This Crazy Life

This summer, like last summer has been crazy! It's a really good thing that Jeff chooses not to get a second job during the summer, because I would be stuck at home all summer and we'd never get a vacation.

We started out like last year having several Junior High events in a short period of time, followed by soccer camp, Mommy & Me yoga class, and did I mention Vacation Bible School? This year our children's ministry team had a hard time finding directors to plan VBS this year, so I volunteered my services. I'm not really sure why, but it ended up being a great experience, even though I was pretty busy for a while. I got to plan VBS for our church kids and all the visitors that came in with 2 of my good friends.

Since all that took care of the first 3 weeks in June, July was around the corner and left town on the Wednesday after VBS for a 2 week trip to the North Woods in Wisconsin and Chicago area to visit family and spend some time as a family. I'm hoping to give our trip it's own post soon, but we had lots of fun and loved building relationships with Jeff's cousins, and getting to see his aunts and uncles too. Jeff's grandmother has 7 great-grandchildren, and all but 2 of them are under the age of 3. Four of them were born within a year of each other!

Now that we've been home for almost 2 weeks, we're starting to enjoy our summer. The girls are playing in the backyard, I got to have a girls night out at the movies with my MIL and SIL. Sidenote: Letters to Juliet is an excellent movie if anyone's interested or wants to purchase it for me for Christmas! :)

We are just now starting to get busy again. We are making an impromptu trip to Athens this weekend to see my Grandpa who has cancer and isn't doing well, and next week Jeff has soccer camp and coaching meetings. We also have something else that's evading my memory at the moment. Next weekend we get to hang out with our good friends in Tyler.

We have even made plans to go to San Antonio for a few days without the girls. We are very excited about this trip (or at least I am). Over the past couple of weeks we have been watching a few different websites looking for the best deal for a hotel on/near the Riverwalk and had found a few things, but not that we were ready to book. We used Hotwire to book our hotel rooms on our way up and back from Wisconsin and got some great deals at 2 different Holiday Inns. Both were very nice and probably the cheapest price you could pay for any hotel. Last night while perusing for information on Priceline's Name your own price option, I found a coupon for an auction website that was $100 your first purchase. I clicked to see what it was and found a very nice 4 star hotel on the riverwalk.

It was a package deal that includes:
3 night stay
breakfast each morning- room service or in the restaurant
dinner for 2 one night at their restaurant (Approximately $50 value)
rose petal turn down
champagne and strawberries upon arrival
All taxes included
Must pay $40 fee for something

This package claimed to be worth almost $900 according to the website. We also reasoned that the cheapest 4 star hotel we could get was at least $100/night after taxes. The one we considered making reservations for was $100 before taxes. On this idea, the auction had 1 bidder who had bid early on and we were hoping this person wasn't paying careful attention to it. With all coupons and taxes paid, I am VERY excited that we won the auction and paid less than $350 for everything. It would be really great if the deal covers the charge for parking! We'll still have to cover a few meals and gas, but I'm just really excited and proud of my hubby for his diligence and frugal ways! We'll have to give our vacation it's own post too with some pics of everything.

Lost in the Wilderness

At the end of the school year, Jeff and his good friend Jason went backpacking in New Mexico just north of Santa Fe. I left with the girls to go work at Camp Longhorn on Wednesday and the guys left on Thursday morning. They stayed the night in Santa Fe and left for the trail head on Friday morning. On Saturday they hiked up to one of the peaks that they were trying to get to. They climbed most of the way on their hands and knees. I even got a phone call from the peak! It was great to hear from him, and a day earlier than I expected.

Unfortunately, Jeff didn't feel very well most of that day. For this and other reasons, they cut their trip a day short. I was very grateful, since I'd been at home taking care of the girls for 3 days. They did come home with some great pictures.

