Wounded Pride....

I have prided myself on the fact that I have been the healthiest on in the family for a while now. Darin had mono last fall, and I was safe. The kids had all kinds of sicknesses all winter and I was germ free.....Well it has come to a sad, sad END!! The germs got me!! Whatever this horrible stomach bug is decided the Maney house would be a fun place to reside. Here is a lovely timeline of our experience:

Wednesday night it all started
7:30 ish Spencer throws up in the tub with all 3 kids in there. Get them out, put in clean water, go on our merry bathing way.

9:30: after finally getting Jordan to sleep, she wanders down the steps in a daze, covered in throw up. Her bed was horrible...had to do laundry again.

around Midnight: Spencer wakes up crying and covered in throw up. He has a bath and bed changed. Woke Lanny up and he cried himself back to sleep.

3:30 is Jordan crawls into our bed. After tossing and turning, she returns to her bed. She is then crying, so I check on her and he starts to throw up. We make it to the bathroom and she throws up in the tub.

Morning arrives and mommy has the problem at the other end!!! Landon has the same thing, poor boy.

So on Thursday we all laid around all day. Hardly at anything and poor Landon just crawled around and found new things to get into because I could hardly lift him. Darin came home from a class he is in for work and told me he has the same issue as well. I laid down on the couch around 6:00 and stayed there until I could drag myself up to the bed around 9:00.

Darin put all the kids to bed to bed and I found a movie I had never seen on some random channel-A Civil Action with ....now I can't even remember his name....the grease guy.....welcome back Kotter....it will come to me...the pilot guy....anyway good movie about water contamination in MA. At first I didn't think it would end well, but then the two companies at fault had to pay69 million dollars to clean up the water and land....John Travolta. Knew I would get it. Anyhow I had an ok sleep, and the kids slept well.

So her we are again just sitting around watching tv, eating bananas and crackers and drinking ginger ale and gatorade. My sweet neighbor came over so I could take a shower-which I usually do with the kids here, but since they are sick they are more needy, then about and hour later she brought over jello and chicken soup!! So sweet.

So, this is how my pride has been wounded....never think you are too immune to avoid the nasty bugs!! If they want to come, they sure will. Now I just have to lysol the whole house so we don't have another outbreak!!!

Landon is a year old!!

Ok, don't get confused!!! Here I am one year ago right before I left for the hospital to have Landon!! Boy was I happy to be getting him out! Can you say large? I felt so big....I guess we all do when we are at this point!! I can't believe one year has passed for little Lanny, as we call him. His first week of life was a little traumatic...good thing he won't remember. He was c-section, and during delivery, he was a little thirsty and swallowed a ton of fluid..."juicy" the nurse called him. It was a pretty scarry time. He couldn't breathe too well on his own, so just shortly after I arrived in recovery, he was taken to the NICU. I held him for a moment, then had to wait another 7 days before I could hold him again.

He had lots of things attached and each day we went he had something different. We called him "the moose" because he was soooo much bigger than the other babies. He had tons of x-rays, got a sun tan to get rid of jaundice, and had a nice IV in his belly button. It was a hard week, but we finally were able to bring him home-actually on his due date.

Jordan and Spencer were so happy to get to meet him. It was really cute. They were confused when I came home without him, and every day I would go to the hospital the would ask if I was bringing him home. We were so happy that day!!
Landon has been such a fun baby!! I know I do soooo many pictures, and am a little out of control with the collages, but I have a bit of an obsessive personality. I have also been obsessed with pictures since I was like 12 years old. There are never too many pictures!!!Especially if they are of my children.

I love you Lanny and are so grateful you came to our family!! Happy First Birthday!!!

Landon's actual birthday-May 4th!

Opening presents is always so much fun for the big brother and sister!!
Who can resist a one year old eating cake and ice cream? Landon surely loved his so much! Great fun!! Thanks to our friends who came and shared and brough Lanny some fun presents!!

We love you Landon!!!!

Good Friends, Good Food, Good Fun!!

WOW!! I went away overnight! I actually went away for 2 whole days and what a great time it was. I had heard so much about this place called Mountain Quest from my friend Lea, so we all decided to go. Since Ryann is going to England in 2 months, (sad, very sad) we all wanted to get away together. So in the spirit of Senior Year in High School, Jill, Ryann, Lea and I set off to the Mountains. The drive in Western Virginia was beautiful The mountains were beautiful. Mountain Quest is in Frost, WV and is really beautiful. It is an old farm made into an Inn and Retreat Center.

They have 16 horses and some Llamas on the property, as well as deer. We had a lot of fun petting the horses. Took me back to childhood!!

We had a great time just hanging out and talking, talking, talking, and them we decided to talk some more. We had a nice walk around the property. There is an awesome creek that runs around the property and I reverted to my childhood and threw rocks in. My sisters and I always played in creeks as a kid. It was very calming and relaxing.
We had an awesome dinner Saturday night by the resident Chef. I don't know that I had ever had a chef cook to my order, but it was great food and company.
We spent 3 hours on Saturday making bows for all our little girls. It was nice to be creative and it is nice to know how to make them so I don't feel the need to buy them anymore...sorry to the people I have paid previously...I have spread my wings to the bowmaking world now!!

