it's the LITTLE THINGS that matter most

Laundry

2012-01-30T22:06:00.003-05:00

Monday is laundry day here.

Josiah desperately wanted to fold his laundry.

There was no way that I was going to discourage Josiah from folding his laundry.

We carried the basket of clean clothes upstairs together.

He sat up on the bed and put a pillow over his legs for a table.

He dumped out the laundry basket on the bed so that he could see all the clean clothes.

He talked and rearranged his pillows.

He took a pair of pants balled them into the tightest ball he could and started a "pants" pile.

I tried to take a picture--denied.

He took a shirt and balled it into the tightest ball he could and started a "shirts" pile.

I suggested that he may need to fold them neater so that they would fit in the drawer.

He assured me his clothes would fit in the drawer just like that because he is folding them.

Another shirt on the shirt pile.

More talking.

More pillow rearranging.

Another pair of balled up pants on the pants pile.

I suggest that maybe Daddy and Aliza are playing downstairs.

He listens to the playing noises.

He gives up folding and runs downstairs to play.

I breathe a sigh of relief because that is as much patience training as I can handle in a day.

I finished folding the laundry.

But...

If he had stuffed all those balled up clothes in his drawer I still wouldn't have discouraged a 3 year old from folding his laundry.

100 Day!

2012-01-26T22:46:00.000-05:00

Today was 100 Day in Math. It was pretty cool that it was also Lesson 100, but I'm strange like that! One milestone that I have been watching for was to hear Aliza count from 1 to 100 by 1's. She loves to count to 100 by 10's. Last week in the car she offered to count to 100--I was more than happy to listen--and she did it perfectly.

Some other accomplishments today:

I put off cleaning before a cousin playdate so that I could be served tea (water with an ice cube and a sugar cube--*cringe*) by my boy.

Aliza decorated her room with an entire coloring book of Lalaloopsy pictures she colored. These are just some of the pictures that now adorn her room. (The height of the pictures is so that Anna can't reach them.)

Aliza was introduced to the concept of the water cycle today. It was cute to hear her try to pronounce such words as: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.

That's all. Tomorrow I will clean. I hope.

Oh Boy!

2012-01-25T21:45:00.002-05:00

Josiah has been killing me recently. The things he comes up with are hysterical--to me.

In the morning Josiah likes for me to carry him downstairs and rock him. He does not like for me to tell him that it is time for me to "get ready for the day" so before I sit down Josiah informs me that he is a "strong magnet." And, boy, does he hang on tight when I try to get up. But, seriously, there isn't anything that can compete with time rocking my little boy.

Josiah has recently become controlled by his tummy. When it is time to sleep he'll come to me and say, "My tummy woke me up." At the library when he didn't want to sit for storytime he told me that his "tummy was ready to pick out books." Sometimes I'm ready to put his tummy in time out!

This afternoon I was ready to clobber him when I found wet toilet paper in the kitchen and puddles of, I presume, toilet water on the floor. I started scolding Anna and Josiah told me that he let Anna play in the potty while he USED it! Seriously!? Did Josiah really think that was ok?? Ugh!!!

Anna really likes Oreos.

Aliza referred to herself as "Aliza Flynn" at supper. I do not think the female character on Phineas and Ferb is who she should be naming herself after.

I can see that Aliza is making better choices when it comes to obedience.

Finally, I frequently wonder what issues I'm giving my children. I've probably been told this, but I remembered it again. The best tool I can give my children to deal with their issues as adults is the ability to forgive. I purposed again in my mind to model giving and receiving forgiveness. That means I need to apologize to them when I'm wrong too. Among other things being a forgiving person is a quality I desire for my children.

Now I Lay

2012-01-22T21:55:00.001-05:00

The rest of the nap time story is that now I lay with Josiah until he falls asleep. He went a week without a nap and each day got worse until he took a nap again. Naps are what works for us. We pay for it at night, but either Jeremy or I lay with him again.

Laying with a child until they fall asleep is one of the worst things to do in my book. It tests my patience more than anything else. It is like watching water boil. I never thought I would do it...much less be any good at it. I lay so still that I get sore and in the afternoon it is so hard not to fall asleep. Actually I did fall asleep one day last week and I was so scared I had slept for a long time. I ran downstairs to find Aliza (she and I have a deal that she has to be absolutely quiet until Josiah falls asleep), worried that I had left her in quiet solitude way too long, but I must have slept only a few minutes.

At night, though, laying with Josiah just gives me way too much time to think. One night I was just thinking and all of a sudden I realized that I had tears running down my cheeks. I had been thinking about dancing with Josiah at his wedding. Pathetic, I know. I decided then it was time to do some sit ups or something. See, Josiah sleeps in a sleeping bag in his train tent so I lay outside the tent on his floor. He can't see me.

It's just a phase in life so I won't complain. Maybe I'll start thinking of some good blog posts while I lay.

Craziness of Late

2012-01-18T19:45:00.000-05:00

I may feel dull on some days, but my life is anything but dull. I have some pictures to prove it!

Josiah learned a new word: "demolish." He started with some baseboard in the kitchen that he thought needed to be removed. I held my breath that he would not be successful. He wasn't. He would come to me though with his "plans" and say, "Mommy, the plans say I need a grownup to help. That's you!" After a couple days he moved on to working on the steps.

Anna steals everyone's sippy cups. She loves sucking from a straw. I broke down and gave her a cup of her own.

Anna wanted the fork. So I gave it to her. She did better than I thought she would.

We were out of bread, milk, hotdogs and chicken nuggets. A shopping trip was inevitable and Jeremy was working ALL weekend. This was an "Ok. Everyone get in your spot and hold still. I'm going to take a picture" moment. You can only imagine what it is like to shop with them and the looks I get. One Mom tried to sympathize with me. She had 2 toddlers...strapped in...and she had someone with her who was holding the list!! I didn't feel too sorry for her. ha.

Anna's infatuation with the potty and the trash can drive me to the point of insanity!!!

Picking out books at the library is serious business. Having a stool is stand on is lots of fun.

This was all Josiah's idea. He brought the pan and spoons asking for a rope to put around his neck. He is playing the bass drum in a marching band. It was noisy to say the least.

Aliza's recent love is Lalaloopsy dolls. They are whimsical and cute. This week she told me that there was a lalaloosy.com so I let her check it out. Oh.My.Goodness. She loved it. There are games and videos and product lists with descriptions of the dolls personalities. Here she is talking to her Grandma Karen on the phone. Grandma is on the website too and Aliza is directing her to various pages and dolls and then Grandma would read the description to her. They did this for an HOUR. Anna was sleeping and I had some lovely time alone with Josiah. Thanks for the babysitting Grandma!

That's enough excitement for one post!

To Nap or Not to Nap

2012-01-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

We are in this odd sort of place with Josiah's afternoon nap. He figured out that Aliza gets to do some fun stuff while he sleeps in the afternoon and as of this week he is determined not to miss out. The problem is that he can keep himself awake only until about 5pm. Yesterday he walked away from his John Deere DVD and built himself a nest on our bed and fell asleep. Today he crawled up on my lap at 4pm and promptly fell asleep. He slept through all the household noise and me picking him up and laying him down--twice. Both days I only let him sleep about half an hour.

Taking a full afternoon nap had been keeping him awake very late at night. This way he does fall asleep earlier at night, but, man, he is grouchy and hard to be around in the evening!

This is a second child quandary for me because when Aliza was at this stage she laid with me in my bed and usually fell asleep. It's also a homeschooling quandary because if Aliza was at school I would still have an empty bed for Josiah to crawl into.

I don't know. It is sortof fun, though, to hold a tired little boy and have him fall asleep in my arms. Oh the joys...and challenges of being a Mommy.

Complicated Conversation

2012-01-10T22:18:00.003-05:00

Aliza and I had a complicated conversation about the value of a dollar today. She is into Lalaloopsy dolls and wants to buy one. I told her that the mini dolls cost $7.00. Today Aliza told me that she was going to have a lemonade stand and sell lemonade for one penny a cup. She said she needed to sell 7 cups and then she could buy the Lalaloopsy.

I tried to simply explain to her that one dollar is the same as 100 pennies. After a couple attempts at this angle I tried to tell her that one dollar is the same as 10 dimes. (She has learned about pennies and dimes in school.) She just couldn't wrap her head around this concept. When she got fed up with my explanations, Aliza decided she wanted to call her Daddy to see if he could explain it to her. I said that her Daddy would probably explain it the same way I did, but (since Aliza and her Daddy have a lot in common) I thought maybe he would come up with an angle that she could understand.

Then, in complete exasperation, Aliza said, "And if Daddy can't explain it to me we will look it up on the internet. The internet will be able to explain how much a dollar is to me."

Halfway

2012-01-09T21:26:00.002-05:00

Today marks the halfway point of our school year. This milestone is marked by lesson number not by the calendar day. I feel productive when I see progress so pulling out the part 2 teacher's edition of phonics was very exciting for me.

Aliza has learned to write and read every letter of the alphabet and now they are quickly moving on to blends--as in a new blend every day! We'll see how this goes. Aliza may need to pay closer attention to her teachers than she has been.

This project was an alphabet book. The curriculum expected the student to complete letters A through E and so supplied those pages with pictures to color. Aliza, of course, wanted to do the whole alphabet. I cannot draw so there was no way I was going to fake my way through drawing pictures for that many letters. We needed a magazine full of pictures in a bad way. I said a prayer and told Aliza I would check the mailbox for a magazine. Sure enough, there was a Harriet Davis magazine and we found a picture for every single letter of the alphabet! I was super excited!!

I learned that Aliza is a better listener if her hands are busy. This bugged me for a while since school in my mind is sitting at a desk with your hands folded and feet flat on the floor. Sometimes it is play-doh, other times it is coloring books and at other times it is popcorn for a snack.

We just finished a unit on all kinds of animals that God created. Aliza made a book of animals and we learned a catchy song with a verse for each animal. On the elephant day we made elephant biscuits.

I think it was on the elephant day that I had the distinct thought of "oh my goodness, in 2 years I'll have another kindergartener and will be doing all of this again!"

My thinking is that if I'm thriving and the children are thriving we will keep on doing what we are doing. So far that is true!

Winter Picnic

2012-01-07T22:38:00.001-05:00

It was one of those days in January that I couldn't let pass without being outside. We had a couple days this week where the temperature didn't get much above freezing and around here that means there will usually be a couple warmer days that follow.

Jeremy took advantage of the weather by going golfing and in my attempt to make the weekend feel special I took the children to the park and I promised a picnic when we came home.

My ears were cold by the time we got home so I kept Anna inside so I could stay inside! How fun though to send the kids outside for a picnic in January.

Josiah's idea of a picnic: Leave the food on the blanket for later and play in the sandbox.

All Yours?

2012-01-03T22:16:00.002-05:00

My sister decided on a bridesmaid dress and I needed to go to the store to buy it in my size. It's a long story about why I needed to go get that dress today...but suffice it to say that it was on sale (as in a 50% off sale) and there was only one in my size.

Against my better judgement, I loaded everyone up after naps and off we went to a women's clothing store. A store that, on any other occasion, I would not have even thought of taking any one of the children with me let alone all three. On the way Aliza and I had a talk about good behavior and acting respectfully. She knew what was expected.

I was able to spot the dress on the clearance rack right away. I grabbed my size and another size that I thought would fit someone else and went to the checkout. The salesperson asked if I was ready for a dressing room. I declined. That would have been a nightmare!

By the time it was my turn to checkout it was obvious that I had 3 children with me. The ladies were talking to Anna and then I mentioned that I had 3 children and she asked, "Are they all yours?" I gave a confident answer of "yes." I question made me laugh because my parents were asked on more than one occasion if the 5 of us children were all theirs. I only have 3 and I got asked that question!? The clerk commented that the other children were quiet. It was true. They were BUSY (checking out all the accessories and trying on a few to my dismay), but quiet.

We made it back to the car. Thankfully it was freezing cold so the children were not tempted to do anything goofy in the parking lot. The fancy dresses did not get hung nicely in the car. They got haphazardly laid across the passenger seat. And the children (and I) got rewarded for a uneventful trip with Chick-Fil-A for supper.

Oh yes! The dress fits perfectly. Just an added bonus.

60 Years...

2012-01-02T22:22:00.000-05:00

...of loving, caring and sharing. That was engraved on the vase and became sortof the theme of my grandparents 60th anniversary celebration. It was an adult dinner with my grandparents, parents and siblings. (My sister, Laura, had to work and we missed her!) We celebrated life, commitment to marriage and our memories of Gramma and Grandad.

Janell made favors of Gramma and Grandad's original wedding photo and a picture of Gramma in her wedding dress a few years ago.

I made the cake topper and Meghan made and decorated the cake.

Jeremy was taking the picture, but here we are after a lovely dinner at Market Street Inn. They had a most, ummmm, luxurious New Years menu. It was super yummy. For the price we paid, Jeremy and I made sure we ate every bite!

My Mom was beautiful. My Dad thought so too! =) I never want to take it for granted that I know my parents love each other.

It's not really surprising that I was the grandchild who wrote something to share after the meal. Janell and Brian were happy to let me do the talking. So...if you want to know what I said, keep reading!

60 years of marriage. Many people would wonder how it is possible to remain married for 60 years. I've only been married for 10 years, but I have an idea of how a couple stays married for 60 years. At our wedding Jeremy and I took basically the same vows you did. We said we would stay together in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer for as long we both shall live. It's as simple as keeping a vow...no matter what. Commitment. No matter what. When challenges arise you figure out how to make it work, no matter the cost.

Thank you for giving us your example of commitment not only to marriage but to faith, to a strong work ethic, to hospitality, and to family.

Gramma, there are times when I am pretty sure that I have inherited some of your personality and interests. I thought of a few things that I believe that I think you may agree with:

A memory is even better when it documented in pictures, words or scrapbooks
Friendships are meant to last a lifetime.
It is far more enjoyable to bake a dessert than make a meal.
A pretty table makes for a better meal.
Planning a party is almost more than half the fun.

