Hadley's Birth Story!

Ok, MIL is getting some Hadley time, so here is your birth story!!! :) Sorry, my kitty dying is intermingled with this story because it's part of the day's events.

On the morning of Black Friday (November 26th), I woke up around 2:30 AM with contractions. They weren't painful, but were coming at regular intervals between 7-20 minutes apart. I went downstairs and watched TV, etc so I wouldn't keep Gregg up. After a bit, I realized that I hadn't yet seen my kitty that day - she was not looking good the night before (breathing funny & just not being herself) & I actually cried at that time (Thanksgiving night) because something in me just told me it was the beginning of the end. I checked her usual spots & couldn't find her anywhere. I laid back down on the couch for a while, read, watched TV, etc & for some reason, though to check for her in the basement. As soon as I saw her lying on the concrete (something she would never normally do) and she didn't respond when I said her name (I didn't get close enough), I knew that she was gone. I was so, so sad. She was only 7 years old & she was a dating anniversary gift from Gregg for our 2nd anniversary. It was around 4:30 AM at this time & I ran upstairs to Gregg & woke him up: "Baby - um, two things...I think Faithy died and I'm in labor" - according to him, that was not the way he had planned on waking up that morning.

He went down into the basement and confirmed that she was gone & then texted his mom & dad so that they would call when they woke up. I continued with contractions throughout the morning until his dad called back. They were shocked at the news of Faithy passing & his Dad came over to take care of her. I wanted to see her to get some closure, but her eyes were open (according to G) and they could not be shut again, so I didn't get to see her. We drove over to G's parents' house & she was buried in their "pet cemetary" behind their house. G had basketball practice, so I stayed at his parents' house and continued laboring while he was gone (yeah, I know, I told him to go to practice...LOL). His mom and one of his sisters (Mel) timed my contractions all morning/afternoon. They were continuing to get stronger throughout the day & definitely becoming more regular. When they were about 7 minutes apart, I texted my mom and told her that I thought it was the real thing (after G's mom felt my contractions in my stomach and confirmed that this was most likely true labor).

We went home & I got showered & then we called the doctor around 3:30 when my contractions were about 5 minutes apart. Gregg had to take the call from the doctor when she returned our call (it goes to the answering service first) because I was busy throwing up. Despite the fact that my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart at this time, they told us to wait an hour and then leave for the hospital. My contractions were definitely stronger at this point & I was SO upset that we weren't able to go to the hospital yet. I was face-down on my exercise ball with a heating pad on my back, or with G rubbing my back constantly. We determined that my parents were about an hour away, so we waited for them to get there & then we left immediately.

The car ride was not a fun one & it seemed to take forever with lots of curvy, windy roads, despite the fact that it was only about 25 minutes. When we got there around 5PM, we went to L&D to get checked in & they told me that I needed to wait in the waiting room because they didn't have room for me. I was SO upset, I'm surprised I didn't cry. I ended up kneeling on the floor in front of one of the waiting room chairs, with my face in the chair, while mom or G rubbed my back and I breathed through all of the contractions, which were gaining in strength and frequency. To make matters worse, there were some annoying kids in the waiting room and I think I remember telling my mom that I was going to kill them - LOL.

After FORTY FIVE MINUTES (5:45pm) of laboring in the waiting room (there were about 4 other pg women there, but none as obviously into labor as I was), I was finally taken back into a triage room. A midwife came in to check me and immediately said, "whoa! We've got an active one - she's 8cm!" We were shocked! I knew the contractions were strong, but I was breathing through them and didn't think they were THAT awful. The doctor came in and I pretty much had to decide on the spot whether I wanted an epidural or not. I told her that I felt really good, but I was worried about the pushing part. She said, "I won't lie, the pushing is intense, but you're really going to feel that part either way" so I decided to tough it out (which is good since the anesthesiologist never got around to seeing me anyway, which they're supposed to do either way). They moved me to an L&D room & checked me again maybe half an hour later (6:30) and I was 9cm. The doctor broke my water & an hour later, I was 10 cm. I really didn't notice a difference in the strength of my contractions until the very end (right before I was checked at 10cm) - the nurse told me that if I felt the urge to push, I should take a deep breath in and breathe out in spurts like I'm blowing out candles - those were the hardest ones by far.

