One of those days...

Don't I start almost every post by saying I'm going to blog more? Yeah, I thought so.

I thought for sure I really would be blogging more right now, especially since I'm on a self-imposed Facebook break during Lent. The thing is, I've been so stinkin' busy lately, I haven't been much of anywhere. (Unless crazy is a place, in which case I have been living there.)

I thought I'd jump back in with a classic Never a Dull Moment kind of day. Nothing like a day full of chaos to get ya back in the bloggy mood, eh?

Currently, I am sitting at my kitchen table in half darkness. I am having a glass of wine. One kid is in bed, the other two are watching Wonder Pets. My husband is on his way home, and upon entry will find the following:

*five (yes, five) loads of clean laundry heaped on the couch waiting to be folded
*a sink full of dishes in soapy water
*a dishwasher waiting to be emptied
*gross kitchen/eating nook/family room floors
*the kitchen counter full of all of my work stuff

This is all before the poor guy goes upstairs. Yikes.

It has been, well...one of those days. No other way to put it. It was one of those days by 7:30 a.m. I know that if anyone still reads this thing, the majority of you (which probably means two out of three people - ha!) will be able to relate and I don't need to expand on that.

**Disclaimer: if you are lucky enough to be that one person who is thinking "What is this woman TALKING about?"... please count your blessings and move along. Take your clear mind and do *not* clutter it up with the mundane chaos that has somehow become my every day. You are more than welcome to read this blog, I'm just sayin' I will not be held responsible for the mucky brain syndrome that may come through osmosis.**

(Oh, and FYI - I still love my life, some days there is just a bit much of it for me.)

So...about today.

School dropoff. Got my first grader in the door just before the tardy bell rang. Accomplishing this meant asking my kids if they liked it when I yelled. (Yes, I really asked them that question and no, I wasn't kidding.) You see, this was the kind of morning where I started out as Patientloving Mom, asking the same things of the same kids - nicely, I might add - three times. Mount St. Crazymom erupted on request #4 -- and whaddya know? Instant performance by my little cherubs. Feels horrible to me and I know they can't stand it -- but there we were. All in a scruffy little whirpool of tension and yelling. No fun. (By the way, I do realize what a truly ridiculous question that was on my part. I absolutely know that they don't like it when I yell, but this morning -- I really was beginning to wonder. Again, I'm thinking 2 out of 3 of you feel me on this one.)

So, anyway - we got to gymnastics class. Late. By about 5 minutes, but miraculously, they were starting 5 minutes late so not a biggie today. UNTILLLLLL the door from the cubby room to the gym closed and Mason realized he was once again denied access to all of the fun stuff that taunts him from the other side of the big windows. It is pure torture for him to have to watch the kids run, jump, tumble, swing, hop, bounce, flip, climb and (just paused to yell again, fyi - the hits just keep on comin') skip. He wants SO badly to be in the middle of all of that fun, and yet he is stuck on the other side of the windows with all of the parents. Poor guy. Today, I took a bag full of toys and decided that I would not sit in the room with the big windows. Instead, I'd sit in the smaller, boring room of cubbies so that Mason could run and play. It meant not watching Georgia do her thing, but I thought it would be easier with Mr. FussyPants.

Wellllll, after first glaring at me as she stepped over Tantrum City on her way to the cubbies, another gymnastics mom then decided to camp out at the door of the cubby room with herself and her younger daughter. Did I mention that said camping was done with the door to the gym cracked open?? *sigh* REALLY?! Ugh. Sooooo...I pick up Tantrum City and come back for all of his toys and we move to the window room after all. So much for plans on that one! We survived the torturous hour of waiting and headed home.

As I was driving, I noticed the car pulling a bit to the right, but didn't think much of it since we just had our brakes replaced and they said that the shocks/struts are next and they might impact the alignment until then. (Good times.) After a few hours, some lunch, a whole bunch of laundry, etc. - it's time to go get Mitchell from school.

