The Excellent Ellie

Five years ago, we welcomed someone new to our family.

When we adopted her, we were told she was most likely 2 years old.

Ellie started off as an outside dog.

But when we moved to an apartment, she became an inside dog.

We hoped that she had been housebroken in her past life.

It turns out, she was.

She acclimated to apartment life pretty well.

And our friends loved her.

She gave us a reason to get out and walk.

Sometimes, we would travel with her if our destination was dog-friendly.

She was there for our first son’s babyhood.

She never wanted to play. She always wanted to be loved.

She wasn’t, by any means, a watch dog.

She was there when we brought our second son home.

And she came with us when we moved here.

And we tried to make it work.

But here’s the thing. We have always struggled to give Ellie the time that she deserves. In the apartment, for the most part, we were able to make it work. We were blessed with friends who lived close by who could walk her when we were out of town. When we weren’t there, she stayed in the laundry room, which was small but climate controlled.

When we moved, she ended up having to stay here…

It was only meant to be at night time and when we weren’t there. But between the bladder control issues she was starting to get naturally with age, the fact that I was out of town A LOT directly after Harlie got sick, the fact that while I was out of town, Josh was working late, leaving no one at home to walk the dog, and the fact that all this extra time in the outside cage meant that she smelled awful, Ellie more often than not was left…

Here.

And we were faced with a dilemma. We consider her a part of the family and never would take her to a shelter, but we knew that her quality of life with us was not much better than a shelter.

A good friend of ours has a connection with an animal adoption agency, and she overheard us talking about our problem. She graciously posted a listing for us on the agency’s website. I had never thought that anyone would be looking for an older lab mix, but we had 3 contacts from people who were interested in Ellie in just one week!

And so, Ellie is in a new home. She has actually been to two new homes since she left us, but I think this second one is going to stick. She lives with a retired lady who takes her on two hour long walks a day.

I like to think that they have retired together.

And it makes me feel sad and guilty, especially after I look over all these pictures and am reminded that Ellie was a constant in our lives through several years of change. But far greater than those emotions are those of happiness and peace; happiness that Ellie is finally where someone has the time to love her, peace that we made the right choice.

Ava cried the day that we let her know we were parting with Ellie, but since then, she has hardly been mentioned amongst the kids. And I honestly think this is the easiest way to part with an animal.

So, Ellie, thanks for being there for us over the years.

Now it’s time for someone to be there for you.

The Silence Before a Wedding

I’ve had the opportunity to shoot a number of sweet, small outdoor weddings. I guess it comes with the territory of being an inexpensive photographer; people who are having to get married “on the cheap” are more likely to have an outdoor ceremony at a public park, in someone’s yard, etc. I’m OK with that; these are my favorite weddings to shoot!

Sometimes, people try to play music at outdoor ceremonies. But let’s be honest; it is very hard to achieve good acoustics outside. So, sometimes, the ceremonies that I have seen have gone without.

I’ve heard it said that this is awkward; not having a processional song to bring in the bride.

And, I agree to an extent. In my mind, music is an important part of making a wedding feel, well, like a wedding.

However, there is also something magical in these weddings without music. The crowd, that has been milling about socializing, finds its seats. The groomsmen line up on one side. The bridesmaids line up on the other. And when the crowd realizes what is about to happen…there is silence.

Silence, except for maybe the chirping of the birds, as each attendant takes his/her place. Silence as the bride and her daddy make that very symbolic walk.

This silence fascinates me, because our lives are perpetually not silent. We live in a culture of constant noise. There always has to be a TV on or music playing. And noise isn’t just audible; it’s a need to always have the mind occupied, even if it’s a mindless activity like a cell phone app or facebook. It is normal to spend every moment of every day with our minds pulled in 5 different directions. We virtually are never sitting in silence.

Unless we go to a wedding that has no music.

And then, there it is. That beautiful, rich, silence. You see, this is a special silence. It is not an indicator or dead time or boredom. It is not an accident. This silence has a purpose. In its lack of noise, it is actually speaking. This is something sacred, it says, This is something worth shutting out every noise to focus on this one, beautiful, God-given moment.

And it is.

And it makes me wonder how many other moments in life I’m missing in all of the noise.

