I don't know about you, but I think I've seen (and eaten) enough turkey to last me until- well- next Thanksgiving. So, instead of posting pictures of turkey and people eating it, I think instead I'll talk about what else we did this weekend.

Those of you who know me, know that I am most definitely an outdoor person. Think of the word that's the opposite of love.... that's how I feel about winter. So, as long as we're still able to be outside without seeing our breath, you are sure to see our family squeezing every last moment we can out of fall.

And there is no better place to do that than at my Dad's house (aka "Papa").

I used to try to try to tell him that I had a better backyard because we live on a pond. But then our pond dried up. So much for that. We had the pond- but he's always got the view.

And not only does he have an amazing view of the river valley, but all sorts of interesting wildlife frequent his yard as well. Wild turkeys, deer, bald eagles soaring over the valley. Okay- so I never really thought our yard could compare in "coolness" to his, but it was fun to try to compete. Now if you saw our "view" you'd laugh. A dried up mud hole with a few weeds poking through here and there. But I digress...

Not only does Dad have the view- but he's also got the toys.

 Not toys as in, "miniture Escalade's that kids sit their lazy butts in, push the battery operated "go" button and tool around the yard in".... no... toys as in "you need to use your own strength to make it go" kind of toys.

He's got ropes to climb on.

Ropes to swing on.

Swings made out of rope to soar in.

I can't forget the zip line. Yes, I said- ZIP LINE. He actually has a zip line hooked up in his yard. It's fun. I've tried it. As a matter of fact, I think sometimes the adults have as much fun (if not more) than the kids do on it. You should hear us elderly's squeel with delight... "weeeeeeee!!!" Too bad I didn't take a picture of it. Maybe next time.

And if you're not in the mood to be playing with or on some sort of rope, there's a bucket full of footballs, softballs, sticky mitt catch balls... you name it.

The kids have a blast when we come to Papa's.

Unfortunately, not everyone is able to play outside. When the weather is too brisk, some have to stay inside and watch longingly from behind the glass...

But if you're really super cute, you're Mama just might feel sorry for you and bundle you up nice and bring you outside with the rest of the gang.

Now we're talking.

Ahhh, that's better!

good days...

Each night when I tuck my older daughter in she prays,

"Dear Jesus, thank you for this day. Please help us to have a WONderful life. Help every day to be a good day. Please let us not get sick for a VERY long time, Lord, please, help everyone in the whole wide world to have good dreams tonight..."

... and then she continues on with a variation of thanksgiving & supplication- whatever is on her heart.

But I find it interesting that she always begins her prayers the same way, requesting that He give us a wonderful life. First of all, I think that God has blessed us with a great life. And as far as my 7 year old is concerned, a life that is pretty much trouble free and by most accounts, pretty "wonderful."

But, as far as her Mother goes- I have weathered my fair share of challenges throughout these 33 years. A childhood that was neither necessarily stable, nor balanced- though, fortunately, I still knew my parents loved me. An adolescence period that was as challenging and awkward as any other teenagers. Fast forward to my 20's which were filled with milestones... graduating college, getting married, having my first couple of children... each which came with it's own set of new challenges to overcome.

Were all of my days, "good days?"

... of course the answer to that is a resounding NO! Some days have been great. Some days have been exhausting. Some days I've worn my knees bare and my cheeks left stained with tears begging God for his intervention and his peace.

When my daughter prays, in all honesty, at times I want to say- "listen, honey- that's not how life works. All our days are not going to be good days and we might get sick tomorrow, which is not God's fault. And, furthermore, everyone in the whole wide world is not asleep at the same time, so it would be impossible for them to all have good dreams at the same time while you are sleeping." But- instead, I just stay quiet. She'll have many years of revelation ahead in which she'll draw her own conclusions.

For now, I just enjoy her innocence. And, frankly, I just like to have 3 minutes or so of living in my daughters bubble where everything is safe, "wonderful," and everyone in the whole world sleeps with good dreams.

But despite the harshness of the reality of this fallen world, I remain grateful and thankful that God is always- ALWAYS- with me. It's not necessarily during the "good days" where I find myself closest to Him. It the times when I'm scared (terrified!?!), desperate, exhausted, confused, angry or sad that I find myself not just closest to Him, but clinging to the hope I have in Him.

Life does not always make sense. Life is not always wonderful. But life is ALWAYS full of hope, when you place your life in His hands. "cast all your anxieties on Him because he cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7)

Even though, for now, my daughter innocently believes that all our days might just be "good days"- what I wish for, more than anything, is that she will also come to believe- with all of her heart- in the true and living hope of our Father. That she will know that "God loved us, and through his grace he gave us a good hope and encouragement that continues forever." (2 Thes. 2:16-17)

It's that truth- and that promise- that will sustain us, keep us, bless us .... and help us to "make every day a good day."

