Today

Today.

Today I became something that I was not.

I became Auntie Em.

Congratulations to my sister Jessi and her husband Nathan (who is already an amazing daddy! He had her tucked into his sweatshirt!) on their very first baby! A beautiful baby girl! I wasn't able to see my sister after the birth of the baby, it was late and she needed some serious rest after a very long labor and a c-section. Jessi was a trooper! She carried this sweet bundle of love for almost fourty two weeks!

Meet my very first niece.

Sweet baby Girl

Born November 19, 2009 at 8:55pm

8lbs 2oz 19 inches long

I am amazed by the love I feel for her!

Love

Love.

Him, I love.

High Hopes...

That's what I have: High Hopes.

Last month we found out that the house we have been renting for the past year and a half is going on the market in May and we will have to move. I don't have a problem with the moving part, Erik and I have moved seven times in the past nine years. Yes, I said seven times. But this time is different. We made a home here; our little ones played in the back yard and colored on the wall. We were home. This move will be different for me, I feel as though I am leaving a little behind. I'm afraid of where we are going.

I want a home of my own; I desire a place to put down roots. And the more I think about it, the more I know what I want. Want but cannot have. Buying a home is not in the cards for us right now, three kids on one income is hard. Trying to find that extra cash for a down payment is even harder. So here is our plan, here is where I am placing my high hopes. We plan on finding something small and cheap to snuggle into for a while so that we can save up for that lofty down payment. After that I have really high hopes.... this is what I hope for.

Ok, not that exactly. But I crave something in the country; a little space, a place to watch my little one play in puddles and search for bugs. A place where my family can be warm and safe. A place where we can listen to the birds in the morning and enjoy a cup of coffee on the front steps. I want to live simpler. I want to be home.

So here I sit, looking at ads for tiny rentals but I have high hopes that one day a place like this will be my home.

I have such high hopes.

What!?! Not My Husband!?! That This Even Allowed!?!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Oh has it been a week! Just one of those weeks. My family is patiently awaiting the arrival of my very first niece; I will FINALLY be an Auntie! I am SO excited. So this week has been one of those weeks because my sister is over a week late. The family has found different activities to occupy ourselves: puzzles, painting Christmas ornaments, talking about labor, eating wonderful food, crocheting, watching funny things on YouTube, etc, etc. On Friday my sweet and wonderful husband Erik kept the little ones home so that I could enjoy Mom's and Muffins day with Ben and then have a nice relaxing lunch with my sisters.... which brings us too...

NOT MY HUSBAND!!! MONDAY!!!

 

Holy cow! Has this been done before!?! I'm sure it has I just got a huge kick out of it.

So Friday, after lunch, I bring Ben home to find the little ones fresh from the bath tub, the kitchen cleaned and the twins lovies in the wash. What a productive few hours, I thought. I praised Erik for all that he had done; giving the twins a bath is no small feat! I asked him why they had a bath and he told me that they were sticky for honey they had a t lunch. Wow, he's awesome! We went on without day and into the weekend, me telling everyone how wonderful Erik was on Friday. On Saturday I go to throw a load of laundry in and find Liam's pajamas from Friday. They are stuck to me; seriously they stuck to me when I went to dig in the dirty clothes! Wow, I thought, they really did get sticky at lunch. Sunday morning rolls around and I find myself making the kiddos breakfast before we head to church. I go for a fork in the silverware drawer, it's sticky. I go for another. It's sticky too. The inside of the drawer is sticky. I start taking things out, sticky nasty things, and then I take out the silverware tray. There is a puddle of honey. A PUDDLE! A large sticky puddle of honey in the bottom of my silverware drawer. ERIK! So I ask, um honey? Oh yeah....

Me: So what's with the honey in the drawer?

E: Oh it spilled.

Me: When?

E: Friday...

Me: How?

E: Um they got into it... the twins...

Me: How?

E: I had to do something on the computer and they spilled it.

Me: So is THAT why they got a bath and the kitchen was clean and the lovies were washed?

E: Yep!

Me: Nice Erik...

So my wonderful husband most certainly did not leave our 2-year-old twins unsupervised long enough for them to take their little chairs from the living room to the kitchen and then climb up on said chairs, open the brand new container of honey and spill it everywhere. Nope not my husband!

How does he know?

How does he know? How is it that a child can be born knowing their birth order? How did L know that HE was the baby of the family, by a matter of seconds but the baby none the less? L is my baby. He is a whopping twenty-two pounds and a good two and a half inches shorter than his twin sister. He lives to be held and cuddled, loved on and snuggled. He is the baby of the family down to his little core.

He came to us a little over four pounds and although we knew he was small and struggling in the womb, we never expected him to be that small. The place he has taken in our family is anything but small. L, like my other children, has filled a void that I never realized was there. How did he know? How did he know that to deal with his strong willed sister, his mommy would need a baby that NEEDED her, that craved her attention while his sister craved her freedom? He is precious to me, precious to all that know him. That, I know he knows!

Meet my son, my baby L.

He is sweet and a joy to be near.

He can bring a smile to anyone.

He is beautiful and the love (as are all of them) of my life!

Meet my son

Liam James

How Great Thou Art

UPDATE:
Stellan is SVT free!!!
The surgery was a success and Stellan is now SVT free!
God is more awsome than we could ever imagine!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was raised in a small Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Worship consisted of a piano and a hymnal; I have never found worship so beautiful. Of course I didn't think that then but that's not the point. Now as an adult, whenever I find myself in fervent prayer, hymns take over my prayer and are lifted up to God. Today I am in fervent prayer for Stellan and His mom Jennifer. Stellan is in surgery right now, you can read more about him here:

So on this dark and rainy day, this is running through me, reminding me just how great HE is and all that HE can do.

 

How Great Thou Art

O Lord my God,

When I in awesome wonder

Consider all

The works Thy Hand hath made,

I see the stars,

I hear the mighty thunder,

Thy pow'r throughout

The universe displayed;

 

Then sings my soul,

My Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art!

How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul,

My Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art!

How great Thou art!

Because I love her

I adore all of my children, I adore them all for who they are and the special qualities that God has given them. But there is nothing like a daughter. Nothing. I look at my daughter and I see myself. I see her and I am reminded of beautiful childhood that I had. I look at her and I see my mom, my older sister, my baby sister. I love her. I adore her.

I chose her name when I was just a little girl; it was my grandmother's maiden name. The desire for a little girl of my own, named for someone I loved so much, has followed me since I was old enough to hold a baby doll. That name changed my life when I was fifteen. Erik and I sat in the back of a youth group van, traveling the rough roads of Alaska, asking each other every question we could think of. His middle name came up and then his mother's name. In that moment I knew, I KNEW that he would one day be the father of my daughter.

So meet my little girl.

The apple of my eye.

The spice in our lives

A lady to the core

Everything I could have ever asked for

My everything (well, one of them!)

Meet my daughter

 

Donnelly Elizabeth

The Bible through the eyes of a child.

The Bible through the eyes of my child.



Ben: “Mom, don’t pick favorites, ok?”


Me: “Mommy doesn’t ever pick favorites with her babies. I love you all equally”


Ben: “Someone played favorites in the Bible, Jacob’s mommy loved him best and Esau’s papa loved him best so they hated each other and fighted over the bookmark. It was sad.”


Me: “That is sad, what’s a bookmark?”


Ben: “Esau had the bookmark and then Jacob took it away. When the mommy and papa die and you have the bookmark, you get all their dresses and stuff.”


Me: “That’s a very good story Ben but I think you mean birthright.”


Ben: “No it’s a bookmark. I want one.”


I adore this kid!