Mary's Corner

Happy 1st Birthday to Baby B and lots of catching up!

2009-05-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long time since I posted! I had to at least blog about Baby B's first birthday.
I made his birthday cake out of a chocolate cake mix and baked it into a sheet cake. Then I cut it to make it into a "1" and iced it with yellow frosting and green shells around the edge. I wrote "One is fun" on it in green. The table cloth, bib, hat and napkins are the "One is fun" theme, so I was trying to match that. I also made him a little "1" out of the scraps of the cake. It was very cute. I didn't get a good picture of it, I guess. I think I lost those pictures, somehow. :( The table cloth and all the "One is fun" themed stuff are from Mischievo and Little Miss Priss's 1st birthdays. I've made it last for three kids!

Here's the big birthday boy before we sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Here he is eating his cake. He really enjoyed it. This was the first time he's had anything with sugar in it.

I guess you can kind of tell how this year has gone since Baby B was born by my lack of posts. It's not like I haven't had time to blog, I'm just too lazy. I'd rather just sit and read other people's blogs and not have to think about posting to my blog! I guess I've just been so tired, overwhelmed and down a lot, too.

This has been a tough year for me. Baby B has been very challenging for me. He has not been a very good sleeper and I really, really, need my sleep. He had the reflux issues and even after we got him help for that he still didn't sleep very well. Crying it out didn't work as well for him as it did for my other two. I had him sleeping through the night for a little while after we made him cry it out, but then he would get a cold and wouldn't sleep very good. It seems like we had A LOT of crying for a while there. In fact it's been only about two weeks now that I have had consistently good nights. So, hopefully, we've reached a turning point. He still wakes up a lot earlier than I would like, but I'll take that over crying a lot in the night.

In spite of all these challenges he is a precious little guy and I'm really enjoying him these days. He's still crawling and I doubt he'll be walking anytime soon. But he's always learning something new. I love hearing him "talk". It's so cute! He loves to point at things and wants you to tell all about what he's pointing at. He's very good at letting you know what he wants. He loves his big brother! And Mischievo is very good with him most of the time. Little Miss Priss is doing better with him but tends to be too rough with him.

I've also started cloth diapering and baking my own bread, so those things take a little more time. Plus I have the chickens and I started a garden this year. So, I've been quite busy!

Little Miss Priss got potty trained a few months ago, so that has been so nice. She did so well with the potty training. Not one #2 accident while we were potty traing and none since then! That is much better than Mischievo. He still has accidents! Also, she just moved into a big girl bed out of her crib last week. That was a smooth transition and I am so thankful for that. The Lord really knows what I have need of! He has carried me through more than I realize!

Mishchievo is starting to be a good little helper, when he wants to be anyway! He really loves his baby brother and watches out for him for me.

I'll have to do more pictures on another post, maybe!!! We'll see if that happens! There's so many other things I wanted to post about, but all my kids will be up from their naps soon and I haven't even cleaned up the kitchen from lunch!

Playing Meeting and more snow!

2008-12-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

Whew, I'm worn out! I just got my work out gathering the eggs and feeding and watering the chickens! The snow is up to my knees, so it's a workout just to get out to the chicken coop. Then I have to haul their water container all the way up to the house where my wonderful husband has a faucet with some stuff on it to keep it warm so we can fill up the chicken's water everyday, and then back again!

I started this post with the intention of posting this video of the kids playing meeting! It's so cute when they do that. Mischievo is quiet the preacher, huh? We trust and hope he'll grow up to fulfill the meaning of his name "preacher of rightousness".

After I started this post my husband brought to my attention how hard it was snowing outside, so I took this video.

My husband measured the snow in the front yard and it was 13" at about 1:00 p.m. It still snowing hard so I think we're in for a whole lot of snow! It's not even supposed to get over 36 degrees for the next ten days and it still shows snow on the day it's supposed to get up to 36. Right now it's 18 degrees out, which feels warm compared to the 5 degrees we had a couple of days ago!

Info on the last slideshow!

2008-12-15T14:50:00.001-08:00

Ok, I don't know what's wrong but I can't seem to post a slideshow and write anything extra along with it! Maybe this is why I haven't posted in so long! I've just spent the last 15 minutes fooling around with my blog trying to get it to do what I want!
So, anway, it's been snowing since Saturday here. It started at 34 degrees and now it's 14 degrees. We have about a foot of snow. It's not snowing very heavily but it still pretty. Trying to keep the house warm with our wood stove so we can save some money!

Thankfully, everyone seems to be better except Little Miss Priss has a cough that's worse at night. Her pink eye is completely better and no one else got it, which is a real mercy.

The slide show is of the past week and some pictures of the snow.

It's Snowing!

2008-12-15T14:49:00.001-08:00

Some catch up pictures

2008-12-11T11:29:00.001-08:00

Very belated 2 month pictures and lots of catching up

2008-08-01T14:32:00.001-07:00

Many months ago I started this post, so I thought I had better finish it! I'm back for this post anyway.
Here's Baby B's two month professional pictures.

And for comparison here's Mishievo and Little Miss Priss at 2 months.

So, anyway, I have tons more pictures to post since Baby B is now 7 months old and I haven't posted in ages! Nobody is probably even reading this anymore! I'll have to do another post with pictures since I don't feel like waiting to upload them all right now. I just want to get everyone up to date on things.

We finally figured out when Baby B was 4 months old that he had silent reflux, which is acid reflux without all the spitting up. He had been very fussy while I was feeding him since he was born and I just thought the bubbles were bugging him because he would stop fussing once he burped. So when he was 4 months old and still doing that I thought it was strange because I figured he would be used to it by then. He was also waking up crying like he was pain a lot in the night. Sometimes you would have to pick him up and walk him around until he stopped crying and then we could put him back in his bed and he would go back to sleep. Other times he would take his pacifier and go right back to sleep. He wasn't hungry because it would only be an hour or two after I had just fed him.

It was really driving us crazy and I was so exhausted. He didn't start sleeping so bad until he was about 3 months old so we couldn't figure out why he would all of a sudden start doing worse when normally babies start sleeping better around then! Also, when he was 4 months he started rolling over and that would make him wake up crying. So at first I just thought it was because he was rolling over and didn't like being on his back to sleep(we've put him on his tummy since he was born and I know that's not what you're supposed to do! In fact that's probably the only reason he wasn't any worse with the acid reflux than he was, since babies with acid reflux sleep better on their tummies.)

He was just such a good, happy baby during the day and that made it all the more puzzling, besides fussing while he was nursing, anyway. Somewhere I had heard or read about silent reflux and wondered if maybe that was his problem. I started researching it on-line and so many of the symptoms sounded like him. One reason he probably likes his pacifier so much when my other two would never take one is because sucking on a pacifier neutralizes the acid trying to come up.

Finally, we took him to the doctor to see if she would agree with us about him having silent reflux. She definitely agreed and prescribed some medication for him and that definitely helped with the fussiness during nursing. We also ordered a special wedge with a sling to keep him from sliding off for him to sleep on. That really helped with the sleep.

I only gave him the medication for a couple of weeks until I asked my midwife if she knew of a homeopathic remedy that would work. She said to try Nux Vomica and I did. It worked as well as the medication so I stopped the medication. Now he hardly every even needs the Nux Vomica. For some reason when I nurse him right before bedtime he fusses a little more, so that's about the only time I ever give him the Nux Vomica.

He still wasn't that good of a sleeper even with medication and the wedge. He would wake up around 11:00 p.m. and fuss until we put the pacifier in and then he would wake up twice more to nurse before morning. Sometimes he would make it with just the two nursings and not wake up at 11:00. I put him to bed at 8:00 p.m and he would sleep until 8:00 in the morning. He did that until last week when we finally decided enough was enough and now he's been sleeping through the night from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., sometimes 7:00 a.m. without any feedings. It is so nice except now Little Miss Priss has been sick all week and she's been crying for mommy and daddy a lot in the night. It's been worse than what Baby B did! Now Baby B sleeps better than she does and he's been sick, too.

In spite of it all Baby B has been a pretty happy baby, when he doesn't have to sleep anyway. He rolled over a little before his 4 month b-day and got two teeth right on his 5 month b-day just like his big brother did! Now he's can sit up fairly well by himself and he loves to roll around on the floor or play in his Exersaucer.

