Enjoying every moment...

I just took this picture of Aidan napping in the "tent" I made in his room. He asked to sleep in it for his nap, so I made a little bed for him and he went right to sleep.

Last night, Seth gave me a belated Christmas present: Loving the little years: Motherhood in the trenches by Rachel Jankovic. I read it all. (it is a quick read-only about 100 pages). I laughed, cried, empathized, felt inspired, discouraged, convicted, and encouraged. I would highly recommend this book to any mother of little people. It was one of the best books I have read about parenting.

Let's just say that motherhood has been a real struggle for me as of late. Like, I don't know whether to pull my own hair out, lock myself in the closet, scream, or pummel my child....Seriously, a struggle. In my desperation, I have felt most like a failure, handling things the wrong way, aggravated, frustrated, longing for some "me" time, seeing misbehavior as a cause to ruin my day. I have woken up with a bad attitude, feeling tired, focusing on all the "things" that need to get done and how taking care of the kids gets in the way of accomplishing much. I have hated this about myself too.

Then, I read this book. And I breathed in deeply. I cried a little. Then I buckled up and realized how much I needed a change of heart.

Here is just one such excerpt that spoke to me:

As you deal with your children, deal with yourself always and first. This is what it looks like and feels like to walk with God, as a mother.
God treats us with great kindness as we fail daily. He takes the long view of our sin--knowing that every time we fail and repent, we grow in our walk with Him. It is easy for us to accept this, because our sins are, well, ours.
But our children sin against us, annoy us, and mess up our stuff. We want to hold it against them, complain about them (if only to ourselves), and feel put upon by their sin. We have a much harder time accepting that every failure from them is a wonderful opportunity for repentance and growth and not an opportunity for us to exact penance.
It is no abstract thing--the state of your heart is the state of your home. You cannot harbor resentment secretly toward your children and expect their hearts to be submissive and tender. You cannot be greedy with your time and expect them to share their toys. And perhaps most importantly, you cannont resist your opportunities to be corrected by God and expect them to receive correction from you.
God has given us the job of teaching His law and demonstrating His grace. We are to be guides to our children as they learn to walk with God.
Sin is just a fact of life. Is is the way we deal with it that changes ours.


There is so much more in this book...and it is super funny too. Be encouraged today mothers. I know I was.

I started my morning pushing past the tiredness of being up in the night with little ones, made some fun Mickey Mouse pancakes, built a tent, and read books under it. I enjoyed each and every moment, and I intend to keep my heart in the right place so I can continue to do so.

Christmas 2010

We had a wonderfully blessed Christmas. Seth's parents came to visit and stayed for 5 nights. We really enjoyed having family with us because we had thought we would be spending it all alone this year. It was a wee bit cramped in our 2 bedroom apartment and Aidan came down with an ear infection, but it was altogether quite nice. Aidan was a little overly excited about the "fresents" and wanted more and more (we are working on our manners).

Nora was as sweet and happy as usual. She has a remarkable ability to smile even when she is not particularly happy. We decided to start sleep training during the holiday because she had started a bad pattern of being up until 11:30 at night again. It was hard for me to hear her cry, but the results have been great so far and she is currently going down for naps with minimal to no fussing and she has gone to bed at 8pm the last 2 nights. It has been great for me!

We were able to spend some time outdoors and enjoy some nice weather before it got too cold. We also attended a Christmas Eve service at a church that we have been visiting for some time. The weather turned quite frigid and we even got some snow Christmas night and all the next day.

I always enjoy baking during the holidays even if it means lots of mess to clean up afterward. I made our traditional Christmas breakfast of chocolate chip cinnamon rolls and we had a non-traditional Christmas dinner of butternut bisque and bierocks. I also made gingerbread men with Aidan which has been another tradition for our little family. He loves to "help" me roll them out...and then enjoys eating them too. (p.s. excuse my messy kitchen--it was quite cluttery in our apartment and I was busy nursing my baby and feeding everyone else to care much about keeping everything cleaned up)

Now it is time to get back into shape and stop eating all the leftover Christmas goodies! 30 Day Shred, here I come!

Family Pictures

We finally got a picture of our family of four...These are the best ones of the bunch as we had two tired kids to deal with.

Merry Christmas!

Road Tripping

So, right around Thanksgiving, we decided, on a whim, to go to Pennsylvania for my Grandma's Christmas dinner. She has had the extended family over for this dinner every year since we were little, but my family never went because we lived like 20+ hours away and would go every summer to visit instead. So, being that we are only 10 hours away here in South Carolina, I decided that in order to make Christmas a little less lonely, we should go up for a visit. Granted...we traveled to PA the day Aidan turned 3 months (we flew and then drove a few hours) and I swore never to take a 3 month old to PA. It is funny how this trip just happened to fall on the weekend that little miss Nora turned 3 months as well. Different 3 month old, different trip experience.

We decided to get up at 4:45am on the day of the drive in order to get an early start. Aidan ended up waking at 4:20 and needing "his covers on" and then Nora woke 15 minutes later to eat. So, we managed to get out of the house and on the road by 5:30am with one sleeping baby and one very talkative toddler. It was actually really nice driving in the dark and waiting for the sun to rise. We had our pumpkin flavored coffee to sip on and stopped for breakfast around 7:00. We ended up stopping a lot more than I had planned due to Nora screaming bloody murder when she woke up or when she wanted to go to sleep. She just had a few very rough intervals, but slept a lot of the trip thankfully. We made it there by 5:30pm and had a nice dinner with the family.

