The things we do for our kids...

Picture a 31 year old (that's right, I'm not 32 yet), mother of 4, with her 6 year old son in his booster seat driving around town jamming out to the bass thumping sound of a DJ Magic Mike Pandora mix.

Yep, that was us today. You see, Micah likes to dance. And I love to see him smile. We had all the necessary components fall into place today to make that happen. I got to spend the day with just him while we went on a field trip to the Jacksonville zoo. We had Chris' car and consequently access to a nice sound system. Add that all together and we needed some B-A-S-S.

Let's just say.. I got some head turns in the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A while getting breakfast. I'm not sure if it was because of the car rattling bass or the 31 year old mom's car it was coming from. Either way, well worth the looks!

Can I blame it on the kids? Please?

Wow, just where in the world did 2 1/2 years go? I can't believe that was the last time I posted on my blog. I'm going to blame it on the kids and I will stand with pride and say that. I wouldn't have wanted to have spent my time any other way.


I have missed blogging though. I doubt anyone reads it, but it's at least a good way to get my thoughts out. It's also fun to read my old posts that are a snapshot in time. Presidential elections, economy woes, iPhone buzz, life with only 2 kids. It is so encouraging to see clearly in hindsight how God has been working.


So, let's see if we can get this thing going again....

Time for a geeky post..

So, I bit the bullet a few weeks ago and got myself the iPhone. I must say, it's pretty impressive. There are a lot of really cool things that have already made my life a little easier. Perhaps the best part is just having internet access wherever I go. If I'm away from the house and need to look something up - bam! There it is. But, there are definitely a few bugs that still need to be worked out.

One of the most annoying ones is the add on installed apps. I run into this problem almost daily. I'll go to launch one of the apps and it just flashes and returns to the home screen. The only solution I've found is to delete the app and reinstall it by going back to the App Store or synching the phone. This is particularly annoying when I'm trying to scramble out of the house to go running and I try to launch my app to track my run and it crashes. Arrgh! Does it not realize I only have a few minutes before I need to get back and cook dinner?! Apparently this is a widely known issue. Most blog posts I read reported it would be taken care of with the new OS release. But, that came out a couple days ago and the problem almost seems worse now.

The next one isn't a bug as something I'm stumped over. I'm struggling to find a good way to stream live radio from local stations. You'd think I could just go to the stations site and listen, but Safari doesn't support the formats. There are various apps you can install for some of the most popular stations on the country. But, some of the stations I want to listen to don't end up on those apps. In particular, I want to listen to the Dave Ramsey show live (I normally do this on AM 1530 if I'm home) and Air1 (a national station that brodcasts locally on FM 89.5). If anyone has a solution to this - PLEASE let me know.

Yuck!

With kids, some days are better than others. Today has been one of those not so good days. I've literally been cleaning up bodily fluids since this morning. It started with Amy Jo. She has had poop go up her entire back and all over clothes twice today. And the day isn't over yet! But, I'm used to that.. so no big deal.

But, then Micah started throwing up. And throwing up. And throwing up some more. It started this morning when we went to get in the van. Just as he got in, he spewed all over the seat and the floor. He quickly jumped out (smart boy!) and continued to throw up all over the concrete. Bleh! When he finished he was so exhausted he could hardly keep his eyes open. So, I put him in the bed and went outside to wash out the van. Just as I was finishing up, he came running outside crying saying he had thrown up all over his bed. Ahhh! So, I cleaned up him up, sat him on the couch and went to clean up the bedroom. Not two minutes after I finished that, he threw up on the couch. We cleaned that up and now we've been laying on the couch for a few hours. We've got our system down. He will motion to me to pick up the garbage can, he'll spew, and we'll keep watching movies. It seems to have slowed down, so I'm hoping the worst might be over. But, I feel totally gross. Hopefully Chris will be home soon and I can shower up. I'm hoping it's just some sort of food poisoning since he doesn't have a fever.

Katie seems to thrive off of the opportunities to show compassion. She keeps checking on Micah and rubbing his head and says "Are you okay, buddy?" Cute stuff.

