Remarkable Spring

What a strange spring we've been having!  We had a few weeks of record breaking, unseasonably warm temperatures, and the plants have been popping up in the garden.  Last year in the fall I received some bulbs from Danielle for my birthday, and now I'm getting some clues as to where I decided to plant them.  I also dug up and spaced out the existing tulip and daffodil bulbs, and those have come up as well - no flowers on them yet.  However, I did spot my first iris bloom this afternoon!  No picture, sorry, but I was excited to find a flower! 

There are some squirrels who are also excited to see my tulips coming up.  I'm hoping that the red pepper flakes I sprinkled on the gardens might keep them away, as I was NOT pleased to see these chewed off plants.  Aaron is looking forward to me catching some of these squirrel red-handed, as I told him we would eat them for supper.  Whenever he sees me looking at the gardens, he asks me, "Are you frustrated with the squirrels, Mom?"

The boys have enjoyed re-discovering the backyard - they have been able to play out there quite a few days already without even needing a jacket on!

We have a lovely sandbox filled with sand, but for some reason the boys prefer the dirt by the gate or in my now-empty vegetable garden.   This will have to change!

I'm not sure what this bulb is, but it was also from Danielle and it looks promising!  This was on March 19, so it's a little bigger now but no flower yet.

Playing outside makes little boys very dirty!  Nate loves water, so he doesn't mind coming inside as long as he gets to play in the sink!

But he certainly isn't always clean.  You've got to love those spring colds...

There is never a shortage of windows to clean at my house.  Gross!!

Even the lilacs are starting to come out.  I'm looking forward to them!

The apricot tree burst out into full bloom last week Saturday.  Beautiful!  But I've only seen two or three bees around, and I know the farmers are worried about the fruit crops this year.  There is still a lot of opportunity for damaging frost.  I don't mind a non-existent crop of wasp-attracting inedible apricots this year, but for farmers it's a different story. 

A close-up of some blossoms in the sunshine

Those poor blossoms shivering in the snow tonight after supper.  We're supposed to get 1-3 cm of snow overnight.  

I wonder if I should throw an old sleeping bag over them, poor tulips!  

A Book Update

We're still here, don't worry.  But inspiration to write is missing!  Plus my fingertips are dry and cracked, which makes typing quite unfavourable.  I'll use that as my excuse for why it's been so long... but really, I know I need to type through the finger pain.  I'm such a wimp!  Haha.
So, what's been new over here.  We received unexpected and upsetting news a few weeks ago from which we are still reeling.  Doctors have diagnosed Dad VD with leukemia, and while we are still waiting for confirmation of the type and staging of the disease, we are hopeful that it is a fairly treatable form known as Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML).  It is amazing how quickly you can learn about something when given a reason to!  There are a lot of unknowns and  uncertainty about the future, but we rest in the knowledge that all things rest in the Lord's almighty hands, and that His plans for us are perfect. 

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  Phil. 4:6-7 

"Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom.  He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  " Isaiah 40:28-29

