Yummy

 Homemade ice cram in new kid-size lawn chairs in our front yard after a great Memorial Day together... awesome. :) I'm at a point now where I have SO MANY PICTURES that I will never be able to catch up (especially with the busy week I have ahead with a big anniversary celebration going on on my "pixies" website)- so I'm tempted to just not blog at all... but then remember that even just a picture or two is sometimes just enough. :)

And the ice cream... was really good. :)

Ice Cream

Today was a cold and wet and rainy day- not exactly the kind of weather we were having a few days ago when we went out for ice cream (along with half our town it seemed like). 

 Nora nearly always asks for orange when she gets to choose a color.

Carolyn nearly always says pink. Side note: how does she manage to be so effortlessly beautiful??

We're getting ready for a fun weekend with the family, enjoying a bit of a getaway- which of course means that I'm working feverishly to finish up my assignments before we leave and get everything all packed. It's SO NICE to be able to get away even for just a few days, without having to make special arrangements for Brad's pager. It's hard to believe how freeing that really is just knowing that he won't get called away in the middle of our family time. :)

Lots of anniversaries coming up... next week is my one-year-anniversary of My Little Pixies- what a wild ride THAT has been... then the following week on the 9th will be the one-year-anniversary of the day our life took a detour (this was the day I discovered I had an ectopic pregnancy, a huge cyst on my ovary, and learned about how well IV hydromorphone works for pain and how nasty methotrexate injections are)... then on the 15th, we will celebrate 9 years of marriage... and on the 30th, 5 years of parenthood (and Carolyn's fifth birthday- wow!) Brad was listening to an old sermon by our pastor years ago, about Memorial Day being a time to stop and remember what God has done for us. I'll be working on our Year Nine digital scrapbook this weekend, so I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of remembering.

Last Day

Amazing, but today was Carolyn's last day of preschool. The parents got to come to class today and see some of what the kids have been working on.

 The class sang a few of their songs for us- including the one they all seemed to really like called "Thank You God for Making Me" where they get to pretend to be several different animals...

 Here is Carolyn with her best preschool friend, Olivia. These two were glued at the hip all year long!

 And here's the class picture (minus a few because I didn't have a wide enough angle). Believe it or not, this was the most normal face that she made the whole time that the cameras were clicking. I told her that we would be showing this picture at her high school graduation... but I don't think she understood the threat. :)

 After school was done, I took her out to "our" Pizza Hut buffet, where we have spent many wonderful lunches together. Nora goes to "school" one day a week, so sometimes we take a "big girl day" and do big girl things together. Soon I'm going to have to start doing some more solo time with Nora, because she is getting big enough now to really enjoy it. :)

Please ignore my no-makeup, ugly face look here- I am learning to wear contact lenses, and it's just too much of a pain to put makeup on and take it off. I'm not a huge fan of the contacts, but it is nice to be able to see, and I just don't like the way I look in glasses. I am too old to be comfortable with changing my appearance, and too young not to care anymore. So I guess I'll just have to get used to the contacts... ugh...

After lunch, we went home for a brief rest (for her) and a little last-minute order filling for me, and then we went to see African Cats. I had wanted to see it and thought she would enjoy learning about the animals. It was an amazing masterpiece of a film; can't believe that they were able to get the kind of footage of the lions and cheetahs that they did. There were a few questions to skate around- like why the mean lions ate the nice zebra... but overall, I thought it was a good movie.

And now it's bedtime. I was up way too late last night and up again way too early this morning, so it's off to bed, off to bed...

Someone...

... in our family LOVES spaghetti!! She downed three full helpings of it tonight... though maybe not all of it actually made it down into her tummy! :) She even turned down watermelon for more spaghetti! And EVERY kid needs some pictures like this for her baby book! :)

Painted

Please excuse the quality of these pictures. I did not feel like editing them. :) We're going out for ice cream tonight- that's way more fun. :)

 But there's nothing more special than painted toenails when Aunt Michelle comes to visit! They were just in for a quick overnight visiting friends (and we make a nice/cheap hotel :)) but they hung out with us for a few hours this morning, and had enough time to paint some toes. :)

 I think this was Nora's first time. :) She was fascinated.

