dessert

I love that my daughter considers gum a dessert.

I am a loser and I apologize for my loserness

I can't believe I've posted nothing for almost 4 months! I hate it when life gets in the way like that!

The links to the right have now been updated so everything should be correct now.

The actual reason for my post is that Nathan decided just before bedtime Tuesday night to take the side gate off of Penny's bed. This makes it a sort-of day bed. We put a pillow on the floor just in case she fell out. We didn't hear a peep out of her after bedtime but when Nathan went in to check her diaper before we went to bed, she was asleep on her back in the middle of the floor! Poor baby.

She has been very excited about her "big-girl" bed and often tells us when it is bedtime or naptime simply because she wants to climb in her bed. Every time she has gotten up (either after naps or in the morning) she calls to us from behind her door and when we open the door she is standing there holding Rory and wearing her "princess rora shoes".

She is growing up so fast. It seems even faster than Bethany. I guess having an older sister to emulate will do that. And, I know, I need to get more pictures up! This week and weekend are crazy finishing stuff up at Stetson, so I will try REALLY hard to do some next week!

Kindergarten!

Well, the title says it all. We are the proud parents of a beautiful Kindergartner. Bethany has enjoyed her first two days but has been completely pooped! I've created an album on the website that, hopefully, will encompass all of kindergarten. I may split it into two pages if it gets too big over the next 10 months, but I'd rather keep all the pictures together.

We are so excited to see how Bethany will learn and grow this year. Hopefully you can come along for the ride. Click the picture below to see the whole album, so far.

bethany dancing

I don't know why this never posted; maybe I got tired of waiting for it to upload and just forgot. Anywho, since it's the one-year anniversary of this video, I thought I'd go ahead and put it up now!

Bethany is dancing at the faculty back to school picnic (one year ago).

Chicago Vacation

We're on vacation. As I usually do, the pics will be posted from the road. Comments come while the memories are fresh. That I would likely never get to them once I got home.

Check out our first two days:
Day 1 - Evanston
Day 2 - Wrigley, Sears and Millennium

Enjoy! I'll keep 'em coming through Wednesday. I hope to also have pics from Oak Ridge soon.

new pictures!

Hey, everyone!  The girls had some pictures taken today.  Check them out on our website.  Click the link "new portraits".

updates!

Okay, so I'm a total slacker.  Not really, I just have not had time for a while.  Anyways, the girls website finally has some new pictures (well, some of them are actually kind of old - but they're new to the website!).  Penny's birthday pictures finally made it up!  Poor Penny.  I need to move back to Hawaii where all I had time for all day was updating the website!  :)  Hope you enjoy.  I will try to post more soon, because I do have more (dance recital, trike-a-thon, etc.).

Click the link to the right called our website.

leaves

Back in November, looking at my lawn I thought to myself, "hmm, guess we won't have much to rake this year".  But I always forget our annual spring break (yes, SPRING break) tradition: raking the leaves.  

We're all taught that in the fall the leaves change color and eventually fall to the ground and then you rake them before the snow comes.  That doesn't work here.  In fact, most of our leaves fall after the new ones grow in.  It's like the trees play mind games on you.  You look out and see new green leaves growing and don't ever think about, "hey, what happened to all the dead leaves?" (and of course, our leaves only go from green to brown).

So, today I started to rake.  I thought I'd get a week head start so all Nathan will have to do next week is pick them up (plus, it's about the only exercise I've had in I don't know how long).  I got about halfway through the backyard.  It's nice to see the green grass underneath.  Here, you can see half of the yard with all its little leaf piles, and the other half still leaf-covered:

  

Here you can see half and half:

Here are the trees in our backyard.  A shot to the left, center and right sides:

    

You know, one of the reasons we bought this house was because of all the beautiful trees in the yard.  Of course, we bought in the fall, before all the leaves fell.

love program

Today, the preschool (2yr-4yr) kids at B's school had their annual Love Program.  Bethany was the pledge announcer and also did a great job singing with her class.  The videos are too big to post on blogger, so I'll work on getting them up on our website so you can all see!

a few notes

I did not realize how long it had been since I last posted.  Goodness.  There has been a lot going on around here.  

The latest, happiest news is that I no longer have a 6mm kidney stone trying to push its way out of my body.  Last Tuesday I had it removed.  My doctor said he tried just pulling it out but it would not fit through the opening into my bladder.  So he had to cut it in half first.  He then went out to show it to Nathan who said it was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen.  I didn't even get to see it!  They sent it off for analysis and I should find out exactly what type it was when I go for my follow-up next week.

Bethany has her very first dentist appointment in the morning.  She's a little excited about it.  I hope that it does not turn into a scary thing for her.

