Since George was working on my birthday he had a birthday dinner for me last night. He invited the girls from my accountability group for dinner. The picture above is what some of the kids got into while the adults were talking:)

I took Ian to his first music class this morning. The class meets in the teacher’s family room at her house. She used to be the music teacher at the school I last worked in. Ian was intimidated and overwhelmed at first but then seemed to enjoy himself. It’s the first “class” he’s ever been to so he wasn’t sure what was going on. He got to play a lot of instruments and sing songs. He’s a little young for the class but it’s the only class that works with our schedule. I think we’ll try it out and see how he does.

There hasn’t been a lot of opportunities to post about recently so I’ve mostly been posting about our everyday life. But today I have an opporunity to post about the website BookSwim It is the first online book rental service. It’s similar to the concept of Netflix®; they lend you books that are sent directly to your house. You don’t have to buy the books but you do have the opportunity to buy them if you choose to. If not, you just send it back and “check out” a new one. There are no late fees and shipping is free both ways. They have a promotion going on now for membership signups. Book Swim Club is currently running a special on the first month of membership at 50% off the regular monthly rate. The first month of membership is $9.95 for three books. You can find all of the latest books as well as the classics. It’s like going to the library without leaving the house which sounds good to me!

Today was my 33rd birthday. George was working at the FD today, but he left me a gift on the kitchen table before he left for work that I got when I got up (a fancy toaster oven I’ve been wanting). Today was a normal day for us, day at the park, soccer practice after dinner. Despite not doing anything exciting today, I got quite a few Happy Birthday comments on Facebook, which I appreciated. I also got a couple of Hallmark ecards. I had to play them a few times for the boys:) My parents called and sang Happy Birthday on the answering machine. 33 doesn’t feel much different than 32 though as I look back over the past year I can see all the work God has done in my life. The refining process isn’t always comfortable and sometimes quite painful but I know that it is necessary to make me into the child he has called me to be. So what’s in store for me this year…?

Poor Ian hasn’t participated in any of the fun things Ethan did as a baby. And he doesn’t have any friends his age that he play with. With Ethan I was able to scheduled lots of play dates so he was a social butterfly at a early age. But between Ethan’s school schedule and Ian’s napping, we miss out on most of the social opportunities he could participate in. I’ve been wanting Ian to drop his morning nap so that I can take him to a music class that meets at a woman’s house. Some days he gets up really early so he needs his morning nap and other days he’ll sleep a little later and then just take one nap in the middle of the day. Because Ethan does My Gym at his school one afternoon a week, he is able to go to the My Gym and participate in one “open gym” a week. Ian slept a little later than usual yesterday and I thought I’d try and take them both to the gym at 9:15. Wouldn’t you know it, he feel asleep on the way there:) I had to wake him up but despite that he was in a good mood and had a great time. He loved the trampoline the most and hated the ball pit. Ethan was running all over the place like a mad man and had a blast as well. So for now, My Gym may be Ian’s opportunity to play and have fun away from the house.

Ian’s hair has been getting into his face and I decided to finally get it cut. It was hard because I loved his little curls:( I took them both yesterday for hair cuts. Ian got kind of squirmy toward the end and he kept signing “all done.”

Today Ian is one year old. We celebrated the day by taking him to the dr. for his one year shots:) Sorry about that Ian! We also went to the mall for his first pair of stride rights. After practicing for about 6 weeks, he finally decided he was ready for walking and is now officially a walker. He is growing by leaps and bounds-he grew two inches since his check up two months ago and gained three pounds. He continues to be such a joy and he is such a people person. He follows me around the house and loves to be wherever we are. He smiles at everyone he meets and everyone automatically call him “Smiley.”

Now that my head isn’t in a fog, I’m realizing I have a lot of holiday planning that I need to do. It looks like our annual Christmas party will be December 6th so I need to work on planning that. I’m also working on a project with my friend Marilyn for the boys. We are doing an advent in the box where we have a special activity planned for each day of advent that teaches the kids about why Christ came and what he has done for us. I have an advent box with 25 little doors that are big enough to fit a small object. I need to collect all my little objects that will represent the activity and verses we are going to study. There’s also Christmas to plan. Christmas is at our house this year and both my inlaw’s and my parents will be here. Right after Christmas we are leaving to first go to Chattangooa for a few days and then on to the cabin we rented near Gatlinburg to ring in the new year with two other families. Lots to do-I better get busy:)

Everyone at our house has been sick since the boy’s party ten days ago. Ethan’s cold turned into a sinus infection. I was sad to hear that but the Dr. said that the point of his getting surgery was so that he wouldn’t get so many infections. It has been over two months since his last one but I was hoping he wouldn’t have one for a long while. After a week of giving him breathing treatments all day long I finally gave in and went to the allergist. Thankfully they didn’t want to start out with steroids right away. And now George has a sinus infection (if you remember from my post about his work pants-we are thinking about sending him for the testing the other guys have been getting as we are wondering if it may have anything to do with his frequent illnesses). I’m finally feeling better which really helps keep our house running smoothly. I’m always amazed at how much life slows down and nothing gets accomplished when we are all sick. We just accomplish the bare minimum to keep everyone alive. I was lucky to get groceries last week between trying to keep my head from falling off my body to having two grumpy and sick kids while we were at the store it’s a wonder we made it home alive:) Laundrey piles up and the outside world doesn’t hear from us until it’s over (which is a good thing since we didn’t have anything clean to wear:) And I won’t go into details but the amount of television that gets watched while we are sick…it’s embarassing!