Okay, back to watching Cars with Micah...

Hi-yah!

So, it's a new day with a new president. Not quite the outcome I had hoped for, but it is what it is. I'm thankful I have a God who is ultimately in control. He knew long before today that Barak Obama would be president and I'm glad He knows better than me what is best for His people. I was encouraged this morning as I got together with a group of friends and we studied some of the Psalms. Particularly, Psalm 8 helps put some perspective on all of this..


When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
If God cares for us individually that much, this little thing called the election just doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

Annywhooo... Enough about politics. Moving on.

Micah started taking Karate last week. Let's just say.. that didn't last long. He told me last night he didn't want to do it anymore. In his words "All that running makes me tired". (The instructor makes the kids run about 1/4 of a mile each class). Hmm. Normally I don't think I'd let my kid quit that easily. But, considering it was going to cost about $700 for 6 months worth of classes (that was the cheapest I could find), I think I'm gonna let my kid be a quitter. :)

And I promised some pics... Here we go!

No, the sky is not falling...

I went up to the Town Center this afternoon and saw something very interesting. Lots and LOTS of people. People everywhere, walking around with their shopping bags and their lattes from Starbucks. If it weren't for the news telling me otherwise, I would never have known we were in the midst of "the worst time since the Great Depression". Seeing that today leaves me with two possible explanations - either people are in denial OR maybe things really aren't that bad. Hmm.

Lest I sound insenstive, I know there are a lot of people out there struggling right now. Just last week, several people we know lost their jobs and I'm sure we'll see more in the weeks to come. I'm not suggesting that things are peachy keen. It's just that I think a lot of what we're hearing is a little blown out of proportion. Yes, the stock market it had it's worst one month decline in it's history (14% loss). But, it's ONE MONTH people! It's not the end of the world! The news has a difficult time reporting anything but the hear and now. They fail to put things into perspective most of the time. So, here's one nuggest for some perspective - Did you know that since 1994, the stock market is up nearly 57%? And that's as of the close of our "worst month ever".

All this to say... Based on what I saw today at the mall and the basic numbers I mentioned above, I don't think we're anywhere close to being able to compare this to the Great Depression. But, hey, it makes for some great political soap box's for our Presidential candidates.

Anywhoooo... I doubt anyone cares about my rants on the economy. So, I promise -next post will be back to "A Day in the Life of a Mom" and some new family pics!

Quick, let's get out of here!

News Flash: My kids have very different personalities!

This was made very apparent today in a situation we encountered at Chick-fil-a when I took Katie and Micah to the bathroom. As Katie was in the midst of doing her business, the electronic sensored paper towel dispenser suddenly started dispensing all by itself. Katie's reaction was "wow, cool!" and she laughed very excitedly. Micah's reaction was complete opposite. He got very nervous and tried to get Katie to hurry up so we could get out. I tried to tell him it was okay as I got Katie's pants pulled up, but I looked over to find his lip quivering. I asked him why he was getting upset and he hesitantly asked me "Is the whole bathroom going to fill up??". It was kind of funny, but I knew it was very distressing for him. I couldn't help but hurry us all out of the bathroom to relieve his fears.

My friend recently lent me a book called Nurture by Nature which goes through the Myers-Briggs personality types and helps you identify the personality type of your kids. I'm finding this extremely helpful in parenting them. I hate to say it this way, but Micah has been much easier for me to interact with than Katie so far. After reading the personaility profiles, I now realize that it's because we are very close to the same personality types. Micah is ISTJ and I'm INTJ, but I think the N is boarderline S for me. It's always easy to understand someone who is just like you! :) Katie on the other hand... I've had a hard time figuring out what makes her tick. But, after reading the book, I've determined her to be INFP. INFP's can be pretty emotional - An emotional INFP doesn't always fit well with a level headed INTJ. But, there are SO many positive things in her personality profile as well. Now that I know what to be looking for, it has been so fun to focus on her strengths and see how it makes her light up with delight when she gets that praise. She is certainly very loving and concerned for other people's well being. And I think slowly but surely, she will teach me how to lighten up a bit and enjoy the little things as much as she does.

