Saturday, September 27, 2008

This week in Pictures

Our Team, our friend Tracie, Mom Willman, Eric, Chris and Me (implied) at the 10th Annual Ovar'Coming.



Chris gets ready for the Ovarian Cancer Walk. Grandma picked him up one of last year's t-shirts, which is about 8 sizes too big, but he didn't care. He's pretty excited.



Mommy and Chris, happily recovered at home. Note that he's eating an apple; he worked that thing, all by himself, all the way home.



**********************************************************
I kept forgetting to post pictures that don't have to do with Chris. Here's a few from this week.



A beautiful early morning view out our back window. Can you see the dew droplets on each blade of grass in the sun?



OK, not the best early morning view. But a really neat close-up on our back window just the same. Chris thought "Big Bug" was cool.



My neice Kaylee at the preschool playground. Her static-y hair cracks me up!



Mommy made applesauce. Chris couldn't even wait until it was done to eat some. He's eating boiled apples and water here. Turns out that's all I had to do to it, the apples had so much flavor just boiling the snot out of them was all they needed. I had not even sifted the skins out yet, but he didn't care. He kept askiing, "What are you doing mommy?" "Making applesauce." "I want apple-sau-sa!" Had to oblige.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Friday Fill Ins

1. Pumpkin related foods (Einstein's has pumpkin muffins and Au Bon Pain has pumpkin soup, YUM-O), Halloween (Should Chris be Mickey Mouse?), colorful leaves turning, fun family birthdays, jean and t-shirt weather, hopefully a picnic in Brown County are some of the things I'm most looking forward to in October.

2. Sometimes I feel I want to (boom boom) Run Away. I want to (boom boom) Get Away....(Softcell) I want a vacation. I want to go somewhere fun, where the greatest debate is beach or pool, or where are we eating for the next meal? Who am I kidding? I WANT TO GO TO DISNEYWORLD! We promised Chris (and ourselves) that once he's "fixed" we'll take him to Disneyworld (Dave Ramsey be damned!) and now that possibility is appearing on the horizon, I really can't wait.

3. I had this 2 year old boy that insisted on either riding me, or dropping to the ground when holding my hand, or just running off (really good at the running off), and he's very small, and very speedy, and I noticed those leash things look pretty handy. I swore I'd never put a leash on my child, and that's why there is a saying, "never say never"! Now I keep one in the diaper bag, and I used it for the first time at the Kids' Resale a couple weeks ago. It was really handy, though Chris objected highly.

4. When I'm down, I am really down. I try not to let my mind go to the dark places, but when they do, it's pretty hard to dig my way out. I've been having seriously disturbing dreams lately, that wake me at like 5 am and I can't get back to sleep. I had one the other day that really shook me up for hours. I dreamt I'd been mysteriously implanted with a plastic baby and was losing it. Very bad.

5. Church is where you'll find me most often. Eric signed us up for this class, Living Discipleship, jury's still out on whether I enjoy it or not, on Monday nights. I do not enjoy that it meets until 8:30 pm, it's a little late for both Chris and I. So, now we're there Sundays, Mondays, occasionally Wednesdays for choir, and Fridays for MOPS. It's our second home. I guess that's a good thing, kind of the way it should be. But running a close second seems to be Riley, 3 appointments this week, (but it's been a busy week).

6. A rainy day is good for sleeping. Duh. I think Chris may even agree with me on this, he seems to be content to sit at home and take good long naps on rainy days...ok, he has on the last two rainy days...Twice makes a habit, right?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to
Dad's birthday dinner at the Rathskeller with the Fam, which since I'm up at 6 unable to breathe or sleep I'm debating if I should still go, I'm 90% sure it's allergy related, and I LOVE the Rathskeller, but I just did the smart thing and backed out of MOPS for today (which I hated doing), am I responsible to not expose family too? Hmmmm.... tomorrow my plans include the Ovarian Cancer walk- Woo hoo! (DONATE PLEASE-see side link!). I hope that this bout of coughing I woke up with this morning is kind enough to subside so I can do it well, I really would like to beat my time for last year. Last year it was my first walk, and I was about 25 pounds heavier...but also now I'm preggers and can't breathe...it'll be interesting and Sunday, I want to put my husband to work around the house while I lay like broccoli and nap!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Wordless Wednesday