I had the opportunity to borrow and read Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts over the last few weeks.  I have been reading her blog for some time now, and appreciate her fresh insights on living thankfully before the face of God, as well as her unique style of writing.  I wouldn't mind having a copy of her book for myself, as I felt I needed to read it a little faster than I would have liked since it was a borrowed copy.  There was a lot to digest and think about!  It is an urge to recognize everything as a gift from God - the big and the small, the lovely and the difficult - and when thankful living becomes a matter of habit, our lives will be steeped in joy.  What a challenge, to see even the difficult things, the trials that we face, as gifts from God to be thankful for as they draw us closer to Him.  A lot to chew over and contemplate when life seems to get overwhelming.
Life at home continues on in a relatively predictable fashion - busy!  Life just doesn't slow down, does it?  This week is a bit of a lonely one for me at home as Mike has meetings M, W, Th, and F nights.  He won't even come home for dinner tomorrow.  I think we're actually home this weekend though, which is nice.  There is a long list of things that need to get done on Saturday, and it will be interesting to see how far we can get through that list.  Might as well have a long list - you wouldn't want to run out of things to do or anything!  And at the end of the day, we have a potluck at church to celebrate our 20th anniversary as a congregation - we've been there for six.
The boys are doing well, and we have been enjoying the unseasonably warm temperatures over the past few weeks.  It has been absolutely lovely to increase our living space by playing in the backyard!  It has been a long winter in the house, especially with the basement being out of commission while it is in renovation phase (as that is somewhat stalled at the moment).  The kids have rediscovered the joy of the sandbox, their bicycles, the swings, and the park.  While the past week and a half has seen an inexplicable but unmistakeable rise in grumpiness, I am looking forward to the warmer weather of the spring and summer and the chance to explore the outdoors a bit more.  Hopefully an extra infusion of Vitamin D (together with lots of sunscreen!) will increase the cheerfulness factor in everyone.
Peter is really enjoying school lately, and seems to be blossoming in his learning.  He especially loves days when we have both Story Hour AND school, which is a complete turn-around from the situation in the fall.  According to his teacher, things seem to have "clicked" for him, and he is having a lot more fun interacting with the other kids in his class.  I sure hope this enthusiasm will transfer to his new school in September when he changes over from half days every day to full days every other day.  We'll see when we get there!  He loves helping out around the house and having little jobs to do to help me out.  He has been very affectionate towards Nate the last little while, eager to give him hugs and call him "cutie".  This morning when we dropped Nate and Aaron off at the nursery, Peter called out "Good-bye cuties!" as he skipped off to Story Hour.   
In the meantime, Aaron is convinced he is going to turn four on his next birthday, as he is really looking forward to going to school.  I find it quite ridiculous that he is still two!  I know I've said it before, but I think I must have missed a birthday somewhere along the line.  He is ahead of the game mentally and physically, and I will definitely have to come up with some special learning activities geared towards him in the fall when he sees his brother go off to school again without him.  He is a lot of fun to talk to, and he comes up with some interesting and amusing comments.  We get a kick out of his logic and sometimes out of the randomness of his conversations.  He was talking the other day at the supper table.  "Jesus died on the cross for our sins, eh?  That's good, eh?  Woodpeckers are nice too, eh?"  He also said something funny to me the other day as we were playing outside on the driveway.  He was pretending he had an axe and was chopping down trees.  "Mommy, I have an axe and I am working.  I am cutting down trees.  I won't cut off your arms though".  Ok, thanks kid!  He also assured me today that he wouldn't hit me with his hammer.  How kind of him!
Nate is also at a very fun age right now.  He can be quite a card, making hilarious faces and making us laugh.  He continues to refuse to talk - he babbles a lot and definitely talks to us, but it's all gobble-de-gook right now.  He can get his point across well enough with the noises he makes and the pointing he does, but I'd love to hear him try some talking.  He loves books and reading, and will often climb up in my chair and flip through books on his own.  He often joins me with the older boys in reading longer books on the couch, and he can sit and listen for a surprisingly long time as long as there are some pictures for him to peruse while I read.  He had his 18 month appointment during the March break, and he weighed in at 27lbs  4oz, and 33.5" long. 
What else is there to write about?  I've been sitting here writing for at least an hour now, and I'm sure there is more to catch up on.  When was the last real update anyways?  Oh of course.  Silly me.  How could I forget some of the most exciting things that are going to happen this year?  It will be an exciting year for my family - a wedding and a baby!  Danielle and Timothy got engaged on Feb 14, and we are SO excited for them!  We are looking forward to celebrating with them on October 13, and pray for the Lord's blessings on them as they prepare for their wedding.  And in August, we are looking forward to meeting our first niece? nephew? on the M side of the family, as Tom and Lauren are expecting their first little one.  We are thrilled to have two new members added to the family this year!
Well, Mike just came home from tonight's meeting, so I'd like to chat with him for a while.  Besides, those cracked and dry fingertips are screaming out to stop the bloodshed on my keyboard.  Time to wrap it up!  I'll try to post up a few photos in the next few days - not that there are a whole lot of winners on the camera right now.  Take care!
 

