Creston got his "Rings" off!!!

We took Creston to the Dentist today for what we thought was a cleaning, but it wound up being a check on the appliance that is spreading out his upper palate so his teeth will fit over each other correctly. I had to take Mackie to sit in the car since he was having a nervous breakdown, so when Creston and his daddy got to the car, Creston smiled at me and showed me the top of his mouth, but I couldn't see very well. I said "They look Pretty!" Then Mark handed me Creston's "Rings" (That's what Creston has always called them!). We thought that he would have to wear them somewhere near another 6 months to retain the movement that he's already had. The Dentist said that the teeth had moved enough, and that she thought that the teeth would keep themselves in place, so she took them off!

Creston is so excited!

YAY!!!

Smilebox.com

I just wanted to tell everyone about SmileBox! I've used it before to create slide-shows and stuff, and several of our friends use it already to document their special occasions. This is an application that you can use to share your photos with anyone you wish, or to make invitations, or Thank You cards, or scrapbooks, or any number of things!

I LOVE this site www.smilebox.com, but recently, when Mark updated our Anti-Virus software, the firewall wouldn't let me access the site anymore.

We deleted off some stuff yesterday, and Today!!!, I can get back on!!!

So..........I've created a Christmas Scrapbook of our holiday memories!

Hope that you like it!

P.s....SmileBox is VERY user-friendly! Try it out!!!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Do you see what I see?

Now......look closely!

Who's in that box????? That little-bitty box?????

It's CRESTON!!!!!!!!!

So silly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spring Cleaning has begun!

Today, we got up, and started the daunting task of Spring Cleaning.....in the process, Mark found himself sick as a dog....sooooooooo guess it wasn't too good of a thing after all!

However, I did self-clean my oven, scrub the cook-top, got the boys room straightened up (a bit), got our room tidied up (a bit), re-cleaned the kitchen, and am looking at taking a truck-load of garbage off to the dump so as to get it out of our basement!!!

Pretty nifty, huh????? I even had the windows opened today to let the "spring" air blow through! Mark thinks that it got up to near 50 a bit ago!

Usually, after Christmas Day, I'm all for the weather turning pretty. Snow can go on away till next year!!! :o) I'm ready for some spring flowers!!!!

Hope that everyone is having a good weekend so far!

A BEAUTIFUL Christmas Day!

Today was the picture of perfect weather........if it had been Easter!!! :o) However, it wasn't so bad for Christmas Day. The skies were clear and it got up around 40+. The wind wasn't blowing too much, so it was really pleasant.

We got up around 7:15 (with the help of the alarm...) and got dressed and started breakfast! We had Mack and Dorothy come up near 8:00am to watch the kids open their presents from Santa. The boys were both really excited. (We did have to wake them BOTH up, however). They opened and opened and opened! Creston got his BIG Fire Truck...

...and a smaller Pumper Truck....

...and Mackie got his Little People Barn, x-tra animals, & 2 tractors

......which Creston immediately took away from him...

Oh......to have a Brother!

Needless to say...LOTS 'o loot was showered upon these two little people. Everyone is always so nice to us and to the boys...Thank you all for the gifts that you sent for the boys!

Christmas comes quicker and quicker every year. This year, I was going to be ready for it, but with the loss of my job, things just sort-of went downhill at a fast pace. I normally try to be the FIRST person to get my cards in the mail to everyone by 12/1 of each year, but this year, I waited due to work overload and then on 12/1 found out that I would be losing my job. Sooooo.....I tried to send out e-mail Christmas Cards. If I don't have your e-mail address, PLEASE send it to me so that I can add you to my list and keep in touch with you and your families better! Send me your address to parlierfamily@hotmail.com

I am soooo much better at e-mailing than talking on the phone or writing those pre-historic things called letters. Now that I have a little more time, I check my home e-mail more frequently, so I should be able to get back to you sooner!

Again, thank you so much for all of your prayers! We hope that this Christmas season has treated you well and that you were able to remember the real reason for the holiday. Santa is a cute little guy with rosy cheeks and presents for us all, but the true present was Jesus coming to earth in human form to be our ultimate gift.

