State Fair: Trip One

Over the last year there have been a number of moments that I have cherished as a parent. About a week and a half ago we went to the Great State Fair of Oklahoma with our little family. We really enjoy the fair and normally go more than once.

(The girls got choosen to do the duck race. They were even on a short clip for the news as their duck tied for first place!)

It was a cloudy rainy day and despite the 102 temperatures just two days prior this day required long sleeves and a jacket.

For me the joy started when jumps and shouts filled the house after Brandon asked the question “Who wants to go to the fair?”  When pulling in the parking lot the excitement couldn’t be contained and again giggles and squeals filled the back seat. After getting in the gate as a parent we had to take care of “business” before getting involved in all the fun. Brandon pulled the girls off the main path out of the way and knelt down to their level. “Do you girls know what to do if you can’t find me or Mommy?” He began helping the girls make a plan should we become separated in the crowd. “Elizabeth, who can help you find us?” “Ummm” Elizabeth began as she contemplated before giving her confident answer “Jesus!” Brandon smiled “Yes, you could pray and ask Jesus to help you find us…there is another person here….” Brandon continued his safety speech. I couldn’t help but smile as my imagination saw little Brandon standing there years ago getting the same type of safety speech given by his dad to him.

We ended up getting tickets to the Disney on Ice show that evening. We came into the building where the show would be and excitement was in the air. Getting settled into our seats over the loud speaker came the announcement in that deep voice “Ladies, and Gentlemen, boys and girls the show will begin in five minutes!” Elizabeth gasped and quickly looked at me with glee on her face and sparkles in her eyes.   Soon after darkness filled the arena, music began to play, and the show was underway. My heart smiled, and call me ridiculous, but tears even came to my eyes as I watched my little girl so filled with wonder, engulfed in the lights, music, and action of the show. She sat there, cotton candy in hand, completely amazed. It made me happy as I remember being the little girl, filled with amazement and wonder completely engulfed in the show, setting next to my Aunt Rhonda who year after year took us to the ice capades at the fair. We would always ride in her blue Camaro, and she would spoil us rotten with the souvenirs from the event, cotton candy, a snow cone, and often times a ride on the camel out at the fair before we headed to the car. I had no idea how much money she spent on us and I’m sure I was never grateful enough! But the memories are beyond dear to my heart and I love getting to be in the other role now finding myself filled with joy as I watch…discovery.

 

There have been so many moments that I have been able to witness this wonder, excitement, and just plan joy as new discoveries are made. Memories are made. It’s priceless. Words don’t describe it but my heart holds each moment and fills in where my words can’t explain. 

Truly, one of the joys of parenting!

"My You've Grown!"...What's your Guess!

Well the full moon didn’t do its job this time around. Honestly I’m ok with that. Sunday night, the night before the full moon, I seriously thought I was in labor. I kept telling myself it wasn’t real but then the contractions were getting harder and not seeming to stop. I felt blah and my back hurt a lot too. Could this be? Brandon and I were just getting into bed and Brandon decided we ought to time the contractions, 7 minutes apart lasting over a minute. Only 5 minutes later came the next one, nice and strong. Maybe this was the real deal! Shortly after they spread themselves back apart and I was able to get a full nights rest with only a few contraction interruptions. I am ready to meet Little Man but, wow, it revealed a few things I needed to deal with before baby comes both on The List and Mentally. Monday I awoke with a new motivation to finish things up! Ironically, Monday, the actual night of the full moon, I had few contractions than I have had for weeks. (Normally at night I have several “Braxton Hicks”.) And in the days since then contractions have been fewer than they have been for several weeks! I feel better about things now though. I am really excited and I feel more ready.

It’s always fun to talk to others about their pregnancies and birth experiences. Here are a few weird things pregnancy does to me:

1.) Rather LARGE protrusion out of my mid-section. :) Let's look at the progression shall we...

0 Weeks

21 Weeks

24 Weeks

29 Weeks

36 Weeks

37 Weeks

2.)    I LOVE the smell of laundry detergent. Doesn't really matter what brand either...just scented. The unscented stuff doesn't have the same effect. :) Yep, I enjoy it so much I literally will sniff each handful of clothes as I take them out of the washer! Mmmmm, smells good!

3.)    I LOVE the smell of clean cars. When I get into the vehicle, large inhale. Ahhhh, refreshing!

4.)    I crave ice in ridiculously large amounts.

