take a moment

We have been in our new house for about a month and a half.  My, what a crazy month and a half!  First, we closed on the house and moved our furniture in.  What a blessing to have so many people help with that!

The next week, I had dental surgery.   I had a dental implant put in, and that went well.  We’ll see if it is doing well when I go in for a checkup soon.  Then I have to have another minor surgery in about 6 weeks after that checkup.  Then after that heals, I’ll finally get a crown put in.  It has been a long year and a half of wearing this retainer!

Then, the flood hit.  My, oh my, did this disrupt the already crazy month!  Thankfully we were not in the path of the water, so Dan spent lots of time away helping where he could.  I helped sandbag for one night, and it was exhausting!  It made me appreciate being the one who “had” to stay home with the kids, while my super hero husband served and served and served.  I did the best I could to prepare for loss of electricity/water, but thank God it never came to that.  The flood caused Dan’s workload to go up quite a bit at work to help area businesses, so he was exhausted pretty much 24/7 (I use past tense, but really the heavy workload continues!).

We traveled the week of the 23rd-29th.  First the pastors and wives conference in Osage Beach, Mo.  It was a refreshing time and sort of like a little vacation.  We went swimming quite a bit, and Jake fell in love with the water slide.  He made Dan go down with him about 50 times in a row!  And by the end, he was even willing to go under the water a little at the bottom of the slide.  Then we spent the weekend at Dan’s family cabin.  The four of us stayed in a tent.  Following the advice of Dana Cramer, we made a make-shift crib for Evie with a mat and a luggage-border.  The kids did really well.  Evie only woke up once during one of the nights, but she was able to go back to sleep fairly quickly.  Praise God for things turning out much better than expected!

Oh, and in between those two travels, we came home for about 20 hours.  In that time (ahem, 3 in the morning until 7), I got to be in the delivery room when Leah had little Johnny!  What an exciting morning!

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, our dear friend Brittney Mann passed away after a long battle with cancer.  She was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul, and she will be dearly missed.  We attended her funeral with our 2 kids in tow plus Belle, so I somewhat feel like I haven’t completely gotten the chance to mourn.  I am sure it will be a long process though.

Now we are back, mostly recovered from the month of chaos, and trying to get things done on the house that we haven’t had time for.  Decorating… well, it is not my specialty… so that is going to be a long process!

Evie started walking yesterday!  She has been taking a couple steps here and there for the past few weeks, but yesterday she initiated the walking, and though it was only a few steps at a time, she kept trying.  She seemed to be completely uninterested in walking today, so we’ll see how long it will be until she really gets going.  She is also saying a couple more words.  “Mommy” has become a regular now, and then she recently added “doggie”.

I think that is all for the moment.  Praise God that we made it through the month in one piece, with no major mishaps.  I think I might have been holding my breath the whole time, b/c once July 1st hit, I breathed a deep sigh of relief!

My, how much life has happened since my last post! We were looking into moving closer to Hawkeye Court with the start of a new house church there. Thus we were also looking for someone to fill our place at the church house. A family of 10 needed a place to stay, and thus began the whirlwind of adventure of packing up our things in less than 2 weeks. Doesn’t sound too hard, until you add in a fussy baby (from teething and sickness), a 3-yr-old who wants desperately to play outside after a LONG winter, and a very busy husband! With the help of lots of friends (PTL for the church!), we got it all done in time! I knew only that we were going to live in the Abdo’s basement until we could find a home… but didn’t know if that would be for a week or a few months.

A few days before the move, we bought a house in the neighborhood where we were looking! It is a zero lot on Westwinds Drive that seems just perfect. It has 2 bedrooms upstairs, and then downstairs has a 2nd living room with a space to convert to a 3rd bedroom if we want in the future. The three things I am most looking forward to (that we have not yet had in our first three places) are a dishwasher, a fenced in backyard, and a deck! I am starting to get very excited!!

Tomorrow, Evie and I will begin the weaning process. We are starting her out on soy milk as she still does not tolerate cow’s milk in my diet. We have only 3 weeks and four days left until we leave the kids with Dan’s parents for our 5th year anniversary trip (to Garner!) I intended to start last week, but came down with mastitis after all of the craziness of moving. I am praying I don’t get it again during the weaning process! She is still waking at 5am for a feeding, so that will be interesting when that feeding gets dropped!

We love living with the Abdos! If we weren’t moving into such a great home, I’d just want to stay here if I could! It is great having so many arms to help hold Evie and play with Jakob.

Evie is just now getting more interested in walking while holding onto our hands. We’ll see how long it is before she wants to try to test things out on her own. She is getting her 7th and 8th teeth. She laughs a lot at her brother and when we tickle her.

Jake was sad to move from our house. He had lots of friends in the neighborhood that would daily come visit to play basketball, play on the playground, and play inside with him. However, he is having lots of fun now playing with his heroes, the Abdo boys. We know he’ll have no trouble making more friends when we move into our new place.

