Happy Birthday Michaela!

Michaela turned 11 on Jan. 29th, 2009. I can't get over how old she is getting! Closer to a teenager day by day, and so much fun to be around. She has a great sense of humor and loves to hang out with her family. She is super responsible; she can't wait to babysit! We love you Michaela!

Grandpa sent her flowers, and I took her some balloons when I took her out to lunch yesterday.

Tonight we took her and three of her friends out to dinner at Craigos, then they came home to watch a movie. They are such a great group of girls; Michaela has some wonderful friends. As we were leaving the video store, a man held the door open for us. Each of the girls thanked him; I was so proud and impressed. I love that Michaela has friends that are kind, caring and share our values.

I just realized that I should explain why they are in a bed! We have a big room downstairs that has my craft things, sewing desk, exercise stuff, a tv, and a bed we put guests in. That is where they are. Its great to have someplace like that, so Jason and I aren't relegated to upstairs on nights like this!

Cute Kitties

W is for Worms

It was my week for preschool and I had the letter W and worms. I did a worm filled lesson; we sang a worm song, made bead worms, learned what worms do for our gardens, and painted with real worms! The kids loved it.
When I was planning this, I didn't have any idea that I would have a problem with the worms. I went fishing as a kid, and have a garden. When I got the worms, however, I discovered I have an aversion to worms! Jason brought in the cup of worms, and I took the lid off. There was a huge fat one wriggleing around on top, and I had to quickly close the lid.
Uh oh, how am I going to do this lesson if I can't handle even seeing the worms, let alone touch them?
In comes Jason, who said he would come home to help.
On the day of the lesson, I sat down with the worms, and Jason wasn't home yet. I thought I could let the kids look at the worms, but when I opened the cup, there was about 5 or 6 of them squirming around all tangled up on top, and nope, couldn't do it! How funny!Jason came and helped, and all was well. Interestingly enough, when the worms were out of the cup, I was ok with them. Who knew?

Claire shared my distaste. She didn't want to touch them. She held one for one brief moment; it was too quick to catch on camera!


Carter had no problem holding them, though he got a funny look on his face when he did!

Riley was the one who said she didn't like worms, but was brave enough to hold one.

Ava was fearless. She was the first to take one, really enjoyed holding them.

I put paint on the paper, and we let the worms crawl around in the paint. It made some neat designs.


And then of course, we had to have worms and dirt for snack.

This is the girls in the preschool. So cute!

It won't be long now!

Corrine is sitting up and rolling over and pushing up; it won't be long until she is mobile! I just hope all of our tile isn't too hard on her little knees. At least it is winter, she will be wearing long pants. Maybe she will be walking by summer and I won't have to worry about that. As I look around my house, I realize I have a lot of work to do to make it baby safe. Ava was almost 2 when we moved here, so we have never had a baby in this house, and I decorated accordingly.

She still can't sit up for long, but she can do it!

Look out world; here I come!

I have learned....

to do an intervention with a sick cat. We have soft, white, fluffy carpet in our bedroom, and I have trained myself to wake at the first sound of near cat puking. If you don't have a cat, it is a very distinctive sound. I just sat here wondering how I could type it, and it simply isn't possible. So at the very first sound of sick cat (if its in our bedroom; if its not, I leave it until morning!), I fly out of bed and launch the cat into the hallway, tile is much easier to clean than white carpet. This has worked; we have lived her for almost 3 years and have no ugly spots on our carpet. This happened last night, when conviently Payden was also up not feeling well (her acid reflux) and the baby wasn't sleeping well. I was literally up from 2am to 4:30 am straight, with a few times before and after that. It seems it wasn't in the stars for me to sleep well last night, and the puking gods wanted to make sure I cleaned up puke from someone, human or feline.

Oh, Cats...

