Christmas 2014

So, it's practically Valentine's Day and I am just now finally getting to posting about Christmas...

This year, with it being the anniversary of Kathy's passing as well as our first Christmas without her, we all decided it would be best to get Jay out of the house and for us to travel to North Carolina to visit Chris and his family. Unfortunately, it was booked last minute, and Kathy's son and his family weren't able to join us (we had our own Christmas celebration with them when we got home). Once we **FINALLY** decided we were going for sure (after two almosts and two maybes) we ended up paying for our tickets in virgin blood and body organs to be sold on the black market. Not really...but they were stupid expensive. We flew into Charlotte, and were under the impression that it was a relatively short drive to the Fayetteville area where we would be visiting. We had a later flight out of Spokane, and arrived in NC around midnight local time. We were waiting for our bags, and Jay's never showed up....Then, once we finally got to our rental car (a mini van, LOL) and the address put into the GPS we realized we had a THREE HOUR CAR ride ahead of us; plus it was extremely foggy. It was horrendous. We were all tired, all the verge of cranky. All I can say is that Ryan is a rockstar for driving on unfamiliar roads in the dark and fog and our kids were great thanks to lots of help from Jay. I was the co-pilot and using every ounce of energy to just stay awake. I think we pulled into the hotel parking lot around 4am.

Once we got to our hotel in Hope Mills, we crashed hard. We all woke up at 10am, and got over to see Chris, Amber and "baby" Alma. She has gotten so big, and is running around into everything. It was such a blessing to see how much she has grown since we saw her this past summer. We had a great visit. It was very low-key and we just stayed at their house and enjoyed watching the kids interact and play together. We opened a few gifts on Christmas morning and then were up early the next day to catch our flight home. Because it was such a last minute flight, and we had been traveling quite a bit prior (had we known we were going to NC we would have bagged a few of our other plans) we decided it would be best for the kids to just have a quick weekend type trip. We would have LOVED to stay and see the area a little more; as North Carolina is a very pretty state with a lot of history. But OH well!

Our flights home were relatively uneventful, except I left my camera on one flight. Thank the Lord I realized it right away and the plane was still there and one of the flight attendants had turned it in! We made it back home the day after Christmas around 10pm or so and we were all very exhausted.

Santa found our house finally, he had gotten lost and confused since we were gone in North Carolina. So that morning, Gavin found all his presents under the tree and was having a blast helping Kjerstin open hers. That afternoon, we had Christmas with my family. Gavin and Kjerstin had a blast with their uncles opening presents. Kjerstin's first Christmas was a whirlwind to say the least. And even though this very special holiday will always be bittersweet, at least it is around a time of year that is very joyous and we will be surrounded my our family and loved ones.

(Pictures to come!)

Kjerstin 7-9 Months

Where do I even start with this girl?! Let me just say, if we had this little lady first, there would be a five year age difference between her and Gavin, haha! She is so crazy! I love her and every bit of her crazy though. I just wish she would sleep. She still wakes up like three times a night, so not cool. She gets separation anxiety really bad, poor thing. 

So, Kjerstin was standing and cruising before she started crawling. She technically said mama first, but says dada now exclusively. I have Heard her say baba, mama, dada, nana, buu, and all sorts of fun baby sounds. She is SO cute. I mean, like those eyes, and she has such a sweet personality. But she is sneaky and stealthy. When she gets caught doing something naughty she stops and starts clapping to try and distract you from being mad. She puts her hands up to say "so big!"

FAAAALLLLLLL

I am really tempted to just make a post that has the word "fall" written a thousand times and leave it at that. I am just so excited to be in a place finally that has a real fall. By that I mean, it isn't still 90 degrees, there are trees that actually have leaves that turn fall colors and it isn't raining constantly. It's pretty much one of the best things to happen to me.

So. Anyways....Moving on. Kjerstin is now 7 months, and she is already pulling herself up on shit?! WHAT THE HELL. Sorry for the swearing, but it is totally necessary. She went from sitting up to practically standing in a matter of minutes. Girl ain't got time for that.  Gavin and I were playing on the floor in their bedroom, and I had K in the crib (set at the highest setting/newborn height) and all of a sudden I hear her "struggling" and look up and here she is about to pull herself over the damn crib! WTF. I couldn't believe it. (will post pic later). Because, yes, I did take a picture....

She seriously, is just an amazement. 100% energy all the time, she CONSTANTLY moving, and the wiggliest baby I have ever held in my life. She loves to be held, but she doesn't want that to hold her back from the action, and her pilates/yoga. So she does it while being held. It is a workout for me too. I think I have said it before, but she is the reason there are weird safety warnings on everything. She was able to untie the breathable crib bumpers. They were double knotted, and on the OUTSIDE of the crib. I just, can't even. I love her so much, but all I can say is, pray for me.

