Blog vs. Personal Hygiene

I just want everyone to know that I decided that I should blog today over taking a shower...with 3 kids under 5...alone time is hard to come by. But I realized I haven't written anything in quite a while, so decided my time would be best spent journaling on the latest events in family life. Also, I couldn't let this day go by without praising God for one of His many miracles. On the side bar there is a link to what I call a "miracle in the making" (http://www.mycharmingkids.net/) It is a blog about a young mom who is pregnant with a son who, at 20 weeks, was diagnosed with severe heart abnormalities. She was told by the medical team that he would surely die in utero...but today, 19 weeks later, she is delivering a full term healthy baby boy. His APGAR scores were 9 & 9 and so far, the NICU team hasn't been able to find anything wrong with him. What makes this story so interesting is that she started a blog to document the journey and in doing so has acquired hundreds of followers who all have been praying for her and baby Stellan the entire time. It has been amazing to watch this story unfold. And what is making this the most interesting to me is that she has 3 other kids...hold on...ages 3, 2, & 1. Wow. That's crazy. Check it out!



The past couple weeks have really gone by in a blur.

The details:

• Grandma "with the glasses" came for a visit last week and it was wonderful to have her here! She played hours of GO FISH, had sleepovers with Hannah, and took care of the kids while I went to class.






• Jacob has mastered crawling and sitting (although he never stays sitting for long...don't know if this is because he falls over or just always wants to crawl.)



• Jacob has not mastered sleeping. Last night was officially awful with 1:00 am & 5:00 am feedings. At 7 months & 20 pounds...he is about to learn the art of self-soothing.


• Calah, at 21 months, is a perfect mix of snuggling and stubbornness.
• 
  Hannah is getting taller by the second. I swear she grew 3 inches this summer because all of her 4T pants are more like capris now. She is Sleeping Beauty for Halloween this year.



• Jon is excited because he has finally moved into his new office building 1 mile away. He has been riding his bike to work everyday and even rides it home and back again for lunch...that's 4 miles/day. I better start working out!



• School is going very well with its only downside being that I don't have the energy to keep up with blogging. I guess I never realized how much nurses actually have to know...I thought it was just learning how to torture people with needles!


• My sister's housewarming party was a success...I think we had more fun with the blow-up arena than the kids!

My 30th Fall

My 30th Fall...

I love our street...

Well, my birthday came and then it went...and then I forgot that I had even turned 30. The big 3-0. My 20's are over now officially. Do I feel different? Do I feel older? Not really. I didn't really spend my twenties (at least the latter half) as most people do. I got married at 24, had Hannah by 25, Calah by 28 and Jacob 14 months later...so honestly, I don't really feel like my 20's were a carefree time of self-discovery as they are for so many people. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've been feeling 30 for a while. The past 10 years were filled with abundant blessings...and I'm thankful...and looking forward to the next decade. 30 feels like a new time for me. I'm a little more confident in who I am and what I want...and since I know we're not having any more kids, I feel like we can finally focus 100% on the ones who are already here. Of course, finishing school is also part of the plan...

This weekend, we took the kids to Sonny Acres...a family tradition that I've been doing since I was Calah's age. They went on some rides, sat in the pumpkins, and then got cotton candy. The kids loved it of course. Hannah is old enough to remember it now and is always very excited to go there. Calah was having fun until she stepped in a broken pumpkin and got pumpkin guts all over her jeans. Then she was done. Unfortunately, this happened before we were able to get a group shot on the pumpkins...guess there's always next year! Jacob just chilled in his seat the whole time.

Pumpkin Pic sans Calah messy pants...

My action shot of the slide...shoot!

Hannah after eating cotton candy...

Calah didn't want cotton candy...she wanted my corn...

Updates in general...

Calah's new favorite thing to say is "JAKE-JEE" (her version on Jakey). It's so cute! She also loves to grab my purse and keys, put the purse over her shoulder and say "bye bye" and pretends to leave. But as she approaches the door, she remembers to come back and kiss me goodbye.

Hannah is getting older by the second. She is 4 going on 25 I think. Somewhere along the way she has learned out to ummm...stretch the truth, shall we say? Yesterday she broke our neighbors glass lawn ornament and when Jon asked her what happened, she said "Calah did it". Not quite sure what punishment should be...I just remember knowing from a very early age that the worst thing I could ever do was lie to my parents. I think I need to ask my dad what he did to scare me so much!

Hannah and Calah are on a 60/40 plan. 60% of the time they fight and 40% of the time, they love each other. When they love each other it's really adorable. One of their favorite things to do together is read. The other 60% of the time, I think it's their mission to drive me absolutely crazy. They have 3,654,999 toys...and yet...they are always fighting over just one of them.

I did not stage this picture...this is what they do every morning...(40% of the time)

Jacob is crawling and almost getting in a sitting position by himself. He will cross a room to get a toy...and good news...does not need to have surgery until he is closer to 12 months. The urologist was able to get a good exam on him and thinks that he will just need a normal circumcision with nothing more. Of course he'll still need to be put to sleep, but at least he'll be a little older then and weaned from a bottle which should make things easier.

