06.30.08
Family Vacation 2008 Part 5
We were exhausted after the picture extravaganza and so went back to the cabin for a nap. We didn’t do much Saturday night. Visited around the fire, ate supper at the campground’s restaurant, endured Princess beating the tar out of us at cards, visited some more around the fire. It was a good day.
Sunday, June 8th
We woke early again Sunday morning. Not by choice but because Belle baby decided to wake up. Poor Princess and uncle Jim. They are definitely not early risers but with us all in the same room they didn’t have much of a choice.
Most of the family was packing up and heading out early so we decided to do the same. We weren’t sure what time we could check into our hotel – we had about an hour and 1/2 drive and so we thought we’d get up, pack, get on our way and if we could check in great, if not we’d do some sight seeing.
It ended up taking us a few hours to pack up, well because Belle’s mom Belle is a pack rat. We then had to make the rounds and say goodbye to everyone with promises to keep in touch and such. Thankfully most of us are on Facebook and keep in touch that way.
We were finally packed and headed out of Custer State Park. It’s so beautiful there. Peaceful. Quiet. I was wishing we could have a few more days. But we had silly tourist traps to waste our money on visit.
We probably should have planned in advance what to do about going to church on Sunday. On the way out of Custer State Park I remembered it was Sunday. I walkie talkied Hubby and reminded him. I wondered if we could find a Bible teaching church. I’m sure we could but in all honesty we were being a little lazy about it and were maybe a little chicken to go visit a church we’ve never been to. I know, that’s silly. Well we decided that as an act of worship for the day we wouldn’t use the computer. Any of us. All day or all night. Now that might not seem like a big deal. And really in the scheme of things it probably wasn’t. But up until that point every one of us were excited to get to the hotel because we knew it had wireless. Princess, who by the way is 17, hadn’t been online for 3 days and believe you me she was ready. (Ok Hubby and I were a little withdrawn too).
We finally make it to our hotel, after a few wrong turns and thankfully are able to check in. That process takes us another hour because remember Belle’s mom Belle is a pack rat. Instead of sleeping like I wanted to do we decided to go visit Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore. Princess has a friend who lives right next to Crazy Horse and so we dropped her off there and drove into Custer, hoping to visit some shops. Unfortunately it was Sunday and most of the shops were closed. Plus it was about 40 degrees below zero and so our shopping trip didn’t last long.
Princess called and asked to go to Crazy Horse with her friend. We were hoping to all go together but decided to let her do her thing. We later found out that they got the “VIP tour” because her friend’s grandparents own Crazy Horse. Crazy, huh! 
Hubby, Belle and I went on our own, without a VIP tour, but it was still nice. We wimped out and didn’t make the climb up to the mountain…maybe next time.
After Crazy Horse we picked up Princess and then drove to Mt Rushmore.
I love this picture of the girls!
And this has nothing to do with Mt Rushmore. Although we were in the gift shop at Mt Rushmore. And of course Belle had to try on another raccoon hat. Silly girl!
We were wiped out, probably due to our lack of sleep, driving all over the Black Hills and because the wind was blowing about 100 miles an hour. Thankfully everyone was in favor of going back to the hotel and resting for the remainder of the day and evening.
Only Hubby isn’t much of a rester. He’d rather torture his children. Here he is attempting to catapult himself over Princess. She’s so brave.
Thankfully he only broke her ankles and nothing else! (Nice picture taking, don’t ya think!)
Later on we did decide to play cards and Belle baby was bound and determined to play too.
Little stinker won’t crawl when we want her to but when she wants something she’ll launch herself across the bed! Hubby was getting annoyed so put her in “card time-out”.
FINALLY it was time to go to bed.
Here’s our headless baby sound asleep. You don’t have to report us, we didn’t leave her like that! For some reason anytime we are on vacation or at Grama Susie’s and Papa Al’s or anywhere other than our house she sleeps like a baby – all night long! No wonder her nickname is Little Stinker!
06.29.08
Stretching my neck
The other day I was driving on the outskirts of my town and went past a small farm. This farm has goats and you’ll often see them roaming the yard. On this particular day there was just one goat out and he was tied to a leash.
As I drove by I noticed he was stretching, stretching, stretching as far as he could, trying to get to the grass that was just past the reach of his leash. Silly little goat. But oh, how he painted a picture of the life I often lead.
As a believer in Christ I’m blessed with so much. God pours out His blessings in so many ways. But so often it’s just not enough. So often I’m not happy with my little “area of grass”. You’ve all heard “the grass is greener on the other side”. Well don’t we also often think “the grass is greener just past my grass”, like that little goat was thinking.
