Prayer request

Youssef is looking for a second job that he can do on the bus to and from the reporting job (he's gone for 12 hours five days a week, but only works 8 hours a day), and he'd like to not have to sell plasma anymore (especially after a stupid nurse almost ruptured his vein.)

He has found a part-time writing job that he applied for that would pay $500 or more and it sounds like it would be perfect, but of course God knows what would be the best so we'd really appreciate prayer about this.

Youssef and I are also starting to really miss each other and Lily misses her daddy (she's been staying up later at night so she can play with him more), so it would be nice if he was earning enough to make all the time away more worth it, and especially to not be gone even more because of plasma.

Lily's Two Year Pictures!

I finally have an opportunity to post these! I took her on her real birthday and she didn't like having her picture taken so much, so some of the pictures are a little teary, but I'll include them anyway. We got the pictures taken in the mall so I let her ride those coin things more than usual afterwards and we had a smoothy together.

Well, here are the pictures!

And if you happen to be a grandmother of said two year old and want to order prints (or if you just want to see the rest of the pictures!) you can go to http://www.smilesbywire.com and enter the following:
Customer Name: LYNNE SLEIMAN

Access Code: LTPP0560105303JCP

Question of the day

If you were cloned without your knowledge (and didn't want to be) would it be all right to kill your clone?



Youssef and I don't agree about the answer as of yet. :)

The Great Change...

At least for us.

Now our living room looks like this! Hardly any toys at all and looking oddly mature and neat after being a play room for so long. I did almost the entire move alone and now I'm pretty tired, but it was worth it and a lot easier with just one child to "help." We have a load to take to a thrift store, and we threw away a bunch of stuff. I'm still doing some organizing--mostly closet and cupboard work. I still need to organize all of Lily's old clothes too for Renna's coming. (Lily got a princess crown for her birthday and thought it looked good on her pony... upside down.)

Lily's room is now where our room was. She takes her naps in there and is easier to keep an eye on when she plays (without being in the living room.) So far, she likes to play with her toys more because there's more room and everything. It's so nice to have all her stuff in its own place!

This is the little room off of her bedroom. When we first moved here it was an office, then it was a nursery, then a toy cupboard, and now it's sort of the craft/office. An office because there are filing cabinets which you can't see, and craft because I have my spinning stuff (wool/wheels/books etc.) and sewing machine (and dress form) in there. The theory is that I can set up my sewing table in there and leave it up if I want to (rather than trashing the dinning room every time I need to alter some clothing.) You also can't see the baby gate that is ready to be put up if need be. Lily can climb over it now, but it will be nice when more kids are hear just to set the limit.

Our room is now in the back room of the house which we never really used before. When we were first here it was going to be Lily's room, but I found that it was just too far away from the main part of the house to work well that way. Then it was Youssef's office when he was working from home. Then it was a craft/junk room that I didn't really use because it was just too far away to make watching a toddler convenient. Now we are actually using it well--even if it is just to sleep in. Lily has a little mattress by my side of the bed as she's still pretty clingy. When I tried to get her to sleep farther away I only succeeded in helping her be more afraid of the dark. And after buying several different night lights to help her not be afraid (which were all too stimulating to sleep), we are just going to let her move at her own pace.

(The picture is of Lily playing with her new twin babies. Lily still brings her toys into the living room, but it's nice to have just a few at a time.)

I feel like I'm talking a lot, but I think after you've been sick you kind of want to get out and do things and talk to people. It's super cold outside, but it's been so sunny lately that I want to go somewhere! :)

Siiiiiick....

Sorry no pictures this post. Youssef's editor said he looked like *&%$*@#* ... in other words, pretty terrible. Needless to say, he took a couple days off this week.

Well, between my staying up late to make birthday things for Lily, fighting off a cold all last week, being pregnant and tired, and being awake for 2 or 3 hours several nights in a row because of a teething toddler, I caught a cold. Youssef's cold is worse though, probably due to his plasma selling and that we were out in the snow a lot on Sunday and Monday. I'm not sure about Lily. Half the time I think she's just teething, but then she'll start coughing and have a runny nose, but then she'll act achy and want her teething stuff and when I give it to her (after it starts working) she runs around the house and jumps with both feet all over the place acting as happy as a clam! (She hasn't let me feel her back gums lately to see how her teeth are coming though.) Maybe Lily's been doing better because she will drink and eat most of the things that I give her (she's been asking for chocolate though and I have to keep telling her no or direct her to something else, "No, you can't have chocolate, but you can have a carrot!" It's not quite the same, but so far it works.) Youssef on the other hand has complained the most and will hardly take the things that I give him. I know what my mom meant now when she always told me to drink lots of fluids and so forth when I was sick. It is a little frustrating to try to help someone get well and for them to not listen. (Again, another instance where my Mom was right and I didn't realize till I became a wife and mother myself. I have been taking your advise now, Mom! Lots of fluids, rest, good food, herbal remedies, sanitizing my toothbrush, washing my hands a lot, etc. :)

I've been cleaning most of today (besides shopping for fruit and so forth). Showers are wonderful things. Between several steamy showers and GSE I've been breathing freely. Also, Lysol is quite extraordinary too for all the types of germs and viruses that it kills (I had no idea till today when I read the back label at the store). I've been spraying absolutely everything with it. Toys, remotes, light switches, dvd covers, etc. have all been sanitized. There's something about being pregnant too that makes you want to clean and organize everything. I wish I could give our house a good spring cleaning. From scrubbing the appliances to washing the walls and getting rid of about half of our junk. I'm thinking I should wait until the end of February to really spring clean so I don't accidentally go into labor too early.

