The Art of Making Snowflakes

Brains has been wanting to make both of her grandma's birthday cards for quite sometime now. I do admit I've been dragging my feet on helping her with the project since craftiness just isn't my thing. She was excited about making snowflakes to put on their cards so last night we finally got to it. I cut out my first snowflake, thinking it would look really good and Brains would be really excited. After cutting and opening the paper, I realized instantly that I was way out of practice!

I thought, "No need to be discouraged, it's my first snowflake, I'm just a little rusty." I cut and cut and tried and tried to make a nice snowflake only to be disappointed over and over again!





Didn't I make snowflakes in grade school? Was I just less picky about how they looked back then or did I actually have some talent that I lost somewhere along the way?
My husband arrived home after an overly long trip to the store to buy a new tire for our van:o/ He sat down at the table picked up some sissors and started making his own snowflakes. And yes... they put mine to shame SEVERLY, as if they weren't already shameful!
We sat in mostly silence for quite awhile until he finally said, "Soooo, how's it going?" I gave a short, "fine" in reply. He began to wonder what my problem was so I grabbed my snowflake out of the trash and showed it to him (seriously guys, the snowflake thing made me pretty grumpy). Instant laughter rolled from his lips as he said, "Oh wow! Those are horrible!!! You are so uncreative!" We both know that creativity is NOT something the Lord has blessed me with. We were both laughing and he says, "I just don't think I've seen such pathetic snowflakes before, what are you doing?" We sat and contemplated for awhile, wondering just what happened to our skills (or lack there of in my case) of snowflake making. Though his were pretty and intricate, they were square and he likened them to some kind of Aztec design:o)
So my husbands creative snowflakes, and this one really did turn out nice!

Compared to my uncreative snowflakes that it looks like a six year old made:o) I gave up trying on the second one, therefore no design on the inside of it...

A Strangers Cart and a Strangers House

Today my sister and I went grocery shopping together at Walmart. If my girls aren't riding IN the cart I have them hold on to the side of the cart and often times they stand on the bottom part and hold on. Both my sister and I were standing on one side of an isle, while a lady was walking past on the other side. Curly was blocking her way, so I said, "Curly, come hold on to the cart!" She was in her own little world (as she often is) and quickly hopped on to the lady's cart and held on tight. She just stayed put, while my sister bopped her on the hands with some paper and tried to get her to notice where she was (or should I say where she wasn't?). The lady patiently waited while Curly just sat and held on. It took forever for Curly to notice what was going on and since I was blocked in by my sister and the lady I couldn't just grab her off. Curly finally looked up and scrunched her eyebrows while she got off and found my cart. Me and my sister were laughing SO hard - I literally had tears in my eyes! Even now I laugh at the memory, what a funny girl!

My hubby and I went and looked at a couple of houses last week. We arrived at one of them and didn't see a realtor, but decided maybe it was one of those where the home owners show you around instead of the realtor. While I was deliberating whether or not to get the kiddos out of the car (not wanting to get them out in case it wasn't the house), my hubby and Brains went up and knocked on the door. A lady answered, and since my hubby had to open the screen door to knock, it seemed like the lady was inviting him in when she opened wide her door. He went in and Brains quickly made herself at home while my hubby reminded her to "take off her shoes when going in to someone elses house." My husband was also quick to explain to the lady that his wife was just getting the other kids out of the car, but would be in shortly. After all of this, the lady finally says, "Excuse me... who are you?" My hubby asked her about her house and apparently we were on Lane instead of Court, the rest of the address matched perfectly except for those 2 little important words. Come to find out, the house we really wanted to look at (where the realtor was waiting patiently for us) was right behind the house we mistakened for it. I have to wonder why 2 houses with such similar addresses are so close to each other??? Another super funny experience (maybe more for me than for that poor lady or my silly husband).

My husband got home from work the other morning and since snow was in the forecast I asked him if it was snowing outside yet. He said, "No it's like 45 degrees out there!" We sat down to watch some news and after about 30 minutes we saw a live video feed of the airport and the weather there. My husband is like, "What? That's the airport and it's totally snowing there, when was that?" We realized it was present time and it WAS snowing at the airport??? We quickly looked out the blinds and the ground was covered in snow! The weather here is SO, SO, weird! So our morning started out pleasant at about 45 degrees and ended off with a severe blizzard that evening!? Crazy!!!

House Hunting

I don't know if any of you remember my post where I said I was breaking Smiles from sucking his fingers... Yeah, after diligence and hard work he still has no conscience whatsoever about sucking his phalanges. It started with his middle and ring finger on his left hand, but when I made it impossible to suck those he went to his pointer on his right hand, so I taped up that finger too, and guess what??? He started sucking his thumb!!! Yep, my kid is an addict and I'm a little discouraged in this process:o/ I have resorted to 2 pairs of tights, one leg from each pair covering an arm and the other 2 legs tied between his legs. Works great until he pees through his diaper at night and onto the tights too (I recently bought some bigger diapers for nights since this became way to regular an occurrence and I was getting tired of doing his bedding laundry). Anyway, I think since I have seen NO improvement in this area of finger sucking I am going to let my little phalanges sucking addict continue in his ways unhindered.
Currently my husband and I are in the process of looking for the perfect house, which is definitely a 4 bedroom, in the perfect location for his job and our church. I am way more stressed and worried about the housing situation than I am about having twins. In fact, neither me or my hubby are worried about having twins at all. We know that we will be busy and every day won't be perfect, but we're excited about what is to come! Anyway we've looked at a lot of on-line houses, but visiting them is a different story since it isn't just a trip down the road to check these houses out, it's more like a 45 minute drive! So much to consider and so many options, and let me just tell you folks, we would have been plenty happy and content to go the next 10 years without owning a home, but alas it is necessary. We checked out some apartments a couple of weeks ago and the maximum occupancy for apartments (at least the ones we looked at and it seemed to be a trend) is 6 people and we will have 7! CRAZY that we can't even live in apartments buildings anymore even if we want too! So that is where we are for now, on the house hunt and dreading yet another move, but hopefully our last move for at least a good 5 years!
As far as I go, I am feeling GREAT! At this point I don't feel any different than I would with just one baby in my stomach, but it's official... I am getting bigger and bigger and it seems like this is happening on a daily basis:o/ I'm pretty sure that at 20 weeks I look about like I normally do at around 7 months! Time did slow down once we found out about the twins, but now that we're looking for a new place to live it seems like time has sped up again, time is NOT on our side if we want to move before the babies get here (which I would prefer). When Smiles was about 2 weeks old we moved and I said I would NEVER move with an infant again, because I just didn't get to snuggle my new baby as much as I would have liked too. Sadly we will probably be moving when the babies are super new again, AND if it really is my last time having a baby/babies I want to enjoy them as much as possible *sniff*. This may seem like a small delima, but to me it's pretty depressing:o(
At my last appointment my doctor said that it is pretty common to have to do a cesarean with twins, he went on to say, that IF he did have to do a cesarean and my hubby and I were indeed done having kids (and he said not to do it out of convenience, but only if we really wanted to be done) that it would be a good time to tie my tubes. We were so certain about being "done", but just that small conversation made me sad thinking about officially being done *whaaaa*. Talking to my hubby about my feelings, he's like, "Your killing me here" because of my indecisiveness. He went on to say that he loves kids and wouldn't mind having more (that didn't help in the decision making process), anyway we have some time to think about it and I definitely know I don't want any surprise babies a year after the twins are born, nor do I want to be having babies very late in life (though we are still both in our 20's), it seems to make perfect sense to get "fixed", but I have yet to come to terms with it. I told my man that the twins birth would be a good time to get "fixed" since I would be so excited about them, it would help me not be so depressed about having my tubes tied. So these are the predicaments we are having right now, many a decision to make, but exciting times ahead:o) So glad to know that God has a plan for us and everything is in His hands - just knowing that relieves a lot of stress!

God's Perfect Timing

When my husband and I were newly weds we talked about how many kids we wanted some day, he topped out at 2 and I often said 3 (at least). One day after having our first baby and seeing how wonderful it was to be a parent my hubby told me 3 would be okay and maybe even 4! Wow!!! So we had our family planned out, 3... maybe 4 kids, spaced out a couple of years in between, HAHA:o) Well #1, #2, and #3 were all surprises, though we knew we wanted them, just didn't expect them as quickly as each of them came, but we were grateful for each pregnancy and quickly became excited about each of them. We decided 4 would be our finishing point, unless we ended up getting a major baby itch (like when my sister has her 5th, which she is currently incubating #4), so 5 was a possibility, but not likely:o) So since the first 3 kids were perfectly spaced at 21 months each I decided, "Why not plan for #4 (and #5) to fit into this perfect spacing and make for some continuity?" Yeah, once again we were reminded that we don't make those decisions and boom they just happen. We passed that 21 month mark and 22 month mark with no baby... humm, this wasn't as easy as we expected. Well alas God had His plan and we got pregnant in God's timing (no more continuity). All this to say (and I know I mentioned this in my last entry), but it really goes to show that GOD is in control and I am glad he is! He has blessed us in wonderful ways and our children are one of our greatest sources of joy! I am so thankful for each one of them and the timing that God chose for them to come into our lives!

Twins!

