Christmas Time

Merry Christmas Eve!

May you have a blessed Christmas as you celebrate
with your families and remember our Saviour's birth!

Merry Christmas!

before 9

on a typical day before 9am I....

have gotten ready for the day
said goodbye to mike
fed levi and myself breakfast
gotten levi ready for the day
have put levi down for his first nap.

this morning added to that list was calling poison control.

yup.

poison control.

i walked in on levi sucking on a diffuser that is filled with this pheramone for cats. it's supposed to help keep them calm in stressful situations. we used it when we moved last year and when we had levi, and we're using it again while we begin the move process. (especially since he is going to have to go live away from us for a while) it's a natural pheramone that cats produce so i wasn't in total panic mode, but was definitely a touch panicked.

thankfully poison control was very efficient and prompt and told me in under a minute that neither the liquid or the plastic could harm him.

thank heavens for that!

needless to say, i'll be moving the diffuser.

first christmas

sometimes i have to stop and remind myself

that it is levi's first christmas.

it feels like he has been around for such a long time.
i can't wait until he is old enough to really enjoy christmas,
and i'm excited to look at christmas through a child's eyes again, and share with him that indeed it really is about Jesus' birthday

happy first christmas, little man!

so much to do

so i've officially reached the "so stressed i can't sleep" state.

last night mike came to bed really late. i rolled over and looked at the clock. it was almost 2am. i couldn't figure out why on earth he was coming to bed so late. he had a HUGE paper due for his class last night due at midnight, so i figured that would come into play, but 2???
i woke up around 3, wide awake, making numerous lists in my head of things that we need to do. i went downstairs to get myself some tea, and found the reason why mike was up. he had spent, i'm guessing, a couple of hours packing up all of the extra stuff in our kitchen that we don't use every day.
i think we are both feeling the stress of moving. yesterday we decided that instead of spending the day packing we were going to have some fun. we packed up our winter gear and headed to my parents. we bundled up levi and went outside and pulled him around on his sled. it was good. refreshing, and i think we both needed a break. i took video and hopefully i can post it soon. my favorite video? the one where he gets tipped over in the sled.. :)

we have so much to do it's crazy.

starting monday i need to call a mechanic about our van. ugh. i hate our van. it's old and it's needs lots of repairs, and over the summer we put almost 2 grand into the stupid thing. after that mess we said... it's going til it dies, we're not putting more money into it... but yeah. we can't really do that when mike loses his job, so it's off to get looked at, and fingers crossed, repaired for not a gazillion dollars.

i also have to call our vet to get mr. cat in for some shots. he's due for them, well overdue if i'm being honest. the crutch of this whole moving thing is that he won't be able to come with us and i want him to be all caught up with everything.
it makes me so sad, and i've cried about it enough already. anyway, we didn't know what we were going to do, and finally my in-laws agreed to take him for us, which was a huge blessing, because we thought we were going to have to give him away. it's not the best arrangement as they have a dog, and they live 2 hours away so we won't get to see him much. we just have to figure out how and when the move is going to happen and i'm going to stop talking about it because i can feel the tears in my eyes again.

oh and we have to schedule an actual day to move. i know that seems silly but this whole... you're being laid off effective the end of december and our lease company saying we'll let you out if you're out by the end of the month has been a bit stressful. ironically, since being laid off mike has worked insane hours. i'm not sure if it's ironic or frustrating. anyway, the plan was to move the day after christmas, but now with the cat situation, we're not sure. we may wait and move the 30th. (if mike can get it off) get everything out there, and then on the 31st, come and clean, give the keys back etc etc, and then pack up and head to my in-laws for several days, in an attempt to make the kitty transition easier...

then there is all the other stuff...
address change
packing
organizing
oh and christmas...

we're on the road again

word on the street is we're moving.

yup.
moving.
in a week.

