The Nelson Family

Sweet boy and growing girl!

2009-11-13T22:46:00.003-05:00

Ingrid can read! And not even just books that have been read to her over and over... She picked up a book at Kindermusik the other night and read most of it herself! :) There was a point when I thought she'd never have the attention span to actually sit and read. Now, her favorite thing is to write her letters OVER AND OVER again in a couple of notebooks we've given her. She draws pictures, too, but mostly just asks us how to spell things and writes them over and over in her notebook. :)

It all started when she kind of taught herself how to write the letters and showed me one day... It was crazy! I didn't even know she knew how to do it! I had tried and tried to get her to write and read, but she is so active that it was hard for her to want to sit and figure things out. Then, I gave her a spiral notebook one day and she started writing in it for long periods of time. Then, I drew the elementary lines -- you know, the blue lines with the red dotted middle line? I wrote one example of letters and she was supposed to practice them by writing the letters after the one I wrote. She did this for 3 hours straight!! ?? THREE hours! Now, you can seldom find her without her notebook nearby. She knows how to spell her name, Rowan's name, Mama, and Papa! I'm so proud. I got some "sight words" for Preschoolers at the dollar store and I've posted them on her bookshelf tonight. I hope she finds them in the morning... :)

Rowan is talking up a storm! He's one of those kids who should be on "Kids Say the Darndest Things." Here are a few examples:

The other morning, he had crawled into bed with us and when Ingrid woke up and came in, he looked at her and said, "Good morning, Sissy! What's up?" (even funnier when said with a paci in the mouth...)

The other night during nightly prayers, Rowan thanked God for feet. Then, he proceeded to thank God for EVERYONE's feet. Everyone. :) He probably listed about 20 people's feet to thank God for... :) Made me really think about how thankful I am that my feet work. Out of the mouths of babes....

On another morning, Rowan took Ingrid's face into his hands and said sincerely, "Sissy, you bootiful." AWWWW! :) Now, he says it to all the women in his life... He's learning the art of wooing. It works. When I told him that he was beautiful, too, he said, "No, Mama. I'm a prince." I guess princes aren't beautiful. Apparently, princesses are...and Sissy is a princess. Thumbelina to be exact. Sweet....*sigh...*

The other day, I told him that he needed to do something, and he said no. So I said he couldn't have the thing he wanted (I don't remember what it was...). So he went over to the corner and knelt down on the floor and put his forehead on his hands in front of his knees. When I asked what he was doing, he looked up and said, "I'm angry." and promptly put his head back down. So I asked him why he was angry. He said, "Eeecause I like to." OK then.

He's big into emotions right now. He's labeling emotions very well. Ingrid still isn't always able to label how she feels. Rowan knows absolutely. His favorite game right now is "happy face-sad face." He loves to make different faces for emotions -- he's got quite the repertoire. I'm afraid he's an actor......but I'm sure you knew that already.

One last story on the boy... The other night, we wanted to have "family fun night" and Ingrid wanted to play Candyland, but we couldn't find it. So instead, Andrew decided we could all try to play charades. So, we chose animals as our category and Andrew pretended to be a gorilla. Ingrid guessed right, so we told her she was next. She went up and pretended to be a monkey. With a little encouragement, Rowan guessed what Sissy was trying to be, so we told him it was his turn to pretend! Would you believe that he went right up to the "stage" and got down on all fours and said, "BAAAAA" ;) When we guessed right, he started hopping around and saying, "Ribbit!" :) When we guessed that right, he turned around and ran around on all fours saying, "Nnnneeeeiiiiggghhh!" I could NOT believe my eyes! Do 25 month olds understand charades?? I guess mine does. And the animals he was pretending to be weren't even related to his two examples before! He did this 3 more times before we quit the game to go to bed. It was amazing to watch.

STATS:
We went to the doctor for their well-child check-ups last week. They saw a new doctor in Oakland (a nurse practitioner named Danny Moon -- he was AWESOME.). Here are their stats:

Ingrid: 75% in weight AND height -- This is very unusual for us. She's been 10%-20% since she was born! ?? It's crazy that she's above average in height... She got two shots and needs two more in a couple of months. That was an unhappy surprise, but we got the meds in her--and she got a baby doll that afternoon! She also got a HUGE welt from her chicken pox shot, but she's feeling fine now. We also talked to her doctor about helping us get permission from the landlord to have an animal at our apartment. She seems much calmer around animals, and I think she could benefit from having something to take care of. She very seldom sits and rests when we're at home, but at the farm, she will sit quietly for a long time with her cat or with Bella. I hope it gets approved.

Rowan: 95% in weight......and 20% in height! Oh well. He's always been a bit of a bruiser, but I don't think you'd look at him and think that those were his stats. I think he's on the verge of hitting another growth spurt. Kids always beef up and then stretch out. We'll see how long he fits into his 18 month pants... He's already out of most of his 18month shirts. :) He's also 33.5 inches tall! Growing boy... He ended up needing a booster shot too that day, however, he didn't seem to care! He squinted his eyes and whispered, "Ow." and that was about it. A bit different when Ingrid followed him with hers. Andrew and I both had to hold her while the nurse gave her the shots. Rowan just willingly gave the nurse his leg. Oh, boys. :)

Well, that's what's going on here. I've got lots of pictures and stuff to post at some point, but my computer is pretty slow uploading pics, so I'll have to do that another time. Until then, take care!!

2009-10-20T14:59:00.000-04:00

Grandad and the boys

Crystal and Addie

Ingrid singing on the stairs

Rowan in his suit

Melanie and Dave's Wedding

2009-10-20T14:50:00.000-04:00

On Oct. 4, 2009, Melanie Roberson and Dave Collins got married in Morgantown, WV. We were blessed to be a part of their special day. Here is one of a couple of posts of our memories. Congrats, Mel and Dave!!

Aunt Sue and Bec

The Bride and Groom

My voice student Stevie and Crystal's littlest one, Nicholas

Grandad and the boys in their darn cute suits! ;)

Our Minnesota Trip

2009-08-25T13:19:00.006-04:00

I know it's been a long time since I posted on here... It's been a crazy summer! Andrew and I acted with the TOTL theatre company again, but this time, we did 2 shows together and I did 3 total! It was a fun time. Very fulfilling for me, although the kids missed us. They stayed with my parents at the farm, and since Rebecca was in 2 of the shows with us, Isaac also stayed there a lot. It was great with the cousins romping around the farm and driving the tractor with Granddad! ;) Facebook has been the medium of the summer, so find me there and you can see pics of the summer!

On to our next journey...

We just got back yesterday from our yearly family tour of MN. What a blast!! We got to see everyone (except Susan... :( ) and felt like we spent some good, quality time with all. Here's a picture journey of the first part of our trip. More pics to come soon!

Think the ice cream got to her? :) Thanks, Grandpa Jack. ;)

Here's Rowan on a boat ride with Great-Grandma Jane on Turtle Lake

Ingrid and Kristi at The Old Spaghetti Factory. We got an Italian Cream Soda and took home a new glass from this dinner! Fun...

Uncle Eric became a riding toy for the kids on the FIRST day. Andrew had them "give him the spurs." Not such a nice thing considering where their heels dug into the "horse." What a good sport Uncle Eric is!! He's going to be an exceptional Daddy starting in January!

A sleepy Uncle Eric and two sleepy kids...

Here's the kids and Grandpa Darrell's sister, Great-Aunt Katie. What a good day at Forest Lake.

Here's Papa giving the kids a ride in the canoe on Forest Lake. They loved it!

Off Grandpa Darrell's dock, there are fish and turtles of all kinds. The kids look forward to feeding them when they visit. This year was no different. We throw the pellets into the water and watch the fish and turtle swim up and eat them. Papa caught a painted turtle and we got to pet it! It was beautiful. Now, Ingrid wants a pet turtle... Geesh. :)

Here's Grandpa Darrell playing with Rowan. They're throwing the frisbee for Maggie, the border collie. Rowan thinks it's hilarious to run after it, too! ;)

It was Great-Aunt Trudy's birthday while we were there, so we had a family birthday party at Grandpa Darrell's. Here are Ingrid and "Trud-o," as Ingrid calls her, having a deep conversation. :)

The kids are lucky to know their Great-Grandpa Bud. Here's Ingrid making him laugh...something the stoic Swede reserves only for especially funny things. :)

Ingrid at Grandpa Darrell's house feeding the fish and turtles in Forest Lake.

Gramma Camra lives in Turtle Lake, WI. Here they are on her beach playing in the sand. Gramma Camra doesn't hesitate to get her hands dirty with the kids!! They love her.

Here's Gramma playing princess show with Ingrid. Love the costumes!!

Uncle Eric and the kids...

Ingrid's Preschool Music Program

2009-05-27T20:08:00.005-04:00

Last Wednesday afternoon, we had a little end of the year music program at Ingrid's preschool (Sacred Meadow Montessori Children's House--kids aged 2-5 in my little choir) where I teach music classes (my own class cirriculum, not Kindermusik...) every Wednesday throughout the school year. Boy, was it cute! :) Ingrid did a great job, and I was very impressed at the job the children did listening and singing. I left feeling like maybe I taught them a little something... :)

Here are a few video highlights (sorry it's so dark...it was a dreary day--and in a couple of these you can't see Ingrid very well, but there are some where you can...if you look hard--she's wearing a white shirt in the front row all the way on the left end...):

1) Here's the intro and the kids singing "Do-Re-Mi" from the Sound of Music using sign language.

2) Here are the kids singing our version of "Singing in the Rain" :)

3) Here are the kids singing their "5 Little Snowmen" song--we teach math with music too!

4) Here are the kids doing their last song--in FRENCH! "Alouette"

Thanks, Carolyne and all the staff and parents of Sacred Meadow Montessori for lending me your children each week! We'll see you again for class in September! :)

Our New Little Arrivals!

2009-05-20T13:10:00.000-04:00

We've got a Mama Robin who has made a nest on our front porch light. She's sweet. She bounces around in our yard and sings to us from her cozy little spot. We've been pretty sure she's sitting on eggs. She flies away if Andrew and I come around, but the kids don't seem to bother her. She lets them play around wherever they want, but she keeps her eye on Andrew and I. It's been great having her there. She feels like a pet, although we try to leave her alone as much as we can, and opening and closing the door as carefully as possible, so as not to scare her too much. We leave the light turned off, too... :)

Yesterday, Andrew and the kids were playing outside as I came home from voice lessons. We were watching our Mama fly back and forth from the nest, marveling at her deftness, guessing which tree she would fly to next.

Andrew said sadly that he saw one of the little blue eggs broken on the porch that morning....but he didn't see a yolk--

He stopped in mid-sentence and smiled as he hushed me from sighing...

From the top of the light, in the cozy little nest, we heard the faintest "cheep, cheep"! We have babies at our house!

What a cool thing to think our family's energy would attract a nesting Mama Robin and her chicks! It warms my heart. Easter is more than a story. It's a way of life... Thank you Lord, for this very tangible reminder of that.

I LOVE SPRING!

Spring Has Sprung!

2009-05-20T12:44:00.000-04:00

Spring has sprung in WV/MD! :) We enjoyed a picnic of carrots and strawberries out on our beautiful green grass carpet in the front of our apartment the other day! The strawberries were sweet, the breeze was cool, the sun was hot, and we were all home at the same time! -- a rare occurance at our house lately. It was a great afternoon.

After our "meal" of berries and carrots and juice, we all decided we were still hungry--and went to the Creamery for ice cream by the lake! What a FANTASTIC afternoon!! :) Mom and Dad enjoyed the treat as much as the kids! :)

I LOVE Spring in WV/MD. It takes its time... It stretches and yawns to wake up instead of bursting out of bed. It gives you time to savor the resurrection of the Earth...and gives you time to remember how you fit into the equation. Sometimes, the world doesn't give you the chance to find the resurrection happening inside of you. At least here, it's like Nature understands you need some time to stretch and yawn and remember that you are coming to life as well.

And I appreciate it.

Computer Blues and Little Boys

2009-05-10T23:11:00.002-04:00

So, I haven't blogged much lately because I'm ending month TWO of not having a laptop. I've started to dread going to the computer. I've been using our desktop computer for Internet, and it's pretty slow...and not everything is on it that I use...anyway, it's been more than frustrating. Luckily, I have some wonderful students at Fairmont who have helped me out. I've had lots of work done on it for nothing! (Well, I bought the kid who's been fixing things a gift card, but just because I'm soooo grateful!) So, anyway, here I am. No pictures, but I hope to get one from my Mom about this next story...

Today, we went to my Mom's church for Mother's Day (Andrew took me out for really yummy Japanese food and gelato and book store time last night while Nicole and Julia took the kids! Thanks, hon!). Of course, the kids woke up WIRED. Not sure why, but Rowan COULD NOT sit still in church this morning. Usually, if I pack a drink and something to munch on, he's OK. I may have to talk in his ear to keep him quiet, but it usually works... Well, this morning NOTHING was working. He went from one person to the other, asking for a "bobble" and refusing anything that might have ordinarily worked. Andrew even had to take him out for a while, which we try not to do so he learns to sit quietly. That worked for about 10 minutes, and then he was back to whining and trying to climb under the pews...

We passed him around, and he finally ended back up on Andrew's lap. By this time, everyone around us was watching him. He decided that he was making a big enough scene that he could perform. He then proceeded to stick his finger up his nose and snort. I don't mean little snorts. I mean big, long snorts. Everyone around us was laughing as quietly as possible, but I felt sorry for the pastor (of course, he was a visiting speaker...) because our family (anita and her family were there too) made up probably a quarter of those in attendance today! Geez...

It doesn't end there...

Later, we went to the farm for the day. After lunch, I was eating a piece of triple chocolate cherry cake (yeah. It was as good as it sounds.) and couldn't eat the whole piece because it was so rich. I put it on the TV tray by the couch where I was sitting, and of course, at that moment, the kids came in and wanted some. I said no, there was some crying...well, who am I kidding? Lots of crying, dramatics, and rolling on the floor. Finally, they got distracted with some toys and books. In the mean time, I forgot about it and accidentally left it on the TV tray. You can probably predict what happened...

About an hour and a half later, we see Rowan coming into the kitchen from the family room with chocolate ALL OVER HIS FACE. ALL OVER. And he was so happy! :) The happiest he had been all day. It had been a bit of a trying day for him...clingy and whiny. Not now! He was in rare form...

Mom asked him where Mama's chocolate cake was, and he opened his mouth as wide as he could! Geesh...

Then, she asked him what he did in church and he stuck his finger up his nose and snorted.

Day over. I'm ready for bed!

Easter 2009

2009-04-13T16:55:00.011-04:00

We had a great Easter this year!

We made it through our first Easter where Ingrid understands what's really going on... Rowan, on the other hand, not so much...but he had fun, too! :)

Ingrid was very disappointed that she didn't get to meet the Easter Bunny. She's a bunny-lover! :) At preschool, they have a bunny that the kids get to take care of, and she's in love with this little guy. When we started talking about the Easter Bunny, she gave both Andrew and me the 3rd degree. She wanted to know what he looked like, when he came, how he got the candy, where he came from, and why she didn't get to see him. Shew! It took some creativity, but she was enjoying the stories.

Don't worry...she got just as grilled on the REAL meaning of Easter. She's actually pretty sound on that story. ;)

When the kids got up, we found the eggs the Easter Bunny had hidden and the kids proceeded to stuff their faces with candy (we have no chocolate in our house on account of Ingrid's personality change after eating it...in other words, she turns into her evil twin...). It was hilarious watching them eat piece after piece, looking at us suspiciously sideways, wondering when they were going to get into trouble from eating one more piece...and then another...and another... ;)

Finally, it was time to get ready for church, and I made them eat some real eggs (that Andrew made, wonderfully...since I was busy in the shower warming up to sing for church...) so they could at least partially metabolize all the sugar and avoid sugar shock in the middle of the church service...

I was invited to sing at St. Matthew's this year for our Easter service. I sang I Know My Redeemer Liveth from Handel's Messiah. It went pretty well, although the lilies made it difficult to sing with allergies despite Claritin, ibuprofen, and mucinex-D. :? It made me have to live what I preach to my students about singing with good technique and letting muscle memory take over... It's kind of nice to know I may know what I'm talking about... :)

Another side note: all throughout Lent, I did prayer stations to illustrate the lectionary readings and make the sermons more tangible. Despite the small size of our congregation (and the older average age...), everyone seemed to enjoy them. I came up with them each week and set them up for the congregation to take part in on their own accord. By Palm Sunday, our priest was in on it. For a climactic ending, on Palm Sunday, along with waving palms, when everyone came up for communion, we each got a nail and put it into a cross with holes in it, symbolizing our sins' part in Christ's death. Then, on Easter Sunday, the nails were replaced with beautiful daisies. (The backdrop of our Easter photo above.) Pretty cool.

After the service, they had a little egg hunt for the kids. Ingrid was definitely into it. ;) Here she is showing me her bag full...

She ended up giving some away to a couple of other boys. She was sweet. Rowan, on the other hand, just liked running around. :) He was just fine with Ingrid finding eggs and bringing them to him, and he would open them right away to see what was in them. :) He got the hang of that part...

Then, we went down for coffee time with homemade hot cross buns and fellowship and then some attempts at pictures by the lilies. We got one family shot and several of Rowan trying to get away and Ingrid making silly faces.

This is the best one we got:

When I said, "Say cheese!", I actually meant for them to say it to the camera! :) But kids will be kids... It's actually really cute, isn't it?

Here are pictures of each of them. Cute, huh?

After church, we headed back to Mom and Dad's where Aunt B and Isaac were waiting. Uncle B had to work, so he wasn't able to be there, but Bec and Isaac were able to stay. Then, the WHOLE family came over for dinner. It was fun with all the cousins there with the kids. We let them all gorge on candy and then run around and play all evening while I made cappuccinos for us adults. Fun! ;)

Here are cousins Joshua and Katie with Ingrid (the 3 musketeers...):

Here's Rowan and Isaac romping around on the loveseat:

We all tried to have a hand in making dinner. Melissa and her girls made lemon chiffon pies (YUM!) and hot cross buns, Anita made sweet potato/leek fritatta, Mom made the turkey, ham, potatoes, gravy, and dressing, and I made the kids cupcakes (from scratch, thank you!). Here they are decorated. I don't know if you can see what I was trying to do, but if you look closely (and use your imagination...), you can see the grass with easter eggs hidden in them and bunnies going down holes in the lawn (you can only see their white tails and orange feet...see them?).

I know...they're not professional, but we got a kick out of them. And I got pretty good reviews on how they tasted from the kids. ;) Fun.

The kids actually went to sleep last night, even with all the candy! Rowan woke up nasty, but he has been doing that lately... Today, we limited the candy, and we had a good day at the farm again! :)

Now, it's off to help clean up the place after a day of inside fun...

Happy Easter, everyone! Praise the Lord, Jesus is alive! :)

The Nelson's 20/20 Interview

2009-03-12T19:41:00.005-04:00

I got this from another mom's blog... Thanks, Heather...

This is an interview with Ingrid. I thought I might get some interesting answers...I wasn't disappointed.

Here are Ingrid's answers (with my thoughts in italics):

Questions about Mom

1. What is something Mama always says to you?
To feed the goldfish (actually, most of the time I forget...)
2. What makes Mama happy?
Funny faces
3. What makes Mama sad?
when we do rough things (yes!)
4. How does Mama make you laugh?
playing CandyLand
5. What was Mama like as a child?
Like me
6. How old is Mama?
Five
7. How tall is Mama?
As tall as when you reach your arms up (I mean, hello...)
8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Work (great.)
9. What does Mama do when you’re not around?
clap your hands (I think she actually meant it as an action, not a reaction to her not being there...)
10. If Mama becomes famous, what will it be for?
I don't know.
11. What is Mama really good at?
teaching (awww...)
12. What is Mama not very good at?
getting out of bed (does my child know me or what?)
13. What does Mama do for her job?
teach
14. What is Mama's favorite food?
vegetables (nice. That's exactly what I want them to think...)
15. What makes you proud of Mama?
when you work (maybe this redeems the fact that she thinks my favorite thing to do is work?)
16. If Mama was a cartoon character, who would she be?
Clifford the Big Red Dog
17. What do you and Mama do together?
play CandyLand
18. How are you and Mama the same?
our faces look a lot the same
19. How are you and Mama different?
We don't have the same shirt on
20. How do you know Mama loves you?
because Ms. Carolyne taught me (she had just come from preschool when I did this...I think it was still on the brain...)
21. Where is Mama's favorite place to go?
to church (I don't think the first year and a half of her life is lost on her...)

