Christmas

Some pics from our Christmas festivities

Elves at the annual Elf party (Jeanie's face, lol!)

Doug and I went on a date to see Mannheim Steamroller, it was awesome I loved it. Bought a new dress. Fun date night. We almost never go on dates and this month we had 3!

Christmas:

Got Doug some kangaroo runner shoes for Christmas, I hope he has fun and doesn't break anything!

That evening we had my parents and sister and brother-in-law over for dinner and games after the kids went down.

Thanks for making my new hat Aunt Elizabeth!

We played this new game Quelf, it was crazy and pretty fun.

The next day made a gingerbread house with August, aka spent the entire time trying to keep him from eating all the toppings.

And in the evening we had dinner at Doug's parents with his brother. It was a very nice Christmas!

splashing in the water!

We had a blast here last March on our last mini family-of-3 trip before Jeanie joined the family. Last weekend one of Doug's friends was having a weekend at the hotel with a pool and invited us to come enjoy the pool with them. So we went for the morning. Last March August splashed and for days we heard, "I splashed in the water! Daddy liked it! Mama liked it! August liked it!" and then we had a summer where he wouldn't even dip a toe in at the splash pad so I wasn't sure what to expect. He was a bit hesitant, but eventually he was splashing. And Jeanie had a good time. And Mama had a good time, since I'm not pregnant this time around I got to go on the water slides, wa-hoo!

It was really nice of them to share it with us and they even shared their pizza with us too :)

Thoughts

It's a gray day outside.

August is done with his binky, which also has resulted in the end of naptime (and the start of more difficult bedtimes). So gone is my 1-3 hours of glorious alone time in the middle of the day, time that was often used for laundry, food prep, cleaning- but also time to exercise, do my Bible study, read, or even nap. I am making August do a "quiet time" in his room, where he can sleep, or play, and I see him in the monitor rocking in his chair and "reading" so that is awesome, it just is only like 45 mins to an hour tops. But I'll take it!

Even with less quiet alone time for myself I have been "in my head" a lot recently. Questioning my friendships, my career, my mothering, my purpose. A lot of it has stemmed from reading this book:

Which we received as a wedding gift and am now finally getting around to reading 5 years later!

But it is really good. I'm not finished, but it talks a lot about how marriage is great- and can be God glorifying. But it is not "your purpose" and the end all. Just like being a mom, doctor/lawyer/actress/etc, successful/famous, or any of those other good things are not the end goal. That our purpose is to make disciples. I have been really challenged by that. I do feel like I'm living a very me and family centered life and he talks of how your whole life and every day should be focused around the goal of making disciples. It is very convicting. I have been on a few mission trips, but nothing even in the last 7 years. And I think the last time I shared the gospel was almost 18 years ago (gasp!!) when I was at a student leadership training camp, and even then, my partner did most of the talking! It was really sad to realize that. I hope the way I live my life has been a witness along the way, but it definitely has a loooong way to go.

Anyway, it's led to a lot of thinking. I don't really feel happy at my job. I feel almost 'trapped' there though because I love that it enables me to work just 2 long days, get a decent wage and health insurance for me and the kids, and I only need two days of babysitting for the kids where we are lucky enough to have our parents alternating and Doug doing a day (or 2 if it's the weekend). Any other job I'd be away more days, need more babysitting, and probably make less $. It's just been so busy lately. I feel like I do most of my day in front of a computer charting and less time for the actual patients, and the patients come and go so fast. My last shift I had 9 people over 12 hours and on all those people are: assessments, 3 notes each, medications at all times of the day, various other monitoring: vitals/pain/urinary output/ drain output/ monitoring surgical sites, and other regular shift and hospital admission charting, it's just too much. A lot of days I pray nothing goes wrong because I'm just so worried I'll be busy with someone else I won't even realize someone else is falling through the cracks. It scares me. I am trying to do look on the brightside, with this particular job at least. Like I said, it affords me the ability to be home 5 out of 7 days with my kiddos, which is great, and $ and health ins which are practicalities we need.

So today I went to Etsy and ordered a new badge for my name tag that says "Can I pray for you?" I'm nervous but excited about it. I feel like it's a non-pushy way to be able to offer some of the hope I've found in Jesus in a place where people often are hurting, scared, in pain, and hopeless. And if they don't want prayer they don't even have to even acknowledge my badge. Win/win? I'm hoping that looking at my job more as a part of my mission field might just be the change to make me happy there.

Otherwise life is good. December is always busy. Something on every weekend already and several days of the week. It's busy, but I love seeing all the family and friends. And I love Christmas and giving gifts. I may not be a good gift receiver, but I do like to give and have several little fun presents this year that I'm excited to see people open :)

Our book club also read a good book, much in the style of the Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society, and I read it in 2 long evenings on the couch. It's funny how I can read some books so quickly and others take months, but I guess that makes sense if there is "meat" to the book and I'm busy highlighting and trying to reflect. Anyway.

