I'm pretty grumpy when I get less than 8 hours of sleep. And for reasons we'll discuss soon, that would be me today. Yep. Grumpy. G-R-U-M-P-Y. I understand that this is not really fair for parties not causing my grumpiness, (Drew) so I'll make a concerted effort to be nice to him despite the fact that I am a grump. I'm also going to make a concerted effort to take a nap!

I don't know what was wrong with my child, my baby last night. But good grief, he would not go to sleep! He woke up at about 11 and wouldn't go back down until, oh, probably after 2. I tried everything- nursing him, nursing him in bed. He completely drained me and then he would still not go to sleep. At this point I was rather tired and frustrated. I also get grumpy when someone interferes with my being able to go to bed. Fortunately for the kiddo, hubby stepped in. Then he really tried everything. Rice cereal, new diaper, rocking, you name it, he tried it. Finally, the only thing left to do was let him cry himself to sleep, which took a good half hour- but it worked. I hate letting my kids go to bed this way, but we were outta options. And of course, this morning, Drew was up at the butt crack of dawn, bright with "I wants!" Now he is running around the house making every loud noise he can possibly think of. I'm going to see if I can find anything to pacify his fidgety-ness on the boob tube and then put Beau on the boob and try to get a little morning nap. Wish me luck.

Dreaming of Sleep, Sarah

Dear Drew,

I'm sorry I didn't start doing this sooner. I hope that someday (as long as the internet doesn't curl up and die) that you will be able to read these letters and that they will mean something (anything) to you. My main purpose in writing these it to let you know how my I love you, but also to kind of give you an idea of what everyday life was like with you while you were growing up. It should also serve as a pretty good reminder for me when I get all old an senile and can't remember anything, (which is happening sooner than I thought.)
Right now you are two years and seven months old. You are a pretty bright kid and pick up on things pretty quick. We really have to watch what we say around you. We were visiting friends recently and one of them said, "Holy crap!" which you repeated excitedly until we told you to say "Holy cow!" instead. Lets hope you don't remember that one. And that brings up another thing you like to do: repeat exactly what you said until someone acknowledges you. This actually drives me insane, but if I can't understand what you are saying, it sometimes comes in handy. You are pretty good with most of your words though and are eager to learn new ones. You surprise me on a daily basis with what you know how to say.
You are absolutely full of energy. You are constantly running (and tripping) through the house, jumping off of things, doing somersaults and other weird body contortions. You love Star Wars. You pick up on anything that remotely looks like it could be related to Star Wars. You have a Darth Vader Helmet and a light saber that you love to play with. Although, I must say, you don't get to play with light saber all that much because you usually end up whacking your brother with it, and I take it away. You are definitely "all boy." You growl, yell, play with balls, trucks, trains, airplanes, cars, bikes and tools. But occasionally you like to dabble with mamma's stuff. You were very interested in my bra one morning, so I let you try it on, much to the chagrin of your father. (Sorry, we wont be doing that one again.)
You are infatuated with music, or I should say musical instruments and equipment. Your favorite band is a band that your daddy used to be a part of (you can ask him about that when you're old enough.) You are constantly asking to listen to them and can't quite understand why those people aren't around any more. You're daddy got you a real mini guitar and you love it. You have shown two strangers (who came to our home to give us estimates on various services) your guitar. You grabbed them both by the finger and dragged them downstairs into your dada's studio.
Your favorite book is the truck book. I have to read that thing to you almost every night. I have to admit, I am SICK to death of the truck book. But I'm really impressed that you can say, "sanitation truck." I'm trying really hard to get you interested in listening to other books we have.
You are still not potty trained, and it's not that I haven't tried. You are just really stubborn, and I guess you like the feeling of having a load in your diaper. I, on the other hand, am entirely ready to stop changing those disgusting diapers, so I wish you would hurry up and get on the pot here. But I'm worried if I push you, you will have issues about going to the bathroom. And I don't want you to get a constipation complex, because for some reason I think people who are constipated have deep psychological problems. I don't know, I guess that is my way of saying that your psychological health is really important to me and I don't want to be the cause of any head trips you might have!
You have the cutest little blond head and blue eyes and pale, pale skin just like your momma-but you often look like a carbon copy of your dada. I'm glad you look the most like me though, because your brother doesn't look a spit like me at all! At least not that I have seen yet. You are a tall skinny little kid and probably only about five pounds heavier than your brother. The last time I weighed you, you were still just 27 pounds.
Every night before we go to bed I pray with you. I pray that you will grow up to become a great man of God, to love Him and serve Him. I pray that God gives your daddy and I the skills to raise you to become a quality person. You are my special boy, my first baby. I'm so proud of you and I'm looking forward to watching you grow up, and seeing what you accomplish and what you become. I love you so much!
Love,
Momma

New Family Member!

