4 Miles

I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans today! Granted, they were a bit tighter then I’d like, but they zipped up AND I could sit down.  Alex celebrated this by pooping on them, so I’m back in the size bigger ones while they’re being washed.  Now I’m a bit sad I went out and bought the size bigger 2 weeks ago. BUT, it was nice to have jeans that fit (well, didn’t require pulling up all the time like the maternity pants I’d been wearing, or weren’t too short like the other pants I had). 

The Cold is slowly going away for all of us. James & I are feeling much better, Will only has a cough that is lingering. Alex continues to be stuffy, but still only in the nose, so we’re keeping up what we’re doing.

Alex allowed me 7 hours of sleep last night…well, broken up in 3 hour chunks, and a 1.5 hour chunk in the middle.  It was still a good thing.

Read More »

Will was reading from a children’s Bible today.  All I could understand was “God said ‘No!’” I didn’t get a chance to see what story he was reading.

Just another quick note, The Cold has spread to James & I. I have learned it’s very hard to blow your nose while nursing.

Will was reading from a children’s Bible today.  All I could understand was "God said ‘No!’" I didn’t get a chance to see what story he was reading.

Just another quick note, The Cold has spread to James & I. I have learned it’s very hard to blow your nose while nursing.

I don’t have much time, so this is just a quick update on our last week:

• Two very close friends came down from Marion to visit on Saturday. It was a wonderful time to chat, go out to lunch, and chat more! It was SOOO nice to see them. One brought her 3 year old daughter, and she & Will had great fun playing and running around. They also tried to feed the cat while we were at lunch (and Daddy was watching them/working).  I still have cat food behind the couch I need to clean up, from their attempts to throw food back to the cat. Poor kitty! Still, it was so good for Will to have a friend to play with. He’s rather lonely–yesterday he asked if Baby Alex would play trains with him.
• James spent most of the weekend working. From what I understand, their e-mail sever got hacked into. After a late night/long day, it’s now fixed, and better protected. He and I spent the last few days trading off catching up on sleep/watching the kids. 
• We have two sick boys at home. Alex is very congested and having trouble sleeping at night. Will has a runny nose, watery eyes, cough, and a newly developed fever. He’s been sleeping fine at night, but at first was fine (read active) during the day (So no catching up on the sleep lost due to Baby Brother’s sleeping/eating problems). Yesterday he moved towards whiny, and today he started “acting sick” during the day. If the gunk in the nose changes color, I’m calling the Doctor, but at this point I know they’re just going to tell us to keep doing what we’re doing. He was given a GREAT gift from my Aunt–videos of Trucks, Construction Equiptment, Airplanes, and Fire Trucks. Those have been a treat for him to watch, and made his illness a bit easier for both him and Mommy to bare. 
• In between dealing with sick kids, I’ve been busy working on a big project for James’ office. So, no time to blog. But that’s ok, I haven’t had much of interest to say, since I know you don’t want to hear more about our lack of sleep, computer problems, or sick kids.  But now, at least you know what’s keeping us busy on this LAST FULL WEEK of February!  We’re almost through this month! Who-hoo!  Doesn’t March just sound better?  Maybe a bit more springy?  Just a quick aside-this warm winter has flowers already starting to come up. It’s going to be interesting to see what all has been planted in these beds. I’m seeing daffodils and it appears to be tulips, plus some irises.  The recent cold snap (we went from a high of 63 on Thursday to a high of 22 on Friday, and a low in the negatives the next night) has frozen back some of the tops. Others look fine. I’m looking forward to seeing what all we’ve inherited, and the things I’ve already planted coming up as well.

Last night, for Valentine’s Day, James & I took advantage of our MOPS “Date Night”. This is where different couples take turn watching everyone else’s kids at the church.  We will work 3 date nights (with 2 other couples each time), and we’re getting 10-12 nights where Will is watched and we can go out for free. He love getting to play with other kids/new toys, and we love the time away! We took Alex with us, figuring he’d sleep most of the time we were out.

We decided to go out to dinner to the Macaroni Bar & Grill.  While waiting for our seat, we saw Tony Dungy & his family leaving.  It was funny to see them there—we weren’t at the fanciest place in town, by far! They stopped and were talking for a few minutes right next to the bench we were sitting at. Both of us later admitted we wanted to say something to him (That we were praying for him & his family, and we appreciated what a great job he did coaching this year), but wanted to leave him alone as well…so we did the later.

