Technology...

Sometimes technology makes your life easier. Sometimes it's just a big pain in the neck...

Unfortunately, today is not one of the make my life easier days.

Today I'm fighting with my scanner. For some reason it doesn't like my 2010 tax return.

I know what you're thinking... Why would someone want to scan their 2010 tax return??

Well, no one WANTS to, but sometimes you HAVE to.

Like when you're trying to refinance your mortgage and you're self employed so you can't just fax a couple paystubs for them to verify your income. You've got to fax the whole dumb tax return for the last 2 years... So annoying.

So now instead of using my handy document feeder to scan it all without touching the scanner again I'm sitting here doing it manually page by page by page by page by page (well you get it)... The document feeder just wants to crush up about every other page.

I suppose if I'm forced to find a silver lining, at least my 2011 return scanned easily...

Now let's just hope it's all been worth it and we actually qualify to refinance. Otherwise I'll have to be mad at the whole mortgage/banking industry, and let's just say lately I'm not a huge fan of theirs.

In other news, my 3-year-old decided to heed my advice just now and ask for a snack in a polite voice instead of whining or yelling...

P.S. While typing this blog entry I had to get up about 5 times to add a new page to the scanner...

Merry Christmas!

To spread the good cheer from the season here's Alex singing the songs from his school concert. I left the video camera at home that night, but it's easier to hear him anyway. As you'll see, distractions still occur, even without a crowd of people standing up in front of me to wave to their kids and grandkids as would typically happen at a school concert.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas, especially Mom and Dad in Mexico and the Flakes in Russia. We miss you all and hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

101

Amazingly I've made 101 posts to my blog. I felt it deserved something big to honor it, but I'm not creative enough. So sorry. The best I can do is give you a cute picture of Adam in the snow. We've had a lot so far this year.

But, Mom, I'm Hungry!

My office is one of the most frequently used rooms in our house. Why? Because this is where I earn my living so this is where I'm at for several hours a day.

My office also contains the guest bed. So when my kids are hanging around (which they frequently do) it's like the bed is a magnet. They simply can't stay off of it. It's not a new bed or even a somewhat old bed. It was a gift from my parents' house when they got a new bed and moved their old bed to a guestroom and gave us the old bed that was there. (I think they got tired of the air mattress that we had before that.)

Today I told Adam to stop jumping on the bed for what must have been the millionth time. (No, I don't know the exact number, but it's got to be way up there.) His response... "But, Mom, I'm hungry."

Clearly you can't expect a 3-year-old to stop jumping on the bed if he's hungry!!

Good thing he's adorable. So adorable in fact that I think the lady behind us at Walmart yesterday was about to buy him some cheap (yet expensive) toy that they stick by the checkout lanes...

Bethany

A few weeks ago the world lost a dear, sweet girl. I met Bethany several years ago at church. Bethany had many physical and mental disabilities, but she was always so happy and full of hugs that she couldn't help but make you feel good. About four years ago I was blessed to work with her in young women's and got to know her even better. I was expecting Adam at the time, and she was SUPER excited for him to arrive.

Doctors claimed she'd never make it to age 6, but she defied them all by living 19 wonderful years. She will be missed by all but by her family the most.

As I pondered her life at her funeral I couldn't help but be grateful for the knowledge I have of the resurrection. All the struggles and limitations she had here on earth won't be an issue for her. She'll be able to do all the things she wanted to do but couldn't. I love that!!

Inside the funeral program there was a beautiful poem that I'm going to share. It was decorated with princesses.

Heaven's Very Special Child by Edna Massimilla

A meeting was held quite far from Earth:
"It's time again for another birth."
Said the Angels to the Lord Above,
"This special child will need much love."
Her progress may seem very slow,
Accomplishments she may not show
And she'll require extra care
From folks she meets way down there.
She may not run or laugh or play
Her thoughts may seem quite far away:
In many ways she won't adapt
And she'll be known as handicapped.
So let's be careful where she's sent
We want her life to be content.
Please, Lord, find the parents who
Will do a special job for you.
They will not realize right away
The leading role they're asked to play
But with this child sent from above
Comes a stronger faith and richer love.
And soon they'll know the privilege given
In caring for the Gift from Heaven.
Their precious charge,
so meek and mild
Is Heaven's Very Special Child.

I'm sure Bethany's family had many struggles and life was not always easy, but they were always so patient and loving with her. They truly were amazing people blessed with an amazing girl.

The Big 9

Yep. I said NINE... My firstborn is one year away from double digits. Crazy, huh?

Yes, these days are long gone...

As are these... (The shirt, however, lives on. It's just Adam's now. Let's hope we can show our faces outdoors with said shirt on now that the Josh McDaniels era is over in Denver.)

Mary was somewhat lucky and got to celebrate her birthday twice really. Due to scheduling conflicts on her actual birthday (only one Saturday in months was available for me to run Super Saturday folks), we celebrated once with Grandma Beverly a few days early and again with her friend Katelyn a few days late. It's better when your birthday lasts more than one day, right??

Here are some pics from the first celebration. (The camera did not make it to the spray park for the second one. Good thing all those wasps showed up to cheer us up...)

For those of you with good memories, yes we did make these same cupcakes last year. This year we got fancy though and dyed cool whip green and used that for frosting. (I can't make good white frosting for some reason and it tastes beyond gross out of a can...)

I love these flowers though, well to look at anyway. I'm not such a fan of eating them, though the kids LOVE them. Basically you take a large marshmallow and cut it in five slices. Then you arrange them in a flower shape with a mini marshmallow in the center. We used white this year, but the pink strawberry marshmallows would also be cute I think. Then we just put sprinkles on them. Cute and easy.

I took advantage of a rainy night towards the end of July and actually baked all the cupcakes a few weeks in advance. Then I froze them in batches and just took out a few at a time for each party. The fringe benefits are not having to bake cupcakes twice and not eating so many cupcakes because of low levels of will power...

Meanwhile back to Mary... I am amazed how fast time flies. It's so fun to see her grow up. She's a beautiful young woman and I'm beyond grateful she's part of my life.

School Play/Concert

Alex participated in a play/concert at school in May. I'm not really sure what to call it. Kindergarten through 2nd grade classes each acted out one of Aesop's Fables and then sang a song related to it. Then the choir and band from the older grades performed also.

Mary sort of got the shaft. You have to be in 4th grade or above to be in band or choir so she couldn't be in those, but they stopped at 2nd grade with the fables so the poor 3rd grade got left out.

Alex's class as you can see did The Tortoise and the Hare. He was a hare obviously, and he was actually the fastest little hare they had. He probably could have won the race.

I didn't have a chance to take his picture at school and the makeup was driving him nuts so I took a picture on the way home before he rubbed it off.

I confess we were evil and snuck out after the kindergarten kids were done instead of sticking around for everyone else. In my defense though, I'd just flown back from Utah that morning and because of laptop issues hadn't been able to do any work on the flight home.

The music teacher was a rookie so I wasn't sure he could pull it off, but he did a really good job with the kids and they put on a pretty good show.