heartache for a world gone bad

For some it probably appears to be an unusual title for a blog entry. For others it might not seem so. For me it depicts a day of my life this past week.

With the new job I have this year I have been able to learn and do some new things as I teach about it to my students. While I was in Europe for a semester during college I had the opportunity several times to utilize public transportation. But here in the United States it is not a main source of transportation and have never had the need to utilize our public bus sytem here in the city. Since many of my students won't be able to get a driver's license they need to learn how to use the public bus system. On Wednesday this week we headed off for our first experience of the year. A first for me and a first for our new group of students. It was an adventure!

We were going to the Central Library and it took about an hour to get there via the public bus. When we boarded the bus it was empty but it began to fill up quickly as we made our trip downtown. At one point two men got onto the bus and sat right behind me. I wasn't shocked by their conversation but saddened! They were on their way to meet with their probation officers. For the greater part of 20 minutes their conversation went on about the time they've spent in jail, the times they were drunk or high on drugs. They discussed which drugs were harder to detox from. One of the men spoke about how he and his wife used to like to do meth together. While part of me wanted to roll my eyes that I was actually eavesdropping on such a silly conversation, a greater part of me wanted to cry for them!

When I think about raising children in this world it breaks my heart. I know my children have a sin nature and their sin is equal to the sins of those men. What breaks my heart is the temptations my children will grow up around. What breaks my heart is if they choose those temptations. What breaks my heart is with all of the training we will try to instill in them they do have a sin nature and it could potentially choose a path of life which is not pleasing to God.

As I watched all these different people choosing different lifestyles get on and off of the bus all I could think of was how heartbreaking it is to watch people choose a life that is not pleasing to God, how heartbreaking it is that those people will spend eternity in hell without the pleasure of being able to worship God. So my heart broke for the life I would have had without a savior, without redemption, grace, forgiveness, and mercy and my heart broke for those who will have that type of life.

Lost and Found

Amazing Grace

by John Newton

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.

And Grace, my fears relieved.

How precious did that Grace appear

The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come;

'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far

and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.

His word my hope secures.

He will my shield and portion be,

As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

And mortal life shall cease,

I shall possess within the veil,

A life of joy and peace.

When we've been here ten thousand years

Bright shining as the sun.

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we've first begun.

We went on a mini vacation last week. This was our first family vacation since we've had children. I made my lists and checked them twice. I packed us all up and planned everything to a tee. I made one mistake...thinking we knew where we were going. Josh printed off directions to the hotel and the other places we would be visiting while on vacation. We trusted these directions to get us to where we were going and folks, we got LOST!!! Not just once, or twice but like three or four times we got lost. Tempers flared, small children cried, and this mama was a titch bit (or A LOT) frustrated with afore mentioned husband. The last night we were on vacation I was lying in bed reflecting on our first ever vacation and was feeling a bit perturbed about getting lost when I had a thought or two.

The lyrics to Amazing Grace popped into my head while I lie there thinking. A phrase which stuck out the most is highlighted in the above lyrics. 'I once was LOST but now am found', such profound words written by Mr. Newton. As I am now very experienced in getting lost, I can tell you that one feels a myraid of emotions when lost.

anger

frustration

hopelessness

scared

confused

no direction

no meaning to what we were doing

alone

panic

These emotions SUCK (yes, mom I know I shouldn't say that word but it fits)!!! I hated every minute of being lost. I wanted accurate directions. I wanted to have a direction to head. Mainly, I wanted assurance of my destination!

Lying in my bed that night I thought of how thankful I am for my salvation. I would hate to be lost, like we were for just moments, my whole life. Those who don't have salvation are essentially LOST. They have no direction in their life. They are alone without God. Their life holds no true meaning. In the midst of trials and tribulations they are alone, confused, and helpless. How sad to live a life that way. They really don't have assurance of their destination after this life passes on.

What joy to be FOUND!

After we got home I apologized to my husband for my short temper and angry words about getting us lost. I told him had he not gotten us lost (repeatedly! :) ), I would not have had the chance to reflect on being lost and then found. I wouldn't have had the chance to be so thankful and joyful over the salvation the Lord offers each one of us. So moral of the story if you are FOUND the next time you lose your way take a moment to rejoice over what a precious gift you have in salvation and being one of the FOUND. If you are LOST take a moment to reflect on how scary life is being LOST and open your Bible up and read God's promises of salvation and being FOUND!

