The other day I was checking out the Motherhood Your Way blog that usually has some pretty cool stuff and I found this post about Mothering Through the Storm. I was pretty intrigued by the title so I checked it out thinking it was going to be a post about being a mom when life gets a little crazy.

I was wrong.

Here are the first couple of lines of the post:

"The lightning struck their kitchen. The refrigerator exploded. The faucets and light bulbs melted. The food, scattered papers, and personal belongings were petrified."

"Then the fire began — it spread via the ceiling and attic, pushing flames and smoke through the entire house. And just like that my brother and his family lost everything."

"But the worst part is my mom watched it all."

I was hooked. The blog goes on to talk about what happened during the fire, and how the writer's mom was standing in the midst of this fire, imagining her youngest son, inside and suffocating by smoke, or even burning to death. (I know...horrible). She goes on to describe how here mom called her, screaming, and how she left her family in the blink of an eye and drover to her brother's house in a flash. Luckily, everyone was safe and sound as her brother and his wife left the house prior to the fire starting.

Since the day Emma was born, I have always thought the exact thing as what she wrote about, how, as a mother, your worst nightmare is to have your kids leave this world before you. To watch it happen (or think you’re watching it happen) is even worse.

The next thing that Amanda writes about is being back together with her family, and how she then decided to be her brother’s gatekeeper. No one would donate, call or help without going through her first. Her brother and his family then moved in with Amanda and she would watch her niece during the day and cook dinner for everyone at night.

This is where I started to feel incredibly inadequate because of how I feel like I struggle with just my life in general, and keeping up with it. Let alone in the midst of something like this.

Amanda then realized something, something that I hadn't yet realized but it very much hit home with me.

"Being a mother also means being a daughter and a sister."

She talks about how her children need to see her rushing out the door at a moment’s notice to comfort her own mother. They need to see her open our house and make it home for her brother. Her children need to understand that her job isn’t just to take care of them and be the fairy-godmother of their little world.

I honestly never really even thought of it like that. I thought, that my kids need to know that they are my TOP PRIORITY, and that's it. Although that is a big part of it, what Amanda was talking about really made me think. Like she says, even though we are moms, motherhood is not our only role.

I certainly resonated with what she was saying, and the more I thought about it, the more I also want my kids to see me as a full woman. Loving, encouraging, and honoring others so they will know how to do the same for theirs. In my head, it's also very important to me to let them see the value of the hard work that I (and not just me, but Wes as well) put in everyday to be able to provide for them. There have been a lot of nights (and mornings) lately where I haven't gotten to see my babies because of work. On those days, I certainly feel like a piece is missing from me, and it makes me realize exactly how important even that one hour with them in the mornings are to me. At the same time, I want them to know that I do those things not just for them, but for our family. I do what I can to go above and beyond at work so I can get those higher performance ratings, so I can get those few extra percents in my yearly raise. Whether its ends up allowing us to do Mommy and Me Gymnastics, or swim lessons, whether its allows us to squeak in another family vacation, whether its saving for their college, or signing up for life insurance to make sure that no matter what happens, our family is provided for.

I want them to know, not just what being a mom is about, but what being a PARENT is about, and all of the different pieces to the puzzle.

The Babies...

Despite the cuteness that is beneath, it's pretty funny to watch the two babies interact. Now that Jackson is much more aware of what's going on around him, he is constantly watching his big sister (and her TV shows for that matter). He loves it when she is sprinting around the house because every 15 seconds he gets a glimpse of the speed racer and she is usually yelling "JACK-O" as she screams by.

Emma on the other hand, still has her moments of not wanting her baby brother around. Yesterday, before heading to Mommy and Me Gymnastics, we were talking about Daddy coming to watch her next time with Jackson. Her response was "Ummm...no...just Daddy watch....Jackson stay home." :)

If you ask Emma where she lives, she will tell you the name of the street that she lives on.

If you ask her where Mommy lives, she will tell you the same street name.

If you ask her where Daddy lives, she will tell you the same street name.

If you ask her where Jackson lives, she says "crib". :)







About ten seconds after taking these pictures (which are pretty bad from a photography standpoint because I didn't have time to run upstairs and grab my speedlite), Emma pushed Jackson off her lap and said "All done with baby brother." :)

Squishy vs. A Pancake

What's the difference between Squishy and a pancake?

Normally, you only have to flip a pancake once.

We had to flip Squishy five times last night.

::: sigh :::

::: yawns :::

::: falls asleep :::

::: wakes up :::

::: finishes post :::

Squishy is becoming more and more mobile by the day. The minute you lay him down, he immediately rolls over to his belly, usually barfs on the floor because he most likely just ate, and then starts to use his arms to spin himself around.

::: envisions Ross from Friends yelling PIVOT!!! PI-VOT!!! :::

Squishy can now also get his knees up under his body, so it's only a matter of time before he puts the two together. Crikey. This all means that he moves his chunky little huge self all around in his crib at night. To try to combat the little stinker, we still wrap him up in his swaddle blanket (although there is no containing the sausage links arms anymore so we don't even try). Well, this does nothing other than make us laugh when we watch him on the monitor because now he just looks like a giant inch-worm when he flips over.

