Taking Time to Stop and Smell the Blessings

It’s the mooooost wonderful tiiiiiime…of the year (sing it with me!) Unfortunately it can also be the most crazy, anxiety-inducing time of the year. We are all running around like overly-tightened (China-made) wind-up toys, beating down that path to Christmas day, but if we don’t take time to stop and chill a minute, we will soon bust a spring and just keel over and stop working. Seriously, what good are we going to be to anybody if we just flop over at the waist with our heads skimming the ground and our arms splayed out like the Y-M-C-A gone wrong?

NO GOOD!! No good, people!

So it’s time to quit! Quit running around. Finish your shopping online and pay for speedier shipping if need be. You’ll make it up in saved gas! Use the time you saved not walking the mall to read an extra story to your kiddos. Say “no” to that extra holiday party you really don’t have time (or have lost the will) to attend. Stay home. Be a family. Reeee-lax.

Lately I’ve just been feeling reallllllllllllllllly thankful. Thankful that God meets my family’s needs. Thankful I have a husband who works his butt off to provide for us. Thankful that I can be home with my kiddos every day. Thankful for Joshua’s funny phonics and Sophie’s tempestuous teething. (Still no teeth by the way. Zero. Zilch. Nada.)

I know Thanksgiving is past, but the time for thankfulness has not. I am so thankful for this season. I am so thankful for Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. I am so thankful that God cares about me and my family. I am so thankful I can blog with my cousin, and I am so thankful that all three of you all read our musings.

Today my challenge to you is, stop being so busy being busy, and start getting busy hangin’ out with your peeps and being thankful. It’s way more fun and way less dangerous than getting into a fist fight over a parking space or clawing someone’s eyes out over that last $299 laptop at Best Buy. Do you want your kids’ Yuletide memories to be warm fuzzies of a happy, fun-to-be-with mama or therapy-session inducing tales of Stressy McSnappertons?

If you are picking up what I am laying down, slap down a comment full of gratitude. Tell me what you’re thankful for, or what you’re giving up to be happier at home this Christmas season.

Time for some kiddo cuddling! Blog atcha later!

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Birthdaypalooza Comes to an End!

Yesterday we had a great 1st birthday party for Sophia at our house with our family and a couple of close friends. It was very fun but I am so glad it’s over! The Ohio State vs. Michigan football game was on and the Buckeyes won – thankfully it was clear early in the 2nd half that they would win, so my brothers were in a celebratory mood. 🙂 They gave me all kinds of crap for planning her party in the middle of the game – I maintain they should’ve KNOWN that I would not check the football schedule first! Thankfully it all turned out ok!

I decided to do a super-easy cake, which worked out well since those cupcakes were such a pain. I got a pan at Michael’s and here’s what I came up with…
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A cake shaped like a cupcake! Ta-DA!

Here’s Sophie showing her Elmo cupcake who’s boss…
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…and rockin’ the “Birthday Princess” t-shirt (thanks Avery and Kristyn!)
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The Birthday Girl was veeeeeery sleepy because she only took a short morning nap. So she only made it through the cake and half the present opening and then she had to take another nap! But the party went on without her and we all had a great time. 🙂

Oh, and guess what else? She chose her first birthday to take some steps!! My dad decided he needed to teach her to walk on her first birthday, and he and my mom got her to take four steps twice. Of course, they did that AT THEIR HOUSE when I WAS NOT PRESENT!! (They had taken the kids for a couple hours so I could finish up the cake and house cleaning.) GRRR!!! So, Bobby and I missed her first steps!! I did get her to take three steps to me yesterday morning, but that’s all I’ve seen so far. I’m sure it won’t be long ’til she is running circles around me, though.

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‘Twas the Night Before My Caesarean

I wrote this one year ago tonight on my old blog. It is very much just a “ramble”, but I thought you might like to hear the crazy thoughts of a woman on the cusp of giving birth!

Well ladies and germs, the moment you’ve all been waiting for is almost here! Ok, mostly it’s the moment I’VE been waiting for, but anyhoo, in about 10.5 hours I’m going to have a cesarean section and deliver my baby girl, Sophia Diane. I….CAN’T….WAIT! Mostly because I am sooo excited to meet my baby and know that she’s ok, but also because I’m preeeettttty darn jazzed about being UN-pregnant! Because let’s face it, the last trimester kind of sucks, and the last 4 weeks or so REALLY suck. Big time. And even though it means getting a ginormous hole cut in my belly, it really is a small price to pay for a miracle isn’t it?? After all, they DO compensate for cutting the hole in your belly by giving you both a baby AND a morphine drip. Woohoo!

