Ramble On

In Led Zeppelin fashion, here i go:

Tonight I made seared rainbow trout, roasted asparagus, quinoa tabouleh, and sweet potato fries for dinner.  And then I made tapioca pudding, and ate it.  It goes against everything I believe...dessert/dairy/fat.  It ruined my healthy dinner.  Now I feel bloated and disgusted thinking about Proverbs 23:2 "and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony"....but I press on.

It goes without saying, but I can't believe it is the end of August.  That means t-less than 3 months until we are back in Kentucky.  I am trying not to get too excited but thoughts of going back take over sometime.  I picture us playing in the backyard, out front chatting with neighbors, wearing coats, listening to our wildly enthusiastic pastor, using my kitchenaid mixer (AHH the excitement is boiling), getting out the crock pot, having more than one cookie sheet....oh I could go on but I will stop.  Really, we are enjoying our time here.  


So back to it being the end of August.  August was a busy and fun month.  I traveled with the girls to Michigan for a week to visit my family.  One of my cousins who lives in Poland was in town so it was great to see him as it had been 6 years since I last saw him.  It was a great family visit, it seemed like most days we were hanging out with family here or there.  We returned on a Tuesday and on Wednesday morning Bill's mom arrived to spend a week with us here.  Bill's dad joined us for the weekend.  Props to my in-laws for wanting to come to Texas in late August!  It was HOT.  


We spent 2 days doing some short road trips to visit a couple of unique towns.  One was Fredericksburg, and the other Bandera.  Bandera is the self proclaimed cowboy capital of texas, or maybe the world? I don't know.  The lunches we had were great, the towns were ok...kind of rustic/ghost town-ish/cowboy-esque...but overall it was good to see something other than a  walmart or target at every exit on the highway.  The nicest parts of our trips were the drives.  We took some scenic routes and they did not disappoint!  Beautiful hills, a sparkling bright blue lake, and more really surprising scenic hills. Who knew that Texas had such beautiful natural landscapes?  Sophie also got to have her first "sleep over" with Nana and Papa in their hotel.  She got to sleep on the sofa bed and boy was she excited about that.  So excited, she wanted to go the following night.  And every time we drive by that hotel - she fondly reminisces, half excited and half sad "Look, Nana & Papa's hotel!"   We also took them to SeaWorld.  Will I ever write a post that doesn't include seaworld in it?  It was fun, but it was hot.  And quite honestly I've had my fill. The crowds are insane, people flock that place like it is a gold mine.  I say that though knowing we will probably go just one more time before the water park closes for good.  


So anyway, that was August.  We're now moving on into our fall schedule. I love how a new season can bring a fresh schedule and some new structure into our weeks.  I am looking forward to it, and hoping not to get jealous of places that will actually have a real fall season.  

3 Years

Bill and I were reminiscing just the other night about the arrival of our first baby.  And in the spirit of sharing birth stories, here goes a summary of the first one:


Waiting, seemed like most of what I was doing, along with walking, spicy food, etc., to get this party started.  I think it was the night before I went into labor that Bill and I were out for a walk.  A man was watering his lawn, stopped, looked at us and yelled out:  you must be having twins!  No, but thanks for inquiring.  This could get me going on a whole other topic about what not to say to emotionally unstable, overdue pregnant women, but I'll save that for another time perhaps.  Anyway, later that night I did end up feeling some regular contractions, and by 3am they were actually somewhat painful.  Later in the morning there were definite signs that this could be it (which for the sake of not being gross - I'll leave out).  One of my favorite memories from that morning was telling Bill around 7am that I thought I was in labor.  His response was a calm ok, well I'll go to work and you call me if something happens.  Hello!?!?!?  I just told you I was in labor!!!!!  And you're going to work????  I didn't say any of that, I just thought it.  So he went to work, I called almost immediately and within an hour and a half of leaving he was home. :)


I  had an appointment scheduled that day for a non-stress test , so I called the doctor and told them I thought I was in labor and asked if I still needed to come in for the test.  They told me yes so they could check me just to make sure it was labor.  Why was no one believing me???


I was so excited to get to the doctor's office to see just how much progress I had made.  Up until this point I had been pretty much 0 cm dilated, and like 50% effaced.  I was just positively sure that after almost 12 hours of contractions, them getting closer together and becoming really painful, that I would have been at least 4 cm by the time we got to the doc's office.   On our way there we even dropped off a meal at a friend's house - i remember being extremely uncomfortable in the car!  Anyway, we got there, they hooked me up to the contraction machine (?) to confirm, that yes I was having painful contractions.  Then came the moment of finding out how much progress I had made (drum roll please)... = 1cm.  I was not a happy mama to be with that news.  1cm??


