In the Valley

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!

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

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!

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

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...

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

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!!