Graber Garble

Who loves Pinterest?

2012-02-04T15:01:00.000-08:00

THIS GIRL loves Pinterest! I love the ideas, the recipes, and just feeling inspired. My poor husband probably gets tired of me saying, "Honey, I found this thing on Pinterest that you could totally make me." Good thing that man loves me :)

Here are some of our latest projects that were Pinterest inspired:

My new jewelry boards. Love, love, love!

{Please note the curtains. They cost us a whopping $3 for both on clearance. AND they're shower curtains. :) The white candle holders were $0.25 each on clearance too!}

Adie's new bed

Our newest wall decor. $1 per letter at Hobby Lobby totaling $11 and then a can of black spray paint. Totally doable!

There ya have it. If only you could see the list of what's to come :)

2012

2012-01-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

2011 was all in all a good year for the Graber family.

2012 is gonna be even better. I can just feel it.

We rang in the New Year with our kiddos after spending some QT with some of our extended family. It was a New Years filled with lots of laughing, eating, drinking, and more laughing.

That’s how we roll, ya know…

(I promise it's grape juice!)

I am terrible at making resolutions. I mean I can make them, but I never follow through with them. You would think my competitive spirit was all for nothing. I decided that I wanted to commit to a word for the year 2012.

My word for 2012 is

trust.

I am a person who likes to do things all by herself. I like to be in control.

This year I want to trust people to carry out tasks and to not watch over their shoulder or try to take over the task. Trust.

I want to trust what is said to me.

I want to trust in the Bible, not just read it and hear it.

I want to place even more trust in my hubby.

I want to not be afraid and to trust that things will turn out how God has intended, not me.

My verse of the year to go along with trust is

Psalm 56:11

In God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?

Yup. Gonna plaster that all over my home, head, and heart.

And who am I kidding? I did make a resolution then.

I resolve to run five 5k races this year.

Yup... 5.

I did two last year and I barely trained for those. I can totally do 5.

I already have 3 of those planned.

Totally attainable.

Big girls don't cry...

2011-08-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

... until their little one starts school :(

Yesterday my little Jack Jack embarked on a huge adventure - his first day of Kindergarten!! He had been waking up every. single. morning. asking if it was a school day for the last 2 weeks. To say he was excited is a huge understatement. So yesterday morning came and I could finally say to him "yes, today is your first day of school" and he was ready to go in a flash.

What about momma you ask? Yeah, momma wasn't as excited. Don't mind the fact that I had been crying to myself for a few days prior to him starting school. I made a smart move and took the day off of work because, let's face it, no one wants to bring their sick selves in to a snotty nosed, puffy eyed receptionist. Seriously. This was a really big moment for me even more so because on Brodie's first day of kindergarten, I was MIA due to hiss little sister being born. Didn't really have a choice on that one and I was always so bummed that I wasn't able to be there for his big day.

So Jackson and Brodie were up and at them in a heartbeat and ready for the bus approximately 30 minutes before it was time leaving them plenty of time to pick on each other and ride their scooters.

And then before we knew it, the bus was here. And he was gone.

And momma lost it. So Adie and I went in and cuddled for a little while and during that time she promised me that she wouldn't grow up and she would always be my baby. It's in writing, folks. She can't go back on it!

Jackson buddy, I pray that you always love school this much and that you put 100% into everything you do. I can't wait to see the friendships that develop over the years and I already love hearing all of your cool stories. Kindergarten is only the beginning of a life full of learning!

P.S. I can't guarantee that I won't be crying on the first day of school every year... :/

Things my kids said | Volume 2

2011-06-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

*To the babysitter*
Adie: Mary, go down the slide.
Mary: I don't think I'll fit Adie.
*She goes down the slide*
Adie: See, Mary! You went down the slide! Your butt isn't too big!
YAAAAY, Mary!

*While Aaron was pinching Jackson's nose*
Jackson: Let go! I can't smell!!
Who cares about breathing...

Me: Brodie, hurch is not a word.
Brodie: Yes it is!
Me: Fine, use it in a sentance.
Brodie: I'm going to hurch you!
I love that kid and his crazy mind!

Adie: Daddy, you're a PUNK!
Thatta girl!

Me: Jackson, do you ever miss Brennemen? (His preschool)
Jackson: Yeah, Mom, I do. Every time we go past it I get a tear in my eye and I get sad.
Well then why do you hafta grow up so fast?!?

Brodie: I heard that tens live in Tennessee.
Daddy: What??
Brodie: On the Suite Life they said that a girl must have lived in Tennessee because she was the only ten they see
Daddy: Brodie that's a pick up line.
Brodie: Oh. Daddy, is Sarah a ten?
Daddy: Oh yeah!
*Blush*

Mercies, not trials

2011-06-22T09:36:00.000-07:00

This song breaks me down so watch me break it down!

Blessings by Laura Story

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family
Protection while we sleep
We pray for healing
For prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand
to ease our suffering

I pray for all of these things every. single. night.

And all the while
You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

That last line really gets me and as a parent, I finally GET it...

Cuz what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know you’re near
What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

I will say with 100% certainty that God does heal through tears... many, many tears

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near

I have cried in anger many times... and every single time I've been wrong. He's been near.

We doubt Your goodness
We doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

Why isn't it enough? Seriously, Sarah...

And all the while
You hear each desperate plea

So thankful!

Lord, that we’d have faith to believe

Cuz what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know you’re near

Then bring on that thousand...

What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

When friends betray us

They do... it sucks...

When darkness seems to win

Or when I just seem to "let" it win

We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not
This is not our home

I can't wait until my "home" includes all of my children. I am so thankful that this world is not the end!

Cuz what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know you’re near

What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst
This world can’t satisfy?

I have found that there is SO MUCH that this world can't satisfy

And what if trials of this life
The rain
The storms
The hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

I often forget to give praise in the hard times. I get so caught up in me and my pain that I don't look for the lessons I'm being taught. Looking back now, I can see that the trials I have experienced thus far in my life are nothing compared to what some deal with. My trials are my life lessons and my MERCIES that GOD has given to me!

7 years ago today I experienced the worst day of my life. While the memories of that day aren't as sharp as I wish they were, the emotions are still so real. I don't hurt as bad as I once did and I can honestly look back now and see SO many of God's mercies given to me during the hardest period of my life. I love knowing that I WILL see Zachary again some day. That alone gives me so much hope and I am thankful to serve a God that promises me an eternity with ALL of my kiddos!

test

2011-05-10T17:32:00.001-07:00

Perfectly Imperfect

2011-03-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

I spoil my kids.
I hate when they act bratty.

I set high expectations.
I get upset when people/events/things do not meet those expectations.

I make a lot of commitments.
I cry when I don't know how to complete all said commitments.

I pray.
I worry that I'm not living a "worthy" enough life.

I do the best I feel capable of doing.
I want to be able to do more.

I know I'm not perfect. Far from it actually. But I am a work in progress and I have a God who loves me... flaws [all of 'em] and all!

Sarah

Can you dig it?

2011-03-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

I love being off of school for a week before my next 2 classes begin. I feel like I can actually DO stuff... like browse Etsy. Here is what I'm totally digging today.

Two of these for my bedroom, please and thank you!

So simple and so cute!I think I may have Aaron make me something like this...

Not a huge bird fan but how can these not be the cutest things ever?!?

And I adore this. So snuggly.

Snow Day 2011

2011-02-07T19:21:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting a blizzard forever. I don't care if it snows as long as it means that I can stay home in my jammies and do nothing all day long, so when they were calling for a blizzard last week, I was ecstatic!

The snow... well the snow was slightly disappointing. I was hoping for drifts the size of the light poles and something that would go down in history. Not so much.

But that's beside the point because I was still snowed in! Everything in the county was shut down and that included my office. The first thing the kids asked for when they woke up was if we could have a Glee marathon. Um... deal. We watched a handful of episodes and then we spent the day...

...working on spelling words. Brodie loves doing them as long as he gets to do them online at www.spellingcity.com. Check it out if you have a kiddo who hates working on spelling words.

...potty training. Or at least taking another step in that direction. I love her little cheeks hanging out of her pajama top.

...sleeping. Poor Jackson was sick. Check him to the doc the next day and it was strep. I knew it!

...and in my jammie pants and slippers.

Best. Day. Ever.

But the snow can go away now. I'm so over it!

I would love....

2011-01-22T20:36:00.001-08:00

...to come home to this every day! Not only did Aaron clean the house and put away all the laundry, he got me these...

... and this was in my mailbox for doing a 5 minute survey!

I love free stuff. I love clean houses. I love this crazy man.

Cute Conversations

2011-01-06T18:05:00.000-08:00

So I was going through some old papers and I found a little blurb between Jackson and myself that I had written down. He says funny stuff all the time so I try to write down the good ones so that I don't forget. I think this one is worthy.

Aaron got baptized last March and this is a conversation from a few weeks after that.

Jackson: The other day when we were in the sanctuary at school, the teacher was telling us the story about how two men were in the water and the Christian got baptized! Just like Aaron got baptized! But Mom, Aaron’s not a Christian.

Mommy: Yes, Jackson, Aaron’s a Christian. He got baptized to show everyone out there how much he loves God.

Jackson: No, Mom! For real! Aaron’s not a Christian!

Mommy: Why do you think that?

Jackson: Because he’s not black. All Christians are black.

...He has two little friends named Christian and both are Hispanic. Took me a while to piece that together...

I love that kid.

Lesson Learned

2010-12-26T08:35:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have days when you're frustrated, tired, and flat out grumpy? I definitely woke up in a funk this morning. Not a good way to wake up, especially right after Christmas. Adie Jae woke up and was burning up. Fever city.

"Great." I thought to myself. Just what I need. So daddy and the boys went off to church and it was time for Adie to go down for a nappy nap. I thought, being that she's sick and all, I'd be a nice momma and let her crash in my bed for a few hours. The kids all love sleeping in our bed and consider it a huge treat. Me too. I have a great bed :)

So I lay down with her and she giggles at me for a while...

Then her feverish eyes get droopy...

Then the thumb pops in and she's out and snoring :)

Why do I wake up such a grump knowing how blessed I am to have such an amazing family?!? This little girl trusts me with her life and, for right now at least, I am her best friend. I am here to snuggle, to read books, to play Barbies, and to love on her. So thankful that God can teach lessons through a special little girl's fever.

Adie Jae

2010-12-03T16:14:00.001-08:00

So in looking over some of my posts, I realized that I've completely been ignoring Miss Adie Jae. Am I a great momma or what? :/

So here is a post for my baby girl.

Adie is a girl who is, well, totally a girl.

She loves playing dress up.

She dances and sings like it's nobody's business!

She loves getting her way... and will make sure you KNOW when she didn't get her way...

She loves laughing.

She hates having her picture taken. :(

She is a girl who LOVES candy and cookies. I'm not exaggerating when I say loves...

She sleeps. A lot.
And you know when she's tired because she turns into a g.r.o.u.c.h.

Her best friend is Anderson, her "twin" cousin. They're only 10 days apart.

She loves to talk and she does a lot of it.
A lot.

She doesn't like to watch tv or movies very much.

She's a sensitive little thing (totally gets that from me... oops :/) and I love her to pieces! I am so thankful that we can shop, play, and giggle together.

Love her!

Mr. Jack

2010-11-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

Jackson is a fun kid. He loves to

Play

Wrestle

Read

and Giggle!!

I took him to the doctor a few weeks ago because he had been having terrible migraines. Dr. A wasn't very concerned about the migraines but she did notice that his heart murmur was getting worse. Now some babies are born with a heart murmur and it's actually very common. Most end up going away on their own. Jackson's murmur was JUST found about 8 months ago so for it to get *worse* already, I was scared.

We went and saw a pediatric cardiologist in South Bend on the 29th for the murmur. What surprised me there was that he wasn't concerned at all with the murmur, he was concerned with Jackson's arrhythmia; an abnormal heartbeat. He sent him home with a holtor monitor (aka an Iron Man costume!!) to evaluate a little further. The results came back that it's not good news.

At this point Dr. Capanarri will be talking to an arrhythmia specialist at Riley's (I seriously didn't know such a specialist even existed!!) to see if Jackson is a case that they are interested in. So what does momma do? Momma gets online to see the options. [I work in a doctor's office and I KNOW that this is the thing that doctor's fear most because there is such a thing as TOO much information - but I did it anyway ;)]

If the specialist thinks Jackson will be managed better up here then it is likely he will be on medications. For the rest. of. his. life. He's FOUR people!

Other options are ablation, surgery, or a pacemaker. These are all extreme treatments in my book but when the doctor was explaining things to me he said "I want you to know that Jackson is not in any grave danger [long dramatic pause] yet." Seriously.

I'm okay with the extreme treatments. I'm okay with the medicine for life. I'm okay with going to Riley every day if I have to. I'm not okay with losing my Jack Jack.

Please pray for us every time you think of us. I'm struggling but I also know that God has a HUGE plan for Jackson's life and I am trying to trust in that completely and whole heartedly. Jackson isn't aware of any of this at the time because I don't feel like a four year old needs to know all the nitty gritty details. He knows that something is up because he got to be "iron man" for a day and he loved it! He was not, however, impressed with the "goop" used for the echo because "IRON MAN DOES NOT GET SLIMMED!"

Hey good lookin'

2010-10-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

Mr. Brodie was so excited to be a part of his very first wedding! Aaron's cousin Amber asked Brodie a few months back if he would like to be their ringbearer and he was so excited! I didn't get to go with him when he got fitted for his tux so when I saw him all dressed up for the first time... woooo eeeee! He looked amazing! So handsome! We love Amber and Jason and Brodie was honored (as were Aaron and I) that he was able to be a part of their amazingly beautiful day.