Kjerstin has the most beautiful eyes. I hope that they stay the same color, because now they are half green half blue. The insides of the iris are blue and the outside is green, they are gorgeous. And they are big, she has big eyes and long eyelashes. We are in for some trouble when she gets older. Her smile though is what gets you, she smiles with her entire face. I referred to it as like the grinch smile, not in a menacing way, but the way the cartoon slowly smiles and then it eventually involves his entire face, that is what she does. It is so cute.

The two kids and I got our flu shots yesterday, and it was really poor timing because we all have a little bit of a cold (Ryan included). I have had it for like 3 weeks, but I swear my symptoms change every day. I could tell Kjerstin didn't feel very good because she stayed still for over a minute and let me snuggle her. Gavin, the poor thing, is a snotty mess. But like with Kjerstin, it does involve extra snuggle time, so I am trying to remain positive. It is so trying being a parent when you feel like total crap. All Ryan and I want to do is sleep, more so than usual!

Speaking of which, I will finish this post later in an update, because I am going to bed!

Two rather large developments/announcements!

First one is we are finally "getting married!" Haha! Ryan and I obviously, never had our wedding and we finally decided that June 27, 2015 is going to be the day!!!! Now the fun part begins, all the planning!!!! I am going to be BUSY! I have the church, the reception area (community center) and photographer booked. So, I feel somewhat accomplished. Now its time to reign in all my Pinterest ideas, yikes.

The next exciting piece of news is that my mom has quit her job and is going to come work for us! She is going to "nanny" our kids part time. I am going to "go back to work" and by that I mean, I am going to start substitute teaching more at the school, do more photography gigs (hopefully) and then finally focus more on our farms bookkeeping. My mom has been looking at finding something new for a while and I know that eventually I will want to find a more stable possibly full-time job. The problem is that there is no child care centers here, and I don't trust my kids with just anyone. So when my mom was talking about looking else where, and I found out she was really serious about it, I jumped on the opportunity. We are all pretty excited about it, it really is the best for everyone!

Kjerstin 6months and other happenings!

I think the six month mark is the hardest to grasp at how fast the time flies. When you look at the six month clothing before the baby is born, you think, that is going to take a long time before he/she fits into that! That is half a year away....and then it just happens, bam, they are that size!

At six months, Kjerstin is SO freaking close to crawling. She has the "army" crawl down pretty well and uses that and rolling to get where and what she needs. She is a diva, a princess and a LIGHT sleeper. Uffda. I thought I was going to have it easy with her, but yeah, not so much. I was talking to Ryan today and I could come up with 3 nights that I know for sure that I have slept an entire night all the way through since BEFORE she was born. As you likely know from reading previous posts, pregnancy isn't easy for me and sleeping is definitely a huge factor in why it is so difficult. Probably from 20 weeks on or so, I haven't slept more that 3 consecutive hours (except those three nights) in over a year. I am exhausted. Yet, here I am, almost midnight, typing away. Anyways, I digress...Kjerstin so far is eating "solids" pretty well, she loves squash and sweet potatoes, wasn't a huge fan of prunes or peaches but they are pretty intense tastes. She has started "sleeping" and "napping" in her crib, which even though it isn't working out the best is a good move.

Gavin and Kjerstin share a bedroom, only due to the fact that the other fully functional bedroom is on the other side of the house and I am not keen on Gavin being that far away quite yet. Plus, it is nice to have a guest room (aka Gavin's office as he calls it). Well, since Kjerstin has been sleeping in with Gavin as well, both of their sleep has gone down hill a bit. This will be a learning curve for everyone. We'll see how long I last. I think the main thing is that it is hard to allow Kjerstin to cry and learn to self-soothe when I am worried about her waking Gavin up in the process.

Gavin is going great! He is just so smart. He uses full sentences and we can have full on conversations. He is understanding both his and other peoples emotions and that is fun to watch. He has been a much better eater as of late and loves the summer for all the fresh vegetables, specifically tomatoes. His newest craze is the movie Tarzan, and playing with his rather impressive train collection.

A little update on our puppy Odin...he spent the night at the vet last night due to some kind of bacterial infection. We aren't exactly sure how he contracted it but the poor thing was puking and not eating/drinking. The vet kept him overnight to pump him with fluids. Odin does not like the vet. He is the biggest scaredy cat I have EVER seen. He literally gets nervous and pees every time we go to the vet. It is quite the experience...I don't even want to know what it is going to be like in 2-3 weeks when I take him in to get fixed. Oye....But he is doing much better now and we were able to pick him up this morning and boy was he so happy to see us! Ryan and I both mentioned to each other that we had no idea how attached we were to him until he was gone and we were both so worried for him! I hated the thought of him being in a cage overnight all alone without his family! It kept me up all night just thinking about him.

So, here I am, a Mother on Mother's Day.

So, I've been slowly chipping away at this post since Mother's Day this year. For some reason, I just felt like I needed to write it, not for anyone really, but for me to read in the years to come, or to look back on when I wondered how I felt. It is personal, overly dramatic and selfish, and who knows, maybe something I shouldn't post, but f*ck it. 

