3.30.2011

Ordination

Jamie is getting ordained as a Deacon in the Anglican Church
Wednesday, April 13th - 6:30 pm
Light of Christ Anglican Church

We would love have you come be a part of this
as we continue to move forward with
where we feel God is leading us.

Thanks to all of you who have played a role in Jamie's call to Ministry
We're excited to see where God leads us after this.

Jamie will serve as a Deacon for at least 6 months before
he moves forward to Ordination of Priesthood.

3.28.2011

wrap up

Here's how I told my coworkers what we are having. They did a poll and voted as to what they thought the sex would be, half of them of said boy and the other half was girl. It was pretty even.
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We celebrated Jamie's birthday with a small group this year at a Japanese steakhouse.

Joe, Becca & Jael

Clint, Theresa and Jamie
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On Friday, we decided to buzz B's head. I was tired of his long hair. Look how long it had gotten. Probably 95% of the time when we go to a salon, we walk out with a bad haircut b/c he doesn't sit still very well. I figured why pay for a bad haircut. I told Jamie to just get out his clippers and buzz him.

I told Jamie after he got done that he reminded me of an orphan kid that had his head buzzed due to lice. But it's growing on me. He had a lot of compliments at church b/c he really looks like a big kid now.

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And we are suckers. We took B on Saturday night to Chuck E. Cheese's. He LOVED it!!!
I always thought it was kinda hokey when parents took their kids there for birthday parties, but after going, I totally see why they do it. Kids love it!! And it's a safe place, plus it's entertainment all in one room. I don't see us doing B's bday party there this year, but it'll probably be in our future.

3.25.2011

We're having a...



As much as we wanted to even things out by having a girl, we're pretty excited about this baby boy. It'll be fun to see Breeson interact with his baby brother. I pray that they will be good friends as they get older. I'm sure we're going to get a run for our money! Having two boys to chase after will keep us pretty active. We feel pretty blessed to given another boy.


3.23.2011

An ode to the hubs

Today is my hubby's birthday. I won't say how young he turned.
Unfortunately, he had to work today - but Breeson and I met him at work when he got off and ran to the store afterward. He misplaced his wedding band a month or two back and we went to look at getting it replaced. But, we didn't find what we were looking for today.
That was part of his bday gift. His other part was a gift certificate to play golf - one of his favorite things to do, but sadly does not get to do it often enough.

I quickly made him a birthday banner (don't judge, it was late when I made it and I had to be quiet and was limited on my supplies).


For his birthday meal, I made salad, shrimp fettuccine alfredo, toast, and green beans. Since we both gave up desserts for lent, I didn't want to make a big cake since we wouldn't want to have leftovers to tempt us. So, I went to the store and bought individual pieces of cake from the bakery. They were actually very yummy!!
Tomorrow night we'll continue to celebrate his bday w/ friends at a Japanese steakhouse. Yum!




I have been blessed beyond measure with a wonderful husband, friend, and father to my kid(s). I look forward to many, many, more birthdays with this man...

Oh, and in case you were wondering...he did get to open the special envelope (see post below) for his birthday!! But you'll have to stay tuned for at least another day...or two. :)

3.22.2011

Behold...

I give you the envelope which holds the gender of our baby!! We met Dr. Gore (newest and final OB for this pregnancy). I liked him a lot. We even got an ultra sound. We told the tech not to tell us the sex, but to write it on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. And here it is...
Tomorrow is my babies daddy's (aka hubby!) birthday.
So for part of his gift, he gets to open the envelope.


3.18.2011

30 Weeks - a comparison
























Top Picture:
30 weeks w/ Breeson (taken 3/13/09)
Bottom Picture:
30 weeks w/ baby #2 (taken 3/18/11)


3.16.2011

Warmer Days = Better Days

Today was a fun day. It started off right because Breeson has been sleeping a little longer (thanks to time change. Who woulda thought?). We got up and headed to Chick-fil-a for our free breakfast (promotion they're doing thru the end of March). He got to play for quite a while in the play place so that helped run off some energy. Then we ran to Walmart to get a few things before heading to the library to meet a new little friend for story time.
There was quite a few kids there. Breeson seemed to enjoy it. He didn't exactly sit on the mats like the other kids during the story time though. He enjoyed song time probably the most...that and eating on the glue stick. I think we may have to make it a weekly thing.

