I've got baby on the brain and I need your help!

As I was pondering this post and as I look forward to Baby J's arrival I went back to look at the pictures from our other babies. I thought I would share one of each child with you and then I will tell you what I need help with.

Jesse Dale Plattner 8/24/1998 10 lbs 5 oz

Javan Eric Plattner 11/16/1999 10 lbs 2 oz

Jared Bracey Plattner 7/15/2001 10 lbs 8 oz

Jolene Kay Plattner 3/4/2003 11 lbs 8.9 oz

Jubilee Lynn Plattner 7/31/2005 10 lbs

Jonas Daniel Plattner 5/13/2007 9 lbs 15 oz

Here's what I need from you. NAME ideas!!! We still have not come up with a name for a girl or a boy. We have a couple ideas for a boy, but nothing in concrete. We like names that are a little different or uncommon. The name can not rhyme with the other names as it causes confusion to who is being called. Oh and if you haven't noticed it needs to begin with J!!!

Give as many names as you can think of. I look forward to hearing from you.

Landscaping

My sweet husband had our house landscaped for me last fall and I LOVE it!!! Some of the flowers were blooming better earlier but I didn't get any pictures taken. Jesse mowed the lawn today so I took pictures while it looks nice.

Front of house. I painted shutters but they aren't up yet.

South side of house.

South side and part of back.

More of the same.

South side and back of addition.

I love order and this makes it look orderly. Thanks Sweetie!!!

I love thus picture!

Jonas

Jonas loves his fruit. We had grilled pork chops and zuchini with watermellon tonight. He loved it all.

Jonas loves his Jesse.

If I'm not available Jesse is Jonas first choice for a comforter.

Plattner Cousins

Plattner cousins in their shirts on July 5.

Truitt - 2 1/2 (Kirk's) and Jonas - 2

Backs of the girls shirts, you may need to click on the picture to enlarge it to see anything. They turned out cute but I never took individual pictures of them.
All the girls - Abrey, Daisha, Emily, Jolene, Jubilee, and Chelby.

Back/ Jesse - 10 1/2, Jonas - 2, Tyler - 11 (Clint's), Grandpa, Grandma, and Daisha - 4 weeks (Kirk's)
Front/ Drew - 3 1/2 (Kirk's), Chelby - 6 (Clint's), Truitt - 2 1/2 (Kirk's), Jolene - 6, Emily - 4 (Clint's), Jubilee - almost 4, Jared - almost 8, Javan - 9 1/2, and Abrey - 9 1/2 (Clint's)

We hope to all be together again before Kirk's family returns to Jamaica, it's fun to be together.

Cleaning help!!!

I decided to have a late Spring cleaning this year because we have a big conference being held at our church this year and we are hosting company. Every couple years I have one or two of Chad's cousins girls come and help and they help with things that don't necessarily get done as often as they should.

I still have plenty of cleaning out and reorganizing that I want done this summer, but windows, lights, kitchen cabinets, and various other things are done. They go home tomorrow.

Jolene has been loving every moment of them being here, although I don't know if they have always enjoyed "Little Miss Social's" company. If I had a nickel for every question she asked I'd be getting myself a nice little treat!

Janae, Jolene, and JayLyn.

By the way, Chad's cousin had all J's too, 5 of them, all girls. Jayla, JayLyn, Janae, Josie, and JoElle.

Independance Day 2009

4th of July has always meant family gatherings in Mt Morris IL with my Mom's family. 3 years ago we had our last celebration with all but 1 living family member present. Times change and this weekend some of the family is in Ohio since that is where my Grandma now resides.

My thoughts have gone many times to the longing for the celebrations of the past to continue in the present. So I will start this weekend from a picture from our last Brinker Independance Day Celebration. We have similar shots for many many years past.

Waiting for the parade.

All of you Brinkers out there reading this, know that I love each of you and miss being together!!!

Now for this years celebration!!!

For various reasons Chad's brother Kyle and our sister in law Bethany and her children all needed a ride to Oak Run (the lake house where we were to spend the weekend). It was pretty rewarding to be able to load them all up in our 15 passenger van. So the first picture is of our nearly full "Bus."

"Self - explanatory"

The Biggest (smallest) attraction of the weekend! The newest addition to our family Daisha Leigh. It was observed that the girls couldn't walk by without petting a bit. :)

Daisha Leigh - This is Kirk and Keri's baby. Born 4 weeks early in Jamaica, had somewhat of a rough start, they were able to get a medical transport, and now she is home! Praise the Lord she is doing well!!! She will be 3 weeks old on Monday.

Celebrating Jared's birthday! Grandma always enjoys making their cakes.

Ever since we went snorkling in Jamaica Jared has wanted a snorkling set.

Friday night some of us took an evening ride on the boat.

To preface the following pictures, Independance Day dawned with rain!!! When we realized the weather wasn't likely to change till evening, the first question asked is "how do we keep 12 children entertained all day without going stir-crazy?" We discussed the possibility of finding a museum in nearby Galesburg. One of the men said "why don't we just take the $5 it would cost for each child and go to WalMart - they'd have a blast!!!" So that is what we did.

Aunt Bethany and Tyler walking through WalMart together, I Love this picture and would edit it to crop out the rest, but that is not my skill and I don't have time to figure it out!!!

Picking out their purchases. Treasures ranged from mini-baby doll sets to cars, trucks, or tractors to 5 items from the $1.00 section!!!

The other idea that came up was to buy t-shirts and let the children decorate them. Here they are picking out what color they want. Mom purchased a pack of fabric markers and the children had lots of fun!!!

Check-out - with some of the children holding onto their treasures!

Tyler working on his t-shirt.

