Say a little prayer

While you're reading this, say a little prayer for Greg and Elsi.
Every day this week she's cried inconsolably for no apparent reason
while I've been at work. Yesterday, Greg was holding her in his easy
chair, rocking and she was fine; he coughed and she lost it, to never
quite recover. He's at his wits' end and could use a little divine
intervention!

While we're on prayer requests . . . pray for Lily, Daniel (my
brother) and Tasha's baby girl. She's been in the NICU for a LONG time
(over 12 weeks, but I'm not sure the exact amount), way past her due
date now, but still not eating well. Pray that she would eat so they
can take her home!

"Real" Food

Elsi had her first "real" food Tuesday night. She's had rice cereal by
itself and with banana, but last night she had part of what we were
eating, but ground-up of course: rice and yellow squash. She made a
lot of funny faces, spit a lot of it out unintentionally, and seemed
to not quite be able to swallow without gagging at times. We'll
probably wait a few weeks before we try it again or else we'll water
down the food more. We're guessing it was a little too thick for her
current swallowing abilities. It was fun to have her at the table
"eating" with us.

This morning, Ben told Greg he wants three sisters.

Train Excursion Slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Pictures of the washed out driveway

When we went to meet Baby Madelyn yesterday, the driveway at their house started washing away before we got there and soon after, it was a chasm in the road -- more details from yesterday's post.

Chattanooga's great!

Today we took our kids for a little train ride! It was so much fun. The boys, especially Luke, loved it. One of the best things about this town is all the fun family stuff there is to do. I love it.

Baby Madelyn

We finally got to go see Baby Madelyn yesterday, which was wonderful. She was so cute and sweet, but I forgot to take pictures, of course. I did not, however, forget to take pictures of the other part of our day that was terribly exciting. When we arrived at their house, the creek that used to flow UNDER their driveway was flowing over it and the edge of the driveway had already washed away. We didn't think it was safe to drive over it. Greg's brother Roger came down with his 4-wheel-drive-Ranger and drove us in turns up to their house. Greg left to go to the grocery store. By the time Greg got back, that section of the driveway was gone, and in it's place was a 10ft wide, 10ft deep chasm. Roger managed to find a way to drive his Ranger through the woods and out a neighbor's driveway, so they can at least come and go from their house as they need to, but they have a big job ahead of them to fix that driveway, unfortunately.

Washing little girls' clothes

One lesson I quickly learned about little girls clothes: You have to wash all pieces of the same outfit at the same time. Many of Elsi's outfits consist of two pieces, especially dresses and bloomers. If you don't wash them both together, one will inevitably get pink because of other stuff in the load with it! How did I come to know this, you might ask? Not telling. . .

Luke's 4-year-old dr. checkup

Luke had his four-year-old pediatrician visit yesterday. He's very healthy, thankfully. He did have to get FIVE shots, which he was none too thrilled about. He's still tiny, actually having lost ground percentage wise on the growth chart since his 3-yr-old visit. He weighs 30 pounds and is 3 ft. 2 in. tall. Dr. Jung wasn't overly concerned, but just said to try to add some calories to his diet with good fats and extra protein (hence the Boost purchase today). We also have to take him to the eye dr. Reading an eye chart he came out 20/30 in one eye and 20/40 in the other. Those numbers aren't so much concerning as just the fact that it was not the same in both eyes. But, compared with how bad my eyesight is, Luke's getting off pretty easy, I think.

CVS Shopping Trip

I'm feeling good about my shopping trip to CVS today. I planned it out, which took way too long, but as long as I don't do it too often, I guess it was worth it. I spent $20 out of my pocket on a prescription, and got a $25 gift card for it (Hamilton Co. coupon book), which I spent on all my stuff. I did a total of 4 transactions so I could use extra care bucks (ECBs) and still have over $4 left on my gift card. I have learned that I have to use my ECBs while I'm there or I don't get them spent before they expire. I got $80.20 worth of stuff for $20 out of pocket, with $4 left to spend!

Here's what I got:
3 6-pk Boost energy drinks @ 6.99 ea - $4 cpns
1 Jumbo Huggies Supreme @ 8.99 - $3 cpn
Total w/ tax: 17.85 after using $5 off $25 CVS coupon and $2 ECBs from prescription

1 3ltr Poland Springs water @ $1
3 Lean Cuisine @ $3 ea - $2 cpn
1 2-pk Tone Mango soap @ $1.88 - $1 cpn
1 Colgate Total @ $2.99 - $1 cpn
1 sidewalk chalk on clearance @ $.50
1 Neosporin Lip ointment @ $2.89 - $1 cpn
2 cheerios cereal cups @ $1 ea - $2 cpns
Total w/tax: $1.70 after using $3 off $15 CVS coupon and $10 ECBs from Boost purchase

1 Jumbo Huggies Supreme @ 8.99 - $1.50 cpn
1 Teddy Graham @ $.99 (treat for the boys for behaving while I shopped)
Total w/ tax: $1.39 after using $8 ECBs from Colgate, Tone, and Nestle (water and Lean Cuisine) purchase

I learned all these tricks from a blog called Money Saving Mom and got the links for the $3 and $5 CVS coupons from The Coupon "High".