God has so much good “grass” that He wants to bless me with. But I’m often too busy stretching my neck and looking for “better” things and unfortunately I often miss out on the blessing of life right in front of my face.
I pray today that I will be at peace with what God has blessed me with. Not allow my wandering heart to look past His goodness. And be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph 3:19).
06.27.08
16 weeks and feeling like a doublewide!
Oh my goodness, how am I going to feel when I’m like 32 weeks if I feel huge now? Ug. I’m really trying to exercise (which I was horrible at before pregnancy) so I don’t gain quite as much as Mr Dr said I should. It is official that I can no longer fit into any of my before pregnancy clothes. My sweet niece who is due in a few weeks still hasn’t had to wear maternity clothes – that is just so not fair. Oh well, it has been nice to just let my belly hang out and not worry about it.
I don’t have my next appointment until July 7th and I’ll be 17 1/2 weeks along. We won’t have the ultrasound until the next appointment after that which will be about 20-21 weeks. We still haven’t decided if we’ll found out if little Pip is a boy or girl. I’m thinking we will but we’ll see.
I did have to go into the doctor this week for something else (I hurt my shoulder, probably carrying little miss porky) and Mr Dr said we had to listen to the heartbeat. And so we did. He found it alot quicker than he did the first time and we also got another kick. He also said my skin is stretching very nicely. Well, thank you very much. I was thinking it was looking pretty disgusting but I’ll take what the doctor says.
Overall I’ve been feeling pretty good. Every day is still a little different than the past. Some days I’m still really nauseous, have no appetitive and when I do eat, I get sick. But most days are good. I’m trying to eat healthy but I really struggle with finding things to eat, especially for lunches. I have just 30 minutes for lunch and I hate to eat out but I also don’t like to have the same thing every day. Anyone have any ideas?
It still doesn’t seem real that I’m pregnant. I know that’s common, especially until I can feel movement, which I haven’t yet I don’t think. Lately I have been feeling a little “twinge”, it’s almost painful so I’m not sure if that’s just my muscles stretching or if that’s little Pip. But it feels different than my muscles stretching, I can really tell when that happens.
Anyway, it’s hard to get my mind to grasp the fact that there’s a real live little person inside of me and that he’ll be coming out of me in 5-6 short months. Oh ya, I also started reading on breastfeeding and oh my goodness gracious. As if reading and hearing about labor isn’t bad enough. Who ever thought of the word “engorgement”? Like I’m not engorged enough. And then to think about breastfeeding every 2-3 hours and taking care of Angel and everything else it’s enough to make me lose my mind. I am obviously not the superwoman I thought I was.
I wonder too if all the fears and mind losing goes away after the baby is born? I have some dear friends who have shared with me similar fears and anxieties they had while pregnant. But after the baby is born all you usually hear about is how wonderful things are. And oh, I’m praying that’s how it’ll be. Just so wonderfully amazing that the tiredness and soreness and engorgement will be a cake walk.
I suppose it would be nice if one of my pregnancy updates was actually happy and not so mopey, dopey, dreary! Just being real with ya. I’m all about the realness – take it or leave it!
And speaking of realness and downright scary, here’s a picture of yours truly at 16 weeks.
Goodness someone has her crabby pants on! I actually thought I was smiling. I guess this is my “it’s way too early in the morning to be taking a picture” smile. And here’s a comparison of my 10 week picture.
Hhmmm, I guess there’s not a huge difference is there? Other than my crabby face! I’ll work on that for next time!
06.26.08
Feeding party at Owlhaven’s!
Please take a minute and visit Owlhaven’s. You may remember earlier this year the huge amount of money that was raised for blankets and a washer and dryer and other things in Ethiopia.
I’ll let Mary share with you about this recent challenge. And I hope you’ll join in on this opportunity to share a little of what you’ve been blessed with!
Craziness is a full time job around here
Every Tuesday night is our designated “family night”. Which basically means we use it as an excuse to eat out for dinner. However we also try to do something fun as a family like play games or watch a movie or go shopping. We really need some new ideas.
Princess came through for us this week. Actually it was Hubby that started it.
Princess has a friend, Timothy. He and some of her other friends are often at our house on weekends or to join us for dinner during the week. And every time Timothy comes over he leaves at least one, usually two or three post-it notes with “Timothy was here”. And he’ll often put them in places so we won’t find them for a day or so. Sneaky little devil.
