Twenty One Months!

Our sweet boys turned twenty one months old on the tenth of this month. It has been busy with the holiday activities so I am behind on getting their monthly update done.  We are loving this holiday season as the boys are so fascinated by all the decorations, lights and music.  It is amazing to be able to experience something in a new way through your children's eyes. I am trying to just take it all in and enjoy rather than trying to meticulously document everything and stress about doing it in a timely manner.

They have been going through a hat phase lately.  They actually request to wear one.

The boys are little sponges these days.  They hear or observe something once and then repeat it. They are learning more about personal relationships such as having grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.  When we visit with a friend or family member they ask for that person the next day.  Car rides now involve them naming off every person they know in an effort to guess who we are going to see.  Winston especially seems really keyed in on his Grandpa Guddat lately and is always asking to go on a car ride to see him.  They love Skyping and talking on FaceTime with family members.  They like to kiss the screen and tell everyone "I love you" or "Love you."

Abraham (left) and Winston.

They are still learning tons of new words and are saying more and more phrases and sentences.  They love books and cooking in their play kitchen. Our dining room table is their fort so they spend lots of time under there giggling and having fun.  They love each other and are sweet to one another and then the next minute they squabble.  We are trying to work on empathy and sharing.  In their minds, sharing means saying please and then taking what they want. We are trying to emphasize what sharing really means and are trying to help them assert themselves if brother steals a toy.

The other big change around here lately is that the boys are potty training.  They wear underwear while they are at home and use the potty chair.  If we go out for errands, they wear a diaper.  I am looking at it as a gradual process.  Some days they will keep dry all day and sometimes there are accidents.  A lot of it has to do with them not wanting to stop playing or not understanding how to completely empty their bladder.  They are making progress however and we are proud of them.   They will tell you that poop and pee-pee goes into the potty. I will have to do a separate post on the whole potty training thing and why I chose to start so early.  

Like I said earlier, the boys are sponges and are taking everything in. It amazes me what they can parrot back or regurgitate so quickly.  Some examples:

Winston is constantly saying "There you go"  because his mama says that a lot. He will give me something and sweetly tell me "There you go!"  It is really cute.  

Winston loves Christmas music and most of the time we had to have the local Christmas station playing.  He liked to sing the "rum-pum-pum-pum" part of the The Little Drummer Boy and mimicked the lines to "Do You Hear What I Hear?" by saying the words hear, know, see, etc.

Abraham knows quite a few sequences of numbers and the alphabet.  He likes to count to himself or say his letters as he is playing with a toy.  I have heard him say several times, "Cute...R...S...T...U." I nearly died with how adorable that was.

Abraham's latest thing is asking for something by saying, "How about (fill in the blank)?" His most frequent request is cookies...especially for breakfast.  His tone and inflection is totally copy of me: "How about cookies?"

I had taught the boys that Christmas was Jesus' birthday and that is why it is so special. I asked them one day what Christmas was about and they both answered "Jesus" very clearly without prompting.  When we mention Jesus we talk about how He is Lord and Savior.  Both boys will say "Lord" when we ask who Jesus is.

We had a pretty sweet reprieve with teething but I think the two-year molars are finally trying to make their way in. It has been a bit gnarly around here the last couple of days so that also pushed my monthly update even more behind. Now I need to get started on Christmas!

We are so blessed by the presence of these little boys.  I thank God for their ability to learn and communicate more with each passing day.  We love them more than words can say.

I Said Yes...

I said yes to Eric's marriage proposal five years ago today.  I will have to write out the engagement story in the coming year in honor of our fifth anniversary but for now I am reflecting on what God has done in our lives in such a short time.  Getting married meant a lot of change for me that went beyond just the huge change of being married and leaving my single life behind.  I moved to another state, left my family, left a job I loved, had to find a new one, left my church and started attending a new one and left a lot of my close friends.  I truly had to start over. I remember the weekend that I moved up here with all of my earthly possessions in a U-Haul truck and telling Eric that I loved him.  He replied, "I know you do.  I can tell you love me because you moved here for me.  That means a lot."  Of course, he also told me that he loved me too but that other part is really important to this story.  It is amazing to realize how much love is about our actions rather than just our words.

I had been told that the first year of marriage would be the hardest and at the time it did not seem too difficult.  Now that I have an additional three plus years to compare it to, I realize that the first year was not early as enjoyable as the following years. There was a lot of growing pains back then.  Heck, there still are growing pains even now but not nearly to the same degree.  I realize that I understand and relate to my husband better now than those first months and every year we are married.  I loved Eric when we first were married but that love has deepened so much more through the time we have spent together.  The economy really took a nose dive right after we were married and I think about how God has been so faithful in providing us.  We have remained steadily employed with good jobs since we have been married.  That is no small thing for a lot of people in today's economy.  We have been surrounded by family and friends who love and support us.  We have been blessed with a wonderful church body.  Above all we have been given much grace to not only persevere in our marriage but to grow more and more in love.  The anxiety about not being able to have children has ended and God has done something more marvelous than we could comprehend. We are both so in love with little our boys and see the presence of Abraham and Winston as profound blessings in our lives.  God is truly so good.

My dear husband flew out very early this morning for another work trip.  This last year has been a tough transition as we have had a long distance marriage for a large portion of the year.  Again, God has been faithful.  We persevere and continue to love one another.  I recently reminded Eric that today was the day he had asked me to marry him.  He told me, "It was the best decision I ever made."  He seriously tells me that quite a bit because he is sweet like that.  I would have to agree that saying yes to him was definitely mine.

