What to do...

...With all that artwork. I scanned in Allie and Mary's Valentine cards (had to narrow them down of course) and added them to our Shutterfly book for this year. Now I don't feel bad about throwing them away. I would love to keep all of their stuff, but it gets overwhelming! Allie made the top cards at school and the middle sheet of paper is from her to Mary. Mary drew the bottom cards at church and school. I think their relationship is "sweet"...on paper!

Below is a video of Garrett flipping through his favorite thing...his froggy flash cards. He hasn't really talked much until recently. Who knew he could recognize a good portion of his letters, numbers, and shapes?!

Happy Valentine's Day

Too much time on my hands

One might surmise from all this blogging that I have too much time on my hands. The truth is, we all have the same amount of time in life, but what is it that you choose to spend your time doing? Admittedly, I am addicted to picture management. Somewhere along the way, I have picked up this crazy hobby of organizing my pictures, scrapbooking on my computer, and blogging. It is time consuming; and I SHOULD be organizing my house, my closets, my kids, my grocery list, my "fill in the blank". Oh well, at least I will have something to show for it some day.


For the past 2 years I have done family albums on Shutterfly. I picked up digital scrapbooking this past year from my friend mamma lion over at the Lion's Den. Above is this year's book. Near the end of this year, my friend and neighbor Karen introduced my to smilebox.com. I guess you would call it hybrid scrapbooking. They have dozens and hundreds of themed lay outs. I just drag and drop my pictures, and then save them to my computer as a jpeg file. Finally I drag and drop them onto the shutterfly page (choose the one pic layout for your page). With the help of photoshop, I'm able to add my own text boxes, but in general I spend half as much time making my pages. Here are the two pages I made for the past two snow days we have had. I spent about 45 completing 2 pages. Just wanted to share my "secret". Thanks again Karen!

More snow!

It may be years before we see this much snow here, and although my Ra cha cha friends are probably making fun of me for making such a big deal of it....this was really something!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Charlie Brown Snow flakes

I'll never forget hearing this term to describe a BIG snowflake when we lived in Rochester. I thought the days of seeing those in the deep south were long gone....until today. I don't have a picture of one, but there have been some big ones. Their great aunt made the hats they are wearing. I couldn't get them to put on warm clothes before they bolted out the door.









My sisnlaw Katie is heavy on my heart today. Reese was born 6 months ago today. I know God is sovereign, and I know He has and is seeing them through, but what a journey. I know she's tired and missing her, so if you are reading this, please pray a prayer of peace for my sweet sis. I love you Katie; am lifting you up today.

Book Worm

Allie had JUST about run out of things to do at home this past week while sick. (She's much better now!) She would rather play outside than anything else. Scratch that...too much coughing. She couldn't have friends over, and she couldn't go to school. Last week, she picked up a book that I had bought her for her birthday. Over the past week, she has done nothing but read this book. She is not even distractible. Last night, Mary and Garrett were running circles around her, and she didn't budge. I decided to give it a whirl and picked up the nearest spoon microphone. I sang half the song to no avail. She never LOOKED UP. Then it hit me.....She's turning into her daddy!

I took this pic of her this morning while Mary was watching TV.

She's had that blankie since birth.

Midmorning I heard alot of noise outside. Garrett was glued to the window. I heard him say two times..."twee twee" (tree tree). We've had trees beside our house for four years, but I guess we will be getting new neighbors soon enough. Kept the little boy occupied.

Seriously????

Disclaimer: I know it can be kindof annoying reading about someone else's kids ailments, but this has been "life" around here. Consider yourself warned if you don't want to waste your time:)

Now I realize this is all petty stuff in the light of real world problems, but sometimes a mama has got to vent. Anyone else out there have a kid with asthma??? It stinks. Allie came down with a cold over a week ago...bark bark bark. I don't mean "uh hu uh hu" cough. I mean cough from the bottom of her feet, turn every head in the grocery store kind of cough. She has been out of school since last Friday because if she walks across the room, she goes into a coughing fit. I took her to the Dr. on Monday after she'd developed a fever of 104 almost a week after she started coughing. She had a chest xray which showed she did not have pneumonia yet. She was wheezing badly, and so he treated her with our usual cocktail of steroids, antibiotics, and breathing medicine.

When I returned home from the dr's office, my sweet neighbor who was keeping Mary and Garrett for me very calmly told me that Mary had thrown up at her HOUSE! She was very gracious, but as I told her, "that is really bad form to leave your child with someone else and have them throw UP!!" Oh well, guess it was our turn for the stomach virus. Thankfully Mary is the only one who has gotten it, and it was very mild. I'm keeping a close watch on the comings and goings of the neighbors and praying they are still going....and I mean in their car!

So today here we are, Allie is STILL out of school. She's been barking for 8 days....did I already say that...8 days!!!! Did I mention the barking comes with vomiting because she can't quit coughing! So today, she started having a fit, and ran to the bathroom because she knows what it can lead to. She lost her breakfast, and in tears told me the toilet wouldn't flush. I told her, she just needed some water for her fit, so I went to get some, and the water WAS OUT! Seriously?????

I know with the proper perspective, these things are not a big deal. I'm sure the water will return shortly, and eventually she will stop coughing. I can't imagine have a child who has a terminal condition. We have to deal with her asthma through out the years, but I'm thankful it's not life threatening. Only a big nuisance!

Now to what I originally intended to blog about:

It seems Garrett gets left out in "blog land" during the month of January because of the girls' birthdays. I may not have posted anything, but at this time, he's the loudest one of the bunch. He is talking more everyday..with real words.



Counting blocks

It's almost impossible to get G man to stop and look at the camera. I have tried and tried to even get one smile right in the camera, but he runs when he sees it. When he saw the airplane yesterday, he said "Yook, AAAAAA PAAAAA"