Light's Highlights

Moving

2011-02-17T07:40:00.002-06:00

This blog is moving to lightshilights.blogspot.com. Make a change in your bookmark! All the old posts are already there, waiting to be read!

Post Secret

2011-02-16T22:59:00.002-06:00

There's this blog called Post Secret. People send in postcards with secrets on them and they are posted online for all to see but no one to know the author.
Tonight at youth group Justin asked everyone to make their own Post Secret card. We compiled about 30 cards from students and sponsors and they were read aloud (but not mailed). I could identify with the feelings of many of the writers. Feeling the need to be productive, allow God to use them, making good decisions. Many felt pressure to be perfect.
We asked if anyone felt pressure from parents to be perfect and a few raised their hands. That made me sad. I realize that most parents don't want to stress their kids out with expectations. I just wish they would tell that to the kids.
I don't remember being pressured by my parents to be perfect.
In fact, I remember the opposite.
One day I was riding in my dad's old brown Chevy helping him do the chores, feeding cattle and the like. My dad started talking to me about my sister. You have to know that my sister was a smarty-pants. She still is. We call her the doctor because any time someone is having a medical problem she researches it and knows all kinds of stuff and can talk to doctors without sounding stupid. She's a smarty-pants. She is 3 years older than me and was just finishing high school. She got all A's. Well, I think she got a B somewhere along the line. She was a great student and earned all of her awesome grades.
That afternoon as I was holding the door of the truck shut, Dad told me that I didn't have to get A's like my sister. My best work was good enough for him.
I still remember that conversation, about a dozen years later.
I don't think we realize the impact our words have on people. Words from a parent are so influential. I'm going to try today (well, tomorrow) to use my words to encourage each person in my family and whoever I meet along the way. Hopefully they will remember the positive, encouraging things I say.

Thanks, Dad.

My Funny Valentine

2011-02-15T23:55:00.002-06:00

Eight years ago I was in college.
I was dating a boy.
I was dating a boy named James.
He went to college, too.
A different college.
Actually, I take that back.
Eight years ago I was engaged to a boy.
A boy named James.
We lived 20 minutes apart.
30 if you ask my dad.
But if you're young lovers, it's 20.

I didn't see James every single day.
We did spend a lot of money driving back and forth for just a few hours together. This was, however, back when gas was cheaper. $1.70ish for a gallon of gas. OUTRAGEOUS!

Anyhow, back to my story.
It was Valentine's Day 2003.
I was in class.
I've been trying to remember my classes that day but I just can't do it. Probably 7 different music classes. I don't know.
After one of my classes, I went to my room.
Someone had written on my white board.
I don't remember exactly what it said, but my boy James wrote it.
Wait a minute, he had class all day too! What was he doing here? Why wasn't I looking at him? Where did he go?
I ran down the hall, towards the parking lot to find him.
But I didn't find him.
I found my van.
That's right, I drove a van. Laugh now.
My van stood out on this particular Valentine's Day.
It was decorated in pink, red and white.
There were giant hearts, window paint, confetti, candies and a huge card scattered in and around my van.
It was amazing!
My boy had driven up to my college (a huge 20 minute drive) just to decorate my van.
How sweet.
Best present ever.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Random

2011-02-15T21:47:00.003-06:00

Hello out there! I'm back. This will be a random post (hence the title) to catch you up on my life.

We had a baby. Reuben James, born 12-15-10, weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces, measuring....to be honest, I can't really remember and I don't want to go look because then I'll never finish this post! After 2 months life is starting to settle in with 3 boys. More on this later.

I've decided to bring back the Goal of the Week Program. I'll have a new goal every week. Last week's goal was to read for an hour each day. I did great until I started getting sick and then I just slept and fed the baby. I'm reading Little Women and The Good and Beautiful God. TGaBG is a book that our church is reading together. It's pretty cool reading the same book as 150 other people. I like to read Little Women about once a year because it's just my favorite book ever!

I like wearing leggings and skirts. I know that I'm about 2 years behind on this, but I like it. And I would like to buy some boots. Boots that are flats. Warm boots for the winter. Now that winter is over. The only time to buy boots is when winter is over. Clearance!

James told me tonight that in 8th grade he was the softball manager. Just take a minute and let that soak in. Now picture a little tiny 105-pound James. With straight light brown hair. And big glasses. Now let THAT soak in! So cute!

I should go find a picture of little James but again, I would never finish this post!

I went on a date tonight. The day-after-Valentine's-Day is a quiet time to go on a date. Thank you VanDrunens for watching our 3 boys. Do you know how free we felt going out sans boys? As we were walking in to the bowling alley (which we walked out of 3 minutes later) I told James that I feel so deceptive going out without the boys. People look at us and say, "Look at that cute young couple. Man their lives are going to change when they have kids. They have no idea." But really, we know.

I have many more random thoughts but I cannot remember them. Oh! This week's goal is to post a new blog every day. I'm only 1 day behind!

Drivin' Through the Car Wash

2010-11-09T10:28:00.002-06:00

I can't believe that I'm writing this post. I feel like such a country girl. Please don't make fun of me too much.
This weekend I drove on some gravel roads and my van got terribly dusty. (I don't understand how my mom stood the dust since it was a constant on our cars when I was growing up.) To add to the mess, some of the teens from church put their hand-prints all over my van. I decided to make a trip to the car wash this morning.
*As a side note, Asa is at school. I'm staying home with Judah because he's sick.
After we took Asa to school, we went to the car wash. I don't really go to the car wash very often and when I do, it's usually the self wash. As I drive, I wonder if I have enough money for the car wash and wonder if they take credit cards. Hmm. Really, I'm so behind the times.
I pull in and there's a nice attendant at a little window like McDonald's. I give her my money (they also accept 4 credit cards) and tell her what wash I want. I proceed to drive into the little building. Well this is where it gets crazy. At least for my little country self. There's a guy inside directing me how far to pull in and there's this weird track thing. Am I supposed to drive my tire into that? I guess so. Then, get this! You put the car in neutral and just sit there! Really? This is awesome!
OK so I'm a total goof. I've never been to a real car wash. Let's hear your jesting now. Meanwhile Judah is wondering what is going on. He has a scared look on his face and is pointing out the window. Luckily he doesn't cry. His least favorite part was probably the loud dryers at the end. I'm with him. I thought my wipers were going to be blown off!
Anyhow, as I drove away I reeled in the amazing technology at the car wash. I highly recommend that you visit your local fancy car wash today. It's fun!

Warning: Blog Reactivation in 3....2....1.....

2010-11-01T12:20:00.002-05:00

I'm really trying to keep my blog going. Really, I am trying. It's just not that easy these days. I do have a lot of things to say. I just can't remember them. I dedicate this blog to my favorite things right now.
1. Family craft night.
2. Judah's little giggle.
3. Checking on my boys after they fall asleep. Every night my heart melts when I see them sleeping.
4. Cuddling with the boys on chilly mornings.
5. Iced tea.
6. Hot Chocolate.
7. Listening to Judah sing.
8. Feeling my littlest guy rolling around in my stomach.
9. Chatting with friends while our kids play together.
10. Cuddling on the couch with my sweet husband.

More posts to come....I hope!

Serve Week

2010-08-28T14:05:00.004-05:00

One week this summer I was luck enough to serve with the teenagers from our church. Every morning we made sack lunches, one for myself, two to share. Every day we had a different project. Monday (July 5th) we picked up trash at a park in Kansas City. You can imagine what we found at Swope Park on the day after the 4th of July! The best thing I found was a couple walking down the street. They were collecting cans. We looked through my bag of trash and picked out all the cans. As we were digging, the lady told me that they can get $1 a pound for cans. She also asked if I had an extra pair of gloves. As we were walking to my car to get the gloves, I told her that we had packed extra lunches and water that day and asked if she was interested. She was. I gave her two lunches and two bottles of cold water and two pair of gloves. We said goodbye and God bless. Then I thought. $1 for a pound of cans? One Dollar? One pound? That's a lot of cans. And what does one dollar buy you? This was the first of many humbling experiences during the week. I thanked God in that moment for a house and a job and a family. We are so blessed.
After we picked up trash, we ate our lunches and talked about all the gross stuff we picked up. Then we headed out for downtown to hand out some lunches. It was really simple. We drove around and looked for people that we thought needed a lunch. We did this for 3 days. We gave out about 60 lunches. Some people took the paper bag and walked away. Some stopped to tell us their story. Many were very grateful. One man giggled, he was so happy! We drove in our cars silently, humbled by the situation.

Tuesday we worked in two groups. One group sanded and painted a lady's porch. The other group picked up trash in her neighborhood. Someone stopped as we were picking up trash and asked why we were there. We just answered that we were doing what we could for the people in the neighborhood. The lady whose porch was painted was very touched by our work. I was told that she said "thank-you" a million times and was moved to tears at the end of the day.

Wednesday we worked at a food pantry in Kansas City. We sorted bread and packaged cereal. We all got to wear sweet hairnets! In the afternoon we did some yard work for a special lady. Her husband had just passed away and she was preparing to host people at her house around the time of the funeral. It was raining and we were doing yard work. Mainly we were pulling weeds and bagging up grass. Heavy, dirty work.

Thursday we sorted clothes at a local clothes closet. Easy work compared to the previous afternoon! Later that morning we did some work at another food pantry.

In this entire week, I never heard one person complain about the work, the heat, the trash. We served with open hearts an I think everyone left having been changed.

Judah, Our Two-Year-Old

2010-08-27T09:26:00.002-05:00

Judah turned 2 on July 1st. To celebrate, we put him in the car for 4 hours! I'll get to that. We tried to make a big deal about his birthday even though it was a crazy day. Since February I have wanted to get Judah a big stuffed Thomas that I saw at Target. A few days before his birthday we were in the store and found that they still had the coveted (by myself) Thomas. That was his special present from our family.
Since it had been months since we were in Iowa, we decided to go for a visit. We had to make a few stops before we left town. James had an interview for a job in Kansas City (more on that later) so we all drove to that. While he was interviewing I took the boys to Crown Center. We had a bagel at Panera and then went to the Clifford exhibit. The boys had fun, although I wasn't really impressed.
The drive to my mom's house was uneventful. We went to the city band concert on the square that evening. Most of the time the boys were clueless that there was a concert going on.
Saturday of that week my sisters came and we had a birthday party for Judah. He seemed to be afraid of the candles but loved his cupcake and ice cream!

Judah loves:
running around...yelling (He either says "ready, go" or "to infinity and beyond" before he runs.)
cars, trucks, trains
books
babies
animals

Judah is 34 inches tall and weighs 26 pounds.

Oh, by the way. It's a boy! Our third baby...is a boy!

My Birthday

2010-07-18T15:43:00.003-05:00

Here you go. I know you've been wondering about me. I'm still alive, just not motivated. We've had lots of exciting moments this summer...it all starts with my birthday.

Let me say that I have the best husband. The day before my birthday, James took the boys out shopping. That's not necessarily fun on your own, especially since Asa wanted to stay home with me. On the morning of my birthday, James had picked up breakfast (from Wendy's, my favorite) and put it on a nice tray for me. Breakfast in bed! Then there was a series of clues all over the house to lead me to my present. He had printed some new pics of our family for our living room and also got "The Sound of Music" for me. Asa and I watched that instead of cartoons! Judah joined when he finally woke up. We went to McCallister's Deli for lunch that day. Yummy! I was showered with treats from my friends all day. That evening we had a picnic with the staff from church. It wasn't in my honor but it was a lot of fun! We played some sand volleyball after eating. Then on the way home, I hit a deer. Good news is that it just knocked out the headlight which James eventually fixed. (That's another story...he ordered the light and it didn't fit so he had to return it and order another one...long story.)
So my birthday was a great day! I felt very loved and lucky to have the family and friends that I have.

Friday, Friday, Friday's Here

2010-05-14T16:44:00.004-05:00

I just asked Judah for a kiss and he shielded his face.
Excuse me, I am your mother.
I will kiss you.
Whenever I want.
Even after you get married!

Today we went to the church building to help clean out what is referred to as the "Teacher's Resource Room." It's just a room with millions of books, crayons, puppets...you name it. I really didn't help much. I had my kids there. They were eating breakfast. I was eating breakfast. But I did see a lot of books & stuff! A lot! After an hour, I left. I hope the other ladies accomplished their goals. If not, we'll try again next week.

We had to leave the church because a group of people (also from church) were going to open gym at this gymnastics place. The kids love it. They run around and jump on things and scream. What could be better? Asa crawled up the huge inflatable slide and went down. Twice! He's never done that before. He looked a little scared halfway down the slide. It's like he wondered if he was going to fall off. But he was very proud of himself. And I was proud of him. Judah especially loved the trampolines! Until he decided he needed a drink and tried to run away.

Oh, before I went to the gym, I stopped by the ATM to get some money. And guess what? I COULD NOT remember my PIN!
Really?
REALLY?
I tried twice. No luck. What's up with that? I know, I'm pregnant. But I couldn't remember my PIN! So I drove over to the bank drive through to get my money. Lame.

After gymnastics we went to Wendy's for lunch. Judah managed to beg a fry away from a grandma as we were waiting in line to order. Judah also fell off his chair right after Asa spilled my Dr. Pepper on the floor! Then the worst thing happened. Asa was on the floor under the table. I was just looking over to tell him to get back on his chair when I saw him LICK THE FLOOR! Gross! I guess he spilled some of his dip and was trying to clean it up. He's such a great kid!
Why did he lick the floor? He doesn't even lick the floor at home! We'll have to have a talk about that.

That's about it for my Friday. So far. We'll see what the evening brings.

Favorite Things

2010-05-10T09:36:00.003-05:00

These are a few of my favorite things:

Whenever I use my hair dryer, Judah runs over to the bathroom door. I point the hair dryer at his head, he giggles and runs away. In a minute he runs back and waits for me to blow it on him again. This continues the whole time I'm drying my hair!

Sometimes the kids will be playing in the basement and James and I will be in the living room watching TV or something. If we hear someone coming up the steps, I say, "Pretend you're asleep." We both close our eyes and lay really still. A few times Asa came in and just looked at us. He thought we were asleep and went back downstairs. Now he just runs and jumps on us, giggling.

James is the #1 griller in the whole world! His chicken is perfect every time!

Yesterday in church I sat with one of my many friends with a brand new baby. Babies are my favorite! I got to hold little Baby C and tried to feed him a bottle but he wasn't interested. Anyhow, this little baby was so sweet! He laid there and made the cutest little faces. It made me very excited to hold another little Light baby in a few months! Oh yeah, did I mention that we're having another baby? It will be our little Christmas present in December!

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. My boys were sick and stayed home from church with James. It was weird going to church by myself. James made breakfast and lunch. What a treat! I wish every day was Mother's Day.

The Return of the Goal-Of-The-Week

2010-04-21T10:55:00.002-05:00

My goal this week is to de-clutter the main floor of my house.
Next week's goal is to de-clutter the basement.
Week three is to de-clutter the garage.

I've already gone through a basket-full of papers and organized them into piles. That's a big accomplishment.

Here are a few highlights:
From the back seat I hear Asa exclaim: Look! A bus school!

Asa often requests something for dinner. In the morning.

That's all I've got. Maybe there will be more blogs soon! Maybe.

