long weekend

Ok so I know the official "long weekend" was last weekend but this past weekend seemed so much longer for some reason.

We chose home last weekend.  Out of all the balls that begged to be juggled, we made the unanimous decision to make home our priority.  Together we folded laundry, put away clutter, washed windows and mopped floors, leading up to this wonderful crescendo of church on Sunday followed by rest! And then we hit the ground running on Monday's holiday finishing up the business with some yard work and  outdoor maintenance which had been neglected for far too long. 

The girls were patient with us, they love each other and are already learning to play together!

The family time was beautiful and the house work was a necessary evil that we all must give in to on occasion as to not be featured on hoarders. The reason for the marathon of tidiness was not for piece of mind or general family health but for the weekend to follow.

The peak of a weekend's glory is all about the Friday night. It's the Christmas Eve of Weekend. Well this friday we had our semi-annual girls night. A few of my close friends and I gather at the Melting pot and spend hours poking and fishing out bread cubes and berries out of steamy hot bowls of cheese and chocolate while getting lost in conversation and embarrassing the waiter when he approaches the table while we are discussing things which probably shouldn't be discussed over dinner. We followed dinner with the latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation and called it a night after midnight-an hour I typically don't see unless it requires nursing a baby. I came home to a house that had obviously hosted boys night in and Saturday welcomed us with a harsh slap in the face as Jared and I stayed up till 2:30 tidying the house after our respective nights.

One of my dearest friends, Kari, was in town from Virginia this weekend. She and her husband used to live here but as is the custom in our age group them moved away, well now they are expecting their first little girl and I was so blessed to be able to throw her a baby shower.  


All of the cuteness the sweet little one received 

my pinterest inspired veggie "tray"

It was co-ed which worried me at first but it ended up being really fun, thanks to pinterest and some very easy-going guests!


yes those are grown men, decorating baby girl items! 



Sunday was spent playing catch-up and going to an open house.  Our house still recovering from the craziness, but we are good. 

These two crazy weekends sandwiched a sick baby. She hosted a fever of 130.7 which accompanied a panic striken mama and heavy doses of meds and cool baths along with frantic texts to my medical friends. 



Grandpa came through town today and as usual we enjoyed lunch with he and the daddy downtown.  

 

The girls are happily resting and this mama is catching up on Laundry on my Birthday-eve so that tomorrow can be spent watching Netflix and shopping! 

working title

A bit has happened since I was last able to post. As usual life is busy but really I need to stop using that as an excuse because who isn't busy. So truthfully my priorities have shifted and blogging is more of something that I do to keep friends and family that I can't talk to on a daily basis in the loop and i think I use this more of a virtual scrapbook/timeline for our lives since lets face it I have about 3 square feet of crafting space allotted to me and have no time to use it to make tangible scrap books! 

The super bowl happened, I'm embarrassed to say that I already forgot who played and won! But we went to 2 different parties. I ate my weight in appetizers, and our littles got some energy out.



Isabella turned 1/2 year old (today she's 7 months but we all know I'm behind)





I know she's the cutest kid you've ever seen!

I love my girls more than life itself - so much it hurts. I know my life is SO very blessed. But having two little kids into everything, tearing up the house, constantly pulling and screaming and whining and my house is a mess (some say it's fine but for me it's a mess) and my laundry is never done and my car looks worse than a teenage boys.  Do you know this feeling? Well that has become my normal, and I'm trying to be flexible, and go with it and embrace the crazy! So last weekend when both of our families came in and we had something scheduled every night they were here it was an adventure!

Jared and Addiston had a Daddy daughter date night at church and while honestly she may still be a little too young to appreciate the concept she liked getting dressed up and even had a good time poking fun at me that she got to go on a date with Daddy!



She was so dear and sat so still so that I could do her hair fancy. She wore jewelry and a cardigan as Jared claims all good church girls do and of course she needed a purse to match!





The contents of the purse were my favorite-she picked it out herself, lotion, chap-stick, and her superstar sunglasses! 



Jared and I had a much less glamorous breakfast date the next morning to pre-celebrate Valentines!



We didn't get to see Jared's parents for Christmas so we finished up our gift giving in the middle of february, which was perfect because the new toy appeal was wearing off.



