Visit to Chattanooga

Natalie loving on Tyson-she has a love/hate relationship with him-she is often seen poking or hitting him and saying No, No, No..so I had to capture the sweeter moments too!

The weekend before Chattanooga we went to Huber's Farm with friends to pick pumpkins-Natalie picked a pumpkin for "Brock"-I have sort of taught her to call him that-haha-even though the name isn't decided....While there we ate--mmm!! rode on the hayride to pick pumpkins, petted/fed the goats, launched apples and corn into the water with a slingshot and rode down the tube slide..it was a great day

Last Thursday Natalie and I packed up and drove to Chattanooga, TN (technically Ringgold, GA) to visit my sister and her family. I was confident that she would do great in the car because last year just the two of us made the journey and she didn't cry once and she had a DVD player in the car now that she had never seen..guess I was mistaken! We had to stop three times because of tears and then she finally fell asleep from crying-it was a long day-very rainy and I was thankful when we got there safely! She did much better on the way back thankfully and we shortened our drive by over 1.5 hours!

Natalie is obviously saying "Cheese"-hey at least I can capture smiles easier on camera!

While there we hung out-Natalie, Keighley, and Myles played very nicely together and Natalie wasn't too shy! Thursday we were planning on taking Keighley to her soccer practice but practice had been cancelled so we went and played at a park nearby. We took them to an indoor playground on Friday because of the rain and then had a picnic lunch at a park and then in the afternoon I went to the outlet mall close to their house. On Saturday, we had a great day-we first went to Keighley's soccer game-so cute (however, leave it to me-I got pretty weepy when Keighley played)! I can't wait until next year when Natalie can start something and hopefully I can better control my emotions!!! Then we went to a place called Coolidge Park in Chattanooga-kind of similar to the Waterfront Park here in Louisville but much nicer and more to do--it had a great lawn on the river like the Waterfront where we had another picnic and then went and rode the indoor carousel twice. Natalie had to be forced onto it-the first time we just rode on one of the benches because she was nervous and the second time I made her sit on one of the horses and she finally got the hang of it and even asked for "Two, three"--she says this quite often--meaning two or three more times. After the carousel we went and walked across the walking bridge over the river-which was beautiful and then stopped in Clumpy's icecream store for a treat-thanks Darnell and Kristin! It was great to escape for a few days and we had a great time!

The picture of the girls in their tutu's are tutu's I made for them-I was hoping that Natalie would want to wear hers if she saw Keighley wearing hers-Keighley loved it-Natalie took it off after a few minutes! Should be interesting next weekend when she wears her peacock tutu!

I also posted a pic of Natalie's big girl bedroom-she is now sleeping in her big girl bed pretty well. I have to sit at the stairs at bedtime for about 10 minutes-I think she just likes the reassurance that I am there and I tell her if she gets up then I will go downstairs--it keeps her in bed! She is waking up usually once in the middle of the night and I have to go lay down with her-hopefully as she gets more comfortable/confident she won't do this-it hasn't been too long since we moved her up into the bed.

Also, went to the Dr. today for one more ultrasound-yes that makes 3! Last time they couldn't get pictures of the heart that they wanted so they wanted to make sure everything was ok-it was-I wasn't worried-he is quite the mover! He is measuring on schedule-technically two days early-but they weren't going to change the date. I am 24 weeks-moving right along!

Had a bad day--

For some reason the past couple of days I have been a little more on edge and irritable which is unlike me as I am usually pretty even keeled and do very well with little sleep...but today I had a bad day and I let it get to me much more than it should have. Here it is at 11:30 p.m. and things finally hit me and I feel pretty guilty about the way I treated Natalie

Ok so to preface--in preparation for her big girl bed a couple nights ago I decided I should try out Natalie sleeping on the floor on her mattress before I moved the mattress up onto a bed. She really has been pretty great about it-the first night she didn't sleep well and thus either did I and I put her in her crib at 2:30 because I had to work in the am and last night it took her about an hour to go down (I have to sit in the complete dark outside her room and tell her to lay down until she settles down) and she didn't wake up once after that-so really I am pleased. However, I was hoping it would have been a bit more of a team effort (if you get my drift).

This morning was just a normal morning when I am home with Natalie except I took her to her pediatricians' office (who I really like) for a flu shot-we got there at 10:20 and didn't leave until 11:55. When I entered the dr. office I was the only one in there and so I thought oh great this will be really quick-I would say about 15-20 minutes after I had gotten there things got pretty busy and we were all waiting a while. Everyone kept getting called back except for us who were the first ones waiting--now flu shots are walkins-they don't do appointments for that and I knew that appointments were priority but after an hour I went up and told the receptionist that we had been waiting an hour (which was pretty assertive for me!). I said that we were the first ones in here and the last ones in here (there was another family that got there 5-10 minutes prior). She said ok and went on with her business-well what do you know a couple minutes later the other family got called back-and the mother said "she has been waiting here over an hour-she needs to go before we do"-the nurse replied well I have his stuff all ready but I will look into it. She did and apologized saying they had put Natalie's file in the wrong place but at that moment for some reason I had already lost it-crying in the Dr's office--a little embarassing!

