The results are in

So it turns out the testing was limited to one test, and the results are in. Our family will remain mostly unchanged.  I however will be changed forever.
Last December just as my cycle was ending and a new month was beginning I lay in bed taking my temperature,  doing my best to be faithful to the promise I have made to my husband to give him all the information I could regarding my cycles and letting him and God choose what would happen.  I distinctly heard the voice of the Holy Spirit speak to me. "Trust me" he said. I almost laughed out loud.  I knew he meant that I was going to become pregnant again.  I felt that God should have been telling Patrick that, not me.
Sure enough my cycle was CRAZY and Patrick and I miscommunicated a few times leading us both to believe our family size was probably about to change.  I was excited and nervous,  Patrick didn't want more kids, but I knew he would warm up to it.
The day my period was due I took a test,  it was faint but positive.  A few hours later the line had disappeared but I knew what I saw. I had jokingly told Patrick that if I was pregnant I was going to have his best friend tell him. The idea had really grown on me, so I called our friends and let them decide how to give Patrick our wonderful news.
That night as we celebrated Art's 30th birthday he opened his presents and then gave a gift to Patrick saying he was sorry that he hadn't bought Patrick a Christmas present last month and that here was his late gift.
The box was big. Patrick opened it and out popped three balloons with the words "welcome baby" written on them, and four pictures of a positive pregnancy test. .. not mine since the line had disappeared. On each picture was written the words "congratulations on baby #4". Patrick was dumbfounded for a minute and then he came and hugged me. It was the best announcement ever!
I took another test the next morning and again saw a faint positive line that again disappeared a few hours later. I know a positive is a positive and all but I wanted that dang line to stay in place. So I bought another test, this time one with pink dye as those are supposed to be less faulty.  I couldn't wait to take it so I went to the bathroom and took it when Patrick was having a nap. I showed it to him and felt like a kid at easter searching for eggs, only instead of eggs I wanted a cheerful expression from my husband.
The line on the pink dye test stayed... it is still there now.
The following Friday I decided to tell my mom. She was surprisingly supportive.  I thought at least she would have picked on us for getting pregnant so quickly after saying we were done, and at most she would have only faked her excitement,  but she didn't,  she was fully supportive.  And happy even. I asked her what changed, a year earlier she and my sister individually gave me the birth control talk... she said I had matured a lot since then.  I don't necessarily agree but it was a compliment from my mother and I will take it.
On Monday morning at 4 am I woke up to bleeding.  Our baby was leaving us so shortly after arriving in our lives.  I bled for two days and spotted for about another 4 or 5, it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, and didn't last as long, wasn't even a typical period amount of blood, hope started building inside my heart.
I read everything I could find on the Internet,  someone said vanishing twin syndrome, I prayed but I felt empty. A week went by and I needed to know if my baby was still there so I scheduled a visit with a midwife who could test my blood and see what was going on. We expected two tests, one for a base line and one to see the changes in my hormone levels, I would only get one.
The morning of the test I was totally stressed out. I yelled at the kids and broke down crying more than once... I am ashamed of my behavior to be honest.  I also felt nauseous which I took to be a good sign.
After having my blood drawn I was feeling good about the possibility of still being pregnant.  I had read about breakthrough bleeding and that bleeding in pregnancy happens in a lot of cases (not any of mine but Jaemi's, but every pregnancy is different right) I even read it was more common in twin pregnancy and that usually both babies were fine. I hoped for twins. Hoped badly that this could all be explained by the presence of twins in my uterus.
Thursday at 10 I should have expected a call from the midwife.  She called at 8. She immediately explained that she was so sorry to tell me my baby was gone,  not going, gone.
Hcg levels are supposed to double every 3-4 days,  you can have up to a 10 any day without pregnancy,  mine was less than 2.
I had spent a whole 4 days building up hope in something that had already happened/disappeared,  something and someone I would never meet, and because I had hoped the news was doubly good, when it wasn't it felt doubly bad.
I called Patrick and he came home to be with me. I didn't necessarily feel like he should leave work, but I am so glad he did.
We named our baby Sara Lynn.  Sara was the name Patrick choose and Lynn because my mother's middle name is Lynn and she was far nicer to me than I had expected her to be. It is sort of becoming a tradition to name our lost babies after people who out of nowhere show kindness that wasn't expected or deserved when we are loosing a baby.  Jaemi Hale was a compilation of a family of people who cared for me while I lost him/her. Jamean Amy and Haley.
Sara is my lost princess. I woke up a few days before I got that positive pregnancy test thinking to myself, "this baby is a girl"... I didn't know I was pregnant then so I brushed it off until after the test, and then I knew like I knew with Fia... I was having a girl.
Now my girl is in heaven, with Jaemi,  and I don't even know why. I do however trust that God is in control. .. and one day my heart will mend a little and I will see my children in heaven one day.

