More than a Moment

I feel like this post needs a little bit of background information.

In the days following our move to Texas, I lost my grandmother. A few short weeks later, Charles lost his grandfather. Because of the move, and my pregnancy, we weren't able to attend either funeral. It is a strange thing to lose someone you love, and not be able to go and celebrate their life. It almost doesn't seem real. We have talked a lot about them since they've passed, but there is something about being at the memorial service that brings closure. We missed that with both grandparents. Now, months later, I feel like we have it. I can only speak for myself though.

Ellie's middle name is from my grandmother, Ila Mae. When we blessed her, in January, and Charles said her full name, Ellie Mae Himmer... I felt that closure. I felt Grandma there, and I saw in a very real sense, the legacy she left behind. Encircled with worthy Priesthood holders, Ellie was given a special blessing. I couldn't help but realize what a vital role my grandmother had in that event. From the way she raised my dad, to the way he raised us. It was just a moment, just a blessing. For me, it was a much needed chance to reflect on the life of a wonderful woman that I was lucky enough to have in my life for so long.

I had another similar experience two nights ago.

For Valentine's day, Abigail got her Daddy a little airplane that he had been eyeing on our last trip to Hobby Lobby (he's a trooper). When he opened it up, he put it together and he and Abigail hit the back yard to test it out. I watched him with her. I watched him wind up the propeller, and show Abigail just how it would work. He took her hand and helped her throw it on its Maiden Voyage. For a second, I felt like I was watching two different people, many years ago. I could see Frank Seal, kneeling with his grandson, teaching him about planes, something that would remain an interest for the rest of Charles' life. I took a moment to reflect on so many attributes of Charles that he undeniably inherited, or learned, from his grandfather. I am so thankful for the influence he had on Charles. I know he played a valuable roll in making him the man he is today, the man that I love. Again, it was just a moment in our busy lives, but I again was reminded in a very real way of the impact of one life on another, and on generations to follow.

What legacy are you building?

Two peas in a pod

Life is really hard.

Especially when you have perfect curls, dimples, and personality coming out of your ears.

I'm just glad that Abigail has found someone who can understand the burden she has to bear.

Happy Valentine's Day

My Valentine's day was fill with methodically dipping strawberries in chocolate. My intention was to surprise Charles with a few tasty treats for after the girls got to bed. One thing led to another, and soon enough, we had about 30 chocolate covered strawberries covering our counters.

Who knew dipping strawberries would be so therapeutic? I dipped and drizzled to my heart's content while Ellie slept and Abi "slept."

Abigail eventually came down, mid-dipping. It was hilarious to watch her stand on a chair next to me with a non-stop bounce of excitement. I can't tell you how many times I said, don't touch them, Abi.

She was the first to indulge. Instead of a surprise for after the girls went to bed, we had a surprise of driving around and delivering strawberries to a few families.

A day in the life...

First off, you have to know... Charles' new job is plush. They have massage therapists come to the office frequently for free massages. They have a leisure room, 2 fully stocked kitchens, catered lunch multiple times a week, a ping pong table... you get the idea, he has it rough.

Well, today Charles texted me from his palace (work) and asked how my day was going. I think he was expected a one or two work response. Instead, he got this email.

Captain's log: 2/10/11

Prior to 6 am... Don't even go there.

6:45 AM- Finally give in, Ellie wins, time to feed.

6:50-7:00 AM- falls asleep while feeding, put her back down, wakes up, and is up for the day.

8:00 AM - take her diaper off to change it, and she wets everywhere

8:05- Ellie takes a bath

8:15- She is ready to have a nap. Falls asleep rocking with Mom

8:30- Put her down in her bed.

8:45- Abigail gets up. Goes poop and pee on her own, decides to empty her potty into the toilet... empties said contents onto our white carpet. Takes it one step further by trying to clean it up by herself too. By the time I got up to her room to see why she was still up there, I found the carpet soaked, poop on the floor, and Abigail sitting down with a wipe, trying to clean her feet.

