Beauty From Chaos

no, this has nothing to do with Obama.

It has everything to do with eating. Mainly the way my children eat. The way I let them eat.

It all started when Caylee was about 18 months old or so. maybe earlier. She is really picky and instead of making her eat what we were eating, i would make her what i knew she’d eat. Lexi caught on and stopped trying everything we put on her plate, because we never made Caylee try anything.

Caylee takes stubborn to a whole new level. We tried the “this is what we have, eat it or go to bed hungry.” i can’t tell you how many nights she went to bed hungry, which resulted in her waking up screaming every hour through the whole night. for multiple nights in a row. So we went back to giving her what she’ll eat.

Now we have three kids, with three levels of pickiness. There’s Lexi, who will eat a lot, and will try ALMOST anything. Although she is stubborn on some things, which I believe she doesn’t really like. or she forgets she likes. We normally make her try a bite of everything i cook.

There’s Josiah, who is still young and will eat what we put in front of him, although he doesn’t seem to like spinach.

And Caylee, who will eat about a handful of things. and some of those things she wont eat every time they are put in front of her.

Every once and awhile i get overtaken with guilt. it’s normally the days when I realize they have had chicken nuggets and french fries a few days in a row, or a few meals in a row. Or I realize Caylee has had nothing but junk for a week straight. Today was one of those days. And once again we’re going to try to put our foot down.

Only this time we are going to take a different approach. Supper time is going to be one meal (some nights i make 3 variations of dinner). I will make sure there is at least one item that Caylee eats at each meal. Eugene is not a fan of making them going to bed hungry, so in order to eliminate a special meal or not eating all together, this is the way we will have to go.

What I am not sure about is lunch. Lunches are our easy meals, normally sandwiches, nuggets, fries, hot dogs. nothing healthy really. at least not what Caylee eats. I’m not sure what we’ll do there. I’d appreciate any and all ideas on picky eaters or lunch ideas. She is gluten free, or is supposed to be.

So here we go. a week detox. no nuggets. no fries. no hotdogs. we’ll see what happens.

My three winners for the shutterfly giveaway have been chosen by random.org. #3,6and 7. Kacie, Erin and Jeannette! congratulations guys! be looking for an email from me (as soon as I hear back from shutterfly about shipping!

I am so excited about this promotion from Snapfish. They are going to give 3 of you 25 free cards!

They have some really cute prints for all sorts of things, holiday cards, greeting cards, birth announcements, and Christmas cards. I was going to send out Christmas cards last year as birth announcements for Josiah, but for some reason we never got around to it. If I would have realized how affordable and easy snapfish makes it I would have totally ordered some from them! It’s as simple as choosing a layout you like, uploading your pictures, and adding your text, and before you know it you have an amazing, custom card to send out to your friends and family!

Go check out their designs, since I don’t have very many readers, odds are in your favor that you will be one of the three picked to win 25 free photo cards! What will you use them for? Let me know in a comment by next Wednesday (the 26th) and I’ll choose 3 lucky readers by drawing random numbers.

I know I don’t blog enough, and I definitely don’t fill you in on the fun things Josiah is doing enough either. So here’s a funny “what Josiah can do” story.

He was sitting on the floor in the livingroom eating a cracker, I had put on baby miracle for him (some baby einsteinish type movie that he wasn’t really watching). I came over here to my computer to look up how much a new Drying octopus costs and he was in there making all sorts of noise. I wasn’t listening closely enough to notice he was saying “mah mah” which means more or food. So he decided to help himself by crawling over here, opening up the lazy susan and getting out the box of crackers while continuing to say “mah mah”. That’s when I realized he wanted another cracker.

he’s also getting his 5th and 6th tooth, dealing with a cold, crawling properly, pulling up and cruising.  He communicates pretty well, says the normal momma, dada, nana, bye bye, bath (ba) and night night- although at the moment I can’t think of how he says night night.   He loves to play with his sisters, they entertain him quite nicely too.

Caylee is starting to show some interest in school and learning, so I’ve been teaching her the letters in her name. I think Lexi teaches her some too though, because today when I wrote “Aa” on her page and told her to write A’s, she started writing “h” and telling me it was h.  she “wrote” her name by herself for the first time today, her C’s look like rainbows, her y was two parallel lines and her e’s were more like os with a tail, but hey, it was her name.

