prayer

Well since I am not on Facebook, I will post and keep track of it here. Today in the mail, I received a letter from waukesha county saying that they were given $2,095,000 in grant money to victims of the June 2008 flood. This money is on a first come first serve basis and need to be applied for. We have requested the application and we will go from there. Here are somethings we could use the money for:

• 2 new basement windows
• mortor to fill in the cracks in the lannon foundation room so we can paint it with the waterproof paint.
• more waterproof paint and stone so we can digup one side of the house and paint the outside walls, fill it back up with stone to create a "rock garden"
• replace the driveway
• possably sod the back yard?
• replace the basement stairs
• 2X4s and insulation to finish off our room in the basement

Other than the last 3 bullet points these are some MAJOR steps that we need to take to waterproof our basement and make it useable into a play area and bedroom for ourselves. These are things that we would really like to accomplish and know would improve our house value as well as our state of living here. The last three are bounes if we are able to get enough money to do them. So if you could please join us in prayer that we follow God's lead through out the process as to if we get the money to how we spend the money if we get it. We want nothing less than to Glorify God's name. We know that he has been ever present since the first inch of water in our basement. He has seen us through. We also know that he used that flood to repair a relationship in our family, he used the flood to declutter the house and open our eyes to Him as the provider, he used the flood to get us some major things for the house that he knew we could never afford(furnace, watersoftener, central air, roof, hot water heater).

Jesus, we are looking to you for guidance so our Father's name can be glorified yet again!

steps

ali took about 6-7 steps on her own last night! she shall be walking soon :)

pointing

ali has been pointing to things a lot lately :)

Bandanas

I am not sure what anyone is talking about when they say we look alike!

Cry it Out

I am not a fan of the cry it out method when kids are babies. As a matter of fact, I really didnt like it or use it at all until I had Ali. I think it is more out of knowledge/experiance that I use it. I dont like to use it often and maybe that leads to longer streches of her crying, who knows. But tonight was a night I kinda didnt really care. Ryan was not able to be home for bedtime, a co-workers newlywed husband is in the hospital for overdose. I know that is where Ryan needs to be and I am fully supportive of that. Ryan and I usually tag team bedtime. He reads, prays, and sings to Sammie and then to Dash in their own beds, while I feed and rock Ali. If Ali goes down quickly then I get to lay next to Sammie when Ryan is up with Dash. So when I am by myself, I have Sammie and Dash sitting in their bed with their books and the closet light on so they can "read" them, while I feed and rock Ali. Things were going so-so. I had to count for Sammie because she just couldnt sit. I got to 3 and that meant no story time, but I would sing to her and pray. Then she kept talking so I had to get up and flick her in the face, which meant I had just distrubed Ali so now she wasn't going to go to sleep. I placed her in her bed with two nuks and the proceeded, figuring she is so exhausted she'll fall asleep quickly. UH....NO! So I finished up with Sammie then went to Dash. We continued on with our routine and Sammie was still not sitting and was being naughty. I finished with Dash just as Ali was winding down. I was going to let it be, but then she piped up as I got to the door. So I pulled her from her crib and rocked her all the while Dash and Sammie are being naughty before my eyes. I got Ali back to sleep placed her in her bed and left. Within 10 min I had to go in and scold Dash and Sammie by taking their "glo" things away(dash's fishtank and sammie's gloworm). I have learned that spankings at bedtime just lead to "abuse" it seems~mostly they dont work, cuz they dont care. So instead I just went to taking things away. At one point I went in to find that Ali was sleeping, her fishtank was on, the big bedroom light was on and Dash and Sammie were giggling. Dash told me that it was cuz he wanted to see Sammie.....uh, no, it's bedtime! So I proceeded to take more things away. Well this led Dash to a frenzie cuz "I took his stuff". So he came to the door to tell me that I took his stuff when again I see Ali's fishtank on. I asked how it got on, knowing that Sammie did it, to hear Dash say that Sammie did it. So for that she got a spanking because she is to stay out of Ali's bed. This then brought on a new cry to the room and that woke up Ali. I know have all three crying in their rooms and am really ready to lose it. Knowing that how I react will show the kids what is the best way to react and so I choose to stay calm and not get emotional. I pulled Ali from the room, set up the pack n play in the living room and then headed to the shower to drownd out all the crying. I felt bad that Ali had to cry it out because it wasnt even her fault that she was awake, but I knew that if she didnt lay there just right, I was going to loose it. So to keep everyone safe, crying it out was today's best choice. I dont know how long Dash and Sammie kept it up but Ali was 20 min max! I could tell cuz her pnp was just outside the bathroom door!

Whatcha Doin'

"Hey mom, whatcha doin'?"
This is Sammie's latest phrase. She asks it all the time no matter what!