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me.

I ONCE WAS LOST BUT NOW AM FOUND!

was blind but now I see.

My Favorite Summer Memories

Last week I was outside and I could smell the freshly mowed grass. I felt the warm rays of sun beating down on me and suddenly I was transported through all my favorite summer memories! I thought it'd be fun to write a few down to remember! Without further ado, my favorite summer memories (in random order)!

1) The day we brought Adria home from the hospital! It was sooo hot and I remember the heat and humidity enveloping me as I rode out in the wheelchair to the car. I remember being scared of the heat being too much for my little girl.

2) SWIMMING! So many memories are wrapped around the swimming pool at my parent's house. My birthday is also in the summer so we always swam at my parties each year. Wink Wink to all my friends who have been a part of my birthday swimming tradition! :)

3) I can't exactly remember when this was but I think it may have been early college years or right before college started. My parents were away for a night and so my closest girlfriends came over for a girl's night. I remember we stayed up most of the night talking, being silly, swimming, sitting outside in the balmy summer night. It was divine! I remember how intricately woven our lives were at that time.

4) The night before my wedding when we were at the rehearsal I dropped my necklace outside the church. One of my bridesmaids went with me to find it later that evening. I remember that feeling of giddiness over my wedding and searching the parking lot under the moon light.

5) My wedding! It was a warm July day but not overly hot for once! It was wonderful. I married my best friend that day.

6) Finding out I was pregnant with my second baby. I was at my parent's house and was trying to clean the pool for them and I was frustrated because I was so nauseated that I couldn't concentrate on getting the pool vacuum to work. I think that was the moment I knew I was pregnant without even taking a test.

7) Being kissed in a cool summer rain.

8) Sneaking out of my house to my own backyard to go swimming with my friend in the middle of the night. (we weren't allowed to swim unless mom and dad knew we were out there) I'm a rebel what can I say!?!?

9) I have no clue how old I was but I remember it being the very end of summer and school had started and we were starting to get a few cool days. I remember my family being outside and my dad having just mowed for one of the last times that summer/early fall. I was hanging off the monkey bars on the swing set and I remember a feeling of pure joy enveloping me as I watched my family and smelled the fresh grass being cut.

10) Opening the door to our first house four years ago. We camped out in the family room that night on air mattresses as we were painting and getting new carpet before moving in. It was so exciting and grown up, I owned a house with my husband!!!!

11) We were in high school and my friend and I had been outside all day in and out of the pool. I remember deciding we wanted popsicles so we climbed in the car. It was so hot that day it was like breathing in heat when we got into the car. We still had wet hair, wet swimsuits and now wet clothes, as we had thrown them on top of our swim suits. We ran down the road to our local grocery store and stepped inside and the ice cold air conditioning hits you dead on. Then we took our purchase of popsicles back home and sat out on the crackling hot patio to eat them.

12) HIDE and SEEK across three yards with the neighbors! Need I say more?!?!

13) My first kiss!

14) The Panty Pirates!

15) Vacations with my family out to Nebraska to visit my mom's side of the family.

Summers have always given me the sweetest memories! Now that I am grown I can't wait to make more memories with and for my children. I hope they treasure the summer months as much as I did and do.

Time Flies

I majorly got off my once a week blog postings! It has been almost a month. May was a busy month for us. The weather has bumped back and forth between extremely rainy and extremely hot!





The girls had some vaccinations, it was the first time Adria was old enough to be able to talk about it and it wasn't pretty and it was Amelia's first vaccines.





Adria developed an allergic reaction to something and has had a rash all over her body. After an interesting week on a steroid where she ate us out of house and home that week, the rash left but also left us pondering what she is allergic to. So we will be heading to the allergist in June. After a lot of ear infections we also went to the ENT this month. Next week we will be getting tubes in Adria's ears. I think that is all for the health update besides maybe my lack of sanity.





So my lack of sanity is partially due to my perfect little baby turning into a two headed monster who refuses to sleep during the day. Have you ever tried to entertain a three month old baby???? It isn't very easy. I don't know what happened. She had been napping so well and then it was like a switch went off or her older sister whispered in her ear about how she NEVER napped either and so Amelia decided to follow suit. Who knows?!? But it is why I feel a twitch most days and probably why my blogging time decreased. I can't type more than a few sentences at a time. Currently, she is screaming her head off but Daddy is taking care of her so I'm blogging.





