BREEZY FIELDS

for my cousin Jess and her husband, Tony, to get here with their two beautiful kidlets. I am so excited. It is a gorgeous day, I ordered it especially for them. I requested fabulous weather all week, we'll see if my wish will be granted. I hope so. It is so gorgeous here and there is so much to do- OUTSIDE. Quick family update- MIKE- just finished a very, very long two weeks of finals and projects. He spent many hours slaving away in the basement. He has emerged, squinting and blinking, blinded by the warm yellow sun. He got a 99 on his statistics final and doesn't even want to know what he got on his graphics final. I don't know any more details than that. JANE- has been agonizing over which electives to take next year. She had chosen to be an aide in the autism classroom but then her yearbook teacher begged her to come be his senior editor next year and her jazz band teacher begged her to actually take jazz band since she will probably be the most experienced f...

Sawyer is now consistently pooping on the potty. I can't imagine what life will be like without two kids in diapers. Awesome, I imagine. This kid is hilarious. He keeps sneaking into the gum cupboard, he can scale up the drawers in seconds. He loves super heroes. The other day I was unpacking clothes that Meags had brought down. He was wearing four different shirts. The shirt we had on when we started, a Batman, Superman, and Spiderman shirt. Layers are "in" right? Today was St. Patrick's Day, we had green milk for breakfast, shamrock shaped sandwiches for lunch, and corned beef and cabbage and shamrock cupcakes for dinner. We properly celebrated St.Patty's and Geoffrey George's B-day. It was a fun day. Well, Mike is upstairs now and it's time to enjoy my honey. Goodnight.

"Baby Ellie" as all her sweet little cousins (most of them younger) call her, turned 6 this year on Valentine's Day. I can't believe it. I have a tall gangly girl with three loose teeth and no more baby fat, except maybe in those sweet, edible cheeks. Ellie's birthday is always an emotional time for me. It is a time for assessments in school, a time for recognizing where Ellyn is, developmentally. We meet every year, the week before her birthday. It is an exact age very much in the forefront of my thoughts and it seems to me that I look around and every little kid I see is Ellyn's same age. On the one hand it is difficult for me to see where Ellyn should have been. There are those sad "what if" moments. I see what Ellyn's life could have been, how carefree and independent my six year old daughter would be. I wonder what sort of interests she would have had, what it would be like to have an energetic little kindergartner sprinting off the...

Mike was sitting beside me on the couch the other night doing his usual computer browsing stuff and casually commented, "You haven't blogged forever." This is true. However, if anyone read the last entry that my dear husband wrote for the extended family blog and that I copied and pasted on to ours so that there was a little of my dear husband's words and insight on our family blog (I know you are wondering how long I can make this run on sentence), you will see that life around these parts has been a little messy. Last week was awful. First, we thought that Sawyer had gotten food poisoning from the turkey soup that I had made with frozen Thanksgiving turkey (which you can use for up to 4 months by the by and I was safely within that time limit). The poor kid- well, Mike gave those details. So mine hit two days later, right before I was supposed to leave for a YW activity that I was in charge of AND supposed to bring food for. Let me tell you how terrible I felt...

Well, our family has just recovered from a nasty bout of stomach flu that hit the home like a tornado. At one point, I was jumping between Brooke, Jane, and Sadie all puking at the the same time while I was also sick. A couple of minutes later, Ellyn joined the party. Sawyer had it on Monday night and although he fully recovered within 24 hours (quicker than any of us), he holds the record for most puking in a night (about 30). I am wrapping up my 3rd quarter here with finals starting next week. It will be nice to change pace again. Thankfully quarters are only 11 weeks so that prevents some burnout. I don't know how I ever did a semester system. We are still loving Carmel, the pics above are from a walk Sawyer and I took the other day when I was experimenting with the camera. What a nice place to be! Our lease is technically over in about 2 months. We are praying hard that we can renew it and stay in this home we love so much. That is my major source of stress right now. How I lon...

-- Post From My iPhone

These past two weeks- three weeks have been quite fun. Up till now school has been really hard. With friends and work. This Jenna that I beleive has already been mentioned is really mean to me. We were best friends one day and the next she had made friends with a drama causer/ bad influence and completely dumped me. It's stupid and I really do try to ignore it but it is more than I can handle. Now I'm lonely in school(because we together had a small group of friends) . I have one other friend so that is good. I hope everything straightens out because she is still being rude to me. Tomorrow is flute auditions. I hope that goes well and I also hope I get my braces off tomorrow. Lots of HOPE. Right now I am watching American Idol with my wonderful family who is the best friend I'll always have. I love taking care of my little siblings. They are always so fun and make me so happy. My mom tries so hard to be a an amazing mother and I appreciate her so much. She is my best friend...

-- Post From My iPhone