Super Excited....

Have you ever been so excited about something that you just can't stop talking about it?

It's constantly on your mind. So you call people that you know to share about it with them. And when you get done talking to that person, you call another person. And then another. And then you call another person, just to realize that you've already called that person to tell them the exact thing that you're calling to talk about.

Have you ever been THAT excited?

You start dreaming about it. You wake up with ideas that correspond with it. You hold hour long conversations with people about it where you just continue to feed ideas and concepts to each other, constantly building up the excitement even more. You start searching for places for this excitement to start to spill out into your life around you. Through writing. Through communicating with other people. Through taking action and making positive steps towards reaching your new and exciting goals.

Have you ever been THAT excited?

So excited that anytime you sit down to blog, and yes you have tons of material to blog about besides this exciting thing in your life, that the only thing you can concentrate on long enough to write is this really exciting thing. So excited that you wear a big grin anytime you start to think about it. So excited that your kids and your family feels that excitement. So excited that even the excruciating pain you live with doesn't matter quite as much when you're able to talk about the thing that has you so excited.

Have you ever been THAT excited?



In case you haven't caught on yet, I am THAT excited. I am so excited that I can barely contain myself. I'm constantly writing about it. Mainly writing for myself, but writing nonetheless. And I've considered blogging about it. But honestly, I don't want to turn my blog into "The life and times of Steph's church and their journey to truly look like Christ". And that IS what has me excited. It's what has my blood pumping. It's what has me flush with excitement. The conversations that it has led to. The deep thought it's provoked. The bond it has created among the members of my church, my family (b/c they are the only family I have here), young and old alike.



But I'm hesitant to constantly blog about it -- for several reasons. One, this blog is about my family, our life, and my personal thoughts. It's not about the rest of the world.

And part of me feels like the story of my church as a whole is not my story to share. See, there are other people here leading their own lives. To blog about the amazing things they're doing seems like I'm invading on their privacy. And that I never want to do.

Third, I know that I have friends that may not share my beliefs. That doesn't mean that I'm backing off on what I believe... not at all. And I will continue to celebrate my faith. And I'll continue to use my blog to share my victories and struggles in my faith. Because that's part of me blogging about my personal thoughts and convictions. Part of blogging, for me, is self-discovery. As I blog through my feelings, I learn more about myself... and that includes blogging about my faith. But I don't want to shove my faith in your face every time you read either.

On top of all of that, I would never want someone to read my blog and see the varying posts and then think that because I used some not nice words in one post and then wrote about my church in another, that that means that I'm fake. I'm a Christian. But I struggle. My biggest struggle is probably my language. But I also fight bad attitudes among many other things. My purpose as a Christian is to be as honest as I can be while still loving the world around me -- no matter whether we agree on our spiritual/ethical/political beliefs or not. I can value you as a person no matter what you believe, and I want people to accept me no matter what I believe.




So I'm going to continue to talk about my church from time to time. And I'm going to continue to be super excited about the amazing things I see happening there. But I'm still making an effort to talk about other things. I'm going to make the effort to allow my excitement to spill over into other subjects.

Because I am excited. I'm so excited that it's hard for me to hold still. And I felt an overwhelming need tonight just to share that fact alone. I'M EXCITED!!!!!!! :D :D :D




So just bare with me over the next few weeks while I find the balance between talk about my kids, my church, and myself. :)

Tons of Pictures To Edit

But in the meantime, here are a few from this last week. All straight from the camera because of a problem w/ editing software.

Hand Me Downs

It's every mother's dream for their kids to be able to pass their clothes down from one to the other -- to always have cute clothes for their offspring, but to not have to pay for it on a regular basis. (Ok, so it's MOST mothers' dream -- I recognize that there are the crazies out there that believe that their kids are too good for hand me downs. If you're that mom, stop reading now. ;) ) Now when you have two children of the opposite sex, the likely-hood of being able to do that is very slim, even more so when the oldest is the girl.