Belly Button

In the middle of a morning full of crying children and excessive amounts of crankiness, I did find one little tidbit of humour.  I was on the phone, trying to track down some rogue tax forms that haven't arrived yet, and had to hang up for the second time because of the screams of distress coming from the kids playing outside.  I went out there to assess the situation, and Aaron came bawling over to me.
"Mommy, I can't do up my belly button!!!" (the button on his pants is open)
"Oh dear, Aaron.  Why isn't your belly button closed?"
"Because I peed on the neighbour's fence."
Huh.

Some Type of Fruit

I was giving Mike a haircut on Saturday and the two older boys were sitting at the table, playing with the extra attachments from the hair trimmer.  They were having a somewhat strained conversation about who was allowed to play with what item, and Aaron was envious about what Peter had.  Peter, becoming increasingly upset, called out, "Mom!!  Aaron's grieving the Holy Spirit!!"  He must have been paying good attention at lunchtime devotions last week when we talked about that verse!

Aaron also pays good attention to what we talk about at lunch, and we see evidence of that occasionally.  The other morning, both boys climbed into bed with us when they woke up and we were all chatting.  Peter said something miserable to Aaron, but instead of replying in kind, Aaron said something like, "Peter is nice, I love him."  It's nice to see him applying that message of "returning good for evil" and "be kind to one another".

A Post About Almost Nothing

I've been suffering from a case of blogger block, which has morphed into a moderate case of blogger's guilt, and I don't know what to do about it.  After consulting with myself, I decided my next course of action should be to post something, but unfortunately, I don't know what to post about.  I turned to my camera for some inspiration:  normally if I run into a case of blogger block, I see what pictures have accumulated on my camera that I can load up to the blog, and thus I can pass off a post of pictures as something creative that might be of interest to my poor readers.  Upon consulting my camera, however, I found that I have been less than diligent in the last little while when it comes to photographing happenings around here.  Perhaps we've been too busy being outside and enjoying the beautiful spring weather this March break has brought us.  So if it's not going to be pictures, it's got to be straight information, and although there have certainly been stories or events or news in the last little while, the stories aren't complete yet and are still under processing.  Maybe sometime soon, but not quite yet. 
So.  I'm still left with nothing to post about, but I do have a few mediocre pictures from the camera.  I'll post those with more description than necessary to alleviate the immediate symptoms of my blogger's guilt, and hopefully sometime in the next week or two, I'll feel the inspiration to sit down and write a worthy update post about something that is actually interesting.  In the meantime, don't say I didn't warn you that this post really has no valuable content.  
I will now bore you with excessive information about our television set.  The following is a picture of our TV while it was on the other night.  No, I'm not suggesting that you should go vacationing on a beach down south somewhere, nor do I think this commercial was anything out of the ordinary.  Yet, I post a picture of our TV.  Why?  Because it is starting to die in a variety of different ways.  It's always been a quiet TV, which doesn't really get any louder after about volume level 30 - after that going up to volume level 70 doesn't make any difference.  Lately, if I play a VHS tape for the kids, it makes a very loud fuzzy noise while the tape plays or the video goes fuzzy and loud every few seconds.  The other night we tried to watch a DVD and the picture quality was awful, but at least it didn't show the left side of the movie on the right side of the screen and the right side of the movie on the left side of the screen like it has done before.  If you try to watch TV, there will be occasional blips of bright colours, and the picture will go extremely bright and washed out, and no fiddling with the settings will fix it.  On the occasion of this picture, the visible part of the screen (inner white square) started slowly shrinking until we had a picture that was about half the size that it should be (outer white square).  We don't watch a lot of TV - actually we only get one channel - but I am still a little sad that our TV is reaching the end of its lifespan.  I like being able to pop in a short movie for the kids if they're incredibly grumpy or if I need to take a shower or something.  You know, for the sake of my sanity.      

