Leaving for the weekend

 

              

 

 

Our chapel is hosting a retreat for our community down in Garmisch at Edelweiss, and we are going! They have childcare for Jack, Jacob will be in a program the resort offers for older kids, and Emma will of course stay with us! The sessions will only be about 1 hr each day, the rest of the time is free time! We're looking forward to it, it'll be so nice to get away and we LOVE going down to Garmisch and Edelweiss.

 

 

                   

 

We'll of course take pictures so I'll share them when we get home. We'll be home sometime on Sunday, depending on how tired I am I may post Sunday, otherwise it'll be Monday! Have a great weekend!!

 

 

 

First Smiles and memories

                          

 

Yesterday, Sept 3..Emma turned 1 month old. I can't believe she's been here for a month, yet at the same time I think she's ONLY been here a month! It feels like she's been with us forever in so many ways, she just fits so perfectly into our family. I LOVE all my children and I've wanted each of them in different ways. Many of you know that Jacob was probably the most unexpected of all our children, yet showed me and Chad for that matter that we really COULD love another child, again after Jordyn died. Most of you just simply don't know the fears I had during my pregnancy with him, Kelly was privy to those late night honesty-full of fear confessions as was my best friend Tami...but now 7 yrs later it's hard for me to really describe that time in our lives. Grief is far more complicated than any of you can understand, unless you're going through it yourself and grieving the death of your child is different than grieving for a parent, spouse, sibling, etc....it's like comparing Apples to Oranges...neithers better or worse (well ok I DO think the death of a child is the WORST kind, but well that's what I've experienced)...they are drastically different though.

                     

                                 Jacob feeding the fish at our local lake

Anyways...so back to my children. Jordyn was our 1st and we'd just decided to stop "trying" rofl..(said the ignorant newlyweds..giggling..as if there was EVER any "stopping"! ROFL) anyways...you get my point...literally we decided we were going to "Wait" to have a baby for a couple years, since we were about to move to Germany the following year and thought we'd start trying the last year of our time in Germany...HA! I was pg the following month! I desperatedlywanted Jordyn. I DREAMED of her, and when I say that I really mean it. God gave me a gift of a dream of what she'd look like at a year old and it WAS Jordyn. I physcially ached during my pregnancy to hold her. She was EVERYTHING I ever dreamed of and MORE! Most if not all of you know the rest of the story so to speak, for those of you who don't...to sum it up and I mean sum it up big time...6 days before she turned 1 she was dx with AML leukemia, and 14 months later she went home to Heaven. There was A LOT of living in those 14 months, so don't take it lightly and don't think I'm being callous or harsh, you can go back and read, or go over and click on the links to her websites and read more..tonight I simply don't have the energy and it really does take that to share it all when typing.

              

                       Jordyn after she got into my lipstick! :)

Jackson was our first child we really "tried" for. It took us two months, not long I know, but we were sooo absolutely thrilled when we got the positive results. He's been such a gift to our family. He's all boy, full of orneriness, and him and Jacob are great friends! He just turned 4 and that just simply does not seem possible. I look at his chubby little thighs and still see some "babyness" in him. He still loves to crawl on my lap and cuddle, although he will sternly tell anyone who gets it wrong that he is NOT a baby, he is indeed a "big boy". He'll ALWAYS be my baby boy though! (even if God would give us another boy! LOL) He made Jacob a big brother and allowed Jacob to finally know what it's like to have a living sibling, and now that He's a big brother...it's like he was created to be just that. He LOVES being a big brother to Emma and oh I look forward to the years to come! :)

 

 

                     

                                     Jackson a couple days ago :)

 

