Thankful

Sometimes it takes certain events in life to remind us to be thankful. Tonight, I was reading some of my favorite blogs and I was referred to a link about 4 month old, Maddie who died suddenly at her babysitters home. She was just a week older than my Klayton...tonight I am giving my baby a few extra hugs, kisses and cuddles.
In his Sunday best...

Is there a sock monkey on my head???

Visiting Lake Tahoe

My hands are so yummy!

Klayton, I will love you forever and not take one day with you for granted!

A Funny

While visiting Lake Tahoe, we visited a tourist shop that a had a rack of CLEARANCE....below is their sign advertising it.

Quick Catchup

I just have to say that I love my grandparents and am SO excited to see them in April when they come out for my sisters wedding! Klayton is just as excited as mommy too! I can't wait to show them our home and to take them to our favorite restaurant-Johnny Carino's after the wedding! Okay, well Johnny Carinos is one of our many favorites!
We are currently planted in Roy, Utah for the next couple of weeks! We have a couple of meetings tomorrow; but for the most part we will be able to do a little relaxing with our good friends, Jason and Tina!
This week Klayton was sick...sad. I really hate to see him sick and its even harder when on the road. On Wednesday, we took a nap together and when we woke up I noticed he had a slight fever. We gave him some Tylenol in hopes that it wouldn't rise anymore than what it already had; but then he threw up-his first time to ever do that, poor baby. Thursday morning he seemed to be on the mend; but Thursday night his fever spiked to a 101. We gave him Pedialyte, Tylenol and alternated cool rags from his hot back to his hot forehead. Apparently, the rags exhausted him-he fell asleep around 11, woke once for a feeding and slept until 10:30 when we woke him because we needed to check out of the hotel. He woke up with no fever and hasn't had one since! He spent most of yesterday sleeping and still slept through the night last night! Today he is my happy baby once again and now I feel as if I can rest once again since I now know he is better!
I have gotten off track with my diet; but starting today I am committed to being good again! Last time I checked I had lost 13 lb. and I'm really hoping thats still the case and that by being bad lately I haven't put any of that back on. I think I have gotten frustrated enough with my belly fat to be serious again and stick to it once again...and I just want to put this out there, I really hate those women who don't have any pre-baby fat.
Hope this finds you all relaxing and enjoying your Saturday!

P.S.

Four months ago I took my baby home in this outfit....

And four months later...

Four Months (A Few Days Late)

Klayton you are 4 months old!


*You discovered that your feet are connected to your body and that you can play with your feet using your hands! You love to do this in the morning when you first wake up!
*You LOVE to watch television! When daddy and I rent a movie you will stay awake and watch it! It is so cute because you will talk and laugh while watching the movie!
*You have become quite a chatterbox!
*We don’t think you realize what you are saying; but you say mom all the time. You also said dad once as well.
*You have started to teethe, it looks like you will cut 2 bottom teeth whenever they decide to show themselves. I’m ready for them to come through for both of our sakes because you drool like crazy and it makes you fussy at times and we are not use to having a fussy baby.
*One of the funniest things to watch is when you ‘fill’ your diaper! You grunt and pull your legs to your stomach and move them back and forth while doing the deed! It takes a lot of energy apparently because if I happen to be nursing you at the time you stop eating until you are done filling the diaper!
*You love to use your hands, you are always grabbing onto things and you do such a great job holding onto them! You like to hold your bottle, you will also hold onto your pacifier!
*You love to touch things and feel it between your fingers. Whenever I nurse you, you will grab onto my necklace and play with it; but when I think you are getting to ‘rough’ I will pull it away from you which will just make you play with a collar of my shirt to feel it between your fingers!
*You wear size 1 diapers.
*You wear size 3 months and 3-6 months clothing! You outgrew my favorite monkey pajamas this month-so sad.


This Month You:
*You went to the Golden Gate Bridge
*You saw the Pacific Ocean
*Went to Arizona for the first time

Dear Klayton,
I love you! Every day becomes a new adventure with you. We are now at the place where you will just continue to discover and do new things daily! I love this stage and I can’t help but to think that I will just keep loving each new stage in your life! It does make me sad at the same time to know that these days will never be repeated and when I think of that I become overwhelmed with just knowing how good God is to give me these days that I have already had and for the simple fact that I have YOU!
Daddy and I still love to show you off and don’t mind the attention we get when we are out and about. I think you know that you are “it” because when people talk to you and ohh over you, you give them big smiles and will start to chat! It is so funny! I just wish you knew not to encourage the ‘weirdos’ with your smiles! One particular day we were at the mall and a lady said to me, “you have such a beautiful baby-do you know how lucky you are?” I just smiled and kept walking; but thought to myself, “not lucky, just blessed!”
I will Love You Forever,
Mom