Lent

2010-03-14T08:04:00.004-05:00

This year during Lent I've been doing something a little different. A good friend gave me a little packet with weekly suggestions. I thought this would go along great with my weekly goals. (They do still exist and I'm going to write a book about how it changes your life. I will be famous.) Each of the last three and a half weeks I have given up something. The first week was sweets, second week: meat, third week was media: TV & the radio.
Pause. You're wondering why I'm doing this. You're asking, "Is she Catholic?" No. I'm not. Then why observe Lent? Well, I think it's a good time to restart. To focus. To examine myself. If I'm supposed to be living like Christ, how am I doing? Not so great. Time to realize my priorities. Time to figure out what is really taking up my time. I want these 40 days to be a journey. I want to come out different than I entered.
How am I doing?
I was tempted most with week one. It wasn't just sweets. It was sweets, treats & self indulgences. Buy nothing for yourself. Nothing you don't need. That was pretty hard. What did I learn? I'm pretty selfish. Many times during the week I said to myself, "Nope. You're not allowed to buy that. Stop looking at it."
Anyhow, week two was tricky. I was supposed to pick a food category or a meal to fast for the week. I chose meat. That makes it hard to plan meals, especially when the husband doesn't eat veggies! It wasn't really a craving, just something I had to work around.
Week 3 was mostly difficult when I was driving by myself to the grocery store or something. No radio. Just sit and think. Pray. Watch out for other drivers! It also was a nuisance for James. No TV to unwind at the end of the day! We played a game one night. Rummikub.
This week is a fast from the internet and social networking. HOLY COW! That is hard. I will have to use the internet some because of some church communications that can't be ignored for a week! I think this week will be my biggest challenge yet.

Saturday Breakfast

2010-02-20T23:09:00.008-06:00

I made apple muffins for breakfast this morning. Delicious! You can get the recipe here.

After breakfast, Asa asked to paint. He got his wish.

Here are his finished products:
Judah also wanted to paint.

These are Judah's creations:

This evening James and I went on a date. It was pretty romantic. We first took James' first trip to Cargo Largo. He wasn't exactly impressed. Then we ate at Joe's Crab Shack. We've been there before but I don't remember so much dancing by the wait staff. It was entertaining! One waiter near us seemed to not have so much fun dancing. I wonder if he knew about that when he applied for the job. After the seafood, we went to a new Christian bookstore just down the street. We had a good time just being together without screaming children!

Asa is Three!

2010-02-19T09:32:00.008-06:00

A few weeks ago we celebrated Asa's third birthday. I saw a recipe in Family Circle for cute monkey cupcakes so we decided to go with a monkey theme. I invited too many people for a little boy's third birthday party, but we had a lot of fun!

First we ate pizza:

Next we had some cake:

Asa loved it when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him. He screamed in excitement!

Blow out your candles:

Craft time:

Presents:

And finally a little video. We had chocolate chip pancakes the morning of Asa's birthday:

The Phoenix Sun

2010-02-18T20:14:00.004-06:00

I hesitate to write about our stay in Arizona. It wasn't exactly a happy reason for a visit. However, it is always great to see family, especially when the distance is so great.
James' grandmother passed away Monday evening. James was with her along with his sisters, mom and grandpa. I'm sure grandma felt very loved. The next few days were busy with making arrangements. However, there were also lots of stories. Stories of young love and hard times during World War II. It's amazing to think of how different life was just a few decades ago. At the funeral, James did the eulogy; his sister sang and I played the piano for her. She sang "I Will Rise" by Chris Tomlin. She was telling us that someone had asked him to write a song to be sung at funerals to comfort families and that is the song that was produced. It was the perfect song to sing for Grandma.
In difficult times, the love of our family and friends gets us through. Although we were hundreds of miles away from my family and our friends, we felt loved. We appreciate the encouraging words and prayers so many offered.

Our Latest Adventure

2010-02-08T12:00:00.000-06:00

Written 2/6/10:
James Grandma & Grandpa Stephenson live in Phoenix. It’s always great to visit them in warm, sunny Phoenix. Grandma hasn’t been doing very well recently and it’s become evident that we need to make the trip out to visit her. As I write, we’re loaded up in our van, driving through Oklahoma. It’s always a stress to get out of the house, but I felt like this time was one of the best. Our house is fairly clean, except for the living room and basement where the kids have destroyed everything! All the dishes are clean, all the laundry is done. It’s a nice feeling.
Written 2/8/10
Parts of the drive were very foggy. So foggy that west of Amarillo we couldn't see the lights of the wind turbines. The fog caused ice to form on the van's antenna. It was flopping back and forth like crazy as we drove. Texas has a night speed limit of 65. I rejoiced as we crossed into New Mexico and the speed limit went up to 75!
We've seen James' grandmother and it's sad to see her so frail. She has talked to us and was happy to see us. We had a great night of sleep last night. I slept for about ten hours. James and the boys slept for 12 or more hours! We're about ready to go visit Grandma & Grandpa again.

A Trifold Week

2010-02-01T22:18:00.002-06:00

I have three goals for this week. The first encompasses the others.
1. Be productive- In general I need to do this every week. I struggle with laziness.
2. File our taxes- Cha ching!
3. Send out thank-you notes- It is sad how behind I am in this category. And Asa just had a birthday party so the list grows!

Oh, I'll add one more: blog about Asa's birthday party. It was a blast!

Week 3 Goal

2010-01-26T21:29:00.002-06:00

I did not reach success with my goal last week. At all. But that's why I have a goal each week. This week's goal is simple. Exercise four days. I do jumping jacks, pilates and run up and down the stairs a few times. Great workout. (Insert sarcasm.) But it's better than nothing.

Tonight I had a coffee date with a friend. Refreshing. I was tipped off that Starbucks can actually make peppermint mochas (my favorite) all year long. That's what I ordered. Delicious! My friend is expecting and so we talked about babies. I'm certain that I cleared up all of her concerns. Well, mostly certain. We had a great time talking. If you haven't gotten away from your family in a while, go get a cup of coffee with a friend and talk. It will make your week!

Observations Made (Mostly) During the Ten-O'Clock News

2010-01-18T22:18:00.004-06:00

There's a new law in Missouri that you have to have your headlights on when driving in any "bad" weather: snow, rain, fog... Do you really need someone to tell you to turn on your lights when it's darkish because of the weather? I turn my lights so that people can see me and not hit me while I'm driving. Guess what happens if you don't have your lights on? Ten dollar ticket. That's right ten bucks!

Judah is 19 months old. He has curly hair. He's never had a hair cut. His hair is pretty long. He's often called a "she" when we're in public. I always dress him in something blue and sporty when we're out. Just so there's no question. It doesn't work. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to cut his hair to preserve the curls. I think we might give him a mullet.

I just heard this on the news:
They studied some number (I can't remember) of women in Australia for ten years. In that period of ten years:
women who had no mate gained 11 pounds (Actually, I don't remember this category for sure. It could have been women living with someone but not married. Not sure)
women who had a husband gained 15 pounds
women who had a child gained 20 pounds
Clearly if you have a baby you're going to gain weight. That's a given. I'd rather gain 4 extra pounds in 10 years and be married than not be married and weigh 4 pounds less at the end of ten years. Can't you lose 4 pounds in like one day? My grandma always would tell me that she "lost three pounds yesterday." Really, what was the point of this study? Sounds like a waist of time. (Pun intended.)

I also just saw the 7-day forecast: Rain Tuesday-Thursday. Mostly cloudy Friday. Rain Saturday. Mostly cloudy Sunday. Rain Monday.

Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash is the best! Try it. Today.

*Please don't share the facts that I've shared with you. They're not real facts because I have a bad memory.

Goal-Of-The-Week

2010-01-16T13:22:00.001-06:00

I decided that this year I'm going to have a goal each week.
Last week the goal was to read something every day. (not including children's books)
I read every day. I just have today and Sunday left.
Next week I will with-drawl to lonely places to pray each day.

The Remainder of the Christmas Vacation

2010-01-16T06:56:00.006-06:00

Since we've been home from vacation for weeks, I must push through and finish blogging about the trip?
Early Sunday morning we woke up to the sound of the fire alarms going off. We evacuated while the guys tried to figure out if anything was wrong. Imagine if you will, being up with all the kids in your extended family in the middle of the night. Not so much fun! Most of the kids got in my mom's van where it was warm. After about an hour the alarms were turned off and I went back to bed with Judah. I think everyone else was up for a bit longer.
Sunday morning we were a little slow getting around. We didn't go to church as we had originally planned. I think we went to the pool that day. Not real sure. Also, I think that was the night that James and I went on a date. We went to the Pelican Cafe in Stuart. We sat on the dock and had a great dinner. It wouldn't be a date unless we went to Target! That seems to be our typical destination. We also picked up some groceries at the Winn Dixie!
Monday is the day we went to Palm Beach. Oh, it was beautiful! The sky and water were both an incredible color of blue. What an amazing creation! The whole family went to the beach and we had a blast. Judah enjoyed playing in the sand and chasing the birds. The boys also crawled into some holes Daddy dug in the sand. They watched as sand castles were built and then happily destroyed them!

There were millions of shells at this beach. The waves were great but unpredictable. They would randomly come in much higher. The current as the waves went out was also very strong. James tried to take me out further from the shore. I nearly drowned. It was pretty fun to stand out there and jump in the waves but when a huge wave came, I was doomed! Not a pretty sight. Melinda talked me into going out with her. Again, lots of fun until big waves came! Mom even got her toes in the ocean!
Tuesday we didn't do much. The kids played on the playground and we made gingerbread houses. That's about the extent of the fun.

Wednesday Margee's family again went to Sea World. (Shamu!) The rest of us also drove up to Orlando and went to the Citrus Parade. I think it was almost as cool as the Rose Bowl Parade (not). We did enjoy seeing some good bands (one from Olathe, KS and a bagpipe band), old cars, a few floats with oranges that all looked the same and some crazy Shriners. On our way out of Orlando we had lunch at Zaxby's, a new fast food chicken joint for all of us!

Thursday we went with the Stonebrakers to a local aquarium. It was actually a marine ecosystems exhibit. Not all that cool. But it entertained the children for a while. Later we went swimming. Judah almost had fun. Almost. Asa had a blast. He spent part of his pool time hanging onto a tube and could float around on his own. For New Year's Eve, we watched football and had numerous snacks. It was also a time of packing and cleaning out the house since we were planning to leave first thing in the morning.

Friday morning we said goodbye to sunny Florida. We knew that the longer we drove, the colder it would get. James and I stopped in Chattanooga, TN to have dinner with our friend Jenna. It was a nice break along our long trip. We tried to stop at a Jack in the Box (James' favorite) in St. Louis early Saturday morning. No luck. The first one was updating their computers and the second was not yet open. We saw a White Castle and got an early breakfast. We got home at about 8:30 Saturday morning.

Now the question is this: Did you have fun? Would you go again?
Yes, we had a blast. There were a few stressful moments but you'll have that when sharing a house with 13 other people. We would definitely go again. Warmth in the middle of winter is great! And we love the beach!

Christmas Vacation Part 4

2009-12-31T14:26:00.006-06:00

Day 5:
Margee & her family went to Sea World on Saturday. The rest of us went to the beach! We packed lunches, sunscreen and towels and headed out for a fun-filled day. On our way to the beach, we crossed a draw bridge and had to wait for some boats to go under. It was rather exciting for those of us who live inland. We had a lot of fun at the ocean except for the fact that our boys are afraid of the ocean. Asa almost liked getting his feet wet. They just had fun playing in the sand. The other problem was the weather. It was really windy and not quite hot. Once you got out of the water it was pretty chilly. James decided to feed the seagulls. That was nearly a really dangerous decision! They're pretty vicious when they see food.
Overall we had a great day at the beach! Here's one more picture of our family:

Christmas Vacation Part 3

2009-12-29T07:14:00.003-06:00

Day 3, Christmas Eve:
James and I decided that we should go to the beach the first chance we got. We found the closest spot was about 30 minutes away. We put the kids down early for nap and headed out after the woke up. We were planning on a short trip since we wanted to go to a Christmas Eve service somewhere. So we got to the beach and put the boys in the water a little bit. They weren't the biggest fans of the water but they loved playing in the sand. James was playing in the water with Asa when I heard his yell something. I ran over to see that his glasses had fallen off. In the ocean. We realized that the glasses were gone. James is pretty much blind without his glasses. I went to the lifeguard to leave our number just in case the glasses washed up later. James used his iPhone to find the nearest Lens Crafters. They would be able to get new glasses for him as long as the prescription wasn't too strong. So James called our eye doctor to have his prescription faxed. A couple hours later James had new glasses. I was shocked that our eye doctor's office was still open on Christmas Eve. I was surprised that the glasses were so cheap. And I was happy that James bought me a Christmas present while wandering around the mall nearly blind! After all that excitement we rushed back to the house to shower and get ready for church.

Day 4, Christmas Day:
Our day started the typical way. We opened our stockings. The older girls had to wait a while until our babies woke up. Asa and Judah enjoyed their books and candy in their stockings. James and I got candy and ornaments! My ornament is a little bit less than cool. James thought he would be funny and buy me a lame Hannah Montana ornament! Later we opened presents as a family. The other family units had already exchanged gifts among themselves so our little family was the only ones with gifts to open. Judah got a bowling set. Asa got a big magna doodle and a puzzle. James got a pillow and the movie Slumdog Millionaire. And I got two pair of pants.
Again our kids had an early lunch followed by naps so we could go swimming in the afternoon. James and I ended up going down with the older cousins and Asa before Judah woke up. The weather was great and the water was warm, perfect scene for Christmas day! Asa loved the pool, especially jumping in. He wasn't a fan of getting his face wet and coughed up a lot of water. We ended the day with a Christmas dinner of steak & chicken, courtesy of James the grill master. And of course, we played some pitch!

Christmas Vacation Part 2

2009-12-27T21:14:00.003-06:00

Ok, I'm not with the blogging thing this trip. We're having so much fun. We'll see how much I can remember.
Day 1: We left home at 6:00 PM and drove until we could drive no more. And then we kept driving. We met one of my sisters in Mount Vernon, IL and caravanned the rest of the way. The trip was pretty normal until day 2.
On Day 2 we met up with my other sister in Atlanta. We stopped at the welcome area in Florida for lunch. It was a nice break from the drive. Then we had a slight problem. Judah and his cousin Lea (2) were walking along. Judah tripped and Lea fell on him, causing his head to slam against the concrete. He screamed! And then he threw up on me. Nice. James went to find someone to clean up the puke and the guy showed James to a water faucet so he could clean it up himself. Lame! Anyhow, Judah finally quit crying and we got everyone cleaned up. Several hours later we arrived in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Our condo is pretty nice: 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, 2 eating areas, screened in porch and a neighborhood pool. We settled in, ate some pizza and went to bed.

Stay tuned for more....

Christmas Vacation

2009-12-21T23:22:00.003-06:00

This year we are doing something a little different for Christmas. We almost always travel to be with our family, either in Iowa or Arizona. (I'll include Texas in the list as well even though we don't have immediate family there anymore.) This year we're going to Florida with my family. We have rented a house in Port St. Lucie for a little over a week. I think it will be a good time. How can you go wrong when there's a beach nearby? We will be leaving tomorrow evening around 5:00. I'm hoping we'll be in warm Florida by 5:00 Wednesday evening. We'll see how the driving goes! Stay tuned for the journey!

PS: Someday I'll have a "Christmas Card Blog." Someday......