The hour is waining, and since I don't want to take a fifth shower today, I'm going to drink my tea and go to bed. Hopefully, tomorrow we'll all be better! :)

Cutie!

Lily was asking for more chocolate! On Christmas she got a lot more sweets than usual and as you can see... she enjoyed it! :)

Lily's playing with her new toys... I think she made broccoli tea.

This was really fun. She got some Christmas/birthday money from her great grandfather on Youssef's side and when we were at Walmart to let her pick something out, she didn't seem too thrilled with really anything. A couple things maybe, but then I saw this pony and let her sit on it. I didn't think she'd like it that much, but she was so excited about it that she didn't even want to put it into the cart! Straddling it, she walked it all the way from the back of Walmart to the front to buy it. It took a while for me to explain that she had to sit in her seat belt in the car rather than on the pony and that it was really coming home with us. :) She made me laugh the whole time she walked with it. When you squeeze it's ears it sings and talks and the mouth moves so she pretends to feed it her plastic fruit. So adorable!

There are a few too many toys in our living room now though, so we are going to re-arrange our house to make the back room more usable. Right now we aren't really using it. It's all full of craft things and so forth but I usually bring my sewing machine into the dining room to keep better track of Lily. We are going to be getting rid of some furniture so if anyone around here needs a nice desk for instance there is a free one available! (We originally got it for Youssef's office. I like it better than the one that I'm using now for my computer but it's too big for the space.) Anyway, next time we have friends over there will actually be a place for the kids to play so that the adults can talk! We don't have friends over as much as we'd like.

Christmas highlights!

We woke up pretty early and opened stockings.

(Lily is really into VeggieTales and we read those books many times since Christmas.)

She's also really into cars!

Youssef's favorite gift were some "Heelys" that his adorning wife gave to him (which were terribly hard to find in his size and took much searching on the Internet. But everyone who asks says, wow, how'd you get those? He just says, "My adoring wife.") He's likes taking them for a spin.


For brunch, Lynne' made crepes for the first time (that was also the first time she'd eaten any!)

Fondue was for dinner while we watched "Ratatouille" (quite fitting, n'est-ce pas?)

Lily then serenaded us with her new VeggieTales tape player!

The next day, we went to Lynne's parents house and had Christmas all over again! Lily loved her new stove (with sound effects!)

And Youssef took up a new hobbie--wood burning.

This is another one of those gifts that'll lead to many many new decorations.

Backing up to New Years

A good start to the new year...

As a family, it's not quite right to say we didn't do anything special for New Year's Eve. Instead, we just didn't celebrate 2007 ending. We celebrated 2008 beginning!

One of our Christmas gifts was a small cribbage set. We never really played - each thinking the other had some background in it. Well, we walked out to Starbucks together and played while Lily watched a show and ran around. Actually, we learned how to play

it there, helped just a bit from one of the baristas.

On the way back, Lily fell asleep in her stroller and we rolled her into the house to finish her nap while we made sushi, potstickers, and orange chicken. (Lynne' won two out of the three cribbage games that we played.)

Lily woke up just in time to enjoy the sushi with us. She enjoys sushi just about as much as we do.

A wonderful invention was the club soda. Rather than having pop that has lots of sugar and other things in it we just used juice and club soda. Lily loves the "bubbly juice" too. She grins and says "bubbows" after drinking some.

After the yummy dinner we had some hot chocolate (another favorite).

It was such a nice relaxing day that we wanted to share our simple pleasures on here. The best part was the time we spent together. It really was a great start for our new year.

Birthday party!

Lily awoke to find a jungle of helium balloons to run through!

Then she opened a couple presents

(her favorite Veggietales movie and her princess/cars quilt.)

Then she saw a sheet in the corner that was covering something quite large and when she pulled off the sheet she found a play house!

She liked to go in and out and in and out and in and out....

Mommy had fun decorating the night before!

For lunch, we had one of Lily's favorite meals, one that we've only had a few times: Corn dogs and fries!

Later when the Hathaways came, Arayah and Lily thought the blueberries were pretty yummy.

The angelfood cake was heavenly.

Lily knew just what to do with the cake and candles!

She ate much cake, and the next day, we had the left-overs together, and she said "cake" quite clearly.

This is a picture of Lily ready to go on a walk with her new twin baby dolls from the Hathaways. Once she saw the snow outside and that Daddy was getting her stroller out, she changed plans and just put the babies in the bottom of the big stroller and put the doll stroller back in the house. We walked to Starbucks, and she played while Youssef and I played a game for a while.

I asked her yesterday if she was having a good birthday and she hugged her two new dolls tighter and said "yes" really quietly and happily. It was really sweet. :) Also, today when she saw the Hathaway's christmas picture on our fridge, she pointed at each person and said something that I didn't understand, but I could tell she knew them and was happy about seeing their picture! She had such a girly birthday what with the pink streamers and dolls and play house. All the girls happened to be dressed in pink too! Today, when Youssef and I were walking home from our trip to starbucks we were talking about her fun birthday and how when Renna is born there will be even MORE girls to play with. :) Youssef realized that maybe he should talk to Ryan and set up a monthly man movie night.

Youssef and I realized last night after the party and after Lily had fallen asleep that we'd forgotten to give her one of her presents! She was having so much fun playing with the dolls and other girls and I was working on dinner and we were having such a great time that all of a sudden she was tired and I'd totally spaced about that last present, but we'll give it to her today after her nap.