Good and Perfect Gifts

Days 12 - 15

2011-11-15T20:36:00.001-06:00

Day 12- I was thankful for being so blessed that we could ask our friends to donate a toy in honor of Chaselyn's birthday instead of having more stuff.

Day 13 - I was thankful for my mother-in-law Debbie. She raised an amazing son. She has supported our relationship since day one. She has been uber-helpful since my diagnosis. And it was her birthday.

Day 14 - I was thankful for the simplicity of balloons bringing so much joy to my children's faces.

Day 15 - Today I am thankful for tiny blessings that start out as a feeling, then a heartbeat, then little flutters, then kicks, then they come into the world in all of God's glory. It is amazing. And I'm honored to be called Mommy by two of the most precious babies in God's creation.

A hint for tomorrow's post: Cake

***Originally the hint for tomorrow was a 3. This resulted in a flurry of texts from 2 very excited and concerned friends wondering if I was pregnant. I assured them that it would be very ill-advised to even think of things of that nature. So if you did see my post in those few minutes before I changed it, and you too were either concerned or excited, I apologize.***

Day 11

2011-11-11T12:11:00.001-06:00

I've been waiting for-ev-er to write this post. Today I am thankful for MaryAnn, more familiarly known as MA. I love MA. She's my bestie. I'm not really sure when our friendship blossomed. MA says she can remember the first day she saw me, I don't remember. Our friendship evolved over doorway conversations about her amazing daughter, tasty things to eat, and the occasional conversation about statistics. Then once we realized we shared a common devotion to God and our families our conversations got a little more intimate. She entrusted me with her most prized possessions, Caroline, and I knew I was in.

She was there for me when I was tired of working. She was there for me when I just needed a quick laugh. She was there for me through 2 pregnancies. She was there for me during the transition time between student and grown-up. And even though she's a few 100 miles away, she's still there for me. She's always been there when I need her. She can just tell when something is off. She knows me. She gets me.

I've never had a friend like MA before, and I don't think I ever will again. So, I'm just gonna keep her.

Day 10

2011-11-11T11:58:00.001-06:00

Today I am thankful for a little devotional book called "Jesus Calling". This book was given to me by another church family member on my first trip back to church AD (after diagnosis). Since then I have relied on this book to get me out of my funk. The book is written from Jesus' perspective and it's as if He's talking to you. Now, I'm not saying that the words are from God, but I do feel they are inspired words. And it's kind of scary how it always seems to fit the problems I'm facing. I highly recommend this little book.

Day 9

2011-11-09T20:23:00.001-06:00

Today I am thankful for the nurse figuring out she could get the blood she needed from a finger prick.

Days 5 - 8

2011-11-08T10:38:00.001-06:00

So I actually did write something on Saturday, but it was lost somehow the internets froze up and it was lost. On Saturday the 5th, I was thankful for football games and all the things that go along with it. I was thankful that on Friday night we were able to enjoy the homecoming festivities and that continued on Saturday with the parade. Up in Fayetteville, I know there was tailgating family and friends. And the weather in the fall is the perfect complement to the activities. Then there is the actual game. College football is my favorite sport. I think it's the young men giving it their all just for the honor of winning. On Sunday the 6th, I was very thankful for my church family. We recently found out that there is a good chance that we will be moving in the coming year. It tears my heart out to think about leaving my new family. I already had to leave my biological family a few years ago with the promise that we would be back in a few years. Of course that last part was not actually fulfilled, but by the time we realized that we wouldn't be going back to AR we had already gained a new family down here. This family has been with us through it all just as my biological family. They were there through 2 pregnancies, 2 babies, numerous prayer requests, and when I was diagnosed with cancer it was my church family who was able to take care of the little things so my biological family could focus on me and my needs. They have watched my kids. They fed my family. They have shared in our joy. They have shared in our sorrows. We have grown in the love of God so much while at this church, it is the first church I've been able to call home.On Monday the 7th, I was thankful for my Mommy. My mom came down to Waco again to help me take care of the kids and the house while I take my chemo. I love having my mom here. She just gets me. She understands how I think (you know because she raised me and all). She can commiserate with my cancer pains, since she herself has been fighting cancer since August 2010. She has managed to be away from her husband for weeks at a time, without complaint. She's there, or here, for me whenever I call. She's my Mommy and I'm just starting to find out what that really means.Today the 8th I am thankful for these ease of communication these days. I can write one post and people all over the world can read it. With email, text messages, cell phones, etc. we can quickly disperse information. Sometimes the information is important like the news of new babies on the way and sometimes it is just ridiculous and pointless. But no matter what you have to say there is a medium for you to get the message across.

Thankfulness

2011-11-04T10:51:00.002-05:00

I attempted to write something at approximately 11:58 last night. But with only 2 minutes I didn't think I could do justice for anything that I'm really thankful for. So I just went to sleep. Yesterday I was thankful for my ability to walk. It's the little things. The things you don't even think about. The things you take for granted. I have been reminded of this through 2 very powerful ways this week. On Sunday as I stood to worship and raised my right arm, I realized that less than 6 months ago I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to do that again. Then on Wednesday, Chaselyn went to BSF with Mrs. Laura and came home having learned the story of Barnabas and Paul healing the lame man. The memory verse for the week is "He had faith to be healed" Acts 14:9. Again I was struck with an appreciation for my working legs.Today I am thankful for weekends. I can't wait for the weekend. My family spending time together. Watching some football. I think Stanton's even planning on grilling tonight. It's an amazing time. And then on Sunday we'll get up and go to church. We love our church family. Then Sunday afternoons are usually spent cleaning or resting. I love the weekends!

Today I am thankful for...

2011-11-02T14:11:00.001-05:00

...this little guy.

Today is Jacob's 18 month birthday. It's kind of bittersweet as any milestone the kids reach is. But today I will choose to be happy with my growing boy. (Not sad about how time has passed.)

Yesterday I was thankful for hearing this song on the radio (Caution: If you know anyone going through a difficult time in their lives it will make you cry).

If you are already a sobbing mess like I was, then DO NOT watch this.

Matt Hammitt - Story Behind "All Of Me" by EMI_Music

I told you not to watch it.

I will attempt to write something everyday until Thanksgiving. Sometimes I'll write a lot sometimes just a sentence. Sometimes deep, sometimes silly. But I will try to at least share one thing I am thankful for.

The not so Family Feud

2011-10-21T22:05:00.000-05:00

So I was kicking back in the transfusion chair today, minding my own business, trying to find something to watch on tv. When we came across "Family Feud". Seemed like a good way to pass the time. So we start watching innocently. The first question we heard was something like name something people do in the car to pass the time. Most of the answers were already up there, and they were trying to get the last one. When no one got it, they revealed the # 5 answer: "tickle his pickle". What? Stanton and I looked at each other in disbelief. We couldn't decide which was worse the fact that they would put that on Family Feud or that there is possibly 2 out of every 100 people who are doing this while on the road. We continued to watch. The next question was something like name something a husband would bring home that would upset his wife. I kid you not, #1 answer - another woman; #2 - STD's. Other questions were " men think about sex every 6 seconds, what do women think about?" and "name an article of clothing a man is likely to leave on during sex". What happened to the feud?

Is it the new host, Steve Harvey? I think he's partially to blame. I mean Drew Carey took over for Bob Barker and you don't see him making crude jokes. And there's Wayne Brady doing let's make a deal without saying things I wouldn't want my kids to hear. But it can't be all his fault. He may just be the only one willing to say those things on tv.

But who is truly to blame? People. If people didn't watch the show, it would go off air. If people didn't give answers like "tickle his pickle" it wouldn't show up. People are ridiculous.

So next time you are bored and wanting to pass the time in the afternoon, don't be one of those people contributing to the problem.

Back in the saddle

2011-10-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

So you know how when you go without seeing or talking with some friends for a long time it's kind of awkward and it seems like so much has happened that you just stick with the regular small talk when you finally do talk to them again. But then there are other friends that regardless of how long it's been, you know that you could call them any time and pick up right where you left off and feel totally comfortable telling your deepest darkest secret. I am blessed to have 3 very special friends that fit the second description. These 3 friends were some of the first people called with the joyous news, like when I was giving birth, and with the not so fun news, like when I was diagnosed with cancer. These girls dropped everything they were doing and ran to my side. And these girlfriends can't just come by the house.

And how have I thanked these awesome ladies lately? By not responding to emails, being unavailable when they call, not posting blogs to let them know I'm ok, not even keeping a general update on Facebook, and pretty much being an all time bad friend. And I don't think I'll ever really know what it feels like to just not know how someone you love and care for who was recently diagnosed with cancer is doing. At least I hope I never do.

So to those very special ladies, I am sorry. I am sorry for any extra pain I may have caused by being so inconsiderate. I am sorry for leaving you wondering if I was ok. I will try to do better.

Thanks to the encouragement by one of those lovely chicas I have recommitted to my blog. I will keep all of blogland more up to date with the goings on in the Greer home. And going back to what I thought I was going write about. I started the blog wanting to contrast two types pf friends and compare that to how I feel about blogging again. I was afraid to get back in the saddle, but after writing, I don't think that will be a problem.

Enough already about me... What about the kids?

2011-08-03T00:29:00.001-05:00

My kids are amazing! Chaselyn is more brilliant and wonderful and beautiful and creative and just plain cute than I ever was or will be. And Jacob is more adventurous and crafty and smart and handsome and exciting and just plain cute than I ever was or will be. Both of them are learning so many new things everyday. I am really sad that I haven't blogged about their milestones over the past three months. So if you aren't into hearing about how wonderful my kids are, you should stop reading now.

Let's start with Jacob, since he is 1.25 years old today. The last post I wrote for him was his one year post. WoW! What a difference 3 months makes. He was just starting to put steps together and walk then. Now I can't keep up with him, literally. He's too fast for Mommy. He loves to run around and chase Chaselyn, Daddy, Holly or anything else that moves. He's a daredevil too. He likes to stand on the sit-n-spin and do a little dance. He climbs on everything. He's most entertained by playing with Chaselyn's toys when she's not around. A close second is anything electronic - phones, remotes, cords, computers, etc. And he's good at finding things too. Forgot where you put that gross/dangerous/poisonous someone should call CPS item? Jacob will find it. And the boy loves the water. The splash park is the latest big hit in Jacob's world. It took him a couple of trips to figure it out, but last time we went, he was running through all of the little squirters. And he still loves bath time. Ducky got a little spray mister too that he loves. And if it weren't 1000 degrees outside, we would let the little guy have more water fun.

Now, I don't want you to think that the boy is just "all boy" and nothing more, he's smart too. He knows how to say Daddy, Mommy, and Ducky. He can bark like a dog on command (Chaselyn taught him that) and he knows how to moo (we're currently trying to get him to connect that to a cow). Jacob is not easily fooled either. There is no out of sight out of mind with him. He knows where the food is supposed to be. He knows where his paci's are supposed to be (only in his bed). And he'll tell you all about it if they aren't there. He has taken to screaming when he's upset, which we aren't too fond of. The daycare said that there a couple of screamers in his class, so they figured he was mimicking them.

What would make Jacob upset you ask? Not eating. The boy is a bottomless pit. I am seriously concerned about the boy as a teenager. He can put away 3 hot dogs, a half can of veggies, some bread, and some fruit in one sitting. It is amazing and kind of scary all at the same time. But during the last 3 months, he's cut his molars, so it's no wonder the man child wants some steak. And you would think with all of that the boy would be a little tank toddling around with the chubby legs and squishy arms. But no, Jacob has never had the little baby fat rolls. He gets a little poochy belly after he eats, but it's gone within an hour. He is still in size 3 diapers and size 12 month clothes. I don't know where all the food goes. Speaking of diapers, we have to keep pants on Jacob so that he keeps his diaper on. I don't think he is trying to take his diaper off he just likes to play with it and try to push it down. That's not clear, but I know what I mean. We've only had one incidence so far of finding a naked boy. And even then he was contained to his crib after a nap. (Side note upon entering the room Chaselyn at eye level with Jacob's boy parts asked "What's that kind of booty?" After containing the laughter we simply said it's the boy kind. She seemed to be appeased. They have taken countless baths together, so I was kind of taken off guard.)

So there you have it, that's my 15 month old boy. Like I said, he's doing new things everyday. And one of the things that has been a bother to me with my current condition is that I haven't been able to interact with the kids as much as I would like. I feel like I'm missing out with Jacob a lot because he is so busy and mobile. But, he still calls me Momma and smiles and bats his beautiful long eyelashes with his amazingly blue eyes and my heart still melts.

Oh, I almost forgot, last week we took him for his first haircut. That aged him by like 2 years in 2 seconds. Please see the photos below.

Now, for my precious daughter. Chaselyn is (almost) 2.75 years old going on 5 years old. She is growing and learning too fast. Let's start with the growing, she's recently needed a wardrobe change to upgrade to 3T (and sometimes 4T) clothes. I have stretched the 24m and 2T about as far as they can go. And remember I mentioned those red shoes, those were size 5. She's now in size 7 shoes. She's just over 3 feet tall and she's loosing her baby fat. Chaselyn had the chubby little legs as a baby, but she's thinning out and looking more and more like a little kid every day.

But it has been so fun these past few months to have time to do special things with her and just to be around her as she's learning. She has really found a lot of joy in song. Between figuring out how to turn her cd's on for herself, vacation bible school at CABC and Ducky's encouragement to sing, the girl knows more songs than I do. We have now added singing songs as part of the bedtime ritual. Which was immediately followed by a 2 song limit on the singing at bedtime. One of her favorites is the friend song. I think that Ducky made it up, but the words are simple "I've got a friend named Chaselyn, Chaselyn, Chaselyn. I've got a friend named Chaselyn. She's my friend." We start with our best friend Jesus, then we go through the family - Chaselyn, Jacob, Mommy, Daddy. Then we sing for anyone else staying in the house which has ranged from 1 extra person up to 4 extra people. Then she picks "one" more friend to add. This "one" is often a lump of people, like "Caroline, Chris, and MaryAnn" or "Natalie and Isaac", or she'll pull out a family member that came to visit us, like "Aunt Charlik (Charlotte)" or "My Leslie". Another part of bedtime is prayers. The girl has learned to pray for others, she's learned to ask God to heal her, she's learned to pray for her "whole fampily". Nothing can replace those sweet moments.

Now it's not all about the bedtime in our house. Just stand back and watch Chaselyn go. She's a very loving sister, sometimes to a fault. She will sit and "read" a book by herself for 15 minutes. She loves to play with her kitchen and cook for people. She is so creative too. One day the same set of beads was a jump rope, a swing, a tail, and a big necklace. And don't even ask about the fun of a large cardboard box or the empty cabinets she and Jacob play in. She loves to play outside too. Again, with the heat this had been a little harder. But she still runs around the house. She also loves some down time too. She likes to be read to and to cuddle up and watch movies. Even in the extreme heat, she still wants to snuggle with blankets.

Here are some of the favorite quotes from our little girl:

Re: My baptism - "Did Pastor Jay help you put your hair in the water?" This was said obviously after my baptism and noticing my hair had fallen out.

Re: MaryAnn - "She's gonna call me Cake. I'm not Cake, I'm Chaselyn." This was said as a kind of thinking out loud situation on the way home from school.

Re: A name for her new Rocking Horse - "Fredit" and "Dugah"

Re: Going up a hill in AR - "We're leaning back!"

Re: playing a game of memory - "You don't have to be here." Said to Ducky to let her know that she could do it on her own.

Re: hearts - "It's a heart for loving you."

Re: Jacob - "JAAAAA-COOOOOOB!!!! Where are you?"

Oh, there is so much more. But I forget. You just all need to come spend a day with us to see how marvelous our kids are.

Something I need to share...

2011-07-27T08:26:00.000-05:00

Matthew 9: 1-8 (ESV)

And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming." But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"—he then said to the paralytic—"Rise, pick up your bed and go home." And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

I have been wanting to share this passage with all of you for a while. I gives me great hope, joy and peace to know that we serve a loving God who has already done so much for us. And yet he continues to pour out blessing upon blessing everyday. This little interaction between Jesus and the paralytic has given me a greater vision for what is really important.

Stanton and I weren't sure how much of my brain function I would have during all of this, so he started reading the bible to me when I couldn't really do so for myself. By the time we got home from the hospital, I could follow along in my Bible and start getting more out of it (I'm a visual learner). And by the next week I could read, understand, and felt more empowered to continue my walk with Jesus. All of that to say, Stanton just started in the New Testament with Matthew and so, that's where I have continued to stay.

Reading through Matthew is simply awe inspiring. Things take on a new meaning when you are hit with a life threatening cancer. I was amazed and a little embarrassed at how little I had appreciated these stories before. Jesus healed a lot of people! And with each story of healing, I became more and more assured of his grace and mercy for his children. Not only did he heal people, but he fed thousands, multiple times with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of straggly fish. That's right, God is the ultimate provider too. He cares for us on such a deep level, that he is even concerned for our most basic human need - food.

But, then amidst all of the miraculous healings, feedings, walking on water, etc. He reminds us of what He has already done. "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." Amen! The paralytic does not need to be healed, his sins have been forgiven. He has a ticket to the kingdom of God! Any trials on this earth pale in comparison to the joy it will be when we reach heaven. Jesus has provided a way for us to enter into the holiest of places despite our wretched sin.

He goes on to say, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"—he then said to the paralytic—"Rise, pick up your bed and go home." The words couldn't have hit me harder if the Bible literally smacked me in the face. Which is easier? Option A - forgive all of your sins so that you can one day enter heaven or Option B- heal a man of some piddly little paralyzation. In my desire for God to heal me and leave me on this earth for a few more years, I had lost sight of how much he has already done for me. God sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross and bear the weight of our sin. So, that by believing in Him, our sins would be forgiven, and we can spend an eternity in the presence of the almighty God. WOW! And I was worried about some brain cancer. Even if God doesn't heal me, the end result is that I get to spend an eternity praising and worshiping the great I AM?! That's not a bad second option for me.

The extra good news is that Jesus does heal the paralyzed man. After forgiving him of his sins, he still performs another miracle and relieves the man from his earthly physical disability. Because Jesus was completely man and completely God, he knows both sides of the story. He knows the pains that this earth can bring. He knows the emotions of being human. And while on this earth, he felt the physical pains of beatings. His death was absolutely gruesome. So, he understands completely what it is to live on this earth. And, he continues to pour out his grace, peace, and mercy every day for those who believe in him.

As I have said, this passage has focused me in on what is really important. A miracle has already been performed in my life beyond any physical healing. I believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, was crucified, dead and buried. After 3 days he rose from his tomb and ascended into heaven. I believe that Jesus' blood shed at his "death" was payment in full for all of my sins. I believe that the only way to enter the kingdom of heaven is through a personal relationship with the one who took away my sins.

Lord Jesus,

I pray that if there is anyone out there reading this who has not accepted You as their Lord and Savior that they would do so right now. That they would fall, broken and repenting of their sin, before Holy God, creator and sustainer of the universe, the author of life. That they would come to know you and the love that you have for them. Soften hearts this very day, this very moment. Continue to pour out your grace, peace, and mercy upon all of us. Let the Holy Spirit blow through the souls of everyone who reads this so that they may hear your words speaking to them.

Lord, I thank you for the many blessings that you have given me. I am thankful for this affliction because of the many blessings that have come out of it. I thank you for each and every person who has prayed for my healing. I am so overwhelmed by your power and might. I am in awe of how vast your kingdom is on Earth. Lord God, I pray that you will hear the prayers on my behalf and just remove the tumor from my brain. I praise you Father for blessing each new day here on Earth with a new opportunity to live for you. Amen.

Thank you all for joining me on this journey. If there is anything I can do or pray for you, please don't hesitate to ask. Feel free to email me at TeamBASG@gmail.com.

Nothin' but the Blood of Jesus

2011-07-22T17:20:00.000-05:00

So, a pretty big event in my life occurred this Sunday. I was baptized! I have been saved by grace for over 13 years, but I had never done the outward display for the world. It was in a word, AMAZING. Let me share with you a little about my journey.

I grew up in the Catholic church. We attended mass and Sunday school regularly. I was baptized, had my first communion, went to confession, and eventually I was confirmed. I also spent a fair amount of time on the weekend with my moms parents, Granny and Papa Wurst, who went to a Church of Christ. Growing up, it's all about learning about Jesus and the other Bible stories, so I didn't even really know the difference between the two, except for the styles in the service. I loved VBS at the CoC, because they picked us up from the house and we got to ride a bus and sing songs along the way. But I digress. Overall, I felt like I knew the story of Jesus, the miracles he performed, how he died on the cross, and all the typical people of the Bible stories. And I knew a lot of hymns. :)

Then I met a boy in the 9th grade who stole my heart. But more than that, he cared about me enough to ask questions about what exactly I believed and if that was different from what the Catholic church believed. We talked about everything the Catholic church believed. From the big issues to the little issues, he was curious and I didn't have the answers. More than finding the specific answers, I felt like I had been in a church for my entire life and realizing that I didn't even know what I supposedly believed was quite a shock. As we started learning more I realized that I couldn't really say that I knew Jesus and that I believed that he was living in me. So, in February of '98 after many long conversations and a powerful revival at that boy's church I accepted Jesus in my heart.