Surgery Day

Today couldn't possibly have gone BETTER. What a huge relief and an absolute answer to prayers! I am so thankful to those of you who thought of us and prayed. God is awesome.

My alarm went off at 2:00 a.m. (to give him his last feeding) and again at 4:30 to get up for the day and get ready to leave for the hospital. Christian never fussed or cried and woke only briefly when we put him in his carseat. He slept the whole way to the hospital and, to our surprise, continued sleeping during the entire intake process. The nurses finally had to WAKE him to get him dressed and prepped for surgery. What a HUGE relief!! I guess I had imagined him crying his head off from the moment we woke him up to leave for the hospital. But- to the contrary- our little guy slept the entire time!

Here he is when the nurse woke him up to prep him for surgery...

He was smiling and cooing the whole time....

After the nurses changed him into his hospital gown and finished his pre-op exam, we had a bit of time before the anesthesiologist arrived. During that time, Mike held him and I tried to avert his glance- I didn't want him to remember that Mommy was there and that Mommy=mealtime. He started to chew on his hands, but still never cried.

Before we knew it, he was whisked away. After they took him, we were walked over to the family waiting area- at which time I nearly passed out. Considering how minor of a surgery this is, trust me, I realize how utterly ridiculous that is. But the mother/child bond is indescribable and often times defies logic. Something about seeing my 2 month old taken away in a hospital gown - off to be put to sleep didn't rest well with me, I guess. But after I sat down (with my head between my legs - LOL!- I felt better). Just anxious.

Before long at all, the Dr. was back! We had to wait about 30 minutes for him to wake up in recovery. They had told us to expect him to be fussy, disoriented and possibly nauseous.

What we found, instead, was our happy, smiley baby boy happy as can be. The nurses were all remarking about how unusual he was - and what a joy- because he had woken from the anesthesia smiling. That's my boy!

Here we are... Reunited!

Happy and content (with a full tummy- finally!)

Happy to see Daddy. Time to change out of that (unflattering) hospital gown...

So proud of my baby boy. He did SO good on his very first surgery- but we are glad to be home where we belong!

And as if there were any question - my mommy thinks I'm the best (check the shirt)...

Six more weeks until the next surgery. Until then- we'll keep on smiling!!

easy like Sunday morning...

"What happened to his nose?"**

I'm pretty sure that I have heard that question in the last 2 months more than I've heard any other question in my entire life. And, to be completely honest, I don't even mind. I will admit, a few times at larger gatherings, I've grown a bit weary of spending the time mingling answering the same question over and over again to each new person I visit with. But I try to keep a positive attitude and patiently answer it over and over (and over and over and over) again without even getting snippy. (Okay, I will admit, at the last family gathering when I'd been asked for the 10th time by the 10th person, "what happened to his nose?" I nonchalantly answered, "Oh. I punched him." then shrugged and walked away.) Probably not my most graceful moment- but hey- it did solicite a laugh from my sister who was listening from across the room, so it was worth it. But, besides that, I've been good about patiently answering the same question for people who are curious.



And I completely understand people's curiosity. So, let me tell you "what happened to his nose" as best as I can. Honestly, I cannot tell you with certainly what "happened to" so much as I can tell you "what's on" his nose, because there is no definitive explanation for what causes it. What is on his nose is called a vascular hemangioma - aka "infantile hemangioma." Sometimes people call them "strawberry hemangiomas" because they are bright red and raised. What it is, in plain words, is just an abnormally dense group of red blood cells... a benign tumor.

They almost always follow the same pattern: 1) Very faintly appear shortly after birth; 2) Being to grow- sometimes very quickly and aggressively- for the next 6 to 12 months (proliferation); 3) Stop growing and remain stagnant for a period of several months to a few years; 4) Then begin to regress of the next several years (involution) until they are completely gone by the time the child is around 5 to 7 years old.

There are theories about how they develop, but no one knows for certain. Maybe something with the placenta in utero? Maybe something to do with a surge of estrogen? The bottom line answer is that- currently- there is no answer. There appears to be certain categories that experience higher incidence. Those categories include being female, premature and low birth weight... interestingly, none of which apply to Christian considering that he is male, was born on time and was 9 and 1/2 lbs. at birth!


Nevertheless, at about 5 days after birth we noticed a tiny red mark and even asked ourselves the question which would later become amusing to us (after hearing it so much)... "did he scratch himself?" As you can see for yourself by scrolling through these pictures from the bottom up- the mark appeared very faintly when he was a few weeks old and has progressively gotten redder and raised.

