New Beginnings and Bittersweet Endings

My sweet girl just started going to preschool. This past fall we started thinking about putting her in some type of preschool or MDO when the new year started. It is something Eric wanted to do for a while, but I was hesitant and financially we weren't in a position to entertain the idea anyway. I knew my baby girl would need a push before she starts kindergarten since she has a very reserved and cautious personality. Going from being home with me all day everyday to suddenly in school 5 days a week would be a major (major) adjustment for her. She is easily overwhelmed. About September we started calling and emailing and visiting "schools". The first one we visited was not associated with a church or religious organization. We quickly decided after visiting that school that we wanted Claire to be in a Christian preschool environment. I also knew that I did not want her going more than 2 days a week, at least for the first year or so until she adjusted to being away and socializing more. After many calls and emails we discovered just how popular these types of programs are and most of them had a waiting list that extended well beyond our January enrollment date. The ones that did not have a wait list that we visited we actually did like and some were even quite affordable, but the drive and gas crossed those off the list. Finally we found a program that was near our house, in a Baptist church (which Eric really liked), the people seemed nice etc. On paper it was everything we were looking for minus it's price tag. We talked about it and decided that this must be where God was leading us since every other place had been a dead end. We even paid the registration fee and reserved her spot in early December. There were several things I wasn't thrilled about, but I knew were small things such as the pick up time which was smack in the middle of Luke's naptime and the 2 days a week were a little longer hours than I had wanted. Again small things we could work around. The New Year rolled around and for some reason I had yet to finish the enrollment paperwork (super unlike me, I am usually full speed ahead on things I am excited about). Eric asked me when I was going to turn it in and I would say I was working on it. Several comments were made that I was "stalling" because I "wasn't ready to let go of her", etc. I kept saying, "no, that's not it. I want her to go to school, make friends, learn about God, and learn preschool stuff". I really meant it. For several weeks I just couldn't place what my hesitancy on enrolling her in this program was. I am so thankful for good friends and my own Momma who told me to trust my "mommy gut" and told me I wasn't crazy for feeling the way I did. Finally mid January the school called asking when she would be starting. I knew at that point my gut was telling me that it just wasn't the right place for her. I had no idea why, but knew that I had to make a decision before I put her somewhere I would regret. I will say a lot of my hesitancy was the monthly tuition. It was double what we budgeted for, but after talking with so many schools in the area I realized that preschool was just more expensive than what I thought. It is hard for me to justify spending a lot of money to when we don't "have" to. That's part of the reason we decided I would stay home with the kids. Anyway, shortly after that phone call I started praying. I put Luke down for a nap, Claire was entertained playing in the other room and I shut my door and spent the next few minutes praying for God to show me where, if anywhere he would have Claire attend. Again I had done Google search after search. Talked to many friends and acquaintances about all the nearby programs over the past 4 months. For some reason I sat down and did one last search on the computer. I wasn't very hopeful since I had thoroughly researched every program within a 15 minute radius. The second link I clicked on was a preschool in a Lutheran church, that I had never come across before. I read about what they offered and it was EXACTLY what we were looking for. Good hours, great price (our original budget), excellent reviews etc. My initial excitement was tamed when the little voice in my head said "yeah right they won't have an opening". I called Eric and my Mom and told them what I found and asked them to both pray before I called the school that they would have an opening and it wasn't too good to be true. I called and found out that in Claire's age group they only had a once a week opening in their Monday class and next year when she moves up classes she has the option of going 2 or 3 days a week. I was totally fine with that. Long story short we toured the school and were completely at ease. Found out their preschool program has been around longer than I have been alive and truly felt that this is the place God wanted our little girl to go. She was super excited to start school and didn't cry at all when we dropped her off the first day. The following few weeks she has cried when I left, but her teachers say within 5 minutes she is fine and interacts and plays wonderfully! I couldn't be happier.

All excited about her first day!

