Sick and cuddly

Well, being sick made for some cute (and some not so cute) and cuddly pictures.

cute
cute
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NOT so cute
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Not everyone is feeling better yet. Hannah had her first decent sleep last night. I didn't have to wake up and use the nose sucker to help her breathe. That is a huge improvement! Nehemiah is sleeping much better too, and we are no longer camping out on the living room floor. The mattress has been moved back to the bedroom. Joseph has to get better now and I think we'll be good to go. After 2ish days of feeling good Joseph came down with something else. He has today yet to get better before I take him to the Dr too. I feel like I need to set off a Lysol bomb in the house.
Hope your family is healthy! If you are... stay away from us! :)

Let's Talk Vacuum's

Ok, exciting post. I know. Here's the thing. I just vacuumed the floor again. This is a 3times a day task here. (3 kids, carpet in dining room) My vacuum is on it's last legs, er wheels. :) I have to take it apart every single time I'm done vacuuming if I want it to work well next time. I'm not talking about just emptying the canister either. I have to get out the screw driver and take the thing apart, gather various gunk and reassemble. Getting kinda tired of it. So... what kind of vacuum do you have? Do you like it? How long have you had it?
Oh, the thrills of homemaking!

In need of a miracle

A friend of mine has a rough road ahead for herself and her family. Just a very short time ago she found out that her mother has cancer. Then even more recently her sister was diagnosed with an in-operable brain tumor. And my friend is expecting and in her first trimester. Please pray for this family. They need a miracle.

I'll give updates when I know more. If you are reading this and you do know more, please leave a comment. I don't want to give out any wrong information here.

Week In Review

The past week has been long. Nehemiah's birthday party was last week. Shortly after the last party guest left Roger looked like he was hit by a train. Nehemiah followed the train wreck, and on Sunday morning he wasn't doing well. By Sunday evening Roger, Nehemiah, Hannah and Joseph all had a fever and a cough. I kicked it in to high gear and kept everyone full of motrin and tylenol, juice and water. Wednesday I called the Dr hoping he would say the worst was behind me. Na, the flu can last 7 days before you start to notice an improvement. Thanks Doc. So, armed with various flu fighting drugs we pressed on. Nehemiah's fever hit 105. Hannah's was mighty close. Roger's hung constant at 101.5. Joseph was anywhere from 100-102. For a few short hours on Thursday I thought they were all doing better. I was wrong. Another call to the Dr last night with a plea of "When is this going to end?!" and a description of some new symptoms landed us an 8:00am appt this very morning. Turns out Nehemiah has an ear infection and some kind of throat thing. I NEVER even thought about an ear infection. He hasn't had one since he was about 12 months old. Hannah has a prescription waiting for her in case she end's up with an ear infection too. At this point she doesn't, but their is fluid there. Joseph got better on his own. (Thank you Lord!) Roger will hopefully get better by tomorrow. One week off of work for the flu is enough thank you. Me? By the grace of God I'm fine! I've been coughed on, sneezed on, and used as a tissue. I have showered often and have become wonderful friends with hand-sanitizer. Nothing beats a good bottle of Lysol either.
I'm looking forward to a much more "normal" week this time around.

By Popular Demand

Ok, so 2 people asked but I'll pretend it's interesting enough to command everyone's attention.

The story of how Roger proposed to me. Brace yourself ladies.

Roger and I met in our church's young adult group. I was leading one night and he showed up. I'm sure the rest of the group was annoyed with the lack of Bible study and the abundance of "where did you go to school? work? shop?! You look SO familiar" After much talk we discovered...nothing. We have never met. We were almost neighbors - but lived in neighboring houses in different years. We quickly began spending lots of time together. At this point his health was taking a nose dive and he wasn't working anymore. So we were together whenever I wasn't working. Because he couldn't really go anywhere it left a lot of time for us to talk. And talk we did! I don't know if there was a topic we left "un-talked!" We took 1 week (or was it 2?) to pray about our relationship. We didn't want to date for the sake of dating. We wanted to date with the purpose of getting married. So saying yes to dating was saying yes, we're going to get married. (woo-hoo!!!) It was HARD to wait the full week before "making any moves" We didn't want to hold hands or anything until we were sure we would be together. But after praying about it we were both so certain that this was a God thing that waiting a week was darn near impossible. (we survived)
So we had our first date for my birthday. We went to a fancy restaurant with my family... it was an official introduction of sorts. After a week I began pesting him about getting me a ring. :) Roger said it was too early. Let's wait at least until Valentine's day. I thought that sounded reasonable. 1 week isn't really that long to be dating a person! I planned a wedding in my head though.
Well... maybe a little more than in my head. We were hanging out in my parent's basement watching movies and I decided it was wedding planning time. I headed over to the computer and began looking at wedding cakes. The rest is a little blurry. I was however sitting in my parents basement, on a computer chair, looking at wedding cakes when he proposed. He surprised me! We were dating 3 weeks. He couldn't wait till February either. :) Dec 19th, which also happens to be the day Joseph was born - 2 years later. 1 month after we were married we celebrated our 1 year anniversary of when we first met.
No thrills n' chills in how he asked... but I got me a diamond and I got me one AMAZING man.

