Everything Glorious

Happy Valentines Day!

2012-02-14T08:43:00.003-05:00

My kids are giving me a Valentines to remember, full of crying, screaming, snot and tears! I really hope this is not a precursor to the rest of the day ;)

Our life never seems to slow down, we always have something going on. At this time in our lives, we have a few big things happening. Chad is getting the floor done in the downstairs. The living room has one more row to go in and then it is onto the dining room! I cannot wait for it to be completed. I don't know why I think that will make a difference, because then it will be onto laying tile in the kitchen and foyer. Never ending.

Also on the news front, our 3rd, which I am sure you've already heard about through various modes of communication is due on August 30th. I am about 12 weeks along and feel terrible. I don't think I've felt like this with either of the babes in the household. I have been eating non-stop and am still hungry most of the time. We are very excited but very nervous for this one to come. And by we, I mean, ME. Chad just flows with it, nothing really seems to effect him.

I am nervous because I don't know how I will be able to handle 3 children. I was very confident about this fact a few months ago until I got pregnant and the reality set it. Audrey and Weston immediately started having rough nights and I was exhausted. I almost lost it a few times feeling that if I couldn't handle the sleep deprivation with 2, how can I handle it with 3? Was I crazy to upset our neat little life? Why would I intentionally add more chaos to our world? God has a plan I suppose and I know that he will give me the strength to deal with it all-at

least that's what I am telling myself!

To top it off, I am continuing the insanity by running in a half marathon on May 5th or 6th. I intentionally signed myself up thinking that this would give me the motivation to keep running through most of my pregnancy. I'm embarrassed to say that I have not kept up on my training and that I have only been out a few times in the last couple weeks. I am hoping to get out more once the weather starts cooperating.

One thing that I am trying to get a handle on in all of this chaos is our eating habits. Chad and I have seen some documentaries and I have been to a few talks basically on the "eating revolution" as some are calling it. I am trying to add in more fruits and vegetables to our diet while minimizing animal and processed products. We are by no means vegetarian or dare I say vegan, but I want us to have healthier bodies and that come

s through whole foods and less processed junk that is full of stuff I can't even pronounce. To show you I am not completely crazy and that the kids will eat it, last night I made walnut wonton ravioli with a side salad topped with a little bit of chicken. Then this morning for breakfast, I made buckwheat blueberry muffins and the kids devoured them! We liked them too ;)

We are also trying to buy organic or local when we can. I have heard some disturbing facts about the chemical residue buildup in our children's bodies from eating traditionally grown foods. We aren't completely organic (VERY expensive on some things) but I am trying to buy the most critical components when possible, fruits, veggies and dairy. If we have money left over, I will consider meat, but that is very pricey. Thank God for Chad's hunting! The good thing with our diet though is that we aren't consuming nearly as much meat. If you look in our fridge, it is stockpiled with veggies and fruits and it makes me feel good!

One more thing-Audrey turned 1 on Feb. 1st. How could I forget that piece of news. My little baby is growing up!

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day!

Sleep, Take my Children!

2012-01-22T14:01:00.002-05:00

We have been having some issues the past few days (weeks) regarding certain children in this household who shall remain nameless. The almost 1 year old has been waking up numerous times during the night and has been refusing to nap for more than 15-30 minutes during the day-definitely not enough sleep. Last night was the worst by far. ,

I had to get up to go to the bathroom and I had a gut feeling I was writing my death sentence as I walked to the bathroom. You see, we can't use our master bath yet, b/c it is currently being used as construction storage. Hopefully that will be remedied this week. Anyway, my lovely child definitely heard me. I knew she did but I still tried to sneak back into our room and to bed. No luck. Crying commenced-11:30 p.m. I let her cry for about 15 minutes and go in to check her diaper, clean. I took her to our room to rock her and she just gets mad, so I tried to let her know that was unacceptable, she sobs. We get up, go back to her room and I walk her then lay her down, she screams-12 a.m. She continues screaming. I go back in around 12:10 lay her down repeatedly as she sits up and screams horribly. I finally pick her up and try to lay with her in the guest bed after throwing off all the 18 month clothes I had neatly organized to put away (they are now in a big pile, not organized). She continues screaming. 12:45 rolls around and I finally figure out she is thirsty.

Why didn't I pick up on this immediately. The entire time her eyes would be heavy but she would be making these snapping sounds with her mouth and lips and get upset. I got her bottle, filled it up, she downs it. Fill it up again, lay her in her crib and she drinks happily. I finally went to bed around 1 a.m. She didn't wake up until 7:15. I think I've figured out why she's not sleeping well...she's a thirsty girl! I'll just have to make sure she's drinking enough during the day b/c I don't want her downing water at night and wetting through her diapers all the time.

Now the other little one in the household we have yet to figure out his deal. 2 times this week he has woken up and says, " I want you!" Now we don't have our kids in our bed often...I don't sleep well and neither do they, but we have let him in our bed both times-bad move. Today we laid him down for nap, and it took almost 2 hours of screaming and 2 spankings before he fell asleep.

I am exhausted. These kids are ganging up on us. Hopefully we've got the little girl figured out, as far as the boy goes...no idea. We'll have to figure that out soon.

Chad and I are doing well aside from being tired. We are still working on the house-obviously from the master bath issue. But we are getting there. I am deciding if I want to run 2 half marathons this spring. No fulls for me this year ;) Now I just need to get out and run/exercise!

Snyder Christmas and Beyond

2012-01-09T08:57:00.002-05:00

This pic above was taken in November during the only substantial snow fall we have had this year-and it really wasn't that much. In fact, the very next morning the snow was gone and the snow man had fallen over. we are hoping for at least one more good snow so the kids can play in it. Chad wants to play in it too-he can't help the kid inside him!

Over New Years, we headed to my parents to spend Christmas with the family. It was a great time and I loved seeing everybody. Unfortunately I ended up coming down with strep the night before we left. Mom was able to get me a prescription the day we left, which was Wednesday. After 24 hours of being on the antibiotics, I was no longer contagious, but unfortunately Weston had developed a very high fever. It was peaking at 106-which was very scary and yes, it was accurate and it is possible despite what the pediatric nurse might tell you over the phone. We were dosing weston with motrin and tylenol (sound familiar...almost the same story with Audrey!). We could only get his fever to come down to about 101 with drugs on board. Of course the ped's office wasn't open so we waited it out. On Monday morning I had it and we headed to urgent care and they diagnosed him with an ear infection. I don't think the ear infection caused the fever to get that high though. I imagine the congestion that he had with the fever ended up causing the infection. In any case, he got on some antibiotics and as of this Thursday morning, he has been fever free. Both kids are still snotty, but I'll take that over what we dealt with over the holidays.

As far as everybody else goes, other members did get sick, but what else did you expect with a Snyder family gathering! Every year this happens. Hopefully next year will be slightly less exciting in this area.

We did do other things aside from getting sick. On New Years Eve, Chad, Erica, Tony, Dad and Myself all ran the Resolution Run 5k at Beavercreek High School. We had a great time and for not very much prep work we all did really well! I did not hit a PR with this race. In fact I was over 30 seconds slower. I think we are going to make this an annual tradition.

Until next time ;)

Great Wolf Lodge and Scared Too Death

2011-12-27T08:02:00.003-05:00

Last Wednesday we left for the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, Ohio for our Christmas trip with the Clarks. With small kids we decided that this was a good option this year (not to mention last minute!). We got there around 1:30 and got in our suits ready to play in the water. It was a blast for Weston. There were lots of slides, a canyon river ride, a tree house which had water flowing all over it, a wave pool and so much more. I was so surprised that Weston was brave enough to venture from the kiddie pool and go on some of the 'big' slides. He couldn't get enough. Audrey on the other hand was not a fan of getting splashed, so she was happy on the side lines being held and sleeping. Grammy even tried to take her on the lazy river but a bucket of water ended up directly on her head and that was the end.

At night they had story time, snow falling, and hot chocolate in the main lobby. Weston really enjoyed that. He was very entertained by the talking figures (trees, racoon, dummy's, moose and an owl).

It wasn't a great place for adults because it was so geared toward kids. Only 1 or 2 slides were actually really fast and a little thrilling.

We had a great time hanging out with family and staying up late playing cards and talking about cars, bet you can't guess who did what!

We left on Friday and headed to Columbus to spend the rest of the weekend there. On Saturday, we had a full day planned: Christmas brunch for the extended Clark Christmas at 10:30, Dinner at the Japanese steakhouse at 4, and Christmas Eve service at 6:30. This may not seem like a lot, but with little kids, it is a full day when you include naps and all that. Well, Audrey decided she would get sick that day. In the morning, she felt a little warm to me but I didn't think anything of it. She was clingy all day long and she felt hotter and hotter. I didn't pack a thermometer and there wasn't one available. I ended up picking one up at Target and when I finally took her temp in the afternoon, it was around 103. To the drugs we go! We went on with our day and after the Eve service Audrey was feeling a bit worse. I took her temp when we got home around 8pm and it was again around 103.5. She was acting like she was cold, so I did a normal mommy mistake and wrapped her up in a blanket. I handed her over to her uncle and went to get her medicine. As I was coming back, she let out this awful howl. I thought she was just getting tired. As I started to give her the motrin she started to have a seizure. It was the scariest moment of my life (well, probably in line with Weston's birth and me being told he would probably be sent to another hospital b/c he wasn't recovering). I grabbed my baby girl and literally screamed for Chad to call my mom. He immediately called her and my mom became the calming voice in this. She was telling Chad that she went through this with my sister and she also told us what to expect, but it didn't make it any easier. The seizure lasted for about 30 seconds, but it seemed like a lot longer than that. I was freaking out as her mouth, lips and the skin around her eyes started turning blue. After it was over, she was as limp as a rag doll and she wouldn't make any eye contact. I couldn't tell if she was breathing or if her heart was beating. She was just laying in my arms. She then starting making these panting noises and bubbles started coming out of her mouth. She didn't fully recover for about 10 or so minutes. By the time the paramedics got there, she was still pretty limp and not making eye contact, but she was getting fussy. My mom told us this was all normal. The paramedics also told us that they would feel comfortable not taking her if we were okay with that. I was, so we refused treatment and they left. They just told us to make sure and keep motrin or tylenol on board.

Needless to say, everybody was worked up that night. Chad and I slept with her on the couches all night. The next morning, with motrin in her system, she woke up with a fever of 103. I immediately jumped up and went out in search of a place that was open that had tylenol, on Christmas morning. I came back empty handed and decided that it was best to give her the next dose of motrin 1.5 hours early. I did not want a repeat of the previous night. Grammy and Grampy looked online and found a place that was open and they left to get her some tylenol so we could rotate meds, that was the only way we could keep her fever down.

I am glad to report that we haven't had any more episodes and that so far today, her fever has not come back. Mom keeps telling me that the next one won't be so scary, but I don't know if I'll be able to handle it with the grace that my mom does. I am so glad she is my momma!

Weston has picked up a bug as well and it reared its head yesterday at nap time when I found him in bed covered in yak. Poor kid. He is feeling well and has only had a minor fever. We are hoping this passes before tomorrow so we can head to my parents house bug-free.

Now on for the spoils of Christmas. Weston had a Choo-Choo Christmas. He received all Thomas the Train stuff. Audrey got a couple of toys and books (to share with her brother!) I am going through their toy collection here and am trying to decide if we need to donate some of these items. probably should have done this before the holiday season, but I am NOT that organized.

Weston had another first this Christmas. He made his debut on the singing scene. He was a part of the Clark's church's kids Christmas program. We were pretty happy with his performance even though he didn't even sing or smile. We were just happy he actually stayed up there. It was pretty cute. We may try to get a smile out of him next time.

Hello? Anybody Still There?

2011-12-14T12:59:00.003-05:00

Guess I should apologize for the belated post (s). I have been meaning to get on here and get this done, but I haven't and I apologize to those who were counting the days until I returned. I would suggest you don't do that, you may drive yourself crazy!

A LOT has happened since, when was the last time I posted...oh yeah, JUNE. We have been working very hard on our new home, installing wood flooring, painting, unpacking, running a marathon, getting a geo-thermal system installed, etc.

Yep, that's right, we bit the bullet and finally signed the contract, watched them destroy our lawn and burned up our credit card (which will be paid off of course!). I am hoping that we will be very pleased once our energy bills start showing the difference.

The kids are doing very well.

Audrey, who is 10 months, is well on her way to learning how to walk. She is practicing standing on her own and is walking holding our hands. I guess it's more like a wobble. She eats a ton, more than her brother ever did or rather does! She has already weaned herself and is drinking whole milk now. I'm not too upset about that seeing as she got her 4 front teeth in a matter of 2 days and knows how to use them!

Weston is 2.5 now and he loves, loves, LOVES, Thomas the Train, otherwise known as "choo-choo". In fact, he loves anything train right now, but mainly Thomas. We don't even have T.V. The only episodes he has seen are what I have allowed him to watch on our laptop through Netflix. I honestly hate the show. Who films a children's show with a plastic train set? Have you seen the program? The only mobile part on the trains is their eyes and the fake smoke that rises! It is so annoying. Only the very recent episodes are animated and almost likeable. For some reason though, this is the only program that Weston will actually sit and watch for a long period of time (spanning greater than 15 minutes). On the eating front, he's finally eating! He eats almost anything we put in front of him. I am thrilled that we no longer have him on the supplement. He is still a skinny tall little dude, but at least he is eating!

As for Chad and myself, we are busy working on the house. Back in September, I did run the Air Force Marathon at Wright-Patt AFB. It was a truly amazing experience. We got to the base very early-1.5 hours before start time. They tell you to get there that early for some unknown reason. Well, I didn't realize that Chad and his dad could come with me to the starting area, so I stripped off my sweats and sweatshirt and just roamed around in my shorts and t-shirt, freezing my rear end off. I did warm up after the first few miles of the race though!

I signed up to run with the 4:15 pace group and found them about 30 min before start time. The start was amazing. There was a flyover that featured the B-1B Lancer. It was so loud that it literally shook my chest cavity. All of the seasoned marathoners that were there said that it was the best start to any race they have ever been to.

After the first 5 miles, I was getting claustrophobic running in the group and getting jostled, so I decided to get ahead a little bit. The first 13 miles were awesome. I ran strong and felt great. About that time, my ankle started bothering me but I pushed through. Mile 17, it hurt too much and I had to start walk/running. I didn't walk much, maybe 10-30 seconds of each mile, just enough to give my ankle a break. Unfortunately, b/c of the overcompensation, my knee on the opposite side starting feeling it too. I pushed through and finished strong with a time of 4:23:48. The experience was indescribable. I met so many people running for different reasons, but the one that stuck with me most was a woman who was running in memory of her husband and 6 others that were killed in action this year. It broke my heart and brought me to tears out on the course.

As I was running and a few days/weeks afterwards, I said I would never run a full again, but as I think about this experience and all that it has rewarded me with I bet I will run again. I don't know when or where, but I've been infected!

I'm Back!

2011-06-09T14:50:00.002-04:00

Yet another long stretch of absent posts...good reason? YES!

We have finally moved and life is C-R-A-Z-Y. I am completely disorganized, not that I was the picture child of organization, and I am exhausted. So, since I am blogging from my parents clean orderly home, I will keep it short since I have to leave in about 10 minutes for a certain child's 4 month appointment ;).

Updates:

1. We moved! We are now living south of Centerville off of route 48. The house we bought is 80% subflooring, so Chad is putting in what seems like endless hours installing our beautiful hardwood floors. We looked at hiring somebody else to do it, but get real, you know us. Why would we pay for somebody else to do work that we can do? Sure, it would have been done weeks ago, Chad could have worked on the A/C in both cars, we wouldn't have to wear shoes in the house for fear of getting a staple, nail, or splinter lodged in our feet, etc. But, we would have had to pay them! I mean, who wouldn't have made the same decision. Oh man.

2. Audrey is 4 months old! She is so excited about her appointment today that she has been complaining crying for the last half hour. JUST GO TO SLEEP ALREADY!

3. Weston has busted his lip, face, knees, elbows, and body AND was the first to take a dip in our pool-not intentionally of course.

4. We have a pool and are working on opening it. I hear hazy green water is the in thing these days-makes it feel more natural right?

5. I'm signed up to run the Air Force Marathon on September 17th. What's that? You thought I hated running? Oh, I do so don't ask me what I was thinking :)

That's it. Who knows when you'll hear from me again or when I'll post pictures. Gotta start somewhere right?

My Finicky Eater

2011-03-23T13:40:00.004-04:00

I am the mother of a finicky eater. Sometimes he eats sometimes he doesn't; more frequently the latter. When he does eat, it is cause for great celebration. You see, Weston is pretty skinny as you know and the doc has him on some supplements to make sure he is getting at least some nutrition, even if the only way to get him to partake of it is by means of milk. It's not about what he likes and dislikes, one day he may eat a banana and the next day he wants nothing to do with them and spits them out of his mouth. I have learned not to cater to him because it's just not worth the extra trouble for him to take one bite and then only drink his milk.

For example, take today's lunch. I made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with homemade strawberry jelly of course, banana's and frozen peas. Here's before and after pics of todays lunch:

Before

After:

Big difference? nope, he only ate a couple bites and then: "All done"

Any recommendations?

