Duuuuuhhhh, what kind of (*hiccup*) BEER are (*buuurrrrp*) you?

I'M a:

MICROBREW!
(100% dark & bitter, 33% working class, 33% genuine)

Oh, I totally sensed that I was a microbrew...although some days I feel a little Coronawithlime-ish...hmmmm today I'm definitely a Miller Light with a slight leaning toward plain old Miller...

Heeheehee, it's not the "MMPI"... but I think it might be just as scientific! Just ask Butch, he's the EXPERT.
I got this test off of the Anchoress' website.

Awwwwwwww

Cousins John and Mariela were born one week apart. This was their first visit! We had a lovely time visiting at Uncle Nick and Auntie Debbie's house today. We discussed baptizing the babies together and I hope it all works out! They are the two closest (besides the twins, of course) in age of all of the grandchildren of mom and dad. We have so much fun when we get together. It will be nice to share the years ahead and hopefully we will all remain close in spirit and in proximity!

I Bow Down To The Champion!

WOW

Prayers WORK!

Before I go into the gory details, I must take a moment to thank everyone in blogworld for your prayers and concern! I know so many of you (you know, my hundreds of readers!) have gone through this and empathize so much with the whole parenting/childbirth anxiety and joy and it helps so much to know that so many people are "with" me in moments like these!

Mariela (mar-ee-ella) Katherine (named after Our Lady and after her big sister, Katrina who will be her godmother)was born at 10:49pm on Sunday, February the 26th. She weighed 8lbs, 5oz and was 21" long. She was born "sunny side up", which I hope is a good sign of her future disposition! I went to the hospital around 11:30 am and started to get induced. She was in a very "high" position and slightly to the side so her head wasn't really helping the contractions to move her in the right direction! I got an epidural around 7pm and I am so happy to note that I finally got a doctor that would listen to me! The nurses were great and understood how anxious I was about the epidural not working. I started to feel a lot of pressure around 10:15 and the doctor asked if I wanted to do a "try" push. After that, I really wanted to keep pushing since I couldn't feel anything except pressure. After the first round of pushing, I told the doctor that for the first time I felt the "urge to push" that I'd heard so much about! It was soooooo cooooool I cannot express with words how great it was to not feel pain and to know that my pushing was actually doing something! My husband, two sisters, sis-in-law, and my bestist friend Janene were all there to witness, and Katrina was in the waiting room to be the first (after mama and daddy) to hold Mariela. The reason she is so bright eyed is because I signed a form to NOT have those goopy eye drops/ointment put in her eyes after delivery. I have no risk for having gonorrhea or chlamydia (the only reason for that antibiotic ointment!) and it was so nice for her to see mama and daddy and aunties after she was born. She was so alert and I was half expecting her to start smiling! It's sort of become a tradition in our family to invite the sisters to witness delivery and I've made it a practice to invite someone who hasn't seen a baby be born and wants to. Janene was that someone this time. She is still gushing about how cool it was to see this and she seems genuinely honored to have been a part of it all. Having a baby is such a unique, life altering experience...watching a baby be born is almost as remarkable! The delivery was so smooth that I really (for the first time!) can't wait to have another baby (shhhhh, don't tell hubbs, I make one really crabby preggo lady). Butch took the whole week off and I don't know what I could have done without him. He's the best daddy and husband I could ever have hoped for!

I really could FEEL your prayers and I even talked to my Guardian Angel with some special requests and I believe now, that they hear and help when we are in need.
So far Mariela is such a content baby, but I think that might have something to do with the fact that she's barely EVER set down. I have two big sisters that fight over her and I only get to hold her because I nurse her!


Today we celebrated the twins' one year birthday party and it was so nice to get out of the house! We even went to Church today even though Mariela is only 1 week old. We had such a great time and all of the family was there. We were thinking that it would be nice to get a picture of all of the grandkids but Trine and I thought about it for a second and after looking at our VERY pregnant sister in law, and realized that we should wait until Easter when all 15 of the grandkids could be photographed together!

Thank you God, guardian angels, St. Gerard, family and friends for helping us through this time of JOY!

Baby

Barring any unforeseen events, the baby will be born today. I'm as nervous as all getout so PLEASE pray for us that everything will be smooth sailing and turn out wonderfully. St. Gerard, Pray for us!
Thank you.

My Perspective

I know you are all sooo interested in my view, so here it is right now:

The view of my FEET, that is!
(I almost forgot those things were down there!)

The Good, The Bad, and the...Sleep?

I got tagged again! Christine wants to know what are my quirks so here goes:
1. What are my good quirks?
A. I love to find humor in every situation. It's like a coping mechanism.
B. I can get to the heart of the matter when my friends or family bring up a subject. I can condense an entire conversation down to a few, bare bones ideas that summarize. (This one comes in handy to avoid the B.S!)
C. I seem to attract friends with lots of "issues".