Once I was able to push, it was actually a great relief - fighting the pushing was definitely the worst part of labor. I began pushing around 8:15pm. There was definitely a learning curve in learning how to push, but the doctor and nurse were both great with encouragement & G was there the whole time with my ice chips, rubbing my back. After about an hour of pushing, I started to get really frustrated because I felt like I was doing it wrong or that it should be going faster, but the dr. assured me I was doing an amazing job. I remember both she & the nurse saying that they seriously should have made an educational video about laboring on me because they never ever would have guessed that I didn't have an epidural - I was one of the best "breathe through it" patients they ever saw! They encouraged me to change pushing positions (on my side) and those really helped to bring her down. Just before 2 hours, they switched me back to my back and I knew it must be time because they took off the bottom of my table, put up the stirrups & the dr. put on her gown. About 5 pushes later, I felt her head come out & another push or two came her shoulders & she was out! I did not even feel the "ring of fire" that so many women talk about - I honestly don't remember any pain during the pushing process - it was just exhausting...I think my nerve endings must be dead down there or something! :) And I was so proud of Gregg, he watched the whole thing and didn't pass out or get sick or anything (HUGE accomplishment for him)! Hadley Rebecca Scholl was born at 10:08PM, 19 inches long! They put her on my chest and it was all just so surreal - I almost felt like it was happening to someone else - some kind of out-of-body experience.

H was whisked away to the nursery (G went along) because they wanted to check her breathing (she was "grunting" a bit), but everything was fine. I delivered the afterbirth & was stitched back up for my 2nd degree tear & then I ended up watching What Not To Wear on TV alone in the room for 45 minutes while G was gone, even though I had asked the nurse to go get my family, which they never did. Our parents, G & H all ended up coming back at the same time and stayed with us until about midnight. I was so glad that both sets of parents could be there to see her right away. Though we hadn't planned on it, we ended up sending H to the nursery that night because we were both so exhausted and needed to get some sleep...of course I couldn't sleep anyway due to worrying about her, plus being on the adrenaline high, but that's a whole different story!

My doctor was amazing throughout the whole thing - before coming to me, she had only had an emergency c-section & then I was her only patient. She sat on the bottom of my bed the entire time - there are about 10 doctors at the practice and if I could have chosen, she would have been the one that I wanted, so I was SO happy when I knew she would be with me.

We texted Becki to tell her the good news and she cried when she heard the name - she said it was just perfect and she couldn't wait to meet her!

In the end, we said it's almost as though Faithy (our kitty) was like our filler baby - one angel left us just as the other came into our lives...

Angels Among Us

Of course after my recent rantings and ravings about how hard Christmases have become, I have to admit that this was honestly the best Christmas that we've had in the nearly 4 years since we've received our IF diagnosis. Not only did I not bawl through the entire Christmas Eve service, but I barely shed a tear (only through the silent prayer time). I was pretty proud of myself...

Santa was also very good to us this year - in more ways than one! We got some nice new clothes, a Swivel Sweeper, some Le Creuset enameled pots (yay!), and quite a few gift cards and money! G also got me a beautiful blue ring, his birth stone! I definitely feel very blessed and extremely spoiled!

But that's not even the best or most amazing part of my Christmas. It seems that yes, Teri, there IS a Santa Claus! Two days before Christmas, I went out to my mailbox and discovered a nice little stack of Christmas cards amongst all the junk mail. One stuck out to me, however, because it was addressed only to me (and not to G as well). I immediately tore into it and could not believe what I saw...It said "Teri - Thank you for keeping the Christmas spirit alive. May all your wishes come true in 2010 ~Santa" and tucked inside were FIVE $100 bills!?!?!?! There was no return address & I don't personally know anyone who lives in the city where it was postmarked...we put a little extra in the plate at church on Christmas Eve and put the rest into the savings account, most likely to help pay for our FET in Feb-Mar & the unexpected property tax bill that we just got. Once we get our tax return back, we will definitely be paying it forward. This is one of those things you hear about in the movies and think it never really happens to "real" people. I am STILL in disbelief.

