Girliness

I realize my baby girl is just over 2 months old. And we haven't cooked together, gone to a fancy restaurant, had tea parties or painted our toes together yet, and yet having a girl is everything I dreamed it would be. A part of me just feels more fulfilled...I'm not quite sure how to explain it.

I just get her. I know she's her own person and will have her own likes and dislikes and desires, but I know she wants to feel beautiful and special. I know she'll love twirling skirts and giggling. It really makes life easier. I won't have to guess if I'm telling her the right things and encouraging her in the right ways, she's a girl, and I get what drives girls. With the boys I can try and speculate, but I still feel like I'm guessing and completely clueless.

That said, my friend sent me this song. I love it. I think it speaks so much to the heart of women. I want to take some of the lyrics and make a cute print of them to hang on my bathroom wall as a reminder for me, and her bedroom wall.

As I was listening to it today I had her in my lap and was singing it to her, and I started to get it. When I look at her all I see is beauty. Nothing out of place, wrong or not quite right. Perfection. And that is what Jesus sees in me. Very hard for me to wrap my mind around it because all I see are faults, but He sees none of that, just beauty and perfection in what He created.

I hope that when she's 13 and 16 and 18 and after she has had a baby I can play this song for her and she can dwell in her beauty and be comfortable in her beauty and know that when her mama and Jesus look at her that is what we see despite all the things the world tells her to see. We see perfection in what we (mainly He) created.

Here's the video too. It's equally as awesome and tear inspiring.

Easter

Easter weekend. All right. Busy.

We have a ridiculous amount of things to do and get caught up on after the craziness of the last 2 months so we're playing catch up. And between baseball two nights a week, small group, worship practice and picking out songs and practicing for worship, we're a bit squeezed for family time let alone work time. So we played catch up on Saturday.

We missed Nancy a lot. Chris' quote form the weekend "I've decided it really sucks that my mom is dead." And that about sums it up.

Interesting after loosing two very dear women in my life the last year I've realized something most people don't about grief. It's not the right after that's hard. it's the 3-4 weeks after that it really hits and holidays. I know in the future I'm going to try to check in on people who have experienced a loss around those times, or drop by with some cupcakes or a meal for some encouragement.

The kids looked ridiculously handsome/adorable on Easter. Josh sang a song with his kids class and he got to sang a solo (he had also picked out the song), he totally rocked it! So proud of him! He didn't get scared at all and in fact everyone was laughing at his cuteness because he was acting like Mr. Cool Guy the whole time.

Both the boys got haircuts on Saturday, Jack got all of his cut off and he looked super handsome showing it off for everyone on Sunday.

EvaKate was as cute as can be in her first Easter dress, and we all wore pink in honor of her addition to the family. I'm glad to know we can spice things up in the future and not have all blue and yellow to look forward to!

The boys did an Easter egg hunt and dyed eggs in the afternoon. I wasn't even a huge candy person, and I remember at some point my aunt started putting money in the eggs. That was awesome. So I took $10 and broke it into $6 ones and $4 worth of quarters. The boys were most excited about their eggs with money, plus it will allow us to do a little Dave Ramsey training with saving, giving and spending. Plus I probably would have spent that on junk that got thrown away anyways. At least we'll get a lesson out of it this way and some will be saved and given to God before the rest goes to junk that I'll eventually throw away : )

The boys enjoyed the day and understand what it is and why we celebrate. In fact having Chris's mom gone almost gives them a deeper understanding of death and coming back to life now. It sure seems to take a lot of work though to make the day special and communicate all those things. We've spent the day today just recovering! Maybe someday they will appreciate all the work I put in making holidays specials, creating traditions and filling their tummies with good food on that day. Or maybe not : ) Jesus knows!

Hard

Today is a hard day. Actually it has been a hard week.

Arnold (Chris's dad) came down for the weekend, and I think that was our first full dose of reality. For the past 3 years most of the time we have spent with his parents has been here in GA, so it was very strange to have him here without her. We went some of the same places and did some of the same things as we did the last time with her. We both kept looking up expecting to see her some where.

Chris' birthday was this week, and it's hard not to think about your birthday without remembering the one who gave birth to you. She used to call him early in the morning on his birthday. It felt weird not having the phone call where we all chat that evening as well.

In general though it seems to be more of the every day little things that make it hard. Hearing the song played at her funeral on the radio, looking at mothers day cards, hearing Adventures in Odyssey come on the radio, the boys getting excited at a package in the mail (it wasn't for them and they were bummed, she used to send them stuff all the time...even when she couldn't go to the store anymore she would order stuff online for them), talking with a mom who home-schooled... it's all the little things that manages to make life seem dull and leave me crying in the middle of Target parking lot.

We just miss her.

I find it interesting how you don't realize just how big the impact someone has on your life until they are no longer in it. Even someone like your mom or mother in law.

Easter will be hard as well. We've celebrated it with them for the last several years, and Nancy and I would always dye eggs with the boys. I thought we would just paint eggs this year (since it's less mess and I didn't have the back up pair of hands) but Josh was on the verge of tears he was so upset we weren't doing the eggs in "the water".

It will also be strange to wake up by an alarm instead of a text that says "He is Risen," to which the expected reply was "He is Risen Indeed!"

So today on Good Friday the presence of death seems very real and painful and makes us that much more mindful of what Christ's death. Looking forward to the hope that we have in Sunday morning and that even though we grieve, we grieve as those who have hope in the resurrection and the knowledge that some day we will get to see her again.

Not sure how people get through this without Jesus.

2 months

Well Little Miss is 2 months old as of Friday.

Crazy how fast it's gone already. Especially with everything going on with Chris' mom, I feel like we've finally been able to really enjoy her in the last week or so. Which makes it extra hard that it's already slipping by. I want to hit pause.