Don't get me wrong, I had several gender neutral items from when Kairi was a newborn that Alex wore, and she has had some jeans and a few tshirts that were actually from the boys' dept that she's now been able to pass on to her brother. But for the most part, my daughter is a very girly-girl. Her favorite color is pink. Although, purple and red are close runners up. And even before she was showing such preference for pink, I ended up dressing her in pink (despite any original intentions) because I simply got tired of people calling her a boy.

The area I most regret not being able to pass clothes from one child to the other is in shoes. Kairi LOOOOOVES shoes. She has from the time she was 10 months old. If she can get a hold of shoe, it's almost immediately on her foot. And the more sparkly the shoe, the more red or pink a shoe, the happier she is. So as much as I would love to put Kairi's endless array of shoes on Alex's quickly growing feet, I don't. Instead, they all stay in a basket in Kairi's room where she puts them on her dolls feet. Alex usually wears them on his hands.

But this morning, I found that Alex has claimed a pair of Kairi's shoes. When I tried to trade him these shoes for a pair that actually fits (and are brown), he bawled. So I left them on him. I figure that as long as he doesn't insist on wearing them to church tonight, it's not going to hurt anything. And even if he insists on them for church, they have to come off when he sleeps tonight -- right?


Besides, Daddy's not in town right now to complain. For some reason, I don't think he would approve. ;) What do you think?








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ETA:

Later this morning, Alex was mad at me. I still have no idea why. This was the first of multiple similar fits. He walked up to me like this, and didn't stop no matter what I asked him. Here's just under 3 of approx 15 minutes of his fit. ;)

Opposites attract?

Kairi and Alex are exact opposites in a lot of regards. Kairi is high-maintenance yet independent. Alex is easy-going but always wants to be with you. I have to trick Kairi into giving me a hug -- Alex gives them out like their candy. Kairi is not a bread fan (unless it's either a club cracker or a cinnamon graham cracker) preferring most meats and pasta over all other choices. Alex does not appreciate meat, rarely likes pasta, but instead craves bread and crackers. Of course they do have things in common, but the majority of things go in this direction. Their opposite opinions on food are so distinct that Chris and I have joked on more than one occasion that we should just make one plate for the two of them, and then they each can eat what they'd like. It'd make for no fighting over food and their plates just might be emptied for a change by the end of the meal.

Recently, I've been more and more surprised by their plates after lunch, though. Typically, we start the meal all eating together. Then after I'm finished with my food, I take my plate to the sink and go get their beds ready for naps. I come back just in time to find both kids getting down from the table with near-empty plates. I've been in shock -- when did they starting eating all their food, or even the same thing?

Today my question was answered.

I was walking out of Kairi's room and into Alex's when suddenly Kairi ran straight into my legs. She was babbling in a very upset tone about her fork, but speaking so quickly that I had no idea what she was talking about. Finally she drug me into the room and pointed to Alex. He had two forks and one plate. And then Kairi finally, slowly, spits out what she was telling me:

"Mommy! Awex and me trade food! But I gib him my fork and he no gib me his! I need a fork!"

I look closer at the plates. When I left the room, all of Alex's chicken and broccoli were gone, but his pasta and corn had been on his plate. Kairi had eaten all of her pasta and corn, but had left her broccoli and chicken. Suddenly, Alex had tons of broccoli and chicken again, and Kairi had just pasta and corn. They had traded plates!

I have a feeling that this has become a regular occurrence. They're trading plates when I leave the room so that they both get what they like to eat.


Now I have to decide whether or not this is worth putting an end to. On one hand, they need to eat what I serve, and if they don't like it then they can not eat -- that's always been my philosophy and I'm not stepping down. But on the other hand -- they're not starving and trying to demand a snack as soon as they get up when they do this.

I know that there's absolutely no way that Chris would allow this to happen at supper. So do I pretend that I still don't notice that they're doing this so that they can get away with it?

Hmmm... Decisions decisions. I have no idea what to do. Input?

Owning It

(Check out the blog from today before this one HERE for Alex's er story, and my letter to my husband for Father's Day HERE.)


