De-Christmasing

Well, Christmas is over. Don't you hate the post-Christmas let down? Chrismtas Eve and Christmas Day are so fun turning on the radio and listening to all the Christmas music playing all day and cooking yummy food and spending loads of time with family and friends. This Christmas is a little wierd for us--most years there is some kind of spin on a "normal" Christmas for us. Todd worked on Christmas Day, so the three of us (four, if you count baby girl, but I don't really count her yet), will be celebrating our own Christmas on Saturday. So, although we went to the Counts for Christmas Eve and spent all day playing, eating, cooking, eating, going to service, eating, drinking and having a wonderful time, we will do Christmas Eve again this Friday and be Santa, filling JG's stocking and waking up to open presents on Saturday. So, the let down hasn't quite hit me yet. Thankfully. I like to drag Christmas celebrations out as long as possible anyway! Our tree is still showing some green leaves through the brown, but it will be fun to drag it out of the house to burn on Sunday. And then put away all the ornaments and decorations for another year. I just love the holidays and am looking forward to next Christmas already!

Todd told me a funny story that he heard the other day and it made me laugh to think of JG doing this to us one day. There is a Fire Chief in Phoenix whose son is also a fire chief now, but when his sons were younger, their Dad went to work one day in March (yes, MARCH) and instructed his boys to make sure the tree was taken down by the time he got home. The boys proceeded that day to take the tree down obediently. Then they shoved the whole thing into the chimney (this took a couple hours), and set it on fire! The radiant heat from the fire made them have to leave the house. When they stepped outside and looked up at the chimney, they saw flames shooting into the air from the top of the chimney --like a blow torch! So, for anyone reading this, take down your tree before March, please, and if you delegate this to children, give very specific instructions. Happy De-Christmasing, everyone!

Sweater Vests and Happy

So big and still so my baby. Here is JG in his lovely Christmas sweater vest (thanks, Mimi) with the ever popular "Happy the Hippo" in tow. This kid's poor thumb is so chapped. I'll try to get a picture of it, but what can you do when you live in Colorado and it is cold and dry and he sucks his thumb like it is a pro sport? I just love him.

I ironed the napkins!

Here are a couple pictures from the party we had over here on Saturday night. I even ironed the napkins! (for those of you who know me, you realize what a huge step this is for me. ) The napkin rings look pink, but are actually red. I still have a long way to go before I'm Karen O'Neil or Jo Wymark, but this is a start. I think I'm turning over a new. . . ironed napkin. And really, it's not the ironed napkins that make the party, but these wonderful friends who graced our home to celebrate the Christmas season with us!

My friend, SG

We were both feeling girly on this day and decided to wear pink. SG had this beautiful pink dress on for school. And yes, these are really old pictures. . . from September, I think.

Here is some news. . .

my longest post yet

I know we all feel this way: I have a million things I should be doing right now other than blogging. For instance: moving the sprinkler, making returns, paying bills (yuk), filing paperwork (more yuk), sorting todays junk mail into shred it/trash it piles, caulking my bathroom to prep for painting. shower (only two days since I've washed my hair, not too bad really). Write notes to people. That list just gets depressing, so instead, I'm taking a few minutes to write down what I'm enjoying and learning today.

I had a moment of peace and comfort today as I put my son down for his nap. He fell asleep in my arms drinking his bottle. And frankly, i didn't really care that it is a big "nono" in my babywise world. His eyes calmy shut, snuggled in the crook of my arm, his swollen lips barely parted. (they are swollen because of a major fall yesterday where his teeth busted his lip open) And his calm, rhythmic breathing lulled me to an intoxicated state, reflecting on God's good gifts. I honestly had my heart tugged at. I've had a hard week with JG. Maybe it is because T has worked 84 hrs this week and last week, maybe it is because JG has been consisitenly waking up crying at night, sometimes several times a night, maybe it is because God is teaching me how uncaring and selfish my heart is. I think I'm beginning to break. After so many months praying for patience and love, maybe these quiet moments of feeling my heart tugged on need to be paid attention to. Maybe it is okay to just be 'girly' and cry when I'm touched by the happy and sad moments in my life, to enjoy fully every gift that God gives and turn every sorrow and trial in life over to Him.

