Great Guys

last night, i went up to say goodnight to the kids after chad had tucked them in. before i opened chase's door, i heard him talking to someone. i figured colton had snuck in there and that he was talking to him. but when i quietly opened the door to spy on them and their brotherly cahoots, i saw that he was laying in bed, facing the wall and talking to himself. when he heard me, he stopped and said, "hi mommy." i climbed in bed with him and asked him who he was talking to. he said, "i was praying." amazing feeling right there!! but then, i asked him to keep praying while i layed with him. he said ok.

and with his little eyes shut tight he sweetly said, "Jesus and God...I love you so much. you are such great guys. Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross for us and our sins. I love you so much."

puddin

look who's

happy...

and really, really cute...

and liking this...


and these...

and especially this.

e-christmas

this post is coming to you from my brand new, red, cutie cute cute netbook laptop. chad really surprised me this year and brought out the big guns! i had whimsically wished for a laptop...not thinking that it would really happen. let me be honest...between aiden, chase, jumpstart world and a baby, i checked my e-mail once a week...if i was lucky. and then, the computer ran so slow that i would have time to sift through 1/4 of them before i had to get up and call it quits. if someone needed me...they were just going to have to call. and facebook or blogging...forget about it. well...not anymore! now...this little pretty can sit right next to the rocker in the living room or even go to the bathroom with me. (okay...i probably won't do that very often, although it is about the only quiet time i have all day.)

this was definitely an e-christmas. we had huge, flat screen plasma tv's, cameras, laptops, bluerays, and ds'a flying around everywhere. just the sight of it was enough to humble one. it really is strange to watch my 4 year old walk around with her very own pinky pink ds with her princess and the frog game talking about needing the charger to charge the battery. shouldn't she be playing with a susie talks alot or something? certainly not walking around with charger cords and electronics. however, she out works me on a computer, so what should i expect? i was thinking this year about how when i was little, the BIG presents were the good ones...the ones we looked longingly at and shook everyday until we could finally rip into them on christmas morning. now...it is rare to have a BIG one under the tree. the little ones are gawked at now. cell phones, a ds, or jewelry. i was thinking this thought on christmas eve as i was surveying the magic of the living room before it looked like a red and green wrapped bomb went off. then...what do you know...on christmas morning...my parents prooved me wrong when they brought in the 46 inch flat screen for our living room. my eyes got just as big as the tv and i thought, "nope........the biggest ones are still the best!"

on a side note: yesterday we had the rule that they could play whatever they wanted for as long as they wanted. (as in, no time limits on their new electronics.) as i sit here playing on my new computer i wonder...can that rule apply to me as well?

10 years

i can not believe that we have been married 10 years. this post comes to you a bit late...but not a bit forgotten. november 27th was the day. in the early days, we talked about going to hawaii for our 10 year anniversary. we didn't do that. somehow i think that puddin wouldn't have appreciated having her food source removed from her to be gallivanting on a beach somewhere. i don't think she really cared that it was our 10 year anniversary. we, instead went to see the blind side at a shady, but well priced movie theater and made the annual trip to target to get our ornament that signifies the year for us. we got a frame to hang on the tree and took a picture of ourselves holding up the number 10. however the frame is hanging...smack dab on the front of the tree without a picture in it because i have not had time to get it developed. but, that's beside the point. i am very glad that on year one...when i was 8 months pregnant with colton, we started the anniversary ornament tradition. they are kept in a separate box and 2 years ago i wrote down on a piece of paper which ornament went with which year and why we chose that particular one so that we would remember. last year's ornament was "hope" because we were really hoping to have a baby girl before the next christmas. this was a pretty tall order because i was not pregnant and we had been trying for like a year. well, you can imagine the tears when i pulled that ornament out this year and remembered why we got it as i looked at sweet annslee james being rocked in the rocking chair by granna. boy...was that a thank you so much Lord moment. about a week later, we were sitting at the dinner table and telling the kids the story of how daddy and mommy met in clemson at a superbowl party that the church put on every year. chase was particularly interested in this story and sat up and asked, "um mommy...when you met daddy...did you go up to him and say, "do you want to have kids together?" i laughed and thought, "that'd be a way to scare a guy off!!"

for family movie night, last friday night we watched our wedding video with the kids. they had never seen it. while watching the ceremony:

colton: i was just in you tummy then!
me: ummmm...no.

aiden: oh...i know where we were during your wedding!! we were at granna's!

