Pictures

This one is for everyone who has asked for pictures. I finally got our Easter album together. I am working on the album from Emalyn's baptism and working on a post with more details on the girls.


http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4453486014/a=91347848_91347848/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Flood and New Job

Wow I can't believe it has really been since February since I have posted. Things have been crazy around here, and everytime I would start thinking to myself okay I've got the hang of this now, we would have a day that would absolutely bring me back to my knees humbling me and reminding me of my need of God's grace. I think so often with Maddie mothering came naturally to me, and so I thought I could pretty much handle things on my own. Nothing like throwing another child into the mix, adding a little sleep deprivation and a two year old who is struggling to grasp life with a sibling to see how sinful I really am. I think I have been broken by not being able to meet my own expectations for what I can get accomplished, which is exactly where God wanted me for me to be reminded I am not in control no matter how hard I try.
As if things weren't already crazy enough, why not throw a once in every 500 years flood into the mix. I should have known from the time I first saw the sump pump in this house and my husband reassured me it was no big deal, he would be out of town EVERY time it flooded! I had had a rough few weeks where I just felt like there was no way I was ever going to be able to keep it all together (or even get it together in the first place!), and Chris had just left to go on a bachelor's trip. I was standing in the kitchen with my two girls thinking how am I going to make it through this weekend (or at least until the next night when my mom got back from the beach) and the Mark Schultz song Closer Than I've Ever Been came on on my iPod, and it brought me to tears. I had been trying to do it on my own, depending on my own strength, and as I heard the lyrics "yeah, let me fall down at Your feet, feel Your presence all around me, don't let go until I'm closer, closer than I've ever been...until I'm weak enough to seek your strength," I realized God had had to bring me through those bad weeks to get it through to me that I had to be weak enough to seek his strength. And he was preparing me to depend solely on Him through the rest of the weekend. I had heard we were supposed to get bad weather that weekend, and I had seen the news on Saturday of the rising water in different parts of Nashville and people standing on top of their cars, but everything seemed to go back to normal within a few hours. Of course, our sump pump went out Saturday morning, but after a several calls to plumbers, I found someone who could come and replace our sump pump and by Saturday night our basement was free from standing water. I went to bed Saturday night to the sound of rain and the sump pump cutting on and off. Church had been canceled Sunday morning, so I had planned on a nice relaxing morning with my girls. I woke up at about 7 and figured I would go ahead and get up and make some coffee, so I would be ready to go when the girls woke up. And I remember thinking I better check the basement, I don't hear the sump pump, but really still thinking we are fine,we just got a new sump pump. Definitely not the case, there was several inches. I immediately called Chris' dad to see if he could come check to see if the sump pump was working, and thank the Lord I went ahead and called him right then. By the time he got to our house, we had several more inches. Everything was off of the basement floor several inches, but by this time, things were starting to get wet. So I started piling things up on top of each other (which of course only meant more things fell over into the water. Our washwer and dryer are on top of a platform, but water was getting to them. So I waded through my basement to get paint cans, many of which were floating at this point, and Woody and I got the washer and dryer on top of paint cans. At this point all I can think is Chris better hope none of his other friends get married for a long time, b/c he is not going on another bachelor's trip ever! Woody walked back over to lift the sump pump above the water, and I am trying to grab whatever I can and move it from a spot that I thought was safe and is now under to an even higher space. After and unsuccessful attempt to lift the washer and dryer onto two levels of paint cans, we called in reinforcements and had my brother and brother in law to help move the washer and dryer out of the basement and into the backyard into the rain. And believe it or not, they still work! Getting rained on was much better than sitting in 3 feet of water! At that point I gave up! Woody, Tee, and Tim stayed down there for a little while longer and fished my tupperwares full of Christmas decorations out of the water. I looked downstairs a little while later and our extra refrigerator was floating. All in all we came out okay, we had to get a new water heater and replace a circuit board on our AC unit. We lost some things, but nothing we couldn't live without. It has taken me two weeks just to regroup from our basement, I cannot imagine the people who lost their whole house. It is still surreal to drive around Nashville and you can see on shrubs how high the water was. Maddie's preschool was flooded and shut down until next year. There is a creek beside my mom's house and a tunnel that runs under the street, the 15 foot metal tube that support the road was pushed out into my mom's yard by the flood waters, the road above has completely collapsed. I hope to get pictures up in the next few days. You see pictures of floods on TV, but you can never understand how devastating it is until your see your city, your landmarks under water.

