Joey Chatter

While in the bath:

J: "Mommy, if I pour water in my ear, will it come out the other side?"

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While playing:

J: "Mommy, did you marry me and daddy?"
S: "No, honey. I married Daddy, and we had you!"
J: "When you're married, do you get cars?"
S: "Sometimes, I guess."
J: "When I get married, I'm gonna get race cars!"
S: " O really? Well who are you going to marry?"
J: "Savanna - and we'll get race cars!"
S: "You can't marry Savanna - she's your sister"
J: "Well I still wanna get race cars"

What marriage and race cars have to do with each other? I'm not sure....

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While eating:

J: "My teeth chomps food up and my tounge makes food go down my drain and then it goes down the slide and out in my poop!"

I just love hearing him reason things out... and yes, he calls his throat a drain.

Pataskala Street Fair Parade!

This past week was the annual pataskala street fair - so fun! Saturday was the parade and I took my horse in it - even though there is lots of waiting around, I love taking my horse in parades. I just think it's fun to get her all shined up and pretty and to listen to the kids say 'O look at that beautiful horse!!' It's just fun. This year the plan was for Joey and Kara (my little sister-in-law) to ride Olivia and I would lead her. Well, at the last minute Joey decided he wanted to watch the parade - not ride in it. So it was Just Kara! She had a blast I think. It was a nice day - mid 70s so it wasn't super hot, and there was a nice breeze, so a perfect day for a parade. Kara controlled Olivia most of the time, I only had to grab her a couple times. That's pretty good because Kara hasn't ridden that much. The theme of the parade was "All fired up about Pataskala" so that's why all the flames. :) Here is my beautiful horsey and sister-in-law!!

Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio

For the past 6 months, I have donated alot of my breast milk to the "Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio." Over all, I donated 728 oz!! Many people have asked me what the milk bank is, what they do, and why I donate, so I figured I would post it on here.

The following info is from their pamphlet:
"Nothing can protect and nourish an infant like human milk. Human milk is even more important for premature and ill infants because it provides nutrition unmatched by formula. Often, the mothers of these fragile infants are unable to produce enough of this critical nourishment. Pasturized donor human milk allows these babies to benefit from the active growth hormones, developmental enzymes and immunological factors found in a mother's own milk.

The Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio provides human donor milk to babies, older children, or adults. Indications for human donor milk include: Prematurity, Malabsorption, Formula intolerance, Immunological deficiencies, congenital anomalies, Post-operative nutrition, and Biological mothers' milk unavailable" to name a few.

The milk is given to babies by a doctor's prescription only. One of the success stories I was told was a 2 year old girl who was only 15 lbs and was failing to thrive, because she would no longer tolerate ANYTHING put in her g-tube. So the dr prescribed human milk. In ONE YEAR she went from 2 years old and 15 pounds to 3 years old and 30 lbs! Doubled her weight! The drs said that without the human milk, she probably would have starved to death since her body wouldn't tolerate anything else.

I found the milk bank online when Savanna was 6 months old because I already had lots of milk stored for her and I had heard of milk banks, but didn't really know what they were all about. I am so glad I found them! I really feel I was able to help at least a few babies in need! I know not every mother can breastfeed, and I know that many of the sickest babies cannot get their mother's milk, because many times their mothers are sick as well, or it takes them a few days for their milk to come in.

If you would like more information, or are interested in becoming a donor mother, you can contact them at milkbank@ohiohealth.com or at 614-544-0810. This bank has drop off points in Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton, Athens, and even Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. They do offer for you to ship it to them if you don't live close enough to drop off. If you are a nursing mother but don't live in or around Ohio, I would encourage you to research milk banks in your area. I'm sure there's a need everywhere! I also have a few of their pamphlets here at my house if anyone is interested.

This is a picture ofthe scrapbook page that I made for the milk bank. They keep a scrapbook of all their donors. I went to my friend, Brandy's, house yesterday and made it (Thank you Brandy!!!) - I think it turned out sooo cute, I'm kind of sad to see it go! but I know at the milk bank it will be enjoyed by many!

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Here are just a few of my little stinker recently - she is so cute!!

I cannot keep this kid out of the dog's water... ugh!!!

And this is the poor girl after her Uncle Garrett and Aunt Kara put her shorts on her head. Poor baby! She thought it was funny though and walked around proudly like this for a while!

