Catching up

Is it possible to actually catch up? (That is supposed to be a rhetorical question, so if you think the answer is "yes," I do not want to know about it!)

I think we're finally over our second round of the flu - not the stomach flu this time, thank God! Unfortunately we've all (except Levi) got a nasty upper-respiratory thing going on. Still. But, at least we're now functioning at about 90%, and for me, that means I get to try to catch up on housework and thank-you notes and Christmas tear-down and et cetera...that could have been done in smaller, more manageable chunks at an earlier date if I hadn't been achy and sleeping for much of the past week or so.

However, since it's nearing the end of the day, I wanted to get one more post in before 2009 is upon us!

So here are a few photos from the past week or so...

Okay, so this picture was actually taken in August, by my sister when she and her husband were visiting. However...it was in my hometown newspaper on Christmas Eve as their Reader's Scrapbook photo of the day! And I quote: "Brothers Drake (last name), 6, and Levi (last name), 1, peer out the window of their (our town), Fla., home on a rainy day. Aunt Crystal (last name) of (hometown) snapped the photo while she and her husband, Jeff (last name), were visiting the family in August. Drake and Levi's parents are Adam and Melonie (last name), formerly of (hometown)." (Whew. That was a lot of editing.) So anyway, my kids are totally famous now. Only problem - for their fame anyway - as my husband's grandpa pointed out: "it looks like they put the wrong end in the paper." Well. At least they have cute backsides.

Super job, Aunt Crystal!

Our family before the Christmas Eve Glowstick Service at church. (Yes, that's Glowstick, not Candlelight!) The kids all sang at the beginning of the service, and it was so cute, and actually very uncharacteristic of our church to do something so, well, traditional. I was about to post a picture, but realized that would include posting scads of little kids' faces on the internet without their parents permission - not cool - so I'm refraining. Although I really wish you could see how cute they all looked!

Some gift-opening action! We do presents on Christmas Eve, stockings on Christmas morning...just in case anyone wonders about the date on the photo. It was a lot of fun! Particularly entertaining for all of us to watch Levi. At first he wasn't too interested in ripping paper off of stuff until he realized that every time paper was ripped, a new toy appeared! Wow! He got down to business after that.


After Levi went to bed, Adam and Drake played with Drake's new K'nex! Drake was very excited to have received them, and even more excited to have Mom and Dad play, too.

We were all feeling pretty well on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (and then got sick again on the 26th), but the guys just got too tired from all that building, I guess! I was on the phone with my mom and dad, and noticed the two of them conked out like this. Very sweet! They were both escorted to bed soon after...


Hey look! Socks in our stockings! Seriously cool stocking stuffers from Grandpa and Grandma S. They are so creative. The boys are both stoked about their new socks - they each got 3 new pairs (the others are very similar)!

Adam's turn for paybacks! Drake and I both had fever and chills, and spent the evening lying like this on the living room floor. Levi never wants to be left out of anything, nor does Heidi!

Drake and I were still sick a couple of days later, but slowly starting to feel a bit better. Here's Drake, catchin' some Zs on the couch, and Levi (of course) trying to do exactly the same thing his brother is doing. Heidi (of course) wants in on the action!

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So I think that's it - a week of exhaustion and illness and fun, all rolled into one. Oh yes, add in a visit to the emergency room and the loss, and recovery, of the diamond out of my wedding ring!! Yeah, can you say amazing? Adam found it, but God totally gets the credit for that one. I was taught by Adam's Grandma Jane many years ago to stop and pray whenever I lose something. (It was lost train tickets at the time. And they were found quickly.) You'd be amazed how often my lost items are found! So anyway...

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There. Now at least my blog is caught up! Can't exactly say the same for my life...

Some little boy "cuteness"

While the "photo shoot" I had today went a little less than smoothly, I have to say I can't get enough of these guys! What a pair they are...and what boys they are!

Big Bro, handsome and charming as always...

...and Little Bro, who would only smile when he was saying his new favorite word - mine!

Getting them both to look at me at the same time was, well, nearly impossible.

Oh, there's one!

And another good one! I'm so thankful to be doing this in the age of digital cameras, or I would have given up long before I ever got two smiles at the same time.

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We've had a fun past week or so, and I have every intention of posting pictures of at least some of our activities...decorating the tree, neighborhood parade, school concert, living nativity, and Christmas lights, to name a few. We will see. Our focus is narrowing a bit in these last couple of days before Christmas to focus primarily on the birth of Jesus. May these precious boys grow up loving and serving Him with all their hearts!

"Mine!"

What is my world coming to? My sweet baby has learned the most cherished word of toddlers everywhere: the infamous "mine." He just learned it this morning, and has been using it liberally. No matter that it sounds like "my" coming out of his mouth...we all know exactly what he means. This selfish mine concept, above all others, exemplifies to me the human sinful nature in small children. (As if I had any doubt about this one!)

