Parenting is Pure Joy

This happened in my life today

 

Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done.  I spend a lot of my days sore (thanks to chunky babies), tired, frustrated and on the verge of exhaustion.  But there is a time in each day, sometimes many times, where I look at my babies and realize they are 2 of the best gifts I have ever been given. They bring me a joy that is like none other.  I am thankful that today the man who helps me run all this madness caught my joy on camera.

This is a sweet picture too

 

And this is the man that works hard to help provide the life we enjoy so much

We love him!

 

Glory Glory to Ole Georgia

Georgia-Florida is always a nasty game that gets my husband FURIOUS (even if Georgia pulls out a win) This year he has declared that we are boycotting and not watching.  He is at the farm so I have it on as background noise... shhhh....

Win or lose this is the best play of the season Glory!

Jesus Loves Me!

And you too!  This is how we praise Him in the morning!!  JESUS!

Amelia Made Her First Pie

You may remember from a few months ago my Fresh Peach Pie recipe.  Daddy requested it for dessert on Sunday.  Since it is so easy and Amelia loves being my helper, I decided to let her make it.  I measured out all the ingredients and she put them in the bowl.  I controlled the mixer but she was the co-pilot.  Then she put the whip cream and peaches on all by herself.

Other than the fact that she stuck her tongue directly in the pie and whip cream, I think she'd have a successful business!

Annie was also very pleased with her first experience licking the beaters.

Mr. & Mrs. Daniel

Today is a most extra-special day!  Today one of my very best friends married her best friend.  They loved my husband first, then loved me then loved my children as their own. They now officially have their very own special love and I am so so so happy for them!

They do fun things such as replacing the old sixpence in your shoe tradition for an old Showbiz Pizza token "to guarantee a fun marriage".  I pray that when times get tough they will find a way to always find a little Showbiz in their shoes in their day.

 

 

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Daniel!  The Comerfords love you so and will always be here for you!

 

Look at all that love!



"I didn't mean for it to come out that way!"

I am the Queen of putting my foot in my mouth or phrasing things incorrectly or saying things at totally inappropriate times.  It is for this reason that I will NEVER judge you for doing the same thing. I will cringe with you and feel sorry for you. Been there!

I try my best to avoid politics.  I know who I am voting for and maybe you know who you are voting for and if we don't agree that is ok.  We have the right to vote and not be chastised for it.  Which by the way is why you should vote.  A lot of people have fought really hard so pay attention, make a decision and cast your vote.

Apparently this week in the debate Romney made some comment about receiving "binders full of women" while searching for his Massachusetts cabinet.  I did not hear this line with my own ears but everyone is making jokes and if something appears on SNL, it is obviously true.  By the way, I learn everything I need to know about politics from Saturday Night Live!  Just kidding, kind of... :)

This blog is not to talk about politics or Romney or SNL but to let the world (or the 15 of you who read my blog) know the best Facebook status of the year.  It is not mine so I can't claim it, but I SO wish I could!

Looks like I should have watched the debate last night. I have no clue what binders of women are, who said it or even what that means - but if I am to live in a binder I hope to God it's a Lisa Frank.

I do not give a flip who you want to run our country, but if you do not think that is the funniest thing you have heard this election season, please move to Canada.

I immediately wanted to order Annie and Amelia Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers to have for their first day of Kindergarden.

Amelia Spells Her Name!

Look at what this Cookie Monster did all by herself tonight! 3 years and 2 months old.  I am so thankful for her school and how much she loves to learn!

 



I mean between Ben and I we were bound to have a cute genius right?! haha  PROUD MAMA!

Why Hello Monday! Nice of you to join us!

The girls are out for fall break today. Ben took them to his Mom’s house this morning at 7 so I had some extra time to myself. I ate a whole bowl of oatmeal squares (by myself!) watching Good Morning America for a few mins. My curling iron would not turn on.  It is cheap so what can you expect?  I throw my mop into a ponytail.  It's raining anyway so whatever.  I left the house at 7:53 to get to work at 8 which is a HUGE plus to living in town.