2. What are my bad quirks?
A. I still bite my nails when I'm reading...and I read A LOT!
B. I can't stand it when people say "expecially" or "Where's the (plural noun)" It actually gets my blood pressure going up, I gotta work on that one.
C. I seem to attract friends with lots of "issues".

3. What are my food quirks?
A. I can't eat squash. I love the look, the smell, the idea even of squash but when it comes right down to it...I can't do it. It sets off a childhood gag reflex and memories of my dad making it for dinner and saying things like, "Oh, it's soooo good for you!" while dumping about a pound of butter and even more brown sugar all over it!
B. I can't live without cereal. I have to have a bowl every night. It's an addiction. I need help.

4. What are my sleep quirks?
A. That's not a fair question as I am 9 months pregnant right now and I am surrounded by pillows. Pillow prison. When I try to get up out of bed for the 5th time at night I make the weirdest noises!
B. When I'm NOT pregnant, I have to have a blanket no matter how hot it is, to protect me from the monsters...and the mice. I haven't ever actually SEEN mice in my bedroom, but just in case...
C. It has to be completely dark for me to get any good sleep and I have to have a fan of some sort running. When we were little, we had a bedroom in the basement and I remember that I couldn't fall asleep until I heard the furnace or the AC kick in.

5. People I will tag with this quirky MEME:
Probably nobody right now, I've been bugging people lately too much as it is!

WHAT IS THAT THING?????

OKAYYYYYYYYY.........Here's the thing, technically it wasn't the "80's" ('90 to be exact) but I liked the security that a big, round hairdo provided a little bit longer than was required by fashion norms of the times. Holy moly, that hair could have had it's own zip code. If I didn't know for sure that I washed that hair every day, I would have thought a small family of birds could have lived in that thing. I always thought I was a mysterious person with an "aura" and here, all along, it was just the hair...

More From the Gallery...

I didn't mean to give the impression that my poor Weazy was some temporarily deranged child or anything, that one picture below is the ONLY one like it and I suspect it was a silly moment more than a deeply psychotic one. I mostly thought it was funny. Here is a picture she drew today (to redeem herself?) that she asked me to put on the blog:


I think this one is great for a 5 year old! I was still drawing stick people with their arms coming out of the side of their heads at this age!

Weazy's Crazy and Here's the Proof (like mother, like daughter)

"First I was trying to make a pretty girl, then I tried to make her lips red and all of the sudden I made her lips BLACK and red and made her pony black and made stitches and scars and stuff and THAT'S how I ended up with 'Dead Lady'. The thing on the side is her baby."


UMMMMMM, I thought I had a big problem on my hands when I saw this...this... thing on the counter and found out that it was a Weazy creation and not something from Trina's mind! But, then I realized I could cancel the child psychologist appointment when she drew this shortly after 'Dead Lady'...


Now, Trina wrote the words, but Weazy did all the rest, including, "THE BUTTERFLIES, MAMA I WROTE THE BUTTERFLIES!!!!"

More and more I'm finding that having siblings is the best gift for any child. I KNOW Weazy wouldn't be HALF as creative and inventive if she didn't have Trina. Oh, and the gift Matty and Niklaus give her is the gift of being able to...express herself boldly (a.k.a. screaming at the top of her lungs and freaking out over the littlest thing when they are bugging her because they know they CAN!) which will be helpful in the future...I'm sure...I think. Anyway, they really do complement each other and I can't wait to see what this new one does to the family/sibling dynamic. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be a wild ride and I'm sooooo blessed to get to sit in the first car! (Hands up in the air shrieking my brains out!)

Beware! Graphic photos of nude children follow...

What on Earth is the world coming to???? I was on the CurtJester blog today and he had a link to
THIS.
Read her brief explanation as to why these beautiful pictures couldn't be posted in a local newspaper.



I think we should post them on as many blogs as possible, knowledge is the key to understanding and I believe that if every potential mother could see the life within her she would think more than twice about ending that life no matter what her circumstance. I also think that it's ironic that these pictures are deemed "too graphic" to be seen (as PAID advertisements!) in a newspaper when there is so much trash on the front page of most mainstream newspapers and news magazines. For instance, check this out! The title is oh-so-entertaining, too! I'm sorry, but what a pile of dog crap!

Getting to know Meme, getting to KNOW all about Meme...

Like Niklaus says, "FOINE!" (fine) I'll bite:

Four jobs I've had:
1. Babysitting about every young child in the greater St.Michael, Albertville area from 1982-present.
2. Waitress and pizza maker, Del's Pizza, St. Michael
3. Nursing assistant at 4 different nursing homes and homecare and caring for profoundly mentally challenged adults. (lots of jobs, true, but all in the same category)
4. Brief 1 year stint at the corporate offices of G&K company which sucked beyond belief. I think this place was the inspiration for the TV show "The Office"

Four Movies I can watch over and over:
1. Shawshank Redemption
2. Band of Brothers Series
3. Braveheart
4. The Princess Bride

Four places I have lived:
1. St. Michael
2. Buffalo
3. Monticello
4. Albertville
(wow, looking at that list you can see how worldly I am and how I must like to live on the edge!)