Christmas at the Light House

2009-12-04T21:11:00.006-06:00

Since it's starting to be the Christmas season, I thought I would share a few of our family traditions.
Tradition #1 Pick out a live tree. Usually we cut down a tree from a tree farm. This year, however, that was not possible. We decided to decorate early since James' parents were here for Thanksgiving and we will be gone for Christmas. We wanted to put the tree up early and enjoy it for a while. Since we put it up before Thanksgiving, Santa's Tree Farm wasn't open. We drove by a few places to price trees. The ones at Earl May were $75! Luckily Home Depot had nice trees for about $17. Here is our tree before we took it inside:

James & Asa putting the star on top:

The finished product:

We've had a bit of trouble with our tree since we have two little ones. Judah likes to pull the ornaments off. He is usually fine but for a while every day he gets it in his head that he needs to play with all the ornaments. I'm afraid to put presents under the tree. Who knows what he will do with them! The other problem with the tree is related to the cat we're watching. He's been eating the icicles (those little silver stringy things). James found a hairball laced with icicles and I saw Baby eating some more today. I hope he doesn't die!

Tradition #2 Drive around and look at Christmas lights. This exciting event took place just this evening. Asa wanted to get into his jammies for the ride in the van. We made popcorn and brewed some coffee and drove to a neighboring community known as Lakewood. It's a fancy neighborhood and a lot of folks hire people to put up their lights so they look really good. Asa was happy to point out all the lights. He said, "Look, there Christmas lights on that house." I'm not sure that Judah enjoyed much other than the popcorn on our little trip. While we drove we listened to one of the Point of Grace Christmas albums. Suddenly Asa said, "Oh I love this song!" and then sang, "Joy, joy, joy!" I was impressed that he knew that song; it's also one of James' favorites. Then Asa said, "Junior sing it." Oh, it's one of the Veggie Tales Christmas songs! Now I understand how he knows that song.

There will be more traditions to come, we just haven't done more Christmassy stuff yet. The fun has only just begun!

Extreme Makeover

2009-12-02T08:46:00.010-06:00

A little more than three years ago James and I moved to Lee's Summit. He was taking a few seminary classes in Kansas City and we found a cheap place to rent. James looked on the Church of the Nazarene's website to find the nearest Nazarene church. We went that first Sunday with hopes of finding a place where we could be involved and grow in our faith. Three years later we have the closest friends we've ever had. Keep reading to see what I mean.
A couple weeks ago we went to Tipton to visit my sister (Melinda) and her family. It was a pretty short trip but we had a great time. We ate a lot of good food, saw most of the rest of my family, went to the super fun library and played games. Asa and Judah loved playing with Zoe and Lea. I also went to the high school with Melinda as she taught a class. They have a really cool high school, especially for such a small town. Melinda & Ryan had recently moved into a new house and it is awesome! It's an older house with really cool features like built in storage and beautiful wood-work. They have so much space!
As we drove home, I was talking to my sister and was still on the phone with her when we pulled in the driveway. I noticed that outside lights in the front and back were on as well as a light inside the house. I was a little freaked out because we never leave lights on when we go out of town, especially three lights! Melinda told me that something was going on and we should just go inside. What on earth? James and I walked in to see our living room and kitchen completely made over. As we were crying and I was trying to explain to Melinda what had happened, a few of my friends walked in the door. We were filled in on the little scheme as we looked around at our new home. We walked back to the bedrooms and found Asa's room without purple carpet and with blue walls. They had pulled up the carpet and refinished the hardwood floor. It is so beautiful! Asa also has a new comforter and end table. There were a couple new outfits for the boys as well. Then we went into our bedroom. Can I just say amazing? We had mocha colored walls with our blue & white striped comforter. Now there are gray walls with a beautiful light blue-gray & dark brown comforter set. Then we went downstairs and found an organized basement with some of James' artwork on the walls.
During the whole tour I was wondering how they did so much work in two days and how they got into our house. Apparently there were a lot of people in our house while we were out of town. My oldest sister had been down for a visit in October and stole a key to the back door for our friends.
Here's what I'm thinking: We have great friends! We are loved more than I ever understood. These people gave up a lot of time and money for us. I don't really get it! The timing was perfect. This week we hosted James' parents and we have a beautiful house. They also cleaned and stashed away all the clutter. It was so refreshing just to have a clean house!
I'm not doing a very good job explaining everything but I've added some pictures. They don't even show the beauty but it's close. Please excuse our luggage; it wasn't there when we walked through the doors! I don't have a good picture of Asa's room. There are also beautiful pictures of our kids as the focal point in the living room. I think part of the greatness of this makeover is the previous state of our house. We hadn't painted or decorated at all since we moved in back at the end of August.

Living room with new TV & TV stand:

Living room, new curtains and recliner:

Dining area of the kitchen, new paint, table, place settings, mirror & curtains:

Bathroom with my friend Amy's great painting:

Our bedroom:

The bathroom off our bedroom, wallpaper gone, beautiful paint, towels and a sink that works:

Rescue Mission

2009-11-29T16:50:00.003-06:00

A couple weeks ago James and I went to the Kansas City Rescue Mission (KCRM) to help distribute clothing. Although many of our friends have been volunteered at KCRM, we have never gone. James and I had the job of taking clothing orders. Throughout the course of the evening we each talked to over 20 men. "I need a pair of socks, jeans 32/32, an XL t-shirt and underwear." I heard variations on that list twenty times. "Do you have any long johns?" "No, not yet."
Between writing down orders thoughts were racing through my head. What is this man's story? How do you get to a place in life where you're asking a stranger for size 34 underwear? Where can I come up with about an extra $200 to buy a whole bunch of warm clothes for these guys?
My heart just broke for those men. I can't imagine only having a few outfits that I carry around in a backpack. I can't imagine having no one to go to for help. I've been letting the experience roll around in my head for close to a month now. James and I have collected a few bags of clothes to donate from our friends. When we dropped them off, I recognized several faces. These guys are always there. They're actually homeless. I just can't wrap my mind around that kind of life. I'm searching for a way to make a difference.
And then I look around my house. It's a comfortable 70 degrees as I sit on my couch and look at my Christmas tree. I have a soft bed and a separate bedroom for each of my kids. I don't necessarily think it's wrong for me to have my house in Lee's Summit but I do think that God has called me to give whatever I have, perhaps even more than I can spare.
I don't really know how to wrap up this post. I don't have all the answers...

Many Random Thoughts

2009-10-23T09:15:00.000-05:00

Yes, I did forget to mention that my mom came to visit in the last month. Sorry, Mom. I was just looking at my calendar and remembering what I could. We did enjoy your visit as always. The boys always flock to Grandma with books. No one reads like Grandma!

This weekend we took a little trip to Tulsa to visit some good friends. I've been friends with Mariah for something like 15 years. She had a baby in September and we made the drive down for a visit. James got us a "ritzy" hotel in downtown for an amazing $50 a night. When we went to the pool Friday afternoon were highly disappointed. The water was freezing! I finally went to the front desk (in my swimming suit and dripping wet, in the lobby of the ritzy hotel) and inquired about the water temperature. As it turns out, they recently had resurfaced the pool and couldn't yet turn on the heat. Brrrrrr! We let the kids play in the hot tub for a while and then called it quits on the whole thing. We spent all day Friday and most of Saturday playing and driving around the rural-ish northern part of Tulsa. It is always so great to spend time with good friends!

My husband has been pretty entertaining recently. A couple nights ago after the kids were in bed he built a tower out of blocks. Yesterday when I got home from school he told me about a show he saw where they were making jewelry. He had some good ideas for making a Scrabble tile into a pendant for a necklace.

My oldest sister is coming to visit this weekend. I'm super excited! Saturday we are going to a retreat at our church for women. Hopefully we have a good time and learn something!

Asa is trying to put Judah's shoes on right now. They're a little small!

I'd like to start having a few deeper posts, something more than the mostly boring details of my life. Here's a start:

U2's Bono recently received the NAACP's Chairman's Award for his work to end poverty and disease in Africa. I recently saw his acceptance speech linked on facebook. In the speech he said a few things that struck me. "Where you live should not determine whether you live or die." How true. There are babies born all over the world that have no choice about the economic and political situation they are born into. We are blessed to have two healthy boys that receive all the food and medicine they need. This next quote really woke me up: "True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom." How often is our "religion" just something we think about on Sunday? I have really been striving recently to make my religion more than just a title. It's transforming my life and my perspective of things.

One Month

2009-10-14T14:39:00.002-05:00

It's been exactly one month since my last post. Why the long break? I'll tell you why. My friend Janae has started home-preschooling her kids and she doesn't have enough time to read blog posts. Well, that's not really the reason but she did ask me not to post anymore.

In the last month I have:
-taught 9 days of preschool
-taken a little boy for his 15 month check-up
-gone on our youth group's fall retreat
-been to Bible study every Wednesday morning
-had a visit from Aunt Janet and Uncle Steve (James' sister)
-gone to Sam's Club (twice)
-driven a few times to Tonganoxie to see Aunt Janeille and family (James' other sister)
-attended two birthday parties
-made dinner for some sick friends
-hosted small group a few times
-hosted a BBQ
-gone to church every Sunday morning

I'd say that's a pretty good reason for not blogging!

We finally had the opportunity to go to James' nephew Drew's birthday party. His birthday is in September and we've never been able to attend his party because of school. Now that they live in the KC area, we can go to all the parties! It was great being there to see him open his presents and hang out with his friends.

Have I ever mentioned that James has a new job? Well, he does. He's the communication coordinator at our church. It's been a big change for us. We're still trying to iron out some of the details that come with a new job. I experienced on of the benefits of having him working in town this morning. We ate breakfast together! At a time when James would have previously been at work, he is home now and we can sit at the table and talk over waffles. On a side note, I've not seen Asa eat so much at one meal in a long time. He ate an entire waffle!

A lot more has happened recently, but I'm not going to be able to remember all the details. I'll see if we have any interesting pictures and might post them later. Good to "see" you all again!

Preschool

2009-09-14T08:45:00.002-05:00

Well we have put two days of preschool behind us! I was pretty nervous about the first day. Will the kids in my class cry all day? Will I have enough activities to keep them busy? Will Judah cry in his class? Will I like teaching little ones? All these questions were racing through my mind before we started on Tuesday. It really was a pretty good day. James helped me get out the door on time. The boys played in my room while I got things ready for the day. Asa was excited when I took him to his class. He walked right in and sat down at his place at the table. Judah started the day out pretty well in his class. Two of my six kids were absent that first day, leaving me with one boy and three girls. They were pretty easy to manage. The downfall happened when Judah's teacher stepped out and left him with the music teacher. He wasn't happy. I was taking my class to PE and he saw me in the hallway. I decided to hold him for a while. He was very happy to see his mommy! But very sad when Mommy left again. His teacher said that he never recovered from this sad turn of events. And the most exciting part of the day came upon getting home. I saw that the front door was wide open. Apparently we had forgotten to close it when we left in the morning. I called James to come home and look through the house before we all went in. By the grace of God nothing was stolen.
Thursday was the second day of preschool. I was more prepared than the first day. Judah did great in his class. Asa got to paint. All my kids were there and I kept a bit of order. I've been working on plans for the rest of the month and it's hard to have enough activities to keep 3 year olds busy and interested all day! Let me know if you have any good craft ideas!

Pictures

2009-09-03T09:30:00.002-05:00

I finally have uploaded more pics to flickr. Link to the right.

This is the best effort I made at lunch all summer:

More Walking

2009-09-03T08:37:00.003-05:00

Judah is getting really good at walking. He just can't stand up on his own in the middle of the room. Asa did that forever before he even started walking. In the background you see Asa sitting on a blanket with a bucket because I thought he was going to throw up when he woke up this morning. Everything has been puke-free so far this morning. Judah tries to play with the bucket and Asa says, "No. My bucket."

The Jungle

2009-09-03T06:49:00.002-05:00

For some reason the back yard of our new house wasn't taken care of all summer. I guess the kid who mowed the yard was only paid to mow the front yard. As a result, the grass was more than knee high and there were weeds as tall as me. In addition to the grass problem, there are millions of tiny trees growing along the fence line. And there's an invisible fence line about 5 feet in front of the back fence from trees sprouting up. After we had lived here for a couple weeks James tackled the jungle with the push mower. He successfully mowed down most of the grass. The next step was raking. Two Saturdays ago I was feeling ambitious and went out to start raking. The problem was that there was still really long grass and it was too hard to rake. So we just had to mow again. After mowing, we raked up all the trimmings and bagged it up. (Let me insert here that the garbage company will not pick up our yard waste unless we call and ask them to do it. I asked if this was necessary every time and they said it's not. Maybe they should communicate that to the people who drive the trucks. Frustrating!) After mowing again, the yard is now usable. We still have a lot of trimming to do but we can at least let the kids play outside.

Judah Learns to Walk

2009-08-18T10:28:00.002-05:00

Well our baby is officially a toddler. He has been cruising along furniture and walking while holding our hands for a while. He finally let go and took a few steps a couple days ago. Yesterday he started walking across the room by himself. I think Asa walked slowly to keep his balance. Judah almost runs. He goes fast and falls easily. I put a short video on my Facebook page but won't bother on the blog. It's really not that good. I'll work on another one!

New Game

2009-08-13T07:25:00.002-05:00

Here's a game that's very popular with little Judah right now. All you need is a ball you can hold in one hand. Or half an Easter egg will work as well. First you throw the ball then run-crawl over to the ball and pick it up. Then you throw it again, crawl after it and pick it up. You can repeat this over and over, giggling all the while. It's really a great game; Judah loves it!

Anniversary

2009-08-12T10:27:00.003-05:00

Our six year anniversary was Sunday. Last year we talked about how the celebrations keep getting more and more lame every year. This year was less of a celebration than last year but we had a great day! I woke up early to make breakfast. The boys slept until we had finished our candle light breakfast. After church we had a church picnic. It was dreadfully hot but we survived and had fun. Judah and I sat under a tree and talked with friends while James and Asa played disc golf. Asa got pretty red from being so hot. Next was a little drive home followed by nap time. We decided to go to a greasy burger joint for dinner: Five Guys Burgers. There was an attempted but failed shopping excursion to get some more undies for Asa. Stores aren't open very late on Sundays.

I think we will be redeeming our anniversary celebrations. I found out that Relient K (one of our favorite bands) is going to be in Kansas City in October. From what I have seen, the tickets are affordable and I'm planning to get some when they go on sale tomorrow. Whoo hoo!

You may be wondering if we are potty training Asa. No, we aren't. We only have three pair of underwear. He wore it once and had an accident after a few minutes. I'm not giving up, I am just looking for more affordable undies!

Job

2009-08-12T10:20:00.002-05:00

A few months ago a friend mentioned to me that they were in need of a couple teachers for the preschool she teaches at. I talked with the director about the position and filled out an application. I had an interview the week we moved and am happy to announce that I got the job. The preschool is at a church about 15 minutes away and meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-2:30. I will be teaching about six kids who are right now turning three. I really have no experience with teaching little ones and I'm a little bit nervous about how it's going to go. My boys get to go for just $15 a month each. I think it will be good for all of us to get out of the house and have a little structure in our week. School starts September 8.

On a side note, Asa had a drippy nose yesterday. He did a great job getting kleenexes to blow his nose. Today he woke up and asked, "What wrong my nose?" It's starting to get dry and chapped. He isn't a fan of blowing his nose today. Judah also has the drippy nose now. He is pretty drooly as well so he gets to wear a bib all day!

The Grand Tour

2009-08-11T15:28:00.002-05:00

We Moved!

