Things Christmas, Kids, and Otherwise

1.) I have been dying to make Jayce an Advent Calendar and have been pinning ideas for one since October. I started it a few weeks ago and finally finished it on November 30, nothing like the last minute, right? I sewed little goodies or activities inside, and each day he opens one and we talk about it a little bit. Ever since I finished it I've seen a million other ideas that I would have liked to have done instead. I think we might have a house full of Advent Calendars next year.

2.) Jayce had his adenoids removed yesterday. It was sad, but he is okay, and we all are at the moment. More on that later.

I wanted to do something special the day before his surgery, so I rigged his Advent Calendar so that he opened the "make ornaments" activity that day. He loves to help me make sugar cookies, and this was a good way to get in all of the stuff he likes to do (ingredient adding, mixing, dough rolling, cookie cutter cutting,) on a MUCH smaller scale. We used this recipe, but instead of using 2 bottles of cinnamon we used 1, and I filled it back up with flour to sprinkle on the "dough" and keep it from sticking to everything. They smell amazing. There are only 10, still sitting in the kitchen, but the whole house smells lightly like cinnamon.

3.) I love the little sewn stars on Jayce's Advent Calendar, but a part of me is sad every time that Jayce rips one open, even though that is the point. So I made something similar for myself that wouldn't be completely destroyed by December 25th. And I made some for a friend. And I made some more and put them in my Etsy shop. Sewing pretty little stars is becoming an addiction.

4.) Hannah got this insanely adorable hat last week, courtesy of the super talented Amanda at OED&Me. (I've bragged on Amanda's goodies before, she is the one who made me all of those beautiful baby photo props that I showed off here when Hannah was born.)

The hat was so amazing that it almost, ALMOST prompted her to do that thing I am just dying for her to do because it is so darn cute, pull her feet back and put them in her mouth. Am I crazy for thinking that this is equal parts hilarious and adorable? I couldn't believe my luck, having my camera out at just the right time, and her wearing that insanely cute hat. But in the end it was all just a tease.

5.) Last week I went to a Wildtree freezer bag workshop. If you ever have the chance to do something like this, you have to do it!

Basically you bring 10 bags full of prepped meat and some chopped veggies, pay a lump sum for the Wildtree product, and when you arrived the host leads you through recipes which include the ingredients that you have just bought. Then you zip your bag shut, shake everything up until it is well-mixed and stick it in your cooler. We were given labels for each bag with the name of the dish and cooking instructions. On Sunday I pulled 3 bags out of the freezer and have been gradually working through them this week. As someone who hates to cook, and HATES food prep, I have to say that it is amazing. I feel very domestic with a fridge and freezer full of marinating meat, and it is nice to smell something cooking in our home that isn't 1 of the 5 things we make and eat every single week.

That said, the 2 hours I spent cutting chicken on Friday night was my own form of hell. Endless food prep, no cooking, no eating, just me and chicken, with me freaking out about touching it and freaking out even more about chicken juice getting all over the kitchen. But totally worth it in the end.

6.) Remember how I was trying to play catch up with the old blog? I caught up a little bit this week. In October when we were hitting up the pumpkin patch I started reminiscing about the previous year's pumpkin patch trip, when I was newly pregnant and seriously sick.

I started writing up my "beginning of pregnancy" stories, you know, the "this is how we found out and this is how we told people" stuff that often gets lost by the time that you are officially announcing, and I published them this week. If you're curious, you can read my early pregnancy stories for Jayce, Hannah, and the baby we lost at these links.

7.) I'm linking up with Elizabeth over at E Tells Tales, who's starting a new link party today. Elizabeth is a blog friend (sounds lame, I know), whose little guy was due just days before my little lady, so we kept up with each other a bit since we were basically at the same stage pregnancy-wise, and our babies are doing similarly ornery baby things. She's an amazing sewer, (check out her cute new baby Etsy shop), and sent me the prettiest burp cloth when Hannah was born. Seriously too pretty to use, although I do use it. She just guest posted at Lemon Tree yesterday too. Stop by and tell her hi!

Linking also to the always enjoyable Miscellaneous Monday, and Life Made Lovely parties. Stop by if you can!

Read More

Medicine

Last Tuesday night Chris and I were wiped out.

Both kids were sick. I'd been on the phone back and forth with the doctor all day over Hannah's rapidly progressing respiratory infection, and ended up taking her to the ER. Since Chris had hit a deer with my car the previous week, we've been sharing his truck while my car is in the shop. So that day it was...leave work early, work unfinished, bring me the truck, trip to the ER, trip back out the the pharmacy, late dinner, and lots of rushing around. This was following a night of very little sleep and days full of sick and grumpy kids. Hannah had been fussy all day, understandably, but still, and Jayce kept jumping around in his seat and not really eating .As we ate dinner we were quieter than usual, a bit glassy eyed and grumpy ourselves.