Testing

Over the course of the next few days I will be subject to a few tests that will very much decide the direction of our family.  Am I excited about this?  Yes and profoundly no.
I would love to divulge what is happening but would rather wait until I have at least some answers. So for now I am asking that if anyone is reading this, please pray. For me, for the outcome of the testing,  and for my family.
The amazing thing is that God has already given me so many answers. The first being that a few weeks ago, before this test was even on my radar the Holy Spirit spoke to me one morning, saying "trust me" and I of course said I would.
Then a few rough and questionable weeks passed and this testing has become the answer to some questions.  And this morning, the morning of the first test, I read the verse of the day on the you version app on my phone, it was psalm 27:14 "wait on the Lord, be of good courage, he shall strengthen thine heart, wait on the Lord"
I trust, and I will allow God to hold me up while I am in such an uncertain place.
Will you let God hold you up today?

My cleaning schedule

Bare with me if you have read this before, I promised to send this to a friend and then couldn't find it... oh yes that is what tags are for! Now I know.
Anyway this is how I start out the week with goals of what to accomplish.
Monday - Boys
Wash their laundry, get them to clean their room including vacuuming and washing the windows.
Tuesday- Towels
Wash towels and clean at least one of my bathrooms top to bottom.  This doesn't take long if you really think about it. So don't freak out.
Wednesday- We
(There is a method to my madness, it doesn't much matter how you set up your week so long as you can remember why each day is set aside for that task)
Wash the hubby's and my laundry
Clean my bedroom. .. probably the most ignored room in the house, I feel it is important to give it a day of attention. ..plus when mommy is cleaning her room the kids don't get to come in and I get a Break. They don't have to know if I take a 5 minute break to eat the chocolate hidden in my dresser
Thursday - catch up or get ahead
I don't have specific laundry to wash or a room to clean, this is my grace day... did the rest of the week not go so well?  Is this weekend going to be busy?  Use this day to accommodate the week you are having.
Friday- Fia
Wash Fia's laundry
Help her clean her room including vacuuming and washing the windows
Saturday - sheets
Wash the sheets
(Even the busiest weekend has time for washing a few dirty sheets, but I only do this on an as needed basis)

This list covers every room in the house except the ones you constantly see... so it is important to add a few daily tasks to the list. Things that need to be done at least once every day without fail (unless you want double work the next day)

My daily D's
Dishes (load the dish washer AND hand wash whatever doesn't fit or shouldn't go in it) don't skip any part of this.. it doesn't matter what time of day you do it but getting into the habit of doing it at a set time each day helps to get it done.
Dirty floors-
This is a quick pick up and either sweeping or vacuuming any room that needs it.  This is important don't overwhelm yourself. ..unless you have some medical reason for vacuuming every single day don't do it.  The point of this is to help you feel like you can stay on top of the mess, not to make your home the cleanest on the block.
Dirty counters (or tables or stands)
Clutter is not cool. Get rid of it.  You will not accomplish this on the first day so take it easy and do one space at a time. Start with the kitchen. Right after doing the dishes, it is natural to clean the counters and stove top so do a good job of it and take care of the mess. If your kitchen is like my mom's was when I was a kid you may want to tackle one counter top at a time. Each day get one clean and the next day clean the same one and one more and eventually you will have each clutter filled space taken care of and it is easy to keep up with them when you take care of it every day.
Now once you have done the daily d's you will have a pretty clean living space. If you have a relaxed weekend and got all your other chores done then use your Thursday to deep clean something.  But Don't do anything that takes longer than 15-30 minutes.  So if there is a big task break it up into smaller ones.
OK so now that I have taught you my system it is time for me to implement it...
I will be honest there has been some emotional life events that put my whole system on hold and that needs to change.... so I am starting off fresh too!
Good luck to you!

*btw the days I listed have meaning to me so to explain I will tell you what it means and you can feel free to change yours up.
Monday is the first day in the week and my oldest son's name starts with the letter closest to the beginning of the alphabet (consequently "boys" also starts with a letter close to the beginning :)
Tuesday starts with T and so does towels.
Wednesday starts with we so it makes sense to wash we's laundry that day.
Thursday didn't get a good match to anything so it was my catch up and get ahead day
Friday,  Fia is my daughters nickname and they both start with F.
Saturday starts with s.. so does sheets
Sunday is God's day. And I feel that even a mom can attempt not to work on sunday.. I cook, but I do not wash dishes or clean, it makes a little more work on monday and a little prep work on Saturday but I get a day off so I think that is ok.
I do admit that Sunday night after the kids are in bed I lesson plan for the next week of school but this doesn't take long and I am hoping to find a better day to do it on soon, for now though this works.