Joey and Savanna's birthday pictures 2009

One disadvantage to having my kid's birthday's so close together: having to do parties and such so close together.


One advantage to having my kid's birthday's so close together: I can do birthday pictures at the same time! We had some gift cards to Sears so I took my kids in today for Savanna's 1 year pictures and for Joey's 4 year pictures. They were pretty cooperative, even though Savanna was tired and Joey had a hard time with the 'smile' part. It seemed we would either get a smile that looked like we were killing him, or a frown. But the photographer got a couple of good smile pictures of him!


Behold the cuteness!!

525,600 minutes

525,600 minutes
525,000 moments so dear
525,600 minutes
how do you measure, measure a year?

I cannot believe it has been a year since little Savanna came into our lives:

Here she is moments after birth getting cleaned up. Poor baby very mad! (yes - the time and date stamp is off....)

First picture with Mommy and Daddy. I remember them giving her to me all swaddled up and I was just amazed! Yes, I did this with Joey, but I was shocked how new all the feelings felt the second time! It's a love so immediate and deep it just cannot be explained.

I just love this picture... Joey loves his little sister and has since he first met her. He still calls her 'our baby'. And before she could crawl he would always say 'can I hold our baby?' Of course now she's a little too big and wiggly and he has no intrest in holding her any more but he still loves her just the same!

How did that little baby turn into this gorgeous little girl in just one short year??

Isn't she beautiful??

Here are some fun facts about my baby girl:

• She can walk now, and quite well, but still prefers to crawl because it's a much faster mode of transportation if there's something she sees that she wants
• She had 4 teeth when she turned one, her 2 front bottom ones, and her top L front one, and her top L eye tooth. A side note that the day AFTER she turned one her other top front one came in along with her other top eye tooth.
• She loves to mimic words you say, though she doesn't realize really that she's saying words - she's mimiced piggy, grandma, thank you just to name a few
• The words she says regularly right now are Dog (she says Do for dog), Uh Oh, Da da, Baby and no
  
• She will walk around the room singing 'Happy happy happy happy happy' I'm certain she doesn't know she's actually saying a word, or it's meaning - she's just babbling, but it's still SUPER cute!
• She dances and squeals whenever she hears any music, including the organ at church!
• She loves to clap clap clap her hands! She knows some baby signs (all done, more, bye bye) but usually resorts to clapping instead of signing.
• She gets a very cheesy grin every time she sees a camera (see picture above!)
• She finally has enough hair for pig tails and I do them as often as possible because I think they're super cute!
• She LOVES animals, especially our dog and horse. She sits on our dog like he's a horse all the time - good thing he's a good dog!!
• She is a major stinker and gets into everything and when we are telling her not to do something, she'll look at us, smile and say NO and do it anyway.
• She's really gotten into climbing, which scares me to death
• She loves water - quite a water baby!
• She sleeps all night long, but is usually up by 6 or 6:30 a.m. - I'm hoping she learns to sleep in some time soon.
• She eats just about anything we do - it amazes me at what a good eater she is. Joey was never and still is not a good eater but Savanna will seem to shovel in anything we put in front of her.

We had a party for her on Saturday - it went well! Here are some pictures from the party:

I had to include this picture of Joey - he's such a sweet little boy!

Here is Savanna and her friend, Maggie enjoying the balloons!

One of the cakes - Ladybug!

I was super sad I took this one apart before getting a picture of it. Imagine the red 5" cake we gave savanna in the middle with the cupcakes around it. It was so cute!!

Here is Savanna wondering what this squishy thing is I put in front of her

Hm... it tastes decently, but what is it?

It's kinda squishy...

Look mom - my hand is red!!

Now she's getting into it...

Oooo! Fingerpainting!

My little devil girl... she got red icing EVERYWHERE. Why did I decide to give her a large cake with bright red icing? O yea... makes fun pictures... :)

In the bath with clothes on... figured it was the best place to undress her! Notice how red the water is even before I washed her face/hair

Getting clean and getting pigtails out so we could wash her hair. Here you can see her 2 teeth up top, which are hard to get a picture of!!

She says... o darn. I'm clean. poo. Where's that icing again?

