Haddie's Birthday Party, Part 1

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Saturday, March 26, 2011

I still can't believe my sweet baby is ONE!  

This past Saturday we held her birthday party.  It was so fun to gather with family, enjoy some yummy food, and celebrate the life of Hadassah Anne!

She is one blessed girl with lots of people who love her and spoiled her with their attention and some great gifts!

Now, you're probably wondering if she enjoyed her birthday cupcake???  

Let's look at the evidence, shall we?

Why, yes, yes she did!

:)

This, that, and the other

So, Saturday we celebrated Haddie's birthday, and then Sunday we drove to my sister's house to celebrate my niece, Cora's 2nd birthday.  My throat had started hurting at some point on Sunday.  Jamie was also not feeling 100%.

Monday, Haddie's actual birthday, greeted both Jamie and me with feeling quite dreadful.  Jamie suffered through a full day of work, as I suffered here at home with the chillen's and way too much tv.  Thankfully Haddie is too little to realize there was no celebrating done on her actual big day.

Monday night was not so great.  My throat hurt so bad and my glands/tonsils were SO swollen that sleeping was just sort of miserable.  I could tell Jamie was pretty miserable too, based on the sounds emanating from his throat all night.  :)  Apparently I kept stealing the covers too, that is the claim anyways...  the world may never know the truth of this 7 1/2 year old debate.  ahem.  ;)

So, as Tuesday dawned we were both dreading the prospect of our respective duties that lay ahead.  In the end it was decided Jamie would take off from work a couple hours early so that I could get to the doctor.  The Lord was gracious and gave us both strength to make it through the day.

I went to the doctor when Jamie got home.  I had never seen this doctor before and he was a nice, personable man.  He swabbed my throat for strep, and the nurse told me it "lit up" before time was even up - I definitely had strep!  The funniest thing happened at the end.  He asked if I needed a notice for work and that about had me laughing out loud!  I told him, "No, I am a stay at home mom."  And then, he high-fived me, saying that was wonderful.  :)  I've never been met with such an exuberant response to my choice of vocation!

***My mention of this is in no way meant to offend or hurt the feelings of those mothers reading who are work-outiside-of-home moms.  I believe moms who choose either feel pressure either way.  I don't know why, if we are doing our best to obey and honor God with the direction He's pointed us in, we feel the need to justify our choices - at least I feel this pressure sometimes! I just thought the docs reaction was funny and got a kick out of it!***

Jamie got to go to the doctor once I got home and has strep too.  So, we're both on antibiotics and as of this morning starting to feel better.  Thank you Jesus!

***

The other night I was laying in bed with Riley having some bedtime cuddles.  I was trying my best to stay awake while he went through each member of our family, verifying their eye color.  It went something like this... 

"Blue eyes, Hadassah?"  "Yes, Riley, Haddie has blue eyes."

"Blue eyes, Sophie?"  "Yes, Riley, Sophie has blue eyes."  

"Blue eyes, Mommy?"  "Yes, Riley, Mommy has blue eyes."

- Here's where it got tricky.  Soph and I both started life with blue eyes but now each have green eyes.  I was barely awake and was just saying yes b/c I didn't want to explain that we had green eyes.  Typing this out makes me sound like a pretty lame liar.  Listen folks, I was tired and I have no other explanation.  It would come back to get me though...

"Riley blue eyes?"  "No, you have brown eyes Riley."  

"Daddy blue eyes?"  "No, Daddy has green eyes."   

- I have no idea why I had the energy to explain his and Jamie's eye color but not mine and Soph's.  The world may never understand the insanity of of a tired mother.

Sooooo... this very morning Riley climbs in bed with me and pokes my eye.  He says, "Green eyes Mommy.  Where blue eyes go?"  

oops.

***

Sophia has been in to telling jokes for awhile now.  They aren't usually funny.  She is still learning the art of the punch line and that it actually needs to make sense.  :)   Well, yesterday she told her first knock-knock joke that was really funny!

Knock-knock

Who's There?

Chicken

Chicken Who?

Chicken's don't hooo, owls hooo!

:)  

***

I still can't believe Hadassah is one.  I feel like we are in a season we've never experienced before.  I guess that's because we are.  When Sophia turned one, of course she was an only child and we were freshly grieving our first miscarriage and the death of my Grandma.  Fast forward to Riley turning one.  We had just found out I was pregnant with Haddie the month before and Mommy was sick, sick, sick.  We were thrilled with the blessing of a third child, but very apprehensive about the timing - something we had to surrender to the Lord, which we did.  We've never looked back of course and are SO thankful for God's perfected timing and blessing towards us with our sweet Haddie.  As we start Haddie's second year we are not freshly grieving any loss and we aren't currently expecting another baby.  It is nice to enter this season with a bit more sense of stability and I look forward to what this year may bring!  

Happy Birthday Hadassah Anne!

My sweet girl turns one today!  It is so hard to believe that one year ago I was in labor right now working to GET HER OUT!  :)  Jamie and I are so blessed to have our sweet Haddie in our lives.  She is a special little girl (of course, all our kids are special!) and brings our family so much joy.

We celebrated with family on Saturday with a fun circus themed party - because we always call Haddie our little peanut.  She is a tiny little thing (for our family anyways).  At 12 months she is the size that Soph was at 6 months!  Her size 12m clothes swim on her!  She's got lovely strawberry blond hair, fair skin, and the bluest of eyes.  She continues to remind me a lot of my Grandma (my Mom's mom).

I will have pictures from our party up, hopefully tomorrow.  Today we'll be celebrating our little lady with a quiet day of rest and play!