I hope to get back on the weight-loss wagon soon.  When I was dealing with that stone, I would just eat anything that didn't make me nauseous.  Thus, I've gained a few pounds.  I also quit exercising.  I was walking at night after putting Penny to bed.  But then the time changed and now it's dark out by 6:30.  I'm not sure what to do.  I have tried at-home video workouts.  I'm not very good about doing them.  For some reason it just seems weird to me to get dressed in workout clothes to stand in front of my TV.  Plus, we don't really have great space for it.  We can't afford the "Y" and even though I could work-out for free at Stetson since we're alums and employees, that seems weird, too.  I've always had a thing about people "looking" at me at the gym and going to Stetson where there would be mostly 20-year-olds (some of whom work under me) would be worse.  

Anyway, I'll get there someday, I guess.  Right now the weather is pretty good so maybe I can get out and at least walk around the neighborhood with Penny during the day.

Wish me luck!

catch up

Well, between birthdays, kidney stones and Christmas, I never gave you the stats from Penny's 12-month check-up!  Here they are:

19 lbs, 5.5 oz

28 5/8 inches

I was stunned that I would still have to hold off on turning her car seat around!  I thought to myself that if I had given her that 6 oz of formula before her appointment, maybe she would have topped out at 20 lbs!  Besides, she was so far ahead of Bethany at each appointment that I thought for sure she would be 20 lbs.  Oh, well.  We waited a couple of weeks and then turned her seat around anyway!  That seat was a pain in the neck facing backward.

She still refuses to walk.  She's taken two steps on a couple different occasions.  She's enjoying all of her new toys that she got for Christmas.  She's a whiz at the ring-stacker and loves playing her instruments.  

On another note - we've begun our annual spring cleaning.  Yes, we have spring cleaning in the winter because that's when we have off the most time.  Nathan is usually catching up on grading during spring break.  We purchased a free-standing pantry for the garage to help with our kitchen pantry and paper goods over-load.  We also purchased some baskets to organize our bookshelf of toys in the living room.

Next on the list is cleaning out old toys from the girls' rooms.  We had to rearrange the set-up of Bethany's room to accommodate the doll house.  It looks really nice, I think.  Bethany says it's beautiful.

I'm going to consolidate the Christmas madness pictures into one page and then post it to the girls' website.  Look for that in the next couple of days. 

Merry Christmas!

Now here is day two of Christmas for us.  These are at Nathan's parents' house.  Click below to view!

Christmas at the Wolek's

Okay, we've now had Christmas at Amy's parents.  Below is a link to those pictures!

Christmas at the Friend's

We're all done here at our house.  We had a good morning.  Here's a link to some pics.  I'll add more over the next couple of days.

Christmas morning

Track Santa in Real Time

This is pretty cool. Norad + Google = Real Time Santa Maps. Download it and share the fun with your kids.

Merry Christmas!

the week from h-e-double hockey sticks

For those of you that I have not had a chance to talk to this week, I've been stuck in bed with 3 kidney stones, the largest of which is 6 mm.  My dear hubby took me to the ER Monday afternoon after I experienced some stabbing pains in my left side along with dizziness and nausea while driving home from Orlando that morning.  They gave me fluids, drugs, a CT scan and an X-Ray.  They gave me the bad news and then sent me home to lie in bed.  Well I was over that after a couple of days.  

As many of you know, I'm not one to be still for very long.  Fortunately (in a sick way), the pain was so bad that I had to take the Percoset they gave me which pretty much left me no choice but to stay in the bed.  

I was drinking so much water that both of my kidneys started to feel funny; I guess just from system overload.  The dizziness and nausea came back.  Then I got sick - literally.  I cut back a bit on the water so all of that went away.  Between the drugs and the pain I basically had no appetite and then my whole system just got screwy.  I went off of the Percoset yesterday since the pain was practically gone and I just couldn't take it anymore anyway.  How anyone can want to feel like that on purpose, I'll never understand.

The pain has subsided now and I saw a urologist this morning.  He basically said all I can do is wait.  Fun.  There are procedures that I could go under to remove it/break it up but that they would *love* for me to pass it on my own.  I'm all set with some Flomax (yes, the prostate drug - apparently some recent studies have shown that it also helps kidney stones move down more quickly and easily) and some Percoset, in case the crazy pain returns.

Thank you to everyone who called to check on me and sent good wishes and prayers our way.  Nathan was a trooper with the girls this week.  He even got some laundry done!

So it could still be a couple of months before I'm out of this.  And I'll have to cut back on that Chick-Fil-A tea!  Darn!

One Year

I write a lot less than I used to.  

Tomorrow, Penny will be one.  I can't believe it.  Where did the time go?

I remember thinking it took forever for Bethany to turn one.  But I feel like only six months have passed since Penny joined us.

My baby is one and yes, I'm a little sad.  How fast will the second year go?

Let's lift the mood, shall we?

Here are some things that I never got around to blogging about.  These are things that Penny does that are just too cute (in my mind, anyway!):

When she is sitting, she'll turn herself around in a circle.