An important event happened on May 30th! My little sister who had been South Korea for the last year came home. I was able to see her today! I was very excited! I'm looking forward to having her around again and hearing about her upcoming wedding! Yes, she came home engaged to a very nice man from the Phillipines.

There has been a lot of outside time when the weather is nice and a lot of inside time when the weather has been rainy! For the most part we have just been living life and enjoying my time off of work! I'm looking forward to June and all that it has in store for our family!

Bedtime Battle Score: Parents: 5 Adria: 5,789

We have won our very last battle with Adria and bedtime. Yes, the score is outrageously uneven but we have fought the good fight and come out victorious!


The winning battles:

Battle 1: Baby Adria moving from our room to her nursery and the crib.

Battle 2: No longer walking up and down the hall holding her to get her to sleep. This took us well into the year after she had turned one.



Battle 3: Getting Adria to sleep through the night, it only took 2 1/2 years.



Battle 4: Moving from crib to big girl bed! Thanfully this was an easy win, but required us to still rock her to sleep and then lay her down in her drowsy state of being.



So after these first four wins we were happy but still discouraged at the overall bed time issues we were having. After Adria had gotten so big and we were still having to walk her up and down our hallway, Josh took over bedtime because my back muscles couldn't take that much weight anymore. Eventually we moved to just rocking her to sleep. This has been the norm for quite awhile now in our house. Every night Josh rocks her to sleep and every night he rocks himself to sleep. Most nights I was having to go gently wake him up so he could lay her down. We went around and around about how to tackle the bedtime battle. Our doctor even weighed in and we tried some different stuff. Adria is STUBBORN!!!!! And with two working parents she won, thus the very high win score for her! Maybe we were being permissive parents by allowing this to continue but I also say if you have ever had a bad sleeper you will do most anything to just survive the sleep fight. Try being exhausted for two years of your life, NOT fun. Consequently, we gave in to how she would sleep.





Over time Josh has grown VERY frustrated with the situation. While I felt for him I kind of enjoyed bed time because I typically had an hour to myself. But since that is very selfish and my poor hubby was suffering and because I was tired of allowing life to go on like this I devised a plan for Battle 5-getting her to learn to go to sleep by herself in her bed! mwhahhahahaha!



Phase one: THE TIMER! Did I mention that we had massive meltdowns every night when we said it was bedtime?!? Oh, I didn't? Well let me tell you folks the massive bedtime meltdowns were enough to make us flee for the mountains. In comes the timer and waaalaaa no more meltdowns. The timer is set and when it beeps it means it is bedtime.



Phase two: Set another time for the rocking portion of bedtime. She was allowed a certain amount of rocking time and then she had to get in bed and Josh would sit in the room until she was about asleep and then leave. Thus teaching her to fall asleep on her own, which she does at nap time everyday!



Phase three: Decrease rocking time over a period of nights. This went well too!



Phase four: Begin to decrease staying in the room until she falls asleep time. This is where the great error happened. Josh couldn't stay awake at this point and fell asleep in the chair.



Therefore we had an issue! We have been at this sleepy state of being for awhile now. After a late night talk with the hubby we decided to do a cold turkey approach and see how bad it is. For those who don't know Adria well, let me explain how she doesn't do well with change and transitions. We do a lot of preteaching and coaching prior to things happening. It makes life much more enjoyable if we do this. The cold turkey approach isn't something we typically condone.

Friday night we said let's do it. When we set the timer we explained to her what would happen tonight and I don't think she really thought us serious. But we did it. She screamed and cried for only a half hour! This was amazing! In the past at bedtime we have went hours of crying. We went in every five minutes and reassured her that we loved her and she was safe. After two prayers and lots of kisses and hugs good night and a half hour of crying she went to sleep. She woke up once in the night.

Saturday night we did it again. We managed only five minutes of crying time! It was improvement. Josh and I celebrated with icecream and watching half of Father of the Bride. It was like we were married or something and had a chance to enjoy each other's company again! She was up twice in the night and ended up sleeping in our bed (I was exhausted because our other darling daughter thinks she is STARVING every two hours. You fight the fights that are worth winning)!

