We did make it home on Tuesday evening, safe and sound.  Got lots of photos to share, fun stories to relate.  But I’m swamped, trying to keep my head above water just getting life back in order here, so my apologies.  I’d love to have 30 minutes to get a blog ready, but "daily" life has been demanding too much time this week.
Quick milestone notes:  Josiah rolled from his back to his tummy yesterday.  Yeah!  He’s learned how to blow spit bubbles, too.  And he’s learned that his swing is probably where I put him when I’m wanting to go do things, so it’s no longer a "happy" place, at least most of the time.  I finally got brave enough to check Analise’s 2 year molars, and 3 of 4 are in and the 4th is just below the surface.  Thankfully, she’s been pretty good with the whole teething process, and we’re already almost to the end.  On the other hand, Josiah’s starting to drool, and I bet he’ll be teething before we know it.  Analise can count to 13, she knows A, J, D, M and G and can sing nearly the whole alphabet song (if she wants too).  Impressive!  We had another adventure in baking yesterday, making ghost cupcakes.  I’ve got pictures soon.
Yeah – tomorrow’s Friday!

Adventures in Parenting: Traveling with Two
**written in the car between Georgia and South Carolina, Sunday evening

Q: Where do most goblins live?
A: South Scarolina!

Q: Where are the Toones going for fall break?
A: South Scarolina!

We’re on our way!  Man, it took a lot of work, though.  Let me tell you… traveling with two little ones takes a lot of effort.  I told Brian earlier that I’ve decided we’re not leaving the state of Alabama until the kids are 10.  This doesn’t feel like a vacation!  I think it’ll get better when we’re settled at our cabin, though. 

We borrowed Brian’s dad’s car… It’s bigger than ours, and I wanted a little extra room to take our double jogging stroller so the kids and I can do some walking while Brian’s on his 5-hour bike adventure tomorrow.  We’ve also got the backpack carrier and the Baby Bjorn so we can hike a little, Brian’s bike, 2 small carry-on size suitcases, a small cooler and other paraphernalia.  (Note: did anyone else know that there is a random "r" in the middle of the word "paraphernalia"? How odd.  Neither Brian nor I – the jr high spelling champion – would have spelled it this way.)    Anyway, we didn’t pack too lightly on this trip, though we’ll have to be much more selective on our future trips in our Nissan Altima.  This car is also  advantageous because it has a DVD player to entertain Analise.  She was happy to watch Nemo on the way to Atlanta, and now she’s watching Veggie Tales.  Josiah is in his rear-facing seat, finally sleeping, but he keeps turning his head up to see what’s playing, too. 

Josiah isn’t the seasoned traveler that Analise was at this age.  By 4 months of age, she’d been in 5 states.  After this trip, Josiah will have 3 states, and after November he’ll have been in 5.  Analise napped so well during the day when she was little, and sleeping in the car was no big deal.  Josiah doesn’t sleep well during the day, unless he’s sleeping on me or in his swing.  So, napping this afternoon in the car was a battle for him.  He wanted my hand to hold, so I reached back there for a while.  He is finally sleeping, now that it’s 7:30 and dark.  On the other hand, though, he’s sleeping much better at night than Analise did, which is a huge relief (do I say this frequently?).  I hope in the next couple months he adjusts to sleeping in the car seat because we’ve got quite a bit of car travel planned between now and the holidays.  In less than 3 weeks, we’ll be on our way to Panama City, Florida for the Ironman Triathlon.  Brian’s parents and 2 couples from church (with 1 child) will be going and staying with us in a 4-bedroom condo.  Then 2 weeks later, Brian’s got a conference in Gatlinburg, Tennesse, up in the Great Smokey Mountains and we’re going to go, as well.  Then, the BIG trip comes at Christmas, when we’ll drive to Wisconsin and Indiana to see my family, for about 2 weeks total.  We’ll probably try to do most of that trip at night, so there are fewer child-needs:)

Pumpkin station
Aside from one short stop for Josiah to eat, we made it from Birmingham to the northeast side of Atlanta in one shot.  Just like last year, we stopped at the "pumpkin station" – a former gas station that has been converted to a pumpkin patch, that also sells wood creations, like gazebos and swing sets.  Analise enjoyed the swings and slides more than the pumpkins, though she did help us pick out a couple little ones to take home. 

