TheKiddos »

 my niece, my oldest sister’s little girl, came to visit a couple of weeks ago.  i caught this pic, unposed if you can believe it, while they were mesmerized by the tigger movie.  it was later i realized they had put themselves in order of age.  my little stair steppers… my girl - almost 2, the middlest - 3 1/2, the cousin - 4 1/2, my oldest - 5.  too good!

TheySay »

 fear not!

here’s the conversation…

daddy - what’s for dinner?

me - are you kidding me? 

daddy (to his daughter) - you wanna go cook dinner with daddy?

his girl - uh huh!

daddy goes to the kitchen and my girl runs to her bedroom.  he gets curious and follows her.  she’s working furiously. 

daddy - what are you doing, sweet girl?

his girl - i cookin’.

ah, too sweet! 

TheBetterHalf, TheKiddos »

here’s the pic that sums up my sick girl’s last week.

i laid her on the changing table, told her to stay put, stepped around the corner to get her medicine, and when i walked back in she was out.  poor sleepy, sick-y, baby.

   look at her eyes.  and look at daddy - so in love and so worried about her. 

TheKiddos »

aah, steroids, sweet steroids!

so i fought some more with the medicaid office and then called my doctor’s office to get a work-in appointment.  i called for 2 hours yesterday morning to get the appt, with only a busy signal to greet me.  (i should’ve had a clue…)  finally decided to get everyone ready and just go set in the doctor’s office until they could see me.  (side note - if you know me, you know this is not normal behavior for me - i don’t run to the doctor.  ever.  so when i pack up all 3 children after a night of NO sleep with a very sick child in tow, then you can imagine the point i’m at to take them to the doctor.)  i finally get to the doctor’s office while on the way there.  they have no appointments until the next day, no, they will not work me in, i can sit in their office, but i will NOT be seen.  i then told her i needed to speak with the nurse or go to the er.  she took the message and hung up.  i then had a complete fall apart while in the car.  crying.  wailing.  losing it.  2 hours later the nurse called me back, said my girl’s rash and fever 2 weeks ago sounded viral and unrelated to the latest issues.  the rash was a “phantom” fever.  viral.  no big deal.  (in other words, i was confirmed in my earlier decision that it was not strep, but just a passing thing - glad i didn’t take her then - i had begun to question myself.)  what she has now is a cold combined with croup.  same croup that my oldest had, and that (thankfully) missed my middlest.  so, can i give her the same steroids i still have on hand from october?  yes.  no problem.  (insert singing of hallelujah)  my girl slept all night - she slept until 3:30am with no coughing, and there was absolutely no throwing up or showers in the middle of the night!  yea!  steroids!  now, i can just wait for the fun of the steroids after several days, but i’ll take what i can get now - if it’ll let me sleep!

onto other things - the house has been inspected.  we’re waiting on the w-2 to close.

we’re kind of back into homeschooling - we dropped 5-in-a-row this week - i have to find a book - another long story with the library - not worth going into right now.  i just decided that’s too much foot work for a week when everyone’s still kinda sick, not sleeping, and we’re knee-deep in this house buying stuff.  but we’re still doing the …100 easy lessons for phonics reading - this is still going great.  and we’re focusing on money counting this week and counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s.  my 3 year old’s working through one of his pre-k workbooks and we’re still reading “the magician’s nephew” at naptimes and teaching everything all the time (ie, hard-core shoe tying!, working hard on our chores - taking care of daisy (yes, she’s still with us!), drying and putting away dishes, setting the table, clearing the table, sorting, folding and putting away clothes, cleaning their room nightly, you know, the norm…)  oh, and i really started working with my 5 year old about taking responsibility for his actions.  this has been a huge issue, even more lately.  last night, daddy and i talked to him about confessing his sins to the one who was sinned against and asking for forgiveness.  we’re trying to connect what he’s doing now with the bigger issues that he’ll need to grasp later with his relationship with the Lord.  and that he is loved no matter what he does, but that the relationship with the one hurt by his actions is strained until he takes the steps to redeem it.  and then complete forgiveness from the one hurt.  he seemed to get this, not like it, just get it.  so we’ve worked hard on this today.   

i have other cutesy posts, but i’m still waiting to get the pics from the camera to the computer.  oh, to be technology literate…  :)   

Understanding »

at the risk of sounding gripey, i’ll take my chances…

they’re all sick.  all 3.  right now.  i need to believe that having all 3 sick at the same time is better than having one sick at a time for weeks on end.  no sleep.  that’s what i get.  and have i mentioned before that my girl’s mechanism for dealing with everything unpleasant is to puke?  and further - medicaid, with NO notice, cancelled our whole family - due to THEIR paperwork error - back in NOVEMBER!  i just found this out 2 weeks ago and have been working on it ever since, still no new numbers yet.  sooo, i can’t just take them to the doctor tomorrow, because they don’t want to see us without a number.  and can i just tell you i almost went “falling down” on the medicaid office this week.  i had to remind myself that the woman i was dealing with was the only “advocate” i had to actually getting new numbers and that my very impressionable small children were scrutinizing my every move. 