Many of you know that we have two cats. We love these kitties; they are a part of our family. And just like any other member of the family, they have their own personalities and quirks. Nutmeg, our younger cat, has an affinity for yarn. I know, most cats do, but I don't know if many of them carry it as far as Nutmeg does. I mean, literally, carry it. Far.

This is Nutmeg. Notice the white yarn next to her. I tried to catch her with it in her mouth, but I wasn't quick enough. She will carry around balls and skeins of yarn, meowing a funny "I've got one" meow. We all know when she's "got one". The problem isn't that she carries them around, its that somehow, she ends up unraveling it throughout the house.



It went around the couch,

Down the upstairs hall,



down the stairs,

down the downstairs hall,

the LONG downstairs hall,

into the spare room,

and you can see that it origionated from the closet in the spare room.

She does this alot. I mean, I hate yarn, she does it that much. I try to tell the girls to put the yarn away and CLOSE the closet door, but they consitently forget to do so, and the yarn calls Nutmegs name. She strings it all over the house. She did it in our old house too. Once, when it was one the market, we left for a showing. The house was spotless, all ready to show. When we came back, there was yarn all OVER the house. It was crisscrossed in so many places and in so many rooms, it looked like we were characters in a Bond movie and had a priceless painting to protect with laser lights. I was mortified. Did it look like that when the people came to look? What must they have thought? That we were some crazy jokesters that didn't really want to sell our house? That it was some misguided attempt to partition some areas off so they couldn't go there? I had a visual of those poor people lifting legs and ducking heads to meander through our yarn carnival. Oh well. They probably had a good laugh.

Our cats have a history with string of any kind, come to think of it. When my old cat, Blackie, was alive, he liked to eat curling ribbon. Ok, no big deal, except he always puked it up, so I was cleaning up piles of puke that looked like they had been wrapped up nice for me. On the off chance that he didn't puke them up, you guessed it, it came out the other side. Fortuneatly, he was a good cat and I didn't see that side of it much. Except for one very memorable time. I remember watching Blackie walk past me, with something interesting trailing behind him. He had passed the string, and it was attached to a piece of poo. The piece of poo was at the end, and the other end of the ribbon was still where the sun don't shine, people. There was about three feet of ribbon in between. I grabbed a paper towel, grabbed hold of the poo, and held still while he walked away. Another two feet came out, and he was very embarrased about it. You should have seen his face!

Nutmeg will eat string as well, although she seems to prefer the minty taste of dental floss. Payden had been playing with hers, and unwound the whole spool. She threw it in the garbage in the bathroom, and there Nutmeg found it. Michaela and I were upstairs, when Nutmeg came running up the stairs, with Poof chasing her. The reason Poof was chasing her was because Nutmeg was trailing about 9 feet of dental floss. It was coming out of her mouth! She had started chewing it down without realizing how long it was. Since they don't have thumbs, there wasn't anything she could do but keep going. To relieve her of her misery, I started pulling it out of her mouth. Keep in mind, the length I pulled out of her was in her stomach. GROSS! It just kept coming and coming. I never knew there was that much floss in one container. I pulled out another 10 feet of slimy floss before Nutmeg was completely purged. Michaela was laughing so hard she was on the floor. I am sure that is something we will never forget.

Cats are sweet and loveable and very good entertainment.

First Haircut!

This weekend we took all the girls to get their hair cut, and Ava was included this time. I have been putting off getting her hair cut because she still has her sweet baby curls, and I didn't want to cut them off. It was time, however, so on the spur of the moment I said we should cut her hair too. Ava was all for it, and since I hadn't had days to think about it, it was easier to do. Really, she only cut off about 1/2 inch or so, but I was still worried about those baby curls. She still has them, yeah! But now her hair is actually even on the bottom, which is nice.

Ava sat completely still the whole time. She is a total girl, and loves any sort of thing to do with pampering or making oneself beautiful.

All done! It took only about 10 minutes, but she was so proud of her new hair cut. She kept telling everybody "I got my hair cut!"