8: 50- Ellie is screaming again

8:55- Abigail hits the bath tub, understandably. Bath time is uneventful. She plays while I juggle back and forth between trying to get Ellie back to sleep and trying to get Abigail cleaned up.

9:30 Ellie still crying with intermittent pauses of hope. Abigail is "HONGY." Feed Abigail some breakfast and let her watch Peter Rabbit.

9:45 Still crying and parked in front of netflix (that refers to Ellie and Abi... not me, surprisingly)

10:00 All is quiet on the Himmer front. Ellie is sleeping. Dishes are done. I am playing with Abigail and her blasted bird puppet.

10:08- Realization.... OH CRAP, I had a visiting teaching appointment at 10.

10:10- scrambling to get stuff together to run to the appt.

10:15- realize it is hopeless. call and cancel. But I can still make it to the 11:30 appointment, right??

10:30- quickest makeup application on the planet.

10:45- Get Ellie up, dressed, and fed. ready to walk out the door just on time.

11:10- Que the spit up of a lifetime.

11:15- new clothes for mom and ellie.

11:20- out the door.

What a morning... things have settled down though. I can breath now.

So... who has the harder job here?? Did you have catered lunch and a massage today?? Don't pull a muscle playing ping pong.

End of Email...

I can't help but think of the times that someone has said, "Oh, you just stay at home with your kids? What do you do all day?"

Next time, I think I'll ask... What do you do at "work?" 9-5 can be so demanding, right??

I had to write this just for the sheer comedy of my morning. Things got better after noon... although there was another incident during Abi's "nap" involving feces. We won't go there.

Highlight of my day... we just got back from a date night. The first in far too long. I forgot how much I like Charles. It was nice to spend some time with him.

A little bribe goes a LONG way...

Lately naps have lost their luster for Abigail.

They will never, EVER lose it for me.

Quiet time worked for a while, but lately, nap time has been more of a dress up time than anything. It usually comes to an end with multiple trips to the potty, or, the last couple of days, with Abigail screaming for help because she is trapped in one of the many shirts she has layered on herself. Today I went up to find her all but bound by the third shirt she was trying to squeeze into.

That's when it happened... I got desperate. I put her back down in her bed, tucked her in sweetly, gave her a kiss... and then gave her a big, fat bribe.

It is true. I promised her a big sucker after her nap if she stayed in bed and took a nap. At first I was a little ashamed of my desperation. But by the end of her three hour nap, I was asking myself, Why didn't I think of this sooner???

During her nap, I had the chance to relax and read some blogs (great to do while feeding a baby). I read the latest from my dear friend, and talented photographer, Emily. She did a post about how she had been focusing on finding the perfect light for her photos. Obviously, that is ideal, but it made me realize, how often I focus on other things to try to get a good photo, and let the lighting take a back seat.

After Abigail woke up, I decided to take advantage of the afternoon lighting, and take some pictures. I knew once I busted out the sucker, I was sure to get some natural smiles that are normally hard to get once she sees the camera.

Here is her initial reaction when I showed her the sucker.

Prepare yourself for sucker-mania.

Oh the beauty of actually having natural light to take pictures in.

Thank you, Texas, for your sunshine.

Arctic BLAST

In Austin, when it gets below freezing... we call it an Arctic Blast.

I read that in the weather this morning and thought to myself...

ok, now isn't that a little dramatic? It is what it is though, and we have been very cold.

No time like winter time, when it is 15 degrees outside, for your heater to go out, right? Oh the joys of renting. We don't have to pay for it... but we do have to wait for all kinds of approval before they will actually do the repair. You'd think they had to get the OK from the president himself. Hopefully today we will be nice and warm again. Meanwhile, we are bundling up and even had some fun playing in the snow.

Here is our Ellie... but you can call her Cheeks.