A bit in advance, but Wednesday looks to be a busy day. Please leave caption.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

My neice

It's been a while since I tooted the horn of my neice, Annie, who just turned the big 8 weeks old, and got her first round of shots. Poor baby. It's funny though, Lisa and I were chatting last night, about how we both see so much of the other one in our children, but we don't see ourselves. I see Lisa in Christopher all the time, especially when he's swollen from sleep, like when he was in his butterball phase (Lisa is blessed with a narrow form now, but she was a butterball early on) or his little triangular nostrils. I used to raz Lisa about these all the time. I certainly don't have dainty upside down triangle shaped nostrils (there is little here that's dainty, especially of late)...but she does...and Chris does. Lisa sent me this picture, saying she swears that she sees a dimple that I have on my right cheek, on Annie's. Actually, I do see a hint of dimpleness.



Anyway, she told me a nickname they've been calling Annie, and I just had to right it down because I laughed so hard, that when I was retelling Eric, I literally cried.

Princess Squawks-a-lot from the Kick-a-poo Tribe.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Wisdom from Veggie Tales

When life hands you a lemon....
just have some more root beer.

Friday Fill Ins

1. There is no need for me to gripe about being pregnant, if you were to ask me how I'm feeling. Blessed. Very Blessed.

2. Where in the heck did Christopher's Pooh sunglasses go? They were just here yesterday, I swear. He's not going to do well if we don't find them.

3. Pray is all I managed to do. Often I'm at a loss at what to do in certain situations, and when I feel most helpless, I often come to prayer as a last resort, but I'm getting better at floundering less and just jumping into prayer. Because really Prayer is a very active thing to do. That, and maybe make a casserole or brownies.

4. Prospects for a job for Alexandra would be much appreciated. It's high on the prayer list too.

5. God's Word is the message. Yesterday, I just opened up my Bible seeking some strength and support, and it plopped open in Jeremiah 30, which told of God giving word for his people to settle down, plant some crops, have families, and basically, hang tight, because he will be smoting their enemies, and then he'll come get them. It was comforting, but just for good measure, I had to flip to Jeremiah 29:11, which right now is my favorite passage. Someone sent me a card when Chris was born and we had just come home that had that passage in it, and it gave me a lot of comfort. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

6. Simplicity and tranquility are myths.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to some mindless reality escaping TV watching, tomorrow my plans include at this point, Chris and I are likely going to be going to Marion to see Grandma Willman, who's health is not so good: CHF and some internal bleeding of unknown origin, Please Pray, and Sunday, I want to not go anywhere, and stay in my jammies all day, but that's unrealistic, as the choir is singing at the 8 o'clock service! I'll settle for a nice long post-church nap.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Yeah God!

Infertility sucks. If you've ever watched a loved one fight the battle, it's pretty crappy. If you've fought it, well, you know,...it sucks. It took us 4 years to get pregnant with Christopher, finally we had to reboot the system, and that seemed to work. This one only took a year, rebooting included. However, this post is not all about me, it's my chance to give a shout out to the one to whom all Praise is Due. God's timing for such things is so Divine. Yeah God! My heart has been singing His praise for days and I just have to share.

I wonder if He's up there smiling at us, so proud, just like when we are proud when our toddler says our name; He's up there, thinking, Oh, my children, how sweet, they just split the atom. God is so great that amongst his many blessings, he gives us modern medicine to aid in so many great things including the fight against infertility, as well his his loving support during the fight. He Is the Greatest Father. He shows us how wondrous his power and his love, and in something so simple as a new baby, who doesn't have to do a thing but just lay there, yet there is so much miraculous work behind her simply being that it just boggles the mind. It's like Life is God's Little Victory.

What an especially great miracle it is then when someone who fought this fight comes home with a beautiful healthy baby. For me, it is one of my highest Joys, and I just have to Shout his Praise moreso when it's someone I've personally been praying for during the whole process. I got to hold one of these little miracles yesterday, and it just brought tears to my eyes. Tears of joy for how great God is, blessing this family, bringing them this little beautiful angel. Babies in and of themselves are miracles, but when you toss in there the added difficulty for the little Blessing to even get here, after so much heartache, well, then I really must kick my praise up a notch.

