Our Evening Excitement

Tuesday night was a rough night for us. Nathan had a runny nose, so he was struggling breathing. We tried putting him in the bouncer so he was more upright. He would fall asleep and wake up within 10-15 minutes. We tried the swing, but the same thing would happen. I ended up staying up with him until about midnight and then I woke Kurt up. He had volunteered earlier in the night to sleep downstairs in the recliner with Nathan, so I decided to take him up on the offer.

Just as I lay my head down thinking.....I can finally fall asleep, I hear this terrible sound coming up our road. I could only think that someone was driving way too fast on our road and there are lots of lights coming down our road (which is really unusual). You see, we live on a circular road so the only reason you should go on our road is if you live on it. Our house happens to be one of the bends in the road or the corner house. All of a sudden I hear this terrible crashing sound which causes me to jet straight out of bed and think I need to call 911. I look out my window which faces the street and thought, wow, the police are already here....hmmm. So I run downstairs and yell at Kurt, who had fallen asleep along with Nathan (go figure), and we watched the action. A vehicle being chased by the police had taken the corner too quickly and missed our yard by inches, but went right into our neighbor's yard and hit their vehicle that was in their driveway. It wasn't over yet though, because believe it or not, the person got away. So there were at least 10 cop cars right out in front of our house and people running all over. We watched this scene develop from our front window since we obviously couldn't sleep! I finally called it quits after an hour or so and Kurt said they found the person. The whole scenario didn't end for awhile, because they had to take pictures, tow the vehicle, etc. So let's just say we didn't get much sleep!

Anyways, while I was at home today in my workout clothes, I get a knock on my door that a local TV station wanted to interview neighbors....no thanks! The rest of the afternoon was filled with cars mobbing our street to check out the damage and TV stations setting up shop nearly in front of our house to do live castings. It was crazy.

So, here is the lowdown. It was a 14 year old boy who stole his parent's vehicle and was drunk (lots of no-no's there!). He was driving erratic (wonder why?) in the northern part of town and the cops chased him quite a ways before he came to a stop in our neighborhood. I guess a couple of his tires had popped because he had hit curbs all along the way, so of course he wasn't going to make our corner at the speed he was going. Today, on our road, you can see the effects of him driving on the rim...not good! Anyways, he fled the scene and probably went into our neighbor's backyard and possibly ours and got into this little alley way and because he didn't know our neighborhood, he ended up right back on our street (woops!). He hid underneath a parked car on our street and they found him.

Anyways, that was our excitement hopefully for the year! I'm thankful it happened when Kurt was home and that we live in a very safe neighborhood.

Snow Day Fun

Colorado is dyslexic this year.....we are having winter in April! Since we didn't get much snow this winter, we're catching up this spring. Friday we had a snow day. They were predicting over a foot of snow, but I think we came away with about 8 inches, so not too bad. Kurt was able to work from home, so after his conference calls and the kids getting their afternoon naps, we ventured out to play in the snow. We bundled Nathan up so we could take some pictures of him in his first snowfall. He didn't seem to mind. Silas wasn't so sure at first, but by the time him and daddy got done playing, he was sad to come inside. We made our first snowman, snow angels and sledding in our backyard. We had to take advantage of the snow quickly, because it is already melting! This week it is suppose to be 65-70 degrees all week, so I'm glad we had some fun. Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Nathan bundled. He's like a marshmallow!
Mommy and the boys outside.

Daddy and the boys outside.
Daddy and Silas sledding and Haven chasing after them. As you can see, Daddy did all the work.

Snow angels.

Making a snowman on our deck.

The finished product!

Easter and More.....

Happy belated Easter to everyone. We had a very nice weekend. Kurt got home Thursday night from Ireland and we got to spend Friday-Sunday as a family. Saturday we attended a local church's Easter celebration for children. That included face painting, crafts, storytime, puppet show and an Easter egg hunt. Thankfully it was indoors, because the weather didn't cooperate for anything outdoors! We had a nice time and once Silas got the concept of trying to find the eggs rather than just pointing to them, we got quite a few. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that he realized the stuff inside was candy! That is a funny story in itself! Anyways, ever since Saturday we have been hiding eggs, because he loves to find them now.

Sunday, we woke up to snow and it continued until after church. We got about 6 inches, so it made for a chilly Easter. After church, we had a potluck at church, so we got to celebrate with our church family which was nice. The rest of the day we were able to relax and enjoy the day.

Kurt will have to post some of the better Easter pictures with the boys from his camera. I have some fun pictures I'm going to post. Some from awhile back where the boys are just playing and some from the Easter Egg hunt and various others. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter

Silas playing with Nathan. He's found his ticklish spot, so he tries to get him to giggle whenever he can.

Silas realizing how heavy Nathan really is!

Daddy and the boys.

Silas wasn't so sure of the face painting, but afterwards, he loved it!
Silas finding some eggs.

Daddy and Silas after the egg hunt.

Daddy and Nathan on Easter day.

Opening our gifts from Grandma Aichele. Look at Nathan picking himself up. He's getting so strong!

