Family Pictures

We picked up our family pictures that we have done at our local firehouse each year. They turned out much better than last years. I only have the group shots right now as they did something different with the packages this year (which totally pissed Andy off)...they decided to give other styles of prints besides just color, so some of the pics were in black & white and some were in sephia. They looked great that way except we didn't have all the kids pics in any one style...a couple were color, a couple more were in b&w and the rest in sephia...makes for an odd looking collection when you put them all together. So we ended up having to order the kids that weren't in color but here is our full family pic and one of all the kids together. Poor Adam looks likes he breaking his neck in the all kids one. Luckily he was asleep and really didn't care. LOL

Happy Birthday, Keari!

Today is Keari's 2nd birthday. What a big girl she is. Well, actually she's a little girl...a petite little girl which I never realized until my dad said something about how little she was last weekend. When I added her height to our growth chart today I realized she's a good 1 1/2 inches shorter than all her other siblings at this same age. My nephew had his 1 yr checkup today and he is the exact same height as Keari except he's a year ypunger. They are both 31 1/2inches.


Here's picture of her with her birthday cake. I think she's pretty excited about it.

This Day in History

Not often that you see your last name in a Day in History (from The Free Dictionary)... ;)

The Spiegel scandal of 1962 (German: Spiegel-Affäre) was one of the major political scandals in Germany in the era following World War II.

Essentially, the scandal boiled down to a conflict between Franz Josef Strauß, then Federal Minister of Defense, and Rudolf Augstein, owner and editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel magazine, Germany's leading weekly political magazine. The affair would cost Strauß his office and put the young German democracy to its first major test.

The two had clashed already a year earlier, when, in 1961, Spiegel raised accusations of bribery in favor of the FIBAG construction company, which had received a contract for building military facilities. However, a parliamentary enquiry then found no evidence against Strauß.

Der Spiegel No. 41/1962, which triggered the scandal

The quarrel then escalated when Der Spiegel, in its October 8, 1962 issue, published an article called "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("partly prepared for defense"), about a NATO manoeuver called "Fallex 62". The piece uncovered the sorry state of the Bundeswehr (Germany's army) facing the communist threat from the east. At that time, the army had been given the grade "prepared for defense to only a limited extent", the lowest possible NATO-grade.

The magazine was accused of treason. At 9 p.m. on October 26, 1962, the magazine's offices in Hamburg were seized and (together with the houses of several journalists) searched by 36 policemen, and thousands of documents were confiscated. The offices would remain shut down for weeks. Augstein and the then-editors-in-chief Claus Jacobi and Johannes Engel were arrested. The author of the article, Conrad Ahlers, who was vacationing in Spain, was seized in his hotel during the night. Augstein would be jailed for 103 days.

Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor) Konrad Adenauer was informed of Strauß's actions. However, the Minister of Justice, belonging to the smaller coalition party FDP, was deliberately left out of all decisions. The injustice of the arrest caused riots and protest throughout Germany. Strauß initially denied all involvement, even before the Bundestag: Adenauer, in another speech, famously complained about an "abyss of treason" ("Abgrund von Landesverrat").

Strauß was finally forced to admit that he had phoned the German military attaché in Madrid and urged him to arrest Ahlers. This was clearly illegal — as Minister of the Interior Hermann Höcherl famously paraphrased, "etwas außerhalb der Legalität" ("somewhat outside of legality"). Since Strauß had lied to the parliament, on November 19, the five FDP ministers of the cabinet resigned, demanding that Strauß and Volkmar Hopf be fired. This put Adenauer himself at risk. He found himself publicly accused of backing the suppression of a critical press with the resources of the state.

On November 26, the police ended its occupation of the Spiegel offices, while Augstein, Ahlers and three others remained under arrest — Augstein until February 7, 1963. In December 1962 Adenauer formed a new cabinet without Strauß.

On May 13, 1965 the Bundesgerichtshof (highest German court of appeals) refused to open trial against Augstein and Ahlers, ruling that during the affair Strauß had violated the boundaries and committed Freiheitsberaubung (deprivation of personal freedom); however, because of his belief of acting lawfully (Verbotsirrtum), he was exempt from punishment. The case also came before the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, which issued a groundbreaking ruling that laid down the basics of the freedom of the press for decades to come.

