One

Shiloh Jordan is now one month old -as of yesterday.

He celebrated his one month birthday by celebrating his big brother's 7th birthday.

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Shiloh is so laid back and just goes with the flow.  The Lord must have known we needed a laid back baby this time!  He is excellent at nursing and even better at sleeping at night so we're not sleep deprived zombies attempting to care for four kids.  He will usually sleep one 4 hour chunk and then wake every two to three hours afterwards.

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He's started being awake more during the day, especially for an hour or two after he wakes up in the morning.  He's always so alert and will turn towards the kids or us when he hears our voices.  He'll stick his little tongue out and attempt to making cooing noises.  Bobby & the kids swear he's smiled a few times but I haven't seen it so we're not counting it until he smiles at me :-)

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Shiloh is in serious danger of being spoiled.  There are times when I leave him in his swing/bouncer or on the bed to "cry it out" while I finish a few chores.  I know he's dry and fed & just demanding attention.  I try to hold him as much as possible but it's limited when you've got three other kids and a house to care for.  So anyway, every time I leave him Hannah or Samuel will swoop in and pick him up.  Hannah is the best at sitting in the recliner and snuggling him up so that he dozes off.  Or else I'll turn and find Amos attempting to give him his pacifier.  He's got three amazing older siblings who adore him and love him to pieces!!  Lucky little fellow.

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The Story of Shiloh

Seriously, poor Shiloh was born into a chaotic time for our family.  If you've been reading you know that we had our fair share of trials leading up to December.  Things seemed to be settling down and I was prepared to spend my last few days before Shiloh's birth cleaning and spending time with my other three.

But on Monday December 22nd, Hannah woke up with a high fever a sore throat.  We went ahead and took her to the doctor because I thought she had strep.  My thinking was that she would get an antibiotic and still be good to come to the hospital on Wednesday.  Oh no -it couldn't be that easy, Hannah tested positive for the flu.  I'm not worried or paranoid about the flu at all.  We've had it in our house before and survived.  I was more upset that the kids wouldn't be able to come to the hospital to meet their new baby brother.  So she and the other two began taking Tamiflu and she was actually fever free for the first time on the day that Shiloh was born.  We were still cautious when we came home from the hospital just to make sure sweet Shiloh didn't get sick.

Leading up to my delivery I was diagnosed with Pregnancy Induced Hypertension.  My bp was fairly high and I was sent to the hospital for overnight observation and then put on mild bed rest.  Bed rest with three kids and the craziness we were dealing with is almost laughable.  There wasn't a lot of bed resting to be honest.  The cure for PIH is delivering the baby and while in the hospital my bp was beginning to ever so slowly come down.  But the day after we were released I noticed my right foot swelling -not just a little but a lot.  Bobby bought a bp monitor and we saw that my bp was going up instead of coming down and that was with me taking my bp medicine.  This resulted in several doctors visits and more blood work.  

I have been sharing this testimony with everyone because it is such a blessing to see how the Lord provides and heals us!  The day we got home from having my blood work done (Tues), I noticed our neighbor was having some tree work done but I didn't think anything of it.  I went inside and took Shiloh into our bedroom to nurse and lay down for a nap.  I heard Bobby talking to someone in our living room and couldn't figure out who it was.  When I came out I saw our friend Tom M. that we used to meet with when we were a part of a house church group.  Let me just say that the Lord has blessed Tom with the gift of healing and my heart just leapt with excitement when I saw him standing there.  I knew the Lord had sent him to pray for us.  We told him everything that was happening and asked him to pray.  He immediately put his hands on my foot and began to pray.  That afternoon the swelling in my foot began to go down.  When I went for my next check-up my bp was still high but was starting to come down again.  I know it was Tom praying for us and the Lord healing my body.  It makes me cry to think that when we so frustrated and tired and couldn't even think of asking for help that my Heavenly Father sent someone to help us.  Blessings!!

On January 1st Hannah celebrated her 9th birthday.  I was relieved that we made it without any illness because normally someone in our house is sick on her birthday.  We even managed to have a small party for her and I'm so glad that she had a blast even though it wasn't much.  

