Irelyn’s 1st Birthday [Rainbows & Clovers!]

Since Irelyn’s birthday is on March 16 (almost St. Patrick’s Day) and we’re part Irish, we chose a rainbow & clover theme for her 1st birthday party.  The goal was to save as much money as we could on decorations and food – especially since she won’t remember it anyway – so I got most of my ideas from Pinterest!  It’s been almost 6 months since her birthday, so I’ve lost some of the links to the other blogs I borrowed ideas from, but I will do my best to give credit for everything.

We did a cake smash photo shoot in our kitchen a few weeks before the party.  This was the first time she had ever had a cupcake or frosting (I had to make special dairy/egg free cupcakes for her) and she loved them!  Many of them were blurry, but I got quite a few good shots.

 

Below are pictures from the party, I’ll add a list at the bottom with links to all of the treats/decorations!

A few pictures from before the party…

Rainbow cupcakes, Oreo Brownie cupcakes, and Lucky Charm Trail Mix

Pictures with family…

More pictures with family!

The cake!  Kaden refused to be a part of the “family” photo; he’d had his fill of pictures by the end of the party.

And this is the only face Zach will make for a picture by himself!

 

Here are links to all of the goodies pictured above – in no particular order:

1.  Rainbow Cupcakes
2.  Lucky Charm Trail Mix
3.  Shamrock Rice Krispie Treats (not pictured above, but they were yummy – we didn’t make a Christmas tree, just squares)
4.  Cupcake Circle Printable
5.  Oreo Brownie Cupcakes
6.  Crockpot BBQ Meatballs (we also used this recipe for mini hot dogs and they turned out great!)
7.  Printable LUCKY Banner
8.  Irelyn’s Birthday Outfit (this is the link to where I got the idea from.  Zach’s aunt offered to embroider the clover and “I” onto a onesie we bought, we already had rainbow leggings and I made the bow for her hair)

We also had a rainbow assortment of fruits & veggies, chips and probably a couple of other things I can’t remember;  we had plenty of leftovers.

Her party was a great success.  Everything turned out the way I was hoping, it gave all of our family a chance to see our new house and Irelyn & Kaden both had a great time.  Now we’re hoping for the same with Kaden’s 5th birthday party!  We will be having his birthday a few weeks early (so that he’ll get to have his special day just in case baby Lily decides to enter the world a little early), so I’ll be getting a head start on planning within the next month.  As of right now, meaning: until he changes his mind next week, we’re thinking of a LEGO or “Movie night” theme (popcorn in special tubs for snacks, movie theater candy, ticket themed invitations, etc.).  It’s not easy steering him away from the superhero themes, but it’s so much more fun planning a party like this than going to Walmart and buying all of the Spiderman decorations.

MIA [again!]

My last post was titled “MIA” (because I hadn’t posted in over a month), I’m not sure what this one should be titled since it has been almost a year!  Obviously, I’ve been quite busy.

Here’s a quick breakdown of our past year:

• We celebrated Kaden’s 4th birthday in December of 2012 and also our 1st Christmas as a family that wasn’t cut short because of deployment.
• We moved out of our (tiny) 3 bedroom, 900 sq ft apartment to a 4 bedroom, 1600 sq ft HOUSE!  We have a big backyard for the kids to play in and we’re so much closer to Zach’s work, church and preschool.
• We celebrated Irelyn’s 1st birthday in March of this year with a rainbow and clover themed party (I’ll be posting about that later!)
• In 2013, Irelyn has learned around 15 signs, how to walk, said her first words and has shown that she has a very spirited personality (I no longer take her on grocery shopping trips because the terrible 2’s seem to have started early…)
• Kaden finished his 1st year of preschool!
• We found out Irelyn has outgrown her dairy allergy; now it is just an intolerance which is much easier to manage.  But she has an egg allergy, so now I’m learning all new ways to cook/bake.
• We found out we’re expecting our 3rd (and final) baby due on December 11th!  Keep reading for a picture of our gender reveal.
• I had to wean Irelyn from breastfeeding (we made it 17 months!).  Due to preterm labor issues with both kids, my OB wanted me to wean her by 22 weeks.  Irelyn handled it better than I did.
• Kaden learned to ride his bike without training wheels and he will be starting his 2nd year of preschool in 3 weeks.  Now we are just planning to enjoy the rest of our summer together.

