schools closed tomorrow due to cold temps

and it's only half as bad here as other parts of the country. Currently 20', forecast to drop to the single digits (3-ish). What temp does it take to close schools in your area for cold weather?

Caslon should be flying home from Canada tonight- pray for a safe flight, especially that the geese stay out of the way!!!

Resolutions....
something I ponder but don't ever completely commit to. Next to being a procrastinaholic, indecision is my strongest trait.

My mom is officially a senior citizen starting today. That sounds old. That makes me feel old.
We had her and Dad over for dinner, a last minute idea, and in the like-mother-like-daughter-fashion, a small part of my bundt cake stuck to the pan. So in spite of my best intentions, it did not look perect. But that did not matter, it tasted yummy, especiallytopped with vanilla-sugared strawberries and whipped cream.

We had a nice visit, and while I know at least one of them really thinks moving to a warmer climate will be best for their health, I can't really hide my relief that their house has not sold yet. That means they can travel to warmer places, but they still have to come home every so often.

In spite of our quirks and differences, it's nice to live fairly near them. After all, aren't the quirks and differences what make family.... family?

If my mom read this blog, I would say happy birthday to her on here. But she doesn't, so I told her in person.

oh, crap.....

I just clicked over to a friend's blog and learned that she has lost another baby. Her son would have been a couple of weeks older than my baby. Our kids were supposed to grow up online together (we've never actually met in real life, but if I ever make it to her part of the country, you can bet I want to try to meet her!!!).

I just don't get it. Why, God? Why dangle the hope and then snatch it away like Lucy taking the football from Charlie Brown. But a million times more cruel. Why do I get to post about how big my little one is, when my friend has lost three babies since this time last year?

I know the theology. God is Sovreign, blah, blah, blah. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Sometimes we don't want perfection, we just want to hold the little one that we think is ours.

Things like this make me understand how people can become Atheists. I'm not saying I am going there, but I can definitely see how others get there. I pray that the Holy Spirit provides the hope that only He can give when it's needed.

Please pray for my friend Kristi and her husband. Pray for her son and daughter, as they mourn the loss of another sibling they did not get to know.

Thanks.

It's hard to believe that this time last year I was 7 weeks pregnant. Little man's come a long way!

I've been thinking about New Year's Resolutions.... I don't usually commit to them, hence I never fulfill them. But I might actually make a couple this year. If I do, the couple that I make will be hard enough to tackle for me, since I am the queen of procrastination and inconsistency. In fact, the only thing you can count on from me is inconsistency in some ways.... anyway, I'm going to ponder some more, and maybe I'll set some achievable goals for myself.

before rumors start...

i am removing the pregnancy ticker from the bottom of my profile. it's from last year. i forgot to take it off, and now it thinks i am 7 weeks pregnant. i may look 7 weeks pregnant to some idiots, but that's just because i had a baby 4 months ago. no baby in this belly... i'll leave that to my sisters in law for now. thanks for pointing it out, laurie! (the ticker, not my belly...)

bear and i just had an argument over the season. she says it can't be winter because the grass is still showing. she may have been born in the south, but i think the midwest is in her blood.

Happy New Year!

I am very thankful for my husband who loves me exactly as I am, and the role model who he learned from, who I have never heard belittle his wife or his children, even under the "just joking" excuse.

update on the exercise "plan"....

Do Wii bowling, tennis, etc. count? Some very generous relatives got us a Wii for Christmas. Looks like we'll be getting a Wii fit shortly. But in the meantime, the Wii sports make for decent virtual exercise!

Merry Christmas!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, however it was spent. Hubby's side came here, and everyone except Great Grandma left today. Bear cried when her cousins left. We had a great time with everyone. Ate too much, but enjoyed it. :) And we got some good news. Two of my sisters-in-laws are expecting! We already knew about my brother's wife, but just found out the baby's gender. And hubby's sister is due at the end of July!!!! Congratulations, Caslon & Camera Guy!

I still haven't mailed out all our thank you notes for baby gifts, so I could not bring myself to get Christmas cards out. So, if you are waiting on a thank you note, please forgive me. :) And here's your Christmas card!

the bribe "drawing"

Rather than do an actual drawing, I asked hubby to choose a number between 1 and 17. He chose 12. The 12th commenter in my post for the Christmas bribe/giveaway was.....


Jacinda!