So, 2 kids down. 1 to go! And, after today, I doubt Micah will want to use the Chick-fil-a bathroom anymroe.

Everyone has their opinion.

I know everyone has an opinion on this topic, but hey.. it's my blog, so I get to write what I want, right? :)

Since high school, one of my passions has been Economics. So much so that I minored in it in college and have considered many times going back to get a Master's degree in it. So, the last few weeks in the US economy has certainly peaked my interest. This past week in particular has been pretty fascinating. Banks failing, goverment bailing company's out, huge gains and losses in the stock market, and a $700 billion plan announced by the government on Friday to try to salvage the economy. Even the most level headed of us have got to be at least wondering what in the world is going on.

The root cause of all of this chaos is basically debt. The definition of debt is: "something owed, the state of owing". Beginning about 5-7 years ago, people became delirious with the notion of owning a home. And lenders became delirious with the notion of big time profits. Not having the cash on hand to purchase these homes, people took out mortgages. Prior to this big housing boom, banks were typically careful about who they lent to by doing a lot of research on their income, their outflow, and their debts, many times done by what's called manual underwriting of a loan. But, banks and Wall Street began seeing an opportunity to make big time money by making these loans to basically anyone who walked in off the street regardless of their income. Most of these now failed loans were Adjustable Rate Mortgages, Interest only, and Sub Prime (high interest rate) for a period of 3-5 years. To increase the profit, banks began packaging and reselling these mortgages to other companies for a profit basically causing more and more layers of institutions to become caked onto these mortgages. About 1-2 years ago, a lot of these sub prime loans came up for intrest rate adjustments. And the people who were lent more money than they could afford began defaulting. And the rest has been a domino effect throughout many of the layers of financial institions entangled in these loans.

In the end, we'll all get through this. A basic economic principal is "what goes up, must come down". We experienced a huge "up" over the past several 5-7 years, which means we should have been expecting a big "down" as well. I'm still not sure how I feel about the govenment taking part in trying to soften the blow of the "down", but that may be a post for another day. But, if America hasn't seen the basic lesson in all of this yet, I hope this past week has been a wake up call - "Debt is dumb, cash is king."

Mommy, it smells like delicious eggs!

This was Micah's comment today as we drove with the windows down through a rather soggy area of town. The things kids say are just too hilarious sometimes.

Tough decisions.

I'm starting to find that as kids get older, the tougher the decisions get. I'm so thankful that God already knows their lives from start to finish and has a plan much bigger than me. But, I at least feel a duty to make wise, well thought out, and prayerful decisions about the things in their lives.

Micah turns 4 next month, and the need to make a decision about school is staring us right in the face. There are so many choices - public school, private school, montissory education, classical education, co-ops, home schooling, unschooling, etc. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

Meanwhile, Micah is so super eager to learn things. And Katie is a little sponge right now, too. To take advantage of this fertile time, I've tried to start being delibrate in our plans each day. Here are some of the things we're trying (key word being trying)...

• Each morning we go for a walk. I try to plan something for the walk such as counting how many houses their are in our neighborhood or naming all the animals/insects we can find. The other morning, we got into a discussion about leaves falling from the tree. Micah wanted to know why they turned brown once they fell off. I explained how the leaf needs the tree for food and life.
• We're trying a book series called "The Code" by Nancy Hall. She has a book for preschoolers called "Get Ready for the Code" that helps learn letter sounds and how to write them.
• Target has these incredible $1 bargin bins that have flash cards and books for learning numbers and letters. I even found a Spiderman number book the other day. Micah thinks it's the coolest thing ever.

This education thing is a whole new world for me. So, I'm open to any suggestions for those of you who have been through this already! And I'm sure there will be plenty of posts in the coming years that reflect my many failures and few successes in the realm of education.

If you'd like to see one of our other learning adventures, check out Chris' You Tube video. This happened in our front yard on Friday:

Back to "normal".