Things became much clearer last night while my hubby and I sat in the E.R. waiting to hear if our baby still had a heartbeat. I started spotting on Monday and it's just been off and on since, I called the doctors and they didn't seem concerned so I figured it was probably okay unless it picked up. Well last night, right after my husband left for work I considered the spotting to be more bleeding and became quickly concerned. I called my hubby and told him what happened and he said, "I'm coming home and we're going to the hospital." It's always hard to know if your being over dramatic with things like this, but we figured... if a trip to the ER could save our baby's life verses not going and regretting it later and always wondering if it would have made a difference had we gone... that we would bite the bullet and go. Anyway we got the kids to bed and asked our neighbors (across the hall) to keep their eye on them for us, which was SO sweet considering they just had a baby of their own and have dealt with complications with healing from the incision of her cesarean. Driving out of our parking lot I told my husband, "If the baby is dead, I'm going to feel so responsible" since I had been playing b-ball and other games with our youth group. I figured maybe it's just too much with this pregnancy to do things like that. My hubby was so level headed and said not to worry, that there was nothing we could do, and let's just wait for the ultrasound. When we first got to the hospital my blood pressure was 171/98 - yes, I was a little stressed:o) They got us to our tiny room, my hubby and I waited, talked, and calmed down and when they checked my blood pressure again it was 128/83 - much better! A nurse came in to get a heartbeat from the baby and claimed up front that she wasn't very good at it (since she wasn't an ultrasound tech.) so not to be worried if she couldn't find anything. She searched, and searched, and we thought for a second maybe we heard something, but she couldn't get it again, so still no promises. We finally got in for our ultrasound and we were talking to the ultrasound tech - Theresa, telling her that this was likely our last baby, in my hubby's words, "four and no more!" We went on to tell her that 5 was a possibility because babies are so much fun, but we would definitely be done after 5 (well, unless of course God had different plans because after all HE is in control, not us). My husband took my hand in his while Theresa put the doppler thing to my stomach, bracing himself for the worst news possible. We didn't get to hear the heartbeat since it was on the monitor and she was watching the screen, but she says, "There's the heartbeat." Sweet, sweet relief! She then says, "Can I tell you something interesting?" I was thinking, what could be interesting other than the gender of the baby, unless something is wrong with me??? I said, "No, we don't want to know the gender of the baby." She says, "There are actually 2 heartbeats in there" and turned the screen so we could see, and there they were, two little heads side by side! We were totally floored, shocked, thankful, giddy, encouraged, blessed, and every other emotion you could think of in just a few seconds. We went from burdensome sadness (and yes, we had turned it over to the Lord knowing it was in His hands) to overwhelming excitement! The rest of the ultrasound we laughed and grinned from ear to ear thinking about how much our lives changed in that short moment. "We HAVE to move!" we said, since we currently live in a two bedroom apartment; "Yeah, I am so sitting out of school next year so I can help you," my hubby says; and "It's official! We are done having kids when these babies are born! Time for us to get fixed" (sorry if that is too much information) Definitely nice confirmation for us that we ARE indeed done, unless God works past drastic measures and has different plans for us:o/ We called our families and Barb:o) who were all praying hard for our situation - thank you by the way! Oh and in case anyone is wondering, the spotting/bleeding isn't super uncommon apparently and it's nothing to be concerned about (right now anyway), since I am having twins I will be having several ultrasounds and they will just keep their eye on things. For now I am supposed to take it easy and to try not to lift very much weight (that will be interesting with an 18 month old), but yeah, things are good! So we left the hospital, I dropped my husband off at work which we were SO thankful that he was able to call in to work so he could come to the hospital with me - definitely a moment we needed to share! When I got home I calculated that I could get about 2 1/2 hours to 2 hours and 45 minutes of sleep before heading back out to pick my husband up from work, but my mind did not rest easy and I couldn't fall asleep for quite awhile. 5:45a.m. the alarm clock went off, I got the kiddos up, and we picked up my hubby and came home. I was able to sleep on the couch for a couple of hours while the kids vegged out in front of the T.V. and Smiles took a nap. Long night and early morning, yay to some sleep!
Some interesting tidbits... We took a vacation to Utah at the end of September and I totally popped out around that time. My husband was surprised at how quickly I grew and kept teasing me about having twins and eating for 3. We joked about it, but since we even considered it an option, it seemed to rule out the possibilities. This has been the strangest pregnancy for me to date and yes, with every pregnancy I have gotten more and more noxious for longer periods, but I was getting plain tired of just feeling icky! I hit my second trimester overjoyed that things would start getting better, only to find out that I had an overly sensitive gag reflux and had several bouts of throwing up. My husband and I thought it odd that my body was treating this pregnancy so differently than my previous pregnancies and just wondered, but the mere fact we even wondered made us skeptical:o) My cousin found out she was expecting twins and was due very close to my due date, we were shocked for her and decided, "Oh since she is having twins we're definitely not because twins aren't that common!" Our hearts are heavy for her as she did lose one of her babies:o( We do know that God is a good God and has a plan and purpose for everything, she trusts that too and we are all rejoicing that the other baby is healthy.
Another crazy thing is that we were supposed to have an ultrasound at my first appointment, but since I got in late (14 weeks) and would need another ultrasound in just a couple of more weeks we decided to cancel it, you know, save a couple of bucks! Well under any other circumstance than the ultrasound we got last night we would have been searching for twins, half expecting it, but since we just wanted to know if our baby was alive the whole twin idea completely left both me and my hubby's minds and all we wanted to hear was a solid heartbeat. Definitely under those circumstances it allowed for complete and total shock, not expecting twins at all.
Now I just have to wonder how uncomfortable and huge I am going to be, eek, kind of frightening! I am a whopping 4 ft 11.75 in. so I don't exactly have height on my side through this whole thing. My comfortable non pregnancy weight is 115 - 117 pounds (not something I typically share, but since I'm having twins, it IS slightly humorous), oh and even though that is my comfortable weight I do drift from it at times! And yeah, I'm pretty sure I will NEVER see that number on the scale again:o( I've come to terms with the fact that, stretch marks are most definitely in my future - I always joked that it would be the last child to give them to me since I've miraculously escaped them so far? Yep, my body will never be the same, but that is okay, because I have a husband who loves me and my body no matter what shape it takes after the 9 months of brutal beating it will take:o)
One more thing! We were told the twins would be fraternal, she could tell by my uterus/placenta or whatever - I don't do well with medical terminology:o) I thought about that for awhile and realized our fraternal twins will probably be like identical twins with different hair colors, I mean come on, it's not like our kids don't look a ton alike anyway!:o)

Egg Nog Latte, Yum!

My sweet hubby, the coffee master, is making us some Egg Nog Latte's at the present moment, which I do have to say is one of my favorite things about Fall/Christmas time when Egg Nog is in season. As of late my husband has been completely motivated to lose some poundage so he can fit his clothes better, which involved a saddening command to "NOT buy ANY sweets!" Not a biggie for me since I'm not crazy into most sweets right now, but when he said, "No more Egg Nog either" I had to ask, "Not even for Egg Nog Latte's?" "Nope," he said. I completely understand where he is coming from since Egg Nog is a HUGE downfall of his, but distressing all the same. "Unfortanately" we still have a quart in our fridge that we have to finish before it goes bad - bummer:o) So... we are nearing the end of our Egg Nog Latte luxuries *whaaaaa*, unless perchance a quart wanders off the shelf and into my cart... Humm, it might happen - I'm just saying:o) Oh, and I was just informed that these are reduced-fat Egg Nog Latte's, haha, he's so funny!
Speaking of food, I have to admit that I am COMPLETELY incapable of buying myself Sesame chicken at Lucky Bamboo's (the best Chinese restaurant ever). The past 2 times I've gone to Lucky B's and tried to order sesame chicken I have ended up with sweet and sour chicken! Both times I had put my order in and while waiting for my food something in my brain clicked and I realized, "Oh great I totally ordered sweet and sour chicken again!" This hasn't only happened twice, but thankfully my husband knows of my brain malfunction and knows what I really want and therefore knows how to properly order for me. These are just the unfortunate occasions where he isn't with me. And "Why?" I have to ask myself does it click before I get my food, but after I put my order in every time! So weird! Also, since I know this is a problem and I carefully consider this problem before placing my order you would think I could get it right. Thankfully I enjoy sweet and sour chicken too, but not as much as sesame chicken.
I used to have a problem ordering roast beef and swiss market fresh sandwiches at Arby's too! Every time I ordered I would say the turkey swiss market fresh sandwich (which pale in comparison to the roast beef and swiss sandwiches - hardly worth eating) and would end up SO disappointed! My sister and husband would again help me order what I wanted. I told my husband, "if you EVER hear me order the turkey MF sandwich that ISN'T what I want so help me out here." After so many disappointments I now know how to properly order from Arby's, brain malfunction cure!!! Yay!!!
Gross story: A couple of days ago I noticed some blood splatters and a chunk of meat on the side of our car. I finally remembered to ask my husband if he hit an animal while driving. He's like, "No, why do you ask?" I told him about the blood and chunk of meat on the passenger door and he told me he drove through some road kill on the way to work. He said it took up the entire road and he therefore tried to drive through the best possible place. He said he was moaning and groaning the whole way through it cause it was SO gross. Needless to say we need a car wash and really bad!