February 22nd...A Great Day

Currently, we are in a conference that is featuring the songs of two blind ladies that are in their fifties. The Pastor shared how he allowed the one blind woman to hold his one month old daughter and the woman wept with the longing of years gone by. Years of a desire for a baby that have passed, a desire that will never come to pass. I must acknowledge-I am blessed. God gave me a desire of my heart that I did not deserve. Actually two blessings I do not deserve, a husband and a child.
February 22nd is a special day for me. Four years ago today, I met my husband! I had just turned 25, twenty days before and was very discouraged. I knew as years continued on there was a good chance that I would remain single. I remember crying out to my friend, Michelle, at my birthday lunch over how alone I felt and how desperately I longed for a husband. If I could have seen ahead into the future by just a couple of weeks-I would have laughed at myself. God knew what He was doing and what was just around the corner. He knew my desire and was working out the details!

On this day last year, I took a pregnancy test...a pregnancy test that I didn't want to take. I had taken many before that always gave me negative answer; but my husband insisted that I take the test because that is how sure he was that I was pregnant. I took it, looked away and quickly looked back at the test just knowing it was going to say no! Then surprise of all surprises two lines appeared-I was pregnant! I didn't know that it was my Klayton Matthew at the time; but I knew the child within my belly was already loved and would just add more joy to our lives!

God has been so good to me and on this day that seems to have spoiled me in the past, I now look for God's blessings-I just know it will be a good day!


(P.S. I am posting this a couple days later and something good did happen this year...we did our taxes that day and realized we will be getting a refund-yay! God always provides right on time!)

10 on Tuesday...errr Wednesday

1. I admit I am a day late on this post; but we have been without internet access for a few days.
2. Saturday we left Lake Tahoe and went to Napa, where we left today from and are now currently in Armona, California.
3. It has been a cold and rainy few days and I don't really like this cold; but I am thankful that its not as cold as it is back home in South Dakota.
4. Tonight was our last official meeting in California on Friday we will head off to Phoenix, Arizona for a week!
5. I keep trying to post a video of Klayton laughing; but blogger isn't letting me load it for some reason. This is very frustrating because I would love to share the cutest laugh ever with you!
6. We didn't do anything spectacular for Valentines Day-it was just a normal day. But, we did go to McDonalds for hot fudge sundaes and fries! ha!
7. Next week Klayton will be 4 months old and I am very excited to do his 4 month post-he is doing so much and learning new things every day it seems.
8. Seriously, where is February disappearing to? It has gone SO fast!
9. I have now lost 13 lbs. on my diet. When I look at myself, I really can't see where I have lost the weight; but I am choosing to believe the scale!
10. My sweet find for the week...cherry and vanilla tootsie rolls! I love those things and can never find a package with just those two flavors! Thanks to Valentines Day clearance at Target!

Recap

Well, I have been pillowing my head at Lake Tahoe, California this week! We found a great deal of a hotel for $40 a night-which is pretty cheap considering where we are and where we were at. Free would have been better; but that couldn't be accomplished! loll!
We have had a pretty good week. Tuesday we left Sacramento and arrived to Lake Tahoe. Tuesday night we were just lazy and ordered a pizza in. Wednesday, we "shopped" the outlet mall-we didn't have money to spend so we more so window shopped! Although, I don't think we can even call it that because we basically went into every store-its not a big outlet mall! Today was just a day of touring downtown Lake Tahoe-it was fun! Tomorrow, we are hoping for warmer weather so we can go down by the lake-its supposed to be 60, so we will see; but before we can have our fun tomorrow laundry calls our name. Can I just tell you, how much I hate laundry mats? Well, I hate them-they make me miss my washer and dryer back home! And finally on Saturday we will make our way back to Napa for a few days!
Since we have been out here, we realized that our car tags are going to expire this month-oh joy! Thankfully, we have someone back at home that is willing to help us and pick them up for us so that on March 1st we won't be driving an 'expired' vehicle! I know vehicle registration comes around the same time every year; but for some reason we just never think about until we are in a difficult situation to go get them, like being in California!
I think Klayton is getting ready to start teething. He will be 4 months on the 21st. But, he drools like crazy, is always chewing on his hands, blankets and even our fingers-he has also been more fussy than usual. We will see, I try to check is gums; but he hates it when I prod on them to see if I can feel anything.
I have also been trying to "fix" my blog, last time I worked on the background I somehow messed up the layout. It is very frustrating-I almost have it "fixed"....tonight ended in frustration and I will have to work a few of the other kinks out at a later date/ But, what do you think of my new background?
I have stunk at my diet this week; but I have been exercising. I commit tomorrow to drink 3 bottles of water! loll! I plan on weighing myself on Monday and I am praying that the scale tells me some good news! Cherry coke and cherry pepsi are my weakness-if I could knock those two things out of my life I think I would be in good shape and on my way to huge weight loss results. Well, I am off to do sit-ups...