i’ve tried perspective, and i can’t get it through the foggy haze of no sleep…

Understanding »

ok, so i have 8 weeks left before e.t.a.  if i walk from the living room to the kids’ room i’m outta breath.  and if i do anything like actually bathe my children i sound like i’ve run a marathon!  next week starts my 2 week visits - i’m excited about that - it means it’s getting closer!  i feel him hiccup all the time and the braxton hicks come fairly regularly if i overdo it.  speaking of those things, we should be closing on the house a little before schedule - and next tuesday we have the inspection.  if we can just get that w-2 here and get that tax return back we’ll be ready to roll!  and getting into the house even one day sooner will be a relief.  i’d like to fine-tune the house when the severe nesting sets in. 

my oldest’s the one with fever this week.  i’ve had lots of good ideas for posts, but with house buying, my 5 year old’s sickness, and being a little bit pregnant i haven’t gotten it together to post.  i’ll try to work on it, but no promises until after the baby gets here and i figure out what i’m doing with a fourth one in the house! 

Somethin' »

for the morris family.

my heart is shattered with the news that they have lost the fight for Joel’s life.  please pray for Cindy and Terry and for all of their children.  they need much encouragement and comfort.  you can leave your thoughts for them at weloveyoujoel.blogspot.com.

Somethin' »

and here they are…

 this is the back deck, storage building and back yard - as seen through the sliding glass door in the kitchen.  summer party, anyone?

 this is the jetted tub in the “master bath”.  yes, we have a master bath.  amazing.

 no, this is not the nursery, nor is it even our current bedroom, this is the master closet.  this is the room that makes me feel absolutely guilty if we get this house.  we do not deserve such as this house!

have i mentioned that if somehow this house falls through now that i’ll be a little disappointed?  but it’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to be.  and it’s already worked better than i could have imagined. 

Somethin' »

here are some more pics…

the room the kiddos picked - observe that the curious george yellow is already in place, all it needs now is a hand-painted mural and some homemade curtains!

the kiddos’ bathroom - observe, again, already color-ready for the rubber ducky theme i’ve always wanted.

this is other bedroom - we call it the blue room.  the boys call it the one with the narnia closet - the closet connects all the way through to a closet in the living room.  this is the room i’ll take for me and the new one on the nights of daddy’s work when he must sleep and i must be up all night feeding the new one and tending to the other ones who wander in in the middle of the night.  observe the calming color for all that chaos!

this is all for now, i’ll post again with the last of the pics!

Somethin' »

WE WON THE BID!!

so now we do paperwork and wait to close on february 23.  as i mentally decorate every square inch.  i’ll include a couple of pics now, and then do a few more posts on them, because i can’t figure out how to put a bunch of pics on one post (and because mandy has dial-up and it would take her forever to look at one post!)

the living room

the kitchen - looking into the living room

thank y’all for all of your prayers!  the mortgage woman said the loan is a given, but i can’t breathe easy until i have the keys in hand and i’m tellin’ all you men where to set the couch.  so, all of you that are bored on the weekend of feb. 23rd, pack yourselves up and come help my man move our stuff “one last time!”  we’ll have a party parker style - food, kids, and chaos! 

i think as excited as i am to have a home of my own for the first time in our lives i’m as excited about creating stability for my kiddos.  as i’ve said before, when your 3 year old says, “mama, can we move one LAST time?” it can’t be good.  i’m so excited that we’ll have a yard for the kids to run in, that i don’t have to ask the landlord before i paint curious george on the walls and i don’t have the dread of another move.  i’m so excited to just be.  put down roots.  settle in.  bring my last baby home to the house we’ll be in for a long time.  mark the wall with how tall they all are.  my husband asked me tonight what we’re going to plant in our garden next year.  sit on that one for a minute.  to stay somewhere long enough to break up land, plant food, care for it, and harvest it.  “tomatoes, of course.”  and potatoes.  i remember digging in the dirt with my dad for potatoes and finding worms when i was no older than my oldest.  and tomatoes - my whole life we had fresh tomatoes, canned tomatoes, tomatoes juice, frozen rotel for winter.  i will can food someday!  i feel like laughing and crying all at once, and yet, i can’t let myself completely go until i know for absolute certain!

either way, thank you, Father, for the amazing blessings that have and are flowing.