valentine's day

sure signs it's valentine's day:

**caleb gave ali a kiss**

**i woke up and put on pink socks**

**roses had to be picked out of ali's mouth**



**the stickers on my hands and face were hearts**

**a "true love" balloon followed me around pet smart**

mom

my mom's coming for a visit soon, so i've been thinking a lot about her. i've got so many incredible stories of the things that she's taught me and just the way she raised the three of us kids. and i've tried to put my finger on it a number of times; what is it that made her such a great mom?? some of the answers i've come up with were

• she knew how to be what we needed, when we needed it: mom, friend, teacher, mentor, etc.
• she had a background in teaching so she was able to teach things very clearly and creatively.
• she was in evangelism ministry, so she viewed life as a ministry already.

but you know what mom would say if she was asked what she did right? (and believe me, i've asked!) she would say she had no idea what she was doing, she just loved God. the secret to being a better mom is to love and serve and follow and grow in relationship with God. He created our kids so He knows what they need. and what does He say? Seek first His kingdom.

so when Mom comes, i think this time i'll do less asking her questions about parenting and more time asking her about Him.

some highlights of my weekend

• friday night, i thought troy was going to have to work... and he didn't! we got to play games instead. and i won 2 out of 3, so life was good!
• saturday morning, friends babysat caleb so troy and i could spend a few hours on the beach, talking about the next 6 months. we talked about what we need from each other, what we need to purchase, who we will go and visit, how we will spend our time during the week, etc. a wonderful time of dreaming together about our new family of four.
• between saturday and sunday nap times, troy and i checked off 4 things from our "to do before Alia comes" list.
• randomly, caleb has been saying "Yo Baby". no idea why or what he thinks it means, but i got it on video. he's also been trying out the concept of "me, too". again, he's not really sure when it should be said, but it's sure cute to hear when he decides to pull it out.
• while troy was pulling out some things for lunch today, i decided to lay down. caleb told me i should lay down in my bed and he even brought me his two most special blankets to cover me up. and when it was time to get up, he offered me his hand. what a sweet heart he has... and he's obviously watching how troy takes care of me.

welcome annelie!

last night, my sister had her baby! it was a long and exhausting labor that started sunday evening and didn't end until late tuesday night. although everything was progressing as is usual, it was simply taking twice the amount of time as usual... or more. hanell was so strong and so brave and did a great job, despite the fact that she didn't have any sleep or much food. i was getting regular updates from my dad, who was in the waiting room.

my favorite part was when dad called me to say annelie had been born. he was standing outside the delivery room with his ear pressed to the door. he heard the midwife saying "the head is coming" and the wonderful "one more push". he heard the announcement of "IT'S A GIRL" (which is when he called me) and the first, very loud, cry. it wasn't until later that he could call back to give me size details (8lbs, 2oz, and 22.5in) and the official name (annelie grace).

and, while i was talking to dad, hearing the good news, i felt my own new little baby move for the first time. soon it will be my turn!

visit from nana

we had a GREAT time while my mom was out visiting. and she loved getting to see and enjoy caleb at this stage of life. she spoiled him rotten and of course, he ate it up! we did all his favorite things: walked around the dog park, played at the toy store, drank from a straw at starbucks, looked through books at the library, and listened to tons of music!

when she left, caleb looked a bit confused for the first couple of days. and when he saw a picture of her, he clapped. thankfully it's only a couple of months until we go out there for christmas!

happy anniversary

i knew you were the one when you ...

described yourself using the very words i used to describe the man of my dreams

wrote me a thank you note at the end of first semester

listened to me cry about why it was so hard for me to trust people

understood how important the promise of "forever" was to me

cared about getting to know my family and loved sharing about yours

learned to play guitar just to fulfill a bet

still wanted to play games with me even though i beat you (sorry, but it's true)

spent the whole day with me and we didn't run out of things to say

told me you wanted to talk to my dad first before starting to date me

talked about your dreams for the future and God changed mine to match

told me "our story" over and over and over, just because i liked hearing it

designed a ring that was more beautiful than one i ever could have imagined

stood in the church and held my hand while we worshipped


you are my love. you have been these last 6 years we've spent together and i know you will be forever.

