She's Three Months Now

January 20th also marked 3 months for our baby girl.
She is growing way too quickly!

She loves chewing on her hand, clothes or our shoulder. I fear she may be teething already ??? Matt was 4 months when he got his first tooth!

Bea is happy, content and her smiles light up her face! She adores Micah and looks for him when they are in the same room.

What a joy our little girl is...Happy three months Beatrix!

Beatrix's Dedication

Sunday we had Beatrix dedicated... It was very special...
Father, we do pray over this little girl that you have intrusted us with. Help us to love her and to teach her all of the things that will help her to become an amazing woman. Thank you for our little family and for your blessing and provision. We know you love us!

Racecars

Saturday night we headed downtown West Palm Beach cause I had heard there was a lamburgini, ferari and race car show. Micah was beyond excited, but the kicker was so was Matt. What is it with boys and fancy cars?
One of the cars at the show was worth 27 million dollars! That statement requires more exclamation points then I could type. First of all, ??? what! Secondly, I can think of alot of people who could use part of that 27 million. Isn't it amazing the extremes in our country. People living in extreme poverty and extreme wealth... Not to get on a soap box...it was still fun to look at the cars with Micah.

Because we got there so late in the evening they were putting the cars away and so we meandered over to a huge semi that was loading a race car. The man looked at me and said get in. I was confused and then realized he was talking to Micah standing by me. Matt couldn't let him get in by himself so in they both went. Pretty funny cause the car was made for a 5' 3" woman!

Micah brought his little camera and was taking pictures of the spoilers and the tires. I don't think I have ever taken a picture of Matt where he is smiling so widely! He really had a great time with Micah bonding over cars.

Our New President

We did witness history by watching the inaguration on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009!

The Ordeal

Well, as many of you know I was in the hospital last weekend. It started last Tuesday. I had crazy back pain around my kidney all day. Finally, that night I couldn't take it anymore so I went into the emergency room around 1:00 am. They tested my urine and sent me home with a perscription for an antibioatic. Wednesday I started feeling better. Then Thursday after running errands all morning I came home put the kids to bed for a nap and the pain started up again. Even worse then two nights before. So Thursday I wrestled with the pain from 3:30 until Matt got home. Then it got really bad... I really don't like even thinking about it cause the pain was really awful! I started throwing up and was crying and groaning and couldn't really even see straight. Matt called a friend of ours at about 7:30 to come and stay with the kids. He took me to the emergency room again. While we were waiting to be seen I was in the bathroom crying cause it hurt so badly. They got me in pretty quickly and I went through triage to get a room. The doctor finally came in to see me and lectured me about waiting so long and now I had a super infection and was in serious jeapordy of losing my kidney. I started to panic and freak out. The kicker to all of this, I didn't and don't have insurance and all I could think about was how this was going to set our family back. The doctor could tell that I was starting to panic and so he looked at me and said, "listen you are a grown woman you can check yourself out of here if you want, but you are young, beautiful and you have young kids. If you leave here right now you could lose your kidneys, go on dialysis and have to have kidney transplant. It's up to you." I know I looked like a deer in the headlights. So of course I decided to stay.... They finally gave me some pain medicine after being there for a couple of hours, hooked me up to an IV and then after we had been there for 2 1/1 hours they sent me to get a CAT scan of my abdomen. The doctor came in an hour later and told us that I had a pretty big kidney stone, 5 mm and that I would have to be admitted. I got a room around 2:30 am and they sent Matt home at the same time. I will tell you what, I felt so alone laying in that hospital bed. Hospitals scare me so much and here I was not knowing what was going to happen.

The next day I was getting tons of fluid to try and flush it out. My very good friend April came to the hospital to see me. I cried. She listened and then we just had a really great talk. She helped me get someone to finally bring me a pump (as I was about to explode cause I hadn't nursed Beatrix since the night before at 7:00). Later that morning they took me to a x-ray (cha ching cha ching) and an ultra sound in the afternoon (cha ching cha ching). Matt finally got to get away in the afternoon to come and sit with me for a couple of hours. He was exhausted and very worried about me. When I told him how I was feeling about the tests he told me to just get over it and get better. When he left that night I was so ready for the day to be over. The night was long though. As all of us know, you really don't get much rest in a hospital.

