Future therapy?

I may have previously mentioned my love for all things scary.  Stephen King books, a good scary movie (Paranormal Activity, anyone?), haunted houses...I love it all.

And so do my kids.  I limit what I let them watch (Isabel does NOT like scary movies; Gabe has seen The Village, Signs, and Ghost Adventures and loves them equally).   But when they wanted to go with us to King's Island's Fear Fest, I happily obliged.

My niece, Katlyn, who is eight years old, fits right in with the rest of us, and she and Rhonda joined us for a very scary night of haunted train rides, freaky haunted carnivals and stalkers in a corn field.  

It was so much fun, I literally peed my pants (darn lack of bladder control).  Gabe kept his eyes closed for the first two attractions, but then he got into the spirit of the night and braved it with eyes wide open.

Isabel held onto her dad the entire night, but she claims that she had a lot of fun :)

It may cost me hundreds in therapy sessions at some later date, but boy, it was worth it!

Do you like scary stuff?  Would your kids love a good haunted house?  Ever read The Shining?

Bits and pieces

My dreams have improved recently, thankyouverymuch.  I guess returning to work and getting a handle on my to-do list helped, not to mention spending time with my family and friends and drinking a bottle (or two) of wine in the process.  Tried a new wine called "Middle Sister", a sweet white Moscato.  It went very well with my homemade chicken and rice soup on Saturday night...yum.

I finished the wedding invitation project (see Saturday night) for my friend, Tiffany.  She and her high school sweetheart are getting married on January 7th, and we came up with the most elegant snowflake-embossed invitations I've ever made...I can't wait to show you the finished project (when she mails them; don't want to ruin the surprise).

I (reluctantly) got my flu shot, a mandatory thing at the hospital.  My arm feels like it was punched with an iron hand, but at least there's another item I can check off of my list.

My birthday is coming up fast.  For some reason, this past year I had it in my head that I was 38, when really I was only 37.  So I get another year of being 38...that's a bonus!

After a busy night at work on Sunday, I was super tired on Monday, even after a good day's sleep.  My best-mother-in-law-in-the-world, Kay, made a delicious ham dinner for me and my family...I didn't have to cook or clean up and it was absolutely wonderful.

Sweater weather has officially arrived this morning, with the forecast calling for a high in the 50's today.  I'm sitting here, sipping coffee and pondering which sweater and boots combination I will wear...love that.

What's going on in your life this week?  Do you get a flu shot?  Love sweaters and boots?  Have a great mom-in-law?

Anxiety

Lately, I have been having dreams that can only be described as "anxiety dreams", or nightmares, as the case may be.

I dreamt about hosting Thanksgiving dinner (one of my favorite things to do), but in the dream, nothing went right.  Joe put out an Easter egg tablecloth, the rolls were burnt, the vegetables were rotten, an unexpected guest showed up, Isabel was giving me grief, and when I went to get the turkey out of the oven, I realized I had forgotten to get it out of the refrigerator, and I was going to have to serve leftover pork roast, instead.

The very next night, I dreamt about going to work and spending the entire shift doing everything but my work, only to realize that the day shift was about to arrive and I hadn't done a thing all night long.

Both mornings, my heart was pounding to beat the band, and I had a very hard time shaking that anxious feeling.  I knew these were typical anxiety dreams, but making my body settle down and realize that dreams they were, and not reality, was a tough thing to do.

I tried to identify the source of my anxiety...returning to work after being off for ten days?  Joe starting a new job?  Elijah preparing to leave for Washington, D.C. soon?  Gabe being covered in poison ivy?  My mom moving to Indiana?  Starting a new quarter of school?

Okay, the list became rather long.  No wonder I'm having such weird dreams.  Now I just need to figure out how to deal with it all.  I am not a worrier by nature, but clearly my subconscious is lately.  Hopefully just writing a blog post about it will make my conscious self take the bull by the horns and tell my subconscious to knock it off.  I'd really rather dream about a beach, the ocean, a beach and ocean with Daniel Craig...

How do you handle anxiety?  Does it give you nightmares?  What's your dream dream?

So many decisions...

Saturday was meant to be the perfect day for a photo shoot, and thanks to my incredibly talented big sis, Michelle, it turned out to be just that.  She loaded up her camera, new lenses and her photography prowess and headed north to capture our little family in our fall finest.

