Weekend Stuff

This weekend was my sister-in-law's birthday, so the family decided to throw her a small, yet inventive bash. We created our own pizzas with fun toppings and then dressed our own cupcakes with festive additions. It was fun!

Other than this weekend, much of this past week was spent indoors due to extreme cold weather conditions. Alabama saw the coldest day it has been in over 6 years. So, the kids and I took to making a couple of videos. The first one (below) is about a bug. The second one is about Bekah learning the formula for walking. My mom is visiting mid-February, and I guarantee Bekah will be walking by then!

Bekah is a little bugger. She thinks it's hilarious to twist around in her high chair real fast and stand up in her chair. She about gives me a heart attack every time! And it was cute the other day when Bekah stood up and tried to push her big sister Kaelah in the baby doll stroller. Too funny!

Two Sad Things

I'm completely distraught tonight over two sad pieces of news. An 18 year old neighbor was diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma and a wedding was called off for a someone close to me. I heard these pieces of news within about 10 minutes of each other and I immediately felt a headache coming on and depression setting in. It makes me think of the unfairness of life, the fleetingness of it and missed opportunities. Why them? Why now? None of us really knows the map that is drawn out for us. We're not promised 1st or 2nd chances at anything. And physical and emotional pain hurt equally as much. I empathize with these hurting people and wish there was something I could do to help. I am trying to replay in my mind the verses my pastor spoke on today in Romans 5:

"1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. "

I just finished reading the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns this week too, and my review of it pertained to the admiration of two women who's hope in life superceded the extent of their great physical and emotional suffering. My heart breaks for those who's plight hits closer to home tonight, however. And I wonder if I could persevere enough to find the path to hope if my feet were in their shoes. I guess my prayer tonight will be for healing in these situations, and for wisdom to know how I can be used, if at all, to help someone in need.

Good Fortune

My kids have been funny lately. They are still carrying on with the Christmas spirit, well into January, by dressing up as Mary, mother of Jesus. They find blankets around the house and drape them over their heads and call themselves "Mary." They are so cute.

They also are getting a kick out of their dress up clothes and find fun outfits to wear. Below are some pics.

Today, David took Haleah with him to go and have the Camry fixed. It was the first time we "split" Haleah and Kaelah up. It was nice for me to have some time with Kaelah, and David enjoyed his time with his "firstborn," as he calls her. They went to the Dollar Store while waiting for our vehicle, and Haleah came home with an Arial jumprope and a Princess stool that she can stand on to brush her own teeth at the sink. She was proud.

Kaelah and I stayed home (with Bekah) and organized the spare sock drawer and cleaned up all the girls' rooms. She was my little helper. We also found a spare bin, and the thought came to me that it would serve as the perfect puzzle organizer. And so it is...

Bekah is a funny one. She likes to take off crawling, then turn around and look at me to wave, then take off crawling again. She is also learning to stand a bit. I find myself not being as nervous with her standing as I was with Kaelah. Bekah just seems so sturdy and athletic. She seems "solid" and sure. When Kaelah was learning to walk, I was on edge 24/7. That's because Kaelah, even to this day, is always tripping over things or over herself. She's just more clumsy, that silly girl.

Haleah amazes me. She reads me whole books from memory. She is 3, and can't read yet, but she can recite verbatim what several books say when opening them. I find it fascinating to listen to her, as I watch how she is learning and growing.

Some days, like today, I just look at my children and take the time to let it sink in about just how fortunate I am to have them and relish how wonderful, precious and unique each one of them is.

Wayward Blog

I begin typing, not sure where this one is going to go... Over the past couple of weeks I have felt guilty that I have not taken time to write about the growth or progress of this household. It's not to say there hasn't been any. I suppose I have been focusing my energies on other things, some important (like finances and The Budget); others selfish (like Facebook'ing or merely vegging after the kids go to bed).

Among the exciting attributes of the two weeks post Christmas holiday include:

1) A fun surprise 50th Birthday party for our beloved pastor's wife, Joni. As she was walking down to the room where her guests were hiding, I took a seat in a chair, and it creaked so loud that everyone took notice. It was funny. Joni had a nice party planned by her daughter. And Haleah learned how to play ping pong.

Joni blowing out her candles on the RIP cake

Pastor Phillip being silly with my girls with the party noise makers.

Me and girls at the party.
2) My back has decided to act up on me. I don't deal with pain too well, and I deal with it worse when it's on my back. I have had back issues for years, and the same pointed spot always gives me trouble on my left side. I have been icing and heating, heating and icing. And while I lay down to do this, I am getting serious (in my mind) about beginning to strengthen my core so that these issues don't creep up on me. I also want to resume running and break out the Total Gym that we haven't touched in this household for over 6 years. I'm determined to follow through with this this year!!! Call it a resolution, as I am completely resolved to be over this pain!