Random act of Christmas kindness from a stranger? Or a loved one showering us with anonymous (and tricky) blessings? We'll never know...all I know is that there really IS a Santa Claus!!!

bad, bad blogger

Every time I think I'm going to do better with blogging, something else comes up. Combining work with cheerleading has been rough! I did want to type a quick post about the holidays though. I absolutely love Christmas! I love everything about it...I love the music, I love decorating, I love buying presents, I love the foods & smells, I love wrapping presents, the whole nine yards. Yet every year, I feel emptier and emptier...and I don't know how much longer I can do Christmases like this.

This is our 9th Christmas together as a couple, 6th as a married couple & 5th since we've started TTC. And every year hurts more than the previous. I bawl through Christmas eve service at church every single year....because let's face it, Christmas IS all about a baby. And knowing that I should've been big & fat & 5 months pg right now makes this Christmas especially painful.

And then there's my extended family...

I was talking online w/ my mom just now about how frustrated I am with my side of the family at Christmas. Every year for the past 7 years or so, I attempt to arrange some type of gift exchange and it's always met with a wishy-washy blah response. No one ever wants to commit to anything, despite me giving a bunch of different suggestions. (Elfster Pollyanna, Gift Card exchange, White Elephant, etc) At first I thought maybe it's just me and I'm overly sensitive because I love Christmas SO much and maybe some people aren't AS enthused as me. Ok. Fine. But after giving all these suggestions my aunt (whom I DO love) has found something wrong with every single one of them and keeps pushing the game that she wants to do, which I hate (bring a wrapped gift for yourself, everyone unwraps a gift & tries to decide who it belongs to...isn't the point of Christmas in GIVING?) Games like that, to me, make it just like any other game/any other holiday...we might as well sit around and play scrabble, you know? I want to buy something for someone else, not myself!

Then I started talking to DH about it and I ended up breaking down, crying because my family Christmas is supposed to be my "safe" place. There are no young kids (the youngest of the grandkids is 19 - I'm the one expected to have the babies at this point)...I guess maybe that's why there's no Christmas spirit. DH's family party is fun, but very, very hard for me. G has 8 brothers & sisters who combined have 10 children...4 of whom have been born in the time that we've been TTC, and another is on the way. We were supposed to have baby #7 & they're already on #11. DH gets it...he just held me as I cried and said he understood when I explained what I meant by my "safe Christmas" with my family...and he agreed that my extended family party is lame, except when we're hanging out with my 19 yr old cousin who is so much fun!

I guess what I'm asking is for my family to prove to me that Christmas can be a special time whether you are a child or not...or whether you HAVE a child or not. Thank God for my mom - she basically sent out an ultimatum email asking everyone to put in their two cents since time is running out...she apologized that their house won't be decorated, but I assured her that decorations do not make Christmas...joy, hope and giving do!

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a blessed 2010! May you find joy through your struggles & hope in the promise of the Lord!

Birthday: Part 2

Sorry for the delay! Without further ado, here is the second part of my birthday post!

On Thursday, I went to work as normal! I got a scrapbooking idea book & some scrapbooking scissors from my co-workers & then the kids sang happy birthday to me at lunch. My preschool girls also sang to me in the morning & one boy even found a little heart-shaped dude in my prize box, asked me what it said (Love You, Forever) and then promptly said, "oh, this is for you!" LOL Too cute.

As far as our appointments, things went really well aside from a couple of snafus...first, they had told B that her appointments would last from 9-9:30, 9:30-10:30, 10:30-11:30 & 1:30-3:30 & then we would meet up with them from 3:30-4:30 for the group psych eval. Apparently after her 9 Appt, they put her and C in a room around 9:30...over AN HOUR later, they still hadn't been seen & B went out to figure out what was going on...here, there was some mix up and she wasn't supposed to have an appointment then AT ALL...so she spent a friggin hour sitting there doing NOTHING with her husband and they could have at least been out reading magazines or something...

