Well, I’m glad it’s the weekend.  Still dealing with a sick Josiah today.  He’s running a fever, and he’s pretty grumpy.  I’m debating taking him to the after-hours clinic today, but hoping I can wait until Monday.  I snuggled him to sleep this morning, and caught this sweet picture of him in his crib.  He’s a serious belly-sleeper, and he often ends up with his butt up in the air.  Cute.

Two quick pictures of Analise… She was coloring a birthday card the other day, and when I came back to check on her, I found she’d finished the card and decided she needed to be colored!  She said, "Look, mommy, I’ve got present hands!"  And then yesterday she did the same thing watercoloring!  The bottom picture is just after we got home from the ear surgery.  She was having a sausage egg biscuit in the kitchen with Dora, sipping her apple juice. 

The kiddos are napping, we’ve got the Tour of California playing live on the computer.  Exciting stage of the race today, and we should have a relaxing afternoon taking care of little things listening to it.  Yeah for the weekend!  

This is the new phase Analise is in.  "Why?"  Everything I ask her to do, she asks, "why?"  I know it’s a simple childhood phase, and it’s part of learning.  But at her age, I’m not sure it’s actually rooted in curiosity, so much as just postponing the "doing".  It’s incredibly trying to my patience… or maybe that’s just because it’s Friday of what’s been kind of a long week. 

Josiah’s got a nasty cold and cough.  We visited the doctor Wednesday to make sure it wasn’t anything serious (our copay total for 2007 keeps going up and up…), but it wasn’t, so hopefully it’ll run its course in the next few days.  Today, though, he’s snotty, slightly unhappy, and feverish with his juicy cough.  Poor boy. 

Analise seems to be completely over the ear stuff.  I can even tell she’s hearing better.  Just yesterday she burst out with, "M, mmmm is for Mommy!"  We tried several other letters – B, A, J, K  – and she found words that started with them, as well!  Very impressive, I think, especially since she’s still working on letter recognition. 

Brian’s mom was over to babysit this morning while I headed to the DMV to get a replacement driver’s license.  Two weeks ago, Josiah was playing with mine at the mall, and we lost it in JC Penny.  The next day, though, when I called to see if anyone had found it, they had it!  I got over there to pick it up a day or so later, but believe it or not, they couldn’t find it!?!  I’ve called several times since then but still no luck, and I was putting off the tedious task of dealing with the DMV.  Alabama’s DMV system is notoriously busy and very not-automated.  In Wisconsin, I could walk in, wait maybe 15 minutes, have my picture taken, pay $4 and walk out with a brand new license.  Here, though, it was going to cost $15 and you only get a paper temporary license until they mail your new one in 2-3 weeks.  Crazy.  But I found a satellite office that did replacements and renewals, and it was a simple 10 minute in-and-out.  MUCH easier than I expected.  I got a new picture – good thing I blew dry and curled my hair this morning! – and I got to update the weight – down several pounds, yeah!!  So maybe it’ll be nice to have a new license that shows the "recent" me better. 

The other highlight of the week has been the Amgen Tour of California bike race going on from this past Sunday until Saturday.  We’ve been watching the coverage live on their website, and it’s been really exciting!  It’s nearly as exciting as the Tour de France, as many of the top riders are competing in it.  The race even went past our old apartment in Davis!  It would have been so cool to walk outside our place and watch such a top-notch race!

Ok, PBS’s Between the Lions is almost over, and Analise is almost done with lunch, so I’d better cut this off.  Looking forward to a quiet weekend with my family… hopefully everyone gets well!

Today was the big day for Analise to have tubes put in her ears.  She’s been a champ!  We were out of the house at 5:35 am and back home by 7:30am.  Wow!  (It helps that the outpatient surgery center is 5 minutes from our house!)  We took Analise in her pj’s, and she played right up until they took her back.  She had a new little Dora doll that she took with her to show everyone.  We didn’t hear her fuss at all! 

The doctor checked in with us after about 10 minutes, and he said everything went well.  They suctioned out a lot of thick fluid in one ear, but there was no sign of lingering infection.  They brought her back to snuggle in my lap less than 20 minutes later.  She was sleepy, but not at all grumpy.  She actually wanted to stay in "her room", she called it… probably because she knew once we got home my attention would be a little more divided to Josiah. 

But we headed out with a quick stop at McD’s.  She’s been resting with movies and PBS shows on the couch this morning, as have I.  Josiah has a terrible cold and cough, so he’s really snuggly, too, but I’m trying to make sure Analise gets all the "mommy moments" she needs today.  She’s asleep in the bedroom now, and Josiah is playing.  It’s a juggling act!  Thanks for all the prayers! Analise was a champ!

I’m sure many of you will check in on Monday morning, pleasantly surprised to find a whole slew of new posts from us. I’m trying to make up for my silence!

