Kayleigh Fiona

I would like you to meet Kayleigh Fiona Conroy! She has a great story...

Kayleigh's parents, Katherine and Tim, have been friends of mine since Noel and I met. I think I met them two weeks after Noel and I started to see each other in person. They got married two weeks before Noel and I. We have been really close since we met and have been in each other's lives since we met.

Tim and Katherine were totally excited to find out they were pregnant with their second child late last year. There first child, Elizabeth, just turned 3. The pregnancy was going really well and Katherine was doing well and getting everything ready for the baby. I helped her paint the baby's room just last week.

On Sunday, Tim was on his way to Grace to help with the children's ministry when he felt that he needed to be home instead of at church. So he turned around and went back home. Katherine decided to make breakfast and sent Tim to the grocery store for some items. While he was gone, Katherine thought that her water broke, so she called her best friend in Baltimore to see if she was over-reacting. Her friend told her to call her doctor. She called Tim to see if he was close to coming home and just casually mentioned that she thought that her water had broke. Tim rushed home.

They went to the hospital and the nurse took a sample of the fluid to see if it was her water of something else. After several tests and no real conclusion they sent it to the lab. The lab stated that it was not her water, and so the nurse decided that she would check Katherine to make sure everything was okay. The mood in the room changed when the nurse had a look of shock on her face. Katherine was 5cm dilated. Katherine was only at 32 weeks.

They started Katherine on drugs to help her and the baby. On Monday night Katherine had Kayleigh and she weighed 3lbs 10 oz. So of course she went to the NICU.

Noel and I had the opportunity to go and see them yesterday, thank you mom for watching the "safari." We brought dinner and got to see the wonderful new addition to their family. She is really tiny but she is a fighter and already has her own attitude. You have to be signed into the NICU, have to scrub your arms and wear a mask. Kayleigh is on assisted breathing, but no oxygen. She has an IV for fluids and antibiotics. Also she is on a warming table because she cannot regulate her own temperature. The blessing is that she is not in an incubator and that Katherine has been able to hold and feed her. The next couple of weeks are going to be hard, because Katherine goes home today, but the baby does not.

Please pray for the Conroy's and for Kayleigh that she will do well and be able to come home. God is in control of everything and when we learn that life make more sense and we can deal with these situations.

A Sad Day!

There have been some things that have been going on in our country that have disturbed me. I normally do not talk about politics or what I think about things unless someone asks me, but lately it has just gotten worse and worse.

First let me tell you that I love politics and I am well-informed. I may not know everything but I know where and how to find things. I know that everyone does not have the same beliefs as me and you might disagree but I have to talk about it and we can have a civil debate on any of these if you want. Please do not leave hate comments, if you want to discuss any of these further please leave me your email address and we will talk about what you want. Thank you in advance.

Last week, there was a story about a 15 year old girl in Seattle was went to the health clinic in her school and found out that she was pregnant. The nurse and counselor told her that if she did not tell her parents that she would not have to pay anything for the abortion. They called her taxi and took her to the abortion clinic and then returned her to school the same day. There are so many things wrong with this story. It is sad that the 15 year old could not talk to her mother about this, that they did not a relationship where the first thought would be to call her mother. That there is a clinic in the school that is giving this advice. When Noel and I write our check for our property taxes I have to pray that the money that goes to the school is not going for these services. Now I know that the public school system is getting worse and that as parents we need to be on our knees to know what to do with our precious children and what we need to do in the education part of their lives. I know that in our house right now we feel that God is leading us to homeschool. Apparently there are numerous states that do not require parental support before medical treatment can be given. Our children are being told that their parents do not know what is going on and that they need to teach us how it needs to be. The more I read and watch how our country is heading the more I feel like we are the Isrealites wondering in the desert because we cannot get our obedience in the right place. May God have mercy on us.

On another note while we were driving home from church yesterday we were behind a care that had a bumper sticker. The bumper sticker stated "I can be a Christian and be pro-abortion too" Really? How is that? First of all I do not feel that you can judge someone on their salvation because that is between God and that person but you can ask some questions? If you are a Christian how can you say that life does not start until after birth when the Bible clearly states the opposite. Here is a webpage that helps with the sides of the issue. So I feel that the bumper sticker is a sad statement that we have believers that just skip the verses in the Bible that do not apply to them or that they do not want to apply to them.

