Daniel's Nursery

First child- nursery done a month before your due date.

Second child- sleeps in mom's room for the first three months, then moves into a half way decorated nursery at four months. By five months his mom finishes said nursery. 

Little man at five months

I'm so happy at long last I have finished Daniel's room. For months there were floating bookshelves laying on the floor waiting to be hung, a blank wall where I had every intention of painting letters to hang and a sweet little handmade mobile from a friend tucked into the closet.  Now that I feel like we have a "new normal" around here and I have my head wrapped around this whole two kids things I was able to finish his room.

We kicked Laura out of her crib around her birthday and hyped up moving to a big girl bed which was the full sized guest bed with a bed rail on each side. The first night she came out and I just stuck her back in her crib but the next nap she slept in her new bed and we haven't looked back since. I love being able to lay down with her at bedtime to read and pray. 

The majority of Daniel's nursery is from when Laura was a baby but I feel like I've made it work for a baby boy now. The moving company broke part of my wooden rocker so I was compensated enough to purchase a new glider. David was able to fix my rocking chair so now we have a chair in each child's room. I also purchase new green curtains with a black out lining from Pottery Barn Kids. The moving company was kind enough to break several non replaceable items during our last move so I had a bit of extra money I was able to spend on Daniel's room that I probably wouldn't not have spent otherwise. 

The little bookshelves were a Pinterest idea I had seen probably a year ago. I bought the shelves and  painted them while I was still pregnant yet they just laid on the floor of his room until a few weeks ago. I stuck a little chair in the corner as a reading nook although I'm pretty sure it's meant to be a doll chair. I'm a bit worried Laura's going to break that poor little chair soon but it will have to do until I find something a bit sturdier. I'd love one of the Pottery Barn Anywhere chairs but I can't fathom spending $100 on one. Maybe the next time we move something I don't care about will break and I can use our replacement money to buy a cute little chair!  

My friend Shannon from Colorado sent me this handmade mobile with a quote from the Jesus Story Book Bible that reads - 

God loves His children with a never stopping,

 Never giving up, 

Unbreaking,

Always and forever love.

Lastly, I put up a little shelf with a framed cross stitch that was David's along and a silver baby plate that also belonged to David. My mom had saved a beautiful, intricate alphabet cross stitch that was given to either my brother or me when we were babies and I hung that up as well.  

A Very Belated Birth Story

I logged into my blog today and the last date I posted on here was 14 months ago! Quite a lot has happened since then but let's fast forward to the events of last fall.

September 15, to be exact.

Actually this story begins the day before. 

About to leave for the hospital

Saturday, September 14- David, Laura and I headed out on a two mile walk on muggy September morning. I had 6 days until my official due date which was the 20th and was feeling great. Well, minus being 9 months pregnant in the Texas heat. I had bloody show when we got home but knew that didn't really amount to much. I was going to have a baby some time in the next few weeks bloody show or not and I tried not to get my hopes up of it being before my due date.

David sweetly washed both of our cars that morning. After Laura's nap I headed across town to a friend's daughter second birthday party. I felt like I was having some Braxton Hicks but I really wasn't sure if they were real contractions or just practice ones. They stopped while at the party and kicked in again in the car.

By bedtime I was starting to have irregular contractions that weren't too difficult to work through. I tried to sleep for several hours and finally gave up and went downstairs for a snack and to watch tv.

I got David up around 5 am and was having contractions about 5-6 minutes apart but I could nearly talk through them and wasn't terribly serious in between so I didn't know what was going on. We finally called the on call midwife Katy (my practice had 6 midwives) and she told us to come in to the hospital.

I called our pastor's wife who we had arranged to come over when I went into labor. She fixed herself a pot of coffee and we prayed together while I held back tears before we left for the hospital. Praise God Laura was asleep through all this, it made everything so much simpler and allowed me to just focus on my labor. 

We got to the hospital around 6:30 am and I was able to walk to the labor and delivery floor. I was so elated to find out I was already 8 cm! Katy wanted to break my water to move things along faster but I really wanted things to progress on their own.  

I had made a new friend at church who was two weeks overdue and using the same midwife. I asked Katy the midwife if Kali was here and sure enough she had given birth just hours before! The midwife asked Kali if she was up for visitors we peaked in on her and her new daughter Eleanor. I was happily working through contractions while we chatted and adored her new baby for a few minutes until I decided we should leave and go have our own baby!

Back in my own birthing suite I was able to labor in a nice quite dark room with the birth ball. David fed me ice chips and Jolly Ranchers and Katy wiped my brow. The contractions were all right on top of each other during transition and I could barely catch a break.

When I got to 10 my water still hadn't broken but the midwife help broke it while I was pushing.

I was somewhat scared to push after tearing with Laura and I wasn't holding my breath while pushing. The midwife told me I had to push, he wasn't just going to come out on his own (which is what I wanted!)

A few pushes later and he was here! Daniel Joseph was born at 7:52 am, 7 pounds 3 ounces of perfection. It was a beautiful birth and we got to have skin to skin right away. I didn't get that with Laura because she wasn't breathing well.