Emma though...again this is a Kelly thing...she KNOWS how much I've wanted a daughter. I've not even had to say it in so many words, because she knows me so well she knows how desperately I wanted a girl when we found out we were pg with Emma. Ok so she knew BEFORE I got pregnant how much I wanted a girl! I PRAYED for Emma. I mean got down on my knee's, wept, begged, I longed for a daughter. My heart literally ached for HER. Now don't think I didn't want my others just as much...I just, well I can't explain it. I knew simply put that if I told God the desires of my heart, as he tells us to, that he'd give it to me. I told him the desires of my heart...over and over again. I wanted there to be no question about it! LOL God KNEW I wanted a girl...he KNEW I wanted Emma! God blessed with her, he heard my prayer. Now had he given me a Jonah..I know he'd have heard my prayer as well, but would have known it was not TIME for Emma yet...but well it WAS time for Emma! Next time who knows. Yes I did just write that..next time. We leave this in God's hands and I don't doubt we'll have more children. I would LOVE to have another child, I'd LOVE to have another daughter...but girl or boy...that child will be just as loved and wanted as our other 4! BUT I'm in NO RUSH! Trust me...I have the baby I've had baby fever for the last 2 almost 3 yrs!! :) I'm good for a good 2 or 3 years and figure between nursing, God, and the Army I SHOULD be safe to actually develop baby fever again before God blesses us that way once again! :) I can BE a patient woman! LOL

 

 

                

                                                        Emma smiles

Anyways....with all that blabbering and even a little blubbering on my end...God's blessed me 4 times over, well actually 5 times counting Chad. Yes he gets on my nerves, but he's still such a blessing in my life and I KNOW that! He can drive me up the wall, but I wouldn't want to be driven up the wall by any other man! :)

 

 

                    

 

 

Thank you all for your prayers, love, support, and joy for our family with the arrival of Emma! As I began, yesterday Emma turned 1 month old and as the title of this says..."first smiles" Emma gave us her first REAL smile yesterday. Chad was taking pictures of her (she was in my arms) and I gave her a kiss, and she smiled so big, and he was able to snap it while she laid her head down on my chest! She has the most beautiful smile and knowing I'll be seeing more and more of that smile, well I just love it!!!! Time goes by too quickly when you have children. I hope if you have them, you treasure every moment with them, that you don't take them for granted, that if they have good health you don't take it for granted and you don't put their health in danger by choices YOU make, that although they may drive you crazy, remembering that once they are all grown up you'll miss the days when they're younger, etc. These are fleeting moments and we'll all blink and they'll be gone.....if we could only slow down time just a little.

 

                          

              Being the Kansas Girl that I am, I LOVE this tag...Thank you TerryAnn!!!              

 

Sunday Ramblings

 

 

                      

 

Ok so I let Jacob play on the computer this morning and now when I go to any aol journals the font is like 8, it's so stinking tiny and that includes my own! I have the font on this right now set at an 18, and it looks like a 10...so since all of yours are normal my font will seem huge to you compared to the normal 12 I normally use! :)

 

 

                    

 

We had church this morning. Now being an Army family, living in Germany we go to the chapel on post (this is the only place we've ever gone to post chapel and when we move back to the states we'll return to our home church aka NOT a Army chapel!). With the Army chapel we have a head chaplain who normally does the preaching, then we have various other battalion chaplains who are assigned to a particular unit/battalion and if they want to and if the head chaplain's good with it, they may preach periodically. Well our Battalion recently got a new chaplain and he's so great. Not only is he just really nice, friendly, down to earth kind of guy, who's wife is just as great..he knows how to preach! Sorry to say I don't enjoy our head chaplain when he preaches. I want give it to me, make me feel convicted if that's what God's got planned for me, tell me how it is, don't hold back any punches, no fluff/make me feel good about myself preaching. I want the TRUTH. For those of you who know the bible you know that there's really not a lot of "feel good/warm and fuzzy" stories/sermons coming from it. It's rather offensive and it's anything but politically correct, and it's not what I'd call a seeker friendly book! It's the truth and there's no other way about it. Our head chaplain gives a very watered down, seeker friendly sermon week after week. He puts on annoying little skits that the first couple of times in chapel make you laugh (mostly because they're so absolutely corny and rediculous) and then they just become annoying and make you feel like you're 3 and being preached to. Not exactly what I want and definately not what I need from church. You see I know that quite often I need to go into church and get my attitude adjusted, I need to feel the wrath of GOD condemning me. Oh yes, you see I want to be disciplined and since there are Sunday mornings when I'm anything but a happy, kindly Momma and wife, much less Child of God I need to go in there and be chastised vs swaddled. Well our new chaplain has been preaching for the last few weeks and this morning he slapped my hands and sat me in a corner, I looked at Chad and said "yes I know this is for me and my hands HURT". Oh yes God grabbed me, shook me and told me to "LISTEN RIGHT NOW CHRISTY". I heard him, I asked for forgiveness, and I also recognize what I was doing this morning before going into church. What is that you ask? Well I was yelling at my husband, yelling at Jacob, popped Jacob for something that did not deserve a popping for, and was just ultimately in an ugly mood...that is until we pulled into the parking lot and I got out of the car, took Jack's hand and he joyfully went to childcare (he's refused to go in there for a couple months now and today he WANTED to!!) and then I turned on my big ole happy face as I entered the sanctuary. Hypocrit you say, absolutely I was. I was being completely 2 faced....to save face to my friends who attend chapel, because I know a few of them at least would kick me in the butt if they knew the way I behaved this morning and somewhere down inside of me I stupidly thought I could "food God" HAHA! As IF he didn't see the way I was behaving this morning.