Precious little one, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Adventures in Geocaching!

I've mentioned geocaching a few times on here, so I thought I'd give you all a peek into this fun family activity! Geocaching is sort of like a world-wide treasure hunt in which you use a GPS (Global Positioning System) to hunt for coordinates where someone has hidden a "cache" or container. Anyone with a GPS can participate, both hiding and finding caches. You must first log in to the geocaching website and register - it's free! Then you can do a search for caches in your area and load the coordinates into your GPS for the ones you want to look for. After that, you're ready to go geocaching! (You would be amazed how many caches are hidden all over your city or town and the surrounding areas!)

When you find a cache, you sign your name and date on the log (paper or booklet) inside, and if there are items inside, you can trade for them. We often find things like toys, small games, coins (foreign or specialty), carabiners, magnets, and other knick-knacky stuff. We recently traded for a dollar bill folded origami-style to look like an elephant! Creative stuff. Some items are "trackable" online - they're called "travel bugs" (or "geo-coins" if they're coins) - which means they have a special number issued and attached to them, and each time a person finds and re-hides the item, its progress is tracked online. It's fun to find items that originated on another continent, and it's fun, also, to place trackable items in faraway places. Adam has placed trackable items from here into caches in both Washington state and Washington D.C.!

Some caches are larger, like ammo boxes or large glass mayonnaise jars. These larger caches are called "traditional" caches. Some are smaller, like film container-sized and even smaller. These are called "micro" caches. There's a picture at the bottom of this post of a cache so tiny it's called a "nano" - all that fits inside is a tiny roll of paper. There are also other types of caches, but they're more rare. One is called a "multi" cache, because the coordinates lead to the first in a series of caches that can only be discovered by finding them in order. We also did one recently that required solving a mathematical puzzle to figure out the coordinates to the cache!

(For a more extensive explanation of geocaching from Wikipedia, see here.)

Anyway, once you have a GPS, geocaching is totally free, other than the gas you use driving to your locations. So it's super inexpensive, and so much fun! The benefits are many. We like the thrill of the hunt - working together as a family (or often, a daddy and son) to be sneaky and track down a hidden object! And it's good excercise when you're out walking or hiking around. We also like the fact that we find new parks and cool places that we didn't even know were there before! Finding out where in the country or the world trackable items have come from is another fun aspect! And once in awhile, we've bumped into other geocachers and made some "friends" in the geocaching world.

Here are some pictures of recent geocaching adventures:

Adam and the boys did a lot of caches on Nov. 28th. (It was the day after Thanksgiving, and I decided to venture out on Black Friday. Whew. That was an experience. Don't know if I'll try that again anytime soon. Not being much of a shopper or a "crowds" person, it's not exactly up my alley...the only alluring factor is the good deals! But anyway, I digress.) Here is one they found at the beach!

One in the woods/brush...

...and one in some rocks!

Here are some of the treasures they found and traded for! (It's always a good idea to keep a little bag of "junk" in the vehicle when you're going out geocaching - trading fodder is quite useful sometimes!)

Drake and Adam went out again a few days later. They're holding a couple of trackable geo-coins they found. The object on the floor in the center is an empty turtle shell they found while hiking around that day! Pretty cool! None of us had ever seen one before.

Here are the boys and I after finding a tricky and creative cache on a short geocaching expedition after church. The name of the cache was simply "89" - it turned out to be a large, flat magnet on the side of an electrical box with alpha-numeric stickers reading "AT9". (They totally had us for a long time because the "fake" stickers on the cache magnet looked a lot like the real stickers used by the power company to mark the boxes, and you couldn't even tell the magnet was there!) So this cache consisted of only a magnet, with a paper "log" on the back to sign.

Here's Adam displaying the nano-cache he finally found (on the screen of the GPS)! He and friend Dave had been looking for this particular nano, off and on, for over a year and a half! Very tricky. It's magnetic and completely blends in with its surroundings!

Here's a close-up view. Wow! Now that's tiny. (Adam calls this one his "nano nemesis"!) This was his second nano find. The little white roll on the side is the tiny paper log that fits inside...and it was really a tight fit!

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So that's a quick glimpse into the world of geocaching! I encourage anyone with a GPS to give it a try - it's lots of fun!

Thank you, Jesus!

And thanks to all of you for your prayers, also. Everyone is on the mend, here. Adam is probably the nearest to still being sick, but he was only on quarters for one day (less than a full day, actually), meaning if he wanted to stay home today, even for just the morning, he'd have to go back into work, make another appointment, and go to the appointment...totally not worth it to him. Besides, he always feels the need to take care of things that need to be done at work. So, I'm praying he doesn't try to do too much today and relapse.

I'm keeping Drake home from school for an extra day, just to make sure he's completely well. He had a fever last night, so it's really not time to send him back just yet, anyway. (Besides, I happen to know they're having a substitute teacher today, because his teacher will be out of town for her son's college graduation. So that's all the more reason to keep him home an extra day.)

