Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 11th Anniversary.  It fell on Saturday this year, just like the year we got married, which was fun.  Michael had to work tonight so we actually went out to dinner last night.  We left the kids with my parents and went to the 54th Street Grill which neither of us had ever been to before.  Being that it was Friday night, we did have to wait about 20 minutes for a table but it was good food and it was nice to have a meal without being interrupted by the little people who surround us 24/7!  (Don't get me wrong...we love them dearly but sometimes we like to hear each other's voices!)  Right before we left my parent's house, my mom gave me an old note I had written to Michael before we got married, sometime during our engagement year.  She had found it stuck in a Bible study book on their book shelf and thought we might want it.  We each read it during dinner and it was fun to reminisce about that time so many years ago.

Today was a pretty normal day.  Michael had an early class at church so he was gone until almost 10 am.  Then he went to bed because he worked last night from midnight-6am and he was pretty wiped out.  Alley shooed me out of the kitchen and called Mimi to walk her through the process of baking shortbread cookies all by herself.  This was a plan they had cooked up last night while we were out to dinner!  She even snuck two sticks of butter home with her!  She did a great job and I was very proud of her for doing something like that all by herself.  Later, I took three of the kids to Wal-Mart with me to get a few groceries for the weekend since we are planning on going out of town this week and didn't need alot of food.  We've been here this evening, just enjoying being together.  I was folding a few baskets of laundry earlier and I was thinking about how days like today is what we were hoping for on that day eleven years ago when we said "I do."  We were looking forward to a home with children and sharing life together.  So, even though today was a low-key, normal Saturday, it was a good reminder of what marriage is all about-making a life and a home together.

American Boy

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I have to share something Liam said today that was funny..even though he didn't realize it!

Alley has been saving up money for several months to buy a doll.  The doll she has been planning to buy is a doll similar to American Girl dolls but made by a Christian company.  Yesterday she attended a American Girl Tea Party at the library right here by our house and she dressed up and she took my American Girl doll (now 18 years old) along with her.  So, this afternoon, she was wondering if maybe she should save up some more money and buy an American Girl doll since so many of her friends have them.  We began discussing the dolls around the lunch table and Liam, like a good brother, gave his opinion based on the limited American Girl knowledge he has but then he said, "But I'm a boy, so American Girl dolls aren't my cup of tea." Spoken like a boy surrounded by many sisters and who has been invited to many "tea parties" hosted by those sisters!  (He comes, but only for the snacks!) He really is a great brother. But never fear, when he is not drinking tea (or participating in one of Alley's plays), he can usually be found pretending to be Indiana Jones or trying to talk his sisters into playing football!

Teeth

Well, today I went to the dentist for the first time in probably three years.  The kids have dental coverage but I don't, not since the Army-days.  Anyway, recently there were a few teeth that were bothering me and I finally broke down and made an appointment with a dentist who grew up in the same church as my parents but whom I had only met a time or two in my childhood.  She is a Christian and as soon as I told her who I was, she hugged me!  She looked at the pictures of my teeth and at my actual teeth and said that it looked like two of my back teeth needed build up and crowns and POSSIBLY root canals, too, which she won't know for sure about until after she looks further in my next appointment.  They gave me an estimate of cost, including the root canals, and it is not a number I can easily handle.  They did say they give discounts to people who pay without insurance and since the dentist knows my mom and dad, she said she would help all she could but this is still going to be a HUGE expense that we were not planning for.  So....if you read this blog, please pray that God will provide for this.  It would help ALOT if I don't need root canals because they are each about $900 and the crowns are expensive enough on their own so please pray that it is not to that point yet.  I am going back Monday so hopefully I will know more then.

Thank you for your prayers!

Another One Post

I know this blog is a poor excuse for a baby book but sometimes its the best I can do!