2009-08-09T16:39:00.004-05:00

Well, we have been in our house for about 17 days now. 14 of those days we have had guests! The move went really well. We had several people help us, I didn't get a head count. We got everything out of the old place and into the new place in about three hours I think. Our house has felt like home from the very first minute. The day after we moved in I cleaned our apartment. I talked with our land lady this week and she said that they have never had the place left so clean. She said that she cried when she saw it. I was a little surprised because I didn't feel like I cleaned very much. I guess we're just clean people.
Anyhow, James' mom flew in on Saturday (July 25). Sunday after church I headed out for Nashville with our youth group on a mission trip. James and Sandy survived with the boys for a whole week without me. Asa, Judah and Sandy took turns throwing up. I think Asa had the worst of it. The other excitement of the week was the refrigerator's slow death. They ended up taking the frozen items to a friend's freezer and putting the food from the refrigerator side into the freezer side. Other than the puking and broken refrigerator, everything was great! (I'll write about the mission trip later.) When I got home Saturday evening Asa was really excited to see me. Judah acted confused. He seemed to prefer James that evening but Sunday he clung to me. I can't believe that he survived in the church nursery without me.
My mom got here Sunday afternoon (August 2). We all drove up to the airport to drop Sandy off for her flight home. We didn't do much exciting during my mom's visit. She helped me clean and organize some things. The boys sat and listened to her read books for what seemed like hours.
Wednesday morning my sister Melinda and her family came. We all went to our favorite local place for lunch: Neighbor's Cafe. After we got back to the house, my mom headed out. The Stonebrakers went to the Royals game while we went to a meeting at church that evening. Thursday we took the kids to the park.

Friday we went to Fritz's train restaurant at Crown Center followed by frollicking in the fountains for a while afterwards. Let me just say that Melinda's kids enjoyed it more than my kids did.

Friday evening we went to Blues and Jazz Fest in downtown Lee's Summit. We didn't last very long with the kids. Once we had all the kids in bed we were free to do our favorite thing: play cards and eat snacks! When we all lived in Oskaloosa we played cards all the time. I really miss that the most. The Stonebrakers left Saturday after lunch.
As I look back on all of our guests, I didn't feel very stressed. It was great to have so much family here. We have the house to ourselves for three days before James' sister gets here! I don't know what we will do in September with an empty house!

Moving Day

2009-07-23T08:07:00.002-05:00

Today is moving day. Judah was up at 6:00. I am not complaining though because he fell asleep around 8:30 on our way home. James carried Judah in and put him in his bed and he slept until this morning. I guess he was really tired!
I think we're in pretty good shape for the big move. We have a lot of people coming to help us tonight. Hopefully everything will go as imagined! Stay tuned for more updates and maybe a picture or two!

Housing Update

2009-07-20T23:35:00.002-05:00

At the end of Monday (day 1 of moving week) the new house is mostly clean. Two friends broke in with me this morning and tackled the dirt and cat fur. (If you have a cat, get rid of it. I'm totally grossed out by all that fur all over the house!) I think I almost barfed at one point because of cat fur and the previous owner's hair. Blech! I still need to get a carpet cleaner and clean the carpets. That's on the list for tomorrow. I'm still trying to figure out when that will fit in.
We have a time to close! 9:00 Thursday morning. Woo hoo! The last piece of getting everything in place to close happened today. The city required that we have an inspection for lead paint because they are giving us money. I was terrified that we would have some cracked paint and would have to get it taken care of. I actually saw a lot of chipped paint on the door frames but that must not have been what the guy was looking for. After he looked through the house he said, "You have my blessing. Good luck on the move!" Whew! Things are falling into place.

Sleeping

2009-07-18T10:21:00.002-05:00

In my family, I am the one who doesn't need a lot of sleep. My sister Melinda needs tons of sleep. James could sleep all day but I usually don't choose to take a nap when there is a chance to do so. I've been thinking about this recently because of my kids. I'm pretty sure that Judah sleeps less than Asa. I don't know exactly when Asa always falls asleep because he plays in his bed a little before he goes to sleep. He could stay up for a long time and I don't know it since he is in the basement. Last night the boys went to bed a little late, but at the same time. Judah has been awake for an hour and a half and Asa is still sleeping. This happens almost every morning. I think that Judah just needs less sleep than Asa because of his personality.

Editorial Comment

2009-07-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

There's a note about the 4th of July three posts below. Don't miss it.

House Heartbreak

2009-07-16T12:43:00.002-05:00

We have found a house to purchase. It's one block away. We wanted to close on July 7. The lady from our mortgage company couldn't make that work. We were set to close July 21. The same lady can't make that happen either. I'm not sure what she does in her office in Texas all day, but she doesn't return James' emails or calls. The major hang-up right now is that we are getting a grant from the city and they don't have all the information needed to cut a check for us. They really just need one form filled out by that lady. And she can't find the time to do it. We hope to close July 23.
The twist:
I am going on a mission trip to Nashville with the teen group from church. We leave July 26. Between July 23 and 26 here's what we have to do:
-clean new house
-move into new house
-clean our apartment
-unpack so my mother-in-law can find things (She is staying with my 3 boys while I'm gone.)
-pack for the mission trip
-make a side dish for a BBQ
I know what you're thinking. That's nothing. You can do all that in one day! Right. Well, if something else gets messed up I might just die. There are other things we would like to do in the new house before we move in, but there is no time. I think we're going to take possession and move in all on Thursday (one week from today!) I am going down on Monday with a friend to clean. I'm hoping that's not a problem with anyone. If we can get everything clean Monday morning, I will feel a lot better about the whole situation.
The final twist: I have an injured knee. I think it's tendinitis but I'm no doctor. I am going to see my chiropractor tomorrow morning. Hopefully he will help me a little.

It will be a busy week; I still have a lot of packing to do. I am mentally prepared. Now if my body (and kids) would cooperate, I will be in luck!

Wedding

2009-07-15T08:47:00.003-05:00

The Today Show throws a wedding every year and today is the big day. I haven't really been watching much recently but tuned in this morning by chance. The wedding was about 5 minutes long and right after that, they got to talk to the show hosts for a while. I'm thinking that I might want to talk to my family and friends instead of strangers (though quasi famous) minutes after my vows. I guess if someone is willing to throw you a great wedding for free, you would be happy with almost anything. They also get a free reception and honeymoon. I'm thinking that I would do almost anything for just a free week of vacation.

James and I are trying to get back into running. James has run the last 4 mornings. I have run two mornings now. I've done Pilates for about a week now. It's nice to be working on exercising again, but it's a slow process. Three cheers for runners!

4th of July Excitement

2009-07-15T08:46:00.001-05:00

Our 4th of July weekend was busy. Friday morning we got up and drove up to Iowa for my friend Claire's wedding. She is one of my good friends from college. We stayed at a nice hotel right next to the place of reception. The kids loved being in a hotel. I don't know what it was, but Asa was so happy to be there.
Here we see Asa relaxing on the bed, watching some TV:

The wedding was great, except for the fact that our kids were there. They weren't bad but were just kids. James took them out about half way through. We had some down time before the reception so we let the kids run around in the room for a while. We had a great time at the reception. We sat with some of my friends from college. It was great to spend time with them again. Asa loved the dance. Judah almost got stepped on but enjoyed dancing as well.

After the reception we decided to put the kids down for bed in our room and then go to another room to talk with our friends. You may think this was a terrible idea, but it worked so well. We set up the monitors and were only a few doors down. The shocking thing is that both boys went down without any problems. Judah slept in our pack & play but we didn't have anything for Asa except for the second queen size bed. He has never slept in a regular bed by himself and this one was about three feet off the ground. We lined the edge with pillows and told him that it was time for him to lay down. Lucky for us he was exhausted enough that he fell asleep fine. We were able to stay up way too late with friends and didn't have to deal with our kids. It was awesome!

Saturday morning we got up early to drive to my mom's house. We had a little birthday party for Judah. My sisters and brother were there with their kids. We had a great time! Judah made a royal mess with his cake and got some cool gifts!

After the party we drove home with the hope of seeing fireworks all along the four hour drive. We were lucky enough to see lot of fireworks. We kept pointing them out to Asa. He in turn would say, "Judah, look. Fireworks! See 'em?" Very cute. We were about 20 minutes from home when traffic slowed. There had been an accident on 435 and we were stopped for at least ten minutes. It was inconvenient but we were able to just sit and watch fireworks all around us.

We finally got home around 10:00 and realized that we were out of wipes. I had to run to the store after we got the kids in bed. When I got back I was watching the Capital Fourth special. Barry Manillo was on and at first I thought he was doing a parody, but then I realized that he is just like that. (Do you know what I mean?) Wow. I think he's better heard and not seen. I hope I don't offend anyone. Before him was Aretha Franklin. She can still sing! I was a little afraid that she was going to pass out during one of her songs. She seemed to have some trouble getting around.

The rest of the weekend was pretty calm. We went to church and just relaxed Sunday afternoon. Everyone was ready for some quiet after our busy weekend.

Judah is 1!

2009-07-09T13:49:00.005-05:00

Judah turned one on July 1. Here's what he does:
-cruises & crawls really fast (usually chasing Asa)
-says Da, Mama, no, yeah
-eats almost anything
-uses a sippy cup
-loves books

On Judah's birthday we had a very busy day. My mom was here in the morning and had some time to read to the boys. It's their favorite thing to do with Grandma. I ran a few errands and then returned home to do a million other things. I watched our neighbor's little girl as they moved in next door. I made dinner for a family at church and dinner for our family. I also baked and decorated some cupcakes. After James got home we did a video chat with Aunt Janet as Judah opened his birthday present from her. Asa was happy to help Judah open his presents!

We had been trying to get together with our friends Ken & Abbie who recently moved to Kansas City. It worked out that we were all free on Wednesday so they came over for dinner. After dinner we did the birthday cake thing for Judah. We sang and lit a candle on a cupcake for him. He really enjoyed the singing. Like most one-year-olds he didn't know how to blow out the candle. But he did enjoy his cupcake! I was surprised that he didn't make a very big mess with it.

I know that I will say this for the rest of my life, but I can't believe how quickly time flies! It has been a great year with two kids. There were some rough times but we have really been blessed with awesome kids! For example, this morning they let me sleep until 9:30! It was a nice present since we were up late and I was up for an hour in the night. I do love both of my boys (and their dad) very much!

Celebrations

2009-07-02T07:25:00.003-05:00

Well, my birthday was a couple weeks ago. James and I went to a Royals game without the boys the evening before. On my birthday I went to a brunch at a friend's house. She had everything organized so well! There was a paper bag with snacks for each kid (like 12 of them) and had little name tags on the cups. It sounds funny but it was really cute. We had a great time. When the boys and I got home, they ate some lunch and laid down for naps. I was also exhausted and took a long nap. When I woke up, I heard Asa and Elmo. I figured that James must be home. We went to a great pizza place for dinner and then took the kids to the park. Most of the day Asa wouldn't tell me happy birthday. As we were driving to get dinner, Asa mumbled "Happy birthday, Mom." It was so cute!

We didn't do much for Father's Day. I made enchiladas for lunch and we spent most of the day relaxing. I taught Asa how to say "Happy Father's Day." It was pretty cute. It sounded more like "Happy day."

We have been busy around our house. We are planning to close on our house July 21. My mom came down this week to help me pack. We got a lot of things packed and I can rest easily knowing that everything is packed well. While Mom was here she read a lot to the boys. That's Asa's favorite thing to do with Grandma. There's a book that asks a question on every page and the answer is "no" on every page except for the last page. Mom said that Judah was saying "no" right along with Asa. Today I was reading the book and he did it! It was so cute seeing him say no and shake his head.

It's Hot!

2009-06-23T09:35:00.003-05:00

Asa has been wearing his BK crown lately. It was the first thing he wanted when he woke up this morning.

I told James last night that I was glad I wasn't 9 months pregnant like I was this time last year. I know that it isn't as hot here as it is other places, but it is really hot and humid. Luckily our air conditioner is kind of working. I know people whose AC is completely broken. Ours is having some trouble keeping up with the heat. I am trying not to use the oven to make dinner. It's difficult since our grill is also out of gas and we're not grilling either. We made a trip to Wal-Mart last night. I asked Asa if he was ready to go in and he said, "No. It too hot." That about sums it up. While at Wal-Mart, we discussed getting a pool. I think we might do that soon.

Just In Case

2009-06-18T06:48:00.002-05:00

If you didn't look, there are new pictures to the right. Enjoy!

Judah has learned how to stand up right in front of the TV so he can really watch his favorite show. Baby Einstein holds his attention. That's what he is doing now, at 6:50 AM.

Weekend Trip

2009-06-16T09:58:00.002-05:00

Wednesday was filled with cleaning and preparing to go to Iowa for the weekend. My friend Mariah drove up from Tulsa and spent the night. This meant that I had to make the basement presentable. It really wasn't a huge disaster as it often is. I'm really not going to share all the details of the terribly busy day, but I didn't even pack for the weekend until Thursday morning when I was also busy making breakfast and getting last minute things ready for the trip. I felt really bad because Mariah was just waiting on me to get ready.
We left Thursday morning just in time to make it to my mom's house in Oskaloosa before another friend from high school got there. It was so good to sit and talk with Lois and see her cute little daughter!
Other high-lights of the trip include a trip to Tasos' Steakhouse, a visit with a couple other friends from high school, attending a cowboy-themed birthday party, sorting through some of my grandparents' things at Mom's house, watching my boys play with their big cousins, talking with my brother and sisters, going to church and enjoying ice cream from the Frosty Udder.
We got back to Lee's Summit Sunday evening just in time to go to our small group. Mariah and her kids left Monday morning.

Our potential house was inspected yesterday. I was there for a portion of the three (3) hours Woody was inspecting. I can't believe that it took so long! I am very glad, however, that he did a thorough job. The biggest problem is that the furnace doesn't work. We have to get that looked at before we go ahead with the house. Now we just have to get all of the financial things in line so we can close at the beginning of July. Where do I begin packing?

Pictures Are Coming, Next Week

2009-06-11T06:52:00.002-05:00

It's been a busy week full of cleaning and unpacking. Monday I made a banana cream pie to share with some friends after dinner that evening. Tuesday I went strawberry picking with some friends. Which meant that Wednesday I had to clean strawberries and make jam. My friend Mariah (who is my best friend from high school) drove up last night from Tulsa. This morning we're heading to Iowa to visit our families and our friend Lois. I am super excited for the trip.
Also in the last 5 days we've looked at a house to buy that's 6 houses down from us. We put in an offer and it was accepted yesterday. Now we're having to get things figured out to make the purchase. James is turning on utilities and scheduling the inspection today. (I think.) If all goes as planned, we'll close on July 7. I am finally excited. We have made offers on several other houses and I haven't been excited. I don't want to be disappointed and I would have been really let down with all the other houses since we didn't get them. But now I think that I can be happy!
I have a lot of pictures from our trip last week that I will put on flickr. But it won't happen until next week.

The Rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

2009-06-09T13:38:00.003-05:00

As we were loading up the van at Slide Rock Asa was running around the van and wiped out. He hit his face on the curb thing at the front of the van. He was bleeding from his upper lip and mouth pretty badly. It was so sad because there wasn’t much we could do for him. We cleaned him up as best we could and put some neosporin above his lip. After just an hour his lip was pretty fat. I was also sad that most of our pictures of Asa from vacation would have this awful scrape on his face.
We drove down to Phoenix and over to James' grandparent's house. They are in somewhat of an assisted living house so we were able to stay at their house and make a big mess with all of our stuff. Wednesday morning we went to pick up Grandma and Grandpa and took them to their house. I made lunch and we just sat and talked with them. They were very glad to be in their house again. The boys really liked their great grandparents! Asa crawled up and down on their laps. I hope they didn't mind much! Grandma was reading books and singing songs while Grandpa took care of the tickling! It was sweet to see the boys playing with them.
Later that afternoon we took them back to their other house and headed to the other side of Phoenix to our favorite restaurant ever: Z Tejas! We met one of James' friends from college there for dinner. It was amazing. We ordered our usual: chorizo stuffed pork tenderloin for me and diablo chicken pasta for James. Great food and great conversation. It was a perfect night!
On our way home, we stopped by Sonic for free root beer floats. They were a hopping place! I started packing a bit when we got back to the house but I really was exhausted!

Thursday morning Judah woke up early again. I guess he was having trouble sleeping late because of the bright sun coming through the windows. We all were up by 7:00 and started gathering up our things. It's amazing how many things can be scattered around in such a short amount of time. While I was getting our things together, James took the boys outside for a walk and photo shoot by a cactus and palm tree. As he was out, some of his grandparent's neighbors asked if he wanted some pie. Someone had given them two pies and they had a piece of each of them. We *reluctantly* took the pies and hauled them clear to Winslow to share with the rest of the family.
Anyhow, we packed up and went to the other house for another visit with Grandma and Grandpa before we left. Again, the boys had a lot of fun! We drove back up to Winslow. We had a delicious lasagna at Janeille's house for dinner. Around 8:00 we took the boys to James' parent's house and put them to bed. Sandy stayed there and we went back to Janeille's to talk the night away. We left around midnight and I was exhausted. But how often to we do that? Practically never!

Friday we went to James' other grandparent's house to look through some of their things. They have both passed away and James' dad and aunt are trying to sort through their stuff and get the house sold. It was amazing looking at pictures, letters, tax returns, books, blankets, dishes, news papers, furniture, their whole lives. You just look through things and imagine living their lives. How different from what we experience today!
We had to finish our walk through the years quickly in order to get to a retirement party for our friend Larry who actually lives in the Kansas City area. Now that he's retired he travels all the time and they were in Winslow so they threw a party! We ate at a restaurant and had an awesome "Janeille cake." Then we stayed up late at the Light's house talking. It was great!

Then Saturday morning came and we had to pack everything up in our van. Sad times. Our vacation was almost over.

Other state license plates we’ve seen:
Alabama
Vermont
Ohio
Virginia
Florida
Wyoming
Hawaii
Utah
Washington
Indiana
Montana

Home, Sweet Home

2009-06-07T22:11:00.001-05:00

We got home this morning at 9:30. We quickly took showers and went to church. It was so great to see our friends again! To think, it had just been a week!
We're beat and I'm going to bed. I'll have notes about the rest of the trip and pictures up in a couple days.

The Drive Home

2009-06-07T00:20:00.001-05:00

It’s 2:30 on Saturday afternoon and we just stopped to get gas by Joseph City. We would have filled up in Winslow but the Flying J was really busy and people were leaving their vehicles at the pump while they went inside. So we drove on to the next town.
This morning we went to the Buckley’s house for Dawson’s birthday breakfast of banana & chocolate chip pancakes. Janeille instructed me on how to make a cream pie. I’m looking forward to trying it for myself when I get home. We finished loading up all of our stuff in time to see Dawson’s baseball game. Those little ones were pretty cute! After the short game we said our good-byes and were on our way.

It’s 7:00 PM in the Mountain Time Zone, 6:00 in Arizona. We’re just pulling out of Flying J in Albuquerque. Four hours down, fourteen to go!

It is 10:19 in Arizona. We’re at the Jesus Christ is Lord Travel Center in the Amarillo area. They have free wi-fi! Thus the update.

Tuesday

2009-06-05T13:00:00.003-05:00

Tuesday morning after breakfast all the boys ages two and up went fishing. Asa wore his swimming clothes so that he could get wet. I'm told that they had a lot of fun but didn't catch anything for lunch. While they were away from the camp, Judah took a nap and I had some time to enjoy God's creation and read a little bit. It was so relaxing!
After lunch we packed up camp and headed for Slide Rock. There is a place where the water has run over the rocks and cut little water slides. Asa loved playing in the water once he got used to it. Judah even liked the water after a little bit. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of our boys in the water. By the time we got out the camera the sun had gone behind a cloud and the boys were shivering.
James' Nephews:

Our family sitting on the rock:

More pictures to come....

Sunday & Monday

2009-06-05T11:44:00.002-05:00

Sunday we went to church as normal. We saw a few people that we wanted to catch up with a little bit. Afterwards we ate lunch and watched Janeille’s boys while they went to the quarterly church meeting.

Monday morning we headed out for Oak Creek Canyon for some camping fun. We stopped at the top of the canyon to take in the view. It was pretty spectacular. Asa would point over into the canyon and say, “Look, I see it. Canyon.”

We drove down to our camp site in the canyon, by the creek and started setting up tents. Asa had fun running around picking up rocks and sticks. I got out a pack & play for Judah to play in. He was pretty content in there for quite a while. Especially when Asa would stand there playing with him. At some point Janeille realized that we forgot to buy hotdogs when we were at Sam’s Club. That was totally my fault. I had the list and confirmed that we bought everything on it. Oh, I’m so dumb! After much discussion about where to drive to get hotdogs and who would go, Ken and Sandy drove into Sedona to get them. Anyhow, we had hotdogs and later smores over our camp fire. Asa loved playing in our tent. It took a while to get him calmed down to go to sleep. Every time he got in the tent he would giggle and crawl around, running into the sides of the tent. Our boys actually slept pretty well in the tent. The only problem was that Judah woke up early. Janeille’s youngest, Dylan, did not sleep well. His new nick-name is Tazmanian Devil!

Road Trip 2009- part 1

2009-05-30T09:05:00.003-05:00

Here we go. This is the beginning of my vacation journal.
We left Kansas City around 1:00. We got all the way to Kansas City, Kansas before we had to stop for gas. I didn’t have a chance to fill up before I picked James up at work. I started out the trip driving, but had to pull over and switch drivers because Asa wouldn’t let James get things for him. Everybody loves the mommy! The trip is really going well. It’s about 5:45 and we’re close to Oklahoma City. I was just looking at the map and realized how well things are going. Once we get through OKC, it should be about 12 hours of driving time. And by then Asa should be ready for “bed.” Judah has been sleeping for a couple hours. I hope he’s tired today because he will have plenty of time to sleep!

9:45 PM We stopped on the west end of Oklahoma City to get gas, use the restroom and get out our sandwiches. At the gas station they were remodeling the women’s bathroom. Luckily they realized how women would react to using a portable bathroom outside and decided to use the men’s restroom in the building for women. There were a lot of signs up pointing the men to use the portable facility on then north side of the building. It wasn’t until I was getting Asa out of one of the stalls that I noticed that it was a men’s restroom. Anyhow, we got back on the road and ate dinner as a family, it just wasn’t around a table.
Shortly after we left OKC, I smelled one of my favorite smells in the world. I looked over and saw a big field of hay all ready to be baled. Mmmmmm.
On previous trips to Arizona we have driven this stretch of road in the middle of the night and saw a bunch of flashing red lights. It was a little creepy. When we got home last time, I think we looked on the Google satellite view of the area and learned that it was a bunch of wind turbines. We think they’re owned by T. Boone Pickens. All of that to say that it’s still daylight and we got a good look at the wind turbines. They are a sight. There are so many of them and the power they generate is amazing.
Back to the current time, James is still driving. Judah is asleep again. Asa is watching “Ernie Sauce.” It’s actually the Gaither Vocal Band and Ernie Haase & Signature Sound. Thanks, Mom, he seems to enjoy it. He kind of sings along and claps at the end of each song. I have had a few naps also so I will be ready to drive soon.

10:37
We are pulling out of a gas station in Amarillo, Texas. Basically we were creeped out be every person at the gas station. Asa has all of his bedtime lovies; Judah has a bottle, and they are watching a Veggie Tales. All is good for now.

3:03 AM
We are getting gas in Albuquerque. James pulled over just before midnight and asked me to drive. Right after I started driving we crossed over into New Mexico. What kept me awake during the drive? My Christian and jazz mixes of music on my i Pod, attempting to pronounce the names of towns along the way and a few random radio stations. Among all the towns with Mexican names like Tucumcari, Albuquerque & Quemado is a town called Wagon Wheel. “One of these things is not like the other.”
Oh yes, Asa woke up during this leg of the trip. He would whine and cry for a minute and then be quiet for five minutes and then do it all over again. James finally turned on a movie for him and he fell asleep. Both babies are sleeping now. I love it! We only have four hours left. That will put us in Winslow at 5:00 AM.

We arrived in Winslow at 7:15 Central Time. That is 5:15 Arizona Time. Grandma and Grandpa got up early today! We've been here for less than two hours and Judah has already been injured. He was in the pack & play and Asa decided to throw some toys in. One hit him right under his eye. Wonderful! Now he will have a red mark on his face the whole vacation!

On our drive to Winslow we saw cars from the following states:
Missouri
Kansas
Nebraska
Iowa
Oklahoma
Massachusetts
California
Texas
Arizona
Nevada
Arkansas
Oregon
Illinois
Virginia
Wisconsin
New Mexico
Mississippi

Iowa, Celebration

2009-05-25T10:43:00.009-05:00

I just heard Asa count to 11 all on his own!
Judah likes to crawl around holding a toy in his mouth.

Now on to what's been happening.

Tuesday (May 19) was my mom's birthday. I decided that the best gift would be a visit from some of her grandchildren. I drove up Monday morning with the boys. I decided that with our family so far away it would be worth the investment to buy a DVD player for the van. Asa was very excited to see Grandma. He even recognized her house when we pulled into the driveway. Not long after we got there we left again to meet my sisters and nieces for dinner in Iowa City. We ate at Old Country Buffet. I was surprised by Asa's behavior there. He sat at a table with all his cousins and ate his dinner. He only got down and ran around a couple times. Judah was another story. Every time I got up he screamed. I guess he really likes me! After dinner we took the kids to a play area in the mall and we had a chance to visit some more.

Jodi, Margee, Melinda:

Other exciting things we did while visiting my mom include eating at Tasos, feeding the ducks at the cemetery, playing in the yard and pulling fence posts out of the ground by the new tree. We left on Wednesday to drive back home in time for church.

My oldest sister Margee was here for the weekend. They are staying with friends in Olathe. It is fun to see Asa so excited to see his cousins. Faith and Joelle really love Judah. Between the two of them I wouldn’t ever need to take care of him.
Sunday evening we made our third annual trip to Celebration at the Station. It is a great outdoor concert by the Kansas City Symphony on the lawn of the Liberty Memorial with Union Station as a backdrop. We invited a lot of people from church and my sister’s family to go with us. We had a group of close to 30 in the midst of a crowd of 50,000. We had a great time listening to music and talking with our family and friends.

Friday we're leaving for Arizona for vacation. Stay tuned for summaries of our vacation excursions!

The Big Move

2009-05-13T08:13:00.002-05:00

Asa has been sleeping in the basement for a solid two weeks. We put him down there so that we can let Judah put himself to sleep in his crib. When Judah was born we talked about moving Asa's bed to the basement, but I couldn't stand having my baby in that dark cool place. In the last ten months, I've lost enough sleep and had a baby in my bed so much that I don't really care about all that silly sentimental stuff anymore. I decided when Judah turned 10 months old that I would stop nursing him in the night and almost always holding him until he falls asleep. It really has worked out well. Judah is doing very well going to sleep in his crib. About half of the time he cries for less than five minutes. He also has slept through the night several times in the last 12 days.
Anyhow, back to the big move. Asa has been sleeping in a pack and play downstairs. Remember how he jumped out of it about a month ago? He hasn't been doing that. Since he seemed happy sleeping in the basement, we decided to move his bed down there on Monday. I am sure he is happy to have some extra wiggle room.
Since we moved a bed out of the upstairs bedroom we had room for the rocking chair. My rocking chair has been in the basement since we had our Christmas tree up. And I have missed it. It's back in Judah's room and I love it! I have rocked him for a few minutes before putting him down for every nap and bed time. I'm in baby heaven!

I cut Asa's hair last night. He did a very good job sitting still. The part that bothered him the most was the cape. He started trying to pull it off about half way through.

Judah woke up at 5:45 this morning. I thought that if I nursed him he would fall back asleep. Wrong. He was lifting up his legs, playing with the sheet. I finally decided that we may as well get up. I started making breakfast for James (a rare task during the week). And guess who I heard talking in the basement? That's right. Asa. We all ended up eating breakfast at 6:30. Judah is already down for his morning nap. I'm guessing Asa will go down early for his nap. I hope the day isn't too long.

Pancakes

2009-05-12T09:48:00.004-05:00

We had a wonderful breakfast of pancakes this morning. I decided to feed some to Judah and he really likes it! The only problem is that when they get wet the pancake bits get slimy. I'm almost ready to clean him up. Asa on the other hand wanted to put peanut butter on his pancake by himself. As I was helping him with the knife, I realized that there is going to be a problem. Asa is left handed and I am right handed. I was trying to hold his left hand with my right hand and guide him as he was spreading the peanut butter. Not so easy.

I had a great Mother's Day. Saturday I went shopping with a friend while James took the boys shopping for me. He said that everything would have been fine if Asa had wanted to sit in the cart. He instead wanted to be held. Anyhow, Sunday morning there was a beautiful plant setting on the table:

After church James grilled steaks and presented me with growth charts for the boys. Some day we will tack them to a wall in our house. For now they are just in the dining "room" and I hope that Judah doesn't pull them over on himself.

Last night Judah was eating some cheerios on the floor in the living room. At one point he was lying on his stomach while eating. It was so cute. By the time I got the camera, he was sitting up again.

Blog Help

2009-05-08T07:30:00.003-05:00

If it's not a template, I don't know how to use it. I just stumbled across some programming hints for editing the text in my posts. So I'm asking for help. Where are the cool backgrounds? How do I make my blog different? (Maybe I should ask my web-programmer sister...) I'm open for any tips you have and I'm humbled by my request.

Last night we had this conversation:
Asa: I need more crackers.
James: Can you say please?
Asa: No. I can't.

This is how Judah crawls. He can get up on his knees and crawl, but he prefers to act like an alligator.

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Monday Night Royals Game

2009-05-07T13:55:00.002-05:00

As we live in Kansas City and are always game for a little entertainment, we decided to go to the Kansas City Royals game on Monday evening. Every Monday the upper deck seats are $5 (plus surcharges, give me a break). We loaded up our van with the kids and food for our dinner. We walked 20 miles and climbed a million steps to get to our seats. It took me a while to get my bearings. The game was great. They have a pitcher who is suddenly good this season and he was starting. We cheered and booed when necessary during the game. Apparently the catcher from the Chicago White Sox is hated by KC fans. Who knew? Asa loved the whole thing and Judah didn't seem to mind all the excitement. We think Asa thought he was watching TV because of the huge screen in the outfield. I think he saw the actual players on the field at some point during the evening. The most exciting/annoying part of the night was drunk people. There was a bunch girls sitting right behind us that were very loud. James heard one of them say that they started drinking around 4:00. (It was after 7:00 at this point.) They were using pretty colorful language and I was just about ready to say something to them when one of the girls told another to watch her language around those cute little kids. (I had been surprised that they were making comments about our boys but still swearing. Hello, these are little kids!) Then after the game we saw what James described as a taping of Girls Gone Wild. There were a couple girls dancing on a car and lifting their shirts. Luckily we didn't see any skin and our boys didn't notice anything. Despite the awkward moments with intoxicated people, we had a great time at the game.

