The Coombs Family

My wonderful husband just had a birthday, and this time I think we celebrated it perfectly. I didn't buy him a gift, and not for lack of effort. I tried to buy him a bullet proof vest to be very safe for his tactical shooting class he is taking soon. Well, I am not allowed to buy that unless he is law enforcement. I tried to argue, but it didn't happen. So he got to open no gifts from me, and he didn't care at all. In fact he asked me if he could take his birthday money and Christmas money he got from his grandparents and buy me a bow. I've recently got a taste of archery and I LOVE IT! I had no idea it was so fun to play Hunger Games all day, but holy cow- it is fun! We took our kids to my parents house the night before his birthday because my parents were watching my sisters kids for her anniversary trip. Once you already have her five kids, my two just blend in and they hardly notice. Ok that's a lie. My kids are much more demanding but her kids help balanc...

We have 5 new resolutions this year, and I am documenting them to see if we can make it. 1. Home for good! Caleb needs to sleep in his own bed, at his own house, and get a job in town. It's been over two years now that he spends the week away from his family and I'm over it. Done. I have threatened to move to Roseburg and sell our house, but anybody who knows me knows that's an empty threat if there ever was one. I think Salem is too small, so Roseburg is pretty much out of the question. Caleb no longer works in Medford, but he is still gone the same amount of time. I am tired of having weird noises at night frighten me, running with my kids in the jogging stroller that now weighs 120 pounds, crawling into a cold bed, and doing family prayers without him. He has had many possible opportunities that have not worked out, but it appears he has a real one now and will be home in February. Crossing my fingers on this one, and my toes! Please come home Dr. Coombs. We need you!...

The best things about our Christmas this year: 1. Lights- Caleb put up lights outside our house this year, but he forgot one critical step in the process. He didn't check the lights before he put them up. Our brand new LED lights we put up last year already stopped working. He took down one set of lights, leaving the other set up on half the house. He also left the hangers for the lights on our gutters. The second set he left up did work, but he didn't have an extension cord long enough to reach. So we left it like this all December: 2. Gifts- We wrapped all our gifts early so we could see the beautiful wrapping paper and ribbon for many weeks. I do this so that I can take my time, and also to do a check on the amount of gifts and make sure I didn't forget anybody. I also hate going to the stores at the last minute. But every year I still go to the stores because my dad didn't get my mom a present, my sister needs a few more things for her kids, and Caleb usuall...

Caleb and I have been trying to have a third child for over a year now, and we just can't seem to get it to work. At first we just were not getting pregnant, which was frustrating. Then we finally got pregnant and I didn't even tell Caleb. We had our big anniversary trip coming up and I was going to suprise him. Unfortunately I started having complications so I had to tell him as I sat in our bathroom and cried. We weren't sure if it was a miscarriage or not, but we were pretty sure. After our first set of tests at the doctor they said it was a good pregnancy and not to worry. They put me on "pelvic rest" which was suppose to help. Well, it didn't help. After three months of bleeding, we had a miscarriage. We have been trying to get pregnant ever since. It had been a year of trying so we scheduled an appointment with my doctor to get more serious. After I scheduled the appointment, I got pregnant again. YEAH! Again, I didn't tell Caleb because I wanted t...

We are just getting started with our traditions this year. Here is a sample so far: 1. We went to the free storybook display in Albany with the kids. It's a huge indoor amphitheater that is filled with displays from every book or movie from your childhood. Lots of weird scary displays too, but let's not focus on that. My kids both loved the train displays the most. In fact Calvin cried hysterically when we left. Shelby on the other hand ran right in front of the line and ran up to Santa. The line was about 20-minutes long so we skipped it, but I guess she wanted to say hello. Caleb grabbed her before any of the other parents threw a fit. We got a lot of mean looks, but I can't blame the girl for trying.  2. We attempted to to the Keizer parade again. We got stuck in bad traffic, even though we were an hour early. We had not had any dinner and we were all starving. It was pouring down rain and Calvin had been very sick the day before with some kind of flu thing....

The day after Thanksgiving we started our holiday extravaganza here at the Coombs house. We were all loaded up to go tree hunting when my brother-on-law Trevor blew out his knee and needed to to the ER. So we killed some time with my sisters kids and waited. It was nice dry day and the sun was even out while we waited. So we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally they got back from the hospital with some good pain meds for Trev, and we left him at home to take a nap. My sister and her 5 kids with Caleb and I with our two, and we went to go hunting for trees. The tree lot we use donates all the money to the schools, which is an added bonus. We got to the tree lot and both of my kids were passed out asleep, and it started pouring down rain. We left the kids in the car and went to find the perfect tree. As we hunted, we would leave one of my sisters kids by the trees we liked as a marker. Pretty soon all the kids were wet, cold, and had to use the bathroom. They were yelling at us to...

Caleb was gone elk hunting in Colorado and we had this great idea that I would drive our kids to Utah and meet him there when he was done hunting. Then, my sister decided to come with her kids, but she had a school final that didn't allow her to leave until late Friday night. I didn't want her kids to be stuck in a car and getting to Utah super late on Friday night, so I volunteered to take them too. I borrowed her huge SUV, slammed my two kids, and her four girls in the car, and we hit the road. They all stayed the night at my house the night before, I got the car loaded, and we left around 4:45 am. The trip is usually 13 hours, and we made it in exactly 13 hours. No extra stops, no fighting, a little drama, and the trip was great. Seriously, sometimes more kids is easier. They played so well together. The only melt down was when I had to use the bathroom super bad and I couldn't find Shelby or Calvin's shoes. So I carried them both into the bathroom while Rhoda's ...