Recently, HJ has been a real challenge. She is very headstrong and she is prone to fly into screaming fits if she doesn't get her way. Most of the time she's great, but occassionally she gets into a pattern that brings Brooklynne and I to the end of our ropes and we find ourselves asking what else we can do.

This weekend, there was a night when Beau was crying (he is being weened off his binky) and HJ woke up kicking and screaming. It was not the first fit she had thrown that day, but this time, she was so worked up that she couldn't even stop crying and shaking to tell us what was wrong. I wondered if she saw that Beau was getting attention by crying, or if she had had a bad dream and was having a hard time separating her dream from reality, but whatever the case, the fit went on for 30-45 minutes without either of us being able to calm her down. Brooklynne and I were exhausted from working on the house, we had not had good sleep in the past few nights, and felt like we had twin infants on our hands due to the prolonged late night fits.

Anyway, in desperation Brooklynne and I turned to prayer. First, we prayed with HJ (though she would hardly calm down enough to do it), and then we prayed together for peace, patience, love, kindness, and wisdom.

The results were incredible. HJ calmed down and fell asleep. Brooklynne and I felt relieved. And despite the lack of sleep that night, HJ had a great day (behaviorally) yesterday. This made me wonder if prayer has not been central enough in our parenting process all along. We have always prayed for our kids and with our kids, but not so much as an intregral part of guidance, discipline, and care for them. Praying has been more about teaching the kids to share their lives with God and asking God to protect/bless them--but not so much about prayer as a tool of including the Lord actively while instructing and nurturing them. I'm starting to feel like I should shift my focus a little.

I don't know how this didn't get posted before, but here are the kids in their Halloween outfits. Brooklynne was the costume maker once again. I'll put a couple more pics after the break.

We had another full weekend highlighted by more home rennovations, church meetings, and football.

Now that I am a fully-credentialed homeower-plumber, Brooklynne and I finished off plumbing the drain to the new master shower and poured the bedding mortar for the shower pan. If you want to see what we are doing, you can watch this video, which is what we're using to guide us through the process. Our show will be very similar to this, except maybe twice as big.

Besides working on the house, I also attended a meeting detailing our church's budget from last year and the one for the coming year. Last year, due to the economic downturn and a poor year in 2009, we adopted a very conservative budget. The move paid off and the church did very well in 2010. We ran in the black by quite a bit, and despite ongoing economic worries, the congregation was very generous with their tithes and gifts. Praise the LORD that He has provided and we can continue sharing our blessings to further His work.

Finally, the Steelers came through for me. I now have a date with my TV and my favorite NFL team on February 6th. My invitation to join us at the new place stands, so come one and come all! (No Green Bay colors allowed.)

Via David Efird:

I didn't blog last week because I was so busy with the house, but no fear, the blogging will continue.

We have been making great progress toward moving in by the end of the month. I took the plumbing re-test and passed this time with no problems. I was told that there was not a freely-available code book, which seemed weird to me since the code is a government document, and all government docs are in the public domain. It turns out the guy in the inspections dept. was wrong and you can download a copy here. It even comes in Kindle format.

What else have we done? We almost finished framing the basement (widening the bath, adding a laundry, mudroom, and 2 closets) and we completed the refinishing of our hardwoods throughout the house. We also scheduled our cabinets to go in on Thursday, and we picked out the granite for the countertops, which will go in next week. If we can finish tiling the kids' bathroom and get some painting done by the time the ganite is installed, we will be ready to move in. I am now really hoping to watch the Steelers win the Superbowl on my own TV in my own house. Any local readers who would like to join the fun on Superbowl Sunday are welcome to help us celebrate (provided we are in fact moved in).

Just to clarify though--just because I'm talking about moving in does not mean we're done with the project. we will still have the master and guest baths to finish as well as the guest room, deck, and exterior finishes. My target for those projects is the end of May.

Other updates from the week: I start spring classes today. Yesterday was my first-ever parent teacher conference where we learned that HJ has "advanced negotiating skills" (aka: apt to argue to get her way). I subtly lobbied for more work on math topics and Brooklynne told me I was being too pushy with our 4-year-old. UNC's sloppy performance against Clemson still made me feel better about our game against GaTech this weekend.

What else...? I don't know. More tomorrow.

My child finally fell asleep. For about an hour, she was in her room screaming about her hand being sweaty. We started putting a sock on her hand so she won't suck her thumb at night while she's asleep. Apparently, thumb sucking is to dentists as smoking is to pulminary physicians. I guess the sock makes her hand hot.

Anyway, just so this won't be totally boring, here's a blast from the past.

I saw an article on Starbucks changing its logo this morning, but the image of the old logos that went with it was too small to see. So, naturally, I got curious and googled the history of the Starbucks logo and found this really interesting article.

Who knew? I thought those things were her hands or something. I wonder what other sketchy things we would find in other logos if we knew what we were looking for?

I've got to run pick up Brooklynne from the airport (yeah!), so this will have to be a quick post. Thus, I will link to other people's stuff....

I had a really tough fall semester (thus the dearth of blog posts). Apparently alot of people had a bad year. Here are two articles that sum it all up.

Tarheel Year of Hell Timeline

Dave Barry's Take on 2010

Here's to a better 2011.

I went into the Durham inspection office today to take the test you have to pass before you can get a permit to do your own plumbing. You could miss up to 9 and I missed 12. The test didn't ask tough questions (How many inches under the ground does your supply pipe have to be?) and it was open-book... and they gave me the book. Yet I found a way to fail.

In my defense, the code book might as well have been written in Chinese. Durham should really invest in some better writers. Alas, I will try again next week. 

Jupiter inspired scarf.

Tomorrow I go back to work.

On a more positive note, I have been making progress on the house. We passed our electrical inspection and we're getting closer to actually moving in, but every step seems to take a major effort. This week's project is drywall, and the floors will be done this weekend.

I did take some time to read a little this Christmas. I was travelling alone, so I splurged on a book and read it on the plane. I settled on The Shadow of the Wind, which I would recommend despite a few R-rated scenes and general mushiness throughout. How's that for a book review?

Anywho, I'm tired from working at the house, and uninspired, so I'm going to bed. I'll try to get some Utah pictures from Brooklynne and post them this week. 

I'm ringing in 2011 with a new urge to blog, so here I am. Not much news for today, but I wanted to get on the board for Jan.1.

We celebrated Christmas in Utah this year. I had to come back early for work, but Brooklynne and the kids will be back Wednesday, so I'm kicking it alone for the next couple of nights.

The Wasatch Front got 18 inches of snow on Thursday, so we took HJ skiing for the first time. She did pretty well. She could manuver and keep her balance, but had trouble stopping. I asked her what was her favorite part of the day and she told me "riding the magic carpet." The simple pleasures....