I overheard the girls yelling and I had just put Maggie down for her nap.
Me: (yelling) "Girls, stop yelling!"
Kate: (yelling) "What?"
Me: (yelling lounder) "Stop yelling!!"
Kate: (yelling) "Stop yelling?"
Me: (yelling) "Yes! Maggie is trying to take her nap!"
Kate: (yelling) "Maggie's asleep?"
Me: (yelling) "She's trying, so keep it down!"
Kate: (yelling) "Otay!"

Unfortunately I feel like a lot of our conversations throughout the day are this non-sensicle.

Chillin' with Dad on Saturday


This is the girls new car. They get in it and go to Kroger and Avon and worship ALL DAY LONG



Only really skinny people can do this sort of thing...

A little piece of quiet

This is my one moment of silence for the day and I'm sharing it with the Blogging world. It all started on Saturday, when I woke Livie up from her nap to go to what I thought would be a great time at the park, attending the Florida College Indiana Booster Club silent auction. Wrongo. About 15 minutes after we got there, Olivia crawled up on the bench of the picnic table to sit next to me, tumbled backwards, head first. She started crying, so I ran her out of the pavilion just in time - she started throwing up. Thankfully, we were right around the corner to the hospital, so we rushed her to ER. They did a CT scan, and everything looked fine, but they said she could still have symptoms from the fall, so we should keep her activity down for 2-3 days, and especially guard against another head injury. Saturday night she slept in the room with us so we could keep a close eye on her. Around midnight, she started running fever of around 103, so I called the on-call doctor. She said she should be fine, and that was not a sign of a concussion. I gave her some ibuprofen around 5:30 am, and the two of us finally started drifting off to sleep...

We stayed in on Sunday morning, but by that afternoon, she was acting better, so we all went to worship Sunday night. She was very reserved and just wanted to be held and rest her head. Monday morning she woke up whining and crawled up on the couch to lay down. She ended up throwing up again, so I called my doctor to fill him in on the weekend happenings. He also reviewed the CT scan and confirmed that she was in the clear, and that she may still have symptoms like throwing up, headache, etc. Other than being a little clingy and reserved, she has pretty much been back to normal. Brad and I were both so scared when it happened, and so thankful and relieved to get a clean bill of health.

My sister came up from Louisville on Monday because she needed me to make a dress for her daughter for a wedding she is going to be in. She dropped off the material, and picked up Kathryn so she could play with Hannah's kiddos and give me a little more time to sew. I sewed the better part of Monday, and finished up on Tuesday just in time for them to bring Kathryn back over to me saying she had a stomach ache. Great. Turned out she didn't have a stomach flu, but she has been running fever and whining like CRAZY the past two days. Livie started up today just crying over every little thing. I told her she could only have water to drink, she started crying. I asked her if she wanted macaroni, she started crying. I offered her a bite of macaroni, she started crying. I took the bite away, she started crying. I think you get the picture. And really, that's not an exaggeration. So when I said I was sharing my moment of silence with you, you really should have felt honored =). It might be the only one I have today! But, after a scare like we went through with Livie this weekend, you realize how insignificant the "bad days" really are.

It has been over a week now since we "took" Kathryn's fingers away from her. We've had our slip ups, but over all, she has done fabulous. When she first started getting sick, she kept whining and saying, "But Mom, I'm sick, so I need to suck my fingers", but we've stayed strong. Hopefully it won't take too much longer to form this "new" habit.

Maggie is her usual content and happy self. She is still sleeping 11-12 hours at night, for which I could not be more thankful =). She is 3 months today! That is so hard to believe, but she definitely has the thighs to prove it =). She's turning into quite a little chunk! She is such an angel, just smiling and cooing all day. Of course, we look back now and wonder what in the world we would ever do without her. The Lord has truly blessed us.

We're hoping to have an un-eventful last-half of the week ;-). Happy hump day!