Here are my super HOT guys! I love them so much!

Brodie was a HIT among the guys in the wedding party. He was everybody's buddy and best friend. They paid SO much attention to him - you would have thought he was the groom and let me tell you... he loved every minute of it too! :)

And then the reception. Aaron and I were ready to go but Mr. Party Animal was not. We ended up asking Grandma and Grandpa to bring him home so that we could go home and go to bed and I guess he danced until they closed it down. Love him.

I am so lucky to be in Brodie's life. He is such a GOOD kid with a heart bigger than Texas. This kid loves like no other kid I've ever seen! I love you, Brodie. Don't break too many hearts with those good looks :)

There is no "i" in team

2010-10-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

I love the "pack" mentality of preschool soccer players. I just love watching them all huddle around the ball and never really get anywhere but they sure do know that they are a team. They may not always know which way their goal is and they often times score on themselves but they know that GREEN is the best team there is and they love it!

This was Jackson's second year of soccer and he loved it. Last year he wasn’t so sure but he insisted that he sign up again this year. I was a little hesitant but went ahead and did it anyway.

At the beginning he acted like he didn’t want to play once again, but after a little coaxing (and some evil eye from his dad :/) he went out there and showed how much he truly loves the game.

He loved getting in the huddle to get the ball! He ran around in the mob with the rest of them and I am so stinkin' proud of my little man! I love you, Jackson and I can't wait to see you in action again next year!

My funny Jack-entine

2010-10-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

Jackson is 4 going on 13 and he has the attitude to prove it! I have to admit that while he frustrates me at times and mouths off like I have never seen a 4 year old do before, he mostly makes me laugh and I am often times trying to hide my smiles and giggles.

Hidding giggles from him is very important as he is easily embarrassed and offended when people laugh at him.

Here are a few things that made me laugh this week:

* Aaron and I painted our bedroom on Saturday and Sunday when Jackson and Brodie were at their other parent's houses. Jackson has a lot of nightmares during the night and the rule in our house is that if you have a nightmare you can come lay on the floor in our bedroom as long as you don't attempt to crawl in our bed and you also aren't allowed to wake us up. Fair enough, right? Well anyway, we painted and rearranged our room and Jackson comes home and bursts into tears when he saw it. I asked him what was wrong and he cries out "but where am I going to sleep now?!?" Love him.

* We FINALLY got our mums last night. Yeah... Yeah... kinda behind on the times here. So I went out to plant them and Jackson wanted to help so he brought his shovel and we started digging away. He was digging his hole and I was digging mine. I heard "uhhh... there's a worm in this hole. I think I need to find a new place to dig. This worm doesn't want me disturbing him." Notice how he didn't mention his intense FEAR of worms... I picked up the worm then and told him that some kids eat worms and asked him if he wanted to try it out and he then told me that he was ready to go inside. Heeeeheeee

* I was "attempting" to do homework the other night and he wanted to go downstairs and play darts. (My walls look terrible ever since the boys discovered this amazing game. Don't ask to see them.) I told him he could go down and play darts and I would be down there in 5 minutes. He says ok and turns to go downstairs. He then comes back and says "Mom, do you know how much I love you? I love you so much." Yup... I dropped my homework and went down right then. How do you say no to that?!?

So while the mouthiness gets on my last nerve and I get annoyed that he doesn't do what I ask him to do, when I ask him to do it, I need to remember he's only 4. At times he truly believes he's a teenager but I want him to stay young as long as possible. I want him to have FUN in life and I never want him to stop making me laugh.

What's new

2010-08-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a long time partly due to the fact that I have what seems like zero time on my hands but in large part, I feel as if I have nothing to say.

Is it sad that I am okay with a "boring" life? I love doing nothing. The highlight of my week last week was when Brodie called me on on being the tooth fairy - and santa! He promised not to tell Jack yet...

People ask me what's new - well... nothing. Nothing is new. I'm still a mom. Still married. Still working. Still watching Big Brother.

We go to church. We see our families as often as possible. We clean the house. We play with the kids. I get very excited when we go out to eat. Score. I shopped the bi-annual resale. My kids have new wardrobes for less than 1/6 of what it should have cost me. Double score.

Some may consider this what's "new." To me it's just life:
I started classes on Monday. Twelve credit hours. I may just be insane. Twelve credit hours, forty hour work week, three young kids, a husband, and a partridge in a pear tree. Yeah.

Service

2010-08-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

Brodie: Today we learned all about service in Sunday School.

Me: Oh really? What is service, Brodie?

Brodie: Well, it's like when Jackson and I get in fights and I have a toy that he wants and he asks me nice and I give it to him. That's me serving him and it makes God happy.

I love the things my kids are learning! God is good!

The horror!

2010-06-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

Jackson, do you want to go to Chili’s tomorrow?

YEAH, Mom! I loooooove Chili’s!

Ok but I want you to know that tomorrow afternoon you have to go to the doctor to get some shots but we’ll celebrate you being a big boy by going to dinner!

No! I don’t want to get shots! I don’t want to be a big boy!

But Jackson, you’ll do just fine! I know you are a big boy and we’ll have an awesome time eating at Chili’s! You'll be so happy!

I don’t like Chili’s anymore!

Honey, you have to get shots. Every kid your age does. They keep you healthy!

I would rather be sick and die.

I don’t want you to die! I love that you’re healthy so that means you have to get the shots, Bud…

Needless to say... I won that fight. But definitely not without a battle. That kid knows how to squirm and he's a lot stronger that I even imagined! No worries though... I can still manhandle him! :) We decided to go ahead and do his kindergarten shots a year early just to have them out of the way. Who KNOWS how strong he's going to be next year, right? He. Was. Traumatized!

After the shots were done we *carefully* pulled his pants back up and I helped him hobble out of the office. Literally hobble. He asked me a few times to slow down because he couldn't walk very fast because of "the holes in his knees." The only thing that made him feel any better was eating an apple at Meijer.

"Look, Mom! The apple is healing the holes in my knees! I think I can walk better now!"

We bought a BUNCH of apples last night! :)

This is my soapbox and I'll stand on it if I want to

2010-05-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.
-Winston Churchill

So I think I missed the negativity memo. It drives me crazy to log onto my facebook and see people who “hate people” or “hate life” or post nasty things about people. It is so frustrating to me. I will never be able to tell you that I don’t get depressed about things at times or that my life is perfect because, I promise you, it is far from perfect. I have lots of ups in life accompanied by many, many, many downs but why in the world would I want to broadcast them for my facebook world to see?!? When I first started life in the blogging world, I would post about the crap in my life. The horrors of facing myself in the mirror every day. It took me a little bit, but I realized a while back that nobody wants to read that stuff. Does my mom want to know about it? Sure. That’s why I call and talk to her about my struggles. Does the internet need to know all my details? Nope. Therefore, said posts were deleted about a year ago.

What I want to scream at people is – life happens. Adjust your attitude towards it. I have been through some awful things in my short 27 ½ years. My parents divorced. I held my lifeless son in my arms and four months later had my husband tell me he wanted a divorce. I have been in bad relationships. I have experienced more hurt than I ever thought possible. But LOOK at where I stand now! I have a God who loves me unconditionally and it is finally more than just head knowledge to me! I have a husband who I know will never stop loving me. I have three beautiful children who mean so much to me! And I have a great support system that I love dearly.

I made some bad decisions along the way and there are things that I would definitely do differently and I do have regrets. But I know without any hesitation that ALL of those experiences were given to me for a reason. I can actually see God using me in other people’s lives now which is such a blessing, even more so because there were days that I didn’t even think I could get out of bed, let alone MINISTER to someone! A lady I know lost her precious little baby about 4 months ago and I love her honesty and openness about her pain. I wish I could have been more like her after losing my baby boy. I want her to know how much she blesses me even when she doesn’t know it! She’s hurting and her pain is so raw but she is seriously so inspiring. I wish more people could be like her.

- I so wish that Zachary was here and getting ready to finish kindergarten and snuggling with me while we read books – but I know God has given him the best home anyone could possibly hope for. I will always miss him and never stop loving him but it makes it so much easier knowing that he's living the good life up there and I can't wait to see him again one day.

- I wish that my first marriage hadn’t failed – but my husband now is who I was meant to be with. I learned so much from my failed marriage and I hope to never repeat those mistakes again so I can be the best possible wife to Aaron.

- I wish that I could give Jackson stability and not shuffle him between two homes – but his dad and I have a great relationship and we do everything we can to make sure we get along. We may not always see eye to eye on every situation but we figure it out and we move on. We both love the same smooshy faced, blonde haired cutie. Amen.

Cheapster

2010-05-12T06:36:00.001-07:00

We try to cut corners when possible and do what we can to give our budget a little cushion. Some people do that by working two jobs or working overtime or – you know – normal things. Here are some of our ways to accomplish our goal of being cheap.

* We spend our Saturday nights by living on the edge! We sit on buckets in the garage and strip wire while listening to country music. We like to take metals to the scrap yard like pop cans and copper from leftover wire or other things that we run across. Aren’t you jealous?!?

* I spend some bucks on my hair product. No, it’s not $20 a bottle but YOU try to straighten THIS hair with some cheap working spray. Not happening. So I buy it at my salon for more than I would like to spend. I find myself scraping the barrel when it comes to the end of the bottle. When it runs out and I can’t spray ANY thing out of it anymore, I start using the new bottle but dump the droplets from the old into the new. I have made an effort to never let Aaron see me do this because I know the let’s-make-fun-of-Sarah would never end!

* We’re sitting through an awful presentation next Wednesday on fire safety because sitting through it gives us a $30 gift card to Mancino’s – no purchase required. I love me some Mancino’s so I have no problem with wasting my time and make I’ll learn how to stop, drop, and roll…

How do YOU save a few extra pennies??

Bucket List

2010-04-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

The Bucket List just happens to be one of my top 5 movies - ever! I could watch it every day! I laugh and I cry and I fall in love with it so if you haven't seen it - you must! Here is my favorite scene in the movie...

[Carter hands Edward an article about Kopi Luwak, Edward's favorite coffee]
Carter Chambers: Read it.
Edward Cole: [reading] Kopi Luwak is the world's most expensive coffee. Though for some, it falls under the category of "too good to be true." In the Sumatran village, where the beans are grown, lives a breed of wild tree cat. These cats eat the beans, digest them and then... defecate.
[pauses]
Edward Cole: The villagers then collect and process the stools. It is the combination of the beans and the gastric juices of the tree cat that give Kopi Luwac...
[Carter starts laughing]
Edward Cole: ...its unique flavor... and aroma. You're [crapping] me!
Carter Chambers: [laughing] Cats beat me to it!
[Carter and Edward both laugh hysterically]

Haaaa. Love it! Anyway, last Sunday we kicked off a new series at church called "The Bucket List." So far, it's been great! I'm in the process of working on my own Bucket List but it is still just that... a process. I'll post it when I get it done. In the meantime, I'll enjoy watching the movie to get my creative juices flowing :)

Blessings

2010-04-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

My top five blessings today:

I work for a man who appreciates me and values me. Can I just tell you what a huge difference that makes in my attitude at work?? If I can’t stay at home with my kiddos, then this is where I want to be.

I got a flat tire on Saturday! Because of that flat tire, I was able to sit and chat with Aaron’s grandma. What I didn’t know was that she was having an awful morning and had prayed and asked God to send someone to her to distract her. It’s really amazing to know that I was an answer to someone’s prayers.

I get to go to El Camino every Monday. We’re so creative that we call our work lunch dates “El Camino Monday.” It’s what gets me out of bed Monday mornings.

I get to be a soccer/baseball mom! I love every minute of going to practices… buying the gear… watching them succeed… watching them strike out… watching them be boys!! Totally hoping for a little girl who wants to be a dancer ;-)

We have “enough.” We don’t have a lot of money. We don’t have a lot of “things.” But we have a place to live. We have food to eat. We have [cute] clothes to wear. We have family that loves us and helps in every aspect possible. We have friends that “get” us. We have a GOD who is guiding us. Yup – we have enough.

Braggin' on my hubby!

2010-03-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

Love Me - JJ Heller

Ok so this JJ girl is my new favorite. I could listen to her for hours. I listen to her while I clean. While I read. While I cry. Love her.

This song is so touching to me. I'm very lucky to have a husband who truly loves me for ME! How amazing is a love like that?!? He loves me so much that:

-He lets me sleep in almost every Saturday and takes care of the kids until I'm ready to roll my booty out of bed. He knows how much I treasure my sleep and he treasures me getting my sleep too I think... ;)

-When I started to vacuum the other night, he snuck into the master bath and started ripping it apart! What?!? Is this love?? Actually yes because he knew how much I wanted it painted and new fixtures. He even surprised me by bringing home tile for above the shower. Love. It.

-He lets me read the Sunday paper first every Sunday! He knows I'm anal :)

-He went to Lowe's to get stuff for the bathroom and WITHOUT my knowledge or input, he used a COUPON and bought a bunch of stuff on CLEARANCE! He got lots of kisses for that one!

I am so lucky to be his wife! I couldn't have smiled any bigger a few Sundays ago when he took the next step in his faith and got baptized. It was awesome!

