Posts Tagged ‘Windham Familia’
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Mental health that is.
And within the context of traveling with a potty-training toddler and a nursing infant.
We got back from Tennessee in one piece. We had a blast, but I was glad to be home and so were the girls. I never realized how challenging it must have been for my parents (i.e. my mom) to travel with 4 kids back and forth from Tennessee to Texas every year. Oy. I’m just tired thinking about it!
Highlights from the trip:
– seeing my best friend from junior high for the first time in 10+ years.
– going to Dave’s exhibit opening for Seven Deadly Sins.
– eating at Shoney’s with my brothers.
– eating a hot fudge cake at Shoney’s. All. By. Myself.
– having lunch with John.
– deck time.
– watching Julia run around half naked. All week. 😉
– going to the private opening of Twilight Visions – which is all about Paris.
– spending 24 hours with my best friend.
– having the best trip home in a long time.
Julia on the front porch with my family's dog, Buddy. You can't tell, but she has on no pants.... 😉
Dave has this skeleton for a shoot he's doing. Julia didn't bat an eye at her "lunch mate", except to get a little mad that he was in her usual seat.
Omi and Hannah. Beautiful.
For whatever reason, Hannah didn't sleep very well while we were gone. But, towards the end of the trip she started sleeping on Omi's bed and loved it. Must have reminded her of being at home on our bed.
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Quite the title, uh? 🙂
Since Mabel was born, she’s had cradle cap. We had it under control for a while last Spring, but since her hair has gotten longer I’ve just sorta stopped caring. It’s a little gross nowadays, cause at this point it looks like dandruff that’s flaking off. Well, last night I figured I’d give it one more go and bought some lotion just for cradle cap. I tried it this afternoon, and it worked pretty well. It took off a majority of the scales and I’m guessing if I keep up with it, she might actually be “flake free”.
This week I started spin/yoga and Body Attack. I took my first spin/yoga class on Monday. Can I just say I had my butt thoroughly worked, literally! It was good, but really hard. And then tomorrow night I have Body Attack. The name alone scares me. 😉 But, I’ve heard it’s really good and a great way to lose weight and tone muscle. I’m all for it then! I’ve got about 5 pounds to pre-baby weight and 15 to my “goal” weight and then 20 to my “ideal goal” weight. Wish me luck!
As for Hannah – I am still impressed with how far she can spit up and poop. Changer be warned if that girl poops while your changing her diaper. You will find that not only does she need a new change of clothes, so do you, the changing table and most likely the wall and carpet. Woo. And the spit up. Wow. It can fly five feet from where I’m standing. It’s pretty impressive. I wonder if they could make an Olympic sport out of it, cause for sure she’d get a gold metal!
We’re heading out to Tennessee this week. Wanna know what? Packing is a big ole pain. Having to pack for myself and two kiddos for a week long trip; making sure the house is clean, we don’t forget anything, we have all necessary toys/blankets/videos/etc to survive is a tad overwhelming. Not to mention that I’ve put off doing much of anything for the trip, making, I am sure, the next two days a little crazy. Ah, alas, that is life.
*Edited: I should also add, that God has really been teaching me to lower my expectations. This is really hard. I am daily having to learn (and re-learn) that having a toddler (who doesn’t nap consistently or well) along with an infant, simply means that nothing productive will get done during the day. I will start lots of things, but they will never, ever actually get finished. Like writing a blog – my average blog writing takes 3+ days. Crazy, I know, but true. I start a blog one day and finish it sometimes several days later.
Comic relief
Posted on: August 13, 2009
My friend, Dana, once wrote a post about how she thinks her life is an episode from Seinfeld. I decided that whatever show my life takes after, I must be the comic relief.
Tuesday morning I took the girls to run a few errands. One of them was going to the library to pay a few late fines (they really should have a new mom leniency program). When we first got there, I took Mabel to the potty. As I’m steering my ginormous double stroller into the restroom, Jonathan calls. I walk into the family bathroom (it’s not a stall, but actual bathroom) and the automatic light doesn’t come on. The stroller is so huge, that I’m struggling to push it all the way into the restroom. All the while, talking on the phone, trying to turn on the light (that is, again, suppose to be automatic and has no real switch), and keep Mabel from peeing in her big girl pants. I toss my purse off my shoulder onto the counter (still in the dark), when I hear water.
Water is never a good sign.
