Belated Mother's Day Posting

I can't believe I forgot to blog after Mother's Day! Oh well. We spent the weekend with my family, as we stayed home last year. Friday Kevin worked until 4ish, so we decided to stop at Melissa & Kenny's for the night. Tavin had a great time with T's many hermit crabs. Even if she did have some scabs afterwards. The kids had a great time playing together, and basically just running around the house waving pirate swords and yelling. Lucy was initiated to the world of sword fighting with her brother, by way of a swipe across the cheek. Inadvertently, of course. The bruise is mostly faded.

Saturday we continued on our way to mom & dad's. This would have been a really cute picture if the cameraman (me) wouldn't have had to hurry to catch it. The little stinker. Lucy was looking for her aunts on Monday, asking where "Dody" and "Fafissa" went. She also was handing Kenny DVDs saying "Foofie!". We'd never heard her swap her "fs" for "ms" before.

Grandpa had remnants of a burn pile in the back yard that T and Simon thoroughly enjoyed. It was only smoking a little, but they did manage to fan it into flame again. Scary. I missed all pictures of Brenden somehow, but I was present to hear him pronounce to Grandpa that he "...couldn't see the back yard because of all that JUNK!". Which I believe was all of our cars. He stayed out of the dirty ash pile...or maybe it was just during his "nap" time, when he whispered to uncle Kevin from the bed "I'm supposed to be taking a nap!". We are looking forward to a long weekend over the holiday all together in Sun River! I"m sure there'll be stories to tell afterwards!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is traditionally a day of too much sugar in our house. This cute little mess is the result of the valentine package from grandpa and grandma, for which their names were blessed profusely by Tavin and Simon; Lucy would have had she had the ability. Afterwards, Lucy was running around the living room screeching, while stopping occasionally to bang her head on the couch and laugh hysterically at herself. The marshmellow cream in her hair was painstakingly removed in a bath before bed.

Simon and Tavin each had parties in their respective classrooms. Tavin's teacher had forbidden valentine cards prepared at home to be passed out, because of some ill-conceived notions from some students about what was acceptable to write to their classmates. As a result, Simon came home with a pile of small cards and various small packets of candy. Tavin's class were all encouraged to bring treats to have a party in their class, where she consumed as much of the forbidden substance (sugar) as possible, not bringing any home. Rather than exchange cards,
Tavin's class each had a red plastic plate that they passed around and each student wrote a kind thing on a small paper heart, taped it to a pipe cleaner and attached it to the plate. The girls in Tavin's class wrote things like "I like you", "You're my best friend", "Your nice", etc. Most of the boys wrote "You're fast", which I tried to explain to her was a high compliment from a 4rth grade boy. She only had to "report" one comment from a likely very honest boy to her teacher, because he had penned "You're annoying" on her plate. He was made to change it, and he then wrote "I like your shirt". I suspect the one that declared her annoying probably holds her in higher regards than the ones that labeled her as fast. Kevin and I spent the evening at church, after he attended a school board meeting, in our respective youth group and men's groups, but I did get a few roses in the 5 minutes that we saw each other to collect children after school until we were all home together at 9pm. The chocolate that he was to get yesterday disappeared rather quickly, after watching the kids eat theirs.

They don't sell these bubbles at Walmart!

We spent a relatively uneventful New Year's Eve at home with just us. We watched "Black Beauty" and had banana splits. The children were extremely dismayed to go to bed at 9pm, but we explained that we weren't going to stay up until midnight either, since I had to work the next day and they had school today. To be true to our word, Kevin and I went to bed at 11:45, but we still new when it was midnight because of the fireworks, and ruckus around us. It made me so glad we didn't have a dog. At least we started the new year in good health, Lucy just has a runny nose and cold, which I really don't consider sick. But, out of consideration for the nursery kiddos at church I kept her home with me on Sunday, just in case other moms don't like to see snotty bubbles being blown out of their kids' noses with each expiration!

