could be in atlanta tomorrow???

i received a call from our agent and she is submitting josh and jordyn's pictures to be used in a big photo shoot tomorrow or thursday. if they are chosen we will be heading out of town for a day or so. the shoot is in atlanta. basically, i just sit and wait until she calls. i have no idea if they will get chosen or not. they needed girls jordyn's age and boy's josh's age. with any luck i will hear from her soon and can make our traveling plans and pack up our stuff. we will see...

i love bloglines!

several months ago, my friend jess told me about bloglines and i had some trouble figuring out what it does and how it works. the other day i was plain determined and figured it out - and once i did it was sooooo easy. anyway, i am so excited about bloglines!!! it lets me know when the blogs i read have a new post - love it!! i would spend many minutes in a day going down my blogroll bookmarks and going to everyone's site - i read nearly 30 blogs - and i would click on a blog to find they hadn't posted something new. i am sure that people who don't have bloglines and click on my blog have that happen a lot too!!! well now, my frustrations are over!! i just look at my bloglines and read the new posts i haven't read!!! i love bloglines. if you read a lot of blogs on a regular basis - you have to try it!!!!!

busy, busy...

the last part of this week has gone so fast and we've been on the go! here is a recap:

~on wednesday we spent the day at amy's house. the kid's had a great time playing and we did some organizing and hanging out!!

~on thursday i had a midwife appointment, amy met me there and took my kid's over to walmart so i could have an appointment in peace!! yeah - thanks so much amy!!!! my appointment went great, i got to hear baby's heartbeat - sounds great! i also set up my ultrasound appointment for may 19!! only 24 days until we find out if we are having a boy or a girl!!! oh yeah, i saw some friends' at my appointment, who were having their ultrasound and they found out some big news! i am really excited for them!!!!

~today, chelsea and i went shopping together without any children!! yahoo!! we had a wonderful babysitter who watched all of our kids. we did have a good time! we shopped at destination maternity and then ate at pf changs for lunch - yum! the day went sooooo fast, before we knew it was time to get home and relieve our sitter!!

~ tomorrow we have a busy day. we will be at lake park, for girls on the run, where jordyn's dance class will be doing their ballet recital piece! she is so excited! and then we will be downtown at freedom park to volunteer for safe journey (one of elevation's community outreach projects!!)

~ tomorrow we will also find out if jordyn and josh will be used for a print job!! if so, we may be heading to atlanta soon!!!

so that is what is going on around here!!!

not leading the pack....

my feelings of being overwhelmed with maintaining our home brought me to this question to which i asked my husband, "is this what it is like to have a big family? am i to except the fact that not everything will get done and everything that is done will quickly be undone?" after crying (sobbing) about what i did do today and how it still looks like i have done nothing, he told me that he thought this is probably what it is like to have a big family. he asked me what my friends experience. and i told him i didn't really know because the friend's that i am the closest to and who i spend the most time with are friends with one or two children. i am the one who has the most children right now. (although with this baby boom, two of my friends will have 3 kids each just like me in a matter of months!) anyway, so i told him i feel a little lonely because of this - i am the one sailing into unchartered waters first, my friends quickly sailing behind me. but at this time i am the one who they are probably going to look to for navigation and honestly, i don't think i will be the best sailor to guide them. i really feel out of my league and a little alone. i don't feel like i know what i am doing most of the time. i feel like i am trying and the house is literally falling down around me. and that my kid's behavior is just getting worse and i feel lost and helpless.

i still wonder sometimes where that handbook is that we were suppose to get upon delivery of each new life. maybe i will receive it this time around, maybe it comes when you give life in bulk - like to 4 or more kiddos.

so, i am praying for strength during this incredibly hard season of life for me. i am praying for wisdom and guidance. i so desire to build our family on such a strong foundation, it is just really hard when the heart of the builder feels so broken, so lonely and so beaten down. i know that God is the only one who can lift me up out of this feeling of helplessness. i pray that he will do that for me and that he will bring some mentors and some friends along the way to help me so i can help others. i feel like i am suppose to lead my pack of friends who are about to become mommies of a big family and i have no idea how to lead from the middle of the pack - when i am barely surviving myself.