YEAH GOD!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Baby Parker Pics

Our friends Alicia and Suellen welcomed

Parker Alyse La Magdeleine Sharp

who was born on September 11, 2008 at 9:16 pm weighing in at a whopping 9 pounds, 11 ounces, and 21 inches long.





We got to go visit her last night, and Suellen wasn't kidding one bit that she was having a moose. She came via c-section, came out screaming, and then gurgled on amniotic fluid, so they had to throw her in the NICU. They were worried about pneumonia, and had her on an O/G (mouth to stomach) tube to pull out any crap in her stomach. Must've worked great, because I just received word, she's

OUT OF THE NICU

and in her Mommies' arms.



Mom Alicia fussing over a fuss, doing a great job already leaping into Mommy role, trying to make everything better for the baby. Parker objects highly to the tube in her mouth. She only is content when a pacifier is put in. She used the arm that is strapped to a board with her I.V. in it, as a prop, and pushed her pacifier against it to hold it there while she sucked and slept. Apparently she's already such a genius! It was beautiful to hear Parker tell her Mommy all about how she objected to the situation. Such personality coming through already. They were worried about her health but I thought she looked great, pink and healthy, the biggest baby in the NICU. Considering how much stress and how little sleep has been obtained by all three girls over the last couple days, they all looked great when we visited last night.



Parker really is the Biggest Baby in the NICU. The only thing dainty about this little girl are her feet, so ladylike.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Friday Fill Ins

1. I enjoy a good meal. Some people Eat to Live, and some Live to Eat. I Live to Eat.

2. How am I going to handle 2 children? is something I wonder about often lately. Seriously?!

3. In your heart, you knew I was crazy, but you married me anyway.

4. Take green apple schnapps, add a little vodka and ice and you end up with a mighty fine green apple martini.

5. Life has gifted me with an amazing son. He really is, even when he's driving me nutsy, and I am exhausted (by him and in general); I am still amazed at his love of life, his many different smiles, and oh, don't get me started on the beautiful music of his laugh.

6. Chai Tea is an instant vacation. Though even better with company, without toddlers, and when manis and pedis are on the horizon.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to Hopefully visiting Baby Parker, and Game Night, tomorrow my plans include hitting the Kid's Resale at Westside Church of the Nazarene and Sunday, I want to get a bag of homegrown apples from Kim and make some applesauce!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Thursday Thirteen

My 13 favorite pictures of our camping trip. I want to go back!

1.
View from outside my tent window.

2.
Emily likes bacon, especially for a "hot" breakfast.

3.
Chris on the beach, also hot stuff.

4.
Co-Ed Naked Football

5.
Sunset Ride on slide. Hard to see the sheer joy on Emily's face.

6.
Sunset over the Ohio River.

7.
Men with Fire

8.
Daddy demonstrate just how a glow stick should be used while Chris eats his marshmallow. All good things camping.

9.
Vicious attack Cicadas. Remind me to blog about that another time.

10.
Boy finds stick. Stick brings boy joy.

11.
Chris on the bumper boat.

12.
Chris and Emily wave to their public.

13.
Chris is Done.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Wordless Wednesday



First Day, last week. Leave a caption.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Friday Fill Ins

This Friday's Fill-Ins, are supposed to be obscure song lyrics. I guess I've been listening to way too many Veggie Tales rather than the radio.

1. If I was to walk into your life, could I make you smile? I love infectious laughter. Chris and I were NOT cuddling on the bed this afternoon, just having a good old fashioned tickle fight, the best noise in the world. Pure laughter must be like music to entertain the angels.

2. Catch a bright star and place it in your pocket. This might be one song I know, but I thought it was catch a falling star and put it in your pocket. Whatever.

3. And you can send me an email. I just got my computer and email back today, Eric fixed the computer last night. Yeah!

4. I wish I could just forgive and forget but I'm dealing with a memory that never forgets. Something I'm working on, but I know some folks that I have trouble forgetting.

