Help! I'm stuck in a {3} book{s} and I can't get out!

OK, so last time I said I needed a book I could really get into in order to make time to read it. . . . yeah, that just got me into trouble.

My latest book from Waterbrook Publishers was When the Soul Mends by Cindy Woodsmall.  It is the final book in a 3-part series, Sisters of the Quilt.  At the suggestion of a fellow book-blogger, and good friend and running buddy, I went ahead and checked out the first 2 books in the series from our local library.  I did this last Tuesday and finished all 3 books in 8 days.  Someone please come help my house and poor children for they have been ignored for the past 8 days.  I should have known better.  This is why I don't read.  I love it too much and want to forget everything else.  I really need some help finding a balance. . . . but we all knew that already.

Anyway, the Sisters of the Quilt series is a MUST READ if you are a Christian Romance fan.  It has it all, suspense, mystery, lovey gushiness that makes you all warm and tingly inside, and a lesson to be learned on faith and forgiveness.  It connects you with each and every character on a personal level so much so that I am truly disappointed that I am done reading them.  I want more! 
The series is based on Hannah, an Old Order Amish girl in love,who lives in the middle of a very strict and unforgiving community with an even more strict father.  A terrible thing happens to her and poor Hannah's life just snowballs from there.  I don't want to give away much else as the entire series has you turning pages in hopes and fears of what is come next.  I didn't even find it all that predictable, which is a common problem many readers have in love stories.  Granted, I don't mind a little predictability, but this one kept me surprised for the most part.  I give the entire series 2 thumbs up for the books and 2 thumbs down for how it puts every single other thing you need to get done on the back burner (but that might just be my issue, you might have more self-control than I do). 

I even see at the back of the book #3 that she has another series out.  Do I dare bury myself in books again?  I better make sure my children know they are loved and adored and tackle this mound of laundry in front of me first.  So, I might tackle the next series this summer (it will probably take me that long to catch up).  I'll let you know (since I know you will be on the edge of your computer chair each day until I fill you in. LOL)

I received this book for FREE from WaterbrookMultnomah Publishers for writing this review.

State of the Family #34

Just diving in today, I know it has been forever. (OK, so I dove in, but didn't finish for 5 days - I started this on Monday!)

Miss Thumb Sucker continues to add words, and even a few phrases, to her vocabulary every day.  I probably can't even count how many words she can say any more.  She has added (to name just a few) bite, please (although she prefers to 'sign' this, she will say it out loud if the reward is good enough), water, milk, 'where it go?', outside and downstairs.  She continues her ornery ways and if she keeps on this track she will definitely earn the "most ornery child in this house" award.  She is constantly climbing on our dining room chairs and onto the table, climbing on top of the toilet (that is if she isn't trying to play in it), and running out any door that might be cracked open leading to escape.  I really can't think of a waking moment where I am not chasing her down or pulling her off the top of something.  She is going to be the child that gives me a heart attack.  I just can't keep up with her.  Other than orneriness and talking, she hasn't been up to  much, but really these two things keep her pretty occupied.

Miss Firecracker has been having some good weeks.  The 'sparkle' reward system seems to be working fabulously.  She hasn't gotten out of bed (except for the night grandma babysat) or thrown a major fit since the last report.  She is loving the nice weather (aren't we all!) and wants to be out there 24/7.  She thinks it is a tragedy that she has to come inside to eat and sleep.  It is going to take some getting used to the bumps and bruises and scrapes of spring/summer for her though.  The regular 'drama queen' she is, any little fall is a complete catastrophe.  We are going to have to take up stock in Band Aid because it is the only thing that gets her to calm down in a relatively quick manor so we can get back to playing.  This fact is only made worse by the fact that my little 'tomboy with a tiara' only wants to wear dresses, skirts or things that twirl (she takes after her Aunt K!).  This type of wardrobe does not bode well for bike riding, ball playing and the falls that go with them.   It is even worse due to the fact that she reacts to Band Aids the same way as her mother.  If she wears them for more than about 24 hours the place where the  Band Aid is stuck to your skin gets all red, irritated and itchy.  Try telling a 3-yr-old that she has to take her Band Aid off. . . yikes!