The last thing is that census. The ad campaign on television is going to cost $130 million dollars. On top of that I received two postcards that reminded me that the Census was coming and then to remind me to mail my census back. Then the census was mailed. Now how much did that cost? Well in the last census there was a population size of 297,831,960 people. Lets say that there is a family of four everywhere; so we divide 297,831,960 by 4 and you get 74,457,990. So lets say that we mailed the two postcards to this many destinations; with presorted mail it cost about 24.5 cents a postcard. So that would cost $36,484,415.10. Then you also got sent the census itself that would cost about 48 cents, that cost $35,739,835.20. Then you still have all the employees that will walk and knock on your door. The estimated cost for the Census is between $13.7 billion to $14.5 billion. What could our country do with half of that money?

It seems that everyday I read and research more about our country and learn what I was not taught in school. I would like to work really hard and sacrifice in my generation to ensure that my childrens' and grandchildrens' generations would be okay. Our founding fathers knew that our country could be great if we made sure that we were a God-fearing country and that we remembered that God needed to be in the center of our country. I find myself on my face before God more and more to ask for Him to guide our leaders and to put people in their presence to help them in the right direction. Also for our leaders to fall on their face before God every day.

My next post will be about the "safari" and will have some new pictures. Stay tuned.

Song Confussion

When you have toddlers they want you to sing or tell stories all day long. That is fine if you have one or two but when you have six toddlers during the day you can really get tired of telling the same story 20 times in a day or singing the same song 20 times.

Yesterday I found out that some of the words to the songs that we sing are not the right words, let me explain. We were singing "This little light of mine." Great song and there are hand movements to it which makes it even better. For some reason one of the time that I sang it I had to stop in the middle and tell Esther to stop hitting Elijah so Joshua was singing the song with me and inverted what he heard that day. The song went something like this:

This little light of mine
I'm gonna to let it shine.
This little light of mine
I'm gonna to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Won't let Satan blow it out.
I'm going to let it shine
Esther stop hitting Elijah
Won't let Satan blow it out
I'm going to let it shine, let it shine, let is shine, let it shine.

I had to laugh and try to explain that was not part of the song and that I was sorry that I messed the song up. I have to love it when my "safari" lets me know when I have done something that is not part of the story/song.

Big Sister Want-to-be!

This week I started to watch Colton and Tadem. I did not know how the transition was going to be with a new baby in the house and with Colton being with his mommy for 8 weeks and then having to see me again. All has gone well. In fact it has gone without a major meltdown.

The funniest thing this week is Hannah! She thinks that she is a big sister now and that she has to make sure that I know everything that is going on with Tadem. She has to tell me when the baby is crying, sleeping, and where her bottle is. You cannot laugh because when she tells you these things she is so serious about it. I am glad that she is taking so well to the baby because Hannah does not like to share her time with anyone.

Hannah is growing up so fast and I just want her to be the cute little thing that she use to be, but now she is talking in full sentences, knows all her body parts, can sing her ABC's and loves to sing songs about everything. When she sings she likes to mix her favorite songs together. For instance the other day she was singing "twinkle, twinkle little star, Jesus love me, the Bible tell me so, hide it under a bush NO! Next time sing with me." She is just too cute.

Thank you for 4 Years!

Last week Noel and I celebrated four years of marriage together. I have to say that it has been a fast four years filled with lots of births, laughter, sleepless nights, travel, crying, crawling, walking, eating solids, bruises and bumps.

Noel and I met on E*Harmony and have not looked back since. Here is one of our wedding pictures.