The reason everyone was here was for Isabella to be dedicated. I know not all denominations participate in this tradition and some label it as something different but have proudly dedicated both of our girls and I personally love the sentiment! It's a public declaration that we acknowledge that children are a gift from God and that we will raise our children to know love the Lord.





Isabella got dedicated along with Nora, her parents are some of our closest friends and I just love that this is the first of many things they will get to share!



Our sweet pastor prayed individual prayers over each of the girls and it was so dear to me.



Our church prays for expectant mothers by name every week from the time a pregnancy is announced until the baby is born. This man prayed for Isabella from the time we announced we were pregnant about a year ago, he came and held her in the hospital the day after she was born and he presented her to the lord on our behalf.

My prayers are changing. And it's hard. I've grown out of praying health and happiness for my family. I have had to face some hard lessons the lord is working on we with and while I DO want my girls to be safe and healthy. But the safest place you can be is the center of God's will. And that's exactly what I'm praying they will always be in. Whether that's a teacher in Texas or a missionary in the Middle East. My prayer is that they will be bold women for Christ. That they will have a passion for Him. Period. No matter what path gets them there. And I think I'm trying to make sure I live that out in my life as well.

It snowed here a few weeks ago (As I sit here with my windows open because its in the 60s today that's comical) Addiston thought it was a lot of snow and wanted to go play in it, until she got outside that is.

And in case you were wondering, Isabella has been comfortably sleeping in her own bed for some time now. I forgot to post the exact date but my date stamp in my camera says it was January 21st! She's such a good baby and sleeps through the night so well that we really didn't have a big reason to kick her out but I don't want her sleeping in our room when she's 4 so better now than never!

She is also moving around so much more! Changing her clothes is going to take the place of wrestling in the olympics in 2016. She is so squirmy that it takes several distractions and often both of us to get her into anything more complicated than a onesie. She was doing much better with eating solids, not quite up to normal but almost, until she got an ear infection and that set us back but she's been there, she'll get back!

2 mobile children scares me! As many of you know I'm type A and my last year has had me completely out of control. It's life with little ones and I know that it's a season - but I find myself loosing it a lot more than I would like to admit. I've been so ashamed at how I snap at Jared or I get angry when Addiston refuses to obey when I've asked her something 10 times in a row.  It seems to just make my emotions get even worse and my world feel even more out of control when I don't like the way I've acted. I've been trying so hard this year to pray and have quiet times in the morning and try to get a handle on how I'm feeling.  (and the good moments far outweigh the bad......but I'm just being honest - I HATE who I am when I have those bad moments. I want to be sweet happy mom and wife all the time.) Luckily I married the king of patient and his relaxed ways while they can at time be the very thing that drive me bonkers, are the very thing I need to put things in perspective. 



This is one of the sweetest parts of every day! Jared reads to Addiston every night (2 stories and the bible) then they pray. Some nights he takes Isabella in there with him so I can straiten up the house or on the rare occasion take a bath, I love how much he loves his girls, and that he takes time to teach them and makes his family a priority! 

brief update

Sorry I have been cyber silent for a while we've been focusing on our little family lately and trying to set good habits for this new year. Silencing the phone's more, cutting back on screen time, spending more time as a couple. It's been a good thing but attempting to keep up on things outside our household while balancing healthy family time hasn't quite evened out yet.

Jared took a trip to New York a week ago and surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Both girls were awesome and let me get enough sleep and were reasonable about shared mom time. Addiston enjoyed calling her daddy and now feels she has to call him whenever she simply wants to say hi, which I'm sure doesn't distract him from work at all.

The main reason I wanted to update is for Isabella's sake. She is doing great developmentally; sitting on her own, inchworm crawling, babbling, teething, holding objects and grabbing things away from her big sister left and right. However, she is tiny as can be. She hasn't grown since her 4 month check-up and the doctor is getting worried about her. She was in the 50% when she was born and although she has grown it has been at a decreasing rate and she is currently in the 1%. She has little to no interest in eating cereal or other into solid foods. I offer at least 3 times a day and usually she'll take one bite and then refuse. We've taken to mixing rice cereal in a bottle simply to boost her calorie intake. I'm trying to stay positive and keep doing what the doctor recommended, but I feel a slight sense of responsibility since she has been solely breastfed until now. Luckily we have an amazing church family who have already begun lifting her in prayer and encouraging us, if you would join us in this know that it would be appreciated. We go back to the doctor in 3 weeks to see if she has gained anything and if not we do a blood panel and perhaps more medical testing if necessary.