A couple weeks ago, Katie was crawling up onto my lap on the couch and accidentally pushed my laptop crashing onto the floor. I tried to recusitate it, but it breathed it's last. It was a tough couple weeks, but after some diligent e-bay-ing, I'm back in business! :)

Micah and Katie have both had some pretty big milestones these past few weeks. Micah took his training wheels off two weeks ago. Go Micah! It was a rainy afternoon and we were on our way inside when Chris came walking out and non-challantly said, "Hey, Micah.. Wanna take your training wheels off?". He immediately said "No way, daddy!" Chris gently prodded him "What, are you a scardey cat??" And that's all it took. He immediately decided he had something to prove. Now, I'm not so sure that's the best way to get your kids to do something, so I'm certainly not condoning that approach. But, once Micah decided he wanted to do it, he was certainly determined. Within minutes, he was riding all by himself with little or no help. And for the past two weeks, he has been riding circles around the girls and I as we go for our morning walk.

And Katie has certainly made us proud these past few weeks. Having gone through this with two kids now, I think I'm beginning to realize that potty training is as much of a training for the kids as it is for the parents. I was personally a little scared of potty training a girl. Boys are easy; they can pretty much go anywhere. But, girls can't exactly do that and with my personal aversion to public restrooms, the thought of needing Katie to sit on one of those seats was beyond me. My other issue is that I'm always hesitant to draw that line in the sand and say "we are done with diapers". I try to dilly dally with not wearing diapers at home, but then putting them on if we go out, or putting them on when they go to bed. And it just doesn't work. It's too confusing for them. Once we quit trying to change the rules on Katie and we solved my aversion to public restrooms by bringing a toilet chair in the van, she easily took the reins and finished up the training. And now we're going on 4 weeks now with no diapers. She has been so proud of herself - she is officially a big girl! :)

In between bike riding and going potty, I've been busy doing some web design work. One for the infamous Rae Davies (http://www.thebirthcompany.com) and one for Med-Equip Solutions (this one will be online at http://www.med-equipsolutions.com next week).

Chris for President?

Who'd of thunk I might be First Lady one day. Check out his campaign: http://chrisandjudy.blogspot.com/

In other news, Katie is officially potty trained! That's a relief, and an extra $50 bucks in our pockets each month. Hooray for Katie!

My worst nightmare.

Around 2am last night, I woke up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding out of my chest. That had to be one of the worst nightmares I've ever had. Here's how it went down..

I guess the whole fam was getting in the van to go somewhere. We were all in and ready except for Katie. She was dragging her feet and getting distracted by toys walking out of the garage to the van. Chris, being his usual self, decided to tease her a bit by acting like we were going to leave without her. I decided to hop out of the van to go grab her and put her in the van. When I got out, I didn't see her anywhere. I guess Chris assumed she was still playing so he continued to back up like he was leaving us. Next thing I know I hear her screaming. I look down and see her underneath the van. Before I had time to react, I watched the front tire roll over her entire body. When the van came to a stop, her torso was completely separated from her lower half. As I was running to her, I was jolted out of my sleep.

Needless to say, it shook me up pretty good and it took me quite a while to fall back to sleep. I have no idea what prompted that, but I'm certainly thankful it was only a dream!

Intersting days.

Bill Gates officially retired from Microsoft this week. That's a pretty major event - if it had not been for that man, chances are I would not be sitting here writing this blog on my laptop and you probably wouldn't be reading it. And while I have the upmost respect for that man, it's probably a good thing he is retiring. There is no doubt that Microsoft still dominates the market, but it's obvious that the market is shifting. Have you walked into an Apple store lately? There's hardly breathing room. Apple, Mozilla, Google, etc, all making products that are increasingly infringing on Microsoft's space. Why? Because they're better, faster, cheaper (free in a lot of cases). Microsoft needs to make some serious changes soon or else.

Starbucks announced this week they would be closing 300 stores. Who would have ever thought we'd be hearing that announcement!

Two words: Google StreetView. If you haven't seen it yet, you're missing out! Chances are, a street level view of your house with your parked car in the driveway is on there.