Good luck and God bless you on your journey towards a clean and organized life.

Getting back on track

It is amazing how a series of tiny differences can add up to make your week a mess!
whatever that last holiday was (yes I should know but it isn't even 6 am yet and my brain hasn't turned on yet) we decided to take advantage of the amazingly warm weather and go to the zoo. Originally when I planned this and invited all our home school friends I had no idea it fell on the holiday and therefore had no idea that a lot of people wouldn't be working and kids wouldn't be in school. I just thought it was warm, sunny, and Monday in January and the zoo is free.... let's go.
I will start off by saying it was incredible!  I loved it, but man were my mommy skills challenged!  There were so many people at the zoo it was hard to move around! Especially when you had 13 kids to watch! Now I wasn't the only mama watching them all, we actually had 6 adults in our group. .. but wow!
And I won't even tell you about our adventures in the parking lot where the spaces were painted so long ago that not even a small car has enough room to open a door without hitting the next car over. A friend has had to leave her infant car seat (infant inside) on the ground back up her car to open the door and then put the seat inside! How scary is that? I would be FREAKING OUT!
Anyway zoo on monday, grocery shopping, babysitting a couple extra kids, and visiting a few friends on Tuesday,  and by Wednesday I was on adventure withdrawal.
Does anyone else get that? Am I alone on adventure withdrawal?  If I has a series of events that get me going or raise my adrenaline and then follow that with a day of absolutely mundane every day stuff... I get antsy and won't do a thing the way I am supposed to.  It happened immediately after Patrick and I were married, he thought I was going crazy or in a huge depression, which in a way I was... All that planning, preparing, celebrating and excitement that my biggest dream was coming true, then the honeymoon and touring the area, and then home and back to work. .. and doing laundry and dishes (for two now) I was down... I needed an adventure and quickly.
So the zoo and visits with friends is a much smaller deal than my wedding obviously,  and the feeling down stuff didn't last long, just all day Wednesday!  Which meant my dishes piled up, my floors got dirty, my laundry did not get washed, Caeden actually finished school when he was supposed to,  and though that was AWESOME,  it left me with nothing I HAD to do the rest if the day and I was bored out of my mind...lol
No more today though.
So far today I have put in a load of laundry, gotten dressed, loaded the dish washer, done my bible study, and let the dog out.... and of course written this... and the kids are still asleep.   my last two goals are to clean off the table and to fold the load of towels I took from the dryer.
And it is only 6am.. why can't I be this proverbs 31 woman every day..?
Good morning!  Have a cup of tea and wake up at your pace... before your kids. From my experience your day goes much more smoothly.  Or at least starts out better.

Letters to Jesus

It is time once again (and long overdue) to share a letter to Jesus.  Every morning I try to wake up before the children and spend some time reading God's Word and reflecting on the day to come and where I need him most in my life at that time, the result is a journal of letters I write to God.  Some of them I think are helpful to others and I share them here.  Enjoy the read.
"Dear Lord Jesus, ruler of all,
When that woman was about to be stoned and you forgave her and the men who dropped their stones walked away, you were full of mercy, something not all Christians have been able to grasp.  But I am seeing now why it could be hard to understand.
Ephesians 5:10-13 says "Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful acts of darkness,  but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible. "
This sounds like we should expose other people's sins, but I believe we are meant not to tell of their sin, but rather expose to them that the action is sin. Not to shame them as your word says: but by being the light of Christ we can tell them there is darkness, but we do not have to live in it.
Ephesians 5:14 "For everything that becomes visible is light.  Therefore it says "sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. "  "
Expose the sin simply by being the light that shines bright enough to give the sinner a way out of the sin.
I never paid much attention to the particular words of Ephesians 5:33 either until now either, and I see how they are incredibly needed.
"Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. "
Love comes easily to most women,  we give it freely to our husband, our children, our families and friends. What is not natural is respect.  We love our husband deeply, but when he does something we don't like, or forgets to do what we ask him to do we resort to nagging, the evil eye, tattle telling to other women,  withholding our bodies, and clinging to the offense. None of this is the respectful character you have called us to.
And husbands should love their wives. .. but they respect more easily than love.
When Patrick and I were first married he came home from work wanting intimate details of my day. And I didn't have anything to offer the conversation. So I would ask him to take out the trash or help with dinner, he would walk away and watch TV.  All of this was incredibly frustrating.  I thought he was wanting to spend time with me or show me he cares but really he was showing me I was his equal (asking about my day and sharing his with me) and not showing me love (helping me with my work).
We all need to be careful to meet the needs of those we love.  "Men love your wives" and " women respect your husbands". How else could we do this but with you Lord Jesus?