Lexi is doing great in school, she loves it, although for some reason she doesn’t like Bible and I can read a sentence and ask her about the sentence I just read and she will have no clue what I said.  She loves math and often wants to do several days worth of work in one day, I have a feeling we’ll be going up to 2nd grade math before we’re done with the school year only because she’ll get her 1st grade book done!  We are loving the homeschool co-op that we are in, Caylee is having fun and learning, she loves to come home and sing the songs she’s learned to me. Lexi is learning Latin, sign language, the presidents, states and all sorts of stuff. Yesterday she started singing the preamble!

I’m using the Sonlight curriculum this year, with the Bob Jones math, and I think next year I’m going to end up piecing together different curriculum like I said I never would do. I’m discovering each curriculum has parts that I like and parts that I don’t. Although I can’t really think of anything i don’t like about sonlight- except maybe the outrageous price.  I’m not sure Lexi likes all the reading, but she doesn’t complain about anything other than Bible, so who knows what I’ll do next year.

I’m still running and still loving it. I’ve ran 4 5k’s this summer, and knocked my time down from 27:02 to 23:40 since July. I was contemplating running a half marathon in the middle of November, but I decided against it only for financial reasons. it’s actually a really cheap one, but after having to bite the bullet and lose money on my running shoes I don’t feel right dumping another $30 into running.  If you’re wondering what happened with the running shoes I’ll tell you. I found a really good deal on a pair of last years models sauconys. $110 shoes for $58. I bought a pair, the arrived, I tried them on and discovered one was broken. I called, got a return order # and mailed them back. I sent the package to the post office with 4 other packages. my husband grabbed them all as he was running out the door late for work, I thought nothing about anything and he mailed them. 2 weeks later I realized i never heard anything about them getting the shoes, called and sure enough they hadn’t arrived. I called back a week later, they still hadn’t arrived. it’s now been about 5 weeks and my shoes are no where to be found. Neither my husband or I thought about tracking or insurance or any of that stuff so we didn’t get anything. The store will not refund my money unless the shoes show up. So now I’m out the $58 plus the return shipping. and that was money we didn’t really have sitting around.  So yah, no races for a while, i have to save money for a new pair of running shoes amongst other things like new contacts, a speeding ticket i got, and a chiropractor to try to make the tingling and sharp pains in my right leg go away. Fun times! Did I mention I ordered a copy of Total Money Makeover on half.com the other day? My husband and I just started reading it and plan to put it into practice soon.

Josiah is 9.5 months old. and in his 9 and a half months he has had two ambulance rides, one seizure, a spinal tap, tons of cultures and tests, an ultra sound, xray and CT scan. He’s had surgery and has his first broken bone.  Everyone told me boys are crazier than girls, and I thought I was prepared… I guess I had no clue HOW crazy boys are.

Wednesday he was being really clingy and wouldn’t let Eugene hold him while I was cooking supper, in the process of holding him while trying to cook I leaned his leg up against the cast iron skillet and gave him a little burn right below his knee.

Thursday he started trying to pull up on things,  he pulled up on the side of the tub while was going potty, and walked his way from one  end of the tub to the other to get the shower curtain. He slipped down but didn’t get hurt. Later that day he was fussy, so I pulled him up on the couch next to me. Caylee disappeared and was quite a few minutes later so I asked her what she was doing. She answered “I don’t know” and I knew that meant she was into something. I jumped up to find out what and forgot Josiah was on the couch. A minute later while I was trying to clean up the two tubes of glitter that Caylee dumped, I heard a THUMP and Josiah started crying. He fell off the couch. He was fine.  That night I was getting ready to give them a bath, the 3 kids were in the bathroom and I went to get their towels out of the dryer. When I got back to the bathroom he had pulled up on the tub. I ran back to the kitchen to get my phone and heard a thump and crying. He had grabbed a hold of the shower curtain and pulled it down on himself. He was still fine.

