14 Years

of pure bliss... well, OK, they haven't all been bliss. But I sure am glad we stuck it out through the hard times! Our anniversary was actually 2 weeks ago. I've had this picture on my desk, waiting to be scanned and edited, for quite awhile. So I just had to do a belated Happy Anniversary! post.

So, Happy 14th Anniversary luv! I sure am glad you're my man. Thanks for being dedicated to your family and working hard to support us. You are most definitely my Knight in Shining Armor, slaying those evil dragons every day!

I'm one LUCKY lady! XOXO

Hubby Tag!!

I saw this a long time ago on a blog somewhere, and decided to do it as well! It's pretty fun...

What is his name? Roman Aaron Yoder III

How long have you been married? 13 ½ years

How long did you date? 7 months

How old is he? 37 in two months

Who eats more sweets? Depends...he loves his chocolate chips an milk EVERY night. I'll eat nearly anything that's lying around... so I guess that would be me.

Who said I love you first? He did - I was at waitressing at Plush Pippin and I was talking to him on the phone, making plans or something. As we said goodbye, he "let it slip" right before I hung up the phone. It was natural for him to say it - I guess he really felt it!

Who is taller? "Romaine"

Who can sing better? Ha - this is funny. A little inside joke we have. I can sing... he can't. He's tone deaf!

Who is smarter? He is smarter at some things, and I'm smarter with other things... we've got a good balance.

Who does the laundry? ummm, hello - ME!

Who pays the bills? Me again Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Again, me.

Who mows the lawn? HE DOES! And he does it so beautifully!

Who cooks dinner? Me... when I actually do it (I'm starting to!).

Who drives? Usually me if it's the two of us... although he does some times.

Who is more stubborn? HE IS!!

Who kissed who first? He did - although he probably doesn't even remember it. We were watching The Fox and The Hound.

Who asked who out first? I asked him to dance... and the rest is history!

Who proposed? He did.

Who has more siblings? He does - 7 siblings, I have 5

Who wears the pants? As he always says, he wears the pants - I just tell him which ones to wear!

Waxing Nostalgic

I'll keep this short cuz i wanted to post a picture of a friend of mine, that i stumbled across while showing my kids pictures from my mission journal. It's actually a picture journal of different segments of my life. Long story short. i came across this picture and couldn't resist. especially after reading about Jodi's trip down memory lane with Tiffany (Rice) and Amy (Widdman).
enjoy!!

The Yoder Baby Guessing Game!

Many times, when asked which sibling Logan looks the most like, I say - "You've seen one, you've seen them all." My kids just seem to look the same at the newborn stage. I decided to round up some pictures to see how they really do compare - side by side. I tried to find ones of the kids from the hospital, and another one of them at 2 months old. See if you can guess who is who!

First off though, you have to see a couple of pictures
from the past of Roman and me...

Pretty silly. I'm 1 in the top left picture, and 2 1/2 in the bottom left. I'm not sure how old Roman is in these pictures. I'm guessing 5 or 6 in the top right, and about 1 or 1 1/2 in the bottom right.

OK, back to business. In your comment, make your guess of who is who. In my header, my children are pictured in order starting with the top left, working down, and then back up on the right, working downwards. The order is: Aaron, Haley, Megan, Zack, Seth and Logan. Try to guess before you open the comment and see other people's comments! I'm pretty sure you can click on the picture and it will open in a new window in a larger format.

Here are my babies:

Now, here are the pictures of my babies around 2 months of age.
They are in a different order than the newborn picture collage.
Give it your best guess! I'm sure this is much easier!

I will reveal the correct answers next week... have fun! (It sure was fun for me!)

Testing!! Testing!!

Hello? Is this thing working. Just seeing if I can make a post. I do have to leave my two cents worth. Proper blogettiquet (misspell) is for the birds. i use caps all day at work because of the software program we run. so sometimes i forget to take them off and people think i'm yelling. and i'm not crazy about having to remember proper writing rules. this blogging thing is kind of fun. i'm more of a, how do you say, "blog jogger". so my disclaimer is dont get all bent out of shape if i dont capitalize my sentences, or use apostrophes. i'm kind of hoping cathy can erase this. i just wanted to get that off my chest.

Summertime Fun - The Yo Yo Way

I've Been *TAGGED*

My sis-in-law Marji "tagged" me - this is a first for me, so here I go!

