Do you hear what I hear?

**Sung to the tune of the "Do You Hear What I Hear" song.**

Said the mother two her little babes.
Do you hear what I hear?
Snuggled in your beds sound asleep.
Do you hear what I hear?
It's silence, silence,
Drifting through the house.
So mommy can have some peace and quiet.
So mommy can have some peace and quiet.

Well, for the moment anyway. Quiet in our household never lasts long! So in some of those few moments, I'll share what our weekend events held. Business would be an accurate description. Our Sunday School party was on Saturday. Initially, the plans were to go on one of our SS teacher's houseboats to do a "cruise" on the lake from 2-5 and then a potluck from 5-8ish.

Unfortunately, the first part of the plans were a washout. Literally. Because it rained. All. Day. Long. Rained or drizzled. And it was cold. Really cold. Like not budging from 37 degrees all day long cold. And on the lake, 37 degrees = 20 degree windchill. But the potluck was still on. What are Baptists without potluck? Hungry! :-)

But before any good potluck, you must prepare your dish. And then you must indoctrinate your two year old daughter in the wonderful world of licking the beater after mixing your dessert filling. And when you indoctrinate your daughter in that world, you get only this look in return.



And you realize that you have a 2 year old going on 12. Miss sass! So I enjoyed my beater. She did this.



Then...the time finally arrived. Time for Darin and I to drop our kiddos at the arranged childcare for our group. And time for a two hour break from mommy responsibilities and a chance just to be with friends kid-free. Sounds so wrong...but it was sooo nice! But to get to the houseboat, you must walk down this.



Yes, you must try to walk while this long and skinny floating dock sways with the wind and the to the people who are crossing. Not my idea of fun when I know that 20 feet of frigid water lies 6 inches below my shoes. But it looked pretty!

Once we arrived...we did this.





And this. I mean what would a get together be without free scarf tying lessons??



So it was fun. It was a time just for adults...and one that was very enjoyable.

Last night (Sunday), following church and and kids naps, we headed up to Benton (45 minutes away) to go to the Selah concert at a local church. It was free...and they had free nursery. A double bonus indeed! If you don't know who Selah is, you're missing out.

The concert was about 2 hours, and following that, the group went into the lobby to meet and greet and sign autographs. I've met a lot of Christian artists in my time...lots of which were friendly, some of which were truly odd birds, but never anyone that made you feel like you'd known her for 10 years. This group was real...and truly genuine. They perform that way, and they talk and interact that way. The only female vocalist from the group and I talked for about 5 minutes...about random things. But she made me feel like I'd known her for years. I LOVE that about people! So after introducing myself to the rest, I scooted my son over to them and snapped a picture with my trusty, blurry, camera phone. Not the best of quality, but it captures the moment.



The weekend is now over. I'm a pound heavier. And we still have a few Christmas festivities to go before the big holiday. I love this time of year!

Frantic Friday

So today was the second mass free clinic in our county. They made a lot of changes to better organize it this time. It was pretty organized last time, but there was such a panic for people to get there that no matter what they did it seemed chaotic. We were in and out in about 30 minutes, and that was everything from filling out 4 sets of paperwork to getting 4 people's shots.



You ready for this? Try to keep up. Ethan had a seasonal booster. Zoe had an H1N1 booster. I had the H1N1 shot. Darin had the seasonal flu shot after getting his H1N1 at school yesterday. Nuts, I know. But over the last month, we've spradically all had everything that we need now. The only person who has something left to get is Ethan - and that's just his H1N1 booster that he has to wait until next month to get. That's not a must have, just a should have. It increases his chance of the shot protection from flu from like 85% to 93% or something like that.



In other news...two days ago, I think it was, I posted about how Ethan was scooting a little bit. I'm talking barely scooting...like an inch or two every once in a while. So over the course of 24 hours, my life changed. No longer can I leave him on the floor playing happily to go do the dishes or put on a load to wash. No....now, I have a baby boy who can do this.




And who gets into this...

