I've got problems with this!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all about child-safety. I understand the need for booster seats, I've read the statistics, I've gotten the latest campaign messages.

But let's face the facts, I'm 4'11" and I've seen many people even shorter than I am that would have to be in a booster seat while driving! I would have easily been in one in middle school, this isn't logical people! Something makes me wonder if the booster seat companies, or the SUV makers have anything to do with this campaign? Think about it. Logically, most kids under 12 would have to be in a booster seat. If you have 3, 4, 5, or even 6 kids, they may all have to be in booster seats. I could barely fit my kids' two car seats in the back of the Buick, hence the need for a mini-van (and I only have 2 kids!). I think there's somebody bigger than Uncle Sam behind this one...

Her eyes say it all...

 

The Prettiest Girl I ever did see!

Little Leeann

We went to Seaside for a couple of days last week with our small group from church. We stayed at a beautiful beach house and this is a picture of Leeann staring out one of the big picture windows gazing at the ocean... or rather, her own reflection! They are both beautiful in my opinion! 

Fun, Fun, Fun

Eroica and Kajsa (Kay-sa) just came over and I helped Eroica narrow down some of the wedding pictures from the wedding last week. We took 1500+ pictures and are trying to narrow it down to 200-300 pictures. It's tough. Today we took it from 690 (I think) to 470 or something like that. It's getting better!

That's not the fun part though. The fun part is that Eroica and Kajsa were leaving and Leeann climed into their car and told me she was going bye-bye. She really wanted to go though because she hasn't seen Eroica in a week (which for us is WAYYY too long!). So, after installing one of our spare car seats, Eroica took Leeann home with her. Wierd. Titus is sleeping, I have no where to go (0r at least no way to get there!) and I'm by myself. So what do I do? I blog about it! Now I'm going to stop blogging and start enjoying some of the peace and quite. What a concept. I think I'll take a bath and read a book! Now that is my idea of fun!

When it rains... it pours!

The evil blue buick dies again...

It doesn't pick good days to die. We're just coming off of a full weeks vacation so Rob and I have lot's of stuff that needs to be done for work today. We both have meetings tonight that we didn't realize would conflict. We don't have a babysitter, nor means of transportation for the kiddies once we find a babysitter (Rob has the van). Such is our lot in life these days.

We should have stayed on vacation!

Life With Pull-Ups

Wondering how the life without pull-ups thing is going? It's not. We have several pair of panties soaking in water trying to remove poo stains, and with a couple other pair rotating through the laundry we're realizing it takes more big girl panties than we currently own to sufficiently potty train. We are getting ready for a vacation anyway (in which pull-ups would be far better than urine on someone else's couch), so we've resorted back to pull-ups for the short term. We'll try the no pull-up thing again soon though. She just doesn't seem to get it. She knows when she wets or dirties her pull-up, and she knows when she wets or poos in her panties. How exactly do you get her to realize it before it happens though? I'm open to advice in this area. Anyone?

Handsome Boy

Here's a picture I took of Titus today... I thik he's the best looking kid in the universe!

 

Life Happens

This week has been a pretty full week for me in terms of working. Yesterday I got to the church at 11:00 and didn't leave until 10:00 that evening. I was preparing for my Fall Children's Ministry Volunteer Training Class, and every thing that could go wrong with technology leading up to the class went wrong. It's Robyn's Law of something or another. This isn't the first time that the printer jammed, malfunctioned etc. just before a big meeting I needed to prepare for.

It gets better though. I've been working on this 23 page document for about 6 weeks now. It's a complete manual outlining our Children's Ministry vision, mission, values, policies, procedures safety recommendations, programs etc. I've been doing masses amounts of research with our insurance company, our denominational head-quarters, other churches and internet sites in order to create this document. Well, in an attempt to make a few final changes I managed to somehow totally mess up the page numbering system and various other pieces of the document. Our new youth pastor, Joel, and a friend of mine, Milly, ended up helping me out quite a bit. Every few pages one would jam in the printer, so they pieced together enough pages to make the needed amount of booklets. I wanted to set the printer on fire, after I torched my computer... but it didn't seem like the best option. We wasted several trees in the process. The worst part? I had gone into work on Wednesday to make sure that I would have everything done well before the meeting. Just before I got to work, the power went out. So much for that option!

Oh well, such is life. Tomorrow I'll work 8 hours or so shooting a wedding. Weddings are fun, but exhausting. They're a lot of work and a fair amount of stress. A wedding isn't the kind of thing you want to mess up!