After 2 weeks we realized the "scratch" was not going away and assumed it was a "stork bite." But after about 6 weeks when we noticed it becoming slightly raised and after my Uncle- an M.D.- mentioned it could be a hemangioma- I realized that's exactly what it was.

Now, if you'd like to scare yourself, like I originally did- go ahead and google "infant hemangioma" and click on images. And then you will see (like I did) that Christian's hemangioma is very mild compared to what some of these poor dear children and their parents are dealing with. My heart breaks for what some of these little babies and children have to go through. It has completely put in perspective for us what a small matter we are dealing with and I am very grateful for how minor his is in comparison. In all complete honesty I absolutely thank GOD that this is just a cosmetic issue and nothing that affects his health. Because of the location of Christian's hemangioma our Pediatrician recommended we see a specialist at Children's Hospital. The concern would be that the hemangioma could grow too large and when it finally involutes it could leave saggy skin or extensive scar tissue that would be cosmetically unattractive considering that it's smack dab in the middle of his nose.

I brought Christian to the specialist yesterday and he recommended that we begin treating his hemangioma aggressively. For Christian's particular case that will mean laser surgery. This will NOT remove the hemangioma. All that it will do is prevent it from growing rapidly and aggressively larger, which is a real possibility. Because of his age, and because the procedure is painful while it's being done (but not after), that entails putting him to sleep under general anesthesia.  This is hard for me to swallow. It wouldn't be quite as bad, except that it will take several surgeries. Several meaning another surgery every 4-6 weeks up until he is a year old. If you do the math, well... I don't want to do the math and I've purposely avoided adding them up in my head. All I know is it's a lot of surgeries. It's a lot of depriving him of nursing for 6 hours prior to surgery, a lot of arranging childcare for the other kids, a lot of extremely early mornings (we need to check in for his first surgery at 6 a.m.!), and a lot of anesthesia.

Am I excited about these upcoming surgeries? Of course not. But we had to think about what is in the best interest for Christian. When we ask ourselves- how would he feel if he were older and we had not done everything to prevent it from growing larger and it potentially leaves him with disfigured skin on his nose- regardless of how minor?- we are left feeling like we should do whatever we can at this moment to prevent that from happening.



Is this a big deal? Absolutely not. In the light of eternity praise God that this is a minor, superficial matter. But come Monday morning, I would be lying if I said I wouldn't covet your prayers that everything would go perfectly smooth without any complications. Specifically, that my heart won't break watching him scream because he's hungry and I can't feed him, and even more so that there would be no problem with the anesthesia and the surgery itself.



I will keep you posted!
Angela

** Alternately titled, "Did he scratch himself?" LOL!

My 2 month old is standing!

No, seriously. He is!

Okay- I'm kind of exaggerating...

But, man oh man, is this little man STRONG!



Just for fun this morning, Mike was "walking him around" and then realized Christian was bearing all the weight on his legs. He decided to see what would happen if he sort of let go- and we couldn't believe what we saw! I snapped a gazillion pictures- and he actually kept doing it for quite a while. It wasn't even a fluke! Of course, he didn't totally let go- but Mike was just supporting his arms with his pinkie fingers- so Christian wouldn't completely topple over- but my big boy was pretty much standing!



I am just crazy about my little guy. He is such a sweetheart.

s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d thin!

Today held the promise of being a very productive day. I knew I had to be up early and have 4 kids up, fed, dressed and out the door by 8:30 in order to arrive at their appointment at the new children's dental clinic I had recently made appointments for. Being the organized, plan ahead girl that I am, I even showered the night before so that I'd have one less thing to do in the morning.

Lo and behold- to my surprise- I was not only on time, but actually 3 minutes EARLY! (Virtually unheard of). I was feeling so proud of myself, even as I walked in the door to the clinic realizing that I didn't have my insurance card with me. Being that this was our first appointment at the new clinic, I told myself- no problem- I'll just sign the "promise to pay form," or whatever, and make sure I fax the information later. Upon checking in- I told her the name of the dental insurance we carry and she said she could look it up for me, so long as I had the primary's social security number. Great! No problem. I rattled it off, 1,2,3. Only problem is.. I come to find out our new fabulous Children's Dental clinic (complete with intricate jungle murals on every wall, a row of computers just for little hands, lifesized stuffed animals placed about and toys galore) is... OUT OF NETWORK!  I sheepishly- yet profusely- apologized and wheeled my stroller and 3 little kids out of there with my "tail between my legs" and my chin tucked low. Perhaps if I had bothered to take the time to call ahead and verify with my insurance company (like the clinic had told me to do)- I wouldn't have been in this predicament. But it slipped through the cracks. One more thing on  my "to do" list that I never got to.