5. Somehow I got stuck between the Moon and New York City. More likely on the road to Insanity.

6. What's keeping us apart isn't selfishness, it's just yourself. Sure it's selfishness.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to reinstituting Game Night, tomorrow my plans include doing nothing at home with Chris, and hopefully catching the new Disney Show Imagination Movers, they have an album called "Juice Box Heroes", those guys music videos crack me up, and Sunday, I want to see lots of cuteness at our church's Rally Day then take a long nap!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Thursday Thirteen

I figure it's close enough to Thursday, and actually our internet is down (Dogs and Cats! How do I cope?! Well, actually my computer is dead, but luckily Eric's laptop is working just fine, so I can still get a fix), so if I'm going to post, I better do it now.

Thirteen Things that I learned from camping this weekend.

1. I don't do well with Chris Puking-First, Chris developed a "24 hour stomach flu" on Tuesday night, but we figured by Thursday (the estimated time of departure) he should be good to go. He was...sort of. He was wimpering, whining, and crying in the Kroger for 30 minutes Thursday morning before finally screaming a total meltdown to the point of puking in the parking lot. At least it wasn't in the car. Kathleen brought an emergency bottle of water, and instead of poring it on Chris's shoes first, I took a drag for myself, so I wouldn't lose it. I thought it was just that his meltdown caused the continuation, because the bug should CLEARLY have been over. But Chris continued to puke Friday morning and Saturday morning. Friday's incident was kind of sweet, because we were sitting fireside, and he told me he wanted to step outside. We laughed because we were outside, until he got whiny, and I got his meaning, I stepped onto a nearby path, and it became known evermore as "Pukey Way." Saturday, he got Daddy on the shoulder 10 minutes after arriving in Holiday World. Good thing we carry a spare adult T-shirt in the diaper bag now. I didn't do well, and Friday, I just did mouth breathing and kept on walking (thank goodness he didn't catch his shoes) and Saturday, I just handed Daddy the diaper bag, and ran for a bottle of water. Both times were within an hour of receiving his pump feeding, so we stopped them on Sunday and Monday and at last, miraculously, he did NOT puke. Neither did I.

2. I do even worse with Eric puking-And when we arrived, near dusk, Eric decided he really needed to puke too, so he did. Fabulous. I did NOT handle this well, as now I had to begin attempting to put up tents in the dark, because I was queasy too, my back hurt, Chris was all over the place, not being helpful, and I had no clue what I was doing, because I've always gone camping with wiser more experienced campers. I was GRUMPY, so it was not a shining moment for us. We got 1 tent up before Mike and Kathleen arrived, threw Chris's pack and play in it, but of course, he did not sleep because he was too excited because Emily was here, and he wanted to play. We finally got tents up Thursday without any more incidents about 10:30 p.m. But Eric felt puny for most of the day Friday. See? 24 hours.

3. A Trip to the Beach will solve most problems-Friday afternoon, after trying unsuccesfully to get the kids to nap, we decided to take them down to the beach. Lake Tipsaw has a nice small lake, the water was the perfect temperature of warmishly cool, and the bluegill were so friendly, they came right up to us as we sat in the sand. I even got goosed a couple times. Sitting in the sand took a great load off of my spine, and after the swim, I felt a million bazillion times better, not to mention feeling cool in temperature. The kids played in the sand, on the playground, even bopped about "swimming" between the 4 of us. We told them they couldn't leave the circle, and they didn't. It was wonderful, plus it started to get cloudy, and was SO much cooler at the camp upon our return. Plus we were cooler too. I forgot how wonderful a trip to the beach can be.

4. You don't need spices if you have good ingredients-We forgot any sort of spices, salt or pepper, and we made kabobs with fresh veggies and steak Friday nigh, using peppers from the garden and vidalia onions. They turned out good. Yum-O. Don't even get me started on our desserts...

5. My husband can cook Brilliantly over a fire-Eric made scrumptious kabobs, hot diggity dogs, and totally tasty brats. He even used a camp cooker to make a really good turkey melt, for himself, mine got burnt, but his was good.

6. Mike is the Fire Master!-Mike broke out all the Boy Scout skills and tricks and built all our fires this weekend. He did all the kindling hunting, and he and Eric maintained the fires all weekend long. Because of these great fires we were able to eat, and eat well.