Questions about Papa

1. What is something Papa always says to you?
Be careful. (actually, I think that's me...)
2. What makes Papa happy?
When we're so good.
3. What makes Papa sad?
When Rowan does something like hitting or biting or pulling hair or hits the windows or hurts the chairs or boxes...
4. How does your Papa make you laugh?
make funny faces (true.)
5. How old is your Papa?
Five
6. How tall is your Papa?
2 inches
7. What is his favorite thing to do?
work...no, play.
8. What does your Papa do when you’re not around?
works
9. What is your Papa really good at?
making up stories (very true.)
10. What is your Papa not very good at?
I don't know. (I could have prompted her on this question...but I didn't.)
11. What does your Papa do for his job?
does sign language (it's not easy to explain Positive Behavior Support to a 3 yr old...)
12. What is your Papa’s favorite food?
broccoli (really. Hmmm...)
13 If your Papa were a cartoon character, who would he be?
Mickey Mouse
14. How are you and your Papa the same?
We both have silly faces
15. How are you and your Papa different?
We don't have the same shirts on
16. How do you know your Papa loves you?
Because he loves me (said very matter-of-factly.)
17. Where is your Papa's favorite place to go?
fishing (I believe this child might know her Dad pretty well, too...)

Lenten Sacrifices...

2009-03-10T13:47:00.005-04:00

I'm following the blood type diet during Lent (always remembering that Sundays are a reprieve...did you know that? yep. ). The first week didn't go so well...Ash Wednesday was 2 days before my birthday and Andrew and I went to Pittsburgh for my birthday and for that Saturday. (More on this another post...) So, needless to say, I didn't stay on my diet then. Also, Andrew left town for the following Monday and Tuesday, leaving us without my "BloodType A" diet staples (and me with no money in the bank)...so I ended up eating Mac n Cheese with the kids (although the mac n cheese is loaded with veggies...I NEVER serve plain mac n cheese in our house...my kids are going to be going to friends' houses to get plain mac n cheese like I did when I was little...). So, the rest of the week, I did pretty well, but with the time change, I still feel tired instead of better like I usually feel when I do the diet... :(

But then, this morning as I was driving to school to substitute teach for Mom--in the dark--after being awakened 3 times during my short 5 hour night of sleep--downing coffee to keep from driving off the road--that my willingness to sacrifice (albeit not a large sacrifice, but enough to make it sting...) this morning and make it to school despite my many excuses not to -- is partly because we fast and give things up--not only for Lent, but as a discipline in the Christian Church. Apart from its parallel meanings to Christ's life and journey, it keeps the feeling of uncomfortability from feeling too foreign, giving us strength at times when life is, well, uncomfortable. And who isn't feeling uncomfortable right now?

Of course, I knew these things, but several points were driven home today as I listened to NPR news and the droning on and on about how we need a "quick fix" for the problems we face. This "practice" of feeling uncomfortable is such a radical idea in our world! I'm sure that if there were studies done during hard times on stress levels in people who fast and people who don't, I'll bet that the stress levels in people who fast are lower... Of course, I've never done such a test, but I know that from my own experience that once I took the whole sacrifice thing seriously (anyone with a child has done this to a point....), when hard times hit, I know I felt more prepared to handle them... Of course, you never get rid of the pain, but at least you know a little something about being uncomfortable and can say that you've been there. And at the VERY least, you find that the daily things you thought were uncomfortable, aren't anymore.

It's hard to remember this, though, when you're in the midst of sacrificing. A teacher/author I admire (Brian McLaren) once said that when he fasts, he "doesn't feel closer to God," he "feels closer to pizza!" :) But this week at church, our priest gave a sermon about dying to yourself...and how we immediately feel the effects of it. It's like living the Easter story! It's much easier to sacrifice when you believe that every time you deny yourself those comfortable things, you are dying to yourself so that new life can spring in its place! We are Easter people, after all! What a different end to the story than we are told on the news every night...

I'm still trying to stay true to my sacrifice, and even today, I failed a bit, eating cheese when I was supposed to avoid dairy... But the next time I put something in my mouth, I have a new chance to die to myself...and remember that new life will spring up in me where the old life ended. And who doesn't need a second chance now and then?

Super Why! (oh why oh why...)

2009-02-14T17:05:00.002-05:00

The other day, I was telling Rowan to "get out, get out, get out!" of the bathroom. :) We usually make it a fun little game where I kind of chase him out of the room he's not supposed to be in and he chants "out, out, out" with me. Cute. ;)

However, this day, instead of chanting the cute little "out, out, out!" with me, after I told him "out, out, out!" he looked up at me and said,

"Why?"

Oh my Lord. I don't think I can handle TWO "super whys" in my house!!!!! I was completely bewildered.

Now, it's MY turn. "Why, Lord, why?"

*sigh*

Words, words, words...

2009-02-06T11:56:00.005-05:00

After posting yesterday's post, I started to wonder just how many words Rowan knows... I was worried that my estimate of 40-50 words was way off, so Andrew and I listed them out--and I was right on! Here's the list along with his pronunciations:

1. excuse

2. me (together with #1 - "mu-me." - used in context!)

3. hello ("hewo" -- soooo cute!)

4. mama (unfortunately, he's replaced Papa with Mama...hmmm...)

5. bye-bye

6. night-night ("nigh-night")

7. bottle (usually "bob-bull")

8. Bella ("ba-ba" - same as Ingrid used to say!)

9. bites ("bies" - replaced "more")

10. please ("peeeeeees" - usually accompanied by the sign)

11. no

12. yes (so cute--actually sounds like "yes" with a nod of the head)

13. phone ("bone" - but he usually says "hewo" when he sees a phone)

14. juice ("doooos")

15. knock-knock (as in the joke-"kno-knock")

16. Pooh

17. hat (usually says "a-hat" - he's really into hats right now!)

18. Grandad ("dan-dad")

19. Granny ("nee-nee")

20. Elijah ("ijah")

21. Sissy ("iss-iss")

22. Papa ("ba-ba" - with the "b" between a b and a p sound)

23. outside ("ut-sigh")

24. eyes

25. ear ("air")

26. nose ("news")

27. ah-choo!

28. Pee-hew! ("b - hugh")

29. wild

30. west (together with #29 in a song "Wild-wild west" - he sings it all!)

31. Elmo ("mel-mo")

32. on

33. in (sounds a bit like "on")

34. uh-oh

35. shoes (not sure how to write this, but it sounds like all "ssss" with a bit of a lisp. So cute!)

36. push (his favorite thing to do is push things around -- especially if it has wheels!)

37. horse ("howse")

38. baby (as well as yo-baby - his favorite yogurt)

39. paci (sounds like "a-pass" or "patti")

40. read

41. book (together with #40 usually -- sounds like "wee-a-boo")

42. toot-toot (means "train")

43. gentle ("den-too")

44. diaper ("bigh-poo")

45. Brrrr...it's cold! ("brrrr...it's toll!")

46. table

47. help ("hep!" - usually sounding quite dramatically desperate)

48. rock (as in the rocking chair--he says "wot, wot...wot, wot")

49. Isaac ("eyes-iss")

50. What's that? ("whas-at?")

These are new words from just this morning!

51. lights ("ights")

52. cup ("bup")

Crazy.

Ingrid is starting to read! She recognizes most of our names and several others. She sounds out almost any "at" word and can read some other words (not just memorized) in the story "Green Eggs and Ham." She can count to 20, too! Next is working on writing her name and how to spell it by herself... I'm sure it won't take long... :)

I'm so proud of my kids. They're just really good people...

It's February already!

2009-02-05T11:33:00.004-05:00

It's February. And it's still snowing. It's been pretty snowy and cold this winter. Several days in the past month, school has been cancelled due to below zero wind chill. This morning, I cancelled my morning Kindermusik class due to cold! :}

It's Thursday, and Andrew had to go to Fairmont for work today and Ingrid goes to preschool on Thursdays, so it's just Rowan and me home today. I'm enjoying my Thursdays. I can get caught up after a marathon day on Wednesdays (preschool music classes and Fairmont voice lessons). We're starting a new Kindermusik class on Thursday evenings. Rowan gets a morning Kindermusik class with Mama and Ingrid gets one in the evening! I'm enjoying alone time with both of them, playing music and dancing in class. I feel blessed to be able to do this for them and their little friends! :)

Before Andrew took Ingrid to preschool on his way out this morning, I took a video. She was making up really funny songs, but once the video started, she forgot what she was doing. But it's a cute video anyway. Here it is:

Rowan is so funny. He's still an easy-going guy, although he sure knows what he wants! Not sure if that's easy-going, now that I think about it, but he's so easily re-directed and so happy about life that his self-assuredness isn't pushy... He sure knows how to tear things apart, though! He can trash a room in RECORD time!! But he's sooooo happy about doing it, it doesn't make me too crazy. :)

The other day, I was getting him out of the car for Kindermusik class, and he looked at me and said, "Knock, knock." He even got the "k" sound! :) I laughed and said it back to him in disbelief. He frowned and said, "Oooo's dere?" I laughed and laughed!

Later, he looked at me and said, "Knock, knock." I said, "Who's there?" He said, "Pooh." I said, "Pooh-who?" And he crinkled up his face nose-to-nose with me and laughed!! Ever since then, that's his signature joke. I'm trying to get him to say, "Don't cry!" as a punchline, but he doesn't seem to think it needs one. :)

I can't wait to hear what else he has to say to us... Hmmm... Or maybe I can... :)

Anyway, here's a little video of just a few words he can say. He has a vocabulary of probably 40-50 words right now. And he has a new one for us every day! He surprises me daily. Here he is saying a few:

A Video of Rowan in the Snow

2009-01-27T13:37:00.003-05:00

This is a video of last weekend like I promised...

We have had lots of cold, snow, and ice this winter! It seems like every time I'm scheduled to substitute teach, it snows and we have a snow day! AAAAAAHHH! I'm not in control, though, so I'm trying to stay calm about it...

Today, there's been so much ice and snow that almost every county in WV closed schools--as well as a lot of Maryland. Even Marshall University is closed today, so Andrew has a paid day off! ;) Too bad we're snowed in and can't go anywhere... We can only think of things to do that require driving somewhere! Except cleaning...and NONE of us want to do that on a day off! :) So far, we've taken the cushions off the couch and jumped on them, tickled each other, danced around a little, ate butter sandwiches, caught up on Facebook and Blogger, walked on the treadmill, and asked each other every 5 minutes, "What do you want to do today?!" AAAAAHHH!

And tomorrow's prospects aren't looking good, either. I'm supposed to go to Fairmont for my first week of lessons at the college, but not sure I'm going to be able to get there--or get back... AAAAAHHH!

Really, though, it's kind of nice to be with each other with no agenda. I'm sure that the first day we can get out, we'll think of all kinds of things we could have done today. Hindsight is always 20/20... :)

A Snowy Holiday!

2009-01-19T18:10:00.005-05:00

Today was a great day! It snowed beautiful "snow globe" snow and was around 20 degrees. Perfect for sled riding with the whole family! Julia, Elijah, my Mom (Granny), Papa, Rowan, Ingrid, and Mama! Rowan's first sled ride and Ingrid's first that she can remember...
Good times. Here's a picture journal of our family day....

Rowan looking mischievous...

Rowan & Eli having fun

Rowan had his own runner sled. It used to be Aunt Anita's...and before that, it was Granny's!

Papa being a Papa--or a sledhorse! :)

The whole gang...

A Snowy Day in Aurora...

Stay tuned for some videos...

Andrew is home!

2009-01-15T13:00:00.002-05:00

We're spending our first day in 3 weeks as a family again!

Andrew got home yesterday. He flew into Reagan National Airport at around 12:30pm. After teaching music class at Sacred Meadow Montessori Preschool, I drove to DC and met him at baggage claim looking tired but really good. He was feeling all healthy from his diet of rice and vegetarian meals and was going to be really ready to sleep when he was supposed to go to sleep (which is difficult because days and nights are flipped between here and India...).

We drove toward home, but stopped at the Hagerstown Outlets to eat a nice meal, catch up, and find him some new work clothes since his pants were all too big (they had been for a while, but now they REALLY are...) and we were at the outlets! :) It was nice to have him to myself for a while before heading home to the kids and the rest of the family... We had time to catch up a little on the kids, his work, and what we had been thinking during the past 3 weeks.

He has several stories of things he saw, experienced, and learned. I had so many stories about the kids, and tried to catch him up on all of the new things Rowan had learned to say and do, and how Ingrid had missed him. So good to talk freely--not over the phone in a public place!

So, we headed back to the farm to get the kids, sat around and talked for a couple of hours, Andrew gave some gifts and then headed out to go home...

.....in a snow storm! It took us an hour to get home (it usually takes 30-40 minutes)--and after stopping a few times to give Andrew time to wake up (we had to drive both of our cars from the farm...), we finally made it!

This morning, I was supposed to sub, but the snow cancelled school, so here we all are together for the day! It's fun. Poor Andrew is trying to work from home, getting caught up, while he deals with two little shadows...in the truest sense of the word...truly attached to his heels. He's loving it, though, for the most part... :) And I'm enjoying a little break...

So, all is well. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers! More to come soon...

Excuse me?

2009-01-11T21:41:00.003-05:00

Tonight, the kids and I went to some friends from church's house. Adrienne and Evangeline are both about 6 months older than both of our kids, and their parents are very cool people. They knew Andrew had been out of town, so they invited us all over so the kids could play and we adults could watch the Steelers win their game! :) It was fun.

Well, when we were on our way out to the car in the bitter cold, I was carrying Rowan and helping Ingrid get into her car seat. I bent down to help Ingrid and I must have squeezed Rowan's tummy and it made him burp... He looked at me and laughed a hearty laugh...and then got serious and said, "excuse me."

What?!? This was NOT one of the phrases we had tried to teach him--in fact, I've never even prompted him to say it! He just said it. And in context. I don't know what to do with this child. You only have to tell him something once and he's got it. Guess we'd better be careful what we say around him... :)

Of course, we think he must be a genius... ;)

More Christmas and New Year

2009-01-09T11:29:00.005-05:00

While Andrew has been away, the kids and I have tried to keep busy doing things. We're lucky to be so close to my parents and sisters/brother. So, last weekend, after a New Year's Eve with the WHOLE gang, the kids and I hopped down to Fairmont to spend some time with Aunt B, Uncle B, and Isaac for the whole weekend!

While we were there, we went to the Wow Factory (a ceramic/glass painting place) and to the mall to play! Rebecca and I have loved dressing the boys up in matching outfits (something I'm sure they'll roll their eyes at later on...) and watching people point and smile at how cute they are...and then answer that they're first cousins, not twins, but they're 2 weeks apart. Fun!

Ingrid had a blast, too! She made friends at the Wow Factory with the owner/operator's daughters, and then she had fun running around the playground at the mall -- climbing on things that were too big for her to climb last timewe were there (which I had realized had been almost a year ago!). They're all growing sooooo much! And while that's a bit sad for me, it's also a bit easier to get around with them as they get bigger, so I'm trying to find that silver lining when I can.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our outings (forgive my wrong dates...my camera reset itself...and also Ingrid was there that weekend, she just didn't sit still long enough to get into any of the pictures)!

The boys in their matching personalized Christmas Elmo shirts!

We all piled into Aunt B's Jeep for our weekend of fun! Aunt B and her friend, Heidi, painting ceramics at the Wow Factory in Morgantown
Granny played with the kids in the playroom while we finished our painting

AT THE MALL:

Again, we had them dressed in matching outfits. they both had shirts that said, "I didn't do it." Thought that was pretty appropriate!

The boys liked the tunnel, but they were so fast, we couldn't get a picture of them together!

Here, we got them together, but not looking at us. They were both so intent on what they were doing...namely climbing up the slide and sliding back down!

It took Rowan a little while to realize what to do with the slide... I took his socks off and Ingrid showed him what to do, and it took him all of about 30 seconds to figure it out!!
He was so cute when he made it to the top! He was so proud of himself. He got up to the top, turned around and said....well, SOMETHING. Very decidedly and proudly. Adorable!

Two little monkeys climbing up a slide...

Rowan wanted to see the cars you ride when you put the quarter in, once he spotted them. He had so much fun just sitting in them! How wonderful to be excited about the simple things in life...

It was a good weekend, all in all... Hooray for counsins!

Hop on over...

2009-01-05T14:59:00.002-05:00

Hop on over to Andrew's blog and check out his new pics! He's in Madurai until next Tuesday when he will fly home and I'll get him next Wednesday. He's staying with his friend, Ram, at his home, and actually has a few days of rest and relaxation--but probably lots of sight-seeing, too! :) Pictures take a long time to load for him, so he's only doing a few at a time, but he said he'll keep trying!

The people he's worked with have been very gracious, and he's been very well taken care of. He got a little cold, but he's feeling better now, and he sounds great when we get to talk on the phone for 10 minutes or so every other day. He said he's been invited back, so who knows? Maybe I'll get to go sometime! ;)

Things are fine here on the home front. The kids miss Andrew, but they're just seeming to take it all in stride... It's been fine since it's been Christmas break for all of us, but things will start getting busier this week. I'm already substitute teaching 3 days this week, and 2 next week, so I'll be taking the kids here, there, and everywhere for a while. I've found that Rowan sleeps very well at home, but not so well anywhere else... Bummer because on the days that I substitute, we usually stay at the farm the night before. Now, I'm torn between not sleeping at night at getting us all up very early before I teach all day... 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other, I guess... We'll just have to go back and forth a lot in the next week or so, I think.

Otherwise, I'm trying to get my ducks in a row for next semester's School of the Arts, Kindermusik, and voice lessons. One day at a time! ...

Andrew in India

2009-01-01T20:37:00.008-05:00

Hello!

Just to let you all know, Andrew has posted his first (but short) post on his India trip blog at http://indiaautism.blogspot.com/ . No pictures until Jan 5th, but check it out and watch his trip unfold! He's doing good work there with his friend Ram as they work together to help kids with autism by doing workshops and presentations using theatre and dramatic techniques to help teach them social skills and every day things we take for granted. He's in Bangalore right now, but will be headed to Madurai (where Ram is from) as well as Hyderabad in the next few days.

His phone conversations have had to be short (international calling card -- calling from a public phone in his hotel...) but he sounds good. At first, the culture shock was pretty intense, but after a day or so, he started getting used to the noises, smells, and overall cultural differences. It helps to have Ram--a native--taking him around and staying in the hotel with him. The one thing he did say was that the food was really amazing, and that the people he was meeting were kindred spirits. I'm so glad he's enjoying his time. It's always been my dream to go to India, so I'm soaking up anything he can tell me. He promised he is keeping a journal, so I'm excited to hear his thoughts and processing.
Here are a few pictures I found on the web that shows you a little of what it might look like in Bangalore. Andrew described downtown as "Times Square after a missle attack and a dust storm." :) Interesting...

Here is a picture of the outside of the Hotel Maurya where Andrew has been staying this week.

Here is a picture from one of the temples he visited, too! (If I got the right one...it was a rushed phone call and it's hard to remember the names of things when you've never heard or seen them before...) Iskcon Sri Radhakrishna Temple (Hare Krishna Consciousness Center).

He flies out of Bangalore at 8:30pm his time and he's off to Hyderabad. So, check out his blog now and watch for pictures after January 5th!

Check back here, too, for pictures of the kids soon...

Christmas and India (but not Christmas IN India...)

2008-12-29T12:30:00.010-05:00

We had a great time this Christmas!

Ingrid had a list she sent to Santa this year. Here it was:

1. A yo-yo. (She saw an episode of Arthur where they were playing with one, and she decided she needed one!)

2. puppets from the Baby Einstein DVD (she had a DVD from when she was really tiny, and we recently got it out for Rowan. There's a part with puppets, and she wanted those puppets badly!)

3. a princess skirt to match her "tippy" shoes (she has these dress-up shoes that have heels on them--she calls them "tippy" shoes because her feet tip up in them...)

We were so excited that Santa was able to find all of those things!

Santa found the "yo-yo ball" that comes back up automatically and the puppets both on Ebay! The princess skirt I found through Kindermusik. It came with a book & CD about a little girl, Tressa, who has a baby brother and she saves the day after "taming" her teething baby brother with her magic wand. Perfect for her. Of course, she got all kinds of other things.