Four TV shows I love:
1. The Office
2. CSI:all of them
3. Everybody Loves Raymond
4. (don't tell anyone but I can't help but like...)Southpark (gulp)

Four places I've vacationed: (I'm going to the extreme compass directions)
1. Most Northerly: Lake of the Woods, Minnesota
2. Most Southerly: Guatemala City, Guatemala
3. Most Westerly: Denver, Colorado
4. Most Easterly: (technically Florida, but that seems southerly to me so...)Put-In-Bay, Ohio

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. The kind you can microwave
2. The paper kind
3. The fancy ones one uses for Christmas
4. The bowls one uses for cereal because it's my favorite thing to EAT!

Four sites I visit daily:
1. http://squirrelgirl73.blogspot.com/
2. http://fertlmertl.blogspot.com/
3. http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/
4. http://ladybugsleaf.blogspot.com/

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Heaven
2. On a tropical island with no bugs and a library and servants and a comfy hammock and...oh wait, that's #1!
3. Sleeping
4. 4 months forward in time...after dieting and extensive exercise!

Five people I am tagging:
1. You already tagged Trine so...
2. Anna
3. Kristen
4. Anyone who reads this blog who didn't go to school with me or is related to me.
5. I gotta get more people I know to blog, this is just ridiculous!

The Little Known XXVIIIth Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S.A.

We were working on our American history lesson today. We were discussing the branches of government and the creation of the constitution and all of the articles and amendments. I asked the kids what the freedom of speech would cover and I had to repeat myself because they weren't paying attention. Someone was though and started saying, "PEACH! PEACH!". Of course, it was Niklaus expressing HIS freedom of speech. We went on with the lesson but I noticed Katrina doodling excessively and got upset with her for doodling when she should have been paying attention. This is what she drew:



So then we had to make up all of the laws that follow the "freedom of peach" like, "The right of every citizen to eat peaches whenever they want.", or, "The right to refuse peaches because you don't like them.", and, "The right to go around yelling the word 'peach' without being put in a time out for annoying everyone.".
Then Matthew asked a good question, "Mom, how do the legislators come up with laws to make?" I told him that it was basically up to US to give them the ideas for new laws and then they got enough people to agree that a certain law should pass and they bring it up in congress and decide and vote if that law should be a new law. I told him that it was really hard to amend the constitution but he got all excited and started bouncing around in his chair and laughing and saying, "So, we REALLY COULD pass a law about the freedom of PEACH!!!!?"

He either totally got it, or totally missed the point.
My kids are weird.

All of Our Children Are Precious

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 20, 2006

National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2006
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America




Our Nation was founded on the belief that every human being has rights, dignity, and value. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, we underscore our commitment to building a culture of life where all individuals are welcomed in life and protected in law.

America is making great strides in our efforts to protect human life. One of my first actions as President was to sign an order banning the use of taxpayer money on programs that promote abortion overseas. Over the past 5 years, I also have been proud to sign into law the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, and a ban on partial-birth abortion. In addition, my Administration continues to fund abstinence and adoption programs and numerous faith-based and community initiatives that support these efforts.

When we seek to advance science and improve our lives, we must always preserve human dignity and remember that human life is a gift from our Creator. We must not sanction the creation of life only to destroy it. America must pursue the tremendous possibilities of medicine and research and at the same time remain an ethical and compassionate society.

National Sanctity of Human Life Day is an opportunity to strengthen our resolve in creating a society where every life has meaning and our most vulnerable members are protected and defended including unborn children, the sick and dying, and persons with disabilities and birth defects. This is an ideal that appeals to the noblest and most generous instincts within us, and this is the America we will achieve by working together.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Sunday, January 22, 2006, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to reaffirm our commitment to respecting and defending the life and dignity of every human being.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirtieth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

My comments:
WOW! This president, no matter what his faults, really has done a lot to make people aware of pro-life issues. I LOVE that he calls today "National Sanctity of Human Life Day" to me it is beautiful and just to not only consider human life something worth celebrating, but also to consider it holy! Let's pray that he can continue in the battle against the evil that is abortion and that people who are considering abortion of a pre-born infant can get the support they need to not harm their children.

"Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)

Reading for pleasure?

Okay, I have this thing where, no matter how horrible a book is, I can't not finish it. I sit there with a disgusted look on my face and gut through the awful thing like it's a bowl of rutabagas (yucky). It took me about three days to read "The Secret Life of Bees" Which I thought was so good. It made me hungry for honey and for the simple life of hard work and summertime. THEN I started to read "The Mineral Palace". NOT recommended. NOT worth even reading ONE page. The author was so descriptive about every, single detail that I would rather not know (a.k.a., t.m.i) and it was horribly depressing on EVERY page. There was not ONE redeeming thing about this horrendous book and I even threw it away...once I finished it. BLEchhhhhhhhppptthhhhh. I'll have to read a classic now, just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.