Tuesday, November 28, 2006

"the heat is on"

oh, it's so nice to be warm in every part of the house, espcially since winter is here.

in other news . . . deb's getting her wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow. she had a tooth that started hurting her last friday and was finally able to call the dentist about it monday. she got an appointment today and they suggested she get her wisdom teeth taken out and they scheduled her an operation for tomorrow at 1:15pm.

it looks like we're gonna be diving into homeschooling beginning next semester. so we're in the midst of wading through website after website, book after book, curriculum and workbooks. it's a bit daunting.

right now we're in the "looking for curriculum" phase. we went to barne's and noble a few weeks ago to look for curriculum but mostly they had just lots of books on "why you should start homeschooling", or "these are the benefits of homeschooling", etc. we're already convinced, we just need to know what curriculum is the best. deb's gotten some phone #'s of other area homeshoolers to i'm sure they'll be able to shed some light on the subject.

i'm guessing it's one of those things where once you become a homeschooler you'll find out about all the bazillion other homeschoolers that you didn't even know existed before. (because for some reason i have this myth that homeschooling families never actually leave their homes. they just stay there constantly and never are seen in public) it's kinda like when you get a new car . . . all of a sudden you start noticing that same exact car when you're driving around that you didn't notice before.

well i've run out of words today.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

just so everyone knows . . .

the heat issue has nothing to do with our account (we've been very blessed in our finances, and are current with all our bills; and paying down our debt! thank you, very much. don't get me started) :-)

it has to do with the gas furnace not working properly. i called the guy that has worked on our furnace before and he was booked with other jobs.

he said he'd definitely be able to come on monday. possibly he could squeeze us in on friday but he didn't want to promise.

we were given a very fancy heater last year ($400 fancy, EdenPure) so we all had a "sleep over" in our bedroom last night and we were nice and cozy only having to heat one room.

in other news, our digital camera was due to be delivered today (we sent it in for repair). but due to an error on FedEx's part, we missed it and they won't re-deliver till friday. grrrrrr!!!!

but oh well, mag, remember to bring your digital camera. (yes you can include pictures along with your video when making a movie in imovie)

well have a great thanksgiving y'all and a fabulous shopping day on friday! there's no wifi at my in-laws house so i may or may not be able to post tomorrow.

some silliness of my chicas:


UPDATE: and here's one freak shot of me, that i took at church wednesday night.

do you like my hat?

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

so maybe one more day

ok, there's no heat in our house till possibly next monday. i got a call at 10.30pm that school's cancelled tomorrow because of a broken pipe at the middle school that flooded the front doors and cut off water to the school. so that's an exciting beginning to the thanksgiving weekend.

anyways, we're still muddling through all of our homeschooling choices. if anyone has any insight or suggestions on curriculum or any other advice drop us a comment or email or call. laterz.

if you've also got a blog, you can get a free book from earl creps "off road discipleship" - while supplies last. Blogger Book Giveaway

Monday, November 20, 2006

as if i never left

deb and i went on a date last night. we got back late and i spent most of my time writing a post for the reallife blog (and trying to figure out why the church's sermon podcasts on itunes weren't updating), but i wanted to say you'll be hearing more from me in the days to come.

(in case you haven't heard . . . thanksgiving's coming)

g'night to all, and i'll see ya tomorrow! :-)

Saturday, November 18, 2006

fun on a friday night

deb went to a "dynamic women" meeting at church last night.

the girls and i decided to clean the living room. it looked kinda like this! (in time lapse fashion)



half way through i called deb to come pick up rachel, if you were wondering who took our baby.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

got too much laundry??

try this:


no, it's not a trick it really works. and here's another video that explains it all.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

i'm still alive

i stayed home sick today, but i'm still alive . . . i haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

quick update:
my sister got her macbook! see here and the posts that follow in the days afterward.

tim has a great post on fatherhood - here.

we're contemplating homeschooling our kids for a variety of reasons, but mostly spurred on because of a message by Dr. Voddie Baucham. - Closing the Generation Gap, Part 1 Part 2

and i haven't run in a couple days and i'm feeling my body turn to mush. although i don't know how much of that is because i'm sick and how much is the withdrawls from running??

it's late, goodnight!