Really wanted fingernails painted too... but Carolyn just started to be big enough to not eat the polish, so Nora's definitely too little. :)

It's so nice having sisters! :)

Books

I love that Nora is starting to enjoy "real" books now. She's beginning to move out of that board book stage and be ready for more of a story. I'm a bit sad to think of boxing up the baby books for a yet-undetermined-but-still-hoped-for-day when we may need them again... but I'm excited to be able to read a more complex story to her and to see how her comprehension is advancing! Since this blog is sort of in lieu of a baby book, here I will list some of the current favorites. :)

Nora loves:
-Knuffle Bunny (Kuh-lull Bunny)
-Big Sister book (somehow the "I'm a Big Sister Now" book got left in the bathroom, and I have to read it to Nora every day when we are trying for a BM on the potty... I think she wants a baby sibling! Me too, baby, me too!)
-Olivia
-How Does a Dinosaur... Say Good Night, Say I Love You, Eat All His Food, etc
-Madeline
-Still chooses the pop-up Elmo book whenever it is visible. :)

Carolyn:
-Frances books
-Fancy Nancy books
-Pinkalicious books
-pretty much any story featuring a princess, a mermaid, a fairy, or someone wearing pink. :)
-currently about 2/3 of the way through Charlotte's Web for the first time.

That's all I can think of right now. Bedtime for us... way too late again... sigh...

Slowdown

I'm not always very good about STOPPING... but today we all needed some down time, and so we got it. :) It was very nice to slow down enough to have the time to watch my girls discover something as simple as a (really nasty, long) worm in our driveway. :)

They were totally fascinated with it.

When we were done watching it, I brought it over to the grass to let it have a better place than our driveway to be. 

 Nora was very interested in where it was going, and hours later, she asked me where the worm was. :)

Sometimes these days are so beneficial- though my "go-go-go" personality at times feels frustrated with the slower pace on days when I don't leave the house all day (I hate laundry, dishes, and housework- and whenever I'm home for any length of time, I feel constantly reminded of my shortcomings in all of those areas)! But I think the girls appreciated some extra time for savoring life... and I enjoyed some extra time with them, after the crazy week I've had.

Change

Change... isn't always bad... but it's always, well, different. Most of you know that our family has been preparing for a major change for the past few months. Today, Brad turned in his pager, that has been a constant member of this family for the past nearly-two-years. He resigned from his current practice in downtown Grand Rapids to take a new position at a different practice nearer to the hospital where he prefers to deliver his patients and do his surgeries.

The journey to get to this place was, like most journeys, one where we didn't really realize where were headed until we sort of found that we'd arrived there. For the past several months, things had been taking a downturn for Brad at work, as far as patient volume and monetary compensation as compared with the amount of overhead expenses involved with working at a large scale practice like that (as wonderful as it was)- there are lots of reasons for this- most of which were beyond his control- but suffice it to say, ends were not being met, and we knew after the pattern continued for several months, that a change was coming. We weren't sure what the change would look like.

But we were so pleased when Michigan OB/GYN, the practice Brad's dad helped to found, and where the famous Dr. who delivered both our girls currently works, had an immediate need for a new doctor! We are so excited for this great opportunity for Brad, and now looking back on where we've been, we can see God's hand leading us to this place, even when a few months ago we really wouldn't have imagined this to be a possibility.

But it began to work out a couple of months ago... and then in what seemed like a whirlwind, we were signing papers and the office was building out space- and last week Brad gave his notice at work, and today was his last day, and tomorrow he starts training for his new job, and Thursday he spends the day shadowing one of the other docs, and Friday he starts seeing patients at the new place! For as long as this change took to really come to fruition, it sure did happen in a hurry once all the pieces began to fall into place.