if you looked at our house you would have zero clue we're moving in a week, because, well, it's a house that's lived in. after much talking and praying, we've decided that for now, it's in our best interest to go ahead and move. we really felt like we had been praying specifically that if the Lord saw fit to let us out of our lease, He would do that, and He answered that prayer abundantly, and while Mike will be taking this part-time gig, it just felt like the better answer was still to move.

where do you move with less than 2 weeks notice?
in with your sister of course!

april and brian have more than graciously offered to let us come live with them, and after talking with them for a bit and hashing out details, we decided to go ahead with it. mike's parents came down on wednesday, and mike and his dad hauled quite a bit of stuff from our basement to their's. they have also graciously offered to let us store our stuff in their basement so we don't have to rent a storage unit.

it's going to be different, and i don't doubt it will have it's challenging moments, but april and i are abnormally close, so i think that will help ease the tension of moving in. so, right now, the plan is to move the day after christmas.

that would be 8 days if you're counting.

so while i've finally finished my crazy 2 weeks of christmas concerts and hoopla, now we begin the ever so delightful task of packing up our entire house.

we have been continually blessed by people in our lives and we're so thankful for the network of family and friends we have here that have allowed us this option.
i think it will take quite a bit of the financial pressure off, and allow us to really focus on job searching.

and because i'm woefully overdue on christmas fun....

levi all bundled up while we were searching for the perfect tree...
i had grand envisions of pulling him around in his sled. instead we used his wagon, wasn't quite the christmas tree moment i was hoping for, but it was fun. :)



mike and levi cutting down our tree.. her name is francesca. :)

blessings abound....

we have been continually blessed throughout these last 2 weeks. it blows us away everytime.

each time,
we feel like God is just saying I'm here,
and I'm going to take care of you.


last week, I had a particularly rough rehearsal, mostly my own fault as I was woefully unprepared for it. I've got a few things happening right now, and practicing is definitely not on the top of the list. anyway, i came home and there was a huge box waiting for me at the door filled with presents for all 3 of us, from some very very dear friends. they are all wrapped with strict instructions to wait until christmas, which is fun but i'm kind of like a 5 year old about presents, so i keep holding them and trying to figure out what's in them. :)


yesterday, my mom called in the afternoon and said.

santa came by our house and you need to come over.

mike stopped off on his way home from work for me. he came home with more presents, and gift cards. in the past 3 days, we have received $250 in gift cards to meijer. our grocery budget for a month is $300. i don't think that's coincidence. i think, no scratch that, i KNOW that that again it's God saying, i'm here, and i'm taking care of you.... again, more bags filled with presents for all of us, and in particular a HUGE present which was a fisher price laugh and learn kitchen which i've been looking at getting levi for a while. because of that, i think it's somebody that knows us well, and honestly, i have NO idea who it is, but we are so incredibly thankful for the Lord working through other people's lives and showing His love through them...

one more. :)

last night mike said, so ben called today. ben and his wife are good friends of ours and have been in our small group bible study for i don't even know how long. ben and his family run their own small business. anyway, ben called and offered mike a part-time, temporary, 4 days a week, 8-5 job, basically until mike can find a permanent job. money wise it would almost dead even (just a little under) what mike makes right now. praise God, huh?

which leads us to this... do we move? can we make it work here? we had been praying that if the Lord would see fit, to allow us out our lease. Well He certainly did, and He certainly provided us that opportunity. But now we wonder should we move. We would be living on an EXTREMELY tight budget if we stayed here, which we do most of the time anyway. It's a balancing act, most of the winter we spend saving saving saving so when I don't work in the summer we're okay and we would not be able to save as much by staying here..

