A Thousand Words Thursday

November, 2005 - One of Chad and Noah's many nature walks. Much exploration and many questions.

For more info about A Thousand Words Thursday go check out Jen at Cheaper than Therapy.

Ramblings....

Last night I went to church to start a new bible study. It was Beth Moore's latest study, "Esther, It's Tough Being a Woman." All I have to say is "Oh my goodness!" This will be the 7th Beth Moore bible study that I have taken and I have never, never started the homework the day after I got the book, but this morning, I awoke at 5:30 am, and fixed some coffee and sat down to begin my journey with Miss Beth and Esther. Let me just tell you, God showed up too! For quite sometime, I have been going through a tough season in my life. I have been questioning so many things. But today in the stillness of the morning, God spoke words of hope to my heart. Hope that this season of hurt, trial, and spiritual dryness, is soon coming to an end. And boy am I ready! I am eager to see what He has in store for me, ready to go where He calls me, and needing Him to transform me. To those of you who read this blog and have never taken one of Beth's studies, I urge you to do so, she is amazing. God is using her to better His kingdom!

On an entirely different note, if you are reading this blog for the 1st time or have been here many times, let me know, please leave me a comment! I would love to hear from you!

My Hubby Rocks.

Tonight we had a parents meeting at Noah's school, which resulted in us getting home late and to top it all off, the meat that I needed for dinner did not get thawed out, so I decided to cook one of the freezer meals that had been thawing out in the fridge. It did not turn out well, it was nasty, so I had a salad, Chad and the boys had leftovers. Fast forward 2 hours, we are watching my new favorite show, Chopped, on Food Network, someone mentions pancakes and I am instantly ravenously hungry for pancakes. I mention this to my darling hubby, and low and behold.......ahhhhh......pancakes........me sooooooo happy!

I love that man! He makes the best pancakes!

Our newest family member.

I am a bad blogger! It has been a long time since I posted, but in my defense I had a baby 2 weeks ago and have been a little preoccupied! Nevertheless, I need to share our story and pictures of my precious little princess with all my blog buddies!

Things did not go as I planned.

I was scheduled to go into the hospital on Dec 29^th, at 4pm to have a planned C-section. I was instructed that I couldn’t eat anything that day after 8 am, so Chad and I planned on getting up at 6am and going out for breakfast to one of our favorite little pancakes places, while my mom and dad stayed home with the kids. We had our family Christmas the day before and had stayed up really late playing UNO Attack with Noah and the grandparents, so I wasn’t fully packed, but I figured I would finish that morning, since we didn’t have to be at the hospital until 2pm. I was having a very hard time sleeping; I kept getting up, going to the bathroom, tossing and turning, checking the clock to see if it was close to pancake time! At 4am I felt a familiar pain, and I hit my husband, and got our of bed, and then “whoooosh” my water broke. Ok, so things were not going the way I had hoped. You see when I had Noah I was so into birth, I labored for a long time, but I was prepared for it, then when Benjamin came around, his C-section was planned, we went in and I never labored or anything. So, when my water broke this time, I was none too pleased, not because I am a big baby or anything like that, I just like to be prepared, and I WAS NOT PREPARED TO HAVE CONTRACTIONS! So, it took about 15 minutes for them to start coming regularly, I tried to remember back 7 years ago when I took Lamaze, I remembered something about breathing, while my husband is snapping a thousand pictures! He was no help at all; every time I needed a hand to squeeze he was taking a picture, seriously!

We got the hospital and they wheeled me in and Ella Noelle Graber was born at 6:15am, she weighed 7lbs 14 oz, and was the prettiest thing ever! With very fat cheeks, I’m afraid she got those from me. I am praying that she doesn’t inherit my big boobs! I wouldn’t wish those on anyone!

We are all home now, I am still recovering, slowly, but doing ok. Ella is beautiful. I am so amazingly blessed. God is such an awesome God, I can’t believe He picked me to be the mom of such precious kids! I never knew how much fun it would be to have a little girl, I never knew I liked pink this much! I feel like I am a little kid again playing with my dolls, except this doll is by far the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!

By the way, my husband was really wonderful, he does take a lot of pictures, which at the time; I was not amusing to me, but I was very thankful for them once it was all over! He is a wonderful man, and is so in love with our little princess!

Ella Noelle Graber right after she was born.With mommy and daddy for the first time!

My little angels. Benjamin and Noah both love her so much already!
We put her in this precious dress for her pictures at the hospital. I guess by her hand gestures, she doesn't think it is as fabulous as I do!
Ella with her daddy, although you can't see him!

What a perfect day!

Today started out with Benjamin letting us sleep until 8:20! It was wonderful! We woke up, had some coffee, watched the Today show and waited for Noah to get home so the Christmas festivities could start. Once Noah got home we opened gifts, the kids had a blast! This year was scaled back compared to most years, but we got the kids things they really wanted and it was so much fun to see their faces! I love giving gifts, it is my love language and I love the feeling I get when someone is so excited that they just shriek in glee! There were lots of gleeful giggles in my house today and it was music to my ears.

