The worst Thanksgiving ever!

At least that's the way it started out. So what happened to make my kids dub this "the worst ever?" Well Tuesday we headed up to Columbus to have an early Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and my sister and her husband. They (my sis & BIL) made a short trip to Ohio from their home in Nebraska where he is a pastor and had to divide their time between our parents and his parents. We celebrated early so they could also see his parents. The dinner was yummy - my mom's usual fabulous cooking. We also did something new this year. Each person had a placecard listing a different Bible verse about being thankful. We went around the table reading them aloud and telling one thing we were thankful for. How cool is that?

It was after dinner that the trouble began. David and Rachel had been coughing for a couple days and continued coughing there also. The others were concerned about them - thought it sounded serious. When David started running a slight fever, everyone kindof panicked. My dad, trying to help, gave 3 of the kids codeine to try to stop their cough so they could sleep. Well Matthew slept so soundly he didn't wake up to use the bathroom. So he was up around 4 a.m. soaking wet and upset. I didn't sleep well that night and apparently neither did he! The next morning we ended up going home. The other grownups were too concerned about the kids' coughs to want us to stay until Thursday like we'd originally planned. It was a very upsetting morning and knowing that no one wanted us there had me in tears as I drove home. We went to the pediatrician's office where I found out that David has an ear infection and Rachel has some slight chest congestion. After everything that happened, their illnesses were nothing serious after all. The kids were crushed that their trip had been cut short.

But in spite of all the drama, our holiday turned out quite well. We managed to find a webcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Watching the parade is a tradition in our family and the kids were heartbroken when they thought they'd have to miss it. Fortunately they didn't. Hurray for the miracle of the internet. So instead of spending the day with extended family or traveling or cooking, we spent the day playing games, resting, talking, laughing and eating leftovers. Reading on Facebook about my friends who were cooking, running around busy and stressed out made me glad that we were alone together as a family.

As much as I complain, I know I have a lot to be thankful for. Here is a partial list (in no particular order):
1. I am thankful for a wonderful supportive husband who works hard at his current job (which is job-hunting) and lets me nap whenever I need to.
2. I am thankful for my messy house; I know it'll never be clean but the mess reminds me of my husband and 4 loving children. I'd rather have a messy house than a life without my kids!!!
3. I am thankful for my kids; being a mom may not be a glamorous job but it is the hardest, most fulfilling job I have ever had. I wouldn't trade the hugs, kisses and love I get from them for all the money in the world. For all those who say I am "only" a mom who doesn't have a job, I say that there is nothing else I'd rather be and no job I'd rather have.
4. I am thankful for our lack of money because it has taught me what is really important - not tv, not shopping on Ebay but my family and friends.
5. I am thankful for my parents in-law who have been so loving and supportive through this whole nasty time of unemployment and stress.
6. I am thankful for all our many friends - you know who you are!
7. I can't say I'm thankful that Phil doesn't have a job. But I am thankful for God's faithfulness and provision during this time. This has been a real test of my faith.
8. I am thankful for Brett, who loves our kids and goes out of his way to spend time with them, teach them about God and be a part of their lives. (In fact, as I write this I am sitting in a house populated only by Phil and 3 cats. Brett took all 4 kids for an overnight at his house tonight. How cool is that?)

There is so much more that I am thankful for. But in the interest of not putting to sleep the few people who read this, I'm gonna stop now. I've hit the most important ones already anyway.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! I hope your holiday was joyous and fun

Bragging about my kids!

Well fall report cards have come out so it is time to brag a bit about my wonderful kids. The 3 in school are doing very well overall.

David's report card was good, but he doesn't get letter grades yet. Rather they list the skills he is learning in various subject areas and give out either a B (beginning), DV (developing) or IN (independent). He has a few INs, one B (for his handwriting, which is just atrocious) and the rest DVs. Pretty good! Here are some of the comments (summarized) I heard from his teachers at the parent-teacher conference I went to earlier this week. “He is a very sweet boy. He loves the number searches we do in class (note from Amy: they are like word searches only with numbers instead) and is good at them. He'll even ask for another when he is done. He loves to read when his work is finished. Mrs. Knake (his teacher) LOVES that he hugs her before he leaves every day. He is very good at math and problem-solving and can do problems in his head. He likes to go to the board and show his work; she likes that he is comfortable doing that and has the confidence in himself to volunteer for that. He is also very hard on himself - if he loses something or doesn't do something right he will apologize to Mrs. Knake and is very upset about it. He also will frequently ask if he can help her with something.” What a great kid!!!!

Rachel also had a good report card, although she also gets the B, DV, or IN instead of actual letter grades. Hers was mostly DVs and INs. She got INs in reading which is awesome. I just LOVE that my kids all love to read and are good at it. Yahoo!! I haven't had her parent-teacher conference yet so I'll write more about her later.

Rose got a report card with letter grades for the first time this year. She was very nervous about how she did, but came home with all A's!!!!! That's my girl!! I am so proud of her! Her parent-teacher conference was interesting, but not quite as informative as I'd hoped. In 4th grade, the kids start switching classes so the teacher she has for homeroom only teaches her science and couldn't comment much about the other subjects. There is another teacher that does social studies and language arts (they used to call this "english" when I was in school. what happened to that?) . For math, Rose is in the ELO program. I can't remember exactly what that stands for but back in my day they called that the gifted program. So she goes with probably a dozen of the 4th graders to yet another teacher who does math with them. I got to meet Mrs. Smith )the ELO teacher) and see her classroom. She is doing some seriously fun stuff in there, games and such. They are currently learning fractions and will be moving on to decimals soon. They do some basic algebra and story problems. It's a good thing Phil likes math, because frankly, I don't like helping her with all her math homework. Anyway. . . she is getting a 93% in ELO math so far. On her report card, the other teacher did comment that she should be improving her vocabulary by choosing books to read that are more advanced and can challenge her more. Right now she is plowing through the Little House series. Do any of you have suggestions about something that's more advanced reading than that but has subject matter that's appropriate for a 10-year-old. That's the problem I'm running into - some of the books I've found have things in them that I'm not necessarily comfortable having her read about until she's older.