Over the past 13+ years that boy became my husband and I am so very thankful for the man he is for my family. As my husband and as a friend, he told me on many occasions his opinion on baptism. He thought it was something I needed to do a long time ago, but I never felt like it was necessary to be baptized again. While I realized that the significance of the baptism was different between the Protestant church and the Catholic church, I wasn't convinced that it was right for me. Honestly, I think a lot of it was in the fact that the baptism would be the official last break from the Catholic church and I wasn't ready to let that go. But, I wasn't afraid of the conversation when it came up. I came to the decision a long time ago that God would let me know if he wanted me to do it and that I was ok with waiting for a sign or a moving in my spirit. After all, God's timing is perfect.

Well, at 3:00 AM on July 5th, I woke up with a vision and a clear direction that it was time. I was in a white dress in a lake. And so, that's what I did. Pastor Jay was very accommodating. He was on vacation when I shared the news with him via email. And was excited to help me make plans just days after his return. He picked a beautiful spot on Lake Waco and we did the dunk at sunset. It was amazing!

I want to extend the same thanks to all of you who have been with me on my journey just as those who were able to physically be there.

I thank all you for joining me here (in blogland) and celebrating with me. I have grown more spiritually during my time at Grace than I had in the previous years combined. And I feel like over the past 2 months that growth has been accelerated beyond measure. I thank you for all your prayers. For the prayers for healing, for the prayers for my family, and just the constant outpouring of supplication. I have felt like God is carrying me in his hands every day. Thank you! I can't say it enough.

A family day

2011-07-01T22:57:00.001-05:00

I had an amazing day today. It was practically perfect in every way. First thing this morning we went as a family of four to go have breakfast with some friends. This is a big deal all by itself. I haven't eaten breakfast since elementary school. Before I started on the steroids, the smell of food would sometimes make me nauseous. Not any more. I have to have breakfast in the morning. Aside from the fact that I can now enjoy breakfast food at a restaurant, it was simply amazing to just be out functioning as a family unit again. I felt more like a mom and a wife than I have in a long time. And to top it all off, the friends included my dear friend MA, her family, and another sweet friend from Baylor, Denka. The company was the best part of the morning. Well, the food was pretty good too. But, the people definitely made the meal.

After we finished breakfast, we came back home to play. I decide that today would be a day full of surprises, so I went to my room and got out the 4 pairs of shoes that I had stored in my closet for Chaselyn. The girl loves her some shoes so I stock up at the end of the season planning ahead for the next year. Chaselyn liked all the shoes, but she obviously picked the pink, sparkly Disney princess flip flops to wear right away. Unfortunately, her little feet are so chunky, I'm afraid that she'll only be able to wear them around the house for short periods of time. Because she got new shoes we had to say goodbye to some old shoes. One pair in particular I was a little emotionally distraught over getting rid of. Her little red sparkly shoes. These were worn so often they were like her trademark. I think I may have to do a post just about these shoes so that I can properly grieve them. On that note, they are Old Navy brand if you see them in any kind of resale shop in any size toddler 7 or above I will be at your mercy and pay whatever you want for them. So, anyway we cleaned out her shoe box. Out with the old, in with the new.

After that, it was time to go get zapped. Stanton and I left the kids with Ducky and Granny and made the trip to Temple. It was nice to get to have some alone time with him, although I must say that we have had plenty of private conversations and opportunities to pray together and grow together. But I still appreciate every single nugget of time I get to spend with anybody these days, so spending time with my best friend is pretty awesome. Stanton dropped me off at the door and I went ahead and got checked in while he parked the car. I didn't even have time to sit down before they called me back for treatment. When I came out Stanton was talking with Chris, a kind of gruff older gentleman that has struck up conversations with pretty much everyone who would listen. A very nice man indeed. Likes to give the nurses a hard time, but he's just messing with them. Today he mentioned something that absolutely broke my heart. His brother had just been diagnosed with lung cancer, but his brother lives 45 miles from the hospital. He may not get treatment because of the cost of gas to drive in every day. There's also a general distrust of doctors in the family too. Chris mentioned that the doctors will just keep finding things wrong to get your money. So I am not sure they are taking the diagnosis seriously, but to say that he shouldn't come because of the cost of gas. I was speechless. How blessed are we? Oh God, thank you. We are going to try to help the situation, and see if there is some kind of cancer society program to help get Chris' brother out.

Upon returning home, I got some of my moms leftover manicotti for lunch, took a nap, and woke up refreshed for the main event of the day - Chaselyn's first theater movie. We have been looking forward to this for months. We figured Cars 2 would be an appropriate movie to go see because she was already familiar with the characters and regularly asks to watch the first Cars movie. My friends it was amazing! I didn't watch much of the movie because I was watching her. She was so excited she was dancing to the music, she was smiling, she loved the special movie treats of Sprite and popcorn. The Sprite was an extra special treat and she couldn't get enough. I tried to regulate how much she was getting, but I'm pretty sure she got more out of the Large drink than Stanton and I combined. We were in the theater for over 2 hours. So obviously, with about 45 minutes left in the movie, she got ants in the pants. Fortunatley, ther wasn't anyone in front of us so she was satisfied to just stand and walk in between Stanton and me and dance with the chairs and play with the cup of ice and straw. She really did do great. And like I said, at the beginning she was just mesmerized and I pray that I can remember those faces.

After the movie, we took Chaselyn for another special treat. On Wednesday, Jacob accidentally broke one of her favorite headbands. She was very upset. We told her that we would take her to pick out a new headband at the store soon. So, off to Claire's we went. She picked out 2 headbands, because of a sale. The first one she picked has sparkly pink flowers. The second is rainbow colored with circles. They are very typical Chaselyn.

Upon returning we were greeted by MA and family, dinner served by a loving church family member, and we got to share the joys of the day with everyone. And then we got another surprise family of four moment. People just vanished for various reasons and we realized that it was the first time since about 6 am on May 24th that it had just been the four of us in the house together. I appreciate so much the job that our moms have been doing. And I don't want to sound like I am bothered at all by their presence, but there is just something about being just the four of us that made things seem normal. And I haven't had a whole lot of normal in a while. Stanton and I were able to play with the kids and put them to bed. And then Stanton finished a movie he had been watching, and I started blogging. Like I said, we have had enough alone time.

And that my friends is one of the greatest days I've ever had. Also the day was predisposed to be a good one because last night we had surprise dinner guests. My brother Josh and family are making a tour through TX tosee family, we didn't expect to see them until the 4th. But, it worked out that they got to come by and have dinner and some play time.

Worlds are collidng

2011-06-23T17:27:00.000-05:00

One of the most amazing parts of having brain cancer is that all of the people who matter most are drawn together to come and see you. And they get to meet and it's like a big party where all of the people I know from all different points of time in my life are thrown together. It's fun to see my friends from Waco meet my family from Arkansas. I wish they could have met under different circumstances obviously, but I feel so blessed by the whole interaction, it's one of the many silver linings I cling to.

Most recently we had a house full of visitors including my dad, my sister, her boyfriend, my friend MA, as well as the usual family of four plus our two moms. We had fun playing Wii, watching movies, eating way too much food, and just hanging out. As I type, I imagine people are packing up their stuff for a family reunion of sorts involving Stanton's mom's side of the family. There are approximately 30-35 people coming to Waco for the weekend. It's amazing!

I have definitely been feeling the effects of all the drugs in my system. Some days are bad, some days are ok. I just reduced my steroids from 4 pills a day to 3 pills a day, I thought that would help me sleep better, but it didn't last night. I feel tired and weak all the time. I'm getting weaker too, which bothers me to no end. I was doing so good. I'm still able to function on my own, but I can't really get down on the floor any more to play with the kids. The doctors said that this would happen, as the radiation kills the tumor cells, they will swell. The swelling puts pressure on my brain, which turns off my right side. I still have complete control of all my limbs and can move them on demand, which is more than I could do in the hospital. But I am just worried that as I get weaker, I won't realize it and I'll try to do too much and not be safe. I know how stubborn I can be.

New experiences

2011-06-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

Well, since we chatted last, I've had several new experiences. I've gone through 2 radiation treatments, a round of chemotherapy pills, I got a new fancy phone with a data plan and everything, and I am blogging from my very own IPad. Fancy, I know. :)

So let's start with the radiation. Essentially, I get my head locked to a table, by a mask that squishes my face so hard it leaves red marks for about 10 minutes after the treatment. Otherwise, the radiation is painless. Once locked in, I hold my cross that my family got me to hold, I close my eyes and try to pray. Try is a key word, because they have music playing in the room and I am easily distracted. I make three passes in the machine. The different arcs target the tumor from different angles. It only takes about 10 minutes start to finish. Which is good, because again the mask really squishes my face. I think that the radiation beams make my head feel hot, but it may just be my imaginatïon.

I am taking a pill form of chemotherapy called Temodar. I took 130mg last night and will take that amount every night at bedtime. I take an anti-nausea pill about 30 minutes before hand and it didn't seem to affect me at all on day one. Aside from nausea Temodar has been known to cause hairless in about 69% of patients. This is a little concerning to me. I am not a person obsessed with my appearance, but I don't want to appear sick. I know I'll adapt if I have to, but I'd rather just be part of the 31%. The other big side effect is fatigue. It will be hard to tell if the chemotherapy is causing it or if I am still a little tired from essentially not moving for weeks.

On that note, I am getting a PT and OT twice a week each for a few weeks. I am a little skeptical of the OT, because unlike a stroke victim, my muscles don't need to be taught how to do things again, I just need the strength back. But, I'll gladly take any and all help. With my moms around to do EVERYTHING for the kids and the house and Stanton doing everything for me, I don't get out of the recliner nearly enough. I need the PT to get me up and make me move.

Now, the fun stuff. My invasion of technology! I truly have joined the 'it' crowd with my new fancy tools. I just hope I can learn to appropriately use them to the fullest. It was the doing of some key people who love me dearly to make sure that no matter my physical condition, if I only had my left side to operate they wanted to be sure I could keep writing and get my thoughts out there. And for that I am truly grateful. Lucky for me, I can currently type with two hands and really enjoy my new toys. I was going to post a picture, so you could see the new me. But I can't get blogger to recognize the pic I took with my iPad. I'll learn soon.

Thanks for listening! And feel free to ask questions.

Steroids

2011-06-13T23:28:00.000-05:00

steroids make you weird. I am on some considerable levels of decadron and although it has relieved the pressure in my brain to allow most of my mobility to come back, the side effects are weirding me out. my body shape has changed. my legs are skinnier, my belly is bigger. my face shape has changed too, so that i barely recognize myself in the mirror. of course there's the acne and shrinking boobs too. but above all of that the most annoying part is the steroids have made me start to dislike food. I am so hungry all the time. And people have been providing DELICIOUS meals for us. But I'm so hungry I feel like I can't savor the flavor I just need more to eat. I feel guilty for gorging on tasty treats not because of the calories, but because I don't feel like I give the food a good home. It's such a waste for me to just throw it down the hatch. On the calories though i'm apparently burning up all I eat because I'm not gaining weight.

We are getting ready for my first radiation treatment tomorrow at 4pm. I'm not real sure what to expect, but I have a peace that passes understanding. Literally. I mean can you imagine me not freaking out about a medical procedure? God has touched my brain in a profound way to protect me and I thank Him for it every day.

I'm feeling good today. I feel like I have complete mobility, but I'm still weak on my right side. But I'm able to shower on my own. It's the little things. Most of all, I miss my Jacob. He's a runner, not a sitter. So I don't get to squeeze him very much. I miss that.

Please pray for me tomorrow at 4pm the scheduled radiation appt. and at bedtime when I take my first round of chemo pills.

brain cancer

2011-06-08T09:43:00.004-05:00

it all started on sunday when i nearly shut my foot in the car door. by sunday night i admitted that i needed to go to the doctor (a big deal for me) because my right side was being lazy. i called and set up an appointment for tuesday because monday i had the kids. early in the morning on tuesday, i was taking care of the boy and he was fussing so much that he even woke stanton up. stanton noticed my arm was limp and i was just not myself. he got worried and the next thing i know i was getting dressed to go to the ER.

At about 6:15 i walked into the emergency room. i talked with the er doctor told him my symptoms and he thought it would be a good idea to do a ct scan. i don't remember how the timing all worked out, but it seemed like the diagnosis was quick. the ER doctor came in to tell me that the CT scan was abnormal and it looked like cancer. the doctor was visibly shaken. and we were too. i cried but not for long. after having my mom diagnosed with breast cancer in august, i just wanted a plan of attack. i also found strength in knowing that God has a plan and He is in control of everything. He gave me brain cancer. He can heal me. But above all I know that He has a plan for me and my family. And we will be richer for having gone through these trials.

before too long i was inundated with a team of doctors , including a brain surgeon. i was loopy on the drugs, so i remember asking stanton to call everyone and being wheeled down for an MRI. then being woken up for another meeting with the doctors. it's all kind of a blur. next thing i know i was waiting for a brain biopsy. even writing that gives me the willies, but at the time i was surprisingly calm. again the peace that i felt was just amazing.

the next couple of days were kind of hazy. i remember all the visitors that showed up. true friends are so amazing! i'll have to have stanton post all the details, but eventually on thursday we were in an ambulance on our way to UT Southwestern for an anticipated surgery. again i was unusually calm. but once we got there the doctors said to us that they couldn't safely do the surgery. i can't imagine the range of emotions that my support team was feeling. but, by being at zale lipschy hospital on the UT Southwestern campus we were exposed to top tier medical professionals.

i have decided to just put my caringbridge link. it has the whole story layed out better than i could ever remember and more specifics than i know.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/brandigreer/journal

now, with that all out of the way, i hope to blog about my days. how i'm feeling, and what my new normal is.

thank you to everyone who has loved on me and lifted me up in prayer.

That's my boy!!

2011-05-19T20:53:00.000-05:00

Jacob Stanton Greer celebrated his first birthday on May 2nd. And he is becoming such a big boy. At his one year check-up last Wednesday, he weighed in at 21.1 lbs. and measured 30.25 in. tall. That put him in the 25% for weight and 50% for height. He has a large head, measuring 18.50 in. which puts him in the top 25%. He has moved into size 12m clothes and still uses size 3 diapers. Jacob has 8 teeth which he uses to chew up everything. From chicken to toys to his sisters snacks to dog food it all goes in his mouth. We are working on introducing sippy cups and cows milk. He seems to be doing ok with both, but still likes his milk warm and doesn't understand that some cups are not his to drink from. He still loves to eat by shoveling it down with two hands until it's all gone. His favorite food is hot dogs and green beans. But he's generally doesn't mind throwing down anything that is put in front of him.

Jacob was just starting to take his first steps when he turned one, and now he tries to take at least a few steps when getting from point A to point B. He loves to play with his big sister, follow her around, and scoop up the toy she was playing with as soon as she puts it down. This bothers Chaselyn to no end and often ends in a screaming match. Which eventually turns into a dinosaur roaring match and then to a raspberry, spitting match and then to hysterical laughing. Otherwise, he's very much into climbing on everything (and now standing once he reaches the top), the pull out game and cruising around on his little ride-on Pooh airplane. Phones and remotes are favorites too. He will point the remote at the tv and will pick-up my cell phone and say "Da-Da" and drool all over it.

So far he's only got "Ma-Ma" and "Da-Da" in his vocabulary. He also roars like a dinosaur. You can also ask him for a kiss and you'll receive one slobbery, open-mouthed smooch. Occasionally he tries to bite you too after the kiss. We're not sure if this is part of a bigger biting problem or just learning the proper smooching technique. So, we're keeping an eye on him and making sure those little love gnaws don't turn into a bad habit. He's also got a lot of new facial expressions. A big flirty grin with those innocent blue eyes. A sad face that will break your heart. And a smile and laugh that will melt your heart.

Dear Jacob,

We love you. There are no other words to describe the joy and happiness that you have brought to our lives. In the past year, you have taught us so much. We never could have dreamed that our little boy could personify so many familiar characteristics of the other 3 family members and yet be such an individual. You are such a handsome little fella and kind hearted too. We are so thankful that we get to join you on this crazy adventure. And, we know it will be crazy because you are already showing us how you like to push the limits. We pray that we can guide you appropriately with God's help and help you to achieve everything He has planned for you.

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

Easter blessings

2011-04-27T10:23:00.000-05:00

This year was a little odd for Easter. It is the first major holiday that I can remember that Stanton and I have spent alone since we have been married. And only the second holiday in Waco. (We spent Thanksgiving 2008 in Waco with his parents since it was only days after Chaselyn was born.) But in an odd twist, our family was able to spend a whole week in Arkansas with our extended family just last week. So, it seemed like a stretch to try to make it back only 5 days later. So that meant we had a 3 day weekend together with the four of us.

We kicked off the Easter weekend with a Maundy Thursday service. I had never been to one before because usually we are traveling on Thursday night to get home for Good Friday. Any way, the service was one of the most powerful services I have ever experienced. It is necessary to come face to face with the gravity of the true suffering, pain, and sacrifice that Jesus Christ endured to really set the tone for the joy of Easter morning. I hope that this is something that I get to experience annually.

Friday was a rarity. Stanton was off work and we had no specific plans. So, we decided to take a trip to our Waco zoo. It always amazes me that Waco has such a quality zoo for the size of town it is. And I am so happy that we decided to go ahead and get a zoo membership. We bought the membership at the end of March and we've already gone enough to pay for it, any more visits are free! And this trip was THE BEST trip to the zoo we've had. We were there when the gates opened and it was still cool so all the animals were up close.

We went to see the tigers and orangutan first. One of the tigers was standing just as close as he could get to the fence. And the orangutan was actually awake. I've never seen anything other than an indistinguishable ball of fur in the orangutan pit. He was in the building, but he was right next to the window so we could see him, some of the family chose to make faces at him too. Then we went to the African animals. Ironically, the elephants were the only animals not out in the cool eating. Usually no matter when we go we find the elephants out eating some hay. Which is probably why they are Chaselyn's favorites. So it was off to the lions. And look who we found

The rhinos were awake too. Usually they are snoozing off in the corner, but not today.

The giraffes were giraffing with their long necks eating leaves off of trees, the deer were endeering basking in the breeze, and even the bear was bearing the TX heat by taking a little swim.

The one drawback to the morning zoo visit was that there was a large group of children that were on a field trip. We started out ahead of them, but we often felt a little rushed to stay in the lead. After all, we didn't want to get Chaselyn caught up in the 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' chant they were yelling at the tigers. (We only yell 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' at the end of the Razorback fight song in our house.) But because we were hurried along, we still had lots of happy play time left for the playground.

And we wrapped up with some 'Manlybugs'.

Afternoon Friday was spent cleaning, laundering and napping. There was more of the same on Saturday. Because we have been out of town and sick and just busy, our house desperately needed the attention.

And then hippity, hoppity Easter was no longer on it's way, but it was finally here. The day was just perfect. The kids woke up together, we got the video camera set up, and watched the fun. Unfortunately, in the remembering to use the video, we forgot to use the regular camera for still shots. Chaselyn is at a fun age for holidays. She ran to her basket and looked at all the prizes. And then showed Jacob what he got too. The celebration was only slightly inhibited by the 'loud bird' otherwise known as our security system going off as Stanton tried to let Holly out. Only then did he realize he couldn't let Holly out any way because the Easter bunny had left prizes outside. After looking and perusing through the baskets, it was time for breakfast. Nothing but the finest for our first family holiday at home. I made cereal and milk per Chaselyn's request and fixed a nice microwavable pancake for the little man. After breakfast it was time to get in our Sunday best and take some pictures.

Then egg hunting.

The Easter Bunny was so smart. He put little 'C' and 'J' stickers on the eggs. So even though Chaselyn was really the only one hunting, Jacob also got to enjoy some treats.

As Chaselyn found the eggs, she would identify the C stickers because 'C is for Chaselyn'. When asked the letter on the other eggs, she responded 'I don't know that letter name.' So I guess she was classifying them as C's and not C's.

Chaselyn counting the eggs. Each of them got 8 eggs.

Then there was more surprises in the eggs.

Stanton was showing them that they each got a special penny with a cross cut in it. And that the cross is really what Easter is all about.

And as a special treat, each of the kids got an Easter prize from Mommy and Daddy. I will admit, I don't plan on Easter presents from us becoming a regular tradition in our home, the Easter Bunny is very generous. But this year we had a very special prize in mind for Chaselyn and we just couldn't wait until her birthday or Christmas. So we found a special prize for Jacob too. He got a Little People car wash. It was enjoyed by all.

Thanks Mommy!!!

And then it was time for Chaselyn's treat. We had her sit and close her eyes.

It's a Belle doll.

But wait there's more.

It's a Cinderella doll.

Honestly for a while, she seemed kind of bothered that Cinderella was tagging along, but before long she was having fun with both of her dolls.

By the time it was time to leave for church, the kids were tired. This is not unusual for Sunday mornings, but this day was a bit more eventful. Church was great. We had been away for 3 Sundays and it was nice to get back.

Sunday afternoon was again filled with organizing and straightening. And we wrapped up a wonderful Easter weekend with a feast of smoked ribs, deviled eggs, corn on the cob, and semi-homemade potato salad (I bought some potato salad from the store and added some egg).

It was a fantastic weekend. We missed our family back home. And there were many traditions that I really missed, but it was good to not have to worry about traveling and sleeping in different places and trying to be sure we make it to see everyone. For once we had a holiday weekend where we were actually rested and relaxed when it was all said and done.

'Cause I'm sick of looking a me

2011-04-26T14:40:00.000-05:00

I'll post about Easter later, but mainly I just needed to post so that silly picture of me wasn't staring me in the face every time I opened my browser!