Judah has enjoyed time this afternoon playing with a magazine. I can't believe how exciting it is to little ones to play with such simple things.

Asa had a fever all day yesterday. He ran up to me this morning saying that his mouth hurt and showed it to me. He has a bunch of sores on his tongue. I took him to the doctor and he said it's a virus that will have to run its course over the next week. I really hope the sores are better soon. Asa looks so miserable!

Peas

2009-05-01T18:21:00.004-05:00

The day I have been waiting for since I got married has finally arrived! If you know my husband, you know that he doesn't eat vegetables. I knew that a time would come when one of our children would notice that James wasn't eating his veggies and call him out on it. That time is now. We were just eating a wonderful dinner of grilled chicken, potatoes and peas. I was talking to Asa about his peas and noting that he liked them. He looked over at James' plate and noticed that his peas were gone. Asa pointed to the pan and asked if he wanted some more. I said that Asa had made a great observation and that maybe Daddy did need some more peas. I however (being such a loving wife) did not give James any peas since he really doesn't like them. It was very funny that Asa recognized that James wasn't eating peas. I know that this conversation will continue at different levels in the future.

It's Happened Again!

2009-04-30T21:13:00.003-05:00

Yes, that's right. Another round of mastitis. I'm miserable. But I'm very glad that James has been home with me the last two days. Now that I have some antibiotics I'm hoping that I'll be on the mend very soon.

On a side note, we noticed Sunday that Asa had bite marks on his arm. I guess someone bit him in the nursery? I thought he would have cried based on the imprint.

The One With the Broken Thumb

2009-04-24T11:57:00.003-05:00

James got his cast off his hand/arm yesterday after three long weeks. He changed a few poopy diapers, but only when I wasn't home. I was ready for him to again have use of both his hands. When he got home from the doctor, he was sporting a brace. He doesn't have to wear it all the time, just when he's going to be using his hands a lot. The doctor said that it looks like things are healing. James said he could tell from the x-ray that it still wasn't quite right. And he says that it really hurts. He has the brace for three (3) more weeks and then goes back for another look.
The most interesting part of James' visit to the orthopaedic office is that it was take-your-child-to-work-day. There were a lot of little people "working." He noticed one little girl who had a cast on her arm. He found it ironic until he saw another kid with a cast. He then realized that they had put casts on all the kids' hands for the day. Ha! When it was time for James to get his x-ray, a little girl went in the room and told him that he could go have his hand x-rayed. Cute! Personally, I enjoy (endure) take-your-child-to-work-day every day.

I mowed the yard on Tuesday. I didn't realize how much work it is. I now have an increased level of respect for those who mow tons of yards every week. They deserve to be paid a lot!

Now when Asa wants something he says, "I need ______." Last night it was "I need a cookie."

They Are Figuring Things Out

2009-04-23T11:19:00.002-05:00

Judah can officially sit himself up. A couple evenings ago he was scootching around and then I noticed that he was sitting up. I asked James if he had helped Judah sit up and he said that he had been sitting by me the whole time. I still didn't believe that Judah could sit himself up. This morning Judah was sleeping in our bed. I heard some little baby sounds and decided to go check on him. He was sitting up on the bed looking around. I was impressed. Then later I had put him down for a nap in his crib. After a while he was still crying and I decided to rescue him. He was sitting up in his crib! Yeah! Now I just need to see him do it with my own eyes.

For a long time I have been saying that Asa would be into lots of trouble the day he figured out that he can use his ability to climb on a chair to reach things I don't want him to have. Well, that day is today. He has been taking pictures and magnets off the fridge and opening the pantry to help himself to snacks. Hmmm. I don't know what to do now.

More Teeth

2009-04-21T09:58:00.002-05:00

This was written on Tuesday....
So Thursday Judah had a temperature and I thought it was because of his new tooth coming in. Then on Friday Asa had a temperature. I figured that Judah must have had a bug the day before and the fever wasn't actually related to the new tooth trying to pop out. Asa has been in the crabbiest mood of his life the last few days. He actually hurt James' feelings last week because he said no and cried every time James talked to him. Yesterday was probably Asa's worst day. He was up early and was sad most of the day. We were invited to the park with some of our friends. I thought that would be just the thing to perk Asa up. Before we left I asked Asa if he wanted to go to the park. He said no and cried. It was so pitiful, he was sitting on the couch, watching some cartoon and crying. I decided to drag him to the park, still confident that it would lift his spirits. He honestly cried most of the way there but he finally did cheer up a bit. For the most part, he watched his friends play and ran around by himself. I've posted some cute pictures from the outing on flickr.

Today during a crying spell, I peeked in Asa's mouth and saw some new molars coming in. I hope that's why he's been so upset recently. I hope it's not really the "terrible two's." I don't know how to handle that.

Teeth

2009-04-16T08:25:00.002-05:00

I knew from early in Asa's life that he is pretty laid back. I attribute that to the Light family. In my eyes, they are laid back people. Asa got teeth and it never really bothered him. He would suddenly grab my finger and I'd feel a new tooth in his mouth. Judah isn't doing as well with it. There is a tooth on the top of him mouth that is just trying to break through. I can only imagine the pain! He's been up more in the night this week. This morning he woke up early and was just crabby. He was whining while he played and was drooling like a fountain. He didn't want to nurse or really even be held. I finally put him back to bed and he just fell asleep. I hope that tooth breaks through soon so he will be Happy Judah again.

I'm throwing a bridal shower for some people from church this weekend. It's actually a couple's shower. I decided it would be fun to make cream cheese mints for the shower. I got instructions from my pastry-chef-sister-in-law Janeille and made the mints yesterday. Can you say YUMMO? It really was easy, just time consuming to make. I helped pass the time by watching some TV shows online. I also listened to part of a sermon James has been nagging me to hear for a long time. I'll have to finish it today I guess.

As you probably know, Asa LOVES Blue's Clues. I found a little notebook in my office supplies and gave it to him last week. For my family, it's one of those Hail Insurance Company notebooks that Dad used to carry around. Asa likes to carry around his notebook and a crayon. He wanted to take them to bed last night!

Asa Needs a Bigger Bed

2009-04-09T08:25:00.004-05:00

Asa started out with no "lovies" about a year ago. At some point he started having a bear in his crib. It was the "State Farm Bear" from James' Aunt Shirley who is a State Farm agent out in Arizona. We added in a blue dog who we call Blue. Asa thinks it is the dog from Blue's Clues. Then we noticed that Asa liked laying on our pillows when he laid in our bed. I found a little pillow and put it in his bed. He usually covers up his head with his pillow. A while after we added the pillow, our friend Carol made a pillow for Asa with his name on it. I tried to replace the pillow, but he needed the the old one still. A few weeks ago we couldn't find State Farm Bear so we gave Asa a different bear. Guess what? Now he has to sleep with that one too. Then we found out that there was a recall on the State Farm bear. The eyes can fall off and pose a choking hazard. I mentioned something jokingly to Aunt Shirley. Saturday we got a box in the mail from her. There was a new bear for both boys. Again, I tried to replace the old bear, but Asa wouldn't have it. So now Asa sleeps with two pillows, three bears and a puppy.

One more thing. Yesterday after bath time Judah was holding the lotion bottle. Asa said to him: "No. I need that."

Songs, Noses and Hands

2009-03-30T09:51:00.007-05:00

(This post was started on March 31 and was finished on April 7. I wanted to get a video put together for your enjoyment. And it took a while.)

Asa can blow his nose. Kind of. Most of the time he blows just from his mouth. But he is able to blow his nose.

Judah can clap his hands.

We did get snow on Saturday. It was raining for most of the day and then started snowing the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen. It was a really nasty day. That cold rain was brutal. We're not very kind parents It's all melting away now. And the ground is so wet that I don't know if we'll ever get to play outside.

Sunday evening Asa started singing a new song: Hey Jude. We sing it a lot to Judah. I guess Asa has picked it up as well.

Conversation between Asa and myself
Me: You're cute, did you know that?
Asa: Yes, I did.
Asa runs off laughing.

Conversation between Asa & Judah:
Asa sees Judah reaching for a toy.
Asa: No, Judah. It mine.
Judah looks at Asa.
Asa: No, Judah. Stop it.
Asa takes toy and runs away.
Judah looks for another toy.

Asa is going to have trouble soon. Judah is almost brave enough to crawl. He currently sits and spins around, looking at things. In a short amount of time he will be crawling to get what he wants. When this happens, Asa's world will fall apart. He will be running, around keeping Judah from touching his things.

Last night we asked Asa to come downstairs to get ready for bed. He replied, "No. I don't think so."

Snow

2009-03-27T15:07:00.003-05:00

About a month ago it snowed. I thought it would be the last snow of the season. James and Asa played outside for a while. The video is of Asa sliding into the snow; then he is inside showing me how he made snow angels. The last part is Asa singing. He is singing better these days but I don't have a video of it.

It is supposed to snow a lot tonight/tomorrow. I think I heard 6-8 inches. Maybe we'll have more snow videos tomorrow.

Really, Again?

2009-03-23T08:33:00.002-05:00

Friday I started feeling another round of mastitis coming on. I tried to get rid of it by pumping and nursing Judah extra, but it didn't work. We had a dinner (without kids) planned with our small group Friday night. We ended up going and taking Judah so I could nurse him while we were there. Asa stayed at our house with a sitter. We left the party earlier than we probably would have under normal circumstances. I never got a fever; I think it is because I started taking Tylenol as soon as other symptoms started. I probably felt the worst in the middle of the night. I was in a lot of pain and was whining (sorry, James). I finally asked for some ibuprofen and fell asleep. Saturday we went to an urgent care and got a prescription for an antibiotic. I had a terrible headache all day. By Sunday morning I was feeling much better. I still have some pain, but it's tolerable.
The real bummer about this is that I have been wanting to go on a shopping trip for a long time. On the Kansas side there's a shopping center called the Legends. It's a nice outdoor mall with several outlet stores. Last summer I went there with some teenagers from church and ate at Cheeseburger in Paradise. I LOVE THEIR SWEET POTATO CHIPS! Ever since then I've wanted to go there with James. We've driven by a million times on our way to the Anderson's house but haven't taken the time to stop and shop. Once we got our tax return money I was ready. I have my list of things I want but haven't had the money to buy and I'm ready. Well, we planned to go to the Legends on Saturday and guess what. We didn't go. I was very sad. I am still trying to figure out when we can make the trip. I'll let you know if it ever happens.

Here Doggie, Doggie

2009-03-20T12:02:00.002-05:00

We're dog sitting today and tomorrow. Last time we did this the dog got hit by a car. The story has been told a million times and the VanDrunens still trust us. I don't know why. I'm thinking right now that Cleo wishes we would let her out to get hit by a car. Asa likes chasing her. Around 4:00 this morning the dog started barking. James took her out (on the leash so as to not risk her getting away and being hit by a car). He took her out two more times before his alarm went off. I think he almost threw her out in front of a car. James is having a bad day.

Last night four of us slept in our bed. It was kind of sweet that Judah actually fell asleep just laying in our bed.

Asa has a hot wheels trike that he rides around. Today he has his cup sitting in it. It's nice to have a cup holder on your sweet ride.

Asa just sat on the dog. Cleo barked right in his face. Asa cried. Cleo ran away. Maybe Asa has learned a lesson.

Intruder

2009-03-19T10:25:00.002-05:00

Tuesday night at 9:30 James and I were quietly watching Law & Order SVU. Asa was asleep and Judah was on his way to sleeping. We heard a thud in the basement and then someone on the stairs. I freaked out, thinking someone had broken into our house. James went over to the stairs, looked and said this, "Asa, what are you doing?" (You may remember that Asa has been sleeping in the basement so we can work on Judah sleeping better alone in his bead.) I guess Asa jumped out of the pack & play and decided to go upstairs! We thought it would be a good time to put him back in his crib to sleep.
I've been busy this week: activities with teenagers from church two days, dinner with friends, church. I am still surprised that my kids are so laid back. They go everywhere with me and mostly are content. There are moments where they both cry and want to sit on my lap, but those are short lived.
Yesterday was James' birthday. On Sunday we had lunch with some friends to help welcome a new couple. They decided in advance that we should have a little party for James. There was a cake and streamers. I had a very small part in planning this event. Yesterday I was up early and made breakfast for James. Later I got the kids ready so we could drive to the Publishing House and surprise James. We just showed up during his break and gave him a present. It was a framed picture of the boys and me that my friend Amy took for us. I also got him a grilling book: the BBQ Bible. We're in for a summer full of tasty grilled foods!

Nothing

2009-03-08T22:34:00.002-05:00

It really doesn't seem like anything has been happening at our house recently. Maybe I've just not had a chance to think about it and write.
Saturday Judah bit me on the arm and left a bruise.
I have some video of Asa singing random songs. I need to compile them and make a feature film.
Asa has been sleeping in the basement so that we can let Judah fuss and fall asleep on his own. I've had success about 50% of the time.
We've been looking casually at houses. We can't afford much and don't want to move out of Lee's Summit. There are not many houses here that are nicer, bigger or cheaper than our current situation. We found one that is AMAZING! We put in an offer today and will hear back about it by Tuesday. Hopefully it will be tomorrow. I'm really excited but am trying to be cool so I'm not crushed if we don't get it.
Maybe something exciting will happen over the weekend.

Splashing & Giggling

2009-02-27T09:52:00.002-06:00

Last night's bath:

Asa's Birthday

2009-02-27T08:22:00.004-06:00

Finally, after many hours of editing and days of procrastination, I have completed a rough video compilation of Asa's many birthday activities. I hope you like it!

On a side note: I needed to replace the batteries on a toy yesterday. I successfully took out 11 screws only to realize that it was pointless. It was the wrong place. The battery compartment has only one screw holding it closed. It would have been nice if I had discovered that to begin with!

Asa-ism, Writing Preferences and a Bug

2009-02-26T15:29:00.003-06:00

I just have to say that Asa has been saying something new and it just makes me smile for some reason. Here it is:
"Look, Mom."
He points at something for me to look at.

We have thought for a while that Asa is left-handed. He seems to eat and color more often with his left hand. The "experts" say that a child doesn't show for sure which hand he will use until age three or something. But Asa seems to be pretty consistent. James thinks Judah is also a lefty. He apparently does better (like the first time ever trying) eating those little puff things for babies with his left hand. I'm not as convinced as the father. James wonders what the odds are of having two left-handed children.

Last night Asa spotted a bug on the kitchen floor. It's one of those yellow lady bugs. He laid on the floor watching it for a while. He even picked it up a few times. Every time he went away he would come back and look for it. I'm announcing that he has spotted it again today and is very happy.

