Remembering Jedidiah

 A lot of people know that we lost our last little one (our first Tennessee Baby), three weeks before his due date. We were looking forward to Jedidiah's arrival, and we loved him more and more each month that we waited for him. How sad it was to find out that he would never sit with us at the dinner table, or tell us stories, or keep us awake at night. Jedidiah is still talked about every day. We love him. Deeply.

 We've wanted to share a little about the loss of Jedidiah. It has been a little over a year ago now, and we felt like we were ready to share some of our experience. 

 Tennesse law allowed us to bring Jedidiah home from the funeral home and bury him on the hill behind the house. Trevor and I lost a full term baby in 1990, Benjamin, and the arrangements and funeral were handled at the funeral home and the cemetary. We were grateful for the chance to be able to experience our grieving and say goodbye to Jedidiah at home...the way things used to be done. It wasn't easy doing things the way we did them, but we felt like it was something we needed to do, and now we're glad that we did. We all played a part in getting ready for the tiny little service we had.

 Trevor and the boys made a beautiful cedar box to place his little casket in. We called this the "outer box". I had Loran paint pretty flowers across the bottom and paint his name across the front. We had a great need to be able to do something for Jeddy....I guess to say," Goodbye, for now". 

 

Trevor and the boys made a cedar box for Jedidiah's little casket to go in, and Loran painted it. 

Trevor and the boys bring the outer box out to place the casket in. 

Trevor and Caleb placed the casket securely in the box.

The funeral home brought Jedidiah to the property the morning of the funeral. It was so hard to hear Trevor tell me that the hearse was coming up the driveway. And then to walk out and see it. For so long, it seemed like a dream. A nightmare. I constantly had to remember the Love of our Heavenly Father. And the comfort that comes from Him as we cry out for help.

Trevor conducted the service and did a beautiful job sharing about our life philosophy, particularly on why we feel the way we do about babies and children.And that we would be with Jeddy again one day. I really don't remember a lot about the service. I can just remember feeling how Trevor must have felt conducting his own baby's funeral. There were lots of tears. 

Trevor did the funeral service.

Here we are headed up the hill together to bury Jedidiah.

Caleb, Christian and Elisha asked if they could dig the grave, and here they are finishing the burial. Trevor and I are above the grave watching. 

Trevor wating to put Jedidiah's little marker in place.

Trevor smooths the soil over the grave.

 The funeral home was prepared to come and dig the grave, but Caleb and the boys wanted to be able to do it. When Trevor was finished with the service our family went up to the grave-site alone and the boys lowered Jedidiah's casket into the grave. We each threw a rose down over the casket and then took turns shoveling the soil back into the grave. The boys finished filling it in and Trevor placed the little grave marker on the grave.

 Losing Jedidiah, and walking through the grieving process has been difficult for everyone. We all know that having a new baby isn't going to replace Jeddy. But losing Jedidiah has left a deep yearning in Trevor and I to hold another baby in our arms. We've walked this path before and having another baby is like a healing salve. It puts a spark of joy and hope beside the sorrow that will be there forever. We love you for always Jedidiah.

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, 

bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, 

bringing his sheaves with him."

Psalm 126:5-6

Striving to be Purposefully Different

We’ve never been a family to be happy doing the norm. As far as I can remember, we’ve always lived outside of society’s box. Trevor and I have looked at the modern world, and for the most part have viewed it as an enemy. Yes, it’s given us a lot of conveniences, but with a dear price. There was a time when every family member wasn’t segregated into a different slot in society. With that time, it kept families intact with healthier marriages and family dynamics. Families had a common goal. I hate what our modern culture has done to families. It’s sad when you sit down as a family for lunch and dinner every day, and sit in the family room once a week and sing songs together (while Rebekah plays the piano, awesomely!) and be told, “You know, people don’t live like this anymore. This is like stepping back into the 1800’s.”, with that person having a look in their eyes and a tone in their voice like maybe we didn’t realize it J. It’s taken a lot of work and sacrifice to get back to a simpler way of life. And it’s been so worth it.

