Finally Home

For the past few months I have been following this blog. It has deeply affected my life. On Saturday Leslie went home to be with the Lord. Please keep this family in your prayers!

Have You Ever Been This Tired?

Ah, my dear, sweet Lydia... so tired. This morning we had a showing at our house (fingers crossed) so we needed to leave the house for an hour or so. So after a rushed morning of cleaning we headed out to run some errands. Lydia was especially cranky, which is unlike her. I initially attributed it to her getting closer to being two. We made our last stop at a local health food store to pick up some things for their food needs/allergies. As we were checking out she just fell apart. I thought perhaps she was getting hungry so I quickly grabbed a bag of blue potato and sweet potato chips. On our way home I dispersed a few among the little ones and... evidently she was far more tired than hungry. How cute!

**(Yikes! Nice seatbelt job! She is so narrow that it is hard to keep her shoulders in the straps! Oh well, at least she's buckled in.)

For the Love of all Things Electronic

• One oscillating fan
• one Ipod charger
• one extension cord
• two table lamps
• one CD player playing a favorite tune
• one alarm clock
• One little boy happily air drumming into the morning light.

(I sat down for a moment to catch up on some blogs this morning and the above scene is how I found him. He is so content right now surrounded by all these electronics... he tells me, "this is fun!" We can always clean up later!)

Nation Celebration

We took the kids to their 1st parade... in the pouring rain. I've been trying to make an effort to plan more fun outings with them, so we decided to stick with the plan despite the rain. I'm glad we did. We met up with our neighbors and the kids did really well. Although Brian and I were pretty wet and cold, we enjoyed our time with the kids.

After the parade we headed home for a good cup of coffee and lunch. The kids took a nice long nap and then we headed to Brian's sister's home. "K" and "C" put out a nice spread and even had an inflatable jumping area for kids to play! Lydia would've set up home there if we had let her.

At home we could see a few fireworks over the trees to which the kids kept exclaiming, "Fireflies!". We had a great time celebrating our nation with family and friends!

**I guess i need to wrap this up... I told Lucas this would only take a minute. He has now informed me that there are "too many ABC's, mommy!"**

Which Item Doesn't Belong?

All I can say is watch out for poison ivy!!! This is my "relief" after a high dose shot of Solu-Medrol at the doctors office and one 15mg dose of Prednisone. It actually looks better than it did about 8 hours ago, so there is hope in sight.

It was an eventful visit to the doctor. What was meant to be a regular appointment turned into nearly 2 1/2 hours. For some strange reason I nearly fainted about 5 minutes after my shot. My injection site started throbbing like someone had just punched me really hard (my poor butt!) and my face was itching like CRAZY! I think it was a combination of those two things and a stressful weekend that my body just couldn't compensate. They initially thought I was having a reaction to the Solu-Medrol, but after the doctor checked me out to make sure I was okay he said he had given me a "jump-start" dose and thinks maybe it was a little shock to my system. (Side note: He is such a sweet and genuine man. He put a cool cloth on my head, brought me something to drink, came in repeatedly to check on me... I feel so lucky to have such a fantastic family doc!) And bless my mother-in-law for watching the kids in the waiting room for me. I'm sure that's not how she wanted to spend her afternoon, but she never complained. And she invited us over for dinner!

Then off to Kroger to fill my prescription and I just had to start laughing about the way people would just stop and stare at me- especially men. It must be that whole blood, guts and gore attraction. I mean, I understand... I looked pretty horrific! I'm looking forward to getting back to my ordinary self! So now I am consoling myself with some cheesecake leftover from last night's fabulous girls night out at the Cheesecake Factory! MMM!!!

Going Crazy!

It's been an interesting few days! I'm really struggling with Lucas. He seems to be in a rut of out-right defiance that I can't seem to break. I'm at my wits end... I want to understand what is going on in his heart and mind so I can maybe make sense of all this! It's as though he is purposefully testing me every 5 minutes or so. ARGH! I'm at a loss... so all you seasoned mommies please give me some advice! All my discipline tactics have proved useless!

Starting this past weekend he has also developed an obsession with going through each room and unplugging every cord he can find. At first I went around and plugged everything back in only to find a little while later everything unplugged again. For some strange reason this really got under my skin, but I think I'm going to have to resign myself to just plugging things in as I need them. He will also move items from room to room creating his own electrical collage. I know someday I will look back on this and smile, but right now- living in the midst of this- frustrates me.

On Saturday we were at Brian's parents home and Lucas snuck up to grandpa's office and proceeded to unplug all the cords to the fax machine and the computer. Luckily, grandpa got a chuckle out of it. At one point we even had to ask Lucas to show us where some of the cords needed to be plugged in. Little Smartie-Pants would just point to where the cord needed to go. He amazes me sometimes. The wheels are always turning!

I am taking a much needed break today. I have hired a babysitter for 3 hours and I am going to do whatever I want. This mom needs to get her heart back on track!

Bountiful Harvest

This week the kids and I harvested the first batch of blueberries from the four blueberry bushes at our new home. They are SO good! Lydia ate every berry I tried to put in her little pink bucket. I'm surprised she didn't get a tummy ache.

Brian, his mom and myself spent an hour or so putting up the cage and netting to keep the birds from eating the berries. I was glad to have some help. It wasn't something I could do by myself. The cage is a little rickety, but it'll be fine for this summer. I think Brian is planning to build something more sturdy next summer.

This afternoon I went back over to the house to mow the lawn and was able to harvest another over-flowing pint of berries. It looks as though we will have that much or more ready to pick on Monday. What an abundant blessing!!! I am ready to pull out my recipes and whip up some pie, muffins and cobbler. Oh, I'm so excited!