I was bleeding quite a bit so they began a Pitcon drip and then switched to a pump for an hour. I was still bleeding more than the nurses liked so they gave me Cytotec to stop the bleeding. That was annoying because I had to stay in the recovery room for much longer than normal. And with no food! 

We called about breakfast and they said they had to check my diet. I should have just sent David out for food because it was probably 2pm until I had food delivered to my post partum room. I thought I would gag if I ate another Larabar.

Kali and Eleanor came to visit after I delivered Daniel

I had several fears and anxieties during this pregnancy, especially moving across the country 30 weeks pregnant. I was worried who we would find to watch Laura, knowing so few people in a new city and God provided. I was worried about David being stuck at work for several hours or being unable to reach him when I went into labor. I was anxious about driving across town to the hospital in the unforgiving San Antonio traffic.

Proud Dad

Yet not a single one of these worries came to fruition. I went into labor at night with David by my side and we were able to drive smoothly across town in the early morning. It was a sweet reminder that the Lord cares for the little things in our lives that bring us anxiety. God looked out for all our small needs during my labor and birth.

Grandma Denise drove down from Austin

Big Sister said "baby" for the first time

Grandpa Joe

"Aunt" Shelly drove down too!

Our family of four

Laura's Birthday

Laura's birthday was well over a month ago, and I am just now writing a post about it. Surprise, surprise. We've been somewhat busy but honestly, sitting down to blog when Laura is asleep isn't at the top of my to do list or how to waste time online when I really should be working on my to do list.

We have been very blessed and made several sweet friends since we have moved here to Colorado. David's coworkers all came to Laura's party as they had the day off for Veterans Day weekend and several friends from church came as well. My wonderful Mom, who just can't get enough of her first grand baby, flew in from Texas to celebrate as well.

                                      

 I had fun planning Laura's party and it's a good thing I had a budget because boy is it sure easy to go overboard on a kid's party. I tried to keep things simple and planned a light lunch of fruit salad, veggies, and chicken salad sandwiches served on croissants from Costco. If you ever need (or just want to stuff your face with) croissants, Costco is the place to buy them. They are only 50 cents each as opposed to the over a $1 each ones from Kroger and melt in your mouth, make you forget your wheat free diet delicious! I snuck one the day before the party just to do a quality check.

I thought about making a cake myself but since I was making lunch as well I didn't want to add one more thing to my cooking list and ordered a small cake and a smash cupcake from Kroger. Kroger likes to have regional names for their stores and the stores here are called "King Sooper" but I think that "tis a silly name" and we just call it Kroger.

We had about 20 guests including kids and Laura did seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the noise, people and attention. When it was time to sing "Happy Birthday" I was waiting for her to burst into tears! She looked so confused and scared. She wasn't too sure about the cake at first but after a few bites she enjoyed licking off the icing and the yummy sugar of course.

Laura received many sweet and thoughtful presents but her favorite so far seems to be a box of books from my friend Heather. She carries the little box around the house, asking me to open the box and then  proceeds to take each tiny book out, one by one and place them back in again. It is so fun to watch her personality emerge with each passing week.

Chewing on her new book

 Baby friends from church

   

Laura's friend Eli 

Winter hat from David's coworker

Bitty Baby from Mom and Dad 

Smash cake

Not too sure about this 

I'll try it I guess 

Hmm, this is quite yummy! 

Grandma feeding Laura some ice cream 

Finding Christ in Disappointment

I held off watching the news all day yesterday. I knew there wouldn't be any results until at least 8pm our time so finally at 8:50 I turned on the TV. Obama at 244 and Romney at 203 I knew the election was, for all intents and purposes, over.

I turned if, off not wanting to be totally disgusted and sat on the couch sullen. A few minutes later I turned it back on, only to see Ohio called for Obama bringing him to 266 electoral votes and close enough to a win to call it over. 

The night before last, David and I sat at the dinner table discussing the election and the possible outcome and I remarked how easy it was to think that Romney was somehow our conservative political savior who would come riding in to save America from massive deficits, big government and a decaying economy. But he's not! Christ is our Savior. God uses men for His Glory and to bring about His will but we cannot look to politicians to save us. Christians in this country are so used to living in a so called Christian nation where morality, honor, integrity and belief in God are held by the majority of citizens. It seems this era may be coming to a close but we cannot despair. Christ has died, he has risen, and he will come again! 

As I laid in bed last night, nearly in tears, I was reminded of God's sovereignty and His love for us. That is all that matters when I come to the end of my time here on earth. This hymn from the 19th century was brought to mind and I meditated on it as I fell asleep. 

1. My hope is built on nothing less
   Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
   I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
   But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
   • Refrain:
     On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
     All other ground is sinking sand,
     All other ground is sinking sand.
2. When darkness veils His lovely face,
   I rest on His unchanging grace;
   In every high and stormy gale,
   My anchor holds within the veil.
3. His oath, His covenant, His blood
   Support me in the whelming flood;
   When all around my soul gives way,
   He then is all my hope and stay.
4. When He shall come with trumpet sound,
   Oh, may I then in Him be found;
   Dressed in His righteousness alone,
   Faultless to stand before the throne.

