THIRD TRIMESTER...

Yeah, so the entrance into the third trimester has came and went. I've been in now for a week and things are changing..rapidly. Gone are the days of comfort and forgetting about even being pregnant thanks to the busy bee syndrome of an 18 month old. Not so welcome are the days of waddling, constant hunger, arched back, being forced to sit like a man b/c your belly keeps you from keeping your legs closed or comfortably crossing them, and the beginnings of a general sense of having a small crane ball pushing you down into the center of the earth. As I said before, this kiddo is being carried much much lower than Zoe was...and Zoe was low. Although...don't mistake my previous sentence for a complaining. It's actually a big blessing in disguise since I have the remnants of my 15 month bout with childhood cancer stretching across my belly in the form of a scar just a couple of inches above my belly button. I'm not feeling any stretching this time which is amazing considering last time at this point in pregnancy, I felt like that scar was going to rip apart and my insides were going to just fall out, baby and all. But...with carrying a lower baby, I'm experiencing an increased sense of pressure all the time which is new to me. It'll just be something I get used to overtime, I'm sure. I noticed the other day that I'm starting to waddle, just ever so slightly. Then again, maybe it was just my imagination.

So here's how I'm feeling at the moment.


Now granted, I've been VERY careful what I've eaten the last 6 months. I always hated hearing when I was pregnant with Zoe, "Oh, honey, don't worry about what you eat. This is your excuse to eat WHATEVER you want!" Ahem...yes, maybe, I do have an excuse for actually needing to pack on some pounds. But NO, I do not have an excuse unless I expect that come the end of my pregnancy I birth a 50 pound baby. Luckily, I only gained 15 pounds with Zoe. Since I was maybe 10 pounds overweight, the doc said to keep it b/w 15 and 25 pounds. Honestly, I never understood how I could be totally in control of my weight gain. I ate well and allowed my body to gain what it needed to naturally (with a splurge day every now and then). Benefits of being a few pounds overweight to begin with, I guess. UNFORTUNATELY, I'm there now...sitting at about 14.5 pounds of weight gain by this point. The holidays weren't nice to me this year...I like to say, I have will power, I just choose when to use it. Six of those pounds were from mid-December to mid-January. Ahem. So, now that I'm back on track, I'm eating well again and trying to get into an exercise routine a few times a week at least. The good news is that last time around, most of my weight was gained in the 2nd trimester. Maybe 5 pounds was put on in the third. In fact, the third trimester, I actually ended up losing chub in the legs, bootie, and definitely in the face. So if nature takes its course again, I'll start to slow down on gain here pretty soon. My goal is to keep it b/w 20 and 25 lbs (as requested by my doc). That's very doable.

The following is my picture from last week. I'll get a new one up over the weekend. Seriously...can you carry any lower? How much will he drop when he gets into his "ready position"? Yikes! It already feels like he's trying to find a way out.

"Again!"

The predominant word in our house this week? "Again!" The predominant activity occurring sometime, sometimes several times during the day? See below.

I want to eat like Daddy!

We have a protester on our hands. As long as she's sitting down eating her food that is still being chopped up by herself, she's fine. She's even OK after I have fixed my plate and come to join her. But as soon as daddy sits down, it's all over. She notices that her meat is cut up (even though most other things like veggies are full sized) and sometimes notices that she's not eating the exact thing that daddy's eating. Doesn't settle well! She wants to be just like her daddy.

Tonight we were eating fajitas. Her plate consisted of everything that we had, just not in fajita form. After some light protesting about what was on daddy's plate, I decided to try to put some of it inside a portion of a tortilla and see how she would do. Sniff, sniff...she did great! My little baby isn't a baby anymore.

Pathetic as it might be, I decided to take pictures of this "first", a small milestone in my eyes.





Hope you like "seefood". Obviously she's quite proud of herself for this little accomplishment. She was grinning ear to ear...oh, and I have to include that she ate an entire stinking tortilla (one of the small ones) with chicken, corn, and cheese inside...in small parts of course.