So now my house is quiet. Joshua has been farmed off to my brother and sister-in-law’s to spend the night with his cousins or “the Dudes” as he calls them. He was realllly excited about that. Poor kid has absolutely NO CLUE how hard his world is gonna be rocked. I tried to spoil him today by letting him watch lots of tv, cuddling with him, giving him m&m’s and making his favorite meal (Kraft Mac & Cheese EXTRA CREAMY – the boy has tatste!) I was pretty sad when Bobby & I dropped him off at my bro’s house, cause we’re not really going to spend much time with him in the next few days, and I will miss him. And of course I am nervous about how he will react having to share me with Sophie, cause he is a mommy’s boy for sure. But I am reallllly excited to see how he reacts when he first meets her in the hospital! I am not expecting too much, but I am anxious to see his reaction. He picked out a toy to give her and she also has a present to give him. A peace offering, if you will!

On my last night as a prego, I took a shower (because I have to get up at 4 a.m. tomorrow and I am NOT showering then! But who knows when I will next shower? Friday at the earliest. Yikes.) and I attempted something totally crazy, which is, to shave my legs at 39 wks pregnant. What was I thinking?? I haven’t done that deed for at least two weeks but something got into me and I thought I should. So I did. And it was all going swimmingly, I made it through my left leg with no troubles, but then I cut the CRAP out of my right leg about 2 inches above my ankle with all three vibrating blades of my Venus Vibrance razor. The cut looks like an advertisement for adidas, the brand with three stripes. And it bled like craaaazy (cause you double your blood volume when pregnant. That’s pregnancy fun fact #427.) It took me about 15 minutes to get it to stop, and since I already gave the hospital 4 vials of blood today, and God knows how much I’ll be giving up tomorrow, I was really anxious to not lose any more. Yee-uck! So anyways, next time, if there is a next time, I think I’ll just use some Nair a few days in advance. Muuuuch safer.

Reason # 738 why I am sooo happy I’m about to be UN-pregnant, is that my feet are fricking KILLING me. All my shoes, even my boring old lady Lands End shoes I wear to mom around in, were painful to wear, but going barefoot is much worse. After I get out of the shower my feet hurt SOOO bad just from standing barefoot for 10 mins. It’s ridiculous! So on Monday my mom bought me some of those ugly plastic clogs with holes in them that everyone wears, and they are my new favorite thing!! And these are the cheap Meijer version. I wonder what a nice pricey pair feels like. They’ve really helped me out a lot, and I can wear them IN THE SHOWER! Hopefully I won’t have to soon, but they really have been a godsend. So tonight after my shower, after I got the hemorrhaging stopped on my leg, I got dressed and did my “ow my feet hurt so bad I might die” routine, which is rub them with “Dr. Scholl’s for her” peppermint lotion (sorry dudes, I guess Dr. Scholl must be a chick or a really insensitive man, cause I didn’t see no male version of said lotion at the store) which is my second favorite thing after the ugly plastic shoes. I slather my poor feetsies with more lotion than is necessary, then put on my socks and my ugly shoes and put my feet up on some pillows and….ahhhh. Very nice indeed. And much easier to do without a 2 yr old climbing all over me!

So now I’m just maxing and relaxing. I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight, which makes getting up at 4 am very convenient. Baby’s room is ready, and it is sooo beautiful, her daddy did an awesome job! Our bags are packed, the house is clean, our laundry’s done, all Joshua’s clothes are clean and I even washed his bedding tonight so he can come home to a nice clean bed. This nesting really cannot be stopped!! Except for by childbirth of course. So now all we need is our baby!! And Mommy couldn’t be happier that tomorrow’s the day she’ll be here!! We really appreciate your prayers that Sophia will be just perfect & healthy, just like her brother, and that my recovery will be good & fast & much better than last time.

See you on the postpartum side!!

(Please see the post below this one for pics of Sophie’s PARTY!!)

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