A Package Deal

Pregnancy does funny things to a girl! While pregnant with Curly I started sleeping with a travel sized pillow under my gigantic belly and to this day (belly or not) I still sleep with that pillow - even if it's just laying beside my stomach (when I'm not pregnant). I sleep so much better with it there??? This pregnancy is going well so far, I think the most bothersome thing to date is my over sensitive gag reflex! Just a simple tickle in my throat takes great concentration not to gag while coughing that tickle out. One morning I woke up and brushed my teeth before doing anything else, let's just say brushing my teeth with a dry throat was a HUGE mistake. I literally started heaving (though nothing came out) and couldn't stop. My husband came in super concerned with great compassion all over his face asking, "Are you okay?" Embarrassed of the scene I was causing I told him, "Yeah, I'm fine, I just need a drink of water and I can't stop gagging/heaving!" We're still chuckling over this one:o)
I watched the Black Stallion with the girls the other day (they eventually got board and started playing, but I'm surprised at how long they watched it). They had lots of questions, to which I normally block out, but tuned in to their conversation at one point, and realized they were more entertaining than the movie was. If you have or haven't seen the movie, a boy gets washed on shore after being in a ship wreak, Curly says, "Look, he's dead!" Brains says,"No, his eyes are just closed because he has water in them. Hey look the water is soapy (because of the foamy stuff that washes ashore)!" More questions like, "Where are his shoes? Are the rocks broken (jagged cliff like rocks)?" And so on and so forth. The kid in the movie finally sees some men in a boat and swims up behind them, Brains says, "he needs to say 'HEY, HEY!'" Next dialogue in the movie was, "HEY, HEY!" Pretty entertaining those girls of mine:o)
Curly had a low grade fever one prayer meeting night so my hubby and Brains went to church alone. My girls hardly know what to do with themselves if they don't have their sister around to play with. Curly was SO board, following me around, wanting me to "play", and just plain needy. When my husband got home I told him it's almost more work to have 2 kids than 3 because I don't have the third one to occupy the second one. He then told me how Brains incessantly talked all the way to and from church (not repeating a single story). That girl has so much to say! So I've decided, Brains keeps Curly busy and distracted by playing with her, and Curly lends a listening ear to all of Brains jibber-jabbering. They are a package deal, you need both of them... together!
So Halloween is around the corner, we're not big into celebrating Halloween, but we LOVE to dress the kids up and bring them to the nursing home. The elderly people loooove the kids! This year we are going to make our toe head son "Bamm Bamm Rubble" (from the Flinstones), Curly is going to be "Pebbles Flinstone", and I really want to make Brains "Dino" the dinosaur. It would be perfect because she IS the tallest, as a dinosaur should be, and Dino's pink a nice girly color. She wasn't too excited about my brilliant idea, but finally agreed to it (only because she is sweet and wanted to make us happy). I could tell it wasn't what she really wanted so when I asked her if she wanted to be Ariel instead and she quickly agreed with a very big smile on her face. So, I could have her be what I want her to be, because she's compliant like that, but how much more fun if she gets to be what she wants to be? So it won't be a trio of cuteness like I had planned, but it will still be fun and they will ALL still be cute because they just are:o)

Suprise Parents!

Okay, so it's been a month or so since I've posted anything! I can't even remember everything I was planning to write about. Our candidating at Calvary Baptist Church is going well - though we love and miss Faith Baptist Church and all our friends there, we are quickly feeling at home in our new church and enjoying opportunities to get to know the people. The youth group we are working with is full of REALLY great kids and it is really fun to watch my hubby do what he loves!
We had an opportunity to visit our families in Utah in September! We had planned on taking our trip, but after realizing finances were short and we still needed to have work done on our car we changed our minds and decided to just enjoy our vacation from home. After breaking the news to our families and talking to our pastor about our plans to stay, we were kindly offered some financial help so we could still go on vacation - totally unexpected, but so appreciated! So, since my mother-in-law had told us not to even tell her the next time we plan to come out so that she wouldn't have to be disappointed again, we decided to do just that and surprise the parents with our arrival. My dad and brother-in-law were the only ones who knew of our plans so they could help things work out to our advantage. My in-laws and my parents had planned to go to the Outback for lunch together, so we decided that would be a great place to show up since both families would be there. We got there early, parked far away, and got a table large enough for everyone to join us. My dad showed up first "making seating arrangements" while my mom waited in the car, and he let us know they were there. One by one the parents walked into the area we were waiting at, but were so distracted by my dad (who was standing by a 2 person booth) that the moms didn't even notice us - all they could think is, "There is NO way all of us are going to fit in a 2 person booth, we need a bigger table." Finally they noticed our little family sitting at the gigantic table next to the 2 seater, that had them so distressed, and were totally thrilled. It was definitely an anti climatic reunion, not quite what we had pictured, but it was fun and the parents were super excited!
We had a great 2 weeks of visiting friends and family! Thursday to Saturday of our first week my mom and I took a trip out to Arizona for a college friends wedding. It had been 6+ years (my wedding actually) since I had seen this friend so it was really nice to see her again and meet her family. What was supposed to be an 11 hour trip turned into 13 hours (there and back?)! It was nice to get back to my hubby and kiddos, but our second week was SO busy! I always think it's interesting how we are so much more pooped after "vacation" than we were before we went on it.

A Waxy Green Ball

Well Sunday was our first Sunday as candidates for the youth pastorate at Calvary Baptist Church. It was a good day with a lot of friendly people! We are so excited about the prospects of being there for the next several years.
Sunday morning, during the service was quite eventful when Brains (oxymoron for this story) decided to show me how well the air soft pellets that she found in the parking lot fit in her ears.

[I thought the penny would be a good size comparison]
I got one out in a quick hurry and looking at the other ear I saw a little bit of the other one past the point of being gotten. Trying to keep our (me and my hubby's) cool I investigated (as subtly as possible) ways to maybe get it out. Through observation, I noticed it had almost completely disappeared. While the pastor preached all I could think about was the fact that it was a holiday weekend and then wondered how in the world the doctors would manage to get something like that out. We stood up to sing and Brains tilted her head and started banging on her ear - I thought, "Ha! That's never going to work, but whatever floats her boat." After a short while she looked up at me, showed me a tiny green ball and said, "look it came out!" BIG relief! She gave it to me and it was slimy with wax, but I was so thrilled! So that was our big adventure, all during one Sunday morning service (way to be a distraction our first Sunday right?).
Today was Labor Day so on our way to my sisters house for a BBQ we dropped by Walmart to pick up a dessert. My husband dropped me off at the door and I ran in to get the goods while he drove around the parking lot. I came out right as a Chevy Venture (same color as ours) drove up. I tried to see through the glare in the window as I walked around the car staring intently. When I finally realized it wasn't my husband on the other side of that glare I noticed 3 Mexican guys smiling at me. I smiled back and said, "Oh ha, you guys aren't my husband... go on," as I motioned them off. So glad I didn't walk right up to the car and open the door! Pretty awkward though...
We had a late night last night, the girls got up earlyish, and we had a long day today. When we got home this evening we put Curly on the toilet before her bath and can we say, "emotional mess"? My husband was telling her that she was being naughty and asked her, "Do you know why you are being naughty?" She says, "Umm, because I hit the puppy?" Startling... but thank you for the confession Curly. Apparently that had been on her mind for awhile. So, we set her straight on changing her attitude and on treating animals nice:o)
Last night I went into the kitchen where Curly was eating her yogurt, and with wide eyes and an emphatic voice she said, "There was a walking crab on the table!" I assumed she must be talking about a spider:o) What a funny description for a spider! Aren't spiders a lot more common than crabs? Silly, silly Curly! Then, after I finished brushing her teeth she says, "Somethings in my teeth, it's prowbly peanut butter or thumbthing." So many things that girl says are such a hoot!

Saying a Blubbery Goodbye

At the beginning of the summer my husband and I decided that maybe the Lord was calling us into a more full time ministry. We visited a church that was looking for a youth pastor wondering if we should put our resume in. We decided, "Sure, let's do it!" So due to our busy summer it took several weeks for my husband to complete/prefect his resume, but we finally got it in. We didn't hear anything back so we assumed the Lord had different plans for us, then... we got a phone call. The pastor of the church called to set up a time to meet with him, so we had our "meeting" and within 2 weeks (if we decided "yes" which we did) we would take over the youth group for 2 months and then in November the church would vote on us. TWO WEEKS!!! Well yesterday was our last Sunday at our church of about 6 years:o( I knew it was going to be hard and well, I was right! I made it through the service pretty unemotional, I thought, "all right, I did it, no tears!" Then our pastor had my hubby and I, along with 2 other couples who are moving, stand at the back of the church to shake hands and say goodbye. Let's just say that the first person who gave me a hug and said, "we'll miss you" was when "confident" "stable" me trickled my first couple of tears:o/ Aaand, It went all downhill from there, I was a blubbery mess! I'd like to blame it on pregnancy hormones (because, we ARE pregnant!) or claim allergies (my husband is struggling with them right now), but well, the fact is, I/we just plain LOVE our church and the great friends we've gained through going there. Faith Baptist Church will always hold a special place in our hearts! What made me feel even more pathetic as I cried like a baby was that one of the families who was leaving was headed across the country and the other was headed several hours away, we aren't even moving, just changing churches. All that to say, "did I see any tears from either of them?" No, just me, the one who gets to stay in the area and still see our friends here and there:o/ Can we say attached? So the dreaded last Sunday is over and now we're on to a new adventure which we truly are excited about! God is good and I'm sure within no time at all we will develop new relationships at our new church and love it just the same (and I know church isn't all about your friendships, but it is nice to bond with other believers). I guess everything isn't official yet, because the church is still going to have a big vote in November so until then we wait, we serve, we train, we create new friendships and we'll see where the Lord leads!

