Another Update

In April we were able to enjoy my uncle and cousins coming to stay for a few days. My Aunt Karen and Uncle Dave are living in Holland and I don't get the chance to see them very often and my cousins are in New Jersey and Washington D.C. and I haven't seen them in 3 three years. So we got to spend Easter Sunday together. My Uncle Dave took Brad and I to Key West for the day in his airplane and we had a BLAST! As long as we've been in Florida, we still had never been. And what better way than to fly! My sweet friends Lindsay and Molly took the kids for us for the day and for that I THANK THEM TREMENDOUSLY! Dave and Brad doing the checklist for take-off.Enjoying the ride!
The pictures don't do the beautiful scenes any justice. The water was SO clear even from the air.Enjoying lunch and our Key Lime Pies. Hanging out on Easter SundayDave HAD to go to Siesta Key Beach(which is actually a GORGEOUS beach) except for the fact the is was lightning and thundering the entire time and we got stuck in a down pour! I guess we still gotta live right? Right!?! All in all I love it when family comes to visit. I can never get enough of it. So THANKS guys for coming! Karen you better come next time. And if anyone else has the urge to visit the Tampa area, you know that you'll always have a place to stay!

Sorry it's been so long!

I no excuses this time. Just being lazy and ignoring my blog. So I'll do a brief catch up! We blessed Janie in February and had the Hindmans come and stay with us. It was a blast! 4 adults and nine kids all under one roof! Pure chaos and FUN! Abby held Janie the whole time and gave me a short break. And I think she needed a fix. She's so good with babies!
HAD to put this one of Tucker in here! We attempted to put all the kids together sleeping on 2 air mattresses, but slowing they all ended up in seperate bedrooms.Then we had Kelly and the boys come to visit in March. We had so much fun! We miss them terribly and the boys played together like they've never left each other. We were all pretty tired from staying up so late every night.

Janie Wilde

So, I'm finally to the best part of making up for lost time. Jane LaRue Wilde was born December 27, 2008. She was 8 lbs. 4oz. 21 1/2in. long. Brad was sooo excited to get his extra tax break for 2008. We had a little bit of a hard time with this one. All of my kids have had jaundice to some degree. Owen was the only one that needed to have lights on him, until now. Janie had high bili levels. She was having a hard time breaking down enzymes and so she had to stay in the hospital for a couple of extra days. I had to travel back and forth to the hospital every two hours to feed her. It was not a pleasant experience, but I won't go into details. Then we got to bring her home late Jan. 1st only having to re-admit her on the 2nd into pediatric ICU. I know I should have been taking pictures of her in the hospital, but to tell the truth that was the last thing on my mind. I do now regret it. I was so lucky though to have my Dad and his wife come for a visit while all of this was happening. I hadn't seen him in a year, but was very grateful to them for watching the kids so I didn't have to worry about them. Brad and my Dad and Susie even potty trained Alex while all this was happening. YEAH!!! I got to spend at least one day with them and they got to see Janie before they had to leave. Here is the Wilde kid bunch.
She looks so much like Owen.

My Grandma also died while Janie was in the hospital. I was so upset and wished that I could've made it back home for the funeral. She was such a wonderful woman who I look up to in many ways. She was truly a western, stubborn, strong, faithful, loving,wise woman. I miss her terribly, but she's now with her sweet husband and my Mom. I was so blessed to have her as my Grandma, she taught me so much. I'm so grateful to know that Families Are Forever and that I will see them again in the life to come.

Christmas 2008

I'm still trying to catch up. The month of December was busy too, but fun. We had tons of parties and play time. Owen had his first School Christmas Program and loved it. He knew all the words to the songs and sang loud. I was a little disappointed though that his class was the only one that didn't sing Christmas songs. There were a couple of kids in his class that were atheist and their parents complained about the Christmas songs. I got really upset. Not all Christmas songs have to be religious, they can be fun winter songs too. ANNOYED! But Owen had fun none the less. We had an adult Christmas party at our house! It was so nice to be able to enjoy our friends without any distractions from our children. "I gotta go potty, I'm hungry, (or my favorites) they're hitting me, they're doing ..." I love my kids really, but it's nice to have an adult break from time to time. These are just a couple of pictures of us playing some games. We played guys against girls a few times and I'm ashamed to say that the girls lost miserably. We even cheated! I guess that's what we get. I got to put up my new Christmas tree this year too. Christmas is my absolute FAVORITE time of year and I love Christmas trees. I wasn't really thinking about height though when I bought it. I bought it when we lived in our old house that had vaulted ceilings of about 15ft. so I bought a 9ft. tree. Luckily our rental house has a high point, so that's where I had to stick it. It will definitely be a check point when we get our new house. My tree has to fit.Christmas morning, the kids got up early as usual and I only got up because they started to open them without us. So I rushed into the room to stop them and made them wait for Mommy and Daddy.
And of course Daddy ALWAYS crashes on the floor when all the presents are finished being opened, the kids are way too busy playing with their new toys and I'm off making Christmas breakfast.
I love Christmas and I love the feelings that it brings. I miss my family most this time of year especially my Mom. She always made it seem so special. I'm so grateful that I can share with my kids the true meaning of Christmas and create those special memories that I grew up with. The traditions kept always bring a tear to my eye and I hope that I can pass those traditions on to my kids.

I Have an Excuse!!

Okay, so I know that I haven't posted in what? 3 months? So I'm going to try and update briefly what's been going on in the Wilde Home. CRAZINESS! It's been very busy and very exciting. For Thanksgiving we had ALL of Brad's family come and stay with us for a Wilde Family Reunion. 20 people in our home for about a week and everyone had a blast! We had so much food left over from Thanksgiving dinner, it was a good thing that they stayed for that long. We went to Busch Gardens twice and to the beach. The weather was perfect, cool on the days we went to the park and nice when we went to the beach. The little cousins had so much fun playing together. They really have never had the chance to play together until now. The down part of living far away from family. It was so cute to watch them. I miss being around family and having that time together. The kids Thanksgiving morning watching cartoons. Burying Uncle Barry at Siesta Key Beach. The kids wrestling with Uncle Brent. Uncle Brent invented the "Butt Bazookas" which still have not vaded from my children's wrestling with Daddy. Thanks Brent!The original Wilde Children and spouses with Daddy and Renate Wilde. We went out to dinner without any children and it was so nice!!We wore the poor little things OUT!This was the best picture we could get with all the kids looking at the camera. I HATE taking pictures when I'm prego.Nightmare with this picture. Aftering having individual family pictures taken we tried to get one of everyone. It was HOT and the sun was in our eyes and the kids were CRANKY! I LOVE this one of Brad with Alex and Kate walking on the pier. At Busch Gardens, the boys are riding together and Kate was SOO upset that she didn't get to go.The Big Boys chowing down on the Thanksgiving appetizers. I forgot to take the slushy drink out of the freezer earlier to let it thaw in time for dinner. So I had Britt and Barry use my hair dryer to help out.