Ice storm

It's been a crazy week here in Georgia. Last Wednesday we had a national disaster level ice storm (yes, officially declared by President Obama). Our town was hit the hardest and the governor even popped in for some encouragement. A whopping 80% of the city was without power; some for four days. Thankfully, ours was only out for 30 hours, so we got off the hook pretty easy.

The week prior to the ice storm we had a good three inch snowfall. Again, not the norm around here. Anna played in the snow for the first time and it was fun and exciting for everyone. Being from New York, I'm used to the snow, but seeing things for the first time through the eyes of a child is just as magical as if I'd never felt a snowflake before.

These first pictures are from the snowfall a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

Now, on to the ice storm.

 

 

Our beautiful front tree practically snapped in half from the weight of the ice. Multiple trees fell in our backyard.

 

 

Beautiful from the inside; treacherous from the outside.

No power; staying warm.

Fire and a cleared mantle with candles for some warmth and light.

Staying warm.

Two-and-a-quarter. Six months. Pictures, and the sweet spot.

It seems I've finally reached the sweet spot as a mother of two. These girls are so much fun, and I am absolutely loving this season. Babies are adorable and cuddly and cute, but to be perfectly honest, the first six months are not my favorite. Now that Kimberly has passed the six month mark life has been easier, more enjoyable for everyone, and full of great memories. People always talk about how terrible the twos are, but I love them! They are so much fun as everything is new and exciting and language is developing. Thankfully Anna only had a period of a handful of tantrums, and she now (for the most part) seems to have moved past that stage; she is learning how to deal with her emotions and use language to communicate her needs. 

Yes, there are tedious days, a lot of tiredness keeping up with the two of them, and times where it seems all I do is feed and clothe and wash kids. But I know that someday Anna will not need me to comb her hair, put on her clothes, or strap her into the carseat. Someday dancing around the room with Mommy will not be the coolest thing in the world. Someday she will not want to be attached to my heels. Someday a favorite nursery rhyme will not fill her with utter excitement. So I really delight in this time. I try to be fully present and let it all soak into my memory: the sweet feel of Kimberly's skin against mine when she falls asleep in my arms; the giggles from Anna when I tickle her; the way she pops up out of bed when I get her up; the excited shouts of "Mommy!" when I return home from even a short errand.

My mantra has always been that I don’t want to look back and wish I had experienced and appreciated the special moments more. This was important to me way before kids: during my college days dancing for the Georgia Bulldogs, my internship at Wesley, performing ballroom at UGA, mission trips, and India. I knew all of these wonderful, special times only happened once, and I can honestly say that I don’t look back and think “I wish I had known how great those times were. I wish I had appreciated and enjoyed them more." Instead I look back and say, “I’m so glad I realized that those were special times, that I enjoyed them to the fullest, and that I tried to soak in the memories as much as I could.” For this reason I am not a big picture taker because it tends to distract my attention away from being in the moment. However, I know I will want these adorable ages captured so I make myself take them!!

Our yearly trip to the Riverbanks Zoo has become a Father's Day tradition:

I fell asleep on the couch for about ten minutes and woke up to find this:

My parents were able to come visit, something I never thought would happen again. It was tough on my mom who had to stop and get chemo on the way back, but the time was encouraging for them both and special for all of us. She had been working on restoring my old dollhouse and dollhouse pieces that I built with my grandfather to give to Anna when she was older. She decided to go ahead and bring it now. 

Here's my Grandfather and I with the dollhouse back in the day:

Putting Anna down for the occasional nap in our bed:

I lied about not owning anything monogrammed. My friend recently gave me these bloomers. I have to admit, they are super cute!

I think it's pretty funny how Kimberly is rivaling Anna in size. These pictures highlight how tall and thin Anna is, and how round Kimberly is. It's hard to believe they are almost two years apart in age.

My mom's neighbor sent these dresses for the girls. I typically rely on hand-me-downs for clothing so the girls have never had matching outfits.

*Sigh. Someday...

Two Years. Three Months.