I haven't caught their flu yet, and with each hour that passes, I think it's less and less likely that I will. So that has been a major blessing! Well, I have a million things to try and catch up on today, so I'll update again later.

Illness

My babies are sick today! Drake came down with a stomach flu yesterday evening, Levi sometime in the middle of the night, and Adam is now at the base clinic with the same. In the military, you can't just "call in sick." You actually have to go in to work anyway, make an appointment at the clinic, and physically see a doctor, who puts you on "quarters," or rest at home, for as long as he/she deems necessary. So it's not enough that Adam got sick early this morning at home, and multiple times at work this morning. Nope, he can't come home and rest until he gets the okay from a doctor. Go figure! I guess we can all be sure our troops aren't playing hooky - there's no sick leave abuse in the military!

We had a busy weekend getting out the Christmas decorations and setting up the Christmas tree...and finishing shopping...and wrapping...and packing to mail...and going to a birthday party! So it was a busy weekend, for sure! I'm hoping to post pictures soon, but I'm not sure exactly when that will happen with our current circumstances. Right now, Drake is on the couch watching Madagascar, Levi is sleeping on my shoulder, and hopefully Adam will be home soon so he can rest peacefully in bed. My plans for running errands (like the Post Office!) today are temporarily on hold. Maybe tomorrow.

I just wanted to update you all. We could use your prayers for healing around here! God is good. I'm so thankful that I'm not sick (yet anyway) so I can take care of everyone else more effectively, and super-thankful that Adam was able to help me with the boys last night...it was a rough night. Thanks for your prayers! Hope you are having a good week and that none of you get this nasty flu bug that's going around our neck of the woods!

Cars and "camping"

Here is Levi's new absolute favorite thing in the whole world - cars! He gets so excited about them! Today, he wanted me to get down the box of cars for him in the playroom, and then he proceeded to carry most of them out to the living room, three or four at a time, until he had a huge pile of them. Just thinking about cars makes him happy! If he is upset and I mention cars, he gets a huge smile on his face and says, "Cah?!" (And anything with wheels is a "cah", by the way, including trucks, tractors, and heavy equipment...everything, that is, except buses. Buses - or "Buh?!" - are distinguishable and are another favorite!)

So here's my littlest man, playing with cars early this morning (this was before dragging the entire stash onto the couch)...

(He really enjoys lining them up.)

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Then, this evening after supper, Adam and the boys set up our tent in the backyard! Adam and Drake are "camping out" tonight as I type this, but earlier in the evening, we all sat out there and drank hot cocoa together!

What a yummy treat!

Daddy and the boys started wrestling (of course)!

Here's my baby; he's looking so grown-up to me lately. What do you think? Could be the new (shorter) haircut...

...and here's my big boy! I love this kid, and I hope he has a blast camping out with Daddy tonight!

Homemaking sentiments and cute portraits!

Okay, so I have allotted myself only 15 minutes to blog this afternoon, and I'll tell you why. I am on a schedule. Yes, me, on a schedule! To cut to the chase, I have been challenged by current life events and conversations, and also by a book I'm reading. The life events have been constant disorder and frustration, and the book is called Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney - highly recommended, by the way!

I've had a change of attitude recently regarding the hot topic of homemaking! In a nutshell, I previously viewed a homemaker as a woman with no outside occupation, who stays at home to raise her kids...not a bad idea! However, my view was centered on what she was not doing - not sending her kids to daycare, not bringing home a paycheck, not using her education, etc. I have been challenged recently to view homemaking as an active pursuit, not a passive state. It is to be my calling, my career...maybe even my passion. That makes all the difference in the world, and here's why: instead of feeling inferior for never finishing my degree, instead of feeling unfulfilled as the world goes by without me, instead of just biding my time at home with my kids, I need to be actively learning and growing in my calling as a homemaker! I never thought I was very "good" at home management...but is that a valid reason to chuck the idea out the window and focus on something else? NO! Managing my home well is my God-given responsibility! I am called to do my very best, and if I feel I could use some improvement in certain areas, I need to begin some "career enhancements"!

So anyway, this week I started following a basic weekly schedule. That's nothing to many people, but for me, it feels a little foreign, to say the least. I must say, however, that I am reaping the benefits of scheduling already! This is just the beginning, but it has been a very useful first step.

Well, the time I've allotted for today is running out, but I wanted to post this picture while I'm on here. We had a portrait fundraiser for MOPS about a month ago, and because I helped out with coordinating it, I ended up getting $100 worth of free portraits from the company! Wow! It was totally unexpected, but I'm so grateful...being the photo junkie that I am. So without further ado, here's my favorite one:

So are they totally adorable, or what? I gotta go for today - I'm already a couple of minutes over. I'll post again soon!