Whew… it was hard work getting these pictures taken! (Above is one of the final ones we came home with. I got a CD with my photo package, so I’ll include some of the other not-quite-good-enough photos below.) We canceled last week due to illness, and I was tempted to this morning when Analise was a grouch. I’m glad we got it done. Josiah, my normally cheerful smiley one, would hardly crack a smile for us, while Analise, who’s hard to catch even LOOKING at the camera, was in her full cheerful smiley beauty.

We didn’t have many to choose from with the two of them together, but I did get the top one above. I also got a couple sheets of the two individual photos above. I’ve had these two outfits since Josiah was 3 months old, and Analise’s since before he was born, just waiting for the right opportunity. I think they look very cute!

This one was one of the other choices for thw two together. Poor Josiah looks like he’s had enough of it all!

I got a double exposure enlargement of these two profile shots. Not the best of Josiah, but the final of both looks nice.

After a change of outfits, Josiah cheered up a bit. Or maybe it was because we let him stand up? Either way, he smiled a little bit and we got one that worked of just him and his sweet smiley self.

I got several sheets of this photo, too. Finally, smiley boy I know!

This is all the photos we’ll try to have taken until birthday time in June. Our photo place does a pretty good job of getting the kiddos to sit still and smile. This session was worth it, I think!

I’m so thrilled Tuesday is here.  Analise has been a bit of a grump lately, and she didn’t go to school on Thursday because she said she didn’t feel well.  Thankfully today she was good enough to go, even though she cried for a bit.  I think it’s just a stage she’s in… to not want to do things, even things she normally loves to do.  What a stage… I hope we get past it soon.  She’s been a bear during the night, too, waking up at 4:30 wanting to come to our bed.  We’re really trying to break the come-to-bed-with-mom-and-dad phase, just because we REALLY need some decent sleep.  But she’s throwing serious crying fits at that crazy early hour wanting to get up.  We placated her this morning – at 5am – by turning on her music, giving her some books, though the only light was her nightlight, and closing her door.  We told her she could get up when the sun came up.  I went back to sleep while Brian got up and worked some.  I guess she played pretty well in her crib, talking and chattering the whole time.  At about 6:30, she gleefully yelled, "It’s morning – the sun is up!" and Brian rescued her, while I stole another half hour of sleep.

Josiah, on the other hand, is my new sleep champ!  He slept from 8pm Sunday night until 7am yesterday morning.  WOOHOO!  Last night, he skipped his "nightcap" feeding at 11pm, and slept until 2am.  He was only in bed with us for half an hour to eat, and there was not even a peep from him when I put him back in his own bed to sleep, not in the swing, like we’ve been doing.  He slept until 7am this morning after that.  YEAH!!!  We’re making progress on one front of the sleep battle!

It could be that Analise still has a lingering ear infection.  If it sounds like I’m paranoid, it’s only because these out-of-character behavior times have more often than not corresponded with ear infections.  I’ll give it until Wednesday, and then we may be back at the doctor checking.  We need to start allocating more $$ in our monthly budget for doctor’s copays…

Anyway,  Josiah and I just got back from dropping Analise off at school and grocery shopping.  He’s asleep, and I’ve got BBQ pork in the slow-cooker for dinner.  I hope I can get something accomplished today… Yeah for Tuesday!  

So the sickness continues.  I’m so very very thankful that we’re not SERIOUSLY sick, but this junk that keeps going around our house is wearing me out.  Josiah had a hacking cough on Thursday night, and he slept really badly with his stuffy nose.  (Oh, and tooth #4 has broken through on the bottom).  So yesterday morning, I just kind of felt like I should have him checked out because although he didn’t look too bad, he was grumpy and not sleeping well for naps, besides the weekend was coming and I didn’t want to hassle with after-hours appointments.  So in visit #6 since the New Year, sure enough, Josiah has and ear infection.  Poor kiddo.  So he’s on antibiotics 2x/day… which isn’t that big of a deal since he takes them once a day anyway.  Analise has been quite a grump lately, but I think she’s over her infection, I hope, I pray, please, oh, please, let it be so…

Brian’s now down for the count with an intestinal bug.  He’s crashed on the couch right now.  I feel kind of bad… I was not looking forward to the weekend, because he had plans to bike for 3+ hours this morning with his team, and again tomorrow afternoon.  Now he’s in no shape to ride, and I get him home with me.  Not exactly how I wanted to spend the day with him! 

