Finished up filming for TLC and The BBC.

Remember in August when I posted this? Apparently since the BBC documentary will also air on TLC, they wanted a bit more footage for the U.S. version, so they sent a second crew out to film us. The crew included our Director/producer Gwen Isaac, of Midnight Swim productions, Cinematographer Gavin Brennan, and our sound technician, whose first name was John, unfortunately I didn't get his last name. As we got acquainted with our crew, Christi was beside herself to discover that Gavin had worked on the Deadliest catch on the Time Bandit boat and John had worked on the crew of the Ghost Hunters series on SyFy. These are a couple of the family's favorite shows and everybody had lots of questions for the guys. While the last post was titled "The British are coming!", in this case our crew were from New Zealand; (Gwen), Australia; (Gavin) and America; John. Gwen was Fabulous and has been all over the world, Christi did not enough time to question her too much.
It was a pretty good day, and the kids had a lot of fun playing soccer in the front yard for the camera. It was funny as Gwen kept telling the kids to kick the football and the kids would look at her and she'd have to say, "soccer ball". Afterwards, Christi and I did a pretty candid interview regarding our ability to have so many kids and our experiences with birth and such.
All in all it was a pretty good day and I hope the footage they got makes for a great documentary when the final cut is done.

Congratulations Chris and Wendy Jeub!!

Why am I congratulating them? Why on the impending birth of their #16, of course! Christi has been in touch with the Jeubs for several years now, ever since we were first contacted about doing the TLC Kids by the Dozen show. Chris and Wendy did one of the first episodes and Christi emailed them about their experiences with filming the show and they were so gracious to answer all of her questions and their reassurances that the producers would be fair and decent went a long way toward convincing us to do it. Indeed it was a great experience. Therefore we not only want to congratulate them, but also thank them.

Thank you Chris and Wendy!!

That being said, let me also direct you to this post on their website on which you can win a free book! While you're there, check out the rest of their site, they've got some interesting resources for homeschooling and running family businesses, plus some good old family wisdom too.

G'waannn, check 'em out...you know you wanna!

Waiting for our castle

Not too long ago, we made the announcement that our backup offer on a house had been moved up to the primary offer and we were in the waiting game for bank approval. Well, some paperwork has been shuffled and the previous owners are moving out and we are a bit closer to actually getting this thing done. We are going to see it with Christi's dad today so he can have a look at it (postponed from a couple weeks ago) plus the older kids. A few of you have asked, so I'll provide this link to the listing, for your viewing pleasure. As before, I'll ask any of you that pray to keep us in your prayers to get this house. I think it is the one we were meant for.

New Choppers!!

With all the things that need doing around our house, some things just stand out when they get accomplished and deserve special notice. What's that you say? Did I finally get the garage cleaned out? No. Did Christi finally work a vacation trip into an already tight budget? No....

What got fixed yesterday can't be claimed by either Christi or me, but makes us so happy, it deserves a post all it's own.

Chad got his teeth fixed!!

Some of you may remember that awhile back, Chad was attacked by some lowlife who hit him in the face with a hammer. While he was otherwise uninjured, his front 3 teeth were shoved back up into his gums and damaged. They eventually came back down, but were expected to die in place and maybe fall out. Well, after much wrangling with the health insurance and the dentist's office, he has finally gotten his teeth capped and re-secured in place. (I don't know the details, just now they look great and don't wiggle) He goes back in tomorrow to get a cleaning to start things off fresh. Chad can once again flash his winning smile without immediately putting his hand up to hide his messed up teeth. He's a good looking boy, but the teeth just put the final touch on his handsome mug.

(Not Chad's actual teeth)

From the back of the line, to the front, and no cuts, no butts, no coconuts.

