Good Stuff

Things have been crazy around here the last couple of weeks...we have had sickness, dental surgery, a homeschool conference, dental appointments, as well as some spring organizing of our home and schedule.  It seems every day has been packed full but the good news is that God has been faithful in giving me several opportunities to learn more about Him and His Word in the midst of the craziness and I have been convicted and encouraged in many ways.  I want to share more of these details and I hope to over the next week or so when I have the time to sit and blog. 

For tonight, I just want to get down some of the cute things Dresden has been saying and doing lately before I forget them (since this blog actually gets written in from time to time and it is all too easy to let the baby book sit on the shelf!)  Anyway, her vocabulary has really grown lately and she gives most words a try.  She also seems to understand pretty much everything we say to her and does her best to communicate back to us.  She has been calling Liam "mi" for the last few weeks, which I am assuming is part of Liam backwards!  She has learned to open the dvd player and place the desired dvd into the proper place for it to be the one played when the tray is closed and also how to close the tray and hand the remote to one of us.  She LOVES to be outside and usually wants to go with me when I take the dog out.  Her newest phrase is "I tired" which she says slowly and with a suprisingly strong southern accent so it sounds more like "I tard".  She has also started saying "sorry" which sounds more like "sawwy" but at least she is trying!  She recently had dental surgery and now wants to show off her new "pretty teef".  Her second birthday is one week from today...hard to believe!

Updates

Please keep praying for us...this is a weird sickness because all three kids felt fine and acted fine and then out of the blue lost their lunch again but then seemed pretty much okay after that.  We all decided to stay home from church this morning because even Michael and I weren't feeling exactly right last night.  Thankfully, the night was normal for all.  Being well is especially important because tomorrow afternoon is Dresden's dental work and she will be going under anesthesia for the procedure and she cannot be sick or it will have to be postponed again and I really don't want that.  She can eat and drink normally up until 7am and then only clear fluids until noon and then nothing until after the surgery which is scheduled for 3:15 pm. Please pray that she doesn't get too grumpy and that all goes well.

I am coming along in my curriculum choices and purchases.  I attended a used curriculum/book sale yesterday and found several good things, and even came across a couple of things that I think will sell well on ebay which will help me make back some of what I spent, which wasn't much anyway, but every dollar counts!  I am looking forward to the Homeschool Conference next weekend and the new book fair there also.  I have only a few things left on my list to purchase and if I don't find what I am looking for there, I will then be checking out my remaining options.  I am looking forward to this coming year.  I think each year gets more exciting as my kids can understand more and more and I see them learning and progressing.  It is still a huge challenge and responsibility but one I wouldn't change for anything.

In light of that, I have to share a question Alley asked me yesterday.  For a little background, Alley has been wanting to spell words spelling bee fashion lately so I found a list of second grade spelling bee words on the internet this week and we have been going through them.  Liam can actually spell several of them, too.  Anyway, on the way home from the book sale yesterday, Alley says, "Mom, I know it's Saturday but can we please do some spelling words this afternoon?"  Just what a homeschooling mom wants to hear!  :)

Even Dresden took a turn spelling...she was watching Alley and Liam getting up on their little step stool to take their turn at spelling and then she climbed up there and looked at us very confidently and said, ".......E........E.." and then clapped for herself, complete with some excited squeals!  Very cute and funny.

Sickies

We, once again, have sick people in our house.  Around 3 am on Tuesday Alley came to me and said her tummy hurt.  She didn't quite make it all the way to the bathroom before losing the contents of her stomach which left me with a mess to clean up at 3am.  She continued to be sick throughout the next several hours and Michael woke up around 7:00am  saying he felt sick.  We pretty much determined that it was likely food poisoning because Michael and Alley were the only ones who had eaten a particular kind of Easter candy the evening before and the rest of us were fine all day.  Alley slowly improved and was able to keep liquids down by the end of the day but Michael was in bed all day not feeling well at all.  We finally decided we should take him to an urgent care clinic because I was getting a little concerned about him.  We loaded up in the rain and headed over there but by the time we got to the clinic, he was feeling a marked improvement and didn't want to go in and incur a charge for no reason.  He was still weak and not completely well but his stomach was no longer hurting.  This was an answer to prayer. We went home and he went to bed.  I think the food poisoning diagnosis was not right however, because a few hours later, after going to bed, Dresden woke up sick and an hour later, Liam was sick as well.  I am fine so far, thankfully, but I had a long night running from one kid to the other and back again and getting more towels and damp rags and all of that.  I managed a few cat naps but was only half sleeping waiting for the next need.