As I thought about what I wanted to share I had lots of different thoughts and memories come to mind. These are a few of them:

I remember singing with Gramma during Sunday School opening in Florida.
I associate shrimp pizza on Christmas Eve at Gramma's house in Florida with feeling sick because I was so excited for Christmas.
It was so hard to wait for Gramma to clean up the kitchen after a meal...I couldn't wait for her to play school with Janell and I.
I contributed to any self-esteem issues that Gramma has—the first time I saw her long hair down and I really did think her wobbly arms were neat.
We decorated the house in Oregon for Gramma and Grandad's 40th anniversary. Was that really 20 years ago???
Gramma and Grandad came to visit me at EMU. They took me out to eat at Shoney's and Gramma had an incredible carebox for me.
Gramma has told me and I have known for many years that Gramma and Grandad pray for every one of us and our children every single day. Thank you. That is such an incredible gift.
I remember the morning that I realized my voice was coming back. Gramma had told me right before that she couldn't think of me not being able to sing again. I was gingerly testing my voice and the only song that came to mind was Amazing Grace. I was able to sing a few lines and I ran to the phone and called Gramma. I didn't say hello. I just started singing. I don't remember what Gramma said, but I'm pretty sure that was the first call I made that morning.
Grandad, it is such a privilege to watch Josiah work with you. He is naturally a worker and for him to have someone available to him to work with is priceless.
Josiah's chosen seat at church is right next to Grandad. And if Grandad tells him to be quiet he (usually) listens.
Aliza was such a grown up little girl wanting to help Gramma unpack. I'm pretty sure she wore Gramma out on more than one occasion with her passionate desire to help.

I look forward to many more moments that add to my list of memories. I also look forward to things that you will yet teach me and my children that will impact our lives forever.

And One More Christmas

2011-12-31T22:05:00.000-05:00

One more Christmas. I believe we drug out our Christmas celebration as long as we could! We took the long way home from Jeremy's parents house and went to Pennsylvania for Freed Christmas. During the slightly more than 3 hour drive I was very much wondering if the extra effort for this trip was worth it. Of course, it was.

Jeremy's Grandpa now resides in a nursing home. We had a nice room to hold our celebration. We had our meal and then it is the tradition for Pop-pop to read the Christmas story and speak briefly. This year he started reading and then stopped and said that he would no longer be able to read--someone else would need to do the reading next year. It was a heart wrenching moment to watch the patriarch of the family "pass the baton." Karen stepped in and finished reading the passage from Matthew through tears. I think even the children could sense it was a holy moment. All 3 of my children were appropriately quiet and still. We sang some songs and that helped to lighten the mood.

On Darryl's lap in one of Collin and Josiah's favorite places to be. Collin and Josiah played the whole evening. Josiah is a very friendly little guy. There were hugs and tears when it was time to say good bye.

I thought and thought about what I could give Pop-pop for Christmas. I finally had the idea to make a picture calendar for him.

This is another family situation where Aliza does not have a natural peer group. The other girls are quite a bit older and the children closest to her are Collin and Josiah. She received some My Little Ponies and she sat at the table and made up songs while she played with them. She was quite entertaining!

Anna was utterly exhausted, but she still wandered around the room making friends with most everyone. She kept wandering back to Uncle Buzz. She would reach up to get up on his lap, he would give her a bite of chocolate cake and then she would slide back down. One other moment that touched me: I borrowed a portable high chair for Anna to use. It did not have straps to attach it to the chair that I could find. I didn't realize that it wasn't attached to the chair until Anna leaned forward and just about fell on her face. Buzz saw what happened. I was looking around for straps and he just stood up, took off his belt, wrapped it around the the seat, buckled it and that secured Anna.

We spent the night with Jeremy's aunt and uncle and drove home today. We got home at 4:30....unloaded the car, unpacked the suitcases, ate supper and then left for church at 5:40. I am incredibly tired. Is it really New Year's Eve? I think I'm skipping that this year!!! Just wait until you see what we are up to tomorrow!

More Christmas Fun

2011-12-29T19:59:00.001-05:00

There was more Christmas fun waiting for us in West Virginia. We got a late start to our trip so the children didn't have to wait long to open presents!

Josiah couldn't tear his eyes off of the pictures of other tractors on the back of the box.

This LaLaLoopsy coloring book provided hours of entertainment.

Another year of scrapbooking ahead!

We've had a lot of fun visiting with Grandma and Grandpa and Joel and Brandi. This trip is longer than our usual weekend trip. Josiah and Aliza helped Grandpa set up a train. I'm sortof missing Anna because there are so many other people to hold her! She walks around the house and goes from lap to lap. Everyone is off schedule and out of routine--I think that must be part of the fun of going to Grandma's house. There is lots of good food to eat and I've taken just about every spare minute to read. I've gotten pretty caught up in Steve Job's biography.

One more Christmas tomorrow!

Some Experiences are Priceless

2011-12-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight Aliza and I went shopping. The purpose of the trip was for her to buy Christmas presents for her family and Grandparents. This is the first year that she bought presents. We went to Dollar General so, for the most part, she could pick out anything. I carried the basket and she led the way. Thankfully, we had made a list or she would have picked something out for every aunt, uncle and cousin she has! She tried to anyway.

She started at the top of her list...
Anna: grabbed the first stuffed animal she saw and called it perfect
Josiah: another easy one...found the toy aisle and picked a tractor
(looked at all the things she liked for herself)
Mommy: wandered in to a Christmas aisle and got a most satisfied expression on her face and picked out a tall Christmas mug
Daddy: walked through the whole store trying to think of what Daddy would like. I said, well, Daddy likes penguins. We walked back to the Christmas aisle and she picked a pad of penguin note paper.
Grandma: she thought long and hard about what Grandma likes and we walked the store again (stopping a the toy aisle every time to look at things that caught her eye) she ended up in a hair care aisle and picked out some sparkly hair clips for Grandma. (Grandma does, in fact, wear clips in her hair!)
Grandad: immediately--Grandad likes fishing! There was not a thing fishing related in the store. We were back in an aisle with some small toys. I said, Grandad likes bowling too and pointed out a finger bowling game. She thought that was just right.
Great Gramma: "Great Gramma is pretty old. She needs something quiet and happy to do. Like a book!" We went to the books which were too high for her to see. I read some titles and then read one that struck Aliza as perfect "365 Ways to Be Happy"
Great Grandad: "He is old too." We talked about how Great Grandad likes to work in his shop. Aliza said, "He needs something warm and relaxing." We walked the store. (Stopped at the toys again.) I guided her to the bedding area and she spotted the fleece blankets. She immediately chose a bright blue one with snowflakes because it was Christmassy.
Grandma Karen: her first thought was Grandma is an expert knitter. (good thinking, girl!) But before another thought entered she spotted a sticker display that she couldn't pass up. Princess and fish stickers for Grandma.
Grandpa: We walked around for a while thinking about Grandpa. Then...I could get him a toothbrush. That's what we did! A 4 pack so he has a different one for every day.

Then we had to double check the list. That meant laying everything out on the floor in list order. There was no second guessing. She was quite satisfied and spent $20.85.

I was proud of her. We got a snack at TCBY, had some Mommy/Daughter talk time and headed home.

A few days later I took Josiah to do his shopping at the Dollar Tree. I was not at all sure about taking a 3 year old shopping for gifts. He saw a sippy cup right away that he picked up for Anna. Then he saw a few things that he absolutely had to have for himself. I let him pick one. After that when something really caught his eye we figured out who he could give it to. One memorable moment was when he saw a bow and ribbon set that he absolutely had to have to wrap presents. He picked a porcelain piece for each of his Grandma's. Gum for his Daddy. Josiah has had a recent obsession with wanting his Daddy to bring gum home for him so it was quite exciting for him to give gum, in fact, that was the only secret that he did not keep!

When it came time to wrap gifts Josiah remembered who each gift was for. He did not buy gifts for Grandad, Great Gramma or Great Grandad so he picked one of his toys for each of them.

These are some of my most cherished Christmas memories this year.

The Big Day

2011-12-26T21:46:00.000-05:00

All of the baking, shopping, wrapping, waiting, and anticipation all culminated in one brief morning. Honestly, by the time the presents were opened and brunch was served and cleaned up I was utterly exhausted. I had to let everything settle in my mind before I could think about what I really wanted to remember from our Christmas celebration.

My most cherished memory of Christmas this year is the giving...specifically Aliza and Josiah giving. Aliza volunteered to GIVE her gifts first. We took turns opening her gifts. It was fun to watch her be excited about Josiah opening the tractor she gave him.

Then Josiah GAVE his gifts. He picked out this fluffy bird pen for Aliza and a Strawberry Shortcake coloring book. She was happy. (Now Josiah is 3 and he was pretty anxious to get to open his big present!)

Josiah had a very green Christmas. His shirt says A Little Dirt Never Hurt with a John Deere tractor on it. He got a great big loader that he promptly took to the sandbox.

Aliza wanted an American Girl doll. I was quite thankful when a friend told me about Target's version of the American Girl doll that literally sells for a quarter of the price. Aliza was pleased. Today Aliza and her doll, Jenny, were superheroes saving the world and, later, I heard her introducing her doll to every room of the house.

Anna could not have cared less about opening presents! This is a fun little toy for her. It can be stationary and she can bounce on the ball or sit and move it with her legs. And those shoes she has on? Those are Skidders from One Step Ahead. They are sock material on top and go on easy like socks. The bottoms are rubber with rubber treads so there is no slipping. Very awesome. Thanks Mom!

Two more Christmas celebrations to go....

Starting Christmas Week

2011-12-24T22:49:00.002-05:00

My heart is already full with so many memories and treasured moments. We celebrated Christmas with my family yesterday. Josiah got to take a trip to the John Deere store with Grandad to pick out his Christmas present the day before. Thankfully it worked out that he got to pick 2 tractors. He could bring one home and there was still one for Grandma to wrap up.

When we got to Grandma and Grandad's house Josiah could hardly wait to open his tractors. We sang a few songs while we waited for everyone to gather. Josiah requested Jesus Loves Me. He sang every single word at the top of his lungs.

As has been the Sheats tradition for the last 6 years, there was a new baby for Christmas! Lydia sat up in her new Bumbo chair and she discovered her feet while the adults exchanged gifts.

Aliza and Josiah gave gifts for the first time this year. What a special memory to watch them give gifts to their grandparents.

I hosted the traditional Christmas Eve dinner tonight. Most of the family was out of town. Jeff and Janell and the girls got to stop in on their way to Jeff's family. We missed everyone who wasn't there, but we had a super special time together. Laura and Aliza did a craft. Josiah and Grandad played with tractors on the floor...and on the table when Grandad was ready for coffee. Anna was just happy.

Jeremy had shown me a Christmas carol flash mob video right before everyone came and we decided to share it after dinner. The video gives me chills and it set the mood to rewatch the Hallelujah Chorus flash mob video and some other videos. Which then led to singing Christmas carols...which led to singing Rooftops (while Aliza sat on my lap and sang every word with me)...which led to more videos and singing. It was just lovely. I didn't want it to end.

It is hard to put into words special family times. I hope these inadequate words help me remember the happiness, contentment and love that I feel tonight.

Now it is time to put some presents under the tree! My heart may burst yet!

A New Scrapper

2011-12-23T22:19:00.003-05:00

I was waiting for just the right time to let Aliza do her first scrapbook layout. The opportunity came yesterday. Josiah had an outing to the John Deere store with Grandad and Anna was sleeping. Aliza had pictures of her with The Nutcracker cast waiting on my desk for a long time. I bought a scrapbook for her that both her and I can put layouts in.

Aliza was beyond excited. She laid out the pictures. I helped her adhere them. Then she dictated the journaling for me to write. She stuck with every step and did a great job. Then came the stickers. She saw where I keep my stash of stickers and was absolutely enthralled.

The fun began. I gave her free reign of her project and she worked for just about an hour and a half. She created imaginary stories (that she told out loud) about the characters on her layout. There are stickers all over the pictures. She got out camping stickers because they went camping and pizza stickers because they ate pizza etc. etc. Then she got out pens and drew on the pictures. And then she got out more stickers. Obviously she won't be able to do too many layouts because I won't be able to support her habit! =)

I told her that her layout looked amazing. She beamed with pride.

My sister asked me if it is gratifying that my daughter shows interest in my hobby. I hadn't really thought about it. It does feel good that she wants to do something that I enjoy. Maybe that she wants to be like me. It would be fun if scrapbooking is something we can do together. Who knows. Right now it is just work to keep her on the paper and satisfied with the stickers available to her!

Little Baker

2011-12-20T13:24:00.002-05:00

Josiah was with me for every baking endeavor this month. He was quite the helper! Sometimes he took over and did it by himself--and I cleaned up the mess afterwards!

Cut out sugar cookies

Kneading pizza dough. Then he rolls it out.

Pretzel treats

Gingersnaps. This is one that he took over. He scooped the dough, rolled it in a ball, dipped it in sugar and put it on the tray.

Peanut blossoms. Another one to roll in balls and dip in sugar!


Crushing Oreos for Cool Mint Oreo Cookie Balls.

It's been (mostly) fun to have such a dedicated helper!

Graduating Sisters

2011-12-17T21:50:00.001-05:00

I had the privilege of attending Linda's college graduation today. She received a Bachelor's degree in Theater. It was the usual long and boring ceremony, but it didn't take much for me to get caught up in the excitement of a celebration. Linda had a super busy semester. She was the stage manager for the fall production. She had rehearsal 7 nights a week for many weeks. She also became engaged during the semester. I know she is ready for some rest and relaxation and she deserves it!

I must say her dress was gorgeous.

And Phil graduates tomorrow.

Sisters. =)

Janell also graduated today with a Master's degree in Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution. Janell and Jeff made an agreement not to walk for their Master's degree and she wasn't completely sure was going to graduate this semester. So she attended Linda's graduation that was also her own! I got to sit with her and Lydia.