Simplifying and Organizing

From the time we got married, how much space we’ve had available for stuff has always been a deterrent for too many piles to develop. One of the keys that I had to learn from necessity was keeping things simplified, or downsized. If I started having a problem with not being able to keep up with the laundry, I allowed that to be the flag that I had TOO MUCH laundry. Although you wouldn’t know it from walking into my house, my tendency is to keep more than I need JUST IN CASE I MIGHT NEED IT. Maybe you’ve seen this with yourself too, but I have a really hard time choosing what I should keep and what I should get rid of. It may sound silly, but sometimes I actually feel overwhelmed when I’m sorting stuff.

When I was younger, and my surroundings were letting me know it was that time again, I would use the 3 basket system every several months. A basket for keeping, a basket for giving away and a basket for throwing away. That just wasn’t a good system for me despite all of my good intentions. The bags of stuff that I ended up packing to take to a Goodwill or a clothes closet would sit somewhere in the house for way too long. So the mess went from sitting in drawers or cabinets to sitting on the floors (in bags)….for weeks or months!

I felt intensely guilty for throwing something away that someone else “might be able to use” even if it were something that had a stain on it and I knew “I” wouldn’t keep it for one of my kids. Also, I would keep clothes that had rips and tears in them because “it really was a nice dress” and I could mend it sometime for one of the kids to wear… This might be hard for some of you to believe, but I had to come to a place of freedom where I was able to take something that I didn’t want or need and to throw it away! Now, if I had something that I knew someone particular could use, something that was in excellent condition, or of value…I certainly would give it to someone…but I’m talking about garbage bags of stuff….It just NEVER has worked for me…..Throwing stuff away was a sort of freedom for me.

Learning how to use all the space available was a key to being able to successfully keep so many people’s belongings organized and easily accessible. For instance….there are so many people in our house that we don’t have enough dresser drawer space for everyone, so in the past we’ve used those flat lidded storage containers under our beds. Painting or writing in pretty script each of the kids names on their box is an easy way for kiddos to remember which box is theirs.

The first step in organizing your home is simplifying things by downsizing. That doesn’t ALWAYS mean getting rid of 2/3 of all your stuff (but it could mean that for some of us). It does mean deciding what you need to be out and available for use, and to store away the rest to bring out at a later date (and get rid of some of it altogether). A good example of this is how we’ve managed toys. When we accumulate too many toys, I separate the toys into amounts that my little children can handle picking up. We’ve never had more toys available to play with than what the little ones could manage (with my help) to clean up after play. If they have more toys than they can manage with help, they have too many toys. In my experience children are overwhelmed with too many toys. They end up just getting thrown around the house or room and left because of disinterest. The other thing is that I don’t keep toys in the bedrooms. This seems to make it harder to manage the toys. I have 1 or 2 areas that we keep a toy basket and that way it is within sight and is more apt to be picked up several times a day. I’ve learned with myself that if more things are kept in open areas within sight I can keep them organized easier.

One of my challenges has been keeping children’s closets looking nice and staying tidy. I had Trevor take the

doors off the kid’s closets and put nice closet organizer kits with plenty of shelving inside. This way it is easy to tell when it was time for them to be tidied. This system works well for me because “out of site is out of mind” and if the problem is hidden in a cabinet or closet I end up with larger messes that take longer to get under control. Closets can look nice and don’t have to be an ugly monster to contend with all the time. A pretty curtain on a spring rod pulled to one side with a pretty bow looks attractive in a girl’s room and a valance across the top of a boy’s closet looks nice.

All of my older children manage their own clothes...but my little children are a different matter. There is a constant struggle to keep their clothes clean, organized and ready to wear. The best system that we've ever found for keeping the kids clothes organized involves keeping the kids clothes out of their bedrooms. Instead, we keep them in canvas covered storage bins, usually on shelves in the laundry room. This system worked beautifully for us for years. The problem with keeping kids clothes in their bedrooms is that they don't stay folded, they don't stay in the dresser...they end up all over the floor, and it's super hard to have a nice "going off" outfit on hand when you need it. With the storage bin system, the kid's clothes are out of their space, out of their reach, and much easier to manage. I can put two stacks of folded clothes into a bin. Each child had 1 bin where only their jeans, shorts, t-shirts, etc. went (we had an extra bin for each childs underwear, pajamas and socks and dressy clothes are hung up in the closets). I would stack the clothes up as far as the bottom of the next shelf above them. This is what I've had to do to stay organized and to give myself a boundry-line so that I know when it's time to get rid of unnecessary clothes. It's something that I miss that I cannot do in the house we live in right now. I don't have a room (thats out of the traffic area) that I can put shelves up in.

