A little of this, a little of that...

The last week has been crazy busy and I don't think we are done yet.  The hard decision is: Should this post be in order of date or age of child?  We'll try it by date.  So...

 

Last Wednesday we took Karla for her 2 month check up.  She's up to 10 pounds and 23 inches long.  She is intereacting with us much more with coos and smiles.  Over the last month we've discovered milk products give her an upset stomach and eggs give her hives.  Definitely hope we outgrow those issues quickly because I'm nursing and this is Lent.  Not being able to eat eggs and cheese during Lent is a HUGE problem.

Friday was Megan's 10th birthday!  It's amazing how fast this time has flown by.  She's been waiting for this birthday because I told her she couldn't get her ears pierced until she was 10.  Now if her mom (yours truely) had her act together we would have gotten it done on Friday.  However the plan is to do the deed on this coming friday instead.  Will try to get a post up later showing the finished product.

Saturday was cooking and cleaning day because...

Sunday Malissa had her first communion.  Doesn't she look beautiful!  Since Baileyville has mass at 8:30 AND pictures needed to be taken before hand she had to be at the church at 7:30.  It's a good think she was excited because I'm not sure we would have ever gotten her out of bed otherwise.  (You should have seen trying to get her up in time for the bus on Monday morning.)

This is one of the last large classes left with 9 kids in it.  You notice that Malissa is standing off to the side and down a step.  She is taller than all but one of the other kids and this particular class doesn't have any short kids in it.  Maybe a future basketball player?  Her dad played.

Next day is Monday and you would think we would get a chance to recooperate and earlier in the day that actually seemed to be happening.  When Malissa came home from school she was happy and upset.  Apparently she lost her tooth at school but lost it the rest of the way on the way home.  She was happier after hearing that the tooth fairy would still know she lost her tooth and would know to bring her loot. 

After that Laura enters the picture but she is not having such a good day.  On Sunday night she scraped her knees up good while outside running around.  Then on Monday she slammed her finger in the lid to the cedar chest (just bruised).  The whopper came on Monday night though.  She was playing in the basement and fell off a chair onto her left arm.  It was pretty obvious right away that it was broken so John took her straight to the emergency room.  X-rays show that one bone is broken and the other is fractured (not broken all the way through.  This means that we spend Tuesday waiting to hear from the orthopedic surgeon in Topeka to find out if we need to take her down there and get her arm set and put in a cast.  They sent John and Laura home with some pain medicine which is working pretty good right now.  Right now TV restrictions have gone out the window and she is on a steady diet of Dora and Diego.  So hugs and prayers that Laura will feel better soon.

Update on Laura

We have a cast, no surgery, and she's up to no good again.  Hip Hip Hooray!

Baptism for Karla

Karla has achieved that next and arguably most important milestone in her life. She was baptised last night.

We had a Saturday night baptism because our priest looks after 2 parishes and after 8:30 mass at Sacred Heart he has to hurry over to St. Benedict for 10:00 mass. So either we schedule for after Saturday night mass or Sunday afternoon. We could also have opted for during church but that still creates logistical problems for Father.

Aren't the kids paying close attention :-)

By the way, 'tis the season for sacraments, Lent starts next week. What are you giving up this year? If you haven't been for a while time to brush up on those sins. There is a big push to get more people to confession this year!

If I have a blog...

It's time to start blogging more. I have come to this conclusion numerous times but each time have held back. Why? Because I'm convinced that no one actually wants to hear about my day when it revolves exclusively about babies and children. So I would talk about laundry and diapers and why I think that my children only hear 1 in 10 words that an adult speaks to them but they can hear something mean their sister whisper behind a closed door, clear across the house while said victim is listening to music turned up way too loud on their headphones.

So now I'm going to blog about this stuff. 'Cause this is the stuff that answers the question "What have you been up to today?"

Yep. This is what I'm doing.

Happy First Week Birthday Karla!

John is holding Karla the day she was born and Malissa is holding Karla today.

Today Karla celebrates her first week. It was quite a surprise to meet her so early. Her original due date was February 8th. Her c-section was scheduled for today, January 28th. And she was actually born on January 21st. This makes her 2 1/2 weeks early but our theory is that she was simply trying to avoid everybody else's birthdays. She managed to land on the one day that no one else has claimed. Cute bit of manuevering Karla.

Now for the other list of statistics... she was born at 10:48 in the morning, weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz. and was 19 inches long.

She also seems to have made this surprise amazingly convenient for everyone. I was able to send Megan and Malissa off to school none the wiser. Also John's sister was back from the bus route by the time we were ready to go so Laura had a place to go as well. Our luck held at the hospital as well. It turns out that my surgeon happened to already be at the hospital so we didn't have to wait for him to drive over. Luckily mom and dad were also back from their vacation in Arizona the day before so they drove up on Saturday.

Our little bundle of joy is calling so off I go. It's nice to get back to blogging.

Merry Christmas!

The weater outside is frightful...

This is definitely the whitest christmas that I've ever had. We, and a great portion of eastern kansas, had an actual blizzard. I'm not sure that the snow is still falling but when you go outside so much snow is blowing around that it may as well be. This picture is of the implement shed across the lane from our house. The lane itself kept drifting shut and periodically someone would have to scoop it out again. This does not occur by hand. One thing that is very deceptive in the pictures that I took is that you can't tell how tall the drifts are. They just look like a lot of white without any point of reference. This is a shot of the east side of our house.

As you can see the drift is nearly to the window.

This is a much cuter image with Brownie busily digging in the snow drift.

There is great fun to be had in the snow for a dog that has been cooped up all day long with nothing but some sissy cats for company.

But I am sure you are saying, WAIT!, don't you have kids?!? Where are the cute pictures of them digging into the loot this morning? Well they did themselves proud and had a great time this morning and today I preferred to simply watch and enjoy instead of "capturing the moment". So you will have to take my word for it.

Hope you have a wonderful and wonder full Christmas!

Back From Vacation!

Charlie has summarized the trip quite well so I will refer you to his blog for most of the details. However, he did not mention the towel animals. These are some incredibly cute creations by the housekeeping staff that appear in your cabin when you come back from dinner at night.

I believe I am missing one of the towel animals but if I remember right we couldn't identify it. Of course at the end of the trip you could take a class to learn how to make one of these at home and better yet if you have always felt a need to turn your towel collection into a zoo, you could take home the book. I think I will let them make the towel animals for me.

Once we came home we were just in time to attend the last day picnic the girls have for vacation bible school. And there was a wedding we attended a couple of days later of one of our friends where we ended up with this cute picture of the girls together.



Laura transformed during our trip from taking a few tentative steps to walking everywhere during our trip so now she is everywhere! Its amazing how fast they can change at this age!

Busy Bees

What a busy few weeks! As I write this we are experiencing a spring downpour. The last couple of days the fields had finally dried out from the last rain shower and everyone was in a hurry to get seed planted before it rained again. A few days ago the local crop duster came nearby the farm spraying one of our neighbor's fields so I thought you might like a picture.

The last few weeks we've had dance recitals, first communion, Knights of Columbus convention and we are now beginning ball practice. The first game is actually on the last day of school. Both Megan & Malissa are on the same team this year. Due to a shortage of players the kindergarteners are asked to play.

Today Malissa took birthday treats to school. Class gets out the day before her birthday so we decided today would be a good day to celebrate! Oh yes, And the picture on top is one of Laura's 9 month pictures. I had been unable to get Charlie's email resizer program to work but when Charlie came to visit it worked on the first try. I think he must have scared it.