I'm Still Standing Here

Have I mentioned Thomas and Sarah Grace's new bikes? And new helments? And new knee pads? These are some very loved items in their lives.

Except Sarah Grace and her knee pads. Because the elastic on the knee pads is just a bit short for her stout little legs. The knee pads have been passed on down the line, though. Elizabeth is quite content to don them and ride her bike.


Or stand on the porch because she hasn't mastered movement in the knee pads yet.

'Mom?'

'Oh, Mommy?'

'What, Officer? My tags are expired, you say? What?
Their upside down? I have no idea what your talking about.'


'Me and my sister, we were just going for a short ride. Surely this
is just a warning. I don't even know what a ticket is!'


'Mommy? It's Elizabeth.'


'Your youngest daughter! Your baby!'


'What do you mean, not the baby for much longer?? Well, let me just come remind you how cute I really am. We'll see who's the baby!'

And with that, folks, she took off the knee pads, made her way delicately down the steps, stomped down the drive to where I stood laughing, held out her arms, and said, 'Up, peas!', thus demanding to be held in my arms.

I obliged. She is awfully cute!

Program Error

I am not one of those Mama's who braves it very often and takes all the little ones with me somewhere. When I need to, I will. But I am very aware that with three under the age of four and an ever growing belly, going shopping for anything that isn't necessary is just a recipe for making all of us frustrated. And have I ever mentioned my aversion to people and their seeming disbelief that these are all my children and I do know how they got here? However, with Thomas and Sarah Grace going to school two mornings a week, I am finding I have ample time to run my errands with just Elizabeth to keep me company.

This works well, except for those times when I have to get to the post office on a day when there is no school and it is pouring down rain (thank you for your rains, Tropical Storm Fay). There we were, me with a baby on my hip, both the older kids with packages in their hands, Elizabeth chewing a little bit on the envelopes I needed to mail off, and me encouraging the kids to quit puddle jumping. It always amazes me how long it takes to travel ten or fifteen yards with these guys.

Finally, we made it inside where the children were careful not to step on the cracks between the tiles, and not to step on any of the darker tiles, only the lighter colored gray ones. By the time we made it to the actual line, a couple of people had skirted around us and were now standing in front of us. Only one of them wasn't content to just have bypassed my small brood, who were behaving well, by the way. Just full of questions that echoed inside the post office. You know, big, empty-ish government building built of cinder-block and tiled floors. She made it a point to scowl in our direction several times.

Maybe she had a headache (I can so sympathize), but I had already jumped to my own conclusion. She thought I had too many kids. A mind-set I run into frequently enough to make my head spin. In fact, just a few weekends ago, I had a lady in front of me in a consignment sale line ask me if I knew what caused it! Every fiber of my being wanted to give her a tongue lashing, but the Lord helped me with my plea to be a sweeter person. I smiled and said 'Love'.

But my toes were curling. It makes me ill tempered, plus, I don't want my children to feel the thorny and misguided conception that they are burdens. But I digress.

Back to my original point: running errands. Today I had it in my head to go by my favorite craft store our town's craft store after I dropped Thomas and Sarah Grace. Only they aren't open at 8 am. They don't open until 9. And Elizabeth and I had not had breakfast and she was already spoiling for her morning nap. So we left, me thinking I could just leave a few minutes early and run by again before we picked up the older two kids.

It was simply not to be. I got stuck behind something that was happening somewhere and I never figured out what it was that had traffic on a two lane road slowed down for nearly fifteen minutes. Elizabeth and I got to the church, picked up Thomas and Sarah Grace, and the entire time, I was debating to go, or not to go to the craft store. Going finally won out, because I am excited about this project. (I will post on that later, if it turns out well!)

Thankfully, though Fay is still spreading her love, the rain was on a temporary hiatus, allowing us to get in and out without being rained upon. Once in the store, Thomas kicked into gentleman gear and grabbed a cart for the girls to ride in and then he toted the hand basket around for me to drop things into. The kids ooohhhheeeedddd and aaahhheeeddd over the gigantic tree that was decorated for fall. Then they begged to go through 'Christmas Valley' their nickname for all the Christmas aisles. We walked up and down the 'Valley' aisles twice each (once to look at each side of the aisle).