Baby B is a little behind my other two weight wise because when he was having such a hard time with the acid reflux he wasn't eating enough because it hurt him so bad. Then about 3 weeks ago he got over two long weeks of bad diarrhea. I even had to change his diaper at night when he would wake up to eat. Poor guy has had so many set backs. He started off like he would be bigger than my other two. He still has the cutest chubby little legs, though. It's been a long 7 months! It's funny how time can fly, but when you're in the middle of it, it seems like a long time.

Mischievo and Little Miss Priss are growing up so fast, too. Mischievo learned how to ride his bike without training wheels a few months ago now. Little Miss Priss likes to get dressed all by herself. She does a pretty good job, too! We just need to get her potty trained now. That would be so nice. I hope she will be as easy as Mischievo was. She doesn't like being dirty or wet but I can't get her to go on the potty. She just sits there and then says she's all done, without doing anything. Maybe when things get a little better around here with sleep and colds we'll try a little harder to get her potty-trained.

Well, I hope this wasn't too long, but it's been so long since I posted. I hope I remembered everything! Oh, we also got a new front porch on our house. I'll have to do another post with more pictures. We have chickens now, too. I've also been grinding my own wheat and making my own bread. I make all of Baby B's food, too. I use the Super Baby food book and its not really that much extra work. So, I've been so busy. I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do. If I want to do something besides work than other things take a back burner and then I'm behind. So, since I like to do many, many things besides work, I'm always behind!!! I have a pile of ironing, since that is my least favorite thing to do and laundry never stops. I still haven't had any of the pictures we've taken of Baby B printed out since he's been born! I haven't started a scrapbook for him and I've never finished Little Miss Priss's scrapbook of her first year. Oh, well, I figure as long as I have all the pictures I can catch up another year. I've started knitting a sweater for Mischievo and want to do matching ones for Little Miss Priss and Baby B. We'll see if that happens!

P.S, to the last post

2008-07-22T14:35:00.001-07:00

Well, I can't get that video on here. I wish I had someone here to help me with it. It's just not working for me.
Also, I wanted to thank everyone that left me encouraging comments on the One Month post. It was a big help to me. Thanks so much. The Lord has really helped me through this.

12 weeks old!

2008-07-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm not doing very good about posting am I? It's not even that I don't have the time, I'm just too lazy! He's 12 weeks old already! I can't believe it! My midwife was here on Thursday so he got weighed and he's 14lbs. That's bigger than my other two were at this age. He has the cutest chubby little legs and the biggest smile. His smile has the ability to make me forget any blues I might have! He's had a cold and cough for the last two weeks, so sleep hasn't been that good, but I must be getting used to it because I hardly take a nap anymore. Before he got sick he was doing at last a five hour stretch or longer at the beginning of the night. He did five hours last night, so maybe he's getting better. When he was 7 weeks old he did a seven hour stretch and that was so wonderful! I needed that so bad. I had just had the worst week since he was born. I was actually able to sleep, too, which doesn't always happen. Not being able to sleep is probably what makes it so hard for me when I have little babies. It's happened to me every time I've had a baby. It doesn't happen every night, but sometimes it seems like it's every other night. I'll just lie there and not be able to fall asleep, or I'll fall into a light sleep full of dreams and wake up at the slightest noise and it feels like I didn't sleep at all. Most of the time I fall asleep fine at the beginning of the night but if I wake up before the baby does, I'll have a hard time falling asleep. I think it's getting better, though. I've been feeling better now, too. I hope it keeps up. I think I've finally just been able to accept that I'm just going to be tired for a while, especially with three kids under 4. This too shall pass, right? And then I'll wish I had my little ones back! Well, here's some pictures of my littlest man. This one was taken when he was about 8 weeks old. Here he his with his big brother, who still likes to hold him a lot. Here's Mischievo and his baby brother all ready for Lord's day at conference. This is the only official two month picture of him, unfortunately. Asleep in his swing, looking so sweet. Giving his daddy one of his big grins! He's also laughing now and has been since he was two months old. It's so cute. He's very ticklish. We did go to Sears to get some pictures taken around two months old. I'll have to scan one in when I get them back. I keep forgetting about them, they're probably ready to pick up. He was so good for his pictures. He's always ready to smile at people. He's a very social little guy. It was so much easier to get his two month pictures taken than it was when Little Miss Priss was that age. It was so hard to get her to smile! And I was trying to get Mischievo and Little Miss Priss together and it was so stressful. It was very hard to get them smiling at the same time. I decided to wait to get a picture of all three together next month when I do Little Miss Priss's 2 year pictures. So, anyway, life has been super busy. My husband has been so busy and working so many hours. It's been so hard. Then there's tons of projects waiting to be done around the house and yard, too. A few months ago my husband built a new shed and attached a chicken coop to it. That's finally all done and we just need to get a fence up and we can have chickens. We actually already have some, but someone is taking care of them for us until we're ready for them. I can't wait to have my own fresh eggs! I just got the cutest video of the baby! He's been talking away in his swing while I've been posting this. There's a mirror on the mobile and he was just talking away at himself! I'll have to try and get it on here, somehow. It's on the video camera and I've never put any of those videos on the computer before. I have everything I need, I've just never done it.

One Month Old!

2008-06-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here he is, one month old! In some ways it went fast but in other ways it seems like it was a long time ago that he was born. Sleep deprivation makes it seem like a long time when you're in the middle of it, but when you look back it went fast! Does that make any sense?
So, anyway, he weighs ten pounds now. He sometimes does a four hour stretch which seems wonderful after 3 hour stretches or less at night. He's a pretty good baby, but has his fussy times, usually at night, but it doesn't take much to calm him down. It really interrupts our sleep, though. He seems to like his pacifier, which is a big help. My other two kids didn't take one, so this is something new.
So, the baby's doing good, but the mommy isn't always doing good. It's kind of hard to talk about it and I haven't told very many people about it. I have a hard time with postpartum depression and it's the pits. I didn't think I would blog about it, but I thought maybe someone else reading this might struggle with PPD, too. Sometimes it seems like other people have it all together, but you don't know how it really is. I know people probably think I'm doing just fine, because I don't tell anyone about it. I guess I feel ashamed about it sometimes, even thought it's not something I can help. I just wonder why I have to have such a hard time when other people do just fine. All I want is to be able to enjoy my baby and my other two children, but that is so hard sometimes. If I could have a full nights sleep I don't think I would have a problem. I usually feel better when they start sleeping longer. So, anyway, I have some good days now, so I think things are getting better. I need to learn how to trust the Lord better, I think. He will help me through, this, I know.

Pictures of our newest addition

2008-04-30T15:10:00.000-07:00

Well, here's some pictures of our newest little one. Here he is in Grandma's arms an hour or so after birth.

Big sister, Little Miss Priss, was very excited to see the baby!

Big brother, Mischievo, wants to hold his baby brother all the time. He does a good job, too.

One more picture of him that I took today in his swing.

I'll have to post the complete birth story later. He was born at home under water after about 6 hours of labor, which included an hour and a half of pushing! Not much fun, but I'm so glad it's all over and he's here. So far he's very calm and laid back for the most part. He doesn't complain too loudly and is easily consoled. I just hope it keeps up!

It's a Boy!

2008-04-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well, he's finally here! Born at 4:00 this afternoon. 7lbs. 3oz., 20 3/4 in. long and a big ole 14 1/2 in. head! The Lord has done great things for us, we're so thankful that he's here and all went well. We're both doing fine, but very tired, so I'll post pictures and more info tomorrow. I'll have to come up with a blog name for him. If anyone wants to know his name just leave a separate comment with your e-mail address and I won't post it, if you don't want everyone to know your e-mail address. Good night!

39 1/2 weeks belly pic

2008-04-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got another picture taken of me. It doesn't look very good because of the shadows. Oh, well.

Today is my due date and no sign of a baby coming. Little Miss Priss was 8 days late, so I've been trying to prepare myself for this one being late, too. It's still hard though. I'm so tired of being pregnant and I'm so uncomfortable. I don't sleep very good at night and it's so painful to roll over. I'm trying hard to just stay busy and be happy for every day that I have to get more things done. Today I'm just tired of waiting. I can't seem to get motivated to stay busy.
Well, enough about me. Here's a cute pic of my kids, since I haven't been doing very good about posting.

I'll try to make sure and let you all know when the baby comes. Hopefully that will be soon!!!

Painting

2008-03-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm finally getting around to a post I promised! A couple of months ago now, my in-laws were here visiting and my mother-in-law helped me paint my kitchen and one wall in my living room. It looks so nice and I'm very happy with how it all turned out. The kitchen took way longer than I though it would, though! There's lots of small areas that have to be handpainted instead of rolled on, so that took longer. We worked on it for two days. Now, I just need to start working on repainting some of my cupboards and drawers. Maybe this summer.

