Paper? What Paper???

Maddie has developed quite the habit of coloring on herself, the walls and just about anything that will hold still for her to color it. Well, here is a picture of her face!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYLA!!!

5 years old!! For Kayla's cake she asked for another princess cake, so it is the same cake as last year, just different colors. She asked for a Barbie and a Barbie house for her present and she was given Barbie things. Kayla was given 2 Barbie’s, a Kelly doll, Barbie clothes, Barbie shrinky-dinks, a pink jewelry box, a watch, and I made her a quilt. It was my first quilt ever. Kayla opened it and laid her head down on it and just said it is so soft. At bedtime she just wanted to use it for a pillow instead of a blanket. For dinner Kayla requested that I make fried rice and have root beer to drink, all of which was enjoyed by everyone!! Kayla took cupcakes to school to share with her class. And to top it all off, it snowed today, not very much, and did not even stick to the ground, but it did snow!!

Re-evaluating...

Today while checking out Facebook and reading everyone’s posts, I noticed a friend had joined the group “Praying for Layla Grace”, out of curiosity I checked out the site. It is a group that was formed to pray for a 2 year old that has a brain tumor and is not doing very well. When I went to their blog page I read the post from yesterday and it made me realize how much I truly take for granted, the health of my children. Here is a part of the post, the part that made me take a step back and re-evaluate my life. “Towards the end of a pregnancy, a mother will wake up to go to the bathroom every few hours. I think this is the body’s way of preparing you for a newborn and the sleepless nights that come along with it. Layla now spends most of her days sleeping. 30-45 minutes after she wakes up, she is ready to lay down and sleep again. Is this God’s way of preparing me for all the quiet time that is coming soon? The house is quiet. I am able to go through the motions of laundry, dishes, cooking and picking up without interruptions. But I WANT interruptions. I WANT Layla to be under my feet asking for cookies. I WANT to hear her playing with her toys. I WANT to take 45 minutes to unload the dishwasher because she keeps trying to help. For every time I uttered the words “I just can’t get anything done with these kids under my feet all day” I am eternally regretful. The days that I looked forward to naptime so I could get a grocery list made, or finally fold all the piles of laundry…I regret those days too. If I could do it all again, I’d enjoy EVERY SINGLE WAKING MOMENT I had with her. I would never wish for her to sit still or take a nap or go to bed early. I would never look forward to the days when she could sit through an entire episode of Dora silently. I would treasure every second with her. So I’ve spent the last few days in a quiet house, able to do whatever my heart desires. But all I want to do is wake her up and hold her. She doesn’t really want to be held much anymore. She prefers to be rocked in her dark bedroom for a little while, then laid down in her bed. She gets easily over stimulated by the noise of the other children downstairs. She wants dark, silence, peace and sleep. So we give those things to her. As much as it breaks my heart to not be able to hold her all day, I know her little body needs peace and sleep." After reading this I have decided that I should be a better mom, I am not a terrible mom, but I could be better. I love my children, but do I always show it? Yes I may be tired or grumpy, but it is not their fault that someone else has upset me. So I end this with a prayer for families with sick children and for the children that are struggling with whatever illness that has affected them and their families...

identified

Our woodpecker is a yellow bellied sapsucker (thanks Mark), and appearantly it is "drilling" holes in the trees and sucking out the sap. Well, we have put a plastic owl in the tree in the backyard since that was the most damaged and I am going to keep an eye on the trees in the front.

Spring?!?

The trees are thinking it is Spring and they should start budding, but the temperatures outside are not showing signs of Spring, 34 degrees this morning!!

Another year older!!

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a great one. We went to church then came home for a breakfast of homemade waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, breakfast burritos, sausage and coffee. Then we played outside for a few hours. Paul made dinner/lunch of grilled chicken sandwiches, french fries, and macaroni and cheese. After the kitchen was cleaned up we rode our bikes to the park to play for an hour then it was time to come home for ice cream sundaes. Paul and the girls made brownies yesterday so instead of a cake we had warm brownies with vanilla ice cream and some hot fudge, whipped cream, and toppings. The kids and Paul all chose M&M’s, I skipped the toppings. Oh, presents, Paul had gotten me a pair of heart earrings made with iron ore from Australia and a docking station for the ipod and the kids made birthday cards. A Great Day!!!

