This week is going to be insane. I always feel like this as the week of the dance recital starts, but we always manage to survive. The first of the three dress rehearsals (one for gymnastics, one for ballet, one for tumbling) was tonight, and it went well for Accalia. Unfortunately for me, the group before Accalia had to go through their routine three times, and now I have the Coldplay song they danced to stuck in my head. Urg. Tomorrow night is Accalia's ballet rehearsal, Friday is Cole's tumbling, Saturday is a two hour run through for each of the recitals (a 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. show), and Sunday is the big day.

In addition to dance, Cole had a make up soccer game tonight, will miss out on his soccer game on Saturday because of dance, but will be able to be there for his team picture that morning. I think Friday morning at the art studio is the only other activity they have this week.

The house is a complete disaster, and I'm stressing out a bit because I need to do major cleaning for the weekend and my parents visiting. Of course, I'm sure my parents could care less about the state of my house, but it needs to get down. I've been delayed a bit with this mission because Ella got sick yesterday. After supper, she was in the living room and I was in the kitchen, and I look over to see two large areas of vomit on the living room rug. Ella threw up four more times after that, finally falling asleep vomit free at 4:30 a.m. I only had about 2-3 hours of sleep last night and am conscious right now mainly due to large quantities of caffeinated coffee drinks.

The other think happening this weekend - Sunday to be exact - is Cory's 37th birthday. Hooray! Unfortunately, we won't be able to spend a lot of the day focusing solely on his because of the recital, but he is taking the next day off, so that will be nice.

Accalia just got her first email address today. Not sure why we never did this before, but I guess she just never expressed an interest. She's having a lot of fun sending emails.

Okay, time to move a sleeping Ella from the couch to the bed and hope Tylan stays asleep while I put her down to do that.

Yesterday was a really good day, and I'm hoping that today will follow suit. It was a perfect spring day - upper 60s, sunny, slight breeze - and we spent much of the day outside in the yard. Tylan loved it. I cleaned out our back porch area (I never know what to call it because it's not really a porch or a deck), we filled the sandbox with sand, I gave wagon rides, we picked up fallen willow branches, etc.

We never did see the neighbor girls, but Cole's new friend from the neighborhood, Ian, found his way over. The two have a shared love of Ben 10, and much of their play revolves around that. I can't help but see how it is when Cole and Ian play together compared with when the neighbor girls are over, and it's so much more peaceful and void of drama. Maybe it's because there's just one of Ian and none of the rivalry and fighting that seems to come with the two sisters. I don't know. Sometimes I think I'd do much better as a mother to all boys, but that's not really a helpful thought when three of your four children are girls.

Today Cole has tumbling and then soccer practice (first of the season). I'd continue blogging about our Easter weekend in Mankato, but Ella has climbed up behind me in order to use the computer and it's rather hard to concentrate when she's pulling apart my ponytail. So, I'll take my coffee and take care of some other things.

Caring for sick children is so much easier when you're healthy. I'm not. I was miserable yesterday and am feeling slightly better today, but not well enough to have much patience of any sort. Is it too much to ask that after we get past this cold that we can go more than two weeks between illnesses? There are so many things I need to get done right now, and I'm trying to make up my mind about going ahead with something that would be very time consuming, and all I feel like doing is curling up and shutting out the world.

So as not to paint everything too bleak, the good news is that I'll probably wake up tomorrow feeling almost completely back to normal, and Accalia and Cole probably will, too. They're both still low on energy and haven't been doing a lot. Ella's a little better today but continues to be one incredibly cranky patient. Tylan's still low on energy, too, and is sleeping more, but she's ready to cheer on the Cubs in her pink Cubs track suit given to her by Auntie Jess and Uncle Jer.