Photo and Retouching by Robyn Foss

Congratulations to my cousin Keith and his wife Sunny. They had a beautiful baby boy last night!
So Lakota is, I believe, my third? cousin. (I'm really not sure how all that works.) He is my grandmother's first great great grandchild, and my mothers first great grand-nephew, if that makes any sense, and my cousins' first grandchild. Robyn I can't believe you're a grandma, and Keith, I can't believe you're a daddy! Welcome to the Family Lakota!

Beau Strikes Back!

So I think I've mentioned several times in my blog my fears of Drew hurting Beau and that someday Beau would get his revenge. Well, today it finally happened. Yes, at five months old and probably not much less than five pounds lighter than his big brother (which really has nothing to do with it) Beau had his revenge for all the things Drew has done to him, although not on purpose of course. Drew was crawling around on the floor with two cars, showing Beau how vroom, while Beau was intently watching from his walker. Well, Drew ventured right up close to Beau and his head was at just the right height for Beau to reach down and grab a hold of Drew's hair, and that is exactly what he did. He loves to grab hair! I was reading and eating my breakfast when I heard Drew start whimpering behind me, and I turned around to see this spectacle of Beau with a fistful of Drew's hair, yanking his head up and down with a big ol' smile on his face. Then Drew, who was in much pain (believe me, I've been there) started to cry. Poor thing. So I rescued him and very lightly told Beau, "No, no." And then proceeded to give Drew a hug and comfort him and try to explain that Beau just loves him, and he loves hair, so it really was an expression of his love for Drew. LOL! I actually appreciated the opportunity to show Drew that I was on his side too, since it feels like I am always on Beau's side, reprimanding Drew constantly and telling him to leave Beau alone. So, Beau strikes back, if not on purpose, sad, but funny.

When the Hilarity Outweighs the Wrongdoing

Omigosh! This is just too funny not to share, and also emphasized my need for a digital camera. I swear, every day I have too many funny, cute, whatever photo ops-not to have a digital camera: this is becoming dire. On with the story, so I went to go check on Drew to see how he was doing with his nap, you know. Well, when I looked in on him, he wasn't there. I noticed a few things had been ransacked in his room and there was a suspicious wet spot outside his door. So I went and poked my head into my office and there he was quietly looking at all the pictures that pop up on our computer's screen saver. But that is not the funny part. The funny part is that he was wearing a tie, a vest, no shirt, a pair of little cotton blue shorts and no diaper and to top it off, this little water hat with a neck shade perched all cock-eyed on his head. Oh, how I wish I had a camera, you should have seen his cute little face look up at me all the pride that he had dressed himself, but the guilt that he had snuck out of his nap, and was scared he was going to get in trouble. I just looked at him and cracked up and asked him what he was doing, and his look quickly dissolved into a look of confusion. "I'm glad mom's not mad at me, but I'm not sure why she's laughing..." So, we went and put on his Spider-man pull-ups, which he specifically requested and put on some new shorts (the little blue one's were wet) and a shirt, kept the the vest and tie and hat. I sooooo need a camera. Wish you could see this. Oh and he's wearing little dog slippers too!

Laundering Sleepy Pictures of Tomato Plants and a Holey Nerf Ball

...In other words- just stuff...

I'm so so tired. Fell asleep nursing the Beau-bug, only to wake up and find that Drew had taken his Nerf basketball hoop off the wall and placed all the thumbtacks into his Nerf basketball. I guess it could have been worse. Can't understand why I have no energy.
Today is just a boring normal laundry day (go figure), nothing exciting to write about unless you think the physics of how I fold my hubby's underwear is interesting. If you do, you're reading the wrong blog.
Anyways, soon we will be getting our own digital camera and I can take some pictures of our new dining table and my measly little garden or my two tomato plants and a leek. Actually, speaking of tomato plants- can anyone tell me what is going on with mine? I have a beautifully large plant with lots of blossoms, but no tomatoes yet and it looks like something is eating my blooms. How can I stop that?

Beau Baddies, and a Goody Too!

