Christmas

Now That's More Like It!!!

Yeah!!! It's really been snowing this week!!! These pictures are from a couple days ago. The snow is even deeper now & the roads are pretty bad because of the extremely low temperatures. The kids & I are pretty much house-bound. For me it's just as well.......I don't feel like leaving the house much anymore anyway. Maybe God is helping me hibernate. But, sadly, it's keeping Deb & the girls away for Christmas. The weather could ease up a little so they could get here safely. Then God can snow us in again. It's so pretty!!! And the kids are having a blast outside! LOVE it!


House.

Rock.

Bush.

Snow man.

Snow-something.

Before.

After.

Snowball fight.

Our First Snow of the Year........LAME!!!

YEAH!!! SNOW!!! Last week we got an, um, half an inch or so. Not enough to make a snow man.......but just enough for Jarod & Micah to make snow babies!!! Awwww. We keep hoping for more snow, but it just hasn't happened yet. (You Seattlites are hogging it all!!!) It has been extremely cold here ALL week!!! Pretty record breaking temps for Nampa. One morning it was -5 degrees!!! So we still have LAST WEEK'S snow............but we want MORE!!! It supposed to snow a lot next week. Here's hoping!!!

Titus is the only member of this family who doesn't want it to snow. Mr. Neurotic-I-Hate-Dirty-Feet-I-Love-My-Shoes-I-Want-To-Wear-My-Shoes-To-Bed-And-In-The-Bathtub.............HATED his snow boots & snow clothes!!! He went outside for about 30 seconds (it took about 10 minutes to get him dressed!!!) before he pitched a fit & wanted back inside. The week before, thinking about how he LOVES his shoes, I bought him some cute little slippers to wear around the house. He hated those as well. He said, "Mom! These are NOT shoes!!!" ........and promptly kicked them off. Brother. Where did this kid come from?! And when did he start having opinions about footwear?! (BTW.......his eyes are yellow because he wanted to highlight his prettiest assets, OK?!)

Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post of some REAL snow next week!!! And maybe a picture of Titus smiling.

Seattle Visit

I haven't posted in a while because I've been out of town visiting my family in WA. My baby sister, Keri, was having her first baby & she wanted me to be her labor coach. I was very happy to help her (& honored that she asked me!!!). I loaded up the car & all the kids & drove the whole 10 hours by myself. That was an adventure. I've decided that I HATE semi trucks. Long story there. I arrived a week before her due date & we waited.......................for 2 more weeks! We stayed with my parents who were very brave to let their 5 grandsons & I stay for 3 whole weeks!!! I am sure they must be glad to have their house back now that we are home.

Anyway, Keri finally gave birth on Monday morning of the 24th to a 9lb, 5oz, baby boy! His name is Braeden & he is ADORABLE!!! I LOVE fat babies!!! My sister Gloria is a massage therapist & aided in the labor room as well. (She says she's going to come give me some massages while I'm in labor too! YEAH!!!) My bro-in-law, Rory, was super sweet to Keri during labor. He cracked me up with his play-by-play of the contractions...........and his joking around with all the nurses. He had Keri laughing even at 7 cm!!! Together, he, Gloria & I made a pretty good labor team. And Keri did an AMAZING job!!! (I'm so proud of you, sis!!! You're such a good mommy!!!)

During my stay, I visited lots of in-laws & had two Thanksgivings. One with my family on Thursday & one with Justin's family on Friday. We picked Justin up Friday morning from the airport & the boys were SO HAPPY to see him. Gideon had started asking me if we going to live at Grandma's forever & had been starting to cry at night for his daddy. I was startin' to really miss my man too. I think the next trip to WA won't be so long. It was a very nice visit, but also very nice to get home. And Justin drove. YEAH!!! I'm sure the semi trucks were happy as well. Don't ask. I think I'm done with adventures (or even leaving the house now) for a few months. I'm starting to feel a bit like a beached whale. I need a nap every couple hours. So, I'm staying home to finish baking my own bun in the oven. If anyone wants me, I'll be hibernating. Leave a message. ;-)

PS. My sister, Trixie, is also expecting a boy a week before me (I'm due Feb 19th, she's due Feb 12th). It is her 3rd baby, but her 1st boy. Apparently, God didn't think I'd contributed enough boys to the family yet.