Piece of Cake?

1st month of pregnancy with Curly (#2)

Pregnant? Or not Pregnant? That is (or should I say has been) the question for the past 2 months or so. My hubby and I kind of assumed having babies was a piece of cake, considering we have 3 kids who were each a surprise to us, not to mention 2 of the 3 kiddos were transitions from nursing birth control to normal birth control (which we no longer use). So... now that we aren't on birth control (and haven't been for the past 2 years) and are officially "trying" to get pregnant we realized it's not that easy:o/ We've learned a lesson through this though and have decided that the Lord is humbling us and while being humbled we are reminded that He is in control. His timing is perfect and it is totally up to Him:o)
It's funny how easily a girl could convince herself that she must be pregnant:o) No longer can she just have a chubby day, it totally has to be related to pregnancy; or being extra tired has nothing to do with the fact that she got to bed late, woke up early and has 3 little ones to take care of... nope it's definitely an indicator that she should probably buy a pregnancy tester; heartburn can not possibly be caused from the spicy food she ate for supper; ridiculously sweaty armpits *blush* aren't because of the fact that she (or maybe just me in this case) is just hot (and I'm not talking about looks); and her strange cravings or extreme sweet tooth has nothing to do with the fact that she is normal (right?); and those crazy weird dreams are just one more "sign" pointing to the fact that she IS indeed pregnant:o)
So there you have it... we're trying to get pregnant and still haven't succeeded, BUT that is okay because it's God's timing and He is in control. So we'll just wait on the Lord and enjoy the little ones we have!


Last month of pregnancy with Curly - I can't find my pregnant pics with Smiles (on our hard drive), so I figured a comparison of month 1 to month 9 (of Curly) would be fun instead?... And yes, I took fun month to month pictures of my growing stomach for all 9 months with all 3 kids. Pretty crazy and very unflattering, but fun to look back on:o)

Funny Without a Clue

Last night after church my hubby and I cleaned out a closet with some large VBS stuff in it that needed to be broken down. Needless to say it took awhile and we were the LAST people to leave (which really isn't that uncommon, but usually it's because we can't stop socializing). So, when we finally finished cleaning up we turned off all the lights and my hubby was locking up while Curly was sitting on the floor putting on her shoes. She can be really slow sometimes so I urged to hurry up, then Brains says, "If you don't hurry up you'll be locked up in the dark church all by yourself!" I assured her that sister was just being mean and that such a thing wouldn't happen. I needed to run some stuff to the car so I hollered to my hubby that Curly was still working on her shoes so don't leave without her. I then told Curly, "Mommy is going out to the car, but papa is still here and he won't leave you alone okay, but hurry up with you shoes!" Well... double checking the doors and expecting your almost 3 year old to open them back up for you isn't the smartest idea of 2010. Thankfully we had a key, but my husband had to round the corner and get it from me. Yep, Curly was in tears once she was rescued, poor girl! On the car ride home little Curly sat in the backseat interrupting my husband and I while we talked, "mommy, mommmmy, MOMMY!" Finally I asked, "What Curly?" She matter of factly states, "Papa locked me in." At first I was thinking, "what is she talking about." Then my husband and I burst out laughing, it was so funny! A total after thought, but I'm thinking she was holding a grudge:o)
On the same car ride home Brains told Curly she was naughty (whatever? not sure and don't care), but offended Curly tattles up to the front seat, "Brains says I'm naunty!" We told Curly not to tattle, then told Brains that she doesn't need to be the one to tell Curly things like that because she isn't the mommy or papa. Then we told her that she was actually being naughty in telling Curly that she was naughty (is this confusing yet?). Anyway, Curly hears us say that and still offended looks over at Brains and says, "Yooour naunty" while pointing at her and smirking her lip. Oh boy! Curly has some really funny faces and says the most random funny things, that girl is such a source of laughter! This might be a "you had to be there" story, but we got a good chuckle out of it. We tried to be inconspicuous of course, didn't want her to know that she was funny since she was doing exactly what Brains was just told not to do.

Summer Has Arrived!

Summer has officially begun in our household and it feels GREAT! Our move went well, but let's just say it like it is, moving is NOT fun. My wonderful sister, absolutely wonderful, watched our 3 kids (along with her 3 kids, expecting #4) ALL day long AND on her birthday! What a trooper! Thank you sister, your the best:o)
After our big move we had Vacation Bible School to plan and details to hammer out. A lot of time was dedicated to decorating, shopping for V.B.S. stuff, ironing patches for V.B.S., planning, decorating, planning, shopping for V.B.S. stuff, etc. My poor husband also had bunch of mandatory overtime at work along with pulpits to fill at different churches during this time, which made for busy times to be even more busy. We are so thankful for a great God who gave us a fabulous week! I can't say the planning stages were always fun, but it was encouraging to watch the week unfold and see people step up to the plate and help where needed!
My mother-in-law (Nana C.) came out for a month long visit starting July 2. I always enjoy her company, though we can't seem to ever get to bed before 1:00 a.m (sometimes even 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.). She is an energetic grandma who always gets up with the kids and tends to their needs, while I get to sleep in and take a break from the routine of things (total bonus for me since we lack the self control to get to bed at a descent time). In fact, I'm bordering on lazy to be completely honest... she just makes it so easy:o) Since Nana C. has arrived, V.B.S is over, and my hubby isn't getting so much overtime we have had a ton of fun just hanging out and enjoying life *sigh* I LOVE it!
Today we got all decked out in our swimming suits and packed our bags for a fun day at the pool. The sky was questionable, but we decided to go ahead with our plans anyway. First was our stop at the bank to get some cash for swimming, while my hubby was inside we heard several claps of thunder and saw a couple of drops of rain hit the windshield. We determined that swimming wasn't a good idea after all, so my mother-in-law suggested a bike ride instead. My hubby and I just laughed, we're like, "if you want to ride bikes in a torrential downpour than sure we can do that" because it doesn't just rain in these parts it POURS - my husband described it as, instead of it raining cats and dogs it rains cars and dump trucks (I think that was it anyway). So glad we didn't get to the pool an hour earlier, as we had quite the rainstorm and would have most definitely wasted our money. Pretty much we decked out in swim gear just to take a trip to the bank:o)
I once tried to break my sweet, cuddly, little boy from sucking his fingers and after major deliberation decided to stop my efforts. While talking to my husband I verbalized how much I'd miss Smiles cuddles since he just sits and snuggles when he's tired, key phrase here, while sucking his fingers. I actually started to get emotional over it, thinking about significantly less cuddle time, so my logical husband suggested waiting awhile longer. Well I did wait, but now my little man is 14 months old and I'm figuring it is only going to get harder as he gets more capable of removing my "hindering aids". I picked up some "hindering supplies" and tried them out tonight on his little fingers, and as suspected he hated it and *sniff* my sweet cuddler is going to be a lot less cuddly:o( Well, as you all know my mother-in-law is here and she can't handle listening to her precious grandbaby cry needlessly, so... August (after she leaves) will become our third and final/dreaded attempt to break him from his beloved fingers:o( Brains sucked her thumb and with months of dedication and hard work she finally gave it up. After going through that once I determined not to have any more of my kids be finger/thumb suckers. Smiles didn't start out so smiley and his fingers curbed his grumpiness just enough that I decided it was worth it, and it was at the time, but now... not so much:o) Well anyway I thought I would post a picture of how happy Smiles is when he can't suck his fingers - haha!

Mickey and Minnie THE Mouse

Is it just me or do kids age a parent just by being born? There are the obvious reasons of feeling aged of course, such as:
Sleepless nights - a new baby waking every couple of hours hungry for the millionth time; if they aren't waking up... checking on them several times a night just to make sure they are okay; even when they are grown, waking up to make sure they are covered and warm or rushing in to give them love after waking up with a bad dream; finding out one of the kids has an upset tummy at 3:00 in the morning and didn't make it down from the top bunk to head to the bathroom, therefore cleaning up puke, doing laundry, and giving a bath at the early 3:00 hour.
Stress - four straight days of throwing up; 104 degree temps that are still raising; shallow, laboured breathing making it scary to even put them to bed for the night, RSV yuckiness, bumping their head REALLY hard at least once a week (Curly), and so on and so forth.
Worry - wondering/hoping that one day your kids will accept Chirst as their personal Saviour; praying that they will choose good friends and make good decisions; trying to keep them innocent and naive in a sinful world...
Just the mere fact that you have children - today my husband and I went out for a date and he had asked my sister to watch the kids for us. We always feel so young and almost like we're just dating when we go out without the kids. It's so weird, but so nice to enjoy just each other for a couple of hours:o)
There are also those not so obvious reasons for feeling aged, one of which is my inspiration for this post. Last night while the girls were in bed I gave Curly a Mickey Mouse and Brains a Minnie Mouse to sleep with that I had come across while packing. Brains woke up before Curly (as usual) and finally asked in a very board voice, "Where's Curly?" I told her she was sleeping. Then checking on Curly while Brains walked off I found that she had waken up. First thing out of Curly's mouth was, "Where's Brains?" Brains came in and immediately Mickey and Minnie greeted eachother with a, "Hi" both girls talking in unison *pause*, "What's your name?" again in unison. Definitely eachother's main playmates and apparently that is how they start out playing house. So funny! I kept hearing them refer to Mickey and Minnie as Mickey THE Mouse and Minnie THE Mouse:o) After correcting them several times I then realized they had confused which mouse belonged to which name. I explained to them that Mickey is the BOY and Minnie is the GIRL:o) Oh my! My kids hardly know who Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are!!! So that was my morning, getting the kids acquainted with the OLD fashioned Mickey and Minnie Mouse:o) Cartoons are a good ager... my kids may never know who the Flinstones or Jetsons are! Too bad for them because those were the good cartoons.

