Sad news, cute picture

I love this picture of Jacob (Hannah's 3rd bday party) because he is so sweet with a pacifier in his mouth! Anyway, it makes me smile after my dr appt. yesterday. Not a very great day. I saw my test results and my cholesterol is the highest I have ever had. I don't remember the exact numbers because I was so upset and started to cry but my total was over 300 and my LDLs were over 200. Very bad. I am now on Crestor but I don't want to be on that forever so I am trying to really eliminate unhealthy foods from my diet. Anyway, enough about that. Enjoy 1year old Jacob. : )

Tough daddy

Here is Jeff showing Jacob what he is made of after Jacob tried to pick a fight with him (you know how it starts with a friendly wrestle but then the beta male has to test the waters). He looks pretty mean but please notice the candy bracelet on Hannah's wrist. You guessed it, I had just about put them to bed when Jeff comes in from work with gas station candy. What a softie.

Jacob's happy arms

A little blurb about Jacob. He has picked up two little habits that make me smile. The first one is saying Yep. He says it for yes and I am sure he has heard me use the word before but it has become one of his conversation staples. (Sorry for all you southerners cringing out there). The other is a funny position he puts his arms in when he feels happy? I have tried to decipher what emotion instigates the funny arms but I am still not quite sure. This is a poor photo of it because he wasn't doing it naturally. True funny arms go straight out from the shoulders and then make a 90 degree angle at the elbows to let the forearms dangle vertically.

Hannah in her curlers

Hannah sometimes requests curls for her hair. Unfortunately she has my hair (ughh, I may write a rogaine blog at some point in the future but I am not going there tonight) and the curls fall out pretty soon afterwards even with hairspray. So we bought sponge curlers and she and Jacob both think they are pretty fun.

This is this morning. I did a rather poor job because one: she wanted to use every color curler i.e. different sizes, and two: I really did not believe she would lie down with them in her hair so I wasn't really going for great. We tried again this evening so we will see how it looks in the morning.

A frog named Bicycle

After we came home from church Hannah pulled the bicycles inside for a quick ride around the kitchen while she waited for lunch. Jacob's seat lifts up to reveal a storage spot and he likes to fill it with trains before he begins riding. This time he had a stowaway of the amphibian variety. Hannah came upstairs: "There's a frog downstairs!"

Jeff and I are unimpressed: "oh really?"

Hannah: "yes!"

Jeff and I still unimpressed: "Is it green?"

Hannah: "yes!"

Us again: "is it real?" (To our credit our house is currently infested with nice monsters. They are everywhere)

Hannah: "Yes!"

Us, a little more intrigued: "Is it inside?'

Hannah: "YES!"

And there he was, a real green frog inside our house. The kids loved it and Hannah promptly named him Bicycle.

My fleeting flower-picker

Hannah loves to pick flowers. And then give them to others, mostly me. It is such a sweet yet inconvenient gesture because it can happen anywhere. If we are at home it is no biggie, I whisk out a tiny vase, place the flowers in with a little water and then discard them in a couple days. Other times she might spot some right when we are getting into the car, going into a store, or visiting the library. Not so easy to decide what to do with them and I came to see it as a little bit of a hassle. Then I realized that there is a very limited amount of time that I will be receiving these loving gestures from my sweet girl and my attitude changed. Now I accept them with a smile and it is wonderful to know that if she inquires where I placed the little bouquet I can reply, they are sitting on the front seat of the car, or they are in my purse (not, I dropped them on the ground the second you weren't looking). Now please excuse me while I clean out all the dried flower pieces from my purse.

deciding to be dedicated

Katy is a friend of mine who I have known since I was 12 years old. When she came back to SC to visit her family I was able to visit with her and her husband and her adorable little baby boy, Rueben. She inspired me to start drawing again. I have always enjoyed drawing but never felt like I was very good so I didn't pursue any art classes in high school or do much studying or practice. So I have decided to try to develop my hobby and I really like sketching and watercolor. Here is a picture that I am working on. It feels really good to give myself a break, to actively decide that even though I am not as good as I would like to be, that I can still enjoy the process, that I can be proud of what I am doing, (and even post it on the internet). I still feel very self concious about the whole thing but it is so freeing to believe that I can get better as I work on it. So, I have decided to do some drawing or painting at least five days a week.