Please listen to Faith Hill's song "A Baby Changes Everything". I posted the link a few weeks ago, but it's really worth listening to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AJI3QXwg-M

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope that the rest of your weekend goes wonderfully!!!!!

Martha (Mark, Creston, & Mackie!)

Christmas Wonder Under the Tree

I love this picture. It reminds me of my boys and of when I was little. Every Christmas, I would lay under the fully decorated tree and just look up through the branches at all of the twinkling lights and ornaments. I would sit there most every evening for some period of time. I tried to show Mackie how to do this, but I found out the hard way that my head is now MUCH too big to clear the lower branches!!!

Christmas Eve 2008

Today was a good day...we were together as a family, we played and took naps and got ready to go to Nana's and Paw-Paw's house for Christmas Eve Dinner and for opening presents from them!!! Creston was so excited! I think Mackie understands a bit more than we give him credit for and he seemed to be sooo excited too!!!

Here is our attempt at a family picture since we didn't have any made yet this year at a Studio.

I've been trying to get a picture of everyone at the table before we eat our family dinners and finally realized that I can get in on these too if I can get the "auto" picture taker thing to work correctly!!!

Here Mackie is playing us a song for Creston to sing to!!! I think we're going to have 2 musical people in the family! Mark will have to teach them Piano, though. My lessons wore off a long time ago.....now....Clarinet....I might could teach them a thing or two about that!!!

Here, Creston is soooo excited about a cooking playset that Nana got for him! He LOVES to "cook" while she does!!!!!!!!

And here are our two little angels who got new 'jamas for Christmas! Creston got Spiderman (his favorite at the moment, and Mackie got Transformers! They have matching robes too!!! SOOO cute and warm!!!

This is how Creston left things for Santa........Milk, Cookies, Crackers, and a Carrott!!! Along with a letter to Santa requesting his most sought after "Dumpster Fire Truck!!!" (For a while, around the ASU campus, some really smart people were setting fires in the dumpsters, thus, the need to go on "Dumpster Calls" and thus the need for an actual "Dumpster Fire Truck!) Hey...Makes sense to Creston!

This is how we are leaving things for tonight. In the morning, we will wake up after a restful nights sleep (Hopefully), and have a good few hours before Mark has to go in to work. He works all day tomorrow until 7:15am on Friday. We'll miss him, but at least the boys will have plenty to keep them busy!!!

Feel the joy!

Here are the first pictures taken with my camera! These show the absolute love my family has for me and my love for my camera!

Here is Creston.......so glad that mommy can finally document all of his adorable (almost) 4-year-old antics!!!

Here is blurry Mackie! (Gotta work on the blurry part!) SO glad to just be in the world!

AND....Last BUT not least, is Markie Poo! Soooooooooo estatic that I have my camera back! Soooo very glad for the fact that I once again have something to occupy my time again!!!! Sooooo very much love coming from this cute little face of his............

see it??????

look closely! I can see it! LOVE. Plain and simple!!! :o)

More later-taters!!!

Hang on to your hats!!!! My CAMERA is BACK!!!

For those of you who know me well, I am a picture taking freak of nature!!! :o) If you smile sideways, I will get a shot! AND.....if you follow my blog, you know that I have been without my little friend Mr. Digital Camera since Halloween! This has been very depressing for me.....VERRRY Depressing! I have been keeping the disposeable camera people in business for the last 2 months! HOWEVER, Now Dorothy just called and said that I just got a package from a service dept. in N.Y.!!!!

That's my baby!!!

No more boring blogging from here on out! You all are saved from the desperate rantings of a currently jobless woman with only 2 small children to talk to most of the time!!!! Yippee!!! I can hear you all shouting for joy for me from here!!!!!! (laying it on thick, aren't I????)

Anyway.......at some point, Mark will be home this evening and I'll have him stop to pick it up! He worked all day yesterday, and stayed over today to finish up some errands before Christmas and to have Christmas Lunch with his FD buddies. On the way home, the weather decided to lay a thick layer of ice on everything in Boone, so at the moment he's back at work until they release them. We're staying put. It's COLD and REALLY Windy and the sky is throwing freezing rain at the ground here, and I don't much feel like getting out in it even for the camera!!!

