Luke's Birthday Party

His cake, made by Mommy of course.  He loved it!  In retrospect I should have put the M&Ms a little closer together but overall I'm happy with it!

Bethie and MawMaw

MawMaw and the birthday boy, who is addicted to juice bags

Jack wasn't so entertained with Uncle Alex's blower thingie.  (We couldn't figure out what the technical name for those things are!)

Luke had so much fun with our out-of-town guests!

A silly smile, he was too excited to play with the diggers!

I think he had some help blowing out his candle. ;-)

Look at all those presents!

He got a firetruck!  Look at that smile!

A few new books, including Daddy's favorite, "I Stink!"

Coolest toy, a working drill and little toys with screws to drill.  He loves this!

The banner I made for his birthday!

I'm planning on using this in the future too! 

We made some coordinating flag banners also, and birthday cards mixed in with my Halloween mantel.

Boots

Ryan's Half-Marathon

Before the race began, psyching himself up no doubt

Ryan's cheering section.  Eating breakfast.

And they're off!  Yes, this hill is right at the start of the race, and not the only hill he had to run.  He didn't train on any hills and this is what nearly did him in.

We had lots of time to kill so we ate some more breakfast (Chex in a bag) on a hill.

I think she was expecting to watch people run the entire time, poor girl was rather bored.

Halfway done!  Only six and half miles to go!

Minutes after Ryan finished.  He really sprinted those last hundred yards or so, and given that this was his first time to ever complete this distance, he was exhausted.  And sore.  But he did it!

Blah Blah Blah...

I've had a lot on my mind lately.  But I'm just going to start typing, and see where this ends up.  Maybe I'll edit a lot, maybe I'll just let the random thoughts be.

So, it's been a rough month.  The craziness has continued and, though this things haven't happened to me, they've affected me directly.  I think it's safe to say this has been one of the hardest months in my life.

Now We Are Three

Luke, today is your third birthday!  Happy day to you!  We will celebrate by having a few friends and family members come over to share some cake with you.  You requested M&M's and Mommy knows you love big machines so I will decorate your cake specially for you! 

The night before your birthday we tried to go to a pumpkin patch, but they had no pumpkins!  You were so disappointed, but we went out to dinner instead and you shared a hamburger with Daddy.  We promised to get a pumpkin later in the week!

Gluten-Free Girl, One Year Later

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Beth's endoscopic biopsy, and then October 30 is the one-year date of when she officially began her gluten-free diet.  It's been a whole year already.

Going through some of my old blog posts from last year brought me to tears.  Finally realizing why Beth had been in pain for so many months. Her first tastes of gluten-free bread and pasta- she loved them.  Watching her clothes get smaller as she grew taller, watching her bloated belly thin out.  Noticing short, sweet hairs growing on her precious little head... Hairs I didn't even realize she had been missing.  The dark bags under her eyes... Gone.

Luke's New Game

our newest little friend, a green hummingbird.  he's the only one we've ever seen at our feeder that we put up two weeks ago, but he seems happy to have found it because he comes several times a day!

No More Cable TV

sort of a sad way to watch a football game!

I can't remember if I've blogged this or not, but we ditched our cable several months ago.  We tried in vain to figure out a way to hook our computer up to our television, but due to the age of our tv and the input types, it's nearly impossible!  We've been reduced to watching our favorite shows on the computer, which hasn't been a huge deal but it's sort of... inconvenient?  Uncomfortable?  We kept the tv hooked up to the DVD player so the kids can watch DVDs, but that was all it was good for.

Until last week.  Ryan bought a converter box and an antenna.  Do you know how much it was hurting him to watch football on the computer screen?  Lots.  Well, since we're not in the city we don't get great reception, but we now get the basic channels which means Ryan can watch most of the football games.  Yesterday's game was on a regular channel, so I took the above photo of Ryan and Beth watching the game on the computer.  Don't you feel sorry for him?

beth and jack, enjoying a snack while luke finishes his late nap

Random School Pics

reviewing at the end of the week.  we didn't get much schooling done during our rough two weeks, so we had lots of reviewing to do before we get back into things again!

sorting shapes and colors.  after this we made patterns.