Sunday night we did it again. She didn't cry at all. I'm getting ready for bed after I'm done typing this post. I'm praying that as the crying time decreases that the waking up in the night doesn't continue to increase. We'll see! But for now Josh and I are excited at the prospect of having a little bit of evening time together. We miss having husband/wife hang out time. Most times our hangout time is listening to each other snore!! :) For now I am saying we have finally won Battle 5!!!!

End of Week Recap

Well the best laid plans often BLOW UP IN MY FACE!! Okay, not exactly how the quote goes but true!

Friday was an excellent beginning to the weekend. I went to school and took care of some stuff there and then met Josh and Adria at the grocery store and we got that out of the way all before lunch time. We were feeling rather on top of things which should have been my first clue to the eventual blowing up in my face moment. After a quick bite to eat Amelia and I headed off to Target to pick up the pictures and buy the Easter basket supplies (I'm a last minute kind of gal). Then I stopped at my parent's house to drop some stuff off and that is when I got the call. Josh said Adria had woken up with a fever of 101. This is at 4pm and the dr. office closes at 5pm so I had him call very quickly and he was able to get in as the last appointment of the day. She has another ear infection. I was still holding out hope that maybe just maybe it wouldn't effect our Easter plans.

Friday in the night the poor thing woke up 3am screaming bloody murder. It was the kind of scream that terrifies a parent's heart. Josh and I literally flew out of bed and went running down the hallway expecting someone trying to steal our child. She was in her bed trembling and screaming. There was a spider on her ceiling right above her bed. She was immobilized with fear. I felt so bad for her. I scooped her up and out of bed and Josh grabbed a kleenex and killed it with such bravery! Adria was extremely feverish though! It had climbed up to a high 102 and so we fixed her up with tylenol and some cold water and tucked her in our bed. I don't think she would have went near her own bed.

Saturday morning dawned with an exhausted set of parents and a very sickly two year old. By the way, amidst all this middle of the night craziness Amelia slept through the entire event. Not only that but she slept from 11:30pm to 7am!!! And I missed getting a good night's sleep!!! Okay, so I was still optimistic about our Easter plans on Saturday morning. I even went ahead and baked the desserts and readied the punch I was bringing. I made my list and gathered items. *sigh* I felt crummy all day, but I didn't sleep much so I assumed it was that.

Sunday morning arrives and oh poop I have a fever now too! We are definitely staying home! :( I was very upset as I had been looking foward to dressing my girls up and giving them their Easter baskets and then spending the morning at church with my dear church family! I was looking forward to singing the songs we only sing at Easter and remembering what a precious thing the Lord did for us! Instead we read the Easter story to Adria while in our jammies! Our Easter dinner was mac and cheese.

Today we headed off to the dr. Amelia had her well child check and I was checked out too. Amelia is healthy and growing big. She weighs 12 lbs. 7 oz. now! I left with a prescription in hand.

Moral of the story folks: Don't count all your Easter eggs before they are hatched! :)

Busy week!

My weekly blog entry is late because I have been terribly busy (for once)!!! :)







Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I was busy doing this:

My sister and I headed up north to visit my brother, sister in law, and their newly adopted son, Isaac. We of course took the two babies with us! So the cousins were able to spend some quality couch potato time together as you can see! The boys are already protective of their girl cousin (notice the arms laying atop her in order to protect her from all bad things)!

We had a good time and the babies were mostly well behaved, minus a little bit of crying during the four hour car ride. I'm very thankful for the time I have had off of work in order to spend time with my family.

Josh and Adria stayed home and went to the Children's Museum and visited some family and cleaned the house. The weather was yucky the whole time we were gone.

Prior to leaving for my little vacation I attempted to go to church for the first time without Josh. Needless to say we missed first hour and was about 15 minutes late to the main service. Good thing Josh is off for Easter otherwise we'd probably miss the whole thing! :) We'll continue to work on getting out the door on time!

Last Thursday we had the girls pictures taken together in their Easter dresses and let me tell you I think my children are pretty darn cute! When I recieved the online access the next day I will openly admit I spent about a half hour staring at my beautiful girls!

Oh, and Saturday we went to my sister's house for a play date. The kids had a good time together. Other than those activities it was normal day to day activities. Lots of playing outside when the weather isn't rainy and household chores are what have made our days.

Exciting news: We are planning a mini vacation. We are going to go to Cinncinnati in July. We thought we would hit up the new IKEA store and the zoo and maybe the aquarium too. I'm excited but I think Adria is most excited about the concept of "vacation".

