Exposaroonie

Now voting is open at Exposaroonie, if you are inclined to check out (and vote for!) my photo. Thanks, friends!

Happy Thanksgiving

Here we are last year . . .

And here we are this year! Thank you to Megan for starting this little porch picture tradition!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my bloggy friends!!

Beach Trip 2008

Last weekend we all piled in to a house my Dad and his wife rented - us, my sister & her family and my Dad & Georgia. We had such a wonderfully relaxing time! Lynette asked me what all we did and I was hard-pressed to come up with any specific answer. LOL "Umm . . . went down to the beach a couple times . . . hung out and talked . . . uhh yeah, that's about it . . . "

Canaan and Caris enjoying the sand

It really wasn't super warm out but the kids didn't mind


I love seeing my Dad play with my kids. He has an honorary doctorate in play.

Malachi and Graham weren't afraid to get in the COLD water. My Dad said next year we should rent wetsuits.

We walked a loooong way down the beach, and the whole way back

my Dad held Canaan's hand and let him walk in the waves

It all looks like good fun here but Alif was doing the usual heckling . . .

All my boys . . . how blessed I am!!

So pretty here, at the top of the beach access

My kids seriously love their cousin Christian

Oh - and I uploaded oooooone more picture, over at Exposaroonie. Wanna go vote for me?

It hit me

Here are things that have hit me the past few days:

* I have let so many little things slide in my internet stupor. As I worked on deep-cleaning the dining room today, I found two patches that needed to be sewn onto Malachi's Awana shirt. He works hard for that stuff - it should be sewn on the week he earns them. I sewed them on today.

* Canaan does not babble any more. Did you have that with your kids, when you just woke up one day and realized that they didn't babble any more? So weird. I told Alif and he found this a lot less remarkable than I did. I think he basically said, "oh." LOL Anyway, Canaan's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds, and a lot of what he says is not recognizable to anyone but us, but it definitely means something.

* A cold. I'm so thankful it's not a throwing-up sick or anything, and I do feel a lot better today than yesterday, but still - I'll be glad when it's over. Canaan has it too.

*This didn't really hit me per se, but I received a packet of information from Tourette Syndrome Association and it had a provider list of medical professionals who diagnose/treat TS. There was only one listed for my city so I called and made an appointment with him. It's in January, so a ways off but at least we're on the books. I asked Graham before I made the appointment and he said he'd like to go. I asked what he would like the doctor to do and he said, "make the tics stop." Not sure it will be that simple but we'll see.

*Caris is officially a reader. She can sound out simple words, and she read me her first book today - the Bob book "Sam". You know - Sam sat on Mat. That sort of thing. I am so proud of her.

*Another non-themed note: Graham told me today that if we're not going anywhere it makes our day boring. LOL

Cleaning House - God's Way

I had a bit of a parenting crisis last night. When I put the boys to bed, I had them tidy up their room. As they did so, I noticed a tiny little saw, like the kind meant for pumpkin carving. I knew that had not been in there the day before when we crazy-cleaned their room, so I asked about it. They lied.

I don't know about you, but when my kids lie, all bets are off. It's the one thing that sends me completely over the edge, and for good reason - God has a lot to say about liars, and none of it is flattering.

I went over the edge. I really did. I kept asking them and kept taking things and privileges away every time they lied, so half an hour later the little that was left in their room after Saturday's purge was gone and they were to sleep on the floor with a blanket and a pillow. My stomach hurts just thinking back on it.

I came out to the living room and e-mailed my Mom. She came quickly to the rescue, talking me down from my ledge and insisting that I get my boys off the floor and deal with the problem, then put them to bed in their nice, cozy beds. It was hard to swallow my pride - I was afraid of looking like a wishy-washy Mom - but God took care of it. The guilty boy confessed close to midnight and we all went to bed and had a good sleep.

This morning we returned the stolen item to the store and the security office there gave my son a very good talking-to. God had all the details covered.

My Mom said something last night, in the middle of the mayhem, that was straight from the Lord. She said that it sounds like God is doing some house cleaning. She reminded me of a problem we had a couple weeks ago - Caris & I had just cleaned out her room and she was suddenly really scared at night and couldn't sleep. I joked with my Mom that maybe she just wasn't used to her room looking so nice. Later that night, though, Alif said that when he went in to get Canaan in the middle of the night, he felt uneasy in their room, like something wasn't right in there. I prayed over the room several days in a row and there haven't been any problems since.