Our fridge is also trying to bite the bullet.  It came with the house, and according to the sticker inside, it was rated "high" on the energy use scale when it was new twenty years ago.  I don't want to know how much power it sucks up now, but what I do want to know is why it keeps leaking.  Almost every day, and sometimes every few hours, a big puddle of water collects on the inside floor of the fridge and if I don't catch it in time, it leaks out under the fridge and makes a big mess.  I figured the drain pan or something was frozen inside because I had the freezer too full, so I emptied the whole fridge out and let it thaw for a number of hours last week.  I even unscrewed things inside the freezer and cleaned underneath the freezer floor.  Nate enthusiastically helped me clean it from top to bottom, and when we were all done I filled it back up again (not too full) and plugged 'er in.  The next morning, I found a big puddle of water on the inside floor of the fridge again.  Argh!

The other day I was heading out to Bible study on a Wednesday morning, when I discovered that I couldn't get out of the front door.  Why not, you ask?  Because Canada Post delivered this little box, and the guy decided to put it on the perfect angle that prevents the screen door from opening up.  There wasn't even enough room to reach my hand through the door to move it out of the way.  I don't think I could have done it again if I tried.  (see, I warned you these pictures were not going to be very interesting!)

A few days ago, the older two boys were happily playing outside and I had Nate inside with me.  It was a perfect day to wash the windows!  However, Nate currently has a cold, and has copious amounts of  boogers running down his face at any given time.  When he sees a window, he thinks the most fun thing to do is to smush his face up against it.  As you can imagine, this is somewhat counterproductive to the window-cleaning task.  So I let him play with the split peas that the boys had left on the table from earlier in the morning.  They are pretty good at keeping them on the table. 

Nate, however?  Not so much.  This is the price I paid for booger-free window washing duty.  At least split peas are pretty easy to clean up. 

Randoms

Snow man forensics

Poor confused daffodils - I hope they don't get nipped by the cold!

 Introducing... the amazing spoon-on-the-nose hanger!

This Week

Since this winter has had a completely pitiful amount of snow thus far, when we got some snow on the weekend we wanted to take full advantage of it!  Mike and I took the kids tobogganing on Saturday afternoon.  It was about as successful as I thought it might be, and I suspect it was much less successful than Mike thought it would be.  I'm glad we went, but the youngest two were not very impressed - especially when Aaron did a full face-plant on his first time down the hill.  The hill we picked was also not a very suitable location, as when we arrived we found it to be extremely cold and windy with the wind coming in from off the lake.  Mike took Peter during Sunday afternoon nap-time and they had a lot more fun with the two of them, even cheerfully surviving a bloody nose incident.  On Monday I made a snowman with for the boys in the backyard, and he is currently melting into a slushy pile, as all snowmen are eventually destined to do.  This is a picture of Nate on our first tobogganing trip.

This picture serves as a warning to myself to pay attention to what is going on in other rooms while I am on the phone.  I was in the kitchen talking to Danielle on the phone the other day, and Peter came in to tell me that "we are only making a mess by the bookshelf".  I told him, "Ok, just don't make a big one because it's no fun to clean them up again" or something like that.  A few minutes later I walked into the living room and Danielle got to hear a big "Oh dear" on the receiving end of the phone.  That pile contains pretty much all the toys they could get a hold of from the shelf, their bedroom and the pack-and-play, all mixed together in a heterogeneous pile of stuff.  A barn, about 10 books and three plastic toys were the only things left on the shelf.  Too big and messy of a mess for them to figure out how to clean up on their own.  So yes, I did learn that "it's no fun to clean up big messes" because I got to do it.   

And then we got to Valentine's day.  It's not really a huge day in our house, but I think it's fun to drum things up a bit with the kids being a little older now.  I was treated in the mid-morning to a phone call from my dearly beloved, to let me know that there should be hot water brewing in the coffee pot and a cup of hot chocolate with a card hiding in the cupboard for me.  How sweet!  I greatly enjoyed my drink. 

 Peter cut out hearts for everyone in his class and wrote his name on them all. 