The Kids

OK, so I feel like I need to pause from filling in the “Table of Contents” I wrote in this post to just talk about what’s going on with my kids. As I hinted in the last post, they are growing like weeds and I haven’t been doing a great job of documenting all of the wonderful things that they are learning.

So, here they are, in height order, of course!

Ava

~ Ava is really. witty. I guess that’s always been the case, but the older she gets, the more we realize that we. are. in. trouble.

~ She graduates from PreK in a month!

~ She is a leader. I’m having to remind her multiple times a day that it is not her job to parent her brothers. But she still gets away with it a lot; Izzy is a natural follower.

~ She likes to dress like, as Josh affectionately calls it, “An 80s Child.” Lots. of. layers.

~ She is an awesome eater. I get so stressed out about her picky brother, I usually fail to notice how good she’s eating. She’s also developing a love for water that I wish I shared!

~ She has a great imagination. Izzy does, too, but it helps that he has such a great example to follow.

~ She’s a talker. Seriously, does someone want to come give me a break and listen to her for a while?

~ She’s so beautiful.

~ Her love language is Words of Affirmation. She is not above fishing for compliments if she doesn’t feel validated.

~ She’s like an elephant. She never forgets.

Israel

~Israel is at my favorite age thus far: 3! Seeing him walking around in his rain boots and underwear just makes my heart swell up like only a mother’s can.

~ Speaking of underwear, Izzy is FINALLY 96% potty trained. This journey has taken a year, people. A YEAR. So, to answer you parents’ questions about potty training, here it is: For girls, it is a short sprint. Maybe a lap around the track. For boys, it is a marathon. A long journey. A CROSS COUNTRY EXPEDITION.

I say he is 96% potty trained because he’s averaging one accident at night every two weeks or so. But I haven’t put a nighttime diaper on him since we’ve been at home (about 3 weeks,) so I feel like the finish line to this project is finally in sight.

~ Izzy is ready for Egan to be old enough to engage in rough and tumble play. I couldn’t count the number of times a day that I have to tell him to get off of the baby. I think he’ll be ready to play with some boys his age at preschool in the fall!

~ He has some issues. I’m talking OCD. He goes into hysterics when food gets on his fingers or when he spills a drop of bubble solution on his shoes. He loves playing in the dirt, but then he cries like he’s in terrible danger when he sees the dirt that I washed off of him in the bottom of the bathtub. And let’s not even talk about how he reacts when a gnat flies in his face!

~ Those problems aside, he is a brave boy. He gets that from his daddy.

~ His love language is physical touch. His favorite thing right now is for us to “scratch his back and open his shirt.” (Scratch his back under his shirt.) I call this his Pause Button because scratching his back is a surefire way to get him to sit still.

It happens to be one of my Pause Buttons, too. Not that you need to know.

Egan

~ The child…well, he’s active. In the spirit of Marshall Erickson, I have put together a little Venn Diagram to show you what I mean:

Man, I love this kid!

~ Egan doesn’t seem interested in walking. I don’t blame him, he is a super fast crawler. And climber. But we’ve already talked about that.

~ He’ll eat pretty much anything I give him. As well as anything he finds on the floor.

~ He drinks milk with his meals now. I’m still nursing him 3 or 4 times a day. I am not in a hurry to stop this time, weaning will happen when it happens. But it is really nice to be able to leave him with a cup of milk and know he’ll be fine!

~ Speaking of which, Egan has now spent some time away from me! Tiff kept the kids one night last week so Josh and I could have a real date. We had not had a kid-free date that we could think of since Egan had been born! THEN, my parents kept him all day last Saturday while Josh and I went to an out-of-town wedding shower. I didn’t know what to do with two hands all day!

~ His love language is yet to be determined. Right now it’s a tossup between pancakes and rubber balls.

The Elusive Little Years

Source: piccsy.com via Lapin on Pinterest

I’m going to elaborate on a few points in regards to what I have learned on the elusive little years, but in case you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to read a whole entry, here’s the cliff notes:

Life is short.