10 on the 10th - Christmas Edition!

Two weeks! TWO WEEKS, people! Where does the time go, seriously??

It's that time again for ten on the tenth.

I'm going to make a lame attempt at being creative and doing a list of ten by doing an acronym of sorts. This is going to be listing what I'm thankful for this Christmas season.

1. C - Christ - I'm thankful that Christ appeared on this earth as a tiny baby boy, only to grow up and lose His life in order to save ours.

2. H - Home - I'm thankful that I have a beautiful home to live in, to watch my children grow up in, and to grow old with my husband in.

3. R - Reason - I'm thankful that we have a REAL reason to celebrate Christmas.

4. I - (hmmm....) Inches - I'm thankful for two beautiful kiddos who are growing inches and are as healthy as they can be. Cheesy?

5. S - Sitting still - I'm thankful for the few moments each day that I have to just sit still.

6. T - Time - I'm thankful for the time that has been given to me each and every day...that He allowed me to overcome my battle with cancer as a child and live to see today. You never know what tomorrow will hold.

7. M - Ministry - I'm thankful that the Lord called me into my position as women's minister. It's challenging, but rewarding.

8. A - A hard working husband. (I know, I cheated a little their). I'm thankful that I have such a hard working husband who allows me the opportunity to be a stay at home mommy.

9. S - Sisters and Brothers in Christ - I'm thankful for all of the wonderful friends that I have. Life just wouldn't be the same without them.

10. And now that my creative acronym for Christmas has run out of letters, I'll just end with this. There's just no way I can express all the things I'm thankful for. There aren't enough hours in the day. So I'll end my "I'm thankful for..." list by saying that I'm thankful for this message.



Have a Merry Christmas and remember the real reason that we celebrate. After all, Jesus taught Santa all he knows. :-)

No! Not my cereal!

Wordless Wednesday....

Gifts from above

Every good and pefect gift




is from above....(James 1:17 NIV)

Look at you grow!

Ethan, you are 7 months old now (plus one week..this is a week late).

So, my little handsome guy, what are you up to now?

Well,

You are about ready to take off and crawl. Speaking scientific, and specifically physics terms, you have a TON of potential energy just waiting to be used kinetically. (Side note...I'm a nerd, I know.) Laymans terms...you can sit on your hands and knees and rock forwards and backwards looking like you're ready to explode. But when you do, it's usually exploding forward in the form of a face plant. Sometimes you move an arm or a leg, but it's never the right arm and leg, and you end up toppling over.

You also learned over Thanksgiving break how to go from a sitting position to your hands and knees or to your belly.

But right now, instead of hands and knees crawling, you do this. The inchworm is my name for it. Others might call it a version of the army crawl. Sometimes you'll throw your whole body up on one side and thrust forward inching up a bit. Then shift to the other side and do it all over again. You try so hard. Usually you get what you want, but you get frustrated sometimes in the process.

You are standing well now (and obviously proud of it), even just holding onto things sometimes with just one hand. You have started taking our fingers and walking towards us on your own, giggling the whole way.

Other facts: You are about 19 pounds. And about 28 inches long...I haven't measured you in a while, but you seemingly overnight outgrew some of your clothes that fit just a couple of weeks ago, so I'm assuming on that one. It's a good thing we got some clothes from your cousin over Thanksgiving. Otherwise, you wouldn't have any to wear here in about a month or so.

You are in a mixture of 6-9 month clothes and 12 month clothes. It largely depends on the brand, but every week, it seems that I put away something you've outgrown in the 6-9 month category. You wear size 3 diapers and have moved into Zoe's medium size Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers. Good thing she's not still in diapers! You wear size 2/3 shoes.

You LOVE to eat. You still nurse 4 times a day and eat three solid meals a day. You eat anything I put in front of you, most of the time with a wide open mouth like a little bird. Your favorites right now are a pumpkin/pear mix and any sort of fruit. You also like sweet potatoes and peas. You started eating meat about a week ago. At first, you disliked the texture and/or taste. You tolerate it now. We had to give you something of more substanance because you wanted more to eat and during your growth spurt a couple of weeks ago, you ate as much as 12 ounces of food in one sitting. We decided then it was time for meat.