We'll be heading to Mankato on Friday for Easter weekend and even going to church twice - Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I'm trying to decide whether to just have the kids wear the same clothes for both church services so we don't have to pack as much. I think it will be a pretty laid back weekend, and hopefully we'll all be 100% to enjoy it all. We were last in Mankato over Christmas. I also have to remember to pack the Easter baskets. And I have to remember to boil eggs in the next day or two so the kids can dye them before we leave. Ah, the joys of not celebrating holidays at home...

Better check on supper. You know those frozen pizzas don't cook themselves!

It's another beautiful spring day with temps in the low 50s, sunny blue skies with a few fluffy clouds, and a light breeze. It's a perfect day to be outside enjoying the new sidewalk chalk and bubbles. Unfortunately, half of the family is too sick to do much of anything other than sleep and lie on the couch.

We made it through almost the entire winter without any illnesses - not even colds - and then March hit and along with it came the flu and nasty colds. That lasted about two weeks, and suddenly Cory gets sick. For the past couple days, Cory has been under the weather, but he was feeling better this morning. Cole and Accalia seem to have caught whatever he has, though, and are really suffering today. Accalia and Cole both went upstairs around 11:30 a.m. for a nap, and Accalia came down after an hour. Two hours later Cole is still up there sound asleep. I really, really hope that this stays clear of Ella, Tylan and myself.

Yesterday, before the kids were feeling really bad, they were outside playing with the neighbor girls. Cole lost energy, though, and Accalia started to feel dizzy and almost black out, so they both came inside. The younger girl (age 6) then sat outside on her sidewalk and pouted about the whole thing. I completely understand her disappointment in losing her playmates early on a lovely day, but this seems to be the response whenever Accalia or Cole stop playing before the girls have to go inside. This happened all last summer, too, and it drove me nuts. Longtime readers probably remember a few rants of mine, fueled on by pregnancy hormones. I just can't help but feel trapped at our home when the neighbor girls are at home, too, and seem to want nothing to do with their own house. The instant they can they come over and stay as long as they can. I guess I should feel pleased that they have such a good time at our house, and it makes me feel sad that they apparently dislike their own house (I suspect mom more than anything) so much that they don't want to spend any extra time there than necessary. I just need to find a balance when school lets out because Accalia and Cole also lose interest in playing after a while and just want to be inside and relax without additional playmates. We'll figure it out. I guess now I have the excuse of a baby needing to nap in order to keep things quiet.

Okay, since I have been so remiss in regularly posting pictures, I'm going to share some below. Yay!

Here is Cory and his dad at the 65th birthday celebration we had for Myron at Outback Steakhouse in Sioux Falls.


Here is Tylan chewing on a wooden book. At seven months old, she still has no teeth and is not yet crawling. She loves to turn around in a 360, though, and seems to pull herself short distances.


Cole loves nothing more than to pose for pictures with Tylan. He loves that Tylan resembles him more than either of his other sisters. I think he takes solace in that since he didn't get a brother this last time around.


And here are my three girls. Tylan loves Accalia so much. She gets so excited every time she sees her biggest sister and nearly jumps out of my arms to get to her. Ella's relationship with Tylan is slowly evolving with Ella trying to play with Tylan more and more, taking her cues from Accalia.

Wow, it's 50 degrees today and one of the warmer days of our spring so far. We made it through our non-blizzard on Tuesday and might have another storm over the weekend. I really want to put away the boots and hats and mittens and snow pants, but if I do that I'm basically guaranteeing we're going to have a big storm.

Cory's been sick a couple days this week - hopefully just a cold - and it seems that Cole has the same thing. Hopefully we won't have another family wide illness keeping us down for a couple weeks, not with Easter right around the corner.

It feels as if lots has been happening, but apparently I can't think of any of it to blog about right now. Cory will be home soon, supper's in the crockpot, and we're going to watch the final (sniff, sniff) ER tonight.

I need to get myself to bed. I woke up this morning with a bit of a headache and seem to be getting another one now. It was a fairly uneventful weekend, and I didn't really get much accomplished. I guess I sorted through Tylan and Ella's winter clothes, putting away the outgrown items and finding spring/summer clothes to add to the drawers.

