elise....is dying laughing about her taste in music

this is just a quick disclaimer.
i like lots of different music.


on my playlist i picked current faves, blasts from the past, and good old classics.
do not be alarmed if you hear screaming on one song, wait it out and they sing too. i promise.
i will NOT be offended if you don't like any of it, but it makes me happy!!!
had to put a mxpx song from a mix c.d. Joel made me when we were dating.


okay, kids to take care of, got to run!!

elise is....loving the silence.

sssssssssshhhhhhhh.
Emory is actually sleeping.
She HAD been a great sleeper. We use the babywise methods and it has always worked.
She got an ear infection and i of course hel her and babied her, and since then, it's been pretty awful. She was waking up a lot during the night and moving into the third week of this nonsense i was SOOO incredibly tired i made the mistake of just grabbing her and feeding her in bed, falling asleep holding her. This brings us to her current state of only wanting to sleep while being held. we stayed the night at my grandpa's last night. thin walls, lots of people trying to sleep, Emmy screaming all night. so for everyone elses sake, i did the same thing.

tonight, we are home. i was calm and kind, but let her scream it out. it took over an hour and a half, but she fell asleep. and not a peep, until Joel just laughed too loud. But she went right back to sleep on her own, thank goodness!

Joel was laughing because we are watching Julie & Julia. It really is pretty darn good. I would love to do something like cook through Julia Child's cookbook. I would totally have to do one recipe a week or something less crazy like that. I really love cooking and baking, but don't get to do it very often. one of my favorite things is this:

i wish mine were this color, it is just white. but plan jane or not, i am so crazy bout it. the last thing i made in it was cheesecake, and licking those mixer blades off was so heavenly i can still taste it.

hm, another things that i am loving right now is the fact that i had 2 giftcards to spend all on myself. now, of course i didn't do that, but i did get a WHOLE outfit, shoes included. it was wonderful. i got everything at least 50% off. these shoes (sorry this picture isn't better, it does not do them justice, promise) are Vera Wang and were $20 instead of $70.



i also got a cable knit sweater 50% off, a skirt 80% off, and a shirt 70% off!!!!!!
i also snagged hats 90% off for gifts for my dad and brother in law. i felt very very accomplished. i haven't gone shopping in forever and really love getting great deals!
anyhoooo!
i will stop babbling and go to bed since there is peace in our house right now.
next post will be about my beautiful wonderful grandmother who died last fall. this Christmas i missed her so much.

elise is....obsessed?

I've been pulled back to the blogging world fairly easily by Miss Annie who tagged me in the "5 Obsessions" bit.
So! here we go on the 5 things i'm obsessed with....

#1- reading... i'm obsessed with reading! I love good old classics like Pride & Prejudice, less old but still classic Chronicles of Narnia, and new books by the likes of Ted Decker, Francine Rivers and more. Pretty much anything by C.S. Lewis is pure magic.

#2- Ice Cream... Love me some Ice Cream!! So hard to pick a favorite. i love chocolate ice cream with loads of fixings in it, i love vanilla custard with blackberries and pecans... i love vanilla and orange sherbet twist. I have a serious problem!!!




#3- worrying... i know that's not really what this is supposed to be about... but i don't really have many obsession other than God & my family... obsession meaning things i really love or spend alot of time on or can't live with out. worry is something that has always been as natural as breathing for me. Sad i know! i've been working on it and am getting ALOT better. I know that God has things under control, truly believe that with all my heart, but i'm really bad at internalizing things and over thinking things. but as i say, making progress!


#4- my church!!! I love my church home/family. if you are in the STL or SO-IL area you need to come! Cornerstone Christian Church in Shiloh IL. We of course have hiccups and holdups and problems, but it is really a loving, learning, God glorifying place. there's a place for everybody there, from kids with developmental delays, people with addiction problems, young families, grandparents, military, civilian, you name it! Not to mention (shameless plug, watch out) the heartfelt band that leads worship in the evening (hub is in) and the amazing scripture and spirit lead preaching. Come visit!





