An Unexpected Journey

  Are you ever amazed at God's timing? I am once again! I have been struggling with really laying things down at Jesus feet and leaving them there. I feel like I need to control everything but that's the funny thing, we never really do have control do we? We started a new book in women's Bible study at church and it is called "Laying My Isaac Down" by Carol Kent. This could not have come at a better time! She talks in the first chapter about the apostle Peter in John 6. He says "Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We've already committed ourselves. confident that you are the Holy One of God." Carol Kent says "Where else did I have to turn in this dark hour?". I don't know where I would be without knowing Jesus has our lives in His mighty hands! 

     "Lord, where would I go if I turned away from You? If I didn't have You, I would have nothing. I have nowhere to turn so while I'm pounding Your chest with my hurt, pain and anger, please know that I am still facing You, still leaning into the warmth of Your embrace, not sure I can trust You, but knowing You are all I have. You are all I have. If I left You, I would be completely aimless and lost. So while I feel devastated by what You allowed to happen, I still cannot resist pressing into the comfort of Your strong arms. I am angry that I am not resisting You more, because I know You could have stopped this thing from happening- but I have nowhere else to go." 

       I read this with the other ladies in class and had to put my book up to my face so I could get myself together.I know I shouldn't be amazed that He would speak to my situation because  I know that He is speaking to others in the class about their situations as well but to think that the Creator of the universe loves me enough to choose this book at this time in my life still does amaze me. 

    Carol also talks about the hidden treasures in unthinkable circumstances. 

• Realize the world is in a mess
• Ask for help
• Recognize that everything trivial is just that
• Admit that our sense of control in an illusion
• Be humbled as never before
• Affirm or reject your faith

   

I am thinking about taking each of these points and writing a seperate post for each. Still mulling over what each of these means to me individually and the world as a whole. I am excited about where the journey of reading this book is going to take my family and I!  

 "We can hug our hurts and make a shrine out of our sorrows or we can offer them to God as a sacrifice of praise. The choice is ours" -Richard Exley

I'm back!!

I'm back baby!! It's been a few years but I love the idea of blogging so I'm going to try my hand at it once again. Sheralyn just turned 5 years old if that tells you anything about how long I've been away. I am excited to be sharing more pictures, stories and life in general with family and friends. I'm going to make this short and sweet because I really should be in bed. I'll round up some pics tomorrow to show you how much my sweet kiddos have grown! 

Another update

Look at that gorgeous smile!! Oh Sheralyn you have enriched our lives in ways we could never have imagined! Most of the time you are such a great baby- you love standing on our laps and talking to us, most of the time you are a very loud baby. I still can't believe that four months has gone by since the day you entered this world. You started sleeping through the night at about six weeks but recently have been getting up once a night and yelling at mama. :o) I think it was b/c you were congested and couldn't breathe. I think you are going to get teeth soon much to my dismay and that may be one of the reasons that you are getting up at night as well. You love being talked to and it is easy to tell that you are the center of attention at our house b/c anytime anyone around you is talking you always smile and think they are talking to you! We weren't expecting you but God knew what He was doing when He decided we needed to add another member to our family! I love you dearly!!

Elizabeth oh Elizabeth you add spark to our family! We never know what you are going to come up with next or when the next time is that your little attitude is going to make an apperance! We are working on your ABC's and shapes. It is fun seeing you learn! You are getting attached to your purple blanket, for awhile there you were bringing it down with you every day when you come downstairs. When you get to the bottom of the stairs you announce "I awake!" Your favorite things to do right now is play with Lego's (you say it wegoats), play with play-dough and you love to watch movies. Some of your favorite characters right now are Princesses, Toy Story, Strawberry Shortcake, Bob the Builder and Thomas. I am really excited for Christmas this year for you- I think you will really be into all the lights and songs that go along with the season. I love you much as you would say!!

Garrett my boy you are one of a kind! The #1 son as you remind me from time to time. This week was the first time that you started picking out your own clothes and we tried to let you wake yourself up with the alarm but you slept right through it! You have started to read a book every day for school and most days you pick one of the "Help me be good" books that you won from Our Father's Library over the summer. You can read very well! The thing you love to do right now is get on Star Wars.com and play the games on there. There are lots of things to do and you can entertain yourself for hours! Your top teeth are finally starting to come in- it's cute to see the little sliver of a tooth, reminds me of when you first got your teeth as a baby. You are in quite a few things this year- you joined Cub Scouts this year, you go to Rolling Chapel on Friday at school and you are in your third year of Sparks. You are always wanting to hold your baby sister and fighting with the other one. That is what siblings do though so we will get through it somehow! :o) You are a great helper and can do lots of things to help me around the house, some of which include put the dishes away, clean off the table, take out the thrash and putting your clothes away. You are a sweet boy and I look forward to what God has in store for you in the years to come! I love you more each day!!

update

First of all we went to Ohio last weekend (Aug 8 and 9) and it was a fun time. We went to the zoo on Sunday, we actually should have went to the aquarium b/c it was so hot out. Garrett ended up getting sick, Josh got mad about it for some reason and I ended up crying in McDonald's while nursing Sheralyn. I had to deal w/ a sick kid, a hungry baby and a mad dh. It was all just to much and I started crying. I got over it and was actually better after i cried- lol!! It was actually a nice weekend despite that ordeal.

Garrett started school on Friday. He got the teacher I requested. I had his teacher's daughter when I worked at the daycare so I knew she was a really nice lady and seeing her around school last year and how laid back she is (not that she can't keep her kids under control, she is just not high strung) I knew she would be a good fit for Garrett. I took Garrett to school today and his teacher was greeting every student at the door, saying their name and shaking their hand. I thought that was a really neat way to get to know the students.