On a sadder note, I was walking by my neighbor's house and noticed that his garden gate was left open. Since his truck was gone, I thought I should close it for him so no one wanders into his back yard. It was the first time I'd been to his house since his wife and my friend Jo died 5 weeks ago. We've talked, I've seen him at work, we're in touch, but I have to tell you. The glimpse into his back yard made me cry. That gate pushed open a lot of sadness I think I've been holding back or not sure how to cope with. Jo has been so influential in my life. Her ability to make others always welcome in her home, to make wonderful food and atmosphere and beauty around her are qualities I try to emulate (usually failing miserably). I can't drink a cup of tea in the afternoons without thinking about Jo's little yellow tea pot. My own yard is a work in progress, and I'd love for it someday to be something-anything like Jo's garden. That garden glimpse today made memories rise up like a tidal wave. She was too young to die at 40. She had so much more to offer. I want my neighbor and friend back; and I want her whole, not in her cancer-riddled body.

T and I always say with great joy comes the potential for great sorrow. Thank God for marriage and companionship, friendship and children. . . but I long for that sorrow potential and fear of loss to be gone from my heart forever.

Lil' Ms. C.A.C.

I'm trying to get caught up on photos. Here is a shot of my little niece taken about 5-6 weeks ago.

just so you know...

Don't mean to leave you all hanging on photos from our recent trip, but I haven't been able to upload photos to blogger for two days now. Yeah, annoying. Anyway, I put photos on my Facebook account until I get a chance to post them here. Cllick on the title of this post to get to the link.

Fresh back from South Cackalacky

Here's a look at what a DAY at the lake looks like with 11 adults and 7 babies under four: (written from the perspective of the mothers)

1. 35 diapers changed
2. 20 hours of combined nursing between the three nursing babies
3. 2 loaves of bread consumed
4. 1 can of mandarin oranges disappears in just under 30 seconds
5. 6 hours (at least) spent in the kitchen
6. 18-30 eggs
7. Noise non stop from 5 am to 1 pm (short break during naps for the toddlers) and 3 pm to 11 pm.
8. Pictures, pictures, pictures (post to follow)
9. Lake, what lake?

The Baker Laker of 2007 is over. The theme for the week was: A Serene Sanctuary (That's where we all tried to escape in our minds.) Some pictures are already posted at the Baker Crowdwebsite.

ScupperNong

Our llittle "scuppernong" is due to make an appearance in early April, 2008!

I've got no strings. . .

To hold my hair down!! And I have two new teeth up top!

JG's NURSERY!!

So, after months and months (okay, so maybe it has been a year), we have acquired furniture and hung pictures in JG's nursery. Unlike the pictures, it actually looks quite nice. I surprised myself. We did a race car theme. So, we utilized our old art deco Monaco racing poster and I bought four old pictures from ebay of old race cars in action. Still to come are a couple shelves on the wall with chrome spedometers and other race car memorabilia. One of JG's favorite noises is making motor sounds with his mouth while playing with anything with wheels!

Battle at Kruger

This is about 8 minutes long, but well worth watching.

Eating Rainbow. . .

(sung in the 'reading rainbow' tune from the pbs show). JG had a rainbow dinner and I had to make a comment because I know my mom would be so proud. he had red, orange, yellow, green, purple, black and white foods all at dinner. In order of color (not appearance): beets, carrots, egg yolk, green beans, grapes, black beans, banana.

G-money and the stroller gang

This picture is months old now, but I'm just getting around to putting it up.

Spencer

D-struction

Porch Swing Time

First Camping Trip. . . sort of

Last night at one in the morning, I climbed the stairs carrying one tent plus tent fly, two tent poles, one blanket, two stuffed animals, one baby monitor and a baby monitor cord that had come detached from the monitor, one Jack and one sippy cup. Let me just tell you that is a lot of stuff to carry. But, let me back track and give you the whole story. Just after I finished my last post (see below), I heard JG screaming upstairs. Not crying, SCREAMING. I immediately knew he was either hurt or something was wrong. I ran through the house and up the 17 stairs so fast, my heart racing as I anticipated what could have possibly harmed him in his safe bed. I walked into his room and was overwhelmed by the smell of vomit. My sweet boy had puked all over himself, happy the hippo, his blanket, sheet, mattress, etc, and had also proceeded to smear it all over his face and hair and in one of his eyes. So, we cleaned up the packnplay and slept (some) in the tent set up in my room last night.