On another note, it was beautiful outside...so we took advantage of this opportunity! Weston had fun pulling his wagon around and Audrey loved sitting outside while mommy read. Too bad the weather won't be lasting :(

St. Patty's Day Fun

2011-03-20T11:02:00.002-04:00

Look Who's 1 Month!

2011-03-02T15:05:00.002-05:00

sibling Love/Rivalry

2011-02-11T16:38:00.007-05:00

Thought I would post some pics of the sibling love/jealousy/rivalry going on in the household this past week and a half. Every time Weston sees somebody holding Audrey, he wants to be held to. What a funny little guy!

Welcome to the World Audrey Sue Clark!

2011-02-10T21:40:00.004-05:00

Sorry this has taken so long to post, but without further adieu I introduce to you little Miss Audrey Sue Clark born February 1st, 2011 at 8:44 a.m. She weighed 7 pounds 15.2 ounces and she was 20 inches long.

Audrey was born by c-section. They thought she was going to be big which she would have been about 9 pounds if I would have carried her as long as I carried Weston-which I more than likely would have :) Everything went well and I am so happy we are both healthy and that I am recovering well. I'm just a little sore yet.

Weston is doing well with his little sister. His little nose is just starting to get out of joint with the aspect of sharing mommy and daddy. I think however, that he will soon adjust well. Unfortunately though, Weston has come down with a bug and has been running a high fever all day, so hopefully little Audrey won't get it.

So there you go, that is enough for tonight b/c I am tired since we didn't get a lot of sleep last night b/c of Weston not the new born-funny eh?

Baby Baby Baby

2011-01-21T17:07:00.002-05:00

ok, no baby still, but here's the update-quickly :)

We are scheduled for a c-section on February 1st at 8am. They are concerned with the baby's size especially since weston got stuck and he was only 8lb 3oz. If I go into labor beforehand, we will labor it out and hopefully have a natural birth.

So that is the update. We will let you know when the new one arrives with all the details :)

As for now, that is it!

Christmas and Beyond!

2011-01-04T17:55:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas with family this year.

We traveled to New York with the Clark family for the annual ski trip. It was a lot of fun. Chad got to go boarding with his brothers and parents and even with Kristen for a day. He said it was the best conditions he's been in on the east coast! We got pretty lucky since we went in the early season.

We also were able to enjoy other festivities while there. Teri, Kristen and myself all got pedicures and massages-absolutely WONDERUL! We also went snow tubing and had our Christmas celebration while we were there. Weston got a toddler Bible from Uncle Cody and Aunt Kristen as well as a construction flashlight and a front loader from his uncle Cory and Leah. Grammy and Grampy got him a little people nativity scene plus some other small things. The little people nativity was enjoyed by his other cousins quite a bit at the Snyder Christmas.

After a week of fun, all were happy to get home and on a some-what normal schedule-including sleeping in separate beds and rooms from a certain child.

We were only home a couple days before the Snyders started their descent upon our home (actually my parents home! but i call it ours too since we have lived here now for over a year...good grief!)

Everybody was here by Thursday and we had a blast-a very exhausting blast. There was a lot of yelling and playing and screaming and eating-All in All...a lot of FUN!

Weston was spoiled to death of course at this Christmas celebration. He got a jumpy-zebra thing from AJ, a shake-up police car from Great Grandma Kilmer, a cars sleeping bag and a car toy with tools from Grandma and Grandpa and a dump truck from Uncle Jer and Aunt Erica.

We really enjoyed the family visit and hated to see everybody go. The week went way to fast.

We then had our own family Christmas on Sunday night after everybody left. We got weston 4 wooden puzzles and a cars suitcase which he drug around after him for the rest of the night and then next day.

I dont have pictures uploaded yet, but I will post when we do.

Now for the "beyond":

Baby update-We are now 35 weeks along-only 5 more weeks (maybe less!). This baby is very active still and I am having A LOT of contractions. I didn't have this with Weston so maybe my body is preparing to go a little earlier. I'll be starting my weekly appointments next week.

House update-We have backed out of yet another house b/c of lender-seller issues. What a hassle this whole thing has been. So we are back on the market. Now there is definitely no way we will be in our own place before the baby arrives, so my parents will have to deal with a newborn once again. Poor poor people! Hopefully the right one comes along soon!

That's all for now-Happy New Year!

Get Used to It

2010-12-07T12:44:00.005-05:00

That's right, you might as well get used to me not posting very much...I just don't have the ambition, longing, whatever you call it to get on here and update. I do try, but when I get on, I find very little to talk about. I guess that comes as no surprise to those of you who know me well...I'm not a great conversationalist and that has obviously carried over into my blog. My sincerest apologies for those that rely on this blog for updates!

Anyway, we have had a very busy past month with traveling and what not. And, it's not going to end until January rolls around.We were able to go to Indiana for Thanksgiving to visit my extended family, some of whom I haven't seen for at least a year or two.

Below, My cousin Kelly playing with the kids...The cousins did an awesome job playing/entertaining the little ones this year...don't know what I would have done without them!

Uncle Josh playing with Weston

Grandpa teaching Weston how to handle a firearm...It's never too early

It was great hanging out and catching up while enjoying great food, and believe you me, there was a lot of it! Unfortunately, the trip ended with all of us getting a nasty stomach bug that we brought back to Ohio. Weston was lucky enough only to get a minor bit of it, but the rest of us were feeling pretty terrible. But it has passed now and we are on to bigger and better things-such as...SNOW!

It has snowed a few inches here and Weston has loved playing in it! The downside of this snow is that it brought VERY cold weather with it. Yesterday, the windchill had us in the negatives...so we didn't get to play in it yesterday. But today, we spent about 45 minutes out there running around the yard.

On Sunday, Weston had his first Santa encounter of the year. It went much better than I anticipated. He didn't cry or scream this year when he sat in Santa's lap. He wasn't a huge fan, but at least we got a picture without tears!

Last week, Weston had his 18 month well-child checkup (even though he is 20 months...oops). He is still ranking in the 95% for height at a whopping 34.5". He has dropped to the 35% for weight though at 24 lbs. His cousin Elijah who is 12 months weighs just as much as him and probably soon will overtake him, pretty hilarious if you ask me! Since he is such a horrible eater, the practitioner that we saw recommended I put him on Carnation Instant Breakfast one time a day as a supplement to his diet as well as a multivitamin...just so our bases are covered. She also told me to start spreading a little bit of butter or such on crackers and other snacks that he has to add a little more fat to his diet...seeing that 3 glasses of vitamin D milk doesn't provide enough-good grief! Fortunately, Weston loves the Carnation chocolate mix and his vitamins, so that won't be a struggle. Now just to get him to eat actual food...good luck right?

As for the weston 2.0-I had my 30 week checkup last week and all looks well. We had an ultrasound to check the location of the placenta-which is fine. However, what they could tell on the ultrasound is that this child is on target to be as big or bigger than Weston 1.0. The ultrasound tech said that if they think size is going to be an issue since we are going to try for a VBAC, then they may do another late ultrasound to see just how big 2.0 is. Please pray that we'll be able to deliver naturally instead of another c-section.

Let Me Introduce Myself...

2010-11-03T16:35:00.007-04:00

Ok, so once again, I've failed, but I will keep trying to be good at this thing.

I cannot believe how fast October has flown by and November is already here! In fact, I lost track of time and forgot our credit card payment was due and today was the last day to pay it. On my walk, I remembered and immediately ran inside to pay it. Ok, I walked in-no running for this mama!

Weston had a great time over Halloween. He was the cutest bat in Ohio! We went to Delaware to participate in Trunk or Treat with Cousin Lucy and the Clarks. Then we headed to the nursing home and Trick or Treated with the residents and THEN we went to Troy and did the same with the Robinson's. Weston got the hang of it and had some fun walking up to the houses and putting the candy in his bucket all by himself.

This month we also went to an apple orchard so I could make some apple sauce. Unfortunately we missed the pick-your-own season, but Weston had fun none-the-less playing around the farm.

Some more fun that we had was at a pumpkin patch in Delaware with the Clarks-again. Weston got to shoot a sling shot, which he loved!

I was also able to take Weston to Fulton Farms with the Mom2Mom group from Ginghamsburg. We went on a hay ride, looked at animals and played in their straw playground. Weston also got a pumpkin.

So, as you can see, we have been very busy going to and fro in October. November doesn't seem like it will be any slower-All of our weekends are already booked-good grief!

A "Picturesque" Post

2010-09-28T09:26:00.008-04:00

It is what the title says it is. A long overdue request of some pictures for my sister-who by the way is NOT pregnant-at least that I know of. In my last post, I guess my wording made it sound like she was expecting as well...sorry for the misdirection. Maybe soon though? We could only hope!

Without any further adieu:

Mom's New Granite Countertops and her new fridge and microwave...nice :)

Closeup of the countertop

The new fun way to slide down a slide

Dinosaur boy

As soon as his eye caught this slide, he wanted nothing to do with the small slide

He climbed all the way up by himself at least 15 or 20 times-No joke. There were some distractions along the way though...so it took some time.

But mama wouldn't let him ride down alone, so daddy rode with him

Eating popcorn and relaxing with Grandma Snyder Sunday evening

A common occurrence: Weston sitting in the "Naughty Chair"

Playing in the rain

This kid loves his 4-wheeler but...

It's way easier to push than ride

Especially on the concrete

But sometimes it gets away from us

I didn't think this looked like a good idea. He rode it to the door and then decided to come back to me...

I was too busy putting my foot out to catch his face during the fall to snap a picture of the actual tumble down the step

The end result-no fat lip but a very bruised ego

Helping daddy with the plumbing-BIG TIME HELPER

And finally what you've been waiting for Erin:

21 Weeks and lookin' HUGE

We are having a.....

2010-09-24T13:46:00.003-04:00

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and we are having a baby! ha! We didn't find out what we are having...so you will have to wait another 20 weeks as well. Erin-maybe you should wait too. I think I'm going to tell mom you can't find out! It is REALLY going to kill you!

I should be mean to mom too, but I won't be mean to her!

Anyway, we were so excited that everything looks good-measurements are dead on to our due date.

I haven't got the pic's scanned yet, but when I do, I will post them.

We have definitely decided on a VBAC unless something happens that we can't. Which, in the ultrasound, our doc said that the placenta is lying low and covering the cervix. We will have another ultrasound on week 30 to see if it has moved up. More than likely it will, 90% of the time they do. However, if it doesn't, then we will have to have another c-section. But I'm not concerned or worried about it, what happens happens and God is in control.

I forgot to mention my moms group has started up again and I look forward to it EVERY thursday morning. I don't know what I'd do without it. If you aren't part of a mom's group, find one!

As for now, I am going to lay down. nap time!

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-08T11:21:00.003-04:00

We had a great weekend with the Clarks in Rushville, Oh. What? You have no idea where that is-it's okay, neither did we! Rushville is located about 45 minutes south of Columbus outside of Lancaster. We stayed in a very large and wonderful cabin. It had an indoor pool and hot tub and sat on 100 acres. We swam a little bit, had great nights out by the fire eating s'mores and talking, walking through the woods (guys more than gals!), playing pinball and pool, socializing, and lots of other stuff.

Weston did so well while we were gone. He had one rough night, but all recovered well from it. He had a blast dancing like a fool to various records.

Today, Weston decided to wake up early. He finished out his morning in mommy and daddy's bed. He paid for it later on when playing with his toys:

Poor little guy was exhausted. He barely stirred when I picked him up to put him to bed. Gotta love the little guy.

As far as our other little guy/gal, he/she is doing just fine. I am feeling well-no more sickness! We have our 20 week ultrasound in 2 weeks-the only thing we'll be doing is making sure everything is okay...no sneak peaks until February though!

On the house hunting front, we are putting in another offer on a place. It's not our dream home, but it is a very nice home. We will make it work until we find the place of our dreams...or maybe, this one will turn out to be it!

End of August

2010-09-01T16:28:00.004-04:00

I can't believe it is September already! and it's my Dad's birthday today-not that he reads this thing...but Happy Birthday Dad! I know one little boy who couldn't live without you!

The past few weeks have been busy with us being gone on the weekends and taking care of my monster!

Weston also had his first real fat lip. All I heard was a crash bang! in the kitchen and this was the result:

I didn't realize how nasty it was until i was able to peel him off of my shoulder and found my shirt soaked in blood. Poor little guy almost bit through his lip. He's mostly healed up now, just a mark is left. Of course he hasn't learned his lesson, he is still a climbing fiend!

This weekend, we will be with the Clark family in Rushville at a very nice home. Hopefully it will be a very relaxing weekend full of fun and excitement!
I had to buy a maternity swimsuit for the weekend too because mine no longer fits! i justified my actions because more than likely i'll be using it on our annual Clark Christmas trip! Don't even think there will be a picture of me modeling said bathing suit on here!

as for now, weston is beggin me to pay attention to him! Happy Labor Day everybody!

The Joys and Sorrows of the Hunt

2010-08-13T10:52:00.002-04:00

Ever since we found out that Chad got the job in Centerville we have been searching for a home. We have looked at over 50 houses and I tell you what, I don't want to look at one more place. I am sick of the search. We finally put a bid in on a place that we really liked and found out that the day we put our offer in, the place sold-rats. I was super excited to not have to go look at any more houses-the search was over!

So now we continue to look. We are going to be pickier now so we don't have to look at so many places that we know we aren't going to like.

So if you have any houses that are for sale in the Centerville, Ohio area, let us know!

As far as Weston is concerned, he is running and talking and wreaking havoc. My boy-what a delightful kid.

His vocabulary has expanded to include-tiger, diaper (pronounced Biper), no (his favorite, even when he doesn't mean it), cheese, night night, and probably others I have forgotten.

Last weekend, Chad and I went away for our anniversary to Hocking Hills. It was great. We stayed in a BEAUTIFUL cabin at Bear Run Inn. We hiked and biked and got to see a lot of really cool sights. It was crowded at a few of them, but the hiking was still fun. I can't say the same for the mountain biking. I believe I walked my bike more than I rode it AND I made chad flip over his handle bars. I can't say that it is the first time. I've always told him not to ride to close behind me but he doesn't take me seriously-stinking kid.

Since I haven't posted a pic in a while:

4 Years-and I FORGOT!

2010-08-06T08:30:00.002-04:00

It's true, I forgot my anniversary-but to be fair-so did Chad! Oh boy, really? I mean we've only been married 4 years and we both forgot it was our anniversary yesterday-sentimental we are NOT! lol. Our excuse, we are leaving for the weekend today to go to Hocking Hills to celebrate, so we both were thinking our anniversary was this weekend, not yesterday. Thanks to a good friend, I was reminded before Chad found out. I could have played the, "How could you forget something like this?" card, but I didn't think about it.
Anyway, yes we are going to Hocking Hills and staying in a cabin at Bear Run Inn tonight and tomorrow night. We are pretty excited to go. Weston is staying with his grammy and grandpa Clark-so is greta. I think Grandpa is more excited about the dog than his grandson! Kidding, but he truly does ask if we are bringing the dog every time we go out there-silly man.
We went house hunting last night, and I think we topped 50 houses with the viewings we saw. I think we had anniversary luck because we found a house that we both really really liked. So maybe, just maybe....
Well, I should really be doing something productive-I'll think about getting up in a bit :)

I Stink At This...

2010-07-29T10:54:00.002-04:00

I would love to make the excuse that I am just way to busy to blog, but honestly, I can't. I have to admit-I spend most of my day sitting on the couch anticipatin Weston's next move-and by that I mean listening to see where he is or what he is getting into, watching him as he precariously climbs on furniture and running after him after I hear a crash followed by screams. So, I have plenty of time to blog, but if I try, I have to keep it simple, otherwise I will have forgotten what I was writing before running off to save/chase/punish my little angel. Speaking of the little angel, he now has a naughty chair that he has to sit in when he doesn't listen to me. Shockingly enough, he actually stays in the chair screaming until I decide he has sat there long enough and is calming down. At that point, I tell him he can get out of the chair, but he won't until I go over there and pick him up. I'm pretty sure he doesn't get that he is allowed to leave the chair otherwise. It seems this is working better than swatting. I actually use it in accordance sometimes with swats or hand smacks. He's starting to get the picture :)
We just returned from Myrtle Beach Sunday morning at 3:30 a.m. We had a great time aside from the lack of sleep-thanks to Weston. I loved spending time with the whole family (minus Tony and Chad). We went to the beach almost every day. We didn't do any big activities. There was a plan to go and do a fishing trip, but somehow that never got done. Maybe next year!
Aside from great memories, we came home with tans and Weston came home with some bleached out beach baby hair. I didn't take too many pics b/c I was too lazy to get the camera out. It's so hard to reach for the camera all the time when all you want to do is take in the moment. I will definitely have to get better at that.
I tried to load a video that I managed to capture-the kids were having a great time playing at the window watching people go by and screaming...However, blogger won't let me. So sorry!

In other news, remember that blog post I wrote a while ago saying that we had other news to share, but I wasn't allowed to then? Well, here it is, we are definitely moving to Centerville. Chad loves his new job (I guess he probably wouldn't put it that way b/c he's a man) but anyway, we are going to do a second look at some houses tonight and hopefully one of them will be the one that we get to put the offer on. We are definitely ready to be on our own. Something about living with your parents for a year just doesn't sit well with us-even though its been awesome. Love you mom and dad and thank you!