Even the most amazing church has things they need to work on. We are all still human, so we're all still prone to making mistakes and having areas of weakness. The church being a body made up of all humans, would then naturally be that way too. So why is it that it's so hard for most churches to admit that they have places that need work? I truly believe that when churches ignore their problems, it only makes the unchurched's argument that we're all hypocrites stronger. It makes us seem unauthentic and not genuine. If we would only be willing to admit to ourselves and to the world that we're doing the best we can, but we don't that we don't have it exactly right ... we might see more people that would be willing to talk to us.

That being said, I am once again impressed with the church we attend. There's a problem at our church ... we're just not growing. It's not that we're not genuine in our faith and our beliefs because we are. It's not that we don't have a passion for lost souls; we do -- we support and attend missions throughout the world. The problem is that we are so focused on taking care of each other, loving on each other, and meeting the needs of those we already have, that we don't pay as much attention as we should to those that aren't a part of our congregation.

Most churches would spend their time patting themselves on the back for taking such good care of their own. And we are proud of that. Most churches would pretend that this isn't a problem. But it is. And if this problem was addressed in most churches, it would be by the elders and ministers sitting down and forming a plan to correct it. Which we are doing -- sort of.

Sunday mornings our preacher is spending his time preaching about church growth and how it relates to us directly. He's being real, and honest, and not sugar-coating things. Sometimes, that hurts. But that doesn't mean that it's not necessary. Afterwards, on Sunday nights we've been having "round table discussions". As a church, we're identifying the problems -- everyone has a voice. We're brainstorming solutions -- again, everyone has a voice. And then people are volunteering to be part of a team that solves that problem using the general consensus of the members.



I'm not sure that I've ever been a part of a congregation that was so real and open. It's refreshing to see them latch ahold of this problem, and own that this is who they are, but that it needs to change. And it's personally inspiring to me.


I want to be a person that when faced with a problem, I own it. I own that I'm not perfect, that I can't be perfect, but that I'm doing the best I can. And then I want to be honest with myself enough that I can brainstorm solutions so that I can create a plan of action and implement it.

Right now, I'm owning that I don't spend enough time in the Bible. I hunger for more time with God, and I'm willing to admit that the only thing that keeps me from that is me. Now, that's not saying that I don't have perfectly good excuses for, but in the end, they're just that -- excuses. So I'm making a plan -- to turn off all sounds and clear the table, and spend 30 minutes reading and praying every evening once the kids are in bed. Instead of switching straight into "get ready for the next day" mode, after they're asleep, I need to set aside time for me to really concentrate and on my relationship with God.


What do you need to own? Do you have a plan for responding to that?

Something I Should Have Shared and Just Haven't Yet...

So I've been a bad blogger and not been posting a lot recently. A couple of reasons for that, but the main one being no energy so very little motivation. The other is that I'm feeling guilty about not having my book post ready .... but it's just not so we're going to have to deal for a little while.




A week ago Saturday, we had an emergency. It was around 11:45 or so, and we had all been in our pjs still and were just lounging around. I finally decided to get up and start getting lunch ready so I walked into the kitchen. Then it happened. Kairi started yelling at Alex. He had been on her wheely bug and she wasn't happy -- she wanted him off of it immediately. I walked into the room and told her to stop yelling at her brother and to share with him. I quickly noticed that Alex was way too close to the tv. Now since THIS is our tv stand, I worry about him being close to it, climbing on it, or falling near it ... nothing had ever happened before, but that's the one piece of furniture in our house that bothers me. I tell him to scoot back.

But Alex, now having entered the terrible twos (which I must say, isn't bad at all compared to his sisters'), he didn't obey. Instead, he leaned forward and told me no. It tipped forward, sending his head right into that glass corner. Blood was EVERYWHERE, and I do mean everywhere. I had blood all over me, him, the living room, the bathroom. I did the best I could to get it to stop bleeding, but nothing seemed to work. Finally it started to slow, and eventually stopped. But by the time it stopped, we were already on our way to the er.

Here he is at the er, as cleaned up as I could get him:

By that point he was happy, smiling most of the time, and just annoyed when someone touched his head.

