More summer fun

Dune Climb...this is the dune I would probably die if I tried to climb up. The kids attempted it, but started back up before they were half-way down. The sand was "hot" that day.
Adam climbing again...everytime we turn around he goes all spiderman on something.
On our bus back from the Sand Dunes with some friends. Jack didn't want his picture taken with me. :( Little turd!
Sarah and Carmin trying to keep warm after playing in the water.
Jack begged me to take this picture of him. LOL He piled on the sand himself and had to get in the "just right" pose before I snapped the pic. "Okay, I'm ready." he said.

1st Quilt

This is the first quilt that I completed from start to finish. This is for Dan's cousin who is due to have her first baby, a boy, in September.

Missing you...

This is my dad holding our oldest daughter Sarah, just after she was born, June 18th 1999. One and a half months after this picture was taken, my daddy died. Today, July 31st marks exactly 8 years since he's been gone. As you can probably imagine it is really difficult sometimes for me to even look at his picture without being upset. It wasn't my dad's time to go but he went anyway. I always hate this day and the weeks before it as I always have nightmares about him reminding me this anniversary is coming. I miss him so much...he only met our first child and the last time he got to hold her she was just 4 days old. Now Sarah is 8 and we have Adam who is 6, Jack who is 4, Grace who is almost 2 and another baby boy coming in a few months. All of whom never had the pleasure of meeting my dad, their Grandpa Irwin. He was the best dad in the world and our lives have never been nor will they ever be the same. The only happiness I feel is knowing that one day I will see him again in Heaven. My children will one day meet the Grandpa they were robbed of meeting on earth. I know my dad is in Heaven so I should be happy for him. He is no longer hurting or suffering like he did the last days of his life. I can't imagine what he was going through before he died, but I know he now rests comfortably in the arms of our mighty Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is hard to be happy that he is up there because I want him here with me, and that is what is so hard to deal with.

So daddy, if you can hear me...please know that we all miss you so very much and will always love you and can't wait for the day that we can one day see you again in Heaven.

Love your daughter,
Melissa

To Mom and Tanya -I love you guys and am thinking of you today as we all suffer from this loss.

Revelation 21:4 (Whole Chapter) He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Art Class

Sarah was at art class all last week. It was a birthday present from one of her grandmas. I believe it was day two of class when they learned about self portraits. Here is her self portrait. We think she did pretty well in art class. She loves to draw pictures and write stories so this really encouraged her to keep on drawing and writing.

More pictures...

Amie made these dresses for my girls. I picked up the material at a garage sale awhile ago, but I don't know how to sew much, especially clothes so she offered to teach me a few things while making these dresses. I love the way they turned out and so did everyone else when we showed up to church all dressed up. She made the hats too. You can check out all her other sewing adventures here.
Sarah wanted to practice her new found love of photography when she snapped this picture of me and Grace. You can't see but Adam and Jack are off to the side playing on the cool tree rope/swing that Dan made them.
Garden goodness: Here is our latest pickings from our garden this year. The carrots arn't quite ready yet but they still taste yummy and the radishes have already been harvested so they didn't make it in this picture. We have already eaten lots of green beans, lettuce and spinach in addition to the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes pictured here. We have picked quite a few jalapenos but I'm not a big fan and our big tomatoes and onions arn't ready for making salsa just yet. Our corn is just about ready. Man, I can't wait to eat some fresh corn on the cob. We are still waiting on the broccoli and watermelon although I'm not sure we will actually get watermelon this year. We'll see.

Sarah and Sadie

Here is my Sarah and Amie's Sadie. Both names mean "princess". Isn't that a great picture?

Belly Shots

Adam took this picture and cut my head off. LOL At least you can see my belly and that is what's important.
Sarah took these two, I am 21weeks 5 days today! LOL Jack in the background wrestling with Adam.
There was a shadow cast on my chin and it looks like facial hair or a bruise. LOL Yuck!