As I have mentioned before Claire has also been in speech therapy since last June. In the fall we noticed what great improvements she had been making. As the holidays rolled around it was evident to extended family how much better she was doing. Everyone who had not seen her in a while was truly amazed. The New Year came and with the the start of the year came the start of a new insurance plan. Insurance started pressuring the speech therapist that it was time to do another evaluation or they were threatening to stop paying. The weekly amount charged to insurance was substantially more than the measly 20% we paid. They did the evaluation and she (as we already knew) had grown leaps and bounds in 7 short months. The initial discussion when we started was she would be there a year at minimum so I always assumed we were in it for the long haul. The evaluation showed that she ranked in the 50% compared to her peers. On par for her age and they could not justify to insurance keeping her any longer. Initially I was extremely nervous about pulling her out so soon. It seemed like it came to an end so sudden. I cannot say enough good things about her therapist and the clinic as a whole. Her therapist and the owner and lead therapists reassured me she was where she needed to be, that going to preschool would only help her, and they were only a phone call away if I felt she needed another eval. As I have also mentioned we adored her therapist. Claire has really missed seeing her weekly. We keep in touch and text about every week. She is also a swim instructor and Claire is super excited about taking swim lessons with her Mrs. Heather.

So not related to anything, but this picture totally sums up my goofy sweet girl.

It seems like the start of the new year has been full of changes! My little man took his first steps the first part of January and now he is running everywhere and into EVERYTHING! He also decided to wean himself. I was totally not prepared for him weaning so early. Claire was a few months older and I had plans of not forcing the issue for a while longer. Breastfeeding is something I have truly enjoyed. It is bittersweet for this chapter to have come to an end. It's freeing in a way that I am able to get back on some medications that make me feel better, but I do miss my early morning cuddles and the thought of never nursing another baby makes me sad. I have wonderful memories of the time spent nursing my babies and I am passionate about helping and encouraging others through their breastfeeding journey. 

Off and running at the neighborhood park. He has turned into such a little boy lately.

Enjoyed his first sample of chocolate pudding. Just don't tell sister (she was at school and missed it).

I just love watching these two as "friends".

Cloth Diapering. Say what?!

It has come to my attention over the past few weeks that the thought of me cloth diapering is pretty stinking shocking and funny to those closest to me. I get it I really do. I'm the girl who has never been camping. My theory has always been why PAY money and cause myself more work when I could spend the same amount and get an cozy hotel room and have someone else clean up after me. (I will say I am actually open to camping now especially as the kids get older I know they would enjoy it). When I first shared with my Mom I was considering cloth diapering she spoke words of support, but I could also hear a bit of amusement in her voice. Apparently when she got off the phone with me she told my Dad "you better be sitting down for this one. Your daughter says she is going to cloth diaper Luke". Dad said "I give it 3 weeks tops". Haha Dad it's been more than 3 weeks now. Like I said, part of me understands the amusement, but my friends and family also know I am a rather "thrifty" person. 

I briefly considered cloth diapering with Claire, but several things stopped me. One, between the boxes of diapers I stocked up on while pregnant with Claire and the very generous amount we were given I literally bought one box of diapers before she potty trained. Two, she was fully potty trained except at night by 18 months. Three, I had tried to research cloth diapers and knew ahead of time they were not the cloth diapers my Momma used, but the options and terminology completely overwhelmed me and Eric was not at all on board.

Again when we had Luke were blessed with an abundance of diapers. Although I was not able to purchase many ahead of time as I did with Claire. With Claire I was working full time and had a little extra cash flow to buy those sorts of things. With Luke we still had an amazing gift of not having to buy diapers his entire first year! As I started counting how many diapers and days I had left before needing to consider buying diapers the thought of cloth diapering came in my head again. This time with a little reading I understood about 75% of which diapers and types worked which ways. No one in my local circle of friends and family cloth diaper. My Mom cloth diapered my brother and I and I assumed that was the norm of the early 80's. I later found out it was not the norm and Mom did it to save money so she could stay home with us. I mentioned my thoughts to Eric again and this time he didn't say "no" he just said said with a smirk "you can do what you want, but I'm not changing anymore diapers if you do". About 5 minutes later he was actually encouraging me to cloth diaper just so he could be exempt from changing diapers. Ha, not so fast buddy! One of the first things out of his mouth like a lot of people was, "isn't it nasty to put POOP in our washing machine where we wash our clothes"? Yes, honey I think I'll throw whole turds in the wash just for fun. No! I explained at Luke's age 4/5 poopy diapers are solid and I will just "plop" the solids in the toilet! It's no different than when potty training Claire and cleaning up her accidents. I think after you have potty trained one cleaning up your children's bodily waste and knowing how to isn't so intimidating. 

