Should I or Shouldn't I?

I am contemplating on whether I should shut down this blog for a while. I am really stressed right now and can not give it the attention it needs. Between being a mother, wife, full time student, full time employee, daughter, sister and proactive church member I am beginning to lose my zebra stripes.........

Motherhood

I have been the worst blogger ever lately, and for that I apologize (to you Brianna).

Since Mother's Day is this Sunday, May 8th I thought I would write about my thoughts on motherhood. Your mothering skills change as your child gets older. You mother differently for an infant, then you do for a toddler, child, teenager and adult. As Liam gets older his comments get funnier. He is quick to tell me when he farts. He always points out when someone has a booger, and he always wants to give me toilet paper when I am using the bathroom.

When you tell him to smile he gives you on like this one above. His fake smile is one of "OK are my teeth supposed to show?"

He has a fascination for trash... why, I don't know. Anytime he sees trash, anywhere, he picks it up. If we are driving down the road and he sees trash, he points it out. If you take your eyes off of him he will throw away your jewelry and TV remotes too.

I love being a mother. My son is my world. As he gets older I have to learn how to be a mother all over again. No more bottles, no more rocking to sleep and great use of the timeout bench.

Ive carried a child within my body. Ive slept with my baby on my chest. Ive kissed boo boos and mended broken hearts. I've been puked on, peed on, pooped on and spent sleepless nights in the rocking chair. But I wouldn't have it any other way. My body isn't magazine perfect by far. But when I look in the mirror... I see a MOM, and there is no greater honor or blessing!

Happy Mothers Day to all you moms and moms-to-be!

My Hero!

One year ago today, my hero was granted his angel wings on the eve of his 85th birthday. I sure do miss this guy. If there was ANYONE who followed Christ, gave his ENTIRE life to Him, it was my Grandfather. There is not a day in my entire life I do not remember him going to mass. It didn't matter where he was, what he was doing, or how hectic his life with six children was. He went to mass EVERY day. He also prayed the rosary every day. I have no doubt in my mind that he is sitting at the right hand of our Father now.

Pall Bearers: My brother-Jason, and five cousins- Ryan, Justin, Jeremy, Aaron and JJ.

CPL Albert L Schachtner, US Army, served in the Korean War. He was buried with full honors and a 21 gun salute. It was one of the most emotional days of my life.

I sure do miss him. He was a true man of God, loving husband for 55 years, amazing father to six children, outstanding grandfather to 13 grandchildren and devoted great grandfather to 9.

Tomorrow will be his 86th birthday. I sure do love and miss this man.



School

The time has come.

The time has come that I have made the decision to go back to school.

The time has come that I have made the decision to go back to school for my Master degree. My Bachelor degree is just not enough for me.

The time has come.

The time has come when I play many roles- full time!

The time has come when I play many roles- full time- including Momma (most important), Wife, Daughter, Sister, Friend and (my newest role) graduate student.

It will be hard to be a Mom full time, work full time and be a full time graduate student. But I can do it. I need your prayers!

PS. You should really read "Who Moved My Cheese". It is a good book- An A-Mazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life!

**SSSIIIIGGGGHHHH**

Parks and Slides

My baby boy is obsessed with parks and slides right now. They are the most coolest thing in the world to him. He is always asking me to take him to the park. He says "mommy... swide?" (his word for "slide"). Donovan and I always try to take him to the park every weekend. He loves to swing, he loves to go down the slides and he loves to climb up and down the stairs to the slides.

This past weekend my Mom had taken him to the park behind her house. Donovan and I were watching him play on the slides through her back window. He climbed up the tallest and biggest slide there. My Moms husband had went to the bottom of the slide to wait for him to come down. Liam decided to turn around and go back down the stairs. Next thing I know I am watching my son do a head dive from the top of an eight foot slide. I ran for my life. I ran so fast around the block my flip flops came off. Donovan scaled two six foot walls to get to him. He was OK- thank the Lord. But he sure did scrape up his face and now has a black eye. His babysitter asked him "Liam what happened?" He told her "fell down swide".

As soon as he was done crying he went right back to that eight foot slide like nothing ever happened.

