{ Crafts From Christmas Past - Well, Last Years... }

I'm so going backwards here on the ol' blog. Please bear with me. :)

 Last year I had the bug to start crafting again, well I also was looking for a little extra Christmas cash. Mind you this was before I found I was pregnant with Ledger. So I asked my sweet friends if I could join them in their Christmas craft bazaar they have every year in their home and they said YES! Love you Penny & Sharae. So I popped online where I got a bit of inspiration (don't we all) from all the banners I've seen on Pinterest & Etsy and forged ahead and made some of my own. I also made 5 Ruffle Aprons, like the ones I made for teacher gifts a couple years back. I had already sold one to a friend who wanted a custom one made with Owl fabric for her mother as a Christmas gift. The aprons are totally inspired by Meg Duerksen she's pretty much awesome and so is her blog if you don't know who she is, you should really check her out! Someday I will go to one of her Craft Weekends.... Someday. Okay, Focus Rachel!

The day of the bazaar was good, I was totally BEYOND FREAKING out inside as I had just found out I was pregnant 2 day's prior on the 5th (insert denial here). I didn't breathe a word of my shocking secret to anyone and just tried to pretend like everything was all good and fine. I sold 2 aprons and 1 cardboard banner. I know, not the greatest in sales but it's okay, at that point I could have cared less if I sold anything. I ended up gifting an apron to my mamma for Christmas and the other hangs in my closet. After the sale I went home and added a white border along the bottom of the Merry Banner and LOVED it so much more maybe they would have sold better had they had a bit more "bling" to them. I may do it to the rest of them and try to sell them along with the lone apron. So there you have it, my ONLY crafts for Christmas last year.:) 

Sorry for my poor quality of pictures, each and everyone of them were taken with my super sweet cell phone! Sorry! 

And, here's my only apron left......

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{ Ledger Babe }

Just a quick post to try and get updated. You may see more of these just for the sake of getting Ledger at least a little bit up to date....

And YES, I'm a terrible blogger. I've come to grips with this very fact long ago... 

So BIG surprise for many of you that know us, Ledger was Jaundice, SHOCKER i know.....

 ALL 6 of my kiddos have been jaundice. We spent about a week in Hospital trying to get it under control. We dealt with this until he was about 2 months old. Seriously, it was never ending.

Finally home from the hospital, he's 8 day's old here and catching some rays.

9 days old, and we did LOTS of this...

We had his baby blessing on June 6th- not even a month old yet, but we had family come from Washington, Idaho, and Georgia. It was so nice to see family and for them to meet the new little man in our lives.  

The next day on June 2nd, my AMAZING friend Nanette threw me this fan-stinking-tabulous brunch baby shower, we had it the next day so family that came to the baby blessing could be here for the shower as well. Nanette went above and beyond. She loves a party and as you can see she is AMAZING! I told her she could throw all my kids birthday's and I would totally okay with it. 

 Thank you Nanette. WE LOVE YOU!

Then Ledger went and turned 1 month on me, JUST LIKE THAT! 

We had a little bout of baby acne, poor little dude was the only one of all 6 of my kids to ever get the stuff. Thank goodness it goes away on it's own. But man you feel so bad for them while they are going through their baby puberty. :)

6.20.14

2 months old -7.7.14 and sadly this was the best picture I could get of him. Not sure why.....

His little personality just cracks me up.

7.9.14

He's always had a thing with his mouth even before he was out of the womb, the proof is in the 3d- ultrasound video.

He hasn't changed.

 7.19.14

We sure do love this boy! 

Okay, duty calls in the form of a crying babe and some sort of dinner that needs made.... 

Why must they eat EVERY DAY?  

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{ Ledger Day 2 }

My super sweet friend Carly Carlson dropped by the day after the big "BIRTH"day and snapped a bunch of fantabulous photos of Ledger, these are just a few.

She's pretty much amazing, and having a cute baby boy of her own in a few weeks! Thank you Carly!

Photos: By Carly Carlson

Baby & Onesie: Made by me :)

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{ Welcoming Baby Ledger }

Okay so, I'm back from my "I've been birthing a baby" vacation..... 

Here is the long-awaited post about our surprise baby #6.

May 7, 2014: The day we welcomed Ledger into our family.

He was born at 6:56 pm
Weight: 9lbs 5oz (yes, drug-free)
Length: 21
Here are a few pictures

Oh, you know just having a contraction.....

He's here... He struggled with his breathing a bit after he was born.

But he was pediatrician approved soon after.

Daddy Lloyd with baby boy #4 our #6 caboose. :)

Brinley & Ledger

Jentry & Ledger (Jentry will kill me for posting this... Oh well)

Addison & Ledger

Parker & Ledger

And Corbin & Ledger

Well, there you have it, my 6 pack of kiddos. The kids are pretty much smitten by this new little man in our lives. He's turned it upside down but in a very good way.

:) More to come.....

I apologize for the cruddy pics..... I was too exhausted to care and frankly am still equally as tired.

I am an old lady people.....

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{ Where Have I Been? Vacationing In Sweet, Sweet Denial... }

Grab yourself a warm drink and a snack, this post is a long one!

In life, you have surprises and shockers, this story my friends is a shocker.....

I'm still here, just been surviving all the Holidays and vacationing in Denial all while dealing with one of the BIGGEST SHOCKS of our little ol' lives, that's all...

Oh, you want to know what our SHOCKER was? Here you go.....

Keep scrolling........

Ta Da!!

We were not expecting this AT ALL, WE WERE SO DONE HAVING KIDS!!!

But I guess the big guy with the sense of humor upstairs had other plans for us.

Let me start at the beginning...

Our oldest is 16 and our youngest is 6, so we pretty much figured we were good on the kid front.