So the other reason we have been so busy is that Chris is starting a new job! Just another way the Lord has been so faithful. He has a wonderful opportunity to go in with two other guys and start a new healthcare company, Premise Health. Pretty much since Emalyn has been born (he literally got the phone call while we were still at the hospital), he has been working two jobs, just one more thing to add to the equation! He is so excited, and I am so proud of him! Okay, I have got to get some sleep. Hopefully I can find a few minutes tomorrow to post more about the girls.

A Day in the Life with Two Girls

Everyone told me that from one to two was the hardest jump, but I really just thought it couldn't be that different. And the first few weeks, we were coping just fine: Emalyn was sleeping a lot, I had plenty of time to give Maddie one on one attention, we were having dinners brought to us almost every night. Well, after three  rounds of snow, a double ear infection for Maddie, mastitis for me, colds for all of us (including Emalyn), being stuck in the house for several weeks, and sleep deprivation catching up with me, I will definitely say two is much harder than just one. But I think we are finally getting into the swing of things, but some days are definitely better than others. Emalyn finally slept 6 hours straight Saturday night, and I felt like a new person on Sunday. However, it has been followed the past two nights by only 4 1/2. But I just keep reminding myself this too shall pass.

This is pretty typical of our life right now: Maddie wanting to hold her sister, usually squeezing just a little too tight and Emalyn screaming! (Yes, Maddie does have a black eye...she lost her balance and it the banister going up the stairs)

I was trying to get a picture of the two of them now that the black eye has gone, and of course the cutest one of the two of them, Emalyn is spitting up in!

Maddie cannot keep her hands off of Emalyn. "Reading" a book to her seemed like a much better option until Emalyn got a knock in the face with the back cover. When I asked Maddie was happened she simply replied "I just bonked her with the book," like it was no big deal.

We took Emalyn for her 6 week check up today, and she is 10 lbs, 10 oz, (72%) and 22 1/2 inches long (82%); she may be bigger than her sister! And of course to match her sister, her head circumference is in the 77%!
She has started smiling back at us, which has been so fun for us to see her interacting a little more.

Even though there have been some really hard days, where I didn't know if I would ever leave my house again (and I still don't know how I am going to manage both of them at the grocery store), as we were tucking Maddie in last week, I looked over at Chris holding Maddie while I was holding Emalyn, and I couldn't help but think this is what I have always dreamed about and more! I feel so blessed to have a husband that loves me (and I guess even more importantly will put up with me and laugh at me when I am in a bad mood,) and to have two healthy sweet little girls. Okay, well I'm off to finish unloading the dishwasher hopefully before my little helper gets up, and it takes me twice as long!

Here are two more Snapfish Album:
http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3916125014/a=91347848_91347848/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3916015014/a=91347848_91347848/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Emalyn, Snow, and Potty Training

       Yes, I am finally posting about this sweet baby we have been blessed with. It has only taken me three weeks. :) I have thought everyday I would get a chance to update the blog, but life with these two little girls has kept me busy (and tired). You so quickly forget what it is like to be woken up every three hours in the night and how tired that leaves you the next day. Thank goodness for timers on coffee pots, so the coffee is brewed by the time I wake up in the morning (and thank goodness for Chris making mine for me every morning). We are doing well and are enjoying this sweet time with Emalyn. I definitely think the second time is easier. I feel more relaxed and think I may even be enjoying this baby stage more with Emalyn than with Maddie just because I feel like I know what I am doing a little more. It has been fun to see the differences in personalities between the two of them so far. Emalyn likes to be held ALL the time, she rarely gets upset (as long as she is being held that is), but when she gets mad, she get real mad. Within seconds her whole body turns bright red, and as quickly as she turns it on, she can turn it right back off and be totally content in your arms. We are just soaking up every minute of this time with her, because as we learned with Maddie it passes very quickly (although I wouldn't mind fast forwarding a little to when she is sleeping through the night). 