Lack of Inspiration

(Warning: long post ahead)


I've had a rough couple of months. We've been a little busy and I've been working more often, which leaves less time for me to write on the blog. Like the title of the post, I've felt like nothing exciting or worth reporting was going on in our lives. To some extent that's true, but now that I'm sitting here, I could have told you about:

- Jeff going on a backpacking trip Thursday
- Since Jeff's going backpacking, we have worked out more and have used our baby backpack quite a bit and even got a 2nd one recently so we can both get a good workout
- Our middle school trip to Rockin C Ranch
- Getting to spend time with some long-time friends of our at Rockin C Ranch

- Rachel talking up a storm and saying "Camp Longhorn, Attawaytogo" while holding her hands out in attempt to do the sign.
- Rachel saying "Horned Frogs" and her attempt at that sign, which looks more like ok or a partial Hook 'Em horns
- Now that I'm working, Rachel will often grab a bag or her shopping cart and say "I'm going to work" - it's so cute
- Rachel has no problem being bossy and taking on a role of being the 1st born child - we're working on her

- Rebekah has 16 teeth
- Some of her favorite things to do are play chase, play keep away/anything with her sister, going to see the ducks in the pond and saying "Quack, Quack" to them,
- Jeff and I will both tell you that she can say "giraffe", loves dogs and playing with them, still takes 2 naps each day, and loves anything with pasta and red sauce (which makes for a rather messy clean up)

- We had a garage sale in early May
- We helped our church with a garage sale as a fundraiser for the 2 BIG (expensive) mission trips this summer where they raised more than $7000!! Praise God!
- We bought a gas grill for Mother's/Father's Day with our garage sale
- Jeff got his bicycle up and running and he took the girls out a couple times on the bike trailer

- I'm in charge of our church's Vacation Bible School this year with 2 other women, which has kept me rather busy the past 2 months.
- Our summer calendar is rather busy. If you look at our computer calendar, there's something almost every day, and plenty of times when there's multiple things in a single day
- We just finished housesitting and watching Jeff's Grandpa for 1 1/2 weeks.
- We finally decided to go to Wisonsin/Illinois for the Mahachek family reunion and will be gone for almost 2 weeks in July

We have been so bad about not taking pictures. I got a new camera for Christmas that's small enough that I can take it with me and is almost always in my purse, and somehow I manage to not get it out and take pictures.

While housesitting, I read this book called the "Barnyard Dance" at least twice each day. My mother-in-law probably reads it to them each time the girls are over there. At first, Rachel was rather hesitant about doing the dance moves with the book, but now she does them willingly and excited most of the time. Bekah will even do the beginning. If you say "Let's read the Barnyard Dance," she gets a big smile on her face and starts stomping. The first three lines are "Stomp your feet, Clap your hands, Everybody ready for a barnyard dance." On the next page you bow to the horse and bow to the cow, and she'll bend over really far. That's about as long as you can keep her attention, but she's so cute when she does it.

I'm heading off to Camp Longhorn tomorrow in hopes of helping my aunt be less stressed about camp starting on Saturday and to enjoy myself a bit with the girls while Jeff is in New Mexico backpacking with his good friend Jason. Jeff leaves on Thursday morning. I will be back Friday night in time for my VBS meeting on Saturday morning and straight to pick up my mom and dad from the airport, who will be returning from Hawaii for their 30th wedding anniversary.

It seems like it's been really hot here lately, so I guess summertime is in full swing. We hope everyone has a great summer and gets to enjoy time with their family as we hope to do also.

Lost in the Shuffle

Finally...Some of Rebekah's birthday pictures!

Cakes for Bekah's Birthday

Cake was a little tough b/c I tried a low sugar recipe. All she got was icing!

Happy Birthday!

Rachel still doesn't really like cake

The babies reading all the new books

Really BIG soccer ball my (Teri) parents found

Loved the tutu!

Labor of Love

This week has been really fun for us for other reasons than just our children. Last Saturday our neighbor gave birth on the freeway. We had been out garage sale-ing and got home to discover on Facebook that they were heading to the hospital shortly. We ran outside to check if they had left and we saw 2 cars in the driveway, but 1 wasn't their car. Not knowing what this meant at the time, but they were still home.

A couple hours later the father posted on Facebook again that Baby Carys was born in the car and that mom and baby were well. We later found out that the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck 2x and that she had to resuscitate her. Thankfully they had called paramedics and they arrived in time to help her deliver, but none of them knew how to get the baby to breathe.