When she is standing up and decides (again) not to try walking, she gets back to crawling by very slowly squatting down and putting her hands down in front of her.  She then takes off crawling at lightning speed!

Playing peek-a-boo with her burp cloth (yes, still using them, though more for lovies than spit-up)

She loves cars and trucks and pushes them all over the house

When we are getting ready to eat dinner, she folds her hands; I'm assuming that's because she knows it's time to pray

She would much rather play with ordinary objects than most toys we have

She loves going into her sister's room to play

She loves her sister

Happy Birthday, Penny!  We love you!

Wishlists *Update*

Okay, so I have moved everything from our TTIW wishlists to the Amazon wishlists.  It is definitely more user-friendly, and the function for "reserving" is much better.  Reserving is a way to put a claim on something that you are going to buy - regardless of whether you buy it online or in the store.  In other words, you don't have to buy something on the website to show that it has been purchased.  And, I can still manage all of our lists (except I still need to get Nathan's connected somehow) from one place.

I'll have to update our links, but here they are for now (you should be able to get to all the lists from any page using the links on the left side of the page):

Amy

Bethany

Penny

wishlists

Some of you remember my frustration a couple of years ago trying to make a Christmas wishlist for Bethany.  My friend told me about a site called The Things I Want.  You put this button on your browser's bookmark bar so you can add things from any website to a single wish list.  It's been great, but not exactly the most user-friendly.  Some things are still a little confusing.  This afternoon I was surfing amazon and saw that they now have a "universal wishlist".  You can add items from any website to your amazon list.  They also now have a function similar to The Things I Want where one person can manage several lists without separate accounts and logins.  This is great for parents with kids, or even spouses who would like to have wishlists in one place. 

So I'm thinking about putting in some more time to explore the amazon version.  I need to compare the two options and also decide if it's worth the time to put all the stuff from each of our lists into a new list!

new pics

We went to the pumpkin patch today.  The girls had fun.  Take a look at the pictures and tell me, honestly, are there two cuter girls in the whole world?  :)

Go here.

random thoughts

There is so much going on in the world right now.  I have so many thoughts about everything but I don't even know where to begin.  The financial "crisis", the election, voter fraud, ACORN, corruption in business and Washington, government education, non-existent personal responsibility...

My father-in-law had an interesting idea: don't vote for any incumbents.  I pondered this for a few days: that would mean fewer Republicans in office - though a lot of them are just as corrupt as some Democrats; it could possibly give the Democrats the super majority they need in the Senate; some of those people have been there for 30+ years!; fresh blood could be good - no matter what party they are in.  

So what have I decided?  I think I will definitely give my vote to non-incumbent candidates.  As for the presidential race, I know I don't want to vote for Obama/Biden.  Quite frankly, their health care, tax and foreign policies scare me a little - okay, a lot.  I wasn't even sure I would vote for McCain until he announced Palin as his running mate.  But I'm not so sure I want to vote for someone just because of the VP candidate.  I do appreciate, however, that they don't agree on everything.  Of course, the media likes to use that for "news".  But really, is there any candidate that anyone agrees with on EVERYTHING?  I think that's one of the most honest parts of their campaign.  Anyways, I'm digressing a bit... I'm considering doing some research on the other THIRTEEN candidates on the ballot in Florida and voting for whoever is in favor of the FairTax.  Either that, or write in Mike Huckabee, who I voted for in the primary.

Our pastor has been teaching out of Revelation since April (a few breaks here and there).  It's been difficult and our pastor assures us it will only get more difficult!  But it's been really, really GOOD.  Some things he has said have made me really think - especially with what's been going on.  I can tell before I share them here that they are not going to sound right out of context.  But you can listen to all of the sermons here.  This past Sunday (10/19) we were in Revelation 5:5-6.  Mike was talking about the church's ministry in and to the world and the church's resemblance to Christ.  The way God's kingdom must expand between Christ's first and second coming is through suffering - this was the foundation of the church, so why should we expect its growth to be any different?  The situations around us today should cause us to look higher: we can't put our trust for our well-being in any candidate.  Our security for our future is in Christ.  We live in a hard time right now and we need to learn to thank God for that, because it causes us to look to Christ.  

I think my favorite sermon from this series so far, though, is the one on Revelation 4.  What an amazing picture of God, heaven, His throne, worship and how HE is the center of all things, including earth.  Nothing I say can do it justice.  You really should listen to them.  It will change you if you do.  

My prayer is that you would all look to Christ for security for your future.  No one else can come close to giving you the same.  God, in his amazing kindness and mercy, sent Christ to be the ultimate sacrifice ONCE FOR ALL.  Our hope is in Him; not in any political party or candidate, not in the U.N., not in any financial institution.  Where do you turn to for hope in your future? Can anyone guarantee your future better than Christ?

Rev. 4:11 "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

Penny, our Kazoo Prodigy

I wonder if there's a teacher in the area...