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.