 It was a big job for him, but he did really well and was pleased with his task

 My three sweet little "be mines" sitting on the couch - a little distracted by the movie playing in the background

 Lunchtime!  Strawberry jam sandwiches with a twist

When Pete came home from school, I discovered (as I should have known) that home-made cards are quite out of fashion - his was the only one.  However, I also discovered that store-bought Valentines contain REALLY dumb messages that don't make sense, and I liked Peter's Valentines much better. 

 A delicious dinner of prime rib steak, oven roasted heart-shaped potatoes, and beets

 Dessert - it wasn't anywhere close to "gourmet" and doesn't look terribly appealing in this picture, but we had strawberries with whipped cream, topped with a heart-shaped jello jiggler.  The kids were fans!

Spell-checker

At very long last, I have finished formatting and editing the 2010-2011 version of the blog book.  Whew!  It was a lot of work - I'm looking forward to spending all those spare minutes doing other things while I wait for it to arrive load back up, so I can order it.  I was amused by the spell-checker that comes with the program, as it picked up a lot of words that are probably quite specific to my style of writing and what I tend to write about.  There were the standard problems that a spell-checker might have, with names of people or places.  There were other words it didn't like, such as:  ahhhh, aggggh, awwww, arg, ewww, verrrryy, hmmmm, hahahaha, looooong, and shhhh (all with varying quantities of letters of course, depending on the severity of the situation).  These came up a fair number of times.  Other words it didn't want to accept included:  disgustingness and the related "gusting" (Aaron), poopy, smushing, turd, bonked, napper, boogery, nerdy, dork, clomping, pukey, and pestiness, among others.  It seems that my blog must be full of quite scatalogical language!  Truth be told though, my days do involve a lot of that, plus I have three boys who think it's all quite hilarious.  They run into the bathroom so that they can say things like "poop" and "p*nis", because they have been told they may only say "poop" in the bathroom.  They also think it's hilarious to say "poop in the bathroom" when they are not in the bathroom, because I did in fact tell them they may only say "poop" in the bathroom.  The logic around here is a little bit skewed but we do have a lot of laughs even though as parents we end up having to hide it from them quite often.  There were two suggestions that it gave for words that I found a bit puzzling and awkward.  It wanted to change "personal bests" to "personal *reasts" (I bleeped out that letter to avoid nasty google searchers).  It also wanted to change "paddleboating" (as in, Mom and I went paddleboating at the cottage) to "adulterat*ng".  How are those in any way similar??
Anyways.  The book is finished, and I am quite relieved!  Now I guess I can start working on income taxes.  Fun fun!
 

Photos of the Month

Always easily entertained by any kind of machinery, the boys loved watching drywall for our basement being delivered. 

We visited a family dairy farm at the end of the holidays after a VD family reunion.  Everyone enjoyed seeing the work going on, touching the cows, and watching them being milked. 

 

 Imaginations in full gear, the boys had a few days after the dairy farm visit where they pretended they were cows.  You can guess what they are doing, lol.  Milking time! 

 Three boys on the couch!

A little home science experiment using red cabbage juice as an indicator for acids and bases. 

This little stinker closed himself in the bathroom and did some "cleaning".  Distracted by some child-related emergency that I no longer remember, I had left a spray bottle containing water and Mr. Clean on the counter while I went to deal with whatever was going on.  When I came back to finish my bathroom cleaning job, I discovered that Nate had been spraying EVERYTHING with the squirt bottle, including his hair and face.  You'd think after all that cleaning he wouldn't need a bath, but he sure got one.  Oh boy!

 They will never turn down a book, and Nate's really starting to get in on the action.  He can sit still through some pretty long books depending on his mood, and he'll spend a lot of time during the day going through books on his own.  He'll take one off the shelf, carefully leaf through it, abandon it and get another one.  We've got to work on the "putting books away" thing yet, but I LOVE watching him read!

 Every once in a while the bicycle helmets get rediscovered in the kids' closet, and Nate loves wearing them for whatever reason.  He'll walk around with his hands on his head like this to ensure no one tries to take his helmet off. 

