They Start Young

About six days old and he's already sitting on the sideline of an older sibling's game. Here's Adam during tyler's football game a couple Sundays ago.

My Card Collection

I never intended to ever collect cards of any kind. But now I have a card collection that rivals my kids' Pokemon collection.

Home Again

Vicki and Adam came home again on Sunday morning, after a couple nights at the hospital. The jaundice is under control, but our new concern was his conehead. The doctor used the little vacuum thingy to help in the delivery, so his little head has a bump that seems to be growing. The pediatrician saw Adam today and said not to worry. The swelling is normal under the circumstances, and he should be fine. I remember Alex had a big conehead, too, and he turned out okay.

Our Busy Day

Vicki and Adam stayed at the hospital all day, today, so Adam could soak up the rays of the Bili Light. His numbers look really good tonight, but they are keeping him one more night just to avoid any chance of having to go back later. His Billirubins, which was as high as 23 on Friday, was down to 14 tonight, the upper end of the acceptable range. Thanks for your prayers this week!

With Vicki relaxing in Pediatrics all day, I had to figure out how to get the athletes to their games. Kenzie and I had to leave early this morning to get to her  softball scrimmage games. Alex watched everyone else until Mommom came over to watch the little girls and Tyler, who is off sports until Sunday afternoon, when he has two footbal games. A friend of mine picked up Taylor for his soccer game, and also took Alex and Connor to the same field because they were refs for they're little brother's game. Connor had to walk across the street, to the high school, after he finished reffing, to play his select soccer game. Alex had to take Taylor with him when he went to play his game at a different field. My friend then brought them all home and Mommom could go home. Meanwhile, I was driving Kenzie from softball to the soccer field so she could play her select soccer game. Kenzie and I did get a chace to spend fifteen minutes at the hospital as we passed by on our way from softball to soccer.

I have to hand it to Alex. He was great big brother/caregiver today. He babysat when he was home. He took care of Tay at the fields. He fed them all dinner. And even helped put Keary to bed. He must really want his license because he put in a lot time and earned a lot of points in my "prove-you're-mature-enough-to-drive" book.

To the events of the day. Taylor's soccer team won their game. I didn't get many details because Taylor doesn't talk much. He said he had fun, and that's what counts for rec soccer. I got more details from Alex and Connor about the reffing. Actually, it was Connor complaining about how Alex didn't make calls that Connor thought should be made. This was Connor's first game, ever, reffing, so naturally he knew what he was talking about. As center ref, Alex had the final say, and that's that. I've always heard positive feedback from caoches and parents about Alex's reffing, so I'm not going there.

Connor's select game went well. His team won, 6-2. Connor plays mostly defense because he is a very good fullback. He is also a very good striker, but his team has lots of those, and fewer fullbacks. He said he also played a bit at halfback, for about three minutes, he said. He said that was enough. He doesn't like to run too much; I can't blame him.

Alex's team lost, but at least Alex scored a goal (the only goal) for his team. He usually scores the "trash" goals, but he said this one was an honest to goodness clean shot off of a give-and-go from a teammate.

Kenzie had more of mixed bag today. Her softball team, having been formed only a few weeks ago, experienced a few jitters and nerves in their first game against a more experienced team today. They started off good, scored the first run of the game, but lost in the end. The second game was much better. They were losing by a couple runs for most of the game, but came back in the bottom of the last inning and won. The nice thing about this scrimmage was that we learned exactly what needs to be worked over the next few weeks and over the winter. Oh, and while Kenzie has yet to get her first hit as a 12U player, she consistently put the ball in play, and was indispensably involved in the winning of the second game.

At her select soccer game, Kenzie was astonishing. Her coach has been in the process of training a few girls to be Goalie. Kenzie has not had much practice time as Goalie, but has some experience and skill in that position. Kenzie played Goal the whole game and we all lost count of the number of spectacular saves she made. She only gave up two goals in a game that saw dozens of shots on goal. She even earned a special mention in the coach's post game email, where coach said, "Last but certainly not least McKenzie played an awesome job at goal "The buck (ball) stops here" with McKenzie. We have a couple other girls that we are training for goal and we told them all to take notes!" They really do miss Kenzie when she can't make it to soccer because of softball.

Purple Pumpkin

Adam, like many of his older siblings has elevated billirubin which has given him the lovely coloring of a summer squash. Actually, he has passed through the squash color and progressed to early pumpkin orange-yellow. He will be spending the night at NICU, under some bili lights. The twins spent some time under those lights at this age, and they just loved it. They slept the whole time, really enjoying that sunbathing-like experience. Adam hates it. The nurses said they've never seen a baby hate it so much. When he finally stops screaming, he's knocked his sunglasses off his eyes and wakes up (and starts screaming again) when they are replaced. Well anyway, our little orange/yellow/purple pumpkin is an interesting color now....

