playing catch up

My blog is reaching new depths on my list of priorities, but that's ok. I have gotten lots of good things done in the last few months. This is mostly a photo dump, because we've had some big things happen I want to document and for family to be able to see.

The girls had their birthdays!! Yeah...a few months ago. :) My camera's battery was dead and I could NOT find the charger anywhere. So, thank you to those of you who sent me pictures. As always, I barely saw Sophia during her party. That girl runs a hundred miles an hour all. the. time. And Penny Mae, oh Penny Mae, loved her birthday cake. She jumped in head first...literally. 

Andy and I got to take a trip to NYC to visit my brother, who moved there in July. It was my first trip away from the kids since I was pregnant with Penny Mae, and neither Andy or I had ever been before. We had so much fun and the food was fabulous! It was great to get to spend some time with my brother. Biking through Central Park was the favorite activity for all of us!

The Met

Top of the Rock

Central Park bike ride

Real life in NYC: pub food & dog parks

Double decker bus tour

Washington Square Park

The closest we got to Lady Liberty

sort of... :)

I was surprised by how much green there was in the City, outside of Central Park. Most of the streets were like this- lined with trees. It was beautiful!

My dad and my Aunt Angie were able to stop by on their way down to Austin from Iowa, so the girls enjoyed a surprise visit from their Papa Mac!

Then came Halloween! Meet Cinderella and the cutest darn elephant on the planet. 

Superman (a.k.a. James) is a favorite with both these girls:

Andy didn't take any days off at Thanksgiving, so we have a few vacation days scattered throughout November and December. For our first one, we finally visited the Dallas Arboretum. It was wonderful! Sophie and Penny Mae both loved the Kid's play area, and because there were so many water activities, we will be back in the spring! We also really enjoyed Pumpkin Village, with Sophia's favorite part being the Cinderella chariot. We pretended we were off to the ball! It was a blast!

And now we are soaking up Advent. I finally got it together in time this year. Can't wait to share some of the fun and special things we're doing! Maybe by March, huh? :)

Music for your soul

I love music. It moves me in ways other things can't. I have always loved music, and I especially love to sing loud and dance, when the music is right. Both the girls love music too, which is why I LOVE the children's music my church puts out. It is filled with gospel truth and is fun for all of us to sing and dance to. I have even found myself singing it during nap time and can't wait for it to come on in the car. And my heart swells to bursting when I hear Sophie singing loud and proud in Target, "Jesus came to save...sinners...like you and me! Dying on the cross to set us free..."

I cry every time I sing "Blessed is the Man" which comes from Psalm 1:

Blessed is the man
who trusts in the Lord
whose confidence is in Him
He is like a tree
planted by the waters
It sends out its roots by the stream
It does not fear when heat comes
Its leaves are always green
It has no worries is drought
It never fails to bear fruit

Oh that I was more like this tree! This is my prayer for us...for me, for Andy, for our girls.

And I am amazed at how much Sophia learns from these songs. When I asked her to pray at mealtime the other day, she told God true things about himself that she learned from these songs. How beautiful! What a gift!

I teach chapel at McKinney's Early Learning Center. I'm using this music and the kids are eating it up! I love seeing their smiling faces as they sing with me. As soon as they arrive, they ask, "What songs are we singing today?" and proceed to request specific ones. If you're looking for great music that's good for your soul (or the souls of your kids) I couldn't recommend these more! Available on iTunes.

Kids' Albums:
Jesus Came to Save Sinners by The Village Church
Blessed is the Man by The Village Church

Truth in Sickness

Over the last two weeks, both the girls have been sick. Sophia stopped eating. At meal time, she would down her milk, and after lots of prodding, would take one or two bites of her meal before declaring that she was finished. She's a toddler, so this isn't completely abnormal behavior. It wasn't until she refused her very favorite foods that we started to wonder if something else was going on:

"I finished!"
"But these are French fries..."
"I all done!"
"huh...."

Then on Monday morning, she woke up feeling warm and telling me she didn't want to go to school (after we were dressed and about to head out the door.) I took her temperature and it was 102. We stayed home that day, obviously, but it wasn't quite a sick day, because Sophia felt fine. She ran and ran around the house, not a care in the world. I gave her a fever reducer to keep her comfortable, let her watch a movie, took her on a walk...trying to do things that would entertain but also allow her to rest her body since she felt no need to.

Penelope experienced something quite different. She had a severe double ear infection, including a blister on her eardrum! She woke up crying every night. She had thick green snot coming out her nose, her eyes, running down her throat, making gurgling sounds every time she breathed. She couldn't nurse, couldn't sleep, couldn't stay comfortable. She was sick. She knew she was sick. She felt sick.