The scandal temporarily halted Strauß's political career and was remembered by many when Strauß ran for Bundeskanzler in 1980, clearly losing against his SPD opponent (and incumbent) Helmut Schmidt. However, it is mostly remembered for altering the political culture of post-war Germany and — with the first mass demonstrations and public protests — being a turning point from the old Obrigkeitsstaat (authoritarian state) to a modern democracy.

One Month

Adam is one month old today. Hard to believe that he's already been here that long. He sleeps pretty good at night although he seems to thing that when he wakes up around 4-5am that it's time to be up and play for awhile. I try to discourage him as best I can. LOL He has a serious case of baby acne...covers the top of his head, face, and top half of his chest and back. I'm hoping that most of it will be done by the 19th as that's the day he gets baptized. If not, he'll just have some blotchy pictures. LOL Anyone that's in our neighborhood that day feel free to stop by, we'd love to see you.




Here's a picture of Kenzie making Adam smile.











And one where Connor wrapped him up like a cocoon.

Nests

Two nests were found today and they weren't the kind that hold cute little baby birds. These two wasps nests were discovered in our furnace's exhaust vent while the annual maintenance on the furnace was being done. Guess it's a good thing for him that we scheduled our maintenance now and not in the middle of the summer. So the good news is that we got our vent cleaned out...the bad news is that the motor to the exhaust fan is burned out and will cost us $600+ to replace. When it rains, it pours. :(

Proud Big Sister

I think Keari loves her little brother...what do you think?

Happy Birthday, Bekah!

Today is Bekah's 4th birthday. We started out with cake and presents at home in the morning. Then we set out to go to my sister's house for my nephew's birthday party. We didn't make it very far before discovering that there was an accident on the other side of the bridge that had traffic on our side virtually at a standstill. So back home we went go to wait it out. After waiting 1 1/2hrs, we set out again with better results and we are able to make it to my sister's albiet a little late. It was a beautiful day for an outside party. There's was tons of food of which I ate way to much of.



A cute pooh bear cake for Josh...here's a pic of him enjoying his cake.






My sister made sure that Bekah wouldn't be left out on her big day by getting her a little cake all for herself. She was thrilled. Here's a picture of her enjoying her cake.






And a pic of her sporting her brand new b'day outfit that her aunt and uncle gave her...she loves it!

Afterwards, we ran by Andy's parents for a bit...did presents for Bekah and Keari (Keari's b'day is Friday) and then headed home. All in all, it was a good day.

More Eye Appts

Today it was Andy, Kenzie and Connor's turn to go for their eye appts. This visit only cost us $350+. Guess it could have been worse...we only got new lenses for Andy and Connor so that saved us the expense of new frames. And thankfully, Kenzie still doesn't need glasses...let's hope that continues for a long while. After all this, I don't think I want to make and appt to get my eyes checked...can't afford it...although I did skip last years appt. I'm not having any trouble with my current prescription so I might just put it off for awhile. I think next time we'll have to check on Kristin's Zinni's website.

Taylor and Tyler's glasses were in so they came home sporting a brand new look. Taylor has had the same oval style glasses since he started wearing them when he was 3. This time he went with rectangular glasses...gives him a different look but I like them on him. He's having a little trouble adjusting to them because they are shaped different from what he's used to. Hopefully it won't take him too long to get used to them. Tyler absolutely hate his new glasses...and it doesn't help any that his siblings keep making comments to him about them. He also got a rectangular shaped pair which look good on him although I think they are a tad wide...or maybe it's just that I'm not used to seeing him in glasses. I'll take some pictures of the new looks whenever I can catch them staying still long enough.

