Dots Boy

I am a "Dots Girl." When I write notes or signs or things like that I like to use dots on the ends of the letters to make it cute and spice it up. I've done this for a long time, it's kind of my "thing" and some claim I went to college, JUST to perfect my dots writing :)

Well when Jonah called me to come see what he had made on the white board this morning, I was tickled to say the least! He said, "Mom, I did dots on my name just like you do!"

I guess he's now a "Dots Boy!"

Prayers Please

Please pray for my friend Tina's little boy Jake, who is 3. He is at Children's Hospital, St. Paul, with influenza B, croup, and has been running a temp of 104 degrees. He is having quite difficulty breathing and they may have to intubate him. His body is fighting hard, but such a toll has already been taken on that lil guy. He is very, very sick.

He is one of Jonah's very good friends, and I take care of him one day a week. Please pray for healing for his body, please pray that there would be no long term damage. Please pray for Tina, Gary and their 3 older boys to be at peace and know that God is in control. Please pray that family and friends would rally around them to help them at this time.

Blessings... New Every Morning

This morning we got up and ready to go to open gym time at ECFE. The kids LOVE this time and so do I! I decided that I was going to stop at my favorite coffee shop (Coffee Connection) on the way and grab a small coffee. When I walked in, Carrie, the owner who is a friend of mine, said, "You have a large Chai Tea waiting for you! Bought and paid for by someone who loves you and I'm not allowed to tell you who." There was a little post-it that she grabbed and it said, "Janine Large Chai PAID" OH MY GOODNESS! What a pure piece of heaven dropped down into my Friday morning lap! WOW. WOW. WOW.

God is so good. In the little things and in the big (and this was BIG today!). I was flabbergasted at His goodness and the goodness of a friend out there who loves me. Someone who knows me well enough to know where I love to get coffee and someone who is treasured by me.

Thank you Lord and Thank you Friend.

No more nuk... no more baby?!

We decided that after she turned 2, Aphia would be weaned from her nuk. She only had it at naptime and bedtime, but she counted on having it then! When we first started prepping her, saying that she was almost done having her nuk, her big eyes would fill with tears and her little bottom lip would quiver... it was more than I could bear.

We decided to cut the tip of it off first (which didn't matter a whole lot, since she had already chewed a couple holes in them, so it didn't have the suction anymore) to which she promptly took it out, handed it back to Jeremiah saying, "Bwoken Nukie Daddy, bwoken Nukie." We eventually trimmed it down this far:

Finally, last Thursday night we took it away completely, telling her that she was a big girl and she wasn't going to have her nuk anymore. She did o.k. the first couple nights, but Jonah was the super hero those nights, talking her off the ledge!! It was very sweet and big brotherish of him- telling her, in an extremely sweet voice "Aphia you're a big girl, you don't need your nuk now. We're so proud of you for not having your nuk anymore!" She's been doing great the past couple nights, still asking to have it, but when we tell her no, she just hugs her dolly and rolls over and closes her eyes.

Does this mean she's really not a baby anymore?! Hmmmm.... what's a mom to do?

Shaving at this age?! Nope, just playing

We decided to play with shaving cream yesterday. I put a bunch on some paper plates and the kids pushed around their construction vehicles, cookie cutters, and had a blast. They weren't so sure at first... not wanting to get messy, but I assured them it was ok! And it was... until Aphia decided that it was really ok and started rubbing it all up her arms and then I decided she was done.

Aphia's Birthday!

Here are pictures from Aphia's Birthday Party (along with Grandpa Jeff's too!) last Friday.

She absolutely loved wearing her jewelry from Uncle Michael and Auntie Susie, and actually kept it on most of the night! She received lots of fun gifts and we had a great time celebrating the big 2!!

Not Me! Monday

It's that time of the week again folks! Time to NOT fess up with those awful things that I did NOT do this week, tending to my family! If you want to check out many more, hilarious, Not Me! Monday stories check out MckMama's blog- http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ and see what her and hundreds of others have NOT been up to this week!

This week, I did NOT let Aphia play with a big box of tampons while I was making dinner for the family. She was not completely entertained while I made dinner in peace without her little hands continually yanking on my legs!

Jonah did NOT get his finger stuck in the clip of some lanyard thing that Jeremiah brought home from work (we, of course would never let our children play with dangerous things like that) and it did not rip his skin, making him not bleed. I did NOT allow him to put a bandaid on and then continue to give him new bandaids (for many days) when it should have been airing out to heal.

Since I did NOT take a perfectly timed nap on Sunday and did NOT feel completely refreshed, I did NOT decide (at 10:00 p.m.) to start sanding/priming/painting the trim in my entryway on Sunday night.

Because I do NOT have a very sick love for Dove Extra Dark Chocolates, I would NEVER have eaten a whole lil ol' box of them, that Stephanie gave me at MOPS, in two days. I did NOT share a few with Jonah though- who also does NOT have a love for them.

I am always the most organized, planned out person you'll meet. And so I did NOT just wing it with timing things out at our last MOPS meeting. I would never have just written down the stuff we needed to do, with no extreme structure and plan, timed out to the minute, nope, NOT ME! So of course, when people asked me "What time are we doing ____?" I could tell them exactly the moment we'd be doing said activity, NOT leaving people laughing and shaking their heads at me.

On Friday night my parents and siblings came over for a combo Grandpa Jeff/Aphia birthday party. I did NOT let the kids nap until 5:00 that day because I knew they would NOT be up super late. My family does NOT have a history of being night owls and they did NOT leave just prior to midnight. My kids most certainly did NOT stay up until after 11:00 that night!!

Probably the 2nd most NOT gross thing this week that I did NOT do, was leaving an extremely gross, dinner-caked on pan on my stove top for several, several days because I just didn't to do it until I actually needed to use it again.

And finally, the MOST, NOT gross thing this week, is not even clean enough to talk about on this blog. Let's just say, Aphia deals with constipation- in a bad way- and it was just NOT gross, the things I did NOT do, to try to get her to (FLIPPING!!) poop. I was NOT extremely frustrated with her and did NOT take it out on Jeremiah when my keys were not hanging in their usual spot when I needed to go to the grocery store for more fiber!