Paci Puppy!

Somehow my crazy husband convinced me that it was time to take away the Paci from Issie on Christmas Eve. Mama is not ready! The logic behind it, according to Brad, is Mama will never be ready (true) and he will be home for 4 days so this would be the time to do it together. So I surrendered, very reluctantly, I surrendered. The reality of the matter is she is not terribly addicted to it, not like Kadie was. She only has it for nap and bedtime, but it makes putting her down simple, and I am not ready for crying and hysteria (are you ever really ready for that?). But it makes sense to do it sooner and while we still have her in a crib so she has time to figure out how to put herself to sleep without it before we move her to a bed in Kadie's room. So we did it. Nap was non existant on Christmas eve, even though she watched us throw away the paci's she still just cried and cried. She does this pathetic thing when she is distraught... she calls "Paci.... Paci..... Where arrrrreeee yooouuu?" It is so sad and so cute at the same time. Needless to say after 2 hours of wailing we got her up to go to Christmas eve service and then brought her home and she finally passed out for a little bit then totally crashed to go down for the night. Christmas day was worse.. she was hysterical at nap time. And we had company, all of whom were Grandparents and totally understood but still after a few hours of that we pulled her out of her crib. Again she crashed a bedtime with only a few minutes of tears. I am thinking, I am totally not ready to sacrifice nap time. So today we took her to Build a Bear as we did with Kadie to make a Paci Bear. Kadie was older and had a better understanding but we still thought maybe if we replaced the paci with a paci bear it would eventually help.

Daddy walking the girls through the mall, so cute. Kadie is totally grieving the loss of Issie's paci with her. "It's like it was yesterday for her", she tells me. "I just cannot bear to think about it" she says.

Issie has no idea what this is all about but everyone seems excited so she is excited too.

She immediately picked a puppy. So it will be Paci Puppy. This will actually make things less confusing between Kadie's Paci Bear and Issie's Paci Puppy. Again with the cute little half smile.

Before the stuffing.

Well, she saw the paci for the first time in 2 rough days and she had to have one last suck. Brad could barely pull it out of her mouth and she was very upset that we stuck it in that dog.

But now she is over it and fluffing her up.

Such a big girl with her Paci Puppy. Hopefully she won't tear it apart in her crib searching for the Paci. We did have a minor victory today. She actually surrendered for her nap after an hour and a half of screaming and indignation. She slept 2 hours and would have slept longer if we let her. Yipee! Then only 20 min of crying at bedtime. Progress! I am hoping by the end of the week she is back to her normal routine. Please pray for that, for both her and me.

Christmas Morning 2009!

Christmas morning started with a spark, literally. Brad got a call from work at 5:35am and since the kids have been trained to not come down until 7, Jack woke up and attempted to stay quietly in his room. He decided to read but did not want his light to be too bright and was too tired to get up and close his door, so he decided to put his wool hat over his bedside lamp to mute out the light. Shortly after making this decision, I hear a calm whisper at my door saying, "mom, I think there might be fire in my room". Half asleep and confused by how calmly he was telling me these words I did not really spring into action. I stumbled up stairs and started to smell a horrible chemical smell and as I started sprinting all I could think is please do not let the fire alarm go off. Not "please do not let my house burn down", no it was "please do not let the annoying, freak the girls out and make them scream bloody murder fire alarm go off". His lamp was melting into itself and dark toxic smoke was pouring out of it. Clearly, Jack was not thinking clearly either as he did not think to turn off the light. So I turned it off and opened all of his window, turned on the fan, closed his door, not that this would stop the fire alarm if it was meant to be but I was desperate, and droggy. Thankfully no harm was done, except for the smell. The girls continued to sleep til 7 and the house remained quiet and unharmed. It will be a Christmas morning I will never forget.

Kadie, looking sleepy but ready for candy!

Jack, all smiles on Christmas morning.

This picture cracks me up. It is just the true crazy excitement of opening way more presents than anyone truly needs. They are so funny.

Jack is obsessed with football and the Vikings are his favorite. Adrien Peterson especially so this was a fun gift to get. His big gift was the Music Maker software and microphone which allows him to record several tracks of vocals and instruments to be able to make his own complete songs and then burn them to CD's. He is having so much fun with it. He can be the lead singer and do the back up vocals too.

