CNN Again

Yet another CNN article about the Frederick area. This is the fifth or so murder-suicide this year, and at least the third involving children. So heartbreaking.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/23/park.deaths.ap/index.html

Headlines

Frederick made CNN.com again.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/18/taser.death/index.html

:(

I read the story in the FNP (local paper) this morning, where the family named the young man. So sad. And interesting that this follows closely behind a recent Taser incident at one of the county high schools, where an officer Tasered a student.

The Joys of Pregnancy

Gotta love being pregnant. I spent hours yesterday (and early this morning) scrubbing the bathtub and rearranging/reorganzing the storage shelves in the hall bathroom. Of course, our living room, kitchen and dining room are all disasters. We dumped suitcases from our trip to IL in the living room. The kitchen island is piled high with two weeks of mail. The dining room table mostly covered with papers, Roomba parts, and sundry items. But did I clean those areas? Nope. I straighted three shelves ... in the same amount of time it would take me to have cleaned the living room/kitchen/dining room.

The countdown is on! We're due four weeks from Saturday, or approximately 33 days. You hear that, little baby? Your lease is almost up ... consider this your eviction notice.

:)

Hate.

Well, it's official. My child hates me. Or so she says. Today, just four days prior to turning two-and-one-half, Katrina said, "I hate you!" We were in the car on the way home from the babysitter's house and I said, "Brrr! It's cold!" Katrina replied, "No cold! I hate you! I hate you!" (I'm sure everyone would agree she gets her irrational-ness from me.) I asked her what she said, and she repeated, "I hate you!" I asked if she said she was hitting me ('I hit you') and she said, "No! I hate you!" I launched into the whole "we-don't-hate-that's-not-a-nice-word-mommy-loves-you" spiel, to which she replied, "It cold."

*sigh*

Is this foreshadowing of what the teen years will be like?

Finally Free

I was/am in a terrible mood. Irritated with work. Then this morning on the way to work, I heard "Finally Free" by Nichole Nordeman. These lines especially spoke to me:

And if the Son has set us free
Then we must be free indeed
Let the chains fall away, starting today
Everything has changed
I'm finally free

I _am_ free, free from the bondage of sin and the cares of this world. This song reminded me that the petty things do not matter, and it's time to move on.

Of course, I still had a hard time not crying while I was washing my coffee mug this morning. Stupid hormones.

New pictures!

Among the many other things going on in my life now, we *finally* updated our photo gallery. Yes, here it is November and we are just now getting around to adding photos for all of 2007. You can view the pictures here: http://xar.us/gallery2/v/2007/

Enjoy!

Construction

Katrina made a "slide" out of the broom handle today. She propped the handle on the top of her pumpkin, then tried sliding down, but the handle kept slipping. She looked around for a bit, then moved the handle to a bushel basket we keep in the living room for her books. The handle of the basket kept the broom from slipping. She sat halfway up the handle and 'slid' to the bottom, with her hands in the air and said, "Wheeeee!" After doing this a few times, Katrina then turned to me, and holding up one finger, said, "One more time, Mama."

Anybody crazy enough ...

... to go to Ireland for vacation?

http://vacations.travelzoo.com/european-vacations/332788

He Fix It!

Katrina has really been into "fixing" things lately. Her pajama pants often get bunched up at the calf (something she hated last year) and so she will pull them back down and say, "I fix it!" She also brings things for us to fix. It's been quite a lesson to learn when we've had to say, "Honey, we can't fix that for you" (like a crumbled cracker or something).

We went to Cracker Barrel for dinner on Wednesday last week. After dinner, Katrina and I went to Target while Ryan went to Costco. As we were getting in the van to leave the store, Katrina said, "Oh, no!" I asked what was wrong, and she replied, "Clouds! They broke!" Sure enough, the clouds were a dark stormy blue. I explained that the clouds were blue because maybe they would bring rain, then we talked about how God makes the clouds. (Not the actual science of clouds, just that He is the creator of clouds.)

Fast forward to the next morning on the way to the babysitter's house. Katrina looked out the van window and said, "He fix it!" I asked her what she meant, and she replied, "Clouds! Clouds no blue. Clouds white. He fix it!" I asked her who fixed the clouds, and she said, "God fix clouds!"

I love this kid. Good days and bad, we have learned so much much. Just last night Ryan and I talked at length after the lights were off about all the cute and funny things she said this weekend. Like Saturday morning she found Ryan's football and asked me, "I say 'touchdown?'" I said sure, so over and over again she said, "Touchdown!" and put her arms up in the goal post symbol. When I asked her if she wanted to go show Daddy (he was still sleeping), she said, "Yeah!" We woke him up, only for her to giggle and then refuse to say anything.