Count down is on for Noisy Man now.  His birthday is less than a month away.  He has changed birthday party themes 3 times now, but has settled on pirates, thankfully.  It started off with Star Wars (which is NOT a favorite of mine by any means) and then moved on to Wild Kratts (a new wild animal show on PBS Kids), but finally found a birthday supply catalog in the car and saw all the cool pirate stuff and decided he could wait for Wild Kratts until next year.   This is a good thing, because Wild Kratts are very new and I can't find a single party item for them yet.  Pirates will be fun and easy.  His birthday wish list is quickly growing a mile long!  His fighting ways have continued and he constantly looks for ways to irritate and fight with his younger sister.  Mostly just Miss Firecracker, but has even been caught causing an incident or two with Miss Thumb Sucker as well.  We are trying to really reward him for the times he plays with them nicely and protects them like a big brother should.  Like this past week when mommy got home from a Pampered Chef show and set her utensil case on the floor.  Miss Thumb Sucker, of course, saw the opportunity and, of course, grabbed the largest and sharpest knife out of the bag.  Thankfully, Noisy Man knew the danger and alerted daddy right away.  He was greatly rewarded for looking after her and mommy won't be making that brilliant mistake again.  It makes me shudder when I let myself go to the 'what ifs' of that scenario. 

Daddy has been a superhero for mommy around here lately.  He has been helping out with lots of housework and helped organize one of the areas of our storage room.  He even came home for a couple hours on his day off last Friday so that I could go out and check on my Pampered Chef stuff that was at an open house.  He kept them all the next day while I was at the 2nd day of the open house and then took me out for a date that night to see the awesome new movie Soul Surfer.  I highly recommend it.  He played 'farmer' the other day, rushing to get some kind of grass planted in their 60 acre plot on his dad's place to grow feed for their cows before the rains came.  He even snuck in a round of golf earlier this week with a friend.  I always like it when he has a chance to go out with friends.  It seems all he ever does is work (at the office and out at his dad's place) and hang out with us.  He kinda needs to get out more!

Mommy has been busy trying to find time to get in 8-12 mile runs and three 5 mile ones during the week.  Last week I was gone about every night of the week for something whether it be groceries, a huge garage sale I was very excited about, but largely disappointed with, PTO meeting (where I think I might have gotten myself into some trouble by volunteering to be the Vice President for next year - still thinking on this one though as it would mean I am the President the following year), and Pampered Chef open houses.  I recently remembered (dangerously) how much I love to read.  My latest 'blogging for books' book was a #3 in a 3 part fiction series.  So, I ran to the local library and checked out the first 2, by the suggestion of a friend who had read them and highly recommended getting the full series in because they were so good.  She was right.  I have barely been able to put them down.  That is when I am not taking care of kids, playing legos, cooking meals, cleaning up messes, running errands and changing diapers.  How in the world have I forgotten how much I love to read!?!?  HA!  Seriously, though, when it comes to a good book, I find the time.  I just checked out the first 2 books on Tuesday and I already finished the 1st one and am about 1/3rd of the way through the 2nd one.  I just carry it around with me wherever I go and when I can sneak in a paragraph or two I sneak it in.  Be looking for the blog on the 3rd book soon!

State of the Family #33

Oi! Not sure if that is a 'real' term or anything, but that is how I feel as I sit to type this afternoon.  Although, I am sure I probably won't finish this until later today or even tomorrow.  I just have not wanted to sit at my computer and type lately.  No desire to blog. . . bad thing for a blogger trying to keep track of her family's 'happenings' who also happens to have a terrible memory.  We'll see where I get.

Miss Thumb Sucker seems to be growing leaps and bounds.  We had to take her in to see the Dr. this week for a double ear infection and she weighed 24 lbs!  This is 5 lbs in 4 1/2 months.  She seems to add a new word or two to her vocabulary every single day.  I think I am going to have another jabber box on my hands.  It is hilarious to watch her read a book to herself or just jabber to me or her siblings.  She is very serious about her conversations, but, of course, most of the time we don't have a clue what she is saying.  She has, however, added 'cookie', 'snack', 'mine' (not the bad toddler mine!, but this is what my kiddos call their little security blankets and she asks for it often and whenever she sees it she calls it by name), she now says 'mommy' instead of just mama and 'puppy' instead of just puhpuh.  And, as usual, there are many more but they escape me.  She is totally into running everywhere she wants to go and it is completely hilarious.  She gets so excited about things and yells 'YEA!" in a very high pitched little excited squeal whenever there is a knock at the door, I tell her it is snack time or ask her if she wants to go downstairs to play among many other things that get her excited.

