Friday, October 30, 2009

Good news

MIKE PASSED HIS PARAMEDIC EXAM!
Now he will be cleared to work anywhere in the United States!

Thank you to everyone who prayed for him this week.
God heard and answered our prayers.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Crawling to DC

Aliah is crawling to DC, to demand change: a stronger law that will help keep our families safe and healthy, thereby protecting us from toxic chemicals found in household products. Go to this link to support Aliah's crawling efforts :)




My in-laws are coming to visit for the weekend! Other than following Hannah around downtown while she is trick-or-treating, I don't have any ideas of ways to entertain them while they are here. Poor Mike has to work 4 day shifts in a row, so he won't get to spend very much time with his parents :(

Also, Mike took his national paramedic exam last night. He has to wait one week for the test results. Pray that he passed (he is afraid that he failed)!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

"Duh!" moment

First, let me apologize for being MIA and not making updates over the past two weeks. Is it excuse enough that last week we drove over 1000 miles and slept in four different places within a 6-day stretch? (I still have yet to catch up on the monster pile of laundry that is lurking at the end of the hallway.)

I might elaborate on our lovely fall road trip another time, but for now let it suffice to say that we had a great time (despite Aliah contracting her first cold): camping with our college buddies was a blast, as was hanging out with my in-laws, playing with our adorable little nephew, and crashing at my parent's house in Maryland for one day.

What I really wanted to say tonight is this:
Tonight, Aliah said "duh" for duck! She has previously repeated a word or sound when I initiated, but never spontaneously said things on her own. She had just taken a bath and I was carrying her out of the bathroom. I turned around to flick off the bathroom lights. (Our bathroom is decorated with ducks, and the switchplate has 2 yellow duckies pictured on it.) Aliah reached up, and I thought she was trying to get the lightswitch - but then I heard her saying "duh duh duh." Ok, now I know that babies liek to babble, but this was a distincting different sound from the normal "da ba ba" baby-speak - and I realized that she was trying to say DUCK! "duh... k-k-k", she tried again. I think we stood there and pointed and talked to that lightswitch for a full five minutes. Hannah was wondering if Mommy had gone crazy... but honestly, it was a cute moment. And I knew that if I didn't write it out immediately, it will never ever make it into her baby book.

So there it is, Aliah's first word (other than Mama/Dada): Duck.

She also loves dogs (sometimes she even attempts to bark like a dog, screeching "uh! uh! uh!", while nodding her head, which is so cute, and absolutely hilarious!). Fittingly, she will be a puppy for Halloween.

Here is a sneak-peak of my costumed girls...

Ok, pardon the interruption, I just realized that the last four weeks of pictures are still trapped inside my camera. That meant downloading them all onto our computer before I could attempt to share them with anyone else.

So, attaching a picture took much longer than I had anticipated. Nevertheless, here are their Halloween costumes (not a wonderful photo of either of them, but you get the idea):



Goodnight, and have a wonderful week!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Tomorrow is Pregnancy and Infant Loss awareness day.
http://www.october15th.com/

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Sleep, glorious sleep.

Guess what?
Guess how much I slept last night?





EIGHT solid hours.





Wow, I really needed that.




Guess how long Aliah slept?





C'mon, take a guess!




Did you guess yet?




She slept TEN hours! 9:30-7:30!




Dare I hope that it will happen again tonight?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Can't believe that it's October now. It's gonna take some getting used to, writing "10" on the dates for everything.

Finances are not getting any better. Mike & I had a very long discussion about money today. If you know me well, you probably know that I don't like money: don't like talking about it, handling it, planning for it, budgeting, any of that. But, it must be done. At least we have a plan, and we have goals, and we're trying to get rid of debts. By next summer we should see some dramatic improvements.

After all that talking, Mike, Hannah, Aliah and I all ended up falling asleep for an hour (not all in the same bed though)! That was a rare treat. I can't remember the last time Hannah voluntarily went to sleep in the middle of the day!

I also had a deep conversation with a friend today, about why bad things happen to good people. It can be so hard to watch someone suffer or die, or see terrible things happen for an unknown cause. I know that God is in control of all things, but every day I have to re-surrender (is that a real word?) certain parts of my life, and give them back up to Him. Sometimes I really struggle with that. Especially when it comes to my children.

What are you struggling with this week?