Life in pictures...

Sarah goes to Exning primary school...

Scenery...

Just a few pictures of the way it looks around here....

Sarah's 4th Birthday!

Yea my Sarah turned four on Saturday! She is turning into such a little girl. We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Sarah's big day. We had some friend over for a BBQ and they decorated their own cup cakes! Sunday we went to a farm and got to brush some donkeys and watch a goat being milked. In another week and a half she will be starting school. I am very nervous but excited for her.

Wednesday Wonderings....

Just thought that I would share a few pictures.

Lets see....

One week until Sarah starts school. YIPES! Is she really old enough to go to school?

Cory is in the biting phase. Not sure what to think about that.

Bethany is growing so fast. Now if we could just get out of this fussiness we would be great!

Nap time is almost over....

Have a good week!

Another cute birth story

The 'Middle Wife' by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.
When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.
Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.
She holds up a snapshot of an infant. 'This is
Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday'
'First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.'
She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my
camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.
'Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. 'She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!' (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)
'My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like
the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.' (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.)
'And then, pop!
My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!' (This kid has her
legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)
'Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom's play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there.'
Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another 'Middle Wife' comes along.

A REAL post will come soon.

American - British Translation Dictionary

So my neighbor, Shelley comes over quite frequently. She will say something to one of my children and they will look at her with a blank stare trying to figure out what she is talking about. She and I now sometimes argue which word is better. I thought I would share a few of those words. American:British

stroller : push chair
trash : bin, rubbish
diaper : nappy
pacifier : dummy
couch : sofa
bathroom : toilet, loo
pants : trousers
underwear : pants
purse : hand bag
wallet : purse
wallet: male purse
dump : tip (a place to take trash)
parking lot : car park
zucchini : courgettes
pickles : gherkin
soccer : football
camper trailer : caravan
trunk : boot
hood : bonnet
garage sale : boot sale
drug store : chemist
2 weeks : fortnight
vaccume : hoover
baked potato : jacket potato
7-up, Sprite : Lemonade
Dr office : surgery



Here is a few that they spell funny...
tire - tyre
color - colour

"Z" is pronounced zed



Now I just have to teach my children all these crazy words!

I got my post done for the week! Its progress. Where is yours, Debra!!!!!

Who needs toys when you can play in the kitchen....

I am always trying to find ways to entertain the kids when it is the end of the day and I am trying to get dinner ready for when Mike comes home and we seem to be fighting. The other day I was doing dishes and Cory was sitting on the counter. He started playing with the coffee beans that I have on the counter as decoration. He was dumping them into another cup, stirring them, and using every gadget in my tool turnabout. This was a fun game. It has become hours of entertainment over the past few days. Cory was playing with them on the floor the other day and I just had to take some pictures. Now it has gone from coffee beans to dried kidney beans and they are still happy!

My life...

...Enough said

Thursday Thoughts

1. Nursing is not for whimps
2. Why can one day with little kids be so hard and the next day so much better?
3. I love tea! Too bad I can't drink it right now
4. Photography: I love it! I just can't get my pictures to turn out like I see them. UGH!
5. Why am I not in bed?
6. Good Night!

