We have never really had a problem in our family with jealousy when a new baby arrives. I am thankful for that. Usually we just notice when the children (usually the one who used to be the baby) is needing a little extra cuddles. If we pay attention and meet that need then there is never a problem with jealousy.

My two year old has a new phrase that she uses to let me know she needs some lovin’. She says, “Mommy, I need you,” and she uses the best whiny voice you can imagine. So I pick her us and we cuddle and she is happy again.

Well, this morning she came to me with her, “Mommy, I need you,” cry. I picked her up and she was quiet. Next thing you know she is pulling my shirt out and looking down it! I look at her and say, “Um, what are you doing? Do you need to nurse?” Usually when this happens she smiles and says no and runs off to play. Well, this morning she looks at me with the saddest eyes you have ever seen and says, “Uh huh!” (meaning YES!)

Shocked I asked her again and received the same reply!

I told her I didn’t really think she needed that but that she just needed a hug. She put her arms out and gave a big hug! Then she looks at me and says, “Mommy, I need some juice!” LOL

Maybe she was thirsty after all!!!! HaHa!!

What do you get when you have an Alaskan child who is deprived of secular Christmas stories?  You get to overhear the following  conversation.

My four year old was looking at a piano book earlier this morning and was on the page with the song Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  She noticed a drawing of Rudolf.  She pointed to his red nose and then with a bit of urgency and concern she asks,

“What happened to the caribou?!?!?!”

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After a short pause she answered her own question.

“Oh, he is blowing a bubble out his nose.”

Image via Wikipedia

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Do you think it is time for me to tell her the story??  LOL  Nah, overhearing these conversations is priceless!

I am soooo ready to have this little bundle!  I am used to delivering early by a week or two and I am hoping that will be the case this time.  I am more than ready to pop!  I wonder if after reading the list below you will agree with me.

You know it is time to have your baby when:

• You notice that people no longer look at you but at your belly.
• You have practically outgrown every maternity outfit you own.
• It takes either help or five full minutes to roll over in bed.
• You notice 80 year olds walking better and at a faster pace than yourself.
• People have been asking for two months if the baby is due any day.
• People comment about HOW big you are and that you definitely LOOK ready.
• Walking up the stairs makes you as winded as running a marathon normally would.
• After only being home  for 12 days (from a seven month deployment) your hubby says it is time for you have that baby because it seems like you have been pregnant forever!
• You use your belly not only as a table but it is a very stable table.
• You begin to believe that getting out of the bathtub should be considered an Olympic event!
• When you step on the scale you wonder why your husband’s weight is registering!
• You have at least one moment a day when you cry because you just don’t think you can carry this heavy weight even two steps longer.
• You start having the recurrent pregnancy nightmare of delivering in the car and ruining the interior of the nice vehicle.
• You begin to think you could breath fire because the heartburn is winning out over that bottle of Tums you carry everywhere with you.

MOST OF ALL:

• Because it would be so much better to hold that sweet baby in your arms, see what he looks like, caress the soft baby skin, and be able to breath once again!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you put a three (almost four) year old, a twenty month old, and a full container of baby powder all together in a tiny one person shower stall completely unsupervised?  Well, me neither!  BUT, I found out!

Apparently, when I thought the children were all downstairs playing nicely, I was correct but missing one vital piece of information.  The older siblings were not actually paying attention to the younger ones as they played.  I think I would have been angry if it hadn’t been such a funny sight!!

Now the three year old didn’t look too bad.  Either it was because she was smarter or maybe just taller, or even maybe because she may have been the instigator(first thing she said was her little sister wanted to play with it–hmmm) but she only had baby powder on her clothing.  The shower stall and the few other items they took with them were completely covered!  The one year old on the other hand, my oh my!

She even had it caked in her eyelashes!!  I carried her up the stairs and down the hall to the bathtub in record time leaving a trail of baby powder behind.  I had to have someone vacuum up the hardwood flooring fast because people were trying not to slip on the baby powder as they traveled in to see the sight.  I think there may even still be baby powder footprints on the carpeted stairs!  All I have been able to smell for two days is baby powder.  I am thankful, there are definitely worse things to smell.

