Truth

We can all ask

Why?

But, really...there is no answer to this question.


People want to know if he was mentally ill.

The answer to this is a resounding YES. 

No one in their right mind would do this.





People have asked me how I'm handling this with my boys.

They are nine and five.




My answer?

I am telling them the truth.

I'm not concealing it from them.

Yes, I am tayloring my conversations to what I know they can handle.

However, I want them to hear it from me first.

I want them to know that I will always tell them the truth.

That they can trust me and their father.

That, no matter what they're feeling, they can work it out with us.

I don't want them to hear it from friends and wonder

 "why did they hide this from me?"

And I want to direct their attention to something positive in all this madness.

Mr. Roger's mother once told him to "watch for helpers."

Yes, there was one evil person, but there are MANY helpers.

Helpers God put there to help everyone and show His love.

In the midst of darkness, there is Light.

I'm choosing to focus my eyes on that Light.


Light will always overcome darkness.

That is the Truth I'm choosing to focus on.

5QF

I have Chex Mix baking in my oven.

'nuf said.

1. If you bake during the holidays, what is your favorite thing to make?

Chex Mix.  The house smells so buttery and good.  Mmmmm.

I'd make these raspberry merange thingy's....but my mom makes those, so I don't have to.  But they are SOOOOO good!

2. Present giving: Gift bag vs wrapped box?

I like wrapped boxes.  Gift bags are cool for showers and such, but I always like to package things up neatly.  It just feels more Christmas-y to me.

3. What do you keep your thermostat on during the winter/summer in your house?

I want to say 64 winter and 76 in summer...I think.  I can't really remember for certain. 

4. When thinking of your "Christmas to-do list" what percentage "done" are you?

Shopping is done, crafting is at 40%, wrapping is a 20%, shipping is at 0%, cards are at 50%.

5. Do you do the "Elf on a Shelf"? If so, is your Elf naughty and what shenanigans has he gotten into?

No.  That thing gives me the creeps.


This is also where I could get on a little soap box and talk about how the kids have to be good because the Elf sees all, and he'll report to Santa if they've been bad or good....and I could talk about how the kiddos should want to be good all the time because that's what God would want....and I could talk about Santa not being real, etc. etc. etc....but I won't.  :)

12/12/03-12/12/12

Nine years ago, I received the best title ever:  Mom.

I can't believe it's been NINE years!

How quickly life goes by...

in a blink we went from the picture above

to this:

 (below)

Happy Birthday to my sweet, caring, sensitive, sports fanatic boy.

So glad God gave me you.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for you.  :)

Tuesday Ten

1.  I'm hoping I actually get to 10- I kept baby L. up way to late last night, and she was a nightmare getting to sleep.  HOWEVER, once she did get to sleep (10:30 instead of 8), she slept straight through until 5:30 (instead of waking up at her usual 2am).  Awesomeness....HOWEVER, she's being a beast for naps this morning.

2.  Tomorrow is A's birthday.  Yep, 12-12-12 will be his 9th birthday.  I'm knee deep in reindeer cookies.  Although his class size is small at school, he wants to bring treats to Cadets tomorrow night.  For 50 kids.  Seriously.

3.  I had to laugh at myself this morning.  What I THOUGHT was hair spray in an aerosol can (and have been using as such for 1 year!) is actually a sleek/straight/smooth serum.  So, I'd spend an hour (ok...20 minutes) curling my hair and spray that baby up only to have it fall flat before I got to my destination.  I've been like "what is UP with my hair?!?!?  it won't hold a curl!!!"  Oh yeah....READ THE CAN!

4.  I picked up our Christmas cards at Costco yesterday.  And the dude forgot to give me envelopes.  So, now I get to run back to Costco today.  Have I ever mentioned how inconvenient these little stops are with a newborn?!?!?

5.  This week is our CRAZY Christmas/birthday week.  We have something every night until next week.  Every.single.night.  We started this craziness last weekend.  It's making me tired just thinking about it.  So...a week from today- my Tuesday Ten may look like this:  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

6.  My heart is hurting for some friends of mine.  They are struggling right now.  Everytime I see them, I can see the stress written on their faces.  These are people I cherish.  Will you please keep them in your prayers?

7.  Ally has another ear infection.  And I need to get her some heart worm pills.  Pet Meds.com here I come!

8.  I am within reach of my pre-baby weight.  Like one good low carb week away from pre-baby weight.  (which won't happen until after Christmas- just being honest here!).  But, the wonderful gift of childbirth has reformulated where everything gets distributed.  So, clothes are ill-fitting and not comfy at all.  This is frustrating.