Sleep Schedules

2009-02-25T07:55:00.002-06:00

I apparently need to read some books about sleeping. Asa was sick last week and woke up in the night a lot. He also woke up early in the mornings and had shorter naps than normal. We aren't back on schedule yet. He was up early both this morning and yesterday morning. He was just envying my muffin. When I moved it out of reach and put a muffin on his plate at the table, he broke down. He was sitting on the floor and would not climb up on his chair to eat his own muffin. I finally picked him up and handed him the muffin. He, still crying, held the muffin with both hands and took a bite. That finally silenced the crying. (For a few minutes.)
Judah is another story, not very different. He still gets up in the night to eat. I have to admit that this is my fault. I'm too tired to put him back to sleep so I just let him nurse and sleep with us. Then any time he makes another noise, I nurse him again. Sunday night was terrible. He has been having trouble pooping and I think it was keeping him up. It was really hard to get him to sleep. With Judah, I think I'm going to try to feed him during the day on a stricter schedule. Hopefully that will help him to get full during the day so he doesn't need to eat at night. I'm also working during the day to get him to fall asleep on his own in his crib.
I feel like I have had these plans before and they have failed. Well, it doesn't hurt to try again.

Carrots, Paint and Jumping

2009-02-18T16:36:00.004-06:00

Judah is now enjoying carrots.
Asa just went to the basement and came up with his paintings and paint brushes. Then he went back down and brought up his paints. He put them on the table, sat down and said "ta da!" I guess we'll have to paint tonight!
We've been teaching Asa how to jump off of something into our arms. He is pretty good at counting but doesn't leap into our arms yet. Now he'll stand on something and say "Jump me." I think he means to say "Catch me." We're still working on that!

On a side note, I am not doing a very good job keeping my resolutions. I think about them a lot though. I don't know if I've been kind to my family, but I'm trying. The house is clean a lot more of the time than before. I have not actually cleaned the bedrooms all year and the basement is a wreck. I've exercised twice and I've read a few chapters of a book. I am trying, but not being very successful.

Saturday

2009-02-12T11:33:00.002-06:00

Saturday morning we set out for a walk with the double stroller and our sunglasses. OK, I'm the only one with sunglasses. It ended up being around 65-70 that day. Shortly after we started walking, I remembered that there was an event in downtown Lee's Summit called the Chocolate Crawl. Basically it's a marketing scheme to get people to shop downtown. All the stores had some sort of chocolate they would give you as you shop for Valentine's Day. We decided to try to walk there and check it out. Thankfully James was pushing the stroller. I pushed for a couple blocks and about died. I don't know how he's in that much better shape than I am. Oh well. I just checked Google maps and the walk to downtown is about 1.2 miles. Once we got there we only went in a couple stores and got a couple pieces of chocolate. I felt a little guilty taking their sweets when I had no intentions of buying anything. We did find a little consignment shop that we will visit again. It was actually a consignment store plus a craft fair. There was a lot of cute stuff. We spent the most time in that store. Both boys slept for part of the walk. It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

A Busy Week

2009-02-06T15:09:00.003-06:00

This has truly been a busy week. I was glad to sit at home all day yesterday. Monday was Asa's birthday and we went to NPH to have lunch with James. Tuesday we went to a friend's house to play and I went to the doctor. Wednesday James was home sick. Asa had his 2 year check up. We found out that he has an ear infection so I had to make another trip to Wal-Mart for the prescription. That evening we went to church as normal. Thursday was awesome! Asa and I played with trains for a while. He loves it! We also did some painting Thursday night. He got some paints for his birthday and had a fun time being messy. This morning we went to Xtreme Gymnastics for open gym with some other moms and kids from church. Asa was so much more outgoing today than last time we went. Our pastor's son jumped into the foam pit and bumped into Asa. I had to crawl in there and get him out. I was looking for someone to pull me out. It was harder than it looked!
I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend!

Saturday

2009-02-02T14:08:00.007-06:00

Saturday was a fun day. Judah is starting to sit up pretty well. Asa is starting to sing. He was walking around repeating a phrase and I finally realized that he was singing a tune from Blue's Clues: "We just got a letter."

It was such a nice day (almost 70 in January!) that we decided to go to the park in the afternoon. Asa probably liked going down the slides the most.

The first time James put him in the swing and pushed him, he started crying. Later when Judah started to swing Asa decided that he would try it again.

It really wasn't a very eventful day. It was nice to relax with the family all day.
One more picture. Judah wearing one of Asa's outfits.

I am Proud Today

2009-01-28T11:01:00.002-06:00

Here's Why:
-I woke up to the sound of Asa talking after 8:30. I slept undisturbed all night except for James kissing me goodbye as he left for work.
-Judah devoured his cereal this morning and cried when there was too large of a break between bites.
-Asa now says "Yeah, sure" when you ask if he wants to do something.
-Asa was listening to his Veggie Tales sing along CD and sang along. It was during "If You're Happy and You Know It." He said "hooray" with much excitement.
-Asa put some puzzle pieces together in a nice long row.
-Judah is taking a nap and I'm off to take a shower!

Giggles

2009-01-24T07:49:00.005-06:00

I thought I would share this un-edited video from our fun in the backyard on Thursday. It was over 60 here in Kansas City in January. Since it was so nice I took the boys outside to play. I was not close enough to the boys the first time Asa rolled the ball down the slide and it hit Judah in the face. I was glad since Judah really liked it.

We had a lot of fun outside until Asa brought something to me. It was dog poop. We went inside after that and washed our hands. I told James that we need to buy a house with a private back yard so there isn't any dog poop that my kids can play with.
Thursday night we had "brinner." That consisted of hash browns, eggs and bacon. At one point of the meal I looked at Asa and he was putting hash browns up his nose. I didn't see any up there but he was sneezing a lot for the rest of the evening. I really thought there was something in his nose, yet I didn't do anything about it. Friday morning Asa sneezed and a white chunk came out. I inspected it and determined that it was a tiny piece of potato. I told Asa "that is why we don't put things in our nose" and "I bet you feel better now."
I'm waiting for the video to upload so I guess I'll keep typing.
Last night we went to see the movie "Fireproof" at a church. It was free and we took the boys to our free babysitter Dawn. She also had Caleb and Luke, our youth pastor's kids. It was a pretty fun night. We had pizza with Justin (y. p.) and Amy (his wife). My section was chicken alfredo with red peppers and onions. Delicious. James had spicy red sauce with chorizo, jalapenos and pepper jack cheese. He's nuts. I guess it wasn't really that spicy though. He is constantly saddened by the lack of serious heat in Midwestern foods. We did open a can of el pato sauce that was pretty hot this week.
Video is still uploading. Hmmmm.
Asa is still piling pillows on Judah when they are on our bed. It's really hard to get him to stop it since Judah thinks it is funny. Asa loves being under pillows himself. He usually sleeps with a pillow on his head. Speaking of pillows, Carol (James' mom's friend) made Asa a new pillow. I will have to take a picture of it to share with my faithful blog followers.
Judah had his tooth break through Friday morning. Also around the same time Asa pulled a chair over on himself. Later he was dancing and slipped and crashed to the ground. He seems to be free of serious injuries.

Sorry About That

2009-01-22T14:50:00.002-06:00

OK, I've officially fallen off the blogging wagon. I'll be back soon!

Muffin Tin Mayhem

2009-01-14T09:07:00.003-06:00

I've been having trouble with my muffin tins. I think it all started with my husband. Yes, I am going to blame this all on James. I made my mother-in-law's famous banana chocolate chip muffins shortly after James and I got married. I used the normal muffin papers that my mother used when making muffins. After all, I didn't want to ruin the new pans such a short time into my marriage. As a newly married woman, you want to make food your husband loves. I clearly remember sitting on the couch watching James eat his muffin, eagerly awaiting his judgment. The jury returned with a favorable verdict. The only problem was the muffin papers. Mother-in-law doesn't use muffin papers. (Here is where I have to say that I love my husband. He may be a picky eater, but I love him. I gladly amend recipes all the time to please him. And I say this honestly, really I do.) Because the muffin papers bothered James, I quit using them. Since that fateful day more than five years ago, I have been spraying my muffin tins with a non-stick cooking spray. It works pretty well but if I'm not careful, I have to scrub them.
Sunday I decided to make an angel food cake for our small group. The box goes to great lengths to make sure you make the cake properly. You may not use a bunt pan or an angel food cake pan that isn't the right size because the batter expands and will overflow. Since I don't have an angel food cake pan I decided to use my bunt pan and also make some cupcakes, which the instructions allow.
At this point in the story, I must interject another story. A few days ago I reached up for the can of non-stick cooking spray. Something had happened to it and I realized this when oil poured off of it and onto myself and the floor. This meant that the can is empty and I haven't remembered to get more while at the store since then. I have instead been using my silicone pastry brush and oil to coat things like the waffle iron and casserole dishes.
Back to the cake story. The box says that non-stick cooking spray is not required. "That's good because I don't have any!" I filled up my bunt pan and muffin tins and started baking. The muffin tin on the bottom rack was soon burned. (Gas oven, heat comes from the bottom.) The other pan of cupcakes turned out a little better. However, since I didn't use muffin papers as the box recommends or non-stick cooking spray, taking the cupcakes out of the pan was a little difficult. Angel food cake tends to mush when touched. We had severely misshapen cupcakes. I saved those for Asa. The actual cake turned out fine.
I believe that both of my muffin tins I used Sunday are ruined. Luckily I have one more that isn't quite ruined. I'm thinking of getting silicone pans. Does anyone have suggestions for me?

This morning I made those famous banana chocolate chip muffins in my one remaining pan. I decided that it would be fun for Asa to eat at a different place than the table. His high chair converts to a little chair and a little table, so I converted it for a different "view." Here was the problem: I didn't buckle him in. When he was finished eating, he started walking around covered in melted chocolate chips. I caught him before he finger painted anything.

Asa has been asking questions recently. "Where did it go?" (We often don't know what "it" is.) "What's that?" (Said while pointing to a picture in a book or holding a puzzle piece.) I can see that this is the beginning of the questioning age. It's all in the process of learning. I can't complain.

Photo Essay

2009-01-13T12:00:00.011-06:00

I've uploaded a lot of recent cute pictures of the boys. Asa is talking a lot better. He now says yes instead of yeah.
I'm trying to get Judah to be more mobile and able to sit on his own. We'll see how it goes in the next few weeks.

Here is Judah on New Year's Day trying cereal for the first time. He's still not a big fan of this new way to eat, but he is getting better at it.

This is Judah with a matching jammie, bib and blanket. All three came from totally different places.

Asa was helping unload the groceries and decided to rearrange the items in the refrigerator so the cereal would fit.

This is really mean but Asa woke up crabby from a nap one day. I think it was because his hair was all messed up!

The following picture is insignificant without an explanation. When I laid Judah down, his head was on the right side. Now it's on the left. He's a squirmy baby.

When a baby sits in this while pooping, it makes a big mess. And you'll probably have to give the baby a bath.

Here we have Asa holding Judah while sucking his thumb.

And finally here is Judah wearing his newest outfit.

It should say "Spoiled by Aunt Janet."

Goals for 2009

2009-01-09T10:12:00.003-06:00

I've already posted these goals of mine on facebook, but I should do so here as well. I'll probably talk about it more on my blog than on facebook. These are things that I always have as goals but that I'm putting down as a specific goal for each day this year.
1) Treat my family with love and patience in my words and actions.
2) Have the house prepared for visitors any time.
3) Keep on growing in my relationship with God.
4) Read
5) Run (half marathon in October?)
6) Implement a cleaning schedule as follows-
Monday: Kitchen
Tuesday: Bathrooms
Wednesday: Bedrooms
Thursday: Living/Dining rooms
Friday: Basement & Garage as needed

At the end of week one, I cleaned the kitchen on Monday but it was messy again at the end of the day. Tuesday I didn't get to the bathrooms but I cleaned them last Friday. I had people over Wednesday and Thursday so the living/dining room was clean. I tried to organize some stuff in our bedroom this morning. I successfully made organized piles on our bed. I'll try to get those moved to their assigned places before we go to bed. I'm ignoring the basement and garage today! At least I have goals to break every week!
I also went out for a jog this morning. I did a 10 minute walking warm-up, 10 minutes of running and 10 minutes of cool down walking. It felt pretty good.

I'm Officially an Idiot

2009-01-07T15:16:00.003-06:00

I know what you're saying, "That's too harsh, Jodi. You're not an idiot. You're beautiful, smart, a great mother, bla, bla, bla."
Well, I am going to have to disagree with you. I'm about to tell a story that my friends and family still tease me about to this day. One day during the summer after my freshman year of high school I was making puppy chow. In case you live in a cave and don't know what it is:
Melt:
1 stick margarine
1/2 c peanut butter
1 c chocolate chips
Pour over 6 cups crispex cereal. Mix well and then coat with 2 cups powdered sugar. (I usually put the coated cereal in a big container, add the sugar and shake until it's well coated.)

Anyhow, I asked my mom which container had the powdered sugar and she got it out for me. I finished making the puppy chow and tasted it. Something wasn't quite right. I had used corn starch instead of powdered sugar. Ugh. I think we added some powdered sugar and ate some of it but it was terrible!

Fast forward to 2009.
A couple days ago I was looking in the cupboard at my baking supplies and noticed that I had both a container of powdered sugar and an opened bag of powdered sugar. That's perfect for puppy chow. This morning I got up before the children to do some cleaning and make puppy chow for the teens at church. I've made it a million times at this point in my life. People are always saying it's delicious and love it when I make the addicting treat. Well, after I added the powdered sugar, I opened up the container and it looked so delicious that I had to taste it. Ugh, I'm an idiot! It was corn starch again! It was a container of cornstarch in the cupboard, not powdered sugar. I guess I need to start labeling things in my pantry.

Christmas

2009-01-05T19:51:00.009-06:00

Our Christmas trip to Iowa was great! My friend Mariah from high school now lives in Tulsa but was in Oskaloosa visiting family. She came to my mom's house for a chunk of time Wednesday afternoon. Her husband Josh was there for a little bit. He is in med school and had just gotten his medical instruments. He was kind enough to look in my kids' ears and take my blood pressure.

Christmas Eve we made gingerbread houses. Asa just wanted to eat the candy. I have to post a picture of James' creation. I just put one together quickly and simply for Asa to decorate. James took an hour to construct his Frank Lloyd Wright house.

Later in the evening we read part of the Christmas story. Asa didn't have much patience for that. We let the boys each open one present, mainly because we had wrapped up some Christmas pajamas for Judah. Asa opened a Santa Mr. Potato head. It was nice and quiet at Mom's house because we were the only people there. My sisters got in late Christmas day.
Christmas morning we all slept in a little bit. I don't know if we will ever push the Santa thing, but I like having stockings. Asa delivered Judah's stocking to him. Judah got a cool alligator that says colors in three languages. I was very proud of this find. It was $13 retail at Wal-Mart but had a $5 sticker on it. To make a long story short, I got it for $5 even though it rang up at $13. I don't think Sam Walton is hurting because of my good luck Christmas Eve. Asa got Hershey's Kisses, an apple and a little monster truck in his stocking. James and I both got our favorite candies. James also got some coffee from the Roasterie in KC.
After a delicious breakfast of Almond Chocolate Chip Scones, we opened the rest of our presents. I won't share all of those details, but Asa said one funny thing. He opened another regular Mr. Potato Head. When I asked him what it was, he said "head." It was cute.
The next most exciting part of the day was the arrival of the cousins. Asa likes having little people to run around with and they like having someone to boss around.

On a side note, I'm going to have to condense a lot because this is too long!

The day after Christmas we had our Huff family Christmas celebration. We had a delicious lunch and the kids opened presents. A few years ago we just started having the kids draw names and get gifts for each other. I don't think we could afford any more than that and it's a lot easier. The living room was a huge mess with just a few presents.