Even though there will no doubt be some challenges with the change... I can't wipe the smile off my face when I think about one change that will be no challenge at all (except that now he won't have an excuse not to watch the kids- ha! ;))-drumroll please... THE 24/7 CALL IS OVER!! You may not have known because he rarely complained, but my sweet husband has been "on" his pager, except when we were on vacation, every hour of every day for nearly two years. He hasn't always been called in- and in fact he really has been home much more than I expected when he first took that job- but there has always been the possibility that he would be summoned to work at any moment. Those days are over.

Today I saw his call schedule for the upcoming month. I wanted to cry I was so happy. I think he is on call for a total of SIX DAYS for the entire month! Of course, now when he's on call, he'll be covering his partners' patients as well as his own, so he'll probably be "living" at the hospital on those days- but the REST of the time, he will really be HOME. I cannot wait to see what he does with this newfound freedom... who knows, maybe some stress will lift off both of our shoulders and we'll finally be able to conceive that little anklebiter we both inexplicably want! :)

Change is bittersweet, always- it was sad for Brad to have to leave his current practice where he's invested so much of himself. But the people at GRWH have been amazingly kind and professional about everything. The new practice he's joining has been wonderfully supportive and welcoming... and we are all very excited about this new venture. :) Sayonara constant pager! :)

Blessings

I discovered this song yesterday, and I have listened to it dozens of times since then. I challenge you all to take the 5 minutes to watch this video and listen to the words of this song because they really spoke to me.

The chorus goes like this:

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights 

Are what it takes to know You’re near

What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

I will be the first to tell you that I really know very little about real suffering. There are many, many, many others who have known those "thousand sleepless nights" in a way that I have never, thankfully, yet experienced. But yet I found the words of this song resonating somewhere deep within me as I've considered and thought about them in connection with the "kindergarten" of suffering that has been the past year for me, as I have tried and failed to conceive a much-desired third child.

A dear friend sent me this article around Mother's Day, and it spoke to the difficulty that this day celebrating motherhood can be for those for whom the adventure of motherhood- or the anticipation of it- has not gone as planned or desired. My favorite part of the article says:

"understand that unfulfilled desire is a tool he uses to give you even better things – things of himself that you cannot know in easy ways. 

Believe in confidence that this time of waiting is not just a holding pattern with no discernible value, but it too is a blessing, albeit in disguise, as it increases yourstrength to run and not grow weary and to walk and not to faint. Wait on the Lord, dear sister, in confidence."

The song and that article really made me think about how we often try so very hard to relieve the suffering and difficulty in our lives- try every possible avenue to fix our problems... and there's nothing inherently sinful or wrong about that. But I am learning that there are times that what He wants from me is for me to accept that even the difficulties and struggles that I am having are coming from His hand- and my job is to stop trying to fix it- and resolve instead to gain what it is He has purposed for me to out of it. To let it make me better and not bitter. 

I've really struggled with that as once again I'm reminded of this problem that my body has and I want more than anything to "fix it"- I think that if I could just get my body to "cycle" normally, that I'd feel okay about things even if I still didn't conceive- if I could just feel "normal" for once, I'd be all right. I'm embarrassed a little bit to tell you all how much this has occupied my thoughts and my energies for the past year- the pursuit of "normal" even surpasses the quest for another pregnancy in my mind sometimes. And when a couple months ago, I really felt convicted that for this season, I was to STOP trying to fix it- I calmed down a bit, but the anxious parts of myself that lurk just below the surface keep trying to come out and begin working hard again to "fix" myself (with medication, "charting," obsessive concern with the nuances of my faulty reproductive system).

Which is why I was thankful for this song, which has now joined "Waiting Room" and a few others on the "soundtrack" for this season. I thought it was a breath of fresh air to just remember that sometimes the trials of life can be "mercies in disguise," and that sometimes it is okay to simply lie down and take it- not as a punishment or because we're beaten into submission- but to trust the Shepherd who cares for us- to make the choice to believe that He does have our best interest at heart even when the outside circumstances don't seem to be the green pastures we're promised. I think there's peace there- and rest.

