Hmmmmmm,

I just realized that for some people babies come early. I don't expect this to be the case for me, but it is possible. So I just wanted to post and let you know I am still here and still pregnant, just quite busy with other things at the moment. Didn't want anyone to think I'd had a babe and forgot to tell you all!

Hand Me Downs

This past weekend the girls were given a huge bag of the. most. adorable. clothes ever. All of the clothes are for winter and I am so excited about them. A bunch of cute dresses, a zillion zip ups, socks galore and the cutest jeans I have ever seen. I've been enjoying choosing what to put the girls in and am really hoping to keep them in as good condition as I received them so I can pass them along to another.

Isabella also found the sweetest treasure in the bag- rain boots. She has begun this trend of not wearing any pants after her quiet time in the afternoon, she just decides she's done with them for the day. She must, however, wear these rain boots. Yesterday it actually rained here and she got to wear them outside, Isabella is officially the luckiest girl in the world.

Brooklyn is loving the new clothes as all of hers were getting a tad bit tight and I hadn't dug out what Isabella had outgrown just yet. It's good to have pants that go all the way to your ankles, especially when you are now walking and so people notice when your pants are too short!

You read right, Brooklyn is on the move. She's taking up to five steps at a time right now and hates to be sitting. She must stand all. the. time. It's exciting but she's already been so active, I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with her. Isabella is going to have to start watching out too because Brooklyn doesn't let anything stand in her way!

There were a couple questions after my last post, and so I don't forget to answer them:

Yes I did make the banner myself. I took the picture way back in July and finally got it done. Yay for photo editing programs!

RMAOH= Random Moments At Our House

Happy Hump Day to all, and GO SOX GO!!!

I spent the better part of last week with a "pinched" sciatic nerve. I don't know if you can actually pinch that nerve, but it's just an expression of the pain I was in. While laying on the couch trying to massage it/heat it/rest it/treat with Tylenol my house fell into absolute mayhem.

Yesterday while the girls were down for the afternoon nap/quiet time I spent the better part of two hours rescuing my pantry. I'm sure it's been in disarray for a bit longer than just last week, but I sure didn't notice it until then. Isabella often goes into the storage closet on her own to get apple juice or a snack. She went in this week and I had to rescue her!

After my cleaning and organizing was all done I felt pretty good about it. Upon Nick's arrival home from work I learned the difference between 'clean' and 'tidy'. When you tidy, everyone notices. When you clean you're the only one who knows unless you point it out.

I was super glad to discover that I hadn't bought any groceries we didn't need. Unfortunately I didn't find the VCR remote. I think it's time to give up hope on that one, it's swimming with the alligators.

Starting off Right.

For the last ten days or so I've been working on getting into a more organized and disciplined life. I have been going to bed earlier and getting up each day at 6:00am. My original motivation was that the next quarter at work is approaching busy season and so I should be getting some hours for the next month or so, (fingers crossed). After I started getting up the realization occurred to me that this is when I'll be feeding a little person in a short time, yikes!

I've been starting off my days with a bowl of hearty oatmeal. Yum. And a nice cup of tea. It fills me up splendidly right now and once I'm an all consuming breastfeeder it won't be hard to add some fruit to the mix for extra calories. I had totally forgotten how much I love a bowl of warm cereal in the morning. I sit here at my computer and do some blogging/message boarding/surfing while eating my breakfast in the quiet of the morning.

Since it's been ten days I've come to the realization that I do not read enough blogs to have new reading material each morning. I'm okay with that, but it leads me to my 'Question of the Week'. What other sorts of sites, (feel free to leave the addys), do you surf on a regular basis?

RMAOH

I think I can...........
Yes! But my breakfast is all the way down there.
A glimpse of the progress on the girls' room and a child's uncanny ability to fall asleep in any position other than with head on pillow and covered by a blanket.
Isabella's favorite part of laundry day- the empty hamper.

Going for a Jog.

Every now and then a program comes up that is really inspiring. Sometimes it focus' on a mental aspect, an interpersonal aspect, a spiritual aspect. Rarely does it focus on all of them at once. This fall our church launched a program that I think hits on all those areas and it really is inspiring.

The women at our church are the first to try the program, though the hope is for it to spread church wide and touch not only men and women but families as well. It surprisingly easy and hard at the same time and after only two weeks of being in the program I can already sense a change.

We've all been segmented into small groups; some were chosen and some were set up by the organizers. We've committed to read a certain passage of Ephesians five times a week and after reading it just sit and listen to God for a few minutes. Then journal, in just a sentence or two, what God said to us through the passage. The next week it's a different passage as we make our way through the whole book of Ephesians. Once a week we get together in our small groups and share. We share the blessings and challenges God has placed before us through that reading, and what He has been saying.

It's been such a neat experience already for me. To have joined up with three friends, whom I feel like I'm now really getting to know. Instead of just saying 'fine' when asked how we are, we now get to share what we're really thinking. Did we spend the week feeling encouraged by God's words? Did we yell at him and wrestle with what the words were speaking? Did we actually carve out five sessions of time to spend with God?

Such a cool thing to Jog with a friend. When they're out of breath and can only say what really matters. When they're sweaty with pit stains, but hey, so are you. When you all desperately need some water and you're refreshed together. When you're jogging up that hill and all you can do is groan because seriously this sucks, but at the end of the run you know you'll feel great.