Saturday I also had a talk with her about yelling across the house. If she can't find us, she'll stand in the living room and yell, "MOM! MOM! MOM! DAD! DAD! DAD!" I told her that yelling is not nice, and if she cannot find us, she should look for us and ask, "Where are you?" So sure enough she started asking, "Where are you?" Ryan and Katrina were talking about her little sister that is soon to join our family, and she asked, "Sister, where are you?"

Oops, it's late ... almost 7:30! I need to finish getting ready for work.

Super Chicken

While watching The Office tonight (we're a few days behind on shows, as usual), there was a commercial for something and it mentioned Super Chicken. Ryan does not remember Super Chicken!!!! I used to watch it as part of George of the Jungle. Does anybody else remember Super Chicken? http://youtube.com/watch?v=dAHlGeVGp-4

Movies, unwelcome house guests, and more

Here it is, the ninth of October already. And stinking hot. It was 91 degrees at 5:00 today. That is so wrong. I hear a cold snap is on the way, though ... yay!

I had planned to post Saturday morning about our date night Friday but something came up. Friday night we dropped Katrina off at the Y for Parents' Night Out and headed to the theater to see The Game Plan. It was such a cute movie! I tend to be a tough critic when it comes to movie content - don't care for violence, language, alcohol, onscreen sex, etc. - so I was interested when I read the PluggedIn review. While it definitely wasn't Ryan's first choice for a movie, the football storyline appealed to him (I think). I highly recommend it for a cute date movie, and even a family movie for those with elementary kids. (Nothing in the content is bad for younger kids, it's just that older kids could sit through the movie better and follow the storyline).

Friday was one of a handful of dates we've been on since Katrina was born. We know how important it is to have time together, and we really do intend to do it more often, but time seems to fly by. And honestly, we enjoy spending time as a family eating out, going to the store together, etc., too. We both went into the Y to pick up Katrina at the end of the night - we wanted to see who she missed more. :) It was Daddy, hands down, of course. And I love that - I love the relationship they have and how Ryan has become a Daddy, not just another guy with a kid. (Am I making sense?)

Saturday. Ahh, sweet, peaceful Saturday. NOT. Ryan had to work 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m., so I made plans with a girlfriend to go to a street festival in Frederick. Katrina and I were up early and were just about to leave to hit Borders before meeting my friend when the unwelcome house guest arrived. It wasn't his fault - he didn't come by choice. You see, Davis (our cat) ran outside when I was buckling Katrina in her carseat. Davis caught a chipmunk, brought it in the house, and LET IT GO!!! I was so terrified. Completely irrational. Creeped out. Freaking out, standing on the couch yelling ... at a chipmunk. My attempts to get rid of it did not work, not even the trail of yummy acorns leading to the front door. So we left. I was certain I'd come home to a bloody murder scene with chipmunk parts spread all over the house, but there was no sign of the stupid thing. The cats were sort of stalking the other couch then, but eventually walked away and fell asleep. Lazy cats. Ryan got home at 10:00. The sequence of events went something like this:
10:00 p.m. Ryan walks in the front door
10:03 p.m. Ryan moves the couch
10:05 p.m. Ryan scoops up chipmunk (alive) in box, takes it outside

He's my hero. :)

Finally, a quick Katrina story:
I found a set of flashcards at Wal-Mart with uppercase and lowercase letters on separate cards. Tonight after dinner we pulled them out for the first time, and Katrina knew several of the lowercase letters! (She knows all 26 uppercase letters now.) Lowercase letters she named: c, e, h, k, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, y and z. That's more than half the alphabet! I purposely didn't ask her b/d/g/p/q because those are so confusing, but she did tell me that a b "go up, no down" and drew a 'b' in the air. The other cute thing - she calls them "baby" letters. So an e is a "baby E."

Even more exciting is that she recognized four words! Ryan wrote CAT on her MagnaDoodle, and Katrina spelled out the letters. Then when Ryan asked her what it spells, she said, "Kitty!" He wrote MOM, and she did the same thing - said it spells "Mama." DAD is "Dada," and BABY is "Baby."

By the way ... Katrina will be two and five months (29 months) next week. When asked what we should name her baby sister, she says, "Ummm ... Rabbit!"

What?!

Okay, so we are a little behind on watching the first Survivor ... thank goodness for ReplayTVs ... but a gay Mormon flight attendant?!