Saturday morning I tried to wake up optomistic that I would pass the stone. I didn't and I didn't see a doctor either until 5:00. That meant a very long day sitting, laying, waiting for someone to come and tell me what was going on. I was starting to miss my family. When Matt came up to sit with me for another couple of hours he was floored though. He couldn't believe all of the help that he was getting and the calls from our friends and family telling us they were praying for my health. That night after I had watched all of the HGTV I could handle the nurse came into my dark little cave room. She changed my IV bag and asked me if I needed anything else. I asked her if she had a minute. She said yes. Then I started to cry. Really hard.... I told her how afraid I was. How much I hate hospitals. How I missed my family and how worried I was and how afraid I was that they were doing alright without me. After I was done, she said, "Oh honey, you just need to go home. You are just ready. You are going to be fine. It's just a little old kidney stone. If it was something serious you would have the doctors working on you. You just have to wait to pass it. Your family misses you its just that they have each other and you are all alone in here. It is going to be ok." As I was sniffing from crying I said thank you...I just needed to get that all out. I ended the night by reading Philipians 4:6-9 from the translation the Message...

"Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditiating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to prainse, not things to curese. Put into practive what you learned from me, what you headf and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies."

Sunday morning Matt called me at 7:00 am. He had been up since 5:30. He made coffee, set the kids clothes out for church and got himself dressed and showered so he was ready to go. It was good to hear his voice. I told him I had no idea when the doctor would be in to tell me what was going on but that I would call him once I heard something. The doctor came around 11:00 and said that I could go home. I was surprised. He told me that they were going to send me home with some FlowMax and pain pills. I called Matt and I was out of the hospital by 2:00.

Monday I was crazy nautious and threw up the whole day, until the pain medicine was out of my system. Don't think I have ever been that sick. Matt got me a new medicine and called a friend to stay with me that night cause he had to go in to work to get lesson plans ready for his sub. Tuesday was better, just shakey and the rest of the week passed much like that. By Thursday I was feeling much better just achey and then Friday morning....out it came. Just like that. The ordeal was over and we were saved from spending 6-12,000 dollars on a surgery. What a blessing and an answer to so many people's prayers. Thank you Thank you Thank you! For your support, your prayers, your gifts of food, time and money, for calling to check on me and Matt and for encouraging him while I was in the hospital. I am really amazed how well he did. Several people commented on how wonderful he is and that is true! I have to take the stone in for analysis to see if I need to change my diet. Other than that we are still praying that we will qualify for some kind of insurance through the hospital. Thank you again for everything and here are a couple of pictures of my nemisis. Gross as they are...this is what all of the fuss was about.

About a boy

Upon discovering that our son is very mechanically minded this has become his new favorite game. It is copyrighted 1989, but he still finds it very fun! You start off covering the boxes on the left with numbers then on the coresponding page you place the squares according to their match. Anyway, he gets it and asks Matt and I to play it constantly. Last night they were playing after dinner. Micah finished a game out of a book that was for ages 6-12 (mind you this was 20 years ago it was for this age group) that Matt had dubbed "very hard", Micah said, "Daddy that wasn't really very hard at all."

This morning I was stuck on the...well....you know....without the proper "tools". I yelled for Micah and asked him to come and help me out. He walked into the bathroom a little preterbed that I had interupted his T.V. time. "What do you need Mommy?" I told him that I needed some more "tools" and he said Ok. He came back to the bathroom, I handed him the toliet paper roller and before he placed it back on the mount he looked at the paper quizzically and asked me, "Mommy how do they get the paper on the roll?" He has been asking me alot lately how does this and that work....Most of the time I have no idea how to answer him. So,

I tell him to ask his Daddy. Man do they ever think alike!

Frandpa and Frandma Come for a Visit

Matt's parents arrived here last Thursday. They happened to get here on Mom's birthday.

So we had a cake with (a) candle and sang Happy Birthday to her.
Friday morning we all went up to Matt's school for a homecoming parade and pep rally. Micah loved seeing the kids and...
getting candy!

They went around the parking lot once....and then twice.... and then I thought I was going to die from laughing they went around a third time. It was pretty hilarious! What was even more funny to me was the fact that my husband was in charge of the whole spirit week for homecoming! Yes, the kid that in high school probably found a way to skip all of this stuff was 15 years later planning it all. And NOT loving every minute! I chuckled about it all week long. I said, "Babe, what's the worst that can happen? It is horrible and they never ask you to do it again." He said, "No, the worst would be I do a good job and get it again next year!" So funny and very ironic life is...

Pretty tired after the parade and no nap!

Both of them were.

Then he got a second wind and played puzzles with frandma (which is how it sounds when Micah says grandma or grandpa).

Frandpa and Frandma Go on Adventures

Saturday morning after a breakfest of pancakes, sausage and frest fruit we headed out to the Turtle Sanctuary to see the loggerheads.

Us...

