While I was gone...

My family was AWESOME!!!!! I was able to go and attend my conference and learn some new and interesting things and reconnect with other birth professionals and friends. Thanks to my best friend T for letting me come stay, and for attending the CAPPA conference with me. And even thought she told me afterward she really only agreed to attend because it meant spending time with me, she really did enjoy it and learned some things also. http://givethehug.blogspot.com/ this was a very interesting session. Wish I'd heard some of these tings 18 years ago... I would have loved to try it!
Thanks to her family especially her husband (who is only home for a short time before he has to go back to the Army (they are living in the house they bought several years ago and it hasn't sold, so they are back in it for a while even though S is actually stationed somewhere else hours away across the state -since S will be deploying for Iraq again soon).

- Bill got sick and felt pretty miserable for several days.
- Sariah grew at least an inch and is now taller than everyone else in the house except for dad.
- Rebekah helped Marissa with her birthday party invitations for this next week. She also cooked and took care of the sicko's and the family while I was gone.
- Amanda got sick and has missed three days of school. But helped dad out on Friday when they were all sick and he had a 1 1/2 hr teleconference.
- Hannah had a sleepover w/ our friend S. and got a friends necklace.
- Marissa had a sleepover and built a fort and played with her friend A.
- Liam - did pretty well and survived just fine without mommy... other than the first sleepless night, however he also had some adventures. He was caught one time sitting with his feet and most of the contents off the counter top, all in the my bathroom sink, lotion and toothpaste squeezed out all over and water running! But wait! That's not all!!!!

Lets just say, Bill is still snaking out the toilet in our bathroom and hasn't managed to get it all yet... He has retrieved a hair brush, feminine products, still in the wrappers, plastic gloves, a ton of toilet paper, and he thought he had it all, but then the toilet got stopped again, and then last night he tried the snake again and caught onto something... he got it stuck and had to almost have a tug of war to get the snake back out... well, when it came out, it had something in it and I looked at it and the lightbulb went off in my head. There was a small little hair brush in my bathroom and that is what must be stuck down my toilet!!!!! Bill had snagged it with the snake and pulled off one of the bristles. We're not sure how much work it is going to take to get it out of there!

Cards, Hair and Conferences

Well, this week after cleaning up the stamp stuff Liam got into... it inspired me and I made a few cards. I haven't taken much time to stamp in a while (well, that is stamp for me, not something specific for the kids that is a big rush, because they need it NOW). And I started organizing some of the mess in my stamp/craft cupboard. Not that I finished much of anything, but I accomplished a little bit.

I have been trying to get all the laundry in the house done, partly so it is all done, and partly so that I can pack my bags. I am headed to Dallas on Thursday to attend a Doula Conference for the weekend. And if that wasn't cool enough... I love all the positive birth energy that I get at the conferences (this is my 3rd) and the support and networking with other Birth Professionals, but I also get to stay at my best friend's house for the weekend. She is the one who officially started me on this path, when I got to attend her VBAC nearly 14 years ago. That was the first birth I attended, (where I wasn't the one going through labor). It was the most amazing, beautiful thing I'd ever witnessed! Seeing a new baby fresh from Heaven, come into this world!!! How can anyone look at a new baby and not believe in GOD!!! What an incredible design that we get the opportunity to help create and grow all these cells, that turn into a whole little person!

With Bill getting his hair cut every 2-3 weeks, and Liam needing his hair cut much more frequently than the girls hair, we decided that the cost of hair clippers would be paid for in a month or less. So... I had a sweet friend who helped me learn how to cut Liam's hair yesterday. It wasn't too hard, and I didn't do a bad job over all, and he is looking quite nice again. (instead of all his wild hair, that was getting too long and sticking out all over the place). And the little girls have been wanting their hair cut also. So, D. started the hair cut and showed Amanda how to cut it and she mostly cut both Marissa and Hannah's hair. I didn't let Hannah cut off much, she wants it really short, but doesn't like to let me do anything cute with it any more, and she likes to dress like a tom boy, and daddy said not short where seh ould EVER be possibly mistaken for a boy! Amanda did a great job! Marissa's hair hasn't been this short since it grow past this length as a little girl! It's very cute. I didn't take my camera, of course I didn't think Amanda would be doing the hair cuts either... :-)

What am I going to do with this boy???

He needs some distractions, and some friends...

I have been trying desperately to keep him busy and keep up with him in the 3 1/2 days since his sisters went to school. We've read books, played mini badminton, read books, watched movies, sang songs, etc... Today I was finishing lunch and he went in the other room and was entertaining himself quite nicley. He Played some songs on the piano (music and all), then I thought he was busily playing and he came in to show me he'd found some 'candy'. Great I thought i knew where he'd gotten it, (old candy hearts). then i noticed his hands... there was ink on them and I asked what he'd done. Well when I went in to see what he'd done, he had one of my stamp sets out (that I was preparing to put together) and a permanent marker, YIKES!!! Thank heaven for small blessings... he had written on the wood blocks for my stamps, the paper corner punch, and gotten it on his hands, but unlike the last two times he got ahold of a marker (thankfully not permanent) he wrote on his sisters carpet! Lucky for me today, no pen on the carpet! (the little black spot on the rug is actually a fuzz and a string) Yay! I told him he had to go in time out, he counted for himself in time out, while I took a picture of his handiwork, and then he sang the clean up song to help as we cleaned up the stamp set and put it away.

missing pictures

here are some of the pictures that were missing from other posts. I downloaded them from my camera, and they went to another file and because of my computer illiteracy... I couldn't find them.
So... here we are blueberry picking. Yum yum yum!




Here is Liam asleep in my shower! Silly Boy!
Here are our goodies that Bill brought back for us from Rome.

silly boy

The other day I had Liam in the shower just after I got out. He was sitting there playing with the water, and it got very quiet. I asked if he was finished and didn't hear anything. I opened the shower door and he was falling asleep. He'd partially wake himself up as his poor little head would drop off to either side. I called downstairs for someone to quick bring me up the camera. By the time we got pic's he was startling himself he then rolled over on the little seat in the shower and curled up into a ball and fell firmly asleep! Still holding the shower spray head. :-) He was difficult to get out of the shower and unfolded enough to put a diaper on him. I knew it was naptime, but didn't realize he'd fall asleep IN the shower!

How cute is that!?!
Of course, once again, I can't find the pictures!!!