His grandpa had been very sick for the last month or so. Cancer is an ugly word. Well Wednesday, Aaron's family shared with his grandpa that he was going to be baptized and he gave a thumbs up and a wink [his signature code for approval since communication was limited]. Well he passed away last Friday while we all sat around his bed singing worship songs to him and through the tears we talked about how proud he was of Aaron and how this is the only way he was going to be able to watch Aaron's baptism. I feel so honored to be a part of Aaron's Christ-loving family and we know without a doubt in the world that Grandpa Cliff is in Heaven! He even gave a big smile right before he went to see Jesus! We're positive he saw the angel who was ready to take him :)

Conversations with my children

2010-02-01T16:50:00.000-08:00

Me: Adie, are you ready to get out of your bath?
Adie: NO!
Me: Come on, sweetie, it's time to get out.
Adie: NO!
Me: Yes, Adie.
Adie: [splashs water ALL over me then screams...] NOOOOOO!!
Ugh

Jackson: Mommy, can we drive our car underwater?
Me: No, Jackson. We would drown.
Jackson: But we should be safe if we don't run into any spikes under there!
Me: Jackson, how would we breath under there?
Jackson: Those plants let bubbles go. We just need to find one of those!
Thank you Sonic the Hedgehog!

Pre-note - Aaron got a vasectomy Thursday afternoon
Brodie: Jackson and Adelyn, you have to be careful. Daddy hurt his b-sack yesterday.
Me: Excuse me?!? His B-sack?!?
Brodie: Yeah... his b-sack. He said it hurts.
Me: Brodie, where did you hear that word?
Brodie: He hurt his nuts.
Me: BRODIE!! Where did you hear the term "b-sack?"
Brodie: That's what the kids at school call it...
Oh. Wow. Gotta love public schools!

Whole family: Adie, point to your nose.
Adie: No [while pointing to nose]
Whole family: Adie, point to your ear
Adie: No [while pointing to ear]
Whole family: Adie, point to your mouth.
Adie: No [while pointing to mouth]
Daddy: Ok Adie, now let me teach you where your double chin is going to eventually be.
WHAT?!?

On a more serious note...

Brodie started talking tonight about a little girl he knows that goes to bed hungry almost every night. She's given a time limit every evening and that's the only time she has to eat and then even if she's still hungry, she has to go to bed. Children are my passion so when he told me about this, my heart broke. He started crying about it while telling us because he knew how sad he would be if HE was the one going to bed hungry every night. So our new mission as a family is to stick up for people who can't stick up for themselves. If he sees something that he knows isn't right, he it to report it immediately and stick up to the bully - whether the bully be a sibling, a parent, or a so called friend of the person being bullied. And to also let the victim know that they can stick up for themselves too!

My heart is still breaking while I think that there are kids in our own neighborhoods that are going hungry and it's not due to lack of funds. It's lack of parenting. How do you fix that? How do you save the ones who don't deserve this one bit?

My goal, scratch that, desire is to take the kids on a missions trip to help out at an orphanage. To see what it's like to help a ton of other kids who appreciate it SO much. To see what it's like to have nothing and still be happy. I look forward to that day.

Filled

2010-01-26T17:20:00.001-08:00

What. A. Weekend.

I attended my very first women's retreat through my church and I was just blown away. There were so many things that I was desperately seeking from God and didn't really know "how" to obtain them. He filled my heart so completely this weekend and I spent much of the time just crying out and asking him to teach me.

You see, I've been a Christian since I was 5. I was raised in a Christian home and was in church 3 times a week. I had great examples for parents and had a lot of other amazing role models in my life. However, I still strayed. For a long time. And I'm finding that I STILL have a hard time finding my way back. I know all the right answers... I know what I'm looking for... I'm just struggling with the relationship and the FULL commitment. I can now say that I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not going to let anyone hold me back - and the person that was holding me back the most was myself. Self - quit standing in my way!!

I connected with a lot of women that I had never met before and I was fortunate enough to be able to see into a portion of their souls and to open my own soul up to them. Being vulnerable was a fantastic feeling. Sharing my fears and finding out that I'm not alone was so refreshing. Getting into very deep conversations with fantastic women was stimulating.

I know I will still struggle at some things - it's not going to be an easy thing - but I'm ready to take it on. I'm ready to face the world of critics knowing that I know the real answer. I want to be able to share my Jesus with other people and not be afraid.

Please pray for me!

Foot.In.Mouth.

2010-01-12T18:33:00.000-08:00

Ok so I've been known to say stupid things at times. Very stupid but I swear that these things sound "right" in my head and as soon as they say them I wish I hadn't! I'm going strong now with two straight days of retarded moments.

Today - the doctor I work for was talking about some tests he needed to have done after being exposed to some blood. Standard protocol requires that you be tested for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. So as we're talking I say "wouldn't you just DIE if you have AIDS?" Um... yes... yes he probably would. I'm an idiot.

Yesterday - I was talking with some friends of mine and the wife was saying how she didn't like to tell people that she met her husband on the internet because, at least in the past, it used to be so "taboo" and she was afraid people would look at her funny. I told her that I thought it was fine because they lived close and probably would have met in real life anyway. Then I proceeded to say "And it's not like you met some random guy over in another country and dated him..." not even thinking that her husband had dated a girl that he met online from Hong Kong and dated for two years before meeting his now wife. It makes it worse because I knew that he had dated this "foreign country internet girl" and I still said it. Out loud. They were both cracking up but that didn't help my embarrassment much. Will I ever shut up??

I can't wait to see what horrible thing I say tomorrow... :/

You're so [un]vain

2010-01-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

My husband is not vain. He never has been.

He confirmed my thoughts the other day when we were talking and I asked him how many people in his family have a dimpled chin. He replied with a wonderful, "huh?" To which I replied, "You know... your dimpled chin. I was wondering if anyone else had one besides you." He looked at me like I was crazy. Insane. "Sarah, I don't have a dimpled chin" he says to me.

Are you kidding me?!? It's always been there! You shave around it a couple times a week! It's there every time you look in the mirror! How do you not know you have a dimpled chin!?! These are the thoughts going through my mind...

My face must have betrayed my thoughts because he turned to look in a mirror and said "Oh! Look! I guess I do have one..." and proceeded to stick his finger in it.

So clueless. I love him.

Inspire me this...

2009-12-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

So I am living in a house full of germs. Everyone with the exception of Brodie [who actually started complaining of a bellyache last night… Lord help me…] has been very ill. So ill to the point that I will spare you all the details and let your imagination do the work. And then multiple your imagination by 3 and that was my house this past week. The worst part is that the germs have not left the house yet. We are still suffering and I’m not sure that I see an end in sight for any of us.

So in my sickness, and therefore laziness, I’ve been getting really comfy on the couch and I’ve done a lot of blog reading. Hours of random blog reading and have been inspired! I got a spurt of energy and scrapbooked 4 pages in 30 minutes Sunday night. I tried a new discipline technique with the boys the other day that when they start picking on each other relentlessly I make them hold hands and tell each other “I love you.” Works like a charm and the giggles follow every single time. I wrote down a new recipe for cake that I am dying to try! I can’t wait. I have a few new things to add to my "need" list now. It's definitely my "need" list and NOT my "want" list... trust me! I found a few new coupons to print and got my ideas on how to save my cute family some more money. To buy things on my "need" list!

I hate being sick but at least I can be productful while trying not to heave. Just don't look at my dusting or kitchen floors please and thank you.

O Christmas Tree

2009-12-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

One of my top 10 memories from when I was a kid was that every Christmas we would all get bundled up in our warmest clothes, pack in the car, and head to the tree farm to cut our Christmas tree down. My sister and I would play hide and seek, we would get popcorn and hot chocolate, we would pick out the perfect tree, and we always had FUN.

This past March we moved up to Middlebury and I thought it would be fun to try out Eby Pines since I've always gone to Wilfongs in Goshen. So Saturday we got the kids around and went to pick out an awesome tree. We get to Ebys and you DRIVE through the lot to find your tree - no wagon ride - no hide and go seek. PLUS they only had two types types of scotches to choose from and I love Douglas Firs the best... So being the brat I am I looked at Aaron and asked him if we could leave. So we drove through the lot and right back out.

So off to Wilfongs we go. Eby Pines is on my naughty list! We get there and instantly I'm a kid again. I freakin' love that place! The kids go and see Santa - Adie was so not impressed and cried the whole time.

Next up - the wagon ride. Loved. It.

So we get off, walk around and look for the BIGGEST tree we could find! We finally have a living room with tall ceilings so we really wanted a 10 footer. No such luck. The tall ones that we happened to find were misshapen and just plain ugly. So we went up to the front and got ourselves a pre-cut tree. All of that to end up with a pre-cut that was only 8 1/2 but hey - we had fun, we made memories, and Adie loved the popcorn :)

A grand total of 3 1/2 hours to find the perfect tree but perfect it is!

Bad Momma!

2009-12-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

I may have just earned the title of "worst momma ever"...

Last Saturday was Jackson's birthday and my baby boy turned 4... WOW! I'm still in shock over that one. Now remember, he's 4 going on 15 [or so he thinks.] Last weekend was supposed to be his weekend with his dad but due to the holidays and his birthday falling on that weekend the schedule was a little screwy and we were lucky enough to be able to have him with us the morning of his birthday before daddy came and took him for the rest of the weekend. We had our little party for Jackson at Thanksgiving while we had all of the family there but had held off on giving him the present from us 1 - I wanted to wait until it was just the 5 of us and 2 - I wanted to buy it on a Black Friday sale... hehe

So no present on Thanksgiving. No present Saturday morning since Brodie wasn't with us. We decided to give it to him Monday night. Wellllll guess what my fantastic husband found stashed amongst all of our Christmas presents on Wednesday? Yup - Jack's skateboard and helmet. Who forgets to give their kid their BIRTHday present??

So we decided then that we'll give it to him tonight since we'll have all the kids again. So guess who walks into my room yesterday and finds it? Jackson himself. He asks who the skateboard is for and I tell him baby Anderson - Jackson's favorite cousin who is only 15 months old. Jackson starts to cry because baby Anderson shouldn't have a skateboard before he does.

Ugh. I'm awful.

November Niblets

2009-11-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

I started journaling this month. I carry around a small, cute, hot PINK notebook that I jot notes in. I want to never forget the little details and when I’m gone I want my loved ones to be able to look back at all of my random thoughts.

I gained 4 pounds. Ugh. And just think… Thanksgiving dinner has yet to be consumed.

I found THE planner. Hellooooooo perfection! Snaps to Shannon and Angie for giving me tons of good advice and websites to scour over.

I applied to Ivy Tech. I’m going to get myself a degree! Finally. I’m hoping most of my credits from my old college transfer over and then I’ll just have to do my clinicals, medical terminology, and a few other classes. Maybe my expectations of it being easy are slightly far-fetched… I hope my fantasy is right though.

My amazing friend Tara gave birth to baby Peyton this last Saturday. She’s beautiful and I think the baby’s pretty cute too… ;) So maybe I have a slight case of baby fever now. It's all Tara's fault.

I love the crazy weather we’ve been having! I do NOT love dressing the kids for this crazy weather and hoping I do an ok job. Winter coat? Check. Hoodie with it? Check? Long and short sleeved tees under it? Check. The boys like to argue that they don’t need layers. I still win.

Because of the crazy weather, we [meaning Aaron of course] were able to hang our Christmas lights and not freeze our booties off doing it. I haven’t turned the lights on yet but hey – they’re up and we’re ready to rock them.

This year I have been in the Christmas spirit way too early! I usually don’t listen to music or get out decorations or anything until after T-day but I’ve had to FORCE myself to not think about it already. I have found my hand pushing scan on the radio hoping to find a Christmas jingle. Bad hand. I’ve noticed that other people are in the spirit unusually early as well. What’s going on??

We are hosting the big Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. I have the place cleaned and ready to go. I love hosting and am very excited to have everyone there. Thanksgiving is also my favorite holiday so that just makes it A+.

I had a meeting with Jackson's teachers at school. Meeting with the teachers are great when the reports are good. When they are bad - ugh. I didn't cry until after we left though so I'm pretty darn proud of myself. He's struggling with making the best choices... poor kid has a stubborn streak and I SWEAR I don't know where it comes from... :/ So we're working with him on listening right away. So far so good. But at the meeting I was also told I have the next Einstein on my hands. That may not have been the exact wording they used but they did say he is extremely smart and knows his stuff. My three year old is already putting words together and learning how to read. Now momma is proud of THAT report at least!

Makin' memories of us

2009-11-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

Brodie and I had an incredible *moment* this morning that made me cry on the way to work. School starts late for him on Wednesdays so Daddy takes Jackson and Adelyn to school and I wait for Brodie's bus to come at 7:40 and then I book it to work. Well we were sitting in the van this morning to keep warm and we cranked up the radio and sang at the top of our lungs and Brodie pounded out some mean drums on the dashboard.

I hope he remembers this morning for the rest of his life because I know I will.

I have some crystal clear memories of my childhood. I remember laying on my parents' waterbed and hiding from them thinking that they had NO clue where I was. I remember my mom letting us "do" her hair - can you imagine the knots she had to comb out later?!?

I want my kids to have fun memories when they look back at their childhoods. I want Jackson to remember the giggles we share, the funny stories he tells, and the forts we build. I want Brodie to remember the back rubs and the silly song singing. I want Adelyn to remember the tickle wars and the cuddling. I started a new routine with them that I had with my mom when I was little - the good night words. I think I said the good night words to her until I was in middle school and was "over it." I wish I had never stopped...

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite. Good night. I love you. See you in the morning!

I get so choked up when I think about the kids growing up. I pray that they will always look back on their "younger years" and remember the important moments.

2009-11-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

Can I just say that - I am so ready for the holidays!

This is by far my most favorite part of the year and I'm glad it is almost here once again... crazy little thing sneaks up and surprises me every year! I'm already planning my attack on the Christmas shopping and the card sending and the dinner making. We're hosting a big Thanksgiving Day dinner with Aaron's parents and his brother, and my parents and my siblings. I am so excited to host our first Thanksgiving dinner and I'm so excited to have everyone together! I have way too much to be thankful for!