Last Monday Evie began to sleep through most of the night.  Thursday and Friday she had some trouble and I ended up feeding her, even though I tried not to.  Starting last night, we decided that if she woke up, we’d go in to make sure she was fine, but then she was on her own from there as far as going back to sleep.  Let me tell you, I am feeling like a million bucks these days!  I mean I knew sleep deprivation was affecting me, but man, it was affecting me!

She also got her third tooth on Saturday.  That may explain her getting up Thursday and Friday night.  I am assuming #4 will be coming through any day now as it seems that is the way things go for most babies.

She also learned how to do a few things this week.  The cutest is definitely the waving!  She gets very excited and waves to Daddy.  Which brings me to the next thing that we think she learned, which is to say “Dada!”  This occurs during her waving at Dan, and sounds a bit more like, “Dadadadadadadadada!”  She has also started signing “All Done,” and possibly even saying it too.  This one comes out as, “AhDah!”

This weekend Dan and I, and Evie, went to a marriage conference in the Amanas.  It was a very refreshing time for us, and challenged us in many ways.  While we were there, Jake went to play with his favorite friend Luke Hibbing.  He has now declared that his favorite color is orange (like Luke) and that he wants to grow up to be like Luke.  We’ll see if blue enters back into first place or not.

Speaking of blue… I am now driving a minivan.  Specifically a Nissan Quest, but it is blue.  Jake had requested we get a blue van, and Dan/God did not disappoint him!

Yesterday Evie got her first tooth!  No fussing, but definitely some drooling.

Also, Jakob declared this morning that he is baby Jesus and I am Mary.     He is currently having lots of fun playing with his early Christmas present from Dan and I… a castle with knights!

Getting ready to travel to Spencer for the weekend.  Then Ames over Christmas.  Then Osage Beach, MO for Faithwalkers.  Fun times!

Jake has been insisting on shutting the car doors himself. Unfortunately today he didn’t quite get a couple of his fingers out of the way in time! I am pretty sure they are fine as he can bend them okay and only cried for a few minutes.

In other kid news… we are attempting to let Evie cry it out after the last two nights she was up about 5 times during the night. Not a good time to switch to decaf is it? Maybe that is why I feel a little irritable! We just attempted at her nap. She really only cried for about 25 minutes. However, then she only slept for about 25 minutes. I nursed her and she is currently napping on the couch like usual. I guess it was a baby step in the right direction.

I wrote this a while back and forgot to publish it:

Due to Evie’s gassy nature, I tried to take out all dairy. It didn’t seem like it was all that effective, but when I went back to having it, her body told me otherwise! So, I am making another attempt to see if it helps. Rice milk is not all too tasty, but works fine for my cereal and coffee. Non-dairy creamer is saving my life (well, I guess it’s just saving my coffee). Cheese is very hard to avoid, but I try in most cases. Evie is still a happy baby for the most part. Although lately she has not taken much for naps. A good afternoon nap and then a couple cat naps are all she seems to really be interested in. I’d like to be able to get her used to taking naps in her crib. It has been difficult to do that while still being able to go do things with Jake. She naps a lot in her car seat, on the couch or on me.

Today I heard her first giggle. I was reading a rhyming book to Jake in a sing-song voice while looking at her. I can’t wait to see what other things amuse her enough to lol. She currently smiles more than any baby I’ve ever met. What a joy she is to my life!

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Originally uploaded by blessed_3.

Not sure exactly how to sum up the last nine weeks, but I suppose “crazy” will have to do. Evie is a sweet, beautiful girl. She is also a very gassy girl! Beyond the trials that come with that, she has been a dream baby. She often just sits for an hour at a time and watches her big brother play with no fussing at all. The only time she really seems to cry is when she has gas. She started smiling about 3 weeks ago, and that has made things pretty fun. Jake gives her kisses before bed and giggles a lot when we make her “talk.” We were blessed to have received many cute outfits for her, and I love to dress up my beauty queen.

It has been a rough adjustment to my new life. I am trying to get outside more now (although it is very hot!), and that seems to help me relax a bit. The house is slowly becoming more kept up, although I often feel overwhelmed with all of the cleaning projects I’d love to get to. Sleep is still pretty rough. It often takes hours to give her the last feeding of the day due to her gassiness. It is getting better, but not getting to bed until 11 or so is not that uncommon. I have been trying to get her to sleep in her crib, and it works sometimes. Then I’ll end up taking her into bed (versus the first six weeks of falling asleep with her nursing in the recliner.) I’d like to make it a goal to soon start putting her back in her crib after she eats a bit though, because my back it starting to suffer from not sleeping normally. Also, once she starts rolling, I fear she’ll roll off the bed. She often wakes at about 1:30 and 4:30, then again at around 6 or 6:30. The last few days though, it hasn’t been that often, so that has been nice.

So, overall things are looking up. I think I had some postpartum blues in the first few weeks (either from hormones or just life), but I feel mostly hopeful now. I have been reading one chapter in the Word a lot since she was born. Isaiah 30 has been what has kept me going, reminding me that God wants us to cry to Him for help, and He will be gracious to us and show us His way if we do.