Yee-Haw!

Well, we're still recovering from a cold. Zoe's a fighter...doesn't let too much get her down. Tonight, as you can see, she was fighting off her low grade fever by dancing and bouncing...very effective method of fighting a fever I might add. Too bad it doesn't work that way for adults! So what went on around our house tonight? Here, let me show you!



First off we have our horse rider. This horse sits against the wall normally. Tonight she was bouncing so hard that it moved about 5 feet forward. I was sitting on the fireplace getting warm when she moved completely out of sight behind the couch. Perfect video opportunity. Oh, and meanwhile she was saying, "Yee-Haw" while she bounced, although I couldn't get her to say it on camera.



Next we have her watching her favorite TV show, The Backyardigans. She loves the intro when they dance, and sometimes if the songs they sing during the show are interesting enough she'll stop for a moment to dance with them and the resume whatever she was playing with at the time. Here she was dancing to one of the first songs and mocking what they were doing, hence the spinning and clapping. She breaks out into dance quite often, some without music. Her new favorite move is "flying" where she takes her arms and sways them back and forth like a bird. I'm waiting for the day when she busts a move on the floor and starts break dancing.

Big...small; fast, slooooww...

OK, here's the scene. Zoe is sitting on the potty...please ignore that. Darin is not! He is sitting on a chair opposite her to keep her occupied while she is "doing her business".

Yesterday, we read a good majority of the time that she was awake. She's been fighting a cold and yesterday I guess was just in an "I need to be still today" mood. Her favorite book is the Opposite book. That has been her favorite word for over a month now. Actually it's kind of funny when she's with me and I'm talking to friends of mine or she's around strangers of any kind. Sometimes she'll just randomly start saying the word opposite and I always get the same response...a funny look, cocked head, and sometimes a question, "Did she just say opposite?".

Anyway, yesterday we were reading this book, only she read it to me. I opened up the book and was prepared to get pretty animated as I always do with this one but she started and pointed to each one and said what the picture was, then pointed and named its opposite. I was blown away. She got through the book by herself only getting caught up on a couple. I tried to get a video of it immediately after, but of course was insistent on the fact that she didn't want to read it again.

So...we got the video today. Only what daddy didn't know was that he could have pointed and asked, "what's this?" instead of saying the first and letting her name the opposite. But she might not have read it that way b/c she was in a funky mood today. I think this may be the longest video I've ever posted, but it took that long to get through the book. Granny, I hope you're reading this one...this is one of the books you got her for Christmas.

Oh, and you'll probably want to go turn the music player off to hear this one well. Bottom of the right hand column is pink box..click the pause button.

You're a mom!

This was too funny not to post. A friend of mine posted it a couple of weeks ago on hers, I just forgot to do the same when I read her post. You can turn off the music player by pushing the pause button on the music player box towards the bottom of the left column.

Just thinking...

I'm exhausted today, more than normal. Zoe's been sick with a cold, had a wicked cough starting about 9:30 last night and my "momsense" kept me from ever getting into a deep sleep. Not a good thing when your body craves at least 9 hours of good sleep b/c you're pregnant about to enter into your last trimester. But despite how exhausted I am, I still have been in this cleaning frenzy today and my mind has been running more than normal.

So here my thoughts...and bear with me, they'll jump from one thing to another.

Thought #1: I was browsing on facebook last night and was looking at status updates when I noticed that one in particular kept climbing in the number of comments. Intrigued, I watched as they bantered back and forth. She's a 13 year old girl that I know very well...good kid, good Christian family...BAD conversation, one I'm not going to even repeat (other than to say it was about sexual thoughts, etc...). I was blown away that a 13 year old would be even thinking about those things, let alone type them out for all to see. Then I started thinking, oh my gosh...my little girl is going to be thrown into this world here in a few years and will be 13 before I know it. Do I home school her? But then what about college? Here's a good kid involved in some terrible conversations. What if that's Zoe in 11 years??? The bantering ended with an adult, a worker from Arkadelphia schools actually, saying, "you know that adults can see this too, right?"...or something to that effect. Oops...busted...especially since some of the comments were about a teacher at school. I pray that though Zoe may end up in things like that, that she will always be caught early enough to learn a lesson from it. I think it was Lisa that said she prayed that from day one for both of her girls and they were always caught when they were up to no good.