#5- my kids. I tried not to include my family or God in here, but it was too hard. Leland is the funniest kid ever. i know everyone thinks that about their own kids and kids in general are hysterical because of the way they are so honest and learning everything at the same time. but! i remain convinced that he is just amazing. and Emory just has the sparkle in her eyes and joy in her smile that nothing else compares to. I could just eat them right up!!

elise is....disenchanted.

it seems that the things that i really need to vent about, or would like to blog about, i can't.
and it seems the things i do blog about are either depressing or uninteresting.
so! i am taking a break.
i will go back to my trusty journal, where i can say whatever i want, and where it doesn't matter if anyone comments or not! it's actually preferred that no one comments in your journal:O)
no hard feelings blogging world, i just may not be trendy or motivated enough:O)

elise is...having engine problems

our trusty little kia Sedona van has most likely bit the dust.
this would not be so bad if we didn't still owe ALOT of money on it.
or, if we had decent credit.
OR if we had anything in savings.
but as it is, i am at a loss.
if you don't see us for a while, it's because we are stranded!!
okay, that may have been alittle dramatic. Joel's parents are letting us borrow their station wagon. it's kind of on it's last leg also though, so we won't be driving any more than we have to.
and of course this happens right before joel is leaving to play shows with the band in Iowa City.
have i mentioned how much i hate money?
ALOT.
okay, i'm done complaining. i don't have a solution, but i know God does. Even if His solution is we take the bus, i know it will be fine. we always want more family time....

oh, one other thing, Joel's bro is getting hitched in AZ in April or May and we were supposed to be saving like crazy to make it out there (we just found out about in mid/late nov). so now.....?

elise is....happy Leland is alive!

last wednesday night we put leland to bed like normal, read books like normal, kissed and prayed like normal, and said goodnight.

2 and a half hours later he got up, not normal.
He ran from his room trying to cough, cry and breathe with no success, not normal.
he was making a high pitched noise when he tried to breathe in, not normal.
his whole body was shaking, his eyes were frantic and he could barely sit up in my arms- not normal.

i ran him across the street to Anderson hospital where they rushed us into a room, listened to his chest, did an oxygen test, diagnosed him with croup/stridor, gave him 2 steroid shots in his thighs, and a breathing treatment with in 15 minutes. THANK THE LORD.

immediately he started to be able to breathe better and was calming down.
it was crazy because he had no symptoms before hand.
Praise the Lord also that our insurance kicked in *the day before* this all happened.
we are already so behind on medical bills that this would have been the straw that broke the camels back.
He is doing soooo much better, and besides having the cold symptoms associated with croup, is just fine.

I thought that Emory was getting the same thing, but it was an ear infection. Not great news, but glad i don't have to sit by her bed and watch her sleep to make sure she's breathing. yes, i would actually have been doing that. and yes, i have a problem:O)

Thank you Jesus for modern medicine and the people who are gifted in practicing it!

elise is...making this quick

Well!! i've realized that i am not going to go back and blog extensively about stuff that i didn't get to. Everytime i think about blogging i think, Grooooaaaann, i have so much to catch up on! i don't want to do it! so i won't. I'll just tell you Thanksgiving was great-yummy food and pretty flowers, OK was fun- great weather and family fun, and that's it about that! here are a couple pics.


the end.
next stop, the ER.

elise is....going to catch up!

I am happy to announce that we have a new computer (a big blessing from some great friends) and i will now be able to "share" internet from our neighbors and not have 4 weeks lapses in blog posts. ha.


Real quick i need to say thank you to all the people that made my birthday this year so great. It was my first Facebook birthday and all the birthday wishes were very much appreciated! My lovely family also had a fabulous cookout (in Nov!) for me, with yummy food, esteemed guests, thoughtful gifts and a spectacular cake. My darling husband surprised me with a coat and scarf from Old Navy, that i had mentioned in passing that i liked during a commercial. It was lovely lovely lovely, the sun was out and what more can you ask than that? Emmy got to take a nap outside in the pack-n-play while we ate. Naping outside is one of my all time fave's, so i'm sure she enjoyed it thoroughly. So turning 24 was a pleasure.


i'm sure lots and lots of noteworthy things happened in there also, but i'm not going to waste the little brain power i have trying to think of them! Jil, Owen and Cash did come over for shredded chicken & sloppy joe's last week, which was fun. Leland decided the theme for the evening was HATS and handed all of his out for us to wear. i think we all wore them most of the night, believe it or not. Okay, maybe half of the night.... Well, at least 20 minutes.