Kadie, wearing her fun hat the Grandma Dauna made and opening one of many my little pony's. Her big gift was a Pet shop house with a new set of pet shop animals. Little girls are easy to shop for. She played all day with her imagination and all her new little bity toys. So fun to watch her with her creative imagination.

My gift to Brad, you cannot read it but it was a total gift from my heart. A friend emailed me an embroidered tapestry called House Rules that listed a bunch of scripture beneath it. I loved this idea but I wanted it to be the scriptures that we as a couple and as a family really have clung to over the last few years. So I titled it The Word we live by and listed 10 of the most meaningful things we are trying to uphold in our lives and with our kids. Like Be Humble, or Choose to Love, or Carry each others burdens, etc. Then I tried to narrow down one or two verses that really spoke that truth. It was an incredible project and bible study for me, a gift within the gift. It was so hard to not just make 2 frames, hard to narrow it down, amazing how many scriptures just jumped out at me. I am so glad I did not just copy the one I was sent but that I created the one that had personal meaning to us. Brad appreciated it but I think I might actually love it more. But it will be a gift to continually bless our family.

Jack's self portrait with a mouth full of muffin.

Mama with her baby.

Kadie already playing Pet Shop. I got her new scissors in her stocking which turned out to be the best thing since she wanted them to open all of her gifts herself. Some of those boxes and packaging are awful but she just loved doing it all by herself. Another gift inside a gift.

This is my favorite picture of the morning! Issie just this day decided she was going to start "smiling" for the pictures. This is her picture smile! I just laughed and laughed. She is really transitioning out of her mean and bossy stage and is so lovable. I just love this little picture of her sideways smile. What a sweetie.

Playing peek a boo with Lucy on the couch.

Issie just loves this hat from Grandma Dauna. She put it on and wore it most of the day even though we never went outside. I am so happy, since she has had a few months of refusing to wear hats. She got some bracelets for Christmas and she is back to her little accessory loving self. She got a little Einstiens computer toy and really amazes us at how much she really knows. She actually knows a bunch of her letters and is not just hitting the right button by accident. It is truly amazing how fast they can learn, little sponges.

Playing Pet Shop in the hat.

Watching cartoons in the hat.

Me and my honey. What a blessing to have each other for Christmas. We had a quiet day with a few friends up for dinner and we really enjoyed the simplicity of it all. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

My Girlfriends Christmas Party

My girlfriends had a fun Christmas party with our families and Mel's house. It was a bit crazy with the sheer number of offspring we all now have but it all worked out and it was so fun and such a comfortable group of people to spend the season with. Our husbands were being nuts when we had this picture taken so it is really a miracle that we are all even looking at the same camera.

Top to bottom, left to right... Marnee (the encourager), Kelly (Me), Kristi (the life of the party), Melody (the organizer) and Michelle (the stabilizer). Among other wonderful attributes of course. These ladies are a complete blessing to my life.

The Men.... Dave (Mel's), Brad (Mine), Chad( Marnee's), Nick (Kristi's) and missing Nello (Michelle's). Nello was on a business trip :(.

The Offspring! Left to right, top to bottom ..... Kadie, Marcus, Jake, Wade. Benjamin, Maia, Hailey, Hope, Makenna, Amelia, Jack, Landon and Isabella. What a crew!

School Christmas Choir

Jack and Kadie's school has a simple little school choir performance every year for Christmas. Jack sings in the choir and Kadie sings with her little Kindergarten class. It is sweet and a bit exhausting keeping Issie contained for about an hour and a half on bleachers. But they are so excited to have us there and to sing for us, you just cannot miss it.

Sitting on the risers before the performance. Kadie is so excited to sit beside her big brother, the cool 5th grader. And Jack is too cool for school. Typical.

Apparently, Kadie's Kindergarten class was in the middle of learning about Christmas in Mexico so they had them sing the Mexican Hat Dance, it was not Christmasy at all but it did make me laugh. Kadie is in the turquoise ensemble just on the other side of the music stand.

Jack's choir. He has a beautiful voice and a pure love for singing.

Such a good big brother. The girls really love him.