OF COURSE, both of the little ones are still asleep. (Yes, I sighed here, too.) Sooooo...I wake them both up, complete with two sets of sad little faces and matching tears. I was hoping that the sunshine (what?!), walk in the stroller and some playtime at the playground would cheer them up. Luckily, it did. When we got home, as I was breaking up fight #8943043 (this one about who would get the mail out of the mailbox), I noticed that the van looked like it was at like a 45 degree angle, sloping to the right in our garage. (Can you picture me standing on the sidewalk, tilting my head to the right to see if I'm nuts? It happened.)

I go look (after another giant sigh, of course) and sure enough, my right front tire is as FLAT as a pancake. Like, I've never seen a flatter tire in all of my life. (Granted, I don't have super extensive experience in this department, but still.)

Wellllll...isn't this a nice little insertion into the day?

It was 3:30 pm. Georgia had soccer practice at 5. The tire store closed at 6. I had to be at work, 45 minutes away from my house (and after dropping all 3 kids off at different places) at 8:30 am in the morning. NOT. A. GOOD. TIME. FOR. A. FLAT. TIRE!! On the plus side, it was in the garage and I wasn't on the side of the road somewhere. Also on the plus side, sunshine and no snow.

In the end, I called my dad. He got stuck in traffic, so the plan of him helping me take the tire off, loading everyone in his car, dropping me and the tire at the tire store and him taking the kids to G's soccer practice went by the wayside. (The tire store and soccer field for practice were about 1/2 mile apart.) What ended up happening was that the jack in my car was beyond irritating. After about an hour, my dad FINALLY got it to open up (it was stuck) but by then AAA was on the way. (He has a membership, I do not.) In that time, I'd strapped Mason into his carseat in the van, Georgia had the hazard lights going and Mitchell was playing "hockey" using a baseball bat and soccer ball in the front yard. Oh, and the lady coordinating Mason's upcoming speech evaluation called in the middle of all of this.

Might I add, I did make tacos and we all ate. So, ya know - my cape didn't COMPLETELY fall off.

As I finish this, it is now the next morning. I'm sitting by myself in Starbucks, sipping a latte and listening to some pretty relaxing music. I'm also the ONLY woman in here. What is that about?? Don't these men WORK?!

I ended up having to miss my first two appointments of the morning because the tire was beyond repair. I ended up getting four new tires, much to my husband's dismay. I also learned that they do not design tire store sales floors with 20 month old boys in mind. (Just in case you were wondering about that.)

Upon reflection of my day, I'm thankful for the following:
*a van to have flat tires on
*three kids to make me triply nutty
*a husband who loves me despite, well...everything you just read
*a daddy who still takes care of me, even though I am a *huge* pain
*sunny days
*the ability to pay for new tires
*food to eat
*clothes to wash
*a house to clean
*wine to drink (for real!)

Count your blessings, especially when they seem like anything but. Someone would LOVE to have your cruddy day because it would probably be the best one they'd had in a while.

I'll be back more often. I promise. :)

One Eyed Wonder...

That's me! I am somewhat of a cyclops this week. You see, sometime while I was sleeping Monday night, I developed pink eye. I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed that my eye was sort of itchy. And watery. And sort of gooey.

Fun, right?

So, in the morning when I got up, I noticed that it was worse, and also very pinkish/red. *sigh* Who doesn't love a good dose of pink eye in the morning? Yeah. So. As the day went on, my eye continued to get worse and worse. I *had* to go to the store with the kids, as we were literally on our last diaper/pull up for Miss G. The cashier literally gasped when I pulled up my sunglasses to see the pinpad to pay. I was like "I know. It's bad. I brought my own pen, don't worry."

I started to get somewhat worried while Georgia was napping in the afternoon as this was quickly turning into something other than your typical run-of-the-mill pink eye. My doctor, my eye doctor and my husband's doctor all had policies that prohibited them from calling in a prescription for medicated eye drops without seeing me first. At this point, I was unable to get an appointment with my doctor until Wednesday morning and I had a feeling that waiting that long would not be a good move. I was reading up on conjunctivitis in my kids' pediatrician's book and started to become concerned that I was having what could be symptoms of cellulitis. My dad said he could come stay with the kids while I went to the urgent care clinic before Mitchell's soccer game.

You know it's probably not good when the DOCTOR gasps upon seeing your eye for the first time.

