Tennessee

Ian screamed all night the night before we left and I finally got to bed at 4am. We were late getting to the airport only to find out that our flight had been delayed. Then once we were in ATL our flight to Chatt. had been delayed. We got to Chatt. in time for dinner and the boys were so tired that Ethan fell asleep at the restaurant (anyone who knows Ethan knows that is not possible). Ian continued to not sound good at all so the next morning we took him to an urgent care place and found out that he had an ear infection. No wonder he had not been sleeping the past week! It didn't cross my mind that he would have an ear infection since he was still on antibiotics for a sinus infection. Crazy! We met up with some friends from where we live in Fl who are in town visiting their family. We took the boys on a right on the Carousel in Coolidge Park and then for a walk on the Walnut Street Bridge (the longest pedestrian only bridge). That night our friend came to our hotel and watched the boys so we could go out to dinner and a movie for our 12th anniversary. Wasn't that so kind? It was such a blessing to get out and enjoy the city and a nice dinner at a place I would never bring the kids and we enjoyed the movie "Marley and Me." (I've been reading the book, a real tear jerker). This morning we went on our annual trip up to Covenant to walk around and see the new building that had been constructed in the past year. We try to go every year so the boys will be used to where they are going to college one day. Our plans for the next couple of days include the Children's Discovery Museum, Rock City and hopefully to see the land we hope to buy for when we retire (15 years to go). And then on New Year's Eve we head to the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area. That's all for now, I'll have to wait until I get back to post pictures.

Christmas

I know I'm behind in posting but I finally got a chance to sit down at a computer. It's been a whirlwind since Christmas. My parents arrived on the 23rd. We went out to dinner at Benihanna's. The boy's loved watching the guy cook right in front of us. Ian had a rough night, cried a lot and woke up early on Christmas Eve. We had planned on putting Ian in Ethan's room but my parents kindly said they didn't want to kick him out of his room so they stayed in the room with him. So Christmas Eve we stayed home and enjoyed swimming and getting ready for Christmas. My parents, my in-laws and the boys went to church for Christmas Eve service. It was a great service. My in-laws stayed at the corporate apartment that night and joined us at the house Christmas morning. Ian had another rough night, crying a lot and waking up early. Christmas day was chaos as you can imagine. We had to wait until George got home from the FD before we could get into our stockings. It was hard for the kids to wait. While I was getting ready, Ian got into his stocking and pulled out a couple of toys. When Ethan saw him playing with new toys, he wanted to play with them too--it turned into a melt down. Finally at about 9:30 in the morning we got started with the presents. George and Ethan were suprised with a Wii and I was suprised with a Wii fit. The boys also got a big sandbox from my parents. I spent the rest of the day cooking and we enjoyed a yummy dinner. After dinner, we roasted marshmallows on the back porch and went swimming. The next day we saw all the family off and got down to business with taking down the tree and packing for TN. We hired a sitter to play with the kids all day so we could get it all done. I'm so glad we did that because if we hadn't there would have been nothing packed and we would have returned home from our trip to a tree that had fallen over dead. I took a break in the afternoon to take advantage of after Christmas sales at Target with a friend. So, we had a great Christmas but one lesson learned: don't plan to leave for a big trip right after you host Christmas at your house:)

Two days...

With two days until Christmas, things are winding down and gearing up at the same time, is that possible? I finished my shopping earlier this month and last week finished wrapping. We've done all our special Advent activities. Today we had our playgroup Christmas party. There were so many kids there. I remember when the oldest kids were babies and most of us hadn't even thought yet about having another. It's amazing to see them all running around! They made ornaments and decorated cupcakes and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. My parents arrive today from WVA and the rest of the family arrives tomorrow. I have lots of cooking to do between now and Christmas day. I'm making stuffed pork with a cherry pecan sauce, sausage stuffed apples, wild rice with mushrooms, mixed greens with a pomegranate vinagrette...I'll stop now because it's making me hungry:) We're going to Christmas Eve service at our church tomorrow night. George won't be home until sometime Christmas morning. I asked him if he expects us to wait to open our stockings until he gets home and he said yes...I'll do my best...:):)