Then my computer broke, and my online time was and still is far, far less than it was before. And now this with my boys.

God knows what he's doing. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, He says, and that's true. How wonderful a feeling it is, though, to know that He cares so desperately about the details of our lives. That he's not content to let me raise my kids under the oppression of an internet addiction. That they mean far too much to Him to let them slide under the radar with misbehaviors that could blossom into a lifetime of pain.

I am so thankful that He never gives up on me.

I don't know whether to cry or cry harder

Graham had soccer practice this morning and Alif took both the big boys, so I decided to tackle their disgusting room. I planned to throw and give away a lot and I just wanted to do this without them in there complaining about it. Caris was my big helper and in return I told her she could have any change we found on their floor. LOL


Their room was awful. Seriously, I don't know how it gets so outrageously bad without my noticing. Here is a partial list of contraband items I found in their room after cleaning literally all day long.

Pens from Alif's desk
Wood filler
Crayons - tons of them.
A $50 compass (the kind that you use to draw circles)
A racy game from my bedroom (don't worry, we'd never played it - but geez.)
Candy wrappers
Electronics that we were missing

Now we're on Sunday . . .
You get the idea. It was such a long day. I am glad to have cleared out their room but guess what? I am literally sore from all that cleaning. I told Alif that if that isn't a sign that I need more exercise I don't know what is.

Soccer and Sleep

Malachi likes soccer. A lot. Well, he likes playing soccer. He doesn't like, sit around watching the spanish station and shouting, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL" or anything.

He's played AYSO since he was 5 and for the last year or two he's been asking if he could play club. We have not looked into this at all. We figured that he's still really young and we are not of the mind that we need to have our kids in the best sports at young ages so they can get scholarships and blahblahblah. We like them to play sports, they like to play them, but we are not all about being consumed by our kids' schedules.

This year he was asked to play on a club team that needed players. We were so tempted but declined since it would have made our already-hectic schedule even busier. It would also have meant possible conflicts with the AYSO team he was already on, and that never seems like a fair situation to us.

Well, then an opportunity came up for him to play on this club team just for one weekend, in one tournament. We went to practices, got him the socks & shorts he needed . . . and very last-minute, the coach called to tell us that something went wrong with Malachi's registration and he was so sorry but Malachi can't play.

Wah!!

Malachi took it like a man and didn't even complain, but he was definitely disappointed, as were we. We reminded him that there's a reason these things happen, and maybe God is protecting him from something that we couldn't know about.

Nonetheless, Alif's going to spend some special time with Malachi today. Hooray for sweet daddies.

And in happy news, Canaan slept 10 hours last night. Hooray for sleep!

Fall is speeding by

It doesn't seem so long ago that soccer was just starting, I couldn't believe a new year of AWANA was upon us, and fall just seemed a long way away. Despite the beautifully sunny weather, fall is seriously in full swing! Yesterday we had a potluck with a group of homeschooling friends. There were crafts and food and friends and it was delightful. I used to hang out with some of these ladies years ago and drifted away, and seeing them again and feeling comfortable yesterday was such a coming-home feeling. Here's Caris making a handprint turkey, complete with feathers and googly eyes.

We had inside out and backwards night at Awana. Last year I wore my pants inside out and backwards and felt strangely on display all night, so this year I just wore my shirt inside out and backwards and left my pants normal.

Soccer was interesting last Saturday. Our first game was in the morning and we were uncomfortably warm in our long sleeves. We went home in between games, and I figured it would be even warmer in the afternoon so we dressed in short sleeves. Wouldn't you know, it completely clouded over and we were all freezing? I had to raid my trunk for a long-sleeved shirt for Canaan, which was a size 12 months and definitely too small. LOL

Winner & Loser

BAND OF BROTHERS is the winner of the little bandage dispenser. E-mail me your address at HisKids37@sbcglobal.net and I'll send it on out!

My computer is still on the blehhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'm using Alif's laptop usually once a day and it is crazy how much less that means I am on here - it's been a very, very good thing.

I thought soccer was over last weekend but Graham's team went to the playoffs and Malachi joined a club team. Good thing we enjoy soccer - but I was really looking forward to a break.

ttys!

