Hairs of your head are all numbered...Matthew 10:30

I didn't want to do it.

When Sacagawea was born she was nearly bald. She stayed that way for quite a while. Finally, it started to grow. Now, over five years later, the ends are looking pretty scraggly.

I cut her bangs last night. She was thrilled. I am happy to be able to see her face all the time, but it was difficult to give that first haircut.

Just one snip. I'll give myself a few days to get used to the bangs and then I'll trim up the rest of the hair.

The first haircuts with the boys were when they were around 2. One snip for the "first haircut" lock, then the electric clippers to finish them off with a buzz. I'll try to finish A's without the clippers.

Bow in the cloud...Genesis 9:13

It's been a snowy-rainy-snowy day (in that general order). The kids noticed the view of the top pic while they were eating supper this evening. I stepped outside to look at it and noticed that we could see both ends from our front porch.

His teeth are terrible...Job 41:14

J approved the use of these photos. He thought the text above was a perfect description of his mouth. He's had the high-pull head gear for just over a week now and he is doing great with it. The first day or so his teeth were quite sore, but they are ok now. He's getting to be quite a pro at putting on this contraption by himself...even without a mirror sometimes.

First he inserts the metal thingie in the brackets on his top molars. Then he puts on the other part and hooks up the side straps.
The ortho said he needs to wear it twenty hours a day for the next year. Then his teeth should be less terrible and ready for 2nd phase of treatment.

We had our last visit with the speech therapist yesterday. He praised J for being so quick to pick up new skills such as whistling and gargling. His current jaw placement had made it easy for his tongue to rest against his top teeth. With the therapist, we have spent the last several weeks working on exercises to correct that tongue thrust habit. He's learned a whole new way of swallowing AND slurping. Yay!

I will...sleep...Psalm 4:8

Happy Birthday, Sacagawea!

A was supposed to be my easy baby. With the fourth child you're supposed to know how to handle everything, right?

I woke up early on my due date with some contractions. Right on schedule. The Man took the boys to a friend's house while I showered. We arrived at the hospital at 4 a.m. I wasn't in heavy labor, but I wanted to get there early enough to claim the one and only birthing pool. By 10 a.m. my contractions had stopped. I didn't want to go home. It was my due date!

She did arrive later that afternoon. Thankfully we did get to use the birthing pool since not all 4th labors are as easy as they are supposed to be. I had planned on going home right after the birth, but I was so tired out I welcomed the opportunity to spend the night in a nice quiet room, something that was non-existent in a houseful of boys.

Fortunately, after her arrival she did turn into the easy baby. She is an absolute joy, even as a 5 year old.

The Man and I were up rather late last night finishing up the crib and highchair project we started. He finally went to bed around midnight. I stayed up a few more hours waiting for the paint to dry, reassembling the furniture, and doing a bit of touch-up paint. The Man got up early to drill some holes in the new panels for the bottom supports.

Since they were too big to wrap, Sacagawea was blindfolded. Dollies Shu and Da were also present for the unveiling. She was thrilled. So were Shu and Da.

The present she was most excited about was the one from her brothers. She's been asking for her own hammer since last summer. It was the smallest we could find, only 7 oz., but it has a pretty red handle. She even got a pretty red toolbox to keep it in. What more could a girl want? Maybe a pretty red power drill? Circular saw? Maybe next year.

After our long almost-sleepless night, we're all ready for bed now. We will sleep like babies.

Note: This post was mostly written on the date it is stamped, however you're probably reading it at least a week later since I never got around to actually publishing it on A's birthday. Please, no comments about how the 1st child got his post on his birthday last week and the 4th had to wait a week. It is here. Everyone can just deal with it. ;-)

The crib...Proverbs 14:4

Isn't that just the most pitiful little face? It was the Christmas morning of '73. My big brother is there behind me playing with his new Fisher Price airport (I think that's what it is...someone correct me if that blue thing peeking out on the left side of the oven isn't the airport). We each got new sleeping bags. I am so sad because that thing in my hand is the faucet off my brand new sink. I was turning it and off it came. So sad. Daddy came over and stuck it back on. How about that? Daddy could fix anything.

The sink and stove long ago rusted away, but the matching refrigerator may still be in my parents' basement. Maybe not. I have one of those Styrofoam choo-choo train ornaments in my ornament box. It has been glued together a few times, but it is still there.