My favorite thing today was being with my husband and boys for the whole day, playing with their new toys, eating homemade doughnuts, and just relaxing and laughing with each other. This is only the second time in my life that I have not spent Christmas Day at my parents house, and even though I am sad that I missed that tradition, it was such a precious gift to me to be here in my own home, with my sweet family on Christmas Day!

My second favorite part of the day was because of these little beauties!
These are the best things ever!!!!! Oh my gosh, they are the coziest cutest slippers I have ever owned! Chad bought them for me at Bath and Body and I love them so much! Aren't they precious? They make my heart so happy and my feet too! Although, my disgusting pregnant feet and legs are so swollen, so its a good thing these sweet little lambies cover up my swollen hippo feet.

Noah received a set of golf clubs and a bag from Santa, he has been carrying them around the house all day. Poor kid, we live in Kansas and he won't get to use them outside for quite sometime, its killing him.

Well, we are off to see a movie and then to drive around looking at Christmas lights! Everyone have a wonderful Christmas night!

Prayer group

For the past 3 1/2 years I have been honored to be a part of the best prayer group ever! God picked us to be together at a Women's Retreat almost four years ago and we have been meeting every month for at least 4 hours each time since then. God is so amazing in the way He has put the 5 of us together and how we have been there for each other, praying, listening, laughing and of course eating! This year we had our Christmas at our sweet Tonya's. She made us her fabulous potato soup and also the Amish Friendship Bread showed up, which was really good, it made me sad that my started didn't work out. I digress. Anyway, Tonya was an awesome host and we had a wonderful time. I love being around these girls, they are such a fun bunch and we are all so different, we each bring something unique to the group.

Here we are. Tonya, Jean, Me, and Marcy, our sweet Cindy is taking the picture, it would have been nice to get us all together, but we were too hungry to try to figure out the timer thing on my camera!

We all draw names to decided who buys who a gift. Jean is our practical girl and is not into the whole "presentation" of a gift. You need to read her blog to fully appreciate this statement. Its hilarious. Anyway, here she is trying to put some last minute touches on Marcy's gift while Marcy is in the bathroom!This is Marcy, and she is the sweetest thing ever! Jean bought her this super cute scarf and some precios votive holders.

Tonya had Jean's name and made her an awesome plaque with Jean's last name and some other great words describing her and her family, it was very cool. She also gave her a gift certificate to have one of our friends who cleans come clean her house. What a great gift!

This is Tonya. Isn't she cute, I just love her! Cindy got her some great photo coasters and in each one was a gift card to some of Tonya's favorite places. What a awesome gift!
This is our darling Cindy. I love this girl, I had her name and I love buying Cindy gift, gift giving and receiving gifts is Cindy and I's love language, so it is twice the fun buying for her! I got her some custom made coffee, a snowman mug, some cozy socks, and a reed difuser.

Marcy had my name and bought me a beautiful red calble knit sweater, I am so sad I can't wear it yet, the baby has to come out first!!!!

So, those are some of the most precious women I know, I love them all like they were my own flesh and blood sisters. Thank you Jesus for blessing my life with them! Merry Christmas Girls!

Why I'm Not Amish

Ten days ago my wonderful friend Tonya brought me a starter for some Amish Friendship bread. It is this very cool thing where a friend who loves you brings you this bag filled with this yeasty gooey mixture and a page of instructions telling you what to do to the bag of stuff everyday. Mind you, the instructions are carefully written out for each day. Most people could follow along with ease. Not me.

The intriguing thing is, apparently the Amish are the only ones who know how to make the starter from scratch. Per the instructions you are supposed to end up with 4 more starters and enough batter to make 2 loaves of bread once you correctly follow the instructions. If you give all the starters away, you can't make the bread again until someone loves you enough to give you another one.

Well, let's just say I would not cut it as an Amish woman. I managed to follow the instructions the first 5 days. They were really hard, I had to mash the bag. I had that down. Even though I kept having to ask Chad what day I was on. Then came day 6, on day 6 you get to add stuff to the bag! But I read day ten instead and added too much of the stuff, but it still wasn't ruined. I decided to keep mashing the bag and then on day 10 I would add the stuff that I was supposed to add on day 6 and all would be saved, right? Wrong.

Day 10 came and day 10 went, and I did not add the stuff. So, basically my Amish friendship bread is trashed. I will never be Amish, I just don't have what it takes.

I hope this only attests to how poopy my memory is, not my ability to be a good friend, because I am a pretty good friend, just not a good Amish woman. Thanks anyway for thinking of me Tonya, love you sister! Maybe I can come over and taste your bread since mine was not meant to be!