Baptism this Morning

We went to Aunt Allison’s church this morning to see her baptized!

They did it right at the beginning of the service.  I wasn’t sitting close, and I don’t have a zoomy lens, so I’ve cropped these.  I think they turned out pretty good though.

It was very cool!

The kiddos had lots of family to sit with.  Yay!

There was about 30 minutes of standing and singing praise and worship music.  That’s not really how I like to worship, BUT it put James right out!  It must have been very soothing for him.

He had a gooooood nap on his cousin Jenny!  He was even snoring a little during the sermon.

The service was longer than we are used to, but the kiddos did so well!  It helps that there were lots of their favorite people around to sit with.  :)

After the service, Uncle Mark picked up some barbecue for lunch, and we ate in the Fellowship Hall.

This boy is cute.  :)  And he was much refreshed after his morning nap.

Awww!!  Matt, Mindy, Jenny, and Missy

Natalie was digging in NOT her Daddy’s pockets and didn’t realize it wasn’t him.  When she looked up, she ran over to her daddy and hid behind his legs.  She was so embarrassed! 

There was a little wait on lunch, so I snuck James a piece of bread – yum!

Sitting with Aunt Missy!

James was having Mindy help him get all the raisins out of his cookie.  He ate the whole cookie, he just wanted the raisins first!

I ran into a girl from high school (and middle and elementary for that matter!) whose husband is the youth pastor at the church.  It was fun to run into an old friend!

It was a lovely morning, though it does feel strange not to have gone to our church today.  And I didn’t go last week because James was sick.  I guess I’m up there plenty during the week that they won’t forget me.  :)

Back in October…

Natalie had her costume parade the day before Halloween.  I stayed after drop-off to take a few pictures.  You can see her in the distance in this one:

I took a few pictures of our friends as I saw them.  Emma H. was one of the three little pigs, but she ditched her snout.

Emma V. was a bride.

And she waved!

Katie was a princess.

It looks like Selah was also a princess, complete with wave!

There’s my Natalie, leading the pack:

She had her beauty queen wave going on as well.

Is she too precious or what?!!

I love this little mermaid.

There’s the second of the three little pigs, Kaitlyn, complete with snout!

What cute kiddos!

The next day on actual Halloween, Joanna got to wear her costume to school for the Kindergarten storybook parade.  The kindergarten teachers were all Pinkalicious – love it!

I had all my extra kiddos that day, so I wasn’t totally sure we were going to make it to see the parade.  I had told Joanna we weren’t going to be there; I didn’t want her to have her hopes up and be looking for me.  But it all worked out so that we could walk on up there – Joanna was so surprised and excited to see us!

I didn’t get a great shot of her; we were in close quarters and I had a two year old on my back.  :)  That look right there says a lot to me though. 

James’ Two Year Checkup

After we dropped Joanna off at school yesterday, Natalie and I took James for his two-year well check-up.  He was just fine going in but fell apart after the nurse measured his head-circumference.  It was all downhill from there.  :)

His stats:
Height: 32.63”
Weight: 25 lbs 2 oz
Head Circumference: 19.02”

In other words, practically perfect in every way!  He’s pretty low down on the growth charts, but he’s very proportional. 

I couldn’t really peel him off of me to get a picture, and without a wider angle lens, this was about the best I could do.  :)  I didn’t try very hard though.

And here are his cutie-patootie feet:

He continued to cry and/or scream until we were well out of the parking lot, but I’m still very proud of him for surviving the ordeal.  :)  Hopefully the next visit will be better all around.  And apparently that visit is in 6 months, at 2 1/2 years old.  I swear I never took the girls for a 30 month check up.  I was like, “Is that new?”  Dr. Harper said not so much.  Oh, well!  I’m not totally sure I’ll remember it though.  We’ll see!  I think there are shots then, but there weren’t any yesterday, thank goodness.  I think that might have put James over the edge.

The good part of the morning was that we were on the way to the doctor’s office at the time all the middle school buses were out so James got to see millions of buses.  He loves school buses!!  He kept saying “school bus lot.”  And then we stopped at Kroger where there was a fire truck!  (They were just shopping; no emergency.)  It was a great day for transportation!

Lazy today

I’m sitting on my couch at 10:30 in the morning, (re)watching the first season of Fringe on my Roku player.  The wonderful thing about watching TV when the children aren’t home is not having to turn down the volume on the loud parts.  Oh, and being able to watch things that are totally inappropriate for children.  I definitely have some chores I could be doing, but I’m focusing on resting today for the good of us all.  I was so sick yesterday.  I’m not sure I’ve been that sick in a very long time.  Stomach bugs don’t usually affect me so very badly.  Thankfully, Matt was able to stay home because otherwise CPS might have had to come.  I simply would not have been able to care for the children, much less myself.  :) 

Joanna looked so cute yesterday, I had to take a picture from my spot on the couch.  She’s been into side ponytails this week – she loves ‘em!