As we were discussing decorating ideas and ornaments, I absent mindedly pushed the cart out into the main aisle, nearly running into the cart of a lady who looked to be a few years older than me (the age that so often makes my hairs bristle with their comments on my kids). She jerked to attention, and just as I was preparing to have to laugh off another rude comment in the presence of my children, she burst into this huge smile that encompassed all of us.

'Oh, do you know how blessed you are? They are beautiful!'

Lady, I don't know who you are or what you are up to at this moment, but your sweetness has brought tears to my eyes several times today. Because you know what? Your right. I am and they are. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your encouraging words.

In Keeping With My Current Theme...

...I do have one, you know. Dancing!

And everyone who has ever seen me dance snorts in an effort to not laugh in my face. However, you can lay aside your fears of me showing video of my dancing prowess. This promises to be much more entertaining, if I do say so myself.

So, here it is. Lizzy doing her rap-dance to one of Thomas' birthday cards!

Bicycle Built For Two...

...sort of. Joshua pulled out his bike and began riding it up and down the street with the kids in the evenings and on the weekends. The kids absolutely love being allowed to ride on the road and go fast! It is not without accidents, but they are not deterred.


This weekend, we remembered a child's seat that had been bought (and never utilized) for Thomas when he was a baby. Joshua tooled around and got it hooked up to a bike and after nap, Elizabeth got to try it out!

Every time they passed by the house, Elizabeth was grinning from ear to ear!

Dancing

The smile that is on my face and making my kids move around on this dreary day is due to this. Check it out. And get up and move with it!

Mail?

Thomas has a new job. With the assistance of a small step stool, he is quite big enough to check the mailbox and retrieve the treasures that it holds. This is a much anticipated event in his daily schedule. Until this week, it was one of my favorites, too, but time marches on and the torch is passed.


Sounds eloquent anyway, eh?

He has a habit of jumping the gun a bit. The mail delivery around here is pretty prompt and predictable, so I am okay with letting him out at noon to check. The first day or two, he would bring in the mail, or simply report that it wasn't there. I would stand at the window or the door and watch him to be sure he obeyed all the safety rules we had talked about before he was allowed to take on this new task and be available to help him if he needed it. Thankfully, because of where we are situated in the neighborhood, the mail truck is about the only vehicle that ventures down our road between 9 am and 2 pm.

I laughed the other day as I saw him open the box, peek in, and come away with a sad look on his face. Such devastation you will hopefully never have to witness in your lives. I did, however, manage to capture the dramatics on film.


So strong was his disappointment that he sat right down all Forrest Gump style and waited for the mail truck to come.

Thankfully, his wait was not long. The mail truck was just around the corner. But I couldn't resist sharing the cuteness with you. :)

Bwew-berrie Pickin'n

It's been a couple of weeks now since this outing occured, but I warned you all that I was gonna do some catch up posts...

Looking through the local advertiser, I noticed an ad for picking blueberries. $8 a gallon if you picked your own, considerably lower than the grocery store, and it would allow us to freeze a bundle and have 'fresh' blueberries this winter when they are so hard to come by. And blueberry picking sounded like just the kind of adventure the kiddos were in need of.

Of course, we picked one of the hottest days of the year and we didn't get there until after noon. Where we were greeted by a lady with a golf cart saying, follow me. Hmmm...did you know that mini-vans can off road? Yup. Did you know that tall growing grass can hide a minor ditch in the beaten down grass that was leading a double life as a 'road'? Yeah, it can. Miraculously, I managed to not tear the bottom of the van out. When we finally parked safely in the midst of the blueberry patch, the three very large dogs that had followed us out there greeted us with all sorts of slobber, drool, and happily, wagging tails. All very endearing, really.

Except that my kids are pet.ri.fied. of dogs. However, the kind lady in the glof cart had no intentions of staying out in the heat with us, and she agreed to coax her dogs back to the Big House with her. Her farewell included instructions to just c'mon back to the house when we were done, and that the kids could eat as many as they wanted.