Rowan just liked looking at the Winnie the Pooh/Tigger wrapping paper. He opened ONE present--an Elmo in a boat for the bathtub--and didn't care about the rest! I finally got him to open a fire truck that lights up and rolls by itself, and then he played with those two things. The other present he liked was this toddler hammer/nail set where the nails are actually worms that pop up and hide when you hit them with the hammer. We had to wake him up!

So, anyway, here's a picture journal of our Christmas, starting with the early December decking of the halls:

We had fun with Papa putting up the tree...

Mama and Ingrid put up the Nativity scene...without Baby Jesus for now...and we recounted the Christmas story...

Here's Ingrid with our Christmas Stockings. She's a literal little girl...apparently. :)

Here's Ingrid putting up the Baby Jesus in our Nativity scene--he wasn't born till Christmas morning! :) We did this before we opened any presents. Jesus was our best gift!

Beginning the opening of the presents...The book _Where the Wild Things Are_ from Aunt Colleen and Uncle Eric! I love educational gifts! (We've read it about 10 times since then... They both love this one because there are all kinds of voices I can do when I read it...)We decided we felt bad that Rowan was missing out on the action. We decided to go wake him up!Rowan was so funny. We ususally had a gate around the tree to keep him from pulling it over and eating the glass bulbs, but we took it down to put the presents around the tree. He didn't care about the presents. He was really excited that he could finally touch the pretty lights! :)

Ingrid got one of her puppets she wanted!

He was having so much fun with his hammer! Cute.
Rowan loved looking at his tigger wrapping paper. He kept walking around going, "woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" tigger-style! He was a little sad about tearing the paper... :)

Rowan and his Elmo boat

Another thing we did was get an aquarium and 4 fish from Grandpa Darrell and Grandma Mary! Their names are as follows:

Ingrid's fish is named "Bobby" (Named after her 2 imaginary friends, Bobby Sewell and Bobby Nervous...Don't ask. We don't know...)

Rowan's fish is named "Ish"

Andrew's fish is named "Bengal" (Ingrid can't remember this one, so she re-named it "Spikes". Not sure why...)

Mine is named "Anna Karenina"

Thanks, Grandpa Darrell and Grandma Mary! It makes us think about feeding fish off your dock in Minnesota this past summer!

So, the day after Christmas, Andrew said goodbye to the kids and I took him to Washington, DC to the airport to catch an airplane to Chicago and then to New Delhi, India! He's going to meet his friend Ram who co-founded the ArTRAN (http://www.autismtheatre.org/) network. Ram visited us this past Spring to present on his work with theatre and autism, and now Andrew is visiting him there and giving trainings and presentations on his work with kids with autism here.

He left home Thursday evening and just got to Bangalore this morning! LONG trip and 3 nights in different airports and a 10 hour delay from New Delhi to Bangalore... But I just heard from him today that he was fine--just exhausted. Internet is finicky there, and he doesn't have his laptop, so we're all waiting on him to send pictures when he can figure out how... He said he's got a little culture shock right now, but reading between the lines, he's anticipating a real broadening of his worldview and expecting the trip to change him for the better. Not sure how it couldn't! :)

If you would like to follow his trip (somehow or other, we'll figure out how to do this...), visit his blogspot at http://indiaautism.blogspot.com/ ! Prayers for all would be appreciated... He'll be back January 15th! We miss him, but we're so proud of him for taking this leap and being brave enough to do this. Can't wait to see what he's seeing!!!

Next: NEW YEAR'S EVE!!! Stay tuned for a Rowan/Isaac photo shoot with their new matching Christmas outfits... :)

Will you come with me, Mama?

2008-12-18T10:22:00.010-05:00

I keep trying to upload pictures, but Blogspot has been difficult. I've had this entry done for about a week and a half now, but can't seem to get it to work! So, I've got some catching up to do! Forgive the randomly put together pictures. We've had a fun Christmastide together!

Back when it started to snow, and it wasn't time to put up the Christmas decorations, I decided we should do a little activity together and make snowflakes to put around the house! We had fun. Ingrid is starting to like to use scissors, and I happened to have some glitter glue, so she had fun making them sparkly. Eventually, I ended up making the snowflakes and letting her unfold them and put the glitter on them. We hung them from the ceiling and the windows! It made it snow inside!
We also had to make sure Ingrid had a new Christmas dress--Rowan got a little cow outfit. They were so cute! Ingrid wore her dress to her Christmas play. This year, instead of red, we did pink--because she says that pink is her favorite color...probably because Gramma Camra started her out in pink any chance she got! :) Aunt Sarah would be proud, too!

Ingrid was in her first church Christmas play the weekend before Christmas. She was so cute. She knew every word to every song, and sang in key more than most of the other older kids... :) She's a natural singer. Of course we think she is practically a prodigy... :)

She also had one line.

"Peace on Earth."

And she refused to say it. She's so unabashed during her singing, but when it came to saying her line, she just clammed up! I couldn't get her to want to do it, and she wouldn't say it when the director (or her little 4th grade friends) told her to. Oh well. But her singing is so funny! :) She even dances a little. And she's very serious about it. Reminds me of myself... She stood on the stage in her little angel outfit and waved at me at every opportunity...usually when it's not such a good idea to be waving to me. She makes me giggle.

Here is a snippet of a rehearsal. She did well at the performance, too, although when she stepped out onto the stage, she froze and just stared at the audience... It was so funny! She was only the second one out--everyone else was waiting for her to move in order to get out onto the stage. She stood there until the other little girl who walked out in front of her came back to get her. It only took her one song to get back to being comfortable, though. Later, we asked her what she was thinking when she saw all the people. She said it was different with all the people there. It was funny. This is what makes the kids' growing up worth it to me. I've always dreamed of seeing my kids in plays or recitals or sporting events--being the Mom in the audience. :) How fun!

Rowan loved watching. He sings to me and dances and claps with all the kids... He's going to be a natural, too...albeit probably a bit more of a card than Ingrid. Ingrid is really funny, but she isn't being funny on purpose, really. She just is funny. Rowan, on the other hand, knows when he's funny, and plays it up! He'll be a little comedian, I think... He'll be the kid in the play that does something for America's Funniest Home Videos. Who knows? Maybe he'll make us some money someday! :)

The other night on the way home from play practice, Ingrid was trying to stay awake in the car and started up a conversation about Jesus.

From the mouths of babes...

Here's how it went:

"Mommy, how does Jesus talk?"

"Well, he talked just like us when he was a man--he was born like every other baby, grew up into a little boy like Rowan, then into a man like Papa, and then God said that His work was all done here on earth and he wanted him back in heaven with him, so he died--but then he came back alive and went to heaven so that we could go with him when our work is done. Now he talks to us with dreams or ideas or feelings mostly."

"I want to go to heaven."

"I do, too. Jesus came back to life so we could go with him. All we have to do is believe that he's alive and the son of God, and he'll send for us when our work is done here. Landon (my cousin's son who passed away 2 years ago) is in heaven with Jesus!"

"Landon's mommy, Landon's daddy, and baby Landon?"

"Well, no, just Landon. But he's very happy with Jesus. God told us that there will be no tears in heaven. We won't be afraid or sad or hurt anymore there. Sounds like a pretty great place, huh?"

"Yeah. (pause) But will you come to heaven with me, Mama? I would be afraid if you left."

This is where the knife in my gut twisted... After I fought back some tears, I finally said:

"Oh, sweetie...We'll all be together in heaven someday. We might go at different times, but I'll meet you there, I promise. It's like when you go stay with Aunt Anita, and I always ome back? That's the way it would be."

"Okay. Will Papa come too?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Shew. These are the moments nobody tells you to prepare yourself for when you're driving your kids home on a cold, ordinary, sacred, irreplacable night... But I suppose it's not something you can prepare for.

I keep coming back to a prayer Sara Groves prays in one of her songs "Prayers for a Child"

"I only have two eyes,

Be all-seeing...

I only have two hands,

Be everywhere...

I do not know enough...

Be all-knowing.

I give this baby up

into Your care.

I do not know how to pray for this child..."

I keep thinking about that verse in Luke that tells us that after the shepherds visit, Mary ponders in her heart all the things they tell her...

And the Spirit promises me that it will intercede for me in groans I cannot speak....

Merry Christmas to All!

2008-12-18T10:04:00.001-05:00

What we're thankful for...

2008-11-27T10:29:00.002-05:00

This is Ingrid's list of things she's thankful for:
1. Elijah
2. Julia
3. Nicole
4. Papa
5. Mama
6. Rowan
7. "Me (Ingrid starts with I...)" (direct quote...)
8. that I can dance
9. that I can make this sound "bbbthhhh"
10. "twirl, twirl, twirl" (again, a direct quote...)

11+ Yesterday, she said she was thankful for "all her family in Minnesota". Awwww....
She also said that she was glad that Jesus had a house (churches) that little kids with no warm house could stay in when it snows. AWWWW....!

This is Rowan's list of things he's thankful for (and these are also direct quotes...albeit with a little coersion...):
1. "Papa"
2. "Mama"
3. "Bellbow" (Elmo)
4. "Bob-bull" (bottle)
5. "nigh-nigh" (night-night)
6. "mmmmo" (more)
7. "please" (well, this one was signed...)
8. "hewoh" (hello)
9. "baw" (ball)
10. mwa! (kiss)

11. Yesterday, Rowan told his sissy "taan-tou" (thank you) when she gave him her sippy cup. Awww....

My list of things I'm thankful for:
1. a warm house
2. smart, healthy kids
3. the bills paid (for the time being)
4. health insurance
5. family so close (and those so far away...)
6. a loving husband who is the best father in the world!
7. food in the cupboard and the refrigerator--and it's not all just mac and cheese!
8. a healthy, working body
9. a sound mind (most of the time...)
10. a good imagination for when things get difficult

11. A loving God who gives me hope through Jesus

The Nelson Family

2008-11-27T09:59:00.001-05:00

MySpace Graphics & Free Myspace Layouts

The Girl Effect

2008-11-18T10:27:00.001-05:00

Check out this website or watch the video at the bottom of the page. An interesting solution to the world's problems...

Trick or Treat!

2008-11-03T10:08:00.006-05:00

I can't believe the difference a year makes! Here are my two kiddies a year ago on Halloween:

And here they are this year!

We had a puppy and a kitten as we went trick or treating. It was really fun, too, because Anita and Phil took all of us in Dad's suburban (Julia, Elijah, Ingrid, Rowan, Anita, and Phil--Andrew had to work late that night, so we met him at the farm afterward...we missed him...) and we all went together. I got quite a workout, though, getting both kids in and out of the big suburban with bags of candy--in the dark! :) Anita, Julia, and Elijah helped, though Rowan wasn't a fan of Anita with her ugly man mask. Every time he saw her go toward him, he jumped and started to climb up the front of me! :) We had Julia help with him most of the time...

Ingrid was loving it this year. She went up to every door without hesitation and said, "Trick or Treat!" By the end of the evening, she had a lot of candy. We spent the whole 2 hours making the rounds in Aurora...all of the same spots we used to go as kids. I couldn't believe how "un-shy" she was (she's usually pretty cautious around new people, though I wouldn't call her completely introverted)! I guess the reward of more candy in her bag outweighed any fears she could construct in her head. There was only one house where they had a "scary CD" playing and she had to really talk herself out of being afraid. When I told her it was just a CD, she repeated that a few times and bravely walked to the next house...

She didn't want me to paint her face this time. I think she was too tired to deal with the identity issue (she had just come from preschool, and that usually wipes her out!). She also said she didn't want her face to be sticky. :) That was OK.

Rowan didn't have a costume, so on my way to pick up Ingrid, I stopped at Wal-mart and got him a little puppy costume. He didn't get a first birthday party, and I didn't want him to not have a costume too, so I bought him one! And he was sooooo cute! You don't see in the pictures here, but he wore cute little paw mittens, too, for a while. He had a lot of fun, too!

At first, he was just confused when we started going from house to house. He couldn't figure out why we weren't going into peoples' houses. At one point, he actually tried pushing past someone into their house before I finally got him! It was OK, though, because we knew everyone we visited, and this lady happened to be an old teacher in the area. She would have invited us in anyway, but I said we should go. ;)

My favorite part of the evening was when we got out and walked around Aunt Sue's neighborhood. Houses are spread way apart in Aurora...and of course, there are no sidewalks...but in Aunt Sue's neighborhood, there are about 7 houses in the vicinity that you can walk to, so I let Rowan walk at that point. I had been telling Elijah to stay out of the snow (there was a little bit left from our snowstorm last week, though it was in the '50s that night) where he was making snowballs. Rowan started to catch on and started yelling after Elijah!

"lijah! 'Lijah!" Just giving him the business! It was soooooo funny! He does that to Bella, too sometimes because we're always yelling at Bella not to bark. This was the first time he had transferred it to Elijah. It was great. :)

Afterwards, we went back to the farm and Ingrid dove into the candy and Anita had fixed an amazing dinner. We all stuffed ourselves and laughed around the table. Rowan went to bed pretty early, but Ingrid proceeded to eat candy. We tried our best to keep her from eating the chocolate, but I think she got at least one chocolate bar in... We succeeded in keeping her out of most of it, though!

It was a fun night, though we wish Andrew had been able to join us. So, Happy Halloween to all! Next holiday: Thanksgiving!

Post Script: Happy Birthday to little Eva Sophia Malone (Gina and Rodney Malone's new baby girl--hopefully, they'll have a new post up soon with pictures!), born at 8:18pm on Halloween! She was born 6 weeks early, but both mom and baby are doing well and both may be home within a week! Praise God!

Will it be Spring next, Mama?

2008-10-31T09:25:00.006-04:00

Well, this week was exciting.

Andrew and Rowan came home from Minnesota on Monday night (Andrew spent the weekend with his Dad and brother in Bluefin for their annual Father/son weekend trip and took Rowan with him. He stayed with Pam for most of the time, and I'm soooooo glad he was able to spend some quality time there!! Thanks, Pam!). We put Rowan to bed kind of early because he was really sleepy, and after about an hour of crying with no consolation, he fell asleep. Andrew had said that he kind of had a little cough, so we thought if we could get him to sleep with a humidifier, he might sleep it off.

No such luck.

At about 11:15pm (Andrew and I had gone to sleep by 10:00pm...!), we woke up to him crying and coughing a "barky" cough. I ran into his room, and with every breath, in and out, he "barked." Scary. Ingrid had had the croup last winter, and I recongnized this as the same thing. The croup is just an inflamed trachea, making breathing difficult because of the small airway opening. We called the hospital in Oakland to make sure they took our insurance, and when we found out they did, I got up and took him in (so much better than driving to Ruby Memorial in Morgantown, like we had to with Ingrid! It's an hour away, and Oakland is 15 minutes away!). They gave him some steroids, and he was on his way to feeling better, though he did wake up a few more times that night. He's much better now, but the cold that accompanied the cough is still pretty bad, so he's been taking decongestant that the doctor gave him a few colds back, and that helps tremendously. (It should, since after insurance it cost $50!)

The other news is that we changed the kids' sleeping arrangements, and it's soooooo much better! We ended up putting a pack 'n' play in the office (it's been tricky with the printer and computer in there, so we're going to have to figure out some way to move that around), and he has slept through the night for 3 nights in a row! Even with not feeling well! We're attributing it to the smaller bed, and most importantly, a stricter nap schedule. We've started a bedtime routine, which seems to help the screaming, however, he still hates going down for a nap, but even when it takes him 45 minutes to fall asleep, he eventually does, and we let him sleep as long as he will. I think we're on the right track. I can't believe how much better I feel! I'm sure he's feeling better, too! I was having a lot of trouble with "blacking out" every time I stood up, and since getting even 3 full nights' sleep, it's almost completely disappeared! I guess my body was just telling me it needed more sleep...

Autumn?

On a different note, this week, we had an early snowstorm. I mean, it wasn't a foot of snow or anything, but the temperature dropped really fast, and it became icy and snowy in a matter of hours. Not fun to drive in.

Ingrid, on the other hand, was ecstatic! She's a Minnesota Baby through and through. She could not wait to get out into the snow and make snow angels or "throw snow bites" (or "have a snow fight," as we would all say). ;) She played outside till we told her she needed to come in because her nose was so cold! She would have stayed outside all day. Andrew went out and helped her make a sad-looking snowman (there was only about 4 inches of snow...), and she felt satisfied after making snow angels and showing me her snowman. I made her a "steamer" of hot milk and maple syrup (chocolate brings out her evil twin...), and she felt so grown up drinking out of a "grown-up" mug, holding it like Mama does with her hand through the handle, cupping the mug to keep her hands warm.

She's so funny. She really, really tried to convince us to go sledding. She tried every angle, suggested every hill, and told us it would be okay... I don't think she was convinced that there wasn't enough snow. I think she thought we just didn't want to do it.

She talked with me about how the snow will go away and then it will be Spring. (My mom had been talking about the seasons with her recently.) But then, when I told her that the snow would probably go away this weekend, she asked if it would be Spring next. I explained that it was just a funny snow because it was still Fall, but about Thanksgiving time, it would stay cold and the snow would stay for a while. Then, we could make more snowmen. She was excited for that, and a little relieved, too, that winter wouldn't be over.

Tonight, we go trick or treating. It's supposed to get near 60 degrees today, so it shouldn't be unbearably cold. Ingrid is going as a pink and grey kitty cat instead of the tiger because the costume is much warmer. She was excited to be something else, anyway. I'm not exactly sure what we will do with Rowan, but we'll just make it a surprise for everyone! In any case, they'll be using their Halloween bags that Pam got them for Halloween last year with their names on them. Check back in very soon for pictures of our Halloween Adventure!

The cutest Tiger...

2008-10-25T21:57:00.004-04:00

We went to the Aurora School Fall Festival tonight where Ingrid dressed up like a tiger!

She was so funny reassuring all of us that she would still be Ingrid after I painted her face. Every time she looked in the mirror, she looked away immediately. :) She never got used to looking at herself. She thought getting her face painted was pretty fun, though. She said it was like when Mama and Papa and Aunt B did the play at the theatre... Uh-oh... ;)

She was really funny, though... All night, she wouldn't do anything that might take her paint off her face. She was so careful when her nose itched or when she wanted something to drink... In fact, she wouldn't even drink out of the pop can because it might take off her black lips! :) By the end of the night, though, she was over it. She kept asking if we could go home and wash it off, mostly, I think, because she was so worried about messing it up. :) I gave her a napkin and told her to itch her nose and took her to a water fountain so she could get something to drink...

We ended up winning a candy dish full of caramel Hershey kisses because we guessed the right amount in the dish. I let her have 3 of them, knowing she was so tired, it wasn't going to matter once we got home. I was right. She's sound asleep right now, although despite our reassurance, she wanted me to leave the door to her room open tonight. I don't blame her since Elijah was dressed like a bloody-toothed vampire and Aunt Anita wore a wierd man mask, and Granny was a skeleton bride... :)

At least Aunt B and Uncle B and Isaac weren't scary... :) We had fun.

Andrew is in MN, so he missed it, but thought we'd post these pics so he could at least see Ingrid. So, Happy Halloween, Papa--and Uncle Eric, Aunt Colleen, Grandpa Darrell, Gramma Camra, and Grandpa Jack--and everyone else!! We love you!!

The earth showeth forth His handiwork

2008-10-18T23:35:00.003-04:00

Even as I type this, I'm serenaded by my son who is crying at 11:30pm... It's so much harder to figure out what to do with a crying baby in the middle of the night when both kids are sharing a room. Tonight, earlier, I was trying to put Rowan to bed (he goes to bed by 7:30 usually, but today we went to Brian's sister's house and neither of the kids slept until we were headed home...so Ingrid was just getting awake at 6:30 and Rowan was just going to bed...) and the screaming that he's started to do when I put him to bed woke Ingrid up. Ingrid sat up and yelled, "NO! Rowan! It's too loud! STOP IT!"

Oh, yeah. That made things so much better. :^?

Rowan still isn't sleeping through the night. Ingrid definitely was sleeping through the night by this time (13 months). I'm so tired. And I'm not sure what to do to remedy it... It's really hard to let him cry it out when the crying wakes up the other one--especially when she insists that if she's awake, everyone else may as well be too! And to put Rowan's bed in the office or something is just really inconvenient...and if he's in our room (if there was room for him in our room), I wouldn't sleep at ALL because I would wake up every time he rolled over.

I'm buckling up for the long haul. I hear stories about Andrew not sleeping in his own room till he was much older than Rowan. My Mom said that Rebecca didn't sleep through the night until she was 3. And I'm so tired.