Seriously.

~~~~~~~~~

As I mentioned in my previous post, helping with Josh’s sisters gave me a sneak peak on what I have to look forward to when my own children reach certain ages. I also spent more time away from Ava than I ever have before. Each week that we lived in two worlds, I would come home to find an older, taller, and smarter child.

I have been so blessed to be able to stay home with my children for all of their little years. When Ava was a baby and I was still in college, a sitter watched her about 15 hours a week while I was in class. Last school year, she spent about 10 hours a week in preschool. This year, she spends about 16 hours a week in preschool. The rest of the time, she has been with me! (With the exception of church, photography gigs, dentist appointments, date nights, etc.)

And, even though I’m perfectly aware of how old she is, I have sort of been able to pretend that things aren’t going to change. That she’ll always be this sweet girl that’s completely dependant on me.

Then, I kept Josh’s sisters. And I got to see, firsthand, the challenges and drama that elementary school can bring. And it occurred to me: My baby is about to do this. Not in a few years. Not in 6 months. In August! She will be spending 5 days a week away from home, away from me. She will have a considerably larger number of voices telling what she should do and believe. She will be susceptible to a lot of factors that I will have no power to control.

She will be taking an important step in the process of growing up. And, truth be told, unless God leads us in the future to homeschool, she will probably never spend as much time at home again as she is spending now.

Bottom line is, my daughter’s little years are coming to a close. And I feel sad. And blessed. And amazed as I watch her to transform into a bonified big girl right before my eyes.

So, I realize these next 3 or so months are kind of a last hurrah for the little years. Pretty soon, I won’t have 3 preschoolers anymore; I will have 2 preschoolers and one elementary schooler, which means that our lives are going to start revolving around school hours and a school calendar.

And here’s what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to spend too much time stressing out over structure for Ava’s remaining 3 months of preschooler-hood. Our homeschooling fell to the wayside, naturally, when Harlie got sick, and I’m not particularly concerned with picking it back up. (Although we have picked back up on piano, she’s too good at it to let it go!) Tiff, who is already in the 2 preschoolers, 1 elementary schooler stage has been telling me all year that she doesn’t worry about structure for the little ones because, all too soon, they will be entering a world of little freedom. It wasn’t until the past month that I realized how right she is. So I’m going to relax during the day, because very soon, our days will be looking very different.

Here’s what I am going to do. Soak up as much time as I can with my princess.

Because this is what happened…

…while I was making other plans!

Motherhood: The Prequel

The pictures featured in this post are from Ava’s spring break, so she was able to be with me at the Coopers that week.

When Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show became a grandparent, she declared that she was too young to be called a grandmother. She said that, instead, she thought that this new stage in her life should be called Motherhood: The Sequel. (I was going to be all suave and find a video clip of this scene. Sadly, it was not to be found.)

Well, I am calling the five weeks (and any time in the future) that I have spent caring for Josh’s sisters Motherhood: The Prequel. Although I am already a mother of 3, these 3 girls older than all of my children. By spending time with them, I am getting the opportunity to to have a sneak peak into my own children’s futures. I was thrown into a world of packed lunches and homework and playground bullies and eye shadow. Memories have been made, arguments have been had, and before you know it…life has happened.

Spa pedicures on the porch!

Here are some things I learned about elementary aged girls during Motherhood: The Prequel –

~ There is absolutely no shame in not packing a lunch for the kids on a day that you’re out of bread. Regardless of how they typically feel about cafeteria food, it is OK to have a day where you give everyone $2 and tell them to fend for themselves. It’s quite liberating, actually.

Peanut Hunt! With Peanut Proud being a week away, there were nuts like this all over town.

~ When you DO pack their lunches, remember, you’re packing it more for their friends than themselves. Their friends’ lunch will always have more appeal than what you slave over to prepare, so instead of worrying about making a lunch they will like, make one that has a high trade value.

Picnic dinner at our state park! Yes, I took 6 kids by myself to the state park. And yes, I think I do have a screw loose, thanks for asking.

~ If you discover that there’s a relatively healthy meal that you will cook AND that everyone will eat, that is gold, my friend, gold.