I really have no idea how Janell completed this program except that she is an exceptionally talented writer and has a unique giftedness in conflict resolution. Just after she started the program she found out she was expecting Renee. Then just before this semester started she had Lydia and throughout the semester she had the stress of Lydia's health concerns. I think Janell enjoyed just relaxing during the ceremony while cuddling her healthy baby!

Janell's name was in the program!

This is just about the moment when Janell would have walked. I made pretzel treats for her to enjoy during her graduation.

Dad surprised her with flowers.

This is a professor who has always thought a lot of Janell. He was walking out in the recessional and I called his name and pointed to Janell. He cut out of line and came up to congratulate Janell.

Janell holds the first Master's degree in the Sheats family.

I'm sure proud of Linda and Janell today! We had a fun celebration together this evening.

Surprises in My Camera

2011-12-14T22:04:00.000-05:00

When it has been a few days between camera dumps, there are always some surprises. Our week has been pretty quiet as far as outings, but there is no lack of activity here on the home front.

Aliza learned about elephants the other day. While we were doing this project I realized that I will be "doing" kindergarten again in 2 years. That made my heart beat a little harder.

When Anna has her little blanket she is oh so snuggly. She only sucks her fingers when she has her blanket...which reminds me that I really need a picture of that!

Apparently something needed repair behind the tree!?


And then the table needed repair. Good thing I have a live-in builder!

Little Cookie Decorators

2011-12-11T21:53:00.001-05:00

We continued the tradition of decorating gingerbread men at Grandma's house. The older ones concentrated and did a great job. The middle ones ate as much as they decorated and the youngest got as much on her face as she did the cookie. Then again there was a middle one who got an awful lot of frosting ALL over his hands, face and hair.

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

We had some BE-U-TI-FUL cookies!!!

I continued the cookie theme and did some baking this weekend. So far snickerdoodles and cut-out sugar cookies are in the freezer. I think a shoo fly cake is next. I've been hungry for that recently.

St. Nicholas Day

2011-12-07T21:44:00.001-05:00

Back when I was in my middle school years, my Mom introduced to us the concept of St. Nicholas Day. This was the first year that I introduced St. Nicholas to Aliza and Josiah.

There is lots of information about St. Nicholas at stnicholascenter.org if you want to read a more scholarly version of what I told my kiddos.

On December 6, St. Nicholas Day, this is generally what I told Aliza and Josiah. St. Nicholas, who was a missionary a long time ago, took care of children and families who didn't have food to eat or toys to play with. One of things he did was leave gifts on doorsteps at night and then in the morning families found something warm, something to eat, something to play with and gold coins on their step. They didn't know who left the gifts, but they were very thankful. St. Nicholas was kind and generous in secret....so, today, we are going to something kind and generous in secret!

One of my friends and I have given each others children their Christmas gifts on St. Nicholas Day for several years. This year we were able to drop off our gifts at each others houses at the same time. Soooo....we set off with our gifts. Aliza and Josiah were happy to sneak into the house and leave them on the counter. It worked out that my brother was doing some work on my friends house so Josiah got to see Brian on the "building site." Very cool. Now Josiah says when he grows up he wants to work with Uncle Brian on a building site.

When we got home I knew there were going to be presents on our step. Aliza came up to the house (I was still retrieving children from the car) and said, Uhhhmmmm.....Mommy?? There are presents on our step! Are they for us? It was magical. They had done their kind and generous act and had no idea it would be returned. Aliza said, "Josiah, lets open our presents on our favorite blanket."

After the presents were opened Aliza went outside to look for clues as to who left them presents. A bit later she came in and asked me for a magnifying glass to continue her search.

Found

2011-12-05T21:47:00.001-05:00

I found this gem on my desk tonight. Aliza's rendition of our family.

It's been a good Monday. Attitudes got straightened out this morning. Aliza learned a new word today--metamorphosis--and what it means. Josiah willingly helped me clean up his room tonight. The weather was warm again. The laundry is washed, folded and put away. Less screen time. Just a day I can feel good about!

Now...on to Tuesday!

Odds and End

2011-12-04T21:49:00.001-05:00

A new addict to Puppy Chow. I figure it's cereal...so it counts for breakfast for this unpredictable eater.

At The Nutcraker Ballet. Aliza loved the story.

Anna's first look at the Nativity characters.

I call our tree "interactive." Josiah decorated like a pro. Aliza picked a decoration that she "wanted to spend time with because she missed it so much." She carried it with her all day. We had the tree all decorated--proportionately--and then Aliza and Josiah promptly redecorated by putting all the ornaments in a line.

Our newest Pretzel Kiss Treat addict.

Now without pictures:

Aliza has been saying that when she grows up she wants to work with Daddy. It could be possible.
Anna had her well check this week. She weighs 23 lbs 11oz. She's a healthy girl!
I took my Gramma do her Christmas shopping this week. It took conscious effort to shop at a slow pace! It was nice though. I saw a lot more.
I've been thinking about the process of growing old recently. I read a book about Corrie ten Boom's last years. It challenged me to think about what character qualities I want to cultivate in myself now so that those things will shine through when physical capacities are lost.
A thankful heart is one of those qualities I want to develop.
Jeremy signed the paper at his lawyer's office that makes him, once again, the sole owner of Omni Technology Professionals, Inc.
I need to read the manual for my camera. I've been getting so mad that my pictures are blurry. I don't see that being a top priority in the near future.
When I prepare for a week of school I get all excited about the stuff Aliza will do and learn.
My gut says to unplug the computer screen. Summer would be a much more convenient time for my gut to tell me this!

Must get sleep. Tomorrow starts another week! A week to work. A week to play. A week to do some more Christmassy things.

A Warm Christmas Parade

2011-11-30T21:56:00.001-05:00

A few years ago I took Aliza to the Pocomoke Christmas Parade and it was a disaster. It was bitter cold and she was scared. About 4 years and 2 children later we tried it again and it was a fun event! It sure helped that it was a comfortable temperature outside.

Aliza loved sitting on the curb with her aunts.

This is essentially a parade of fire trucks. Josiah stood so seriously and studied the trucks. Every once in a while I would see his hand shoot up for a quick wave.

Josiah convinced his Grandad to come. =) Anna waved too.

Janell made it a party for us and had snacks at her house. We didn't make it through the whole parade. It was a very late night for us, but it was fun to do something fun!

Amazing Weather

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

The weather has been amazing. As in 70 degree amazing! Every day I've been thinking every day for a week that this has to be our last day of this, but it hung on through Thanksgiving, the weekend and Monday. I think today was the last. It rained a lot and I only see 50's in the forecast. But who am I to complain? It is the end of November! The only reason I've had long sleeves on my children is because it is the end of November and it only seems appropriate to dress them in long sleeves!

Yesterday we weren't going to waste a moment of the day being inside. Aliza and Josiah headed out at 9:30 and I called them in for lunch. I took Anna and Renee out after their naps. We raked together leaves so the children could slide into them. As you can see they kicked off their shoes and played barefoot!

Of course Little Miss found all sorts of fallish things to put in her mouth. I was so glad that I had decided Monday was going to be a school holiday for us. Now I've had my fill of fall...can we skip to spring??!!

Thanksgiving Memories

2011-11-29T12:44:00.001-05:00

Our Thanksgiving weekend was full of family time. These are some of my cherished memories:

Aliza and Josiah always pray for dinner at my parents house. On Thanksgiving Aliza thanked God for every family member (all 20+) by name. When she was finished Dad just said "I have nothing to add to that. Amen."
There was lots of wedding excitement in the air. Us married sisters got to reminisce about our weddings and the preceding wedding planning.
Josiah and Caleb played and played all afternoon. They even found some potatoes and turnips to dig in the garden.
My only cooking responsibility was to make rolls for dinner. I know. I'm pretty much spoiled!
Our drive to WV took forever! It was that hour long lunch stop at Panera. How can it take us so long to eat lunch??
It was warm and sunny when we got to WV. Aliza wanted to get the pool out! We spent some good time outside. I've been loving this warm weather.
Grandpa had his outside Christmas decorations up. Aliza was so excited when she went out to see them. She hugged Grandpa's neck and said, "You are so sweet. You are as sweet as a marshmallow."
Jeremy got to golf.
The ladies watched Pioneer Woman's cooking show while the men and children went for a drive to look at Christmas lights.
Aliza loved watching TV in Grandma and Grandpa's room. She had the TV to herself--PBS was her channel of choice. Well, she doesn't have that many choices. She watched way too much TV.
Josiah liked hanging out in the living room with the adults. He curled up on the couch next to Joel. He got to play with the cars without interruption.
Anna just explored the house. She had Joel and Brandi and Grandma and Grandpa at her beck and call. Her 5th tooth broke through this weekend.
Having a vacation from school was much needed. I can tell that Aliza and I both benefited from it. We are back in the routine today.

Thankful Garland

2011-11-23T20:38:00.001-05:00

We had a 4 day unit in Bible on Thanksgiving that ended with crafts and a visit from a Pilgrim. The Pilgrim went with the teacher to a Thanksgiving party where she met all of the other K-5 teachers. Aliza watched the lesson twice. She loved seeing all of her teachers together in one place. Each teacher presented a craft and this is the one I decided to use.

It's a Thanksgiving garland. Aliza and Josiah decorated leaves, turkeys, and boy and girl pilgrims. They used mostly glitter glue and pom-poms for decoration. Then we wrote things we are thankful for on strips of red paper. Super easy (except maybe for pre-cutting the shapes!) and fun.

I'm looking forward to lots of family fun the rest of the week. I know things will be festive in my family. My *little* sister and her boyfriend announced their engagement last night!

Sweet Anna Girl

2011-11-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

Happy 1st Birthday Anna!!!

It is so true that time goes faster and faster. I can't believe Anna is a year old already. Anna is such a content, easy going little girl. I marvel at how God puts families together.

Anna is completely walking. I still give her a couple bottles because Anna will still cuddle like a baby. Her funny fascination--potty water! I run around like crazy trying to keep potty seats down or doors closed, BUT Anna can crawl up the steps and FAST! If I hear giggling from upstairs I know I'm too late. I have found all kinds of things in the potty including her teddy bear blanket. Ugh!!

But who can resist that sweet smile and her little voice saying Mama or Dada or the way she lays her cheek on my face for kisses. I love her, love her, love her!!!!!

1st Birthday Party

2011-11-20T22:42:00.001-05:00

Anna's 1st birthday is still a few days away, but yesterday we had her birthday party. It was a fun party. Our house was full of family and adopted family. Anna wasn't quite sure what to think, but she held up great and especially enjoyed her spaghetti and cake!

Given that I painted a pumpkin on my baby belly last year and had a little pumpkin baby shower, I went with a Darling Little Pumpkin birthday theme.

Anna wasn't very interested in opening presents. Her brother and sister each had a gift for her. Josiah gave her some of his toys. He said "Anna really likes my toys." Aliza has begged to get a certain Dora blanket for Anna since she was born. I finally gave in and bought it for Aliza to give Anna.

And she is off and running! I realized that I have not seen Anna crawl more than once a day these days.

This is Anna's "I'm ready to get out of the chair" look. She likes spaghetti!

CAKE!!!!

Including a face plant and licking fingers, Anna finished off her piece of cake.

I have a super great sister-in-law! Brandi and I spent hours in the kitchen Friday night getting all the little pretties ready for the party. Then she washed dishes for me after the party--and even swept the floor too!!

I have a super great brother-in-law! Joel tirelessly played with Aliza, Josiah and Anna during those hours that Brandi and I were in the kitchen on Friday.

I have a super great mother-in-law! Karen helped me prepare food, put away food and clean up after the party.

Piles of Leaves

2011-11-16T21:11:00.001-05:00

We have had beautiful fall weather so far this week. It's raining and windy now so I know it is over, but we have had a great time outside the last couple days. Both Mommy and Daddy even ended up in the leaves. Fresh air is so good for the mind and body. That would be for both children and their parents!

Aliza couldn't keep her eyes open when she looked up.


They leaves up to their head. I told them it looked more like antlers!

We have a first birthday party coming up this weekend. It should be lots of fun. I plan parties because I think they will be fun...and then I start doing the preparation!

A Generous Heart

2011-11-13T22:31:00.001-05:00

As we were walking out the door to celebrate my Grandad's 84th birthday, Josiah gathered up some things and asked me for a bag to put them in. I grabbed a plastic bag thinking that he was just taking a few things along to play with.

I should have known better since Josiah did this for Caleb on his birthday and earlier today he said that Grandad would like trucks for his birthday. Josiah carried his birthday present to Grandad and gave it to him.

This is just one of those moments that makes a Mama's heart burst with pride. Josiah has such a generous heart.

Great Grandad's birthday treasures! Thankfully Aliza didn't make a scene when she saw that Josiah gave Great Grandad her Strawberry Shortcake car! Josiah lined up the presents next to Great Grandad's place at the table.

When Josiah gave some of his toys to Caleb a couple months ago I wasn't sure if he would ask for his toys when we left to go home or if he would mention them a few days later. He has never mentioned any of the things he gave to Caleb and that's how it was tonight. He never looked back. What a great little guy!

The Era of Minecraft Continues

2011-11-11T22:19:00.001-05:00

The other evening I walked downstairs to this.

Here's the story.

Several weeks ago Aliza made a decision that she has told me every day that she regrets. She gave Josiah Minecraft lessons. See, the deal is that you can have your own Minecraft world when you turn 5. Josiah is only 3. Aliza gave him lessons all on her own. Obviously, now he wants to play and he hardly has the coordination to do so.

So I walk into the living room and here they are "playing" side by side. The hilarious thing is that both Aliza and Josiah think he is really playing. The keyboard is disconnected. Josiah was talking to the computer and determinedly pressing keys on the keyboard. Aliza lashed out at him when she died because it was "his fault." I thought it was hilarious.

That evening they were playing on the server. Jeremy is there on the couch playing with them. The two other guys that play on the server are friends of Jeremy. Aliza thinks they are her best friends too. They are very gracious to play on the server with her.

Diggin' Holes

2011-11-09T19:54:00.000-05:00

Do you see that hole my son is sitting in? He dug it with his shovel--all by himself! I knew he was out there working with a shovel. He came in once in a while asking me to come out to look at a bug or a worm that he had unearthed. But I didn't realize quite how deep it was. This week he has been working outside with his excavator.