E-mail me your address and I'll mail you your prize! Congrats and Merry Christmas!!!

go away, murphy....

The drive to gymnastics should take about 25 minutes from my house, no more than that. 20 on a good day. We left the house right around 10 am, and arrived at 10:50. Traffic was horrible!!!!!!! EVERYTHING was backed up. Side roads, interstate, you name it.... all of us were moving at a snail's pace. One might think we had snow or ice on the roads... nope. Just rain. Then, of course Bear had to use the potty before joining her class in session.
Of course she had refused to go potty before we left (and it had not been that long since she last went, so I didn't force the issue.)

Ok, I've got piles of laundry to put away. Sorry I'm not posting much that is thought-provoking or remotely deep these days. Right now I feel like I'm treading water, and I have phone calls to catch up on...

Will you de-lurk if I bribe you?

I have some faithful followers of this blog, for which I am grateful. I mean, it's not like I pay to have a hosting site or anything, and the fact that anybody cares to read my mind's wanderings is good for my ego. But since this thing isn't private, I have no way of knowing who's reading. SOOO... in the holiday Spirit, I am going to do a little giveaway here. Leave a comment with your first name, how long you've been lurking or enabling my internet addiction by commenting once in a while, a random fact about yourself and/or your favorite thing about the holidays, and I will do a drawing for a $10 Starbucks gift card. If you don't like coffee, they have other fabulous drinks. And Starbucks is just more convenient for me than anything else. Trust me, I'm not going out of my way for this one. Well, unless I decided to stroll with the kids there. But in December, that could be grounds for being charged with insanity, even in the South.

I will do the drawing in a week or so....

vanity

Anyone who has given birth to a child will most likely express dissatisfaction with her post-pregnancy body. Oh, we might sugar-coat things by saying we earned our stretch marks, and we are not in a rush to lose too much weight. At some point, at least for me, I begin to feel dissatisfied with my body and the need to take some sort of action.

Well, this morning I decided to see if my size 10 jeans from Bass fit.... and they did! Snugly, but without impeding my breathing! AND this is that bloated time of the month, and they still fit. Woo hoo! So after we returned from Buddy's 3 month check-up, I called the hair salon I have been using... and they were able to get me right in. I got a trim and had my unibrow and moustache taken care of. Okay, so they weren't QUITE that bad. Anyway, I may be vain, but I feel MUCH better about my appearance.

As for taking action... I am pricing out options for gyms (can we afford the Y, or should we just add me on where hubby exercises), but also going to look into some dvd's on amazon. Any dvd recommendations? Anyone? I have yoga, I'm thinking lower impact cardio or pilates or something similar. I have an exercise ball, yoga mat, brick and strap, dumbells and a tower thingy which Bear uses as monkey bars... so I'm leaning toward using what I have and then maybe if I establish a routine at home, rewarding myself with a membership somewhere. In any case, I think this will help improve my physical and mental conditions... they say 30 minutes of exercise a day has the same effect as some anti-depressant meds. (Once you get past the initial soreness from doing things your body has not done in ages.)

baby steps...

no, not my kids'. I am surprised hubby has not password protected the computer to encourage me to get more done, but I think he knows that's probably a dangerous idea. You know you need to clean more when your 3 year old thanks you for cleaning the bathroom and voluntarily scrapes scraps from her plate into the trash... or tries to. Then she started apologizing for missing, scattering mixed veggies across the dining room. Seriously, who is this child? One minute we can be begging her to clean up a mess, the next she is taking initiative to help with something I would not expect a 3 year old to want to help with. Not that I'm complaining; maybe I should expect more from her, since she is so obviously capable. But I don't want to be a nag, either, so I'll just continue to encourage the steps she does take and focus on the aspects that we deem appropriate for a 3 yer old.

Anyway, there's a quote from somewhere... some flair, most likely, that basically says, "Be the type of person you want your kids to become."

Ouch. With that in mind, I am taking baby steps to try to set an example for my kids. Keep in mind that my baby steps are everyday habits or routine for some people, that's how lazy I am. Undisciplined. Lazy. Crap, they both mean the same thing. Today's accomplishments, not even worthy of being called tackles: empty the science projects out of the fridge. Continue working on laundry. Make dinner for the 3rd day in a row (veggie beef soup, using yesterday's pasa sauce as the base.... throw everything in the crock pot, and voila!) After dinner, I had a nice tea party with my little girl while daddy and baby brother napped on the couch. Our daughter offered Daddy some coffee, he requested hot chocolate, so she suggested cream and sugar. Hubby and I were cracking up. Gramma and Papa are training her young. Of course, when it's imaginary, you can pretend it tastes different than the giver intends, so the fact that hubby doesn't drink coffee did not really matter.