Brodie: My joy.
We had parent teacher conferences last night for the first time this school year. His teacher repeatedly told us that Brodie is such a JOY to have in class. Hearing that is just amazing. He has just GROWN so much in the last few weeks - I'm talking both in school and in his legs. I told him that we're going to turn his jeans into capris so that we don't have to keep buying him more jeans! Can we say floooooood pants??

He really is enjoying school this year. He's doing fantastic. His attitude is incredible. He brings a smile to my face every day [including right now as I'm typing this!]

He's such a boy...

Gooooo Raiders!!

Jackson: My laughter.
He has turned into the biggest crack up ever! Some moms just laugh because they're supposed to... with him, I laugh because he is seriously hilarious! There is NO denying him - he's definitely my kid!

Here is how I found him one night. I put him to bed in HIS bed and by the time I was ready for bed and walked into my room, he was on the floor. I didn't even HEAR him get out of bed or anything! I was about to pick him up and carry him back to his room when I thought - you know - there's going to come a day when I just want him to snuggle with me but it "won't be cool." I am not ready for him to grow up and by golly - if he wants to sleep on my floor until he's 18, it doesn't bother me one bit!

Adelyn: my princess!
And booooy does she play her part well. In Adie's castle, you hold her 90% of the time. She has every intention of telling you when she's not happy and when she's not getting her way. Getting things done around the house is VERY difficult but she is still fantastic. Adelyn has had a birthday since my last post and is now a whopping 1 year old! She had a great party and she had way too much fun with her cake!

She is so inquisitive and is talking up a storm these days! She says about 10 words now and I love hearing her talk.

She's also extremely independent. As much as she loves to be held and loves to be around people, she still wants to do a lot of things herself. She doesn't want anyone to touch her toys but her. She wants to help change her diaper. And she will always feed herself!

No matter how dirty she gets :) She definitely gets a bath every.night.

Makin' a list

2009-08-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

If you know me, you know that I love lists. I love them so much that it's probably unhealthy. Aaron might just be jealous of them. I make lists for groceries and then re-make them to put them in order of the aisles of the store. I make lists of what errands I need to run over lunch time. I make lists of what I want to see done to the house in the future. I make lists of gifts we receive and thank you cards I [still] need to write. But I only have a "mental" list of what I want to do with ME in the near future. So here is my list:

*I want to spend more time with my extended family. Brodie, Aaron, and Adelyn have never met my dad's brothers and sisters and it makes me sick to think about. Is a 4 hour drive really that terrible? No. I need to get off my butt and reconnect with them. They are a fun and amazing group of people that I don't want my kids to miss out on!

*I want to stay home more. I know... it kind of contradicts that last "to do" item but in all honesty, I miss my nights at home. I love coming home and eating dinner as a family and doing fun "family" things. Some of my greatest memories as a kid were eating grilled cheese sandwiches and watching America's Funniest Home Videos every Sunday night. Having tickle fights with my dad on their super cool waterbed. Putting on "performances" with my sister. You know... the good stuff. I want to nurture my kids' imaginations and let them know that their home is a safe and wonderful place.

*I want to hit up a lot of Northridge sports events. I want my kids to take pride in what is, or eventually will become, their school. I want the kids to get excited to see their owe "local stars" even though I'm pretty sure Northridge will never produce a local football star ;)

*I want to pray before every meal and before bed every night. I know this really should be a no-brainer but I find that I don't pray nearly as often as I should. I'm the one that prays when something goes wrong and blows it off when things are fine. Not cool. I'm big on communication with the people I care about and I'm pretty sure I care about God more than I do anyone else so bring on the communication!

*I want to keep commitments. As most of you know, I'm usually really great at this and hate it when people don't keep their commitments to me... ;) But the boys are both really struggling with understanding the concept of once you commit to something, you have to stick with it. So my goal is to teach through example and show them that keeping commitments is a great part of their character.

*I want to love more. I am easily ticked off and I'm tired of being ticked off. I let little things [ahem - people not keeping commitments] really get under my skin when it shouldn't. I want to be able to love people no matter what and to let things roll off my back. But also to not let people take advantage of me.

*I want to be a better mom. I often times feel like I don't make the "cut" because I don't do enough with them. Having two "part timers" makes my time with them that much more valuable and I want to make the most of the little time that we do get to spend with them. I always said that I felt Zachary was God's sign to me to not take advantage of my children and to love them that much more. I'm not going to let Him down!

Ok so there is my short list. Those are things I'd like to accomplish in the very near future - as in today.

You can call me Mrs Graber

2009-08-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

I am a married woman! Finally! [again...]

The wedding/reception was everything I wanted and hoped for. It was fun. Informal and relaxed. Us.

I wish I had more pics but I'm still waiting on some so I'll go ahead and share what little I have and the stories from what made our day so amazing.

We went to take pictures at Bonneyville and the boys wouldn't cooperate. Would. Not. So I think we got 2 family pics - I really hope they turned out! But who really wants to argue with kids on their wedding day? Not me. We still had fun with the pictures though!

Back to the house. Everyone gets there and all of a sudden my flowers were missing. Hence the 10 minute hold up trying to find them only to realize Meg had MINE and hers were still in her car. Geesh!

Brodie didn't want to walk down the aisle so he plopped down in the front row. Jackson wanted to pull ants apart so he stayed in the back for a while and didn't want to carry Aaron's ring either. Can we say personality strong?? ;)

We all walk down - my dad kisses me and gives me away. We're standing in the front holding hands. I realize I forgot my vows so my dad runs upstairs to get them. Ha. It really was kinda funny!

Can you believe that I didn't cry at all? Not once!! I thought for sure I would just bawl my frickin' eyes out when Aaron read his but I didn't. I was proud of myself! ;) So my cousin (the preacher) asks for the rings and I get Aaron's from my sister and Brodie - well Brodie loses mine in the grass. Haaa. So he finally found it and then I couldn't get Aaron's dang ring on his finger. His knuckles need to go on a diet!!

Then came the family prayer. The best moment of the day in my opinion. All three kids cooperated and it was a very special and meaningful time for all of us. I can't wait to see what God is bringing our family!

It was amazing and I loved every second of it! Our reception was amazing too! So many people showed up and I seriously felt so loved! We have an amazing group of people surrounding us and I am amazed every day by it! Thanks to everyone who helped make our day wonderful!

Well my heart knows me better than I know myself so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'

2009-07-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

I am almost a married woman! I have 2 days left of insanity before I enter a completely different insane world. I cannot wait! ;)

Everything has finally come together and it's about stinkin' time! We are having a very small wedding Friday evening and having a slightly bigger reception Saturday evening. Yup. I'm going to hog the entire weekend! We have been very budget conscious doing this wedding and I'm super proud of saying that I spent under $1000 on everything. Every. Thing. Not many people can say that! I'll get you an exact total of what I spend after all the receipts come in. Still proud... ;)

I am working at Dr. Nush's office now and I am loving it! He's a brand spankin' new doc right out of residency and is super fun to work with. He's 30 (born a month before Aaron) and him and his wife are just amazing. If anyone is looking for a new doc, call us up! You'll love him too!

School starts in a measley 3 weeks. I cannot believe that summer has gone by so quick! Brodie is going to be a BIG and TOUGH 1st grader. He's a tad apprehensive about starting school again so keep him in your prayers. He doesn't always tolerate change the greatest... kinda like his almost step momma :)

Our summer has been packed full of fun stuff! I just seriously feel like we've been on the go and I'm ready to relax. But just when we get a chance to relax... soccer practices have begun for both of the boys and school is just around the corner. Phew. I love being a mom :)

Adie is the most mobile little girl. Well back up - she's not walking yet (thank goodness!) but she's close and gets anywhere she wants to go. I think she's going to be a tomboy too. Oh man. She doesn't like her toys - she prefers the boys hammers. She screams when she wears dresses because she can't crawl as well. She freaks out when I try to put bows in her basically non-existent hair. Ugh. I'll keep working on her but man - I love that girl!

Next time I blog I will officially be a Graber. From Amish to... Amish.

Summer time... and the livin' is easy

2009-06-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

The kids are in full summer mode:

Brodie officially thinks his bedtime is 10:00. I think not.

The boys just got done with VBS and loved it. Made new friends and everything!

Both are doing well in Brenneman's summer program.

Brodie's first season in little league is over this Saturday. He had some AWESOME hits last Saturday!

Soccer should start in another month or so. Jackson is asking about it every day...

Adelyn loves being outside. She, unlike her hilarious cousin Anderson, loves sitting in the grass and pulling at it.

They've gotten to swim at Grandma and Grandpa's and love being in the water.

Both boys have farmer's tans.

And blonder than normal hair.

Adelyn still has no hair :(

I love summer.

Camping and gardening and tooth pulling oh my!

2009-05-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

The last time I went camping was the fall of '96 and it was just ok... I haven't really had a desire to go back even though I've thought about it a time or two. Aaron was really wanting to go with his parents this weekend (they go every Memorial and Labor Day weekend) so I gave in and well....

I loved it.

The boys were able to play and get dirty and they had a ball. Adelyn really did great but she was ready to come home when we did. We all loved being outside and cooking over the fire. The air mattress was truly comfortable to sleep on. I love camping. Sooo relaxing and such a great time! We camped at Indiana Beach so we went and rode rides and went to the water park and played mini golf.

We came home last night so we spent today planting the rest of the garden. So. Much. Work. But I'm very proud of it and can't wait to see what happens with it. Remember when I said I wasn't going to put much faith into it this year?? Well my hopes are already up so I'm pretty sure I'll cry if it doesn't turn out ok. I really thought I could be tough too...

Adelyn has had a lot of "firsts" moments the past month or so. Within a week so was saying "mama" and "dada", crawling, pulling up on some furniture, playing peek-a-boo, and popped out her first tooth. Whew. It really breaks your heart to hear your little girl cry and it SHATTERS it when she's crying for you and calling out your name.

Jackson loves school. Loves it. I've really him grow up a lot since he's started. His grammar has improved and he can recognize most of his letters just from being there for a month. I'm such a proud momma! He had his first school program last Sunday and was Little Boy Blue. He was AWESOME at napping under the haystack ;) Here we are before his program (minus Brodie... he came with his mom)

Brodie started baseball and has been doing great! You can literally see Aaron beaming when that boy is out on the field.

He also lost his second tooth while we were camping this weekend. If you look close at the picture you'll see that he's pushing the tooth with his tongue... it was sticking straight out at us!! And we still had to coax him into pulling it. Poor thing was scared but he finally popped it out! He was pretty sure the tooth fairy didn't come to the campgrounds so we saved it for him ;)

Livin' the good life!

2009-04-26T13:06:00.001-07:00

Life is great right now and I'm lovin' it!

Tuesday we went to Brodie's book fair at school. I seriously love books. We bought him 3 books and one for his teacher off of her wish list. I think I had more fun going through the books than he did! But they are enjoying the new books that we can read at bed time. I really hope they develop a love for books like I had (and still have!). We've also started doing devotions with the boys before bed. I don't have a book that we're working out of but we've just been picking different passages to read. Brodie is especially getting into them. He has a million questions and I'm just blown away by his heart. He's got an amazing heart!

Wednesday we went to Brenneman to finish up the paper work and get everything in order. Jackson starts tomorrow and couldn't be more excited!! I seriously cannot believe he's in "school" already. He's so grown up... :( I'm not so sure how he's going to do not seeing his "Adie girlie" all day though. He's pretty in love with her and has a hard time when he doesn't see her. We shall see... We also met with a lady who I was planning on watching Adie. Uhhh pretty sure she was AWESOME over the phone but she smokes in the house. Sick. I will be finding someone else. I have an awesome friend Dawn that will be watching her this week and I have a meeting with another lady on Wednesday. Keeping my fingers crossed that this one works out!!

Adelyn and I also went to visit Kayla and Jaden on Wednesday. Pretty sure I hadn't seen her since Adelyn was less than a month old which also means that I had never met her cutie kid!! Ugh. Where does time go?!? So I had bought her quite a few things... some of which won't even fit him now. Dang. But it was so nice to visit with her even though our kids were cry babies. I understood. So did she. It was all good.

Thursday we signed the boys up for soccer. They don't offer many sports for 3 year olds so I was on top of it when I saw that he could play for Middlebury soccer. He was NOT a happy camper when we went to sign up and he didn't get to actually play that day. Explain that one to a disappointed 3 year old. Not easy.

Friday was the Bethany Fish Fry. Can we say YUMMMMMMMM?!? I love fish fry fish and this year Aaron's bff Brant came with his two adorable kids. So 3 adults and 5 kids. It was crazy but fun and tummy filling! Brant's wife Angie isn't so hot on fish or the smell of it so she was smart and stayed home. So we all ended up back at their house so we could see her and let the kids really play. Brodie also was flirting BIG time with their little girl AJ. AJ is just a few months younger than Jackson and Brodie was pretty obsessed. It was hilarious!

Yesterday and today we spent a ton of time outside doing yardwork. I planted some flowers and hostas that I'm pretty excited about. Promise not to laugh but I have seriously never planted a plant in my life. Ever. But something crawled up my butt this year and I've been dying to get out in the yard so we did!! We went to Lowe's last night and I'm also trying to talk Aaron into some super cute patio furniture so if you see him please ask him why we have none right now. It might help my case :) We're also planning on planting a garden. Not sure how much we'll get done this year but I'm planning on making a big deal out of it in years to come. Our grocery bill kills us when it comes to fresh produce so I'm pumped to start growing my own! Peppers and berries and beans oh my!!