Thought #2: I have 13 weeks left...THIRTEEN! Then our family of 3 will instantly become 4. Holy cow...what a concept. I've just been breezing through this pregnancy. But as I was feeling Ethan's body slip and slide inside me, knees moving across my belly and feet kicking at my ribs, the realization slapped me in the face. Wow...

Thought #3: It's a really nice day outside...I really want to go walking. Hmmm.....

Thought #4: OK, so I've read 6 books in the last few weeks since really just a couple of days before Christmas. I swore up and down that I would never get hooked on romance books...thought it was too soap opraish (hmm...new word for the Alison Dictionary). But I kept seeing my mother-in-law reading these books by Karen Kingsbury. She's been trying to get me to read them for years now. Then I heard some ladies at church talking about her. The final breaking point was when I was browsing the church library looking for something to check out some books but had finished all the ones from Coleen Coble, one of my favorite authors. Angela Garner came speeding in and apparently noticed my bewildered look. Guess where she pointed me? Karen Kingsbury! NOOOO...I won't be sucked in! Yeah, my last words there. I checked out two, read them over the course of the holidays and have checked out between 2 and 3 ever since the first of January. I finished the 5th book in one of her series and was in tears by the end. I was sucked in...HARD. I won't ruin the ending of that series for those of you who haven't read it and might want to. She's a romance Christian, but it's a great plot line...one that involves a family with 5 grown kids that you follow all the way through. Not sappy by any means, just good plots with a good moral. But I'm still not happy with her for killing off one of the family members. Ugh.

Thought #5: My daughter last night gave me a good laugh. She is obsessed with her little toy phone. It's a flip phone and the buttons have been worn out. But still, she manages to talk on that thing for minutes on end. Her conversation starts, "Yo". Ok, so I must explain that my daughter is not a hoodlum. Yo is her word for hello. But imagine this: Phone held up to her ear, head cocked as if to cradle the phone between her chin and shoulder, hip thrust out in this sassy sort of way, free hand on her hip, all the while having a pretend conversation started with "Yo". Ok seriously, do I really talk on the phone that way? She mocks me or Darin and then role plays herself. Where did she learn to stand like that? Surely not me!!!!! ;-) Last night, she tried to mimic an entire conversation of mine to one of my friends from Dallas. A few of the words that she caught were, "hey", "wow", "great", "See ya". In the background I hear her, but tune her out. She's standing right in front of me talking on her phone looking at me. Darin's behind her and he's stifling laughter. As soon as I got off, he shared what she was doing with me since I was too oblivious to notice. He said she did everything I was doing during the 2 minute phone call.

Thought #6: Darin and I signed up for our churches "read through the Bible in 365 days". We're reading every evening together...don't know about him, but it keeps me accountable. We're in Exodus now, reading about the plagues on Pharaoh that Moses and Aaron brought upon Egypt for not allowing the Israelites to go. Wow...am I glad I wasn't there to see frogs cover my household or water turn to blood. What was going through the average citizen's mind during all that???

Thought #7: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

18 months ago...

18 months ago, I felt and looked, I'm sure, like a beached whale.
18 months ago, I walked hand in hand with my husband to the room where life would change forever.
18 months ago, I met my second favorite best friend (really...just kidding)...the man who gave me my epidural.
18 months ago, my husband and I waited through 20 loooong hours of wave after wave of contraction for one very special moment.
18 months ago, after an hour and half of pushing, that special moment arrived.
18 months ago, our precious baby girl was placed in our arms for a short time before being whisped away, but in our hearts forever.
18 months ago, two became three.





Zoe is a year and a half old today...can you believe it? Not that she was any different yesterday than she was today, but there's just something about saying the words, "my daughter is a year and a half old" that changes the way you think...at least for me there is.