About baby #3:

Zach deployed when I was 14 weeks pregnant with Irelyn and didn’t get home until she was 4 months old; so this entire pregnancy is new to him.  I’m 23 weeks and we just found out the gender a few weeks ago.  We had the ultrasound technician write down the gender in an envelope, took it to Walmart, and had them fill the box with pink or blue balloons.  We had a cookout with both of our families and opened the box at the end of the party!

……….and it’s a GIRL!

Her name will be Lillian.  We haven’t decided middle names – she’ll have 2 – but we’ve still got a few months to figure that out.

I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to be blogging about, but my goal is to do so more regularly; I think I can handle more than once per year!

Here is a more recent picture of my sweet little monsters (they’ve changed a bit during the past year!):

MIA

The past few weeks have been a little crazy (which is why I haven’t posted in well over a month…)!  I have tons of pictures I could post, but it’s 6:55am right now, the kids and hubby are sleeping and I’m trying to enjoy every last second before the little monsters wake up…so I’ll do a little updating now and a picture post later. 🙂

Here are some things that have happened in the past month:

• Zach’s Welcome Home party (I forgot the camera…but I do have one picture below!)
• My family reunion (I forgot the camera for this, too)
• Zach’s family reunion will be this Saturday (I’ll try to remember the camera this time!)
• We’ve started cloth diapering almost full time (I haven’t found the right inserts to try a cloth diaper at night yet)
• Irelyn had her 4 month appointment (she was 14 lb 9 oz, 25 inches long and is growing perfectly!)
• Made it to 5 months of exclusive breastfeeding 🙂 (I tried some dairy a couple of weeks ago to see if she’s still sensitive to it…she is.)
• Kaden spent a week at his dad’s house while Zach & I were house-sitting for my aunt
• Irelyn learned to roll from back to belly (she’s been going from belly to back), has been learning to sit and has attempted to crawl twice!
• Zach went to Columbus this past Tuesday to take his exam for the Ohio State Highway Patrol (he passed!) We should know if he got accepted into the academy in a few weeks 🙂
• Irelyn had her 1st taste of solid food [this morning! – video below]

We are trying baby led weaning with Irelyn.  Basically, we’ll be skipping cereal & purees, starting with simple foods such as avocado, bananas, peaches, broccoli, etc and allowing her to feed herself.  The idea behind it is that she’ll learn to chew before swallowing (which will help her to only ingest solids as she is actually ready for them), it is supposed to help her be less picky towards the texture (with a 3 year old that would only eat mac-n-cheese and popsicles if I let him, I love this), plus I don’t have to spend time pureeing and storing foods for her, she’ll just eat what we eat!

We tried avocado today.  She was so excited when we put it on the tray and she licked it for a few minutes – I don’t think she actually managed to swallow any though.

Obviously, Kaden was narrating the entire event…I’ll only bore you with a little over a minute of it. [please ignore my messy house]

And here is the one and only picture I have from Zach’s party.

I’ll post more pictures as soon as I have some “free” time to edit them! 🙂

He’s Home!

Finally!  Zach got home around 3am on Friday morning.  He will be home for 10 days before he has to go back to Kentucky for a few days, but that’s nothing compared to the 10 months he’s been gone.  He got to meet Irelyn around 3:30am on Friday – we checked on her while she was sleeping and she woke up.  She spent an hour awake after that and was all smiles. 🙂  When Kaden woke up Friday morning I told him there was a surprise in my room for him…he came running out with a huge smile on his face when he saw that Zach was his surprise!  Here are a few pictures of the three of them.

Of course, the kids had to have special outfits to wear.  I had planned on that being a surprise for Zach at the airport, but since plans changed and he came home in the middle of the night, we just had a photo shoot in the living room [it only took Irelyn 10 minutes of wearing the onesie to spit up all over it anyway].  I ordered Irelyn’s skirt & bow on etsy and I made the shirts they’re wearing.

