Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Okay, as usual I'm a few days late! =) But this time last year I was still in the hospital after having my worst labor of the four children! But I had this sweet Baby Boy and he was so worth it!

Joshua Gage

(Thank you Mom for the photo since mine are hidden away)

And he's still as sweet as ever and still causing trouble! And still completely worth it!


I mean how could you not love that face? Did I mention he is walking and climbing all over the place? And even having a go at running away! The only good thing about this is when I'm changing his diaper he no longer tries to crawl away, he first wants to stand and then walk away, which gives me a chance to grab him before his escape plan is carried out! And it was quite amazing I got the below photo considering I was dashing around the lawn trying to keep him from going down our sloped yard to the sidewalk he kept trying to crash on!

I love you Joshua Gage! Happy 1st Birthday!

Be Still Sunday

Then Sings My Soul Saturdays

Well it's been a few day since I've written anything. I've been busy with life! I actually got to go out with my husband tonight! And I'm keeping a friend's four kids tomorrow so I'm sure I'll be plenty busy. But before I fade off to sleep for the night I thought I'd go and put up my song for the week! Even though someone else had this song up a few weeks ago, I'm going to go ahead and post it today! This song is an older one, but I just heard it for the first time (or noticed it anyways) about a month ago. And now I keep hearing it everywhere! Evidently the words might be something I need to listen too! Is there anyone else who didn't know this great song?




For more Then Sings My Soul Saturdays go and visit Amy at Sign, Miracles and Wonders!

Teaser Tuesdays

This is hosted by Should Be Reading, so go check out the details if you'd like to do your own. Or just go read a few so you can have some new ideas about what to read next!

Well if you read mine last week then you might guess what mine is this week...... Here is my teaser from

Lord of the Rings ~ The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien of course!

from page 68
'We always seem to have got left out of the old lists, and the old stories,' said Merry. ' Yet we've been about for quite a long time. We're hobbits.'

Not Me Monday

Did you know that today is Monday and not just a continuation of Sunday? Well of course you did and I almost forgot did too! Well MckMama has some new rules up for NMM so go and check them out and write your own and don't forget to read all the other ones! Now to hear what I didn't do this week! I did not hear my kids yelling "Joshy took off his stinky diaper" while I was in the middle of cooking pancakes and eggs this morning. So I didn't call them into the kitchen to stir the eggs and flip the pancakes, while I ran to grab the naked dirty bottomed baby before I had a real mess to clean up! Both of my kids in the kitchen did not almost simultaneously say that they burnt themselves, I mean they are 9 and 7 they should know how to flip a pancake and stir some eggs right? I did not leave the now clean, but still naked bottom to go help them, then the naked bottom did not walk into the kitchen through the gate I left open and now have more poop on his butt! The burns were not invisible and nothing at all!
Yesterday we did not have a small birthday party at our house for two of my children.

(this is not Curlyhead waiting to eat that yummy cupcake he helped me make)

I mean I don't even have two children born in the same month (seriously) so how would that work? We did not have one party 3 weeks after now 4 year old's birthday, we didn't just decide to throw in Happy Birthday song for Joshy who will be One Year old this Saturday! That is not possible that he was born a whole year ago! Just like it's not possible that he is walking everywhere, all the time! Ah but I digress! Joshy did not bust out crying at one of his presents (sorry Lauren) and we did not have to hide it because if he so much as glimpsed it he would bust out crying, and my children did not seem to want to test this out!

(this is not Joshy with a new toy he seems to love)

If we'd really had a party I would not completely have left any mess and just sat down on the couch to relax after the party, ya know because I was exhausted and had a headache! There are not still dishes in my kitchen waiting to be washed from yesterday either! My Not Me's are not only from the past two days, because I'm supposed to tell about the whole week, like how we weren't late for girl scouts and boyscouts Friday night, things like that! Because I'm NEVER late! I'm not completely laughing at that!

I won't be back later to visit and leave comments for everyone! I promise!

Just for you Erica, here is what Joshy was scared of, a Ginormous Googly Ball in Blue!
Ours is in hiding and I didn't want to bring it out for a picture! I think we might return it for something that doesn't make him cry! If you read this Lauren, thank you for giving us something to laugh and talk about!

Be Still Sunday

Then Sings My Soul Saturdays

It's Saturday! And I'm currently listening to.........

I Was Made To Love You by Toby Mac.......

The other day when my seven year old son asked me the purpose of life , this song popped into my head. While we had a bit of a discussion about "why we are here," I think the lyrics to this song say a lot!