Whistle

Ok, I am going to preface this and say that if you are male, you might not want to continue reading!








As most moms do, I have story to tell you of my daughter and a tampon. Ali had pulled it out of my drawer and I had not gotten it picked up before Sammie had to go potty, she saw it and started opening it saying it was a whistle and wanted to play the whistle! Sure not as bad as the story of the kid that brought out the special napkins(pads) when company was coming over.

9 months

Ali turned 9 months on Tuesday. She had her 9 month check up on Monday and she weighed in at 19lbs 1 oz(50%) and 28 inches(75%). These numbers put her the same weight and 1 inch shorter than Sammie was at this age. Everything went well except the Dr. heard a heart murmor on her. He was not really concerned but wanted it checked up on to be safe. So he gave me the name and number of his recommendation. It just so happened I was able to get in the next day. So Tuesday we went to the cardiologist. Ali did phenomenol! She mostly laid there for the EKG. Now for those on the edge of your seat....she is FINE!

1st Step

Ali took her first step today :)

DADA

Ali said "Dada" for the first time yesterday :)

Our Kitchen

This scrapbook generated with Smilebox

I have disliked our kitchen cupboards since we bought the house for several reasons. The main is the outside appearance of the hearts. It is just not my style. So when our sink overflowed to the underneath onto the wood and I wanted to replace that. So I figured that if we replaced that and made that looking all nice and new, why cant we paint the rest of them. So we had that in motion and my dad offered to buy the paint, which means we were freed up with some cash to use so we bought some wood to box in the dishwasher.

Stairs

Yesterday at the McDonald playland Ali climbed stairs! As well as she almost took a step. She was standing all by herself, but she did the butt strech to reach for my hand. So I feel that walking is in the very near future.

Simple Things

I love it when the weather hits 35 or above. More than the obvious reasons of that means it is almost spring, but at 35 my garage door closes without any monkey work!

The kids coming home from Grandmas for the long weekend and saying, "wow, mom you cleaned up"(thanks for noticing dash!)

The Battle is Won

Well, it took 3 hours of putting Sammie back into her bed before she finally fell asleep. It was not so much of the issue that she needed to nap as she needed to obey. At first for selfish reasons I wanted her to nap, but once I evaluated the situation and how out of control it had gotten, I was able to pray and think rationally. And all that kept coming to mind everytime I placed her in her bed without talking were the Super Nanny episodes and seeing the time elapse amount of 3-4 hours of bed time battles.

fighting

I have no other place than here(since i dont have FB any longer) to vent it out. So I have been fighting with Sammie for more than an hour to get her to take her nap. I am out of ideas of how to get her to sleep. I have not had to fight with her like this for a loooooong time. I have taken the dogs away, given the spankings, tried giving her an agreement. Nothing is working! I have tried the stern voice, I have simply picked her up and placed her back into bed. I am at a loss and frankly so frusterated that I am ready to call my mom to send her to her house!

Scatter Brain

That is something that I have really been struggling with well, for at least 3.5 years now, but especially the past few months. I have so much on my brain/to do list/wish list that I start so many things and get "no where" it seems. Like today, we had a play date this morning with Abby, and that was great, but I had my laundry project on my mind. After they left, I began thinking of my kitchen cabinets(im repainting them this weekend), the laundry, the bathroom, Sammie's updo for Molly's wedding(not until september), the things we need from Menards for this project. So you can see I have a lot there and that's all I can think of right now. As I wonder through the house trying to figure out which project to work on, more and more come to mind. All this to say, that I didnt get much done! Oh well, the power of my brain.

Concert

At church on Saturday Winston offered 2 tickets to the Jeremy Camp concert at Elmbrook on Sunday night. I really wanted to go and really hesistated yes. I asked Ryan if he was interested and mostly looking for him to be the grown up and say no since I had so much salon work to be doing. He said yes and we would work it out. Then came the task of who is going to use the tickets. Ryan is not much of a concert guy and knows that I really enjoy them. So he offered to stay home with the kids and that I could find a friend to go with. Who knew that it would be so difficult to find someone to go to the concert with. (I know it was last minute but still, a free artist circle ticket!) So as the sunday went on and no one was wanting to come with, to spare Ryan a headache, I offered to take Sammie to the concert.

It was awesome and nothing more than God Planned. She did great. She did awesome. She LOVES Mark Schutlz! She tollerated Point of Grace and Jeremey Camp, but really got into Mark's portion. She was watching and clapping. Standing and sitting. Very involved. It was the best time I have had with her since we had Mommie and Sammie time shortly after Ali was born. The concert started at 6pm and went until 10:30. She made it until 10:15 before she fell asleep! Great Job Sammie! I am so proud of her :)