What have we been up to this weekend?

A Whole Lot Of This

Noah Red has been a sick baby all weekend. We have done a lot of things around the house, but mostly with him strapped to me in the Baby Bjorn. He just wanted his mommy to hold him. All day. I even had to face him in like a newborn. We have had lots of "quality time!" Especially at night. I will catch up soon, but now I am off to rest my aching back!

Hope's Birthday Morning

Ok, ok, last of the Birthday Pics. Until next year. These are from the morning of the 17th.

Except for the Bitty Baby picture. Mimi gave her the Bitty Baby at the party, and John and I suprised her with the matching pjs that night when she was getting ready for bed. She said...

"matching pajamas?"

"Matching Pajamas."

"MATCHING PAJAMAS!!!"

It was priceless.

The Party

Lulu is 4.

Ok, I tried to make my posts through Flikr, but, clearly I have not mastered that just yet. I think I have to upgrade to do it the way I want to...oh, well. Here is a more proper documentation of Hope's Birthday!

Hope Louise is one of my favorite people in this world! I know, as her mother, I am required to say that right? Probably. But she is just an awesome little girl. This year has been a big one. We have been back in Arkansas for a full year now. She has adjusted well, of course. How could you not, when your cousins are nearby, your Mimi hangs out at your school all day, and your mommy works at your church? I think it's a pretty good life for Hope Louise.

Hope remains small for her age, but I think it is beginning to be less noticeable. I don't think she will be as much of a runt as I was. She wears 3t clothes. I keep trying to buy her 4s and they keep dropping off of her. Her legs are pretty long, but that waist is tiny. She has worn a size 8 shoe since we moved from Texas. Not sure what's up with that. (April, do you remember the brown Mary Janes we bought for her at the mall? She still wears those!)

Hope takes a lot of classes! She takes Ballet, Spanish, Gymboree, Computer, Music, and Gymnastics. Before any of you get on to me for overscheduling my child, just know that all of those take place at her school during the school day, except for Gymnastics. It is another benefit of going to the fabulous school. She is learning so much. Her knowledge of the computer is crazy. She kept talking about the computer's brain the other day. I had no idea what she was talking about, until she said "The CPU is the computer's brain, mommy," oooooo k. Gotcha. She loves her teacher, Ms. Kendra. I think Kendra just "gets" her. She understands how she ticks.

She loves her church so much. Sundays are probably her favorite days. She knows if she gets up early and gets dressed then she can go in early and help mommy get things set up for Sunday School. And we go get a donut. Daddy and Noah come a little later, but she usually goes with me. She can only take a few minutes of the contemporary service. She is still sensitive to loud noises and the music is just too much, so one of us will leave the service and take her to her classroom when she has had enough. She loves all the girls that work in the preschool area, but is especially attached to her Sunday School teacher, Ms. Bari. Ms. Bari wears lip gloss and Hope thinks that is fabulous. Ms. Bari is a lot of fun and Hope comes away understanding the lesson! She "gets" Hope too.

Hope is doing really well at gymnastics. She loves to play dress up. She has a list of favorite places to eat. She can read most simple words, and can try to sound out any word. She read "Casa Mexicana" last week. Not the sign, but me writing it out. She loves her brother, sometimes a little too much! She does not like when he cries, and will cover her ears and usually cry some too. She sleeps in her bed, most nights now, though she will usually find her way to my bed at some point during the night! She is just growing up way too fast!

A Conversation About S'Mores

Clara saying to Hope: "Hope, you've got chocolate on your face!"

I think if Hope's mouth wasn't stuffed with a s'more at the moment she would have said, "look in the mirror darlin'!"

An early visit from Santa

She's 4!

november 2008 080, originally uploaded by dyer622.

Look how big she looks! She is hanging over the pit at gymnastics. What you don't get to see is her getting scared and having to be pulled off the bar!

She's 4!

2november 2008 060, originally uploaded by dyer622.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

I KNOW he didn't

While talking to my dear sweet husband on the phone right now, he was looking through the pictures on the blog, and got down to the one of the three of us right after Hope was born. He seriously said to me, "You need to be a little more bright eyed after you give birth."

Dear Mr. Pizza Delivery Man

Dear Mr. Pizza Delivery Man (if that is in fact your REAL name),
Please do not get mad at me when you show up and I hand you my credit card. Your boss called just moments before you arrived (30 minutes late) and asked that I give it to you. You see, there was some kind of "technical error" on your stores part, and they didn't get my card info. I don't know why I couldn't just give it to them over the phone again, so please don't ask me why I didn't. I am just doing as I was told. Do not ask me to give you cash. I don't have any. I wish you hadn't asked me to give you a check. But, you did. One less thing for you to do, right? Please, let me put down my baby, move my 4 year old out of the way, close and lock the door (you were kinda creepin me out) push the dog into the bedroom, dig through the junk drawer for an old check book (because mine was still in my car) and write you a check. And, whatever you do, when I come back to the door with the said check (you know, the one that I had to go get so you didn't have to walk back to your car to get the form to fill out) with baby back in tow and tell me that you also need my drivers license. Because, I can promise you, I am not going back through all those steps, plus going out to my car where said drivers license is just to show it to you. I do appreciate it when you then told me I could just write down the number, and if I had my drivers license number memorized then I just might have written those actual numbers down as opposed to the series of fake numbers I wrote on the check instead. Sorry. Don't you hate "technical errors?"
Sincerely,
Me

Happy Birthday Lulu

My Lulu girl is 4 years old today. How can this be? We've had a great couple of days of celebrating. Pictures to come soon. But for now, here is an earlier picture of my sweet Hope.

