Thursday, January 30, 2014

Praying Peter


For the last week or so Peter has clasped his little hands, his version of folding his arms, for every single prayer. With no prompting from anyone he simply started being reverent and folding those little arms of his! And through the entire prayer, too! It is just so cute that I played the heathen and took his picture during the prayer at dinner. When I called everyone for bedtime prayers he came running, folded his arms, and stood quietly through the entire, long prayer.

Peter is a very observant baby, probably more so than either of his older siblings. He has very carefully watched our interactions from the time he was a very small baby. I am grateful he has the example of his older brother and sister to follow as I am sure they are the ones who taught him how to pray reverently. :)

In other Peter news, he's been having a rough go of it lately. Poor guy just can't seem to catch a break. His bottom molars came in recently, and the last week he has been very fussy with a low-grade fever. I think there are more teeth trying to make their way in, but I'm not entirely sure yet. And he does NOT like being separated from David. With David having his own room there are many moments where the older two have sequestered themselves away and won't open the door to poor Peter. He just stands outside David's door and cries "MEEEEEEEEE!!! MEEEEE!!!" which is his little way of saying he wants to do/have whatever everyone else is getting/having. He loves other people so much, and he just wants to be with us all the time.

He's mastered the use of the words "No-no!" and "Mama" and "Me". He knows the words "nap", "bedtime", "rabbit", "food", and "eat". He knows his eyes, ears, nose, and bellybutton. And he loves to give hugs to everyone.

Peter is also keenly aware of the feelings of his siblings. A couple weeks ago Jonathan was tickling David to the point that David could only emit piercing shrieks he was laughing so hard. Peter came up, quite concerned, knelt down next to David's head, looked at him a moment, then began to sob uncontrollably. It took David hugging him and comforting him for a long while before Peter calmed down. He's done similar things with Andi on multiple occasions. He sure loves his siblings!

In other news I have the living room just about finished. There is one box left with random things that need to go other places. Next I'm going to work on the littles' room. Then I'll finish out the basement on Saturday.

David started school on Monday. He reports that he has lots of girl friends, but no boy friends yet. They did a science experiment involving popsicles this week that had him quite excited. Today was his first day riding the bus!! I walked him down to the stop and waited for him to get picked up. I intended to greet him off the bus but he was dropped off 15 minutes early and got to the driveway before I saw him. That kid is seriously way too big, when did that happen??

Jonathan is enjoying work. School is kicking his rear, but mostly because he has very little time to actually study.

Andi is taking the lack of gluten much better this go around. She even willingly surrendered a cookie after it was offered to her! I think it is because we are not cutting all grains, just the gluten, so that opens a world of options to us as far as GF cookies and snacks for her occasional treats. She's not missing out on anything so she's happy!

I'm continuing to pursue my daycare licensing. I submitted my application and hope to have everything finalized next week (if the state will ever get back to me!). I'm looking forward to getting that ball rolling. I looked up several other home daycares in the area. I plan on calling them and asking them about their loads, seeing they'd be willing to pass on my information to parents when they are at capacity. Seems like a good lead. And I'm almost finished with Star Trek: Next Generation. Jonathan has made at Trekkie out of me.

Live long and prosper.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Unpacking : a haiku for Emma

Boxes tower high
Children carve paths through mountains
Valleys soon appear

Loading the truck:

Unloading the truck:

Trying to make my kitchen functional:

Boxes everywhere:

And more boxes:

David finished his room first!

Main St at night:

Will update again soon. We don't have a whole lot left!

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Misc.

Lost count of how many boxes I packed today. It was a lot, though. Kids are packed, bathroom is packed, living room is packed, kitchen is nearly packed, bookshelf is packed. Basement makes me feel like I haven't done anything all week.

Andi had blood drawn for the Celiac Disease panel. Hope it gives us some answers. Doctor told us to eliminate gluten. Again. Girl acts like an addict for a week when we take grains away. Gonna be a heckuva week next week.

Said good-bye to our ward on Sunday. See a few people throughout the week, but otherwise it will be a while before we see anyone again. Sad. :(

Peter cut his bottom molars. Kid has been a mess the last week.

David got mice. He's wanted them for a long time. He finally had the money saved and asked if we could go get them. Max and Ralph joined the family, and Dave is over the moon about it.