Here's some other news-we sold our Subaru last night-how sad. We figured it was time. Of course, then, the Breeze decided that last night it was time for it to break down. The AC compressor went out which broke the belt. Without that belt you can't drive the car because that belt also runs the alternator. Rats. What great timing. Mom and Dad have been wonderful letting us borrow cars and shuffling around their schedules to help us out-LIFE SAVERS!

Ok, enough with that stuff...you want the REAL NEWS? Chad and I are finally feeling safe enough to let everyone know that we are expecting our next child February 8th! We are 12.5 weeks along. We had an early ultrasound at week 7 and I had an appointment on Tuesday and heard the heartbeat. According to the doctor, since we heard the heartbeat, the chance of miscarriage now drops to 2%. We are so excited and can't wait to welcome this new addition into our family!

The Fourth

2010-07-08T15:51:00.004-04:00

Another Fourth has come and gone and boy did we have a busy (but fun!) weekend!
We attended two reunions that weekend-both on the Clark side. We had a great time hanging out with and getting to know (Weston and I at least!) extended relatives that we only get to see maybe once a year.
Fortunately, Papa Kent (Weston has now started saying papa in the cutest way to both of his grandpa's. We're still working on saying grandma more regularly-which comes out of his mouth as gamma.)
Anyway, Papa Kent bought a slip and slide for the festivities and it was a huge hit! The kids loved playing in it. In fact, when it was time to take the family picture, Weston was awfully unhappy about getting out of the water.
Can you tell that my baby loves the water?

We are thinking that wherever we move to, we are going to need a hill for some awesome slip n' slide days!
In some news on the little guy, he is 15 months old today. He now has 3 molars and I believe one more is on the way. Poor guy needs a break! He is very clingy and as of lately-grumpy!
However, I think he has a pretty good excuse for the grumpiness.
My 3 brothers were in town for a golf outing, which made for some cramped sleeping quarters for my little family. Weston did pretty well sleeping the same room as mommy and daddy. However, he did wake more often and earlier than normal. If I was sleeping on a hard pack n' play surface rather than my comfortable mattress, I wouldn't sleep as well either.
We had a great visit with Weston's uncles-boy did he love them. They were pretty good entertainers. I think Weston was confused with his uncle cory since cory looks quite a bit like grandpa. He just stared at Cory for the longest time, but warmed up quickly too him.
Being a bad mommy, i of course failed to grab any pictures of the uncles.
I'll make it happen in Myrtle Beach though, which we leave for in a little more than a week. Can't wait! (of course the heat can subside and I wouldn't mind!)

Laughter

2010-06-24T13:01:00.003-04:00

I know I haven't posted in a while and I don't have time today, but I wanted you all to hear my sweet boy's laugh while playing his favorite game: (sorry it's sideways, i dont know how to fix it yet and am too lazy to figure it out!)

Updates-FINALLY!

2010-06-14T11:00:00.002-04:00

So, I am finally allowed to tell the world what has really been going on in our lives the past, well, YEAR.
I was actually allowed to tell last Monday, but never got around to it, so I will give a short dialogue since I really need to go workout whilst the little cranky man is sleeping.
As you all know, Chad lost his job with Ingersoll Rand a little over a year ago. A few months after that, he got hired on at KTH in St. Paris, Oh. We were excited that he got a job so quick, however, it wasn't really a job that matched his education or skill level. KTH was great though-they have awesome insurance and a pretty good vacation policy. All in all, they treated us pretty well!
Even so, Chad wanted something that challenged him. So onto the journey that got us to where we are now :)
Chad has been applying and interviewing at several different places this past year, some near and some far. Such places include: Wilmington, Oh; Columbus, Oh (two or three different jobs); Piqua, Oh; Centerville, Oh; St. Joseph, MI; Davidson, NC; and the farthest-Oak Harbor, WA.
Chad has gotten some pretty nice trips out of this whole process-two of which I got to tag along-Michigan and Washington. He received right around 7 offers-most were pretty decent. However, we knew God was telling us to be patient. A few of the places we thought were it-such as Washington and Davidson. We picked a number that they would have to offer us in order for us to relocate and we decided if they offered that number, we wouldn't question it, we would just go. Well, God definitely had his hand in this and the offers that came through were good and pretty close, but they weren't what we decided on.
Then comes this job in Centerville-close enough to family and a great job. I was skeptical at first because the company is pretty small. Chad interviewed 4 times there. After each interview, I became more and more excited about the deal. The company seems awesome. They are basing their management principles off of the book The Servant Leader. How awesome!
Chad has finally found his new job! He starts at this company-Tark-on Monday. This is his last week at KTH. He is very excited, as am I!, about this new life we are about to embark on! Our patience has finally paid off!
We are now house hunting in Centerville ready to get on our feet again!
Thank you for all the prayers and help that everybody has given us this past year and half! It has been truly amazing.
I only have one more bit of info that I am not allowed to post at this time, but in due time, the restriction will be lifted and I will be able to share!

Not Me Monday!

2010-06-07T08:45:00.002-04:00

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog www.mycharmingkids.net to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I did not foolishly go to the strawberry patch and think that I needed to pick 35 lbs of strawberries to make 50 jars of jam. Not me, I knew that many strawberries would make a mere 100 jars. Which means that I did not have to run to the store again and buy more jars and pectin and I did not have to spend 12 hours making jam instead of my normal 4. Not me, I am a great planner!

I did not feed my child cereal for dinner 2-3 times this past week because it was easier to let him feed himself that instead of feeding him a real nutricious meal. And I did not let him play in the leftover cereal and yogurt and make a HUGE mess that not only covered him but also covered the chair and parts of the floor last night while I finished making jam. Good thing I don't own a dog who didn't help clean up the floor and whatever body parts she could reach on Weston.

I never wait more than 3 days to wash my diapers (HA!) I did not have a large load that did not end up breaking the post that held up the clothesline. I would never...

My husband, while watching said child mentioned above, did not let him play in...um...dog poo from the non-existant dog mentioned about while working outside. No, he pays way more attentiont to what our child plays with!

Finally and best off all-
Chad did not accept a job offer from a company in Centerville last week and we will not be moving in the near future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if you don't get this post, you need help. But just in case-Chad has a new job! I will fill in all the details later on. He finally let me tell since he put his notice in at work today. Hurray!

Diapershops.com

2010-06-03T15:27:00.004-04:00

So, I love cloth diapers and I know we are going to be needing more of them when we finally have another child.
Diapershops.com is have a facebook giveaway of 6 BG diapers! Hopefully I'll be the one to win! I've never used these, but have heard great things about them.
I love the convenience of this site and how great they treat their customers-holding giveaways all the time! They also have a great variety to choose from.
Wish me luck!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-26T08:48:00.003-04:00

The Joys of Genes

2010-05-21T13:51:00.002-04:00

First of all, I want to dedicate this post to my mother-the woman who has passed on to me many wonderful genes one of which is my teeth (grammer here? sounds wrong, but I think it may be right)
Here's some background-I have horrible teeth, thanks mom. I brush, floss and use mouthwash about twice a day. Some days I miss one of the steps, but for the most part, I try to keep this regimen up. Why? well, apparently for nothing. I have +/- 9 fillings. I don't understand this. Chad brushes-ONLY brushes-once a day, and that is if I remind/nag him too. How many fillings does chad have? ONE. and he swears there wasn't a cavity, but that the dentist just wanted to make some money that day.
Anyway, back in December, I had an appt with the dentist. I was supposed to get my x-rays then, but that was when I was pregnant, so I didn't get them.
At this appt, they did my x-rays and they found a deep deep cavity on a tooth that was already filled. Just great.
Monday was my appt to have it filled. Luckily the dentist knows me and numbed me up real well. He did have to numb me in the middle of the appt b/c of the depth of the cavity. I was shaking and all worked up throughout. When they were done, I felt such relief.
However, that night, my mouth began to hurt. The words of the dentist kept echoing in my ear-gravity is not in our favor. so much of the tooth was filled that my mom thinks i will have to have a root canal. AHHHH! those words freak me out...i am such a baby when it comes to the dentist. I would rather deliver a baby than go to the dentist.
Last night, my tooth began to ache after I flossed and a piece of the filling fell out-Oh no.After some ibuprofen, much relief and no issues this morning. Hopefully that is the way it stays.
Thank you mom-i will always attribute my mouth maladies to you-much love to the root canal queen.

More waiting

2010-05-18T11:08:00.002-04:00

The next couple weeks are going to be full of more waiting...
I can't wait to share with everybody what has been going on in our lives...but as soon as i'm allowed to unseal my lips-you will know it!
Now for what I'm allowed to talk about.
This weekend mom and I went to Indiana to visit the grandma's and the extended family that live in the area. It was very nice to be out there and see everybody. it would be nice to be able to go out more.
Weston really enjoyed the visit, but was so exhausted that he slept almost the whole 3.5 hour trip home.
Mom went in yesterday to get her port put in for the chemo treatments that will start on Friday. Please keep her in your prayers as she goes through these treatments for the next 6 months.
Well that is all for now :)

A whole lotta...Nothing!

2010-05-06T13:30:00.003-04:00

I'm not really one for blogging when nothing happens worth blogging about. But, I don't want everybody to go stir crazy waiting for an update on our unbelievably exciting life ;)
What's been going on? Nothing. So...
Without further adieu-here's what you came to see.

The Past Year in Review

2010-04-28T09:48:00.004-04:00

I started this post on Tuesday...now it's Friday. Where has the time gone!

Our little family took a trip up to St. Joseph, MI last weekend. Weston had a great time playing on the beach there...even though it was really tough for him to walk. In fact, it was impossible for him to walk in the sand. He just kept falling over. It was truly fun and precious to watch him experience sand for the first time (well, aside from when he was 3 months old when we went to myrtle beach-that doesn't really count though b/c he didn't really care much for the whole thing).
After many attempts at walking, he decided it was best if he just sat there. So he sat and stared at the little boys throwing sand at each other. I made sure to let him know this was not appropriate behaviour and that if he decides to partake in such behaviours, mommy will make the sand extinct...that's what we tell him about everything-if he plays more with his toy tirger instead of eating, then the tiger will go extinct (we take it away) but you get the point. All of his toys at one point or another have or will have gone extinct or are endangered.

This year has been one of many trials and a lot of fear/anxiety.
Last March/April, Chad lost his job.
Hard core remodeling of the house starts seeing as we couldn't afford it on unemployment.
April 8th-After 26 hours of exhausting labor, our precious boy was born by emergency c-section. We were told he might have to be taken to a hospital in Toledo if he didn't straighten up. He got his act together and I got to hold him 4 hours later.
May/June-Chad gets hired on at KTH. We live half of our time in Bryan and the other half in New Carlisle until October.
July-Our house goes on the Market.
October-Our house sells-all of our stuff gets moved to storage-where it still sits.
November-We find out we are expecting.
December/January-we tell the news of our pregnancy.
January 12-I had a miscarriage.
April-Mom gets diagnosed with breast cancer, has a bi-lateral masectomy, and awaits news of further treatment.
Busy busy-Not to mention all of the travelling we have been doing.
What a busy year. And all of this was mixed in with our day to day lives and holidays and family gatherings. If God would have told me we were going to go through everything that we did this year-I wouldn't have believed him. In fact, I wouldn't have believed that we would make it through and be stronger and closer than we were at the beginning of it all. This could rip a family a part. Thankfully we made it!
Well, i ought to A. either get lunch or B. Go mow whilst little one sleeps.

Happy Birthday my Sweet Baby Boy!

2010-04-20T11:31:00.010-04:00

Ok, so this is a little delayed...but, never-the-less, Happy 1st Birthday Weston! You're birthday was actually almost 2 weeks ago! I can't believe how fast this past year has flown by. It makes me so sad. I have been looking through your pictures from when you were just a little guy. Do you remember this day? I do. I remember just like it was yesterday. Everyday I feel so blessed that God decided to give you to us-even when you are a big fat crankypants monster! You were such a ladies man!In fact, you still are! You are walking like a big boy-barely ever crawling. You are saying new words each day. Your vocabulary includes but is not limited to: mama, daddy, doggie (these two are confused sometimes :) ) here, all done, want mama and shoe. You help us dress you and you fight us when we change your diaper...for some reason you still don't like that. you absolutely love to be outside. You fall ALL THE TIME and have a consistent bruise on your head from such falls. You've taken a tumble down the stairs, but you still don't fear them. You love your puppy greta and she lets you climb all over her. At your doctors appointment, you measured in at 32" and weighed in at 21 lbs and 12.5 ounces. You are in the 95th percentile for height and 40th for weight-skinny and lean like your daddy. We love you so much my handsome little boy! Eat your cake little guy, you deserve it! Happy Birthday-we pray for many more to come!

Not Me Monday!

2010-04-05T15:05:00.003-04:00

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog www.mycharmingkids.net to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Just to keep our little guy happy in the car, I did not feed him half of a chocolate bunny while he was not wearing his very cute easter outfit with a white shirt. I would not dare let him drool chocolate spit all over his clothes!

This weekend while staying out in the middle of nowhere in a circa late 1800's cabin, while carrying weston in the backpack, my husband did not proceed to walk weston's head straight into the limb of a tree-he is way too careful to do that.

We decided to take a bike ride along the Ohio River in Marietta this while in the area. On said trip I did not take my son's nasty poopy diaper and dump the more solid part in a trash can (there were no restrooms nearby!) and then after checking to see if anybody was looking proceed to rinse it out in the Ohio River, not me, I wouldn't dare contaminate that crystal clear water with little Weston feces, NOT ME! Oh the joy of cloth diapers!

Go on and admit some of your embarrassing moments!

the bird

2010-03-31T10:54:00.002-04:00

I forgot to tell you what kind of bird that was in the previous post found here http://chadandemilyclark.blogspot.com/2010/03/back-from-washington-state.html
Did you know? Believe it or not, it is a bald eagle! there were actually 2 of them flying overhead in Oak Harbor but by the time I got my camera out, there was only one. Absolutely amazing!
Here's a cropped view:

And My Heart Skipped a Beat

2010-03-31T10:19:00.004-04:00

We've had a lot going on lately some of which have challenged us spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Some may believe that this is TMI so it's a good thing that it doesn't bother me...well, it may if somebody says something to me, but as long as I don't hear it, I don't care!
Before I go to far for those who are interested in the meaning of the title, I'll explain it a little later.
It has been 11 or 12 weeks since our miscarriage. I had my first monthly visitor in February-how exciting right! We could start trying to concieve (TTC) again! So, after much waiting, I started testing in March 5 days before I should have started. Negative. First day of missed period-Negative. 3 Days after-Negative. 1 WEEK after-Negative. I am now going on 2 weeks when I should have started and its getting hard-really hard. Some days I feel like I am experiencing the miscarriage all over again. We (I) pray often for God to bless us with another child, but we have yet to hear a "Yes".
I thought that with as easy as it was to concieve Weston and the baby we lost, we would have no issues TTC with the next. I don't have answers to any of the Why's that have been popping up in my head. We just have to keep relying on God and trusting that his timing is perfect, his ways are perfect. We like to think we know best, but that just isn't true and sometimes that truth hurts.
There is another big decision that we are trusting God with. It has been an emotionally taxing process. Chad and I have been back and forth on this decision weighing the pro's and con's of it. I will share when the time is appropriate though, sorry about keeping you out in the cold!
Lastly for this post and the explanation of the title, I started babysitting 2 children yesterday. The little girl is 9 months old and the boy is 2 1/2 years old. I will be watching them every Tuesday for the next 8 weeks. I watch them at their house so it is easier on them. Anyway, yesterday went really well except for one incident-not involving their children but my own. I had Weston by his hand and the 9 month old on my hip. We were getting ready to go down stairs to the living room. I'm sure you've already figured out what happened next...Weston decides to pull his hand down and he tumbled ALL THE WAY DOWN the whole flight of stairs and landed on the linoleum at the bottom. Luckily he rolled down and didn't go head over heels. I uttered and explitive and shot down the stairs, but the baby down and picked up my thankfully wailing son. My heart stopped as I watched him in slow motion bumping, thumping and banging down the stairs. While in shock I check him over and called my mom. I was in tears as she walked me through what to check on him. What scared me most was that after he quit crying he started drifting off to sleep in my lap as he was sitting up right. Granted he was tired beforehand, but this was so terrifying. I checked on him often and thank God in Heaven he was ok. He doesn't even have a bruise or a bump. That was one of the worst and most emotionally exhausting moment in my life (after his birth of course :) )
so now to lighten the mood of this post, Weston got his first haircut and he now looks like a little boy now. He did not enjoy the haircut AT ALL. His daddy was the barber...

Weston also fancies laying on the dog bed and reading, gross I know, I hate reading too! ha...kidding:

Back from Washington State

2010-03-22T13:10:00.006-04:00

Chad and I just returned from our trip to WA Saturday evening. What a whirlwind trip...but oh how beautiful and fun! We had some time to go hiking and see the sights around the Oak Harbor area. I thought it was beautiful...what about you? Can you tell what kind of bird is flying overhead in the first picture?

Park

2010-03-17T10:30:00.008-04:00

Hope you enjoy these photo's as much as we enjoyed visiting the park last night!

