Lent

So I have decided. I am going to make it a goal to read the entire Bible, cover to cover in the 40 days going up to Easter. That is approximately 30 chapters a day. I might be a little out of my league here with 4 children, but this is the goal anyhow. Lots of extra prayers will be involved in getting this accomplished. Time for bed. More work tomorrow, almost a 9-5. Goodnight.

It is official!

I have lost 20 lbs since Christmas!!! I am so excited!!

I am down 2 pants sizes (the 2nd are a little tight, but they get buttoned, so they count right?) and I have had to get my wedding rings sized 3 times because of the weight loss. Fitting into clothes pre babies (since Gia really!!) I need to lose a lot more, but my goal is a bikini by August when we go back to Grandpas.

We have 7 inches of snow, and so of course down here, people have been panicked over it! It's nothing compared to New England and Washington DC. My parents in Cleveland have gotten 10 more inches as of Sunday! A good 3 feet there I think! Gia is loving the snow, she liked it last year, but mostly because Mommy and Daddy made such a big deal out of it! The twins and Jackson have no idea what to make of it, other than the tame sled riding we have been doing. Lots of belly laughs from all of them!

I am in the midst of thinking about what to give up for Lent. We are not Catholic, but it has always been a tradition. My mom is giving up Walmart. Which I think is HILARIOUS! Mostly because there isn't much left in the small town to do your shopping without Walmart. Any suggestions? With my diet, I have given up most sweets and have been very good about exercising. (going to the gym has become my "Mommy Time") The only thing I can think of in the food department is meat, but I don't think Ken would be crazy about going vegetarian with me. Leave your suggestions or send me a text. Time for Pilates!

A Colorful History

I have 10 minutes to post because I am coloring my own hair... we'll see how that turns out. By the way, grays coming at 26 aren't really welcome. According to my mom, when she met my dad he was already going gray. Ken has some silver hairs, but as most men say "he looks distinguished". So I am trying out a new color. I will let you know how it goes.

To catch you guys up:

We put an offer on a new house by the river and found out from the realtor today that that they have accepted our offer! Exciting!! It will be a while before we move in because there is a lot of babyproofing to do. And we found out this morning that previous owners have been Muhammed Ali and the guy who is CEO of Hooters! How weird is that! It bothers me a little bit that our names will be added to that "star studded list", because it seems so out of our league, but I guess that's what you get when you need at least 6 bedrooms and want a view and a horse barn. Still a little weird to think about though. Family is thrilled to have a bedroom to stay in and not just couches. Katie will be taking the "mother in law suite" over the barn so she has her own little apartment and can come and go as she pleases when we don't need her without parading around the house. It has 8 bedrooms in the house, 7 and a half baths and numerous fireplaces. Typing that I do really sound like we are out of our league.

If I haven't told the history of our families, please excuse me. My family owns a winery and has for almost 200 years now. It has done very well, so inheritances are awarded when a grandchild completes college. My dad's side of the family is part of the Smuckers (grape jelly...yes, those Smuckers). Ken's family have been tobacco farmers since before the civil war in Kentucky. It makes me think of Gone with the Wind when we go to family functions. Pretty entertaining, and kind of intimidating to marry into if you are required to take etiquette classes to attend.

Ken and I fell far from the tree. We went to state schools and not schools that our families have attended for generations. We moved here and bought a modest house, pursued careers and didn't touch the family money until just recently when we were undergoing fertility treatments for Gia. It got expensive and so we broke down and spent some of the trusts willed to us to pay for fertility treatments. After being blessed with 4 little ones, we have set up trust funds for each of them and savings for college. We purchased this new house with part of the inheritances so that we would have enough room for growing kiddos. After this though, the family money will be put aside for the next generation. That kind of explains our situation here. I thought I had blogged about this before and I was reminded the other day that no one really knew our story.

Anyhow, Jackson is having huge issues sleeping and WILL NOT take solids or even a bottle. I am still breastfeeding him as his only source of nutrition. I know that a lot of his sleep issues stem from me not being able to give him enough for his body to function on. Poor guy. We are going to try some carrots today. Any other mom's have this issue? What has worked for you?

Time for the hair color to come out. More later I assume.

Excited...but feeling guilty...

Haha, seriously, isn't that how every mom feels when she gets to do something for herself? Ken got me a spa gift card, and today I am taking advantage of it. First, a waxing (ouch!, not relaxing, but hey, its worth it after its over), a massage and facial, hair cut, deep conditioned and scalp massage, colored and styled, then mani pedi's all with one of my best friends. Sooo excited, but I hate that gut feeling that I have a MILLION things to do and I am "wasting" time at the spa. Hopefully the massage bliss will take away all the guilt, but for now, I am feeling bad about leaving the kiddos behind with Aunt Carrie and Mamaw Smith. Anyhow, just was checking up on blogs quickly and thought I would post. Anyone else have those feelings?

