

Happy Father's Day, Love!

Wordless Wednesday - On Wings Like Eagles.

Tackle it Tuesday - The Great Garage Make-Over!

Well, my friends. Last week my husband, his father and I worked our little toushies off to accomplish this tackle that I have been trying to get done for four years.

The Garage.

Somehow having kids, kids and more kids mulitplies the "stuff" in the garage exponentially. Eleven years ago when we moved into this house we had one kid with no stuff to store in the garage. We, ourselves, didn't even have enough furninture to fill the house, much less the garage. Things have gone down hill since then.

Before...
While there is room to park the new land yacht, there's no room to do much of anything else.
We made overhead storage to store mattresses and such that we really don't want on the floor, but even that has become over-run with stuff that really doesn't belong up there but has nowhere else to go.
Todd had a workbench back in the corner that was extremely difficult to reach with all the kids' stuff piled on, under and infront of it. And a peg board hung over the drywall making it impossible to put hooks through to hang things on. Not real efficient for accomplishing anything.
And more stuff.

So, what did we do?

We pulled everything out.

Rearranged the layout.

Built a new workbench.

Hung an organizing system.

Sorted through the stuff.

Threw some away.

Put the rest back in the garage in its new spot.

The Result...
A place for everything and everything in its place!
The new workbench along the side so stuff can't get piled in front of it! Camping equipment stored under it and a shelf to have the power tools within reach. We also added lights above and outlets for said power tools. And just in case you are wondering, that tool box to the left DID get cleaned out and organized as well!
All the useful hardware, sorted, organized and LABELLED! No more coffee cans, folks! Hopefully this will help keep us from buying redundant hardware.
A peg board organizer that actually works for pegs and organizes stuff! (also labelled under each tool so that if something is missing you know what goes there)
Garden tools hung so they won't fall on you as you walk by!
Bicycles all hung on the wall out of the way, but easy enough to access that the kids can do it.
Sports equipment and balls now have a place! And a spot up high for storing wood.
Poisons up high out of reach. And bins to store larger things for projects like painting, tiling, electrical work or plumbing; labelled and easy to access, again in hopes of cutting down on purchasing duplicates of things we already have while working on a project.
And, yes! Both vehicles DO fit into the space now!!! WOOT!!

And then there's the HUGE piles of stuff that left our home for good.