Harvest Party

Pumpkin Farm

Cute Little Pumpkins

Crazy Petting Zoo

Emus?!

Horses

Zebra?!

Ok..........pretty sure this was a horse.......or a largish pony?

More Fun Stuff

Scare Crows

Hay Ride....Jarod provided the corn

Hay Maze

IT'S A BOY!!!

Yup! It's true. We're going to have six boys! That's good because now I don't have to change the name of my blog. And I can still sign all my Christmas cards "Justin, Heather & the boys". I'm SO HAPPY & relieved, to be honest. I was not sure what I was going to do with a girl. I'm sure we would have adjusted our thinking & she would have been adored. But I was starting to get nervous the past couple days, trying to picture that it might be a girl........and I couldn't. Guess I'm used to boys. I was just visualizing this cute little boy growing inside me. He is definitely a boy!!! He wouldn't hold still during the ultra sound today! He's bouncing off the walls already. Justin & the boys are all so happy too. Jarod was dancing a little jig (proving his white heritage) & singing on the way out of the Dr.'s office. "We're having a boy, we're having a boy!" And how cool am I? I have six boys!!! No matter how lazy I am, people think I'm super woman! I am the mom of 6 boys! I must be able to lift tall buildings! Seriously, Justin & I feel very blessed. Really.........did anyone actually think it was going to be anything BUT a boy?

Family Camp-Out

A few weeks ago, in mid-September, was our Sturgeon family camp-out. It was a week long vacation. Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins (Abigail & Olivia), Nanny & Papa were all there. Of course, Justin, the boys were all there as well. We went to Lake Wallowa. The kids did lots of swimming, playing in the sand (Aunt Emily helped them build a giant castle), finding bugs, playing in the dirt. I think Jarod & Micah had the most fun, playing with the Hulk hands that Nanny & Papa brought for them. A couple trips were made into the little near-by town. At night we had devotionals & singing. Joshua played guitar. He lead us, during the days, in some very rousing games of croquet. I discovered I stink at croquet, but it was still fun.

I also discovered Titus has.........um........issues. Whenever we would walk down to the lake, he would have to stop every two minutes, take off his shoes, brush off the bottoms of his feet, shake out his shoes, put them back on. Two minutes later.........same thing. When we would (FINALLY) get to the lake, I would try to set him down in the wet sand & shallow water. He would have NONE of that! I figured out that he was happier, sitting on his little camp chair with a DRY towel under his feet. If anyone moved that towel.........BIG trouble!!! Most of my two year olds have been a little nuerotic at times as they figure out what they like & don't like. However..........this is a little rediculous.

Justin did some fishing in the lake. He caught his ear at one point (see picture). I don't think he caught anything else there. However, the river was full of old salmon. Justin & the boys caught a bunch of them with their bare hands & threw them back.

Seth was too cool to hang out with his dad & brothers, so he chilled with his rad uncles for most of the week. He got to go on hikes, practice karate moves, talk about (extremely exaggerated) animal facts, hitch-hike (don't ask) & took a hilarious ride in the raft on the river. There was a bit of a current wanting to push them back to shore. It took them about 10 minutes to even leave the shore. They bumbled around, trying to coordinate their rowing efforts. Eventually they made it over to a dock. (Thanks, Michael & Nic, for being Seth's buddies!!! You were SO GREAT with him!!! He had a BLAST with you!)

The last night, we were rained on, so everyone piled into our tent, bundled & snuggled up & played a really fun game called Mafia (Emily introduced us to it). Even the kids were able to play & LOVED it!!! I don't know why everyone kept killing me, but it was still fun (OK..........croquet is not the only game I suck at).

It was still raining the next day when we were packing up to leave. We shoved everything into cars & trailers as fast as possible, hugged each other goodbye & went home......wet. All in all, it was a great family bonding time. There were no big fights, it was sunny almost all week.................it was wonderful. And now I miss everyone. *sigh*

Coming tomorrow: the gender of our baby.