Apparently, my "allergy" week was more like a sinus infection week. I had green yucky goo in my right sinus cavity and fluid behind my right eardrum. This explains how the pink eye came to be, as they all drain or not drain in the same spot, but she was stumped as to why it was so violently attacking my eye. She said there was a lot of bleeding in there...most likely due to the fact that my eye had so much pressure from the swelling. She put me on an oral antibiotic as well as antibiotic eye drops and told me that if it wasn't improving by the next day, I'd need to go to the ER.

FOR PINK EYE. Seriously??? Only me, I swear.

So. That night was horrible. I couldn't sleep at all. It felt like it wasn't improving at all. The only good thing about no sleep was that I could put my drops in every 2 hours all night long. Thankfully, when I woke up in the morning the swelling and redness in the skin surrounding my eye was better.

So, 3 days later here we are. The discoloration and swelling in the skin around my eye is lots better and I'm not having too many goobers anymore. That said, I 'm still very uncomfortable and still very cyclops/bloody eye looking. Seriously. I went shopping today for a few things and it was the topic of conversation each time I pulled my sunglasses down. Fun, fun. Chris would love it if I wore a t-shirt proclaiming that it's pink eye, not a black eye, by the way.

One funny thing did come of this whole thing last night. I had started to doze off on the couch while we were watching tv last night and my hubby said my name and tossed me something. When I first opened my eye, I couldn't see too clearly. I could swear to you that this man threw me a blackberry. All I know is that it was black and white and rectangular. And cold. I was squinting and trying to figure it out while I sat up and Chris starts laughing at me. He says "It's an ice cream sandwich, you dork." I started laughing, too...I told him I thought he got me a new phone. Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty amusing. We decided the only way it would have been funnier is if I had put it up to my ear and said "Hello?"

I have never washed my hands so much in all my life. They are just raw, despite using more lotion on them than I have in all my life. So far, so good in the way of no one else getting it. (Any prayers to keep it that way would be much appreciated, by the way.)

Okay - if you are squeamish -- avert your eyes. I know that some of you are dying to see what it looks like, so here ya go. The first picture is about 1 am Tuesday and the 2nd picture is from last night before bed. Gross. Totally gross, I know. Okay - off to do eyedrops before bed!

Randomness...

Wayyyy back in 2005 (3 years, really??) when I started this blog, I noticed that I often was blogging in the middle of the night. Guess what? That pattern stuck.

Maybe it's because I'm pregnant half the time. Ya think?

Anyway - here I sit at 3:44 am. Heartburn is winning, though I'm on round two of my Tums. And what is up with nature deciding to "move" in the middle of the night lately? Very inconvenient for me. I can handle the handful of sleepy potty breaks, but the other urge just makes it all but impossible to go back to sleep.

Annnnd, I'm sure you all wanted to know that, right? Riiiiiiggggghhhhht.

Speaking of being up in the middle of the night, I became a victim of an infomercial a few weeks ago. One of those steam cleaners -- not for the carpet, but the hand held kind. Complete with floor attachment. I believe I was still in the aftermath of the whole norovirus drama and they had me at sterilizing. Yep, there I was. Watching all of this steam power away germs and dirt and generally gross grime. And then there I was, on the phone buying that thing. It hasn't arrived yet, so I'll let ya know how big of a turkey I am. Who knows? Maybe it will end up being a beloved cleaning tool. I think I'll probably name it...it seems like the kind of thing that needs a name. (Yes, I'm a dork who often names inanimate objects.)

Moving along in the randomness...this next part could probably appear braggy, but I assure you it is simply an amazed Mommy report. You see, it appears that Mitchell has fully figured out this whole reading thing. In the last few months he has really, REALLY improved in the number of words he's able to figure out but I think it's kind of like when kids grow out of shoes. You know they're getting tighter, but then one day the shoes just don't fit anymore and you're left wondering EXACTLY when that happened? (Maybe it's just me.) I mean, I have seen him getting better, but the other night I was absolutely blown away. Last week, my parents took us, my sister-in-law and my two nephews to see this local production of the very Frog & Toad book that we own. (It was actually mine from when I was little.) Well, as you can imagine, he was very excited to come home and read it at bedtime. As usual, I started reading to him after tucking him in and I only got about 3 words out when he said "Mommy, I want to read it to you tonight."

