Saturday Sweetheart

A year ago, Emily -- newly a freshman -- joined Voices as a newspaper writer. She's done so well with it! And look how much she's grown since then.

Monday Musings and More

Happy Monday! Happy new week! Happy nearly-the-middle-of-August!

I've erased and rewritten my weekly calendar as we begin a new week. I always like the "clean slate" effect that has.

Tomorrow is Edward's "half-birthday." I'm not sure he's even thinking about it yet...or if he is, he's being very quiet about it. It's always a fun way to break up the year, while waiting for the next celebration.

We're edging ever-closer to school. I think the kids are beginning to feel ready for it. Everything -- and I mean everything -- around us is focused on it. I think they started bringing out "back-to-school" signs and supplies at the beginning of July. It's kind of a shame because it ruins the fun of summer break by reminding us that it will soon be over...or should be over...and it had only just started a few weeks before that. (Yet another example of the media breaking up families. Get the kids back to school so that Mom and Dad can have their space/lives back. Sigh. Okay. Okay. Getting off my soapbox... I think I need to move us to a farm way out in the country with no television and limited news. I'm reaching a point of saturation....

Ahem.

Getting back on track....

Stuart got back from Kansas, a day late due to some heavy thunderstorms the night he was due to leave. Because of that, though, he didn't have to go in to work when he got home, and we got to enjoy him for an extra half-day. Win-win, right?

Speaking of half-birthdays reminds me of whole-birthdays. Less than a month until Stuart's birthday...and a month from tomorrow will be Ethan's birthday. Wow!! While another year isn't (too) big (a) deal for us "old folks," it doesn't even seem remotely possible that our "baby" is going to be 4! Where did the time go? No. Really?!? Can it stop for a teensy bit of time? Just so I can enjoy some of the everyday moments a bit more instead of feeling rushed through them?  I'm amazed at how time speeds up as we all get older. It seemed so slow when the kids were smaller, like life would never really get going. There were still so many milestones to look forward to and reach....then suddenly those are reached and passed and everything begins to flash by.

Sigh. I sound like a broken record.

We introduced the kids to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" last week and watched another one on Friday night. What a hoot! It was a spy "thriller," filled with cliches and bad acting...perfect for the commentary of three stars of MST3000. We showed them a part of "Plan 9 from Outer Space" on Saturday night and all of us agreed that it was ripe for a MST3000 show. Apparently, according to IMdB, they did try to make it a show, but it was too long. "Plan 9" has some classic lines, though. One of my favorites is: "future events such as these will affect you in the future."

I'll end with a funny anecdote from Grammarly.com:

I love the power of the written word.

Happy Bloggy Birthday!

HaPpY 6th BiRtHdAy 

to Writer's Block blog!

I can't believe it's been that long!  It's been real...and it's been fun. So I guess that means it's been real fun?

Absolutely!

Before changing my template to a newer one, I copied all of my posts onto my computer's hard drive, and it was fun to remember past happenings and see all the photos.

I reread my first blog post...aww....seems like only yesterday.

Wordless Wednesday

23 Months Old Today!!

Wordless (Almost) Wednesday

22 MONTHS OLD!!

How can this little guy grow SO fast?

21 Months Old!!

His sister teasingly wanted to know if he could "legally" drink now...

I told her I'd be taking him on a tour of bars later on...milk bars.

End of School

We're finished. Capoot. Done. Fini.

WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOO!

The beginning-of-school photo (3rd and 7th graders, respectively):



The end-of-school photo (4th and 8th graders-to-be, respectively):


As I always say, what a difference a year makes.

Wordless (mostly) Wednesday

Happy 4th Birthday to my blog!

I cannot believe that much time has passed since I decided to try my hand at this "blogging" thing. It's been such fun -- and quite challenging at times -- to keep up with it all the time.

My apologies for letting two months lapse since my last entry. I promise to come back and fill in the blanks just as soon as I can catch my breath.

So be sure to come back to read it!

Until then, enjoy a piece of "virtual" cake on me! *wink-grin*

T-t-t-t-t-twenty Months Old!!

Really? Really????

Can someone puh-leaze tell this baby to slooooow down?

Wordless (Mostly) Wednesday

So we went to the doctor's today for Ethan's belated "18-month-old" checkup. (He's 20 months...so what's a couple of months, right?)

And the doctor is recording his stats in his chart. "37 1/2 inches tall...35 pounds...Wow! He's the size the of 3-year-old," he said, smiling.

19 Months Old!

We keep telling Ethan to slow down in this growing-up thing...but he just won't listen. *wink-grin*

Babies, Babies, and More Babies

Our "baby" Ethan turned 18 months old yesterday...


And Edward's birthday guinea pig, Molly, surprised us with three little babies.


And when I went downstairs to feed the rabbits this morning, I discovered that Audrey had a surprise of her own last night...two more babies!



Yikes!

Seems like a nursery around here!!

Happy Half-Birthday Happenings

Happy Half-Birthday, Ethan Samuel!!

18 months today!

It's hard to imagine our little baby has transformed into a "toddler-guy." Even harder to imagine he's a half-year older. He's changing so quickly.









However, today started on an interesting note...

We arrived home last night to discover...we had NO power. (We've been having torrential rainstorms since Friday and had lost electricity on and off earlier in the day on Saturday so we weren't completely surprised.) The house was pitch black and eerily quiet. With nothing else that we could do in the dark, we decided to go to bed. The clocks were springing forward an hour for Daylight Savings Time...or whatever they've renamed it.

