Today I am thankful for doctors, especially my OB/Gyn (who I happen to have seen yesterday - not pregnant, just a regularly scheduled visit). Without him, I wouldn't be alive. And neither would either of my beautiful daughters. He's the same doctor who delivered Kit when he was born so we have a bit of a special connection there as well.
When I was pregnant with Elise, most of my friends who were pregnant at the same time were choosing to see midwives and many were choosing to deliver at either a birthing center or at home. At the time I felt a little out of place but then I read in the section on choosing a practitioner in What to Expect When You're Expecting that it's best to choose an OB/Gyn if you want someone who will know what to do in any situation and be able to do it, especially should anything go wrong. I didn't actually expect anything to go wrong but was reassured in my decision that I wasn't as concerned about having someone who was especially understanding or who leaned heavily toward natural birthing techniques (though my OB never pressured me toward any one birthing method). I definitely think it's a personal decision so I don't mean this to be a judgment at all. But it turned out that God knew what He was doing in my situation in giving me a doctor who I trusted completely when the time came and an emergency did arise.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Thankful - Day 16
Today I'm thankful for toilet paper. Is that weird? My thanks actually stems from the fact that we currently have 48 rolls of toilet paper. No, I didn't go to Costco and get a couple of their ginormous packs. What I did was buy some 12-packs a few weeks ago when they were on sale and didn't remember that I had done so. When we "ran out" last week, the girls and I took a trip to Target (the cheapest place to get the kind that we need due to our toilet having a bad habit of overflowing) and bought two more 12-packs. Kit laughed when I told him there was toilet paper in the truck that needed to be brought in and asked me if I remembered that we had a whole bunch on the shelf where we keep it in the garage. Nope, I forgot. So we currently have four rolls in the bathroom, 20 rolls in the garage. And 24 rolls in the trunk of the car. At least we won't be running out any time soon!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Thankful - Days 5-15
I guess I should have known better than to try to commit to writing a blog post every day this month. I do think about it daily (sometimes multiple times a day), just not when I'm at my computer with enough quite moments to write. So here are things I have been thankful for over the past few days...
5: My husband and how perfect he is for me. I'm seriously blessed with an amazing man who loves the Lord, loves me and loves our daughters deeply. He's always growing and always challenging me to do the same.
6: Our home. Although we don't know for sure whether we'll be in our house long term, it is a wonderful place to live and I am grateful for a warm, sound house that, though imperfect in many ways, is beautiful as well.
7: Leaves in our backyard. 95% of the leaves in our yard are actually from our neighbor's maple tree. And I'm fairly positive at least 2/3s of the trees leaves fall into our yard every year, not her's. But the tree provides us with lots of shade in the summer and the leaves have been such fun to rake this year since Elise "helps" me. She spends lots of time sitting in the leaf pile, picking up handfuls and leaves and re-depositing them in the yard and walking up to us saying, "Oooo!" as she finds new, pretty leaves to share.
8: Elise's verbal skills. Tomorrow she has a speech evaluation with a speech pathologist to make sure she's on track for her age. We're not concerned at all, but they like to have these appointments for toddlers who were as premature as she was to ensure they catch any deficiencies now rather than later. Given what a chatty Cathy she is, I don't think we have anything to worry about. On Friday she randomly said, "Kit!" and the had fun talking to her daddy and saying his name. And one of our favorite things that she says is "haw-hee" rather than "hee-haw" for a donkey sound. She hasn't ever reversed words any other words so we find it funny that she always says "haw-haw" even when we say it correctly right before she says it.
9: Homemade bread. I've been making a delicious bread recipe courtesy of my friend Melissa lately. You mix up a big batch of dough, let hit rise (no kneading necessary), cut off what you want to make right then and bake it, put the rest in the fridge and then take it out as needed to return to room temperature and bake later. It's super easy and incredibly tasty. It's especially nice now that the weather is chilly to have fresh bread with soups and other warm dinners.
10: Crocs. It's actually a bit embarrassing to admit this publicly since Kit told me at one point to hurt him if he ever wanted Crocs. But Kit, Elise and I all got a pair on our anniversary trip to the beach with the girls in September. And we love them. For Elise, they make the perfect shoe for playing in the backyard since they can get muddy and then wash up in seconds. For Kit, they make the perfect house shoe to wear around the house and to take Coco potty in. For me, I really hate to say this, but I've actually worn mine out of the house on multiple occasions. They super comfy and mine don't have the holes in them because I needed ones with better arch support (thanks to pregnancy changing my feet and causing them to ache at the slightly uncomfortability). So yes, we do have Crocs and must agree with all those who have gone before us in saying that they are really comfortable.