Anyhoo! i will stop here and share my Thanksgiving in a different post, so this isn't 5 pages long:O)

elise is....thankful and right at the limit.

Sorry it's been so long with out an update! Not having internet at our house means i have to blog, email,fbook, billpay etc all at Joel's parents or mine. It's hard to squeeze all that in with out being totally rude and ignoring our families, so the blog had to take one for the team...

So much has happened since last we chatted! Halloween has come and gone, Miss Emilia Grace has joined us during the week, we went to an AMAZING Mutemath concert... let's start with Halloween.

I made Emory's costume, which i never did for Leland, we always found PotteryBarn clearance for him (first a dragon, then a spider). Pottery Barn is a bit pricey but the costumes are so great and made so well. This year we found the PB shark costume at a yardsale and the theme for family costumes sprouted from there. Miss Emory was a mermaid! why i had to pick something complicated, with no pattern instead of just looking online, i'm not sure. Oh, yes, a desire to save money and problem with over committing myself. and a creative spirit that was tired of being squelched in the name of monotony and the such. Anywho! Emmy's costume turned out pretty well, although changes were made to the original plan due to her being, well, a grabby 4 1/2 month old. She of course pooped all over it right before we headed to a party and i have learned my lesson about man hours and children's garments:O) so i scrubbed and muttered and we all made it to the party poop free- a mermaid, a shark, a tropical fish and a snorkeler. We had lots of fun thanks to our lovely hostesses Jaime and Annie, who just happen to have great blogs you can check out if you look under blogs i follow, they are awesome gals who are lots of fun and mean a lot to me! which leads me too...

Miss Emilia joining our happy household during the week! Annie's little girl Emilia was born April 7th and Emory was born June 11th so they are realy close in age. Annie called me last week to see if we wanted another friend to play with besides Miss Lucy (1 1/2), who's momma Mary is a music teacher (and great friend). We have been praying for a while that God would present us with an option for keeping up with the bills, other than me having to get a job on nights and weekends. It felt like a perfect fit because it would help our friends who have been a great help to us passing clothes over as Emilia out grows them, and it would help financially as well. So i am VERY VERY thankful. But this also leads into the "right at the limit" bit.

Yesterday was my first day with all 4 kiddos under 3, starting at 7 and ending at 5:30. Honestly, it went so much better than i ever anticipated! I felt like i kicked monday's butt, and was really proud of myself. I even got alot of cleaning, organizing and laundry done! (side note- this is admittedly not one of my strong suits, i've decided it's one of the curses of creativity... or lack of motivation) However, this morning when i woke up, i felt like monday kicked MY butt. So today i dragged a bit, looked awful when i answered the door, and had my robe on most of the day. But we made it. And i think that it's really good for me to be right at the limit. I have to rely on God for everything, and i don't have the option of letting myself slide. So thank you Jesus, and the Warren family, for helping us out!

a couple weeks ago... i want to say the 23rd?... we went to a great great concert. It was Mutemath and As Tall As Lions. Now don't get me wrong, i go to lots of concerts where my hubby is playing. Both of the bands he plays in are really great and play with other great bands i love, like Dear Future, Deas Vail, Nick flora, Dr Manhattan etc. But this is the first concert that i've been to, that we weren't connected to since i went to Mates of States at the Bluebird with Jillie (also a stand out, amazing show) on June 8th, 2008.
Mutemath was just heavenly. I really mean it. It's great when you can have a true worship experience at the Pageant. Really, if you haven't listened to them, get on itunes and do it. get ahold of the lyrics too. SOO uplifting. and the musicianship is fantastic too. I told Joel i think it's like modern classical music. all the different parts working together to make this amazing dynamic sound. It doesn't hurt when the bass player whips out the upright either. gotta love that. They were yikes. As Tall As Lions was really good too. i had never heard them and was pleasantly surprised. The singer had a great voice and they seemed like really nice guys. There were trumpets and everything! Not in a weird or big band way, in a perfect and mindblowing way. okay, i'll stop the music mumbles.

