Life in the Country
I just want to take the time to thank you guys for your prayers. I am so thankful to report that Chance has not had a problem sleeping anymore. As a matter of fact, he has slept better lately than he has since he was born. It sure is a lesson to me that I need to be more diligent in the spiritual matters of my children's life.
The lastest thing in our country living is Mt. Lion's & wolves. Apparently both are out hunting in force. Night before last I woke up at 1:30am to the sounds of wolves howling back behind our house. A couple of weeks ago, I woke up to the most chilling sound I have heard in a long time. It was kind of like a scream, but not human. It went on for a few minutes and then stopped abruptly. David was in Pittsburgh and mom was in New York so there was nobody to hear what I heard. I asked my brother-in-law then next day, but he hadn't heard anything. Later on my counsin Thad's wife came up to visit and I just happened to mention it to her. They live back further in the woods behind us. She said that she had been woke up by the same thing. She woke Thad up and he went running outside on the front porch. She said the screaming sounded like it was right under their bedroom window. It stopped as soon as he went outside. She said he went and checked his two dogs in the kennel and they were both inside their dog house barking but they wouldn't come out.
Thad called last night to see if I had heard the wolves the night before and then he happened to mention that he and two other friends had been out in the woods on the trail that I usually run on and a Mt. Lion had run across the trail in front of them. I knew immediately that is what I had heard that night because we had them come thru our yard in Grand Rapids and they would scream occasionally. It is the most horrible sound. We talked to the DNR and he said it is illegal to shoot them, but the good thing is they hunt out an area and move on pretty quickly. Our neighbor has been butchering cattle for the past week and dumping the remains out in the woods, I think that is probably what is drawing all the critters.
I never realized that we had Mt. Lions in this area, but when I worked at the Radio station people along Hwy 73 would call in once and a while and say they had seen one. My brother-in-law said he saw one for the first time 40 years ago and had seen their tracks every once in a while. We can call them the bigfoot of Minnesota, something very rairly seen, but nevertheless there!
Our Cities Weekend
David and I got to get away and go to the Cities last weekend sans kids thanks to my sister. We had a blast. We met 21 other adults at the Music Box Theater on Nicollet to see Tripple Expresso. I haven't laughed so hard in a really long time. The play consisted of 3 men and a bunch of different skits. Thanks to Jodi and Lisa our group had the front 3 rows. Needless to say, we got picked on quite a bit. There is really no way to say what was funny, it was one of those "you had to be there" things, but believe me, if you ever get a chance to see it, go immediately!
The play was Saturday night, but David and I went down early Friday morning to make the most of the weekend. With building this addition, I wanted to look in the cities for different things. One of my goals was to go to the Ikea store so we went there Friday. Wow, what a store. You can't believe how much stuff is there. We also got a chance to get together with a great friend of mine, Eric Koscak, who lives down there. He introduced us to Bucca's an Italian Restaurant downtown. Wow, talk about lots of good food, another "if you get a chance, go" thing.
I am happy to say that the McCormack's bought a new camera so we are back in business if that area. My dream in life is to get an Ipod, OK one of my dreams. David and I looked at them at Best Buy. The new Video one is out now, and it is unbelievable. It holds 8,000 songs or 60 full length DVD's or 75,000 pictures or obviously combinations of all. Can you believe that! I know that I personally don't even know 8,000 songs!
Of course there was a trip to the Mall of America. I love that place. I am not a big shopper in general, but I love to just walk around there. The atmosphere is great!
OK Eric, the following is going to be kind of AG so you can skip it if you want!!!! (ha ha)
The only downside to the whole trip was calling home to find out that Chance still wasn't sleeping. For some reason he stopped sleeping Wednesday night. He would go to sleep for about 1/2 hour and then wake up screaming. We would finally get him calmed down and back to sleep for about another 1/2 hour. This went on Wednesday night and Thursday night. I didn't think much of it, because he has always been a terrible sleeper (never quite that bad). But when I called home Saturday morning and found out that he didn't sleep Friday night either, and then found out he didn't sleep Saturday night, I started to get concerned. David and I discussed it on the way home and both really felt that it was some sort of spiritual attack. When we got home David took Chance to Walmart to buy some fish for his new aquarium and mom went to a friends house. So, I took the opportunity to pray thru my childs room. I have never felt such a horrible feeling as I did in his room. I can't even explain it. I prayed for quite a while and then I felt led to get rid of a book that he has had since birth. I thru that out of the house and prayed some more. When David got home, both of us prayed thru his room and put him to bed. I am very thankful to God to be able to say he slept thru the whole night without waking up once!
Last night David put him to bed around 8:00pm, and he woke up at 10:30pm screaming. There is nothing that you can do for him because he is still sleeping but his eyes are open. I took him in the rocking chair and rocked him for a while but that didn't do anything. But, as soon as I started praying over him he settled down immediately and I put him to bed and he never woke up the rest of the night. I am not sure why my child is under this sort of attack, but please keep our family in your prayers.
