Eleven

** This post was meant for July 1st, our anniversary.  I thought I set it to post that day but it obviously didn't happen.  How sad that it took me over 2 months to realize this???**

11 years ago today I married my very best friend.  Here is a look back at life in the year 2000...

• Clinton was president, but the closest election in American history happened in November
• unemployment was 4%
• a stamp cost 34 cents
• Kathie Lee announced she was leaving her show with Regis
• Oprah debuted "O" magazine
• the cast of Friends signed a 2-year contract for $750,000 an episode.  Each.
• Hit movies this year included Erin Brockovich, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Gladiator
• The Human Genome is deciphered
• The summer Olympics were in Sydney, Australia
• Elian Gonzales (the six year old cuban boy) was reunited with his family
• the 4th Harry Potter book was out but none of the movies were yet
• digital music broke onto the scene (wow... that one seems pretty amazing) 

Our wedding was held before digital pictures were the norm (seriously), so I have spent a little time using an old-fashioned scanner to bring a few of our wedding pictures into the digital age.  :)  

Our wedding was on July 1st at First United Methodist Church in Lubbock, TX with our dear friends from the chancel choir singing as well as music that Carter arranged.  Choir is where we met, and also where Carter proposed to me.

I have always loved this picture, even though I have teased Carter about where he is looking...  :)

Except for the registration pads in the pews, I love this picture.

The smiles on our faces during our first dance (to Frank Sinatra's "All the Way") say it all.  Our lives were so full of hope and excitement.  We were so blissfully happy... and 11 years later, as sappy as it sounds, we still are. 

 And so, 11 years later... here we are.  I never could have imagined our lives today in my wildest dreams.  We are truly living this adventure one day at a time and loving it.  There are rough times, sure, but we really are still blissfully happy.  We still look at each other like we did in the picture above.  And now we have three more reasons to be blissfully happy...

Thank you, sweetheart, for the last 11 years.  (Really the past 15 years if you count back to our first date!)  I know that we've packed a lot of living into those years, moved more times than I care to mention, and have added three tiny hilarious reasons to keep us laughing, loving, and living for the next 11 years and beyond.

Just think... in 11 more years the boys will be almost 17, about to be seniors in high school.  Annabelle will be close to 13... fun teenage girl time ahead!  I'm sure you'll be there to referee just like my dad was.  :)  We will be in our mid-40's and there is no telling where we'll live or what jobs we'll have, but I know whatever happens, we'll be together.  Thanks for sharing this adventure with me.

Always & Forever,
Me

Happy Father's Day!

Carter -- Don't look at this blog post until after Father's Day!  :)

Alphabet Blocks Father's Day 5x7 folded card

Shutterfly offers custom St. Patrick's Day cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Hello? Poison Control?

Oh what a night. 

We were straightening up the house getting ready for bed when Annabelle decided she needed to try Excedrin.  I caught her in the bathroom with a bottle open in her hand with chalky white stuff in her mouth and on her hands.  My first thought was how in the world could she open a child-proof bottle?  It was an old bottle and I had no idea how many had been in there to begin with.  It is never fun to call Poison Control, but I panicked because Excedrin has both acetaminophen and aspirin in it (not to mention caffeine!).  All I could think of was that my dad never let us take aspirin because it could cause Reye's Syndrome.  Since we had no idea how many she had actually ingested, they suggested we take her to the ER. 

I grabbed the diaper bag and headed out the door with her.  We got there about 8:00... right at her bedtime.  They actually got us in quicker than I imagined when I saw how full the waiting room was.  The nurses and doctors were FABULOUS with us.  We've been to the ER before with her for spiking high fevers because of ear infections, but this ended up being our longest visit so far.  The doctor explained to me that they would have to draw blood twice to measure that the aspirin and acetaminophen levels were dropping over a 4-hour timespan.  In order to only have one needle stick, they actually decided to do an IV on her to do both blood draws.  THAT was a fun experience.  It was hard for me to hear her scream that loud but she really did great, all things considered.  The part she hated the most (after the needle!) was having her arm splinted so she wouldn't bend her elbow or pull out the IV.  She kept saying "Arm... Out... Arm... Out".