God knows. God will equip me. until then, i am just hanging on and relying on Him.t

"mrs. massey please bear with me...

i really appreciate your patience."

patience, hmmm... lately i have been wondering if i have any of that. in fact really i don't even know what patience is or what it looks like or what it feels like. i am sure my family feels the same.

yesterday, i made a huge to do list. yes, i am a list maker! and on the top of the list were to take care of some phone calls and some billing issues. so this afternoon, i have spent all of my "quiet time" talking to customer representatives. more realistically, i have been on hold, given the run around and been transfered to different departments. talking i did little of. until i had to repeat my need to the next person b/c the communication between different departments did not happen.

and i still have a list of phone calls to be made - seriously it takes so much time out of my day to get these "little" things done. and i get frustrated very easily when i feel like my time is "wasted" and i haven't accomplished something.

i get so frustrated when everything i do is constantly being undone by someone else. today, my two little ones literally scattered a pile of papers all over my bedroom. this pile of papers were seperated into stacks and folders - until they got their little hands on them and spread them everywhere. why? i asked why?

i seriously had a melt down. i then walked back into their rooms which were a train wreck and broke down into tears. nothing ever stays in order around here. i was so frustrated. at that moment mrs. massey had no patience tobe appreciated by anyone.

gender prediction tests...

i need your help... check out the baby's blog so you can weigh in on your gender prediction tests!!!

our shining stars...

last saturday, all three of my kids were given the opportunity to meet a talent agent! she is based out of atlanta but was coming to charlotte to do a workshop and meet a few perspective clients. we traveled to south park to meet her last week. i really didn't know what to expect. we came prepared with headshots of each child and a resume. their headshots were taken by a friend of ours -- she was so sweet to do them for us - thank you tammy!!!! and their resumes didn't have a lot on them at all.

getting there proved to be a headache and i wondered if we were suppose to be pursuing this. jamil said perhaps it was the enemy trying to get us to think that. we were just a few minutes away from south park, when we realized that fairview road was closed and they were directing traffic to carmel road - which was standstill. we tried a few other routes to end up backtracking! of course we were late. we were not the only ones late. there was a marathon in that area and roads were closed and traffic a nightmare.

we finally arrived. i had to fill out a lot of paperwork and then we waited for our turn to meet miss barbara. joshua was given a script to practice. he and jamil worked on that while we waited. and then a nice guy, jacob, came over and worked with joshua on his lines. joshua did great practicing with jacob.

when it was our turn, joshua went in first all by himself to meet miss barbara!! i was nervous for him - he did great - he went right in and jacob followed him in to read the lines with him in front of miss barbara. and then when they were done, jamil and i went in with the two little kids!! jordyn pretended to be shy at first and then she proceeded to dance around the room while we talked. jesiah sat on jamil's lap and was very well behaved.

miss barbara said josh did great and she wanted him!! and then she told us she wanted all three of them. she said they were all beautiful and thought their looks would definitely be used! so we signed contracts for all three kids. we are officially signed on with the talent agency.

the agency does primarily commercials, tv and films. they do some print work too! so we will see where this will lead us. we have always been encouraged to get our kids into this field, but the opportunity never seemed to be there until now!

so now i am working on doing some of the things that are required of us from the agency - like setting up websites and getting professional headshots for josh. none of which requires any kind of large investment. then as the opportunities present themselves we will go on auditions. joshua will get most of the "acting" auditions b/c he is old enough to read lines and really be in the business. as jordyn perfects her reading skills and gets a little older, i can really see her loving this and wanting to do it!

that is really important to me is that the kids like doing this kind of "work". and as long as they are having fun and enjoying it we will do it! it will be quite interesting to see what happens and where this will take us. of course, it is another commitment for me to make, which i am ok with. it may mean i will have to give something up or rearrange some things in our schedule. because we have to be ready to go for auditions when they come about. auditions are primarily in charlotte, atlanta and wilmington. so we will have to travel a little bit here and there!! (good thing our good friends will let us crash in atlanta!!!) we are really new to this and just learning this business so i will keep you posted as i learn things on our new adventure!!!

aunt julie has arrived...

the big news of the week is that my sister julie is here. she came in late last night from pittsburgh. her car was loaded with her remaining belongings and she is here for good (atleast for now!!) we are sooo excited to have her near us. the kids are ecstatic. i am so excited to have my sister living so close to us. i keep thinking of all the exciting things she will get to be a part of that she has missed out on. she will get to go to josh's spring musical and jordyn's dance recital. she can come with me to my midwife appointments - i even told her she could come to see the baby be born if she wanted in on that fun - she isn't so sure she wants to do that yet - but she might change her mind - who knows.

we are so glad to have aunt julie living near us!!! what a blessing for our whole family!!

drained...

i was thinking about my last several (more than that probably) posts, they haven't been really deep or full of insight or even transparency. lately, i have had a hard time expressing how i have been feeling in my writing. i think it is because i have been feeling drained. i am so physically exhausted. i am also emotionally exhausted.