We knew they were coming home on Monday, so I decided to help Rachel make a welcome home sign for them. We knocked on the door in case they had already made it home, but figuring that they would come home later that afternoon, I brought tape to hang it on the door. We later found out that they were taped for Fox 4 news (first link), and the next day they were interviewed for the Dallas Morning News (second link). Jenea also told us that our artwork was going to be played because the news reporter shot lots of footage of their front door (3rd link). It only shows it briefly twice, but we're FAMOUS! Ha!

We have visited with 2 new babies this week. Rebekah doesn't really notice them, but Rachel likes them. If it weren't for the kids to play with at our neighbors house she probably would have watched me holding the baby more. Oh well, we are just glad that the newborn babies in our lives right now are safe and doing well.

Jumpin' Jive

The past couple of weeks have been really fun with Rebekah walking EVERYWHERE! She has now decided to do almost EVERYTHING like her big sister. Rachel finally figured out how to jump several inches off the ground and now Bekah has decided to try to jump. She gets this real serious look on her face and squats (kind of makes you think she's trying to poop in her pants, it's really funny when you figure it out!), then stands back up. She does it over and over and usually right after she sees Rachel jumping.

This morning Rachel was jumping and Bekah was cranky, so she slides off my lap and imitates her sister. After a couple of tries, she's tired, so she wants back in my lap. Less than a minute later she decides she wants to jump again, so she slides down out of my lap and does it again. It's always kind of funny to watch your kids when they're tired/cranky and just want to be held to have short bursts of energy and focus on something they want to do/try/play with.

Rebekah's info

I didn't really post much about Rebekah's stats and other fun things she's doing, so here goes:

- Walking unassisted EVERYWHERE! She doesn't even need help standing up anymore. She still falls quite a bit, but keeps getting back up.
-Weighed 19lbs 14.5oz at her check up (40%ile) but has been sitting just above 20 lbs for a month
- 29 1/2 in ( between 50 & 75%ile)
-takes 2 naps/day
-absolutely loves ducks and dogs -We have been walking several times over spring break and this week after Jeff gets home and we go to the pond near the front of our neighborhood. She quacks after the ducks and tries to chase after them (I prevent her from falling, rolling down the hill and into the pond)
-kind of says more/milk while eating
-is starting to like people food after a week or two of not eating much
-has been happier since quitting breastfeeding in the last week and a half
-is no longer super clingy to me since she can walk almost everywhere
- has 9 teeth and almost has another

A Little Late

We had Rebekah's 1st birthday party on her birthday, March 7th, and had a great time with family and friends. We had a red/heart themed party with red streamers, red decorations, red cups and other red table necessities. I also made her multiple heart cakes. I made small, low sugar cakes for the little ones and decorated 1 of them for Rebekah to smash into and a larger heart cake that was decorated in red. I still don't have the pictures because I haven't been able to get the pictures to download on this computer. Jeff has them on his computer, and my parents have them so they could show off the party to their friends and co-workers, but I sadly, still cannot see them.

The day before her birthday, Rebekah decided she knew how to walk and began walking everywhere. She had taken several steps weeks before, but acted as if she didn't know how to do it anymore. Since she's more of my social bug, she walked for everyone at the party, unlike her sister who refused to show off her new talent.

After feeling like our house was overwhelmed with toys, we decided to ask those coming to the party not to bring toys, and had some great presents! One of Bekah's friends gave her a home-made tutu! It's really cute. Rachel got one for her first birthday too, but we'd never found an occassion to bring it out (Sorry Caity), so I pulled it out the next day and the girls have worn them several times since the party.

We also got several new books that Rachel loves more than Bekah, but we'll get better with Bekah's attention span. She also got some really cute clothes including a onesie that says "I love my auntie." Of course she got a couple of toys, because we gave them to her. It was really awkward after we had said no toys, but in our defense, we bought them shortly after the new year and got a good deal on them and they are fairly small.

I promise to get pictures up when I'm able to download them to the computer.

Laundry

Why laundry?