We’ve been pretty busy the past few days with visiting family, church and transitioning Irelyn to her crib (that was one huge failure from my 28 day challenge…).  The first night she slept in her crib, we were up every two hours – but last night she only woke up one extra time!  The past couple of days have been amazing and has made the past 10 months worth the wait.  Tonight’s post is going to be short, but we’re taking the kids to the park in the morning and we’ll be doing Irelyn’s 4 month picture tomorrow, so I’ll post those soon!

Here are a few more pictures from today 🙂

Day 18 – Transition to Crib (and some AWESOME news!!)

Okay, good news first:  ZACH IS BACK IN THE UNITED STATES!!!!!!! For the first time in 5 months, I feel like I can finally relax knowing he’s not in a war zone.  The reason he is home early is because he needs surgery on his shoulder.  So, even though he’s back in the US, he probably won’t be home with us for another couple of months.  But within the next month, we will be driving to wherever he is to see him 🙂  Waiting a little longer for him to be at home with us will be a breeze compared to waiting all these months that he’s been in Afghanistan.

Transitioning Irelyn to her crib…this has been interesting.  Since she was born, we have co-slept.  I have one of these cute little “snuggle nests” and she sleeps about 6″ away from me in our bed.  She has always been a wonderful sleeper – after surviving the first couple weeks of nursing around the clock, she wakes up once or twice a night to nurse, I lay her back down and she drifts off to sleep.  I love having her right next to me during the night (because I can easily check on her anytime and because I hate sleeping alone).  I co-slept with Kaden for at least a few hours of the night until he was 7 months old and loved it.

So, here are the reasons I’m trying to transition her to her crib.
1.  She’s starting to get too big for the snuggle nest.  She wiggles around and can scoot down to the middle of it, which makes me nervous because I don’t want her roll off the bed.
2.  She’s getting to big for her swaddle blanket.  I want to move her to her crib while she’s still swaddled, so she can get use to the new bed before changing anything else.
3.  Zach will be home soon.  We have a queen size bed and regardless of what the picture on the website shows, the little bed takes up more space than you’d think.  Since my husband has been gone all but 8 weeks of our year long marriage and we’ve spent most of it with an entire ocean between us, he’s gonna have a hard time keeping me from hugging him all day, let alone at night (which I can’t do if our daughter is sleeping in the middle and we’re both hanging off the edges of the bed). 🙂

Now for our progress so far.  I really don’t know because apparently I’m incapable of leaving her in her bed long enough to find out.  Here’s my one…and only attempt:  I put her in her crib at 10:20pm (same time I usually lay down with her for the night and she sleeps til 4am), I didn’t check on her til 10:40pm (still sleeping peacefully), made myself sit in the living room til 11:15 (she hadn’t made a peep), I tried to go to sleep (failed miserably) and got her out of bed at 11:45pm (we were both happily sleeping next to each other by midnight).  I keep telling myself “tonight will be the night I try again”.  Never happens.  I can actually convince myself during the day that I will go to bed without her and even go so far as to getting her room ready for bedtime.  Then it starts getting dark outside. And 10pm comes, I nurse her and we happily lie down in my bed and are asleep within minutes.  Why ruin a good thing, right?

I will move her to her crib.  Eventually.  Soon.  While I was trying to go to sleep that one night without her, in my attempt to rationalize why I should just give up, I realized I have never slept away from her since she was born (& for 9 months before that if you wanna get technical).  She’s been away from me for a total of 2 hours (it took 3 separate occasions to total 2 hours) and has had 4 bottles (totaling 3 ounces of milk – I’ll have to post the video of her attempting to drink a bottle, she’s clueless).  Needless to say, we both I may have a slight separation issue.  This is actually new to me, I went back to work full time when Kaden was 5 weeks old and I spent a night away from him when he was 7 months.  At this rate, I don’t think  Irelyn will be away from me for more than dinner & a movie with the hubby by the time she’s 7 months.  Oh well…I still have a little time before Zach comes home to work on this. 🙂

She also rolled from her tummy to her back for the first time tonight!  I was practically touching her when she rolled and I missed it because I was reaching for something.  Here she is with her favorite toy.

Pinterest!