And he so TOTALLY did!

I think in the entire chapter he missed about 10-15 words, max! It was absolutely amazing!! I was tempted to go to the basement and get my Running Record forms from my school stuff to check his accuracy, because I'm nerdy like that. Instead, I turned off the teacher side of my brain and let the Mommy side of my brain just go to goo. I helped him when he asked me to, but mostly I just sat and listened. And smiled like a complete goofball who had taken about 4 too many valium or something. I just couldn't help it.

I think that what happened is that I saw myself in him. He was just LOST in this book. I, for the first time, really saw him figure out how magical reading can be. I sat there snuggled up with a five year old male version of myself -- that child whose real world melted into the scenes found in the pages of the book. I can tell that he is going to be just like me. Called 14 times for dinner, only to be physically hunted down and found to have his nose in a book, oblivious to the fact that there is still life outside of those pages. That makes me grin ear-to-ear because I know that I witnessed him experiencing one of the great joys in my own life: reading.

He was so proud of himself, almost as proud as I was! We talked for awhile about our favorite parts of the play, how it made the book even funnier now, and again about how wonderful he did when he was reading to me. Of course, he begged me to do another chapter right then. I encouraged him to read another one on his own, but that it was bedtime. (He most often falls asleep with books on his bed.) When I left him, he was snuggled under his covers, holding his book in the air, saying the words "Chapter 2." I came back to check on him about 15 minutes later, and he was sound asleep, Frog & Toad still clutched in his little hands.

I remember the day I figured out how to read. I was sitting on the steps in my house with my mom. She was tying my shoes and I was reading to her from my Winnie The Pooh And The Blustery Day book. She stopped tying my shoes and said "You just READ that to me! You know how to read!" I think I was about 4 or 5 years old and to this day, I can still remember what a special feeling that was. I knew I'd just unlocked a whole new world and I could tell by how excited my mom was that it as a big deal. I hope that Mitchell remembers his Frog & Toad moment the same way...that he knows it is a special thing.

Okay - enough babbling for one middle of the night session. I think the Tums are starting to win. Maybe I'll try going to bed again. I took some time to say hello to all of you bloggy friends tonight. It was so fun to catch up!! Hopefully I won't be such a stranger anymore.

Night, night!

It's that time again...

...as in, the middle of the night. *sigh*

Most of my 2005 posts were probably made between the hours of 10 pm and 8 am. I was pregnant.

Hi. It's 3:25 a.m. at the moment. I'm pregnant. *yawn*

I'm just sayin'...this seems to be my thing. I believe that I brought tonight upon myself as I ate too late (and something a little sweet) and had horrid heartburn and well -- here I am. Law & Order is always on almost all night and usually will put me back to sleep. Not tonight.

As long as I'm up, here are two (as Chris calls them) "bloggable" moments from this week in our house.
*****************************************************
Here's an almost hourly conversation with Georgia this week. NO idea what it means or where it came from but she's pretty satisfied every time I play along.
Georgia: Guess what, Mommy!
Mommy: What?
Georgia: Charlie Brown! (cha-ee bon)
Mommy: Charlie Brown?
Georgia: Yeah.
(Uhhhh, nope. You're not missing anything. That's it. That's where she happily runs off.)

****************************************************
Mitchell made me get all teary-eyed at dinner on Valentine's Day. I made breakfast for dinner and the highlight for the kids was the pink, heart-shaped pancakes that I made. (In hindsight, very strange. I try pretty hard to not give them red food dye if I can help it and then I gave it to them on purpose. Go figure. I had planned the heart-shape thing earlier, but the pink idea came to me at the last minute. Next year, it's raspberry and/or strawberry puree in the batter, baby.)

Anyway, he was getting himself another pancake from the kitchen and Georgia said "More cakes?" as he was getting up. He brought the whole plate back to the table with him and said "Maybe we can share one, Georgia!"

