Quick Update

Just thought I would give a quick update in case anyone is wondering where I've been lately. Things have been really hectic around here...work is just crazy busy...I've only been back 3 weeks and I'm already super stresed...and home is just as nuts right now with running the kids everywhere to all their different activities. Kearsyn has been sick so I haven't slept in days and prior to that it was Bekah who was sick. Ugh! So I'm around and doing okay just busy, busy, busy and very, very tired.

Happy Birthday

Today is Alex's birthday. It's hard to believe that 14 years have gone by already. It seems like just yesterday I was holding him in the rocking chair in his room looking out the window of our West Virginia home at a snow covered mountain. Now he's goes off and does his own thing. It's been so amazing to watch him grow into a young man. He's been such a blessing in our lives and he is such a big help with his siblings...the little ones love him to death. Happy Birthday sweetie!! Hope you have a wonderful day!

March For Life

I took the 3 older kids...Alex, Connor and McKenzie...to Washington, DC today for the Annual March For Life rally and walk. Wouldn't you know it that after all the nice weather we've been having that it would snow Sunday night. Have I ever said how much I hate being cold...well just in case I haven't, I hate being cold!! My feet and hands turn numb in an instant no matter how many socks or gloves I put on. That being said, it was a nice day even if it was cold and muddy on the mall. It was definitely for a good cause. We went with a school bus full of people from our church...how awesome that we were able to fill a bus when they were originally afraid they would have to cancel the bus because of not enough people. We got to the mall early so the kids got a little bored hanging around waiting for the march to start...I can't say they were too interested in the 2hrs of speakers...and Connor was freaked out by one of the abortion posters people had. It was definitely an eye opening experience for the kids. I've never been to a march before so it was a new experience for me and a little nerve wracking trying to keep track of every one with thousands of people around. Here are a couple of pics...one of some of the kids that went and the other from the top of Capital Hill looking down Constitution Avenue...there were people marching on the road as far back as the eye could see. Too bad I don't remember what street we started on...I know we got off the bus on 7th street and walked several blocks to the main part of the rally, then walked from there to Capital Hill...a pretty significant hike. Funny how it doesn't seem to be that far when you are with a group of people. I was surprised that we didn't see any counter demonstrators...I'm sure they were around but I don't remember seeing any. I find it very sad that there wasn't much about this on the news...I saw about a 5 sec clip on the news channel we were watching and my mom said she didn't see anything on the news channel she was watching.

Happy Birthday

Today is McKenzie's 9th birthday and she was quite excited about it. She even called me at work this afternoon to find out exactly what time she was born so she knew when she was officially 9. LOL I think she had a nice birthday although since it's Tuesday it was super hectic at home today between running to Secret Garden, Alex and Connor starting their composition class at the college, piano practice this afternoon. Made me glad that I was at work. ;) Kenzie seemed quite happy with her pink softball helmet, pink bat and bright yellow softballs. Combine these with her pink glove that she got at Christmas and I think she's all set for baseball. =)

And now I'm off to bed as I'm super exhausted. Work has just been crazy and that combined with Kearsyn being grumpy in the evenings hasn't left much time for blogging. Hopefully I'll be back to a normal update schedule here soon.

Unconscious Mutterings - Week 206

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Episode :: Fit
   
2. Source :: Code
   
3. Jerk :: Around
   
4. Introduce :: Meet
   
5. Ralph :: Lauren
   
6. Stare :: Look
   
7. Cast :: Iron
   
8. Scenario :: Play
   
9. Flu :: Bug
   
10. Mad :: Angry
    

Click here to join Unconscious Mutterings

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt Theme: Technology

How times have changed for the telephone. Just imagine all the technological advances that took place to get it from the first pic to the second. Amazing!


Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

Friday Feast #126 - 1/12/07

Appetizer
What comes to mind when you see the color orange?
Pumpkins

Soup
Did you ever get in trouble while you were in school? If so, what was it for?
Way back in elemtary school, I used to get detention all the time for talking too much in class. After I got into middle school and then high school, I was a good child mainly because my parents worked in the schools I attended.

Salad
Which topping(s) make up your perfect pizza?
Pepperoni and Extra cheese. Yum!

Main Course
Do you believe in UFOs/aliens/etc.? Why or why not?
No

Dessert
What color is your bedspread/comforter/quilt?
It's mauve, teal and cream.