Yesterday Accalia's ballet class performed at a local nursing home. Cory had to go to work, so the kids and I went without him. There were 3 or 4 other classes that also performed, and it was a nice little performance. Thankfully Cole and Ella were fairly content throughout, and Tylan started to get a little screechy only toward the end when she was getting tired and hungry.

So this weekend there was lots of Wii playing, some papier mache, some play with the neighbors, and an assortment of other things that aren't coming to mind right now.

Off to bed!

Happy Spring!!! It doesn't feel like spring at all here in Yankton since it's cool and cloudy and windy. Well, actually that probably is what spring is often like around here, so I take that back. It's supposed to be nice here this weekend, but I've heard rumors of snow or at least rain next week.

We don't have a lot going on this weekend. For the past couple months, Cory has basically had the same schedule delivering pizzas, so our weekends aren't very flexible for open for going out of town. Tomorrow afternoon Accalia's ballet class is performing their recital routine at one of the nursing home/assisted living places in town, so that's what we'll be doing for an hour or so. Beyond that, I think Cory and I are going to try to watch a movie tomorrow night after he's home from work.

This is so frustrating. Accalia and I were in the midst of reading the second book in the The 39 Clues series - One False Note - and now we can't find it anywhere. We've always just kept it in the living room near the couch, but it's no where to be found. Our library doesn't have it either, but I'll ask about getting it through interlibrary loan next time we stop in. I tried to do that online, but I kept getting error messages. Grr...

Right now Accalia and Cole are watching Fly Me To The Moon complete with 3D glasses. Picked that up at the library last night. We're also supposed to be getting Madagascar 2 from Netflix today (Accalia and Cole already saw this in the theater, though), so they're looking forward to a day of movies. Accalia and I also have our weekly Bones watching date since I taped the new episode last night.

On top of that, we have a free month trial of Gamefly, so we've been trying out a few different Wii games. Having a subscription to Gamefly would be wonderful, but right now it's not financially feasible. Accalia and Cory have been playing a lot of Super Mario Tennis, though, and Accalia just started the Carnival Mini Golf game last night. Before we even had the Wii, Cory picked up a bunch of games on clearance, including Gamecube games since we have the controllers to play through the Wii. She's started in on a Legend of Zelda game, and I've been reading to her from a walkthrough of the game I found online so she has an idea of what to do.

Meanwhile, Ella has decided it's so much fun to empty the contents of three kitchen drawers and play with all of those things on the kitchen floor. I really should use this as an opportunity to get rid of anything not being used because it's a bit of a pain to pick everything up.

We're seeing the neighbor girls (and a neighbor boy) more often now, too, which doesn't thrill me completely - at least with regard to the girls. I really do just feel bad for them that their lives are such that they often are so unhappy and not so nice to each other and sometimes Cole. I really want to have more patience when it comes to them because I know that coming over to our house is probably a highlight at times, but there are days when I feel as if I barely have enough to give to the four children that are my own. I think this summer will be better, though, because I will not be hugely pregnant and will be able to get around so much easier. I see many more park visits in our future.

Tylan, my sweet little baby, is now seven months old. There's no crawling or sitting up on her own for more than 2 seconds, but I'm quite content to wait. She's discovered joints - wrists, elbows, knees, knuckles, etc. - and is utterly fascinated by them. She'll grab on to her own wrist and just hold it and stare at it. I'd love to know what she's thinking. Tylan is also discovering how to play more and more games. I'll lift her up into the air and bring her back down, and if she wants to go up again she'll plop down quickly on my lap rather than standing up and bouncing. She also loves to watch me play peek-a-boo with certain lift the flap books we have and gets a huge smile on her face. She's also figuring out that she and I aren't one being, and if she's playing on the living room floor and I walk out of site, she often gets upset.