We then watched with pride as he completely unprompted proceeded to tear a pancake in half. He put one half on his plate, then put the other half down on his placemat. He asked Georgia for her fork and began trying to cut the other half of the pancake into smaller pieces for her. He was pretty unsuccesful at that, so he put the fork down and began tearing off bite-sized pieces for her. Every time he'd hand her one she'd say, "Ank u, Mitcho" and he'd smile so big and tell her "You're welcome, sweetheart."

*sniffle* It was seriously just the sweetest thing. Chris and I just sat there and watched. Well, he sat and watched with a smile. I watched, smiled, and cried...'cause, well - that's what I do.
*****************************************************

I'll leave you on a good note: I have my big ultrasound this morning. In 4 hours. Guess I better try again for some sleep, huh? Oh, and no - not finding out what we're having but praying for a healthy whoever is in there. I'll update you on that front soon.

Night, night. (See -- look at me, being all optomistic and stuff. Pretty cheery for 3:39 a.m., huh?)

Buried.

Okay, for starters... I have sort of gotten myself into a rut. Okay, not sort of. I just have.

I'm sick.
The kids are sick.
I'm tired.
I'm pregnant.
I just don't have time.
Repeat.

The above has been my mantra for the last oh -- three weeks or so. For everything under the sun.

Cleaning? Mantra.
Time in The Word? Mantra.
Exercise? Mantra.
Fun stuff with the kids? Mantra.

Okay - now I *will* cut myself a little bit of slack. I have been sick. The kids have been sick. I am most certainly pregnant. I don't know if I've EVER been this tired in all my life. True. All true.

But.

I can make a good mantra. I can get myself out of this "buried" condition. A month or two ago I was happier than I'd been in quite some time. I was eating fantastically. I was spending time in The Word each and every day and loving it. I was participating in two Bible studies regularly. I was working out several times a week.

Now -- not so much. For any of it. *sigh*

I do, honestly - feel buried. Under the blahs. Under life.

But I can get out. I know I can. And I will. So, no worries.

Okay - so speaking of buried. Here's that post I mentioned like a month ago that has been knocking around inside of my brain. Ironically, it's about things being buried, too.

Alot of our stuff is in storage right now. Obviously, not things that we use every day or on a somewhat regular basis. Most of the stuff are things that we want to use again in the new house (wherever that may be) -- train table, formal serving dishes, our overstuffed rocker recliner, etc.

Well, when we went to get our stuff out for the holidays (ALLLLL of our Christmas decorations were in there), I was struck by how buried it all was. How boxes and boxes of other "stuff" made getting to what we were actually looking for so very difficult. We had to wade through very tiny walkways, stand on desks, etc. to make sure that the box at the very bottom of the back pile was indeed Christmas stuff.

Then, once we got all of the things out that we needed, we had to put the rest of the boxes and items back in...only they didn't fit the same way. There were gaps and holes where the things we'd taken out had once been. Now some boxes stacked akwardly. Some furniture had to be rearranged again. Things like that.

It just struck me as we drove away how similar that is to my own heart and the "junk" I have stored in there. Sometimes in order to dig deep and get to the things that I really need to have and deal with right now, I have to unpack some other things that I didn't even know were jumbled up in there. I guess the thing that jumped out to me is that so many times, I have things buried in my heart and half the time, the things I have to deal with in order to find what I'm looking for I thought I'd dealt with long ago.

Here is where I'd usually elaborate, but it's taken me two attempts to get THIS much written down so I'll stop here. I'm 12 weeks along now and am off to the OB's office in a few hours for my 2nd appointment. I'll keep you posted.

A sincere thank you for all of the love and "where are you" check ups. I'm here. I'm tired. I'm fine.

I'm buried, but digging out.

Off to a rockin' start...

So.

Last time I posted I told you how we were going on a 4 day mini-vaca as a family and were excited to be leaving the sickies behind as we rang in 2008 as a healthy, relaxed little group.

Welllll...it didn't quite work out that way.

On Saturday we spent the day packing up our stuff (more of a "me" than a "we"), putting Christmas stuff away, shoveling walks (that was more of a "he" than a "we"), and finally loading all of our stuff and ourselves into the van. Seriously - you would have thought we were going for 4 weeks, not 4 days -- that thing was packed to the gills! We had already decided to just avoid the headache of taking the kids out to eat and instead brought enough food and drinks to last us the whole time. Also, the hot item of the week had been the new kitchen, fake food and tea sets that arrived at Christmas, so we decided to bring those along. (The kitchen barely comes up to my waist -- it's tiny. The fake food and tea sets are all in one 3-drawer rolling plastic bin, so it was easy traveling with those.) We also loaded up a bag full of trains and books. We were all set!