I sat down to take care of some normal bills and some icky medical bills and was gripped by the anxiety that i've been much better at quieting in my daily life. I know i just explained to you how God has provided but i just got overwhelmed and thought- we are NEVER going to get out of DEBT! i had to walk away and put things into perspective. These verses from a study we are doing at small group helped:

Whom do i have in heaven but You? And i desire nothing on earth but You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. Psalm 73:25-26

I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, Lord, make me live in safety. Psalm 4:8.


hopefully soon i will share some pics of cool fabric i'm using for burp cloths i make, another source of thankfulness. I have awesome friends who are supporting me by buying them:O) until then...

elise is... being attacked by ladybugs.

There are ladybugs EVERYwhere. Being the product of homeschooling i googled to see why. Apparently they are looking to hibernate and also are releasing pheromones that attract others. So there you go! That's the short answer anyway:O)
Today Leland and i made quesadillas for lunch and they were soooo good! We really had a pretty relaxing, laid back day. A big part of that was because i made the time to do my bible study (A Lineage of Grace by Francine Rivers) and we listened to music like Third Day, Leeland and Dave Crowder. Plus the sun is still shinning, which makes everything better. It is amazing the difference the weather can make in my outlook/motivation/attitude.

We have had a water spot on the ceiling of our entryway for a really long time from when our roof leaked and we are finally getting it fixed! It hasn't been a smooth project but slowly and surely we are getting closer to having it finished. We also put in a new light there and are going to be painting the entry way walls a light charcoal. Which will be great because of all the music equipment that goes in and out and scrapes up my walls.
Leland has always had an affinity for rhythm and dancing and today he just couldn't keep it in. I think he was probably dancing for about 80% of the day, and he's actually getting pretty impressive: waiting for the music to swell and running in the room to "jump and spin" right on cue. We found one of Uncle Greg's old shirt in the garage-- you would not believe all the stuff in there (that doesn't belong to us)-- so Leland was rocking an original Dukes of Hazard tee today.

Well, i need to get home and get all four of us in bed, but i promise next time there will be some resemblance of cohesiveness in my post. Or at least i'll try. good night!

ELise is....loving all this sunshine!

only have a second, but needed to say that i am so thankful for a break from the gloomy days that we have been having. we had a really fun weekend and i had these two beautiful faces smiling at me today. life is goood!
there is also a big fat hole in my entry way ceiling, but we'll talk more about that later.

elise is...storming the 21st century!

oh man. i am blogging.
i think in my head i'm more of an old, not hip, loser than in reality. (or at least i hope)i've had this silly notion that i couldn't do this. But! i have decided to take it one blog at a time. Even though i have a million things that i need to be doing right now, and my 2 year old just wrapped tape around his torso, i've been trying to carve out a little more time for myself, to keep my sanity. So this, sewing, personal devotions & MOPs are my me time. Heck yes. as boring as that may sound, i am so happy about it!
so... for a little nonsense:
this week i had to color my hair. i had been putting it off and my roots were SO bad, grey hair EVERYwhere, in plain sight. not good.
i mentioned to Joel that i was gonna have to get some color and he very sweetly asked if i had thought about going back to a color a little more natural. I really loved my poppy red hair but i'm more than happy for something less high maintenance. Plus i had a box of color left from when i was brown so i went for it. ta da!

not to bad for 'boring' brown:O)
for any of you who know my in-laws, you know they are great. But Miss Janet has a tendency to be a little over the top at times, ie: trying to do the worm at a wedding and belly flopping on the dance floor, giving big "Santa" presents to all of her grown up children, and throwing birthday parties for her grandchildren EVERY MOnth, for their first year of life. yup. i'm serious. She did it for Leland; the 15th of every month we were expected to be at their house for a party. So, now of course, we have to do it for Emory or it wouldn't be fair. Can you tell they are the first grandkids?