Friday morning  I was telling Eugene all the things he did the day before and said “This boy is trying to break a bone!” Lunch time Friday I was holding him in the kitchen while preparing Eugene’s lunch.  Josiah was being silly, pulling my hair and grabbing my face then laughing. He got really excited and dug in both legs and used all his force to push himself off of me. I was only holding him with one arm and he went toppling out of my arms landing on his head on our ceramic tile floor screaming. I spazzed- something I normally don’t do. I screamed for Eugene to come and I wouldn’t even pick him up. I was afraid he had broken his neck or back. Eugene finally convinced me to pick him up and he calmed right down as soon as Caylee brought him his pacifier.  We looked him over and didn’t find anything wrong, but for some reason I still wanted to take him to the ER.  two hours and an xray later the doctor informed me he had fractured his skull. it is just a hairline fracture, not displaced at all, but they made us go via ambulance to the children’s hospital. They told us they needed to keep him for a day or two to monitor him, but he had to be somewhere where there was a pediatric neurologist.  They did a CT scan before sending us down there. CT scan came back normal, and down we went to be evaluated.

After 4 hours  there we saw the neurologist and he said Josiah was fine, we could go home.  So we left with our broken headed baby boy.  He’s been acting perfectly normal, and only has a little bit of swelling left, which oddly enough is not even where the fracture is.  We have to make an appointment in a week just as follow up, and for the next three months keep him from landing on his head… I didn’t think that would be too hard, but today he’s decided he really wants to be able to get up and climb on things!

Now his top two teeth are coming in  too, so he’s a teething, whiny, clingy, adventurous baby with a broken head. Who likes to get into everything. Fun times.

When I first started running way back in 2009 (2008?) It was purely because I needed to lose the weight I had gained during my pregnancy with Caylee (and Lexi) and we had no money for a gym membership. Running was free. Slip on some old clothes, some sneakers and get out on the road. I hated running. I had NO intentions of running in a race of any sort. I had no desire to buy fancy “running clothes” or even good shoes. My new balance sneakers were ok and worked fine.

At some point in late winter/early spring of 2009 the running bug hit me a little. I decided (mostly because my sister ran) that I’d run a race. I thought a 10K would be a good challenge, but I found an 8K close by that looked good enough for me. I started training. I had never run 5 miles before and didn’t know if I’d make it. My sister decided to run with me, she flew down from Maine to run my first race. I enjoyed having her with me because I knew NOTHING about racing. I had no clue that you’d get caught up in the gun fire and take off at speeds you never dreamed of, only to make it half a mile and die. Luckily she was there to keep me running when I wanted to walk. I finished my 8K in 48 minutes or something like that. I was just glad I was done. I never wanted to run again.

Almost a year later I decided I needed to lose weight. We were going to a church where there was a huge group of young married people who ran marathons, half marathons, triathlons, even iron man competitions. I thought I’d try my hand at running again. I asked for advice. They all said the same thing “just sign up for a race, pay for it, and you’ll have to train because you’ve already sunk your money into it”. I got a little caught up in the moment and decided a half marathon would be fun. 13.1 miles. Sure, I can do it. I found one and signed up. I thought we’d make a vacation out of it and decided Virginia beach would be fun. After all, the race was one of the cheapest I found (Dismal Swamp Stomp) and started training. It was crazy to me to think I paid $40 to run. (Now I realize that $40 for a half marathon is CHEAP). The first week of my training I had to run 5 miles. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to run it. I could just barely do 3, and it took me a month to get to 3. Much to my surprise I ran the whole 5 miles.

I still wasn’t going to buy fancy running clothes. My knees were hurting though and I had to buy some better shoes. I got sticker price right away. $100 for a pair of sneakers that will only last me 6 months? YAH RIght. I did it though. $100 was cheaper than knee surgery. By the time my race had come around I had lost 30lbs. my clothes were all falling off of me, I broke down and bought a few running shirts from Target and a pair of capri’s from old navy. It felt good to have clothes that fit and were made for running. I was starting to see how running could be expensive.

By the time I finished my race I was in love with running. I was planning on taking a few weeks off and then found out I was pregnant and ended up taking about 9 months off. I could not wait to get the all clear from the doctor saying I could run again after he was born. I got the all clear, started running and had all sorts of knee problems. I ended up having to wait about 3 more months before I could start up full force.

