Yippee!!!

After four years of rejections, my short story In the Spotlight, was just accepted by YARN!!! It's an ezine, and not a very popular one at that, but still--to get a yes! I'm just sommersaulting I'm so excited. I'll give you guys a link to the story once it's up on the site. Happy Day!!!

Luke's Four Year Old Pics

This is pretty much all Luke would let me take. Good thing we got them done. He got a black eye two days later that resulted in a flood in the living room and water raining in the basement--pics of that later.

Jarom's One Year Old PIcs

I took Jarom's one year old pics at the library last week. Luke helped me get the little guy to smile, but it was a chore. He kept wanting to look down and play with the long grass.

Climbing Wall

On Luke's birthday we finished the climbing wall in the basement. Here's a couple shots of the kids playing on the holds while Matt was busy filling in the wall. The next day we got carpet and tomorrow the countertops come in! We still have work to do, but I think we're taking a break from it all until we get back from Utah in July. With carpet in, though, it looks like a real basement and I've spent every night down there watching movies on our new screen while lounging in a bean bag. Once the counter top is in, I'll take some more pics.

Jarom turns One May 30:

Jarom turned one this last Sunday. Poor kid had a low grade fever and felt out of it. Between birthday breakfast and him not feeling well and us having to stop at a pharmacy on the way to church for medicine, we were forty minutes late to church. The kid had gone through a bott of ibuprofin last week and Saturday I thought he'd finally kicked the fever and I didn't have to go buy anymore. Wrong. Birthday morning he woke up hotter than hot. Honestly, it was kind of nice missing some of church, and I didn't mind him being sick. He was sort of snuggly most of the day. The Deibel clan came over for dinner and we had a picnic outside. He perked up a bit to play with discarded paper cups and he even spent some of the morning watching his three older siblings swarm around his present: an activity table I found on clearance at Meijer (Luke's b-day gift this year was a $15 garage sale find! Both birthdays under thirty-five bucks. I'm a sucker for cheap toys and kids clothes).

What Jarom is up to these days: saying "uh-oh" and "ow," continuing to use Mom's shirt as a blankie, likes to put his hand in my shirt to play with my bra strap in public, trolling like a speedy demon all over the furniture, crinkling his nose when he's happy, taking naps upstairs with a loud fan so he'll sleep longer, perfecting going up and down stairs, still loves to play with his brother Luke, favorite household toy is the dishwasher when it's open, loves to steal my wallet whenever he can, splashing we gusto whenever he's in the tub, and sucking his thumb with a finger hooked over his nose whenever he encounters something soft. We love the kid. So glad he's part of our family.

Luke Turns Four May 27:

Luke had his first friend birthday party this year. He invited four other primary kids to Chuck E. Cheese and they had fun eating pizza and playing games. The kids were a bit quiet during the show with Chuck E., and didn't clap or shout or anything, so the three other moms had to carry the whole celebration part off. Luke ran around with his best friend, Courtney, the wholet time and enjoyed being the first kid ever in the ticket blaster and grab for tickets. While on the pricer side, I thoroughly enjoyed not planning or preparing anything and not cleaning anything up afterward. We also went to a Chinese buffet with his siblings for dinner and ended the evening by swimming at Gramma's pool.

I can't believe how much Luke has changed in a year. He hasn't minded at all giving up his slot as youngest child. In fact, I don't know what he'd do without Jarom. They play well together, Luke enjoys taking care of him, and they are almost always touching each other. He even loves having their birthdays so close together and having a joint family party with Jarom. They act like twins, but I am oh so thankful they did not come that way.