3 JOYS

1. Being a mother to my six beautiful children. Most people are shocked and freak out a bit when they learn that I have six children. I truly feel blessed and privileged to be their mother. I am so happy to have six. Six really isn't that many! I love the fact that we fill our Yukon to the max. I love it when we are all piled in the bed Sunday's after church. I love it when we have family prayer together and our little circle is getting bigger. I love all the hands that go in the middle, piled on top of each other, for our family cheer. I love our big group family hug.

2. My hubby Roman (Romaine, Ro Yo, Rome, Daddy, Dah, and sometimes even "Pa" (we've been watching Little House) ). He works so hard to provide for our family. And when he gets home, he works so hard in the yard - the little one's love to go out there with him. I love bedtime, when the house is quiet, and the two of us have an hour or so to lay in bed and snuggle and talk about anything and everything. I know I couldn't do it with out him!

3. A clean house - I don't know why, but I get so much peace when my house is picked up and my kitchen is clean. Now, I haven't cleaned my bathroom in 3 weeks, but I'm still happy with my house that is fairly picked up.

3 FEARS

1. Spiders - I just don't like them. I contain myself pretty well when my kids are around, but the big uglies just freak me out. (Don't tell my kids - oh wait, they read this too...)

2. Loosing one of my children. I can't imagine life with out one of them. The thought of loosing any of them "spiritually" or "physically" nearly rips my heart out!

3. The state of our nation/world. I'm afraid about the economy, natural disasters, and the wickedness of this world and what it's going to come to and how bad it'll be for my children as they get older. I try to not dwell on this, but some days it all really gets to me!

3 GOALS

1. Lose 20 pounds - I have just over 10 to get to my pre-pregnancy weight, but I never got that last 7 pounds off after I had Seth, so I've got some work to do. Just can't figure out when I'll ever exercise!

2. Get a solid 8 hours of sleep! I haven't had that for a few months! It'll take time for this to happen as well. The thing with having 6 kids is: it's not necessarily the youngest that wakes you at night. There are 3 (and sometimes 4) others that like to help with this. It is sad when one of your kids, during family prayer, prays "bless everyone to stay in their beds so mommy won't be cranky in the morning". Yup - that just happened last night.

3. Start making dinner again. It's been a long time since I've actually made dinner even 5 out of 7 nights of the week. I'm not sure if I ever have! I'm trying to plan out meals and actually make them. Last night was my first night. By the way, thank you no one for giving me a dinner idea.

3 CURRENT OBSESSIONS

1. Making my bed. Some days it is the only thing that looks or feels orderly. But I just don't feel complete if I don't get my bed made. I even made it the other day at 6:30 at night. I just had to do it!

2. Reading. I think I'm on my 7th book. I got into reading again about 2 weeks ago. The one I've enjoyed the most is titled Finding Faith.

3. This new ice cream that I found at Winco – it is Tillamook brand “Udderly Chocolate”. It is a combo of milk chocolate ice cream, with white chocolate ice cream, and some big chocolate shavings. The stuff is sooo good – even Roman loves it. Megan had a taste of Romans two nights ago, and all day was asking for it. After the kids went to bed last night Roman asked me why I let them have some of our favorite ice cream… he’s very protective of it.

3 RANDOM SURPRISING FACTS (this one is hard... I'm so boring!)

1. I’m the 5th out of 6 kids. I have one sister with red hair, one with super dark brown hair, and another with brown hair. (I am – OK was the blondy). I have two brothers, one (was) blond as well, and the other had very dark brown hair. We had a joke growing up that one sis belonged to the milk man (which was funny because my dad was a milkman on the side one year with his brother).

2. I was born with a soft clef palate (so the roof of my mouth wasn’t closed) and had surgery when I was 18 months old to repair it. I also went to speech therapy when I was little because of it. My little sis was born this was as well, but she had to have multiple surgeries and a whole lot of speech therapy.

3. I love “thrill rides” – I love roller coasters and anything like it. Last summer I went on the thingy at Lagoon with my two nieces… I can’t think what it is called. Sky Coaster maybe? They took us up in the air and dropped us. It was the funnest thing ever and I’d love to do it again! SOOOO worth the money! I’d love to go sky diving one day, go on a hot air balloon ride too. Roman thinks I’m crazy so I have to enjoy these things on my own.

Now I get to tag 5 other people! Those I'm choosing are:

Amie

Dacia

Jodi

Tara

Tiffani

MY BIGGEST BABY...

