Tired but good

Aaaahhh to sit and update the ol' blog. :) Something I haven't done in far to long. But come to think of it, there are many things I probably need to do that I haven't in far too long. To all of you whom I owe an email back, forgive me, I promise I haven't forgotten. :)

The truth is, I don't get on my computer much these days.

Right now I type this with a very poor internet connection from the "living room" (I'm chuckling to myself right now that I'm even calling it that) of our humble hotel/suite. We've been here for a week and have one more week to go. Per a friends' suggestion, I'm going to share with you what its like in our tiny quarters. You walk into the very small, said living room with a fold out couch, coffee table, a dresser and TV. Then there is a two person table that connects it to the kitchen: a small fridge, a mini microwave, a sink and two electric burners. There is one door to a full bathroom and another door to a bedroom which has a king size bed, a desk, and another dresser with a TV. Surprisingly there's another full size bathroom in that bedroom.

Yes, its tight with 7 people, but it actually works. Micah and Abby sleep on the floor next to our bed (on cozy palates that I secretly think might be softer than our mattress), Mabry's pack n'play is in the 2nd bathroom (for those who know me, putting pack n'plays in bathrooms and large closets is nothing new! :)), and Ashley and Emily share the fold out couch. So really its not a bad setup. No one is getting much sleep, but hey, we've all got a cozy place to lay down. :)

At mealtime (and yes I've been cooking... creatively...) Micah and Abby sit at the coffee table, Mabry sits in her trayed booster seat on the floor, and the girls sit at the table. Jake and I either eat standing or "facilitate" the kids while they're eating and just eat when they're all done. The kitchen has one pot, one skillet, one spatula and a few dishes. So we've had tacos, spaghetti, hot dogs, sandwiches, and a few meals out. :)

Its not in our town but close enough. Jake is still taking the girls to school every day and I'm just driving the little ones into Spring Hill for school a couple of days a week.

Oh and Florida! Well... it was an adventure. :) Me, my friend, 9 children and a babysitter. We lived. (Because I don't have a great connection here, I've opted to only post the pics of that on FB, so if we're FB friends, you'll have to check them out there.) Lets see.... the plan was to leave out after church on Sunday (Easter). But because something MUST go wrong, Abby threw up all over herself minutes before we had to leave for church. The next few hours after that were, um, interesting. My mom came to my rescue as I waited for my friend to get out of church... and those were a couple of interesting hours that Mom and I don't even want to remember so I'll move along in the story. (Thanks again, Mom) :) So I met up with D'Arcy and we hit the road around lunch time and had what I would consider a fairly successful caravan to Florida. (Side note- Abby never threw up again, thankfully!)

Our week was good, but extremely tiring. Micah really needs to NOT be away from his Daddy that long. He knows exactly how to push my buttons. And he's a professional escape artist who nearly gave me a heart attack... a couple of times. The other kids did okay. Just the usual stuff- the girls wanted to talk my head off 24 hours a day, bicker with one another, and perfect their love/hate sister relationship. The other highlights: we went through more sunscreen than I thought was possible, we watched the tail end of the Royal wedding, Ashley, Emily and Micah are all a little braver in the pool, Mabry and Abby finally made friends with the sand on the beach, and we made more memories taking late night walks to the Sugar Shack.

At the end of the week, I had to drive back a couple of days earlier than D'Arcy. Yes, I was a little nervous driving the 8 hour drive home alone, in my 3rd trimester, with five children, 3 of which are in diapers and the other two not old enough to be considered help when you're traveling. (In other words, if I had to pee, we ALL went in.) But actually, it went surprisingly well. Except for that one incident when Micah opened his door while going 70 through downtown Birmingham. That was a little scary.... ANYway...

I still say I'd rather be busy at the beach than busy at home. :) And I DID get a little start on a summer tan, even with a baby on my hip. :)

Last but not least, baby Avery is kicking my butt. Well... my abdomen I guess. :) She's a strong baby, and reminds me a lot of Emily in the womb. Extremely active but to the point of being painful. I've gained decent weight (though I lost a couple of lbs at the beach, lol, no big surprise there!) but I've been having these weird nauseous/dizzy spells the last couple of days. And the exhaustion is really getting to me too. I think I could sleep 12 hours at night AND take naps and still be tired... just can't seem to catch up. :/

Ok, well, speaking of sleep, its off to bed for this tired momma. We still plan to close on the house May 20th, so please keep us in your prayers. I can't wait to share pics of our new beautiful house when this whole escapade is over!