They brought us a rolling TV cart with a DVD player attached and a stack of Sesame Street videos.  That was all Annabelle needed to be happy.  :)  She loves Elmo, and can name all of the characters on Sesame Street (except Grover... still working on him!)  which I think I mentioned in a previous post.  We got a warm blanket and they also brought her some juice and we just hung out in the hospital bed together watching Elmo.  She finally fell asleep at about 11:10 (hello... caffeine!).  They came in to do the second blood draw at 11:45 and of course, that woke her up... but it wasn't nearly as bad as the first one.  The results finally came back about 12:30 and the levels were both well within the "safe" range.  They said as long as the acetaminophen levels were under 40 we could go home... her level was 2.5.  Whew.

We got home and she had trouble getting back to sleep.  She wanted to be held constantly.  Every time I tried to lay her down she woke up screaming.  At one point I was humming our lullabye that we always sing and she put her hand over my mouth and shushed me.  I wonder how long she's wanted to do that???  It made me laugh, but as soon as I quit singing she fell asleep.  Thanks for the vote of confidence in mom's singing voice, babe.  I asked Carter to help me and he had the same thing happen, so she ended up sleeping with us.  I crashed.  It had been a really long day.

This morning at 6:30 Carter's cell phone rang and I was sure it was my mom calling to check on her... but it was her daycare calling to say they didn't have any water and wouldn't be opening until later in the day.  I usually leave with her by 7:00 to drop her off and get to work, but we were both grateful to sleep late this morning. 

The story ended with me waking up with a headache and... taking Excedrin to get rid of it.  :)  Poetic ending.

It was sad to say goodbye to Oprah on Wednesday.  I had a few friends over for the finale.  We toasted with Moscow Mules and enjoyed listening to Oprah's advice and lessons from her 25 years.  Several things she said struck a chord with me at this place in my life. Here are a few of my favorite things she said:

• Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it.
• Because that is what a calling is. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And that is what I want for all of you and hope that you will take from this show. To live from the heart of yourself. You have to make a living; I understand that. But you also have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.
• Wherever you are, that is your platform, your stage, your circle of influence. That is your talk show, and that is where your power lies. In every way, in every day, you are showing people exactly who you are. You're letting your life speak for you. And when you do that, you will receive in direct proportion to how you give in whatever platform you have.
•  Start embracing the life that is calling you and use your life to serve the world.
• Nobody but you is responsible for your life.
• You are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself, and you're responsible for the energy that you bring to others
• Remember physics class? Did you pay attention to Newton's third law of motion? Let me tell you, that thing is real. It says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is the abiding law that I live by, articulated to perfection by Miss Celie in The Color Purple when she finally gets the courage to leave her abusive husband, Mister. ... 'Everything you done to me already done to you.' It is the Golden Rule to the 10th power.
• There is a difference, you know, between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing you are worthy of happiness.
• every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire. They want to know: 'Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?... Try it with your children, your husband, your wife, your boss, your friends. Validate them. 'I see you. I hear you. And what you say matters to me
  .'"
• Your life is speaking to you. What is it saying?
• what I hope is that you all will be that safe harbor for somebody else—their safe place to fall. Do for them what you all are telling me the show has done for you. Connect. Embrace. Liberate. Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes.

I wish I had time to write about what each of those means to me... maybe a post for another day.

Catching up...

Hello again, blog friends.  :)  Another semester is over for me and I figured it was time to update my antiquated blog.  :)  Things are going really smoothly these days in the Biggers' household.  Kindergarten is almost over (13 more school days!) and we are starting to have spring weather, although today was cold and rainy again.  I only have 2 more semesters of coursework left (and Carter only has one!) so there is light at the end of the tunnel for both of us.  The big "D" word (dissertation) is looming, but not a topic for today.  :)

Annabelle is 18 months old as of yesterday, and she lives up to her middle name, Joy.  This girl is hilarious and sweet, adores her big brothers (as they do her) and keeps us all smiling.  After a rough few months, she had ear tubes put in both ears this winter and that has really seemed to help her stay well.  She had 5 ear infections over the course of about 7 months and even through all of that (with teething mixed in here and there) she was still a happy girl most of the time.  She is still a great napper (2 a day!) and sleeps through the night unless a tooth is breaking through.  She has a ridiculously huge vocabulary, too.  People are amazed at how much she talks, but I think part of that is that she is so tiny they don't expect her to be 18 months old either.  She loves shoes, jewelry, purses, and bows, and also has a serious fetish with gadgets.  She loves to play with cell phones, keys, calculators, or anything that makes noise.  Her favorite show without a doubt is Sesame Street and she recognizes and names Elmo, Zoie, Abby, Ernie, Oscar, The Count (she calls him Ahh-Ahh) and Big Bird.  We're still working on Grover, Bert, and Snuffleupagus (who was one of my favorites but sadly doesn't appear very often and I have no idea how to spell his name!).