Jared

Jolene

Even the little girls got in on the action - here is Emily - age 4.

Because of the rain we did not let them wear their new shirts because it was down to just a bit of a drizzle and they were able to play outside for awhile. We are planning to take Dad and Mom's Christmas picture with all the grandchildren in their new shirts tomorrow. I hope to post more pictures later.

It turned out that both ideas went over very well with the children and we had a nice day together - In The House!!!

Jonas spends lots of time playing with cars, trucks, tractors, and trailers.
He spent many happy hours playing with the toys Grandma brought for the little boys.

Happy Independance Day everyone!

From great to not so good...

Sunday evening shortly after our father's day meal I was starting to feel a little crampy but assumed it was indigestion. Whenever I woke during the night I would have the same discomfort. Monday I laid around all day because I kept having cramping, but it seemed to be above the baby so I thought maybe it was something else. When things didn't settle down by evening we decided to go in and get checked out. I was having contractions but they were not doing anything to my cervix which is good. They did a couple tests, one which said I was not going into labor and sent me home. Today has been a little better although if I am on my feet very long (like 15 or 20 minutes) I start to get crampy again. The hospital said lots of things can cause non-labor contractions, sometimes you never find out why. I am hoping this will pass soon so I can at least keep up with the daily house-work. I have several good friends in the area and my mom-in-law about an hour away that have offered any help I need, hopefully I won't have to take them up on it, but I am glad to know they are there even though they are quite busy themselves.

So even though this isn't the best thing to happen in a pregnancy, the baby is still where he/she belongs and appears to be doing just fine. I have soooo much to be thankful for.

New laptop

I absolutely LOVE my "new" used laptop!!! The battery lasts a very long time!!! Just like the Energizer bunny it keeps going and going and going... I didn't know it was even possible to last that long. The speed is way better too.

I'm a very happy camper right now if you can't tell. :)

I was just working on a schedule for our summer. We are doing a little summer school which should be less than a couple hours, but it seems to take a long time because we don't have a plan. I need to have the older children take turns taking care of the younger ones while I do individual school with those that need my help. I've got a good plan if we can implement it and stick to it.

Friday Mom Plattner and Uncle Dick Graham are coming; Uncle Dick is going to put up a border for me in the kitchen and Mom will help with the children so I can paint my room without interuption; at least, with minimal interuption I hope.

I got a valance for my kitchen at a garage sale some time ago and I happened to find a matching border at another yard sale this spring that is big enough for my kitchen.

I will try to post pictures of the completed project.

That is enough for now lest I bore some of you. :) Good Night!

Tremont Turkey Festival Parade

We went to the Tremont Turkey Festival Parade this afternoon. For the last couple years we have gone to this one since we no longer go to Mt. Morris for the 4th of July. We thought we had the best spot as we were at the beginning of the line and had close parking. We would be of the first to leave and not get messed up in traffic. We soon realized that the front is not necessarily the best if you want to limit the candy consumption. The end would be much better because then the candy throwers would be out of candy or at least nearly so. Not including the candy that was eaten, we brought home a grand total of 8 pounds of candy. The children were forwarned that they would have to share and they would not keep it all to themselves. At bedtime we sorted through it and determined what the favorites would be and then sent the children to get ready for bed while Chad and I made a package for him to take to work for everyone to eat. We kept about a third of the candy to be eaten only with permission.

Here are some friends from church across the street from us. Sorry the photo quality is so bad, I used Chad's phone to take the pictures.

Nolan Wagenbach, Jolene, and Jonas watching the parade and hoping for more candy.

I'm not sure if Jolene was sharing her candy with Nolan (who showed up near the end) or if she was just showing off how much she collected.

Jonas enjoying his sucker. He wouldn't take his eyes off the parade long enough for me to get a good picture. He was most interested in the tractors that went by.

Afterward we went home and got the rest of the food ready to have a cook out with some friends from church. We were supposed to host Family Ball on Friday night but there were enough that cancelled so we decided to call it off. Jolene was devastated, I don't think it had much to do with playing ball, but the social aspect of being with her little friend, Lexi. I told her maybe we could have company Sunday if we had a good weekend. So we had Lexi's family and another family with a boy in the age range of our older boys. It turned out to be a nice comfortable evening so we ate out on the drive. Pretty soon our patio add on will be complete and we can set the tables up back there for company.

Well, I am the last one awake, it's 11:36 which is terribly late for us. We plan to sleep in since the children got to bed so late, it wouldn't be profitable to have devotions with half asleep grouchy children, so we will have to wait till evening for that. I hope I will be able to blog again soon! Good Night!!!

Another boring update!

Just thought I would give a quick update. Hopefully things will pick up soon. We got our "new" hand me down computer and Chad is working on getting all the files transferred. Hopefully next week I can start some normal blogs with pictures and maybe they will be a little more consistent so you don't have to get bored with the monthly or later updates.

We have had a busy month. We were gone 4 Sundays out of 6 with our various travels, 2 weddings, a camping trip, and some time with my family. I hope we are done with that type of travel for awhile. We have a wedding in October and it wouldn't hurt my feelings if we stayed home till then. I've enjoyed all that we have done, but it gets us out of routine and that I don't like.

We do plan to have a busy summer even without travels. All the unfinished projects we have been living with for the last 5 years we are hoping to finish by the middle of August. It is quite exciting to me, but if I don't stay organized it will be easy to get behind and lose track of priorities. While we were in Ohio someone installed our railings in the main entrance and our mud entry. We stained them last weekend and hope to get them varnished soon. There are many others and I will try to keep you updated as we go.

All are in bed, I'm supposed to be, so I best say good night!!!