I look a little unorganized here. I was holding the camera, my bag and off course Beatrix. I ran out of the house without her sling or front pack so I had to improvise with a blanket. It worked!Matt's parents treated Micah to a shark tooth neckless.
The finished product.
This picture looks so creepy! I think it is cause you can't see my eyes.

Micah engrossed with a story called Sharky the Shark.

We then went to Juno Beach Pier which is just a couple of miles up the road from the Turtle Sanctuary.

Matt's dad spied this shadow way out in the ocean. You will probably want to click on it to make it larger and so you can acutally see the shadow :). We watched it get closer and closer wondering if it was a turtle, a shark or a manatee. We were a little nervous for the surfers until we saw what it was. It was a manatee! Pretty cool! It surfaced a couple of times and then went on its way.

Off the end of the Pier. It was almost 80 degrees on Saturday morning.

Matt and Micah with their Noculars seeing what they can see.

Frandma and Frandpa Picnic

Saturday night we got pizza and had a "picnic" in the living room watching football.
Sunday night after we all took long naps I packed hamburgers, hotdogs and chips and we headed out to the beach for a real picnic. It was a gorgeous evening and it was really nice to be outside. Frandpa playing with Micah at the park by the beach.

This is all of us after we were stuffed. The two people that you probably don't recognize are Matt's Uncle Dan and Aunt Judy. Aunt Judy is Matt's mom's sister. They drove down from North Carolina to go on the cruise with Matt's parents. It was fun having them here for a couple of hours too. Hope they all have a fun time on their cruise. It took all of my will power to not pack myself into one of their suitcases...someday we'll go on one.

Our Car *sigh*

Matt went up north last summer, as many of you know, to work and make some money so we wouldn't have to buy a car on credit. We felt it was important to buy a car with cash in hand. Well, we may have bought a lemon. Cause it has been in the shop, a l o t. Last Wednesday I got the kids all packed up in the car and my neighbor drove by. While we were talking he said, "hey your front tire is flat!" This is where the sighing comes in... there is always something with this car, but I am still thankful. You know why? Cause I have TWO mechanics in my house that can fix almost anything. Micah wanted to take his tools outside to help Daddy fix the tire. Matt let him screw most of the lug nuts back on the tire. Can you tell I have a mechanic for a husband? I know what lug nuts are for crying out loud. haha!

Matt loaded the tire onto his motorcycle to get it patched, but they took one look at it and told him he really needed a new tire. *again I sigh*
Safety first for this little guy!

This morning was another morning for wacky things that happen with our car. Matt fixed it really quick and managed to make it into school just in time for his classes. What a super man!

Some of my favorite things...

So far 2009 has been the year of talking finances and making goals in that area. Money in general can be not so fun to talk about. So as part of my quest to focus on contentment and being happy with the things I do have, I started going around my house today taking pictures of the things that I already have that make me really happy (obviously my three most favorites are people so I am not counting them). Doing this not only lifted my spirits it also took away any desire (today anyway) to want something else. This is one of my favorite places in our home, our front porch. I do not sit here enough...

I love this painting that my friend Amy made me. It hangs over my stove.

I got this little owl lamp from Matt and Micah for Mother's day this year. I found the peacock picture in a vintage store for $20. It is all embrodery. Kind of old lady, but beautiful at the same time. The pillow I just found at a garage sale for $4.00! I think it is the same pattern just made by two different people.

Matt's parents sent me a gift card to Anthropologie for Christmas and this is what I got. I had been eyeing it for a month and it happens to work great as a diaper bag.
This little beauty is one of my gifts from Matt for Christmas. We have a nautical consignment shop right down the road from our house and I have been eyeing this and others like it since we moved in. It is somekind of an anchor or marker for boats. I think it is just Beautiful!!!

Also from the nautical store, it is a dry anchor. ??? oh so cool hanging in our "florida room". This Gorgeous mirror I found at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago. I told Matt that it was my Christmas present (he decided to get me more). I instantly fell in love with it and the story that goes with it made me love it even more. It belonged to an elderly woman that moved to south florida from New York in the 60's. She brought this mirror with her in the move. A couple of years ago she passed away and left the mirror to the woman who cared for her. This woman didn't want it anymore because "it doesn't go with my decor". So now it belongs to me and I think it is fabulouso! $25.00 ladies and gents, yes $25!!!

Obviously a closer shot of the detailing. It is wood painted yellow and it also has a number on the back...doesn't that mean that only a few were made?
I bought this rug from Anthropologie with my Christmas money from my Dad and Mom.

**sigh**

I think it is lovely and I am planning to hang it on my wall as art....

So those are some of my favorite things...what about you? Have you walked around your house lately reminding yourself of all the things that you have already that make you happy? What are some of them, please share with me.