I only knew one or two people who do cloth diaper present day so I reached out to a friend hoping she could share which she uses and what works for her. I knew using a prefold diaper (those are the ones like my mom used on us with the diaper pins and plastic covers) was not what I wanted. Even though you don't use pins anymore and the covers aren't plastic I knew the more steps involved in changing a diaper the less likely I would get anyone other than me to change it. After speaking with a friend I found out pocket diapers were what she used and one of the simpler ones to learn to use. Price was freaking me out. When I searched Babies R Us or Target for cloth diapers they were $17-$25 each! Knowing I typically change about 6 diapers a day and I wanted to be able not wash every day I needed a minimum of 18 diapers. You do the math, but that's a lot more than I could afford to purchase especially knowing that Luke is the last child. If we were planning on additional children then I might say that amount of $ would be justified, but I just couldn't. Thankfully my friend educated me on some brands that come direct from China (in case you are wondering those expensive brands you buy at Babies R us are also made in China). Not saying every diaper is created equal, but the ones you find at name brand stores are not made in the US. 

I ended up ordering 20 diapers from www.alvababy.com. Their prints are adorable and each diaper with 1 insert averaged a little over $5 each! Oh yeah finding cute prints is quite addicting. I mean who doesn't like making their baby's hiney look cute? I was expecting it to take 2-3 weeks to receive my order. I ordered around the holidays and even though I qualified for free "express" shipping I figured I was in for a long wait. To my surprise I ordered on a Tuesday night and they showed up Friday afternoon!! Expecting a long wait and knowing I ideally wanted more than 20 diapers so I could a. Have the option to wait longer between washes and b. Have more diapers to rotate to keep them from wearing out quickly (oh that's another perk, used cloth diapers can be resold! And typically for about 75% of what you paid for them if you take good care of them).  Anyway I started looking on my local craigslist to see if anyone had a good price on diapers. I found a lady who had just potty trained her son and was starting to sell off her stash of 60+ diapers (at first I thought holy cow that's. A lot of diapers, but now I understand how addicting buying cute diapers is). She was selling another affordable (direct from China) brand I was considering called Sunbaby. What I liked about Sunbaby is they were created by a stay at home mom who like me was looking for an affordable way to diaper her child. They have a small factory with fair labor practices. I like the idea of supporting a fellow mom. Anyway I was able to buy 19 Sunbaby diapers with 2 inserts per diaper and half of those inserts were a bamboo blend (more expensive) as well as a name brand pail liner for $100. Yes I know that still breaks down to about $5 per diaper which is what I paid new however the extra inserts made it a sweet deal. If you have a heavy wetter or for night or nap time you want to double up on inserts for extra absorbency. Plus the pail liner alone retails for $18. The diapers were only about 6 months old and rotated in her huge stash so they were in great shape. I followed used diaper prepping instructions and voila I know have a stash of 39 diapers. Which means I can nearly go an entire week without HAVING to wash diapers. With that said I wash at the end of every 3rd day. For one the diaper pail (a kitchen trashcan) gets full and two lets face it a pail full of dirty diapers doesn't always smell very pleasant after it has been sitting awhile. I throw the diapers in the wash before I go to bed which doesn't interfere with my daily laundry and then hang (yes I said hang) them out to dry the next day. For one hanging them out saves energy and for two it helps keep the leg elastic from wearing out too quickly. At first I hung them over my dining room chairs to dry, but finally convinced Eric to buy me a $14 retractable clothesline so I could hang them outside to dry. The sun is also good for bleaching out any stains that may occur. I will say cloth diaper fabric is really stain repellent though.

Other than rinsing off the occasional sticky poop the most tedious part of the process is stuffing the pockets when everything is clean I dry. I like to have my diapers stuffed and ready to wear. My little guy is far to wiggly and I am always running late so there is no time to stuff on the changing table. I know I was really curious what "stuffing" a diaper looked like so I tried to demonstrate through pictures.

This is the outside of the diaper unbuttoned. Isn't it adorable? The minky fabrics (like this one) are my absolute favorites! I wish I could buy all minky, it is sooo soft. 

The inside of the diapers are either suede cloth (Alvas) or micro fleece (Sunbaby). I have a slight preference for suede cloth only because micro fleece tends to "pile" more with washing. These materials are really good about quickly wicking the moisture away from the baby's skin and down into the inner "pocket". Inside the diaper is a lining of PUL which is what keeps the diaper waterproof and from leaking onto the baby's clothes. Here you can see the pocket.

