Happy Christmas Eve

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice is today! And guess what the Winter solstice means? It means from now on, the nights are getting shorter! Spring is on the way! And let me tell you, that's something to celebrate in my book! (and yes, it's worthy of four exclamation points. :))

Snoopy

I love Peanuts.  Schultz was a master at cartooning - even without words.  Here's a classic:

Me, a Treasurer?!

I know.  It's like a cruel joke from the universe. :)  

I just have to say for the record that the books balance, finally.  With several hours of help from my sister, the accountant.  Yay!  (It's too long of a story to tell.)

Things

Christmas is almost here. It hardly seems possible. And yet another year, even though I try to plan ahead, I still feel like I'm too busy to enjoy the season. Maybe next year I'll learn. But I have a party tonight, so I'm excited!

http://www.dailylit.com - totally cool site! You sign up to receive daily e-mails with short installments of books. That way you get to read whole books a little bit at a time. I'm going to try it with one of those books I've never managed to get through. (I'm thinking Tolstoy to start with.) :) The classics are free - the bestsellers are available for a small fee. Such a neat idea!

A verse for today I read on a blog I never read - 1 Samuel 7:12, "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer, saying, 'THUS FAR, THE LORD HAS HELPED US."

Ice water

So it snowed yesterday. Not lot. Probably an inch. But when I was heading to work I put Anne's higher tennis shoes on and her mittens on; I thought she might want to touch the snow. I had to stop to get something out of the car, so I put Anne down to wander. I look up and she's standing up to her ankles in a water puddle. I couldn't see her face, so I'm not sure, but I imagine she was thinking, "What is this?!" Of course, she's only ever been in warm bath water. :) I rushed her upstairs to change her into warm clothes. I thought it was hilarious. There's only one big puddle in the back. And she found it.

Gratitude

So I read on Andy's blog this quote by Henri Nouwen as quoted in Brennan Manning's Ruthless Trust.

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives--the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections--that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

I read it on Monday when he posted it and I've been mulling it over in my mind ever since. I'm sure I'm not there yet (will I ever get there?), but it's something to strive for.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Christmas

We got out some decorations tonight. I left these on the floor since I wasn't going to put them on the tree. I thought Anne might like to look at them for a minute or two. She loved them! She played with them for almost 30 minutes! She would put them around her neck, take them off, bang them all together on the floor, over and over again. It was so cute!

Christmas pictures

Steph is going to take Christmas pictures of Anne tomorrow morning. I'm very excited. I'll post the best ones as soon as I have them.

7 1/2 hours!

That's how much sleep I got last night. Not broken up by nursing 3 times , either. :) Actually 7 1/2 hours all at one time! yay! I first put her down at 7:30, but she woke up at 9:45. But then she slept from 10 - 6 without waking up! (I slept from 10:30 - 6.) That's the most I've slept at one time since Anne was born, 378 nights ago. Maybe - hopefully - it's the beginning of a trend.

Some 1 year pictures

I took these Tuesday, the day after she turned one year. There are more pictures on my photo album here.

*%^#! Daylight Savings Time

Let me go on the record for being heartily opposed to daylight savings time. Before Anne, I thought it was a mere nuisance. I was wrong, it is so bad, I can't come up with a strong enough word. For the past while, she's been fairly routine - get up about 7, eat, play, snack, play, eat, nap in the afternoon, snack, play, go to bed about 7:30. I don't need a serious routine, but a little goal is good. And I like that I get to sleep till 7 and she goes to bed fairly early. Okay, enter daylight savings time. Sunday she was awake at 4:45. Took a nap at 9 a.m. Did NOT take an afternoon nap. Wanted to go to be at 5. Monday I got her to sleep till 6. Took a morning nap. Wanted to take an afternoon nap at 4 (!) and when I wouldn't let her sleep very long, she cried almost the whole time till she went to bed at 7. And today - up at 5:15. (in full disclosure, Anne has a cold, too, but I blame most of this on the time change.)

Screw daylight savings time. The creators obviously were not parents.

Happy 1st Birthday, Anne!

Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday!

She was having fun opening presents, but either is getting a cold or has allergies. She looks a little dazed, eh?

Visit from family

Gramma and Grampa came to visit this weekend.

Halloween!

We didn't go trick-or-treating, but she still looked pretty cute. :)

Fall! Yay!

Out walking with Daddy

Abraham Lincoln

The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.

Christmas is coming

Find of the week:  Mixed Nuts dvd at Big Lots for $3!  It was the only copy they had!  I felt very lucky! (And yes, I realize that was 3 exclamation points in a row - I feel they were justified. :))

Women are not easily duped

Oh, does that sound sexist?

Eleven Months - Pictures

I realized on Sunday that Anne is 11 months old now (Friday) and we haven't taken pictures in a while. And it was a beautiful day! (And she was awfully cute.) So we went to the Nelson Atkins, the Kauffman Memorial Garden, and my favorite "secret" garden.  Here's a few.  If you want to see more, click here.

This one's my favorite. I've titled it "Independence." Once the trees really change color, I'll have to recreate it.

This one she just has a cute expression that I thought I should share.

And she just looks like herself here.

And this is a new face she's been making recently.  Just funny....

Used gum

I just fished a piece of used gum out of Anne's mouth in the church office.  Kind of turned my stomach.  Blech!  (Imagine Snoopy with his tongue out).