The boys LOVE to help us in the yard. They argued over who was going to water, who would put the bulbs in the holes, who would use the trowel, etc. At points it got annoying and I was really sick of the arguing but when you think about it, I would rather them argue over helping than have two of them who don't want to help at all. That'll come in just a few short years I'm sure...

What else have we been up to since my last post... Aaron turned the big 3-0. We had a party here at the house for him with our amazing friends and had a great time. I really enjoy hosting things now that we actually have the space to do it. I also made him go to the doctor for a complete physical. haha. He wasn't so thrilled on the idea but hey... he's like an old man now! Plus his family history isn't he greatest so I needed to make sure he was truly surviving in there :)

Brodie got his tongue clipped last Monday. He has been tongue-tied from birth and he just now got it done. We've made him promise to not stick his tongue out at us though :) I got to stay home with him Tuesday and poor bugga was sooo sore! But he's a trooper and he's doing great now!

Easter was great. Church that morning was ah-mazing if not eye opening. It started a lot of great conversations with Aaron and myself and just last week he told me he became a Christian!! Rock on! It was something we had talked about in the past but not a lot and I knew he at least believed but beyond that... I really had no clue. So I'm very excited for him and... I seriously can't even put it into words. I'm sure you understand if you're a Believer yourself. We got the kiddos Bibles for Easter and it's super cute to walk into a bedroom and find one of the boys "reading" the Bible (aka looking at pictures).

Well I'm off to take a shower... finally... at 9:00 pm. Don't mock. I promise I worked hard today! Plus I have no voice at all. Aaron may be rejoicing slightly but I'm frustrated that no one can hear me at all today. And I'm sunburnt. It's ok though... this body needs a little color on it! :)

Our house. In the middle of the street.

2009-03-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

Here is what I love most about our house:

-I love the marsh out back. I may not love it in the summer (mosquitoes) but it's so nice that nobody can look in our back windows and we have tons of cool animals out there. It's pretty sweet and it is beautiful.

-The room!! We have tons of room and space! We aren't all on top of each other anymore and the kids have plenty of room to play.

-Speaking of play space, I love the basement. We have an AWESOME walk out basement that holds Brodie's bedroom, a huge play area, a family room, a 1/2 bath, the boys’ computer, and my scrapbook stuff. It's my favorite area of the house!

-It has a garage!! Granted I’m no where close being able to park in it since we have a million things in there right now but there is a light at the end of this tunnel!!

-The neighborhood. As we were unloading our truck Monday night, we had our neighbor across the street bring us three pies and some chocolate chip cookies. She’s my new BFF.

Here is what I do not love:

-The paint. Pretty sure there was a meth lab going on in the house while they were painting. Not pretty and it’s going to take gallons of primer just to cover it. Ugh.

-The showers. I really don’t think the owners knew that shower cleaners exist in our amazingly modern world. It took my mom over an hour to clean one shower for us. Sick.

-The gobs of dog hair and the pet stains on the carpet. It’s sick and it makes me gag. And I am also pretty sure that poor Adie is allergic to dogs since she has developed a super nasty nose just since we’ve moved in.

I’m super happy here. I love it. I also want to brag that we had our ENTIRE apartment empty and loaded on to the truck and we were pulling out of the complex in less than one hour Monday night. I was slightly stressed that we were going to be up forever since we were moving on a week night but we had an AMAZING crew of people helping us and we zipped right through it all. We are so blessed.

One full plate!

2009-03-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

Things in this household are crazy! We found out last week that we got the house so we signed papers on Friday. We meet the guy we are getting it from on Tuesday and we get the key then too. Our house is in shambles to say the least! We have boxes everywhere and nothing is in order. I keep telling myself this is temporary but the OCD in me is not happy to see my house every day. I'm very excited to move though. We have most of our paint ready to go and I'm hoping to get some rooms painted before the big move on Saturday. I'll keep my expectations low and my fingers crossed!

The kids have been doing good. The boys are both stoked about moving and getting their own rooms. Brodie has been really sick the last couple of months and I'm not really sure what to do with him anymore! He had strep throat and then an ear infection turned up and then ta-da, he now has an upper respiratory infection. When does it end?? He woke up the last two nights just screaming because he hurt so bad. I feel terrible for him! Today he was being his goofy self though so I think he's on the mend. For now. He told us yesterday that he was going to marry Adelyn when she got bigger and immediately following that, Jackson told us he was going to be a mommy soon. Please pray for these boys... ;)

But we think Brodie is talking about marrying Adie because his daddy asked me to marry him. That's right, we're engaged. No date or details yet but a very gorgeous ring on my finger. I was ecstatic to say the least :) So now we're packing, moving, organizing, and trying to start planning a wedding. I've definitely got a lot on my plate right now but I'm not complaining one bit :)

cough cough

2009-02-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

How long has it been since I last blogged? Too long. We have been a house full of sickies lately and it’s not fun. Brodie had strep throat last week so we were trying to keep him at a distance from us ;) Jackson and Adelyn were both really stuffed up, as was I. Aaron, surprisingly, has been the healthiest one of us all. But I think we are all on the upswing so hopefully by next weekend we should all be fine and will be able to have a fun time! We’re having a family Valentine’s day and I’m super excited about it! Aaron and I are trying to figure out exactly what we want to do on Saturday but I think we’re at least planning on taking the kids out to eat somewhere fun and getting a hotel room so the boys can swim. Maybe Fort Wayne? Maybe Indy? Not sure yet. But I get really giddy just thinking about it!

We’re in the process of trying to find a house in Middlebury schools for rent or land contract. I’m starting to think that those options just don’t exist up there. I wish we had more options or ANY other options at this point but we are just going to keep on trying. It’s frustrating but I’m sure that we will find the house for us. I am just hoping it’s sooner than later…

Adelyn is almost sitting up by herself. She doesn’t have the muscles for it yet (blame it on her momma!) but she gets an A+ for effort! That girl ends up flinging herself everywhere just trying to stay in an upright position and it’s quite hilarious if I’m being honest ;) And you want to know the weirdest thing about her??? She loves veggies but not so much fruit. Most kids are total opposite of that but give her some yummy peaches and she will squirm and cry. Her favorite foods consist of green beans and peas. Peas = not my child!

Jackson has been the most loving kid the past two weeks and it makes me smile. Hopefully he was just going through an ornery stage and he’s over it now. All he wants to do is cuddle with me and give hugs to everyone and feed Adelyn. It’s cute. He makes me smile. And to make things even better, he’s been listening to me lately!! Like I mean he does what I ask him too. HOLY COW!! Now trust me, it’s not perfect and he doesn’t always do it with a happy heart but he’s getting so much better.

Brodie is still as cute as ever. He has such an ornery sense of humor and it cracks me up!! He and I like to pick on the other three and scare them or tease them. We have a lot of fun together!! We’ve started working on chores and allowance. If he wants us to buy things for him, he needs to earn them. Maybe he’s too young for this but it seems to really be working for him for now. He enjoys putting clothes away or helping to sort the laundry. We’re also trying to teach him how to save his money. We get really excited about his accounts and make a big deal out of his deposits. Hopefully this can stick with him for life!

Taking a break...

2009-01-07T11:52:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break some scrapbooking so bear with me - this will probably be on the short side as I'm anxious to get going again.

I'm so glad the holidays are over and we're getting back into a routine. I live off of routine. Brodie started school again. I'm back to my regular schedule. And we don't have plans with a million and two people. It feels nice.

Adie had her 4 month appointment today and it went really well. I was telling Dr. Fu how much she eats [no joke - 8 oz every 2 1/2 hours PLUS 2 servings of cereal a day!! Insane!!] and he wants us to go ahead and start her on some veggies to see if that helps. So feeding time is about to get a heck of a lot messier! I'm sure fun pictures are in store for you all :)

Jackson is in love with the Wii. He asks every day to play the "fighting" game, AKA boxing. He's actually really good at it and can knock me out. Slightly embarrassing but I'm proud of him and love watching him be good at something.

Funny story about Brodie. And just to warn you this is not for the weak of heart or for anyone eating right now so if that is you then trust me, you want to skip ahead and not read my story. I'm not even sure how "funny" it is but I still have to share it. Brodie started Christmas break on Christmas Eve so that was what, 2 weeks ago. Left his backpack at his mom's and we didn't see it again until Monday after school. Aaron picked him up from Grandma and Grandpa's house after work and they said that his aunt [also the school bus driver] called and said when Brodie got off the bus something smelled reallllly bad. And imagine how bad school buses smell every day. So when Aaron got there, they looked in his bag to find... are you ready for this... a leftover box from before Christmas. SICK!! But that's not the worst of it. They lifted it out and the bottom of it fell out in his bag.... along with a million worms. Here is where my skin starts crawling. Who knows how long the worms had been in there and he took this to school and had it there all day!! He had his folders in there and got in his bag for other things too!!! So the bag is now in a pile of ashes and he's sporting a super cool orange one. Buh bye Batman!

Does anyone else get easily stressed out? Little things seem to put me over the edge these days. Things that really aren't that important but just crush me or stress me out. I'm thinking about starting my happy pills again but don't want to go that route if unnecessary. I was hoping to control it on my own but I don't know... it doesn't seem to be getting better. It's very taxing on me.

Aaron's uncle had a triple by-pass on New Years Eve. He was having some pain and thought it was gall stones maybe. Went in and a few hours later was under the knife. Kind of scary to think about but I'm glad he went in when he did.

Aaron and I went out to PA for New Years without the kids. Let me tell you - it was HARD! I missed them all so much! And really, the trip wasn't all that great. I won't go into grave detail but I'll tell you that I experience more PDA than I ever have before in my life. Now I'm usually fine with kisses, hand holding, a little touching, whatever. This was hard core making out, petting, and straddling. And I'm even saving you the details of it. It was bad and it wasn't worth leaving the kids for. I did have a good time at the party we went to and met some really cool people. There were some kids there playing GH and wow, they were good. I thought I was good... on easy. They were hitting everything on expert and I felt about 2 inches tall. haha. We also got to go shopping out there so that is always fun for me :) The mountains were amazing and we had a really good drive out there and back.

Ok back to scrapbooking. I'm feeling some creative juices coming on...

Winter Wonderings

2008-12-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

I have so much to blog about but I have very little to say. As things come up on a daily basis, I find myself thinking "I really should blog about this" but I never find a chance to. They aren't important things necessarily. Just "fun" or "unique" moments that eventually escape me if I don't put them in writing immediately. So I will recap the cuteness of my family:

Brodie - he had a blast this Christmas! He was so fun to watch open his gifts and had a smile on his face every time he even thought about Christmas. He did ask for one gift and one gift only for Christmas - Smackdown, a wrestling video game. Well Santa must not have heard his little pleas as he did not get it. He was a little disappointed and it broke my heart. We were getting ready to go to Aaron's parent's house for Christmas and an excited Brodie said "Santa didn't forget me!! I bet he brought Smackdown to Grandpa's house!!"

Jackson - he was just as fun to watch this year! As he would open his gifts he would yell "Holy Cow!! Wait a second!!" We cracked up the whole time! He's becoming a better kid by the day. We're testing out some new discipline tactics and seem to have found a couple that work better than the rest. For now at least... :) Ahh the joys of parenting. We don't let him wear pull-ups at night anymore and that has been going good so far. We've only had one accident and it was barely and accident so I'm not complaining. I'm just ready to be done with his potty training once and for all!

Adelyn - she has one of the best personalities! She will find anything she can to laugh at. She loves to smile - just like her mommy :) She's been eating like a hound so I gave in and let her have some rice cereal a few weeks early. She wasn't so sure about it so we'll see how it goes tomorrow. I'm only feeding it to her once a day just to see if it helps out or just hurts her belly.

You know, my favorite part about Christmas is spending time with family. I've had a ton of fun playing games and laughing and eating and loving. I feel very "full" in life right now and am very excited (but nervous of course!) about the future. Today was such a relaxing day and we even were brave enough to take the boys to play at McDonalds and then shopped at Target and Meijer!!

I got some great gifts this year but I will say my MOST favorite was what Aaron got me. He wrapped up two shelves of what will be my new scrapbooking center!! WHOO HOO!! He would have done more but wanted me to have some input in it and wanted to make sure I liked how he had started it. I cannot wait! He's building it himself so it may take a while but I can try and be patient... :)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have a safe New Year!

December is...

2008-12-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

SUCH a crazy month! But I love it. I love the holidays. The smell of it all. The baking. The smiles on everyone's faces. December is a great month but I'd prefer it without snow. We already have one Christmas down and I had so much fun. Last night we had my mom and my sister and her family over for Christmas. This was our Thanksgiving and Christmas combined since it's so hard to fit three holidays into one day so we just met in the middle. The kids were so cute opening their gifts and then we played some games - on our new Wii! My mom is so amazing and got a Wii for our family and for Meg's family. She spent way too much money on us this year but that is just my mom - putting us before her. So we played on that for a while and played some other games which is always fun. Here are some pics of all the kids...

We went and got our tree the Sunday after Christmas and spent the next few days decorating. Usually I'm pretty picky about things but this year I said "what the heck" and let the boys do what they wanted to do. Of course Aaron and I helped some but I figure that we have three kids and kids do really cute things that don't last for long. So the ornaments all got hung in the same spot basically. Not so "attractive" but really cute and really honest. I'm learning to appreciate the pureness in kids' lives and not try to correct everything they do. Just cherish it.

I only have a few more gifts to buy and I think we're going to try to go shopping next weekend. We have a wedding Saturday night [which I'm VERY excited for!!] so we're either going to go Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon. I'm pulling for Saturday morning so I can get a new dress ;) The Saturday after that we have Christmas with my dad and then it's only a few days 'til Christmas! This month sure does fly! Right now we're also planning on spending New Years in Pennsylvania with Aaron's brother so I'm really excited about that. I've never been out there before and I know we'll have a blast!