This has been a long week.  Honestly, normal life takes about all the patience I have, but with grumpy kids in the house and seriously bad sleep this week, I’ve struggled with my own patience and attitude.  I think adjusting to Brian’s full-time-plus work schedule again has worn me out. I knew I appreciated him over his break, I just didn’t know how much!  Anyway, Analise has been more in the "trying 2’s" than usual this week, probably because she’s been sick.  She has been up between 4:30am and 6 for the last 4 days. 

I was really excited to get out of the house for some scrapbooking with ladies from church last night.  I got Josiah to sleep, Brian felt like he could handle getting Analise to bed, and I thought I had a couple hours to myself as I left at 7pm.  I was giddy with excitement to be on my own.  Unfortunately, with Josiah having an ear infection, it wasn’t the night for me to leave.  Brian called at 8:40pm, with a wailing Josiah in the background.  He couldn’t get Analise to bed, Josiah had been awake since half an hour after I’d left, and he only wanted me.  BUMMER. 

Ok, I’ve still got a Saturday evening to be productive.  Enough whining from me.  Maybe tonight will be a good night’s sleep, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll all be healthy…      

Well, it’s finally happening. We have some form of winter weather here in Birmingham! Right now, I can hear the tinker-tinker-tinker of "ice pellets" bouncing off the trees, patio, leaves, etc… It even looks like there is the slimmest of possibilities that when we wake up in the morning there may be a tiny dusting of snow!

Yeah!  Josiah just moved himself forward!  He did a little leap-frog move, a couple times in a row.  He’s trying to be a linebacker, though, balancing on his hands and feet with his butt up in the air.  He’ll be all over the place any day now… Watch out, world!  (baby book milestone: almost 8 months)

I’ve got Sour Cream Spicy Chicken in the slow cooker. It’s a Weight-Watchers recipe, and I thought it would be a nice tasty meal for Brian’s parents to join us for, since his dad is trying to eat "heart healthy". I’ll post how it is later tonight, but here’s the recipe:

Spicy Sour Cream Chicken

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup salsa
• 1 pkg low sodium taco seasoning
• 2 T cornstarch
• 1/4c low-fat sour cream

Spray slow cooker with non-stick spray. Place chicken breasts in, top with taco seasoning and salsa. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Shred chicken with a fork and knife, and remove from the slow cooker to a dish. In a separate dish, mix cornstarch with a little bit of water, stirring well. Add sour cream, stirring well, Mix with chicken.

We’re having ours on tortillas with avocado, cheese and tomatoes as toppings. Depending on how "juicy" it is, I might add more than 1/4c of sour cream. Sounds tasty, though! I’m going to make bananna pudding for dessert, since that’s Tom’s favorite, and I can do it low-fat, too.

Josiah and I are off to World Market for some coffee stuff, and then we’ll pick up Analise. Tuesdays are a nice orderly day… Analise will go down for a nap just as soon as we get home, and so will Josiah. I’ll have some good time this afternoon to get things done. I love Mother’s Day Out programs! I’m glad Analise does too!

Sorry this is a bit washed out… having a hard time getting our camera to catch good light.  He’s still cute!

We managed to make it through our last antibiotic shot (of 3) on Friday.  Analise was a trooper.  I was so proud of her.  There was, of course, crying when we headed down the hall toward the room, and tears and wailing when I had to hold her down for the shot.  But she only cried as I carried her back to the waiting room and for part of the 20 minutes we had to wait before the nurse would let us go.  I was so impressed.  She got over it pretty quickly.  Though as long as the band-aid was on her thigh, she’d see it when she went to the bathroom.  And it would cause her to get a bit weepy, so she wanted me to put  my hand over it so she couldn’t see it.  So cute and funny.  She was sad and happy when the band-aid fell off yesterday.  (sad voice) "My band-aid’s gone."  "Yep, it fell off."  "It’s at Grandma’s."  "Yep, you’re all done with the shots."  (happy voice) "My leg doesn’t hurt anymore!"

