It's Wednesday morning and my house is a certified disaster. At least according to Rice Ranch standards. I have little piles of dirty and clean laundry in corners of practically every room of the house, and admittedly I don't know which is which. I have a full load of dirty dishes in the dishwasher and an equally large stack on the counter ready for a second load. I have sticky counters, sticky floors, dirty toilets, cobwebs in corners, and crumbs in places food never should have been in the first place.
It ain't pretty, folks.
And so, I'm doing what any self-respecting mother of eleven, plus a bun-in-the-oven would do.... I'm blogging.
Mwuahahahahahahaha.
And on top of blogging, I am sipping my morning tea from my favorite Tinkerebell mug and listening to Shirley Temple belt out Come and Get Your Happiness while Jackson and Noah come tell on each other for the 45th time in seven minutes (he isn't helping me make our bed/those aren't my socks but he is telling me to put them in the hamper/this isn't my mess but he's telling me to clean it up) ... and quite frankly I'm ready to wave a white flag and tell everyone to go play outside for the day. While I curl up in the corner with a good book and a gallon of chocolate ice cream.
I have zero motivation to tackle this house, let alone rebellious Ricelets.
I have one week left (please, dear Lord, let it be so) of morning sickness and sheer exhaustion and complete lack of desire to do anything other than sleep .... and then I enter my second trimester.
The Second Trimester : that glorious season of pregnancy where my skin will magically start to glow (as opposed to oozing gallons of grease from every pore) and my morning/noon/night sickness mysteriously dissolves into thin air, and my boundless energy to tackle piles of laundry in a single bound suddenly reappears with one life-changing click on my phone - when my BabyCenter Pregnancy app tells me : you are now twelve weeks pregnant.
If the designers of that app had ever been pregnant themselves, I'm sure they would have made sure a loud and spontaneous hallelujah chorus erupted from my phone as soon as I opened the app on day 78 of my pregnancy ... Second Trimester is right up there with the Second Coming of Jesus as far as I'm concerned. And all the pregnant ladies said amen.
I have a few pictures to share before I return to reality and restore order and justice to The Rice Ranch .... and a powerful video message, so make sure to watch it after you look at the pictures, mmm-kay ???
This was my official baby bump last week, at ten weeks pregnant. I am fairly certain it is the last picture you will see of a skinny me ... in several years. My appetite is starting to pick up at an alarming rate, and it's safe to say I wake up thinking about food. Goodbye skinny jeans, hello muumuus.
These are two of the twelve reasons I don't really care that my waist size has expanded and deflated so many times over the past 28 years that I will never be able to wear a bikini in public. Okay, never mind- I don't wear bikinis in public anyway, they aren't my thing. But still . I don't care that my body shape has changed drastically from that little cheerleader in high school to a decidely matronly figure. These little people are worth it. They are worth every stretch mark, wrinkle, gray hair, lost night of beauty sleep, you name it. And I am SO blessed to be doing this all again, even if it does mean my size 2 jeans will probably never see the light of day in this century.
We cut Hayden's curls. (And yes, this is the AFTER picture.) Actually, I (capital I) cut Hayden's curls while a chorus of siblings screaming NOOOOOOO !!!!! gathered around me in the bathroom. I took maybe an inch off - the curls were cascading past his little collar - and you would have thought I shaved the poor kid's head. Abigail ran crying to the kitchen to find an envelope to stuff the little tablespoon of snipped curls into, while Kenzie and my boys hurled all kinds of curse words my way. Well, not really, but practically. They were ticked. But that's okay, because I'm the mom and I think he needed a trim, even if they all refused to speak to me for 24 hours afterwards. And he looks adorable, even if his man-bun potential has been significantly reduced. So there.
^^^ Headed to church last Sunday . One of us was thrilled to go hear from the Lord. The other is still in need of a serious conversion. I don't know if it's because he's number eleven or because he just arrived in life with a bent towards stubbornness and rebellion, but Hayden Patrick has given me a run for my money. Pray for our little wayward child - I'm thinking I deserve an easy, mellow, COMPLIANT baby after Hayden, don't you ??? Surely the Lord knows I can only take one of these types of children at a time.
Okay speaking of conversions - in all seriousness, I want you to watch this next video about a powerful one. This video was put together by one of the churches in our fellowship, and my husband showed it on Sunday morning during his sermon. If you have never seen someone radically and powerfully converted to Jesus Christ, and watched their life transform so drastically that you KNEW it was only something God could do... this video will change your life.
And the awesome and amazing thing is that this kind of change and new life is available to EVERYONE who calls on Jesus. It's not just for the person who appears "down and out" on the outside - it's for the kid who grew up in church and was still a messed up sinner on the inside (like me) or for the average Joe on the street. Or housewife in her dirty house. This message of hope and forgiveness is available to anyone- please watch this and listen to this story .....