Jackson's Christmas program was this morning and oh... so cute!! How did my kid get stuck in the front row and in the center?? For real!! He [and all the other kids too!] was so cute and did so good. I took a few pics and then I remembered that my camera has a little video on it. Buuuuut I can't figure out how to download the dang thing so I'll just give you a quick pic and try to work on the video later...

And of course on to Miss Adie. My world is about to crumble... she's officially on the move. ;) She can now roll from her back to her belly and all I can see is crawling and pulling everything off of shelves now. AHH! I'm totally kidding. I am so proud of her and I love watching her grow up. I was talking with a girl I work with and she was saying that we always focus so much on our child's "firsts" that we forget about their "lasts." Wow. So I am going to remember these moments - the last time she takes a pacifier. The last time she stays put when I place her somewhere. The last time she wears my favorite outfit. The last time she smiles at me with no teeth. I'm choking up just thinking about these things. So here are some of her "no-teeth-smiles" for everyone else to enjoy too!

Terrible threes

2008-11-24T17:44:00.000-08:00

Things here are... good. I've been having some rough moments but in general, life is amazing.

We have reached a really really really bad point in discipline with Jackson. Nothing works. He is at the "i-will-talk-back-to-you-about-everything-and-throw-myself-on-the-floor-and-have-a-fit" stage. I can't handle it. I've tried spanking and smacking his mouth. They both make him cry but have no lasting effect and I'm not really cool with spanking my child every 5 minutes or so. Time outs work the best but are only good for an hour or so maybe. I can't take toys away when he doesn't pick them up because he could care less about them. He's just as content playing with a pillow or broom. I just haven't found the secret to him yet and how to break him of this. I cry a lot of nights after he goes to bed because he just tests me so much and pushes me to my limits. I try so hard to stay calm in front of him since I'm one to anger quickly and that's something I do not want him to see or pick up on. BUT on the other hand, he's so funny and such a ham and always tells me he loves me. I just keep telling myself this is a phase... this is a phase...

Is that phase over yet? And people keep telling me that three is worse than two. Guess who turns three on Friday?!? Ugh...

Speaking of birthdays... here are some pics from Jack's party on Saturday. He had a lot of fun!! The first couple are of him opening the gift from us Friday night.

We have been going to church regularly for the past month or so and I love it. I've always gone hit and miss and to go every week is so refreshing. I love Jim's messages and his passion. The boys both have Christmas programs coming up here and I cannot wait to see them in it! Jackson's never done any kind of program so I guarantee a bit of proudness coming out... ;) I'll try to keep it under control.

I'm really excited about Thanksgiving this week and Black Friday! I love spending time with my family and that is what I'm looking forward to most but I am one of those "get up at the crack on dawn" people that will be waiting in lines for stores to open on Friday. It's our tradition and I love it. Aaron said he wants to come this year because he runs faster than I do. Haha. I can't wait to see that!! All four kids are staying with my dad and Barb Thursday night so we can all get up to do this. I'm getting giddy just thinking about it!!

And I'll leave you with some super cute pics like always...

Updating

2008-11-17T08:04:00.000-08:00

I haven’t had much to blog about lately. Things are going good in every aspect of life and it feels great! I can feel myself growing and evolving every day and becoming the person that I truly want to be. We’re been going through a series at church called “She is” about women and it has been an unbelievable couple of weeks. I love Jim’s rawness and openness as he talks every week. Aaron has been absorbing these sermons too and we talk about them throughout the week. That is one thing I haven’t had in any of my relationships – a spiritual connection. A desire to learn more. Together. He has been stepping up and taking on the true title of “family leader” and I can see how happy it makes him to be able to play that part and do it well. I am so excited to see where God will take our family and what he’s going to do in my life, Aaron’s life, and the kids’ lives. On WFRN this morning they debuted Matthew West’s new song “Going Through the Motions.” If you didn’t hear it this morning, I strongly suggest googling it since I don’t know how to add cool songs to my blog like Angie does :)

Aaron and I have been talking a lot about marriage. If you’re wondering, his divorce isn’t final just yet but it will be soon. Court is on Friday and then it’s just a waiting game. But we’re in the home stretch and marriage is something we both want very much. He is so afraid that people are going to judge him since he’ll just be finalizing divorced and getting married soon after. I guess I am a little nervous about that too but in all reality, he’s been separated for almost three years now. At this point, it’s just a legality. For those of you who know what Aaron and I have been through, you can just imagine how amazing it is to hear him say “Sarah, I want to marry you and I can’t wait to be your husband!” There were times when I thought I would never hear him say that. It’s amazing.

This snow is beautiful, yet I still hate it. I think I had a tear in my eye when I looked out the window this morning. Jackson runs outside and yells “MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! LOOK MOMMY, SANTA BROUGHT ME SNOW!!” I told him that Santa must not have looked at Mommy’s wish list this year… boo. But I am getting psyched up for Christmas!! Aaron and I went to the mall this weekend and got a lot of good ideas for gifts. Now I just need to check out the Black Friday ads to see if anything I want is in them. Yes, I’m one of “those freaks” that enjoy getting up in the wee hours to go stand in a long line at the store. I love it and I’m slightly addicted to it. No joke.

The kids are doing great. Brodie had parent/teacher conferences the other day and got all good remarks. She said he is the most improved student so that is SO nice to hear! Jackson is getting smarter by the minute. He is a sponge right now and he’s such a little prankster! Cracks me up! Adelyn is growing growing growing! She moved up to 3-6 month clothes already and I about had a fit putting all her little clothes away. She “talks” to us all the time – I just hope she’s not telling us off already…

Oh another funny Jackson story. He told the window it was naughty this morning because it was letting the dark in. To him dark means bed time and he had just woke up. I think the windows are naughty to…

s.e.v.e.n.

2008-11-10T09:47:00.000-08:00

So I've been tagged a few times. I'll do it but I don't feel like tagging anyone since I think everyone I know in blogger world has already been tagged.

Seven weird things about me

1. My sister and I can finish each other's sentences. We don't have normal conversations and we can drive people crazy because we'll be like "So I ran into...", "Oh I saw her and", "I know! Her daughter is so cute!" Or sometimes I'll start venting about something that she already knew I was going to vent about. It's normal to us though.

2. When I watch something painful happen to someone or if someone is talking about something that would hurt, I get a shooting pain in my feet. It's almost like I feel their pain and it hurts. But I also have the uncontrollable urge to giggle when I watch someone get hurt [usually in a video - never in real life]. I think it's my nervousness for them.

3. If I am sleeping anywhere other than my bed, I usually sleep with my eyes open. No joke. I'm not sure why and it's not even a "choice" I make. People will start talking to me [because they think I am awake] and wake me up and it really ticks me off. I hate being woke up. And it's not my fault that my eyes are open.

4. I crack my jaw when I have a headache. It doesn't always help but I automatically start doing it as soon as I feel a headache coming on. I also rub behind my ears to help but again, it doesn't always help. But I still do it...

5. I need my clothes to smell like laundry detergent. I love the smell of that stuff! I could spend forever in the laundry aisle at the grocery store because of the smell. Sometimes I walk down it just because.

6. I am petrified of danglies hanging out of my nose and having food in my teeth. Without even thinking about it, I rub my nose and run my tongue over my teeth. I usually do both of those things every 5 to 10 minutes.

7. I cannot hold a grudge. I can get madder than heck and be furious with a person but if you give me time to cool off, I'm so over it. It's totally a good thing and I am very happy that I have been blessed with this quality.

Picture heaven

2008-10-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

Ok here are some of the pics I promised in my last post. Here are the boys WAY cool tattoos :)

And pictures of the kids in their costumes.

And the boys with their pumpkins

Yes this is a photo overload post ;) I just have kids that are too cute to NOT post so many pictures!

Here are some of the boys with Adelyn. She has two of the best big brothers ever!

And Jackson with his friend Brantson eating their snack on the kitchen table. I swear - I can't turn my back for one minute without him doing something crazy!

And Adelyn just being her normal smiley self

She's starting to laugh. Well they aren't real laughs and I haven't written it in her baby book yet because she's "laughing" but there isn't any noise coming out. It's hilarious to watch. She's growing up too dang fast!!

I'm off to do some scrapbooking since Shannon and I did some serious damage at Pages In Time last night. I am so pumped to get going on Addie's book!!

Happenings

2008-10-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

I am not ready to go back to work. Not ready at all! Now that Addie is sleeping most of the night, I feel a million times better and so does she. Jackson has been acting out less as well so life here has gotten easier and now I have to leave them with a baby sitter. It just breaks my heart that I'm going to miss out on so much in their lives. With Jackson, I was SO ready to go back but I also had postpartum really bad with him. But now I just have those dang bills to pay. Poo.

I took on a big project of going through all my scrapbook stuff and sorting things out, throwing things away, and reorganizing to make better use of my space. I feel a ton better about my scrapping area now and I'm ready to tackle some big projects. Shannon and I are heading up to Pages In Time on Thursday and boy do I have a list of things I need to get! I can't wait! I guess I need to work to support my shopping habits too ;)

Jackson has been saying the cutest things lately! You just have to wonder where he comes up with these things. Aaron and I have this thing that when Adelyn wakes up or needs changed we use phrases like "somebody's awake" or "somebody needs her diaper changed" and things like that. The other day Jackson saw her waking up and as she was peeping at him he says "somebody has eyes". Well I sure hope she does... ;)

Adelyn is so alert and so awake these days. I love talking to her and listen to her coo at me. She smiles all the time but still no real laughs yet. I can't wait for that day since baby laughs are my favorite! We went to Meijer with the kids on Saturday since they were having a costume contest and she won 3rd place. They kept saying how cute she was in her butterfly costume - like they had to tell me... ;) I'll post pics the next time I upload pictures to my computer. I don't feel like doing it right now.

Brodie didn't have school on Friday so he got to hang out with us too. We had lunch in Syracuse with Aaron so that was fun. We also did Spiderman tatoos which the boys both loved. Again - pics to come. Brodie has seriously come so far in the year I've known him. He started out with a lot of hate and anger towards me and it was so hard. Now he's so sweet and so caring and tells me he loves me all the time. It's hard to believe how things have progressed but I'm so glad they did.

I am not loving this cold weather. I want the 60's back. Or 70's. While I love my new winter coat, I'm just not ready to wear it! It's also a lot harder to get the kids in car seats with winter coats on and I sure didn't miss that from last year!! But I just ordered a bunting bag for Adelyn's car seat so that will be amazing to have! I loved the one I had for Jackson when he was a baby. So much easier!!

And we get Directv on Thursday. My life will then be complete ;) Ok maybe that's a little drastic but I'm beyond excited to finally have it so I can use the DVR. Our New Paris cable just isn't cutting it anymore! We're also looking at some houses right now. Aaron called the realtor the other day so we can get this rolling. Our lease is up in February so hopefully we can find something by then so we don't have to renew anything.

Life is good.

Week in review

2008-10-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

Last Monday was my dad's birthday so we went over on Tuesday to celebrate with the family. And we finally got some cute pics of the babies together. They were so funny just laying there. Anderson kept bopping Adelyn in the face and making her cry - a bully already ;)

Here are the two of them - too cute!

And all of the kids

Here are the boys. Brodie and Jackson were so cute when they were playing with Anderson. I loved it!

Here's the proud papa with the babies.

It was definitely a fun night once we got all of the kids fed and cooperating.

Adelyn is getting so big and has such an incredible personality. She's going to be a little firecracker for sure! Here is just one example of her cuteness...

And here's one of Anderson saying "rock on!"

I seriously love my family and all the cute kids in it! :)

Saturday we all went roller skating for Cody's birthday party. I'm not sure if Brodie had ever gone before but it was so cute to watch him "stomp" his way around the rink. He didn't quite get the gliding aspect of it and I loved it! I took Jackson around once before he started asking for his shoes back. He did not enjoy skating but it was only his first time so hopefully it'll grow on him! I seriously did not remember how fun skating was! I want to go back sometime soon!!

Saturday night we went to Bdubs and bowling with Emily and Steve. It was so nice to see both of them and be able to catch up. It had been a very long time! Steve has a crazy competitive streak though - it was funny! He didn't like that Aaron was so good at bowling but he was also a gracious loser ;) Sunday was family picture day and I cannot WAIT to see Jeanne's work! She always does such an amazing job. The leaves were beautiful too so I'll share the pictures with you when I can.

After we got home from pictures, the boys decided that they wanted to paint their pumpkins. It was a messy task but so fun for them.

I got to paint Adelyn's so here she is with her's.

I still need to get pics of the boys with their pumpkins. I think Aaron and I are still going to carve ours next week sometime. I really just want the seeds out of them to eat ;)

We're planning on taking the boys trick-or-treating at Meijer on Saturday. We were going to do it next Friday on Halloween but I think it's just going to be too stressful. With split parents, it's just too hard to fit everything in. We aren't taking the kids to see anybody this year - just taking a bunch of pictures for everybody. Last year wasn't fun since we were driving all over creation just to make sure everybody saw them. I said no, no, no this year. So we'll take them on Saturday and then they will both be with their other parents on Halloween and Aaron, Adelyn, and I can just take it easy.

Family Fun

2008-10-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

Wow I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. It feels really odd and I feel out of touch with myself. We've been having a lot of fun lately and I'm having the time of my life. I can't even explain how touched I am by my family on a daily basis. I love it.