God let me see some spiritual truths as I took care of these two girls very differently:

Truth: we're all sick. Both girls were sick. Just because Sophia felt much better than Penelope doesn't mean something wasn't wrong with her body. Her fever and lack of appetite were proof that things were not as well as they seemed.

The reason Sophia didn't feel sick was that her symptoms didn't make her hurt. Don't we do the same thing all the time? We classify sins on a hierarchical scale based on how dangerous the consequences are. So we group promiscuity, drunkenness, adultery, violence, homosexuality on the big end of the spectrum. Their consequences can be devastating. If you're playing with these sins, you're going to feel the effects just like Penelope felt the pain of her symptoms. It was unavoidable. Sophia on the other hand, managed her symptoms well. Sure, she had lack of appetite. She easily filled up on whole milk and a few bites which was enough to hold her over until the next meal, where she would do the same thing. The fever didn't slow her down much, and with the help of a fever reducer, she could do just about all she wanted to.

 But her body was showing signs that it needed help. I knew that when she took a 4.5 hour nap and then slept in the next morning until 9:30. She was not ok. And we're not ok either, even when our symptoms seem avoidable. These "low consequence" sins can be just as devastating: Pride, anger, discontent, fear. They come out in little bursts- shouting an order at the kids, giving the cold shoulder to your spouse, taking every opportunity to seize control, climbing the corporate ladder, always looking to the next house, or car, or job, or vacation. They will slowly eat away at your soul and continually injure those around you if left untreated. Truth: symptoms are telling grace. Our symptoms make it clear that we are not ok, that we need help. This is a good thing. The Law worked in much the same way.

And thank goodness for symptoms! If Sophia hadn't had a fever, I would never have known that she needed to stay home from school, get some rest, fill up on fluids, and take it easy. If Penelope hadn't cried and cried for hours during the night, I wouldn't have taken her to the doctor. She wouldn't have gotten medicine that cleared up the congestion and brought relief to her eardrum. But we have to be careful here. Truth: real health is the goal. How disappointing would it have been if, at the doctor's office, he looked in Penelope's ears and said, "Wow, these eardrums look awful. There's a blister on her right eardrum. They are red and swollen, causing a lot of pain. Here's what we can do: these ear drops are an analgesic. They will numb her eardrum so she can't feel the pain." As much as I want my baby to not be in pain, what I want more is the cure for fluid in her ears. That's what's causing the pain! Getting rid of the fluid gets rid of the infection, and by consequence, the pain. Which is why I felt such relief that along with the ear drops, we were given an antibiotic that would rid her little body of the infection that brought on her pain. So when I drop something and hear filth come out of my mouth, I need to remember that the goal isn't to have a cleaner mouth, but a cleaner heart. Because that's where my words really come from.

It isn't that surprising that God seems to save those suffering the pain of their symptoms: the tax collectors, prostitutes, adulterers. They knew they were sick. They knew they needed him. They weren't blind to their sickness. But these are his words to the Pharisees:  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:27-28 ESV) Taking care of Penny Mae was heartbreaking. She was suffering from awful and painful symptoms. But it was also beautiful to see how she needed me. She was looking for comfort from her mama. Something Sophia didn't need in her sickness. So it has been my prayer this week that throughout their lives, my girls would know they are sick. That they need to be healed. This may mean a myriad of symptoms. And I pray that when those symptoms come to the surface, we would forsake pride and the approval of men, which would lead us to bury or cover them; we would reject guilt and despair that would lead us to believe that our parenting has the power to save (and failure to parent is the cause of my children's sin.) I pray that when those days come, and for Sophia they are already here, that we would lift up our hands and cry out to God our Healer for their deliverance. For the true health of their soul. And that we would preach the gospel to ourselves again, and again, and again, for as long as it takes.

Christmas time!

As Sophie gets older, Christmas has become more and more fun to celebrate in our house. We will often do for our children what we are too lazy to do for ourselves. So I become intentional when it comes to celebrating the holidays with my girls. I only think of the several years my own soul could have reaped the benefits of this practice. This year, however, with a sweet little one, i.e. Penny Mae, a lot of things I wanted to do went undone in just keeping up with the task of raising two kiddos. I hope to do much more next year, including an Advent calendar that includes Scriptures about our Savior, a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Day, and lots of other fun things we didn't get around to because of our newborn schedule.