But, I am so thankful. Really, God was gracious last night to remind me of how much I have to be thankful for in the midst of the crazy. So many little things that ultimately don't matter in the big picture of God's creation and redemptive plan, but somehow they matter to me and He loves me. And God knows me. He knows I'm a wimp when it comes to hardship. JG has not vomitted again, but we are both pretty tired today.

Freaky Will

So, I know that EH will tell me I went WAY overboard, but I had to play around with some of the tips she gave me for using photoshop. I've got a lot to learn, but I think this will encourage a whole new side of photography for me. The first picture is obviously what the picture looked like straight from the camera and the second is...well, a modified version. :) (or a massacred version, depending on your taste!) Oh, but this is SO much fun!

Elephant, elephant, what do you hear?

Yesterday my friend Emily told me that there was going to be a live elephant in a park about a mile from our house. Well, I collected elephants growing up (my 'assigned' animal-my mom picked out our favorites for us), so I've always been a little partial to them. They are such beautiful animals. Well, I had to go. So, I loaded JG in the stroller and we trekked down there. I got to feed the elephant a carrot. I tried to keep my excitement under wraps while I was there, because I didn't want to seem so strange, but I have to admit, I got a little rush getting to be up that close to this big guy! By the way, JG wasn't really all that interested. I think at this age everything is new to them and they just process everything like it must be a part of normal. So I imagine him thinking, we saw a live elephant in the park, must be what we normally do. Pictures are at this link: elephant park

because i could

Size matters?

So, JG went to the doctor on Friday for a nine month check up. He weighs 18 pounds, 14 ounces, is 28 inches long--this makes him in the 20th% for weight and 60th% for height. This is really not that important information...more important is the fact that he is a happy and healthy baby. Praise God! But I had to record his information because I just have to laugh at his 'smallness' compared to his giant cousins out here. Garrison weighed over 20 pounds at three months old, and Caroline, the newest addition is already OVER half JG's weight at only 6 weeks. And Caroline and JG were both sub-7 pound babies at birth! We joke that Aunt Booner must feed her babies heavy cream while I provide skim milk.

Oh, and did I mention I found five dollars?

Whistle while you work..

JG wearing one of TR's old outfits again on a visit to the fire house. Todd left this morning to work 72 hours straight. I'm really praying he will get a chance to sleep at night. I'm a little nervous about being alone with JG for that long because he's been fussy lately. So, we are planning on spending the night with his Counts cousins tomorrow night. He was a super happy baby today, though and I'm SO grateful for that!
We had a great 4th of July: we had bbq with friends and then went down to Cheyenne mountain country club to watch fireworks. JG came with us and seemed to enjoy the show. He wasn't scared or anything, he just kept trying to grab the fireworks out of the sky!

We're Home! Again!

Just got back last night from a wonderful week spent in Virginia with my dear friend Susanne and her daughter Annie. Our visit coincided with her husband's visit to Colorado to go fishing! I also got to see Shelby and her son Jackson while there. We spent some time at Susanne's beautiful home in Suffolk (garden and horse pictures) and then we also went to Jamestowne and Williamsburg and Virginia Beach! Whew! I took loads of pictures, but here are a few favorites. There are more photos on my facebook account. If you are interested, you may check them out at this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6780&l=b7ac1&id=660001609 (or just click on the title of this post to be linked. I don't know how to put a link in the text of my blog...any advice welcome)

35 years (almost)!

Aren't they cute?! Here are my folks at the church where they got married almost 35 years ago (it will be celebrated in September). I got to see this church in May when I was in Essex, Ontario, Canada with them. I'm so proud of them for sticking it out through thick and thin and for being more in love now than when they started. Love you two "old farts"!

Dinner with the Cochrans

We LOVE the Cochrans. (Even if they are at the beach this week.) We had our customary (wonderful) meal and hang out time with the Cochrans when we were home. No trip home is complete without time with our "adopted" family. Todd lived with them some in college and John and Jason Cochran have always been dear friends.

Four Generation Photo

When I was in Canada, we were able to get a picture of the four generations represented: Oma Schepers (my grandmother), Mom, Me and Jack Greer.

Caroline's baby shower

Shower was on May 26th, 2007 at our house. Caroline was born on May 31st.

Family lunch in G-vegas

I'm still trying to catch up with my photos from my trip back home. For those of you on Facebook, you probably saw these already. And for those of you not on Facebook, give it a try! My brother and sister told me how out of touch I was, but when my Aunt Nancy (my mom's age) told me I was out of it as just a 'blogger', I really decided to check in to it. It turns out it is not just for high school and college students. It's pretty cool. If you join, I'll be your friend (probably).