Aaron and I have been playing Connect 4 after the kids go to bed and let me tell you... it gets intense! Chips being thrown at each other and everything :) It's so nice to be able to do stupid/silly stuff together. Last Thursday we had family karaoke night after Jackson got home. It was seriously SO much fun! Brodie had gotten a karaoke machine for his birthday but we never bought any cd's for it so we went and got some from Best Buy the other day and finally broke them out on Thursday. We were all getting really into it.

Sunday we went to Knollwood Farms and got our pumpkins. We also did part of the corn maze and that was so much fun! I would like to go back sometime without the kids so we could do the whole 6 miles. It was super hot on Sunday but we survived it - sweat and all. It really did feel odd to be out getting pumpkins with it being so warm. Definitely not your typical fall weather!

There were a lot of hide and seek games played in the corn. I'm surprised we didn't lose one of the boys to be honest :)

10.7.08

2008-10-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

So I got this picture on Saturday - FINALLY! Only 4 days after she started smiling at us. Ahh - she's so stinkin' cute I can't stand it! And lookie there Sarah and Amy, she's wearing the shirt you guys got her. :)

We had a great weekend. Saturday night we went to Joe and Tracey's for his birthday party and had a great time. It was our first time leaving Adelyn with someone over night and I'm very proud of how good I did. I did have a few depressing moments and she was on my mind constantly but what can I say - she's my baby girl! My mom said things went ok for her so I felt better once I heard that. I was really worried that Jackson was going to be a stinker for her like he has been for me lately but of course he behaves good for everyone BUT me. :)

I've been keeping busy which is nice for a change. I get so bored sitting at home all day and doing nothing. Then when Aaron gets home and wants to relax, I all but pounce on him wanting to talk to him and get out of the house. It drives him nuts, I know it does. So I'm trying to get out and do something at least once a day which is so nice. I'm desperate to hit up the mall sometime soon... I haven't been in a very long time and I want to buy myself some new clothes! I can't wait!!

Now I'm gearing up to clean the house. I sit here and get online all day long but can't find the time or energy to get my floors swept and furniture dusted, go figure...

Germs germs go away

2008-10-03T10:13:00.001-07:00

Sarah = super sick. I seriously haven't been this sick in a very long time and I didn't miss it one bit! I even had to cancel plans with a good friend today because I feel so crummy :( And do you know what is worse than being sick and feeling awful? Still having to take care of two kids while you are sick and feel awful. I try to sleep a lot to get rid of it but you can only sleep so much while taking care of kids... both kids have been really congested lately too. Jackson is basically over his but Adelyn is still having some problems and I really hate using that dang nose sucker on her. And she hates it too... Aaron is sick too but not as bad as I am. I just pray that Brodie is a trooper and doesn't get our yucky germs.

I've been trying my darndest to get a picture of Addie smiling and NO LUCK! Ugh. She smiles a lot now but I can never catch it on my camera. Here is the tail end of a smile so you get the idea but you still can't see how incredibly cute it is...

Jackson is seriously a great big brother. He loves on her all the time and I feel proud that I raised such a tender hearted kid!

And the always fun "tummy time" which is funny because she has to sleep on her tummy but doesn't want to be on her tummy when she's awake. I don't get it... this is also her first pair of blue jeans. Aww...

Brodie got his routine "buzz" last night. I love rubbing his head after he gets his hair cut! He was so funny last night just being a goof and loving on Adelyn.

And lastly - Jackson going potty. He's really good about peeing in the potty and letting us know when he has to go but we basically have to force him to poo on the potty and not in his pull up or underwear [cleaning poo out of underwear is NOT my most favorite thing to do...] So today he tells me that he has to go potty and I'm assuming pee. Nope. He poo'ed! And how did he let me know? I'm in the living room and he's in the bathroom [he can go all by himself now and doesn't like me to help very often - except when he needs his butt wiped] and he yells "MOM!! THERE ARE TWO HUGE TURDS! TWO MOM!! TWO!!" Ahh the joys... The picture is of him looking at his poo. Every time he goes, he has to look at it... I swear...

That is the latest on our household. I'm excited that the weekend is here! I'm ready for some good times with some good friends!

Smiling

2008-10-01T10:18:00.001-07:00

So Aaron and I are officially fighting - Adelyn smiled at him before she smiled at me. It's just not right... ;)

It was so cute to see her look at him and break out in this huge grin last night. I love it. He was super excited that he was the first one to be smiled at too. I love seeing how happy she makes him. I still think she should have smiled at me first since I'm the one that spends all day with her but I'll forgive her... for now. ;)

Today marks four weeks since I've had her. I cannot believe how fast time goes when you have a newborn! I am half way through my leave now and that makes me so sad. Sitting in the house all day can make me go crazy but I still love being home and not having to work. I was hoping to go out to eat tonight and go shopping with Aaron and Adelyn but it turns out that he has to work late. I'm disappointed but I keep telling myself that the extra money is nice. The extra money that feeds my shopping habits, right?

I'm now addicted to playing poker online. I think it's easier to bet money when it's not really my money, huh? But I told Aaron I'm going to polish up my mad skills here and then take him down some Friday night. He doesn't think I can do it but I'm pretty much kicking butt online right now. It's on...

Well rested!!

2008-09-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

I am proud to say that Adelyn is sleeping MUCH better than she was. We had a few really bad nights last week and I didn't know if I was going to survive this. I was getting very frustrated and I had no clue what to do. Well Saturday night and last night we made the decision to put her to sleep on her stomach and wow - she slept! I will admit that I check on her a million times with her sleeping on her belly since that is how SIDS can happen but she's been good so far. She doesn't move around too much so that makes me feel a little better. I still don't know if I'm going to tell the doctor that I'm letting her do this but I'm actually getting sleep and I am a completely different person so I think that letting her do this is what is best for both of us.

I was thinking about calling my doc and getting on some happy pills but after getting two nights of good sleep, I don't think I need them. I've been careful to watch for signs of ppd and I was getting very close on Thursday and Friday but I think I'll be good. It's amazing what some sleep can do for fried emotions! I'm still going to watch out for it but I really hope I don't need to go on them again. I don't like the person the pills turn me into... not sad or mad but also not happy either. Yuck.

Other than our sleeping issues, things have been good in all areas. Friday was girls night and I had a great time hanging out with them and I also loved drinking a big margarita. Amazing! Saturday I had my Tastefully Simple party and then went to a toy party at Joe and Tracey's. It was fun to get to see so many friends in one day! Sunday we went out to breakfast, I took a GREAT nap, and then hung out at Aaron's parent's the rest of the day. I "helped" him clean out the work van. I got the awesome task of dividing all the tools into piles [wrenchs, hammers, screwdrivers, etc] and figuring out where they belonged and if he had duplicates and such. Kinda boring but still nice to be with his family.

This weekend will be my first night away from Adelyn over night. I was not nervous at all when it came to leaving her for a few hours but I am nervous about over night. I am very excited - don't get me wrong - but scared. Scared that I am going to miss her too much or that my mom is going to go crazy or that something bad will happen. I'm sure everything will be just fine... but I'll still worry until I get them back on Sunday.

9.26.08

2008-09-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

So we have some exciting news - Jackson wore big boy underwear ALL day yesterday and was dry and clean the whole day!! WHOO HOO!! Let me just tell you how proud I am of him and how excited I am for myself that my diaper changing days with him are close to being over. I say close because that was yesterday and today... well today he's already had two accidents. I keep telling him that accidents are NOT a part of the plan but I don't think he gets it... But again - one full day of dryness. We're getting there.

Poor little guy has been fighting a cold or something all week though. He has a bad cough and a very runny nose. And he hates medicine. I mean HATES! I literally have to sit on him to make him take it. I really shouldn't be surprised though since I vividly remember running away from my parents and it taking both of them to make me take medicine when I was a kid - apple, tree, what???

Here he is *hiding* from the meds...

Miss Adelyn is well... testing me. She went from being the best baby to the gassiest baby and for those of you who don't know - babies do not like gas. She cries all the time and I have no clue what to do for her. We give her gas drops and those seem to help some. She's ok during the day but the evening is a really bad time for her which means a really bad time for me. I actually had to call my mom last night in tears and have her come take care of the baby for a little bit. I couldn't handle it at that point [two points for me realizing I was getting close to my breaking point, right??] So she came and did this belly to belly thing which helped Addie a ton. Her grandma [so my great grandma] used to tell her that putting a baby's tummy on your tummy would give you the baby's belly ache. Sounds a little off to me but after my mom did that, Addie fell asleep and my mom had the burps. Huh?? I don't care... it worked. :)

Tonight is my first night away from her and I'm not going to lie - I'm stoked. I glad to have some alone time with my girlfriends and I'm happy to get out of the house without one of the kids in tow. I love them both - to pieces!! But since I've been home these three weeks, I have yet to have 10 minutes away from her. Aaron loves on her and holds her and helps take care of her once he gets home but I am always home too. I haven't been truly *away* from her yet. I think I'm going to miss her a ton by the end of the night but I'm still very glad for the break.

Here is my little girl growing up already... :(

Here she is with the "startle reflex" in full gear

And we were making faces at each other here and I thought this one was super funny...

And the beloved binky

Yes... she really does sleep this way...

Two weeks

2008-09-18T04:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to the doctor for Adelyn's two week check up. A "normal" baby gets back to their birth weight between 10 and 14 days - and for us 14 days would have been yesterday so here I am fully expecting her to only weigh her birth weight, maybe a tad more. Wrong. She's already up to 7lbs 8oz. Can we say porker?!? Now granted, her legs are still stick thin and she's as scrawny as can be but the scale doesn't lie... But now she's in trouble because remember that deal we had? The deal that said she couldn't grow up or get big? She's only two weeks old and already breaking deals with me. That's something I just can't tolerate ;)

She has thrush though. I'm glad they caught it - and they barely caught it at that. There's only one little spot but he wants to treat it and get rid of it before it gets bad. Jackson never had thrush but Brodie did so I blame this on Aaron. Genetics or something... ;) The meds we have to give her make her so cranky and have a belly ache. I hate it. But I'm hoping that once it's gone, we'll have a happy and healthy baby on our hands.

It was really good to see all the girls at work and that made the appointment that much more fun. Jackson seriously thinks he owns the place though and I guess in a way - he does. He just walks right back there and opens up the toy drawer and starts digging. He better be glad I had my hands full!! The girls there just love him and spoil him like crazy. And I'm so thankful they do because now he loves going to the doctor. We see some kids that have to pulled in kicking and screaming and I would much rather him run in the doors willingly. I really do have a great kid.

Babies babies babies

2008-09-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

I really have nothing new to write about. Things are still going great, Jackson is still a huge help, and Addie is still eating, sleeping, and pooping. Life is good.

I feel so relaxed and I love it. I never really thought of myself as a "relaxed" person since I'm always on the go or stressed about something but this little girl just triggered the right button I guess. I'm so content just sitting on the couch and staring at Adelyn or wrestling with Jackson. I'm not sore at all anymore and feel like I am "back to normal."

Here is Jackson holding her hand - he is so gentle with her and has such a tender heart

The dreaded first bath

10 days old

And here I am holding my brand new newphew Anderson Lawerence! I'm so excited to finally be an aunt!! The little guy is chunky though, 10 days younger than Addie but a whole pound bigger!!

Adelyn also got a new cousin on Wednesday when Brock and Lindsey had their baby Kahler and Jackson got a new cousin today when Brandon and Kristi had their baby. Babies are everywhere!!

On a side note - I am loving this weather. Well not weather considering all the rain but I love the temperature outside. It's perfect. Makes me want to snuggle on the couch and drink cocoa.

Feeling good!

2008-09-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

Things here are G-R-E-A-T!! I'm sure I've had it easy so far since I have had help almost every single day though... Aaron was here Monday and Tuesday, my step mom was here Wednesday, and my mom has been here all day today. But in all honesty - I haven't found it that hard to adjust to having two kids versus only having one. Jackson has been such a HUGE help and loves his sister so much. He hasn't acted jealous or thrown fits when I spend time with her and that in itself has been a big help. I can't believe that he's turned into this amazing big brother and big kid. Where did the past three years go? Where did my other baby go? Geeze I hate growing up...

Addie is doing amazing. I do get frustrated some at night when she thinks she should stay up after eating and be held the whole time. She's been waking up and staying up for a few hours in the middle of the night but I should also say that she usually goes about 4 or 5 hours in between feedings which is amazing. So I have it easy, but I don't. I think we may have figured out that she just needs to eat more at night though. We gave her another 2 ounces last night and she fell asleep a little quicker than normal so maybe she's just growing and is hungrier than she usually is. We'll try a full four ounces tonight and see if she does it again. **Cross your fingers!!**

Megan got induced this morning. They just gave her a pill so start her contractions. I guess it's a pill used for abortions but once you're full term it's just inducing - I don't know what it's called and I have never heard of anything like it. Oh well. Well she's still only 1 centimeter dilated, 0.5% effaced [yes, less than 1%] and only having mild contractions. They're going to hook her up to pitosin tonight and see if that'll do the trick. So she got to spend her 23rd birthday laying in a hospital bed. Fun fun. I just know that I'm VERY anxious to finally be an aunt. I can't wait to meet baby Anderson!

Mom and I went to Target today and I drove us there. It's always weird to drive again after not getting behind the wheel for over a week but I felt great and did great. Well, I've never been a good driver so I did great for me ;) It's always so nice to get out of the house and into this amazing weather. The house gets so stuffy, even with the windows open, so I get really excited about these simple outings. Even getting the mail is a big deal :)

I haven't uploaded any new pics so I'll have to post those later. My little girl changes by the minute, I swear. And once Aaron gets here, we're heading to Kohls to get some shopping done. I'm very excited about that too!

