I Heart Faces Weekly Theme...

This weeks theme is sun flare!

Here's Todd and Erika. Father and daughter....nothing melts my heart more.

Recent Photoshop Magic

Have I mentioned to you that I love Photoshop???? I just wish I had all kinds of time to play with it.
Here are a couple of photos I edited recently. First is Erika (5) playing in the grass in our back yard. I removed a couple of things in the finished portrait. Can you tell what they are?
Then there is a beautiful apple blossom from one of our apple trees in one of our pastures. So so beautiful.

Before and After.

Before and After.

Love,
Lisa

Daddy's girl

Erika has been Daddy's girl from her very first breath. Her Daddy caught her as her little body emerged from mine, and she responded to his voice immediately. Nothing has changed in the 5 years she has been with us. Never mind that I was the one that carried her in my body for 9 months, or got up at all hours of the night to nurse her, or changed thousands of her diapers, potty trained her, etc.

Ahem....

Todd's the one she wants to be with.

So it only seemed obvious that she was the only one that wanted to enjoy a nice dinner of beef stew on this cool evening out back on the picnic table with him. He wanted all of us to join him, but it was just too cool for the rest of us. But not for Erika.

She found the only warm spot. Right on Daddy's lap, where she feels most secure....and warm. I mean, where else would she sit? Right?

They ate together....

Talked together....

They even look alike, don't you think? Maybe not. But, to me, there's just nothing more manly, nothing that makes my heart skip a beat like seeing a man love on his baby girls. Nothing at all..

~Lisa

Vomit, birthdays, and other fun stuff...

I'm the worst mother in the world I need a really good long nap. I have had 2 little ones have birthdays since my last blog post, but haven't added birthday posts. Partly because when Mark turned 3 on the 13th, just about everyone was getting over a trip to Vomit City, USA....a mother of many's worst nightmare. OK, I suppose there could be worse things than 4 kids vomiting at literally the same time, all night long. But at the time, it just didn't seem possible.

It all started on Thursday March 12th. First ,Anna started vomiting around 8 pm. She made it to the toilet, thank God. She felt better, so we put her to bed. Since I was planning on a solo trip to Texas for a week long getaway all my self the following Monday, I said a little prayer that anyone here who is going to get it, gets it before I leave, so that my husband, who gets psychosematic nausea doesn't do well with vomit, wouldn't have to deal with it. Well, all I can say is be careful what you ask for.

By 10 pm, Mark was vomiting....all over his crib. Blech. While I was cleaning him up, Jonathan came out to inform me that he threw up....all over his bed. Joy. More throw up to clean up. But before I could clean up Jonathan's bed, I had to catch more Anna throw up in a bucket. So, after getting everyone cleaned up, I set up the infirmery in the living room with Jonathan, and Mark, caught a few more bucket fulls, than had to run up and clean up the next patient, Erika, who....yes, you guessed it....threw up all over her bed.

While I was up there cleaning HER up, Mark vomited on the sofa (which was thankfully covered with a blanket). So, I moved Erika down to the infirmery thinking that the three would have to be together so I wouldn't have to run up and down the stairs nursing everyone back to health.
Nope. I was wrong.

Anna continued to throw up through the night, plus I had to dump and rinse buckets, so I was up and down the stairs no less than 20-30 times before I gave up and left everything in the buckets.

Have you ever seen vomit ballet? No? Let me paint a picture...I'm sitting on the floor holding a bucket for one vomiter while holding one leg up to keep another, (who is flailing his body around in his sleep because he's about to vomit, too) in order to keep him from falling off of the sofa. This position felt quite unnatural, but what I did next seemed so graceful, I think it could be considered ballet. I set the barf bucket down, and gracefully leaned over to grab the bucket for the flailing, falling off the sofa child and caugh his barf just in time. It was quite a lovely, perhaps poetic movement, I'm sure.

NOT.

Anyway, when the sun finally did rise, I found out that my poor husband was sick upstairs, too. He's lucky, though. He has a great prescription for anti-nausea meds that keeps his vaso-vagal syncope under control.
So, on Friday the 13th, which happend to be Mark's birthday, everyone was just laying around looking zombie like, and drinking gatorade and eating jello. Not a fun birthday for Mark, but he really didn't know the difference. Here' are a couple of pictures taken the day after his birthday when he got to open some presents.






He wouldn't look into the camera, but no matter....he has the most scrumptious eyelashes!

After my trip to Texas we celebrated Erika's 5th birthday! Here she is!

*crickets chirping*

Well, apparently Blogger won't let me add any more pictures for some reason. The add photo button all of the sudden won't work, so I'll have to add the photo in another post. Sorry.

Love,
Lisa

Funny Quote of the Day...

OK, before I share this quote, I just want to say that, I know I can be a little slow sometimes. After all, I use to think elbow grease was an actual grease you applied to your elbows. I also use to think that being "in cognito" meant being in an actual place, like being "in Kansas".
Anyway, I just learned where the word "Blog" comes from! It's short for "Web Log". WEB.... LOG..... weblog.... weBLOG.... BLOG.

Never mind. On to our quote of the day.

This comes from Erika, our soon to be 5 year old.

"Mmmm....Mommy, this smells soooo good. It smells like octopus hair!"

The End

Compliments

Today was full of compliments from some of my children. I thought I would share.

Jonathan: [Rubbing my arm] "Mommy, you're skin is smoother than the counter top."

***********************************

Anna: [With her arm around my waist, grabbing a hold of my love handle waist] "Mommy, what is this?"

Me: "What do you think it is?"

Anna: "Fat"

***********************************

Erika: [Hugging me] "Mommy, if you have shoes with socks on, and no pants you look nice."



I think I'll go rub on some more counter polish, put my pants on, and do some crunches now.

Lisa

Dip Lips

Me: "Erika, have you been eating Sissy's dip?"

Erika: "Dip?"

Me: "Yes, dip."

Erika: "Dip?"

Me: "Erika? Why did you eat more of Sissy's dip?"

Erika: (Looks around, anxious for a good answer) "Um....I didn't."

Actually, she didn't. It turns out she just licked all the dip off of her plate and got it all over her cute little face. I just had to take a picture. Notice the container of dip in the background on the table??? Hmmmm.......

Lisa

Meet The Shoe Dwellers ~ Erika

Erika. (AKA, Scream-ika). Yes, you read that right. If a screaming contest existed she would surely win in these categories: Endurance, regularity, and decibel level. Oh yes, she's cute, but oh so LOUD vocal. Erika is our 3rd born daughter and fifth child and weighed 8 lbs. 15 oz. at birth. She was born at home into her daddy's arms. It was our first homebirth and best delivery yet. If you haven't given birth at home, I highly recommend it if you are able!
Erika is 2 now and our most mischievous child. This child makes it her lot in life to keep us completely exhausted and continually calling out to Christ for wisdom. But we love her just the same and wouldn't trade her for anything....today.
Erika is the only one of our children with curly hair. Many of you may have several children with curls, but from a family of straight haired folks, the curls are just too precious. She gets it from both sides of our families.
Erika is currently at the potty training stage, and doing quite well! She can almost count to 10 and can almost recite the whole alphabet. She's a great eater and, like her big brother Jonathan, she loves spicy food.
A daddy's girl, and a mama's helper, she will continue to be, as she melts our hearts with that killer smile of hers, and that tippie-toed prance she has as she races toward the "dandy" (candy) bowl after a successful potty session. Ya just gotta love 2 year olds!