The Finch Family

Jacob, Ben and I all have our birthdays smooshed together so right after Jacob's comes mine!  This year I turned 37!  I am inching closer to 40 everyday.  I feel so much better than I did last year at this time.  It was a super hard year last year.  Lizzy's surgery really took me through the ringer and I also experienced a lot of health issues and stresses.  I was tired all the time and having really weird, unsolvable symptoms.  I felt as if I was slogging through life.

This year I have done a lot of things different.  I got Invisalign Braces.   I started seeing a chiropractor (an hour and a half away) who helps you see the relationship our emotions have on our bodies, and help us heal from the damaging emotions we have experienced. This really helped me get on a path of healing. I started on a major diet (Medifast).  More recently I started a program called, "Dressing Your Truth" (which has helped me know what hairstyle to get, what makeup to wear and what clothes to wear.  It has also helped me know who I am more).  

Since January I have lost about 80 lbs.  Many of the maddening symptoms have disappeared.  I have more energy and I feel better about myself.  Lizzy's health is stable.  I feel like my relationships with my family are good.  I feel like my relationship with the Lord is good.  I feel thankful for all of my blessings.  I feel thankful for change and the possibility of change.  We are never stuck with who we are.  If we want to be different we can change (usually with help from the Lord and others).  37 feels great.  It gives me hope for the future and what I still might become. 

Greg is always great on my birthday.  We went out to lunch that day and I let myself eat anything I wanted that day so I could really enjoy it.  He also made dinner for me.  He also made my favorite cake, Mexican Chocolate Cake.  Then he and the kids showered me with gifts.  I think my favorite part of the day, though, was when at Family Home Evening that night everyone went around and said what they loved about me.  The kids were so thoughtful and sincere.  It really made me feel special and made me feel like I actually have made a difference in their lives.  I have the best family ever!!!  What a great year it has been for me personally.  Here is to many more great years!


We love games at our house.  Adam, Greg and I have been playing 10 Days in Africa every Sunday night after all the other kids are in bed.  I was gifted 10 Days in Asia to shake things up a bit.  
 

Since I don't buy a lot of junk food or crackers or snacky foods, for birthdays we usually get each other those kinds of things as a special treat.  Well I am not eating those things so all the kids got me a bottle of Diet Soda (except Liz who got me sugar free gum)!  Now I know diet soda is not the best thing for a person to drink, either, but I am OK with it for now.  I don't usually keep a lot of it around either, but the kids stocked me up.

 
Aren't these boys handsome?

 

 

My favorite present was tickets to a few things I wanted see.  Greg and I went to see Ballet Folklorico at ISU already (the pictures below are at Stephens Auditorium at ISU) and in the spring we have tickets to see Blue Man Group, also at ISU.  I have wanted to see that show for so long!  It's even better because it is a great date with Greg.

 
In these pictures you can see my Invisalign Braces and I am sporting my new Type 1 hair, clothes and jewelry.  Greg keeps telling me, "You keep surprising me!" .  It's fun!

 

Happy Birthday to ME!

Well it happened.   My baby has turned five and leaves me everyday to go to Kindergarten.  On August 20th Jacob turned five years old.    He is such a fun kid, full of life and energy.  He is such a blessing to our family.  He has everyone wrapped around his little finger!  He worked hard this past year and is reading quite well now.  It was a real challenge for us at first, but once he decided he liked his "reading lessons" he really took off with it.  He is enjoying Kindergarten and likes to play with his friend Jeffery at recess.

He loves all things Scooby-Doo.  He has watched every Scooby-Doo DVD at two different libraries multiple times.  His favorite shirt is Scooby-Doo and his favorite books are Scooby-Doo.

He loves running, jumping playing, and getting his way.  He will still snuggle with us sometimes and he still makes us all laugh.  He thinks of his siblings as his best friends.  Now that Adam is out of the boys room, he and Ben have gotten to be good buddies.  He loves to play "Kick the Can" when it is his turn to pick the activity for Family Home Evening.  He is happy and good natured, but also quite opinionated and stubborn.  I guess those things help balance each other out.  He has a very limited diet, eating Nutella sandwiches with cheese (gross, huh?) usually twice a day.  He has follwed Lizzy's lead and doesn't eat meat (sometimes he will bend this rule for a hot dog).  Thankfully he does eat fruit and salad, too.  We love Jacob and are so happy to have him in our family.

This is Jacob when he is happy and enjoying life.


This is the other flavor of Jacob.  He makes life interesting.  We never know which Jacob we will get :)

Lizzy presenting her gift of Scooby fruit snacks to Jacob (a real treat at our house).  Lizzy is still somewhat of a little mom to Jacob.  Sometimes I will leave Adam or Anna to babysit, but when Jacob is having a hard time, it is Lizzy who knows just what to do and how to help Jacob.  She has always known what to do to help him.

Jacob wanted a cookie cake.  This is the recipe the kids like best.

I know this is not the highest quality photograph, but I love this picture.  I love that he still likes to snuggle his mom.