Here's a before picture, so you can see what color paint I had before.

Here's what it looks like now.

This is the wall by our eating area.

Here's the living room wall.

The pictures really don't do the paint justice, since you can't really tell what the true color is. The paint in the living room almost looks the same in the pictures as the kitchen, but it's really quite a bit darker.

Well, I do have a ton of cute pictures of my kids I could post, but I'll just have to try and post them later. We just got back from a trip to Seattle yesterday and I threw up twice yesterday on the way home. I still don't feel 100%, I feel really weak and food doesn't settle in my tummy very well, but I'm hungry! I need to get another belly picture taken before this baby comes. I haven't been doing very good about that this time. It's starting to seem more and more real that there's going to be another baby around here in a month or so. I'm so ready to be done with being pregnant!!!

I'm still here!

2008-03-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Knittery for your concern! I'm glad someone's missing me! I guess I'm allowed to post without pictures, huh?! I usually get hung up on getting pictures posted and that prevents me from doing any posts at all. I'm always thinking up blog posts, but that doesn't get them on here! I've been extremely tired lately so blogging is on the back burner. We've had several bouts of sickness over the last month. My in-laws were here for a few days and my mother-in-law helped me paint my kitchen, which I really wanted to post pics of but will have to do later. Then, that same weekend I was responsible for our all-day-meeting. So, I started the next week pretty exhausted and ended up sick! All I could do was lay on the couch for three days in a row and let my kids run wild. Even after that I was still very weak and tired. It took a long time to recover, plus the kids were both sick at some point while I was sick. Since then, Little Miss Priss has been crying out a lot at night, so I haven't been getting many good nights of sleep, plus I have to roll over so many times at night due to aching joints. Two weekends ago we flew down to my parents for my cousins wedding and came home very exhausted! Then on Thursday, Little Miss Priss had diarrhea all day long and ended up dehydrated on Friday. It was kind of scary. We kept trying to make her drink water and Pedialyte and she wanted to sleep a lot all day long. Thankfully she was feeling better by evening and was totally herself again on Saturday. Today, I'm really tired due to the time change and late nights. So, those are all my complaints! Sorry if this wasn't a very encouraging post. I will try to do some better posts with some pictures one of these days.

No pics of the snow post!

2008-02-05T16:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought I had some pictures of the kids playing in the snow last week but they turned out so dark you can hardly see the kids so I'm not posting them. For some reason my brain went dead when I was trying to think of a title to this post!

Here's a cute picture I took of my kids.

Here's Little Miss Priss being her goofy self! She loves clomping around in her brother's snow boots. I thought it was especially cute with the pink dress!

I think I set myself back trying to make a snow house for my kids last week. Afterward my hip hurt so bad. Its been doing so good until now. It's still not back to what it was. If I could get enough energy to do some excercise it would probably help. I'm in the third trimester now and I definitely feel it. I'm so ready to be done! My belly feels so heavy and I have so many Braxton-Hicks contractions. If I'm walking around for very long, especially in the evening, I feel so uncomfortable. The contractions don't hurt, they're mostly annoying and uncomfortable, especially if my bladder feels full! Which it almost always does, now! It still seems like a long time until this baby is supposed to be born. In some ways I'm glad, since I'm not exactly ready to deal with a newborn right now, but in other ways I'm ready for it all to be over. Plus, I can't wait to meet this baby!

25 week belly pic and catch up post

2008-01-28T15:57:00.000-08:00

I'm really behind. I'm 27 weeks already and I'm just now getting around to posting my 25 week pic. At least I took a picture! It is so hard to get it taken. My husband is so busy these days that I never want to bug him about taking my picture, so I have to do it my self. This picture looks really lame. I hate my own picture, it never looks good to me, but anyway here it is. Just look at the belly and not the face!

Here's a cute pic of Little Miss Priss in her pig tails. This was the first time I've ever put her hair in pig tails. I've been waiting all my life to have a little girl to do her hair! Finally, she has enough hair! She doesn't appreciate it, though. She fusses when I try to do her hair.

We went to Seattle for a little vacation about 2 weeks ago now. We stayed there from Thursday night to Wednesday morning. We had a very nice time and we did more things than we have before. We went to the aquarium one day and took a ferry on another day. Both of the kids liked the aquarium and the ferry ride. We also got visits in with family.
Here's a picture of the kids on the ferry before we pulled away from the dock.

Here's Little Miss Priss with all her goofiness eating her sandwich on the ferry.

And here's the kids sound asleep on the way home with their teddy bears that their Grandma bought them.

So, I guess I'm still not really caught up because we got lots of snow on Sunday and now I have pictures of the kids playing in the snow yesterday. I'll have to try and do another post before the week is over for that. I'm really losing my motivation to blog. For some reason I can easily find other things that I'd rather do besides blogging. I also enjoy reading everyone else's blogs better than writing my own posts. It's much more interesting!

Huge windstorm!

2008-01-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

We had a huge windstorm yesterday with sustained winds of 50 mph and gusts of 80 mph! Of course, we lost our power due to many trees falling. We were without power from about 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Since we're on a well that means we can't get any water either. Thankfully we do have a generator, but I don't know how to hook it all up so I didn't have any power until my husband could come home from work at about 2:30, maybe. It was a pretty scary storm and I watched many things fall down all around us. There are still many people here in Walla Walla without power, including one of our neighbors, since our tree took out their power line!

We took a lot of pictures of course. There were so many trees down. It was amazing! Many streets were just completely blocked. Almost every one's house lost some shingles. Some lost their roofing all the way down to the plywood and now they are predicting rain and snow in the next few days! We went to Home Depot today to buy a chainsaw to cut our tree up that fell and pretty much bought one of the last gas powered chain saws! The roofing department was full of people, too.

Here's a picture of our blue spruce tree that fell down in the front yard.

I pretty much knew it was going to blow over. I was hoping I would see it fall, but I had to go into the kitchen for something and when I came back to look it had already fallen! It was amazing to see the ground flexing under the tree every time a strong gust of wind blew. I could tell it was most likely going to fall away from the house, but I was a little worried that it could hit the house. As you can see in the picture it fell toward the road, kind of, and is partially blocking the road.

Here's a picture of some of the wires it damaged.

We were actually planning on have this tree cut down, so it's not that big of a deal that it blew over(except losing power and all that of course!). The power company was starting their process of every two years pruning trees by power lines and they would have cut it down for us.

The first thing I noticed as soon as I came up the stairs yesterday morning(we sleep in the basement) was that our shed had blown over! Here it is.

As you can see its pretty rusty and old. We were planning on replacing it, anyway. This next picture you can see the kid's slide was thrown all around and our glass picnic table, too. We actually saw the wind pick up the slide like it was nothing and throw it around. I was afraid it was going to come into the window by the patio. Instead it hit the corner of the house and bounced off into pieces. It should all go back together, though. Mischievo was all worried about his slide when he saw that.

Here's our grill, blown off the patio like nothing.

And finally, part of our fence was blown over!

So, that's the damage we had at our house. We might have had a few roof shingles blown off, too, but nothing bad.
This morning we drove to Home Depot and also took a few pictures around town. Many people had way more damage than we did.

Here's a house with a tree blown over on it.

These next two photos are of the high school's roof. So many shingles were blown off!

Some trees blown over at a park.

Here's the Nissan dealer's sign.

A house with a lot of shingles missing. There were worse ones but I didn't get all my pictures uploaded.

This tree was blocking the whole road.

Here's a picture of the worst damage we saw and with an amazing story to go along with it. This tree pretty much took out the whole 2nd story of this house. The lady who lives in it was in her bedroom, which is right where the tree hit, and she felt like she should get out of her bedroom and go downstairs. As soon as she started down the stairs this tree fell in on her house. She would have been maimed or killed of she hadn't left her room.

Here's another house with a tree on it.

And yet another tree down.

There are many more pictures that I could have posted but I figured they would just be repetitious. These pictures give you an idea of the kind of damage that was done. Pretty amazing to see 100 year old trees completely uprooted by the wind.
Well, hopefully I will get around to doing a catch up post next week sometime. It's been a long time since I posted! We've just had cold after cold after cold!!! I've never had so many colds in my life. So, I'll have to post more on that later.

More snow!

2007-11-29T19:42:00.001-08:00

We got more snow this morning and it was still snowing when I got up! It was so pretty. I was hoping it would stick around because Little Miss Priss had her 15-month check-up at 9:30 and I knew Mischievo was excited about playing in it. It was still snowing when we left for the doctor's and it was still snowing when we came back home. Here's some pictures.