You still take two naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, for 1-2 hours each and sleep from 8PM until b/w 7 and 8 the next morning.

You got sick for the first time the week after you turned 6 months old. You had a double ear infection. The first round of antibiotics only cleared up one ear, so we had to go on two rounds of meds. You're much better now.

You say all kinds of syllables. Dadadadada is your favorite. I try with all my might to get you to say mama. Just doesn't happen. You also say bababa, rarara, tatata, and a mixture of all of the above jumbled together.

You have a terrible rash on your face right now from all of the slobbering you're doing. I think your bottom teeth are closer now because drool is an understatement. It's more like a faucet. You look like you have a red beard from your cheeks to your chin.

You are starting to enjoy the action/reaction toys. I showed you one the other day and you mimicked me immediately. You like quiet toys...things that you stack or build, or just things to look at like books. You are the exact opposite of Zoe at this age.

You change and grow more each day. It's fun watching what you learn and how you processs that new information. I can't wait to see what you learn next!

Until next month.....

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....

I never remember more than the first 4 words of that song...that's pathetic!

So the Christmas tree went up early this year. REALLY early. Like mid-November early. But I had a perfectly good reason for doing it. Even better than "just because my baby boy is having his first Christmas this year". No really! There was this great offer from a site by Fuji film that was offering 50 FREE photo cards. Yes 50. Yes, free. No, there are no strings attached. Yes, it's a legitimate site. No shipping, no tax, no charge at all...50 free photo cards.

So now getting to why I put the tree up early. See, this particular offer ended during our Thanksgiving vacation when we would be gone, so I did them before. And in order to do Christmas cards, I needed Christmas family pictures...with a tree...lit up and decorated. Hence, putting a Christmas tree up on or around the 20th of November. It did feel weird to say the least. We usually put it up right after Thanksgiving.

And a post by me wouldn't be complete without a ton of pictures...

And there you have it...the Buscher Christmas family photos. And all sing along....O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Hiatus...

Wow...it's been two weeks since I've updated. That's a really long time for me to go without blogging.


This might be a week or so overdue, but better late than never. Last Tuesday, we left Arkadelphia at 7:30AM sharp! Ten long hours later, we arrived at our destination...Grandma and Grandpa's house in Illinois. Trust me...a ten hour trip in the car with a 7 month old isn't bad. Throw in an almost 2 and a half year old in the mix and it's a mess. No, really...she did really well for 9 and a half hours. The last 3o minutes were rough, but she leaked through a diaper and didn't tell us, so she sat with wet clothes for probably at least that long. The way back, however, was a different story. It was pretty much hours on end of a fussy toddler with the exception of the couple of hours of naps.


So why Illinois, you ask? Well, in the same little town live Zoe's Darin's mom and dad, two of his brothers, their wives, and 9 of the 12 grandkids. We go every year for Thanksgiving and again over the 4th of July. Always fun times when you get everyone together.


Besides the typical Thanksgiving meal, there's....


FOOTBALL!

Movie Watching

Playing with the cousins

And Christmas Parades...




The kids...minus one.

The brother's families.






The littlest Buschers boys...



The littlest Buscher boys all grown up?????????



The big group - minus one kid.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sibling Giggles

Giggles would be a little bit of an underestimate here. This was an all out laugh fest. You might want your volume turned down a little bit...it's quite L.O.U.D! Don't say I didn't warn you. ;-)

A MUST during the fall season!

Fall + Raking the thousands of leaves that have fallen from your trees = a perfect opportunity for jumping in big piles of leaves.

I've been workin' on my diaper all the live long day....

I had a rough time last night. I usually work for quite some time on my diapers, but this was about 10 minutes of this.




And of course my mom thought it'd be funny to take pictures of my struggles.

What!! Like you've never been there before!?!?!?