Titus' 1st ER Trip

Last night, around 10 pm, the boys were all wrestling around, when someone landed on Titus. He cried for a couple minutes, but seemed fine.........until I put him down. His right foot was hurt & he couldn't walk on it. It didn't hurt him unless he was standing on it. Then he would collapse. It was really sad. I didn't take him to the ER until today. I just wanted to see if it would get better over night. It didn't. I was in the bathroom when he got out of bed this morning. I heard him crying, saying, "Foot-hurt! Foot-hurt!" I came out to get him. He was standing on the floor, holding on to the foot board of his bed for support. He couldn't go anywhere. So I took the kids to church.........& then to the ER. Justin had to work today so I was on my own. The boys were all really good however. It wasn't too horribly stressful. Seth was extremely helpful as always. It helped that the room had a TV in it. The wait wasn't very long either. The Dr came in & asked what had happened. We explained. He looked around at all of the boys in the room... and just nodded. I got the feeling that even if I'd brought Titus in bleeding from the head with two black eyes & bruises all over his body, he still would have looked around at all the boys.... and just nodded. The Dr wanted to see Titus try to walk to me.........and of course...........he did, the little goof. First time all day. Made a liar out of me. Brother. But then he did collapse after taking a couple more steps, so I was vindicated. However, that tells me he's already doing somewhat better! He couldn't even take one step just hours before. It must have been a slow ER day because nurses kept coming by to look at all my boys. They brought the X-ray machine right into the room. Titus was nervous about all of us going out of the room & leaving him alone with the tech. But as soon as the tech brought the machine close to him, he was extremely intrigued with the whole process. It was decided that he didn't have an obvious break, but the Dr thought he probably did have a little fracture. He put Titus in a splint, which Titus was not happy about. He wanted that thing off STAT.  But, now that we're home & he's had a nap, he's doing fine with it. He's crawling around like a champ & adjusting to life as a cripple. The splint can come off in a few days. I have a good feeling that he'll already be better by then. Just in time to run around during next week's camping trip! No real harm done.

Picture Day

The Latest:

* Emily came home from Seattle. Yeah! We're all so glad she's home.

* Seth turned 12 on August 31. He was so happy Emily was home in time for his birthday.

* We started school a couple weeks ago. It's been somewhat of a slow start, but we're picking up speed.

* Last week a nice little stomach bug went around the family & a good percentage of the kids caught it. Deborah, Emily & I all had it as well. Fun times.

* Yesterday Emily decided that we should all go to the park & take pictures of the kids. Emily took the most pictures & probably got lots of good ones. I got a few cute ones myself as you can see. The kids were all pretty well behaved for the most part, until the end. They started getting a little antsy. Trying to get 7 little kids to hold still for pictures is pretty much a pointless undertaking. Not too many things went wrong however. Olivia only fell in the mud once. That upset her, so Deb picked her up to comfort her, wearing white pants. What a nice mommy, sacrificing her pants to console her baby. I wasn't as nice when Olivia got herself into a little predicament (see the pictures to your right) & I had to snap a picture of it before rescuing her. And, really, I didn't rescue her because she fell before I got to her. Don't worry, it was only a six inch drop into soft dirt, though SHE probably didn't know that. She WAS pretty terrified hanging there. Poor thing. In my defense, I did pick her up & hug her after she fell. Of course, I was laughing at her..........but she was cool with that. Jarod & Micah climbed to the very top of a tree & I didn't take a picture of that. It was a little more than a six-inch drop, and I really didn't want to catch their deaths on camera. I just yelled at them to get down. The reason the girls are crying in the pictures? That was towards the end of our fun picture-taking time & the kids were quickly fizzling out. Emily & Deborah were kindly asking the kids to "SMILE AND SAY CHEESE ALREADY, DANG IT!!!" They decided, for some reason, that that wasn't very good motivation for the kids to smile, so they started singing the Veggie-Tale's classic song, "God is Bigger Than the Boogie Man" & tried to get the kids to be happy & sing along. It came out a little more grumpy & scary-sounding than it was supposed to. Strangely, it didn't have the desired effect. (Deb & Em's voices did blend nicely, however.) I think that's when we decided that picture day was coming to a close. We got a few more cute candid shots & let the kids run around a bit. Sarah bought everyone happy meals at McDonald's (I ate my 2nd big & tasty cheese burger of the day. I really like cheese burgers right now.) & we called it a day.