Brian’s such an adventure to travel with.  Some of my only quiet moments to catch up on reading were while both A and J were napping (about a 20 minute stretch), and he’s telling me to stop reading so I don’t miss something exciting.  For example: Stone Mountain, Georgia, visible for about 15 seconds at the crest of a hill, over my shoulder, carefully looking between the jogging stroller and the edge of the car window.  He just now pointed out a "big oak tree" in the medain of the road… ‘cept that it’s absolutely dark out and I can’t see anything in the medain.  He only knows that it’s there because he’s travelled this road many many times between home and college.  And just now, we’re looking at the map deciding which road to take to our bed & breakfast – the bigger (yellow on the map) road or the little road, named "Critter Road", and he says, "Oh, Critter Road, definitely – doesn’t it sound way more fun?"  That’s where we’re heaing now. 

Sidenote:  Speaking of reading – I’m enjoying our friend, Corrie Haffly’s newly pulished book, The Photoshop Anthology.  Analise and I are famous!  She used our picture as an example in the book!  If you use Photoshop for web design, it’s a great resource – I’m learning a lot:)

Rule: If kids are sleeping, absolutely no stopping for any reason.  (When Brian’s family traveled back in his younger days, they had a "pee jar" so that they wouldn’t have to stop so frequently.  Brian just said we might need to have one eventually…not for the kids but for ourselves to enforce this rule!)

Realization:  I’ve always noticed when we drove past cars at night that had DVD players running.  I always thought it was kind of novel.  We’re one of those cars, I just realized.  And I even said not too long ago – probably before kids – that we’d never have a DVD player, that my kids were going to be able to entertain themselves.  My sisters and I grew up reading and playing games – oh, and irritating each other:) – to entertain ourselves in the car, and though it got boring sometimes, I’m so glad we were such a family of readers and good travelers.  For now, though, I’m grateful for the DVD player to keep my pre-reading toddler entertained so we can have some good stretches of travel. 

Wow… blogging’s so easy, I’m going to post this right now, before I forget! Tonight I tried this new creation. I saw it somewhere and didn’t have an exact recipe, but it turned out well, and it’s a great casserole dish to take to a gathering.

Ravioli Lasagna
**Note: I made one 9×13 pan that was FULL. It served 5, with half a pan leftover. Next time, I might do 2 square baking dishes, so I can freeze one for later. If I did that, I’d probably use 2 lbs of meat and 2 full jars of spaghetti sauce.

• 2 bags frozen cheese ravioli (small round)
• 1 lb ground turkey, seasoned as you like it.
• 1 1/2 jars spaghetti sauce (a good flavorful sauce would be best)
• 1 8oz pkg of mozzerella cheese

Brown the meat with some garlic and other seasonings. Season it well… this is a major source of flavor in the dish. I used garlic salt, minced garlic, a roasted garlic/red pepper seasoning, olive oil, salt and pepper. Drain. Bring large pan of water to boil, add ravioli, turn heat down and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occassionally until ravioli float. Drain. Cover the bottom of the pan with spaghetti sauce, a generous layer of ravioli, half of the meat and cover with spaghetti sauce. Layer ravioli, meat and spaghetti sauce again. Cover with cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling.

Yeah for blogging! My amazing hubby has added a new feature that makes it so much easier for me to format a blog. I’m so excited! It’s invisible to you, but now I don’t have to include all the HTML tags. Previously, even my short blogs took 10 minutes or so to post, and with a picture, it was at least 15 minutes. Now it’ll be much quicker… so much quicker, you may even hear from me more often!

Today’s adventure was baking. I had some sheets of premade cookie dough, and I love cut-out/decorated sugar cookies. Analise loves sprinkles, so I thought today would be a fun chance to bake together. She loved it! We had leaf and acorn cookie cutters in various sizes, which she helped cut out.

Then we sprinkled. In case you don’t notice, one cookie got *heavily* sprinkled with green sugar… that was while I was dashing for the camera! I didn’t get a picture of the finished cookies, but they were tasty and were mostly gone after dinner tonight.

Josiah’s 4 month check-up was today. He weighs 16 1/2 pounds (in the 80th%) and he’s 26.5 inches long (in the 90th% – woohoo!). He was a trooper for his 2 shots. He wasn’t feeling good tonight, though. Hopefully a dose of Tylenol will keep him sleeping through the night.