At dinner, Alex woke up, and was very happy just to be held while we finished dinner. James held him, since I knew if I did, Alex would want to start eating, and I wanted to finish my meal first!  I think we got some guys in trouble. There were (naturally) a number of couples eating out, and the females kept looking at Alex and saying “Awww…so cute!”  The guys would glance at him, and quickly glance away! (James was the one to notice this. We found it funny.)

I like this holiday. I’m not a big fan of February. To me, it’s a dreary, gloomy month. We’ve lost the joy of the Christmas holidays, there’s never any snow, it’s just grey, gloomy and cold. March at least SOUNDS closer to spring (even though really it’s another two months away for us). But February…the only good things about it (in my mind) are it’s short, and Valentine’s Day. Growing up, my mom always (well, mostly) made heart cakes. My dad would get us the heart boxes that have the filled chocolates in them. (What fun to get up in the morning, and see the candy and card on the table—and we could eat a piece or two right then! YUM!)  So, I have fond memories of the day as well. I want to develop those kinds of memories for our kids.

Yesterday, Will and I worked on making a heart cake. This is pretty easy, you make a cake in a circle cake pan and a square cake pan. Once the cake has cooled,  you cut the circle in half, turn the square to a diamond, and make the two halves of the circle the top part of the heart (you have to trim it down a bit to work).  Only I forgot, and made two circle cakes. (Didn’t even think of it until I had taken both cakes out of the circle pans!)  So we ended up with a 2 layer circle cake.  With pink frosting. And no other decorations because I forgot to buy them. (Can we say “Sleep deprived” here?  Alex has made the last few nights a bit rough for James & I.)  But Will had fun “helping” me make the cake. And I made frosting (so I can make it dairy free), and Will got to lick the beater for the first time. He enjoyed that. And we’re enjoying the cake. And that’s all that matters!

I thought it would be kind of fun to do something I’ve seen passed around via emails and on other blogs, and give some of you a chance to know ME a bit more—not just our sons!

What Was I Doing…

Ten Years Ago: (1996) This was my junior year at Taylor. Specifically, in January I was in India on a really eye-opening mission trip. February I started spring semester, I was a PA (RA) on the awesome wing of 2^nd North English (2NE! An awesome wing!).  What surprised me is I can remember vividly what I took my senior year spring semester, but I can’t remember what I took this semester. I know Physics and Anatomy & Physiology were two of the classes. I remember this was my “Year of Travel”, I got to travel over Fall Break, J-term, and Spring Break because I was not working at the local grocery store & trying to make as much money as possible each break. It was the first year I took out a loan to pay for ALL my expenses for living on campus. Just as a side note—we paid off my Taylor Loans this month! Who-hoo!!!

Five Years Ago: (2001 Sadly, I have to put the years in to remind myself what I was up to.)  I was engaged to James, teaching & planning a wedding for that June.  I had mono that November/December, so I was still recovering from that. Plus, I had met James’ family for the first time that Christmas.  At this point in the year, I was teaching Anatomy & in my Biology classes, we were starting up the unit on the Animal Kingdom (where we’d dissect—the kid’s favorite part: Worms and Grasshoppers and Pigs and Fresh Squid!) We’d be about at the point in the semester where we’d be studying the squid, which we’d fry up and eat after we “looked at it”. (You ask if I miss teaching? Only cool things like that, and the kids. Don’t miss paper work, administration hassles, State Department & Poorly written standards, ISTEP, P.L. 221, Dress Codes, Griping Co-workers or kids that didn’t want to be there and made everyone else miserable as a result.)

Last Year: (2005) I was living in Jonesboro, well set in our routine. Will was 1 ½ and very much a toddler, just starting to talk and express himself. (I just saw some video of him then, and was reminded how much he’s changed in a year!  Now he’s talking NON-STOP and SO independent!).  I was doing MOPS & Bible Study, and had established a good group of friends to do play dates, coupon shopping and Girls Night Out with.