                     

 

So...the chaplain literally talked about how we can go from the screaming, raging crazy person in the car and open the door to go into church and we plaster that smile on our face, wrap our arm lovingly around the one we were just raging AT, and pretend we're just as happy as a lark! Oh yeah it was a kick in the butt kind of sermon for me and I left there sore...but I needed it.

 

 

                 

 

What always amazes me when we have a chaplain who's willing to preach God's word and not water it down, is how often it grabs my heart, often slaps my hands, and when I walk out I'm desiring to read his word more, learn more, find more truths, and yes have my butt kicked even more! It's tiring. It's what I need. I don't think that seeker friendly sermons or churches do anyone any good, except for fill them with falsehoods that if they start studying the bible themselves, will fall to the waste side and they'll be in for the shock of a lifetime! IMHO. (Hence I'm NOT a fan of Rick Warren and our head chaplain went to college with him, they were friends in college...coicidence I think not!)

 

 

                

 

 

So...here I am humbly to state that I fall down daily, I let God down over and over and over. I am grieved over the fact that daily I do something that causes Christ grief. That in and of itself is heartbreaking and then to know that it's not just me, but well everyone, because none of us are perfect. That is a fact. The big question though is are we seeking perfection in Christ's eyes? If not, why? If so..how's it going?

 

                 

 

Something else that has been on my mind is, am I as gentle and forgiving with my own children and husband as Christ is with me? My answer...no. So....I'm going to work on changing that. I need to be as gentle with them, as forgiving, all the while being a good disiplinarian to my children, a good, respectful, obedient (yep I just wrote that), and loving wife to Chad. I've been lacking in my morning prayer time and it's time to get back to that. My days simply went better when I spent time with God before my day actually began. I don't like mornings, but well me liking something doesn't really matter...I need to do this for God, myself, and my family. I'm a better Christy, mom, and wife when I do. If I get my day started off right, it's going to end up better at the end of the day. Does it meaneveryday is going to be smooth, always happy, etc...no but it means that it's GOD's DAY vs Christy's and that's how every single day should be for all of us!

                    

 

Well, Chad's working on putting the boys beds back into bunk beds so I should get off of here and be ready to help him if he needs me to!

 

 

 

Lazy Saturday

Here's some pictures from yesterday and I'm even throwing in a few of Emma! She was exactly 4 weeks old yesterday, is that possible? She's one of those babies that just feels like she's been here forever, she just fits so perfectly with our family, it seems like an odd dream that 4 weeks ago we were just meeting her.