Have a good weekend!

Almost the weekend… we can’t wait. It’s been a good, busy week. Brian’s been doing some consulting work since July or August, and between that and school he’s BUSY and we’re looking forward to the weekend and our trip to South Carolina Sunday to Tuesday. Last night we had a combined home church dinner and fellowship with friends from our "former" home church of last year as well as our current home church. Good times!!

Not much blog-worthy going on lately. Analise is full of chatter, from the moment she wakes up (this morning, saying "when I grow up, I want to be a tea party". ?!?) to tucking her into bed ("I want Veggie Tales!" she says, requesting to fall asleep to her favorite worship CD). She loves singing, most particularly the old Amy Grant favorite, Thy Word, sung by Bob and Larry of Veggie Tales on their worship CD. She’s learning more and more of it. She and I are enjoying some "quiet time" together reading her Bible each afternoon. Yesterday, she said, "I’m reading my Bible tells me so." Yes, another favorite song lately is Jesus Loves Me, so she knows the Bible tells her so. She’s been attending the Missions Friends program for 2-3 year olds at Brian’s parents church on Wednesday evenings. Brian enjoys looking at our world map with her finding where the missionaries are from. Last night we asked her what she learned about, and it sounded like she said "believers in Africa". Wow! She told us about the mission-raries in Africa. We did find out, though, that she might have been saying "zebras" in Africa, since they talked about animals in Africa, too.

Life has just been boringly-busy. The closest thing to excitement yesterday happened just after Brian called to say he was coming home for lunch with us. Analise was asking to paint, which I’d promised her earlier. Josiah had just woken up and he was HUNGRY. So I stripped Analise to her diaper, put her in her high chair to paint, which she’s never done before. Thank goodness for Crayola washable paints:) The doorbell rang, and it was the piano tuners. Ag. I got them started, gave Analise a cup of water, paper and her paint, said a small prayer that she wouldn’t make too much of a mess, and went to feed Josiah. Well, she liked painting, but of course, she spilled the water and started wailing, not long after Josiah settled in to eat. Poor guy. I had to stop him, which makes him VERY mad, and go clean up the puddle from the high chair, get Analise a clean paper, and get her restarted. We managed to get everything attended to and get back to J’s lunch, and I think he’s forgiven me:) He rolled from his stomach to his back tonight! He’s very very close to rolling back-to-stomach but I think he knows that it’s not so fun on his belly, so there’s little motivation.

Tomorrow I’m going to try a new recipe for dinner – ravioli lasagna. I saw it somewhere, and can’t find the recipe exactly, but it’s just cooked cheese ravioli, layered in a baking dish with spaghetti sauce, ground seasoned beef and topped with cheese. Sounds good… If it is, I’ll post it here. It’s a carbo-loading dinner for Brian and his dad because they’ll be doing a big bike ride on Saturday – 100 miles for Brian and 25 for his dad.

Ok, it’s bedtime. Have a good Friday!

Yes, 2 posts in less than 24 hours. I’m trying to recpature some of the readers who I’ve probably lost with my infrequent posting over the last month. Nothing draws ’em in like cute kid pictures… So here you go!

Josiah is 4 months old today! Amazing. I can’t believe how the time has flown since June 9th (click for a recap!). It’s truly mind boggling to think how much they change from birth to 4 months. I love watching his personality develop. He’s a very mellow boy. He likes to be close to you, and still chooses to fall asleep snuggled on my chest, probably ingrained from his first moments snuggling on my chest just minutes after he was born. He’s still got beautiful blue eyes, and I think they may stay that way. Both Brian and Analise have brown eyes, and mine are greenish, though Aunt Kat (my sister) and Uncle Matthew (Brian’s brother) both have blue eyes. He loves to smile a big open-mouth smile. He’ll laugh if you kiss him in the right place. He loves to bounce around in his jumper, and he likes to make howling cat noises just to hear himself… or maybe to make sure we’re not forgetting he’s here?

We had some fun this morning in the fall sunshine. Analise was a good sport, and I thought I’d include all the pictures of her various faces while trying to get a "good" smile. She’s quite the cutie today!