Thursday, November 02, 2006

hospital story and new blogs

just for you sarah (and everyone else wondering how rachel's doing)

after you made that comment sarah i realized that i haven't really taken any pictures of rachel since the first day of her life. i guess i'm ejoying seeing her all the time that i forget others don't see her as often as i do. sorry. i'll take more pics and post.

on a similar note, i promised to tell more of the 'hospital' story, so here goes:

as you may know deb's actual due date was oct. 23rd, but she was DONE being pregnant a few weeks before then. so after talking to her doctor she actually set an 'inducement' date at the hospital for oct. 9th. but she called and cancelled it, so as to let the baby develop further.

at her weekly dr. appointment on the 18th she decided the baby had enough developing and asked the dr. what she could do to speed up the process. her dr. stripped her membranes and told her to go home and get childcare situated for the other sisters and head to the hospital by 6.30pm.

so deb comes home at about 3.15 and tells me that she's got the green light to go to the hospital. i ask her "how soon do you want to leave?" because i hadn't worked out yet for the day i wanted to go running. i asked if she could wait 45 minutes. she said yes, so i went running. after i got back we took the kids to my sister who was at the church getting ready for church that evening. then we loaded up the van and headed to sunnyside to have our baby.

after checking in around 6pm, the doctor came in and 'broke the water' around 6.30pm and we settled in for an evening of wheel of fortune and jeapordy. around 8.30 things were kinda still slow pokin but deb and i were getting hungry. deb asked me to go and sneak her back some clam chowder from skippers. i went out and got myself a carne asada burrito and then made it just in time to skippers for the chowder.

i'm not quite sure what time they began deborah on petocin, she says it was at about 11pm. but still things weren't picking up too quickly. deb went to sleep soon after being given the petocin, and i finally went to bed after "blogging" a bit around 1am.

at about 2am deb wakes me up because of the strength of her contractions. i briefly got up, i think i got her some more ice and water, and then i went back to sleep. (all within about 5 min. mind you.) at around 2.55am she wakes me up again. this time she's muttering something about wanting drugs. so i walk over to the nurses station telling them her requests and they come over soon.

they got deb into bed and checked her progress before they would give her any drugs and she was 6cm and about 90% effaced. deb thought that since she'd been at 3-4cm for such a long time that from 6 to 10 would still take quite some time. the nurses knew differently and had deb lay on her side and kept telling her to relax. (in actuallity they were stalling because the doctor was in the next room delivering another baby)

it was amazing to see the transformation once the doctor came in. the nurses went from "relax honey, just let the baby come down on it's own, you don't need to push" to "ok, sweetie, go ahead and give it a good push. one or two good pushes and you'll have a baby! keep going, don't give up now"

so anyways, rachel joy was born at 3.16am. although at 3.16am we didn't know who she was yet. we called our parents around 4am, after they had cleaned her up a bit, and she still didn't have a name! deb had left the final decision of the name up to me. and all the names we had tossed around until then just didn't seem right at the time. so i hopped on the internet and looked up "name of women in the bible". that led me to this page where i started matching names to see what sounded good.

finally around 5am-ish i asked deb what she thought of "Rachel Joy Lara", she thought it was beautiful so we declared it to be. and if you'll look back we proclaimed it to the world at 5.25am.

so that's the story of our rachel.
_______________

if you noticed the link above, deb has made another entry into her blog again -- post-pregnancy. i look forward to many more great posts in the future.

i did want to point out 2 more new blogs that have recently started. one if from our sr. pastor entilted "time2team", very apropo if you know our pastor. he just started, and has admitted that after the first two initial posts he's not quite sure where to take it from there. but to be sure it will turn into a great blog on team leadership and 'other stuff'.

and finally, jessikab has begun her blog. she's a very talented writer and will be documenting her life after high school with God in the driver's seat. may she 'live the beautiful life' that she writes about!
_______________
2 more quick notes::

1) happy birthday to my sister!
and a congratulations are in order as she will be heading to portland to get her 'first mac' on saturday. believe me mag, your gonna love it! - and not just because i say so.

and 2) julia was fidgiting with our digital camera tonight and broke it. (YES!, in between the time i started this post - around 2.30pm - and her bed time - 8.30pm - she broke it.) actually it was simply making weird noises when the lens would open and shut, which is what happened the last time it broke. and i tried to 'set' it back in place and thus finished the "breaking" process.

i did manage to get the pictures off of it that deb had taken with the girls and their new sister (which i'll post soon) but after which i don't know how long it will be until we are able to get it fixed or get a new one. (the 1 year warranty expired like on oct. 25th?)

g'night all!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

posting by phone!

Ok so perhaps this isn't the most efficient method of posting,but i don't have internet access otherwise. maybe i'll get faster at this whole text messaging thing. well i think that's it for now. (BTW i'm in first period at school)