when i started feeling sick with this pregnancy, everything around me began to fall apart. i feel like i have become bad at everything. a bad wife, a bad mommy, a bad friend, a bad daughter, a bad sister, a bad volunteer, a bad child of God. just bad at everything. i haven't been able to keep up with anything. my house is a total disarray, it is unorganized, cluttered and messy. and on top of that, my prayer life and quiet time has been few and far between. quality time with my kids and husband pale in comparison when i could have the option of falling into bed or onto the couch. playdates, girl's nights outs, get together with friends are irregular. phonecalls and visits to family are rare. volunteer work is way behind. i just can't keep up. i feel like i am failing miserably. jamil says i am being way too hard on myself. but i can't help it.

i can't help it because this is not who i am, usually. under normal circumstances i am on top of things, i can maintain the balance of my life. but not lately and it is driving me crazy. i like to have complete control over my life and it is out of control right now. and i don't know when i am going to regain the energy and strength to clean up the mess i have made.

when i say mess, i am talking more than the messy house. i feel like i haven't spent quality time with my kids. lately, i haven't been speaking life into them. i haven't enjoyed their little selves. i haven't read a story or let them do an art project in some time now. i haven't taught them much of anything but that mommy is sick and doesn't feel well right now. they know this very well. so well that jordyn prays for mommy every single night. without fail. i feel like i am causing such damage to them. again jamil says i am overreacting. and i know where he is coming from. my sweet children are not neglected, unclean, or hungry. their basic needs are being met. and we have been able to take advantage of my spurts of energy and had a few playdates and park days.

jamil and i are overdue for a date night - in fact we are so overdue we could use a date weekend! i haven't the energy to plan a date night. why calling one of our babysitters to come over is such a big deal, i don't know, but it seems to be. i just don't do it when i think of it and then the weekend hits and it is way hard to get a sitter last minute. at night, when he is home, i can barely make it through a movie or a tv show without feeling sick or feeling tired - so i usually bail and go to bed. and then there is that list of things that need to be done for our household that he has asked me to do for weeks now and they just aren't getting done. jamil really doesn't expect much from me and he asks me to do very little. but i got the hint the other day, when i was feeling better i announced i was going to start spring cleaning this week, i was going to do a room a day and just thoroughly clean, organize, shampoo carpets, disinfect. his reply was why don't you start with the laundry tomorrow - and i looked at the 4 loads of laundry which had made a permanent residence on our two new chairs. i agreed.

i feel unmotivated and exhausted. i feel drained. i just want to feel like myself, i don't even know who that is anymore. i have two friends that have told me the hardest part of having four kids is the pregnancy. they both told me once the baby gets here i will feel so much better. i really hope so, because right now i am scared to add another child our family in this state.

held hostage...

today, i am being held hostage by the huge amount of laundry that has to be done. i have been washing, drying, folding and putting away laundry all day so far and still have a lot more to do. i have atleast 4 loads of towels to do from our "flood" yesterday. when we got home from church and lunch with our friends, i was carrying in a sound asleep little boy and as i headed from our garage to the laundry room i didn't notice anything until i stepped in the hallway and my flip flops began to squish. that is when i looked into the kid's bathroom and there was a good 2 inches of water consuming the entire floor. the toilet had overflowed while we were gone. we left the house at 7:30 that morning and got home around 2:30. so we had a huge mess to clean up - and now 4 extra loads of towels. fun fun!

hard to believe...

today, we ran a few errands. one of our stops included target. i couldn't find exactly what i was looking for and i didn't have a list. but it was fun just to be in there! you know i love target! so we looked around for a little while. and then we checked out. i seriously bought ONE item, that is it! never have i gone through a check out line in target with one item - never. of course there were lots of things i could have bought, but i didn't. i stuck with my one item and was on my way. oh and the item cost under $10!!!!

josh's new pet...

meet "sneakers" the tiger snake!
adopted 4-9-08

joshua got a webkinz pet snake today! he has been asking us for a webkinz for some time now. we told him if he did well on his report card and our teacher conference went well - he could get a webkinz. today, i had our conference with his wonderful first grade teacher at union academy. joshua did wonderful in alll of his subjects - working above grade level and ready for second grade!! his teacher really, really likes him. she had very good things to say about joshua. he is a leader and is well liked at school. she said he is very kind and compassionate, he helps his peers and her all of the time. of course there are a few behavioral things that he needs to work on, like talking out of turn and trying to get his peer's attention. overall, he has done great. we are so pleased and so proud of him!!!

when i got home from the conference, he was ready to get his new pet. my dad was willing to take him because i couldn't easily take jordyn, jesiah and will (who i was watching for the day) - if i did i would have had to buy 4 webkinz. so after we got home from the park this afternoon, my dad took him to pick out his webkinz!! i thought he was going to get a tiger or a leopard, but he came home with a tiger snake!