For more Then Sings My Soul Saturdays go and visit Amy at Sign, Miracles and Wonders
her family needs extra prayers this week for their son Spencer, so go and read an encourage and be encouraged!

For the Record

I just had to say that Sissy and PJ got their report cards and both got the equivalent of the same grades. Sissy got all A's and 3 B's and PJ got E's and 3 S's. And then they got OL (on level) or AL (above level) in the 3 R's! Did you get all those letters? Okay that was just for the record!

Taking Time to Memorize

Do you remember this post? Well I'm just about finished memorizing Psalm 139, finally! I can't say I worked on it as much as I should of, though some days more than others. But it is really nice being able to quote the whole chapter. Just the act of memorizing this has helped me spiritually in that it is so long, I find myself going over it and over it and thus drawing nearer to God and putting more focus on Him and pondering things in the middle of the day that I don't usually think about in the midst of life. Things like "Where can I go from flee from His presence?" and how His never ending presence is such a blessing, but yet also being aware of it makes me more thoughtful about my actions and even my thoughts "You perceive my thoughts from afar" was another part of Psalm 139. Thank you Angie for suggesting the memory of this piece of scripture. I think that having done so will also encourage me to do more longer pieces than I might have originally picked!

Well the reason I'm bringing this up now is that part of New Year's Resolution was to memorize a scripture a month! I found out that Living Proof Ministries (Beth Moore) has a challenge up on their blog to memorize two scriptures a month for this year! So I've decided to double up on that original resolution! I put up the button on the side that Lisa made too, to encourage others to jump in if they want! You can also go to the LPM blog on the 1st and 15th and post your verse if you want. And while I'm giving credit, thank you to Kimberly for telling about this! She doesn't know that I had already seen the button on her blog and followed before she commented to me about it! But her comment lingered in my head and therefore I'm writing this now!

So for my second my verse of the month (my first being Psalm 139 that I started in December) I'm going to memorize a verse that I've probably learned at some point growing up as I went to a private school and we memorized verses weekly, but I no longer know it word for word and it seems appropriate considering this resolution!

Hebrews 4:12 (NIV)

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

I was Tagged!

Hmnnn, not sure I've been tagged before here on this blog anyway ( I use to have a different one), but another Erica got me! This tag challenges you to go to your fourth folder and post the fourth picture that is in that folder! I'm wondering if this tag assumes I'm an organized person, haha! I was going to wait until I had my external drive hooked up as that has many more pictures on it, but alas my husband just took it back to work. So I figured I'd put all my picture folders in one area on my computer (no they were not) and then do it. It ended up being from my January folder since my folders were alphabetical, so it's not very old, but it's a good one! Joshy at the park!

And I'm no good at tagging, so if you've not done this and want to then your tagged!\

Oh and I'm trying to figure out what color font looks best on this background, it seems like they are all hard to read, I might have to change it, agh! Let me know what you think?

PPCM

Well I've thought before that I wanted to write a post about this sometime and when someone I know was asking me a question about my heart the other day it made me think of it again.
Let me just tell you how it started for me......

I gave birth to my sweet baby boy January 24th, 2008 (Thursday), while it wasn't a wonderful delivery there was nothing significantly wrong with it or my pregnancy. I was scheduled to go home Saturday morning. Friday night my husband brought me a hamburger and big coke from Chili's! It was exceptionally yummy and I was glad to have some good food since I'd already been in the hospital a few days. Later that night I felt like I was having trouble breathing! Alarm right? Well the nurse said I probably had gas and gave me some nasty chalky stuff and made me walk the halls! Of course my husband and I thought it was the food (and later joked that it caused everything, though we know better)! I had to sleep propped way up because if I laid down I couldn't hardly breathe (one of the symptoms). Sometime in the night my nurse gave me another dose of chalk, which helped none! In the morning I got a new nurse who was concerned and the Nurse Practitioner from my OB practice was in soon. When she found out about my new symptoms she quickly got an OB. Soon afterward I saw my OB, was started on O2 and quite a few test run, including an EKG, chest x-ray, sonogram of my legs and a spiral CT. During this time, my newly named and birthed baby was kept in the nursery. At some point I said to my nurse, "I guess you can give him formula," she said they already had (sniff, sniff from me)! They started me on IV lasix (a diuretic) and I lost like 16 pounds in 24 hours, not including the weight I lost from giving birth. The next day my OB decided I should see a cardiologist and they ordered a blood test (BNP) that showed my heart was under duress. So after having an echo cardiogram the cardiologist came back in and told me that my heart wasn't working at what it should be. It was at 50% when it should be at 65%. Which looking back knowing what I do now it really isn't that bad. Chances are it was worse before I was started on the lasix, as I was already feeling better. I stayed in the hospital a few more days as they started me on some new drugs and weaned me off the oxygen. One of the most difficult things about the whole ordeal for me was not being able to nurse due to the medication I was put on. I only nursed my sweet baby for one day before this happened. My last baby (Curlyhead) was breastfed for over 2 1/2 years. I actually pumped for a month hoping to go off the medicine but was not able to at the point.