5.)    It makes me organize shelves, cabinets, closets, sheds, and make To Do Lists that must be done! (It’s actually quite rewarding and fulfilling to accomplish so much. I enjoy the motivation!) And yet with all of that organizing the house still remains to get clutter and piles around! Job security for sure! :)

I am curious to know when you think Jackson will make his big debut. So, I plan to bribe

you.  Here's the deal - from now (Wednesday, September 14th until Sunday, September 18th, 2011) leave a comment with your guess of Baby's Birthday and Birth Weight. Closest guess, without going over, receives a $5.00 gift card!  (Makes me feel so "real blogger" to be doing a give away! *Blush*) There will be two gift cards...one for birth date and the other for birth weight. In the event of people with the same guess the prize will go to first entry. Also, if I go into labor guessing is immediately closed! Given due date is October 1st.
Happy guessing!

P.S. We moderate the blog comments so your comment will not show up immediately. Winners will be announced after Baby Jackson comes! Isn't this fun!?!

First Week is in the Books!

A new chapter in my life started this past week as we began the adventures of homeschooling. Elizabeth loves to learn so we decided to go ahead and start Pre-K with her. I had never really thought about exactly what all I would do for curriculum and such. So many things sounded good and I had collected a mixture of different activity books throughout the years that it left me with almost too much to choose from.  As I started planning what our Pre-K education would look like it became apparent to me that I was not going to be capable of teaching Pre-K and that my children would have to find an education elsewhere.  Besides, if I was having these overwhelming feelings in Pre-K what in the world would it feel like to be teaching a middle school or older student!? My mother made so many things look so easy!

But, I decided to shake off the feelings of overwhelment, and go with a motto I knew my mother would approve of- K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sweetie!). So what are my basic goals?

Elizabeth loves to learn – Nurture and keep that love alive.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

We are working in simple ways on all of those things. I have two basic books that I am working out of right now to accomplish those goals. Last week things went great as we began our adventure. I have a feeling I will learn a lot over the next several months. There are things I would like to add to our curriculum. However, I feel right now I need to be realistic and just work on getting into our groove with the basics. Lord willing, I will have an infant around soon too which will make things a tad more challenging. Maybe next semester we can branch out even more into all the extra possibilities!

It is really great to be able to learn from my mom, mom-in-love, and close friends who have walked this road already. Learning from others mistake and successes makes things a bit easier. A tradition that my mother-in-love had was taking a first day of school picture of the kids starting school. I liked the idea and hope to keep it up!

Elizabeth Grace- September 5^th 2011-Pre-K  

The Photo Shoots from The List...Check!

There were a few photo shoots I had on The List to accomplish before Jackson arrives. Both have now been checked off The List! I thought you might want to see a few of the shots from these accomplishments. (FYI-It’s an accomplishment because it was on The List.)

The first was to take some pics for my cousin Brittany who is turning 16!!!! I was really excited to do these and it was just as fun as I was hoping. She is such a beautiful lady! She is quite a bit taller than I am and so I had to use the step stool for almost all of the shots! Hehe.

I was glad she brought along a friend. It always helps to have someone else to get real smiles out of the one having to pose and Sam was more than willing to help carry props for this rather large pregnant woman. :) It worked out nicely.

I still can hardly believe Brittany is sixteen. She was the first baby I got to watch being born. I was nine years old. The age at which I first watched a baby being born only occurred to me this year. Seems a little young but I loved every second of it. I wasn’t in the room alone either there was a small cheerleading squad of about 17 of us including nurses. It was definitely an experience I will never forget! I really feel as though a lot of the reason I open my labor and delivery rooms to so many people is because of the experiences I had watching babies be born-starting with Brittany. I also feel as though it just fueled my fire even more to want to be into the nursing field. To this day I still have dreams of going back to school to get my RN (later in life). Labor and delivery is still a field of great interest that I would love to work in.

It is perfectly understandable that not all women are comfortable with having a peanut gallery in the room but I am comfortable with it so I try to take the opportunities to give people who might not otherwise have the chance, the opportunity to watch the awesome miracle of birth.  (I’m interested to know how many of you are thinking “Oh, Rachael, that’s just weird letting lots of people in the delivery room. Birth should be a private event.” vs “That’s really cool to let others have that experience.  I might do the same thing.”  I am fully aware both sides are out there but I will refrain from taking a poll. J )

Anyways, Happy 16^th Brittany! Love you bunches!!! Don’t forget in your 16^th year of life. Think before you act…you don’t get do-overs. Just do right! (As my mom always says.J)

The other photo shoot was a final maternity shoot for me. I also wanted to include some family shots.  My friend Morgan came out to take the pictures and it was lots of fun! The weather was AMAZING!!! We got some fun shots and, of course as with all of my photo shoots, learned along the way. Practice, practice, make adjustments and then practice again. Here are a few shots from that day.

Brandon wasn’t the most thrilled about taking part in our “fun” photo shoot. Therefore I had to put up with attitudes like this...

But he was a good sport and complied with my requests to get into sweet poseslike this: J

And here are some more shots from the evening...

Here are some of the photos edited a bit differnetly...