11: Cardboard boxes, yogurt container lids, spatulas and the like. It's wonderful to have free toys that entertain so much! As I'm typing this, Elise is actually playing in our drawer of plastic food storage containers for the first time and having quite a blast.
12: Cloth diapers. Yep, we made the switch to cloth in August. Never got around to mentioning it on the blog because, well, I've been busy with two little girls! We're exclusively using BumGenius Elementals, their organic cotton diapers with snaps. I decided that since they actually had everything I wanted from a cloth diaper (aka all of the features that I hadn't found in other diapers and that had kept me from using other diapers) and have a great reputation (I'm a big researcher of big purchases like this and hadn't ever been able to find anything in my research that gave me the peace of mind I needed from other users until I found these). Although I'm not a fan of cleaning out the poop (we use a diaper sprayer attached to the toilet), and it's sometimes a pain to remember to put them in the washer, I do love using cloth and haven't regretted making the switch.
13: Elise's little imagination and communication. Saturday we had a leadership workshop at church from 9am-2pm. Both girls were in childcare, and I would go to their classroom every so often to get Evie and feed her. Both girls did a great job and Elise was chatty (as usual) on our way home. She was also singing. One of her songs went like this, "Silly sissy, Coco crazy, ba-gock!" I love that she was being creative and combined her goofy sister, slightly psychotic dog and a chicken ("ba-gock" is her chicken sound) into a song.
14: Evelyn's healthy lungs. I've mentioned before that this little girl can cry like you wouldn't believe. It literally makes your eardrums rattle. Although it can be very grating, it's also a sign that she has healthy lungs. Given the many weeks Elise spent on CPAP and then learning to not forget to breath, it's such a blessing for Evie's lungs to be so healthy.
15: Friends. We have so many good friends and are very blessed in that way. Last night we had some of our dear friends from the NICU, Paul and Susan and their son, Anthony, over for dinner. We hadn't seen them in a while and had a great time catching up. Kit and Paul are basically twins who were separated at birth and by a few years of age...every time the two of them hang out they figure out yet another thing they have in common. It's quite ridiculous actually. I'm glad for friends like the Carsons and for all our other fabulous friends.
5: My husband and how perfect he is for me. I'm seriously blessed with an amazing man who loves the Lord, loves me and loves our daughters deeply. He's always growing and always challenging me to do the same.
6: Our home. Although we don't know for sure whether we'll be in our house long term, it is a wonderful place to live and I am grateful for a warm, sound house that, though imperfect in many ways, is beautiful as well.
7: Leaves in our backyard. 95% of the leaves in our yard are actually from our neighbor's maple tree. And I'm fairly positive at least 2/3s of the trees leaves fall into our yard every year, not her's. But the tree provides us with lots of shade in the summer and the leaves have been such fun to rake this year since Elise "helps" me. She spends lots of time sitting in the leaf pile, picking up handfuls and leaves and re-depositing them in the yard and walking up to us saying, "Oooo!" as she finds new, pretty leaves to share.
8: Elise's verbal skills. Tomorrow she has a speech evaluation with a speech pathologist to make sure she's on track for her age. We're not concerned at all, but they like to have these appointments for toddlers who were as premature as she was to ensure they catch any deficiencies now rather than later. Given what a chatty Cathy she is, I don't think we have anything to worry about. On Friday she randomly said, "Kit!" and the had fun talking to her daddy and saying his name. And one of our favorite things that she says is "haw-hee" rather than "hee-haw" for a donkey sound. She hasn't ever reversed words any other words so we find it funny that she always says "haw-haw" even when we say it correctly right before she says it.
9: Homemade bread. I've been making a delicious bread recipe courtesy of my friend Melissa lately. You mix up a big batch of dough, let hit rise (no kneading necessary), cut off what you want to make right then and bake it, put the rest in the fridge and then take it out as needed to return to room temperature and bake later. It's super easy and incredibly tasty. It's especially nice now that the weather is chilly to have fresh bread with soups and other warm dinners.
10: Crocs. It's actually a bit embarrassing to admit this publicly since Kit told me at one point to hurt him if he ever wanted Crocs. But Kit, Elise and I all got a pair on our anniversary trip to the beach with the girls in September. And we love them. For Elise, they make the perfect shoe for playing in the backyard since they can get muddy and then wash up in seconds. For Kit, they make the perfect house shoe to wear around the house and to take Coco potty in. For me, I really hate to say this, but I've actually worn mine out of the house on multiple occasions. They super comfy and mine don't have the holes in them because I needed ones with better arch support (thanks to pregnancy changing my feet and causing them to ache at the slightly uncomfortability). So yes, we do have Crocs and must agree with all those who have gone before us in saying that they are really comfortable.