My Babies

A Trip to Town

I've been feeling that with everything going on lately, our little family needed some time to get out and reconnect.  I had purchased some children's museum passes on groupon recently so we decided to go to town for the day.  First was the children's museum, and oh boy did they have fun!  A lot of it was over there heads but they could have cared less, they had a blast.  Their favorite parts were playing in the small "city" where they could go into kid-sized versions of places like a bank, restaurant, vet's office, and an ambulance, and the outdoor water play area was a big hit too.  Wouldn't you know it rained though?  We've had a drought for months and months and it rained on the day we planned to take them to play outside and have a picnic.  Figures!  It did dry up a bit so that we could go outside for a few minutes; Luke loved using tubes to redirect water that was pumped out of the stream, and Beth and Jack ran around and checked everything else out.  I love watching Luke get really drawn into something though, it takes a lot for something to grab his attention so much that he'll stop paying attention to everything else.

After the museum we drove to a park where we had a picnic lunch.  It was still wet but not raining, so we dealt with puddles but the kids didn't seem to mind that too much!  We had to stand in line in order to ride on the train, and thank goodness because the sky opened up and it poured for about 10 minutes, those poor people on the train ride before us got soaking wet!  We rode the little train around the park and both kids said this was their favorite part of the day!  (It was probably Jack's favorite part too as he nursed the entire train ride, ha!)  It was about 2:00 after the train ride and everyone was clearly about to fall asleep so we left to come back home. 

Later that afternoon Grandma and Grandpa came over to visit the kiddos, their first time to see them in a few weeks since they'd been out of town.  When Beth found out they were coming over, she declared, "This is the best day EVER!"  and Ryan and I cracked up.  We had dinner and took the kids outside to play on their new bikes- Luke's "new" Spiderman bike was an early birthday present from Mawmaw and Pawpaw!  Beth's bike isn't new but since her training wheel broke a couple of months ago, we decided that instead of buying her new training wheels we'd just take them off and see if she can ride!  Well, it took about four days of practice, but yes, she can ride.  Pretty well too, though I am concerned about her learning how to stop the right way!  Jack will sometimes push himself on his rocket (Luke's old rocket) but usually prefers to be pushed around in the umbrella stroller!

I should add that, for the record, it rained ALL DAY on Sunday!  This is easily the first time in months it has rained this much.  I'm pretty sure Jack doesn't know what rain is, he seemed a little confused when he was in the garage checking it out!  We had a lazy day at home and recuperated from our busy Saturday.

I love that the kids are getting old enough that we can do fun activities like this an not have to worry so much about naptimes or following a schedule so rigidly.  I feel like they're finally able to start enjoying things that our city has to offer!  And, I didn't bring my camera or take pictures because I wanted to be fully in the moment with my kids.  I love having photos of them but feel like when I'm trying to take pictures, I'm just observing what happens, so the only pictures I have from the day are a few that were taken on my phone!

Beth rides on two wheels!

A Plea

So let's see... Two posts about the two big things that happened.  But, for my future reference, let me recap:

1. In-laws came to town 9/18, spent the night, left for Italy the next morning.  
2. Mom and two brothers came to town, spent several nights with us helping us paint our downstairs
3. My grandfather passed away on Thursday, 9/22
4. The rest of my family came to town for the funeral, which was held 9/26
5. The next day, 9/27, I started spotting. 
6. 9/28, had an ultrasound that showed Samuel's loss was due to a blighted ovum
7. 10/3, two clients had their babies, I attended both births.  The highlights of my week!
8. 10/4, in-laws came back to town, Ryan told them the news and I updated this blog

I'm not trying to feel sorry for myself and am not posting to fish for sympathy.  I am allowing myself time to heal and grieve, but I just have to put this all together and make sense of it.  This was a very difficult two weeks, but I have to say it could have been so much worse.   It sounds awful but I just kept waiting for something else to go wrong, and I'm so very thankful it didn't.  I am so thankful that I have my faith to rely on; God has gifted me with unwavering faith and for that I'm so very grateful because I'm not quite sure how I could have done this if I were having a crisis of faith.  I'm emotionally beat up, and even though I've seen my husband and children every day I feel like I haven't been truly present for them lately.  I miss them.  I miss feeling like myself but I know once my hormones settle down I'll feel normal again.  Well, I'll feel normal, but I'll never be the same.

