Change of Perspective

I woke up this morning bright and early at 5 am to feed Ethan. As I came downstairs I found that our cat Zoe (who we just realized yesterday is a BOY!) had torn open and trash and it was strewn about the kitchen and living room! I was pissed to say the least! And then it started...."Why am I always the one who has to clean this?" "Why am I the only one responsible for the animals etc?" "Why can't anyone else do this?" I cleaned it up, fed and changed Ethan made some coffee and sat down to watch Joyce Meyer as I do many mornings! She had a doctor on this morning who was talking about having his own practice and being solely responsible for his patients. Even at 2am when he received calls from the emergency room saying his patient had not had a bowel movement and needs an enema! He began to resent all of this and often found himself saying "why do they have to call me all the time?" "Can't I just get some sleep?" "Why can't they just call someone else?" Then he began to pray about it and heard God tell him that it's not the people that are the problem it is his ATTITUDE! He should be grateful for all things and he would feel better about all of it. So instead of complaining at those 2am bowel movement calls (lol) he began saying "Thank you God that I am here and able to help these people!" Just by doing that simple thing his whole life changed! He was less stressed. He was happier, and thing didn't look so bad!

So today instead of getting up like I did and saying Oh Lord why am I.....how come I am the only one who......

Start thanking God that you are here and able to serve them. Thank Him that people look to you for your help and strength. Thank Him that you are alive and have another day! Just see how your whole day will change with this one simple thing! I dare you!

Emma is 5

My baby girl is now 5 years old and I can hardly believe it! Has it really been 5 years since that little one came into our lives? It was 5 years today that I came home from the hospital with my first child. WOW! I remember being so in love with her, yet it was so odd that I was someone's mother. I had 9 months to prepare but it was still strange to see that little life and know that we made her. That she was ours. It was weird for me to call her by her name at first, it was just so unreal; yet I loved her so very much. I was so happy to be a mom it just took a while to sink in! She was slow at eating and up often. She never went back to sleep quickly either. Oh the nights walking back and forth in the kitchen singing Jesus Loves Me to her hoping she would drift back off to sleep. I loved it though. Sure I was exhausted, sure I wish I could have slept in as I did just a few weeks before but I was so infatuated with that little life and it was so worth it! I really did enjoy those nights in the kitchen, just me and her.

Now a days it's so hard just to get a minute alone with her nevermind a whole night. With a fairly newborn baby the older one often gets pushed to the wayside because of the babies needs.

She is so special though. She is the most unselfish child I have met. We joke around with her at times for instance when she has candy asking if we can have her candy? Without a second thought she says "ok" and hands it over. Never giving it a second thought. She received balloons today for her birthday and when asked if Ethan could have one she joyfully handed one over to her brother for him to enjoy. She has such a sweet giving spirit that is truly unselfish and I so hope she remains this way as she grows.

Sometimes it is so easy to focus on the negative in our children because we take for granted things that are good about them. For instance she has never had separation anxiety. I can entrust an adult (that I know of course) with her care and she gladly goes and plays and knows I will be back. She does get a bit shy, but she does it without crying. I hear horror stories of mom's who can't even leave their child with the babies father because the child is SO attached. This is something I do take for granted because I have never had to deal with this issue. But it is a positive. She misses me but can separate with ease and tell me all about her time when I return.

She is so smart. When we went for her physical there was a sheet that they had me fill out regarding her developement. Some questions asked her to draw the shape shown and she did it perfectly. Another one said draw a man, and she drew a person in such detail it would put my drawing to shame.
Another question was quite funny it was about opposites I had to say Emma

If a giraffe is big then a mouse is ____________ she answered small! PERFECT!
Then if a mommy is a woman then a daddy is a _________ she answered HUMAN! LOL! So she got that one right, but wrong! LOL! He indeed is human but obviously they were looking for man.

The another set of questions was

If you are cold you__________ she answered DRINK HOT CHOCOLATE! LOL! Correct answer being you shiver, or put on more clothing.

Or a Lake is__________and she said HONEOYE! which is a lake that her great grandma Ruth lives on!

Besides the funny little answers she gave to some of the questions she did get 95% of them right skipping only 2 as they were too advanced.

