1000 years

So at some point every day I end up holding Isabella. I hold her multiple times a day but a least once a day I get to hold her like an infant, she's finally starting to grow and at almost 15 months she's got some length on her. She usually crooks one leg up over my arm and lets the other hang, keeping time as it kicks out to my cadence. She rests her head on my the inside of my elbow, glancing up at me, comfortable, safe, content and she plays with my necklace. During this time she's usually tired, not worn out enough to put down for a nap but just cranky enough to allow me to hold her tighter than is tolerated in her now toddler-ness, so I take advantage of it. I pace up and down the hallway, swaying throughout the kitchen and living room, and throwing in a light twirl every now and then to keep her content and in my arms as long as she'll allow.

Isabella has an old soul, I'm convinced, from day one the girl has been pleased with the simple. She doesn't need the bells and whistles. She can rock a wooden spoon and pot drum solo, but ignores her light-up singing toys. She's the same way with music, she's not interested in the Lullaby's sung by jewell with their acoustic vibe and off set beat, she laughs when Addiston sings her songs she's learned at school or bible study (typically bible verses to the tune of row-row-row your boat) But start singing some hymns and the girl chills, we're talking trance-like-state, zoning-out chill, her favorite is blessed assurance.

I was raised in a church that sang hymns and I am so grateful that I know the hymns because I'm quickly learning that hymnals are a dying breed. The next generations won't know what it's like to take a dusty smelling book out of a wooden 'pocket' in front of you, and open it up to a given number during the song intro and fake being able to sight read! They'll only know the photo slide show behind lyrics of songs they hear on the radio, looking up at a screen instead of down in a book.

Anyways, usually I stick to the hymns, because I know they work! They don't put her to sleep, just zen state. And I can cuddle her, examine her face, see how she's changing, hold her a while longer. But recently another song keeps popping into my head, 'A Thousand Years' by, Christina Perri. I honestly don't remember the first time I heard it but it has popped up on my pandora station a time or two and I like it, the artist has a great voice and the music builds. I honestly don't know what the first verse is because I always get lost in the instrumentals, but the verse kicks in and her vibrato takes over and I'm in love! It's suppose to be a love song but hey what stronger love is there that mother/child-NONE. So I have been sneaking it in from time to time between 'amazing grace' and 'love lifted me'

Like I said, I don't know the first verse, so usually I just hum a little then start up with the chorus:

I have died every day
waiting for you
Darlin' don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

How true are those words?

I loved her before I knew her, before I held her, before I knew she was an old soul. There was a place in my heart that was blocked off, reserved just for her, a part of me that I didn't know existed, didn't know I was missing, until I looked into those huge blue eyes, and that piece of me came to life, and I wasn't just Lindsey or Addiston's mom, I was Isabella's mom, and she completed my heart, just like Addiston did when she was born, and just like any future children I may be blessed with will. She is mine and I am hers. 

While I wouldn't wish a miscarriage or a hard pregnancy on my worst enemy I think that because I my struggle to keep a viable pregnancy and struggling through 6 miscarriages the words of this song permeate how I feel as a mother.

I looked up the lyrics to see what all the song was really about and they are perfect, The first line, 'the day we met, frozen' is so true. She & her big sister are my hearts home! They will forever take me with them. The song was undoubtedly written as a couple's love song I'm claiming it as our song, Isabella's and Mine. Addiston and I have one, and now my baby and I do! 

If you want to hear the whole song here's the link: It really is beautiful! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKzQ9xwodVQ

Layover

Disclaimer:I'm posting from my phone sorry if the format goes wacky!!

So I'm sitting in the Norfolk airport waiting on my dear friend Kari to arrive with her brand new babe. It's my first time leaving my girls for pleasure and it was so much harder than I even thought it would be! I mentally prepped Addiston (& myself) all week and got her a little present for each day while I'm gone! I really thought she'd be all nonchalant & cool with me leaving since she's pretty used to Jared traveling so frequently but this morning we were cuddling (trying to delay getting out of bed) and she said I wasn't allowed to leave her! On the way to the airport a few hours later she said she was going to miss me and that did my mama heart some good.

I hugged them both extra tight wiped the inevitable tears and snapped a current pic of them both just so I have the most up to date memories possible!

Other than my sappy mom moments of the day we've been embracing summer!

I painted the girls bathroom a more kid friendly color, purple! Addiston loves it an thanks me at least three times a week.

We're occasionally practicing the riding of the bike and she's surprisingly good given how tiny she is!!