Then, they were at B's last appointment and they said something to the effect of "ok, so I think that's all until T & G get here at 2:30" and B stopped in her tracks because she knew that I was told & planning on 3:30. She called me & told me what they had said. Luckily, I was already at school with G, so we pawned his kids off (study hall) onto his co-teacher for the last couple of minutes before dismissal & we flew out of there, arriving just 20 minutes "late" for the time that they had us scheduled. When the psychiatrist found out what had happened to us, she pretty much said that she was going to have to beat someone out at the front desk...especially after what had happened to B earlier in the day!

So, we got in there for the meeting, she asked us a few questions, said that it was evident that we had really been communicating about everything (she also noted that we would be surprised how much people HADN'T talked about before that appointment & how they would sometimes be there for 2 hours hashing out details that no one had thought of, like what happens to unused embryos, how much contact/communication we will have, etc).

Before we left, I talked to B and she said that the nurse told her that that she could go on the pill as soon as we get the meds ordered up & we will be READY TO SYNCH UP! B said that the Dr. said that if we get it started ASAP, we could have retrieval done by JUNE 1st!!!!! I don't realistically think it will be THAT quick (I called about ordering meds, but the nurse I needed to talk to was out yesterday, so hopefully Monday), but if we don't get it started soon, we will have to wait until July because B&C are going to Hawaii, leaving June 15th!

So that's where we stand! I have an email in to the nurse to check on ordering the meds & then hopefully we can start up right away!

Oh yeah, and this is what I got for my birthday from MIL, FIL, SIL & BIL:

And this is what G is getting me:

Recovery...

Right now, I'm in recovery mode. After dealing with Christmas festivities for work, then for family & then SIL's wedding on NYE all in a row, I can honestly say that I don't feel like I've had much of a break and I'm NOT ready to go back to work on Monday AT ALL.

Regardless, we had a great time this break!! G & I both had appointments today for blood-draws at the RE. Neither of us passed out (well, really he was the only concern), so we're very relieved/proud about that!! Now we just need to find that donor & we are good to go! Please! Help us get this show on the road!

Hopefully posts will become more frequent very soon once I get back into my normal work routine!

Here are some pics from Christmas, the rehearsal dinner & the wedding! Enjoy!

Christmas Eve before church

The annual "driving to central PA on Christmas morning" shot (notice my unsightly lack of makeup and hairstyling that morning)! Hey, who's watching the road anyway?

Christmas night at my parents' house (in our new sweatshirts!)
The obligatory "under the mistletoe" picture
G & his two favorite girls, my cousin Jenna & me at my family's Christmas party
The cake that our awesome neighbor made for the rehearsal dinner!

G & I with our "sons," Jeff & David at the rehearsal dinner
G & I at the rehearsal dinner

Me with nieces Caroline (junior bridesmaid), Brigid & Kathryn in the party bus!
G & I dancing the night away (we clean up pretty good, huh??)!

Menu Plan Monday

Not much for a menu plan here since it's Christmas week, but we'll give it a go...


Monday - Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup! Mmmm Mmmm Good!
Tuesday - DH's extended family Christmas party, I'm making buffalo chicken dip (see recipe below)
Wednesday - Christmas Eve with DH's family friends - I might be making Spinach Dip (see recipe below)
Thursday - Christmas Day! Breakfast w/ ILs & then late lunch at my grandmother's house
Friday - Low-key at my parents' house - probably take out
Saturday - My extended family Christmas party - I'm making baked brie & chicken & rice casserole (see those recipes below, too!)

Buffalo Chicken Dip
1. Preheat the oven to 425
2. Boil & shred 3-4 chicken breasts (or just use a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken & shred all of that up)
3. In a bowl, stir together chicken, 2 bricks cream cheese (softened), 1 small bottle chunky bleu cheese dressing and 1/2 to 1 cup hot sauce depending on how hot you like it (I use Texas Pete or Crystal's).
4. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray & pour in the chicken mixture. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden and bubbly.
5. Serve with tortilla scoops, crackers or pita/bagel chips!
6. Be prepared to give the recipe out to practically everyone you encounter! (This keeps great in a mini crock-pot, although I find that mine doesn't last long enough for it to get cold! It's devoured as soon as it hits the table!)