I felt the need to document how much fresh produce we were eating. I guess it is more fun to eat healthy outside!

~ Meeting the academic needs of 3 children during the one hour allotted for homework is very difficult.

~ Our girls’ modesty is under attack in today’s culture. They are being bombarded with imagery of teenage girls (especially cartoons!) showing A LOT of their skin. It used to be that modesty was a talk that you could save for when a girls’ body started changing with puberty, because they simply didn’t THINK to dress inappropriately before then. I had problems convincing a nine year old to cover up almost daily…a NINE YEAR OLD.

~ Elementary age girls have a very strong sense of ownership. Regardless of how many time an item, like clothing, has been passed around the family, if they have used/worn it in the last week, it is THEIRS. A sibling contradicting this fact can result in a knock down, drag out fight.

This rule is conveniently bypassed, however, when someone would like to use something that another sibling has used/worn in the past week. The coveting child suddenly becomes a great example of sharing virtue. Then she gets beat up in a knock down, drag out fight.

~ 90% of stomach and headaches can be fixed with a good distraction.

~ Children can be picky about everything thing. every. thing. Even the type of chocolate chip cookies they are given. IT’S COOKIES, PEOPLE. Just be happy you’re getting some junk food and move on!

~ Speaking of pickiness, Angie Smith wrote a blog about the Tyranny of Choice around Christmas. I really understood her points a lot more after watching the girls. I think they were surprised that I wasn’t giving them the choices/options they were used to having. They didn’t get the full reign over the TV and internet that they were used to having. They couldn’t go outside whenever they wanted to. They had a schedule to live by. (Disclaimer: I am NOT saying that they are typically able to watch whatever they want, I just was even stricter than they are used to.)

My defense is thus: It’s just not possible, when responsible for 6 children by yourself, to allow them total freedom. It wouldn’t be safe, because I can’t supervise 6 children doing 6 different things. It’s also not practical. For example, I simply didn’t have time to prepare 6 different meals to fit the 6 different appetites of 6 different people. There are times when you get the privilege of choosing what you want, but there are times when you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit. And when you’re one of 6 kids, the latter scenario is most of the time.

Not to mention some of the serious implications of allowing a child free reign in choice. But fortunately, Angie wrote that blog entry, so I don’t have to. (Another disclaimer: I’m not saying the girls typically have too much freedom. I just didn’t want to, while I was responsible for them, let them turn into little entitled monsters.)

~ Free printable coloring sheets can be your best friend, especially when one comes home with no homework and the others have homework. I just hope my inlaws have some ink left.

Making some very Pinterest-y flower cupcakes!

~ The best way to cure a child from starvation is to offer them a dinner that they don’t like.

Awesome!

~ It is VERY HELPFUL for caretakers that don’t know a child’s school when teachers send home a paper each week explaining precisely what a child’s homework will be for an entire week. Teachers, PLEASE put the effort into doing this, it could really influence the kind of help that a child gets at home. Also, PLEASE send home a note with a child EVERY TIME the child has to bring money in for any reason.

While I’m on this soapbox, teachers, if you know that a child is going through a hard time and that they are separated from their parents for whatever reason, please remember that whoever is taking care of them may not be aware of how you do things. If you could possibly take the time to jot a note to them on occasion to explain things, that would be awesome. But I know you’re busy. But it really would help.

Sleepover for Isabel’s birthday at my house one weekend!

~ Speaking of bringing money to school…wow. Between the amount of money constantly being asked for and the fact that 6:15 AM comes early…it’s enough to make me reconsider homeschooling!

Matching tunics and leggings for church.

It was a crazy five weeks, and I’m not proud of how I handled all the challenges I was faced with. Bottom line is, I’ve had an unique opportunity to build relationships with Josh’s sisters that I never dreamed I would get to have. Not having siblings of my own, this is something that is very much appreciated and cherished.

Harlie update: She is still having unexplained vomiting. However, the bright side is, her therapist is starting to work with her on standing up! There’s a video on facebook of her therapist using a game of peek-a-boo to get her to stand up. Awesomeness!!!

You know you want some MORE Easter.

OK, so I figured that if I can get all the Easter posting out of my system two days after the holiday, I am doing pretty good!

