Baby-and other Events! By: Stella

Hello! Stella here, and oh do I have news. I bet that some of you were wondering what we have been up to on our four weeks of vacation. We are starting our second week of getting back to school, but I thought I should write about some of the things that we did before we forget about it... :) But, I have to admit, this vacation is probably going to be unforgettable, just you wait, and hold onto your seats folks, it's gonna be a wild ride :) :) :)

One sunny, yet not so sunny day in October, we were doing school. Mater was very tired after having taught a school day, and just as we were finishing Grandma walked in the door. Dad had just gotten home because it had been a half day for him for work, and he had taken it off to go to an ultrasound with Mater. Both he and Grandma were both thinking Mom should call the doctor, because they saw that Mom was having worse contractions, and we thought that it would be a good idea, but instead, Mom thought we should just wait. We said goodbye and Mom and Dad hopped into the car. We all had a snack, and we decided that we would just hang out for a bit. We played for a bit, anxiously watching the clock and the phone for any news about the ultrasound. This ultrasound was going to be important because it would tell us whether or not Mater was doing alright with Baby and we just wanted to see the progress, because nothing had happened too much as far as the doctor was concerned. Then we were going downstairs to watch a movie when we looked at the answering machine. It said 1 message on it!!!!!!! We listened to the message, and it started, "Hi, this is Dad...." Boy, were we excited and the message went on to say that nothing else had happened yet, but they were monitoring Mom. Mom had called the doctor and she had said to go right to the hospital. We were so excited, but Grandma had us turn the answering machine up so that we could hear the phone next time. We went downstairs, and watched a movie, and then, we hadn't heard anything and it was dinnertime, so we went over to Grandma's house and she gave us mac-n-cheese for supper with some apples and milk. We stayed there until bedtime-STILL NOTHING...WE went back home and we got into bed. I soon drifted off to an uneasy sleep, waiting and waiting...

Next morning I jumped out of bed, and I ran to my door. Dad was out there and I was worried for a moment that nothing had happened and they had sent Mom home. That had not happened though. Apparently, I HAD A SISTER! I was so excited. I ate almost no breakfast and hurried through my chores so that we could go to the hospital to see Mom and BABY! It was all so exciting and it happened so quickly. We all were in a bit of a rush, other than Tert who seemed to take hours on his nap. I ran in as soon as he woke up and dressed him as fast as I could. We got him and Rus in the car and soon we were on our way to the hospital. We walked up to the hospital and rushed to the elevator, and then paused and knocked on Mom's door. Dad opened it and we all walked in breathless over our new little sister...



We meet little baby!
We opened presents there are we were really excited because I got a matching outfit with Baby! I also got books, and the boys got books and cars. We were so excited and stayed at the hospital for hours. Now that I have gone through almost all of the details about her birth, I'll tell you! We have a name for Baby for the blog. It is a Latin name. Filia, which means Daughter.

Two days later Mater came home again. We were really excited, and excited to show her off to a couple other people. We can't wait to show you Filia, those of you who haven't seen her yet.

Now, as I think I have covered that I will begin to tell you about our vacation. The best way I find to do that is through putting on pictures with little quotes under them, so here is our vacation...



Stella holding up Filia's outfit...:)



Filia and I (Stella) got matching outfits as our hospital gifts, and here we are, in them!

Rus's birthday came just after Filia's birth, so here are a couple birthday boy pictures....



Rus got a new helmet. Here is Tert deciding to try it on cardboard and all :) Hmmm... STYLISH ahhhh Tert.....



Roller blades, cool!



Lightning McQueen- AWESOME!



Cake--CAKE-CAKE!!!!



Filia-our Little Princess!



Proud Mama!



Snuggling!



Cozy with Sis...

These are two pumpkins we grew from our garden, can you guess who they look like?!!!

#1


#2



And together...


Get it yet?



YES-

Bob the Tomato


And Larry the Cucumber....





And together...






Leo, proud after completing Bob the Tomato.



Lovin' the Teeth....:) Stella, proud after completing Larry the Cucumber.



A little snuggle with big brother Tert.



Dad and Mom at the White Mountains!




Stella, Leo, and Rus, at the White Mountains!



Our family!

Stella, Pater, Rus, and Leo went bowling!



Up to the line and SCORE!



Leo bowls...



OOH! It's a pumpkin! That's a lot of stuff to scoop out!



All done!



Stella, Leo, Rus, Tert, Filia


We have really had a great vacation!

Post by: Stella
Pictures by: Mater and Stella

A Full Couch

Fairy Princess

On October 8, we were blessed with our fifth child - a rosy, dimpled daughter whose name means "fairy princess." We decided that, after waiting 10 years for a little sister, Stella had earned the privilege of helping choose our baby's name. Our little one weighed in at 8 lb. 10 oz. and measured 21 inches. She has already brought so much joy to our family. With 5 young children, I'm finding it difficult to find spare moments to journal about our first week the way I would like to. For now I will share some pictures of our first week with her...