Happy Birthday

Happy 1st birthday to my nephew, Joshua. He's come a long way from the babe that started out in the NICU. Hope you enjoyed your big day, sweetie. Here's a picture of him enjoying his birthday cake. We'll be heading to my sisters on Sunday for his birthday party...which just happens to be Bekah's birthday. October is a busy month in this family with 6 birthdays starting with Josh's, then Bekah, my neice Lauren, Keari, my sister and last but not least mine! Whew, that's a lot of birthday cake. =)

Wicked Headache/Interim Grades

And no, my headache wasn't brought on by the grades. LOL Alex's first semester interim grades came out yesterday and so far he's doing great with 4 A's and 3 B's. Two of the are 89 & 88 so very close to being A's. He's having the hardest time in Honors Chemistry right now but I think that's mainly because he hasn't been putting the effort into studying for it. Hopefully getting two failing grades on quizzes will have opened Alex's eyes to the fact that he needs to study more and his grade will improve in that class. Luckily, his teacher decided to throw out the lowest quiz grade so that brought Alex's average from a 65 to and 80.

I think my headache was brought on by the change in weather we've been having. We had a thunderstorm come through last night. I'm guessing it wasn't too severe as none of the kids woke up. My headache is better today...I can at least move my head without it hurting...but I can still feel the ache behind my eyes. Hopefully it doesn't get any worse.

Eye Appts

Andy took Taylor and Tyler for their annual eye exams yesterday. We knew that Taylor was going to need new glasses...there's only so many times that frames can be twisted back into shape before needing to be replaced. What we didn't know was that Tyler was going to need glasses...turns out he needs them for distance. So, an hour later and $600+ poorer, Andy and the boys returned home. Andy, Kenzie and Connor have their eye exams on Friday. I hate to even think what the bill is going to be for them.

Growth Spurts

Adam seems to be right on track with his growth spurts so far. The first growth spurt is supposed to hit between 7 - 10 days and on day 10 he started eating like crazy. The second spurt hits about 3 weeks. He's 3 weeks today and yesterday all he wanted to do was eat, eat, eat...and that's saying something for a baby that already eats every 2 hours round the clock. Poor mom is definitely feeling like a cow now. LOL

I want to know how babies can sleep like this. Now matter how many times I straighten him, he always ends up back in this same position. I'm glad he likes it. Can you imagine how we'd feel when we woke up after having our necks crinked over like that? I don't even want to think about it.

Rain, rain

and more rain. What a terrible day to take a drive. The day started out with just enough rain to cancel all the sports activities for the day so we took advantage of the free day by going to have our family portrait done. We were done with that by lunchtime, so decided to head over to Andy's parents so they could see Adam. Well, if we had known it was going to be raining cats and dogs on the other side of the bridge, we would have just stayed home. And it continued to rain cats and dogs the entire way over to their house. We got soaked running from the van to their house...it was crazy. The rain was coming down so fast that it couldn't drain off the roads fast enough so there were rivers running down the streets. Ugh! No fun! But it was a nice visit and the rain finally decided to let up about the time we were leaving so at least we didn't have to face the deluge on the way home too.

Brr!

It's definitely not summer anymore. It's downright cold today...and very blustery. Makes me feel like Winnie the Pooh in the Blustery Day story. I think we've skipped driectly from summer to winter which for us is pretty typical. It's a shame though cause I love fall. Temps through the end of the weekend look like they will be in the mid 70's which is nice but they are calling for rain everyday so that's no fun. With put a crimp into the scheduled softball tournament and soccer games that were scheduled. Guess we'll just have to wait and see if it rains the way they say it's supposed to. I'm a little skeptical about weather forecasters because they are typical wrong. It's grey, dreary and rainy right now so they might actually be right this time.

Drs Appt

Adam had his 2 week checkup today and he's doing great. His weight is now 9 lbs 10 oz. The dr just laughed when he saw his weight and said whatever I'm doing is working and to keep it up. Unfortunately, I think it's really all Adam's doing and his 2 hr around the clock feeding schedule. He'd make a great alarm clock, if you were so inclined to want to get up every 2 hrs throughout the night. He's very punctual. LOL He's still slightly jaundiced but nothing to worry about and is most likely due to the combination of breastfeeding and the cephalohematoma...which has gotten a little bigger and will still takes weeks to resolve itself. Poor little guy. I'll be very glad when he no longer has a lopsided head.

Last Day of Summer

And what a beautiful day it was. Too bad I was in such a crabby mood. I think the late nights and running around has finally caught up to me. But it was nice to get out for a little while in the gorgeous weather and watch Tyler play football. I found a nice tree so Adam was in the shade and hung out with Taylor during the game. Andy and the rest of the crew came by for a little while before they had to head to Chestertown for Connor's soccer scrimmage.