Gen Y/Millenials - people born from 1980 - 1996. These are the kids who are going to completely change the way we do work in America. Very intriguing. Even though I'm Gen X, I think there is a lot that's true about our generation in this group as well. No more 9-5 work like we know it. There is a great editorial on this at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/08/60minutes/main3475200.shtml

Rock groups replacing lead singers from internet videos? Who'd of thunk. This year alone, the legendary rock group Boston replaced their lead singer when they stumbled across a Home Depot manager's MySpace page. Journey did a similar thing finding their new lead singer on YouTube. http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4975645

Sacred Marriage - a great book that Chris and I are reading right now. This doesn't have much to do with current events except that it's probably a portrait of marriage that is becoming increasingly hard to find in our day and age.

And these are just a few things that have been topics of discussion in the Andrews' household as of late. :)

Whew, that's a relief!

So, Micah went for his first "real" dentist appointment a few weeks ago and my little buddy had two cavities on his back molars. Ugh. And to make matters worse, the dentist wanted to put Micah to sleep to fill them! As a parent, you want to make the best decisions for your kids. And it doesn't help that I like to make informed decisions. Putting my kid to sleep and paying around $1200 out of pocket seemed like a big deal to me, so I had a lot of questions. I could tell the dentist was a little perturbed by all my inquiries. The dentist felt that because of Micah's age, this would be the only way to get him to sit still long enough to fill them. In his words, "I've done this a long time and I don't think Micah will be able to do this. You might ruin his perception of dentistry for life and he will never want to come back." Naturally, I came home feeling beat down and began doing a lot of reading and talking to other parents about what their experience has been with pediatric dentistry.

Enter Dr. Love. A friend from church, Bill Love is a a pediatric dentist who's been in practice for a long time. I didn't initially take Micah and Katie there because he isn't in network with our insurance. But, Chris urged me to talk to him anyway. We had a consultation there yesterday and all I can say is Bill is my hero! Micah did great - he sat calmly in the chair and let Dr. Love look in his mouth. After a few minutes of poking around in his mouth, Bill says - hey, Micah is doing awesome. How about we just go ahead and fill them while you're here? We can just use a little nitrous oxide and he'll be done in about 10 minutes. By the time I picked my mouth up off the ground, Micah was done! All those weeks of agonizing over this decision and just like that, it's over. Needless to say, I think we've found our new dentist for the next 18 years!

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YEA - a milestone! I posted a few months back that I was 145 lbs and that I had a goal to lose 15 pounds. But, I hit my brick wall a while ago at 140. No matter what I did, I couldn't get below 140. That was somewhat expected - as long as I'm nursing, it's usually hard to get below a certain point because my body needs the extra calories to feed the baby. But, I finally broke the barrier. I was 139.6 today! It's been over 4 years since I've seen anything below 140 on the screen. I just had to share my excitement. Only 9.6 pounds to go! Amazing what not eating out and exercising can do for you. :)

Love grows love.

Most people who know me know I'm a pretty big Caedmon's Call fan. I have always loved their folk sound, their songs have a depth that is refreshing, and I learned to play guitar off their early music. One of the songs on their latest album, Overdressed, has struck a chord with me and it's been stuck in my head the past couple days. It's called Love Grows Love and as mushy as it sounds (and I'm not a very mushy person) - I think I like it because it is reminiscent of the story of Chris and I. Dating, getting married, having kids, going through life's experiences together, and growing closer every day.

You said to put on a happy face on a high school stage
But I read what you really meant, your handwriting on a Bible page
I waited like you told me, though we knew it right away
It took eight and a half more years to finally say

I fell in love with you, and the love became something new
It keeps getting stronger than we ever could have longed
Love keeps growing more love

When we got the news we had to call our families
And start painting the room a nice bright blue
Our vows, they started breathing and they took on flesh and blood
And we held them in our arms and tasted that God was good

I fell in love with you, and the love became something new
Added a name and we added a smile, keeps getting bigger ever further mile
There on your bended knee, we sowed the seeds of our history
Coming up stronger than we ever could have longed
Love keeps growing more love

If love is an echo of the heart, the heart is a canyon
It stretches wild and free without an end
It breaks through every wall that holds us in

I’m on the other side of the world to see what changed you so
My heart breaks with the broken and it dances with the hope
You told me I would find here what I could not understand
‘Til I’m walking here beside you hand in hand

I fell in love with you, and the love became something new
Added a name and we added a smile, keeps getting bigger ever further mile
There on your bended knee, we sowed the seeds of our history
Coming up stronger than we ever could have longed
Love keeps growing more love

It's just who I am.