Here's Mischievo all ready to play in the snow!

And here's the snowman we made.

Here's a video of it snowing.

It snowed for a long time even when it hit 36 degrees! Then when the temperature started dropping again it stopped! I'm hoping we'll get more snow tonight. I think that we might.

I have more cute pictures of the kids but I'll have to do another post for that.

Thanksgiving and a catch up post

2007-11-24T17:02:00.001-08:00

I am so far behind! I actually started this post on Saturday and I'm just now getting around to finishing it!

So, for Thanksgiving we ended up going to Seattle to visit my husband's family. I was so glad because originally we had planned to just stay home. I was very disappointed that we wouldn't be spending our Thanksgiving with any family. We left on Wednesday afternoon and got to my husband's parent's house about 8:00, I think. We actually met them for supper because they were on their way home from Aberdeen and were only a few miles ahead of us!

For Thanksgiving dinner we went to my husband's sister Leah's house. It was so nice to see everyone. I wish I had taken more pictures, though. I don't know why I have such a hard time taking pictures. I just never feel like taking my camera out until I see that someone else is taking pictures, too. So, then I think, "Oh, maybe I should take some pictures, too!". So, here's a picture of all the kids at their own little table. They had lots of fun eating together. They also had to be goofy for the camera!

Here's Little Miss Priss all ready for some turkey. She seemed to like everything.

And here's the newest addition to the family, Connor. (He had to wait for his turkey!) It was so nice to get to hold him. It made me excited to hold my own little one.

Here's Little Miss Priss enjoying an afternoon snack.

Here's Little Miss Priss and Mischievo having lots of fun at Grandma's.

I actually ventured out shopping on Black Friday, too. It was fun and I got a lot of good deals. I had seen a scrapbooking tote advertised at Michael's for 50% off plus a coupon for 25% off, but you had to get it before 9:00 a.m. So, I made it there just before 9:00 and got the last one! I was so happy, I've really been wanting a tote to organize my scrapbooking stuff in. It was originally $80 and I ended up paying $30!!! We went back out shopping that afternoon and I found the cutest matching outfits for the kids at Children's Place on the clearance rack. I was so excited because I've been wanting to get them matching outfits but its hard to find boy and girl matching clothes unless you want to pay tons of money for them. So, it was a shirt for Mischievo and a skirt for Little Miss Priss. I think I'll get their pictures taken in them, if I ever get around to it! I'm so bad about getting things like that done. I also got a few cute maternity shirts, too. So, all-in-all it was a pretty good day. We went back home on Saturday because my husband had work he wanted to get done since he's so busy right now.

Here's some picture's that I've been meaning to post for a week now! We got some snow last Monday morning.

Even, though it wasn't much snow it still made everything look so pretty. It was all melted by lunch time. My husband took Mischievo out there on his sled before breakfast which was a good thing since it was starting to melt by the time we finished breakfast. Mischievo has been so excited for it to snow. Hopefully this is a good sign that we'll be getting more before winter is over. I bought him a snow suit last winter that he never got to wear! So, hopefully he'll get some wear out of it this winter. It's a little short on him but his boots come up high enough to keep him warm. Little Miss Priss is all set with a hand-me-down snowsuit from her cousins but her feet are so small that I can't find any snow boots to fit her! She still wears a size 2. Anybody have any ideas of where I can find boots that small? Children's Place said they had them as small as 3's but I couldn't find any and besides I don't think I want to spend that much on them. She probably won't really need any, since she'll hardly know what she's missing. I doubt I'll be playing in the snow that much either.

Thanks for all the comments on the last post, especially from those that haven't left any before. I really appreciate it. :)

Random pics of my kids

2007-11-17T19:51:00.001-08:00

I haven't done a slide show in a while and I have a lot of cute pictures of my kids that I've been meaning to post, so I thought I would just do a slide show! So, here it is.

Plus, I'm going to use this post to expose any lurkers! If you've been reading my blog and haven't left me a comment, than you have to right now! It doesn't take long, I'd like to know who all is reading my blog.

16 week belly pic

2007-11-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is. A picture of my belly at 16 weeks. I was thinking that I wasn't getting very big, but it sure looks huge to me in this picture!

It is definitely different than my other two pregnancies. By this time with the others I couldn't wear any of my regular skirts, I had to wear maternity clothes. I can still wear my regular skirts and I just need longer shirts, so I don't even have to wear maternity shirts. With Little Miss Priss I was in all maternity clothes by 8 weeks! I'm not sure why it's so different this time around. I think that my stomache muscles may be in better shape and stronger this time. I try to hold my stomach in as tight as I can all the time and I think that helps. I was definitely in better shape before I got pregnant this time. My stomach was way flatter than I ever got it after I had Mischievo.

The other thing is I can totally feel the baby moving now! It feels like it is just as active as my other two were! I guess I'm in for another busy one. I've actually been feeling the baby for the last month, but now it feels like a lot more than just little flutters. It's such an awesome feeling. I love it. I'll be sick of it in about 4 months, though, I know. I'll be getting real hard kicks and punches then. I think I really love being pregnant. At least during the 2nd trimester!

I'm also thankful that I'm not having as much trouble with my right hip as I did with my other two. I had terrible pain by now. It didn't even go away after I had Little Miss Priss until she was at least 5 months old. I felt like I might as well still be pregnant because I didn't feel any better! I worked out with a personal trainer and I really think that helped and is helping now. It will ache a little every once in a while but it is nothing like it was with my other two. All-in-all I'm feeling really good this pregnancy. I certainly don't feel like I'm having my 3rd baby! I can't believe how fast time has flown. After I had Mischievo I didn't know how I could go through all that again and here I am on my 3rd already.

Here's a video of Little Miss Priss walking like a big girl.

It is so much fun watching her walk! I never get tired of it. She looks so cute. It is such a relief to have her walking. It seemed like she would never walk! Now she won't scuff her shoes up so bad crawling. Also, now she can go play outside without getting so dirty and ruining her tights. She could go wherever she wanted when she was crawling, so it doesn't make any difference now that she's walking. A lot of people say "You're in trouble now that she's walking!", but I don't think so. I was already in trouble anyway! I'm in trouble with both of my kids and probably the one on the way! Everyone wonders how we got such active kids, but the truth is I was very active as a kid and so was my husband. He's still active! People just don't know the real Matt and Mary!!!

I keep forgetting to post about a funny thing Little Miss Priss did the other night. We had put the kids down for bed and since they share the same room they sometimes talk awhile before they fall asleep. This time it sounded like they were having a grand old time doing something. So we went to check on them and Little Miss Priss had her pajamas completely off and was playing with them. They both thought it was so funny! At first we weren't sure if she did it all by herself or if she had some help. I put her back in her pajamas and back in her crib. I thought I would watch her and see if she did it again. Sure enough, she unzipped her pajamas and started shrugging out of them! It was really funny. She finally went to sleep without taking them off, but in the morning she had them unzipped quite aways down. Such a funny girl!

She's Walking!

2007-11-05T15:03:00.000-08:00

Finally! At 14 1/2 months old Little Miss Priss is walking! I wrote yesterday down in her baby book as the official day that she walked. I don't consider a few steps walking. I won't write it down until they are walking most of the time. Yesterday was the first time she actually walked almost everywhere. If she fell she would get right back up and start walking again. This is so exciting to me. I've been waiting for this for a long time. It is so cute to see her walking. She's so proud of herself, too. Here's a video clip that I took of Little Miss Priss walking a while ago. She was just practicing and it was so cute because she would walk to Mischievo and hug him, then he would carry her back to my husband.

Here's a cute pic of Mischievo and Little Miss Priss
I have not been doing very good at taking pictures or blogging! I always have a post in my mind but it never makes it to the computer. There's always something else I'd rather do. I guess I get a little discouraged sometimes. I'm not sure whether people really find it interesting or not to read my blog. I keep meaning to have my husband take a picture of me so everyone can see how big my belly is getting, but I never remember. So, maybe I'll try to make that my next post.

A double wedding and some exciting news!

2007-10-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

Well, the double wedding was very nice and there was a lot of people there. It was good to see people I don't get to see very much. I wish I was able to take better pictures but it was very bad lighting, so they all turned out too dark or blurry. I don't think any of them look very good, but I guess it will give you an idea of what it was like. I hope someone else has some better pictures.

Here's Natalie, the groom's sister and Peter the bride's brother.