Bandages, anyone?

Do your kids think band-aids are really stickers? It doesn't matter how many boxes I buy, the kids can go through them in days if I don't hide them and/or keep an eagle eye on my stash. Then someone gets cut and oh, the tragedy, there aren't any band-aids! Ack! Anyway, newbaby.com sent me the most darling little band-aid dispenser. It would be perfect as a stocking stuffer, the diaper bag, the glove box, wherever you need a few bandages at your fingertips.

Leave a comment telling me what YOUR kids get into the most (or what your guilty pleasure was as a child!) and I'll enter you to win this cute little dispenser from newbaby.com - complete with a few bandages!

Fall Portraits

Somewhere I read about a new photographer setting up business here in town. I checked out her blog and couldn't pass up her amazing price ($25 for a 30 minute session!) so I scheduled a little fall shoot. She posted a preview today!

I really can't say enough about how non-stressful this was. Candra was so sweet with my kids, taking her time, talking to them, getting to know them . . . she was very kind and patient and VERY obliging. She offered the kids candy as a reward for sitting for portraits and Caris goes, "I want one of these pumpkins!" (OMGOSH!!) Candra said, "sure, you can have one!" (NO, I didn't let her take it - boy that girl can be so BOLD!) Anyway, we all had such a good time and I can't wait to see the rest of the pics!

Life Lately

This is my nephew Cole. He's four years old. I asked if I could take his picture and this is what he did. He's so cool.

Here's the dessert the kids & I made for my mother-in-law Juanita's Halloween party. Graham made the "fence", Caris made the scarecrow, Malachi made the haystacks & then he & I stacked the pumpkins all around.

My Mom invited me over for dinner when Megan was in town last week. She made us THE CUTEST drinks - PINK hot chocolate in these adorable cups, with pink & white jelly beans in the drink and on the plate, whipped cream and pink sugar. Do you think we are just a little bit excited that my Mom's breast cancer treatments are OVER?

I took Canaan along with me to dinner at my Mom's. He was playing here and being so silly.

Here's the gang after pumpkin carving at the party. Top Canaan & Malachi, bottom cousins Cole and Brea, Caris, Korean friend #1, Graham, Korean friends #s 2 and 3 (I'm sorry, I forget their names).

Christian & Canaan, both in the pajamas Grandma bought them and both thinking Christian's sippy is quite intriguing.

I love sleeping babies. And toddlers.

Look at the smile on this kid's face. Do you think they just won a big game? They did not. They have, in fact, lost EVERY game of the season by a landslide. I absolutely LOVE that my boy has such a good attitude. He is competitive and one of the best players on his team, and he really wants to win. But if they don't, he still smiles. He is a very good sport.

I am SO GLAD that this phase seems to have died down. For a while, I found Canaan in the refrigerator like this no less than 10x a day. It was enough to make a mommy batty!

This was Bible hero dress-up night at Awana. Caris was Mary and I was Sarah. Graham and Malachi didn't dress up - party poopers! I stopped to pick up one of Malachi's teammates, whose mother I had never met. I thought she probably wondered where I was taking her son . . .

Malachi with his long locks. He decided that he wanted it cut - SHORT. I like it better long.

Speaking of long, it is so much fun to style Caris' hair! I asked Alif if he liked this one and he said, "It's different!" LOL

Malachi and Graham were on a BIG sewing kick. Malachi made 4-5 awesome pillowcases.

This little boy makes my heart melt!!

And now the post that I had started before I uploaded pics and Blogger would only let me put them up top:

Let me start by saying that my computer is dead. Or sick. I don't know what's wrong with it but for now I basically only have access to Alif's laptop, and that pretty much only during naptime. It's really kind of a good thing. I needed less time online. Well, my family and home needed me to have less online time. Now we're thinking of getting me a laptop. A Mac, actually. Would that be called a Macbook? I'm clueless.

I made the best dinner EVER last night. It was also my first time ever cooking with alcohol. Concidence? Hmm. Here's the recipe - I hope I'm not forgetting anything. It's from Everyday Food magazine.

