Thanksgiving: Week 5

November 24: Thank you Lord for my mom, who watched the baby and cleaned my kitchen so I could get some shut-eye, and who does this kind of stuff all the time!

November 25: God, thank you for forgiveness. What a great message about Your forgiveness and forgiving others this morning!  If you want to take a listen, check it out here.  It was so good - I can't count how many times I've thought about it since.

November 26: Thank you Lord that my little girl is doing so well! The doctor said today that we can begin to treat her like a "normal" baby! What a blessing!

November 27: I heard a sermon a few years ago in Lawrence about how Christians are called to be good stewards of that which we are given, and that includes our earth. I've always considered myself pretty environmentally conscious - I recycle, I try to reduce uses of water and energy when possible, etc. but had never thought about it quite like that.  When we moved to Topeka, we found that curbside recycling was QUADRUPLE the price of what it was in Lawrence.  The city of Topeka has changed this, and we got our recycling bin today!  Thank you City of Topeka for making it so convenient!

November 28: Thank you God for my beautiful boy. He is so smart and funny, and continually causes me to stop and be in awe of Who You are. Thank you for choosing me to be his mommy.

November 29: We enrolled Charlie in Puggles (Awana for toddlers) this year, and I have been amazed at how quickly he is learning.  God, thank you that our son is taking to heart the things he is learning about You. Tonight in the car, out of the blue, he started listing things you have made - namely zebras, flowers, and chicken nuggets. :)

November 30: Thank you God for loving me.  I am consistently proving myself undeserving, but You in your mercy count me as Yours.  There are no words to explain love like this.

Bring on the Christmas

Growing up, the day after Thanksgiving was reserved for shopping and decorating for Christmas.  My dad was a huge stickler about giving Thanksgiving its due - there was no Christmas talk, music, or decorations until this day.  As a result, we got pretty excited about decorating for Christmas.  I have continued this tradition with my family, but my son has yet to be excited about this process.  Maybe it was the tree.  Here's a picture from a past Christmas to give you an idea of what we were dealing with:

It was fine, but there were lots of holes and, well, we just thought we needed an upgrade.  We are artificial-tree people.  Ever since my mom scratched her cornea on the sprig of a real tree while trying to get it in the door of our house when I was four, we have had an artificial tree.  And since they are so easy and convenient, and we are easy and convenient kinds of folks, we're sticking with the artificial.  So Charlie and I went to Walmart and found this tree.  Rick put it up while I showed Charlie a Christmas episode of Thomas the Train where Thomas puts up a Christmas tree (but he doesn't really...no hands, you know).  I was really hoping it would help him get excited about the Christmas tree.  It worked!  He started talking about HIS Christmas tree.  I broke out the decorations and we started in.

Daddy helped him put the topper on the tree.  You can't see it very well in this picture, but that tree topper is made out of cardboard, glitter, match sticks, and glue.  My parents made one like this their first Christmas together and they still top the tree with it every year.  We decided to make one our first Christmas too.  It's completely awful, but it makes for a nice story. :)

I saw a picture of a friend's tree on Facebook, and it was amazing.  Perfectly symmetrical, orderly, and only with freshly store-bought ornaments.  You won't find that at our house.  About half of our ornaments are old, homemade, or both.  Growing up, my grandparents gave us an ornament every year with the date.  Often, the ornaments coordinated, but they were never exactly the same.  Like one year, I got this one:

My cousins and brother got the partridge, the turtle doves, and the french hens.  Unfortunately, the year has rubbed off and I'm not sure which Christmas this was.  But when we left home, we had 18 ornaments with which to start our own collection.  This one is one of my very favorites:

For my second Christmas.  It makes me smile.

Anyway, the end product turned out something like this:

Perfect. :)

Thanksgiving: Week 4

November 17: A huge thank you to Kim Geer (whose website you can view here) for taking such amazing pictures of our family.  This is such a special time and we are so excited to have these memories preserved in such beautiful pictures.  Here's a peek:

November 18: Thank you Lord for doctors and modern medicine. Thank you that my son, with his 104 temperature, got in to see the doctor immediately and is now being treated for an ear infection. And thank you for his snuggles :)

November 19: God, thank you for my marriage. Thank you for commitment that runs deeper than feelings and love that goes beyond my imperfections. I am so immeasurably blessed.

November 20: I am so grateful to God for the friends he has placed in our lives.  We are blessed with wonderful people who love us and whom we have the opportunity to love!

November 21: I'm thankful for visits from my dad - Charlie and Lucy love their Pepa!

