Note to Paul

I MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
DeeAnn

Next Stop: Houston

After the family reunion/birthday party, we went to Houston to see my friend that I haven't seen in 7 years. Paul and I were friend with Chuck and Melanie when we lived in California. We haven't seen them since we moved when Emily was 6 months old. Last year they moved to Houston. Two days just wasn't enough to catch up, but we all had a lot of fun.

On Vacation

The kids and I left last Thursday to go on vacation. Our first stop was in Mobile, AL for one night and then on to New Iberia, LA for my great-aunt's 90th birthday party. On the second day of our drive we were not in a rush, so we stopped at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi (exit 2 on I-10). It is where they test the rocket boosters and they also had a museum of astronaut stuff along with oceanic and meteorologic info. It was pretty neat and it was all free!

We had a really good time with our family that I haven't seen some of them in 15 or 20 years. My second-cousin had his kids there which are 7, 5 and 2 so my kids had plenty of fun. In the picture with us are 2 of my nanny's sisters. (For all you northerners, nanny is a southern term for grandma.) My nanny passed away when I was 5, so they kind of took over for her place in my life. Summers were great with both of them. They lived next door to each other, but a mile apart. We are having a really great time.

Our Father's Day

For Father's Day we went to a campground in White County where Paul's parents are members. They have two great pools there and we had a nice day. From Nolan's face you can see that we had ice cream after we swam. Emily took the picture of Paul and me and wanted to show it off.

We thought the other kids were stubborn

Nolan tops them all. Each kid has been more stubborn than the last. I can't imagine what numero cinco is going to do to us!

Last night we sat down to a lovely meal and Paul cut every small person's chicken up for them as I served the side dishes onto their plates. When Paul put Nolan's little plate and little fork on his high chair tray, Nolan completely lost it! Hysterically screaming as if a bee had stung him. He would not even look at his plate and every time he did look at it, he cried even harder. It got so bad that Paul took him out of his high chair and put him in his bed and shut the door. After a few minutes he calmed down and Paul brought him back to his chair. As soon as he saw his plate with little bite-size food, he lost it again. Paul was picking him up again to take him back to his room when Nolan started lunging for the table. He held him close to the table to see what he was wanting. Nolan grabbed a whole chicken breast! That's what he wanted the whole time. Just a whole big piece of chicken. He sat on Paul's lap and ate about half of the entire chicken breast. His happiness of having the giant piece was equal to how upset he was to have the tiny pieces.

Monday

Emily's mole was removed today. It was pretty painful and scary, but she did about as well as can be expected. Paul took her so I'm sure that made it a little better. Daddies have a way with girls during scary times. Of course, Lily was extremely jealous that Emily was getting alone time with Daddy. Then when they got back home, Adam went with Paul to work with him for the day. Emily had a big rest on the couch after it was all over and got to watch some tv. Channel selection is limited at our house but she seemed pretty interested in Martha Stewart making ribbon roses.

While Emily was resting, Nolan fell in the bathtub and bashed his face in the side of the tub. It happened so quickly as I was leaning away to get his towel he stood up and went face down. I think he bit his tongue pretty bad because he had plenty of blood in his mouth, but he sure wasn't going to let me go poking around in there. I did a quick check for all his teeth and decided a trip to the Library was what everybody needed to get their minds off their hurts.

Emily and Adam are going to the Georgia Aquarium tomorrow with grandma and some family that's visiting from Kansas. I'm glad that they are getting a chance to go, but I passed on the little ones and myself going this time. I would much rather go on a day during the school year when it might be less crowded. I have also been feeling a little more weak during this pregnancy and trying to not loose Nolan and Lily in a very crowded place does not sound like fun. Hopefully I'll feel better in a week or so because we have some major traveling coming up!

More Horse Camp Pictures

These are some good pictures from two weeks ago that I've been trying to get around to putting up. Nolan was having the time of his life!

Surprise!

I'm pregnant again! It's a surprise for us, too. We were not trying to get pregnant because I have had two doctors tell me not to have any more babies since I hemorrhaged so severely after giving birth to Nolan. Both doctors adamantly said it would be worse so we have been kind of scared away from getting pregnant again. We're not worried about any of that since we found out that I am pregnant. I just see it as a situation that the doctors will know what to expect and can get prepared for whatever they have to do to stop the bleeding. They will know exactly what is going on and time won't be lost in trying to locate the problem. Besides, so many people can start praying for me now and over the next 8 months so I'm completely peaceful about it.

When I was at the homeschool conference on May 5, the keynote speaker, Ken Ham, was talking about how it's great to have large families because you are filling the earth with believers and raising them in God's word and therefore more and more people will be touched by God through you and all your many children (at least that's what I heard him say). A couple of days later I prayed for God to tell me if we should have more children despite the complications or if we were supposed to adopt. The next day is when Paul told me to get the paperwork started to adopt so I thought that was the answer to my prayer. I had no idea that 6 days later I would get pregnant (at a time when getting pregnant would be least probable). I guess I got a double-answer to my question. We are so excited!

The due date (as I have calculated it) is February 10, 2008. That is 4 days after I turn 31 which is funny because our deadline for having kids was supposed to be when I turned 30. God's continuing to show me that He is in control and I'm not, which is fine with me. Adam will be almost 12, Emily will be 8 1/2, Lily will be almost 4 and Nolan will be 26 months old. That sounds good to me!

I'm a workin' girl again

I'm back to working outside the home, but it's only for 4 hours a week. I'm still doing the same work of bookkeeping that I have been doing for our cabinet business, but now I am doing it at the shop instead of at home. It's really strange because working from home didn't seem like work because it was random and sporadic and was just another thing that I "did". Now it seems so official leaving the kids with a babysitter and going to the shop to work. We have been able to look at the business burning down as an opportunity to start over with a clean slate and get more organized. Me working at the shop is part of that. Our new babysitter is so sweet that the kids asked if she could stay longer when I got home yesterday. Lily asked her "Can you stay and watch over us and my mommy?" She is a young married girl that goes to church with us. The girls love having an audience so they played dance party and had a tea party and had lots of fun. I also got finished with my work early so I went to Wal-Mart all by myself. I did some brainless wandering and stayed for an hour without talking to anyone. I love staying home with my kids and homeschooling and I wouldn't trade it for working full-time for any amount of money, but I think this 4 hours a week will be great for everybody. Especially for Paul because he doesn't like feeling like he's overwhelming me with paperwork while the kids are playing at my feet and that nothing gets my full attention. This way, I can devote my attention to everything in it's own proper time and he doesn't have to spend extra hours at the office doing the bookkeeping and the kids get to play with someone new and have fun.