So we're weighing our options and continuing to pray that the Lord would give us discernment as we make decisions through all of this.

this crazy life we lead....

truly.

i haven't forgotten this place.

life has just overwhelmed us as of late.


so here's the brief run-down. we found out mike lost his job on nov. 30. after regaining our thoughts and running numbers we very quickly realized we needed to find another place to live. i make a substantial amount of money teaching, but it is only part time and definitely not enough to pay all of our bills. we would blow through our savings so fast it was crazy. we will receive unemployment, but we have no idea how much and won't know until we actually sign up which we can't do until he is officially unemployed.

so, that wednesday (2nd), we called our leasing company to talk to them and tell them what was going on. they basically said, hmmm. sorry about your luck. we had dinner with friends saturday night. he works for a lawyer. he said, bring by your lease, we'll see if there is anything we can help you with. mike meanwhile continued calling the company who was being less than helpful. they hung up on mike a couple of times, and said they were looking into things and then when we called back, they most certainly had not. our friends called back and said.. it's a really tight lease, the best we can say is to offer them a sum of money to get out. mike was supposed to be calling them the next day to find out on some stuff they were looking into for us. when he called the lady said... if you can be out by the end of the month, we'll keep your security deposit and we'll be good. seriously?

so mike said yes. and yes,
i do mean like December 31st.
which is in 20 days.

So where are we moving? We have a couple of options that we are exploring right now, trying to figure out what we need to do exactly. We are overwhelmed with all of this, but feel like it was the best decision, not just financially but also in looking for jobs. there really is nothing in our little town, job wise, and we felt like if we stuck out our lease longer and then tried to get out it would be even harder because we had just, and i mean just by our new lease started dec. 1st, resigned for another year. So we're looking, everywhere. We really do want to stay in the area, but honestly, it's pretty bleak right now and we have to find work.


so we're moving.

i'm still not sure that has sunk into my brain.

the house is nowhere near packed up


we feel overwhelmed, but are trusting that God is leading us down this crazy whirlwind trip, and that He is continuing to guide us along our journey.
Would you pray with us that we would have clarity and discernment as we search for jobs?

a letter

Dear Blog.

I'm very sorry to be neglecting you, but life has been incredibly busy, filled with christmas-ing, job searching, and working a ton playing for christmas concerts and holiday tours, not to mention our ever more fun and energetic kiddo.

I have very little time for much else and for that, I dutifully apologize.
I will hopefully be back soon with something more than a sad apology.


I promise soon to post pictures and talk about
fun adventures like Christmas Tree Cutting.

life changes

We have been hit with big news, and unfortunately it's not the kind of news you want to hear.

Mike was told on Monday that as of December 30th he would be laid off, permanantly, from work. He will receive one month of severance, so we'll have his income through the end of January and then it's adios to any income. Merry Christmas to us, huh?

Mike has the possibility of transfering to the same company, but over in the Detroit area. We could potentially do that, but it would require a move, and we're not sure we want to pick up and move our family for a company who just threw us to the curb. The Detroit option has been on the table for about a month, but it feels like a lateral move. We have always said that the next time we moved to another job, we wanted to move towards ministry, which is where our hearts are. We are looking down every avenue we can, but I think we both feel strongly that maybe it's time to move more difinitively towards ministry. However, when you don't have a job, suddenly it feels like a viable option.

We are trusting that God has a plan for us, and knows exactly where we need to be, and we're holding to that truth and trusting that His ways will be made clear to us. Obviously we are job hunting en masse, and are hoping for the best.

We covet your prayers for our family as we move through this process.

Thanks, friends.

turkey fun

Turkey Day was fun, but now we're back to the grindstone.

Levi watched his first parade, ate stuffing, mashed potatoes, scalloped corn, and pumpkin pie. the pie was definitely his favorite, i mean really... who wouldn't love pie! :) met a new cousin, hung with fam, watched movies, played games....

We had a lovely time, but even more lovely?

coming home and sleeping in our own bed....

and now on to....

Advent.

we're waiting, being anticipatory of Jesus' coming. which totally reminds me of a funny church sign we saw once at advent. we still talk about it every year..
it said this..

"Advent means Mary is pregnant.. are you?"

seriously. we still don't understand, but boy do we laugh about it...

anyway that was definitely a side note.

so go.. and wait in joyful hope and anticipation of Christ's coming to earth!

packing and turkey

Packing, Laundry, Re-packing, Organizing...

