No, really, I'm here...

Sorry, didn't mean to neglect the ol' blog there. I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, which has impacts in every other part of my life! The doc even gave me some meds to help me sleep, which don't seem to help much. Oh well. She actually suggested that sleep can be disturbed by the hormonal activity of endometrial tissue. So next week I'm seeing my RE (reproductive endocrinologist) again to talk about another laparoscopy. Ugh - but it might take care of some of the abdominal pain, at least.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with our family, my mother and our nephew. The bird was juicy and yummy and we had just enough leftovers. This year we made pies with Splenda baking mix - which is still half sugar, but better than plain sugar. The blueberry pie was acceptable, the pumpkin pie was too sweet, but the pecan pie ROCKED! One might argue that was too many pies for a household with a diabetic, but his blood sugar was reassuringly low following our meal.

My mother gave me my Christmas present early - all the supplies and instructions to knit Santa hats for the kids. How fun! I'm really enjoying working on the first one. I've been wanting to learn to knit hats anyway, and this is the perfect motivation. It's forcing me to learn about circular and double-pointed needles and practice reductions - none of these are necessary with the scarves I've been making.

We took photos for our Christmas cards this weekend and I've got the cards designed and ordered. I'm excited about them! I won't share it here because I don't want to ruin the surpise for those of you who will be receiving our cards in the mail. Maybe I'll post it after I mail them out. But, trust me - CUTE!

It's very snowy here today, which is getting me in the mood for Christmas. In fact, I need to stop on the way home for groceries and to pick up some Angelina Ballerina dolls for the girls for St. Nicholas day next week. This year was the first year Emmelia made a Christmas list. The Angelina dolls (she wants Angelina and Alice - Maura will be getting Alice) were the only decipherable item. I'm sure she'll still enjoy that new bicycle Santa is going to bring her (shh!), though, even if it isn't officially on her list.

Okay, I've been a little out of the scrapping mood what with the not sleeping. But today I put the finishing touches on a layout I've been working on for a while to remember Emmelia's stint doing Tae Kwon Do:
In other news, my friend Z. had her first baby this month after a horrific labor and birth experience. But, thank God, everyone is alive and healthy at the end of things and little C.E. is breastfeeding nicely and generally being cute and cuddly. I took the girls over to visit the day after Thanksgiving. I'm so happy for her to finally have a healthy child after 5 miscarriages!

Well, now I'm off to battle the snow-packed and icy roads. I'm hoping this evening's commute is better than this morning - it took me one hour and 45 minutes to drive the approximately 20 miles from home to work.

So, what are those things for again?

In case you missed it, last week a woman filed a lawsuit against Delta Airlines and one of their partner airlines because she was forced to leave an airplane after refusing to cover up her nursing child with a blanket. For the record, I have nursed many times on airplanes and never had any trouble. But because this woman refused the nasty, germy blanket (& truth be told, most children the age of this child will not *tolerate* a blanket over them on a hot airplane), she was removed from the flight because, apparently, disagreeing with a flight attendant is seen as a terrorist threat these days. God help us!

No surprise, there has been quite the backlash from the pro-breastfeeding community. Nurse-ins have been and are still scheduled to be held at airports around the country (in fact, there's one tomorrow morning at Delta ticket counters if you happen to be at an airport with a nursling - or two - in tow) in an effort to encourage the airlines to educate their personnel on already existing pro-breastfeeding policies, as well as develop more family/breastfeeding-friendly policies for travel.

The Wonderland blog has a great pithy piece on the whole affair - I had to pass it on.

Meanwhile, in my world, I'm still super tired. I actually went to the doctor about it last week and she doesn't think there is anything physically wrong such as anemia or thyroid issues. She does think it might help if I could, say, sleep through the night occasionally!! Imagine that. So we've been working on getting the 2 year old to sleep through. Our efforts paid off last night - she slep for 8 hour straight - almost unheard of for her! Unfortunately, I had developed a bad cold and couldn't sleep. Argh! But there is at least hope for the future if Maura keeps cooperating. Now that she's on antibiotics for her raging double ear infection, she's sure to sleep better (right? Right??).

I only got one layout done last week, but I like it. It's actually a dressed-up quick page put out by Michelle Coleman:

A fun weekend - just the 3 of us

We had a great weekend, even though the Deac was out of town. The girls and I had plenty to keep us busy but also some time to just relax and have fun. It was nice.

