Jenn's Blog

Today was a family reunion on my side. It was actually pretty small, but that was fine because we knew everyone there and had a good time. The weather was great! It was overcast and the forecast was for rain, but instead we just had a nice breeze the whole time. There were several drawings throughout the day. Ben won the coffee prize (fitting). We chatted with relatives and Ben and the kids played some outdoorsy games. There was a 4-legged race. I was tied together with Jacob and our cousin Mike. There was only 1 other 4-legged team (that kept falling down) and then Luke and Logan were tied together by their arms. They won. Mom gave them little trophies and someone else gave them a quarter. The boys were so cute!

Luke was in heaven and didn't want to leave. He played so well with the kids and just had a blast. He drank enough soda and juice to last a life-time. Gabe was glued to me or Chels the entire time. So much so that one relative said something about maybe he'll be walking soon. Bwahahahaha.

I always enjoy getting together with family and hope that we can do a Christmas gathering this year, if not something before!

I liked this page: http://www.personalitypage.com/INFJ_per.html

Very practical regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the INFJ personality.

Ten Rules to Live By to Achieve INFJ Success

1. Feed Your Strengths! Do things that allow your brilliant intuition and service-oriented manner to flourish.
2. Face Your Weaknesses! See your weaknesses for what they are, and seek to overcome them. Especially, strive to use your judgment against your internal ideas and intuitions, rather than as a means of disregarding other people's ideas.
3. Talk Through Your Thoughts. You need to step through your intuitions in order to put them into perspective. Give yourself time to do this, and take advantage of discussing ideas with others. You'll find externalizing your internal intuitions to be a valuable exercise.
4. Take in Everything. Don't dismiss ideas prematurely because you don't respect the person generating the ideas, or because you think you already know it all. After all, everybody has something to offer, and nobody knows everything. Steven Covey says it so well when he says: "Seek first to understand, and then to be understood."
5. When You Get Angry, You Lose. Your passion and intensity are strong assets, but can be very harmful if you allow yourself to fall into the "Anger Trap". Remember that Anger is destructive to your personal relationships. Work through your anger before you impress it upon others, or you will likely find yourself alone. Disagreements and disappointments can only be handled effectively in a non-personal and dispassionate manner.
6. Keep Your Eye on the Big Picture Watch out for your tendency to become obsessed with details. If you find yourself feeling very, very strongly about a small detail, take a big step back and make sure that you can still see the goal. You're not going to get there if you get mired in the details.
7. Be Accountable for Yourself. Don't blame the problems in your life on other people. Look inwardly for solutions. No one has more control over your life than you have.
8. Be Humble. Judge yourself at least as harshly as you judge others.
9. Assume the Best. Don't distress yourself and others by dwelling on the dark side of everything. Just as there is a positive charge for every negative charge, there is a light side to every dark side. Remember that positive situations are created by positive attitudes. Expect the best, and the best will come forward.
10. Relax! Do yourself a favor and learn how to effectively unwind. Get exercise and restful sleep. Take vacations. Engage in relaxing activities. Take care of yourself and your loved ones by learning to let go of your passion and intensity for a respite.

...but some of us in MO are pretty excited:

The Missouri State Supreme Court has issued a ruling on the legalization of professional midwifery in Missouri - a ruling that, in effect, legalizes the practice.

It was a 5-2 ruling on SC88783 - a challenge to House Bill 818 from 2007. That bill, which dealt with health insurance, was expanded to include legalization of midwifery.The bill, though passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Matt Blunt (R-MO), was challenged as a violation of the Hammerschmidt rule - a constitutional requirement that any provision of any bill must relate to the original purpose and title of that bill.

That challenge, which was successful in Cole County Circuit Court, came from the Missouri State Medical Association. Friends of Missouri Midwives appealed to the State Supreme Court, which has ruled the State Medical Association did not have standing to bring the case in the first place. So, the challenge is rejected.

Mary Ueland with Friends of Missouri Midwives, which challenged the lower court ruling, says this ruling is an unexpected pleasant surprise. Ueland acknowledges it is a technicality that led to the ruling, but says all that matters is the end result - that Certified Professional Midwives will be allowed to practice in Missouri. - missourinet.com

How cool is that!?