I've decided that little girls are deliciousness bottled up. I cannot get enough of her. I find myself just sitting there staring at her cuteness. She's much more aware of voices and people than the boys were at this age. Her cries already have quite a bit of emotion in them as well. She's developed what Chris has dubbed the velociraptor cry which is kind of like a squeal and a cry combined. She's been cooing for awhile, but it's really only when you talk to her, it's like she's trying to talk back.

Having a baby girl is everything I dreamed it would be cuteness, sweetness and girliness.

She adores her big brothers, and often her smiles are doled out at their crazy antics to illicit just that. She doesn't grin very often but for the most part has a sweet smile that shows what looks to be dimples. She shows it off most often when someone is adoring her and telling her how pretty she is.

So far we are average in height (22 1/2 in) weight (just over 10 pounds) and our head measurements. First baby with an average head. Her favorite spot is on her changing table right by the lamp. She'll even scoot herself back to where her head is almost hanging off the edge trying to stare up into the light. She is fascinated with all lights, especially when paired with mirrors. She could stay in the bathroom all day long. She's a great eater and sleeper. We've been doing a minimum of 6 hours for the last week and a half and the last 5 have been 8 hour nights. She's sleeping in her bed. She looks gorgeous in anything she has on but red and pink seem to be especially stunning on her. She lets mommy dress her up however she wants even putting a bow on practically any time we leave the house. She only gets annoyed at them when she accidentally pulls them down over her eyes and then she does the velociraptor scream/cry until it is promptly removed. Thankfully she has two older brothers at her beck and call.

So that's the baby girl update.

Boys are doing great with all that has transpired in the last couple of months. It's been amazing how well they've rolled with the punches. After baseball wraps up we are hoping to get some good family time and let them be boys and praise them for their months of awesomeness.

We are so blessed to have such a great family!

I had big plans of writing a blog for each month of the first year of EvaKate's life talking about where she is and what she is doing.

Obviously that didn't happen for the first month.

Our lives have been flipped upside down in the last 6 weeks.

In the last six weeks we have had a baby, found out Chris's mom had advanced breast cancer and was admitted to the hospital, found out Chris's mom had passed away and attended her funeral on top of finding out we had termites.

It's been rough.

Hopefully one day I will get around to, or have time to talk about our precious baby girl.

But for now we are grieving. The loss of a great woman, and a great mom. I have an incredible husband and a great deal of that is because of the work his mother did. When Chris and I first met I was in a difficult place, full of transitions and challenges. She was such a blessing to me during that time and we formed a close friendship. She was one of the best grandma's (GaGa) I've ever seen.

I think that's one of the hardest parts. When I think about the kids growing up without her in their lives I break down. Those boys loved their GaGa. And she loved them. She was a very accessible grandma, one to never say no (unless mom and dad required it) and always willing to get in the floor and play or do something crazy. The only time I saw her tell the boys she couldn't do something was either at our request, or 6 weeks before she passed when she literally couldn't get off the couch to play with them. Even then she mustered every bit of strength she had to hold that light saver and play with them.

Praise the Lord EvaKate got to meet her, I'm so grateful we have a picture of them together. But it makes me so sad to know that they won't get to really know each other. I think they would have found so much joy in one anothers presence.

The boys are learning how to grieve as well. Josh can lay out the biblical timeline of when he'll get to see her again and where, but he misses her. He asked if he prayed and asked God to tell GaGa something if He would tell her for him. We were explaining to Jack (again) how GaGa was in heaven with Jesus, but he just looked up sadly and us and said "but that's really, really far." When we saw the body he said that was a different GaGa and he wanted the other one. We are trying to let them walk through their own grief process and support them through it. I feel like it's asking too much of them, but we can't change what is.

I no longer have a mother in law, my husband doesn't have a mom and my kids only have one grandma.

We're still processing, grieving and recovering from an exhausting trip.

There aren't even words for the loss and the hole that is left without her. I'm not sure if I'll write any more about it because it just takes so much to even process, and hurts to think about. Thankfully God does not bring death and loss without also providing new life. We are grateful for the new life we see coming in a couple of situations in our lives, but most thankful for that of sweet Eva.

He gives and takes away, my heart will choose to say, blessed be the name!

Continued Craziness

Well just when you think life can't get any crazier it does.

Shortly after I wrote the previous post we hopped a flight to STL with a week and a half year old baby.

Long story short, Chris's mom has stage 4 breast cancer that is throughout her abdomen and on her lungs. She went into the hospital and had a blocked kidney and part of her lung was collapsed. From there she underwent a series of procedures one of which resulted her being a breathing tube and having difficulty getting off of it. She now has a tracheotomy that she is breathing through and started her first round of the heaviest dose of chemo they can give her about a week ago.

We talked to Chris's dad Saturday morning and after hearing how she was doing that day decided we shouldn't mess around and were leaving our house by 6pm that evening for the airport.

We have been so blessed by the prayers and grace that covered us.

I was pretty nervous traveling with such a young baby, and mainly nursing as it was still very painful and awkward. Throughout the trip I nursed on take off and landing of the airplane, several parking lots and the ICU waiting room. I think if we survived that we can get through just about anything with nursing. She also put together two nights of 7 hours worth of sleep while we were there, which was such a blessing since we were emotionally, physically and spiritually worn out. She was a trooper and did wonderfully.

The boys both did great as well with all the insanity. They especially handled seeing their grandma like that well. She's not able to talk and so she writes messages. Instead of talking back to her, Josh started writing back and forth with her. It was precious.

By the time we left she was stabilized, and since has been moved out of the ICU. There is still a long road to fight, but she is a fighter and if anyone can make it, she can. Your prayers for healing, continued strength and perseverance for her would be greatly appreciated. Prayer for Arnold and the rest of the family would be wonderful as well.