I am getting soundly whooped  letting my Dad win Words With Friends.

I have 20 more boxes to pack before Friday evening.

Picard out.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Christmas Eve

We kept relatively relaxed for Christmas Eve this year. Helps that I had Chandler here. ;)

First we dressed everyone up in their Christmas outfits and visited Aunt Marilyn. She is always such a joy to see, and it had been too long since we last saw her. David gave her a special pen and we all gave her lots of hugs.

Next we went and stood in line to see Santa. We did it last year and had a lot of fun. This year was positively freezing (I think we were in the 20's), so Chandler and the kids chickened out and Jonathan and I stood in line with Andi until it was our turn to go in to see Santa.

David was excited to see him.

Peter, not so much...
 And Andrea flat out refused to go near him. Oh well. Next year.

Then we went and visited our friends for their Christmas Eve party. They moved to Maryland in August and have been trying to sell their house here since that move. They finally had an offer and were going to close the last week of December, so they decided to take the opportunity to come out for Christmas and say one last goodbye to all of their friends.
 Not the greatest picture, but Andi and M are the BEST of friends. Neither of them have stopped asking to see the other since the move, so they were quickly off and being crazy together as soon as we arrived. I could not get a good picture because M and A were too bouncy to stand still for long!

 David and H were quite happy to see each other, too. These little buddies have sure missed each other. David was very disappointed that we didn't get to see everyone again.

 One last, fond farewell! We sure miss them!

After the party we went to the dancing lights display and admired the snowy scenery...

Couldn't get much more picturesque. :)

After we tucked the kids into bed, Chandler and I sped off to WalMart for last minute food and stocking stuffers. The place was not as busy as I thought it would be, and we managed to get everything together before they closed. We got home early, wrapped presents, and talked past midnight. We set out the presents and were excited to see the kids' reactions in the morning. Giving, especially to kids, is the best part about Christmas!

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Santa's visit to Cub Scouts

 We have so loved this Cub Pack! We're sad to be leaving and hope our new pack is as fun as our pack has been. For our Christmas party the boys all did skits and Santa came for a visit! Every child left with a small gift in hand. All of the scouts received pinewood derby kits. Andi and Peter each received Little People. It was a fun night!

This year Andi has flat-out refused to see Santa. Peter was pretty scared himself....

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Lights on Main Street

While Chandler was here we went to see the lights on Main St. This is always one of our favorite things to do during Christmas time. I wonder if our new town will do anything similar? If not it would definitely be worth the drive to come and see the lights next Christmas. I'm always impressed by the light display, but Chandler's reaction was pretty fun. We stepped around a corner an were immediately flooded with the gorgeous lights. Her "Wow!" summed up our feelings pretty accurately. :)







Santa! And Rudolph!!



 Across the street from the Big Guy...
 The money shot: Santa??!!

Friday, January 3, 2014

Corrections

 Andi visited her ENT for a check-up on the tubes. I was right, there is significant build up that is blocking her left tube and preventing her from hearing well in that ear. He prescribed her ear drops and we go back in two weeks to see if it helped. I spent a good hour today hashing out a really good menu that excludes grains. Hopefully, between the natural and medical arenas, we can get her back in ship shape. I'm nervous about starting her in Sunbeams this Sunday. She really does not do well with new environments and big changes...

 My old purse was giving out. I needed a new one. I liked the one I made for my sister Christmas of 2012 and had enough leftover fabric so I made one for myself. I also made one for Chandler for Christmas, so we get to be twinkies at Time Out for Women this year. Ha! Lots of pockets in this one, 6 all together. I'd like a smaller wallet now, I keep trying to sketch one out and am not having much luck designing anything I really like. I'll figure something out.

I did NOT run today. The weather forecast indicated that to do so would be painful. Not the coldest we're going to get over the next few days. We're supposed to get significant snowfall on Sunday. I'm not exactly sure how much that is supposed to be, but the 6-8 inches we've gotten over the last couple of days did not qualify as significant.


Peter, who is usually so good and gentle with books, decided that today was the perfect day to destroy most of the book of Genesis while I was making breakfast. Sad, sad day. There's 12 pages ripped out completely, and another 52 torn in half or quarters. It is going to take a really long time to tape all of that back together. And I JUST got rid of all of my extra sets of scriptures. I decided I didn't need all of my old scriptures and sent them off packing. Just as I could have really used them. Oh well. David rarely uses his regular-print set, I'll just use those while I read through Genesis and am taping my copy back together.

