i have the best husband in the world. we have four kids and i homeschool three of them. i love them to pieces and wouldn't trade this life in for any other. i am fortunate to have incredible perspective on this matter, having been in the workforce for nearly a decade, three of those years juggling job and kids.

i am happy. truly. happy.

i'm recovering from a long, exhausting - yet very fun - weekend. we went to chicago. porta graduated from kellog with his mba and we wouldn't have missed it. so we went. my weekend started on thursday. but let's back up to wednesday and the 12 loads of laundry i did because it had been a week since i had done any laundry and we needed clean clothes to take on our trip. have you ever done 12 loads of laundry in one day? do you even have enough clothes to do that? by 11 p.m. i was just so tired of doing laundry. i was so tired, period. the kind of tired where you just want to whimper and cry and then hide under the bed covers for a very long time. it was that kind of day.

we left thursday and came back monday night. we stayed at the courtyard marriott river north. it was so great to be right by everything in downtown chicago. i kind of wish we had another day to really enjoy it. but our long weekend was jam packed celebrating porta's graduation, meeting new babies, visiting family and reconnecting with good friends we haven't seen in a long time. and as a super bonus...chrissy was in chicago at the same time! yay for time with dinner buddy!

the boys were unbelievably good. they endured long lunches, an extended dinner in a fancy italian restaurant, a graduation ceremony in an un-airconditioned arena, torrential rain and thunderstorms and one room for all six of us with great attitudes and good behavior. well, they got a little loud in the hotel room and made me a little crazy, but i can't really blame them for wanting to let loose a little. they weren't even being bad, just noisy. it was more me being impatient and not wanting our hotel neighbors to hate us.

we shouldn't have been able to go on this trip. we still don't know how our finances are shaking out now that we are officially on one income. it's expensive to stay in chicago...yet somehow, god makes everything work. we actually only ended up paying the whopping $48/day parking fee at the hotel. the room was paid for with marriott points, courtesy of eric's mom. i coinstarred our change and it ended up paying for our tickets to the field museum and then some. i feel so fortunate to have such good friends and to be able to spend time with them in their own city. with 4 kids, it's tough to travel and everyone ends up having to come to us. it was nice for once to be able to visit them instead. plus i love taking the boys to new places.

i'm still dog tired, but i have my coffee and that always helps. next trip: the soo in two weeks!

a year ago i was getting ready to staff my very last relay. i was constantly anxious and stressed about work and i just couldn't shake it off. it's such a good cause, but, man, the work just beats you down. it was like a dark cloud looming around my shoulders, engulfing my head and not letting me out. my poor family never got all of me when i was with them. i'd be home, but my head would be consumed with the latest work drama kicking my ass.

needless to say, i don't miss work. (g, you were right!) i miss the people, but i don't miss the work. i miss talking to adults every day, but i don't miss it more than i love being home with my boys. i remember when isaiah was born and getting so upset at the thought of missing any of his "firsts." what if he said his first word when i wasn't there? what if he laughed and i missed it? what if he crawled for the first time and i couldn't cheer for him? of course, working full time makes you miss a lot in your babies' lives. i missed isaiah's very first day of school because i was out of town at a conference. he only goes to school for the first time once! - and i missed it. guilty was something i felt a lot and never got used to.

but not anymore...it is a HUGE blessing that i get to be home with my boys and that - finally - they get all of me. i feel so lucky that i get to drop off isaiah and ethan at school and attend their class parties. i have time and energy to play with them at the park and help them with their homework. i'm thrilled that i get to make dinner (almost) every night and have a clean house waiting for eric when he comes home. life has sloooooowed down, and i cherish it. it's definitely not easier...cutting out one income has forced us to simplify and be humble. the fruits of that struggle have been that we see our priorities as they should be and *really* put our trust in God to provide for us. (and he always does!) as rewarding as my last job was, it pales in comparison to being able to give my boys the love and security that they need from me that i wasn't giving them before.

the last nine months have gone by fast. i'm ridiculously in love with my family and will never regret the decision to quit work and stay home.

two days ago, i attended the funeral for a baby girl. she was born with down's syndrome and a weak heart and the Lord decided that it was too much for her to keep fighting...He took that precious, precious life into His arms at just 5 days old.

i cannot express the pain and sadness that i felt as i watched her 10 brothers and sisters weep over her tiny white coffin. uncle, father and 2 brothers were the pall bearers. my heart broke a hundred times and then once more as i could only imagine the pain her parents were feeling was mine a thousandfold. four grandparents watched as their children buried their granddaughter. it's something you never wish would happen...and something you never think you'd witness or experience.