Soccer

Nathan had his first soccer game today. They lost, 4-0, it was fun to see Nathan so excited about playing soccer, he really enjoys it! It was a COLD morning temperatures around 37 degrees, gray and no sign of sun. Hopefully next Saturday the weather will be nicer and the kids will have a better score, they don’t have to win, just would be nice if they could score and make it a close game. I was thinking it was last year on February 14 that Nathan scored his first goal, and only goal for that season…

!@?%! Woodpeckers

So this weekend Paul noticed that we have had more holes appearing in our trees, (2 in front in 1 in back). So he asked if I would take a picture and go to the garden center and ask if they knew what it was and how to treat it. I did. Yesterday armed with a picture of the trees I asked the man at the garden center what it was with out even looking at the picture he said, "woodpecker!" I told him the holes are in a perfect line around the tree. He said there is not anything I could do about them and I left feeling deflated. I looked it up on the Internet and I think we will try to hang some aluminum pie tins in the trees to try to ward them off. The guy at the garden center said he has been seeing a lot of them right now and mainly in the live oaks (our 3 trees). My hypothesis is that since we have been having colder than normal weather this winter there are not as many bugs so the woodpeckers are going in search of food. I just hope that the pie tins work and they will find another tree to destroy!! If you know of anything that works please pass it along...

once again...

Saturday night after a late night at the church we came home and put the kids to bed, Madeline has been fighting a cold for a while now and not sleeping very well due to the fact that she can't suck her thumb because then she would be unable to breath. So she was pretty restless throughout the night. Then, Emily woke up in the middle of the night complaining of her ear bothering her. She ended up in bed with us and by morning I think Paul had gotten very little sleep. Not to mention the fact that his time clock is confused since he has just gotten back from Australia on Friday night!! Sunday both Emily and Maddie were fussy and Maddie took a, much needed, 4 hour nap. I was going to wait until today to decide whether or not to make doctor appointments for them, but fortunately they are both feeling much better today, they still have a little bit of a cold but no temperatures and no ear complaints. Emily has fallen asleep on the floor just in time to be woken up to get Nathan and Kayla from school.

Tiger Scout

Tonight the scouts had their scout mass and then had their “Blue and Gold Banquet”. Nathan was awarded his tiger scout badge and we will get that put on his uniform soon. He had a good time playing with his friends and the food was delicious. It was nice evening out with friends and a good break from the normal day to day happenings.

Sleep???

So last night as I was putting the kids to bed Kayla started to complain of her left ear hurting so I gave her some Tylenol and put her back to bed. She eventually wandered downstairs where I put her to bed in my bed while I finished things up, she fell right to sleep. I put her in her own bed at 9:00 then she came back downstairs at 10:15 complaining of her ear hurting and she was in tears and just miserable. This went on until about 11:30 when she finally settled down and fell asleep in my bed, somewhere in the midst of this Emily wandered down and was in bed with us as well. At about 2:30 this morning I woke up to Kayla elbowing me in the back and kicking me. In my sleepiness I pushed her back trying to get more sleep, I eventually gave up and took Kayla and Emily back to their own beds. Emily stayed in her bed, however Kayla was right back in bed with me. My alarm went off at 6:00 this morning and after a few hits of the snooze button, I did NOT want to get out of bed, I drug myself out of bed!! Kayla was still sound asleep in bed as I got everything ready for the morning. I took Kayla to the doctor, against her wishes, and her doctor said that she has ear infections in both ears, ironically her right ear was worse than her left, the one that bothered her all night. We now have medicine to give her and hopefully tonight will be much better.

Wind

This morning when I woke up and opened the blinds to the back porch I noticed that my table was missing upon further inspection I noticed that it was not missing it had been blown into the yard. The kids toys were blown around and our chairs had been blown over as well. I knew it was rainy last night, but had no idea that there were winds that strong, I must have been sleeping GOOD!!