Too many emotions...no right words

I had planned to post about pregnancy today.....to lament the nausea and explain this budding romance with my finale.....but my emotions are to up and down and my heart too broken to talk about happy things like babies and such, because I learned this morning, before I even had a chance to take a seat in church, that one of the young moms in our church lost her sweet 3 week old son this morning to SIDS. So while I feel an array of emotions (nonetheless heightened by my surplus of hormones) I am so acutely aware tonight of how there is so much that has nothing to do with me.

I almost laughed when Anita shared the news this morning with me.....my brain did not process or compute that Savannah had lost Isaiah. I denied it possible, as if saying it were false, would make her retract the information. I stood in the church stunned, when my breath returned to me and my brain wrapped around the information, my heart shattered. How? What? That's not possible, she just posted pictures online this weekend of him.....he was wearing clothes that had been Liam's and I had stopped to smile at her sweet boy who was wearing something my sweet boy had worn last year. He was healthy, fine.......he was.

My heart years for hers......we weren't close friends.....church acquaintances at best. She had only just begun Bible study with the ladies in the session I had taken a break from and my little one isn't big enough to play in MNT and my big one is in school, so I've not been terribly plugged in with the newer moms to the church. This kind of sorrow....not just pain, but torment and sorrow is not something that one would wish on an enemy, let alone a young mother. Ugh...as if the nausea wasn't bad enough...I feel ill at the terror they must have experienced upon waking this morning.

No matter what any person says about abortion and pregnancy in the "Pro-Choice" arena....the moment a woman learns she is pregnant forever changes her life. You can never "stop" being a mother once you conceive life. You can't forget it, hide it, or terminate it. It will always be a part of you, regardless of the final outcome. I can never be just a mom of two anymore....my life has created 3 and I will always have 3 children. Savannah stated on her FB wall that her faith is bringing her hope and she is grateful for her 24 days with Isaiah.....there's nothing to be said to comfort her, so telling her all will be well and time will heal it.....pain is just pain. Life is hard, sorrow hurts, sometimes there is nothing on this earth that can "fix" anything.

So I pray....I pray for each one of them. I pray every moment she comes to mind....and today it seems like she is constantly on my mind. I beg God for peace, command the Spirit to empower her, demand Satan away, and weep as she must simply be crying herself to sleep tonight.

I held my babies a little tighter tonight....let my little fall asleep in my arms....snuggled my big while he watched cartoons and prayed that God would grant me another day with my loves.

Enough rambling....I feel as if I've thrown all my emotions in an incoherent mess of words. So pardon the mess. But before you click off....pray for Savannah.

Yeah Baby!

Bean loves throwing his hands in the air and doing his version of "Yeah"!

Building Bears for the Boys

Bean received a gift card for his birthday and MJD has been begging to do a build a bear for a while....so post hair cuts we went to the mall for a fun day together :)

Picking out bears...

Adding sounds...

Stuffing bears....


Adding a heart.....

Bean waiting for his to be ready....

Cleaning the bears....

Getting Birth Certificates

Collecting a house and going home with new bears!

Little dude and a new do

We went up to Little Divas and Dudes this morning for Bean to get a real haircut. (Mama has trimmed it but it wasn't so great and not worth risking an entire cut.)

He was not so much a fan of the experience and rather than sitting nicely and watching Baby Einstein I had to hold him while he screamed :(

But a hair cut was accomplished...boogers and all!

Trying to sit in the chair alone....didn't last long!

Not liking this!

Is it almost over??!?!?!?

Save me Daddy!!!!

All done and with spikeys....no worries, Nena, the lady did it to see how it would look. MJD isn't a fan of it and Mama doesn't have hair gel at home so we won't do it often :)

Giggles

Seasons

I have never been the kind of mom who laments a baby growing up. I have learned to love the different seasons and stages my boys go through. With that said....I know this season in my life is complicated, to say the least.

My days are the best functioning part of my day and even that isn't great. With MJD at school in town 3 mornings I try to get errands run and stay in town with minimal driving. So my non preschool days have been jam packed lately, I have dropped off my boys with my MIL when I feel too sick to blink. (And a shout out to a very helpful and kind MIL who has graciously stepped in and helped in many ways.) So after thought, reflection and my soundboard husband I am scaling life back a bit, which sadly I have included cutting back my weekday women's Bible study.....

