He's Here!

 Introducing Conrad Weatherford Ballard! 

Tuesday, September 26th

7 lbs 12oz, 20 inches

We love this little guy! The girls have been so excited to have a new baby in the house again, and they are just in love with him. Orson ADORES Conrad and is such a proud big brother. He wants to hold him all the time. "My turn bebee Con-gard" he yells when it's time for someone else to hold him. 

 

Welcome to the family Conrad! We love you!!!

End of Pregnancy Musings

We're having a baby soon. Like, in the next few weeks soon.  Somehow I can seem to believe it's already time for this little boy to be born! I usually get to the last month of pregnancy and count down the seconds until the baby arrives. But this time it's different. Having just moved, not knowing many people, and still settling in have me wishing I had a bit more time. In many ways, I'm more nervous to have my 5th baby than my 1st (or any of the others for that matter). Why? I guess I really know what I'm getting in to - delivery, recovery, those first few sleepless months, juggling nursing with the demands of older kids. I'm also nervous about what we'll do with the older kids while I'm in labor. We've had plenty of offers to help, but I know I'll feel bad calling someone up and "inconveniencing" them especially if it's the middle of the night.

Don't get me wrong, I'm more than ready to be done with pregnancy. I feel huge and moving around is tough! I've never made it to 39 weeks pregnant, but this time I'm refusing to have the baby before that. (haha is that allowed?) For one thing, the Women's Session of General Conference is September 23rd (38w 6d for me). Since Hazel is 8 now, she's old enough to attend. She has been looking forward to it for years! We already have plans to go out for Mexican food and then watch the broadcast. Also, September 24th is the Primary Program. It is always my favorite meeting of the year, and I'm not missing Hazel and Eliza's parts. So baby, I'd appreciate it if you'd stay put until at least September 25th. Thank you!

Despite my nervousness, I'm truly excited to meet this little boy. All along I've sensed he has a very special spirit. I really can't say why or how I know, I just feel there's something very special about him. A good friend and I once mused about how children are placed with families. She shared her feelings that some spirits are assigned long in advance to come to specific homes, but others are almost like a gift from Heavenly Father. This baby feels like a gift to me. Maybe it's because so many of the best gifts we receive are ones that are unexpected and something we hadn't even known we wanted. Five children were never in my plans! Yet, I already feel so blessed to have them!

Sweet little boy, we can't wait to meet you. (Yes, you do have a name and I love it! But we'll keep it a surprise for a bit longer). I'm terrified to be a mother of five, and yet I can't wait. Somehow, your arrival and adjusting to this new responsibility will work out more perfectly than I can imagine now.

Be Loyal to Your Best Self

These two big girls started back to school the middle of August! With all the chaos of moving summer felt very short and super long at the same time. The week leading up to school starting they were more than ready to be done with summer. Hazel especially was looking forward to starting school so she could make new friends. 

 Hazel is in Mrs. Hamilton's class for third grade. I have wonderful memories of third grade, and I can't believe she's that big already! This year her class also begins rotating to other teachers for part of their day so she sees Mrs. Cooper for reading and writing. The first few weeks were a bit tough for her trying to fit in with kids who have know each other a while, but now she's doing great and seems to be loving school! Her only compliant is that there isn't enough time to read each day.

 Eliza is in Mrs. Gabbard's first grade class. She is loving school and feels much more challenged than in Kindergarten. When they tested her, she's reading at a third grade level so they have her going to a second grade class for an advanced reading group. Crazy girl! We are so glad she's been able to be challenged at school.

This year the bus picks the girls up at our house each day! Since there aren't any other kids too close they just made our house the "bus stop."

One neat thing they do here in Kentucky is a "non-traditional instruction" day. These days are used to make up school for things like weather cancellations. They just have a packet of work to complete for the day (yay - no more making up days at the end of the year!). The solar eclipse fell on their fourth day of school so the district made it a NTI day and the kids were able to stay home!

We experienced 95% totality from the eclipse. It was pretty neat! The sky became really dark and it was much cooler. All the cicadas even stopped buzzing. One of the coolest things was the way shadows looked!

This year Michael and I decided to pick a theme to focus on as a family: 

"Be loyal to your best self. Be loyal to the best that is in you!" 

- Gordon B. Hinckley 

Our hope is we can all remember to do our very best, to honor our best characteristics, and to have the courage to live what we believe. We're hoping it's a great school year full of growth and learning for us all! 

Kentucky Summer Fun

In between unpacking, we tried to fit in some more summer fun before the kids headed back to school and Michael started work again. Of course, our very first stop was to the library for new library cards. My kids simply cannot live without library books! Hazel especially has filled many, many hours reading since we moved.

Our ward had an incredible Pioneer Day activity at the White Hall historic site. The home was a former tobacco plantation before the civil war, then became a headquarters of sorts during the war. The activity included lots of food and games for the kids. Of course, my kids never miss an opportunity to dress up so they insisted on going in pioneer outfits. It was a blast! 

One of the ward members brought his classic car and gave people rides. Orson was in heaven! 

Signing car!!

The kids were lucky enough to get invited to a birthday part for one of the girls in the ward. The face paint was especially fun for them!

We have checked out the aquatic center in Richmond and several local parks. But lots of days we weren't quite sure what to do. We don't know the area well or have our usual group of friends to call up for a get together at the park. That just meant we had to get creative. We had a few tea parties,

did some building and creating, 

and had color parties (here's our orange party for lunch!)