After it's all done, most of the moms head out to the park next to the library. We stayed for awhile. It's a great way to get know other moms in the area. Plus, it's a really great way to lose a lot of B's energy!!
Today was just gorgeous. It felt like Spring!! I think they said it reached 75.

This afternoon we played outside even more after Jamie got home from work. We've recently started taking walks in the evening now that the weather is nice again. It feels so good to be doing something active - which I haven't done much of this pregnancy. When I was prego w/ B, Jamie and I did a lot of walks and I swam A LOT! I do miss that.

As for a pregnancy update. I'm 29 weeks. We went to the 3rd doctors office for the 3rd time this pregnancy. I'm planning on staying there until this child exits my womb. I think I've gained about the same as last pregnancy, but I just feel more out of shape. The verdict is still out as to what the sex is. We actually were hoping to get an ultra sound at our apt yesterday...but that didn't happen. The nurse wants to wait. Of course, right!? Why not...what's another week or two? Heck, what's another 10 weeks now? Argh. I was pretty disappointed. Oh well. Maybe we're not supposed to know for a reason.

3.14.2011

What's in a name??

In choosing the name "Breeson", we, as most parents do, searched high and low for the perfect name. We sat countless hours in Barnes & Nobles reading through the baby name books. Making lists only to agree and/or disagree on several of them. Since we didn't know the sex of our baby, we each chose 3 boys names and 3 girls names. In the end, whichever sex he/she was, Jamie would have the final say-so if it was a boy, and I a girl. Well...low and behold Breeson was meant to be!!
We chose the name because...
a.) it was unique and we only found it in one book (not sure which one that was now?)
b.) we liked the meaning of the name: "strong" (however, if you look it up online it gives other meanings?? We remember the book saying it was an American-English name meaning "strong") - so we agreed on it.

Isn't it amazing how people typically live up to their names? Our Breeson is a strong-willed little boy. We could see it ever since he was only a few weeks old. Today, I ordered this...

Now I'm not saying this will solve all our problems, but why not get some help from a good resource such as Dr. Dobson?
Lately we've been trying to remember to pray more for Breeson, as that is what will get us and him through the hard times. Just last night Jamie and I were talking and it feels like in the last week-2 weeks, he's really been pushing the limits and testing himself, as well as us. I really don't like to call them the "terrible 2's", but I see why they're called that. God help us!!

In public, I don't want to be that parent who is abusing their child, nor do I want to be that parent who is ignoring their tantrum-throwing kid sitting in the grocery cart. Where is that happy medium? Just this past weekend, Breeson was "helping" me make bread. I informed him the burner was HOT, which he already knows, but I did tell him again. But this time, he just had to put his hand on it. This may be just one example, yet, this is one of many situations we've been dealing with lately. Plus, it shows more about his personality and what he wants to do.

3.09.2011

Beware: rambling/complaining may occur

This post may not be very exciting. It's me just updating it for the sake of updating. It's been a LONG Wednesday. This morning B woke up pretty early (not exactly sure how early b/c the monitor went on the fritz and I just turned it off). I finally rolled out of bed around 6ish b/c I knew he had already been up for a while. I think the hard part about him being in his new bed is teaching him to go back to sleep even if he gets up early. So far, it hasn't happened. :( When he was in his crib, he couldn't go anywhere - he just had to stay there 'til we got him out, and sometimes that helped him go back to sleep for a little while.

But here he is...(taken on the first night of him sleeping in his bed)

So needless to say, today we started off pretty early. And to add to it, he must have woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I'm pretty sure before 7 am hit, we had dealt with several tantrums and timeouts. Ugh. I finally made him go back to bed, hoping he'd fall back to sleep, but instead I fell asleep on the floor by his bed and he just laid there and talked to himself. He did however stay in his bed the entire time. He has been good about that.
Because we were getting on each others nerves and my patience was running thin, I decided to get him (more for myself) out of the house. We ran to Chick-fil-a b/c they were serving free breakfast. It was good to let him eat and play a little. However, it still didn't help much b/c even there and at Target, he still threw more fits.
I finally took him home where he and I took a good nap.
That helped a lot!!