That's what's happening around here. We are trying to get ready to head up state for thanksgiving with Mike's family. We are planning on leaving tomorrow evening.
The plan is to wait until Levi's bedtime, and then leave. In theory, he'll sleep the entire way there. Getting him into the house could be tricky, but I'd rather handle that than an ever-increasing cranky kid in the backseat.

This packing business has gotten complicated. We have so much more stuff to take. My in-laws don't really have any baby stuff around, so we have to take EVERYTHING we could possibly need. I'm trying to figure out food. How do you mama's take food with you? I assume we'll just take a cooler with his stuff in it. He is eating a good chunk of table food these days, but not everything, so we definitely need to pack stuff.

And how do you handle naps and holidays? ugh. Dinner is at Noon on Thursday that's a fine time for lunch... but then the afternoon comes. Levi naps around 1:30-2 normally, and we are having it about a half hour away from where we are staying. I'm not sure how to handle this. We can stay, but he won't sleep, and he'll be cranky, or we can be party poopers and leave.... what would you do??

on the plus side, i'm way excited for...
turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes....

yum yum double yum!

Advent

It's an overlooked, underated time of year if you ask me. Mike and I have talked quite a bit about celebrating advent with our kids, counting down those days until Jesus was born.

This year, I've been on the prowl for an advent calendar that we can use. Much to my surprise, most of them are laden with snowmen, stockings, presents, and candy; all of which is NOT what advent is about. As my sister said "those are countdowns to materialism at it's finest."

Thanks, but we would really like one that simply states the story.

Criteria:
1)reusable: i want it to be one we can stow away for each year
2)economical: it can't cost a lot to buy or to use every year. so many of them require you to purchase little trinkets or candy or something to put in the boxes, and i'm not interested in that.


I've been toying with a couple..

The first one is this cloth one.



I love that it has all the characters from the nativity, and you can place one in each day as you count down until Christmas. I like that you could talk about how each person holds a part in the story. It's very kid-friendly.
What I don't like is that there are so many animals. I mean really, how many times can you talk about a sheep? I'm also not sure where we would put this. It's not exactly something I'd love to have hanging on my wall.


The second is this one.



What you can't see from this picture, is that when you open it up, there is a small booklet for each day. When you pull out the booklet it has a story about the prophesy of Jesus' birthday. I love the biblical aspect of it. I also love that it gives you something specific to talk about each day, without a lot of umm.. prep? work.

It's full of cardboard though, and I don't know how well it would hold up over time. it's also only $19... so I guess you get what you pay for.


There is also the candle option, but I don't think I'd like to do that one with kids. I like the idea of a daily thing, not a weekly..


Do any of you out there have any great advent calendars?
I'd LOVE to know about them.

sickos

the kiddo is sick.
really really sick.

we went to the dr, and thankfully it's not swine. they said it's just a virus that is going around and he'll probably be sick through the weekend. high fever, cough, congestion... really? sounds like swine to me, but she assured me it wasn't. not a high enough fever i guess though he has had a raging fever today, with keeping him on tylenol etc, we are keeping it a steady 100, but he's just miserable and so congested. last night we slept in the chair upright with him. please little boy... get better soon!

to remind me of better days.. this is a video from the other day... he loves to put the balls down the chute on this table...

double noodle

We're sick.

very.

very.

sick.


I had a raging fever last night, which resulted in me foiling an entire trip for a school today. I was scheduled to go to indiana to play at a festival all day for a womens ensemble, and instead I had to bail and they weren't able to go..

I felt awful making the decision, but seriously, my body was screaming at me to get back in bed.

did I mention we're sick?

yup.

levi managed to wake up from his nap with a raging fever as well. tylenol is holding himi at bay for now. i called the dr and they said if it was still high in the morning they'd want to see him.

thankfully mike was home today, and my mother in law was down to watch levi for us while i went to indiana, so they hung out, took care of levi and this mama slept passed out until about 11:30 this morning. mike even went to the store and bought good sick food.. you know double noodle chicken soup, vernors, popsicles, jello... things like that.

we're still sick, though i haven't been running a fever in a while, so we're hoping to be perhaps, with any luck, on the up and up...

blech.

what's next?

