the ninth

The plan is to take a second honeymoon/anniversary trip of sorts next year, for our tenth wedding anniversary. So hopefully I'll have more fun and exciting tales to regale next year as opposed to the take-out Chinese and new kitchen light installation that is this year's celebration. (although I personally find new kitchen lights to be extremely exciting and romantic!)(and yes, that means I'm officially old.)

Meanwhile, since we need something a little mushy and reminiscent on this special occasion, I thought I'd share this which was one of my (2 dozen) favorite parts of our wedding ceremony, nine years ago today:

"Heather, please face Ryan and hold his hands, palms up, so that you may see the gift that they are to you.
These are the hands of your best friend, young and strong and vibrant with love, that are holding yours on your wedding day, as he promises to love you all the days of his ife.
These are the hands that will tenderly lift your chin to look into his eyes; eyes that are filled completely with his overwhelming love and desire for you.
These are the hands that will work along side yours as together you build your future, as you laugh and cry, as you share your innermost dreams.
These are the hands that will countless times wipe the tears from your eyes; tears of sorrow and tears of joy.
These are the hands you will place with expectant joy against your stomach so that he too can feek his child stir within you.
These are the hands that look so rough and strong, yet will be so gentle as he holds your baby and looks in awe at the life you created together.
These are the hands that will work long hours for you and your new family.
These are the hands that will comfort you in illness, and hold you when fear or grief wracks your mind.
These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, for a lifetime together.

Ryan, please hold Heather's hands, palms up, where you may see the gift that they are to you.
These are the hands of your best friend, smooth, young and carefree, that are holding yours on your wedding day as she pledges her love and commitment to you all the days of her life.
These are the hands that will give you support as she encourages you to chase down your dreams.
These are the hands that will work alongside yours, making a home for your new family.
These are the hands that will massage tension from your neck and back in the evenings after you've both had a long, hard day.
These are the hands that will hold you in joy and excitement and hope, each time she tells you that you are to have a child, that together you have created a new life.
These are the hands that will hold each of your children in tender love, soothing them through illness and hurt, teaching, supporting and encouraging them along the way, and knowing when it is time to let go.
These are the hands that will comfort you when you are sick, or console you when you are grieveing.
These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, for a lifetime together.

Lord, bless these hands that you see before you this day. May they always be held in love by one another. Give them strength to hold on during the storms of stress and the dark of disillusionment. Keep them tender and gentle as they nurture each other. Help these hands to continue building a relationship founded in Your grace; rich in caring, and devoted to lifting each other up. May Ryan and Heather see their four hands, together, as a reflection of Your hands; healing, protecting, sheltering, uplifting and guiding them together throughout their life. This we ask in Your Name, Amen."

Happy Anniversary Ryan. I'm glad we're still holding hands. :)

he's no longer a preschooler

Bad Mommy Blogger that I am these days, I completely skipped over all but casually mentioning Sawyer's preschool graduation last week two weeks ago. Here are the highlights:




Walking the stage for his "diploma"



















Favorite kid















Favorite friend














Favorite teachers

Loved Miss Anita and Miss Carolyn!
Sawyer loved his pre-k year with everyone. :)






Here are a couple of quick videos (mostly for the grandmas I'm sure):
the first of Sawyer getting his diploma... they announce what he wants to be when he grows up. And yes, he's getting used to being called Saw-yer here in the south rather than the "soy"yer we're all used to. And I'm not sure why he's walking like a constipated hunchback across the stage.

pre-k grad from heather morrison on Vimeo.

And the second, a snippet of the (much longer) program the two graduating classes did for the "ceremony". And don't ask me why he's not actually singing or saying much... I know he knows all of these!

graduation program from heather morrison on Vimeo.

a laughlin weekend

We took off for the long weekend and headed up to Columbia to see the Laughlins for Evan's birthday and of course to meet baby Alex. :)

It was a great long weekend with a birthday party, lots of cake and ice cream and yummy food, lots of games, lots of catching up, and of course, lots of baby holding...



