Again with the attitude.

Issie Bee with her little magnetic Nativity obsession. She just loves playing with this and we will be lucky to have all the pieces still intact by the time Christmas rolls around.

Thanksgiving in Albuquerque.

Once again we did the long road trip to New Mexico to share Thanksgiving with Brad's family. His sister lives in Knoxville, TN. We both are about 24 hours of driving away from Albuquerque so we meet there at their mom's house and it is always fun. I spent 4 years of college there and Brad grew up there so we have lots of places we want to eat and visit and the kids get to play with their cousins whom they just adore. This year my mom and her husband Al flew in from Florida to spend it with us all too. In all I think there were 35 people for dinner! And it was one of the best meals I have ever had. Great family memories.

Silly Issie playing with her new legos. It takes her a while to warm up to people so it is hard on family that just want to scoop her up and love on her. She is very independent and specific about what she likes and dislikes. But we spent a week there so by the end she was all hugs and kisses. She became very territorial. It was "my granma tutu" and "my aunt yoyo". It is always funny that my kids call Grandpa Al, "Grandpa Owl", they have a hard time saying Al. It cracks me up.

Laura, Brad's sister, helping the girls make the cresants, it was so sweet for Kadie to have two big girls to look up to. Sydney is 12 and Lynsey is 9. I just love those girls.

The cousins played great. Jack was the only boy but he convinced them to play football most of the time, or soccer, or chess. They all just love each other and it always makes me and Laura sad that they don't live closer together. That would be great!

Trudy and Laura in the kitchen, cooking... cooking.. cooking!

My honey, his mama and my mama. So nice to be with family.

Good Bye Grannie Jane

I am way behind on this blog and I really want to share what all has been happening in our little family over the past month or so. I hope at some point to transform this family document into a book for us so I hate to miss large chunks of time in which many blessings and sorrows have occurred.

On Nov 13th of 2009 my Grannie Jane ended her battle with cancer. Sadly this picture is about 6 years old but it is what I could find. That is Kadie she is holding. My Grannie Jane was my mom's step mom, she never had children of her own but she loved us all as if we were her flesh and blood. She was so special to me and my sister. We spent many summer days with her in Florida when we were spending the summers with my dad. She had her own little beauty shop for a long time and we would love to play there. All the little old ladies coming in to have their hair set. We would get free perms and hair cuts. I remember the smell of perms and the taste of Yahoos like it was yesterday. She would take us to our Aunt Libby's swimming pool and let us stop at the Pick Quick on the way home and get candy. She and my Grandpa Jim had this big Pit Bull named Duke that we just loved and he would let us practically ride him around the house. We would spend our evenings making forts in the living room with all the couch pillows and sleeping there. She let us be kids and never let us be out of control but just allowed us to play. Her and my grandpa had a stilt house in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico for many years and it was like camping over the water. You could only get there by boat and we would fish, play cards, and sleep under the stars. It is still my most favorite cherished place in my childhood memories, I still have dreams about being there. She was a constant in my childhood. Things were not terribly stable in my early childhood but I still can feel the calmness that I had when I was with Grannie Jane.

She was diagnosed with lung cancer a bit over a year ago, it was aggressive and she far outlived the initial prognosis. She was a trouper. She had not lived her life as a follower of Christ. Like many of us and many of our families, she made some tough choices in her life. My grandpa passed away about 10 years ago from throat cancer and at the very end of his battle he made his peace with God, a miracle as it is with all of us independent and prideful people. At that time, Grannie Jane told me she started to quietly pursue a personal relationship with God. I was blessed to have talked to her when I was with my other Grandpa 2 years ago and blessed again to talk to her on Halloween only 2 weeks before she died. She had peace. She was not ready to die but she was ready to surrender to the will of God and let me tell you it was the best conversation I have ever had with my Grannie Jane. In many ways, God is so merciful to let some of us know when we are going to die. Times like that make you make a decision. Times like that force you to really investigate what you believe and if you are ready. What a blessing that the Lord never ever stops pursuing us, even to our very last breaths. I am blessed to know I will see her healed and whole one day in heaven. Praise God for his mercy.

I will miss you so much Grannie Jane, thank you for loving me so well.