Family Alive

Celebrate Earth Day with a free Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL)!   On Sunday, April 22nd – Earth Day – Home Depot will be giving away free CFL bulbs.  I’m sure you’ve got a reason – or 17, like us – to go to Home Depot, and who doesn’t need a free light bulb?

If you haven’t started switching your lightbulbs over to
CFLs, now is a great chance to start! This is one of the absolute
easiest ways to start “living green”, as these are huge energy savers.
I just used their Home Depot’s handy little calculator (click on the "Energy Efficient" tab) to find that
changing 10 bulbs from incandescent to CFLs will save $34/year and
save $453 worth of energy over the lifetime of the bulb. These save use
75% less electricity and last 10x longer. AND they even come in a nice
soft white shade that’s nothing like the blaring fluorescent you might
be imagining. No excuses!  We’re working on changing all our bulbs over. 

Thanks Want Not.net!

I’ve got a good line-up of websites that I go to on a regular basis for inspiration and ideas. This parenting job is full of opportunities to be creative and as you know from past blogs, it creates lots of funny stories. I thought I’d compile a list of my current favorite parent blogs/websites for those of you that are interested. Don’t we all need more on the internet to keep us from getting real work done?

• Parent Hacks – The names says it all. It’s FULL of great ideas for anything you could imagine. One recent post had great ideas for helping toddlers help you clean. I’m all for that! Another bookmarked link I have is this post for sending used stuffed animals and toys to children in Iraq.
• Family Fun – Crafts, food ideas, birthday inspirations.
• Baby Toolkit – New site I’ve just bookmarked with reviews about baby/kid stuff. Current headline: Barf-A-Rama: Coming Soon to a Home Near You. Ain’t it true.
• Baby Name Wizard: NameVoyager – An interactive portrait of America’s name choices. Startiing
  with a "sea" of nearly 5000 names. Typing in letters will zoom in to
  focus on how that initial and name has been used over the past century. Each stripe is a timeline of one
  name, its width reflecting the name’s changing popularity.
• Premeditated Parenting – Premeditated Parenting an international ministry which supports
  Christian parents in raising godly kids in a crazy mixed-up world. All
  of the articles are intended to be practical, biblical, and helpful. They’ve also got a "weekly-ish" email that highlights their tips.  (Thanks, Lyndsey L!)
• Baby Cheapsakate – The name suits my $$ philosophy so well. Saving Big Bucks on Baby Stuff. She also highlights where the cheapest diapers can be found each week. Great for the occasional week that I have to buy diapers!
• Want Not – This is, hands down, my favorite read. Honestly, I check it several times a day. Amazing freebies, deals, and tips. I recently got a Leapfrog Lea’s Phonics Railroad, regularly close to $60, for $15, SHIPPED, from ToysRUs. Sweet future bday present! Now if I can just remember I already have a gift for that birthday…
• MotherLoad: The MomAdvice.com Blog – Ideas for organizing, cooking, saving money, just general good "mom" stuff. Every Friday, she does a "Freebie Friday" full of links for free deals.
• In the Trenches of Motherhood – Mother of 7 (!), "answering the question, how do you do it?"  Just what I was wondering!  Recent fun posts: Recipe for self-hardening clay to make beads for stringing, Pretzel recipe (I haven’t tried it yet, but I can’t wait to make them with Analise!), fun treasure-in-a-bottle project. 

I suppose that’s enough for now.  I follow a lot of individual people’s blogs that are all fun to read.  I didn’t leave y’all out, just wanted to highlight the ones full of inspiration and ideas.  Enjoy!

Today is Free Scoop Day at Ben & Jerry’s!  Head on over for some Chubby Hubby or Bovinity Divinity:)

Also, my dad sent me this link for a video on YouTube of an amazing one-man-guitar-playing band.  Awesome!

Have a good Tuesday!

Well, not quite… but it will be by the time most of you read this.  It’s been a relatively quiet weekend. 