; height: 214px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BTfKtkJwfKk/S6DpGHNb4EI/AAAAAAAAATY/kQ619ke8brQ/s320/DSC_0066.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449611840342188098" />

"Dahgggeeee"

2010-03-16T09:46:00.002-04:00

ok...i don't really know how to spell it like he says it, but I'm pretty sure Weston's first word is "doggy". I know, how sad right...it should be mommy or daddy, no, it's doggy. Come on kid! I first heard this one when Weston was standing at the door looking outside at the dogs and all of the sudden he squeals, "Dahgee!"
I know that he has looked at both chad and I and said deliberately, "Mama or mommy and dada or daddy." but he also looks at other things or just randomly says those words.
I guess that means I don't really know what his first word was. Grandma Snyder swears he said "here" when he handed her something.
Officially then, I'm going to say that Weston has a few first words, we're not going to narrow it down...even though it was obvious he was saying doggy. silly boy.

This thursday Chad and I will be leaving weston for 3 days. I am so nervous and scared to leave him for that long. I haven't even left him overnight. This is going to be difficult b/c I love putting my little guy to bed and waking him in the morning. It is a time that Chad and I both cherish, putting him to bed that is :). We take that time as a family to read and cuddle and just spend some quiet time together.
I am also weaning him completely. The bedtime feeding is the hardest to give up. I just pray that we will be strong through this. I also pray that Weston will transition well.
My little boy is growing up faster than I could have ever imagined.

Please Pray

2010-03-10T14:03:00.001-05:00

Please be praying for the family of Layla Grace,
Read their story here:

www.laylagrace.org

My blog is fixed!

2010-03-10T13:48:00.004-05:00

My blog was being hijacked-kind of, but it is now fixed! Hurray!!!! I went to the help forum, and posted a question about this. Everytime somebody tried to access my blog, they were redirected to another site. Well, the problem was my real-time counter gadget that I added a few months ago. So if you are having issues with your blogs being redirected to another site, remove your most recently added gadget.
Anyway, you can read my posts now without being taken to a different site.
Aside from fixing my blog today, I have accomplished...well, not much :) Laundry, working out, fixing breakfast and lunch for little guy, showering-ok, that is a lot for me! This is especially true when I am working on one project and find this in the kitchen...

Aside from playing in the kitchen cabinets, Weston has been fascinated with his toy that he got at christmas from Gma and Gpa Snyder-unfortunately, it plays music really loud and he has learned how to turn the music on...oh boy...

And when we are not playing but eating, Weston entertains himself by feeding the dog from the highchair when mommy and daddy aren't looking. And when we are looking, the dog takes the liberty of feeding himself from the food that Weston drops, not on the floor, but in his chair....

How could i let the dog do this...well, it was funny and it kept me from having one more chore :)

Spring!!!

2010-03-09T11:22:00.003-05:00

I love the weather! the snow is melting and the sun is shining! I feel like I'm in paradise...ok, not really, but I am so excited that the weather is turning from nasty snow, wind, grossness to wonderful sunny warm spring!
We get to play outside without layers and worry of frostbite. The only downside is the mud, but i'll take the mud over the alternative.
Spring also brings about other celebrations in the clark/snyder household, such celebrations as Weston's 1 year birthday!

I know, it can't be, but it is. Weston will be 1 in one month. I can't believe he is going to be turning one in a few more weeks. It makes my heart so glad, but also, I am very emotional about this time because he is no longer my baby, he is my little boy who is walking, throwing, solid-food eating, milkshake-weaning, almost talking and tantrum throwing sweet heart. How can he be growing up so fast :(
I love you my little man, even when you drive me crazy :)
So what are we doing for the big birthday bash? Well, we were thinking of travelling to an exotic destination and flying all our friends and family to join us on our private jet. Unfortunately, the jet is having some mechanical issues, so we have decided to stay home and enjoy some cake and ice cream-perhaps an ice cream cake from dairy queen...mmmmm.
I still don't know what to get my little man for his big day. Chad wants to just get a bunch of card board boxes, which in all reality would be just fine because weston really enjoys playing in them, however, I can't bring myself to that. What will happen when Weston is getting pictures around for his graduation party in 17 years. (ok, i'll be doing this, but just for the sake of argument...) He will notice that mom and dad were too cheap to buy him real presents and instead they opted to go to wal-mart and retrieve all of their free boxes.
Needless to say, i am going to get something for my darling...but I just need to figure out what. Any suggestions?

Fun Fun Fun

2010-03-02T11:01:00.004-05:00

As I am sitting here-originally catching up on family/friend blogs, I am laughing at my son-but i must preface this before going on so you will understand. I don't want people to think i'm a messy person :)
I decided to wash the diaper bag yesterday b/c it was DISgusting. it hasn't been washed EVER. and trust me, if you have a diaper bag and child and/or children, then you know how disgusting these bags can get. Anyway, I emptied the bag onto the couch and thought I was being so smart to organize everything so i could put it right back in the bag after it dried. HA.
Now, onto the story of why I am laughing which I am sure you have already figured it out. Weston is so gently (NOT) pulling things off the couch and throwing them behind him. It is hilarious b/c he looks at me and laughs almost after every thing that he throws off the couch. And now, he is chewing on a plastic spoon that he found-still in the wraper from Wendy's. He is absolutely adorable. And now the chapstick has caught his attention. I absolutely love love love my little guy, even when he's a stinker! He is just too fun! if i had my camera by me, i would take a pic for you, but then he would get distracted and stop being so cute...ok, he would still be cute, but he wouldn't stay where he is.
Another thing, he's getting 2 more teeth-making a total of 6. OUCH
Last but not least-do you remember the post I wrote about the little guy not sleeping? well, we had some trying nights, and now the little guy is sleeping again without me. Sleeping so well in fact that he fell asleep last night in grandpa's arms around 7-Bedtime isn't until 8. So I went ahead and took him downstairs and put him to bed without his milkshake and guess what time he slept til? 9:30. That's right...14 straight hours of hard core sleeping. What a good little boy. Have i mentioned how much i love the little guy who is now standing right beside me grinning and spitting and growling?

Joshua Levan

2010-02-28T21:56:00.002-05:00

Please pray for the Levan family as today, they have both welcomed and said goodbye to their dear little boy Joshua Levan. Here is their story:
www.jonandkristinlevan.blogspot.com
How my heart aches for them right now.

Teeth and Hair...

2010-02-25T14:37:00.003-05:00

So last night was AWFUL. I felt like i had a newborn all over again, except for a lot louder screaming! We put Weston to bed around 8pm-which is his normal bedtime and he goes down just fine, mostly. Well last night, he just screamed and screamed and screamed. This was puke inducing screaming. After laying him back down several times and changing him b/c he had puked on himself from screaming, I decided to just hold him and try to get him to sleep. That didn't work, he kept screaming. So dad came down and took him, what a sacrifice :) Dad eats it up when he gets to be the one to calm the screamer. Dad help him for a few hours and put the screamer to bed around 10pm. He was sleeping!!! Hurray!
Come 1am-SCREAMING again. So i went in there and laid down with him. He fell asleep and I went to put him to bed and he started screaming again. This time, he was practically hyperventilating. We went upstairs and I thought he was going to wake the entire neighborhood. i gave him motrin and then laid down with him again and stayed in bed with him until 7 am. Then i went to my bed for an hour.
When we did get up this morning, i put my finger in the screamer's mouth and felt a sharp little point-AH HA! No wonder. Why in the middle of the night did I not check his mouth? I was so frustrated with the little guy b/c of all nights, he had to do it on the one when we actually needed to sleep b/c we had plans in the morning? I was to the point of breaking last night when he wouldn't quit screaming even while I walked him. Poor poor guy. He's stuck with a non-understanding mommy who gets angry and frustrated at her little guy for being in pain. It just makes you feel horrible.
Well, he is now napping and has been for about an hour and a half, so this is kind of nice :)
On the way home from my Mom's group, I decided to stop and get my hair cut b/c I am going out of town this weekend and would like to not look so shaggy. I didn't want to drive to Columbus and pay extra money to get my hair done at the salon that I got it done at before. Then,I only had to pay $6 for highlights and a cut b/c a girl needed to have hair models. Well, I told myself I wouldn't go back b/c it was too expensive (i could only get that deal once...rats!) and it was too far to drive. Well, there is a salon nearby that I stopped at. I didn't want to go to a chain place b/c I have had bad experiences there. I probably shouldn't have done that. My hair is uneven, chopped and she cut bangs-not sweeping bangs like i had before...shorter bangs. It doesn't look good at all! She cut it dry-didn't even wet it down at all...so there are areas where the hair is obviously longer.
I am going to have chad look at it and see if i am over-reacting. If not, I am going to call the salon and see if i can get in either tonight or tomorrow. if not, we'll just have to wait it out.
Good grief...I think it is nap time.

Family Update

2010-02-24T09:54:00.006-05:00

Sorry for my laziness. I've been wanting to post for a while now, but haven't quite had the umph to do it. So now I'm going to. Don't be surprised if this is a short post. Weston has made some strides lately-literally. Our little guy is starting to WALK! Of course this takes some encouragment from the peanut gallery, but he can take about 5 or 6 steps in a row before being overcome with excitement that he falls over. Here is a video of our little guy going! Please ignore my annoying voice :(

There are some other videos but I'm too embarrased of the audio that I won't put them up :( He has only taken a few steps without us encouraging him, so it probably wont be too long before he is going strong. I am so excited for Weston, but I am also saddened because my little guy is growing up. I miss my baby, but I love my little boy so much. He is getting so big and growing so fast. These days are fleeting and it tears my heart to pieces.
Here are some other pics of Weston for your viewing pleasure:

The dog is very patient...

Getting ready to go out in the cold-he loves his goggles :)

Me? I didn't eat any cake...I don't know what you're talking about

Check out this give-away!

2010-02-12T13:48:00.002-05:00

Great give-away today! Check it out!
http://mckgiveaways.blogspot.com/2010/02/kelly-moore-camera-bag-giveaway.html

Happy Valentines Day!

2010-02-12T13:13:00.002-05:00

This weekend is for lovers! Right.
Tonight Chad and I are going to the restaurant at Confluence Park where we got engaged. We got a $50 certificate from motherhood maternity when I bought some summer maternity clothes back in November or December. The stipulations are that we have to spend $100 in order to use it. Well, that won't be hard :) The place is quite pricey, but from what I remember from 4 or 5 years ago is that it is really good food. We are treating ourselves...so I shouldn't feel guilty about spending a little extra. I think we deserve it. Well, maybe we don't, but I sure feel like we need a break from our lives.
Weston thinks so too, but he is a bit jealous that he doesn't get to go, so he made me pay for it last night. We put cranky pants to bed around 7:15 b/c he was being extra grumpy. Well, around 8, he woke screaming. So, we tried to soothe and help him go back to sleep for about a half hour to no avail...so he got to stay up rocking with mommy and watching the office until 9:30. I know, we are already exposing our child to rotten television (we don't think it's rotten, but some people do :). We think it's absolutely hilarious! if you dont watch The Office, you should...you really should. Anyway, he fell asleep pretty much as soon as I put him to bed. Alright! Time for me to get some rest b/c tomorrow (today) is going to be busy.
Nope, come 1am, Weston is awake and crying again. So i go into his room, lay down in bed with him and nurse him til he falls asleep. I stay in his room until 5 am...on and off sleeping while trying to keep him sleeping. To say the least, we both didn't get much sleep.
I put him down and went to bed at 5am. Didn't get up until 9:15 and now I'm not feeling so hot. Got the laundry started and haven't packed yet for the weekend in Cbus. So, It's 1:30, chad will be home in 2 hours. I just put cranky pants down to nap and now i have to pack and shower and get ready. 2 hours isn't going to be enough. So i should get off of here, but I really needed a place to write it all out.
Being a mom is awesome, even if it means sacrificing what I want for the well-being of my cranked son. I wouldn't trade it for the world. In fact, I was talking to chad the other night saying how I sometimes, I just want to go into Weston's room at night and pick him up and cuddle with him-Wish granted :) Maybe not in the way or the time I wanted it, but honestly, I treasured that time I got to spend gazing into my little babe's face and rubbing his back as he slept in my arms. These times are fleeting and I hate how fast it is going. I pray I won't take them for granted and that I will thank Jesus for each moment I have with my boy, even if he's screaming in my ear.
I haven't posted since last weeks appointment and I apologize. We only talked with the dr since everything was going as it should. She told us that we could start trying again in a month or so, which is hard to hear b/c I am not patient. I don't want to wait a month. I was hoping that we would get pregnant right away and I even went as far as taking a test to b/c I want it so badly. I knew even before I took it what the results were going to be, but I was hoping I was going to be surprised. Of course, I wasn't and it was just another disappointment. In God's timing we will be blessed again, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be disappointed in the time being. It's hard to accept God's time, but in Ecclesiastes, we read that there is a time for everything, even loss. I may not like the time we are in now, but I need to embrace it. We look forward to what the future brings because we know we are in God's hands and that is the best place to be in.

Update on Weston-he has 4 teeth now! Boy does it hurt when he bites...keep your fingers out of his mouth unless you want to lose 'em!

Appointment

2010-02-03T12:44:00.003-05:00

Today is the day that we were supposed to be going to see our little baby for the first time. I should be excited about today, but I'm not. In fact, I'm somewhat dreading it.
Chad is coming with me because I know it is going to be hard. Walking into the office where there should be so much joy and excitement is going to be wrenching.
Hopefully in the near future, we will get to take that walk into the doctors office with a different sort of anticipation.
We had some other disappointing news yesterday that I can't share online quite yet. Please be keeping us in your prayers as we figure out this crazy life that we are living.

2 Weeks After

2010-02-01T14:23:00.003-05:00

It has been 2 weeks since we became parents of an angel. I would love to say that we are back in the groove and life is back to normal, but that would be a lie. I have to say though, God has blessed us with an abundant amount of love and support that has carried us through these weeks.
I am physically healed, well, I feel like it. We have an appointment on Wednesday to make sure that all is well.
Emotionally, I am doing well. I still have my days when the smallest thing will set me off-a comment, photo, tv show, whatever. That is to be expected, I can't just turn off the feelings that I had for our baby. I had a connection with that little person the day we found out that we were expecting. I wondered what if the babe was a boy or girl, who they were going to look like, what color hair would they have, when they would be born, how Westion would get along with a sibling only 16 months younger than he, if they would have been into sports or music, and so many other things.
My spirit is still in shock. I still can't figure out why God wanted our baby and I still get angry that he took him or her. I still can't worship in church without breaking down. Every time I try to sing, I get choked up and not a sound rings from my mouth. I want so much to enjoy singing hymns and praises to my saviour, but it hurts so much. It makes me wonder if I am having the hardest time at church b/c it was when we were at church that I discovered we were losing our baby. We pray for our family and our angel everyday and we pray that God will bless us with another baby soon. Thoughts fill my mind throughout the day of our lost one and I know that Satan is trying to wiggle his way in. He wants me to blame God and to walk away-it would be so easy. But then I remember that God is telling me with open arms, "Go ahead, yell at me, blame me, scream at the top of your lungs, hit me, spit on me-I CAN HANDLE IT. I love you and care for you. Fall on me and let me carry you. You are my child and I will not abandon you." Go ahead Satan, try and top that.
I think you get it-we are healing. We are not submitting to the lies of the "father of all lies". God is still here and will never leave. We never have to pray for God to be with us, b/c he never left us.
My God is the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Rock of Ages, Comforter, Healer,Deliverer, the Alpha and Omega, The Beginning and The End, Almighty Counselor, Everlasting Father. He is Jehova, Immanuel, Savior, Mighty God, Lord of Everything, Redeemer, Friend, Prince of Peace. My God is the Great I AM. I could keep going, but for the sake of my fingers :) and my faulty memory;
Who wouldn't want to be in the hands of this God. Chad, Weston and I entrust our lives to Jesus Christ, even if that means letting go of the most precious things in our lives. We trust God and he has NEVER let us down. I may cry and I may have days when it feels like I am all alone, but that doesn't change who my God is.
I must now go and rescue my cutie pie who has woken up from his slumber:

Cranky Teether

2010-01-28T17:14:00.003-05:00

Well, it just seems that our little guy should be renamed to Cranky Pants b/c that is what he's been called more often than not. This little man has been getting his top teeth for the past few weeks and they just don't want to break through. His poor little gums were bleeding yesterday, so I'm really hoping that the those stinkin teeth will come in and that the pain will cease and desist. Not only is it hard on him, but he is wearing me out. Now how can a cutie like this wear me out?

Well, for starters, he's being awfully whiney (sp?). He's not eating well, so that makes dinner time fun for everybody as he cries and swats at the spoon. However, yogurt, ice cream, and cookies don't seem to bother him as much. I guess that the pain is worth those sweet treats. The most exhausting thing is his attachment to ME. I haven't been able to leave him in nurseries without issues. Last week, we visited Chad's brother's church and I dropped Weston in the nursery. I had to use the ladies room towards the end of the service. So as I am on my way to the bathroom, I can hear my son crying, LOUDLY. I keep walking and am just hoping that by the time I am done, he will be too. I take my time in the bathroom and as I'm leaving, silence...nice. Oh wait, nope that's my son screaming. I walk in and they tell me that he's been crying off and on the whole time and nothing will soothe him.
Fastforward a half hour. We are talking to friends and family after the service and I pass Weston off to his daddy-BWAAAAAHHHH! Great. I get the cry baby back. Somebody else takes him-BWAAAAAHHHH! Needless to say, mommy held on to the babe almost the entire day.
Today was even better. I recently started going to a mom's group at a church in Tipp. Well, they have daycare for us during that time. Last week was Weston's first time. He did ok. They said that he cried a lot, but they were able to comfort him. Today, I dropped him off and not 20 minutes later I am told I need to go get him b/c he is inconsolable. I walk in there and he sees me with his puffy, tear and snot smeared face and starts screaming. I had to hold him the entire time. If I even put him down, he would scream.
Is all of this b/c of the teething-probably not, but I'm sure that some of it is. I do have to say though, it makes me feel special when my son only wants me but it is also exhausting. I really look forward to chad coming home on days like these.Weston loves his daddy.