Eric's proposal caught on camera by his brother Adam.  You can tell I was caught completely off guard.

Christmas Card Photos

I wanted to take some decent photos for our Christmas card but having professional photos done was definitely not in the budget.  The nice thing is we have a good camera and we have family that has good cameras.  So basically we got people to practice their photo taking skills on us.  The day after Thanksgiving we planned on heading to Eric's parents for leftovers.  Brent and Fran have a beautiful view of the mountains and we thought that would portray the rural and rustic area we live in nicely.  The boys' nap schedule that day got pretty out of whack so we had work with the late afternoon light the best we could.  The tones were definitely more gray but since these are winter photos I was quite alright with that.  The boys were not too keen on taking photos but we made it work.  I am happy with how it turned out and am looking forward to getting our cards mailed out this week.

Thanks to Brent, Eric's dad, and Adam, Eric's brother for being our impromptu photographers.  They did a great job.

As you can see, Abraham had to have Leo the Lion very close by.

Winston and Mama

Abraham, Leo and Papa

 

By the way, we had a great Thanksgiving.  It was quiet and enjoyable. It was just Eric's parents Brent and Fran, Alicia and her fiance Aaron and our little family.  I have met my storage quota on Blogger and I have not decided what to do about it yet.  I either have to pay for more storage or host my photos on another site.  It took me quite a while to add these photos one by one through the direct links on a photo hosting website.  If you depend on me to edit the Thanksgiving photos and add them to the blog in such a tedious manner, I am sorry to disappoint you for the endless wait.  Blogging is supposed to feel like fun and I do not want it to feel like work.  We will have to wait and see what to do about the photo hosting situation but for now I will try to do my best with keeping updates going on here.

Working Mom to Stay at Home Mom

I hit an anniversary over Thanksgiving weekend.  It was a year ago that I was starting the transition from having a full time job outside the home to staying at home with the boys.  I have now been a stay at home mom for twice as long as I was a working mom. Wow, that is crazy.  To be honest, I do not think I am any better at this gig now than when I first started.  I have learned and am continuing to learn some valuable lessons in all of it.  I am thankful that I have the comparison of being a working mom to look back on. It helps encourage me during the difficult days with the boys that I am so blessed to be able to spend as much time with them as I do.

There are the moms out there that seem to just genuinely love domestic life and are really good at it.  They never look back at their working days with a nostalgic wistfulness.  I am not one of those women.  I struggle with the mundane tasks that need to be done over and over.  It used to be that I found cleaning to be somewhat relaxing.  I got home and found satisfaction in doing housework.  I had areas of my life compartmentalized. Now I live at my workplace, so to speak, and it can be quite maddening sometimes.  I see stuff all the time that is not getting done and I get frustrated.  It is hard to gauge the level of your work.  There are no more formal evaluations and verbal feedback as to your performance.  So I look at my boys and their physical and intellectual growth and tell myself that I am succeeding despite the petty housework issues that fall by the wayside. 

Another thing that women do not tell each other enough is that staying at home with small children can be an incredibly isolating experience.  There are aspects of working that I miss tremendously.  It is very difficult to physically work just as hard if not harder than you ever have before and not feel appreciated.  Earning a pay check brought me a big chunk of my self-esteem.  Putting on decent clothing, doing my make-up and hair everyday and having conversations with other intelligent adults did a lot to boost my morale.  It is so easy to say, "I will never be one of those women that let myself go."  I get that. I totally do.  It is not that I sit around all day and fail to take care of myself.  It is just hard to motivate myself to beautify when Eric is out of town and the only people I see for several days in a row are Abraham and Winston.  The boys care that mama sits down and plays with them.  They do not care about my hair.  It is a tough balance to strike and I think like most things in life it is a constant effort to do so.

Becoming a mother taught me a whole new level of patience and selflessness and staying at home with the boys even multiplied that.  I have laid aside my ambitions and desires for the good of my children. It is hard some days.  Satan can tempt me with the thought that I deserve more and that I need more in this life to be fulfilled. The reality is that I have never had greater fulfillment in my life.  My children are a joy to me. Sometimes they drive me crazy but I am so thankful that I can serve them.  I am thankful they can look back and see with my lifestyle how much I love them. 

I have been in the position where I was leaving my two month old infants in someone else's care while I commuted and worked a full eight hour day.  It was hard.  I do not envy anyone in that position.  I know what it is like to be so tired when you are driving home from work but the minute you see your kids again, you pick back up and are giving them 110%.  It is that mommy DNA that allows you to do feats of super human strength.  Love drives and compels you everyday to do what you need to do to provide for your children.  I have some friends that are working moms and I am amazed to see what they do on a daily basis.  They could seriously run circles around me in the tasks they accomplish.  There is no right and there is no wrong when it comes to a mom working.  It is the unique situation and conviction of each family to decide whether mom is going to go outside the home to earn an income.

Me with my little bubbas at one week old.

To the stay at home moms, you are my hero.  To the working moms, you are my hero.  To those moms that are doing the very best you can for your kids every single day, you are my hero. We are all mothers and we love our children.  We do what we do because we want what is best for our kids.  Let's cheer each other on no matter our individual circumstances.