So, here's my "compromise system" with the smaller kids clothes for now, and it seems to be working pretty well. Putting together whole sets of clothes, complete with socks, shoes and undies has eliminated a whole ton of stress in our home…..it is so much nicer when I have a kiddo that wants to go along with me to the grocery store and all I have to do is go to my room and open the bottom of the wardrobe to get their outfit-to-go. This has been really nice on a few occasions when we've had an emergency trip (like to the Doctor's office or ER). This may not be a problem you have to tackle, but this is a typical problem for moms of larger families.

Look, I know that you mamas with one, two or three kiddos are really getting a kick out of this post! But when you have as many people living in your home as we do, you really have to learn to limit the amount of "stuff" that each person owns, or there would be no way to keep it organized (or even have a place to walk). These are just a few family-friendly organizational ideas. Small and large families alike can benefit from this.The first step is to simplify! Declutter first and then it will be much easier to keep things organized. Once you get into it and you see things begin to clear out, you'll be amazed at how it will boost your motivation!

What are some of the organizational tips that have worked in your home?

Real Mom. Real Kids. Real Family. 

Flow = Grow

Most of you know that in September 2013 our littlest member of the family, LindyAnn (Gemmie), had open-heart surgery when she was one week old. During our stay at Vanderbilt, LindyAnn's heart surgeon constantly repeated this phrase: flow equals grow. What he meant is this- in order for her body to grow, LindyAnn's heart must have proper blood-flow. If the flow isn't there, the growing isn't going to happen.

When we began talking about starting a blog and facebook page for moms we really hashed over what we wanted the purpose of A Baker's Dozen to be. We want A Baker's Dozen to be a place where you can be real, where you can share. A place where we can laugh and be refreshed, a place where we can challenge one-another and be inspired, a place where we can share problems, tips and solutions. A place where you are affirmed in your role as a mom. A place where you can grow. We want A Baker's Dozen to fill a real need.  

Flow equals grow. It applies to the spiritual and emotional realm as well as the physical. We want this to be a place where we can grow together in all three areas. Because the truth is, we all have struggles that go way beyond planning meals and sorting laundry. These things are important! We want to be able to manage our homes efficiently. We all have an ideal image of the sort of mom we want to be. But I think we would all agree that the physical (taking care of our bodies, managing our homes, etc.), is not the most important. We also need to be challenged and inspired- we need to grow- emotionally and spirtitually! So, as we launch out into this new endeavor to provide a platform for mutal sharing and encouragement, we want to keep this phrase in the forefront of our minds: flow equals grow.

We have an extra large family! There are a lot of experiences and challenges in a large family that smaller families may not fully grasp. So, while we have a special place in our heart for the young families just starting out and all the moms in every stage of life, we also have a growing awareness of the need for a support group for moms of large families. We want moms of large families to know that this is a place where you can share your family's ups and downs with other people who "get it", and to be able to share your experience with younger moms who look up to you. We want to encourage you to give to younger moms by sharing from your life...this is one of the ways we keep on growing.

So, we don't want this to be page where you simply come to read what we have to say and then go on. We want to hear your side of the story. We want to start a conversation. We want interaction on this blog, and on our facebook page- not so that the pages are "successful", but so that WE AS FAMILIES are benefitting, growing and being successful. So please, share your stories, share your thoughts, share your hearts.

"So lets not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up." Galatians 6:9 (NLT)

"I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished..." Phillipians 1:6 (NLT)  

What are your thoughts about the purpose of A Baker's Dozen?

Welcome to our new blog!

Thank you for being here! We hope that you are encouraged.