All day today my husband and I thought it was Thursday. Finally tonight before he left for work he's like, "So, what day is it?" We looked at the calender which wasn't very helpful because Thursday hadn't been marked off yet and we finally figured that since this morning was trash day it had to be Friday. Wow! Pathetic that we rely so heavily on that little calendar on our fridge and had it not been trash day today we may have had to check the computer or tv just to figure out the DAY:o/ Okay, so maybe it isn't our children aging us... maybe we are just getting old and forgetful!

Milestones

Wow, it's been awhile! I'll simply say... times are busy. Humm, where to start? Smiles turned one! My husband graduated! We bought a van! And we're moving again - this will be our 9th time in the 6 years we've been married, YIKES!
Smiles turns one: We had mostly family come to celebrate his big day:o) He actually touched his dessert, unlike his sisters who wouldn't touch their cake for their 1st birthdays, in fact I think they both ended up in tears after all the attention and persuading to try to get them to eat their cake. We'll just say Smiles was introduced to sweets way sooner than his sisters would have dreamed so he knows what they are all about:o) Not sure if it's because he's my third or I just don't care anymore.
My husband graduated: The week of graduation was a busy one with family, required events, and some fun invites for dinners and cook outs that we got to go to. Graduation morning there is an awards chapel where students are recognized for different things and can I just say my husband made me SO PROUD!!! We knew he was going to get the Who's Who Award, but he also got the Biblical Languages Award, and a Christian Service Award. When his name was called for the third time I just felt like I was grinning from ear to ear. He was pretty surprised himself:o) So working full time (third shift for that matter), going to school, and managing his family and he still got all these "extras" which in the grand scheme of life really boil down to recognition and a piece of paper, but it was still really neat and I am proud to call him MY husband (and an over achiever, haha).
We bought a van: So our car died, which happened to be perfect timing (if such a thing as "perfect timing" exists when talking about car problems). My mom had driven out for my husbands graduation so we ended up having an extra car to get to church, work, and to do our favorite thing - car shopping *complete sarcasm*. We were hoping to invest in a van at some point since we ARE planning/hoping to have another baby here in the not so distant future so what better time to get one then the present. Thankfully my husband did most of his shopping online and quickly found the van he knew was for us. So after getting lost, having a grumpy moment or two, stopping at the gas station (which happened to be almost across the street from where we needed to be) TWO times, calling my sister for a phone number and directions to the place we wanted to go to, calling the place and telling them where we were and having them tell us we were practically in their parking lot and feeling like total losers, we finally found the place and got our new van! It is a Chevy Venture with doors that open by the click of a button. We got a great deal and a dependable vehicle. Now we need to get our other car towed to a shop so it can get fixed - which isn't going to be cheap, but it could be worse.
We're moving again: Our moving history for those who are curious...brace yourself this might be slightly boring. Books and I got married in 2004 and signed an 8 or 9 month lease for our new apartment. When our lease expired we went to live with my parents for a couple of months knowing it was a short term thing since we were soon to move out of state so my hubby could go to collage. After those few short months we arrived at our new destination and moved in with my sister and her husband till we got started in our new jobs, got on our feet (since our move was by no means a cheap one), and found a new home for ourselves. While we were staying with my wonderful sister and brother-in-law THEY ended up moving!:o) This marks move number 4, kind of unofficially since it was really my sister moving and we were the tag-a-longs. We finally found a cute little 1 bedroom apartment not expecting to be "expecting" anytime soon, but alas after about a year in our little apartment our family was just months away from a new arrival. We then moved to a 2 bedroom apartment right on the campus of the school my husband is going to. We really liked it there and that is where we lived when we had baby number 2. The only thing we didn't like was a mold problem that didn't seem to jive with our poor little Curly and her breathing problems. Time for another move! A duplex!!! This duplex was just across the street from the school, SO perfect! We were there for a year and really had no huge reason for moving except that some people from our church were moving and put a bug in our ear about the duplex they just moved out of. It was cheaper and a little bigger so we decided to go ahead with it. I was due to have Smiles just days before we were to be in our new place and let me tell ya... it was not fun packing the entire house (since my husband was crazy busy with school and work) pretty much all by myself. I had my baby 11 days early though so it was nice to finish packing without a huge ball of hardness making it difficult to bend down and move like a normal person. It was really sad though that I didn't get to sit and just hold my newborn all day long (not that I could do that with having 2 other kids to take care of, but you catch my drift), I had packing and then unpacking to do! Anyway we've enjoyed this duplex and the space (and the garage - especially for this past winter) but now it's time to downsize again and save some money since my husband is going to be going to seminary and we're not going to get any grants for that. It's always nice to cut the corners and save some money when at all possible. This is a remodeled set of apartments on the schools campus and I'm actually pretty excited to be close to the school again! There you have it, our moving history in a nutshell. I'm sure we'll have many more moves in our future all to be dreaded as moving always is, well the act of moving anyway. Sorry for the snore, but moving 9 times in 6 years needs an explanation I thought.

What's the Cub Scout motto? Always be prepared!

Several days ago (Tuesday to be exact) my hubby and I decided we would take the kids, bike to my husbands school together, and drop him off for class. As always, we were running late, so in a rush we were finally ready to go. I had Brains on a seat behind my seat and Smiles and Curly together in a pull-behind trailer also connected to my bike.
I would have taken a picture of the kids ON the bike, but since I didn't have time and I really don't feel like re-enacting what they looked like on the back, I thought this would do.

J was on his bike and I was getting ready to pedal away when I realized my chain was off. Unable to fix it myself since I had all 3 kids on my bike and don't have a kick stand J came over and fixed it for me. Okay, now we're ready? Right? Oh... just kidding:o) Not even a block later I decided that the wheel on the front of the pull behind was strictly for walking not for biking since it was flapping around making it hard for me to steer. "Hun," I said, "sorry, but we have to stop again. I am certain this wheel doesn't go on here for biking." This was our first trip with our new pull-behind and we had been wondering if the wheel did or didn't stay on when biking. So we stopped again and struggling because of all the weight on my bike, got the wheel pulled off, majorly annoying delays! Once again we were on our way - can I just say my thighs were KILLING me and we weren't very far. I was kind of wondering how I was going to make it all the way to the school and back. We stopped at a light which was on a small, but steepish hill, and when the light turned green I couldn't get ANY momentum. Slowly (ever so slowly) I trudged on while letting out an army cry, "AHHHHH, this is SOOOOO hard." People watching from their cars were probably thinking I was a total drama queen and maybe wondering why my husband had a bike free of children carrying his bag looking like a total prep while I had 3 kids on my bike. Well, that was on purpose since I am most often with the kids, it's just easier to have my bike all decked out and ready to go. Finally after my long struggle across the street we were back in business and then it hit me, "Hun? What gear is the easy gear again?" J yelled back to me, " the first gear." Should seem obvious, but I always get confused on the gears, "well that explains it! I've been biking in the seventh gear! No wonder I am so tired already!" I switched gears and realized that the trip to school wasn't going to kill me after all, I WAS going to make it. Yay! I was kind of feeling like the Little Engine that Could, trailing along behind husband, "I think I can, I think I can." J had a low tire and since we had some time to spare (amazingly) I suggested going to the gas station for a drink and we could quickly pump his tire there. I decided to be helpful and start working on that for my husband while he grabbed the drinks and well, being the bright person that I am... I overfilled the tire. Totally exploded the tire, and shredded the rim, while causing me to go temporarily deaf (along with a nice ringing in my ear). Fabulous right? So we were going to be on time, but considering we were a couple of blocks away from the school still and now we had to walk J's bike to school, yep, we were now officially going to be late. What a trip! We finally got J to school and now I had a new journey home. It went much smoother, though I had some issues on this one painfully gradual hill - wasn't sure if it was ever going to flatten out? Anyway I got us home just in time to get the kids out of the bike paraphernalia, the bikes into the garage and the kids into their car seats so we could go pick up my husband and his crippled bike. I was scheduled to babysit at 12:30 and that was quickly approaching! I picked up J, we got the bike harnessed onto the back of the car, and our friends I was babysitting for showed up and followed us to our house.
The kids I watched were extremely good, but it was one busy thing onto the next, and then the next, ALL day long. After babysitting my friend and I (and our kids of course) walked to the park to meet up with some other moms. It was fun, and somewhat relaxing:o) Well, we all parted ways and I headed home with just enough time to make supper, feed the kids, bathe the kids, and put the kids to bed (while I was heading to my sisters house to watch the Biggest Loser - our Tuesday night ritual). I felt like everything I was doing all day was in fast forward, I rushed in everything I did! I even ate so fast that I hardly enjoyed my food at all. I headed to my sisters house (and by the way my husband was home with the kids - all of whom were fast asleep) and let myself in since she was on a different walk with another friend, and soon to get home herself. I was already an hour late, but figured, "oh well, at least I get to watch the weigh in." Then I heard some kids in the hallway and realized it was my niece and nephew, my niece was kind of scratching at the door so I sneakily flung it open and startled her (and yes I was proud of myself). Then I noticed my nephew screaming at the end of the hall with a horrified look on his face. I ran over as fast as I could and noticed his finger was stuck in the heavy metal door (not the opening side, but the other side of it). My sister was talking to a friend from college days and thought her kids we being ridiculous and fighting over something, until she heard me call her and declare what was going on. Once we got her kids inside I volunteered to bathe her two girls since they had played at 2 parks and were ready for bed, while my sister tended to her sons finger. By the time we finished with everything we had maybe 15-20 minutes left of the Biggest Loser. Wow, that was a no go! So after my loooong and busy day, I was quite happy to get home and go to bed. What a day!!!
This afternoon my husband and I were singing together at the piano when we heard what we thought was a tornado siren! We looked at each other and rolled our eyes as if to say, "oh great, now we have to wake up the kids!" We sat and waited just to make sure, but the siren didn't change pitch. Curious? Is that not a siren? My hubby then smiles and says, "Oh." He lifted his hand which was resting on the keyboard and the "siren" stopped. I don't think it could have been a closer pitch to the sound of a tornado siren if we tried, totally crazy! We thought it was hilarious:o)

