Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day

October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day. I would put a link, but many of the sites I found want us to remember our children that are now angels. I believe my 6 miscarried Lambs are in heaven, but they are not angels. Angels were created during creation by God, not babies that go to heaven.
We have not named our miscarried babies. This is partly because I would have a difficult time coming up with 12 (first and middle) names. Also because each time we have had a baby boy we have saved our girl names. I feel like we should save our baby names for any possible future living children. Also our 3 boys only know about one of these miscarriages. It is much easier for all of us when they talk about our miscarried baby thinking of that one and I think of all of our miscarriages. Someday I would like to name them, but not yet.
If our miscarried babies would have lived, we would have a 7 year old and 5 children that are under 3 years old. This is a difficult concept for me because if the 7 year old would have lived then we wouldn't have Lamb 2.
I wish I had some great words of wisdom for others that have experienced the loss of an infant. I have found the book and blog He Remembers the Barren very helpful. Also, I'm blogging about this because I know very few women that had more than one or two miscarriages-I'm here to tell you that I've had 6. You are not alone if you have had several miscarriages.
I imagine we all know someone that has had a miscarriage or stillbirth or loss of an infant under age one. Today is a good day to remember those families in your prayers.

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

Oscar the Grouch

Ram wore an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt last night. Here's the supper conversation...

Lamb 3: Papa, I know who is on your shirt because he's in one of my books.

Ewe: Do you know that Oscar the Grouch is on a TV show?

Lamb 3: No, but I know he is in one of my books!

Conversations like this remind me why I've made a list of classic Disney movies and we're going to watch most of what is on the list before we go to Disneyland.

More about vacation

We had a get together at one of our former churches in MN. Many of our former members came to one church that one night to see us. One of the members said she never thought she would see us again. That broke my heart. I answered that of course we would come back and visit! Many of our members got a little older and their health is failing a little more. We could see that more after being gone than if we would have been there the whole time. It was very bittersweet to see everyone again. Those few that weren't able to be there were missed even more by us. It was great to show them pictures of our new house and tell them about our new church and preschool.
We got together with some of the pastors from the area. It was great to see them and their wives again. So far we don't know the pastors here that well. Plus our area is spread out-even into OR, not within 45 minutes like we had in MN.
We visited friends in the area and did a little shopping in MN. I miss no sales tax on food or clothing or shoes. I miss knowing exactly which store in which town to get something at. Living in the city means most stores are just down the street, but the stores don't always have what I want. We ate breakfast at the town cafe one morning and visited the people from our old town. We all had an adjustment at our favorite chiropractor. We closed our bank account in our former town. We bought stamps at our old town's post office. We bought Lamb 1 and 2 new shoes. We bought a bunch of sauerkraut that must be a Midwestern thing because I can't find it here. We were only there for one night, but we fit in seeing a lot of people.
Then we drove and stayed with friends and visited other friends that live near them now. Then we drove straight through from MN to IN. We arrived at my parents at 3am. The Lambs did not go to sleep until after midnight. That was a long drive with Lambs awake. But it meant after sleeping in that we had another day at Ewe's parents during our short vacation that we wouldn't have had if we had stayed at a hotel that night.

Meal planning this week

I went to the farmer's market last Saturday so planning meals was easy-just use the fresh produce! I should have gone to the farmer's market more this summer, it would have made meal planning so much easier. Here's what we made:
1. Where we buy farm eggs they haven't had any to sell the last few weeks. I haven't checked if they have any again. So I bought 3 dozen at the farmer's market and Lamb 3 requested egg salad when he saw the eggs I bought.
2. Ram grilled salmon that his dad caught on his Alaska trip. That was a nice treat.
3. We made a stir fry with chicken and veggies.
4. I made a butternut squash stew that was delicious-with apples and pork. Also made biscuits to eat with it and paleo banana bread for breakfast.
5. Tomorrow we plan to have stuffed peppers. All my Lambs love the stuffed part, some of them like the peppers.
6. Recently I made an elk roast thanks to some nice friends that gave it to us after a good hunting season last year.
7. I still have a few more ideas of meals to make from meat/veggies in the freezer. Next week I am getting 20 lbs of chicken so I need to make as much room as possible in my little freezer above the fridge. There are some leftovers in there and also a lot of tomatoes so perhaps we will have homemade tomato soup.

Rapunzel, let your hair down again!

During our vacation I stopped at my favorite hair stylist and had my hair cut. It ended up being almost exactly 2 years since the first Rapunzel letting her hair down. 

This was taken the day before the hair cut. 

12 inches were given to Wigs 4 Kids with childhood leukemia, if I pull the wavy hair straight (which is allowed). After 21 inches two years ago, it didn't seem like very much.

I forgot to take a picture after the haircut. When I thought of it after vacation, my camera was in the shop. Now it has been a few months and my hair is a little longer. Oh well. I don't even have any photos of myself around that time because I usually take the pictures. It was cut a little longer this time than last time. Last time I was excited after the hair cut when it grew out long enough to reach to touch my chin again. This time it touched below my chin right after it was cut. I suppose I could have donated an inch or two more this time, but I don't like my hair that short. I'm going to try to grow my hair out and get it cut/donate at least one more time before I turn 40.

As always, this hair was donated to Wigs 4 Kids with childhood leukemia in memory of our friend, Harrison. I received a thank you card from Wigs for Kids and Harrison's mom received a card too. Harrison is still in our hearts and his family is still in our thoughts and prayers.

Vacation pictures-Teddy Roosevelt National Park

Lamb 1 in tree, Lamb 2 with sticks

Lamb 3

Lamb 2

Lamb 2, Lamb 3, Lamb 1

Our vacation in July we stopped at Teddy Roosevelt National Park for a place to walk around and get out of the car for a little. The Lambs found sticks on the ground and a nice tree to climb near the visitor's center. Ram and I had a chance to examine the windshield as a truck threw gravel at us in MT making one small and one large spot on the windshield. This traveling day took longer than we expected so we did not connect with DakotaPam this trip. Other than this stop at Teddy Roosevelt National Park, we just drove and stopped when needed for food, restrooms, or hotel from ID to MN. We tried to do this part of the trip quickly to get to the part of the trip where we could see family and friends.

VBS 2012

I am writing this the day before I post it. Everyone in our family has had the stomach virus except for me. I am assuming that I will get it too so I'm writing this while I'm still well.
I didn't take my camera to VBS every day and I was really too busy helping/teaching the preschool class to take very many pictures. Here are a few.

One day of VBS the fire truck visited. It had nothing to do with VBS other than to break up the week with something fun for the kids. VBS went 9-12 for preschool, 9-3 for school age kids. Some of the staff from Camp Perkins led the school age VBS.

Preschool VBS music time had some time to march with musical instruments. Lamb 3 is in the light blue shirt.

On the last day of VBS it was water day. After a shortened lesson time the preschoolers were able to play on this slide one of the members brought. It was great for them to have their own area away from the big kids. Lamb 3 is being splashed by one of the 1 1/2 year old twins from our church after going down the slide.

Lamb 2 on the slip and slide one of the members brought for water day.

Lamb 1 on the slip and slide.

It was a fun week and great to see so many kids that aren't members of our church attend too. A few of the school age kids asked for a Bible which we gladly provided for them.