Remember this photo? Yes, a big day in the house as Analise learned how fun scissors were. I forgot to mention that when she first used them, I gave them to her and didn’t hear a SINGLE word from her for an hour as she snipped shred after shred. I had to "cut her off" (hehe!) to go to bed, and the first thing she said upon waking was, "Mommy, I want to cut more." Goodness.

Well, here was the photo from last night:

(suspense…)

(!!!!!)

I was finishing up Josiah’s bath, while Brian was supervising Analise’s pre-bedtime playing. He was a bit distracted and when he turned back to Analise he found her soft curls amongst the paper clippings. He said, "WHAT’S THAT? ANALISE! YOUR HAIR!" I came running with Josiah, Analise burst into tears, mostly because I think Brian surprised her. I couldn’t decide whether to comfort her or check out her hair! It’s not so bad. One piece is bang-length in the front, and the others are underneath on the side. Her hair is pretty layered, anyway, so you really won’t notice anything but the front one, and it still pulls back into a clip. (I did have to recreate this photo… the scene got interrupted quite frantically!)

It’s been a good weekend, in spite of terrible sleep again. We had a great Parent’s Night Out on Friday. Since Brian and I had been together a couple times recently, he graciously offered to let me do some shopping at Kohl’s while he hung out at the coffeeshop. I got several GREAT deals on a things for me and the kiddos. Yesterday, Brian rode with his team in the morning and worked at church all afternoon. Today was the usual teach-Sunday-School/lunch-at-Toones/afternoon-nap routine. Then I headed back to church for a baptism celebration. Brian and the kids went to his parents so he could watch the Tour of California bike race on the Versus TV network. He’s pretty excited that there’s great cycling going on in the US that he can keep tabs on, at least this week. Oh – and head’s up for our CA friends… Tuesday the race is going from Santa Rosa to Winters to Davis to Woodland to end in Sacramento. You’ve got world class cycling right down the road! Enjoy it for us!

Hope everyone’s had a good weekend!

Analise and Josiah are so funny together. A couple weeks ago, they looked so cute together on Sunday, I decided to try to take some pictures of them together, since there are so few. Below, you’ll see why I PAY a photographer for pictures of my kids together! Thank goodness for Portrait Innovations!

Josiah loved being on the couch, so he wanted to squirm away and crawl.

Oh yes, I forgot… a cracked lip from falling while crawling.

Almost a cute hugging moment!

Analise has learned that Josiah likes being tickled, though she usually ends up laying on top of him,
which he eventually finds uncomfortable!

Here are a couple photos with our love…

The party at Analise’s school… Her best friend, Jacob is the little blond on the left.

I went outside this morning to take our recycleables up to the street, and I saw that there were little white granules of something gently resting on the lid of the recycle bin. Could it be? No, impossible. Yes, it was snow! I ran back inside to get Kristine and Analise (it was too cold for Josiah) to show them the snow not even realizing that it was actually still snowing! Now, we’re not talking about a tremendous amount (maybe one tiny snow flake every 3-5 seconds) — but hey, we’ll take what we can get. I think Analise was too cold to be excited, but Kristine shared in the "I can’t believe it’s snowing" feeling that it’s easy to catch onto here in the South.

As I was biking to school, it did get a bit heavier with small snow flakes starting to accumulate on my fleece jacket. So I think it is safe to say, we had an "accumulating" snowfall. The only other place I saw any accumulation was on the a couple patches of ice on the bridge over Shades Creek. I’ve included pictures below of both my glove and jacket (the arrows indicate the accumulated snowflakes) and also the ice. Note the snow flakes covering the ice.

After the successful morning of pictures, I got Analise a quick doctor’s visit to check out her ears. Her behavior has just been uncharacteristically grumpy and fussy, and her sleep has been BAD. Sure enough, another double ear infection. We’re going to see the ENT next week and schedule the procedure to have tubes put in. Poor girl… I can tell she’s already feeling better now that she’s on antibiotics for the 5th time in 9 weeks. Whew! Our doctor’s son had tubes put in not too long ago, and he said it made a world of difference. I’m ready. He reminded me that one of the main reasons to do this is that her hearing is really compromised with all the fluid that has built up. Ah… that would explain the obedience problems partly… she’s really not hearing me! And I know that her waking with screams and tears at 4am has to be related to this. Finally, this morning, she slept until 7. (Unfortunately, Josiah didn’t, and he was up twice between midnight and 5am.) Then to top off the morning, Brian woke me at 6:30 curled in a ball saying his stomach hurt! He cancelled his 8am class because he was in pain, but after a little gas medicine, he seems to be feeling fine. Whew! I’m glad it’s not something more serious!

We had a birthday party for a friend of Analise’s at Chuck E. Cheese this morning. Analise had a good time, and Josiah rode around taking it all in from his backpack view. It was prime nap-time for him, so we were ready to leave a little early, but we still got to enjoy plenty of games, play time, pizza and cake. Fun!

Yeah for Friday! I’ll be back later to tell you Brian’s dramatic computer disaster/recovery story later… I’m sure you can’t wait to hear!