Ella is wedged in between me and the back of the chair I'm sitting on, so I think that means she wants to use the computer. Signing off for now...

This past week is one I hope to not repeat ever again. A combination of sick kids and crappy financial stuff does not a happy Amy make. I guess the good news is that all of the kids are in the end stages of their various illnesses, although that means they're also in that runny nose/coughing phase where they're starting to get energy back but are also cranky as all get out. Today I felt the past week of little/interrupted sleep and illness hit me. I'm getting through a cold of my own right now, but I am glad that I didn't get it until the kids were over the worst of their stuff. At least then I had more energy and patience to care for the sick ones.

Tomorrow's agenda includes paying bills, baking banana muffins, and going to the meeting for Accalia's ballet recital piece. Cory's going to make sure he's home for that so Cole and Ella can stay with him, and I won't have to try to pay attention at the meeting while keeping them quiet and content.

Just waiting for Tylan to fall back to sleep and then I'm going to bed...

Hello neglected blog! Sorry about the two week absence of posts for those of you still around.

I guess I should wrap up my whole injured foot story. Just a couple days after I went to the doctor, Tylan dropped a hard toy of hers right on my foot. Yeouch! I was limping around even more and ended up going to convenient care that Sunday afternoon. I had xrays there, and it turns out nothing is broken. Good news, I guess. And actually, my foot has been feeling much better lately, so I guess it's just been a long, slow mend.

My parents came for a night last weekend. Unfortunately it was cold and snowy, so it wasn't great weather for outdoor stuff. We still drove around the lake area to search for eagles and look at the large flocks of geese and ducks congregating on the open water. Then we went to the Dakota Territorial Museum. I remember going there years ago with possibly just Accalia around, and I wasn't sure that the kids would enjoy it. They did, though, and Accalia proclaimed that it felt like we had gone into the past.

The night before my parents came, Cole started to get sick. Now, about five days later, he's starting to get better. We thought it was just a cold before, but now we think he might have had a bit of the flu. There can't just be one sick child either, so now there are three more. Accalia seems to have more of a cold with a bad stuffy nose. Ella is down for the count with a bit of a fever. I'm really hoping it's not the flu for her. Tylan definitely isn't feeling good and has spent all day curled up in the sling nursing.

Last night I was really looking forward to sleeping since I've had too many days in a row of too little sleep. Of course it ended up being a short, disruptive night with three of the kids waking up crying because of an ache or pain or just having weird, scary fever dreams. I'm hoping tonight will be better, but I'm not going to press my luck.

My cousin Chris stayed with us Monday night. That was really nice since we hadn't seen each other for more than three years. It's too bad the kids weren't feeling better. I warned Chris off because of illness, but he said he's pretty resilient.

So that's a quick update while the kids are mostly calm and content.

It looks as if we're in for some lovely winter weather tomorrow. If the trend continues, though, Yankton will get little to nothing. Everything seems to stay up north for the most part. I hope it does, too, so Cory doesn't have problems traveling to or from work.

Speaking of Cory, he took today off so I could see my doctor about my foot. What a nice guy. I took Tylan with me, of course, but the other kids stayed at home with Cory. A couple months ago I tripped backwards over a step stool and hurt my foot but figured it was just twisted pretty bad. I think I just ignored it or put it to the back of my mind until a couple weeks ago when I realized my foot was still bothering me. It turns out I broke a bone in my foot, but since it's not hindering me from doing much there's nothing the doctor will do. Gosh, I was looking forward to wearing a fancy boot, too! My doctor said it could take six months for a bone to properly heal, but I hope it won't be that long.

In other news of the week, we gave Tylan her first taste of solids on Sunday, and she seemed rather intrigued by the mashed banana. Actually, she was probably more interested in sitting in the high chair and chewing on a spoon, so I don't think she's very interested in solids yet. Not a problem for me!

I should try to get to bed earlier tonight since Ella fell asleep early and will probably be up early. Not sure if I'll be successful, though.