There are not enough nice things to say about Noel and what he has done in our marriage, so I will only name a few.
*Drove over 13 hours to surprise me with my engagement ring and got my parents involved.
*Made our wedding day stress-free for the most part
*Found 12 watermelons when I was pregnant with Elijah when they were out of season
*Made my pregnancy with the triplets wonderful and full of laughter
*Was a trooper when the triplets were born and needed to eat several times in the middle of the night
*Changed all the diapers when I was pregnant with Hannah because I could not smell anything foul without getting sick.
*Tells me that I am beautiful and the best wife ever at least 10 times a week.
*Lets me rant and rave about my week when he is traveling
*Takes care of the "safari" so that I can have some alone time, even though I do not go like I should
*Encourages me and prays with me

Of course there are thousands of reasons why I love my husband and sometimes the emotions that you feel cannot be expressed in words. I am looking forward to the years to come with my loving husband. Last week I made him cookies for our anniversary. He likes Scrabble and can beat me pretty bad, so I made the cookies to look like Scrabble pieces.

I love you Noel and I am glad that so grateful that God allowed me to love and marry you.

Much Deserved Rest … for someone else!

Guest Post By Noel Wilcoxson

This weekend I had the honor of taking care of our 5 children by myself. You see, Jennifer and her mom went to a women’s retreat for the weekend with our church group and I, being the good husband that I am (wink wink), pushed for her to take the time off. Those of you that keep up with this blog know how dedicated Jennifer is to our children and how she doesn’t get any time off or away from our ‘safari’. So it was definitely her turn to get away and this was an opportunity for her to gather together with other women and glorify God.

While she was off enjoying herself, I was in the midst of kids who I quickly realized were much smarter and cunning than I expected them to be. You see, the last time I was in charge of all of them for any amount of time was before Hannah was born while Elijah was the only one who knew how to walk. Sure I’ve had them for a couple hours while momma went out to shop, but a weekend is a lot different than an hour.

Jennifer left for the retreat on Friday afternoon while the kids were napping. They weren’t all asleep, but thankfully they weren’t looking out the window while Jennifer and Patricia left, otherwise I would have had to deal with five crying toddlers wailing for their mommy and nana. Joshua was the only one to see the car drive away, so I decided to go upstairs and get him up from nap time. While I was up there I heard Jacob and Elijah moving around and since they weren’t asleep I decided to go ahead and get all five of them up from nap time.

I went in and they were excited to see me, but more excited to tell me that nana was here. I had to break it to them that nana and momma had left the house and wouldn’t be back for the whole weekend. This is where they began to outsmart me. Instead of getting upset or saying “no” they are home, Elijah and Jacob ran to the window to look outside. They saw the minivan and the car Patricia had come in and told me that nana was home. I was shocked that they would have the ability to reason like that at such a young age, but allowed them to go with where their minds were taking them. We went and got Esther and Hannah up and went downstairs where they found out that nana and momma were really gone.

The rest of the day was great and we ended up watching “Cloudy with a side of Meatballs” the movie until almost 8pm that night. That’s a late night for our kids who are used to going to bed around 6 at night. I am used to our bedtime routine, but Jennifer is always the one thinking ahead to what else we need to do for the kids to get them in bed. I realized that 30 minutes after dinner when I was planning to put them to bed that Jacob had not had his nebulizer breathing treatment. He likes to sit in mine and mommy’s lap to calm him down while he wears a mask and breathes in medicine. The treatment takes about 40 minutes if you wait until it is all gone, so I decided we’d watch a movie.

The kids were more interested in bouncing on the couches and rough housing with each other, which I was ok with until Hannah fell off the front of the couch. She didn’t get hurt, but it was enough of a shock to her that she cried a little. From that point on I had to be the mean parent and separate them from one another and keep them from moving. There was only slight discipline, mostly initiated by Esther’s disobedience, but we made it all the way through the movie and on to bedtime. The kids went down without any problems and slept very well.

Saturday and Sunday mornings I spoiled them with waffles for breakfast on Saturday and blueberry muffins on Sunday. They enjoyed breakfast both days and we had a mostly uneventful time. We went to play on their play set in the backyard on Saturday and went through our normal church routine on Sunday. I did forget the diaper bags for church, but it’s no surprise that I’m forgetful!