It seems as though this month has been THE month of huge amounts of learning and milestones.



Here's what's new in the life of Zoe:

1. Probably the newest thing is that she has started "talking full sentences". And before you ask, I can't understand a thing. BUT, she's working to communicate. Her vocabulary has increased to about 200-250 words that she says on a regular basis or that she can identify when asked. But lately, she's come up to us with an intent to talk. This is what her "sentence" sounds like. "bayalinercrindinlo", all the while she is locked on our eyes and sometimes pointing at something. This happens quite often. No clue what she's saying, but she's trying to get something across to us. We just wait patiently for her to finish and go, "uh huh".
2. Two and three word sentences. One week she just suddenly started bunching her words together and talking in short sentences. Some examples of her regulars are "get up", "sit down", "jump up", "right back" (for we'll be right back), "wait a minute" (that's not quite clear just yet), "go bye bye".
3. She has learned several more animals and their appropriate noises. She knows about 15 now.
4. She is counting by herself to 4, sometimes 5 and can mimic the rest if we count with her. She tries to show the number on her fingers as she's counting, but the fingers are shooting out in all directions.
5. She loves building with her new foam blocks. She'll build towers and then kick or knock them down.
6. About a week ago, we started noticing that she was beginning to use her imagination. She has a TON of stuffed animals. She will play mommy with them and feed them, put them down for naps, sit them on the window sill, and change them. She'll talk to them as she's changing their position instructing them to "sit down" or "bap" (word for nap). Her "full sentences" come in handy here too. She'll have full one-sided conversations with her toys. She'll even allow them to sit on her horsy and bounce them up and down. She's very precise in the way that she lays them down or the way that she sits them up. Very much like her perfectionist mother. Ah-hem.
7. She has a new favorite word...."opposite". Her great-granny got her a handful of board books at Christmas. One of them is a book of opposites. She will tell me or show me what the opposite is of up and down, fast and slow, and big and small. She's also memorized a book called Baby Faces and will "read" it as I flip the pages. It has six distinct baby faces with their appropriate meanings, like "yucky", "uh oh", etc.
8. She is now sleeping in her toddler bed. She figured out on Friday morning how to climb out of it and how to open her door. We had a "talk" on Friday during nap time when she was told to wait for mommy and daddy before getting out of bed. She's not done it again since, but I'm sure that will change.
9. We're still working on colors. That seems to be somewhat difficult for her to learn for some reason. She still can identify red, blue, and purple, but no others yet.
10. She's learned all her basic shapes. She loves playing with her shape box and her shapes wooden puzzle. When asked what this shape is, she'll tell me the following: circle, square, star, diamond, triangle (pronounced criangle), and oval. She can identify by pointing to a rectangle, trapezoid, semi-circle, hexagon, and pentagon. Yeah, I know, nerdy...but come on...you had to expect we'd go into more detail with math stuff...we both teach it for a living.
11. She knows a ton of body parts now - thanks to another one of great granny's books. Her favorite is the elbow which she'll go point to on strangers, and still the toes...a strange fascination with toes. But her all time favorite is still her belly. She'll walk around, even in public at the store, and all of a sudden rip her shirt up to her face pointing to her tummy and say, "Belly". Oh well, I'll have my time to embarass her at the store in just a few short years...

I guess that's about it. Sorry about the novella you had to read to get to this point.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the last few weeks. Some were taken on OBU's campus last week and then the black and white ones from the playground in town.