 

I love this photo. It captures the look he often gives us which always seems to say..

what are we doing next, mama?

blessings

mike and i have been talking for a while about what to get levi for christmas as well as his birthday. we've been throwing around the idea of trains. he seems young for them, but at the same time, we know he'd probably really start to enjoy them in another 6ish months or so, and since his birthday comes so close to christmas we've been trying to decide what to do... we haven't really decided yet.. so if any of YOU have an excellent first christmas\birthday idea, plese let me know, because i'm struggling to come up with something that he can play with and like, but have for a while, especially with christmas and birtday being basically a month apart.

but.

i was talking to a piano students mom about our thoughts on it in at all last week. she said to me, do you want a train table? i said, well... it would be nice, but they are so expensive, so it probably won't happen for a while. and she looked at me, looked at her son, and said.. glenn, is it okay if we give yours away? glenn (who is 9) said.. sure mom, i've never use it anyway. seriously?!?

blessings abound!
they came to their lesson on tuesday and brought in tow the train table...

we debated waiting til christmas, but he won't really know what's happening anyway so we decided to let him play at it now since he loves to stand up so much...

and the real truth?

i love presents and gifts so much that i was so excited when we got it i spent the better part of the afternoon hauling everything around moving stuff so we could put it in his room... :) i'm terrible like that.

the picture is not stellar, but you get the idea.

 

and because he's cute... :)

 

Finally!

We have been trying for probably 2 months to find a sippy cup of sorts that Levi will drink out of. We finally figured it out. It took him about 2 tries to figure it out.

He apparantley needed a straw.

 

Go figure.

and because he's cute... this is how i spend most of my day looking at him.

 

he just follows me around and then pulls up on my leg and looks up at me... someday he'll change his mind about how much he loves his mama, right?

pumpkin fun

look, mama!

this is how i found my kid today.



he's in that let's explore everything stage right now.
he was quite happy with his newest find.

9 months

We went pumpkin picking!
Levi picked out his pumpkin, he was a trooper, considering it was a bit rainy.

Here he is with his papa...


More pictures to come soon! I need to get them downloaded from the camera.

Oh and today he is 9 months old, how on earth did that happen?
Here he is 9 months ago today..



crazy, huh?

teeth and dragons

the other day i noticed this...



do you know what it is?
let me give you a closer look...



those are bite marks, on our crib.
yup.

bite marks.

i'll give you one guess who did it.
it was this cute little purple flying dragon. (more on this later)



so we trekked to the store and bought this cover.



hopefully that will be the end of teeth marks on the crib.

climb climb up sunshine mountain....

It's hard to believe that he is already big enough for this!



He has only been at this project for a few days, and pretty much has it figured out. He still needs a little help, and help to make sure he doesn't plummet head first down the stairs, (I tell you he is fearless, he'd do it we let him)

He's getting so big!

1 in 4

Did you know that October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month?

I'm guessing you didn't.
Because I didn't know it existed before I lost a baby.

In fact, I may be so bold as to say it gets entirely overlooked due to Breast Cancer Awareness month. Don't get me wrong, that is an equally important issue to be discussed, but I'm just saying, it's overlooked.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how much miscarriage, and any loss really, is overlooked in our society. I think it's for a number of reasons, really. I find that it is uncomfortable for people to talk about, I think women want to forget that it happened to them, and I think, as a general rule, people are uncomfortable talking about death, in any capacity.

Maybe I've been thinking about it because it's awareness month, or maybe it's because recently I sat in Applebees with a friend who said goodbye to her two precious twin boys at 21 weeks in June and we had lunch together on her due date, and I listened to her talk with tears in her eyes about how much she misses them; how much she's changed. Or maybe it's because we went to church on Sunday and our speaker shared with us how she lost a child at 3 months old due to a muscle disorder.