...(that would be Aaron), is gone for the week to Scout Camp! This is his first time being away from home for more than one night! I don't know why I'm having a hard time with this, but I've been so worried and anxious about him leaving. It's worse than his first day of kindergarten! Maybe it's my crazy hormones. Although he seems to be the one who is most often in the middle of the chaos at home, and it was definitely quieter today with him away, I still miss the little booger!
Here he is last night, all packed and ready to go! They had to meet at the church at 4:30 this morning. Roman helped him pack his stuff up. A little tidbit on Roman. Roman is THE BEST packer in the whole wide world. Although, at times I do accuse him of over packing... OK - I always accuse him of over packing, he is indeed the ultimate packing man. Anyway, I just had to take a picture of this. Roman pulled out his trusty bungee cords and attached the foam mattress, and the sleeping bag to the duffel bag (notice how secure that pillow is to the duffel bag - it aint goin nowhere!). I am pretty certain that the whole kit-and-caboodle weighs twice as much as Aaron does. I have no idea how the kid is going to tote this around! At least I have the peace of mind knowing that if he gets his socks wet, he's got another 8 pair to choose from! Way to go dad!

HE'S HERE!!

Some of you know that I was bound and determined to have this little guy last Friday. Well, I had a few things to do first, so I did all the morning stuff, cut Zack and Seth's hair, gave them baths, and cleaned my bathroom. By 1:00, the three older kids were off playing with friends, so I took the boys over to my parents house so Seth could have a nap. At 1:30 I sent Roman a text message and asked him to come home, cuz we were going to the hospital! I still wasn't having any real consistent contractions, but as I mentioned earlier, the doc said if I went to the hospital at a 4 or 5, they probably wouldn't send me home.

So we get there around 2:20 and go up to Labor and Delivery triage. They bring me in and get me going on the monitor (in my little heart, I knew there wouldn't be much action on the monitor). We sat there for about 20 minutes and I think I had 3 contractions at the most. So the nurse sent me walkin (I was in "the gown" by the way - although she gave me second gown to wear the opposite direction - like a robe - so I'd have FULL COVERAGE on the backside!).

So off we went. First we went down the hall and visited my little sister, Carolee, who was working that day. She is a nurse in the NICU. So we got to visit with her for a minute (I wanted to keep moving!). Roman kept getting caught up with all the pictures/stories/news on the walls, so I was walking by myself at times - pacing back and forth to him. We went up to the 8th floor to the new mommy/baby unit. I walked by the window of babies (although only one was in the nursery at that time) and was even more determined to be holding my baby, rather than my belly, in a few hours! I refused to look at people in the eye - I didn't want the "oh, that poor miserable thing - she really wants to have that baby!" look.

Well, that was a very long hour. About 45 minutes into it I had to use the potty. I went back to triage and my nurse was talking on the phone to my doctor at that moment! After I used the restroom, the nurse told me that my doc said to send me home if I hadn't progressed. (GROWL!!!) I said, "That's not what he told me two days ago!! He's forgotten!" For some reason he was thinking I was set to be induced this coming Monday... At this point I was ready for a fight. There was no way I was going home today!! So I asked the nurse to unlock the stairwell (they leave it locked for security), and let me do the stairs!!! After 10 minutes of 3 flights up 5 flights down (and a short elevator ride), I was back in triage. She asked about my contractions in the past hour - I had no idea. All I knew was that my lower back was aching. So she put the monitor back on me and my doctor called again. While she talked to him, she checked me and I was at a...... FIVE!!! So doc asks if I want an epidural and tells the nurse to admit me. She leaves the room and I look at Roman and say "YES!" (you know, the way our little kids do - with the hand action and everything).

At 4:45 pm I get into my L&D room and get hooked up to an IV and she drew my blood, and she said in about 1 hour I could get the epidural (in my mind I was OK with this since I had zip-o pain!).

At 5:45 the doctor comes in to break my water and check me... holy cow - I was at an 8 and he said my cervix was "melting away - fast"!! Roman had just gone downstairs to get some dinner, so I called him and said - "hurry up!". At this point, I was still not feeling much of anything (how in the heck did that happen!?!?).