Why do I feel the need to elaborate on such a seemingly small incident? Because- well- lately, this seems to be the story of my life. It was hardly an isolated incident. Take just yesterday when I hurriedly rushed out the door and drove like a bat outta hell "woman on a mission while still observing the speed laws" to gymnastics because we got out the door 15 minutes late. When I peeled into the parking lot, I was confused to find an empty lot and a darkened building. How could this be? I sunk back into my minivan seat, scratched my head while answering questions from little voices in the back, "Mommy? Why can't we go to gymnastics? Why isn't anyone here?" Would you believe it took me another 5 minutes to realize that we were not, in fact, 15 minutes late- but rather we were 15 minutes EARLY? Nothing had changed since the week before... (or the previous 8 weeks for that matter) And yet, somehow I had managed to thoroughly convince myself that our weekly Wednesday morning gymnastics extravaganza began at 9:00 a.m. rather than 9:30.

Honestly, I am becoming jaded... jaded about myself. How hilarious I find it when people say to me, "How do you do it all? Homeschool, work, and stay home with 4 kids?" Because here's your answer, folks... Lately, I don't! At least, I don't do it well! Something suffers and, thank God, it hasn't been my kids, their activities, their schooling or my work... it's unfortunately been my sanity!

Or here's another one that is completely laughable, "You are SuperWoman!" I actually hate it when people say that, because all I can think of is, "Yes! That is me- SuperWoman... right as she's about to jump off the building." The only difference is that I don't have super powers to allow me to fly.

Friends, if you could only see the number of sticky notes I have plasted all over the house just to help get me through the day. "Pay 'John Doe' X amount, for X job." ... "Put chicken in crockpot before 10 a.m."... "Pick up dry cleaning"... "PT at 9 a.m."... "Wash kids uniforms for tonight"... "Take a breath before I pass out." Okay- the last one's a little ridiculous. But, seriously- I've got a note for everything because, sadly- without them I feel like I might sink.
And I will admit, my kids are in way too many things. So, do I find ways to cut some things out? No! I sign them up for more! I inherited this curse from my mother- and she inherited it from her mother. Apparenty, my Grandfather used to tell my Grandmother, "You'd sign the girls up for 'fart lessons' if they had them!" I can so relate to my Grandmother... wanting to provide your kids with every opportunity possible. But at what cost? And at what lengths to the ridiculous are you willing to go?

Lately I'm feeling stretched thin. too thin.

And I don't want to keep letting things slip through the cracks. Nor do I want to keep showing up places "late" and realize I'm early- all because I can't keep things straight in my head.

Believe it or not, I'm not even going to pretend I have a neat little conclusion to this "story" or an easy answer to my problem. All I know is that something's gotta give. And I also know that - as much as I hate to admit it- that, right there, is my honest answer. I feel like such a phony when people say, "How do you do it?" Because while I don't find it difficult to "do it all" - I do find it hard to "do it all and do it all... well."

When someone kinds "the key" to balancing it all, please let me know (and make me a copy!).

Halloween

Does anyone recognize this little guy below? He looks awfully familiar...

He kind of looks a little bit like THIS little guy below. But they are different babies!

The older that Christian gets, the more we are amazed how much he looks exactly like his big brother, Alex. The top picture is of Alex as a 2 month old back in 2004. And the second picture is of Christian last weekend on Halloween (at 2 months old). Honestly, it would be nearly impossible to tell their baby pictures apart if it weren't for Christian's little red nose (more on that in a later post!)

The kids had SO much fun on Halloween. This year, I ended up with 2 "super hero's," a Princess, and a little roaring Lion.

Here's a hot tip for you... don't go shopping for Halloween costumes the night before Halloween, or you may end up with a size 10/12 costume for your size 7 daughter. Oh, thank goodness for the magic of safety pins! But on the bright side, I've got 5 more years to recycle the Super Girl costume. Not bad. "Two" costumes for the price of one.

Here they are in full "super hero" power mode ;)
(even Ariana- our Princess Belle- tried to look tough!) I swear I didn't' tell them to pose like that. But since they did- I had to take a picture cause it made me laugh!

... and, nor did I tell Robin to pose like this but- kids will be kids.

And last, but not least- our little Princess who dressed up as Belle. However, it wasn't truly costume for her since these are more like her everyday clothes that she likes to wear (when I give her the choice ;)