Depending on how much absorbancy you need depends on how many inserts you "stuff" into the diaper. The Alva diapers all came standard with microfiber inserts. These work well for my average on year old wetter. Obviously the more inserts your put into the diaper the bulkier it will be. There are inserts made of other materials like the bamboo blend ones I bought. Bamboo is more absorbancy than microfiber and also trimmer ( which is why it also costs more). For us one insert works great for going on average 3 hours between changing during the day and 2 inserts work well for 11-12 hours at night. I've only had one leak overnight and that is because he surprised me with a poop in with all that pee. This is the insert laying next to the inside of the diaper. The insert goes into the pocket as shown above. 

Here is a shot of most of my daytime "stash". A few that were in my diaper bag, one was on the baby and one was dirty. (My little helper was helping show off his cute prints).

In a separate drawer I keep the double stuffed night time diapers. I designated my "ugly" or holiday prints as the night time diapers. I keep 7-8 in rotation so like the daytime diapers they are all worn on average only once a week. I also keep the extra inserts in the night time drawer. Keeping them separate keeps Eric less confused haha. 

At first I was a little concerned the extra bulk of a cloth diaper would bother little man. I had heard some people say that cloth diaper wearing babies sometimes roll over later or meet physical milestones later due to the bulk of the diaper. I quickly learned this is not true as Luke took his first steps while wearing a double stuffed nighttime diaper. 

For dirty diapers I use a "diaper pail". When using disposables I really liked my diaper genie. It was a quick way to dispose of dirty diapers without having to run them out to the garbage. I knew I would want something similar with cloth. Some people use a hanging wet bag with a drawstring. I liked the idea of a step can and use the pail liner with also has a layer of PUL to keep the diapers from leaking into the trashcan.

Another cool thing? The trashcan can be reused as a trashcan once we are out of diapers. No money wasted there. Also let's face it. I didn't have the extra cash just laying around to start cloth diapering. While it will definitely save is $40-$50 a month in buying disposables and will quickly pay for itself it does take some initial upfront cost (there are much cheaper ways to start cloth diapering then how I did, but using pockets make the most sense for us). I ended up going through the kids clothes and toys and posting them on eBay and on buy/sell/trade pages. Within a week I had sold enough to cover all the cloth diaper start up expenses. Tada! practically no extra expense. I wash the diapers in Tide Free and Clear so I can use the same detergent throughout all our laundry. Ironically enough out water bill was $5 less the first month I cloth diapered so I haven't noticed an increase there.

 The only thing that isn't so fun is rinsing poop. Thankfully most diapers can be plopped into the toilet, but there are a few that require some rinsing before going into the diaper pail. I was so nervous when I saw him making his first poop in his cloth. Small panick set in. After discovering how easy it cleans up I'm no longer scared. I won't lie it's my least favorite part, but it's not bad. I'm trying to convince Eric to attach a sprayer to the toilet' seater line, but he says he isn't going to be a weirdo with a hose on his toilet. I told him it's just like having a bidet, but he isn't buying it. So for now the ones that require a little extra rinsing I walk out the backdoor and use the water hose. Mom says she just swished the dirty diaper around in the toilet, but I can't bring myself to do that. I may go buy a sprayer and hook it up myself. He won't remove it once it's hooked up. Forgiveness is easier to ask than permission right? Oh, and the guy who says he would never touch a diaper again if I switched to cloth has come around to the idea. At first he would take the cloth off and grab and extra disposable and put that on. The he got to where he would put a cloth on, but wouldn't mess with the diaper pail. Then he would only do pee diapers. Now he will handle both kinds of dirty diapers if I'm not home. However it is hit or miss if he leaves the poopy one for me to dump :-/ Claire has always been a big helper handing me diaper changing supplies, but now that there are cute colors and prints to choose from, her favorite job is choosing which diaper he should wear next. 

His first time trying a cloth diaper

Rocking his Christmas diaper 

So far I love cloth diapering. It's cute, not too hard, and saves $$$!!

The power of smell

A Weird post title I know. Especially since I've been MIA from the blogging world for so long. Different smells/scents tend to recall various memories for me. Often times I don't even realize it until I smell something familiar and I am instantly transported back to a certain time/event. Even insignifant things such as a world problem can be triggered into memory by something I didn't even realize I was smelling at the time I was trying to solve it. 