Matthew is not in school yet, but knows all of his letters, basic shapes, basic colors and numbers, can count to 20. He loves to have books read to him and can even identify a couple states. We have this USA map puzzle that he likes to put together. He can identify Ohio, Kentucky and Texas. Yeah Matt :-)

I am just so proud of my kids and love them very much!!!!

A visit from some piggies

Wow! Two blog posts in 1 day! Not bad eh? Anyway, the season of sickness has started very early here in the Hahn house. We have had a visit from piggies. Yep, several of us had the swine flu last month. The girls and I were sick for about a week. David was sick for only a couple days. I'm not convinced it was the flu, although I don't know for sure. We were all healthy very briefly but now poor Rose has pneumonia. Poor kid - she seems to get sick so easily. She has missed quite a bit of school already this year and it's only November. The only good thing about having Rose home is that we can watch girl movies together. As I type this, we are watching The Sound of Music. She loves musicals just like her mom. Yay!!

So what are the other kids up to? David loves to play with legos. He makes action figures out of them and plays Star Wars. He is a huge Star Wars fan! He also likes to cook and wants to be a chef when he grows up. He and I made homemade applesauce last night. His teacher brought in homemade applesauce to school to celebrate Johnny Appleseed's birthday and he came home wanting to try it too. It turned out more like baked apples than actual sauce but he loved it. He is also developing quite a sense of humor and makes up jokes to tell us at the dinnertable.

Matthew has a never-ending supply of energy. He loves to play pretend and has stuffed animals and action figures he plays with. He loves zebras and giraffes, mainly because he likes the movie Madagascar. Have you seen it? His favorite characters are Melman, the giraffe and Marty, the zebra. He has a stuffed zebra that he carries everywhere and has named Marty. That and his lamb's wool blankie (which he calls "woolie scrap") are his two favorite possessions that he never goes anywhere without. He is still sleeping on the couch in the living room. He started that back when we had a tv in the living room and would watch a video as he was falling asleep. Well we've given away that tv but he still likes sleeping there. He is good about not wandering the house so we've let him sleep there rather than fighting with him to move back into the bedroom with David (who loves having a room all to himself). Matthew is also into playing with tools and doing magic tricks. He'll hold up an action figure, say "Abracadabra make this diappear. Poof!" and toss it over his shoulder onto the floor. Look - it disappeared! And if you don't clap, he looks at you, wrinkles his brow and says very sternly "You didn't clap!"

Rachel? Well I haven't spent as much time with her lately. She is in school full-time so I don't see as much of her as I did last year when she only went to school half a day. She is full of energy and loves to hug people. She loves to play with makeup, wear dresses and look pretty. She loves drawing and coloring and is always coloring a picture for someone. Her favorite possession is her pillow with its Ariel the Little Mermaid pillowcase. She calls her "Pilly" (pilly is a girl) and takes her everywhere. She is a sweet, energetic, caring little girl who wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. She loves our 3 cats and has been very responsible about keeping their food dish full.

So has Phil found a job yet? Nope. He is currently studying for his CCNA and plans to take the certification test next week. Having this will give him more (and higher-paying) job possibilities. CCNA stands for Certified Cisco Network Administrator I think. All I know is that having this will give him some much-needed confidence and make him more valuable/marketable.

The only other big news is that due to a lack of money, we have given up cable tv. So now we have no tv channels at all. Surprisingly the kids haven't protested much at all. We have dvds to watch if they want. But they have adapted really well and spend more time playing and reading books. Yahoo! One unexpected benefit of having no money!

Well it is time for the bigger kids to get home so I'm gonna sign off and hopefully not take quite so long to blog again!

A Birthday!

Well life has been busier for us recently. I can't believe I haven't found time to blog. Rose turned 10 exactly one month ago. I can't even believe she is 10 already! I remember when she was born. She was breech so my doctor suggested they try a procedure to try to turn her around. We headed into the hospital one Saturday where they gave me drugs to relax me. I don't know what it was but it made me as jittery as if I'd had 12 cups of coffee. Then they tried to turn Rose around but she wouldn't budge. She was stubborn even back then! Well they sent us home and scheduled a c-section for Oct. 16. Well Tuesday Oct. 12 in the wee hours of the morning my water broke. Phil was working 3rd shift at the time so I called him at work. He was excited to have an good excuse to drive home as fast as he wanted. So we ended up at the hospital for an emergency c-section. everything went smoothly and Evelyn Rose Hahn arrived at 7:42 a.m. and changed our lives forever.

She has grown up into a young lady who loves Jesus, likes to invent games to play with her siblings, enjoys doing arts and crafts, LOVES reading and is sweet, compassionate and sensitive. I am so grateful to God for giving her to us to raise. She is an amazing girl who I love very much!!

The picture is one taken by my wonderful mother (ok technically Phil's mom, but I'd rather call her mom than mother-in-law). She gave Rose an absolutely gorgeous dress which she modeled. Doesn't she look so grown-up?