Spinach Dip
1. In a bowl, combine 1 box frozen spinach (thawed and drained well), 1 8oz. container of cream cheese, 1 packet of dry vegetable soup mix (Knorr's is what I use), and 1 cup mayo.
2. Chill for at least an hour for flavors to meld.
3. Serve with bread chunks, from a hollowed-out wheel of pumpernickel or rye!

Baked Brie
1. Take 3 sheets of thawed Phyllo dough & spray lightly with cooking spray (to prevent drying out), stack them one on top of the other.
2. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of brown sugar in the center of the Phyllo (in about the same diameter as the wheel of brie), sprinkle on some sliced almonds.
3. Place the wheel of brie on the brown sugar & almonds, & then place more brown sugar and almonds on top.
4. Fold the sides of the Phyllo around the brie & then carefully flip it over onto the baking sheet (seam side down).
5. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes (until Phyllo is golden)
6. Serve with crackers or bagel chips

Chicken & Rice Bake (pot-luck style)
This is a recipe I found online, but modified it to make it more potluck-worthy, as it started out using whole pieces of chicken (on the bone) to feed a family of 4. Hubby is in LOVE with this rice and I will admit that it is one of my favorites, as well.
1. In a large casserole dish, melt a stick and a half of butter (in the oven) while preheating your oven to 350
2. Once the butter is melted, add to that 3 cups of rice, 3 packets of Lipton onion soup mix and 3 cans (10.5 oz, I think) of (hot) chicken broth. Stir to combine.
3. Cut 3 chicken breasts into smallish chunks & add these into the chicken mixture.
4. Cover and cook for one hour, or until chicken is cooked and rice is tender.

Merry Christmas to you & yours! Please see my Sharing Christmas post & I hope you'll link up to my friend's post to share your home's Christmas! God Bless!

Sharing Christmas

My friend Megan is sponsoring a Sharing Christmas "event" on her blog! I hope you can participate, too!

Welcome to our new home! This is the Christmas card that we sent out to family & friends.

As you can see, we didn't do much outside, but some simple lighted pine garlands & I also have a Christmas candle light in each of the front windows. It looks really pretty all lit up at night. Maybe I'll add a picture of that later.

Let me preface this post by saying that this is a very new house & I can't stand the whiteness of it all, but what can I do? We won't be painting until next fall due to waiting out nail pops & such...so with that in mind, please take a look around!

Here is our foyer. Above the door are the cute little snowman corner huggers. So cute!

Walking further in, you will see the closet & basement doors. The closet door is one of my favorite things because it has the advent wreath that my mom made from needle-point when I was little. My brother and I would each take turns putting up a piece each day in December. I always had my favorites like the ballerina, the gingerbread girl & the little orphan Annie doll, while my brother liked the cat, the soldier & the gingerbread boy. Santa was ALWAYS saved to be put up on Christmas Eve and baby Jesus on Christmas day. This is one tradition that will definitely stick around for us.

As we continue through the house, we come to the living room. This is where our tree is. Decorating the tree has always been one of my favorite parts of Christmastime. The tree tells such a story for us, as we don't really have any decorations that aren't near and dear. They are all either ones that we made growing up, were given to us by our parents year-by-year growing up, or were made for me by my grandparents (my grandfather cuts them out of wood & my grandmother paints them). We also have a few that have been given to us by students, but we have to be kind of selective with those since we tend to get smaller trees and the near-and-dear ornaments always get top billing. Can you tell the trunk isn't perfectly centered in this tree? Look how off the tree-skirt looks?!
Beside the tree is our games cabinet where I display the Christmas cards. In our old house, I used to tape them to the basement door, which was right inside the doorway. I loved that set-up and have been struggling to find a new place to display them in this house. It's amazing how new and different everything seems trying to put the same Christmas items up in the new places. I guess that's just a testament to how much of creatures of habit we really are.
And don't you just love the little snowman guy hanging on the handle? He's an old-timey pull-toy. When you pull his string, he seems to say "It's Christmas! YAY!"