Fun Pictures

I was up late last night, playing around with a photo editing program and thought I would share my fun pictures with you!

10 on Tuesday (yes, I know its late Monday night; but its almost Tuesday!)

1. Do I know where I will be pillowing my head tonight? No, no I do not! And yes, this is very crazy! The place we were to be staying in for the week was over booked and therefore has left us scrambling to find another place. We are waiting to hear back from a place in Napa, if that falls through we may head to Lake Tahoe for the rest of the week.
2. Last week we went to the Golden Gate Bridge and that was a blast! I loved it and it was so neat to see it from so many different angles!


3. We also went to the Pacific Ocean-my first time to visit it! Have I mentioned how much I love the ocean? Well, I love it! And just a side note, the Pacific is quite cold...I learned this by letting a wave roll onto my feet and it basically took my breath away!


4. I am now a 29 year old! I celebrated my birthday last Wednesday...Joseph and Klayton took me to Johnny Carinos for lunch and took me to the Coach Outlet, where they bought me a Coach bag for a very unbelievable price! It was 50% off and then an extra 20% off-craziness!

5. I am not a big football fan; but for the sake of many friends and family I was excited to see the Packers win the Superbowl and also because I am originally from Wisconsin and love Wisconsin!
6. Still trying to diet, have lost 9 lb. so far! Yay! Dieting on the road is difficult; but I am trying to lose weight and become a new me!
7. Seriously. Apparently, in Greenville, SC a lady gave birth in a public restroom and left her baby in the toilet to die. Some maintenance men heard the baby crying and that is how the baby was discovered. I just don't understand-yes, you may not want your baby; but there is a thing called adoption. My heart aches for that baby boy.
8. Klayton is discovering things every day, he now loves to grab onto things and hold them! He loves to watch television! When he does tummy time he holds his head up and checks everything out around him! When we hold him he wants to face outward so he can check everything out! I just love him so much and can't believe how fast things change.
9. I'm getting anxious to be working on my baby book...hoping for some scrapbooking time to come my way!
10. And for your viewing pleasure....

