And so the countdown begins....

12 days and summer vacation is OFFICIAL. Of course as we come out of the gates we have to survive recital weekendbut after that -- it's relaxation central. I won't lie, I can't wait. Although if today is any indication of how summer is going, me and the blog may be in trouble! The kids are all off school and I am the McDonalds playplace hoping that would distract them from bugging me every thirty seconds while I tried to type. Which it is doing, however it is SOOOO loud I can't focus on what I am typing and the LARGE majority of the noise is my own kids. UGH.

NOTE TO SELF: NEED A BETTER BLOGGING PLAN FOR SUMMER!

Having said that, summer looms before us and we have started to impliment our usual summer rules, as well as some new ones. I'll post more to that later, but we will start by saying we got rid of the cable tv yesterday! :)

Charlotte's dedication is Sunday and I am really looking forward to it. We have a great after party planned at the house at 1, so feel free to stop by if you can't make it to church at 11!

Here's hoping Monday's post is a little more focused!! :)

First Church is so great that tonight we tried to throw a tailgate party for Sunday's Sermon.

At least that is probably what it looked like! As we desperately tried to herd some pretty wound up kids to the car the rotten truth awaited us. We had a flat. UGH. Here we were with a cranky baby, and four VERY wound kids in the very hot night, at about a half hour until bedtime, and we were going nowhere FAST.

Thank God for cell phones, and even more so, thank God for good friends. I managed to get Stephanie and Adam on before they had even left the church parking lot. Of course that now meant that we had 10 very wound up kids running around the church parking lot in the hot night air a half an hour before bedtime, but you know... it also meant there were four hands trying to fix the van and not just two. (For those of you who are counting and scratching your heads.. our four, the Cavender four and they had two extras tonight!)

In there defense, Jason and Adam got the van jacked up, and attempted to get the donut down from under the van really hard. But that darned tire was just suck. In the end I dialed 1-800-Dad and called Gary. :) While we waited Jason and Adam continued to work on that van, and since by this time the lot was pretty much empty we went ahead and let the kids have at it. Yes Pastor Phil, if you are reading this, when you drove by and gave us the funny look and waived -- that was and our "crew" running amok. I'm sorry, we try to control them I swear! :)

In the end Stephanie and I spotted Tracy Basnaw and family leaving the church and a had a brilliant thought. Mr. Basnaw is pretty handy -- maybe we just needed six hands! And in the end, Jerry came to our rescue. With help from the flashlight of a First Church maintenance man the donut was off -- and we knew we would be on our way soon enough!

I thank God everyday for our church. I love it THAT much, but I tonight I am praising him even more for not only our church, but for the friendships it has provided us, and for the people we are yet to meet there, because it is a place full of great people!

Another milestone!

Well I got home from ballet yesterday in the usual hurry -- dance ends at 5, soccer starts at 6, so I put Charlotte down to relax in her bouncy seat and set about finding Samuel a quick snack to tide him over until dinner and suddenly I turned around and low and behold, I saw this:

Yes, Charlotte had gone from leaning back in the seat to sitting up, all on her own. Again later on the couch we sat her down sitting and she stayed there with the help of her boppy.

Who told her she could get so big? :)

Overheard in our house...

I was picking up the bathroom and Teague ran in very distraught.

"Mama! Mama! Something awful is happening!"

"What's happening?" (only mildly concerned, I hadn't heard any crying or crashing.)

"It's Charlotte!"

"What about Charlotte?"

"She's touching my trains!"

:)

Priceless. (added more!)

There are few things that spending 4 + hours in well over 80 degree heat in direct sunlight are worthwhile for. Knowing that a 5 year old with big ideas will get to run across home plate in a real stadium for the first time ever at the end is one of them. (Extra innings and all!)

)

So we headed out to the baseball game yesterday as soon as church was over and let me tell you... getting a family of seven ready for church on a Sunday morning is difficult enough, getting them ready for church, a family outing, and being at church 30 minutes early for a baby dedication meeting is nearly impossible. But we did it. (Or so I thought.)

As soon as church was over we headed straight out to Lansing, and immediately upon arriving (and paying some strange man an exurbanite amount to park in what appeared to be an abandoned lot!) I realized what we forgot. I left my memory stick in the computer. So while, I -- the pathological picture taker -- had remembered the camera, I couldn't take more than the three pictures my camera's internal memory will hold. To say I was ticked off would not begin to cover it.

Alas, I had no choice but to move on.