Now I am about 6 months into my running, I had to buy a new pair of shoes, but found a pair that were discontinued for less than half the price. I’m down about 40lbs from my “normal” weight, and about 10lbs from where I was when I got pregnant with Josiah. I’ve had to break down and buy a pair of running capris too. I could have easily got caught up in the cute running clothes this time around had we had extra money. I run with group of women and the pressure to look cute while running is stronger than when you run alone.

The main cost of running that I’ve noticed is races. I haven’t run a ton, and the ones I’ve run have been cheap ones, but it’s hard to find races (5K’s) under $20. So it would be easy to spend a lot of money on running. I try to keep it on the cheap side, but it’s still money being spent.

Aside from the monetary cost there’s also the time cost. It either takes away from my sleeping time or my family time for me to go run. I think that it is good for me to get out and run though because it’s a good stress relief for me. I am a much happier mommy when I run. It also cost me almost 40lbs. but I don’t care about that cost!

Seems life has just slowed down a bit. I’m finding less and less to blog about. I’m not sure if it’s because there’s not too much worth sharing, or if I just don’t have much desire to put my thoughts into words for you guys.  Really my days consist of normal life. Dishes, laundry, cooking, changing diapers, nursing babies, homeschooling and trying to organize and decorate the house we’ve lived in for a month now!

Today was the first day of school for us, I am still missing a few of the things I needed for today, but I did as much as I could because I didn’t want to wait too long.  It went so smooth I was scared that I didn’t do something write. We’re using Sonlight this year and it looks so intimidating and like it will take a long time, but Lexi cruised through it.  Of course it was only day 1, most of it was review from last year.   I’m sure in a few weeks it will get more challenging and we’ll struggle a bit, getting back into a routine is hard for us all.

We had a fun long weekend. our plans to go to the beach were pushed aside because we were afraid our van wouldn’t make it, so my sister and her husband came here instead. We relaxed, ran 10 miles together, walked around the flea market one afternoon, spent a day at Carowinds,  even sat around in the back yard with a fire and pretended we were camping one day. Although it wasn’t as fun as camping at the beach it was still good to visit with them and have fun.

hopefully we can figure out what is wrong with our van and fix it so we can start feeling comfortable going on trips again, after all, that’s why we wanted a van to begin with!

This year we decided to do a joint birthday party for the girls instead of having to go through the stress twice. Yah, we cheated. But the past two years Caylee has gotten our left over energy since we put so much into Lexi’s parties. This year we decided it would make more sense and be more fair to just do it together. (plus the girls thought it was a great idea, and we figured they wouldn’t like the idea for too many more years, so we might as well take advantage of it while we could!)

We went back and forth about what to get Lexi for her birthday. It’s so hard to buy presents for them, Lexi says she wants everything, then forgets about it and changes her mind daily. One of the things we considered getting her was a mini Ipod or MP3 player. she carried around a sock for two weeks pretending it was her ipod. We didn’t go looking for apple store coupons or anything, but we saw a use one in a pawn shop for pretty cheap. We decided she was too little for one though, and skipped that idea. Caylee is hard to buy for because she has had two loves for the past two years of her life… animals (mostly puppies) and baby dolls. but if you saw her room and the toy room you would know that she doesn’t need any more of either. She’s also not the type to play with much of anything. We wandered around the toy sections and clothe sections of 2 stores and had a really hard time. I could have gone crazy for Lexi, mostly because she’s in a Hello Kitty phase and Hello Kitty is really popular. Plus, as I said, she really does like a lot.

I’m excited for their party tomorrow because there are so many people who are going to be here, this will probably be the biggest party either of them have had. (Another reason I’m glad we’re only doing this once!) It’s now 2am, and I am still awake. I have two cakes to make tomorrow (well, to decorate) and a house to clean. Maybe I should go to bed…. good night!

We’ve moved! Yah, I know, i didn’t warn you. We decided last Tuesday that we were going to move on the 31st. It was a very last minute decision, but we know it was what God wanted, and we are very excited about our new place.

We looked at the house over a month ago, we loved it, but didn’t think we could afford it, so we gave up on the idea. Two weeks later we drove by and noticed it was still for rent. We thought that was odd, since the landlord said there were several other people really interested. We thought about it some more, decided we still couldn’t afford it and let it go. 4 days later the landlord called us. We thought it was strange, we talked to him about our concerns and he said he and his wife had been talking and really wanted us in this house. He dropped the rent an additional $50/month for the first 6 months so we can buy some oil. (he had already dropped it $50/month). He said he’d work with us on the security deposit since we’re only getting $200 from our old land lord and he needs $500.