It doesn't seem to phase Abigail... she still wants to run around in her nothin's. Ellie on the other hand... we have had lots of snuggle time trying to stay warm.
I must say... I love a good, Texas snow storm. Everything shuts down, and everyone is ecstatic. The dead grass is still sticking up through the white snow. It's gone by noon.
And then it might be 70 degrees the next day.

In fact... here is a glimpse of what we were doing Monday night at our house.

The snow came Friday morning, just 4 days after Abigail was running through the sprinklers.

The Lonestar State can be a little moody. Then again... so can I, so who am I to judge??

God Bless Texas, right??

We're Still Here...

I'm still struggling trying to figure out how to live a normal life, and raise two kids. The blog was pretty much the first thing to go out the window. I've been meaning to blog a few funny things about Abigail lately, and I figure I better do it now before I forget them. I've skipped over some big things, like Christmas, Ellie's Blessing, and lots of visits from family. Hopefully sometime I'll go fill those in. For today.. time is short, here is a glimpse of my helper while I type.

She is talking SOO much. The things that come out of her mouth are just hilarious sometimes, sometimes they are really sweet, sometimes cute, and sometimes just plain rotten. Here is a sampling of recent conversations with Abi.

One night she woke up in the middle of the night crying really hard. She never wakes up at night, so I hurried up to her room to see what was wrong. She couldn't really talk through her sobs. I asked her if she was scared and she nodded her head, yes. I snuggled her close and said, "Why don't we say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to help you not be scared." She nodded her head yes, and folded her little arms. We said a little prayer and as soon as I said "Amen" she looked at me and said, "Ok, I'm not scared. Goodnight Mommy." Talk about melting my heart. Oh, to become meek as a child.

Another prayer-time story. She has had a little cold, so we've had a humidifier in her room. She calls it her fire. She is obsessed with it. The first night we put it in there she was beside herself. When we knelt down to say our prayers, it was all she could do to keep it together. It was so funny to see her struggle to keep her arms folded and eyes closed(yeah right). Her prayer was as follows:"Dear Heavenly Father, thank thee... (struggling to sit still) for my fire.....long pause and wiggling and reaching for the humidifier.... thank thee for my... this(pointing to the humidifier). Please bless my fire. Jesus Christ, Amen."

Suckers are our bribe of choice. Whenever we need a little extra encouragement, or want to reward her, she gets a dum dum. The other day in the car, she had her pink sucker open and took her first lick. She looked at me, bright eyed, "MOMMY, this is K-wicious." Me and Charles looked at each other and busted up laughing, I said, "Oh, is that a delicious sucker?" She responded, "Yes. Its K-wicious." We started laughing really hard at how cute she is, but she interrupted our laughter, "No, dat's not funny. It is k-wicious. Don't laugh." Oh that girl...

Ellie is playing tricks on us. Monday night she slept through the night for the first time. 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Who knew it could be so beautiful. The next night... she got up 5 times- are you kidding me? Wednesday night, got up 3 times. Last night, 6 hours straight. Come on Ellie girl... you can do it!!

A Tribute to Supermom

Today I feel nothing less that awestruck when I think of my own mother.

Five children.

Nine years apart. (I think...)

After my experience today with my two children, I'm not exactly sure if I should be amazed by her, or if I should question her sanity. One thing is for sure though: She deserves a tribute for putting herself aside, and raising me and my siblings so close together- and doing such a fantastic job at it (I mean, look at us!). I think of all the sacrifices she made for us. Then I think of all of her hard work- going back to school with 5 children and graduating with honors. Thats more than I can say about my college and I didn't have kids to take care of while I did it. She (and my dad) were at every event, every basketball and volleyball game- no matter where it was. We all played sports, we took piano lessons and of course, had recitals. I cringe to think of what our busy schedule looked like. She never batted an eye, or voiced a complaint. She always encouraged us to do whatever we wanted to do, and stood up for us when others tried to put us down. Ain't that right, Red Hot Mama?? That being said... let me explain what inspired this sudden realization that my mom is, in fact, Supermom.

