Weekends!!!

I never thought I'd be in the terrible blogger category. But here we are. And I'm a terrible blogger. 

Something about living a normal DAY life makes things so much more busy. Or perhaps I have more energy to do things other than blog in the middle of the night at work when things were slow which was nearly always. Now, my days are full and busy and bright and lovely. Poor blogging. Now so neglected. 

Things have been going great since the Great Occupational Move of 2010. We have actually gone places on the weekends together. Like, last weekend, we surprised Lianna and Shawn at Lenora's dedication at church. And speaking of church, we go now....regularly...instead of a few and far between events when I could manage to drag myself out of bed before work that night and drive separately from my family to West Des Moines and then report to work while Steve drove the kids home after church. Those days are over, thankfully. Life just seems so much more normal. Normal is ok for a little while....right?

This is what we did last weekend:

Swinging! What a Spring-like thing to do, you might say! Eli loved the swinging as long as we didn't push him too high. We all had such a lovely time, except Steve, who was slaving away in the background, picking up a truckload of dog poop from the winter of Rosie ruling the back yard. All that fertilizer will equal a luscious green lawn this summer, right?

Poor Steve. 

Poor Steve turns 30 this weekend. HA HAAAA!!! That's what I tell him anyway. This time of year is great for me. This time of year he turns 2 years older than me so I can point out how much OLDER he is than me. This year shall be no exception. 

We're excited for Steve's big day! 

Following "Steve's big day", we'll call it from now on, we're getting Sophie and Eli baptized. Olivia was baptized as a baby at my home church in Pomeroy. Steve and I were also married there. Sophie was dedicated as a baby at our then church in Iowa City, who didn't believe in infant baptism. Now we're members of Hope where they do infant baptisms. Read about it here. We'd like the kids to all have the same experience so we're having both of the kiddos baptized this weekend so we have a whole family of baptized little believers. Isn't that lovely? Now regardless of your thoughts and feelings on the subject, I personally think my child will not be shunned at the gates of heaven because he/she was baptized as a baby and therefore it doesn't count or something. But this also doesn't discount the awesomeness of believer baptism either, which I'll encourage the kids to do when they are older if they'd like to choose to reaffirm their faith. 

There's so much to-do about the whole deal. I'd like to get caught up in it, considering the different denominations of our family and friends, but I won't. We're excited for this weekend. We believe in what we're doing for our kids. We love them. We're happy about this. You're invited. And if you want, come and be happy with us!

Cheers!

PS. Eli is 7.6 months old. Isn't he a stud?

Today

I've heard it said, "Today is the only (insert date here) that we will ever be given." This hits me deep, although it's not an extremely deep statement. Of course it's the only February 23, 2011. That's how it works. One day at a time. Duh!

But I know it doesn't really work that way. The days fly. They run together into weeks. I look at my weekly calender and on Monday, I'm planning for Friday.

I've missed out on many days over worrying about the next. I've looked beyond the day I was living in and looked at tomorrow, the next, or the next month. What happened to that day? I can't remember.

I just finished reading a new entry in a CaringBridge journal for a little girl that fought a very brave fight with a horrible cancer. I followed her battle because she was the niece of my dearest friend. I was reminded today, as they wondered how her 6th birthday would have been like, what she might have been like, that maybe I'd just appreciate and truly LIVE in THIS particular day TODAY. For today. With my THREE, count them, beautifully, wonderfully made, children. And my husband, who is cooler and cooler to me every stinkin day. Let's be honest....as I stumbled to Eli's room for the fourth time last night just like the night before, to pick up the crying little chubby baby to feed him aaaagain, I said in my mind, "Come on! Give me a break!" And then my second thought was, "Thank you God. This kid is amazing." Because he is. And he's here. And so am I. Today. Tonight, whatever. I'm going to work harder to remember this...

Today, is the only today I get.

HATE

If I never had to do taxes again...that'd be great. I even got a refund this year, and I just as well would have paid the amount of my refund back to the government to NOT have to file taxes ever again.

In addition, I'd like to say, changing banks sucks. Especially when you have everything come out automatically.

There. I feel better.

Sort of.

Not really.

I also hate you, Wells Fargo student loan, for somehow messing up my automatic withdrawal. Now I am sitting on hold writing a hateful post just so I don't explode. Your hold music is so awful. I've never even heard these songs, but they sound like a bad mix between elevator and the 70's. I also just adore the way the music cuts out for a few seconds and I think that someone is going to answer...maybe..just maybe....and then NOPE, dreams are dashed, and the horrible beat starts in again. Awesome.


I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The barter system. GREAT IDEA! I'll give you a head of lettuce for your roll of toilet paper.

Right? Am I right?