Family Alive

Kristine, Analise, Josiah, and I road out our first potential tornado here in Alabama, and we are all very thankfully safe. I can’t imagine what the people in Enterprise, Alabama are going through right now. I was actually within an hour of Enterprise at a conference this afternoon at Tuskegee University. Fortunately, the conference was very short and I was on my way back home by 3pm. I drove through a blinding rainstorm in Montgomery and made it home to this:

Note that there are four watches and warnings and two special weather statements. I took the last picture above right before we headed downstairs to our basement. The clouds kept getting darker and darker, and the path of the "mezocyclone" prompting the tornado warning was predicted to pass right over our house. We decided it was best to head downstairs. Fortunately, we just had very heavy rain and then it was over. The pictures from the Enterprise High School are just devastating:

(NPR image, Photo Credit: Rob Carr)

Yesterday was his first race of the year and he was hot on the bike. Of course, I’m partial, and I think he looked hot in his new Birmingham Velo team jersey and shorts. You don’t have to agree or disagree with that part, but he went off the front of the pack early on with a pro rider from Georgia and the two of them duked it out to the end, beating the main group by 5 minutes. He was flying! He ended up in second, and I’m sure he’ll chime in with the details, but he could have been first. Either way, he raced well, and it’s a great confidence boost to start his season. (He’s the third rider in this picture – this was on one of the early laps.)

Josiah and I were able to go watch the race, for which I’m really glad. I was pretty bummed on Saturday evening, thinking that I’d better stay home from church with Josiah since he’d had a fever off and on. But when he woke up without a fever, Brian convinced me that we should come watch his race. I love cheering him on, so it wasn’t a hard sell! Analise spent a fun day with Brian’s parents, so Josiah and I had a nice time playing at the playground and watching Brian’s 5 laps of the race.

Watch out, anyone on a bike… Brian’s hot this year!

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.