We planned on leaving around 1 but didn't get on the road until about 3. Not a big deal until we decided we needed to make two stops once we got into our little mountain town. By the time we got to the condo, checked in and got everything unloaded it was about 6. I think it was around this time that I told Chris I felt like I was getting sick. My throat was starting to hurt, I had a headache and I just felt a little "off". (Remember that Mitchell and I were both already on antibiotics for strep at this point.) I sort of shrugged it off though because I assumed it was just from having a busy day and not staying totally on top of drinking enough water, so I just started drinking a lot of it right then.

We had a fun night and made some pizzas for dinner. There was a great gas fireplace in the living room which really warmed the whole room -- and it was so cozy and relaxing. (The kids did a wonderful job of staying away from it, too!) The kids were so excited to be in the mountains and it was snowing off and on, which was beautiful to watch. Mitchell was already asking to go play outside in the snow, and we promised him that we would the next day.

We are a sports-loving family, so we were all having fun watching football together - especially since Mitchell insisted on bringing his new Broncos outfit and helmet with him. He loves to pretend he's in the game and "helping the team" - it makes us laugh to see him running around in his own little football game. Such a goof! The only problem that we found was that the large, rectangular window above the couch was REALLY drafty...super drafty. That weekend was filled with high wind and very cold temperatures so we had to improvise with some extra pillows and sheets to block the draft. We never got it completely sealed off but it was much better after our little alteration. The kids also had fun "making dinner" and just playing together in the living room.

We got everyone settled into bed that first night -- Georgia didn't really even fight sleeping in her pack n' play, which was fantastic! There was a little cut-out closet with no doors right inside of our bedroom that made the perfect, cozy little spot for her. Mitchell ended up just sleeping with us. We have a queen sized bed at home, so this HUGE king bed had more than enough room for all of us. Chris and I were both exhausted, so we all went to bed at the same time.

The next morning (Sunday) when I woke up - I knew I was about to get hammered. (I should mention here that we had some "people" over for dinner on Friday night and it turns out that one of them had been sick in bed with a bad cough/cold and the chills *read: fever* all day, yet didn't tell us this and still came to dinner at our house so I was hoping against hope that this wouldn't happen. I'm trying VERY hard not to be bitter or angry about this, as I'm sure you can understand.) I felt absolutely HORRIBLE and feverish. I also was starting to cough and every time that I did it felt like my entire throat and chest were literally on fire. (You know how it feels when you run in really cold weather? That burning?) Mitchell was also starting to cough a bit, which worried me as I was sure he'd soon be feeling like I was. We got everyone fed and sort of got our stuff a bit more settled in the kitchen and living room. It really is so very beautiful up there -- and the kids, like us, were amazed by the view out of our window. We all sat taking it in for awhile, watching for birds and squirrels and other wildlife. There were some gorgeous bluejays that kept flying in and out of the trees right off of our deck.

Mitchell was begging all morning to go outside, so we decided that since the wind hadn't kicked up too much yet, that it would be as good a time as any. (Good thing - the 20 minutes we were outside was it for the WHOLE weekend!!) I really can't believe that I'm putting this picture in here -- you can see how great I felt. Oh, and for the record, I didn't even BRING my makeup bag with me on the trip so just know that. (And BethAnne, my friend, I don't even want to HEAR about another horrible hair/no makeup day from you -- I've clearly trumped you but good in the looking glorious department.) Anyway - it was pretty cold out there (but then again, I had a fever) so we didn't stay long but the kids had so much fun just tromping around in the snow outside of our complex. They cleared the whole picnic table off -- I think that's what took the most time -- and Mitchell made a few great snow angels. Oh, and sweet Miss G did her usual face plant in the snow thing, of course. Then we headed back inside for more football and some hot chocolate and snacks.

