Sisterhood

I've been contemplating how to write this post for a couple of days now.

I guess I should start by referring to my online friends. Admitting that I have internet friends that I have never met in real life feels kinda strange to me. But to be clear they are not strangers at all, they are my close friends.

I met them in the fall of 2006 when I was pregnant with Tessa. I ventured onto babycenter.com to get some more information about pregnancy. Being new to this I was happy to "meet" some other ladies whose babies were due the same month in a public internet forum, commonly known as a 'birth board'.

A couple of years ago babycenter changed their format and a group of us spun off and started our own private forum. At first we talked about our pregnancies and babies but when the forum became private it was like a door opened up. It was just us, the mothers of April 07....sitting around and chatting with each other as if we were out to dinner in real life.

During down times and nap times we talk about the things that any group of mom would...babies, kids, our bodies, shoes, food, sleep deprivation. You name it. We post pictures of our kids and ourselves. We put up polls about what brand of diapers everyone prefers.

We are a community.

I saw the movie The Social Network the other night and a quote from Justin Timberlake's character struck a chord. He said...we lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we live on the internet.

I think that's so very true. I am a social person by nature and that's exactly how I use the internet. I write here, I check facebook, and then I check my birth board. I want to KNOW how my friends are doing. I want to know what they are doing. I love their advice and perspective, I love the small talk. I love that when my kids are asleep and my husband is on the other side of the country I have people to talk to. Not just a few people but a lot of people. Sometimes I talk all evening.

I think the best word for the relationships of my birth board would be a Sisterhood. We support each other in so many ways on so many topics. We are women from different states, lifestyles, cultures and yet their is something inherent that keeps us together as a group. We are mothers of small children just trying to do our best.

Never has the sisterhood been more palpable and more real than this week.

This is Shannon and her daughter Reese, who was born in September. She is a member of my birth board who lives in Oregon. She also has a son Josh, who is Tessa's age.

This week Shannon got a call from her daycare while at work that Reese had stopped breathing during her nap and the EMTs could not resuscitate her. This perfectly healthy child had been affected by SIDS and died at 4.5 months old.

We were visiting family in Colorado when I casually logged online and saw how my birth board and facebook had exploded with the news. My online friends, from all around the country were furiously typing while weeping.

Our friend had suffered the worst kind of tragedy.

In the days that have passed I've thought about Shannon almost constantly. Feeling so helpless, the ladies of my birth board began to mobilize in the most amazing ways. We collected money to fund the funeral. We prepared a care package for Reese's 3 year old brother. We reached far and wide for prayers for the family. We are making a prayer shawl and a quilt. Jeremy and I donated Marriott points to a house a group of 6 ladies who are travelling in for the funeral this week. And I'm sure there's a million more things that I don't even know about.

But probably the most important is that we've shown love to Shannon...using the birth board and facebook to let her know that she is not alone. We are all just a keystroke or phone call away.

And the fact that I haven't met most of these ladies (I've met a few) is irrelevant. I believe that community is WHERE you make it nowadays. Everyone has heard the bible verse that says that wherever two or more are gathered He is there, and I am CERTAIN at this point that that applies to the internet. The largest gathering of all.

We are together, and God blesses our friendship because it is love.

I guess I should end this post by asking you to pray for Shannon and her family. This tragedy is beyond measure and so unexpected, but she is showing amazing strength and faith.

Dear Toy Stories

I love you. You know our house loves all three of you. We own all three movies from the Toy Story franchise and they get watched often.

Toy Story, you are imaginative, funny (for both kids and adults), and full of good messages. You teach about friendship and loyalty, accepting differences, even forgiving your enemies....

This makes me laugh every single time...

And this makes me tear up every single time....

Toy Story, as much as I love you I have one complaint to lodge. Do you HAVE to openly use the words idiot and moron? My three year old is listening and when she says to her Dad 'put me down you idiot!'....I know exactly where she heard it from, and it is not cute.

I guess you're teaching us one more thing Toy Story, not to repeat everything you hear.

Don't worry, we still love you.

Charley's Party

Charley's 2nd birthday party was last Saturday, and we had a houseful. Enjoy the pics!

Mamaw and Papaw got Charley a trike. He loved it and so did Tessa!

Ronda and family

Notice Tessa's custom embroidered dino shirt?

Bill and Ashley, expecting a new baby in their house any day now.

Aunt Jessie flew out for the weekend! I keep trying to talk her into moving into our guest room but so far she hasn't bitten.

Blowing out his candles on the dino cake and then freaking out when I took it away to cut it up. I think he thought the whole thing was for him.

It was Becky's birthday too so we made her the snowflake cake. No candles though, so she had to blow out our butane lighter.