I loved seeing her under the dryer. So cute!



Here is Ava, under the dryer with all the old ladies!

Our long night...

Last night we were watching a movie and Ava said her tummy hurt. This isn't uncommom with Ava, so my pukaphobia wasn't activated yet.(too much) We put her to bed and everything was ok.
I have to warn those of you with a weak tummy, you may not want to read the rest of this post. For whatever reason, although the idea of puking causes me anxiety, I do not have a weak stomach!
At about 10:00pm, I went to bed. At 10:45, I woke up to Ava whining. I lay there thinking, if I get up quick, maybe I can catch it in the bowl we sent her to bed with and save myself cleaning sheets. I got up, ran to her room, and....

Too late.

I was hit in the face with THE SMELL. Seriously, it was so thick you could have cut it. Poor Ava had puked in her sleep, and was laying there kind of out of it. I am not even sure she knew she had done it. YUCK. I decided I needed help, so I called for Jason. Lately he is insanely hard to wake up. He had falled asleep downstairs, so I started yelling for him. He didn't wake up, but convienently the baby did. I yelled some more, louder now since Corrine was already up. I had him start a bath and asked him to open the window. Of course it was stuck. We live in a new house, isn't that only supposed to happen in older homes? Anyway, the window would NOT open, so we had to work with the thick smell. Jason does just about as well with puke as he does with blood, so I had him go wash the puke bowl. Although Ava did completley miss the INSIDE of the puke bowl, there was puke all over the oustide of it. Oh, well, bonus for trying sweetie. I got Ava in the tub, and went to decide how to clean the sheets. I couldn't leave it any longer; without the ability to open the window I had to do something about the smell. After holding my breath and looking at the situation, I came to the conclusion that I would have to handle this too. The puke had congealed into a thick, slimy puddle and I knew Jason couldn't handle it. (he took one look at the puke in Ava's hair and gagged). I also knew that if I tried to remove the sheets with the puke on it, I would have a bigger mess on my hands.

Into the kitchen I went, where Jason had finished cleaning the puke bowl and was doing anything in the kitchen to appear busy until the puke had been cleaned up, and grabbed a couple of Walmart sacks and a spoon. Yep, you read that right, a spoon. What proceeded was quite possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever done.

I spooned the puke ( now having the consistency of some kind of dip), into the bags, holding my breath (dang window) and breathing when I had to into my shirt. After that was done, the whole mess went into the washer.

Did I mention that this whole time, Corrine was screaming? I had hoped she would go to bed, but she didn't . I didn't want to go in there and touch her until my hands were sanitized, so sorry Corrine!

I bathed Ava, she really needed it, put on clean sheets, and finally got her back to bed and fed Corrine. I was up with Ava puking about 4 or 5 more times through the night, once making another trip in to feed Corrine.

What is so sad about this is my pukaphobia. After the first puking and clean up, I went back to bed, now unable to sleep because my phobia was in complete control. I lay there, worrying about getting sick myself, listening for any sound of the girls getting up downstairs worried they were going to get sick, and praying that the baby didn't get it. I had all these scenerios going in my head. I don't know what my problem is. When it is actually happening, I do fine. Not anxious at all, calm and collected. This is completely anticipatory anxiety. I have tried to figure this out on my own, and can't. Maybe I need to talk to another professional; perhaps they can figure out where my distorted thinking or obsessional thoughts lie. Maybe they can help me reframe my thinking. I mean I really feel ANXIETY about the possibility of puke. I know we all have our quirks, but this bothers me.

On a last note, Ava stopped puking by 4:30 am and is now feeling better!

How to be a true princess.....

Ava is always in her princess dress up clothes. As usual, this morning as soon as she was done with breakfast, she runs into her room to shed her ordinary pj's to don her "princess" duds. She comes running out of her room a couple of minutes later, in just her panties, to ask:

"Mom, do princesses wear panties?"