A New Saint in Heaven

I've born a life into God's hands, something I never thought I would do.  We've lost a baby to miscarriage, and I'm just so sad that for whatever reason God decided this baby was better off in His arms than in mine.  I'm not angry, just very sad.  Sad that I won't see this little person's fingers or toes, or hear how he would laugh.  Sad that Jack is a big brother but no one knows it.  Sad because my womb harbored life for several weeks, and now all of the sudden it's empty.  It aches for my baby.

If anything, the loss of this baby has put my focus more on heaven, reminding me that every day my goal has to be heaven so that I can meet my little saint.  I know I'll hold him one day, but I'm sad that day is so far away.

Our family has a new little patron saint in heaven.  I know he has several friends to play with, and I take comfort in knowing that my Pops is probably keeping him entertained, sitting him in his lap and teaching him how to play piano until I arrive to scoop him up and give him the big hug I want so badly to give to him.

Please pray for Ryan and me, as we grieve this loss... In my womb for a few short weeks, but forever in ours hearts.  We named him Samuel.  St. Samuel, pray for us!

A Time of Loss

I'll just start at the beginning, because otherwise it won't make any sense.

My mom came to visit last Monday.  My two youngest brothers are homeschooled now, so my mom decided to bring them in for a quick visit since they never made it in before summer ended.  My grandparents live very nearby, so their plan was to spend a couple of nights with us and a couple of nights with my grandmother.  My grandfather lived with a caretaker due to his Alzheimer's. 

My mom and grandmother went to visit my Pops on Wednesday morning, and on Thursday morning my mom got a call that he had passed.  There was no way of knowing that Thursday morning would be the day, there's no way to explain why my mom just happened to come to town to visit and just happened to visit him the day before.  It was just one of those "coincidences" that can only be explained by God's intervention.

Sleep Comes

Tonight I watched Luke fall asleep.  I wasn't feeling well so I invited him to curl up on the couch next to me, 6 inches between our noses.

He closed his eyes.  They twitched- a lot.  I didn't think it was real because they were twitching so much, but he never opened them back up.

He pinched my thigh with his toes, and dug them in as his leg twitched around.

His curled fingers would occasionally stroke the pillow he was laying on.

Eyes twiched more.  Lots more.

His breathing was regular the first minute or two, and slowed as his eyes slowed. His eyes popped open one time, looked at me, then closed and then it was as if that's when his sleep came.

His breath slowed.  He stopped moving.  His eyes moved under his eyelids, but slowly now.  It reminded me of a baby in my belly slowly moving under my skin.

I noticed beads of sweat on the back of his neck.  We were snuggled together under a heavy blanket, so I wiped his neck and pulled the blanket down a bit.

I watched him sleep for about 10 minutes, until Ryan came into the room and took a couple of minutes to watch him sleep next to me.  Then Ryan carried him to his bed upstairs.

I wish I gotten a picture.  These beautiful moments... I have to store them in my memory because I never have any pictures of these rare, beautiful moments.

Fresh Paint

I've been chomping at the bit, ready to paint our downstairs, so when my mom decided to come visit and stay a few days I thought it would be a good time to paint.  In a matter of a few intense nights we got most of the downstairs done.  We are saving our two-story foyer for a professional!  We chose two Sherwin Williams colors, color-matched to Behr premium flat enamel.  The color for most of the downstairs is Dorian Gray, and the playroom is Dovetail, which is just a shade darker.  It's hard to tell a difference unless you're really looking!  The colors are gorgeous, it really takes our house up a notch and to me makes everything look a tad bit more formal- which I love! Part of me wishes maybe we'd chosen a shade that was more different for the playroom.  In a few years, when it's more of a sitting room and less of a destruction room, I hope we'll add some bead board and crown molding!  We planned on painting the foyer a dark blue, but now I'm thinking a red or maroon might be magnificent and provide more of a contrast.  We'll see...

Dots

Jack

Jackson Paul

{almost 15 months}

Likes:

dancing

wrestling

climbing

 belly buttons

eating yogurt, chex, and crackers

turning off and on lighswitches

standing on his head

books

Doesn't Like:

sleeping

  napping

staying still

being away from mommy

toys stolen away from him

What I Want to Remember:

sweet snuggles before bedtime

nursing moments, jack twirling my hair around his fingers while i kiss his toes

carrying the stool to the bookshelf, climbing high to reach books

running to grab his shoes when he hears the word "outside"

primitive words: "ball" "up" "ma" more"

his long tuft of hair that always sticks up in the back

New Dancing Scarves

Just got some scarves today!  Beth immediately knew what to do with them, so funny how girls don't need any explanation on how to dance. :-)

Pre School!