Being Real

I am trying to get back into the blogging spirit…I think I lost my desire to blog as openly about things, because I know certain people that read my blog would probably become critical. So, I held back. By holding back, I have struggled to pull things out of thin air to blog about…of course I can always blog about Klayton and I am sure ALL my readers love hearing about him, right? Right! Haha! But, I would also like to blog about other things so here it goes in an effort to, as my good friend Lindsay would say, “keeping it real” about life on the road!
We are quickly approaching a month of being back on the road. To say the least getting back on the road for me was not easy. December was a crazy month, surgery…hospitalized baby….company….among other things. There was so much packed into one month and then even the weekend we left to get back on the road was just as jam packed-it was all very crazy. I knew that our time at home was coming to an end. I had time to prepare and yet it seemed the time quickly passed and leaving snuck up on me and I quickly learned I wasn’t as ready as I had thought I would be. We left January 8th, after the wedding of a good friend and took off to Bellevue, Nebraska for the night. Thankfully, Bellevue was only a 3 hour drive because I cried for probably 2 hours and 45 minutes of that trip-I would probably been dried out of tears if the trip would have been longer! Haha! I didn’t even say goodbye to many people at the wedding because by the third goodbye I was an emotional wreck and if you know me at all, you know I am very private and I really don’t like to show my emotions. So that whole crying thing was even driving me nuts!
I would like to say January 8th was the only emotional night for me on this trip; but I would be telling a lie. I have probably driven my hubby batty at my tears and sensitivity. I didn’t even know how to explain my feelings to him-he wanted to help and he tried; but how can you help someone when they don’t even know the words to explain their feelings? Then we were in Reno, Nevada visiting a church that on short notice put us up for the night and fed us dinner-we also attended a revival service that they were having. During the meeting, was one of my first experiences of having an inconsolable baby and I was definitely no super mommy because I didn’t know what to do; but that’s another story that put me in tears. We didn’t even present our ministry to them and yet at the end of the service, the pastor gave Joseph a love offering and the pastor’s wife came over just to check and see how I was doing, which sent me into another course of tears. I hated crying AGAIN! But, the pastor’s wife just gave me a hug and asked me about it so I told her all about it and how I am just trying to be strong. After talking to her I realized its okay, I can be weak at times-I don’t always have to be strong. In my weakness, HIS strength is made perfect or I like to say made strong. God has all the strength and I can be strong; but only if I am weak in His hands for Him to shape me and give me the strength I need.
Traveling with a baby is very different; but a good different. Klayton is such a good traveler, he still has smiles at the end of the day-even after he has been stuck in his car seat anywhere from 2-10 hours at a time. Sitting in a van for long periods of time makes Joseph and I cranky at times and I think Klayton has had fewer cranky days than us and he is only 3 months old and were how old?! Being on the road with a baby has made us become stronger in the decisions we have made for our child and question some decisions. Maybe I shouldn’t say question; but rather perspective. We just want to be the best parents we can be and do right by the child God has entrusted us with. As parents we have to be unified, we may not always agree-after all we are two different people with sometimes two different ideas; but we are learning to come together and figure it out. We probably would have learned this at home, off the road; but being in so many churches with so many ideas we have learned that we need to be ready and confident in our decisions as parents. You never know when we will have some explaining to do! And we are learning that those around us will not always agree whether it be strangers, friends, family; but Klayton was given to us by the Lord and not to any one else-we are the ones that will answer to God…so at the end of the day we must ask ourselves, am I willing to answer to God for the decisions we have made today concerning the child He has lent to us?
While on the road, we have had some frustrating things happen to us. We are a long way from home and it’s not easy when meetings cancel us last minute and we have no place to go. I sometimes wonder if people realize how hard it is and how expensive it can be to live our life on the road, especially when we are cancelled last minute. I realize that at times churches/pastors have a legitimate reason; but not always. This has happened to us 3 times now. During times like this, it reminds us that we really need to be confident in what we are doing, because it would be very easy to become discouraged. Also, I wonder what goes through peoples minds when they put us up in hotels or homes for the night-do they ask themselves first if they would be willing to stay if they were in our position? We have been put up in places with black mold…no heat…dirty floors among other things and I think to myself, “I have a baby and you want me to stay here?’ Ugh…
You know, life on the road away from friends to start with was very good for me. I love my friends and I can be very friend oriented. When Joseph and I got married, we honeymooned and then immediately started deputation-we were away from home for 2 months. During that time we learned to depend on one another and I learned that instead of always going to my girlfriends, I needed to be going to my husband-my best friend. I must admit though whereas, yes, Joseph is still my best friend sometimes I just miss my friends. This has been a trip where I simply just miss my friends. You know the girls you can chat about whatever with, laugh and cry with? Yep, those are the girlfriends I have back home and I miss them.
This has turned into quite the post….if you are still reading this, I apologize for any and every thing that makes no sense! I will probably organize my thoughts better soon and blog again about this….

The Big Picture

This picture was taken, last year the 2nd week of February....

In this picture, I had just turned 28 the week prior and by this time we had been trying for a year and a half to have a baby. There is a smile on my face, we just had come to an end of a great missions conference and I was happy; but there was a part of me that was very sad. I was at the bottom of my barrel, I cried every time I learned someone was pregnant. I wanted to be happy for them, I really did and i would smile and congratulate them whenever I would learn of their news. However, deep in my heart I just wanted to turn away from them and go somewhere private for a good cry. The week before this picture, I told God that I was done hoping and trying-He had to rescue me because I could no longer do it...
But, now as I look at that picture there is an overwhelming sense of gratefulness to my God-that He sees the big picture. God sees the when, the how....the things that are already in the works and He knows my future. And, oh what a difference a year makes!
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570840393221939138" />
Yep, you know the story-I now carry a baby boy in my arms! At the time of the 1st picture the Lord had already put Klayton in my tummy and in that picture I was probably only 2 weeks along in my pregnancy and I had no clue at the time. Now when I look back I can see that I had pregnancy symptoms-I just had no clue at the time what they were! Sometimes when were in the middle of the battle, whether it be infertility, death, cancer, job loss or whatever its hard to relinquish our desires and just give it all over to God-its hard to sacrifice our pain for praise. I look back and its so easy for me to now say, I'm thankful for what God brought me through. I just pray that next time, I learn to give up my ideas and plans a lot sooner than I did with desires for a baby!