I’ve become pretty addicted to pinterest over the past few months.  I’ve found lots of good ideas during the hours I’ve wasted after the kids are in bed.  So I decided to try out a couple of the things I have found.

First, I came across some cute month by month printables and have been taking Irelyn’s picture each month.  Here are the past 3 months…I can’t believe how fast she’s growing!

She’s getting better at these pictures, but now that she can move around a little more I had a hard time getting her to look at me long enough to snap a picture.  I managed to get one good shot when she wasn’t tipping from side to side or staring at her hands. 🙂

Second, I was looking for father’s day gift ideas on pinterest.  I found another printable that I framed and some crepe paper flowers I decided to make.

I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, we’ll see what my dad thinks tomorrow. 🙂

I completely took advantage of only having one child today and spent the entire day relaxing.  I guess we’ll be cleaning Zach’s truck out next week!  It was so nice being able to do absolutely nothing while Irelyn napped off and on all day, but I miss Kaden and am definitely ready to go pick him up tomorrow.

Tonight is the first night I’m going to put Irelyn in her crib for the night…she’s slept in her crib for a total of two hours in her life so this will probably be a long night for both of us.  I’ll post on Monday about how long we last. 🙂

Irelyn’s Birth Story

She’s [finally] here!  Irelyn Kay was born on March 16, 2012 at 2:02pm.  Since I wrote Kaden’s birth story 3 years ago, I thought I’d do the same for her. Thankfully, Zach wasn’t busy and we were able to Skype during my entire labor and delivery!  We’d planned on waiting until after Irelyn was here, but I’m so happy we got to experience it together.

At 7:30am on March 16th my aunt Heidi, Kaden and I went to my doctor for her to strip my membranes [to see if that would be enough to get things moving while she was available for my water birth].   We found out that I was 4-5cm dilated, she stripped my membranes, then told me she’d send me to the hospital and break my water later that day if I wanted…well duh!  So, I was very thankful that I had actually gotten everything packed and loaded into the truck before my appointment, just in case.  Heidi went with me to get checked into labor & delivery, then took Kaden to my other aunt’s house for the day.

Zach’s sister, Tavia, came up to the hospital and walked the short U-shaped hallway with me for an hour – at this point, I was having contractions about every 3-5 minutes, but nothing very painful.  At 10:00am my doctor called to let the nurses know she’d be up in an hour to break my water.  My stepmom and doula both arrived at 10:30am and at 11:10am there was no turning back!  After having my water broken things picked up quickly [I was 5cm at this time].  By 12:00pm I was contracting every 2 minutes and had to hang on to the rail in the hallway to get through them.  Around 1:00pm I felt like I was in enough pain to get into the tub.  My goal was to make it to transition (7cm) before getting in the tub, then I was hoping the water would be enough to help me handle the pain til it was too late for an epidural.  Before getting in the water I asked the nurse to check me – 7-8cm and 90% effaced!

I got in the water [which helped tremendously!], it helped me to work through the pain and definitely helped Irelyn to get into position faster.  After about 40 minutes in the water I started to feel some pressure, so I had to get out of the tub and wait in bed to be checked…the contractions were just about unbearable by this point, but I was at 9cm and 100% effaced!  This is when I found out the my doctor was currently in surgery.  I wasn’t able to get back in the water – the nurses said I was too relaxed and only the doctor can deliver the baby in the tub.  So, with the help of my doula and my stepmom helping me to stay calm during the worst contractions, I tried to hold out for the other doctor in the practice to get there.  I don’t remember much from this stage of labor besides a lot of breathing and pain!  The doctor arrived just in time and I was finally able to start pushing.  Of course, technology decided to start failing us at the most important part of the day – Skype kept losing the call [yes, while I was pushing] and everyone kept yelling at me to stop until Zach was able to see again lol.  So, after 3 pushes, Irelyn was here!