There they checked his head out, everything seemed ok. Then they put dermabond on his forehead instead of stitches because they didn't want to deal w/ the fight that that would cause. He did great and was happy to get out of there. :)

While there, though, the er doc thought that Alex was getting an ear infection. She originally checked them out because he's been falling a lot lately. She prescribed amoxicillin, but we managed to get out of the er w/o that prescription. I called back up there later to see if she could call it out to the pharmacy, but they couldn't locate her and no one knew what I was talking about. I decided that it wasn't worth the worry since we would just see his regular doctor Monday as a follow up on his head, and I needed to schedule and ENT appt anyway since we had missed his last one.

Regular doctor told me that there was nothing wrong w/ Alex's ears as far as he could tell -- redness in the ear canal after tubes is normal. ENT said the exact same thing. So all is good in Alex's ear land.

Apparently my son is just really clumsy at the moment ... which makes sense considering how much he's growing right now!

The dermabond has already fallen off and all is well in Alex's world once again.

And I have told Chris that he is required to be home the next time we have an er visit. ;)

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Another post is coming today .....

I would just like to point out....

That while I tell all the stories of my kids misbehaving on here, and that while I am more than willing to post pictures of their misdeeds, and while I tell about their bad attitudes and how hard it is to hold onto my sanity with them sometimes...... that in truth, I have amazing kids and I know that I'm doing a pretty good job for the most part.


My proof:
1) Sunday at church Kairi entered Wee Worship for the first time instead of spending the service in the nursery. Words that were used to describe her afterwards:
Delightful
Attentive
Well-behaved
Follows directions

Yeah ... that's MY daughter! She was fabulous. I was told the same by more than one person and was told over and over and over again. :D I'm totally beaming w/ pride.

2) Today was a busy day. We had to take Alex to the doctor for a follow up on our er visit Saturday (a story for either later today or tomorrow....). Immediately afterwards I had to drop the kids off to be watched while I had a follow up w/ my rheumatologist. Again, the kids were great. I was told that they were the best behaved children she has ever watched and that she really wants to do more w/ all of us as a family. Next week we're going over there to take the kids swimming. She was amazed by their politeness. (Yes, both my kids say please and thank you. And Kairi's even starting to say yes ma'am instead of ok or yes.)



You know, sometimes you start to feel like you must be doing something wrong when by the end of nearly every day you're so thankful that they're in bed and asleep that you just can't stand the thought of them waking up for several hours. But when I hear things like this, I know that my kids may be into everything, but they're learning, and growing, and doing GREAT. :D

An Alex Story

The kids play out back almost all day long now. It's a tremendous relief for me, and they LOVE it.

Alex was playing out back this morning, and found the empty dog food bag that was going to be used as a trash sack. He drug it behind him and started putting his toys in it. At some point, he decided that he was bringing it inside.

Just as he started to cross the threshold, he started screaming. It was the kind of scream that makes me run for him -- terrified, hurt sounding. I just knew I'd find him bleeding.

I got to him and he was still screaming in short little bursts while pointing to the sack. Scared that something in there has bitten him, I opened up the sack as carefully as possible. Just at that moment, the sack began to jump, and Alex started screaming again.

I opened up the sack, and found a frog.

I showed Alex the frog, but it just made the screams louder.

Mr Frog was dumped by a hole in the fence so he could make his great escape. And Alex won't go anywhere near the sack now. Instead, he's constantly talking about "frugs", "ack", and "scawwy".

My poor baby boy. Mommy's too busy laughing to sympathize.