I don't often get a real smile for a picture!!

As you can tell Josiah is outside first thing in the morning in his pajamas. It is just lovely that our fall weather is holding for a little while. At least once a day I have the fleeting thought that I would like my house to be newer or nicer, but that would probably come with a landscaped lawn that I would not want holes dug in. So I'll be thankful for our plot of land that is perfect for my boy. He can dig holes to his heart's content!

(Janell and Brian, I had to think of your endeavors at an underground fort!)

One other memorable story about Josiah. Yesterday Aliza wanted a chair on the porch. Josiah offered to get her one. He came inside and drug out a wooden table chair. He dragged it out of the house and across the deck. When I got to him he was trying to figure out how he was going to get it across the grass to the front porch. I expressed my surprise that he had gotten that far and he said, "Mommy, I'm strong. I'm as strong as a jellybean!!!" I had to stifle the giggles.

Meeting The Nutcracker

2011-11-05T22:28:00.000-04:00

The Eastern Shore Ballet Theatre is performing The Nutcracker in early December. The library hosted a special story time today. The Nutcracker story was read and some of the dancers were introduced. After the story there was a craft, some snacks and the dancers were available to talk and take pictures.

Right away I could tell that Aliza really wanted to talk to the Sugar Plum Fairy. She wasn't sure how to approach her so we went together. After that picture she wanted pictures with everyone. I almost took my camera and then I didn't. What was I thinking? My iphone saved the day, but a lot of the pictures were blurry. (I'm just not talented like that!!)

with Clara

with one of the Arabian dancers

Josiah worked hard on his craft.

Anna stole the spotlight for a few minutes while she met The Nutcracker. She looked at him for the longest time before she took his hand. You could almost read the questions in her mind...Why don't your eyes blink? Why don't you say hi when I say HI to you? I was sortof waiting for her to burst into tears, but she didn't. My little adventurer.

with a Russian dancer


with the toy soldier

We will definitely be attending the show. Aliza thought it was neat to find out that some of the dancers were in the Snow White show we saw earlier this year. I figured out how much this experience meant to Aliza when she told me that she wanted to make a scrapbook with these pictures. I told her that I had to print them and gather some supplies for her. She is so excited to make a scrapbook with me...she said, Mommy if there was a scrapbook race you would win. Now I'm really kicking myself for the blurry pictures! She'll still have memories...

Fif-Tea

2011-11-04T22:59:00.003-04:00

My Mom, some of my sisters and I got to celebrate my Aunt's 50th birthday with her. We had tea together at the Enchanted Tea Room in Berlin, MD. The food was fabulous. The company was even more fabulous.

Sisters

We were told this is a wish cake. We took turns telling Laurie how much we appreciate her as our Aunt and our relationship with her. We made her cry---but that's not hard to do!!


More sisters. We sure missed the ones that couldn't be there!

I spotted a cupcake store as I drove through downtown Berlin. I drug everyone there after tea. We were all stuffed which was helpful. Cupcakes in Bloom is amazing. It's a good thing they are all the way in Berlin.

I'm so glad we could celebrate Laurie and that we could celebrate all the other things that each of us were celebrating individually.

Fall Quarter

2011-11-03T22:45:00.000-04:00

Aliza is a solid quarter of the way through kindergarten. As my celebration of this accomplishment (lol) I thought I would share a few pictures of things we have done recently.

While studying rhymes about Kings and Queens it was necessary to dress up and make crowns.

I give Aliza every opportunity to show Grandma (and anyone else who will listen) her work. She is so proud to talk about what she does and it is satisfying to me to hear her articulate what she is learning. She IS learning a lot!

Some days it is necessary to sit on a throne.

Other days it is nice to pawn your work off on your brother. He was more than happy to oblige. These no bake cookies did not turn out at all.

In preparation for learning to tell time, a math lesson was about ordering events. The example was making orange juice...so we made orange juice.

My Auntie Heart

2011-11-01T22:59:00.001-04:00

Here's the abbreviated back story on my niece, Lydia. When she was 4 weeks old, the pediatrician laid out to Janell the indicators he saw that pointed to Down's Syndrome. When she was 6 weeks old, Lydia had labwork completed for a Down's screen. During her 8th week, Jeff and Janell met with a geneticist and found out that the Down's screen was negative. During that exam, the geneticist felt there were enough physical variations that further testing should be done. That testing was done 2 weeks ago today. This morning Janell was told by the geneticist that all of the genetic tests were normal!!

Over these past 6 weeks my Auntie heart has ached for Lydia, my Sister heart has ached for my sister and my Mama heart has wept and worried and prayed for both of them. There is nothing like having a big close knit family, but it also means that you are going to go through the hard times as well as the good times with them!

When Janell told me the tests were normal this morning it was almost too good to be true. I just burst into happy, laughing tears. In fact the rest of the family was still asleep and Jeremy came down because he didn't know what was wrong.

Lydia does have lower muscle tone. Her holding her head up in this picture was quite an accomplishment. We will continue to cheer for every developmental milestone for quite some time. One thing that we prayed for was that these genetic tests would be conclusive. They were and so Janell can be confident that the delays are not caused by anything genetic. That is a relief.

For right now I'm going to keep my thoughts on forcing babies into developmental boxes to myself!

Today is a day to be happy and free of worry. My sister got a crushing hug and Lydia got all kinds of hugs and kisses tonight!!!

Candy Days

2011-10-31T22:14:00.002-04:00

Friday evening we had a Sheats cousins candy hunt. It was meant to be our nod to Halloween and satisfy a young child's "need" for lots of candy at the end of October. Everyone waited in the living room while Grandad and the Daddy's covered the Great Room floor with candy.


Aliza: Strawberry Shortcake, Josiah: Spiderman (thank you Caleb!), Caleb: Thor, Renee: Ladybug

Gideon: Cowboy

Anna found candy too!

We had plans to have dinner with some friends tonight, but she didn't feel well and had to cancel. We stop by Matt and Chrissy's house every year for a piece of candy so after supper we headed over to their house. We had only been there a few minutes when Brian, Meghan, Caleb and Gideon walked up. After they left Aliza politely and genuinely told me that she really wished she could go trick or treating. I couldn't resist. Chrissy rounded up some bags and off they went.

Aliza is Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba. This was one of her imaginary friends. I had bought this costume for her birthday present before she quickly went into the Strawberry Shortcake stage. So I had this costume stashed away. I was very hesitant to get it out today for fear that it would be too small. It fit quite well and she had a ball wearing it.

Oh yes!! Look who found Chrissy's candy dish.

As for trick or treating they got plenty of candy. From what I understand Aliza walked up confidently to every door and said trick or treat.

It Was Inevitable

2011-10-28T22:05:00.001-04:00

There is significance to this picture and it is not that Anna is eating spaghetti and making a big mess. This is the first picture I took on my new iphone 4. I really wasn't going to do it, BUT the phone on my old blackberry quit working. Then it was inevitable. One must have a camera on their phone, right?!

It was a big risk when we took all 3 children to the AT&T store after supper one evening. We survived...even the children. Aliza informed me that she would teach me how to use it then continued with a detailed explanation of how to slide the arrow all the way across the bar to start. Then on the way home she piped up and asked, "Mommy, can I have your old phone?"

My brain started spinning when Jeremy was showing me everything it could do. This is one powerful piece of technology! I don't make it work hard at all! So far the data plan has been used very little. I have not added the facebook app. Yay me! I hope I keep it that way. I turned off a whole bunch of notifications. It only tells me if I have a call or a text. Now the camera and the video stuff--that is pretty cool. Tonight when my camera batteries died it was sure handy to pull out my phone and keep taking pictures.

Oh! I almost forgot. The screen is so pretty and clean I keep wanting to look at it over and over. Since there is no blinking message light and I rarely hear the alert since my house is noisy and I don't keep my phone attached to me I go look at that screen a bit too frequently.

The Great Sweet Potato Harvest

2011-10-26T21:55:00.000-04:00

Josiah could hardly wait to meet his best friend, Caleb, and help Great Grandad harvest sweet potatoes. They both brought their shovels and got busy digging right away.

When Josiah picked up a sweet potato he walked over to Great Grandad saying, "Great Grandad, I have a present for you!"

But it wasn't so very long until the best friends got to talking and playing and Great Grandad was the one doing the digging and picking up.

So most the morning the 3 oldest cousins played a game of super heroes today. They all had special powers and Aliza was the evil villein. Sounds like a good old fashioned games of boys against girls to me!

Renee wanted nothing more than to push Anna in the swing. She took her life into her own hands on more than one occasion dodging swings to get to Anna.

"Great" Memories

2011-10-24T22:01:00.000-04:00

This weekend the children and I got to spend some extra time with Great Gramma and Grandad while Jeremy was out of town. The weather was just perfect so we spent as much time outside as possible. Aliza and Josiah even talked Great Grandad into going back outside after supper. It was dark and I found them playing on the play equipment with flashlights! How cool is that?!

Josiah and Great Grandad started harvesting sweet potatoes.

I have to cherish the moments when Josiah is being nurturing to Anna.

Anna LOVED playing with the rocks on the driveway. She must have liked how they tasted too...

He's never far from this tractor when he visits Grandad's house.

We had a picnic...

I thought I was brilliant for thinking of this idea for Anna. haha.


This is a Great Gramma and Grandad style picnic. A table filled with food in the background and a standing ladder for a table and wagon for a chair.

Anna--11 Months

2011-10-22T22:49:00.002-04:00

Seriously!? 11 months!!? I tried all day to get a picture. It's impossible. So here are a couple of Anna in motion.

I put shoes on Anna for the first time today. It slowed her down a little.

She's a talker!

Saying Hiiii on the phone.

Word Picture

2011-10-20T23:10:00.000-04:00

A friend of mind told me about this story after she heard it on the radio. I kept thinking about it and a few days later I called her to see if there was any chance she could find it in writing.

This story has helped me to maybe understand a little bit of what my sister is facing. She and her husband are waiting for the results of the second round of genetic testing on their baby.

I thought it was worth sharing.

Welcome To Holland
by
Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience tounderstand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip -to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack yourbags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardesscomes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up forItaly! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed ofgoing to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Hollandand there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting,filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just adifferent place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole newlanguage. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would neverhave met.

It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashythan Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath,you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....andHolland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're allbragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest ofyour life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That'swhat I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because theloss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy,you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ...about Holland.

* * *
©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved. Reprinted bypermission of the author.
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Getting Into Everything

2011-10-19T22:43:00.001-04:00

As a friend pointed out to me today, Anna is "almost 1." I prefer to say that she is 10 months old despite the fact that in a few days she will be 11 months old. The point is: Anna is getting into everything and sometimes she can make quite a mess and I can find her unexpected places.

Anna ate the whole ice cream cone (without ice cream) that she found in the pantry.

She got in the sandbox all by herself. She's waving at me.

And this one took the cake. It happened on a day that I was babysitting my niece all day too. I made the mistake of sitting down. That mess is a pudding mix. She got into the box and apparently gnawed through the packet. The packet was completely wet--and empty. Anna went straight to the bathtub and thankfully no other child found the mess before it was cleaned up.

Wedding

2011-10-18T23:15:00.000-04:00

On Saturday we attended the wedding of Jeremy's cousin. The ceremony was beautiful and touching. The bride and groom are both fluent in American Sign Language and the bride is also fluent in Spanish. They had a portion of Scripture read in English, then signed in ASL, and then read in Spanish. The groom was born with Spina bifida. It was touching to watch them interact, declare their undying love to each other and wash each others feet as part of the ceremony.

Our whole family attended this wedding. I walked into the sanctuary and my heart started beating hard. The floor was tile! Josiah quickly discovered that the room echoed! When the processional started Anna started saying Hi to everyone as they walked in. Oh.My.Goodness. What a circus the back pew was! I kept Anna pretty quiet. It wasn't long before we whipped out the ipad for Aliza and the iphone for Josiah.

The reception was leisurely. I brought something new for Aliza and Josiah. It's a good thing that tractors keep Josiah occupied. He was busy scooping lettuce from the salad.

Cute favor idea. Hot drink mixes.

Kristen and I wore very similar style dresses.

A pretty baby! The photographers took tons of pictures of my kids. lol.


Mr. & Mrs.

It was a fun weekend. Late nights and no rest times for the kiddos led to some adjustment to being at home on Monday! They had so much fun playing with Collin and all the toys at their Great Aunt and Uncle's house.

Friday

2011-10-16T21:59:00.000-04:00

On Friday Aliza and Josiah thought they would try out a new word. Bored. They were laying on the kitchen floor moaning about how bored they were. So I helped them to not be bored anymore. Their job was to scrub the steps.

They had a bit too much fun. They ended up covering themselves in soapy bubbles. But the house smelled good and the steps are, ummm, cleaner, anyway.

After lunch and after I convinced Jeremy that we were not going to wait indefinitely for his

iphone 4gs to be delivered, we headed up to PA to visit my Great Aunt and Uncle on our way to a wedding. How many children get to interact with their Great Great Aunt and Uncle?! We visited in their home for a short while and then went to supper with them. Squire Side is the place I must eat at while in New Holland, PA! It's a cute place and the ice cream is yummy.


Uncle Allen coached Josiah on drawing a tractor...just like the one on his hat!

This stop made an extra leg in our trip, but it has been 2 years since we saw them. I'm glad we made the effort!

Annual Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-09T22:37:00.000-04:00

If you've been following our family for any length of time, this post is predictable! Today was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. We have visited Oakley's Farm Market for several years. It is fun to go to the same place with our children a year older each time. They enjoy it in a different way each time. Of course this was Anna's first visit to the pumpkin patch.

Discussing which path to take in the corn maze. The corn was very sad looking this year! It was so short Aliza could almost see over it. We had a dry, hot summer.

Lots of fun on the great big pipe slide.

I made pumpkin pancakes when we got home. That was a first for me. They were yummy with a little butter and syrup!