November 22: It's Thanksgiving Day and we have so very much to be thankful for, but above it all, I am so thankful for God's grace. It is because of His grace that all things good in my life exist at all.

November 23: Thank you God for precious memories.  

Happy Thanksgiving

I started a series of posts called "Thank Yous."  I thought it was appropriate to review:

March 9: My Husband's Helping Hand
April 18: Day Care
June 17: My Dad
July 21: My Mother's Day Gift
August 3: My New Sink
September 23: Dresser for the Nursery
October 1: Freezer Meals
Thanksgiving Week 1
Thanksgiving Week 2
Thanksgiving Week 3

I'm so glad our country designates a national holiday to giving thanks.  I know it is largely usurped by dinners and hot deals (and in some cases, Christmas!), but I am thankful for the annual reminder.

And the food.

Nightmare

I had a terrible dream last night.  I think it was the worst one I've ever had.  I'm not prone to nightmares, but this one was awful.  I dreamed that Rick was cheating on me.  It was so real - I remember which friend called me to tell me, what she said, how her voice sounded.  I remember Rick's face when I confronted him about it, and I remember the things I thought and the way I felt.  I remember what I said and what he said, and how my life felt like it was crumbling to pieces around me.

Then the phone rang, waking me up.  It was 7:30 AM and it was my mom, telling me she couldn't come over this morning because she thought she might have a cold and didn't want to give it to Lucy.  I held it together long enough to get through the phone call, and then I sobbed.  Wept.  Shoulders shaking, involuntary throat noises, gushing tears - the works.

Rick was downstairs and by the time I got to him I was in such a state that he was alarmed.  He said later that he thought something had happened to one of the kids.  It took me a while to get the story out, but once I did, he wrapped his arms around me, held me close, reminded me it was a dream, and assured me that he would never do anything like that.  I already knew this, of course, but the dream had felt so real.  So real.

This dream reminded me of how precious my marriage is.  My relationship with my husband is so very important.  After thirteen years together - eight of them married years - we have a pretty good understanding of the other.  But if we don't continue to work at it - if we don't make it a priority, things will start to slip and slide, perhaps unnoticed at first, and eventually they will start to unravel.  I have watched this happen in the marriages of several friends, and it has further convinced me that marriage needs to be protected at all costs.  This has been - without doubt - the most difficult three months of our relationship, but we are both committed to God, to each other, and to our family.  So though that dream had me running scared for a few minutes, I know I am safe, that my marriage is duly protected, and that I have nothing to fear.

Good thing, because getting cheated on would really suck.

Thanksgiving: Week 3

November 10: God, thank you for the co-worker who brought Charlie the monkey that has brought him so much joy since Lucy's birth.  It's name is Mrs. Brown, but since Lucy came home Charlie has begun calling it "Baby Monkey." Pretty cute.

November 11: Thank you Lord for my church family.  I was able to go to church last Sunday for the first time in nine weeks.  That is a record for this lifetime church-goer!  It was wonderful to see everyone and to be back in corporate worship.

November 12: Lucy is changing more and more every day, but one thing remains the same - she is LOUD!  When she sleeps, she grunts, snores, and whimpers, just like her brother did.  And when she snuggles, she purrs.  So I am thankful for baby noises. So sweet.

November 13: I got this picture in a rare moment when my son was both sitting in my husband's lap AND sitting near his sister.  He was reading Where Is the Green Sheep? to her, and it was another reminder of how precious my family is.  God, thank you for my beautiful, healthy family.

November 14: I am so so so thankful for my parents.  My mom has been gone for three weeks now and I can't believe how much we depend on her!  Her absence has been sorely felt.  Both she and my dad were such great examples of godly parents.  I am so thankful for them!

November 15: Today I am thankful for favorite childhood movies.  I ordered Home Alone online because I show it every year at school during our Positive Reward Party, and every year I have to find someone to borrow it from.  It was on sale cheap on Amazon, so I bought it and watched it. So many memories...

November 16: Thank you God for my education. Thank you that my parents sent me to public school, thank you for teachers who cared, and thank you for relationships made along the way. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, and it is responsible in part for both the teacher and the person I am today.

 

The Little Things

The last three months have been rough.  Here are some little things in which I have found joy:

• watching movies from my childhood
• climbing into a bed with freshly changed sheets
• club crackers
• online shopping
• adorable little baby girl clothes
• sleeping past 6 AM and not feeling guilty about it
• snuggling a sweet, sleeping baby girl
• spending the whole day in my PJs
• eating food other people have cooked
• peanut M&Ms
• knowing things are exactly as they were meant to be

Thanksgiving: Week 2

November 3: God, I thank you for my beautiful baby girl, who is 1 month old today!