I guess that is about all for my exciting busy week! This next week shouldn't be nearly as exciting. The only plan on our agenda is Amelia's two month dr. appointment. Oh, and Easter with the family too.

Retreating!

Funny for the day: Adria was in the kitchen before dinner time. I hear her open the freezer and start digging around so I go out there and ask her what she is doing. She replies, "I want a special treat!" She then pulls out sausage for her special treat! I was cracking up. She ended up putting a bag of green beans on the counter for me to fix for dinner though. The weather had been nice until the rains came this past weekend. And it rained, rained, rained, and rained! This weather was not appreciated because I had the Women's Retreat for church this past weekend. My mom went with me and we had a nice time. Friday when we got there we sat on the balcony of the B and B and rocked away. Amelia obviously went with us as I am a milking cow! :) We didn't get a room with a sky light or jacuzzi tub like my sister and I did last year. We went out to dinner and then had a lovely time during the fellowship hour. The speaker was really good on Saturday but I'll need to go back and review my mom's notes because I had the baby to contend with. Despite the rain we had a good time and Miss Amelia was on her best behavior except for during the night time when I was up every hour and half to two hours. Last week we went to story time at the library. There were books about sheep so our craft was a little lamb. Adria was very deligent to make sure her lamb was technicolor! Very cute! We also had a toilet overflow on the main floor of our house which then flooded the basement. My darling husband was called home from work to help clean it all up! He was pretty good natured about the whole ordeal. I just laughed because how else can one respond to calamity prior to 8am!?!? Amelia was a super star getting her pictures taken until she got tired and hungry, then she was just super grumpy. They turned out well though. This week we are getting both girls' pictures taken in their Easter dresses. It should be rather challenging to get a two year old to look at the camera and not kill her sister all at the same time! Two boring posts in a row! Sorry about that!

Nothing of Much Importance

This past week hasn't been much of anything! That being said it will probably be a boring post, so I apologize now. At least you will be in the know! :)

We had several very bad nights of a few hours of sleeping for me which made for a grumpy household for a few days. Adria is continuing to have potty training regression. I am so sick of cleaning out big kid poop from her panties, so sick in fact that I just threw some away this week because I didn't really think they were salvageable. We also had some extra dr. appts. Amelia had her one month appt. and then from that appt. we followed up with an ultrasound later in the week for her because of the excessive spit up issues we've had since she was born. Thankfully what the dr. was looking for wasn't there which is good news! Then I had my six week appt. today and am very healthy and back to my prepregnacny weight. So in the health department we are doing well, minus Adria has had a cold this week too.

My mom has been gone to my brother and sister-in-law's house in another state and got home yesterday. She was visiting my new nephew and her new grandson! She is coming this weekend with me and Amelia to our ladies retreat at church. I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I need some refreshment of the soul and some time with my mom will be nice.

Speaking of going away, my older sister, who had a baby the same day as I did, and I are going to go see my brother and sister-in-law and their new baby in a couple weeks! I haven't been up to see them in over two years! Plus, I'm an auntie who can't wait to have time to spend with my siblings and there sweet babies. Amelia will be a well traveled baby after all these trips.

I have been thinking about how to fill the spring and summer days. I really would like to find some other moms to have play dates with or maybe a MOPS group to go to. I'm not sure if I have mentioned that Josh's work schedule changed recently. He now works a 12 hour shift instead of an 8 hr. He used to work five 8 hr. shifts then have two days off then work five more days and have three days off. It was nice! Now he works in a two week rotation...week 1-Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then week 2-Wednesday and Thursday. It feels like a never ending week. I hate feeling like we have no "week" and "weekend". It has taken some adjusting and the days he works are very long. This is the main reason I would really like to find some playdates or mom's groups to go to. Something for support and to break up our days. Right now we go to story time on Wednesday mornings.

Like I said this post was nothing of much importance! But if you made it to the end of this boring post I will reward you with some cute pictures!

Amelia "playing" with her toys!

Adria holding her sister for the first time!

The Top 5 Things I Love About My Children

Things I love about my children:

Adria:

1) Her beautiful hazel eyes with those curled up eyelashes.

2) A zest for life that can't be described in words...one look at her smile and you would know what it means!

3) Her joy of caring for her baby dolls.