In an attempt to stall eating for just a few more seconds, Jayce started making silly noises. Hannah laughed at him. He did it again, she laughed again, and we all smiled.

Next he "scared" her.

"Boo!" he said. She laughed, he started laughing, and we all laughed.

He did it over and over, and Hannah, who almost never laughs at the same thing more than twice, laughed over and over.

It was just what we needed. Being parents to these two is the best medicine.

On Wednesday evening, after I wrote this post about how crazy busy we had been, I came downstairs to discover that both kids were asleep.

Chris crept out of Jayce's room and exclaimed, "He's asleep, and it's only 8:30! What should we do?!" We were so excited. We debated about watching a movie, but decided not to push our luck and caught up on a few episodes of The Office and went to bed a bit early instead. As we got ready for bed, we talked about the kids. About how sweet Hannah is and how she's such a daddy's girl. About how big Jayce is and we laughed over his little antics.

Then we had a conversation that we often have, about how soon this stage will be over and how sad we'll be. About how we'll be well-rested, well-versed in the newest movies and caught up on our favorite shows, and maybe have picked up a new hobby or two. And we'll say "Those were the best days. Those exhausting and stressful joy-filled days." And when we reminisce, the evenings of short tempers and time outs will be largely overshadowed by the evenings of side-by-side pancake making, pillow jumping, and dance-party basketball shooting.

Read More

Pregnant #3

When I found out that I was pregnant with Hannah we had just gotten home from a trip to Cincinnati.

Chris was doing some lectures at CCU, and Jayce and I tagged along and took the opportunity to catch up with a few friends. Jayce and I went to a friend's house and hung out all morning until around lunchtime, and then went back to the place we were staying for a nap. We both fell quickly asleep, he longer than I, and when we woke up, went over to another friends' house to hang out and have dinner. We didn't stay incredibly long after dinner and I was in bed by 10:30 that night. We decided to just get up whenever Jayce did the next morning, and not push for an early start for our trip back home. Jayce slept in that day, waking up after 8:00 am when he normally is up around 6:30 or 7.

I remember waking up that morning and thinking, "I can't get out of bed, I'm completely exhausted." My body felt the way that it does when you've pulled an all-nighter, or maybe just had 3 or 4 hours of sleep, which was baffling since I'd had almost 10 hours plus a nap the day before. I knew something wasn't right.

I didn't say anything to Chris, and I didn't really think about it on the way back home from Cincinnati.

After we got home, we unloaded the car and all went outside into the backyard to let Jayce run around a bit. We decided to head out for dinner and I ran inside to use the bathroom before we took off. I quickly grabbed a test and took it, and pretty soon there was a faint little line.

I would like to say that I was completely shocked, but even though I didn't really have a lot of symptoms or anything yet, I just kind of knew that I was pregnant.

I called Chris into the house and told him that there was something I wanted him to look at. I had set the test on my dresser, stood in front of it until he walked over, and then moved out of the way. It seemed to take him a minute to realize what he was seeing, but then he was pleased. He laughed, hugged me, and then we went out to eat.

It's such a strange experience that first day after you discover that you're pregnant, because your whole world has just changed, but for a little while you just carry on as though everything is the same.

We kept this news a secret from our families for a while, a little longer than we'd have liked. We knew that we'd see Chris' family when I was about 9 weeks along when they were in town for a basketball game, and we'd be seeing my family at Thanksgiving when I was about 10 weeks, so we decided to wait until then to share our news.

It was difficult to wait this long, mostly because I felt like I was lying to people. I wrote about it a bit here. I started feeling very sick and very tired almost immediately and it was difficult to pretend like everything was fine.

I also started to show almost right away. When Mom picked me up at the airport, she said she knew as soon as she saw me. When Chelsea came in that night, she also said she knew as soon as she saw me, because, "you weren't fat like that the last time that I saw you." Seriously Chelsea? :)

Everyone else found out through Facebook and our Christmas card, which held this picture among others. I still love it. It took forever to get just the right one, but it was the perfect way of announcing the newest addition to our family.

My due date was June 14, 2011.

After threatening to come early for weeks, Hannah was born June 8, 2011.

Read about my first "beginning of pregnancy story" here, and my second here.

Read More

Pregnant #2

On June 7th 2010, Chris and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. And we discovered that I was pregnant.

It was a pretty low key day at first. Mom and Chelsea were in town to visit and Chris had to work. After he got home we went out of town for dinner and dessert. We weren't going to exchange gifts because we had just bought a new computer and new truck in May, but at the last minute he snuck a present in on me. As we drove to the restaurant Chris pulled out a Walmart bag with a single pregnancy test in it.