Brr! This weekend has been so cold compared with the mild temps we've had for the past week or so. I think we've been a little spoiled for February and have been having trouble getting back into wintery weather. We haven't had a lot going on - just the regular things of hanging out at home, Cory delivering pizzas, etc. Quite exciting.

Today the kids and I took a drive around the lakes and river to see what birds we could spot. We haven't had much luck lately with seeing the bald eagles in trees, but today we saw one soaring overhead as we drove along the Missouri. We also saw large flocks of geese and ducks on Lake Yankton. That's always neat to see and hear when the large flocks take off from the water. We'll probably go down closer to the water and actually get out of the van to observe when it's a little warmer. Cole was hoping we could see mountain lion tracks along the river since I had just shown him a picture in the paper of mountain lion tracks along the river near Yankton, but I explained we'd actually have to be walking right along the shore to see anything like that.

The kids and I are definitely getting excited about the approaching spring. One of the things we want to do this year is plant milkweed so we can attract more monarch butterflies - Cole's favorite. I found an organization - the Live Monarch Foundation - that will send free milkweed seeds (donations are appreciated, though) with a SASE, and I think we'll be doing that.

We have a couple extra things going on this week. Accalia and Ella are getting haircuts on Thursday, and this will be Ella's first haircut. I'm having it chopped off - definitely above the shoulders and possibly just below the chin - because her curly hair gets so easily tangled and Ella is not a fan of even having her hair brushed. As long as she has no attachment to her hair length, I'm going to do this and avoid any unnecessary hair battles. On Wednesday, I'm going to the doctor to have my foot looked at because it's been bothering me since I tripped over that step stool while holding Tylan a couple months ago. It hit me last week that it's possible I could have broken a small bone or done something serious if it's still bothering me, so I thought I should just take care of it.

Now I should go ahead and try to get a few other things done while Tylan is sleeping.

This morning I took Tylan in for her six month checkup (she turns six months on the 19th), and Ella came along. Cory was home today, and Accalia and Cole thought it would be more fun to stay with him and play Wii. All is well. Tylan weighs 15 lbs. 13 oz., which puts her in the 50th percentile, and is 27 inches tall, which puts her in the 90th percentile. She's gained nearly 3 pounds and grown 2 inches in the past two months, so it's pretty much what I was expecting.

Cory did have a few counseling appointments tonight, and even though it was me alone with the four kids, I managed to have a very quiet and relaxing time. Accalia and Cole were watching a new movie on tv, Ella was at the computer, and Tylan was sleeping in my arms, and I just sat and read for about an hour with absolutely no interruption. I'm not sure that's happened since Tylan was born. It was so refreshing!

I have a list of errands for tomorrow, though, so life will have to get busy once again. Yee haw.

Oh, my poor neglected blog! Everyone and everything seems to conspire against me every time I sit down to write. LIke now, Tylan has just woken up and filled her diaper. Good timing, little lady!

I hope that everyone who is celebrating Valentine's Day is enjoying themselves. Cory's working right now, but for lunch we had our traditional fettucine alfredo and then cheesecake for dessert. Cory and I were able to just sit and relax and linger while the kids played all around us. Very nice. And apparently we're all in the mood for ice cream treats today. Cole wanted push pops, Accalia and Ella wanted popsicles, and Cory and I wanted our fave Ben and Jerry flavors (karamal sutra for Cory and cherry garcia for moi).

I can't believe it's been a week already since we went to Bald Eagle Days. That was a lot of fun for the kids, and the presentation was packed. We were able to see four live birds: a red tailed hawk, a deer falcon, an Eastern screech owl, and a bald eagle. Accalia and Cole thought it was hilarious that the bald eagle pooped on the ground. I actually only saw the hawk and the bald eagle because I spent most of the time wandering around the visitor's center with Ella and Tylan. Neither was able to be as quiet as was preferred for when the birds were out - Ella tends to talk a lot and Tylan started in with squealing.