The light finally comes on, I turn around to see my purse, laying in the toddler sink, water running. Because, clearly, the automatic light won’t work when I need it, but the sink will! I grab my purse, just to see that the bag of M&M’s I brought as potty rewards is sitting in the sink soaking wet. Perfect.
For about 10 seconds I was pretty irritated. Then I realized just how ridiculously funny the situation really was, and I laughed. My life might not be an episode from Seinfeld, but one thing is for sure; if there is ever a show about the ridiculous things that happens to moms, my life could supply ample amounts of material.
Eeek!
Posted on: August 10, 2009
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It’s official.
Potty training starts today.
Mabel has slowly gotten back on track (on her own incentive) for the first time since Hannah was born. She had some regression for a few weeks, which was fine by me since I was (maybe still am?!) in post-baby haze. But I decided that it’s time to bite the bullet and go for it. We’re going to Tennessee over Labor Day, so that might throw a chink in my chain, but hopefully we’ll survive.
Send us good potty vibes and wish us luck!
Here’s to no diapers by the end of the year!
Anniversary Extravaganza 2009!
Posted on: August 4, 2009
Well, in tradition of the last four year, we’re sticking with the Extravaganza theme, even if things aren’t as extravagant with 2 kiddos. 😉
Thursday night we had dinner at Devotay in downtown IC. It is delicious! We went last year and it has become a favorite place for special celebrations. The funniest part, for two people who like to try new things, we each got the exact same dishes that we got last year. Says a lot for the place. If I get the same thing twice, you know it’s good. Aside from the food, we had a wonderful time reminiscing and daydreaming about the future. After dinner, we walked around and spent some time browsing through Prairie Lights (yet another Windham favorite).
Friday Jonathan came home early from work. We spent a good amount of time outside building our pergola. Then we went to dinner (maybe that’s where the extravagance comes in – dinner out in two days!) and a party with the girls. Later we ended the night hanging out with some good friends.
Saturday we woke up early, got some coffee and took the girls for a long walk. They both fell asleep (yeah!) and we got some good time alone talking about life and other sweet things. Afterward we headed out to Wilson’s Apple Orchard. We wrapped up the day with doing more pergola work, dinner and a night just enjoying the fall like weather in August.
Sunday we spent family time shopping at Wal-Mart and Kohls (woot-woot), where I scored a very good deal on some new tennies. Jonathan finished off our pergola and I took my first post-Hannah run.
All in all, we had a really great weekend. Our anniversary is becoming less the extravaganza it was the first two years, but I like sticking with the theme all the same. Makes it seem more extravagant to me. 😉 And who knows, come our 25th, there might just be a true Anniversary Extravaganza (Hawaii anyone?!).
I got me a good man
Posted on: August 3, 2009
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Southern Living does a personal/fun story on the last page of their magazine every month. July’s issue was “What Southern Women Want in Men”. There was a list of 15 things Southern women like/want in men (not just their husbands, but all men). I’d say with the exception of one (something to do with college ball) I agreed with all of them. Somewhere on the list was “the ability to build things, i.e. homes, home renovations, etc”. And ya know what? This Southern gal really likes that her man can build things. In the last two months, Jonathan has renovated our basement and then this past weekend he built this:
Pergola
With the help of two friends, Jonathan constructed our pergola. It is a beauty! I sat outside for part of this afternoon and the porch is nearly completely shaded. It’s wonderful. Kinda like Jonathan. 🙂
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“For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.” Ephesians 5:22-28
“I am my lover’s and my lover is mine.” Song of Solomon 6:3
Happy Anniversary, Jonathan!! I love you and am so thankful to walk this life and our faith out together. You are an amazing husband!
Intentional parenting
Posted on: July 27, 2009
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Over the last few months, I’ve been really convicted on my parenting. I want my daughters to leave my house prepared to serve, live, love and grow with the Lord. But it can be overwhelming. A lot. I’m required to grapple with their sin nature while dealing with my own. That’s hard work. Yet, stronger and stronger the desire and urgency grows within me to capture their little hearts and lead them the right way.
One of my biggest fears in life is failure. Next to that is failure as a parent. Now, this may sound arrogant, but I’m not all that afraid of not being a “good” mom. I mean, I want my girls to look back and think I was good, but part of me feels like that will happen regardless (maybe because I’m that way with my mom). However, my fear of failure lies in not being a godly example as a parent. My fear is that Julia and Hannah would walk away from my house and not know, really know, the Lord. That is what scares me.