Despite the fact that he can roll both ways (back to belly and belly to back), he refuses to fix himself in his crib. So he flips over onto his belly, inch-worms his way all the way to the top of his crib so his head gets smashed in the corner, and then proceeds to get his arm stuck between the slats of the crib. He then wakes up, screams, we roll him back over, he shoves his thumb in his mouth, and falls back to sleep immediately.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Times five.

I thought about putting in his crib bumper to prevent the arm getting stuck, but the fact that he moves himself and smashes his face against the side makes me not want to use it (even the breathable kind). Knowing him, he will then be just like my brother getting his hand stuck in the soccer net while being the goalie. :)

Thank goodness he at least goes back to sleep immediately every time, but sheesh.

::: head desk :::

Here's To 40!

I have about twenty different posts drafted and have been meaning to complete, several of which are getting pretty old by this point, like about our trip to the National Zoo when Gigi and Papa were visiting, Emma's 2nd Birthday and Jackson's Baptism party, etc. But this is one that I have been dying to post about for months now, so I decided to put this one at the top of the list.

I've been keeping a secret since January and it's been killing me!!!

This year marked my parent's 40th wedding anniversary, and we threw them a surprise party! Yup, that's right....the big 4 - 0! It's pretty amazing when I think about it considering that I haven't even been alive that long, let alone married for that long! I get excited when Wes and I make it to the next anniversary and this year is only our sixth! :)

Back in January all the kids (meaning me, my two brothers and my sister-in-law) decided to put on a little shindig to help my parents celebrate this amazing milestone. There was a lot going on at the time with everyone, between my brother and sister-in-law's crazy schedule with their three kids, everything that was going on with Jackson and my parents were working on building a new house (and still are). Despite all of the craziness that was going on, it was something we really wanted to do, and we were really glad that we did.

There were lots of ups and downs throughout the process of throwing the big surprise party but it was a bit hit, even though we kept it a secret for 6 months and ended up having to tell mom and dad a mere four hours before the party. DOH! When I think about everything that my parents have done for all of us though, everything that was going on at the time seemed minuscule. They have been there, no matter what, and even though they are having a heck of a time with their new house, it ended up keeping them just distracted enough that they had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. At least not until we had to spill the beans.

They have pretty much been through the gamut over the past forty years with their three kids (two of which are only 13 months apart and one of which they keep trying to convince that she is adopted...yup, that's me). There have been so many laughs and even though they might be a little more spread out today since we all don't get together as often, they are still there. They now have six grand kids that light up when they see their Mimi and Pop, and those grand kids couldn't have asked for more loving grandparents.

I LOVE this picture....it's the sideburns.

I'm pretty sure my dad still has those glasses too. :)

My beautiful Mom on her wedding day.

Although it wasn't a huge party, and we were trying to be money conscious where we could, we had about twenty five people including some of my parent's closest friends. Despite broken air conditioners and plans to be at the beach, it was great to see how many of their friends came to help us celebrate.

We wanted to make the party special, so we tried to put together as many small touches as we could. We rented some extra tables and chairs for seating since our house isn't exactly huge, we cleaned out Emma's playroom and the dining room and soon enough it was party central.




 

We made the banners, labels, napkin inserts and table signs were in PowerPoint. I had the banners printed by Kinko's since there was so much color in them, strung them together with some plain white ribbon, and just printed the labels at home.

This was a great way to keep cost down on decorations too, instead of buying a bunch of flowers, we just bought one bouquet and several $0.75 vases from Micheal's and put one bud in each vase. The pink hydrangeas that you see on the tables and our mantle were cut from our backyard.

Each guest got to take home a personalized beer koozie (which was a huge hit with this big boating crowd) and a bottle of wine. 

And what's a party without cake?!?! Whenever we have a special occasion, I head right to Sugarbakers for the cake. That's where we got our cakes for our wedding and I have been in love ever since. That would be where Emma Kathryn had her chocolate cupcake at 9:00AM. :) Sugarbakers did a fantastic job like usual, especially with recreating the little fondant sailboat that we had as our little theme. Mom and Dad got to take home the top tier!

I was running around trying to snap a few shots before the party started, and I took a picture of one of the other flowers in one of our Michael's vases that we put on our fireplace.

And yes, I am fully aware that it is not Christmas time and having a be-dazzled reindeer on our mantle is a little out of season...I just love it.

However, I did not realize that my Bourbon and Ginger glass was showing until I downloaded the picture. DOH! So yes, I had to calm the nerves a little and have a little something even before the party started. But I promise I was good during the party!! :)

I also have to give a big shout out to my cousin Kim who came over with her hubby and her baby Jillian (who is rapidly becoming Emma's favorite person to talk about). Kim helped me so much the night before that I couldn't have done it without her!! Of course she will probably never come over again for fear that I will make her fold a thousand napkins and unload/load my dishwasher again. :) Thanks again Kim!!

I really hope my parents had a great time, and I hope they got to relax at least for a little while and enjoy their friends who came to help the celebrate the big 40! Congratulations again Mom and Dad!!