But I was one of the lucky ones! The fact that I was still in the hospital when my symptoms happened enabled me to get care right away which I might have put off if I was at home already.
I was also lucky that my heart was back up to 64% at my echo 6 months later with no more dilation (or enlargement). I'm due for another echo this month and hope to hear it has continued to stay at what it should. While this can be life threatening and have lasting affects, most woman have a full recovery if it is caught in time. That is part of the reason in writing this post to inform others about this. PPCM can occur anytime during pregnancy or within a few months afterward. The symptoms often mock normal pregnancy symptoms making it go overlooked sometimes.
Some of the symptoms of are: shortness of breath, trouble breathing while lying down, swelling in the arms, face, legs and sometimes in the chest and abdomen, chest pain, dizziness, excessive tiredness and more. If you want more information please visit the heart shaped link on my sidebar. That is a great site complete with message boards where a specializing cardiologist answers questions.

Teaser Tuesdays

Today is Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by Should Be Reading. If you want to join along (or just read more) click above and go find out more! This is two lines from a random page of my current read which I actually just finished and I've read before!

But in case you haven't or maybe it's been awhile for you too....

The Lord of the Rings ~ The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien


from page 220~ "Over the lip of the little dell, on the side away from the hill, they felt, rather than saw, a shadow rise, one shadow or more than one. They strained their eyes and the shadows seemed to grow."

Not Me Monday

Wow! I didn't forget that it was Monday! Ya know that time of week when the kids go back to school and I try to think of all things I did or didn't do this past week!

I absolutely did not keep coming back to my computer every 30 minutes to 'adjust' the look of my blog and of course create some decor for it!

I did not just take a princess pull-up off my baby boy! I couldn't have done that because I don't really need pull-ups so I did not need to take several free sample packs from the nice lady at the store the other day. I also didn't pass back by that giveaway table to get an extra stack of coupons after looking at what they were for (and I wasn't glad the lady had stepped away so she didn't see me getting more)!

I don't have dishes to wash, laundry to do, bathrooms to clean, floors to be vacuumed and mopped, children to help with homework, papers to file and a bunch of other things I should be doing besides writing this post!

My seven year old didn't just start dancing because the song Chicken Fried came on! And I know that because he is doing his homework very diligently!

I'm not sorry that I didn't get to add any pictures to this post!

And I'm not ending this post now due to all that work I don't have to do!

Click on the big button above to visit MckMama and see more NMM!

For the Record

Well I posted something with this title before! My plan was to do this periodically when I had things I wanted to keep record of. Things I put put in a baby book or similar. But I've not been on top of writing as many of these as I wanted. And I'm sure I've recorded things elsewhere that were for the record too! But enough of my small talk!
Joshy is walking all the time! He can stop and turn around in the middle of the room now! He climbs on his rocking horse and climbs on other things as well! He is saying mama, though I'm not sure he relates it to me. This morning I took off my socks and shoes by him and he picked up one of my socks and tried to put it on his foot! So I put it on for him, then we played I put it on and he takes it off, then he tries to put it back on, I help and so on! He really liked that! Uh Oh is the only thing he says that I know he puts a meaning to. But he seems to understand a lot! Oh did I mention he can walk while carrying things too!
PJ just gets very excited about his scores on video games! He went pro on bowling on the Wii and is now bummed that he lost his pro status (don't worry he's not really upset or anything) and he's going to play on the porch with his brother. His brother, Curlyhead, loves playing on the porch! And sissy loves staying in her room and reading! Sometimes too much!

And if you've looked at my blog lately you'll see I keep changing the darn thing. I'm still not "happy" with it, but you know I can only spend so much time on something and I've got to leave it alone for a bit. So it is what is......recommendations are welcome!..Had to add my husband said it's still January when he saw my blog, but it is 80 degrees here most days, so I'm good with spring colors!

We had to reschedule Curlyheaded's 4th birthday party because I've got two sick kids and I don't want to spread it! Okay I'm off to do some housecleaning, does it ever end?

