'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is hearing my mom read the "Night Before Christmas" and the story of Christ's birth before we go to bed. In a little while, before we put our little one to sleep he'll get to hear his Nonna read. I can hardly wait. The anticipation of moments like that this holiday season are far greater for me than any anticipation of marterial gifts.

I hope your Christmas is filled with joy, special times with your family and most of all a thankfulness for the baby we celebrate all year as our Savior.

"Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!"

ABL

No apologies...

I will not apologize to you who disagree with me, or even to my husband. I do not plan to make apologies to my boys later in their lives either. I will not apologize for the fact that I like to dress my baby boys like the precious babies that they are. I love smocked overalls, peter pan collars, knee socks and little white shoes. I love baby blue bubble suits and cordorouy christmas outfits. I'm not quite ready for sweaters and ties and black leather shoes like daddy's. Don't get me wrong, KJ has his share of "big boy" jeans, polos and tennis shoes. He loves to wear baseball caps and his crocs. I do not plan to try to keep him from growing up, but I just can stand to rush through the way my heart melts when my baby can just be a baby.

We only have a few months left before I will feel like KJ is outgrowing some of this so I've been in high-gear making sure we make the most of that time. Only problem is, I seem to be in a minority. You can't just walk into any department store these days and find a white peter pan collared shirt or white dressy knee socks (wardrobe essentials in my opinion). Stride Rite, at more than $40 a pair, seems to have the market cornered on solid white dress shoes (although, thanks to a shopping tip from Tara, I did find finally some at Walmart). Anyone else out there working hard to dress your baby boy like a baby without spending a fortune? Any tips?

As inspiration for those of you who may disagree with my dressing philosophies, here are a few of my favorite pictures of KJ.

3 months

6 months

9 months

12 months

Current

Now if that last one won't convince you, probably nothing will. I think even RRL admitted that he looked really cute that day! You don't have to agree about the clothing choices, but hopefully we can all agree on how cute KJ is!!

ABL

November in a Nutshell

What does that mean, anyway? "In a nutshell"? I'll need more than a nutshell size of piece of paper to recap our November and I certainly hope that anytime you spend reading this will not equate to the part of the nut that you throw on the floor. Anyway, here are some updates from our whirlwind month. Any one of these items could make for an entire post, so be prepared for a long read...



1) MARATHONS- While "marathon" would be a pretty accurate metaphor for November at our house, there were a couple of literal ones this month, too. I finally achieved my pregnancy goal of walking 13.1 miles. Technically I power-walked 10 miles and strolled the last few; out of 2000 people in the race about 12 finished after me. Still, I count it as mission accomplished. The best part was that a childhood friend came to walk with me. We had nearly 4 hours of one-on-one catch up time and that was a huge blessing to me. RRL RAN a marathon a couple of weeks later with some of our favorite running buddies. I was so proud of their stellar time, despite being one of the hardest courses I've ever seen and I cried as they crossed the finish line (shocker). Here is a photo of the whole 1/2 marathon & 5K crew in Tyler.






2) RENEWAL- I had the joy of organizing an event for the women of our church during the 2nd week of Nov (with a LOT of help from some amazing volunteers). I have been hesitant to post about it, since I was in charge, but I just need to say publicly how blessed the event was. It was not blessed by my talents, efforts or wisdom; it was blessed by the Lord who provided so abundantly for it. Seriously, I was under prepared for the magnitude of the event and I have zero experience with dealing with that many women. If left to myself, my patience would have been zapped by questions about cloth vs paper napkin, people arriving 45 minutes early and whether the decorating theme should be fall decor (not even sure what that actually means). If it had been up to me, there would have been zero chance that 300 women would be willing to step outside their comfort zones and sit at tables with women they did not know. Instead, those details just fell in place, people came who have not been to women's events for a long time and there was a peace on the place as we dealt with some uncomfortable "laundry" that was among us. I was once again amazed at how the Lord uses me to accomplish HIS plans, despite my efforts to accomplish a personal agenda. Eventually, I will quit fighting and just surrender to his purpose. Why is that so hard?



3) HOME SWEET HOME- RRL, KJ and I drove to my parents house for Thanksgiving. We got to spend one whole glorious week with Momma and Daddy and visited a host of other relatives and friends. You are never too old to be renewed by sleeping in your childhood bed, having meals prepared for you and getting hugs and kisses from your parents everyday. At least I hope I never get too old! I love that RRL, KJ, BL2 and I are making a home here that is a place I cherish and long to return to, but I can still have that home, too. I just love Thanksgiving. Our family has so much to be thankful for and I pray we can be more mindful of that all year. Here are a couple of pictures of our trip:









4) DREAMS- When I was pregnant with KJ I remember having weird dreams. They were mostly far-fetched sort of sci-fi kind of dreams about childbirth. The dreams have started again, but are so different this time. This time they are so real and vivid that I wake up able to remember every detail and I often get the dreams confused with reality. It is such a funny feeling to be in the middle of my day and not be able to remember if so-and-so is really angry with me or if that just happened in my dream, did I forget to send KJ's lunch or was that in my dream. Crazy. One of the funniest dreams I have had, though, was one I like to call "Michael Scott and I save Dunder Mifflin". Seriously, I had a very intense dream about how MS and I met with the owner of Dunder Mifflin to remind him to have more fun at work. This would help people want to continue working there. I had a whole power-point presentation that I wish I could recreate. The dream started as just any ordinary day at my real office, but some how went down this very different path. Do you think I watch too much TV?