 

Miss Firecracker, of course, had her 3rd birthday.  It was a huge success and she was completely spoiled by family and friends.  She can hardly believe the day finally came and she is now 3.  She keeps asking me every couple of days "Mommy, am I still 3 today?" She hasn't asked in the past couple days, so maybe she has it figured out that she gets to stay 3 for a whole year!  She has, however already started planning her 4th  birthday party.  I seems she has regressed in the 'staying in bed at bedtime' category and has thrown some award winning tantrums in the past few weeks.  Seriously, you should witness these, they are absolutely awe-inspiring.  Enough to make a mother want to pull out her hair, that is for sure.  Most of the time she decides to get out of bed for whatever reason and then insists that mommy or daddy come tuck her back in.  We have discovered that she very much dislikes not getting tucked back into bed, so we decided that this would be her punishment for getting out of bed.  However, it might have backfired as this is what causes the meltdowns. . . she screams about wanted to be covered back up until she has woken up her brother and sister and made mommy and daddy so angry that it isn't pretty.  So, we have now started lessons on teaching her how to cover herself back up in these situations.  It seems to be working.  We also discovered she is very much into makeup lately.  She has some 'play makeup' that she has received for gifts, but rarely let her  use.  So, if she stays in bed the night before, after she gets dressed the next morning, she gets to pick out a makeup item to wear that day.  Most of the time it is her glittery cheek gel that makes her 'sparkle like a princess."  We have now had 2 successful nights and glitter-dawning mornings!

Mr. Noisy Man is still going through a phase I don't much care for.  Mr. Argumentative would be his new nickname for the time being.  If something doesn't suit his every whim and need he is going to argue it to the death, or until he gets set in time out for talking back or not listening.  Guess which one usually comes first!  For the past few weeks he has decided that disagreeing with just about anything is quite fun and picking fights for no apparent reason is rather amusing.  Not so sure where this came from, as he is usually my easy-going, good listener, the one I have the least discipline issues with.  Not so lately.  Yikes!  I hope this passes quickly.  I have been trying to even sit and play with him in 'boy mode' even more lately to see if he is just needing some more mommy and/or boy play time since he is surrounded by girls most of the time (all of my daycare kids are girls, except one that only comes once a week).  On a lighter note, he is just itching for summer to come and asks at least once a week if it is summer time yet.  I don't think he realizes that summer means no more school, but he just really wants the weather to be nice enough to wear t-shirts and play in the water.  I can't say I don't agree with him.  I am so ready for some warm weather.

Daddy hasn't been up to much.  I feel somewhat bad for him as snow goose season has pretty much come and gone and he really didn't have a chance to hunt at all.  Not for lack of time, but it just seems that the geese aren't interested in being hunted much anymore and daddy didn't seem to think it was much worth his time to sit out in a blind all day and watch them fly overhead.  He has been working a lot on his fishing boat to get it ready for a big fishing trip he is planning at the end of next month.  Yep, that's all I got for daddy at this point. 

Not much going on for mommy either.  Lots of training since I just ran a 10 mile race today.  Pretty excited that I hacked 11 minutes off my time from last year!  See my blog about last year here, Are My Knees Supposed to Sound Like This?  It was a great run this year as I got to run with a good friend instead of by myself like last year, and we finished in 1 hr and 40 minutes!  I also felt a lot better at the end of the run and for the rest of the day this time too.  Other than running I have been trying to keep up with the kids of course, and did a Pampered Chef open house back home during Alumni Tournaments.  It was great to see a bunch of old friends from high school and all of their cutie patooties.  I can't think of anything else going on in my world right now so I think I'll wrap it up.  I'm sure it will be at least 2 weeks before you'll hear from me again!

More Book Blogging

After receiving my last book from Waterbrook/Multnomah for free for my blogging for books, I have decided I need to stick to easy fiction or children's books.  I just don't have/make the time to read unless it is my Bible, to my kids, or an easy, get-lost-in-the-story type of fiction book. It took me almost a month to get through this one.

