Amanda's Blog

I LOVE Christmas!!  I love spending time with family, eating yummy treats, giving gifts, and seeing the “magic” in my children’s eyes.  I also love all things Santa Clause – thanks to my mom (just ask Josh)!  We had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope that you did, too!  This was one of the few Christmases that none of us were sick.  Usually, we always share more than just gifts with our family in MO…I am sure they were thankful for our wellness this year:)  (I do not say this bragging…just in a thankful way.  I have too many times said to Josh how we are all healthy only to be awakened in the middle of the night by an “asthma” cough or high fever…so now I am a little superstitious about stating our wellness:)

I was, however, in prayer on Christmas for families that were not so fortunate. I thought of a dear friend whose four children were all sick with either the flu or strep throat:(  I also thought about a family that we know from FHU whose 2 1/2 year old daughter had a liver transplant on Christmas Eve, so they spent the day in the ICU in Pittsburgh. And the family from home whose young daughter is also battling cancer.  There are many who are not as fortunate as us, so for those I pray that they will have healthier days ahead.

I wanted to share some of our Christmas festivities with you. Christmas is a week-long event around here.  (I do LOVE Christmas, but after the week of parties and sugar highs, I am ready to get my kids home and in routine:)

Our first family Christmas was with our Burch family on December 17th.  Josh and I actually had to miss this one due to a funeral, but the kids were able to attend.  They had a great time!! Thanks to aunt Roxanne, I still have pictures to share!

 Our second family Christmas was with Ms. Ann and Mr. Dickie on Sunday night, December 18th.  Ms. Ann and Mr. Dickie are very special to us!!  They have adopted our family as their own.  Since we do not live around family, it is wonderful to have “Kentucky grandparents” to help with the kids and love on them.  They sit with us every Sunday and treat my children as their own.  The kids love them and love having Christmas at their house.

Our third family Christmas was with Pa and Nandy on Saturday, December 22nd.  We got to spend the day at their house with aunt Keisha and uncle Brandon.  The kids got some great gifts and drank way too much of Nandy’s punch:)  They also got to see some of their second cousins that they don’t see very often.

Our fourth family Christmas was with Papa and Nana on Christmas Eve.  The kids love going to their house and especially love when they get to play with their cousins.  We had a great time eating our gluten free, soy free, and dairy free food:)  (My mom has become very creative in our holiday meals trying to accommodate all the special diets!)  It is a bit chaotic trying to open gifts with 7 kids, ages 8 and under (my brother and I have stair-stepped our kids…our kids are 8, 6, 5, 3 (almost 4), 3, 1, and 3 months:)  but it is always a lot of fun!!

Our fifth family Christmas was later on Christmas Eve with my Grandma Green’s family.  It is always fun to get together with my aunts and uncles and cousins!  We always do family pictures in front of the Christmas tree (a tradition that Josh looks forward to every year…Ha!) and eat lots of good food (ribs and shrimp) before playing dirty Santa.

Finally, our sixth family Christmas was at home on Christmas morning with just the six of us.  Santa came and brought lots of goodies, and then we opened our gifts from each other.  We spent the day in our pjs and loved being at home together!

We are so very blessed and are thankful for all of our family.  What a wonderful time of the year when we get to spend time with those we love, give gifts to one another, and eat WAY TOO MUCH!!!  I sure hope that your Christmas was wonderful, too!

Caleb is 3 months today.

How can that be???  He is such a sweet baby…still!  We are enjoying him sooooo much!

Yes, life with 4 is CRAZY, but him being such a good baby makes it less crazy:)  So, what is he up to???

He is smiling all the time and even laughing some.

He is “talking” with his coos and squeals alot, too! 

He sleeps from around 9:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., getting up once to eat around 2:30 a.m. 

He is 14.5 pounds and 25 inches long.

He loves his swing!!!  He will take great naps in it (for which I am very grateful)!!

He loves his brothers and sister, but may be a little scared of Landon at times. Ha!  Austin does great taking care of him and rocks him alot for me.

He can hold his head pretty well, but hates his belly, so no tummy time for him. (I struggle with this one because my mind says he needs his tummy time, but my heart says he’ll be fine without it…I usually listen to my heart on this one.)

