Wednesday, March 31, 2010

We love daddy...

Look who is trying their hardest to fill their daddy's shoes.

















Those are some pretty big shoes to fill kiddo!

Eli's daddy is so amazing. We love him so much.

The greatest gift I ever had
Came from God; I call him Dad!
~Author Unknown


He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland




We love you, daddy and we are so proud of you!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

heavenly peace...



Sweet heavenly peace...
My heart just about melted when I peeked into Eli's room and saw this during nap time.
We had to take a picture for daddy.
I kept thinking that he would wake up screaming because his legs were stuck in the bed, but nope, that is exactly where he wanted them to be.
Some days I think this kid fell straight from heaven...

Monday, March 29, 2010

Happy birthday, Pey!


Today is our beautiful neice, Peyton's birthday! I can't believe that she is 13 years old! It seems like just yesterday she was a flower girl in our wedding...she is the one in the middle.

Adorable, right? Well she has grown into a beautiful young woman...

Happy birthday, Pey! We are so proud to be your aunt and uncle! We love you!


Last week Pey had a track meet in town, so Eli and I drove over to see it...it was a gorgeous day!

Eli had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather, banana, sippy cup, Aunt Amber, Uncle Tim, Morgan, Addy and Pey.
Morgan and Tim yelling for Pey...
Amber and Eli...
Do you see those gazelle legs?
Here she is after the race- she ran hard. Thanks so much for letting us come watch you run, Pey! Happy birthday!

Monday, March 22, 2010

6 month check-up

I have delayed writing this post for awhile. It is passed due for my 6 month check-up.

It has been a little over 6 months since I started staying home with Eli as a stay-at-home mom. Honestly, I have put off writing about this because I think about it a lot. Should I stay at home? When do I want to go back to work? Am I really making a difference in Eli’s life by staying home? These questions circulate in my head on almost a daily basis. For those of you that haven’t had to make this decision, I have to tell you, it is a really hard one to make. Sometimes I am jealous that my husband gets to have his career and that I will wait years to start mine. Sometimes I feel guilty that I am not “contributing” by making money. Other times I think about how quickly we could be paying off our house and building our savings if I were working. Sometimes I just miss people, having my opinion heard, and having people ask me about my work….has anyone else noticed that when someone finds out you stay at home, their conversation with you goes nowhere quickly, and instead they start asking your husband about their day? Oh, is that just me? Bummer.

Is staying at home what I thought it would be? For the most part, yes. I didn't think that my days would be glamorous or easy to begin with. The days can be really long, especially when Chris is working late. I get tired of Eli and he gets tired of me. My days are filled with cooking, cleaning, errand running and Eli.

Am I going to go back to work? Without hesitation, yes. I will go back to work someday. That day, (right now) however will not come unless I have to, or all of our kiddos are in school. I love what I do. I worked hard to get my Master's degree and I have every intent to actually use it!

Do I still want to have a ton of kids? God-willing, yes! I still want my 4-5 kiddo family. I can’t wait for the day when I get to announce that we are expecting again!

How has it affected my relationship with Chris? It would be wrong of me to say that my staying at home hasn’t affected our relationship. We try very hard to grow together as our world around us changes so much...we just talked about that last night, as a matter of fact. Merging his work life and my stay-at-home life is diffcult at times. There are expectations that are different now that I stay at home, and rightly so. I am sure that it is hard for him to miss these moments with Eli, so I try to give them alone time too. I have just started taking over all of our money accounts, so that is helping me see where our money goes and what we can and cant afford.

Am I fulfilled? As a mom and a wife, yes, I am fulfilled- my husband is utterly amazing and Eli is just incredible. Yet, there is some part of me that wants to go volunteer in a Chinese orphanage or go on a mission trip for 3 weeks. I know that there is no way that can happen at this stage in my life, and I am looking forward to the day that it can happen.