Other random picts from the weekend...
















































































And I'm sure Kasey will have more of the party!

wednesdays

Wednesday evenings, for five weeks in the month of May and into June, the kids both have Upward camps at a local church; soccer for Sawyer and cheer for Savannah.

They've both had a great time for the two hours each week, submerged in sports they love.








































And Ryan and I have had a great time with a mini "date night" each week after we drop them off... two hours to have some grown up dinner time (yum- Thai!), challenge each other to games on the ipod, and just sit out on the grass under the trees watching the soccer field, enjoying the weather (and the cicadas. NOT.).


It's been fun to have a little regular "just us" time.

not writing

When I started this blogging stuff, when I had a toddler and a baby and then a toddler and a preschooler and moved across the country twice in one year in the middle of that...
back then I found time (and reason) to write pretty much every single day.

It baffles me that now, when I'm about to have two elementary kids (eek!), kids who are obviously not as demanding or high maintenance as they once were....
now I can't seem to make the time to write.
Sure I found excuses for my bad-to-worse writing habits in the past year; I single-parented it for six months, had an additional infant full time during the week for a year, threw another interstate move in there, and have struggled with some depression and other obstacles of getting settled here, but really? How does it work that I'm actually busier these days? I honestly find it hard to believe that this past year has been any busier than the first five years of my blogging history. But yet it feels like it has been.
Busier and quieter.

Part of it may be that as much as I want to record and journal our every day goings-ons, I'm afraid the life of the four of us isn't quite so entertaining or downright laughable as were the recollections of life with younger, funnier kids, making it not such a "must" to always jot it down.
But I do miss it.

I miss chronicling these changes we're [I'm] going through. The kids getting older, getting to know people and places here, this house slowly but surely becoming our home, our struggle with direction in where to go on the foster care/adoption topic, and my personal metamorphosis as I leave behind (for now) the "stay-at-home-mom" job who's primary function is to take care of little ones all day and become more of a "home-maker" and caretaker of our family and home and all that involves.
All of that.
So much of it in my head and I'm not quite understanding why I can't seem to find the time or the motivation to make myself sit down and just. start. writing.

Instead, I write about "what I'm not writing about".
Much easier that way.

ball boy

Last night was the last baseball game for this spring!















We had a couple of great coaches (even though we were short on practice time much of the season!) and they both raved about Sawyer often; his big hits, his great throws, his focus on the game and his fun attitude. And they said they want a cut when he goes pro. :)
Sawyer's bummed it's over and is asking to sign up for more immediately. He's all about playing fall ball, even though we kind of hope he'll go back to more soccer in the fall. We'll see.
I'm just kinda happy that after the pizza party tomorrow, that's one less thing on our schedule for now!!

plussed out

If I could just be handed another weekend, that would be kind of nice.
Saturday morning we were out bright and early to pick up some mulch and necessities for more yard projects, then headed home to get ready for a baseball game. Went straight from the ball game to a baseball team party, filling the afternoon with a fun birthday party visiting with lots of great families. We left that party to run home and clean up and figure out some dinner for friends arriving to stay the night on their way home from Florida to STL again. We had a great night (and a late night!) chatting and catching up with those guys and then Sunday morning they came to church with us and then we had a church luncheon thing after our service. We came home after lunch and attempted just a bit of yard work (honestly, like 30 minutes)(in the misty rain) before heading out to another of Sawyer's baseball games. After the game we joined some friends from the team for dinner out.
Whew! We came home and wound down with a movie before bed.

I have a mess inside my head today and I feel the urge to head in a million different directions at once. There are at least two dozen lists I'm refraining from writing down (although maybe writing it would help alleviate some of the chaos in my head?!) and trying to force myself to stay focused on one task at a time right now. I feel crazy overwhelmed and I'm not really sure why it's all cresting right now. There's just so much I want to have done now. Yesterday really. Hence the weekend redo request.