Busy Day

Whew, nothing like running around all day. I know Andy is going to say that he had the roughest day because he had to be out of the house by 7am to get Kenzie to her softball tournament...she had 4 games today...but at least once he got to the field, he was there to stay for the day. I, on the other hand, spent the day running back and forth to the fields to get Taylor and Alex to their soccer games, running to the shopping plaza to meet Connor's coach so he could get a ride to his soccer game, then running the boys back and forth to church to serve tonight. Talk about totally disrupting Adam's eating/sleeping schedule, not to mention Keari's naptime. And I still need to get the girls to bed without disrupting Adam too much since Andy won't be home til late.

So far, Tay and Alex's teams lost their games today, Connor's team won and Kenzie's team tied their first game and won their next two. Haven't heard about the last one yet.

Well, they won their last game so the got their first 1st place trophy of the new season. Way to go Riviera Beach girls!

Back to School Dance

Alex attended his first after school function for the year in the form of the Back to School Dance. It's more of a get together rather than a dance as they play video games and other stuff while there but there is some dancing that goes on as well. And it's quite loud...you can hear the music as you turn off the highway to go down the road to the school. Seems like he had a good time even if he did go dateless...hung out with a few guys and a ton of girls. The girl he was seeing last year transferred to another school so they are no longer together...although I'm not quite sure either one truly understands the concept of boyfriend/girlfriend since they both seem to think they are still together yet they haven't seen each other since early summer.

Getting Alex to school functions is always a challenge since his school is so far away and there aren't many kids from our area that go there making carpooling a challenge. Andy did drop off duty last night after running by the soccer field to drop Kenzie and Connor off for their soccer practices. That left me with pick up duty. It was my first trip out of the house without Adam and he was a little angel. I was able to feed him and put him to bed before I left and he slept the entire 1 1/2hrs that I was gone. What a sweetie! But I don't want to be doing too many late night trips right now as I'm not getting much sleep yet.

Drs Appt

Adam had a drs appt today as a follow up from his hospital stay over the weekend. He is looking so much better than the orange pumpkin he looked like on Friday. His coloring is much much better...still slightly yellow around his chest area and his eyes are a little yellow but the dr says it's nothing to worry about as long as he continues to eat & poop the way he has been. He also has a nice bump on the one side of his head from where the vaccum was used on him. Every dr that's seen him...his pediatrician right after birth and the drs that examined over the weekend...have said that it's nothing to worry about and that it will eventually go away. Because its blood that's caused the swelling, that's also contributing to his jaundice as his liver is having to work harder to break down the unwanted blood cells. I'm glad that it's nothing to worry about but I'll be glad when it's gone because it constantly reminds me that I did that to him. =(

On a good note, his weight has gone from 8lbs 14oz at discharge last Wednesday to 9lbs 2oz at his weigh-in today so the little munchkin is growing. =)

Back in the Hospital

Adam had a drs appt today to check on his jaundice. Based on his coloring...a nice yellow/orange color, his pediatrician recommended that we get his bili #'s checked so off to the hospital lab we went. We were in and out pretty quickly and after a couple of hours wait at home, we get a call from the drs office saying that his numbers are pretty high (23) and that he thinks it's best that he gets admitted for treatment. So back to the hospital Adam and I go. The nurses we expecting us when we got there and ushered us right into a room. He had his vitals checked and then was put under the bili lights....which he absolutely hated! He cried and cried and cried. Poor thing. And when he would finally stop crying and fall asleep, he would have knocked his glasses off which meant that I needed to readjust them to cover his eyes, which would wake him up and the whole crying process would start again. The nurses finally got him a different set of glasses that stayed on his head a little better so he did better after that. It's funny though, cause most babies love being under the lights...it's nice and toasty under there. Here's a couple of pics of him under the lights and one on the day we left.
They tested his numbers every 6 hours and about about 12 hrs under the lights, we could start to see a drop in the numbers. They ended up keeping him til Sunday although they did take him off the lights at midnight Sunday morning and tested him at 6 am to make sure that his numbers wouldn't go back up once he was off the lights. Thankfully they didn't and we were able to come home.