Oh, and did I mention that my brother, sister-in-law, two nephews (one I had not yet met) and my mother were there? After getting this grand idea to go up to PA, I convinced my brother's family to come down from PEI, Canada too. Then my mom just had to fly up and see us all since all 4 of her grandbabies would be there. It was lovely being with family again.

Needless to say, the time there was well spent. The kids were great, we got to visit with a lot of my extended family etc... Nora got a bad cold the day before we left and spent our last night crying a lot and waking every hour or so.

We decided to split the trip home into 2 days and we drove down to D.C. and visited the Museum of Natural History with my brother's family. After that, we parted and drove a couple hours and stopped for the night. We have never stayed in a hotel with our kids before and I was seriously afraid it was going to be a disaster, but Aidan went to sleep shortly after we got there and Nora did too....except she woke a lot again because of her cold.

We woke to snow falling the next day and drove for a while in snow and then freezing rain. Nora was not a happy camper for this drive at all and it was a lot of craziness in our car for most of the trip home. We did, however, make it home that evening (a 5 1/2 hour trip that took us 8 hours) to the nice 62 degree weather in South Carolina.

Even thought the drive home was rough, I am so glad we made the trip with the kids. Nora has had a hard few days getting over her cold and realizing that I am not going to hold her for all her naps from now on, but things should settle back down soon.

3 months

Nora,

How in the world are you already 3 months old? I am so amazed at how fast you are growing. We went to your 2 month appt. a week late and you weighed in at 12lbs. 3oz. (5 lbs. gained since birth) and 23.5 inches (4 in. since birth). I am sure you are even bigger now because you are growing out of some of your 3 month clothes and will be wearing 6 month stuff soon. You are so long and you have the best rolls on your arms and legs. Oh, and did I mention you like to eat?
You are still not sleeping super predictably at night yet. You went through a growth spurt this month and were up eating every 2-3 hours. Mommy was not a fan. But, now you are settled back into going about 8-9 hours at night. You don't have a set bedtime because you will sometimes be up partying till late and then go to bed early the next night....you are happy to just do whatever you need to do. I like this about you most of the time, but wish that we could get you to bed earlier still...I know you will get there sometime.
You still take a really long nap in the afternoon. I usually let you sleep abut 3.5 hours, but you almost always want to sleep longer. You take abouty 3-4 naps a day and your waketime varies. Sometimes you are happy to be awake for 2 hours at a time while other times you need to sleep sooner than that. You will not take a pacifier at all anymore and you really don't like the bottle either. You have a hard time settling down for naps when we are at home so you often get riled up and cry pretty hard and then I pat your little bottom and you fall right to sleep. I don't understand this little routine you have, but it makes me laugh and you are so cute when you go from mad to fast asleep in a matter of seconds.
You are truly the most content little baby ever. You love to sit in your bouncer and you kick like crazy when you are in it. You can sit somewhere for a long period of time and if you are fussy you are usually content to just sit in a lap or sit near us, so that you can see our faces. You are very comforted by the presence of Mommy and Daddy.
You have the cutest scrunchy nose smile and you started laughing this month (Dec.1). You love to interact with us and talk and I can tell you are going to be a social little thing.
You have surpassed all my hopes and expectations these first 3 months and I have been so blessed by you. You love to nurse and cuddle and you bring me so much comfort at times it is overwhelming. I am so excited to see the person you will become and I love watching you begin to notice your little world.
Nora, you are a joy.

I love you,

Mommy

Let It Go

This week has been rather difficult all around. And I haven't felt much like blogging because of it.


So, this about sums it up for us:

Aidan screaming his head off, falling on the floor, Nora pooping on everything-including my bed, my wonderful menstrual cycle deciding that breastfeeding is not a good enough excuse to stay away, Aidan screaming some more, water coming out of the washing machine, messes everywhere, cutting my finger on some scissors, making Christmas presents, packing for our trip, Aidan screaming some more...

You get the picture.

As we were driving home last night from a friend's house, both kids were screaming. I was near to banging my head on the dashboard. It just makes me crazy sometimes...and more often when my hormones are out of whack.

I woke this morning with the determination to not hold on to yesterday's feelings, to let it go...to be at peace. I had some early morning cuddling with the baby girl, she laughed in her sleep as she was lying in bed next to me. Made some gingerbread pancakes for the boy's breakfast and now am sneaking a few minutes on the computer while the kids are entertained. I have to do an amazing amount of packing and cleaning today, but I am letting go of the anxiety and worry of how this day will go, and just letting it be. It's amazing to realize the power our attitudes have over our days.

Crafting:Crochet Hats

Here are a few of my latest hats I've made. Thinking about starting an Etsy shop possibly. What do you think?

It's that time of year!

None of these are perfect, but can't help loving the sweetness portrayed in these pics. Christmas is coming...and our tree is up (sans candy canes thanks to a certain little two year old that had a fondness for breaking and eating them).