Anyway, I had to go almost 24 hours without food and my body just did not know what to do about that!  I seldom go 24 minutes, you know?  I started feeling bad through the night; the nausea would wake me up, and I didn’t feel like I could eat anything until about 4:30pm.  I was so weak and had such a headache.  Fortunately my MIL had dropped off Sprite, Gatorade, and some chicken soup.  And we had saltines from James being sick over the weekend.  I was set!  Matt did such a good job taking care of me and the kiddos.  I love that man!  And I was so thankful that I had really (well, for me anyway) cleaned house over the weekend and on Monday.  I hate being stuck in bed with a mess around me that is only going to get clean if I do it.

I drove Joanna to school this morning because even though I feel better I don’t want to push it.  No relapse for me thank you!  And my wonderful friend Lisa took the little kids to school.  I did need to get out and take care of a dog, but that gave me the excuse to go ahead and get my Thursday Dr. Pepper.  The headache, you know.  And I sat on my mom’s couch and watched cable for a little while.

I feel very lazy today, and I’m loving every minute!

The Weekend!!

Poor James woke up throwing up Saturday morning.  :(  So I left his butt at home and took my back-up toddler, Natalie, to the Musikgarten class I teach.  She had a great time and it was a treat to spend some one-on-one time with her.  I am soooooo thankful that Matt can take care of all the vomit situations – wahoo!  Poor James was hungry and thirsty all morning, even though he couldn’t keep anything down.  At about noon I could tell he was feeling better and he was really wanting food, so he got some crackers and Pedialyte.  He kept those down so it was pretty much back to normal that day.  He felt fine until after nap when he had a fever and just felt crummy.  After some Tylenol he was back to his old self.  I left Matt (again!) at home with the kiddos while I headed out to a much needed Girls Night Out!!  My friends Amy and Kim were in from out of town and we met up with Theresa for some dinner at Johnny Carino’s. 

You know I took pictures of my food.  :)

And even though it was hard to get far enough back, we took pictures at the table.  Theresa and Kim:

Me and Amy:

We took turns catching up around the table – it was SO NICE!!

Then we headed to our friend Shaun’s house after dinner for some ice cream and lots more chatting.  I needed every stinking bit of that evening!  Even the part where I got absolutely lost between the restaurant and Shaun’s house and my phone was blinking it’s battery light.  I may have cried.  :)

I didn’t get home until after midnight.  I could not tell you the last time I was out that late!  It was a good night for that extra hour of sleep.

Matt took the girls to church while I stayed at home with James and got caught up on life.  He seemed pretty much back to normal, though a little on the grumpy side.  I was glad for the opportunity to be at home with just one kiddo to get some things done.

This afternoon Joanna and I finished up her Student of the Week poster (due tomorrow).  She painted it yesterday and we were letting it get very dry.  Isn’t it gorgeous?!!  I just love all the colors and designs.  I kind of wanted to go get another plain white one to turn in so I could hang this one on the wall!

I had a bunch of pictures of Joanna and things/people she loves printed.  I cropped them (to show off more of the beautiful background) and matted them on white cardstock so they’d pop a bit.  She wrote her name for me on black cardstock and I cut it out, trying to preserve her handwriting as best as I could.  She wrote her name, age, and birthday on the white paper (I helped with spelling) that I mounted in the middle.  That was what was required to be on the poster, and the rest of the story is pretty much in the pictures.  I really love the way it turned out.  :)

We had Junior Vandenberge with us this weekend, and he always makes James happy!

My floor was soooo grody (even before Junior was dropped off on Thursday) but between being lazy and busy and smart, I think, I decided to hold off vacuuming until that sweet shedding boy went home this evening.  :)  Now after emptying the canister on the Dyson three times, my floors are much cleaner!!

James woke up from his rather short nap this afternoon not feeling good at all.  He often wakes up cranky, so I wasn’t sure he was really sick.  I can’t find our good thermometer, but I was guessing he didn’t have a fever.  Then when Joanna and I were sticking the pictures on her poster, James came up to me just crying hard like he’d been hurt.  I of course did the automatic mommy thing and gathered him up in my arms to comfort him, where he absolutely threw up a ton all over me.  I don’t really do vomit well, so thankfully Matt was home.  He swooped in, gave me a towel, and grabbed James.  I plugged my nose, closed my eyes, and went to my happy place (it is, by the way, on a lake in Maine) until my stomach settled.  Then I left my clothes right there and made a beeline for the shower!

