We had such a neat experience today. There are areas along the Missouri River in Yankton - specifically out near the Gavins Point Dam - that are popular places for bald eagles to nest and hunt for food. Winter is an excellent time to see them, so today the kids and I hopped in the van to do a little bird watching. We were driving along the road that takes us to the van and saw a vehicle had stopped along the side of the road. We pulled ahead of it and could see a magnificent bald eagle sitting in one of the trees by the river. We watched it for half a minute before it flew away, but that was awesome in itself.

There are areas near the dam that are blocked off during the winter so the eagles can nest and hunt undisturbed by humans, so the best place to view them (both for our view and for the eagles' safety) is at the Lewis & Clark Visitor's Center that overlooks the dam. We went there and watched two juvenile (under two years) bald eagles flying around and dipping down into the water. We're pretty sure they were younger than two years old because they were covered in dark brown feathers, and bald eagles don't start getting their white feathers until two and three years of age. It was so neat to watch them coast on the air currents and see how wide their wing span really is, even for the young ones. They were so close that we could even see the patterns of the feathers on the underside of their wings and body. On the way home, we once again saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree by the river (maybe the same one?), and I was able to get a picture of it because it sat in that tree for nearly two minutes.



What else did we learn about bald eagles today? We learned that:
- females are larger than the males
- their eyes start out dark, turn to a greyish-white during their second/third year and eventually turn yellow
- they're mostly fish eaters but will also eat waterfowl or carrion that hawks might kill. Bald eagles are scavengers and eat road kill.

We were talking about how the bald eagle is a symbol of the U.S., and Cole was really amused when I told him how Benjamin Franklin thought the wild turkey would be a much better representative of the U.S. because of its character.

I think we're going to drive out there on Saturday when Cory's around in hopes that he'll see some bald eagles, too. The kids are really looking forward to February when the visitor's center hosts a birds of prey program. When we've gone in the past, they've had owls and hawks to show the audience. It's a different organization coming this year, though, so I don't know what it will be like.

There are times when I'm not thrilled to live where I do, but this was definitely not one of those days.

Guess it might be good to post at least one more time before 2008 ends! We've been back in Yankton since Friday, but I haven't caught up with anything yet, including laundry. We had a really nice time with family and friends but are always glad to be back home, which is probably a good sign. I would post pictures, but our niece Mariah accidentally grabbed our camera because our cameras are almost identical. Hopefully we'll have it back in the next few days.

To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to traveling to Mankato mostly because I knew it would probably involve a lot of stops with Tylan. She turned out to be a pretty decent traveler, though. We had to stop a few times both ways when she was unhappy or wanted to nurse, but that's not too bad for a four-month-old traveling four plus hours.

We got to Mankato on Monday not long before supper and didn't do too much. My brother Jeremy and his two kids stopped by for a little bit in the evening. My mom took Tuesday off of work so she could be with us all day. My friend Heather, her husband, and their two kids stopped by in the morning so the kids could exchange gifts. That was a lot of fun as always. Then we went out to our church in the afternoon to help set up for the Christmas Eve service and so the kids could sled. That night we just hung out at home and watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

We didn't do much during the day on Christmas Eve except prepare for the night. Accalia took part in the childrens' service for the first time and had a lot of fun. In previous years she's just been too unsure to get up there with everyone. It would have been even more pleasant if Ella hadn't cried throughout most of the service. I have no idea what was wrong since she was perfectly fine before we came. I don't know if she was actually more tired than she appeared or if she didn't like sitting in the front row in a church filled mostly with strangers or what. We survived, though. It would have been nice to hang around after church a while to talk with everyone, but it was definitely in everyone's best interest to get Ella out of there and back to my parents' house. After that, my brothers came over so we could exchange gifts and stuff our faces.