Because it's a necessary part of life. If you don't launder the clothes you wear you have to continually buy new ones, and for those of us on not so large incomes, we can't afford to do that. Well, here are some of my observations about our laundry:

-Jeff's clothes take up the most space, and it's not because he's the biggest, it's because he wears three outfits a day (at least). No, he's not self conscious, but he wears one outfit to school, another to coach in, and another when he gets home. He even wears layers to soccer since it's cold out, so it's more like 2 outfits he wears while coaching, so we'll say 4 outfits a day.

-When Jeff and I fold laundry together, he leaves the baby clothes for me to fold because he thinks they take more time to fold than the larger pieces.

-My clothes take up the least amount of space, because apparently when I stay home, I don't change clothes as often as when I was working.

-I have changed clothes twice today because each of the girls has thrown up on me, which has created nearly a whole load of clothes between my clothes, their clothes, the items they spit up on, and the towels I cleaned up with.

-I should probably do laundry sometime this weekend so that Jeff has enoguh clothes for soccer and school next week.

Here's to praying we don't have any more stomach bug in the house anytime soon! When Rachel started throwing up on me, I didn't know what to do other than to cry. It was a first for us. We haven't had to experience stomach contents before.

Little by Little

We have had a pretty fun week here in the Lehmann household. Rebekah has been walking more and more. Last night she stood up from my lap and walked about 7 steps toward Jeff. Of course in my attempt to video the occasion, she wouldn't walk anymore after that. We have a few videos of her walking around the house with her walking toy. We're pretty excited that she's making so much progress.

We also had about 9" of snow on Thursday, which is apparently the largest amount of snowfall recorded in the last 130 years or so in this part of the state. We do realize that this is nothing compared to the 30" or more of snow that has fallen in Pennsylvania where some friends of ours live, but it's a pretty big deal. We actually got a snow day on Friday, so Jeff was able to stay home with us and play. On Thursday, the girls and I went out to play in the morning, and then my dad came over for lunch and played with Rachel in the backyard. The video is of him and Rachel. Then, when Jeff got home we played again and made an even larger snowman. On Friday we went out in the morning while Rebekah was napping, but Rachel didn't care much for the snow. Jeff and I had a great time though. The snow is still there, but melting pretty quick. We are going to have a very soggy yard for several weeks and we are expecting rain at the end of next week.

Lost Opportunity

So we had a pretty exciting evening around here yesterday. Jeff was trying to convince Rebekah to stand up on her own and maybe take a few steps. In the end he was successful! She stood up by herself for quite a while playing with her rattle. Even when she went forward to sit down, she caught herself a few times and was even able to stand herself back up without any help! Shortly after this she took 3 steps in a row!! We were all very excited.

During all of the hooplah of Rebekah walking, Rachel decided she wanted in on the action to, so she stood up near Jeff, ducked her head to the ground and was doing pretty straight somersaults all by herself. A few were off-center, but they were pretty good if I do say so myself! :)

At some point we realized we needed to video these momentous occassions, and as such, Jeff got up to get the camera. Of course, things don't always go according to plan and both girls got fussy and quit doing their tricks.

To make the evening slightly worse, Rebekah had fallen and hit her mouth around 4:00 and her mouth was bleeding for a little while, but no worries, her teeth should be fine. I also noticed around bath time that she'd gotten a bruise on her chin from the fall, and to make it worse, she slipped and fell down in the bath tub. It gave her this nice bruise right beside her eye. As the evening progressed it became more of a comedy of errors as things kept playing out. It was sad to see how disappointed Jeff was at missing the opportunity to video the girls in some of their firsts.

LET ME OUT!!!

The girls have been sick all week. It started last Saturday with Rachel getting a fever and runny nose, so she stayed home from church with Jeff. Then on Monday, Rebekah got a fever and runny nose. Because of that, we had to stay home from Bible study on Tuesday. The girls then developed coughs and maintained low grade fevers throughout the week.

Things are looking up though! While the girls still have lingering coughs, Rachel hasn't had a fever in more than 24 hours and Rebekah's fever is basically gone as well.

The good news in all of this was that my mother-in-law came on Thursday morning to watch the girls while I went to the store. The girls' schedules were completely off that day, but I managed to get a load in the dishwasher and ran it and also cleaned all of the dirty dishes before I got ready to go to the store. I even cooked dinner that night! It was great to be productive after having a mostly lazy week of lying around with sick girls.