Let me add that I am very grateful to have this opportunity. Very grateful. I know that there are mothers and fathers alike that would love to stay at home with their children. I also know that Chris and I make sacrifices for me to stay at home. Actually, this is all part of a big plan that we had when Chris quit his band directing career. We both knew that there were scary sacrifices that we had to make to make this opportunity happen and we did it. We still make sacrifices so that I can stay home…I know, I know, I am sure that all of you thought that Chris made a ton of money and everything was peaches and cream for us, right? We are, very, very blessed, but I think that you would be surprised to know just how much the average lawyer makes these days. We budget, watch our spending, and save like crazy. We say “no” to a lot of “wants”. We all make choices, I guess.

Some days I feel like I am wasting time. I want to have all of our children, get them in school and get back into my career. Then there are other days when I am sorting though Eli’s baby clothes and I can’t believe how fast this all has gone by.

Does this post seem a little bitter or negative?
I don’t mean for it to. I am just honestly telling how I feel. I know that I could apply for a job today and go back to work and Chris would support me either way and Eli would do just fine in daycare.

There are these moments that I stick around for, these moments that take my breath away and make me wonder what I could have done to deserve this amazing gift. The moments when Eli runs to me with the biggest smile on his face holding his favorite book trying to climb in my lap so that I can read to him, or when he is so proud of himself for learning something new. The way he just beams when I go into his room to see if he is up from his nap…I would hate to have those moments taken away all because I wanted to go back to work a few years earlier.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Done & Done

I have been working on a few projects recently.

First, here is Eli's Easter outfit that I made from a $2.00 shirt from Walmart and an old, donated shirt from Eli's uncle Baff.

It is really hard for me to spend $20.00 on an outfit for Eli...and many of the things I looked at were way over that amount. So, I got creative. I know that the time will come when we will have to buy him expensive clothes, but I am going to try to hold out for as long as I can. Really, he would only wear it once anyway, right?

He wanted to show off his new outfit and his stellar riding skills.

Really, it wasn't that hard. I only know a tiny bit about sewing and it didn't take me long to do at all...maybe 15 min for the top and an hour for the shorts. I sure hope that it is sunny outside for Easter! :)

This weekend we are making a trip over to Norman. I am so excited. My parents are going to see Mel Tillis in concert and Chris and I got a shower invitation for the same weekend- so, of course we had to go!

I decided that this was a special occasion. The shower is for my old band director and his wife; they are expecting twin boys in June! How awesome is that...well, I think it is awesome because I am a twin! :D

Anyway, I decided to pull out the big guns and make them a diaper cake. It was so fun and easier than the last one that I made. Click here to see it! Funny, both of the mommies-to-be are named Jacey...or Jace, either way it is still funny.

 Matt and Jace are decorating the room with a little builder theme, so I stuck to that for the cake. I hope they love it! My parents went in on the gift with me, so here is a quick shout out to my mom for sewing the top two blankets! There are 5 blankets total, two trucks, two keys, two rattles and a case of links, and just over 150 diapers inside. Another shout out goes to my friends from OK that came down last week. They helped me do the most tedious part- rolling all the diapers. Thanks, ladies!


Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

VISITORS!

No words can express how excited I was to have my OU gals come and visit. I have missed them so much and it was so fun to catch up! These girls were my rocks through grad school; in all but one of my classes one if not all of these ladies were there. I remember how we all bonded too...it was over a 30 or 40...(it seemed like 100) page mid-term admin project. I remember sitting at our kitchen table with these ladies going over every last detail of that assignment and book-Until Proven Innocent. After that torture, I knew we would be friends for life- ha!

These ladies are not like me...they are all from huge cities...I am from the sticks. :D That is okay, I know they love me for it.
So, what did I take them to do? Well, we had to go spray paint some Cadillacs, of course!







We had a good time...



From left: Karen, me, Darcy & Jess












Chris even channeled his "inner-gansta"!









We couldn't leave the little man out!






When we got back to the house, Eli got to open birthday gifts that the gals brought down!








Eli is having a blast with all of his new toys! Thanks, ladies!