Adam Daniel

Kenzie's Welcome

Here's Kenzie's welcome home sign.

More Adam Pics

We had a minor scare last night. Adam was taken for some chest xrays because his lips would turn blue on occasion and he was sleeping too much. His xrays turned out okay, and today he is just perfect, no blue, just pink. And he's more active. Vicki had gotten a good dose of epidural drugs that may have affected Adam for a while.

This morning, I took the kids for a visit, except Alex, who went to school. I made sure Alex got to see his brother last night, but Connor didn't get home 'til 10:30. So, here's Connor and Keary with Adam.

Adam Pictures

Here he is, folks. Born today 2:09 pm; 9 lbs., 6 oz; 20 inches; and purple.

Adam Something?

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Another birthday for me to try to rememeber. While Connor and Alex are in Delaware, assisting at the Bishop's Instalation ceremonies, Mommom will watch the rest of the crew while Vicki and I head over the bridge for baby delivering. We stil don't have a definite name picked out, but it looks like the first name will be Adam. I know, it doesn't make sense to have the First Man's name be our eighth kid's name, but I think we've all agreed on the first name. The next decision is the middle name. Paul, Daniel, or Joseph are the top choices right now. I know, some weirdos like me automatically think "twelve" as in Adam Twelve, the old TV show, but now I'm showing my age. It won't be Adam Twelve (or even Adam Eight), I can guarantee that. Now, if he was the twelfth kid, I wouldn't be able resist.

So, pray for us tomorrow. Let's hope it all goes as well as it has the last six times we visited the maternity ward. Send us you mental choices: Adam Paul, Adam Daniel, or Adam Joseph. I'll let you know which one wins when the Birth Certificate is complete.

Nelly

I am not a big fan of Rap, Hip-hop, or whatever they call that stuff that's labelled 'music' nowadays, but I have been sold on one particular song that, at first listen, I didn't like. I lean toward Christian and Country so I rarely have occassion to hear a singer called Nelly.

I was looking for a good, heart-pumping, song to play on our new softball website; something that also included a message relevant to playing club-level softball. I was at a loss because my music is just not geared toward your average 10-12 year old softball player. Kenzie came to the rescue. She made me listen to one of her favorite songs; one that was part of a compilation that she received from a team we played (Oaklawn Ice) at the NSA World Series. As I said, at first I cringed, but I managed to sit through the entire four and a half minutes. What caught my ear was the chorus. It described McKenzie, and all her teammates, and almost every girl I've met in travel softball. the rest of the song isn't bad, either; it even mentions the Baltimore Ravens and Ray Lewis.

Here's the chorus from "Heart of a Champion", by Nelly:

Ain't no way they can stop me now Nelly
Cause I'm on my way, I can feel my ring coming
It's the blood of a champion, pumping
Deep inside my veins, too much pride to be running
I'ma get what I can and more, even if
My blood, my sweat, and my tears don't mean nothing
It's the heart of a champion (it's the heart of me)
(It's the heart of a..) in me
 
This really describes McKenzie's approach to her sport. It's why I'm so proud of her.

New Due Date

Due to our busy schedule of softball (several days a week), soccer (four kids playing, including two travel teams), football, piano, etc, we decided that the best day to have a baby would be a Monday. The only thing affected would be piano, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get Kenzie to softball practice on Tuesday. The hospital is kinda in the neighborhood; at least it's in the same county as the field. So, with the doctor's blessing, we chose this coming Monday to induce baby's arrival. New due Date: 9/8/08. With the delivery date looming, we are now feeling a bit of name desparation. There has been no obvious choice for this boy. It was easier to choose with the older kids; there were more names to pick from, and fewer people around to include in the decision. Trying to get nine of us to agree on anything is harder than getting Barak to pick Hilary as Veep. If anyone out there has any suggestions, let me know, maybe you'll come up with something we can all agree on.

Chicken Girl is Back

We thought it was time to increase the flock. A friend of ours just started their backyard chicken farm by buying a couple dozen chickens from a hatchery. The minimum order was too many chickens for them, so they asked if we wanted any. We bought five, 6-week old hens from them. I would have taken more, but there were other friends of ours who were also interested in increasing their flock. They should start laying by the end of November and, since this is they're first year, they should lay right through the winter. This is good, since winter tends to be a slow time for egg production.

Kenzie hasn't left the coop or the run since we got our new additions. She's worried that the older hens are picking on the new ones too much. They just need to learn their place in the packing order (and grow a little bit more); then all will be well in chicken land. Here's some shots of our newest additions.