My most recent book was "Living in Love" by James and Betty Robinson.  It was a great read with many good snippets of information and written very well.  However, the dialogue format bothered me some.  I'm not sure why, exactly, but I found it to make the book a bit choppy and I would have to stop and check back at the beginning of the chapter or section to see who was 'talking'.  Like I said, I like a book I can just breeze through without much thought.  Even so, this book did have some great ideals and ideas for your marriage.  I wish I could get my husband to be more of a reader as well, as it would be a great book to read together since it has both writing from the husband and wife with questions to consider at the end of each chapter. 

The 4 parts really covered many issues in marriages and were very true to real life.  Beginnings, Commitment, Communication, and Challenges, covered everything from trust and baggage issues to parenting and sex.  It was a great, but not 'easy-breezy' read.  One I would recommend with about 1 1/2 thumbs up.  Let me read it again in about 5 years when I don't have 3 kids under the age of 5 and I might give you 2 whole-hearted thumbs up.  It was just hard to find the time to really dive in and get committed to the book.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review

State of the Family #32

I know it has been 2 weeks . . . again, but it has been crazy around here trying to play catch-up from being gone, trying to keep and/or get everyone healthy, and many other things to be listed below.  However, I am going to try and be brief, since, as usual, time is short.

I think it may be time for new nicknames for all the kids. . . OK, maybe not, but there are some others that would have worked in the last few weeks.

On my sister's bed reading to myself

Miss Thumb Sucker would become Miss Into Everything, Miss Reader, Miss Talkative.  She has still been obsessed with reading books every waking moment of the day, which is an awesome thing!  That is, until I am in the middle of making supper or playing with one of the other two kids and she walks up with a book and shoves it at me insisting that she be picked up, or 'backs' her way in to sit on my lap.  While, both of these are quite adorable, it just doesn't always work.  But, I have really been enjoying the cuddle time with her the many times I am able to sit with her and read books.  Her other favorite way to read books is to pull all of them off of the various bookshelves we have around our house.  I am continuously picking up books, everywhere!  She has added many more words to her vocabulary the past two weeks as well. Her favorite new saying has been "no, no, papa".  Not sure if both Grandpa's got in quite a bit of trouble while she was with them over our vacation or what, but it cracks me up every time.  She has also added, "pop" which she says while pointing to my morning can of Dt. Dr. Pepper and shakes her head 'no' because she knows she can't have it.  "Thank You" "on" and "coat" are the other ones I can think of off the top of my head.  All four of her molars decided to finally pop through, almost simultaneously.  They have been working their way in for over a month now.  The first one barely broke through just before we left for CO and by the end of the next week they were all in.  Man, this girl keeps me on my toes.

Wearing one of our ski helmets to play games

Miss Firecracker could never have a more fitting nickname, but there are a few others that could come in 2nd and 3rd.  Lately, it would be Miss Smartypants, Miss Independent, and Miss Pick-a-Fight-About-Anything.  She has always been a very independent little girl, but, man has she gone above and beyond these past few weeks.  Usually, she'll pitch a fit over something that she wanted to do on her own that isn't working for her and just bring it over to you, or when you go to her she'll let you help her out of the situation.   Not so much anymore.  She is insistent on the fact that she get herself out of the situation as well, which means we get to continue to listen to her pitch fits until the task is conquered, she finally gives in, or we have had enough of her screaming and force her to let us help her.  Lord, help me with this girl.  I am not quite sure how to handle her some days.  She is getting more excited everyday that her birthday is closer and closer, only 4 days away.  Most parents look at their kids and wonder how their baby grew up so fast, and I am so in that boat.  But, with Miss Firecracker it seems different at the same time.  She has always been so on top of things and such a talker that I have always thought her developmentally far beyond her age.  I really can't believe that she will only be 3, yet I don't know how 3 years went by so fast.  I have had many people very surprised, when they find out her birthday is coming up, that she isn't turning 4.  Even some very good friends of ours the other day were thinking that it was her 4th birthday, until they re-read the birthday invitation and it said 3!  The mom of this family made me laugh when she said, "It seems like she just came out of the womb talking."  So true!  On a final note for Miss Firecracker, we need a little prayer (no, not for my sanity in dealing with her fits and temper :) but regarding preschool.  We have always planned on sending her to the same preschool as her brother and she has always planned on this as well.  Just before we left for CO, we found out this might not be the case.  The preschool has lost its grant, and although they plan on continuing, now they must give preference to children who live within the district.  And, since it is such an awesome school, there are TONS of kids that want in the program.  Since we do not live in the district and there is such a large number of new kids wanting in next year, Miss Firecracker is on 'the bubble' for being accepted.  We will find out after May 1st whether or not she gets in.  This poor little girl (and mommy and daddy) will be crushed if she doesn't get in.

