Catching up!

Wow, I have had the privilege of spending the past 6 days with my children and my wife, and I have had a wonderful time so far. I am sliding back into my role as daddy after a 5 month stint in Oak Ridge, TN. I have missed a lot of time with them and I am trying to make up for it in a week of time off. Though I am trying, I know that nothing can replace that time lost and that it is just something that I have to deal with. I am extremely grateful to have a job in this economy. I hope that I won’t have to travel for a little while and can properly make up for lost time.

It has been a long time since either one of us has blogged, so I thought I’d get it kicked off again. Rachel and I are doing well (even with the travel.) She has been an inspiration to me with her weight loss. Angie is in her second year of pre-school, and starting to trace letters. The potty training is going well and we are almost totally there aside from the past three days where things have gone a little haywire. Caleb is starting to talk up a storm, although it is hard for him to get a word in with Angie around. We sometimes forget how much he can talk until Angie is at school, and then he lets loose the vocab.
We went to the GA Aquarium on Tuesday and that was a great day to go. The crowd was light and the animals were active. We got some great pictures.
That’s all for now.
Nick

Update

I promised an update after I took the kids to their check ups so here it is! According to their doctor they both are fine and looking good. Angie weighed 29 lbs (45th percentile) and was 38 and 1/4 inches tall (75th percentile). Caleb weighed 21 lbs, 13 oz (25th percentile) and was 31 inches tall (75th percentile). So both kids have above average height and below average weight. Caleb was of course perfect while they weighed him and the doctor looked him over. Angie did not like being weighed (I have no idea why) but she was great while the doctor looked her over. They both had to get shots so I enlisted Nick to go with me. I knew there was no way I could comfort them both at the same time.

The picture above is from Angie's actual birthday. As you can see, Caleb isn't always fond of getting hugs from his sister. Sometimes he loves them, but sometimes he just grins and bears it!

Its Been Awhile...

So, I realized when I went to type this that it has been nearly 3 months since my last post. Oops! I am really bad at finding/making the time to do these kinds of things. A lot has been going on. Caleb is now walking. He is doing really well with it. At first he was only willing to walk when we stood him up and made him do it. Now, he will walk wherever he wants and if he falls, he gets right back up and keeps on going. He is babbling a lot more now too. His two favorite words are "Angie" and "Daddy". He still only says "Mama" if he is sad or really wants something (little stinker). He tries to mimick everything that he sees Angie doing. Its really quite adorable.

Speaking of Angie...she is also doing really well. I think putting her in preschool was the best decision we ever made for her. She has really blossomed and seems to be learning all the time. We have even taught her to count to 6 in Spanish! Potty training is still going on. I was hoping we would be there by now but that just isn't the case. She has good days and bad days. Her problem is that she ignores the "urge to go" until its too late, she prefers to play. Her underwear usually only gets a little wet but still, we want to her to be able to make it to the potty on time, every time. I can't believe she will be 3 tomorrow. Where has the time gone? In some ways it seems like just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital. But in other ways, it seems like she should be turning 6 instead of 3.

Well, good night all. I am taking the kids to their check ups next week so I'll post again with all their new stats!

Happy Spring!

Not a Baby Anymore

Caleb turned 1 yesterday. I can't believe a year has gone by already. Yesterday was a little bittersweet for me. We have decided not to have anymore children so yesterday marked the end of babies in our house. As much as I love the fact that Caleb can crawl and get around, the fact that he is so happy and friendly, the fact that he has a great belly laugh and loves his sister whole heartedly, I was a little saddened to think that we don't have a "baby" anymore. Don't get me wrong, I don't miss the sleepless nights or making and washing tons of bottles, but I do miss being able to sit and hold a sleeping newborn. Caleb has changed so much over the past year. He is making his opinion known even though he only says a couple of words. He definitely lets us know when he is not happy about something (mainly when meals are over). He no longer gets a bottle or eats baby food. We will take away the paci in a few months too. He seems to be growing up so fast. I don't remember Angie growing this fast. I am very ready for him to walk though. He just doesn't seem to be interested in it at all. He pulls up and furniture walks but crawling is just fastest for him.

We had his party early so that it would be away from the Christmas get togethers. We had a small celebration last night for just the 4 of us and that was really nice. We had dinner at Jim N' Nicks and then had a small cake. It was intimate and very nice.

Well, that's about all, I just wanted to reflect on the last year in our lives. It seems hard to believe that last year when we attended our Christmas Eve service, we had a 3 day old and this year we will have a 1 year old. My how things change...