5) TRICKS AND ENTERTAINMENT- KJ is full of tricks these days and I often I find myself just sitting and watching him. He is so funny. One of my favorite things that he does right now is sing the ABC's. We have a Leap*frog letters magnet on the fridge that he sings along with. He only does a few of the letters, but always yells "Z" at the end. I love it. He also loves any kind of ball and some of his favorite words are catch, pass, dribble, shoot and miss. A recent favorite is a Christmas book that sings "Away in a Manger". He loves to pat the baby in the pictures and call him Jesus...be still my heart! I could go on and on, I'm just so proud. If you run into us expect a show while I encourage my child to show-off. I'm definitely one of "those" moms.



6) COUNTDOWN- BL2' s expected arrival is less than 8 weeks away. He is definitely growing and so am I...WOWzers. I seriously love being pregnant, though. I do not love people that have negative things to say about my size, the way I am carrying the baby or about how full my hands are going to be with two young boys. No JOKE, I know, thanks for the input...all things (and a few I've censored out) that I would love to say to such people. I'm thinking of wearing a sign that says "encouraging words only, please...may bite". On that note...no, we don't have room ready for the baby; and no, we don't have a name picked out. The list of names is constantly changing. Current front-runner is Hudson Clark (funny, I don't even think that name was even on the list last time I posted about this). Despite the lack of planning, I am not stressed. I know he will be welcomed with joy into a family that will love him and teach him about Jesus, who cares what color his room is. We just can't wait to meet our littlest man.



7) PRAYERS FOR THE TRAVELERS- My parents are about 1/2 way through their trip to Paraguay right now to visit my brother. They went with 278 lbs of luggage, a small corner of which was reserved for their clothes and the rest was gifts (including components of a swingset) to take to the people they have never met, but that they love because my brother has come to love them. I love that my parents (and mother-in-law, too) have the desire and ability to travel to all parts of the globe to see their children and experience their lives. I hope I can pass that kind of love on to my boys, it is the only way I know to let my parents see how much it means to us!


Hope that explains a little bit of why I have not posted in a month. It was such a fun month that really wanted to document it, even if it was long. I did not even get into all of the normal youth group activities, going to work 3 days a week, having house-guests, etc. Like I said, this was just the "nutshell".



ABL

If he weren't so stinkin' cute...

I am posting these pictures for myself more than anyone. Just a reminder to me from me of how seriously eat-him-up cute my son is, how generally compliant and easy going he is, and how many days there are when he makes me smile so much my mouth hurts. I love that he enjoys making people laugh, that occasionally he needs to "mah" (march) instead of walk, and that he sings outloud with the radio or even just music in his own little head at random times. I love that he gives me hugs and kisses when he says night-night and that he loves to push a broom around to help me clean. There are so many things I love about this little personality.

Yesterday was not a day when it was easy to remember these things. I had one of those days with KJ that make you wonder if you were intended to be a mom. My patience was worn down to a tiny thread as he pushed every limit there was to push. We had tantrums, meltdowns, blatant disobedience, and best of all got to make our first call to poison control. KJ decided it might be fun to eat diaper ointment. In order to accomplish this he had to find it at the back of his dresser, open the little box it came in and unscrew the lid (it was the dr. smith's kind in the tub). If I was not worried about figuring out how much of it he consumed, I might have been impressed that he accomplished this.

Just as FYI to other moms...zinc oxide has fairly low toxicity and generally does no serious harm to a healthy seventeen-month-old. Good to know.

ABL

Pumpkins

I love fall because it marks the beginning of so many fun holidays which bring so many memories and so many traditions. My favorite Halloween tradition growing up was that we always had grilled cheese and soup before we went trick-or-treating. When I was a freshman in college I went to my little dorm room and made myself grilled cheese and soup (impressive with only a microwave and toaster) then called my family so I could be part of the special night. They weren't home...they went out to eat. I was heart-broken. My mom told me that it really wasn't a tradition it was just a convenience with three young kids. I corrected them and now remind them each year about having soup and grilled cheese on Halloween.

We started a little family tradition last year of taking KJ to the pumpkin patch for pictures. Thanks to an amazing photographer, Tara, we got some wonderful pictures this time.