briana aubrey reece, we never got to meet, but you have made a footprint in my heart. you remind me how precious each life is and have allowed your parents to witness about the capacity of our hearts to grow and grow with love for our children, no matter how many, without compromising the love that already exists. you remind me to count the blessing that each child is that is conceived into this world. you remind me to never take for granted isaiah, ethan, owen and xavier. and you remind me that even in the darkest times, our Lord Jesus always shines through with his loving arms to comfort us and draw us near. thank you, sweet baby girl, and may you rest in peace with our Father in Heaven.

p90x. day 18. i don't think i've ever worked out daily for this long in my life. not even during the dancing days of college. i think by far yoga is my favorite...i can hardly do the balance poses, but it's still fun to try. it feels more like a dance than a workout. i don't even care that it's 90 minutes. (i'll do yoga over plyometrics any day.) regardless, the post-workout soreness feels good.

i just need to stay committed.

it's exciting. for the first time in a long time i'm committing to taking care of myself physically. now that i'm not pregnant, i want to be able to run around with my boys and keep up with them. who knows, maybe i'll even be soccer fit. also, my snowboard beckons me. i don't know when i'll get to ride, but i want it to be soon.

baby agustin #4 is now online!

can it be that it has taken me this long to blog about my tiniest boy? eric did a really good job with the details again, so you can always visit his blog for a re-cap if you haven't already.

i'm not gonna lie. i'm ti-red. (it deserved two syllables - i'm that tired.) but life is good. i couldn't ask for more. i'm finally home with my boys and giving them more face time. that face time is slowly turning into quality time, which is the best thing i think i can give them. and xavier i just a teeny tiny baby that i love so much. i like to hold his cheek up to mine and give him eskimo kisses. he has such a tiny nose! i've also forgotten how much i love the smell of newborn baby's breath!

by the way, i've turned 30. entering a new decade definitely feels different. i had a fantastic birthday. kimmie and eric really put a lot of effort into making this birthday special despite my lack of desire to even celebrate at all. kimmie decorated the house with the boys (who also made me birthday cookies, complete with their frosted handprints on them) and made sure that we had breakfast with my mom, tito lito and ryan before eric and i headed out to palak and rudhir's wedding. friends sang happy birthday to me before dinner (and i got flowers!) and was surprised with my boys showing up after dinner at the reception. they looked so cute..my own little boy band.

the surprises didn't end there. i came home from donna and jeff's baby shower the next day to a houseful of great friends and family. i was so surprised, i actually cried. it was a good way to usher in my 30s. thank you everyone!!!!

a presumably uneventful week has become somewhat eventful. i think i received the most phone calls yesterday (monday) than i have in one day in a while...all dear friends checking on the status of baby xavier's arrival. he's still en womb...doesn't seem like he's in any hurry at all to get out.

then there was this morning. tuesday, 7/28, xavier's estimated due date. got a call from the senior executive director at my office letting me know that my position was being eliminated.

wow.

i expected this, but didn't expect this. laid off. the words echo differently when you say them out loud. it's not at all devastating news to me and eric. in fact, it's a much better situation than we had originally prepared ourselves for. it just feels a little icky that i've been laid off...as if there were something i could have done to prevent it (which there wasn't), even though it wasn't even the plan for me to return to work anyway. i was telling eric that it hurts initially because the selfish/prideful part of me thinks that it's just nice to feel that you were important enough to be saved from elimination. it isn't even like that though, because the layoffs were based on the organization's need for the position and not at all on performance. anyway, i'm over it after shedding a couple tears. i really loved where i worked, but i love my family so much more. owen was so so sweet afterwards and cuddled with me for a good hour as if to say, "remember, mama. this is why you're choosing to stay home with us. these moments that we'll never get back." i squeezed him so tightly and thanked God for making His plan for me so clear and obvious.

so here i am. officially unemployed and just waiting for xavier to come. if he's born tomorrow (the 29th) then the whole family will be paired by birth dates. owen and eric were both born on the 28th. isaiah and ethan were both born on the 20th. that leaves me and xavier for the 29th. we'll see! eric is holding out for august 1st so that xavier will be the oldest kid on his soccer team. i would rather xavier come out asap!

ethan's birthday has come and gone. i got my wish and did not spend his birthday at the hospital giving birth to his new baby brother. i would have been so sad if i couldn't spend ethan's birthday with him. eric and i took just ethan to mcdonald's for lunch and then went to chuck e. cheese with the rest of the fam. he asked me this morning if it was still his birthday. when i told him no he asked if it could be his birthday again. i think he had a good 3rd birthday.

