a.rose

Lately Hanna has become really enamored with birth stories.  She wants me to tell the stories of how she and her sisters were born, what I was doing, what I was eating, all the details I can remember.   Then she makes me tell them again and again, ad nauseam. Every day they are like new stories to her, even though I tell them pretty much the same way each time.  One day I had just finished telling Hazel's birth story, when Hallie asked if she could tell it.  I said yes, thinking she would just tell the same story I had, and wondering why she wanted to. She began the same way I do.  "On the day Hazel was born, Mommy was laying on the couch sleeping, and Hanna was on the other couch next to Big Grandpa sleeping because she was sick.  Heather was sleeping upstairs in her bed.  I came home from school with GramB, and then Mommy told GramB that she thought the baby was coming." I was nodding my head, impressed that Hallie was remembering the sto...

I am sitting at my computer trying to pay bills and get my music time ready for church tomorrow and answer emails and check facebook and read blogs and whatnot. Heather is sitting behind me on the couch, drinking her milk and snuggling her blanket. Hallie and Hanna are making me jewelry. Out of pipe cleaners. Then they bring me these beautiful creations and I get to wear them.  Here you can see Heather on the couch, looks like she has some nice armbands on.  Hallie is behind her at her workstation making more beautiful jewelry.  There you can see Hanna in action as she fashions a ring right onto my finger! In this picture you can see the finished ring. I'm thinking we should open up an Etsy shop.  Child labor laws, what?

Well, Hazel is two months old now.  As I've been looking through the pictures on the computer, it looks like I've really accomplished a lot in her two short months here.  Mainly, it seems we've been enjoying a lot of this: Here's to more accomplishments in the months to come!

With the newest additions to our families. Who knows what we'll cook up next year when she comes?  

My family lived in Brasil when I was in middle school.  We moved there when I was 10, and moved back to the United States when I was 14.  I was one person when we moved there, and I was an entirely different person when we moved back.  Pretty much an improvement all around, in my opinion.  I give most of the credit for these changes to the friends that I made while we lived there. A week or so ago I was driving somewhere as school was letting out across Lincoln.  There was a group of middle school kids walking home and I watched them as I drove down the street.  I say group but they were spread out, in pairs, across a distance the length of a soccer field or so.  They would turn around and yell something at each other, having a sort of loud long distance conversation. The way they walked, this awkward method of communicating with each other, the boy/girl scene, their clothes, even their hair all brought back so many memories of my own middle schoo...

I had heard the phrase "a fat lip" before, but I never really understood what it meant, until a few days ago.  We had been having a fairly peaceful afternoon.  I had just fed Hazel and she was almost asleep on my lap.  Heather had come over and was begging to be held for a bit of a snuggle.  I was just about to try and juggle the two of them when suddenly, Hanna fell down hard and bit her lip on the way.  The swelling and bleeding was instantaneous and incredible.  I put Hazel on the couch, which made her start screaming, and told Heather I couldn't hold her, which made her start crying.  It's just like that sometimes, isn't it? There was so much blood I thought maybe she had knocked a tooth out, or bitten off a piece of her tongue.  After wiping away all the blood at the sink, I realized that her teeth and tongue were fine, so I focused again on her lip as she kept screaming, "what is this bump mommy?" I finally noticed it, and almost fell...