I'm really just processing all of this right now, but I can't help but feel like maybe, just maybe, I'm supposed to do something about it. I don't even know what that is, nor do I have any idea how that would look fleshed out. I'm thinking about it all, trying to figure out where my place is in this, but I can't get the gut feeling out of my mind that maybe there is a place for me here, a way that I can help other women come through this journey and draw closer to Jesus through it all.

I just can't understand how something so common can be so overlooked. 1 in 4 women will experience a miscarriage.

1 in 4.

big brown eyes

i love this face.

 

short and sweet

yup.

 

that pretty much sums it up.

sweet sweet sleep

The kid is not sleeping. AT.ALL.

We are about at our wits end over here. He was doing so well. He would go down and sleep until around 5 or 6. I can handle 5 or 6, no problem. Then, little by little, he kept trying to push the time back. We would occasionally make him cry it out again to get him back closer to 6.

Maybe it's a growth spurt, maybe it's teeth.

but he is NOT sleeping.

Last night he woke up around 12:15, and screamed until 1:30 when we finally gave him and got him. I was starting to wonder if it was his tooth. He is cutting a top tooth right now, so we got up, gave him some tylenol etc, and got him back down. He was up again at 5:30.

The night before he was up around 3:30 screaming. We were strong, we were tough, and then we heard... KKAWHHAAAAMMM! He had been standing in his crib, and fell and smacked his poor little face against the side of the crib. Obviously we had to go in and make sure he wasn't gushing blood and the entire hour we'd laid in bed listening to him scream had been wasted.

*sigh* I don't know what to do. We've tried crying it out, we've trying letting him sleep with us (something I swore we'd NEVER do), we've tried going in soothing him and putting him back down. NOTHING works.

I'm so tired, and really wishing for a full night of sleep.

Maybe when he's 1?

for the love

i'd really like to stop going to the dr.

this morning levi was sprouting a lovely rash.
i called the dr and we went in.
i assumed it was an allergic reaction to his meds.

nope.

roseola.

of course it wasn't free for them to tell me that.

anne of green gables..

5:15 pm... uh, Jen he feels really warm to me.. so says our babysitter.
we take his temp. 99.5, so kind of, but not really. we give him tylenol, take it again a 1\2 hour later. 100.8... try to convince him to eat dinner. not interested whatsoever.
we gave him a lukewarm bath to try to cool him down. took his temp again. 101.6? i don't really remember, i just knew it was getting higher. we continued to take his temp and it continued to move up the scale. at 10:30 it was 102 under his arm. we gave him some more tylenol and we began the vigil of watching him overnight. i really didn't want to take him to the hospital if we didn't have to.

we were right on the cusp, and i was just praying that it would be crystal clear what we should do. we took his temp a 1\2 hour later and it was going down. i set the alarm and got up about an hour and a half later and it was down to 99. praise the Lord!

this morning his temp is down, but still present. we have an appointment at the dr.
my guess? his ear infection is back. i don't think i ever blogged about that, but after we got the second round of antibiotics, we took it 3 days, and then it FROZE in our fridge. we got another RX only for it to happen again. The pharmacy assures me it was our fridge, I assured them it wasn't, because it was the ONLY THING that was frozen. anyway... we called our ped and they said to not worry about giving him the rest of the meds... yeah... so here we are.

this was our first fever escapade, and let me tell you it was scary stuff. i felt like anne, on anne of green gables... you know when diana calls her and says her sister is really sick, and she runs over, and says.. call the doctor, and then adminiters epicac until the dr. arrives? okay, it wasn't that bad, but that's kind of how i felt getting up and checking on him all night long.

birthday fun

here's my birthday present.



it's a ring made of antique silverware.

how cool is that?

we also went to the hillsdale fair for my birthday, which was seriously one of the neatest fairs i've ever been to. more on that later.

for now, i'll revel in my cool vintage ring.

pumpkin love

hooray for pumpkin time!

