Beach Day

My parents called on Saturday and said they were done getting their boat ready to go into the water and wondered if we would come up to Lake Michigan for a beach day. So, I thought about for about a minute and decided, yes!

The weather was beautiful! I wasn't exactly thinking that we would be going in the lake, so I didn't pack swimsuits, but I should have. The water was cold, but the kids didn't care. Elijah was diving and splashing all around.

A reason to smile

Elijah celebrates a goal!








Mommy and Mary hanging out in our favorite place--outside!



Spring...FINALLY!! Today Elijah had his first soccer game of the season. And he is like a new kid!!! I was reluctant to sign him up again because the last time was so traumatizing for all of us. He didn't understand what to do, he was frustrated, he cried and pouted every time he didn't get the ball...Well, today he was like the all-star player! He scored 3 goals and was all over the field. He got a little grouchy by the end of the game, but all in all, he did great!

Later today we started putting some seeds in our garden. We've been starting several plants in the house, and we bought a bunch of other ones today. We bought several herbs, jack-o-lanterns, peas, lettuce, and watermelon. I am super-excited about having a garden this year. We always had a big garden when I was a girl, and I just love tending and picking fresh produce to eat.

Elijah grows up

As I've been working in the attic, I came across Elijah's baby calendar of all the things he did in his first year. It's hard for me to believe that he will be 5 years old this summer. Here he is hanging out with Aunt Laura and being the newest member of Small Town Heroes with Bethany and Dallas. He sure does love music and enjoys playing his guitar.

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Indeed, He is risen!

Signs of Spring

Not only are all the buds bursting on the trees and bushes; we have also been really enjoying this beautiful spring weather. Sunday night was Music Sunday (a night when lots of musician friends come over to play and share music and food) and we had our first campfire of the year. On Monday we planted new grass seed in teh bare spots in our yard and bought new sand for the sandbox. The kids couldn't understand why we couldn't run through the sprinkler?! I guess we could've--it was almost 80 degrees. This has been great year to be home for spring break!

Brian's birthday

We finally celebrated Brian's 28th birthday last weekend. He wanted to do the cooking, so he and my mom went through a cookbook and decided on an Asian theme. We made pot stickers, rice noodles with spicy vegetables, stir fry and won tons. As a special treat Aunt Nancy, Uncle Al, and Sam were here. Also, Dallas and Bethany joined us. It was a really fun time we spent cooking and tasting and to top it off I made a carrot cake and a chocolate cake with coffee frosting. It was one of those nights that you remember always.

spring break

Brian is home on Spring Break this week. While it would be really nice if we had the same week off, it's almost like getting an extra week off because everything feels less structured here. It helps that the weather is unseasonably warm and we can play outside. He and I took a nice walk in Battle Ground today just before the rain came. I still have another full week of school, including parent-teacher conferences until my Spring Break. I am looking forward to some house projects and planning out our garden.

Mary went to see the alternative medicine doctor yesterday and he suggested cutting cow's milk from her diet. He says cheese and yogurt are okay, but not milk. Something about 95% of people with chronic ear trouble can fix it by eliminating cow's milk. So, we will give it a shot!

Mary update

She is doing better, but not well yet. Doc says treat it like a virus--sleep, fluids, etc. and wait it out this time. We are going back in for ear tube replacement. She has had fluid in her ear every month since October, so now it is time to put a new tube in. That will likely be in April or May. Today is Brian's b-day and he has been gone all day. So, we celebrated with cherry pie (his request) for breakfast (my request). Mmmm.

Sick day

I have to admit, starting my day at 4 am wasn't quite what I had in mind today, but here it is already 9:15 and I have been to school to write substitute lesson plans, given Elijah a bath, driven Brian to campus, dropped Elijah at daycare and made Mary an appointment with her pediatrician. I started thinking as I was driving to school at 5:45 this morning that I feel lazy. There are lots of people up and around at that time. I was already finished at school and on my way home before I normally even get up in the morning. I feel like it should be noon right now. We'll see how I am feeling at 11:00 tonight.

Mary is sick. Again. I will be glad when she outgrows this. Everyone tells me she will. I hope they are right. She has been off antibiotic for oh, I don't know... less than a week. Her fever is around 103 and she is so congested. I feel so bad for her.

I am thankful that her doctor has an opening this morning. She is a fabulous doctor who spends lots of time with each patient, but she gets so behind schedule. Last time we waited for an hour and a half to see her.

Elijah Lightyear

Just in case anyone was unclear about Elijah's obsession with Buzz Lightyear, his grandma Susan comes to the rescue. Guess how easy it is to get him out of this costume every day?!! He is having a BLAST!