When I got to the door of my office I spilled my coffee on my dress. It was not a lot so not a big deal, Hey! It is Monday after all.

Walking down the hall to my office my shoe broke 


Exhibit A


I sat down and felt a loose hair in my jacket. Didn’t find it. Isn’t that so annoying?

Turn on my computer and feel the “loose hair” crawling up my neck.

I slung my jacket off like a caged animal and started searching for what I was hoping was not in my jacket. Nothing. I put my jacket back on because I am wearing a sleeveless dress and the jacket is basically required for work. Obviously I’m going crazy. Sometimes you get a loose hair or funny itch and it sticks with you.

I start reading emails and feel it again. This time standing up, throwing my jacket onto the floor, pulling my hair out of the ponytail slinging around like I am on fire. The spider falls out of my hair. I crush his ass with my broken shoe.


Exhibit B

 I still feel like things are crawling on me. I am pretty cold, but there is no way in H-E-double hockey sticks that I am putting that denim jacket back on.

Annie at 8 Months

I have not been good at keeping these up at all.  Boo for Mommy!  A lot has stayed the same but we've had some BIG changes over the past 2 months

* You are eating 3 jars of baby food a day.  Sometimes 2.5 depending on how tired you are at lunch.
* You take 24 oz of formula.  We would like to get in 30 but you go to sleep so early that it is not possible.
* You weigh 21.4 lbs
* Speaking of sleep, you are the best sleeper ever made (you must take after your Mama).  You go to sleep for the night between 5:45 and 6:15.  You very rarely cry about it but if you do it is no longer than 5 or 10 mins at the most unless you are just not ready to go to bed.  This happens maybe once a week, if that.  You take almost an hour nap around 9am then you take a 2 or 2.5 hour nap at 12:30.
* You suck your thumb when you are sleepy but once you fall asleep it comes out.  I probably should break you from this but it is so stinking cute!
* You enjoy the exersaucer but more so the jumping in it instead of playing with the toys.  You are a busy, busy girl!  I can't imagine what the future will hold.
* Around August 12 we could sit you up tripod style and you'd hold yourself there unless you decided there was something you wanted and you'd roll to it.  By August 30th you could sit up on your own.
* There was still no crawling for a while.  You would roll towards something then sit up and roll a few more times.  That was your mode of transportation until Sept 14th when you started moving your arms and knees to crawl.  It took you about a week to get fluid with it and now you are fast as lightening!
* You cut your first 2 teeth, the bottom ones, Sept 14th. It was a busy weekend!  The next Thursday your top left came in.  It is now poking in pretty good.  You can't really see the top right one but you can feel it if you are brave enough to stick your fingers in.
* The week of Sept 16th you ran your first fever at 103.3!  Turns out you had a urinary tract infection caused by bacteria staph (so did I!)
* You are a jabber box!  You are making some kind of noise all the time.  Mostly dadadada or babababa.  Rarely do you actually cry with tears rolling down your face but you scream a good bit. You are mostly frustrated because your sister is loving on aka aggravating you all the time. 

Even though you do fuss and scream a lot, we would not trade you for anything.  You are a funny little girl who smiles with her whole face and you do it all the time.  You bring SO much joy!  You can be bashful at times and hide your face into me.  But then you usually turn around and give that million dollar smile that comes straight from your heart. Your whole body lights up when you see your sister and that makes me melt.  Honestly, I am kind of envious of the love you two have for one another.  Expect me to be obnoxious and live through you two for the rest of my life!

Much Love Sweet Girl!

A Room for Sharing

The 3 year old has not liked sleeping since she entered this world.  She is now 3 years and 2 months and we still can not get her to sleep in her bed through the night.  Every night she cries and cries to come into our bed.  Then at around midnight, then 2am, then 5am she is standing at the side of my bed.
She is starting to get old enough to communicate with us about things.  We have determined that she is not really scared, but she "don't want to be in there all by myself".  Last night we had a conversation about this matter as she was on the couch all upset from screaming in her bed for 45 mins.  She said she would feel better if Annie was in her room so she wouldn't be all by herself.  I made her promise me that if I moved Annie's bed into her room that she would stay in there.