If you’ll remember, last year, Tiff, Cynthia, and I got together with our kids on Good Friday for some egg rolling fun. We had so much fun with the general destruction of boiled eggs, we decided to make it an annual event, adding activities to make our egg party more and MORE epic each year. How epic, you ask? Tiff wrote on my facebook wall about a week ago that she had forgotten that we needed a trampoline, so she was going to start searching for one on craiglslist, STAT!

OK, so we didn’t have a trampoline, but we did have an Easter party that could wear out even the most enthusiastic of preschool parents. We decided to make it on Saturday so that school age children and our husbands could join us, and we invited Melanie to join the craziness because, well, it’s safe to say she’s in our craziness club now.

My parents also decided it would be a good weekend to come visit us. Which means they got roped into helping with approximately 8 preschoolers. Needless to say, they will probably be more careful about when they choose to visit next!

(I’m kidding. I think.)

OK, so as soon as guests arrive, we started making the same coffee filter butterflies that my kids made the day before. I didn’t take pictures – I was hot gluing.

Then my hubby grilled hot dogs and we partook. Still no pictures – I was making a ton of sippy cups and I might have had lunch, too.

Then the games began! We started with the traditional egg roll.

For some reason, this made the kids more interested in tearing the shells off the boiled eggs than racing with them. So then we tried the egg-in-spoon variation.

This seemed to go over much better!

As the grand finale of the racing portion of the party, we, of course, had to roll eggs down the slide!

I think Jack won that one!

After all of that, we decided to put our creative juices aside and go for a good old fashioned egg hunt.

Then we went inside and the kids iced egg and flower shaped cookies that my mom was gracious enough to prepare.

We rounded out the party with newborn pictures of a very special little baby, and with a very high class outdoor activity…

No words. Just no words.

It was a fun little party with minimal casualties!

SO, on the actual day of Easter, as you can see, we were all Easter-ed out! But I kind of like the system we’re developing: we do all of our celebrating and activities for a holiday before the actual day, so we can have a real holiday without responsibilities on the actual holiday.

And, although I haven’t taken the time to blog about it this year, Easter is actually about our Risen Savior. Our kids don’t get Easter baskets and we don’t talk about the Easter bunny, although they hear about him from other sources. Someday I will blog more in depth about my frustrations in this area.

Anyway, we went to church and then it was kind of like, “Not what?” So we went to my favorite restaurant and took the kids to the park. They were allowed to play at the park…provided that they agreed to take some pictures in their new Easter clothes

Um, yeah. Suffice to say that won’t be my last attempt at getting some Spring pictures of the kids.

So I thought some candids might turn out better. Of course, they did!

I felt especially blessed to get to spend Easter with my family this year, as we have spent a number of weeks separated as of late.

Please continue to keep Harlie in your prayers. She is continuing to have vomiting spells, and the doctors do not know why. Please also keep my inlaws, Glenda and Dan in your prayers. They have been watching their baby go through this for 10 weeks (or longer, now!) and that is a lot of stress. Thanks so much!

Happy Easter, take 2!

I got most of this post written yesterday, so that I could actually be posting it on Easter, but then my computer overheated and shut off before I could save it. So it looks like, even when I try to blog on time, I can’t. Good to know. I will try to recreate the post to the best of my ability.

(In case you’re wondering, my Easter and birthday gift is a new computer!!!)

I am going to blog a little out-of-order so that I can share Easter pictures before it’s, you know, summer!

I got to have two Holy Weeks this year. One with Josh’s sisters the week before Palm Sunday, and one with my family this past week. Needless to say, the fact that I had two weeks to get into the spirit AND the fact that this is my first Easter since Pinterest entered my life, I had tons of fun with little projects! Hopefully the kids did, too.

Holy Week #1

On Monday of Holy Week #1, the girls painted these crosses. I did discover, however, that it would be better to use card stock than normal paper to keep the tape from tearing holes in the paper – just FYI.

That was all of the Easter fun for that day because the rest of our afternoon was spent at a local state park doing a photo shoot for one of their friends and having a picnic dinner. Now THAT was some crazy fun!

On Tuesday was the main event: our Easter egg hunt! As I mentioned in a post that I wrote that day, the girls had been doing A LOT of fighting with each other. I was NOT going to let the joy of an Easter egg hunt be ruined by bickering over number of eggs and prizes. So I split the eggs up into a dozen eggs of each color. Each child was to look for their color ONLY. That way I made sure everyone got the same number of eggs and the exact same prizes in their eggs.