I could come up with a millions reasons to justify it and a million reason why I should be there....but today I played with my boys, stopped everything for snack on the kitchen floor, baked brownies with my big, made dinner at home, had the power go out during lunch and went on a spur of the moment run for lunch, napped with my sweeties, made a pet store and built a Lego town.....and intentionally had a fun day!

So while I can't control all the things in life, I can be intentionally in control of making sweet memories with my littles.

Little Things

Somedays I just have to be grateful for the little things in life that make a big difference....like a quiet dinner with my man at Chipotle after an unplanned trip to the doctor for an ultrasound. Nothing like sparkling grapefruit juice and an ultrasound photo to help end a crazy day.

First Date

Last week Mason's "girlfriend" Hannah needed a ride home from school. So we arranged to take her home. MJD was so excited about taking her home that he insisted we go to lunch so he could take her on a date!

Mind you it was chaperoned by parental units and a baby brother :) Besides, with all of the talk MJD does about Hannah, Daddy wanted to meet her and see if she was ok.

Little bit

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.
James 1: 17

8 weeks

10 weeks

The Things He Says....

I love my during the day conversations with MJD.....sometimes he takes my breath away with his wisdom and other times he makes me giggle like crazy with his silliness.....lately we've been having the same conversations over and over.....

MJD: Who is your most all favorite boy?

Me: Daddy.

MJD: Why?

Me: Because I love him and married him.

MJD: Who is your favorite boy?

Me: Mason.

MJD: Smile....Who is your favorite baby boy?

Me: Liam.

MJD: Smile and sit quietly.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MJD: Hannah is my girlfriend. Why?

Me: I don't know, why is she your girlfriend?

MJD: I love her.

Me: Why do you love her?

MJD: She is good and nice and shares toys.

Me: So you want to have a nice girl?

MJD: Yes, she doesn't go to Tucker Turtle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MJD: Hannah is my girlfriend. But I don't want to tell the other girls because I don't want to disappoint them.

Tim: Where does he get this stuff?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MJD: Are you taking care of my baby girl?

Me: Yes, I am taking care of the baby. But you know it might not be a girl?

MJD: But we already have a boy.

Me: Yes, but God might give us another boy and that is okay. If you want a baby girl you will have to ask Jesus.

MJD: I already did that.

Me: Then just keep praying for what you want, but if we have a boy that is good too.

MJD: I told you, I already asked Jesus.

Me: Ok then.

Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party

What a super fun time celebrating our little hungry caterpillar turning one....wish we could have thrown a super big shindig with everyone we love, but we just couldn't do it this go around....

The big Birthday Boy!!!
Bean's little lady who he adores....Audrey
Papa flying Liam into the balloons. Liam loved waking up to all the balloons in the morning!
Getting ready for the smash cake :) Isn't it adorable?!?
This is kinda cool!
What do you mean use my hands and get dirty???
All he really wanted was to eat the M&Ms and have a spoon :)
The only damage he did.....

Preparing for the party.....

So because Bean's birthday feel on the week of Easter, we pushed back his birthday party to this past weekend. And I am so glad I did because while this was my smallest budget and lowest scale party to throw all the ick I have been going through with Baby #3 I sure was glad for the extra time. Plus, since I had to scale back it was hard to decide who to invite and such. In the end we decided to just do family and his "baby" friends that he sees regularly and "plays" with.

This party, I felt like the theme was perfect.....The Very Hungry Caterpillar! Since Bean spent his first year eating and crawling his way through everything it seemed appropriate :)

I had hopes of getting all the food that was in the book as the lunch menu....but that didn't happen and I was too "sick" to deal with some of them so I opted for Bean's favorite snacks and ordered pizza....it was perfect. To label everything and add decorations I found caterpillar images online and then Photoshoped them into tags to make myself.

Cupcake caterpillars with M&Ms
The chocolate cake was in the book....I even made the caterpillar and all the decorations on it myself. Casie was great and baked and iced the cake for me while I worked on the fondant. (Thanks for the directions Kristin!)
I used pictures of Bean's first year around the house
I took all my primary colors from the book and made a birthday banner and name banner for his chair.
Added a package of balloons and roll of streamer to the ceiling so they would hang down and add color. The large caterpillar on the wall was just 12" circles out of cardstock....