Yesterday I taught Church School - Emmelia's teacher is having some family issues and needed a little break so I offered to step in. My goodness, it was fun! I enjoyed the 4-6 year olds very much. I had brought copies of an icon from our icon coloring book of the Creation of Adam, just because it seems like a basic topic and I wasn't sure what they had been talking about. Well, the priest's sermon just happened to include a bit about the creation, so it worked in well. There was a jigsaw puzzle of creation in the classroom, so I gave each child two pieces and they took turns putting a piece in while we talked about what was on it - stars, moon, sky, sun, animals, plants, man, water, fish, etc. Then while they colored their icons I introduced them to a game Emmelia and I play a lot - who created X? She is always asking me... "who created trees?" "God"... "who created houses" "man, with the brains God gave us", etc. So we were playing this a bit and the kids seemed to get it. Then all of a sudden my precocious five year old pipes up: "I have a good one, you guys! Let's ask who created owies?" Ah, my child, that is so much more complicated than I was going to get into yesterday. ;-)

Emmelia did a great job at her violin recital yesterday. I was a bit worried because at rehearsal on Saturday she had refused to play. But yesterday went fine - partly because I had invited their VERY favorite babysitter in the ENTIRE world to be there with us and help me with Maura when I had to escort Emmelia to the stage (which worked *great*!). She wanted to show off what she could do for Miss Ashleigh. Here's some photos - she just keeps looking so grown up to me:

Friday, yeay!

I finally got some decent sleep last night and I am amazed at how much better I feel today! The past week, I've averaged about 3-4 hours of sleep a night and just felt so drained. I was seriously worried that I was clinically depressed - nope, just utterly exhausted. Last night the kids woke up a couple times, but it was manageable, they were easily re-settled and I actually dreamed! It has made all the difference today. Of course, I need about 6 or 7 more nights like that one to really recover!

This weekend Emmelia has a violin recital. She had a lesson last night and was *really* into it - I think because of the Natalie MacMaster concert. Then when we got home, she had a package which turned out to be an autographed photo of Natalie MacMaster with a note wishing her a happy birthday (which I happen to know is from Natalie's mother because I might've sent an e-mail....). She was so very excited to get that photo and hung it up over her bed. We talked about how if she keeps practicing then someday she can play like Natalie MacMaster. All in all, it's nice for her to have a role model in that regard.

So, anyway, we have rehearsal tomorrow for the recital and then Emmelia has a birthday party for her friend who lives across the street. Then church on Sunday and the recital Sunday afternoon. That's our plan. I'm also hoping to get a little housework done and maybe hit the Veteren's Day sale at the fabric store. I just finished knitting my 3rd scarf and I think I'm ready to learn something new - maybe a sweater or hat would be fun.

I've been asked to design a brochure for the kid's daycare in the Gimp so I've been working a bit on that, but also put together this layout today. It was a lot of fun and I like how the swirl connects her mouth and the "wish" so it looks like the breath from her mouth. I used a free digital kit from 2Peas. If you haven't checked out their freebies yet, you are really missing something. I really love this photo and the fact that I caught her in the act of blowing out her candles. Too bad we can't really see her face, though. I'm also going to do a birthday layout showing off more photos, but couldn't resist using this particular photo this way:

Last night I took the kids to Chipotle for dinner after violin. I had a coupon for a free burrito and I ordered my new "healthy" burrito bol... no rice, small amount of black beans, chicken, fajita veggies, mild salsa (& a little corn salsa), cheese and lettuce. This comes out to about 500-600 calories, only 28 grams carbs and 44 grams of protein. And, it is *really* good. And small kid-sized quesadillas are only 75 cents! I'm really digging Chipotle lately. So last night's dinner cost me a little over $3 for all 3 of us. Can't beat that!

This week I've had horrible PMS. That's interesting news in a way, since I didn't expect to maintain any sort of cycle regularity after I went off the hormone treatment. My doctor once told me my "body has no rules" and he's right. It's always an adventure waiting to see what it will do. Anyway, raging PMS (which has probably contributed a lot to the exhaustion)... I decided to research some good ways of dealing with the symptoms. I've already made better nutrition choices and cut out (for the most part) caffeine, so I needed some other ideas to help. First off, Pamprin. I've never used it before but a co-worker highly recommended it and it rocks. Secondly, Omega 3 oils. I've been using (for the past month or so) Udo's Choice Omega 3,6,9 oil every day. I missed Sunday and Monday this week, and let me tell you, I saw a huge difference! Thirdly, dark chocolate. I found these amazing dark chocolate sticks at the grocery store - only 60 calories each and all the goodness of chocolate for those hormonal cravings. The other thing that is supposed to help is exercise. I'm sure it does, but I've been too tired to give it a try this week. I just thought I'd share because I know I'm not alone in my suffering.