Irish Beef & Stout Stew

beef cut into 1" cubes

1/4 cup flour

12 oz tomato paste

2.5 pounds new potatoes (the white ones)

2 cans beef broth

1 can (12 oz) irish stout

2 medium onions, cut into 1" pieces

10 cloves garlic, sliced

20 oz frozen baby peas

Toss beef with flour in a big pot. Stir in tomato paste, then everything else except peas. Bring to a boil. Move to a crockpot on low for 4-5 hours. Add in peas & let heat through for 15 minutes or so. OH SO GOOD!!

Refuel

The other day I mentioned to Lynette that I have been feeling stressed out. She looked concerned and asked, "why?" I really didn't have an answer.

I think part of the answer is that I have developed a nasty discontentment this past week.

None of my pictures turn out like I want them to!

I am so fat!

There's never enough money!

Etc.

One of my things was that I really want curtains up. We've lived in this house for almost two years and the only room with curtains is the boys' room. What the heck keeps me from curtaining my windows? Well, see complaints above, for one - finances. Another reason is that every, and I mean EVERY time I make curtains, I get sick of my fabric choices in about a week. Sometimes I even hate them as I'm sewing them, and then I berate myself for shelling out all the dough for fabric I don't even like once I get it home.

Well! The other day, Malachi & I were sorting through my fabrics when we came across one that I had bought years and years ago to make a bedskirt for the master bedroom. I held it up and said, "Isn't this pretty? I wish I had enough of this to make curtains! Oh well - put this on the buffet and I'll see if JoAnn still has it next time I go." We continued digging through the fabrics and would you know that we found a huge, long piece of The Glorious Fabric at the bottom of the bin? How awesome is our God for providing me a fabric that I already know I love? That I've loved for years? And there it's been all this time, in the bottom of my fabric bin?? (Ok, I actually have about ten of these bins - anyway.)

So that was cool. Totally cool. But today I realized another reason for my stress. I need to REFUEL. My sister is in town and tonight I'm going to go to my Mom's and hang out with them. I was thinking about this time and I didn't get all giddy or excited. I got relaxed. I could physically feel my neck muscles relax and my shoulders lower a good inch. I *NEED* this time with these amazing women. To not feel "on" at all. To not feel fat. To not feel anything but loved and accepted EXACTLY as I am.

I am so thankful for women in my life who love me.

And a night out without (most of) my kids.

Two Pictures

My friend Katie sent a cool e-mail today with a picture of her baby now and one from a year ago. I thought I'd do the same thing here. Crazy how much difference a year can make.

Canaan:
Wow - he looks so much more grown up! :*)

Caris:



Now you might not be able to tell, but I look at that 2007 picture and go, "woah! She looks so LITTLE!"

Graham:

Get some grown-up teeth much, Graham?? :*)

Malachi:

Malachi's main difference is his hair. When he said he wanted to grow it out I thought, "@@". Looking at the pictures though, I really like it longer.

Tourette Syndrome

Have I mentioned Graham's tics on here? I can't even think if I've written about it yet. Anyway, Graham has tics. They've been happening for probably a couple years at least, but I think we didn't recognize what was really happening until about a year ago or a little more.

I suspected then that he had Tourette Syndrome, and that I have it too. I read about it a little bit and found out that it's highly genetic. That convinced me even more. I assumed we both have a mild form.

In the last couple months, Graham's tics have been prevalent, both motor (movement) and vocal (unintentional sounds) tics growing worse and more numerous. When his walking became affected by tics I got more motivated to learn about what's going on and whether there's much we can do about it.

So I got on Amazon and found a few books. I first bought Graham Tic Talk: Living with Tourette Syndrome: A 9-Year-Old Boy's Story in His Own Words
He read it and declared it "awesome!". I was actually surprised how much the boy in the book is like Graham and I think Graham was pretty surprised too.

Now I'm reading Children with Tourette Syndrome: A Parents' Guide. I have to admit that I have been a little overwhelmed with all the information. A couple of things have really struck me so far:

1) I always compared my own symptoms and Graham's to people with Tourette that you see on TV - you know, the huge body movements, shouting cuss words kind of thing, and called us "mild". I assumed we had a mild form of Tourette. Well, in a way I guess we do in that I am so thankful that our symptoms aren't super extreme. However, I have learned that our tics are considered complex and that people who have those big noticeable things going on are very rare. So really, in the spectrum of Tourette symptoms, we're not all that mild.