Jonathan and I have started taking steps to make our parenting more intentional, more focused. There are some major tasks at hand, but along with those are seemingly little things that my heart knows will make a difference. One of those little things is computer time. Since we moved our computer upstairs after the remodel, I found myself getting online a lot. At first it was to just “quick check something”. That morphed into checking something else, then something else and before I knew it, I was ignoring Julia because I was too distracted by the web. I slowly realized that I was showing Julia that my time online was more important than spending time with her, her dad, her sister and even God. So I made a commitment to my family, that in order to be more intentional in my parenting, I would only have a designated time to be online. I committed to only getting on 1) during naps (like right now), 2) when Jonathan is home and we are both looking at something together, and 3) during Julia’s blanket time.
I know it seems small, but for my heart it’s a big deal. It’s choosing to say no to self and yes to God and His calling on my life. And really, it’s quite liberating.
Merry Christmas in July
Posted on: July 24, 2009
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I love Christmas.
A lot.
Like crazy a lot.
So, we’re celebrating Christmas in July tomorrow. We’re taking the girls swimming, I have a small little present for Mabel (Hannah just got some new clothes today from my aunt that count as her gift) and Jonathan just bought a bike.
I seriously considered putting up the tree. But then realized that I am would shoot myself half way through the project and it just wouldn’t be good. Instead, I’m just sticking to watching some good classic Christmas movies. Mabes and I watched Elf this morning and I plan to watch A Christmas Story during naps tomorrow. It’s just a shame there aren’t any chocolate covered cherries to be consumed.
So….
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
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The moment we’ve all been waiting for….
We had a baby.
A baby girl!
Hannah Michelle weighed in at 9 pounds, 2 ounces. Whew!
It makes me laugh a little, because for the better part of my pregnancy I was completely convinced we were having a girl. Then for the last 10-15 weeks (and especially the last 4-6 weeks) I thought for sure we were having a boy. But God knows what this family needs, and we need another beautiful wonderful daughter to raise, love and train.
Here is Hannah’s birth story for all you who are interested:
On Sunday, the 14th, my water broke around 7 pm. Like with Julia, it was a release over time, rather than one large gush. Around 8 pm I started having contractions that were about 10 – 15 minutes apart. By 10:30 I started walking the cul-de-sac with my mom and my contractions were coming every 4 minutes. They weren’t too bad, I could still walk through them, but had to stop talking. This lasted till 11:30, when Jonathan started getting ready for us to leave for the hospital. We arrived at the hospital a little after midnight. By this point my contractions had slowed down significantly, coming every 20 minutes or later. The nurse hooked me up to a machine to monitor my contractions and Hannah’s heart beat. During this time, the midwife, Lynne, came to check up on me. She expressed concerned, first, because Hannah’s heart beat has bouncing (almost literally) between 90 and 190, second, my contractions were slowly down more and more, and third, I had only dilated to 4 cm and barely effaced. At hearing this I got really upset, because it meant I still had so far to go. We made the decision to start pitocin to “kick start” the process. Again, I was feeling pretty emotional about how things were swerving farther from my original birth plan/idea and was nervous that taking pitocin would lead to other medicinal interventions. Thankfully, once I got the pitocin the contractions started coming regularly and were getting intense. I was able to use the tub to labor for a little while, helping to ease my muscles. Once I felt the need to push, I got out of the tub and got into the bed. I had some pretty severe back labor pains, so my mom and Jonathan would take turns pressing on my back during contractions. I tried “resting” between contractions but they seemed to be piggy backing making it nearly impossible to really ever relax. Just after 4 am, Lynne gave me the go to start pushing. I pushed for about 15-20 minutes and Hannah was born at 4:21. I must say, pushing was far more painful with Hannah than Julia. It could be because she is bigger, or pushing went much faster, but I clearly remember thinking “I am never having another kid”. Yeah, we’ll see about that. 😉
I will admit that things didn’t go as I had thought they would; I assumed that from start to finish would have been shorter, that I wouldn’t need any type of medicinal intervention and that I’d some how be more “ready”. But on the other side, since Hannah was born things are going better than I hoped. She’s latching on really well, has so far been very content and Julia seems to really love her.
God has been such a wonderful provider! I can’t begin to explain how blessed I am to be the mother of two beautiful wonderful little girls.
Hannah Michelle 6/15/2009
Julia Mabel 11/23/2007
A Wife Loved Like The Church 
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