We were up early and off to Lake Wilson on Christmas Day where we spent the day with Cory's dad, his brother and family, as well as Myron's friend Joan. This part of the visit didn't go as smoothly because we discovered that Cole seems to have allergies to dogs - or at least to Myron's dog. At one point in the afternoon, Cole had buried his head in a blanket that had dog hair on it and Cole's eyes started to itch and water. By night we noticed that Cole was starting to have a little trouble breathing, similar to when he went to the doctor and returned with a nebulizer. It wasn't as bad, though. Unfortunately for us, we didn't have any Benedryl to give him, and there was nothing open where we could go to buy some. We were at the point where we were trying to decide if we should drive home in the middle of the night on dicey roads or take our chances and be prepared to drive him 11 miles to the nearest hospital if his breathing worsened. We ended up staying, picked the room where the dog spent the least amount of time, opened the windows to air the room out, and washed all of the sheets on the beds. His breathing didn't really change throughout the night, although I didn't fall asleep until 2:30 a.m. because I was sitting there watching him breathe. That dog must have some extremely potent dander or something because Cory and I were both having reactions to all of that dog hair and dander by the time we left. It wasn't long before Cole was starting to improve, and by the next day he was completely back to normal. Now we know that we need to travel with Benedryl and definitely have to be prepared whenever we're around that dog again. That doesn't happen very often, though. It hit Cory first that Cole's trip to the doctor that resulted in the nebulizer treatments was probably also partially due to a reaction to the dog since that happened right after Myron had been here for Thanksgiving and we had the dog in the house for a couple days.

It was really nice to be home on Friday, especially because Cory didn't have to go back to delivering pizzas until today. We just hung out the rest of Friday, playing with the Wii, eating pizza, and watching The Dark Knight. Saturday was pretty low key, too. That night we started catching up on episodes of Pushing Daisy, a show that the kids love, too, and are sad to hear has been canceled.

So Cory's been working most of the day today and is scheduled to work until 8 p.m. Hopefully it's slow, though, and he gets out earlier. This coming week will hopefully be pretty quiet, too. The kids don't have any of their regular activities, so the only scheduled thing for us is a chiropractor appointment tomorrow. For New Year's Eve we're all just going to hang out at home and have a bunch of yummy food sitting out. That's apparently our tradition. Cory will have New Year's Day off, so we'll have extra time together this week. Hopefully I'll be able to get some cleaning done with the extra time this week. We shall see!

We've been out of the house and running around for most of the day, and it just now feels like I'm getting a chance to try to calm the chaos of things in this house. The dishwasher and washer are both running, and next I'm going to tackle the mess on the table even though that's the last thing I actually want to do.

This morning we were up and out of the house so Accalia and Cole could go to the party at the art studio while Ella and I did a bit of shopping. She wasn't really in the best mood, though, so it wasn't the most pleasant trip for me. Accalia and Cole had fun at their party - no surprise there! - and said they saw a real elf.

Then we ate lunch and were off to the doctor's for checkups for Ella and Tylan. Ella weighs in at 39 pounds and is 42 1/2 inches tall. Tylan is 13 lbs. 4 oz. and is 25 3/4 inches tall. Both are considered pretty tall for their ages, and Tylan's in the 50th for weight. Both are doing well, but Ella played shy with the doctor and didn't give him a very good chance to look at her eyes. He said if we just notice them crossing occasionally - when she's tired, having trouble focusing, etc. - that it's probably just something she'll grow out of soon enough. If it becomes more persistent, though, we'll take her to an eye doctor.

Then we were back home for a short time before we had to take the van to the mechanic's to have a couple belts replaced. The van's done now, but we can't pick it up until tomorrow morning since Cory's working right now.

I really wish I could magically get all of these household chores done in an instant so I could just work on preparations for our trips to Mankato and Lake Wilson.

FYI - Homemade hair detangling spray - 1 part conditioner to 10 parts water - works just as well as the store bought stuff and smells much better.

I got up too early this morning, so I'm sitting here blogging while I wait for the coffee to finish brewing. Ella fell asleep early last night and woke up early, but it wasn't as early as it's been in the past! Cole's up early, too, because he woke up and didn't find us upstairs. He's falling asleep again on the couch, though.

I have a bunch of laundry to put away today. It will make packing on Sunday so much easier, so I just need to get that done. I need to bake cookies, too, which I've also been putting off. Also have to call the paper to stop delivery while we're out of town. We have nothing going on today, so I should be able to accomplish those things. Cory will be home most of the night, too, after he's finished with a 5 p.m. counseling session.