Stir Crazy

I run the risk of having people throw things at me, but I am going to post it anyway. I am actually sick of so many days off. Between Mary being sick (3 weeks ago), 2 hour delays (NO AM Kindergarten) 2 weeks ago, 3 snow days+ a 2 hour delay (last week) now this Monday we are off for President's Day. I have only seen my AM Kindergarten class about 4 days in the last 3 weeks. I am ready to get back in the routine! Plus it's been so cold and snowy that we are pretty much just cooped up at home all day. Aughhhh!

On a brighter note: tonight is Forgiveness Vespers. A beautiful prayer service for asking and receiving forgiveness from our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is such a cleansing way to begin Great Lent.

We've been having a pretty fun weekend, too. On Friday night the kids stayed with Aunt Megan and Uncle Everette for a sleepover. They had planned a bunch of fun activities like making their own pizzas, ice cream with toppings, playing games, taking a tub with new tub crayons to play with...it was so cool! Brian and I got to visit with our friends, the Neulieb's, whom we hadn't seen in a while, so that was fun.

The big snowstorm of 07

Well, all the naysayers were wrong. And TV 18 was right for a change. 17 inches of total accumulation. It's more than I've seen in my adult life. The poor car parked in front of our house is buried almost to the top once the snowplows came through. The one bonus of living on a busy major thouroghfare is that our street is one of the first cleared. However, now we just have to dig out our L-O-N-G driveway so we can get to the street.

Repentance and God's Forgiveness

Here is what is both amazing and hard about being Orthodox Christians. The season of Lent is a preparation for Easter. The season we are in right now? Pre-Lent. Preparing for Lent. This faith is raising the bar on holiness and devotion to a level that is...well, set apart. Thanks be to God for molding our character through these seasons. This past Sunday our priest made me cry--in the children's time. It was the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. I have heard this parable many times, it is familiar to most people. He shared how as a little boy he "ran away from home" and when he got down the street he realized that he would be cold, hungry and needed his parents after all. They were there waiting for him on the porch with open arms. Such a simple message, but how true for us too? We turn our backs on God in big and little ways and all we need to do is repent and come back to him. He is waiting with his arms open to us. I've been trying to reflect on what true repentance is. So often I return to the same sins over and over again. I was reading about gaining a repentant heart through prayer, fasting, and works for the needy. The last one was the part that interested me. My initial thought was, "How can acts of service to others help me to stop sinning?" but as I've been thinking about it more, and in light of the verses about "what you do for the least of these...", it seems likely that taking the focus off me and putting it on helping others could really help me to love Jesus more, thus raising my awareness of my sin and how it separates me from God. I suppose God could use that to help the recipient of my help as well as heal me. Okay, that's great. What does that mean for me? That is my next question. I will be pondering on my (4th day in a row) two hour delay tomorrow.

SNOW!!!!!!!!!

I put the title caps, because we got a LOT! We were on a 2 hour delay today because of the cold weather. So when we left for daycare at 9:30 it was just starting to snow. By 11:00 when I went to lunch it was getting bad. And by the time I got home at 4:00 we had over 5 inches. We didn't stay out very long, but we at least got the sidewalks cleared. Then we had to come in and drink hot chocolate!

I knew it would happen

I always get caught up in circumstances. I just do. When I was home for Christmas break, I loved being home and had a hard time wanting to go back to work. Now that I have been back for 2 weeks, I am all business again. That's not entirely true, I have been making a real effort to pick the kids up as early as I can, but I have been working really hard at school and find myself thinking about it all the time when I'm not there. This week has flown by so fast! Brian is recording his cd with Dallas and Bethany at night, so here is what an ...ahem... "average" night looked like this week:

Come home, cook dinner, clean up dinner, after dinner activity (teach flute lessons, go to the grocery store), give baths, read stories, sing songs, get water, Brian leaves for the night, CRASH in front of the TV. We skipped swimming both nights this week, and I am actually not sure that we will go back. Are we quitters?! I signed Elijah up for lessons for something to do in the evenings when it is dark early and cold outside. Although it doesn't appear that we need anything else to do.

Saturday is our friends' baby's baptism and we are her godparents. This is very exciting to us! In the Orthodox faith it is taken very seriously to be someone's godparent in the helping to raise them in their faith. For example, we try to think of our kids' godparents as a part of our family--they are invited to birthday parties and have pictures of them in our albums, etc.

It is important to us to be a part of this child's life and love her in a special way. May God grant us grace to do that.