Here are a few pictures from the hospital. Maddie was shocked the first time Emalyn made a little noise.

Chris and I have had so much fun watching Maddie with Emalyn, and so far Emalyn seems to tolerate "loving" from her sister very well. And all Maddie wants to do is hold her and rock her, and she loves putting the pacifier in her mouth (usually gagging her in the process).  Maddie doesn't like to go anywhere without Emalyn. Her "new baby sister" is usually the first thing on her mind in the morning, and she asks almost every night before she gets in her bed if Emalyn can just stay "up-upstairs" with her while she sleeps.

Here are the links to the Snapfish Albums from the first two days, and I hope to get the other ones up soon.

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3628432014/a=91347848_91347848/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3676041014/a=91347848_91347848/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

So I'm not quite sure why in the craziness of a new baby and trying to love a two and a half year old who is learning what it is like not to be the center of attention all the time, why I thought it would be a good idea to start potty training. But none the less, I figured if we were going to be stuck at home, we may as well go ahead and tackle that too. It sounded like a good idea all week until it really did snow on Friday, which meant Chris was working from home. It is not unusual for him to work from home; however, now that Maddie's room is upstairs, he has to take conference calls from the dining room, which was asking for trouble. Trying to play with Maddie to keep her entertained and quiet,while holding Emalyn in the other arm with the buzzer going off every 30 minutes to remind us to check if Maddie was clean and dry and then try to sit on the potty was a little more than I could handle on less than 8 hours of sleep. I think we would have been fine if we could have gone for a walk or done something to get out of the house, but with the snow we were stuck inside, which meant by 4:00 when Chris finally got off his last phone call, I was done! Luckily potty training has been pretty easy. She has had two small accidents, both times while running to the potty. She will be in the middle of playing, and then all of a sudden will jump up and start running to the potty saying "hurry, hurry, hurry." Today, she startled Bentley when she jumped up yelling "hurry, hurry" and he started chasing her barking. Maddie is going through a stage where she is petrified when Bentley barks, and she stops what she is doing and curls up into a ball. So he started barking and she hit the floor and curled in a ball, and I just knew if she hadn't already had an accident, she would have for sure peed on herself after the barking. But amazingly she was still dry when I picked her up off the floor, and we made it to the potty. Here are a few pictures of Maddie...she much prefers to use the potty as a seat or as a stage to sing from.

So in true Maddie fashion,  she was less focused on playing in the snow and more focused on wiping the snow off of her toys outside. She definitely didn't get that from me. Nonetheless, here are a few more pictures of Maddie's adventures out in the snow with daddy:

 

Snow Day!

At one point this week, they were predicting 4-6 inches of snow here today. So of course, everyone freaked out and went to the grocery store. When I heard on the news Tuesday night that some of the grocery stores were out of bread and milk, I decided I should head to the store early Wednesday morning and try to beat the rush of people. But I knew I was in trouble when I had to head to the top of the parking garage at Kroger Wednesday morning to find a parking spot. And of course, it was a mad house; everyone else thought it would be a good idea to come early too. But we had groceries in case of snow, which was none existent this morning when we woke up. So we made plans to eat lunch with Lauren, Neel, and baby Carrie. Maddie was thrilled. Her next question was, "I get to go inside?" b/c since Neel had Carrie, I have run things over to her house but made Maddie sit in the car so we didn't expose Carrie to any germs. I looked up a few minutes later and Maddie had on her hat and rain boats, and she told me she was ready to go to baby Carrie's house, which of course only set us up for disaster when it started snowing 30 minutes later (lesson to myself don't tell her what we are doing until right before we walk out the door). And how do you explain to a two year old you cannot drive in the snow? She kept asking "but how mama?" which means but why? So I quickly went to plan B which was can you help me make Daddy's birthday cake? And she was so excited to help, which just means I need an extra dose of patience going into the whole experience. And even though it may take 2-3x as long, she is getting to the point now where she can actually help some. We put the cakes in the oven and headed out to play in the snow!