Paul and Martha, twin of one of the brides, Mary.

And here's Mary coming down the aisle with her father. I didn't get a clear one of Anna, it was so dark you couldn't see her, but she came down first with her father.

Luke and Anna got married first and here's a very blurry pic of them.

Wes and Mary were next.

Luke giving Anna a kiss right after Ron announced them and before they went back up the aisle.

Suzanna and Nathan

Here's the cakes.

I had to post this one of Little Miss Priss with her Grandma L. This a typical picture of her!

And now for the exciting news! At least, we think it's exciting. We're expecting another baby on April 24, 2008, Lord Willing. Hopefully, it won't be as late as Little Miss Priss was, but at least I'm prepared for it this time. We heard the heart beat yesterday, which was very exciting. I'm always so thankful to hear that heart beat. I always worry, until I hear it, that I've miscarried. I'm almost done with the first trimester and I'm so glad. I think the first trimester is the worst. You're tired and don't feel good and you're worrying about whether your baby is going to make it. At least, that's how it is for me. Thankfully, I don't usually get that sick, just a little queasy when I don't keep food in my stomach or wait too long to eat. Sometimes, it's just hard to think of what to make for a meal because nothing sounds good.

New Dining Room Table

2007-09-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited! I got my new dining room table and chairs today! I've been waiting for it for a week. I ordered it last Wednesday. We had been looking at dining sets for a while and I finally found one that I fell in love with.

So, here it is.

Here's a close up of the detail.

And of one of the chairs.

We also bought this mirror to put over our wood burning stove last Wednesday.

So, that's all the excitement for this week, until Saturday anyway. We're going to a double wedding and that will be fun. This will be the second double wedding I've been to. We're leaving tomorrow to go to my husband's parent's house. The wedding is in Marysville which is about an hour from their house. The girls getting married are my husband's cousins and the guys go to meeting here in Walla Walla. They're brothers marrying sisters! So, I'm looking forward to that. Next post will hopefully have some pictures of the wedding.

Pears

2007-09-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I got my pears canned today. Here's a picture of them.

Mmmm, cinnamon pears. I love them, but they sure were a lot of work. It took longer than the peaches.

Here's a picture of Mischievo in his new truck that he got for his birthday, with Little Miss Priss in the back.

And here he is with his best friend, Alison.

They have so much fun together. They're like two peas in a pod. She's 6 weeks younger than him but almost a head taller!

Look What I Did Today!

2007-09-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

21 jars of peaches and 7 more in the canner! I'm so glad to be done!

I've been working on these peaches all day. I went and picked them up from a local farm at about 10:00 and got started at 10:30. Now it's 4:30 and everything is cleaned up that I can clean up right now and the last batch is in the canner. It feels so good to be done! It was a perfect day for canning. It never got over 70 degrees and was cloudy most of the day. I have two boxes of pears I need to can, also, but they're not ripe enough yet.

Here's a sweet picture of Mischievo giving Little Miss Priss a hug this morning.

Mischievo's 3!

2007-09-17T15:49:00.001-07:00

My little boy is three years old! He turned three on September 7. I can't believe how fast time has gone by since he was born. He is so much fun right now. He's starting to talk so much clearer. He loves to play with his little sister. He likes to say how big he is, especially compared to his little sister.

For his birthday I made him a Thomas the Tank Engine cake. He really likes "choo choos". It took me all afternoon. By the time I was done I was wondering why in the world I think I have to do these cakes for my kids! Especially since my husband thinks I'm wasting my time, too. I didn't finish this cake untill 7:30 in the evening! I was so glad I had supper in the crockpot so it didn't take long to get supper on. Then, my husband's parents got here and we ate the cake. So, it probably was about an hour after I finished it. So, anyway, here it is.

Here's Mischievo blowing out the candle on his cake

And here he is opening one of his presents.

I think he got way too spoiled! He got a garbage truck that actually lifts the garbage can up and dumps it like a real one and makes a bunch of different noises. He got a big huge Tonka dump truck. He got a remote control Cadillac Escalade. And, to top it all off he got a battery operated Ford F-150 pickup! I wish we had taken more pictures. We just aren't very good at taking pictures. I'll have to take some pictures of his other presents later. Little Miss Priss loves to ride in the Tonka dump truck. It's so cute. I think we took more videos on the video camera than on the digital camera. It's hard to know which one to use sometimes.

So, anyway, that was Mischievo's birthday. Now I'm pretty much up to date, I think! We had our Sunday School Picnic on Saturday, but I was a dummy and didn't take our camera. Mischievo had a lot of fun, though.

Surprise Visit Day 6 and 7

2007-09-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

Alright, let's finish up this visit.

On Saturday, Day 6 we were so tired from the beach, a late night and sick kids waking up in the night that we did not feel like doing much. The kids were still sick so we really couldn't go anywhere anyway. So, I just worked on Little Miss Priss's cake so it would be all ready for her birthday the next day.

The next day was All Day Meeting in Hemet, so that was nice. My mom took both kids home for a nap after lunch, so we got to enjoy the meeting without any distractions from our kids.

After Gospel meeting we had Little Miss Priss's birthday party and it was a lot of fun. She really enjoyed her cake as you can see in this video.

She was probably more interested in the ribbons on her presents than opening them. She really loved the stuffed Tigger my mom gave her. You can see her loving on it in this video.

Monday morning we packed up and headed back home. It was a pretty uneventful trip and the kids did better than expected. I had always dreaded having to drive all the way down to my parents house with my kids but it was so much better than I expected. Lots of snacks and treats sure helped! We didn't drive it all in one day. We stopped in Winnemucca, Nevada for the night and headed out early Tuesday morning, about 6:30. We got home just in time for the kids to take their afternoon nap at 2:00. All in all, it was a good trip. We had a lot of fun and I won't be afraid of driving down there again.

Surprise Visit Day 4 and 5

2007-09-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've got to get this visit wrapped up. This is starting to drag on and on as I get more and more behind!

So, day 4 was August 9, my birthday! I'm 29 years old but I don't feel like it. That sounds so old. I keep thinking I'm still in my early 20's!

So for my birthday my dear husband took me out to all you can eat sushi and it was so good! He was so sweet to do that. He doesn't like sushi so he had Arby's first!

That was about it for my birthday. It was a nice day. I was so glad I was in Hemet. That's what I really wanted to do for my birthday.

The next day was Friday and we went to the beach. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. The water was so warm! I couldn't believe it. It's usually pretty cold. It felt so good to swim around in the waves and catch a few waves on the boogie board. I wore myself out, though, trying to get out to the big waves. I didn't get to go into the water until after lunch and Little Miss Priss finally went to sleep. So, I really didn't get to be in the water for long but it was worth it.

Here's Little Miss Priss enjoying the shade. We got both of them these cute little chairs with their own umbrella at Wal-Mart on clearance for $5.

Mischievo had so much fun in the sand and water.

Here's Mischeivo and Big Brother buried in the sand.

A goofy picture of Little Miss Priss. This picture is actually a good picture of what she's really like. She's the biggest ham you ever saw. She's always making the goofiest faces.

It was so much work packing everything back up and getting it into the cars. Then we we got back to my parents house we had to clean everyone up and you know how hard it is to get all the sand off! Also, by the time we left the beach Little Miss Priss had a fever. We were supposed to be at Bill and Becky B's by 7:00 and we didn't leave the beach until 4:30 and it takes over an hour to get to my parents house from there. So, we didn't have a whole lot of time to clean up, eat supper and get over to the B's house. Since Little Miss Priss had a fever we left her with my mom and while we were gone she threw up. We didn't get home from the B's until 11:00, which is very late for us. Then on top of everything Mischievo came down with the fever, too, in the night. So, we had two fussy kids to deal with during the night. What a way to end a busy day! We were so tired on Saturday.

Surprise Visit Day 2 and 3

2007-09-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

I guess I had better finish up about our surprise visit! I'm not doing very good about posting. I've been working on a cross stitching project, so that has been taking up my spare time. I have to work on it when ever I have the urge or it will never get done. Cross stitching isn't something I like to do for very long and I will go months or years without feeling like doing it. I got motivated to get this project done because I want to be able to hang it up in our addition.

We didn't do much on Tuesday at my parents house. Just relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Little Miss Priss loved playing in this little red car. She would sit in there and make motor sounds and open and close the door. It was so cute.

She also had a lot of fun climbing on and off of these little chairs. She's really starting to be a climber.

Here's a picture of Mischievo, Little Miss Priss and Big Brother. They all had fun playing together.