Before I went to bed, I called the power company to report the outage (since all of our neighbors around us seemed to have power), and they told me it would be noon (today) before they could get to us.

Ugh.

So we headed to bed, hoping against hope that we might have electricity in the morning.

We got up this morning to a cold house and still no power.

Ugh again.

We quickly got ready for church and played briefly with our new 18-month-old.

And then we heard Edward yell that "they" were here. The baby guinea pigs had arrived! About a half-hour later, the power company arrived and got our electricity back on.


Yay!!

What a special time to come! In a power outage, after the clocks "sprang forward," and on Ethan's half-birthday!

Still Growing...Even More!

Time stops for no man...or baby either it seems...

17 MONTHS today!

Sweet "Valentine's Birthday Boy" Sunday

Happy Birthday, Edward!

Our Valentine's Day present from God!

Born on this day at 5:38 in the morning (always the early bird, right?)...a whopping 9 lbs. and 22 inches long...NINE years ago today!!!

Still Growing!

Our Ethan Samuel is 16 months old today!!

I can't believe how fast he's growing up!

Contacting Emily

Just after she got her contacts

Emily reached another new stage today.

She needed to go for her annual eye exam, and Stuart and I thought it might be time for her to try some contact lens.

Emily was born with the most extraordinarily beautiful and large brown eyes. It was the feature most people noticed first. In fact, when she was about 4, the Monsters Inc. movie hit the theatres, and people nicknamed her "Boo" after the movie's main human character. It fit her, especially if I put her hair in ponytails.

Of course, she more or less grew into her eyes.

About four years ago, we found out she needed glasses. Sigh. We loved her in glasses, too, but they seemed to hide her pretty eyes.

Then came dance class.

I don't dance, but I do wear glasses to read and drive. I cannot imagine trying to dance around in them.

But she did, and she did well despite the awkwardness the glasses brought to her.

Now, she's older and more responsible (in theory, right?)...and at an age where she needs a little confidence boosting.

We think the contact lens did that for her.

Reflections at the End of 2009

Happy New Year's Eve...again...already... Can we really be at this point in the year? As my dear friend Jadie said on her blog, "The last weeks of the past year have gone by so fast, I'm not sure I was in it." I feel exactly that way.

On this day, I always feel as though I'm on the threshold of a door of sorts, poised between two time periods. As I look back on the year (and other years) and choose photos to include on here, I realize just how much happens. The time flies by so quickly -- too quickly -- sometimes.

So here we go. Reflections at the end of another year...amazing. Sigh.

January: New year, new growth, new adventures to look towards. Ethan turned 4 months, and Emily got new glasses and started a new year in 4-H as the vice president.



February: Our little Valentine guy turned 8. Emily was diagnosed with scoliosis. And Ethan turned 5 months and had his first Valentine's Day.



March: St. Patty's Day was fun for all. Ethan had his first "Half-Birthday" celebration.



April: We celebrated Easter and colored eggs and had an egg/candy hunt. The weather began to warm up a bit. Ethan turned 7 months, and Emily celebrated 11 1/2! Spring soccer started.



May: Mother's Day was followed by Memorial Day/our 13th wedding anniversary. Ethan turned 8 months old and started to crawl in earnest. Dance class wound down. Our first Holland Lop baby, "George," was born.



June: School finished! Emily became a 7th-grader-to-be and danced "en-pointe" in her recital. Edward changed to a 3rd-grader-to-be and finished his last U8 soccer season. We had a "fun (rabbit) show" in 4-H and took the rabbits to a hospital as part of a community service project. Ethan turned 9 months, and we pulled out the sprinkler and baby pool.



July: We watched the annual Wyomissing Independence Day Parade...a first for Ethan. We even walked there. The weather got warmer and we made many trips to the library to earn tickets for the Summer Reading Program. Ethan turned 10 months old and started to walk. U9 soccer began for the season.



August: We enjoyed a second year of "Camp Woohoohaha" and prepared for the start of school. We packed for our beach trip and drove 9 hours in the rain to get there. Edward and Emily enjoyed many lemonade stands and earned enough money for us to go to the N.C. Aquarium. Edward turned 8 1/2, and Ethan turned 11 months. All three kids earned enough tickets to get t-shirts from the library's Summer Reading program.



September: School started in Nags Head, N.C., where we enjoyed a rainy week away from home. Stuart turned 39, and Ethan celebrated "ONE." Dance started up again.



October: Emily and I had our joint-birthday -- turning 12 and 39(-and-holding), respectively. Nutcracker practices began for Emily. Edward had his first soccer game. Ethan turned 13 months. And all three enjoyed going trick-or-treating. Emily grew 5 inches since her last birthday.



November: The U9 autumn soccer season wrapped up with a "mom-son" game. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house. Ethan turned 14 months. Emily got re-elected as vice president in 4-H. I enjoyed my 15th annual "day-of-shopping" with an old friend/colleague.



December: The Christmas season brought with it lots of busyness: the 4-H Christmas party; the GAI-Tronics' Santa breakfast; and a big snowstorm in the middle of three Nutcracker performances. We celebrated Sinterklaas and made gingerbread houses with school. We had a wonderful (and yummy) dinner with my family, hosted Boxing Day, celebrated Pagoda Day and skyped with Stuart's parents so that they could watch the kids open their gifts.


And then tonight, as I sat and reflected on how blessed we are as a family, I realized what a difference a year -- and a decade -- makes. We praise God for all that He has given to us.

Happy "old" 2009, everyone, and an even happier new 2010!

Monday Month-i-versary

15 months old TODAY!