This is what I spent my afternoon doing.

 

Annie has been asleep in the crib since about 6:30. Sister's bedtime is in 11 mins.  Let's see if it works.  I don't really have high expectations, but it is worth a try. We wanted them to share a room eventually anyway so why not start now?  Wish us luck!

Serving Others Serves Yourself.. A Teaching Moment

Today in Sunday school we started reading Kings.  We have been studying King David (I use the term "we" loosely because "we" have not been to Sunday school in about 5 weeks).  Anyway, one thing we learned about David was he was not a fantastic parent.  Are any of us?  He failed greatly at disciplining his sons.  At the end of his life he did to the right thing by standing up to one son and making Solomon king, but it took a lifetime to do this.

Our Sunday school teacher mentioned that it is never too early to start teaching your children about the ways of Jesus and how to act accordingly.  Ding, ding, ding!!!  I LOVE my Sunday school class, the people in it, our teacher and how Jesus is in the room every week with great reminders.

I have had a hard time recently with our three year old fireball.  Parenting is all about walking a fine line.  This weekend has been about disciplining without riding her the whole time.  Reining her in without stealing her joy.  Appreciating her help "Can you please give Annie some snacks?" but not giving her full ownership "If you shake your sister by her head one more time you are getting a spanking!"  I feel like I am constantly on these babies.  I do not want to be Mommy Dearest but they need to know their boundaries.

This afternoon I took a different approach.  In all of my dramatics over the past few weeks, Ben has encouraged me to serve others.  Find an opportunity to serve.  "Wash the feet of others" has become our family motto (this includes washing feet in our own household). 

We have a friend who has been sick.  It started with her children and then found the way to her.  Being a mom who just came off of being sick for 3 weeks, I completely understood her struggles.  Honestly, I am so emotional that it almost brought tears to my eyes thinking of how a mother of 3 copes with running a fever and being sick. 

Once I knew the weather called for rain, I declared it Soup Sunday.  It's very easy to double and triple soup recipes so we made dinner for our family and theirs.  Why not wash feet with soup?!  While Big Sister and Daddy napped, Annie and I cut up potatoes, bacon and onions to start the potato soup

Of course, she is too young and too caught up in Cheerios to know what is going on, but I did talk out loud about making soup to make our friends feel better.

When Amelia got up she helped me make some cookies.  By "make" I mean break and put on the cookie sheet.  We talked about how our friends were sick and that making them cookies and dinner would make them feel better. 

I don't know if this day will stick but you never know.  I try so hard not to miss a teachable moment.  Especially about Jesus!!

And doing this small gesture for our friends made my day!  There is no doubt that if you want to help yourself crawl out of your hole, muster up the strength to do something for others.  It can seem like a mountain to climb but it really does help.  My husband has been lovingly encouraging me to do this and I am so glad he has.

OH!  And with reading my Proverbs day by day, today was Proverbs 31.  I have read this in the past feeling like I would NEVER become this woman. Tonight I read it out loud with Amelia then read the notes at the bottom of the page (Life Application Bible).  It suggests that the Proverbs 31 woman may not have been one woman at all but a composite portrait of ideal womanhood. Your days are not long enough to do what she does.  Do not see her as a model to imitate in every detail but an inspiration to be all you can be. I don't know about you but that makes be feel a lot better!  And encouraged!



Nourishment

Reading through the lines you can probably tell I have been down in the dumps. I will go into more detail about that in a later blog.  I think I just have a case of the grown-up/Mama blues.  Whatever, it got the best of me.  Today a dear, dear friend drove an hour to my house to have a quick lunch with me.  To talk to me, encourage me, laugh with me and just be with me.  She also made me a wonderful gift of bread.