But the doctor did say she was as smart as a 6 yr old! Forgive me for bragging but it prides me knowing that my work is paying off! Alot of times we go on pulling our hair out wondering if we will ever get through and then we hear something like that and it's all worth it!

So take time to see the good things, and reflect and enjoy where they are. The past 5 years has flown by and before I know it I will sitting here sobbing that she is 10 already. She is such a little girl.....no longer a baby. No traces of baby fat, or baby talk....she is a little girl, and she is so amazing. I am still so much in love with her and I am excited to see God's plan unfolded in her life! Thank you Lord for giving me this child.

I'm Back

We are back from dance, the kids are fed and in bed and the house is quiet! AHHHH!

So in other news. Both of my children are going through growth spurts. In the past 2 months Emma has gained at least 2 lbs and Ethan has gained 1 1/2 lbs. But then again...who doesn't over the holidays! I take both of them next week for physicals so we will see what the official results say.

Emma has been so good lately. She has been playing and overall pretty content and eager to please. She has told a few small lies lately (and we are working on nipping this in the bud before it gets out of hand but she is still young) but other than that overall she has been really good. Thank God because on the other hand Ethan has been a little terror!
Not on purpose he is just miserable. He just recently got his first tooth...or should I say teeth. He has the bottom two and one top one and they all came in within a week of each other. Now I can see that there are 5 more waiting to make an appearance. 2 have broken the gum and I am hoping the other 3 will soon so that he can be put out of his misery at least for a little while!!! Pretty crazy to get 8 teeth in a matter of a month...I would probably be cranky too. (Well I am cranky, but not cause of teeth! lol) I know I complained alot when my wisdom teeth were moving...IT HURT! So the poor kid must be in agony! It's just hard to put that in perspective at times when he seems to cry 14 hours a day! I know I am exaggerating, it just feels that way and can really weigh on your nerves!

We have a busy week next week! My little girl turns 5 on Tuesday! So exciting! I can't believe she's been around and in our lives for 5 whole years. She really is turning into this awesome little person. Definately no sign of baby left. Potty training is over (even at night) she speaks very maturely, she jokes around with us, and she questions things on her own and is very smart.

She just asked us yesterday if we move far away how will she get to her school? (Like it's the only school in the world! Got to love their simple minds) What a great question though. She knew we were moving, she knew she was in school and she put it all together and asked! Pretty neat! We explained to her that next year she would not be in Pre-K anyway and she would go to the big school here normally. Well she is still going to go to a big school but it will be a different big school! She thought about it for a minute and said "oh ok" and that was the end of it! Too funny!

That's all I can think of now. I am getting very tired at this point and can just picture myself drifting off to dreamland! The morning comes all too soon!

Big Changes on the Way

Well for those of you who don't know, Phil got a big promotion at work! YEAH! He is now the assistant manager of the eastern United States! Which means.....we have to move, yet again! I am actually happy about this move, yet I am never excited to move because it tons of work. Plus after being here for 2 years we are just making friends and we know the area and now have to leave.

The bright side of this is that we will be moving to New Hampshire which is so much closer to my family and Phil's sisters and it will be so nice to have some family around. Let's face it we all need a break every now and then and it will be nice to know that we have family that can help out. Also I want my kids and everyone else's kids to know each other and be somewhat close. It will be great to get together over the summer's and have the kids play with each other. I really miss that. Plus as everyone gets older I am sure there will be many new additions to the all of the families, and it will be great to be close for that as well.

A bad and good thing is picking up and leaving here probably within the next month. Which means lots of work ahead of us. We will have to pull out of pre-school and dance class, and MOPS early which is sad for me. It makes me cry just thinking about it. I have to many mixed emotions about this whole thing.

I am torn about how I feel about this whole thing.

Part of me is going to miss the friends that I have made recently, the MOPS group, the area, the great teachers. I am really sad about leaving that behind.

The other part of me is so happy to be moving closer to home, getting a new home, and seeing what the future holds and that's really exciting!

I think it's also really sad to leave behind the house where a child was born. I was sad to leave CT for a number of reasons but one being that Emma was born while we lived there. The last house we lived in I wasn't sad at all. This house...though I am excited for a new one...I am still sad. This is where I brought my son home too. I know it sounds ridiculous! And it's really just a petty thing but it still stirs up those emotions. I will be happy once we are settled it's just getting to that point!