 

unfortunately levi preferred the straw to the actual pumpkins. :)

tis the season

I should be picking up, cleaning, organizing, and making phone calls while Levi is sleeping.. instead I'm sitting here

drinking this...



and dreaming about this...

1) Apple Picking... making applesauce
2) Pumpking Picking\Carving
3) Eat cider and donuts
4) Be outside as much as possible

I love fall.
The last few days have become very fall-esque around here.
See?




It makes me smile.

This weekend is my birthday. I think we might go to Hillsdale to the fair.
We hear it's amazing and they all say "it's the greatest fair on earth". Seriously.
That's what they say, in fact, it's their slogan. I'm not kidding, it really is. It's a big deal,like kids don't go to school this week big deal. It's kind of like the first day of hunting season in the north. have I mentioned I love the fair, and my birthday. It's like combining my two favorite things!

Anyway. Fall. I love it. I love being outside in jeans and sweaters and sweatshirts, and eating apples, and drinking cider... I always say.. if I could live somewhere in the world that was fall 365 days a year I would.. and not just the temperature, but the SEASON. the leaves changing, the cider, donuts, pumpkins, hay, apples, oranges, reds, yellows etc.. I would move there. No questions asked.

That's my rant today.

I love fall!

on the move!

He's 8 months today, and in the past week has become a crawling expert!

leaves

something about this tree....

 

makes me want to pick apples, drink cider, eat donuts, and play in the leaves....

I can smell fall today, and I love it!

dr visit.

"some kids are just more prone to ear infections"

that's what our little guy has.. another ear infection.
she gave us a stronger antibiotic that hopefully will clear it up.

after another completely awful afternoon of him screaming i decided to call the dr. he had a follow up scheduled from his last ear infection this week. we moved it up a day to get him checked out.

hopefully this time we'll get rid of that pesky bacteria for good.

teeth

He's sleeping now.

 

But boy has it been rough the last couple days. We think maybe he's getting teeth? I don't feel anything, but he is sure screaming like something is happening. Yesterday he cried for almost 2 hours. Not just a normal cry, but the cry where it sounds like you're cutting their legs off? Yea, that kind of cry. Oh, did I mention I was teaching downstairs, and our poor babysitter was attempting to calm him? Yeah. It didn't go very well. It resulted in me excusing myself and heading upstairs several times. Our sitter was doing everything she could, but she just didn't know what to do.

Quite frankly, I didn't know what to do.

He seemed tired, we kept putting him down, and then he'd wake up SCREAMING again. *sigh* I felt awful, our sitter felt even worse. She did laugh though when I said to her.. when your friends say 'I want to have a baby' you can relay this real life moment with them, because it's not always coos, giggles, and smiles. We finally, after exhausting everything, gave him some tylenol. He calmed down within minutes and was completely happy the rest of the evening. Of course that was after our sitter left completely worn out and frazzled from the experience)

Poor Kid.

I hope these teeth make an appearance soon. And if it's not teeth that whatever it is we can figure out, because this bites. (no pun intended)

growin'

Because I adore this smile...



And this face...


He's so close to crawling, it's ridiculous.

L.O.V.E.

 

The tomatoes have finally produced, and I've been busy this week canning and freezing, and trying to stay on top of everything. So, when a piano students mom looked at my 3 bushels of tomatoes and said to me, you could have those done in 3 hours, my ears perked up. I of course wanted to know how on EARTH that could possibly happen. So, she shared with me her way of canning, and I am in love! It's SO much easier for me, especially with a little kiddo who needs my attention without warning. There is no blanching and skinning of tomatoes involved which is pretty much amazing to me because that's the part I hate. You also don't have to process them, you just flip them upside down.

See?

 

I love learning new tricks of the trade, and this is by far one of my favs thus far!

mr brown

can moo!

 

 

can you?

It all started on Wednesday....

I got a phone call from my mom around 9:45am. I answered, she sounded upset. I asked her what she needed. She proceeded to tell me that my dad had been in a motorcycle accident that morning.