The extra money will be very nice though. The addition of Titus eating real food and the car breaking down on multiple occasions drained the small financial cushion we once called our savings account. Now that the dust has settled on our move and we have a better idea how we're fairing financially in the new house with adjustments in utilities, with the addition of my job at the church and various other things--we've realized that we're short. Yes, physically we're not a tall family--but also in the money department! Money is a stressful thing. It appears at this point as if one of us will have to get an additional part-time job. Not our favorite option, but life happens. It has been good for us to re-evaluate some basic things and to consider how we can be more wise with our money. Ultimately, our money belongs to God, he's just trusting us to manage it well. I pray that we aren't letting him down in that area! I'll be curious to see what God has in mind for us. Maybe He's got a reason bigger than our finances that He wants one of us to get another job.

More than anything, I'm grateful that eventhough things are really tight right now, Rob and I continue to keep the same perspective on money. It's something that drives a lot of couples apart, but it's never been an issue of contention for us (Knock on wood). God has been so faithful to provide for us and I'm glad that we trust in Him.

Life Without Pull-Ups Day 2.5

Leeann pooed (is that a word) in the bath this morning, which is the first time she's ever done that on me! Maybe it's her way of telling me what she thinks of potty-training?

She had a little accident this afternoon, but seemed to catch herself mid-stream. As I told her to run to the potty she realized that she also needed to poo. She made it mostly in the potty, but partly on the potty. Oh well, it's a step in the right direction right?

And so we continue doing laundry...

Life without pull-ups, Day 2

The sheets, blankets and panties are enjoying a ride in the washing machine and Leeann is enjoying her bath...

We'll see how the day goes, we plan on staying home all day today!

Camping

This weekend we went to family camp with our church. There were about 20 families and it was lot's of fun as always! This year was better than the last couple of years however, because it didn't rain--no complaints here in that area.

Camping with an 8 month old, now that's worth complaining about! I love Titus. He's a good kid. He hasn't figured out the sleeping thing real well, but he's really pretty easy-going. Sometimes he wakes up once or twice (occasionally 3 times) during the night. Sometimes he sleeps from 10:30-9:00 without waking up once. Why the inconsistency? Good question! Well, Saturday night he woke up somewhere between 6 and 8 times. I imagine he had a tummy ache, a sun burn, a bug bite, or he was just cold. Or a combination of the above. Usually when he wakes up I nurse him and he goes right back to sleep. Well he woke up only an hour or two after going to bed and he wouldn't nurse because I didn't have enough milk at that point. So I rubbed him tummy, swaddled him up and tried to comfort him. It worked for a little while, but then he woke up again. This continued off and on until 5:00 in the morning. At that point I put him in his car seat and put him in the front seat of the van. I crawled into the drivers seat with my sleeping bag and we camped out there until morning. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but at least when he cried it didn't wake up the rest of the campground. I cried. I was exhausted, frustrated and cold. I was embarrassed because I knew he was waking up the entire campground with his shrieks! But, such is life. Next year he'll be 20 months old and he'll have a whole new set of issues!

On a positive note, he slept all the way until 7:45 this morning (never mind the fact I had to be up before 6 for an early morning meeting!) He's happily playing now though, I suspect we're going to have a good day after getting to sleep in our own beds!

Camping

This weekend we went to family camp with our church. There were about 20 families and it was lot's of fun as always! This year was better than the last couple of years however, because it didn't rain--no complaints here in that area.

Camping with an 8 month old, now that's worth complaining about! I love Titus. He's a good kid. He hasn't figured out the sleeping thing real well, but he's really pretty easy-going. Sometimes he wakes up once or twice (occasionally 3 times) during the night. Sometimes he sleeps from 10:30-9:00 without waking up once. Why the inconsistency? Good question! Well, Saturday night he woke up somewhere between 6 and 8 times. I imagine he had a tummy ache, a sun burn, a bug bite, or he was just cold. Or a combination of the above. Usually when he wakes up I nurse him and he goes right back to sleep. Well he woke up only an hour or two after going to bed and he wouldn't nurse because I didn't have enough milk at that point. So I rubbed him tummy, swaddled him up and tried to comfort him. It worked for a little while, but then he woke up again. This continued off and on until 5:00 in the morning. At that point I put him in his car seat and put him in the front seat of the van. I crawled into the drivers seat with my sleeping bag and we camped out there until morning. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but at least when he cried it didn't wake up the rest of the campground. I cried. I was exhausted, frustrated and cold. I was embarrassed because I knew he was waking up the entire campground with his shrieks! But, such is life. Next year he'll be 20 months old and he'll have a whole new set of issues!

On a positive note, he slept all the way until 7:45 this morning (never mind the fact I had to be up before 6 for an early morning meeting!) He's happily playing now though, I suspect we're going to have a good day after getting to sleep in our own beds!

Bold Move

Today we said good-bye to the pull-ups and hello to the big-girl panties. Quite frankly, it's time, and pull-ups are getting ridiculously expensive. It seems like a logical place to cut costs, and she obviously has the hang of going to the bathroom in the big-girl potty... she doesn't have the hang of telling us when she needs to go. I'm sure she'll figure it out really soon! She's initiated many trips to the bathroom already and it's only been a couple of hours. I pray I'll have the patience to stick with this, and that Leeann will learn quickly and that her accidents will all be in easy-to-clean places!