Quandry

2011-10-06T22:20:00.002-04:00

1. This cat showed up in our yard earlier this week. I'm not an animal person. I'll pet animals, but I won't pick them up. This little cat has hung around until all 3 of my children are comfortable around him. At first Josiah would not go outside, but now he will pet the cat. Anna is not afraid at all, but that just follows her personality! I traumatized my friend's child tonight when I told her that she could not give this cat some milk. I have enough mouths to feed. I do not need anything else that would even hint of making any demands on me. So this poor cat is welcome to hang around as long as it finds its own food and shelter. He has already gotten in to the car and our house...that does not earn him brownie points with me!

2. Jeremy is getting a the new iphone. I think it is called iPhone 4S. Yes, it is. I looked over at his computer to check. ha! Anyway, this means that he has offered to get me the iphone 4 (I think) because the price will be reduced. I have to decide if I want it. Now that's a quandry for me! New technology is great and fun. I'm sure I would get used to it and ultimately wonder how I ever lived without it. Being married to a tech guy and having tech kids should make me want to keep up with the latest and greatest, but I don't know if it is what I want. Right now I have set times of the day that I check email, look at facebook and poke around on the internet. I look forward to those time, believe me. However, I do not need or want my phone to be calling my name every moment of the day. I don't want to be having a conversation with someone and be tempted to do something inconsequential on my phone. Jeremy and I ate out last night when he made me this offer. As he did he had his own iphone out and was doing whever he does on it. I just had to laugh and cringe at the possibility of a date with both of us doing whatever we do on our phones. Ugh. Technology is so good and so horrible all at the same time.

What Happens....

2011-10-02T22:46:00.001-04:00

....when your boy wakes up and puts on his fishing clothes, insisting that Grandad is taking him fishing today?

You tell him that when said boy asked Grandad to take him fishing, Grandad did not mean today.

....when your boy says you need to go to Grandad's house to see if he is home to go fishing?

You say you will call Grandad to see what a good day would be to go fishing.

....when Grandad receives a call asking when he can take his grandson fishing?

Grandad says well, come on down! We'll go to the docks this morning!

...when Mama tells her boy that he can go fishing.

Little boy tells his big sister to hurry up and dressed. Mama hops in the shower and is out the door and on her way to meet Grandad in a half hour!

...when big sister finds out little brother is going fishing and she is invited?

She starts crying alligator tears that she wants to stay with Mommy.

...when Mommy says. that's fine you can stay with me?

Big girl calls her Grandma to see if she will have a pot of tea ready for a tea party when we arrive.

Brain Dump

2011-09-30T21:06:00.001-04:00

When I don't think I have anything to talk about, it is always interesting to dump my brain and see what is there. Fair warning!

Yesterday was such a beautiful morning that we delayed school and Aliza and Josiah played outside--together--happily for a long time. Maybe I'll make it a tradition--2 hour delay for a beautiful day.
Sometimes you are the one to go through a hard time. Other times you are the one to carry a burden with someone else.
Last night I got to go out for an evening with my sister-in-law. When I came home I thought of something else I wanted to tell her. Jeremy said "You were gone for 4 hours! How could you have anything left to talk about?" Meghan and I don't seem to have a shortage of things to talk about.
We went to Olive Garden. Alone. Without children. Would you believe that somehow I managed to knock over my glass of water?!
There are a couple other girl events in the works. Yay!
I'm reading The Help. Good book. It's been hard to put it down when I know I should go to sleep.
It is quite rewarding to watch Aliza learn to read.
Anna said hi, bye and clapped all in the same evening. That was a little much for Mama.
After a month of our lawnmower breaking every time Jeremy started mowing the grass, our jungle is now a yard again.
I try to avoid analyzing why I am not an effective potty trainer.
Silence is a beautiful sound!

Good night!

Capitalizing on Interest

2011-09-25T22:09:00.000-04:00

On Friday Aliza was introduced to the food pyramid. (I have since been informed that this is an old version of the food pyramid, but I'm sure the concept is still valid.) She found this to be wildly interesting and immediately wanted to make her own pyramid. I drew the pyramid, she wrote the categories and we copied the foods her teacher put in each category. Aliza wasn't finished. She checked the refrigerator and pantry to see what we missed. She still wasn't finished. She went up to her room, gathered her food from her kitchen, put it in a bag, brought it downstairs, and one by one we made sure each food item was on our pyramid. Finally, we posted her pyramid in the dining room where everyone could see it.

What I didn't realize was that Aliza expected us to eat only the food included on her pyramid. "Grilled cheese" wasn't on her list and at that moment she couldn't understand how foods could be separated into different groups. I accommodated her and made hotdogs, macaroni and cheese and corn for lunch. For supper we had pizza and we divided that in to groups. The next morning when she wanted candy before lunch, I told her we were not eating anything from the sweet group before lunch. She said oh. ok. and that was the end of that! Woohoo!

This was a learning experience for me. As you can imagine this project drug out for a long time! I am result driven. When I was in school, I was not a learner. I was an outstanding student. I did my work well--to make a certain grade (an A to be specific). I could memorize well and I was willing to play the game to get the result I wanted or the result I perceived someone else expected.

What Aliza did on Friday was learning. She worked with that food pyramid. We didn't do Math or Bible on Friday. That bugged me. My instinct was to have her "make up" that work this weekend. I decided against it. We had a school day on Friday and it was a good school day. There is no need for Aliza to feel "punished" for doing the extra work that she didn't even realize she made for herself.

I have a feeling that my children are going to teach me to be a learner while they go about satisfying their natural curiosity.

An Artistic Daddy

2011-09-24T22:31:00.001-04:00

I'm so thankful Jeremy has artistic talent. I don't. I can barely draw a stick figure. We were given a book called 365 Projects to Do and Make. Aliza loves that book. She looks through it and marks every project that she wants to do. Most of the projects are involved and complicated. I take one look at them and I have an intense desire to clean bathrooms!

One Saturday Aliza was determined to do a craft. Lucky for me Daddy was home! He sat down at the table with Aliza. I took Josiah and Anna outside. It turned out to be a most lovely Daddy/Daughter date. Aliza talked his ear off while they worked together for the better part of the morning.

A bookcase with boy books and girl books, a dresser, a stove, a refrigerator and 3 beds which Aliza painted.

And for the rest of the day they were especially close buddies!

Williamsburg

2011-09-23T16:00:00.000-04:00

It was a very rainy 2 days in Williamsburg. There was a putting green directly outside of our 3rd floor room. Aliza, Josiah and Jeremy were able to enjoy that the first day. It was chilly, but the children went swimming. They even tried out the outdoor pool for a few minutes. Joel and Brandi came that evening. All 3 of the children had colds so we spent lots of time watching PBS Kids and swimming in the indoor pool.

As soon as Brandi arrived, Aliza declared that they needed alone time. What does this 5 year old need to talk privately to her Aunt about? Minecraft, of course!!!

Aliza just giggles when she sees Joel. Josiah, on the other hand, is ready to wrestle.

Walking to the pool in the rain. We had the pool to ourselves that morning.

Josiah loved the bubbles in the hot tub.

Anna LOVED the water. We had to hang on to her because she wanted to reach over the float to splash the water.


				.

Yes, we had our own internet cafe.

Fun times and good memories. We came home utterly exhausted. But we had fun so it was worth it. I keep reminding myself and looking back at the scrapbook pages... Exhaustion is worth the memories.

Anna--10 Months

2011-09-22T22:21:00.002-04:00

Anna is 10 months old today. She can be a little chatterbox saying Da da da. I try to get her to say Ma ma ma and she responds with Da da da. And boy, does she know who her Daddy is! When he walks in the door she is one excited little girl. Today I held Anna up to the window so she could she Daddy get out of the car and she immediately started with Da da da and banged on the window. She only has 3 teeth and she continues to be content and laid back. Laid back until her brother is too rough with her and then she lets me know! She'll have no problem keeping up with her brother and sister.

Hunt Club Farm

2011-09-21T20:28:00.001-04:00

Last week we spent a long weekend in Williamsburg with Jeremy's parents, brother and sister-in-law. I did a little research and found a petting zoo in Virginia Beach. We left early in the day and had some family time at Hunt Club Farm.

The goats were excited for a snack. Jeremy called the little guy at the bottom an opportunist. He got an extra handful.

Aliza didn't want anything to do with the chickens.

There was tractor to play on. Josiah couldn't have been happier.

Me and my girls.

This was the coolest thing. First you put food in the cup....

....Then you pull the rope...

....And the goats wait at the top for the food to arrive. As soon as the goats saw us arrive they ran up the ramps to wait.

The baby goats were a hit.

Lots of fun on the playground.


The farm gave us buy 1 get 1 free coupons for Menchi's. I was so happy since I was hungry for ice cream. This was such a neat place. You put as much yogurt as you want in a bowl, add whatever toppings you want (there are tons to choose from) and then pay by the ounce.

After weaving our way in and out of Virginia Beach, sitting in traffic and driving through thunderstorms, it felt like we had been on the road ALL DAY by the time we got to Williamsburg.

Family Memories

2011-09-14T22:49:00.000-04:00

So there are a lot of pictures on this post. Blogger has made it far too easy for me to upload pictures now and I just couldn't choose!!!

We took family pictures with Laura Dye. The idea was to create an evening full of family fun in a pretty setting. Family portraits with everyone looking at the camera is a disaster waiting to happen for a family like ours so this no pressure approach worked out great for us. Laura and I talked about going to the beach, but given the ages of my children I thought that the driving range, a picnic basket filled with watermelon and orange soda, bubbles and balloons would be quite exciting.

I put some (ok...for me it was a lot) effort into coordinating our attire and I must admit that when I realized thaat I could buy orange Crush in glass bottles I was giddy. Laura and I didn't even talk about colors and she showed up with polka dotted balloons in the perfect colors. =)

It was hard to choose. I hesitate to even call these my favorites because I'll look through them again and I'll see another one that makes me smile.

He's got a mighty swing.

Aliza instantly declared this picture her most favorite. I worry about her sometimes!

Our one family shot....Aliza has her tongue out. My point about disaster in the making proven! But this picture still makes me happy. It is who we are! Golf club in hand to convince Josiah to cooperate. Aliza with her tongue out. Baby on my hip. What a time in life to remember!

And, oh yes, I love him. A LOT!!!


My first reaction...Wow! Her fingernails were clean. hahaha.

Laura has her favorites up on her blog. If you are local you should have her take your family pictures! You'll love her.

Unbelievable Continued

2011-09-13T22:44:00.002-04:00

After the Mommy time out abruptly ended, I thought the unbelievableness of the day would be over. It wasn't. So we'll just continue on.

My next move was to clean up lunch. In the process I realized my sister had tried to call me. I was in the middle of texting her that my lunch hour was so horrendous that I was not in the mood to talk when the phone rang.

Our caller ID announced that the call was from California. I knew who it was and just had to shake my head at the timing. We support New Life Ministries based in Laguna Beach, California and every once in a while they call to thank us for supporting them. I have never answered that phone call before, but today I did. On the other end was a wonderful woman ready to listen. I spared her and only told her in the briefest of ways that I'm a mom and I had a horrific lunch hour that included discipline, poop on the deck, a hose and a baby. She told me that she was a mom of 4 and remembered those days. We chatted a bit and she prayed for me. Aaaahhhhh. Just what I needed. It was just the human contact, encouragement and prayer that I needed. I was ready to call my sister after that.

Then we were ready for a very late rest time. I took Aliza and Josiah up only to realize that Josiah was not going to settle easily. I read to him and left him to play in his room. While I was reading to Aliza, Josiah decided that he needed to use the potty. He took care of that by himself. He came back to ask me if he should flush. I said yes. After a minute, he came flying back into the room almost crying. He ran straight to Aliza saying, "LIZA, LIZA, MY PACI WENT DOWN THE DRAIN." With a few questions we realized that while he was flushing his paci dropped into the toilet and was flushed. Oh. My. Goodness. It was all I could do not to laugh. It was our conscience decision to let the whole paci thing take its natural course. So today Josiah lost his for good. Aliza felt so bad for him that she got teary eyed. Josiah told me that the paci truck was taking paci's to the paci store to be painted green and blue so we needed to go get one. He has one that has a hole in it that he can hold if he wants to. Josiah has slept without a paci on several occasions, but today he did not fall asleep, however Aliza did.

So it wasn't the peace and quiet I was hoping for. I survived. I needed just a couple things at the store. I was going to take everyone tomorrow, but I decided to go tonight because I did not think I would be able to take Josiah in a store without buying him a paci.

That's the end of this unbelievable day. When I was thinking about starting tomorrow I thought of Lamentations 3:22-24
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait on him."

Unbelievable

2011-09-13T13:37:00.001-04:00

I just had a series of events take place that were so unbelievable that I have required myself to take a computer time out. The best way for me to process something is to talk about it so here we go.

We got home from doing a quick errand just after noon. That is a little late for us so I was busy getting lunch ready and Aliza had instructions to finish a lesson. Aliza has had trouble recently controlling where she uses her pencil and I came in to the dining room to find her using her pencil very inappropriately. She was soundly disciplined and I was angry. I went back to the kitchen, continued to feed Anna, assured myself I was well within the realm of responsibility in disciplining Aliza and had just put a bagel in the toaster for my lunch when Josiah came in from the deck.

He announced that there was a big pile and a little pile of poop outside. UUUUGGGGG. I walked outside. It smelled like a barn. I had to spray off the deck and his toys---that had been driven through the poop. (Now's not a good time to talk about how potty training has progressed.) I was hoppin' mad again. I got the outside cleaned up and then we went to the tub to clean up the boy. My bagel burned while I was outside. I came downstairs to clean up the poopy footprints from the door to the tub. (I should have sprayed him off outside, but I didn't think of that.)

Poor Anna was sitting in her highchair waiting for the rest of her lunch this whole time.