A little background:
My dad has been riding for just a few years. Every Wednesday he meets up with a group of guys and they go "riding". We like to call them his biker gang. My dad was going to watch Levi for me that day, but Mike had the day off because he had to get his yearly physical from Michigan Works to drive the truck. Anyway, my dad didn't have to watch Levi, so he was going to go riding. He was on his way to meet up with his biker gang when it happened.

My mom asked me to come pick her up from work because she was too upset to drive. Mike had just left to run some errands. I called him, he came home and I took off. I got more of the story on the way. A woman had called my mom at work. My mom didn't remember much except that she said he was alert and asked someone to call his wife and then my mom said.. "there was something about a semi and i don't remember anything after that"...

We got to the hospital and had to wait for a few minutes before we could go back and see him. He was still backboarded with his helmet on when we got to the room. When we walked in, my dad said to me "Why are YOU here? and where's Levi?" I knew he was going to be okay in that moment. And by the way Dad, I was there because you were in a motorcycle accident! Goodness!

My sister arrived shortly after we did, and we spent the day in the ER. My dad was a lucky guy, and only broke his clavical bone (a.k.a. collarbone) Amazingly enough he was never admitted, and we walked out of the hospital that day with him. The drs. said repeated he was very lucky as most people don't walk away from motorcylce accidents.

Later that afternoon we got a phone call from a friend. You see the accident happened in Spring Arbor. A VERY small town with nothing happening in it. Oh, and by the way it happened right in front of the church we attend. The first person on the scene was a girl who is on staff at the church. She was the one who called my mom. She called us later with the details. A car pulled out of the local Micky D's and cut off a semi. The semi hit their brakes and my dad was behind the semi. The roads were wet that morning, and his bike started to slide. Nikki told me yesterday at church "I thought I was going to watch someone die.. and then he put it down" My dad chose to put his bike down instead of hitting the semi, and that was what helped him so much. Nikki said he put it down, hit, and rolled a few times. He tried to stand up and Nikki went running shouting.. "Don't Move!!!!!!!!" 2 cars behind my dad was the local unversity's security car. They turned their car in the road and stopped traffic. And, the fire station, rescue squad, was seriously 25ft away, so they were on the scene instantly.

And seriously... everyone in Spring Arbor knows about it. I was nursing Levi at church yesterday. There was another woman in there and we were chatting. She asked my name, and she said... are you the girl who's dad was in the motorcycle accident? yeah... it's that small.

So, all that to say, it was an interesting day, and we are SO incredibly thankful that he is okay. Though, I'm pretty sure my mom would prefer he stay off the bike for a while. :) He says he likes to keep our lives interesting and I highly doubt he'll stay off his bike.

chompers

The kid has us stumped yet again.

We're not sure if he is teething or possibly another ear infection? He has pulled and tugged on his ears all day long today. He is incredibly fussy and does not want to be put down at all. We're not sure if it's one or perhaps both of the aforementioned troubles?

It makes getting things done seem impossible, and all of this on the eve of the first full week I will be teaching at home. Not to mention the probably 3 bushels of tomatoes I have sitting in my kitchen.. any takers on that? Maybe the canning fairy will come overnight? What do you think my odds are? It's almost 10 and I finally feel like the house is in "decent" shape for company and lessons tomorrow. Let's hope we can keep that way until tomorrow evening.

So mama's.. what do you do when your kid doesn't want to be put down? I have a sling, but I think I may need a different one? Levi is not interested in being on my hip at all. He wants to be forward facing all of the time. I tell ya, this kid is going to be into everything when he gets moving. He is basically army crawling everywhere, and wants to stand up constantly. He's a mover, there's no doubt about it. Anyway.. any thoughts out there in blogger world? I can't stand listening to him scream while I'm trying to get things done....

graham cracker love

Levi LOVES graham crackers...

 

He chows down...

 

He hangs on to as many as he possibly can...

 

He enjoys each little bite...

 

And always seems pleased with his accomplishments...