I am often a pessimist too. I look at all the bad things and get stressed of all that there is to do. It's hard for me to not look into the future!

Anyway I need to get Emma to dance class so I will post more this evening!!! Stay tuned!

New Year's Resolutions

Yah, yah we've all made them before and I am usually not one to "claim" out loud what I wish to accomplish. But I think it's helpful to do.

1. The first thing I want to work on like others, is my weight. I have several reason to get my weight under control. 1. Physically I hate being fat! At 5'3" tall and 140 lbs I am way overweight. This seems to happen with every pregnancy though. I gain, I have the baby six weeks later I am smaller than pre-pregnancy, and then somehow I slowly creep back up to 140 lbs. Also diabetes runs in my family (all 3 siblings have it) so that should be motivation! I also just received news on Monday that I have high cholesterol! 309 to be exact! It should be between 210-240. YIKES! High cholesterol runs in my family and unfortunately we are the family that has high cholesterol and heart attacks. (Phil's family has high cholesterol but no history of heart attacks) So that means I am probably at higher risk at stroking out them him. So really it makes sense to get that under control. I need to be here for my family. I go to the doctor's next week to see what measures we will take. I don't want to jump right into meds as I am only 27 and they will surely destroy my liver. Hopefully we can try diet first. And if that's under control then so will the weight.

2. Debt! From all the moves, overspending etc. we have racked up some debt! I am sick of being a slave to it and I really want to be free from all of it! I really feel God speaking to me that I could be much better in this area. It's amazing how much money we can waste. Especially by eating out. And this goes back to #1. Stop eating out, thus helping the cholesterol and weight!

3.Living more in the moment. I am the type for person who is really negative. Something comes up and I automatically see the NEGATIVE! NOT GOOD! Who wants to be around that. And the funny thing is I stress myself out and it all works out and is fine. Stop living for tomorrow because today is all we have! Things will work out!

Those are my big ones! I hope so much I can stick to it. It's so hard. But I need to do these things.

From the mouth of babes.....

So I have been struggling lately with Emma and her picking up her toys. She will be 5 next month and is absolutely capable of doing this she's just a bit lazy. So yesterday I got fed up with it and I decided to try something I saw on supernanny. I gave her all day to clean up her room. I instructed her on what to do, and told her that anything left on the floor at dinner time would be taken away in a trash bag and she would have to earn it back. I gave her several warnings about our upcoming dinner etc and tried to persuade her to clean up. Finally it was dinner time and so I went up there to check on things. Of course nothing got done. So it killed me but I began picking up each toy and placing it in the bag. Emma began to tear up and ask if I was going to throw them away and I told her no that I was going to hold them until she could prove she could clean up and then I would slowly give them back to her. She immediately perked up and said "oh here's a toy" "You missed one over here." I thought this quite odd, but kept collecting. When I finished, she looked around the room and said "Well at least my room's clean now!" haha! It backfired! Thanks Supernanny!!!

BABY FOOD

This is kind of a silly post, but I made baby food for the first time today! WOW was it easy. I thought it would be really tedious but it wasn't and the best part is that the baby absolutely LOVED it! I had thought about it before but that was as far as it went. Today I was staring down a whole bunch of bananas that were starting to brown wondering what I would do with them all because I knew they would not get eaten before we left on vacation. I have made numerous loaves of banana bread already and thought...why not give the baby food a try. So I took my bananas and found some apples that were starting to get soft and I threw them in a pot to steam for 4 minutes! Yes 4 minutes....that's all it took. Then I took them out peeled them and proceeded to mush them all up. I decided to add some brown rice cereal to it for some bulk and then separated them into my ice cube trays! I had one whole tray filled and a bit left over so I decided to give it a try to see if he liked it! Well he wolfed down the first bowl and asking for another serving! So that's what he got! It was so easy and a hit! AWESOME! I think I may do this from now on. I just would like to purchase the containers from One Step Ahead so if I had to take a jar with me I could. Unless I save some of the food jars I have now for travel....hmmmm! It's so exciting to make nice healthy no preservative added food for this little guy! The only thing that could be better is to grow it myself then process it.....maybe next summer!