I did manage to get a photo of my one year old.  The photo doesn’t even do the situation justice though because of the level of powder that fell off of her from the carry upstairs and her realizing something was wrong and trying to wipe it off.  BUT to answer the question of what would happen if you put a three (almost four) year old, a twenty month old, and a full container of baby powder all together in a tiny one person shower stall completely unsupervised, I will share the photo.  Don’t you just love the look?  I love the expression even more, it is as if she is asking, “What?????”  LOL!

Since this applies today I thought that I would repost this old Thursday Thirteen. You may laugh, you may cry, just be assured that I am heading to Costco today! I promise!

Thirteen Things That Scream “Go To The Grocery Store!”

1. Last payday, 2 weeks ago, you only spent a fourth of your regular grocery budget.
2. You are rationing toilet paper squares.
3. Except for the soy sauce and balsamic vinaigrette, and the little mustard packets you swiped from Subway, ALL of your condiments are gone.
4. You sliced your last 4 cheese sticks to stick in a casserole.
5. You used cans of evaporated milk to make breakfast.
6. You run out of the plastic grocery bags you usually save to line the bathroom trash cans.
7. When asked what’s for dinner, you say, I don’t know, I just threw stuff in there!
8. Celery is supposed to be rubbery, right?
9. Children open the refrigerator door and stand there longingly with the look of death by starvation on their faces.
10. There is water or water or water to drink.
11. The only thing in your freezer is ice and that old box of baking soda.
12. Sugar, what is sugar?
13. When your children ask, “uh mom, when are you going shopping again? I’M STARVING!!!!”

You know, I should know by now never to mutter the words, “What’s next?”  When, oh when, will I learn that lesson?  I want to forewarn you that this post may seem like one big, huge complaint but honestly it is not.  In fact, I am finding this rather comical at the moment.

You know they say big surprises come in threes when your hubby deploys.  We have passed that mark a while ago.  Hubby asked me in an email the other night if I was keeping a count.  Well, I really wasn’t, I was just remembering everything that had happened over the past two months that he has been gone.  But, I think I may just keep a count because I am beginning to think it may be a good thing to remember all that God has allowed to be thrown our way and what he has brought us through.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…

Let me share with you a bit of our surprises.  One of which was an AWESOME surprise, the others, well, not so much.

Here we go…..

This deployment started off with rush.  His date was bumped up.  I posted that story HERE.

Two days after hubby left we found out that we are expecting baby number ten. I blogged about that HERE.  This is the AWESOME surprise!  Now on to the rest…

I also found out that I had actually broken my thumb not only damaged the ligaments.

When hubby’s pre-deployment training was over there was a little bit of a stress in actually getting him to where he needed to be.  There was an uprising in a country he was to fly through and things had to be rerouted.  It took him a week, maybe longer to actually hop around and get to where he needed to be.  That was a little stressful for me. After all, the clock doesn’t start counting down until he gets there.

A few weeks after hubby left we had a bum tire on the jeep.  It had been giving us some problems for a while but it was to the point where I would air it up and by the next morning I was praying to make it to the air pump!  We needed all new tires anyway so that is what we did.  Cha ching…..

Time came around for us to switch the studded tires off the van and when I took it in to have that done they told me my brakes were almost gone.  So I paid for a brake job too.  Cha ching….again.

Now the service light for the jeep is on.  It needs the regularly scheduled maintenance for 50,000 miles.  I am afraid to check and see what that bill is going to look like. Cha ching….again AND again.

An outlet in the kitchen just quit working.  So the under the counter lights are useless and I had to move the microwave.  Easy enough I guess but now I have a hard time finding a place to use my chopping block when making salads and the like.

