Happy Birthday Nathan!

On the 8th of January our little "Buckaroo" turned 3. I can't believe it. I truly don't know where the time has gone too. It is bittersweet boil of sadness & excitement as I watch him turn into a little man. Prior to his birthday I began reflecting upon his actual birth day. I'm sure by now everyone has heard the ambulance story in it's crazy entirety. But have you heard this part . . . I had to reflect on the awesomeness of a Holy God as I thought about January, 8th 2006. With both of the girls I made it to the hospital in time. Well, I almost didn't with Maggie but that's for another day & time. Both of their deliveries became complicated. Emma was face up & passed meconium. Maggie's head was turned sideways, the cord was wrapped around her neck & she passed & ingested meconium. With each of their deliveries there were about 5 doctors & 3 nurses, how I wish I were exaggerating for modesty sake!! A c-section was mentioned both times but I am so thankful that never did come to fruition. Because of the meconium I didn't get to hold either one of them for a while after delivery. Now don't get me wrong, I would never tell you I had a bad birth experience with the girls, because I dont think I did. But Nathan, my poor little man who I didn't even make it to the hospital in time for. He was actually my least complicated delivery. No tangled cords, correct positioning, no meconium & the distinct belief that I had never nor will ever be in so much pain in my lifetime. I remember afterwards being so sad that it was just me & the EMT's when he was born, while Charlie tried calling frantically from Iraq in the cold, rain via satellite. But now I look back upon that time as peaceful. It was just me & him, in the peace & quiet, well as quiet as you can get with sirens going. But not once were we ever alone. The Lord was there with us that day, and is now guiding us & giving the wisdom in how to raise this awesome little boy.

I'm guessing that my dear friends Karen and Laurie are getting teary-eyed so let's move on to the fun on the day. In December I had a joint birthday party for Emma & Nathan so the festivites this day were very low-key. He requested homemade macaroni & cheese & red cupcakes. My girlfriend Nalesa & her kids joined us in the fun of the evening. Which included a viewing of Robin Hood, daddy's special birthday present to him.

Charlie charged me with making sure he had a costume box filled with good boy costumes. The only thing he was really impressed with was the sword that came with the Knight's costume. He humored me by putting on the horse, you can see that he is less than impressed. I tried selling him on the idea of the horse being Bullseye & he could be Woody. He just looked at me as only a 3 yeard old can & said "I want to take it off." So is it okay then if he wears a blue, frilly, glittery gown as long as he's wielding a sword?

Cindy Lou Who

I believe Whoville is missing one of it's cutest residents!

4 down. 3 to go.

Two days after the celebration of the birth of our Savior, we celebrated another not-quite-so-huge-but-still-big-to-us event; another month down in the return of Charlie countdown. Another month. Unbelievable. It's been a crazy month at that. Sickness, oh so much sickness. Three plus straight weeks of anyone, someone or everyone being sick, inlcuding myself on more than one occasion. There were ear aches, migraines, colds, stomach bugs, coughs, teething . . . need I go on? But we are better, praise the Lord, oh so much better. Now we are back to homeschool, chores, day trips, MOPS & the like. My favorite scripture found in Proverbs 31 reads: "She is clothes with strength & dignity, she can laugh at the days to come." I love it. It's encouraging, uplifting & inspiring. I can laugh at the days to come, but maybe it has alot to do with what's already behind me. Bring on month 5!

I wanna be a 'rine

As I cooked dinner one night Emma & Nathan ran around the house playing dress-up. When Nathan brought me the Alice in Wonderland dress, complete with blue frills & glitter, asking with help to put it on, I had to put my foot down. "Nathan, let's make you a Marine like daddy!" I dug around in Charlie's dresser & finally found one of the only PT shirts he had left behind. He grabbed Charlie's cammie hat that was in his costume box & proceeded to announce "I wanna be a 'rine!" complete with Ooh-Rah's & all the grunting one little boy could muster. I hope that just like the girls costumes are a phase, the wanting to be a 'rine will be one too.

I'm a big girl now

Lord, help me to see this beginning of independence for what it is . . . and not just a big mess to be cleaned up.

Good-byes

Sadly the good-bye's came all to quickly. It was a four day whirlwhind of: wrestling, Uncle Jim will you play trucks with me?, more wrestling, laughing, realizing how great having more adults than children really is, cards - lots & lots of cards, "I'm sorry"!, would you stop saying "I'm sorry?!", "everyone is always trying to collect the same thing!", tea & pie, Barb's yankee tea, I pooped again!, No Nathan, Uncle Jim does not want to change your diaper, I'll do it!, Rascal, NO, she is not your girlfriend!, it's Charlie calling again, yeah!, anyone want to hang some curtians?, 10 bodies in a duffel bag, dinosaur hunting, baby doll playing, Dotty you are a saint for doing all of my laundry, fun. Thank you for ensuring we wouldn't be alone. The house is too quiet now & I'm grossly outnumbered again, can you please come back soon!?

Girls just wanna have fun

During the many bouts of baking, cooking & cleaning, Michelle (Miss 'Chelle as the kids call her) found a rather unconventional way of getting out of kitchen duty.

What better way to entertain two small girls than with a bottle of bright pink nail polish. And entertained they were!

Even Maggie wanted in on the action. She was so excited to be doing a big girl thing with her big sister.

Miss 'Chelle is more of a brave soul than I am. Emma asked to paint mine too but thankfully I was busy doing the baking, cooking & cleaning.

Christmas with the Smiths'

This was an amazing Christmas for us. Sad & exciting all at the same time. We were sad to not have the most important part of our household home but celebrated the arrival of the Smith family at this special time. Dotty, Michelle & Jim made the long trek from Florida with the insistence that we would not be spending Christmas alone. One of the many things to add to my "thankful for" list this year.

Our first ever gingerbread house. A definate new tradition for our household.

Emma & Nathan practicing with chop sticks for a Chinese Christmas Eve dinner. My dear friend Tammy mentioned their Christmas Eve tradition of Chinese & Dotty & I thought it was genious. No cooking or cleaning, who doesn't want that?!

There was laughing, lots & lots of laughing.

Happy Birthday Jesus! On Christmas morning instead of immediately tearing into presents we took a few minutes to celebrate the Birth of our Savior. It was a birthday party complete with cinnamon muffins, candles & a chorus of Happy Birthday. We put breakfast into the oven & let the kids dive into their presents.

It didn't take Maggie long at all to figure out how this works!

Emma was very proud of her new Bitty Baby back pack & walked around the house like this for what seemed like hours. What a proud little mommy.

Nathan was in a heaven of boy-ness with his new dinosaurs, trains, trucks & cars.