I want to say thanks to those of you who lifted us up in prayer these past weeks. We are doing much better. We are healing and we are also trusting God.
I had a friend tell me that he didn't know how to pray for us but that he just told God that he would "sit in the mud" with us. Those words were so encouraging. I hope that we will remember that and then when we have an opportunity to, we will "sit in the mud" with our friends who need us there with them.

In the Valley

2010-01-21T13:53:00.005-05:00

I don't know how many of our friends and family read these posts, but I wanted to let you all know what has been happening with us. God calls us to be open and vulnerable with our fellow believers in Christ because as a body, we help eachother heal. Just as our human bodies can't heal without critical parts, our spiritual bodies can't heal without those that God has put in our lives to be our caregivers. I am going to be open and honest right now and I want you to know that I am not searching for sympathy but for a path to healing.
We were preparing to announce to our friends and the rest of the family that didn't already know that Weston was going to be a big brother in mid-August. However, this past weekend our lives were rocked to the core when God decided to call our 10 week old unborn baby into his precious hands.
We don't know why God decided to call our angel home to him and we never will be until we are in heaven with our father. I have gone through a gamut of emotions-anger, devastation, mourning, empathy-just to name a few.
As the days drag on, the tears are fewer and life is returning to "normal". I have found that the busier I stay, the easier it is not to fall into depression that so easily ensares me. My heart aches constantly and the only joys in my life right now are my son and my husband-who by the way, God definitely designed just for me. Chad has been so supportive and loving. When I start crying, he doesn't try to run, he opens his arms and lets me fall sobbing-snot, tears and all-onto him and he'll just hold me until I'm done. It doesn't matter what he's doing, he'll stop and put all of his focus on me. He doesn't force me to talk about it or to get over it. He just lets me grieve how I need to grieve. I just thank my God that he gave me such a wonderful husband.
We are doing better and better each day and we are clinging closer to God than ever before. The wound is still open and aching, but we are healing.
In advance, I want to thank you for your thoughts and prayers, which we desperately covet.
For those of you who have found about this right here and not by phone, I apologize, but we can only call so many people and repeat this so many times before it wears us thin.
The reason I rise in the morning:

p.s. My husband just read this and his only comment was that I misspelled "gamut". Gotta love him.

Weekend!

2010-01-08T15:30:00.002-05:00

Even though I'm a SAHM, I still look forward to the weekends. That is a time when other people (mostly just chad) are around to entertain our very active son. I kid you not, ask anybody that knows him and they will tell you he ALWAYS wants to be on the go.
What was that? You don't believe me? Just wait until he wakes and I'll get a picture of his new battle wound-a nice little bruise on his forehead that he required from a recent climbing accident. This just came about after his black eye faded from falling down one of great-grandma snyder's chairs.
Yes, that's right, I said "falling down a chair". This is possible. Weston was pulling himself up on the chair and failed to maintain his grip and boom, Boom, BOOM! He hit hit all 3 support bars on the chair as his face made it's way to the floor resulting in a beautiful red then black eye.
This child WILL give me gray hair-I just know it. He never slows down. I was trying to eat my lunch today-a bowl of soup and I had to put it down a half a dozen times as I had to launch myself out of my chair to grab him away from something dangerous-well, the same dangerous thing that he knows he's not supposed to touch-My dad's Amish made electric (hahaha...i know how that sounds) fire place.
Ok, so this thing isn't that dangerous, but it does get pretty warm and could possibly cause some burns. Weston is fascinated with the fake flames...so he is constantly coming over to it and trying to touch it. Every time he does, I say very firmly-NO! He pulls his hand back then looks at me and grins and proceeds to stretch his ape-like fingers out towards the glass until I have to physically remove him from the situation. This scenario has played out multiple times today...He knows better, but he can't help himself, just like his father. Boy am I in for God only knows.
In other news, Weston is down to 1 nap a day-and the tears start streaming! I loved his nap times. They were my time to wind down and get things down without having to keep my extra eyes on him. However, know he'll sleep for one longer chunk of time instead of two short naps-so this isn't such a bad deal. But I really have no room to complain. Our little crankshaft does go to bed around 8pm and does not wake until 10am...so I'll not complain much about that :)
Last night however, Weston did not get to enjoy his slumber as he normally does. If you remember, Weston is wearing cloth diapers. When your child wears these type of diapers they also require covers.
Well, his daddy was giving him his bath-which I love that he does this for me, i think it is awesome bonding time for dad and son-anyway, after his bath, he changed him and Weston went to bed after his milkshake.
I went up to the bathroom around 10 to get ready for bed and noticed that Weston's cover was sitting on the counter. I thought, "Chad just probably put on one of his other covers." but to make sure I asked him and he immediately started grinning-Weston did not have his cover on-crap.
Well, we went downstairs hoping that he had held "it" and that the diaper would be dry. Unfortunately, this was not the case. So we had to wake our son and strip him down all the while he is screaming and carrying on-I would too if I was woken up after having been asleep for 3 hours and then been stripped down in a cold dark room. Ok, that sounded a little creepy-but you get the point.
Anyway, we got him changed and put the cover on and got Weston back to bed. We only had to listen to him scream for about 5-10 minutes and he was out. I doubt daddy will ever forget to put that cover on again :)
Enjoy the snow!

Hiatus Over...for now

2010-01-06T12:47:00.005-05:00

Ok, so i made a mistake on here. I thought i knew what order the pics are in. The captions should be correct now...

Well, once again I have failed at blogging. A LOT has happened since December 14.
First of all, Weston had his first trip out west over Christmas. We visited Telluride and Pagosa Springs, CO.
Snowshoeing, boarding, and skiing were just a few of the activities enjoyed by the travellors. We had a great time but were happy to make it home after a week of being away.
All of my family made it to my parents and they were all anxiously awaiting us coming home on New Years Eve...well, not really, but they did know we were coming in that day.
Boy was the house full! there were 4 little ones running around and 1 little one lying around. This house will never be the same!
We had so much fun hanging out with family, even though it was loud and crazy at times! All the kids had fun playing together in the house and in the snow until they got too cold and cranky, then play time was over!
Instead of writing more, i'll just post some pictures of our holiday adventures!
By the way, this was the first year in a long time that I was able to stay awake to welcome in the new year!

In Telluride

Weston loving his new laptop

4 Grandkids in the tub...Weston wasn't that excited

Clark Family Picture

Columbus Zoo lights

The rest of the photo's are from CO.

Not Me Monday!

2009-12-14T18:32:00.004-05:00

Ready for a good laugh? I'm up for being the cause of your belly laughs, even if it causes me a little bit of embarrassment and humiliation!
Curtesy of www.mycharmingkids.net where you'll find even more hilarious shameless bloggers:

I did not give my son of 8 months an '88 Buick grill and a shower curtain rod to play with on the back porch while his daddy and I sanded drum brakes-I would never do something so white trash as that.

I also did not let him play outdoors without a coat on in December, what kind of a mother would I be? That certainly isn't something I would do!

After hitting himself in the head with a toy or falling over like a log for no reason I do not start laughing histerically as my little crankypants started screaming uncontrollably-not me! (he only does this about a dozen times a day!)

My loving and thoughtful husband does not keep "bumping" Weston's head into door frames, ceilings, shelving etc while carrying him on his shoulders...not him! he would be more careful than that.

I am currently not ignoring Weston's cry's for help in the bathroom while daddy bathes him just so i can finish a post-
NOT ME!

If you've enjoyed this, please head over to mcmama'a website and join the fun! www.mycharmingkids.net

Still Sick

2009-12-11T14:03:00.002-05:00

Well, mr crankypants is over his ear infection, but he now possibly has the roseola virus. This causes him to have unexplained high fevers for a few days and then after the fever is gone, he will supposedly develop a body wide rash for a day or so. We will know for sure that it is roseola if the rash appears.
Weston is dealing really well with the high fevers. He started this Wednesday evening with a temp of 101.1. We gave him some tylenol and then he woke up with a 102.2 fever Thursday morning. I called the doc and they had me bring him in at 11. I had just scheduled a dentist appt at 12:10-so, my schedule was once again put on hold. My dentist was amazing though. They sympathized with me and rearranged my appt so I could still come in on Thursday.
So, back to Weston. We got to the doc and they took his temp and it was 103.8!!! to top that off, it was after I gave him tylenol 2 hours before. That made me so nervous. They did a CBC and it showed that his white count was low-which is very good b/c it meant that he just had a virus, but they didn't know what kind of virus. The doc said that her crystal ball was telling her that it was roseola...so that's what he was diagnosed with.
I stopped by the store afterwards and picked up some motrin and more tylenol so I could start him on the rotation to keep the fever under control. However, it doesn't seem to be doing much. All day yesterday we were fighting the 103 degree fever.
Last night, Weston woke me at 2am crying. I took him upstairs and found that his fever had spiked to 104.8...scary! I ended up giving him motrin and tylenol b/c both had worn off. We hung out on the chair upstairs for an hour until I knew that his fever was starting to go down.
Thankfully this morning, his fever was only 101.4. I think we are finally progressing. My poor little guy is exhausted and has no appetite. He will only eat/drink liquids. he has no interest in eating solids.
I miss my healthy boy!
On a happier note...We are less than 2 weeks away from our CO vacation!

Jealous yet?

Not Feelin so Hot...

2009-12-05T22:17:00.003-05:00

My poor little man has a double ear infection :(
The past two or so days, Weston has been quite the cranky little guy-unusually cranky that is :) Today we started to pay a little more attention to him. I thought he was just being a little squirt.
I kept saying (as did the other's in the household), "Who took my son? This is not my little boy. He has been stolen and replaced with the devil's spawn!"
My mom suggested that we take him to the urgent care here in VA and I did agree seeing that we would be driving through the mountains to get home on Tuesday and that would NOT be fun with the changing pressures and a screaming baby in pain in the backseat.
So, we went to urgent care and after waiting about an hour in the exam room for the doc to come in, we learned the source behind his cranky-pantedness (word?)
Boy do i feel like a big jerk!
He is on an antibiotic now for the next 7 days...hopefully he'll be all better and ready to have fun in CO when we go.
poor mr. cranky pants.

In Virginia

2009-12-04T16:59:00.005-05:00

Well, It's been a busy time around here in VA.
After 8.5 hours in the car with Weston and my folks, we arrived at Erin and Tony's. I was so very happy to be out of the car, but not b/c of weston-he was an absolutely incredible little guy the whole way. No crying at all! No, I was ready to be out of the car b/c well, we had been in it for so long-who wouldn't be ready to be off of their numb bum.
Erin didn't have little mr Elijah until Sunday-We were a little disappointed at the delay, but we did enjoy the few days together before his arrival.
Before I go on-Mr Parker was born at 10:32 am after 4 or 5 hours of labor. He weighed in at 7lbs 4.9oz and was 20.5" long.
He looks exactly like his daddy :)

While being here, Weston and Hailey got to play together and bathe together. This was so much easier than bathing them one at a time! They really enjoyed splashing and making a huge mess.

Boy did they have a great time!
Aside from cleaning and babysitting, I haven't been doing much, but that has been enough! My body is not taking kindly to all the travel and activity. I went to bed last night early not feeling too hot and woke up this morning the same way. The cold bug has struck. Hopefully I'll start feeling better so I can enjoy the last few days here in VA.
I haven't been too motivated to post with all of the activity...so hopefully that will change when we get back home.
We leave for our CO trip in about 3 weeks...so please pray for snow b/c it isn't looking too good right now. Unbelievable...it's the West in the Mountains for goodness sake...PLEASE SNOW!!

Not Me Monday!

2009-11-23T15:32:00.004-05:00

Feeling guilty about something-Me neither! But there are some things that I may be a little ashamed to admit...but it's very therapeutic! Join in if you must!!!

I did not scrape off the top of some fishy looking frosting and continue to use the rest of it-I ALWAYS use fresh!

I did not put my son on the floor and have the dogs entertain him b/c I was not too lazy to do it myself. I never let the dogs babysit my son ;)

Just to get some cooking done before the little one got up this morning, I did NOT ignore his first waking noises and I didn't continue cooking hoping to get it done until at which point his waking noises did not become consistant whining cries saying, "MOM, I am awake! Get me out of this crib before I do it myself!"

And I am not writing this post at 10:30 pm just b/c i want to admit the embarassing moments in my life-It's just fun!

May Jesus Christ Be Praised

2009-11-17T09:19:00.002-05:00

I received this in an email devotional I get everyday and I thought this was awesome. I wish I could do the same and always turn to praise Jesus Christ when I feel a void in my heart or when life doesn't seem to be going the way it should.
How do you get to that point when there is tragedy in your life and your first response is to praise Jesus Christ? I long to be in that position. When tragedy comes my way, my first response is why? or anger or unbelief. Eventually I get to the point where I praise Jesus, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes its more of a cry to God instead of praising him. But when I do praise him, it heals-why don't I seek the healing through praise first and foremost?
so many questions I need to find answers to. Finally, the words I wanted to share initially as my baby boy cries for me to pick him up:

When morning gilds the skies, my heart awaking cries,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer to Jesus I repair;
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Wnene'er the sweet church bell peals over hill and dell,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
O hark to what it sings, as joyously it rings,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

When sleep her balm denies, My silent spirit sighs,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
When evil thoughts molest, with this I shield my breast,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Or fades my earthly bliss? My comfort still is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

In Heaven's eternal bliss the loveliest strain is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The powers of darkness fear when this sweet sound chant they hear
May Jesus Christ be praised!

To God, the Word, on high, the hosts of angels cry,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let mortals, too, upraise their voice in hymns of praise;
May Jesus Christ be praised!

-Rev. E. Caswell (1800)

Teeth!

2009-11-16T14:24:00.002-05:00

My worst nightmare has come true...ok, so not my worst nightmare...but a scary thing has happened. My little biter has had a tooth emerge! Nursing is going to become a very scary thing. Weston has started a nice bonding event for mother and son during nursing.
As he nurses, he will look up at me, smile and then CRUNCH! ok, not really crunch, more like PINCH! SQUEEZE! IF I COULD I WOULD BITE IT OFF! more like that. If my milk sac's crunched we might have an issue, but yes, my son thinks its fun to bite me. Every time he does it, I yelp a little then tell him, "No Bite!" firmly and if he continues I then flick his little cheek.
Now that he has a tooth, I have a feeling it is going to become more painful. Oh boy! I am excited for this phase in his life but I am nervous...why little man, WHY?
if the squirt will let me get a picture of his tooth, I will but he's not very helpful with that yet.
any suggestions would be helpful!

Not Me Monday!

2009-11-16T09:06:00.002-05:00

Being a wonderful monther and loving wife, the following post is definitely not an admittance to guilt on my behalf. Believe what you may and enjoy!

A few nights ago, I did not pass off my wide awake little man to his grammy at 4:30 am b/c i didn't want to deal with him. I did not just think that he was being cranky instead of investigating further to find out what was keeping him awake. Sunday morning, we did not discover two little teeth trying to poke through and I did not put 2 and 2 together and figure out why he was awake. NOT ME!

I did not let my son crawl all over a floor without first sweeping up crumbs and whatever else was there. I did not proceed to watch him play with the debris and said floor and just laugh.

On our weekend away from home, I did not let my son crawl out of his pants (which didn't fit b/c he wasn't wearing his cloth diapers) while I took a picture instead of putting them back on.

What about you? Need to get anything off your chest?

Hunting

2009-11-13T10:08:00.003-05:00

We are supposed to go hunting tomorrow...well, we'll see who goes hunting anyway. After breakfast today, weston decided to return his breakfast to me by means of spewing it all over the floor. I have no idea why that happened. So soon after I cleaned up that mess, he decided to get VERY cranky when I denied him access to the computer cords which he has been intrigued with for the past week or so.
He has all these toys to play with but decides that he would rather drag himself across the living room to the computer cord and play with that.
My cranky pants earned himself a nap after that. Mama cranky pants was having nothing to do with the tantrum.
I wanted to take him to Taylorsville park and go for a walk this morning, but we'll see if I get to do that. I need to finish up the laundry that he made for me this morning, pack our gear for the trip to Uncle Andy's and Aunt Beth's house, get cleaned up, make some food for cranky pants for the weekend, and whatever else I can think of :)
Have a great weekend!

Big News!!!!

2009-11-11T10:46:00.007-05:00

There has been a lot going on lately most of which is VERY exciting.
First of all-if you don't know who Stellan is go to this website: www.mycharmingkids.net and read all about him to catch up. There is a button on the side of the blog that says "Read Stellan's Story". anyway, Stellan had surgery to fix his SVT that he has been struggling with since before he was born and it was A HUGE SUCCESS! Praise God! I know a lot of people have been praying for him, so this is a huge answer to prayer.
Secondly these two

Are going to be PARENTS in June!!!! Congrats!!!
Chad and I are so excited to have another niece or nephew!!