Brooklyn

On Friday Brooklyn turned one and I have been trying to get technologically creative to put something awesome together to document her first year of life. I may still get the hang of it, but my talents lie more with actual paper and actual photos, so I'm afraid I would have had to have started her birthday slideshow the day she was born in order for it to be done. While not technologically advanced, I wanted to document something for her first birthday and we do have some really cute pictures of her party. My mommy brain seriously kicked in though and I didn't get a good shot of her eating her cake, (which she devoured in miliseconds), or of the cake itself before we cut into it. But it was another 3D bear, in keeping with family tradition.

Brooklyn has really startled me over the last month. It seemed that she thought Isabella was the best reality show ever and could watch her every minute of every day not needing to do anything to compete. In the last 30 days she has learned the actions to a few songs we regularly sing, learned to blow whistles, get to standing from sitting on the floor, initiate playing peek-a-boo, she laughs so heartily and this afternoon she even took her first steps! It's amazing to me how much she has learned in such a short span of time, not only over the last year but even in just the past few weeks. I worry so much about her missing out on being 'babyed' since the new baby will be so close in age to her, but time and time again she has proven her strength- both physical and mental. I know she'll shine in a middle sibling role.

For her birthday we went to Andrews Scenic Acres with some friends. When we made the plans it was significantly warmer than when we went, but our friends stuck it out with us and I think had a pleasant time. Then we came back to our house for pizza and cake, some hanging out and once the kids were in bed the girls managed to kick butt at some Wii.





Thanks so everyone who came out for the party. Even though it was cold, and it's hard to keep little ones entertained in the evening. Thanks to everyone for giving of your time to come hang out and celebrate Brooklyn, we greatly appreciate it.

Cyclical

Well I would like to say thank you very much to everyone who left me a positive note after my last post. I didn't really do any blogging over the weekend trying to decide what to do about mrcds and the comments that are being left that I don't desire to pollute the blogosphere with. I have decided what to do, and I'm not going private.

I thought alot about why I blog and why I read blogs over the weekend. While there is the catching up and watching people's kids grow aspect; there is also something different that keeps me reading and writing. Just a few weeks ago I stumbled upon this blog and a post entitled "Surprise is not a big enough Word" while up in the middle of the night unable to sleep. I can't explain why but this post just put me at ease with so much guilt I had been carrying around. I don't want to sound full of myself, I do mean this with the utmost humility, but I write about my struggles on here and how I am working to overcome them quite honestly. I like to think, what if someone else facing a similar struggle can read these words and they can help? For that reason alone I wont go private.

However, since mrcds doesn't seem to feel the need to stop commenting I will be adding the comment moderator so I have to approve the comments before they show up. I'm not a fan of this option, but that's the way it's going to be because none of you great people should have to read this dribble.

I'm not sure if you may be saying to yourself "That's great Amanda, but how are you going to deal with the emotional smut still being put on you by mrcds as you'll still have to read their comments?" Well if you are, this is how I'm hoping to deal with that.

In the last comment posted by mrcds they stated: "Not to be mean but have you ever considered that I may be someone you know just trying to point you in a different direction. If I didn't care then I wouldn't comment. You do know me and I just can't face you and share the things I feel.". There are several options as to how I can react to this;

1. Do you really know me or are you trying to mess with my head by stating this?

2. If you do know me, do I consider you a friend? If I do consider you a friend then we need to have a coffee because friends don't treat friends like this. If you really do know me you'll know this is not the firs time I've stood up for what I believe in the face of opposing opinions. You know that I can handle talking to you in person.

3. If you do know me and we just 'know' each other then perhaps I can share a bit more with you. Maybe something about the language I use is a bit confusing to you as my intention in writing should not be for you to think any of those things you think.

So, mrcds, no one can see my comments left by you any longer. Let me know who you are and we can work out our differences, or at least part ways with a bit of closure.

Thanks again for all of the positive feedback, and especially to the first time commenters, I really appreciated it. I will be back in a few days once I'm not quite so fragile over these comments and back in my usual bloggin style!

How Spineless can you Be?

A while ago there was this anonymous blogger who used to leave comments on my blog of a very nasty variety. I tried to politely ignore said person and go about my way. I then decided I had had enough and blocked anonymous comments on my blog.

It turns out I am some kind of special and Anonymous could not leave me alone. In fact this person felt the need to hide behind a fake identity and leave another dispicable comment on my blog:

"Been a while, but I am thrilled to see that the thing you call belle is as ugly as I expected. You may want to apply to have her name changed to MUTT and while you're at it call the other one JEFF. I can only hope that your third creature is male, then it may have a fighting chance of making something of his life instead of the miserable poverty and deprivation the other 2 things are going to have.Do the world a favor and get yourself fixed thus bringing no more misery and ugliness into this world."

I am baffled as to why my blog calls this kind of attention. I am baffled while others dealing with surprise pregnancies, loss of employment, sudden changes in life, etc etc get all kinds of kind prayers and comments and I get this?! And I don't even get the respect of knowing who wrote this crap, they have to hide behind an anonymous nom de plume. It's just about enough to end this blog train I tell ya. Quite enough.

When the think-tank is empty.

Another week come and gone brings us one week closer to the arrival of our newest addition. We're working on getting the bedrooms ready and seeing as we just did this about a year ago we have the essentials on hand already. It's time to start contemplating a name.

Nick has chosen a boy name that he loves, and I like it. It doesn't send shivers down my spine, but neither did Isabella's name, until I met her. So I guess we have the boy side of things taken care of.

There is potential for another girl and so I must consider those options as well, except I can't think of any! For me how a name sounds is just about as important as what it means as you can see from the other names we've chosen.

I've been trying to think of what meaning goes best with this babe's life thus far. I tried looking at online baby name finders, but that was rather difficult. I think the phrase I would use to sum up what I want the baby's name to mean is 'a change of perspective'. I wonder where that search will take me.