Warning: This blog not for the faint of stomach

What a Christmas this has been! I think it is one for the record book, as the....well, I hate to say the worst one ever, but there's very little other comparisons to make. First of all, our original plans of the family get-together with my parents and sisters was to happen December 16th, with us leaving on the 15th. I should back up, though. Monday the 11th Simon woke up with the stomach flu, the worst kind...both ends. He made a quick recovery and we were sure our plans were safe. However, Friday morning as we were all packed and making some last minute arrangements before our targeted departure of noon, Lucy got the throw-ups. So, cancel family Christmas (boy, you want a house full of woe and wailing, do that to kids!), reschedule for 1 week later, and everybody stay healthy. Worked for us, until we were at grandma and grandpas house, the day to leave (at least we had our family time) and Simon does a repeat all over Grandmas kitchen and bathroom floors. I wasn't feeling too hot, neither was grandma, but boy was I glad there was no carpet involved!! We made a hasty retreat with a bucket in Simons lap. He made it home until the next "incident". A few of us were still having some sort of symptoms, so we missed Christmas eve Sunday and any other church services, but felt we could still do a Christmas dinner on Monday, which I had prepared for by asking mom a bunch of questions, as it was to be the first I've prepared myself (stuffed turkey and all). I prepared the stuffing, stuffed the bird, and put it in the fridge to pop in the oven Christmas morning. Alas, it was not to be. Tavin, 6:20 am Christmas morning, loosing her cookies. Sigh. I took my beautiful bird to the nurse who was on call for home health/hospice, and they had it for us. We ate 7-Up and saltines all day. Finally, I thought we were done. But no. Lucy's turn at 11:30 pm Christmas night. Which made me go back to feeling crummy. I found a cure, though. Yesterday morning I got up at 7, supposedly to work, made it in the office for all of 10 minutes and went back home and to bed. I woke up 4 1/2 hrs later feeling better.

So far this morning, everyone feels better, but Tavin still has some...ummm...lesser symptoms. I can handle just about anything but throw up. So, this was our Christmas season this year, the reason for the season doesn't change, nor does the excitement with presents. I, however, hope to never have one like this again!!

Canceled Plans and Early Christmas

Our Christmas get-together scheduled for tonight has been canceled due to ice. Strange, it is the clearest day so far that I have seen in about a week. We have had "whiteness" everywhere, not snow, just frost. I think it's warmed up to all of about 30 degrees maybe? We even had a sitter scheduled for the 2 older children, but I am so tired, staying home sounds even better than finding something else to do! I think it comes from staying up for an hour after everyone else has gone to bed so I can read, make Christmas blankets, wrap Christmas goodies for my husbands co-workers, or just think about pointless worries and concerns that I am powerless to do anything about so late at night. A small price to pay for absolute quiet time!

A little tattling on myself/ourselves: We let our children open up packages from Grandma (Mr. SAHM's mom) yesterday. She lives in Virginia and is always excellent about sending packages and presents that everyone enjoys! Here was our reasoning....Monday we go to my family for Christmas and we didn't want to pack the extra gifts with us plus tomorrow no one has school so we knew we would get bombarded with "Can we open ONE present?". We did ourselves and our babysitter (had she been here tonight) a huge favor. Plus, WE'RE the parents, so WE make the rules, right? Which means they can be changed at any time to suit us. Of course, we opened ours too. Actually, Mr. SAHM opened his first (like 2 DAYS first). We loved everything we were given....And enjoy making Christmas a true SEASON rather than a one day occurrence. We wish all of our family lived close, but that would mean an awful lot of moving for many people, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone! Another one of our wishes is that Grandpa (Mr. SAHM's dad) was still living, and could be here to experience his latest grand-daughter with us and to talk to about all of the things that have happened this year. It's not often that a new baby, job and major move happen all in one year...Never mind one month. We do believe that he knows little Lucy and can see her from Heaven. I'm not sure doctrinally how to back that up or if I even can, but I believe that he is among the "great cloud of witnesses" watching us run our race. I also know that he is very proud of his son, as am I, and that he is a wonderful father and husband.

Now, I'd better go downstairs and tackle the 3 loads of laundry waiting to be folded and put away (UGH) as well as the ones yet to be finished, look at some dishes, and see what Simon is up to. One more reason to stay home....Don't have to clean the house up for anyone! But, it will have to be "touched up" for the progressive dinner party we're having here tomorrow night with the youth group. I'm making a main course and have yet to hear a definite number of people coming. As long as I know by mid morning, I should be fine. Spaghetti is a wonderful thing.