Girls Days

Hannah and I have been having lots of "girl fun" lately.  Last Saturday, Grandma Jody and I took Hannah on a big shopping trip to Champaign.  We were looking for new curtains for our living room and Easter clothes for the family.  We ended up getting Hannah and Jacob lots of cute, new summer clothes (the curtains and Easter clothes are still a work in progress!).  Hannah LOVED walking around the mall, bouncing from store to store.  She walked into Gymboree and said, "Look, they have accessories!!!!"  She was in heaven!  It was a fun day, and Hannah shopped like a trooper for hours.  Of course, Grandma did get her about everything she asked for... including the sunglasses and headband she is wearing in the picture!  We stopped into The Children's Place, and they were serving lemonade in plastic champagne glasses.  Hannah looked like a little diva sipping her champagne with her big glasses on!  

 And, she got to ride the carousel at the mall-a highlight for sure!  It was almost as exciting as DisneyWorld!

Hannah talked Grandma into this purple butterfly outfit at Gymobree, including all the accessories.  She got to wear it to church on Sunday, minus the wings!

 Jacob got lots of cute new shirts too!  This smile just makes my heart skip a beat.  He is such a sweet boy!

  

The next week, Grandma Teresa and I took Hannah to see Pinkalicious, the musical!  It was playing at Parkland in Champaign.  It was really cute!  We lucked out and got great seats.  Hannah really seemed to enjoy the show, and we got to have pink cupcakes afterwards!

She was excited to have her picture with the cast.  Again, almost as good as DisneyWorld, haha... ok, not quite!

Also, Hannah has had several trips to the movies in the last few months.  Josh took her to see Arthur Christmas in December.  Kristen Strunga and I took her to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D!  It was way cooler than I expected it to be; I really enjoyed the 3D!  And then, I took Hannah to The Lorax with her friend Trevor from church and his mom.

Finally, Hannah got to attend my cousin Maggie's bridal shower with me.  It's fun that she's getting to the age where she is excited to go and do special things with the girls.  She doesn't always like leaving Jacob because she's hardly ever away from him, but it is fun to give her individual attention every once in awhile!  And Jacob has been having lots of bonding time with Josh!  

 I love my little girl!

15 Months and 3 1/2 Years!

My babies are now 15 months and 3 1/2 years!  Here's what's new with them:

Jacob continues to be my little smiler.  I have the privilege of witnessing this adorable smile about 183 times a day.  He'll look at me, get this huge smile on his face and then tackle me with a huge hug, over and over, all day long.  He is so stinkin' cute!    

Jacob says "Hi" in a cute, southern drawl, like Lindsay, my dear friend from Lousville... "Haaaiii"

He has his own version of hugging and kissing which involves leaning his head into you for hugs and open mouth, slobbery kisses!  Did I say that I adore this boy?

Jacob has really begun to understand and respond to directions (let's go to bed, let's change your diaper, where are your teeth, where's your nose, etc.).  It's pretty fun!  He also will finally hold his own sippy cup and climb the stairs up and down to the toy room (very exciting milestones for me!).

Did I mention that we spend most days in our pajamas?  Why get dressed?  We have the rest of our lives for that!  I'm enjoying these laid back years!

I just can't get over this face.  His smile makes me smile!

At Jacob's 15 month appointment, he was 32" and 23 lbs.  He's been growing lots... and eating lots!  He drags me to the pantry 82 times a day.  I seriously run out of ideas of things to feed him!  He has 7 teeth now.  Right at 15 months, he gave up his morning nap.  It was smooth, easy transition.  He also had the flu for the first time and slept extra long a few nights-18 hours one night and 16 another!  The day he slept 18 hours, he had gone down for a nap at 1 PM.  By evening, I was wondering if I should wake him up so he'd sleep all night, but I resisted.  I just do not believe in waking up sleeping babies (or kids for that matter!).  And what do you know, he slept until 7 the next morning.  I guess he needed it!  I was starting to worry about him when he slept that long, but you never would have known he was sick by the way he acted!

Jacob got his 2nd haircut here in Catlin, by Jenni Canady.  Not quite as exciting as Disney World, but honestly, it was a better haircut.  I thought he looked adorable!  I guess we'll have to start maintaining this; I'm not used to that having only had a girl before!

Jacob also loves to "talk" on the phone.  He just says "ah, ah, ah" and nods his head-adorable.

Hannah and her friends, Violet and Lily, at Donkey Basketball.  They almost look like triplets!  Hannah got to ride a donkey across the gym floor!

Hannah is slightly obsessed with dressing up and wearing accessories.  I have a bucket of accessories I keep out of reach because they end up everywhere, but we got it down one evening and she went to town!  She is also OBSESSED with the sundress in the picture above.  She wears it as often as she can.  It was from last summer, and I had packed it away in the basement, but she found it and has been wearing it every day!  

She looks like a hippie!