So far we as a family have avoided sickness and this nasty flu season we seem to be having, hopefully that trend continues. Potty training is still a present practice in our house but honestly it has been on the back burner in my mind with all things Isabella considered.

Hymnal

Have you seen the craziness of MTV "My super sweet 16" ? If you haven't, don't bother, I'll break it down for you, the most insane blow out parties imaginable, for a 16 year old, live music, entertainment, 6 figure bills, usually culminating in a brand new car (Sometimes 2) pretty much your wildest dreams for what could be your sweet 16-on crack. 

My sweet 16 was no where near that! It was my family and maybe a few friends at my house eating taco's and cake. There was no blow out bash, the only singing that was done was in the slightly skewed harmony of my siblings and the echo of my mom's (and many more) I honestly don't remember what my parent's got me-I know it wasn't a car! But I do remember that my grandmother got me a hymnal. A purse size black leather gold imprinted, Nazarene hymnal. Let me tell you how thrilled I was....I wasn't. It went into a box that night and has been systematically moved from the top of my closet at my parent's house, to their attic, to my college dorm room, (where I'm pretty sure it leveled out my computer monitor when it was a bit precarious) to our apartment and now it resides on the top shelf of our tallest bookcase in the den. 

Tonight Jared took both girls into Addiston's room to read stories before bedtime so that I could finish up my bible study for tomorrow. After Addy was down Isabella got a little fussy so he took her back to our room to try and calm her down until I was finished, about 12 second later she was in a full on fit and I went back to rescue my mama's girl (you know I love it) A minute-maybe 2 later I came out to the kitchen holding a limp, sleep coma baby, and Jared made the that's-not-fair face. I told him the girl just likes hymns, you gotta bust out the old stuff to which he chuckled because there are many things that man can do but he can't carry a tune in a bucket. 

With a sweaty baby still laying across my chest I went downstairs and carefully got that dusty hymnal off the top shelf of that bookshelf down in the den because I was not going to be able to sleep tonight if I couldn't remember the second verse of "Love Lifted Me" which happens to be some sort of hypnotic trans inducing melody for our babe! Grandma would be proud!

So I finished the song-for good measure -even though she was out, swaddled her and now she resides in our bed, because well I'm just not ready to kick her out into her own room-but that's another story for a different night! 

We Wish you a Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year

Well we made it to 2013!

I feel like 2012 was a blur of craziness getting us here, but we had an amazing year. The high point obviously being adding Isabella to the family.

Christmas was good! We traveled to Cincinnati,  the girls (mainly Addiston) fully embraced the opening presents excitement! pictures:









Christmas eve was spent at my grandmother's house Christmas day at my parents. Jared's parents usually come down the week between Christmas and New Years but his Dad got sick so they opted to skip Christmas this year.




We got a picture of my whole family, I know we're huge!




We did all of the traditional holiday festivities. Cinnamon roll breakfast, lights at opry hotel, and Addiston even got to play with a little bit of snow-and when I say little-bit I mean about the size of her palm and then it melted! Oh and ya know, my oldest brother joined the next generation!






Sorry Tim-I was dared!

New Years was rung in at home with Chinese food and "It's a Wonderful Life" The girls stayed up and did surprisingly well. We pretended 11pm was midnight since we're both from Eastern time zone and watched the ball drop live.

We had the traditional Kielbasa and Saurkraut on New Years Day accompanied by black eyed peas since we live in the south now.

Life has finally settled down, we've put the luggage away till Easter and are in the process of getting the house back in order and catching up on laundry. Both of which were put on hiatus when I started a small fire in the kitchen last night and got to fulfill my lifelong dream of using a fire extinguisher. For those of you who haven't gotten the thrill, the ten seconds of blast aren't worth the 6+ hours of white powder clean up!!

In other news Isabella has started eating cereal and by eat I mean make a funny face when it enters her mouth and then spits it out.


And Yes! Her bib does say "my mom is hotter than your mom"