Okay, gotta wrap this up. Ella has just been cranky and practicing her most annoying behaviors on the other kids today. I think she's tired. Looking forward to having Cory home on Monday. Tylan will have her six month check up that day and already turns six months on the 19th. Can't believe it's already been half a year!

Gorgeous day today. It's around 50 and tomorrow will probably be warmer. Gotta love a little preview of spring in the midst of winter. Thankfully it's great weather for travel, and Cory's doing a bit of that later on today. He's going from work up to Mitchell to watch our niece Mariah's basketball game. That means he won't be home until 9:30 at the earliest, but I know he'll have fun hanging out with his brother and family. Accalia and I are looking forward to snuggling up and watching the new Bones episode tonight.

So, it's been roughly 5 1/2 months since Tylan was born. I still have that 15 pounds to lose to get back to prepregnancy weight, and I'd love to do that before the summer and swimsuit season. I don't know that it's very realistic, though. I just don't want to have it be two years down the road and still be talking about losing the last of that baby weight!

What's new this time around is that this is the first child where we've decided this will be the last, and we're not at all conflicted with that decision. No second thoughts yet, although I'm sure somewhere down the line I'll yearn for another little baby. Or maybe I'll just yearn to hold someone else's little baby! I'm excited about getting rid of a lot of the baby stuff we'll no longer need, stuff that has been in and out of storage for nearly the past decade. I think we're going to try to have a garage sale in the spring or summer. We'll be getting rid of all of the boy stuff and all of the too small girl stuff. Oh, I know we'll save a few items that have sentimental value, but we'll definitely open up a lot of space in the basement. I'll also be getting rid of maternity clothes. It's sad that I still have maternity clothes hanging up and in my drawers. Tells you how good a job I've done storing things away.

Perhaps the hardest decision, though, is what pregnancy/birth books I'm keeping and giving away. There are just a few I'm keeping, and I'm keeping those because I want to be able to save them for my daughters if they one day give birth. The ones I'm saving are timeless and empowering. I'm also saving the children's books we have since those are something the kids like to hear/read whether or not there's actually a baby on the way. Then there are a few books I'm donating to LLL when I pass along all of the Yankton group supplies to the next nearest group hopefully in the near future.

Okay, I have two children climbing over me right now, so I'm going to have to wrap this up. Enjoy the day!

Less than two hours until we go to the chiropractor! Hooray! I'm fighting off a headache right now and know that getting adjusted is going to make me feel so much better. Hopefully I won't be as prone to migraines after this adjustment.

Our Friday hasn't been too out of the ordinary so far. Accalia and Cole went to the art studio this morning, and Ella, Tylan and I ran to do a couple errands. Other than going to the chiropractor soon, we really don't have much going on. Cory will be working tonight and is actually looking forward to it.

The kids are staying busy and don't have too much cabin fever at this point. I think, though, that they're getting close to either wanting spring here or to have another big snowstorm. I'm sure the latter will happen soon enough. We're supposed to have fairly warm temperatures over the next few days, so at least it won't be a struggle to just go out and run errands.

Accalia has been scouring the house for all of her old Nick magazines and comic books. She's been on such a reading kick with those and has been wanting something new, so I was very happy to find a new Nick comic collection at the store today. Accalia was also very excited on Tuesday to learn some of her gymnastics routine for the spring recital and know what song they'll be using in the routine - Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid.

Cole has been dividing his time between drawing/coloring and playing Webkinz. He's also started doing some word find puzzles. Out of all the kids, I know he's most eager to get outside and play in the dirt once again. I should sit down with him and come up with plans for our garden/yard this year. He's already told me that he wants to plant flowers that will attract butterflies and hummingbirds, which won't be too difficult.