At 6:15 I got the epidural. I think at this point I felt one strong contraction. They are still around 5-7 minutes apart. An hour later, I was still at an 8 (7:15 pm). So at about 7:30 they hooked me up to pitocin. At 7:50 the nurse checked me and I was at a 9! At 8:05 (I had been feeling the *pressure* at this point) she checked me and I was at a 10 and ready to go! The nurse called the doctor, who said he'd be with us in 6 minutes (he was at home with his family). So we waited - fairly easily thanks to that epidural! Doctor arrived and got all ready and there we all were - I was literally "in the spot light" as we stared at each other waiting for the next contraction (they never did get super close!). Just as the nurse increased the pitocin level, the contraction started. Doctor said that baby was still up in the birth canal and it may take a few pushes. Time to push!! Suddenly I hear a "splash" - a whole ton of amniotic fluid burst out of me and sprayed everywhere - everyone said "Whoa!" and I thought the baby had landed on the floor! No worries - it was just his head that I delivered in half a push!! Doc said "Stop pushing!!" and was able to pull the shoulders out one by one and before I knew it, I was holding my little Logan!!

MY "BEFORE" PICTURE

MY "AFTER" PICTURE!!

Logan Joseph Yoder

7 pounds 12 oz

20" long

Born at 8:20 pm on June 6, 2008

"MY DADDY IS MY HERO!"

Here he is, all cleaned up and looking handsome as ever!

Roman brought the big three kids Saturday afternoon (after their race - more to come on that). Here we are with big Sis Haley!

Sunday after church Roman brought all five of the kids up to see Logan. Here are proud big brothers Zack and Aaron.

And another big sis Megan
And Seth - who is so excited to have a baby in the house!
Here I am with my SIX KIDS!!!!!!!!!!

WOOOO HOOOO!
WE MADE IT AND IT WAS WORTH IT!!!

FAMILY BIKE RIDE

Monday Night for FHE, we decided to go on a bike ride. Now stop - don't start laughing... I know you're trying to picture me, 9 mo prego whale, riding a bike! No need to worry - I didn't! I walked and my kids and Roman would ride slow, or circle back to me. We had a fun time and went about 2 miles. It has been a mild spring so far, and I for one have been grateful we haven't had many hot days! I love the 70 degree weather! Here are a few shots I took of the kids.

HALEY YO

ZACK AND MEG YO
AARON PULLS LITTLE SETH YO
RO YO DOING A WHEELIE
CAT YO

Unfortunately, the spicy Panda Express I had for dinner and the two mile walk didn't put me into labor, but for a couple of hours early this morning, I sure thought it had! At 3:30 am I woke up with some lower back pain, and again at 4:30 (more intense this time). I finally went back to bed around 5:15, but at 6:09 woke up from a pretty intense contraction. For the next hour they were anywhere from 2 to 8 minutes apart. Roman delayed going into work to see if this was the real thing or not. Having never been through this aspect of pregnancy (going into labor all on my own), I'm not too sure what to expect. Anyway, by 8:30 it had subsided, and I've just had mild contractions all day. :( It was raining tonight, so we couldn't go on a walk. Instead we were invited by some sweet friends for dinner. A whole day to not to have to worry about dinner - what a joy that was!

I never posted the results of my doc appt last week. I was dilated at a 3 and 70% effaced. I am going in again tomorrow (Wednesday) so we'll see what all the action has done to my body! I still can't be induced until the 16th... but I'm really hoping and praying that I can go all on my own before then!

Well, Here I Go!!

So more and more people I know are doing this whole blog thing. As I read them, I've thought, "what a great way to journal everyday life!". So I decided this just may be a great investment of my time! Plus, since we are having baby #6 in 5 weeks and (hopefully) 3 days, it would be a great way to keep everyone up to date.

A quick run down on our crew at the moment:

Aaron is 12 and just finished track. He was on a relay team with his cousin Allison and a two other friends. They did a great job in all the meets and finished 4th in the city. He loves sports and he loves friends, and spending time in sports WITH friends is heaven for him! He also LOVES school and can hardly wait until August 25th, when he starts Jr. High at the new West which will just be 1 1/2 miles from here! I'm afraid it's going to be a LONG summer.

Haley is my little 9 year old who loves art, reading, "bball", playing with friends, and going on dates with mom or dad. She has a nice little spirit about her (well, most of the time), and is always the one to remind us to have prayer. She recently acquired her very own bedroom and loves it. She has been reading Little House on the Prairie books lately, so I started putting the Little House DVD's in our Netflix Que. Everyone has been secretly enjoying these funny shows.

Megs is either a slice of heaven, or a slice of you-know-what. For the most part, she is fun, happy and easy going. But she has that streak of Yoder stubbornness in her like no other and if she is determined to do something, she'll fight me tooth and nail - which most often results in her screaming and crying in her room. As long as I can make sure she gets enough sleep at night, we can usually avoid these "episodes". She is LOVING kindergarten and has THE VERY BEST teacher ever - Mrs. Makaafi (Mahka-aw-fee), whom we will dearly miss when Megs starts 1st grade.