We've been back home a week and are almost fully recovered and trying to figure out our new normal. I think we're getting close.

So far I've been grocery shopping (with all 3!), to Target, and to the mall all by myself. The biggest accomplishments though have been getting Josh ready and to baseball (with the other 2), getting all 3 and myself ready for church and there on time, and surviving my first evening of Chris having practice and feeding everyone as well as getting them to bed all by myself.

I think we may survive : )

Now if we could just get a bit more sleep...

First Week Madness

In a perfect world I would have been able to capture my thoughts within a day or two of giving birth to our sweet new baby girl, however as is typical of our lives things have been a bit crazy.

Here are the basic stats:

EvaKate Liana Kelly was born at 11:46 pm, she weighed 7 lbs 4 oz and was 19 inches long

She is beautiful, and perfect and none of us can get enough of her. The boys wake up each morning and the first thing they ask is to see their baby sister.

Her birth was a bit stressful, but overall went incredibly well. Chris calls our midwife a miracle worker, and she really is. With any other doctor we would have had a c-section.

EvaKate is such a good baby. She only cries if she's trying to go to the bathroom or hungry. She's put together 5 hour stretches of sleep for the last 4 nights and is eating wonderfully. We all just stare at her a lot in amazement.

As for the rest of our lives, Josh went into the doctor for an ear infection the day after we had her. A couple days later he started coughing quite a bit, then it turned into all day where he could barely talk between coughs. That night he started saying he couldn't breathe and got a fever, so per orders of our peds answering service into the ER him and Chris went. After a fairly useless trip (because any place not specializing in children generally is) they returned home about 2 am and tried to get some sleep.

We went into the pediatricians office the next morning (EvaKate already had an appointment) with much better results. Josh had an in office breathing treatment and oral steroids as well as prescriptions for both. A virus brought on a severe bronchial infection. Joy. Virus. So we've been trying to keep Josh away from the baby which is as hard on us as it is him. Jack also has some form of it that is mainly acting as cold like symptoms for now. We're praying it stops with him so we don't have a sick newborn on our hands!

Amidst that we have also had some very difficult news about Chris's mom which I may be updating more about later. Please keep her in your prayers.

Basically the first week of baby girls life has been a crazy one.

Chris went back to work yesterday and Josh went back to school today, so today will be our first day of being back on a typical schedule. I have time to write this, so we are doing good so far : )

Praying we get back to a level of normalcy soon as I think for all of us (particularly Chris and I in our first born nature) it will help us handle the craziness in weeks to come.

What's in a name?

Warning, pre-written post I will put up after baby girl makes her arrival.

We are kind of into names around here. Chris and I both think that they are important, and that their origin and meaning say a lot about who they will become.

So does God. He changes peoples names in the bible to represent transformation and who they are becoming, and the Old Testament gives example after example of how the meaning of the persons name represented who or what they did with their life.

With that in mind, and wanting to give our children something to ascribe to from the get go...we've been fairly considerate about names.

All of our childrens names (with the exception of Kate) are Hebrew. We were open to greek as well originally, but Hebrew just ended up working out. And seeing as how most of the names in the bible are Hebrew, it just made life easier.

While we were dating we said we wanted to have two boys and a girl. So grateful God has honored our desires in that. We were unsure about the girls name, but always loved the boy names Josh and Jack. So there was little to debate when our precious surprise firstborn was declared to be a boy what the name would be.

Joshua is a biblical rock star, a man of great faith and leadership, all prayers we have for Josh. It means God is salvation. What a great reminder to have. Aaron (his middle name) is also Chris's middle name. A way to name him after his daddy, and if there was ever a man I wanted him to live up to be like, it would be his daddy! It means exalted, strong.

We loved Jack, but obviously, it isn't Hebrew. We started throwing around other names that we really liked in the process of trying to have Jack (a bumpy 6 month process). We kept coming back to Jacob, and after realizing we could call him Jack or Jacob with that name (both of which we loved) we were sold. Jacob means supplanter (which means to replace something with another) and Matthew means gift from God. Not only was Jack a complete blessing from the Lord during a difficult time, but Matthew is also Chris's brothers name. Jacob in the bible was scrappy, and even during difficult times was willing to wrestle with God, but not walk away.

Picking a biblical name for a girl is a bit more difficult. Not only are there much fewer choices, but most of them mean sorrow or bitterness. Not exactly something I want my daughter ascribing to. Between the time of having Josh and Jack I had found the name Eva and Liana and loved both of them. Chris didn't buy into them right away since we both tend towards more simple and classic tastes, but came around eventually.

When we found out with this one she was a girl we didn't really have to question what the name would be. Eva Liana. However in the five years since we picked the name Eva (Ava) has become quite the popular name. Having both of the boys name be in the top 10 and looking at having another child with another top 10 name, I wanted to spice it up a bit. Going classic with boys is almost a must in our opinion, but with girls you can be a little bit more funky. So we started trying to think of ways to do just that.

The main idea we had was to add something to Eva. We debated EvaGrace, EvaHope, EvaJoy, and most importantly, EvaKate. I kept coming back to Kate. Again Chris took some time to warm up to it, since he likes classic to begin with, but finally came around. EvaKate Liana.

Kate is special. I was always Katie growing up. Until I met Chris. A lot was going on in my life about that time, and God was really shaping me into the woman He wanted me to be. I remember one night within the first couple dates Chris and I had been on, he randomly asked me what I thought of Kate. He had decided he like it, and that it sounded like an author and wanted to start calling me that. Cute guy I was already smitten with changing my name? Sure, I'd go with it. Looking back I feel like it was somewhat of a defining moment, kind of like the Saul to Paul conversion. It's a point I can look back to and know that God changed my path about that time and the one I went with (Kate) is the one that would bring the most glory to Him.