Present time! She got lots of clothes, which is so what she needed! This little girl is growing sooo fast i can't keep clothes on her! I told everyone we have enough toys between our 2 kids to give toys to every child in china so I said we needed clothes. She got basically a second wardrobe and only 3 small toys.

I was very happy with how the day turned out and I think it was so fun to get together with everyone!

Happy first birthday little girl! I hope the next 17 years don't go as fast as this first one has gone! I love you!!

My nephew: the demon boy!

This is my brother-in-law Aaron, and my nephews, Jacob and Kenny.

I've had a pretty serious post up for about a week now, so I think its time for some comic relief. Talk about Adventures in Babysitting!! So tonight I came and babysat my sister, Amanda's, 4 kids so she and her husband, Aaron could go out to dinner and a movie for their 11th anniversary (which was Wednesday! Happy anniversary guys!)

At any rate, it's fun, but always a little chaotic at bed time trying to get her twin 2 year olds down, my baby asleep in a different house, my son asleep when he just wants to play with his cousins, and her 8 and 6 year old boys down when they try every trick to NOT get in bed since of course I'm a babysitter so they always test the waters. Well, I got the girls down fairly easy - 2 down, 4 to go. Then Savanna went down easily, and Joey went down decently easily since he was exhausted - 4 down, 2 to go. So after wrestling with the big boys for a bit, I got them in bed. I gave them hugs and kisses and turned off their light and walked out of the room. Not 2 seconds after leaving I heard this paniced 'AUNTIE EM!!' (yes - that's what they call me.....) It was Kenny (The 8 yr old). I ran in there and he said 'I think I'm bleeding!' I thought 'What?' and turned on the light. -- Yup - a nose bleed. I remembered at that point that he has had nose bleeds in the past and thought 'yippee'

So I took him in the bathroom and started holding toilet paper to his nose again and again and again. Then, I noticed something odd. I said 'Kenny - Look at me' He looked at me and OH MY GOSH - his EYE was bleeding!! I've never seen that before!! His nosebleed turned into an eye bleed!!! My first reaction was to panic, but of course he's only 8 and I didn't want to scare him, so keeping it light, I called my mom (she's an RN) at home. I was SO relieved when she answered and I explained the situation. She said it's fine - everything is connected, so if the blood can't find its way out of the nose, it will try other routes. She said as long as it's not gushing, its fine. Well of course Kenny heard me say what happened and he thought it was SOOO COOL! He was laughing so hard it was coming out of his eye faster. Then he found if he held his nose and blew, it came out more. Ugh - BOYS! I had to make him stop laughing and blowing and making his eye bleed. I could not believe it!! GROSS!!

Kenny's a such a good little guy and quite a trooper! I was afraid he would be scared to know his eye was bleeding, but he just thought it was cool. Thankfully shortly after that whole situation the nose bleed stopped and he got back in bed. *whew* what an adventure!b

I Believe There Are Angels Among Us!!

Yesterday I experienced a miracle and an angel. It was amazing! I really feel I need to record this so my children can appreciate it some day - so here goes. Yesterday my friend, Amy and I, took two of her horses, Leo and Dancer to hocking hills for a nice trail ride. It was GORGEOUS!! The weather was awesome and it was just fun. I love hanging out with my friend while riding. Definately a great way to unwind from day in and day out of kids.

Well, at one point, a woman came trotting up behind us. It really caught me by surprise - not because there was someone else on the trail, but because she was alone. You should NEVER ride alone on trails like that because 1) if you fall off and get knocked out, there is no one to help! You won't be found for days! and 2) horses are herd animals- they do not like being alone at all without other horses for protection. So the fact that she was out alone I was like hm. Then when she pulled up with us I noticed she was probably in her 70s - maybe 60s, but I think 70s). That really shocked me that someone that aged would 1) be riding at all and 2) be riding alone in a place like Hocking Hills. Now, usually when you encounter other people on the trails, you say hi, but keep to yourself. But this woman ended up riding with us, chatting from time to time. I really liked her immediately. And I can HONESTLY say that it went through my mind 'this woman kind of seems like an angel' - you know the kind you hear that come out of no where and end up helping you? So then I thought 'hm - I wonder what we would need an angel for? ah she's probably not an angel - Amy and I have ridden so many times on trails, I'm sure we're fine.'