Me

2011-04-06T15:32:00.004-05:00

So as I was leaving my afternoon class yesterday, I realized that my outfit pretty much sums up how I dress and my general feelings about appearances.

The plan: blue/gray/white striped button up shirt, casual black skirt, flat black shoes, some make-up, fixed hair.

The result: Check on the shirt, but untucked and rolled up sleeves, with jeans because I forgot to shave last night. And yes, the shirt was actually ironed. My dear husband did it for me while I was attending our son at 11pm last night. At one point I did have some lip gloss on, but that was long gone by 3:30 in the afternoon when I took the pic. My go to clunky Birkenstock sandals. They aren't cute, I know, but they are comfy and they are sandals. I love comfy and I can't stand for my feet to be hot. My hair combed, but not really styled in any way, because right after my shower, Jacob woke up and didn't go back down for quite a while. Also notice the backpack. I'm always carrying a backpack. If I'm on my way to school, its the red one you see here, if it's anywhere else, it's a black messenger style diaper bag. Also, the glasses, I wear contacts when I think about it and have time. Those two don't coincide very often. You may notice the ring on my left hand. An amazing symbol of love from my husband, to which I seriously considered leaving in a box because who wears a beautiful diamond like that while wearing jeans and t-shirts every day. This girl, that's who. A cross necklace around my neck given to me as a gift when our first born came into the world. Chaselyn has one just like it too. A fake smile because I don't really like the focus to be on me. Unpainted toe nails, because I haven't painted them since my brother's wedding last May. Frameless pictures on the wall, because if I waited to frame them, I would never get any put up. A mess on the floor, because I am the product of my advisor.

And that's me. That's pretty much the summation of how I appear to the outside world. And honestly I'm ok with that. I've never really cared about the opinions of others, especially strangers. And as it turns out when you are the teacher, the students pretty much have to pay attention whether you look perfectly put together or if you show up in you jammies.

I would like to lose a few pounds and be generally more healthy, and I would love to look nicer for my husband and my children. But I get so much more joy by spending time loving on my kids and doing things that actually affect them. Somedays I make an effort, and I generally start with the intent of being more put together. And then life happens. And I love it!

Eleven...

2011-04-05T15:27:00.001-05:00

... is the number of months it takes for you to step back as a mom and realize 'Oh crap, my baby is really leaving.' It was the hardest time for me when Chaselyn hit that milestone, and it's hitting hard again. But this time, I still have a lot of my little fella left to love. Jacob is being nice to Mommy and not actually walking yet. We know he could if he just put his mind to it. But he'd rather speed crawl from one room to another in stealth mode. He thinks standing by himself is one of the most fun games to play. His record is about 10 seconds before he starts laughing and dives for my lap. We've also caught him free standing by some of his favorite pull up spots, but as soon as he realizes what he's doing he grabs back on to the prop or gets down and crawls after whatever distracted him enough to let go in the first place.

So, in that respect he's still a little guy (especially compared to Chaselyn who was walking at 10.5 months). But as far as his appetite goes, he's quite the mature little man. He still takes baby food (stage 3) for breakfast and lunch (primarily because he's still in the babies class at daycare). But for dinner, he wants the good stuff. Hot dogs, carrots, ravioli, pasta, beef, lunch meat, green beans, pretty much anything you put in front of him, he'll scarf down in a matter of minutes. Double fisting handfuls of tasty treats and over stuffing his mouth is a nightly show. Maybe he thinks if he doesn't eat it fast we're going to give him some more of that yucky baby food. I don't know, but the boy loves to feed himself.

Jacob likes to play with puzzles and by play I mean gnaw on them. He is also a fan of finding the most obscure, unsafe, tiny item in the house and stick it immediately into his mouth. He still loves electrical cords of all varieties. He has developed good climbing skills which serves him well when trying to be a danger to himself and everyone around him. His favorite place to go is into the bathroom. Usually he goes straight for the tub. I think he would stay in the bath all the time if we would let him, but we can't because he is the squirmiest, slipperiest little booger in the world. Only once has he succeeded in playing in the toilet. We also think he's intrigued by the awesome animal decor in the bathroom. Another favorite hang out is Chaselyn's room. There's all kinds of toys and stuff to get into. There's also a slide in there for a good time.

We're currently working on 'bye-bye'. He says 'Ma-ma-ma-ma' in his insistent angry voice and 'Da' in his sweetest little loving voice. It's not fair, but I'm the one he calls for comfort, so that gives me the warm fuzzies.

We still have some issues with sleeping and drinking. Thankfully he seems to be back to sleeping from about 8pm to 6:30am. He also has a morning and afternoon nap. When he's home, I try to make him stay awake until about 10:30 or so before his morning nap. That way, I can usually get 15-20 minutes of overlap time in his nap and Chaselyn's nap. On average he probably sleeps for about 1.25 hours. Afternoon nap is around 3:30pm and lasts about 1.5 hours. He still doesn't care for a bottle unless he is tired. I can usually find some way to get him about 20 oz. in a day, but that's generally lower than what he should have. We're working on switching to sippy cups and in only one short month, we'll be switching to the Moo juice.

This past month was full of fun and family. We kicked off the month with our trip to Indy to see friends. And last week we got a visit from Ducky & CrawDad for the first half of the week and a visit from Papa, Granny, and Aunt Rachel for the second half of the week. We made a trip to the zoo with each group. Jacob liked the fish the best. He had lots of play time with all of his fans and some good snuggles too.

Jacob,
It is happening, you are growing up. You are going to be one year old in just a few short weeks. It is amazing to watch you grow and develop. We appreciate every little new glimpse into your forming mind. Your smile absolutely melts our hearts and your beautiful blue eyes shine extra bright in the spring sunlight. We like to lay claim (and sometimes place blame) on each other saying 'That's my boy!' or 'That's your boy!' You are your Daddy's son in that you do not seem to enjoy sleep, you know just the right time to crack a smile to make Mommy more happy, and you just do those things that boys do. You are your Mommy's boy in that you love snacks and munchies, you demand attention from those who love you most, and you love to climb and explore even when it's not so safe. We love you for all of these reasons. And we hope that the more of us that we see in you, the more you take on the good qualities and forget the not so wonderful ones. We are looking forward to celebrating your 1st birthday and can't wait to follow along on your continuing adventure.

We love you son!

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

INDY!

2011-03-19T20:59:00.003-05:00

Over our spring break, we took a trip to Indianapolis to see our good friends MA, Chris and Caro. Despite Jacob's double ear infection, it seemed as though we would all be ready for a great time. We were packed and in bed by 10:30. Ready for our morning wake up call at 3:30. This is where things started going downhill. Who in their right mind would try to travel with 2 small children to make a 7:30 flight? (Thumbs pointing) This girl. The plan was that we would be in bed early. That worked. The problem was that we got Chaselyn too amped up for her plane ride. Which meant she didn't go to sleep until around 10:00 and also meant that she didn't really go back to sleep and make a smooth transition from bed to car seat at 4:15am. But, she was excited and very compliant. As we made it through security she was happy to find all sorts of new adventures. There were large windows to see the plane we were going to get on. So exciting! The kids both did very nicely on the plane. Chaselyn thought that it was "too loud" during take off and landing, but she just made a funny face and didn't complain really. She most enjoyed coloring on Daddy's phone and the special airplane snacks. We had a full bag packed of toys and treats, but she didn't even need it much at all. We were super worried about Jacob. Fortunately (?) the ear infection that was worse had already burst, so the pressure was relieved. He did great! He got fussy when he was hungry, but what little boy wouldn't. So, after leaving Love Field at 7:30, we stopped in St. Louis, changed planes in Chicago, and finally found our friends! (I specifically remember having better pictures taken with MA's camera, but somehow we didn't get those pics)

Notice the awesome welcome sign!

Indianapolis seems like a marvelous city. We took the scenic route on the way from the airport to the casa. Great downtown area, lots of family friendly places, outdoor venues for lots of fun. Just amazing. One of the favorite attractions for Chaselyn was the marvelous costume closet and her personal assistant Caro.

Isn't she beautiful!

Princess Chaselyn

Time to stretch and work out.

It was truly a joy to see these two tots play together. Caro is such a kind little girl with such a precious heart. Definitely someone I would love for Chaselyn to be able to be influenced by on a more regular basis.

Our friends are such a reading family. It's a trait not really possessed by my family.

MA and Cake reading one of the Little Mister books

Caro reading to Chaselyn. BTW, this photo was taken stalker style from the indoors.

Our favorite place was the Children's Museum. We went 3 times and did something different every time. Even though Stanton and I were feeling under the weather, there was more than enough to keep everyone entertained.

The gang's all together and ready for adventures.

Chris and Jacob looking dinosaur-ish.

Caro and Chaselyn playing in the play house.

Chris and Chaselyn bonding over a book. This was one of the first times Chaselyn didn't run from Chris. From this point on, they were best buds.

Getting my Pac-Man on and educating my children.

Girls and a fast car.

Jacob play time!

Water fun for Jacob.

Splashy smiles!

Big sister ready to help

We swapped kids for a while so that we could do some science exploration with Caro.

Concentrating on the sand

His 3rd ariplane ride.

Stanton and Chris took the two little ones on Tuesday afternoon while MA took me on a tour of the Lilly company where she works (no photos allowed). We had some good girl time, and Stanton got to take his kids to see the dinosaur exhibit at the museum.

My little dinosaur.


Dinosaur time with Daddy.

On Tuesday morning Stanton and Chris went to the NCAA museum. Where it was at least worth the $5 admission to get these goofy shots of Stantonio.

The reason for the NCAA. Apparently this formation was killing people and lead to the formulation of regulations and rules.

Nice form!

I believe the prompt was something like - pretend you just won the NCAA Wrestling Championship.

Aside from the museum we took the time to partake of some delicious cupcakes. We chose coconut and strawberry. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get the cheesecake cupcake like Chris.

Jacob had a few crumbs.

The gang's all full.

Another must see was the local Trader Joe's. The deal was only sweetened by the fact that they had tiny little shopping carts just perfect for our little tot.

So proud of her purple tulips and fontina cheese.

We originally took this trip to Trader Joe's on Monday while Caro was in school. She was heart broken that she didn't get to see Chaselyn with the little cart. So Tuesday MA took Chaselyn and Caro back for a few little things. When they parked the car, this is what Chaselyn had to say:
C: My Mommy is here not.
MA: She stayed home to take care of Jacob.
C: Do I still get a buggy?
MA: Sure!

And that's what it takes to comfort my little girl if she's missing her Mommy - her own shopping cart at the grocery store.

So as we realized that the sickness Stanton and I were suffering from was more than just being over-tired. We decided to load up on the Xango juice and preventative meds. The picture below is from our last night with our friends. The kids were in bed. Chris was on a late night run to the pharmacy to load up on ZiCam. So the three of us toasted with our special juice. Stanton set up the camera on a timer, placed it in the microwave, and tried not cough while we waited for the camera.

Cheers!

Here's a recap for my records of what the 5 days held for our fun trip.

Saturday, March 5th

Leave Waco 4:30, drive to Dallas Love Field for 7:30 flight. Stopped in St. Louis, changed planes with a little layover in Chicago. Jacob had his first taste of McDonald's chicken nuggets and french fries.
Arrive in Indianapolis at 2:00 to wonderful smiles, big hugs and an amazing sign. At this point I was utterly exhausted and not feeling well at all. The kids were rested and ready to go.
Easy evening on Saturday. A lovely dinner and entertainment provided by Chaselyn and Caroline and their dress up clothes. We went to be a little early to try to prevent the illness from ruining the rest of the trip.

Sunday, March 6th

Upon waking Stanton tells me that he thinks I'm sick because I burned him by touching him last night.
Everyone except the Greer girls went to church. I stayed home to try to get my strength up and we just weren't sure how Chaselyn would deal with going to nursery during church with strangers.
Lunch and naps were enjoyed by most.
First trip to the Children's museum. We did the play area with the awesome house, ice cream shop, and tree house. Also large books where Chris and Chaselyn bonded, and a play area with different video games from the different decades.

Monday, March 7th

Caro left for school more quietly than I could have imagined. The rest of us slept in a bit.
Trader Joe's trip. We got some tasty treats and found Lucy the Lemur to get a free snack. Chaselyn LOVED having her own little buggy.
After Caro was out of school we got cuppy cakes and headed for round 2 of the museum.
This time the Greer kids played in the area for kids 5 and under - sand, water, cushy climbing area. While the Greer adults played with Caro in the Science exhibit - pool ball machine, water buckets, bulldozer w/ rocks, underground tunnel with slide.

Tuesday, March 8th

NCAA museum for the guys while the girls rested some more and got the kids ready. By this point Stanton was hacking and coughing and starting to really seem pretty bad.
Guys took the kids to the dino and train exhibits. Girls went to tour Lilly. I loved getting to see a little inside MA's world. Not only will I now know what she's talking about with some of her work stories, but I can also now understand that all large companies that employ statisticians don't just lock them all in a large warehouse of cubicles. It was such a joy to hear her excitement and know how great she was doing. I mean if she had to be uprooted and taken away from me, there had better be a good reason for it.
After school Caro, Chaselyn and MA took trip 2 to Trader Joe's.
Our goodnight toast with our fancy glasses and Stanton trying not to ruin our pic.

Wednesday, March 9th

We didn't do our planned tour of Lucas Oil Stadium. Stanton and I were both barely hanging on.
We had a leisurely morning of packing and chatting and wrapping things up.
Depart Indianapolis at 3:30. Change planes in Chicago. Stop in Little Rock.
Arrive back at Love Field 8:15.
Back at the Greer house 11:00ish.

Thursday, March 10th

Send the kids to day care.
Stanton and I rest and go to the doctor to be diagnosed with bronchitis.

10 Months - Movin' on up

2011-03-13T14:49:00.000-05:00

Jacob is on the move. He started really crawling just days after his 9th month was over, and quickly progressed to pulling up and cruising around the couch like it was nobody's business. And that seemed to be how he felt about it too. It was nobody's business what he was doing. It was his business to figure out what everyone else was doing. With as quickly as he progressed from the army crawl, to crawling on all fours, to cruising around vertically, we really thought he might be walking well ahead of schedule. Thankfully those first steps haven't happened yet, but you can see it in his eyes. He's just waiting for us to leave him alone for a while.

Jacob has also started to have a more refined palette. He's getting pretty sick of that old jarred stuff. And if you are eating, you better make sure you've got some kind of little niblet to share with him. He will still eat his cereal, jars of fruits and veggies, and even some of the jarred meals. That is as long as no one is eating real food nearby. Favorites include snatching some of Chaselyn's ravioli's, bread bits and little puffs of varying flavors. Oh yeah, and bottles are only accepted when sleeping time is not too far away.

And to top it all off, Jacob was making all of these strides to becoming a big boy while suffering through his first ear infections. Thankfully we got the all clear yesterday after 3 rounds of antibiotics.

Jacob is really at a fun age. He's starting to play with everyone! That includes his big sister. It's so amazing to see them play together. Chaselyn tries to help, but it often comes off a little more rough than what we would like.

Also, we celebrated Valentine's day. It wasn't too big of a deal, but look at these cuties.

And Mommy and Daddy are getting some of the most amazing hugs and squeezes.

Jacob,

You are growing up so fast! It's unbelievable. You're moving and playing and turning in to such the little man. It's so exciting to think where you will be in just a few short months. But we are so thankful you are giving us a little more time with baby Jacob. It's very neat to watch you learn to play and interact. To watch you and see how you went from pulling up to cruising to stretching to get books and puzzles off the shelves. It's so fun! We hope that we can be the parents that you need us to be. To guide you in your development to teach you the things you need to know and to be able to let you fall when that will teach you best.

We love you very much and are thankful for all the precious memories we get to share with you.

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

Addendum: We're the ones who...

2011-03-01T10:23:00.000-06:00

... attempt to take two kids out to dinner at Chili's to commemorate our dating anniversary, but unfortunately have to pack up the food and go after about 20 minutes of Baby 1 whining for her burger and spilling a full cup of milk and Baby 2 throwing a fit that couldn't even be calmed by his favorite snack.

Jacob was running a 99.1 degree fever by the time we got back home and it was past Chaselyn's bedtime by the time we got her set up with her burger at home. But after we got the kids to sleep, we had a lovely candlelit dinner that we didn't have to cook.

What a difference 14 years can make. =)

Not Valentine's Day

2011-02-28T12:50:00.000-06:00

For many February 14th is a day filled with candy, roses, stuffed animals, fancy dinners, or at least a card and a favorite meal prepared. Our Valentine's Day was not quite that. There were some cards. Chaselyn made a cute little card for her Daddy. And there was one very special princess balloon for a certain little girl and a cute little stuffed puppy dog for Jacob. We called the grandparents to tell them we love them. The call was interrupted by our lovely dog getting caught up in the aforementioned balloon and popping it off the string. And eventually, Daddy came home and we had chili dogs for dinner.

But, I wouldn't have it any other way. Stanton and I aren't the gifting, romantic couple. We're the madly in love, goofy couple. We're the ones who love a nice steak dinner on February 16th, a weekend treat of using our smoker for the first time, and delicious leftovers for a week rather than dropping the same amount of money for a single plate at a nice restaurant. We're the ones who would like to sit on the couch and play video games more than getting all dressed up to go to the fanciest restaurant. We're the ones who would rather take our kids to the park than have a quiet evening alone. We're the ones who know that a cabinet full of clean dishes is much preferred over a little stuffed animal. We're the ones who like candy all the time.

We're the we I never could have imagined. And it is simply amazing. I take it for granted sometimes. I push Stanton farther than I should. I pull away more often than I should. I am not the perfect woman by a long shot, but he loves me. And I am thankful that he puts up with me. He is the one for me. He makes me better. He makes me want to be better. He makes me fall in love over and over again with the way he plays with our kids and makes silly jokes.

So, to my boyfriend of 14 years, I love you! And I'm thankful that we are THAT couple.

Chaselyn's Big Girl Room

2011-02-23T21:57:00.001-06:00

One of the reasons I've been absent from blogging for a while is this very special project we've been working on. It took us a week and a half to find time during naps, after class, and after the kids had gone to sleep to finish all the painting. And I'm happy to report that we've both found a pretty good technique for doing the edging on the walls or "cutting in" as my painter friend tells me. After the walls came the bedding, which I had picked out about the same time I picked out Jacob's crib bedding. Then came the tough part putting everything together and hoping that whatever we did lived up to this vision I had in my head. Which decorations work in the room? Where do they go? What furniture do we want in the room? What needs to be done to get that ready? And what about that huge arched window? What in the world do we do with that?

As many of you know, I'm very indecisive. For things that matter, I can lay down the law, but for decorating, picking something to eat, and deciding what to wear, I'm the worst. So the decorating took longer than it really should have. And finally on Monday night I decided that things just had to start going up. If I didn't like it I could change it. And so, by bedtime last night I had finished it. And today I staged the room for a photo shoot complete with my adorable models.

Welcome!

The happy tenant.

The letters are just transported from her baby room. I actually used a piece of wax paper to trace the nail holes off the wall in the old room to use as a guide to put them up here. I plan on repainting the H and the S. The white bench is a toy box. My brothers and I and eventually Rachel too shared this box when we were growing up. It was just plain brown wood then. My mom had painted it for my sister's room in the new house when they moved. I plan on making a more permanent cushion, but for now, the blanket is working fine.

The little flower purse holder came from Hobby Lobby and the cute polka dot night light came from Ducky.

The window was kind of an issue. Thankfully I have a crafty mother-in-law who was able to make a fantastic arch covering out of an extra sheet from the bedding, some blackout material and pvc pipe. She also supplied the colorful polka dot accents seen here and throughout the room.

Below the window we set up the little people village. Fun for kids of all ages.

Past the window, we get to the rooms purpose, the bed. Notice the big girl bed! Chaselyn has done great with the transition. Notice the bedding. It's like big fireworks of all different colors. The C above the bed was painted by our cousin Leslie. The blue rug is not permanent, it's a carry over, but since the walls are blue, I'm hoping to get another color. Notice the cute little book rack at the end of the bed.

That little bookshelf opens up into her own little reading nook.

One of my favorite parts of the room. Her little rocking chair, the books, her CD player, it just makes me smile. For now, I put her robe on one of the hooks, but in the future, there will be little book bags.

But it's already so much fun.

Going around the room there's the closet. With a little nook up above. Eventually I think this nook will probably house some of her stuffed animals

And rounding out the room, we have the infamous cubies. We have two sets of these in our house and we love them. We love that you can use the colorful bins or just display your toys.

And there you have it. The happiest place in the home. Where everything is put away and everything has it's place. The whole family spent the evening playing in here tonight, just loving the open floor space and the happiness of it all. Jacob had plenty of room to crawl around and Daddy had plenty of room to wrestle with his little ones. That is he was able to wrestle after he was done playing with the dolls.

Is there anything more endearing than seeing the love of a father playing dolls with his little girl?

Tale as old as time... the musings of a SAHM

2011-02-20T20:34:00.000-06:00

So, my daughter is a girly girl. It's going to be a sharp learning curve for me. Fortunately, thus far this has only shown up in the form of having a love affair with shoes, wearing a tutu daily, having multiple purses, and wanting to watch Belle over and over. The last one will be at the top of our discussion today. The other 3 just make her too stinkin' cute.