I'll give you the nutshell version of the rest of the weekend:

*By about 2pm that day, Mitchell and I both were feeling awful. He and I both kept our fevers until Tuesday morning. His got up to 104 but was usually around 102 and mine was around 101 most of the time. Tylenol and motrin (just for him) helped, but only temporarily. *Georgia joined in on the fun for most of Monday by throwing up once and having a low grade fever, but other than that seemed to be feeling like herself most of the time. *Chris ended up escaping the sick bug -- but I wonder if that's because he was already on Tamiflu from his little episode the week before. *We watched a lot of football and cartoons and I was thankful that there was a Law & Order Marathon on tv all night long since I didn't do much sleeping. *Chris ran to the grocery store 3 times for more medicine, drinks, etc. which was the only money we spent, so at least that was a good thing *He got in the private hot tub on our deck exactly one time but was in sheer heaven while he was soaking *I was actually awake at midnight on New Year's -- of course that's because Mitchell's fever wouldn't go down and I was worried sick while he slept on me. *There were super high winds and it was freezing!! all weekend long, so even if we'd wanted to go outside, we couldn't have.

So.

Here we are, back at home a week later. (And it's the middle of the night as I'm still not sleeping very good, thanks to this monster cough.) I'm still sick, though much better. Mitchell is the same way. Georgia drank out of his cup a few days ago and today came down with a 101.6 degree fever and a cough. *ding,ding* Round 2 anyone??

Still.

It's manageable. It stinks like crazy and I truly have not been this sick in years, but it's manageable. And temporary. And as Chris and I kept repeating to each other all last weekend while we were away...at least we're together.

I'll be back more often once we kick this thing for good. Hope everyone else's year is off to a better start!

Still here...

Thanks for checking on me, friends. I'm still here. Not feeling all that horrible, but not feeling all that great either. I had my first appointment at the OB's office on Monday and all is well. I even got to see the little bean on an ultrasound, so that was reassuring. My due date is now officially July 27. I've just been really, REALLY tired so blogging has been put on the back burner until I can keep my eyes open past 8 pm. Plus, I've been enjoying the fact that my husband has been getting home earlier and we've been spending time together at night. This week I have got to wrap presents as so far, I have wrapped ONE. Probably not a good pace I'm setting.

Seeing as how it's Wednesday and I'm in a rush to get Mitchell to school so that Georgia and I can go finish my shopping, I will just take the Not-So-Wordless-Wednesday path today. I *do* have a more thinking cap type blog in my head -- it's been there for about 2 weeks now -- maybe this week I can find a few minutes to get it down.

Love and hugs to all my bloggy friends. Hope you are wrapped in the love of Christ as the day of his birth draws near.

Our first family gingerbread house. We were sort of over it by the time we got to the windows and the wreaths. The kids loved playing in the backyard after the snow. Unfortunately my camera batteries died after these two shots. That last one is of Georgia after she face planted. Doesn't she look thrilled? It was pretty funny - she is SUCH a drama queen.

Mega Picture Overload. (So not kidding.)

Maybe it's because I'm fighting a cold and am up at 2:53 a.m.


Maybe it's because the only sound in my house right now are the tapping of the computer keys and the breathing of my husband and kids as they sleep.


Maybe it's because I am just having a moment.


Whatever the reason, I've been spending some time in the past this morning. Revisiting big, swollen, pregnant bellies. Sighing with bittersweet adoration at tiny fingers, toes, noses, and mouths drawn into little "o's". Giggling at silly moments and goofy expressions.


I am extraordinarily blessed. To have this love, these smiles, such cherished times to reflect on...what a privilege. Prayers of gratitude for His love and grace were intertwined with my memories tonight. (This morning??)


Here are some of the pictures that I treasure the most. They are in no particular order (mainly because my photobucket is 45 pages big and in very random order) and I wonder if you can spot the completely unintentional Austin Powers-esque photo? Once someone pointed it out to me I was like "Oh, WOW!!" Would have never noticed it otherwise, but now I can't look at it without laughing. I know there are a ton, but trust me - -this is a small sampling!!

Thanks for indulging my sense of nostalgia, and I am SO sorry if you have dial-up. I have probably ruined your day with this one.