At a time like this, the reptilian part of my brain tells me to refrain from talking about things like this, in order to avoid the wrath of the Real Estate Gods. But I seldom listen to my own superstitious thoughts and so I'll tell you that Christi and I are now the primary offer on what is probably the best house we've seen yet. As noted here, we lost out on a short sale on which we had been waiting almost 6 months for a final answer. It was rather heartbreaking as we weren't even informed that our offer had been dropped and so we were on the hook for probably 2 months unnecessarily. As I said in that post, we had since put in offers, 2 of which we were in backup offer status. Well, it happened. The primary offer on a 5 bedroom 3 bath house, with 3000 plus square feet fell through and our offer was submitted to the bank. Unfortunately, the previous buyer lost his job, and our sympathies are with him for that, but I think that this is our time. As Christi kept saying after we became the backups "the backup offer on the previous house got it" so she and I kept some very high hopes. It looks like things just might work out this time. This house is the best we've seen yet as it keeps us in the schools we wanted, has nearly double the footage of where we are now, 5 bedrooms and a 3 car garage. The backyard is completely walled in with concrete block walls and the landscaping shields the backyard from nosy neighbors. Most importantly, it has that one feature that Christi has been dying for for so long, a fireplace. In fact it has 2, the most awesome one being in the master bedroom right in front of the garden tub (read: Luuuv tub). The kitchen is large with great cabinets and stainless stove and dishwasher (another important feature). We are taking her dad to see it on Thursday, to get his opinion, but I'm sure he'll be just as pleased with it as we are. My hopes are hanging on this one, but we feel really good about this house. If you pray at all, please pray that things work out for us with this house.

It will feel so good to finally have a place of our own.

Introducing...Nathaniel Frost Cason

As many of you will know from Christi's Facebook, our Nathaniel was born on September 1st. He weighed in at 7lbs, 13oz at birth and he is, of course, absolutely beautiful. He was a total surprise as Christi had come to think it was a girl and so had I. I was completely shocked when those boy parts came flopping out. Previously, we had mentioned that we had an ultrasound picture with the sex info written on it, stashed in an envelope that I had hidden from Christi. Well, we successfully avoided the temptation, but were convinced it was a girl due to Christi's feelings, cravings and the fast heartbeat we always heard on the doppler in the Dr.s office.
Enter Nathaniel.


The first thing the nurse pointed out was the size of his hands. He really does have big hands and feet for a newborn. You know what big hands and feet mean don't you? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. It means shoes and gloves will be hard to find when he gets older...why? What did you think I meant?


So the name...we had been thinking about Xander, but Christi really didn't like it much. She was thinking Zane, but I didn't really like that one, so we were tossing out some names and Christi said Nathan. I've knew a Nathan and didn't like him much, so I threw out Nathaniel, which we thought sounded better anyway. We hemmed and hawed and mulled over a few others, then when it came down to it, we asked the kids to vote, for Xander or Nathaniel. We went with their choice. I think Christi is just beginning to warm up to it. The middle name Frost comes from Christi's mom's family and was originally after Robert Frost.
Just a week after Nathaniel was born, his first checkup with the Pediatrician revealed that his bilirubin was high and the Dr. sent us back to the hospital for a dose of light therapy. Christi stayed at the hospital with him and he was home the next evening looking a much more normal shade of caucasian instead of jaundice flavored yellow. Most of the kids have had a bit of jaundice after birth, but he is the first one called back in for the light treatment, although Morgan did get the lights while he was in the NICU at Loma Linda.
Nathaniel is now home enjoying Mommy and his brothers and sisters, all of whom want to pick him up and carry him around all the time. We're sure happy to have him home and will enjoy watching him turn into the little person he's going to be.

Welcome Home Nathaniel!!

What baby wants...baby gets!

Apparently the baby is not content with waiting for any of us adults and our schedules, he or she had it in mind to send us to the hospital in the wee hours of the morn. Christi is bathing and getting all smelly good for her birth experience and I'm going to be sorting out kids clothes for tomorrow's school, hopefully without screwing it up too badly. If I'm able to come back Christi will talk me through it by phone anyway. With that, we're off to the hospital to meet this little one.

Our blog title says we know what causes it...this is the IT that we're talking about!

More later.