(This is how Maggie likes to sleep - all snuggled up into her bunny that Jen gave her. She'll scoot up until she can get her face pressed into something warm and soft. =)

4 days, 3 nights down; the rest of her life to go

We've officially started the process of weaning Kathyrn from her finger sucking habit. This week has been devoted to trying different things until we found something that worked. I'm still not totally convinced that we're "there" - i.e. where we need to be - but we're definitely much, much closer than we ever have been. During the day she wears Band-Aids as "reminders". During the night, though, she would suck over the Band-Aids just out of habit, so she's been wearing mittens during naps and at bedtime. She wasn't too sure about it until I told her the story of The Three Little Kittens. Ever since then, she wants to wear them all day, and eat pie =).


My two crazy toddlers


Kathryn just got her first pair of real "fip fops" on clearance at Target for $1.76. She picked them out all by herself and is so totally in love with them. She is sleeping in them right now =)

Sweet Baby Girl

When my machine was working =(...

Total Randomness

Last night at supper, Livie was less than enthused about what I offered her to eat. I heard her wining, but was in the middle of a conversation with Brad that I decided to finish before I corrected her. In the meantime, Kathryn spoke up: "Livie, this is what we're having tonight, so no complaining. You need to be thankful and eat that." Hmmm... If Livie knew her Bible very well, she would have said, "Get the log out of your own eye first, sister!"

I made bread from freshly ground whole wheat. I felt like a pioneer woman. Actually, my Mom ground the wheat, so I guess that makes me half of a pioneer woman. Since she ground the wheat with an electric grinder, I guess that makes her a fourth of a pioneer woman... Okay, never mind.... We had homemade whole wheat bread for supper and it was really good.

Next weekend my parents are bidding on a cabin in Gatlinburg hoping that our whole family will be able to find a time we can all go (whole family being Mom and Dad, all my siblings and spouses, and all of our children). I am so hoping this works out. I can't remember the last time my *whole* family was together in one place - mostly because we can't all fit anywhere, but also because of how all of our schedules mesh (or don't mesh). It was at least 8 years ago. Eight years ago there were only 18 of us. Now there are 32.

My sewing machine hasn't been working properly since we were living at Mom and Dad's. In fact, I had just written it off as "broken" and had not sewed on it since we moved. A lady at church asked me to help her out with some embroidery this past weekend, so I scurried to fix my machine, got it working, and finished her project. I was so inspired that I set to work on all sorts of embroidery projects that have been so neglected during the past couple of months. Just about everything Maggie owns now has her name on it. Then I started working on an order that I have had since the week Maggie was born, and my machine broke again =(. I can't figure out what is wrong with it for the life of me. I broke 7 needles in the span of about 20 stitches. Sewing is a lot like golf. As long as you're doing well at it, you don't ever want to stop. The minute you start not doing so well, you're ready to throw your equipment in the lake.

Today I asked Kathryn what she wanted for breakfast. She said, "Peanut and butter and jelly on a sandwich." I told her that was more of a lunch entree and asked her again what she would like for breakfast. She said, "Ummm... CANDY!!!"

Here's our little bear after being tortured by her big sisters. She really puts up with a lot from those girls. They are always thinking of something to play with Maggie, and they are always so sure that she will love whatever they decide to do to her. Most of the time she actually doesn't seem to mind. That probably won't last much longer, so I'm enjoying it while I can =).

Back to the grind

Olivia was so wiped out from our trip, she slept for over 3 hours on Sunday afternoon. When I finally went in to wake her up for church, this is how I found her. She was not happy to be woken up.
The girls have lived in these chairs that Gramma and Aunt Norma found for them. (We finally figured out how to lock them, by the way =).

Kathryn decided to bring her chair in to read Maggie a story. Guess who was right behind her. Kate put her sunglasses on to read, then she pushed them up on top of her head and said, "Now I'm just going to wear them like Aunt Rosie does." You can't get much past this little girl!
Nana has Kate at the Children's Museum for her birthday treat today. Livie is beside herself with loneliness. About every 5 minutes she says, "Tate went with Nana?" Poor thing! We're going to have some special Livie/Mommy time today! Happy hump day everyone!

