Family photo update

Do you remember me lamenting our disappointing family photo at church? Well, I promised to post it and I haven't forgotten! It actually didn't turn out quite as bad as it looked in the little thumbnail images from the day of the photo. E. might actually have one side of his lips upturned in a little grin. Overall, it is still pretty awful though.


P. update
P is feeling much better. Late Friday night she woke up screaming and when I picked her up she was absolutely drenched. Her fever had broken and her temperature had fallen to a meager 93 degrees. By the next morning, her temperature was back to normal and she was laughing and smiling like normal. Thank you to those who prayed for her. I am glad that this fever dissipated almost as quickly as it showed up.

The Halims
Our friends from college—Champy and Carrie Halim—stopped by on Friday evening on their way home from Kansas City. They have a 6yo girl that E. has been friends with since he was born. They also had two women that are on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ from Miami U. with them. It was a really great night of hanging out and catching up. It had been so long since we have seen them ... I think since S. was only 5 months old! They left around midnight and drove the rest of the trip home through the night. Here are a couple photos of their little girl playing with our kids.

Work, work, work
I don't think I have made a big announcement on the blog yet, but Tyler recently took a part-time job at a local hospital. He is an intake coordinator for their behavioral health division. As I understand it, when someone comes into the ER for psyche related problems or if the hospital staff thinks a patient needs a mental stability evaluation, then they call on the intake coordinator. He has had a lot of hospital training over the past few weeks and is now coming up to the end of the job shadowing portion of the training. I think he likes it so far, but it is a potentially very dangerous job. As with any hospital position, stories abound of some of the awful things that have occurred. Thankfully, one of his trainings was on how to take someone down! Memorial Day weekend has been pretty uneventful for us because Tyler has had to work most of it. Yesterday was the only day he had off; 12-day on Friday, 8-hr day on Saturday, and a 12-hr day today. I will be excited when we get out of this transition period with our jobs. There is a parade downtown this morning that I debated taking the kids to, but the rain and storms we are having here made my decision very easy.

Moving
We are also trying to transition with moving as well. We aren't 100% certain on where we will be next, but we are heavily leaning toward renting a home from our good friends. Tyler is interested in seeing four more houses that just came on the market, but so far we don't have any time to do it. I would prefer if he would just go ahead and go by himself. If a house looks promising, then I can go out and see it. Since we have been house hunting for 5 months now, I don't have much hope that we will find anything in this last week of looking. Pray that the days ahead would be filled with productivity in this area ... and clarity for our decision.

Hand, foot, mouth

My poor little Sweet P. has been sick the past two days. She has been running fevers in the 101s and has the general crankiness associated with it. We saw the doctor this morning and the only thing noticeable are some red spots on her throat. The doc thought it might be the start of Hand, Foot, and Mouth (couldn't someone have thought of a nicer sounding name than that?!?). So we are just waiting it out to see if she starts to get the tell-tale blisters of that virus or if something else crops up. Please pray that her fever would break, that this viral infection would pass quickly, and that through it all we won’t have to visit the hospital. My poor little girl.

A weekend with friends

This past Friday, my friend Angie graduated from Covenant. (She is going into counseling just like Tyler.) I spent most of the day with the kids and made a graduation cake for her party (see pic). She had these really fun Hawaiian graduation plates and napkins that I tried to match. This was one of the hardest days I have had in a long time. We started the day by going to WalMart and S. kept throwing fits because she didn't want to ride in the cart. When I let her down to walk, she didn't walk (if you know what I mean). So I ended up putting her back in the cart with more thrashing, screaming, and kicking. It was a lovely time. When we got home, I was feeding P. and S. got into the frig for her drink. Well, I guess the new gallon of milk I just bought was in front of her sippy because she pretty much pushed it onto the floor. It endured a 4 inch crack along the side resulting in the milk pouring out onto the floor. I got there in time to save about 6 tablespoons of it; the rest went under the stove. After sitting on the floor crying for 5 minutes because I wanted to strangle my daughter, I pulled out the stove and began cleaning up the milk. Oddly, it didn't seem like a whole gallon.

When Tyler came home from work he noticed something dripping downstairs into the common area from the duct work. He told the maintenance guys and one of them checked it out. The maintenance guy then came upstairs and said, "Did you guys have a spill? It looks like milk." Doh! So, that is where it all went!

I ended up finishing the cake around 1 am. That had some disasters of its own due to extremely high humidity that day. But, despite being the perfectionist that I am, I stuck it out and finished the cake. This was actually quite a big deal because numerous times I almost gave up and opted for a Sam’s cake instead. If anything, I have a new respect for cake makers and now know how not to flip a 12 x 18 inch sheet cake over.