He'd been telling me that week that I was acting more annoyed than usual, and I assured him that he was just being more annoying than usual. But he was sure that I was pregnant.

His idea was for me to take the test at the restaurant. The restaurant!!! He said that he thought it would lead to an interesting dinner conversation. I did not think this was the greatest idea, for a variety of reasons, (I mean, seriously! We were at a nice Italian restaurant!), but agreed that I would take it first thing the next morning to appease him.

He tried to have the conversation that we would have had if I had cooperated, taken the test and found a positive result. Such as, "If you're pregnant than the baby will be due at this time...so maybe we can do this for Christmas...and I'll have to cancel this trip..." But I wasn't very cooperative, so while Chris was playing the "If you are, then..." game, I was playing the "But if I'm not..." game.

When we got home, I had to run to the bathroom anyway, so I just went ahead and took the test. I washed my hands, left the room, changed clothes, and then went back in to take a glance, and was stunned to see that it was positive. I was honestly shocked.

I immediately felt all wobbly and stumbled out to the living room where Chris was sitting. We had already decided that if we found out that we were pregnant while Mom and Chelsea were in town, that we wouldn't tell them right away because we wanted to keep it between us for a few days. I tried to put on my game face but I'm pretty sure that Chris knew the minute he saw me.

I rambled something to him about going for a walk with me over to our neighbor's house, and as soon as we closed the front door behind us I burst out "I'm pregnant!" and fell into his shoulder where we laughed, and then eventually did venture out for a walk to do a bit of processing.

We had decided a while ago that we would start trying for another baby once Jayce turned 2, which was on May 21, and we found out we were pregnant on June 7. It was just so fast that I was completely shocked.

We told Mom and Chelsea a few days later, as we drove to dinner one night. I just burst out with it, and they didn't believe me at first, but after we kept saying that we were serious, eventually they did.

That weekend Mom, Chelsea and I drove to Cincinnati for an Ellery concert. As we had breakfast with Justin and Tasha Saturday morning, Justin asked me,

"So, what have you been making lately? Is there anything that you're working on that you're really excited about?"

To which I replied, "Yes, a baby! "

It was an excellent set up.

A few weeks later I started having some complications. The following week the doctor confirmed that I had lost the baby.

Some people might argue that it isn't worth remembering a pregnancy that didn't result in a baby in our home. But this tiny little life was a piece of me and a product of my marriage. It was a life, worthy of celebration at the start, mourning at the end, and remembrance afterwards. I am grateful to have been able to create and carry that life even if it was for far too short of a time, and I remember this baby when our anniversary rolls around, when the due date arrives, and periodically throughout the year.

When I'm feeling sad about the loss of this little one, I find comfort in Mindy Smith's beautiful Come to Jesus, a song I frequently sang to the baby and myself in the midst of and after the complications.

Oh my baby when you're dying, believe the healing of his hands. Here in Heaven we will wait for your arrival. Here in Heaven you will finally understand. Worry not my daughters, worry not my sons. Child, when life don't seem worth living, come to Jesus, and let him hold you in his arms.

Little baby, joyfully discovered June 7, 2010. Sadly departed, June 23, 2010.

Linking to Picture Me Imperfectly and What I Love Wednesday.

Read More

Pregnant #1

Not today, but October of last year. (Gotcha Mom!)

Last month I discovered the pregnancy test that I used with Hannah, still showing positive, and decided to give Chris a little scare.

I thought it was funnier than he did. I got him pretty good.

Don't get me wrong, I love my babies more than anything. But we have had a really stressful year, only partially related to pregnancy or baby stuff, and a "surprise" baby would really throw us for a loop right now. As I'm sure most surprise babies do. But now I'm rambling.

Anyway, I always enjoy listening to people's stories about how they discovered that they were pregnant, how they told their spouses, their families, etc.

I also love when people announce it on Facebook. Whether it is in a straightforward manner, or slightly vague or creative, there is fun in the bombardment of congratulations and well wishes that come after such an announcement.

The "story" of the beginning is sometimes lost in the excitement of the baby stuff, particularly when people wait about 3 months to tell people about it, as we did, so I thought I'd share my stories. I also want to get them down for myself while they're still relatively fresh in my mind.

When I found out that I was pregnant with Jayce we were still living in Scotland.

I suspected that I was pregnant, but we had guests staying with us for about 5 days in that "take the test now" period, so I wanted to wait until they left. We were friends with them, but not close friends, and we didn't want to share that potentially joyous discovery with semi-random house guests.

It was a Wednesday and I'd been feeling really sick all day at work. Our guests had left that morning, so I stopped by the store on the way home to pick up a test. When I got home, I walked in the door, dropped my bags and went straight for the bathroom. Chris was in the kitchen cooking, and when he heard me come in and figured out what I was doing, he rushed out to the hallway and said, "Erin...you're not...wait...!" I think he felt like we should take a minute to prepare ourselves or there should be a bit more prominence or something. But I just wanted to get the "are we or aren't we" part over with.