He LOVES bath time and will start fussing (which he hardly ever does) around 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. wanting to get his bath and nurse.  Then, he likes to lounge around in Daddy’s arms for 45 minutes to an hour before falling asleep.

He still sleeps in our room in his pack and play.  This is mainly because his big bed is in Brooke’s room, so I don’t want to move him until he is sleeping through the night.

I have probably bored you with this information (unless you are Nana, Nandy, or Ms. Ann:), but I wanted to have it to look back on someday.

Now, I have some pictures to share of him today that I took of him by the tree…so sweet!!!

Love this one!!! He looks like a baby doll!

And…because the other 3 could not be left out…

Pure Sibling Joy!!!

(I must give props to Josh for my new Canon SLR camera that took these pictures.  He gave it to me as an early Christmas present so I would be ready to take plenty of pictures at Christmas!  Thanks, Josh…I LOVE IT!! )

Landon had his preschool Christmas party today, and guess who came for a visit???? How’d you guess it…SANTA!!!  Here are a few quick pictures of the kids with Santa.  They love Santa, and I love that they love Santa!!

All the kids with Santa.  It is a huge feat for the Ketchums to have all children with Santa and none of them crying.  Usually, our family Santa picture has one child screaming and being held down by Santa…Guess we will enjoy the picture this year because most likely Caleb will be running from Santa next year:)

Caleb’s first picture with Santa by himself!!  What a SWEET boy!!

Landon with Santa!  Doesn’t he look so sweet and innocent…well, let me tell you, looks can be deceiving! HA!

No, this is not Santa with the kids, but it is so rare to have a picture of me with the kids that I had to post it, too.  (Not too sure what Caleb is looking at…)

I sure do love Santa, and I really love pictures with him!!!

In honor of today (probably yesterday by the time you are reading this…) being such an unique date, I thought I would post a blog of 12 pictures (1 from each month) of the past year.

 I had a brilliant idea of taking a picture by the clock at 12:12 today, but thought that would be dorky, so surely my family wouldn’t want to do it too…

But, I must have married at just my level of dorkiness (probably not a word, but when you are dorky, you can make up your own words) because Josh looks pretty enthused with the picture too! Ha!  Only problem is you can’t really see the clock, so maybe it just looks like we are taking a picture by the stove holding the iPad…families do it all the time:)

On a side note (just because I want you to know how special I am)…I turned 8 years old on the 8th day of the 8th month in 1988.  You are impressed, I know:)  Also, my mom didn’t put it in the paper, but wishes now that she would have, so I am kind of still dealing with that…kind of.

With no further ado….the pictures!

January

We went to see the eagles at LBL…such a fun trip!!  Can’t wait to do it again this year!

(Yes, we have a diva for a daughter!)

February

So sweet…they love sharing a room!

March

We visited an animal farm…thought about leaving the kids:)

April

Brooke’s 5th Birthday – wearing her princess dress that Nana made her!

May

Josh graduated from FHU with his Masters of Divinity (he’s really smart now)!!!

June

We had to put Rebel, our dog of 12 years, down…he was almost 15 years old!

July

Landon’s 3rd Birthday!

August

We built a treehouse as a family.  One of the most fun (or is it funnest?  I never have figured that out…) projects we have ever done!

September

Caleb is born!!  Wow…our family looks big now!  

(This picture was right before Landon took Caleb’s head and turned it towards the camera because we said to look at the camera:)

October

Went to the pumpkin patch with Pa and Nandy!  We love fall activities!!!

November

Austin’s 8th Birthday!

December

Caleb’s first golf outing…crazy that it was in December. 

We have had a wonderful year.  God has blessed us beyond what we could have imagined almost 13 years ago when we began our lives together.  I am so thankful for my family (even on the crazy, stressful days…which seem a little more often now:).

Austin, my 8-year old, is such a sweet boy.  He made my week on Friday night when I was getting ready for our progressive dinner with our church group.  I am still at an awkward stage with my clothes since having Caleb.  I have lost most of the baby weight, but my hips haven’t gotten the memo to go back to regular size (I am just hoping they get that memo!!).  I am happy with my size, but I don’t fit in many of my clothes (and everyone with four kids (which isn’t a majority of people) knows that you don’t have the time or money to buy new clothes).  It just frustrates me when I go to get ready and “nothing” fits (I put that in quotes because some things fit, just not what I want to fit).