I haven't been doing the usual monthly posts, because I simply don't have the time, so here's the latest on my two little pumpkins.


Anna is practically two years old! I can't believe she is so grown up. People always talk about this age as if it's from the devil, but it's my favorite so far. Sure, there are challenging times, but overall it is SO much fun. Anna is learning words a mile a minute, and everything fascinates her. She wants to know what everything is called, and she practices her words in bed when she wakes up. Her current favorites are "avocado" and "outside".


She is still taking a good nap in the afternoon but has started to stay up longer in the morning, which pushes her nap and bedtime later. She is regularly going to bed at 7:30 most nights, but I foresee it moving to 8:00 at some point. She still wakes up between 7 and 7:30 most mornings. One major milestone is that she is now sleeping in a big girl bed! Well, actually it's a mattress on the floor, but she sleeps at night and takes all her naps there. We also moved the baby into Anna's old crib, so they are currently sharing a room! It has gone surprisingly well. They are learning to sleep through each other's noises. I still haven't figured out what to do about napping, though. It's much easier to wake each other up when napping.

She has gone to the bathroom in her little potty several times, and honestly could probably have been potty trained at 20 months, but we haven't had the time or energy with Kimberly. I know I can't get her to the potty in time for the training period! We are thinking about waiting until the summer.


Anna continues to be small and I'm not sure she is even on the growth chart. I don't keep up with it anymore. Last I checked she was below the 3rd percentile. She weighs around 20 pounds, and wears 18-24 month clothes.


Things she is currently into: puzzles, books as usual, and playing with her baby doll and teddy bear. She copies everything I do with her "baby" including dropping saline in her little nose and sucking with the syringe :)  She takes her baby for a walk in her baby stroller and rocks her to sleep in her baby cradle. She has also started to get into dress up clothes thanks to a few items passed down from a friend- sunglasses, butterfly wings, and play shoes. She is learning to help me a lot with household chores- she takes her clean clothes into the bedroom, puts her dirty diapers in the trash can, helps me pick debris off the deck, and put away her toys and books. Whatever Ben and I are doing, she wants to help.


Anna received a water table from her grandparents as a birthday gift and loves to catch her little fishies in the net.

She had adjusted well to her baby sister and is patient and gentle. She giggles at her and is always saying "Mama, Baby!" When I have to tend to the baby, she is usually understanding. For the first three months it was all wonderful, but lately Anna has had some tantrum moments.

I think it's her displaced frustration and adjustment to sharing my attention and often having her needs put on the back burner due to the reality of a newborn. The tantrums usually revolve around food. She either doesn't want what I give her, or she wants something that I won't give her (like crackers for dinner), or she won't eat anything but then twenty minutes later wants to eat again. Unfortunately, her diet is limited to what she is not allergic to. I know she gets tired of the foods I serve her because they are SO limited, but there's not much I can do about the situation. I'm ready for food struggles to be over.


Anna has started to pick up on almost everything we say these days. She knows when you are talking about her, and sometimes she gets upset when people laugh at her or mock her, even if it's in good fun. Ben and I do not talk about her as if she's not there anymore. We try to respect her as we would any adult, and save those conversations for a time when we are alone.


Anna continues to ask "Why?" in regards to her leg on an on-going basis. She often precedes it with "Uh oh". Sometimes when she's really tired it will make her cry. It breaks my heart in two and I have to focus on not becoming visibly upset myself, and am reminded how unprepared I feel. I hope she handles the warm weather well and any resulting attention she might receive. People tell me kids this age have no clue about such things, but I know that's not true for Anna. She is perceptive. She knows she has a difference, and she knows when people talk about it. I have to remind family and friends to be mindful of what they say about her leg in front of her.


The challenges are many but I love my little girl so much. I can't find words to express it.

First attempt to run resulted in a faceplant.

 

 

 

Helping Grandma and Grandpa paint.
 