The results showed up immediately. I started to giggle.

I opened the door with a smile on my face. "I am." I said.

But...you need to wait 5 minutes!

It doesn't matter. It's already done. It's not going to change back.

Chris came over to examine the test himself, and let out a whoop. We laughed and hugged. I cried. We took a picture. We took pictures.

Then we went and ate dinner. I remember thinking about how strange it was that we should just carry on like normal and do normal things even though our lives had just changed. But for the moment we did carry on as normal.

We didn't tell anyone right away. We wanted to let the news sink in a little bit and be just ours, silly as that may sound. That weekend we called our parents and our siblings.

8 weeks

We went to dinner at the home of some good friends that weekend and told them as well. We hadn't planned to.

The last time we'd had dinner at their house, I had turned down wine with my dinner, and the husband loudly asked, like it was a joke, "No wine? What are you, PREGNANT?"

"No." I said quietly, and Chris and I looked down, probably communicating that this wouldn't be such bad news. Our friend was quiet under his wife's glare.

We later found out that he'd gotten into a lot of trouble with her over that after we left.

This time when I turned down the wine at dinner the room was silent. We waited for him to say something like last time, but his lips were sealed, so we announced the news without any prompting. 3 weeks later they discovered that they were pregnant as well, (surprise!). So we got to go through all of the 1st pregnancy stuff at the same time as our good friends, which was a nice bonus.

We told everyone else about the pregnancy when I reached the 2nd trimester, had my sonogram photos and due date.

When we put our news on Facebook it was back in the days when Facebook prompted you with is for your status. So we went simple.

Erin is going to be a mom.

Chris is going to be a dad.

It certainly was a very efficient way to spread the news.

My due date was May 20, 2008.

Jayce arrived May 21, 2008.

Anyone else care to share their "beginning of pregnancy" story? I'd love to hear it!

Read More

Busy

Well, my month of every day weekday blogging is over. And now that it's over what did I think of it?

Eh.

I don't know that I actually made a lot of progress like I hoped I would. I still have a dozen unfinished blog posts sitting in my drafts. I had hoped to get time to just sit down and power through them, but the truth is that I don't have lots of time to sit down and power through anything these days. I keep thinking I'm going to sit down and power through one of the things I'd like finish, projects, decorating the house, cleaning the house, cleaning out Hannah's already too small clothes, photo editing (have I mentioned that I have a few variations of monthly photos of Hannah that haven't really seen the light of day?). There are a few things like that.

I think that the once-a-day blogging didn't really save me a lot of time, because if I didn't feel the push to get something out in one day, then I would have collaborated the mini posts into longer posts. Like, instead of having 4 mini posts to catch up on our time with mom, I would have 2 longer posts. I always like the idea of NaBloPoMo, but the reality is that it is always the worst month to attempt it: just coming out of Halloween, 3 family birthdays including mine, Chris out of town for 5 days for the SBL, traveling to and from somewhere to celebrate Thanksgiving, and starting into the Christmas season, it's all just a bit much for 23 days of blogging as well.

The truth is that we are in a season of craziness right now. The first season was when Hannah was a newborn and we were getting our feet under us, and the other is now. It is taking Jayce until 9 or 9:30 some nights to get to sleep, and the same for Hannah, which means that once they are FINALLY in bed, we are exhausted. And we still need to clean up dinner, the house, maybe get some work done or attempt to relax, and the last usually doesn't happen. We have stopped watching all of our shows because the kids are always awake and we don't have DVR, though we still catch up on a few of them that are free On Demand. Chris and I haven't been on a date since Valentines Day, and we are in that tricky stage where I am still exclusively nursing Hannah so I can't leave her for too long, (AKA, enough time to go out of town and be back), and we aren't comfortable leaving the 2 kids together with a babysitter. This week the kids have been sick, and it's just added to the overall tiredness of this stage.

It's still great, and I wouldn't trade my life, even the crazy parts, for anything else. But it is crazy.

So, of NaBloPoMo, I think, it made me tired at a time when I'm already tired. So I probably won't be doing it again. Another month maybe, but not this month again.

December, you've never looked sweeter!

Read More

Chocolate Frosting

We made birthday cupcakes while mom was in town.  I realized that I never had a birthday dessert, with candles and whatnot, so it was a perfect excuse for Jayce to help with a little baking as he loves to do.  They were yellow with chocolate frosting.

When we weren't paying attention, Jayce helped himself to a second, which he ate from the top down, as opposed to from the side.  This is his response to his reflection in the mirror.

The little stinker.  He was so proud.

 

Read More