Anyhow, on Friday afternoon when Josh came home from work, I was feeding Caleb and as Josh and I were talking he could tell that something was bothering me.  He asked me what was wrong, so I told him how I had picked out an outfit in my mind to wear to the dinner, but when I tried it on it didn’t fit…and it bothered me.  (I really wish it didn’t bother me, but I am human and it did.)  Austin was looking at me the whole time I was telling this to Josh, and I could tell it was making an impression on him.

Well, after I finished feeding Caleb, I went to the bathroom to finish getting ready.  Soon after, Austin comes in and stands at the sink looking at me.  I acknowledge him, and then he said some of the sweetest words that I won’t soon forget.  He said, “Mom you will look good in whatever you wear.”  At this point, my heart melted, and I almost cried (and I don’t usually cry unless I am mad so this really touched me).  We then had a discussion of how I shouldn’t worry about what I look like and that other things in life are a lot more important.

Austin often tells me how pretty I am or how nice I look.  I am so thankful for my sweet, 8-year old boy!

Tonight, I wanted to share a few highlights from our fun weekend.  It started on Friday night with a progressive dinner with the young adult group from church.  (A progressive dinner is where you go to one house for appetizer, a second house for the main course, and a third house for dessert.)  This was the first time that Caleb has had a babysitter.  We are so grateful to Ms. Ann (who is like a grandmother to our children) and Brenda who kept all the kids for us!!  It was so nice to be out without any kids!!  The kids also had a great time and it was nice to have adult conversation and eat without fixing three other plates:)

After the dinner, we came home and prepared our home for company.  Mark, Lori, and their three kids spent the night with us on Friday night (yes, it was a crowded house with 11 people in the house but it was FUN!).  The kids got to stay up until 11:00 p.m. (which never happens unless they are with Papa and Nana:) and us adults stayed up until 3 a.m. talking!  What. where. we. thinking???  Josh is still not recovered (but he is 4 years older than me)! Ha! (It also helps that caffeine gets me through a sleepy day, but does nothing for him:)  If I had it to do over…I DO IT AGAIN!!  I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with Mark and Lori and love and appreciate their Christ-like attitude and example.  It was good for us to share with another minister and his wife.

On Saturday, we enjoyed spending a little more time with Mark’s family and then prepared for more company.  We had made plans to have our homeschool families over for a little Christmas party Saturday night.  We were sad that one of the families couldn’t join us because of sickness, but we still had a fun time.  Josh made a ton of smoked chicken leg quarters that were so yummy! (I now look forward to having them in the freezer to pull out and heat up on days when I don’t feel like cooking.)  The kids loved playing and us adults enjoyed visiting.

Today, we were able to have a great day of worship with our family at Seven Oaks and topped it off with a trip to the local Mexican restaurant with some friends from our young adult group after worship tonight.

We have been so blessed to have quality time this weekend with people we love and admire.  I hope your weekend was enjoyable for you, too!

 (I didn’t take pictures this weekend…guess I was too busy enjoying the company, so I just inserted some of my favorite from the last couple of weeks.)

We made it to the final prize for Landon getting all his marbles!!! (If that sentence doesn’t make any sense to you, you may want to check out this previous post!)   He finally moved his last marble over to the “good” jar!!!   (Tuesday night might have been the only night we had this week for him to go swimming, so maybe Josh and I rigged it a little…maybe.)  He was so proud when the jar was empty that he immediately said, “Mommy, take a picture of me with my jar!”  And of course, Brooke and Austin weren’t going to let the picture happen without them, so here you have the three of them with the jars.  (And before you ask…No, I do not pose like Brooke in pictures…she didn’t learn it from me!  Ha!).

They had a great time swimming at the YZM (as Landon calls it).  As you can see from the picture below, Landon decided to take Austin and Brooke along.  At one time, he agreed that we could all go, but only him and daddy could swim and the rest could watch:)  That wasn’t an option, so he opted for them swimming with him.  Caleb and I opted for staying home (well actually I opted for staying home and Caleb really didn’t care), which was like a reward for me because I got a quiet house for a little while!!