Yesterday: (Saturday) Will woke up at 5 and again at 7. James made him go back to bed at 5, and at 7 I told him to go back to bed for awhile (I’d just finished an hour nursing session with Alex, and we’d had a long night with him before that, so James and I were tired). Will went back to bed crying, but either rested or slept again until 8—that was a treat! I got up with him and let James and Alex sleep in. I cut out coupons while we ate breakfast, and got ready to head to Kroger, to take advantage of a weekend of Double/Triple savings on coupons. (who-hoo!!! We haven’t had one of those in a LONG time, thus my needing to cut out coupons, I’d been letting them slide.) After James got up, I’d fed Alex again, and gotten ready, I was able to go to the store by myself (YEA!) and spend time getting great deals. (Not as good as I used to get when I’d go up to Ft. Wayne with my crazy coupon friends, but better then normal.)  I came home, and fed Alex again, folded laundry, put food away, and did some general picking up. Then it was nap time for Will, and James & I ended up napping as well.  Just as an aside—we’re thinking Will is about ready to drop the nap. He’s either staying up really late, or getting up really early, so I expected this time to be a ‘rest/play quietly in bed’ time. Instead, he ended up sleeping an hour and a half. Since we were both really tired, and napping, I didn’t really mind.  We got up, and were getting ready to eat, when we got a call from James’ partner inviting us to meet them for dinner. We had a fun time eating with them. Their 8 year old is great with Will, so it’s nice to eat with them, she entertains them, and we can enjoy eating with adults! Then it was home to put kids to bed, and time for me to get to work. Another big project that HAS to be done ASAP! Glad they have stuff to keep me busy and getting paid. And glad the Winter Olympics are on to watch while I work!

Will loves to lay next to Alex when ever he’s on the floor and pat/pet his head.  He likes to hold him.  He also likes to stand over Alex and pretend he’s a bridge and Alex is in the tunnel, and poke Alex. Naturally, we’re working on stopping the last two things.

We were having some technical problems. Not sure what, James is in charge of that. But since this is operating on a tiny portion of one of the servers at the office, when there are server problems—this is low on the priority list to fix. But, it’s been fixed! And I’ve been saving up things to put up.  So, I apologize, but here is a great deal of things to share!

›

We got a piano!!! For FREE! Well, we’re going to have to tune it and get a few pins tightened in it, but for the price we paid, that is worth it! How did we get it for free?  www.Freecycle.org   This is a great organization that James’ mom told me about. You sign up to join a group in your area, and get emails (or you can visit the web site) of things people are wanting to get rid of for free.  It’s a chance to get rid of things, but give to people who can use them.  We “frecycled” our extra queen bed and the green couch after we moved and realized we didn’t have room for them.  On Saturday I was reading the latest list of items, and someone was wanting to give away a 1950’s small, black, upright piano.  It’s a bit scuffed up, but with 2 boys, that’s fine.  Several people have said “Why are you getting a piano? Who plays?”  Well, no one, yet!  Will is already interested in music. Alex has very long fingers that several people have called “piano playing fingers”. James and I had already said we wanted our kids to take lessons for a few years, and learn some basics.  But, it’s hard to take lessons when you don’t have a piano to practice on! And now we do. So, I’m going to dig out some of my old books from Mom & Dad’s house and see what I can remember—once we get it tuned.  Below is a picture of Will showing it off and "playing" it. 

I was asked to work on a big project for James’ office, and that kept me busy through Monday. Now that is done, so, I will go back to working on the birth announcements. Maybe we’ll officially get to announce Alex’s birth by the time he’s a month old.  That’s not too bad, is it?  I just have to go and get stamps. And more of those 2 cent ones—I found a sheet of stamps I didn’t realize we had, so never mind that I’d carefully counted the number of old stamps we had and bought JUST ENOUGH 2 cent ones for them.   And, speaking of Alex, we’re due for some pictures of him on this site, to prove he’s not a poor second child who never gets his picture taken.

First two are to show he does open his eyes.

He will sometimes hold his pacifier in place—this is the closest I’ve gotten to recording it on film yet.

Left picture: Sleeping like a baby, while we were eating dinner.  (We did give his head support after the picture, but he kept moving and ending up like that!)

Right picture: Sleeping like a baby after supper—he was getting some tummy time in and fell asleep on the foot stool. 

We have a membership to our local Children’s Museum.  This means we can get two extra people in free at anytime—so please take advantage of us! Feel free to ask us anytime to join us, we love taking friends with us!  I wanted to make sure I’d put that out there for any friends who might be visiting the area.

›

James and Will went Saturday morning to the Museum with one of his partner’s from work and his family. We had told Will Friday night he was going to get to go with Jared. Will was very excited about this, and I had to tell him “First you’ll go night-night, then when it’s light outside you can get up, and go to the museum.” (Key thing there “Light outside!” I didn’t want him waking up in the middle of the night and thinking it was time to go!)  When Will woke up, the first thing he was “Light outside! I go to Children’s Museum!” 

›

James borrowed a truck from a partner (Alan) last night to move the piano. We knew Will would love a ride in it, so he took that to run errands. He didn’t want to tell Will he was going to get to ride in the truck until the carseat was moved over, so he went out to move the car seat. Will came running to me saying "Will ride in the truck!" I asked him how he knew, and he said "Daddy put car set in truck!"