More thankfulness

6. A beautiful drive into West Virginia with my family

7. Ellie's first fishing experience (no success but cute to watch)

8. At-home date night with my husband

9. Ellie's wild and curly hair

10. Open mouth kisses from Piper, slobber and all

11. Witnessing a family working on their farm (that just does something to my soul)

12. A nice dinner out with a friend

13. Started packing boxes yesterday!

14. The peace and quiet of nap time 

15. When things get too crazy, it usually just becomes funny and we can laugh it off

Give Thanks

I have been in a weird place emotionally for the past 6 months or so.  I have started so many posts for this blog and ended up deleting them, because I didn't like the rawness of them.  I wondered, "What would someone think if they read that?  Would they question my belief in God?  Would someone think I was depressed?" And it goes on.  So here I am.  I'm not really ready to talk about all these things publicly.  But it's doing no good sitting inside me, staying bottled up.  God is telling me to share, at least a little, if for no other reason than to get it out of me.

I can't really pinpoint what's going on in my heart.  There are a myriad of circumstances that are contributing, none of which are that huge in and of themselves, but it's more like a stacking, one on top of the other on my back that is getting to me.  My relationship with God is dry right now.  I believe, but at the same time I have some hurts that I just don't understand.  Sometimes I can't reconcile the God I know with the world I live in.  I know that it's just life.  How can I have hope when some days I just feel so much anger and despair over the world I'm a part of?

A friend recommended the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  I started reading it this week, thinking, "How can I have thankfulness in my heart when I'm not thankful for the bad stuff going on?" I don't know that I have the answer to that yet, but I'm working on it.  I wanted to share a passage from this book that is getting to me right now:

"I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks...Why would the world need more anger, more outrage?  How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us?  Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering.  The converse does.  The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.  When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows.  How can this not be the best thing for the world?  For us?  The clouds open when we mouth thanks."  (Voskamp 58)

Give thanks.  Is that where my heart needs to be in order to heal?  I'm willing to try.  Lately I've neglected my efforts at thankfulness.  Sure, I'm generally thankful.  I have breath in my lungs, a husband who loves me, healthy children, a house and food and any other worldly thing I think I should have.  But I don't name them.  I don't tell God specifically what I'm thankful for.  We pray with Ellie at night and she's picked up from us the phrase, "Dear God, thank you for today."  What does that even mean?  Thank you for today.  There are a million events, moments, memories in one day and all I can come up with is "thank you for today?"

So...in an effort to work through some of these things, I'm going to list some specific things I'm thankful for right now.  I'm not poetic like Ann Voskamp, so my list will likely sound kind of dull (at least to me), but just know that my heart is in these things.  And as a side note, I love that as I start writing this list my dog starts barking and wakes up the girls.  Such is life.

1. Walking outside in the warmth with the girls
2. My sweet Piper covered in peanut butter after eating a big lunch
3. Ellie saying, "Pretty snow!" when the petals blow off the trees during our walk
4. Time to read while the girls nap
5. The softness of our bed, and that Billy's side smells like him

Five things.  Better than nothing.  God, please use this to heal my heart a little.  Help me see joy and thankfulness all the time, not just when things are good.  

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."  Philippians 2:12-13

Piper Turns One!

My sweet little Piper is turning one on Saturday.  It seems that every time a birthday for one of my girls rolls around I get sentimental and start lamenting their growing up.  In reality, I don't want them to stay little forever...it gives me a lot of joy to see my girls grow up and change into the little people God created them to be.  But it does hurt just a little to think that this crawling, almost-walking little girl in front of me was in my belly a year ago, totally dependent on me to care for her.

I have to say that the last year has been a whirlwind.  Definitely full of surprises and joy, but also a fair amount of frustration and tears.  My pregnancy with Piper was as close to perfect as it gets.  I felt more healthy at 40 weeks pregnant with her than I think I've ever felt in my life.  Her birth was also uncomplicated and went so well.  My recovery was very quick and relatively pain free, which was a huge difference compared to my experience with Ellie.  I wrongly assumed that being a mom would be easier the second time around...