Because my contractions were in fact so strong, they sent us to the hospital.  My goal had been to do this thing naturally.  I even had a birth plan.  We read the Bradley book.   HA!  That was all thrown out the window.  After laboring naturally for most of the day and still making NOOOO progress (at one point the nurse told me I was at "1 and a wiggle" I cried.  All of this hard work and nothing was happening!  So it was time for the epidural and breaking my water.  This happened at night, and by the next morning I had fully dilated!  Other highlights from that evening - having a vein popped on my hand by a nurse trying to get the IV needle in, having an epidural was much less painful than contractions, and shaking all night from the IV flowing through me.  Not to mention zero sleep since 3am on Monday, and now it was Tuesday morning at 8am.  I felt good though.  I was ready to push!   2 hours of pushing and again no progress.  The doc told me I had to have a c-section.  Cried again.  50 minutes later Sophie was born via c-section.  The doctor then took out my uterus and said it was abnormal, showed it to other doctors there, said I would NEVER have delivered naturally.  I was very thankful to have had a c-section.  (Side note though - when I had my c-section with Claire I asked a different dr to check out my uterus to see if it was abnormal, and she said that it was perfectly normal, and the rest of the staff confirmed that it was the doctor who had delivered Sophie, who was in fact, abnormal).  :)

So there she was, this bloody, wrinkly, scrunched face, long fingered baby in my arms.  Mixed emotions.  I knew my life would be changed forever.  Having this child exposed so much of my sinful heart. Selfishness, impatience, anger...I could go on.  Having this child also brought so much joy, grace, and grew me in my love for God who gave up His precious, perfect son for me.   I had a friend whose sweet baby had died when she was just 18 days old, earlier that summer.  I remember when Sophie was 18 days, just holding her, crying and weeping, so thankful to have had her for that long.  Oh how I treasured having her for 18 days.  And now how I treasure having her for 3 years.   Happy birthday to my princess!

Bag Lady

The bag lady loves her bags, especially this little denim tote.  The bag lady is also known as Danger C, Mad Woman, C-bear, and sometimes we refer to her as Claire.  :)   She is developing quite a little personality.  It has been so fun to watch.  Soooo different from her big sis.  She can be quite feisty at times, a little firecracker.  She does not say many words.  She blabs in her own language, says Hi & Bye well, attempts other words but they are attempts at best.  She is signing well - finally!  She is a very very busy little lady, always on the go.  Happy most of the time.  She LOVES to eat.  Sometimes she prefers her food off of the floor (the food she has thrown there).   We don't encourage that of course but it does happen.  She is done with her paci.  Some of you may remember my struggle with Sophie and the paci.  Well, this time it was extremely different!  I was not looking forward to taking it away from her because of my past experience, BUT it was so easy with Claire!  She didn't even cry the first few times it was gone.  Of course, a few days later she did have some stretches of crying herself to sleep which I guess could have been because she was missing her paci, but she is so over it now. Hurray!  We love her, the sweet little joy that she is! 

Eventful

Per typical weekend, it was eventful.  Saturday morning we went to the Natural Wildlife Ranch Safari.  We took the kids out of their car seats, let them come to the front seat, rolled down the windows and drove at dashing speeds of 5mph through 4 miles of a "safari."  We fed animals, had zebras stick their heads into our car, enjoyed (sort of) a petting zoo at the end.  We mostly loved it, except Sophie who got a little freaked out by the zebras' heads and threw herself into the back seat and demanded we head home right away.  Nor was she a fan of the petting zoo.  She was holding a white paper bag of feed, and a certain goat was determined to get it.  All of the little goats wanted nothing to do with the actual food, just the white paper bags we were holding.   Anyway, Sophie did not enjoy the goat approaching her therefore making her want to head home all the more!  Today she did say she liked the safari, so hopefully the bad memories have faded! 

Upon coming home, we were called by our bank to notify us that someone had gotten my debit card info and charged oodles of mula to our account.   Thankfully, the bank caught site of it as irregular activity and it should all work out fine, but scary none the less.  Oh this world we live in!