Beauty and the Beast is a wonderful movie. It's my sister's favorite, and I had watched it many times before having children. I even went to see the play a few months ago. I like it, and if there is a movie that my daughter is going to wear out, I'm glad it's one that I like. Even though I've watched it probably about 25 times since the beginning of the year, I can still say I like the movie. But, as someone who typically takes movies for face value and doesn't look for the deeper meaning or the technical minutia of what does and does not make sense, after you watch something so many times you start to have questions. So here's my beef with the movie:

1) What exactly is the time line for this whole story? How long has the Beast been a Beast? And how long have all the servants been household utensils?

In the song "Be Our Guest" two times it references that they have been candlesticks and clocks for 10 years. At the beginning of a movie, it says that Beast has until his 21st birthday to find true love. So, if you put those together, that means the enchantress punished an eleven year old boy for not letting an ugly woman into the castle. Stranger Danger any one? I mean, how can you punish an 11 year old boy for turning away an old woman. And where were the King and Queen when this happened? Was the 11 year old boy ruling the castle?

And, if they have been teapots and such for 10 years, where did Chip come from? How does a teapot get pregnant and give birth? Stanton proposes that all the servants were in a type of suspended animation, but why would the Beast age and not the servants? And even if this is the case, doesn't Mrs. Potts seem a little old to have a 4 year old boy? And where is Mr. Potts?

2) Where do all the servants come from?

I mean is there a servant for each spoon in the castle? Again, Stanton has a theory. He thinks that only those items with faces were at once real people. And when I pointed out that the footstool was a dog and it had no face, he retorted that perhaps there are a bunch of squirrels and birds jumping around as spoons. So what is it?

3) Why didn't the town know about the Beast?

It seems that they didn't know about him until Belle showed them on a magic mirror. So, did they even know there was a castle there? They seemed to know just where to go to find him once they wanted to kill him. Wouldn't someone in the nearby town have gone to the castle in the past 10 years? And why does everyone think Maurice is crazy for saying that there is a Beast who has Belle, but they don't skip a beat when seeing a magic mirror?

4) What is Beast's name?

Stanton looked it up and found that in some CD-ROM game he was referenced as Prince Adam (but not He-Man). But other than that, there's nothing that says. Don't worry though, Stanton plans on asking Belle next time we go to Disney World. I told him to be sure not to do it until the last day. A Princess could kick us out of the castle for harassment.

5) Why didn't Beast just throw Belle in the dungeon too?

Why did he give her the option of leaving and then the option of taking her dad's place? Maurice was thrown into the dungeon for trespassing, wasn't Belle doing the same?

6) If Gaston wouldn't have led the mob to kill the Beast, would Bell have made it back in time to make Beast human again?

I think not, so in a way everyone owes Gaston a big thanks.

7) What is Beast exactly the Prince of?

In all other Princess movies, the Prince has some kind of kingdom to rule over, but Beast apparently reigns over a kingdom where the people don't notice that they haven't heard from the royalty in 10 years.

8) Why do princesses always seem to have some kind of weird connection with wildlife?

I mean Cinderella has mice who make dresses. Snow White had all the woodland creatures clean the cottage. And Belle is able to get a bird to hop into claws of a Beast. That is weird. Not to mention Jasmine and Rajah.

9) How long is Belle at the castle with Beast?

It seems like she is there for a while building up trust and a relationship with Beast, but then again that would mean her father was lost in the woods for a long time and LeFou was standing outside of Belle's house for a long time.

10) If Gaston is so unintelligent, why does he have some of the best rhymes in the movie?

Gaston rhymes "I'm especially good at expectorating." with "I use antlers in all of my decorating." And have you heard the lyrics to the mob song at the end? My favorite part is "Raise the flag, sing the song. Here we come, we're 50 strong and 50 Frenchmen can't be wrong. Let's kill the Beast!"

But amidst all these questions is a fairly good tale of learning to love what's different on the outside, because of the good on the inside. And just ignoring ignorant pride all along. I love that from the beginning Belle doesn't care for Gaston. She would give her life to spend in the Beast's dungeon to save her father, but wouldn't consider for a moment marrying that silly ego maniac to keep her father out of the insane asylum. There are some glitches with the story, but overall I find it to be the most meaningful of the Disney princess stories.

The movie has had quite the affect on Chaselyn. Now whenever she wears a dress, it's a "Belle dress". And she requires a dress and/or tutu to dance around the living room during the "Beauty and the Beast" song. Mostly so that she can hold out her dress to dance like Belle.

Chaselyn also likes to hold out her dress to walk around the store, even if it means exposing her little tummy. And perhaps the most precious of all, about a week or two ago, she started caring a little basket and running around the house singing "Little town, quiet village. Everyday one before. Little town, little people. Everyday one before." And she'll run and sing it over and over again. Always with a basket and only on her own terms. She won't sing it if you ask her to. Stanton got some video the other day. I may be able to upload later.

So thanks for listening to my rant after being out of the blogging world for a while. Just in case you missed it, I also posted Jacob's 9 month update today. Go check it out.

Nine! Nine! Nine!

2011-02-20T16:03:00.000-06:00

(Think seagulls in Finding Nemo to get the true effect of the title)

So, somehow it's happened. Jacob grew some more. I don't know how it happened, I tried to stop it, but he insist on eating and sleeping and growing.

Jacob started the month with the two bottom teeth. By the end of the month he had another on his bottom left and the buds of the two top teeth about to come through. Jacob is now just under 19 lbs. (18.95 at the doctors office on the 16th) and he's 28 inches tall. That's only about 7 inches shorter than big sister Chaselyn. Jacob is right on the 50% mark for his height to weight ratio. His head circumference is in the 75th percentile for his age. But in my eyes, he's just the handsomest little man I've ever seen. I mean just look at this face.

We get lots of compliments on how handsome he is. Particularly, his perfectly boyish hair and those baby blue eyes to complement the dark hair. His coloration shows his love of carrots and squash.

And he's learned several new tricks. During this month he learned some cool pacifier tricks, like how to grab it and stick it in his mouth on a regular basis. And even more fun is to stick it in sideways and see how much
he can get in before Mommy worries about him swallowing the whole thing.

He also began excelling at sitting and playing. A great joy to watch and a great joy for him to do. The beginning stages of crawling came with the army crawl. By the end of the month, the little man could come find me anywhere.

We had some great family visits too. Granny, Papa, and Rachel came to visit at the beginning of the month. We all watched the Sugar bowl together.

It didn't turn out quite as we had hoped,

but it was fun to watch and cheer any way.

Later in the month Ducky and CrawDad came for a visit. They were only here for a short while, but we made the most of it.

Big Sister Chaselyn really has stepped up her role. She helps Jacob find toys.

She helps him out in the bathtub.

She even got to help feed him once. Which was quite the fun treat for everyone.

And she was a super good helper when Mommy was feeling sick and Daddy was away.

You can see the love between them.

All kidding aside, it's great to see them just starting to play together and interact. There are going to be lots of bumps, bruises, long talks and lessons for us all to learn along the way. But through it all, I can see our family values forming. It's so exciting and extremely scary all at the same time.

Jacob,

You are an amazing little man. As Daddy says, you seem to have grown out of that little baby phase. Now you're seemingly ready to take care of yourself. You like to hold your bottle for yourself. You would love it if we would let you hold your own spoon. You are an explorer, and you like to do things on your own. But you still like for us to be nearby while you learn. So, thanks for that. We love watching you grow and learn. With your increased mobility, we have seen your eyes opened to many new experiences. You have a knack for finding the most questionable item to play with amidst a sea of age appropriate toys. You are not afraid to drag yourself all across the house to find Mommy or Daddy who happened to walk by a few minutes earlier. And it seems as though you have your Daddy's sleeping tendencies. You seem to be sure that as soon as you fall asleep the most wonderful thing is going to happen. But we love you for it. It is amazing to see how different you are from your sister who has the same genes and the same parenting. You are your own man. And we can forsee that being a point of contention in the future. However, we promise, we will try to let your free spirit grow as big and as great as God has planned. But just remember that it is nice to have Mommy and Daddy around just in case.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Updates

2011-02-15T14:52:00.000-06:00

Hey all! Thank you for joining me in prayer for our friend Summer. Every day we are hearing of the miracles that are occurring on a regular basis in this seemingly dire situation. There have been many positive reports, but our pastor has constantly reminded us that it will be a long road to recovery and Summer's condition is still very serious. I will not be updating the blog world on a regular basis, but if you are interested in my friends story and the struggles she is facing, please join the Caring Bridge network at the link below.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/summergilmer/journal

The family is doing well, but continued prayer without ceasing is still needed.

On a lighter note, I am looking forward to getting back to blogging. I have a lot of stored up writing energy. Tomorrow I take Jacob for his 9 month check-up, so you can expect an update on our handsome little man soon!

Prayers Please

2011-02-10T19:56:00.000-06:00

A friend of ours from church is currently is serious condition after having emergency heart surgery today. Our dear friend went into the ER last night with difficulty breathing. This morning the doctors performed an emergency C section for her sweet little girl who was in the third trimester. Unfortunately, the little girl was called home to heaven too soon for many of us to understand. The friends husband is by her side along with a great support group of family and friends. Their 4 children are home under the care of some of the other church members.

Please pray for God's healing and mercy in this seemingly desperate situation.

We are holding a prayer vigil tonight at 8:30 at our church and appreciate any additional prayers we can get from across the nation.

Thank you for praying with me.

My dirty little secret...

2011-01-14T12:51:00.003-06:00

There's a box of about 40 of these still sitting in our house, un-adressed, un-stamped, un-used and now it seems a bit late to bother at all. So we did intend to send out our Christmas blessings to you, but we missed it. And I feel bad, because I love the job that Leslie at Giraffic Arts did. So adorable! And we just like to let people know we are thinking about them during the holiday season. So to all of you out there, we did think about you, and we are still thinking about you as we try to figure out what to do with all of these cards.

Chaselyn - too much for words

2011-01-10T21:06:00.003-06:00

My daughter is hilarious. She is a laugh riot. She's just a perfect combination of a little person and a innocent baby that hilarity ensues at every moment. Her latest craze is to put an "o" or "io" on everyone's name. For instance, I'm "Mommy-O". Stanton is "Daddy-E-O". And then there's Jacob-E-O, Craw-de-O (CrawDad), Pa-Pa-O, and my favorite Jesus-E-O. As in "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS-E-O!!!!!!" yelled at various points around Christmas time.

What a joy she was during the holidays. I love Christmas time. I love the lights on houses. I love the Christmas tree and ornaments. I love the cold weather. I love the special holiday treats. I love traditions. I love having time with family. I love almost everything about Christmas. And what a joy it is to have a sweet little innocent child to show all of the amazing things to. She loved the pageantry of Christmas as much as I do. "I see tismas yites" was one of the many phrases that made my heart happy. She loved all the decorations. She loved singing happy birthday to Baby Jesus. She learned about the story of Jesus' birth and wanted to read the story every night. By the time Christmas rolled around she could fill in most of the blanks and identify pictures. Here's the Christmas story as Chaselyn knows it:

Mary was told by an angel that she was going to have Baby Jesus. And Joseph was excited too. An angel told him not to be scared. They rode a donkey to Bethlehem (pronounced roughly as Bellyham). The innkeeper said that there was no room. So Mary and Joseph had Baby Jesus in a Stable. Then the Shepherds who take care of sheep saw a star and went to find Baby Jesus. This made Mary very happy. Then 3 wise men saw a big star and followed it all the way to find Baby Jesus. They brought him presents (one of which she identified as rocks which is what the gold looked like in the book). Then Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus left on a donkey to get away from the mean king.

Granted there were pictures to guide her answers, but it made us proud parents for her to know at some level what Christmas was really all about.

She is also quite the trend setter. She loves her tutu and leg warmers. She's also a fan of any shoes she can find and socks worn as gloves. Hairbands and anything round double as bracelets and she has quite the collection of purses to go with any outfit.

She's at the stage where she likes a friend to go wherever she goes. Favorites are Jessie, Violet, Baby Violet, Little Baby, Baby, and during Christmas time she took Rudolph.

She is quite the thinker. She has the greatest thinking face. Like if you ask her which friend she would like to take shopping (still a favorite past time). She'll furrow her brow, kind of smirk, and then make an "a-ha" face when she's decided.

But just when you think she's made her decision you have to be careful, because she negates things by putting 'not' at the end of her sentence. So rather than saying 'I don't want to take Violet' she'll say 'I want to take Violet not.' It's very confusing, but pretty great too.

Unfortunately Chaselyn is also very aware of the word MINE. I know everyone goes through it, but I'm just not sure I can take it. It's a real bother. It's nice when she says 'My Mommy' it's not so nice when she says 'No Jacob, My Mommy.' We're working on sharing and I'm hoping that getting her back into daycare will help some.

She is a good big sister most of the time. She wants to help with everything. Eating, playing, washing, soothing, tickling, disciplining, everything. She used to want to help with diaper changes too, but I don't think she ever understood the difference in boy parts and thought I was leaving Jacob 'eewy' all the time. So eventually she just gave up. It's nice though when they play together. There's even been a couple times when Jacob started crying when Chaselyn stopped playing with him as if he missed her. So sweet.

She does something new every day. She's getting better at her ABC's She often gets all the letters except 'TUV'. She can count her fingers up to five. But past that she gets lost. Without using fingers, she tends to skip 4 and 6 on her way to 10. She's also learning other songs like twinkle, twinkle little star, Jesus loves me, and more.

I can't express how much joy I get from being able to observe her daily and watch her grow.

BWYP

2011-01-10T19:59:00.005-06:00

me: Hello, my name is Brandi.
you: Hello Brandi.
me: I have been living in Texas for 4.5 years. I have been a legal resident for almost 2 years. I am the parent of 2 children who were born Texans.
you: Welcome Brandi.
me: Thank you, it's taken me a long time to admit it to myself, but I can now, and I'm ready to grow now.

So as with many other parts of my life, I feel like I need a support group sometimes to get through these things. I need words of wisdom and support and usually just a swift kick to the rear to get me in line. But I'm tired of living a double life. So that's why I'm here today. I love Arkansas. I miss it. I miss so many people there. Family, friends, the Razorbacks, restaurants, mountains, so many things that just aren't the same as they are down here. And now as people complain about the snow they are getting in Arkansas it just makes me want to thump them in the head. I will always, always be an Arkansan. But, there's more to me now.

I like Texas too. Before my family and friends freak out on me, let me clarify. I still can't stand UT and their burnt orange obnoxiousness. And I don't like that there aren't really seasons per se. But I do like my life as it is now. And a big part of that is because of where I am.

For a long time I lived in denial. We were foreign missionaries in Texas just trying to get our edumacation and get back to our roots. After we were done with that we were willing to engage in a little experiment where we start a family, I work full time and Stanton works more than full time to start a company. Still on the ready to go back to AR at the drop of a dime, hoping that's where God was getting us back to. But now, there's no denying it and I'm actually embracing it. My family is living in Texas. My children are Texans. And I'm not going to apologize for it any more.

God has blessed us beyond what we could hope for. And as my dear friend so eloquently put it, but being apologetic and denying what was going on for us, we were diminishing God's glory and grace in our lives. And I'm done. A while back I was able to say that I really enjoyed a lot about our lives, I just wanted Waco to be transplanted about 6.5 hours to the northeast. While I would still love for that to happen, it's really not very likely. So I'm just going to fully and completely embrace my life here. Yes, I live in Waco, TX. Yes, my children are Texans. Yes, I miss out on a lot of family things. Yes, I like the attention of being the event when we do make trips back home. Yes, I am happy.

I have a great network of friends. I have a part time job that I love. I have the ability to be at home 5 days a week with my kids. Stanton is doing a job that he loves and finds great value in. We are in a good place for our kids to grow. Our kids are healthy and happy. And quite frankly if I don't change my attitude soon, my kids might grow up thinking they are second class citizens because of where they were born. While I do want them to know how much we love AR, what it means to us, and all the great things about it. I've got to stop being so reactive to the few Texans I know who think they are somehow privileged because they were born here. It should just be a non-issue. There are some pretty neat things Texas has to offer. And we need to take some time to enjoy them.

On that note, part of this shift was due to the realization that we can no longer escape back to AR whenever we want. Stanton's job keeps him BUSY. He is allotted a good number of vacation days, but by the time you take some time for Christmas vacation, a summer vacation, a spring trip and a fall trip, there's not many days left. We no longer have the luxury of academic schedules. And we also want the kids to have more experiences than just traveling to and from Arkansas once a month (though we're not sure how this balances with how much we value their time spent with family). We want to go to zoos, maybe some camping, do short day trips when we can. Unfortunately, this means we won't see our families as much. But hopefully they'll be able to make some extra special time for us when we do come. And maybe start making even more trips down here.

It's a hard shift for me to make. But I'm not going to apologize any more for living in Texas. We truly believe that we're here because of God's grace and provision. And as another blogger put it, it's time for me to BWYP - Bloom Where You're Planted.

p.s. Speaking of being unapologetic, my background will remain Christmas-y until my house is no longer decorated. I set the minimum amount of time based on bowl games. Christmas lights and tree stay up and on through bowl season. Stanton is out of town this weekend, so I'm guessing you may see a switch around the 20th or so. :)

Dinner Theatre

2011-01-07T16:22:00.000-06:00

Filling in the blanks

2011-01-03T12:47:00.004-06:00

So I asked Stanton to do Jacob's 8 month update and he did a marvelous job on telling what he did over the last month, but I felt it was somewhat lacking in some of the details. So here's the skinny.

The title: "Jacob-E" is Chaselyn's term of endearment toward her little brother. And so it's become our nickname for the little man too. Other versions inspired by our sweet girl include "Jacob-E-O" and "Jacoboy" and "Jacoboy-E-O". (I'll have to do another post to update Chaselyn's ever expanding cuteness). My personal nickname is Buddy Bear as in "Hey there Buddy Bear" a la Tigger pouncing Winnie the Pooh.

The food: Jacob is eating the stage 2 foods and handling them quite nicely. He generally has 4 oz. of cereal and some fruit for breakfast around 9:00. Lunch is around 2:00 and consists ofa jar of some meal type concoction such as chicken noodle, turkey and rice, etc. along with half a jar of veggies (As Stanton mentioned, we have nixed the sweet potatoes. He likes them, but they seem to be to blame for many fussy days.). Dinner is a little more flexible. Sometimes he eats his meal around 6 and sometimes not until around 8. For dinner he eats the leftover fruit from breakfast, the leftover veggies from lunch, 2 oz. of cereal and either a jar of meat or another meal jar. I have great ambitions to become less dependent on Gerber for Jacob's food, but for now, it's what I can manage. He also takes about four or five 4 oz. bottles throughout the day.

The sleeping: Jacob goes to bed around 9:00. He has been waking up regularly around 3am for a little snack, then up again at around 6. At this point he can either wake up and get going for the day or snuggle back into bed and snooze until around 8. We are hoping to have him out of our room (finally) by the end of the week. That will be our opportunity to try some of the tough love to get him to sleep through the night. He was supposed to be out by the 6 month mark, but some redecorating issues are just now being addressed. He has been taking pretty good naps in the mid-morning and late afternoon. We're just getting it worked out after the crazy Jacob that was taking over my sweet boy for about 2 months.

The tricks: Jacob is mobile. He can roll in any direction and scoots a little to get toys that are just out of his reach. He babbles and coos and makes raspberries to show excitement. The newest trick is sitting up for nice long periods of time.
And since we got the fussiness worked out, he's able to play more contently. He also likes to make noises by rubbing his arm across his mouth while he babbles. It's cute I'll try to get some video.

As you can tell both Mommy and Daddy are very happy to have their little man back to normal. Who knew something with sweet in the name could cause so much sadness?!

Jacob,

You are a growing little man. We are so happy to hear your coos and laughs. We are so relieved that you are back to being the joy that we knew you always were. And above all, we're happy that you aren't uncomfortable anymore. Your smile is amazing. And we love to see your curiosity as you roll and scoot your way around to get into all kinds of trouble. We know that in a few short months you'll probably be a bit more curious than we're ready for, but we'll try to let you be as free as we can. Just take it easy on us. We love you so much and were reminded during our Christmas break of how many other people there are out there who love you too. You are blessed with a great network of friends and family who want only the best for you. Keep growing and learning, we're all watching.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Jacob-E

2011-01-02T13:16:00.010-06:00

Stanton here to tell you about our 8 month old little guy.

He started out the month completely crazy, which is how he has spent the majority of his awake time. Just look at that mad look in his eyes.

This month he had his first Christmas season which means pictures in front of his first Christmas tree. He enjoyed it most when he wasn't being smished by his sister.

He enjoyed mommy's birthday and a special visit from friends.

He saw Christmas lights and his very first Razorback basketball game.

He had his first Christmas and visit from Santa at the same time he was showing off his new floor skills.

And, he finally joined Mommy's Tigger collection.

Jacob has ended his eighth month crazy happy. Brandi seems to have solved the great mystery of why he was constantly fussy and overly needy. The culprit? Sweet potatoes. There is still some experimentation left, but he is an amazingly happy little boy now. Now he has time to play in his seats and on the floor with his toys, and in the last two days seems to be catching up on his previously missed learning time. It's very exciting and I'm very happy for him to be feeling better.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2010-12-20T20:55:00.008-06:00

We had an awesome kick-off to our holiday season. Finishing finals and working the last few days of the year nearly did us in, but we made it and we were handsomely rewarded. We kicked off the holiday with Christmas on 5th street. An annual production by Baylor that includes some great concerts, Santa, a live nativity, treats, a big tree, and Chaselyn's favorite, a petting zoo.

