Golden Nuggets

I've been catching my kids lately saying the "darndest things"...

I overheard a scuffle between Madison and Malachi, and although I don't know what happened, they seemed to resolve it on their own:

Madison: "Say 'Sorry', for goodness sakes!"

Malachi: (With emphasis) "Sorry, for goodness aches!"

On Easter Sunday morning, our neighbor brought over a basket of goodies for the kids and left it on our back patio. The kids enjoyed going through it and finding delicious treasures while Seth and I enjoyed watching the kids dive in. We had to laugh as we watched as Malachi picked up sparkly plastic egg and exclaimed,

"What's this 'Doo-(h)ickey'?"

Yesterday, I changed Mathias' diaper in the dining room, then, in order to get him redressed without grabbing the soggy dud, wrapped it up and threw it in the direction of the kitchen garbage...Now, even if I was Michael Jordan, I wouldn't have been able to make it in the can, but Malachi noticed the flaw and said,

"Mom, you whiffed it!"

Enjoy, we sure did!

Easter, Etc.

Hi Folks,

I think it's high time I update you on recent happenings in our lives.

First of all, The Promise was a success. As far as I know, there were 3 people who gave their hearts to the Lord! That makes all of the hours and hard work worth it, right there. Below is a picture of our family in front of the empty tomb! (I missed the opportunities to get pictures of our family in our "Promise Garb", sorry.)

After church, Easter morning, my whole family went out for brunch. I only share that because I want you to see Mathias' reaction to Grandma giving him his first lemon:

After a nice afternoon nap, we headed to Seth's Folks' house for an Easter Egg Hunt. Seth's twin sister Sandy, who doesn't have kids yet, brought a huge tote FULL of eggs with little prizes inside. Divide those by the number of children hunting (7) and you've got a large grocery sack full for each child! The adults were just throwing eggs on the ground to get them all "hidden".

Auntie Sandy

Uncle Davy (Sandy's husband) assisting in the festivities

All in all, it turned out to be a nice Early Easter in Minnesota!

Life Is About to Get A Whole Lot Busier...

Last night was the first in a weeklong series of practices, dress rehearsals and performances for THE PROMISE, an Easter Production on the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As I've stated before, our WHOLE family will be involved. Please pray for stamina for us as we try to take it all one day at a time :D

Please also pray for Mathias, as I've been trying diligently to get him on a reasonable eating and sleeping schedule...which, I'm sure will go right out the window this week.

And finally, pray for the hundreds that will see THE PROMISE this year, that they will be open to what God wants to do in their hearts and lives through the drama.

Thanks,
Rachel

"Ferberization"

As I type this, I am listening to my poor little baby wail himself to sleep on the monitor in my living room. How long does it take until they're okay with going to sleep on their own? We've been using the Ferber Method since he was born! And when will he start sleeping for longer than 2-3 hour intervals in the middle of the night?

For the most part, Mathias has a pretty constant napping schedule. I lay him down between 9 and 9:30 for his first nap, and between 12 and 1 for his second. Then, he usually gets tired again around 4 or 5 so he'll take his final nap then. We lay him down for the night around 7:30-8 and then he's up again 4-5 times per night. Right now we're slowly introducing solids before bedtime in hopes that it will calm any hunger pains he may feel in the night, but I think it's too early to tell if that's working or not.

I'll admit that in the night, I don't let him cry very long before I go in and get him. Seth's pointed that out to me more than once :D. And as for his daytime naps, they tend to be pretty short-1/2 hour to 45 minutes most of the time.

HELP! Does anyone have any sleep advice for me?

If You Were a Five Year Old Girl...

What sorts of pictures would be on your digital camera?


Yea, that'd be about right. Enjoy the photographic talent of my five year old.

Another Thing to be Proud of...

As rotton as I felt yesterday, I still managed to be somewhat productive. (And as long as Mat wasn't going to let me sleep, I might as well have gotten something done...)

That's right, FIVE STINKIN' scrapbook pages! Let me tell you, if you're at all behind in your scrapbooking and need some motivation? You NEED to get the Everyday Power Palette from Creative Memories. There's enough in there do complete a whole scrapbook and still have some left over! And the best part? Everything co-ordinates! I have quite a bit of cheap-o Dollar Store stuff, and sometimes even the stuff in the same pack doesn't even match! So if you're like me and you're ready to fill your long, stuck inside, freezing cold days doing something productive, go here and order an Everyday Power Palette for yourself!

Oh, My Aching Body!

It's amazing how one day you can feel just fine-good, in fact-and the next feel like you hit a freight train.

As I type this with my freezing cold fingers, I can consciously feel every part of my body. My feet ache, my back aches. My head and neck ache. When Seth or one of the kids touches me, I can feel a surge run through my sore body. My eyes are all red and bloodshot.

But good news: Lunchtime is about to conclude, and then my two older children will be off to dreamland. The bad news? Mathias just awoke from an hour and a half morning nap and I don't forsee him settling back in between the sheets any time soon.

Well, I'll just make myself a cup of hot something-or-other and burrow into blankets on the couch. I'll pop in our taping of IDOL last night and pull Mat and his bouncer right up next to me. And, hopefully, I can catch some healing ZZZs.

Sleepy Boy

Remember when you could sleep anywhere?
Yea, me neither.

V-Day 2008

We had a really fun day this past Thursday. The morning was spent planning and executing our grand Valentine's Day Lunch Banquet! Madison loved being involved in surprising her Daddy when he came home from lunch. (Malachi's time was rather spent playing with toys in his bedroom.) So upon arrival, Daddy was met with abundant heart-shaped gourmet that promised to tickle his palate.