Over Mother's Day weekend we acquired a few new items and I'm still trying to get situated with those... new (used) bookshelves in the living room which resulted in the unpacking and organizing of books and photos; a new desktop computer which resulted in the final purging of the storage room office and slowly trying to (for next to free) find furniture and a few things on the walls to go in there so it can actually be enjoyed as a room -and second guest room-; and a zillion new plants and flowers to replace the bushes we removed from our front yard. All the planting has been a slow, drawn out process as our evening/weekend schedule (aka the time Ryan can help since this whole project actually involves some not-minor digging) has been crazy busy and the 95° days followed by 55° days full of rain have not been helping to that effect. I'm hoping this week we'll finally be done with the front yard mess!

Plus I've got a few other house projects still floating around in my head that won't leave me alone... really wanting to get the playroom painted and done and then since we got the bookshelves in the living room, if I could just find/make the right window treatments and recover our old storage ottoman then that room will be finally completely done. Oh, except for the storage drawers I want Ryan to build. :)

Plus, for some reason, I just cannot get caught up on regular house stuff lately; laundry is insanely behind and all over the house, I need so badly to clean out the fridge (scary!) and give basically everything in the house a good once over. I just feel like I'm not home enough lately and I don't know why that is.

Plus we've had three houseguests in the past two weeks, have a weekend trip coming up for us, and other camping/fun trips I'd like to get organized.

Plus I'm starting myself a new, rather restrictive, specific, diet and brainstorming all of that and trying to plan time to exercise.

Plus I'm feeling the urgency nudge to really, seriously this time, get going on foster care stuff again.

Plus I'm down to the last two days of Sawyer's school year... and two weeks for Savannah so that means my legitimate free time is quickly dwindling.

Plus I really need a haircut.
This one I might just move to the top of the "list". Thinking of how a lighter, fresh, new haircut can seem to lighten everything else for a bit...

donut day

I've been thoroughly enjoying my donut pans ever since I was gifted them this past winter. I've tried only a few recipes, but all have been really yummy.
Two of these recipes I actually took liberties with and tried last weekend without eggs as we had guests with egg allergies. I actually thought they tasted better without the egg! For these strawberry donuts I simply substituted one ripe mashed banana for the egg, and for this cinnamon recipe we like, I just replaced the egg with two tablespoons of plain yogurt. Yum!

Sawyer was asking for donuts the other day (Friday morning, after his stint in the ER and was having to miss school, so I obliged)... specifically chocolate donuts. How could I object?!

So I perused a few recipes online and went with this one with just a few of my own tweaks tailored to my tastes (no coffee for me thank you) and my fridge contents.
They turned out really yummy!!
Here's my version:

Baked Chocolate Donuts

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
4 teaspoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 325. Coat donut pan with nonstick cooking spray. In large bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. In small bowl, whisk buttermilk, sugar, egg, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Add milk mixture to flour mixture; whisk until blended and smooth. Fill each doughnut cup approximately 3/4 full. Bake at 325 degrees for thirteen minutes or until doughnuts spring back when touched. Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan. Dust with powdered sugar, whip up a glaze, top with chocolate frosting, or enjoy plain -like I did!
(makes 6 donuts)

Anyway-
All this to say as much as I love a good donut, and as fun as hunting for good baked donut recipes has been (healthy ones even!), I'm declaring a weekly Donut Day around here. One morning a week I want to try a new donut recipe and have a fun donut morning!
Let me know if you have a donut pan and what your favorite recipe is!

Up next: Blueberry donuts (Ryan's favorite!)

one of these kids spent most of the day in the ER...

I thought he was entitled to ice cream for dinner.





(the sister just gets it for being the sister, lucky girl!)
(and okay, I told them they could have ice cream for dinner, but did end up following up with making them eat offering them cheese/taco meat quesadillas -cinco de mayo!- and applesauce. so no turning me into the parent police.)

So... anyone else think it's ironic that I found that ultrasound picture yesterday and showed it to Sawyer and we had a very drawn out talk about not only how cool it is that that's what he (or any baby) looks like before they're born, but also a lot about how ultrasound works and how cool is it that they can see and take pictures of the inside of your body...
and then we turn around today and Sawyer is in the ER getting an ultrasound of his own abdomen??!?