I wanted her to really feel how thick the sheeps' wool was, so I showed her how to make a claw with her hands so her fingers would really get down into the warm sheep fur. So she did it and after she was done she said "I tickle sheep!" and went in for another turn. It was so hilarious. Santa on the other hand was not a hit. Jacob was intrigued, but Chaselyn would have nothing to do with the nice Claus couple.
Christmas on 5th was actually pre-holiday vacation time. Our official holiday break was started when this amazing present arrived in Waco.
Yep, that's MA in the flesh. Back in TX. And I was one of the lucky ones who got to enjoy her radiant smile for a few days as she and her little tot made the rounds on their trip back from Indy. And to top it all off, the Mister showed up on our doorstep a couple days later. While she was in town, we visited some favorites that she had missed since the move in May. But most exciting was being able to take her sweet little girl to HEB. I have never seen anyone so excited to visit a grocery store. (Well, my Dad does enjoy some grocery store touring, but doesn't have quite the excitement exuded by a 7 year old girl.) We also made a late night trip to do some Christmas shopping while Stanton stayed home with the kids. And we were able to top it all off with a lovely dinner with one of our favorite mentors. But the bestest bestest parts were moments like these

Just chilling out around the house was so fantastic. Sure we exchanged a few little treats for Christmas and tried to get as much as we could for as long as they were here, but it just wasn't enough. I'm not sure if it could ever be enough. I already miss the whole sweet family. I can't wait to see them again. But for now my heart is full. And we have some great times with family to look forward to over the Christmas break, not to mention solidified trip planned for the Greer's to invade Indy in March. So I'm managing, with only what I consider to be a minimal number of tears.
Don't we make a fantastic looking group?

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your Christmas is as fantastic as mine is shaping up to be.

Jacob starts showing his Jacob-ness - the 7th month report

2010-12-05T14:59:00.005-06:00

At Jacob's 6 month check-up (which wasn't until November 12) I was happy to report he was reaching all the milestones as usual. He would grab toys, he was starting to sit for a few seconds unassisted, and he was rolling. Well we really thought he was. He had been rolling from his back to his belly for a long time, but we had only see the end result of a belly to back roll. We would leave him on the floor and he would be in places he only could have gotten to by rolling completely over. And as of his 7th month birthday on Thursday, the same was true. Fortunately, last night, we finally actually saw it. He was being kind of sneaky, just like a certain other Jacob had been.

Jacob is also showing that he's going to do things on terms that seem illogical to those looking on. Just before his 6 month birthday, he was rebelling. It started by biting while nursing. It continued with demanding to be held in a certain way. And soon into the month of December he was essentially out right refusing nursing and bottles. He scarfed down the real food though. He loved cereals and veggies. But a boy needs his milk. So throughout the past month we've been having kind of a stand off. I cut him back from 3 cereal/ veggie meals per day down to 2 to encourage him to drink more milk. In response he refused to nurse and now drinks only formula when he does take a bottle.

In addition to this food battle (or perhaps in response to it) his daily napping has been out of whack which generally makes it hard for him to be happy. So a lot of time has been spent holding him and walking with him and just generally trying to entertain him. It has been a hard month for both of us.

But amidst all the crying and fussing, there were always the most amazing smiles just when I thought I couldn't take it any more. So this month has been a rough one, but we're working it out. And all in all, he's doing great.

Jacob,

You are so loved and so adored. And though we've hit a few rough patches, it only proves how deeply you are loved. There were times when Mommy thought she was the worst. Hearing your sad little cries and not knowing how to fix your problem was simply heart-breaking. It drove us to the edge. But more than wanting reprieve for ourselves, we wanted calmness and serenity for you.

We truly believe that your name was given to us by God. And as we studied Jacob from the Bible, it seemed we would have our hands full with our little Jacob. But we also knew and continue to believe that although Jacob was somewhat troublesome in his youth, as he matured he became a great servant of the Lord. And that is worth any minor troubles you may have in the near future.

For now Jacob, we pray that you will be comforted from pain and that you will grow healthy and strong. We pray that we will know how to share our love with you and that you will know the love of God. We pray that we can understand your needs and help you.

Chaselyn's Second Year.

2010-12-01T12:50:00.004-06:00

A collection of some of my favorites from the past year.

Tutus and Touchdowns

2010-11-30T16:59:00.000-06:00

I chose this to be the theme for Chaselyn's second birthday, and quite frankly I don't think any other theme would capture our little girl any better. Chaselyn is our uber-girly little girl, but at the same time, she loves to run around outside and watch some "feetball". Chaselyn is constantly obsessed with shoes. Whether she's picking out some from her collection or finding some fun sparkly shoes in Mommy's closet, she loves to have things on her feet. Just a few days ago, she even branched out and tried to pick some shoes out for me. While trying to get ready for the grocery store, I couldn't find my shoes. My trusty personal assistant went to my closet and promptly brought me a pair of dressy wedges that I've only worn about 3 times in my life and said "Mommy wear this." She's particularly fond of these particular shoes because they are the tallest shoes I have and one of only a few pairs that I restrict her from playing with. On the other hand you should have heard the pure joy in her voice and seen the excitement on her face when her Daddy brought home a football shaped balloon for her party. I wish I would have had the camera ready. Granted, she's been asking me for one every time we go to HEB since the beginning of football season, but it was amazing to hear her so joyous.

Over the past year, Chaselyn has grown much more than I could ever capture in one post. Soon after her first birthday, we got to really see her enjoy Christmas for the first time. She was so excited by the wagon that Santa brought she wanted to sit in it while she opened her presents. Christmas '09 was also our first glimpse at exactly how girly this girl would be.

By the time she turned 18 months old, she was already a big sister. And I swear to you, somehow she knew that meant she was more mature. In just a few short weeks, she grew taller, and just started morphing into a little toddler. She started asserting her independence. She began asking for specific things. She started forming sentences. A truly amazing transformation came along with her new role of big sister. And since then she's continued to grow and learn to care for her little brother. She really likes to help Mommy. She's a fantastic pacy finder and she can even give the pacy to Jacob if she wants to. She can find toys, blankets, diapers, and wipies in a flash. She also loves to love on Jacob. Lately she's been mimicking my form of showing love by "Squeezing my Jacob". She's kissed his owies. She hugs him to make him feel better. She also tries to comfort him by yelling "Jacob. Ok Buddy." while continuing to concentrate on whatever important task she is trying to complete. I think she may have heard and seen this behavior modeled by someone else except this someone else usually says "Jacob, you're ok Buddy."

It is unbelievably fun to learn along with Chaselyn. Seeing her develop problem solving skills, expanding her vocabulary, and learning basic identification of letters, numbers, shapes, and colors, is just an fun road to walk down. You can see her joy when she gets something right. You can see the wheels turning in her head when she's trying to figure something out. You can hear the frustration when she's trying to say something and the words just won't come out right. You can feel the love in her heart when she gives you a squeeze and gives you a little pat on the back.

So, let's get to it, what is Chaselyn up to these days?

Eating: Chaselyn eats 3 healthy (usually) meals a day along with an afternoon snack and the occassional after dinner treat. Her favorite food is still ravioli, or as she likes to say "owie-oli". She also likes ham, turkey, cheese, hot gogs (hot dogs), frup (fruit), saysins (raisins), lilk (milk), juice (asks for apple or orange specifically), mataroni (macaroni), and pizza. Notice the lack of veggies. She still eats veggies that we give her, but she rarely asks to have any veggies.

Sleeping: Chaselyn sleeps like a champ. Usual bedtime is around 7:30pm and we generally don't hear another peep out of her until around 7:00am. Naptime is around 11:30 and generally lasts about 1.5 hours. I don't think naps at school are quite this long. She has on a couple of occassions woke up screaming from what we can only figure to be bad dreams. This makes us very sad. What kind of bad dreams does a toddler have?

Playing: Chaselyn absolutely LOVES to play outside. She likes to pick up rocks, acorns, and leaves. Inside she loves to color and is getting pretty good at it too. Reading is a favorite too. But more than anything, I would say she likes building with her Duplo blocks best. Several times on the way home from various places she has asked to build when she gets home. She builds houses and big towers. I think she likes building towers with Daddy the best. She's just now starting to interact with other kids while playing. She enjoys playing on the playground at school and had a blast running around in the backyard with her friends at her birthday party. Learning to share is a current battle. Like many 2 year olds, her favorite word is "Mine."

Edumacation: Chaselyn is already working on letters, numbers, shapes, and colors. Her alphabet sounds something like this: "My Baby C's. A-B-C...lmno-P!...Y-Z. Sing me."

And her numbers sound like: "1,2,6,7,8,10!"

She can generally identify circles and squares and anything else is usually also called either a circle or a square.

She is very good at matching most colors. Meaning that if you show her a red block and ask her to find another red block, her success rate is fairly high. Just playing the what color is it game, she's pretty good at identifying red, brown, green and orange.

Pushing: The limits that is. Chaselyn is quickly developing her sense of boundaries and pushing Mommy to the furthest millimeter of her sanity. Learning to reason (or better yet avoiding trying to reason) with a 2 year old is quite a hard leap for the logical minds of the grown-ups in the house. Chaselyn can pick between two things, so if you say "Do you want to keep shopping or go home?" You better be ready to enforce it on the rare occasion she opts for going home. Also surprisingly she'll still put herself in time out sometimes. She knows when Mommy is upset and she'll say "No Ma'am. Timeout." to herself and go get her little step and sit in the corner. However this is generally for offenses that I wouldn't really require a timeout. When she really needs a timeout, she tends to go pretty easily, it's just a matter of getting her to sit still for 2 minutes.

Sistering: Chaselyn is a super helper around the house. She will do nearly anything she can to help most of the time. She loves tasks like putting Mommy's shoes in the closet and helping switch over the laundry. But above all she can retrieve anything Jacob needs. Blankets, diapers, wipes, paci, toys, anyting just say the word and she's running to find it. Sometimes she'll even get blankets, paci and toys for Jacob without prompting. She loves the little guy. She gives him good night kisses and hugs. She reads to him. She squeezes him to within an inch of pain. She plays with him as much as she can. And they have some of the cutest little laugh offs you've ever heard. Peek-a-boo is another favorite sibling game.

Loving: The love of a little tot is so amazing. "I lodle you Mommy" is so sweet. Especially when one of the first times you hear it it's being shouted through a paper towel roll. Though you aren't quite sure if they know what it means or why they do it. When your little one hugs you back for the first time or gives you a kiss to make you feel better it's truly a special moment. Since Chaselyn is currently into counting, we've found that if we count how many kisses she gives us, we can usually get a lot more out of her. And we also ask for extra squeezes in her hugs. But the most amazing dispaly was about a month ago when Stanton and I were battling some sore throats and utter exhaustion. Chaselyn told me to lay down on the couch, she got a blanket and told me to feel better. And when I told her that my head hurt she gave it a kiss. So caring and loving. :)

A letter for Chaselyn

2010-11-30T16:28:00.002-06:00

Chaselyn,

If you can't already tell, you have us wrapped around your little finger. Sometimes you get a little possessive and grumpy, but then out of nowhere you tell us you love us or give us a hug or take a toy to Jacob and we simply melt. How can we discipline such a sweet little girl? You are making us learn and grow in so many ways. We are doing our best to set a good example, but it's a lot of pressure. You've been with us for 2 years now and you still amaze us at every turn. In a glimpse we see the exact replica of Mommy and an instant later you are the spitting-image of Daddy. It gives us great joy to see those little things in us that we love and pains us to see those things that we hoped would stop with our generation.

Above all we hope that we are teaching you to love God and to rely on Him even more than us. That sentence was hard to type, but it is truth. So far you are ever mindful of praying before meals. You know that "God made the sun, God made the trees and God made me." And one of your favorite songs to sing is Jesus Loves Me. You love to go to church and sit on the green carpet and learn more about God. And we feel so blessed that we are able to teach you during that time. Praise time at the beginning of church is fun too. You watch everyone and dance on occasion. It's such a blessing to see you forming a love of God and His Church.

I know we've said it before and we'll be saying it for the rest of your life, but you NEVER cease to amaze us. Even while you are sleeping, we like to come and take a peek and listen to little snores. As you play, we watch the wheels turning. While you read, we see you making up things the book must be saying. While you run and dance, we see the miracle of God's creation and the joy that we can express just by letting go and being free.

You are such a blessing. And we appreciate every little moment and every little new development that we get to share.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

I'm working on it...

2010-11-18T22:55:00.006-06:00

Because I haven't found a way to summarize what I want to say about our precious girl, I'll give you a preview of pics from her birthday parties. :) Full post about our 2 year old soon.

Unfortunately, the pictures are being shown newest to oldest. Which is not what I want, but I don't know how to fix it.

Two Old

2010-11-16T10:47:00.003-06:00

Though it was a strain, I've been working with Chaselyn for about a month teaching her that she is two years old. So now, if I ask her how old she is, she will respond "Two old." and hold up her two cute little chubby fingers with a big grin on her face and her amazing set of curls framing her face and a little proud twinkle in her eye. But usually all I hear is "Too old." How can it be that two years ago at this time I was beaming with pride of having successfully endured getting hooked up to an IV without passing out and now, I beam with pride over this precious little person who calls me Mommy?

I will write a post for Chaselyn's growth/accomplishments/memories soon, but I felt a much greater need right now to post about what I am feeling more than just giving the facts.

Today, my heart aches. It aches because I now longer have Baby Chaselyn. I have a toddler who does new and amazing things everyday. But never again will I be able to see her gummy grins or her wobbly little stumpy legs taking those first steps. Never again will it just be the 3 of us.

My heart aches from the cuteness of the things she's learning and doing everyday. Yesterday we had some awesom cuddle time (which I've been desperately missing for about a year now) and it seems like everyday she does something ridiculously cute and my love just grows and grows everyday it feels like my heart will burst.

My heart aches for the little person that Chaselyn is becoming and the responsibility I have to raise her right. I wonder if I can stand the temptation to swoop in and fix every little problem for her rather than letting her navigate it on her own. I wonder if I'm laying a good foundation in these first years of understanding to build on in the future. I hurt from the idea that I've already made some indelible mistakes that won't be easily overcome.

My heart aches from the knowledge that really I'm just now getting into the real tough part of parenting. She's only 2. She doesn't remember too much, so I probably haven't scarred her for life yet. But now she is a little sponge soaking up every little detail of life. She's primed to mimick my every move. And I am not always the example I need to be for my daughter. I can see in the upcoming years converstaions about important topics. I can see that she's going to push her limits and I will have to be firm. I can see that she will experience her own bumps and bruises, both metaphorically and physically, and I have to know how and when to fix everything.

And finally, my heart aches for the realization that I've developed of having a more global view of the impact of family. I now know what it is to be a mom. And I am so sorry for the torment I put my mom through. I'm sorry that I didn't listen more. I'm sorry that I didn't soak in more of the knowledge that my parents, grandparents, and other family and friends were giving me. I'm sorry that for so long I didn't understand or even attempt to understand the kind of love that a parent has for a child.

But amongst all of the aching, the overall feeling of today is JOY and THANKFULNESS! I am joyful because of the blessing that Chaselyn is to my life. I am joyful because of the amazing people who I have drawn closer to because she is in my life. I am joyful because at the end of the day, I do get to go and squeeze my little girl and she will say "I love you Mommy." even if she doesn't really understand what it means. And I am thankful for all the lessons that Chaselyn has taught me in the two short years she has been around. I've learned more from becoming a parent than I ever learned in school. It's an awesome ride and I thank God for every up and down and loop-de-loop He has put on my path.

Happy Birthday Ducky!

2010-11-12T23:32:00.000-06:00

Stanton here with one of my rare and elusive guest appearances. It takes a lot to get me out of my blogging hidey hole, but wishing my amazing Mom a Happy Birthday is a no brainier. She is one of the sweetest and generous ladies we know and will stop at no ends to care for those that she loves. I freely credit her for most of my better qualities and hereby take upon on myself full responsibility for all of that other stuff I do that might and sometimes does bring about public ridicule. Happy birthday, Mom. I love you.

Here's an extra special message from some tiny tots. You're one quack-tastic Ducky! We love you.

Half Birthday

2010-11-04T09:38:00.005-05:00

Jacob Stanton Greer is 6 months old (and 2 days). He's a handsome chubby little fella. And a true delight to be around. His little personality is so joyful and so perfect. He has filled out in the face and in general all over since we started him on the different cereals. We have yet to introduce any fruits or veggies, but they are coming soon. We won't get the official weigh in and other details until we go to the doctor in a couple weeks, but he seems a lot more hefty than he did previously, so I imagine he'll move up on the comparative weight scale.

Here's what my little man can do:

Rolls from back to belly
Learned to enjoy tummy time a bit more
Has excellent neck strength to hold up his head
Can follow Chaselyn and Holly with his eyes all around the room
Sitting up...almost. He's not quite there yet, but I really feel like he'll have it in less than a week. Right now it's only for a couple of seconds when he feels like it.
Standing. Obviously not on his own, but up until the last couple of weeks he had shown no interest in using his legs to stand on. Previously his legs were strictly used as feet holders.
Laugh. The boy is ticklish and apparently all the people around him are hilarious. It's a glorious sound.
Gurgles, raspberries, Chewbacca noises, etc.
Grab items and put them directly in his mouth. Good because he can recover his dropped paci on some occassions. Bad because he's not at all discriminatory as to what goes in his mouth to pacify.
Sprout teeth. His bottom two front teeth popped up a couple weeks ago!
Hold out until you do what he wants. He can be very patient, but when he's had enough, he lets you know. He'll go along with pretty much anything for a while, but then he will go crazy and you better figure out what it is that he needs fast.
Take all kinds of love. Even the kind of love that is displayed by bonks on the head from his big sister. Not that she intentionally bonks him on the head, she just wants to be close to him. And sometimes she doesn't realize how close she already is. Squeezes, blanket hugs (i.e. Chaselyn laying on him like a blanket), slobbery kisses, and more. It's amazing to watch for a minute and then I realize that I need to be the referee.

It's amazing to know the love of having two children. I think I can appreciate the little things in Jacob that maybe I missed a little when Chaselyn was an infant. Now I know not all kids do particular things. I see the differences between them and it's still hard to explain how they are different. All I know is that I'm thankful for the inexplicable love that I feel from a tiny baby boy that you wouldn't think would be able to show love.

Jacob,

In the past 6 months you have made us realize that there is no limit to the amount of love a person can have in their heart. Just when we think we can't love any more your precious smile and laugh just push us that much further. We are so thankful that God has blessed us to have you in our family. We look forward to seeing the man you will become. We treasure these times we have to literally hold you in our hands. We can see that these days are quickly slipping away and we want to snuggle and cuddle and love on you as much as possible while you'll still let us. You are an amazing gift and we are so thankful.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy.

Treat Night

2010-10-27T14:42:00.006-05:00

I did it. I finished the costumes a full 22 hours before they were needed. And I think they came out fantastic. Because of the timing though, we could only immediately take pictures of the empty costumes.

But even still don't they make you smile. Especially the big Mr. Potato Head.

We participated in Treat Night last night on the Baylor Campus. It was super great. I got word from 2 of my students that their dorms were doing Pixar movie themes. So we tromped over to Kokernaut and Brooks Residential dorms (Nice digs BTW). For Kokernaut we decided to leave the stroller downstairs and carry around our little Mr. Potato Head. But before we got started we needed a family photo.

Then we took off. Toy Story was the theme for the first floor. So we found some nice decorations/ photo-ops.

2nd floor was Finding Nemo (that's where the balloon came from), Monsters Inc. (Chaselyn was kind of afraid of the monsters, so Boo came and helped out.) and then Wall-E (this was on the boys side of the dorm, so there were only like 2 guys with open doors giving candy. But by that time Chaselyn's bucket was almost full already. So we decided to head over to Brooks College and see the decorations there. We diecided to keep the stroller with us since our Mr. Potato Head was asleep. That was a mistake because this dorm didn't have you snake up the halls. You would go to the end of a hall and then have to back track so there was a lot of traffic and a double stroller in traffic is not so great. But Mr. Potato Head got twice the smiles and stayed asleep.

We saw a Big Jessie when we first entered. Chaselyn wasn't sure what to think about that. But she did like the Cars decor on the first floor. Then we immediately went up to the 3rd floor for more Toy Story.

Chaselyn had a great night. She really took a liking to being able to just go near people and they would give her candy. We didn't get any "Trick or Treat's" or "Thank you's" out of her around other people, but it was fun and cute. Jacob was definitely a hit.

Now for a short PSA: In case you aren't familiar with the whole Toy Story movie, Woody has a brown hat, a yellow shirt and a vest. Jessie has a red hat, a white shirt with yellow trimming and cow print chaps. So even if you can't tell whether a child is a boy or a girl, now you can at least identify their costumes appropriately. This PSA brought to you by one frustrated Mommy.

After we were done, we saw one of our friends Nathan from church. And how awesome, he was Woody. We didn't get them together really, but how cute are they?!

So in summary, I am super proud of both of the costumes. They came out almost like I had planned. We have to figure out a more secure way to keep the Potato face on, because if he's awake Jacob will just pull off the pieces and try to eat them. And that seems to be like one step past cannibalism to eat yourself. We never figured out a good way to do Jessie's wig and we weren't sure if she would keep it on any way.

A little big for my britches?

2010-10-12T16:41:00.002-05:00

No, this is not relating to actual growth at all. As you have undoubtedly read in my previous posts, one of the biggest parts of being a SAHM I was worried about was that side of SAHM's that seem to always have the niftiest, cutest little costumes and special touches to parties and such. Well, I must say, I am proud to announce that apparently that crafty side does indeed kick in when you stay at home.