4) The chatter I hear when she is playing with her Little Peoples.

5) The way she waits at the door when someone is arriving at our house in order to greet them!

Amelia:

1) Her soft baby skin, especially her little cheeks.

2) The way she gets the hiccups and then zonks out moments later.

3) All her grunts and squeaks while she eats and sleeps!

4) Her quiet, thoughtful personality.

5) Her very long arms when she throws them out and looks like she is directly a symphony!

You Just Do It

It is Monday night and I'm sitting on the floor holding a pacifier in Amelia's mouth so she will fall asleep and I'm listening to my very stubborn, independent two year screaming upstairs about having to go to bed. And as I was sitting here doing these things I was contemplating what witty and interesting things I should write about for my weekly blog entry. Instead of witty and interesting things I thought about what a rough week it has been. I definetly didn't want to bore everyone with a complaining blog entry about the rough week so I kept thinking and for once I had a few serious thoughts (rare, I know)!! So without further ado, I give you my serious thoughts for the day, week, maybe even month!

I wrote several paragraphs and then had a few more deep thoughts and deleted every last word and decided to start again. I first began by explaining a lot of the bad things that happened this week and how I had been thinking about how the parents of kids that have disabilities do it everyday with all the hard stuff. I was especially thinking about my kids at work and how I would cope with being their parent. At first my initial thought was what I have heard in the SPED world...You Just Do It, hence the blog title. You get through the hard stuff as parents by JUST DOING IT.

I was reflecting on that YOU JUST DO IT statement when I realized how warped it is. Those parents don't JUST DO IT. A lot of my parents aren't holding it together. I surely wasn't holding it together this week and I definetly was not JUST DOING IT! I was sucking at parenthood. I had a bad attitude. I wasn't kind to my child during the poop picking up incident.

I guess I should remember, more often given my poor attitude this week, that you just do it WITH GOD!!!!! Yes, parents can JUST DO IT but they won't do it well or correctly without God in the picture. Sure, my kids were fed, clothed, taken care of, had toys, disciplined, etc this week but yet I wasn't being a godly parent by doing it myself. I have been trying to teach Adria to do everything with a happy heart because it makes Jesus happy and pleased with us. KATIE PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH! I can be a mom who cares for her children while grumbling and complaining or I can have a happy heart while I care for my children and truly feel joy only the Lord can give a mother as she is cleaning up toddler poop off the carpet, her feet, the bathroom floor, and the toddler too.

So those are my deep thoughts. Phew, exhausting! :) Lord, transform me into a mother who does it with YOUR help, guidance and joy!

Smelling Funny Takes Effort

8 Rules to live by if one wants to smell funny:

1) Have a baby and then 2 years later have another baby.

2) Shower every other day or as small children permit.

3) Have a husband who works 12 hours a day (not by choice) thus leaving you with no time to take care of rule 2.

4) Dab..no second thought bathe in baby spit up...projectile spitting up helps this process and cuts down on your time dedicated to this rule.

5) Now if you are questioning how helpful the spit up will be in making you smell funny make sure to have your two year old touch your clothes and hair after each meal leaving traces of differing foods on you.

6) GET DIS...baby crying..TRAC...dogs need let out...TED ...while attempting to go brush your teeth first thing in the....breakfast needs to be cleaned up...MORN...baby needs fed...AFTERNOO...lunch needs to be made...N!

7) Change your clothes and then quickly grab the baby and see rule 4...make sure the laundry fresh smell is gone before leaving the bedroom.

8) Never ever under any circumstance participate in any hygiene rituals before noon.

So besides being paranoid about smelling funny we haven't been up to too much in the past week. Josh's work switched to 12 hour shifts and a new rotation schedule. Yesterday was our first 12 hour day. It went okay but is a long one for sure! We had another one today. Then we will have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to finish the week out. Hopefully they continue to go well.

The weekend was quiet for the most part. Saturday was busy around the house and Sunday Josh and Adria went to church while Amelia and I stayed home.

Friday morning I had a dr. appt. and so my mom kept the girls while I was gone. I had severe separation anxiety. I barely made it home in time for the next feeding. I forgot how nerve racking it is to leave a baby (even with someone you trust).