The song concludes with really meaningful lyrics that I'll finish this post with tonight.

We know the pain reminds this heart

That this is not, this is not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

And what if a thousand sleepless nights 

Are what it takes to know You’re near

What if my greatest disappointments

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy

And what if trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are Your mercies in disguise

Carnival

Yesterday my friend and I took our kids to the Tulip Time carnival. It was one of those days where I knew I really "shouldn't" have gone out instead of staying home and catching up on bows and my housework... but the weather was beautiful and it was a rare occasion where Nora was at Appletree and I could spend some time with my big girl... so we went (though I am still paying the price for my lack of diligence! My work is stacking up alarmingly... but it was worth it :))

 What a difference a year or two makes! The last time we went someplace that had rides, Carolyn was too scared to try any of them.

 This time she just hopped right on- I think it helped that she had a friend. :)

 The rides were outrageously expensive for what they were- the only one worth what we paid for it was this jumping thing. It really was a cool thing- but dangerous!

 They hooked the kids into these harnesses and tightened up the bungee cords and let them hop away. They had a marvelous time!

 It was all awesome until they taught Carolyn how to do flips, and she looked like she might break her neck because she was throwing herself forward to flip around (even though they told the kids to gently lean back to flip around- it was apparently easier for her to just flip forward...)- I shut it down shortly after this picture was taken... an unpopular mommy move... but better than a broken neck!

 Cotton candy makes everything better... boy we paid the price for that one later, too- but it made her really happy. :)

 I remember loving cotton candy as much as she does when I was little. Pity it doesn't taste as good now that I could have as much as I wanted. :)

 I've lived in West Michigan for 6 years, not counting the 3 years I spent at Hope College in Holland Michigan- and this was the very first time I saw the "Dutch Dancing" in downtown Holland at Tulip Time. It was an interesting experience... all of the dancers are girls, except for one boy. It was pretty cool to see them all clunking around together.

Warmup!

 Nothing says spring is here and summer isn't far behind like bubbles and sidewalk chalk. :) We're enjoying the warmer weather that followed us up from South Carolina.

I've been doing some thinking about my blog, and I think I've decided to go ahead and go through with privatizing it; I've been on the fence as I started blogging regularly again and forgot how much I enjoy feeling like a "real" blogger. I have emails from many of you who read my blog and as soon as I get a chance I will compile them all and send out an email to everyone whose address I have letting you know that I'm putting you on the list. I don't intend to block anyone who's already a reader of this blog, but I do feel like I want to be able to control the amount of my life that is just "out there." As much as I love feeling like my ramblings are connected to a wider world out there, and it means more to me than I can express that several of you have expressed to me that my writing encourages you as you deal with similar life struggles- it makes the journey we've been on this past year seem more worth it if it can encourage others- it's still a scary world out there, and my kids' privacy is more important than my feeling cool. So own up, if you want to keep reading.

I know that many of you have actually emailed me your stories about infertility and miscarriage, and I am so uplifted by hearing of your experiences. I am (obviously) a pretty open person, and I do intend to blog about the next part of this road this fall as we prepare to seek treatment in order to bring another member into this family, so if you do want to join me on this journey, even if we've never met in person, leave me your email address (if I don't already have it), and I'll add you to the list.

Last Imagine That!

 It's the end of yet another Kindermusik year... and the end of a class "stage" for Carolyn. Seems like not very long ago she was this age:

and taking her very first "Our Time" class when she was barely 18 months old... we've kept at it ever since because I never can seem to quit... and now she has finished the 3 and 4 year old preschool class  called "Imagine That," and will move on this fall to "Kindermusik for the Young Child," where over 2 more years she will actually begin to read music on her own! It's amazing how much she's changed and grown, and I love that our Kindermusik classes have been a vein of constancy through our life.