So.......................................until the camera gets home, goodbye for now!!!

It SNOWED for my Birthday!

I had a wonderful Birthday!
It snowed ALL day long, and we got to enjoy watching it together!
Mark decided that he was feeling better enough to take me out to eat last night for my b-day, so we loaded up, dropped Mackie off at Nana's and Paw-Paw's and headed off to Hunan! It was really YUMMY!

Yesterday afternoon, Mark and Creston actually made me a birthday cake! Chocolate with Chocolate icing!!! REALLY YUMMY!!!!! Pretty good cooks!

Not much different being 32. Same old stuff, different day, huh? I am finding, though, that no matter what the age, it's really just nice to be able to say that you've lived yet another (really eventful) year!

It's MY Party!!!!

Today is my 32nd Birthday!!!!!! YIPPEEE!!!!! I absolutely LOVE my Birthday! I don't care a bit that I'm getting older every year! I Don't care a bit to exclaim to everyone within earshot that it's my birthday! I LOVE having a birthday!

Today, I will most likely make my own cake to eat, and will most likely wait on the rest of my family who are still getting over the yucks, but it will still be MY DAY!!!!! :o)

I've lived 32 years on this great big earth! I've done and seen a lot already, but there is still so much more to see and do! I'm so very glad that life is what we make of it! We have the ability to do any number of things while we are here and we are also given the ability to affect others and make their lives better too! I hope that I can do that with the rest of the years that God has in store for me! I want to make this world a better place for me and my family and for everyone around us!

So.................HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another FUN filled day at the Parlier House!

Well,...................hmmmmm...........where to start?

Around 1:30 this morning, Mark got up with Mack since I had myself "passed out". I heard him get up, heard him in the boys room, then heard an "UH OH!", then shuffeling of feet, the opening of the bathroom door, and then the noises that come from a very sick, grown man as he throws up for the first time since he was a teenager.

That's what I get for asking for a good nights sleep!

Got Mark calmed down, got Mackie calmed down, Creston slept through it all.......got me calmed back down.....listenend to Mark moan and groan the rest of the night.

Got up this morning, got ready to go to work, and started to feel a bit woozy myself.....talked to Mark who said to basically go on to work, that he'd be fine, but then he looked like death warmed over. I called in to work, then settled in for a LONG day of nursing everyone back to health.

Worked with Creston! He's a lot better today! Thank Goodness! Mackie still had a bout or two of spastic throwing up, and Mark is still half-dead. Bless his heart, he got sick about an hour ago. He's got a splitting headache and can't get rid of it. I don't know what to do for them at this point. I'm still feeling a bit light-headed, but so far, I've been able to keep everything inside of my tummy! YAY!!! Tomorrow will be another story, probably! Hopefully not, because tomorrow is my 32nd birthday!!!!! YIPPEE!!!

My Birthday Wish is that my entire family will feel MUCH better so that we can all enjoy each other's company again without the faint thoughts of yuck and stuff!

Hope that all of you are well and that this virus or whatever it is isn't getting a hold of any of you!

Puke, Poop, and all that good stuff!

I tell ya....................someone up above must really get a kick out of putting me in interestingly strange and comically timed situations!

We've all had the crud, but yesterday evening, around 8ish, Creston decided that he needed to start propelling all of the contents from inside of his body to the outside. Since Mark had to work today, and I did not.....he came up with the following bright idea "Sleep in the living room with Creston on the couch, and you sleep in the recliner....that way, he won't wake up Mackie...("or Mark either" I was thinking)" About every 10-15 minutes (if he had just had anything liquid go into his tummy), Creston would vomit into a little trash can I had set in the floor next to the couch. He wouldn't do this, though, unless he proclaimed loudly "Mommy! Garbage can!". Now.........I LOVE my children and wish to be the mommy you see in movies where they rub the backs and get the wet washcloths to wipe their faces with after they've been sick, but I kid you not, this went on 9 times from 11:30 last night until around 3ish this moring......!!!!! Bless his little heart, I was actually pretty worried about him getting dehydrated, so it wasn't all fun and games from my viewpoint, but the story does get more interesting in a few minutes...

