State of the Family #31

I've got some work to do.  We leave for Colorado in 20 hours and I really want to get an SOF done before I leave. . . but I also haven't even begun to pack.  Well, if making a list of everything you need to pack qualifies as a process of packing I guess I have begun, just haven't gotten very far.

So, here is a quick run down of the last 2 weeks:

My other new favorite - my belly button

Leaps and bounds of growth for Miss Thumb Sucker in the language dept.  She has started saying shoes, socks, up, stuck, duck, quack and I am sure there are one or two more that I can't think of off the top of my head.  Her 1 year molars are finally starting to come in and she isn't having the most fun with them.  She has had a runny nose, drooling like crazy and some interesting diapers to say the least.  Thankfully, other than a few early mornings and middle of the night wake-ups she has dealt with all the above pretty well. Still up to her elbows in orneriness, she has added a few cute things to her repertoire.  Her new favorite thing to do is read books.  Before, she wouldn't really sit long enough to get through the first 3 pages, but now she is all about it.  Her favorite way to read is on your lap on the floor.  She makes it known that she wants you to sit down, then she gives you the book and backs in to plop down on your lap.  It is the most adorable thing, the way she takes a few steps away, turns around and then literally backs up to sit down.  She just reminded me of the other two words, hey and yea.  She says hey to get your attention and kind of screams yea when she is really excited about going somewhere or getting her milk. 

Valentine's Day was a thrill for Miss Firecracker.  Candy, candy everywhere and let me tell you, this little girl has a sweet tooth!  She was all about the pink and red and hearts and sweets all around.  She has also turned into quite the princess lately.  The only thing this girl ever wants to wear is a dress, and I don't really have that many dresses for her.  Well, not ones that I want her wearing on a 'play at home, run some errands' type of day.  Believe me, I will be fixing this issue for the spring and summer because the fits I get to see when I set out a pair of jeans for her to wear for that day are just getting to be too much.  So, this girls summer wardrobe will consist of comfy, cotton dresses she can play in 'til her heart's content! (Let me know if you see good sales on qualifying dresses! :)  Evidently, now that she is only about 3 weeks away from turning 3, she is too old for the 2 and 3 year old classroom of Moppets, she insisted this week that she go to the big kid class.  Since she has gone to this classroom with her brother before I was pretty sure she would do fine, even though he wasn't there this week.  She did.  My little girl is growing up way too fast.

A not-so-fun first for Noisy Man this week, an ear infection.  Yes, I did say this is his first which is pretty good for being 4 1/2.  He was up for 2 hours just crying in the middle of the night from ear pain. Mommy had to lay with him in bed.  Thankfully, we both eventually fell asleep.  Not-so-thankfully, mommy didn't wake up until 3 am to go back to my bed and had to deal with neck and shoulder pain the rest of the day.  Other than a persistent cough, pink eye and some really annoying sniffles, Noisy Man has been pretty good lately (now that I read that list maybe he hasn't been so good, but he has handled it all like a trooper).  I am totally thrilled that he will get to witness baptism at our church this weekend as one of his favorite cousins will be baptized (yeah cousin J!!).  This will be such a help in explaining to him how we believe baptism works and when you should be baptized as opposed to how he saw it with his baby Cousin R and the catholic church.  He has had so many questions.  He had a blast at his school Valentine's party and loved going through all the loot when he got home.  The pic is one of him with his box-o-goodies!

Mommy and Daddy haven't been up to too much so I'll combine ours this week.  We attended "The Art of Marriage" seminar put on by FamilyLife and hosted by our church the weekend before VDay.  It was an awesome experience and I totally recommend it.  It was a lot of great information in 6 action packed video sessions with 3 'projects' to do together.  The opportunity to sit and talk about the things that are just 'understood' in a marriage, but never really discussed were great and the chance to express some smaller needs that you might not just say to each other because they seem trivial or would feel like nagging were almost freeing.  Now, it is just a mad rush to try and get ready for our awesome vacation!  In honor of VDay and a marriage conference I took some pictures of our wedding pictures, so excuse the poor quality, I didnt' want to take the time to scan them since I am kind of rushing to get this done anyway.  Can you believe just 7 1/2 years ago was before the digital age?  Craziness!  Other than that I have been trying to keep up with my 1/2 marathon training - 7 miles last Sunday and daddy has been trying to kick a cold with a nasty cough before we leave, so keep him in your prayers.  Wow!  Am I ready for spring and health and great weather or what?!?!