This week was our first full week of school!  Well, we started on Tuesday since Monday was labor day. :-)

Beth is 4.5, which means she technically isn't kindergarten age yet.  After lots of thought and prayer, we decided to start her on a homeschool kindergarten curriculum but still call it preschool, and just take it slowly with her. We chose a classical, Catholic curriculum called Mother of Divine Grace, and it's pretty much fool proof.  ;-)  It spells out everything I need to do with each subject, but allows me the flexibility to deviate if I want or need to.  And since I'm using it as preschool, we're planning on deviating a lot!

My small little compilation of our books.

Weekend of Firsts

Friday, September 2 was First Friday, and we had our First activity of the year for our homeschool group.  Our group met for mass (the children's First time at this parish), then went to a new park for the First time.  They had a lot of fun playing with some old friends and making some new friends!  Finally I'm starting to feel like one of the "seasoned" moms in our group, and my older children are finally old enough that they'll go off and actually play with friends instead of me having to entertain them!  A new First feeling!

Luke's Dancing Debut

Aunt Ramona got a good video of Luke dancing at the wedding in St. Louis! He danced like this all night, and we have no idea where he got this move from...

This Week In Pictures

Beth started her third year of ballet two Mondays ago!  She's in a bigger girl class now and I can tell she's going to get a lot more out of it this year!  She's been very excited about going to class!

Jack seemed to want me to take his photo too!

Pictures from Ryan's Birthday

On Ryan's birthday we had a small celebration with his parents.  Ryan and his dad grilled some yummy steaks while Grandma prepared a yummy selection of side dishes.  Ryan requested gluten free brownies and homemade whipped cream instead of cake!  Yummy!  For his birthday I gave him a few things- a Prince Royce cd, a shirt, and two tickets to a football game!

My Birthday

My 29th birthday was last Tuesday!  One more year until I'm 30.  Or maybe I'll be 29 again... Hmm...

We started the day with a trip to the pediatrician.  All three of my children are battling this tummy bug/runny nose  thing, and since Jack was the only one with a fever for several days in a row I decided to take him in.  The doctor recommended some a probiotic I hadn't heard about before, called Florastor, for all three kiddos, to hopefully clear out the bug in their guts.  We have a new pediatrician now (yay!) and so far I've been happy with my two experiences there!

After this quick trip to the pediatrician (have I ever strung those words together before?) we went somewhere else... The animal shelter!  For my birthday, I wanted to rescue two kitties.  It had been something Ryan and I had been thinking and praying about for a few weeks, and we felt now was a good time to add two new members to our family. :-)

STL/KC Trip, Part Three

 Our trip back to Kansas City was a rough drive, though it started off smoothly.  About halfway through we noticed another amazing storm rolling in right dead-straight in front of us.  It rained so hard, so many people pulled over but Ryan trekked through at a steady 30 mph.  After the rain slowed, traffic came to a standstill.  There must have been an accident or something because we were parked on the highway for about 45 minutes.  Not so much fun.

New Mow Mow

I don't think anyone really understands how obsessed Luke is with lawn mowers.  For half his life he's been following his father around in the backyard pushing a sad little red wagon, pretending to mow the lawn.  I am  a lame sad pathetic Mom and have used the excuse that, "It's good for him to use his imagination!" to excuse the fact that I haven't bought him a mow mow yet. I've been perusing resale/consignment events for a few months now and finally found one for $8.  Winner.  You should have seen the smile on his face when we showed it to him!  Needless to say, he loves it. :-)

A Visit With Friends

Last Sunday we welcomed Luke's godparents back to Texas!  They left a couple of years ago to start a new path in Minnesota with the intention of it being a temporary move, so we're so happy they found there way home. :-)  We drove down to see them and meet their sweet, precious little Joseph Michael.  We're so happy y'all are back!!!

Birthday Boy

Happy birthday my love, 31 years old today!  You know that we love you! What a blessing you've been to me, every day I'm baffled that God made us perfectly for each other.  Here's to many many many many many many more years of happiness and love in our home!