Maybe it's being around the very creative, very influential brains of the kids. Maybe it's trying to find ways to save a couple bucks here and there. Maybe it's the inner child in me who has been bound by formulas and figures and logical thinking for too long. But my friends, my creativity is flowing!

A few posts back, I showed you the dress I made for Chaselyn. A success. I won't let any of you look at the stitching on it, because its crooked like a snake. But nonetheless, it's a dress that works. That gave me the confidence I needed to really start letting my creative juices flow. So since then, I've made a similar dress to send up to Indy for a certain special little BU tot who just had a birthday. It too has it's imperfections, but I'm learning as I go. And for some reason Crafty Brandi is OK with imperfections. Crafty Brandi can appreciate the task and it's completion for what it is. This Crafty Brandi has since thought of a lot of new projects and thinks that they'll be easy to get done, if I can just get to it. On my list of things to do:

Jessie Costume for Chaselyn

cow print chaps
white trim on hat
cuffs and collar detailing for shirt
beautiful yarn full of hair...hair full of yarn

Mr. Potato Head Costume for Jacob

find sz 6-9 months plain brown onesie
sew a pillow pocket on the inside to stuff the potato
figure out how to secure Mr. Potato Head parts to onesie

Tutus for Chaselyn's 2nd Birthday

acquire lots of tulle and ribbon
cut tulle in equal lengths
tie many, many pieces of tulle around ribbon

Tutu cupcakes for Chaselyn's party

cupcakes upside down, but how to accentuate the tutu-ness of them?

Tutu's and Tunes will be the theme for her party in Waco (tentatively), how do I incorporate the tunes for something cute for the boys?

Tutu's and Touchdowns will be the theme for her party in AR. To be held on game-day after Thanksgiving. Not too much extra to do there. :)

So while I LOVE that my creative juices are flowing, I think I may have over committed myself. But I can't think of one single thing I want to scrap from the list.

We'll see how long Crafty Brandi lives. If she only really exists during nap time and from about 9pm-11pm at night, she might not stick around for too long.

Prayer time with Daddy and Chaselyn

2010-10-11T19:43:00.001-05:00

Stanton's prayer said line by line for Chaselyn:

Dear God,
Um
Keep us safe
and loving you
and each other
more and more
everyday
Amen

Chaselyn's line by line response:

Dear Dod,
Um
us face
and living room
each udder
more more
very day
MEN!

Mommy trying not to bust up laughing nearby. :)

Getting bigger!

2010-10-11T12:06:00.002-05:00

Jacob is growing, fast. He's such a baby boy now. He's at the fun stage where he's starting to really get the giggles and coos. Tickles and tosses definitely bring out the smiles. But Daddy also tells the funniest jokes in baby gurgles. Jacob laughs and laughs. And about once a day Jacob gets some up close and personal time with Chaselyn. She talks with him, hugs him, kisses him, tickles him and just generally loves on him. It's the sweetest. I'm trying to catch it on video, but haven't succeeded. Chaselyn is very much a camera fiend.

Besides laughing, Jacob loves to be held. He is enjoying time on your own on the floor a little more, but he would almost always rather be held. And more specifically, he likes to be held facing out kind of scrunched up on the hip. It looks completely uncomfortable, but he's been known to fall asleep in that position. He also likes to ride in the car seat. Jacob is a very good traveler and shopper as long as he goes in the car seat.

As far as his size, we figure he's around 16 lbs. based on our rough measuring on our scales. He's wearing size 3-6 month clothes, except for some shorts. The 0-3 month waist is still fits, but the pants are a little short. It's a problem I can't say I've ever faced before. He's still a hungry little fella. He eats 4 ounces every 2.5 - 3 hours. Jacob gives Mommy a great night of sleep usually, by sleeping from about 11 pm to 7 am. He's regularly sleeping through the night, so we think he'll be ready to move into the crib before too long.

Jacob rolls from back to belly, but not belly to back. That may be our fault for not leaving him on his belly long enough for him to figure it out. He will sit in the Bumbo seat and exersaucer for a while, but doesn't quite have the core strength to stay in the seats for too long. His hand eye coordination is getting much better. He has on occasion pulled his paci out and successfully got it back in. He's also pretty good at grabbing for toys during tummy time and while hes sitting in one of the seats.

Dear Jacob,

You are wonderful and amazing. I am so thankful that I get to be home with you so much to see how you grow. Your personality is really starting to blossom and shine through. You are so sweet and precious. The words I've just used to describe you may not be as manly as you like, but I must also say that I can already tell that you are going to be an All-American boy too. Your facial features are more distinctly masculine, you love to watch football with Daddy, and you love to flirt with the ladies. You are such a joy and I'm thankful for every little cuddle and coo I get to share with you!

I love you!

Love,
Mommy

Fun with Chaselyn

2010-10-03T21:27:00.000-05:00

The Curiousities of Curious George

2010-09-13T21:03:00.004-05:00

This is George.
He was a good little monkey and always very curious.

Thus begins the tale of a cute little monkey surrounded by bright colors and with a happy smile. It seems like a great little childrens series. Some people (who will remain nameless) even think of decorating a whole room based on pictures like the above for those reasons. And once one picks a theme, one runs with it. Right? Now, we'll take these 'people' and look at them two years down the road. After multiple readings of the adventures of that cute, silly little monkey, ~~we're~~ they're rethinking their decision.

Consider 'Curious George Goes to the Aquarium'. In this tale our furry little friend is too impatient to wait for his friend to purchase tickets, so he hops the wall and goes in without the man in the yellow hat. Strike one. He then proceeds to wander around oblivious to rules and regulations. Puts his fingers in a crab tank 'Snap! Ouch! Poor George. He did not like this exhibit.' Really? First of all if one gets their finger snapped by a crab, from what I understand it's no small owie. Second, how does on one see a monkey wandering around by himself and yelling ouch? I suppose for the sake of the book I can suspend reality a little, but I'm already suspect. After the crab tank George wanders out to find the penguin exhibit. He promptly climbs in the exhibit and plays with the penguins. Then when he gets busted by the aquarium staff he tries to run away. He opens a door which lets all the penguins out. 'The staff was angry at George.' You think? But never fear, our little monkey isn't in too much trouble. He saves a baby penguin who fell in the water. 'The director thanked George for his help and made him an hnorary staff member of the aquarium.'

So, what does this teach my children? If you wander away from the adult in charge and cause all kinds of a mess it's ok as long as you finish the day by doing one good thing. In fact not only will the one good deed make up for all the messes, you'll also be handsomely rewarded. Read some other Curious George stories, they present the same kind of plot scheme.

I still think the little monkey is one of the cutest little guys ever. And I have a particular affinity for monkies in general (take Stanton for example. Just kidding Sweetie!). But I'm not sure I want to keep reading these stories to my kids.

This brings me to another parenting question? How much of those undertones does a kid pick up? At what age do they put pieces together to make conclusions like I did two paragraphs above? When does a book stop just being an interesting story and start being applicable to real life? One of my friends both in real life and in blogland recently posted an intriguing picture about the Disney princesses.
I don't really agree with all these ideas. In fact, I think some of them are very contradictory to the movie ideas. In any event, I certainly didn't come away with these types of thinking when I watched them when I was younger. But do some girls develop some kind of complex from the princesses?

How much do our kids try to translate fairy tales in to real life?

I love my life!

2010-09-13T14:44:00.002-05:00

I am so thankful to be able to take on my two part time jobs. It is absotively, posilutely the the best thing for me. I can't imagine a better situation. First, I get to stay home with my kids 5 days out of the week. How lucky am I?! I get to see Chaselyn grow every day. Right now her vocabulary is expanding. And I get to be around her enough to know her language. We have some rough spots, but generally I cna figure out what she's saying and once I figure out a word, I become the Chaselyn whisperer. No one else undrstands her better than I do. And I don't think I would be able to say that confidently if I was working 5 days a week. And Jacob, well, this little man is just a cutie. He talks and coos and gurgles. And by being at home, the two of them get to build a bond that just wouldn't happen if they were in daycare 8-5 everyday. They see each other. They interact. Chaselyn learns what it means to be careful and I have two extra little hands to pick up paci's, get diapers, an love on Jacob.

And although most of the time it's a down right love fest around here, sometimes the two of them gang up on me. They drive me close to the edge, but reprieve is not far away, because just around the corner I have a job to go to. I get to shape the minds of young people. I get to interact with adults. I have a few hours of not being the sole source of food, cleanliness, and entertainment for two little ones for a while. I even get to sneak in a few minutes for myself and usually a quiet lunch with Stanton on my work days.

I can tell it's just the right balance. I feel amazingly blessed at how the whole situation has worked out. It's just incredible.

Now, as rosy as it all sounds, there's still plenty of areas to improve upon. First, I haven't fully grasped how to take care of the kids and get the house cleaned up. I keep on top of the basics with Stanton's help, but it's a far cry from the picture perfect house I have in my head. I try not to beat myself up too much, but it is something I'm working on. Second, my body is in desperate need of some shaping up. Jacob is now over 4 months old. I had a remarkable feeling last week when I got my pre-pregnancy jeans back on. But, they don't fit like they used to. I have a bit of a belly bulge, which is very unlike my usual body shape. Up until recently I always felt that my belly area was one of my better features, but right now, I don't have that. And so I feel kind of down on my body as a whole. Third, I need to be a better teacher. I need to be more on top of things for my class. I need to find some extra material to really draw them in and make them see why Statistics really can be important for them. Fourth, I need to be more on top of my parenting game. Stanton and I have started to realize that if you wait until a situation arises to figure out how you'll deal with it, it's too late. Chaselyn is starting to figure things out. She knows "no" and she knows that sometimes she can press to figure out if it's a "no" or really a "NO!" It also seems that potty training may be around the corner. Do you have any idea how many different approaches there are? Fifth, I need to be a better wife. Stanton is an amazing man. He does so much for me and his kids. It was different when we were both at work. For some reason being home without him makes it seem like we're away from each other more. And I've become way more sensitive to him working overtime. It's not fair to hm to be hard on him. I know he wants to be home just as much as I want him to be here. But he's fortunate enough to have a job that he loves and finds great reward in. I shouldn't take anything from that. Sixth, I need to be a better friend. Both to my friends that have moved on and to my family. I just get so caught up in the everyday that I forget to check-in on people until I get in bed at around 11 o'clock at night. Nobody wants to get a call from me then, so I just lose touch. Seventh, I need to be a better Christian. I thought that being a stay at home mom would mean it would be easy for me to find a niche in the day to fit in regular devotionals. I've never been good at this before and for some reason I thought this time it would be different. It's not. I still put it at the bottom of the list. There's more to add, believe me. But that's probably enough public self-deprication for one post.

I don't want to end on that downer list, look at the name of the post. Remember, I'm in such a good place now. I know I can fix a lot of those issues if I just apply myself to make this one of the best times in my life. It's already a fantastic time based on the amazingness of my children, they are a constant reminder of God's grace in my life. But there is so much more I can do to reflect His grace.

Cute Dress

2010-09-11T10:12:00.004-05:00

Ok, so the last post started out with the same purpose that I'm starting this post, but my love of football carried me away. Last week we made it out to the Baylor game. And as any good fan should, our family was gearing up for the big event. There was only one problem...Chaselyn had no Baylor gear. We made do last week with a plain green onesie and a white skirt, but not the level of support we generally like to show for our team. So, I got a plan. I would fashion Chaselyn a dress out of one of the cheap gold rush t-shirts. In the past these shirts were only $5 add some thread and maybe some ribbon and for about $7-8 Chaselyn would be ready for the next game.

So a project began.

Materials: one size youth Med. Gold rush shirt ($7, they upped the price), one roll of "I heart FOOTBALL" ribbon ($1), gold thread (free from the same place I got the free sewing machine, Thanks Debbie!), one strip of rough cut white t-shirt.

The before shots:

And the after:
Isn't it cute.
See where the t-shirt strip comes in. :) I found it on this blog. She has lots of re-purposing ideas for old clothes and such.
One satisfied customer! :)

Hooray Feetball!

2010-09-11T08:48:00.003-05:00

As many of you know, our house thrives on the excitement provided by hundreds of student athletes that lay it out on the grid iron every fall. We love college football. We enjoy a nice NFL game as well, but the college level just has so much heart and school loyalty. It just brings joy to our home for the start of the season. And undoubtedly as the season progresses there will be some disappointments, some questionable calls, and some long discussions with Stanton about the precise play in a particular game that changed the whole outcome of a season for the Razorbacks. Even as I sit here now, Gameday is on the tv. Chaselyn woke up asking for "feetball". And we're figuring out what the game plan for the day is.

Now since we are displaced from our team down here in TX, we have adopted the Baylor Bears as our secondary team. While we love the opportunity to see such a display of athleticism live and in person, it's just not the same. Stanton and I spent 6 years on the front row of the Trough at the U of A. We didn't miss a (true) home game during those 6 years. We spent weeks of our lives waiting for the games to start. Gates would open 3 hours before game time. But the student section was first come first serve seating. Meaning to get on the front row and avoid most of the drunks you had to get there extra early. For a game that started at noon, that would typically mean getting to the stadium around 6am, with the occasional overnighter camping by good ol' Razorback Stadium. For a night game, we got out there at about the same time, because if it was a night game that generally meant the game was on tv. And if there's one thing that draws out the crazies, it's a tv camera. We used to referred to them as seals. Bring out a tv camera and they would start barking like performance seals. Now, I'll admit we had our fair share of tv time and it was fun to hear grandparents and other family and friends say they saw us on tv. We bonded with our fellow fans during those hours. We're still in touch with a lot of those guys still today.

But that time in our lives has passed. Now we're toting two little tots around and buying real tickets. Trying to watch as much football as we can while keeping the peace. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the old times at all. I miss the feeling of being involved in the game. I miss the way we would lose ourselves in the game. It was intense and relaxing all at the same time. Sitting on the couch is probably more restful, but oh how we miss the days when we were there right with the action on the field.

My advanced little man

2010-09-11T00:50:00.000-05:00

As promised, Jacob's 4 month update. Isn't it utterly amazing to watch children grow? To watch them go from little floppy headed squirmy little bundle to making those first attempts for their freedom to move and eventually (a long, long time from now right?) really taking hold of their independence and forgetting how their mothers and fathers used to be their sole source for everything. But I digress...

For now, I can scoop up both of my babies any time I want. And I'm scooping them up A LOT. Especially my little man. Because he's getting bigger!

We went for his 4 month check-up on Wednesday. He currently weighs 13.7 lbs and is 24.75" long. That puts him in the 25% for weight and the 50% for height. He's a healthy little fella too. He eats about 4-5 oz. of milk about 7 times a day. Unfortunately, I've been having some issues, so sometimes we have to supplement with formula. But usually I can make it, and it's never more than one feeding a day for now. Jacob is an excellent sleeper. We've started swaddling him up tight at night so that he can't hit or scratch himself. And since then, he generally sleeps soundly from about 11pm to 7am! I'm so lucky. He still generally takes a nap (maybe 45 min.) in the morning, a longer nap after lunch (up to 2.5 hours) and then a late afternoon or early evening nap (again about 45min. - 1hr).

Jacob is currently teetering on the threshold of 0-3 month clothes and 3-6 month size. Really, he's in the 3-6 month size, but there's some of those little outfits I'm just not ready to let go of yet. I never thought I would grow so attached to silly little shirts.

Jacob did make one big step this month. On Sunday, Aug. 29th, he rolled over for the first time. He rolled from his back to his belly, over his left shoulder. I have some video of not the first time, but some repeat performances. However, I'm holding out until I can get a video where the little man is happy with his new moves and doesn't get so frustrated.

Speaking of frustration, Jacob can be quite the temperamental little guy. He is very particular about how he wants to be held after he's done playing on the floor. Namely, he likes to be held to the side, facing out, in kind of a squished up position, while the holder is standing. Sitting in a similar position will not do.

This past month we spent quite a bit of time in AR. We stayed with Papa and Granny for a whole week again. We also made a trip up to Dallas to go to the Dallas World Aquarium (an upcoming blog post in of itself.)

Jacob,

You are such an amazing little boy. We constantly marvel over your fantastic smile and your beautiful (still) blue eyes. You have such a love and joy about you that is infectious. We've even used your laugh a couple of times to get your sister to stop crying. You are really at a fun, fun age. You interact with us. You coo and gurgle and laugh. And, you love naked time. Whether it's just diaper time or bath time, you are happy to be free. We love you so very much. We are holding on to every precious minute while you are small, but we look forward to seeing you grow into the handsome young man that we know you'll become. You are a constant reminder of God's hand in every part of His creation.

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

Teaser

2010-09-02T10:26:00.002-05:00

Chaselyn's awesome accessorizing.

Happy 4 month old boy!

I'm blessed!

More later.

My wonderful little girl

2010-08-19T21:08:00.002-05:00

So, I've stopped doing monthly updates on Chaselyn. And the reason is that I'm just trying to keep up with her in the real world, I don't seem to have the time to keep up with her in blogland. But, I hope you all have been able to see the wonderful little tot that she is becoming. She's really hit the point where her vocabulary is growing on an hourly basis. Which means we have to be careful about everything that goes into her little ears. For example, we spent this week at home with my parents. My parents have 4 dogs who bark... a lot. So my dad (aka Papa) says "HUSH!!" to which Chaselyn immediately copies "Hush Puppies!!" Now this in itself is hilarious, so we laugh, which only encourages her to now yell "Hush!" at random points throughout the day. She only told Mommy to hush one time. It's usually "Hush Puppies!" even if there are no puppies around.

She asks to wear dresses and will comment on whether they are cute or pretty. She still wears any shoes that she can find. But shows a definite preference for sparkly ones. This week she has been Papa's little farmer. Feeding the fish, dogs and horses is such a treat. And she'll even ask to "ish food" and "Nay Nay food" which can easily be interpreted as feed the fish and feed the horses.

On occasion we can catch her rambling in her crib or talking with her toys. And right now these seemingly non-sensical babbling sessions are our favorites. She's saying things with such intent, we know she thinks she's saying something, but we're not in on the translations. And that's ok. This week she has really developed her ability to convey things to us. She'll say a word, I'll say back what I think she's trying to say and then with the sweetest voice, she'll say "no" as if I'm silly for even thinking that's what she was trying to say. Usually we can both stick with this game long enough until Mommy figures out what Chaselyn is trying to say.

Funnest new words:
Crazy - sounds like "Say-zy" sometimes followed by her head swinging wildly about and making silly noises
Family names - Has attempted everyone except CrawDad (she just giggles). Some other fun ones
Granny - "Gwenny"
Kimberly -"Mimerly" (only heard this one a couple times)
Heather - "He-er"
Football - "Feetball"
I love you - "I ldl you" can also be followed by a persons name :)
I got you - "Idotchu"
Silly -"Si-ey"
Time Out - "Mime out" If she is in trouble at all she suggests that she asks "mime out?" I only really send her to time out for hitting and not listening.
Big - "Beeeeeeeeg!"
Pig - "Peeeeeeeeg!"
Read -"Read"
Horses - Nay Nays

Amazing kids

2010-08-19T17:12:00.000-05:00

I've got some questions for you.

2010-08-09T16:06:00.005-05:00

1) Does everyone in TX refer to pacifiers as "Binky's"?

I have heard them referenced as such before, so it's not like I didn't know what you all have been talking about. But, it seems that every Texan who has referenced that wonderful little first toy for my baby they call it a Binky. We refer to it as a "paci" or as Chaselyn says "pashi".

2) Would a red kitchen be overwhelming?

I've got the redecorating bug. Actually I've just got the decorating bug. REdecorating would imply that it had been done before. We love red as all of you know. And I'm sick of all these beige walls.
Above is a picture of our living room not too long after we moved in. (You can see Chaselyn's little feet in the swing in the foreground. The same swing Jacob's in now.) We have a little more color with a green recliner on the far side of the couch. So the red would come in off to the left by that window. I think from here, the red wouldn't be too much.
Now, a closer look reveals where the impact would actually be. It's primarily that wall where the cabinets end. Don't worry, we've removed the gold curtains. If you look, the curtains are in a little inset in the wall. We are thinking of painting that inset a yellow. Beyond that wall, there won't be too much more red in the kitchen area. We have a lot of cabinet space.
Looking back into the kitchen from the table, only above the cabinets and a thin little bit coming down on the wall beside the cabinets on the left of this picture. In between the upper cabinets and the countertops there is a white backsplash.

So, what do you think?

BTW, my dream kitchen has a 50's diner style, with black and white tile and red and chrome appliances.

3) Still on the decorating, what about an accent wall behind my fireplace?

I'm hoping that if we the red in the kitchen that will be enough of a power pop that I won't feel the need to paint a wall in the living room. It's not that I'm worried about doing the work, its the color. The brick on our house and our fireplace is a pinkish color. I have no idea what color I would even try. So far the only thing I've come up with is a deep brown. But that seems like it will automatically shrink the space. And our space gets smaller by the day with the toys and accessories for 2 kids.

4) Do you take good pictures? And if you do how do you do it?

I would love to learn how to capture the moments of our lives with more expertise. If you are a photographer, can you give me one tip on something that will make my pictures better?

5) Do you love football?