So… we packed up our stuff in 3 days, started moving Friday, went out of town Saturday, ran a race, came home and finished moving Sunday after church. Then a little more moving Monday. and we are finally all in our new house.  It’s a 4 bedroom house, with a kitchen, living room, “den”-we’re using it as a dinning room/school room. it has one bathroom and a yard. It also has a full basement/garage and the upstairs two bedrooms have HUGE closets plus storage under the eves. The two upstairs rooms we are using as a toy room and the girls room, you have to walk through one room to get to the larger one, so we put their toys in the first room.   The kitchen is new and updated- and has a dishwasher! Oh and we have a dryer connection here, and our dryer works. YAY!

The girls are more than thrilled to have a yard to play in, it even has a tree house with a swing and a rope swing- which we’ll probably turn into a tire swing. We’re going to put some sides on the little tree house so that it’s safe for the girls, but then it will be a nice little yard for them.  We’re going to ask our landlord if we can paint their room, we’d like to stay here awhile and make it home. It’s got plenty of space, and it’s got a lot of light and windows to let the cool breeze through! (and if it gets too hot we have a window AC unit!)

A few months ago I decided I had enough of the baby weight and started the process of trying to lose the weight I had gained when I got pregnant with Josiah. I was tired of being tired and tired of my clothes not fitting. I wanted to be healthy, I wanted to be happy, I wanted to be thinner.
I started counting my calories and running 3-4 times a week. I eliminated most junk food from my diet, aside from an occasional treat. It was working. Yah, I’d hit a plateau here and there, yah, I’d slip up and eat too much salty stuff on a Saturday or Sunday. But for the most part it was working. The weight was coming off, my body was changing, the fat was disappearing, My endurance was growing and I was getting healthy.

I was starting to gain some self confidence. I felt good about myself. I was losing weight and inches.  Saturday morning I was at an all time low. Lower in pounds than I was before I got pregnant. I was 2.8lbs away from my goal weight. It was chilly, so I had on my new “trendy” jeans.  and a cute t-shirt. I did my hair, I had make up on. and I felt pretty. Even Skinny. I spent the day excited and proud of the way I looked. I even looked at other girls/women I saw and compared myself to them. “Yah, I’m skinner than her,” “Yah, I’m almost as skinny as her!” I thought to myself.

Sunday I felt pretty good too, not quite as good, because my little splurge of Cook Out chicken fingers had me up a bit on the scale. but I still looked good.

This morning I got on the scale. I was up 2 more pounds. a total of 4 more than Saturday morning. “WHAT THE HECK?!” What did I do? How did I gain 4lbs over the weekend? How is it even possible? The scale must be wrong. I must be holding water weight, yah, that’s it, I must have had too much salty food over the weekend. I don’t even feel good about myself today, I feel chubby, unattractive even.

I start off my day frustrated. The kids are fighting. Josiah is fighting sleep. I’m obsessed over ever drop of food or liquid I put in my mouth.  A friend asks me if I’ve read my Bible today after I tell her I’m frustrated. “nope. and I don’t even feel like it right now. The kids wont sleep, the house is chaotic.”  “I think you should do it right now if none of the kids need you, just take a minute to read.” she says     “I’ll do it when they all fall asleep” I say.  she says something else, i didn’t even reply to the text….

30 minutes later they are all asleep, I open up my Beth Moore Bible study, Breaking Free. Day 4. It was about King Hezekiah and how even the most humble man fell into pride…   SMACK. the words hit me just as hard as a brick to the forehead. PRIDE. Oh. yah.  I spent all this time making my body healthy and in the process made my heart sick.

Losing weight is great. It’s good for you. The only problem is I become completely obsessed. Obsessed with every bite of food I eat, everything I drink, every exercise I do, and every day that I don’t exercise.  Then, when I start feeling good about myself I forget that the only reason I even lost one pound was because God gave me the grace, ability and endurance to accomplish it.

I’m not done losing weight, I’m not done running, I’m not done counting my calories. I am done obsessing, I am done being prideful, I am done thinking I have done any of this.