Most everyone who calls me Kate knows me through Chris, and I smile every time I hear it. What I've tried to be about since becoming "Kate" is much of what I hope my daughter will want to be about as well- faith, strength, and love. Conveniently, it also means pure which is also one of our prayers for her!

Eva is a derivative of Eve and means giver of life. Not only do we as women have the opportunity to literally give life, but God has also placed within us the capability to draw out life and inspire life in everyone we come in contact with. Our prayer is that our daughter would inspire life in everyone she meets, and point them to THE giver of life.

Liana means my God has answered, which is quite appropriate. Not only did He answer our prayer for another child, but he answered our prayer for a girl! She will be a daily reminder of prayers that God has answered for us!

So there is the long winded post on where the boys, and most importantly our new daughters names came from.

Hanging Out

What a week.

Baby girl is still hanging out. Already a day longer than either of her brothers ever chose to.

God has decided now would be a good time to remind me that I control nothing in my life. NOTHING. And that no matter how many plans I make, or how well thought out I am, with one phone call, or one piece of news my whole world can easily be flipped upside down.

All fun things to think about when you're already dealing with the unknown of your impending labor and what all it will entail.

And I thought this would be a less stressful process since we weren't moving a month or 10 days after having this baby. Turns out moving may have been a helpful distraction....

I've been getting lots of advice to enjoy my last little bit of pregnancy, especially since we are thinking this will more than likely (according to our plans, but knowing God can change all that in a second) at the very least be the last one I birth. While I will say that this pregnancy has gone much smoother than the last two, and I'm holding up better with less pain and still sleeping fairly well, I am NOT one of those people who think this is an enjoyable process.

I'm already planning big things like being able to sleep on my stomach and give my husband a real hug, not to mention being able to actually eat AT the table instead of a foot away from it. Yes it is neat (when she's not shoving her foot into my ribs) to feel life inside of me, but I am much more looking forward to watching it happen in front of me. But that's just how I roll.

Josh came up to me the other day and puts his arm around me and says "mommy, I'm really sorry it's going to hurt when the baby comes out". I leaned down and looked at him and told him that it hurt really bad when he came out too, but that it was worth every bit of pain because I got to have such an awesome boy. I love how sweet both my boys are.

Generally I think pregnancy stinks. But if ten months and one day is what it takes to get one of my amazing boys, or this precious girl, than by golly I'll suck it up (having a few minor meltdowns along the way of course) and deal with it as best I can. TOTALLY worth it.

So we're all hanging out and waiting for Miss Thing to arrive. Josh has told me several times he thinks she is coming on Saturday. That would work well with our plans. So far both of the boys have come on the weekend and around a meal out. Guess we should eat out a lot this weekend!

Hoping to meet baby girl within a couple of days!

Baby Thoughts

So I went to the doctor yesterday to find out I'm almost 2 cm dilated, and that baby girl is about 7 pounds. Which is right on cue for delivery time based off history. I was 3cm with Josh when I went into labor, and just over 1 with Jack, Josh was 7 pounds 8 ounces and Jack was 7 even.

My midwife asked if I had my bags packed and gave me her personal cell number (I love my midwife, she's AMAZING!), pretty good signs I better get ready.

Which is what I've been trying to do all week. We have a lot that we're involved with and or obligated to now days so we've been trying to wrap up all the loose ends and make plans to make life as easy as possible for the transition.

I have a freezer full of food, lessons plans ready to go for church, a baby room finished, Valentines for Josh's school party ready to go, and a clean house. Tonight I get to go out with my dear friend Lia to get pedicures and go to a fun restaurant. Chris is having a guys night with the boys and getting them pizza and treats. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and up to 60 so after Josh's baseball tryouts (yes we are doing baseball this spring, and yes we agree we may be crazy for it, but he loves it and so do we) in the morning we are headed to pick up some last minute supplies from Babies R Us. And make a stop at the toy store next door for Josh (and probably Jack as well) because he has spent the entire week on on GREEN! Which means his behavior has been impeccable, no warnings or anything all week long, and he's been a big helper at home! Then hopefully head outside to the park for awhile and grill out for dinner.

Sunday we have church and then hopefully we'll get some more outside time with the boys. Monday evening I'm going out with all the girls in my womens bible study for dinner.

Lots of fun before baby time. Hopefully. And admittedly, I'm trying to focus on that.

While I'm super excited about getting to fill our pink room, and having someone to put all those cute clothes on, and finally meeting our baby girl and seeing what color of hair she has...I'm a little bit anxious as well.

There is no naiveté with this birth. With Josh I had no idea what I was in for, and with Jack I thought if I just had a VBAC instead of the c-section it wouldn't be as bad. Now I know that it doesn't matter which way you give birth, it hurts like hell.

On top of that, there are lots of other unknowns. We haven't changed baby girls diapers. We don't know if a baby girl will be smaller than what we are used to, if nursing will work out, if we'll be able to pick up our normal routine quickly...

Plus, I've gotten accustomed to boys. I know what they are into, how to play with them, the different "phases" (Cars, Trains, Superheros, etc). I've spent quite a bit time educating myself on what makes them tick and how I can help them grow into men of God. While for the most part I think I mentally get them, it is a bit different. I know enough to feel like we're doing most of it right, but I don't know just how deeply different things can affect them so there is a certain naivete to just how badly I may be screwing them up.

With a girl, I know what makes her tick, and I know how one comment can get in your head and stay with you. I know how different images will impact her and make her feel. I know that she wants to feel beautiful and treasured and while Chris and I will do our best to make her feel that way, only God can truly satisfy that desire. Knowing what being a woman of God is, and all that can happen along that path and now getting the opportunity and responsibility to try to raise one is pretty intimidating.