This worked out well for Elizabeth, who preferred to eat her berries straight off the bush rather than drop them in the bucket for this winter's pleasures. I don't even want to think about how many blueberries that kid put away in the two-ish hour span we were there. Suffice it to say, she was full when we left.


Thomas and Sarah Grace each took a bucket and set about picking blueberries, but Thomas soon found he would rather pick fifteen or twenty then dump them on the ground and start over. Agh! All those yummy blueberries tossed to the ground and we were after two gallons of berries! I did manage to convince him to dump them into my bucket or into Granny's bucket. Then he resorted to treasure finding, as little boys are prone to do.


Sarah Grace, well, let's just say she isn't the blueberry picking type. She spent her time trying to decide who was standing in a more shaded area, Mommy or Granny, and running back and forth between us asking if it was time to go yet. Incidentally, there are no pictures of her.

After about an hour and a half or more, the kids were all hot and whiny, I was hot and getting the all-my-children-are whining-at-my-feet-complex that Mommies everywhere are familiar with. We were still somewhere around half a gallon shy of our goal, but the time had come. We were disrupting the kids nap schedule. And did I mention it was hot? I gave the proclamation that it was time to go and the kids all but ran for the van.


We carefully picked our way back up the grass 'road' and handed the lady some cash for our stash of goodies and then brought the kids home. They had to have a quick rinse off before I would allow them to crawl into their beds, grubby little creatures! And then, they rested peacefully.

We now have a ton of yummy blueberries up in the freezer for some muffin making and smoothies this winter, the kids had their fill of fresh ones for a while, and life is good.

The End.

Birthday Details

Pictures for your viewing pleasure...


The Spiderman cake. Friends of mine all immediately thought of having to draw a Spiderman face. That thought never entered my mind. My head went straight to the easiest alternative. A spiderweb with a store-bought Spidy on it somewhere. W@l M@rt rescued us with the dual purpose candle/Spidy cake topper. Brilliant.


Finger spoon licking good!


Look...He-Man!! (does anybody out there remember that guy?)



The bestest birthday gift of the evening...the bow and arrow!!! He declared it 'cool'.


I didn't get a good shot of Thomas using his bow and arrow, but here he is being all happy about fetching an arrow he had shot out into the middle of the drive-way.

All in all a very good day!

It's A Birthday!!!

Happy 4th Birthday, Thomas!!!

Lookie! Shiny!

Check out those sparkly earrings!

Big Birthday Bicycles

This past Sunday we took the kids to my parents house to celebrate their birthdays with my side of the family. The kids were thrilled to be going to Pepop and Memum's house! We all had a late lunch and then finally allowed the kids to get into their presents. They each got a big kid bicycle! Thomas was elated that his was red and Sarah Grace, of course, had a princess bicycle!


You should know that all through lunch, we kept trying to get Sarah Grace to guess what her big gift was. While Thomas' was still disassembled and in the box, Sarah Grace's came put together and Mom and Dad had put a large, orange bag over it to keep her guessing. She had finally settled on it being a Baby Dinosaur, and when the cover came off, she squealed "It's a bicycle! It's a bicycle! It's not a Baby Dinosaur, it's a bicycle!!!"


Elizabeth was excited, too. =)


Pepop, Thomas and Daddy got to build Thomas' bike, much to the entertainment of the rest of us. While Pepop dug up the correct tools, Daddy worked at getting everything into place. Thomas waltzed around with the handle bars or the seat and crowed about his new, red bicycle.


Sarah Grace couldn't wait until Thomas had his bike put together before she tried hers out! She was just sooooooooo excited! We realized about that time that the kids had no helmets. So Pepop and I trotted off to W@l M@rt to remedy the situation.

While we were gone, Daddy and Thomas finished putting the bike together and Thomas was allowed a short test ride. And it was made evident that the builders had forgotten to tighten the front wheel to the frame. I hear it was quite entertaining.

Once they finally had their helmets and knee pads on, they were ready to fly!

We opted to let the training wheels wobble a bit to encourage balance and Thomas needed much encouragement from Memum before he was willing to believe that he still wouldn't topple over.

Sarah Grace, however, needed no such encouragement. She was rocketing all over the place! We had a few close calls as far as wrecks go, a handful of falling over, and one of Sarah Grace's pedals came off at one point. But the afternoon was spent happily riding their new bikes and we are still boo-boo free from biking incidents!