No More Paper Towels Please!

While shopping for our Easter meal with my in-laws, my mother-in-law decided I needed some paper towels. She got a 6 pack of them and noticing I said, "Oh that is WAY to many paper towels. We will never get through all of those." We needed some toilet paper too, so I had her pick up a smaller package of paper towels, while I grabbed the "toilet paper". Yep, I DID just put that in parenthesis:o) Today when I went to open the "toilet paper" I found that I had bought a much larger package of paper towels than the 6 pack my mother-in-law had grabbed, I bought an 8 pack of double roll paper towels!!! Anyone having a graduation party? Or windexing the windows of a mansion or something??? I have paper towels... alot of them...and no toilet paper (well now I do since I had to run to the store to get some)... I suppose we'll be good on paper towels for, well, like the rest of the year:o) Oh and not to mention the pack of 3 paper towels my mother-in-law got instead of the 6 pack:o) We're good for a loooong time!

Today our landlord came over to fix some cupboards in our kitchen. He came while the girls were taking a bath, right after Curly had announced that she needed to go potty. I got the door while Curly was whining in the background for the potty, let our landlord in, quickly finished up the girls baths, and finally got Curly on the toilet. After Curly got all dressed she wandered out into the kitchen, finding an unfamiliar man working on our cupboards. She came back into the room (where I was brushing Brains hair) and declared, "There's a man!" I found that kind of funny since from her perspective that would be really odd. Anyway while the guy was working on one of the drawers he had his head in a cupboard and my really mature little girls noticed holes in his socks. Brains went really close to his foot and pointed to one of the holes while snickering, then stood back to finish snickering with her comrade Curly. Our landlord never did notice they were laughing at his socks, thankfully, but seriously here, how funny are holes in socks anyway? Goofy kids!

On my way home from church I dropped by McDonald's to pick up a burger for my hubby. I came across the happy worker I mentioned in another post, and he greeted me by saying, "Oh hey, it's Miss Witherspoon!" Not feeling like a Reece Witherspoon look-a-like tonight, but still a welcome compliment:o) Anyway I got home (Wednesday nights after church are ALWAYS SUPER hectic), my hubby woke up; the girls were eating and needed to get to bed; Smiles also needed to eat, take his medicine (which takes forever), and go to bed; and then little man on the floor a.k.a. Smiles grunted. Oh okay, so now I have a diaper to change too, another fabulous diaper I might add. Bathtime! An unintended bathtime:o) Can I just say that Smiles LOVES his baths and pretty much makes me struggle to keep him alive the whole time he is in the bathtub. Tonight he decided the best place for his head was right under the running faucet??? I kept pushing it away while trying desperately to wash his little body. The water wasn't even deep since I learned my lesson last time he had a bath (usually I just sit him at my feet while I shower and let me tell you folks that is a WHOLE lot easier). Last time he had a bath I was soaked, fatigued, and shaking from the multiple heart attacks my son gave me. I think it would be wise to get him in swimming lessons as soon as possible:o) Anyway, after Smiles bath I farewelled my husband as he left for work, finished with the kiddos (which by the way if I remember to brush all my kids teeth twice a day [I ALWAYS brush them before bed, but not always in the morning unfortunately] by the time a day is through I have brushed 8 sets of teeth - I know your jealous!), talked to my sister on the phone, and soon got off the phone since we were sitting in silence while we both worked on the computer - we are so lame. So here I am, blogging. *My sister did have some exciting news when she called! My nephew repented of his sin and acknowledged what Christ did for him on the cross! He got saved tonight!!! Yay George! Such an important decision!

Here it is 11:55 and I do have to get up in the morning, so goodnight! Until next time!

Table # 23

It was a very busy week this week. Smiles started up with on-going fevers Monday just as Brains fevers of several days came to an end on Sunday. I finally took Smiles to the doctor on Wednesday because these fevers were relentless and he was super cranky and tugging at his ear. Since Smiles just finished medicine for an ear infection the week before our doctor gave him some different/stronger medicine for a new ear infection. My in-laws came in on Thursday morning at about 4:15 a.m. (Smiles had already been awake and we stayed up to chit chat for awhile - altogether he was up for like a 4 hour period). Needless to say Smiles wasn't so Smiley all day Thursday due to major lack of sleep, and being so sleep deprived made it so he couldn't relax and go to sleep, and yeah... FRUSTRATING! We started to notice a rash all over Smiles torso and head and wondered if it was his medication or just something due to a sweaty crying baby. Friday his rash turned into hives so we called the doctor and started him on some new medicine - grrrr. So he began another 10 days of medication which I'm having some concerns with, but hope to finish up so his poor body doesn't get all messed up. Saturday Smiles finally became his sweet little self again, happy and well... Smily:o) Good to have him back!

I finally got my haircut - something I've been intending to do for months now. I'm not sure why it takes me so long to go get my haircut, but it gets pretty ridiculous the length of time that passes between haircuts. Anyway, I like it and most importantly my hubby likes it. He said it reminds him of our dating days (since I had short hair when we first met). Anytime I get a haircut and he says that, I know it's a good thing. J is a short hair guy, weird I know, since so many guys love long hair. He said it makes my neck extra kissable *blush*.
I went to the Spring Banquet with J on Friday night. We even had free/eager babysitters for the kids (since the grandparents came out). We got dressed up and had a REALLY good meal - which was also free since my husband is officially a Senior, that's right a SENIOR:o) It was fun! Probably the most eventful thing of the night was trying to find our table. We were searching everywhere for table #23 and finally someone told us the order of the tables. We're like, "Oh. Okay, there's #20... #21...#22... #24 - WHAT? Where is our table?" Apparently we got moved twice? Finally, after parading around and searching for an embarrassing amount of time we found the guy with the master list and were directed to our new seats.

Early yesterday morning my in-laws left. After Curly woke up she was calling for her Nana wondering where she went. The kids just LOVE their grandparents and I'm sure it's totally thrilling for them to transition back to normal life with boring mommy after Nana and Popeye are gone, though we do make the adjustment:o) While heading off to Walmart later in the day the girls were wondering why Papa wasn't coming along (like he ever does anyway). I told them he was busy with homework, work, needing sleep, etc. Brains said, "well me and Curly are busy!" I'm like, "uh, yeah, not really." Brains said, "Well someday we'll be busy because we'll be mommies and we'll do the laundry, pour milk, and when I'm a mommy I'll drive a car." Made me smile:o) Her idea of busy and being a mommy are so funny!