What time is it?

It's 4:00 in the morning. I've been up for an hour. We are not going on vacation. This is so wrong.

Everyone is sick. Fevers, coughs, runny noses. Hannah couldn't breathe laying down anymore plus her fever came back. So i got up with her to give her some Motrin and use the nose sucker to help her breathe. (Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon) Roger was already sleeping on the couch. (He can't breathe laying down either. I offered him the nose sucker but he thought that was a bad idea) I handed him Hannah and i went back to bed. I'm pretty sure I had just closed my eyes when I heard Nehemiah "Mommy! Where you go?" ugh. Does he not see the clock? It had a big 3 in front. Not the 8 that I encourage them to wait for!!! So I brought Nehemiah downstairs too. I would have tried to lay down with him but I heard Hannah fussing for Roger and I felt bad that he was having to deal with her. He is sick too.

As I type Hannah is rearranging toys and playing with her Little People house. Nehemiah finally gave in to cuddling on the couch with Roger to watch a movie.

After this I'm going to need a vacation.

Monster Truck In Action

I don't know what is up with that face. It cracks me up though.
I don't even know what to say about this one. He is just too funny.

Those 2 pictures? That's it. He doesn't care much to be in the truck. He thinks it's cool. He smiles at it. He checks out the radio. but it goes. He doesn't like that it goes. He likes his feet firmly planted on the ground thankyouverymuch. So... for the 30 minutes that we stood freezing outside so the kids could play this was the scene...
Nehemiah found the little bit of snow that remains in our yard and walked up and down the hill.
and cheered each way.
Joseph drove and Hannah rode
She sat there for 30 minutes just enjoying the ride
Joseph had a bit of fun too
Nehemiah stayed out of the way
smart choice

fender bender


No worries Grandma. Nehemiah will drive it soon enough.

Nehemiah's Birthday - Part 2

Party!

Just in case you can't figure out what this cake is... it's supposed to be a monster truck. I couldn't capture his reaction to it, but it was priceless. He had taken a nap while I was finishing it up. When he caught eye of it his whole face lit up. He knew exactly what it was. I'm happy.
Ok, this kid asks me to light candles just so he can blow them out. His birthday candle? Wouldn't even try. Joseph did it. Stinker.
He wasn't really "in" to presents. He kept trying to run away. There were balloons to play with people!
One last present then you can play with the balloons.
Woo-hoo! Your very own monster truck! Thanks Grandma Debbie and Papa Al!

Random shots of party guests

This is Hannah with baby cousin Layla. I think she wanted to play with her. She has baby dolls bigger than little Layla. (Layla is 2 months old)

Nehemiah's Birthday - Part 1

Well, I think we created a tradition. For Joseph's Birthday in December we went to Chuck E Cheese's. There was much excitement as the kids anticipated doing the same for Nehemiah's birthday. Armed with a special birthday coupon for some free tokens we went out on Valentine's Day (otherwise known as Nehemiah's birthday) to the place where "A kid can be a kid" (Gone are the days of romantic candle lit dinners for Valentine's. They have apparently been replaced by some bad pizza and an all you can eat salad bar... not to mention the giant mouse) So.........
we picked Roger up at work and went to Chuck E Cheese's. (We thought that being Valentine's day n' all that it would be a pretty deserted place... not so. Either there are a lot of Valentine baby's out there (we met another 3 year old birthday celebration) or there are a lot of sad sad people that celebrate Valentine's day with their spouse at Chuck E Cheese's.


Ok, back to us.

We had to wake Nehemiah up to go in. He was happy to see where we were, but had a hard time waking up.
Joseph and Hannah got Nehemiah a Mater "matchbox" car.





After Chuck E Cheese we headed off to Dairy Queen. Nothing says "Happy Birthday" quite like a Blizzard. Oh, wait. It wasn't my birthday. Um. Cone's anyone?


Then it was home to open his present from us.




I think he liked it.


So we all stayed up way too late and played with some new stuff. It was a fun day.

Stay tuned for Part 2 - The Party.

Happy Birthday Nehemiah!

Oh my Nehemiah. You bring me such joy. Your laugh can bring tears to my eyes. Your smile melts my heart. Your curiosity can bring my to wits end, but there is nothing I wouldn't do for you. My baby boy, how can you be turning 3 already? Was I not just rocking you in my arms yesterday?
Daily you are doing something new. Something that amazes me. Something that makes me think "Wow! I had no idea he could do that!" Your quiet nature makes me think that you don't know as much as you do. You'll blurt out your colors, count higher than your brother, speak a sentence that we can all understand! and I am brought to tears. Your voice is beyond precious to me. I love seeing the little boy in you come out.
I love you so much. You are my favorite 3 year old.
Happy 3rd Birthday Nehemiah.