These were taken the other day. I was trying to teach him when things are "full" and "empty".



I got some curtains made for the den/family room. And, I was able to snag this great dresser from a friend who is selling her house. What's awesome is it has a lot of shelves/drawers in the cabinet area for our movies and games. Plus, I love how the TV and DVD player (and yes that is a VCR!!!) our of the reach of little hands.

Jamie takes his big test this weekend (for Ordination) - so this week has been filled with him working and studying. We'll ALL be glad when it's over!! Pray for him if you think of us this weekend. He'll be doing it over the duration of Friday-Sunday (possibly?).

Pregnancy wise, I'm doing alright. I'm pretty much out of shape. It's hard to find time to exercise. Ok, who am I kidding. It's hard to find motivation to exercise. I may need to consider giving up sweets for Lent. We go this coming Monday to meet our midwife and to do a tour of the hospital. Oh, so this time around I plan to go all-natur-al baby. Yikes. And as of right now, we are continuing to wait to find out the sex of the baby. Not by choice. I called today and they earliest they can get me an ultrasound is not until April. Um. I deliver in May!! :)

Can you believe it's already time for Daylight Savings this Sunday!?!? It probly won't be too hard to adjust too since B likes to already get up early.

3.05.2011

a few Before & After's...

I finally got around to cleaning up(some of) our mess from moving rooms around last weekend. I've still got some things to do to B's room before I show those. As you know, we have a small house and our family is growing - which means we have/are doing a lot of readjusting in order to prepare for him/her's arrival in May. We've all switched to different rooms, so we are still getting settled. Enough said, here's what we did...

Jamie and I moved to the basement - the entire space is our master bedroom, and the adjoining room (currently the office/guest room) will be the baby's room - pic's to come on that when we get around to fixing it up.

Here is the basement before:
(sorry for the small pic?)
Jamie doing some handyman/remodeling in preparation of us moving downstairs:
and After:
(we also painted everything - it's light gray (an "oops" bucket at Home Depot for only $5!!)


(the door on the right goes into the baby's room)


And here is B's old room, which has now been converted into our den/(very small) family room.
Before:

and After:

**notice the covered futon instead of our red sectional. We had to sell it b/c it wouldn't fit(insert sad face) and was not functional. Since this room now has to serve as 2 functions: family room/guest room, we sold the red couch, and some friends gave us this futon. It's actually pretty comfy - they've had guests tell them they've slept well on it. So if you get the privilege of sleeping on it, let us know what you think! Anyways, I plan to actually try and reupholster it using that cloth. Right now it's a cream colored with a lot of spots.

I probably won't repaint the room either. I'm kinda done with that right now. Nor do I plan to paint B's room that he moved into (our old room). It is what it is.

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A quick update on B sleeping in his big boy bed, it's actually gone okay. Last night when I told him he got to sleep in it instead of the crib (b/c as I explain to him "the crib is for the baby"), he seemed pretty pleased and jumped right in. He did not have any issues with going to sleep and staying in it. I did have to get up a few times with him during the night, but even then he never got out. It's not uncommon for him to occasionally wake up during the night, but when he was in the crib, we would (usually) make him cry it out. But since I wasn't sure what he would do, I got up with him. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep, but I think I was more worked up about him sleeping in the bed than he was to adjusting to it. :)
Nap time today was great!!
I definitely think day care has played a big part in this. They sleep on cots there and they are not allowed to get up until a certain time.
Tonight, I plan to sleep in my own bed (instead of the couch) and we'll just keep the monitor on. I think he'll be fine, I just hate the thought of getting up/down to put him back in bed if he gets out. But...I raise my glass to change. It's all part of the process of helping him grow up. And I'm glad we're doing this now, rather than after the baby's here.