Getaway
After the graduation party on Saturday, we left straight for Branson with friends. It was a really fun trip. We stayed in a cabin for the weekend with 18 other people. Our friends Paul and Rebecca organized the trip and they did an awesome job! It was really relaxing and fun to hang out with everyone. And since there were tons of kids too—13 in all—our kids had a blast. E. spent the majority of his time either racing friends up and down the big hill outside or playing Wii. S. followed (minus the Wii part). And little P., well she stuck with me! The cabin backed to woods and the last night there the adults ate dinner outside on the deck. A wolf was howling so loudly, it was almost freaky. We were joking that he must have just caught a bear ... or the bear caught him! The next morning buzzards were flying over the woods so something must have went down.

I have to give a shout out to our friend David. He totally served us by taking care of Chester while we were gone. Thanks, David! We so appreciated your help!

The Fancy Pants Adventures: World 2

E. loves computer games, hand-held games, board games, card games . . . I think you get the picture. Tyler introduced him to this online game called The Fancy Pants Adventures: World 2 that is found under the “Addictive Flash Games” section of their favorite website. So you can only imagine the outcome—he has been absolutely hooked and constantly asks to play. (See Fancy Pants himself, right. I must admit, he is a pretty cool guy.) Its description is “It’s Sonic. With pants.” That kind of describes E. too, except that he—thankfully—wears more than just pants.

He has been playing this game off and on for at least a few months. This past Saturday, he ... well, I will let this video show you.



In case you didn’t catch it, the ultimate goal of this game is for Fancy Pants to get his ice cream cone back from the rabbit. (Let’s not get into the oddity of that!) E. was so excited that he was talking what we affectionately call “Brendlese.” This describes the language my extended family speaks–a fast mumble of sorts. I am quite good at it. Obviously E. isn’t too bad himself. Tyler has been grafted in, but for awhile he couldn’t understand dinner conversations at mom and dad’s without a decoder ring. E. loves this game so much, that in the time that it took for me to grab the camera he had already started over a new game of Fancy Pants. “Addictive Flash Games”? I think so.

Another trip to the park
We went to the park again this past weekend. It was so nice out that we wanted to make the most of the last hours of daylight. We live within 10 minutes of a variety of parks so we tend to rotate which one we go to. This is the first time this year we have made it back to this particular park. It is amazing how much of a difference the past year has made for S. Last year we had to keep her away from the bigger equipment because there were places to fall off everywhere. This year she joined right in with the other kids and we only had to stop her from walking off an edge once. She seems so much bigger than 22 months to me.

Happy Mother’s Day—take 14

Happy Mother’s Day, moms and grandmas! We worked really hard today to get a mother’s day message out to you.

Take 1

Hmm, that isn’t a very good angle. Let’s move the camera higher.

Take 3

Oops, I sort of chopped off the kids’ heads. Let’s try again.

Take 6

The kids can't be sick of it already! Let do it again.

Take 7

Ah, that is better. Ok, just one more time.

Take 8

Ok, that was a bit too enthusiastic. One more time.

Take 10

Ok, that was a bit too unenthusiastic. One more time.

Take 11

Too backward. ;)

Take 13

E.’s personal favorite.

Take 14

And we give up. Despite our very imperfect attempt at wishing you a happy mother’s day, we really do hope this made it a little bit happier! We miss you!

Unexpected happenings

P. met another milestone today—she rolled over from her back to her belly. She is growing really fast. Tyler got the aerosaucer out of storage for her to play in and she is standing up really well and playing around. This has been especially helpful to get her off the floor when the other kids are running around and being nutty! She is such a happy little girl!

In the buff
S. never ceases to shock me these days, mostly revolving around bedtime matters. I found her the other night in the state shown below. I just cracked up, especially when I found her pjs and diaper laid nicely on top of her dresser. I called Tyler to the room, snapped this picture, and then made sure she at least had her diaper on. I am not sure how many people will think this picture is distasteful, but I thought words probably wouldn't do it justice. And besides, I have some decent photo editing skills that protects my little girl's innocence. =)

Ain’t it great?
Ain’t it great when you find out that something broken is still under warranty? E. broke his glasses and I called the optometrist today and was informed that they are still under warranty and he can get new frames for free. Wow. I was so thankful. I love when something like that happens. We are hoping to get our van fixed this week as well. The damage inspection is on Thursday and hopefully the repair will be shortly thereafter.

Potty power!

S. has used her potty twice in the past few days with success! Last week, she started taking her pjs off before bed followed by her diaper. I finally made the connection of what was going on behind this sudden change of behavior and asked her if she had to go potty. She would say "uh huh," walk into the bathroom, and then sit down. A few nights into this new routine, she actually went potty. I was so surprised, and very very happy! She just went again out of the blue this morning while I was in the shower. We haven't been trying to potty train her, so this has been a pleasant surprise. I assume there is a long road ahead of us to completion, but it is one that we will eagerly travel.