STL/KC Trip, Part Two

Part two of my story begins at the wedding rehearsal.  Ryan chased the boys around the back of the church while I watched and helped Beth rehearse her big walk down the aisle.  We waited for awhile for the rehersal to actually start so of course I snapped lots of photos of Beth.

STL/KC Trip, Part One.

Our family had a completely new adventure last week, one we'd been anticipating for months and months: a drive to St. Louis to attend Ryan's cousin's wedding and so Beth could be their flower girl.

Yes, I said drive.  Flying was out of the question for so many reasons, so Ryan and I were preparing for this drive for months.  Luckily we were able to break it up and stop over night in Kansas City on the way there, but if you don't know it's still 12 hours in the car to KC!

stuffed like sardines.

Ryan and I had been preparing for this trip for months.  We equipped ourselves with new library books, old standby favorite books, flashcards on a ring, new toys including a Leap Pad for Beth, homemade activity binders with crayons, colored pencils, paper, stencils, stickers, and activity books hole-punched into the binder.  And two DVD screens.  Yes, I'm not ever going on a long trip without DVD screens, what an amazing invention and I'm so happy we had these screens!  Lifesaver.

very hot, but he's happy to be out of his car seat!

We left after lunchtime on Wednesday, August 3, hoping that the boys would nap in the car for an hour or two.  They did, so the first stop we made was north of Dallas for an early dinner.  We stopped at Chipotle (which is gluten free, by the way- everything except the flour tortillas!) and let the kids run around in their outdoor eating area for about 20 minutes in the 114 degree heat.

welcome to oklahoma, ha ha!  my first time to oklahoma.

A few more hours in the car and we stopped at a rest area to change the kids into pajamas and run around a bit before "bedtime."  It was nearing dark and we wanted to get them in a bedtime mindset and hoped that pajamas would do the trick.  Well, it sort of worked...

ryan has made so much fun of oklahoma that i was expecting tumbleweeds on the side of the road.  it was actually quite pretty!

The last we heard out of Luke was probably a little before 10 pm.  Poor Jack cried off and on all night, but I'm convinced this was in-part due to the torrential downpour of a storm we drove through for something like four hours.  As we approached this storm- right on the Oklahoma/Kansas border- it was the most amazing yet intimidating lightning I'd ever seen in my life.  The whole sky was lit up, and jagged streaks were crossing the sky and seemed to be hitting the ground- all 30 miles straight in front of us.  I've never driven through Kansas before so all I can think about is The Wizard of Oz, and Twister- wicked witches and flying cows.  Ryan was driving and kept his cool, and he drove safely at about 40 mph for quite a bit of time.

We arrived in Kansas City at about 2:00 am at Ryan's aunt and uncle's house, threw the kids in bed and passed out.

The next morning we were able to relax a little bit, visit with family, and pack up and head off after an early lunch.  We wanted to be in St. Louis by about 4:00 pm to make it to the pre-wedding "Hey everyone is in town visiting let's have a party!" party.  Another four hours in the car (a quick stop at a rest stop to stretch and change a stinky diaper!) and we were there, four hours seemed like a pretty quick trip after the previous day!

The kids were happy to see some familiar faces- Grandma and Grandpa!  They met new faces like Great Grandpa Paul, the bride and groom, and other family members.  We ate some yummy food then left at about 9 pm to drive to our next destination! My sweet friend from high school offered to let us stay at their home while we were in St. Louis, and though we were only able to visit for a little while I really enjoyed seeing her and meeting her family!  It was very nice for us to be able to stay in a real house instead of a hotel, have the kids in a separate room and have a real kitchen to cook in.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures though, I'm so bummed out about that!

Bye Bye Nuk

Today we took the sides off Luke's Ikea crib and turned it into a toddler aka "big boy" bed.  I feel very lucky that he's been content to sleep in a crib for this long (he's almost 3!) and that he didn't actually climb out or even try to climb out until two weeks ago.  He's been very happy in his crib because that was the only place he was allowed to have his nuk!

Playing Mass

The kids have "played mass" the past few mornings.  This involves flipping a table on its side, one person sitting in front of the other two, and lots of singing.  I took this two minute video today of Beth singing, after I stopped filming she went on to do a reading or two.  Luke mostly sang along!