Blogging for Books "God Gave Us So Much"

I have a fellow blogger and friend that posted last month about an opportunity to get free books, and I am all about free books!  Especially when they are ones I can read to my kids.  So, I quickly signed up.  All I have to do is blog a review of the books they send me (I get a list of books to choose from, so it isn't totally random).  If you want to find out more go here.

The book I received first was titled "God Gave Us So Much".  It is a three book collection of the "God Gave Us" books by Lisa Tawn Bergren.  They are based on a polar bear family and the curiosity of a young polar bear cub.  We have the "God Gave Us Christmas" book from this same author and really love it, so I was thrilled when this was in the selection pool.  This book is a must have.  All three stories in this book are fabulous.  They are "God Gave Us The World, Love, and Heaven."  All are very Biblically based, which totally impressed me and written at a level that was fairly easy for my 4 1/2-year-old to understand.  "The World" gave a view on how many different bears there were in this world and how God made them all different.  It talks about how BIG God is and how awesome it is that He was able to create it all.  "Love" talks about how God created all different types of love as well and how we need to love everyone around us even though there are times when we don't feel like loving some people (aka otters in the story).  "Heaven" was my favorite one.  This is such a huge concept for kids to understand, heck it is even hard for adults to understand, but this story does a great job as bringing it down to a simple level.  It doesn't get into too much detail, but is very accurate on what it does say and gives a basic understanding of how you go to heaven and what it might be like there.  It does an excellent job of explaining that you have to know Jesus to get there and uses the "bridge" example of how He makes it possible for us to get to heaven.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone!

State of the Famiy #30

Thankfully it has been pretty uneventful around here lately!

Miss Thumb Sucker is still up to her nose in orneryness.  She is constantly dragging the cereal boxes out of the pantry and if I don't get to her fast enough to get them before she dumps them, I have a lovely mess on my hands.  She, of course, thinks this is hilarious.  You would think that I would just remember to shut the pantry door and the problem would be eliminated, but no, I can't keep things that simple around here.  She wore her first set of piggy tails the other day and it was completely adorable.  She has just enough hair so that they stick straight up off the top of her head (see pic with daddy below).  She has also learned how to climb up on our kitchen chairs and has managed to fall off once as well.  One successful climb up on the couch has been made as well.  We are in trouble as I think we have a climber on our hands!

Miss Firecracker got a short bout of her brother's virus.  She got sick 2 times in the middle of the night early this week, got to sleep on the couch with mommy the rest of the night, didn't each much the next day and never looked back.  She kind of liked the special treatment she got the day after she got sick.  She got to drink a little ginger ale, didn't have to eat 2 bites of her veggies or anything else that wasn't her favorite, got to snuggle with daddy and mommy for most of the day and all sort of other fun things.  She, being the too-smart cookie that she is, keeps trying to revert to this treatment by pulling the, "but my tummy hurts" stunt to get out of eating what she doesn't want to or getting to drink 'pop' or not having to pick up toys.  I wonder how long this will last.   The countdown to her birthday has begun as she asks about every other day how many more days it is until her birthday.  I made her invitations on the computer and we googled an idea for her cake, so she is constantly asking to be able to see the pictures of both on the computer.  I must tell you, I am looking forward to as it will have an 'ice cream' theme and will be all sorts of fun!

