Days with the Dorans

Poor Ali Jane. First she gets my thin, fine, straight hair and now it appears that she got my eyes... not just in appearance... but also in function (which is not a good thing.) She failed her 4 year old eye exam at the pediatricians and when a few weeks later she failed a vision screening at school, it was clear that it was time to make an appointment with the professionals. We made a day of it and talked a lot before the appointment... How they would look at her eyes and how she may need glasses like Mommy's... I even told her how fun it would be... like a girls' day out and afterward we could have lunch wherever she wanted to go! After dropping off the boys at school, Ali Jane and I hit the road. The first thing she did was get drops to dilate her eyes which she was NOT happy about! They stung and she cried for quite a while... the drops made her sad and clingy and I felt badly that my poor daughter was going through all of this because of me... (Daddy has GREAT eyes!) B...

I wish I could say that making Valentine's cards with the kids this year was a blast... but it wasn't. I waited until Thursday to get out the paper, glitter glue, stickers and markers and that could have been my first mistake. (Their school's party was Friday.) I had the kids start by putting their name on the hearts that I cut out for them. Joe has been turning his J around and so I literally sat next to him for every heart reminding him which way his J goes. Ali (who has been writing her name and quite well for a while now) decided to write her name iAl which seriously drove me crazy! She would write, Al and then add the 'i' in front of the 'A'. In fact I had to leave them both for a while to time myself out! Eventually she started writing her name the right way again. And then we got out the glitter glue and stickers. I came back to my senses by this point and enjoyed watching. They would put the glitter glue on their valentine and then stick the sticker...

Do you think she'll make it to Hollywood! :-)

Poor Joey. He came home sick from school and was just miserable. While he didn't get 'sick', his energy was certainly zapped and he wasn't himself. He spent the weekend in his bed or on the couch. I have always loved catching my kids in their quiet private moments. And catching them with my camera is even better! -Ali Jane praying for her brother, both of them asking for God to take the sickness away. She bringing him a pink bucket in case he got sick while she was away. She telling him she "had to go to a party, but would be back soon." Poor Joey. Jonasen got sick on a Friday and on Sunday he seemed better but he told me that he wasn't because he didn't throw up yet. When I asked him if he thought he was going to throw up, he said, not yet, but that he needed to- to "get the sickness out of his body." Then I understood. When he's been sick in the past, I've always said, "but this is good Joe- all the sickness is com...

We never viewed Jeff's unemployment as something bad. We simply looked at it as an opportunity. I couldn't have picked a better father for my children and the adventures they had in those early years together I wouldn't trade for the world. When Jeff got his job, our world changed. Jonasen and Al started attending school 5 days a week. They made a great adjustment with their fabulous teachers and love 'school'. I was worried about Zach. He (like the big kids) had never had a babysitter outside of family members and would SCREAM anytime (and for the entire time) we tried to leave him in the nursery at church. My mom is watching him three days a week and on the remaining two, he goes to Hearts & Hands Christian Childcare Development Center in Wixom. (AKA- 'school' to the bigs) I have been amazed at how easy this transition has been for him. From that first day when he gave me a kiss and went off to discover his new environment, I knew he'd be o.k. Hi...