But I spoke to soon.  The very next morning Amos began throwing up and was sick all day long.  Saturday everyone was fine so we thought maybe it was just Amos and the rest of us would be fine.  But no, Sammy began throwing up at 1am Sunday morning.  Then Bobby began to feel sick.  By late morning I was have stomach cramps and potty issues.  That was a rough day.  It's hard to take care of three kids and nurse a newborn when you just want to sleep and not deal with anything.  At 1am Monday morning it hit Hannah.  Poor Bobby was working so hard to take care of all the sick kids while I just focused on keeping Shiloh quarantined in our bedroom and feeding him.  Our hands were raw from washing them so much -though it didn't do much good.  For several days we were all just tired and barely had an appetite.  I felt bad that Bobby spent his two weeks off helping take care of sick kids rather than getting to spend quality time with Shiloh.  And I honestly didn't get much of a recovery period because I was just kind of thrown into all that craziness and I knew I had to do my part to help and make things at least a little easier on Bobby.

It's just laughable to look back and see everything that we've gone through the past few months.  In all seriousness it's definitely made us turn to the Lord even more,  become persistent in prayer and see that His ways our certainly much higher than our ways considering I would have chosen the easy way for us!  But you hit the point where you don't even get mad or stress anymore -when your child starts throwing up at 6am you just laugh and move on.

I want to close by telling you that we've been blessed beyond measure.  A friend of ours gave Hannah a free month of tumbling at our local tumbling center, the men at Bobby's men's Bible study took up an offering for us and the amount was so overwhelming it made us cry, Bobby has a new car that has a warranty, Shiloh is still so laid back and sleeps so well at night that we're not sleep deprived zombies staggering around during the day and the kids have still been able to participate in their activities (AWANA, Upward, tumbling) even though we have a newborn and a 2 y/o.  There are certainly more but those are the major ones.  :-)

Bobby & his sweet baby boy

 A fun game of knock the Boppy off of each others heads.

 Pure cuteness.  This booger says he's not 2, he's 8!

 "I take him now Mama."

 Milk coma.  I love when babies sleep with their mouths open.

Shiloh Jordan Clark

December 24, 2014

7 lbs 8 oz

21 inches long

Shiloh is such a sweet baby and we all love him to pieces.  He's an excellent eater and a decent sleeper - our nights our okay but could definitely be a lot better for sure ;-)  And he actually has hair!  The other three children were just about bald with the exception of a little blond fuzz but Shiloh has a good bit of dark hair.

I'm glad to report that Amos loves his little brother and always wants to know where he is.  And he'll normally play nearby and talk to me & pat Shiloh's head while I'm nursing him.  And he's very hands on with burping too.

Dr. Rhodes & Shiloh

 First day home and relaxing in the crib.

 Three out four handsome Clark boys.

 Amos loves Shiloh so much!!

Random

I have been so slack lately about taking photos and documenting all of our happenings.  As always, we've had a lot going on and I feel like things have been absolutely crazy since the beginning of October.  We're learning to be persistent in prayer and the Lord has definitely been providing us plenty of opportunities!  Here's a bulleted list just for the sake of documentation:

• As you'll remember Bobby went to San Diego and Amos busted his lip & my uncle died.
• Upon his return, the battery died in my van.  My van is just one year old.  Thankfully Bobby was home and was able to come and help me when I was stuck in Seneca.
• The week after the battery incident Bobby had to replace some thing clutch related in his car.  Thankfully he had received a bonus at work and the extra money covered my battery and the parts for his clutch -and what happened next.
• Bobby's 99 year old Grandmother passes away in Maryland.  We ended up buying Bobby's dad a plane ticket so he could attend the funeral.
• I failed my one hour glucose test & my blood pressure was elevated all in one visit.  I was so worried and frustrated.  So I buckled down on exercising, drinking even more water and researching herbal remedies to help with my blood sugar (cinnamon and Vitamin D by the way.) Thankfully I passed my 3 hour glucose test and my blood pressure was the best it had been the whole pregnancy.
• Then we started having air in our water.  Changing the water filter didn't solve the problem.  We had someone come look at it and he couldn't figure out what the problem was but suggested it may be the tank.  The tank definitely needed to be replaced but we still have small amounts of air in the water.  The guy is coming back today to check the pipes.
• Right about the time we started having air in the water, we awoke one morning to a freezing house.  Our heat had stopped working.  We had someone come look at it but he really couldn't figure out what the problem is.  He replaced a part, we thought it was fixed and then it happened again.  Since then we've not had a problem but it's still frustrating to have your heat stop working and no one can figure out the cause.  The last guy that came out told us to "hang tight" and sometimes it "take the whole thing going out to find the problem."  Really?  That is so very comforting.  