Adelyn Jae Graber

2008-09-07T16:46:00.001-07:00

Adelyn Jae Graber is officially here. All this waiting and now it's over. I definitely don't miss being pregnant but I already think she's getting too big. It's only been 4 days and she's changed so much already and it's already breaking my heart. Her and I made a deal yesterday that she isn't allowed to get big. She closed her eyes as we were talking about it so I know that she understood me... or not... ;-) As I type this she is laying next to me content as could be. Sleeping of course... hopefully she'll sleep tonight. BUT tonight Aaron said that he would get up with her so I can finally sleep so maybe it'll be funny to see him get up a bunch too ;-) Kidding...

Here are some pics from the big day:

Jackson and Brodie are both VERY proud big brothers. They love kissing her and helping us feed her and change her diapers. It's so cute. I was really worried about how Jackson would react to having to share his mommy but so far, he's doing amazingly well.

I feel great. I don't remember feeling this good after having Jackson but I feel like I could do most things just like normal. The stairs aren't a problem and neither is picking things up. Granted I have to do some things slower than normal but I'm getting there. I get my staples out tomorrow morning so I'm excited about that. Aaron will be here to take care of Jackson and Adelyn while the nurse is here so that will be nice.

Ready or not...

2008-09-03T01:50:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting here counting the minutes as they go by. We need to leave in 26 minutes. I need to wake Aaron up in 11. Of course I couldn't sleep and thought it would be better to clean the house this morning. I've been up for a while...

My mouth is dry and I can't drink anything. I'm starting to get hungry and I can't eat anything. I can honestly say at this point I'm terrified. And scared. And super excited!

I want to vomit.

Updating

2008-08-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

I have amazing friends! I've got such a great support system and I know I can count on them for anything - including a great baby shower!! I got some killer gifts on Sunday and feel so blessed to have them all in my life! Here are a couple pics from the shower...

Here's my awesome monitor that I'm seriously so excited about!

And Jackson helping me open my gifts. He had so much fun!

Aaron came over after I got home and brought it all in, helped me open boxes and cut tags off and start some laundry. We're getting there and we're both so ready for her to be here!! Seriously! I do still need a few things so my mama is taking me shopping tomorrow night to wrap up my *needs*. Love her.

Jackson and Brodie got to play together all day Saturday and were both just in Heaven! Of course they fought a few times like little boys do but both were genuinely sad to leave each other. It kinda broke my heart [like usual...] Aaron and I sat down and had a good heart to heart last night. I feel a million times better having things off my chest. It's one thing to vent to friends and to blog my feelings and emotions but to lay it all out for him felt amazing. I'm very confident at this point that things will happen how they are supposed to happen - whatever that may be. I just feel good knowing that I've done my share and the rest is out of my control.

Things at work have been rough. A little boy that was only a few months old died on Friday. What makes it worse is that mom is more relieved to not have him here. It breaks my heart to see a parent not take care of their child and am having a really hard time dealing with his death.

I had Jackson make a card for baby Adelyn the other day. He had so much fun making it and I know I'm going to have so much fun scrapbooking it :)

This has been a choppy blog. I'm playing with Jackson, uploading pics, and trying to finish packing my hospital bag all at the same time. Yikes. So I'll finish with some belly pics and hope these contractions are fake and don't keep me up all night!

34 weeks

37 weeks

It's 4:00 somewhere...

2008-08-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

Lately Jackson's new "thing" has been asking me "Mommy, how much do you love me?" It's too funny and we play the game of holding my arms [and his arms] out as far as they will go and I'll tell him that I love him as big as an elephant [which is ginormous to him right now!!] and funny things like that. So today we play this new "game" of ours in the car and I ask him how much he loves me. He answers "As big as the moon!! Sometimes..." WHAT?!? Sometimes?? So I ask him "Jackson, what do you mean? You love Mommy all the time, don't you?" To which he replies... "No. I don't love you at 4:00 Mommy. All the time but 4:00."

I think I almost had to pull the car over I was laughing so hard. This is SUCH a fun stage to go through right now where we can talk and have conversations. Everyone always tells me that he talks so well for his age and he communicates great and I think it's because I will sit and have conversations with him. I refuse to talk baby talk to him and talk "down" to him. I love just chatting with him and he really does listen great and has an amazing heart. When I've been down these past few weeks, he gives me hugs and rubs my hand. It's amazing. My favorite thing right now from him is snuggling. He loves coming up to me and laying down next to me and snuggling. "Hold me tighter Mommy" is a great phrase to hear. It's really hard to know that in a few days, I will have to share my heart with another baby. I never thought I would doubt myself of this and I know deep down that I'll be fine but how am I going to make sure Jackson never doubts how much I love him while I'm loving on another baby? Hard stuff!

I've been talking a lot to Aaron about the baby. We keep wondering what she's going to look like. Will she have light hair like Jackson? Dark hair? No hair? What if she's really ugly but I think she's cute? Will people still tell me she's cute? If you're my friend and she's ugly, you better let me know for real! ;-) I'm so excited to meet her. I can't wait to see her and snuggle with her too. I have to keep reminding Jackson that he can't pick her up without help and that she won't be able to play with him for a little while. We'll see how well he understands...

Ready when you are

2008-08-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

So my amazingly incredible friend Tara sent me these lyrics and I listened to the song and had myself a good cry. If these words don't describe my feelings exactly, then nothing can...

Ready when you are

Are you having trouble keeping up?

Seeing this thing through?

I want to know who you're running from,

Me or you?

You're too confused to open up,

Feel the way I do

I want to know who you're thinking of

Cause I really have no clue

Another game of charades

Don't you know everybody plays?

I don't want to lose to you that way

Maybe we'll be different this time around

Maybe we'll be different I don't know

Don't want to strangle this, so I'm holding back for now

Calm down, don't take it too far

I know only time can heal scars

So I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

Don't want any false starts

I can do without the time apart

So I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

Are you having trouble keeping up?

You know that I will wait

I wonder if it's good enough

To make you stay

You're too confused to open up

You don't know what to say

Well you can tell me if you think it's love

I won't be far away

Another game of charades

Don't you know everybody plays?

I don't want to lose to you that way

Maybe we'll be different this time around

Maybe we'll be different I don't know

Don't want to strangle this, so I'm holding back for now

Calm down, don't take it too far

I know only time can heal scars

So I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

Tied down

Don't want any false starts

I can do without the time apart

So I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

I want to know if you're thinking of me

I'll be counting the hours even though I know I'm free

Too soon to take a chance

No more questions left to ask

I could be anything, but the one thing I'm not sure you want to be

Calm down, don't take it too far

I know only time can heal scars

So I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

Don't want any false starts

I can do without the time apart

So, I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

Cam down, don't take it too far

I know only time can heal scars

So I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

Calm down

Don't want any false starts

I can do without the time apart

So I'm ready when you are, when you are

I'm ready when you are

Calm down, I'm ready when you are

7.28.08

2008-07-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

Ok I finally got my pics uploaded from Brodie's birthday party so here goes. He had a BLAST!! We asked him if he had fun and he was SO adamant that he did but he did wish that his Uncle AJ could have been there too. Too cute!! The kids all had fun swimming and eating and playing on the trampoline and swing set. He had so many little friends there.

And a pic of my little fish :)

Here he is a few days before his party on his actual birthday. We got him a set of real golf clubs and he was just in Heaven!! I think he's asked his dad to take him golfing at least a dozen times now...

So that is a quick recap of Brodie turning 5. I got him a new backpack on Saturday - Batman of course - and he's really excited about that too. Granted he doesn't start school for over a month still but I think I'm just as excited as he is about him going to kindergarten.

7.9.08

2008-07-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

I went to pick Jackson up from the babysitter's house
Monday night after work and got a BIG surprise! 
Jackson had a sheet with FOUR stickers on it for
using the big potty!  Now we had kind of been working
on this at home but nothing real intense.  I didn't
want to push him and he wanted nothing to do with the
potty for a long time.  But that all changed this week!
Here is a picture of him taking his big boy pull ups to
Sherri's house...





















He then went potty for me yesterday morning and today
he had another sheet with FIVE stickers on it!!  So I
think things are looking up.  I was so proud of him
and he was so proud of himself!  He called Aaron right
away to tell him about the potty and how he was a big
boy.  I just hope he keeps this up!  He also put his
own shoes on yesterday morning...

Yes... wrong feet but he was very proud of himself
again and I don't want to be the mom that doesn't
let him be a kid so off we went to Sherri's with
shoes on the wrong feet.  When did my baby grow up?!?


We've been busy planning Brodie's birthday party.
Still not sure how many people to expect so that
makes it a little more difficult but I know he'll
have fun.  I think we have most of the details worked
out but if you know me, you know that every tiny thing
needs to be planned out in order for me to sleep at
night.  Yes, I am just that picky.  ;)  We got his
birthday present on Sunday and we're giving it to him
tomorrow, his actual birthday.  We got him his own set
of tiny golf clubs and Aaron is going to take him
golfing this weekend.  He's going to DIE when he sees
them because he wants to golf with his daddy SO bad!
I can't wait to see him open them up.


Eight weeks exactly until we meet our little girl.  I
cannot wait!!  On Sunday we went to Babies R Us and
got a diaper bag and a "coming home" outfit.  Aaron
picked up a diaper bag, decided he liked it, slung
it over his arm and was ready to go.  I kept trying to
get him to look at other bags or to just see our other
options but he liked the one he had and that was that.
Too cute.  So we ended up with that diaper bag and I
think he really did pick the best one.  Now to just
finish the boys' dresser so we can move the rest of
Jackson's clothes into their room and get the baby's
clothes washed and put away.  I can't believe
it's getting so close...

7-4-08

2008-07-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July. Day 1 of a 3-day weekend down. Two more busy days ahead though... should be fun. I'm very excited about the air show tomorrow! Hopefully it's not too cold though... We're also taking Jackson to Black Squirrel on Sunday so that should be fun since we won't get to see him for the air show.

We found out that my c-section is scheduled for September 3rd. Only 8 1/2 more weeks!! It's a lot more real to have an actual surgery date scheduled and makes it more exciting! I seriously cannot wait to see this little girl! Here's a belly shot for everyone. I have been so horrible about taking pictures this time around.

On Wednesday, Aaron and I took Jackson out to the grave. It looked nasty out but it didn't storm thank God!! Jackson still doesn't really "get it" when we go out there. Sometimes he remembers talking about Zachary, sometimes he doesn't. Here are a few pics from that...

It was a lot harder to go out there this year than it was last year. Maybe because I'm pregnant and emotional... I don't know. But I had to drag myself to go and it was hard.

We finally got our mini van! I love it and Jackson always talks about "his" van. We definitely needed one with this baby on the way! It would be impossible to fit everyone in my little Suzuki. Brodie's birthday is coming up this next week too! He's going to be a whopping 5 years old! We're having his party out at his grandparent's house so all of his little buddies can go swimming and his party is all he will talk about right now! Well that and the air show! ;-)

Four years

2008-07-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

Four years... it's so hard to believe. I sometimes think of what my life would be like and I can't even imagine. Would I still be married? Would I have ever had Jackson? Would I be happy? Would life be good or not so good?

I have come so far as a person in the past four years. I can't imagine my life any other way even though I've experienced more heart ache than I ever thought possible. When I was a little girl, I can say that this is not how I pictured my life going. I would do a million things different if given the chance but only on the condition that I would be where I am right now. I know... I know... not possible but still what I want.

I still choke up when I think about Zachary. I wanted him to live so bad but was I being selfish? Would he have had a happy life? Had he actually lived, I'm sure he would have had many disabilites and problems for the rest of his life. Is that a life any child would really *want* to live? I still miss him more than I can even explain and sometimes I think back to those days in the hospital and try to remember what he felt like. It scares me but it's harder to remember what he felt like in my arms. And sometimes I think I only remember what he looked like because I have pictures on the wall that I look at all the time. Without those pictures, would I remember my first child or would I have already forgotten?

I am so thankful for Jackson. I can't even explain how lucky I feel to have him as my son. He's one of the sweetest kids I have ever met - I know I'm probably slightly biased but still. I think I am much more appreciative of him because of everything I experienced with Zachary. I will never take pregnancy or children or life for granted.

Graber Garble

Who loves Pinterest?

2012

Big girls don't cry...

Things my kids said | Volume 2

Mercies, not trials

test

Perfectly Imperfect

Can you dig it?

Snow Day 2011

I would love....

Cute Conversations

Lesson Learned

Adie Jae

Mr. Jack

Hey good lookin'

There is no "i" in team

My funny Jack-entine

What's new

Service

The horror!

This is my soapbox and I'll stand on it if I want to

Cheapster

Bucket List

Blessings

Braggin' on my hubby!

Conversations with my children

Filled

Foot.In.Mouth.

You're so [un]vain

Inspire me this...

O Christmas Tree

Bad Momma!

November Niblets

Makin' memories of us

Makin' a list

You can call me Mrs Graber

Well my heart knows me better than I know myself so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'

Summer time... and the livin' is easy

Camping and gardening and tooth pulling oh my!

Livin' the good life!

Our house. In the middle of the street.

One full plate!

**cough cough**

Taking a break...

Winter Wonderings

December is...

Terrible threes

Updating

s.e.v.e.n.

Picture heaven

Happenings

Week in review

Family Fun

10.7.08

Germs germs go away

*Smiling*

Well rested!!

9.26.08

Two weeks

Babies babies babies

Feeling good!

Adelyn Jae Graber

Ready or not...

Updating

It's 4:00 somewhere...

Ready when you are

7.28.08

7.9.08

7-4-08

Four years

cough cough

Smiling