OK, not the most attractive picture, but it sure shows off the red hair! Daddy says her eyebrows are coming in orange!
Happy to be outside.
Hanging out on Uncle Kenny's 4-wheeler.
Chance loves to have his picture taken with Jordyn
Update
I think I got the blog thing fixed. As soon as I went to Becky's blog and accessed mine, then it came up. No clue what was wrong though.
Things in my life have been kind of dull. My mother hurt her knee and can't walk on it, so I have been helping her more than usual but that is OK. Nothing has been getting done on the house to much, we have been busy doing the outside work before snow. David and I spent all afternoon on Sunday cleaning out the garage so that we can fit his truck and mom's car in there this winter. I can't believe some of the stuff that seemed important when I stored it in there two years ago. Now I look at it and think why on earth did I keep this?
Well, my main reason for posting today is to put some pictures up. I haven't been able to do that in a while, but my camera cooperated this week a little bit and so here they are.
Help, my blog won't show up
I have been trying to get to my blog for the past several days and I can't. I thought it was my computer, but my sister-in-law emailed me this morning and said that she can't get to it either. I don't know what is going on. I can get to the "Dashboard" and then I can edit previous posts, but I can't view my blog. Any ideas?
Wow, I am finally posting!
I can't believe how long it has been since I have been able to update my blog.
What is going on in the life of the McCormack's? Well, here it goes.
I took Jordyn in for her 2 month appointment. Can you believe that it has been two months already. It seems like forever and yet just yesterday! Anway, she is 11 lbs 13 oz and is 22 1/2 inches long which puts her in the 75th% for both height and weight. I have to admit, that is smaller than I thought she was going to be! Everything is going good with her and she is getting more beautiful every day! And, the hair keeps getting redder! She rolled over about three times the week she was born and then nothing until last week when she rolled over again. So, that will be happening regularly soon I think. Other than that, the smiles are happening often now and I just love to see them. But, I actually think she rolled her eyes at me the other day when I was talking to her. I knew that was going to happen, but I didn't think it started this early!
Chance is doing good, I told Dr. Baldwin this morning that I think Jordyn's first words are going to be, "back off!" Her brother loves her so much. If he goes somewhere, when he comes home his first words are, "where is my sister?! He can't leave her alone.
He is growing so fast, I think he is the tallest boy in his ECFE (Chance's is here today school) class even though he is not the oldest. I can't believe how big he is getting. The other day we were going to Duluth and I had the radio on. Pretty soon he said to me, "mom, that guy said dumpster and I don't know what that word means. What does it mean?" So, I had to explain what a dumpster was. Then he said, "Mom, where do dumpsters live?" So, we rode past McDonalds and I showed him a dumpster. Then all the way down to Duluth we had to look for dumpsters. Just shows me that he is listening all of the time. Every day I am amazed at how smart he is getting. I am so thankful for him.
The house is coming along. Paul was here a week ago Monday and made the exsting ceilings in the dining room and kitchen match the new ceilings so I am glad that is over. He came at 9:30 in the morning and left at midnight! I was so excited that I painted the dining room the next day. It looks really nice! Now, if the winter stuff would stop creeping in on our time, my kitchen could begin. But, we have to insulate the basement. Even though I love cutting and splitting wood, and have to say I am getting pretty good with the chainsaw, I don't want to heat the outside. And, David has to put up the wood sheds so we can keep the wood dry. Last night was spent winterizing the moterhome and getting that ready to put away for the winter. I would like to start staining the new cabinets, but things around the house really need to get done. I spent this afternoon cleaning out the water softner and putting that back together. If there is anyone out there can tell me how a water softner works, I would really appreciate it, those things are a mystery to me.
David is doing really good. He spent last week in Pittsburgh learning to be a manager. Anyway, he had a good time and got home safely after being stranded in Cleaveland for the night. My mother went on a 12 day trip to Atlantic City, New York, Philidelphia and Niagra Falls. Her and David arrived home the same day. So, I had the house and the kids to myself for 6 days. Gave me a great appreciation for single mothers and what they deal with on a day to day basis. God give them strength!!!!
David flew in on Saturday and so we took Chance to the zoo. Jordyn came along, but she didn't really care! Chance loved it, he said his favorite were the lions, I personally loved the Polar Bear.
That basically gets you caught up in with our life. Our camera is still not working. When we went to the zoo I wanted to get some pictures of the kids on the rocks with the water falling behind them. But, the camera decided to wig out. I took the pictures with my phone, but I don't have the cord to upload them to my computer. I will either have to buy that or spend the $.25 a picture to email them to somebody and have them email them back to me. Needless to say, we went from the zoo to Best Buy to look at cameras. The A95 that the Baron's have has been discontinued, that is the one I wanted because it has the swivel screen. But Lisa emailed me the new Cannon that has come out (thanks Lisa) and it has a swivel screen. Makes me so mad that I have to buy a new camera this soon, the other one is about 2 years old, but I guess Pastor Al was right when he said they are just expensive throw aways! All that to say that as soon as we get a camera, I will post some new pictures!