 

 

Playing on Mommy and Daddy's bed
 

Kimberly is doing great. She's much bigger than Anna, though the doctor said she will probably still be petite. She is 11 pounds and in the 50th percentile for weight, but only the 10th percentile for height (not surprising since Ben's family is on the shorter side).

Kimberly is a very easy baby. It's amazing to me that this is what many moms experience- it feels like a piece of cake compared to Anna's struggles as a newborn! She sleeps and eats well. She goes to bed at 7 and sleeps 8-10 hours, eats sometime between 3 and 5, and then sleeps some more until 7 or so. She is a pretty good napper, fussing just a little and then falling asleep on her own for the majority of the time, though she definitely has her rough nap moments. She still regularly wakes up after a sleep cycle because she's a little too young to be able to self soothe well. She tries to find her fingers but doesn't quite have the control yet. As soon as she does, I think she will take even better naps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I love these two girls.

A Chosen Name

As I've said at some point in the past, Ben and I believe strongly in the power of a name. Throughout history God used the process of naming to tell his story.  Names were prophetic and spoke of what was to come in the next season. God even changed names when a person was transformed or entered into a new season in their identity.  I could go on, but my friend Kristina said it better than I could ever attempt to in her post, What's In a Name?, which I highly recommend.


From the beginning Ben and I wanted to choose names through prayer and  patience, believing that God would speak to us about what he wants to do in our family's journey through each child.  We initially chose a different name for Anna, but God tugged at our hearts to choose a name that meant "grace". While at the time we had no idea what was about to unfold, we knew he was promising to bring grace to our family. That's exactly what he did, and this promise from early on served as a source of comfort during that time. With our second baby, I sensed God drawing me to the name Kimberly, a family name, one wasn't new to us.  God was speaking to me about redemption.


The name Kimberly doesn't actually mean Redemption the way Anna's name translates directly to Grace.  The name signifies to us redemption through family history, after the tragic loss of Ben's sister a month before she was to enter into the world. Her name was Kimberly. While such a loss is always carried in one's heart, I have been truly inspired at the way in which God redeemed that loss, including the blessing he brought to the family with four more beautiful children. We named our sweet girl after this little one in heaven, knowing that in some way in the next season of our lives, God desires to bring us redemption.  I'm not sure what that looks like or what it refers to, but I'm excited to see it unfold. The middle name, Hope, was an easy choice. The promise of redemption brings with it hope.  Hope is one thing Ben and I have never lost while treading this journey of challenges the last few years. I am confident that no matter what comes our way in the future years, we will retain that hope. Hope is a powerful, beautiful thing.


Kimberly Hope, you were chosen by God.
Our family is blessed to be chosen for you.
We love you.

A month of love

This has been quite an emotional, eventful month for us as a family. While we had a completely healthy pregnancy up until this point, at the beginning of December there were some abnormalities noted on the ultrasound. I had to see a specialist and get some additional ultrasounds every other week. We were told that the baby could be another IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction) and that her femur and abdomen measurements were way off. As you can imagine, this was a deep concern for us, particularly after having gone through what we did with Anna. We felt as if someone had punched us in the stomach... that this was some cruel joke and it couldn't be real. But we prayed for peace and stayed hopeful, and before I was about to go get another scan and possibly have to decide whether to induce early, I started to have contractions. Kimberly was born just under two weeks before her due date, completely healthy.

 

I absolutely love having a newborn again. I love everything about them- their feel, smell, adorable faces, and complete innocence. They are so precious and I'm trying to cherish every moment I have with her, because I don't know if there will be another baby in the future.

 

Along with the joy of our healthy daughter's arrival, there has also been some difficult news. My dad was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He and my mom have been in my heart a lot this Christmas season.

 

I pray that you all had a beautiful Christmas celebrating our Father and what he gave up for us in his only Son, and I pray that you draw near to Him as he draws near to you, and that you hold your loved ones close.

 

 

37 weeks pregnant.

 

 

Grandma and Grandpa

 

 

Welcome to the world beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Sisters

Had to take some pictures of our Christmas baby in the hat and socks they gave her at the hospital.