9.  My postaprtum check up went well last week.  Car door to car door was 24 minutes.  I love that OB.  Even though he has the personality of a neurologist, he's thorough and fast.  I dig that.  Funny:  there's a paper filled out for every complication in childbirth.  The nurse was going over my chart and kept saying "oh my!" every time she turned the page and read about the complications we had.  She said "oh my" four times.  SOOOOOO glad we're on the other side of that!!!

10.  We FINALLY have pictures hanging on the walls in our rooms!  I have some walls to decorate in our room, but baby L's nursery is FINALLY all done!  Whoot!  Pictures to come later.  :)

Mt first post partum 5QF!

Can you believe that baby L. is already 6 weeks old?  Fastest (and yet, slowest) 6 weeks ever! 

You know what that means, though?  Yep....6 week post partum check up for me. 


Oh.joy.



Ugh.

But, then I'm done with "all that" for an entire year.

Baby L. had about 4 nights where she was sleeping 8 hours a night.  Then, 2 nights ago, it abruptly came to an end.  I'm thinking that she wasn't getting enough calories during the day to give her enough all night- because she's CHUGGING during the late night feed. 

I know eventually I will sleep well again.  I know this.  So....I'm going to be patient while she grows.  She's such a little peanut!

Ok...questions:


1. How many times have you moved and do you have any tips?


I moved from my parent's house into my husband's house when we got married.  And then from our old house into the Love Shack.  (and a few times within the Love Shack when we built....but I don't think that counts). 

I really have no tips.  Other than to get rid of a lot of your crap BEFORE packing it.  I'm still uncovering boxes (YES- 7 YEARS LATER!!!)  and thinking "why the heck did I keep that?!?!".

PURGE!!!


2. Do you have a budget for the holidays, or just keep sliding the credit card and have a heart attack in Jan?

For those that know me, this answer will not come as any surprise.

BUDGET BABY!!!!

No heart attacks in Jan.

Oh...and guess what our budget for the ENTIRE Christmas season is?!?!?!

$400

Yep.  That's it.

Including Christmas cards.

Not only do we have an arseload of medical bills coming in to worry about, but D and I have always felt that the commercialism of the holiday really ruins the real meaning behind it all.  And commercialism really drives us nuts any other day of the year, so why make an exception for Christmas?!?!?

That said, my love language is gift giving.  I do enjoy gifting people I love and care about.  I'm also figuring out that it's in my boys' love language as well.  So, we do gift give to family members and friends...but within the budget.  Or with homemade gifts.  The boys get a stocking and 2 presents from us- and that's more than enough, we think.

(This is where I could tell you about D going all "crazy daddy", but I don't have his permission yet...so I'll just wait on that one).


3. What is the one medical thing you avoid like the plague?

UGH...the DENTIST!  GAH!  Makes me want to puke just thinking of it.

I loathe the dentist.

Dental appointments bring out the horrible side of me.  I get very mean to them.  I hate hate hate going.

Yeah....it's a bad aversion.

I need to make an appointment, though.  I'm about a year overdue.  Grrrrrr.



4. What your least favorite Christmas song?

Feliz Navidad.

Only my mom will get why this song really wants me to jab ice picks in my ear drums...but there's a reason behind it.

Long story made really short:

Grandma
back seat of mini-van
5 hour trip to Wisconsin
she sang it over. and over. and over. and over.
and she smelled of blue hair.


5. This Christmas are you spending more, less or about the same? Why?

We've had the same Christmas budget for the past 3 years now.  Again...I hate that commercialism is so tied into this holiday.  Let's get back to grass roots, baby!

Top Ten. Lots of pictures

I cannot guarantee that I will make it on my computer tomorrow...so I'm posting a Tuesday Ten on Monday night.  Cause I'm kinda a rebel that way.

And thanks, Mama M. for the idea to get around Bloggers nasty photo space constraints by using my Flikr stream!  I may just abandon blogger all together if this continues...but for now, while I weigh options, this shall do.  :)

Here's some pics:


1.  This is one of my favorite pics of baby L.  I took this in hope that it would be in the birth announcement, but if you look closely, she is actually a tad out of focus, and the blanket it in focus.  Grrrr.  It's still a sweet shot, though.  (And, the birth announcements turned out SWEET thanks to a fantastic graphic designer, Michelle).




2.  Poppa Hoppa and grandma Hoppa came over to celebrate D's birthday (which was actually Thanksgiving day, but we were with my family that day, so we got to do 2 celebrations!).  I love the look on my father-in-law's face here.  Sheer bliss and adoration.  What a sweet moment for Baby L. to look back on.