Elizabeth is talking sooo much! I am still amazed at all she says b/c Garrett didn't really start talking until he was about 3. Her hair is getting so long and it is still curly. I wondered if it would get less and less curly the longer it got but it seems to be staying the same. She loves drawing, playing with play dough and going outside. She is hilarious when we go over the rail road tracks, she always looks for a choo choo and when she hears the train whistle she'll come running and say 'you hear that"

Sheralyn is now 7 wks old! I can't believe how fast it has gone- I feel like I just had her. She is starting to coo and smile when you talk to her. It is so cute when she recognizes the kids and smiles at them, they love it so much! She is pretty much sleeping through the night. She normally falls asleep right around 10 and will stir around 4 but if I put the paci in her mouth she will normally go back to sleep until 5:30.

Life is pretty good, can't really complain!

One month old

How can Sheralyn be a month old already? She does not officially turn a month old until Thursday but if we go by the fact that I had her on a Tuesday then it was 4 weeks ago today that I had my precious baby girl! It has gone by so fast! Sheralyn was getting up twice a night in the beginning, she would nurse and then go right back to sleep. Josh had been putting her on her tummy during the daytime so I put her on her belly when I put her in her bassinet the night before she turned 3 weeks and she slept through the night! She slept from 11pm to 6am!! She has had a few nights since then that she has gotten up twice but most of the days in the last week she has slept through the night. She has really taken to a paci too, most times when she is fussy she will take a paci and be content for awhile. We had our first well baby visit yesterday and she officially weighs 10lbs 10oz!! She has her first cold and she has been sleeping a lot the past two days.

Garrett is at his dad's house for the next two weeks and man is it quiet w/o him here! I miss him so much and can't wait until he comes back! We are going to Ohio for a wedding and we are going to take the kids to the zoo. I am so excited, we have been to the Fort Wayne zoo and the Indy zoo but never been to any other zoo.

Induction Day

On Tuesday morning we got up bright and early around 4am to be at the hospital at 5. We get there right as their shift changes and basically wait around until 6 to get the pitocin started. She tried to get the IV started in my right hand since I am left handed. The veins in that hand were basically non-exsistant so she put in my left forearm. She started the pit nice and slow to see how the baby would re-act. When my OB came in around 9 to break my water he said I was 4cm and 75% effaced. I got a shot of nubain around 5 and then decided I wanted to try the epidural and that was around noon. I was so cold after getting the epi that I asked for an extra blanket and she put two flannel blankets and I was still shaking. I got to rest until about three which seems so strange to be resting while you are having contractions. When I was all set up to have the epidural I thought it would hurt and was really preparing myself for this torture and to be totally honest the nurse trying to get the IV in my hand was worse than the epidural going into my spine. I actually started feeling the contractions again in my groin area around 3 and the nurse pushed a button to "top me off" and I really couldn't tell that she had done anything. So around 4:00 the contractions were full blown and I was feeling everything- espically in my tailbone. It was not the horrid back labor that I had w/ Garrett but it was a lot worse that it was with Elizabeth. I am guessing it was the size of the baby coming through the birth canal. I turned onto my left side and was having contractions practically on top of one another and then started having the urge to push. This is when I really started freaking out about pushing, I just kept thinking I wasn't going to be able to push this baby out and that I would have to have a c-section. I almost was crying and Josh was so amazing- he made me look him in the eye and he said 'you can do this" and was so serious about it. He did so great, I really could not have gotten through this w/o his great help. He made sure to breath loud enoughto let me focus on that while trying to relax and let the contractions do their thing. OK so I am off track now but wanted to say what a great job Josh did! :o) I could feel the baby starting to come into the birth canal and just let a few contractions pass before I actually really wanted to start pushing.

I started to push through a few contractions just to get the pain to get away b/c it actually felt better while I was pushing. I was actually really grateful for this b/c w/ Elizabeth the pain never went away even w/ pushing. My OB got everything set up and lowered the table and I stared pushing. I got to this one place where I was pushing and I could feel that I was actually making progress. My OB told me after I was done pushing w/ that contraction that whatever that spot was that was where I needed to get to b/c I was making great progress. The nurse would tell me "get mad and push" and that made me really want to push. I also could tell a huge difference when I would pull my legs back and tuck my chin as to when I would forget b/c the pushing wasn't as effective when I didn't do that. I could actually feel her head crowning this time and also felt the cut that he made for the incision. He thought i would be numb down there b/c of the epi and when I yelled he said 'you could feel that?" I guess the nurse forgot to mention to him that my epi wore off. He said he only did a superfical cut so that if I did tear it would be where he wanted me to and not into my vericose veins which could have been very dangerous. So I did great pushing and from start of pushing until Sheralyn Faith Marie was born was only 9 minutes!!

I can tell I was in labor a lot longer w/ Sheralyn than with Elizabeth b/c I am so much more tired. My uterus would not stay hard b/c my bladder was so full, I bled a lot more with Sheralyn too but not nearly the amount that I did with Garrett, Isn't it amazing how you can go from being so scared thinking "I can't do this" to holding your beautiful baby girl and thinking how it was all so worth it?!

Garrett's 4-H project

Garrett had his 4-H meeting last week and they painted the bleachers as a service project and I think more of the paint ended up on Garrett than on the bleachers! He had fun doing it and we had a cook-out afterwards. Garrett was going to be in mini 4-H flowers 1 but his flowers have not come up thus far and I doubt they will this week or next. He also is in mini 4-H woodcraft and he decided to make a bird house. He told me he wanted to make a bird hotel but I told him I didn't think there were any of those available. LOL!! The fair this year is June 22-26 so a few other people might have to take him since hopefully I will be having a baby sometime this weekend!