On the other hand, I'm loving Rowan's age. He's starting to blow kisses and initiate playing peek-a-boo. He said "bah-boo" today for "bottle" and he's starting to say "mama" and "papa" to us. Tonight he said "tee-tee" (sissy) as he pointed to Ingrid's shoe, and when we said that it was sissy's "shoe," he tried to say shoe, but ended up with a funny sound because he couldn't quite figure out the "shhh" part... We laughed a lot tonight.

He's really funny about his eating right now, too. Frustrating for us, but really funny how dramatic he gets when he wants to feed himself. I mean, when you put the spoon or fork to his face to feed him, he screws his face all up like you've just fed him castor oil and shakes his head, sometimes accompanied by a "DOE!" which, of course, means "NO!" or "DOP!" again, of course, meaning "STOP!". Both of which he learned from his sister who constantly uses those words to him... And he will immediately spit the food out--if you're sneaky enough to get it into his mouth before he clamps his mouth shut. Then, you can give him the fork or spoon with the apparently disgusting food on it and he will readily eat whatever he's just spit out. Frustrating.

The only thing he will not object to being fed is YoBaby yogurt. He knows the little package and he will open his mouth like a little bird as long as that's what he is being fed. He's suspicious about ANYTHING else... Hmmm.... maybe I should wash those little YoBaby cups out and re-use them... Nah. He's no dummy. One bite and he'd probably never eat YoBaby the same again. Better not even take the chance. :)

Ingrid is really funny too. I was giving her a bath tonight and she was talking to her little Dora doll about how something was "heavy on her brain." :) She's so funny at night time. For some reason, she comes up with these clever quirky things right before we put her to bed. Nothing gets past her. Apparently, one of Andrew's favorite bluegrass groups has a song that she LOVES and that phrase is in it. :) She's so great.

Thursday, Andrew put some new jeans on her (her 2T size jeans are WAY too small for her, but the new 3T jeans are too big around the waist...) and they kept falling down. She kept having to pull them up and turned to Andrew (and then to me later) and said, "I've gotta pull my britches up!" What a turkey...

We also had a pretty cool discussion today about God. I told her the story about how I had been praying that God would help me figure out how I could get my car fixed because I didn't have the money and I knew it wasn't very safe. And then God told my Mom to tell me to take it to the High School where they have an excellent program in the vocational building where they fix cars under the close supervision of an experienced mechanic (a teacher, too) and they only charge for parts, not labor. So, I got my car fixed the other day--a job that would have cost $450-$500 elsewhere--for $105, including an oil change! And I was explaining to Ingrid that God was good and that we can talk to God anytime and God will listen to us.

She reiterated to me that God was good and then asked, "Where is God right now?" So we got to talk about what Heaven was like and how no one cries in Heaven and that sometimes people talk about Heaven being in the sky, but really, we couldn't understand until Jesus wants us to be with him and He comes to get us when we die and that we didn't have to be afraid to die because that just means that we get to see Heaven and see God and Jesus. She said that she wanted to go there someday. :) We talked about Jesus and that she could go to Heaven to see Him, but we'd have to wait until we were done with our work here.

Then, she wanted to know if we could get to heaven on an airplane. ;) I said no, that we had to wait until we died to see Jesus in Heaven, but that we could feel God and Jesus now anytime we felt love for someone else or when we looked at the beautiful trees or sunsets.

Then, she was quiet for a little while....and asked me to put in her Mickey Mouse CD. :) But nothing gets past her, and I pray our conversation stuck somewhere in her little mind... It will in mine, I know.

So, now I should sleep. But I will leave you with a few pictures of the kids and Becca and I at our Autumn Glory Festival this past week. It was a glorious autumn weekend.

"The Heavens declare the Glory of God, and the earth showeth forth His handiwork." Psalm 19:1

Mama and Rowan

Mama, Rowan, Ingrid, Isaac and Aunt B

Aunt B and Isaac

Two birthdays!

2008-09-14T17:40:00.006-04:00

So, last weekend, Ingrid turned 3 and last Tuesday, Rowan turned 1! Gramma Camra gave us the best gift (for parents AND kids)....(drumroll please...)

A Jump-o-lene!

Ingrid's been wanting a "jumpoline" since we jumped on a real trampoline at my friend Jill's gym in Minnesota this summer--and we've been thinking she needs one, as she is wrecking my sofa by jumping off the arms onto the cushions CONSTANTLY! All the pillows are smashed down and the seat cushions are sunken down in the middle now... :(

Anyway, for their birthdays, Gramma Camra (in MN) sent a real live "Jump-o-lene"! That's even the official name of it! It's the best. It wears the kids out so fast! :) And it's saving my couch! Both of them love to get in it. It also came with 100 plastic balls...which are fun to clean up...but fun to play with too.

Here's a video of them the day we got it and blew it up in our living room. (excuse the boxes and mess about...I'm in the process of boxing things up to get rid of them.)

Today, we had a little birthday party for Ingrid with her little friends from church, and we brought it up to the community room and they all jumped on it! What a blast they had! And we grown-ups were able to really talk and get to know one another better. It was a good day for all.

It's hard to imagine that Ingrid is 3 already! She's so smart and funny! I think back to her first days as an infant and look at her now and wonder what's next. It's better than I had ever imagined when she was a baby...I'm sure the next few years will be, too. Here's a little snippet of Ingrid and Papa playing "air guitar." It was all over once she realized I was videotaping her. :) She wants to watch herself...

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to have a party for Rowan. We tried to have a little party one night at the farm on his birthday, but he was really tired and didn't really want anything to do with the cake we made...and Papa wasn't even there, so it didn't really feel like a party. Poor second child. But the important thing is that he knows we love him, and we had a little family party for all the September birthdays last week, so he was included in that. He's a special little boy. The world can't be all bad when he's in it... :) I hope he knows how special he is...

The other day, he picked up Andrew's old phone and put it up to his ear and talked on it! He would babble and then LAUGH! He's soooooo cute. He'll pick it up and say "Hi!" and then give it to you and say "tank too" and then "bye bye" and wave. He can also say "all done" and sign it and also sign "more." He's so smart. :)

Here's a recent video of him the other day. He's started talking a little more. Here he is saying Bella--using the L! He's starting to try using a fork, too, although not very successfully yet. I wish I could get him to say everything on command s you could see all he knows. He's pretty stubborn that way. He'll only say something when HE wants to... Makes a liar out of me every time. :) But he's such a good boy, though VERY determined. When he wants something there's very little you can do to avoid a mini-breakdown if he can't have it, but food will usually divert his attention (typical boy, right?) or a dip upside down will distract him... But he ALWAYS has time for hugs and kisses (his kisses are very slobbery, but completely heart-felt--and many times un-prompted)! He loves to be affectionate... He's my boy. :)

So, here he is! My one-year old Rowan.

My "Brown" Baby Boy

2008-09-08T17:21:00.002-04:00

Geesh. I've sure got one for you. It's one of those stories you carry with you that qualifies you as a parent. This time, Andrew gets the medal.

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of this, but I'm going to try to see if I can download my phone picture. It won't be great, but this is priceless...

So, I was substitute teaching for Mom on Friday when I get a phone call from Andrew.

"Hello?" I said
"Heelllooo..." Andrew said in a tone that made me wonder what was coming next.
"What's going on?"
"Well, your son..." Oh, no, I thought.

So, apparently what happened was Andrew had been listening to Rowan play that morning like he does every morning until Ingrid gets awake. He was cooing and babbling very pleasantly, so Andrew decided to get just a few more minutes of shuteye until the baby started to complain--or until Ingrid got up--which ever came first.

After about 20 minutes, Rowan started to cry, so he went into his room to get him. When he opened up the door, he was greeted with a foul stench, which could mean only one thing. He had one of his messy diapers which would require a full change of clothes and possibly a sheet change. He had one of those once every couple of weeks, and he was due for another one. Luckily, we had just washed the extra sheet and comforter, so he wasn't worried.

However, when he went to the crib, he realized the mess wasn't confined to a messy diaper. What Andrew saw when he looked over the crib rail was a brown baby boy... Brown because he had taken his diaper OFF and pooped EVERYWHERE.

There was poop on the sheets, the crib bumper, the crib railing, Rowan's shirt, between his toes, caked in his hair, smeared across his face, in his eyes...and in his TEETH! Needless to say, he had rolled in poop.

Andrew called me, cleaned things up, and gave Rowan a bath... However, Rowan got a new word out of the ordeal. Now, he can say "poop."

We're so proud of his growing communication skills.

picture to come soon...

What Would Jesus Do?

2008-08-25T20:27:00.003-04:00

So, Andrew was feeding the kids tonight while I was in Cheat Lake doing a Kindermusik class. He was busy feeding Rowan in his high chair, leaving Ingrid to eat her dinner beside him independently as usual in her booster seat.

At one point, Andrew looked over at Ingrid and saw her licking her pink Care Bears placemat. He told her not to lick her placemat. Big kids don't lick their placemats.

She said, "Yes they do. Big kids lick their placemats all the time!"

Andrew said to name one big kid that licks his placemat.

Ingrid said, "Jesus."

Andrew said, "Are you telling me that Jesus licks his placemat when he eats?"

Ingrid--without batting an eye--said, "Yes. Jesus told me to do it," and continued licking her placemat.

Seriously, I have no idea where that came from. Truly and honestly.

All I can say is, "Jesus, help us."

Yard Sale Blues...

2008-08-24T20:39:00.003-04:00

We had a yard sale this weekend. I sold some baby stuff (not everything...I didn't have time or energy to get through EVERYTHING.) and made about $50. I choked back the tears all weekend... Silly how "stuff" can mean so much, but all the sleepless nights, sweet-smells of babies, and the exquisite feeling of a baby sleeping on my chest were almost tangible as I sold my babies' clothes to other mommies and grandmas. Each $.50 piece of clothing had a prayer that went with it...

The saddest part of my Friday was when I sold 3 flannel baby blankets to a local farmer to use as grease rags! I literally almost cried in front of him! I've kicked myself several times for doing it, but half of me also says that I need to separate my memories from my stuff. After all, my babies' babyhood is NOT in those blankets. Neither are the memories.

So, as I reflect on my babies...and grapple with their independence from me...I pray that God will show me how to find my worth in God, not in whether my children need me...and that God would show me God's plan for my life... I know God is faithful. Now, I just want to be.

Rowan is walking!

2008-08-14T14:31:00.012-04:00

So, my baby is on his way to not being my baby anymore... *sigh* He's walking! Well, he still thinks it's a game--he loves it when he can run into your hug--but he doesn't use it as a functional way to get around yet. I have to say, it will be nice to let him down outside or when we're in a public place instead of carrying him because the ground is dirty... But mostly, I want to stop time. I have cherished every single day with him and every milestone and hug--and somehow I thought that would make time go slower... Or it would prolong his baby-ness. Alas, babies grow up...

While Andrew and Rebecca and I were doing theatre this summer, the kids were all taken care of by Granny and Grandad and Aunt Anita and the girls. It was a wonderful time for all of them. Isaac and Rowan are buddies now, and the family got to know all of them better. It was great. Here's a video that shows Rowan and Isaac when they stayed at the farm one day while we were at the theater...

Rowan is also trying to talk. He doesn't say much that's intelligible, but he sure has lots to say! ;) Here, you'll hear him call for our dog, Bella, who lives at the farm with Granny and Grandad. He also LOVES to get into Granny's kitchen cabinets. There are several that just have pots and pans and cookie sheets and stuff in them that Mom lets him empty out. Fun, fun! :)

Isaac is eating in this video, but you should see them wrestle one another when they're both crawling around! Usually, I have to admit, Rowan is the one knocking Isaac over and playing Isaac's little head like a drum... I thought Kindermusik might be a good thing for him... Apparently, he's decided that anything makes a great drum! Oh well...

Rowan the Clown

2008-07-27T23:19:00.003-04:00

Rowan is starting to realize that he can make people laugh. It's hilarious. He makes this face that cracks us all up. :) He somehow picked it up from us trying to empathize with him if he bumped his head or fell when he was trying to walk or something... One that means "Oh, poor baby, did that hurt?" A very perceptive little guy because it's not an easy face to make!

He started doing it only when we might have used it, but now since he's gotten such a good reaction from us, he does it when he wants something or when he wants some attention...or just at random! :) He came out of the womb making us laugh with his funny faces. I can't wait to hear what kinds of things he comes up with when he learns to carry on a conversation...especially with Ingrid as his big sister!!

Here's a short video of him tonight at the piano. He was playing nicely behind me while I was at the computer and I heard him playing the keys gently with his fingers (he's not tall enough to be able to bang on it from the floor...) and then some quiet time...and then some banging on the keys. I knew he was no longer on the floor... :) I looked back and he was standing on a box playing the piano with great fervor! He looked at me and gave me "the face" and I had to run to get my camera. He makes the face twice in the video (although not as well as most times...). You have to kind of watch him to catch it... I'll try to get some better snapshots and post them. Enjoy!

Andrew and I are in Little Women, the Musical this weekend and next! We open on Thursday and begin dress/tech tomorrow night. We are so excited about our little Theatre on the Lake and are just feeling honored to work with such talented people. It's so great to be performing again!!! In any case, we're excited about the show...It's going to be great. Hopefully, I'll get to take some pics at the dress rehearsals and I can post some soon! Keep watching...

Minnesota Nice

2008-07-07T23:49:00.021-04:00

Well, we had a wonderful trip to Minnesota! I'm going to tell you all about it, but I'm going to let some pictures tell some of the story... The kids are both supposed to be asleep, however, I've got a little radio show coming from the monitor. While they are both happy at least, I'm going to try to blog! :) Here's how our trip went:

I wish I had some pictures of the kids on the airplane. I was worried at first about having 2 kids on an airplane, but it was absolutely fine. Ingrid was sooooo excited about it. She LOVED riding on the airplane! She was a little lady the whole time. Everyone around us was quite impressed with how quiet and still she was, while being polite and sweet. It helped too that Midwest Airlines served Sierra Mist and warm chocolate chip cookies! :) It was fine. Rowan was a bit squirmy on the part of the rides that he was awake for, but all in all he did fine too.

We got to Minnesota and stayed at Uncle Eric's and Aunt Colleen's on Wednesday the 25th. We met Pam and Jack in Forest Lake at their new office (beautiful place!) after taking Darrell back to his house (Darrell lent us the use of his car while we were there--sooooo nice!). Then we went to eat crab legs in Lindstrom! Gramma Camra (Pam) had a box of clothes for both kids and a backpack for Ingrid as well as a big box of diapers, formula, wipes, and a stroller for our trip! We were completely taken care of! Then, we had a great time lazing around on Thursday. Colleen was gone on a business trip and Eric went to work for most of the day that day. Finally vacation!

On Friday, went to Burnsville to stay with Andrew's friend Dave Mattson and his new wife Jess and visited the Minnesota Zoo! We saw the new Russian Grizzly Bear exhibit and if we had been about an hour earlier, we could have witnessed the birth of a new little monkey! Ingrid and Rowan loved watching the birds and the turtles. Rowan walked away with a toy turtle and Ingrid, a flamingo. Fun was had by all!!!

We went to Andrew's Uncle Greg's wedding to a wonderful woman, Jill, on Saturday night on the St. Croix river boat. It was a beautiful wedding, and Andrew and I were honored that they asked us to play guitar and sing during the ceremony. Unfortunately, the camera was left in the car... But we had a good time catching up with family, eating good food, and celebrating a new member of the Hawthorne clan! Congrats, Greg and Jill!

Sunday, after I (Elizabeth) recovered from what seemed to be an attack of vertigo that prevented us from going to Forest Hills Church and a lunch meeting with my good friend Lori (:( ), we proceeded up to Forest Lake for a Nelson family Birthday party! Andrew, Eric, and Grandpa Bud (Darrell's dad) were all June birthdays, so Grandpa Bud, Andrew's Aunts Katie and Trudy & their husbands, Andrew's sister Kara, and a few family friends met us and Eric and Colleen at Darrell and Mary Lee's for a birthday party! Ingrid fed the fish off of Grandpa Darrell's dock, rode in the pontoon, and ran with their dog, Maggie. Rowan sat with Aunt Katie a lot, but he did let Grandpa Darrell feed him! We took a picture of the four generations of Nelsons. What a cool day!

While we were still in Forest Lake, we left Darrell's to see the Novaks, Ruters, and Johnsons! Rowan had been reluctant to go to strangers but when he saw Steve Ruter, he instantly went to him. He has the same sort of countenance as my Dad (not to mention the white hair), so I think he might have thought he was Grandad. :) In any case, he loved Steve! We had a good time talking until late at night (2:30AM!) and Andrew left the next morning at 5:30am to fish with Benny. Sweet Susan got up to bake caramel rolls for him before he left! :) And then, Kristi, Ingrid, and I feasted on them a little (OK, a lot) later that morning before our day of shopping and visiting...

Monday was a day for Andrew to fish with Uncle Benny and the kids and Lizzie shopped with Vanessa and Kristi--and lunched with Kristi's boyfriend (nice guy!). Thanks to Pam's gift of Kohl's cash, I (lizzie) got a new bathing suit (one that was not a maternity suit!) and got Rowan a new hat that Vanessa found for him with a sweet turtle on the front! Then, it was back to the Novaks for a nap and then on to my friend Jill's new gymnastics gym. We had a fun time on the trampoline (not just the kids, all of us!) and then went out to eat for pizza nearby. Then on to Old Chicago for some bad karaoke and more talking. It was sooooo wonderful to see them all. They are definitely family to us... Badu-badu you all!

Tuesday, we went to the Minnesota Children's Museum where Ingrid and Rowan had a great time. Ingrid loved blowing big bubbles and crawling through the Earth World and Rowan loved the room for babies where he proceeded to crawl up and down the big stairs without fear! He's so funny going down steps head first...but he always seems to manage without banging his head or falling! Then it was on to a sushi dinner at Sakura in St. Paul with Uncle Eric and Aunt Colleen. YUM!

Wednesday, we left for Wisconsin and stayed at Gramma Camra's house for the 4th. Wednesday and Thursday were just relaxing days. Ingrid and Rowan played at the beach and Andrew fished. Eric and Colleen joined us there. I managed to read my first novel in several years during the trip! I read my book in the sun in my new bathing suit and managed to get a tan that day... My idea of a wonderful vacation!!! Gramma Camra was in her glory, too. She had thought of everything so we had anything we would need while we were there, complete with beach toys and an extra pack 'n' play for Rowan so he could be "penned in" while we were all outside enjoying the cool, sunny days!

On the 4th, the house was filled with Hawthornes and Sullivans. Ingrid played with Mitchell and Levi, had nice talks with Joe and Bridget, rode a kayak with Colleen, and reveled in the attention given to her by everyone!

Rowan even let several people hold him! :) By the end of the night, he and Gramma Camra had become very good friends he even pushed me away because he wanted to go see Uncle Eric! It was a fabulous time.

The night of the 4th, we left and went back to Uncle Eric's and stayed overnight until he took us to the airport where we flew to meet Aunt B in Pittsburgh! We had such a good time. Thanks for the wonderful trip, all our Minnesota family & friends. We can't wait for the next trip! We love you. I've included all of the pics on the blog and more on our slide show. Check it out at the bottom of the blog.

The night we got back (the 5th), we had my family all over to watch the fireworks that had been postponed here in McHenry because of rain! We didn't come back to a lonely house, we came back to a party! Fun! I didn't get the camera out for that, but it was so nice to have them here.

Unfortunately, we also came back to a house with no water. For some reason, our water had been turned off while we were away (not due to any fault of ours...we suspect they were turning off our neighbor's water and turned ours off instead...). We really wanted to sleep in our own beds, so we stayed the night at home and ended up at the farm the next night. But we called the maintenance man Monday morning and he had it turned off before Andrew could get back here to meet him. So, at least we have water now.

Now, it's full-force into our rehearsals for the play we're in! Fun! We're doing the musical Little Women. Andrew is playing Laurie's tutor, Mr. Brooks, and ends up proposing to me! I'm playing the oldest (and, according to the script--the most beautiful!) March sister. My sister Rebecca is playing Beth March, the sister who ends up dying... :) It's fun. Stay tuned for some pics of our cast and rehearsals!

Andrew leaves for Orlando tomorrow to present at a national autism conference. He's got some exciting prospects, as there's been a prominent publisher from the UK contact him about whether he has any ideas for books he'd like to publish! He's going to spend the two and a half days there greasing palms and networking... Wish him luck!

Well, I've gotta get ready for rehearsal. My mom and dad are here to take care of the kids--mine and Rebecca's--for the next 3 hours. Stay tuned for more and check out the slide show!