Funny Kairi story at bottom + "Reasons why yesterday sucked, and today will be better:"

Yesterday sucked:

1) Lyrica made me hungry ALL day long. Really, this is an on-going battle, but it was especially bad yesterday.
2) Lyrica made my stomach hurt like crazy. So even if I did eat, it wasn't staying down.
3) Despite Joyce being an amazing RAK, I still got not nearly enough done cleaning my house.
4) My kids fought constantly.
5) My kids found in the trash a tube of mascara that I thought was dried up, and then proceeded to paint themselves, the walls, a few toys and my couch.
6) Kairi ate half a pack of gum. Still waiting to see what that looks like coming out......
7) Lyrica makes me want to cry over EVERYTHING. So I spent most of the day crying.
8) Hurt worse than normal.
9) Chris doesn't understand the concept of asking me to do something instead of telling me to. He swears he thought he was asking if I wanted to. I still don't see how there was a question anywhere in there.
10) The drive to Target takes 3 times longer than normal when you go at 5pm.
11) The manager of Sonic wasn't there tonight, so they were of course incredibly slow.
12) Fish didn't thaw out in time last night for supper. So I had to switch up the meal plan AGAIN and we had the most terrible pan-seared steaks that I've ever prepared.
13) Kids screamed while sitting on my feet almost the entire time I cooked. Chris alternated which child he was prying off my feet until he finally figured out to gate them into Kairi's room and then sit in there with them. Which didn't make the screaming stop, but at least they weren't on my feet.
14) Migraine started at approximately 6:15pm. I was in tears and vomiting by 7:45 (shortly after kids were in bed). Migraine meds didn't help. I got to sleep after 11:30 thanks to it and a phone call from my mom.
15) My mom called at 11pm. To tell me that my cousin had her baby boy. Which I did want to know. But not when I have a migraine and was almost asleep.

Ok, we'll stop the list there, even though it could keep going.


Reasons today will be better:
1) The house is almost clean. I will finish it today.
2) Diapers are already washed.
3) Laundry will all be clean.
4) I might have visitors tonight.
5) No one will interrupt my cleaning when he comes home from work to insist that he needs a drink from Sonic.
6) Kairi is really excited about panties -- maybe today will be another successful potty day!
7) I refuse to allow today to be as bad as yesterday. And that alone means that today will be better.





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Book post still coming soon. It's quite the effort to create it from scratch. Especially when you keep thinking of all the books you used to have on your list, but you can't remember all the names.


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Funny Kairi story:

Kairi's cuticles crack quite often. Usually because she spends hours digging in the backyard every day. It bothers her and I end up kiss those booboos multiple times a day. Yesterday she asked me what kind of a booboo it was. She's all about classifying things right now. I told her it was a crack. We had to work hard on how to pronounce it. It was hilarious the way she said it, and I almost told Chris about it, but I'm glad I didn't. If I had, I wouldn't be able to tell you this story about supper.

To set the scene, Chris and Kairi sit on the same side of the table. Kairi dominates Chris' attention through most of the dinner with her description of the day.


K: And Daddy! I have a CRAP!!!
C: (Looking bewildered, amused, angry and confused all at the same time) You have a WHAT?
K: A CRAP! See Daddy! On my finger -- it's a CRAP! Kiss my crap, pwease. It make my crap better.
C: Wait! What?!? Kiss your crap? Kairi! You don't say that word!
Me: (Laughing hysterically) A craCK Daddy. She has a craCK in her finger.
C: She has a what?
Me: A crack in her finger. Well, actually in her cuticle.
K: Yeah! See Daddy -- it's right there. A crap!
C: Kairi, say craCK. Cra-ckkkkkkkkkkkk.
K: Dat's what I said Daddy. A crap-k.
C: No Kairi, listen. CraCK. CraCK. CraCK.
K: Caa-wa-kkkkkkk. Crap-k.
C: (heavy sigh) Kairi, try again. CraCK.
K: (exasperated with her Daddy's obsession over something that she knows she has right)No Daddy. Just kiss my crap booboo and den I eat.
Me: (Still laughing) We've worked on it all day. You're not going to get it any better.
C: (Laughing, but still sort of horrified) I just keep imagining her announcing after church on Sunday in the middle of the chapel that she has a crap and the looks everyone is going to give us!
Me: More hysterical laughter
C: I'm serious Steph! If Joel or an elder hears her, you may never get to teach a class after all!
Me: (Laughing) No, Chris. It'll be fine. Besides, they'll blame you. You're the sailor.
C: (Finally willing to joke with me about this.) Oh yeah, that's comforting.
K: DADDY! You still haven't kissed my crap! I wanna eat! Kiss it!

