Eventful Day

Hannah was off of school today and we were getting ready for a Valentine's Day party a friend and I hosted for some of the sem kids and their families. Hannah was looking for a balloon I wanted to take with us. She came out of the playroom holding her hand out and with a panicky voice said, "Mom, I got a paper cut." The end of her finger had a little smear of blood on it so I grabbed her hand and walked her into the bathroom. Now to back up, several times in the past she has gotten herself into quite a state when she sees her own blood. Her face loses all color and she starts crying that she's going to throw up. Of course she was doing that today so I sat her down on the potty chair/stool in the bathroom, blotted her finger and got a band-aid on it. She began crying and saying she was going to be sick, she needed the trash can, she didn't feel good, etc. I got the trash can out and she about fell into it. I realized her eyes were closed and she was falling off the stool. I eased her onto the ground, called for Don and began brushing her hair out of her face. She opened her eyes a few seconds later...she wasn't out for long, but she definitely fainted. From a paper cut.

So once she was feeling better, it was time to head out in the snow for the Valentine's party. We had about 34 kids and 14 moms/grandparents/caregivers. It was fun and exhausting. You know how adults always ask about kids, "Where do they get their energy?" They suck it directly from us!

I was watching Noah while we were at the party. He's 8 1/2 months old and he can roll pretty much anywhere he wants to go - the girls did too. He can pivot around in a circle and push himself backwards on his tummy, but he can't propel himself forward. He's been getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth since before Christmas - about two months! Well, at the party I saw him up on his knees and he picked his hands up a couple times, like he was going to crawl but then flopped back down onto his tummy. Later this afternoon he was sitting up and I was feeding him pieces of graham cracker. He saw the rest of the cracker on the plate, lunged for it and began crawling! So far the only things worth crawling for are food and balls, but I bet within a couple days he'll be crawling absolutely everywhere. It's a fun transition (and much earlier than either of the girls) and it'll be interesting to see what else he gets into. I'm sure we'll need to do even more childproofing.

To add to the eventful day, my friend Mendy (who did all the work planning the fun party for the kids) had one too. Her son got his first bloody nose at the party and she set a potholder on top of her stove on fire this afternoon. Never a dull moment around here!

I've uploaded some new pictures. Here's the link to one of the albums:

February 2010

They don't have captions yet - hopefully soon! There are new albums for December, January, and February. You can see that we've been having fun at Hannah's school parties, at the Magic House, visiting Grammies in Tennessee, and playing in the snow. Noah's been having fun playing and learning how to eat (food, paper, chalk, etc.).

Keep Don in prayer this week. He's working on a paper (up over 15 pages now), has another paper due Thursday, and three final exams Thursday and Friday. He's been up late several nights in a row, which doesn't agree with him but there's no end in sight (at least until we arrive in CA). Keep us in prayer for safe travel and we'll see many of you soon!