"YES, princesses definately wear panties, sweetie."

Didn't I just clean that?

With the addition of Corrine to our family, I have found it increasingly hard to keep up with housework. For those of you who know me, you know that I like my house to be clean and clutter free. Not perfect by any means, but I am not comfortable in my home if it is messy or cluttered. It seems like I can only keep up with the bare minimums; weekly bathroom cleanings, once a week floor moppings, vaccuming once a week, laundry, dusting once a week. These chores I normally do in about 2 hours; now it takes about 2 days. Of course I clean my kitchen after every meal, but this chore used to be done right away. Sometimes I have to leave it for a while, which bothers me. All of the extra stuff, like dusting for cobwebs, cleaning my cabinets, baseboards, etc. that I used to do once a month are getting done, well, not once a month! I am constantly putting things away, trying to keep clutter down and make my house look clean. But it seems that no matter how much time I spend doing this, it gets undone way too quickly. I can spend what seems like all day putting things where they go and trying to keep up, only to look at my house at the end of the day and wonder where my efforts went. I am having to remind myself often that she won't be little forever, and that eventually I will have my house the way I like it. At that time, I will probably be missing having little ones at home; the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I don't remember having such a hard time when my others were little. I think that is because I have three other kids now and Corrine is a very demanding baby. It seems like there is never enough time in the day, and I feel somewhat guilty when I take a break to read or do a hobby I enjoy. (Like blogging!) But I still do these things, because I know I will burn out if I don't replenish my stores of energy and patience. So I will continue to make my futile efforts at house cleaning ( I can't imagine what my house would look like if I didn't) and take deep, calming breaths. Rearing my children is worth a few years of messy house!

D is for Dorado

The other night, Jason was in reading a story to Ava while I put clean sheets on her bed. It is an alphabet book about ocean creatures, you know A is for angel fish, B is for basslet, you get the idea. He got to D, and read the page. What he read gave me the giggles for the rest of the night. The book says D says" D is for Dorado". What tickled my funny bone was how he prounounced it: Dora do. Like as in, Dora, do your hair. I corrected him with the proper pronounciation, and then started giggling. (He said his way of saying it made sense to him, he doesn' t speak spanish. I asked him if he had ever heard of El Dorado, and he said "Well, with the El in front I know how to say it!")
I left the room laughing so hard, it was making Jason laugh too. Poor Ava just wanted her story read and kept saying "Daddy, stop it. Stop it Daddy!" I tried to go clean the kitchen, but was laughing to hard. I went back in to Ava's room and whispered, "Dora do". Jason valiantly tried to continue the story, but we were laughing so hard it was difficult. What makes this even more funny is that we have had this book for years. Jason said he has been reading it that way since Payden was little. Thats over 7 years ago, people! In 7 years he never figured out that Dora do was actually Dorado....this is making me laugh all over again writing about it. I had the giggles for quiet a while after that. It took a while for me to stop. When Michaela asked me what was so funny, I had a hard time telling her because I was laughing so hard. They say laughing is good for you, I am sure my husband was just trying his best to keep me healthy! Thanks Jason!

An Apple Daddy

We were rolling around on the floor having a family tickle fest this afternoon after church, and at one point we all ganged up on daddy. He is VERY tickleish and was laughing really hard. Ava leans over to look at him and says:

"An apple daddy, 'cause his face is so red!"

Its raining, its pouring, Ava isn't snoring, she went downstairs and bonked her head, and had to go to Dr. Yosts!