Adam and Jacob have a very playful relationship.  Even though Jacob is so much smaller they are wrestling buddies and Adam knows how to motivate Jacob with competition.  He gave Jacob several packs of gum.

 

Ben gifted Jacob the favorite gift of the evening.  It was one of those punching balloons but it was in the shape of an animal.  Ben is amazing at teaching Jacob.  He sets up all sorts of reward systems to help Jacob with his behavior.  He helps him with chores in fun ways and even has taught him things like how to pour his own drinks.  Ben puts up with a lot from Jacob and continues to amaze us with his longsuffering and kindness  towards Jacob.  They also have a lot of fun together, though.  As the older ones are gone more and more they still have each other.

Anna is the activity director of the four younger children, Jacob included.  She always has a fun idea or game for them all to play together.  She can get everyone excited about something no one else has ever thought of before, and Jacob loves it.  He is at a great age for pretend play and I never get tired of hearing what they are up to that particular day.  Here is Anna presenting her gift to Jacob.

Ben and Greg made a treasure hunt for Jacob because that is what Jacob wanted.  He had a great time reading and searching for clues.  The cake was his treasure. 

I love the part each of our children play in our family. I love the unique relationships they have with each other.  I feel like they are helping so much in the raising of each other.  I am so proud of all of them.  I love birthdays because we get a chance to spotlight the place "one" has in our family.  Jacob we love you.  We love the sunshine and fun you bring to our family.  You are a blessing to us all.

I am still playing catch up.  Here are the kids on their first day of school.

Jacob (my baby)--Kindergarten


Ben--2nd Grade

Lizzy--4th Grade

Anna--6th grade (which is starting middle school)

Adam--8th Grade

Everyone is doing well and we are in the routine. The first couple of weeks were a little rough, but everyone is doing great now.  Anna and Jacob had the hardest time.  I have had a hard time too having Jacob gone all day.  Some days I don't know what to do with myself.  I am getting used to it more now, but I am so thankful I have five beautiful children and that I am able to be a stay-at-home mom.  

I think the vacation posts wore me out.  Here is a quick run down of a few of the other things we did in the summer.

The kids always have fun taking pictures with the i-pad.  They also made several videos this summer.  I thought this pic of Anna was cool.


Our little ham, Lizzy, had fun gathering all of the medical paraphernalia and having a little fun.

Jacob wasn't about to get left out of a photo op.  Yeah he doesn't have a back brace or a neck brace, but he has a mohawk!

We try to go on regular dates with the kids.  Thanks to a talk in sacrament meeting a few years ago we discovered a great system.  Each kid gets two months of the year for date months.  In those months they get one date with Greg and one date with me, one on one.  They are awesome and something the kids always look forward to.  Since I won't/don't eat most of the junk food kids love, Greg always gets to go somewhere to eat.  Here is Anna with her giant cheesecake at Cheescake Factory.

 

 Greg has been super busy lately.  He started that certificate program at MIT (can continue for a Master's if he chooses) so he has been to Boston a few times.  He also got to go to San Diego for a Conference.  This was great for him because he served his mission there.  Here a few pics from the trip.  The temple, the view from his hotel and a cool guy stacking rocks at the beach. 

 

 

Here is crazy Lizzy again.  She is so fun and random!

My first trifle.  I made it for a Relief Society activity but then didn't eat any.  I hope it turned out OK.

 I bought some art books for Anna and some nice pencils.  Anna really enjoyed having more time to create and draw this summer.  One Sunday she had an "Art Show" for us all.  She even charged to buy her paintings.  She graciously gave us the correct (fake) currency to pay her.  Here is the artist and some of her work.  It is so fun to see your kids develop their talents. 

 

 

Here is Anna and I after our date together.  We went to get haircuts and go school shopping.  She is really growing up.
 

The week Adam was at scout camp we had a Hawaiian week.  We checked out books about Hawaii and each child had to report on a certain topic concerning Hawaii.  We had a lot of fun.  Anna really enjoyed teaching us all some Hawaiian words.  We also tried some Hawaiian food.  My kids have never had guava or papaya.  They also wanted to try a real coconut.  Mixed reviews.

 

These are Anna's very creative homemade paper decorations.  She also made a few "surfboards".  She is so creative!
 

I really had a hard time getting the coconut open.  One of the kids almost threw up when they tried the coconut milk (it was gross, almost like drinking coconut oil straight or something) and we didn't really like the flesh plain either.  

 

We also went to the library a lot.  We attended a few presentations there.  These pictures are from the bat presentation.  I am not sure why, but my girls really like bats. The bat lady let every child get a picture with the bat if you wanted to.  It was really cool.  You will notice Adam is not in many of the pictures.  He did spend some time with us this summer, but he spent as much time as possible with his friends.  They would often spend hours at the YMCA playing basketball or handball.  He had two really great church friends each about a block or two away.  We were all sad when one of them moved at the end of the summer.  Sadly, Adam is growing out of some of the kids activities we do.  He kindly humors me and tags along sometimes, though.  I hope you all had a great summer.  Now, enjoy your fall!