Catching Up...

Little Jillie Bean turned one year old May 21st! It was a beautiful day filled with celebrating with so many family members how far she's come this year. It was a bitter sweet day for me because it brought back so many memories of what all we went through with her one short year ago. Also, the fact that she is our last baby to turn one. No more first birthday parties at the Hendricks house. My sweet husband knew how hard the day was going to be on me and bought me a dozen roses to cheer me up. It was the perfect gift that reminded me when all the kids grow up and I have no more babies at home I will still have him. We were able to have her party at our new house even though we were still camping out there. Some of the things I don't want to forget that Jillian does right now: are how she talks all the time and really carries on a conversation with you pointing and nodding included. I also love how she tries to put on every article of clothing she comes across. We have many little names for her including Jillie Bean, Tater Tot, Little Princess (we don't dare call her Princess, that's Jennah's name and she corrects us every time we call her Princess), Bean, Baby Girl. She isn't sleeping through the night yet with exception of maybe a few nights. She loves her big brothers and sister and thinks she is just as big as they are. She dances all the time and loves music. She isn't walking yet, but just this week she has stood up twice by herself. I'm thinking it won't be long. She loves books and her new favorite thing is a baby doll she got for her birthday. She carries it around under her arm and tries to crawl, pats it, rocks it, and gives it tons of kisses. It's the cutest thing! She is the best eater I've had. She will eat just about anything I put in front of her. Some of her favorites right now include avocados, cucumbers, taco meat, roast beef, and all veggies. She is up to 18lb 3oz. I love to see what a big girl she's becoming and can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Sweet Baby Girl

Having some fun with the new tutu and camera. Jillian is almost 9 months old now and she is getting everywhere. She isn't crawling, but she scoots and rolls anywhere she wants to go.

Snow Days!

The kids had their first snow day of the season yesterday and they ended up getting out today too! Jennah invited Jillian up to her room for the first time to play. She introduced her to barbies and played with her for about 30 minutes. It was so nice; I was able to get the kitchen completely clean while they were playing together. Jack and Joel were enjoying some air hockey while the girls were playing.

100th Day of School...Almost

Have I mentioned before how much harder it is with four kids? I just can't keep everything straight. Between basketball practices, games, homework, school projects, birthdays, church, Jonathan's community events, laundry, getting the house ready to sell, laundry and more laundry, I get somethings confused. Joel's 100th Day of School celebration was one that I failed on. We spent several hours Tuesday evening trying to decide what he wanted to make as a project for the 100th day. He decided a shirt with 100 spiders might be fun. So after hours of painting and counting we finally had it finished along with the 100 M&M's he would also take with him. When he got home from school I asked if everyone loved his shirt and he frowned really big and told me, "No, some boys said it only had 95 spiders instead of 100 because it was only the 95th day of school not 100" I went searching for his note the teacher had sent home the week before to make sure I had the right day and it turns out those mean boys were right! The 100th day wasn't until NEXT Wednesday not this Wednesday. Oh well, we'll try again next week!

Jennah's 9!

Jennah turned 9 this year! I can't believe I have an 11 and 9 year old! She is so funny and I never know what to expect from her. The night before her big day we were kissing her goodnight and told her we were going to get one last kiss from our 8 year old and that she would never be 8 again. Jennah just started crying uncontrollably. We asked her what was wrong and she told us she didn't want to turn 9! She said she thought she would be too old to sit on my lap and let me rock her. I reassured her that she would never be too old for me to rock her and she was fine after that. She was so excited about her birthday she knew just what she wanted to wear down to how she wanted her hair and what bow to wear in it. She wanted me to have lunch with her at school, but instead I took her out at noon and we had lunch and went and saw Tangled, then Jonathan brought her flowers (always the highlight of her birthday).

Jack's 11

Jack is getting so big. He told us he thought he was too old this year to have a friend party and just wanted a family party. It caught me off guard and made me a little sad. I'm so proud of the young man he has become and can't wait to see what he does with the next 11 years of his life!

Jillian's 8 Months Old!

I can't believe my tiny little Jillie Bean is already 8 months old! It has gone by so fast. The other day Jennah and I were talking about her turning 8 months and Jennah said only 4 more months until she's one! I hadn't thought of it that way and started tearing up. It has definitely gone by so much faster than the other three's first years. Jillian got her first tooth January 8th. She has been rolling for quite a while now, but just in the past week she has realized that she can get around now by rolling. Yesterday she started waving on demand and clapping. We've been working on both of these for a long time now and she finally has them down! She's been shaking her head no no for a long time now and it never gets old watching her tell us no. She loves all her veggies, but doesn't care at all for fruits. She weighs 14lb 7oz. She can sit up now with no support at all and seems so much happier now that she is a little more independent.