While me and Princess think this is pretty funny, Hubby has begun to get annoyed by the post-it note leaving maniac. And just like the loving Christian man he is, he has vowed for revenge. And Princess offered to help with the revenge plan. Princess contacted Timothy’s mom and asked if we could post-it note his entire room. And she, being the loving Christian woman that she is said absolutely.
Timothy has been gone the past 5 weeks at Bible camp or something or other and he returns home Saturday. So tomorrow is revenge day. Unfortunately post-it notes don’t come already written on. And FINALLY I get to the point of this story. Princess texted me on Tuesday to ask what we were doing for family night. It was blasted hot so I suggested we order in. And then she suggested that not only do we order in but that we spend our life’s savings on post-it notes and then spend the entire evening writing on them.
And so that is what we did. At first it started out real simple with “Hubby (his real name) was here”. But I then chastised my precious family and told them they are extremely boring. I was writing things like “I’m watching you” and “Jesus rocks my socks”. So if you think of a topic or a word it was probably written on a post-it note. And we’re not talking one pack of post-its. We wrote (well mainly Princess wrote) on approximately 1900 post-it notes. Ya, she’s a wacko that girl.
We sure had a fun night though. I do believe it could have been our funnest family night ever. We are even considering making this a tradition and post-it noting other peoples houses just so we can write funny things on post-it notes like “Belle poops her pants” and “Everyone poops” and “Don’t poop your pants”. Ya, the maturity level is off the chart at our house.
I hope you take some time to make some crazy fun memories with your family. In fact why don’t you share something that you and your family done lately that’s been crazy fun? It’d be good to get some new ideas – I don’t think the post-it note craze will last long!
ER run
8am Update: Princess is home, probably already sleeping. Hubby and I are off to work. They didn’t find anything on her ovaries and her pain is gone. So let’s chalk this one up to a fun-filled night of no sleep. Everyone has to experience the ER in the middle of the night, right? We’re just making memories folks! Oh boy, do I need sleep!
p.s. Thank you Jesus that it was nothing. I’ll take no sleep and nothing wrong any day!
6am Update: They’ve ruled out an appendicitis and are now looking at her ovaries. Ug, I feared that. Please pray if it is cysts she wouldn’t have to have surgery, that they would just go away on their own. One praise, her pain has gotten better so that’s good.
That Princess, she’s always keeping us on our toes. She had a sleepover tonight with 3 girlfriends. I woke up at midnight to hear them laughing hysterically about something. Silly girls.
About an hour late Princess knocks on our door and is complaining of stomach pain. She’s a pretty tough cookie so it’s unusual for her to wake us for this. She takes a Tylenol and we tell her to let us know if it gets worse. About 20 minutes later she’s back.
So it’s about 2:15 am by now and we’re unsure what to do. Hubby calls Ask-A-Nurse and they recommend taking her in because sometimes appendicitis starts in the middle. She is complaining of a little pain on the right side but mostly right in the middle.
Hubby and her are off to the ER at about 2:30 am, Princess’s friends still sleeping in the basement, Angel sleeping in her room, and of course me here blogging about it. Not sure if anyone is out there at this ridiculous hour but when you do read this please say a prayer for our Princess. We’ll keep you posted.
06.24.08
8 months old and almost ready for finalization!
Belle is 8 months old today! I can’t believe I’m even saying that. 8 months old means she’s not our little itty bitty baby anymore. She’s turning into such a big girl. What a bittersweet feeling.
The past fews days I’ve spent some good time going through all her old clothes to see if any of them could work for a boy – if that is in fact what Little Pip turns out to be. I cried looking through her little clothes that seem so so tiny. I can’t believe she was so tiny.
Because now at 8 months old she is quite the porky. And I say that in all love. She loves to eat. In fact I would say that is her favorite thing in life – food. Maybe even more favorite than mommy and daddy. It’s a toss up. She still has formula but most of her diet is rice cereal, baby food and we are now venturing into the world of “big people food”. How scary is that?!? You know it’s what’s best for them but I’m so fearful she’s going to choke. And she’s such a drama queen – she gags at every new thing we give her. I know that’s normal but she sure knows how to scare her mama. But she’s doing a good job, trying all sorts of new foods. Her favorite big people food is chocolate pudding and I will loudly proclaim that it is all her daddy’s fault. He just doesn’t listen to me and of course her cute little smile is hard to resist!
Belle is so close to crawling. I think I’ve been saying that for two months but it’s true. It’s so cute, she’ll stick her little butt in the air and scoot a little but just can’t get up on all fours yet. She does love to sit up and could sit on her own and play for hours if we’d let her. She also loves to dance – stand up with us holding her hands.