I made myself another bagel and we all sat down to each our cold lunches. During lunch I had to repeatedly remind Aliza to sit down. For some reason she wants to stand up whenever she talks--which is all the time. If the cottage cheese on the spoon would have fallen to the floor while she was standing up carrying on her conversation I think I would have screamed! She got back to her chair just in the knick of time. By this time I asked Aliza if she could tell that Mommy was having a hard time. She said yes. I told her when Mommy is having a hard time that is a good time for her to have very good behavior. She agreed.

Anna finished her lunch. I got her washed off and took her over to the toy room to play. As I set her down I realized that Aliza had not closed the door on the car when she came in. I sent her out to close it. After a few minutes of eating in peace I realized it was taking far too long for her to close the door. I went outside to find her. There she was--with the hose--spraying the car--with the door open. I try not to let the neighbors hear me, but this time I had to summon up some extra self control. She got the door closed and came in. The inside of the car was dry.

Thankfully, it is now DVD time. It may be DVD time for the rest of the day. I may even give Aliza Benadryl at rest time so she sleeps (just kidding). I have no desire to face the rest of the day. All of the above events took place in a span of less than 45 minutes.

Oh no, I hear Anna. Oh my! She is 3/4 of the way up the steps. Don't worry. I've already retrieved her. What was a thinking? Mommy's don't get time outs!!!!

Work Party

2011-09-11T22:07:00.000-04:00

Dad invited the men in the family over for a work party this afternoon. The organization my sister works for bought new playground equipment. Dad offered to remove the old equipment for them so now it resides in his yard. My, oh my, the grandchildren will have a ball for many years to come!

Josiah was quite thrilled to be able to help!

Pounding nails.

Putting up the curly slide. Aliza is a helper too!

Helping Great Grandad secure a slide. There are 4 slides altogether!

From the other side after the curly slide was up.

Putting up the swinging bridge. I love how everyone has a job! Jeff is under the bridge.

Testing out the bridge. It gets guard rails yet.

Community Tragedy

2011-09-08T21:34:00.000-04:00

I feel like I want to write tonight, but I'm not sure how to write or even what I am feeling. I live in a community of people where neighbors are not just houses beside you. Neighbors are people who know who you are, watch your home for oddities, and talk to you regularly. There are the few busy bodies that you avoid because you know that they know everything about everyone. I'm even on the village Methodist church mailing list which insures that I know all of the "prayer requests" each week. What happened this week has successfully shaken every one up.

Simply, a woman, who I did not personally know, was reported missing. She and her husband live less than a half mile from our house. It's a house that I drive past every day. The story is all over our local news. Last night the husband committed suicide and foul play is suspected.

Probably a typical murder-suicide. It happens all the time, right? But not right down the street in a close knit community like mine. What is it about this that has kept it on my mind all day long? I don't know these people. There is no reason for it to bother me so much.

Maybe it bothers me because:

just like that a household has disappeared. (the couple has no children)
people can have such intense issues and can successfully hide them
the woman is still missing
I let my children play outside with my watchful eye on them from the kitchen, but is that enough?
I wonder if I should trust the neighbors I do know
I really love the quiet, safe community that I live in, but is it safe enough?

I'll keep thinking. I feel like I need to process something, but I'm not sure exactly what the something is. Tomorrow I'm going to crank up the Jesus Culture music. HE is the Lord of our household and no matter what tragedy comes along we will live our life in a way that glorifies Him.

A Special Friend

2011-09-06T22:37:00.001-04:00

Aliza and Kelsey met each other at Bible School. Kelsey was the assistant in Aliza's class. Aliza talked about Kelsey the whole week of Bible School. Little did I know that Kelsey would become a special friend of our family.

Aliza, Josiah and Anna all love Kelsey. She comes along on outings just for fun. This week we went to the zoo and because someone came along we were able to play at the park. (This particular park requires two adults to supervise 3 children. )

Don't worry. Anna didn't walk far!

Aliza the Sloth.


Josiah working hard at the playground sandbox.

Now Kelsey is back in school. Aliza asks to have "playdates" with Kelsey. I'm sure we'll keep in touch with her through the school year--as long as she wants to keep in touch with us!!!! =)

School Days

2011-09-04T22:29:00.000-04:00

*Blogger made my night! I can choose more than 5 pictures at a time AND they upload in the order that I choose them!!!! Amazing! *

Aliza is 12 days in to her first year of school. Her first day of school was August 15. My thought was to do 1 day the first week, 2 or 3 days the second week and then a full 5 days last week. Well, the first week she wanted to do school as soon as she woke up every morning so we did 4 days of school the week of August 15.

Aliza was particularly excited about Math. She is good at math and she couldn't wait to learn about numbers. When we started the lesson, she had a paper in front of her turned upside down. After the lesson on circles I asked her about the paper. She showed it to me. On it she has written 3, 3, 6 and 4, 4, 8. She said, I know plus 3 plus 3 is 6 and plus 4 plus 4 is 8. Suffice to say, math has yet to challenge her.

Here's a look at school at our house:

First day of school.

Doing worktext. Since the first day, Aliza has learned to hold her pencil correctly.

Preparing the snack of the week. I figured since it was her snack, Aliza should put the batter in the cups.

A unit on firefighters and we made fire fighter hats.

Josiah working hard. Cutting and gluing.

Paper chains to learn about patterns.


Practicing patterns. It was at this point that Aliza started making more complicated patterns on her own than the examples. We put away the DVDs for a while.

I have gone through my own range of feelings these last 3 weeks. School has added a whole new dimension to our lives. I feel like I have worked harder than I ever have before. Some days I feel like all I accomplished was running circles keeping children satisfied. Other days have felt productive. Last Wednesday I had the "my daughter is in kindergarten" cry. I didn't leave her at school, but I needed to cry over my child growing up and reaching this milestone. I also realized that I either "do" school or Aliza goes to school. We aren't just playing school for the fun of it. That was a reality check and maybe for a few days I felt trapped in this new phase of life.

I can confidently say that is the best thing for our family at this time in our lives. That is a good feeling.

I don't want this blog to be all about school. I'd like to share exciting milestones--like this week Aliza will get her first reader with sentences for her to read! But I also don't want to put Aliza in a position where she could be judged by others on her progress. Back to that balancing act of life!

Balance

2011-08-31T21:02:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about balance today. It seems that all of life is a balancing act. Particularly, today, I have been thinking about how to teach my 5 year old to have balance in her life.

Then I started wondering if all 5 year olds are obsessive over their interest-of-the-moment.

I guess my problem is that my 5 year old is obsessed with something I am not really interested in. Minecraft. A computer game. There is nothing inherently bad about it. Every conversation that she is engaged in begins and ends with Minecraft. She wants to give me lessons and talk to me about it all the time.

On the flip side it is an extremely valuable bargaining tool. I can get her to do practically anything if the privilege of playing Minecraft is threatened.

Then I tried to put her same obsession into other things, and they would still be obsessions that I would need to teach her to balance with other interests. If she was reading and thinking about a book series as much as she thinks about Minecraft I would still need to make her go outside and play etc. But I wouldn't feel the need to limit her access to books the way I feel I need to limit her access to a screen. Or if she played dress up or house or played with friends as much as she thinks and plays Minecraft I would still need to balance those interests with other activities.

I'm struggling with this a bit. Does anyone want to weigh in?

Fire Engine Snacks

2011-08-30T22:08:00.002-04:00

This is a great project for any fire-engine-loving child. They were fun to make and fun to share at Bible study tonight!

Frost a graham cracker. The obvious color choice would be red. My children wanted purple and blue. So that's what we did!

Use pretzel sticks to make a ladder.

Vanilla wafers for wheels.

A gumdrop for a light and any rectangle shaped candy for a cab. I happened to have a chocolate bar so that's what we used.

Our fire engines!

Wind and Rain

2011-08-28T21:28:00.002-04:00

I think it is safe to say that, for our area, the media over dramatized this storm. We had inches and inches of rain. It poured for over 12 hours. There was wind, but there was very little damage.

The advantage of us being at my parents during the storm was that their house is brick with new windows. Their house is quiet! We spent a lot of hours sitting in front of the big bay windows just watching the wind and the rain, but we hardly heard it. My parents lost electricity at 4pm and it was not restored until 9am. We expected that.

The ironic part is that our house did not lose electricity at all. Jeremy and I came home this morning to check everything out before we brought the children home. We have some branches to pick up. Josiah is happy about that! The other ironic thing is that the biggest limbs that we lost fell before we left yesterday morning.

We had a good time with my parents, grandparents and sister. Lost of time in the dark to visit. It is amazing how much technology is still available to us after electricity is out. Jeremy's iphone and ipad were still functioning. The disadvantage was that the children could play games. The advantage was that Jeremy could continue to track the storm. There are always seemingly equal advantages and disadvantages with technology.

Nobody slept well. Anna cried really hard several times. At 4:30am the entire family was awake and Aliza had a very hard time falling back asleep. After Jeremy and I checked our house, Brian's house and Matt and Chrissy's house we picked up the children and came home. I was counting on good naps. Somehow Aliza managed to keep herself awake. After her night I have no clue how she did that.

Now everybody is asleep and I'm looking forward to a quiet night.

Good Morning Irene

2011-08-27T10:41:00.002-04:00

I woke up at 6:15 this morning and it was raining. That was the end of sleep for me. Now I have nothing better to do than blog while I wait for Jeremy to get home from helping Dad finish up Brian's house and do a couple errands. The Sheats men get it done--at the last minute! So let me tell you it is POURING!!! The wind is kicking up a little bit here and there. The worst is not expected until late tonight.

So first Dad put the tire on our mower. I had no doubts that everyone would be helping.

Under that blanket are all my scrapbooks. Our bedroom is upstairs. I figure if I lose the scrapbooks I have probably lost everything else. The only obsessive thing I'm taking with me is my wedding negatives. I don't consider taking my computer obsessive. I'm leaving all of Aliza's school books. Jeremy says those can be replaced. I'm taking a ton of food and drinks.

Sure hoping this turns out to be much ado about nothing! That being said we already have a large tree branch on the ground.

I'll be back when this is all over!!! =)

24 Hours

2011-08-26T22:02:00.002-04:00

Today was B.U.S.Y. I was headed to the library and my sister called and said, Do you know your zip code is under a recommended evacuation? I said "By when?" She said, "10am." Nice. It was after 10. I saw no reason to change our plans. As it turned out the evacuation included our zip code but our house was not in the flood zone. I picked up Kelsey and we headed to the library to stock up on new books for the weekend. I bought Aliza and Josiah flashlights so we will read.

After the library we went to my brother's house to clean up their yard. He's been working in his wife's home area this last week so they are just staying put until the hurricane passes. Kelsey was a huge help. She took care of the children and I took care of yard stuff. We picked up McDonald's, went to the bank, took Kelsey home and got back to our house at 1:30. Rest time was late. I rested, hopped up and started cleaning up our yard. Let me tell you it is humid. I was dripping sweat.

When I got home there was a reverse 911 call from our County Executive on my answering machine. He was calling to inform us we were in the evacuation zone and to assure us that the county was taking all emergency preparations. Later in the afternoon I had a message from our electric company assuring us that they were getting personnel in place to restore power as quickly as possible but to expect widespread extended outages. Those calls left me with a hyper feeling.

With any luck we will have some sand left. Aliza and Josiah helped me carry bricks while Anna played in the exosaucer on the deck. It is lovely to have everything cleaned up.

Our lawnmower had a tire blowout this week. It is sitting on a jack in the middle of our yard. Dad is bringing a tire tomorrow so it should get to the garage before the storm. Josiah worked so hard to fix it this evening!

And while we were working, Jeremy won this plaque!

I feel wound up tonight. It may take me a little while to fall asleep. Tomorrow is another day. I think I'll be able to update one more time before we lose electricity.

48 Hours

2011-08-25T23:17:00.002-04:00

I guess we are on the 48 hour countdown to whatever Hurricane Irene will bring. I started thinking about being prepared for no electricity this morning, but there was no way I was tracking 3 kiddos to the store for just a few things. I went this evening and it was just about too late.

No milk.

Plenty of bottled water!

No size D batteries. (That's what flashlights require.)

No bread.

I'm of the opinion that when it comes to times of possible emergency food should be rationed, but that is not a subject for tonight!

The Earth Moved

2011-08-23T22:17:00.002-04:00

Today was my second earthquake experience. The first was a very long time ago in Oregon. It was 5am when I woke up and figured I must just be shivering so hard that the bed was moving and then figured I threw the covers somehow to make the mini blinds swing back and forth. It was not until I woke up later in the morning that I found out it was an earthquake.

My family made a couple big moves during my time at home. After a tornado passed in close proximity to our house in Kansas a key question to Dad when he told us where we were moving was "What are the natural disaster possibilities?" One of Maryland's only plusses for me (at that time) was the low chance of natural disasters. An earthquake was not even on the list. Hurricanes were the only real possibility.

Today a few minutes before 2pm I was sitting in the rocking chair waiting for Josiah to pick out a book to read before rest time. He was stalling and I was getting frustrated. I figured I must be far more tired than I thought I was because it looked like the closet, windows and bed were moving. It felt more like a vibration so then I thought that the dryer (I was doing laundry) must be horribly off balance. Then I thought, "So off balance that it could knock down the house?" By then it stopped and Aliza called me. I started thinking earthquake? Not here!? So I went to Aliza and she said, Mommy, I think our house was shaking. I agreed with her and then she rationalized that she must have done it. I went downstairs to check the dryer (haha) and made a call to Jeremy. I figured he was really going to think I was nuts when I told him our house was shaking. I tried to call 3 times and could not connect to his phone. That made me a little nervous so I figured I'd just call Mom and tell her that I know I'm crazy but I was upstairs and I'm sure my house was shaking. Well, I got through to Mom and told her that I was nuts and she said "We felt it too." It was about 5 minutes too soon for the earthquake in Richmond to make the news, but we found out soon enough.

Since we don't have TV, my father-in-law keeps me updated when I need to know weather related information. (We've worked out the details of what I need to know and what I should not, for my own mental health, know.) He texted me right away and then called. My Mom made sure I was ok. I had a couple other people text me and I was reminded how absolutely blessed I am to be surrounded with people who care about me.