7. Holiday World is Flipping Awesome!-I had never been to Holiday World, and that's just plain crazy. Let me start by saying, a pregnant woman can't ride much, let alone a pregnant woman with a crappy back, but it didn't matter, there was still plenty to do and see, and even some very toned down rides that we could all do as a family. And it was great! But, in addition to that, it seems the staff really care about people. They were so sweet, at one point, Chris started to lean a bit precariously on his merry-go-round horse, and the staffperson was right there, gently nudging him back on, didn't even have to stop the ride, and he was there before I had to say anything. Their food was really reasonably priced, we split a funnel cake 4 ways for 3$, and that was just perfect. Then they also have Free Drinks: Gatorade, Water, not to mention tons of sodas, even coffee. But my favorite was the Free Sunscreen stations, posted all over the place. They really wanted to make sure you didn't get burned. I only got burned a little bit. But it said to me, they really cared. Kathleen said, "One day, our children will tease us about being corny and stupid...and they'll be right." Yeah, that sums up the whole trip.

8. Chris loved Holiday World- Chris rode more rides than me, and he didn't even meet the 36 inch requirement to enable him to ride bunches more rides. He LOVED it. He wasn't too interested in meeting Santa Clause, content to observe him from a distance, but, he loved most everything else. It's funny, he loved it so much, it totally made me love it. He started to poop out at the Water Park portion, and at one point, he told us: "All done water, want to ride planes." But he fell asleep before we even made it out of the water park section of the park.

9. Pregnant women do not do well in 90 degree heat-Friday and Sunday, it exceeded 90 degrees outside, and we could feel it. (It may have on Saturday too, but we were in Holiday World getting gently misted, or plain wet most of the day.) It didn't feel so bad in the shade, but apparently in the "River Valley", the air does not move, and without a breeze, it was just stifling. It took me until Sunday evening to realize that the heat was increasing my queasies. By Monday, I started to feel the waves creeping on, and was parked in the shade during Tear Down, until Mike offered to turn on the car, and put in a movie (Cars!) for the kids. I spent 2 1/2 cushy hours sitting in the air-conditioned car, not puking, while everybody else broke down and loaded up. Thank goodness for good friends!

10. A trip to the Beach only solves most problems-We learned that although Mommy's back feels better, Chris does not like being in the sun when it is at it's peak. We hit the beach Sunday around lunchtime, thinking we'd cool the kids off prior to naps. In theory it would've worked, and did for a bit, the kids napped, mostly naked for about an hour, but it was too hot for humans, and the beach fix just didn't last. Plus, when the sun is super high, we can get sunburned...very easily. We thought about heading back down Sunday late afternoon, but we didn't want to get more sun, and Chris's mood had not been improved drastically by our Sunday morning swim.

11. Ice cream and Air conditioning will make it all better-Saturday, after Holiday World, we drove into town, Tell City (about 20 miles away) and had supper at this little Mom and Pop drive in place, well it was more of a park-in, they really didn't have wait staff to greet. Anyway, Chris and I split an ice cream cone, and it made him very happy. Sunday, when the napping was failing, and the heat was nauseating, we piled back into the car, and headed into town for an ice cream run at the nicest Dairy Queen I've ever been to in my life. We pumped the kids full of sugar and ice cream and let them run wild around the Dairy Queen and the park, before hauling them to home sweet campsite and throwing them in bed. It was another good fix.

12. I don't do well when non-family members puke-Emily interrupted the great Uno Championship Game at 1 a.m. puking Sunday night/Monday morning. I did ok, teamed up and helped get her bedding rearranged, while her parents bathed her, but then she puked again every half an hour for the next hour, and just hearing that didn't go over as well with my stomach. I ended up putting my earplugs in, just so I didn't have to hear it. Turns out she was done after that, until morning. Yeah. Seems she got the 24 hour stomach flu too.

13. We survived the extreme heat and the puking with our friendship still intact-So much so we were eager to get together and play again. The going plan is to reward Chris (and ourselves) once he gets "fixed" and this feeding tube/silent aspirator business is all done. I'll hope he'll be 36 inches tall too, in order to be able to ride more rides. We figure if we can survive all this, imagine how easy, fabulous, and wonderful a trip to DisneyWorld will be. That's the next big plan.

Wordless Wednesday



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