Saturday night we went out to show these Okies what real Mexican food taste like- well, Tex-Mex anyway. After a late night of Mexican Train, learning how to make gummy bears fat, and CatchPhrase, we headed to bed.

Then next morning, Chris, Eli and I took everyone to breakfast before they headed back home.


Thank you, ladies for coming to visit! I had a blast! It was so good to see you!

Friday, March 12, 2010

14 months

I have to say, this might have been the best month with Eli yet. It was just so amazing this month; I felt like every time I turned around Eli was learning something new. It was so rewarding and fulfilling to see all of our hard work paying off.

I can really tell that he understands what I am saying. He will point to a banana, say "nana" and smile when I pick it up and give it to him. He takes the remote from the living room to the solar system in his room and points that he wants it to start (We thought that the solar system was broken, but our clever little boy showed us that the TV remote turned it on). When I ask him to get his ball from all his other toys, he will go across the room to get it. When we are reading his books, I point to a pair of shoes and ask him where they go, he will grab his feet. He knows where my nose is and where his nose is...the list grows every day. He was starting this all about a month and a half ago, but this month you can really tell that those connections are there and more consistent.

Last week we walked all around Walmart saying all of our words and saying "hi" to everyone we passed. My heart was overflowing! We walked passed the bananas and he pointed and said "nana". I was so proud of him. I need those moments to keep me focused while I am with him at home; it can seem that I am so useless and unimportant sometimes staying at home, but milestones like this help.

He has also started climbing on everything! It is a little nerve-racking, but I know it is all part of exploring and growing. He is so proud of himself when he gets up on whatever it is...it is adorable!

The best moments right now are when he wants to read his books. We have a few paper books on a shelf in his room. When I ask him if he wants to read his books he gets a huge smile on his face, drops whatever he is doing at that moment, runs into his room and points up to that shelf. I get down his two favorites, let him pick one and go sit down. He brings the book to me with the biggest smile on is face and then tries to climb up in my lap...awww...I hope moments like these last a long time!

Here is a picture of what I found when I came around the corner one morning last week...he was so proud; I had to snap a picture before helping him down.

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Surprise!

I don't know if Chris can ever top my 25th birthday, but he came really close this year.

While we were driving home from Lubbock, he suggested that we go out to eat when we got back into town. I was really tired and just wanted to go home, but I agreed thinking that we would just have to cook something when we got home anyway.

As we got closer to town, he suggested that we go let the dogs out and then head to the restaurant. I told him that if we did that we wouldn't make it to the restaurant before they closed. He kept making excuses to go to the house and honestly I was getting a little annoyed, but I said that we could stop by the house.

I pulled up to the house and he raced inside to use the bathroom- the excuse that I finally gave into and let him go by the house.
All of the sudden he comes running out of the house saying that our dogs had thrown-up all over our house. Immediately I knew something was up. Our dogs have never done anything like that. I got out of the car and as I turned the corner in the kitchen everyone yelled "surprise!"

I have to say I was shocked. I might be a bit of a prier; I often interrogate people until I squeeze every bit of information out of them. It is hard for Chris to ever really surprise me, but I was totally in the dark on this one.

This little guy was so, so awesome! We pushed and pushed him that day. He only got a little nap and I was just waiting for a huge meltdown, but it never happened.



The Raths came! I was super excited! They had to leave early, so we snapped this picture. Look at Kayla, isn't she the cutest little pregnant lady?!?!


Here is everyone, minus the Raths



Oh, yeah, he is good.


Chris planned a Mardi Gras theme for the party. We had a Creole dinner and then cake. Here I am with my King Cake and Abbi...she helped me blow out the candles.




Morg found the baby! She will have good luck for the entire year!


When you are the birthday girl, you can pretty much get away with whatever you want.
I made all of the ladies put on a mask and take a picture with me...








And we had to get a mask on Chris and Eli!








What a fun party. Thank you to everyone who helped pull it off!
Chris, you are amazing- thank you for making me feel so special.