Teaching his sister how to ride his bike

I am totally coming up blank for the other nickname I thought of for Noisy Man.  It was perfect too, I thought of it the other night and just laughed at my own wit.  I guess it must not have been THAT great, otherwise I wouldn't have forgotten it.  He has been fairly uneventful lately.  He is learning leaps and bounds at his awesome preschool and is even starting to read.  I ordered a set of "Bob Books" for him at the referral of my preschool-teaching sis-in-law.  He isn't crazy about sitting and reading them all the time, but if you catch him in the right mood, he really feels great getting to read a book to mommy instead of the other way around.  He does an awesome job of knowing all his letters and their sounds and being able to 'piece' the words together.  His teacher at school says he is really doing great with the reading program they have started him and a few other classmates on already.  Heck, he even goes to Kindergarten round-up this Friday.  Where did my baby go?  For me, it is hardest to see my oldest grow up. 

All of them trying to fit in one laundry basket

OK, so much for being brief.  But, if you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I rarely ever am able to be brief.  Sorry,  I am just the long winded, rambling sort. 

Mommy and Daddy. . .  not much.  Daddy was brave and took both older kiddos to a farm sale last weekend.  After about an hour Noisy Man wanted to leave and Firecracker wanted to stay.  Go figure.  We both got to attend Noisy Man's Kindergarten round-up meeting Monday night. Mommy finally got back to running more than just 2 miles at a time this last Sunday.  I was fighting such a cough and energy-draining illness of some sort that it took all I had to complete 2 miles.  By the end I was exhausted and about ready to hack up a lung.  I did an 8 mile run on Sunday though and it felt great!  I even finished it with a 9:20 min mile!!  I am still having an awesome time at MOPS and am totally excited for a jewelry party I am having to help out a friend tomorrow night.  I also have a TON of work to do before Miss Firecracker's party this upcoming Sunday.

A 2nd Honeymoon

Oh. My. Goodness.  We had so much fun.  The title says it all.  It was like a 2nd honeymoon for us.  Just the two of us with only fun and relaxing on the agenda.  The only downer was the fact that we totally missed our three little angels and all of them were somewhat ill while we were gone.  Noisy Man, as stated in the previous SOF was still recovering from an ear infection, but other than that, was the healthiest one.  Miss Firecracker decided to get an ear infection two days after I took her in to check for one and as soon as the Dr.'s office closed (of course!), just after Mommy and Daddy got outside of Denver.  Miss Thumb Sucker came down with a nasty cold, and with a stuffy nose it is, obviously, difficult to suck your thumb.  And for Miss Thumb Sucker, if she can't suck her thumb, she can't sleep.  Then, just in time to trade off to the other grandparents for the remainder of the trip, Miss Firecracker spiked a 103.9* fever.  Thankfully, some tylenol took care of most of it.  It seems all involved grandparents made it through the ordeal and today, all 3 children are fever-free.  Still some faucet-like noses and not-so-nice sounding coughs, but otherwise, all seems well.

Now, onto the trip!

The drive out took about 8 hours and 45 minutes.  That is a long trip.  Especially when daddy has a bit of a

sore throat and thus, doesn't feel like being much of a conversationalist.  Thankfully, I love to read and threw down a couple books on the trip out (I highly recommend "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo - amazing!).  We found our condo and unloaded all of our stuff, then headed off to rent our ski equipment before all the shops closed up.  Fifteen minutes before the Ski Exchange locked its doors we walked through them and hooked up with some skis, boots and poles.  (If you want quick service, walk in just before all of the employees want to go home for the night!)  We were at Hernando's for some amazing pizza 30 minutes later. 

Friday morning we were at it bright and early.  With the early-rising children we are used to, it is hard for us to sleep past 7 am and Colorado, of course, is an hour behind our regular clock, so it was all we could do to sleep in until 6:45 am Colorado time.  We were at the slopes by 7:40 and nothing opened until 8 am, so we roamed around a bit and just figured out where everything was.  It has been over 10 years since I have been to Winter Park and it has changed a lot.