 My sweet oldest son

 My goofy middle son

 My inquisitive youngest son.  He looks perhaps a little guilty in this photo, you think?  Yes he is.  In the time it took me to go downstairs, flip the wet laundry to the dryer and take the dry laundry upstairs, he dragged out a chair, climbed up to the table, pulled over the fruit bowl and started taking big bites out of a pear. 

 Enjoying a book in the sunshine under a table.

 Peter celebrated the 100th day of school this week Wednesday.  100 days already?  Wow.  He's looking so grown-up in this picture!

 Aaron was quite jealous of Peter's fruit loop necklace when he got home from school, so we made him a cheerio necklace and he was quite pleased with it. 

February Update

     How did it get to February already?  I thought we just had Christmas, and somehow we are past Groundhog Day.  Apparently, January has been a bit of a blur.  Well, what have we been busy with?  I know that today is the first Saturday in a long time that Mike and I have both been home and not booked with something or other - although Mike spent the morning at school and I spent the afternoon doing some long-neglected, long-avoided, yet necessary shopping.  So we didn't even spend the day together, unfortunately.  January has included a family reunion day, a funeral, an engagement party, extra events at school, practicing for the cadet snow derby, and the snow derby itself (which was more like a cold-mud derby, and they had to use backpacks instead of sleds.  What's with this winter, anyways?  Meteorologists are calling now for an early spring, and it seems that winter isn't really going to hit this year, much to Mike's disappointment as he is hoping for at least one snow day so he can build a fort with the kids.  I've been out in the snow with the boys a few times, but the youngest two don't last out there for very long, and I have to admit we haven't even built a snowman yet.  Sad story!
     So how have we been doing... let's see.  I'm hoping that we all have gained an immunity to this year's strain of the flu, as we had an absolutely miserable weekend in the middle of January dealing with flu.  Aaron started with it early on a Friday morning, throwing up in his bed.  He threw up again a few times Friday evening, and then that was the end of it for him.  But just the beginning for the rest of us... Mike started feeling ill in the afternoon while we were at an engagement celebration for Dave and Bethany in Oakville.  By the time we got home, he was feeling quite sick indeed, and went to bed after losing his supper.  Around 10:30 pm, Peter started throwing up, and continued to throw up about every half an hour for the entire night.  I think between 10:30 and 7 the next morning, he threw up at least 15 times.  Poor kid!  I spent the night comforting him and doing laundry and occasionally passing my poor hubby in the night on the way to the bathroom.  I guess it would have been hard to avoid it, so the flu caught up with me around ten in the morning.  Thankfully by then Peter was feeling a bit better, Aaron was all the way better and Nate never came down with it at all.  I went to bed for a bit, quite sleep deprived, and Mike dozed on the couch semi-watching countless episodes of Bob the Builder with the boys.  We tag-teamed it the rest of the day, and very thankfully started to feel a bit better by the evening.  That is not a weekend I would like to repeat any time soon.  Actually, let's not ever repeat it.  It wasn't much fun.
     And how are the kids doing now.  Peter is settling back into school again.  It took him a while to get back into routine again, and I had a hard week of him strongly resisting being dropped off at school.  I am glad that he's better with it now, and that as long as things remain consistent and he gets a hug and a kiss before he lines up to go into the classroom, he is happy to be attending school - or "work" as he likes to call it.  We've handed in his registration papers for next year at Heritage, and I am very curious to see what is going to happen with the class sizes.  It seems that there was a big boom of kids born in his year, and he's likely to have a very big Kindergarten class.  I'm glad that he's had a bit of a boost with his JK learning, as well as being able to develop some social skills and learning to be away from Mom for a time.  He's starting to spell out simple words - if he's in the mood for it that is - and occasionally asks me how to spell somewhat ridiculous words for a four year old, like "instrument" or "castanets".  Let's just start with "dog" and "top", and maybe "bum" as you seem to think that's a hilarious one.