Frusterated

Well I wanted to put some pictures from Easter last year on here but because of my lack of technical expertise, I cannot figure out why the computer cannot find a file blah blah blah, it is too long and boring to try to explain what I did and how it didn't work so I will spare you all. Also, the software I normally use for the pictures now brings up paint when I want to edit and I can't figure out how to change that which is really irritating. I donated blood this afternoon and have been feeling just a little off since then so I am going to blame my less than chipper mood on that. So here is Hannah "reading" to Jacob which is really sweet until you get to the second picture and he turns into devil spawn. Crummy paint program with no red eye removal.

Hannah's new skill

We discovered some children's software we had forgotten about when Hannah was helping me organize the computer drawers. Well Hannah and Jacob really enjoy using them but me, not so much. (It is a little tedious to sit at a computer and be the mouse slave). Today I decided to start teaching Hannah how to use the mouse so that maybe in a couple of weeks she would be able to do some things herself. Imagine my happy suprise when she was able to use it right away! Now the only problem is convincing both of us that she can't sit there and play games for an hour. I hope this picture is big enough to show that she is curling her tongue.

First skinned knee

Jacob was running on a sidewalk that suddenly dipped and he went down. Skinned both knees (one hardly grazed) and scratched his forehead. He cried for a minute and then calmed down. About 5 minutes later, he looks down and sees that his knee is all bloody and he freaks out! The rest of the day if he looked at his knee he would start crying again.

Poor guy uses his knees alot, to sit on while eating at the table (he was furious when I had him use his booster seat for dinner) or playing with his trains (which consumes most of his day). I was pretty impressed when I looked over and saw he had come up with a solution for pain free play.

Let the training begin!

I pulled down the Easter decorations this past week and Hannah set up an Easter egg hunt for Jacob while he was napping
He had no problem remembering how things go, the first egg he picked up he immediately began to shake.

Not disappointed at all to find out this was only a dry run.

Girls' night at Natalie's house

Last weekend the girls went to spend the night with Natalie because Brian was out of town. Hannah was very excited (as seen below) and we had a fun time eating pizza and twizzlers while watching Enchanted. Well, at least parts of Enchanted. Hannah is usually only exposed to all the drama and terror found in My Little Ponies or Thomas the engine so Enchanted was a little over the top for her and I had to whisk her off during any not entirely happy moments. Enjoy the picture of Nat and baby Henry!

New Bike

I am a little limited on the exercises that I can do with my stress fractures but I can do an exercise bike with no resistance so we got this sleek little puppy at walmart for $97 and I love it! I can hop on and go for five minutes if that is all the time I have or longer at night while watching tv. Sometimes I bring the kids' bikes in and they circle the kitchen table while I am pulled up next to the kitchen. (I will get a picture of that later). Hannah took this picture.

Happy belated birthday Stephanie

Sorry this is late Stephanie, we have just been really sick around here and I am finally rallying. I hope that you had a good birthday. Here are Hannah and Jacob playing babies. Jacob kept trying to get into the baby's cradle so I gave him the laundry basket which pleased him. Jeff is playing "squishy face" with Jacob.

Six Years!

Today is our sixth year anniversary! Unfortunately there has been a stomach bug going around and Hannah caught it last night. I think she threw up like eight times. This morning she seems good as new but it was a rather rough night for Jeff and me and now I am starting to feel a little gross so we will see who else in our family ends up with it. Big thanks to Mark and Carol for the sofa bed, it makes it so much easier when the kids or I am sick to be able to lay together while watching videos.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Jason! I am so sorry that this is two days late but I wanted to wish you a very happy birthday! Love ya!

Oh, the choices

A cute picture of Jacob looking at all his options. We have registered Hannah for preschool for the fall. We let her pick which one she liked best and the winner was Pilgrim Lutheran. Her classes are Monday- Thursday from 9-1 and the kids get to bring their own lunches every day. That was the clincher. The other preschools all let out earlier and had no lunch or had a lunch bunch after class for two days out of the week. Not nearly enough lunches in her opinion. She has it all planned out. She will be using her princess lunchbox and will eat pb&j sandwhiches. Pretty funny considering she does NOT like pb&j sandwhiches, doesn't eat them ever, but apparently she finds something very appealing about the idea and is not budging.