For Christmas last year I was given several scentsy warmers and a collection of different scents. All scents I ordinarily love, but being 9 months pregnant all but one of them didn't make me want to puke. Silver Bells, a fitting Christmasy scent. Eric tried out lots of scents the week before Luke was born (one thing we have in common is we like our house to smell good lol) but I kept telling him Silver Bells was the only one "the baby " liked. Again it's one of those times I didn't realize how powerful ones sense of smell could be until several weeks after Luke was born Eric must have switched the scents out. I was instantly transported back to the days leading up to Luke's birth and the early morning hours of being in labor. Such a peaceful yet exciting time. Soaking up the last few days of Claire being an only child.

Claire the morning Luke was born

 Going in Luke's room every few hours

to "rearrange" something as a way to keep busy in those last few days, dreaming about the sweet boy that would soon inhabit that room.

Christmas Day last year. 6 days before little man was born. (I was gigantic)!

 The most powerful memory I get though is the early morning hours when I woke up and realized I was in labor. The sweet and peaceful hours when I was the only one in the world who knew a sweet boy was going to be born that day. I remember sitting in the dining room of the old house on my exercise ball, phone in hand, timing contractions and mid contraction I focused on the light of the scentsy warmer that was on. Everytime I smell that smell I can't help, but smile. So now of course what is burning in my Scentsy? Silver Bells. I put on to burn this morning. I figured it fitting since we are celebrating my little man's first birthday in a few short days. Part of me can't believe he will be a year, but the other part of me feels like I've known him a lifetime. 

An hour old

The first day at home

I've always thought first birthdays were a big deal. Until I became a parent I didn't realize how big of a deal they actually were. I remember joking when I was planning Claire's first birthday that part of the celebration was for Eric and I surviving our first year as parents. That we actually kept a human being alive for an entire year! I think with each child we celebrate for various reason. For Luke it's keeping TWO humans alive simultaneously, coming out still sane after surviving months of screaming, and celebrating my littlest and last baby's first birthday. We had planned earlier in the year taking a big ski trip with our entire family to celebrate Luke's first and Eric's 30th. Late summer about the time we had narrowed down some places to go, both our vehicles needed repair work done and several thousand dollars later our trip fund was gone. Of course we were super bummed about not being able to take our big trip, but I was also thankful God provided enough for us to get the cars repaired. As the months have passed I've seen more and more why we weren't able to take our trip. Financial reasons, family members health issues etc. Now I'm even more excited to celebrate with all our friends and family at our home. The kind of birthdays I grew up with. Homemade, at home, lots of laughter, lots of people, and lots of fun. Luke deserves that kind of party too. 

I must admit I feel quite unorganized with this party. Planning a party 6 days after Christmas will do that to you. Speaking of Christmas we had an amazing Christmas. The kids are spoiled rotten. Our house looks like a toy store exploded. Every single thing they have gotten they have played with. The hardest thing for them is deciding which thing to play with. Most of the time they just combine toys in random ways. 

Claire loaded up her doll, horse, and beauty salon kit in the back of the truck. Then she did the dolls makeup while the she rode the horse in the driveway. Multitasking at its finest. 

The truck was a huge hit with both of them. Poor little brother is too short to reach the pedals so sister has to do the driving. Let's just say she needs a lot of practice. It has a real FM radio in it and I'm pretty sure between taking out the neighbors flower beds while jamming to the radio on full blast we need to keep her contained in our driveway for awhile. Good thing little brother thinks crashing is awesome fun, he also thinks switching the car in reverse or drive (opposite of whatever the car is in) is really hilarious. 

Their faces should say it all

Speech Therapy

I haven't talked a lot about Claire's speech lately so I thought I would give an update. Claire has always had a decent sized vocabulary. Always says the required amount of words for her age plus quite a few. Problem was age 2 rolled around and she wasn't putting any words together. Pediatrician said no big deal it's still early give her a while. So we did. 2.5 rolled around and she had added a lot of words, but still no 2 words together. We decided to get her evaluated.  She said too many words to qualify for the state program. After getting her hearing checked just to be sure the ENT referred us to a private speech therapist. This was in April. In early May we had the evaluation appointment with the private therapist. Long about that time she put her first 2 words together. I will never forget what she said either. It was when we were in the process of putting our house on the market and we were trying to get her excited about moving. We had been telling her we were going to buy a new house and how much fun it would be. One Saturday  morning she said "Mommy, buy a house"? Cue the hallelujah chorus! She started saying a few more phrases, but still no where near where she should be for being 31 months. The private therapist put her expressive speech at about 24 months and her receptive speech closer to 3.5. She told us she felt like she would eventually catch up even if we didn't do therapy, but it was our call. Since we had already met our insurance deductible for the year (having a baby will do that) we decided to move forward with therapy. It has been the best $18 a week I have spent. Yes, I would rather be spending the money putting her in dance or tumbling,but learning to speak correctly is so much more important.

