Oh Santa!

And Santa's big delivery was a dollhouse for the girls. They were thrilled and slightly amazed at how big it is! (Well, when you've got three little girls clamoring to cram their Kelly and princess dolls into tiny chairs, it pays to have a big house!) Oh, and little Micah, who is content to push empty water bottles around the house, got a monkey-ball from Santa. ("I wouldn't give his troubles to a monkey on a ball!" {obscure Letterman sort-of-reference} 

Merry Christmas!

Well, at exactly this time last year, Anna and I were at the Children's Medical Center in the ER waiting to get the gash in her face stitched up after falling out of my arms onto the leg of an upturned stool. (No, it was not pretty.) So, I'm thankful to report that as of noon on Christmas Day 2008, there have been no accidents. Well, okay, there was the pecan cookie reaction that Bethany had last night at church which precipitated me racing to Walgreen's to get some Benadryl (she was fine). Oh, and Micah crawl-tripping over some shoes and bumping his face on the mudroom cubbies which resulted in him biting his lip (he was fine). All in all, though, it has been a lovely and relaxing Christmas for us. And I just wanted to share a little peace and joy with you all.....:)

Random pumpkin-carving picture of the Boy

Ok, I know you don't come to my blog to see pictures of our laundry, so I decided I just HAD to upload this hysterical one of Micah attempting to clean out our pumpkin for carving at Halloween. A picture is worth....

Thank God for tumble dryers

So, our dryer died last week. We had a repairman come out and tell us we'd be better off buying a new one than sinking money into this one. So, we wait. And waiting is not a huge problem. The problem came when the repairman said, "Oh, sure, you can continue to use this one until next week. Just make sure it cools down between uses."  Buoyed by the fact that I got a load of Mom and Dad laundry washed and dried, I boldly tossed a fairly large load of kid clothes in the washer (we had run out of panties). And even though the dryer has now had a full 36 hours to cool down, it will not work. So, I'm stuck hanging up a ton of very small t-shirts, footed PJs etc. This is what ONE load of kid laundry in the Lawrence household (lights only) looks like. In case you're curious, that's 33 hangers' worth, not to mention the 18 pairs of very tiny panties hanging around the house (strategically placed over the heating vents). I realize that people all over the world get along swimmingly without tumble dryers, but I am thankful I don't have to be one of them!

Multitasking

Most of my day is spent multitasking, especially when it comes to nursing Micah. Nurse the baby while I eat breakfast and check email in the mornings. Nurse the baby while teaching Bethany about inches and centimeters. Nurse the baby while reading a book to Anna and Katherine. But at night in order to calm Micah down enough to get him in bed, I have to sit alone with him in his quiet room for the last feeding. I'm thankful for this forced single-tasking experience. I can't even read a book because he is distracted by the page-turning. So, I sit and look at the walls in his bedroom and think or pray or watch him. Tonight he was holding onto the soft sleeve of my tee shirt, running it through his fingers. If I would move my arm away, he was intent on finding that sleeve again. And he was content, blissful, really. The way a little baby should be. And so was I, doing only one thing.

Well, she won. Michelle has been after me for months to start a blog. I told her that once Micah starting going to bed at a reasonable hour, I would have a go at it. So, here I am. We'll see how well I can keep up with it!

The family picture above was taken at the recent Butterfly Ball, our birthday celebration for Bethany (5 on November 26th), and Anna and Katherine (3 on October 31st). We all dressed up and enjoyed watching 9 little girls run around in fancy dresses and butterfly wings! It was great fun! More pictures to follow....