Ethan Learns about Santa

All parents have things they believe strongly in that they want to pass on to their children. Before we even have kids there are things we say we'll never do or experiences we never plan to have our children participate in. (For my husband, the experience he didn't want his child to participate in would be Disney World, but that didn't last long:) Before we had Ethan, my husband and I decided that we would not do the Santa thing with him. It's an emotional issue for many, can be highly debated, and I know many people would not agree with me on it, so I won't go into our reasons why. That being said, we had never talked to him about Santa and each Christmas we focused on Christ's birth and the gift of eternal life. In previous posts I mentioned some of our Advent Activities we've done as an educational experience to help him learn more about Christ's birth. We've also read to him stories about St. Nicholas and his life. Until this year, if anyone asked him about Santa, he was pretty clueless. Then along comes preschool...At his school's Christmas program on Friday his class sang lots of Christmas songs including one that I dislike the most "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." He came home from school with Reindeer food that they put together in class. And ever since, he's been talking all about Santa. So what do we do? Good question right? I called a friend from church who also doesn't do the Santa thing with her kids, who are a bit older than mine, to get some advice. I didn't want to sit down with him and explain what everyone believes about Santa and then tell him the truth about it because I think at his young age, he wouldn't have the discretion to not share it with his friends (and then break their hearts). So after talking to my friend and talking it over with my husband, we've decided to not confront him about it unless he asks specific questions, to which we wouldn't lie. I guess I should have known this would happen with him being at school since the same thing happened to me with the whole Halloween thing...sigh; another story, another time.

"Snow"

We went to downtown WPB where they had advertised nightly snow falls. We figured they would be making snow for the kids to play with. Instead tiny bubbles blew out from the palm trees. All the kids loved it anyway.

Big Boy

Ian is finally willing to do his nebulizer treatments by himself without me having to hold him down. Yay!

Nativity

The boys loved going to the Live Nativity. They also loved the petting zoo at the end. Ian received lots of kisses from a llama.

Boy's Day = My Day

George took the boys out for a fun day yesterday, they went to PlayMobil and lunch. I was home alone and boy was I thrilled! I felt like I needed to make the most of my time and accomplish things I can't do when I'm with the boys so I have to admit I did do some chores. I also got to watch a dvd my parents gave me for my birthday. It was a documentary of one of my favorite authors: C.S. Lewis. I did some scrapbooking and went for a bike ride as well. Later that night I went to a friend's house for a girl's night of Mexican and games. It was a fun evening though my tired mommy brain had trouble thinking of things to say for our Taboo game. It was so nice of George to give me a day for myself. Having him home a lot this month has made me realize that we have gotten into a pattern where we are more like co-workers rather than a married couple. I take care of Ian, he takes care of Ethan and we talk more about our job than anything else. One of the effects of parenthood I suppose but definitely something I need to work on changing. Having him only work one job the past couple of weeks is a special treat--I get to experience what everyone else does, a husband home every night and home on the weekends. We are planning to go to a live nativity today as a family and go to see snow one day this week. Anyway, yay for husband's being home from work!

Small Group

We went to our small group bible study last night. It took us a while to commit to going, we knew it would be tough on the kids being out so late at night. George's boss from his second job is the teacher and we love his teaching so we've been going for a few months now. We are studying Ephesians and are really enjoying it and learning a lot. We are sharing with each other and becoming part of each other's lives. Ethan loves going and playing with the other kids, but being there late is hard on him. We didn't leave last night until 10pm. Ian was asleep in George's arms and Ethan was crying about every little thing. (He gets very weepy and out of control when he's tired) On the way home in the car he was crying and saying that he didn't want to become bald when he is old. That's what staying up late does to him:) Despite the challenges with the kids we are glad we decided to join the group.

Growing Up

Ian will be 14 months on Christmas Eve and lately I've suddenly realized he's no longer a baby. In my mind he's still 6 months old. When Ethan was a baby it was so fun to see him do new things that I hurried him along (I also am not so good with the infant stage). Since Ian is our last child, I guess I've wanted him to be a baby a little longer. But since he's so huge and doing things so much earlier than Ethan did, it is becoming clear that he is not a baby:( Actually, I think he believes he's 3yrs old. Our sitter has been teaching him to use a fork and spoon which I had not even thought to attempt because I remember Ethan at this age throwing plates on the floor. But, Ian is doing quite well feeding himself. The climbing thing is getting out of control. He's also trying to talk a lot saying: baby, woof, bye bye, and no. He catches on to sign language very quickly and today when I handed him something to eat he signed thank you all on his own without any prompting. I'm a proud momma:) Yesterday when we were baking cookies with friends he got to sit with the big kids and experience the fun too. Before I know it Ian is going to be going to preschool and asking me hundreds of questions a day just like his big brother:)

Fun Family Days

My husband somehow was able to get a number of days off this month from the FD (except Christmas Eve) and so we've been enjoying having him around. It's been a nice treat. We've been going out and doing fun things together as a family and so I'm posting some pictures from the zoo and a local bounce house place.

Advent thus far

It seems like the past 11 days of Advent have gone by in a whirlwind. We've been enjoying our morning bible verses and opening our Advent box to see what's inside and what activity we're going to do. We've read the Christmas story, passages in Isaiah and Psalms about Christ's coming and dying for our sins. We've also talked a lot about the gift of salvation that was given to us. We've read a few children's books about Christmas including one about the real St. Nick and how the stocking tradition came to be. So far we've picked out our tree, decorated it, made a candy cane bead ornament, sent out Christmas cards, and went shopping for presents. Ethan had definite opinions about what he wanted to get his teacher for Christmas when we went shopping yesterday. He picked out a couple of ornaments with hearts on them--so cute! Upcoming activities include: baking cookies, looking at Christmas lights, visiting a live nativity, and wrapping presents. We're having fun with our advent activities and I'm glad Ethan is reminded each day during our devotions why Christ was born and what he has done for us.