She had her first session in June when school got out. The drastic improvement over the last 4 months has been amazing. Even her therapist commented last week how pleased she is with her improvement in such a relatively short time. She said "I think she just needed a good kick in the pants". Have I mentioned how phenomenal her therapist is? Claire loves her weekly 30 minutes of play with Miss Heather. I am so proud of how hard my baby girl has been working. It has been a lot of work for all of us. Using the techniques the therapist gives us and putting them to use at home. I tend to anticipate her needs without making her ask. It has been an entire switch for me to make her put forth the effort to convey exactly and properly (for her age) what she needs even if it takes longer to complete the task. 

She is now consistently saying 3 and 4 word phrases for everything with 5 words emerging some. Some of the stuff she says is hilarious. It's like getting a key to unlock my little girl's mind. She had always been goofy and a character, but getting words to go with it has been amazing. Every day is something new. We have a ways to go yet and probably another 6 months of therapy to stay caught up, but I am so proud of my little girl.

They said 3 year olds ask a ton of questions a day. I never thought I would get to the day of a million questions. We have arrived! I answer the same questions over and over again each day, but I am so thankful to answer them. One of our favorite things/questions she says is "what is that noise"? Her inflection is funny and dramatic. I caught a clip of her asking earlier today. Baby brother was the culprit in the background. :-)

Three (and learning it's not always about me)

Holy crap my baby girl turned 3 this week! Three! For some reason I'm having a harder time with her turning 3 than any of the other ages so far. Maybe it's because three isn't a baby, it isn't a toddler, it's a little girl! Like a little girl with her own opinions and thoughts that she has no problems voicing :-) On one hand the past 3 years have flown by at lightening speed. It feels like only yesterday I was sitting in the hospital as a new mom holding this little baby that I had waited my whole life for. On the other hand it feels like a lifetime ago. I have a hard time remembering my pre mom life. Not necessarily my life and experiences prior to being a Mom, but my pre Mommy brain. Let's face it my life revolves around my babies. My brain is hardwired as a Mom to think about how every choice and decision affects my kids. So much has happened in the last 3 years that it seems like 10 years should have passed. Lost a pregnancy. Gained a son. Sold a home. Bought a new one. Family members have passed. Babies have been born.  You name it, these past 3 years have been jam packed.

I started asking Claire earlier in the summer what kind of birthday party she might want. At first I didn't really get an answer, but as the summer progressed and her speech improved I started getting the same two answers over and over. At first I didn't know what to make of it. I thought "what kind of party is that for a kid? I'll just have to take her "suggestion" and put my Mommy spin on it." What were her 2 answers? A "treat party" and a greem party" aka green party. So I thought I would do a vintage candy party. I could easily envision the old fashioned candy. All the bright colors. The cute lollipop invitations I would make. Everything would be adorable! The next time I asked her what kind of party she wanted it was just a "greem party". And the next time and the next time still the same answer "greem party". I continued on thinking I would just do my cute version of a candy party and she wouldn't care. And while she probably wouldn't have cared I am so glad I gave her the party she asked for. Towards the end of summer a dear friend and I were discussing what I might do for Claire's 3rd birthday. I explained what Claire had asked for, my dilemma, and my plan. She immediately told me I just had to do the "greem party" Claire was asking for. I was still dreaming of my cute vision for Claire's party though. She started bouncing ideas around of all the cute
green things I could have at the party and how memorable and fun this would be for her. Soon I was on board and realized it's not about me and my vision of a Pinterest worthy party. It's about my sweet little girl's dream of a green party and the memories that come with it. I could even tie in the original "treat" idea and do a green candy bar as the party favors. I spent the next few weeks finalizing all the green plans. I am so so thankful that I stopped and listened to what my little girl wanted even if it wasn't my vision of what a birthday theme should like. To say she had a blast is an understatement. A few days before the party she found a bunch of the green party supplies in the kitchen cabinet. She kept saying "Mommy, my greem party"? I told her "yes baby your green party". Shortly after that I found her setting up her green party a little early at her little table.