Tennessee, Sounds Good To Me

This past week we headed down to spend our week of vacation with Brad's folks. Brad's Mom's side of the family has a big to-do every year on the 4th, so we went for that, but decided to make a week of it and fit in as many friends and family as we possibly could. It was a jam packed week and we were all - especially the kids - worn out by the time we made it home. Brad played golf almost every day, and I enjoyed my built in babysitters (Granpa & Gramma). Maggie didn't do so hot on the car ride there. At least until we figured out that our singing put her under some kind of a spell. Needless to say, by the time we made it back to Indy the following Saturday night, our voices were totally shot and we were fighting back and forth about whose turn it was to sing "Hallelujah" at Kate's request.

Hang in there... this might be my longest picture post ever...

Getting ready to leave... Olivia babysat while I packed =)

Friday night we made it to Louisville and stayed with my good friend Kylie and her husband Justin. Just to make sure our vacation started off on the right foot, Brad and Justin hit the golf course first thing Saturday morning. I also should mention that later on in the week, Brad made his best score ever - a 79. Look out, Tiger! As soon as we made it to Granpa and Gramma's, the girls wanted Gramma to play and sing with them...
...then read them a bedtime story. Kate told me last night, "You'll tell me we can read one story, then I'll say, 'Mom, can we read two?' and you'll say YES. Otay?"
All ready for worship!
Dad working on his balancing act...
I barely saw the big girls the whole time we were there. Gramma got them up in the mornings, fed them breakfast, took them outside to water the flowers, play in the pool, walk to Aunt Norma's, play in the creek - you name it! They had a blast, and were absolutely worn out by bedtime.
We celebrated Kate's 3rd birthday while we were there. She was pretty stuck on having Cinderella on her cake. She's actually pretty stuck on having Cinderella on everything these days.Rosemary called her brothers and sister and they came up for a hamburger then cake and ice cream. It was the perfect little party, and Kathryn was just beside herself (as seen below =).
Livie eating ice cream with Aunt Charlotte
Then came the big surprise...
Lookout, folks! Kate just got a license to drive!!!

On Tuesday night we left the big girls with Granpa and Gramma and met some more old buddies for dinner in Nashville. I'm pretty sure we didn't stop laughing the entire 3 hours we were together.
Well, okay, I guess Brad and Mike stopped laughing long enough for me to shoot this picture. What nerds.
On Wednesday we all went paddle-boating (an experience that I thought was very enjoyable, but Brad says was way too much work) then headed out to Adam & Rosie's to spend the night in the 'boro. We worshipped at our old congregation in Murfreesboro and visited with so many friends that evening.

Maggie and Michael had alot of catching up to do... These girls were a hoot. I wish I could have had the video camera on them all day so you could have heard their conversations.
Uncle Adam put together this amazing swingset for Claire's 2nd birthday. The girls just loved it.
Then it was swimming time. The second before the girls drove Rosie crazy asking "are you done yet?" I had them come back up on the driveway to wait for her to finish. They decided they all wanted to hold hands while the waited.
Then they decided to share secrets.
Michael sucked on his thumb in the garage

while the girls swam.

Then it was time to get ready to go back to Gramma and Granpa's

to celebrate the 4th, and my birthday (yeah, right. My Mom even forgot to call this year - I must be getting old). Jeremy and Jessica came all the way from Chattanooga to be with us. Well, Jessica came to be with us - Jeremy came to play sports. We got to meet Baby Sadie for the first time. She is so precious.

This was our view for the week...

Then it was time to load everything back up and give Granpa and Gramma their house back. Rosemary would never admit it, but she had to be absolutely worn to a frazzle after we left. I hope Carl took her out to eat that evening =)

So far the only thing we've noticed we left behind is my cell phone :-/. How did our parents ever live without those things?