March, please be kinder next year

My feelings toward March... not so fond of it this year! Our winter was a pretty healthy one, except for the occasional sickness. March hit and it's just been one thing after another!!! Smiles got a major stuffy nose/cold for about a week or two; soon after Curly was on some steroids for a really bad cold, along with some breathing treatments; while simultaneously Smiles had an ear infection and also needed some breathing treatments; during recovery Curly started having diarrhea and vomited (just once I think - yay); and most recently Brains came down with some wicked fevers (topping off at 104 degrees) that didn't want to break and started to go back up every 4 1/2 hours, then she had the throw ups on top of it; and Smiles is currently teething, having fevers, and diarrhea:o(
Brains has dark rings around her eyes. I have always been able to tell when that girl is sleep deprived or not feeling well just by her dark eyes. Thankfully she is doing much better, but I'm just hoping Smiles doesn't have what she just had. Today my husband and I went to Kmart to get a new sturdier table for our growing family and Smiles sitting in the cart started to get kind of agitated. I picked him up and realized instantly that he had filled (or more like OVER filled) his diaper. I sent my hubby to the car to get the diaper bag, and headed off to do one of my favorite things:o/ If anyone has mastered the sanitary way of changing a major blow out I'd love to know your secret. Usually I can manage to change most blow outs without doing too much damage to anywhere but the initial point of destruction, but this diaper... not a chance. I got poor Smiles (who was naked on the changing table, shivering from his fevers, but still smiling at me) elbow in his poop, his back was a mess, the changing table was a mess, my sweatshirt sleeve got slimmed. Yeah, not fun! I was glad that Smiles had a long sleeved long john to wear home so at least it could cover his unsanitary skin, I carry a little can of Lysol in the diaper bag so I sprayed off the changing table and wiped it down (and I told the workers they might want to go in and clean it), and my sweater - well it was a nice day so I ditched that and washed down my arm and we were finally back in business:o) First thing on my to do list when we got home was a bath for Smiles!
We got our kitchen table set up and it looks so nice! We've had our eye on this table since my sister and her hubby got theirs forever ago. This week it was on sale at Kmart so, we decided it was time:o) Love it!

The Day We Became Official

So here is the story of how my hubby (whom I think I will name J) "asked me out". It was April Fool's Day of 2003 and he showed up at my house at the crack of dawn, so we could go to Beans and Brew for a coffee and devotions. When J got out of his car he said he looked down and realized he had 2 different pairs of shoes on (one tan one and one blue one), a little scatter-brained that morning:o) We went to Beans, had our coffee and our devo's and J said, "So here's the deal... I've really enjoyed spending time with you these past several weeks and I would really like to spend some more time with you and get to know you/eachother better." After our "determine the relationship" talk we happily headed off to the rec. center to go rock climbing (which we did every morning). We got out of the car and were heading toward the building when J said, "Oh great! Where are my keys?" We peered through the window of the car, distressed to see the keys dangling from the ignition:o( We decided to walk to J's house, since it was only about 2 miles away from the rec. center, and see if there were some spare keys there. While we were walking my sweet new boyfriend said to me, "This might sound kind of juvenile, but can I hold your hand?" *which by the way, years later we watched Return to me together and I discovered that he stole that line from that movie, so cheesy, but so hilarious*. Anyway we thoroughly enjoyed our walk *grin* and finally made it to his house. Since the keys that we also needed to get into the house were currently locked in the car J had to break into his house too! We got the keys, drove back to the rec. center in a different car and discovered that none of the keys worked. We had a cop try to get the doors opened while I stayed behind and J drove back to his house to see if he could find any other keys, but we were totally unsuccessful in each of our attempts! Our next best option was to drive to both of his parents schools and see if either of them had keys (they were both teachers at 2 different schools). Neither of them did, of course, but I got to meet both of his parents and their whole entire classes in the same day:o) You may be wondering as you read this why it was so important to get those doors unlocked? Well... I was currently going to cosmetology school and I had everything I needed for my day locked up in J's car; my smock, scissors, combs, hairdryer, clips, capes, my lunch money, EVERYTHING! Well after our looong day of many unsuccessful attempts to get into that crazy car, J took me to school (late I might add) with nothing but my clothes on my back. I had to borrow things from people all day long (even some lunch money), but it didn't matter. I was on cloud nine, giddy with excitement, telling everyone about my day as I blushed and giggled:o) Everyone at school knew about J and how much I liked him, so I don't think they were too surprised. I was DYING to call my mom and tell her the news, but alas my phone was also locked up in the car. What would normally be a very frustrating day was actually one of my best days in my life, because it was the day my hubby and I "became official".

Back to the girls at my beauty school... they were all telling me to ask J out to which my response was always, "NO WAY! If he wants to date me he'll ask me out," I refused to ask any guy out (well except for the dreaded Sadie Hawkins). Later I found out J didn't want to date a girl that asked him out first - we were so on the same page! Anyway J would come to school for anything and everything; a shampoo treatment/ Joico, a high frequency (which is a very uncomfortable electricity filled thing that feels like sharp fingernails digging into your scalp - it's supposed to help your hair grow), a haircut, a dye job, whatever he could think of. Every time I would see his name on the books or see him walk in my heart raced and butterflies overwhelmed me, ahhh just thinking about these times brings a smile to my face. You know... he really suffered through a lot during my schooling (before and after we started dating). Once we dyed his hair blue, which didn't last long since he knew his work wouldn't appreciate it, so we dyed it black instead, he let me do a straight edge razor shave on him (actually one of my instructors took over and massacred his poor face - nicks EVERYWHERE). He even let me practice doing a wax on his armpit - that's right singular form, he wouldn't let me do his other pit since I had the giggles so bad... therefore, slowing me down so it was a treacherously slow wax - not to mention the stray hairs I missed, that I then plucked from his armpit. He actually brought a friend to the armpit wax who watched the whole thing - what a man!!!;o) Yep, my hubby is a good egg! Thank you for being the second best thing that happened to me. My ULTIMATE best best thing of course was the day I came to know Christ as my personal Savior!
I got to teach J how to snowboard, while we were just friends who were very much interested in each other. We had long drives up and down the canyons, and great fun on the slopes. The first time J went snowboarding I picked him up from work so we could head out together. I asked him if he had his gear (gloves, snowpants, coat, all that important stuff). Nope, he had nothing, he was even wearing dress clothes!!! I'm like, "Yeah, your going to need something." We headed to my house since his was totally out of the way and rummaged through our stuff to find something for him to wear. Well, he ended up wearing some of my non girly pants (which admittedly I was hoping he wouldn't fit, but to my dismay he did - they were athletic pants though so that was a little comforting), one of my long john shirts, and a hoodie, and my dad's hideous green overall outfit that J had to tie the top half around his waist since it was too big. He looked like a total dork, but yet I was so attracted to him. My hubby really isn't a loser, in case my stories make him sound like one. He is just a silly guy that makes me laugh ALL the time:o) He is so funny and I found that out really early on in our friendship/relationship! Good times and good memories - I could really go on forever since writing about our beginnings brings back so many memories, but I know this is really long and maybe not as exciting to all of you as it is to me:o) So I'm signing off ~ bye!

Squishy Pickle

I was just reading a friends blog and she wrote about how her little girl wanted to share a soggy fish cracker with her... reminded me of an incident with my sister.
Keep in mind my sister and I were around 16 and 18 at this time. Both my sister and I were watching a movie in the basement and my sister kept on going upstairs for a pickle. She was about to take another trip upstairs when I said, "grab me a pickle too, would ya?" She took a long time to make her way back downstairs, but finally did. She gave me my pickle and I took a big bite, I was like, "humm, this pickle is warm and squishy?" My forgetful sister suddenly remembered that she had stored the pickle in her mouth while talking to someone upstairs before returning to me in the basement. Okay, so that explains the warm and squishy - YUCK!!! I wasn't too impressed with her forgetfulness. Definitely not the same cuteness to this story as a little girl sharing a soggy fish cracker with her mommy! Thanks, or more like, no thanks sister.

5lb weights, giant cupcakes, and 11:E5

I finally got some weights to use while I exercise with Jillian in the 30 Day Shred. Come to find out my hubby has been meaning to drop by Walmart and pick me up a set for the past 2 days, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. So after he told me of his intentions I said, "Awe, that's sweet! Just out of curiosity how many pounds would you have gotten for me?" He's like, "5 lbs maybe." I was like, "Wow hun, thanks for thinking I am capable of doing that." I've been using cans of food for my weights which are only 1 lb per arm, and let me tell you folks, my arms are feeling the burn with just that! I told my hubby that I'm glad I beat him to the punch or I would either; A. be killing myself off trying to use the weights my hubby so thoughtfully bought for me; B. Bulk up to look like the Hulk because of such heavy weights; or C. have to fess up to my husband that indeed the weights he got for me are too heavy for an intense 30 minute workout and therefore have to return them... Thank you Target for having a sale on your weights today!:o) I think I'll manage the 2 pound weights that I bought much easier!
Last night Brains, Curly, and myself were enjoying an entire head of broccoli (and about half a container of dip). While munching on our broccoli Brains was checking out all the fun stuff on our counter. She noticed some coffee filters sitting on top of the coffee pot and said, "Those are for cupcakes aren't they mommy?" I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah, maybe for Goliath!" Can you imagine how big those cupcakes would be? Great observation though - I guess I never really thought about how similar coffee filters and cupcake liner paper things are.
Today I didn't have my watch on and as always was running a little behind for getting together with my cousin and sister. I told Brains to run into the kitchen and tell me what numbers were on the microwave (since there is a digital clock on it). Brains came running back and proudly declared, "There are two ones, an E and a five." Hahaha, so calculating that in my mind I figured it must be 11:35, yep that was about right. She can be so funny without even trying, silly girl!