Our weekend

Our weekend was busy but great! Miss PattyCake visited our church for TWO concerts on Saturday. We originally booked her for one, but the response was so overwhelming that we scheduled a second concert, and both were filled to near capacity! For those of you who don't know Miss PattyCake, you may recognize her as Jean Thomason, who formerly sang/performed at Women of Faith events. She has been Miss PattyCake for twelve years now, and ministers to preschoolers and their families through song and motion. All the kids love her! I highly recommend you visit her website, get her DVDs (a new one comes out October 30), and even invite her to perform at your church. She's great!


We had a bit of a cold snap roll through. Saturday was cool (high 60s) but comfortable. It was only 38 degrees when I woke up this morning!! We had to dig out some of Katrina's new fall clothes for church. She pretty much picked out this outfit by herself at the store one day. I held up one skirt and she said, "No!" and pointed to this one instead. Then she grabbed the off-white shirt from a stack. Maybe we have a future fashion designer on our hands?


This last picture goes way back to July. I found it on the camera when I was looking at the pictures from this weekend. We visited Illinois in July, and this is Katrina wandering through my mom's bean field. We're heading back to IL in late October ... maybe she'll get to (safely) ride in a combine then!

9 months

From Readers' Digest (http://www.rd.com)

After the birth of my son, a woman from the records department stopped by my hospital room to get information for his birth certificate. "Father's date of birth?" she asked. When I told her, she said, "Do you realize that his birthday is exactly nine months before your son's birth?"

"No, I hadn't thought about it," I responded, "but now that you mention it, I have a daughter who turned two a couple days before the same date."

After she finished taking down all the data, she patted my hand and said, "Maybe you should start buying your husband a tie for his birthday."

-- M.K. Pigott

Weight-obsessed

We are still obsessing about Katrina's growth patterns. She has an appointment at Johns Hopkins later this month as a 'second opinion' with a gastroenterologist. They (hopefully) won't rerun the tests but will look at the results and see if there is anything the doctors at Georgetown missed. I'm thinking about it now because I was over a friend's house this morning; their youngest daughter is a few months younger than Katrina and wears a size 6 diaper. (Size 6 is for kids who weigh more than 35 lbs.) In contrast, Katrina wears a size 4 diaper and they are huge on her ... I go back and forth with the idea of putting her in a smaller size. I know it's all relative, but our friends are average-to-tall in height, and both are athletic and slender. I am average height and Ryan is tall, and we both gain weight easily. So how do we have the skinny kid whose pants fall down all the time?? Our newest niece weighs just about half what Katrina does ... and she is seven weeks old. I'm sure Baby Bethany will pass Katrina in weight in her first year.

Another one bites the dust.

After a grueling two weeks, another proposal is out the door. I have just a few hours to work tomorrow, then will be done for the week. What should I do with my 'free' Thursday and Friday? I'm thinking a good book one day and maybe some house cleaning the other day. I'm definitely experiencing signs of nesting - already! Sunday I had to clean the carport. I was obsessed. I even made Ryan mop part of it, and it's a concrete floor! Last night I disinfected my friend Laura's kitchen counters, and today I scrubbed the coffee maker at work.

This morning Katrina said, "I love you, too" when I told her I love her! Of course, it sounded more like "I luh ooo, too" but I knew what she meant. Being a parent has really changed me and enlightened me to how God feels about each of us. We delight in our little girl day after day, from new words to the way she mimics her daddy to even the crazy book she chooses to read before bed each night. We find joy in the simplest things with her, and it amazes me that God our Father delights in me, even more than I delight in our daughter.

Prayer request: A friend from church found out her brother-in-law (her sister's husband) was shot and killed in their home in Venezuela during a robbery attempt. The friend's nieces have been visiting her for a few weeks, so now Marycruz (our friend) has the heartbreaking task of telling her nieces their father was killed, as well as getting them back home to Venezuela as soon as possible. The girls (Marycruz's nieces) are 14 and 5. Please pray!

Stet

It's good to learn something new.

Stet

Second birthday, and other momentous occassions.

Hmm. "Momentous" looks funny.

Anyway, today, August 27, is my 'second birthday.' I became a Christian on this date thirteen (13) years ago today. I remember the date, not only because it is so special, but because it falls exactly seven days after my 'real' birthday. That's right, I turned 28 last Monday, and today I 'turned' 13. God is good, for sure. I am so blessed beyond belief. We just celebrated our fifth anniversary, and Ryan had a birthday, too. Here is what a week in August looks like for us:

August 17 - our anniversary
August 20 - my birthday
August 24 - Ryan's birthday (he's 31 now! SO OLD!!)