The big event of the weekend was at the end of naptime. We had been putting all three boys together in one room for the past couple of weeks because of the nose bleeds they were having. We decided that all of them together with the humidifier was the best way to go. But when Joshua got his head wound and it became infected, we separated him from the other two for naptime. They usually don’t sleep much at “naptime” but just play and run and jump the whole time. So Joshua went in a room by himself and Jacob & Elijah stayed in their room.

I am normally a very strict parent when it comes to naptime on the weekends, but since I was both mommy and daddy this weekend, I let it go and allowed them to run and jump and play to their hearts content. I figured if anything I’d let them wear themselves out and I’d get them to bed early. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention to the time and let them stay in their room too long unattended. Elijah & Jacob moved one of the cribs into the closet for the purpose of climbing up to the closet shelf and pull down all the “goodies” they could find. This is when I discovered that our children were really midget pirates in disguise.

They managed to get all of the bags and bandages and baby toiletries and Vaseline off the shelf. They got out the lotion and baby powder that Jennifer and I had put there ages ago and long forgot about. They smeared the lotion in the floor, dumped the full bottle of powder on a pillow, and opened the Vaseline. You can tell they got into the Vaseline because it is all over the case, but I never figured out where they put it… more excitement for another day I suppose.

So Joshua was thrilled that he wasn’t in that room. He got to watch his brothers clean it up, get discipline and be subject to daddy’s rants for about an hour. I made them pick everything up, put it in bags and place them outside their room in the hallway. We threw a lot of it in the trash and transferred the three thousand coat hangers to the other room’s closet. It’s moments like that that you wish you had all girls who don’t do things like that! I vacuumed and steam vacuumed the carpet getting out the powder and some of the lotion. All in all, it was a very stressful afternoon. The kids got dinner, a bath, their medicine and went to bed. Again, I didn’t really learn my lesson and hadn’t planned on the bath, so they went to bed around 7pm.

I was really glad when momma came home on Sunday and so were the kids. I love my little ones, but they are five handfuls and I only have two hands. I respected my wife before for the difficult job she has in taking care of the kids and our home, but it’s much different to admire from a distance versus walking in her shoes. I love you Babe, and I am so glad that you enjoy your calling. The Lord has blessed us all, but I think he gave you three times the patience and love for our children so that you could maintain your sanity.

After church on Sunday I took the kids to the YMCA so that they could play and I could work out and by the time I got home, mommy and nana had returned. Everyone was so happy for their return and Jennifer and I got to discuss both of our weekends. Her weekend was much less stress than mine, but I wouldn’t have traded places with her for anything. She deserves every bit of time for herself!

The Eye of the Storm and the Other Side

Man have we been through a hurricane. Last week I thought that we were finally through with all the sickness, injury and just haze that was over our house. I was wrong. Let me recap what we have been through in the last couple of weeks.

*We were told that Hannah needed to be on medication for 6 months to let her body grow to see if her reflux would heal itself.
*The other part of the "safari" have to have ultrasounds to make sure they do not have reflux, since Hannah is the "index" child.
*Joshua gashed his head.
*Joshua got it infected with Beta Strep A and had to have it opened, flushed, packed, and now is seeing the Wound Care Clinic until it is healed.
*Esther has to be on Miralax because he Colon in swollen and does not have the urge to have a bowel movement for several days.
*Esther got an ear infection.
*Elijah got pin-worms, so everyone had to take medication and I had to sanitize everything.
*Elijah got strep on his butt.
*Joshua had to take medication because his sinuses would not clear.
*Jacob got put on breathing treatments for his wheezing and antibiotics.

That is it. I feel that we hit the eye of the storm last week and then finally got through the rest of the hurricane on Friday.

I signed up to go on the Women's Retreat and all this happened. On Friday I did not want to go on the retreat because my "safari" was just not doing so well. I prayed all day Friday on what to do and then Noel made a comment that made me go. He stated that I needed this and needed to go.

I went on the retreat and I am glad that I did. The "safari" is doing great and hopefully I will not have another hurricane for a long time. We are alive and happy. Thank you for everyone that prayed and kept up with all the drama and doctor's appointments, and for all the Nana's that sat at home while I took someone to the doctor, emergency room or Wound care.