Visit from Grammy

This week we were blessed by a visit from our Grammy. She was such a big help to us as we continue to adjust to having a new baby in the house. She was especially helpful with getting up early in the morning to take care of Luke, Ben, Gracie, and Jacob so Mommy and Caleb could get a little extra rest. They all loved their special time with their Grammy.

 The night before she left, it was super cold. We had hot chocolate and a family game night.

Thank you Grammy for the gift of your time in serving our family. We love you and miss you already!!!!

Prayer Update

Thanks so much for praying for our Caleb. Monday he had his sweat test at UNC to check for cystic fibrosis. We are so grateful the test came back negative, which means that Caleb is only a carrier for the cystic fibrosis gene.

2 weeks old!!

It is hard to believe that on his original due date, Caleb has been with our family for two weeks already! He is doing fantastic. Growing well, he has gained back all his birth weight and then some weighing in at 8 pounds 1 oz. He is most awake at night (of course) but in general is pretty decent at sleeping 3 hours at a time.

One prayer request: we got a phone call last week telling us that Caleb's newborn screen had come back positive for a cystic fibrosis gene. If you recall, both Gracie and Jacob also had this gene and had to undergo a sweat chloride test at UNC. Caleb will also have a sweat test at UNC next week. We are praying that he will be just a carrier like his older siblings. (We know that I am a carrier and Jeff is not, which gives our children a 50% chance of being carriers....so far we are three for three. We still have to have the sweat test to rule out any odd gene mutations that would cause the disease rather than just the carrier status if that makes sense.) We are much calmer this time around, but it is still nerve racking to go through the process.

Caleb is such a sweet, sweet little guy. He loves being held by all of his siblings. The number one struggle in our house right now is whose turn it is to hold him! He is spoiled silly by his big brothers and sister!

We can't imagine life without our #5, Caleb. Happy two weeks little man!

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Life is so tough when you are a few days old....

Caleb continues to be a sweet, mellow little one. He is gaining weight and doing great. We are all starting to adjust to our new normal of seven. I even had all five kids by myself while Daddy made a short run to the store for our family! We can't wait for Grammy to arrive on Saturday to have fun and help us out!

School updates

This was a post I had written the day before Caleb was born, but never got around to posting!

So here is our first nine week school update.

We have now officially finished up our first nine week unit of school!! I had purposely planned the last few weeks to be a bit lighter in the extra curricular items. I keep asking myself why this pregnancy seems so much more difficult than the last two. My Mother and Hubby keep reminding me that I was not teaching school formally during the last two pregnancies, which makes perfect sense!! Even so, we have had a fun time diving into our last few weeks of school before baby brother is born. My plan is to hold off on our extra curricular activities and Tapestry of Grace studies until after the holidays. We will just focus on the 3 R's as soon as we are able to jump back into school after he is born.

First, here are just some random cute pictures of our "students". My lens on my camera has been broken for months, and thanks to my Dad, who decided I needed a new lens before #5 arrives, I have recently been playing with my new lens to practice! :)

Here are Gracie and Jacob working on some of their own schoolwork. Trying to keep them busy and entertained while I focus on the older boys in the morning can be quite a challenge!

Over the last few weeks we continued our study through the early Old Testament. We followed the Patriarchs for a few weeks, then skipped over to follow the Israelite's wanderings in the desert over the last few weeks. We have learned about God's covenant with Abraham, life as a nomad, the 10 commandments, the Tabernacle and Levitical law, and the Hebrew holidays.

Here is our crew pretending to be Abraham and Sarah with a life on the move as nomads. We had a picnic supper in our tent to act it out. Originally I was going to make lentils and unleavened bread, but decided it might be too messy. We ate PB and J instead. We did have chocolate covered locusts (raisins) for dessert though! :)

While learning about the Tabernacle and Levitical law, we were able to learn about the Israelites special call to worship instrument, the Shofar. One craft we did was to make our own Shofar horns. (We rolled up cardstock and put a balloon with one end cut off into our horns.) This made for a noisy crew. Somehow Ben (already our noisiest child) got the loudest Shofar. Unfortunately, we could not keep the Shofar horns for long, the small pieces of balloon was too great a danger to keep out as a toy. They were fun while they lasted.