Bethany Kay's Big Day

Katie woke up on Friday morning at 4:20, having to go to the bathroom, which is standard procedure for the 40th week of pregnancy. When she took a little while to return to bed, I groggily asked her if she was okay. She said, “I think I wet my pants.” Waking up a little more, I asked, “Did your water break?” “I don’t think so,” was the reply. “Okay,” I said, believing her, and rolled over to go back to sleep. After a couple minutes, Katie said to me, “These contractions are getting stronger.” Contractions? She didn’t tell me she was contracting! I hopped out of bed and hurried to the bathroom to put my contacts in so I could see what was going on. “We gotta go!” I told her. So we began trying to get dressed, find phone numbers, and round up essentials all at the same time.
I called Pastor Tony and his wife, Jan since we had planned for Jan to come over and stay with the kids should we have to head for the hospital in the middle of the night. A sleepy Tony answered the phone and I asked for Jan. “She’s in the loo,” he replied. That’s odd, I thought. It’s 4:30 in the morning and she’s up getting ready for work already? We came to find out that as soon as the phone rang, Jan shot like a rocket out of bed to get ready exclaiming, “It’s Katie, it’s Katie! I’ve gotta go!” Since Jan had to leave for work at 7:30, we also called Carrie to come and relieve her, not knowing how long we would be at the hospital.
So after I was dressed, the car was loaded, and the calls were made, I went back to see how Katie was doing. I found her bent over the edge of the bed in a contraction, still not dressed yet. So I tried to help her as she fought me off until the contraction let up. So, finally we were ready to go, but Jan had not arrived yet. I took Katie out to the car to get her in, and James, our neighbor, came jogging across the road. Katie must have called him! Thank goodness, I thought. We gotta go!! So I put Katie in the front seat of the car and James went in to watch the kids as we zoomed off to the hospital. I didn’t put Katie in the back seat, because of course we weren’t going to deliver a baby in my new car. That only happens in movies.
I thought it wise to take the A-roads instead of the back roads. I didn’t think that bumpy roads, stop and go, and frequent turns were going to help our situation at all. As we set out, Katie called the Labor & Delivery ward to let them know that we were on our way and that we were about a half hour out. “My contractions are about two minutes apart,” she told them. It might just have been the rush of getting ready in a hurry, but I’m sure they were more like 45 seconds to a minute apart. I’m driving as fast as I dare, without paying for an ambulance ride in speeding tickets. Katie is praying, mostly in tongues but I caught a “Please, Jesus, calm these contractions down a little!” here and there.
As we were coming up on five ways roundabout (over halfway there), Katie’s water must have broke. I heard, “Oh, Jesus!” and Katie later told me that she thought that is when Bethany crowned. I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time, because I wouldn’t have known what to do. The next thing I knew, Katie said, “She’s here…” and I asked her if she wanted me to pull over. I looked at the shoulder, which was about a foot wide on the side of a 70mph highway. No, it was too dangerous to pull over here. I looked up and saw a sign for the rest area at five ways roundabout. I guess we could stop there to have a baby. But when Katie didn’t answer me, I looked over, and she already had a baby in her lap! I glanced at the clock in my car: 5:12am – that made labor only about 30 – 45 minutes. I turned on my hazard lights and sped up a little as Katie scrambled to pull a newborn out of her pants! I heard Bethany crying as Katie cranked up the heat in the car and snuggled her up to her chest. Good, she was crying, and that meant she was breathing, so there was no sense in stopping. Off to the hospital!
We dug our IDs out so we would not have to negotiate with the gate guard once we got to Lakenheath. I pulled up to the gate and handed the gate guard our IDs. “Alright,” was the reply, she handed back our IDs, and we were on our way. That’s odd, we thought. She didn’t even notice Katie had a newborn on her lap. Oh, well. Off to the hospital!
I pulled up to the door of the hospital, and left the car running as I ran inside. I ran up the stairs to the Labor & Delivery ward, thinking that they’d be ready since we called ahead. “We had her in the car,” I said. There was an awkward silence. They must have thought I said “I have her in the car,” referring to Katie, because we just stood there looking at each other. “Is she coming up?” one of them asked. “We had the baby in the car!” I clarified. All of a sudden, the three of them began scurrying about, grabbing gloves and towels and such, and they ran off ahead of me down to the car. They told me to get a wheelchair from the ER.
I went in to the ER and asked if I could borrow a wheelchair, and briefly explained what had happened. The captain working in the ER asked me if I helped Katie deliver the baby. I replied that I was driving and couldn’t have helped without pulling over. He then asked if I at least held her hand. No…I was driving. He then proceeded to give me a hard time for leaving my poor wife to deliver a baby by herself. Then the ER tech came out with a wheelchair and we were off to get Katie. Poor Katie then came out of the toasty warm car into the chilly spring morning air. She sat down in the wheelchair, and the towels weren’t going to keep her warm. Fortunately, I had brought her blankie (heart quilt made by Sarah) with us, and I wrapped her up as best I could in that. So the hospital crew took her up to a delivery room as I parked the car and hurried up behind them.
We obviously threw the L&D staff out of their normal routine, and chaos ensued. A nurse tried urgently to get Katie to birth the placenta as one of the techs attempted to get an IV in her arm. Katie probably didn’t need either one of those things to happen immediately, but I guess they thought that we were a big emergency, and that they had to hurry up and do everything they could. Katie finally convinced them to leave her alone and let the contractions continue. The second attempt got the IV in, which they used to give her pitocin, which she didn’t want in the first place, but there wasn’t any communication about that. And when the on-call doctor arrived, Katie was able to birth the placenta. The doctor cleaned her up, and did not need to do any stitching! Meanwhile, another tech was taking care of Bethany, cleaning her up and helping her breathe better. When things settled down a bit, they brought Bethany over to Katie to let her nurse.
By this time it was just about 7am, and Katie wanted me to go and get Sarah and Cory. When I got home, the kids were still sleeping. I thanked Carrie for coming to watch them, and she and Will left for home. I decided to let the kids sleep a little longer, and I went to post messages on Facebook. Of course, I couldn’t just post a couple posts and be done, and I ended up chatting with my cousin, Sarah for a little while, telling the story of our exciting morning. Katie called and said that they were going to wait to give Bethany a bath until I got back with Sarah and Cory. Since they were not awake yet, I got them up. Cory got up willingly, but Sarah pulled her blanket over her head, wanting to keep sleeping. But when I told her that Bethany wasn’t in mama’s tummy anymore and asked her if she wanted to go see her, Sarah went from sleepy to excited instantly. She was bouncing on her bed and chattering up a storm. So I got them dressed, fed, and back to the hospital we went.
When we got to the hospital room, Katie was showered, dressed, and not hooked up to any medical equipment anymore. She was walking around, and Bethany was asleep in her bassinet. Both kids wanted to hold Bethany, so we let them take turns until the staff came in to give Bethany a bath. Sarah was very excited to help with the bath. After visiting for awhile, I took the kids back home for a nap. When I got home, Katie called and said that she would be ready to be discharged at 6pm – after only 12 hours in the hospital! So, after naptime, I took the kids to collect the rest of my family from the hospital, and we came home at the end of a very exciting day.