Jonathan started his new job today. Yay! He also looked at two other houses today while in the area. *sigh* I do not like house hunting.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

28 While 28

I'm crazy. I realize this. But I've done pretty well this year at not letting it get too out of hand. Except for that one time in November, but that's another story (and one that won't be told any time soon). ANYWAY. So I took a long hard look at 2013, the year I was 27. And I really didn't like what I saw. It was a particularly trying year, and one that I don't wish to repeat. But I do not believe that I can just say, "Don't repeat that!" and then do nothing differently and expect something amazing to happen. So I'm MAKING my year as a 28-year-old a great one. And I think I started it off well enough:


For my birthday I wanted to run a 5k. I'd planned on charting out my own course and inviting several pals to join me, refreshments and medals at the finish line. But a week before my intended fun run I twisted my ankle really badly on some ice. There was a pop. I'm still not sure if it was my ankle or the ice... But I stopped with five minutes left to my run. I was really disappointed because I'd been feeling really great and was going to try and extend the run by a mile. Oh well. My plans changed. Fortunately, my baby sister wanted to come up and see me for my birthday more than she wanted to run. Though she was a real sport and we still went, just the two of us, and froze our behinds off as we jogged through some serious ice and snow. Thanks to my parents I no longer worry about slipping in the snow, they got me some amazing "snow chains" for my shoes. They are  AWESOME! And really, what better way to start out my next year than by doing something fun and healthy. Wahoo!

So my next step on MAKING my year great: I cam up with lots of goals. 28 of them, actually. Goals are something Matt (my therapist) and I have been talking about a lot lately. I'd sort of lost interest for a long time in any goals. He encouraged me to make a few, to plan out a future, and start working towards that. It started out simple: get running again, sew something. Once I did those two things I remembered how much I love working on projects and goals. So here we are, my 28 While 28:

1. Read the standard works (Jonathan set up a facebook group to act as motivation, you should ask him about it. Also, I'm reading some out of the Bible and triple combination every day, I'd burn out by Chronicles if I tried to read the Bible on its own.)
2. Finish a quilt
3. Lean a new piano piece for fun
4. Run a 10k
5. Run a (sprint) triathlon (I'd been training for one before I got pregnant with Peter and was doing really well, I think I'll be ready by July)
6. Finish one Christmas gift a month
7. Send everyone (family) a birthday card
8. Help David to Tiger
9. Read a work of fiction
10. Read  a work of nonfiction
11. Read an historical piece (I'm thinking autobiography...)
12. Hold FHE at least 3 times a month
13. Hold family scripture study at least 5 days a week
14. Write in a journal consistently (have a great journal jar for that!)
15. Get rid of one bag/box of extra stuff each weak
16. Work into a 10:00 bedtime, and keep it for a month
17. Work out 5 days a week for 4 months
18. Work out 6 days a week for 4 months
19. Attend the temple at least 12 times this year
20. Read all the conference addresses for the year
21. Post blogs 3 times a week for 3 months
22. Be consistent with menus (vague, but really I need to get us eating so Andi can hear again)
23. Experiment with one new crockpot meal a month
24. Participate in a Block of the Month Quilt-along
25. Complete the 30-Day Shred (a favorite workout video of mine, but I want to actually do it 30 days in a row)
26. Take time to spend individual time with the kids each month, i.e. Mommy/kid dates
27. Learn to cross stitch
28. Make my bed 30-days in row

And I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't get through this whole list. Honestly, I've tried the standard works in a year. Chronicles killed me. But I might as well try. :)

I also have a lot of really great things to look forward to this year! Chandler's Christmas present to me is tickets to fly down to Tx and go to Time Out For Women in September. Holly and Henry are coming to Michigan in May (Emma wants to make it up for that trip, too!). We're planning on visiting family in November for Thanksgiving. My daycare opens this month (!!!!). Jonathan takes the bar. David turns 7, Andi turns 4, Peter turns 2, and Jonathan and I will celebrate 8 years. It will be a year of memories. Lots of work, probably some more pain and crap to wade through, but then I guess that is life. And we just make the best of what we are given. So I'm really going to try and MAKE it the best.