Update!!

I just discovered the Blogger app is much better than it used to be so now that I can write a post and post it from my phone (with pictures and everything!) I hope to be posting more often. It's been a long time! The kids finished school the end of May and next year we will have kids in 2nd grade, 1st grade, Kindergarten and Preschool which is only 2 half-days a week. Iris turned 1 in April and thanks to the successful usage of NFP we are not expecting! I know, that's a bit of a shocker around here. But having four in school and only 2 in diapers is helping me see the light at the end of the tunnel a little more. And we plan on avoiding indefinitely so once we get all 6 in school I might be able to get a job and contribute financially. I'm already working on that by taking some classes at the local community college to increase my computer skills. Hopefully I will be ready when it's time to take the next big step in a few years! Since I haven't posted in a very long time, here are some pictures I got of the kids yesterday:

                      Emma - 7.5

                         Abby - 6.5

                        Ian - 5.5

                       Owen - 4.5

                       Adam - 2

                            Iris - 1

Silly Sock Day

Back to School

Southern Indiana schools are switching to a "balanced calendar" which is closer to year-round schooling, so that means the kids went back to school Thursday. That's right, August 1st!

Here they are on their first day!

Emma is in first grade, Abby is starting Kindergarten, and Ian is in Pre-K. They were all very excited! The girls look so cute in their little uniforms. Ian doesn't have to wear uniforms until next year, but he looks cute too! :) 

It's crazy to have 3 kids gone for at least part of the day. Pre-K is only for three hours every morning. It does mean I have to make an extra trip to school each day, but I think Ian will really benefit from it so I think it will be worth the trouble. We shall see!

We Now Have 6 Kids!

Well here we are! Last post we didn't even know what we were having and now we have a 2 month old baby girl! She was born in the middle of April weighing 8 lbs 8 oz and 23 inches long. It's great to have another girl after having 3 boys in a row! We named her Iris Claire and she's super sweet and super cute. And here she is in case you need proof.

And here's a shot of all the kids together. Ian and Owen, Abby holding Adam and Emma holding Iris.

Big Red Ball

Sorry, I forgot about my blog again! Time sure does go by faster when you have a kid in school! Emma has the week off for fall break and can't wait to go back on Monday. Hopefully she keeps this enthusiasm all through high school....

And since I haven't been by here in a little while, I haven't been able to announce yet that we're expecting baby #6 now! I was a little bit surprised by this one. The due date is April 14th so Adam will be a whopping 13 months old when this baby is born. I really thought we were getting a little better at spacing our children! Oh well. After this is just abstinence I guess ;-).  We should be finding out the gender in just a few weeks so that will be some news I should be posting about.

And here are some completely unrelated pictures of the kids playing with a giant red ball that my grandmother got them!

 Adam watching

 Ian

 Owen

 Abby looking completely crazy

And Emma!

Mix-Matched Schedules

So Scott works a weird 2nd shift, 2pm-10pm Monday through Friday. It's worked out for us so far, we just had to have lunch as our "family meal" instead of dinner like normal folks. Now we kind of have a problem. A pretty big problem. Emma goes to school before Scott wakes up and doesn't get home until after he's already at work. That means he gets to see her pretty much never during the week. He will be going to school again in a couple weeks and will be dropping her off on his way so at least they'll have a 15 minute car ride together, but dang! It was hard for me to realize that he didn't get to see the kids much anyway especially with naps and everything, because I am with them every single hour of every single day. Just as he doesn't quite understand that I would have no problem if a grandparent would want to steal them for a few hours or an afternoon...or a day....or a weekend...

Right now he's completely stuck at this job at this shift. The guy that does his job on first shift is really old and I think he should just go ahead and retire, but we don't see that happening any time soon. It would be really hard to find a job that pays enough and there are a couple other issues that are keeping him were he is right now. So we're just plain stuck. It sucks, but we can hope there is a 1st shift job in our very near future, especially since we'll be sending an additional kid to school each passing year!

Off to Kindergarten!

Here are some blurry iPhone photos of Emma all dressed in uniform before heading off for her first day of kindergarten! She is still all kinds of excited and had no trouble whatsoever with me leaving her there. I knew it would be no trouble with Little Miss Independent!