Even Nora loves going! She's finishing her second "Our Time" toddler class next week. Both my girls just LOVE Miss Lynette- and I do too! We are so very blessed to have such a wonderful, loving, amazing, strong woman in our lives. I look up to her so much and value the relationship she has with my daughters (and me). Kindermusik itself is a great program no matter where you take it- but Miss Lynette really "makes" the experience for us. Her love for my children is so clear, and we are very thankful to have her as our teacher. If you live in the GR area and wish you had such a great person in your kids' lives too, you should check out her website at http://kindermusikwithmisslynette.com to see how you can register for classes this fall. You will not regret it.

I'll admit, I got a little choked up inside today when I thought about this being Carolyn's very last "Imagine That" class. I have loved this series of classes so much. They really tap into the vibrant imaginations of kids this age and help them to relate what they think and imagine and feel into words and music and song and art. It's been a truly wonderful experience to see Carolyn grow through this class, and although I'm excited about what's coming next, I can't help but be a little sad that this stage is over. Just like so many other things about the transitions in life- it's bittersweet to watch your child growing up- Carolyn is so much more her own person lately; the pudgy baby morphed into the wiggly toddler and grew into the imaginative preschooler- and now her legs are stretching longer and she will soon enter a larger world as an elementary school kid! Ouch! I miss that little baby!

Vacation Wrap-Up

 We're leaving for the airport shortly (to ride on a tiny little plane... ugh... hate that...) to go home, so here's our vacation recap! I took a lot of pictures; hard to whittle it down to a reasonable amount for a blog post- so here goes.

 Friday turned out to be unexpectedly rainy... and I found that I had to be a bit inventive in order to keep everyone happy because being cooped up on vacation is just about as much fun as being cooped up at home! So I threw together a quick craft project that turned out to be a success (as only about 20 percent of craft projects are :))

 I covered some containers with brown paper and had the girls make "animal houses" for the plastic animals we'd brought along.

 In between showers, we went outside and used pop bottle caps as food dishes to "feed" and water the animals.

 Everyone had a very nice time; it was the bright point of that morning! :)

 Nora ate most of the snacks.

 She especially enjoyed putting water into the little dishes (and dumping it out all over the place).

 And we've been doing her hair in pigtails a lot lately, and I like how cute it looks. And she doesn't hate it when I take pictures like her sister does- so that's why there are often more pictures of Nora when I go to download pics...

While the girls napped that afternoon, I went with Nana to pick up the shrimp for that night. You wouldn't think this dilapidated old building would be the best place in town to buy seafood, but it is. :)

They also shell (LOTS of) oysters there- that is why it is called the Bluffton Oyster Company- you can see the mountain of oyster shells outside the building. It's huge!

 Later in the day, the cousins arrived! The big girls immediately disappeared to play dollies together and the little ones watched videos on the laptop. :)

 We went to the pool when the sun came out.

 Both Carolyn and Emily did great even just with the pool noodles in the pool.

After dinner each night all the kids got to eat ice cream cones on the porch. They loved it.

 Nora wasn't having any of the "sit the cousins down for a picture" thing, but it turned out cute anyway.

 Here's what the grown-ups ate- a delicious "low country boil" with potatoes corn, shrimp, and sausage. It was really good!

 The next day we went to the beach!

It was kind of cold in the water, but the girls had fun anyway. I actually went swimming in the ocean even though no one else was brave enough! I was rewarded for my courage when a little pod of dolphins came swimming by just about 20 feet from where I was! I was sort of freaked out at first because all I saw was the dorsal fins- so I started trying to swim back to shore as quick as I could, thinking was a shark! But then I saw the tails and realized what they were, so I stayed still and enjoyed my swim with the dolphins. :)

 Nora started to look a little red, so we had to take her back to the shade.

 She still looked so cute on the beach, though!

 The big girls loving on each other. Such cute cousins!

 Nora and I waited at the little playground for the rest. She had fun dumping her plastic animals down the slide.

I had fun taking pictures. :)

Mother's Day we went for brunch at the club. Such a blessing to be all together.

And in the end I got my "porch" picture after all. :) 

Had a great time! Ready to go home now. :)