After work, Seth took me to supper at a restaurant that is notorious for it's

R E A L L Y S L O W S E R V I C E

(and, of course, it's decadent Spinach and Artichoke Dip) but fortunately, our order was expedited very swiftly, and we were out the door in no time! We made it back to town in time for the early showing of FOOLS GOLD

Basement Before/After

This Picture Makes Me Laugh

If'n you know my daughter Madison, you can't help but laugh...

See? TOLDJA!

Something to be Aware of...

Cell phone numbers just went public !!

REMINDER....all cell phone numbers have been released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls.

YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent this, call the following number from yourcell phone:

888-382-1222.

or go to www.donotcall.gov

It is the Federal DO NOT CALL list. It will only take aminute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the phone number you want to have blocked if you do it by phone. You cannot call from a different phone number.

I hope you find this helpful!

Bloggity Blog

Hey Strangers!

My appologies for neglecting my faithful 2 readers! :D You know, when one works from home, the last thing one wants to do is spend more time than necessary on one's computer! (And, regretfully, that includes blogging...)

But anyway, I'm here today to update you on the recent goings on in our family. One of the last times we spoke, I told you of Mathias' MRI appointment. Well, of course the results came back positive, (as in, "Good Results") and Mathias is going to be just fine! They said they could see where the bleed had occured on the sub-arachnoid portion of his brain, but that it was healing nicely. So other than a bout with Thrush, which left a crazy diaper rash, Mathias is a happy, healthy little boy! PRAISE THE LORD!

We recently registered Malachi for preschool, and he couldn't be more excited! He keeps reminding me that he'll need a backpack for school next year. (Oh yea! Good thing you reminded me Malachi, I might have forgotten! :D) His newest favorite toy is a Nintendo 64 my cousin gave to us for Christmas. He's always asking if he can play "Mario Party" and his favorite character is "Lily-oshi", which, I'm pretty sure is Luigi... or is it Yoshi?

Madison has become quite interested in gymnastics lately, (more on that later) and is often asking us to help her do a handstand or showing us her somersaults. She's quite helpful and is always willing to play with her little brothers to keep them happy when Mommy's busy. She's started to really enjoy drawing. We found an old drawing instruction book at Grandma's that she said Madison could have, so now she asks me to help her draw the various animals and structures in that book. She's pretty good, I think!

Perhaps the reason Madison likes gymnastics so much lately is that her daddy is the new JV Gymnastics coach for our school system! I know, I know-gymnastics?! But the program needed a strong guy for the job, and since Seth has previous coaching experience, they gave it to him! He really enjoys it and it seems the girls on the team are really glad he's there as well! Seth's also been really busy at work lately: finishing a couple of bigger jobs down in Texas, bidding new ones, he's been puting in a lot of overtime lately. And as if that doesn't make him busy enough, he's now added our church's Easter Program and the completion of our basement into the mix!

He's agreed, for the 3rd year now, to play "Doubting Thomas" in THE PROMISE at our church. With how busy he's been, he wouldn't have agreed to do it, save for the fact that the whole rest of his family is going to be involved this year! That's right, our Music Pastor has agreed to let Mathias be just another face in the crowd as my baby. The older kids voiced their interest to be children in the program, so I asked him if I could join the choir again and tote Mat around with me. It's something that hasn't been done before (a baby townsperson), but he seemed to like the idea. I'm actually really looking forward to it ;D.

The basement is really nearing completion! Seth and I worked on glueing/taping down most of the carpet last night, and we have one more piece to attach to the floor and then my sister can move in! Granted, we won't have the bathroom finished for her, and we still need to lay tile in the entry area, but it'll be finished enough to move her in. I'll have before/after pictures soon!

Well, hopefully that gets you up to date!

And The Winner Is...

Remember this post? The one where I asked you guys to vote for my friend Teresa's cousin Parker to win the Gap Casting Call? Well, follow this link because the winners were announced today:

Meet The Winners!

Then watch the Rachael Ray show this afternoon on Channel 11 at 2pm!

Congratulations Parker!!

Quote For The Day

"Madithon, I know our baby brother ith a gift."

-Malachi

MRIs and a Merry Christmas

Yesterday was (hopefully) our final specialty appointment for Mathias. He had an MRI at Children's in the Cities. It all went very smoothly (he didn't, however, like the medicine they gave him to help him sleep through the testing). We were required not to feed him or let him sleep for 3 1/2 hours before the test, and I was so worried that he'd be irritable, but he was just great! We should know the results of the MRI next week sometime.

Mat & Daddy: waiting to be sedated

To squelch criticism that there aren't enough "me" pics on here...

Chloral Hydrate- Not. Pleasant.

Do your thing. Just let me sleep!

In other news. Seth and I decided to forego the traditional exchanging of gifts this year and instead, take a night away. Since we had to keep Mat awake the 3 1/2 hours prior to his appointment, and that's difficult to do on a long car ride, we thought this would be a great time to do it. So we booked ourselves a nice suite and headed for the Cities a night early. We had a relaxing time together, free from stress and responsibility...who knows, maybe this will become an annual tradition?!

What Do You Do All Day?

Okay, I know I haven't posted a lot of original stuff on my blog lately, but this one I just couldn't resist. Thanks Teresa!

What Do You Do All Day?

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel.

She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked,"What happened here today?"

She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?" "Yes," was his incredulous reply.

She answered,"Well, today I didn't do it."

Logan's Calf

All You Gotta Do...

Is Ask:

Our church hired a photography company to come in and take pictures for the new directory. Of course, once they take the perfect picture(s) you're always tempted to buy, right? Right. But what if all you had to buy was the copyright, and a copy of your favorite picture? Is that an option?

We asked.

We received.

New Again