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Apr 28, 2011

Easter!

We had so much fun at Mom and Dad's over the Easter weekend. It was a wonderful celebration of Mom's awesome prognosis, God's gift of salvation, and how blessed we are as a family to have each other just as we are, even grumpy sleep deprived mommies, non-sleeping 3 year olds (resulting in the sleep deprived mommies), screeching wild 1 year olds, arthritic knees, nodules, meltdowns and all!
























Apr 19, 2011

Funny and Sweet Sam Stories

Funny:
At the Cole house one morning a couple weeks ago, we were having a bad time of things. Rich was at work, and the kids and I had a long day in front of us. I was grumpy and tired, as were the kids. Between the whining and the crying and the tantrums (admittedly, from all three of us), it was amazing that we all made it through lunch.

But we did and, thankfully, naptime was upon us. I laid Lena down and she was out before her head hit the pillow. Then I went to check on Sam, who was going potty before he laid down. He was still sitting on the toilet when he pointed to the floor to show me a tiny puddle where he had missed a little. No biggie. I leaned down to wipe it up and then felt something warm and wet hit the side of my face and run down into my mouth.

Into my mouth.

Yes, Sam had forgotten to push his pee pee down before it let loose again and I was the unlucky recipient of his wild pee stream.

I was immediatly angry. I mean I had hot, salty urine dripping off my lips and, after the morning we'd had, I was already dangerously close to the edge. I looked up at him slowly and he was laughing to himself.

I said, "This is not funny, Sam. You peed on Mommy!"

Sam answered, "Yeah, Mommy, it is funny."

He started laughing again. Then I started laughing, Sam urine still on my lips. We both laughed so hard we had tears coming down our faces, which luckily for me, helped to wash off the pee.


Sweet:
One night several weeks ago Sam woke up around 2:30 am to some howling crazy winds. I'm usually a very light sleeper and wake at the slightest sound from the kids' rooms. But that night I was out. Cold. So when Sam silently crept into our room, scared by the wind, holding his baby and polar bear tightly to his chest; I didn't hear his big stinky feet shuffling into our room. He was standing right beside our bed quietly staring at me with tears in his beautiful blue eyes. I was still out cold...

Until, somehow in the depths of a splendid REM cycle, I sensed I was being watched and I sat straight up in bed, sucking in one of those loud mom breaths we all do when we see our kids fall or nearly miss a staggering head injury...anytime we're scared. And sensing someone watching me while I slept was enough to coax out one of those scared loud breaths.

Evidently, seeing me go from peacfully sleeping to violently launching myself up, scared poor Sam even more than he already was from the whirling whipping winds. He started to wail and stumbled backwards, away from me like I was a monster.

"Oh, Sammy. You scared Mommy", I said catching my breath.

In between sobs, still not approaching the bed, Sam said, "You...(s)cared....me...too!"

That just about broke my heart, poor baby. I held out my arms and he ran toward me. I scooped him up and held his little trembling body close to mine and, eventually, we both calmed down and went back to sleep.

Apr 13, 2011

Seconding My Sister's Blog Post - Rejoicing!

My mother's pathology came back clear! That means there is no cancer in the lymph nodes they took out or in the surrounding tissue. This is such an answer to prayer! Thanks to my sister's blog post for reminding me to update my own. http://loriwinger.blogspot.com/2011/04/rejoicing.html

Apr 12, 2011

Maple Syrup Day at the Wingers

This is one of my very favorite days of the year...Maple Syrup Day at the farm!

The Wingers tap their trees and make syrup and, while it's cooking, we play and run and take hayrides and go for hikes and eat and visit. All at the beautiful Winger family farm in Mansfield.

I've always loved visiting my brother-in-law's family farm, stretching way far back before Rich and the kids were in my life, even before Lori and Matt got married and had their kids.

Now that I have a family of my own, I especially enjoy this day that rolls around every spring. The kids LOVE the farm. And the photo ops...well forget about it. It's such a beautiful place, I took nearly 200 photographs. But I whittled them down to this slide show.

Apr 7, 2011

Lori's 40th Surprise Party!

Here are some pictures from Lori's big 40th birthday surprise!

One of the tissue paper globes I made. Lori's "Happy 40th, Lori!" sign. 160 people waiting to surprise Lori. The "family tree" I made with photos of Lori with family and friends. I forgot to get a picture of the "4-0" photo collage I made - it was super cute, too. The cake Stephanie and Marlene brought - so pretty. Waiting... Waiting... Kids waiting... And here she is! Completely surprised! The pinata for the kids...60 kids. Wow. Lori dancing with Lena. Dancing the night away. Sam's favorite Aunt Suzy. Karaoke. Best friends. My cousin's son singing away. Uncle Kenny entertaining Sam. The girls singing. Lena enjoying the pinata candy. My mom and her sisters. The happy couple. One of the kids' tables. More karaoke. Lori and Dylan at the end of the night.