The Teething Monster

Zoe popped out 4 new molars within two weeks time when she was 13 months old. We breezed through that, as we had the first 8 teeth. I didn't even know she was teething until I felt that the first molar had already come through and two more were on their way. Not so much as a whimper that month. But now...5 full months later, she's teething again. And wow...the teething monster has definitely made a visit (and decided to stick around for a while). I can't feel a single thing. But she has been chomping on anything that gets close to her...toys, spoons, her sippy, her blankie, and even my finger. Something is always inside her mouth, and she's drooling like she's forgotten suddenly how to swallow. But that's not the bad part. That's the norm. The last 5 days have been really rough on her. She's been fussy and waking up at night as many as 5-7 times...some as early as an hour after she was put down. We've been living off of motrin and teething tablets for pain, especially at night. She comes to me randomly during the day with a pathetic little whimper and points to her mouth saying "mof" (her word for mouth). When I ask her what hurts, she always points to the same side, same two teeth...the pointers. I can't feel anything. Her gums feel swollen, but I see no white, and feel no evidence of one about to pop through. I don't get it. I guess they're moving towards the surface. Bless her heart. I've had to have extra high patience the last few days b/c of her whininess and fussiness.

Last night was the worst. I gave her motrin at 8 when we put her down. She woke up at 9 shreaking. I went in and gave her two teething tablets and immediately put her back down...didn't even pick her up in the process. She's learned that when we give them to her, they provide her relief, so she settles down almost instantly. She slept peacefully until 3...7 hours after we gave motrin to her. I of course was jolted out of a deep sleep and b/c of the type of cry, ran to her room. Of course by the time I went to my bathroom to pour another tsp of motrin and made it to her door, she had stopped. So back to bed I go. 3:45: Waaaiiiillll. Out of bed again. Again, almost as soon as it started, it stopped, even before I made it to her door. Back to bed....yet again. 4:30: Waaaiiilll. I finally made it to her room in time this time. Took the previously poured motrin and had her sit up in bed to drink it. When she was finished, she just sort of fell back onto her side and went back to sleep. So back to bed I go...again. 5:30: Waaailllll. I stayed in bed this time knowing she'd be back out in 15 seconds or less which proved to be true. Same story at least 2 more times at which I FINALLY fell back asleep. Normally if and when she wakes up, she is still sleeping or so it seems. The cry is muffled and doesn't last long at all, so we never go in unless it's a high pitched shreak or unless it's a cry that tells us she's had a night terror and is afraid. I'm exhausted!

No wonder the tooth fairy leaves you money when your teeth fall out. It's a bribe for all the pain you went through to get that tooth in the first place and that you're about to go through again to get your permanent tooth.

26 weeks!

Ok, well, I've been really bad at taking pictures this time around. I was so on the ball with taking pictures last go around that it was. It was pathetic, actually. I actually looked forward to the day when I could take the picture to see how much I'd grown. Sometimes, a lot of times actually, I was floored to see how much my baby Zoe grew in just a week's time.

I'm 26 weeks now....one week away from entering into the 3rd trimeseter...one day under the 100 day mark! Whohoo!! Time's a flyin'!

Well, this picture is actually from a week ago when I was 25 weeks, so I'll need to do a new one after church tomorrow when I'm not sporting a lovely oversized sweatshirt that just makes me look like Christmas wasn't very nice to me...which it wasn't. I actually gained b/w 5 and 6 pounds this last month...darn sweets. Although I was kind of shocked about that. I didn't think I did too awful. So I've gained about 15 pounds at this point. I'm a little more than I was last time. I gained 20 total (and 5 of that was making up for the weight I lost in the first trimester). I'm hoping to still keep it under 25. Last time I just stopped gaining weight the last half of the 3rd trimester, so maybe I'll do the same this time. Hopefully, anyway. My butt doesn't need to get any bigger than it already is right now. But the good news is that I'm starting to see the same things happening that happened last time. Towards the 3rd trimester and beyond, weight fell off around my "trouble areas"...ie the butt, and thighs. My waist actually slimmed down, and my face became really thin. Those are all starting to happen and all the weight being gained is in my basketball sized growth.

Here's a picture of me this time at 25 weeks...nope, just kidding. I must have deleted that one without downloading it. Oops...so here's my 26 week picture. Since I'm sporting an oversized pair of sweat pants and sweatshirt, I went and changed into a shirt where you can actually tell I'm pregnant and not just extremely overweight in the belly area. I'm outgrowing my warmer winter clothes and when I get cold, I wear the lovely pink hoodie sweatshirt. Real classy.