Tomorrow will be busier. Accalia and Cole have art - and their art class Christmas party - and I might try to take Ella and pick up a few stocking stuffers. We'll see how that goes. She's at an age where I can sometimes sneak things in the cart and she pays no attention, but other times she'll zero in on something and not forget it's there. After lunch tomorrow, Tylan has her four month checkup and Ella has her three year check up. In a recent picture of Ella, I noticed that her right eye is crossed, and I had never noticed that before. Then, a couple days ago, I noticed her eye briefly crossed when she turned to look at me. Cory had crossed eyes when he was little and actually had to have surgery for it. I don't know if it's even a problem with Ella or if it's something that occasionally happens if she's a little tired and having trouble focusing, but I'll ask.

After those appointments, Cory's going to take off work a little early so we can take the van in to the mechanic. Yes, once again. Thankfully this is something we'd been planning to do. There are a couple belts that need to be replaced, and we wanted to do that before we travel for Christmas. Cory works tomorrow night, so we probably won't see him except for when we take the van to the mechanic. He's definitely looking forward to next week, though, when he doesn't work at all.

Glad I had a chance to type while Tylan is snoozing in the sling. It's hard to believe that at nearly four months old (tomorrow!) it's already hard to do things like type while Tylan is awake. Just over the past week or so, Tylan has turned into a grabbing machine. It's clicked with her how she can coordinate her arms to stretch and her hands to grab so she can bring things to her mouth. She's an incredibly oral baby, too. All babies are, of course, but Tylan is much more interested in putting objects in her mouth than either Ella or Cole were. Accalia loved putting everything in her mouth, too. Tylan's also becoming much more demonstrative in her affections with Cory. When she sees him, she'll try to lunge out of my arms to get to him. Then she'll bury her face in her chest and put her arms around his neck. It's such a sweet thing to see. She's ready to come back to me within a minute usually, but she's definitely showing the love to her daddy and siblings.

I am not a confrontational person at all, which is probably to my detriment at times. If I happen to find myself in a confrontational situation, I usually try to get myself out of it as neutrally as possible. This morning, though, I actually found myself having to keep my tongue in check. So strange for me!

The kids and I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few groceries and other odds and ends. We stopped in the girls' clothing section to look at the ballet stuff, and Accalia and I stopped to look at a cart of $4 pjs. Ella started to chase Cole around the clothing racks, and as I was going over to bring them back to the cart I saw this older woman veer into the clothing section and start following Cole and Ella yelling, "Children! Children! Stop running around!" I brought Cole and Ella back, and as we were going back to the cart, Ella took one more turn around a rack and accidentally knocked off a dress. This woman was still following the kids, and started yelling at Ella again and saying in a completely disgusted voice, "Children running around! Look at these clothes all over the place!" Normally, I probably would have just gathered the children and left, but today I walked over to where she was mumbling and picking up the dress, and I took the dress from her hands, put it back on the rack and said, "Thank you, but these are my children", and I could see she got my meaning that I didn't care for her attempts to help out. She had such a look on her face, though, when she started back at me. I don't know if it was disgust at my response and how I wasn't falling all over myself trying to thank her, or if it was pure disgust at my out of control kids and what a horrible mother I was. At any rate, I'm sure she left the store knowing she's seen the horrors of modern parents and convinced that if I just started spanking them right then and there all would be right with the world. Oh, I was so ready to say more to her, but I could see she wasn't interested in anything more than quieting the kids.

We finished up our shopping after that, and amazingly no one else yelled at the kids.

Brr would pretty much describe today. I'm assuming we reached 0 degrees, but I'm not sure. It's been blowing all day, but we thankfully didn't get much snow. The kids and I were able to stay inside and keep warm, but Cory was delivering pizzas for a few hours. A helpful tip for those of you ordering pizza (or any sort of food) when the weather is bad: tip! I think it's incredibly rude to not want to go out yourself to get food and then not tip the person who is going out in that weather to bring you the food. That's probably up there with people who tell you they can't afford a tip. Umm, if you can't afford to add a couple dollars onto the cost of the pizza, then you probably shouldn't be ordering a pizza in the first place.