Here's a picture of them in the middle of the week near their worst.

Life in the Fast Lane

Well, we're not quite to life in the fast lane, but we've come close in the month of January. January is tournament month in high school soccer. Over the last 2 weeks, Jeff has been gone on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights, as well as Saturday morning for soccer games. We are also out of the house on Wednesday nights, so this doesn't leave much time for anything.



Last weekend we also had small group on Saturday night and I went to the Camp Longhorn Carnival in Dallas, where I got to visit with my aunt and uncle. It was such a good time as always, but it did cut a few things close since Jeff and I were both out of the house until shortly before we needed to leave for our small group. Rachel did like playing the games. If she ends up going to camp, she'll have lots of merits before she even gets there. I left my children a few merits, and if they give them David's merits, well, then they are raking in the orange! (Merits that is) We have to start a Camp Longhorn folder now so that we can keep up with all the carnival cards.



I have also managed to schedule something everyday this week. Jeff and I are went on a date last night. I had Bible study today, but thankfully Jeff doesn't have a game scheduled. We have youth group on Wednesday and I'm meeting a friend during the day. I get to WORK on Thursday and I'm meeting another friend on Friday.



I'm really excited about starting to work in the schools. I got 3 offers today to work. 2 were for this week and one is further down the road, but an opportunity none the less. I'm looking forward to this new chapter in life where I get to work

Manic Mondays

There aren't a lot of things that need to be done around here on Mondays and our schedule isn't so busy that we're running out the door by 8 or 9 o'clock, but Mondays just aren't my favorite day. Our house isn't true to The Bangle's song by the same name "Manic Monday," but for some reason Mondays are just no fun in our house.



Rachel, on the other hand, can be quite amusing, like my post from yesterday. It was just the other day that I forgot to post this video of Rachel. My parents got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and we played as much as we had time for. Most of the time when we played, the kids were in bed, but just before we left, Mom and I played a couple of games that Rachel watched. In the video, Rachel is playing Wii, just like Mommy and Nana.

Rachel's Rememberings

Do you know the saying, "Kids say the darnest things"? Well, I'm here to tell you that it's true. Rachel does some of the funniest things.

Last night while I was feeding Rebekah on one couch, Jeff was reading/playing with Rachel while watching the football game. In the past, Rachel has found holes in the bottom of Jeff's socks and said they were dirty and proceeded to take the socks off his feet. Well last night she looked at his socks and said dirty and tried to take his socks off. Jeff insisted his socks were fine and that she shouldn't remove his socks. When Jeff realized that Rachel thought she saw holes in his socks he tried to tell her they were fine, but on careful inspection of his socks, there was a small hole in the sock. It may not be funny to you, but it had me laughing for a while, and it even gave me a good laugh after I'd gone to bed.

Even if I'm not the greatest housekeeper, it's good to know that my daughter can take care of it when I don't want to or feel like it.

When we got home from church today and were eating lunch, Rachel looks in the backyard and says, "Where'd the ball go?" The neighbor behind us moved out and we don't keep balls in the backyard, so we were stumped as to what she was referring. After a minute, I finally figured out that she probably was referring to an instance where the kids who used to live behind us were playing with one of those balloons that you tie a string to and hit it with your hand. Every once in a while you could see the ball go higher than the fence. It's so weird to have her remember things from a while back.

Right now her favorite things to talk about are race cars. She talks about wanting to drive a race car, and asked if daddy drives a race car. I'm not really sure where that came from but still interesting.

On our way home from having lunch with a friend we were going through construction where they are building a new road near our house. She asked what they were doing so I told her they were building a new road. She didn't like this, so she said , "My road". I said, no the people and machines would squish you. Then she said, "I want to help." Not real sure of what she said, so I repeated, "Did you say you want to help build the road?" and she straight-faced said, "Yes."

She's such a big helper and wants to help with anything and everything. One of these days she's going to ask to help with something so big that it's above her comprehension and out of a desire to encourage her helpfulness I'll do my best to make it happen. I don't even know if she'll understand the magnitude of her servanthood or even remember it happening, but she'll continue to amaze me.