And here's one at 26 weeks with Zoe...just my own curiosity to see where I compare.



So before I state the obvious, he is being carried MUCH lower than Zoe was. Let me just tell you how much of a blessing that is. I had cancer when I was 4 yrs old and had a kidney removed. That left a scar going from one side of my belly (about 2 inches above my belly button) to the other. It's grown with me, so it still spans from the left to the right side of the belly. I was blessed to carry Zoe low, but by this point in my pregnancy, that scar was soooo soooo tender. By the end, it felt like it was going to burst open. I was just telling Darin the other night that I haven't felt a bit of discomfort along my scarline. But not until now have I even compared pictures (at least in the last 6 weeks or so).

Now Accepting Applications

So apparently I've decided with my daughter's help to run a day care in my home. Yeah, I know...BIG decision. But see, it's really easy, and Zoe's my best employee. Actually, she does just about everything in the way of taking care of these little ones. She helps feed the babies, helps dress and undress them, and even loves to put them down for naps. We have about 7 right now already enrolled. Hopefully we'll stop here for a while. And the best thing is that they're already on the same nap schedule.


She's my best worker, I'll tell you!



Their names? Let's see if I can remember them all. There's Pooh Bear, Lion, Snowman, Mickey, Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C. Mickey hadn't made it down for a nap by this point yet.



Apparently these two did such a great job going down for their naps that they deserved pillows to lay on. The others remained in their spots on the floor.

Yes, I know our child has more stuffed animals than she can count right now. They're causing her toybox to overflow. All but two were gifts from family this last month or two. Mickey was mine when I was little, and the snowman was part of our Christmas decorations but somehow made its way into her toybox and not instead of the Christmas decorations box.

Oh...I guess it's "sit" time now. Zoe's putting them on the window sill and gently instructing them to "sit down".

I've been tagged...

Jennifer from the 2 Peas in a Pod blog just tagged me.

Here is what you do:

1. Go to your 4th folder where you store your photos.
2. Select your 4th picture (no exceptions)!
3. Post the picture with an explanation and link it back to your tagger.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same!!




This was the picture (well, this was one that I played with, so maybe not THE one) that I printed out for Valentines Day last year, placed in a picture frame, and gave to Darin. The verse shown is the verse that is engraved in his wedding ring, one that means a lot to both of us. The wedding ring in the center of the bible forms a heart when the light hits it just right.


You're next ladies:

Tina Hardister from The Hardister Clan

Kristi Edwards from Transitions

Kristi Scott from And Then There Were Three

Lisa Sullivan from Lisa's Little Slice of Life

Toddler 101

Class, today's lesson will focus on the steps to putting a fussy toddler, one who randomly woke up at 6:30AM, to sleep.

STEP 1: Turn on exercise tape. Invite toddler to watch as you exercise. Place her on the couch and observe as she begins to zone out and begin to wobble in her place on the couch.



STEP 2: Place toddler in her bed. Turn her radio on to drown out any noise going on throughout the house. Give toddler his/her blanket.



STEP 3: Since your toddler is probably only down to one nap/day, try to stick to his/her nap schedule as closely as possible. Toddlers who are off of their daily schedule make for unhappy children come evening time. But because your toddler awoke so early, allow him/her to sleep for about 20 minutes. Make sure they don't sleep too long. WARNING: They may be quite limp when you try to wake them. I assure you - they ARE still breathing.


(Video quality poor due to dark lighting conditions. To sum up what happens, feet are raised up slightly and dropped one at a time to show possible limpness in toddler while sleeping. Toddler never flinches).

STEP 4: Ignore the nasty look your toddler gives you when you wake them up. They will still love you despite the emotions coursing through them at the time. Cuddle with them and love on them until they fully wake up. You'll know when that time comes because they'll no longer desire to be anywhere near you. They have better things to do.



This concludes our lesson on how to put a fussy toddler to sleep. Class dismissed!

One, toooo, teee, four....