Last night I woke up to a steaming hot baby with snot running profusely out of his head desperately trying to figure out how to crawl, right next to me in bed. Poor thing. I don't know if he is sick or if this is a really terrible stage of teething. Lets hope its the latter, seeing that we still don't have insurance on this kid. I gave him some Infant Tylenol and tried to suck as much snot out of his head as I could and nursed him (which is probably by far the best medicine) and he cooled down and went to sleep. Today, there is no fever, just lots of head drainage-nose and mouth. Maybe those things are going to cut through today?! Drew never had any problems with teething, he was never fussy or had a fever. A few times he may have had a mild runny nose, so this teething kid hell is kind of new to me. Right now, Beau is fortunately sleeping, so this should give me a little bit of time to update his wardrobe, of which he has grown out of just about everything, already. On a positive note: he said his first word yesterday- and I'm sure this will come as a shock: it was "DAD." Even if he is having a hard day, at least I know and am prepared, which in some weird way makes it easier. I'm so proud of my boy!

Update and Other Randomness

Well, this weekend hubby and I traveled down to Colorado Springs to kind of check it out and see what we thought about moving there, etc. I think we both went expecting a word from God and really what I got that was maybe significant from the trip was that God will bless you wherever you are and you can do God's work in any place. In the future God's work may or may not pull us to Colorado Springs. For now, we just think it is a really nice city and we could definitely see ourselves there. We are just waiting for the right situation and the right timing. What we have going on here is still really good. It's not like my hubby needs to find a job or anything like that. So, for now we're here and always constantly seeking our God.

I have to say that the kiddos did great considering what they were put through this weekend, hours of riding around in the car and getting out and looking at houses and enduring torrential rains. It even snowed up on Pikes Peak! (Maybe this is a normal occurrence in August, I just thought it was neat.) And as my hubby and I were driving around discussing family and kiddos and such, my quote for the weekend came right out, "It's too bad we can't have the experience and knowledge of how to raise kids, before we have kids." Our poor little guinea pigs! I wonder how many other parents have had the same thought.

So we did pick up our table- Hubby still has to put it together tonight. We got home so late that we just crashed. Of course Drew still got up at the butt crack of dawn and walked into our room and said loudly, "Hi, Da Da!" (How do you get your kids to sleep in?) But anyways-table-we're excited about that. I think this week on the "house renovation project" we will be ordering cabinets for our built in china hutch and looking at what we need to do to get the play room fixed up. And I think we may be getting the long awaited, much much needed new king size mattress! Yeah! I cannot express enough excitement for that one. Oh heavenly hours of comfortable, restful, not sleeping in a trough! (Then we could just get Drew potty trained and my life would be perfect, really!)

Ode to My Husband

So my hubby came home for lunch yesterday and did the sweetest thing ever. He gave me a nice little back rub and then he preceded to tell me how wonderful he thought I was. I didn't realize it, but I really needed that and I really appreciate and love him for telling me. So here you go, right back atcha babe- let me count the ways you are so wonderful:

1. You are thoughtful, compassionate and caring.
2. You spend lots of time investing yourself in your children.
3. You are an excellent provider.
4. You are a hard worker.
5. You are passionate about a lot of things.
6. You drive me to be a better person, to accomplish more, to follow my own dreams.
7. You inspire me with your own dream pursuing
8. You are incredibly creative.
9. You are really handy and helpful around the house.
10. You are super smart when it comes to money and business.
11. You are a leader I can trust and look up to spiritually and otherwise.
12. You ask the best questions to make a person think.
13. You are extremely loyal.
14. You recognize and try to bring out potential in myself and others.
15. You have cute little butt.
16. You have a sense of style unmatched in our little town. Hee hee.
17. You are always trying to find ways to make life easier and more enjoyable for me.
18. My happiness is really important to you.
19. You are supportive of my endevors.
20. You have an excellent and loving family.

I guess, given the time, that would not even be the tip of the ice berg. But I just wanted you to know that I love you, you are the best, I am so thankful and blessed to be married to someone so special. YOU ROCK! Oh and, you are by far the best, most progressive, serious, hardworking musician and drummer that I know! How could I leave that one out!

Created for Relationship

You know I really believe that God created us for relationship with Him. I believe that we were not created just to serve Him (though that is part of being in a relationship) and not just to help others into a relationship with Him, but that He created us because he wanted to enjoy us, and talk with us and be there for us, and He wants us to enjoy Him and talk to Him and be there for Him. I also believe that He created us in His own image, which is why he has given us the insatiable desire for relationships ourselves, whether they be just friendships or more intimate than that. We crave relationship with others, just like He craves relationship with us. In relating this to the recent heartache my husband and I have suffered through being asked to leave the band (which you can read about here,) I have asked myself a lot of questions, like why does this hurt so much? Why am I having such a strong reaction to this? When I think about what God has created us for it starts to kind of make sense. In being created for relationship, we were not created for rejection- and that is why rejection is so painful. (Well, duh.) So I just have to say that I am so thankful to be in relationship with God- who will never reject me or break relationship with me, who forgives and forgets, who loves me so much I will never comprehend and provides a darn good example how to live in my relationships (can you comprehend sacrificing one of your children so that others could be saved?) God is awesomely wonderful and the perfect friend, husband, business partner, you name it. I find comfort in that.
Thanks for listening while I work through my issues dealing with the recent "break up." I think letting it out is probably really important in helping me heal and a really important stage in the grieving process.