I know I'm going to fail. I know in some way I've already failed with the boys. It's inevitable, I'm a sinner, and that's what we do, and thankfully there is grace and forgiveness, so far from both God and my children. I think with a girl I will be more in tune with how I am failing though, and that scares me a bit.

So in the days before birth that's where I am: excited anxiousness.

Trying to trust God with my fears and not put so much pressure on myself. Besides, it's His daughter too, as am I and He's got both of us in His hand.

Baby Shower

Sometimes when I look at our life right now, I almost have to shake myself. Admittedly I asked God way too many times if we would get to a point like this in our lives. Thankfully I feel as though He has chosen to honor our following Him down many bumpy paths with a season of life full of blessings.

One of the biggest blessings we have had since moving to GA is the blessing of friendship. Going two years in CT without any social contact whatsoever we were thrilled just to have people talking to us in stores when we first moved down here. To think that in 2 1/2 years we are at a place where we have friends that feel like family, have people that love us enough they don't mind watching our kids while we have another one, and go out of their way to help and bless us humbles me to no end. Only by God's grace.

Four of my sweet friends (my friend Emily didn't make it into the picture above) helped throw me and baby girl a shower a couple weeks ago. It was beautiful, and delicious, and a day I will always remember. Not only did they go out of their way to make the day special for me (like they knew I think most shower games are cheesy, so we played Scattegories, and they knew I loved cheese, so there was a cheese tray, and so many other special touches...) but I was amazed at how many people came.

That may sounds silly, but my out of town guest list was longer than my in town guest list, and none of our family or friends were going to be able to make it in that day. As a general rule you only expect half to three quarters of your guest list to show up, but almost everyone on the list was able to come. And they all brought such sweet and thoughtful gifts for baby girl.

Even thinking about it I feel overwhelmed with love. It was an incredible day, not just the friends and food and gifts, but dwelling in God's mercies, grace and blessings in this period of life and doing my best to take it all in.

Two and a half years ago we were begging Him for His guidance and will. We were thrilled just that it led to us leaving Connecticut. In the past two years we have asked for close friendships, a church where we could serve with our talents and that was consumed with Jesus and His word, another baby, and then more specifically a baby girl.

So grateful we serve an abundant, loving God who hears us.

Baby Girl's Room

We finally finished the baby room! Much excitement to be had!

Believe it or not, this is the first nursery we have gotten to decorate. We moved a month after Josh was born, and 10 days after Jack was born. So one our third, and possibly final kid we got to decorate a nursery.

My wonderful husband happens to have (among many talents) wonderful decorating taste, so he had just as much input and guidance (as well as work!) for the room as I did.

The furniture has all been refinished, and the chair recovered. The tissue balls, flower art, and bow holder/memo board were all made by me.

We love how the room turned out. Both of us usually wonder down the hall before bed just to glance at it, or we'll sit and chat for awhile in it. It's so calm and soothing. A pretty big difference from the crazy red boy room down the hall.

Now we just need a baby girl to put in it!

Christmas Update

So now that it's almost February, I'd like to update y'all on Christmas : )

I'm hoping to crank out a few posts on here in the next couple of days...we'll see.

We had decided back when we knew we were pregnant that we weren't going to be traveling anywhere for the holidays. 10+ hour trips are interesting enough with two boys and adding the uncomfortability of being pregnant was less than appealing to both of us.

We welcomed our family down to our neck of the woods but as it turned out for Christmas day it was just out family. Some good friends of ours were in the same boat and so we invited them over for the day of.

Knowing that we were going to be spending the holidays with any packing to do, or wrapping more intensive than what would survive shipping, we decided to put that time to better use.

Josh is getting to the age to where he is easily engulfed in the materialism of the world, much to my dismay. Hearing talk of the upcoming holidays and how it mainly surrounded presents we wanted to give things a different focus. This is always our goal, but we took some extra steps this year to help avoid it.

We wanted to step out and do something that I'm sure seemed a bit crazy to everyone else. Having both lived in another country and being been in areas that are less than comfortable we both believe fairly strongly that there's only so much you can teach someone about the rest of the world, and beyond that they have to see. We both though Josh was getting old enough where he could handle, and even benefit from seeing.

Some friends of ours have a parking lot they know of that always has a lot of homeless people in it. Each year they gather as many coats as they can and take it down. After hearing her talk about it, I thought it would be neat if we could pack a ton of sack lunches and head down there with them. Kids in tow, Josh helping hand them out.

After some bumps and divine guidance we ended up on street corner passing out jackets and lunches. We had a ton of coats and over 100 lunches and passed out all but a couple of coats. Josh was out there with us for about half an hour handing the lunches to the people.

It was so rewarding. As serving always is, but we've never gotten to do it as a family before and invest in our kids this way, and there just aren't words.

Now let me say the day did not go perfectly by any means. Jack was crying in the car for about a half an hour because he needed to poop but didn't want to. Josh was only outside for half an hour and then spent the rest of it wreaking havoc on our car. I was on high alert the entire time as I saw people shooting up just across the road and people walking very close to our car with a DVD player in it and my two children.

But it was SO worth it. We were talking and processing things on the way home asking Josh what he thought about all of it. I asked him is he was scared at any point, and he didn't seem to understand. He asked what he would be scared of. Even though we had explained to him before hand that not all of these people were nice people and he needed to be careful and stay by mom and dad, he still viewed them as just people. Not good or bad, just people we were supposed to help. He had also spent a good five minutes chatting with one guy in particular named Jeff. He started praying for him that night.