I never thought of Ellie as an "easy baby" until Piper came along.  From the beginning, Piper didn't sleep well.  She would toss and turn through her naps and cry out frequently.  There was one point when she was about a week and a half old that she literally didn't sleep for 8 hours (which is extremely abnormal for a newborn).  She just screamed and cried...her little belly felt so tight and nursing on demand didn't help at all.  Over time she got better about sleeping, but it was still about 8 months before she finally started sleeping through the night consistently.  Her reflux was so much worse than Ellie's to manage, and it ended up taking two different reflux medications given simultaneously for her to eat and act normally.

Becoming a mom to two little girls under two was so hard at first.  I remember many days just crying a lot and sleeping on the floor of Ellie's room while she played with toys and Piper cried in her bed.  It was harder than I could have imagined...but now that it's one year later, it is seriously the greatest joy to have these two little girls as my daughters.

I am so blessed to have seen these two become sisters.  Of course, they are already sisters by birth and blood, but they have really grown into their sisterhood and relationship with each other.  They love each other so much and spend much of their time making each other laugh.  Ellie has mastered the art of getting a good giggle out of Piper (who is sometimes a tough audience and doesn't laugh nearly as easily as Ellie).  Piper LOVES Ellie's affections and watches her sister's every move (which also means that Piper wants to play with whatever Ellie is playing with, which leads to my next thought).  They also fight fiercely...complete with hair pulling, pushing, shoving, kicking, screaming, scratching, etc.  We don't have full out brawls on a regular basis, but they do fuss at each other quite a bit at this age.  It is a constant battle for me with intervening between them.  I'm really trying to learn to just let them fight it out sometimes.  I let myself think that I have to protect Piper from Ellie because she's the baby, but she's really not so much anymore and can usually hold her own pretty well.

Anyway, here are some facts about Piper at one year old:

• Stats: She hasn't had her one year check up yet, but she was at the doctor's office a couple weeks ago and was about 21 pounds I think.  
• Favorite foods: EVERYTHING.  This child eats more than Ellie at every meal.  Right now, she loves bananas, strawberries, peanut butter sandwiches, broccoli, spaghetti, milk, and pretty much anything else I put in front of her.  Her only dislikes that I've noticed right now would be plain cheese and eggs.
• Favorite games: She loves Pat-a-Cake, chasing Ellie, and playing peekaboo.
• Vocabulary: Piper's verbal vocabulary includes dog, dada, mama, sissy, uh-oh, hi, and we think she's said Ellie a few times.  She also waves and uses sign language for more, all done, and thank you.
• Favorite things: food, touch and feel books, small books with real pictures, music and songs, dancing to music, bathtime, and dogs.
• Things she's good at: cruising (holding furniture or my hand while walking), finding the tiniest hidden objects in the carpet and eating them (such as small pebbles, grass, mulch, dirt, trash, old food, etc. haha), dancing (which Ellie never did as a baby), crawling up the stairs, eating, blowing kisses and charming everyone she meets =)
• Things she's not so good at: She doesn't have the confidence to walk by herself yet, she is very emotional about not getting her way, and can be a bit clingy when grouchy
• Physical accomplishments: Cruising all the time, has 8 teeth, and crawling up the stairs by herself (I turned my back and she disappeared...we found her in the upstairs bathroom going through the trash!)
• Sleep: She sleeps about 12 hours at night (sharing a room with Ellie) and takes two naps (in a separate room) per day (morning and evening, each about 2 hours).

She has turned into such a little girl.  When she's happy, she is so happy.  When she's sad, it's like the world has ended.  She has the most beautiful smile, and her hair is starting to curl a little.  It makes me wonder if it's just because of it being warm outside lately and the sweat is curling her hair, or if she's going to end up like Ellie with a head full of curls.  Her eyes are still in transition mode.  They're definitely not blue, but right now more like a hazel/blue/green/brown mix, so I'm not sure yet if they're just going to end up brown or if they'll be hazel (Billy's eyes are a light brown/hazel color so maybe she'll have the same eyes).  She is quite olive-skinned....we call her our beautiful Jew baby haha =) (before someone takes offense to that, just know that Billy has Jewish ancestry!).  She is a little chub right now, with a fat little belly and sweet chubby legs.  She loves giving and receiving kisses and being held.  She is my sweet girl...it is my joy to be her mom!

Piper at one week old

Piper at 4 months, Ellie right before she turned 2

My big girl a month before her birthday