Liam's ouchie

My little boy is a two year old dare devil. As his mother I am NOT prepared for more falls and spills. My hair is turning grey thinking about it. Ughhhhhhh.

The Time Has Come...

The time has come where we let my little boy run around the house like this:




Because we are trying to teach him all about this:

Pray for me!

First Of Three

Sheyenne and Me!

My Sister-in-Law had her baby! She did it. She was so strong. She was in labor for twenty seven hours. Both her and Sheyenne Mae are OK and healthy. Sheyenne looks a lot like Liam did when he was a newborn. She is perfect. She is beautiful. She is healthy!

She was born at 3:35AM on March 1, 2011. Good thing Leap Year is next year, or else she would've been born on February 29th! She weighs 7 pounds 12 ounces. She is 20 1/2 inches long and she has the cutest little hands and feet. She takes after her cousin- with ALLLL the hair!

She is the first of three babies to be born this year (among other friends who are expecting. Next is Brianna! Brianna is going to leave her babies gender a surprise!!!!!!

Brianna and Sheyenne

I cant wait for Brianna to have her little one! It is super exciting to be surrounded by all these little babies.
Around the same time Brianna is due, Donovan and my very good friend Nate is expecting a baby. His wife Diedra is due a week before Brianna and they are also having a girl!

So we have one of three here so far. Cant wait for the rest!

I am tired. I've been up all night and had to work today. So, I am out. Praise God for the healthy baby!

He Is Turning Two!

Oh my goodness, I think I am going to cry. He is turning two. How can he be two already???? Wahhhhh.

Liam on his 1st Birthday!

What is a mother to do? I dont want him to grow so fast :-(

Dragging his blanket thru the water

And this sums up how I feel right now when I think of my baby turning two:

Happy Valentine's Day!

My perception of Valentine's Day has changed a lot throughout my life. When I was in elementary school it used to be about hand making Valentine's Day cards to give to all my class mates at school. I used to dress in cute red outfits and I made sure I wore a heart barrette in my hair. As I got into high school, somewhere in between aqua netting my hair and writing letters to friends on a daily basis, I realized that I do really love Valentine's Day. In high school Valentine's Day was all about receiving loves notes taped to my locker, or a boyfriend clad bouquet of roses waiting for me outside of school to pick me up (in his handicap van- no less! Now I can call that boy who drove the craziest van ever, my husband!). After high school came marriage. Once married, Valentine's Day was all about a nice dinner and a quiet evening. Sometimes it included a massage somewhere or a day in the mountains. Now, with a two year old my Valentine's Day changed yet again.


Liam- 20 minutes old!

Even though my two year old does not understand the concept of Valentine's Day I still like to celebrate it with him. After all, Valentine's Day is about showing someone who much you love them, right?  I wanted so badly to send a little Valentine's card and candy to daycare for each kid there, but I didn't have time. So tonight, I am going to make heart shaped cookies (now that he can eat them) and send those with him tomorrow. As a tradition that I started last year we watch Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. That will be the movie of choice tonight.

I love my husband and son so much. That is why it is SO important to me to show them how much I love them. Why not use Valentine's Day as a day to show them that? Gifts are OK, but sharing the love and spending time as a family is even better! I must admit, Valentines Day is one of my favorite days!

Happy Mama!!!!!

I am one happy mama today! So much good news has come today that I am just over the moon! I don't know how to react. For starters let me re-cap some things on Liam's. When he was two weeks old, through trial and error, he was diagnosed with a milk allergy. No, he is NOT lactose intolerant. He is actually allergic to milk. We had to switch his infant formula to an EXTREMELY expensive non-dairy brand. Once he was old enough we started giving him soy milk and took him off the expensive formula. When he was 6 months old we found out he was allergic to egg. The whole egg. He was given a flu shot and immediately broke out in hives and couldn't breath. It was scary. After lots of blood tests we determined he was severely allergic to egg and only moderately allergic to milk.

His whole life I have lived and learned how to feed my son so that he is not exposed to either egg or milk. I tell you... it is TOUGH. Everything is made with egg.