And here she is after. She's always beautiful to me, and I loved her long, wavy hair, but I think her new 'do is just so adorable!

Here's my sister, Chelsea, before she got her hair cut...

Where did the time go? How did my baby get to be 4 years old already?

We celebrated Luke's 4th birthday party yesterday. He had a race car theme with black, white, and green balloons and streamers and a race-track cake. Chelsea and I made a cake based on thiscake. We made one side chocolate and one side vanilla. Then we made a triple batch of cream cheese icing. Divided it up and added cocoa to one batch. We slathered the chocolate icing on the vanilla cake and the regular icing on the chocolate cake. The rest we colored green to frost the whole shebang. Served up with our old standby: Costco vanilla ice cream.

This party was unique in that we had people coming and going all day long. We didn't plan it that way, but several people had other plans that they had to work around. I actually prefer it that way, I think, because we got to actually enjoy some of our company!

Guests and Gifts:

Ben's parents: glow-in-the-dark shirt, huge chalk set
My mom: pirate outfit complete with sword and gun, Viewmaster
Tim: basketball hoop
Fishers: indoor basketball hoop, water slide
Jim and Pat (neighbors): sidewalk chalk
Jeff and Jenn (neighbors):bubble-blowing grill, 6-pack of root beer
Anna, Jeff, Tiza: Awesome shoes and shirt that you see in picture, game, other assorted clothes
Maschmann's: shark pool
Mom and Dad: Wii game

The kids decorated sun visors and just played and snacked.

We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Ben's mom and I just had a brief conversation about this topic last week and here Sara is blogging about it so I thought I'd post the info here Beauty Products: Make The Change. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the website http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ called Skin Deep. Sorry my link-y thing isn't working. Very frustrating.

Interesting quote from Skin Deep: "Due to gaping loopholes in federal law, companies can put virtually any ingredient into personal care products. Even worse, the government does not require pre-market safety tests for any of them."

Scary and gross. Be sure to read Sara's blog post about it as well. Good points!

Luke's birthday party is this weekend so I'm starting to get party prep rolling. We went to Costco today and got the chips and appetizers. Then we hit Micheal's where I picked up a craft to do at the party. The craft won't be race-car related, but Luke has all girl friends and I just couldn't find something that was car-related that a girl would enjoy. So they can decorate sun visors instead. That will be their party favor as well.

We are going to bake the cake and cupcakes tonight and freeze them. Then we can decorate them the night before or the day of the party.

Oh, I also want to pick up some sand to put in the sand and water table. If the weather is nice the kids can drive cars in the sand (no water).

We still need to hit the party store and get some green and white streamers. Getting pretty close.

Yesterday we had a nice day together. I made Ben a large breakfast. Luke was thrilled to give Ben his card and gifts. He was talking about Father's Day all day long.

Ben decided he didn't want to go out and do much so we stayed home. He played some video games and we watched Dan In Real Life (LOVED it) and Shark vs Eagle (total Napoleon Dynamite rip-off).

We grabbed some dinner and took a short walk up the hill where he hung out with our neighbors until about 10! Good day.

Chelsea and I got our hair cut today. I'll have to post pictures one of these days (I seem to say that a lot). Ben dropped us off and took the boys to Barnes and Noble for a bit. The appointments ran really long and he was frustrated, the boys were antsy, etc, etc. But Chels and I are both happy with our hair so it's all good.

The boys were both very "off" today. Luke was just a pain all day. He really needed a nap, but instead of just falling asleep, like usual, he just laid there forever. We finally just got up. Then Gabe needed to be put down. Then Luke asked me to lay down with him because he was tired. He really tried, but just couldn't sleep. He was so wired.

Oh and he got new shoes today. Came home, ran over to the empty lot, and jumped right in the mud. The shoes are made for puddles and such so they are fine, but I was too ticked to clean them off right then and that really upset Luke. Grr.

Paul came over and had dinner with us and then we watched Jumper. Pretty good movie. Luke went to bed pretty early, but had a hard time falling asleep. Then I had to put Gabe down and he had a hard time falling asleep. Grrr. Did I mention Gabe woke me up at 6:50 today? That is way too early for us.

Luke picked out a gift for Ben from Walgreens. He is super excited about it and all the other little gifts and cards we have for Ben for Father's Day. He just cannot wait. The anticipation is killing him.