No, neither one of us has been permanently fixed and yes we were using 2 types of birth control. I don't need to hear the "You do know how this happens right?" comments. Yes we know, and apparently from the picture above we are pretty good at it.

I found out I was pregnant on December 5th, 2013, the only reason I found out was, I took a pregnancy test as I hadn't had my period for a while. NOTE: I'm a very irregular girl on the monthly front so missing several periods in a row is nothing new to me, and I always had 1 or 2 tests stowed away in case I needed reassurance.

When I saw the 2 lines I swore. I said bad sailor man type of words that I don't normally say ever. I then proceeded to call my husband about 500 times on his cell, but of course, he didn't answer as he was on a job site. He eventually called me back and I tried not to freak out on him and cry & basically yell at him. (but I did anyway) Let's just say, December 5th was not a good day for me.

I pretty much cried and cried some more, I only did the crying when I was alone, I stopped talking to my husband and kinda went into shutdown mode, all whilst visiting Denial. Did you know that Denial has great beaches and Condos?? You see, as a woman and mother to 5 kids already and knowing that you don't want to have anymore, your mind is pretty much set that you are done. We've been well past the baby stage for SEVERAL years now. All my kids would have been in school ALL DAY this next upcoming school year. I've been looking forward to that for 16+ years.

NOTE:  I had already scheduled an appt. for December 10th with my Gynecologist about 2 months prior for my annual lady exam. It had been several years and I was due. 

December 6th: I explained, okay I cried to the secretary on the phone when she called to remind me of my appt. that I needed to add an OB exam along with my Pap/Boob exam. So she calls me back about an hour later and says the DR. would like me to go to the Hospital and get my blood drawn so they can see about how far along I am. Fine, no problem I go, the DR. calls me back around 8:30 that night to say that I need to keep my appt. & that I'm probably about 5-6 weeks along, maybe a little more.

Fast forward 4 days to December 10th:

Had my Pap, then she goes to feel my stomach, her only words were:

HOLY CRAP! There could be 3 in there, (I told her to shut up. nicely....) we need to do an abdominal ultrasound, and about 4 minutes later We found out that I was 16 weeks 4 days along!!!

The date on this ultrasound pic is wrong, it really was the 10th of January.

I've had ZERO, I mean ZERO pregnancy symptoms. I'm usually always nauseated and contracting Braxton hicks from conception on. So to find out we were this far along was a SHOCKER!! 

See I told ya..

We didn't say anything to our family or kids for quite some time. I needed time to process and I guess you could say mourn a little bit. Not that a baby is a bad thing, they are quite the opposite; I love each and every one of my kids. But I needed to mourn the fact that what freedom I thought I was going to have with all my kids in school all day was - poof- gone. Mourn the fact that I'm right back at the starting gate, where I did not want to be, we were well established in this more grown-up kids phase in our life.

I'm sure some of you see that as selfish, but really I don't care. It's how I felt at the time and you have to let yourself feel all the things.

I processed and processed some more and by Christmas Eve we felt it was time to tell our kids and extended family. We had my parents and Lloyd's parents over to our house for a Christmas Eve "treat". Little did they know what we had up our sleeve... Or my uterus to be exact. :)

We have a tradition of giving Pj's to all our kids on Christmas Eve, so I wrapped up all the kid's pj's and then wrapped up just one more box, a box for the Berry Kids to be opened on Christmas Eve.

A box that held the contents of a pack of gender-neutral onesies and the above ultrasound picture.

Yes, they were all shocked when they saw the contents, my mom kept saying Oh, Oh! I started to cry

(guess I was still processing) my mom comes over and gives me a hug and the questions start flying with my kids. For the most part, they took it pretty well.

Fast Forward 14 days to January 7th: Ultrasound Day

Yup, it's a boy! 

Did I secretly want another girl to make it an even 3 boys and 3 girls? Sure, but I knew it was a boy and I was right. The whole time we were at the ultrasound I was still in shock and awe that there is a tiny baby growing in my stomach. But there he was and he looked great. Oh and guess what? January 5th I started with my raging Braxton hicks contractions. Exactly 1 month to the day I found out I was pregnant! I have them EVERY day All day unless I just lay in bed all day and do nothing, which is really easy to do with 5 kids right?

So I've been collecting baby items as it's been 14 years since I've had a May baby. Parker was born in May and I pretty much got rid of all his clothes as Corbin was a fall/winter baby. So I'm back at square one. Lucky for us we did keep our Crib and I think the changing table is around here somewhere. As for the rest of the baby gear g-o-n-e-!

I SO WISH I COULD BE ONE OF THOSE BLOGGER BABY PRODUCT REVIEWERS!!

I have purchased his car seat and crib bedding, and I pick up little onesies and gown sleepers here and there. But I need to get a couple baby carriers and some other essentials. Yeah, you could say we are getting more and more excited around here. One perk of this pregnancy is I've lost 15 lbs and I can still wear my regular jeans and I'm almost 6 months along! I joke that I'm only 2 more pregnancy's away from my goal weight! :) Okay, so it's a terrible joke, but it's what I do in times of stress.....

My sweet 16-year-old put it all in perspective for me on Christmas Day. Jentry said: "When this kid graduates from High School I'll be like 34 years old, I could be married with 4 kids by then". Thanks, son, now stop doing the math cause you're freaking me out. But really, we are getting pretty excited to meet this new little man in our lives, my due date is May 23rd. I'm sure he will be earlier than that. I've never gone to my due date with any of my kids. One thing's for sure though, this little man of ours- he's going to be loved to pieces.

Life is pretty funny sometimes, it's always amazing to find out you're getting something that you never knew you wanted.

and FYI- The pregnancy tests from Dollar Tree? Yeah, they work.....

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