The A-Team

Since today only occurs once every 4 years, we decided to do something fun as a family! I was so blessed to have had a great night’s rest (I actually slept for about 4 hours straight!) and felt AMAZING today. Because of said “feeling amazing” I decided to completely over do it today:) We went to Meijer and stocked up on a few things that were on SUPER sale and headed over to Incredible Pizza Company for a fun-filled afternoon! We had a blast and the food was fantastic! A picnic would have been cool except we would have all blown away in the wind. Speaking of which, it was too funny…tonight after dinner I took the kids outside to play and watch Daddy run his final mile of the month. We weren’t out but all of 10 minutes but the winds sure picked up as the sun was setting. Little Abel actually got knocked over by a gust of wind! He was so perplexed by it that he just giggled! So did I and of course big brother had to be “knocked over” too! So both kiddos are just laying on the driveway laughing at the thought that wind blew them over:) So silly!

It started on Sunday when I didn’t feel the greatest (mostly congestion). By the afternoon, I had a fever. I was out for 2 days with a few hours here and there when I felt okay. Congestion got worse and ended up a sinus infection. Thankfully, I had antibiotics on hand to start taking right away.

Monday morning Abraham definitely doesn’t feel good. All he wanted to do was sit in the cart at Meijer. I knew something was definitely up. By the time we get home from our grocery trip, he was running a fever. This fever is STILL GOING ON as I write this. The fever has been the worst I have ever had to deal with. It started around 102 and kept climbing. He topped out at 104.6 F last night. We did make a trip to the doc’s office on Wednesday but he had NO other symptoms so they are just as unsure of what is the cause. The poor kid got so hot last night that he did eventually throw up. It was mostly medicine since the kiddo hasn’t eaten in days. After some fervent prayers over Abraham last night, the Lord delivered him from this severe fever. It is now around 99.9 F. The worst part of all of this has been seeing him suffer and being able to do nothing about it except let him watch way too much TV and keep him on Ibuprofen and Tylenol. He has tolerated it very well considering how bad he must feel.

Now we have Mr. Abel to contend with. He has been feeling great and doesn’t much care for TV at his age. Plus he is FULL of energy. He has not appreciated my attention NOT being centered on him…hence his CONTINUAL testing of every single limit known to him. It has been nothing short of frustrating but I can’t totally blame him. He is bored to tears and just wants some attention – good or bad. We are working through this. The blessing in disguise here is that Abel is healthy! He has shown no signs of sickness except for a minor fever tonight (which might be his teeth) and a little runny nose. Praise Jesus! I surely hope this gets no worse.

The man who has held us together for the better part of the week is now coming down with the sinus thing I have/had. Yuck. Figures. But it is also a blessing in disguise that he doesn’t get sick until AFTER I am able to pick up where I left off. I am also so thankful that he is not afraid and certainly willing to take care of the dishwasher and keep up with the laundry! God gave me a great man as my partner!

Now the dogs could not be out done by the family. We are still dealing with huge issues with them (skin irritation, missing fur, bleeding skin, lack of appetite one day, eating like crazy the next, so thirsty they drink too much and vomit it back up). In a nutshell, they are a mess! We are currently on the path to get them tested for thyroid issues. I am so tired of dealing with this mess. I just want a definite answer to get them better! Too bad they aren’t listed on my health insurance because continual vet visits are expensive!

Anyway, prayers for continued recovery would be much appreciated especially for Aaron to quickly recover as he has a 10K race next Saturday that is VERY important to him. Thank you in advance!

Play doh!

Snuggling with mommy

Building train tracks

Very proud engineer

Sheet changing day = super fun play time!

Fun hat play

being a stinker while watching Word World

Trying on mommy's boots

Cheese!

Building with blocks

New closet organization for the boys' room!

Loving on mommy

This was one of Abel's last nights in the high chair - this is him trying to look at the picture I took

Daddy grew a beard anticipating a "cold" winter...oops!

Attempt at a hug

Mommy and Daddy self portrait

This was our January including celebrating my 34th birthday. I didn’t feel great at all during that month…thankfully I am feeling better now!