 

            

 

Today's a lazy day! It's grey and hazzy and has been raining off and on. Chad went and picked us up BK for lunch. I actually don't like BK, but well we don't have many choices here and when being lazy and not wanting to make anything for lunch and needing to go grocery shopping..beggars can't be choosers! We've been watching tv, playing video games, and just cuddling together. I actually got to sleep in until 10 this morning. I was so exhausted last night, that when I signed off of here I went and passed out in bed and didn't wake up until I think it was about 1 or 2 am when Chad came in with Emma (they'd been snoozing in the living room in the glider!) for me to nurse her. I nursed her and then back to sleep we all went. I am not positive what time Chad and the kids got up, but he took Emma with him when he did and let me sleep on. I know I nursed her before they got up prob. about 7 is my guess...but those extra hours of sleep felt so good! Right now Emma is snoozing on me.

I need to get some cleaning done, bad! I need to get dishes washed up, laundry put away and of course there's always plenty to wash, our  bed sheets need pulled off and clean ones put on and the rest of the bedding needs washed! Oh speaking of bedding..in the pictures are a couple of the boys in Jack's bed with Jack's new bedding he got for his birthday! He loves them!! :)

Ok, well I'm heading off of here!

A good but long day

 

 

             

 

We were all up by 8:15 this morning, Chad has a 4 day weekend...got to love the Army for 4 day weekends, that is definately one of the perks of military life! :) A friend of mine who's husband is currently deployed, her oldest son is in a German school vs the DODDS school or home schooling while living here in Germany. So anyways, since he's in a German school he's been out of school for the month of August and will not go back for another week. She'd initially planneda  trip to Italy, but because it seems everyone else in Germany or all the Italians are returning..the roads leading to Rome are JAM PACKED! She wasn't planning on going to Rome actually, but to a beach, but considering that from where we live to Vecinzia it should only take 6 to 6 1/2 hrs and it took a friend of hers 12 hours and she still would have another 3 hrs past there to go...she didn't want to be stuck in her car for 12 to 15 hrs just trying to GET there! So then she planned another trip, but it got cancelled...so we decided to do Playmobil today! Chad hadn't been with us and she and her boys hadn't been! Jacob and Jack were THRILLED, it's one of their favorite places to go!

 

           

 

 

We got there at 10:55 and left there a little after 5 pm. We were already tired. On our way we saw Pizza Hut so we'd decided to stop there and have dinner. So glad we did, it actually tasted almost like American Pizza Hut..now we have a Pizza Hut here on post in our food court and it's DISGUSTING. It's greasier than greasy, the meats taste horrible, friends who like Veggitarian say the veggies are awful...it's just simple gross!

 

 

                

           

 

Well we had a wonderful, wonderful treat for dinner. It tasted soooooo good! I have not enjoyed pizza much since moving here, I like the pizza on the economy, it's very different than American pizza, it's good but different. Normally if I'm in the mood for pizza Chad makes it and he makes a KILLER pizza. But trust me dinner was good! I know it's sad how much I enjoyed eating dinner tonight! LOL

 

              

 

 

We are all exhausted though. It's already 11: 30 pm and I'm really not sure how my eyes are even still open. Emma was great today. She did have one sad moment...when we left Playmobil she started crying. I thought once the car started moving she'd be ok, oh no, it got worse. We were all trying everything we could think of to get her to stop. No amount of singing or holding her hand, nothing was working. Finally we found a Kaufland's (more or less a discount store aka like WalMart, Target...) so we pulled in there and I got Emma out, just holding her made her ok, I did nurse her and that made her even  happier. Chad ran in and found an ATM, so we could pay for dinner! She did ok from Kaufland's to Pizza Hut, she fussed a little, but didn't scream.

The boys over all behaved well too. There was a couple times Jacb gave us attitude and Jack felt he could throw a temper tantrum, but Chad and I put an end to both quickly. Neither of us have any patience for that kind of disrespect and disobedience. So it was made clear continue with the bad attitude (Jacob) or the rediculous temper tantrums (Jackson) and we'd simply leave. They both changed their tunes! Other than that, we really had a lot of fun! Let me tell you that 6 hrs at Playmobil is more than enough for 1 day. We are going to buy a season pass, so we can go more often. It'll pay for itself quickly and will ultimately make our trips there cheaper and more frequent!