You are the best Valentine this Mama has ever received.

Daddy's mighty fond of you too.
Though the early days were rough, they are long behind us now. Wow, did you ever despise those purple "glasses"
I love your spiky hair in this picture. I had so much fun dressing you up in things Joseph wore. It was fun to take a trip down memory lane - and to make new ones too!
As was our tradition, the first real snow we had to get a picture! Just like Joseph, you fell asleep. I made sure you weren't cold. In fact, you were sweating. It took my 10 minutes to get you ready, and you were outside for about 45 seconds. Yes, you did manage to fall asleep in that short period of time. :)
You little baldy. Your smile can light up a room.


your love for buttons started early. Not books. Buttons.

Music. You LOVE it. You took your first steps to music. (A song from Clifford) You figured out the harmonica when you were less than a year old. This saxophone was a favorite. The keys have long since fallen off.




And my photo journey needs to end here. This is why my scrapbooking is still on Joseph's baby book. I can't narrow pictures down to just one or two. I must use them ALL. It takes forever. For times sake, I need to be done. For viewers sake, I need to be done. If I put up more pictures I can only imagine how long this page would take to load.

The History of Rock

For Joseph's 5th birthday he got a guitar. His "rock guitar" as he calls it. It mostly stays in his room - to avoid other curious little fingers. It finds it's way out to "jam" a few times a week. Usually at bath times when we are all upstairs and other "little fingers" are in the tub. Today I thought I would try to teach Joseph a chord. I thought the point of having a guitar was to play a guitar. I was wrong. In the world of a 5 year old to have a guitar is to wear the guitar around the house making rock star poses for imaginary paparazzi. To have a guitar is to play it on your lap like a Psaltery. To have a guitar is to cover it with flame stickers so you feel like the rock star of all rock stars. So, after a few tears from my famous 5 year old I gave in. No chord teaching going on here. Just some imaginary paparazzi and a few stickers. Rock on baby, rock on.

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Ok, I really need to be better at writing down cute things my kids say. Joseph had me in stitches this week. I was sure I wouldn't forget. Not 5 minutes after something funny was said I was asking him "what was that you said that had Mommy laughing?" ugh.

Here's what I remember.

At lunch Joseph was reading Nehemiah's shirt. "F-E-E-L    T-H-E    N-O-I-S-E" "It says Hear the music!" So much for that phonics program


Now as I sit here trying to wrack my brain for his funny moments of the week, Joseph sits behind me telling jokes. Anything to make it on the blog. That's my boy.


Knock Knock
Who's there
Bee
Bee who
Bee's don't talk they go bzzzzz
yes. This is the sense of humor of my 5 year old.

Family Night

That is not lipstick on my little girl. It's paint. Apparently she doesn't mind the taste.


We thought it would be fun to paint a big picture as a family. We covered the table in paper and got started. These are the only pictures I have. Things got messy fast.


We had fun though. With the exception of trying to figure out where to let a 6ft painting dry it all went well.
And the kids got to turn the bath tub colors with their little painted selves.

After the chocolate...

What do you do after you have just consumed more chocolate than you ever thought humanly possible?

You go shopping! While in Hershey we decided to hit up some outlets for a little shopping. Luckily for everyone that was not me, there was a playground there too. Roger and the boys played while Hannah and I shopped. It was really quite the lovely little arrangement.











After getting some wicked good deals at Carter's and OshKosh (if you look at pictures of my kids they are most likely wearing something from one of those 2 stores!) Hannah and I joined the boys for some playtime. It was really a beautiful day. AND we later found out that there had been a fire at our church the day before. Even though they had cleaned, the place still smelled like smoke. If we had gone to church we would have left immediately. Roger's allergies would have been in an uproar with that. So it was the perfect way to spend the day. Chocolate and shopping. It's what every girl dreams her days to be. Ok, maybe not. and actually I can't say that I have ever even dreamed it. But it was just a nice day. :)

Tiny Talk Tuesday

We were all wrestling and goofing around with each other. Roger told Joseph that he was as strong as an ox. Joseph smiled and pummeled Roger to the ground (playfully) and said "I'm as strong as an octopus!" They do have a lot of arms (or legs?) but I"m not really sure how strong they are.

Hannah is turning into quite the little Mommy. I was calling for Nehemiah to come to me. He was doing his best to ignore me. Hannah thought that was a problem. She looked at him and looked at me, then pushed him towards me with a "go!" Just what Nehemiah wanted I'm sure . Another Mommy to boss him around.


For more Tiny Talk, check out NotBefore7