Just to make you laugh...

I locked my keys in my car last night. It was the second time in a week. Yup, sad huh? Third time this summer. Can my insurance rates go up for using road-side assistance too much? That's a good question, I should probably find that out! We've gotten our car towed twice in the last couple of weeks also. DEFINATELY getting our monies worth!

No more youth group *tear*

I've been keeping very busy around here lately! I'm glad that Rob is home from all of his youth trips, that made for a pretty hectic couple of weeks... I miss him terribly when he's gone. Leeann falls apart without daddy, and that's not an understatement what-so-ever!

The church had a Rob appreciation party last Sunday night and it was lot's of fun. It was to appreciate his four+ years in youth ministry and to wish him well as he transitions into 'big church'. Most of the kids made a scrapbook memory page and I put together a slide show of more than 200 pictures from the last 4 years. It's so crazy that many of those kids are graduated, and several of them are married now. The puny little 6th graders have their drivers licenses and they're entering their junior year! Crazy!

When we first came to this church there were some nights that only the Pastor's daughter showed up for youth group. Those were tough nights. Rob and I were the only two people on the student ministry staff at that point. This last year it was not uncommon to see 40+ kids and 10 youth staff on any given youth group night, and sometimes even more in the Youth Service Sunday morning. I'm gonna miss those students! We'll still get to see them and interact with them though, so that's nice. It's not like we're leaving the church. Joel and Brenna (the new youth pastor and his wife) moved into Albany on Monday. It's good to have them here, I think they'll be a great fit!

I've been busy preparing the Children's Ministry for the Fall. We're transitioning to three services so it's quite hectic trying to get everything together for that. We still have a lot of staff spots to fill, so hopefully some more people will come out of the wood works soon for that!

So, all in all life is really good, but really busy right now. I've had very little in the way of down-time which is evidenced by the lack of updates on blog. I'll try to get better, but no guarentees!

Titus's Birthday

This is a picture that I meant to blog a long time ago, but I just now got around to making it appropriate for public viewing. This is Titus, just a few minutes old--unsure of this world. It's cold, it's scary and "my arms and legs keep flinging all over the place, I've got no control out here!"

Who gave this little guy permission to get bigger? I'm not sure I like this game, they grow up wayyyyyy too fast!

 

What I've been up to...

This car repair only cost $105, so I'm pleased to say I was wrong on that part... :0)

Titus went to the doctor the other day and this shrimp still doesn't weigh 15 lbs. He's 14 lbs 13 oz. Yes friends, that's only 7 more oz. than he weighed two months ago. He officially fell off of the charts, though his doctor assured me that's appropriatly proportionate and developing just fine.

I spent a couple of days with my family in St. Helens while Rob took his last youth trip. He took 17 middle schoolers and some helpers to Seattle to go to the zoo, Wild Waves, the beach and a Mariners game. So when he gets home this afternoon he will no longer be a youth pastor. He's now an associate pastor and he'll spend the next couple of months figuring out exactly what that means!

I had fun with my family. My family makes a party out of everything and I love it! They threw a Birthday party for Leeann. She got a Strawberry Shortcake beach towel and a box of yummy cereal from Great-Grandma B (the cereal is a much-loved tradition). She got hair pretties and a little bit of college fund cash from my Aunt Pam and Uncle Steve. She got a really cool squishy fishy from my Uncle Everett and clan (the clan part makes for a long story). And my Aunt Patty and Uncle Don, my Daddy and Tasha, my brother Jason and my cousin Jenni and her family all went together and got Leeann a Dora the Explorer talking kitchen. It's cool! One of the high school girls, Jenny, and I put it together last night and re-arranged her room to make it fit better. She's made me a lot of food this morning, I'm terribly full from so much plastic! Anyway, thanks family for the great Birthday party for her--she loves getting to see everyone.

She absolutely didn't want to go home. First she didn't want to leave Jenni's but was okay because we went to see my best friend Angie and her boys. Then she didn't want to leave Angie's but I convinced her to so we could go to Aunt Patty's and see Grandma. She didn't want to leave there, but was okay with it because we went to see my dad, Tasha and their kids. She cried because she didn't want to leave there either. After about 10 minutes in the car she was out cold for 2 hours and woke up just as we were pulling onto our street. She started bawling because she didn't want to go home, she wanted to see more people! She litterally stood just outside of the van in tears saying "I don't want to go inside!" My daughter is a little social butterfly, and she certainly loves her family!

She's had a tough time without daddy these last couple of days. I have too! We miss him terribly. I was not cut out to be a single mom! But in just a few short hours the world will get back to normal (whatever normal is), and I can't wait!