New Table

I'm really excited! My hubby and I are going down to Colorado Springs this weekend to look around and kind of check out the city, but what I'm really excited about is that we are picking up our new kitchen table. We have been waiting to do this for a long time, so its about time. Anyways, this is a really cool store and Kev and I found this table last year while we were in Santa Barbara. It is just really cool that we get to have exactly what we want instead of settling for something that is less than par, you know? Now if we could just get that new digital camera...

Our Little Rocker

Kevin's new guitarist! Yeah!

Ptosis? What the....

Let me just announce to the world right now, that I hate, repeat: HATE insurance companies. Those money mongers will try to get out of paying for your care in any way, shape or form. The latest offense: mild, intermittent ptosis of the left eye. Let me explain. My son Beau has been without health insurance since he was a month old due to reasons that involve stupid rules of insurance companies and an h.r. representative... ANYways, so hubby and I have been trying to find the best route to insure him until we can sign him up again on employer's insurance. So I submitted an application to a local HCO company, and I have to add that there was a nonrefundable $25 processing fee, the application was really long and laborious to fill out, and required other documents like immunization records and medical records (which I had to pay for as well!!). All of this they expected to fit in a measly little envelope they provided, yeah right! So after finally getting all of this done, I find that all of my work has been in vain. They denied us due to mild, intermittent ptosis of Beau's left eye. This, I might add, was not even disclosed to me, so I was a little shocked to read it. Yes, Beau's left eye is a little droopy, but no one informed me that it was actually a condition. I just thought it would go away as he got older, and quite frankly, I still do!! Darn it! So, Beau is still without insurance, we are back to square one and quite frustrated. But I have to say I did call up the insurance company and ask for his medical transcripts back. They said they were going to send them back to me, but then again they say things like, "We will cover you" too, and don't do that.




Here's Beau right after he was born (when the "ptosis" is most noticeable) and at 5 months. Looks like its getting better to me!

Question for the Masses

So here's my question to get all my readers involved and maybe have a good laugh in the process:

When was the last time you laughed really hard and what made you laugh?

Me: The last time I laughed really hard was on my birthday while we were camping in Ouray. We were all sitting around the campfire, that is, my parents, Kev, Ariel and Jer roasting marshmellows and having a good time. Then Ariel sat on Jer's lap and he put his arms up through the arms of her sweatshirt and started gesturing with his hands along with what Ariel was saying. We started laughing so hard at them, we had to try it too and then all 6 of us were doing it. Good times! Hee Hee.




Jillybean: Okay... interesting story. Rachel and I LOVE Brigette Jones Diary. If you have ever seen it you know it involves a very XL large pair of granny panties. So for her birthday last year I bought her Brigette Jones 1 and a XL large pair of panties. So in return for my birthday she bought me Brigette Jones 2 along with the XL large granny panties returned to me. So while the guys and Rachel were cutting the cake I ran away to the bathroon to put on the giant panties to flash her with. So I went back to the kitchen non-chalantly wearing the same little dress with snaps all the way down the front. And right when she was talking about something important, I ripped my dress away and revealed the gigantic XL panites of my wobbeling bits! The look on her face was priceless as she was screaming with laughter. And of course the boys were standing behind me laughing hysterically and wondering exactly what I had under my dress for Rachel LOL!


Mom:Yeah, Sarah, I would have to say that was the last time I really laughed untill my head hurt, The guy camping next to us payed us a big compliment when he packed up, he said," you guys have a really nice family,I have never heard anyone laugh as much as you guys".We really should have invited him over for the show:)-Mom

Sappy But True

I just have to say that I am blessed. I have such a wonderful and fun family and we all get along so well. I don't know how I got so lucky, and often don't feel deserving. But my family rocks. Everyone of you- and my friends do too! Heck, you guys are ALL family. I love you all- Mom, Dad, Hannah, Darin, Ariel, Jeremiah, Kevin, Drew and Beau. You guys are all a master painting that only God could have put together.