Love,
Samantha"

This letter is my personal thought on the word of God as it pertains to my walk with Christ. I do not claim to know your life or how you should live it, I do hope my thoughts are helpful to you, but if anything I have said offends you I pray you can see that it wasn't meant to do that, but instead to encourage and bring you closer to the love of God.

Clean and homey

I feel bad it has been so long since I have updated this page but everything has been incredibly busy and incredibly wonderful!
I am not what we call a crunchy person. .. but I am learning so many things in the art of home keeping lately that it makes me excited to tell you all the wonderful things I am learning.
I hate cleaning bathrooms,  and hate scrubbing things even more... I mean come on who wants to spend the day with chemicals and strong odors and a sponge that seems to do no good? Not me.  But then thanksgiving came.
I hosted thanksgiving twice this year. Once for our friends and once for my cousin and her family, the closest and only blood relatives able to travel and spend the holiday with us.
Thanksgiving was awesome by the way.  But Friday evening I learned what is possibly the best cleaning secret on the planet.  Baking soda!  Yup. This amazing cooking substance also scours pans, counter tops, teapots,  and glass electric stove tops!
Just a small pile of this lovely stuff a wash cloth, and a tiny bit of water and a but of elbow grease.  And all that built up cooked on, stuff that even the amazing  Dawn dish soap doesn't lift, is magically done forever! Well until you cook it on again anyway.
So after that amazing discovery I had to use it on EVERYTHING! And use it I did! But my fascination did not stop there... There had to be other tricks no one ever told me...
Pintrest helped out by giving me a list of cleaners I could make on my own. I have only tried one but it was so simple and wonderful I fell in love!
1 tablespoon dawn dish soap
2 quarts of water
1\4th cup of vinegar. .. Mix well and store in a spray bottle. .. works great for so many things.  Pintrest said it was a glass cleaner and yes it works great on glass, windows mirrors you name it, but what else? Apparently carpets!
My daughter spilled my delicious mint flavored hot chocolate on my carpet.  I SUCK at carpet stains and totally freaked out. Normally I would make my husband clean up the mess so it wouldn't stain, but he wasn't home. The only option left was to try to clean it myself.. I grabbed a wash cloth and the first cleaner I could find which happened to be this mix, spray spray spray and like one of those fake commercials the color of the chocolate on my off white carpet completely disappeared,  and I mean completely.  I sapped gently with the wash cloth and it collected the chocolate color and my carpet was left amazingly clean! Now I will say it was not an old stain I don't know if it would work on a old stain but I can say I am SOLD on making my own cleaners!
That of course could not stop my excitement,  I quickly budgeted a few extra things into my grocery list and made my own laundry detergent!  And yes I am totally sold on that too!  I followed a Recipe that includes Borax, washing soda, baking soda,  and gain crystals with Fels Naptha Soap that I grated with my cheese grater... and u will be using this mix Forever!  Only thing I would change is the amount if gain...next time just 1 bottle instead of two, the smell is good but too strong.
The rest is history!  I am turning crunchy by accident!

Happy birthday to my little girl!

4 years ago today I had the most amazing little girl.  Though life threw her a few lemons she has made some spectacular lemonade!  Her personality warms my heart, I know that one day she will be an amazing wife and mother, or really anything she sets her mind to.
Yesterday she took her baby doll to the chiropractor with her, after our appointment she needed to go potty, I took her to the bathroom and there was a changing table sitting off to the side. She laid her baby carefully on the shelf of the changing table (she couldn't really reach the top), proceeded to go potty, and then announced that baby needed a diaper change.  She careful set baby off to the side of the shelf,  laid out baby's blanket nice and smooth, then put baby on it, lifted baby's legs and said "eww, that's yucky". She pretended very gently to wipe baby and replace her imaginary diaper, then she lifted baby off the shelf the way only a mother does to be sure the baby's head doesn't fall back, cover the doll with her other blanket, and announce that we were all done.
I can't tell you how excited I am to not only give Fia a cabbage patch kid for her birthday, but also to give her a nicer stroller and car seat for Christmas! 
Her mother skills are not all I love about her though. Fia has an awesome sense of fun, and her humor is so sarcastic but sweet at the same time.  Her laugh makes everyone smile, and though she has the determination of a bull dog, she also has the compassion of a dolphin.
4 years old! Gosh she is growing so fast!  I had no idea how quickly she would grow out of that sweet toddler look she held on to so well,  but she is a child now, no longer rounded like a baby, or uncoordinated like a toddler.  I am so in love with her!
Happy birthday to my big girl Fia!