Dear Facebook Friend,

I must admit, I'm not exactly sure that I would recognize you if I saw you - well after today I may recognize a part of you. We are both from this small town and I know your sister so agree to be your "Facebook Friend." What could it hurt?

I read that you were having surgery. I'm sad that you have some medical condition that required you to retire in your 30's. There is so much more of life that you have to live. I do have to say that I was a little taken aback when I looked through your pictures and saw the pictures of your previous surgery. But, I was looking and it is my fault if I stumbled upon them.

But today, I login to my facebook account. My newsfeed is automatically brought up and what do I see? I see a foot with no toes. My stomach turns. I have a tough stomach but this, well, it was disgusting!

Now I am sure that there are some of your friends that are truely interested in this. But me, I am not. If I just had my toes removed, I don't think I would be posting pictures of it. As a matter of fact, I might be a little embarassed - but that is just me.

I'm just thinking that maybe, just maybe, email would have been a better option to share your surgery results with those who really care. Now everytime I see your name, I will think of that picture.

Sincerely,

Nauseated in the po-dunk town

Ti-i-e-ime

Time.

I was thinking tonight when exactly did I become so concerned with time?

Is that something that just happens along the way as you mature and start taking care of yourself?

And when will my kids go from learning to tell time to learning to manage their time?

Bedtime in our house is 8pm. Tonight Uno was digging in the drawer where I keep crafty items at 7:56 saying that she was making a picture for her "football buddy."

My adult thought was "Girl, it's 4 minutes until bedtime and now you decide to draw a picture????"

She was oblivious to what time it was.

That just made me think, just when did I become so ruled by the clock? Will I ever have a time in my life where I don't feel like I have to make every minute of my day useful? And when I won't feel guilty for taking a nap or watching tv?

Yeah that was really random :)

Stage left....

Do you see my list off to the left?

I stole this idea from Jori who stole it from Liz.

This is still a list in progress so when I am completely done with the list, I will post it as a new post and will start my 1001 days from there.

Let me tell you - think of 101 things that I want to do is really hard!!!!

Anyone else game????

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

Matthew 2:7 Then Herod secretly called the magi and determined from them the exact time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship Him.” 9 After hearing the king, they went their way; and the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the Child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the magi left for their own country by another way.

The commercialism of Christmas is just overwhelming!!! The Christmas stuff is already out in the stores and I have heard word of the Christmas music being played as well. Is this what I want our kids to think about when they think of Christmas???? NO!

Christmas is about the birth of Jesus - our Savior! That should be the focus.

So, this Christmas the children will be getting 3 gifts from The Coach and I. The will be gifts symbolizing the gifts that were given to Jesus - gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Their gold gift will be something of value to them - something they really want.

Frankincense was used in incense burned during religious ceremonies in Biblical times and also as anointing oil. The frankincense gift to our children will be something to help them grow spiritually.

Myrrh was used for embalming and preparing a body for burial. To focus away from the morbid side of that, the myrrh gift will be something for their body - ie clothing most likely.

Now, we will still do Santa until we have no believers - which will be a while. So they will end up with 4 gifts and a stocking.

I'm hoping this works and the kids are left feeling shorted???!!!???

Dos' birth story

Quite some time ago I posted Tres' birth story and it is high time I post about the other kids!

I got pregnant with Dos in April of 2002. He is now part of the kindergarten class this year that is apparently the 9-11 boom of children. There are around 150 in his class when Uno only has 100 in her 3rd grade class.

I digress......

My pregnancy with Dos was pretty uneventful other than my husband tell me he felt called into the ministry a few months into the pregnancy - but that is another story for another time. Oh, and we moved into town when I was 5 months along to be in a bigger house and closer to my parents and the Coach's work. I felt great carrying him all up in front like a basketball. My only issues were toward the very end when he was soooo low and setting on my bladder.....well, you Momma's know....

I managed to talk my OB into inducing me. I still remember the nurse calling to schedule the induction and her turning to the Dr. and asking for the reason and him whispering to me "tired of being pregnant!" :) then told her something technical.

So we went to the hospital at 8am on a Friday morning to have the bubbs. It was only the night before that we decide on a choice of names - Braden Marcus or Tobin Marcus. We were deciding to wait until we saw him before chose between the two.

We got in the room and got all prepared. The nurse called my Dr. that was on call to come and break my water - which was how I wanted to be induced...to try without pitocin at first. My regular Dr. (not the one on call but the one who scheduled the induction) was for sure that I wouldn't progress long enough to have the baby before he was on call in the evening. So the on call Dr. asked the nurse to have the resident to break my water....oh boy.....

The resident was this balding guy who was probably on his 30's and he was clearly not thrilled to be doing OB rounds. So here I am, a seasoned Momma, with him between my legs with the crochet hook. He is trying and trying with beads of sweat coming up on his balding head. It wasn't comfortable, but it definetly wasn't the best thing in the world. I could tell he was flustered and was relieved when he gave up. The nurse called my Dr. on call who didn't even bother gowning up - she just gloved up, grabbed the crochet hook, popped the sack, told the nurse to order my epidural and was back on her way to the office within a minute....This was at 10:30am.

As I guessed would happen, my contractions started pretty quickly. Apparently when I went in, I was having regular contractions but didn't feel them - that is what the monitor was picking up. So, by noon, I was in 2nd stage labor but handling things fine.

The anesthesiologist came right around lunchtime and fixed me up. It was wonderful....no pain at all. I just laid in bed, talked with my parents, sent my husband and his sister to lunch, and rested.

Around 2:30pm, I started to feel a little strange in the netherregions - like I had to go to the bathroom. When the nurse came in, I told her of this, she checked me and we were ready to go!

After around 20-ish minutes of pushing, our little bubbs was born! He was so handsome!!!! I wish I had a picture scanned to put on here but I don't - atleast not on my computer. We ended up with a different name for him - because he just looked like it. His first names means "The Lord is God" and his middle name means "God is good." Those are the truths we live by and truely feel blessed to have our little Dos.

Christmas shopping....

Yes, I have already started. In fact, I'm more than 50% done!

But I found this and thought that it is such a sensible approach to shopping for the kids! I may have to give this a try!