Thursday was a big day for our family. My brother and sister in law have been long awaiting the arrival of an adopted child and it finally happened on Thursday. The 22nd of February, when my sister and I delivered our babies, my brother and his wife got the phone call saying there was a baby available. And on Thursday the parents signed away their parental rights and little baby Isaac Richard got to come home!!! We now have three babies under 2 months old in our family! What a special year and season it has been.

Wednesday, the girls and I went to my mom's house for the day to get rid of some of our cabin fever. It was nice to take a nap and relax in someone else's house!

That is about all we have been up to the past week. We'll see what the rest of this week brings!

All Things New

A balancing act of all things new. Week two of being a mother of two has been a balancing act of all the old things that are now new because we are dealing with two. Quite a mouthful!

Amelia has been growing, eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping. I'm sure everyone is at peace knowing all of that. I'm hoping to post some very darling pics of the cutie after I go to my parent's house to use their computer to get all my pictures off our camera. I've had some technical difficulties with our computer and camera being compatible. Amelia is an angel. She is so quiet and her personality is so different than Adria's now and when she was a baby. I think Adria got her mama's spunk and pizzzazzz for life while Amelia is quiet like her father. Each girl is so unique. It will be fun to watch them grow up together.

Josh went back to work yesterday. While Josh was off time seemed to fly by. I was definetly ready for Daddy to go back to work though!!! He gets a little stir crazy being home for that long. He was a huge help though the whole time he was home and so I am very thankful he was able to take off as long as he did. He and Adria went to the Children's Museum, ran errands, went to the library, and a few other things throughout the week in order to give me some rest and recooperation time with Amelia. It was good for Adria to get out of the house and have some one on one time with Daddy too.

Adria has finally begun to adjust to her new life with a sister. She has been doing better overall with the tantrums that errupted the first few days home with baby sister! Her frustration over all these changes has only come out once toward her little sister. One day over the weekend she yelled at Josh to put baby sister in pack and play NOW!!!! HOLD ME! Otherwise, she loves her sister and seems to dote on her rather well. She is constantly surprising me at how big she is getting. We began letting her play outside on the deck by herself. She loves to be outside no matter the temperature. Her speech is also getting so much more complex. We were eating breakfast together yesterday morning and we were both being quiet when suddenly she yells out DUUUUUU-LISHUS!!!! She then stated it was the best dinner ever! (Yes all meals are dinner). So now you may ask well what culinary delight did I make for her?!? CEREAL AND TOAST.

I cook gourmet, what can I say! :)

New Fodder for Our Life

So obviously I am not an avid blogger, blog stalker-yes, blogger-not so much! So much to everyone's great glee I will write a post this morning. I'm feeling rather peppy! You see, I had more than three hours of sleep last night, maybe close to six!! Why is this you ask? Well, Amelia Jane was born on February 22nd, 2011 and we are at week one of the no sleep crusade brought to us by our bundle of darling cuteness!

Amelia's stats: Born at 5:10pm weighed-8 lbs. 6 oz. head circumference-13 inches and length-23 inches.

In honor of this momentous occassion I shall enlighten everyone with 10 good ol' fashioned parenting moments.

1) Butt sniffing is not only done by the dogs in our home. Once again it is regular practice to be sniffing the bum of our newest child!

2) My darling husband went the better part of a day with his shirt inside out and even when he finally noticed he didn't bother to turn it the right way!

3) At the doctor yesterday Amelia peed all over me and I forgot and wore the shirt the rest of the day.

4) My husband paid bills online at 2am as there was nothing better to do while up with our Amelia!

5) "Don't poke her eyes, pull her arm, yank her hand" are all common catch phrases in our home, directed at our 2 year old!

6) Showering is a luxury item and only done every other day.

7) We have LIVE bathroom performances daily for anyone wishing to watch due to the door being left open in order to make sure the 2 yr. old does not love the baby to death in the few short moments it takes to relieve oneself.

8) I can now fall asleep midsentence like an elderly person.

9) While enjoying an early morning bowl of bran flakes made in a low light situation my husband began munching away and half way through started chewing on some plastic. It was a new box and he must have got some plastic wrapper in it when he cut open the bag.

10) *THIS IS MY FAVORITE* On the last day at the hospital Josh was changing Amelia's diaper and then sat down to hold her. A little bit later he stood up and started to walk across the room and he had a diaper stuck to his butt like a tail. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to bust my stitches!

These were accumulated the first week of Amelia's life. Going from one kid to two has been an adventure so far.