Tonight as I was putting Drew to bed I asked him if he loved me and he said, "I love Jeremiah. I want Jeremiah...and I want Ariel...and I want Shannon (often referred to as our fourth sister.)" So all three of them went in his room and showered their love and kisses on him and it was at that moment that I realized how blessed I am to be a part of this family. Things like this happen to me all the time, and I am sooo not worthy. This is how I know my God loves me. I love you, TOO, God!



Shannon and Beau (Photo by Summer Weisel)

Times Are a Changin'

Well, I've been agonizing over the past few days about how to address what has happened to my husband and myself last week. I really want to avoid lashing out due to angry hurt feelings, so I'll just make this quick statement with the sole purpose of keeping you up to date: My husband had a conflict with his band and they asked him to leave, so we will no longer be a part of 5FD.
What happens now? Your guess is as good as mine. We are currently exploring our options and looking forward to the upcoming open months. On our plate now: finishing up home renovations, looking into moving to areas with a little more opportunity, a lot of prayer and plenty of fun and family time.



Farewell to 5FD. We wish you the best and are praying for your ministry.





Photo by Jon James

Kev's Quote of the Day

"The funny thing about people without kids...they think birth control works."

I Knew we Bought Endurosuede for a Reason, I Just didn't Think it Would be Put to the Test...

So yesterday I was dinking around on my computer (shock of all shocks) and I came out my computer glare daze and realized that the house was really quiet. Thought:"Oh no. Where's Drew?" Walk out to the living room and discovered new markers sitting opened on the table next to the couch. So I found Drew, in my bedroom watching Noggin behind a closed door and pulled him out to the living room to tell him that bringing the markers out of the office was a "NO NO." Then I saw it, multicolored scribbles all over two of the seat cushions of our clean, new and lovely couch! All I could do was gasp out loud.

Fortunately, said couch is Endurosuede, fake suede that is supposed to be bomb proof, and said markers were washable, so between those two, I think the couch will be just fine. However, I think Drew will miss his markers until he's 4.

I'm sorry I should have taken a picture for you all, but Kev had the camera yesterday.
So here's this:


Photo by Kevin Decker

Thought for the Night

Nothing will ever be exactly how you want it to be, so why waste energy trying to make it that way. Spend energy being content with the way things are and enjoying the beautiful randomness with which God pulls things together.

This Makes Me Not Only Want to Have a Girl, but another Baby

Introducing Miss Elizabeth Saige: Isn't she darling?!
WOW!
Photo by Prudence Cooper

Ammendments

I just wanted to clarify a few things about my When will it stop? post because it seems the information has been a little, shall I say, "blown out of proportion" which is partly my own fault. You can read about what happened to my mom more specifically
here in my sister's blog.

And in reference to my Title? post, I just have to say what a gem my hubby is. He apologized for saying that my title wasn't creative and said he didn't want to be unsupportive. He said he was thinking about my blog from more of a "how can we get more people to read my wife's sight," point of view. But he understands that my title fits my blog just perfectly like my sister said, "it alludes to my faith and my daily life in one statement." So, blog title will not be changed. I like it, you like, hubby likes it. Done.

Baby!

Congratulations to my friend P on having her third child, her FIRST girl (I'm jealous)!
Born yesterday, August 1st in the evening, weighing in at 7 lbs 10oz.
Welcome Elizabeth Saige!
P I'm so happy for you! Hope if we ever have another one, I'm as lucky as you!

P if you want, you can send me a pic and I'll post it.
Congrats!

Title?

So, in a conversation with my hubby the other night, he revealed that he thought I needed a more creative title for my blog. Seeing that I am only creative enough to come up with Sermon on the Mount (of Laundry) I am having a hard time coming up with any more titles so I thought I would open it up to you all, my readers, and see if any of you had any good, creative suggestions. So fire 'em at me, I'm ready.

P.S. I'm not changing the title just because my hubby thinks I should, I just thought I'd see if anyone had a suggestion that I liked better than my own! Thanks!


What? You don't like my blog title?!

When Will it Stop?

I just have to say that I am kind of at my wits end, (as if I ever had any to begin with.) There is all this crap, yes CRAP going on and happening to people that I love and I can't do anything to help. Boy is that an awful feeling. It's all different stuff- so I wont go into detail- but most of it has largely to do with health. My little sister Ariel is super sick, I think with the same thing Kev and I had a month ago, and my mom just about died from what we think might have been anaphylactic shock. The scary part is we don't know. Another of my friends is supposedly having her labor induced today- and I pray that it goes really really well! Amongst the many other frustrating things that are going on- my only answer for all of this is to pray. So please pray with me. It seems that things are often falling apart and I thank God that he can put them back together. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.