Hannah is really into helping me in the kitchen these days.  I love having her help.  I think she'll be cooking us dinner in a few years!  One of her favorite things to make is "Macky Macky and Cheese."  Grandma Teresa made her this adorable apron for Christmas.  So cute!  I remember having an apron when I was little and I just LOVED it!

Hannah's always saying things like "Oh sweet brother, I love you.  You so precious."  She is a good big sister!

Can I just brag on my babies for a minute?  I'm a little afraid of jinxing myself by saying this, but these kids are awesome when it comes to grocery shopping and eating out at fancy restaurants.  Trust me, it's exhausting to keep them entertained and these are not my favorite things to do with two small children, but I am very proud of them.  We spend A LOT of hours at nice restaurants, with both sides of Josh's family, and they do great!  They have also been troopers when it comes to grocery shopping.  I'm sure my day is coming, but we're over a year into having two babies, and I can't say that we've had a bad incident yet.  This makes mama very happy!

Hannah started coming out of her room a few months ago after we had put her to bed, which is something we hadn't dealt with before.  She seemed like she was getting scared so I offered to leave her door open if she promised to stay in bed.  It's worked like a charm!  She looks like an angel when she's asleep!  I love our bedtime routine with her.  It's fun that she has a big bed now where we can cuddle and reading stories, pray, and sing.  I think she's ready to give up her nap, at least for the most part.  She was very consistent until recently but doesn't seem to need it suddenly.  She'll go to bed a little earlier now and can sleep as late as she wants in the morning, so it's a trade off.  I love that we can have such a flexible schedule!

We got Grandma Teresa a new kitty for her birthday since our kitty, Storm left us last summer.  The new kitty is named Cookie (after much debate!).  Hannah and I were rooting for Jasmine or Belle.  The kids really like her.  Hannah has a banana in her mouth in this picture, silly girl!

 I am just loving every minute of this stage of life!  I love my two babies and love that I get to be with them all day every day.  I never get tired of it and there is NOTHING that I'd rather be doing!

A Rough Couple of Weeks

Two things I despise: the stomach flu and mice.  In the last few weeks, we have dealt with both of them!  My 8 month old nephew, Landon, came down with the flu first.  Then, I babysat him a few days later when his mom and dad were sick, and then my kids came down with it!  They started getting sick in the middle of the night when we were without power!  You could hear it but you couldn't see it... lovely!  A few days later, Josh came down with it, and a few days later, I finally got it!  It was pretty much awful.  Jacob got sick in his crib 3 different nights, Hannah got sick in her bed 2 different nights, and Josh and I felt HORRIBLE for about 12 hours each (like I was asking Josh to just shoot me, horrible).  I don't know how many loads of laundry I did.  My parents avoided us for a week and a half, but after we finally hung out, they still got it!  I did recently read that you can be contagious for up to 3 weeks!  During this time, my kids did not leave the house for 12 whole days!!!  And during that time, mice decided to nest in our car!  I had seen a mouse in the garage and we had set out traps, etc. with no luck.  Well, they found a great food source in our backseat (pretzels, crackers crumbs, etc.).  They built a little nest under Hannah's carseat and I found other "evidence" in Jacob's seat.  I about lost it!  They also chewed a hole in Jacob's carseat cover-very maddening!  I stripped the carseats, machine washed on HOT (supposed to hand wash on cold!), and sewed up the hole.  Josh thoroughly cleaned the inside of the car, and we filled it with dryer sheets (they supposedly can't stand the smell).  So far, so good.  We put traps and things all around our garage.  To our knowledge, we've had no luck.  But, there has been no further evidence either...  Honestly, I think we caught the problem early and maybe it's behind us?  And I think this flu is behind us as well!  I should just be thankful because the flu went around town the week before we left for Disney and the week before Christmas, and we avoided it both times, so at least we didn't have anything major this week!  Also, the mouse incident motivated us to clean out our garage a little bit (it really wasn't bad...).  But we drug an old treadmill out to the trash.  Our newspaper lady left a note that she took it for scrap to help pay for her new tires that she needed.  So, maybe it all happened for a reason?  I'll be glad if it's awhile before we deal with either of those things again!

Krusty the Snowman

We haven't had much snow to speak of this year.  I'm not that much of a snow person, so I wouldn't have really cared, except that Hannah was REALLY, REALLY excited to play in the snow this year.  I kept telling her that we'd build a snowman when we got enough.  This is the most we got this year, and the grass wasn't even completely covered!  I'm glad we went out though because I'm not sure how much more we'll get!  "Krusty" the snowman, as Hannah called him, was even shorter than he looks in this picture.  We scraped our sidewalks just to make him!  He looked laughably short from the road.  But, Hannah was happy and she wasn't that much into the actual building, so I guess it was ok!

Hannah was just SO HAPPY to run in the snow.  She did NOT want to go back inside!

This was Jacob's first snow experience, and he was not very happy when I set him down in it!

He eventually became ok with it, but it's safe to say he didn't have the time of his life.  My scrawny little boy looks so fat in all his snow clothes-cracks me up!