Thirdly, this little guy

Just might be crawling soon as evidenced by this picture

This little guy has been a bit fussy

maybe b/c he was scared of the sweeper or maybe because he's working on some choppers...we'll see soon. As of right now his mouth is full of these (gums)

That's okay though because then it won't hurt when he does this

Rescue is Coming

2009-11-09T09:19:00.003-05:00

left this in the comments section of Mckmama's blog:

Rescue is Coming by David Crowder Band

There's a darkness in my skin
My cover's wearing thin, I believe
I'd love to start again, go back to innocent
And never leave

Don't give up now
A break in the clouds
We could be found
There's nothing wrong with me
It's just that I believe things could get better
And there's nothing wrong with love
I think it's just enough to believe

Rescue is coming
Rescue is coming
Rescue is coming
Rescue is coming

And there's nothing wrong with you
And nothing left to do
But believe something bigger
And there's nothing wrong with love
I know it's just enough to believe

Don't give up now
A break in the clouds
We will be found
Rescue is coming now

Rescue is coming
Rescue is coming
Rescue is coming
Rescue is coming

No words needed here except Amazing!

Stellan

2009-11-09T09:10:00.002-05:00

Please Please Please pray for this family:

www.mycharmingkids.net

Their little boy Stellan is going to be having risky heart surgery today and everything is on the line.

Politics...Geesh

2009-11-04T08:42:00.002-05:00

If you don't want to read about politics...then don't read further!
COME ON OHIO!!! Seriously? The citizens of this state just voted for our state to go further in debt and for the state to allow people to ruin their lives by gambling them away. Do you realize what kind of people are going to venture to the cities now? I'll tell you some things to expect now: Higher crime rates, gambling addiction, family dysfunction, and underage gambling. I guess this means that the health care sector and the police to have more business. What a deal. Gambling = medical problems, social problems, and economic problems. Research it for yourself.
As far as Issue 1 goes, I'm all for paying vets-however, you need to have money to pay them. I don't agree with the state borrowing money to pay for them when there is already a deficit. Selling bonds means taking loans...they just didn't want to state it like that.
Pat yourselves on the back Ohio-it'll be just like the presidential election...everybody's happy now, but just wait...it'll change.
I'm just not very happy right now...obviously.

Who Wouldn't Love Him?

2009-11-03T13:50:00.006-05:00

What a cute giraffe! And to think, we didn't even have to stretch his neck to make him look convincing!
You know, even though sometimes he crys and whines and i can't figure out why-I still love him.
When I go into his room and it smells strangely reminiscent of a certain brother's room on Sunday mornings after eating bean soup-I still love him!
Who else could love a boy this much even after cleaning/washing many cloth diapers that are none to pretty-ME! I still love him!
Even after he pukes down my shirt, into my bra and in my hair-I still love him...EVEN MORE!
When I don't seem to get anything done in a day because the little stinker won't nap-I still love him!
After spending tons of money on a hospital and 26 hours of labor and spending even more money-just on upkeep and it just being the beginning of how expensive he is going to be-I REALLY REALLY LOVE HIM!
I don't have the social life that I used to because of the new responsibilities I have-I still love him and I would rather spend my friday/saturday nights hanging out with my little man making him smile and laugh when he's upset than spend it with my very best friend at a party or going out to eat-I love him that much!
I have stretch marks and a soft belly that I am now working on to return to prebaby solidness (well, kind of solid) and if i never get it back, I don't care becuase I love him more than myself! I LOVE HIM SOOO MUCH.
Thank you Jesus for my little guy-he was the best change and interruption of my life ever!

Not Me Monday!

2009-11-02T21:20:00.002-05:00

I've been a bit terrible at posting, so I really wanted to get back to my shameless posts because they are so much fun! Here goes nothing:

Since we are such awesome parents, we would never just put our baby boy into his plastic tub in the bathroom while we...ahem...relieve ourselves.
During one such event, Weston did not lean too far forward and tip the tub causing it to fall over on top of him. He did not cry and definitely did not get a bit of a bloody nose-NOT US!

While on the way to a restaurant, a big hairy spider did not crawl up my leg and I did not start screaming and climbing the sides of the car. We did not have to pull over so I could jump out of the car while it was raining outside until we found the spider which turned up on top of the car. I still don't check the car when i get in it :)

and now i'm drawing a blank...soooo...that's it for now :)

My apologies!

2009-10-22T17:44:00.003-04:00

So i have neglected my blog lately-shame on me! Actually, I've been trying to lessen the time that I spend watching TV and being on the internet in order to get things done and play with my son. It is going well, but it is so hard!
I promise I will try and do a the "not me monday" come Monday. I have a few goodies stored up for that post!
Anyway, we've had a lot going on the past few weeks. First and foremost we are no longer home-owners :(. I am excited to have that burden lifted off of our shoulders, but sad that our first home no longer belongs to us. All the hard work we put into it is now at somebody else's disposal. However, with Chad's job change and pay cut, the burden of that high of a mortgage was a little overwhelming.
We closed on the house last Tuesday in Toledo. After the closing we had a celebratory dinner at Olive Garden-compliments of Mypoints.com. We didn't pay a dime for it-which made it even sweeter!!
Weston had his 6 month appointment last week as well. Our little rascal now weighs 17 lbs 3 oz! What a skinny boy! He measured 26.5 inches long-but i think that they were wrong on that end b/c at his 4 month appointment he was 26 inches. Call me crazy, but seeing how many outfits the squirt has grown out of in the past two months-i can't believe he's only grown 1/2 inch.
well, no pics for now b/c i'm not on our computer...so we don't have them on here.
Time to check on my hopefully sleeping babe :) Lately he has just been laying in bed awake instead of sleeping.

NOT ME MONDAY!!! HURRAY!

2009-10-05T11:36:00.003-04:00

It is time again to be shameless...

At a wedding this weekend, I did not allow my husband to let our 6 month old toothless babe suck on a frozen peach in which he did not "gum off" a chunk and proceed to not start choking on it. I most certainly did not tell my husband to reach in his throat and pull it out only to be bathed in peach vomit. I did not chuckle as my husband had to clean off said vomit and baby proceeded to reach for the peach again-he surely learned his lesson-NOT

I did not walk around church all day with carrot puke down the front of my WHITE fleece b/c being the responsible mother, I did not forget to pack another shirt to change into.

My husband and I never forget to dress our son appropriately for the weather. For instance, we did not take our son to church without socks on yesterday b/c we couldn't find any. So instead of socks, i did not just wrap a blanket around his feet until we got inside and then I did not put on his green and blue plaid shoes which did not match his green, orange, brown and red striped shirt and fitted khaki sweats that are tight at the ankle just so nobody would see he did not have socks on. Not Me!

Last but not least-
I did not forget that I packed up my precious babe's crib and took it to my parents house so that when we got to bryan I did not realize I had forgotten to pack the pack-n-play. My poor little Weston did not have to sleep on the floor on top of blankets surrounded by pillows so he did not roll under the bed and dressers.

so there you have it! What are you unashamed (well maybe...a bit ashamed) about and are daring to share with the world?

Not Me! Monday

2009-09-28T11:49:00.007-04:00

So I've decided to join this group of unashamed mom's and make light of the ridiculous things I have been doing lately.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I have some catching up to do...so here are some of the best that I can think of:

After returning home from church, my husband and I got out of the car and heard turkey's calling. I most certainly did not pick up my already cranky baby who was hungry and take him into the woods to see if we could find said turkeys. I did not start nursing him to keep him quiet so he wouldn't scare off the turkeys behind somebody's house for the next hour, not me!

I did not use my shirt or other clothing to wipe off spit up b/c I never forget spit rags.

To keep my 4 month old son quiet while watching one of my favorite stories, I did not feed him ice cream b/c that is not what a good mom does. Not Me!

I did not dress my son in the clothes below just so we could have blackmail when he is older-what kind of mother would i be!

After listening to my son scream in the backseat for a half hour, I did not climb into the back seat and I did not proceed to lean over him and let him nurse while he was still in his carseat. I would never do something so ridiculous!

i most certainly did not grab a newborn diaper and stuff it into my bra at night to soak up the torrents of milk gushing out b/c i couldn't find a breast pad-not me!

That's all for now, but not for good! What have you not been up to lately?

My Joy!

2009-09-28T10:00:00.002-04:00

First Ride on the Bobcat!

2009-09-21T10:07:00.004-04:00

Weston is a true Clark Boy! He had his initiation yesterday when he got to drive the Bobcat at Grammy and Grampa's house last night. The boy's decided not to let Grammy or myself know they were doing this until after all was said and done. Weston was in on it too-his first act of deception (even though he may not be aware of it...but i think this picture shows he kind of knew what was going on?)

I always knew it would come to this...oh what fun I have to look forward too...notice how no adult is near by in case the little one loses his balance...glad i was not out there!

Our New Old Car

2009-09-03T13:29:00.002-04:00

Here's a sneak peak of our new car:
http://www.motorcities.com/photo/viewer/03CCE030318902A

Ours may be a little different. Also, ours is red, not white. I can't find many pic's online though.

What? Taxes were due in April?

2009-09-03T13:10:00.002-04:00

I just filed our state taxes! you say..hmmm 4months late? correct, but that was not on purpose. I actually thought i filed our state taxes sometime in early march, however the federal government told me that i was sorely mistaken.
The whole fiasco started over a month ago when i received a letter from the IRS stating that we owed them 3,000! I about lost my cookies. In panic I called them and they said they would investigate the matter. Well, after over a month of investigating, they called us and told us we had filed twice-one with our original deduction amount and the other with the standard deduction. As soon as I heard that it clicked in my mind..."Holy Crap! i filled out the wrong form!" I informed chad by helpfully whispering in his ear as he was on the phone, "tell them we filed online for federal and sent the state in by mail-we must have sent in the wrong form!"
Chad, being as gracious as he can be talked to them and we got it figured out. The very nice lady on the phone said that we had to re-file our federal return in order to straighten the mess out b/c they used the second form as the "edited" return or whatever term was that she used.
The lady was very nice and said that she would fill it out for us and all we would have to do is sign the form :) They must not be very busy in the tax office right now if she is willing to fill out the tax form for us! but i am not going to complain.
So this morning, my task was to call the Ohio state tax dept and ask them what we needed to do. Luckily, all that was required was to file the state tax. We didn't owe anything-so there was no interest tacked on. To my dismay though, our return is significantly less than we thought-Instead of receiving 1400 from the state we are receiving a measly $13. But hey, that is $13 we didn't have before right? That will be a nice meal from Wendly's!
I am just glad that it is all figured out and that we don't owe the federal gov't $3000!
Boy do i feel like an idiot! I guess we won't do that again! Poor Chad, and to think he trusted me with it all-guess I got myself out of doing the taxes next year!
Well, we will be heading up to Indian Lake this weekend...so I'm sure there will be cute pics of Weston next week!
He is squealing like a little girl right now-that is his thing...squealing as high-pitched as possible. It's cute right now, but i'm sure it wont be later on when his lungs get stronger!

Sweet Potatoes and Carrots!

2009-08-27T13:16:00.005-04:00

At about 4 1/2 months, my doc has recommended that we start weston on solids...well, at least that's what the paperwork they gave me said. So, I decided to follow their advice-He still breast feeds every 3 hours though-so don't worry :)

As my little man sleeps, i thought i would share some pics of him, but i dont have much time. I'm sure i'll hear his shrill scream in the next 15 minutes :) He doesn't wake up very happy after naps.

I gave him a bite of carrots as i was making them and he promptly made a disgusted face. He gave me the same face with his first bite of sweet potatoes. All i caught on camera was the "not sure about this mom" face...

In other news...he absolutely loves this toy now...it will be a very sad day when we move out of grandma and grandpa snyders and we have to leave this toy behind

...the towel is there for puke protection...instead of being white puke, it is now orange-yay for solids! one day it will end and ironically, i will probably miss it b/c that will mean he is growing up...

4 Months and Growing!

2009-08-19T14:06:00.013-04:00

Weston had his 4 month appt last thursday. I decided to take Weston to an office in Huber where the doc's have rights at the Children's hospital in Dayton. As I was filling out the paperwork in the waiting room, my sweet little boy decided to leave evidence of his extracurricular activities on my shirt-which the doc got a kick out of :) We were called back quickly into the exam room where we were soon engulfed by a constant stream of nurses and doc's coming in to see the "new cute little baby boy with the spiked hair" :) The entire office got a kick out Weston-he had a great time too flirting with the nurses-what a ham.

The doc said that we don't need to worry about westons continuous flow of spit up since it doesn't seem to bother him. In which my thought was-it may not bother him, but what about me?! I go through as many shirts as he does if I want to avoid smelling like puke all day! Ok, that's not the complete truth...as much as I don't like smelling like sour milk and puke, I would rather dawn (sp?) that odor than to put medicine into my child that doesn't do any good for him.

Here are Weston's numbers if your interested: 14 lbs 14 oz - 50%; 26" - 80% Translation: long and skinny :) that's my boy!

Speaking of being long and skinny-Weston is now wearing 9-12 month clothes. I went out and bought him about 5 or 6 sleepers, all sizes 6-9 months. Come to find out-they didn't fit! I was less than happy about that! So all but 2 of the sleepers have been exchanged. One has been washed and the other just hasn't been dealt with.

In other news-we are now into 2 weeks of cloth diapers and I am loving it. We've had no leaks and no rashes! I love these diapers! Here's a pic of my new life of cloth diapers:

This past weekend we traveled to Pokagon State Park for the Snyder Family reunion. We had a good time eating food and speaking to relatives that I couldn't remember names of and some that I just plane couldn't remember! We got another picture of Weston and his cousin Landon though. Landon was born the day after Weston and was the same length and weight. Landon now is the same length as Weston but has him beat by 2 lbs!!!!

It took a while to grandma to look up and by the time we got it going landon wasn't very happy. Weston however, never quit staring and sucking on his fingers!

Weston Rolled over onto his tummy today! He has been rolling from tummy to back since he was about 2 1/2 months-more consistently since 3 months. So at just over 4 months he has accomplished the back to belly! Now we just need to accomplish walking...right! I'm not ready for that yet! Actually, i'm not ready for the rolling from back to belly seeing as how I was a little too trusting of the little guy yesterday. Mom called and had me call the butcher to put in her cut order for the side of beef she is getting (mmmmm). So, me being the airhead first time mom, left Weston on the couch on his back-all the way to the back of the couch. As I was talking to mom, I started walking back into the living room to check on the little guy and as I was about in there, I saw Weston in the reflection from the fireplace falling off the couch! I felt sooo horrible!! how could I do that and be so irresponsible!? My mom reassured me that most first time mom's do that-but i still felt horrible :( Weston is just fine though. He only cried for a minute or so and then he was back to his smiley self :)

One more thing before I quit on this post...Weston and I went to the Zoo with the clarks last friday-a day of fun and exhaustion :)

Weston and I infront of the baby elephant exhibit

What a cute baby!!!! This was my favorite exhibit!

Weston got tired quickly and passed out for a few hours...
Sleeeeeeeepy boy....
Out-Gotta love him!!!!!!

CLOTH DIAPERS!

2009-08-11T12:48:00.000-04:00

Yes you did read it right, we are now using cloth diapers! Are you crazy? (what you are probably thinking) the answer is yes! I changed Weston's first wet diaper this morning and boy was it wet. but it didn't leak! Now we just have to wait for the "dirty" diaper test. I'm thinking it's going to be a bit more disgusting, but I will get used to it-i have to!

These diapers are awesome. They are the mother-ease brand that Chad's friends introduced us to. We just started using them b/c we were using all the diapers that were given to us as gifts and weston is finally growing out of the 1's. It only took 4 months :)

Another big thing that I am going to imbark on is making my own baby food. I've heard its easy and much cheaper than buying it.

I never thought I would be this person, using cloth diapers and making my own baby food. Who am I!?!

With all of todays conveniences, who would make more work for themselves? I guess the answer is me :)

Here are some pics of Weston's first cloth diapering experience

Mom...what are you thinking????

The diapers are a bit bigger than him right now!!!! What a cutie!

A view from behind-and yes, he is standing by himself! what a strong boy :)

"I love my new diapers mom!!"

So chad thought he would play with weston soon after he finished eating...

Careful daddy....you are playing with fire!!!

....Told you so!!!!! Good thing he was wearing glasses!

I love being home, but it still doesn't afford much time for blogging. Hopefully I'll post more soon!

poo and the bmv

2009-07-27T16:06:00.000-04:00

Chad and Weston are talking to each other-Weston is very excitable/squeally today...it's so cute. Sometimes he sounds like a girl though...we'll have to watch that.
I went to the wonderful BMV today to renew my driver's license-that's right, I am now 25, goodbye youth :( - and I took Weston with me in the only vehicle available, the pickup. Please don't berate me. I turned the airbag off. I had to go and I really had no other options-we made it safe so don't worry.
During the half hour we were there, Weston decided it would be a good time to fill his drawers. I didn't hear anything but as I was holding him, I could smell it and all of you that have smelt it before know what I'm talking about. He doesn't have the nice newborn poo anymore, you know, the kind that doesn't have a scent. Nope, he's graduated to nasty smelly clay-consistency poo.
So as I'm standing there in close proximity to other people, i am just hoping it was a toot and nothing else, that way it would eventually go away. No luck, it got smellier and smellier the longer I stood there.
We got out of there without overhearing any comments-whew.
I love being a mommy-so many fun adventures!