Having her on my chest, knowing Zach watched the birth & heard her first cry and knowing that I was strong enough to do it without any drugs was the best feeling in the world.  The nurse [who actually doubted I’d be able to have a natural birth at the beginning of the day] kept saying she couldn’t believe that I’d even had an epidural with my son! 🙂

My doctors & family were absolutely amazing throughout the day.  Without everyone’s support, there’s no way I could have done it.  After Irelyn was born, they immediately put her on my chest, covered us with a blanket and didn’t even cut the cord until it stopped pulsating (and Irelyn’s “Duh” (Heidi) got to cut her cord!).  Irelyn spent the next hour nursing while I talked to Zach.  She didn’t leave me for the first hour and a half of her life – we didn’t even find out her weight/length until she was almost 4 hours old! She has a full head of hair and looks almost exactly like her daddy – all she got from me are her lips, chin & toes.

Irelyn Kay Sully
7 lb 10 oz
20 1/2 inches
March 16, 2012
2:02pm – or 10:32pm where her daddy is at 🙂

I’m so thankful the labor was short (5 hours total and only 2 hours of hard labor) and everything went well.  The past week has been great, the only thing that could make it better is if Zach was home with us.  We’ve been able to Skype every day and it’s amazing how she recognizes his voice – as soon as he starts talking, she tries to open her eyes to find him.  I’ve had a lot of help from Heidi and my parents this week and am almost feeling normal again.  Just one more week and Kaden will be back home with us and will get to see his baby sister more – then I’ll post pictures of them together.

Here are a couple pictures of Irelyn this week and I’ll post again in a week or so!

38 Weeks & Labor Cookies

UPDATED ON JUNE 25, 2014: This post has become quite popular over the past 2 years.  I’ve had another baby and made these labor cookies 2 days before I went into labor with her, too.  Click here to read her birth story!

Little Miss Irelyn is proving to be a lot like her brother already.  With Kaden, I had mild preterm labor stopped twice before 34 weeks – then had to be induced at 41 weeks 1 day.  Thankfully, she is a little less stubborn and we’re definitely making more progress than I had made at this point with Kaden!

First, at my 37 week appointment (last Tuesday), I was 3cm, 50% effaced and the baby was “still wayyyy up there”.  After reaching my goal of 37 weeks so that I can have a water birth, I’ve been walking and sitting on my exercise ball to try to help things move in the right direction (and hopefully avoid induction).  I also came across an interesting “Labor Cookie Recipe” yesterday and thought I’d give it a try [even if it didn’t work, it was a great excuse to eat cookies!].  The cookies really just taste like over-spiced gingersnaps.

Here’s the recipe:

2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 t. baking soda
3/4 t. cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
8 T. butter
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. molasses
1/4 c. egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda and spices and set aside. Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the molasses to the creamed butter, then add the egg whites until combined. Addd the dry ingredients slowly. Once incorporated, roll dough into 1 inch balls and place onto baking tray. Bake 8-10 minutes. Once cool eat as many as you can possibly stomach, lay down for a nap and wait for labor to begin!

And here’s a couple of testimonials:

I waited until my mom had arrived from Ohio (we live in California) to bake these cookies. She arrived on Saturday evening and my husband baked me a bunch of tiny cookies on Sunday. I ate 5 mini cookies during the day and 2 later in the evening (Oscar night). At 3:30 am Monday my contractions started and I finished packing our toiletry kit instead of sleeping. I also tried to clip my toenails since it looked like I’d be missing my scheduled due-date pedicure. At 4:30 am I was sure my labor had started and I woke my husband. The contractions were 2 minutes apart. By 5 am we were at the hospital. By 7:42am my baby boy, Milo, was born. Thanks “Jump start your labor cookies”! 🙂 True story.
……………………………….
So yesterday I make the cookies, I add extra of all the spices as I love and eat spicy food and think I should just add more – I have no cayenne so I chop up Balinese Chili pepper instead… have some for a snack, after dinner, for breakfast this morning and…. mucus plug comes out… well. the first 2 labours started this way – it’s slow and crampy right now – which is why I can type this – yes, I am eating more cookies while I type too – just in case 🙂 A few days later: I’m sure it was the cookies that ‘jump started’ my labour. Zoie Was born on Mother’s Day, May 11 which was her due date after a couple start and stop days of early labour. 9lbs 4 oz 🙂 – all natural.

I think we will still be eating these cookies at home – they are really good!!!
……………………………….