Out of the blue last night, Zoe and I were reading a book (or something...I can't even remember), and she starts saying, "one, tooo, teee, four". Out of no where. If I hadn't been on the ground with her, I'd have started jumping up and down. I know we were doing something with numbers, whether reading a book or playing with some toy that had numbers on it. Ever since she was little, I practiced talking with her about numbers and colors and just about anything else. Even though she had no clue what I was talking about then, I knew someday she'd understand and would repeat back to me and I wanted my talking about everyday things to already be second nature to me.

We were working on a number puzzle today and she did the same thing, so my husband grabbed my camera and we managed to catch a little bit of footage of her number sayings, although she had done it a few times by then and got bored by the time we got to five.

Being a stay at home mom, I see most of the "firsts" and Darin has to hear about it later that day. He's luckily seen lots of the big ones with me...first laugh, first steps, first potty success, and now first counting experience.

I know, some of you veteran moms are probably annoyed that I'm so excited over something small. But to me it's a small milestone reached, and to me, any milestone that she reaches on her own is a big deal. Besides...who can resist the small child who can't quite pronounce two and three? ;-)

5 Years Ago...

This is a bit late, but you know how the mind of a pregnant woman is...or just the mind of a woman for that matter. I saw a post from Jennifer who celebrated her anniversary yesterday and it sparked that oh so familiar thought that has run through my head on a consistent basis for the last couple of months, "You forgot again, Alison.". Oh well..that's life.

Five years....five years ago (plus 6 days), on January 3rd, 2004, I awoke to a dozen different emotions. These emotions were more than a female's typical daily emotions. They were feelings of excitement, fear, and everything in between. This particular day was January 3rd, a typical day for 99% of the human population. But this day was anything but typical for my future groom and me. That day was the day we'd both looked forward to for so long, the day we would join as one.

On that day as I walked down the isle (and got my train caught on a splintery section of the wooden steps going up to the alter), I did more than just get all dressed up in a white dress with a long train that I'd wear only once in my lifetime, did more than plaster on a smile as I walked down the isle when all I could think was "what if I trip and fall in these heels?", did more than say a few words in response to repeating after Darin's dad (the minister at the wedding). That day was about so much more. It was a day where I pledged my heart and life to my husband-to-be and to only him, a day where those words we spoke to each other from our uniquely written vows meant more than what words could have expressed, a day where I took a new name, a day where I left my family and cleaved to him, a day where I became one with the man who I would be blessed to spend the rest of my life with. That day five years ago was about new beginnings together, just as each day we've spent together since then.

Now five years later, that day still plays on my mind as though it happened just yesterday. I hope that doesn't change. I think it's God's simple reminder to me when I feel like things begin to become routine. Remembering that day and the meaning behind it always seem to give me a different outlook on who the man I share a life with is. And what amazes me even more is when I look back on our lives before we even met, when I look back at the stepping stones that were laid before both of our lives years in advance preparing us for the journey we would once share together. As I look back on my own life in the years before Darin and I married, I can see a clear path laid out before me, each step perfectly paved and prepared for me, ready for me to have enough faith to step in that spot.



Till death do us part....

Age Regression

The last week or so, we've been taking on a BIG project (and when I say "we", I really mean Darin). Over the years, we've let the back bedroom become our guest room/storage room. The room itself was clean for the most part, but the two closets were stacked to the brim with stuff...lots and lots of stuff. Chunks of it were my teacher supplies and books from years ago, lots of it was Home Interiors stuff that I have yet to sell, and still even more of it was baby stuff that Zoe outgrew over a year ago. Since Ethan is well on his way, and since we only have 3 bedrooms in our home, the storage room had to go so we could make an actual third bedroom. So the last week has been a mess of cleaning out the closets, then the room, and shifting most of that stuff to our two storage units outside. Most of it's heavy, so Darin's been the sole mover. My job is and will be to keep the house in order once things are moved. I'll also paint Zoe's future room in a couple of days. We plan on moving Zoe to this bedroom with the toddler bed that's already in there and keeping Ethan in the nursery. Both rooms will need repainting and rearranging.