 

Apparently when store bought bread is made it loses a lot of its nutrients.  Along with the bread she challeneged me to get in the Word.  A simple question was asked "How are you supposed to know what The Lord is saying to you if you are not in His Word?"  She suggested to start with Proverbs since it has 31 chapters.  Start with the day.  I am about to sit down with fresh bread and read Proverbs 26.

 

 

Her visit nourished my heart and my mind.  Her bread will nourish me and my family.  I never knew what this cute 17 year old girl driving a fun black jeep would do for me years down the road.  The Lord did.  He also knows what this day will do for us years down the road.

"I'm sorry Ma'am but..."

On September 23, 2012 I walked into Victoria Secret.  The situation and conversation is not important. Not important because regardless, the response could have been better stated.  But this is the statement that was said to me:

"I'm sorry Ma'am, but we do not make a smaller size."

This was about 5 mins after I showed the sales lady my most favorite bra (in my purse, not on my person) and was told that they discontinued it 3 years ago. Because that is how often I buy bras.

Did I hold my head up high and have a witty response back?  Nope, I just said "oh" and paid $42 for a bra that fits pretty good.

FYI girls, breast feeding really takes it out of ya! 

Sickness, Staph and a Sob Story

Our house has been full of a lot of this



 and this...

So Monday we went to the doctor and found out Annie has staph as well

After a shot and some antibiotics little Annie has perked up. 

Unfortunately, I have not.  What do you do when the Mama is worn out?  You pack up your babies and go to your Mama's!  There is no medicine like Mama!  The doctor did say that Annie has the perfect thighs for shots. haha

A Mountain Retreat

Life in the Comerford house has been rough this past month.  Who knew being a grown up would be so complicated?!  Work, decisions, children, sickness, marriage, life...  Whew!  It is mentally and physically exhausting.  I think there is a fine line between between stressed and depressed and I think I and currently teeter-tottering on it.  After being mildly yet really annoyingly sick for 3 weeks and emotionally at the end of my rope, the hubs decided to take the family to the mountain cabin.
 
Side note, turns out I had staph.  Not the MRSA strand but some kind of crummy bacteria and after a cabinet full of meds I am proud to say I am healed. What a mess that was.

So, we left here around lunchtime and the girls slept most of the ride.  We learned that we have reached the age of "are we there yet?" about 30 mins out.  Annie was getting fussy.  It was time for her to eat so I just climbed in the back and gave her a bottle.  Once we were at the house I found out that she was not hungry, but she had pooped and it was so bad that it irritated her diaper rash busting it open. 

Annie loved riding with the windows down in the mountains.  This is pre-poop!

 



In the meantime Ben gets to the door to find out we've been locked out of the house.  We spend an hour outside waiting on someone to come let us in while Amelia is hearing her echo yelling "Help! We need Help!  Let us in!", Annie is crying on the porch basically naked and Ben is cussing and sweating. Once we got in I put the girls in the bath, Ben put the wine in the freezer and headed into town to pick up a pizza. 

Then things got good.  Annie went to sleep and we enjoyed wine (milk in a princess cup) and pizza on the deck.  After dinner we introduced Amelia to her first board game, Candy Land. She actually did a good job.  Have any of you seen a recent Candy Land board?  I wish I still had mine.  The new one is weird. It's so busy you can hardly see the road.

 

 

Saturday morning I woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon.  There really is not much better than knowing the coffee is ready and bacon is in the skillet before your feet touch the ground. We spent most of the morning playing around the cabin while Annie finished up her morning nap.

 

 

When naptime was over, we got the girls dressed and headed into Blue Ridge to pick up Joe's BBQ for a picnic by the river. If you ever get a chance to get up to Blue Ridge you must check out Joe's.  Their white sauce is amazing!

Even in Blue Ridge we still cheer on the Dawgs!

 

With a Joe's BBQ tailgate.  Look at Amelia and her game face

 

 

After lunch we strolled around and Amelia was busting at the seams to get in the water so, of course, we did

 

It is legal to shed your clothing in a state park when you are 3 right?!