I do. I can't wait to watch football this season. But at the same time I know this season will be like nothing I've experienced before. I'll have a 2 year old and a 6 month old by the time the season is over. And while Chaselyn is getting our hopes up by yelling things like "Hooray feetball" over the monitor when she woke up this morning after watching the pre-season NFL game last night. I know it will be difficult to keep up with any game while trying to keep the 2 little ones happy.

I guess that's enough. Tell me what you think!

And that's the end of the first quarter

2010-08-06T13:14:00.001-05:00

Babies are great! Especially my babies. There's a lot of other babies I love too. They are amazing! With each little smile and coo, they can transport you to a place where nothing else matters. It's like a hypnotic state. And my friends, I may have been living in that dreamland a little too much lately. But, I have no regrets.

Our little man is growing every day. We took him back to Arkansas last weekend and the weekend before that Stanton's parents came to visit. And no one could believe how big he's gotten. And it's true. He's HUGE! He currently weighs 13.2 pounds. He's expressive too. He smiles and coos and makes sad faces. He's such a little person. I love it! He's still sleeping a lot, but does stay awake to paly a little more these days. If he's awake, he mainly likes to lay on the floor and spread out to watch his big sister run around. He's a snugglesaurus for sure. He loves to be held and loved on. And he's the best napping buddy ever. You have to be careful when you hold him or you'll fall asleep too. Speaking of sleeping, he's sleeping through the night. It started on his actual 3 month birthday and every night since then, he's been sleeping from about 10:30 - 6:30. YAY!

I feel very blessed to have been able to stay at home with him for these first three months. But, starting soon, we'll be apart on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm going to miss my little man. He's so precious!

Jacob,

We are so happy to have you in our lives. You have brought another level of love into our hearts and our home that we could have never imagined. It is amazing to see the way you admire your big sister already. You are an amazing little baby boy. We can't wait to see the man you become, but we're going to soak up these precious days while you're still little.

We love you!
Mommy & Daddy

Morning Play Time

2010-08-06T11:31:00.000-05:00

Groupon

2010-08-04T12:00:00.002-05:00

Hey don't know if any of you out there know about Groupon, but it's a good system. Essentially, businesses offer a coupon/gift card/ deal of some kind, but it only becomes valid if a certain pre-determined number of people agree to purchase the deal. Well, today's deal for the Indianapolis area is a Shutterfly 8x8 photo book for only $10. They have already met the group number (they only set it at 25, currently 1692 people have bought in). It's a great deal! And don't worry, you don't have to do the whole photo book today, the coupon doesn't expire until February. But you have to hurry to purchase it today. The deal offer only lasts until tonight at 11 CST.

So, if you are interested, please click my LINK so that when you purchase yours and sign up for Groupon, I get $10 in Groupon bucks which means you essentially me a free 20 page photo book. What a nice gift! Thank you so much!

Oh, I love a good deal. And if nothing else, a 20 photobook makes an excellent gift for parents, grandparents, and all the other adoring fans of your family.

When we said "I do"

2010-07-26T08:12:00.004-05:00

It has been 7 years since my wonderful husband and I stood at the front of Eastside Baptist Church and made a commitment to last a lifetime. As many of you know, our story started when we were teeny little 15 year old 9th graders. The path leading us to that day 7 years ago was relatively smooth and uneventful. We never broke up. We discussed separating a couple of times just for the sake of having other experiences. But when it came down to it, we couldn't imagine ourselves with any other person. So once we realized we really didn't want to be apart, there's really only one thing to do. We were engaged in December of 2002 with the plan to get married after our undergrad in th esummer of 2004. But why wait? And thus in the spring of 2003 we went on a steeple chase around Fort Smith and 7 years ago there we were ready to commit ourselves in front of God, our friends and family.

Since that day, we've acquired 2 undergraduate degrees, 2 master's degrees, 1 doctorate, 2 kids, 1 dog, 1 house, and an amazing life. We are so blessed in every facet of our life. We have jobs that we love. Our children are fantastic. Our families are so supportive and loving. We have a wonderful house. We have found friends that make Waco feel like our second home. We aren't in need and most of the time we can't even think of anything else we want. By all typical success measures, we are flying high. But there's one more thing that makes everything so much better. It's our dependence on Jesus Christ as the head of our household. By trying to keep the focus between us and in our home turned toward the eternal implications, we have avoided many pitfalls that typically affect young couples. So when we say we feel blessed, we really mean that we know that the way we are and the way things have worked out for us truly would not have happened if we were in charge. And I really subscribe to the old adage "When we plan God laughs." Any rules or ideas I had about what our future would look like (example: I had a rule that we shouldn't get married before we got our undergrad degrees - DUMB!, example: No kids until we're both settled into jobs.- Silly.)

So today, we celebrate our life together. I love my husband. He's amazing! He knows me better than I know myself. And I know that no one else on earth could take care of me better than he can. So here's looking forward to another 70 years with this amazing man.

Check out this awesomeness!

2010-07-26T08:10:00.001-05:00

So Cute!!

Whatcha thinkin?

2010-07-21T11:03:00.002-05:00

1) Everyone should go outside and take some pictures of their kids in the natural sunlight at about 6:00pm. It makes your pictures look amazing. I would give some examples, but Stanton has the camera at work.

2) I love my husband for the way he works so hard to provide for our family. When I married him, I thought I had avoided marrying my father. But their work ethic couldn't be more alike.

3) Babies are amazing. And I know that no matter how hard I try I can't soak up enough of their littleness.

4) My body is weird. Most pregnancy books and such say that your body will be all out of whack for about 6 months after giving birth, but everything is business as usual around here. Which means I can't rely on the breastfeeding to take off the baby weight. I've got about 20 lbs. to lose.

5) It seems that everything is in line for me to teach 2 classes on T/Th this fall. And a big blessing was that child care worked out so that Chaselyn could stay at the same day care part time. I'm super excited about the prospects of working and still staying at home with the kids a lot as well.

6) Apparently the "Jersey Shore" people are set to get $30,000 per episode. That seems like a lot of dough for reality people. I have never seen the show, but I am honestly intrigued at this point.

7) Last night I told Stanton that Facebook told me that our anniversary is on Monday. He said it told him too. Neither of us realized that it was Monday. It's not that we forgot our anniversary, we just hadn't checked in to what day it falls on. We are going out this Friday to the Mayborn Lego exhibit (Thanks MA!) and next Friday we're going to see Beauty and the Beast in Fayetteville with Heath, Kimberly and Rachel. I'm excited!

8) I feel bad about not getting out birth announcements until after Jacob was over 2 months old. As I put the things in the mail, I thought I should have sent a wallet size update photo too.

9) I really like the bathroom redo. It makes me want to do more around the house. Next on the docket is Chaselyn's big girl room. We figure she'll make the switch somewhere around her 2nd birthday or the new year. I've been planning it since January I think.

10) I recently purchased a carpet cleaner. I love the machine. It has a special attachment for pet stains. It made our carpet look way better. I recommend it to anyone with children and/or pets who have accidents and/or messy husbands.

Blog much?

2010-07-17T15:03:00.003-05:00

Today I have posted to 3 different blogs, not including this one. Be sure you check out

1) Little Jacob, Little Jacob - Jacob's 2 month update, now with pictures

2) A Happy Place - A tour of our new kid's bathroom

3) Home Alone - A recap of our time while Stanton was gone.

Home alone

2010-07-17T14:13:00.007-05:00

As many of you know, Stanton left the country for a few days. And by a few days, I mean he was gone from about 8pm on July 2nd to about 6:30am on July 13th. He had a nice time at the Coco-tech conference in Thailand, but we're glad to have him back. As I previously mentioned, my pal Al came to stay with us for a few days. I really can't begin to say how much of a blessing that was to me. Just amazing! Sadly, because we were just hanging out, I didn't really take too many pictures. But here's a few little bits from our time without Daddy.

Alycia showed up on July 3rd in time for dinner. From the very start, she was ready to play with the kids. She and Jacob had many in depth conversations throughout her time here.
Chaselyn has had reactions to strawberries in the past. So I was trying to find some yogurt packs without strawberry. All I could find was Trix yogurt. She was super happy to try the fun colored treat. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say stomach juices don't break down whatever dye was in the special treat.

And of course, after the 3rd of July comes the 4th of July. We had our own little party complete with glow jewelry and sparklers. Chaselyn wasn't quite as excited about the glow sticks as I had hoped. But then again, we waited for it to get dark which meant it was already way past bedtime when we got started.

Besides the 4th, like I've said, we didn't do much just sat around while Alycia painted.

Alycia left on the 8th. It was sad to see her go. But there was some mention of work and pay checks and a husband that made her have to leave. As a surprise to Daddy, we were going to make a special little decoration in the laundry room. I was going to have Chaselyn and Jacob put their handprints on the wall. Then we could date them with a Sharpie and have a fun little growth chart as decoration. So, I got things ready. Chaselyn put on one of my old painting shirts. I decided to go with a bright teal color. Al thought it would be cute to use a brown so it would look like muddy hands, but I was feeling the bright colors for the kids project. See that look on her face, she's looking at the paint. Someone tell me why I didn't notice the look on the poor girls face.

So, focused on the task at hand, I put Chaselyn's hand into the paint. She gave me a funny face. Then I told her to put her hand on the wall. She refused starting to reveal disgust toward the paint on her hand. I realized I was about to lose her. So I took her hand and pressed it against the wall. She promptly started waving her hand from side to side making a blurry blob. I said "Oh No!" to which she responded by crying and saying "eewie!". I quickly cleaned off her hand of the paint to stop the crying and quickly got a rag to wipe off the blob of teal paint on the beige wall. I actually got it off pretty well. I won't say that I got it all off, but unless you know it's there, you don't see it...I think.

So after the failed experiment on my wall. I figured maybe after a couple painting lessons she might warm up to the paint on the hand idea. So we went to the table with brushes, paper plates and lots of colors. She liked that a lot better. And after doing some demonstrations of making handprints on the plates, she was becoming more comfortable with paint on her hand. Hopefully after a couple more trials on the plates, I can get her to do the wall better.

Who can guess what's special about this next pic?

Yes, the red and white polka dots are cute (Thanks Great Aunt Karen!!) but that's not it. It's my baby girls first official pony tail. Isn't it adorable?! It just makes me happy to see that little curl with a little bow.

And what else do you do when you're waiting on Daddy to come home? Go grocery shopping to have all his favorite treats when he gets home. And this my friends is how you can get 2 kids and a full load of groceries. I had been wondering about how to do it for a while. You go to HEB with the big buggies. Then both kiddos can sit up front and you have all the basket space for food.

And yes, that is a Sonic cup and flowers. Chaselyn may have sneaked a few sips of Mommy's strawberry limeade during our tours through the aisles. And yes, those are some fresh roses. A special treat for the girls of the house.

I don't have pictures, but there's something else I want to remember. One day I was browsing the internet for Stanton's birthday present, some new running shoes. Chaselyn caught me and started pointing to the screen yelling "Ooshs!" which is how she said shoes. Thinking that was just adorable and knowing how crazy she is about shoes (see Jacob's feet in the picture above. Also one of her favorite 2 word phrases is "Momma ... Shoe"), I started perusing for little girl shoes. She went crazy trying to pull shoes out of the screen. I had unknowingly created a problem. For the next couple days anytime I pulled out the laptop, she would come over and ask for shoes.

Another time I was playing on the laptop, I was watching the 10 minutes with Chaselyn video. And the most precious and heartbreaking thing happened. She started crying for her Daddy and tried to pull him out of the screen. Up until that point, she was fine with Daddy being gone. She would ask about him and I would tell her that he was at work and he would be back later. And she would carry on with her play time. But seeing him in the video made her want her Daddy right there. She watched the video about 5 times in a row. She stopped crying and started laughing and playing along with herself in the video. So I know she wasn't scarred by it. But it was hard for me to handle at first. But then after a couple days, this happened...
...and that moment made any little bumps we had had over the past few days just melt away!

A happy place

2010-07-17T13:03:00.008-05:00

As I started to write this post, I found it very odd that one of the happiest places in our home is now a bathroom. But take a look at it and tell me you're not smiling.

Here's the view when you first walk in. I was a little hesitant because the shower curtain has brown and the colors are more muted than the bright striped towels, but after living with it for a couple days, I figured it wasn't a big deal. I didn't notice it when I wasn't thinking about it.

Now we can take a tour of the animals. First, we have Petunia the Hippo and Davey the Dinosaur. Petunia is everyone's favorite. She just screams happiness. But where's Davey? Stanton wants to keep him a secret. You'll have to come and visit us if you want to meet him.

Going to the right of the shower, we see Ishies the school of fish. They wrap around the top corner of the shower. So cute!

And that big guy above the toilet, his name is Eli. Alycia named him after her favorite football player, which is Peyton Manning. Peyton the elephant didn't sound right, so we decided he could be Eli.
Above the counter and the mirror, we see Marvin the Monkey. He's a happy little fella with a banana. Speaking of happy, that's what Chaselyn calls the bugs around Freddie the Frog. When we took Stanton for a tour of the bathroom for the first time I was talking about the bugs and then commented about how happy the room was. Chaselyn missed the conversation topic switch and decided that the bugs must be called Happy. Can't argue with a toddler. So, on the wall with the door, we have Logan the Lion, Freddie the Frog and Happy the Flies.

And now back to the wall to the left when you walk in. The same wall with the towel rack. We have one more friend to meet. Jilly the Giraffe hangs out behind the door. She peeks around to say hello when you walk in.

And that's it. I'm still looking for a light fixture for above the mirror that is more juvenile. I also would love to redo the cabinets. The honey oak color just isn't appealing. But that's a much bigger project. I'm also looking for new drawer pulls to look more youthful. All I've been able to find is plain white. I would like colorful ones. I'm thinking about just painting some wiht bright happy colors. Thanks again to Alycia for painting our happy friends!

Call me Al

2010-07-14T21:24:00.000-05:00

Well, don't call me Al, call her Al.

This is my good friend Alycia (pronounced A-lish-a, not A-leash-a or A-lease-ia). She's been my friend since the good days of Chaffin Junior high and GATE OM. We shared a love of women's college basketball and got to experience the formation of the WNBA together. She hosted me for a weekend in college so I could see what it was really like to be at the U of A. We were in each other's weddings. We haven't always been able to have a real close relationship, but it's always been a relationship we can rely on. And over the past few months, our email marathons (Shhhhhh, don't tell our bosses.) have helped us overcome the distance from Ft. Smith to Waco. Well, this past week, we got to catch up on a lot of distance when Al came to stay with me and the kids while Stanton was out of town.

She cooked for us, helped straighten up, played with the kiddos, made me get some much needed exercise and even painted the kids bathroom (it deserves it's own post). She painted the walls a nice green and painted some cute little animals. It's so special. I just got the finishing touches to finish off the room today. It makes me so happy just to walk in. She was so great with the kids too. Just look at the email she wrote them after she left. So nice!

Chaselyn and Jacob, Thank you for letting me come to visit you. I had a lot of fun playing with you two. You are both such sweet and loving kiddos, and it doesn't hurt that you are so darn cute! I had a great time being a surrogate aunt to you and I find myself already missing you. Chaselyn, I miss you being so concerned about my owie toe and randomly coming up to me to say, "Hi!" Jacob, I miss your cute squeaks and "sleeping" you and talking with you. I hope that you two enjoy your bathroom jungle for many years to come. Mommy and Daddy will teach you all the animals' names. Have a great weekend and Daddy will be home before you know it! miss you lots, your pal Al(ycia)

Leave it to Al to spend her vacation time to come help me out. It was great having her here. It made the time without Stanton fly by. I felt bad for not really having anything super fun to do while she was here. We did some sparklers and glow necklaces for the 4th of July. But that was about the extent our fun plans on my end. But Al didn't mind. She was good just relaxing, talking with Jacob, playing with Chaselyn and painting.
Alycia is a great friend and I'm so happy to know that I can still call on her any time even though she's about 400 miles away. And as if her visit wasn't enough to write about, today is Alycia's birthday! So happy birthday to my pal Al!!!! And thanks a ton for coming to visit!!!

An excellent post for new mommies and those looking forward to being mommies

2010-07-13T20:51:00.002-05:00

I read this blog regularly, and today's post just spoke exactly what I tried unsuccessfully to convey to a friend a few days ago. Such "important" decisions concerning the early parts of parenthood are really not as important as you think they may be. Really, how many of you know about your earliest years. Did your mom breast feed? How long? Did she have drugs when you were delivered?

I didn't know the answers to these questions until it became an issue to me personally.

So, read it and do a reality check if you are stressing over some big decision right now.

p.s. My Stantonio is back home safe and we are all very happy.

Little Jacob, Little Jacob

2010-07-07T20:59:00.004-05:00

So some of you may be wondering what happened to Jacob's 2 month update. Other's (like me) are thinking 2 months?! That can't be. But it's true. Our little man is growing up. Today, is what I was waiting for though. Today, he got his 2 month check-up including 5 shots. Owie! Apparently, for once, something in our house is normal. Jacob is 12 lbs. 3 oz. and 23 inches long. That puts him right at the 50% mark in both weight and height. And he has a head size that's right on the 50th percentile as well. So, if you line up all the 2 year olds in the US according to weight, height or head size Jacob would be right there in the middle.

Jacob is a baby now for sure. He coos and smiles. He looks around. He can follow you across the room and hold on tight to whatever you put in his hand. He's sleeps pretty good. Most nights I can get about 4.5 - 5 hours in one stretch. Most other times he goes about 3 hours between feedings. If we bottle feed him, he eats about 4 oz. at a time. He's an excellent snuggler and loves to take mid morning naps with Mommy on the couch.

Appearance wise, he's starting to become more of a balance between the two of us. When he was born we thought he was very Schluterman looking. But, now I see so much of Chaselyn in him and I know Chaselyn looks very much like her Daddy. But then again, maybe I'm biased. I think it's hard to say if someone looks like you. I'll post pictures soon. (I'm currently unable to locate a transfer card.) I've added pictures of my two babies in the same outfit both at 2 months. Jacob seems bigger because of the angle and because of the padding. Chaselyn had an actual bassinet bumper, Jacob's is a full size crib bumper wrapped around. Aren't they great!

So that's it. 2 month olds are pretty amazing, but they don't actually do much.

p.s. Most of you who read this blog also gave us some wonderful gifts for Jacob. I apologize for not getting the thank you notes outs. I really hope to have them done and shipped by Monday.

10 minutes with Chaselyn

2010-07-03T14:01:00.001-05:00

Highlights:

0:00-10:00 - Simply amazing!

5 minutes with Jacob

2010-06-28T21:27:00.003-05:00

The highlights:

smile at 0:37

gurgle at 1:21

yawn at 1:32

awesome dance moves at 1:41

tiny squeak at 2:55

My favorite 3:21 - 3:25

big noise at 3:39

responding to my voice 3:56

squeak 4:31

good-bye squeal at 4:44 my absolute favorite!

Mommy WOW! I'm a big kid now.. dum, dum...

2010-06-19T22:35:00.004-05:00

No, Chaselyn is not already potty trained, but she's showing some hints that she's ready to start trying soon. In any event, she's a big girl. Within the past month little Chaselyn has totally stepped into the role of BIG sister. It seems like she's aged a whole year in just the short time since Jacob was born. And as much as she's changed, it's hard for me to explain exactly what's different. It's in the way she walks, it's in the way she talks, its in the glisten in her eyes. She's just beginning to realize that she is an independent person and she can do things for herself, and even make decisions.

She fills the big sister role well. She will point and run to Jacob if he grunts or squeaks or cries. She also tries to give him his favorite toy all the time (his pacifier). She loves to hug him and give him kisses too.

She is learning new words everyday. And she's becoming more and more aware of what exactly the word "no" means. Based on our interactions, she apparently knows that when I say "uh-uh" or "no, no" I mean business. But my "no" is not clear enough for her to really grasp the full meaning. She has the absolute cutest high pitched, drawn out "no" when she really means yes.

While we were in Arkansas, she showed that she could be the social butterfly that I have never seen before. She fluttered all about the tailgating and mingled among the people. Put her in with a couple of older kids and she'll be gone laughing and playing along.

Chaselyn really is showing her personality these days...

She's strong.
She's smart.
She's fashion forward.
She's fun-loving.

She's hungry.
She's adorable.
And she knows it all.

Fun facts:
* first two word phrase "eat bean"
* has clarified that a cow does indeed say "moo", but was confused when she talked to Papa's horses and they raspberried her instead of saying "neigh".
* LOVES shoes - notice the shiny ones in the picture above in her swimsuit cover-up those are her favorites
* gives great smacking kisses and blows kisses too
* gives the stink eye if you don't pray with her at dinner time
* can jump and actually get both her feet off the floor at the same time
* learned to dance like a ballerina
* calls a Hog a "Woo" (and is ready to point out every single one in Fayetteville, including one on a flag on top of Wal-Mart)
* is a great pretender. She can make pretend phone calls on her various cell phones, cook up a whole dinner in her little pots and pans, and feeds the whole gang of babies, stuffed animals and real people just before she wraps them up and pats them to sleep (not the real people).
* knows the word "tv"
* will go outside for playtime no matter how hot, no matter how tired, she's always ready for outside.
* likes to try big people things like walking up stairs, drinking out of a cup with no lid, eating with real forks, wearing size 8 women's shoes, copying our various mannerisms while we drive (Stanton taps the steering wheel, I sing)
* is making great progress on singing E-I-E-I-O and making animal noises for Old MacDonald

Hair today...gone tomorrow...or maybe not

2010-06-17T08:57:00.002-05:00

Hello, my name is Brandi. (This is where you all in unison say "Hi Brandi".) I am a decision phobe.