Here is why I LOVE minor league baseball -- everything is affordable. No one comes to see these games so they pretty much have to BEG people into the stadium. Yesterday was KIDS DAY (as is nearly every Sunday home game!) Which meant that for the cost of admission, (which is like $9 a ticket) every kid 12 and under got a free hot dog and a kids drink. That's a $26 savings in my family. We then saved the kids cups and refilled them with drinking fountain water all day -- totally free concessions for all of them. Plus Dora and Diego were walking around, the Potter Park Zoo had a display of animals set up (even an armadillo!) to look at when you were walking around, there were clowns, free face painting, free balloon animals -- you name it! Plus the big guns -- when the game was over the kids could run the bases.

In addition, before every game for thirty minutes before the game you can take the kids down to dugout level and players will autograph stuff, and give out team pictures. Which, to a kid is a REALLY big deal.

Also, in minor league ball, there are no bad seats. The stadium isn't so big you need a telescope to see the play! Oh and let's not forget the hot dog canon, the chicken dance, and the traditional singing of "Take me out to the ballgame" in the seventh inning stretch!

So -- it was hot. Like, really, really hot. So Charlotte and I spent a lot of time watching from under the roof while Jason and the kids sweated it out in our seats. Around the bottom on the eighth or so the kids were done. It has been 3.5 hours the Lugnuts were down by two, they were tired, they were sweaty, they were hungry -- they were done. So we headed over to the right foul post to line up to run the bases and then -- with two outs in the bottom of the final inning --we scored. Twice. Suddenly, our kids and the couple hundred other kids waiting to run those bases had a tie game on their hands. I looked at Jason in despair. Lottie had just woken up from a nap, Teague was asking for "a little winter" and in desperate need of a nap, and Luke was begging to leave. We sat the kids down and said "Look -- the game is tied up and they are gonna keep playing until someone scores. This could be a while. Do you want to wait?"

Luke and Molly voted leave but Samuel was silent. He wanted to stay. We told the kids they had been good all day and waited a long time for this and just yet we weren't leaving unless it was a unanimous vote. Samuel wanted to wait -- he had earned that choice. And so we waited. Midway into extra innings I told Samuel - I would wait two full innings and then we had to reevaluate. And just then it happened. A line drive that got away from the first basemen. Our runner on second made it in -- the Lugnuts had come back to win, and the kids were off and running. Even Teague ran the bases - he was so proud of himself he did it twice! (lol...) As I stood there behind home plate waiting for them to come in "safe" it was a sight to see. All those kids (not just mine) who had been so tired, and so cranky upstairs, were running with these expressions of pure, unadulterated joy on their faces. There was something magical in it. Something about being out there on the real field -- in their mind's the player who just hit a home run -- that brought out this exuberant innocence in all of them. Next time, I will have a camera!

Just Keep Swinging

Sometimes I feel like I am just swinging by a thread in life, and that got me thinking.

Why is that there are times in our lives when we have to watch others swing so freely and without concern

and yet ourselves feel like we're unsure about the whole thing?

I guess the idea is that we are supposed to just keep swinging and hope for the best. That's kind of where I am this morning. As I am sure you know, in early March Jason all but quit his second job. ( He still works on call every now and again to fill in for people.) The constant stress of him never being home when the kids were awake was doing bad things to all of us, myself included. Since then, things have really gotten great on the home front. I am less stressed, and feel less desperate in my attempts at the schedule, the kids, the cleaning, which makes me a much better and more patient mother and wife. Jason is getting used to being around the kids and is a much more hands on parent, and the kids, are starting to see that they may out number us, but mom and dad are the ultimate team. We feel closer as a family unit, and for the first time in a very long time, as a RULE it feels like we genuinely enjoy eachother's company. Even just to hang out. We've even had the time to start doing a family devotional every night with the kids. With all that being said, I CAN'T bring myself to question the decision to have Jason stop working that second job. I keep telling myself when the doubt creeps in, it feels SO RIGHT how can it be wrong?

So, I have been trying to rely on God to show us how it's supposed to work out financially, for a while it looked like Jason would be changing jobs for his primary job, but that is back to the drawing board now. Then it looked like a couple of other opportunities were lining themselves up and that didn't happen either.