Before I start, let me share a picture taken by the talented Emily Brenner.

This is how I would like you to think of me as a mother. I assure you, the story I am about to tell, with prove otherwise. It ain't all sleeping babies, snuggles, and smiles.

Ellie is two weeks old today. I have been spoiled rotten, and today was also Charles' first day back at work. Up until now, I have had him by my side, helping out with whatever I needed. Yesterday he asked me if I was nervous about being on my own. I assured him that I didn't think it was going to be that bad. This morning... reality hit.

I had Ellie's two week check up this morning. Thank goodness it was early enough in the morning that Charles could help me get the girls up and out the door on time, or I am pretty certain, we might have never made it there. I am also quite certain, that might have been a good thing.

I was equipped with not one, but two suckers to bribe Abigail with, so that she would be a good helper. It started off great. She held my hand as we walked in from the parking lot, she played with toys in the waiting room, and cleaned them up when we were called back. She sat in the chair and chatted it up with the Doc while they checked on Ellie. Then she got in my diaper bag and found her pink sucker. You must know that anything pink is leaps and bounds above any other color.

She opened the sucker on her own, while I wasn't paying attention. I didn't realize it until I heard it hit the ground. Now... to be completely honest, If our pediatrician hadn't been standing right there watching, I probably would have just brushed it off and said have at it. No, not today... I picked it up, told her it was yucky, and threw it away- offering her the other, ORANGE sucker.

BIG MISTAKE.

She had a total melt down. So bad in fact, that the doctor took her out and let her get a new, pink sucker from their candy stash. I didn't realize that she had gotten the same color sucker. I saw the wrapper, and it looked like it would be a red or yellow sucker. So after a few minutes, Abi exclaimed, "I GOT MY PINK SUCKER!" I turned around and immediately thought, oh crap, she got it out of the trash. Pediatrician, still watching. I quickly took it from her hand, and as I released it from my grip, into the trash, I saw the other pink sucker... still in the trash.

All hell broke loose.

Imagine how I felt. How do you explain to a two year old... I made a big mistake- I'm sorry!! At this point in the melt down, we were waiting for the nurse to come in and do the newborn screening on Ellie. They would prick her foot, and get blood for their tests. Simple enough, right?

Well, she pricked her foot, but had a hard time getting blood to come out. She had me hold her upright to get the blood flowing. All the while... Abigail is screaming and crying in hysteria and pulling on my shirt screaming, "Mommy, HOLD YOU!!" Oh, and did I mention, my newborn is screaming as they are squeezing the crap out of her foot to get it to bleed. This went on for about ten minutes before then finally got all the blood they needed. The nurse then left us to fend for ourselves.

Abigail still wanted me to hold her, Ellie still crying. I sat in the chair bouncing Ellie in one arm, picked up Abi with the other and brought her into my lap. But that didn't cut it. Abigail didn't like that I was having to try to soothe both children at once, so she took a swat at crying baby Ellie. I put Abigail down and stood up to try to calm Ellie down after the assault. Eventually I got her settled down and in her carseat, where she crashed, exhausted.

Abigail? Oh, she was still screaming her head off. Only now, she had opened the door to our room and was hanging her head out the door to the nurses station and was offering her screams of desperation to the office staff. I gathered our stuff and my sleeping child... and the screaming child, and we headed out the door. Thanks to the lady who pointed out so necessarily, "You have your hands full, don't you, Mom?"

Finally, Abigail chilled out. We made it to the car in one piece, and quickly made a stop at Sonic for a shot of caffeine at 10 in the morning.

Let me leave you with this...

I love my two girls to death. I wouldn't have it any other way.

But we will never, EVER leave the house again.

Right on Time

Please welcome...