One book we enjoyed reading was about Yom Kippur, or atonement. The boys really enjoyed this simple but profound story. Learning about the laws God put into place for His people has really opened up interesting discussions of why He gave the laws, and how He intended to point His people to their need of a Savior.
 

For science we spent a few weeks learning about the sun. One fun, and yummy, experiment used magnifying glasses and chocolate to show us how powerful the sun is. (And why we should not look directly at the sun!) Of course once we played with melting the chocolate via magnifying glass and sun they enjoyed eating the chocolate!

Daddy helped us learn a bit more about solar eclipses with another project.

The boys have been doing a great job continuing to work hard on their reading, writing and math as well. I am so proud of all the progress I have seen in just nine weeks!

Welcome Caleb William Morgan!!

We would love to introduce you to the newest member of the Morgan family!!

Caleb William Morgan was born at 5:19 AM today, October 9, 2012!! He was two weeks early, but weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20 inches long. He has a very mild, sweet personality so far. We are all in love! He was so eager to join our family the doctor jokes that he was "the catch of her career!" She barely got her gloves on in time to catch him like a football he came so fast. My water broke between 2:45 and 3 AM, so it all happened pretty quick.

He is perfect, healthy, and adored by his big brothers, sister, Mommy and Daddy. Here are just a few pictures from today, we will share more when we are able!

We were so excited that our all time favorite baby sitter was home from college on fall break today. She was able to come over on a moments notice to be there when the kids woke up this morning until Jeff's Mom could drive down to be with us.

All four are absolutely head over heels in love with their baby brother!

Thank you Lord for the safe and healthy arrival of Baby Caleb! Thank you friends and family for your continued prayers for our family as we adjust to being a family of seven!

Love, Jeff, Meredith, Luke, Ben, Gracie, Jacob and Caleb

Random Play Photos

Here are just a few random cute photos of our little ones to share.

Here is "Mama" Grace with her babies. Yes, she does have five of them, four girls and one boy! :)

Gracie is wonderful with her baby dolls, and is over the top excited to meet her new brother soon. One of her favorite things to do is talk to her baby brother and get him to jump at the sound of her voice.

Here all four are making special pictures for me to pack in my hospital bag for baby brother!

 This week I spent some time rotating out the kids toys. We have very little space, so we store the majority and every few weeks try to rotate. (This is a chore I dread, but reap the rewards of busy happy playing kids when I complete the task!) This week I brought down a bag of dress-ups and the kids have all had a blast!

 Jacob has discovered that he LOVES blocks!

As the youngest at the moment, Jacob always gets the job of chasing his older siblings. With cowboy hat and gun in hand he relishes the job! :)

We have had to become a bit creative since we have had a ton of rainy days lately. Our backyard is a mud pit and so are most of the parks. Since Jacob loves trains so much, Luke and Ben oblige their little brother and set up their own train for play. They have taught Jacob to say "All Aboard" too.

On the weekend when Mommy was working Daddy took the kids to a grand opening of a Gander Mountain store. They had a fun time and came home with these fun hats.

First Haircut!

Last weekend Grandma and Grandpa Morgan came for a visit. Grandma is a pro at cutting hair (she had her own beauty shop at one point) and Jacob was looking a bit shaggy around the ears and neck. There was not much taken off, but he looks so much more like a big boy to us now.

He and Grandma both did a great job. There was only one point where the scissors pulled his hair a bit. He turned around and said "OUCH!"

No more hair hanging over the ears! What a big boy! Mommy shed only a few tears, as he had just started to develop a few curls in the back! :)