Business Name

So if I was to sell jewelry or facilitate little girl jewelry-making birthday parties, what would be a good name for my business?  something memorable but not too cute.  ideas?  I just know one of you has the perfect name.  :)  Post it in the comments, please.  I'll totally give you credit, btw. :D

Playing in the dirt

From Anne - 10+ months

We learned to play in the dirt last week!  It was so much fun!

Gratitude

If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place.

- Ranier Maria Rilke

I've been trying to live into this.  But it's hard!  We Americans (maybe others, too, I'm not sure) really like to blame other people.  But I'm trying to be grateful for every little good thing that happens.  I think it has to be a lifestyle.  One that you practice all the time.  So I'm working on it.

To achieve an ordered society, we have to eliminate the root cause of crime - all the people.

Stephen Colbert

Pray for my cousins. Their youngest baby died on Wednesday about 1 1/2 hours after she was born. I can't imagine their pain.

O God, you do not willingly grieve or afflict your children.

Look with pity on the suffering of this family in their loss.

Sustain them in their anguish;

and into the darkness of their grief

bring the light of your love;

through Jesus Christ we pray.

Amen. BCP

Anne's tickling me!

At least I think that what's she's trying to do.  She's grabbing at my shirt and laughing.  :)  How fun.

The Spiritual Seduction of Eloquence

I always enjoy reading Rabbi Gellman's editorials in Newsweek, but I thought I'd post a link to this one:  The Spiritual Seduction of Eloquence.  It's just a nice reminder to "stop and think not about how the words made us feel but what the words really mean."

And have I mentioned how much I really dislike election season (or in this case, years)?

Fall, here we come!

I admit to being shamelessly biased, but Anne's so cute! Today is the first really cool day and it's raining, so I put her in this raincoat and shoes before we walked to the church. And she was just too cute to pass up taking a picture. :) And on the fall note - it's so exciting! raincoats! yay!

Pictures of a picnic

We went on a picnic on Sunday. We stopped by the Muriel Kauffman memorial gardens afterward, looked at flowers (and bricks) and took some pictures. As you see, I'm just now posting them. :)
These are those bricks I was just saying that we looked at. Fascinating, don't you think?
I think it's funny how proud of herself she looks here.

A New Look!

featuring Anne, of course. What do you think? I've always wanted to put a picture in my header, but never taken time to learn how. I love it! And this picture, thanks Steph, was just perfect! yay for new looks.

More pictures

Fun with Gramma!Pat-a-cake with Grampa.
And a picture from right before we left. It's not the greatest, but I realized I didn't have a photo of all of them together. :)

The promised photos

Anne had been kissing the girl in the oven. But I thought this was still cute.


Anne with her great-great-aunts, Ella and Jan.

On Sunday morning in Perryton. Anne's wearing my old dress.

Grampa collects elephants. This was one of the few she was allowed to touch. :)

Trip to see family

We went to see my grandparents in Texas this last weekend. Got back last night. It was a lot of fun. They love Anne! She basked in all the attention. :) On the way to Texas, we stopped by Oklahoma City, to see my brother and the college Ben and I attended. It was fun to show Anne off to our old profs, etc. I'll end with some pictures, but here's a few thoughts:

Funniest thing I saw: on the way back, in Kansas, I saw on elderly old-order Amish couple eating at a McDonalds. Struck me as very amusing. I had to work not to laugh. :)

Scariest thing: Splashed water completely covering the car windshield so I couldn't see anything in Oklahoma City. It was just for a moment, but I think I must have gotten the most concentrated shot of adrenaline I've ever gotten, because once it was over, I realized I was numb all over. Very scary! (On that note - why, when you can't see anything, would anyone drive 40? I was going 25 part of the time! It was a stupid driver of a passenger truck that splashed water to cover my car. Stupid drivers! argh!)

Okay, pictures: ummmm....I ran out of time. Maybe I'll post them tomorrow. :)

Breastfeeding is green!

In honor of National Breastfeeding Week, Aug 1-7: cute article: Mammaries for the planet

Thank God for good doctors

We finally found a nice doctor for Anne! Hallelujah! This is the fourth primary care doctor she's seen in her short life, so it's about time for one of them to be a good fit for us. I know, I know, we're a little difficult - what with the lump on her back and the delayed vaccinations and the sleeping with us and the cloth diapers, but really - we're not aliens! Or hicks. Or hippies. Or stupid. So thanks to this doctor for not acting like it.

new pictures

Steph took pictures last Saturday of Anne. Anne was tired and therefore, not very smiley. But I think they still turned out great. Here's a few. If you want to see the rest, click here.

Nail polish!

She was enjoying playing with my nail polish yesterday. Does this mean she'll love to paint her nails like I do?
Note: You can see her front teeth in this photo.

Catching up

My sister, brother-in-law, and their daughter Rebecca came for Memorial Day. Anne and Rebecca played together quite nicely!We went to the Union Station Memorial Day event. This is Kristine holding Anne. Doesn't it look like summer?
And here's most of the crowd that afternoon. It was hot!
This last two weeks, my parents have been visiting for my dad to attend classes at seminary. we had a lot of fun.
Mom and I spent some time trying to get some really good pictures of Anne. Here's a few. You can see more here.
And she got a pretty good picture of all of us