Well not 10 minutes after I thought that, we came to a super muddy part of the trail. It was a very thin trail - single-file-horse line kind of thing. The woman was about 4 or 5 horse lengths ahead of Amy and I. I went through this muddy ravine first, honestly not even thinking of the danger cause we had been through so much mud already. But the horse I was on had been prissy about the mud all day - he has been trying to avoid it at all costs. Well, before I knew what was happening, Leo tried to step up on the side of the revine (probably 18 inches up) but his front right foot slipped and down he went. I remember as he was falling, I pictured my right leg being crushed so I pulled that leg up fast, which propelled me off of his right side. I hit the side of the ravine and as he stood up, I slipped underneith him. The first thing I felt was a HUGE Leo foot on my pelvis - REALLY hard. I clearly remember thinking 'O God - my pelvis is going to be crushed!' Then I felt his feet on my chest, though I lost track of where what feet landed on me. When he stepped on my chest, I thought 'O no - I'm going to have cracked ribs and punctured lungs!' Then once he found his footing - I know he was trying not to hurt me, but he kept slipping on me and the mud - he trotted up ahead a few steps.

Amy looked down at me - I can just imagine what she saw because I was COVERED in the mud - probably a blessing because I'm sure the soft ground offered shock absorption.

She said 'Are you OK??'

I took a breath - happy to find I COULD still breath and said 'I think so.'

And she said 'Because he stepped on you!'

I said 'I know...' I sat up and evaluated everything - shocked to find I didn't have anything that hurt extremely bad. Then I realized the woman ahead of us had stopped the horse that I had been riding - she blocked the trail so he couldn't run away. She said 'Is she ok??'

I stood up - shocked that I could! I walked over to the horse, thinking I could probably get back on him and ride back. I knew we were very far from the trail head (about 5 miles!) and I knew I couldn't walk it back. Amy offered to walk it with me, but I knew with the condition of the trails, I wouldn't be able to walk the horse back. I had to ride, or EMS was going to have to come haul me out of there. Those were my choices and I didn't want to wait the 2 hours it would probably take for EMS to get to us. So I started trying to find a place to mount, but felt like I was going to pass out. I sat down, and then layed down for a while. When I was feeling better, probably about 10 or 15 minutes later, I got back up on the horse. What a good horse allowing me! He had to be so scared - poor guy. Then the woman - the angel - that was with us led us down the rest of the trecherous part of the trail. She talked me through it all the way. She told me that if my horse started sliding, she would keep her horse close so Leo could slide into her horse, Pedro. Cute horse, cute name!! She kept asking if I was OK, if I was nauseous, if I was going to pass out, etc. Then we came to a fork in the road and she directed us the way back to the camp - said the most dangerous parts are past and we would get back fine on our own.

I realized I didn't even know her name, so I asked her and she said 'Edna'. She went left on the fork-in-the-road and we went right, the way she directed us. I'll probably never see her again, but I hope she knows how much she really helped me. I have to tell you that Leo probably would have taken off had her horse not been there. I would not have been able to walk back. Even if Leo had stayed, I don't know if I could have made it over the other dangerous parts we went through with how scared both Leo and I were. She and her horse were rocks for us.

What a miracle that God sent her to us. If she was a real woman, or an angel, I don't know. But I KNOW God sent her to help us through that scary time. What a miracle that I didn't get more than bumps and bruises. I did go to the ER later that night and they x-rayed my pelvis and knee and found nothing wrong. Just said that my knee had been twisted pretty badly. They put me in a knee brace and sent me home.

I've been asked today if I'll ever ride again. YES. As Amy pointed out, that stuff can happen anywhere, any time. I could get in a car accident, I could crash on my roller blades. I could trip while walking and break a leg. I could fall out of our new boat and run into the motor. There are sooo many 'what ifs' But I know how much I love horses and just having a mishap like this is not enough to keep me off (of course I'll stay off till I'm healed...) I will be more careful in the future, I will always wear my helmet - I am so thankful I was wearing it yesterday! I am even considering shopping for a riding vest for dangerous trail riding.

I have to ask though, Why did God send Edna to help? Why did he prevent me from being hurt? I guess he knew I had to witness a miracle. It humbles me he kept me safe so my children still have their mother. It humbles me he went out of his way so much to help me. I've always known he loves me, but this proved to me he DOES know me personally and cares for my well-being. I don't understand it, but I am extremely grateful for it.