Catching Up...

2008-06-11T11:18:00.011-04:00

Hello! I know it's been a long time since the last post... And people in our house are growing up so fast!!

Rowan is now pulling himself up on things and walking while holding onto something. He can sign "more" when he wants more to eat and we're working on "so big" and what a fishie says... :) He's so cute. I can sense that separation anxiety may be around the corner, as he hates it when I put him down and walk out of sight. He's pretty vocal about that... :) He's so cuddly. When you pick him back up, he gives you a big hug! He's such a sweet boy. He's starting to get a little loud...he's finding his voice. And when he wants something, watch out! He's slick, and he'll get it if it's within his reach--no matter how fast your reflexes are. If you put him down, he crawls wherever he wants, so we've been keeping him in a toddler play yard, which he's caught onto...He gets that he's confined. But I keep telling him that it's for his own good... :)

His crawling is so funny. He doesn't get up onto his knees to crawl, he just creeps along the floor like an army crawl, dragging his feet behind him. Here's a video of him playing the little piano we have. He's just recently finding out that he makes things happen. Watch when he crawls...It's really funny!

Ingrid is growing up too! She's pretty much going to the potty by herself now. She still has trouble right after she wakes up, but for the most part, she does really well. We're still putting her in training pants when we're out and about or when she goes to preschool, but when we're around the house or the farm, she wears underpants.

We recently got rid of cable TV...the company our development has as a provider has a monopoly and is charging WAY too much for what we're getting, so we got rid of it and got Netflix. We LOVE netflix. Ingrid so far has gotten an Elmo's Potty Time video--that we had for a couple of weeks. She LOVED it. It reinforced the potty thing very well. And she now wants to make sure everyone washes their hands after they go to the potty and talks all about how big she's getting because she's going to the potty all by herself.

It's been great, however, she's had a few "accidents" since the video... You see, there's a song called "It's OK to have an Accident" that Grover and Elmo sing. She has peed a couple of times in her pants and then proceeds to sing that song... It's a little bewildering. We don't want her to be afraid to make a mistake, but how do you really tell when it's an accident? I don't know. We just keep telling her that it's OK if you don't make it to the potty, but it's not OK to just not go... I'm sure it's a phase that will pass, but it's sure a frustrating one. :?

She's so full of you-know-what and vinegar these days. On one hand, she's got some great conversations in her. This past weekend, Andrew's friends John and Nat came in from MN. She was smitten with both of them. She was so cute asking them how they were and whether they liked popsicles and how they were doing that day. One day, she sat on the couch and had an entire conversation with John while she ate her peanut butter sandwich. She's getting so grown up!

And though I didn't think she could get more rambunctious, she has. Our living room has become a jungle-gym--she climbs over the back and sides of the sofa, she swings on the handles of the treadmill, she jumps over, around, and on top of anything that is in front of her. She's doing somersaults in the halls. She takes all the cushions off the couches and chairs and bounces on them. And watch out if you sit on the floor beside of her! Then YOU become the jungle-gym! Here's a video of a little of what she does...only it's controlled. :)

On the other hand, the growing up is bringing with it different frustrations for her. She wants to be independent so badly! I am having a hard time letting her be independent... Mostly because when she's independent, it makes TWICE the work for me...cleaning up after her and having to save her from herself so she doesn't get hurt. Sometimes, I let her do the things she wants to do. Other times, I just can't do it all because I've got Rowan to take care of too. This sends her into some outright tantrums! Sometimes, I could be sending her to time-out every 15 minutes, but I have to pick my battles and sometimes I feel like I'm losing the war...

And oh, the whining! I'm soooooo tired of being whined at! I know this is a stage, but geez... and it brings out the worst in me! I wish I was more patient, but sometimes I have to have a time-out and turn a video on for her to watch. I knew this about myself...I'm a great Mom to an infant, but when a child turns 3-4 years old, I have a hard time with them! They get whiny and insistent and selfish and stubborn... All things that I know are in me... :) I'm sure that's why it annoys me so much. Having children is like putting yourself in a crucible. And I just pray that I will come out the other side having burned off the impurities in myself and be a better person for it. I also pray that I don't mess up Ingrid in the process... Of course, every parent is going to affect his/her child negatively somehow, I suppose. We're only human.

Anyway, Andrew got me a piano for Mother's Day... One of Rebecca's friends is a musician, and he recently bought a keyboard for his house and was running out of room, so he sold his piano to us for a very nice price. We've had fun playing and singing together. Ingrid can find middle C pretty well now...and knows that her thumbs go on that key. We're working on D and B using our pointer fingers, but she's not inclined to sit still that long... Anyway, we've been singing through some books of children's songs and I found "I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy" in one and she LOVED it! Here's a little video of her singing her own rendition (forgive my messy house...):

I will leave you with a few pictures of the kids that were taken yesterday and today. Enjoy!

Ingrid loves to play "tea party." I try to use it as a time to teach manners... :) Here, I'm teaching her to sip quietly. We have fun lifting our pinkies up and talking in a British accent when we converse about the weather. :)

Things aren't always dainty and lady-like. Sometimes it's fun to add an "aaaahhhh" after you take a drink. :)

Rowan can climb up onto things now. He's so much taller than Ingrid was at his age! Here, he's found Ingrid's pretend kitchen. He can turn the faucet knobs on the back of the sink there! (He can pretty much do anything he puts his mind to-- and anything Mom will let him do...) :)

It's a pretend one, really! I promise! ...

We All Fall Down!

2008-05-16T09:25:00.003-04:00

So, my daughter is coming into the stage of "precocious pre-schooler." Aside from her dramatics when we ask her to do something (she's got a jaw-setting, eye-averting, won't budge stubbornness when she is dead-set against something), she's branching out to embrace the view that "all the world's a stage..."

We've been taking her to the Sacred Meadow Montessori Preschool in Accident, MD -- We LOVE her being there. She adores Miss Carolyne, the teacher, and is making friends with some really good kids. She's been successful at taking naps, helping out, and obsessing about the pet rabbits that Miss Carolyne has outside. (I wish she'd go to the potty there, but we're trying to be patient about that...) It's been wonderful for her. I hope that we can find a way to let her attend more than one day a week at some point.

It's been a little nerve-wracking for me to anticipate what stories we will hear from Carolyne about how Ingrid interacts with the other kids...or what kind of stories about her home life that she will tell...

Well, here's the first one. :)

The other day, Ingrid fell out of her booster seat after eating lunch. Since she started pre-school, she's wanted to do EVERYTHING by herself. The other day, she went to the potty to poop and I happened to walk by the open door and she yelled, "Don't look at me! That's not nice!" I told her to shut the door then... Geesh! She also wants to click herself into the carseat (which she can't do in the end...and inevitably makes us late to wherever we're going...) and climb in and out of her booster seat at the table.

I'm fine watching her climb into the seat. There are plenty of things to hold onto. It's climbing out that makes me hold my breath. The booster seat is on a regular chair, but it has sides on it, akin to arm rests. She inevitably folds her leg up underneath of her so that her balance is completely forward as she crawls out of the seat over the arm rest face-first. I don't even think I can describe her process... But she gets really angry when you try to help.

Anyway, Rowan's high chair is on the one side of her seat, about a foot and a half away, and the other side is open for her to get in and out. Well, Andrew had Rowan in the high chair waiting for his food, and Ingrid in her booster seat beside him eating her lunch. When he went to the kitchen to fix the baby's cereal, she must have decided to get out of her seat to get something for (or from...) Rowan and fell face-first out of her high chair, only to catch herself on the high chair by the bridge of her nose! The seat was far enough away from the high chair that she couldn't get back into the booster seat and couldn't get herself pushed back up from the high chair. Neeless to say, this left a mark...right down the middle of her face.

So, for the past week, she's been walking around looking like a hockey player (Andrew calls her Boogaard after his favorite Minnesota Wild hockey player--the one known to fight a lot...). Her nose is scratched in 2 places and she has one bruise going across the bridge of the nose and a bump and bruise between her eyebrows. There's no missing it. When she went to preschool, on Tuesday, I knew it was only a matter of time until someone asked her what happened.

Here's where it could have gotten REALLY interesting... Her dramatic tendencies could have made it as interesting as it was for my former professor for whom I babysat regularly the year after I graduated from college. His 2-year old told her pre-school teacher that the bruises on her forehead (which she contracted herself after falling down a few steps...) were from the fact that her dad was driving nails in her head! Fortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, she gave an answer that echoed our reassurance that everyone makes mistakes...

"Well, everybody falls out of their high chair sometime."

Shew.

She lets us help her out of her booster seat now. At least until the memory fades. Maybe by then, her coordination will have improved. :)

Tears...of joy?

2008-05-07T00:41:00.002-04:00

I'm writing this after midnight on Wednesday, so I'm actually referring to Tuesday when I say "today..."

So, this week is very busy for me. I'm someplace different every hour of every day...traveling back and forth from home to Clarksburg and then home to Fairmont... Starting a new Kindermusik class at pre-schools... Subbing all over Garrett County... I'm tired.

So maybe that's why I got so emotional this morning. I took Ingrid to pre-school this morning for the first time. I don't know why I got so emotional. The place is great. The kids from our church go there, and our friends LOVE the teacher -- and so do we! She's wonderful. The school is based on the Montessori learning environment, and she has fish and bunnies and gardens that the kids all help with...each child learns to help make meals, clean up after themselves, take naps in the same room, brush their teeth after meals, read together, and all kinds of stuff. It's a great place. There are only 8 kids at a time, too, so each kid gets his/her attention he/she needs. And I'm doing Kindermusik for free (the families pay for the materials, but I don't charge tuition) in exchange for Ingrid staying there once a week. It's a great deal!

Last night and this morning, though, I was all in knots about her going there all day... Remember, this is the child who went to work with me or stayed with family when I couldn't take her. I just didn't want her to feel confused... or like she didn't have someone to ask questions to... or get scared when it was time for a nap... or feel lonely among loud, rambunctious kids... or get hungry because she was too nervous to eat at lunch time... I don't know. I just wanted to scoop her up and hold her. But I didn't. She was a little clingy when we first got there because the boys were loud and jumpy, but mostly just wanted to stay. There were no tears on her end.

I, on the other hand, was a mess all the way back home. I could just see her crying in a corner or her lip starting to tremble as she lay down on her nap mat wanting "rock-a-bye" before she could sleep... I tell you, I was a mess.

When Andrew picked her up this evening (she was there from about 9-5), she had had a great day. Her potty training didn't go so well, but she had a pull-up on so it wasn't a huge deal. We'll just have to try to talk about it some more and maybe have her go while I'm still there next week. And I guess my fears about nap time were completely unfounded! She slept for 3 hours! She came back with tales about a REAL pink dragon that lived in the basement that has babies in its tummy... (not sure about that one. I know the teacher has animals...but a dragon?) and bunnies that she played with. She's also being encouraged to do things independently by Carolyne (the teacher). Tonight, she didn't want my help getting out of the car -- and she wanted to carry her bag with all of her preschool stuff in it and yelled at me when I picked it up! I think we've crossed into the "I can do it myself" phase. It's cute, but it's also a little scary...

So, I've made it through another milestone as a mommy.

Oh, and I think one other reason I'm so emotional is that I'm having to start to wean Rowan from breastfeeding... My inconsistent daily routine makes it incredibly hard to pump when I am away and my milk production has decreased to very little. I'm going to keep feeding him in the morning and evening and through the night as long as I can, but I'm not going to pump during the day anymore. I'm sure all of this has my hormones out of balance... And I'm also just a little sad about it...

Speaking of Rowan, he's been saying a word that sounds like "Ingrid" every once in a while. He won't say it on demand, but it reminds me of when we thought Ingrid was saying "Bella" when she was his age (younger, actually) and turned out that she was saying it. I think Rowan is talking! He also imitated his Papa saying "Oh, Boy!" tonight. He's been saying "mama" when we play together for a while and he can say "papa" too, but doesn't use it in context yet. It's so fun to watch them figure things out! Such a sweet little boy...

So, onward and upward... And to bed! Talk soon...

April Showers Bring May flowers...

2008-04-18T14:24:00.007-04:00

They say that when you begin to despair, you know the night's going to pass away soon! And so it is with potty training!

Ingrid is finally going to the potty! I knew that we had at least 4 days where one of us would be with her, so on Wednesday morning, I decided after I took off Ingrid's wet diaper from the night before, that I wasn't going to put it back on. I told her this...and she went to the potty!! Two days later, she's still going (albeit with a pull up during the night and when we go out in public...but she still asks to go to the potty before she goes!)! Hooray! Only one pack of diapers from here on out! She's such a smart kid. I'm so proud of her.

I'm sure it's a little wierd to some of you that I'm putting this on the Internet, but I know a few of you will be hitting this time of life soon, so I thought I'd share it... I texted my sisters and hubby as soon as she successfully went to the potty--complete with a picture! Hey, you've gotta celebrate the little things in life!

I started out having her sit on the potty while she watched Sesame Street. I gave her popcorn to eat and we talked and laughed and played. The potty was a fun place to sit! Then, I started giving her full glasses of chocolate soy milk to get her to have to pee... When Sesame Street was over (and she hadn't peed yet...), We turned the timer on (timers are our friends... :) ) and for 5 minutes, she sat on the potty and for 5 minutes we played catch or dolls or something. Then the potty again. This kept her mind on the potty so she didn't forget about it. I had to help her the first time, but after she peed on the floor twice and I didn't make a big deal over making a mistake, she started going by herself!

At first, I kept her underwear off completely to make it easier, but then I let her get out the Sesame Street underwear that Gramma Camra had given her a while ago and she didn't find it too hard to figure out. And I weeded out that she was afraid that she would make a mistake and wasn't sure how I'd react. I watched her face change from trembly chin to a big smile when I told her that it was OK that she hadn't made it the first time. Amazing to think what an impact a mother can have on her daughter's outlook on life. Kinda scary...No, REALLY scary...

Who knew you could be so proud of your little girl because she went pee?

So, she's at home with Papa today as I'm in Fairmont teaching and seems to be doing just fine. I hope we've turned a corner... Now, the big P word (Poo...). We'll have to see how that goes... I've heard it's not exactly the same deal as going #1. (I keep thinking there should be a way to play with words here, but nothing's coming to me...) More to come on that. :)

Well, my little angel boy is now over 7 months old! He had been sick so much last month that I decided to wait until he was completely better to get him his shots for his 6 month check-up. So, at 7 months, we went to Dr. Garrett. Here are his stats. [Drumroll, please....]

He's gained 2 1/2 pounds -- he's 17 1/2 lbs now!

He's grown 3 1/2 inches! -- he's 27 inches long!

(we're thinking he got a little hawthorne in him--Andrew's Mom's side...They're tall and skinny.)

Dr. Garrett says that she's going to stay on his good side because he's going to be a big boy.

Yesterday was such a BEAUTIFUL day in McHenry. And the grass is plush and green outside our apartment, so we sat Rowan in the sun to give him some Vitamin D...and I got some great pics! He loved wiggling his toes in the grass and pulling it out. He didn't like laying on his tummy, though... Anyway, enjoy!

I don't know what he thought he lost, but he was looking all over for it... :)

Here's a pic of Rowan and his silly big sister -- you can see how tall he is compared to Ingrid...Those pants are supposed to be long legged pants, not high-waters! :)

Holy Water and Baby Boys

2008-04-01T22:05:00.004-04:00

So, Rowan is now officially baptized. Godfather Benny Moreno and Godmother Aunt B (Rebecca) attended his baptism at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church on Holy Saturday night. What a COOL service. Father Chip (well, just Chip, really...) did such a good job charging us to examine our faith and lives and also reminding us (and Rowan's godparents) that it is our job to bring up Rowan to do the same. They gave us a BEAUTIFUL certificate and each of the godparents got a little card telling them of their duties and responsibilities. Rowan also got a special candle lit from the paschal candle that Chip told us to light every year on the anniversary of his baptism (March 22nd) and to celebrate his baptism every year because it is even more important than his birthday. It was great to have family around us and Benny and Rachel in town. Here are a few pics, although Rachel took pictures that might be better, but we don't have those yet... We'll post some of those as soon as we get them. I'm sure they're great, too!

Godparents "Uncle" Benny and Aunt B with Mama, Papa, and Rowan

Rev. Dr. Chip Lee -- or Chip -- and Rowan, the newest member of the Body of Christ!

Granny, Grandad and a rare sober picture of Rowan...Isn't he the cutest?

Ingrid has a HUGE crush on Chip. She runs and gives him hugs every Sunday, and she wanted his attention that night... Chip is sweet on Ingrid, too. :)

So, last Saturday, Rebecca, Mom and I went to a 12-hour scrapbooking day (we all got there late, but were there most of the day--until 9:30pm or so...) and since Brian was working, Rebecca had to bring Isaac. Since I'm still breastfeeding for the most part, I thought I'd just bring Rowan (instead of stopping to pump, I'd just feed him) and then the boys could play while the Moms scrapbooked. Fortunately, Granny brought the camera and we captured their playing. They were SOOOOOOO good! Everyone was completely floored with how they played so nicely for HOURS. They only fussed a couple of times and they were fine once they were given food or took a nap. Rowan is so laid back. I'm so glad to have him... How blessed we are.

Heartbreakers...

I LOVE to eat faces! Get over here!

You eat my face, I'll eat your arm... Gimme that!

Little peeking piggy toes...

What fun life is! More to come soon...

PBS Kids.org

2008-03-13T13:19:00.004-04:00

Since my last post, Rowan got a double ear infection, I got sick again, and Andrew and I have been working non-stop. It's crazy around here.
I'm trying to grow my Kindermusik studio. We just got a new space that's totally ours downtown Oakland. No more setting up and tearing down before and after each class! That shaves 2 hours off my routine twice a week. So nice. Landon's Library (the non-profit started by my cousin in memory of her son) is paying for the space to help me get started. In turn, I give them 10% of any profit...they've been SOOOO good to me. Landon LOVED Kindermusik, so we wanted kids around here to have the same experience. We had an open house to try to recruit more kids for classes, but that didn't go as well as we had hoped. We invited 50 families and only saw 5. I did get one new family to join, so I'm hoping I can add some families to that new class. I hope I can schedule some week-long classes this summer. We'll see... All you can do, I guess, is plant seeds and watch what happens!
Last weekend, it was pretty much a blizzard here, but Andrew and I left the kids at the farm and headed to Uniontown, PA (usually about 45min away--but in the blizzard, it took us 2 hours!) to see my friend Erica (from my grad school years at the Boston Conservatory) in a national tour of The Great American Trailer Park Musical. Driving there that night was terrible. There were times we couldn't see the road in front of the car...but it was fun to get away. I'm so glad we went. Erica was GREAT in the show, and even though I was getting sick and was really tired, we got to hang out with Erica a little bit afterward. She's one of my favorite people... I love you, Erica!!
Otherwise, we've just been trying to concentrate on getting healthy. My Mom had strep throat which lead to bronchitis and a sinus infection, so I substitute taught for her most of last week. This week, I've ended up with the sinus stuff and a yucky cough, but I taught at Preston for my sister Tuesday and another teacher there yesterday, I teach Kindermusik today, and tomorrow, I'm teaching Kindergarten here in Garrett County. Andrew's been all over creation...he's built up more than 55 hours of comp time from driving and working 12 hour+ days. He took Mon and Tues off this week and might take the whole week off next week before he takes some vacation time when Benny is in town!
Easter weekend, Rowan is getting baptized on Holy Saturday night, a traditional time in the Episcopal Church to baptize. Our church does "open baptism" where anyone who shows up and wants to be baptized can be, although we've talked with our priest about Rowan already. Uncle Benny Moreno is coming in to stand up as Rowan's "Godfather" and Aunt B is his "Godmother." We're doing our family Easter dinner that night before the service here at our place when we'll hide Easter eggs and have fun. We're excited to see Uncle Benny!! I'm sure he'll be taking pictures, so hopefully, we'll have some awesome pics to show you soon! :)
I'm going to leave you with a video of Ingrid getting onto the computer. She LOVES PBSkids.org (public television online...Sesame Street and Super Why and Barney and much more)! And she can do the whole thing by herself! Literally, we can leave the room and she's fine. Even if she's never seen the page, she figures it out. Amazing. And to think I never sent an e-mail until college. Shew!