Just for fun, here is a picture from last year. I am amazed at how much he has grown. Last year the pics were a little easier, prop him up and he stayed put. There was a little less drool this year, though.

What are your favorite fall traditions?

ABL

San Diego

What a fun weekend we had! RRL was attending a national youth workers conference in sunny San Diego and we got to join him. I love hanging out with the people that RRL works with- what a fun staff and they are some of KJs favorite people, too. To add even more joy, my parents were able to join us. My daddy was going on to a convention in LA so it worked out perfectly. KJ sure loved having them around ("Nonna" and "Papa" quickly became his favorite words), our suitcase came back weighing slightly more than when we left , and my heart was full from just getting to hug their necks! AND...If that wasn't enough, one of my other college roomies, Chris, has a husband in youth ministry so they were there too with their two boys! It couldn't have been much better than all of that. Not too much to tell about the trip that the pictures won't cover. So, here's what you really want...

1) The Fam

2) Roomies and their families (or almost families)

3) I love this because of how intently both of them were watching the elephants...and you can see that KJ is FINALLY getting some hair!!!

4) KJ, What does an Elephant say?

5 and 6) Buddies

7) Nonna and Papa J. (thanks for the sweet pearl snap shirt, uncle D)

8) The beach (and a grumpy little dude)

Only slight downer to the trip was that my absent-mindedness (refer to previous post) resulted in two lost items. I left my brand new denim jacket on the plane on the way there. I've been searching for a denim jacket that would fit me and my extra-long torso literally since college. Finally found one at a bargain price (60% off), wore it twice and then left it on the plane. I'm sick about it. On the way back we left KJ's book with Thomas the train magnets on the plane. One of his favorite toys. He doesn't seem to have missed it yet. Ah well.

ABL

Update in numbers

I really enjoy the little column in each edition of the ACU Today that has all the random numbers with interesting little tidbits. Here are some of our family numbers:

3-
The hour of the day that KJ likes to eat lunch (3:00 pm). He has this new routine of sleeping until 8:30 or 9 (no complaints from me), eating a late breakfast, taking a nap around 11:30 or 12 and sleeping for 2 to 2 and 1/2 hours, then waking up for lunch. If I go out for lunch he might eat a little something, but still goes down for a nap when we get home before he eats his lunch. This works for us at our house and actually makes a lot of things easier for me. HOWEVER, I can see how this unconventional lunch time won’t fit with things like school. I’ve read a lot of things about how important it is for kids to be on a “normal” meal routine. But when I’ve tried to feed KJ at “lunch-time” he just doesn’t eat. He is obviously not hungry and if the boy is not hungry he would much rather play than eat. I don’t want to force him to eat EVER, I help him make choices about what he eats, but I don’t make him eat. Maybe this will correct itself when he has to get up earlier. Any other suggestions?

14-
Approximate number of weeks until the arrival of the BL2. I feel like I had things way more together by this point with KJ. For instance, this poor baby boy does not even have a name yet. At the risk of breaking my no-names rule on my blog, some of the candidates for names have been Zachary, Sawyer, Pierce and Paxton. RRL will not commit to any of them. On a side note, I must admit that as BL2's arrival gets closer I’m getting a little nervous about moving into the world of a family of four…thrilled, but nervous.

15-
Estimated number of hours that RRL spent this weekend building a back-yard storage shed for us. Hopefully it will not be long before our 2 car garage can actually hold 2 cars. It really bothers me that we have a garage that we cannot park both of our cars in. No matter how organized we have gotten it or how cluttered (like the current state), it only holds one car thanks to the lawn-mower, tools, bicycles, running stroller and red wagon that also call it home. I am so thankful that R has the capability and willingness to embark on projects like this for our family (with the help of a contractor friend).


177-
Number of minutes that it took me to walk 12 miles this weekend. My ½ marathon training is in full swing with the race only a few weeks away and 12 miles is the most I will do before the 13.1 on race day. I am moving a little slower these days and have quit taking KJ in his stroller for the longer routes, but I do have a few extra pounds to carry now (we’ll skip that number in these updates).

697-
Number of miles between my house and my parents’ house. Sometimes this distance feels overwhelming to me. I’m in one of those periods now, when I just wish I had them close and didn’t have to drive 10 hours for a visit. We will get to see them lots over the next couple of months and I am so thankful for that, but oh to have them close enough for dinner.

1,001-
Number of losing-my-mind moments over the last few weeks. Ok, so really I’ve lost count, but there are so many days when I feel like my brain has just been disconnected. Let’s blame it on the pregnancy. One quick example: Last week I drove to work and was proud that I arrived early enough to score a perfect parking place…only to realize I had to go back home because I forgot my shoes. This would be really funny if it was an isolated incident, but things like this have been constantly happening to me lately. I’m not sure I should be allowed out of the house.


I guess that’s about it for today’s number stats. I’d love your input on the eating thing, name suggestions or tips for remembering to wear shoes to work!

ABL