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.

are you ready to be shocked?

I think she cut off about 3 inches. It was definitely not the "below the chin" I had in mind. It looks okay to me in the pictures, but in person it is a little more whacked looking. I guess that's what you get for making the decision to get your haircut and getting it cut all within 15 minutes.

The Feast ended up being really big fun today, but we are so tired. Elijah really, REALLY enjoyed dressing up and working at the New Community School booth where they sold tea and roasted corn. After our shift we walked around and tasted all the yummy Feast food.

Here are the highlights

I feel like so much is going on in our lives right now that I gloss over some major things in the sake of time spent on the computer. So, here are the highlights...

Elijah is really liking school. He is having some trouble with one little boy so there has been a little bit of drama with that, but he likes his teacher and today he came home and told me about his first little crush. I couldn't even begin to write about it in the way he told me. It was too cute. He likened her to Padme Amidala (spelling?). He said, "she's just so beautiful. I just wanted to look at her."

Emily just took off this past two weeks! She is now pulling up on everything. We lowered her crib last Sunday when we found her standing up in there. She is crawling ALL over the house and getting into everyone's stuff. Her favorite thing to do is find dust bunnies along the baseboards or chew up paper. Thankfully I'm not the only pair of eyes watching her. Her big sister and brother keep a pretty good watch over her. Her first tooth FINALLY broke through today. 10 months old...whew! I was beginning to think she'd be gumming her first birthday cake.

I quit nursing her last week when it was just too difficult and I wasn't really making enough milk. It was hard for me, but on the bright side she is sleeping through the night pretty consistently now so I feel like a much more rested person most days.

Big things happening this weekend are the Feast of the Hunter's Moon which is a really big festival here along the banks of the Wabash River. Elijah and I are working at the booth for his school. He is working at the tea booth and I am babysitting the worker's kids. Tomorrow night is the long awaited cd release party for The SmallTown Heroes. It's gonna be big! Next week will be a short week! I am taking my class on our first field trip on Tuesday--its the pumpkin patch/apple orchard one, so that's pretty fun. Then on Thursday night we are heading down to Indy to see Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. Thanks, Megan and Everette!! Brian and I took Friday off work and then Saturday is my big 30th birthday party at Happy Hollow Park. I can't wait. Several of my family members are driving down from Michigan as well as our good friends Scott and Melissa. We haven't seen them in ages. She is a professional cake decorator and she is making my cake!!! I. can't. wait.

Please pray for this friend of our family. He was just diagnosed with leukemia.

Jonathan turns one

Emily and Jonathan were standing up at the chairs looking at each other and holding hands. It was so cute. This picture is a little dark on the left side because I took it through the rungs on the back of the chair. I loved her expression. I had to keep it.
Emily is doing her usual chest pounding--mine. Whenever I pick her up she gets so excited that her little legs are kicking in the air and she slaps my chest.
You may be wondering why Jonathan is naked. Well, maybe not if you've been to a first birthday. I'll wait to post Jonathan's cake-y birthday pictures until Megan gets a chance to post. By the end of the evening the babies were so tired they kept crawling over to each other and laying their heads on one another.

Child labor and homemade booze!

Brian decided to make some homemade hard cider this year. Now we have all the supplies and he went to an orchard near Attica for some unpasteurized cider. Now the yeast is added and we just have to let it sit for 2 weeks to ferment.

I can't believe it's been over a week since my last post. That is a long time for me. We've been busy hanging out with visiting family. Last Monday my grandparents drove down from Michigan and we had dinner with them at my parents' house. Then my brother and sister-in-law flew in Wednesday evening and my kids went to pick them up at the airport with my mom. So they came over Wednesday when they got into town and we had a delicioso authentic Mexican dinner at our house on Thursday night. Michelle is from Mexico and she cooked everything for us. We had lots of yummy leftovers that we've been enjoying for the last two days. Last night Mary and I went shoe shopping and I came home with two new pairs of shoes for under $25.00!! Woo-hoo~! Mary also got a new pair--light up Skechers athletic shoes. I had to almost pry them off her feet to go to bed.

Today we went to the LayFlats festival. The SmallTown Heroes were one of 60 bands that performed and we walked around the artsy booths and jumped in the big bounces. Tonight we're off to a birthday party for one of Brian's co-workers in West Lebanon. It was supposed to rain all weekend, but so far today has been HOT and sunny.

P.S. We were going to look at that house in Williamsport today while we were out there, but the owner called and said someone was making an offer on it, so we decided not to mess with it. We're not in any position to be making offers this week! :)

We may have ruined her

upon eating the gourmet peanut butter and jelly slamwhich dinner I whipped up tonight for Mary and myself:

Mary: "Mom, this tastes like duck bread" (you know the cheap, leftover frozen pieces of bread I keep to take to the park).

