The Week Between

We were home for only about three weeks from Thanksgiving until nearly Valentine's Day, whew!  Life on the road has its challenges but is not without its own joys, as well. Hopefully I'll get to sharing more trip pictures soon, because there are some precious memories there! For now, though, since it's February it does seem to be about time I scribbled down some goals for 2015 (in no particular order), sprinkling in some updates about the week we spent at home post-Christmas for good measure. 

(We watched these cuties so their parents could enjoy a date night!)

House goals:

- Clear pictures from under the guest bed and make a gallery wall

- Give the guest room a face lift in preparation to become the big girl room

- Chalkboard and plate rack in the kitchen

(Ruthie had her first day of Sunday School, and loved every minute :))

Personal goals:

- Expand my Biblical literacy by keeping up with an in-depth personal Bible study all year

- Reread Pilgrim's Progress and/or read John Adams

- Workout at least 4 times per week

- Blog a bit more than last year, about once per week

(Our friends watched our little ones and we enjoyed a fancy dinner out.)

Goals for my children:

- Research more educational theorists, especially Charlotte Mason

- Continue last year's goals of daily reading and outdoor play

- Make time to play with my children more and involve them in my work more

(Ruthie and Gemma had their 2 and 4 year old checkups.  Gemma got her kindergarten shots and didn't even cry!)

(John got to see his PhD project live at our local Museum of Life and Science!)

(And there was lots of this kind of thing.  :))

You might think you could accomplish most of my year-long goals in a month, and you might be very right about that.  :)  However, I find that making small goals helps organize me with discouraging me.  

Here's to another year with my precious little family, and another year walking hand-in-hand with the Lord Jesus.  "The Lord knows how to order things better than I. The Lord sees further than I do; I only see things at present but the Lord sees a great while from now." --Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

"O" is still for Overalls

It's been two years since I wrote that sweet little "'O' is for Overalls" post about Gemma.  Two very fast, full years!

Today, Ruth was wearing the same outfit (and she's just about the same age!), so I brought the camera along with me while I was hanging clothes on the line to take a few fall shots.  

The mums are the same, and my rosemary and thyme are much bigger!  Two years ago, I had some basil which was just about done.  I haven't had any since, and I miss it!  But I do have some tomatoes in--just recently resprouted some and replanted them.  The new plants seem happy; we'll see how they do!  

So much less hair . . . and still uses a pacifier.  I'd forgotten that Gemma gave hers up by this time (sort of accidentally--we lost it, and then she wouldn't take one anymore).

She's such a little darling, though!  She's just starting to crawl up on her knees, and pulling up a bit, too.  She loves to stand.  :)  She blows raspberries and babbles a lot.

Big sister, reminiscent of the struggles we had with naps at 10 months, is not napping anymore.  But she IS singing nursery rhymes, as much as she sings!  She loves pretending--she'll nurse a wad of pine straw or her toothbrush to sleep and have her markers go potty.  She finally named one of her babies Cinthia Baby!  And she thinks that "Winnie the Pooh" is "Winnie OF the Pooh."  :)

It's good for me to pause and reflect on these precious moments, because we do find discipline and potty-training very draining much of the time.  Ruth mostly sleeps better than Gemma did at this age, and I think part of it is because we've learned more since then, both through experience and reading.  Hopefully it will be the same the second time around with the disciplining and pottying.  I read a quotation by Elisabeth Elliot today which was very encouraging in this respect.  She said, "Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process." 

It's easy to pinpoint the most painful episodes of suffering in our experience--a breakup, loss of a baby, bike accident and burglary were some of the hardest things I've been through.  I think others can relate to the nagging question "What is God going to test me with next?"  I've been thinking lately that maybe this isn't the best approach to have toward suffering.  Yes, more tough times will probably come, but that doesn't mean that I should pull up my bootstraps and toughen my heart so that I won't ever hurt like that again.  The suffering we Christians go through is to make us more like Jesus.

I've also been thinking about how the sanctifying work of "suffering" doesn't always present itself in the form of a painful episode.  Sometimes it's just about persevering through another semester with a tough professor, another year with a challenging class of students, another sleepless night with sick children, yet another accident on the rug.  We pray and hopefully learn our lessons along the way, instead of just reflecting back upon them after the trouble is over.  While parenting really isn't suffering (it's mostly joy!), it is sanctifying.  We cannot demand that God make it easy for us just because He loves us, since He is teaching us through the struggles.  He is with us in our storms, and He is also with us when it's just cloudy and depressing for weeks.

I digress.

Happy Fall.  :)

Seven months old

Poor Ruthie! This post was sitting in my draft folder and originally titled "Six months old." Already getting second-child treatment...

How well Ruth Caroline fits in with our little family! The thought of caring for two children in addition to my husband and home was a bit sobering at first, but now we can't imagine life without her. 

Oh, my precious blue-eyed Ruth! I'm glad the screaming days are over--that you can be happy playing on the floor for a bit, that mommy taking a shower no longer warrants an official complaint session to the powers that be. But I loved all our hours of cuddling while nursing, in the Moby wrap, with books...you're getting so big now! 

At your six month appointment, you were in the 75th percentile all around for height, weight and head size, weighing in around 16 pounds. And you must have had a growth spurt because now, clothed, you weigh about 18 and a half pounds!

I never understood the significance of measuring head size until that sobering one-month appointment when the pediatrician asked us if prominent eyes ran in our family, then sent us off to an opthamologist, who sent us off to a surgeon, who sent us off for X-rays and an MRI. You got your taste of the medical system quite young for one so healthy, baby Ruth...and we praise our Father that we seem to be at the end of that story with no further testing or treatment needed.