11: Cardboard boxes, yogurt container lids, spatulas and the like. It's wonderful to have free toys that entertain so much! As I'm typing this, Elise is actually playing in our drawer of plastic food storage containers for the first time and having quite a blast.
12: Cloth diapers. Yep, we made the switch to cloth in August. Never got around to mentioning it on the blog because, well, I've been busy with two little girls! We're exclusively using BumGenius Elementals, their organic cotton diapers with snaps. I decided that since they actually had everything I wanted from a cloth diaper (aka all of the features that I hadn't found in other diapers and that had kept me from using other diapers) and have a great reputation (I'm a big researcher of big purchases like this and hadn't ever been able to find anything in my research that gave me the peace of mind I needed from other users until I found these). Although I'm not a fan of cleaning out the poop (we use a diaper sprayer attached to the toilet), and it's sometimes a pain to remember to put them in the washer, I do love using cloth and haven't regretted making the switch.
13: Elise's little imagination and communication. Saturday we had a leadership workshop at church from 9am-2pm. Both girls were in childcare, and I would go to their classroom every so often to get Evie and feed her. Both girls did a great job and Elise was chatty (as usual) on our way home. She was also singing. One of her songs went like this, "Silly sissy, Coco crazy, ba-gock!" I love that she was being creative and combined her goofy sister, slightly psychotic dog and a chicken ("ba-gock" is her chicken sound) into a song.
14: Evelyn's healthy lungs. I've mentioned before that this little girl can cry like you wouldn't believe. It literally makes your eardrums rattle. Although it can be very grating, it's also a sign that she has healthy lungs. Given the many weeks Elise spent on CPAP and then learning to not forget to breath, it's such a blessing for Evie's lungs to be so healthy.
15: Friends. We have so many good friends and are very blessed in that way. Last night we had some of our dear friends from the NICU, Paul and Susan and their son, Anthony, over for dinner. We hadn't seen them in a while and had a great time catching up. Kit and Paul are basically twins who were separated at birth and by a few years of age...every time the two of them hang out they figure out yet another thing they have in common. It's quite ridiculous actually. I'm glad for friends like the Carsons and for all our other fabulous friends.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Thankful - Day 4
Today I am thankful for peanut butter banana cream-less pie. Mmm. We actually made up the recipe since I love banana cream pie but can't eat it right now. All we did was make and bake a pie crust, blend up some frozen bananas with peanut butter and a little cinnamon, fill the pie crust and then freeze it until we were ready to eat it. Which is right now!!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Thankful - Day 3
Well, it's technically Thursday so I'm dating this back to Wednesday. Therefore, today (or yesterday) I'm thankful for the reason I didn't get a chance to post yesterday - my life group. A few months ago I joined a women's life group from our church. I wasn't too sure of it at first, but I have grown to cherish our times together and to wish that we could meet more often.
This fall I started hosting our group, which has been wonderful! Kit and I first bought our house for the purpose of hosting this type of group (and hosted a co-ed group for about a year and a half after buying our house) but haven't done so for the past few years.
All of the gals in my group are moms to young children so it's been wonderful to meet with a group of women who understand my life stage so well.
This fall I started hosting our group, which has been wonderful! Kit and I first bought our house for the purpose of hosting this type of group (and hosted a co-ed group for about a year and a half after buying our house) but haven't done so for the past few years.
All of the gals in my group are moms to young children so it's been wonderful to meet with a group of women who understand my life stage so well.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Thankful - Day 2
Today I am most thankful to be a stay at home mom. Although it's extremely difficult to live on one income these days, I wouldn't trade the ability to be with my girls full time for any amount of money. I know it doesn't work out for every family to have mom stay home so I don't want this to come across as judgmental in any way. But I am blessed to be home with my girls and wanted to share so today.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Thankful - Day 1
My wonderful friend, Bree, who unfortunately moved from Portland before I got to know her very well in person, wrote a poignant blog post today about holidays and challenged those who read her blog to write one thing they are thankful for each day this month. Since I've recently come out of hiding on our blog, I figured I'd join in. So here goes...
One of the things I'm most thankful for in this moment is the ability to kiss my little Evie-doodle however much I want and all over her cute little face and neck. Ever since she was born, I haven't been able to get enough of her soft sweet skin and chubby cheeks. And now that she giggles, I can't get enough of the giggles that I'm sure to get when I give her "GG kisses" on her neck (my great grandma, GG, gave precious soft neck kisses...come to think of it, her skin was as soft as Evie's albeit a looser on her face and she smelled sweet as well...I miss my GG).
I hadn't realized until a few weeks ago that part of why I derive such joy from giving Evie a million kisses a day is because I couldn't do the same with Elise. Because we had to be so careful about germs due to her prematurity, I didn't start kissing Elise anywhere other than her head and forehead until she was much older, about 6 months old since that's about when she got H1N1, did fine with it and we stopped being quite as concerned about germs. So I'm thankful for those Evie kisses and also that I can now kiss Elise without worry of getting her sick, even if she does frequently say, "Nah," when we ask her for kisses.
