Giving Thanks

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Finally!

He's so happy that I'm happy too. (even though crawling isn't my favorite stage-I never realize how much fuzz and paper scraps on the floor until we have a crawler!)

Two Cute

It's a Poddy

Or, in case you don't speak Julia, a party. I have to admit I spent quite awhile asking if she needed to use the bathroom until I finally figured out what she was saying.
You can sort of see our family pictures too. They turned out really nice.

Deal

Perhaps you've already seen this on twelve other blogs (do you admit to reading that many?) but I love shutterfly.com, especially their deals and they have some good ones! For writing a post I'll get 50 free Christmas cards.

I've made various cards (http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery) and 4 photobooks using shutterfly, all of which turned out beautifully. The kids and I (and Jeremy too, just not as often) love pulling out the books and reading through the memories. What kid doesn't like a book about themselves? My cousin also made a spectacular book for my grandmother about all of us grandkids' memories of her and her house. Ask to see that one sometime!

You can check out their Christmas card selection here. I haven't looked much yet but this one has potential to turn out lovely. There are lots of beautiful choices. You can stay tuned to see if it's the one I use. :)

If you'd like to get in on the deal by writing a post here's the link http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Before and After

We're having a big family picture taken this weekend (my whole side of the family and just us too) so I decided to get Julia's hair trimmed. I was worried about her curls but the ends were bleached out from the sun, thin, straggly and getting knotted very easily. It was time for the baby hair to go. :( We just took off an inch and it looks good, not much difference but all that icky hair is gone, she still has some curl in the ends (yay!) and it lays nicer. I know it's trivial, but if you think of it, pray that our pictures go well! :)

Making up for Lost Time

All last month Philip was a sick, teething, miserable-feeling baby. He was much too busy with all that to learn much of anything. Since he's now feeling better he's making up for lost time. Last week he learned to:

Spin in a circle while sitting (okay with me)

Go from laying on his stomach to sitting up (wonderful)

Scoot backwards while on his tummy (okay since he still can't quite use this talent to get at stuff)

Pull up (too early!!!)

Also his bottom right tooth finally poked through and the left one won't be far behind. In fact, it looks like he might be getting the next one over on the left too which hopefully means the one on the right is working its way up as well. If he gets four teeth out of his month of misery that'd be great! He's so much more fun now that's he's feeling better too. He doesn't just want to be held all the time. He'll sit and play for good chunks of time and it's much easier to put him down to sleep in his crib again.

Praise the Lord, his little life is good!

Quotable Quotes

Julia after chasing Mommy around the house and failing to catch her. "No running in the house Mommy!"

Julia walks into the living room and demands to know. "Mommy, where my sister?"
M: Come on Julia, let's go downstairs fast.
J: No go fast Mommy, I fall down.

Mommy trying to help Samuel sound out "dear"
M: "Would you be throwing a fit for Mrs. H if she was helping you?"
S: "No, but she would have just told me by now!"

While picking up the living room
S: Thomas, you are going slower than molasses!
T: Well that's just how God made me.

A Difference of Opinion

Philip says "Yes!!"

Mommy says "Noooo!"

What Philip's Been Doing

Trying really hard to figure out crawling.

"Mama! When my friend Olivia did this she moved!!! Why am I not going anywhere?!"

Poor baby.

Learn Something New Everyday

I'm a little embarrassed to admit what I learned today. I've had my piano for 16 years and played for 17 years. That's over half my life. I got the piano for my 16th birthday but I don't remember how it arrived at my parents' house, I assume some sort of truck. Then approximately 9 years later it made its way to our house in a horse trailer (yes, I know, not the way a piano should travel but it was free). Yet through all of that I've never had it tuned and honestly, it wasn't that bad. One of the two problems I ever noticed was that the middle pedal never worked. Having only taken lessons through level three, I knew it was the damper pedal but not when or how to use it so it didn't really matter. The other problem was that some of the keys in the middle would stick, mostly in humid weather. I looked inside and saw that the hammers were sticking to a piece of felt, so I assumed the felt needed replacing. Anyway my two newest piano students complained that their piano was so out of tune they couldn't tell when the were playing right or wrong notes, so after talking with their mother I set up a piano tuner to come tune my piano and theirs. I told him about the key sticking problem but didn't even think to mention the damper pedal. Here comes what I learned... when he's done he tells me that the damper pedal was down, which lowers that piece of felt to dampen the sound. You push down and to the left and it stays down, then you push down and to the right and it goes back up again. So in other words, my damper pedal has been down for 16 years. 16 years! and I never knew it... I'm shaking my head and sighing now... but now I know, and even better, the keys don't stick anymore! (It's okay if you're laughing at me, after I'm done sighing, I laugh about it too.)