See the crib and highchair behind me? They've had a hard life also. They held my dollies. They held me. The high chair has even held my sons once in awhile when they thought I wasn't looking. Here's the crib nearly 5 (?) years later at a slumber party. That's that same Raggedy Ann sleeping bag I got in '73 (which is in my closet now and still used once in awhile) and there is the crib loaded down with some sleeping bags, purses, and whatever is under all that stuff. The crib has been "put away" for the last several years waiting for some repairs. We've never really had time for it and each time we moved to a different home it got a bit more rickety.

Since A is turning 5 on Thursday we thought the time has come. I wanted to make them useful for her while she'll still enjoy playing with them. I took the high chair to the hardware store last summer to get a paint match. While at the hardware store I discovered some of the dowels were cracked. The Man went and got new dowels last week for that and the missing rails on the crib. Monday night we took the crib apart and started sanding to prepare to paint. The end panels (at the top of the pic with the 3 bears) really needs to be painted. I couldn't bear to paint over them so The Man went and got some wood yesterday to make new panels. Silly, I know, but I'm just sentimental that way. The old ones were a bit warped anyway. Maybe I can copy the design on the new panels.

The paneling for the bottom was mildewed and icky. The Man thought he could replace it with something thinner, but I disagreed. It has to be thick enough to not break if A happens to get in the crib. Little girls do that sometimes.

Give him a stone...Luke 11:11

Here is the runway cake that M requested. I had no idea what a runway was supposed to look like so I found a satellite picture online of our local airport. It looked easy enough. M made the Lego airplane and I made the runway. It isn't to scale, but there were no complaints. I saw on the aerial view that there were some numbers at the end of the runway so I put M's age there. When he saw the cakes he noted that it actually meant the runway was at a compass heading of 130°. The other end of the runway (if I'd made the cake long enough) would have a 31 since it would be 180° different, or 310°. Okay. I guess he's been reading the flight books his uncle gave him. I just thought it would be a convenient place to put the age. We lined the edges of the runway with his 13 candles. They made wonderful landing lights.

The other night the man and I set up the flight simulator with the yoke so we could play with make sure it was all working. Once we got it all set up we didn't want to disconnect it all so we just put it under the computer desk with something over it to hide it. This left us with an empty box to wrap. Hmmm. Too light. I raided a few big rocks from M's rock collection and wrapped them in plastic bags to keep them from rattling around.

The kids wanted to know what was in that huge box for M. "Oh, it could be a box of rocks," I answered. They didn't believe me.

A brother is born...Proverbs 17:17

Happy Birthday, M!

13 years ago right now I was in labor. On a Friday afternoon I cleared off my desk at work and told the folks not to expect me to come in on Monday. My baby was due that weekend.

Sure enough, at 11:30 that night I woke up with back pains. I nudged The Man awake and told him to time my contractions. That's what the books said to do, so I made him time each and every contraction...even the ones where I dozed back asleep before I told him it was over. By the next afternoon I was getting annoyed. The Man knew better than to say he was annoyed also. The books said the average first-time labor was 14 hours. I was past that...obviously M wasn't the average baby.

Finally at about 3:30 Saturday afternoon we decided it was time to go to the hospital. We got everything together and off we went. I was finally checked at the hospital at about 6:30 p.m. and told by the nurse that I was doing great and should expect about 6 more hours of labor. No, wait, that would mean that I would have been in labor for 3 days! (In Biblical terms...1/2 hour Friday night, all day Saturday, 1/2 hour on Sunday...that's 3 days!) Nope, that wasn't going to happen. A mere 3 hours later M officially arrived.

He requested a runway/airplane cake for his birthday. Shhh...don't tell him, but he's getting a flight simulator (the older version, we weren't ready to upgrade our computer system to accomodate the newest version), flight yoke, and pedals.

His voice is cracking and every morning he is taller. J used to be up to M's nose, but we were noticing this evening that J barely reaches his chin. He is definitely not my "baby" anymore, but I've told him he always will be.

Side note: We have a baby picture of each of the kids hanging in the hallway. M's fell off the wall twice yesterday. We've never had problems with it before.

Nothing new under the sun...Ecclesiastes 1:9

Ok, so that's not quite true, but we've mostly been doing the same old things.

I saw on my stat counter that quite a few are finding this blog by Googling "ortho headgear." I should have some photos of that up next week as it has finally arrived and J will get it installed next Wednesday. Sit tight.

For those of you who are here searching for information on "Sacagawea lifespan" and "Name of Sacagawea mom, " I'm assuming you mean this Sacagawea. Sorry, there is debate about her lifespan and no one seems to have any information on her parents.

Next week will be busy as both M and Sacagawea have birthdays. They've already put in requests for their birthday lunches. Sacagawea wants cake...and ice cream...and cookies....Thankfully she hasn't requested a snake cake.