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!