You're rolling and sitting up so well these days! You can sit unsupported for quite a few minutes, and half the time transition back to your tummy with no trouble. I think you'll walk sooner than your sister did at 15 months, because you already like practicing standing and jumping in an exer-saucer. You're not quite crawling yet, but I'm in no hurry to have you grow up, sweetheart!

We decided to take a more traditional approach to solids this time, and your first food was organic baby oatmeal mixed with some of mommy's milk. For the first month, neither carrots, peaches, bananas, avocado or cereal were very interesting to you, but we had a breakthrough with green beans recently, and I think you're finally really ready for food.  And we're still doing a bit of baby-led weaning, too...

You're starting to clap your hands, too, Ruthie! I suspect you may be more keen on sign language than sister was. But she definitely had you beat for hair.... 

What a blessing you are to us, precious one.

Business trip, Ikea trip

When my sweetheart told me that business was going to take him to Charlotte for a few days and that we could all come along, I was excited! There's an Ikea in Charlotte! And maybe we would stay at a hotel with a pool, and I could take the babies swimming!

We got up bright and early on a Tuesday morning and loaded the little ones into their carseats in their jammies. A few hours later, we dropped John off at his work site and stopped at a McDonald's to get some breakfast and regroup. (Their oatmeal is pretty good!) Getting two ornery girlies out of the car, into the restaurant, changed, dressed, and fed (and, of course, someone also wanted to use the potty like mommy!) was admittedly a challenge. But soon the phone GPS was guiding us to Ikea, which was only a few minutes away!

Lately it seems like I get to visit an Ikea store about once a year. When we drove around Europe in September, it seemed like we passed one almost as frequently as we pass Walmart here! It was crazy! We didn't stop at any because we had very limited room in our bags and a loose schedule to keep, but it certainly was enlightening!

Walking into Ikea can be kind of magical, can't it? I had a short list of things to look for and decided to start downstairs to get the little things out of the way before my big girl became too overwhelmed and tired. This turned out to be a good strategy, since she didn't seem to realize it was any different from an ordinary store until we went upstairs...

Someone liked this bed a lot!  She was also happily occupied with the play-kitchens while I picked out some neat toys to save for Christmas.

I didn't realize until we got there that Tuesday is kids-eat-free-day! Gemma got her own plate of macaroni and cheese and steamed veggies for free while I enjoyed mushroom crepes and a cream cake. And Ruthie obligingly slept in the cart...

It wasn't all roses, though! Ruthie woke up soon enough, and I regretted having left my carrier in the car. Gemma was a bit too distracted by spilling her milk bottle everywhere to eat much (though this nursing mom was happy to finish her food!). They didn't have the duvet I had been eyeing online in the size we needed, and then somebody REALLY didn't want to leave this little "room"...

"She loves it! You have to get it for her!" said a lady passing by. Ahem, thanks... But I was almost as sad as Gemma to leave behind this lovely head and footboard which would certainly not fit into our Honda Civic....

Friends, it was $19! That's practically garage-sale pricing, or better! I also loved this patio set...

I texted the picture to John, and it might have fit into our car, but he advised me to wait this time. Finally, I wheeled two sleepy girls through the checkout line, discovering that the bathroom stool had fallen out of the cart somewhere along the way. Sad. And apparently the cute receiving blankets I found were for display only, and the lady at the desk couldn't sell them to me. Well.

We finished and found the hotel after getting permission over the phone for an early check-in. Both girlies fell asleep in the car...I carried Ruthie up to our room, gently placed her on the bed hedged in by pillows, and ran back to the car for Gemma. Up up up the elevator...and the key didn't work! Back down to the desk with Gemma over my shoulder to have it fixed. Back up the elevator, it worked this time, and I gently placed Gemma on the other bed. But the spell was broken and she awoke. Little sister soon followed suit. 

But the good news was that the hotel DID have a pool!  After a quick run to Walmart for a floatie vest for Gemma, the three of us suited up and headed down. The water smelled heavily of chlorine, but was lovely. Though big sister was too shy to venture in, Baby Ruth thoroughly enjoyed being bobbed around for a while!   And afterward, when I laid Ruthie on a lounge chair to dry off Gemma's feet and remove her vest, Gemma ran over, bent down to Ruthie and sweetly smiled in her face...

It was a day full of challenges, but very fun challenges for the most part. Soon we heard from John, got back into dry clothes and drove to pick him up for a yummy dinner at Macaroni Grill. :)

Ruthie screamed a lot that night.

And the next morning, after we ate breakfast and dropped John off again, we went back to Ikea for the bathroom stool. :) We passed the rest of the morning finding shorts and socks for John at Marshall's and eating lunch and playing at Chick-Fil-A. 

Gemma DID nap on the drive home that afternoon. And that is the end of the story of our annual Ikea trip. :)

Monday Recently

How quickly the Mondays fly by! I've had this little post in mind for weeks...

It was a Monday recently when the gloriously beautiful weather drove us outside. And while someone was doing this: 

And someone else was doing this:

I trimmed the wild-looking vine which grows against the fence and finally mustered up the courage to cut back our rose bush. It looks much healthier now!

Just for fun, I twisted up the long pieces of vine,

And hung them beside the front door.

And the sprigs of green I trimmed off the rise found their way to the kitchen windows. :)

That's almost it for the gardening this year! I have to keep things small--I am not a green thumb by nature. I must have missed that gene! But some friends have us their leftover tomato plants, so I put those in. And I actually did a bit of an experiment inspired by something I saw on Pinterest! Each plant has a whole raw egg under its roots. I cracked the egg under the first of the four, and it's presently thriving the most. Perhaps we'll have some tomatoes this year!