A Thousand Words Thursday

Trying to get four children to look at the camera!

Okay this isn't really working, maybe they should stand up!

Hmnnn, what do you think? Don't worry no children were harmed in the making of this post!

Now go visit Jen at Cheaper Than Therapy for more Thousand Words Thursday!

Don't Expect it to Last!

Updated:
I think I'll keep it this way for now!

Okay I changed the header and background and all, but I'm not digging it! Are you? My pictures lost some of their quality in the process and I think I need some more visual interest! But I just had to get the Christmas stuff down, don't know why, but ya know I felt like I was behind the times or something ;)!

Not Me Monday

Wow, it's that time of the week already (and I didn't even do one last week)! Time for Not Me Monday, where you can tell get off your chest all the wrong, embarrassing or improper things you've done the past week! You can visit MckMama to check out what everyone else "Didn't Do" this week!

It is not time for my kids to go back to school tomorrow already! And they did not ask me if we could home school again next year today! Had they asked this, their reason would not have been so because they get hungry at school and at home they can eat whenever! I of course did not tell them that that was not a good reason! Oh yeah and I'm not looking forward to at least having the two of them back in school either! And there is no way I'm sending my four year old to pre-school in the fall, which would give me 3 out of 4 gone part-time anyway!

I did not just hear Alvin and the Chipmunks singing Living on a Prayer on the TV, that would be just plain weird!

I did not forget to bathe my kids for several days since they weren't going to school and my routine was completely off!

My sweet and wonderful baby did not cry and fuss for over an hour last night. After attempting to get him to sleep twice we did not let my cry for awhile the third time in his crib! We would not do that because he was all congested and that wouldn't be nice! Part of my reason for doing, ahem I mean not doing that wasn't so I could go out walking before it got any later! I'm not determined to walk every day even though my goal is to walk 5 days a week.

We did not go to church yesterday for the first time in almost 6 months! This is not the start of a new trend ;)!

My baby did not just WALK over to me saying MAMAMAMA with the stinkiest diaper ever and then when I picked him up he did not spit out an earring that has the number 41 on it, that I've never seen before!!



Now go click on the button about to see more posts full of confessions!

Forgot to Mention

I never said Happy Birthday to this little guy who is a whole 4 years old! I truly can't believe how the time flies! Because his birthday is two days before Christmas his little party will be next weekend. But he did manage to have two cakes already!
I don't have the obligatory newborn photo handy as they would be on an external hard drive that is currently not hooked up. But here's one when's only a few months old.



Also remember my post about memorizing Psalm 139 that Angie at Bring the Rain invited people to join in on a few weeks ago, well the goal was to be done by the new year, and well I'm not done! But I've not given up, I'm half through! It is really nice memorizing a longer piece of scripture and working on memorizing Psalm 139 encouraged me to add Scripture Memory to be resolutions list!

Happy New Years!

Okay I'm a little late! But not too bad! I've been waiting to post till I had time to write down a few things! Really I feel like I've got a ton I could write, but I'll try not to bore you to death!

First off, as of yesterday, Joshy is doing his best to walk ALL the time! He is constantly trying to walk everywhere! He will now often go 15 steps or so! This video is just the most steps I have on camera. The noise at the end is a combo of noises, you may want to turn down the volume!



And now on to Resolutions!
I've put off writing these not because I don't want to , but because I wasn't sure what all I wanted to include, I'm sure I could write a book of things I want to change! But this will not be a book, I promise!!
1. Lose weight - 50 pounds actually - my main ways I intend to start working on this
~Drink 5 glasses of water a day or more and only one glass or less of soda or juice
~Walking at least 5 days a week for 30 minutes at a time
I will add to this if I stop losing weight with these things
2. Be a better Mom~and~ Wife
~ have more fun with the kids
~be less critical and give more compliments
~ pray with and for them more
~keep up with the housework more
3. Be a better Christian
~ go to church 3 out of 4 Sundays (we've not been going in awhile)
~ memorize at least a one piece of scripture a month
That's it, not that I couldn't add to it! And you know I can't do these things alone, it will take a lot of strength from God to keep on working at my goals and I'm sure I will mess up here and there but with grace hopefully I will accomplish something through my efforts!

I had some other things I wanted to write but got wrapped up in writing those so now they've left my head! Sometimes it's hard to think when kids are watching TV and talking to me and laughing loudly in the same room! Here are some parting shots of Joshua inside the diaper(cloth & disposables) drawer that he emptied and climbed inside of!