Ava was dancing around upstairs, chasing a balloon, getting in my way while I was trying to take down my Christmas decorations. So I told her to go do it downstairs. (Massive guilt here.) She did, and a few minutes later I hear her crying. Now Jason can't tell when its just a tattle cry, a mad cry, a sister took something away cry or a real "I hurt myself" cry. I can, and was just about to tell him that it was a real cry when he headed downstairs. He came thundering back up, holding a bleading Ava in his arms. She had been chasing her balloon downstairs and fell into a metal antique milk jug we have down there. Jason can not handle blood; he panics. I had to tell him to calm down several times. I took Ava from him, and one look at the deep gash told me it would need stitches. A quick call to Dr. Yost and Ava and I were off. Once there, we had to make the decision to take her to the emergency room and have a plastic surgeon fix it ($$$$$$$$$!!!!) or let Dr. Yost do it. It was an agonzing decision. We have insurance, but have an astronomical deductible, so we knew we would have a huge bill. On the other hand, this is my beautiful little girls face we are talking about. In the end, we prayed about it and felt good letting Dr. Yost do it. He did this once before on Michaela, with very good results. And having him do it we could stay in his office. I didn't want to traumitize Ava any more than necessary, and she is comfortable in his office. He also let me hold her arms and legs instead of restraining her( I convinced him I could do it; I did with Michaela) so she was spared that as well. He and his nurse/wife were very impressed with how calm Ava and I were. She was very brave; a very big girl.
It kills me to see her face like this; I hope it heals well. If not, when she is older we will take her to a plastic surgeon then. But I really think we made the right decision. Her emotional health is more important to me. After the sutures, which only took about 20 minutes, she was dancing around the office. I think the outcome would have been very different at the hospital.


If you see my beautiful girl, please refrain from making any comments to her or around her about how "bad" or "awful" it looks. I don't want her associating these words with herself. Feel free to ask how she got it, how many stitches she got (5), how brave she was or what she got for being brave(a chocolate shake). I don't want her having any concerns that she is any less gorgeous than she was before her accident, because she isn't. She will always be my pretty angel.



Here sisters were so sweet to her. They both gave her babies to have. Payden gave her a baby that she drew stitches on in the same place as Ava's, and Michaela gave her a bear she named Stitchy and made it a sweater. It was touching to see them take care of her.

I can't tell you how sick it makes me to think of how different this would be if she had fallen a couple of inches to the right or left. It also makes me so sad to see her face marred. But I know that you will probably hardly see it when it heals, and also that she is so beautiful people will probably look over it. But it still hurts my heart when I look at her. Michaela's scar has become a part of who she is; Ava's will be the same way.

Snow Baby

Corrine had her first sledding experience this week. We went up to my mom's house on New Years day to go sledding, and took her with us this time. Corrine was bundled up, and it wasn't awfully cold. She liked being outside! She didn't fuss at all and was looking at everything. I took her down the hill with me.

Then my mom pulled her around in a little sled. She looked so adorable, and she really enjoyed it.

What cute sisters!

Isn't she just a doll? I was so amazed the she liked it so much. I expected her to get fussy and need to go in. It is so much fun to watch your kids experience new things. And it doesn't hurt when the look this cute doing it!

Happy New Year!

For our New Years celebration, we had a fun family night. We all chipped in to create a fondue dinner. The girls wore their new aprons I made them for Christmas, they love to help me cook. We had three kinds of cheese sauces, and as you can see enough things to dip in them to feed a small army. I made soup out of all the leftovers today!

What makes me sad about this picture is the not so big height difference between Michaela and me. She is growing; all her pants are getting to short. Pretty soon, she will be taller than me!

We let Ava stay up until 10:00pm. The older ones stayed up until midnight with us. Before Ava went to bed, we did some of the poppers I had bought. Those things are loud! The girls had also spent part of the day making decorations and hats, sorry no pics of those.

We had a hard time catching just the right moment to take the pictures to catch the stuff coming out of the popper!

Jason looks like he thinks its gong to get him!

We spent the rest of the night playing wii and being goofy. At midnight, we toasted each other with fake champaign.

We had a good year and are looking forward to 2009. We have had many blessings and good things happen for us; we are truly grateful. The upcoming year promises good things for us, not the least of which will be Jason being done with school. YEAH!!!! A good night with many memorable moments.