now isaiah, ethan, owen and i are just hanging out at home...waiting for xavier's arrival!

i'm not sure that i've ever done this...blog at work (at this job). it's definitely an indication of the change that is about to come. things are winding down...

this morning i had a hard time getting out of bed. i've been so exhausted. i could blame it on the fact that i'm in my 9th month of pregnancy, but the reality is that i've been staying up way too late. (darn, bejeweled blitz! i could play that game for hours.) i lay in bed, considered calling in sick and watched isaiah sleep. he usually makes his way into our bed around 7 a.m. only to sleep a little bit more next to me. eric and isaiah were both wearing blue shorts and were sleeping in the exact same position. what a funny pair of daddy and son. i can't believe how big isaiah is. my first baby. he's going to be 5 years old next month and will start kindergarten the month after that. where did the time go? i love him SO much and get sad that the years have gone by so fast.

i told myself that i need to remember this feeling - the feeling of being so overwhelmed by how much i love the boys and how very important it is to devote quality time and attention to each one of them. i want them to know how loved they are. i think they know that we love them, but, at least for me, i know that i have fallen short of really letting them know *how much* i love them. work is a big part of that. i'm looking forward to july 10. i just need to remember this feeling.

t-minus one month and 2 days...

i have a relay in three days. for whatever reason, i have not been overcome by a wave of anxiety and panic. it could be that i don't care...that's probably only a tiny bit true. i think it's more that i can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

what do you name a 4th baby boy agustin????

if there was ever a time that i was getting my butt kicked, it was nothing compared to 2009.

we are six weeks into the new year, and i'm fried. physically, i can't find enough time in the day. emotionally, i can't divide myself into more pieces. the work-life balance is not so balanced. i'm feeling a lot of sadness because work pulls me away from eric and the boys a lot these days. i knew going to work at this organization that it would ask a lot of me, but we were prepared for that. with two kids, it wasn't asking too much. with three, it's a stretch (and it's hard!). with four...i don't know, man...

things are different. i would love to be that person that could do it all - have a great, challenging career that i love, have a great marriage, and raise four young children. but i'm realizing that you can't have it all - at least not with one or two of those things dropping. not as a woman, and not in my line of work. and i'm okay with that. i can't be that mom that misses huge chunks of her babies growing up because other people at/through work - people not as important to her as her own family - came first. i also can't be that wife that keeps asking her husband to cover for her part of the child rearing and is too exhausted to hang out or even have grown up conversations that don't revolve around child care.

if anyone ever figures out how to have it all, let me know.

one day, i will be able to leave work promptly at 5 p.m. (or earlier!) and not feel bad about leaving things unfinished. one day, i will work within 10 miles of my house. one day, i will be exhausted only because i spent the day running around the park with the boys. one day....soon?

i've been collecting the state quarters for 10 years. in just a couple weeks, all of the state quarters will have been issued. it's the only thing i've ever collected. i have them all (thanks to help from connie and donna who always kept me in mind whenever they got change)...except the non-contiguous states. i just need alaska and hawaii and my collection will be complete!

my scramble skills are deteriorating. i randomly played several games of scramble with one of my high school classmates. we weren't really friends in high school yet we were facebook scramble buddies. i ran into her at the finish line of our breast cancer walk last saturday. it's funny how much closer facebook makes people to one another.

the three-hour time difference between michigan and california makes it impossible to talk to my dinner buddy. has it been a month that we've been trading voicemails and text messages?

i found my halloween bowl over the weekend and decided to buy all kinds of chocolate to fill it up. hersheys, twix, kit kats. all gratifying when seeking a true chocolate fix. eric gave up chocolate and fried foods again. it was probably insensitive of me to not get any non-chocolate candy for the bowl. but who wants sweet-tart scented hershey bars? not me.

i've made the switch to diet cola. i can't do diet anything else yet. just the cola. other than red pop, i really only like coke anyway (and pepsi if coke is not available). when i was younger, i categorized myself as a pepsi drinker. part of me wanted to be supportive of tito henry's career (that would be jeff's dad who retired from pepsi). another part of me just like it more because that's what my dad always bought. i didn't think i could tell the difference until i took a taste test at the showcase cinema in ann arbor when i was in college.

such random thoughts tonight. i'm letting my brain veg because i've been thinking really hard lately at work. it needs a rest.

there is no time to blog. only time to play scramble.

i got the call this morning at 10 a.m. it was eric. "The United States' chances of winning gold in women's soccer at next month's Olympics were dealt a major blow Wednesday when striker Abby Wambach suffered a broken leg in a friendly against Brazil."