Me: "Well, Mary, daddy is gone tonight and he hasn't made any bread this week. We just have to suck it up and eat store bought bread."

My brother is coming, my brother is coming!

My brother and his wife, Michelle (yes, how weird. She is now Michelle LaCombe and I am not), who live in Florida, are coming for a visit next week! We can't wait to see them!

We have found a house we just might be interested in. We are contemplating a move. There. I said it. We are beginning to think about moving toward Warren County, which is much closer to Brian's work. The trouble is, we don't really have any kind of plan. In my mind I think about the pros and cons of staying and going, but I just get all confused. Here's the deal: we are going to outgrow our house in the next couple of years. The bedrooms are small and sharing rooms is tight. We only have one bathroom. Ugh. This is the hardest one for me. There is almost never a time when I am alone in the bathroom--or anyone is for that matter. What will happen when we have 5 people that need to use it? During times of inclement weather, we are on top of each other. We have more space that we could convert to usable space, but then comes the argument about spending money on a house that is already not going to sell for what we've put into it. We kind of just want to get out from under it. But we love (hate) the location. It is close to many of our friends and family, shopping, the park/zoo, and church. Our cars have been broken into at least 3 times in our driveway and there was a drug bust (that I called the cops on) on the street behind us that backs up to our backyard. So, there you have it. We don't really want to buy something else here in town because 1. we can't afford much more in this area than what we have 2. some of the reasons that we want to move include more space for gardening, animals, and outdoor living. The house we are looking at is 2500 square feet on 2 acres of land. It has 5 bedrooms, it has all the updates that Brian doesn't want to do: roof, siding, furnace. It is within our price range. It is in Brian's school district, so he could take the kids with him to school in the morning and walk them down the hall to their classrooms. It is also an hour from our friends, family, shopping, and church. Now, I haven't actually seen this house in person yet--only internet pictures and what Brian told me about his trip there. It probably won't be as perfect as I imagine. But, the arguments are still the same. If not this house, another? Is this a good time for us to move? I know that lots of people live a ways from their family and friends, but are WE those people? People drop by our house almost daily. Are we willing to give that up for another bathroom, a dog, growing lots of our own produce, and a much shorter daily commute? We will certainly still see our family and often, but it won't be the same kind of drop in after work visits that we love. Brian made the point that if the two older kids are in school next year, I could still conceivably keep my job in Lafayette. He would be in charge of the other two in the morning and I could drive Emily with me to Lafayette. While it would be more driving, it would certainly be less hectic than my current morning routine which includes getting all 3 kids ready by myself and dropping them at 3 locations before I get to work. Also, we have 3 different school calendars. Brian's, mine, and Elijah's. For instance, we will have 3 weeks of Spring Break in March. None of them coincide. Elijah will have to go to the babysitter for his Spring Break. I don't like that. So, that is my rant for the day, I know that God will make it clear to us when and if the time is right. But in the meantime I wonder why can't we have it all??!! : )

Apparently I incorrectly assumed that although my camera automatically flips images from side-to-side and up and down for still shots, the same does not hold true for video. So, here is a very short, sideways, dark view of Emily doing her first crawling at home on Friday (her first actual crawling was at her sitter who graciously got it on video and emailed it to me at work!!!) Today is Monday. She has been cleaning my floors with her belly. Brian suggested attaching Swiffer wipes to her shirt and calling it done for the week.

Bath time fun

uneventful birthday

Since we celebrated Elijah's sixth (gasp) birthday in Michigan this year, we didn't do a whole lot of partying this weekend. We did have some pizza with the Greene family and watched a few videos of when the kids were littler (is that a word?). It definitely made me realize we need to be doing more videotaping. If it weren't for Aunt Laura we probably wouldn't have any videos (she seems to be the one taping most of what we watched!! : ) ) It's amazing to hear their little voices and see them in smaller bodies.

In other news I seem to have caught whatever bug the kids had and spent much of the weekend sniffing, coughing and trying to hydrate.

The farmer's market was especially abundant this week. We bought so many foods: eggs, apples, peaches, blackberries, onions, green peppers, zucchini, squash, and a massive bunch of yellow carrots. We ran into Annie and Anja and saw many other regular faces as well.

We're having trouble with the electricity in our basement, and the dryer quit on Saturday--with a load in the washer. I had more to do, so I've been line drying. We did manage to prep food again for this week. I don't know that we NEED to live this way year-round (in the summers), but it actually is a nice way to cook. It gets all the pots and pans dirty on one day only, it helps me keep my shopping list pared down to ingredients needed for recipes, and it just feels good to know what we are having for dinner--which also equals less take out for our family!

Toys are so overrated. Clothes baskets. That's what you need to entertain an increasingly mobile 9 month old.