3) I have formulated a monthly meal plan for this household. I am excited about it and am in an ongoing process of creating new, easy family meals. Since we are working on our budget, meal planning seems to help me reign in costs I would otherwise incur at Walmart. My only snafu is that this past week about three of the meals turned out to be quite gross. I believe I must have obtained these "recipes" on a spoof site or something, as the meals didn't seem to evolve quite right. And I consider myself to be a decent cook, so I was quite annoyed.

4) In regards to the kids, there always seems to be something yet really absolutely nothing going on, but the usual. Kaelah is still working on potty training. Haleah learned to go to "Big Kid" class at church on her own (a milestone that will be the 1st step on the road to entering preschool in the fall). Bekah is standing on her own and is also eating every piece of paper or tidbit or crumb that she finds around the house. And she can crawl super fast. I have also been working with Bekah in regards to her nightly sleeping habits. She is now pretty much sleeping through the night. If she wakes up, I simply go in and lay her back down and tell her, "It's bedtime." I am soooo relieved (and revived!) from this progress.

Me and my wild baby (and lovable and sweetest), Bekah.

Kaelah sitting in a bucket on her couch. She's such a peanut.
That's all folks. I'll aim to write at least two more times this week too.

Christmas Chapters

PRE Christmas

The week before Christmas was a whirlwind. I made Peppernut cookies with the kids. It took me four days to bake them because they are tee tiny cookies, about as big as a fingernail. But I tried to put on my holiday spirit face and dig right in to baking. I let the kids help me mix the bowl, and they were so proud. I was trying to teach them about measuring, and they kept sneaking in extra scoops of ingredients. Little rascals!

We also refinanced our home. I had to take the kids to an attorney's office to sign the papers. Haleah declared out loud, "I pooted," in the conference room while Kaelah swiped the attorney's sticky notes and then proceeded to try to color on the glass table. I was sweating buckets in that room!

At the home front, I had to strip down my tree a week or two after decorating it because over half of the lights went out, and the tree was too small to be able to conceal another set of lights strapped on over it. During the season my kids also pulled off and/or broke about seven ornaments. I kept saying, "Don't touch them!" And Kaelah would say, "I'm just lookin...." Yeah, right.

During Christmas

I was working so hard to get everything done before Christmas, despite my tiredness, as David's family was having his brother, wife and son come to visit. We were all very excited about this. But those stinkers decided to "ambush" us and show up a few days early while we were still trying to prepare for them. My mother-in-law said they showed up at her house as she was spraying carpet cleaner on her rug. And the spray just ended up staying there all week. I had made a run to Walgreens in the pouring down rain to obtain some last minute Christmas items. Then I was going to come home and clean the house. Instead, I saw the Colorado license plate in my driveway and I was like, "Noooooooooo!" Ah, the element of surprise!

Anyhow, the time with John and Mar was so nice. I know everyone was tired by the end of the week, but it was fun. Our nephew, Joshua, is almost one, and he is the sweetest baby. He is so laid back and just loves to play with toys and is content. And he has the cutest giggle too. He also liked to tackle Bekah. They are 4 months apart.

During the week we got family portraits taken, attended a lame company party with bad food, went shopping, saw movies, ate food, played the Wii and sang Christmas carols at a nursing home. I found it sad that the view from the nursing home's dining room where we sang was a cemetery. Every day those people see where they are going to end up, on the other side of the street. I said to my niece, Cora, "Do you see the irony in this?"

We also had a family party at Aunt Annie's house. We had an ornament exchange and ate Mexican food. Christmas Eve dinner was at my house, and we had pepperoni rolls and a new recipe for homemade white hot chocolate, which was a hit. My niece, Gracyn, got to read Twas the Night Before Christmas. I gave the children some reindeer antlers to wear, and later we sang Christmas carols and then some old negro spirituals with Grandmama on the guitar. It was wonderful. We also made Frosty the Snowman sugar cookies for Santa and put the kids in their Christmas jammies. Excitement filled the night. Gracyn also assured me that she was going to stay up in her living room all night to get a glimpse of Santa.

Marlena and Joshua

Gracyn preparing to read Twas the Night Before Christmas

Kaelah decided that Santa might want a candy cane on his cookie plate.

Christmas morning was a hit. My kids were amazed at all the presents. The night before, Haleah had told me that she only wanted "just one present" from Santa. And I'm not sure why. Anyhow, she was glad that he had brought her more than one. Their favorite part was merely opening the presents. And after every gift opened, Kaelah would say, "nother one..." They got a bunch of tiny fun things and a couple a bigger gifts, not to be overdone. They loved their own personal toddler couches the best. I am thrilled with these.