Creston's stomach finally settled down after 3ish and he and I were able to sleep some until Mark left for work at 6:15 this morning. Around 7, Creston wanted to "get in you bed!" We moved into our room, where I slept until 9 when Dorothy called to see how Creston was. At that point, Mackie started squirming around. Got him a drink and he settled back down till about 10.

I got up, and started attempting to clean up the mess from last night.....every spare set of clothing and towels had been used in the massive midnight clean-up effort. Mark mentioned that I might see if Dorothy could come up and sit with the boys while I cleaned up really fast. I called, she came.

Almost immediately after she got here, Mackie started throwing up. We were all in the boys room when this happened.....cleaned him up, Dorothy told me to go on and clean up and get some laundry done.....I left her throwing a ball to Mackie in his crib....Next thing I knew, Creston had to "GO!", Dorothy exclaimed that she was "sicker than a Dog", and Mackie looked a bit green around the gills again!

I got Creston on the potty, got Mackie to sit down, and made Dorothy lay down on Creston's bed. She asked me to get the phone so she could call Mack to come and get her....She did.....he did.....He came in the house and half-smiling said "you all about dead?". I said "Pretty much!" He got her home, and apparently, she has done her share of getting rid of the contents of her body this afternoon and evening.

In all of the excitement, I called Mark to see if he would possibly be able to come on back home since everyone was "out of order". He said that he could leave at 7:00pm. I said that was fine. Now................he's coming home to help me and to let ME get some rest so I can go to work tomorrow.............................HE'S SICK NOW!!!!! Came home, said he felt bad, laid down in the living room, went to the bathroom, and has now basically passed out in the bed, shivering with a chill......faintly saying "I came home to help youuuuuuuuuu........."as he passed out into a full-on snore!

Dorothy called about 11:00pm and said that Mack had it too!

At the moment, I am not throwing up or doing anything else, but the night is still young! Everyone is finally in bed and asleep (Mackie wasn't having any part of going to bed tonight). I am going to finish this post and go to bed myself.

If anyone so much as acts like they are going to heave-ho, I will go insane!!!!!!!!

Again, I DO LOVE BEING A MOMMY!!!!!! I just also like getting some sleep.

Now.......here I go to get some sleep!

Pray this night goes well!

Change...

I've not written since last week...I've been meaning to sit down here and type something to everyone, but until now, haven't really known what to say...

Last Monday, I was informed by my 2 bosses that my job would be changing and most assuredly be gone completely by the end of the month.

This truly caught me off guard.....this is a job that I love, and that I have put my heart and soul into for the last year. How someone can love Insurance Billing, I'm not sure, but I really do. I love the people I work with and I love the challenges of the position. I have truly been proud of the work that I have been able to accomplish with limited initial knowledge. I have been trying to further my knowledge and have been in constant learning mode since I took the position full-time back in February. (Everything is constantly changing with Insurance Companies).

At the moment, my brain is in a fog. I'm not exactly sure what will be expected of me in the next few days. I'll know more next week and will keep you all posted as to whether they will keep me on till the end of the month or not.

All I can ask is that you will all pray for me and our family. I am trying so hard to pray constantly about this and to listen to what God wants for us. I have actually been in prayer for many months now, and maybe this IS going to be an answer to prayer. I just honestly don't know.

At this point in time, I really don't know what else to say....Just please, pray that the right thing for us as a family will happen...that those doors will open so wide that there will be no question as to the right way to go.

Thank you all so much for all the prayers that you have already prayed over the years for our family. Life is one big learning experience, and each obstacle is just one step closer to trying to get it right with Gods help. I just wish, sometimes (selfishly), that those steps wouldn't be quite so big. I may have really big feet, but my nervous system's attention span is PREeeettttyyyy teeny-weenie.

I'll update my snow-leaf picture (our banner) as soon as my nerves calm down. Nothing knew to post about my digital camera other than the Nikon people are baby-sitting my little sweet camera until all this gets sorted out.

Thanks again for everything and for your prayers.