sounds

i took caleb to our favorite toy store yesterday. we went to look at the stuffed animals again. and guess what? when i pulled out a dog stuffed animal, caleb woofed. it was ADORABLE! i tried it a couple more times and he kept doing it. then, i pulled out a lion and he growled! i also pulled out a fox to see if it was just a coincidence. he said "aaglug glug" so i'm not exactly sure what that means :)

i was so hoping for troy to be able to have a chance to see this. and last night, when we were sitting outside on a blanket, a dog walked by. and, sure enough, caleb woofed again. i've heard him make the sound before but yesterday was the first time it was really directed toward a dog.

i love that little monster!

moving?

we want to move. we've been going back and forth on this issue for a while, but now it's official. we love our condo, but third floor is not ideal for a mother of a young child. and when the time comes for number two... yikes! how to get two kids up and down all those concrete steps... not to mention a stroller or groceries or anything else. plus, kids make quite a bit of noise. not bad noise, most of the time, but a lot of noise nonetheless. and while there technically isn't anything we can do about it, i feel bad for our downstairs neighbor (as well as thankful that she works full time and is only home on weekends!).

here's the problem... we LOVE our neighborhood. it has amazing sidewalks and trails, a community garden, two pools, tennis courts, etc, etc, etc. it's ideal for raising a family. unfortunately, the prices reflect that fact.

we have, however, found a place we want. we haven't technically seen it, yet, but it's a mirror image of the home of some friends of ours, so i feel like i've seen it. i would post the mls listing, but i don't want anyone getting any ideas and buying out from under us. it's always been a dream of ours to live in community. to just do life with people who have a similar faith and goals and dreams. to have other adults whom we trust be a part of caleb's regular life. to help each other in very practical ways. this world doesn't have enough of that and my heart greatly desires it. i want to grow and learn and i believe Jesus uses others to help accomplish that.

so, we're getting our condo ready to put on the market. it's nerve-wracking, to say the least! and since we don't NEED to move, there's no better time to try to sell. worse comes to worse and i have a newly painted bathroom that i love and new light fixtures. i can deal with that. the goal is to put it on the market beginning of august. so, if you happen to know anyone who is looking for a beautiful 2-bed 2-bath condo in our area, let me know!

thinking about all of this has made me so thankful i know the Lord. i can't imagine trying to do this without Him. i would be so worried and stressed. i love knowing He's got a plan and that i just need to do my part. and there's no other plan i'd rather be a part of than His.

community...

i've been learning a lot about community recently. especially about how much i need it. how much we all need community - people who love us and help (read: force) us confront our need for change.

sometimes i don't like learning about this. in fact, a few days ago i actually told troy that we needed to switch churches. i was (mostly) kidding. see, our church is great. it challenges me not just on sunday mornings but all through the week. my community groups are full of people who actually want to be involved in my life and help me become a better reflection of God. and sometimes i hate that. sometimes i wish i could just be alone. that i wouldn't have to grow and that i wouldn't have to help anyone else grow. it's scary... i don't want to lose friends or make things uncomfortable. but really, what kind of friend would i be if i let someone i love go down a path that isn't healthy for them. not a very good one.

besides being scary, though, community is also amazing. one of our factors in switching churches last winter was that we wanted to be at a place where caleb could learn about community. that he could learn how the body of Christ loves and serves. and the best way for him to learn about it was to see us participate. and i think that's actually happening. we have friends we can talk with, pray with, serve, and just be. these are the kind of people i want caleb to grow up knowing. and i love that. it's amazing how quickly i've felt cared about and i have never been around people who were so amazingly transparent. it makes me feel like i know them, even though it's been such a short time.

i know this isn't always the case. in fact, a lot of people have felt the opposite of love from christians. and i have, too. but for me, rather than make me run away or get bitter, it's made me crave the real thing even more. and now i'm getting a taste of that. which is scary. and beautiful.

family visit

fourth of july weekend we enjoyed a wonderful visit from troy's parents, al and deon. we played games and took lots of walks. a highlight for me, besides just watching them enjoy caleb, was going to an off-leash dog park to walk around and enjoy the puppies. also, they gave troy and i an amazing gift! as soon as caleb woke up in the morning, i would feed him and change him into warm clothes and they walked with him up to starbucks. troy and i got to sleep in and they got to spend some wonderful alone time with their grandson. it was fantastic. i'm so glad they came, although it just reminded me how much i wish we lived closer. sigh.

baby and grad

there's nothing better to me that seeing people i love, love my son.