New Years Eve

We had our annual New Years Eve "fancy" dinner, but this year was a little different. The kids are getting older and as you can tell from the picture Jack thought he was a little too old for the fancy dinner. He was a great sport about it though and helped do the decorations and surprised Jennah with them. Jillian and I had a cold and really didn't feel very well so we weren't in the best of moods, but I refused to not have our annual dinner. We had snow crab legs, stuffed mushrooms, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and mac and cheese (for Joel who doesn't like crab yet). This is the first year that Jennah has fixed her own makeup and hair for our dinner. She had lots of makeup to work with after Christmas and really enjoyed it. We all shared our resolutions and had a great time ringing in the New Year with homemade confetti. Every year I know we are one step closer to not having everyone with us for our dinner, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can. Happy New Year!

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010 did not disappoint, we had six family parties starting on the 18th and ending on the 25th. I always feel so blessed at Christmas time knowing how many family members we have that love us. The kids had such a great time with all their cousins. I only remembered my camera for a few of the parties so I'm missing some of the cousins.

Player of the Year

Jacksen played basketball with the Salvation Army this past winter and loved it. He never took a shot and never had a foul all season. He was however named player of the year and awarded this sweet Nike basketball because of his willingness to do everything his coaches said, attending almost every game and practice, and playing his best all season. He was a very proud boy and we are very proud of him. His team's name is "Money Makers" and he was asked to be on the same team for the summer league. With his award he has a new confidence and in the first game this summer he took three shots and made two fouls! He didn't make any of the shots but just shooting them is an accomplishment, and we can't wait to see what the rest of the season brings!

2 months old!

A few pictures of Jillian at 2 months old. She weighed in at 8lb 10 oz. last week at the doctor and I think she has gained at least a half a pound since then. She has started smiling and talking. She loves her big brothers and sister and gives them the biggest smiles of all. Jillian still has all of her hair and it just keeps getting longer and longer. She is finally out growing all the newborn clothes and is into 0-3 months!

Jillian Arrives

Jillian arrived 5 weeks and a day early. Her due date was June 26th and she came May 21st. I had been put on bed rest 5 and 1/2 weeks before that for what they called pre-preeclampsia. She weighed 3lb 14oz and was 16 inches long. She didn't have to be on any oxygen or a ventilator which is amazing considering how early she was. I will post later about what all we went through to get her here, but I had to start somewhere. These are the only pictures I was able to look at after she was born until the next day when I was able to go and see her. They whisked her away so fast I only got a glimpse of her before she went to the NICU. I think that was the hardest part of all of it. Even then I didn't get to hold her, it was another 24 hours before I was able to do that. She spent 9 days in the NICU and we would go and visit her everyday. I really struggled with whether or not to stay with her at the hospital, but with three other kids at home and the tough delivery I went through we decided it would be best for me to go home and get rest and spend all day there. This worked out well, but it was so hard to leave her at the end of the day. That is all for now next I think I'll post the bed rest days and what all we went through to get Jillian here. It feels so good to be back to blogging!

Wow!

What a rough couple of months! I'm afraid if I don't blog about it soon I will forget all the details of everything that's happened. This is one of my goals for this week; to get back into blogging. It was one of my goals last week too and it didn't happen. I had high hopes to print off this picture of the kids and have it sent out with all the thank you cards I have yet to write to so many friends and family that have been there for us through it all. It didn't happen so I'll share it on here. That is another goal I had last week that has become this weeks goal. Four kids has really slowed me down. I can't seem to get caught up on anything. I feel like I'm running in circles most of the time.

Miss Louise

This is an old picture from fall, but I can't put a story on here without sharing a picture. Aren't all the colors pretty in the trees behind the kids! I know the kids will love goofy pictures of themselves like this one some day. This is a typical fall Saturday afternoon at our house we rake and rake for hours then spend about ten minutes jumping in the leaves before cleaning it all up.

Here's the story I want to share today...I am now 22 weeks along and the kids are now able to feel the baby kick. They think it is so cool and really enjoy getting to feel their baby sister kicking them. It has become an evening routine for them to feel her kicking right before they all head off to bed. One day this week while they were feeling her kick, I told them that she is now old enough to hear us talk. They all wanted to start talking to my stomach so the baby would recognize their voices when she comes out. Then Jennah said all of a sudden, "mom you need to start calling me Miss Louise". (This is her middle name and when she forces Joel to play school with her this is what she makes him call her.) She went on to tell me that Miss Louise is what she wants her baby sister to call her when she gets here. Typical Jennah story that just cracks me up and I wanted to share. I hope this baby girl is going to be laid back, because she's going to need to be with all the stuff she's going to have to put up with from her big sister Jennah.

I'm Back!

Wow! So a lot has changed since my last post. I found out a week after returning home from my trip to Honduras that we are expecting our #4! We were completely surprised because we had stopped trying four months before and were happy with our family of 5. It was quite a shock for Jonathan as well. I told him I had some weird news and he jokingly said "what you're pregnant" I said "yep!". He sat quietly for a few seconds and said, "you're going to have to give me some time to think about it". All evening long he just kept looking at me and saying "really, really". We wanted to wait as long as we could to tell everyone because of the past trouble we'd had. We were able to wait until I was eight weeks along, which is good for us.