This was probably my favorite part. I just cut out circles for a caterpillar and added a photo of Liam from each month to the body. He loved looking at pictures of himself :)

And we had a copy of the book out for people to sign and say Happy Birthday to him so he can keep it when he's older.

There were a lot of cute ideas online and several other things I wanted to do and get done, but it just didn't happen and it's quite okay. I was super happy how things turned out and Liam had a lot of fun and that is all that matters. I wish I had taken photos of the favors and other things, because there are a few things missing, but so goes my life right now :)

Please explain

How did this......

transform into this.....

SO QUICKLY?????

Butt kicked

I love that my body is able to create another human life. But Holy Batman! This pregnancy is kicking my butt :/ Feel sick half the day, hate being around food, utterly EXHAUSTED! My house is dirty, have no energy to hang with friends, pee like crazy and can't sleep well at night which results in pawning off children during the day to try and recover.

This too shall pass, right?

Easter 2012

Our family is so excited to celebrate another year praising our Savior. Hope you had a wonderful Resurrection Sunday. We even were able to get both boys dressed to match and clean to church on time :)

You do the math....

So today people will begin to receive a very interesting card from our family.......

Yes, folks...if you can't do math or figure out the card, Tim and I are expecting baby #3 into our family coming this Nov!

You're surprised?

HA! Me too!

Please don't get me wrong, we are very happy to have a healthy heartbeat and be blessed by God with another little life in our home. However, we were not trying to get pregnant and in no ways planning on this new addition, so it came as a shock when after the stomach bug hit our home I was a few days late and in an effort to appease my husband's fears I succumbed to a test and the little stripes went from a straight line to a bright + sign!

Oi! When we found out in mid-February about this news we were in some serious denial. Me more than Tim. I think he was more excited than I was, and my freaking out just freaked him out. So much so that we kept it under wraps til now, a couple weeks into April. A huge wave of fear seriously felt like it was going to engulf me. Really, God this was not in the plan book for this year!? Didn't you get the memo, Lord!?

I had just begun a hard core workout training session at the gym to regain control of my body....I was on the down side of nursing and looking forward to not sharing my body with another human again. I was contemplating possibly going to work again if my parents came back home so as to help us out financially. How is this going to be ok now?

After the denial passed, He started to remind me that I am SO not in control of my life and His plans are far more perfect for my life than what I may plan. So with that I take comfort.

And when I think about it....really honestly let my heart ponder all this....I know in the depth of my heart how wonderful a new child will be for us. Even if the timing is not what we would have chosen. That God is the only giver of life and for Him to entrust us with a new life is a great honor and privilege. That if this is my "complaint" then I am foolish. My fears and concerns are truly rooted more in my selfishness than in anything. That this sweet child is so precious and totally necessary to the completion of our family, so much so that God would interrupt our comfy, cozy lives to show us how much we need this babe.

And if you missed my sharing the story with you before, MJD has for months, been talking about wanting another baby in our family. Not a lot more, just one, he says. He even made it his wish at school a while back and came home with a project that said...."Twinkle, Twinkle, little star. If I could have one wish.....I want Mommy to have one more baby."
No joke, folks. Apparently I shouldn't have laughed back then! Cause God certainly heard his wish. And yes, he is just now finding out about the baby. Tim wanted to wait till we had a heartbeat before sharing the news with folks and we knew if we told MJD, then he'd tell the world.

Our little crew of 4 is now soon going to become a posse of 5. Thankfully I can fit 3 car seats in my car, (yes, that first week I learned about the new baby, I insisted Tim arrange the car to check!) we have bunk beds in MJD's room already, and if it's a boy again then we are well stocked in the world of Cars and Matchbox trucks. And should we be given a girl then our little world will be turned upside down with pigtails and paisley, I've always wanted to shop for a little girl. (On a side note.....I have had terrible all day morning sickness that makes me feel horribly miserable and requires medication...... I read online that women with such symptoms were 50% more likely to have girls....so maybe we will have some pigtails in this house after all. But either way, it's quite ok.)

(If you are reading this and you are an out of town follower....and haven't had a card show up, sorry to ruin the surprise. Your card should be there by Monday!)