My creations? Impressive, huh? What is really impressive is that Jordan has worn one every day since I have been home and I think my job matching to her clothes is amazing!!
I was really impressed with Mountain Quest. The owners have a 2 floor library with their personal collection, and in the game room and entire wall of videos and DVD's. When I showed Darin the pics, he really liked that part....maybe we can go back to the room with a king bed and big screen TV someday!!

Here are a few pics from our nice walk. I had a wonderful time! Thanks Ryann, Lea and Jill. Ryann. I will miss you tons when you go. Thanks for playing on rocks with me!!

THANK YOU Darin for being willing to brave the kids for 2 days without me. You did an excellent job! Thanks so much!! Although it was nice to hear that the house is better when I am at home...it's nice to be needed!!

Life Lessons

So, life is all about learning, right? Well, I have learned lots of lessons lately, so I thought I would write them down to not forget!! Maybe you can learn from my awesome family as well!!

1. Ok, the first one is obvious to those skinny, high metabolism, gym junkies out there, but to some of us..namely me...it is not so obvious!I have learned that even if you excercise every day, if you eat like a little piglet, you can still gain weight!! On the good side, it is possible to make exercise a habbit...just have to work on the eating!! (Needless to say the goals have to be revamped and there will be no pic for his one!!!)

2. I have always know that Jordan can play in the sand all day, but now I know that Landon isn't so fond of it. Spencer didn't like it too much when he was one, but now he will play in it as well, so that is a positive development. I also learned that Spencer loves wearing hats...just have to find a baseball cap that really fits him.

3. Maybe some of you already know this one. If you leave a box of tissues laying around and your baby finds it....this is what happens.
3. Yes, dressing little girls alike is really cute, but I have found that you can have lots of fun dressing little boys alike as well!!! Another lesson is that no matter how high your fish tank is, your son will find a way in it!!
4. It is inevitable that when you are playing outside after just having a great picnic, and are waiting for your friend to pick you up to go to school-literally 5 minutes- you will be running and fall down and skin your knees. BUT....thank goodness for Band-Aids for they will will cure the pain!! Oh, and how can you forget the THUMB...that makes it all better as well!!

Freedom!

The babe has been cut off....he sucketh no more!!!

I am so happy now that I can put Landon to bed without having to nurse him!! He has gone 3 days now and it is great. He sucks his sippy cup great and loves to steal his brothers, much to his chagrin!! He will even drink it if there is lemonade in it. I gave him milk earlier than I did Spencer and unlike his big brother, Landon doesn't spit it out but actually drinks it!!

I am sad that I don't have a baby anymore, but the sadness won't last long!! The fact that someone else can put him to bed and we have a babysitting swap in the works makes the sadness go away. Darin is sure happy about that!

I love Sears Delivery!!

I just wanted to share my great experience with Sears. Our old freezer died and so we wanted a new more space effiecient freezer-the one we had was a dinosaur!! So we ordered one online after weeks of looking at specs, measuring, etc. We ordered it last weekend and picked today to have it delivered. They called us last night and told us it would be here between 9:15 and 11:15. I prayed they would come early because I had a last minute Dr. apt at 10:00, and didn't want the sitter to have to deal with it.

So here's the great part. I got a knock on my door at exactly 9:15 and it was Sears Delivery!!! I was thrilled. It was 2 cute little hispanic guys. They were friendly, quick and efficient, considering they had to take the back door of our house off the hinges to remove our old beast of a freezer!! The had this big harness thing they each put over their shoulders, lifted it up and carried it away. They were so nice and quick!! We chatted a minute and he said they usually have 20 deliveries a day!!

This is the second time this has happened so well-I was almost 8 mos pregnant with Landon when we got a new stove. That time they came 10 minutes early!!

Thank you Sears for great delivery service!!

Good Day

Today was a great day starting at 5:55 am!! Spencer woke up having a dream that someone was stealing his granola bar....he was mumbling so I put him in our bed and he went back to sleep. I got up and got ready to go on a walk outside. I am happy that it is getting nice outside, so I can do my morning walks outside. It was crisp and cool and the birds were chirping away. I really enjoy walking at that time-I can just think and no one is demanding anything of me-well, except my thighs....

We met a really good friend at the park a little later and played for a while. It is so nice to be able to be outside...the kids really love it. After we took Jordan to school, Spencer and I spent some time outside. I did some digging in the dirt-which I really love, and Spencer was enthralled with all the worms I was coming across. I got rid of some old plants and am excited to get some new flowers when my tulips are gone. I planted some cute little violas I left in the pots all winter. The roots are probably so much happier now.

Darin got home early and picked Jordan up from school. She loved it-it's so much more fun to have daddy pick her up. He had a mystery shop to do for dinner, so I suggested going to a park near the restaurant. At first he fave me a look of "do we have to," but then agreed to go. We got to the park and much to my chagrin they had taken out the big playstructure. We haden't been there since last year. Anyway we made the best of it and had so much fun.

At one point I was holding Landon, and Darin was pushing Jordan and Spencer at the same time on the swings. I just sat and watched. They were both laughing and loving it. They were playing a counting game with Darin...anyway I just looked at the 3 of them and thought to myself "they are mine...they really are mine....I am so lucky. " They also had this big long bouncy balance beam type thing and our whole family played on it together. At that time I felt like that was what life was about-being with your family and feeling joy. What a blessing my family is!!

Thank you Darin for taking us to the park even thought it wasn't your first choice to spend the evening.

So, now Darin just came in the door from checking the church, so what better way to close a good day than a small dish of blackberries-n-cream ice cream!!!