I am now 20 and 1/2 weeks along and we found out last week we are having a baby girl! We're so excited. We thought for sure it was a boy because I've been so sick. After dealing with the morning sickness for so long I finally broke down and asked for some medicine to help with the nausea and wow has it helped. I can't believe I didn't ask for it with Jacksen and Joel. I thought it would be easier having older children and being pregnant, but it doesn't seem to be it to has it's challenges. I can't just lay on the couch and let the kids play around me, I now have to go to ball games, ball practices, get them up and off to school and so on.

I am finally getting use to the idea of having another little one. When we decided we weren't having anymore we were set on it so it's really taken me a while to get use to the fact. Also, I can't believe how far apart the kids will be Jack will be 10 and 1/2, Jennah will be 8 and 1/2, and Joel will be two months from being 5!

We definitely feel blessed and are so excited to welcome a new little Hendricks into the world around June 26th!

Honduras Trip Part 1

The first thing we did when we landed in Honduras was go to the mall to get the 63 pairs of shoes for the boys at Jovenes. Thanks to the Bristow Church of Christ for their donation of the shoes. The sizing of the shoes was a little difficult as the house parents just traced around each kids footprint and then cut it out for us to find the correct size. I think it took about three hours for all the sizes to be found. One of my goals before Christmas is to find one of the metal shoe sizers to send to them so next time they will have it. I think that will make things so much easier.

One of the pictures is Rachel with all the shoes at Jovenes. The other one is one of my favorites. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but this is one of the boys trying on the new shoes with his old pair sitting right beside him with the front completely tore off of it.

Here's a little story of our trip to Jovenes I'd like to share. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. First of all, the kids hadn't been told we were going to be bringing shoes to them. The directors of Jovenes wanted it to be a surprise for them, and so as we arrived we wanted to walk around and see where everything was, as we were walking some kids met us and Will and Rachel started talking to them a little bit asking how they were and everything. As they walked off Rachel told us they said "you all have such nice shoes" it left me speechless. These little kids probably six or seven years old noticed how nice our shoes were. To us our shoes were ones that were pretty old and worn, but to these boys they were really nice. Precious kids!

One of the other things we got to do was take seven laptops for the boys. This last picture is the old computer lab at Jovenes. They now have seven laptops that we were able to deliver to them from Dudley. I think they will get great use out of them and I'm so glad we were able to be a part of getting them down there.

Where to Start

I've got a lot of updating to do so I'm going to go in the order I remember everything. The middle of September Jack broke his little finger in Bible class. They had finished up the lesson and were playing a game and a kid went to block Jack's throw and broke his finger. Jack was a little excited at first about having a cool cast, but that soon wore off. It was a water proof cast so that really helped with bathing. He was able to continue playing flag football. The orthopedic center we went to fitted him for a foam hand to wear around his cast so he could play without hurting anyone. He wore the cast for three weeks and the doctor said it didn't look so good when the cast was removed so we went back two weeks later to see if he needed to have surgery and he said it had straightened up like it should so no surgery! Yeah! When I was in Honduras was when he was suppose to have the cast removed so Jonathan took him. Jack was so ready to get it off and had been pretty cranky with it on. Since Jon changed jobs we had new insurance and he forgot the new insurance card and they wouldn't take it off without paying cash for it $300, so they had to reschedule for the next day. Poor Jack, from what I hear he was pretty upset with Dad. I flew in that night and was able to take him the next day to get it removed, so he didn't have to wait too much longer.

Joel First Day of PreK

Joel started PreK at our church a week ago and he is loving it. It has been really hard on me. I'm feeling much better about it now though. I can't believe my baby is old enough for school. I didn't think this time would come yet. After I dropped him off I went to Target for some retail therapy and found myself crying in the aisles. I'm sure everyone thought I was crazy. There was a mom with little kids in her basket that weren't acting right and I could tell the mom was getting frustrated. I wanted so badly to tell her to relax and enjoy this time with your kiddos because it won't be long at all until you're alone like me. I know it's just three days a week, but this is all I've done for the past almost ten years now. It's just going to take me sometime to get use to. The last picture of Joel and me was taken before I really broke down. I did okay for me until I was walking out of the building and someone asked me if I was okay and I said yes. She said you don't look okay. That's when I broke down! She felt so bad for me. Her husband kept telling me you'll be able to pick him up in a few hours. I felt so bad for them. They didn't know what to do with me. I doubt if they ever ask me how I'm feeling again.

Joel's 4!

I can't believe my baby is four. We had a great party for him on his birthday at a new park in town. He was so happy and had such a great time. Thank you to all the family that came to help us celebrate.