One last ramble...I bought a calendar on amazon last night for FULL PRICE. I was so frustrated with myself. We have this wooden calendar frame in our kitchen for a Lang graphics calendar. Well, we usually get one shortly after Christmas at 50% off from Borders or Barnes and Noble. This year I waited too long and they were sold out. SO I had to decide what to do. We actually do use it for at least looking at the dates--especially with Elijah (not really so much for writing things down on), so I didn't want to just re-use the old one for the pretty pictures. And it has 2 giant nails holding the frame on the wall, so taking it down and leaving 2 big nails or 2 big nail holes in our red kitchen walls doesn't seem like a real option to me. I have been just hoping that I would find one for cheap, but I haven't. So I bought one on-line. For full price + shipping.

Random Thoughts

I risk babbling like an idiot without a real topic to write about, but feel somehow drawn to write something because it's been over a week since I've updated.

Last weekend we drove to Michigan to celebrate my grandma's 75th birthday. We stayed in a hotel, swam in the pool, did lots of fun things and yet I did not take a single picture. We also got to visit with some wonderful old friends, Scott and Melissa, who were Purdue friends who moved to Ann Arbor, which is just a 20 minute drive from my grandparents' house.

This week I am trying to scale my life back. We skipped swimming lessons tonight to stay home and relax. Elijah has discovered chapter books: we started reading Charlotte's Web and he can't get enough. It was very quaint how we all layed in our big bed and Brian and I took turns reading. My goals this week are to pray more and enjoy my children because they are growing up so fast.

I just thought this was cute

I had to share this picture because I needed to remind myself of what I look like when I am relaxed and enjoying my life (it was taken when we were in Cleveland for New Years'). I already feel so frazzled after just one week back at work. I am glad to have a 3 day weekend this weekend to try to wash the dishes and get my lesson plans caught up!

It's back to the grind

Okay,
So I guess I don't have much room to complain since Brian and I both just had 2 weeks off together and we had so much fun and we got to see our family and we got to relax and we got to do some work in our house...BUT...I don't wanna go back to work tomorrow!!

I am sure once we go back it will be great. I love my job! But being home with my family was such a treat. I am really thankful for this time and for all the memories we made this year with our family and friends. It actually seems like we had a much longer break because of how many fun things we did.

Brian and Elijah built this cool loft in Elijah's room to give him some floor space for playing. I'll post some pictures later this week after we get the new dresser put in. Brian worked really hard to make it safe and easy to use.

Elijah also starts swimming lessons again tomorrow. He said to me today, "Why am I taking lessons? I know how to swim." What he meant was, "I am not scared of anything and I'll take flying leaps off the diving board with my water wings on."



I can't beleive I haven't done this yet--Elijah got a digital camera for Christmas. These pictures are a few of the highlights of Christmas morning through the eyes of a 4 year old.

VACATION!!!

Brian and I both commented that this might have been our best family vacation yet. We stayed at Brian's aunt and uncle's house in Cleveland. We always spend New Year's Eve there, but this year was special because it was also Aunt Nancy's 50th b-day. On New Year's Eve we celebrated with most of her family. If you look closely at the picture with the people all standing you will notice that they are holding their shoes. At midnight we celebrated the Italian tradition of tapping everyone on the booty with a shoe and you say "Out with the old and in with the new." Uncle Al is Italian--like real Italian. His mom and dad came from Italy and his mom still speaks it. So we always do thing the Italian way when we go to Clevelend, which Brian doesn't mind because it usually includes some kind of salted cured meat and stinky cheese that you can't get here.

Other than the big party we did a lot of sitting around watching movies and eating. It was really fun and relaxing. Thanks Al, Nancy, and Sam!!

Blessed Nativity!

That's Orthodox speak for Merry Christmas!! We've been at home with our family enjoying a very laid back holiday. We spent the end of last week with my parents and my brother who was visiting from Florida with his girlfriend, Michelle. They graciously helped me make 30 graham cracker houses and wrap 30 gifts for my kindergartners. We celebrated Christmas with them on Friday. Saturday we spent the day at home, then Sunday and Monday we spent with the Greene's. It has been relaxing to not be running around, although I really miss seeing my family in Michigan for Christmas. Our gift highlights this year were XM satellite radio for Brian, cashmere for Michelle, and the kids had a pretty big year. Elijah got a digital camera and guitar. Mary got her own harmonicas and 2 princess dresses. They also got sleeping bags from my parents and we have already used them every day. What fun! I only have a few pictures because I left my digital camera at my in-laws house, so we took most of our Christmas morning pics. with our 35 millimeter camera.