Yeah! Thomas the train....thank you Grandma.
Nathan's gift from Grandma, although what you don't see is Silas crying because he was upset it wasn't his......

Daddy cutting Silas's hair. He did such a good job....he's hired!

Potty Training?

You say....."what, he just turned 2." I say, "I know, I have no idea how this is happening and it is the worst week to be doing it with Kurt gone." Here goes the story!

Silas has been really intrigued by "potty" lately, so much that if you go w/o him he freaks out. He wants to be right there with you, talking about it and he has to be the one flushing the toilet. So he asked to sit on the potty the other day, I thought, why not? I don't want to say no because I want him to enjoy sitting on the potty. So, it became a novel thing and he just wanted to sit there. Well I got a book and started to read to him on one of our episodes and the next thing I knew, I heard him go pee. I looked up and he got this big grin on his face and he said "went pee pee". I was like wow, ok. So I congratulated him and he gets a little M & M for doing it. Hooray! And that is how it started. I don't ask him if he has to go potty, he tells me. I still have him in diapers, because honestly, I'm not really prepared for this! But each time, he goes on the potty his diaper is dry. Wierd! I even had a lady from church come and watch the boys so I could go running this morning and he asked her to go potty and she took him and he did just fine. Mind you, she's never watched him before, so I thought that was pretty bold! He could have just gone in his diaper, but he had her take him.

So, I'm not holding my breath....I think he'll probably regress and start to think this isn't as cool as what it started to be, but I've decided I'm not going to press the issue. I take him when he asks and we'll go from there. I must admit, it is rather nice not changing two children's diapers! Ok, now I better go read up on potty training!

Nathan's 6 month update

We had our official 6 month dr's visit today, so thought I'd update everyone on how big Nathan is. His weight is 18 lbs 6 oz which is the 67th percentile. His height is 27.75 inches which is 79th percentile, so he's still a pretty good sized baby! We got the dreaded shots today and he handled it like such a trooper. He was giggling at the nurse up until the 2nd shot and then let out a wail of a cry. I was then able to pick him up and he immediately was fine and by the time the nurse had cleaned up the room, he was back smiling at her. What a sweetheart! She couldn't believe it. Silas was more mad at her than Nathan was!

Other than that, I found him on all fours today which about scared me! Thankfully he didn't stay up there too long. I'm not ready for him to be crawling yet. He is picking himself up really good and he can get around really well just by rolling. I sat him on the floor the other day and went upstairs to put away a few dishes (we have a trilevel so you can see downstairs I should add....) and the next thing I knew he was up against the fireplace (not on!) stuck. He had rolled about 10 feet in a matter of a few minutes. I think once he gets started he has so much momentum he just keeps going!

So our house is starting to get even more active as you can tell. I'm trying to enjoy each and every moment of it because I can hardly believe how fast they are growing! I'll post pictures when Kurt gets home.....he has my camera!

What I'm learning........

In The Mission of Motherhood, Sally Clarkson writes: “Choosing to be a servant-mother means willingly giving up myself, my expectations, and my time to the task of mothering - and choosing to believe that doing so is the best use of my time at that moment.”

This quote really states where I am at right now. Let me explain.

Everytime Kurt is gone, I learn something new about myself. First it was that I could do this single parenting thing while he was gone. Next, it was figuring out schedules and how to work everything out. With Silas being "very routine" if you mess with his schedule too much, he was really off. Since Kurt normally puts him to bed and wakes up with him, if I don't do it like Kurt does it, it can be very challenging. So, I adjusted my schedule of waking up and when to feed Nathan to adapt to Silas's more and what a difference it has made. Now, this time, I'm learning to lay my expectations down (as this quote indicates).

I'm the kind of person that wants to have my house clean (not spotless by any means!), laundry done, folded and out of the way, and floors swept or vacuumed regularly. Anyways, I start out my day thinking I'm going to get a bunch of stuff accomplished. Well, what I was realizing was that it was at the sake of my children. Silas was really disobeying me while I was sweeping and cleaning up the kitchen and I just couldn't get him to obey regardless of the discipline I used. It just didn't seem to matter. Then, I just stopped what I was doing and really got down to his level and figured out, what he really wanted was my attention and to play with me. But the only way he could get my attention was to disobey. So, I put down my broom and washcloth and played. He was as happy as could be just by me taking 10 minutes and giving him my full attention.

So, during nap time, I sat down for my quiet time and really prayed about what this whole mothering and homemaker role looks like. How do I get the things I need to get done yet spend quality time with my children, especially when Kurt is gone. It didn't take long for the Lord to really speak to me about what my priorities are vs. His. Ugh....what I think is so important really might not be. Yes, all of the chores around the house are very important and good things to do and have done, but are they THE most important thing to do at that very moment. So, I'm still processing all of this and trying to figure out how to juggle everything, but I'm finding myself even today holding my priorities very loosely and really trying to pay attention to the needs of my children. Yes, it is a work in progress, but I'm thankful for the grace that God gives me daily to open my eyes to the needs of my children. There is hope!