Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Awful

So lately I've been pretty awful at blogging...the Olympics, art competitions and need for sleep has taken up my time.

Everyone in our home, except Goober has been sick over the past 3 weeks too.... 3 doctors visits, 2 stomach bugs, 2 viruses, 1 bronchitis and a sinus infection makes our cabinet look like a pharmacy. Juggling all that with two working parents is exhausting and makes me thankful for the time that we had with one parent working and one on stand by for life's interruptions.

I've also been dealing with some awful things and finding myself begging and interceding for our friends lately. We know of several couples who have either a)lost their children--one at 37 weeks gestation  b) are losing them to cancer--calling in hospice for your 19 month old seems like a crazy nightmare or c)have just given birth to their 2nd child with a rare genetic disease. Therefore every other little thing that goes "wrong" in our lives seems miniscule in comparison and I find myself weepy when one of my three, very alive, very active, mostly healthy children curls up in my lap for another day.

We discussed this question " why does God allow bad things to happen" in Sunday school a couple of weeks ago and it has been constantly on my mind. I've always been taught that God is big enough to handle my doubt and questioning....as long as I bring it before Him and allow Him to grow me through it. BUT, seeing our friends bury their children and BEG God to heal their child of this rare cancer really makes me think long and hard about why He would allow such things. Some words that comes to mind are " interruption" or "defeated". God chooses to interrupt our life so that we will completely lean on Him and choose His ways. He may interrupt it so that we stop and and really analyze our lives and see whether or not we are living "abundantly and full" in Him. He may want us to feel defeated so that we realize He is only one who can and has defeated "evil, sin, satan, death" and run to His arms.

Sometimes I use both of these words (defeat, interrupt) when I pray for people who need The Savior...for some people I see no other way for them to realize their need for Him unless their lives become interrupted, unless their ways and thoughts are defeated or unless they are broken as low as possible before Him. I can remember feeling all 3 of these things after our 3rd adoption. Everyone expects you to welcome this new child in and be nothing but SUPER HAPPY AND SMITTEN with this new baby...and we were. But we were also scared to death of what the birth mom may do (due to our prior experience and knowledge), scared that we could not raise a baby (our first two were 18 months and 6 when we adopted them) and exhausted. We were worried about keeping up with paperwork, how to afford another child, how to introduce this child to our two children without anyone feeling neglected, dealing with the questions and emotions of Goober...in other words our lives were completely interrupted, our plans of being a family of 4 and being perfect active parents were defeated and we were broken (ugly, full of sin and unable to fix ourselves). I remember laying hands on Baby Boy after another sleepless night and begging God to KNOCK THIS CHILD OUT WITH HOLY BENADRYL!!!! I prayed that He would make me joyful in my situation and to see only the blessing....and do you know what? I did...I started singing worship music to him every night as he went to bed and loved that time with him. I started recognizing God's work, not the fears that I had. SO I guess another reason that God allows bad or tough things to happen is also change our perspective...to recognize life's gifts and His blessings.

Anyways, I've had that on my heart and bouncing around in my head for a long long time and it feels good to write it down.

Check out our old lady on the 100th day of school!
Complete with wrinkles!
Pinching Daddy's cheek.
Hanging out with Wildes!
Our 3 little blessings.
What happens when someone finds mommy's phone during church.


Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Stomach Bug

Life at our home has been pretty disgusting lately. Mommy and Daddy have both had the stomach bug and all the FUN that comes with it. I don' think I will ever forget heaving into a trash can, with my husband holding my hair, and my two youngest standing at the bedroom door saying " EWWWW MOMMY" while pointing...now that's a memory!

Our house smells and looks like death basically.

I thought the plague came from eating at a Food Truck park with friends on Saturday...essentially I blamed it on food poisoning. But, now that I know it was a virus I can look back fondly on the YUMMY food we ate and look forward to taking friends and family there when they come visit! We found this food truck park thanks to our good friends , the Wildes, who came up from San Angelo this past weekend. Our kids, who have no clue what a "stranger" is were all over them! Its so nice to have friends who you consider family close enough to come visit!

We have a lot of celebrating to do in February!

7-Goober and Ribbit's Homecoming Day
14-Valentines Day
24-Baby Boy turns 2 (HOLD THE PHONE)
25-Adam turns 31 (old fart)

I can't believe little man is turning 2.....last night as he was watching Thomas the Train he turned to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said "turn it up please Mommy".AS CLEAR AS DAY! I could not stop laughing!

Updates:

Ribbit has a choice every day to clean her room or go to bed...so far she has gone to bed early almost every night :)...her room is a disaster!!  She says "boys are gross, right mommy?" as if she was Malibu Barbie. She puts her panties on 200 different ways...ways I didn't know underwear could even go on a little brown body :). She has no clue why I can't understand Baby Boy sometimes...so she translates his "blutyougruwen" into "mommy, stop at sonic and get us tater tots please". She is very confident in her translation too.

Goober finally did me in with his closet. I think the smell coming from inside it may have actually been the real reason I got the stomach bug in the first place. So I broke down and went to The Container Store, where I spent GOOD money for shelving...shelving that better go to college with him because I paid such GOOD money for it. As we were cleaning out his closet we found sippy cups, juice boxes, his UNWASHED BASEBALL UNIFORM (hello, his last game was in November...DISGUSTING! He also doesn't understand what "feeling nauseated" means. As I was in the thick of the stomach bug he described his friends hot lunch covered with cheese as he talked about 4 inches from my face with petting zoo breath. I couldn't say or do anything though because he was smiling and was so pleased with how disgusting his story was...OH TO BE A BOY!

Baby Boy is saying everything. He says "thank you mommy" at least 50 times a day. He says "BIG BUILDING" and points to everything. He loves to announce that he is "ALL DONE!" and throw whatever wrapper he has on the ground. He LOVES to watch Thomas the Train, The Magic School Bus and Special Agent Oso. He would eat fruit snacks all day long if we let him. He pees about 15 times a day in the potty but is still a little scared to poop...you have to distract him. He says "nannie nannie boo boo" when you are chasing him. He is a true Southerner and will SUCK down sweet tea! He is constantly grossed out by people and will point at them and "ewwww, yucky". He still mixed up "hot and cold" and he will say "brrrrrrr, HOOOOTTT mommy". He reminds everyone to put on a "yacket" everytime we head out the door.

At a recent pep rally at our school. This is before she put both hands over her ears and laid on the floor.
See that cute little face with all the big kids...perk of being a teachers kid is that you know everyone.
Mom and Goober went on a painting date. He DID REALLY WELL!
Oh that smile.......
The finished masterpieces!!
A recent "girl party" to Sweet and Sassy with our church friends!
She picked BRIGHT PINK eyeshadow!
Then she said " mommy, take a picture with my eyes closed so I can see"....even though we were surrounded by mirrors.
She requested a princess hair do.
Snack time for the princesses.
Dance party!!!!
My sweet church friends and their girls!
Striking a pose as we leave :)