Probably the biggest change we’ve noticed recently is her personality and her understanding of what’s going on. She is the craziest little thing and is always laughing and screaming and giggling at something. She’s learned how to wave bye bye and in fact likes to wave bye bye to just about everyone and everything! And just last night she started to copy us. Her big brother Prince was over and he was hitting the table and then she started doing it. So they did this thing for 10 minutes where he would hit it twice and she would hit it twice. And then he’d put his hands in the air and she would put her hands in the air. It was so much fun!
Another first, from yesterday again, was Belle went on her first bike ride. We have one of those trailer things and so Hubby and Prince took her out for a ride. (I made it about 3 blocks before I felt the need to go throw up). She loved her bike ride!
And one more first. One that is not always fun and that I hoped I would be able experience (I say that with all selfishness). Belle cried today when she was dropped off at daycare. And it was Hubby that dropped her off today. She is certainly a daddy’s girl! But I know that’s a good thing!
The finalization for Belle’s adoption will happen in the next few weeks. We meet with our social worker this week for our last meeting and then we just wait for the paperwork and a court date. Although she’s just as much our little girl as she will be then it will be nice to get through that process. We’ll keep you posted.
And here are a few pictures. (Kudos to our friend Ryan for taking these). We thank you for your prayers for our little Belle and appreciate your continued prayers!
06.20.08
One year of blogging madness! And how about some free stuff too!
CONTEST CLOSED! And the winner is Kelly! I’ll send you an email Kelly to get your mailing address. Thanks to everyone for participating!
June 9th was my one year anniversary of this blog. I just spent the last hour or so reading through the old posts. Wow, so much has happened in the past year, it’s just amazing.
Not only have I learned alot of blogging I’ve learned so much about myself. I’ve met some amazing people and made some wonderful life-long friends. I’ve been reminded again and again that God is faithful and that His timing is perfect.
You can check out the side panel to read some of my favorite posts. And you can also look under “Other Graspers of Love” and meet some very cool people that I stalk daily.
And now for the good stuff. The good free stuff. In honor of my one year blogging anniversary Hubby agreed that we could go wild and crazy and give something amazing away. Well, we think it’s amazing anyway.
Actually when I asked him he first suggested that we give away our vacation credit card bill. Any takers for that? Hopefully Uncle Sam comes through soon so we can pay that off!
Anyway back to the good free stuff. I was going to make you do something. Like leave me a comment and tell me the 32nd word on the 8th post in October of 2007. Hmmm, that’s not a bad idea!
But I decided I’d be nice and just ask you to leave me a comment. And for all you 90 some people that never comment here’s your chance. You can do it!
Are you wondering what the free stuff is? Me too! Because I haven’t really decided yet. Hee hee. Ok, how about…
$25 Starbucks gift card AND
$25 Target gift card AND
Four amazing brand new CDs (WOW1, Jeremy Camp, Chris Tomlin and David Crowder) that were given to me by my friend Ryan (who won them from Rocks In My Dryer) and I put them on my Ipod and now I thought I’d send them to someone else (that’s legal, right?!)! AND
Anything else that I find around the house that I decide to send! Now that one’s kinda scary!
Ok, so comment away people! You have to leave an email address so I can contact you. I’ll have Angel pick a random number on Monday, June 23rd at 4:00 pm or so. And spread the word! Or maybe not, I guess if you spread the word your chances of winning decrease but that’s ok, it’s more fun to win that way, don’t you think!
And thanks for an amazing year of blogging madness. We’ll see what God has in store for this year. I can’t wait!!
06.19.08
Family Vacation 2008 part 4
Saturday, June 7th, continued
After lunch we had a crazy time of playing games. My cousin Jenna came up with a game in which we all submit information about us. She then divided us into three teams (The Ticks, The Park Rangers and The Smokin’ Hots – yes, we picked our own names) and she asked us questions about people and we had to guess who she was talking about. I’m happy to report the Park Rangers (my team) won easily. Well, ok, maybe it wasn’t easily. I think it was by one point in a tie break but we were just giving the other two teams a chance.
We then played some other very ridiculous games that my mom and I put together. I’m pretty sure this caused almost the entire family to wish they hadn’t had come to the reunion. Oh well, that’s what they get for being in this family!
It was time for pictures. We decided we had to have a group picture with everyone so one of my cousins ran down to the campground office and somehow convinced a worker to come up to our campsite and take about 300 pictures of all of us. Poor lady.
Here’s our entire group. Well, not really. We are missing my other brother and sister and two of my mom’s brothers and their families. Aren’t we a good looking group!?