Warning!!! Gross Post

The day was spent in Huntsville going to various department stores with Granny and the kids and myself all jumping in and out of the rain. We dined for lunch at a favorite deli, where I took Elizabeth to the bathroom to change her diaper. I set her down on the floor and told her to stand still and then promptly turned my back to wrestle the baby changing station horizontal. I finally won the battle, turned to get Elizabeth and saw her hands clinging to the seat of the toilet. My stomach lurched as I did a Mommy panic moment and rushed her out to the sink to scrub the skin, um, germs off her hands. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Sarah Grace's Birthday Party

You should know that if things go as planned over the next couple of days, there will be much blogging to be caught up on. With many pictures. So, prepare the old eyeballs for a bit of a workout!


The princess gives a kiss to her Daddy upon receiving flowers. She loves these flowers, let me tell you!



Here is our princess and her castle cake. Which we are still eating. Come over for dessert?


Finally, we get to open presents! Look at the cool lunch box Thomas picked out for her? Do you scent the princess theme that seems to be winding it's way through our house right now?


The princess in training looks on as her sister shows her how to properly unwrap a gift.

Concerning Baby Bean

Which, by the way, is what I call the jumping bean of a baby that is currently residing in my belly. Baby Bean hasn't gotten much press on the blog recently. Well, at all, really. But I am thinking now is the time to start with the remedy of that.

We had the big appointment today. The really fun one where the doctor does the ultra sound and does all the fun measurements. We could see the beautiful heartbeat, strong and healthy. We got to see feet that are in keeping with our other children thus far; long. We watched a sweet little mouth make sucking movements and yawn one great big time for us. I marveled and the little hand and arm that reached up to shield a perfectly formed face.

Sarah Grace got to go to the appointment with Joshua and I. She was mildly interested in seeing the baby on the computer screen, though I can hardly blame her. It is hard to get excited about something that you can barely make out. I wondered if she was as confused as I was the first time I saw an ultra sound. Sarah Grace was much more interested in the jelly they put on my belly. I told her it helped the 'magic camera' see in Mommy's belly. Is it cold? No, it's warm. How did it get warmed? They have a special place that keeps it warm. Does it hurt? No, it doesn't hurt. Are you gonna get it off? After the 'magic camera' finishes looking at the baby. Can I get down? (Her Daddy was holding her up so she could see all that was going on.)

She flitted over to one of the chairs and played for a second, then became interested in the ultra sound again, then lost interest, then regained interest, and so on and so forth. She was mildly excited when we told her if she had a brother or a sister.

And now that you have patiently read through all the details, I will now let you in on a little secret. We have no idea what we are going to name the new Baby Girl Freeman who is due to join us out in the open world on or about December 15 of 2008. We can't wait to meet this new little person, but we are so glad she seems healthy and happy in her current location!

Happy Birthday, Sarah Grace!

Guess who is 3 today? It is so hard to believe that it was that long ago that I held a precious new life in my arms and counted all her little fingers and toes. Here she is now, all dressed in her pajamas and crown, ready for her day as princess! Check out that wink! I love you, my sweet Sarah Grace!

I Need To Be More Specific

I had just a couple of errands to get to this morning, and I wasn't in a huge hurry to get out of the house. We needed to be at a certain store as close to ten as we could manage, so plenty of time to breakfast and dress leisurely and sneak in a bit of playtime. I was laid back and not paying just a whole lot of attention to Thomas and Sarah Grace as they dressed themselves. So I missed it.

We got everyone loaded into the van, buckled in, and down to the store. Thomas has the standing job of unbuckling himself and then his sisters so that by the time I make it around to the passenger side of the van to open the door and grab Elizabeth, he and Sarah Grace can just tumble right on out. As Sarah Grace started towards the door, she looked up at me with a very concerned expression on her face.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Gracie?"

"I don't have on any underwear."

.........."What?! Sarah, why aren't you wearing your underwear?"

"You didn't tell me to put it on."

Duh. Thank the Lord Elizabeth's diapers will fit on Sarah Grace's little bottom. Silly girl.