Yesterday Sawyer was complaining about pain under his belly when he moved. It was just a casual mention starting off the day, that it hurt there (showing me way down low under his belly button) when he sat down or bent over or sneezed. I didn't think much of it... until, as the morning went on, he stopped being his normal active self and basically wouldn't get off the couch because it was bothering him. Fast forward to lunchtime and he had grown more lethargic and eventually, additionally, spiked a fever of 102.5°. Hmmm.
Now, I am not one to run my kids into the dr's office for a simple fever. I don't worry about the usual ailments of childhood... it takes either a lot or a long time of sick for me to call the doc. My kids are pretty healthy and pretty good at kicking illness in the butt themselves, given time. But this time? With the strange pain first (and not a tummy ache or sick stomach, but pain way down low) and then a fever... I was a little concerned.
So I took him in and after ruling out a bladder infection, the dr wasn't sure what was wrong... possibly the beginning of appendicitis? She checked all the usuals as to rule out any other possibilities... ears, throat, chest all looked good... and ran a strep culture just in case... which came out just on the slightest side of positive. She showed me the strip and I couldn't even really make out the blue line but she said she'd treat it as positive -maybe we just caught it super early so it wasn't showing up real well- and gave us antibiotics for that. Still kind of puzzled though as to the abdominal pain -again, that it was not belly pain, but rather so low and radiating- so said to keep an eye on it getting worse, moving to just the right side, etc, just in case it was coincidentally appendicitis.

Well, last evening it got worse. His fever was stubborn in coming down, he'd moved on to no appetite, frequent bathroom trips, and more pain; by bedtime he'd hardly let us touch him. I felt like more than anything it was the fever making him so miserable and breathed half a sigh of relief when we did get it down enough to feel at least halfway comfortable letting him go to bed. To then sit around all night and debate on whether we should take him in.
His fever and pain stayed at an even keel overnight, but in the morning I decided enough was enough and finally took him in to the ER as soon as Savannah was off to school.














They scoped him out for appendicitis right away... I was surprised at how relatively quickly they got us in they had him in the ultrasound room and then has his urine and bloodwork underway.














Vanderbilt Children's was great! But then of course the waiting for results. What seemed like hours later...















Turned out no appendicitis. Yay! But definitely the strep and actually the strep had caused lots of swelling and inflamation in the lymph nodes in his bowel area; hence the pain and tenderness. I had no idea there were lymph nodes in your lower abdomen and even less of an idea that they would flare up with strep throat!! Seriously... no sore throat, but fever and appendicitis type pain?!? Crazy.

They gave him an all-in-one dose of antibiotic shot in the butt... so we don't even have to worry about meds here at home and supposedly he'll feel better faster than the traditional 10 day dose. Hopefully.

We made it home just in time for me to dose him up with more Motrin, tuck him in bed for a much-needed nap, and welcome Savannah home off the bus. So yeah, basically spent our whole day at the hospital, just to confirm he had strep like our dr told us the day before. :)

He's doing better this afternoon... but of course been still doped up on Motrin.
Oh, and now he says his throat is hurting. Of course, now.

I think we'll be home from school tomorrow. He's been on antibiotics for over 24 hrs already, so he's not contagious, but I'm thinking he won't be up to it.
And that's saying a lot if you know Sawyer, poor kid...

Get well soon buddy!

he was almost a Seth

I've been unpacking and sifting thru office/paperwork again this week... some of it that never saw the light of day after our previous move. Ugh.

But there are some old random notes and cards and photos I find that make the sifting fun and sort of a treasure hunt of sorts with the fun long lost discoveries I come across.

My favorite find this morning was three ultrasound pictures of the Sawman (before we knew he was either a Sawman or a little man in general!)... PLUS a piece of paper with our name brainstorming list for him/her!!! FUN!