I am having some trouble remembering details at this point. Here is what I remember:
-Margee's girls got a Wii from their aunt on their dad's side. That consumed much of their time at Mom's house.
-James and I went on a date to Tasos, the restaurant at which I waited tables back in my college days.
-We ate a lot of food. My mom made some great candies!
-We watched football.
-Asa helped my mom do her exercises:

I do remember how Sunday morning began. I was up early feeding Judah and went upstairs to see if church had been canceled due to the weather. I noticed my mom was coughing, but didn't think much of it. As I was getting out of the shower a few minutes later, Melinda was knocking on the bathroom door and walking in. I freaked out since I wasn't dressed! She said that Mom had taken two of her nitros. I didn't really get it at the time, but she thought she was having another heart attack. We decided to drive her to the ER instead of having an ambulance come to the house. I was in the driver's seat. Let me tell you this. It is a good thing there weren't many people on the roads because we may not have made it there. It was really slick and I was driving too fast. Well, as it turned out, Mom didn't have a heart attack. She did have some fluid on her lungs. I guess we're calling the episode congestive heart failure. We think she had too much sodium over the holiday and that created an excess of liquid which in turn backed up onto her lungs because of her heart. I'm clearly not a doctor. Mom was admitted to the hospital Sunday and was released Tuesday. We went home Monday afternoon. It wasn't the greatest end for our trip. I felt bad for Mom since she couldn't be home with her family. Anyhow, she's doing a lot better now. I think she's still trying to figure out what all she needs to change to prevent this from happening again.

That ends our Christmas story. I still have hopes to post a Christmas Letter Blog. We'll see if it happens.

Asa's Talking Skills

2008-12-31T13:21:00.004-06:00

-Asa was standing on a little step stool next our bed. He said "Ready, set, go" and then fell off the stool. I think he was trying to jump or step off and failed to succeed. And I laughed!
-Pizza is the word for anything coming out of the oven.
-"Hold you" means "I want you to hold me."
-Asa loves holding hands with people while he sucks his thumb. He has been holding Judah's hand lately.
-Today at the doctor's office Asa was working on a puzzle. He started singing the clean up song. He also sings the ABC's and "Deep & Wide."

UPDATE!

2008-12-28T20:58:00.006-06:00

Again, I am so very behind. I don't even remember what has been happening recently. The Stonebrakers came to visit the weekend before Christmas. Melinda (my sis), Zoe (niece) and I went to a Holiday Gift Fair and the grocery store on Saturday morning. Zoe insisted that Price Chopper was not a grocery store. That is, until we went inside. We could not explain to her that there are grocery stores other than Fareway. Saturday evening we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation which Ryan had purchased from the Wal-Mart for us. Mel and I had never before seen the non-TV version of this movie. We had missed a lot of really good parts. Just kidding. Sunday was Lea's first birthday. Mel dressed her in the nice Christmas dress James' mom bought for Asa before he was born. (We didn't know if he was a boy or girl.) The girls and kids went to church. The boys were heathens and went to the KC Chiefs game. Ryan is a sports editor at a newspaper in Iowa and had requested press passes. Instead of sitting in the -12 wind chills, they sat in a press box and ate lots of free food! Meanwhile, Zoe was making a new friend, Melinda was in Sunday School by herself making new friends as I was in the nursery with Asa, Lea, Judah and several other babies. Mel and I did get to go to the regular service together. It was a great Christmas service with the traditional Christmas hymns sung in a non-traditional style. I loved it! After church we took Lea to Burger King for her birthday. Zoe brought her friend Emma. I am good friends with Emma's parents, so it wasn't totally random. We chose BK because of the play land. Asa especially enjoyed crawling around in his limited area.
Just to let you know exactly how cold it was, Asa knocked over my soda in the van and a little spilled on the floor right by the door. When I opened the door at home, the soda was frozen. That's right, frozen. I couldn't believe the coldness!
Anyhow, we didn't do a whole lot Sunday afternoon. I took Emma home and wrapped presents. When the guys got home, we started making dinner. After dinner Lea got her Happy Birthday Pumpkin Pie. She loved it:

Then she opened her present with a little help:

One of my favorite things about having my sister in town is when we just sit around, drinking coffee and eating random snacks and play games. So much fun! And we did that some more Sunday night.
Oh, in the night Sunday, James and I woke up to a funny sound. Someone was in the shower and Lea was crying. As it turns out, Lea got sick and had thrown up on Melinda. Lea ended up throwing up several times. They still left Monday morning, but later than planned. After they left, I had a lot of laundry to catch up on and did my best to kill the germs left in our house.

Tuesday I went over to a friend's house to stay with her daughter while she was at work. The only inconvenience was that I kind of needed to be home packing for Christmas in Iowa. The weather Tuesday wasn't the greatest. We were watching the forecast and it looked like it would be worse for travel on Wednesday. We decided to drive up to Iowa Tuesday night after James got home from work. Our original plan was to head up on Wednesday morning. James and I got home about the same time and started packing. Our van was full of stuff that was just thrown in. We took both dirty laundry and unfolded laundry with us. I'm glad we were just going to visit family since we were so unorganized! The trip was pretty good. It only took about 15 minutes longer than normal. James said that he drove extra fast when the roads were clear since we would probably have to drive slowly later in the trip. We did find some adverse driving conditions took it slow. The boys were very good; we didn't have to stop for them. It helps that the drive was only 4 hours. Much shorter than our previous 19 hour trip to Arizona!

Finally getting it done...

2008-12-17T07:54:00.003-06:00

This was started Tuesday, December 16. I'm not doing so well with this blog thing...

This is going to be random...
Click on the slide-show to the right to see our latest pictures. I uploaded a lot this morning!
Pop quiz: I cleaned the bathroom sink (not the whole bathroom) on Monday. What did James do Tuesday night? The answer is: shave. It always happens the day after I clean the bathroom.
Saturday we were very tired but went to the house of our friends the VanDrunens. They made coffee for us as I requested since it was 11:00 and we had gone to bed around 1:00 the previous night. We had a great time talking, eating Papa Murphy's pizza, drinking coffee and playing Guitar Hero. I was super impressed that they invited us over since Lt. Guy was getting ready to go back to Kosovo the next evening. I've said it many times, but people like this family make living in Lee's Summit awesome!

I don't know what else I wanted to be in this post, so this is it.

Salt

2008-12-16T13:56:00.002-06:00

Asa and I were just eating lunch. I added some salt to my soup by shaking some into my hand and then dumping it into my soup. I didn't want to get too much. Asa asked for some salt so I closed the salt shaker and shook some into his hand. He in turn held his hand over his peanut butter sandwich and turned it over and then rubbed his hands together, just as I had done. If that's not learning by imitation, I don't know what is!

Since We've Been Home

2008-12-12T10:00:00.007-06:00

A LOT has happened in the last 10 days. It truly has been a whirlwind. I'll just try to give you the hilights.
Wednesday, December 3: Asa was sleepy. I woke him up a few times during the morning and he fell right back to sleep. I was concerned because he had been sick and I had done some reading about dehydration. I got him an appointment that afternoon and it turned out that he was fine. I guess the trip and sickness really took a toll on him. We missed going to church that night. I was sad to miss seeing friends.
Thursday, December 4: This was the day that I felt like I did a lot of work during the day but the house didn't look any better by the time James got home. I had a bit of a melt-down because I felt my efforts were wasted. Now I see that there are more important things than the clutter in my house after vacation.
Friday, December 5: After James got home from work he got a call from his dad that Grandma Light passed away. I knew right away that he had to go back to Arizona for the funeral but I didn't know how that was going to happen. After dinner we went to see Christmas in the Park at Longview Lake. If you're from Iowa, think Jolly Holiday Lights. We drove around and looked at the light displays, and it was free! The boys sat in the front with us. The best part was free chocolate at the end.
Saturday, December 6: I had an open house for Tastefully Simple at someone else's house. She was having a "One Stop Christmas Shop" with a lot of different vendors. I was up late Friday and early Saturday preparing food and materials for the day. It wasn't the best day for sales, but I met some interesting people and had a pretty good time. The boys enjoyed their time with Daddy. Asa ate a lot while I was gone. I guess he was hungry since he hadn't had much to eat all week!
In the evening there was a party that we went to. I think I have mentioned our friend Dawn from church. She came and stayed with the boys when I went to the ER with mastitis. She has offered several times to watch Asa and Judah and always seems to love taking care of them. Her husband Guy has been in Kosovo with the military for a while and was home on leave. It was great to spend time at their house and get to know him better. It's funny how you can see someone's personality through their family. I felt like I knew Guy because of things I had heard and the lives his wife and kids lived. It was really a great evening!
Sunday, December 7: Of course, we went to church. What else would we do on a Sunday. The nice thing was that we are doing something different during Advent. Instead of having several adult Sunday school classes, we are all meeting together. They have chairs set up in little circles and we are encouraged to sit with people we don't know very well. The lesson is discussion oriented so we get to know the people in our circle as we discuss and answer the questions. It's really a lot of fun. I will admit that we are friends with everyone that sat in our circle. I sat next to a friend when I went in because I needed to nurse Judah and didn't want to plop down by a stranger for this delicate task! After church we went to Culver's with some friends and then home for nap/cleaning time. The boys took naps while James and I cleaned in preparation for our Christmas tree. After nap time, we went out to cut down our tree.

We even got to ride on a hay rack. Which was called a wagon. I felt like a city slicker because we were making a big deal of this hay ride over to find our Christmas tree.

We got home and James set up the tree while I fed Judah. I was signed up to be a driver for the Women's Ministries Christmas Tour of Homes. I probably would have skipped if I wasn't going to be a driver since we had just gotten our tree. I've had more fun on similar outings in the past, but I did get some really good food! And a yummy cold coffee drink. Mmmmmm.
Monday, December 8: James went to work and worked extra hard to get caught up before being gone another three days this week. He is flying out to Phoenix Tuesday after work. In the evening we had two meetings at church. James went to one, I went to the other. After the meetings we went home to pack James up and decorate the Christmas tree. Packing took longer than normal. I say packing but really James picked out his clothes and I packed them on Tuesday to save his time. He tried on his suit to make sure it looked OK, so that took a while. By the time we were decorating the tree, it was pretty late. We ended up having fun and getting into the Christmas spirit. And the tree looks great. It's always so much fun to get out the ornaments and remember hanging them on the tree as a child.
Tuesday, December 9: I spent the day getting things ready for James' trip to Arizona. I had to be careful to pack according to airline regulations since he wasn't going to pay $20 to check a bag. It also snowed pretty steadily all day. I had to leave extra early since I didn't know what the roads would be like. It seems like they don't do much plowing when the snow falls. They just wait for it to melt off the streets. It's really pretty annoying. We (myself and the babies) picked James up and made it to the airport in plenty of time for him to catch his flight. It was pretty sad telling James goodbye. Asa wanted out of his car seat and wanted James to hold him. I was just sad because we couldn't go with him. Then the interesting part began. Since it was 5:15 when we left the airport, we were going to be driving home is rush hour traffic. And it was snowy. Let's just say that the normal 45 minute trip took over two hours! The boys were crying a lot but I didn't know of a safe place to stop. And if I did stop, I didn't know what to do by myself with two unhappy boys. Amazingly I had an overwhelming sense of peace during the drive. I wasn't stressed out. It was weird. By the time we got home and Asa ate dinner, it was bed time. James made it safely to Phoenix and ate at his favorite fast food joint: Jack in the Box.
Wednesday, December 10: I made puppy chow for the teens and went to church. James and his sister drove up to Winslow from Phoenix for their grandmother's visitation. James said it was pretty quiet and he was able to talk with some people he hadn't seen in a long time.
Thursday, December 11: This was the day of grandma's funeral. I heard that James did a great job on the eulogy. I was very sad that I couldn't be there with the rest of the family. Meanwhile back in LS I went over to Justin & Amy's house for dinner. Justin is our youth pastor. They have a son a year older than Asa and one 4 weeks younger than Judah. Asa had fun playing with his friend "Baybub."
Friday, December 12: Today I am blogging.... And cleaning up the house since James gets home tonight. At 7:00 I am going to the youth Christmas party. The boys are going to Brad & Janelle's house. I am pretty excited to see James!

Thanksgiving Road Trip: part 3

2008-12-11T22:35:00.002-06:00

5:49 PM December 1
We left Winslow around 3:30 after a quick snapshot at the famous “Standin’ on the Corner” corner. We just had to take a picture there since it’s the popular tourist place. Asa danced around a little to the music that was playing.
Both boys are currently sleeping. I took a little nap. James has been eating his sunflower seeds and driving. He is a little sad leaving Arizona because he didn’t get to eat some his favorite food from Jack in the Box.

8:29 PM
We made it to the other side of Albuquerque. Our plan was to stop on the west end of town at the Flying J. There was construction and we missed the exit. I was on the phone with James’ mom so we asked his dad where there was another good place to stop. We got gas at a Love’s for $1.69. There wasn’t anywhere there for us to eat. We also missed the turn to get back on I-40 and drove a few blocks through some very questionable neighborhoods. We drove a little further down the interstate and got off to look for a restaurant. We found Carl’s Junior down a couple blocks. We went inside to let the kids stretch but got our food to go. The only problem with this stop was that we couldn’t get back on I-40 there because of construction. We attempted to follow the detour, but I think it was wrong. James pulled out the map and found a route back to the interstate. We were starting to think we would spend all night in Albuquerque. It only ended up being an hour.
About 20 miles from Albuquerque I was giving Judah a bottle and it didn’t agree with him. He threw it all up so we had to stop and clean him up. It went pretty well. It seems like every time we have to pull off there isn’t a decent place to park. I was afraid someone was going to sneak up on us in the dark or something.

That's all I wrote on the way home. I will tell you that the boys did a lot better on the way home. I drove more on the way home also. I guess they feel safer when I am driving! We stopped in Oklahoma City to see the memorial at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In case you don't remember, on April 19, 1995 a bomb was detonated inside a Ryder truck which was parked in front of the Murrah building. 168 people were killed in the attack, over 800 were injured. 30 children were orphaned. Over 300 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were arrested for planning and carrying out the attack against the United States government. McVeigh received a lethal injection in 2001 and Nichols was sentenced to life in prison. The memorial was dedicated on April 19, 2000. This is engraved over an entryway to the outdoor memorial:
"We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity."
I'll admit that I stopped so James could see the memorial. I was there with my parents in high school. It was around 6:00 AM so it was pretty quiet. I fed Judah and changed a poopy explosion while James looked around. It really wasn't very exciting.
On our way out of OK City, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for some grub. Our waitress was, well let's say she was more awake than we were. She was pretty impressed with our cute kids.
Probably the worst part of the drive home was about 40 minutes from our house. Both boys were screaming and wouldn't stop. We pulled over at a gas station and held both of them. They were happy just being out of their car seats. We decided they would just have to suffer through the remainder of the drive since we were so close to home. They finally fell asleep a few more miles down the road.
Oh, the happiness when we got home. It was so nice to relax in our home! James was a little concerned that our electricity had been turned off since he couldn't get the TV to work and the clock on the microwave was out. I had unplugged a lot of stuff before leaving home to save at least a few pennies. James was relieved that he just needed to plug in a few cords to get things back on. I got a good laugh!
Asa was happy to sleep in his own bed and play with his toys. Judah was happy to be held. I think we will take the long drive again. Just not for a few months!