Hi! I have another story for you about how awesome these cookies are! I was 6 days overdue with my daughter, had been in latent labor for a week, and was NOT progressing. My husband and I had talked about ways to induce labor and these cookies were a part of that discussion, so he made them for me. I had about 6 cookies around 1pm, and 3 more around 6pm. I laid down for bed around 11pm and two hours later my water broke. I had my daughter 8 hours later. 🙂

You can find tons more by googling “labor cookies”.  

Anyway, I put Kaden down for his afternoon nap and got to baking these miracle cookies.  Unfortunately, the recipe doesn’t warn you that it yields enough for every pregnant woman close to her due date in my entire town.

I ate 5 or 6 (or maybe 8…) cookies before Kaden woke up from his nap, then the two of us had a couple more before bedtime last night.  They were actually pretty good, even the kick from the cayenne pepper didn’t stop Kaden from asking for more!

Now, this could be a complete coincidence [or it could have been the cookies!], but I received great news at my 38 week appointment today!  I am still 3cm, Irelyn’s head is very low and my “bag of water is bulging”, as my doctor put it.  Since I am only 38 weeks, there was nothing she could do to try to help things along today… but I have an appointment to have my membranes stripped on Friday at 7:30am!  She said with the progress I’m making, there’s a good chance it could be all it takes to put me into active labor.  I plan to spend the next 2 days either walking or bouncing on my exercise ball – I’m really hoping my water will break on it’s own and that we’ll get to meet Irelyn this weekend.  If she doesn’t come this weekend, my doctor will break my water before the end of next week so that I can still have my water birth.

Since I don’t have much longer, I’ll be sure to take one last belly picture before Irelyn’s evicted (Kaden has started trying to bribe her to come out with his one and only dollar).  My 35 week picture with Kaden was the last one I took and I had to compare it to my belly a couple weeks ago.

These are also the same pair of jeans in both pictures!

Nothing else has really changed these past couple of weeks, Zach is still doing well & loving all of the care packages!  We’ve been able to talk regularly and we can’t wait until he’s back home with us.  We have actually started making plans of things we’ll be doing after he’s home (going to the zoo, a trip to the Smoky Mountains for us) which is very exciting!  Even when it doesn’t feel like it, the deployment is going by pretty fast and I know the days will fly by once Irelyn starts taking up all my time & energy 🙂

Well, it’s time for my nightly attempt at catching a few hours of sleep…although I’d be fine with waking up to my water breaking at any point tonight!  Before I go, here’s a quote Zach sent me that I love.  And it is completely true.

“Military relationships are the product of many tears born both in happiness and despair. They are nights alone wondering where he is and if he is safe. It’s looking at pictures, knowing that it’s the only way I can see his face, calling my voicemail to hear his voice, and not washing his clothes until they have lost his scent. But, it’s all worth it in the end, because I know I have one of the purest loves in the world because my man truly knows the meaning of Honor, Courage, and Commitment. Not only to the military but to me. And that makes everything worthwhile.”

Old habits die hard

I’m still a procrastinator – it’s been over 3 weeks since my last post! (and I don’t even have the excuse of working a single day of the past 3 weeks…)  While a lot has happened since my last post, nothing major has changed [I’m still pregnant!].  So, here’s February in a nut shell.

I was discharged from the hospital on February 8th and sent home on strict bedrest.  My exact instructions from my doctor were: you can get up to pee & shower for 5 minutes, that’s it.  Thankfully, Kaden was with his dad when I was first admitted into the hospital and he was able to stay there for my first two days home.  After Kaden came home, Heidi stayed with us for the weekend!  Having her there to help do things for Kaden, pack, cook & clean helped so much.  I’m not very good at letting people do things for me (Zach would definitely agree with this…) so it wasn’t easy letting everyone else do so much for a couple weeks, but it was worth it to give Irelyn a little more baking time.

My uncle, cousin, my parents & sister, Zach’s dad and his sister have also been a huge help with everything going on! On February 15th I got the keys to our new 3 bedroom apartment and needed a lot of help moving.  They all spent quite a few days helping to finish the packing, carry boxes to the new place and my parents devoted an entire weekend to painting/cleaning the old apartment for me.  I can’t tell any of them how thankful I am (& Zach!) for all of their help.