down the slide

a morning at the park while in kentucky gave caleb his first chance at going down a slide. his uncle luke initiated him into this amazing new playground adventure. it seemed that caleb's favorite parts of the sliding experience were sitting at the top and looking down at all the little people below and sitting at the bottom, once his eyes and stomach caught up with him. i think this was the start of a beautiful friendship between boy and slide!

the week in review...

the first weekend we were out in kentucky, the whole family was there. dad, mom, luke (the graduate), hanell, mike, troy, caleb, and me. we let doc and nana babysit on saturday and all of us kids (minus caleb) went to see prince caspian. it was our first movie-theater movie since caleb has arrived and i loved it! i did wish there had been some better previews, though. that night we played some hand 'n' foot... i love that game!

sunday, we had a party! it was great to meet friends of luke's and some his youth leaders and teachers. and fun to see friends of the family that i usually just hear fun stories about.

monday, troy, mike, and hanell had to leave (crazy people who actually have jobs!). we looked at some houses for mike and hanell and went to luke's senior award night. i had to leave early to put caleb to bed, but got to see him win a scholar athlete award (he also won an all-around award). i was so happy that i was staying on for a whole other week to continue the celebration.

tuesday was swimming day! we got everything loaded up and when over to dad's seminary to use the pool. now, the first time caleb went swimming, he wasn't so sure about it. but this time, he loved it! we put him in his spring float thing and he was in the big pool with doc and uncle luke. he was kicking his feet and spinning around and was LOVING LIFE! we also watched the finale of american idol.

wednesday we took a trip to the park. caleb went in the swings and uncle luke took him down the slide. that night we rented national treasure 2: book of secrets which was just like the first... and that, in my book, is a good thing. we also found out david cook won american idol. mom was pleased.

thursday the fun started... caleb is teething again. majorly teething. the last incisor (bottom right) and three molars (two on bottom, one on top). that day was horrible... and it didn't really get better as the week went on. but being with family was a wonderful support. dad even babysat while mom and i went to meet with a friend for coffee/tea.

friday was graduation day! we got some great pictures of the grad with caleb (i'll post those in a later blog). caleb did well for part of the ceremony and we got to cheer on luke as he received his diploma and then we went home a little early to give caleb a nap and dinner. we celebrated afterward with chinese food and a movie!

saturday was full of games (lots of since and nertz) and fun and walks around the neighborhood. we even went to a professional volleyball game.

sunday was our last day in louisville. we went to church (doc and caleb did great in the nursery together), ate bbq, and packed. and caleb even did well on the plane rides!

i have lots more fun little stories (as well as lots of pictures) to share, but at least this will give a glimpse as to what the week was like.

so much to blog about!!

i got back last night from a week and a half in louisville. my brother graduated from high school so we made a trip out there to celebrate with him. it was great!! but now i feel so far behind with my blogging :) it will take a while to get caught up, but i definitely have some fun stories!

the best mother's day ever...

i know that i don't have a lot to base that statement on, but just wait until you hear about my day! it started with caleb sleeping in until 7! just that by itself would have been enough to make it a day to remember, but it kept getting better. troy and caleb made me belgian waffles (with berries and cool whip!) for breakfast. caleb took a nice long (1.5 hour) nap in the morning waking up just in time for church. at church he even stayed in the nursery rather than missing me and making them have to page us! once we got home caleb took another good nap (2 hours) so that i got to eat lunch, talk with my mom, and play some mariokart wii! next came a trip to my favorite tea shop... this is what i've asked to do every mother's day... where i had some white tea and a vanilla scone. the boys got me a couple cute tops and made me a wonderful card. and now, i'm in pajamas, blogging, and looking forward to a night full of the survivor season finale! this is going to be hard to top!