Okay, enough ranting in defense of pizza delivery folks. After he finished that, Cory ran to the store to pick up a few groceries. Then we put our plan in motion for surprising the kids with an early Christmas present - the Wii. While Cory set the Wii up downstairs, I took all of the kids upstairs so we could do a 20-minute clean up. For some reason, the kids find it fun to set the timer and spend that time picking up toys. So we did that and then came back downstairs to find Cory sitting on the couch with a Wiimote in his hand and a game on the tv screen. Accalia and Cole were so excited. Accalia really likes the bowling game on Wii Sports, while Cole likes the shooting game on Wii Play. He also really likes the Freddi Fish game we picked up from a Cyber Monday deal. Ella seems to be happy as long as she can hold a Wiimote and doesn't seem to care whether or not she's actually playing anything.

We have very poor insulation with some of our windows, and so we woke up this morning to find frost on the inside of the windows. Yikes! I had the kids take advantage of it, though, by "painting" on the windows with paintbrushes and warm water.

Okay, I have a couple diapers to change and then the challenge of settling down a bunch of excited, happy kids. We're all on such a late night schedule, and the last few days have been rather rough. I don't mind us being a bunch of night owls. but the last three or four nights have been quite restless and are starting to drain me.

I have hopes that tonight will be a much more peaceful night than last. Ella fell asleep at 6 p.m. yesterday, and I knew that wouldn't be good. I actually tried to wake her up, but couldn't. She slept for a few hours and woke up tired and cranky and stayed that way until 2 a.m. Yay. I think I attempted to get her to sleep three times before it actually worked. Then we were up way too soon, and I am exhausted and continuing to fight off a headache. Ella fell asleep around 8 p.m. tonight, so I think it may go better this time around. Let's hope so because I have LLL in the morning. Last meeting for the group and then I'm shutting her down.

With Ella asleep and Accalia and Cole spending a lot of tonight playing in their room, I sat down and watched one of my all time favorite movies - Love Actually. I always cry at the end no matter what. Cory's probably happy he's delivering pizza tonight and doesn't have to watch it with me. Actually, if he were home we would probably be watching The Dark Knight.

Other than LLL tomorrow, Santa's flying into the airport, so I'm taking the kids to do that. Much holiday cheer should ensue. I also hope to wrap some presents, too.

Let's hope 2009 is a much better year for vehicles with us. Cory's car is in the shop once again (damn Fords) because his alternator went out AGAIN (third time this year). The alternator did have a six month guarantee, though, and it just happened to go out exactly six months to the day, so hopefully we can have that cost reimbursed. An additional expense, though, is that his front brakes are basically gone, so those are being taken care of now, too. He should have his car back tonight, so that will be very nice. We've been using just the van since Friday. Maybe, instead of Congress bailing out the auto makers, they could send a little our way to bail us out. Yikes!

So Cory's coming home a little early to get Accalia to ballet and for us to pick up his car, etc. He has two later counseling sessions tonight, so we won't get to hang out much.

I should really get back to loading the dishwasher. I stopped because Tylan was fast asleep and knew I wouldn't have much longer to type undisturbed, but she's awake now and is practicing her increasingly excellent grabbing skills.

Ella at three is absolutely kicking my butt. Well, starting at the end of two and now the first part of three. There is whining and screaming and crying. I know a lot of this is developmental and maybe some of it has to do with adjusting to Tylan's presence, but it just seems that much worse than it was with either Accalia or Cole. It's one of those periods of parenting where you think, "What did I do so wrong that my child is acting like this?" There are times, I hate to say, that I really just do not want to be around her. Ella at the present and Accalia at age 7 have so far been the toughest times for me to parent. I've felt as if I have no clue what is going on and really start to wonder what I did wrong.

At the same time, though, I can see some of the things that she's working through and how it will hopefully be once we're past this phase. Ella's becoming more and more verbal and more easily understandable. She's vocalizing a lot of her thought processes, whether it's counting, identifying letters, colors, objects, etc. or talking about whatever is on her mind. She's asking a lot of "What's that, Mama?" or "Whatcha doing, Mama?"