Merry Christmas, we love you all!!!

Thankfulness

We had an amazing service at church this morning. I am so thankful for a church staff who listens to God's call and really "gets" what people need. Mike only preached for about 10 minutes. The rest of the service was singing praises to our Lord and people coming to the mics to tell what they are thankful for. I heard stories of illnesses healed, addictions wiped away, hearts mended, God meeting needs, emotional hurts healed. I could just keep going. It was amazing to me how many people were thankful even in the midst of a storm. One woman has had the worst year that I think I have ever heard of, including hospitalization, a divorce, loss of a job. And yet, she was still thankful in the midst of all of that. I was truly touched by what I heard. Then, as we sang Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone), you could truly feel the Holy Spirit in the room. As we all praised God for releasing us from our "chains" we were truly thankful to Him. It was one of the best services we have ever had (in my opinion).

So, you ask, what am I thankful for? Well, I am thankful that God has allowed me to fulfill the calling He placed in my heart many years ago to be a stay at home mom. When He blessed us with children, He also blessed us financially so that I could be at home with them. He has given me an amazing husband who not only loves me and the kids unconditionally, but he is an incredible provider as well. He has been the love of my life since I was 15 and I thank God continually for that. I cannot imagine having to date and find someone new. I am thankful that we are all healthy. There are so many families dealing with illness and disease that it just makes me so thankful that we aren't in that valley.

Well, my kids are waking up from their Sunday afternoon siesta so its time to go and be their mom again!

Happy Thanksgiving! Make sure you tell the ones around you that you are thankful for them.

Caleb Update

I took Caleb to the doctor today for his 9 month check up (can you believe he is that old already?). He weighs 19 lbs and 11 oz. That is the 50th percentile for his weight, I think the fact that he is crawling has caused him to stop gaining weight so fast. He is 28 and half inches tall which is about the 80th percentile. His doctor said he looks great and he didn't even have to have any vaccinations today!! I had to take Angie with me and I was very nervous about this because the last time she was at the doctor, she was terribly afraid and cried and screamed the whole time. Since then, I have had my friend Katie keep her whenever Caleb had a doctors appointment. The plan for today was that I would take him while she was at school, but school was cancelled because of the flooding. She did wonderfully. She didn't cry or act out or even act nervous at all. One time she did ask to leave but I told her we weren't done yet and that was enough. She even hugged the doctor before we left. I was amazed!

Back to Caleb...he is growing so fast. He is crawling everywhere and he is so fast. He has this great belly laugh now that is just adorable and you can't help but laugh when you hear it. He is finding humor in odd and random things (for instance, yesterday he was laughing hysterically at a ball). He is just the happiest little boy. We are slowly taking away his bottles and will take another one away at the beginning of October. That will have him down to only two bottles a day. I can't believe we are already at that point in his life.

That's all for now. The kids are in bed so now we get to watch a TV show (recorded from last night since we can never seem to get them in bed in time to watch things live!).

Preschool Begins

Angie began going to preschool this week. I had high hopes that she would be fine because at open house on Monday she was great. She was a little hesitant to go in the room but then she started to play and we painted a little. She was really enjoying herself. She even hugged the teacher before we left. I thought, "hey, this is great!". When we dropped her off Tuesday morning she was great again. She walked right into the room and never looked back. She could have cared less that we weren't in there with her. When I picked her up she was happy. She really seemed to enjoy herself. Then Thursday rolled around...I had to do the car line on Thursday. This is what started it all, I think. The person who took her from our car was someone we didn't know. She was hesitant to leave the van but I convinced her to get out. About 9:45 I got a call that she was still crying and had even thrown up because she was crying so hard. We agreed to let her stay and see what happened. They called back at 10:15 and said she was still crying but was a little better. We still decided for her to stay and I would just pick her up when school let out at 11:00. I just figured that she has to learn that school is fun and I am not going to come and rescue her just because she cries. We will see what next week holds.

On a side note, Caleb started crawling right after my last post. I believe it was on August 27th. I blogged that afternoon that he really wanted to but just hadn't figured it out. Well, later that afternoon, he figured it out! He is doing the army crawl but I don't think it'll be long before he is crawling on his hands and knees. He is pretty fast and we can already tell that he is going to be the child who gets into lots of things and will try to figure out how things work. Oh boy...

PS, the picture is from her first day of school. We took it before we left the house that morning.