Fuzzy fall pictures

I don't know what has happened to my camera. The settings are messed up or something. It seems like all my pictures are not in focus like they used to be. So, here are a few cute ones I got of Emily playing in the leaves last weekend. She loved it. She almost never sits still anymore, but she sat in the leaves for almost 5 minutes.

I totally get this business about the baby of the family

In all the latest Greene news, Emily is being super cute these days. Now that she is almost finished with her antibiotic, she seems to be feeling back to her old chipper self. She is crawling so FAST. And getting.into.everything. There are definitely preferences for things she is not supposed to have. Garbage cans. Boxes of STH cds. Anything on the floor in Elijah and Mary's room. And what's funny is she starts crawling faster when she rounds the corner toward the bedrooms. I can hear her little knees pounding away on the floor. She laughs and laughs. I am starting to block off every room. What's also fun is that she stands up all the time and is just starting to cruise from the ottoman to the loveseat. Just this week she started saying mama. She now drinks from a cup independently.

So, all these things are great and fun and noteworthy. And at the same time remind me that she will be 1 in a month. I have had more than one conversation lately about moms feeling sad on their baby's(or young children's) birthday. For me, this emotion seems exceptionally strong because in most likelihood she will be our last. I don't want her to grow up. It's fun having a baby. Okay, it's also a lot of work. But. My point is that I am starting to get a lot more insight into birth order and how, as parents, we shape so much of our child's behavior because of our wants and desires.

when it rains, it pours

I think it was just last week I was commenting on how things have just been moving along smoothly here. We are all adjusting to our schedule and no one has really been sick, so I have missed almost no work yet this year. Why do I do that?

Wednesday I was starting to not feel so well, but I have had a low level cold for a couple of weeks. No big deal. Sudafed and ibuprofen have gotten me through. Emily also came down with a cold over the weekend, but again not really anything too serious, mostly a runny nose. Well, by Wednesday afternoon she was wheezing a bit, so I thought I'd stay home with her on Thursday to give her a break. By Wednesday night I was feeling worse and worse--chills, body aches, really sore throat. Brian got home from work around 8 p.m. and called in sick for Thursday as well, because he had a bad cold and he saw the state of affairs around here.

I went to my doctor first thing yesterday morning and found out that I have strep throat. Emily went to the pediatrician and she has bronchitis. Well, I was really hoping to go back to work today because of some things that were happening that I wanted to be there for. I kept telling myself that I would have had 4 doses of antibiotic and another night's sleep, I'd probably be feeling lots better this morning. Brian talked me into getting a sub for this afternoon so I could teach in the morning and then come home and rest and I thought that was a good comprimise. So, I logged on to the website and requested a PM sub and it was filled within minutes so I was feeling like this was all working out fine. Until we put Mary to bed.

She had complained once earlier in the evening that her eye hurt when she closed them. I think I told her she probably had an eyelash or something. As we were laying in bed reading Brian goes, "her eye is all gooey." My heart sunk. Then I looked. Sure enough, red, swollen eye and yellow drainage coming out. Pink eye. So I went back to the computer, canceled my half-day sub, put in a new request for a full day sub and check the NBC website to see when the Office would be on. Since it wasn't until 9:00 I packed up and headed to school to work on plans for today.

This morning I am not feeling much better yet, so I am resting. Mary is watching Dora and Emily went to Annie's, at least for the morning.

A fun Bloomington weekend

We had the most fun hanging out in Bloomington this weekend. Brian and I along with Laura, Dallas, and Bethany drove down Friday after work. The band played the coffee house show to a medium sized crowd and even sold a few cds. There was this crazy (maybe fairly drunk?) middle aged guy in the audience who was kind of a crack up. He was totally calling out requests and kind of heckeling, but in a good way. After the show we got some Jimmy Johns and headed back to John and Lisa's apartment. Do any of you ever forget something really important when you travel? It seems like I always forget some key thing. This time it was the air pump for the air mattresses. So at midnight we were trying to figure out who was going to sleep where. Not to worry though, everyone got a decent night's sleep and the morning was even more fun.

The guys went over to the church to set up and the girls had a leisurely morning tea and walked around the farmers market. It was much bigger than the one in Lafayette and they were having arts/crafts booths too (but not country crafts, more like pottery, recycled jewelry, knitting, tie-dye-- that sort of thing). Around noon we headed over to the church and spent the day hanging out at their festival. The weather was hot, but as always a good time. They have a beautiful grounds with lots of trees which were all in full color. The music was good, and it was so great to just be able to be free all day. After the festival was over I attended their Vespers service and by the time all the gear was packed up and loaded in the van we were ready to head out.

Before we left Bloomington we stopped at this yummy Irish restaurant with John and Lisa and this other friend, Maximos. Oh, one last funny thing. We ran into two groups of people we knew at the restaurant. One was a guy who used to go to Saint Alexis, and the people who ran the coffee shop they played at the night before sat down right behind us. We also visited with my aunt's sister at the Farmers Market. She sells chili peppers and lives in Bloomington. It's a small world after all.

back to the grindstone

Man, this week has flown by! It is hard to believe that last week at this time we were in Indianapolis at the Ryan Adams concert! I think it took me most of this week to recover from our weekend of fun, and now we're packing up to do it again this weekend. I am heading to Bloomington with the SmallTown Heroes + Laura for Friday night and Saturday. They're playing a coffee house show tomorrow night and then a fall festival at All Saints Orthodox Church. I am definitely looking forward to it, but wondering how my lesson plans for next week and the usual weekend chores are going to get done. Oh, well...I guess we can pull dirty clothes out of the hamper if we have to! : )

Birthday weekend

This weekend we celebrated my 30th birthday!!!!! It was the perfect birthday weekend. The weather was perfect for fall. I booked a shelter at Happy Hollow Park that was near the playground so the kids could run and play and the adults could talk without having to be right there with them the whole time. Many of my wonderful family members came from Michigan, as well as my dear friends, Scott and Melissa. They stayed with us Friday night. It was so good to see them again. Melissa is a Purdue engineer turned professional cake decorator and she made my cake! It was gorgeous. We had the best time hanging out with everyone. We hung out around the campfire two nights in a row, went to the Farmers' Market in the morning to walk around (and I got 5 lbs of honey crisp apples for $5.00), I got to visit with so many people that I don't get to see very often as well as some of my closest friends that I do get to see often. Oh, and I am super excited about my gifts. I asked people to dig a perennial plant to share from their gardens and I got some great new additions including hostas from my great grandma's house where I used to play as a child (courtesy of my grandma--my great grandmother is deceased). I cried when I saw them. My family also bought me a composter. I can't wait to start using it. It is coming in the mail this week.