A few random pictures my my roly-poly smiley boy!

But today she was grumpy.  Probably normal 2-year old grumpies, but they wore me out.  A she snuggled up to me a couple times, I asked her if she felt ok, and she shook her head.  When I asked what hurt, she said her ears and her nose.  Grr.  So after a call to the nurse, and when she woke-up looking sad and a little sick, I took her back to get her ears checked, just to make sure she didn’t still have a raging infection.  Thankfully, they’re just still very fluid-filled and only mildly infected, which is to be expected, the doctor said.  They should still clear up this week, though the fluid will take a month or more to clear out.  Since she still has a viral cold/cough/runny nose, though, the doctor wasn’t very optimistic that we would manage to get by without yet ANOTHER infection.  As long as she’s sick, it’s going to be hard to keep that fluid from ending up infected.  So I’m praying that she gets healthy ASAP, because if she’s sick again in the next month, we’re headed straight to the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, and she’ll be getting tubes in her ears.  Not what I want, but ultimately, I want her over these crummy infections, because I hate seeing her feel bad.  We do have to go back to our regular pediatrician (who I really like) in 3 weeks or so, to see how her ears are clearing up overall.  Hopefully, we can be "all clear" by then. 

He loves to look at his reflection in the high chair!

Josiah’s got the crummy cold, too.  I feel bad for him, and I really hope he doesn’t end up with an infection.  His 3rd tooth has broken through (2nd on top), and he’s still thinking about going forwards.  Analise has enjoyed piling toys on top of him today.  He likes it until he gets something bulky and hard dropped on him.  Then he finally figures out it’s not so fun.  Analise, though, thinks that Josiah wants ALL his toys… at the same time.  Funny. 

Ok, a couple last pictures… Josiah’s new almost completely done room.  We’ve still got some cute little alphabet stickers to put up along the top of the walls.  But he’s pretty happy with his new room!  So am I! 

Lastly, a picture of my Tastefully Simple table… after the party, that’s why the samples are almost gone:)

We just got back from a great (but very short) trip to Chattanooga, TN. This blog is a little different because I am starting it out with a photo album describing our trip in pictures. Click on each picture to see a larger image. If nothing happens, try holding down the CTRL key when you click the image. This will bypass your popup blocker. Also, once you have opened the first image, subsequent images may appear in a browser window behind the current window so you will have to use ALT+TAB to switch between windows. Good luck!

Well, let’s start from the top. I (Brian) left our house at 5:30 in the morning to bike from Birmingham to Fort Payne, 115 miles to the northeast. It was a chilly 23 degrees when I left. By 7AM, the temperature had dropped to 19 degrees on my bike computer and stayed there for about 10 miles. By the time I made it to Springville, I was getting pretty thirsty because my water bottles had both frozen (first picture) and I could only squeeze a tiny little bit of frozen gatorade out. I continued on and the temperature gradually warmed above freezing by the time I made it to the top of the first major climb, Blount Mountain (second picture). After climbing Blount Mountain, I had a steep descent before immediately climbing back up Chandler Mountain (third picture). My parents were driving with Kristine and planning to meet me in Fort Payne, but because of a headwind and the cold I only made it 93 miles before they caught up with me shortly after the last climb, Campbell Gap (fourth picture). So that was my biking adventure.