There, I said it. And admitting the problem is the first step, right? Now, this decision phobia is not in concerns to big commitments like marriage or raising children. Those things are no brainers in my book. So what has me all in a tizzy today? My hair.

Yes, I know, hair shouldn't be a big commitment issue, it grows back. But it's the initial decision that makes me quiver. I've been growing my hair out for quite a long time. And it actually still looks pretty healthy. I was advise by several moms before Chaselyn was born that I should grow my hair out because I would want to chop it off when she started pulling and yanking at it. Well, I survived baby one, but with two, my hair seems to be in my way more. So, my initial thought was that my hair would be gone as soon as I was done with my wedding obligations. But now, I can't let it go. I want my hair out of my way, but I like my long hair. I've had my hair short, I look different. And in my opinion, I look thinner with long hair. Right now, that's important to me. So that's what's keeping me from chopping it off. I am more out of shape than I have ever been in my life. It's more than just baby weight, it's a health issue. i don't want to make a change in my appearance that will make me feel even bigger, but my hair is getting in my way.

That's where I am today. Trying to reason between practicality and vanity. Vanity is winning mainly because if I decide to cut it I then have to make another decision as to how to get it cut. (If you have any suggestions, let me know.)

I'm also currently undecided on my hair, wall paint colors, bathroom decor for kids, vacation activities, and my life goals in general. So there you have it. My most up to date psychosis.

Feels like home

2010-06-15T07:41:00.010-05:00

The last weekend in May I had the honor and privilege of standing at the front of the church and watching my brother marry the love of his life. And as I gained a new sister, I was touched to see my husband serve as my brother's best man. I could write a whole blog about how eerily similar those two guys are, but I get scared when I think about it too much. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the beautiful bride and only stole a couple pictures from my sister's facebook of myself.

Fortunately Stanton was smart enough to snap a shot when he and Heath got their tuxes for the big day.
The wedding was beautiful and touching and very personalized. It was so special!

After the festivities were over, Stanton went back to Waco to work and I stayed at home with my parents and my kids. I was afraid of what it would be like to have two kids away from my husband. But I was home and that's exactly how I felt. Throughout the week, we played with the family.

We played on the farm.
We met up with old friends. (Sorry Al, somehow I forgot to take any pictures of our lunch together.)
We learned the benefits of finding an indoor playground. Thanks Ducky, CrawDad, and Chic-fil-a!
And made all 4 games of the Razorback Regional baseball tournament where we met up with our "extended family".
We all had an amazing time. We lived and learned. We missed Stanton, but learned a little about ourselves that we didn't know before. Chaselyn learned that she can play with others and doesn't have to be afraid around strangers. She's still cautious when they confront her directly, but she's more than happy to run around and put on a pretty good show. Jacob learned to squeak even louder and decided to wake up a little bit more. I'm pretty sure I saw him raising his arms for a hog call too.

As for me, I found out a little more about my stubbornness. I'm an independent person. I like to do things for myself. People were endlessly asking me if I needed help. I know they only do it out of love and any sane person would always welcome the help. But I just wanted to see if I could do the whole two kids thing by myself. It turns out, I think I can do it. In fact I did better than I thought I would. I know it's going to get harder as Jacob grows and is more demanding and heaven help me when I've got two mobile ones. But in general, I was greatly surprised at my ability to cope and manage. I even had toting the two tots up the stadium stairs by myself by the end of the series.

But, after a week of being away I was ready to be with my husband. I wasn't sad to leave Arkansas this time. I had a lot of memories to take with me, but there was a strong draw for me back in Texas. And as soon as I got home to my loving husband, I learned something more about myself. I am most at rest when I'm with him. He alone is the one who I rely on to help me. And even more, he doesn't even have to ask if I need help. I just expect him to swoop in and save the day. That is where my biggest lesson was learned. After a week of doing it all mostly by myself, I was feeling confident in my parenting. I had been patient and balanced. As soon as I walked in to our house I dumped quite a bit of responsibility on Stanton. Only I didn't tell him. Within a few hours I was getting impatient and frustrated. As I laid in bed trying to figure out why I could do it all at home with my parents and now I was failing within minutes of being home with my husband, it hit me. Stanton is a wonderful man, but he isn't a mind reader. I have to communicate the jobs that my brain has allocated to him. I can't get frustrated at him for not doing things he doesn't know he's supposed to do. On top of all that, I can't get frustrated when he doesn't parent the exact way I would. So what if he lets Chaselyn whine for a little longer before he steps in to stop it. He's taking care of it.

So that's my story. A wonderful week of family, friends, fun and baseball.

Saying good-bye 2

2010-06-11T21:17:00.003-05:00

In addition to losing MaryAnn and family. We also had to say good-bye to some dear church friends. Ben and Jenny are a wonderful couple who we met through our church. Originally from Indiana, they came to Waco via Austin. Ben was working on his Master's degree in something dealing with politics and religion. (I'm a little embarrassed that I can't remember exactly what it was called, because it always seemed very interesting to me.) Jenny was an elementary school teacher constantly dealing with the red tape and craziness imposed by the government. They were a sweet couple and Stanton and I related to them immediately. Ben was a good match for Stanton. They both enjoyed discussing politics and religion, but could also banter endlessly about college sports. Jenny and I related because our husbands were so similar and we were able to discuss family issues and how graduate school plays into the scheme of starting to grow the family. Jenny came around while I was pregnant with Chaselyn, so she was one of the first people I was actually able to feel like I could give some advice. (Although I always add the disclaimer that I'm by no means an expert.)

Ben and Jenny in the middle with the life group clan and some extras.

I guess I kind of thought of Ben and Jenny as being in a very similar spot as Stanton and me just about a year earlier. But they always seemed way more put together than I ever felt we were.

Ben and Jenny joined our wonderful life group and that's where our friendship was formed. Unfortunately, that's about the only time we were able to get together. But we understood. Ben was living the life of a grad student and Jenny was a caring school teacher who worked very hard. So we didn't hang out very much outside of LG.

Life group girlies. Left to right - Kristen, Jenny, Allison (who left us about a year ago but still visits), Christi, Rachel, and Claire-Bear

I'm going to miss them both a lot. I'm going to miss Jenny most because she's a great person and has such an awesome attitude toward everything. And she has such a heart for kids. And like I said, our husbands are quite similar, so she understood me. I'll miss Ben most for Stanton. Like I said Ben is a great guy, but more than anything he was able to relate to Stanton on all levels. It's a rare breed who can understand Stanton's intelligence, his infatuation with sports, and his insane sense of humor.

Stanton and Ben having one last deep conversation.

So through all of this, Indiana has taken away two great families from Waco. And I know for the Greers, Waco will not be the same. It will be different. But I can't express how thankful and how blessed that we feel for our path to have crossed with these great people.

***Thanks to Laura for the pictures! They were taken at our good-bye party for the Tolls.***

Saying good-bye

2010-06-10T15:19:00.008-05:00

I'm sick of it. It's one of the by-products of being in school for so long and living in a college town I suppose. Two great families of friends have moved away in the past couple weeks. I've been able to avoid feeling the sadness, because I was traveling. I was able to safely live under the peaceful oblivion of just thinking I was going away for a trip back home and nothing would be different when I got back. Ignorance is bliss. But now I'm back in Waco and they're not here and I don't like it.
First, I had to say good-bye to my good friend MaryAnn. And even worse, my family had to say good-bye to her family. MaryAnn and I met through our shared time in the Stats department at Baylor. She says she remembers the first time she saw me, I don't remember names and faces, so I can't say the same. But over the years, and especially in the past couple years, she has become one of my closest and dearest friends. She is a fantastic Christian sister who was always able to understand my point of view and thankfully was able to hep me get my focus and thoughts back to where they needed to be when I was struggling. We became accountability partners and did our best to keep each other grounded. I was most impressed with her parenting skills. I don't know how she did it, but she somehow managed the life of a growing kid, graduate school, a husband, extended family and numerous volunteer positions. I was constantly amazed at her poise and grace as she navigated the often difficult path. She was always able to find the strength to manage through prayer.
MaryAnn offered so much more than sage advice. She along with her stories of the antics of her family we're always a good break from the humdrum of research. And her servants heart was open to help anyone and everyone. I can't tell you how many times she anticipated my need for a little pick me up in the middle of the day. For me, these pick me ups generally involved food treats of some kind, but that's just another reason we got along so well. We both have an appreciation for good food. And she could cook up something up out of anything. One of my favorite memories is when Stanton and I were at a loss for dinner ideas and MA helped out. We were getting in the car to go home and I asked Stanton what he wanted for dinner. He didn't know. Exasperated, I told him (mostly joking) to go ask MA what was for dinner. He came back with one of our favorite recipies - ravioli casserole. It was an instant hit. Easy to make, delicious, and easy to modify to make new. And MA in all her amazingness just came up with it. And I have to mention that she makes a pasta salad with olives that I'll actually eat. I HATE olives. And I love that salad.
I will always remember what a blessing she was in the hospital the day I gave birth to Chaselyn. She kept Stanton and I calm and relaxed and gave us someone else to talk to when we really needed it. She prayed for us and was just the most amazing help.
I realize now that I have written a lot about MaryAnn in the past tense. Which I don't like. Because she is all of those wonderful things still. And she IS a great friend. We probably won't have quite as many impromptu conversations in passing through the office. We may not get to see each other as often. And our family cookouts will probably be a little further apart, but I still expect her to keep me accountable. I know that when I'm feeling out of whack she'll be there. I know that when I'm at a loss for how to handle the kids she'll be there for me to call. And that's a big deal to me. I only have a handful of friends that have stuck with me through a move. And that collection of girls are some of the most important people in the world to me.

As I said, what's even worse is that our families won't be able to grow up close together. Chaselyn was just getting to the good playing stage where she and MaryAnn's daughter could relate and play together. And I know that MA will miss seeing Cake (Chaselyn) and Jelly Belly Bean (Jacob) grow up in real life. And I'm going to miss her sweet little girl more than I can say. I can't believe how much she has grown in the time we were here together in Waco. And I just know she's going to keep getting more and more intelligent and more and more beautiful everyday. I'll miss having that sweet, respectful, wonderful little girl setting an awesome example for my kids on a regular basis. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful husband MA has. He's a world class fella. It was always inspiring to hear the little things that he would do to support his wife. And I could just see the love oozing from him whenever he was around the kids.

But I know they are following the path God has laid for them. I know how hard it is to leave family and the comforts of home to transplant your family in a seemingly far away land. And I know that without the peace of knowing that you're there for a reason, a move like that could be devastating. So I miss MA in her family. But I'm not sad. I won't let myself be sad. It's a wonderful thing that they are doing. And I know our friendship can make it through a few hundred miles. No problemo.
Love you MA! I'm so proud of you! I miss you and your sweet family.

Jacob one month and counting.

2010-06-09T09:22:00.004-05:00

Jacob is actually one month and one week now, so I'm a little late. I've already beat myself up enough about not being on top of things this early on. But hey, now that I've already messed up with posting his updates on time, I might not feel as bad in the future when I don't make it. It won't be like I'm messing up a perfect streak or something.

So, what can you say about a one month old? He does just what he's supposed to at an amazingly high level. He sleeps wonderfully. He's been asleep for most of his life. Jacob's just now getting to where he has some good solid awake time throughout the day. He wakes up every 2-3 hours to eat, but quickly goes back to sleep. We've had a few episodes of crazy inconsolable crying, but we have been able to manage with some Mylicon drops and a healthy dose of patience. He eats very well. And is usually a happy little fella for a while after he's done. And his pipes are surely working. I've become convinced that he genuinely opposes a fresh diaper. As soon as I get a new one on, I hear more little toots.

Developmentally, he's getting much stronger. He's really able to hold his head up quite well now. He's also getting more into deep sleeps for longer times and staying awake more too. And of course, he's growing. After about 3 weeks, he lost that "newborn" look and became a little baby boy. He's growing quickly and getting stronger everyday.We figure he's a little over 8 lbs. now.

For a one month old, he's gone quite a few places and met a lot of people. He went to church on his 2 week birthday and met lots of people. He went to work with Mommy and Daddy. And he made his first trip home to AR for Uncle Heath and Aunt Kimberly's wedding.

Jacob,

I can't begin to tell you how much we love you and how happy you make us. You are such a blessing to the whole family. You bring out the best in each one of us. We promise to do our best to raise you in a loving home and provide for your every need. We prayed for you before we even knew about you. And we continue to pray that you will grow to love the Lord above all.

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

Mommy brain

2010-05-25T11:37:00.005-05:00

I've got a lot on my plate right now - baby boy, slightly bigger baby girl, busy husband, brother's wedding, wrapping up my post doc, learning to be a stay-at-home-mom without breaking the bank, keeping everyone updated on all that, and a lot of other things that I can't remember. I've heard that it's normal to suffer from pregnancy brain followed by mommy brain, and I think I've got it bad. Based on my experience, I theorize that each child takes roughly 25% of your brain capacity. So I'm down to 75% of 75%, or 56.25%.

I posted my theory on FB earlier and immediately got questions of what that would mean for people who had 12 kids or what about Michelle Duggar? Well, a mom of 12 (like my great grandmother) would have about 3% of her brain left, Michelle is down to about 0.4%. Now this speaks to the great intelligence of moms of so many children. I mean if Michelle can still function to come up with another "J" name with only 0.4% of her brain left, she must have been a super genius in the beginning.

A follow up question was whether my theory implied that the first child would necessarily be smarter than any subsequent children. I think this plays out on a individual basis. In my case, I think Chaselyn took a lot of my book smarts. Which is why she likes to sit and read and isn't fooled when her Daddy and I try to hide things from her by putting them behind our backs. Jacob seems to have taken my ability to stay on task and think about 2 things at once. So, I think these two kids are both going to be smart in their own right. Again, as I posted on FB, I just feel extremely sorry for any future child who takes the useless information portion of my brain that had me singing "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" this morning. (I couldn't decide if happy to only know a few bars of the chorus because it's an awful song or if i was upset that I could only repeat these few things over and over again.)

But I don't really miss my brain too much. I mean I'm still functioning and I'm lerning to better utilize lists to keep everythign straight. And on the upside though Mommy brain takes a little piece of you. You get back so much in return. My brain has shrunk, but when each child was born, my heart grew three sizes that day. Emotionally, spiritually, and _______ (Mommy brain prevents me from coming up with a '-ally' word that conveys maturity), I've grown so much with each child. Just look at these adorable kids, any brain loss is totally worth it.

Flip much?

2010-05-18T16:14:00.002-05:00

Many of you have viewed the video that I posted of Chaselyn being introduced to her new (to her at least) slide. Stanton filmed the whole thing using my Flip camera that my fantastic in-laws got me for Christmas. (BTW if there are any other grandparents or grandparents-to-be out there, this is an excellent gift!) We love the flip camera, it's small, sleek, and very useful. I currently keep it in Jacob's diaperbag and I'm ready to whip it out on a moments notice. Unfortunately, it took me the past 5 months to figure out I can't just upload the videos directly to the blog, I need to go through YouTube and link it. Anyway, one of the blogs I follow, Confessions of a Young Married Couple has a giveaway for a $200 Visa giftcard to get your own newest version of the Flip camera. You can enter by leaving a comment on her blog and four other blogs. That's 5 chances to enter. The easiest way is to go to this website and click on the links for each of the 5 different blogs. You have to leave a story of when you wish you had a video camera with you. ***Note, you can post the same story on all 5 blogs, so use your copy and paste functions after you write your story on the first blog.***

Like I said, I really love our Flip camera and now that I know how to upload the videos, you'll be seeing more on here. Plus, it's a $200 Visa giftcard, so it doesn't have to go to a Flip camera. You could use it for groceries, diapers, or maybe a bicycle.

Our little ones

2010-05-17T16:01:00.005-05:00

We had the check-up at the doctor today for both Chaselyn and Jacob. And just as I started typing I realized that we took 0 pictures. Which makes me extremely sad. I am taking full responsibility, and trying not to make excuses, but we got in extremely quickly (Stanton and Chaselyn hadn't even made it yet). And then we had nurses asking questions to me and having Stanton take the kids down to get weighed and measured.

Chaselyn weighs 28 lbs. 6 oz. and is 32.5 inches tall. That puts her in the 90th percentile for weight, 75th percentile for height, and 80th percentile for height to weight ratio. She's kind of a chunk. But that's ok, she always has been. Her head growth is finally leveling out. She is meeting (and surpassing) all the developmental milestones such as using at least 10 words, identifying at least 2 body parts, walking, pointing to things she wants, etc. There are no signs of autism. And, she didn't even have to get any shots. The only down side is that she has a serious yeast infection right now, but we got a prescription and will get that taken care of soon.

Jacob is growing fast. He weighs 7 lbs 14 oz. We didn't get his length, Stanton was holding his head and he was screaming and I was back in the exam room answering questions. But I think he's longer. He was in the 25th percentile for weight, 50th percentile for height, and the 30th percentile for height to weight ratio. So he's a little on the string bean side. He too seems to be doing ok on his milestones. He seems to eat, sleep, and poop in the appropriate amounts. Right now he gets lots of hiccups, which is normal, but sad to watch. His rare bouts of fussing are usually immediately followed by rooting or tooting. His skin is peeling, which means he's shedding that newborn look already. His cord fell off on Saturday, but still had a little more healing to go. Dr. Dewbre said he should be ready for his first real bath in a couple days.

Here's some pics from Jacob's 2 week photo shoot. The first few were taken when we were trying to figure out the appropriate settings.

18 months and counting

2010-05-16T19:46:00.008-05:00

Has it really been 6 months since we threw Chaselyn her 1st birthday party? On the one hand, it seems like just a month ago we were getting things organized for the party in Waco and the party back in Arkansas. On the other hand, it seems like forever ago when Chaselyn was just 10 months and we found out our second child was on the way. But in any event, the calendar doesn't lie. And today is in fact my precious little girl's half birthday.

I can't believe how much she has grown up in just the last month. She is just a sponge learning new things everyday. Her vocabulary is expanding every day. This weekend we taught her "knee" and "be-bow" (you may know it as an elbow and sounds a lot like Chaselyn's form of hippo as well). And she picked it up quickly. She's also been working on her hog call. She can still "Woooooo" just like before, but she's added some arm flinging and "yack yack!" which we know to interpret as "pig soiee!" On the upside, she does the hog call any time she sees a Razorback. On the down side, she also did it when she saw Stanton's Baylor shirt and she still does it for any red football team. We'll work on it and get it straightened out by football season. She's constantly expanding her animal noises. She's recently added elephant, snake and giraffe noises to her repertoire (in case you aren't aware, giraffes make kind of a noise where you stick your tongue in and out, at least that's all Stanton and I could come up with). She has also learned to use "No" and "Yeah" (accompanied by an excited head nod) to indicate her wishes. She doesn't execute 100% effectively, but we're sure she can understand and respond when she wants to. Oh, and I can't not mention her "nana" obsession. Anything that remotely resembles one of these yellow curved fruits starts a session of pointing an yelling "nana". Do you know how many Curious George books we have in our house? Do you know how many other monkey books we have? Do you know how many picture books have bananas in them? It can be a little overwhelming sometimes.
Aside from vocab, her social skills are blooming as well. We immediately noticed a jump in socialization once she settled in to the Toddlers class at day care and it seems that our little girl responds well to change. She has just responded so great to being a big sister (Mom is tearing up now). She has her moments of jealousy and trying to get attention, but she really just seems to want to help and be involved. She gets upset when I'm changing Jacob's diaper or if I'm holding him, but if I give her a job to do for me, she stops whining/crying and does what she needs to do to help. It's amazing. She likes to love on Jacob. We're still trying to teach her to be careful and gentle. It's hard for a little girl though. She's also showed great maturity in warming up to other people more quickly I think. She did great when we left her with Laura when we went to the hospital, she even went out to lunch after church, which can sometimes be a problem when we try to take her. She still runs to her Daddy and Mommy if we're around, but she seems to be adapting better to staying with others. She did not however like the hospital room. She had us quite concerned about her response to Jacob being born, but once we were all back home on her own turf, she got back to being the Chaselyn we love and adore.

A couple comparison shot for sizes of my two babies.Other fun things include her insistence on praying at meal time followed by shouting "MAN" which we know to interpret as "Amen". Her cute little tushy wiggles while dancing. The way she runs with her arms tucked up by her side and sways her bottom from side to side. She is still very much a girly-girl and loves shoes, purses, and "BOWS!"

Can I hold Jacob please?

Yay, my little brother!!

Aren't we adorable?!

Chaselyn,

We don't know anything else to say except that you are the most amazing little girl! You still fill us with awe and wonder on a daily basis. Seeing your ability to learn new things and to problem solve makes us so proud. And you are becoming such the little communicator. We can't always understand what you are saying, but keep trying, you'll train us before too long. We want you to know that you are so very special to us and we still hang on your every word and relish in all of your new tricks. And although we were worried about how you would react to having a little brother, you've shown us that you already understand that having a little brother is not a burden, it's a new way of life and you welcome it with open arms. Chaselyn, you are just an inspiration to us and we're sure you will be a great example for your little brother. We love you more than you'll ever know.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy
(or as you call us, "Momma" and "Dah")

And now, the money shot...get ready for heart melting cuteness...

p.s. I'll update tomorrow with Chaselyn's 18 month stats and Jacob's 2 week stats after their doctor's appointment.

Chaselyn's slide

2010-05-11T07:20:00.001-05:00