And lastly, I had a great revelation about the foods our family consumes.  I've always been interested in eating healthy but somewhere between moving, having babies, raising babies, moving again -- it never really sprung up as urgent to my mind and we've never had a total food makeover.  I try to buy some organic items, make "healthy" meals, be mindful of the budget, and aware of God's sovereignty over our bodies and lives.  I put a ban on high fructose corn syrup in our house (that means even ritz whole wheat crackers are a gonner.)  And,  I continue to read some undeniable things about dairy, meat, conventional produce and can't help but think that maybe we are consuming way too much bad stuff.  So, we are just going to buy a farm, make everything ourselves and eat berries, nuts and seeds.  Maybe in heaven.  For now, rather than obsessing over it, I am first going to trust God, and second try to weed out as much bad stuff as can be managed.  For example, my kids love dairy.  In all forms - cheese, milk, yogurt, ice cream.  But I have girls, and the studies that are out there on girls reaching puberty faster and sooner scare the padoodles out of me.   That is just one reason we are going to decrease our dairy intake.  It's going to be easy for Bill and I but the girls are going to have a cow (heehee) because they are such lovers of the stuff!  We'll see how it goes.   

That's all the ranting for now.  Surely there will be more to come.  

dancin' fool

family adventures

We have had many adventures lately; big and small, some fun some not, some right here in our home and some a road trip away.  In pictures:

Rockport for the 4th! Salt water and fireworks:

the perfect way to road trip

hotel bed all to herself!  she was thrilled

we called her the fearless beach babe - she LOVED it!

waiting for the fireworks - we all loved that!

 Our baking adventures: cobblers, muffins galore, summer is sweet!

fresh blueberries and peaches=delicious cobbler

sophie always does the dry mixing and spoon licking when we bake :)

Other adventures have included driving around exploring parts of San Antonio we haven't seen yet, a saturday afternoon spent at a family fun center - picture lots of bouncy blow up things, rock walls, arcade, etc.  they even had lazy boys for the parents :)

                            

and what would our adventures be without trips to seaworld?

Good News

Like most people, I like to make a list of goals/resolutions at the beginning of each year.  It's always nice...err...it's interesting to look back and see your progress, or lack there of.  One of my goals was to read more.  And I don't mean more blogs, news pages or cooking magazines.  I'm already "good" at that.   I mean books.  The kind you have to commit more than 5 minutes to.  I have to confess, I've never been much of a reader.  In high school I was always in the advanced or AP English classes, but  I'm pretty certain that I never actually read an entire book.  Literature is not my thing.  I'm what you call, a good skimmer.   BUT, being a skimmer has no permanent value.  I'm also very very good at starting books, and... that's it.  

And cozying up with a good book?  Usually my idea of cozying up with a good book turns into a cozy nap.  Even if the book I am reading is good I still have a hard time staying awake during all of it!  Terrible I know.   And would you believe that I married someone who LOVES to read?  In the words of Lloyd Christmas, I am one pathetic loser.  So back to my goal.  My goal was to read 6 books this year.  To some of you that sounds pathetic.  For me, a big deal!  I can now say I have successfully finished 1 book.  Never mind that the year is half over.  One.  Unless you count the Growing Kids God's Way workbook?  No.  Ok.  I do devoutly read the bible, but I can't say I've finished that this year, nor will I likely.  

So the book I just finished (which has taken me a couple of months as I left it on an airplane and had to reorder - I do hope it blessed someone!)....is called Good News for Those Trying Harder by Alan Kraft.  I loved it and will likely read it again!  It was so insightful and awakening to why we just don't feel like we're living the Christian life right...because most of the time we are focused on ourselves and what we can do, not on Jesus.  The picture on the front is perfect too - a hamster in a spinning wheel working hard and getting nowhere.   I think every page was filled with Godly wisdom & excellent examples.   It was an easy read, and really just an honest and sincere book, gently convicting the wayward heart.  If you are looking for something worthwhile to read, read this! 

Although I didn't specify what type of genre my 6 books had to be, I do want to read all Christian books, at least while my goal is only 6. If I am going to take the time to read (which is a big deal for me) then I want them to enrich my life in a way that grows me in my relationship with the Lord.  I already have so many distractions or should i say- am easily distracted.  My attention span is just barely more than that of my almost 3 year old. I think solid times of reading will help in that area too! 

On to my next book, the Unexpected Journey.   Oh, and I have been summoned to read Total Money Makeover...thanks Bill! :)