Seriously, Michelle, you rock!

We got pictures of each kid, from the oldest...

to the youngest...

to the beauty in between...

Fifteen years together, and we can still manage some smiles :)

My family means everything to me, and I am going to love hanging these pictures up around our home so I can see the love and smiles glowing back at me every day.

After two hours of posing and smiling and laying in leaves and throwing leaves in the air, Gabe (and the rest of the kids) were happy to be done.  And the grown-ups couldn't wait to get to the nearest computer to admire Michelle's work!

Also, a big thanks to my friend, Chelle, who let us "borrow" her family's old schoolhouse for the photo shoot.  We couldn't have asked for a better location!

Now, the decision as to what-pictures-to-hang-where comes next...help!

Witches and herbs and mums, oh, my!

I love decorating for fall, almost as much as for Christmas.  Isabel and I had a great time pulling out all of the boxes of pumpkins and witches and ghosts and setting them up carefully inside and out of the house.

Welcome to our little corner of the pumpkin patch:

This spring, you may remember that Isabel planted an herb garden of her own.  We recently started drying some of the lavender, rosemary and sage in the kitchen; I think we may freeze a bit of it, too, to use this Thanksgiving.

We have yet to visit a real pumpkin patch this fall, but are hoping to next week.  I'm looking forward to getting our family pictures done on Saturday...we haven't had a family picture in over five years, and it's time!

What are you looking forward to this fall?

Decade and a half

 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11

This has long been one of my favorite Bible verses, one that gives me comfort when my life doesn't seem to be going according to my plan...it's good to know that someone around here has a plan (thanks, God).

Fifteen years ago, when our 22-year-old selves stood at the front of the First Church of God and said our vows in front of God and everybody, we had no idea what was in store for us.  Sure, we had a plan, but you know what they say about the best-laid plans (you don't know what they say?  just google it :)

Anyway, Joe and I had lots of plans.  Work hard, make lots of money, travel the world, have a few kids (I said four, he said two), maybe move to the beaches of South Carolina and live happily ever after.

We have definitely worked hard.  We don't make lots of money, but we have enough to pay the bills and travel a bit and still save some, and you all know we ended up with three kids (marriage is all about compromise, is it not?).  And though we have struggled through some times when we didn't like each other all that much; when money was tight and patience was scarce; those times are few and far between.

Fifteen years ago, I chose this guy to be my husband:

and we ended up with an amazing family:

We may have had our plans, but I have to say that God's plan has been even better.

Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry.

                                                         -- Tom Mullen

Busy bee

As a toddler, Gabe was what I lovingly referred to as my "busy bee".  The boy was always getting into something, going somewhere, or making a mess...and often all three.

As he got older, he calmed down quite a bit.  By the age of five, I had hope that he might survive into his teen years, after all (without driving his exhausted momma into an early grave, that is).

Now that he's seven (yes, my baby is seven...I have no idea how that happened!), Gabe can sit and read a book, build an entire Lego set all by himself, and contentedly watch a movie in the theater without getting up twenty-five times to get popcorn, go to the bathroom, explore the row in back of us, check out the toys in the lobby...you get the picture.

Despite the level of maturity that he has achieved, I have to say that Gabe is still my busy bee...

On any given day, you can find him building dominos, watching domino videos on Youtube, finding cool domino sets to buy on Amazon.com (domino-building is his newest passion):

 

or you might find him laying paver stones out back (his favorite part was hammering them in place with Dad's rubber mallet):

He still loves doing crafts, and it was no trouble at all to convince him to write out his thank-you cards for his birthday gifts:

Another favorite thing is to grab my camera and take pictures.  I had no idea he was using my pj-clad self along with my naked foot as a back-drop for the "many faces of Isabel photo shoot":

Isabel Happy

Isabel Sad

 His greatest love is still Legos.  He loves to build his own creations, then make videos or take pictures of them, always requesting that I "put them on Youtube, Mom!":

Needless to say, my boy is still my busy bee, and probably always will be.  At least now, he's old enough to clean up his messes :)

Now, can somebody please tell me how to slow down the clock, because in another seven years, my baby will be a teenager, and his siblings will be grown adults.  I just can't wrap my mind around that!