Accomplishments

Some "cheese" moments...
It has been over a month now since Adam learned to ride his bike without training wheels. He is doing a great job and is even trying to jump jumps with his bike. He had a couple accidents in the beginning including a major accident that involved having his eyes closed...he is a boy...need I say more. LOL He is much better now!
The kids have been trying to climb our little tree in our backyard which they finally accomplished. This picture was taken at Grandma Al's house in her backyard in the "Fairy Tree". Adam was very proud of himself for climbing this HUGE tree.
Sarah climbed the tree in the front yard at Grandma Al's house and was very proud of herself as well.
And of course Jack had to get involved in the tree climbing also. Here he is not too far from the ground in another tree in Grandma's front yard. We had a great time over the 4th of July weekend at Grandma's house. The weather was gorgeous!!
Another accomplishment.....Grace is sleeping in a big girl bed now (bunk bed) and has been for the past two weeks. We didn't have any trouble moving her from the crib to the bed. She loves sleeping in her big sissy's room. Now all four kids have bunkbeds and they love 'em.

And last but not least....I can finally put Gracie's hair in pig tails and a pony tail too! I was so excited to be able to pull her hair back. She looks so cute and so grown up. This picture looks kinda sloppy because she wore her hair up all day. It looks better right after it's done. She does however have to wear a clip in the front since her bangs aren't quite long enough to pull back yet.

Well...those were some accomplishments we've made this past month since summer break began. More soon to come I'm sure.

Name Change

Well, as you can see from the title, I have changed my blog name. Dan didn't like my previous name and several other bloggers had the same name so I started thinking. I am terrible at coming up with witty things like cool names, etc...but then I remember something my cousin just told me in an email about her baby boy. As mentioned above she said she cheeses out over everything he does. I thought, hey...my inspiration for a blog name. Thanks Chrissy for my inspiration. I obviously changed my site name as well since I am pregnant with baby #5 so momblogs4 won't work for too much longer. I figured if I change the address to match the title somewhat then I won't have to worry about changing it ever. Sarah picked out the address name http://www.thecheesestation.blogspot.com/ Thanks Sarah!

Drum roll please.......

That's right, He is a BOY! This of course confirms my ultrasound a 14 weeks which also showed a boy. My hemorrhage is still there and I won't have full report until Friday. There is no new bleed and everything else was looking good. BPM=144 Now we are on the name hunt, our best boys names have been used on our other two boys. This outta be fun!

Happy 8th Birthday!

Our little Sarah Bear, aka "Sister Marie" turned 8 today. I can't believe our oldest daughter will be in 3rd grade next year. Time flies too fast. Happy Birthday girl we love you!!

Update

I had another ultrasound alittle over a week ago which revealed that the tear is still there. It hasn't yet begun to reasborb, however it is now a hematoma which is a bruise so there is no new bleed which means no new tearing and I haven't had any bleeding since that day. I have a repeat ultrasound on June 26th to check the hemorrhage again. My mid-wife tells me it could take up to 2-3 months to completely heal. The really goods news is that the baby is completely healthy with a strong h/b of 151 the day of the u/s and the placenta is completely attached to the uterine wall which is a very good thing. Hopefully my next ultrasound will reveal a partially reabsorbed and shrinking subchorionic hemorrhage/hematoma. Here are my recent ultrasound pics. I am leaving out the between the legs shot until my next appt confirms the sex of the baby, but we have a pretty good idea what this new baby is going to be. Any guesses?

Happy 6th Birthday!

We love you Adam, aka "Mr. Steven"! Happy Birthday dude!!

Subchrionic hemorrhage?