We did Operation Christmas child and both the boys helped pack a box for two boys similar in age. My small group of women also got the opportunity to go serve at a processing facilities so I got the tell the boys about that as well.

Chris's work did a food drive and we had both of the boys help us pick out food for that. Chris was also able to help get a bunch of extra coats for when we went downtown form his work.

Also when we sent out Christmas lists we asked everyone to refrain from getting us toys. And more importantly they listened : ) That was huge right there. There was still plenty he was thrilled about (most of even more so than toys that typically get tossed aside a few days later) and he got money and gift cards which he enjoyed and was a huge blessing to us. So far we've gotten the boys the last of what they needed clothes wise for winter and enrolled Josh for baseball all on someone else's dime, and had a couple of fun family nights out at Chick-Fil-A.

Finally we controlled the tone of the day. We went to a Christmas Eve service and a surprise blessing was that kids Josh's age and up stayed in and listened. We're still having conversations off of what he heard that night. Because we were out late the boys slept in a bit and we got up and instead of diving right into presents we sat down to breakfast together. While we were eating we read the Christmas story from our bible and the boys childrens bible (Jesus Storybook bible, SO GOOD!). And then we talked about it, and what that meant for us. We finally got around to stockings and presents and took our time with those as well. The day allowed more time for reflection and capturing the moments. It was wonderful.

We missed having family around on Christmas, however we've learned that some of those times can be a blessing in disguise allowing us to become more established in our own traditions and control more of the focus that we choose to be important for the day. As much as we missed having family around we were thankful to have more time and capability to be more focused on communicating what the day was about to our kids.

So that was Christmas. I think Josh in particular learned a lot from our unrelenting discussions and inclusions in serving. Hopefully we will get a chance to do some of the same things next year!

A moment

I feel like we are finally getting to a place where we can breathe. At least for a moment. Before the baby comes, and church launches, and baseball season...we've been having some moments.

Mind you this weekend those moments were mostly breathed with the smell of spray painting fumes, but they were still there.

We knew that God was having us make some big transitions at the beginning of the year, but I don't think we quite knew what we were signing up for. Story of our lives : )

In the past 4 or so months we have:

- started our oldest in kindergarten and dealt with all the crazy transitioning that involves

- Chris has started a new position as a supervisor within his company which requires more work time and mental focus

- Committed to be involved in an Acts 29 church plant

- Chris started leading worship for the church plant (which involves practice once a week, picking out songs and planning another night and then showing up early on Sundays and playing)

- Had our second baseball season of which Chris helped coach

- Day time potty trained Jack (at not even 2 1/2 I'm not pushing nights)

- Did 3 weddings with CupKates (one of which was in Hilton Head), and then started saying no a lot

- Transitioned both of the boys into sleeping in the same room

- Almost completely painted baby girl's room

- I committed to writing or organizing the curriculum for our children's ministry each week

- Sorted out and in the process of getting rid of all our baby boy clothes

- Are mid way through the process of refinishing the dresser, crib and chair for baby girl's room.

And I think I'm forgetting a few things. It's been crazy and exhausting and fabulous all at the same time.

However there is only so long you can go so hard without eventually burning out. And we were pretty dang close. All right I won't lie, with all the pregnancy hormones, I was totally there.

And then there was Thanksgiving. Josh had the week off and Chris took two days off so we had 5 wonderful days together to rest and get some things done. We had probably one of the most laid back Thanksgiving days I remember ever having. It was just our family and there was no schedule or pressure. I still cooked a meal big enough for 10 (and didn't cook again that weekend!) but it wasn't stressful at all.

Even though life is still kind of crazy we are both getting used to the craziness and figuring out how to have even better boundaries with our time (and say no!). We try to make the most of our down time and are learning to let some things slide.

The boys have done amazingly well amidst all the transition. Josh finally found a routine with school about October. He reads like a champ and is doing well with his writing. We still have some rough days here and there but it's usually linked to lack of sleep and the fact that he is too social for his own good! Seriously, just about every where we go Josh knows someone. He's enjoyed mom going through what he'll learn on Sunday with him ahead of time, and has been memorizing the scripture to go along with it without any problem. He has John 17:17 down.

We were in baby girls room and I was painting while he was playing with Iron Man. I had on a Matt Chandler podcast and pause it for some reason. He told me "don't turn it off, I want to learn more about God". Love it.

Jack has amazed me. He's been doing wonderfully with potty training. I was some what dreading putting both of them in the same room. I had in my mind that it would be bad and they would keep each other up and neither one of them would get enough sleep, and neither would Chris or I. I've been amazed at what a smooth transition it has been. What a blessing. And much of it is because of little man's easy going personality, and his adoration for his older brother.

I love that God is so much smarter than I am. I thought it would be perfect to have a girl in the middle of two boys. I'm glad He knew better! I'm so grateful for the special relationship those two have. Josh calls Jack his "best brother", a combination of brother and best friend.

Hopefully I'll have more moments for this. I miss blogging, the outlet it provides and the record I have of where we are in life. I hate the feeling that life is flying by and I'm not getting enough time with my boys at this very brief stage with them. At the same time I know we are called to much of what we're involved in and can't say no to much else either. Maybe this is just the classic strain of early parenthood.

Praying for more moments.

Catch Up- Josh

Josh. Where to begin?

So he started kindergarten. That is one of the biggest transitions our family has been through for awhile. Mind you we had lots of other transitions going on, but I think this was the largest that we've been through with one particular kid.

It was a rough start. The sleeping schedule alone was enough to wipe us all out. We are a family of night owls. We all enjoying staying up late and can do so without any problem. For the most part (before school) after late nights the boys would generally sleep in. So Friday nights would be family nights where we would stay up late and the boys would conveniently sleep in on Saturdays. We also frequently did this during the week in the summer. Even during preschool Josh's average bedtime was 9pm, and he would wake up just before 9am.