So, these are just a few of my favorites from the big Sunday lunch we had when we were home. The weather was perfect. Except nobody was going to sit outside until Todd and I insisted. Turns out people who LIVE in South Carolina dislike the humidity more than those who don't live there! We love and miss all of you East-coasters!

Caroline Ashleigh Counts

I'm sitting here this morning at the computer again. I have tears in my eyes and an ache in my heart. I miss my own baby boy so much after only one night apart (two more nights to go) and I'm rejoicing over the birth of my new neice, Caroline. I sit here and look at the pictures of my dear sister, Erika and Caroline her first born girl. I am overwhelmed by God's goodness to our family. We are all believers and trust so much in God's provision and He lavishes us everyday with joys new every morning. There really is nothing like a new baby to make you realize your own helplessness and the great love that our Father has for us. Praise be to God! For all the great things He has done.

So, let me tell you about a crazy month....

I'm still in the midst of the whirlwind. Maybe I'm crazy for doing all of this. We've had a pretty busy month of May. It actually all started on April 30th when me, hubby and JG boarded a plane to go back to SC for a much needed Carolina visit. We got to have some great quality time with family and friends. Todd came back to Colorado on May 11 and I stayed in Greenville until the 16th. At 9:00 PM on the 16th, mom, dad, thomas, me and jg loaded into a van and drove to Canada. JG slept almost the entire way there! And he really didn't make much of a peep for the entire 14 hours in the car. To all of you who specifically prayed for that, thank you. God did answer your prayers. We spent a long weekend in Windsor, Ontario and got to go to my cousin's wedding and see a lot of relatives that I hardly ever get to spend time with. JG and I flew back to Colorado on the 21st of May, arriving home around midnight after traveling for 9 hours. JG was such a trooper through all the travel, but it seemed to take him a week to recover! When Todd brought me home that night, we drove up and there was a HUGE surprise in front of my house! Todd had spent every spare minute of his time re-landscaping the front yard. That involved sod-cutting out the entire existing patch of weeds and putting edging around sidewalks and new flower beds (not easy when you have roots like we do), rolling out sod, keeping the sod alive in Colorado and generally improving the curb appeal of our home by leaps and bounds. We still have a lot of details to finish up out there, but I was so pleasantly surprised and proud (as always) of my wonderful husband. Some day I'm hoping to post a bunch of before and after pictures of all the work we've done to our little 1906 bungalow. I say "we", but really I mean Todd. I didn't really do much other than supervise!

We had such a fun Memorial Day weekend, including a birthday party (the 11th anniversary of her 29th birthday!) on Sunday night and then we had about 15 people over to our house on Memorial Day...kind of a last minute arrangement, but lots of fun! I also got to spend most of Memorial Day at the Garden store and in the dirt of my backyard which was so fun. I got my tomatoes in the ground finally and am looking forward to a very GREEN and productive summer of gardening. Especially after the long, COLD winter we had to endure this year.

Back to the travel schedule. Todd and JG are back in G'ville right now celebrating my father-in-law's retirement from Fluor Daniel and then I leave tomorrow (hopefully) for Chicago on a brief business trip. Todd returns Saturday and I'm supposed to return Sunday. I say possibly because I found out some surprising news at work today. I've had a bit of a cough this week and turns out one of my coworkers had kids test positive for pertussis. (whooping cough). So, I got tested today and should get the results back tomorrow. I'm on prophylactic antibiotics right now, but if my test comes back positive, I have to be isolated until Tuesday. (Pertussis is extremely contagious) So, going to a conference with a lot of doctors is out of the question! The other big bummer is that my big sis had her baby girl TODAY!! And I can't go to the hospital to see her because I don't want to expose anyone else to this. For now I'll have to take her word about how adorable little Caroline Ashleigh (http://erikacounts.blogspot.com) is and wait to smell her sweet newborn head until tomorrow....or Tuesday.

Once this drama has passed, JG and I board a plane again on June 11 for Suffolk, VA to visit a dear friend. So, that's the craziness in our lives right now! I'll be posting more pictures soon!

hangin' at evelyn and floyd's house

Not sure where the floating head came from. . .


Just hanging out with the floyd and evelyn of g-ville.