A tad predictable, and made me realize I know nothing about WWI. But a good book. Also makes me want to go to Paris :)

life lately

Doesn't everyone cook with a skeleton arm on their counter?

5 year anniversary date!

I call this her supermodel pose

Starbucks was so needed this day at work.

Nobody puts August in his toy cabinet!

New baskets for our new tv stand (soon to come new tv- how can we part with our built-in dvd/vcr set up you must be wondering?!?) I actually don't mind our old tv. It works perfectly for me doing my exercise dvds and we mostly watch stuff on our laptop anyway if we want to watch a movie. I only ever turn the tv on to watch the Bachelor! :)

Fashion statement.

We stumbled upon the Cinnabon recipe and Elizabeth came over and we made 3 batches, one with butter (the best one), one with coconut oil (the bottoms burned), and one with gluten free flour (need I say it, the waste of ingredients batch)

Oh yeah, frost it baby!

My first, very tame, charcuterie board when we had a couple of Doug's friends over.

She was gifted new mittens handmade from a neighbor, no more big-brothers-sock hands!

He was very excited Sandy was up and running at the grocery store. "Hey everybody! It's working!!!" Very cute.

Jeanie's dedication

Sweet Jeanie was dedicated yesterday at our church. We chose the verse: Psalm 139:13-14 for her "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your words are wonderful, I know that full well."

Our biggest prayer and hope is that both our children come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

We had both our parents and a couple friends come support and celebrate with us.

(wearing a dress I wore as a child)

Jeanie, we love you so much. You are so precious to us, truly an answer to prayer. We ask God to give us the daily wisdom, strength, and patience to be the parents you need. We pray that He will call you to Himself, and that your heart will be open to receive. Amen.

Big boy bed

August finally fell out of the crib a week ago when his grandparents were babysitting, but before that he'd barely even tried to get out. And with Jeanie here we need the crib for her, so it was time. But it was a hard decision as he really seemed to not mind being in there and would just wait patiently for us to get him in the morning!

I had found this toddler bed on CraigsList I think even while I was still pregnant with him, so it had been stored at my parent's for a couple years.

It was in pretty rough shape.

Over the summer, the kids and I went up to my parents a couple times and mom and I worked on stripping and sealing it. It was my first time doing a project like that.

That stuff was so corrosive it instantly ate through my little vinyl gloves.

my worker bee mama

It was really time consuming to work that stripper around all the spindles, if even the slightest residue was left- the sealing stain coat would bubble up instantly and mess things up, so it was pretty time consuming.

But it looks so good!

So that was over the summer and we just transferred him the other day after several weeks of talking up the 'big boy bed'.

I assumed like most toddler beds it would just be as simple as swapping out the crib mattress from the crib to here...

But nope, it is apparently some random length and width, so that left us in a predicament.

After a lot of brainstorming, we found a place that sells foam (the foam factory) and Doug went over with our measurements and they cut a piece of foam, and even quickly sewed a outer covering for it, and fits like-a-glove

I was sad that his little crib sheets don't fit anymore because I loved the sweet woodland prints, but oh well. I ordered him some twin sheets because there is nothing that will fit this particular size, and they will just be tucked under until a couple years when he graduates to his 'real big boy bed' of a twin. And that's all the beds and mattresses I plan on buying for him! (unless he somehow gets gigantically tall, but I don't really see that happening)

He has been pretty good about staying in bed. The first night he came in to our room once at 5am, but went back to bed. Mostly we just hear him hopping out of bed to open the door "a little crack" and then running back over.

(there he was the other day while daddy was out buying the foam mattress).

He loves books. I love my boy, it's such a blessing to watch him grow.

Halloween cuties

From one of mama's favorite Disney movies (if not thee favorite), Beauty & the Beast.

I saw the Beast costume on FB marketplace and then had to get Belle's dress on ebay. So adorable.

It was cold and drizzling rain, so Doug and I pulled them around our neighborhood. I love chatting with all the neighbors. It was fun. And August is in a really friendly outgoing stage of life, always asking people their names, he has helped us meet so many new people and started friendships for us :)

I realized poor Jeanie had no mittens, so here she is sporting brother's socks. Her hands were ICE COLD at the end of the night, I felt bad, and we had to do some icy skin-to-skin nursing afterwards, the rest of her was toasty warm, just those cold hands.

My two beauties.

August ate a bunch of candy while we rolled him house to house, "Put the candy in my bucket!" haha, and it's been sitting on top of the refrigerator ever since, well, in a bag, he is loving playing with his pumpkin basket and putting other stuff in it.

Such a fun stage of life.