2008-03-03T21:46:00.004-05:00

So, this shouldn't affect my blogging...but one of the reasons I haven't been keeping up is that I ended up with a virus hat attacked my vocal cords! I had true laryngitis--or I think that's what it was. It started with a cough, but instead of going into my chest, my larynx began to hurt...and then my voice started to give out...and finally it was gone. I actually couldn't make much of a sound for about 5 entire days...during which I had to teach Kindergarten and attend a family birthday party where I saw family I don't usually see, even though I cancelled my Kindermusik classes and voice lessons. So much for vocal rest. Even on the days I was home, life with a 2 year old and an infant doesn't really lend itself to silence. It must have been a little amusing to watch me try to discipline Ingrid without a voice. Suddenly, my wagging finger and knitted brows had very little power... And Rowan kept looking at me funny, wondering why his Mama wasn't talking and singing to him... He sure gave Aunt B (Becca) a big smile when she said hi to him, being the first woman to talk to him since my voice "got lost," as Ingrid says.

It's been two and a half weeks since I completely lost my voice, and I'm still having a hard time singing. There's still some swelling there, and even controlling pitch isn't easy... I'm wondering if I should see an ENT, just to make sure there's no permanent damage. This is the first time this has happened to me...and I'm told that once you get it, you're prone to it forever. Not good news for someone who makes her living with her voice... Oh well...I'll just have to be really careful from here on out...

In other news...

Rowan got sick again just as his cough was clearing up. He began vomiting last Thursday and on Friday night, he had a fever of 102. We took him to the Urgent Care doctor who said he had an ear infection and gave us some antibiotic and decongestant for him. I got the medicine and tried giving it to him, but every time we tried, he would "give it all back" to me... Then, I was afraid he wasn't getting enough fluids... It was terrible. So, today, I brought him to Dr. Garrett, and she said both of his ears were infected now...so I asked her to give him a shot of antibiotic instead of trying to feed it to him. So, he's got his antibiotic in him now...but boy, he's not feeling real well tonight. Dr. Garrett said it might take 48 hours for him to be fever-free. Poor baby. His cry is the saddest thing...the kind where his lip trembles first and tears roll down his face... Not demanding at all, but just really sad. Andrew's out of town, so the baby's sleeping next to me tonight.

Good news, though, Rowan weighs 16.5 lbs! What a linebacker! :)

Ingrid is getting to be quite proficient on the computer. PBSkids.org is her favorite place to play right now. Andrew set up a separate account for her on our PC...so when we give her permission, she can go into the office, turn on the monitor, move the mouse so it comes out of hibernation mode, click on her froggie icon, click on the blue E, and play almost every game on PBSkids.org without help from us at all. If she doesn't know a part of the site, she just clicks around until she figures it out. It's like it's not foreign to her at all! Crazy to think that it was college the first time I sent an e-mail...or Graduate School the first time I "googled" something... Using the Internet is going to be as familiar to her as using the telephone or watching TV... She's something...

Also, our little Isaac (Rebecca's baby) was dedicated this last Saturday night. I was proud to stand up as his Godmother and Andrew and I helped lead worship--and I sang a Sara Groves song to Isaac. It was so good to sing worship songs again...even though I wasn't on top of my game, with my voice as weak as it is...but good nonetheless. They've invited us to help with worship again, as Becca's friends are planting a new church in Fairmont. We might sometime. They're good people. I'm so glad they're surrounding Bec and Brian and Isaac. Very good people...

Also, I turned 30 on Feb 27th. I have no strong feelings on this. It just kind of came and went...and now I'm 30.

Anyway, I'm going to include a few pics of Rowan's first bath in his ducky with Ingrid and a video of Rowan in his favorite Johnny Jump-up. My kids are the best! Enjoy!

It's Been A Hard Day's Night

2008-02-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

Hi!
I've been behind on keeping you up to date with our family's goings-on because I've started working again as a private voice instructor at Fairmont State University. It means that I teach from 5-9 on Monday nights, stay overnight with my sister in Fairmont, then get up and teach from 10-2 for the University theatre students, and then travel 1/2 hour farther south to Clarksburg to teach from 5-6:30 and then drive the 1 1/2 hour to arrive home by 8pm or so... I like teaching voice lessons, but I hate having to spend a night away from home. Reality is, though, it pays pretty well and it's too many miles and too much gas to drive home and then back when I've got a place to stay in Fairmont. You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.

I had a day at home today, and instead of stressing out that I wasn't substitute teaching or making money in some other way today, I just enjoyed being with my kids. Ingrid has been pretty "testy" lately...neither Andrew nor I were sure why, but I think it's mostly because I've started teaching again. She hasn't felt well (all three of the others in the family have bad colds and coughs again...), but I think it's because I've been gone so much, even though she loves my sister who takes care of them when we're gone... She was a different kid today, knowing that I wasn't leaving until next week. *Sigh...* Andrew will be home with them this next week, though, so that's good. What do you do, you know?

Rowan is growing like a weed and is as sweet as ever! I have some really good video of him in his Johnny Jump-up, but I don't have my camera with me to post it...I will soon. He's the kind of kid who just makes you light up--and it doesn't matter how stressed out or down you are! I'm so glad God gave him to us.

Ingrid is so smart. She's starting to come up with her own ideas, and while it doesn't always end up like she wants to, it gives us a laugh every now and then. Here are a couple of examples:

One day, Andrew was taking her to the farm in the car. She was testing his boundaries a little that day, and when he put her in her car seat, she told him that she didn't want to sit in her seat. Andrew told her she had to sit in her seat when we rode in the car. He wanted her to stay safe. She said no, she didn't want to sit in her seat, she wanted to drive! Andrew told her that she couldn't drive. She was too little. Ingrid said, "That's Ok. It's alright." Andrew said no, she couldn't even reach the pedals. Ingrid said that was going to be OK too.
Andrew by then was trying not to laugh at her because she was NOT JOKING. He said that she didn't even know how to drive. Ingrid looked back at him and said, "Yes I do. Vroom, vroom..." making the steering wheel gesture... I guess when he finally told her she couldn't drive and started the car himself, she continued to throw a fit as he drove to the farm.

Who puts these ideas in her head???

Another thing... We've found that our Library has children's DVDs to check out, so we checked out The Little Mermaid a couple of weeks ago because it is my favorite Disney movie, and I was hoping that she would like it too. Well, she didn't watch it much while I was around, but when I went to Fairmont and she stayed with Andrew, she watched it a couple of times on her little DVD player that Gramma Camra gave her.
Well, the next day, Andrew came down from the office where he had been working while Ingrid played on the floor behind him. He asked me if anyone in the Little Mermaid said anything about their father killing them... I said--laughing--that yes, there was a line where Ariel said "My father's gonna kill me!" when she misses her singing performance, knowing her dad would be angry at her. Andrew said that as Ingrid was playing with her little dolls, she kept repeating, "My father's gonna kill me!" And then, that morphed into "My father's gonna beat me!" over and over again...

We had a little talk about what not to say to other people...

I'm telling you, life must have been really boring before kids. :)

Rowan's Stats and Ingrid's destiny

2008-01-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

Hi! We went to the doctor yesterday for Rowan's 4-month check-up and shots. He's doing much better this morning than he was yesterday afternoon... :( Shots make him really crabby. He certainly doesn't tolerate them as well as Ingrid seemed to. Lots of Tylenol and love after visiting Dr. Garrett.

Here are the stats:
He's gained 4 lbs since his 2-month visit! He's 15lbs now!
He's grown an inch and 1/2...He's now 24 1/2 inches long!
He is 50th %-ile in everything!

The doctors and nurses got a kick out of him smiling at everyone, even at the nurse who gave him the shots...He smiled at her through his tears! What a sweet, sweet baby.

Ingrid was funny during the visit, too. Andrew was working so I took them both with me to see Dr. Garrett. Last time, it was Ingrid's turn to be seen when she had the croup. I think she was relieved that it was Rowan's turn this time...so she was much more cordial to Crystal, the nurse, and Dr. Garrett. She was very sleepy, however, since the visit was during her normal nap time. Through the first part of the visit, she was pretty good. However, Dr. Garrett was finishing up her part of the exam and asking me if I had any questions before Crystal came back in to give the baby his shots. I decided that since I knew Rowan would probably cry (that sometimes makes Ingrid decide she needs to cry so that Rowan doesn't get all the attention...), I gave Ingrid a lollipop to help give her something to do, and to make her feel special, in hopes to avoid a catastrophe.

Dr. Garrett asked her if her lollipop tasted good. She said it was tasty. Dr. Garrett said that they usually are pretty good. She should eat that lollipop while Rowan was getting his shots. Ingrid said, "That's what I was born to do." ! ! !

I hope our childrens' pediatrician doesn't think I give her lollipops all the time... Oh well. We all got a laugh out of it, anyway.

Kids. :)

Make sure you check out the new pics I posted today on the slide show at the bottom of the blog!

The cutest kids in the world!!!

2008-01-21T10:56:00.001-05:00

I needed a current picture (babies change so fast!) of the two of my kids together, so after several tries of getting Ingrid to look at me and Rowan to smile at the same time, we finally got lucky. Here's a picture journal of the process...

Catching up after the croup...

2008-01-20T22:41:00.000-05:00

We've had a busy few weeks since New Year's... We all got pretty sick after Christmas. First, Andrew had it--and gave it to my parents. They all ended up with some degree of bronchitis after a cold went to their chests. Somehow, I got off with only a bad cold and blocked ears, but no cough. (which is terrible enough in WV because the altitude changes make getting in the car torture when your ears are blocked...)

The kids, however, ended up with the croup. Ingrid is especially susceptible to chest problems because she had RSV when she was 4-5 months old. One night a couple of weeks ago, she woke up from her nap and could hardly breathe. She had a terrible barking cough. It was a rough night that night (no one slept), and she was no better the next day, so I called our pediatrician and got her in to see her that morning. The doctor gave her a breathing treatment (which Ingrid was afraid of at first, but she progressively got worse through the morning and started letting the doctors do whatever they wanted to her... :( ) even though she said that her lungs didn't sound too bad. After the treatment, however, she started to hear whistling in her chest, so she sent us to the hospital in Morgantown (where Isaac was born) for chest x-rays.

We got to the ER and they gave her a little teddy bear while we waited and they were really good to us there. They took X-rays, but decided that it was just her upper trachea that had swollen up...the doctor said that it was "classic croup." They gave her a good dose of steroids and another breathing treatment, and before it was time to leave the hospital, she was asleep on my lap (which was wonderful because she hadn't really slept since the day before because she couldn't breathe...). The next day, she felt MUCH better, although she was still moving slowly. She ended up with a rough cough (she's still coughing), but she's feeling much better now.

Rowan ended up with lots of congestion, but no cause for worry. His cough sounded awful, and he had some coughing fits that were a littel worrisome, but he never had a hard time breathing, nor did he have the barking cough that Ingrid got. I'm so glad. I hope that's it for the winter. We'll see.

I've been extra busy the past two weeks because I've been trying to get back into working more after taking time off to have Rowan. I'm teaching voice lessons again in Fairmont (an hour and a half away where Becca lives) in their comunity music program two nights a week and at Fairmont State University for the college theatre students during the day on Tuesdays. I go down Monday night while the kids stay with Anita and my parents, stay overnight with Rebecca, and teach on Tuesdays all day until 8pm while Andrew works at home with the kids. I am not liking staying away one night a week, but I'm not making enough money to drive all the way home and back twice in two days... Oh well.

I'm also trying to get more people to sign up for my Kindermusik classes that are starting again at the end of the month. Yesterday, I had an open house where people got to come to a free class in hopes that they will sign up for the semester. So far, no one has signed up today, but I think there were a few who were interested. I will teach those classes on Thursdays and one class on Saturday mornings. It's been pretty cool to do these classes with Ingrid. She thinks they are amazing, and they're great for her socialization. She can't get enough of the singing, which we do a lot. Even though I'm not making much on the classes right now, they're worth doing so that Ingrid gets the experience... Rowan comes, too, and I'm glad he's getting the experience so early.

I have also completed an inservice to be able to substitute teach in Garrett County, MD as well as Preston. I'm hoping that pans out. One of my Kindermusik moms is a teacher in Garrett County, so I'm hoping she will call me if she needs a sub. Aunt Sue is the secretary at an elementary school here, too. Melanie is subbing also, so I hope we get to work together sometime.

Andrew is doing lots with his ATRAN (autism network) website, and his friend Ram in India has gotten him in contact with a publisher who wants to publish his book there and market it here, too! He's also advertising himself as someone who will come do trainings for schools and other places in MD and PA who want more information on autism/theatre and behavior modification as a part-time gig. Check out his http://fullspectrumeducation.blogspot.com advertisement and his http://www.autismtheatre.org ATRAN website. If you know anyone who is interested, let them know that they can become a member of the network for free! He's gotten several prominent applied theatre/autism researchers and workers. We all think that he should see if Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey want to be a part of it! Wouldn't that be cool?!

I will leave you with a really cute video of Ingrid singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider to her brother from tonight. We sing this song at Kindermusik, so she's had lots of practice. Rowan loves it. She's learning to be much more gentle with him, especially since she's started to realize that he reacts positively to her when she sings to him. It's my favorite thing to hear her sing... :) She sings ALL THE TIME. She's my little singer. How fun. :)

Happy 2008!

2007-12-31T21:42:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be a woman of few words...well, written ones anyway, since a picture is worth at least a thousand....So what does that make a video worth? :) Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Nelsons (even though the date still says the 31st at the top of the post...)!

Here's Ingrid as she found her new "pretend kitchen." I don't think it was exactly what she pictured...I think she thought "pretend" meant "imaginary." It took her a while to realize that it was hers and that she could keep it and play with it. So cute. So many things you can't anticipate as a parent. Next year, however, I think she'll understand it much better. This year was a warm-up for Mom and Dad... :)

Her new ear-warmer from Gramma Camra that matches her little fuzzy leopard print coat! NOTE: She also got white gloves that have the same kind of trim... :)

She LOVES these paint-with-water books! This one was from Wish Bear...aka Gramma Camra...Guess what we did after opening the presents? You guessed it! Made a wonderful watery mess painting all the Care Bears, naming them as we went along.

And...this is what Rowan did until about 10:30am. He didn't seem to care that he had a new teething rattle, a little outfit, and some new Winnie the Pooh pacifiers under the tree...

NEW YEAR'S ROCKIN' EVE @ THE WV FARM!

We had quite a spread of junk food/drinks and a school of children for New Year's this year. Tame, but nice to be among family. Next year maybe we'll scale it up a bit... :)

7 Things You Never Knew About Elizabeth Nelson...

2007-12-25T00:50:00.000-05:00

Gina Malone "tagged" me a while back to list 7 things about myself that not everyone knows. Since I've never been good at this, I hope you're not too bored...or choose things everyone already does know...at any rate, here's how it works:

The theme: 7 random facts about me
The rules: Link to your tagger and post these rules.
Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

1) I hate afternoons. Some people hate mornings (they're not my favorite, but after about 9:00, I'm usually OK to go). I've also found out that caffeine does wonders in the morning. But I hate the afternoons from about 1:00pm until about 6-7 in the evening. I wish I could just sleep. That's usually when my sleep deprivation leaves me groggy, apathetic, and impatient. I used to take naps at this time when Ingrid napped, however, with 2 kids now, naps are a distant memory. I've taken to just hating the afternoon.

I love nights. Usually, if I can get past midnight, I am at my most creative, productive, and philosophic self. Especially if I've had caffeine after 8pm! (It's 1:00am on Christmas Eve...I'm writing this after cleaning and scrubbing the kitchen!)

2) I liked being a waitress. When I was single and had no kids (and didn't mind the ever-changing schedule), I was a waitress. I liked it a lot. I liked serving people. I also liked sharing stories and finding common ground with the people I served. It was like there was no threat because I would probably not see them again on a regular basis, so I didn't feel so introverted. I would have to agree with the song from the musical _Working_ where the waitress said that it's a "one-woman show." I guess I felt like it was a part I played.

3) I had never seen The Christmas Story movie (with Ralphie...) until I went to college. I watched all of the other classic Christmas shows like the stop-animation Rudolph and the cartoon Frosty, but never seen The Christmas Story. Now, I love it and hope to show it to my kids when they're old enough to sit through a movie.

4) This is the first Christmas in 11 years that I haven't had to travel home for Christmas. It's great. It's also the first Christmas EVER that I've had a full-sized Christmas tree that was mine. I never bothered with it before because I was always gone for 1-2 weeks for Christmas. It's nice to have it even though I don't have enough lights to make it glow like it should... It's mine. And it's beautiful.

5) I got my first gray hairs this year. They're right where my hair parts next to my forehead. Always before, I colored my hair because I don't like my natural color. Now, I'm coloring it to cover gray. Seems like child #2 did it to me. Oh well...

6) I can cross my left pinkie toe over my left ring toe without touching it. It's funny. It looks like it has a mind of its own. I'm sure Andrew would say that it's an evolutionary thing. I just used it in 4-H camp for challenges around the campfire. (Another thing you might not know is that I was in 4-H from 3rd grade until I went to college. I even showed a sheep!)

7) I hate apples, bananas, pears, and most tropical fruits. I'll eat just about ANY vegetable, but I have a hard time with fruits. I hate it when people ruin perfectly good food dishes by putting apples in them...like salads and cookies and bars and pies. :)

So, there you go. I don't know anyone that wasn't already tagged that has a blog except these people, so they're the ones I'm going to tag. I tag Rebecca, Mom, Kim Thorn, and Sarah Walseth.

Oh, by the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! You'll be seeing pics as soon as I can post them. Santa is bringing Ingrid a "pretend kitchen" and some things to go along with it. (Thanks to my older sister and brother-in-law who re-painted their girls' old play kitchen...it might have been a disappointing Christmas without that wonderful gift...and also to her grandparents in Minnesota who are also partly Santa this year...) We've put it in front of the tree and spread out the few gifts we've gotten her so it looks like there's a lot of them. I think she's going to flip out! How fun... :)

Anyway, I hope your Christmas is filled with all that is meaningful and that Jesus has arrived in your life in a new way this year. Our love to everyone!

A New Crib for Rowan!

2007-12-19T22:29:00.001-05:00

This was a post that I tried to publish on Wednesday, but it wouldn't work. Now, it's Saturday and the post still says Wednesday...hmmm... Anyway, here's what I've got for ya'!

Gramma Camra has done it again! For Christmas, Rowan got a new crib mattress to go with his crib set she bought him this summer. He slept in it (lulled to sleep by the fishy mobile that plays music as it projects swirling stars on the ceiling and makes the fishies go in circles...fancy!) this morning for a nap--until his sister woke him up... It brightens up the room, too! Thanks, Gramma Camra!

Speaking of little Rowan, we took some Christmas pics the other night (if you would like us to send you a Christmas card, please e-mail me your address if you think we don't have it). Here's one of Rowan in his little santa hat talking with his Papa...

Thursday, we headed to Charleston to accompany Rebecca to Brian's Police Academy graduation!!! We are so proud of Uncle B. We were so proud to see him in his uniform and see him march with the others and hear the cadences they had to learn...just to see a little bit of what he's been doing these past 16 weeks. Now, he's home for a 5 day break! The Fairmont police department gave him next Mon, Tues, and Wed off! What a blessing! Say a small prayer for him, though, because Brian's diabetes has taken a bit of a toll on him during this stressful time. His sugar count has been really high lately, but we're sure that now that he's home, they'll be able to get that under control. I'll post pics of that as soon as I can.

I'll leave you with a short, uneventful video of Ingrid and Andrew playing in the snow. It's very apparent that Ingrid is a Minnesota baby. She played so long out in the snow that Andrew had to come in to take a break! She cried and pouted the whole time they were inside warming up. Silly kid. :) That's my Minnesota baby! Needless to say, Rowan and I watched from the window in the toasty warm house and made hot cocoa to warm them up when they came in!

Bathtub blues and Christmas gifts

2007-12-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

Last night, Andrew took Ingrid up to take a bath while I fed the baby downstairs. Things were going well upstairs until I heard a HUGE bang and splash. Then silence. Then a blood-curdling scream from Ingrid. I almost blacked out, picturing blood everywhere and a trip to the emergency room...or having to call 911. Then, I remembered that my reaction was going to either help or hurt Ingrid's reaction, so I calmed myself and ran as slowly as I could up the stairs asking Andrew if he needed ice or anything. I got to the bathroom and Andrew said everything was fine. The baby's bathtub that was balanced above the tub had fallen beside her and scared her. I honestly thought I was going to throw up...my knees were jelly...and I went downstairs and cried. It's those moments that you realize how different your life is after having children. Very few things could have worried me that much before. Life sure is different now...More to love, more to lose. And what a struggle to live in the balance between those two things...