Ella seems to have gotten past a lot of the behaviors I'd been finding so challenging lately. Rather than having the urge to run around in stores, she now wants to help by pushing the cart or just riding in it. Her vocabulary has bumped up again, and I notice that she's adding more and more descriptive words to her sentences. She also spends a lot of time looking through books and magazines and "reading" them.

Tylan doesn't seem to be still unless she's fast asleep. As soon as I put her on the floor, she rolls over and starts reaching for the closest thing so she can put it in her mouth. She tries desperately to move her body forward, too. At times she'll roll over again and again and make it halfway across the room, but I'm perfectly fine if she decides not to be different from the other kids and be an early crawler or walker. Totally fine with that.

Soon I should prepare supper early so it'll be ready for Cory to eat quick after the chiropractor and before he heads off to work.

We're back home after our short yet exhausting trip up north for Pat's funeral. We left Yankton around 3 p.m. yesterday after Cory got off work, stopped for supper at Culver's in Mitchell, and made it to the funeral home in Redfield around 7 p.m. The visitation was supposed to go until 8 p.m., so we kind of expected that by 7 p.m. things would be winding down. We pulled up, though, and the parking lot was filled and vehicles lined the surrounding streets. There was a prayer service going on that the Order of the Eastern Star (an organization Pat belonged to) had requested. Cory stepped into the room for that while I stayed out in the main room with the kids. After nearly four hours of travel, there's just no way we could have entered the prayer service quiet as mice. The service ended soon after, though, and we were able to see Pat's husband, her girls, brothers, grandchildren, etc. That was nice simply because we hadn't seen many of them since Mary's service more than four years ago. Still, we all agreed that we need to get together next just because and not wait for a death to bring us together.

So we stayed at the visitation for about an hour and then headed to the motel. The kids really need to blow off some steam after all of the traveling and time at the funeral home, but that's kind of hard to do in a small motel room with no on site pool or warm weather (close to zero the entire trip) or anything else to do. We managed, though, and eventually turned out the lights around 11:30 p.m. We were all up by 8 a.m. today to get ready for the funeral. The funeral was at Pat's church in Tulare (about 9 miles away), and we arrived an hour early since we knew it would be packed. The parking lot was almost full when we arrived, and the church was indeed bursting at the seams by the time the service started. Unfortunately I didn't get to sit with Cory during the service because Tylan started fussing almost right away. Tylan, Ella and I spent the majority of the service in a back room, but I was able to hear most of the service. It was a really nice combination of laughter and tears and comfort. Accalia had a very hard time, and Cory thinks it really hit her when the minister read letters that two of Pat's granddaughters wrote to her specifically for the funeral. The graveside service was at a small cemetery a ways out in the country, and I just stayed in the van with the kids while Cory went to that. It was just way too cold to take Tylan out for that 10 or 15 minutes. Then we headed back to the church for the meal and didn't stay long after that. Traveling home wasn't too bad, and we made it home about 15 minutes before Accalia had to be at ballet.

If there's a bright spot to all of this, it's that we were able to see more pictures of Mary when she was young. There just aren't many pictures of her as a child because the family was so poor and didn't have a camera. When we saw the pictures, we immediately saw that Ella looks just like Mary. Their faces are the same, and there was one picture of Mary in profile with her eyebrow arched that is exactly what Ella looks like when she makes that expression. I just wish we had pictures of Mary as a toddler because I'm almost positive we'd think we were looking at Ella. Cory's going to ask his cousins if we'd be able to get copies of the pictures for ourselves.

I'd better get to bed and hope that Tylan has a quiet night.

Cory's aunt Pat - Mary's only sister - died Thursday. I'd written in the past about her health problems over the past year or so, and just recently she was also diagnosed with lymphoma. Things went downhill very quickly. She developed pneumonia and was airlifted to Sioux Falls and put in a medically induced coma for a couple days because of a blood infection. She was never taken out of sedation and died quickly after being taken off life support.