Now, we come to the entertainment center in the living room. This is where we keep our stockings (look closely, you can see the one for our kitty, too) and the first of my many nativity sets. This set is the Lenox China Jewels set & my MIL started giving me pieces when Gregg and I first got married. She has been continually adding to the set each Christmas & I have to admit that it is one of my most prized possessions.

Isn't it beautiful?

Also in the living room, we have another of my nativity sets. The kids at our Christmas party last week really enjoyed playing with this one. It's made of fimo or sculpey clay & I think it is so cute! Beside the nativity, you can also see the infamous Christmas tree football. G & his sister spent many a Christmas throwing the poor quilted tree around the house in perfectly-practiced spiral tosses. When we got married, G's aunt made one for him & he was so excited (really, much more excited than any grown man should be for a fabric and stuffing tree!)

As we make our way over into the kitchen, I don't have many decorations to share, but I do have four more nativity sets in this area. Two are on the kitchen/breakfast nook window sill, one is on my onion/potato bin, and the other is a magnetic set on the refrigerator. The big kids (ahem) at the party had a great time playing with these. I'll have to do a followup post later so you can see how the shepherd and a palm tree became playing pieces in a rousing round of Loaded Questions, Adult Version...
And finally, we come to my favorite part of the decorations, the dining room (aka the snowman room). As I mentioned earlier, it was quite an interesting experience this year, trying to find a new place for decorations that had already had their places in our old home for the past 3 Christmases. As I began putting things out, I realized that with all of my snowman decorations, they would all go nicely in the dining room. So, here they are!


Yet another advent calendar - this one is similar to one that G used with his sisters growing up.




I hope you enjoyed the little tour through our home! Please have a happy & safe Christmas! I'll try to make another post with pics from last weekend's Christmas party, too!

Christmas Meme

I was tagged by my bloggy friend Melissa in a fun little internet meme. I am to list three things on my holiday wish list. I am going to play!!!

Here are my wishes - however lofty and unattainable they may be!

1. A Penn State sweatshirt. I've dropped hints about this one to Gregg, so hopefully this will be under the tree on Christmas morning (the black one with pink PSU).

2. This is more of my wish-list gift than anything else since I KNOW this won't be waiting for me under the tree on Christmas morning... a Canon Rebel digital camera.

3. A baby - I know, I know...no one could really get me this for Christmas, but if you are infertile yourself or you are close to someone who is, you know how difficult the holidays can be for infertile couples. Each holiday that passes by (especially ones so family & child centered as Christmas) is just another reminder that yet another year has passed by and we STILL don't have a baby. So please show some extra love and compassion this time of year to family members and friends who cannot have children or have lost their children. This will be our fourth Christmas since we started trying for a baby & each one gets more emotional and more difficult to deal with.

Now it's your turn...help me continue the fun. Let me know if you play along!

I am tagging:
Megan
Hafsa
Terri
Kara

It's our Anniversary!!

Exactly four years ago today was the happiest day of my life! I married my best friend and things have only gotten better since. We've survived a lot of ups and downs lately (although it seems like the downs just keep on comin'), but we've remained strong and unified...and hey, we've lasted longer than half of Hollywood, so we must be doing something right, right?

To celebrate the special occasion, Gregg and I went out to our favorite restaurant, the Japanese hibachi steakhouse, and were entertained by our hibachi chef, Ferry. Thank goodness he didn't throw food at me to catch in my mouth...tonight, Gregg's mom is making crab cakes for dinner! We were originally supposed to go out to dinner at the hibachi tonight, but when we heard that crab cakes were on tonight's dinner menu at the house, we quickly changed our plans and decided for an anniversary lunch instead! Otherwise, we decided to keep it very low-key since money is tight right now. We exchanged cards and he bought me some flowers (yay!).

Happy Anniversary, Baby!

Works for Me Wednesday - Easter!

Hey everyone & HAPPY EASTER! I thought I would quickly share with all of you some Easter activities that I use with my preschoolers that I thought you may want to try at home with your own children. I teach at a Christian preschool, so pretty much anything is fair-game! Have some fun with your little-ones!