So anyways Natalie did great there and got her flu mist and we went on our way to the grocery store-there she was a different story. She prefers walking in the grocery and I do let her some but she wants to push the cart by herself and the carts at Meijer are bigger than Kroger and she just couldn't do it...small meltdown-no problem... At checkout though she likes to unload the cart all by herself-well the cart was too full for her to get into to and she couldn't reach any of the items in it so I tried handing her the items but she lost it and was so mad that I touched the groceries--so I ignored her behavior and proceeded to empty out the cart and then she was screaming really loud, crying and even kicking and hitting me. I don't tolerate that very well so I tried time out and then gave her a spanking-which I do spank Natalie for things like that. So we got over that and when I got to the car I realized it was 2 and she hadn't had lunch and was tired and I was too--I understood that she is two, tired and hungry (though she did have plenty of snacks). So we came home ate and I went to lay her down in her crib-I was ready for a break..but she said no she wanted to lay on her big girl bed so I gave her some guidelines to follow and told her if she didn't follow them then I would put her in her crib-well low and behold she kept getting up so I put her in her crib-but apparently she figured out that she can climb out of it now-and so no naptime for Natalie. I was in desperate need for a break and sometime to lay down-and didn't get that.

Ok so I lost it on Natalie for repeatedly being mean to Tyson-for some reason she likes to bully Tyson around and thankfully he is good with it-but I told her to be nice, tell Tyson he's sorry and if she did it again she would go to time-out. Well it happened again after time-out, so she got a spanking-but I didn't stop at one-I did it multiple times(like 3 or 4). I think all of my day's frustration was taken out on that moment-and granted I think I crossed the line and shouldn't have done that what bothers me the most is how I let all my frustration come out on her in that one little moment and I didn't stop after one. It has really bothered me all day-it scares me to think that I took my anger out on her-the person that I love more than anyone else on this world (don't think I am leaving out Steven but a love you have for a child is just so different-its hard to compare the two) --someone who loves and relies on me for so much and the example I set for her. I hope that I use this as an example of what not to do and when I have days or moments like this to remove myself from the situation for a little bit to get some rest and gain my composure-and seek God more so on these days to give me strength, wisdom, patience, and love/forgiveness. I hope I can use this as a reminder to myself as well! Sorry for the long drawn out blog but it's my free therapy!

Preparing for two

Not too much new here-just thought I would give little updates as to what's been going on-I have been busy trying to clean out the house-trying to declutter and free up some closet space. This meant that I sadly had to go through Natalie's clothes-because I can't possibly save all of her clothes plus a whole new wardrobe for baby boy, so I packed away about three boxes of clothes of hers in which I will keep and the rest I will probably sell at either a yard sale or those consignment sales. It feels good to make the house a little lighter but I tend to be a packrat and have trouble of letting things go. I have gone through the upstairs of the house and haven't tackled the main floor or the basement.

I also just ordered Natalie's new furniture and bedding! I had such a hard time finding bedding that I liked for a little girl that I wouldn't spend a fortune on because who knows how long this bedding will last with accidents and such! I will post pictures of it in the next few weeks when we get it all here and together. The only thing I was disappointed with is that I really wanted Natalie to have a trundle under her bed for when she gets older and has sleepovers or just as an extra bed but they were sold out and couldn't be ordered. I ordered Natalie a full bed because I know she will always have her own room with this baby being a boy but she is in the smaller room right now and hope it won't be too cramped.

As for my pregnancy, I have been feeling pretty great these last couple weeks-I still get sick on occasion but seem to have found a correlation between when I sleep poorly and getting sick..who knows maybe it was just a coincidence. My sister, Kristin, who I am visiting in a couple weeks is expecting her third-and our babies will be about two and a half months apart! Steven and I have yet to come up with a name but it seems like our top contender is Brock. We made our name lists the other day and we didn't have one name that matched--of course! Brock is one of my favorites I just think it sounds very masculine and different but not unheard of. I like to pick names that I don't know anyone with that name so I don't have any preconceived ideas-and this one fits. Out of all of my names Brock is Steven's favorite but there are definitely names he prefers (Justin his favorite..excuse me while I yawn!) So we will see, I know we have plenty of time but I love monogrammed things so we will know before the baby gets here I hope! My mom is going to help paint stripes on one wall in the baby's room (it's already painted blue) and paint polka dots on one wall in Natalie's room.

I also have been busy making Natalie's Halloween costume-I am quite proud that I am making an effort to be crafty. She is going to be a peacock-I wanted to do something different from the ordinary Halloween costumes that you buy-I made her a tutu with peacock colors and found a fabric to make a tube top with-my Mom is doing that part too(dont' worry Natalie will have a shirt underneath) and Natalie and my mom collected peacock feathers I am going to use. I am excited to see how it all turns out--it could be my last crafty adventure if it turns out poorly!