And for good measure, I'm thankful for kisses from my hubby as well. But I won't go into detail on that one.
One of the things I'm most thankful for in this moment is the ability to kiss my little Evie-doodle however much I want and all over her cute little face and neck. Ever since she was born, I haven't been able to get enough of her soft sweet skin and chubby cheeks. And now that she giggles, I can't get enough of the giggles that I'm sure to get when I give her "GG kisses" on her neck (my great grandma, GG, gave precious soft neck kisses...come to think of it, her skin was as soft as Evie's albeit a looser on her face and she smelled sweet as well...I miss my GG).
I hadn't realized until a few weeks ago that part of why I derive such joy from giving Evie a million kisses a day is because I couldn't do the same with Elise. Because we had to be so careful about germs due to her prematurity, I didn't start kissing Elise anywhere other than her head and forehead until she was much older, about 6 months old since that's about when she got H1N1, did fine with it and we stopped being quite as concerned about germs. So I'm thankful for those Evie kisses and also that I can now kiss Elise without worry of getting her sick, even if she does frequently say, "Nah," when we ask her for kisses.
And for good measure, I'm thankful for kisses from my hubby as well. But I won't go into detail on that one.
$Money$
I'm money.
Although we all know I'm pretty gangsta, I'm actually not referring to how incredibly cool I am. I'm referring to the name Elise has given me. When she calls for me, she always calls me "mama," which is actually my preferred name for myself (from the girls, obviously...no one else need call me "mama"). But I often refer to myself as "mommy" simply because that's what I grew up calling my mom. For a while, Elise would repeat back "mommy" but it has since turned into "money." Here's the gangsta in training herself...
Don't mind her yogurt face, jammies and bed head. She was eating breakfast and hadn't gussied herself up for the day.
Enter money11012010 to watch.
Although we all know I'm pretty gangsta, I'm actually not referring to how incredibly cool I am. I'm referring to the name Elise has given me. When she calls for me, she always calls me "mama," which is actually my preferred name for myself (from the girls, obviously...no one else need call me "mama"). But I often refer to myself as "mommy" simply because that's what I grew up calling my mom. For a while, Elise would repeat back "mommy" but it has since turned into "money." Here's the gangsta in training herself...
Don't mind her yogurt face, jammies and bed head. She was eating breakfast and hadn't gussied herself up for the day.
Enter money11012010 to watch.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Photos: Mid-July through August
Since I'm ridiculously behind in posting, I figured I'd do a few big photo posts to catch up. Here goes...
A visit with the cousins at Nana and Granddad's while their parents enjoyed a much needed vacation. This is Boston, the eldest cousin on the Wagner side (though she's not a Wagner since she's Kit's married sister's daughter).
London is extremely talented.
This was when Elise first started eating whole pieces of toast without having them cut into bites.
We enjoyed some delicious marion berry pies this summer courtesy of Granddad's farm.
An attempt to photograph both girls together. Elise started out in the chair, but this is the best photo I got.
She wanted to wear one of my hair clips. And eat a lemon slice.
Trying out Coco's crate.
Wearing her cool helmet she got so that she can ride in the bike trailer on the back of Kit's mountain bike.
Post-pigtail hair. This 'do reminded me of this guy.
Enjoying a PB&J on the back patio.
The girls' pediatrician's office moved to a new suite so they have been decorating. They got to put their foot prints on a wall in one of the rooms. I always wanted to do this as a kid so now I feel like the girls are famous.
How cute is this girl in her halter?
She loves her some PB&J.
Outside the best salt water taffy store in the world - Bruce's Candy Kitchen. No joke. Their taffy is hands down the best you'll ever have. And I'm pretty sure you can order it from their website now so you should do so if you like taffy.
Enjoying the toddler ball pit at a carnival.
Elise hosted a pool party for her friends in August. Only two friends were able to come but they are her two oldest friends - Anthony (right) and Roman (left). She met both boys in the NICU.
She wasn't too thrilled to be sharing her pool since it's rather small and meant the boys got into her personal space without an invite (not something that pleases her).
Giving her oldest friend, Anthony, a kiss.
Evie spent the pool party napping and working on her tan.
Elise stole Anthony's yogurt.
And ended up looking like this.
We went to our local farmer's market a lot this summer and early fall. Each time Elise and Kit would enjoy a pastry together from a local bakery. (Hence, her mouth stuffed with yummy goodness.)
Evie loves her a bath.
That gets us through the end of August. More to come once I get a chance to go through them.
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