Finally, we were able to get our lift tickets, then went back to the car to get all our gear and get ready to hit the slopes when the lifts opened at 9.   It has been  6 years since either one of us has skied, so we new we needed to start off pretty slow, but we both felt a little ridiculous following all the ski school 5-year-olds up on the lift.  Thankfully, as we waited in line a few more full-grown people (who weren't instructors) started getting on the lift as well.  Mommy has skied quite a bit in the past, since her dad is quite the avid skier.  I probably went at least once a year from 7th grade all through college.  Daddy, on the other hand has only been skiing two times before, and with a 6 year break since the last run, it takes a little bit to get your groove back.  Fortunately, skiing seems to come back pretty quickly and we were on the more grown up slopes pretty quickly.  It was a beautiful day for skiing on Friday as it was snowing pretty steadily all day, so we had awesome fresh, soft powder to glide down on. 

Awesome ride - see the WP slopes behind us

Saturday was another day of skiing.  The weather was a bit different and the slopes were quite crowded, but it was still a great day.  It was very windy up on top of the mountain, and at the bottom it was almost hot in all your ski gear.  We had to wait over 20 minutes to get on one lift, but other than that and maybe 2 other 5 minute waits, things moved pretty quickly.  A few of the runs were pretty crowded, but we just noted which ones to stay clear of.  Amazingly, daddy probably only fell 5 or 6 times the entire weekend, with only 2 of them being complete lose-your-skis-20-feet-up-the-mountain type of wipe outs.  Mommy, however had a pretty graceful weekend and only 'tipped over' once while standing at the bottom of a slope waiting for daddy to make it the rest of the way down.  This was an uber-graceful tip as well since I was basically standing still, just trying to turn around. 

At the top of the continental divide

Both afternoons (since we left the slopes both days around 3 pm) we hit the hot tubs at the rec center of our condo complex and rested our weary muscles, then went out for supper.  Friday we ate at Smokin' Moe's, a fabulous BBQ joint in the middle of Winter Park.  While about 1/2 way through our meal, daddy starts pointing at a woman and her little girl walking through the restaurant saying "isn't that. . . that's. . . " but he couldn't come up with her name.  I couldn't see who it was as the salad bar and a big pole were in my line of vision.  Finally, daddy got through is stunned state and remembered her name.  A fellow MOPS steering team member and her family had just walked into the same restaurant!  Hilarious!  She had been sick at the last meeting so we never discussed the fact that we would be in towns 9 hours away from home just 20 minutes apart.  They were staying in Granby while we were in Winter Park.  Too funny!

Single Track

Sunday was some amazing fun as well.  We went on a snowmobile tour up to the continental divide with some amazing views and later went tubing down a huge hill in Fraser, a town just a couple miles up the road from Winter Park.  Snowmobiling was a ton of fun as long as daddy didn't go too fast for mommy's comfort.  He got to have his 'speed' fix at an open area where mommy got off and daddy got to race around for a while.  Then we did what they called some 'single track' while we headed back to the base.  Single track is a snowmobile track that is only about as wide as the snowmobile itself through some thick wooded areas.  Most of this single track was down steep hills so we had to go pretty slow.  It was pretty cool until we lost the last 2 snowmobiles in our group!  There were 2 snowmobiles who had a small kid riding with them, so they went quite a bit slower than the rest of us.  Well, we came to a fork in the track and an arrow was pointing the opposite way of where we went.  We got to a clearing and waited. . . they didn't come out, so the rest of us had to sit in the clearing for about 20-30 minutes while our guide went back to find them.  Thankfully, all turned out fine and we had a blast.



The huge hill for tubing



Lastly, we went on down the road to Fraser and did some awesome tubing down a huge hill.  It was like being kids again, just free falling down the side of a huge sheet of ice.  It was super windy out and thankfully they had a system that pulled you back up the hill otherwise we would have only slid down it maybe 2 times.  The hike back up would have been killer!  I'd love to attach the video we took of each other going down, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet, so pictures will have to suffice.

So, the fun was done and we started the long trek back home the next morning.  It was so great to walk into our home and get huge hugs from the kids.  Nothing makes you appreciate them more than a little time away together!

Riding back up the hill

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?!?!