Dresden has recently been talking more and more and she has gotten in the habit of saying "one" after the adjective and before the main noun of whatever it is she is describing or talking about.  For example, she always tells people she wants them to see her "pink one room".   She will say, "I want to wear my new one shirt."   She sometimes says, "I want another one cookie."  The funniest example was a couple of weeks ago when we met one of our new neighbors.  The woman was wearing a blue jacket.  Dresden had just discovered a pink doll stroller among our stored things and wanted to show it to the neighbor.  She ran into the garage to get the stroller but by the time she came out, the woman had walked home.  She said, "I want to show my pink one stroller to the blue one lady!"  So funny!

Megan is now 7 months old and is sitting up on her own very well.  She leans forward to try to grab things beyond her reach and often falls onto her stomach in the process.  I suspect it will not be long until she is crawling and then my life will get even more crazy!

Update Post :)

I know I haven't written much lately but I do have a good excuse--it is lots of work getting settled with a baby and three other kids around all the time and still trying to keep everyone clean and fed...BUT I am making progress.  Two weeks ago, my sister, Heidi, and her family came for a visit so that motivated me to work hard at getting as much done as I could to make the house look "normal" so she could see at least a glimpse of what it is supposed to look like.  There weren't many pictures hung when she arrived and there were still a few boxes left here and there but I finally felt like it was all coming together.  I have spent the last two weeks continuing to unpack and hang things on the walls in anticipation of a weekend visit from my Uncle Ross and Aunt Jane and my cousin and her friend.  (None of these out of town visitors stayed here but they all came by to see the house.)  So, little by little, things are getting done.  We still have to organize the garage and the basement but at least the inside is more livable now.

We did end up getting a new dishwasher and I like it MUCH better.  It is a black Maytag and it works great!

The laminate floor is almost completely done...all the boards are laid and there is just a little trim work that needs to be done.  Michael has worked very hard on that and he also installed a new ceiling fan in our bedroom and has done countless other little jobs for me, all while working and doing homework for a class he is taking at church.  We also got the bathroom carpet replaced with vinyl floor (thanks to my uncle) for which we are very thankful!  (I am definitely putting that on my Thanksgiving list this year!)

Yesterday we spent some time in our yard, raking, blowing and bagging leaves.  I think the kids actually had fun!  The weather was perfect for that and since many more leaves fell overnight, I am praying for some more beautiful days!

We have had a fun weekend this weekend.  It started off Friday night with our church's Reformation Celebration at church.  We struggle alot with the proper way to celebrate that day, as we DO believe that Martin Luther and the beginning of the Reformation are definitely worth remembering but we aren't convinced that celebrating it in a way that looks very similar to the way the world celebrates Halloween (a day that glorifies death and darkness) by having a party with costumes, candy and games, is the the most pleasing to God.  In and of themselves those things aren't wrong but it feels an awful lot like we are imitating the world and not Christ when we do the same things on the same day.  I wrote in more depth about this in my post on October 31, 2006, in the archives of this blog.  We decided to go this year because they were focusing everything around the Reformation, including the costumes.  We were impressed with the games they had and with many of the costumes we saw.  The kids had a great time, and most importantly they learned more about the Reformation.  Liam dressed up as Martin Luther, Dresden as ML's wife, Katie Von Bora, and Alley went as "A Mighty Fortress is Our God", a hymn page.  At this point we aren't sure what we will do next year and in the future.  More prayer and discussion to come!

We were invited to breakfast yesterday by my Uncle Roger and Aunt Janie at a local restaurant well known for good breakfasts.  The food was yummy and we had fun doing something we don't normally do.  Last night we gathered with my parents, all my Burton uncles and aunts and one cousin (plus her friend, who Liam thinks is great!) and my grandma for sandwiches and visiting.

We have some fun things coming up this month...we are going to see a play of the Wizard of Oz on Nov 21 and we are going to Texas for Thanksgiving to see our good friend, Jon, and his fiance who were here in Kansas City for Thanksgiving last year.  We are looking forward to getting away!