We went from that to him needing to be in bed by 8pm and be up by 7am. Quite the switch for all of us, especially me who was one tired pregnant mama and had enjoyed her boys letting her sleep in until 9am most mornings.

So we started kindergarten tired, and not getting as much family time as we were used to.

On top of that our very active and talkative 5 year old boy needed to transition into an environment where he was asked to be still and attentive the majority of 6 hours each day. I cringe for him.

But eventually he has to learn how to operate under this mindset because it's how the rest of the world functions. If we delayed the process he would be trying to figure it out later, when everyone else around him already had.

The first month and a half had him coming home with checkmarks or card flips (even worse than checkmarks) almost every day. Some things seemed silly (like not playing pretend guns on the playground, and not talking during lunch), and other things were a pretty big deal (like hitting and pushing other kids, regularly talking out of turn and not listening to his teacher). Did I mention it was rough?

We were trying everything we knew to, positive encouragement and rewards, consequences for getting in trouble, more quality time...all the things you're supposed to do that just take time. After much prayer and many days of feeling like a failure, finally something clicked. Josh had to make the choice to behave and we knew he was smart enough and capable of doing so. One day he finally just decided to do it.

We went overboard with praise and rewards. Then he did it again, and again. So far we've had 5 days in a row where he hasn't gotten any checkmarks or card flips. He's still averaging about once a week having something sent home, but from where we were that is a vast improvement. Generally it's the kind of issues he's going to spend a lifetime learning self control in, like talking out of turn.

All in all we're feeling as though we may survive kindergarten after all.

Other than discipline issues, Josh really enjoys school. Turns out he's kind of smart and catches on to everything very quickly. He can count to 100, and recognize the numbers as well as do basic addition. He's pretty much reading, although this is a bit hard to gage. He has a great memory and so just reading a book through once, he has almost all of it memorized. We're trying to throw lots of new words his way without any context (like pictures) to figure out what they are so he's actually sounding them out.

Other than that I feel like we're just now finding a groove to be able to really see him again. For awhile it was either school, baseball, homework, or bedtime. It's been nice to have some more time the last couple of weeks.

The last couple of afternoons we finish up his homework and I get dinner started and then we'll lay down on the couch and read Chronicles of Narnia together. So far I've been averaging about 2 chapters before he falls asleep on me. I love snuggling and having him fall asleep on me. I know my days are numbered of time like that.

He as always has some hilarious sayings, like "yesternight". If it happened yesterday night then it was "yesternight". I actually think it makes complete since and should be adapted into regular usage by society.

Last night we were laying in bed chatting and the "Cinderella" song by Stephen Curtis Chapman came on. He asked me if that was a princess, and I told him it was. I reminded him it was one of his friends Annabelle's favorite princesses, and he asks "the blue one?", of which I confirmed. He then told me that Cinderella wasn't his favorite princess, intrigued I asked why. "Because she's not as pretty, I like the mermaid one, she's really pretty." A little shocked my five year old boy was already gaging prettiness in girls I quickly rebounded explaining that what makes a girl beautiful isn't how she looks but what's in her heart. He seemed to understand although he insisted that the mermaid princess was prettier.

Interesting conversations in the Kelly house.

So that is a glimpse into Josh's world. Lots of change going on. I can really see how so many foundations for his teenage years are being put into place now. We keep joking that we're putting in the hard work now so hopefully it won't be as hard down the road. At least we're praying that's the case : )

Catch Up

So as promised, I'm going to try to catch up on several things in multiple posts.

This one will mainly be about pregnancy and baby girl.

We are still somewhat shocked and in awe of God's goodness and blessing over our growing daughter. Each night we pray with the boys and Chris would always pray "and please help it to be a girl." Josh had told us he thought it was a girl from the get go. And I'm not going to lie, I'd been praying that it was since before I knew I was pregnant.

All that said, we were both trusting in God and bracing ourselves for a different outcome the morning of the ultrasound. Every part of me wanted to be worried and anxious but over and over I just gave it over to God and trusted that no matter what the situation was, it was what it was because of His love for us and because He would be most glorified through that. And that is better than anything I could desire or imagine.

My sweet nurse doing the ultrasound knew what we were there for and got right down to business. Baby girl was being shy and kept her legs glued shut for the first five minutes. She would start to squirm, but nothing enough to get the "money shot". The nurse was about ready to tell me what it and prefaced it with "I'm 85% sure..." I told her not to tell me unless she was 100%, especially if it was a girl.

After two boys I'm fairly familiar with what they look like on an ultrasound, and I was watching like a hawk and didn't see anything familiar. I didn't want to get my hopes up yet, but they were already inching there. Apparently Chris' were too because at this point he had stood up from his chair and moved over right by the screen. About that time our nurse got the shot she was looking for and proudly announced to us that it was a girl.

Daddy grinned, and me (the non-crier) may have teared up. God is so good.

Pregnancy and the process surrounding it is definitely not easy on me. I try to be a trooper but admittedly have rough days and when I'm so ready to be normal again. It was such a blessing that in all that we'd been through God chose to not just answer our prayer to make it clear that He had heard us, and had been walking through it all with us. I'm still in awe of his goodness and mercy.

As far as I go there are some overall similarities to my other pregnancies, and some differences. I had my typical all day sickness really bad the first 13 weeks. Lots of days where I ask myself what the heck I was thinking doing this again. Exhaustion as well and feeling like a failure that I couldn't do anything more than sit on the couch most days.