Baby Aviana, inching up on 1 year old!

Jeremy helping Charley open presents while simultaneously avoiding being eaten alive by preschoolers.

Tessa and her little friend Brinnli testing out Charley's new blanket. Brinnli's mom is the one I did wine and canvas with!

Every crowd needs a drummer boy.

Charley finally got some boy dress up clothes! Thanks Mom-mom and Pop for the dino cape and pirate costume.

Ice Bound- day #3

We are on the third day of being stuck inside from the ice storm. Luckily nobody has lost their mind just yet. Unless making crowns out of playdoh counts.

For us being iced in means no dance class, no babysitting Rachel and Josh, no preschool for Tessa and no creative movement class for Charley.

Just sitting at home and playing, trying not to watch TOO much tv (although the storm have allowed the kids to experience two new movies...Back to the Future and the Wizard of Oz. And I watched a movie I had never seen The Outsiders).

We've played school and done art. These kind of activities would be more fun if Charley would do them for more than 5 minutes at a time. I've gotten into printing a 'weekly printable pack' from nickjr.com for Tessa to help learn her letters. She really likes them.

Charley's also been playing with all his new birthday toys including a trike and big box of hot wheels. Erin- please tell Tim that his old hot wheels went to a good home and are well loved!
I asked Jeremy to help us build a fort in the living room and he was surprisingly not into it (perhaps we caught him during a busy moment?). He threw a sheet over two chairs and I decided that just wouldn't do so this here is MY remodel!

That collapsable tube? ...great for everything...tents, water slides, fort entrances, or also just standing inside of and dancing around.

The good news is that our insanity is about to finally be broken by flying out of here to go see Jeremy's folks in CO. I'm praying they can thaw out the airport!

Congrats Papaw!

Very exciting news for Papaw, who was named the new Superintendant of Jennings County Schools. Click here to see the news article.

We are proud and excited for Dad! He is currently the super in a different school district and will finish out the year before taking the new position. After many years of working far (sometimes very far!) from home, it's strange to think of him as living and working in the same community. ?Very cool indeed or as Tessa told him on the phone the other night...'good job, Papaw, good job!'

Ice Day

This was taken mid-morning today and more freezing rain and ice came later, so those icicles have grown.

Needless to say Indianapolis is almost completely shut down...all schools and activities. Even goverment offices. We are blessed that we haven't lost power yet but many in the surrounding areas have. Jeremy was supposed to fly yesterday but cancelled his trip which ended up being a good choice because O'Hare and Indy airports are both now closed.

So we are sitting in icy encapsulation hoping that the power doesn't go. But if it does we've got the fireplace, food and two bathtubs full of water for flushing. My only concern would be the kids going crazy from boredom and eating us alive....let's hope it doesn't come to that!

The Making of a Dino Cake

You all know Erin, blog regular, friend since 4th grade and mommy to beautiful baby Aviana. She is also my resident cake expert and creator of this masterpiece and this one too.


I invited her to help me make a dinosaur cake for Charley's birthday, and man did we put in some long hours. Mostly because we made ALOT of cake, and also because we had one or two snafoos (did you know that using Pam does not work on a nonstick cake pan...I do now).


All in all our cakes were FABULOUS. Thank you Auntie Erin!

We started with some cupcakes. Dinos standing in green grass. I guess not all of the kids got the message that you could keep them, as I'm still finding dinos stashed around the house.

messy kitchen in progress

It was my sister in law Becky's birthday too so we made her a snowflake cake. Erin makes that look too easy.

The kids were dying to help us so we made them their own little cake to destroy...I mean decorate.

As the evening drug on Erin put me in charge of decorating the remaining cupcakes while she worked on the dino himself. We were out of green so I made these. Can you believe Erin and Jeremy made fun of my artistic skills?

(Actually what they mostly made fun of was me trying to utlized the Wilton tips and shooting icing all over the place. Do you wonder why I was for Erin's help? )

Using a template from Betty Crocker we turned two 9in round cakes into a dino!

The finished cake spread. Gorgeous.

Charley did not want to wait for his party guests. We had to hold him off with leftover hershey kisses.

Fully approved by the birthday boy and all his friends!

Party Preview

For the Birds

Today the kids and I made bird feeders today!

We started with ice cream cones (just like our Christmas trees!), cut off the tips, made a knot in some string and fed it through.

The girls coated the cones in peanut butter, then we stuck on lots of birdseed and cheerios.

Charley just coated his cone and then sucked it all off

This project is messy, very messy.


But the easy way to cleanup... scrape it all onto a place mat and throw it out the back door!

Ta-da! Wait until our faithful squirrel and his wife get a whiff of this.