Please Vote

I know I have been a terrible blogger lately, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Malia needs our votes to win an awesome prize that she tells about in her post here. She is a wonderful photographer. You can see her work here.

All you need to do is go to Mike Colon's blog and scroll down until you see Malia Johnson's name to vote. It ends soon, so please vote now. I am including this picture to make it even easier for you to find her there.

My husband's handsome brother, Stu and his beautiful wife, Malia.

I also wanted to share with you a post that my cousin, Stephanie wrote today. I'm sure that we have all had days like this. I know I have them more than I'd like to, and will have even more soon with a new baby to add to the mix. Go read it to have a good cry, or laugh, or both.

Thank you, Ned! (a story that I just don't want to forget)

While putting up Christmas decorations this year my three amigos helped out a lot. Ned was extra helpful. He put most of the decorations on the tree, cleared off the mantel (including carefully carrying everything into my bedroom), and put up our A Christmas Story village. I was so grateful because, as usual, I was not having a great day (is it just me, or does it not seem fair to still have morning [all day] sickness at 7 months pregnant?)

Of course the house was a total mess from the boxes that were brought down from the attic and I was not looking forward to that clean up, and I also had some rearranging I wanted to do in the living room. We have had toys stored in our living room for a couple of years now, but I just could not take it anymore so I had decided to move everything into the boys' already crowded bedroom and was not looking forward to the process. Ned decided to take on the project himself. I thought for sure that he would lose steam after a little while and leave an even bigger mess for me to deal with later. To my surprise he worked for 6 hours moving book selves out of his closet, vacuuming the closet, carrying all the toys into the bedroom, and organizing all of the toys. About 4 or 5 hours into the process Ned came to me and said, "It feels so good to help. I am SO tired and I just want to lay down, but it feels really good to help."

What a good boy! I feel so lucky to be his mom.

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I want to add something in response to Jess's comment. A few days after the above story happened it was my birthday. When I woke up in the morning I had not though about it being my birthday until Ned came in and said, "Happy birthday, Mommy! What do you think you want for breakfast?" I told him that I was not feeling well enough to eat but that I would love it if he fed his brothers so I did not have to. He actually does this most mornings for me, after getting himself dressed almost two hours before he has to be at school. I'm loving it!