And you know what?  My AMAZING husband cleaned it all up.  I am definitely going to keep him forever.  :)

James was pretty fine for the rest of the day.  I didn’t feel too bad about denying him any food since he’d eaten well today and it was close enough to bedtime.  He did fuss for some water, so we gave him just a little bit of pedialyte.  I hope he wakes up feeling okay!

And during all of this my sweet sweet Natalie was just entertaining herself and staying out of the way.  Love her!  She was using a pair of those little sock things you get at the shoe store to put over her Little People so they could be ghosts!

I really could watch her play for hours.

Despite the vomit and fever, it was a fabulous weekend.  I had some energy and some time away and I really got caught up on some parts of life.  I feel much more on top of things than I have in weeks, I think.  Hallelujah!

James Likes Candy

Yesterday after Matt got home from work, we headed over to Mamma and Pop’s house for the evening!

The girls were immediately glued to the television.  :)

Relaxed much?

Glenda, their neighbor, brought the kiddos treat bags and we let them pick one thing to eat after dinner.  You can see James clutching his little dish of M&Ms.  LOVES them.  I have no idea where that comes from… ahem.  :)

Before all the light went, I took James and Natalie each out front to get pictures in their costumes since they were different from Sunday night.

Natalie, my mermaid:

And James my little Alien!  I didn’t realize it until we got it on that the suit is a little on the small side (they mostly play with the hat at home), but we squeezed him into for this year!

Is he too cute or what?!!

A very late mail delivery – James LOVES the mail truck!  When it left, he hollered at it “Mail truck, come here!”

Back inside, Joanna still glued or maybe glued again to the television.  You can see the light from the screen reflected in her face.  :)

At some point Pop got her to move away from right in front of the TV with some snuggles.

And then it was dusky enough to head out!

I love this shot:

And this one.  :)

That boy clutched his bucket with both hands the ENTIRE trip.  Here he stopped for me to get a picture and then yelled at Daddy to stop, he was taking a picture!

Can you see my little alien?

We walked up and then back down Mamma and Pop’s street before heading back in to watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.”  Much fun was had by all!

Everybody chose something from their treat bags to munch on.  James ate an entire tootsie roll pop, except for what ran down his front. 

Such a sticky, messy boy!

I’m pretty sure he still smells like blue sucker.  :)

I love a good excuse to dress up and eat candy! 

And now it’s November.  I’m thinking of getting my Christmas music ready to play.  It’s not tooooo early, right?  What are your favorite albums for Christmas?  I’ve got some MP3 credit burning a hole in my Amazon pocket!

Family Self Portraits

I just cannot tell you what a relief it is that I FOUND MY DRIVER’S LICENSE!!  I had misplaced it probably 5 weeks or so ago.  I noticed it was gone when I went to the bank and then couldn’t get my money because I didn’t have any ID!  I had a few days before then taken it out of my wallet to show at Joanna’s school.  My best thought was that it had fallen out of my cargo pocket on the walk home since I didn’t actually remember what I had done with it.  I was very sad to discover that you have to go in person to replace a lost Driver’s License.  I wasn’t looking forward to that trip!  I was just crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t need it before I had a chance to go.  I also stuck my passport in my purse to use as ID.  I was thinking this week that I really needed to clean out my purse and make doubly sure it wasn’t lurking inside before I made the effort to go to the DPS.  {Wow this is getting to be a long, boring story!  And yet, I continue…}  Yesterday Matt and I walked to the Elementary school to have a conference with Mrs. McKinnon.  Right before we needed to leave I quickly grabbed handfuls of stuff out of my purse {seriously needed cleaning out} and stuffed them into a shopping bag to sort later.  So today I was clearing off my kitchen counter and sorting through that stuff that came out of my purse when my Driver’s License fell to the counter from a pile of papers!!!!!!!!!  I was so excited!

I was reading a blog post about how important it is for those of us that are the picture takers in our families to get out from behind the camera.  I think I do a decent job of this, at least when Matt is around, but I know I cherish those pictures of myself growing up that my mom and or dad are in also.  So I’m going to try and be better!

I have a tripod that I don’t use enough.  It’s not particularly fancy or sturdy, but it does the job, and I need to pull it out more often.

Until then… here a few things I did today to get myself in some shots.

Joanna and I went outside.  I put her where I wanted us, set my camera on the table out there, and fiddled with my settings.  Then I set the auto timer and ran to get in the shot.

Joanna took the next one for me!  I’m a bit nervous about handing her the camera, but in very controlled situations (over carpet, close to the ground, not in a crazy mood), I’m okay with letting her take over!  I set the camera to auto/no flash and reminded her how to look through the viewfinder and autofocus.  This is not the most flattering shot of me, but I think she did a great job!

This one isn’t of faces, but Natalie and I are both in it!  Due to my lens not being a wide angle at all, it’s pretty hard to get in a picture where I’m holding the camera.