Anyway, on a lighter note, we got a really fun gift from Andrew's college professor, Kate Ufema...A fun ball that opens...(I forget what it's called...there's a name for it, but I don't remember what it's called.) Ingrid LOVES it. Why do we spend money on fancy gifts when a fold-y ball will keep her content for an hour or so? Here are a couple of pics.

Rowan is growing! He's now big enough to sit in the exersaucer and play with the toys...well, he bats at them anyway. Ingrid is a little jealous because she still remembers playing in it, so she has had to get in it when it's not Rowan's turn anymore. That's OK. He's also having fun in the Johnny Jump-up. It wears him out, though, because he gets so excited and has to use muscles to hold his head and body upright. It's great for when I need him to take a nap. 20 minutes in the exersaucer and he's OUT for a while after. Don't you love the tricks you find when you're a mom? Anyway, here's a video of his first try at playing in the exersaucer with a slightly jealous sister...notice that not even Elmo was keeping her interest. Those feelings must run deep!

A Christmas Card from the Nelson-Elves!

2007-12-06T11:39:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!
~ from Elizabeth, Ingrid, Rowan, and Andrew Nelson-Elf!

Click this and have a laugh!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1194650253

Feel free to copy this idea for yourself! We did...

My Sweet Little Baby Boy

2007-12-05T11:08:00.000-05:00

The next post is a new one, too. Make sure you read it!

I have to post a video of Rowan since you get to see Ingrid at the end of the next post. Here's a little video of Rowan in his new car seat bunting that Pam got him. He's nice and toasty in it!

A Thanksgiving with the Nelsons (and other stories)!

2007-12-05T08:31:00.000-05:00

What a fun Thanksgiving! Gramma Camra (Pam, Andrew's Mom), Uncle Eric (Rowan's middle-namesake), and Aunt Colleen (who Ingrid still asks for...) came to spend a long weekend with us here in McHenry. It was a laid-back weekend, and we had some nice times with Ingrid climbing all over everyone, playing "match game" with Gramma Camra, and Rowan sleeping on people.

They arrived on Wednesday night after fighting the holiday traffic from Dulles airport all the way here. They mustered up enough energy to hang out with us for a while before retiring at the Wisp resort hotel just across the lake from us.

The next day was Thanksgiving, and I made maple-glazed turkey and stuffing and we had a great relaxing day and dinner at our little community building above our house that evening. We had sooooooooo much food!! It was also our nephew, Micah's, birthday, so it doubled as a birthday party. My mom was in China on a trip she'd always wanted to take, so we missed her, but we had fun. The leftovers have been fabulous, too!!

The next day, "Black Friday," Gramma Camra, Ingrid, Rowan, and I bundled up and drove to Morgantown for some pre-Christmas shopping while Andrew took Eric and Colleen fishing in our FREEZING rivers. We found some GREAT deals on kids' clothing (while the fisher"men" only caught one fish in several hours of fishing), and Ingrid found a few other things she "needed" like a Mickey Mouse that sings the same song over and over... and a CandyLand game that she only likes to play by her rules... :) The kids were sooooooo good that day, and Ingrid even wanted to continue shopping after going to the mall, lunch, and Target, even though her eyes kept going closed as she began to lean sideways in the shopping cart seat. It was a great day with Pam. I was even on the receiving end of her generosity, getting the first new clothes I've gotten since she last bought me clothes this past winter when I first found out I was pregnant! Thanks, Gramma Camra...from ALL of us...

That night, we slid over to the Wisp to go swimming (well, I just sat in the hot tub...) at the pool there. Ingrid had so much fun with Aunt Colleen because Aunt Colleen used to teach swimming lessons. Ingrid even put her face in the water and blew bubbles! She couldn't get enough of jumping into the pool to Aunt Colleen and kicking her feet to "swim like a mermaid." Thanks, Colleen. It's actually helped with bathtime and washing her hair and face.

The next day, Andrew, Ingrid, Rowan and I went to Kindermusik in the morning, and we all met up for Thanksgiving leftover lunch. We hung out until we went to dinner/music at a new bistro down the road from us. We had fun and Gramma Camra and Ingrid danced to the music after we ate a great meal. Then, we went to the hotel and played games and laughed as we watched The Family Man on TV. The kids and I went home that night while Andrew spent the night and got up early to take his brother fishing again. This time, Eric caught the fish, and he didn't have to go home feeling empty... :) We met up for lunch at a southwest restaurant in the area before we had to say goodbye.

It was fun to see them with Rowan (he's such a sweet, happy baby, and found Gramma Camra very comfortable to sleep on), and seemed quite happy to have Eric and Colleen hold him. And it was amazing to see Ingrid with them. She might look a bit like me, but she's 90% Nelson/Hawthorne. It was like her energy (that seems so surprising to my family) was like a matching puzzle piece among Andrew's family. She seems to feel it, too, I think. Thanks, Nelsons, for giving my family her wonderful energy. We all (the Wotrings) feel like she's brought something to us that balance us out. It's crazy to think that my legacy will be felt 2+ generations down! It really makes you feel small...and makes you feel the responsibility of having a child. What a wonderful mystery!

I also have an update on the kids... Rowan ended up with thrush in his mouth (which caused me some problems, too...), so we had to go to the doctor and get him some nasty medicine. But while we were at the doctor, they weighed him again and he was 13 lbs, 4 oz! That was last Friday, so he's probably bigger now (he woke up from his nap yesterday and looked bigger to me...), but those are the latest official stats on him. Oh, and the thrush seems to be gone now.

Ingrid is becoming a regular pro at talking on the phone. Yesterday, she talked to everyone at the farm on the phone, asking Elijah how his tummy felt today ("How's your tummy? Feel better? Let me talk to Julia.") and making small talk with everyone about what we were doing here. Here's a little clip from the conversation. Here are the subtitles: "How's Julia? Yeah. She's great. That's just great. How's Anita? Yeah." She's funny. I'm sure that the next time I'm on the phone with you and she's around, she'll want to talk. Good luck getting it all without subtitles. :)

Brains and Brawn...

2007-11-15T09:42:00.001-05:00

Hi all! I don't have pics today, as I'm substituting as a librarian for Mom today and tomorrow, but thought I'd give an update on our little ones after their well-checks at the doctor Tuesday. I'm glad to say they're both growing! Here are the stats:

Ingrid is 2' 10'' tall and weighs 27 lbs! After spending most of her life in the 20th to 25th percentile, she has jumped to average. She is around 50th percentile in both height and weight! We had a hunch that she had a growth spurt over the summer, but it was nice to know that she was catching up with her peers in the height and weight department. It must be the fresh mountain air and the WV farm-raised organic veggies and meat she eats! They don't measure her head anymore, but I have a feeling she'd still be in the 90th percentile for head circumference like she always was...we still have a hard time fitting her in hats! We had also geared up to get her last immunizations, only to get to the doctor's and find out that she had gotten them all in Minnesota! What a relief to parents and child... No more shots until she starts kindergarten!!!! YAY!!!

Rowan is now 11 lbs, 10 oz and 23 inches long! He is also around the 50th percentile in both height and weight. He's a bruiser...and very healthy. His hair is getting longer, too. Speaking of his head, the poor guy is only 10-15th percentile in head circumference (which accounts for the easier birth...), however I am assured that the size of the head does not reflect the intelligence of the child. :) He got his first set of immunizations, too. Rowan likes to be comfortable. He hates a wet/dirty diaper and doesn't like to be too hot or too cold. Needless to say, the shots were not fun. He screamed bloody murder and refused to be consoled for a while after. He was REALLY cranky all evening afterward. Poor guy. He's feeling fine, though, now.

After gathering the stats and discussing the outcomes, we've decided that Ingrid is our daughter with all brains and no brawn and Rowan is our son with all brawn and no brains...

Just kidding!

Aunt Kissie came to visit!

2007-11-11T18:17:00.000-05:00

This past week, Kristi Johnson came to visit from Minnesota! It was a great week. She was such a help with Ingrid and Rowan. We miss her tonight after taking her to the airport this morning. She became Rowan's favorite place to sleep, so now he's not so keen on his swing... :) Oh well. It was fun to have someone else to cook for, and someone else to talk to while Andrew was working most of the week. I hope she had fun, too, despite being in the country with a couple of broke friends with 2 small kids...

We ventured out to Morgantown one of the nights that Andrew had to work really late. We did well at the mall where we bought Ingrid the cutest hat and gloves with some gift money from Roxanne. The gloves are a bit big, but we have pink mittens that will work until she grows a bit... :)

We had fun playing on the "playground" in the mall! Ingrid climbed on everything and slid down the slide over and over again. We're thinking that we should get her a little Tykes slide for her bedroom for the winter. She's such an active kid that I don't know what we're going to do when we can't go for our daily walks... :)

While we were in Morgantown, we went to Target to spend the rest of Roxy's gift money. We found a 3 month size outfit with a moose (from Minnesota!) for Rowan...that ended up fitting him now! He's so big already! We have a doctor's appointment next Tuesday, so you'll get an official update after that, but we think he's around 11 pounds. His cousin, Isaac, is now 7 1/2 pounds and 19 1/2 inches long (from 4 lbs 2 oz and 17 1/2 inches long 7 weeks ago!) Watch out, Rowan!

We had fun making snickerdoodles one night using some fall-themed cookie cutters that Gramma Camra sent Ingrid a while back. We had FUN doing that!! The cookies turned out REALLY well...the couple dozen are almost gone already. :) Ingrid decided that we needed to make them again for Thanksgiving dinner, since everyone is coming to our place!

Not only did we have fun using the cookie cutters, we had fun when we got to lick the beaters! Our favorite part! (Ingrid wanted to lick the beaters when there was only butter on them...which she would have liked, but I said no.)

The other big deal this week was that Ingrid got a haircut!!! It had grown a lot since I cut it last, and she needed her bangs trimmed, but since Kristi was here, she helped me keep her still long enough to cut it into a CUTE bob. It's great, too, because we don't really even have to brush her hair now, which is making getting ready to go places almost painless. Now, if we could only find a solution to getting her shoes on and keeping them on...

We had a good week. This morning, after Andrew took Kristi to the airport, Ingrid and Rowan and I were getting ready to go to church, and Ingrid said, "I'm going to go show Kissie my cute shirt!" She was sad when I said she went back home. She said, "To Minnesota." I said yes, that she had to go home to take care of her puppy. She said we should go visit her. I said we would. Someday.

Now, we're looking forward to Gramma Camra and Uncle Eric and Aunt Colleen coming the day before Thanksgiving!!! YAY!!!

We love you, Kissie! Thanks for a great week!

Poodles and Pumpkins...

2007-11-02T20:14:00.000-04:00

"Thank you, Gramma Camra for my poodle..." That's what I heard over and over from Ingrid while she wore her costume non-stop for the past week. (She slept with it one night--not with it on, just with it...) She loved parading around with it on at the Aurora School's Fall Festival where Papa and Aunt Anita and Uncle "Full" and cousins Elijah and Julia ran the haunted house. We missed the costume parade, so we didn't win any official prizes, but according to us, we had the cutest pink poodle and pumpkin anywhere! Here are the pics of the haunted house and trick or treating!

Pretty pink poodle...

Sweet little punkin...

This is the face that Ingrid made off and on throughout the night as she saw people dressed up with wierd and scary masks at the halloween festival. This one was caught when she heard people scream during the haunted house...it took her a while to get used to all of the costumes.

Here's a pic of Rowan and his mama. I thought we took more pictures of Ingrid while we were trick or treating, but I was trying to keep her from running in front of cars and stuff so I guess we didn't...

Here's a few pics of our two little pumpkins, cousins Isaac and Rowan. Isaac is in his halloween bag from Pam (thank you, Pam!) just like Rebecca was in a stocking when she was a baby (she was a December 17th baby, so Mom made her a stocking to come home from the hospital in...now, Rebecca is continuing the tradition with Isaac and his Halloween bag!).

Now, if we can just put the candy out of Ingrid's mind for a while... At this moment, she is high on sugar after a Hershey's kiss and two Tootsie Rolls. And it's almost 9pm. Good luck to me tonight as I try to sleep... :)

O Lord, Our Lord, How majestic is thy name through all the earth...

2007-10-26T17:46:00.000-04:00

(My parents' farm)

Glorious autumn in West Virginia! How I missed these colors and the cool autumn air and the bright, warm sunshine! I'm so glad Ingrid and Rowan get to include this in their childhood memories.

The family took a trip to Spruce Knob (the highest point in WV...) to catch the view of the spectacular flash of autumn. Here's what we brought back with us (along with a song in our hearts...):

Praises for Finding Jacob!

2007-10-23T17:49:00.000-04:00

We are so glad that Jacob Allen was found in Dolly Sods last week...right before the cold and rain came in. God hears our prayers, no matter what the outcome, but we want to thank God for bringing Jacob home to his family safely.
Andrew was out on the search that day (you can see him pass by the TV camera on a video clip of the Today Show at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21376041/ and click on the "launch" button at the video...you can see him walk along a bridge at the 33 second mark...), but was a ways away from where they ultimately found him. The kids and I are proud that he would brave such rugged and dangerous (rattlesnake heaven!...) terrain to look for a kid he didn't even know. He says it's a privilege to witness such a miraculous recovery. It has really fed his (and my) faith in God and humankind.
Kudos to all who helped in the effort!!
Keep checking our blog for more pictures that will be coming in the next day or two...

My Little Jerry Lewis...

2007-10-17T22:40:00.000-04:00

Aunt B calls Rowan names...namely Jerry Lewis...because of his funny faces. His eyes go crossed and his mouth goes sideways sometimes. You can't look at him long before you start giggling. :) He's such a sweet thing. He's started to smile more than just when he gets gas. You have to catch him looking at you, but he'll smile. That's the best when you finally get to really interact with your baby. I know not every parent gets this privilege (I think this would be the hardest thing about having a child with autism or other special need that inhibits interaction...God bless these parents...), and I am treasuring this time with my little guy.

It's not the same as with a first, though. I am having a hard time feeling like I'm doing as good a job with him as I did with Ingrid. He doesn't get the hours of one on one or the immediate response to his cries (which he only seems to do when he's hungry, needs a diaper, or from about 10-12 every night...).

Today was one of those days when, at the end of the day, I don't feel like I did a great job dividing my time between them and me. There hasn't been one day since the baby was born that I've said to myself, "This isn't as hard as I thought it was going to be!" It's definitely as hard as I thought. Thank God the breastfeeding has gone well and I've recovered so much better this time, but other than that, it's as hard as I thought it would be. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, but rather I'm feeling surprised that my fears came true...Anyway, about today...

I'm starting Kindermusik classes soon, and I'm feeling anxious about that...and anxiety and a toddler and infant don't mix. Soon, the toddler starts spitting (a reaction to not enough attention or to being told no about something) and the baby starts crying and I end up with an ulcer and a migraine. I've been through enough to know that you have good days and bad days and that tomorrow is a new day, but it doesn't make the bad days any better, really, to know that. I just hope that I can sleep tonight.

What am I saying? I have a 5 1/2 week old! When do I ever sleep at night?! (or during the day, for that matter...with the first one, you can sleep when they sleep, but with the second one, when one sleeps, the other is awake and wants to eat or you have to use that time to do any kind of work you need to do that is impossible to do with a toddler who likes to knock down "towers" of clean clothes or get out everything you just put away...)

Come to think of it, maybe the lack of sleep has a lot to do with my bad day...along with my attempt to cut out caffeine...ugh...yeah, don't think I'll truly be cutting out caffeine any time soon...

Andrew has been volunteering in Dolly Sods (a West Virginia hiking/camping wilderness about an hour and a half away) trying to find a young 15 yr old boy with autism who disappeared on Sunday night while camping with his parents. The boy is essentially non-verbal, so they are asking for as many volunteers as possible to find him, so Andrew went yesterday and is going again tomorrow. It's been great that his work has told him that he doesn't need to use his comp time or vacation days and to cancel his appointments and volunteer to look for the boy. He's leaving in the morning by 5 am or so. Prayers for the family of the boy would be appreciated. His name is Jacob.

I can't imagine if that were Ingrid or Rowan. I think this is also weighing on my mind, making my day seem more melancholy...the impending rain doesn't help, either...

I have to say, though, that my children are amazing. Ingrid was so sweet tonight. I was sitting on the couch with Rowan talking to him asking him what he was seeing off to the left side of me where he kept looking. Ingrid came over and I asked her what she thought he was seeing. She said, "Angels."

It surprised me a little, so I asked her if she could see angels. She said yes. I asked her what color they were. She said they were orange--and purple sometimes. She said that she saw one over by the front door. It was a boy and he had yellow hair and when we asked her what he said she said that he was quiet. Pretty cool.

She also made me cry last night when we were saying our prayers. We were praying for the lost boy, and when I said that his mommy was sad because he was lost she said that God was with him. God would open the door and He'd hug him and he'd be happy.

Whew.

Most of the time, I don't feel like I deserve this life, but I am so grateful for it that I can hardly bear it. It's a tough job, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I have to share some lyrics to a song by Sara Groves called "Prayers for This Child". It's on her "Station Wagon" CD. I think it's the best prayer I've come across that applies to a mother and her children.

"I only have two eyes, Be All-Seeing.

I only have two hands, Be everywhere.

I do not know enough, Be All-Knowing.

I give this baby up into Your care.

I do not know how, how to pray for this child..."

Puppy Church and Visiting Baby Isaac...

2007-10-09T20:33:00.001-04:00

This week was St. Francis of Assissi Sunday in the Episcopal church when animals of any kind are brought to be blessed by the priest and the liturgy celebrates God's creation, which means that it was basically puppy church this Sunday. Even though our dog, Bella, can't live with us in our new apartment, she keeps my parents company at the farm. Since we were at the farm late on Saturday night, we stayed there and took Bella to church on Sunday morning.

Now, this 2 child thing is still new for us, and adding a dog to the outing I knew might be a little much, but St. Francis Sunday comes only once a year, and we wanted Bella to get blessed! So, things went well while we were in the car -- containment is good when the adults are outnumbered -- but it all started to go a little awry when we decided to get out of the car to go into the church...

We tried to plan before we got out...Andrew would get out of his side of the car and leave his door cracked open, come around to the passenger side and get Ingrid out of the back while I waited with Bella. When Ingrid was out of the car, Andrew would take her and Bella up to the nursery and I would go to the other side of the car and get into the cracked door and take the baby and the diaper bag into church and save a seat for us.

It was all going so well until Andrew left and went inside with the dog and Ingrid and I went to the other side of the car to get the baby out. Andrew's car doors lock manually, so I locked my door before I shut it...and apparently Andrew did too. When I got to the other side, the "cracked" door was not cracked. It was locked. When he "cracked" it, it went shut just enough to lock.

I kind of panicked. I mean, it's Oakland, MD, not New York City or even Minneapolis, but as I tried to open the locked door, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach, and I wasn't sure what to do next. It was pretty warm that day, so I didn't want him in the car long, but knew Andrew wouldn't come back outside before going to church. So I went after him. I missed him in the nursery so I made the circle and went to the sanctuary only to find that he had gone the other direction. I finally met him in our usual pew. Our friends who usually sit in front of us were there with their 2 year old and 7 month old. When they saw Ingrid (all the kids stayed in puppy church that morning -- as if dogs weren't enough chaos...) and Andrew and me with the diaper bag, they asked where the baby was. I truthfully told them that he was locked in the car as I looked at Andrew with sweat on my forehead and wide eyes. Andrew left the dog and Ingrid with me and went to get the baby. Our friends said that it was nice to know that someone else does stuff like that, too. I hope it doesn't happen again. :)

Monday, we went to Andrew's work with him and met one of his co-workers (Nada -- she was sooooooo sweet!) and then, since the Autism Training Center North is in Fairmont, we spent the rest of the day with Aunt B and Baby Isaac. He's growing! And Aunt B is really doing well. Thanks for all your prayers. Here are some pictures from that night!

Doesn't Aunt B look great?! Motherhood becomes her...

Ingrid spied a tomato on Aunt B's porch and decided to give it a try... She loved it and ate most of it like an apple! Homegrown and organic... :)

I keep saying that we could make some good money selling some pictures of Rowan's funny faces to Hallmark. He's so comical! I have yet to get some of his really funny faces on camera. More will come soon...
Here's my babies' daddy's picture. Isn't he handsome? :)

Catching Up...