We've made a few trips to the zoo, story time at the library & to the park, however it's getting hotter and hotter so we're beginning to avoid as many outdoor activities!

Addiston just finished a two week parent/child swim class and while I'm not convinced she learned a single thing I would say she's about 15% more confident in the water, oh well!

It seems like the summer is flying by (probably because schools here start aug1) so we're trying to cram in as much as we can while avoiding the 95+ temp and insane humidity!!

Addiston's 3

This week was Addiston's Birthday! I really wanted to be able to catch up and post on her birthday but life's not perfect and that doesn't matter! 

I still remember vividly walking out of that sketch Chinese buffet with labor pains wondering if this was it. If the real thing was happening. After weeks of Braxton hicks and being 6 days past my due date I had lost some sense of hope that she was ever going to come out (even though I knew better) If you don't know the story it's here!

Well 28 hours later I was a mama! I thought I knew what I was getting myself into but as any parent will tell you, We had no idea! I still can't even grasp how I am able to love some else so much and I truly count myself blessed by her.

My first glimpse

She amazes me with ability to figure things out and her logical side-both of which she totally gets from Jared. However she has also begun to embrace the "it's my birthday and we're gonna do whatever I want: all-week-long, which I'm pretty sure she gets from me! So we did!

Tuesday morning began bright and early with a room stuffed with pink balloons! Jared and I stayed up till midnight blowing them up & putting together her table and chair set we got her from Ikea (where bella caught a cold!) I tried to get pictures but I was to tired to set up a tri-pod and to shakey to get a good night vision shot! She was so excited. We could hear her in her room, saying "ooo, where did all these pink princess balloons come from?"

We had donuts for breakfast! As one always should on their birthday! And then promptly put on our party dress to ride the train.

Notice the princess crown that my dad gave her at birth!

Around this time last year, Jared was still taking the train to work daily and Addiston was intrigued by the unknown and one day asked if she could ride it with him. In an attempt to not squash her sensitive little feelings he said that she may be too little but that once she was three she would be big enough to ride the train. Been keen, she said, "so on my birthday next time I'll be three, can I ride the train then?" He agreed in some way, because we both thought she'd surely forget such a promise. But at that precise moment her growing up skills kicked in and at least 5 days a week since then she reminded us that on her birthday she is allowed to ride the train with her dad. She has told, her MDO teacher, our parents, her sunday school teacher, & complete strangers in the grocery store. So a promise is a promise and our fear of scaring our child with trust issues for not allowing her to ride the train on her birthday gave way to a train ride on her birthday!

The rest of her Birthday Day was spent, playing, face-timing grandparents, and shopping. We went to dinner with just her (some friends of ours watched Bella) at the Aquarium restaurant. She got to pick all her own food: cheese sticks, corn dogs, and chips. All deep fried goodness, which as a mother makes me cringe because up until this point we have heavily limited the amount of junk she has had, (I know we need to loosen the reigns) but the girl takes after her mama in the fact that if something can be slathered in beautiful golden brown breading and deep fried well then by golly it should be! 

And one should always top off deep fried madness with Chocolate!

After dinner we rode the carousel which apparently is going to become a traditional Birthday activity! 

The night lasted past bedtime which led to a slightly unhappy bedtime but sleep came quickly to all members of the family! The rest of the week was spent in preparations for her Tea Party Birthday Party which was yesterday. I spent months scouring thrift stores for unwanted china tea cups and decorative tea pots, and after hoarding antiques in my garage we got to wipe off the dust and let go of the pack rat that I was becoming.

Eight of her closest little friends accompanied their mom's who were all adorned in their party dresses to enjoy, petit fors, cannolis, macaroons, tartlets, and tea sandwiches comprised of PB&J or ham & cheese (because we aim to please the 3 year old!) There were floppy hats, gloves, and of course pearls-because we live in the south and every little southern lady rocks some pearls! 

Present time was pure chaos-as it probably should be-she received her first pair of dress up heels which she has already practiced walking it. And her favorite gift was a doctor set (from a friend of mine who she claimed as her friend) each member of the family has been blessed by half a dozen check ups and at least twice as many "really quick, this won't hurt a bit" shots since we broke the seal on that one. 

Papaw was face-timed to assist in serenading the birthday girl to blow out her candles, and then we ate even more sugar! 

And of course what tea party isn't complete without pinterest inspired ice cream cups?

 We wrapped up the fun with some play time in the den, complete with dress up, jumping on the trampoline, and swinging. And because girls will be girls, she discovered that if one stands on an air vent in a fancy dress it gets even bigger-an important life lesson that we all must learn!