Anna--9 Months

2011-08-23T22:12:00.002-04:00

Miss Anna is 9 months old. She's been out of me as long as she was in me now. For some reason that is a milestone in my brain. She is pretty much pulling up anywhere there is a hand hold and exploring.

Due to the way she crawls, Anna can roll on to her side when she wants to check something out. We call it her Miss America pose.

Nothing is off limits for pulling up. Here she is getting the ketchup out for Grandma Karen.

Water Weekend

2011-08-22T22:48:00.002-04:00

The theme of the weekend was water. In many different forms.

First was a bath. Anna enjoyed it as much as the others. She was splashing. Aliza and Josiah made sure she was quite wet.

Then it was a swimming pool and hopscotch sprinkler. Aliza thought that was super fun.

Later that evening we went to a pool party. All of this was at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Of course, Anna loved the water. She was taking in all the action and was not that active herself.

Aliza and Josiah started out in the children's pool. It wasn't long until Aliza wanted to go in the big pool. Josiah wasn't so sure. But later....

I was so proud of him! He learned to trust the floatie and had a great time. They even drug Mommy in to the big pool.

So much fun.

Our water theme continued on our trip home. We drove through some horrible thunder storms. I drove through the worst of it. I was concentrating so hard that my neck and shoulders were sore and I had a pounding headache by the time we got home. At one point the lightening cracked so close to us and at the same moment the thunder roared. I jumped and got goosebumps. Aliza got Panera for supper out of the deal because we just needed a break. We make it home safe and sound just in time for us to unload the car--you guessed it--in the rain!

A New Niece to Love

2011-08-19T21:32:00.003-04:00

Aliza and Josiah had just snuggled in to our bed when I received a text from Janell at 7:12am. Lydia Eve Hale was born at 3:33am Friday morning. She weighed 6 lbs 8 oz and is 19.25 inches. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was so surprised! They went to the hospital and had a baby and didn't tell anyone. =) Good for them! Plus I slept all night. Good for me! I wasted no time this morning in securing a babysitter to stay with Josiah and Anna so that Aliza and I could meet Lydia.

My beautiful niece, Lydia Eve.

Snapshots

2011-08-16T22:49:00.002-04:00

Grandma taught Aliza to use a peeler. At Grandma's house, Aliza is happiest if she has a job to do.

I told Aliza that if she put her hair in braids or ponytails she wouldn't have as many tangles. She took me up on the offer after a particularly bad brushing experience. She went all out with 5 rubber bands at the bottom (in a specific color order) and 2 clips on each side on top. I happened to think she looked quite adorable and grown up.

This is the definition of Josiah right now. These are his working clothes. At this moment he was getting ready to burn some brush with Daddy. So he has his hat and with his sunglasses on top of his hat (like Daddy). His favorite truck shirt. He would rather have long jeans on, but I try to discourage that this time of year. And his working shoes. I'm of the opinion that he is rather adorable and quite grown up looking too!

It looked for a while like my sister was going to have her baby yesterday so Renee came to stay with us. She reminded me of her Mommy finding a tub to stand on so that she could play with the doll house. She just fit right in with our family and Josiah was so so sad to see her go this morning. He went outside three times to stand on the deck and check to see if the car had left. Janell's 24 hours of contractions turned out to be braxton hicks.

While Renee was here, her sippy cup was often within Anna's reach. Anna wanted that cup more than anything else. I finally gave her a straw and cup to play with and bought her a sippy cup of her own today.

Such a big helper. Josiah scrubbed Daddy's golf clubs with great enthusiasm. The enthusiasm may have been partially because he was staying up late to help.

Anna pulls up all the time now. Such a big girl. She still just has 2 teeth and she started playing peek-a-boo.

Beach Baby

2011-08-12T20:08:00.004-04:00

Aliza, Josiah and Anna all love the beach, but Anna took to the water faster than either of the others. This was her first trip to the beach being mobile. I sat her on the sheet....

...and away she went. No fear. She did her army crawl straight to the water, sucked the salty water and sand off her fingers and never flinched or cried. It was fun to see this fearless adventurous side of her personality shine through!

An Odd Habit

2011-08-11T23:12:00.002-04:00

My last post was on Saturday. Wow! My mind has been busy thinking about school. Too busy. As in it is time to just start so that I can stop thinking (ok, ok. Worrying would be more accurate) and start problem solving. But I'm not going to talk about school tonight.

This poor creature is Josiah's beloved cat. It used to be my cat back in the day when it actually looked like a cat, but Josiah has adopted it and that is fine.
Josiah has an odd habit. When he in a relaxed zone like when he is falling asleep or when he is really into a DVD he will pull fur off the cat and put it in his mouth. It is so gross! This has happened to the point that the cat has large bald spots!

Last week along with his allergy episode the doctor noted that his throat was red. She did a strep test that was negative. I could tell his throat was sore. He told me his Mini Wheat cereal was "big" and when he ate chicken nuggets with ketchup he cried. I noticed that he was coughing once in a while.

Later in the week we were at my parents eating lunch along with Brian's family, Laura and Linda, I think. Josiah started coughing until he gagged and threw up. I cleaned up the plate and table and then he pulls a (small) wad of fur out of his mouth and says, "Look Mom, HAIR!" He then proceeds to eat his entire meal.

That afternoon he said, "Mom, my throat doesn't hurt anymore." Seriously?! I guess my son had a hairball stuck in his throat.

I have been far more adament in stopping him from eating fur. Now he sees the look from me and hides the fur behind his back and says, "Mom, don't look." With a big grin and sparkly eyes.

Silly, silly boy!!!

My New Job Arrived

2011-08-06T22:37:00.002-04:00

I thought I was going to take the boxes and hide away while I looked over the material, but Jeremy and I decided that we wanted to look at everything together. I could hardly wait until the children fell asleep to tear open the boxes!

As we quickly flipped through each book I remembered how happy I am that Jeremy and I are in this together. I remembered that when the idea of homeschooling was first kicked around it was Jeremy that got excited about it first. Jeremy has a natural gift for teaching so I wasn't really surprised when he said, "I wish I could stay home and teach." There have been moments since that I have felt so thankful to be on this journey with a husband who is so supportive and wants to be involved.

It took about 5 minutes for that pile of books to go from exciting to overwhelming! The left pile is all student materials. The 3 cases on the right pile are the instruction DVDs and the spiral bound books are teacher's editions. I have some studying and preparation to do. I'm pretty sure that once I figure out how the curriculum flows, I will find it to be well organized and easy to follow.

We chose to use Bob Jones University Distance Learning on DVD curriculum. It is not the cheapest homeschool curriculum on the market. I'm counting on it living up to its reputation. I'm also banking on Aliza responding well to instruction on DVD.

I woke up at 5:30 the next morning thinking about the pile of teacher's editions sitting on my desk. I didn't fall back asleep. My mind was busy. Since then I have a sort of game plan to get myself situated. I think fitting school into our life is going to be an ongoing experiment.

This week I sent my letter of intent to home school to our Board of Education. That made this whole thing seem very official and final.

Some Little Moments

2011-08-03T21:11:00.002-04:00

First I must finish the story of Josiah's lips. This morning I decided to call the pediatrician to follow up on Josiah. I talked to a nurse who is familiar with our family and had seen Josiah. I explained that I had tracked his reaction to the Ibuprofen I had given him and told her that Josiah's uncle had the same reaction. The nurse didn't say anything so I asked if she had ever seen anything like that. She said they had seen it a few times. I said that surprised me because the Doctor I saw did not made any comment that a reaction to Ibuprofen was possible when I told her I had given him the medicine. (I had even taken the bottle I gave him the medicine from with me and showed the Dr.) The nurse then told me that the Mom has to say what the reaction was to. The Doctor cannot say unless there was an allergy test. I was floored. Here I had gone to a professional thinking they could help me determine why in the world my son's lips had swelled to 4 times their actual size and she could only give him Benedryl and tell me that Josiah's airways were open. Nonetheless, his chart now reflects that he is allergic to Ibuprofen.

Now on to some of our recent memorable moments:

I sent the band outside!

This little boy decided to try skipping naps. It didn't work so well for him.

Homemade Play-Doh: FAIL.

She just started pulling up to her knees and now she is up on her feet!! Anna has done too many new things in the past week. I know she'll be walking before I know it.

Reaction to Ibuprofen

2011-08-01T22:09:00.003-04:00

Josiah woke up during the night with a low-grade fever so I gave him Children's Ibuprofen at 9:30 this morning. Jan came over to watch the children while I had a dentist appointment. She reported that everything went fine with no incidents of any kind. Just a few minutes after she left I noticed that Josiah had two large spots of swelling on his lips. This happened to be almost exactly two hours after I gave him the Ibuprofen.

My Mommy alarms immediately went off. I thought it was the strangest thing and had nothing to attribute it to. I called the Doctor right away and then my Mom and by then my voice was cracking. Over the next hour his lips puffed up to the size in the picture. He looked like a duck. The inside of his lip was showing on the outside. I kept checking on him every couple minutes just to see how much the swelling had increased.

I left for the doctor as soon as my Mom arrived to stay with the girls. I got to the office early, but just explained that his lips were continuing to swell and I was scared. The receptionist took one look at Josiah and sent a nurse out to the waiting room to check on him. She went for Benadryl and in the meantime we were called back to a room and the nurse practitioner followed us in. She said it was an allergic reaction to something. His breathing was clear. His throat was red, but the rapid strep test came back negative. I felt better knowing that a professional had seen him, but was still had no clue what could have caused such a reaction (besides a bee sting and it didn't make sense that a 3 year old would be stung by a bee and nobody know).

I texted a picture to my mother-in-law who is on vacation and farther away than normal. I didn't want her to worry until I knew what was going on. I talked to her later and told her the story and when I got to the Ibuprofen part she said "that's what it is." She told me that her son, Josh, had the same thing happen to him. It happened a couple times before he figured it out and since then he has not taken Ibuprofen and has not had any more lip swelling issues. I was starting to feel better! I texted a picture to Josh and asked him to call me. I told him briefly and he said, "oh yeah, that looks exactly like me." It baffles me a bit that the doctor wouldn't have suggested that, but....who am I to say. I will never give Josiah Ibuprofen again and it will be added to every allergic list I am responsible for!

Tonight Josiah's lips are considerably improved. I gave him Benadryl again before bed. He is improved enough that I will sleep tonight. After a hyper vigilant day I'm pretty tired tonight!

The Year of Ticks

2011-07-29T21:52:00.002-04:00

I haven't had the nerve to post this picture and story, but recently I have heard of some other little boys having some nasty tick bites too. This is Josiah. We have all had ticks on us this year. In April and May it seemed we found a tick on someone just about every day. Recently we have not seen as many.

I removed this tick from Josiah about a week before Easter. That would have been about mid-April. There were 2 bites and the head of the tick broke off and I couldn't remove it. The bites were horribly itchy for Josiah. He would wake up crying and just claw himself when he woke up and throughout the day. I couldn't tell what was the bite and what was irritated from all the itching.

Looking at it now I'm sure I should have taken him to the Doctor much sooner, but on this particular morning the bull's eye was clear to me and I made an appointment immediately. The nurse practitioner looked at it and then called the Doctor and the student with her in to take a look at it. They presumed it was Lyme and saw no need to get blood work done. Josiah took Amoxicillin for 21 days and we put Bactriban ointment on the area until it cleared up.

It is completely healed now and he has not had any other symptoms.

The Plan for Fall

2011-07-28T22:12:00.002-04:00

I have avoided writing this post for long enough. It is time for some of the thoughts swirling around in my head to be put in writing and laid to rest!

Aliza is 5 years old and it is time for her to start kindergarten this fall. Jeremy and I have decided that the best fit for her and our family is to educate her at home.

Before I had children I never dreamed that I would consider home schooling. Jeremy and I started kicking around the idea when Aliza was 2. Over the years many dynamics have added to our decision to educate Aliza at home. Some of our reasons are more noble than others. The bottom line is that I am absolutely thrilled to give Aliza more time at home. I am thrilled to have her in my care and under our influence for the majority of her waking hours every day. I am also thrilled that my life is not yet going to be run by the school bell (that's one of those not-so-noble reasons!).

Yes, I'm thrilled and excited, on the other hand, I'm scared to death! I feel like I did at the end of my pregnancy with my first baby. I wanted that baby so bad and loved her to death already, but I was scared beyond belief. I had no idea what little personality she was going to have. I had no idea of the work load involved or how it would feel to lose sleep night after night. I also must remember that I had no idea of the depth of love I would have for her and how wonderfully rewarding motherhood is. Translate that into homeschooling and that's how I feel.

One thing that was initially important to me was to get connected with a group of other homeschooling Moms that could provide wisdom and support along the way. I met a Mom of four children who homeschools several years ago on a random trip to Barnes and Noble. We exchanged information and she has been very helpful and willing to answer all my questions. She told me about 3 umbrella groups in our area, all of which I tried to become a part of! One is full and the other two require church membership at their church to be a part of them. I admit I did develop a bit of a rejection complex for a few days. I'm over it though. There is a huge amount of freedom in homeschooling and I'm beginning to realize that it is more about your child learning in the safety and security of a loving family than about doing school the "right" way.

I have wonderful family and friends who will support and encourage me and Aliza along the way. I also have a husband who is looking for ways to be tangibly involved in school. It has truly amazed me what a positive response I have had from people of all walks of life when they find out Aliza will be home schooled.

I will be receiving Aliza's kindergarten curriculum in a few weeks. I've already reserved my spot in my parent's living room the night the boxes arrive so that I can look through all the books and DVDs in peace! Tonight I received a sequence of lessons by email and just looking at the topics for each day made me feel excited.

I'm passionate. I'm excited. I've got a little girl who is academically and developmentally ready for kindergarten. I don't think it is possible for us to fail!

To the Zoo to Meet Someone New

2011-07-27T22:20:00.002-04:00

(I have permission from the parties involved to post these pictures!)

I had the privilege of meeting my little sister's boyfriend! We had a fun outing at the zoo and park together. I hope they thought it was fun too!

This is my sister, Linda, and Phil.