That's about it...I promise to have an intellectual post soon...my brain is operating at maximum capacity right now with school so I don't have the mental energy to write lately. Or I'm just getting old!

Distractions

Uneventful post today...

Well, the past few days have been very busy. School, work, and kids haven't left much time for thinking of interesting things to write about. School has been going well. Thanks to all the support I get at home, I was able to get a 97% on my last test! Nursing school has been such a blessing for me...although I miss being home...I don't miss being home ALL THE TIME. I feel like my mind is actually working and I'm finally awake again. The kids are doing really well and adjusting to their new schedule, so that also makes things a little easier.

Here is Calah hiding under her crib, which she does every single time I tell her I'm going to change her diaper. She runs full speed away laughing at me and waits for me to come find her (and drag her out).

Tonight Jacob has an appointment with his Urologist to go over the surgery he will have in the next couple months. When he was born, they didn't circumcise him because they thought he had what is called a Hypospadius. This is when the opening of the urethra isn't centered where it should be. So, as normal protocol, they don't circumcise these babies so that they can use the foreskin to repair the problem when they are older. At his last appointment, the doctor felt that he didn't actually have a Hypospadius, and so will just need to be circumcised. But, they still need to use general anesthesia for this procedure (which is always scary). AND...I truly hate the fact that you can't feed them anything for 12 hours! That is so mean! Especially when you can't explain it to them. Poor Jacob...although I think its safe to say he won't starve to death...

Recent picture of the girls...

A Tribute...

You and I haven't spent much quality time together lately...

It seems I am always being pulled away.

We used to spend entire afternoons together...just relaxing in each others company...

And you have always been there for me.

In sickness and in health...

We were united in 2003 on a warm summer day.

And since I've met you, I have never thought of another.

You have always been there.

Loving...supporting...comforting...

When I wake in the morning, I feel as though I might be in heaven...

I don't want to leave your embrace, warm and inviting...

I long for your touch all day long.

You are my ultimate peace.

This is true love, I am certain...

I look forward to the day we can be reunited...

And I can rest, uninterrupted, in your heavenly comfort.

My one.
My only.

My Bed.

"Financial Crisis" the Least of our Worries...

So normally I reserve this blog for family-related news and funny stories starring my kids, but I felt the need to share what I came across in the news yesterday. I was on my lunch break, between school and work and was surfing the web on my phone. It could be that yesterday was just a bad news day...but everything I read was totally scary. Here are some examples:

1. As Somali pirates brazenly maintain their standoff with American warships off the coast of Africa, the cargo aboard one Iranian ship they commandeered is raising concerns that it may contain materials that can be used for chemical or biological weapons.
   Some local officials suspect that instead of finding riches, the pirates encountered deadly chemical agents aboard the Iranian vessel. They ransacked the ship and searched the containers. But in the days following the hijacking, a number of them fell ill and died, suffering skin burns and hair loss, according to reports. The pirates were sickened because of their contact with the seized cargo, according to Hassan Osman, the Somali minister of Minerals and Oil, who met with the pirates to facilitate negotiations. The massive shipping company that controls the vessel, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL), was recently designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury over nuclear proliferation concerns. IRISL, which is accused of falsifying documents to facilitate the shipment of weapons and chemicals for use in Iran's missile program, is blocked from moving money through U.S. banks as well as from carrying food and medical supplies as part of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. By Joseph Abrams Fox News... Good thing we just had the Iranian President on Larry King Live...that should stop him from inflicting biological/chemical terror on us for sure...


2. There's a ticking time bomb underneath the oceans, and it's about to go off, some scientists say.
   A Russian research ship trawling the Arctic off Siberia's northeastern coast has found huge amounts of methane bubbling up from the seafloor, according to reports in London's Independent newspaper and the Canadian Press wire service.
   Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, trapping 20 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. While there's little of it in the atmosphere, there are gigantic frozen deposits of it, called methane clathrates, trapped in rocks in seabeds all over the world.
   One of the leading global-warming doomsday scenarios involves all that methane thawing out as sea temperatures rise, then rushing to the surface and into the air, creating a runaway warming scenario.
   Now there's some evidence that's beginning to happen.
   "For the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface," Swedish researcher Orjan Gustafsson, aboard the Russian ship Jacob Smirnitskyi, told the Independent in an article published last week.
   Huge methane releases may have been responsible for mass extinctions in Earth's distant past. Whether or not you believe in global warming...this is just a little scary...
and finally...

3. A federal judge in Hawaii has dismissed a lawsuit trying to stop the world's largest atom smasher.
   U.S. District Court Judge Helen Gilmor ruled Friday that federal courts don't have jurisdiction over the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, near Geneva.
   Two Hawaii residents sued because they feared that the machine could create small black holes or other phenomena that could destroy the planet.The collider is a 17-mile ring of superconducting magnets that will send high-energy beams of subatomic particles crashing into each other, fracturing atoms into more fundamental particles that can be observed and studied.
   Scientists hope the machine will reveal how the tiniest particles were first created after the "big bang," which many theorize was the massive explosion that formed the stars, planets and everything. ...Maybe there are just some things we're not supposed to know...

Anyhoo...this is a pretty scary place to live if you ask me. Back to living in a bubble tomorrow with more kid pics and mommy stories!