Friends slowly left and the house resembled something from the movie twister. The dog is confused as to why there is a table he can easily access and bits of cardboard box from barbies, and mini-mouse toys are being transported room to room by our littlest. We chose to ignore the mess, relax and pick at leftover treats for now, but I'm sure monday morning my OCD will kick in and there will be a box of treasured tea cups with good will marked on the side piled in the garage somewhere.  But it was worth it! The revamping of furniture, the sawing sugar cones ever so slowly as to not crack them, the scraping of sticky good will price tags off of the bottom of porcelain cups! Because she had fun, she got to sit at a little table, with her friends, and eat endless amounts of treats. She smiled when she "cheers-ed" with a real tea cup and had a real life tea party! 

Happy Birthday sweet girl! 

Tease (short catch up post-but there's pictures)

Sorry it's been so long since I've undated! Life continues to be busier than I deem necessary but with 2 little ones how could it be anything else.

Currently every member of my family is asleep, which is how I'm able to post mid-day. If I had the stamina to post at night I would but currently Isabella is in that wonderful transitional stage of learning to sleep through the night again post teething torture and Addiston still rises with the sun so my ability to string together coherent sentences after the sun goes down are slim to nill-sorry! Take what you can get!

Addiston is done with MDO for the year and while I am a little sad because I loved having a little alone time with Isabella, I am embracing the free schedule of summer!

Addiston on her first and last day of "school"

Isabella is growing so much I just want to pause time (during the day) she is saying a few words now: dog, dada, mama, this, and we're pushing Addy! She is so cuddly. Whenever she sees me she lunges for me to hug her even if she is in someone else's arms. It's good for my mama pride to feel so loved. She holds on so tight that sometimes I can throw my arms out and she's just there clinging on like a little koala bear. She gets so excited to see Addiston after nap time and in the morning. They both just smile and hug. I love witnessing the bonds they're forming! Isabella is more mobile now (not walking) so she gets into everything and she always has the same surprised/intrigued expression no matter what content she is exploring!

Addiston is usually good at keeping her favorite things out of reach but mostly she's cool with sharing. One of Isabella's favorite thing to swipe is a little mermaid tail. It's a tiny little doll the size of a cell phone that converts from mermaid ariel to princess ariel (the toy with tiny little parts all parents hate!) Well the tail is all squishy and I'm not sure why but Isabella loves to suck on it and excuse the terrible photography but this is what I see at least twice a day!

I'm so glad that the girls are getting along. I know we have a long way to go with the whole this is "Mine" stage and I am already in prayer for the teenage years, but even though it is tough having two little ones so close in age I hope that they will always be as excited to see each other and want to share their things and help each other! 

Speaking of sharing: we went Ohio not long ago for my sister's wedding reception and Isabella caught some sort of devil cold from Ikea (ok I have no proof but I'm blaming Ikea) She ended up having an ear infection & UTI. She shared her fever and congestion with Addiston who then was kind enough to share it with me! And coincidently the Dog got an ear infection too! Jared has super immune system and never gets sick or possibly was and we couldn't tell because he was already on antibiotics from having his wisdom teeth removed! So needless to say we got to spend some quality time with our Doc and all moms know how fun germy waiting rooms are! 

Somewhere in the last month Jared went to New york, I made a shotgun trip to Ohio to attend my nana's funeral, Jared got his wisdom teeth removed, we went to Ohio as a family, attempted to catch up on house work, and celebrated Jared's birthday! I let the girls pick out his presents this year (at Jared approved stores) and Addiston wanted to get him a basketball hoop and of course what dad of 2 girls doesn't need a pink basketball?

Addiston was so thrilled because she just knew that he would share with her! I think she may have had some ulterior motives when selecting this particular part of the gift but he was happy none the less! We were all recovering from the whirlwind of the last month and then this week was Addiston's birthday! I'll save the details of that for another time as the whole family has just woken up! But one more for the road!

Apparently Addiston wanted to be like Isabella while driving home one afternoon!

Easter & a flower girl

Both girls are napping which if you follow my blog you can see hasn't happened since March 19th. Eek, sorry for my inability to update anytime other than naptime!

Easter was a bit hectic with a long weekend worth of activities crammed into a shortened weekend if you factor in the travel time to and from Cincinnati. I love easter and I am so glad I get to spend it with my whole family but I also love my home church and am seriously considering making Easter our stay planted holiday and enjoy it with our little family of four and church family.

I'm trying to start participating more in practicing traditions and holiday decorating now that Addiston is old enough to realize. So this year we took up dying easter eggs. We did it a week before easter so we would have a chance to enjoy them before we left town.