1. Easter egg alphabet match - take a Sharpie (or your favorite permanent marker brand of choice!) and write an upper-case letter on one half of a plastic easter egg & the corresponding lower-case letter on the other half. Put all of the egg-halves in an easter basket or bucket and have your kids match them up with the correct letter, identifying it as matches are made. If you decide to mark eggs for all 26 letters of the alphabet, you can put them in ABC order when you are all done! Store them in a basket to play again and again!

2. What's inside the Easter egg? - Using the same Easter eggs that you marked above, search your house for small objects to correspond with each letter. Put the objects inside the eggs, then have your child shake the egg & guess what could be inside. After they've guessed, they can look inside and see if they were correct. When my preschoolers do this activity, once they open the egg, then I will repeat the letter, the letter sound & the name of the object so they can hear the correspondence (c, /c/, cotton ball). Objects that I use (don't let the super-little ones use this game!!): ball, balloon, button, cotton, elephant eraser, frog key chain, gumball, heart, key, money, marble, paper pieces, Polly Pocket, ring, smile sticker, star, tea bag, whistle, white crayon, zebra toy.

3. I do all sorts of Jellybean activities. We read "Too Many Jellybeans" and then do various jellybean activities. I gave each child a bag of jellybeans (this one wasn't for eating) in their Easter baskets, along with a printout of the Jellybean Prayer. We talked about each color and its significance for us as children of God. I then gave each child a second bag of jellybeans to use for our Jellybean Math activities. First the children sorted the jellybeans by color, by placing one into each square of this graph (I colored the bottom so that they would know which color went where). Then, using the corresponding color of crayon, the children colored under each jellybean that he/she placed on the graph. When they finished, they read me the results of their graphs, telling me which had the most, the least & which ones were tied. My kids are awesome at graphing (they're FOUR!!). After that activity, we also did jellybean addition, which also went great! Using this page (which, again, I pre-colored for them since we were short on time), the children again sorted their jellybeans by color. When they were finished sorting, the children were instructed to count how many jellybeans were in each rectangle and write the corresponding number in the box. They were to then "scoot" the jellybeans over to the right-side of each row & again count the total & write the number. This was a little more difficult than the graphing, but they still really enjoyed it...and then I FINALLY let them eat the jellybeans, which they were begging for me to do for pretty much the entire time.

4. Finally, I also wanted to make Empty Tomb cookies with my kids, but there was just no time this year since our last day before Easter break was Monday, which also happened to be St. Patrick's day...

Enjoy & have a Blessed Easter!

It's Valentine's Day!

Ok, ok, so I know it's a completely cheesy, over-commercialized holiday, perpetuated by the greeting card companies, but I don't care! I love having a reason to give my loved one a little extra loving! That said, we're still pretty low-key around here. We usually tell each other that we aren't going to get anything for each other, or that we should just make something. Last year, I think I made G an Indianapolis Colts fleece knot blanket. That thing gets so much use around here (ok mostly by freezing cold me, but still), so functional is the way to go. This year, we decided that we would just go out to dinner and exchange cards (then he mentioned that flowers don't count as a "gift" which made me smile, because I do love getting flowers, even though G knows that I don't expect them). So, this is what I came home to when I walked in the door after work yesterday (G was off due to weather).

Roses, a card & Sour Patch Kids - does he know me or what?....and apparently he doesn't think I'm sweet enough, because there's also a bowl of sugar there....my mom really loved that part of the picture. (Ok, he didn't really give me the sugar bowl, but it did make me realize that I need to clean off my table a little bit.) Mind you, the Sour Patch Kids were wrapped in G's wrapping paper of choice, newspaper....but it did have an ad on it about Valentine's Day, so I thought that was pretty thoughtful. We went out for a nice little dinner at Carabba's & tonight, we will be going out with his family, since his parents' anniversary is tomorrow.

Consequently, we officially decided at dinner last night that next year, we will start celebrating V-day on the 15th instead of the 14th, since that's when we got engaged, 5 years ago!