So here we are, in this really great place emotionally, with our family, in our marriage, and in a real pickle when it comes to the money. As it stands, we are bringing in just enough money to cover the bills RIGHT NOW. And that is with a TON of juggling, and stress. Anything extra, and I do mean anything is either being put off, or is cutting into paying a bill on time, and that sucks. Big time. Because it's one thing to put off things you really need to get for a few weeks until you can work them into the budget. The problem I am having is that the budget isn't changing right now. There isn't money right now -- and there is not money next month, or the month after that. Just an endless abyss of week after week every single penny going to just keep the lights on. I know something HAS to change. I just don't have a clue what. We don't have credit cards, we make ends meet with one car (and it's used), I don't shop anymore (unless you count food!), and the only expendable bill we have right now is Comcast, which -- I can get rid of if I need to but it is only gonna save me $60 a month. Which I guess is $60 i didn't have before, but still not going to dent my issues. Jason keeps telling me to just keep swinging, take it one week at a time. Not to worry about the things that are piling up all around me "waiting" to be worked in, because something will change. It has to. He's good at stuff like that -- I have a hard time focusing on one swing at a time, not thinking about all the sways and pushes coming after that, but I am working on it. In the meantime, is it to much to ask for some prayer that whatever God's plan be -- be it a new job, or a new situation, or even just going back to never having family time again, that God makes his plan a little more visible to us? In the meantime, I will do what I need to. I'll keep swinging and learn to enjoy the ride one week at a time.

Tell you something you should already know....

Last night as we were crowded around a very busy dinner table, attempting to inhale a pizza dinner before a rain delayed baseball game, and I was telling Jason about Charlotte's dedication dress. (Yes I finally found what I was looking for!) And something incredible happened. Actual several something all at once. There in all the chaos, Luke asked about what the top of the dress looked like, and Molly started telling Jason about the ruffle butt diaper cover that goes with it, and SAMUEL asked if he could pour Teague some root bear. (yeah bad mommy moment we were drinking soda with dinner, but it's pizza and to me that just GOES with soda!) Anyway, there we were, rushed, and loud, and in "transition" from tap to dinner to game, and we WERE ALL INTERESTED AND ENGAGED. I realized right then and there how glad I am that we have "so many kids". Because all my kids are just that many more people that love them. Fight though they might, (and do!) they love each other, alot. I am so blessed to be able to watch there relationships forge and grow.

To affirm this thought I had the pleasure of watching them cheer Samuel on at his game tonight, and they all actually did for part of the game, watching Luke play peek a boo and roll over with Charlotte for a solid HOUR while watching River Monsters, and then just as I was tucking Samuel in, he said to me "No matter what -- if i lost all my friends i would still have six friends! You, and all my brothers and sisters, and Karson." :) I reminded him he would have seven, he forgot Daddy.

Overheard in our house....

So I say to Samuel this morning, "I need to get in the shower and you are the oldest kid here so you are in charge."



His eyes get about as big as saucers, but he looks at me and says (very, VERY seriously) "Don't worry mom, I can handle this situation."



As I am walking up the stairs I hear him say to Charlotte "Lottie, we're in a lot of trouble..."



:)

Happy Half Birthday Charlotte!

Happy half birthday my little Princess. It's hard to imagine that it's been six months today since we lived our lives without Charlotte in it. It seems like she has always been a part of our family. Always.

Charlotte, my precious sunshine princess, your daddy and your brothers like to call you Lottie, your sister calls you "googley bear", sometimes I call you Moo. I just like to call you mine. :) You completed our family. We were going along just fine, but never quite feeling whole, and then you came along and all of a sudden I just knew. We were done. You were the thing we didn't even realize we were missing. A precious little angel for all of us to dote on and love, and spoil. You don't even feel like just my baby, or daddy's baby. You are OUR baby. Our family's baby.

I am amazed at how smart you are, there's a twinkle in your eye that tells me you know EXACTLY what is going on. I stand in awe at what a little GIRL you are. You love your funny bunny blankie, you like to snuggle with your Lulu doll. It makes me want to cry when you reach your little hand out and touch my cheek, wait for me to make eye contact and THEN you smile at me. Who says a baby can't say "I love you"?

Happy six months angel.

Did you ever think that kids get their energy by sucking the lives out of their parents? Just wondering....

Old Fashioned Fun.

There are things about Jackson I really love. One of them is that downtown there is this really cool, really old, movie theater, The Michigan Theater. Once a month they offer low cost, or free family movies, usually older ones, on the big screen. They also have live shows, show playoff sports games on the big screen, and a whole host of other stuff. The inside is so cool, and so original, it was built in the 1930's, that Alice Cooper shot a music video there last year! (Which is really cool even if you don't like Alice Cooper!)

This month's showing was the musical, Annie. Molly and I invited her friends from tap class, Lauren and Leah, two little girls who also know and *love* Annie the way that Molly does. Before the show they had carnival games for the kids, and a balloon artist, and then of course, Annie. The only thing we had to pay for were the concessions.

There is something magical about getting concessions from the manager in a tie, and Molly was in total awe of the elaborate theater, especially the balcony. Sitting there in the dark listening to Molly and Lauren quietly sing along "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow", while there eyes sparkled at ten year old Annie tap dancing on screen, it was easy to believe that the sun really will come out tomorrow.