Traditional Happy Meal Wednesday

I'm already guilty of neglecting my poor blog!!! How is that possible after a mere 8 posts you ask? My answer would simply be busyness mixed in with some much welcomed time with my hubby:o)
So we left off with Wednesday night in which 2 eventful things happened! 1. I got my favorite compliment from the nice McDonald's worker who my friend Sarah made a post about in her blog (and just to clarify he is not flirtatiously friendly, just noticeably kind and happy). I see him every week when I go to pick up a $1.89 happy meal for my hubby on my way home from church. This week he asked me if I knew who Reece Witherspoon was:o) Indeed I do and thank you for the compliment - it's been awhile (a long while) since anyone has said that I look like her. 2. My sister and I always go to a different McDonald's with the kids for our $1.89 happy meals before church on Wednesday nights. Well... my sweet, wonderful sister forgot to put her wedding ring back on after having swollen fingers and therefore had a bare finger. Thanks sister *sarcasm*. I suppose you all can see where this story is going. After saying "hi" to an acquaintance and telling him that we are praying for his wife (in which I gave both mine and my sister's first and last names), a different guy asked me which church we go to. I thought, "oh how cool, he's interested in our church." So I told him the name of it and where it is *so note... he now knows our names and where we go to church* then he proceeds to ask, "personal question, is she single?" after my sister had walked off. I'm like, "MY SISTER???" who by the way had her 3 kids with her! I'm like, "no, she's married." Then he says, "well she didn't have a ring on." I smile sheepishly, "oh, haha, I'm not sure why she's not wearing it, but she IS married." While walking away I just wanted to congratulate myself for sharing so much information with a desperate stranger who is hitting on my sister, fabulous right? Then when I saw my sister I was sure to thank her for forgetting her ring, I deal really well with strangers who have icky motives *again sarcasm*. You know? I am actually VERY grateful that God made me an average person. I love having a husband who thanks I'm gorgeous and wouldn't change anything about me, but to be so beautiful that every perverted guy out there notices too, no thank you, not for me (and I'm sorry for all you beautiful girls out there that have to deal with that on a daily basis). So now we're in a bit of a dilemma, when do we go on our traditional McDonald's outing and successfully avoid Mr. Creepo (who happens to be there every week with his two young children too)? How desperate can you be having 2 young children and hitting on a girl with 3 young children of her own? Anyway, thanks to our awkward and uncomfortable encounter our whole Wednesday night funness is ruined:o(
Saturday was a lot of fun! My husband started Spring break so we actually got to spend some time together!!! We played 2 games of Settlers of Catan (each of us won a game), and watched 2 movies, one while the kids were napping and the other one we watched with some Chinese take out after the kids went to bed for the night. Our first movie was a complete waste of time, well... aside from the fact that I got to cuddle with my man, that wasn't a waste of time:o)
Sunday while driving to church we passed our exit because of thick fog - so, we were late for our junior boys Sunday school class (which my husband teaches and just so happened to be combined with the junior girls class that week). Needless to say the next exit is pretty far away so we were really late:o( Sunday night after church my hubby and I watched a couple of Monk episodes on the computer. I am OFTEN up till 12:00 or 1:00 a.m. so I can't figure out why it is that when me and the hubby try to stay up late together I am out by like 10:30 or 11:00 p.m.??? Annoying! So while I slept on his lap he watched the next 2 episodes of Monk by himself:o(
This morning Brains came running into the kitchen hollering that she found a nail in Curly's bed. I thought, "well that is strange, I wonder how that got there?" She opens her hand to show me this nail, and come to find out it was just a fingernail clipping:o) Quite a bit of hype from Brains over a fingernail:o) Brains is SUCH a slow eater! Her cereal was very soggy this morning (as it is almost every morning) and finally I took it and said, "You know what? If you want to take so long to eat we'll just take this away and you can wait till lunch to have anything else!" She got down from the table and smiled as she said, "That makes me excited." Humm, I guess my "discipline" wasn't threatening at all, apparently it was a favor:o) Oh well!

Exercise, Food, and Self Control

I just got done working out with Jillian Michael's in the 30 Day Shred. Whew, that girl can show you a good workout! My sister and I (along with a cousin) are on day 4 of our totally motivated plan to exercise everyday, except for maybe Sunday since those days tend to get extra busy. The only sad thing about working out so hard is that I probably hardly worked off (or didn't even work off) my KING size pumpkin bar and buttery alfredo dinner:o( Let's just say... I don't know what I was thinking when I made those pumpkin bars since my hubby and I lack all self control when it comes to our sweets! Oh well, before we know it, those bars (with 12 TB of butter, 6 oz of cream cheese, 2 cups of sugar, 3 3/4 cups of powdered sugar, and all the other less fattening ingredients) will be long gone and we won't have to feel bad on a daily basis for eating them anymore.
Sundays are great days, but almost always end up being extra busy and full. Yesterday we left our house at 8:45 a.m. so we could get some doughnuts for our Sunday school class (and of course both my husband and I had a long john - again we like our sweets and lack self control), then headed off to church, after church we went to my sisters house for the afternoon with some friends, then to choir practice at 4:30, then we had our evening service, followed by a supper our church has for the college kids (or pathetic married students, who can't turn down free food - like us). After supper we went to some different friends house with my sisters family again and we stayed there till around 11:00p.m.. (Humm, weird do I put a period there or not?). All that to say - B U S Y, but fun! Our poor kids were up most of this time only catching cat naps whenever possible (except for Curly's 1 hour, planned nap that she didn't want to wake up from). When we got home from our 30+ minute car ride and pulled our sleeping children out of the car the kids were dazed/confused/tired and pathetic, as my husband was carrying Curly inside there were some dogs barking down the street, Curly asked in slurred speech, "Who's talking?" Umm, hello silly, those are dogs:o) As Brains was getting ready for bed she was rubbing her eyes and said, "I can't see out of my eyes" completely distressed! Poooor, exhausted children!
Smiles slept horribly last night with a super stuffy nose that kept waking him up:o( The little guy kind of sounds like a Darth Vader impersonator. He IS extra cuddly though and actually fell asleep next to my hubby in bed this morning, and again on me later in the day! Hate the not feeling good part, but love the cuddles!
Funny Story: The other day Brains was sitting on the floor next to my butterball a.k.a. Smiles and asked me, "Mommy? Where are Smiles... what are these called again?" I told her, "ankles." She's like, "Oh yeah, where are Smiles ankles at?" It was really funny since Smiles is so rolly - gave me the giggles.

Terrance

So my husband and I were discussing how some movie stars really aren't all that good looking and get way more credit to their looks than they actually deserve. We decided that some actors/actresses may seem more attractive due to the role that they play... That said I brought up Tinker Bell and the Hidden Treasure (yeah I watched it with my girls recently and admittedly got quite into it). I told my husband, "It's kind of like Terrance in Tinker Bell. He's such a good friend to Tink and so sweet, it's like, awwwe he's cute." After saying that and feeling really stupid since Terrance is only a cartoon character and doesn't even exist (NERD), my husband was like, "humm, I should watch TinkerBell and take notes on this Terrance." Man, seriously is that the best example I could come up with??? Paatheetic:o) Hun... when you read this, uh yeah, you don't need to watch TinkerBell and take notes, you ARE my heart throb, and might I add WAY better than Terrance (even if Terrance were real). *Blush*

I LOVE HIM!

This morning my husband surprised me with a dozen red roses, 3 red roses, and 3 lilies:o) Flowers always make my day brighter, even if it wasn't gloomy to start with. Thank you sweetheart (since he diligently reads my blog:o))!
Once upon a time I told my new groom that he didn't need to waste money on buying me flowers. So, being the good listener that he is, he stopped. Sometimes I can be so practical, and then later wonder what I was thinking??? So a couple of years went by and... no flowers. I finally realized that, even though the flowers are just going to die and all they do is sit on your table and look pretty, I liked getting them annnnd they are an expression of my hubbys love. After this realization I decided to talk to my hubby and tell him that, in fact, it was okay to buy me flowers. It's so great that he doesn't even get bothered by my indecisiveness or attempted practicality, instead, he thinks me silly and starts buying me flowers again! I LOVE HIM!!!

Life

  Our church has a kids club called Kids 4 Truth on Wednesday nights. Einstien (who I think I'm going to rename as Brains) gets to go since she is finally old enough. They learn doctrinal truths and verses to go with them, it's a really great program. Anyway Brains was learning John 14:6a - Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." We decided to make some actions to go with the words so that it would be easier to remember (note* this was in the car on the way to club). Since I was driving I wasn't thinking too hard about the actions, but came up with some for everything except for the word life. Brains said, "Mommy you didn't do anything for life." I said, "Oh your right I didn't, can you think of a good action?" (Just keep in mind that if my hubby doesn't make something exciting for breakfast it's almost always cereal - Life or Mini Wheats). Brains proceeded to say, "I know! How about a spoon coming up to your mouth?!" Realizing what she was associating the word life with gave me the giggles. So unexpected, but so funny!!! There it was, our new action for the word life, not quite the meaning we were going for, but it worked:o)
  This morning I babysat for a local church (something I do every week) and Curly was playing with the toy frying pan and a burger pattie. One of the ladies came in and said, "Wow someone must watch their mommy when she cooks!" Curly was sitting there trying to flip the burger, as if it were a crepe or pancake, into the air:o) I said, "No I'm not fancy like that, it's more like, someone likes to watch their Papa when he cooks!" I thought it was really cute that she would try to imitate him like that. I am a no frills person when it comes to cooking - let's just get the job done (my motto), but my hubby on the other hand, he's a creative mind, a pinch of this a dash of that. I often go to him for help when seasoning something, though there was this one time...:o) Long story short he seasoned our roast with CLOVES, yeah, nothing to be proud of there:o)