I think I've finally realized something about myself - I'm a slow adopter. You'll never find me waiting at a store all night for the release of the next greatest (insert item here) . I think I even have a tendency to resist change. I need time to process, see if it's effective or worthwhile, read reviews, get opinions, etc before I'll even consider accepting something. It's kind of ironic since I work in the fast paced, always changing IT industry.

Just some recent experiences with that - Buying up houses to fix up and sell during the housing boom (now I'm super thankful we didn't do that!), Windows Vista (although, my reluctance was well merited), Blackberries (I still think they're evil), Blogging (now look at me), Facebook (now I think it's great!), Organic Foods (now I buy quite a bit of Organic foods - have you ever tried Organic milk? Yuuuumm!), and the list goes on.

And it only took me 29 years to figure this out.

Mommy, I want one more.

What am I to say when Micah is cuddling with me after waking up from his nap today and looks up at me and says, "Mommy, I want one more baby." ?

Sometimes I wonder if it is bothersome to him having to be the big brother, getting less attention than he used to get, and having to help with the other two all the time. But, it is becoming increasingly apparent that he absolutely loves his little sisters. And he enthusiastically continues to tell me he wants another brother or sister. It is so much fun to see the way he dotes over Amy Jo. I think she has captured his heart even more than Katie did just because he was old enough to understand what it meant for me to be pregnant and what it meant to have a new sister.

So, at least he has made up his mind on that topic. Now if Chris and I could make up our minds, we'd be good to go. :)

Victory!

I'm not much for sewing, but when it comes to my kids waking up earlier and earlier, I'll do just about anything. I like my sleep too much!

Over the past couple months, it has continued to get brighter and brighter earlier and earlier. Micah and Katie used to sleep consistently until 7am, if not 7:30am. But, since it was getting brighter earlier, their internal clock seemed to be adjusting. First it was waking up at 6:45am, then 6:30, and lately it's been more like 6:15am. I usually wake up an hour before them so I can have some perosnal time, but waking up at 5:15am every morning was not sounding too attractive. Amy Jo seems unphased by the daylight - she still consistently sleeps until 8am. But, now that she has become mobile over the past week, she has decided to wake up once a night for an extra feeding - I assume for the extra calories she's burning. I know some moms deal with their infants waking up several times a night until they are a year old or older, so I really have nothing to be complaining about. But, I've been sleepy and grumpy lately, so I figured I owed it to others around me to try to do something about this waking up early deal.

So, yesterday, I borrowed a sewing machine and put together some black out shades for their room. Let's just say... the extra hour of sleep this morning was heavenly!

What's in a name?

When I was a kid, I wasn't super crazy about my name - Judith Michelle. They called me Michelle for a while, but when I got to kindergarten there was a girl named Michelle that I didn't like. So, when I found out my first name was actually Judith (Judy), I made up my mind that I wanted to change it. I wasn't super crazy about that name either, but at least it was after my dad's mother - or so I was told. There were still a lot of people who called me Michelle, but over time eventually everyone switched.

Yesterday I went downtown to pick up a death certificate for my father (he died 13 years ago). You can imagine the irony when I saw his mother's name listed on the certificate as Vivienne Jean. Where was the Judy?? I could only laugh. I called my mom right away to let her know. She laughed, too. She said she wasn't crazy about the name Judy, but my dad talked her into it because he told her it was his mother's name. Seems he pulled one over on both of us! What's even more ironic is that my maiden name "Shane" wasn't a real name either. My dad changed his last name when he went into showbusiness (long before I was born). Consequently, I ended up with that last name when I was born. But, no one else in his family has that name except for me. Now that's a story I can't wait to tell the kids one day!