The day before the party as Mom and I were making her cake and I set up the candy bar and begin decorating her little eyes lit up as she realized she was getting her "greem party".(We also discovered that the cake started missing M&Ms as the day progressed. The birthday girl kept stealing them off the cake).

 The day of the party she hopped around excited all day for her green party and her friends coming. My usually calm child around a group of people excitedly played with all her little friends and I kept having to find where she had ran off too. This may not seem like a big deal, but usually my little girl stays close by me often wanting to be held because the crowd of people makes her nervous. Not during her "greem" party though. The only time she reverted to her shy self was when about a quarter of a way through singing Happy Birthday she realized all eyes were on her and she buried her head on my shoulder telling me "Mommy doing" when it came time to blow out her candles. That's ok though. There will be lots of other birthdays for her to blow  out the candles.

 

 

 

 

As her big present we decided to get her a trampoline. We wanted to surprise her the morning of her party with it which meant we had to put it together the night before after she was in bed. At 1:15 A.M. we had the majority of it together. After the long evening and hard work I was so excited to take her into the back yard when she woke up and video her reaction. She had been telling us for weeks she wanted a "bouncy thing" for her birthday. Well, things never tend to go as planned. Eric forgot about the surprise sitting in the backyard and opened the blinds as normal in the morning. I was laying in bed feeding Luke and not up yet. A few minutes later Eric comes carefully around the corner and tells me the "oops" that had just occurred. I cried. I was so excited for her reaction so not only did I not get the bit reveal I wanted, but I didn't even get to see her face when she saw it. According to the witnesses she said "Oh boy a trampoline". Thankfully Eric did quickly close the blinds and we waited several hours before taking her outside. In the end she LOVES it and has spent hours and hours outside jumping.

 

 

 

I am so thankful for the wonderful friends we have. Claire had such a memorable 3rd birthday and I learned a very important lesson. I learned to listen to my daughter. My kids' parties are not about me and the cute crafts and pictures I could do. They are about them and creating unforgettable parties and memories no matter if they aren't the theme I was envisioning. Guess what? This theme was even better than the theme I had envisioned and I know 15 years from now this will be the one I will fondly remember. It captured who my little girl is right now and I will never forget the pure joy on her face. 

 



Much too fast!

This past week came a day I never gave much thought about. I started clearing out and selling the baby "stuff". Eric and I always knew 2 kids was all we wanted. Regardless of gender we said 2 kids was our limit. First I got my sassy little girl and then I got my sweet little guy. We are very blessed to have 2 happy, healthy babies. So as Luke has started outgrowing much of the "baby baby" items they have started collecting dust just sitting around. I see them as just part of our house. Eric sees them as giant nuisances and as we had to move all this "stuff" he has been asking me "when are you going to start getting rid of all this stuff we are no longer using"? I have held on to EVERYTHING thinking maybe it will be used just one more time. I've held on to all of Claire's clothes and bows so it's not just the stuff Luke has been using. Ignoring the question worked for a while, but they day came when I could no longer ignore it. The time came to sort through it and sell/give stuff away. Ouch! Doing so has hurt my heart more than I thought it would. It somehow solidified for me that there will be no more babies in the house soon.

As hard as a baby is there is something sweet about having one in the house. All the new things that come along with them. Not just the clothes, toys, and diapers, but watching them learn and discover all the things we take for granted. We get excited when they start holding up their head, start "talking" and smiling at us. We cheer for them when they learn to sit up on their own and eventually crawl and walk. As our children grow up milestones grow further apart. Maybe I'm strange, but some nights when I know my little one is on the verge of accomplishing a new milestone I am almost like a kid at Christmas. Anxiously awaiting the new day to come to see if today will be the day they figure it out. So not only did I bite the bullet and start sorting and clearing out stuff, but then my little guy decided to accomplish not one, but TWO milestones this past week.  My littlest one sprouted his first 2 teeth! Since he turned 6 months I had already decided that I needed to get some sort of pictures taken of him. With Claire I was diligent about taking pictures every 3 months. Poor guy hasn't had a professional picture taken since he was born. I didn't go anywhere fancy and just did a cheap portrait package in the mall, but as soon as I felt those 2 teeth come in I wanted one last picture of his sweet gummy grin.