I would like to introduce

A new family member. At least for today she is. Kairi was very very upset this morning because this family member was locked outside. Kairi begged and begged and begged for me to let this new person in.

Would you like to meet this person?

Her name is quite strange, so please be polite. Her name is cat-poo. Say it fast like kapoo, but throw a VERY soft t sound in it.

Cat-poo is invisible and was outside this morning. Kairi just wanted me to rescue poor Cat-poo. I just had to open the door a little little bit and Cat-poo would come inside.

"Please please please, Mommy, let Cat-poo inside. I ca-not open da door myself Mommy. So please open it so I can wescue poor Cat-poo! She needs my help! I'm coming Cat-poo! Mommy, hurry! Open da door!"


I'm not sure when Cat-poo will need to be rescued again, or if she's even ever coming back. But today she was here.

Menu!

If you'll scroll to the bottom of this page you'll see a calendar. That's my menu! You see, if I don't make a menu plan at the beginning of each pay day, then I spend at least an extra $100 on groceries and $150 on take out -- I don't have that kind of money to spare! So several friends and I started menu planning together in an effort to save money and provide our family with wholesome meals. When I do it, it's awesome. When I don't, I immediately remember why I should. :)

I wanted to give you a tour of the calendar real fast.

First of all, every meal can be clicked on for more details. Those details might include the rest of the name, just in case it was longer than the box. It might include a recipe link for it. Or it might just be what I serve with it. So click each meal for more details.

Second, you may notice that most meals are followed by (CP). That's to remind me that it's a crock pot meal. Because of the fibro, I'm ALWAYS tired -- especially by evening. I don't want to cook then. I am usually excited to cook in the morning, though. So I prepare my food in the AM, throw it in the cp, and call it good. It makes my evenings go sooo much smoother. I have 2 crocks, so if you notice that I have two cp recipes up, it's not because I was brain dead. I really can cook 2 cp meals at a time. Or the timing just works out where I can prepare one after I've finished the 2nd meal.

As noted right above the calendar, I don't usually post breakfast and lunch. That's because they're fairly predictable. The kids want either pigs in a blanket (made w/ beef sausage) or Nutrigrain bars for breakfast. And since that's easy and fast, I'm ok with it. I might make eggs for breakfast as I always have them on hand, but the chances of them eating eggs are slim to none, so I usually stick w/ the other. Lunch is leftovers. If I don't make myself eat them for lunch, then my fridge fills up and food gets wasted. I try to keep everything on hand in order to eat a turkey melt for lunch (bread, turkey, cheese, and tomato) in case supper wasn't good or there weren't leftovers ... but those are few and far between.

What happens when I don't want to do what's on the plan for that day? Either I move things around, OR I have a few frozen meals (like Voila's Garlic Chicken) that I can throw on. I'm in the process of trying to make some more of these on my own so that I can just freeze them for future use and not waste the money, but in the meantime I'll buy the prepackaged stuff.


One last thing ... if there's a recipe up that doesn't have any extra info, that's because it's one that I have in my head and never think about needing a recipe. Just comment or email to get more details (like what in the world IS that? ;) ).


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I'll do the book post soon...I promise! But I'm having to make the list from scratch. Yikes!

Chris is in an ambulance

And on his way back to the er. I woke up at 4am b/c he was on the floor and sounded like he was in labor. I know that I had been hearing him in my sleep. Later I found out that he been like that for an hour or so. I called 911 b/c he was in so much pain he could barely talk. When they got here he was able to say a little bit more ... but most of it was b/w cuss words. They offered for me to take him to the ER, but he refused to wake up the kids. So away he went... It's the second time in my life I've had to watch him be taken by ambulance away from me and I HATE it. At least last time I got to follow, but he's right. All I could do is sit in the lobby waiting and waiting and waiting b/c they won't let the kids back there. It's better to wait here where the kids are asleep.

I'll update know when I know something. In the meantime I'm going to go lay back down -- probably won't sleep but Lyrica is killing my ability to function.