Every year my son gets re-tested for his allergies. We took him to the allergist and they did a prick skin test. The skin test came up NEGATIVE for both the milk and the egg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To confirm these results his doctor had us get blood tests (oh myyyy, is that another story for another time). After a successful second attempt to draw blood I got his results back from his allergist today. Guess what????? He is in fact NO LONGER ALLERGIC TO EITHER MILK OR EGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can not tell you how happy as a mother I am. My poor child has never had pizza, macaroni and cheese, cake etc.

Liam and his cousin Nolen. They are 2 1/2 months apart in age!

We do have to re-introduce these things slowly, and one at a time. His doctor recommended we start with egg and wait a week and move on to milk. Small portions at first. Wish me luck! I am sooo excited!!!!

Bri- Yes- you can come have pizza with him!!!!

Thank you Jesus- you are sooo good!

Going Left Instead of Right

Sometimes, in our life, we feel as though everything is going right. We are heading in the right direction and we get into a routine. Most married women's routine may have something to do with laundry, cooking, picking up the house, and all the chores. The severity of these things can vary depending on culture.

Then motherhood happens. Motherhood causes us to change our routine. Just as my life was heading in the right direction my entire household gets sick, including my animals. Now let me tell you, I have come to realize (excluding pets) there are FOUR people in my immediate family. If you know me well you are thinking.. "Four?????". Yes, that's right, FOUR. My wonderful and sexy husband, my wonderful, healthy and very smart toddler, myself and the common cold. Yes, I count the common cold as a family member. He just wont go away. Lately, he has taken up the guest bedroom in my house- and he doesn't even pay rent. SHEEESH.

That pretty much sums up motherhood right there. Forget about laundry, the cooking, the picking up, and the chores. Besides, I don't have time anyway- I have to take care of my baby. I have to put cool wash rags on his forehead and keep giving him fluids (thank you Green Machine, you are AWESOME), hug and cuddle him, and feel so extremely bad that I can not snap my fingers and take the illness myself, which I would do a thousand times over if I could. Wait, it appears I am sick one now and he is all better- maybe it worked :-)

But the utter clarity that at any given moment, you'd remove any harmful microbe from their body and inject it into yours... that's when you know your a mama!

New Year, New Me!

Every Sunday, after church, I go visit my Grandmother. I have been doing this for years, and I will continue to do it. I know that she looks forward to my visits, because she has told me so! I love her so much.

I have been thinking a lot lately about doing a complete and total make-over with my life. Starting with how I look at life, in general. Since it is a new year, I decided... why not start now? So, cheers to a new year, new me!

By writing down the steps I am going to take to start my "new me" make-over it helps me to hold myself responsible. I have been doing a lot of research on what steps I can take do accomplish my new make-over. So, here it is:

1. Make God first- this goes without explanation.
2. De-clutter, de-clutter, de-clutter...

• De-clutter my home- clear up my cluttered rooms, give away what I don't need (found my inspiration here), keep my rooms tidy- CLUTTER CREATES STRESS.
• De-clutter my mind- meditate 10 minutes every day, start a journal and write down all my pending tasks for that day.
• GIVE UP ENERGY DRAINS- This one is huge for me... stop watching TV indiscriminately, stop spending time with people who drain my energy (no more emotional junk)!
• Slow down- Do one thing at a time
• Take time out- I mean... after all- I give my two year old time-outs, why cant I have them too? Spend time with people I love, take time out to be in touch with nature, take time out to enjoy MYSELF.

3. Style make-over- Hair, makeup, wardrobe etc. I need to feel better about myself!

Have I told you how much I love this kid? He is so smart. He already knows his ABC's, he can sing Jingle Bells, and Happy Birthday, and he LOVES to talk! He is my world!
  

Its All Over

The Christmas and New Year season for 2010 is long gone. We had a wonderful time spending it with family. Liam lucked out for Christmas, he got a lot of cool things. I have mentioned before how Liam LOVES to vacuum. Every time Donovan pulls out the vacuum Liam gets his lawn mower that Aunti Dawnelle bought him and pretends to vacuum. Well, we bought him a real play vacuum for Christmas and he loves it. See!

When it came time to open presents he was happy passing them out. He was in present heaven.

Sorry this pictures are not the best- they are from my phone. I have much better ones on my camera that I will upload later.

We had a wonderful Christmas, spent lots of time with family and friends!

Now for 2011- all you pregnant mama's out there need to have your baby's!