Ellie Mae Himmer

Born November 30, 2010

6:12 am

Here is a bit of the story of how things happened. I was due December 4th, 10 days after my original due date of November 23rd. So, from the beginning... I have been pulling for a late November baby. My doctor was very kind, and offered to relieve me early with an induction on Tuesday, the 30th. I graciously agreed to that. I was scheduled to go in at 6:30 am and go from there. After a little false alarm on Thanksgiving morning, (thanks Mom, Dad, and Courtney for getting up extra early, driving the 3.5 hrs to Cedar Park, making us Thanksgiving dinner... and waiting around for a whole lot of nothing to happen.) I was ready for things to happen Tuesday. My mom drove down after she got out of school and got things all ready on Monday night. She got here about 10:00 pm. When she got here I said, "ooh.... Mom, I have been kind of having some pretty intense contractions for about the last hour." I think after my Thanksgiving day false alarm... I wasn't too convincing. By 11, I was in intense pain, and had steady contractions coming 2 minutes apart. Off to the hospital we went.

I'll save you the labor details, other than... OUCH. I think if there weren't such a thing as an epidural... I might die during labor. Maybe I am a major wuss, but bring on the massive needle. As my friend put it, I like the princess package when it comes to child birth. One wonderful part about this delivery was, once it was time to push, things were a piece of cake. Two and a half pushes and out she came.

She was born 18 minutes before I was scheduled for induction. We are so happy to have her here, finally! Abigail couldn't be more sweet with her. She loves her baby sister. She is fascinated by all of the baby things around the house. I love seeing her in her new roll as a big sister.

We named her after my grandmother, Ila Mae, who passed away just a few short weeks ago. She was an amazing woman who I hope that Ellie can emulate as she grows.

I told Charles... surely she was given a warning in the pre-existance that she will be subjected to many, many obnoxious photo shoots by her mother. I'm guessing she agreed to it.

A little confused...

Abigail loves playing with her baby dolls. If she doesn't have one handy, don't worry, she will just pretend she does.

And TRUST me... Katie bar the door if you sit down on one of her imaginary babies.

The other day I heard her in the kitchen calling for me to push her in her stroller. I went in and found things a little flip-flopped from normal.

PROOF

Some things are much more exciting the first time.

Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to death that we will soon be blessed with another sweet baby girl. That hasn't lost its luster in the least!

When I was pregnant with Abigail, it was much more exciting to watch my body change, and watch my belly grow and grow... and GROW. I took pictures almost weekly to document the beauty of it all.

This time its been a little different. I have basically avoided the camera for 9 months. So, now that the end is near, I thought it was time to take a couple pictures... just to prove that I was in fact pregnant.

Do you think it is possible that she learned that look and the placement of her hands from how I have felt and acted the last couple of weeks??

Nah, I didn't think so either.

It took us a few months longer than we would have liked to get pregnant this time around. We had things planned out, and thought we knew just when the right timing would be. When that wasn't panning out, I quickly got frustrated.

Funny how slowly I learn to put my trust in the Lord's timing.

If you would have asked me 2 months ago if Abigail was ready for Miss Ellie, I would have told you how nervous, and down right scared I was. She LOVES attention. She is 100% independent, in a way that requires my attention all the time as well. I still haven't quite figured that out, but that is Abigail. She wants to do everything by herself, but wants me right there watching her and holding her hand.

She would FLIP out completely any time I held another baby. She would try to be sneaky and push over or bite other kids that I gave attention to.

You can imagine my nerves.

The last month or so, I have seen a huge change in her. We talk about Ellie every day now. Abigail talks about wanting Baby Ellie to come out. She tells me she is going to help change her "bipers." The other day she rested her head on my stomach and said, "Ellie, I wuv you." And kissed my belly.

I am so thankful for a Heavenly Father who knows better than I do. I try to remember that, and put my faith in His plan for our family. Ultimately, I'm glad He had the final say in this one.

NOW, we are ready.