This is just one of the many reasons to offer your child the best option for life! I am not saying that I will be the most amazing teacher ever. I am actually prepared to have many failures BUT I am not allowing the government to step in and flex control over my child’s life. I am protecting them from that beast. We already refused social security numbers for the kiddos and we plan to hold out as long as we can (even at the end, we will fight tooth and nail). There are too many things in this world that are well, evil. This may seem small but I think it is a HUGE step in the wrong direction for public schools – where will the tyranny end?

http://myfox8.com/2012/02/14/nc-preschooler-fed-nuggets-because-packed-lunch-wasnt-healthy/

Today we had an OB appointment. It was SUPPOSED to be routine – a simple in and out visit with a quick check of the heartbeat since we are only at 15 weeks and 5 days. Well, this little baby of ours does NOT like to have her heartbeat found, EVER. At my last appointment, I almost ended up in ultrasound because there was no heartbeat. It took the nurse about 15 minutes to find it. Thankfully she did. This time it was the doc checking for the heartbeat (he is a very busy man) and spent about 5 minutes hunting. He then said, “you are going to ultrasound.”

At this point, I am having extremely mixed emotions. I am excited to have an ultrasound and yet COMPLETELY freaked out that something is wrong. I will explain a bit more on that in a minute. Anyway, I shyly ask the doc if we can find out the sex if it’s possible. He was all for it!! YIPPEE!!

We are taken right over to ultrasound (Sara our tech is AWESOME – she did Abel’s ultrasounds) and we get to hear the heartbeat immediately! It was strong and steady at 148 beats per minute. Now for the fun part. Sara was super excited to help us find out the sex too and within about 5 minutes or so she confirmed GIRL!!!

Abilene's ultrasound pictures

My placenta is quite large and anterior which has made heartbeat detection and movement detection difficult. But she was moving and squirming the whole ultrasound. It was great to see her move around and to know she is a SHE!! I have “known” this entire pregnancy that it was a girl. Don’t ask me how, I just knew. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. I think if Sara had said “boy” I would have been shocked. Aaron I think was much more surprised by the outcome but he is happy to have a healthy baby girl growing!

Confession time: For basically this entire pregnancy I have been having an incredibly difficult time. Not with illness or anything, just emotionally a really tough time. I have been surrounded by the loss of SO many babies. There has been tragedy after tragedy and it has been wearing on me so much that I built walls around myself to protect me from possible hurt. These walls were so thick that I wasn’t really “bonding” with the child inside me. Sure, I would acknowledge my pregnancy because I am NOT getting fat again…it really is a baby. But I never felt close or even excited. I was petrified to be honest. I was scared that at any moment I would lose this precious baby. Fear gripped me so much that I couldn’t even voice these feelings to my husband until New Year’s Eve. Once I was able to FINALLY put my feelings to words and share them with someone, I was immediately released! I felt this huge weight lifted from me because in discussing my fear with Aaron I realized that there is absolutely nothing I can do to protect this child (aside from eating right, sleeping, not over doing it and not getting too stressed out). This child is in God’s hands and I need to leave the baby there. I can enjoy the time I have with this child and rejoice at knowing that I will see this child in either this life or the next! Whew! I know that seems incredibly simple but it was revolutionary for me and this pregnancy. And hopefully that explains a bit as to why I was freaking out when they couldn’t find the heartbeat earlier today.

So to sum things up, Abraham and Abel will be joined by Abilene in June! We are excited and I am having fun thinking of buying a few pink, yellow and purple things for our new baby girl!

This is an annual tradition. Aaron and I used to go pre-kids. It is always so much fun to see what new cars are coming out. It has been fun taking the kids and this year was no exception. They had a BLAST running around climbing in and out of the cars! They did get a little out of control and were starting to get too rough in the cars so we had to go. That did NOT go over well but at least nothing was damaged and nobody was hurt!

Our future driver...YIKES!

This one is NUTS about real cars

Papa in the seat of our "future" car...The Ford Flex

Both kids in the TRUNK of the Flex!!!!

We were very blessed to see so many family members for Christmas. Of course there were many we didn’t get to see but we wished them a Merry Christmas through our cards and letters.

This year was fun to watch Abraham really get excited about handing out gifts from us. He was shy but he did a great job! He was also very polite with the opening of his gifts as greed hasn’t totally set in.