Party Pics

6th Christmas Party

Friday was a wirlwind day of finishing up everything for our party on Saturday. We had lights put up outside and finally decorated our tree. I started cooking food for the party in between helping Ethan with his asthma. Friday night we went to our area's annual Christmas parade. We had never been before, it was packed. It was a long parade but the boys loved it. Saturday we asked our sitter to get them early in the afternoon so we'd have time for last minute prep. They stayed with their sitter all afternoon until the party was over. Miss Karen is such an answer to prayer, it's not every sitter than is comfortable watching two sick kids. Thank you Miss Karen!! We had a great time at the party. We always argue every year about having it and how big it should be (I'm not quite the social butterfly that my husband is) but I always end up having fun. We weren't sure if anyone would show up because of the big college game on tv but our friends made the sacrifice and same anyway:) (I had the game on in our room so everyone was happy). We had a fire pit this year, it was nice ambiance but it wasn't cold outside at all. Our gift exchange game was fun as always--highlights included a plaid flannel nightgown and a marshmallow shooter. Thanks to everyone who brought food and drinks and thanks to my elf Kathie for her help in the kitchen:)

Can we have our money back?

As I posted before, Ethan has a sinus infection, his second since his surgery. We think he may also have an ear infection. I was very discouraged this week about him being sick again. After the surgery, we had our sweet and loving Ethan back and we were so happy. Now that he's sick again, he's frequently irritable and very tired. His school called me to get him early on Friday because he was having an asthma attack, a consequence of the sinus infection. I started crying in front of his teacher because I was so discouraged (and embarrassed myself). I scheduled an appointment to see his surgeon in couple weeks to ask "Can have our money back?"

Ferrari Envy

I took the boys to lunch today and we ended up parking next to a Ferrari. As I was buckling Ian into his stroller, I turned around and saw that Ethan was practically trying to get into the Ferrari next to us. The window on the car was down and he was holding onto the door and looking inside,saying, "Look mommy at this cool car!" I started lecturing him about not touching things that don't belong to us and just because the window was left open doesn't mean he can go and look in the car when the car's owner walked up to us laughing. I was embarassed and apologized for Ethan snooping and he said something to the effect that he loved looking at cars when he was young and then when he got older he went out and got himself a cool car. So does that mean that breaking and entering turns into owning a fancy race car one day?

Chaos at the Fox Den and etc.

Life here is chaotic as usual, even more so since our annual Christmas party is this weekend. If anyone doubts the fact that the Fall occurred and doesn't believe in the concept of sin, they should hang out in my house for a while. All three of the boys have sinus infections and are quite irritable. I think poor Ian has been sick or not feeling well because of something for the last two months. That means I haven't slept much in two months either. Which makes me irritable...and thus the effects of the Fall are present in my household. Most days it's like pushing a big rock up hill (you never thought I was the Pollyana type did you?--or is that the wrong character? anyway, I've always been the realist around here and tell life like it is). So almost everyone is sick, George has had a number of crisis at work, and we're supposed to be preparing for a party. We finally got our tree up, but there's just lights on it so far. All week we've had guys here pressure cleaning the house and driveway. I guess one good thing about having an annual party is it's one way to get things done around the house (I'm even getting some painting done I've been asking for:) I've been dragging two sick kids to the store for errands every day in preparation for our party as well. When things in life get crazy with illnesses and just nothing going the right way I always think "what would it be like if I were not a Christian and had the hope of the gospel?" Because it is hard to keep pushing the big rock up the hill every day without having any hope. And my life isn't even that hard--imagine going through losses and traumatic events without any hope in Christ? And so I keep plodding on and try to look at the little things that get in my way as opportunities for me to grow in my faith. And as time passes, I can even laugh about those challenges (like my Thanksgiving adventures:)

Our Little Climber

As has been the case all along, Ian is doing everything earlier than Ethan did. His climbing skills appear to be no exception. Recently, he figured out how to climb up the ladder onto the playground set. He now climbs onto our bed and the couches. Today I was putting clothes from the washer to the dryer and in that 2 minute period of time, Ian climbed up onto the dining chair in kitchen and onto the table. Then he figured out how to open a bottle of vitamins (with a childproof cap) and dumped them all over the floor. Thankfully, Ethan saw it and told me, otherwise I'm sure we would have had another call into Poison Control. Yikes, he keeps me on my toes!