Loving Greg's off nights

I love it when Greg is off in the evening. Last night we sat down at the table to a real dinner that I made, then the whole family got in the hot tub together. That was fun. Elsi watched her big brothers, Luke swam under water with his goggles on, Ben floated around with water wings and threw ball-pit balls at Greg (thanks, Dad and Gini =), and Greg and enjoyed sitting close and watching. Tonight, we all loaded up, went to the pool store for chemicals, Wal-mart for groceries, and Sticky Fingers for dinner. I feel like such a normal person with a normal family! And I love spending time all together when Greg is off in the evenings.

Highlighting the age difference

It's hard to remember sometimes that Luke and Ben are not the same age, because they aren't very different in size, they can do a lot of the same things physically, and they both communicate pretty well. This leads to frustration for us grownups sometimes when Ben can't do something that seems like it should be easy and that Luke has been doing for a long time. We have been assured that Ben's skills are commensurate for his age.

Today the age difference was highlighted when we played a new game. The game is called Noodleboro Learning to Listen Pizza Palace. The object is to remember what the "orderer" orders (using picture cards) on their pizza and make the pizza correctly. There are cards that show the toppings ordered and tokens that match the cards to be used as toppings. Luke can remember 3 or 4 items accurately after seeing them once and then having them hidden, and make the matching pizza. Ben can match the toppings to the cards, but he can't accomplish the multi-step task of ending up getting those matching toppings onto the pizza. I even hid the cards from Luke and let Ben see them the whole time. Ben couldn't, or didn't want to, do it. Crazy! The differences in those skill levels is amazing to me.

My kids

Today, I made my kids all sit together for a picture -- finally, a decent
one of all three of them together. I just love them!

Reward trip to Coolidge

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Elsi @ night made better by my sweet husband

Elsi has been waking up numerous times a night now for almost a week! Last night, Greg tried to help me by getting up with her and she just cried and cried until he brought her to me and I fed her. I feel like she's a newborn again or something. I hope she's just teething and it will all go away, but I still can't see or feel any teeth coming in. Greg got up with the boys this morning too, so I could sleep a little more. After he brought me Elsi after she woke up he sent Luke in with my breakfast -- breakfast in bed -- that's like Mother's Day good in my book. I hope she sleeps tonight, but I'm betting we're in for another tough one. Just part of it, I guess. She was SOOOO perfect before all this started so I guess it's fair -- "when she was good she was very, very good; and when she was bad she was horrid."

Our missionary relatives

I'm so proud of my bro. Peter and Janet for working so hard and being so faithful at raising support to go to the mission field! It's been really neat to see the ways God has provided for them, making it so clear that he has called them to this work. But, I can hardly think about it without tearing up -- they're leaving in the middle of November for training in CO, and may or may not be back in Chattanooga before they leave at the end of December. I want them to go, but I don't want them to leave! =(

Chik-fil-a Family Night

We went to Chik-fil-a in Fort Oglethorpe tonight for dinner for family
night, which is every Tuesday and kids' meals are free. They had a clown who
painted faces and gave out balloons. As you can see, Luke chose Batman and
Ben chose NOT to get too close to the clown. =)

Sleep -- thanks for the help!

Just wanted to say thanks to everybody for the suggestions on getting my kids to go to sleep at night! We've made a few changes thanks to you all. First, Luke is not taking naps anymore. He's having "quiet time" for a couple hours in a different room than Benny, with books. He doesn't have to go to sleep. That's not going great right now, he's getting kinda bored, so we may have to explore a few other ideas, but that's during Greg's childcare time usually, so I'll leave that for him to try first before we institute any changes. Secondly, the boys are now earning pennies to ride the carousel. I took Didi's idea from my Facebook notes comment and melded it with one I'd tried that didn't work as well. I give them five pennies in each of their jars when I put them to bed. If I have to go back to their room for any reason, I take a penny. In the morning, they get to put the ones they still have onto their penny chart. They're motivated and so far, it's working pretty well. And, Elsi slept through last night; first time in 3 weeks. We'll see if it continues!

This week is different, and different than I planned.

This week, Greg is in some sort of mental health crisis intervention class, which means he works from 8 to 5:30. This poses a babysitting problem for us, since I still have to go to work from 10:15 to 2:45. Greg's mom was planning to come up to help us Monday through Wednesday and we were really looking forward to having her. Also, Greg would be home with us every evening. So this week was going to be different, but nice in its own way.

It all got changed up when we kept getting rain and kept getting rain and kept getting rain. My school was cancelled Monday and Tuesday, which eliminated the need for a babysitter and Greg's mom couldn't get up here until at least today. These added elements made it all a little more exciting. I'm not sure that missing work was advantageous for me right now because I have work piling up for me that has looming due dates, but it was nice to have an extra long weekend! And we're still looking forward to having Greg's mom, as soon as she can actually make it up here.

Eating Oreos

I didn't have to go work today, which is bad for our community, but good for
my kids, since Greg had to be in class today during the day. In this picture
you can see how we spent part of our morning. Greg bought me Oreos because
he got ice cream, which I can't eat right now, due to a certain nursing baby
who doesn't digest milk products very well yet. At this point, I'd MUCH
rather have the ice cream! But thanks, Babe, the Oreos are yummy too!

Elsi @ 5 months

Little video of Elsi who is 5 months today! She smiled for me, but wouldn't do the other stuff she normally does in her bouncy seat, such as babble, grab her toes, or the toy hanging next to her.