The kids were still able to do summer reading out here and earned some coupons from the library. One day we used the Children's Museum coupons for a fun outing. Lenora and Orson especially loved it as they've never been to a children's museum.

Another day while Michael was working on his dissertation, I took the kids on a "hike" near our home. They were so excited to be "in the mountains" again though they're more like foothills by us. Still it was a very fun day, and I have to agree with them, it is nice to be close to mountains!

The Move

Somehow we manage survive our move. We pulled off this move on the hottest week of the summer with four kids and two dogs while I was 28 weeks pregnant! We did the last packing on the house Friday afternoon after family left town, continued Saturday morning while Michael attended his last PhD class at Drake, packed most of the moving truck Saturday afternoon (which we sadly had to finish Sunday afternoon for an hour), and cleaned Saturday night and Monday morning. The new owners literally arrived about 20 minutes before we were done cleaning, and we waiting for us to get out of the way. It was chaos! Just writing about it makes me tired. 

It was exhausting, filthy, long, hot, sweaty, hot, (did I mention hot!?!) work, but we made it. I know the only reason we made it was because the Lord poured tender mercies over our family. We could have never done this one on our own. 

Tender mercy number one: Jamie

Aunt Jamie is the number one reason this move was successful. She decided to come help us move instead of coming out for Hazel's baptism. She sacrificed her time, vacation, and probably her sanity for our family. And, this is the second time she's helped us move. Jamie is that incredible of a person! 

She worked so hard packing, cleaning, helping watch the kids, packing and cleaning some more. She put up with Michael and I being the most highly stressed, unfun hosts of all time. She also made sure to work in fun moments and celebrate the final moments in Iowa. There are not enough words to thank you Jamie!  

A toast to surviving moving out of our old home!

On the drive out, Jamie suggested we stop and visit the site where the movie Field of Dreams was filmed. Like I said, she made sure we did a few fun things too! I really didn't want to go out of our way, but I'm so glad we did. "Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa!"

 A million cheers for Jamie! We owe you a truly wonderful, pampering, relaxing vacation next time!

 Tender mercy number two: Grandpa Jones

Dear Grandpa Jones helped us out so much as we prepared for our move. At 70 something years old, he helped fix a few things around the house, hauled boxes, and expertly organized our moving truck (we paid less for each foot of space we used so this was a huge blessing!). He reminded our kids over and over how loved they were, how much they'd be missed, but also how wonderfully they'd do in Kentucky. We miss him terribly!

Tender mercy number three: The Boone Ward

Our ward family in Boone was wonderful. We had never lived far from family before Iowa, but they taught us that family is never far when you have the church. They loved our children and us so deeply. They cared for us, and encouraged us. When we had to leave, they worked and sweated with us to get us on our way. From the men who loaded the truck, to the sisters that helped clean, we couldn't have done it without each of them. Sweet Linda Lee cleaned with me late in to Saturday evening, then seeing how much we had left to do, agreed to come back Monday morning and stayed for over 3 hours to help us get out the door one time! I will always cherish the lessons in faithful discipleship I've learned by watching members of the Boone ward serve. Thank you! 

Expertly packed truck! Family of 6 in just 15 feet of space!

 Miscellaneous tender mercies along the way

Tender mercies continued as we made our journey: no one got heat stroke, my 28 week pregnant body did everything I needed it to and then some with only minimal discomfort, cars worked as expected, we traveled safely, the kids were so, so, so good the entire weekend even though they were overly tired. I could go on and on and on....

 

Tender mercy number five: We have a house! 

Our new backyard!

At the last minute, there was a glitch in our mortgage paperwork. Long story short, our bank decided to require an inspection of our septic system which was difficult to set up, not to mention costly for us. (In the end, it was a tender mercy in and of itself because we ended up having to pump the tank before the inspection. It badly, badly needed the cleaning, but otherwise is in great condition. I know this is something we would have put off for a long time not wanting to spend the money, but I'm so thankful we had to do it and avoided very expensive repairs down the road.) The septic inspection caused a delay in the underwriting process so we were not going to be able to close as scheduled. 

We were going to be stuck without a house for several days after we arrived. Our wonderful sellers knew we had kids and agreed to let us move in 3 days before our closing at no charge! It was so kind of them, and such a huge blessing for us! 

We arrived Tuesday with just the items we had in our car. Cheryl Robinette from Boone had packed a small box of dress ups to give the girls and it was a lifesaver once we got here. Having new dress ups kept them entertained for week while we waited for our truck to arrive.

Tender mercy number six: The Berea Ward

Our new ward has been incredible. It's one thing when dear friends help you, but when complete strangers serve you it's simply incredible. And the ward really went above and beyond. Without being asked different people brought us a hot, homemade meal three nights in a row! They arranged for a group of men to unload our truck (again in the blazing heat and humidity). They made sure we met our closest member neighbors, and overall gave us a wonderfully warm welcome. We have felt so loved from the moment we arrived!

 Moving is hard. It's hard to say goodbye; it's hard physically; it's hard logistically; it's hard to settle in a new place with so much unknown; it's just plain hard. But I can't help but feel so blessed. It's been hard, but we've done it. We have hurdles ahead as we settle in, make new friends, and find our groove here in Kentucky, but it will all work out. When this is in your backyard, it's easy to remember great things lie in store!