I'm going to try to do a picture like this each month on her month birthday.  We'll see!

It's hard to believe I was in the hospital giving birth to her one month ago today.  She has gotten so much bigger and has developed so many new skills - holding her head up, chugging a full feeding in fifteen minutes flat, and staying awake!  We are so proud of her, and she has stolen our hearts for sure.

November 4: Thank you Lord for an extra hour of sleep!  It's truly amazing how one hour can affect someone who is sleep-deprived!

November 5: Thank you God for parents and in-laws who live near by.  Our recent experience at the NICU with Lucy would have been such a nightmare without them.  They are always willing to serve us, and often at a huge inconvenience to themselves.  Our children have no idea how good they have it with both sets of grandparents living near by!

November 6: I really hate politics.  It's not that I don't care about the issues - I do.  What I hate about politics is how divisive they are.  Have you read CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters?  When I think of politics, I think it would have been a perfect avenue for Uncle Screwtape to recommend to his apprentice Wormwood.  (If you haven't read the book, Screwtape is a demon of high ranking who is advising his nephew on how best to keep his "Patient" from being an effective follower of Christ.)  It is such an easy, quick way to stir up contention among people who may otherwise coexist peacefully.  However, I am thankful to God for the fact that I have the freedom and the right to vote, both as a citizen and a woman.

November 7: I am so so so thankful for my job.  Yesterday marks two months of being off work.  I can't believe how much I miss it.  I work with such awesome people and I am missing them daily.  I love working with kids and my building truly knows how to care for kids.  I am so blessed to work where I do!  God, thank you for the blessing of my job.

November 8: Lord, thank you for insurance. This week I received the EOB for my delivery and hospital stay - more than $20K.  Can you believe that?  I had a c-section and spent four nights in the hospital.  Crazy.  I don't even want to know whatour daughter's 19-day stay in the NICU cost!

November 9: God, thank you for my brother.  He is the greatest and I love him so dearly.  I can't imagine my life without him and I'm so glad my kids will have each other to experience the joys of siblinghood.  I love you, Al!

Yeah...we need an updated picture...

 

Chores

 Our Life Group at church did a parenting unit in which we read and discussed multiple articles about parenting and child-rearing.  One of the articles stressed the importance of expecting your children to help around the house, even though it will take more time (because they will be slow) and more energy (because you will have to redo it once they are done).  I have started taking this notion to heart and having Charlie help me with two things in particular - laundry and unloading the silverware from the dishwasher.

I'm assuming this will eventually wear off, but currently, Charlie loves to help Mommy.  When I asked him if he wanted to put the silverware away, he dropped the car he was playing with and said, "Ooo, yes."  I pulled the silverware tray out of the drawer and put it on the floor and gave him the basket from the dishwasher.  Three minutes later, it looked like this:

Adorable.

Laundry is the other thing he is helping with.  We have been going to each bedroom and taking all the dirty clothes out of the hamper and putting them in a basket.  We then take the basket downstairs and Charlie puts them in the washer, helps me transfer them to the dryer, and then helps me fill the basket with clean clothes to take upstairs.

It does take way longer, and I am definitely tempted at times to take over for the sake of time, but I have held myself in check.  Charlie is learning to follow instructions, perform tasks, and contribute to the household.  These are all important skills that will serve him well in the future.  I think our next task will be vacuuming.  He loves to help push the cart at the store - I'm sure he will love pushing the vacuum. :)

Thanksgiving: Week 1

Inspired by the Facebook trend to name one thing you are thankful for each day of the month of November, I am going to attempt to do this every Friday in observance of Thanksgiving!

November 1: I am so very thankful for my husband.  This has been without doubt the hardest semester he's ever had.  It may have also been the hardest two months we've experienced as a family, and he has definitely gone without sleep many nights.  But he is the most patient and giving man I know.  Last night he took the midnight and four o'clock feedings for me so I could sleep.  I argued, but he insisted.  He knows once I'm up, I'm up.  But if I can get back into bed quickly enough, I can trick my body into going back to sleep.  He told me to do that, and sure enough, I fell back asleep.  He was up for the next half hour, feeding, changing, and resettling our daughter.  Then he got up two hours later and drove to Lawrence for school.  He'll come back tonight, spend some time with all of us, and then stay up studying, doing homework, and taking care of our daughter while I sleep.  It doesn't get better than that.

November 2: Time at home with my baby.  She is only this age once.  She is four weeks old, so tiny, and such a precious bundle of cuddly cuteness.  My son won't let me hold him like this anymore, so I am soaking up all I can of this special stage of her life.