HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOEL!!

My "baby" turned 12 today! He told me that he woke up at 5:58 this morning, so he was awake to see his birthday start at 6 a.m., the time he was born. I had waited until 6:30 to go tell him "happy birthday" and "go take a shower" and pointed out that 6:30 a.m. was the time 12 years ago today that I passed out from an overload of pain. That was my only reference to anything negative about the privilege of having my first child, instead focusing on how glad I am that he was born.

We had a family party Saturday afternoon, a special breakfast of doughnuts and coffee this morning, a special lunch from Subway and cupcakes from home, and then a friend party tonight after wrestling practice. I only let him have three friends this time, but they had a lot of fun playing the wii and laughing together.

Here's Joel's birthday "cake" from Saturday -- cherry cheesecake:

Christmas, 2010

This first picture really isn't about Christmas, but it still gets a Christmas frame because it's December. Joel and Seth both got glasses last week. They both look adorable!! Seth won't leave his on, and Joel's having a hard time getting used to his. I'm hoping they wear them at school and see better than they did without them.


Funny story before I go on with Christmas events: Joel went to a friend's house the other day along with a few other friends. The boys decided to play hide and seek. Joel decided to hide in the laundry chute. HE GOT STUCK!!! His friend's older brother had to call the paramedics to come get him out. The poor child was sweating and crying and wondering how in the world anyone could ever get him out of there. After his friends tried to pull him out, they sat with him to wait for the paramedics. The parents were at a church staff luncheon and had to leave in the middle to go help wait for the paramedics. When I talked to Joel on the phone, he assured me he was ok and immediately told me that he had NOT broken his glasses! He had taken them off to play hide and seek. He really wanted me to know that!

Christmas Eve is our family Christmas. Today was a little different from previous years because I went to work this morning. I was hoping to get back home before the kids woke up, but there was more work than I thought there would be. Jason made waffles and the the kids watched Christmas movies while they waited for me to get back. They all look so cute in their Santa hats :-)


We all opened our gifts and then the kids went to watch some new movies. Later in the evening, we went to the Christmas Eve church service. My boys look adorable in their suits :-)


Makenzie is looking so grown up now! The kids' choir performed at the beginning of the program tonight. The choir leaders asked Makenzie 1/2-hour before they were to sing if she would be able to sing a solo. She sounded GREAT -- not nervous at all! I was so proud of her!!


MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas

need a clone!

today was a very tiring day! i'm pretty sure i did a full day's work before some people even got out of bed today -- getting kids ready, many loads of laundry, meals, ironing, cleaning the bathroom, and washing the pans that had been sitting on the stovetop since i don't even know when.

Joel and Seth had an eye doctor appointment today. i really don't understand why the scheduling people make appointments the way they do. every time i go to this eye doctor, we get to see him after sitting in the waiting room for about an HOUR! a little irritating. but he's the best, so i keep going back. Seth's eyes have started crossing again, so he's getting glasses to wear mostly at school. he's doing so well with wearing his hearing aids at school, so i'm hoping that the glasses work well there, too. Joel REALLY needs glasses. the doc explained to us that Joel's headaches are probably caused by growing, not by bad eyes. but the bad eyes have probably been making the headaches worse. there's a glasses store in the same building as the eye doctor, so we went to see them as soon as we got the prescriptions. picking out glasses for the boys took about 30 seconds. there's only one choice for free glasses for Joel's age and size, and there's only one pair of free glasses that hook around the back of Seth's ears so that they don't fall off when he looks down. the lady was SO nice to us! Seth was obviously tired of being well-behaved, so the glasses lady suggested Joel take him over to the toy corner. she then got the laptop and SAT ON THE FLOOR next to the toys so that she could get all the necessary information while i made sure Seth was occupied. and she didn't do it with any huffing like "SHEESH! you're really putting me out here." she was smiling and glad to do whatever worked to keep everyone happy. it's so nice to come across people willing to be truly helpful.

almost a month!

Sometimes I'm good at keeping up on blogging and sending my mom pictures, but sometimes I really stink at it! November has been one of the "stinky" times I guess. Since the excitement I wrote about earlier this month, nothing exciting has happened. Maybe that's why I haven't taken or posted pictures all month.

Makenzie made a little bed for Seth while they were watching tv in my room. Seth LOVED it!



The kids had no school Tuesday or Wednesday because of ice, Thursday and Friday because of Thanksgiving, and of course Saturday and Sunday. That was a pretty big vacation! We got about four to six inches of snow now, though, so school should be open again on Monday.

Thanksgiving weekend is a fun time for my older three kids. Joel and Luke are at the cabin with Jason's dad and brother, and Makenzie is at the "Nutcracker" ballet with Jason's mom. She gets a new Christmas dress every year and wears it for the first time to the ballet :-)


Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it's all about being thankful and eating food :-) It's also a super busy time because of making all that food and then starting on all the Christmas hoopla. This year, I'm seeing the holiday commercialism more than ever since I'm swamped with Christmas card set-up at work. I'm thankful for the extra hours (bigger paycheck), though!

Jason found this article in a book from one of his classes and it expresses our thoughts exactly:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to Holland

Parenting a Special Needs Child

By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this:

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans: the Coliseum, Michelangelo's David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills – and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy ... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you many never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I believe that all parents are blessed, but that I'm the most blessed.

nice, easy excitement

Life has gotten pretty much "normal" again. "Normal" with four children is not the "normal" person's "normal," but it's so much better than e.r. ABnormal!!

Luke and Jason made a little racecar for the Awana Grand Prix (I think that's what it's called). Wednesday night, Luke got to race his car against 40-something other little racecars. He won two of his heats, and he was so excited!


We have enough snow now to make a cute little snowman -- which Luke did almost completely on his own since Joel quit helping because Luke wouldn't let him be the boss.


Seth is all healed up and so cute this morning that I just had to take his picture. I'm not a great photographer, so the picture doesn't really convey the level of cuteness that he had going on in his little green corduroy shirt and jeans this morning.