Click here to join the Friday Feast

NFL Playoffs

My company is really getting into the playoffs by showing their support to the home team. This pic shows what drivers see as they are driving past our building at night this week. They go through each night and adjust the shades and lights so it spells out RAVENS. We've also had purple lights in our lobby all week and tomorrow is designated purple day so it will be fun to see how many people come dressed in Ravens attire tomorrow. I, of course, will be dressed in a lovely purple Ravens t-shirt that is actually Alex's birthday present from Kenzie that he doesn't know about yet. Shhh, no telling him that I'm going to borrow it for the day. LOL

Another Christmas Gift

This arrived at our doorstep yesterday. I bought it for myself using the money that my in-laws gave me for Christmas. We've had different wooden glide rockers over the years and all of them after a period of time start squeaking, rubbing or just plain don't move after a period of time. I finally got sick of them all and decided to get a really nice rocker this time. It's a Demare swivel recliner glide rocker and I love it! Now if I could just convince everyone else to not like it as much as I do and I might actually get to use it. LOL

SBQ - Owning LNS/ONS

Today's SBQ is:

Do you dream of running your own LNS/ONS? If so, tell us about your
dream. If not, tell us about your cross stitch dream… maybe you dream
of designing, dyeing your own floss or fabric, etc.

I'm not creative enough to design patterns or dye floss or fabric but I would love to own my own needlework store...how fun would that be? Way more exciting than my current number crunching job that is way too far away from where we live. It would be very cool to be able to work with all the different fibers, fabrics and charts everyday although I might have a problem making any money cause I'd want to keep it all for myself. Hence, it being an unrealistic dream for me to think about opening a shop...especially when DH wants to move to the middle of no where to own a farm. Would be hard to get people to a store that's in the middle of field that's located in the middle of nowhere. LOL

What kind of yarn are you?

I saw this on someone's blog as I was popping around today and thought I would find out what it said about me. DH would agree with the liking to be warm part. LOL


You are Merino Wool.You are very easygoing and sweet. People like to keep you close because you are so softhearted. You love to be comfortable and warm from your head to your toes.
Take this quiz!

Unconscious Mutterings - Week 205

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Incomplete :: Complete
   
2. Bobby :: Pin
   
3. Chopstick :: Chinese Food
   
4. Trauma :: Unit
   
5. Hesitate :: Delay
   
6. Leap :: Frog
   
7. Magnify :: Big
   
8. Yards :: Fabric
   
9. Alexander :: the Great
   
10. Fracture :: Break

Click here to join Unconscious Mutterings

A Day at the Park

While Andy was off with the older kids in DC touring the White House and the museums, the younger kids and I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous 70 degree day by going to the park.

We started out by walking the trail for a bit.



Then we spent some time playing at the park.






Who would believe that it's January 6th by looking at these pictures?
I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of Kearsyn. She was with us but I had her in a pouch so she was strapped to me which makes it hard for picture taking. =)

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt Theme: Memories

Whenever I see snow, it makes me think of this house and all the numerous hours that I spent looking out that far left window above the garage. That window was in my oldest sons room and we finished having this house built a couple of months before he was born. We had a rocker positioned so that you could be beside his crib and also look out the window. There were many late nights spent rocking in that rocker watching the snow fall outside that window while listening to Michael Card's Sleep Sound in Jesus cd. What wonderful memories!


Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

Too Early

I’m not sure which is worse…having Kearsyn go to bed between 12 – 2 am and still be asleep when I get up at 5am to start getting ready for work or to have her go to bed at 9:30pm and have her get up at 3:30am. That’s what time she got up this morning wanting to eat. Normally when she does this, she’ll eat and then go right back to sleep but not this morning. She was fully awake after eating. At least I got some nice baby smiles from her. =) I have a feeling it’s going to be one lonnggg day, though.

Stressed Already

I've only been back to work 3 days and I'm already feeling stressed. I came home today with the worst headache...actually still have it so why I'm trying to type right now is beyond me. I know the headache is work related. I think everyone thinks I can do everything all at the same time. I had a couple of things that I knew needed to be worked on when I went back but I've other assignments given to me that are cutting into the time I need to spend on the other items. Plus they are all due Monday or Tuesday next week. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get it all done but I can only do so much so I'm really trying not to worry about it but the headache is telling me that subconsciously I am worried.

Kearsyn has done pretty well with drinking from the bottle during the day up until today. She's even been super grumpy with me since I got home so I'm not sure what's up with her today. She didn't even really want to nurse when I got home which is so unlike her.

Kenzie had her first softball practice for this year. Trying to coordinate getting me home from work in time to get her to practice on time is a challenge. Thankfully there was no traffic today so I made it without a problem. She hasn't been complaining anymore about her ear hurting her so the medicine must be working.

I'm so incredibly tired it's not even funny. And I'm so looking forward to the weekend although that's going to be somewhat messed up cause Andy, Alex, Connor and Kenzie are going on a White House Tour Saturday morning and need to leave the house by at least 7am (edited to include the word House since hubby so nicely pointed it out to me. LOL). I had to pick Connor and Kenzie up from choir last night and was falling asleep in the car while I was waiting for them to finish up. I'm hoping Kearsyn goes to sleep early tonight...she did 10:30pm last night which was nice but was then up at 4:30am because she was hungry. After feeding her and getting her back to bed, I just stayed up as there was no sense in me going back to bed then.