Yes, they are hunting with mixing bowls. Having baskets would have involved a trip into the attic. I simply wasn’t that die-hard!

Can you guess what color Izzy was looking for?

Fortunately, Egan was content playing in the dirt, so I didn’t have to chase him around during the hunt!

Of course, I had to take some pictures to make it LOOK like he had an interest in the eggs!

Then it was time to check out the prizes! For prizes, I mostly used a bunch of stickers that I already had. Those went over exceptionally well, especially the sparkly foam stickers! Each child each found 2 pieces of candy, which was our dessert for the night. I did pick up some bouncy balls and “Jesus fish” necklaces. I will say that I was afraid that there would be some complaining about the prizes, since they weren’t the normal candy and money Easter egg prizes, but everyone acted very appreciative! So a big SCORE for the Cooper girls!

I stayed up late Tuesday night packing a special surprise lunch for the girls. I found this idea via Pinterest, and I will say that I was really, really excited about doing it.

I packed their entire lunch in eggs! Dana and Tori seemed to really like their surprise lunch. Stacey didn’t seem so thrilled, but that could be because all of her eggs cracked open and spilled out before lunch. If I had not been so tired when I was making them, I might would have thought to tape the eggs shut. Maybe.

Anyway, 2 out of 3 happy campers isn’t too bad!

On Wednesday, the girls helped me finish a great egg garland for the mantle.

We also made some sweet Spring treats.

However, the best surprise the girls had on Wednesday was when their mom walked in the door to stay for a few days!!!

Holy Week #2

My family was traveling on Palm Sunday, so we didn’t get to attend church. Because of that, and because we were in some desperate need of some family time, Josh and I decided to do some sort of Easter devotion every day of Holy Week. I got a lot of ideas for this from Motherhood on a Dime, but I ended up changing some of the activities to be a better fit for us.

On Monday, I reused the painters tape cross craft. Using card stock this time, of course.

We made our plans for the devotionals on Monday, so I didn’t really have time to prepare anything for Monday night. We talked about Palm Sunday, and our activity was everyone taking turns being a donkey and riding Jesus into Jerusalem. I will spare you the pictures.

On Tuesday our devotional was about the cross. The kids made these lovely stained glass crosses.

Wednesday was church night. Our devotional was about the resurrection, so Ava and I made these resurrection roles to bring to Mission Friends. I am a big fan of this recipe; it is quick, simple, to the point, and quite tasty!

On Wednesday I also blew the yolks out of egg shells for the first time in years so that we could make these little guys at Mission Friends:

I can’t remember where I found the idea now, but it’s just tissue paper glued to the eggs – good for little hands!

Thursday is when we talked about what Jesus’ death and resurrection means to us. I used this modified version of Resurrection Eggs to talk about the Gospel.

First we found the eggs…

Then we talked about what was inside of them!

On Friday our devotional was about new life in Christ. Earlier in the day, the kids colored coffee filters…

And they made caterpillars…

Later, while the kids weren’t looking, the caterpillars made cocoons…

And when it was time for our devotional, the kids got to see how their caterpillars had transformed into butterflies!

Well that’s all for now, I don’t have the pictures from the fun on Saturday or Sunday downloaded yet. I hope everyone had a great Easter!

I’m overwhelmed so…a random list!

OK, so I have SO much I could blog about, I don’t even know where to start! So here’s the game plan (because I always need a game plan, even when it’s for my blog): Today, I’m just going to blog a random bullet point list. I’m going to use pictures that I took last week on a rare day at HOME. I think they really capture how much the kids and I appreciate being home!

But here are some future blogs for when I have the time and the state of mind simultaneously:

Events:

~ Week 3 and 4 with the sisters, complete with special activities and pictures.

~ Our spontaneous weekend with the sisters at my house, complete with pictures. (OK, so all of these are going to be complete with pictures, so I’m going to stop typing that part!)

~ Week 5 with the sisters – also my Easter week with them!

~ Our epic weekend of traveling to see Josh’s dad’s side of the family.

~ Parting with Ellie

~Our Holy Week at HOME!

Topics (maybe even spiritual-ish!):

~Motherhood, the Pre-quel.

~The Narrow Gate

~Our Response to Adoption

~The Elusive Little Years

~The Silence before a Wedding

~The Tyranny of Choice