Every year around Mother's Day I get emotional thinking about my children and how drastically my life has changed since becoming a mother. You have no idea how your life is going to change. Not just once you see that positive sign on the pregnancy test, but when you hear their first cry after surgery or delivery. With each child, the feeling was the same but very different. With Gavin, I remember this overwhelming emotion, literally every single feeling you could possibly have all at once and it was intoxicating and almost suffocating at the same time; all I could do was cry, in fact I still do simply thinking about it. When Kjerstin was born, obviously the same amount of love and those emotions were there but there wasn't quite as much as the fear and the unknown, it was more...peaceful I guess would be the best way to describe it, and maybe more relief because I had just pushed her out, where as with Gavin I was strapped to a table (maybe that was the suffocating part). But that love that you feel, that feeling of without-a-blink-of-an-eye-or-second-thought-would-go-to-the-ends-of-the-world-to-make-your-child-happy feeling is like a high you get every time you look into their eyes.

Not only with Mother's Day coming, but just with being an exhausted stay at home mom, I have been thinking A LOT of what it is to be a mom for me right here and now. Some days I am ripping at the seams with love and happiness and other days I feel like Golum from Lord of the Rings and want to hiss at the daylight and hide away in my cave. I was trying to explain how I felt to Ryan the other day, and I just couldn't come up with the words to express how utterly frustrating it can me sometimes.

What you don't know, when you become a mom, is that you, as you remember yourself, and how you used to view yourself, and who you used to think you were, doesn't exist anymore. She is gone. And they don't tell you that sometimes that it feels like you, as a person, don't matter. They don't tell you that you forget you had hopes and dreams unrelated to your children, or your spouse. They don't tell you that it is lonely. You are building this family, this home and sometimes you feel completely alone. Sometimes, you feel trapped, and you know that your soul is in there somewhere screaming to be let free, but you can't. Sometimes you want to scream, "WHAT ABOUT ME?!" But then, you immediately feel guilty for even having had that thought. I know that it is easy to fall into those traps because that is where I find myself a lot in my current fork of the road in motherhood. One day I feel elated like I am right where I belong in life, and the next I feel like I have let myself down that I haven't done enough.

Everything you do revolves around everyone else but yourself. You wake up when the kids wake up, if not before to do things to prepare for them waking up, you cook/eat what they eat. You watch and play what they watch and play. You focus on what they need, what they are supposed to be learning. You worry. Oh you worry, about EVERYTHING. Are they healthy, are they smart, are they safe, are they breathing (newborn moms know) are they happy, are they normal, are they sad, are they hurt, are they...it goes on and on and on. The worry itself is exhausting enough to feel spent for the entire day, but that is just one sliver. It is so hard to find balance, to make any kind of time for yourself. And that is why I am here, at 12:01am when I am exhausted and should be sleeping. 

Another really difficult part of becoming a mom is the transition from creating a miracle and feeling like "wonder woman" to being "just a mom." When you literally grow a human using nothing but your own body, you feel it growing and moving inside you, and then deliver this baby, this miracle, and witness its first breath, its first cry, everything else in the world seems insignificant, and minute. How can you ever have an appropriate perspective to anything anymore? It's hard to relate after that. It's hard to relate to anyone who doesn't have children, not because you are all of a sudden "better" than them, or because you do not want to, but because you struggle to find anything in common anymore. Everything changes.

So, this post is depressing, and that's okay. And maybe that's why I didn't post this on Mother's Day; but it is a part of motherhood that does deserve to be acknowledged. Maybe on the days when I am feeling digustingly elated and full of love, I will write about how amazing it is and I can express to the world how bipolar I feel when it comes to parenting.

Kjerstin is 5 months today!

It is simply amazing to me how fast the time flies for your second child. I cannot even believe she is 5 months old already! It feels like she should still be 8 weeks, haha!! 

This little girl is going to keep me on my toes. She is rolling all over the place and I think she will skip crawling all together and go straight to walking. She has zero pleasure in being on her tummy, but the second she gets placed on her back she rolls over to her tummy? Then fusses? Why!? Haha!!! 

Kjerstin LOVES her brother, all he has to do is talk to her and she is all giggles. He gets her to laugh more than anyone else, I love it. She looks at him like he is the greatest person in the world, I didn't even know you could look at someone with so much love and adoration, it melts my heart!!! He loves her too, he is always concerned about her and loves to give her kisses. He also loves it when she can watch him play, "Sissy, too?" he asks!

Poor Odin is getting the balls chopped off tomorrow, happy 5 month birthday to him! Hahaha. Poor baby. He is getting HUGE. I am curious as to how much he weighs, I am getting 60lbs maybe? More? He has such a pleasant disposition, such a lover he is. He loves to cuddle and is the clumsiest dog I have ever ever met. Bless him. Hahaha.

We started harvest last Thursday, so Ryan and Papa Tractor are very busy, and I might end up driving the combine a few days a week. Should be interesting ;)

Kjerstin's first time at the river.

This picture cracks me up. Gavin looks crazy.

Loves eating her toes!