Hadassah on her Birth Day

Life as we know it

Tonight Jamie and I had a hot date planned.  Yep, we rented a movie and were going to tackle a gigantic pile of clothes that needed folded.  (when i say gigantic, i mean it.  we had the pack 'n play in our room still, even though Haddie is not sleeping in it.  slowly, over the last month or so we have been filling it with clean clothes that haven't gotten folded/put away.  well, this weekend i needed the pack 'n play, but  it was literally overflowing with clothes.  so, i did what every good housewife would do and put all the clothes on our bed.  that night when it was time to go to bed, we moved the clothes to the living room floor.  tonight was the night.  the clothes would be folded and ready to put away tomorrow!)

Well, Sophia was going to fall asleep in our bed for a special treat.  Haddie was already sleeping soundly in the other room.  Jamie was about to take Riley off to bed {oh, if only there were a rewind button on life}, and I chime in with, "Hey, Riley, do you want to fall asleep with Sophia in Mommy's bed?"  (not my most brilliant move as a mother, to date.)

And that is when it all fell apart...

Of course Riley wanted to, and of course Sophia did not want him to...  well, after almost an hour of them arguing and NOT falling asleep, the last straw was reached.  Riley was crying and screaming at this point and woke up Haddie.  I laid in bed with Soph and Riley while Jamie got Haddie back to sleep.  Riley was literally pulling on me and telling me to stay and cuddle, then he would scream and tell me to go.  Back and forth he went.  Haddie did not fall back to sleep.

Jamie took Riley into the kitchen for some "persuasion," I held Haddie, Soph is in our room crying... Well, the persuasion wasn't working and Riley was screaming and refusing to obey anything.  Sophia kept offering suggestions on how we might get him to comply (ha!) and Haddie was not sleeping.

I took a turn with Riley and after about 20 minutes, he was finally asleep!  Sophia was quiet, and Haddie, was not sleeping.

We'd been at putting the kids to bed now for almost two hours and realized our laundry folding dreams were not going to happen!  But, we persevered with our movie.  :)  After trying to put Haddie back to bed and letting her scream for about 20 minutes (great background noise when trying to watch a movie!) we brought her back out to the living room with us while we watched our movie.  She was not happy being held, she wasn't going to go to sleep yet, so we did what any good parents would do...

We let her empty an entire box of kleenex on the floor and play happily (and quietly!) while we watched our movie.  :)

It is now 11:15 pm. Our movie is done, the laundry is not folded, Riley and Sophia are both sound asleep in their own beds.  And Haddie?  Jamie just finished rocking her (again) and she is

sleeping.

Ahhh.

Most ironic thing?  The movie we watched was, "Life As We Know It," and indeed, tonight, is life as we know it.

:)

The Floodwaters of 2011

**Okay, I don't know why the video won't work.  I'm working on it.**

We had quite an eventful last few days.  Sunday we were all sick, as in Sophia not only laid in her bed after church without complaining, but she fell asleep and took an actual nap.  All five of us were feeling cruddy and mildly feverish.  We pretty much laid low and just tried to gear up for the coming week - well, Jamie and I geared up.  The kids?  I suppose they did what they do every day - after all, they are the 3 top reasons Jamie and I have to do such gearing each Sunday.  

:)

Somewhere around 3 am I woke Jamie up to put Haddie back in her crib (she likes extra cuddles with Mommy most nights).  It was still POURING rain (oh yeah, slight detail.  Last week we got lots and lots of snow and then Sunday it warmed up a bit and the snow was melting like crazy and it was pouring rain for something like 24 hours) and I hear Jamie yell, "RUTHIE!" - from down in the basement  

This is what we found.

That would be an absolute waterfall coming into our basement from our egress window.  This continued for a few hours.  Our sump pump was working fine, but could not keep up!  The floor drains were getting flooded and the scent of sewage was starting to fill the air.  Around 5:30 we finally went back to bed.  There was nothing we could do.  Shortly after going back to bed the rain really slowed down/stopped and then shortly after that we couldn't hear the waterfall any longer.  When all was said and done there was somewhere between 4 & 6 inches of water.  By the time Jamie went back down later that morning, the sump pump had done its' job and the water was  gone - Thank the Lord! Left were some puddles, and a nice layer of nast (dirt, grime, gunk from the floor drains - ew!).  

Jamie called off work and then... got to work.  That day (Monday) all our wet belongings were sorted through and the destroyed items were taken to the curb, the floors were hosed off and mopped, our area rugs were cleaned and laid out to dry, our furniture and some mattresses were cleaned and set up to dry, clothing that had gotten wet was piled by the washer to wait to be cleaned and fans were set around to help the drying out process.  

Amidst all of this we are thankful.

Thankful that things that were destroyed are not priceless and can be easily replaced.

Thankful that the damage/mess was so minimal - considering.

Thankful that most of our belongings were up on shelves, etc... thus safe.

Thankful for two wonderful guys who came to help Jamie with the messy clean-up; Joe, a college student and friend from church, came to help Jamie in the afternoon and then my BIL (along with Jeni and Cora) drove over an hour so David could help Jamie.  

Thankful that by day's end the work was 98% done!

The only glitch was that at around 10pm that night, Jamie and I were both ready to get showers.  I had had a crazy day and hadn't yet gotten a shower, and Jamie, well, he was pretty grimy.  :)  Curious enough though, the water just wouldn't get warm...  hmmm... 

So, yeah, it would've paid to check on the water heater pilot light earlier in the day so the water could have a chance to heat up because indeed, the pilot light had been snuffed out.  

:)

And that concludes (Lord willing!) the saga of our basement flood of 2011.

[I know some of you out there had some flooding too - praying that your mess is cleaned up and that belongings weren't too terribly damaged!]