Then there is the whole situation with the post office.  Misdelivery of package slip and when we went to check on it (we had been tracking the package) they had actually given the package out to someone else!  Apparently, they didn’t check ID and verify that the person they gave it to was who the package was supposed to go to.  Basically, they will do NOTHING and my daughter is out over $100. Postal workers tend to run and hide when I walk in now! Mwahahaha!

Moving on…..

Since we have had several added expenses lately.  Aside from the ones I just told you about, I am trying to pay for camp and plane tickets to get there as well as the $100 a month bill for hubby’s internet service in Afghanistan.  At least, hubby gets separation and hazard pay to help out.  So you know what, it is just the perfect time for my vacuum cleaner to break.  I really have not had to money and honestly I haven’t had the energy to go and buy a new one yet.  After three weeks without vacuuming I decided to borrow the neighbor’s vacuum.  After all, if I hadn’t the loose hair on the floor would have formed into another dog.  And two dogs is enough around here.  I plan on buying a new vacuum this weekend.  cha ching….

Ah, and then yesterday….  My older girls were outside playing frisbee.  Do you see where I am going from here??  Yep, we have a broken window!  It was purely an accident.  After all, when a left hander decides to try and throw right handed and the frisbee hits the deck railing who would think it would bounce and hit and shatter a window?  After, the fear and shock of the sound of shattering glass and a bit of, “How am I going to pay for this?” wore off; all I can do now is laugh.  I emailed hubby and he said his first reaction was to laugh too!  cha cha chingaling….

As I sat last night thinking of writing this post, I decided I would entitle it, “What Next?”  After all, that question has been going through my mind for a while now.  But as I sat down to pay the bills this morning, that question was answered.

I usually just pay our mortgage payment and rarely open the bill, after all, it is a set amount.  But thankfully, today I did open it.  I noticed our mortgage payment went up a pretty decent amount.  Wondering what in the world was going on, I called the bank.  Apparently, our home owner’s insurance went up.  The lady on the phone even suggested that it was a considerable amount and suggested we look for a new insurer!  She asked if we had filed a claim recently.  Well, we had…you can read about the rain in the bedroom HERE. She said that was most likely the reason for the increase.  Of course, we were never notified and no one even alluded to the fact that our insurance would go up if we had filed the claim. cha cha chingaling aling….

So, now I have a higher mortgage payment, just what we needed.  But you know, none of this is a surprise to God and he is providing for us in ways that I could not even imagine.  We are blessed and I have not lost sight of that fact.  But, I don’t think I will be asking the question, “What next?” for a long, long time.  I think I have learned my lesson in that regard.  I have also learned to laugh and take life as it comes and not to get too overly stressed. Well, at least for the moment.

My sweet little baby who is prone to the occasional “NO!” with a little grin really is actually a very obedient little girl! Not that she doesn’t have her moments of course. I thought I would share with you one of her most obedient moments that we experienced the other day. It ended with everyone chuckling and tons of loving on her!

I was sitting on the couch and she walked up to me. She was partially real crying and partially fake crying. If your a parent I am sure you have experienced that.  As she walked up to me whining, fussing, and kind of crying, I looked at her and said, “Don’t you cry at me.”

She looked straight at me and said, “Ok.” She grinned and walked on.

What an adorable and obedient child! Of course, after we stopped laughing, she received lots and lots of loving and praises for being such a good girl!

I pose a question for you to ponder…….and chuckle at a bit…..

Suppose you were at a party where everyone was drinking.(yes, I know, you would never be there)  They ran out of beer and asked you to go and get some more.  As a Christian (question posed to my hubby “as a pastor”) would you do so?

Before answering, consider John chapter 2 verses 1-12….

Image by hlkljgk via Flickr

Hmmmmm, Jesus’ first miracle, turning water to wine in the middle of a party…..

Rather than getting the flu shot, why not just make your own! This is a pretty funny clip making a good point! I will just take my chances, thank you! :O)

Here you go–something to make you laugh this morning!

Tim Hawkins-My Favorite Bible Verse