2 in 1

because of my lack of time these days, i am going to do a 2 blogs in 1 tonight. first off...would be a post titled "oh holy night...part 2". last week, chad had to work late every night. he had papers due for school and stayed at the office working on them every night. i am still adjusting to juggling things myself. if everything goes as planned, it's no problem. tiring...but no problem. this particular night...things did not go as planned. i needed to give annslee a bath, so i made the kids dinner, and while they were eating got her bath ready in her tub by the kitchen sink. i took her clothes and diaper off and while i was getting her into the bathtub, she decided to pee all down the front of my shirt. i called for colt to go get me a clean shirt as i stepped in the puddle on the floor. i used my peed on shirt to mop up the floor and threw on the clean one. after her bath, i was in the rocking chair feeding her as the kids finished up dinner. i asked colt to rinse the dishes and load the dishwasher for me. he was doing that while aiden was crying because i was trying to make her eat her dinner from the chair. that's when chase carried his full glass of orange juice from the table and tripped...spilling it all over the kitchen floor, the walls and into the living room carpet. he started crying...making that 2 out of 4 that were crying. i knew if i stopped feeding annslee that she would start screaming herself...so i chose to just sit there...totally out of control as the oj soaked into the carpet pad...never to be properly cleaned. that made me want to cry. then i did what was only logical. i got mad at chad. :)

the second post would be titled "the mrs." yesterday, i went to both boy's christmas parties at school. only they are not called christmas parties anymore because that might offend somebody. they are now "winter parties". only i think that is stupid and call them christmas parties anyways. i mean, who are we fooling? they are at christmas time and they are doing christmas activities. santa was even there. seriously? winter party???? at chase's, a little boy came up to me and asked if he could come over to our house to play. i said "sure...we will have to do that sometime." then he ran off and told chase that he was coming to our house to play which got chase all excited too. then the little boy came over to me again and said, "when can i come over mrs.........ummmmm......mrs. chase?

Oh Holy Night

so, puddin has decided that she is not going to sleep at nights. she made this call about when chad's mom and grandmother came in from iowa for a nice, holiday visit the weekend before thanksgiving. it would start at the 9 or 10:00 feeding and last till 4 am and sometimes until 8am. at first she would scream and holler, but now she just is not asleep unless you keep putting the pappy back in her mouth every time it decides to pop out. i'm beginning to think that the pappy is conspiring against me. these are the thoughts that seem realistic in the middle of a sleepless night. 2 nights ago, i tried the bouncy seat, the swing, the ever popular hold her all night so at least one of us is sleeping, the walk around and bounce, the snuggle in bed tactic, and finally the baby einstein video so that i could get 30 minutes.......all to no avail. our bedroom looked like the circus. at 4:30, i woke up chad. when i woke up to get the boys ready for school and aiden breakfast, she was sweetly sleeping. when she started this, i thought...this is my fourth baby. i've trained all my babies to be great sleepers. i've been responsible for getting them all on great schedules from the beginning. i've prided myself in NEVER...EVER waking chad up to help me in the middle of the night. i've been in charge and in total control of their sleep patterns. i can do it again. now i'm asking myself, how can such a small person have such control???? and, how can i become used to being up all night where i will greet the other puddins as they skip down the stairs in the morning sweetly requesting breakfast just as i've gotten her to sleep? (well...it is probably more accurate to say that she, herself has decided to go to sleep.) anyhow, chad and i are trying to split the night because...let's face it...she is going to do what she wants and we are totally at the mercy of the conspiring pappy.

now, i've used every free minute of the tired time that i have to help other family members get their christmas shopping done. you know the calls. the "do you have any ideas for the kids?" calls. i've had 6 of them right off the top of my head...plus actually going to the stores 3 different times to help pick things out for them to get them. it is great that everyone wants to get them something that they all want, but now it's 18 days till christmas, all the stuff on their lists have been taken, and i have yet to come up with anything to get them from chad and i. plus, when the "i don't know" answer doesn't fly, i come up with something off the top of my head and under pressure and now i can't remember what i've told people. when did christmas presents for kids become so hard. a doll for suzy, a toy car for tommy...etc. shouldn't it be a little easier? this is about when i decided that they have way too much as it is and that next year we are scaling waaaayyy back. i remember coming to the same conclusion this time last year. i may sound a little bah humbugish...and for that i am sorry. i never said you would get anything but direct honesty here. and next year, i'm doing my shopping BEFORE i help everyone else do theirs!