This was our year with the Friederichs family, so my mom came up a few weeks before Christmas to celebrate. We went to Prairie Lights and let Sophia stand up with her head out the sunroof. She LOVED it! We also made sugar cookies to decorate. Sophia loved helping roll out the dough, but by the time they were ready to paint, she had moved on! We started having weekly family devotionals using her Little People nativity set and reading stories from our favorite: The Jesus Storybook Bible. We would end each devotion with a song and a prayer thanking God for sending his Son to mend this broken world. Sophia did not cooperate at all the first time- all she wanted was to play with her new "toy" (the nativity set) and threw a colossal tantrum the entire time. The following two weeks were better. By the end she would excitedly anticipate singing a song with us and was quiet to listen to our prayer. We plan to continue doing weekly devotionals now that she's two and it's my hope that she will start to learn and remember things about our wonderful God, so that at some point, she will give her heart to him.

Like always, Sophia could spend all day every day outside, and this holiday time was no different. Climbing trees in her princess slippers:

My mom got the girls matching Christmas dresses and they were adorable! This was our attempt to take some pictures in the ten minutes between waking up from nap time and heading out the door for the Village's Christmas Eve service.

We were able to get a whole family shot with everyone awake after the service, but never was able to get one with Grammy and Bumpa. :(

On Christmas morning, we had reindeer pancakes for breakfast:

Then we opened presents. The girls get three presents each for Christmas, just like Jesus did from the wise men. This is a tradition we love- it helps keep us in check, as far as not spending to much or finding ourselves tempted to go overboard. But more importantly, it downplays gifts as part of our Christmas celebration. We want the other things we do to stand out more than gifts at Christmas, so we try to make them a small part of what we do.

Our stockings are filled with homemade presents. Andy made each of the girls growth charts. He painted them and found fun animals to glue onto them. I was so proud that he thought of this, got all the supplies, and spent time putting it all together. What a great daddy! As my stocking stuffer to the girls, I continued the tradition of making them ornaments. This is what I did for this year's ornament. I love them! Sophia loved both hers and Penny's and asked to look at them several times a day until we took the tree down.

Sophia enjoying learning how to use her new Tag Junior!

It did start snowing Christmas morning, and we ended up getting 1-2 inches that stuck. Sophia and Andy played in the snow for as long as Andy could take the cold...

Catching snowflakes on her tongue...

As soon as she came inside, after I got her boots, jackets, and hat off, she looked around and said, "Outside? More outside?" We laughed, and then said no. :) We had a wonderful two days with Daddy home and enjoying the company of Grammy and Bumpa who spent the night to celebrate Christmas morning with us!

One of our biggest surprises was a big milestone that happened Christmas night. Sophie found a little potty up in the coat closet and asked us to bring it down, so we did. She asked if she could get on it, so we said ok. Then she tee-teed in the potty! I was so shocked, I jumped up to grab a sticker and the camera!

Now, this is the only time it's happened. Despite getting back on the potty several times, Sophia has yet to make it happen again. That hasn't stopped me from getting everything ready for her though. I've also made a potty chart, but it's blank since she hasn't gone again....

After that, we enjoyed watching Cinderella. Sophie snuggled up on my lap for the WHOLE movie! What a treat!

Maybe the best Christmas present we got was from this little sweetie:

We love both of our daughters, and we anticipated the hardships that come along with having a newborn, but it was hard. Much harder than the first time around, primarily because you can't sleep when your baby sleeps, because you still have a toddler that's up! But also because Penny Mae didn't find a rhythm with her schedule as easily or as early as Sophia did. For a few nights before Christmas, we were spending all night up with her, putting her paci back in every time it fell out. After several nights of getting four hours of sleep, then getting sick, I said "no more." We started putting her down without her paci and letting her cry it out. She rewarded us by sleeping ten hours a night. After that everything clicked all at once for her: she started nursing better, she goes down for naps and at bedtime with nothing more than a few minutes of crying, if any. She has slept 10 1/2 hours every night since that first night, so we were able to finally move her into her room. Now Andy and I get actual time together without a child in the room and we are getting better sleep. Thank you Penny Mae! This present was just what we needed!

However, with all those changes, little Penny Mae needed to cope. She became a thumb-sucker. She had been toying with the idea for a while, but about three days ago, she made her final decision. I can see it now, a future blog post where I get to celebrate the end of this habit. It will be a future battle. There's nothing we can do about it now. So I'm over it!

I return to work from my maternity leave a week from tomorrow. It is going to be hard to leave my baby three days a week, but this is it- my last semester. I may be too busy to post much, but we'll see how it goes. Merry Christmas to you! I hope your family celebrations were filled with joy!