Our neighbor, Grace, tried to teach Hannah how to make a snow angel.  Hannah kind of got it... haha.  I guess we'll  have to wait and see if there is more snow to come!

Our New Toy Room

I have been trying to figure out what to do with our family room for several years.  No matter what I've done, it's felt like wasted space.  Over Christmas, I decided to take (most of) the furniture out and make it a toy room for the kids.  I got a KILLER deal on the black shelves at Target which are perfect for making the toys accessible and visible.  I can now say that this room is being used every day.  Since we are home just about every hour of every day, the kids should have a dedicated play space, right?  And it gets the bulk of the toys out of the kids' rooms!  I'm pretty happy with it!

Big Changes in the Children's Ministry

In the last month, Josh and I decided to make a major life change for our family.  Josh decided to resign from his position as children's minister at our church.  I would have to describe it as a God thing, how it all happened.  God just opened doors for conversations to happen and one thing led to another.  The decision was entirely ours, but the plans really were God's.  Through conversation and prayer, we considered a number of factors:

The biggest factor is that Josh has a full-time job and has done this "on the side," which basically means that he's worked 7 days a week for almost 8 years now.  He comes home from a long day at the office and works on church e-mails, planning events, teaching Wednesday nights, or attending meetings most nights.  On Saturdays, he always does his lessons.  On Sundays, he teaches.  It amazes me that he's done this much work for this long (and I can't remember ever hearing him complain about it).

Another factor in our decision was that since I started the early childhood ministry, I have been pulled from helping Josh out a lot in his classroom.  We have been very separate on Sunday mornings and spread a little thin some days.

A third major factor is that we hardly get to attend church and despite being of staff, often feel "out of the loop" because we're rarely with the congregation.  And we really miss corporate worship.

This is all not to mention that our family and the ministry have both grown since we begun, and we were at the point of feeling like we couldn't do anything additional.  We had no more time to give to the ministry, and we know that difficulty would only increase as we (hopefully) add to our family.  Sunday mornings are long for our kids; Wednesday nights are late for our kids.  It was never an option for one of us to stay home with the kids if they were sick or tired.  It can be difficult for us to both be "in charge" at major events and to have our little ones to watch over as well.

In the end, we wanted to do what was best for the church and for our family.  This seemed to be the answer right now. And all the pieces aligned at the same time, so we decided that it was God's timing.

I am keeping my position as the early childhood minister.  My workload should actually decrease a little as well because I helped Josh a lot with event planning, and we are no longer in charge of the events.  The only thing that should increase is my attendance at meetings since Josh usually represented both of us.

Josh told the church kids on Sunday, and several of them were emotional, which made it hard.  We really do love the kids, and even though we're not moving away and can still help as much as we want, things will be different.  I am thankful that God brought this opportunity into our lives.  It has been a huge part of our marriage almost since day one.  I keep having feelings of doubt over whether we did the right thing, but when I read back over the above list, I am reminded why, and I actually partially can't believe we lasted as long as we did.  Also, the ministry is in good hands now, and that gives us peace!

Compassion

I am really excited today about a new commitment our family has made!  For some time, we have been wanting to sponsor a Compassion girl close to Hannah's age... and I thought it would be cool if they even had the same exact birthday!  I was starting to get impatient though because kids cannot enter Compassion's sponsorship program until they are 3, and then, the organization isn't so big that you can easily be picky about a child's birthday.  I have been watching and watching, and today, a little girl popped up with Hannah's exact birthday!  I was so excited; I took her immediately!  The little girl's name is Valkhiria Calamani, and she lives in Bolivia, South America! 


All through Jesus' teachings, we see that we are called to help those less fortunate than us.  I often feel like my kids have SO MUCH... too much.... much, much more than they NEED.  Yes, it's fun to have cute clothes and fun toys, but there are kids who need FOOD and MEDICINE.  A statistic from Radical that I can't shake from my mind is that 26,000 children die every DAY due to starvation.  Really??  We have got to stop this! 


All kids deserve to know that somebody loves them.  That God loves them.  That someone else in the world thinks enough of them to help them have the food and medicine which I'm sure their own families desperately wish they could provide.  Why were my kids born in America, where we have so much?  Why was I born in America where we have so much?  It's amazing to think that on the SAME EXACT day that I was at Carle Hospital, being flown in by helicopter, surrounded by an expert team of medical professionals watching Hannah's every breath, little Valkhiria was born in Bolivia, with a much more modest arrival, I'm sure.  


My hope and prayer is that this little girl will be a part of our family (through financial support, prayers, and letters) until the girls are raised, and maybe even then, the girls will continue conversations, exchanging letters.  Who knows?  Maybe one day, we'll go to Bolivia and meet her (wouldn't that be cool?).  My ultimate prayer is that through Compassion, this little girl will know that she is loved by God and that she will love him back.  And hopefully Hannah will learn something about giving along the way!