Noisy Man is back to his normal self, eating us out of house and home.  I think the 3 pounds he lost during his 6 day illness has definitely been re-gained.  He totally out-ate me at supper last night.  Hunger is an issue that needs to be solved immediately about every 2 hours.  He has been crafting and glueing and markering and cutting away lately.  I love his creativeness and that projects like this can keep him busy for hours, but I totally hate the mess it creates.  He refuses to throw anything away and every 10 minutes spent at the table creating results in at least 5 new art projects that are so original and precious that I am specifically told not to throw them away.  What in the world am I supposed to do with all of this stuff?  I cannot stand paper messes.  So far, if I discard of some of it while he isn't looking in a trash can he can't see (aka the garage), he hasn't noticed that it is missing. 

 

I really can't think of anything too exciting to write about daddy this week.  Does that mean I haven't been paying much attention to him?  He did watch the kiddos this weekend while I scrapped.  He had them all Friday evening and all day Saturday.  On Saturday he took them out to G'ma and G'pas and got to enjoy the semi-nice weather out there.  He and Noisy Man shot a few pop cans with a BB Gun.  A great father-son bonding time. 

As mentioned in the daddy section, I got to spend all last weekend scrapbooking!  As usual, I didn't get a whole lot done, but I had a blast.  I did get quite a bit of organizing done as I had 40+ pages that needed page protectors put into books and then place the pages into books.  That helped clear out some of my storage place and filled up the kiddo's scrapbooks!  I have been crafting and creating myself this week, but most of it will not be staying in my house. I found this awesome candy-free Valentine's Day gift to do for Noisy Man's preschool party, so I broke out the sewing machine and got to work.  They are awesome little rice bags to use for cold or hot packs.  We use cold packs all the time for the kids' bumps and such and the hot pack will be great for Noisy Man's growing pains.  Thankfully, most of my crafty stuff won't be staying in our house and I (usually) clean up after myself pretty well.  But, I guess I can't blame my son for getting the crafting gene since it probably came from me.

State of the Family #29

Started Tuesday, Feb 1st: Once again, I failed in a timely posting so bear with me.  One of these days I'll get a day and time that I sit and do this every week so that I don't have so much to try and remember! Sorry for the lack of pictures, seems like I have fallen behind on that as well!

Miss Thumb Sucker continues to be little Miss Opinionated with screams and outbursts and other fun vocal arrangements.  She has also, evidently, taken some good lessons from her fit throwing sister as she now will let out a yell and plop herself down on the floor in protest.  At this point it is actually quite comical and I am going to have to try and get a picture of it.  For now, she doesn't quite know what to do once she gets herself plopped down and just sits there (crying usually).  Then she will stand back up just to do it again.  Most of the time I just walk away so as not to give attention to her adorable little tantrum (that and half of the time I am laughing at her and don't want her to see), but she usually just follows me to continue the tantrum.  Like I said, right now it is actually kind of cute, but I am sure the cuteness will be short-lived and I will have to find a way to remedy the problem soon before they really are full-blown tantrums.  Poor little dolly had her first bout of the flu or food poisoning (which is my guess) the other weekend as well.   She tossed her cookies about 3-4 times one morning between about 4 am and 10 am and then was perfectly fine the rest of the day.  No fever, no over-tiredness, just the fun vomit to clean up from a 1-year-old who still wanted to play in between each time she lost it.  She took a nap at 10:30 and woke up completely fine and has never looked back.  Not sure if it was the flu or something she ate (or most likely found on the floor), but whatever it was, she handled it like a trooper. She has become a jabber box and climber as well.  She will talk your ear off with gibberish that just melts your heart and is climbing on our kitchen chairs, couches and the slide in the basement.  Quite an adventure! 

Miss Firecracker, again, has been pretty uneventful.  Other than an ear infection and sinus infection, which she has handled like a trooper, she has been pretty good.  She has been a singing machine as of late.  I can't quite seem to convince her that Christmas has passed us and she needs to move on from Jingle Bells and Away in a Manger but she sings what she knows.  Well, that and she makes up whatever song her little heart desires.  Each song, however seems to start with something about princesses and herself and dancing and they all end up in Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  I do have to let you know that as soon as I posted my last SOF about how good she has been lately, she had a major melt down.  I thought about amending my last post, but she had been so good for so long I left it.  And, thankfully, the melt down was short-lived and most likely caused by a major lack of sleep.  She has still been doing quite well and if she continues, I might have to find her a new nickname!  She has really been in the mood for learning and can't wait to start preschool.  She wants to be writing letters and learning their sounds, she is counting everything in sight and remembers everything she sees and hears.  I have been trying to work with her on learning her letters and writing her name.  I can tell she is going to be one smart cookie.  She does great at all the pre-writing stuff I have been doing with her and her new favorite writing activity is practicing her letters in play dough! 

