only the beginning ...

Clairely has been sick for 3 days! She started feeling yucky on Saturday, and laid around, then on Sunday after lunch, she threw up. I made her lay down all day, and this morning she popped up and said she felt better, so I debated sending her to school today. She had chugged down a sippy cup full of milk (without my knowledge!) and as soon as she did, she started rolling around, sick, and then threw up again! Hopefully it was the milk made her sick, and not still the virus! There are 4 other people in this house that it could run through before we're done!! We've never gotten sick this early in the season, so I am praying it won't be like this all school year. Here we go again ...

Nani comes to visit!

My mom came and spent last week with our family - we loved having Nani home with us! Oh, and she did come to see baby Ava. :) Mom was such a huge help around the house, with laundry, school lunches, dinner, chasing Caloway, cleaning up after Caloway, FINDING Caloway, feeding Caloway (and that's a whole other issue we won't get into!). WE MISS YOU NANI!
I guess I never realized how much is on my plate on a daily basis until my mom came and shouldered some of that responsibility. I figured with 2 kids in school now, that my daily routine would slow down and I'd have more time on my hands ... wow, how wrong I was! I feel like things are just out of control, keeping up with homework assignments, making sure everyone is fed, clean underwear and socks are always in the drawers, bathrooms are clean, dishes are done, house is picked up ... and that's just the morning! Maybe I just need to get up even earlier - or maybe we need more organization. If there are any ideas, let me know! I have been feeling so overwhelmed. I don't even want to think about how I'd be feeling if I'd homeschooled this year!! Perhaps it's my perspective that's skewed.
We had a crazy weekend - on Sat night, Tim had the worst allergy/asthma attack he's had, and went to the ER. We don't know what triggered it, but it was awful. They got it under control, and he came home late, then had to get up Sun. morning, teach sunday school, lead worship and preach all in one morning! God really touched him though, and he made it through. He spoke about the kingdom of God and how we fit into His plan. It is so easy for us to pray for God to bless what we do, but we should really be asking Him if we could be a part of what He is blessing. All perspective - if we truly believed that Jesus and His Kingdom is a living, breathing entity that is in our world even right now, how would our prayers change? If Jesus is King even as we eat our breakfast, and shuttle our kids to school, how does that change us? Most of us don't really think we need a king. I've started reading (under duress, I admit at first) "This Beautiful Mess" by Rick McKinley. Tim forced me to! It's all about the Kingdom of God, and where that fits into our lives. Anyway, a really good book and some great thoughts on how unimportant some things are in our lives that we really waste a lot of time investing into and worrying over. Maybe I just need to concentrate on my kiddos and not worry if some things fall through the cracks?

the tooth fairy is getting old ...

Cameron lost another tooth last night - Mom and Dad are going broke! We put his tooth under his pillow last night, and Cameron was so excited, because he's been saving his "tooth fairy" money. Tim woke up early to head to the Y, so I reminded him to slip $1 under Cam's pillow before he woke up. Well, he got the dollar under the pillow just seconds before Cam popped up, and yanked his pillow up with a huge sigh of relief. "YES! I have $5 dollars now!" he shouted. As he was making his bed later, he found the little baggie with his tooth still inside! (way to go, DAD!) I had to quickly explain that the tooth fairy was pretty old, so she probably just forgot to grab the tooth; and Cameron said, "well, maybe it's because of the baggie - she couldn't get it open!" Yup - we'll go along with that! She's too old, small and weak to get the teeth out of the bag! Ha ha! So how does she carry all those dollars and quarters??!

cal's happy birthday