Palmer and Harrison have had a great year in Kindergarten.  They were in separate classes (by our request) and have made their own friends and really developed their own interests.  Harrison has dearly loved playing keyboards in music class and Palmer is really blooming as an artist.  We have one kid who is an absolute rule follower and one who is more free-spirited.  I'll let you guess who's who.  :)  It will be fun to watch their talents grow and change with them.  It has also been really fun to watch them learn how to read, do math, get along with others, and get into a serious daily routine.  We have been reading Harry Potter at night as our bedtime stories and they love it.  This was one of those things I dreamed about doing as a parent "some day" and can't believe it is finally happening.  Carter has also introduced them to Star Wars, so that is another big theme at our house these days.  His mom and dad brought his old Star Wars toys from their attic and he and the boys have gotten a lot of fun play time with them.  Another big deal with them lately is Legos.  I love that they love legos... we are having so much fun building with them.  Uncle Jay would be so proud!  We also started "Friday Night Family Movie Nights" this year and have watched a new film every Friday night that we were all home.

We have really slacked off on taking pictures this year.  With cell phone cameras, I hardly ever think to carry our "real" camera with us anywhere, so Easter pictures are really all I have since the Chicago trip.  I always swore I wouldn't be that parent who didn't take pictures of the third child.  We have a ton of pictures of Annabelle, but most of them are on our phones.  (Note to self: download pictures from phones!)

Mama and her ducklings on Easter morning

Hooray for automatic camera timers :)

The twins battle it out in the annual cascarones battle

Annabelle's first Easter egg hunt... sorry I forgot to rotate this one

We are looking forward to a busy summer.  Carter will be at home with the boys during June.  In hopes of maintaining her routine, Annabelle will stay in day care full time for June and part-time for July and August.  I'm working full time all summer on a research grant which will (hopefully) be the data for my dissertation.  We start T-ball in a few weeks and are seriously looking forward to our Biggers' family trip to Destin.  Thanks for keeping in touch!

Chicago Day 1

Chicago!

We took the kids to Chicago for the first time over the first weekend of Spring Break.  Carter and I have been several times together, but this was our first experience with kiddos.  It is just over a 3 hour drive from Iowa City... and we had a blast.  The Saturday before St. Patty's is always the dying of the Chicago river and the parade, so we did both of those. 

Before

During
 (interestingly the "mystery" powder they use starts out orange and turns bright kelly green as it mixes with the water... supposedly a Leprechaun makes this magic happen!)

After
Yes... we all look like nerds :) 
Everyone around us did, too

At the parade (Annabelle is asleep in her stroller)

Children's museum on Navy Pier
Harrison's favorite room was the fire engine



They even had 3 rooms for kids AJ's size... she really enjoyed being out of her stroller for a while!





The Great Groundhog Day Blizzard of 2011

FUN TIMES IN IOWA! 

We got 12" of snow last night... the most we've gotten at once since moving here.  The boys' school is canceled, and we were just notified within the last hour that the University canceled all classes today, too!

The snow really started picking up while I was in an afternoon class and was really coming down as I rode the bus home around 4:30.  It snowed all night long and the winds caused amazing snow drifts.

Here are some before/after shots which still don't do justice to what we are experiencing!

 The backyard as the snow was coming down last night...

 The drifts around the grill this morning...

 Our front yard last night when I got home

 Same view of the front yard this morning!

 When Carter opened the garage door the snow was drifted up against it about 15" and climbed upwards from there.

 Here is my dear, sweet husband attempting to shovel our driveway!  Annabelle was scheduled to have ear tube surgery this morning, and we were supposed to be at the hospital at 6:00 am.  Carter started shoveling at 4:30... and a few minutes after 6:00 the clinic called to cancel because our doctor couldn't get to the hospital!

 The Buick parked in the driveway got a huge pile-up on the hood! 

 Another view from the backyard last night of the boys' basketball goal

 The drift there this morning (you really can't tell from this picture, though)

Mommy and Annabelle in front of Mt. Biggers!

 Carter's handiwork (it took him over 2 hours to get this side of the driveway done... what a guy!)

Snowbunny Annabelle wearing Aunt Cecilee's snowsuit and a big smile!