2) I knew Tourette was genetic but I didn't know any statistics about that. Well, it seems that 50% of children of a parent with Tourette will receive that genetic susceptibility to having Tourette symptoms. Of those who have the gene, 99% of boys and 30% of girls will show symptoms. Kids don't show symptoms until ages 6-8, generally. So out of our two kids that age I guess we are pretty statistically correct.

Now, keep in mind that neither of us has had a medical diagnosis. We both 100% meet the criteria so I am assuming but we haven't been diagnosed by a medical professional. I don't know yet if I will take Graham for an official diagnosis.

Alif and I are not really on the same page with this. He definitely agrees that he has Tourette but he simply doesn't understand it. I think a part of him feels like the tics are for attention. I think he thinks it's controllable. He can't relate to the feeling of having tics at all. He just can't grasp the actual need to tic. He doesn't care about understanding it or anything, he just wants to know what to do to make it better, to make Graham happy in spite of it all. I care about those things too, but I have lived with this all my life and I am 34 years old. Suddenly learning so much about it is really opening up the floodgates for me. Of course I want to share with him all that I'm learning, but it's hard to share with him when I feel like he thinks the whole thing isn't quite "real".

Of course he still feels that my afib incident was a mental incident more than a physical one.

In his mind, when something is wrong, you just decide to make it better. I guess he's a good candidate for Positive Thinking.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I share this journey with you, because it makes me feel better to talk about it.

Family Portraits

Well? What do you think? I think we all coordinated so well for this one!! Alright, I'm a nerd. Completely. It was fun though - go to www.pyzam.com and make one!

We really did have family portraits taken a couple weeks ago, and talk about traumatic. First, what in the world was my family going to wear and all coordinate? It had to come out of our current wardrobes, as I didn't have the cash to go get new stuff for everyone. Of course each person has some certain constraints: Alif basically only wears plaid button-ups. Malachi hates everything but t-shirts with no embellishments or seams of any kind. Caris wears a lot of pink. I only have like 2 nice-ish shirts.

I started sorting through and found that we could all coordinate in a brown/red/light blue color scheme. Sweet! I started to really like how everything looked together, even though it was definitely not ideal. Alif came home to get something and I said, "Ok, here's what I have. What do you think?" He said, in a very sweet, reassuring voice, "Oh, I don't mind at all if we're hodgepodge!"

Ack!

No! Not hodgepodge! Later, someone reminded me that I should have given him the answer first: "Honey. What do you think of the red, brown & light blue color scheme? Looks great together, right?"

I've only been married 10 years. By 20, I'll have this down pat.

The guy from the picture company, who was taking these pictures for free for our church directory, was actually awesome. He was very fast and actually succeeded in getting all of the kids to smile at the camera. Even the one with tics, who blinks nonstop (said child was squinting in 4 out of 6 pictures).

But you know what? All I could think as we posed - Mommy in front of Daddy, baby in Mommy's lap, children standing sweetly around, is that I wished we were in a field somewhere with Lorie or Davi, acting like our normal selves and having *fun*. Maybe next time.

Heart to Heart

Last night was funny. I went to bed and read for a while and fell asleep around 10:30. At 11:30 Canaan was ready to join us, so I brought him to bed. He didn't nurse; he just sort of rustled around until he was finally comfortable and drifted off to sleep.

Every couple hours he wanted to nurse. My memory is bleary, but I'd say he nursed a couple times.
Then at 4:30 am, our neighbor's car alarm went off. Lights flashing, siren sounding. The three of us simultaneously erected and peered through the 2nd-story blinds. Somehow the visual image I had of Alif, Canaan and I all looking out the blinds at 4:30 am, as through a video camera, made me laugh. Alif too. Alif got up and made sure the property was safe. Once he returned to bed, he gathered up his little son and fell asleep. Canaan then migrated back to my side of the bed. ;-)
This morning we woke up for good around 6:45. Alif had the cutest heart to heart with Canaan:

Alif: Canaan? You can sleep with us all you want, ok? But you have to be still and leave your mum-mums alone. No mum-mums at night, ok?

Canaan: whine

Alif, laughing: Yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? No more mum-mum at night. Would you like your own pillow for our bed? Would that be good?

Me: LOL

I lay there for another 30 minutes or so, nursing and playing with Canaan while dear Caris voluntarily rubbed lotion into my feet and legs. I am so blessed to have a husband who loves our babies so much but also knows that Mommy needs some SLEEP!