So far today, Dresden seems completely fine.  She has kept down some fluids and is playing and happy like her usual self.  Liam is on the couch watching videos and trying to keep his mind busy and off the fact that he is not feeling well.  Alley is better but not 100% back to normal.  She has eaten a few crackers and drank a cup of Sprite.  Michael is at work but is not 100% either.  He is weak and doesn't seem completely like himself yet.  Please keep all of them in your prayers and me too, as I take care of them and do the mounds of laundry that they have created!

On another note, I recently stumbled upon a fun website for parents called www.parenthacks.com and it has all kinds of great ideas for parents and sometimes links to other cool sites.  I just saw on there today a link to another site that showed how one family took an old entertainment cabinet and with great creativity turned it into a play kitchen for their little girl.  There are pictures and it looks great and they said total cost was around $40 for the few things they had to buy.  Very creative idea.

Three egg hunts-church brunch-worship-lunch at Grandma's-fun

A few days ago, in the book Alley and I are reading together, telegrams were mentioned and the characters had only 10 words to convey several important facts to someone else far away.  In the car yesterday on the way home from my Grandma's, we came up with our own "telegram" to descibe our Easter weekend so I decided to make it the title of this blog.

On Friday, we gathered with several homeschool families and had a play time/craft time/egg hunt and they had lots of fun.  No pictures of that since I forgot my camera.  Friday night we attended a Good Friday service at our church where I was asked to read a passage of Scripture.  Don't worry--I survived!  A little over 12 hours later, we were back at church for the kids Egg Hunt.  First, all the kids decorated bags and then we did the hunt.  The toddlers got the sanctuary and the hall outside to themselves so they would not be run over by a herd of bigger kids rushing to the eggs.  By this time, Dresden had caught on to this idea of hunting eggs so she thought she had hit the jackpot when she saw eggs lining the walls in the hall and she tried to grab as many as she could!  The games came next and since it was more than a little chilly outside, we played inside and needless to say there was quite a mess to clean up!  But great fun was had by all!

We spent the rest of the day at home preparing for the next day.  On top of the usual Saturday chores of ironing clothes and supervising the kids' baths,  I boiled, peeled and pickled 2 dozen eggs, a Burton family tradition.  I made extra so that I could make one dozen of them into deviled eggs for our brunch at church on Sunday morning.  They turned out very pretty and tasted pretty good, too.  (Picture below)  Our church had a very nice brunch in place of Sunday school and the sanctuary was full during worship.  After church, we headed up to my Grandma's house for yet another egg hunt and lunch.  There were various relatives and friends there during the course of the afternoon and much good food and candy, too.  We headed home around 6:30 and tried to relax as much as possible for the remainder of the evening.  It was a nice weekend, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord together.

Enjoy the pictures!

Matching Haircuts...and Heads!

Everyone always says that Liam looks just like Michael and it's true, he does.  It is even more clear now that they have matching haircuts.  Matching haircuts was kind of an accident, however.  Liam has gotten  his hair cut mostly by his aunt Heidi over the last few years and she does a great job.  She gave me lessons last time she did it, when we were in Bristol in January but I was not feeling real confident about trying it myself, 3 months later, just days before Easter.  Yesterday we were visiting with my grandparents and my Grandpa was going to help me try to cut Liam's hair.  We were using his trimmers to trim the edges without the guard on the trimmers and somehow I cut a place much shorter than I intended (thus the reason for my lack of confidence!).  I put the correct guard on and trimmed up part of the back that just made "the spot" even more noticeable.  My grandma had a coupon for a kids haircut at Great Clips so on the way home we stopped and got it fixed!  The only way to fix it was to cut it pretty short in the back and keep the top longer and blend it in, which is basically a "high and tight" which is the way Michael gets his cut.  It came out looking fine and much better than when I got done with him!  I took this picture of him and Michael sitting together last night.