:O!!!!!!!!!!

i love love love the u.s. women's soccer teams so this news is so upsetting. wambach is out for at least 12 weeks...meaning she's missing the olympics. sad sad news. :(

summer is half over. it has been eventful so far...isaiah finishing his first year of school, road trip to jersey for a wedding, road trip to cheboygan to join the guevaras for their first weekend in their new home, relay after relay, ryan's surprise party (er, parties), new babies, plenty of hanging out - especially with rob, ellen, noah, and ellie....

the rest of the summer is going to fly by. we have trips to new york and connecticut (possibly virginia?) planned, a visit from nj cousins, ethan's birthday, isaiah's birthday...and all i can think about is when is the next chance we'll get to go back up to the wonderful land of cheboygan? the land where clean shallow lake water extends for days into the lake, where there are so many fireworks displays that you actually tire of watching them, where the clear night sky reveals more stars than you ever thought could exist, where big ice cream cones cost $1.35, where kites fly on their own and our toddlers can catch (many) fish by just dropping their lines into the river bank behind the guevaras' house. the wonderful land of cheboygan. :)

****

i am emotionally ready to get back to soccer fit. not that i was ever soccer fit, but at least to where i can run around enough to be a productive defensive player. eric thought he could get me to play mid. yeah right! the goal is to be soccer fit for outdoor 2009. stretch goal is for the indoor session right before outdoor starts. yikes! i haven't played since isaiah was 6 months old. four years. man. i'll have to be creative with how i can squeeze in the time. wish me luck!

i'm still recovering from our trip to new jersey last weekend. we drove. the 10 hour trip to new jersey turned into a 20 hour one because we decided to be smart and crash in a hotel instead of trying to drive through the night. the 10 hour trip home was really 11.5, thanks to angels and demons on audio book. i swear if i had to, i could drive across the country listening to that book. the suspense just does not stop! it feels like i'm at the end of the book, but there are still 2.5 hours left. these days, i don't mind traffic much. :)

we stayed with one of eric's cousins in new jersey. (thanks for housing us, nini!) she has three boys. his other cousin jeremy also stayed with us. he has two boys. all in all there were 8 boys 8 and under! i thought it would be so incredibly crazy, but it wasn't. the older boys kind of took care of the younger boys, and they all loved being around each other. besides, i think all of us parents have given into the madness and have accepted that boys will be boys. they will punch and kick and be loud and run around and fall off of stuff and wrestle. it's so different from the last time we were in jersey. there were only 5 boys at the time and isaiah was just 10 weeks old. eric and i were such different parents then. jumping up whenever the baby cried, worrying about all these little things. ahhh...the days of just one child. life was so simple then. oh, but the joys and love of having two more boys will never outweigh that simplicity.

8 boys 8 and under + emily and jd!

congratulations to omar and marilou! thanks for getting us out to new jersey. wishing you a lifetime of happiness!

so the day after my last post was probably the worst day of work that i have ever had. it was probably the most humbling as well, so i am thankful for it. i have been working my butt off with more focus and accomplishment ever since.

it has been a rough six weeks returning to work. these weeks have been hard. on me, on eric, on our family. and the laundry has piled up again. i swear it will take me six weeks to catch up.

the highs and lows of volunteer management are extreme. it seems ridiculous and greedy to keep asking for more...but the reality is that if you never ask, you'll never know what you can get. i have learned that people are waiting to *be* asked, for that opportunity to make a difference, and it is only fair to offer it to them. i have a hard time asking people for stuff, which is ironic because my whole job is about asking people for stuff. i really have no idea where i'm going with this post. i guess i'm just in awe of my volunteers. their capacity to give of themselves to the point where they are doing so much for us that it could be a second job to them is amazing to me. i appreciate them and am inspired by them.

if only you could hear the stories i have heard in the last six weeks...mothers fighting for their children, cancer survivors fighting for themselves and future survivors, sons fighting for their fathers, husbands fighting for their wives....mothers losing their children, sons losing their fathers, husbands losing their wives. an 8-year old student from one of my dearborn teams lost his battle the day of the dearborn relay. another 8-year old cancer survivor celebrated his birthday that same day. i cried for both of their mothers that day. can you imagine the incredible relief that you would have when your baby with cancer makes it through another year of life? what a gift life is! i come home to my boys and am so thankful that the worst we have had to deal with is a couple of viruses and my crazy work schedule.

my relays are done, so now i can actually focus on doing my job. even better, no more working late nights...i can come home and hang out with eric and the boys!