Quarter Life Crisis

Well, 26 years ago on this day, my mom came off bedrest to deliver me a month and 6 days early. I was supposed to be a Valentines baby, but there I was, January 8th at 5:57 in the morning.

Who would have thought that 26 years later, I would give my mom 4 grandchildren all in 2 years time. I am not sure what I thought my life would be at 26, but it has slightly freaked me out a bit, thinking of all the things I wanted to have accomplished by now. Don't get me wrong! My life is like a fairy tale (sometimes)! 4 beautiful children, a wonderful husband, a house that is completely ours, and a job that I love, even if my 6 years of schooling has nothing to do with it. I would love to have done more traveling or even just been a little more irresponsible sometimes, but I love my life. Who would have thought that in my 26 years I would have accomplished all of these great things, completely unplanned. God laughs when you make plans. We are surely the case.

Ken and I met April 2002, and started dating January 4th, 2003. We got married Jan 7th, 2006 and started trying to get pregnant nearly right after the wedding day. After moving to the "south", we bought a beautiful house overlooking the river with a big yard, horsebarn and a wrap around porch. We are still remodeling, but its a process. (I will post pictures of our bathroom remodel that we are finishing hopefully this weekend soon!) We welcomed Gia to our lives in August of 2008 after a lot of trying and fertility treatments, adopted Jackson in April of 2009 and in May of 2009 welcomed our twins Noah and Violet as a wonderful surprise that we hadn't planned. It is amazing how God works and I will agree with one of my fellow bloggers, the twists and turns of this path of life could have led us in another direction entirely if anything small would have changed.

I will say that I feel like I have SOOOO much more to accomplish, things that I thought I would have thought that I would have done already. I better get cracking! I don't really like the whole New Years resolution business, but I do know that I still have a LOT of baby weight to get off, so I joined a gym that is 24 hours, so now I don't have an excuse. I have already lost about 5 pounds, hopefully it will stay off!

I have a night photoshoot for an engagement session. Sooo much fun. Overlooking the skyline tonight. I will try to post those with consent from the couple. I need to get ready because it is almost dark (and it is not even 6:00!!!) Happy Birthday Jennifer!

sdg

Christmas bells are ringing!

Merry Christmas everyone! We are all headed up to Ohio today to spend a week with my parents, hence the early post! Hopefully we will be on the road by 7, but all of you were on my mind last night and I wanted to send out Christmas greetings! I will email out our family pictures as soon as I get the chance. Merry Christmas!

Almost a month....

since my last post. I am so sorry for all of you that follow that I have been so inconsistent with my posts. I think about you guys all of the time. Things have just been so crazy around here lately!

So Ken and I are back on track, like nothing ever happened. Of course we were still in counseling, but then decided that all it was doing in the end was putting soooo much pressure on us to do the "right thing", that it was stressing us both out, and it outweighed the benefits of counseling. The option is always there of course. But for now, things are going great!

I have been very sick for the last week. A chest cold really, but it hit me hard. Getting sick with 4 kiddos isn't allowed to hit you as hard as it hit me! My mom came down to help and Ken stayed home a couple of days. I went to stay with my good friend Jessica who offered her spare room to me to recuperate until the antibiotics did their job to keep me from being "contagious". The doctor says that even though I am still hacking up a lung on a regular basis, I should be alright to be around the kids. All of us got the H1N1 vaccine. Violet got very sick a few days after. Of course we were very panicked about the whole thing, but after waiting 10 days to get the test results back (she felt better by then) we found out that she was just fine...no swine flu in this house! I am starting to feel better, but still a little under the weather.

I am so excited to be doing a portrait session tomorrow with a couple that I met through our Mommy and Me group. Their twins are the same age as Noah and Violet and they are getting their pictures taken for their Christmas cards. You would be surprised at just how much business comes about just for the mailing of Christmas greetings. Crazy! Anyhow, their two boys are like little Gerber babies. They really look like they could be in commercials. I will try and get a release form signed so that I can post them.

Gia has officially become the know-it-all of the house! She is spouting off more and more words...mostly very close imitations of what we say to her. It gets to be quite commical hearing her say "use your words" to her brothers and sister when they cry or when Katie puts on her shoes she says "one foot, two foot" as she puts them on her. (Yes, I am *that* mom that narrates every move to her children)

Jackson and I went for a run in the park this morning at 6 am because I couldn't get him back to sleep. We have a pretty regular schedule at our house and when something rocks that boat, it makes for a long day! So, I let Katie know where I was headed and started off to the park. Little did I know that there would be 500+ geese at the lake in the park, so of course there was no falling asleep then. To begin with they were pretty loud, but even if they hadn't been Jackson was so enthralled, sleeping was not going to happen. It was a nice little Jackson-Mommy outing. It is rare that I get time with one at a time until Ken gets home from work. Especially with the three youngest, because they always seem to get lumped into 1 group.

Gia is up and wants juice. Apparently the male species doesn't have thumbs that are capable of opening a juice box, so Mommy is on the way to save the day!

soli deo gloria