     Aaron is doing well too.  He is getting so big!!  I have to measure him soon, but he's catching up with Peter.  When he plays with the other kids on the playground at Peter's school, it seems quite ridiculous that he won't even be old enough for JK for almost two more years.  He is looking forward to his birthday and insists that he is going to turn four, as he knows that when he is four he gets to go to school.  I do wonder sometimes if I've somehow missed a birthday for him or something, and that perhaps he is a year older than I think, but no, he is indeed only two years old.  His logic and reasoning abilities are very entertaining right now, and he keeps me constantly amused with his ponderings and the way that he talks.  The other day we read the story of Samuel and Eli in the temple at lunchtime, and after lunch he raced off to his room and jumped into bed.  He started calling out "Here I am!  You called me!  Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening!".  It was pretty funny!  He continues to love reading, and will always jump on the couch if a book is suggested.  This evening before bed, Mike started reading Fantastic Mr. Fox on the couch, and I was reading Big Red Barn with Nate on my lap.  Aaron couldn't decide which story he wanted to listen to, and kept running between the two of us to try and catch both stories, haha.  Aaron is coming down with something the last couple of days - he's had a fever off and on, his throat sounds quite sore and he's looking quite pale and miserable.  He's got a chest cough that sounds pretty phlegmy, and I'm a little worried it's going to turn into bronchitis or something worse, as I think it will be a weak point with him since he had pneumonia last year.  Let's hope for the best anyways, that it will clear up soon. I wouldn't mind attending church with Mike tomorrow instead of one of us having to stay home.  Last week was the first time in quite a while that we were able to be in our home church, and I miss it!
     Nate is growing up quickly.  His appetite for trouble is not diminishing, and he keeps me on my toes.  This morning, in the time it took me to go downstairs, empty the dryer, throw the wet load in and come back upstairs, he had dragged out a kitchen chair, climbed up, pulled the fruit bowl over and started munching on a pear.  Seriously?  I was gone for all of 53 seconds.  He is maybe starting to say a few words.  As in, he's said something like "gaggy" a few times when Mike has come home, and I think he's said "hi" a few times.  He is definitely trying to have conversations with us and making lots of interesting noises, but I'm still waiting for the most interesting one of all - that is "Mommy" of course!  Not for lack of trying to teach him!  He will point, mostly successfully, to our noses, ears, hair, and eyes but he won't point out specific people yet.  I think he knows it all - he's got this twinkle in his eye, and he thinks it's just hilarious to watch us trying to teach him things he knows already.  We continue to try to figure out the puzzle of his persistent cough.  He had a chest x-ray last Thursday, and the results of that showed that he has bronchitis.  It seems a little strange that he would have had bronchitis for more than a year, and the doctor thought so too, but we're treating it with antibiotics right now and see if the cough miraculously disappears in the next week or two with the amoxicillin.  The coughing, or bronchitis now it seems, doesn't seem to affect him very much as he is generally quite cheerful and well-tempered, and he hasn't been feverish or particularly ill at all.  It's a puzzle, anyways.
     Although it might appear that I have been neglecting my blog lately, I have in fact been working on it every spare moment for the last month or so.  I slurped the blog into Booksmart and I've been formatting it to publish the last two years worth of posts.  The first time I published my blog it covered posts from its beginning in 2005 until the end of 2009.  This next book will cover 2010-2011.  I was quite happy to finish all the formatting on Monday of this week, and was sitting down in the evening to give it all a close look over to find any mistakes when I realized something very disappointing.  When I started formatting the book, I got out my first book and carefully measured it, 8"x10", so that I could choose the right size for the second book.  Unfortunately, I chose 10"x8" and didn't think about it again until this past Monday.  This means I formatted the entire book, all 225 pages, in landscape orientation instead of in portrait orientation which is what I wanted in the first place.  NOT impressed with myself.  So, I could just publish it how it was and be annoyed forever that the 2010-11 version of the blog book is the wrong size, or redo the whole thing to be portrait orientation.  I decided to redo it, and I'm now almost done formatting to the end of 2010.  Hopefully I'll be done (again) in two or three weeks, and I can order it and have it within another few weeks after that.  Interesting how one silly decision can cause so much frustration!  Well, I think I'm just going to post this blog now instead of loading up pictures today.  Pictures will have to wait for another day.  Hope you're all doing well!