It's good to be the runt

I have to laugh when I look around Noah's classroom. He is the oldest baby in the room, but you would never guess it. He is kind of a runt. Being the runt has it's benefits though! Baby P passed on his PJ's to Noah! They are so cute! Thanks Baby P's Mommy!

How great are Hand Me Downs? I was always the runt. Always. I don't know if Stephanie Bond still reads this blog or not, but I always got her hand me downs. Speaking of Stephanie, why is it that I have an awesome memory when it comes to things that happened in my childhood, but college through now, is all kind of foggy? And no partying in college jokes, you've got the wrong girl. Seriously, I can remember crazy things, like most of my friends birthdays. Stephanie was May 11, Lynley is June 25 (so is Gina's) Harriette is March 7, I could seriously name about 12 more. But, I can't remember where I put my keys 2 hours ago. And I can't remember one of my roomates name in college. Seriously. Or my cheerleading partner's name at the U of A. I think it was Josh, but his last name, nope. Is there something wrong with me?!

Rambling, sorry, imagine that.

Here is another Hope get up. She put on pjs, then decided she wanted to wear a gown, but thought it was too cold for a gown so she put it on over it. She added the accessories to dance to Taylor $wift on the CMA's. Yes, that's a tutu on her head. She said it would mess up her gown if she put it on her belly, so what's a girl to do? Put it on your head.

Have you ever seen a miracle?

Here's a glimpse at a little tiny miracle. Her name is Baby O. Her mommy is a friend of ours that works at Hope and Noah's fabulous school. Baby O weighed in at a whopping 1 pound 15 ounces. Please join me in praying for this tiny miracle baby.

Reveal Yourself, you McCain fan, you!

Ok, so someone thinks it is really funny to put a McCain Palin sticker on my car. And they think it is funny to write "Nobama '08" on my dirty car. Funny joke people. I am thinking the person(s) responsible probably read my blog to know that I am in fact an Obama supporter. Not that it matters now, we should all be Obama supporters. Someone also wrote Nobama as a comment on the blog, and you might think it is the same person, but I don't think so. The comment on the computer appears to have come from California (and I deleted it. Happy thoughts folks) , and I doubt anyone would come from California to write Nobama on my car and stick a McCain sticker on the back of my car. I have it pretty narrowed down. And I am pretty sure you are related to me, you McCain fan you. I am even pretty sure you are my brother. Which brother, I have yet to determine. Kind of like the whole "Who cut up the recliner" argument from when we were little. We know it is either Vince or Ross, but who, well, we may never know.

And this, really is a typical Hope get up. Praise the Lord shirt, pink scarf, yellow pj pants. She chose to complete the ensemble with what else? A Santa hat and Easter Bunny ears of course!

Just when you thought I was done posting Halloween photos

My friend Deni sent me some pictures from the Halloween Carnival! Maybe this will be the last of the cheesiness....but no promises!

Like Father Like Son

Not only do they look alike, have similar personalities, have similar napping schedules, both like to eat, both like to be outside....now they dress alike too! Can you stand it? At least we are't all 4 matching, right Heather?!

And speaking of Heather, thank you for coming over and folding my mountain of laundry today! You're the best!

Randomness...update on Noah, a little controversy, and a few Hopisms.

First of all, I am sorry to those of you who have been checking here for an update on Noah. Noah is great! The upper GI went super smoothly. He does not have any type of blockage or stenosis. He has been diagnosed with severe reflux. This was the best possible outcome for what we are dealing with! He is starting new medication that hopefully will help him out. The whole thing took an hour. The Radiologist and the 4 techs that were there were all taken with Noah. They took turns holding him and he flirted with all the tech girls. The Radiologist reminded me of one of the Mcdreamy/Mcsteamy doctors on Gray's, but he was so good with Noah. I got to be right there beside Noah the whole time.

Today I am proud of my country. I am hopeful for the future of our nation. I am thankful that my children will grow up in this new America. I know that some of my friends who were big supporters of McCain are upset today, but my prayer is that in a year from now we will all be thankful for President Obama. So I ask them to not focus on the defeat, but to focus on our future. Focus your energy and your prayers on our president, our nation, our future. We have all been divided during this campaign. Time to come together.

At the same time, I am so upset about Act 1 passing. It really actually disgusts me that it passed. I see it as wrong for 2 big reasons. 1st of all, it is discrimination. Plain and simple. No way around it. That's what it is. Secondly, we just limited the amount of good caring foster homes in Arkansas. Limited them. Really? For what? Because you don't think they should be in the care of a gay person or couple? Seriously. I stand by my first statement that if you voted for Act 1 you should have to immediately become foster parents to help with the shortage of foster homes. But wait, I don't think the children should be placed in homes of people who discriminate. Anyway, I am hoping that some legal action is taken against this in the very near future before too many children are affected by the ridiculousness. (I am thinking this is the end of my ranting. I am hoping this returns to a cheesy happy family blog soon...)

Back to happy thoughts....

Here are some Hopisms:

• This morning the first thing Hope asked was "Did Barako win?"
• Also this morning, Hope was doing some File Folder games while I took a shower. When I got out she wanted to show me what all she had done. I told her what a great job she did. She said, "Well, it was my pleasure."
• And while I was getting Noah dressed, Hope asked if Noah was strong. I said that he wasn't very strong yet. She said, "Noah, if you want to be strong like me you've got to eat your vegetables. Even though they're yucky. And your beans. I don't eat beans, but you have to."
• She learned to button her pajamas by herself tonight. She was sooo proud of herself. She grinned and then ran and gave me the biggest hug and said "I love you mommy!"

Halloween Photos