About 13 weeks it let up a bit and I was able to return to a certain level of normal functionality. With both the boys I usually didn't feel completely normal until about 20 weeks and then it was smooth sailing until the last month or so. 20 weeks have come and gone with this one and I still am really tired and wake up most morning with stomach aches. Food is still not very appealing to me, and I'm tired of having to force food in my body every 3 hours. Which if you know anything about me, you know this is a very different relationship with food than I normally have.

Overall though I'm getting a long pretty well. While it gets really frustrating to have my house messier and less stuff done, I'm trying to be thankful for the miracle inside of me and treasure even the rough parts.

We're getting started on the nursery soon, with the hopes to have the majority of it finished before the holidays, but we'll see.

We're still enjoying all the girliness coming our way!

A quick glimpse at what is going on with us:

http://cupkatesforyou.blogspot.com/2010/09/getting-real.html

Also, we finally got a new computer after the other one had been crapping out on us for months. This will allow more blogging since it no longer takes my computer 15 minutes to start up and shuts down on it's own after being on 2 minutes.

More details about the generalities listed in the blog post above hopefully coming soon.

Also, in cased you missed it... we're having a BABY GIRL!!!!

Almost there

Well it's Friday, and I think we may survive this whole school business, but I'm not going to lie...it's been rough!



The hardest part has been changing sleep patterns. Josh has difficulty falling asleep before 9pm, which means he's running about 2 hours short on sleep every night. I keep hoping his body will take over from exhaustion soon and let him sleep. It's been hard for me too as my body is still demanding extra levels of rest. Being a night owl myself it's hard to get in the habit of going to be 2 hours earlier than I typically do.



We're also used to either running errands, heading to the park or going out for a treat at night. All of which the school hours do not allow. Daddy comes home, we eat dinner, clean up, play a little and then start the bedtime process. We miss fun family time just as much as the boys!

I'm also used to a preschool environment where they are extra loving and helpful and give you a run down of your kids day- every day. That's not the case with elementary school. I don't get a rundown each day, and Josh is so exhausted from it all I can barely get two sentences about his 6+ hours there out of him. It's hard to have such little information.



Dropping him off in the morning has been pretty difficult as well. The first day I still had my child lock on the car door so I had to get out and hold up the car pool line while I let him out. Once he gets out, he doesn't know where to go, so he's depending on a teacher to help him. So far the teachers haven't been the quickest to come help. So I have to unwillingly inch off seeing my little boy confused and disoriented looking for help. Thankfully a teacher usually comes and helps by the time I have to completely pull away...but I'm sure it's not an easy way to start the morning, for him or me.

Today was big though, and much needed encouragement! He got out of the car, didn't pause to look for a teacher but marched straight to his hallway door and proceeded right in. He knew what he was doing. We're all figuring it out, slowly but surely.

I'm so very thankful to have friends down here that have been through it. They empathize with the difficulty of it, but encourage me that it will get better...at a month they hit their stride. It will seem routine, they will share more about what they learned and we will understand more about how the school works. Between that and his morning departure we are ending the week on an up note.

Plus baseball practice starts today. Something the whole family is looking forward to. It will be nice for Josh to get out and have some fun playing with friends and enjoying his favorite sport. Chris enjoys coaching as well, and Jack has dirt, rocks, a playground and big boys to watch. He couldn't enjoy it more, plus he's getting a pretty good arm and already demanding I practice with him as well.

Looking forward to the weekend to get refreshed!

Official

Well, it's official...I officially have a kindergartner.

Josh told Jack this morning that he couldn't play with him today and would miss him. He said "I'm going to real school to learn." He did so great getting up and getting ready. I walked him in with all of his school supplies, and so I could get a few pictures. He walked right into his room with no fussing or looks back, then went with his teacher straight to his spot at his table.

I was doing okay until I hit the hallway. It was really happening. Then we got home and Jack started yelling for Josh. That about put me over as well. It will be a major transition for all of us. The biggest of which will probably be the sleep schedule.

It's begun. I'm pretty sure we just entered the most difficult phase of parenting.

His backpack was already hurting him

Outside his classrom, his teacher is Mrs. Barron

I'm going to take the opportunity to explain our schooling choices, and why we chose what we chose. Each choice with each child is very individualized, this is just our approach with Josh.

Schooling is the most difficult choice I think we've had to make as parents so far. Mainly because in most situations there is a best option that ends in win-win. Schooling isn't that way. No matter what choice you make you are going to be giving up something, and in my opinion all the somethings are pretty big things to have to give up. In our opinion, this is what we were looking at giving up with each option:

Public- a limited cookie cutter education, no control of exposure (which is usually too much too soon)

Homeschool-their ability to start learning how to interact with the real world, taking our little light out of a place that desperately needs it, limitations of us being the main educators

Private- Um, money! And there are usually some of the same issues that public schools have

That's a very abbreviated version, and our point of view. For Josh we decided public schools would be the best option for now. We're open to evaluation at any point necessary.

There is lots of letting go. I can't keep my hands over his ears, or decide what people he can and can't be around to limit exposure. I don't get to control what he is taught. I don't get to have a say in much that goes on in that school. Which is making my prayer life much stronger : )

It also means the second he hits that car door we are communicating, open, honest, raw conversation about what his little mind is having to process through. We have to be much more diligent with the limited amount of time we now have.

With all the fears and hesitations I have about this new transition, I think they are just that- mine. Josh is excited and ready to learn. I think he is going to love school and do great!

Change

Lots of changes are coming in the Kelly home.

We are enjoying our last day with a preschooler because Josh starts kindergarten tomorrow.

Baseball starts back up with practice on Friday and our little all star can't wait to rejoin most of his old team mates on their new team the Marlins.

We're going to be a part of a new church plant, which means leaving our old church.

And most importantly we're adding to our numbers come beginning of February.

Will try to update on all these changes coming our way!