Now to backtrack a little bit…I took my last dose of medication to try to prevent labor on February 19th.  Since then I have had the wonderful experience of contractions daily (this part is similar to the 4 weeks of contractions I had before I was induced with Kaden…).  At least twice a day they become pretty regular (every 3 minutes), extremely uncomfortable and incredibly annoying.  My due date got pushed back a week to March 26th, so the goal is to keep Irelyn from making her appearance until I reach 37 weeks (March 5th – only 4 more days!)  If I don’t make it to 37 weeks, the hospital won’t allow me to have a water birth.  I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday and found out that I am still 2cm dilated and she thinks I’ll have no problem making it another week.  My next appointment is on Tuesday morning – at this appointment we are going to discuss induction at 39 weeks so that my doctor will be available for delivery (I go to the only practice in this entire area that does water birth – so if my doctor isn’t there, I’m stuck laying in a bed when pushing time arrives). I’ll update more on that subject after Tuesday!

Kaden and I are completely settled in our new apartment and loving the size of it!  He will still be able to have his own bedroom and Irelyn will also have a room to herself.  I’ve got most of her room set up, I’m waiting until after my baby shower to finish the rest.  With the extra space, there is NO clutter!  Zach knows how big of a deal this is 🙂  It’s been great having the time to get everything organized before Irelyn decides to surprise us and I’m really looking forward to when Zach gets back so that this place will feel more like home.  The deployment seems to be going pretty fast [it’s been 2 months since he left after Christmas], but with all the exciting things happening Kaden and I both have been missing him like crazy.

Zach has been doing pretty well lately…all of the violence with the burning of the Quran over there has been scary, but all I can do is pray for his safety.  He’s been receiving lots of care packages from family & friends and should have a decent stockpile of Little Debbie’s by now!

Surprisingly, the temperature reached 66 degrees today!  Kaden told me he wants it to be like the “alllllll of the time”, except that he was worried the wind would blow him away.  To enjoy the weather, we went to his preschool registration (at our church), then played at the park and had ice cream today.  We’re going to have a “date night” this weekend and will be going to see “The Lorax” – this will be Kaden’s first experience at the movie theater!  It should be interesting…he’s completely clueless and gets so confused when I tell him how big the screen will be.

Well, that’s about all that’s happened in these last few crazy weeks…now I’ve got to get back to price matching on my grocery list for tomorrow’s shopping trip and wait one more hour to Skype with Zach before bed!  I promise to work on my procrastination from now on [or at least until Irelyn comes].

You Hold My Every Moment ♥

Today has been a good day, especially because Kaden & I got to start our day by Skyping with Zach 🙂  I know that not every day is going to be good, so this post is for all of the bad days over the next several months.

Our pastor has been doing a series on prayer, which has always been a struggle for me.  I’ve always been a worrier, even more so since I had Kaden and now that Zach isn’t here.  So, my goal over the next few months [& the only way I’m going to survive this deployment] is to “just pray“.  I know that God had this deployment planned for a reason and even though it’s hard not to question it some days, I wouldn’t change it.  Just over the past few months, Zach and I have gotten closer and learned more about each other than we ever could if we had a “normal” relationship.  I hate that he’s gone and it’s  impossible not to be terrified something could happen to him, but that is where the praying comes in.  No amount of worry, tears or anger will protect him or bring him home sooner.  He’s in God’s hands and every moment has already been planned.  All I can do is trust God to lead me through whatever comes our way.  I know I’ll still have days that I’ll wish I could throw a fit like my 3 year old and demand to have my husband home.  I’ll have days that I don’t want to do anything but feel sorry for myself and my family.  But no matter how selfish I feel on some days, I know that I’m not the only one hurting, I’m not the only one missing him and I’m not the only person to have gone through this before.  And more than anything, I know God won’t give me more than I can handle.  I know we can all make it through this deployment and we’ll be stronger because of it – and for every person waiting for Zach to get off the bus when he comes home, I’m sure we’ll all agree it was worth the pain.

So, when I don’t want to drag myself out of bed in the morning and for the nights I have to go to sleep without saying goodnight to my husband – I’m going to come back to this post and know that He holds my every moment.

Jeremiah 29:11-13

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.“