After vomitting yesterday, Evelyn was passing on some of her experience to her doll baby. She kept changing her doll's clothes and would say to her, "Oh baby, we have to change your clothes because you got vomit on them". What a good mommy.

Some of you may know from talking to me that Gabe has been waking up every day at around 5 or 5:30am for about 6-8 weeks now. But....this week...he has slept a bit later on two days. One day he woke up around 4am and cried off and on for 10 minutes, then slept until 6:30. And today, he woke up at 5:30, but he went back to sleep after a quick diaper change.

Ohmigosh! Could this stage of crack-of-dawn-waking be coming to an end? I hope so.

Last week, I sorta had a little revelation, thanks in part to an insightful friend who was praying for me. I need to stop trying to micro-manage my kids....even when they wake up every day at 5:30am. So, I am trying to let it be right now.

I love the age that Gabe is right now. He is 14 months. He's starting to talk here and there, and he and Evelyn are getting along a little better. This morning, Gabe was tickling Evelyn's feet. So cute. He loves getting into the recycling (he's very eco-contious), and he takes off as fast as he can when I say "put that down" or "what do you have in your mouth?" He understands everything I say.

As for Evelyn, she woke up crying this morning. She said her tummy hurt. We came downstairs and she vomitted twice, and then slept on a blanket on the floor for about an hour. She seems fine ever since. Her appetite is back, but we are on the BRAT diet for the rest of today. Does anyone know if something is going around?

Weekend with the in-laws

Well, we got back yesterday from a weekend in Indiana. Maureen had to pray for me the day that we left town to head over that way, because I sorta have a crummy attitude about visiting with Joe's family.

It was a pretty good time. The kids didn't get enough sleep, but they never do when you are visiting family. Joe's mom always makes homemade ice cream for the July 4th holiday, and since she was having everyone over on Saturday, that is what we did. Two flavors--vanilla and peanut butter. Now, normally, I LOVE peanut butter anything. But, I am a bit of an ice cream snob, I must admit, so this particular ice cream is not my thing. All around, I ate way too much sugar. I hate that.

I also nearly broke my ass playing soccer with one of the cousins. Seriously, I fell right on my hind-quarters and did not break my fall at all on the way down. It hurt like hell, and I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. I actually took two Aleve. I never take pain medication. I have been trying to make myself remember to take pain medication when I am in pain, lately. Some pharmacist I am, huh?

We were exhausted yesterday when we got home, and the kids were really messed up. Gabe took forever to fall asleep. He was hysterical. Poor little guy. Fortunately Joe's folks don't really have much of an expectation that we will visit them except for this one time in the summer. They always come over to visit us. I know they are trying really hard to do things to show us that they love us. Like, they hardly turned the television on at all. And, they did not get out the camera right as we were getting in the car to leave and the kids were falling apart. I am very thankful for those two things, and I am going to try to focus on that as much as I can.