Grateful

I try very hard to be grateful for my blessings every single day.  But, some days the worries of the world or the stresses of today weigh heavily upon my shoulders and I feel overwhelmed. Not to mention, just the constant effort it takes to maintain a home, raise babies, nourish a marriage and excel at a full-time career. 

But, then there are those days.  Those days where I feel like my heart is about to burst with gratitude and love and appreciation for my Father in Heaven.  I'm SO grateful for my children.  I can't even express my love for them.  Every time I look at them or watch them learn something new, or watch them make a good choice, my heart swells.  They are very special souls and I don't know what I did to deserve to have the opportunity to care for them, nurture them, and love them. 

Liam is such a joyful spirit.  He tastes each moment of life and gets the most out of each day.  His enthusiasm for all things good is so contagious. He has such a good heart.  Lately, with all the tragedy in Japan, he has been so concerned with the welfare of the people that live there. He constantly asks if they are ok and if they should come to stay at our house while their homes are being rebuilt. He is such a daddy's boy. Those two are two peas in a pod.  Wes is such an amazing father and role model. I have no doubt that Liam will grow to become the kind of man that his dad is.  And I'm so proud of that.

Adelyn is truly our little angel. We prayed very hard for her to come to our family.  Where Liam was ready to jump out of the gates of Heaven to enjoy his Earthly life, Adelyn took her sweet time.  I learned a valuable lesson of patience while waiting for our sweet girl-- some things in life are worth the heartache of the wait.  She has such a sweet spirit.  She is so quiet and thoughtful.  She brings our family so much joy.  We are trying to cherish every moment of these wonderful baby days that go all too quickly, but we enjoy watching her grow and learn new things as well.

I am so grateful to be a mother.  Motherhood is such a divine privilege that I feel so blessed to be a part of. 

FIVE months!

I seriously feel that I JUST did Addy's four month post.  This month has flown by.

Here are a few things about Addy at 5 months old:
-She loves to giggle for her Daddy.  It's very sweet.
-She's quick to smile and giggle for you, after she's warmed up a bit.  Once she has gotten used to you, if you flash her a smile, she'll flash one right back. :D
-She adores her brother.  He loves to sing her songs and read her books and she pays very close attention.
-At 4.5months old, she weighed 13.2lbs and was 25.5 inches long.  That's 25th percentile for weight, 75-80th for height, and her head was 80th percentile(I can't remember the exact inches at this point.
-She's getting pretty good at rolling over, although still not consistently, which is totally fine by me.
-As previously mentioned, girlfriend LOVES her toes.  She had HALF of her foot in her mouth sucking away the other day. It was pretty hysterical. 
-Her hair had just gotten a little too insane, so she had her first little hair cut yesterday (more on that later).
-We've decided to delay starting her on solids for at least another month.  Her skin is finally getting somewhat under control after I cut out dairy, so we want to see if her sensitivities will go away a bit before introducing other potential allergens.  Plus, she's just not that interested in solids or watching us when we eat, so I figure why rush it.  It's funny because I knew Liam was totally ready for solids at 4.5 months and I can tell she's just not.  They definitely each have their own little personalities.
-She has found her voice and loves to screech and sing and talk to us.  I just love it.

Happy 5 months, Addy! We love you to pieces.

Vanilla Coke

The other night Wes snapped these photos of Adelyn going crazy for my vanilla coke. ;)  She has good taste, what can I say? 

Fort!

Liam is just like his daddy. He loves building all sorts of forts all over the house. As a reward last weekend, Wes built him one to sleep in. Let me tell you, this was the biggest treat ever!  He was on cloud nine and I now have a good incentive for good behavior or chores being done. ;)  I love when that happens. He slept in it for three nights.  I think he looked pretty cute sleeping in his awesome daddy-built fort.

Video Flashback

I was going through my photobucket and trying to organize my photos and videos and I ran across these little jewels. I LOVE watching videos of Liam when he was little. I didn't blog back then, so I had to post these, just for fun.
This first one has to be one of my all time favorites.

This next one is of his infamous angry eyes.  This video didn't capture the full extent of the angry eyes, but it's still pretty stinkin' cute.

I can't believe my boy was ever this small. This is him at 9.5 months taking his first steps.

And I love this cheeky barely one-year-old. He loved saying "Happy, Happy."  Makes me smile every time I hear it and remember this.

I hadn't been taking a lot of videos recently just because you have to get out the video camera, etc, which is fine for bigger occsions but sort of a pain for everyday stuff, but I have a new phone with a video camera that does a pretty good job of shooting short little videos like this, so I'm hopefully going to be sharing more videos now.  Anyway, enjoy!

New Gig

As many of you know, I started a new job three months after Addy was born.  I had known for quite a while that I needed to find a job in the hospital to really develop my nursing skills and career. 

I had been in contact with the manager of the oncology unit since before Adelyn was born. I also had known her from church and she was an assistant professor to me in school.  She has worked very hard to build an amazing oncology unit at St. Marys over the last two years.  She's a great manager and I have loved oncology since I was in school.  I contacted her to take a chemotherapy certification class in December and got started on that so that I could even apply for the job. After quite the long process, I started my new job at the beginning of February.  I have had 6 weeks orientation and all of the staff and supervisors have been wonderful. 

This last week was my first week of night shift. It went much better than I anticipated. I really enjoyed the quieter pace and being able to spend more time with my patients.  I am gaining more confidence in myself as a nurse and am really enjoying caring for my patients. I have had a lot of great and amazing patients and have already learned so much.  There will probably be an opening for day shift in May, which would be wonderful, but for right now I'm just trying to embrace night shift.

So I'm really happy with my decision to change jobs.  I'm hoping to go down to two nights a week starting in April, just for while Addy is so small and such.  But, I am loving my job. There have been a few hard days that ended in tears for me, but all of the experiences I have had have been amazing so far!  I'm counting my lucky stars to have this great opportunity.

Bathtime Buddies

Both of my children are 100% water-bugs. In fact, if Adelyn is fussing, if you turn on the water she'll stop because she thinks she's going to get a bath. :)  Liam begs and begs to take baths with Addy every single day.  They just look at eachother and laugh the whole time while Liam puts various bath toys on Addy's head. haha. 
Finally- a photo of both of them smiling at the same time!  I had to snap it quickly!



I love this picture of Addy just chillin' in the tub with her foot propped up like she's queen of the world (which she basically is). ;)