First off, here’s a couple cute pictures of Analise holding Josiah. He’s almost too big for her already! She loves to be close to him, though, and they sure are sweet together.

Next a few more pictures from the pumpkin patch last weekend. If you’d like some comparison, you can see pictures of Analise from last year’s pumpkin patch adventure here. She has grown up so much in a year! It’s amazing! I got very distracted by the old blogs when I was searching for that. Even though some days seem to last forever… time still flies by faster than we realize! Back to the pumpkin patch…

We just got a new double jogging stroller! I’m so excited! It’s very comfortable, and it’s not nearly as hard to push around our hilly neighborhood as I imagined. Now we can get out for some good long walks! I’m pleased to note that I’m within 1.5lbs of my pre-Josiah-pregnancy weight (which happened to be about 8lbs over my pre-Analise weight, so I’ve still got a few stubborn pounds to go) which makes me feel pretty good about myself. Clothes are fitting better, and if I can get rid of a couple more, it might warrant some new ones that fit even better! Now if only I could firm up this the soft-post-baby-belly… Hopefully, our stroller will help this out! Analise is so cute, though, as she really likes to hold Josiah’s hand during our walks.

Not much too relate here. It’s been a busy weekend, sort of. We had a pretty relaxing day here with a long walk and a trip to the playground. Today we had a home church ministry lunch after church and then a birthday party for Analise’s friend… at another playground. Analise is a playground MASTER. She loves the slides, especially the big ones. She can climb the ladder, she likes to swing HIGH, and she scaled the little plastic rock wall on the playground in like 10 seconds (because the slide was at the top). She’s singing all the time, particularly “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path”, “Jesus Loves Me”, and “Twinkle Twinkle”. She’s very good at trying to make Josiah happy with her songs when he’s screaming in the car. It’s kind of comical, which is nice, because the screaming could stress you out.

Hopefully I’ll get back to post this week. But if I don’t, we’re excitedly planning a trip to South Carolina next weekend because Brian has Monday and Tuesday off. We’ve got reservations at a great looking bed & breakfast with awesome weekday reduced rates. Brian’s planning his 5 hour 100-mile bike ride through the mountains, and we’re going to enjoy relaxing in our little cottage. We’ll probably visit an apple orchard, too.

I’ll leave you with a couple cute pictures. Enjoy!

Another busy week and weekend here. I don’t have time right now for the recap, but we’re almost all healthy and happy. Just a couple quick pictures of the highlight of the weekend – a trip to Old Baker Farm to pick our pumpkins! Above is the cutest one… Josiah just settled right into the pumpkins when I perched him there. I have 6 photos that are all cute, but this is the best. He was happy the whole time, even as he was sliding down between them! We caught a few Analise smiles below and one family photo. MAN – it’s hard to get a family picture with two squirming little ones! The last picture is of Josiah this evening in a cute smocked outfit someone gave us. He was an especially handsome little guy today! Hopefully these will whet your appetite for more, and hopefully I’ll be able to check back in tomorrow or Tuesday with some chit-chat.

Well. What a weekend it was. Last week was rough with both Analise and I being sick. She wasn’t running a fever by the time Tuesday came around for Mother’s Day Out, but I didn’t feel like she should go with her cough. I was REALLY sick on Tuesday, though, and wishing desperately she was well enough to go. My wonderful mother-in-law rescued me and took Analise for the day. Whew! On Wednesday, I called a friend to cancel getting together for coffee, and when she heard I was sick, she offered to come pick Analise up to play with her daughter for a few hours to give me a break. What amazing people I have around me! Analise had a great time, and I’ll definitely have to repay that well-appreciated favor.

Wednesday, though, wore me out getting ready to host our group of 12 for home church. By the time everyone had left and the kids were in bed, I was exhausted and feeling so bad and miserable for myself. Thursday, Analise was well enough to go to school, and I thought I felt ok enough to go to my Bible Study. I went but it sure wore me out and I sounded like I shouldn’t have been there. We were all happy when Friday arrived signaling the week was almost over and we’d have Brian around to make us happy:)

But Friday afternoon, Analise woke up crying from her nap after only 45 minutes. I tried to get her back to sleep, but she’d only doze and then start crying again. I thought she was being a grumpy 2-year old, and I was kind of crabby that she’d woken Josiah up. We were supposed to go to a birthday party that evening, so I kept trying to get her to stop crying so we could go get a present at Toys ‘R Us. She’d stop for a bit, but hen start up again. It was very unlike her, but I was sure she was just being an overly tired 2-year old. I put her in time out for a bit, but she kept crying. Brian’s mom stopped by to drop something off, but even she couldn’t get Analise to be happy. They went out to play, and she’d play for a few minutes before starting to cry again. She was crying for daddy, so I called him to come home a little early. Even when he got there, she still wouldn’t stop crying and it had been 2 full hours of crying.