Please don't think I'm complaining because I'm not.  With each problem we've encountered we've learned to trust the Lord even more -and as I've said, be more persistent in praying.  Sure we've been frustrated and felt a little overwhelmed but prayer & praise banish those feelings :-)  And as always, good things happened too over the past month.

• The kids are cruising along in school and enjoying it so much.  They are especially loving Geography and ask almost daily to play the Geography game.
• Amos is talking more and more.  You can now have a complete conversation with him.
• We've decided to name our new little mister Shiloh.  We still don't have a middle name though.
• And, Shiloh will arrive on December 24th unless he plans to come earlier (which is my prayer!  I want to be home and recovered before Hannah's birthday.)
• I found out I'm getting a great niece or nephew in June 2015.  
• As I mentioned above, Bobby received a raise at work that basically covered all of the extra expenses we've incurred.  Not exactly the way we would have like to spend that money but many are the plans in a mans heart!!  
• Amos is pretty much "potty trained."  He wears underpants all day and rarely has accidents.  He does still wear pull-ups at night but that's it. 

I leave you with some pictures of my beautiful family and the knowledge that we are happy, healthy and anticipating wonderful blessings in the future.   How can you not when you're expecting a sweet baby boy to cuddle ;-)

 Amos kept trying to sit in Shiloh's car seat and I explained several times it's for his new brother.  I finished cleaning the kids room & came out to find Mario tucked in and ready for a ride!

----> Halloween '14

Trunk or Treat @ Wal Mart

Amos:  Superman

Samuel:  Night Shift (a Skylander) and he wouldn't wear his mask

Hannah:  Elsa (the most popular costume this year, of course)

Heather:  31 wks pregnant 

Bobby: {not pictured} was a disgruntled Clemson employee :-)

This is the first year Amos has really gone Trunk or Treatin'.  We normally just go to the "Fall Festival" (seriously, it's just a non-offensive way to say Halloween party) at the church we attend.  But they didn't have their party this year so the kids decided for Trunk or Treatin' at Wal Mart.  Amos would walk up, hold his bucket up, mumble "Trick or Treat!" and then stand for a minute looking into his bucket after he was given candy.  Then he'd look up expectantly like Is that all?  He was too sweet.  

Clemson Basketball

I almost forgot to post these pictures.  Earlier in the month, Bobby & I took the kids to Rock the John.  There was a magic show, introduction of the 2014-2015 men & women's basketball team, an exhibition game and more.  Afterwards we got to meet all the players and got their autographs on the free posters that we received earlier.  I thought Amos would be scared with so much noise and smoke (from the fireworks & smoke machines) but he had just as much fun as Hannah & Samuel!

My favorite family picture.

 They took some good family pictures and then things got silly...

 It's smokey because of the fireworks and smoke machines.  It took forever for it all to clear.

 Sammy was excited to meet Rod Hall.  But he was so shy that he wouldn't have his picture taken with him.

 Hannah was not shy about posing with our favorite player -Landry Nnoko.  I love the grin on her face!

Interview with a Non-Second Grader

Mr. Amos James is now two years old and his little personality is in full bloom.
He is a chatterbox who loves his older siblings, milk and Matchbox cars.
He will sit for long periods of time rolling & lining up his cars -completely entertaining himself.  Then he can spend long periods of time playing tag or hide 'n seek with Hannah.
Amos is very bossy and will push/pull you to what he wants.
Thankfully he has not lost his friendly, smiley personality and loves just about everyone -with a few minor exceptions and a few rare cases of stranger anxiety.
He does have a quick temper though and is bad to throw things when angered.  The other day he threw a wooden block at Hannah (but missed, baseball will not be his sport).  Before I could get up to spank him, he was already hugging her and kissing her head.
I love when he says "Thank you" and "You welcome."  So polite!

What is Your Favorite?

Color:  red & blue

Food:  anything pasta related -spaghetti especially

Drink:  milk

Book:  Hello World! (teaches you to say Hello in different languages -Shalom)

Movie:  Toy Story 3 & Finding Nemo

Television cartoon:  Daniel Tigers Neighborhood

Activity:  Playing with Matchbox cars

Person:  Mama of course!!  But Daddy, Hannah, Samuel, Granny, Papa & Ms. Betty are all close seconds.  And if Aunt Bonnie brings cupcakes then you can forget the rest of us completely.

Brotherly love...

 My silly monkey loves posing for the camera...