The whining, though, drives me absolutely nuts. It feels as if it came out of nowhere and is like fingernails on the chalkboard. If she starts whining, I'll say something like, 'I can't understand you when you talk like that. Can you tell me what you'd like?" Usually she's stop and say in a normal voice, "I want chocolate" or "I want to watch the Wiggles" or whatever it is she'd like.

Oh, but when it's like tonight when Ella is tired and cranky and just won't settle down and I have a headache starting up, I'm so ready just to skip ahead a few weeks or months or however long it will take to get past this.

Thankfully Cory will be home in less than an hour (hopefully!) and I can let him deal with some of this.

It was a second night in a row with Cory home in the evening. Lovely. Tomorrow he'll be delivering pizzas, so I've been enjoying the time. Accalia felt well enough to go to gymnastics today, and I signed up to provide treats for her gymnastics class and Cole's tumbling class when they have their Christmas parties in a couple weeks.

My mom called tonight to tell me that my grandma (her mom) was diagnosed with cancer. Grandma had gone in a couple weeks ago and had a scan because of a blood clot they discovered in her pelvis. They had noticed some suspicious spots during that scan, and it turns out that there is cancer in her aorta, abdomen and kidney. She doesn't plan to do any chemo. I have a feeling the rest of us are probably more sad about this than she is, which is probably not horrible for her. With my grandpa being diagnosed with lung cancer earlier in the fall, one of her biggest fears has been being left alone after he dies. Now they both know that they won't have to be without each other for long, and I think that gives them comfort. Me, I'm working on it. My biggest fear is that they'll linger on and get to the point that Mary was where she was praying and praying to die. I don't want them to have to suffer like that.

I hate to leave this entry on such a somber note, but I have to get a few more things done before bed.

Lately I've felt so exhausted by life. Do you ever have those times? You never seem to get things done and can't quite get up the energy to do anything about it. I'm looking around the house at the clean laundry that needs to be put away and the dirty dishes that need to be loaded in the dishwasher and the toys that need to be picked up, etc. Oy. Sometimes I think it's still adjusting to having four kids and not always being realistic in my expectations for what I will actually manage to do when I also have four children to care for and hopefully just hang out with and have fun with throughout the day. And then sometimes I wonder if I don't have a touch of PPD and that's affecting my energy and motivation levels. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that being in bed right now would be a smarter thing than writing in my blog.

Everyone's been a little sick around here. Even Tylan seems to have her first cold. Poor thing. I thought this morning how nice that must be for her - especially when not feeling well - to be carried around all day long. Cole's been the sickest, and I took him to the doctor Saturday afternoon. He had gone to bed on Friday with a cold that seemed to be knocking him on his butt, and when he got up on Saturday he had no energy and had really rapid, shallow breathing. The first thing the nurse did was to check his oxygen levels, and they were around 81/82 when they should be around 91/92. He had a couple nebulizer treatments while we were there, and then we came home with prescriptions and a nebulizer, which Cole has named Nebbie the Smoke Machine. The doctor heard a little something in his right lung but didn't say that it was pneumonia or bronchitis. Cole's definitely feeling better today.

Despite everyone not feeling quite right, Tylan had her first spontaneous laugh today. Prior to this she'll try to make laughing sounds when I tickle her ribs, but today she really laughed. Ella and I were playing with Tylan, and Tylan grabbed on to Ella's hair. I was getting Ella's hair untangled, and Tylan looked at Ella with a huge smile and laughed. It was very cute.

Cole has been busy creating new Christmas decorations. Today he drew Destructor the Snowman and gave him a Broom of Doom. So it's not a Martha Stewart Christmas around here, but it'll do.

Accalia and I have been reading the first of The 39 Clues series and are loving it. It's kind of like a National Treasure adventure. We even have the atlas sitting out so we can track where the main characters are traveling.

Okay, I'm off to bed. Accalia didn't go to ballet today because she wasn't feeling quite up to it, but I have a feeling she'll want to go to gymnastics tomorrow.