Later Christmas morning, we headed to their Aunt Missy's house for Christmas breakfast. We had a pancake and egg feast. And later in the afternoon, we headed to Grandmama's for more presents and dinner. It was nice to be all together, and I kept the kids up as long as I could.

The Whitt women in matching jammies, making Christmas breakfast.

Our time with the Colorado Whitt's came to an end after celebrating Joshua's 1st Birthday party at Grandmama's. He had a Handy Manny theme, and became a sleepy head right after his cake. I guess that's a typical one year old for you. :)

Overall, it was a lovely holiday season. David and I were able to give a little to others in need, and people also helped us through where we needed help. God never fails us. And we are so thankful for His gift to us in the form a perfect baby named Jesus.

Humbug and Cold Bug Kids

Well, we stayed home from church today, and glad we did. All babies were coughing and fussing and pretty miserable in the morning, including David. They laid low in the morning and played Lincoln Logs and watched Wiggles Christmas DVD's while I cleaned and vacuumed the house. By mid-morning the plumber came to save us from our crisis in the pipes. It took him all of 10 minutes to snake out an outside drain pipe, and all of 5 seconds to swipe $135 bucks from us to pay for it. But I am happy to be able to run the dishwasher and not have poo come up through our tub. It was REVOLTING cleaning that crap up, literally.

After the kids' naps, they seemed to be in good spirits, so I donned them in their new light up Christmas shirts and ventured off to the mall to visit Santa, a family outing. Haleah told me beforehand that she was not going to cry. We happened to be the first ones in line for Santa as he arrived back from his cookie and milk break. He walked by us and said "Hello," and both girls clung to David like coal to a stocking. They were terrified! I told the people behind us that this wasn't going to be pretty... I believe that Kaelah took Haleah's lead and started to cry. We dragged them all into Santa's "circle of death," and took a seat on his lap--a fun, family affair. Haleah was bucking herself and was sure that Santa was going to attack her or something. Tears were streaming down her face. Kaelah sat on my lap, but refused to look up. This was such a nice Santa though---the nicest one I've seen in years. So, here's a picture. The only one who looks good is Bekah, as she is still oblivious to these traumatic life events...

The night ended with takeout from McDonalds. I wanted to go find "greens" for our house, to lay about, to look more festive. But David refused saying he would not pay one green dollar for one piece of greenery. What's he going to do? Find me some greenery in somebody else's woods again? That didn't work out so well the last time around.... Ergh.

Let's Just Call it ISSUES

This has been an interesting day. I was still recovering from being up half the night with Kaelah's coughing fits and Bekah's indecision to sleep and to stand up in her crib instead.

When David arrived home after working a half day, he quickly addressed the plumbing problem we're having. Two of our toilets won't flush and the tub started backing up with feces. Not pretty, but pretty awful. David got "prepared" by donning his Army fatigues, in camo, and crawled under our house to look at the pipes. Kitty followed. It was a funny sight to see. David tried to "snake" the pipes. He does have some plumbing experience, but it seemed that this task could not be done by a semi novice. We had to give in and call the plumber.

We also had a neighbor visit us today, and it's wasn't a friendly visit. It was an unexpected visit regarding wood we had taken from their property, apparently, but we were unaware that it was theirs. It was the wood that was mentioned in a previous blog that we tried to gather for a Thanksgiving fire. I guess our naivete caused us trouble, and our neighbor much grief. He was not happy with us. David tried to apologize and smooth things over and even pay for the wood that we took, which was just a few pieces. I hope we can still be civil neighbors and I hope that our action didn't cause long lasting hard feelings. It was a misunderstanding, and an embarrassing one at that...

Tonight I'm relaxing a little after cleaning the kitchen and organizing the kids Christmas present that I purchased. After going on a buying frenzy over the last couple of weeks, it's hard to recall what I got, so I like to go through it and make sure everything is "in check." They're not too spoiled! I can't wait for Christmas, though...

All in all, it's been a decent week. I took my niece, Gracyn, for a treat after school for her 9th Birthday and gave her a present. I got new glasses (long awaited), and am thrilled with them. And my kids continue to drive me crazy and make me laugh at the same time. Kaelah likes to test her limits by doing something "mean," like pinching Bekah's cheeks. And Bekah screams. Then Kaelah says, "Sorry Bekah Bear. Didn't mean to!" Ah, right.

And Haleah is so excited for Santa. I find it fun telling her all about him and his "process" of delivering gifts and where he comes from. She is a little fearful, however, that he will come into her room while she is sleeping and say, "Ho, ho, ho." She doesn't want that to happen. Silly kiddo.