So, I guess there isn't anything more to write about that was very interesting. It was just a relaxing day and we were still trying to catch up on our sleep after driving all night.

Surprise Visit

2007-08-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

So, on August 3, a Friday we went over to Aberdeen again to visit Steve and Kim. Mischievo got to ride in a combine on Friday night. On Saturday we didn't do too much but Mischievo got to sit in some more tractors. Here's a picture of him on a John Deere tractor wearing Clark's John Deere hat.

And here's Little Miss Priss with her Aunt Kim up in a big John Deere tractor.

On Sunday evening at 6:00 p.m. Aberdeen time, we left for my parents house down in Hemet, CA. That's southern California. It's about 13 hours from Aberdeen. We made it in 13 hours with two stops. We drove all night long and got to my parents house at 6:15 a.m. They had no idea we were coming! They thought we were in Aberdeen. When we got to their house the gate was shut of course and so my husband called and got my dad on the phone. My dad asked if we were on the road and my husband said "Kind of!" and then my husband said we were waiting for a gate to open and my dad's said "Oh really? Where?" and my husband said "We're sitting outside your gate!". My dad could hardly believe it! Here's Mischievo when we got there. He was still asleep

And Little Miss Priss was awake.

The weather was so nice at my parents. I was even cold at first! So, we had breakfast and then my dad went to work. My mom goes to swimming lessons with my sister, sister-in-law and their kids every morning so she said she would take Mischievo with her and he could swim. My husband and I stayed home to take a nap and so did Little Miss Priss. We were so exhausted. It felt so good to sleep. We probably slept a couple of hours but then I couldn't sleep very good anymore because it was so light and out. I was kind of excited, too, about being there.

Mischievo had so much fun playing outside at Nana's(that's what my mom wants to be called). Here's a picture of him riding around on a little battery powered motorcycle that she has.

Later that day my sister and sister-in-law came over and we all had a nice visit. I think everybody was at my parents house for supper, too. It was a very nice first day there. I'll have to do more posts for the rest of our visit.

One Year Old!

2007-08-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

Little Miss Priss One Year Old
Mischievo One Year Old

I can't believe a whole year has gone by since I first held my little girl in my arms. I was so happy and excited! I couldn't believe I actually had my little girl. I was pretty sure I would be having a girl. We only had a girl's name picked out and we never had an ultrasound, so we didn't know what we were having. With Mischievo we were pretty sure we were having a boy and only had a boy's name picked out.
After 6 hours of labor I had this beautiful little girl.
Little Miss Priss a few hours old

I was 8 days overdue and so ready to have my baby. I had already felt overdue on my due date because Mischievo was two days early and I thought for sure I would have this one at least a week early. I felt so huge and tired of lugging around this big belly and having to bend over and pick up Mischievo's toys. That was so hard! I wasn't ready to be in labor, though, I was just ready to have it all behind me. I was kind of terrified because I had such a hard time with Mischievo, it was 30 hours of pain and all day and night. Also, my midwife was on a camping trip so she wouldn't be able to deliver my baby, I would have to have a midwife come from Tri-Cities, which is an hour away. Finally, Friday night (the night before I had Little Miss Priss), I told my husband that I was so ready to have this baby that I didn't care who delivered it!

So, Saturday morning, August 12, 2006, I woke up feeling like I was going to have a baby. My mom had been there since Monday and we thought we would go to Macy's since they were having a sale and I had a gift card from my friend Shelah that she gave me for my birthday. Anyway, while we were there I started having some contractions and all of a sudden I didn't feel like shopping anymore. My mom went ahead and got the things she wanted and when we got to the car I told her I thought she should drive. I was having some pretty good contractions so I didn't think I should drive.

When we got home I told my husband that I thought I was in labor. He asked if I wanted to call the midwife, Ginger in Tri-Cities or the assistant, Kathy, that my midwife had said I could call if I went into labor and needed someone to come and check me. I said I didn't want to bother anyone yet and I would take a bath and see if the contractions kept up. So, I took my bath and my contractions didn't let up. I decided I should just get out and call Kathy.

So, we called her and she said she would come over. In the meantime, my hip was really acting up. With both of my pregnancies I had a lot of trouble with my right hip, it would start hurting as soon as I was pregnant and nothing really ever seemed to relieve it, even though I went to the chiropractor a lot. My chiropractor actually lives right next door. Since it was Saturday he was home and my husband told him I was in labor and that my hip was really bothering me. He said I could come over and he would adjust me. So, I went over there and he adjusted me in between contractions. It was kind of weird to be getting adjusted while I was in labor. He said that was the first time he had adjusted anyone in labor. It gave me a little bit of relief but didn't help me much later.

We went back to our house and then Kathy came and checked me. I think it was about 1:00 p.m. She said I was at 3 cm. That was kind of discouraging to me. I was hoping I was farther along. I was imagining a long drawn out labor like I had with Mischievo. She also thought I was leaking amniotic fluid, so I must have had a very slow leak. Kathy was such a big help, besides being an assistant she is also a doula and a lactation consultant. She was going to school to be a midwife, so she knew a lot about labor and delivery. She had so many good suggestions to help me through each contraction and also to help speed things up.

I think I tried to eat a little bit of soup that my chiropractor's wife sent over, but it didn't taste very good to me. I was just wanting to get on with having this baby. I wish I had written things down so I would remember exactly what time everything happened at. Things get so blurry when you're in labor. Time just fades into the background. You're so busy concentrating on getting through each contraction that you don't even notice the time. At some point my husband got the pool all set up that I was going to have the baby in and started filling it up with warm water. My midwife provides a pool that you can have a waterbirth in. It looks pretty much like a kids pool, but deeper and it has a soft bottom. We also had called the midwife and told her that she had better come. So, she was on her way.

At about 4:00 I had the worst contraction yet and I was starting to panic think I had a long way to go still. Kathy checked me and I was dilated to 8 cm, so she said I could get in the pool. So, I did and right away I felt like pushing, but Kathy didn't want me to, since the midwife wasn't there yet. With Mischievo I never felt like pushing, it took all my strength and will power to get him out, so this was new to me, to feel like pushing. My husband was talking to the midwife on her cell phone because she had gotten lost and need directions. So, she was still over a half an hour away and I felt like pushing!!! Kathy didn't feel like she was ready to deliver a baby by herself so she told me not to push. That was awful! It was so painful, with each contraction my body was wanting me to push but I wasn't supposed to. That was definitely the hardest part of my labor. Finally, at about 5:00 p.m., the midwife got there and as soon as she was in the door she told me I could push. I was so relieved. Finally, I could push!!! It felt so good, to push, much better than holding it back. At, 5:20 p.m., Little Miss Priss was born. She came out quietly and nursed right away. Much different then Mischievo! As soon as he was out he started screaming and when I held him he threw his head back and kept on screaming. Plus, I was so exhausted I felt like I was going to drop him so I didn't even try to nurse him. So, except for that terrible hour where I had to hold back from pushing, Little Miss Priss's labor was very easy. It was definitely a piece of cake compared to Mishievo. That was such a happy moment when I held Little Miss Priss in my arms. My own little girl!

I was so glad my mom was able to be there. She pretty much helped me through most of my contractions. My husband was getting sick and he was also trying to talk to the midwife on the phone a lot, so he didn't help me as much as he did with Mischievo. Also, Mischievo was taking a nap through the worst of my labor and when he woke up my mom just took him over to my neighbor, the chiropractor and they were so happy to watch him. Little Miss Priss was probably born about 45 minutes after he woke up from his nap. When he came back and got to see her he was so excited! Here was the baby that we were always talking about in mommy's tummy! He loved her so much. He was always kissing her and wanting to hold her.

It felt so good to crawl in to bed with my little girl next to me. I was looking forward to be able to lie on my back. For some reason while I was pregnant I wanted to lay on my back so bad! But, you're not supposed to because it puts too much weight on your organs. She was so good that night, too. She slept for 5 hours and then she nursed and went right back to sleep. I felt so good the next day, I couldn't believe it. I didn't even feel like I had just had a baby. With Mischievo I was just so exhausted and sore, plus I had stitches with him. I didn't tear at all with Little Miss Priss and her head was bigger! 14 1/4 inches.

Well, I hope I didn't bore everybody with my birth story. I love hearing other people's birth story's, so I thought someone would want to hear mine.

Little Miss Priss got to have her birthday party at my parents house down in Hemet. She really liked her cake.

I had a lot of fun making her cake, too. I used fondant which I've never done before. It was pretty easy to do. Here she is enjoying her cake.