Christ Jesus was nailed, bleeding and naked to a tree like a common criminal when he had the power to take himself down and walk away. Instead, he willingly hung there, died and was seperated from his heavnly father. Just for his people. One day "all that is sad will come untrue" and until that day we strive on to honor God and serve him in the broken, messy, fallen world we live in. 

Scavenger Hunt Sunday Photo

I stumbled across a new photography blog thanks to Pinterest last week. I've been feeling very bored and quite frankly bad at photography lately and really needed something to get the creative juices flowing again, challenge my photography skills and teach me to use my camera better. Each Sunday, at the blog Ashley Sisk, she posts five items to photograph each week and a link up from the previous weeks challenge. So here goes my first week. 

If a picture is bad or mediocre....make it black and white, thus the two black and whites this week. 

Cozy

View from the Top

 Orange

 Faceless Self Portrait

Stacked

 Pulled this last one from my archives but here's my nephew Benjamin stacked on his momma's knees

Yellowstone Adventures

Or how we drove 24 hours in four days and got the stomach bug along the way.

Let me just start off by saying I think David and I are a bit crazy when it comes our determination to enjoy living out west this year. Don't worry, I don't think I'll be skiing while wearing Laura in the Ergo but we certainly don't let having a baby hamper our adventurous spirit.

David had a four day weekend the first weekend of October and we planned a trip to Yellowstone a few weeks prior. We knew it would be our only chance to go while living so "close" (if a 12 hour drive is your idea of close) and wanted to take advantage of his coveted time off of work.

I haven't completely lost my mind luckily and we decided against camping and rented a (heated) cabin in the park instead. I'm very glad we chose not to camp because the temperatures were as low as 9 degrees one night and we even received a light dusting of snow.

We decided it would work best to leave around 2 am Friday morning and drive while Laura (hopefully) slept since it would be her normal sleeping time. T- 2 hours David wakes up throwing up. Gulp. I practically cried and I fell back asleep knowing we would have to cancel the trip. We awoke the next morning and David was feeling much better and we decided to go ahead and make the 12 hour drive to Yellowstone. The car was already packed so I grabbed some coffee and hit the road.

The drive went very well and David was feeling well enough to drive by the afternoon. Laura got a bit crabby so I broke out the laptop with a few Signing Time DVDs I had borrowed from the library. We arrived at the East Entrance around 7pm and by that point, I wasn't feeling so well and it had begun to snow. Fortunately we drove out of the snow at it stayed about freezing so we didn't have to put the snow chains on the car.  It took nearly two full hours to drive to the far northwest side of the park where I cabin was located. We checked in and settled into our cute cabin (without a bathroom) for the night.

We didn't get much rest that night as I was up the entire night throwing up. Read 10 times!! At first I would run out to the communal bathroom behind our cabin but I eventually gave up and just threw up in the trash can! Laura couldn't sleep because she had a cold and spent part of the night asleep on David's chest.

Grand Tetons

I felt reasonably better in the morning so we set off in the car once again to see the park. Yellowstone is so huge you it takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to get between the different features in the park. We stayed in Mammoth Hot Springs and enjoyed seeing the elk herds who frequent there as well as the mineral deposits and steam vents. The landscape and scenery in Yellowstone are for the most part, not as awe inspiring as Yosemite or the Tetons but the landscape is very unique and dotted with thermal hot spots and geysers that make the park interesting and beautiful in it's own way.


The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was probably my favorite stop on our trip. The water falls drops 300 feet and we were able to get near the drop off point as watch the water gushing over the massive falls.

The thermal activity in Mammoth has created calcium-carbonate deposits that look like snow from a distance. You walk to the different thermal spots, geysers and mud pits via a board walk that protects you from boiling steam and water and keep the thermal features from being destroyed by the 2.3 million people who visit the park each year.

We saw Old Faithful and another geyser erupt as well as the thermal pools and gurgling mud pits. One place smelled so badly I nearly gagged. Laura was such a trooper the whole trip. She's such a great little traveler.

Old Faithful

Boiling river where a hot spring meets the Gardner River and you can swim

Yellowstone River water fall at the canyon

We drove home through the Teton Mountains to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Again I was wishing for more time but glad we were able to see these incredible mountains on our way out of the park. We stayed a few hours at a motel and got up at 2 am to drive home. After a sausage biscuit breakfast around 7 I started feeling badly again. David passed me a tupperware and I threw up three times on the drive home. Somehow if we both get sick I always get it much worse than him.

Finally made it home around noon on Monday morning and I slept the day and night away trying to fight off this nasty bug. By Tuesday I was mostly recovered but sure glad to put all that behind me. Maybe many moms feel this way, but I'm starting to find vacations no longer relaxing but just stressful and draining. I planned this trip for several weeks, took three days shopping, cooking and packing and just felt exhausted after we got home!

I really enjoyed our trip but I wish we had time to savor the different areas of the park more. We didn't do much hiking as I was still feeling rather weak and tired from being sick and we always enjoy our hikes together. I'm glad we were able to go but if we ever go again, I'd love to spend a whole week there.