And then after all of the posed pictures let's just keep things real. This is the parents this child is really getting. Classy...quality...good parents are hard to find these days! :)

Will our children survive us? TBA!

And He Shall Be Called...

I always thought picking out a name for my children would be so much fun and to a certain extent it is. But it has proven to be a far more difficult task than I would have ever thought! It’s not like when I was a kid and for a span of time this doll was named one thing and then when I found a name that I liked better the dolls name changed as well. No, this child in my womb will have this name for his entire life. ENTIRE LIFE! No take backs or do-overs. Talk about serious pressure. Do you understand the gravity of the situation here?  At about six weeks into this pregnancy I mentioned to Brandon a name that I like for a boy. I say it with the middle name (a generational name that we want to continue passing down) and Brandon says “Yeah, I like that too. There it’s settled!” “What!?” I exclaim, backtracking; now offering other name possibilities too. It’s not that I didn’t like the name but what about all the other name choices out there? We hadn’t even cracked the cover on a name book! How can you possibly settle on a lifetime name for your child after a three minute discussion? I mean, seriously, a boy doesn’t even get a last name change! We didn’t even know what the name meant! What if it meant something awful!? (Actually, although I did consider this “problem” I wasn’t too concerned about it…there are so many different places to find meanings of names certainly I could find one meaning that wouldn’t be awful. Who decides what a name means anyways?)

My other name suggestions were not even getting Brandon to budge. He liked the original and so the original it stayed. After the gender reveal party something clicked and the name just seemed to be right. It still took me some time but I would always refer to little man by his name. In a few weeks I hope to put a handsome sweet little face to the name we have chosen, after much thought (3 minutes), for our son - Jackson.

Jackson Chasteene Werner

So what does the name mean anyways? Really it’s not that difficult. Research shows Jackson to mean…son of jack. Helpful, I know, and completely not true in our case! Actually, it’s like Jack, which is apparently derived from John, which means Gracious gift of God or God is Gracious. See, it’s all about where you look. Again I pose the question, who decides this stuff?

Chasteene is a long, long time family name in the Werner family. It has been passed down for many generations and although we were given complete freedom to not use it I was very glad to pass it on. Besides that was one less name I had to decide on! J 

And for those of you who will ask, the reason we are holding Jack is because the set of letters we had lacked the letter "O". Yes, we plan on calling him Jackson. Yes, it is perfectly ok if you just call him Jack.

Counting the days until Jackson arrives!

Four Weeks to Go!

The winds of change are in the air! Today the cool weather was amazing although truth be told with my extremely, ridiculous, massive, ice cravings for the past 20 plus weeks I haven’t been too bummed to be pregnant in the summer. Yes, it’s been quite a little over kill on the heat factor but I can’t imagine eating all the ice I have in the winter months!

Sixteen weeks ago I started working on “The List”. Experience from the past made me feel the pressure to start early if I had any hope of accomplishing what needed to be done. Things started moving along quite nicely as I was able to slowly check a few things off The List. It was a strange phenomenon however; as things got checked off more things also got added on. That just didn’t seem right but everything on The List HAD /HAS to be done and time continued/continues ticking away so I press on. Having a deadline provides real motivation for getting things done.  And now it’s here. I am four, let it sink in…. 4, here it ring out in your ears… F.O.U.R!!!, weeks away from my little man being here!

If the list isn’t finished certainly my home will never have any sort of order ever again. Ok, maybe that’s a little far but that’s how my insides feel nonetheless. :) So, I press on, finishing the final things on The List. The carpets are shampooed (even the car), the junk room is now organized and holds a perfect little place for Little Man and his belongings, Elizabeth’s first year of school is planned and underway, my hair has been cut, clothes have been gone through for the cooler weather months for the girls, the kitchen cabinets have been rearranged and cleaned out, labor books have been read, the house has been cleaned…and recleaned…and cleaned again. (Actually I kind of gave up on that one being done in advance, maintaining a house is ridiculous and is a whole other blog post completely. The current goal is to have the house good enough that when I realize I am in labor I can clean the house before I leave…and it will be clean before I leave for the hospital. I’m so weird about these things when I am pregnant/in labor. Maybe some of the motivation will stick around after little man gets here.) Truly it is some of the best motivation I have ever had. The thought process of I could go into labor tomorrow so I have to complete this task now… so much more gets accomplished. Weird how when you don’t procrastinate but instead actually do things…things get done.  Wisdom beyond the ages, I know. :)

So now I just wait-finish the smaller less pressing things on The List, attempt to maintain the home, drink lots of water, eat more ice, enjoy every full nights sleep I get, focus on a successful labor and delivery, and let the fact soak in that I am approximately FOUR WEEKS AWAY FROM MEETING MY LITTLE MAN!!!!!  YAHOOOOOOO!