Pirate Pumpkins Say Arrrr

Boy, I've just been *tired* lately! Haven't even felt like scrapping much lately. Of course, there's been a lot going on, too.

Anyway, my friend Amy (Doodleboogs at SOTB) posted this challenge last week after she saw the photos of our Potato Head pumpkins here on my blog. She wanted us to use the pumpkin photo and make a quirky/doodly layout. Now, I love quirky and doodly layouts, but I have not been able to figure them out. I would *love* to learn that style, but haven't managed it yet. So I've been thinking some about this challenge, and here's what I came up with:
It's more quirky than doodly, but was fun to put together. The best part of making it was that I was able to use the graphics tablet I got for Christmas last year. I really need some remedial drawing instruction, though - it's a lot harder to draw a ship than I thought it would be.

Go ahead, leave a comment. I won't be offended if it's just laughing at my rudimentary doodling skills.

Oh - and don't forget to go vote today. The polls are open for another 2 hours.

Milestone successfully celebrated!

Emmelia's party went really well this weekend - it was so much fun! I'm sore from all that bouncing, but it was worth it. We ended up with 28 kids there! It wasn't as much of a zoo as you might think - the place is prepared for that many and good at helping round them all up. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Yesterday we also had a cake to celebrate at coffee hour at church. Stupidly, I signed us up to provide food for coffee hour as part of this. What was I thinking? First off, it's a lot of people to provide food for and not all that cheap. Secondly, it all falls to ME and me only because I don' t have a large extended family to help and the Deac is busy with the service. Plus, I still have to care for the kids while getting things ready. I tried to round up some help with bringing food yesterday, but the people who said they would bring salad and fruit forgot - sigh. It was a frustrating experience for me (and I have already said I'm never signing up for coffee hour again), but Emmelia seemed to enjoy the celebration part, so that is good and most important.

The Natalie MacMaster concert was a total blast! Emmelia got to dance along to the music (encouraged by the performer) by our seats and once or twice I caught her moving her arms like she was bowing along with Natalie on her fiddle. Natalie also did a bit of Irish clog dancing, and Emmelia thought that was really neat. It was a great educational experience for Emmelia... she had to be quiet in the auditorium and also learned just how long the line can be for the women's restroom at an event like that. We stayed through the first half and decided to leave during intermission. It was 9 pm and it had been a long weekend. And I *really* didn't want to carry her down the hill to the car in the dark.... so we left while we were both happy, which is probably the best time to leave.

Happy big 5!

My miracle baby is five years old today. It makes my head spin, really, how fast the time has flown. She suddenly seems very grown up to me (recent tantrums notwithstanding). This morning she opened gifts and had her picture on a local news channel (we missed it, unfortunately). Today she'll have cupcakes with her school mates and tomorrow - the big party with 20-30 (!) of her closest friends and coffee hour on Sunday.... lots of celebrations for this milestone event.

My little big girl - may God grant you many, many years!

On Sunday Em and I are going to the Natalie MacMaster concert! I am looking forward to that, too.

Random thought from my drive to work this morning: I was behind a car with a bumper sticker that said "Annoy a Conservative: Live Like Jesus" and I thought... would Jesus put that bumper sticker on His car?

Trick or Treat (ToT)!

Trick or Treating (ToTing) went well last night, even if the kids were pretty tired after our quick trip out. They are still adjusting to the time change. We're developing a fun tradition of ToTing with Emmelia's friend R. and her friend K. from across the street. We had a fairy princess, a house (clever costume!), a witch, and two pumpkins. Maura really seemed to *get* it this year, even if she was continually 1-2 houses behind the big girls on the ToT circuit. My girls had of course ToTed at daycare and came home with HUGE bags of candy. It was a candy bonanza. Really, I feel sorry for their daycare teachers today with all these kids coming off last night's sugar high. I'm thinking of getting rid of our leftovers (and secretly some of their extra) at coffee hour at church on Sunday. The only problem with that plan is I'm sure I won't be the only one with that idea... oh well. Maybe it will reduce the stash a bit. Frankly, the Deac and I don't need the temptation.

Speaking of the Deac, the Nerve Conduction Study went well yesterday. From my perspective, it was really *cool* (I'm such a science geek); from his, it was uncomfortable. But they were able to rule out any neuropathy, diabetic or otherwise, so that was TERRIFIC news! The doc (who, by the way, was really good - we liked him a lot better than the old physiatrist) tracked the problem to extra signal (a sort of "short circuit") from the nerves coming out of the lumbar spine - you know, exactly how the Deac has described his symptoms from the beginning of this debacle. We seem to have dodged another bullet. I'm hoping the shooting lets up soon.