Girl side:
Miah Lynn
Sarah Lynn
Katy Lynn
Carly
Kaari
Paige
Amelia
Abby
Ally
Micah

Middle Names; Lynn, Ryan, Gabrielle

Boy side:
Seth Isaac
Jase Isaac
Sawyer Isaac
Drew
Brody
Burke/Berke
Riley
Reese
Nathan
Reed
Cole
Miles
Samuel

Middle Names: Isaac, Ryan, Christian, Berke/Burke, Pieces (to go with Reese)

[yes, Ryan wrote ^ that ^ on the list]

I showed the pictures and read the list to Sawyer.
He adamantly affirmed that the best choice was indeed what we went with... but the looks on his face as I read off the names were priceless! :)

For Savannah we didn't have quite the list of names... we knew she was a girl ( we didn't technically know, but we knew. and thus had just one back-up boy name ready.) and there were a handful of front runners going into the hospital...
Kathryn/Katy, Anna, Ally and Paige.
The name Savannah wasn't even on our radar until we met her!

What were your runners up for your kids' names??

hello week, here we come

Well, here we are at another rainy Monday. I can't believe it was a whole week since I popped in last. Between the storms and the tornadoes and the rain and the housecleaning and the visitors... it was a crazy week. I think I blinked and now suddenly it's a whole week later.

The Coxes came for a quick visit on their way from STL to Florida on Thursday night. They joined us in attending a performance at SJ's school and then we all went out to pizza. It was fun to visit!

Then on Friday, it was a quick changing of the sheets and laundering of towels (yes, sort of felt like a hotel housekeeping service, not gonna lie!) and the Swinigans arrived for a visit on their way home to STL from Florida! The kids had a fabulous time... they played and played and played. Sawyer had a baseball game on Saturday that everyone got to enjoy and then they hung out most of the day before heading home late that evening. Great to spend some good time with good friends!

And it seems the only good weather we've had over the past week was roughly the 48 hours we had our houseguests here. Beautifully sunny and warm for those two days.
And then bright and early yesterday morning it started pouring again. And pretty much isn't looking like it's stopping until midway through this week. Ugh.
We did manage to take advantage of a quick break in the rain yesterday afternoon and the kids rode a bike path 'round a nearby park for awhile. But not for long as we hurried home before the clouds grew darker again and I talked Ryan into quick (haha) pulling out three of the overgrown bushes in our front yard that we've been wanting to yank. I figured it'd be easier while the ground was nice and soft and wet, yet it wasn't pouring on us. Easier maybe. Quick job? No. But we finished up just as the next raindrops fell. I can't wait for at least a little sunshine this week so I can trim up the rest of the stuff in front of our house and get some flowers planted.

Speaking of yesterday and the rain...
I smashed up my kneecap pretty good because of it. I totally bit it in the lobby of church yesterday morning; one step off the mat inside the front door onto concrete floor... and suddenly all of me was on that floor. My flip flops + rain + the beautifully varnished concrete floor = not a good combination. Ouch. Concrete is hard.
And also? How embarrassing.
It was so painful and distracting that I kinda wanted to leave throughout the whole service. It hurt to stand, but it also hurt to sit because my jeans touching my tender knee, which was already nicely bruised and swollen, was torture. I sort of winced through service, rewarded myself with a donut afterwards while "mingling", and then we made it home and I changed into shorts and finally got a lovely view of the goose egg that was sitting below my skin on top of my knee cap. Gross.

Other than the pretty colors, my knee looks almost back to normal today... it's just annoyingly painful. It swells up more and throbs the longer I'm on it, but when I sit down and put it up and relax, it's crazy painful to stand up and get moving again as the blood flow gets going again or whatever, pulsing through the bruise. At least it's just an enormous bruise and not that I twisted or injured my actual knee joint or any muscles. At any rate, I don't think I'll be showing off my legs in shorts for awhile.

Luckily, I can just hang out on my butt for a bit today. I have a few projects I need to work on, most of which involves some research and some designing on the computer, with maybe a bit of a foray into the craft supplies. I need to venture out at some point and get ink for my printer and I'm thinking I'll treat Sawyer to a Redbox rental or two. '

That's what's on tap for our rainy Monday...
how about you?