Josiah pushed the stroller. What a helpful big brother he is.

It was pretty warm, well, hot that day. The llama in the next picture agrees.

On a different topic completely, I opened Anna's door after I tucked her in tonight and there she was on her knees. I ran for my camera and Jeremy promptly lowered the crib mattress.

The Heat

2011-07-23T22:21:00.003-04:00

Extreme seasonal weather. I finally made myself feel better this week when I realized that in the winter we have snow and sometimes lots of it and in the summer we have heat waves. But when it is snow there is something to show for it--pretty pictures of snow piling up. Heat is not pretty. Heat with intense humidity is even less pretty. That's where we are at. We are sweating it out here on the East Coast.

This is the window air conditioner unit in our bedroom. It is registering its temperature at 80 degrees. Let's just say Jeremy is researching ductless air conditioning as I write this. We need to do something.

It is impossible to beat this heat, but here are some things we have done this week to survive the heat.A beach in our backyard! This was great fun for the 2 days before it got so hot that we just could not be outside.

Curious George is great. The kids at the end of the show gave us this idea for a project. We traced Aliza's body and then she felt her own body and drew in the bones that she felt. She had some ideas from watching the kids on Curious George do it like a big bone in the head where the brain is and 3 bones in the fingers etc. It got a little carried away at the end when she was making dots in the nose and saying "and these are the boogers that we pick out." Then she colored in the whole body and we hung it on the wall to show Daddy.

Another day we we made a tent and Aliza and Josiah went camping in it.

Today Jeremy's aunt and uncle invited us to come over to swim since another aunt and uncle were visiting. It took us about 2 seconds to decide that swimming was something we definitely wanted to do. Great Uncle Buzz has a particular affection for Anna. She was in his arms just about right away. When Jeremy took Anna out to the pool Buzz was ready to introduce her to the water. This was Anna's first time in a pool. She was incredible relaxed.

Aliza really enjoyed the water too. This was the first time she was willing to be in a floatie my herself. She took a nap this afternoon....

Josiah, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the water.

He tried out the squirt gun, but got frustrated with it. It was a bit heavy and cumbersome for him to handle. He preferred to hang out with his Great Uncle Phil. They checked out Buzz's tractors and read the newspaper together. When we came in for lunch Anna drank a bottle and she and her Great Uncle Buzz took a nap.

Anna--8 Months

2011-07-22T22:09:00.002-04:00

Anna gets anywhere she wants to go now! She has a swim motion army crawl down to a science. There is no need for her to figure out a normal hands and knees crawl she is very efficient doing it her own way! She does rock on her hands and knees and can almost get to a sitting position from crawling. Here she is getting in to things:

Found the crayons. There are black crayon marks on her cheeks.

Reaching up as high as she can to reach the magnets.

She got herself into these floaties. I'm not quite sure how she managed to do that. She looks a little surprised herself.

On Josiah

2011-07-21T22:29:00.002-04:00

Josiah had some memorable moments recently:

I love the mix of gender colors and how it did not bother Josiah at all.
I am 2 for 2 on having extremely extended potty training experiences. Josiah has the peeing part down pretty well. He hasn't gotten the getting-redressed-after-you-pee-part down very well. Pooping is another story altogether. It hasn't happened on the potty yet. This morning he needed to poop and came asking me for his pants. I said, "No way! Go sit on the potty!" He ran exclaiming how he would get his grinder if he pooped on the potty. He sat there and I checked on him. With the biggest puppy dog eyes he says, "Mommy, will you push for me?" And with all the compassion that only a Mommy can feel I tell him that I wish I could, but there is no possible way for me to do that for him. Then he says, "But, Mommy, the poop is scared to come out." Awww.
After supper he wanted to wear one of Aliza's princess costumes to be a superhero. She has a white dress with puffy sleeves and lace around the neckline that has a red cape with it. That was his superhero costume. It soon turned into a fire fighter costume. Later, he showed me that the white dress had gotten some ketchup on it. I took it off and he told me that he was going to put it in the dryer. The dryer had some clothes in it and so I told him to put it in the "other dryer." He did and turned it on. Josiah came running back in to the living room saying, "Liza, I put your dress in the wet dryer."

Josiah crawls into bed with us every morning and promptly falls back asleep, but only after he wedges his feet between my legs or under my hip. If I try to give myself a bit of space he scoots right over and snuggles back in. I try to smile inside and remember that this won't be forever.

At mealtimes he sits beside me. He scoots his chair smack dab against mine. He would be happy if I held him, but that is not a possibility. At lunch today he was touching my shoulder and then wanted to touch my hair. He wasn't getting away with it, but then he looked appreciatively at my messy stay-at-home ponytail and said, "Mommy, your hair looks great."

For as challenging as 3 year olds are they sure are cute and loveable!

2nd Honeymoon--Day 3

2011-07-20T22:08:00.003-04:00

On our 3rd morning I don't think either one of us could hardly fathom that we had another day to fill before we traveled home. There were a couple interesting possibilities for the day and we weren't sure what we wanted to do. We decided to go to a lake and State Park. As we had been doing, we followed Jeremy's iphone GPS app for directions. It seemed like we were consistently taking the long way over back roads, but this time it was certain. We were directed to a dirt road that ultimately led to a Danger sign saying the road was closed. We turned around and tried again.

We found the lake and it turned out to be a bit disappointing. There was only a paved path along the lake.
We were hungry and Jeremy found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant recommended on Yelp. They served breakfast all day which suited me just fine!

This is the largest omelet I have ever attempted to eat. It was yummy!

Since the lake was a bit disappointing we decided to visit our other option for the day, a Natural Bridge. The natural marble bridge spans the Hudson Brook over a 60 foot deep gorge. This was an area that we really enjoyed walking around--or climbing around.

A marble dam.
This is the bridge. It took a few trips "around the block" to realize that this was the bridge we were looking for! haha.

Later that afternoon Jeremy wanted to go golfing again. This time he just played 9 holes and, you guessed it, I took up my position on the couch!

That evening we went down to the pool. The only other people there was a family with 3 children who appeared to be very close in age to our children. The mom was even holding a baby. I could hardly stop looking at them. Jeremy asked me if I was ready to start driving home that night. I said the thought had crossed my mind. We didn't, but it was good to know we were both ready to go home to our family.

Later, I tried to watch a movie with Jeremy. He chose Date Night. It did not entertain me at all. Maybe I was just ready to go home. I was a bad date that night. I didn't finish watching it. Movies and I just don't get along very often.

Sunday morning we headed home. I couldn't wait to see Aliza, Josiah and Anna. Aliza jumped in my arms and hung on. Josiah wasn't sure he wanted us to be home. He told Daddy right away that he and Grandpa trimmed some trees and found a "snake hole." Then he started running circles around the house begging for Daddy to grab him in a big hug. I kissed Anna's cheeks for as long as I wanted to. =) It sure seemed like she waved to me from Grandma's arms. I'm pretty sure she is too little to wave, but there have been several times since that I'm almost sure she has waved. Otherwise, no developmental milestones occurred while we were away.

Our first evening at home was not easy. Aliza and Josiah were not fun. At all. But the next morning everyone settled quickly back into routine. I'm happy to be home. I'm also happy for the wonderful memories that Jeremy and I have of our extended time alone. I've also been frequently thinking about those hours I had to myself on the couch!!!

2nd Honeymoon--Day 2

2011-07-19T22:30:00.003-04:00

Jeremy and I enjoyed a botanical gardens in Vancouver Island, BC on our first honeymoon so when we saw there was a local botanical gardens in Berkshire we thought it would be a fun stop. Nothing can rival the colors in Vancouver Island, but we enjoyed the colors here and the walk was very pretty.

(Someone took a lot of pictures of me.)

Later that afternoon Jeremy wanted to go golfing again. I felt more like doing nothing so Jeremy left me at the resort and went golfing. We both enjoyed ourselves immensely. He played 18 holes. I took a nap, read, and watched TV while I cross-stitched. I was settled comfortably on the couch for the best of 6 hours that afternoon and evening. I was a complete bum and I smile at the memory now. It was most lovely.

2nd Honeymoon--Day 1

2011-07-18T22:31:00.003-04:00

We went to Massachusetts for our anniversary trip. Less then an hour from Albany, New York. It qualifies as "in the mountains" for us East Coast United States folks. In fact the resort that we stayed in is a ski resort in the winter.

Our trip was dubbed a 2nd honeymoon by Aliza after she read the Bearenstain Bear book A Week at Grandma's House. The cubs stay with their grandparents while Ma and Pa go on a "2nd Honeymoon." Aliza asked if Daddy and I had ever gone on a 2nd Honeymoon--a perfect opening to tell her that she was going to stay with Grandma and Grandad for 2 nights and then with Grandma and Grandpa for 2 nights. It also worked out well because she seemed to think that a 2nd honeymoon was a destination so I didn't have to tell her exactly how far away we were going.

I shed a few tears when we left. When I hugged Anna I couldn't help it. Aliza was crying too. But that stopped quickly and she was fine the whole time we were gone. I was fine too! Quite fine, in fact!

The first day happened to be our official anniversary. The last several years we have gone golfing on our anniversary so we kept up the tradition. This was the first year that I golfed too. It is far easier to golf when one is not 30+ weeks pregnant. I was pretty much horrible. Jeremy only got mad at me once for not trying. =) It was a gorgeous day and I enjoyed being outside. The course was nice and I enjoyed the views of the mountains.

Jeremy scouted out a nice restaurant several weeks before we left. It was very nice. The food was really good. We ate every bite....figured we better get our money's worth!

The "official" anniversary picture!

More to come...

10 Years Later...

2011-07-17T22:06:00.003-04:00

(I thought I had Blogger figured out on how it uploads pictures, but it must have changed. My pictures are all out of order!)

We are home from our anniversary trip which you will hear much more about in the upcoming days. First I must backtrack just a bit. A close friend of mine got married 2 weeks before me and she started talking about wanting to put her wedding dress on for her 10th anniversary. After a couple conversations I caught the vision and really wanted to put my dress on. My fantasy was to actually walk down the aisle of the church we got married in, but that didn't happen this year. Maybe another time!

One night about 6 weeks ago, I locked our bedroom door and got my dress out. I put it on and confirmed my suspicion that there was no way that dress was going to zip up. A couple weeks later I took it to my Mom's house and she and Janell trip to zip it--unsuccessfully. I left it at Mom's house and on July 4th when we were there I realized it was the last time Jeremy would be at Mom's before our anniversary. So late in the evening, with no pre-planning, I pulled out my wedding dress. With much sucking in, squeezing and sheer determination Jeremy zipped my dress. It is not an exaggeration to say that I could not breathe. It is also not an exaggeration to say that I was grinning from ear to ear. I was so incredibly excited. And I sure do wish that Jeremy had brought his camera that evening....

Aliza and Josiah both wanted to marry me. They insisted on "walking down the aisle" around the house. I mentioned it was late in the evening. They had to take impromptu baths at Grandma's house because they got so dirty outside. Since it was impromptu they are wearing Grandma's t-shirts because their Mommy didn't bring extra clothes!

10 years later I can remember how much I loved that dress and how perfect it was for our wedding. I have no memory of how heavy it was! I also did not remember how huge a semi cathedral train is. I did remember all those tiny buttons all way down the back including the train. That is what I wanted and my Mom patiently shopped with me until I found it!

2011-07-12T22:29:00.001-04:00

Getting ready to embark on a 10th anniversary adventure!

Digging Potatoes

2011-07-10T21:37:00.002-04:00

(I'm distracted. Josiah is begging me to read the instructions that come with tampons. From the pictures he has figured out that it must be something you put on your leg and he informed Aliza that Mommy will not read the paper. Now I will discard that paper and no longer be distracted.)

On to far less interesting topics! Friday the children helped Great Grandad harvest potatoes. What fun that was!
Harvesting potatoes is like hunting for Easter eggs. Everyone exclaimed when they found one.

They also found some overgrown zucchinis.

It wasn't long before Caleb and Josiah wanted to be able to dig too.

Now They are Newlyweds

2011-07-08T22:01:00.002-04:00

But here they are on their wedding day. My brother-in-law, Joel and his beautiful bride, Brandi. Brandi has been "Aunt" to my children for a long time and I am thrilled to call her my sister-in-law...or just sister for short!

Here are a couple pictures.

This one happens to be one my personal favorites. It was a private moment before the wedding. Jeremy took the picture through a window at the back of the church.

Jeremy's family.

Joel and Aliza at the reception.

The dessert reception included cake and a sundae bar. Yum!

Mr. and Mrs.

Our 4th of July

2011-07-05T22:31:00.002-04:00

We continued our tradition of watching the community parade. It is great to have neighbors who are friends. We had front row seats and no competition for the candy! Matt and Chrissy came over for lunch and then attended the parade with us.

Aliza was pretty much thrilled with the amount of candy in her bucket.

We ended the day with hamburgers and hotdogs at my parent house. In the full size picture you can see Anna's two teeth.

And back to watching the parade.

A Silly Sort of Day

2011-07-03T22:58:00.002-04:00

This morning we had three babies in our house. Aliza and Josiah spent a long time cuddled up on our laps pretending to be babies. I think all of us were ready for a family day at home.

This baby was crying and soaking up the love.

This baby was happy and scooted all around without interruption.

And this baby hopped off my lap for a moment and got himself a baby toy to play with.

Then it was lunchtime and I made hotdogs. As I was ready to put them on the table I realized that we had no ketchup. A hotdog simply cannot be eaten without ketchup. My rule! Jeremy, Aliza and Josiah walked over to our neighbors to ask them if we could use some of their ketchup. They gave us a brand new container (which I bought the replacement at my planned grocery trip right after lunch) and insisted that Jeremy and the children sit and visit for a bit.

Later it was rest time and all 5 of us fell fast asleep. I was the first to see the clock at 4:20! Aliza woke up shortly after. Josiah woke up at 5:00 and Jeremy brought Anna down at 5:30. I guess we all needed it, but don't worry, we paid for that late nap tonight at bedtime!

I think we had the relaxing, restful, day that we needed.