Zack is my happy-go-lucky four year old. He is fun to be around, has cute chubby cheeks, and is so easy going. Right now he goes to my preschool on T/TH mornings, and then goes to Shepherd of the Valley preschool on T/TH afternoons. He just loves life and is so innocently sweet. He thinks we should name the baby Billy Bob. He loves superheros, playing with Megan, football and basketball, riding his bike, and running errands with me on Wednesday afternoons (this is a time when it is just the two of us - Megan goes to Kindergarten and Seth takes a nap at Grandpa's house).

Seth is the hardest two year old I've ever had - yet at the same time he is such a cute little poop. It's nice that he is a little older and reasoning is beginning to work at times with him. Also, when I start to count to three, he'll usually stop (or start) doing. He recently graduated to a "big boy bed" - Spiderman style. He's done a terrific job staying in bed, although he does wake a little earlier than usual, and comes into my room ready to start the day (6:30ish). Last night I think he got out of bed at some odd hour because I have a foggy memory of someone turning the bathroom light on and off about 10 times. I can only imagine that he would be the one doing it! He's saying so many more words now. We love to hear him say the prayer, and he now says Zack's name "Yack" - he used to say "Zaw". I guess it is an improvement! He loves the days we have preschool, and wishes he could stay with the big kids. He always gets to see us when we go play outside though, and has started calling the kids by name. It's pretty funny.

Roman has been busy working 10 hours a day at EWS and then a few nights a week has been umpiring city rec softball. And he has also spent a few Saturday evenings refereeing a "Semi-pro" football league (don't let the name fool you - I think it is just a bunch of 30 somethings living out their glory days). When he happens to be home, you'll find him working outside. This 1/2 acre we're on is WAY TOO MUCH WORK!! I just wish we could hire someone to get it all done in 2 weeks... but unfortunately, it takes $$ to do that! So we just slowly plug away.

As you can tell, I've been busy with preschool. It's been a fun first year and I've learned a lot. One thing being, "Why didn't I start this sooner?". I guess I should be thankful I was blessed with the job at Citi for 3 years because the medical benefits were amazing. It was the only great thing about that job. Anyway, I've been focusing on registration for next fall. I'm offering a 3rd day for the 4 year olds (on Wednesdays), and I'll be taking up to 10 kids on T and TH (only 6 on W's). I'm nearly full, and I hope I don't regret increasing my numbers. There are times when more #'s make some of the games and things work better, so I'm hoping it'll turn out to be a good choice. The past few weeks I've been working more on the whole digital scrapbooking thing. That has been fun - I guess I'll need to figure out how to post a page here. I also made an announcement for an Enrichment Night we're having in June. It turned out pretty cute and I think it is a cheap way of advertising too! I'm also working on a slide show for the YW in our ward who are graduating. In RS we do this transition spot light thing for the girls and I did a movie/slide show thing last year. It is a lot of work, but I LOVE putting them together! This time I have more notice, so I think it'll be less stressful. So I seem to be pretty busy with all of that stuff this month.

About the baby - for those who don't know, we are having another little boy. At first I was slightly disappointed because I really wanted another girl... but now that I'm used to the idea, I'm really looking forward to it. Not only will it make the whole bedroom arrangement easier, the idea of 3 little boys in a row being buddies and playing together all the time sounds pretty fun. So my original due date was June 27th. My ultrasound changed it to June 23rd. But since I'm measuring (and looking) so big, my doctor keeps saying I'm going to have a big baby (Seth was my biggest at 8lb 12oz! - and I was induced 8 days early with him!!!). The very earliest they will induce for non-medical reasons is 10 days prior to due date. I'd love to actually start labor on my own for once, but I'm afraid it won't happen. When I went in with Seth, I was dilated to a 6 and still not in active labor - eeek!!!!!!! I've already started having contractions on days that I work too hard... but it just never seems to actually get me movin. So if anyone has some great tips on inducing labor naturally, let me know, because I really don't want to have a 9 or 10 pound baby! (Good news is that so far I've only gained 30 pounds - with Seth I gained a total of 50!!). Anyway, the doc is planning on inducing me on Friday, June 13th ("I'm not superstitious - just stitious"). Unless he ends up having a surgery on that day, then it will be Monday the 16th. I'm really hoping for the 13th though.

So there you go - that is our update. I'll have to post the silly day to day happenings as they happen - which hopefully won't turn out like a novel... as this post has.

NOW I'M DONE!