For awhile little man showed an interest in crawling. Getting his knees under him and doing some inch worming. He still inch worms all over his crib, but on the floor it's like he gave up. All he has wanted to do is stand. He will wear you out wanting to hold hands and pull up and down up and down. So proud of himself every time he stands. Well, all last week he would try and try to pull up without holding hands onto something, but just wasn't strong enough. One night as I was cooking dinner and Eric was playing on the floor with the kids Luke figured out how to stand up bracing himself on Eric's legs. I was fortunate enough to get the 2nd time on video (although I'm not sure why the quality is so terrible).

So even though in my heart of hearts I know my family is complete. I know deep down I will always long for "just one more" little one. I dread the day when the kids are grown, but I know no matter how many kids I have they will all eventually grow up. It's just a weird place to be in I think. I dreamed all my life of being pregnant and being a Mommy, that I just can't believe I am actually old enough to be a Mommy and to have completed my family. I look forward to watching my sweet family grow now. The sweet giggles of my little ones when they are in the bath tub together melt my heart. The mornings when Claire has snuck into Luke's room and climbed in his crib and I hear them talking on the monitor. Even Claire gets excited about milestones and I have to closely supervisor her trying to "walk' with Luke holding his hands (he is going to be one tough little boy by the time he survives his well meaning sister). Oh I blessed I am.

Big Changes!

Holy cow I suck at updating this thing! Well, life has been quite crazy the past few months and only getting crazier! We put our house on the market the first of May and were fortunate enough to get an offer in 4 short days. We accepted the offer and things have been a crazy roller coaster ever since!

We didn't "have" to sell and move. We had been debating for about a year when the right time might be. We knew we wanted to be closer to Eric's job, closer to our doctors and places we frequent, and needed more space, the kids and the toys had over taken us! One night after the kids had went to bed Eric casually said "I think we should try and sell". I had been feeling the same way for a while and asked God that if it was the right thing to do to let it be clear to Eric as well. Within 2 weeks we had found a realtor and it was on the market. With Eric's job being in Conroe we initially thought we would move to Conroe. We like the feel of the area, a little more casual and "slower" with a small town feel like back home. What we didn't realize when we listed our home, even though the realtor warned us of this, is that home inventory in the Houston market is low and the demand for homes is high. Meaning it is a seller's market. Good for us selling, not so good for us looking. Most of the area's we liked we could either get a house in fabulous neighborhood for the same size or smaller than we had within our price range or we had to sacrifice location for size. In the end the home we bought we totally where God wanted us to be. It cuts Eric's drive time to work in half and I'm 5 minutes from The Woodlands where our doctors are and all the good shopping places. Plus we are still only 20 minutes from our church. Not as close as 1 mile away like the old house, but still within reasonable and doable driving distance. Long story short on the old house, after closing being pushed back 3 times by the buyer who was having difficulty obtaining financing and a 4th request we terminated the contract and as of last weekend put it back on the market. Terrifying to own 2 homes for the time being, but remembering God wouldn't have worked out everything the way he did if we weren't meant to move. With the crazy way the market is right now things are even selling above asking price. While the home we bought we originally got for slightly under asking, the appraisal came back short, like really short. Since we didn't have that kind of cash on hand we were going to terminate the contract and try and just build a home. In the end it worked in our favor and we were able to purchase the home for 16K less than we originally thought.

There are a ton of more crazy details in this whole buy/sell process that has given me quite a few gray hairs in the process, but I won't go into detail of those. All I will say is through everything that has happened God has been orchestrating EVERYTHING for our good. I am continually reminded of this when I start to stress over getting the old house sold quickly.

The kids have had a blast moving and being in the new house. Claire has been so excited about the new house. I was very nervous of how she would react moving. She isn't fond of change and really likes her routine and comforts she knows. Even the day we closed on the new house as we drove to it she was saying she wanted to go "home" meaning the old house. The instant we walked into the new house she lit up and has been in love ever since. Any time we got o the old house for something she refused to get out of the car and screams "no, go new house". I have to assure her she is still sleeping at the new house. Luke must like it too as he has slept 6-8 hours straight every night we have been here. He has been up every 2-3 hours for the past 2 months. Some sleep has been nice for the very very sleep deprived Momma, although the late nights spent unpacking haven't helped me catch too much.

Front of the new house

 

 

One of the last mornings at the old house

 

Claire immediately set up a gold fish picnic within minutes of walking into the new house.