Here she is opening her presents with a little bit of help.

I have some cute video clips of her birthday, too, but I think I'll have to save those for another post. This post is getting way too long! I have so much to write about right now. We actually surprised my parents by going down there, so I will have to do another post about that.

11 months old

2007-07-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

Little Miss Priss at 11 months old

Mischievo at 11 months old

Well, I'm not too late with the 11 month post. She was 11 months old on the 12th. She's a fast little crawler now and she's really starting to pull herself up a lot. She has eight teeth and looks like she's working on a couple more. Thankfully it doesn't seem to bother her too much.

This is going to be a catch up post also. I have lots of things to catch up on! Last weekend we went to Moses Lake to visit Nathan and Vi. We had a very nice time and Mischievo had lots of fun playing with their black lab puppy. We finally got another family picture taken while we were there, too.

And here's a picture of Nathan and Vi.

Also, Mischievo go a bad cut on his head while we were there. Here's the picture.

He was standing up on a footstool trying to catch a ball and he fell over backwards onto the brick hearth. It bled so much. I felt so terrible for him. It made me want to cry. He recovered pretty fast and didn't even cry when we washed it out. He's such a tough kid.

Also, I'm getting motivated to get organized! I was reading Anna's blog and she was talking about the FlyLady and how she can help you get organized and actually stay on top of everything. So, anyway the first step is to shine your sink. So I did that and this is how it looks.

It made me feel so good! You're supposed to keep it like that all the time so you never have to do all that work to make it shine again. You dry it out with a dish towel every time you use it so water spots don't build up. And you're not supposed to let your dishes sit in there and air dry. I do that all that time! For the last three days I've kept it shiny. We'll see if I can keep it up. The neat thing is it's motivated me to get the rest of my kitchen sparkly clean. It makes me feel so happy to see my shiny, clean sink when I wake up in the morning. The rest of my house should follow. We'll see! I'm probably one of the most disorganized people in the world. Organizing just overwhelms me. I've slowly been learning to do better and hopefully the Flylady will help me even more.

I've got another busy weekend ahead of me. My husband's brother Ken and his wife Amy with their two children Austin and Karissa are coming to visit on Sunday. They'll be here two nights. So, I'm looking forward to that.

I forgot to mention that I got new glasses. I don't know if anyone will notice that in the family picture or not. I've worn the same glasses for 7 years, so I figured it was time for a change.

Random pictures and a video

2007-07-11T08:39:00.001-07:00

Here's a video of Little Miss Priss saying "Happy Day". She's also making the goofiest facessas she watches Mischievo run back and forth in front of her! She is the biggest cheese ball girl you ever saw.
(The video is not working for some reason. I can't seem to get videos to work on Photobucket. Anybody have any ideas?) Here's the link so you can see it.
http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u55/mnmleland/?action=view¤t=DSCN1529.flv
And here's some random pictures of my kids.

And finally, the pictures of our backyard with grass. It actually looks pretty good in the pictures. We had a lot of weeds come up with the grass, though.

Belated 10 Months Old Post

2007-07-09T14:49:00.001-07:00

Little Miss Priss 10 months old
Mischievo 10 months old

Well, here's Little Miss Priss's and Mischievo's 10 month pictures. I'm very late, I know. She'll be 11 months old on Thursday! Only one more month of being a baby. I can't believe how fast time has flown by!

I'm very much enjoying my kids right now. Little Miss Priss is learning so many new things and so is Mischievo. Little Miss Priss just started pulling herself up. She's a very cautious little girl. I think she's going to be more advanced in the talking department than Mischievo. She already says several words (at least we like to think they're words!). It sounds like she says "Happy Day", which is Mischievo's favorite Sunday School hymn, so she probably hears those words a lot. She'll say "ba" for bottle or ball or her baby. She says "mama" and dada". She's been saying "dada" since she was 6 months old and I don't think Mischievo started saying that until he was 8 months or older. Mischievo is more advance in the physical department. He was crawling up and down the stairs and cruising around holding on to things by 10 months old.

Mischievo is saying new words all the time. He's growing up so fast! Every day it seems like he's talking better. He pretty much gets himself completely dressed. Some mornings he'll come into the kitchen all dressed before I even realized he was awake. He doesn't always have his shirt or shorts on the right way. He loves to play ball. I think he has just about every kind of ball you can find. He has good arm, too. He can throw it far and hard. At 7 months old he could play ball by rolling it to you.

Well, I hope I can start doing a little better with posting now. Hopefully, things have slowed down around here. I'll try to post more pictures, too. I guess I don't always have to say anything, do I? I can just post pictures. You guys probably enjoy the pictures of the kids more than what I say, anyway! They're a lot cuter, that's for sure!

Sad times

2007-06-18T16:49:00.000-07:00

This is my nephew, Caleb Charles Leland. He passed away one week ago today. He's the son of my husband's brother. This is a very hard thing to post about, but I think it would be good for me to write about it. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. He is greatly missed by his older brother Clark, his mother Kim and his father, Steve. He has many aunts and uncles that miss him, too.

We just got back from Aberdeen last night, where Steve and Kim live. We left last Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. and got there at 10:00 their time. I was really dreading having to see them grieving so much, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm so glad we could be there with them in their grief. They really are holding up pretty well. They have really been feeling the comfort of the Lord in all this. Its really going to be hard once every one has left and they have to get back to life and Caleb is not there. Its going to leave such a big hole in their little family. It was so hard to leave them. I wanted so bad to make it all better. I feel so much for Clark, he's going to be so lonely without his little brother. They were best friends.

We're all so thankful that Caleb passed away without any pain. He basically just fell over and was gone. He and his mother where riding their bikes over to a retirement home where they maintain the landscaping. When they got there and got off of their bikes Caleb fell and Kim thought he was having a seizure. The paramedics were called but they couldn't revive him in spite of much effort.

It's very comforting to know that he is with the Lord Jesus and he is happier than anybody could be here on earth. He was a happy little boy and often spoke of heaven and what it must be like to be there. Well, now he knows what it is like and wouldn't want to come back here if he could.

Next to the coffin they had printed this verse, "If any man ask you, Why.......Because the Lord hath need of him." Luke 19:31.

The past month has been just crazy around here. First Aunt Susan looked like she would be going home to be with the Lord and we had the Read's here at our house for a couple of days, then Aunt Susan passed away and her funeral was three weeks ago. Then we went to Seattle again. Then Caleb passed away a week ago and we left for Aberdeen after that. Now I'm home again and I have to get ready for our conference this weekend. I just took a break to post this and update everyone on what's going on in my life. I hardly had time to do this! I don't know when I'll get another chance to post anything more. My mom and sister are coming a week from tomorrow and will be here for a little over a week.

9 months old

2007-05-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Little Miss Priss at 9 months old

I can't believe she's 9 months old already! Time has flown by. I'm trying to enjoy her as much as I can. In 3 short months she won't be a baby anymore! She'll be a toddler. She's still not crawling or anything. Mischievo was pulling himself up and scooting on his bottom at this age. I'm surprised that she's not crawling because I thought she would be crawling a few months ago. She started rolling over at 3 1/2 months and she like being on her stomach more than Mischievo did so I thought she would crawl sooner. Oh well, at least she can't get into too much trouble yet.

Mischievo at 9 months old

Well, I won't be doing any blogging for a while. I'm getting company tonight and I don't know how long they will stay. I don't even know them!

I posted a while ago about my best friend's mom having cancer. Well, it doesn't look like she has much longer. Her body is shutting done and she can't eat anything. It looks like she's getting pneumonia and her lungs are filling up. She's in and out of consciousness. I will miss Aunt Susan so much. She's been so much help to me.

So, anyway, the company I'm getting is my friend's sister, Sharon's, mother and father-in-law. Does that make sense? They want to be here to see Aunt Susan before she goes and to be here afterwards. My friend is taking care of Aunt Susan at her house right now and they are just around the corner from us so, Ed and Maureen,(they're the company I'm getting) will be able to walk over and see Aunt Susan whenever they want.

New Kitten

2007-05-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was very eventful. A lot of things got done at our house and we bought a kitten for Mischievo. He just loves it. He's always wanting to hold it. Here's a picture of it.

We haven't come up with a name for it, yet. I hope it lives a long time. I had a very sad experience with my last cat. I had to put the most beautiful Siamese cat to sleep a month before I had Mischievo. We're still not sure what happened, either a hawk or a racoon tore it up pretty good. It was very sad and I still miss that cat. I don't keep cats in the house because I'm allergic to them, so they have to live outside. We're kind of out in the country on an acre and a half, so we have wild animals out here. I'm trying not to get too attached to this kitten so I won't be so sad when it dies.