Bethany Kay Glathar

Bethany was born June 5th at 5:12am in the car on the A11 in England. She weighed 7lb 12oz and was 20 inches long. Mike is writing the full story to be posted soon.

Tea for Two

We are in a waiting time in our lives. Waiting for this baby to face this world. Last night Mike and I decided to have tea. The British use the term "tea" very loosely. A traditional British family's three meals with be breakfast, dinner and tea. Dinner being their main meal of the day and tea being a lighter meal but is a meal and doesn't always include tea. They also will feed their children tea earlier and then the couple will have tea together later in the evening. I have decided that they call it tea because they (like us) are so busy living life that they really don't take the time to sit and have tea. I think that we need to take the time and enjoy a good "cuppa tea" once in a while. Mike and I put some British influence in our time by having "biscuits" (they are a wafer cookie that is a lot like our graham cracker). We Americanized it by putting peanut butter and chocolate on top! CHEERS!

Here I am...

Faith

Sometimes it is our faith that stirs us. Lately with the situation I am in I am really stirred in my faith. I was hanging the laundry on the clothes line yesterday evening and I thought to myself how surreal it feels to be in England. When we drive in the car and do not have a cd or my morning alarm is classical music. I don't know that I have ever listened to classical music on a regular basis. It just makes this adventure that much more unreal. As I look back at the past couple years I think about the difficult things that God has taken me through; colicky babies, a 9 month deployment, a miscarriage, and now a move away from everything that I have known. I have always had people around me that I could run into at the store that I would know. Here there is no one. God has been faithful and increased my faith through these times. Now as I anticipate the birth of our third child I really just have the faith that through all of this that there might be some challenges with this baby but I really am praying and having faith that it will be easier than my other two. God has moved us across the world and I just don't believe that He would put me here and not help me. I am really praying in faith that Bethany is not a colicky baby and that really she is a fairly mild tempered child. I know of people that have been blessed with these children and I just can't help but pray for that for myself in this situation. As He stirs your faith allow Him to encourage you and love on you but also have hope not only through the difficult times but that times of refreshing and peace would come to. And faith for those times.

Tea anyone?

This is a place that I heard about today. Anyone interested in going to High Tea with me in London?

Cambridge University

We had a friend come visit us from Ireland. It was such a blessing to have her here and have some excitement in the middle of this stressful time. Here are a few pictures!

I have two weeks til my due date and frantically trying to get my house unpacked and in some kind of order. We got our shipment on Friday and we are slowly getting there. With no closets it is not like you can just organize it and close the door. We have to figure out another way to put this stuff away. We have an Ikea fairly close but I should not be traveling that far so close to my due date. This move has truly been an experience. We are hoping to get settled and be able to enjoy and see the country around us.

CHEERS!

God's Chisel

You need to watch this. Oh how we need to be reminded of what God thinks of us.

Pictures galore....

I have been meaning to do this many times and have forgotten about it until recently. Tammy Huntting took tons of pictures of my baby shower while I was still in Montana and so I thought that I would show you where they are so you can take a look.

Also, when Montana was getting all the snow it was beautiful here. Not to rub it in but I got some adorable pictures of my children playing in the park here in Burwell. We walked there and I am not sure that I can handle that walk any more right now but the kids sure had fun! Enjoy!

Please pray that my household goods come in soon. We are very ready for our beds. It has been two months since we have slept on our own beds or had anything that resembled home.

My job description...

PARENT - Job Description

This is hysterical. If it had been presented this way,
I don't believe any of us would have done it!!!!

POSITION :
Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma
Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop

JOB DESCRIPTION :

Long term, team players needed, for challenging,
permanent work in an
often chaotic environment.
Candidates must possess excellent communication
and organizational skills and be willing to work
variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends
and frequent 24 hour shifts on call.
Some overnight travel required, including trips to
primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities!
Travel expenses not reimbursed.
Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES :

The rest of your life.
Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily,
until someone needs $5.
Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.
Also, must possess the physical stamina of a
pack mule
and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat
in case, this time, the screams from
the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.
Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges,
such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets
and stuck zippers.
Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and
coordinate production of multiple homework projects.
Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings
for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.
Must be a willing to be indispensable one minute,
an embarrassment the next.
Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a
half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices.
Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
Must assume final, complete accountability for
the quality of the end product.
Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and
janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION :

None.
Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills,
so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE :

None required unfortunately.
On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION :

Get this! You pay them!
Offering frequent raises and bonuses.
A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because
of the assumption that college will help them
become financially independent.
When you die, you give them whatever is left.
The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that
you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS :

While no health or dental insurance, no pension,
no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and
no stock options are offered;
this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth, unconditional love,
and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right.