With all that being said, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get these pictures. The bouncy seat was one of the many baby things that was pulled out of the spare bedroom and will go to one of the storage units until needed in 3.5 months. Zoe, intrigued, tried to climb inside the chair unsuccessfully. I put her there and she just laid back and sighed a sigh of comfort. She still is under the weight limit oddly enough, but I think she's just a bit too long for it. ;-)

Did you know Elmo was a teacher?

Goodbye 2008, hello 2009. Did you know they added an entire second to the year 2008? Something about the spin of the earth being off and spinning a bit faster and adding that whole second would reset things. Weird. Anyway, just wanted to say a quick Happy New Years to everyone.

You know, when I was a kid and teenager, I would participate whole heartedly in the traditions of New Years. You know them, the eating black eyed peas for good luck, making resolutions, staying up till midnight watching the ball drop and Dick Clark do his whole spiel, and imagining kissing my love under mistletoe at precisely midnight (it was having the love part that was always missing).

It wasn't until Darin started to question those things in a joking kind of way that I realized something. Why do we do those things? OK, so it's just a fun thing staying up late with friends just fellowshiping, and the kissing your love part (now that I have a permanent one ;-) ). But the resolutions is what really doesn't make sense (and the black eyed peas thing, but I won't get into that one).

First off, how many of us have ever kept a single resolution? OK, maybe the small ones like going to visit something. But I'm talking about the big ones that are common on people's lists. I'm going to...start working out...start being nicer to people...start reading the Bible...stop biting my nails...and the biggest one of all; LOSE WEIGHT! In all my years of writing a little list of my top 5 resolutions, I can't remember ever even making it past January on them. I made them, was serious about it for a week or so, and then gradually began to forget about them, especially as the school routine got underway again. Who was I kidding? What was the point?

Secondly, why is it that we have become so used to the routine of New Years that we feel like we have to wait for January 1st to make a goal for ourselves? If I think about it, I'm constantly making goals for myself. Little things and big things like making a commitment to have a clean house and dinner in preparation for my husband when he comes home so he doesn't have to focus on anything but relaxing and spending time with his family....focusing on being a patient mom as we enter into the defiant stage of life....having all laundry done, folded, and put away as it comes (still working on that one!)...focusing on making sure my priorities are always in this order; God, husband, children (as hard as that is at times). Need I keep going? During the year, as something comes up, I take a challenge and make a goal for myself. Sometimes no one but me knows about my goal, other times people are aware of it.

Besides, aren't most goals that we set the type of goals that are forever? If you make a goal to lose weight, you can't just meet it and then you're done. It's a lifetime battle.

I decided to take a long bath while Zoe was napping yesterday and caught myself staring at this little Elmo bath toy that she got for Christmas. He's plastic and has dirt smudges all over his body. When you put him in warm water and "scrub him with a brush", the spots disappear. But as soon as you take him out and let him sit for a while in cold air or put him under cold water, the spots come back again. Staring at that plastic red toy, I realized that the disappearing and reappearing dirt was the story of our lives. Only the warm water is the warm embrace and grace of our Father. Day in and day out, we have times when we succeed and times when we fail. It's just a part of life. Each time we fail, those dirt smudges cover our bodily existence. The we come and submerge ourselves in the grace and forgiveness of our Savior and they do what??...disappear again. So with that, making a single or a few resolutions on that one day of the year just doesn't make much sense. We're already doing that year round, we just make it more of an ordeal on that one day. And when we succeed in our goals, it's not really us that succeeded. There's this verse that keeps popping up in a book that I'm reading by Karen Kingsbury. The verse says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness." Wow if that doesn't knock me off my high horse and back to reality.

So my new years resolution: I have just one. It's this: Not to make any new years resolutions and to make goals as I see fit throughout the year 2009 all the while relying on God's power to replace my weakness.

Leave it to my husband and a plastic Elmo toy to teach me a life lesson. Happy New Year!