And we ventured out. After reading Amy's adventures up in hubby's home state, I am glad to be down here in the winter with a newborn. I mean, what kind of stroller is adequate in a heavy snowfall? Ugh.... And corralling the 3 year old in the chik-fil-a parking lot (or any parking lot) is hard when it's NOT slippery. So, even though it's not as monumental of a task as it would be in other regions of the country, venturing out with a newborn and a toddler is still an accomplishment for me. By the end of the excursion, my intentions of finishing thank-you notes were pushed aside in favor of a nap time, as said newborn actually stayed asleep in his carrier and the 3 year old fell back asleep in her bed upon our return home!

So if you have given us a gift, please accept this apology for our way past-due thank you notes.... and the fact that we will only be sending Christmas cards via e-mail, facebook, or blog this year. Sometimes even the baby steps get interrupted...

Tackle It Tuesday


Ok, it's time to get out of my laziness slump.....

.... to be continued
*******
I would love to report that I tackled a plethora of projects and still had time to read with my kids. No such luck... there is a newborn in this house, remember? And he is fighting a llittle cold, so he's extra clingy. Plus, he's jus spoiled. However, I did accomplish my manageable goal... I cleaned both bathrooms. And did 2 loads of laundry (one is even put away, the other is still in the drier, and I've got one more in the washer. I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, and made dinner. And swept the floor, with Bear's help (and that of her trusty sidekick, sweeping Sam).

And now for the "fun tackle" ... I went into the attic and pulled the box holding Mr. Snowman downstairs. "Mommy, be careful!" Bear exclaimed as I carried the box. She didn't even try to hang onto my legs as I went down the steps. I assembled our festive friend, Bear and I retrieved the decorative candy canes which she picked out at the superstore a couple of weeks ago, and we headed outside while Buddy napped. In addition to putting out our token decorations, we pruned dead leaves off the day lillies.

Thanksgiving came and went without a post.

Facebook has taken over my internet communication I guess.

I'm thankful for a lot.

Today, a friend who I would like to get to know better shared her testimony of dealing with loss... specifically, miscarriage, as part of the "Our Messes, God's Mercies" series at church. Her baby would have been about a month younger than my son, and I was so looking forward to getting to know her better by having one of our kids in the same class or hanging out in the nursing (or bottle feeding) moms' room during the service. But in spite of my disappointment, I was so happy to hear that she is healing, over a year later now. And I don't know if there are hopes for another child, but I pray that if that's part of God's plan for their family, the baby will be healthy. I wish everyone could experience the joy of having a child after losing one, though I know that it's not always practical (i..e. if the child lost is older), or possible, for whatever reason. I am so thankful that I had another chance and now have a precious 3 month old son!

I never really intended this blog to be just about pregnancy, but there's something in the water these days. My brother's wife is expecting, several friends are due before Christmas, and our good friend who hooked us up had her baby boy on Thanksgiving.

Baby's mad... gotta go rescue hubby.

TAGGED!

Kristi tagged me, and since the blog-kitty has my tongue, the timing is perfect!

7 weird things about me (just how weird do you want?):

1) I am not an organized person. But if my silverware drawer or towel closet (now that I've learned how to fold them so they stack well) gets too out of hand, I get extremely annoyed.

2) I will find something to do outside in the flowerbeds rather than tackle what should be high-priority projects inside.

3) I have a harmonica collection. I guess you could call it that. My parents bought me my first one in 5th grade. I don't play any of them well, though.

4) I voluntarily delivered my son without an epidural. (Though I DID change my mind, but it was too late by then!) ;)

5) I once qualified for a national piano competition by placing in the top 3 at the regional competition. There were only 3 of us who competed, and guess which place was mine.... (3)

6) I spent 5 weeks in Sinaloa, Mexico as a Summer Missionary. (Not weird per se, but interesting).

7) I have 2 big scars within 2 inches of each other. One happened when I was in 2nd grade. the other was from a biopsy. They freaked my students out when I tutored.

The 7 people I'm tagging are: Steph, Becky, Jenn, Becca, Samantha, Tech Mom and Grace.