The week ended with more sickness…a fussy Josiah – whom the doctor didn’t find anything wrong with, though he has lost a full pound since his 9 month check-up, maybe due to the lingering stomach bug – and a congested Brian, who is on all kinds of meds for the same sinus infection that plagued Analise and I.  Josiah’s been really grumpy and not sleeping well, which is painful since we’re just adjusting to good sleep again.  But Brian and I escaped Friday night for a great leadership conference at our church.  Brian went back on Saturday morning, while I had a leisurely day not doing all sorts of things, instead doing relaxing things like working on Analise’s smocked dress (only about 25% complete) and watching Mad About You episodes.

After a terrible night’s sleep due to a fussy baby, Brian left at 5:30am for a bike race in Chattanooga with his dad.  Not sure if he’ll post or not, but it was not one of his best days.  It was in the 30’s, with sleet and some snow flurries, and he felt bad from his sinus infection.  Hopefully, he can sleep it off tonight, get over being sick, and be ready for some fast riding this coming weekend at a big series of races in Mississippi. 

I had a pretty good day with my kiddos at church, taking care of kids in the nursery during the early service.  Analise and I went to Kid’s Clubhouse, our children’s worship time, and she danced and sang like crazy with the big kids.  Josiah, though, had woken at 5am, and he couldn’t be convinced to nap in the nursery, so we had to sneak out before I could go to the 2nd service. 

We just enjoyed 2 amazing episodes of Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel.  If you can watch some if it, we highly recommend it!  We’ve learned so much!

Whew… what a week!  We’ve had fun celebrating my birthday as well as spending a busy week with all the Easter festivities, and enjoying church to remember the true joy we celebrate all year long… Christ is risen!  I love it when my birthday falls so close to Easter!  Here’s the summaries…

Analise baking my birthday cake, and the final product, below.

My birthday… this was a sweet, sweet birthday.  I’m 31 (can you believe it? that sounds so old!).  Brian got me a beautiful "Trust in the Lord" metal wall hanging, that I’ve been wanting for a long time.  It’s hanging in our stairwell to the basement, which you can see through our front door (the door to the basement is glass).  My mom gave me some $$ for a shopping spree, which was a real treat!  Kat gave me Season 3 of Mad About You, which Brian and I have already been enjoying.  Toones gave me a beautiful crystal cross to add to my collection.  Dena gave me a gift certificate to a spa… she’s a mom – she KNOWS what a mom needs!  Anna gave me a stylish pursh… nice to have something that doesn’t shout "I’m a mom – I’ve got diapers, wipes, toys and snacks galore with me at all times!"  To top it all off, I was with my sisters on my birthday… a rare occurance!  I’m so glad I got to see them!  Seeing them makes me miss them even more, though…  All in all it was a GREAT birthday!  Thanks, everyone!

Like Kat’s new haircut?  Makes us look even more like sisters!

Our family in Indiana always has a BIG Easter Egg Hunt, and it was fun to enjoy it with our kiddos.  In spite of the 30degree weather and blowing snow, Analise and I hopped around picking up our loot.  She was overwhelmed with all the candy options, but we’ve manged to dole it out pretty strictly.  Between my cousins and I, there were 7 kids under 7, I believe.  Add in the "big kids" and adults and there were 23 people there in all.  We celebrated my birthday again with cheesecake. 

Analise hatching an egg at Toones before Easter.

Not a bad family picture, as hard as it is to get us all looking at the camera!

We stayed in my Grandma’s old house, which is empty.  It was as good as a hotel, and we were able to put Josiah in his own quiet room, have a bathroom to ourselves, and even pick up free wireless from somewhere.  Easter morning, we went to Grandma’s church, and in the afternoon, after everyone else had gone home, we moved over to Grandma’s to spend some extra time with her and Charlie.  We had a fun, family-filled weekend.  It was a LOT of travel for such a short time, but it really was so great to be with my family.  The only people missing were my mom and dad, spending an Easter weekend together in California, before he moves back to start a new job at the University of Minnesota in May. 

Other fun notes… we learned some good lessons from hearing Veggie Tales’ Gideon and the Tuba Warrior 3 times back-to-back-to-back.  Specifically, "It’s a good thing God has patience, man, because I’m sure losing mine," and "If you want to hear God say ‘well done!’, you have to do what He asks."  Good stuff!