Abel was also fun to watch this year. He enjoyed opening the presents as well. He was having more fun with the paper than the actual gift! He would tear his wrapping paper into the smallest bits possible! He was still quite the handful this year as he is in the toddler phase. He wants to do what he wants to do and really doesn’t care what mom or dad say. Thankfully, most of our Christmas celebrations with family did NOT include a meltdown! Yeah!!!!

Now that the celebrations are over and things are starting to get back to our normal routine…I find myself fighting Abel with his sleep schedule once again. He wakes around 5 am and isn’t really ready to wake up but can’t go back to sleep either. It is so frustrating and exhausting for mommy. Normal wake up time is 8:30 am so this is a big shift for me! We will get through this. I know some of it is his teeth along with our crazy running around for the past couple weeks. Now that things are slowing back down and he will get his GOOD afternoon naps, hopefully things will get back to normal!

Enough of that, enjoy the pictures of our Christmas!

This was at our dentist’s office on Saturday, December 17th.

We don't "do" Santa in our house...and this will probably be our last picture attempt

We went to my Dad’s for Christmas later on in the afternoon of Saturday, December 17th.

Abraham playing very nicely with his cousin Nikolas

The boys enjoying Chrismas at my Dad's

Ham cheesing while playing with ABEL'S new piano!

My Rockstar...guitar and all!

This was Sunday afternoon, December 18th at my Grandpa Shinkle’s.

Abraham posing nicely at Great Grandpa Shinkle's

One of the ONLY face photos of Mr. Taters

These are hilarious pictures from home…

This is his response to "cheese"

This is his next response when asked to take out his binky and cheese!

Love these two

Abel may be a veterinarian when he grows up...look closely Ark is in there too!

I had to open the cage up, thankfully he can't lock it!

My other rock star and Taters getting tossed by papa

This was Christmas with my mom (Grandma Jean) on Thursday morning, December 22nd.

Abel with my mom...see that look, he gives that to me A LOT!

All three were looking in the direction of the camera!!!

Opening presents! Their favorite past time!!!

This was our Christmas Eve celebration in Muncie with Aaron’s extended family.

This was the cutest. Baby Isla just LOVED Abraham!!! She would giggle and smile for him! Ham thought she was pretty cool too.

Abel found "bells" on the door - He LOVED them!!!

More wonderful presents...mater and finn were in these along with 2 new buddies!!

This is Christmas morning at home…

Christmas Morning with stockings!

Even the dogs got a present:)

Ham got Gordon! His favorite!!

Abel adores this dollar store recorder! Best buck I've spent in awhile!

Abel got Animal for Christmas

Ham so proud of Moon Sand!

This is at Christmas morning service…what a neat service…of course I spent most of it chasing Abel around out in the cafe area.

Best shot of the boys at Christmas service

This was Christmas with Grandma and Grand-dad Daniel right after service.

Love this face

Abel REALLY wanted the camera

Boys with Grandma Daniel

The only picture of US!

This was Christmas with my Grandma Brown and my extended family after we left the Daniel’s.

This little boy LOVED the motion-activated Santa because it would play music when you walked by. See the bear, Abel ends up tackling him and running into the main room with him later on in the day!

And this was Abel’s present, a shiner! He was goofing around at his grandparents house and walked into a table corner. Yeouch! THANKFULLY we did NOT end up in the emergency room. It blossomed immediately to a bruise and I knew it would be bad…I just hoped his eye was fine. It was and so no visit! But it sure looks ugly!

Abel's Christmas Shiner

My 3-year-old son asked for a SALAD for lunch. I was extremely skeptical and made sure that it was part of MY meal and I would share with him. Turns out he ATE THE WHOLE SALAD and Abel ended up eating my chicken! These 2 kiddos are keeping their mama a bit on the “skinny” side!

Anyway, I just had to share to never underestimate a request. You never know when they just might mean what they say!!!!

This year we just didn’t have it in us to do a bunch of partying. We went to our neighborhood party and that was it. We did this for a couple reasons.

1. I really didn’t feel all that great (shock).

2. It was getting kinda chilly.

3. We really didn’t need the candy around in the house! We always give it away anyway. And this time it would be harder because Ham is pretty good at keeping track of the stuff!

Ham actually POSING!

Taters caught in mid movement but his diaper looked like a spider web and I had to capture it!

Mama and Papa

The rings from the party were a big hit!

My Ninja

My dragon

He HATED the hood

This was a fun and simple Halloween. We had fun and so did the boys.