The other things that happened on Saturday were, we finally got our backyard landscaping done and we got the carpet installed on the stairs going down to our basement. I will be so glad when the grass starts growing and no more dirt is constantly tracked into the house. Right now there is grass seed and it should be pretty well grown in less than a month. We had a sprinkler system put in and on Saturday they got it all tilled and leveled and spread the grass seed.

Here's what the backyard used to look like.
This is what our backyard looks like now.

So, I'll have to post another picture of the backyard when we have nice green grass. I can't wait. Our backyard has been a mess for the last two years. We did an addition off the back of the house and when we dug out the foundation the dirt was just all over the backyard.
I'll have to do another post sometime about everything we've done to the house. We have changed the house a whole lot since my husband bought it over 5 years ago. I've got to round up some before pictures so I can post before and after pictures.

Catching up

2007-05-02T14:45:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to blog about so many different things. I'm always composing posts in my head but hardly ever type it all out. So, I thought I would just do one post and catch up on all the things I've been wanting to blog about.

First, my husband just recently started his own business and he had some company shirts made. He also had a couple of t-shirts made for Mischievo so they could match. I took a picture of them together.

I also took some pictures when my parents were here that I wanted to post. One day we took a little trip out to see Palouse Falls, which is about an hour away. I took some really good pictures of the falls and of my parents with the kids.

The other day we all went fishing and Mischievo caught three fish! (with his dad's help of course!) I also caught the biggest fish I've ever caught before. It was 16 inches long. My husband also caught one 15" long. We did all this in one hour. Mischievo caught a fish within the first minute or two of casting his pole.

Now, I have a video of Little Miss Priss smacking her lips. It's so cute when she does this. She does it a lot when she's eating and any time she wants your attention.
I can't get the video to work right so we'll trying linking to it.
http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u55/mnmleland/?action=view&current=DSCN1283.flv

Videos

2007-04-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Here's Mischievo riding his bike. Please ignore the voice of the dorky mom!:) Oh, how I hate the sound of my voice!!!

Here's Little Miss Priss "dancing" to music.

I have so many cute video clips to post, but I'll have to save those for another day.

Milestones

2007-04-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in so long! I've been very busy. First there was Richmond conference and then my parents were here for a week right after that. Now, I've just been trying to catch up on everything!

My kids have reached some new milestones in the last month or so. Little Miss Priss is sleeping all the way throught the night now. It took 4 bad nights of crying but now she sleeps like a perfect little girl. She's even happier during the day now, too, since she gets a whole night of unbroken sleep. I'm happier during the day now too! I was an emotional wreck when she was waking up every three hours. I feel like a new person now. She's also started clapping and it's so cute. She seems proud of it. I wrote it down in her baby book and then I looked at Mischievo's baby book and he did it exactly two years before her! He clapped on April 11, 2005 at 7 months old and she clapped on April 11, 2007 at 8 months old. I thought that was pretty cool.

Mischievo can pedal and steer his bike. My parents gave it to him for his 2nd birthday and he's finally figured it out. It's so exciting to see him growing up. He's not a baby anymore. He's such a big boy now. I think he's pretty much potty trained now, too. I figured he probably wouldn't be potty trained until he was three, since it seems like a lot of boys aren't trained until then. I had tried getting him to go on the potty a couple of months ago but it just turned into a big struggle and I wasn't going to force it. My pediatrician says when they're ready they'll pretty much train themselves and that sure seems like what he's done. He just all of the sudden wanted to go "pee" on the potty. The first week of it I couldn't get him to do #2 on the potty but last week he started doing that too. So, now he only wears a diaper at night. I guess I can return the box of diapers I bought for him at Costco now!

I'll have to figure out how to put some video clips on here. I have a video of Mischievo riding his bike and one of Little Miss Priss "dancing" to some music.

I'm so behind! I still haven't posted Little Miss Priss's eight month picture on here! So, here it is.

The Peace of God

2007-04-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

I received some very sad news yesterday. My best friend's mom has been diagnosed with bone cancer. She has been in a lot of pain in her neck and back for the last 7 weeks or so and thought she was just out of adjustment or something. She had been going to a chiropractor but that wasn't helping. She finally was feeling so weak that she knew she needed to go to the hospital and get checked out. So, on Sunday morning they took her in and then yesterday she had blood work done and had an MRI. Well, they found out she has cancer all up and down her spine and one of her vertebrae was broken. So, no wonder she was in so much pain. Anyway, the doctor doesn't give her much chance of survival and she decided she didn't want radiation or anything. She just wants to enjoy all the time with her family that she can. It makes me so sad to think of losing Aunt Susan. She has helped me out so much. It doesn't seem like that long ago when she was here helping me out when I was having a hard time after I had Little Miss Priss. She scrubbed my kitchen floor for me and took Mischievo out to the park so I could catch up on things or take a nap. She's the kind of person that has done so much for others. She's nursed a couple of people on their death beds and now she's the one that will need the help. Every time I start thinking about it I start to cry. I'm so glad she has the Lord to help her through this hard time and her family also. She and her husband have peace about this and are taking it from the Lord. "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7
On a brighter note, I'm really looking forward to going to Richmond conference this weekend. My mother-in-law is going to keep our two kids for us on Friday and then she and my father-in-law will come up on Saturday and bring them. It's going to be so nice to be able to sit through a whole meeting and be able to listen to it all without having to take a baby out! I hardly ever get to sit through a whole meeting these days. My husband won't have to be distracted by a busy toddler either. We just decided yesterday that we would leave Little Miss Priss with them. It will be a lot easier on Mischievo, too. It's hard for a 2 year old to sit through that many meetings. He loves his Grandpa, so he will have so much fun staying with them.

Check out my Slide Show!

2007-03-28T15:31:00.001-07:00

I discovered slide.com and thought I would try it out. Just a few pictures of my kids. My little sister started a blog so check it out. http://rayloriskidsandlife.blogspot.com

2007-03-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

I thought I would post pictures of my kids so you can see what they looked like at different ages. Unfortunately, when I tried to pull up some pictures of Mischievo it said the files were lost! That made me feel sick, maybe there's a way to get them back, I don't know. At least most of them were developed already, so they're not completely lost. I could scan them in if I took the time to figure out how to do that, but I decided I'll just post what I have. I have them at birth, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months and 7 months. That's all I could find for Mischievo and Little Miss Priss isn't eight months old yet, so we'll have to wait for that one.

Little Miss Priss a few hours old
Mischievo a few hours old

Little Miss Priss 2 months old

Mischievo 2 months old

Little Miss Priss 7 months old

Mischievo 7 months old

Finally! I got it! I have been working on this post all afternoon! The whole time the kids were napping I was trying to figure out how to post these pictures and put captions under them and was going crazy. Then they both woke up and I couldn't work on it anymore. Now they're in bed and I can get it finished!

My first post

2007-03-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't exactly know what I'm doing, but here I am. I thought it would be fun to keep everyone updated on what's happening in my life. I hope people will visit my blog and leave comments for me to read. I really enjoy reading everyone else's blogs. This will probably be a good way for me to stay up to date on taking pictures of my kids!

Today, my little girl, (I'll have to come up with a good name for her later) woke up with a fever. She was definitely not feeling very well. She wouldn't even smile at me. She's usually very happy when she wakes up in the morning. So, anyway I fed her breakfast and put her back down for a nap after I gave her some Motrin for her fever. I was going to start working out on Mondays, but since she was sick I called up my friend, Amy to tell her I wouldn't be working out with her today. She asked if I wanted her to take my little boy and I said that would be great. He was so excited when I told him he was going with Amy today. When she got her he went right out the door and said"Bye-bye, Mommy" with hardly a backward glance at me! Amy is much more fun than mommy.

So, now I had lots of peace and quiet to get the laundry started and take a nap. My little girl was fussy last night, so I woke up very tired this morning. That seems to be the story of my life, though. If it's not a fever keeping her awake, there's always something else. She is a terrible sleeper at night. She takes very good naps during the day, though, which is a relief. She took a very good nap this morning and didn't wake up until my little boy got back with Amy. Now, they're both taking a nap and I have a little time to get this blog started.

Well, that's a little example of the way my days usually go. Nothing too exciting. I'll try to take more pictures of the kids so I can put some recent pictures on here. The family picture was taken back in November, 2006. My little girl was 3 months and my boy 2 years.