I did take quite a few pictures, but let me tell you I'm absolutely worn out, I actually think I drifted off for a few minutes a few minutes ago! I will download the pictures onto the computer and upload them here tomorrow most likely.

 

Tomorrow we're staying home, we have laundry to do and an apartment to clean. How it got to be such a mess is beyond me. Chad's also going to make the boys beds back into bunk beds. I did get Jack's new Cars bedding on his bed tonight and he's so happy to be in his bed tonight! He looked so cute! I got pictures of him in his bed and Jacob was in his bed reading to himself and Jackson!

Well, I'm going to get off of here...finish up a couple things and then head my tired tush to bed, because I know Emma will be up before I'm ready that's for sure!

 

Night!

 

 

 

A few birthday pictures

Well I got a few pictures to share, I'm REALLY tired and fell asleep last night before I could even download the pictures! After this, I'm going to bed and will be passing out. Today I had a headache all day long, and this evening it finally went away, but I feel it coming back. So goes life! Jack had a great birthday though. He got to invite 4 friends and their families and everyone showed up! The kids ran around and just had fun. The only "game" they did was a pinata. We found him a Lighting McQueen pinata and all the little ones (the ones Jack actually invited) got to hit it, and then 2 of the older siblings got to hit it (left 2 who didn't)...then they went after the candy!

Jack loved all his gifts, but I think his favorite was from our friend Bobbie and her family...it's a Pirate Costume/dress up...he wore it all day today and he's sleeping in it! LOL Well the bottoms he's sleeping in. I got a picture of him in it today, he looks too cute. He wore it out and about too!

Ok...well goodnight!

 

 

Happy Birthday to My Jackson

             

 

My "baby" boy Jackson is not a baby anymore and if I make the mistake of calling him that, he's quick to correct me via "I'm NOT a baby, I'm a big boy"....Jackson is 4 yrs old today, now remember it's already Aug. 28 here in Germany so it's official here, for you in the states not quite yet! But since I'm about to head my tired tush to bed I wanted to make this post now, since tomorrow's going to be busy. In the morning I have a PWOC board meeting, then I need to go pick up some essentials we forgot to get on Sunday (paper plates, cups, silverware..all throw away stuff), I want to get some balloons filled with helium and then fill up our yard tent that Chad set up tonight, get a Happy Birthday banner since I can't find mine, I have to exchange the comforter too. Chad picked up a full size vs a twin size. Jack's big gift from us is new bedding...Cars! He's getting the comforter, sheets, a squishy pillow that Chad and I love ourselves lol, and a trash can. Jacob picked out a Cars race track thing that Jack said he wanted, we got him 3 cars to go with that, and Emma got him a transformer thing! ;) My parents sent him a check, Chad's grandma did as well, and so did my maternal grandparents. Chad's mom's check hasn't gotten here yet.

 

 

 

We're having a small party for him tomorrow. We let him pick 4 friends to invite...he's still small enough that the families and siblings are invited as well. Public (DODDS) school started yesterday/Monday so his birthday is on a school night. We decided to BBQ (burgers and hotdogs), going to make a taco dip/7 layer dip, our friend Bobbie is making her wonderful Taco Salad, and we'll have koolaid and lemonade to drink.

 

 

 

Chad's the artistic one in our family so he made the birthday cake (I can make cakes..but Chad drew on it). Jack wanted Batman on it and Batman is what he got! Chad free-handed a Batman head and a part of his chest on that cake and let me tell you, it looks so awesome! I'll share pictures after the party! Oh the party is at 6 pm too! Jack will get to open one gift from us...clothes! LOL Cute little Cars outfit, although it's going to be in the mid-70's tomorrow so probably too warm for the outfit (it's a long sleeved one, but knowing Jack he'll probably still want to wear it). Oh back on topic with the cake..we got the wonderful ice cream cups...making life simple! :) :)

 

 

 

 

So...anyways to my baby boy....I love you to the moon and back and back again...Happy Birthday Jackson Thomas.