3.  A. loves to hold Baby L.  He is a doting big brother, and loves being a part of her life.  He doesn't even get rattled when she's fussy.  Big brother awesomeness.  :)




4.  Thanksgiving Day.  Sweet potato casserole.  This is my favorite dish of all time.  I seriously think I could eat it every day and be totally content.  My mom kinda torched the marshmallows.  She wanted to pull them off and redo it, but we started scooping before she could (in an effort to let her know we didn't care about some charcoal).  It was still really really good.  Crispy and good.  Mmmmmm.  Now I want some sweet potato casserole.





5.  Another cute shot that made it into the birth announcement.  I love her face here...it makes me smile. :)




6.  Go Blue.




7.  Another sweet Grandpa picture.  This is my dad on Thanksgiving Day with his "mouse." 
( His nickname for his only granddaughter).  Again....look at the love on his face!  GAH!  I love grandpas.  :)




8.  Hunting weekend.  I FINALLY made it to see my "grandparents" (sometimes water IS thicker than blood- this is one of those times).  So, baby L. FINALLY got to meet her great grandparents.  I hadn't seen them in almost a year- since pregnancy and nursing home smells DON'T mix for me.  They had changed so much, but were the same old souls that I love and adore so much.  Grandma was LOVING the chance to hold L, but quickly gave her up- since L was REALLY fussy. 





9.  Thanksgiving morning.  D. taught our boys and the neighbor kid how to play Capture the Flag.  C. decided to "dress up" for the part by wearing karate pants, Batman mask and dog tags. 

Hard core, C., hard core.




10.  One of my favorite shots of my THREE kids.  Seriously...I have THREE kids!  (sometimes it's hard for even me to believe).  And again, Go Blue!

A post of malarky

This is a random post to end all random posts.  Because I feel as though I should post something...it has been almost a week since my last post.

• I had all these awesome pictures to share with you, but apparently, blogger says I'm out of space.  Which is funny- because when I click on "add more space," it says I'm only using 77% of available space.  Hmmmmm....  And, no, I'm not going to spend money for more space.  So, until I figure out a way around it- no pictures, you will get.

• I had an awesome Thanksgiving.  Almost everything at the table was gf, and I had a FANTASTIC and desperately needed looooooooooong nap afterward.

• No, Baby L does not sleep great.  Yes, I am tired.  And I'm still working.  And I have two other kids to take care of and love on.  And I am overextended.  But, I'm working on that.

• Thanks to cyber Monday, I have a nice dent in my Christmas shopping done.  I'm hoping to put a bigger dent in that very soon.

• There is a horrible stomach bug going around my basic geographic area.  I'm freaked out by it.  I think it should be illegal for people (entire households, really) with newborns to get a stomach bug....or any bug for that matter.  Isn't having a newborn enough?!?!?

• We are having our family pictures taken this weekend.  I'm excited to see my friend, Stephenie, again...but also looking forward to getting some updated family pics now that Baby L is in the picture.  (Yes, pun totally intended :)

• I know that there are certain people in this world that think breastfeeding is the ONLY way to go with infants.  And there are some people who try to help and offer pointers.  Believe me, I have called THREE different lactation consultants....I have pumped, I have taken herbal supplements (which, turns out I am allergic to!!!), I have nursed her every hour, I have had a beer, I have sat under a hot shower....yep....I'm doing it.  And I'm still not making enough milk to support my little baby girl.  So, I'm supplementing.  Some judgers are just going to have to get over it.

• I have three thank you notes to write before I'm done with thank you notes from L's birth.  Three.  You'd think I could sit and just write them out, eh?  Nope....I'm procrastinating.  For what reason, I don't know.  Slackers unite!

• I'm desperate to get baby L. on a schedule!  I hate never knowing what the day will bring, and when I can run errands, chill out, or take a nap.  I need schedules.  Unfortunately, with an itty bitty baby....there are no predictable time tables- yet.

• Funny story:  I called today to get a refill on C's Albuterol Nebulizer prescription.  The nurse called back and stated that there is NO record of C having a nebulizer prescribed in his chart (which he has had since 18 months old, and has had at least 2 refills prescribed to him by his Dr.- as well as 3 ER visits all with MORE albuterol prescriptions).  So....it's going to take 2 business days to get our refill- since it's not in his chart.  HOWEVER, while I was on the phone, the friendly little nurse reminded me that C was due for an asthma checkup.  Ummmm, wha?  You have him due for an asthma check up because it's severe enough to be seen often in the office, BUT they have NO RECORD of the medicine we use to treat his asthma?!?!?!  Seriously? 

• Anyway, here's your random post.  I'm off to bed.  :)