The swim was pretty uneventful, unless you take into account the super swimmer that was doing 25 laps in the pool, so Josh spent his time pulling children and toys from his path and the man that gave Josh the “look” after getting hit in the eye with water from our super-sonic water shooter. (Thankfully, it wasn’t one of our kids that shot it, just a girl that Josh had let borrow it…pretty funny that Josh still got the “look”!) Ha!

They really did have a great time and made some new friends, too!  Thanks to an awesome dad that isn’t afraid to venture out with three young ones to the Y alone for a nice swim!!!

I got this great idea from a deals blog that I follow, Hip2Save.  I love this site and there is no telling how much it has saved us. (Josh may think it has cost us b/c I do tend to get wrapped up in a good deal, even when I don’t need it, but I choose to focus on the savings:)  Anyhow, I found this cute idea for time capsule ornaments, and I am so excited about doing them every year (well, at least we did the first year; we will have to see if I even remember or find time to do it next year…ha!)  They were really kid friendly, too!

All you need are some plastic ornaments that will open up (I got mine from oriental trading),

 paper to write on to put inside (we used cut up tissue paper so it would be prettier),stickers to decorate the outside, a picture of your child, and ribbon to make it prettier and hang it on the tree.

The instructions are simple…write the kids favorite memory on the paper and put them inside the ornament.  Then you can decorate the outside however you or your child would like.  We chose to put their names and ages in stickers. (If I weren’t so OCD, I would have let them put the stickers on themselves…but I really wanted them to be straight…I did let Austin do his own, but only with thorough instruction on how to get it perfectly  almost centered:)

I have plans to put a picture of each child in the ornament soon sometime!  It may go the way of all the other picture ornaments that I have bought since having 2 or more children (why do they have to make the frames such odd sizes!!!).  You are now ready to put a pretty ribbon through the hole at the top of the ornament (don’t know what that is called…) and hang it on your tree!!

I look forward to doing this every year (I hope) and then looking at their favorite things/firsts from each year as we decorate the tree each year.  This was also a very inexpensive craft and as I mentioned before, the kids loved it!!  We also used the plastic ornaments and supplies to just make pretty ones to put on the tree or give as small gifts.  It was fun to get creative with these.

Oh, and here is what Caleb did during the ornament making:)

As you read this blog, you will quickly learn that my third child, Landon, is quite the character!!  He is three years old and FULL of life!

So, after adding the fourth child, Caleb, we decided to try a new strategy to encourage and reward good behavior.  We started using marbles…it’s really quite simple.  We put 25 marbles in a mason jar, then labeled a second mason jar as “Good.” (I know you are thinking how creative that is! Ha!)  The object is that he gains a marble in the “good” jar when he is particularly well-behaved or when he doesn’t listen or obey, he has to move a marble from the “good” jar back to the original jar.

Now, one would think that the process of moving 25 marbles would be a fairly quick task, especially since the end reward is a swimming date with daddy at the YMCA (or YZM as Landon calls it).  However, for a FULL of life boy, this has proven to be a fairly slow task that has taken over 2 months!  (That is not a typo…I meant to write 2 months!!!)  We have had  A LOT of marble moving over the last two months…even a few times where he puts a marble in the “good” jar and takes it right back out without dropping it!  (I did mention he is a FULL of life boy, right??)  It’s been pretty funny to hear the constant refrain at our house, “Do you want to lose your marble?”…(I think I have lost a few along the way:)

Well, we are FINALLY pleased to announce that as of tonight, he only has one marble left!!!  He is so proud.  On the way home from church tonight, as we were discussing this, he says, “I am going to try to not go backwards anymore.”:)  So, maybe, just maybe, tomorrow will be the day that we finally get all his marbles in the “good” jar!!! (We did spend about a week going between 4 and 6 marbles left, so only time can tell:)

Here is a picture of him with his almost EMPTY jar of marbles…

The end prize of swimming with daddy was meant to be a solo date for him if he would so choose.  However, we have learned that his brother, Austin, is pretty persuasive and has convinced Landon that swimming without him and Brooke would be no fun, so they have now conned their way into the reward…