Thank you to Danette and Brooke for the snow suit!

And afterwards, we made hot chocolate. Maddie's favorite part was the marshmallows. She kept saying just 1 more, and as you can see she filled her cup and her mouth! (And yes, we still have our pjs on under the snow suit!)

We are still just waiting for baby Emalyn to arrive. But after the craziness of the holiday season, I am enjoying this time with just Maddie.She is up in her new room and having a blast playing with all her new Christmas toys and toys that had been put up while we were redoing the rooms.

Getting ready for Christmas

We are not bringing out all of the decorations for Christmas this year a.) because I don't have the energy to get it all together and finish getting the two rooms ready and b.) Chris is concerned that he will be putting all the ornaments up by himself if I go into labor.:) But we at least have a tree up and stockings hung. Here is Miss Maddie in front of the tree with her "War Auburn" ornament, her new ornament this year. She was so proud that she helped decorate the tree (it was definitely a test of mommy's patience...she wants to be very independent these days and do everything herself, but we got all the ornaments up without any getting broken).

She had a half day at school on Monday and had a Christmas tea afterwards. I had told her Santa was coming to her school, but I don't think she was fully prepared. She just stared at him at first, but once she saw him picking up the other children, the tears started streaming. She did not want him coming anywhere near her.

Bebe came to the tea too, so she will know where Maddie's classroom is after baby Emalyn is born. As you can tell by the smile, she still isn't quite sure what she thinks about all of this.

Standing in line to see Santa, holding on as tight as she can to Bebe's finger. As soon as it was her turn, she walked up and got her candy cane and turn around to get out of there. We did manage to convince her to sit in Mrs. Martin's lap beside Santa (but she kept her eyes on Santa to make sure she knew what was going on).

And our day is never complete without a little bit of dress up!

Finally....

So much for blogging every week or even every month for that matter! Things have been crazy around here as usual. We have been getting the girls' rooms ready. Miss Maddie is moving upstairs or "up upstairs" as she calls it. And is very excited about having her big girl room (we'll see how she does the first night in it). But for now she loves going up there and looking at the progress and has asked Chris on several occasions if he is playing Bob the Builder. :) She "helped" us paint Emalyn's room, and it is almost done. All we have left to do is put up the wallpaper border and of course move Miss Maddie out, which hopefully will happen this weekend.

Since we will be spending a lot of time inside the house in January and February, I have been trying to plan little fun activities for Miss Maddie (which is probably one of the many reasons why I have been so tired the last few weeks).

Here Maddie playing ring around the rosie with our sweet friends Sophie and Aida. They are a little less than a month younger than Maddie. We see them at the library for story time every Tuesday morning, and then usually get together another day for a playdate. Maddie adores them, but is yet to figured out who is who, so she refers to both of them as SophieAida (no "and" just one word).

She took a little gymnastics class at the Y and loved it. She could not wait to go to "nastics" each week and never was ready to leave!



 








But we have had a few lazy days at home thrown in there. I heard her talking to Bentley and telling him she was coming up-up on the bed with him, little did I know she had gotten a coloring book and was on the bed coloring beside him. She adores that dog! Just last night, we said something about Bentley and the next words out of her mouth were "I love him so much!" I think she talks about loving the dog more than she ever mentions loving Chris or me either one!

And I think one of the biggest highlights of Maddie's fall was going to pick up Bailey from school and going to play at the McDonalds playground. Of course, Maddie did more watching Bailey than actual climbing, but she had a big time regardless. Everytime we pass Woodmont Christian now (which is often) she asks if we are going to pick Bailey up from school.