Boiling the water for the eggs

Cooling the eggs off quick so we could get to the fun stuff

making the color

Checking to see if they're done

Putting them on the cooling rack all by herself

Adding some decoration

The finished product!

Addiston loved that she got to do most of the work by herself and honestly I was shocked that she didn't break a single egg. She was so cute while she was decorating the eggs after they were dyed. She put a basketball and rocket sticker on a blue egg and told Jared that was his egg because he likes basketball and he should go in a rocket with buzz lightyear. 

The day after we had our church egg hunt and while my girls had very little interest in finding eggs or eating the candy inside of them They did have matching egg hunt shirts that I made them-I am NOT a talented seamstress so I was super proud of my handywork! 

This past weekend was "Uncle" Nathan's wedding. Jared was a groomsman and Addiston was the flower girl so I had my hands full. A sweet family at church watched Isabella for the day to save me from certain insanity and exhaustion.

It was perfect weather for a spring wedding and it was so exciting for me to witness God's blessing of marriage upon these two sweet people whom I have been praying for to find each other for years.  We adore Nathan in this house and are so happy that he has found Whitney. Addiston has been referring to her as uncle whitney since the wedding so we'll have to work on that but I'm pretty sure it means that she approves!

I should have taken more pictures but I was preoccupied with this lil one and while I was missing my baby terribly it was nice to have a day with just one kid again!

She and the ring bearer got along so well and I thought they looked like they could be related.

When they made it down the isle the proudly exclaimed "we did it" and ran over to us to receive their candy reward which also doubled at keeping them silent throughout the ceremony.

She acted like a perfect little lady all day

She need a picture with her daddy and there were dozens of pictures of her with the bride. I managed to get one of her with her "uncle" Nathan and after all the photos were done she said momma you need a picture with me so we got a quick selfie before the reception started. 

There was no open dancing at the reception just the standard first and father/daughter but music was playing the whole time so Addiston made Jared and I dance with her every time we were standing.

The last few weeks have been packed with about as much as possible and I'm so looking forward to having a free weekend to catch up before Jared's work trip next week.Well boys and girls thats all the time we have for today I hear whimpering and thats my que!

8 Months & the Zoo

Both girls are currently napping which happens less than once a week so I'm taking advantage of this beautiful day with windows open and an iced coffee in hand while I get some things done. Addiston wanted so badly to take a nap with Isabella and tucked her into bed. Of course it didn't stick, and frankly I wouldn't let Isabella sleep anywhere Addiston at this point since addy's pretty much a helicopter when she sleeps.




Isabella is 8 months old as of yesterday.

She's tiny but strong.



She wears mostly 3-6 months size clothing but her feet are still so small that even newborn shoes have trouble staying on her little toes! She's crawling every which way and pulling herself up-both of which she's been doing since she was just about 7 months. She cut her first two teeth in one day, last week 3-13-13 and I have a feeling more aren't very far behind judging on the way she's been gnawing on everything in sight. She's eating normally now and I would say that peas and squash are her favorite. Teething has thrown a monkey wrench in her sleeping and my awesome sleeper who slept through the night from day 4 now wakes up 2-3 times a night just needing some comforting and once to nurse.


Our mother/daughter pic last night out to pizza with friends.


Her teeny tiny lil pony tail

Addiston is doing so well as a big sister and much to my dismay is becoming more independent. She loves to read-The Bible is her favorite, and she's annoyingly obsessed with puzzles. We have at least one tea party a day and there is a growing number of baby dolls and stuffed animals taking up residence in her princess bed. And on special occasions I let her play with my old polly pockets that we stole from grandma & papa's house!



She loves to have a bow in her hair and every time she's done getting dressed she asks if she looks beautiful. It cracks me up how girly she is already. Her favorite place to go is church and she has so much fun helping make coffee on Sunday mornings! She loves how it smells and pretends to drink it.



Last week we went to the zoo with some church friends and had such a good time. It was our first time at the Nashville zoo and while it was better than the central park zoo it still didn't measure up to my hometown zoo! But the company more than compensated for the lack of lions, tigers and bears!


flamingos-more affectionately know as "tacos"


The monkey


Alligators


We got to see the elephants up close and Addiston thought it was funny that he was eating the tree


The playground

Saying goodbye to the zoo



The sweet little boy talking to addy in that picture was so sweet to Addiston all day, holding her hand and making sure she could see, and the girl in the pink pushed the stroller when Isabella wanted to be held. It made made me appreciate friends who have older kids and made the day so nice!