And here’s the picture you’ve been waiting for. All the new babies. I made Princess be in the picture too though because she’s a great-grandchild too and just because she’s 17 years older than all the other great-grand kids doesn’t exempt her from the picture!
Here are the grandkids. So that’s me with my brother and alot of my cousins. I won’t say most of the cousins because we’re probably missing at least a 1/3 of them. And of course my sister and brother who bailed on us. My brother Jim is the tall one in the center with the hat on.
And next we have the oldie fogies! Just kidding! My uncle Terry, aunt Joanne, my mom, aunt Beth and their cousin Mike. We are missing my uncle Tom and uncle Pat and a bunch more of their cousins.
And last but not least is my immediate family…Princess, Hubby, Me and Belle, Mom, Dad and Jim.
We were exhausted after the picture extravaganza and so went back to the cabin for a nap. We didn’t do much Saturday night. Visited around the fire, ate supper at the campground’s restaurant, endured Princess beating the tar out of us at cards, visited some more around the fire. It was a good day.
06.18.08
Trying to trust
For the past four or five years one thing I’ve really tried to do is to be real. Regarding my feelings about infertility, adoption, my divorce, etc. Prior to that and especially in the last few years of my first marriage I wasn’t real. I kept a happy face on alot because that’s what I thought I should do. I often said I was ok with God’s plan when in fact on the inside I was far from ok.
To go through the struggle of infertility, divorce, remarriage and all that stuff I went through taught me so much. Although it was the hardest thing to endure I can look back now and see how God worked through it and changed me through it. And so now I’m ok to be real. I’m ok to cry whenever I want and not apologize for being upset about not being able to conceive. I can be honest about the choices…both good and bad…that I’ve made and hopefully encourage someone else.
Y’all know there’s a “but” coming.
But for the past 3 months or so I’ve found myself drifting back into “fakeness”. And it’s really hard to talk about. I’ve shared a little with one of my dearest friends and she was such an encouragement but I still feel I haven’t really layed it all at the cross of my Savior. And until I do that it will continue to bother me. Not only does the “fakeness” bother me but that fact that I’m having the feelings I’m having. And that fact that I struggle to share them with anyone. So why not blurt them out to the entire world wide web. Ok, sounds good.
I’m not entirely excited about being pregnant.
Jeez, that’s really hard to say. And for some that might not be a big deal. But for me, I’ve really really really struggled to be honest about it. Yes, I’m amazed and blown away and in awe the God would in fact see fit to allow me to get pregnant after all this time. But there are some days…many days in fact that I’m not excited. There are days I really struggle to understand His plan. And I struggle to be honest about those feelings because everyone is so very happy for me. And I’m so glad everyone is happy for me. But I can’t really say, “no, I’m not excited but thanks anyway”.
I guess I struggle because I fear it sounds awfully ungrateful and selfish that after 10 years of being unable to conceive and then finally conceiving I’m not always excited about it. I know there are many that are going through what we went through…so many tears and pain and sorrow. And for me to now say I’m not excited…well that’s just crazy.
But it’s the truth. I’ve tried to figure out why. I can think of two reasons. Number one is Belle. I’m a little stressed out about having a 14 month old and a newborn but more than that I grieve the lost time with her. I know she’ll be just fine and we’ll continue to love her and spoil her like crazy but it will be different than if she was the only baby. And I just love her so much and I never want her to think that she wasn’t loved or that we love the new baby more than her. I need to just let go of that, don’t I. I’m sure every second mom deals with those emotions.
I think the second reason I’ve been struggling is that I really wanted to adopt again. Although our adoption journey was long and hard it was the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. It wasn’t the “second best” option for us. It was God’s will and it was so beautiful to be a part of. And I wanted to experience that again. Perhaps we will adopt again but I fear that Hubby is going to say two is enough. I guess God changed his heart once already (he at one point said no more kids at all!) and so He can change his heart again if it’s His will.
I also hate voicing my feelings because what if something happens to the baby? Just because I’m not always jumping for joy about this whole doesn’t mean I don’t already love little Pip and am so excited to meet him. So even when I think to myself “what is God doing?” I always follow up with, “but please God let Pip be ok and bring him to term”!
So there ya have it. I’m trying to be real and honest. I am so thankful I have friends that I can be real with and I’m especially thankful that I can give this to God and leave it with him. So that’s what I’ll do today. I’m leaving it with Him. And asking that He change my heart, take away my worry and help me to rejoice in today. The amazing day He’s blessed us with. Only He knows what tomorrow will bring and I can trust in His plan.
Let not your heart be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in Me. John 14:1