Letter from a Pilgrim by: Leo age: 9

I was assigned to write from a Pilgrim's perspective at the landing of the Mayflower in Plymouth. This is a letter from a man in Plymouth to his wife in England:

My dearest wife and children,

I'm most regretful I did not write sooner. How are things going about with you in
England? This ship we have sailed on held the occupants of well over 100. The Speedwell being not declared seaworthy, we were obliged to transfer all of its occupants to the Mayflower.I most sincerely regret to tell you that I am most deathly ill which is one of the reasons why I did not write sooner. All occupants have rested ashore since we have landed. These days have been hard ones. A good half of our crew is dead. We also have suffered many assaults of those wretched savages, one which we only won because the chief of the band happened to be fighting by a tree. A ball was shot, hit the tree he was by, and sent splinters flying up so near to his ear that he sent a cry up like a wounded dog and sent his troops on the run. I trust our Heavenly Father to sustain us through all and, as a word of encouragement, we met an Indian guide, One Tisquantum, and we have made peace with him and his neighboring tribe.

Sicerely,
Your most faithful husband and father.

Just a few more quotes...

With Baby overdue, I'm frantically trying to complete my last minute nesting projects. I thought I'd transfer a couple of recent quotes from the post it notes on my fridge to my blog...

Once again, Tert takes the prize for the most funny quotes. Stephen and I enjoy so much laughter when this little boy is around. Most of it can only be captured with the video camera (like his husky voice when he is pretending to be an imaginary character, "Rocky," his knock-knock joke routine, his magic tricks complete with "Abba Dabba," and his "Cheeseburger" song from Veggie Tales, but here are a couple of cute things he has come out with lately...

"Mommy, I want you to DEAD that bug over there!"

"When our baby comes, she'll drink Mommy's coke." (means milk)

The other day, I gave him some bread in his high chair. The next thing I hear is a reverent, 2 year old's imitation of our communion liturgy ("Dis is my body given for you. Take it and eat it...") followed by a Cookie-Monster-style gobbling sound, "UMMM, YUMM, YUMMMM!"

A more touching moment occured when Rus brought me this beautiful picture he had painted and said, "Mom, this is for my cousin who is helping out at the battle." (He meant his Uncle Tom who was recently deployed). These young ones don't miss much of anything...

Busy- By: Stella Age: 10

Hi all! We are really excited as we are kept very busy. There is so much to be done. We have all our stuff ready for Baby. All of you were hoping I would type the name in after that weren't you? LOL! We are all very excited to tell you the name... We can't yet though-....
We are also kept busy with going to soccer. Soccer has been very fun and we are probably going to put pictures up soon.
We are also doing school. I love school, and I know that Rus does and Leo does too! We love Veritas Press and school is zooming by with all of our awesome books.
We have a very busy schedule, but we are very happy with it. It's better than sitting around and twiddling our thumbs I guess! What do you think?

By: Stella
Age: 10

My Canoby adventure By: Leo Age: 9

Back in August I went with my family to Canobie Lake. It was amazing there were rides everywhere big rides, little rides, high rides, low rides, fast rides,
slow rides! Now maybe you were wondering how I got to this amazing place. Well my
dad works at BAE Systems, and this gave us a huge discount allowing us a chance to go to this amazing place. Now I will start out with making a long story short:
We started with food. YUM! I will try to give you a small picture of the foods
people were eating, serving, delivering,and unnameable other things.
Next we had ice cream. Then we moved on to some slower rides. Taurus rode on the race cars. So Stella and I went onto the bumper cars. That was fun. When we got off
and couldn't find mom and dad we occupied ourselves with some rides. We finally
found them. Taurus was occupied with rides to. Stella and I went to the sky lift.
After Rus was just off his ride so we invited him. We stood and waited for a
little open booth on the front they (the directors of the ride) clamped a bar around us and up we went. Then we stopped high in the air just hanging there we started l
again. Then two more times we stopped. The second was a problem. They repaired it and we came back and jumped out. Though it was fun hanging up there it was good
to be back. We approached the carousal, and I couldn't decide to go on a horse or a carriage. I chose the horse. then I buckled in and started. Next and last
Stella and I went on a water roller coaster. We waited for about an hour and thirteen
minutes and counting! Water splashed and swirled around us as we made the decision of the wetter slide to the wet. As we dried off we remembered this fun day at Canobie Lake park!

18 days left

...but who is counting?! :)

Tod the Toad By: Stella Age: 10

Here's a toad we caught!! :)

Playing- By: Stella Age: 10

Here are some pics. of some fun in the last of the sun...


Ummmmm-moments.....


And- it's a slam dunk folks!!!



This isn't ballet- it's BASKETBALL-ok Leo?-sorry folks!



Vroom-vroom!



Hello Cora!



Hi Leo!



WOW-That was so tiring-eh?

Wow? That was a lot of fun in the sun!

By: Stella

Age: 10

Leo's 9th Birthday By: Stella Age: 10

Hello All! Stella here ready to tell the tale of a birthday!!!!!!! Ready? Let's go---

Leo just had his 9th birthday! It was fun! Here are some pics....


Presents? Hmmm-I wonder what's inside? Shaky Shaky!



Taurus was very excited about his confetti!



Best Buds hang out!



Starting the long process of opening presents----Oh BOY! I ALWAYS wanted one of these!



Oh BOY! A FOOTBALL!



Cool- 1-2-3 DRAW!!!!!


Cool-GOGGLES AND A SNORKEL!!!!!!!



Hmmm... wonder what this is?



Oh-that looks so good-my stomach already hurts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



MMMMMM!!!! Really good- now it does!

WHAT A GREAT BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Stella

Age: 10

Pictures were the courtesy of-STELLA!

Leo!

Happy Birthday Leo! We are very thankful for you!



(More pictures soon!)
Stella