voss voyage

Well, its over for my oldest child. Three years that I wouldn't trade for the world, at the best preschool I could have ever hoped for. Allison was born to be with other people. She is about the most social person I've ever met. I never dreamed I'd put my 2 year old in preschool, but it was the best decision for her. She had a WONDERFUL 3 years at JPP. This past year was the best by far. She was in a class with exceptional teachers.  I know that you must possess a special gift to work with preschoolers, but these two teachers are more than blessed, they are anointed! TRULY! They work together as such a great team and have really brought the best out of each child. Allison fell in love with Mrs. Nutt on the playground last year and this year the bond continued. She loved every.single.day at school. (for some reason I'm having a hard time adding captions to these pics. They are of the end of the year ice cream party that Robn & I put together, and the end of year prom...

I recently went to a Memorial Day party, and brought dipped strawberries. yes, they were yummy! Several people asked me, "how did you find time to make those?" I answered truthfully, "have you seen my house?" They laughed, but I wasn't kidding!  The exchange got me to thinking about my priorities and my new years resolution to be intentional. My husband, Patrick, often says that we make time for what is important. We all find time to eat, sleep and shower (although I know many of us skip those some days, too!). We make time to do the things we want to do. Baking and cooking is a stress reliever to me. So is watching TV...scanning facebook...talking on the phone...reading on my kindle. I seem to be able to do all those things. Cleaning my house? Folding laundry? Mopping the floor? Not so much. So those things get left & it shows.  I've been convicted this week that I'm not doing the best I could be at my job....the home manager. ...

I posted my multiple miscarriages story here . But I wanted to expand on the story, give more details, and share how I believe God has worked in my life to give me four precious miracles. After my third miscarriage I felt hopeless. Because I'd been told by a few OB practitioners that having three miscarriages in a row happened less than 1% of the time, I figured we were done trying to have biological children. I didn't know if I could emotionally handle another loss; and I didn't think I wanted to find out. Patrick and I had only been married a short time, and we weren't emotionally ready to head down the adoption path either. I felt empty, sad, hopeless, trapped. I was already in my 30's and we had wanted a large family. Now I just wanted ONE child. A friend of mine at work approached me one day and shared her story of infertility and miscarriage. She encouraged me to not give up. She also encouraged me to go to www.babycenter.com and look for online ...

I started reading blogs a few years back. They inspired me. They helped me think out of the box. They helped me realize I'm not alone (in A LOT of ways). I like reading what others think. It's fun for me. The blogging world is now huge. People share all sorts of thing and are making a living by doing it! I personally entered the world of blogging mainly to keep out of town family up to date on how the kids were doing. Then it became a kind of scrapbook for me so I could keep track of my kids :-)  I started posting some of my posts on facebook and was shocked at how many people read my blog....how many people could relate to me...how many people I could encourage and how many people could encourage me. Strange, but really cool at the same time. Today I am "guest blogging" on a friends blog. She is doing a series on waiting and asked if I would share a small snippet of one of my waiting journey's. Go here if you'd like to read it!

Whoever said, "don't cry over spilled milk" never actually tipped over a bottle of human milk. They should have clarified that with "don't cry over spilled COW'S milk."  And those same people never had to throw away old/bad/allergy-filled human milk either. When Mia was a baby I learned that I had an enzyme in my milk that caused it to taste different after being frozen. Allison never seemed to care, but Mia refused to drink my milk after it had been in the freezer. Once we discovered why she was refusing bottles, she only got the fresh stuff. I had about 85 ounces already in my deep freeze when all this craziness started. And for anyone who has ever pumped, throwing away milk is not easy.  In fact, I couldn't do it. So it has remained in my deep freeze...until now. By the time the twins were born it was already passed the expiration date for frozen human milk. But I still couldn't bear to throw it out.  Today I needed some space and actuall...

Just thought I'd post a few random pictures of our life this past week. The twins have been really sick with ear infections. Jenna had one for a week, and then Natalie. Of course it took three trips to the pedi (and $90 of co-pays) to finally get diagnosed. Hopefully they are good for awhile. I can't imagine this turning into a chronic thing. I feel for my friends whose kids have had to go through this. Add caption Allison and Patrick had some special time together this weekend, so Mia and I decided to paint nails. She was SO proud! The twins are fascinating to watch. Jenna likes to search and destroy. She is either putting stuff in random drawers in the kitchen or eating something non-edible. Natalie is my little thinker. She is constantly trying to figure stuff out. The other day she took a sheet of stickers, peeled them off one by one and stuck them on her shirt (much like Mia does). She also tried to figure out how to put a highlighter and pen cap on a crayon. W...

Natalie 20lbs 9oz (19%) 29 1/4 in (19%) Head: 17 1/2 in (17%) *Latest nicknames= Bugga; Bugga-Boo; Nattles *"Talks" all the time. Sometimes it seems like she is having a full conversation of just babble. It's hilarious. *Real words: ma-ma, da-da, uh-oh, "here-you-go," this, bye-bye, up *Signs: more, up, milk, bye-bye, kiss *Loves games. Natalie will spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out games. Dropping things in a box, simple puzzles, anything with a ball. *Loves the remote & phones...but only if they are real. She can turn the tv on, turn the volume up, and mute the tv; call my friend Robn (she almost only calls Robn!!!) and use the ipad/itouch/kindle pretty good. *Doesn't like to get messy when eating--and still prefers to be fed *Not a whole lot of interest in real walking. She will walk on her knees and crawl mostly. She has stood up and taken several steps on her own, but doesn't want to practice this very much. *The dominan...