(Kristine’s narration) We made it to Chattanooga at about 3 pm and went straight to the Tennessee Aquarium, where we met Kristine’s friend, Melanie who completed her Discipleship Training School with Kristine in 1999. Melanie is from Chattanooga, but is now a full time missionary for Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Cambodia. She recently married a Cambodian named Tim, who we met for the first time at the Tennesse Aquarium. We had fun walking through the aquarium. Melanie and Tim are expecting their first child in August, so they really enjoyed seeing the Aquarium with Analise and Josiah. Aquarium highlights: A great turtle exhibit; some HUGE crabs – bigger than Analise, and with an arm-span probably wider than mine; A beautiful butterflly garden where Analise caught a butterfly on her finger, petting the sting rays and little sharks in a touch pond. Fun! We sure love the aquarium!

Melanie’s family had us over to their house for a fantastic dinner, and we hung out for the evening looking at beautiful Cambodian wedding pictures and talking. It was so much fun. Analise hadn’t napped, so she fell asleep the instant we got in the car to go back to the hotel. Josiah, on the other hand, took a little nap during dinner, and woke up revitalized for the rest of the evening. He wanted the evening to last longer than the rest of us, and he was smiling and gurgling even as we were all trying to go to sleep.

The only glitch in our lovely weekend getaway was that night. Besides the fact that we don’t characteristically get much sleep in hotel rooms with our 2 kiddos. After Josiah had been woken up the first time and joined me in bed, moving Brian to the sleeper sofa with Analise, she woke us up sick, all over Brian and the bed at about 3:30 in the morning. Poor girl.

Brian was a trooper getting things cleaned up while I took care of Analise, but Josiah took the opportunity to wake up completely and decide he wanted to crawl around on the bed and gurgle at everyone. We got Analise settled in bed with Josiah and I, but after dozing off for a little while as Josiah didn’t sleep, she woke up 2 more times to throw up. Thankfully, I kept Josiah out of the way, and we kept things pretty well contained so we still had the bed for sleeping (after almost everything had been stripped from the sofa bed, where Brian was now sleeping). I eventually traded places with Brian and got Josiah back to sleep, and we managed to find 3 hours of sleep in the early morning hours. Until Analise woke us up sick again. That was the last of it, though, and she did ok with apple juice, gatorade, dry cereal and toast yesterday. Oh, and 3 episodes of the Backyardigans and 3 Pooh video stories. She told me last night, “Maybe I’ll have fish sticks for dinner.” When they were ready, she decided she preferred applesauce… probably a wiser choice:) I think we’re over it, though, as she’s feeling fine this morning.

In spite of the sickness, it was still a fun, fun weekend getaway, especially seeing good friends.

We made it through shot #2.  It went as good as could be expected.  She was good going to the doctor, though she really looked sad and a bit distressed.  Even in the waiting room she was fine, and enjoyed a new book I’d brought.  But when we went back to see the nurse, she figured it out when we walked in the room and started crying.  Rough.  Poor girl, I was almost crying.  I felt so bad for her.  I hope this knocks the ear infections out for good for a long while, because if we have to go back to the doctor in the next few months, it’ll be a challenge.  She didn’t want to walk to the waiting room, and we had to hang around for 20 minutes so they could make sure she wouldn’t have a reaction.  She just sat on my lap crying off and on, munching on some chocolate.  Poor girl.  She did get to go to Grandma’s after we left, though, and she’s hanging out there the rest of the afternoon while I try to get us ready to go to Tennessee tomorrow. 

Only one shot left… hope it isn’t too terrible.    

Sure enough, poor Analise has another double ear infection.  Or the same ear infection not going away.  In either case, it’s frustrating.  We had a choice of how to deal with it… 10 days of antibiotics (which we’ve struggled with, missing a few does, fighting to take each and every time), 1 shot and 10 days of antibiotics, or 1 shot 3 days in a row with no oral antibiotics, and the best chance to get it cleared up for good.  Well, I chose the most painful option, thinking at first it would be easier than fighting to take medicine for 10 days.  But since she got the shot, she’s cried and cried and cried saying her leg hurts, and I feel so terrible for her.  Getting her back to the doctor tomorrow is going to be pure torture for both of us.  And Friday morning before we leave for Tennessee.  Arg.  

Right now, though, she’s cheered up and playing with Grandma after lunch of ice cream.  Hopefully she’ll feel better after a nap.  Maybe we all will!