My sister is still trying to get over to finish up Christmas with my parents...they went to her DH's family for Christmas and they couldn't come over last weekend because her DH had to work. I have a couple of things here for them that I completely forgot about when I gave them their other gifts. That's what sleep deprivation does to you. LOL They were going to try and come over this weekend but mom was saying something about wanting to go over to their place to check out their most recent renovations...Megan, they're currently doing bathroom renovations but they are doing them themselves. I think I'm going to just end up meeting her for lunch one day...she's works close to where I do and we try to get together for lunch every couple of weeks.

That's about it from here...same old stuff. ;)

Sleepy Head

Wow, guess there wasn't much need to worry about Kearsyn today. She slept from midnight until 10:30am. When she finally woke up she gulped down 2 oz in no time and then over the next 3 hrs, drank 5 oz more and then fell back asleep from 3 - 6pm. She got up and nursed like crazy and is now back asleep again. I'm thinking she's going through a growth spurt with all this sleeping she's doing here.

5am came really, really early today. I wasn't at all happy when my alarm went off. Thankfully I had gotten everything organized last night so I didn't have to do too much thinking when I got up this morning. I made it to work okay and everyone was very happy to see me. I even tried to do some "real" programming work today although it took me awhile to figure out where I'd left off. A coworker and I have to have a discussion about rewriting a portion of the program but I wasn't up to doing that today...luckily she wasn't either...so we'll tackle that tomorrow. Since I'm still nursing, that means I have to pump while at work. I went down to the nursing moms room this morning only to find out that it's no longer there! Ackk!! Not a good thing. They've been doing renovations throughout the buildings for the last couple of years and finally made it to where the health and safety office was. That office got relocated but they didn't put in a new nursing moms room when they did the relocation. We do have single handicapped bathrooms on each of our renovated floors now so I do have a place to go but it's a pain to have to pump in a bathroom...especially when there is no chair in there. The things we do for our children.

The next couple of days are going to be crazy because the kids go back to choir practice and Kenzie starts her softball practice again. Neither of those is normally a problem but with having to fit in two nursing sessions at work that extends my day so that will make it rough trying to get everyone to and from stuff on time. I know it will work out somehow...it always does.

We'll actually get to meet the kids new pediatrician sooner than we thought thanks to Kenzie's ear infection. She's go in for a recheck on 1/11 although I feel kind of weird taking her in when she wasn't seen there to begin with for the infection but I guess that's what happens when kids get sick over a holiday.

Ear Ache

That's how we rang in the new year last night. We went to Safe Harbor church's new year's eve party last night and were having a great time up until about 11pm when Kenzie starts clutching her ear and has tears running down her face saying that her ear hurts. How in the world a child can be happy go lucky one minute and in excruciating pain the next is beyond me. We stuck it out at the church until the new year and then we went home and got some motrin into Kenzie. Maybe this was a bad mommy moment, but I figured that even if we had left at 11 to go to the urgent care center the chances of making it before they closed at 12am were slim since we would have packed everyone up, gone home to switch vehicles then headed across the bridge to the urgent care place. And I wasn't at all looking forward to being out on the roads that late on New Year's Eve. I figured the motrin would do the trick until we were able to get in to be seen today. We got a 1:20pm appt this afternoon and sure enough she's got an ear infection. Poor thing...not the best of ways to start off the new year. Hopefully this isn't a sign of what the new year is going to be like.

Today is my last day of maternity leave and I'm in a very blah mood because of it and having to drive through the fog and rain to the urgent care center earlier hasn't helped any. :( Tomorrow I have to get up at the unspeakable hour of 5am to get ready to go to work. I'm so not looking forward to it and if there was anyway to avoid it, I sure would. Unfortunately we kind of need money in order to pay the bills although I think eating and having a place to sleep are highly overrated. LOL Andy would just say that I should talk to my boss about telecommuting but work isn't into that at this point...maybe at some point in the future they will be.

I think it's going to be an extremely long day for Andy and the kids tomorrow since Kearsyn still does not like eating from a bottle even though she's been getting one every day for over a month and a half now. Hopefully she'll catch on soon. Makes me very sad to think she's going to be so upset while I'm at work tomorrow.

Nothing exciting happening on this New Year's day...the kids are being bums, either watching cartoons or watching football games. Andy's doing some laundry. Kenzie's playing pool. Pretty boring around here. Hope things are more exciting elsewhere.

Happy New Year everyone!!

New Year