 

After a nap, we had more fun outside while Daddy listened to football, grilled steaks and prepared our camp fire.  Amelia was super duper excited about "camping" with Daddy.  She roasted 3 marshmallows and said "Daddy, I'm done camping!" haha.  It was so much fun while it lasted.

 

"Yummy!"

 

Poor Annie is not a fan of the flash

 

 

 

Unfortunately, all this fun came to an end about 12:30am when Annie woke up with a fever and threw up all over the place.  Who doesn't like to wash sheets and bathe babies at midnight on vacation?  Everything all kind of went downhill from there and was still downhill until today about 10am.  Turns out Annie has a UTI.  Her urine culture also showed e coli which is what they are thinking caused the UTI.  We still have to go back in 2 weeks for a ultrasound but hopefully the meds will cure her.  If you are keeping track that is 2 bacteria infections in 1 house in 3 weeks.  Yuck!  I personally blame it on our city water but that is a whole other blog for another day.

 

Could the mountains have been a little better?  Yes.  But was it still wonderful spending the weekend with our family? Absolutely!







The 3 Year Old Princess Had a Party!

I have been so busy with the drama of life, which has included a lot of teething and sickness and laundry and sanitizing that I forgot to post Amelia's birthday party!!

Here's a recap of a morning of princesses and pirates:

Isn't this the cutest invite?!  I ordered it from Grace Girl Designs on Etsy. 

Amelia wanted a princess party but we couldn't leave out our pirate boy friends

In the background is her playhouse from Nana and Pa and she is on her new tricycle from Grandma and PawPaw.  She loves them both!

Aren't the layered tableclothes cute too?  Thanks Pinterest!

Take a guess who was supposed to go to Target and get princesses to put on the cake and I pirate in the water?  Oops.  Think she didn't notice?  She DID. 

"Where are my princesses??!?!?"  Such a birthday diva!

PawPaw's kiddie wash was a big hit!

These children were obviously not cold

Annie and PawPaw stayed behind the scenes in the balloons

 

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl

 

Amelia loves all her dressup and her vanity set

A whole year of being 2 has come to an end.

 

Random Friday Thoughts

I was in a bathroom today and on the wall was this print that read "Live, Laugh, Love"  You know the same print that you see everywhere that is pretty but has become quite cliche.

As I sat there on the potty I thought "Live, Laugh, Love?  Really?  We are in the bathroom.  Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say "Pee, Toot, Poop"?  I mean do you normally Live, Laugh or Love in the bathroom?  Unless you have a reputation and are listed on the Waffle House wall or some other sketchy bathroom stall, there's not much else to do in the bathroom. 

That's all I have for today.  Have a great weekend!

Cut!

Sweet little Annie started cutting her first tooth today.  She is happy as can be.  I would have never known anything was going on had it not been for the hole in her gum and the diarrhea every hour.

Her sister went back and forth between trying to comfort her

and trying to steal the attention she was getting

It has been the saddest day in Annie's world thus far.  Every time I wipe her she cries and shakes because it hurts so bad.  I cried myself.  I even tried putting her in the bath towards the end of the night because I didn't want to have to touch her.  That hurt her too.

I have no idea why this picture is sideways, but so was our day so I will leave it this way.  Annie has not seen 10 pm since she was about 2 or 3 months old.  Tonight she just wanted to snuggle, so we did, on the couch, watching the Farm Monitor with Daddy.

 

 

A sweet, sweet friend who happened to be going to the grocery store tonight picked us up a little home remedy that worked for her babies.  Not only did she pick it up but she delivered it to our living room at 9:30 pm.  Such a small gesture that meant the world to me today.  Reason number 1,873 that I love living in a small town.  Hopefully one day when I get it together and am not hanging on by a thread I will return the favor.

Here it is.  You are supposed to soak the cosmetic pads in the mineral oil and use them as wipes.

 

I will let you know how it goes.  Hope and pray I will not have to find out how it works until tomorrow!  And maybe Annie will wake up with a new tooth!