My little ballerina

My little ballerina is growing up. I was editing some of the pics I took this week at the studio (it was picture week so they were in costume) and I realized something startling. Somewere along the way she stopped looking like a little girl pretending to be a ballerina, and started to look like the real deal. It is so cool to see her grow and learn something that she is so passionate about. Something she lives and breathes for the way she does dance and performing.

So here's my little stroll down memory lane:

This is Molly's first day of dance EVER -- she was barely 3 and it was tap and ballet combination.

This is her first recital:

Other randomn pictures over the last five years:

And now:

Oh and yes -- that is Samuel practicing next to her!

Two years into our dance "career" we were so blessed to find the Academy of the Arts, where Molly dance now. In January we were lucky enough to be able to attend the dance convention in Novi, with the company girls Molly so idol worships and see them compete and it truly is awe inspiring to see those girls go up there so beautiful, and so graceful and dance to such different music than the competition and truly just BLOW them out of the water, they could bring tears to your eyes (and they usually do mine at recital) It is truly a sight to see, the other dancers in the competition where wearing um-- little costumes shall we say, and dancing to what I called "hoochie music" (lol) and then to see them come out and dance to the song featured in the video above and win, what an amazing experience and how blessed I am to know that Molly has the opportunity to grow as a dancer in such an environment.

Overwhelmed

That is the word of the week. Not just for me, but it seems for a lot of my mom friends. Maybe it is that the time of year is just to busy, or maybe we all have mommy burn out. But I have heard it a lot this week.

Which is why I am adding this "photo essay" of really odd angle shots. Because this is the best way to decompress; relax on the couch in ones pj's with a bag of fruit loops and TLC and Charlotte in her pj's. And this is what it looks like to look down and see her there. And I never want to forget that!

!

In the words of one of the most "together" moms I know... (and I also know I quote this alot!) "The mommy thing is not for sissies!" And she's right, but sometimes we all need a time out!

Those Days....(and what are people thinking?)

So yesterday was one of those days. You know the ones -- the ones where your head hurts and nothing goes right, and it's cold and raining? Yeah -- one of those days. The kind where I want to huddle down at home and flatly refuse to leave. Sadly, it's picture week at dance which means that was just entirely NOT an option. It also means on top of all that I had to actually go into the studio (I typically drop Molly off and come back for her later, during Samuel's class I usually hang out in the coffee shop with my shrinks, err... I mean my friends!) To make matters worse, one day this week our sitter was busy, and the second day she is busy so thus far I have to bring them ALL with me, two days in a row. Yeah, hoping for better today.

Most of you know, I love dance. The recital usually brings me to tears, and I move heaven and earth for the kids to do it. Most of all I love it because they do. Molly especially, but Samuel too. Yes, Samuel. He loves (and lives for) baseball, he is really quite good at soccer and he likes that too. (Not the way he does baseball though!) But yes, he also likes dance. He likes to be "on the stage" and he has a good time at class, so the next time someone comments about it - well I might just say something. Look how happy he is in the picture above? How can you argue with that?

To add to my "about to say something" moments this week, yesterday when we were getting Charlotte dressed we were being silly and put two bows on her headband instead of just one -- yeah, I know it looked silly, but I also thought it was silly in a cute way, her faux pigtails. :) So since the kids loved it so much I took her out that way. To Walmart, no big deal. Yeah. Some morons in line behind me had to sit and talk about how ridiculous she looked. Seriously? Keep your opinions to yourselves people. Then at the dance studio she was down to one bow (our usual look) and I still had people staring and making commentary about "what's on her head" . You know what, I love her bows, I waited along time to have someone to put them on. (I didn't know they existed in that style when Molly was a baby!) I work hard on her bows too. Keep your mouths shut people. It doesn't help that certain days at the studio the people there aren't the most polite either. I hate the way I get looked at when I have to bring all the kids in there, and I hate the way these are same moms Molly will be dancing with for the next Lord knows how many years to come. It's the only day of the week I routinely feel like I am constantly being judged in there and it stinks.

That said, when I finally made it home I was feeling pretty crappy about everything so I posted a picture of Lottie's silly "ponytails" (so to speak) on facebook. Yeah, big mistake. Apparently that opened the door for a family member to comment on how much she dislikes our bows, calling them Halloween costumes, not just on that picture but other ones in my album. Again, my baby, my bows and I will put them on her if I want to. They don't seem to bother her in the slightest, and I know I shouldn't let it bother me, but you know... I was having a bad day. I know all those people were only picking apart my hair accessories but you know... it felt like they were saying she was ugly, not just my bows. And frankly either one hurts.

So I am hoping for a better day today, and less drama. And yeah, we have a giant polka dot headband set out to wear with our panda shirt. :)

Take Me Out To the Ballgame.