See what I mean, I have a lot to write about! I feel like I just wrote a Table of Contents! But I feel better having written that down. Even if that’s as far as I get.

NOW, onto the randomness.

Because that is obviously why you are reading.

~ First of all, a Harlie update! We got to see her again this weekend, and each time is even more encouraging. She was wearing a night gown instead of a hospital gown. She was bantering with the nurses. She was letting her parents know very clearly that she was not cool with being in her hospital bed; she wanted to get in the wheelchair and go for a walk!

~ Harlie is having an issue that is keeping her from getting to progress to the rehab facility. She has been vomiting for a few weeks now. The doctor’s can’t figure it out; she even hand an endoscopy yesterday and the results are her intestines are clear. There is a possibility that her brain, as the results of the strokes that she had when she first got sick, is triggering the vomiting. Please pray that this resolves itself (or that doctor’s are able to treat it,) so that she can go to rehab. It is predicted that rehab will last 4 weeks. That’s 4 more weeks of being away from home and her sisters, and it hasn’t even started yet!

~ In other, less serious news, Josh and I finally watched the movie Courageous . I know, I know, we got all hyped up about the movie, did the Bible study, everything, but then we didn’t watch it. Well, here’s the thing. The movie theater is ridiculously expensive. So it’s our policy to only go to the movies once a year. We had already used that up on Josh’s birthday. The DVD didn’t come out until January, and in the post-Christmas money crunch, paying $20 for a DVD was not a priority. But we did buy it so that Josh’s mom would have something to watch in the hospital after Harlie got sick, and she gave it back to us a few weeks ago. So we watched it.

I could go on and on about the pros and [very few] cons to the movie, but for now let me just say…

Team Javier!!!

~ Josh and I have become a wee bit obsessed with Jason Mraz’s song “I Won’t Give Up.” Or maybe it’s with Jason Mraz in general. But seriously, such a good song.

~ Anyone keeping up with Dancing with the Stars this season? I can’t watch it on the actual night,(because, seriously, who has their kids in bed before 8:00?) so I am watching it online. Oh. my. goodness. Everyone is so talented this time around! I’ll admit that I’m attached to the British classical singer even though I hadn’t heard of her before because A) she looks like Grace Kelly B) she has the most beautiful accent and…oh yeah, C) she’s a very good dancer. But this is also our chance to have Steve Urkel and Laura Ingalls on the same show – I think that’s a once in a lifetime thing! (Although I think Pa would have had a heart attack if Laura had worn THAT purple dress on the prairie!)

~Speaking of immodest clothing, am I the only mom having trouble finding summer clothes long enough to be appropriate? I went through Ava’s drawers today and pulled out things I knew were too short, so here’s hoping that the rest will look OK on those long, gangly legs. I’m sorry, but booty shorts aren’t going to cut it at my house. I’ve always thought that we would start discussing modesty when she’s 9 or so, but it’s looking like we’re needing to start…NOW.

~ I’ll confess that it’s been at least a month since I’ve been on a jog. I can’t run at my inlaws because…well, there’s no one else to watch the kids, and even if I had the jogging stroller, Izzy can’t keep up with me! I should have been exercising since I’ve been at home this week, but we’re doing some special activities with the kids every day for Holy Week, and that is more important to me.

I know confessing isn’t helping my waistline at all, but I feel better now.

~ Another confession: My Bible reading has really been in a rut. I thrive off of structure (I know that must come as a surprise to you!), and since Egan was born, I really haven’t had a structure for my quiet time. In an effort to revitalize this area, I ordered a used copy of The Message: Remix. I know I’m behind the times; this paraphrase was really trendy when I was in college, so it’s probably old hat now. But I’ve never actually read The Message, other than a verse here and there, so I thought I would read it like it’s supposed to be read: from start to finish, like a book. (Except Remix has the verse markings in it, because seriously, I can’t go too far off the beaten path!) My plan is to read the New Testament all the way through. Josh may even join me with a digital copy on his Kindle. He’s all contemporvant like that.

~ What, you don’t know what contemporvant means? It’s a term that Josh, my dad, and I use to describe anything new and edgy. You know, like tablets and plastic rimmed glasses. We glean our new lingo from this video from North Point Church that always makes me smile:

Since we’re sharing the love of videos (read: I finally figured out how to embed them in the blog!), here is one more video that always makes me smile:

So consider this the closing phrase that gives the reader a sense of temporary closure but leaves her desiring to return to the blog at a later time to check for updates.