I had an ultrasound today (more on that later) and the lady performing the scan was telling me about a recent trip her family took to Western Maryland. I asked her if she was familiar with Swallow Falls state park, and she was. I always take any opportunity I can to brag ... not about Ryan, but about God, and how He healed Ryan from near death. I briefly told the woman about Ryan's fall three years ago, and how it was a miracle that he even lived, and also how he was expected to be on life support for at least three weeks but was breathing on his own and semi-conscious less than 24 hours after the accident. It was a horrible experience, for sure, but we can see God's hand in so many ways. So we definitely celebrate birthdays around here, and the fact that my crazy husband is even around. :)

I finally cleaned our bedroom. I am such a slob. Ask Marte. And April and Crystal. They all came over in high school to help me clean my room. And Sidra lived with me in college (bless her heart). I'm setting mini-goals along the way. Like, tonight I want to go through the clothes remaining in my dresser (that I never wear) and set them aside for donation. And if I/we can keep the room picked up for at least a set amount of time, I'm thinking paint and a new rug are in store for us. I forgot to take any 'before' pictures (they would have been too scary, anyway), but maybe I'll post some 'after' pictures.

Katrina is growing up so fast! I'm not sure why this is such a big deal to me, but she started calling us "Mommy" and "Daddy" this weekend (instead of "Mama" and "Dada"). She hasn't made the complete switch - she does still call us Mama and Dada interchanged with Mommy and Daddy - but it just seems so grownup for her to say Mommy instead of Mama. And I like being Mama! (Of course, she asked, "Where Ryan?" tonight when she heard me call out his name to bring me something. Oops.)

We're working with her on shapes now. She knows all 26 uppercase letters, a handful of letter sounds, can count to and recognize 1 - 10, and knows a heart, star and oval. We're working on the basic shapes like square and circle (she calls a circle 'round') and rectangle. Not sure how she knows the obscure shapes first, but hey, that's our kid for you. I've also started pointing out lowercase letters to her, and she knows the lowercase 'e' but that's all so far. Katrina is also really into emotions - she can quickly identify an emotion portrayed by a person or animal's expression in a picture, even the first time she sees it. She has a 96-cent placemat from Wal-Mart with Sesame Street characters on it, and the first time she looked at it, in the store, she noticed that Elmo looks like he's tripping over a stick. Right away Katrina said, "Mama, Elmo hurt. Elmo hurt!" I didn't even see it until she pointed it out to me!

(And she is not an alien child from Village of the D*mned, thank you very much MARTE and SARA!)

And finally, my ultrasound. The blood clots are GONE and the amniotic fluid is clear - no blood cell debris!! It's as if the clots never existed. God is so good. We have been praying and praying that these clots would simply disappear and I would be healed, and He answered! This little girl is very calm, not nearly the kicker that her big sister was. She has predictable active times: right after lunch, and in the evening between 10 and 10:30, when I'm trying to fall asleep. She is growing along her curve, and is slightly bigger (1 lb, 5 oz) than Katrina was at this stage of development. Any suggestions for a name? We can't call her 'This Baby' forever.

No Bug Spray

We've been having a rough bedtime with Katrina for just about a month now ... since we got back from vacation. Both our babysitter and a coworker encouraged us that the phase lasts about a month and will pass, but we were giving up hope of getting to bed peacefully (read: without vomit). Lately Katrina has been obsessed with bugs. Sometimes she points them out, but she usually shrieks "A BOG!!!!!!" (yes, b-o-g is how she says it) and freaks out. The last few times I've asked her what she is scared of, she says, "bog."

Last weekend Grandma Herbert (Gail, Ryan's mom) said that Ryan had a similar bedtime issue when he was a little bit older. He finally told his Grandma Lyons that he was scared of a lion under his bed and needed a gun to shoot it. Grandma Lyons got him a toy gun and sure enough, he slept well after that. We figured a gun would be overkill (pardon the pun), but we did decide to make a bottle of "No Bug Spray." Ryan found a picture of a bug with the line through it, and I taped it to an empty spray bottle. We showed it to Katrina before bed tonight and made a big deal of spraying her bed and under and all around her room. We also showed her how she could spray if she got scared.

Sure enough, it worked! It's only the first night, so I'm not saying it's permanent, but I prayed with her and kissed her goodnight, and she laid down without a peep. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

I am heading to bed. I've been sleep-deprived for the last month.

Here's the picture we used for our "No Bug Spray" bottle:

Our newest niece

Bethany Elise Yanchick arrived yesterday (Saturday, July 28th) at 7:37 a.m. She weighed 8 pounds 5 ounces, is 22 inches long, and is GORGEOUS! Laura and David are doing well. :)