2007-09-30T22:57:00.001-04:00

So much has been going on here! With the early arrival of Isaac, visiting Aunt B, going to the Preston County Buckwheat Festival (county fair), and Sunday drives with the family, I've got lots to show you! I'm not going to expand too much, but I'll give you commentary as I post the pictures.

First, the day before Isaac was born, our family decided to go on one of our Sunday drives. We tend to do that in the fall when the temperatures aren't as hot and the leaves are starting to turn. To an outsider, it might be a boring tradition, but we love to drive around with no real agenda, ending up somewhere like a campsite where we skip rocks in the creek and eat a picnic dinner and then take the back roads home. We sure can fill up an entire afternoon and evening doing nothing, the Wotrings... :) But that's sort of what you do in the mountains of West Virginia on a late September Sunday evening. And I love it.

This past week, Andrew went to Ohio to present a workshop at a national conference about the social skills clubs he and his co-workers have formed to serve families of kids with Aspberger's and Autism. He said it went extremely well (Ingrid and Rowan and I didn't get to go...) and enjoyed doing it. He loved the conference and got to meet some important people. Here's the listing of their workshop at the conference and his friend Richard and co-worker Peggy. They've since been invited to present their workshop at a couple of other conferences! Also, Andrew has finished his book on the same subject and has submitted it to a publisher for review. We'll keep you posted on how that goes, too! We're so proud of Papa!

This weekend was also our county fair. We always go to the parades and then go see the animals and the crafts at the fair grounds. Ingrid loved the goats the best. We spent some time supporting the local volunteer fire departments by buying their good food! We watched the parades with Aunt Anita and Uncle Phil (or Uncle Full, as Ingrid calls him...) and their kids. Ingrid and Elijah had a good time. She was especially impressed with the cartoon characters that were in the parade. She couldn't believe that she saw Dora and Boots on Friday night and Minnie and Mickey on Saturday! She and Mama marched with the bands and danced when the drumlines did their thing. What fun! We came away with full tummies and aching feet, just like you're supposed to after the fair. :)

Finally, I have to show you the pictures of Isaac and Rowan's first meeting. Isaac got to come home yesterday (Saturday) and we brought food to Bec's and Brian's. It was fantastic because Brian has been at the Police Academy all week since Isaac was born, but he waited until Brian came home this weekend to gain enough weight and eat enough to let his daddy take him home! It was wonderful.

Anyway, this was the first time that Rowan and Isaac had met. Next to Isaac, Rowan looks like a giant! But in their matching outfits, they couldn't be cuter (we didn't plan this outfit thing... however, I'm sure it is only the first of many times they'll be dressed alike :) )! We put them together in the crib and watched them interact. Rowan started making noises and Isaac actually opened his eyes to look at Rowan! Then, Isaac rolled to his side to face Rowan and put his hands in Rowan's face. In a minute, Rowan had Isaac's hand in his mouth! It was so cute. They're going to be fast friends, I hope. Even though Isaac is not even 5 lbs, he's a fiesty little thing. I can just see him giving Rowan a run for his money. I can just imagine all the trouble they'll be getting into in the coming years... ;)

This week, Rowan and I are going to go to Isaac's first doctor's appointment with Becca, since Brian is back at the academy. Ingrid will probably go to the farm and spend some time with Aunt Anita since Mama is not very good yet at handling them both in public... Send your prayers up for Becca and Brian at this transition time. I can't imagine how scary it must be to have a baby that isn't 5 lbs yet who has been in the intensive care unit come home and all of a sudden be completely your responsibility. Becca's doing well so far, but there are all kinds of anxieties that come along with a preemie... But I'm not too far away, and I'm so thankful that I get to be such a big part of this journey with them. God is good. :)

Baby Isaac is here!

2007-09-26T12:19:00.001-04:00

Baby Isaac Scott Speakman is here! He was born on September 24th at 6:12am! He was 5 1/2 weeks early, but he's doing quite well despite his early entrance! He weighed 4 lbs, 11 oz at birth, and has spent the first few days in the Neborn Intensive Care Unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, WV. He will spend a few more days at the hospital even though his Mommy will be going home this afternoon.
Ingrid, Rowan, and Lizzie will be spending the afternoon/evening with Aunt B while she gets things together for when Baby Isaac will come home (she was ready to get it all done this week!). We want to make sure she has something to eat and doesn't over-do it because Uncle B had to go back to the Police Academy 4 hours after Isaac was born! He will be home, however, on Friday night for the weekend. We're so proud of Uncle B for sticking this out! He can truly say to Isaac that Speakmans don't quit!
Aunt B will have to drive to Morgantown to see the baby until he comes home, but she's doing well. She had a few complications during delivery, but in the end was able to avoid a cesarean section. Isaac's heart rate wouldn't stay up, so she had to take a couple of medicines to keep her contractions from coming too fast. Then, when it was time for the baby to be born, they found out that he was trying to come out sideways! The doctors were fast and were able to turn him and help him out with foreceps. He had a lot of bruising and swelling afterward, but it's going away very nicely. But because of the trauma, he has some slight jaundice.
Aunt Lizzie got to be in the room when he was born! It was amazing! I was also there when Becca got to feed him for the first time...So sweet! More pics and updates very soon!!!

Welcome, baby Isaac! We love you!

Playground and Sticker Boards...

2007-09-21T14:19:00.000-04:00

Boy, I'll tell you, all my nervousness about having 2 kids was completely founded. I guess, though, that we've all made it through the half day I had without Andrew, but not without a bit of a struggle.

I really tried to be prepared. Andrew, Ingrid, and I had convened to come up with a working routine and a sticker board so that maybe Ingrid wouldn't feel so unscheduled and ignored when I was with the baby. Every time she completed something on the sticker board, she got to pick out a special sticker (we went shopping for special stickers for this the other night...) and put it on the box beside of the thing she had just completed. If you can see, there is no sticker on Outside Time OR Nap Time... *sigh....*

I had Rowan in a front pack (my sling shopping went awry...I thought I was ordering a certain kind that was adjustable, but thought wrong. I'm going to have to send it back, I think...) and we were doing pretty well. The morning went very well. Ingrid even played in her room very nicely (minus the writing on her legs and tummy with a pen I didn't realize she had...) while I took a shower with the baby in the swing. Time for playground!!

We did well at the playground at first. It was pretty hot, though, so I decided we'd go to the playground up the hill that was partially in the shade. When the baby started to seem hungry, and I was really hot, and Ingrid was laying down on the step of the slide because she was so tired, I suggested we go home and put a sticker on the board, and then we'd eat some lunch. She got that look on her face that makes me SO MAD and stayed just out of reach and refused to come down off the slide. I tried bribing her with a great lunch. I tried talking up the stickers. I tried being positive about how well she had done so far. I finally told her she had one more chance to come down the slide or the steps or she didn't get a sticker. She didn't care. I told her if I had to come get her down, there would be no sticker. She didn't care. I went up the steps and got her.

Then all hell broke loose. It was all I could do not to just drag her down the steps and down the hill to the house because the baby was looking red from heat and acting hungry, and Ingrid DID NOT CARE. I sat down with her on the steps. After wrestling with her a while (and jostling the baby!), I waited for her to stop crying. Somehow, we both calmed down enough to walk down the hill to the house.

Maybe I'm a bad mother, but I have a really hard time making things positive and fun when she's not minding me... I think it's time for a time-out chair or something, but I know for sure I would be the one using it because she doesn't have these tantrums for Andrew. He's the "fun one." He can flip her over his shoulder and she doesn't care that she's going home when she doesn't want to. I can't do that in my present state while carrying a newborn, and frankly, I don't think it's in me to do it anyway...

I do have to say that I feel extremely lucky to have Andrew as the father of my children. I don't know what I would have done these past few weeks before and after the baby was born if he hadn't had my back. I KNOW I would be in full-blown tears (instead of teary-eyed) right now if he hadn't intervened this afternoon, even though he's working from home today. Thank you, God for a wonderful husband.

I hope some of this emotion is partly post-partum hormones and lack of sleep. I pray things get better. I'm sure it will...but I think it might be having to get through hour by hour...

On a lighter note, here are some more pics of the little guy...he looks like a baby monkey, doesn't he? He's so sweet.

New Pics added 9.18

2007-09-18T00:37:00.001-04:00

A Little White Lie...

2007-09-17T22:38:00.000-04:00

So, we've finally hit the moment when Ingrid is not appreciating her little brother being Mama's center of attention. We decided for Rowan's first bath at home, we'd let Ingrid be in her "big girl tub" and Rowan would be in his "little baby tub" side by side...
Yeah, not such a great idea, I guess.
First, Ingrid decided she wanted to climb out of her tub and get into Rowan's tub, scaring me to death when she slipped a little bit. Besides the water splashed all over the floor, I could just see her hitting her head and bleeding all over... which made my tone of voice go from calm and reasonable to high pitched and panicky... which set it all off.
I was trying to wash Rowan and keep his face from going into the water while trying to be calm in telling Ingrid that she wasn't allowed to splash the water so hard that it covered the floor in water. (When she gets mad, she throws things and then flings herself against something and says, "Ow!!" or "Uh-oh..." so that I will feel sorry for her and come and give her kisses... This is not so pretty in the tub.)
Thank goodness I decided to do this when Andrew was sitting with me. He's gotta go back to work next week, so I thought I should try to remedy the situation with Ingrid tonight while I had his back-up with Rowan.
I tried to explain to Ingrid that Baby Rowan couldn't play with toys in the bathtub, but she could! Baby Rowan doesn't get to help Mama put on his lotion, but Ingrid could! She was such a big girl, not a tiny little baby...To which she said, "Get out!" (she was trying to get out of the bathtub...she wasn't saying that to me, however, I don't doubt it was subtext...)
Well, I thought, yeah, she should probably get out of the bathtub if I was going to stay calm. After telling her to say please (what?), I handed Rowan to Andrew for a new diaper and pajamas, and helped her out of the tub.
Things were going well once Rowan was out of the room until I asked her to brush her teeth. We had had several nights of knock-'em-out, drag-'em-out actual fights over this a few weeks ago, but Andrew had taken over her good night routine when I got so uncomfortably pregnant and then after I had Rowan, so it's been a couple of weeks since I put her to bed. This fight, however, she remembered. She ran into Andrew, who unfortunately had the baby on his lap. This set her off again. She screamed, "No Way!" and threw herself on the floor and threw the toothbrush under the baby's swing, all the while crying big crocodile tears and pushing at me if I came near. No amount of bargaining or setting of consequences made her change her tune. She's so much like me that we could have fought about it all night and never made any progress... Finally, I carried her into the bathroom and sat her down on my lap to brush her teeth like Andrew said he had been doing. Still a no-go.
Finally, I asked her why we brush our teeth. She didn't know. I said, "Look in the mirror. Say 'eeee.' What color are your teeth? Nice and white, huh?" She nodded. I sat back on the toilet with her.
"Guess what happens to our teeth if we don't brush them?" She looked at me with red, watery eyes. "They turn black and yucky and fall out."
Geesh.
"Do you want your teeth to turn all black and fall out?"
"No."
"Then, let's brush our teeth."
And we did.
A little white lie won't hurt anyone, right?

A Big Birthday Weekend!

2007-09-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

Welcome, Rowan Erik Nelson! He graced the world with his presence on Sunday, September 9, 2007 at 9:07am. He weighed 7lbs, 2oz and measured 22 inches long (an unheard of length in my family of short people!)! He went 2 weeks longer in utero than Ingrid, so we aren't having many of the post-natal problems we did with his sister. He is a very mellow, "zen" baby, only crying when he's hungry, and only then enough to get our attention. In fact, he cried once the entire time we were in the hospital when they gave him his vitamin K shot. He barely even made noise during his circumcision! Of course, it could be that he just had the best midwife and nurse team in the world taking care of us. The team at Preston Memorial Hospital is just amazing. We feel so lucky to have had them assist us in bringing him into the world! He came so fast that midwife Cindy ran in the door just as his head emerged, and ran to the birthing tub in time to catch him and lay him on his mama's chest. My water broke at 3am and he was born by 9am! An intense, but short labor! Just like Cindy said it would be!

Rowan has some light-ish hair, though not as much or as dark as his sister did when she was born. It's my favorite thing to rub his velvety head...his hair is so soft!! He's got puffy lips and pretty blue eyes. His cheeks aren't as big as Ingrids were, but he's got a few more rolls on his legs and arms than Ingrid did. His birth was a natural water birth, and we truly believe that the lack of drugs before and during birth has been a big component in his ability to breastfeed and his mama's recovery. Aunt B was present at his birth, and soon he was surrounded by loving family and friends at Preston Memorial Hospital in Kingwood, WV. Ingrid was our native-born Minnesotan, and Rowan is our native-born West Virginian! How perfect is that?!

Ingrid is a fascinated big sister, to be sure! She wants to touch him all the time...her favorite phrases are "He's so cute!" and "Ohhh, his head is so soft..." and "He's happy!" We knew she was an active kid before the baby was born, but it's even more apparent now. She's so good about going away from the baby to bounce and jump and twirl so that she gets "busy," so that's a good thing. She and Andrew came home from the hospital, though, with killer colds, so Rowan and I have kind of quarantined ourselves a little up in the bedroom for the time being. Tonight, Granny and Grandad are coming over and bringing dinner and groceries. That will be nice. Uncle B had to miss Rowan's birth because he had to get back to the police academy where he is during the week, but we're hoping for a visit from him this weekend. We have a couple of doctor's appointments this week, but otherwise, we're just going to lay low at our "new house," as Ingrid calls our place in McHenry. Life is good, God is faithful!!!

We started out the weekend with Ingrid's birthday on Friday! She is 2! We had a nice day as a Nelson family that day, but on Saturday, the whole Wotring-Nelson-Britner clan went to Aunt B and Uncle B Speakman's house for an extended family birthday party! We had so much fun. Mama made Ingrid a Cinderella princess cake, Aunt B made her famous veggie lasagna, and all the kids played out on Aunt B's big back porch. What a wonderful day! Ingrid got several books, new shoes, a homemade baby doll quilt and pillows made by her Wotring cousins and Aunt Melissa, and a Dora lamp from Aunt B and Uncle B. It was a great family time for Ingrid before the baby came. We were very glad that the kids have their own birthdays, however, we're sure they'll be having a double party with the family every year. That's Ok, though, because our family is really good at throwing great parties!!! :)

Aunt B (Rebecca, Elizabeth's younger sister) is the other pregnant lady in this picture, taken the day of Ingrid's birthday party. Her baby, Isaac, is due on Nov. 2! We are so totally excited for his birth!!! It will be fun to see the two boys playing together! Uncle B (Brian) is going to be away at the police academy for the next 15 weeks, coming home on the weekend. He should be allowed home for Isaac's birth, but will have to report back to the academy after a day or so. Please keep them in your prayers as they deal with separation anxiety and logistics about the birth and the first few weeks post-partum. Of course, Aunt B will see lots of us, but it's a poor substitute for a husband. We're proud of Uncle B, though, in his willingness to provide a better future for his family. Way to go, Uncle B!!! We're praying for you!

Life is good here, and we will try our best to get new pics up every few days, as babies change so quickly. Keep us up to date, too, on your families! We love you!

Ingrid's new Dora bike!

2007-08-18T12:05:00.000-04:00

Gramma Camra (Pam Nelson) and Uncle Eric and Aunt Colleen send Ingrid an early birthday present! Her new Dora the Explorer bicycle and My Little Pony helmut are a huge hit! She wears the helmut around "just in case" she wants to ride her bicycle... :) And though she's still figuring out how the pedals work, she loves to have Papa push her on the bike. We brought it to the farm and she rode it non-stop! She's figuring out how to steer it, too! She's such a big girl! Thanks, Gramma Camra and Uncle Eric and Aunt Colleen for the bicycle and helmut!

Our prayers are with you, Minneapolis...

2007-08-02T14:20:00.000-04:00

Andrew, Ingrid, and I want to extend our prayers to all who were affected by the bridge collapse yesterday evening. Watching pictures on CNN of a bridge we'd crossed possibly hundreds of times is haunting. We know that God is there now as God surely was when the tragedy happened. We are praying for the recovery workers and those who are comforting the families of those missing.
We are also praying that those we know and love are safe and sound, as this bridge is a major road on which anyone could be traveling, as we did so often. We would love to hear from our Minneapolis friends, especially if we can pray more specifically for anyone.
We love you.

4th of July at the Nelson's!

2007-07-11T15:30:00.000-04:00

We started a tradition at the Nelson's for at least as long as we live at the lake... Independence Day at our house! Ingrid played in her little pool out back in the festive red, white, and blue bikini that Grandma Camera sent her for the occasion. The rest of us hung out where we had a "cook-out" on our front porch on our tiny electric grill that Granny and Grandad bought at a yard sale and everyone ate grilled sausages and chips and tea and iced coffee and beer bread and dip and pound cake with strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream! Boy, was it good!!!
We kept the Weather Channel on the TV all evening as we watched thunderstorms threaten the area, each of us betting whether or not they would cancel the fireworks for that night... Just when it looked like the storms were coming upon us, the fireworks started across the lake -- and we had front row seats on our front porch! You couldn't get a better view of the pyrotechnics! It began to really rain during the show, but the fireworks kept going off!
We stayed outside until we were all a little wet from the blowing rain (except Elijah, who was REALLY wet from playing in the rain...), and then we hung out for a while longer as the traffic cleared out of the area (in Deep Creek, you can't move on the road for about an hour after the fireworks...). Then, people went home and Andrew and I were left to munch on leftovers and watch TV while our caffeine from the iced coffee and Mountain Dew wore off. It was a fun, fun time. We can't wait until next year!!

Tiffy Leaves for Taiwan!

2007-07-11T15:06:00.000-04:00

Our Taiwanese sister, Tiffany Tzu-Ting Hung, who was living with my parents since before Christmas, left us for Taiwan on June 28th. While we were sad to see her go (and I'm still explaining to Ingrid why "Tiffy" left to go see her Mama in Taiwan and she's not at the farm anymore...), we're glad she's back with her family at home.

She and Ingrid became really good friends while she was here. Ingrid now calls her dolls "wah-wahs" like Tiffany taught her ("wah-wah" is baby in Chinese...). She also sings "O Happy Day" like Tiffy sang in show choir EVERY time we get into Mama's car. She calls it "O Happy Day -- Tiffy's song."

We loved learning from and living with Tiffany while she was here.

We love you, Tiffy! We hope that if you come back to the US to study, you'll come to see us LOTS!!!

2007-06-27T12:35:00.001-04:00

Uncle Benny took a trip to come see us a couple of weeks ago. While he was here, he brought his camera and took some family pictures! Here's a full family photo, a picture of the Nelsons...so far...and Aunt B and Mama and the babies coming in the fall! Check out more pics on our slideshow that we've added! Thanks, Uncle Benny Moreno!!

A Trip to Deep Creek Lake Beach!

2007-06-21T19:01:00.000-04:00

We had so much fun this afternoon at Deep Creek Lake beach! Ingrid squealed "Beach!" the whole way there! Unfortunately, it took us a while to get there. It's about a 10 minute drive, but Papa and Mama had to go to the bank first (where she got a sucker as well as a couple of chocolate kisses from the tellers while we were doing our thing...), and then Mama was REALLY hungry, so we stopped and got her a sandwich. Feeling bad, we got Ingrid's favorite -- chocolate milk! We FINALLY got to the beach with a squealing Ingrid who was so excited that she was kicking her feet and clapping as she said "Goin' to the beach!" We pulled up to the little house where they collect the fee to get in and realized we didn't have enough cash...so we had to go back to the ATM! All this time, Ingrid was so sweet and was so patient while we took our really long drive to the beach. We got the cash and fought the traffic out of the gas station and headed back to the beach. Andrew and I talked on the way about how sweet and patient and quiet Ingrid had been during our detours. We gave the girl our money to get into the beach, found a nice, shady parking space, and stopped the car. We turned around to Ingrid and said, "We're at the beach!"...only to realize she was fast asleep! Oh well. We sat in the nice shady car and talked while she slept for a while. Eventually, she woke up (only about 1/2 hour later...) and we went down to the beach where she and Andrew played in the waves and sand while Elizabeth sat on the shady grass and read her book until Ingrid was so cold that her lips were blue and she was shivering in the cool breeze. It took some tears, but we finally got Ingrid changed into dry clothes and we came back home. It's storming now, and we're enjoying a nice, quiet evening at home. Ingrid is already looking forward to her next trip to the beach! I think we've got a girl who LOVES to be outside! Uncle Eric and Aunt Colleen would be so proud... :) Stay tuned for the next episode in the Ingrid Chronicles...