josh and i set up his account and he begun taking care of sneakers! he had a good time on the website today. i didn't know what this thing was all about so i did some exploring and playing around with him on the website. it is pretty cute. and it did keep him busy earning "money" and buying things (food, tvs, furniture,toys) for his new little friend.

thanks friends!!

several of my friend's came to my rescue and pointed out my error on my link - so it is fixed on the sidebar and ready to go. thanks friends for offering help and pointing out my mistake!

technical difficulty...

for some reason there are problems with the link to baby j's new blog. i put the link in the last post and on my sidebar -- and i have had several people say that they can not access it. i am not sure what's going on. both sites are hosted by blogspot and are under my account, but can't figure out why i can't link one to another???? anyone with technical background want to offer some advice???

until i figure it out... here is the actual address of the new blog....

www.baby4inmyjcrew.blogspot.com

baby j's blog...

i created a new blog yesterday to keep track of the daily going ons of this pregnancy. i will still post on this blog about the pregnancy - especially the big stuff!! but the other blog, will have more detailed (sometimes graphic) posts of what is going on with me during the pregnancy. i feel that i have been pretty focused on the baby and the pregnancy and i didn't want to consume all my posts with that stuff on here, since this blog serves as our family blog as well as my thoughts on life. so i just created another blog where if you want you can check in on the progress of the pregnancy and the baby!!! check it out!!

it's going around...

it's in the air, it's in the water,it's everywhere... it's going around somehow...

it feels like everyone i know is pregnant and everytime i read a blog or talk to someone - i find out they are pregnant! in the last TWO days, i have found out THREE more of my friends are expecting babies!! it is so exciting. it is also so much fun to be bringing new babies into the world with so many other friends!

i just made a list - (which i may not disclose - i thought about posting links to some of these friends' blogs, but several don't blog and some haven't even announced it yet!) and i have counted FOURTEEN ladies including me who are expecting right now! wow! we have an instant preschool class in the making!! so much fun!!!!

anyone else joining the club with us?????

lost without 'lost'....

last night, i watched the last episode in the fourth season of lost online. so i am caught up and ready to watch it when it airs on tv in 20 days!! (notice the counter on the sidebar!) but i must say i don't know what to do with myself tonight. my habit has been to watch a few episodes a night after the kids go to bed. tonight, i don't know what to do with myself. perhaps i will catch up on a few episodes of october road - i think there are a few shows i missed before it went off the air.

anyway, i am counting down the days until the next episode comes on of lost! oh and i am looking forward to grey's anatomy and october road too!!!!

strawberry pie & lost...

i have had a serious craving for strawberry pie. so yesterday afternoon i made a strawberry pie. in fact, by the time jamil walked in the door, i had the pie nearly done and nothing yet made for dinner. i thought strawberry pie for dinner sounded good. i don't think he agreed. so i ended up making chicken piccata (the recipe is from my friend, holly, i got it off her blog!!) for dinner. it was excellent!!! everyone liked it. only jordyn, jamil and i liked the pie. the boys ate ice cream for desert. i am in love with this strawberry pie. i wonder how long this craving will last! hopefully not too long b/c it has a ton of sugar in it!!

i have one episode left to watch in the lost series, only one left!!!! and then i will be all caught up with you fellow lost addicts!! i will be able to watch it with you all when it comes back on television in 2 weeks. i am so excited. i have had to watch several episodes a night to come this far. but it has been a fun goal. and the perfect solution to a tired mom at the end of the day.

thou shall do the dance...

our bedtime routine consists of baths (most nights, not all), pj's, brushing teeth, storytime and then jamil and i take turns tucking in both rooms of kid's. jamil will usually ask them to recite several bible verses that they have all learned. it is sooo cute to hear jesiah recite the verses in his little voice. next time you see him, you have to hear it for yourself!! anyway, jamil will also teach them new verses or different things about the bible. he recently has been teaching them about the ten commandments. they can each name several of the ten commandments. jamil asked jesiah which of the ten commandments was the most important. jesiah replied in his sweet voice, "thou shall do the dance."

where did he get this from?? well, a few months ago, we rented evan almighty (if you don't remember the movie or the part with the dance, click here.) and my kids loved the movie - they especially like the song and the ending with c&c music factory's, everybody dance now. and in the movie they proclaim "thou shall do the dance" as the 11th commandment.

jamil really wanted jesiah to say the most important commandment was to love the lord and put no other god before Him. well, in a three year old's mind "doing the dance" must have really stuck! and that is his most important commandment. he says the cutest things ever!!!