Congrats!

Congratulations to my sister Jaime and her husband E.J.! My niece Callan will be receiving a baby brother or sister sometime in October. Brother? What's that?

On my side of the family we have my six girls, of course, my youngest sister has three boys, and then the middle one, Jaime, has one little girl who will be 2 in July. So we are definitely heavily girl leaning, especially if you consider my generation - my parents had three girls. (We are even more heavily skewed on Kelly's side: out of 8 grandchildren there is ONE boy!)

We are especially excited for them because they did not go through the infertility issues this time around. They dealt with infertility for over two years last time, and it was very hard for my sister. Praising God for this blessing, and praying for an easy first trimester!

Ankle update

I went to see the foot/ankle orthopedist who has been treating my partially torn tendon in my left ankle yesterday afternoon and he was very pleased. I have progressed so far that I can actually hold my arch up barefoot. That doesn't sound like much, but just a few months ago, my arch was on the floor if I didn't have a shoe on. It's my muscles that are holding the foot up, not the tendon, but it is definitely a good sign.

In fact, he called me "an interesting case." He said he's almost never seen this - progress like this, I mean. He wants me to do some foot muscle strengthening exercises to see if we can continue to build up the muscle to help compensate for the tendon who's literally falling down on the job. So for the foreseeable future, he will check me every 3 months and we'll just wait and see if I ever need surgery on it. I am praying not, because it is a major, major reconstruction with a long, arduous recovery. Not something I'm looking forward to.

So now I'm just praising God for the progress and the lack of much pain!

Aubrey is a happy girl

A year ago, Aubrey got braces. Here's what the poor girl looked like then.
She got the braces off today! Yes, she's quite happy. Here's what she looks like today.
We have to go back in a week for her retainer and some spacers which will be glued in for a year and a half to two years while we wait for the rest of her adult teeth to come in. Then she gets to undergo another round of braces. Yes, this is only the end of phase 1. Her teeth were so messed up that it was affecting her jaw growth, so they needed to go ahead and do something NOW to stop them from affecting her growth, and to allow the rest of her teeth to come in better, which will hopefully mean a short phase 2.

Kora is the only one not 100% happy though. She's happy for her sister, but she knows that this means it's her turn now. She goes in for the initial visit on February 22, and we'll schedule B-day (brace day) for her then. She's really thrilled, lemme tell ya.

Is the end in sight?

Ashlynn, now 21 months old, has started telling us when she has dirtied her diaper, at least part of the time. A couple of days ago, I came out of my room, and she ran up to me, saying, "Mama, oo-ee. Mama, oo-ee." This is, of course, short for shoo-ey, the smell.

None of my kids have potty trained early, and I don't really expect Ashlynn to either. I think you have to have an extremely motivated mother to train early, and that I am not. Shoot, when we are travelling, there are times I wished they all still wore diapers. Any chance I could get some of those astronaut diapers for the 11 and 13 year old before our next trip to Grandma's house?

Anyway, it does make me realize that our diaper days are nearly done. In the last 13 years, since we first became parents, we have had about 6-8 months of absolutely no diapers or pull-ups. We've had short times when we'd had no one in diapers during the day, but even then we still had someone in a diaper or pull-up at night. At one time, we had two in diapers 24/7 and another in pull-ups at night! But after Lauryn potty-trained, we had a few months before Ashlynn was born when she needed nothing.

I don't think diapers will be something I miss about having very small children. I KNOW a diaper bag will not be missed. And I definitely won't miss the potty training once that is behind me (no pun intended ;-) ). I think I will miss the puffy bottoms and the funny walk the diapers make toddlers have.

Vanity Checked

Yesterday, I found something that I had hoped I would never find, or at least not for another 10 years or so. My. First. Grey. Hair. I'm NOT gonna cry. No, I'm not.

Is it normal to cry about this? I've been holding back, but if everyone else does, I'll join in. ;-) My husband has been searching my hair, hoping to find one for years, as he's been going grey for at least 10 years. And I have several friends who had grey before they were 30. But I really didn't think it would happen to me before 40.

Sigh.

In all honesty, the past 11 months have been enough to turn every hair on my head grey, so I guess I should be thankful it is only one. But I know they tend to multiply. I guess I'm gonna have to start paying attention to the sales on hair color at CVS from now on. I haven't even been clipping those coupons before, but that too is at an end. Quick, someone tell me something to cheer me up!

Review: If Mama Ain't Planning

If Mama Ain’t Planning, 2010: Daily Devotional Planner

Format: e-book

Price: $9.99

Available at: If Mama Ain’t Planning!

Affiliate Program also available!

The first of the year is often a time for reflection and changes made to our lives. Just a brief glance through the sales ads will tell you that most people resolve to do two things this time of the year: get in shape and get organized. Many Christians also decide to spend more time reading the Scriptures as well. If Mama Ain't Planning won't help you get in shape, but it could definitely help you with the other two!

This is truly a neat little ebook. It starts off with an overview of the Scriptures which will be the focus of each month of the following year. Then there is a printable month calendar, suitable for putting on the refrigerator, for example. The monthly calendar also has reminders of the focal Scriptures for the month as well as what she is encouraging the prayer focus to be. For example, in January, the focus is on righteousness, so the verses and prayer focus is on that subject, praying for God to make us more like Him.

Following the monthly calendar are weekly calendars, again with the verses to read that week, as well as three other sections: "Must Do," "Might do," and "Menu." There is ample room to write out the menu for the week here, as well as the priorities for the week, all in one spot.

At the beginning of each month, she has written a devotional on the theme of the month, for instance as I mentioned, January's is "If Mama Ain't Righteous." In an easy style of one friend to another, she gets you thinking about how you as a wife and mother affect the rest of your family. Remember the saying "If Mama Ain't Happy, then nobody's happy!" Well, Anitra Elmore has taken the saying and applied it. If Mama's not displaying a good attitude, not doing what she should, how can we expect our children to? This, in essence is the theme of January. The other months follow with themes such as wisdom, service, relationships, etc. throughout the year.

I think this is a neat little book, easy to use (you do have to have Adobe downloaded onto your computer to read and print it). The pages are even pretty to look at. The only negatives are very small ones. the very nature of the ebook makes it so that you can't type onto them. If you are a print it out and use it type of person this will be of no problem whatsoever. If you are a strictly digital person, keeping everything on the computer, it might not be as useful to you, though you could still refer to the Scriptures and use the themes. But really, this is a compilation of pages meant to be printed. This does make it easier for the rest of the family to see, however.

The only other downside, also a minor one, is that one or two of the "Spiritual Habits" that are encouraged each month may not sit well with all Christians, depending on their beliefs. For instance, while the activity that is encouraged to become a habit in January is a regular, daily reading of the Bible, in February, the habit is regular fasting as the Lord leads. Some of my friends and family would be uncomfortable with the idea of fasting. However, if this isn't something you would disagree with, it is easily skipped. So this is really a very minor issue.

If you are at all interested, Mrs. Elmore has a neat blog, called, of course, If Mama Ain't... I hope you enjoy her book as much as I have!

This is a review for MamaBuzz. This product was provided for free for review purposes.

Conversations with a 5 year old

A couple of days ago, Lauryn was explaining something very obvious to her older sisters. And they, thinking they were being smart, asked her sarcastically:

"So, Lauryn, how did you think of that?"

To which Lauryn very smugly replied, "My brain helped me."