Friday, January 25, 2008

Busy, busy busy!

It just occurred to me that my house will not be clean anytime soon!

Rob is fishing this weekend, so I have the kids by myself. No work will get done.

The following weekend is the Super Bowl. Rob wants to have a "small party". He thinks that spending Friday cleaning his tool room in the basement means he can have guests over. Let me know if you understand that one.

The kids have no school on February 18th.

The weekend of February 22-24, I'm going to MN for a scrap booking retreat. My first nights away from Benjamin. :-(

Then the following week we're going to my uncle's wedding in Iowa. The kids don't have school on the 29th, so we're headed down that day for the wedding that evening and can come back on Saturday.

March 15th is Sam's school carnival, the next weekend is Easter, and the following weekend is Emily's dance competition. Whew! And well, then comes April. Yikes!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Playing in the snow

Sam and the neighbor kids made a snow fort in their front yard.

They also made a neat snow man!


Sunday, January 13, 2008

Bad colds

Poor Benjamin STILL has his first bad cold. And it's settling in his eyes, of all places. So we visited the doctor on Saturday to verify it wasn't bacterial, and ended up getting eye drops for the conjuctivitis. I'm not sure day care will even let him go tomorrow, but he'll have been on medication for over 24 hours. We'll have to see. Even though he's not feeling well, he's still such a good baby! He's sitting on my lap helping me type this right now!

I was hoping to get some new pictures posted, but have spent pretty much all my free time the last week holding Benjamin and doing laundry! (Don't ask about the rest of my house!) Maybe in the next couple of days!

Oh, and Ben is 15.8 pounds clothed! :-)

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate.

I just got this e-mail today and I just had to share it.


A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and anassortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: "Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.

The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Happy New Year

I can't believe it's already January 6, 2008! I knew having a third child would take more time and energy, but I had NO IDEA how much! I'm not sure if it's my age or the fact that I have 2 others at home who are very busy, but boy, I have NO free time. I'm not sure my house will ever be clean again. And I'm not even thinking about all the extra stuff I'd like to do like organize some closets and go through some drawers. I do have a coule of scrapbooking weekends scheduled for the upcoming months to hopefully get some pages done, but I don't see how I'll ever be caught up! :-) However, I wouldn't trade Benjamin for a clean house or organized closets. He's brought so much joy to our lives.

Unfortunately, he has his first bad cold and is so uncomfortable. Even when he's not feeling good, though, he still smiles and laughs and is happy. We don't visit the doctor for a well-baby check for a few weeks, but by weighing him on the scale, he's 15.5 pounds already! We haven't started solids yet, as he hasn't seemed interested in what we're eating yet.

Here's a picture of Grandma Jo with the boys.