Pat was always the one from Mary's side of the family that kept us informed of events and sent cards or little treats to the kids. She was the one who invited all of us to her house on Christmas for that first Christmas after Mary died. She was the one of Mary's siblings (she also has two brothers) that Cory saw the most of when he was growing up. I think it's even more difficult in some ways because Cory knows what Pat's four daughters will be going through mourning the loss of their mother, coming home to visit and not having her there to talk with and play with the grandchildren, not being able to pick up the phone and chat for any reason.

We're leaving tomorrow afternoon to head up north about three hours. The visitation is tomorrow, and we should be able to make it in time for that after Cory gets off work. The funeral is Monday morning. So I've started packing and getting things ready for this trip.

Ugh. My migraine left for part of the day on Saturday but reappeared later in the day. It was there on and off yesterday, too. So the weekend rather sucked having to manage the headache when you know it's never quiet with four children in a house. Well, almost never. Hoping for a pain free start to the week!

It seems so quiet in the house right now. Accalia is at a friend's birthday party until around 8 p.m., Cory is delivering pizzas until around 8 p.m., Tylan is sleeping in the sling, Ella is on the couch watching Pink Panther, and Cole is cleaning off the shelf above the kitchen sink. That shelf has kind of turned into the "here's a broken toy that might be able to be fixed by gluing it so I'll put it here until that gets down" shelf.

Thankfully the weather has warmed up quite nicely since earlier this week. Yesterday it was in the 20s and today is in the 30s. Woo hoo! It's supposed to stay like that for the next few days, too. The only downside is that the snow will start to melt and leave the boulevard all muddy for us to walk through. Due to the street construction over the summer, part of the boulevard was torn up. When they finished construction in October, they smoothed out the dirt and planted some grass seed, but there really wasn't enough time for grass to grow back. Can't wait until spring to plant more grass seed and not have mud to walk through!

I finally had a hair appointment on Thursday. I don't think I'd been to Virginia since Tylan was two months, so that's been about three months. My hair had grown past my shoulders, and Tylan had taken to grabbing onto my hair and sucking on it. I had it cut to just above my shoulders. Tylan still grabs onto it, but it feels so much better. I also had my hair colored. I've had that done twice before. It's more to cover up the cursed Greve gray that started appearing during the time that Mary was sick, so my hair doesn't change color drastically. I had Tylan with me like I did when she was a couple months old. It started out okay. She was in my lap looking around and smiling, and then suddenly her face crumpled. I thought at first that she saw my hair looking different and freaked out. Then I thought maybe the smell from the hair color bothered her. She cried on and off the rest of the time and wouldn't calm down no matter how much I walked with her or nursed her while the hair color set for about 15-20 minutes. Virginia and I finally figured that maybe Tylan was looking in all of the mirrors in the room and getting scared at seeing this baby looking back at her. I don't know. She was perfectly fine once we left that room. I felt so bad that I couldn't soothe her better, though.

Speaking of Tylan, I'm getting really tired of people thinking she's only a couple months old! She's not really small for her age - average with weight and above average for height - but she apparently looks small to some people. I'd think more people would realize a two-month-old wouldn't be sitting up in my arms and grabbing at everything like an almost five-month-old. Of course, I had the opposite problem with Ella where everyone commented on how big she was. Guess you just can't win!

This morning Accalia and Cole used their allowances to each buy a Webkinz to add to their collection. This is number five for Accalia and number three for Cole, I think. Cole bought a bull frog and Accalia bought a grey squirrel. Cole was hoping to get the bald eagle, but they were sold out.

I really hope that Accalia is having fun at the party. They started out at the indoor ice skating rink and will go back to her friend's house for more fun. It's supposed to be a sleep over party, but Accalia wasn't interested in doing that. I always worry a little that she won't have fun since she really only knows her friend and her sister, but she always comes back from the parties so excited about it all.

For Tylan's baby book: Tylan just rolled from her back to her stomach for the first time without a bit of help! Usually she gets hung up with an arm in the way, but she's figured out how to get around that.