So finally, at 4:55, I decided maybe I should call the pediatrician’s office in case something was wrong. They got us into the after hours clinic just down the road from us at 5:45. She hadn’t been running a fever, but she started to feel warm when we got there, and sure enough, when they took her temp it was 101.5. The doctor quickly found she had a bright red bulging ear infection in BOTH ears. I feel like the WORST mom. How are you supposed to know that something’s wrong and they’re not just whining?? She never said anything hurt, and it wasn’t very much different from her usual 2-year old whining, except that it lasted for hours. I guess I’ve learned something, but I sure feel like I need some more of that “mother’s intuition”!

So Analise is feeling better now, though all of us – including Brian and Josiah – have nasty sounding coughs. Josiah came down with congestion as the week progressed. He was grumpy and needing to be held a lot this weekend, so I finally called the after hours nurse and we went in again Sunday afternoon. He’s already 14lbs! He doesn’t have an ear infection, maybe due in part to the low-dose antibiotics he takes to prevent a urinary tract infection from his reflux problems. He does have the start of bronchiolitis, though, which is a constriction of the airways from coughing. Monday was quiet and everyone rested well today, so hopefully, this week will see us all feeling better.

I’ve learned that it’s HARD work to be a mom to 2 when you’re feeling good. It’s nearly impossible when you’re sick, and you honestly have to do a lot of relying on God’s grace and patience. And I had just recently “decided” that we could “handle” normal life with 2, but when you get behind… watch out! It’s overwhelming and exhausting to catch up. Note to self and anyone else interested: When friends have child #2 (or more), offer to bring dinner to freeze and do some laundry – especially folding! You can let life pass you by, but eventually, laundry has to get taken care of. It took me ALL last week to get 4 loads folded, and just now that it’s all finally put away, I’ve got several loads waiting to be washed again. THIS is my exciting life:)

Ok, you’re caught up on our life. Above, my little jailbird boy propped up on the couch with all the pillows. Below, the two unhappy campers in the glider rocker. In the next picture, Analise found Josiah laying on the floor chewing on his thumb (he hasn’t quite found it to be good enough to suck), and she laid down next to him to suck hers. Next, Josiah’s newest way to sit in his swing. He loves his feet! Lastly, a message Brian had left for me with the fridge magnets on the kitchen floor to find when I came home from my women’s bible study. What a sweetie!

Alright, it’s been too long since you’ve seen my sweet

little ones. I’m not going to write an actual post,

otherwise this will never get posted. I’m exhausted

this evening, still fighting being sick, but I really

wanted to get these pictures up so I don’t feel so far

behind! Because i was in a hurry, please forgive the

fact that I didn’t crop or adjust any of these pictures.

First, some pictures form Grandma

Beverly’s birthday dinner last night at Macaroni Grill.

Anailse looked exceptionally cute because she’d had

school pictures taken in the morning, though you can’t

appreciate her cuteness fully in these pics, as usual!

Josiah enjoyed the dinner in his carseat, spending some

time with his newest plaything – his feet.

After dinner, we came back to our

house for a bit, and Analise brought all her friends out

to the living room couch to relax with Grandma, while

Josiah and Grandpa Tom relaxed on the couch in the

family room. I had a sweet moment on the couch with my

cuties in between baths and bedtime.

Lastly, some random pictures of

Josiahs’s ever-more-frequent smiles (though today hasn’t

been one of those days). He enjoys his jumper, although

he doesn’t enjoy it when you just set him in it and

leave him to go do something else. He also has a little

turtle that you can see in the last 3 pictures, that has

a flat, water, filled pad that he can lay on for some

tummy entertainment. I know it looks a bit like he’s

under the couch, but he’s not!