Noisy Man has had it rough since my last post.  He has been sick with the flu for the last 5 days.  Today is the first day I would consider him 'healthy'.  And that only qualifies because he is eating once again.  He still isn't completely up to par, so I guess today would be day #6.  He started at 3 am last Thursday and seemed to recover by Thursday afternoon and was fine on Friday as well, even though he still wasn't eating much.  But then by Friday night his fever returned and Saturday afternoon the rest of the symptoms returned as well.  It has been the weirdest and longest bout of the flu I have ever seen, poor little boy.  He will be ok for 5-6 hours and then start vomiting again or out the 'other end'.  Thankfully, it has been almost 20 hours since his last major issue and he ate well for breakfast and pretty decent for lunch as well.  Hopefully this is the end of it.  He also made me quite proud as well the weekend before last.  His new baby cousin was baptized in the catholic church and we got to attend of course, mommy and daddy were even lucky enough to be her sponsors.  The proud moment came when Noisy Man had the insight enough to ask about baptism and why Baby Cousin R got baptized as a baby and he didn't remember doing that for Miss Thumb Sucker when she was that little.  Thus, ensued a wonderful conversation about how our church believes in baptism after you accept Jesus in your heart instead of as a baby followed by confirmation, etc.  It was a great 'Jesus Moment' of learning for him and I was smiling from ear to ear with all of the insight he already had and questions he was asking.

Daddy has been a hero once again.  He has been the sole child keeper most evenings for the last week since mommy was very busy helping with the benefit for the sick preschool boy (more on that in the mommy section).  So, a big thanks to him is owed for filling in the gap for me there.  He even brought all 3 of them to the spaghetti feed by himself.  Mommy was too busy directing incoming benefit attenders to help so daddy had to fly solo.  It was pretty impressive considering the place was a wonderful zoo!  He even helped out the benefit by grabbing some extra needed stuff from McDonald's and brought it with him and the 3 kids.  He had spent the earlier part of that day on the ice, fishing.  I guess they had pretty good luck cuz they stayed quite a bit longer than planned.  He said most of the fish they caught were pretty small, but I guess that is better than just sitting there on the ice freezing and not catching anything.  Actually, I probably can't say they were freezing cuz I think they had a hut and it was really pretty nice out that day. Other than staying at home with the kiddos and a fishing trip, I really can't think of what else daddy has been up to.

Like I said, Mommy has been busy!  I helped with the spaghetti benefit and silent auction for Josef Parker, the little boy at Tri County that got the bacterial meningitis that I mentioned last SOF.  It was an amazing night full of generous, big-hearted people and open pocketbooks for a great cause.  We were able to shuffle in over 1,200 people for the dinner and raised over $43,000 in one night!  In the whole week through asking for donations and such solely associated with the benefit we raised nearly $60,000!  What an amazing God and community we have.  Sadly, Josef passed away the morning following the benefit, but what a burden lifted from this poor family's shoulders.  To not have to worry about $60,000 worth of the medical bills and living expenses while trying to heal from the loss of their son.  And this was just the benefit.  There are also funds set up at two different banks, $1,700 was raised at an area basketball game that same night and there are jars around various businesses within 100 miles of the school.  It was such a blessing to be part of this amazing experience.  I definitely got more out of it than what I put in.  I am looking forward to a fun-filled weekend of scrapbooking the next two days, a marriage mini-conference the next weekend and a ski trip at the end of the month.  It is going to be a whirl wind, but I am SO excited about all of it I feel like a school girl!