Josiah’s a budding Mozart!  He loves to play… on his tip-toes with the very tips of his little fingers.
Above is our piano, and below is at my Aunt Connie’s this weekend.

First, let me give a shout out to my beautiful wife since today is her birthday …

Hi everyone … here is a quick post with an update. We made it to Indiana after a 14 hour drive! The last part of the drive was through near white-out conditions from heavy snow. It was light, fluffy snow that didn’t stick very well to the roads, but the wind was blowing so hard and the snow was so heavy it was hard to make out where the road was! This was only as we got close to La Porte, so most of the drive was fine — tons of traffic on the roads though. We left Birmingham in cool, but tolerable mid 50’s and arrived in La Porte with snow and 25 degree temp. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Kristine snapped this picture of our irises blooming right as we were pulling out of the driveway.

Here we made it to Nashville and were surprised by a few bursts of snow just three hours north of Birmingham!

When we finally made it to La Porte, IN at 3AM, this is what the streets looked like.

This is what it looked like this morning when we woke up.

Yesterday, on my way home from school, I had a really close encounter with a large red-tailed hawk. I was riding my bike down Hackberry Lane which is a steep downhill not too far from home. I noticed out of my left eye a large bird swooping down the mountain just in front of me and to the left. He was mostly parallel to me but angled a little bit as if he was going to cross the road at a shallow angle, but I was going just a little bit faster (about 48 mph) so we were headed for a collision. The hawk saw me at the last moment and made a sudden jerk back to the left and stayed parallel before pulling up to land on a tree. It was so cool! Beautiful, large bird covered in brown feathers — I’m glad I didn’t hit it. I think we both would have been down for the count!

I need some help.  Not sure who out there might have the answers, but I’m open to any suggestions.  4-6pm are rough hours for us.  Analise usually wakes up needing attention, while I really need to be turning my attention to dinner.  Josiah’s getting tired from a long day, as his bedtime has set itself at about 6:30.  I love it when I have dinner in the slow-cooker early in the day, so there’s not much to be done to get it on the table, but what about the other days?

Tonight was just unbearable, and I even
had a movie on, and Josiah tied in a high chair with finger food. I thought I had
Analise all busy "cleaning" my refrigerator with a spray bottle of water while I created a gourmet
meal of fish-from-a-box and Velveta-Broccoli-Noodles-and-Cheese (this
is as "from-a-box" as I get for an entire dinner – not very often, but
sometimes necessary, since I had an evening home church leadership meeting here at 7:30pm).  Josiah had not had an afternoon nap (not usual, but happens sometimes), so
he was not happy even with food.  And Analise just could not be kept
entertained, even with a spray bottle and a movie playing.  And of course, Brian comes home, and I’m
giving Analise a stern talking to after a time-out, and she’s wailing,
and Josiah’s wailing. He asks what he can do to help, and really, all I
want is for him to take the kids out to dinner by HIMSELF, and I’ll
relax with my fish and noodles.

No really, in the end, we all ended up at the dinner table, though Josiah was still a grump.  The fish and noodles were good, and I’m glad that we set family meal times as a priority in our house.  I’m sure we’ll grow into them as my little ones grow up.  But right now, if you’ve got any suggestions, send them my way!

April has been in like a lion.  Analise is spot-free, but her one throwing-up episode from Sunday morning must have been a nasty little bug.  Josiah started throwing up on Monday at noon, the little girl we were visiting got sick on Tuesday, Brian and I got sick on Tuesday, Brian’s dad and brother got sick yesterday.  YUCK!  I’m so thankful it was a very short-lived bug, but I felt like I got hit by a truck and just wanted to lay on the floor of the bathroom for several hours.  We’re all better, I think *fingers crossed*, just in time to get in the car tomorrow, drive 10 hours and spend Easter weekend with my family in Indiana. 

Other than that, we’re just hanging on, hanging in.  I’m crawling out from under loads and loads of laundry, and getting us ready to go tomorrow.  Should be a fun weekend!

We miss our comment-ers!  Is there anyone out there?  Are we boring you?  Not enough pictures?  Tell us what you want to see!