The Business of Being Born

my sister sent me the link to a great documentary called The Business of Being Born. it's all about the medical industry and how maybe doctors and hospitals are not doing what is best for delivering mothers. i found the documentary to be biased toward midwives and home births, but the facts that it presented were hard to deny. and i felt very validated by what it was presenting. to explain why, i'd better share my birth story...

caleb was due on august 20th, but i was not surprised when the 20th came and went because my mom always carried her kids longer than expected (i was about 2 weeks late). usually my doctor doesn't let women go longer than a week overdue but we she was out of town the week of the 20th so we scheduled an induction for the 29th. i had an ultrasound that week to make sure that the placenta was still looking good and caleb didn't show any signs of distress. everything was wonderful. now i look back and wish someone had told me that i could say "no" to the induction. i would have liked to give it a full 2 weeks. but i didn't know... and i trusted my doctor.

i went into the hospital and they started pitocin. which i hated. contractions are supposed to start out more slowly but not mine. i went from none to minute-long contractions with at most 30 seconds in between. it was awful. after about 4 hours of that they checked me and i was still only dilated to a 6 and was not making any progress. i chose to get an epidural so that i could rest a bit. it helped (mostly on one side of my body), but i didn't like that now i was confined to bed for the rest of the labor. one thing just led to another. external monitoring wasn't enough so i was given an internal contraction monitor as well as internal fetal heart rate monitor. awful. and caleb wasn't doing so well with the hard contractions of the pitocin. so they stopped the pitocin but it wasn't getting better. to make a long story shorter, i was scheduled for a c-section but at the last minute caleb's heart rate increased, they started pitocin again, and i was allowed to labor on my own for a while longer. finally, after about 2.5 hours of pushing, i was a mom!

i guess what was hard for me was that i felt one intervention (pitocin) led to another which led to another and it was a huge downward spiral. now, i appreciate doctors and all the amazing medical interventions we have, but i truly believe my body would have been able to give birth without all that extra "stuff" getting in the way. and that's what the documentary pointed out... how amazing a woman's body truly is and how they were designed to give birth. i felt like all the frustration and confusion i felt during my labor was explained by the documentary.

lest anyone think it was all bad, let me tell you of a few high points. some amazing nurses fought for me to not have a c-section. my doula, merrell, helped more than words can describe. troy was an amazing support and partner to me throughout the entire ordeal. God sustained my spirits and answered prayers left and right. i have an amazing and healthy son. and i've learned a lot. next time, i'll be getting a midwife and probably delivering at a birth center.

so anyway, for those of you still reading... it's an interesting documentary. you should check it out.

visit from nana

my mom was just here for a visit. we had a great time just living life. i love that with family there isn't this pressure to go out and "do" things (especially since it snowed and hailed!). we got to bring her to church with us, go out to tea, play games, rent a movie, and just spend time with caleb. it was great to have a second pair of hands around throughout the day and someone to remind me just how precious of a boy i have. also through her eyes i was able to notice even more that caleb was learning.

trip to spokane

i haven't blogged for a while because we were in spokane for the wedding of one of our closest friends. troy was the best man and i was his support crew and babysitter. my job was to make sure he had as little to worry about as possible so that he, in turn, could make sure the groom had as little to worry about as possible. i think we were successful and the long weekend was full of many highs... and a few lows.
highs: sneaking into a garage to decorate the getaway car, time with friends, caleb taking good naps, after-wedding calzones, watching troy do his job and love his friends, early morning cups of tea, finding a babysitter for the rehearsal dinner, etc, etc, etc.
lows: caleb crying so much for the wedding babysitter that she had to call me and i had to miss the wedding, being sick with a cold, having caleb sick with a cold, troy being sick with a cold, not enough time with the bride and groom (but it's a wedding so i was expecting as much), lousy pass conditions on the way home.
as you can tell, the highs far outweigh the lows. we had a great time... although it sure would be nice to have a weekend to recover from it!

easter

in the midst of a hard couple of weeks with a sick baby, last sunday was a low point. i spent the day holding a crying baby and trying to avoid getting puked on. not exactly a celebration of Christ's resurrection! it made us stop and think, though, what do we want easter to be in our family? do we want a special breakfast? do we want to do easter baskets? what will we do to make that day stand out from the rest and give it the attention that it's due? we don't have any specific plans yet (and we've got about a year to decide) but it's something we'll definitely want to keep thinking/talking about. i would love any suggestions for possible traditions and celebrations!

tired out...

we're tired at our house. every one of us is tired. caleb's tired because he has a fever (poor baby) and his gums hurt and his tummy hurts. and all of that adds up to poor eating and sleeping... which makes him grumpy. and we're tired from caleb's being grumpy. it gets way worse in the evenings where, after his third nap, he decides that it's not ok for us to set him down or to sit down while holding him or to stay in one place. so we walk and bounce and pray for time to move more quickly so that we can put him to bed. he seems a little better today, but it's still early, so we'll see...