This is what I was diagnosed with via ultrasound on Monday April 30th, after I awoke at 2:30 in the morning with a gush of blood. I thought I was loosing the baby so naturally I was a nervous wreck. My midwife scheduled an ultrasound later that morning which revealed a very healthy 11wk 1 day old fetus, (which put me alittle farther along then expected) with a strong h/b of 167 bpm. We were very pleased to see our baby moving around and nowhere near fetal demise. The cause of the bleed was a subchrionic hemorrhage which basically means a blood vessel ruptured putting an 8cm by 5cm gap between the placenta and uterine wall, which is wear it is supposed to attach itself. The good news is that this is a very common occurance in pregnant women and since my body went to work right away and clotted, I didn't loose that much blood and now the placenta can reattach itself and absorb the blood clot that formed. It may take a few weeks to months to completely heal so I have been ordered light duty, no pulling, pushing or lifting until I heal. I go in for a repeat ultrasound in 4 weeks to make sure my body is healing properly. I haven't had any bleeding since then so I guess that is good news for me. If I where further along in the pregnancy my diagnosis would have been placental abruption. I am praying that doesn't happen which could lead to preterm labor. I know that God has his hands around me and I am feeling all the prayers on my behalf. Here is the u/s pic of our little peanut #5.

Expecting....

Baby #5 due November 23rd. I guess I will have a Thanksgiving baby. I've never had a themed baby before. We are all very excited of course. I am 9 weeks 5 days today and had my first prenatal appt with the same mid-wife I had with Grace. I got to hear the heartbeat which was totally unexpected and very very exciting. I was never able to hear the heartbeat this soon with my other four. She picked it up right away! It was a good appt.

Sun's Atmosphere Sings...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070418_solar_music.html


Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn-shout for joy before the Lord, the King. Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountians sing together for joy; let them sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity. Psalm 98:4-9

10 Years ago today.....

We got married! I am so glad I married this guy!! He means the world to me. This morning he asked if I remembered how beautiful the weather was the day we married, 10 yrs ago. Of course that was in Tennessee, not Michigan where we live now during a winter storm warning with snow on the ground. Still I am happy, happy to have met and married this man. Happy Anniversary Honey!

Happy Birthday...

...To me. Today I turn 28!

This morning all my kiddos (well except for Grace) wished me a happy birthday over breakfast. (most likely coached by daddy)

Adam said he wanted to watch the Spongebob birthday movie with me to celebrate the occasion, Sarah said she wants to bake me a cake when she gets home from school, Jack doesn't really care, and Grace has no clue it is my birthday. Dan is working, but has a relaxing night planned for all of us. What more could I ask for.

Say What????

Jack: "Hey mom, can I have that one thing that I like, not that one thing but the other one?"

Me: "Son, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Jack: "Yeah, the red one!"

HUH?????

*This "thing" turned out to be a box of oven baked crackers, which happen to be in a RED box vs. the other crakers that were in an orange box.

Professional Photos

Our Trip Out West in Nov. 2006

Family photo opt upon a rock in Three Rivers, California. Just before entering the Sequoia National Park.

An uprooted Sequoia Tree. These are amazing trees.

The "General Sherman" in Sequoia National Park, California (see the kids down there, these trees are huge)

Carlsbad Caverns, in Carlsbad, New Mexico. This was an awesome hike down to the bottom of the cave. The whole tour took about three hours.

White Sands National Park in White Sands, New Mexico (notice the rainbow, and the picture doesn't even show how white the sand is, it's beautiful)

A cutie in New Mexico, wearing her brothers Sombraro

Near a gift shop in New Mexico.

Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, located on the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation in the Quinlan Mountians, elevation, 6875 ft.

A Saguaro cactus in Arizona

At the beach in Ventura, California

The kids with their walking sticks (made by their daddy) at my grandma and grandpa's house in California.

Happy 4th Birthday Jack!

Christmas Picture

Here is this years christmas picture. Coming soon... pictures of our trip out west 

Happy 1st Birthday!

Today was Grace's first birthday. I can't believe how fast this past year has flown bye. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTY!

Trick-or-Treat Sweetness!

My Kitty, Ninja, Boxer (Rockey Balboa to be exact), and Angel; Halloween cuties.