A New Outfit

2009-07-24T14:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Weston and I went to the hospital to get him weighed and to show him off. After the hospital we were going to meet Grammy Clark for lunch and b/c she was going to give me some stuff that I had left at her house a few days ago. So, I packed an extra outfit for Weston for the few hours that we would be away from home, figuring that was all he would need...silly me. I always pack at least 2 extra outfits, I don't know what was going through my mind.

Anyway, on the way to the hospital and while there, Weston decided to puke all over his clothes to the point of being drenched and disgusting. Mom wouldn't let me redress him those clothes. So, i put him in another outfit. We got to the diner in Hilliard in about an hour and Weston was not going to be very patient about getting his lunch. I warmed his bottle and fed it to him. He ate almost the whole 1o oz without a break...oops. Grandma Clark took him to burp him and he immediately lost his lunch all over her!!! I should've known better the little stinker.

Throughout the entire lunch, Weston kept "sharing" his lunch with his grammy.

Needless to say, his clothes didn't fare much better than grammy's blouse and I didn't have anymore clothes for the little guy. So before we got back on 70 to head home, i stopped at target and picked up a cheap outfit. he needed some more clothes for later on anyway.

However, soon after we got home, Weston broke in those new clothes. 3 outfits in a matter of 4 hours...priceless.

here are pics for some smiles:

Myrtle Beach and Other News

2009-07-20T15:54:00.000-04:00

It has been a very long time, once again and I apologize. I really have meant to update this thing but every time i think about it, it never happens. So I will now take the time while my little guy is napping, however long that may be.

Weston and I just returned from a nice week at Myrtle Beach with my family. Aside from the 12 hour drive, we had a great time. Ask anybody who has been stuck in a vehicle with a 3 month old for 12 or more hours and they will tell you it is no fun for anybody in the car.

We left Friday night/Saturday morning around midnight in order to drive most of the way while the kids slept. It was a good idea, but come morning, nobody was in a good mood. The last two hours of the drive-and most frustrating thanks to a faulty GPS-Weston pretty much screamed his heart out. His protest was heard by all in the Myrtle Beach area.

The drive home went much smoother with only about 20 minutes total of fussing. However, the worst part of the traveling was Weston's digestive schedule-if you know what i mean. He has been on a "weekly" schedule, meaning, he has blow outs all day long-once a week-and it just so happened that his once a week day occurred on the way there and on the way back resulting in a clean up of his carseat and his body during the trips. Oh what fun-especially when you are cleaning these kind of messes in the dark in a rest area somewhere in West Virginia. Oh boy :) I feel sorry for the person on bathroom duty that had to empty the trash-SMELLY!

During this week, Weston had a lot of interesting "firsts".

He got to "swim" in the ocean, "play" in the sand, and eat rice cereal.

Swimming in the ocean wasn't exactly his choice, but each day he enjoyed it more and more. That is until Grandpa Snyder took him a little too deep. As they were getting their pictures taken-which I will post when I get them-a few big waves hit and Weston did not appreciate the assault of salt water as the pictures will show.

Immediately after the pictures were taken, my dad gave me the screaming monster and i started nursing him to calm him down. He was traumatized, but everyone else was laughing histerically :) No worries though, Grandpa did earn his trust back later on in the week.

We did more swimming in the pool than we did the ocean and I dare say that Weston enjoyed the pool much more than he did the ocean, even though on the last day in the ocean, i got him to smile.

Much to our dismay though, the pool was closed for the last 3 days of our vacation-BOO. This resulted in a 2 hour search for a pool the saturday that we were leaving. We did end up finding the pool, but Weston was in blow-out mode, so he didn't have the pleasure of leaving floaties in the public pool.

As everyone knows, Weston has a bit of a purging problem. my lovely sister-in-law nicole told us that they gave AJ rice cereal to help with the issue and it worked. So I decided i was tired of the constant onslaught of soured milk and it was time to try something else since the Zantac didn't seem to be helping anymore. So we bought some organic rice cereal and gave weston his first real taste of solid foods-well, aside from the yogurt, chocolate, ice cream, whipped cream etc that he's had tastes of in the past :) I would never feed my child stuff like this at such an early age...ahem.

Anyway, he did a great job and I think he liked it. Aside from a face covered in cereal-he did great. Thanks to aunt Erin restraining him, all went pretty smooth.

Weston got to meet his cousins AJ and Elise this past week for the first time. Everybody got along and aside from one squashing attempt by Elise, there were no mishaps :)

Some milestones that Weston has reached in the past couple months are as follows-laughing out loud-sometime in the second month, rolling over from belly to back-around 2 1/2 months, talking a lot-i have no idea when-what a bad mommy, reaching and grabbing things-around 2 months. I can't remember any others right now, but when i do, i will post them.

Weston will be 4 months old-ALREADY!!-on August 8th. he is getting so big so fast it makes me sad.

Now for news on the job front for chad. He started at a job in St. Paris, ohio 3 weeks ago and is doing well. he is happy there for now. There may be another job opportunity in the future, but we're not sure. We are living with my parents for now during the week and we are traveling on the weekends. Hopefully our house sells soon so we don't have that burden anymore.

So if anyone is looking for a house in the Northwest Ohio area, we have a beauty that you may be interested in :)

That is all for now :) it only took 3 hours to get this post done-so i am done-whew

Still Waiting...

2009-06-05T11:10:00.000-04:00

Chad had another interview yesterday morning...we are supposed to hear back from the company this morning...and he has to call a different company by today to let them know if he would like to accept the job offer they have given him. The one that is supposed to call him this mornign would be a better career move for him, so we are anxiously awaiting the phone call :)
Updates on Weston...he is doing GREAT! he sleeps through the night already! He started this about 2 weeks ago and it has been wonderful. We put him down around 11 pm and he doesnt wake until 8 or 9 in the morning. We've only had one night when we were at grandma and grandpa snyders house when he decided he didn't want to sleep. he woke up several times and i ended up on the couch with him. Luckily grandma snyder was having trouble sleeping so she took him and slept with him until 7 am. Thank you for the break! We didn't want to wake up daddy b/c of his interview the following morning!
the house is coming along very well. We have a couple big projects left-countertops in the kitchen and painting the basement-but other than that, everything else is small-touch up painting, hanging trim and cleaning!
hopefully we'll have the house on the market soon. We still dont have regular internet access and i can't post pictures at the library, so hopefully i'll get some up soon.
My great friend Carolyn took some awesome pictures of weston this week. He is now 2 months old! i can't believe it.
hopefully more will be posted later!

Long time...

2009-05-18T11:35:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a while b/c of the hassle of internet access...sorry about that :)
In any case, until we have more/easier access, I will probably not be posting much and that means infrequent pictures.
Here's a little update...Chad has a job interview at the University of Akron on Wednesday. He has his second interview with KTH 2 weeks ago and we are still waiting to hear from them. We aren't sure which direction God is leading us, but we are keeping open minds and ears.
The pro's and con's we are dealing with are making this decision very hard if he is offered both jobs. Being at KTH will allow us to be close to both sets of parents/grandparents. However, we will still be far from a "big city" and we are anxious to not be in the boondocks anymore :)
At the U of Akron, Chad would be an assistant professor (he wouldn't be an assistant, its just what they call professors who aren't tenured). I think in the long run, this is what he would really like to do, but who knows.
Anyway, we would be farther from the parents-3-4 hours from mine and 2 from his, but we would be near a city and Chad would have his foot in the academia world.
Please keep us in your prayers as we have to make a decision soon.

Weston just had his 1 month checkup. The doctor didn't tell us his percentiles, but i did a little research and i think this is where he stands:
At birth, he weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20.5 inches. I believe when i checked he was near the 90th percentile...but i can't remember.
At 1 month:
weight: 10 lbs 6 oz
Lenth: 22 in
Both put him in the 90th percentile...i think. i did a calculator thing online and it said he was in the 39th and 38th percentiles, but i thought that couldn't be correct, so i looked at a chart myself and found the 90th percentile rankings. i couldn't tell you if this is correct or not.

Some issues we have been having with mr weston are a lot of spitting up and he is starting to get very fussy when he is tired...that means he crys-A LOT.
however, he is still a joy and when he smiles at us or talks to us it melts our hearts!
That is all until i have internet access and time for more!

Weston Lee Clark

2009-04-24T11:21:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been a long time since i've posted...so here's the rundown of what's happened to us the past few weeks:

After going in for my appointment on Monday April 6th, (before the squirt was born) the doc scheduled me to come in Tuesday night to start the induction process. Well, Tuesday morning around 2:30 I woke up having slight contractions. I was able to fall back asleep in between contractions until 4am. At 4, the pain in my back was pretty terrible and the contractions were 10 minutes apart. After about 4 of them...being painful enough to make me think they weren't braxton hicks. I woke chad up and he immediatley woke up and started rubbing my back. Around 4:30, the contractions jumped to 2-3 minutes apart and they were completely in my back. At that point, I decided to get in the shower and let the hot water run down my back. Chad rubbed my back the entire time. Unfortuneatly the hot water only lasted about 15 minutes and then it was gone :(. I wanted to cry.

At that point, i started walking laps around the house and squatting each time I had a contraction.

I called my mom at 6am to see what she thought. At one point, i had to lean over the sink b/c i thought i was going to vomit. My mom started laughing and said, "that my dear, is a contraction". Funny mom.

We decided to wait it out a little bit more and then finally at 8am after taking a walk around the block, we decided to head to the hospital. When we got there, they checked me and i was 90% effaced and still only 2 cm if that, dilated. My doc came in and broke my water around 8:30-commencing the long and tedious birth process. The contractions didn't get too horrible until around noon. I was trying to avoid pain meds unless i needed them, and boy did i need them.

I was having all back labor which was horrible and my contractions weren't even giving me a break. After contractions one on top of the other-literally no break from the pain-I decided to get an epidural. They gave me Nubaine to tide me over until i could get the epidural...well, it did NOTHING aside from make me loopy :) Chad said he would ask me questions and i wouldn't be able to answer them. I would just kind of stare and mumble.

I was finally at 4 cm and we were hoping the epidural would help me to relax and dilate a little faster. So at 2 pm, i finally got my epidural-how amazing it was...while it lasted.

Both sets of grandparents were at the hospital by 4pm on Tuesday. The Clarks arrived around noon and the Snyder's arrived at 4. Everybody hung out in my room as we talked, laughed, and watched TV...until around midnight when the pain was getting bad again.

The parents got kicked out of the room when the pain got more intense. When i finally asked if they could redo or up the epidural, the nurse said it was too late b/c i was 8 cm. What horrible news to hear!

So chad helped me breath through the contractions until it was time to push...and that didn't come until 3am. that was a VERY long time.

The nurse had me start pushing at 3am Wednesday morning-almost 25 hours after my labor started. This was without pain relief! I wanted to try without pain relief...but that was before i was in labor and i wanted something.

When i first started pushing, the squirts heart rate would drop, so the nurse called the dr in...however, when the doc got there, his heart rate was fine.

After 2 hours of pushing, the doc came in and said the we would need some intervention. They figured out that the squirt was coming out sunny-side up...which means he was facing up instead of down...hence the back labor and terrible pain. If he would have been facing the correct way, he probably would have come out a bit easier, but the doc seemed skeptical. So, my doc said that he could either use the forceps, but i would have 4th degree tearing that would be very painful, or we could do a c-section. At this point, my doctor didn't know that I didn't have any pain relief. As I winced and moaned through each contraction he asked me if I was feeling everything, and boy was I, especially when they tried to manually turn the little guy...that did not feel very good at all!

So when the dr figured out that I had no pain relief, he recommended a c-section. They were a bit concerned at this point b/c I had developed a fever-probably b/c of my being in labor and having my water broke for so long. I really didn't want a c-section from the beginning, but at this point, i wanted the pain to end. I had my mom come in to give me her suggestion and she told me that if it was her she would go for the c-section. So that's what happened...we went in for an emergency c-section.

They gave me some drugs to stop the contractions and they gave chad scrubs to change into. All of this happened at around 5:15am Wednesday. They wheeled me out of my room at about 6am. The anesthesiologist (sp?) came into the OR, took out the epidural and gave me a spinal...WONDERFUL!!!!! That was the best pain relief in the world. I couldn't feel a thing from my armpits down.

I was a bit upset that we had to resort to this, but it was the best option at this time. The whole c-section took only 25 minutes. As i was laying there, chad was by my shoulder and i could hear the doctor talking to chad but i wasn't sure what was going on. i was a bit out of it. I heard them talk about our little guy as they were pulling him out and I started crying b/c i couldn't see him and I didn't hear him cry. That was horrible. after a while they brought him to my head as they were stitching me up and they let me kiss his cheek and then they took him away. he still wasn't crying at this point and he was very limp.

i started crying even more and chad was also crying. Chad followed the little guy out to his recovery room and then they rolled me out to my recovery room. Since our little guy wasn't doing very well, i couldn't see him or hold him. Apparently, he wasn't responding very well and his color wasn't very good either. they had to keep putting a tube down into his lungs to suck out all the fluid. He couldn't cry very well and his oxygen levels were very low.

Fortunately, there was a video camera in my recovery room that allowed me to see my little guy as they were working on him. I pretty much was crying the entire time.

The pediatrition came in and told me that if he didn't start improving faster, then they would send him to Toledo...which really made me cry. At this point, the nurses fetched chad so i could have some support. After about 2 hours, my nurse snuck my little guy in so i could see him and hold him for the first time. I got to hold him for about a minute and then she had to take him back to put him back under the oxygen hood.

Luckily, mr weston started improving, so he didn't have to go to Toledo. After 4 or 5 long tedious hours, i was taken back to my room and weston was brought to us. Hence ending the long process of our little guy coming into the world. We got a taste of both worlds-natural birth and c-section. I will never have to go through a natural birth again-which i am ok with. Everybody says you won't remember the pain that you went through having your child...well, i remember every minute of it, but let me tell you, it was completely worth every minute. I would do this all over again for my little man. He is such a blessing from God!

That is Weston Lee Clarks birth story. Our little guy-born April 8th, 2009 at 6:23am; 8 lbs 3 oz; 20.5 inches long. Blue eyes, brown hair, long fingers, skinny toes and long skinny feet just like his daddy.

I love my handsome boy-i love being a mommy. I wouldn't change it for anything!!

Weston Lee Clark

Chad and I crying when they brought Weston to me in the Recovery Room.

That is a thermometer on my forehead in case you were wondering :)

Eviction Notice

2009-04-03T09:22:00.001-04:00

I am issuing 5 day notice for EVICTION. Tenant will have 5 days in which he can either gather his belongings and promptly vacate the premises, or wait until the final day. After which, he will be physically removed from the property.
He's being evicted due to breech of contract and destruction of property. Expansions only to the FRONT of the house, within reasonable limits, were discussed. Not only have these limits been exceeded, but additions to the back of the house were also made! Remodeling and gutting of the home was never approved, nor was changing the initial layout and base structure. And due to property damage, there are now leaks in both the upper AND lower levels of the home. On top of which, the landlord has received numerous complaints about nightly disturbances.
After 5 days from this day that he doesn’t comply with the notice will result in immediate and forceful removal at my discretion.

A New Direction

2009-04-03T08:48:00.000-04:00

Today is my last day at work. When I woke up chad asked me if I was excited about my last day of work. Now don't get me wrong, i am very excited to meet our little guy...who is late by the way-no surprise, he's just following in his family's footsteps-I am excited to take the next step in our life, which has changed drastically in the last few days, but it is also a bittersweet day. I like to work...no, I love to work. I love having something to do everyday, something to keep my mind working, something to keep me from sitting on the couch and watching House/NCIS all day long :) Something to distract me from my worries. I am going to miss the friends I have made at Daavlin and I am going to miss the routine-yes, you read that right, I am going to miss the routine of getting up, going to work, coming home, so on and so forth.
However, I am so excited to be able to spend time with my little boy and my husband, time we've never had before and probably never will have again before retirement. Chad losing his job at this time in our lives is very stressful, but it is also a blessing. These are days that we will NEVER get back. If he would still be working, he wouldn't get to see his son for more than a few hours a day, Chad and I wouldn't get to spend time after the birth of our son getting to know the new "us". I am so excited for us to be able to do that. God has indeed blessed us.
My eyes were so clouded before with the scariness of the unknown that I refused to see the blessing that this time is. God is stretching us. He is making us rely on him and I know that our faith, our family, our love for eachother will be strengthened to a degree that we will have never been able to achieve without this type of intervention.
Thank you for your prayers, thank you for your loving words, thank you for your support. I'm not saying that there won't be any more tears and heartache in the days to come, but I know that we WILL make it through and we WILL come out on top. We may lose money on our house when it sells (and hopefully it will be soon after we put it on the market) we may not have jobs (hopefully we will) and we may have to learn to lean on others for help. BUT, we will NEVER lose our God, we will NEVER be with out Jesus Christ. That I can hold onto, that is my truth.

Unfortunately, we don't have internet at home, so email and blogging will be something that will be done when we can make it to the library or steal internet from our friends. I apologize now for the sporadic updates, but I will try as hard as I can to keep everybody updated on our lives and our son when he decides to come about :)

Today

2009-04-02T08:18:00.001-04:00

Today I will spend more time trusting my God than crying in the bathroom.