(and go ahead and run it full screen, as it's much clearer that way !)
Be back soon... Happy Wednesday !
It ain't pretty, folks.
And so, I'm doing what any self-respecting mother of eleven, plus a bun-in-the-oven would do.... I'm blogging.
Mwuahahahahahahaha.
And on top of blogging, I am sipping my morning tea from my favorite Tinkerebell mug and listening to Shirley Temple belt out Come and Get Your Happiness while Jackson and Noah come tell on each other for the 45th time in seven minutes (he isn't helping me make our bed/those aren't my socks but he is telling me to put them in the hamper/this isn't my mess but he's telling me to clean it up) ... and quite frankly I'm ready to wave a white flag and tell everyone to go play outside for the day. While I curl up in the corner with a good book and a gallon of chocolate ice cream.
I have zero motivation to tackle this house, let alone rebellious Ricelets.
I have one week left (please, dear Lord, let it be so) of morning sickness and sheer exhaustion and complete lack of desire to do anything other than sleep .... and then I enter my second trimester.
The Second Trimester : that glorious season of pregnancy where my skin will magically start to glow (as opposed to oozing gallons of grease from every pore) and my morning/noon/night sickness mysteriously dissolves into thin air, and my boundless energy to tackle piles of laundry in a single bound suddenly reappears with one life-changing click on my phone - when my BabyCenter Pregnancy app tells me : you are now twelve weeks pregnant.
If the designers of that app had ever been pregnant themselves, I'm sure they would have made sure a loud and spontaneous hallelujah chorus erupted from my phone as soon as I opened the app on day 78 of my pregnancy ... Second Trimester is right up there with the Second Coming of Jesus as far as I'm concerned. And all the pregnant ladies said amen.
I have a few pictures to share before I return to reality and restore order and justice to The Rice Ranch .... and a powerful video message, so make sure to watch it after you look at the pictures, mmm-kay ???
This was my official baby bump last week, at ten weeks pregnant. I am fairly certain it is the last picture you will see of a skinny me ... in several years. My appetite is starting to pick up at an alarming rate, and it's safe to say I wake up thinking about food. Goodbye skinny jeans, hello muumuus.
These are two of the twelve reasons I don't really care that my waist size has expanded and deflated so many times over the past 28 years that I will never be able to wear a bikini in public. Okay, never mind- I don't wear bikinis in public anyway, they aren't my thing. But still . I don't care that my body shape has changed drastically from that little cheerleader in high school to a decidely matronly figure. These little people are worth it. They are worth every stretch mark, wrinkle, gray hair, lost night of beauty sleep, you name it. And I am SO blessed to be doing this all again, even if it does mean my size 2 jeans will probably never see the light of day in this century.
We cut Hayden's curls. (And yes, this is the AFTER picture.) Actually, I (capital I) cut Hayden's curls while a chorus of siblings screaming NOOOOOOO !!!!! gathered around me in the bathroom. I took maybe an inch off - the curls were cascading past his little collar - and you would have thought I shaved the poor kid's head. Abigail ran crying to the kitchen to find an envelope to stuff the little tablespoon of snipped curls into, while Kenzie and my boys hurled all kinds of curse words my way. Well, not really, but practically. They were ticked. But that's okay, because I'm the mom and I think he needed a trim, even if they all refused to speak to me for 24 hours afterwards. And he looks adorable, even if his man-bun potential has been significantly reduced. So there.
^^^ Headed to church last Sunday . One of us was thrilled to go hear from the Lord. The other is still in need of a serious conversion. I don't know if it's because he's number eleven or because he just arrived in life with a bent towards stubbornness and rebellion, but Hayden Patrick has given me a run for my money. Pray for our little wayward child - I'm thinking I deserve an easy, mellow, COMPLIANT baby after Hayden, don't you ??? Surely the Lord knows I can only take one of these types of children at a time.
Okay speaking of conversions - in all seriousness, I want you to watch this next video about a powerful one. This video was put together by one of the churches in our fellowship, and my husband showed it on Sunday morning during his sermon. If you have never seen someone radically and powerfully converted to Jesus Christ, and watched their life transform so drastically that you KNEW it was only something God could do... this video will change your life.
And the awesome and amazing thing is that this kind of change and new life is available to EVERYONE who calls on Jesus. It's not just for the person who appears "down and out" on the outside - it's for the kid who grew up in church and was still a messed up sinner on the inside (like me) or for the average Joe on the street. Or housewife in her dirty house. This message of hope and forgiveness is available to anyone- please watch this and listen to this story .....
(and go ahead and run it full screen, as it's much clearer that way !)
Be back soon... Happy Wednesday !
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