Prayers Please

2009-04-01T09:04:00.001-04:00

So we have some not so good news that is in no part an April Fool's joke. I hate having to write this on a day when we are supposed to have some much joy coming into our lives, but here it goes:
Chad was layed off yesterday from work. He came and picked me up from work around noon to let me know. As you all know, i was planning on staying at home with our son, but we don't know what the future holds now.
I turned in my resignation from work a while ago, but i have said something about possibly coming back after maternity leave if they would have work for me, but I haven't heard anything. Chad's employer has given the people they layed off a severance package that should hold us over for a couple months. The reason for the lay off is that they are slowly closing the bryan location.
in any case, this has come as a real shock and swift punch to the gut. We don't know what God has in store for us or why he chose to have this happen at this time, but we are trying really hard to know that he is in control and knows the plans he has for us.
We have been praying-not very consistently though-about moving closer to our parents for a while now. We are thinking maybe this is God saying that we need to start acting on that thought instead of just thinking about it.
Our thoughts right now are that we will probably be putting our house on the market soon. Chad is going to apply for some jobs in the Dayton/Columbus area in hopes that something is available and he will not be jobless for too long. If he gets a job down there in the near future before we sell our house, we will move down there while still trying to sell our house. Or if our house sells, we will move down there unless i am working up here.
I am due today, but there is no sign of the little guy coming. If he would come soon, we would really love that. We could use some joy in our lives right now. The good in this is that Chad will be able to spend more time with his son now.
i'm sorry you guys are finding out this way, but i dont think i could call everybody and go through this every time. it is hard enough writing this as i am crying the entire time hoping nobody at work notices.
please just keep us in your prayers.

1 day away...

2009-03-31T09:20:00.000-04:00

My due date is officially tomorrow...however, it seems that mr squirt is content...STILL. i went on a 4 mile walk yesterday and plan on doing a similar task today. hopefully something is happening, I guess we'll see. I'm still hoping for that April 1st delivery...times wasting away squirt...its time for you to start making your way from my belly into my arms! I can't wait to meet you!
Chad has been working hard on getting the final details of the nursery done. Since we can't find any really neat car switch plate covers, chad has resorted to drawing cars on them. We'll then paint the very artistic drawings that my wonderful husband has been putting so much effort into!
Sunday night chad and i stayed up until 11:45 (that is VERY late for us) watching a movie. What movie you ask? It's a movie called Fireproof. The acting was sub-par, but I expected that. However, the message the movie conveyed was a very good one. There is no question as to what the writers wanted to get across to the audience...sometimes, it felt as if they were shoving it down your throat...but i think sometimes our society needs that, even if it does make it quite cheesy :) I still haven't recovered from our late night and I am tired today.

Come on baby clark-many people are waiting on you and its rude to keep people waiting!

Overdue

2009-03-27T08:14:00.000-04:00

I had my 39 wk appt yesterday and the dr seems to think that I will go over my due date...booo! we are so excited to meet mr squirt, but he doesn't seem to be all that thrilled about leaving his comfy yet cramped quarters...what a squirt! (hence the name) He still finds it very funny to kick me and make my stomach look like anything but a normal belly. His jabs are becoming more painful and menacing as the days go...he is definitely getting stronger-the stinker!
Anyway, we are crossing our fingers for an April 1st delivery! Everybody pray that it happens! We could have so much fun with the kid for years to come!
"Happy birthday sweetie! We got you a bike!!!! April Fools! you get clothes!"
Can't wait!

11 days and counting....

2009-03-20T14:35:00.000-04:00

38 Weeks!

I went to the dr yesterday for my 38th week check-up and left disappointed. They say that nothing is progressing and I probably will be seeing them for a couple more weeks yet...rats! I was really hoping that something would be going on, but the little squirt will come when he's good and ready-and when God tells him it's time to leave mommy's ever growing belly :). I haven't gained any weight for about 3 weeks, but somehow this little guy is still growing. last week when they measure me, he was at 37, and this week he is at 39...who gave him permission to skip 38? I certainly did not, he needs to understand his mommy has never done this before so he needs to be the tiny adorable little 6 lb newborn and not the massive 9 or 10 pounder.

Squirt, if you can hear me-and i know you can, please don't get too big!!! or come earlier than you are planning!

In other news...we started painting the master bedroom. We picked the colors according to our bedspread...baked bean and something else. When we opened the baked bean, i was a bit apprehensive to put it on the wall b/c it was such a bold color. However, we started painting and I think i really like it! the other color will be a creamish color, which i need to go down into the basement and find it...wherever it may be.

We painted the ceiling this past weekend and we took the bright light out,(not the toy) before it had dried. So when we brought the light back in to paint the walls, I saw for the first time how horrible my painting skills are when it comes to painting ceilings. There were huge spots where I pretty much completely missed! It's really hard to paint white on white b/c you can't see where you've been. So, unfortunately, we need to open up the ceiling paint again and redo what we've already done...rats! I know what we'll be doing this weekend with Chad's parents if we don't get it done tonight :)

I've posted some better nursery pics for your enjoyment. I apologize for the last ones, they weren't very good. These are a little better.

This is the view from the doorway
Our cute hamper, rocker, and lamp :)
The mobile that will hopefully put him to sleep dreaming of cars!
Bedding-I just love the car theme!!!

I can't wait for our little guy to move into the nursery...it just doesn't feel complete without him here.

Please pray for Chad to come up with a name for the squirt so he doesn't have to go by Squirt when he is born. We had a name picked and now we are rethinking. Chad has the burden/privilege of picking the name...11 days left to decide :)

and for kicks and giggles, here's a pic of our friends' 2 year old daughter wearing chad's Troll mask...hilarious.

It's been a while!

2009-03-17T11:48:00.000-04:00

So it's been about a month since the last post and I apologize. I haven't been able to get on here to do this so I am taking a couple minutes to update.

One reason i've decided to do this today is that we found our camera charger! woohoo! It has been lost for a few weeks and our camera was slowly dying. As the due date of our squirt is approaching, I was getting extra anxious to find it so we wouldn't be caught red handed w/out it at the delivery.

I am 38 weeks along now! I can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone! The good news is that we have been working a lot on the house and the nursery is complete! (aside from baseboard, but who needs that!) The wood flooring is also done and we have carpet in the guest bedroom. The master bedroom still needs to be painted, which hopefully we'll get done this week, but who knows. It's just nice to come home to a clean house and do a little bit of work and then relax.

The kitchen and bathrooms are the only other rooms lacking right now, but they aren't too high on the priority list. They will get done in time.

Getting ready for baby, I installed the car seat in my car so we wouldn't be doing that last minute. The stroller has also been put together and baby stuff has been organized and washed...for the most part. however, our hospital bag only contains one outfit...for squirt when its time to come home...i've been a huge slacker...but that comes from my hatred of packing. We'll need to do that soon i guess.

Anyway, I've uploaded pictures of the nursery and flooring and guest bedroom for your enjoyment. We are having our fat lady (pregnant me) pics done tonight...so hopefully I'll have some 38 week shots for you all in the near future!

14 days and counting!!!!!

All of the pictures were taken this morning...so they aren't that great of quality b/c i was rushing to get out the door for work!

Our bedroom flooring complete!
1st shot of Guest Bedroom

2nd Shot of Guest Bedroom

DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!!

Now for Pic's of the Nursery!!!!

(I don't think this is how it is going to stay...we don't really like the setup quite yet...and no the sweeper will not be living in here, i didn't have time to clean the room out last night)

Updates on the house and baby :)

2009-02-17T13:48:00.000-05:00

Here's a few pics for your enjoyment...the wood floor being finally laid in the house and me at 34 weeks!

Baby shower at work

2009-02-11T10:05:00.000-05:00

I had a baby shower thrown for me at work...I love my coworkers :) They are awesome and are so generous! Gift Certificate to Babies R Us...woohoo!

clothes!!!

I was trying to figure out the bowl set in this pic...it was confusing at first :) Thanks Lissa and Laci!

More Clothes!

MORE CLOTHES!

I think more clothes, but don't know what I'm looking at :)

Still pulling out stuff from the bag-cut dog bib:)

Sleepers!

This pic shows my big belly at 32 weeks...its coming so fast!

Look at all the goods and the awesome CAKE!!!!

The cake was awesome and so cute thanks to Lissa! I wish I would have gotten a picture of her with the cake. I absolutely love what she wrote on it.

I also had a shower at my church the Sunday before, but I forgot my camera, so we don't have pictures from that shower, which really stinks. But I do have another shower in Columbus in a week and a half, so hopefully I remember my camera for that one :)

Our boy definitely has more clothes than I do at the present moment. Pretty soon I am going to have to start washing them all and organizing them by size.

I need to take pics of the other ones that we have for him...there are some pretty cute outfits.

As for our house...It is mostly painted!!!! we have a few areas to touch up, but not too much. Our room still needs painted, which I hope to get done this week. I'll take some pics and hopefully post them soon. Thank you Cody, Cory, Kent and Zack for your help in painting our house this weekend while we were at birthing class!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

I dont have the sugars!!!

2009-01-21T14:04:00.000-05:00

I had to take the 3 hour glucose test after failing the one hour test. This was done last Saturday. Teri went with me to sit through the 3 hours of boringness! Luckily, everything came back ok. My fasting level was 99, which is higher than the recommended, but not by much. As a result of this experience, I told Chad that I thought it would be a good idea for us to be careful on our carbs and sugar intake. So from now on, I am going to try (TRY) and be a bit more diligent in not making pasta's and pototoe's all the time. We are going to try and eat more green/colored veggies and chicken instead of hamburger helper and pototoe soup with rolls :(
of course we will still eat that other stuff, but just not as often.
Unfortunately at work, we've had donuts the past 2 days, so I did those. Hopefully no more donuts pop up in the break room for a while.
Other good news...the nursery is painted!!!! i was so excited when Kent and Chad told me to go ahead and pick up paint for the nursery becuase it was going to be ready to paint Saturday afternoon.
As soon as I put the border up, I will be sure to post pictures. We only have a few spots in the whole house that need some drywall work, so we are very close to painting everything.
The house is finally coming together! I am so excited!
We have 3 showers planned in february for the little squirt. Hopefully we'll have a clean place to store all the goodies until we can put them in the nursery.
Chad no longer has china calls on Wednesday nights!!! This means that we don't have to be at his work until 10pm on Wednesday nights anymore! However, this also means that I'll have less time to work on the blog until we decide to bite the bullet and get internet at home. When that happens, hopefully I'll be more diligent on the blogging and updating seeing that our little squirt will be here in 7-10 weeks.
That is so close! It's very scary to think that we could/probably will be parents in March to a new little baby boy...still to be named :)
We've decided that when we do pick a name, we are not going to share it until after the squirt is born, just in case we change our minds.
Well, my break is over at work, so time to get back to it!

Insulation!!!!

2009-01-14T21:34:00.000-05:00

It is official, our house is insulated!!!! (aside from the crawlspace, but that isn't the point) Chad and I worked hard on Saturday finishing up the insulation project. We bought the insulation on friday and got up saturday morning and started working right away drilling holes and getting stuff out of the way. It only took us about 5 hours to fill all the walls and it went way easier than i thought it would.
We noticed a difference right away in how the house held heat. The bedrooms are much warmer and are about the same temperature as the living room and kitchen.
Being very excited about having insulation (and hoping to save money on heat) we decided that we should reward ourselves and turn the heat up to 60 degrees from the chilly 55 we've had it the whole winter season. So on Sunday night, I turned the thermostat up after downing some hot chocolate and noticing that I was still cold and could see my breath. We sat on the couch for a few minutes and never heard the furnace kick on. That's when I realized that it wasn't the hot chocolate that made my breath visible...our house was freezing b/c we had no heat! I checked the thermostat and it said our house was at 48 degrees...that's a little bit too cold. So we went downstairs (after i made sure that it wasn't a tripped breaker) and started to fiddle with the furnace. We pulled out the permanent and disposable filters and noticed they were terribly dirty, most likely from the insulation/drywall project. After cleaning them off and not putting the disposable one back in (we aren't supposed to use disposable filters according to the manual) the furnace started working again. By the time we went to bed, the house was back up to 56 degrees and when we woke in the morning it was at 60.
Funny thing is, after all the excitement about turning the heat up, we actually got too warm and ended up turning it back down to 56/57 degrees. We have decided that when we are home for extended periods during the day, we will turn it up to 60 but during the week and at night, it will stay a nice/brisk 55 degrees.
However, the house feels like a sauna when coming in from -10 degree weather. So I'm not going to complain!
On to some baby news!
In the past week, 2 showers have been planned for chad and I. We have one the first sunday in February with our church friends and then one February 22nd down in columbus with family and friends. We are very excited. Well, I am at least! Chad gets to attend a diaper shower with some guys from our church at a bowling alley while I go to the fun shower at the church where there is going to be great food and a lot of fun!
Our childbirth class is the second weekend in February. I am excited and nervous at the same time. Chad seems to be pretty excited, but we'll see how he responds once we get there.
Other than that, the baby is still growing. My dr tried calling me the past couple days, but my phone has officially passed on to the cell phone afterlife. I tried calling them back today, but the office was closed do to the hazardous weather. I have a feeling they are just wanting to tell me the results of the glucose test. Cross your fingers that I don't have the sugars!
Ok, well, it is almost 10 and I am definitely ready to sleep. It's been a long day.
Good night!

28 Weeks!!!

2009-01-07T21:32:00.000-05:00

I am so sorry for not blogging the past few weeks. We haven't been to Chad's work for China calls until now. So I have quite a bit to tell.

First off, I have officially entered my 3rd trimester...we are on the homestretch! here is a pic of me at 27 weeks. (last week)

It's not the greatest pic because we took it at the end of the day right before bedtime and we were both exhausted and ready to be sleeping! but as you can see, i have grown quite a bit. I go to the doctor tomorrow for my 28 week appointment. The squirt (still un-named) is moving A LOT. Erin and Mom got to feel him move while we were home for christmas and I think both were a bit surprised at his sometimes forceful jabs :) He hasn't got me real hard lately and I think he may be lacking the room to get a good swing in.

As far as the house goes, Dad came up a few weekends ago to help chad work on the house. They ended up tearing out the doorway that leads from the kitchen to the hallway due to mold issues behind one of the bathrooms. Chad and I started the project not intending to take the doorway out, but seeing the extent of the water damage, they decided to rip it out as well as replacing some of the hallway subflooring. here's a pic of Dad working on tearing out the nasty subflooring.

And here is a pic of the final product. good job boys!

On Monday, Chad and a very nice man from our church blew a ton of insulation into the attic. Chad had calculated that we would need about 70 bags of insulation for the walls and the attic. However, at the end of the day, they were left with only 2 bags. Every other bag was put into the attic. So this weekend, we are going to try and finish the walls. It will be nice to finally have an insulated house!

Some sad news to report: The mach5 is no longer with us. Chad sold him a couple weeks ago to a man who needed the car more than we do. We will/do miss him very much. There are many happy memories associated with the old guy.

In other news, I am trying to earn a trip through Arbonne taking place in October. if you would like to help me earn this trip and to grow my business, ask me how and I will let you know!

Good night and God Bless!

Wednesday!

2008-12-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

Christmas is in a week! That is very hard to believe, but I am so excited to spend time with family again. We are going to New York for a few days next week to spend with Chad's family and then on Friday we will be heading to New Carlisle to spend the weekend with my family. Chad is going to snowboard with his brothers while I relax and get a much wanted massage!
We haven't really done much else with the house lately aside from tear out more drywall :( However, my dad is coming up here this weekend to help chad and I will be heading down to new carlisle to hang out with my mom since she can't come with dad on friday.
As far as the baby update goes, I am now 25 weeks and feeling pregnant. sleeping is becoming a new issue for me. I wake up often and am having to put a pillow under my belly b/c it is starting to not be so comfortable anymore. I feel it in the afternoon the most. I just want to lay down and take a nap. But around the time when I get home, I have a little more energy. Also, my appetite has increased a bit. I have noticed that I am hungry when I get home from work and I normally can't wait for chad to get home to eat...so I snack and end up not even being hungry when he is ready to eat, but that a few hours later (around 9 or 10) I get hungry again :)
At my appointment last week, everything went and looked good. I am measuring a little big, so this little guy is telling us that right now, he is not so little. He had better slow down or come early enough so I don't have to push out a huge baby! I'm not quite prepared for that.
I have started a registry for the baby at target and babies r us, but we are still adjusting them and are missing a lot of stuff. It's so hard to know what to put on there without getting overwhelmed! It's quite a bit different than registering for a wedding.
One more thing that's getting harder is getting up from soft cushy seating. Chad now has the job of helping me get up...which i never thought I'd get to that point so early, but my balance is definitely off!
I think that's it for tonight! I'm ready to lay down on the floor and take a nap until chad is done with the call!
hope everybody has a merry Christmas!

short

2008-12-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

Well, its 10pm and I'm ready to go home, but we are still at Chad's work. I just got done putting an Arbonne order in and emailing people and updating our budget.
The breaker box is officially in! Yay! however, there is still a little bit of wiring to do. I don't have pictures yet, but I will at some point.
Anyway, it's time to go and I am exhausted!