Saturday, January 30, 2010

Drum roll please...

Sorry I didn't blog right after my doctor's appointment on Wednesday, but we had a rather busy day and then I came down with a nasty stomach bug on Thursday night. I'm still recovering, but I figured I couldn't keep y'all waiting any longer.

It's a BOY!!!

Yep, Kirk will have a little brother close in age to rough-house with and poor Shiphrah will have to settle for doing girlie things with Mommy, at least for a few more years. :)

So....boy names. Gideon is probably our top choice right now, but Avery also likes Isaac, Titus, and Silas.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Baby names and other news.

Both the headaches and morning sickness have been pretty mild lately, so mostly I'm just battling with exhaustion at this point. Which is much better and I pray it stays that way. 17 weeks along today! We have an ultrasound this coming Wednesday that will hopefully tell us if we are having a girl or boy! We have no clue on boy names, but we do have a couple of girl names we like. I love the name Evelyn (it was my grandmother's name...I'm a sucker for family names) and Brianna (pronounced "ana" not "anna"...not sure what spelling I like though). It was funny; usually Avery and I never agree on names, but when I mentioned I like Brianna, he chimed in and said he liked it too! I know a lot of people wait until the baby is born to decide on a name, but I really enjoy the closeness I feel by being able to the baby by name and talk to him or her. So hopefully we can come up with some good boy names pretty quickly. William is one of the names I like, but Avery says only if his middle name can be Wallace. :) If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. We like Bible names and unique names, but don't care for names that are trendy, unisex, or sound like last names. (Some of my favorite male Bible names are Paul, Philip, and Caleb, but Avery isn't crazy about any of those.)

Anyhoo, that was kind of jumbled. I'm definitely going to bed in a few minutes. Since I've been feeling better, I've been trying to catch up on housework and take advantage of the gorgeous weather we've been having (sunny and in the 70's!). So I took the kids to the park this afternoon for a little while and was pooped by the time we got home (pushing a double stroller is NOT easy). The kitchen is gradually getting cleaner by the day (still a long way to go though), I'm cooking more often now, and all the Christmas decorations are finally put away. So I think I deserve an early bedtime tonight. :)

Oh, before I forget, Avery got some surprising news when he got to work today. Because of a shortage of officers on the shift following his, he's getting moved temporarily. When he graduated they told him that they would only pull for mandatory transfers from the bottom of the class ranking (a motivation for them to get good grades), but apparently it's easier to transfer within sub-stations, so they just pulled Avery and a girl from his junior class to make the move. Basically he'll be working the overnight shift (10 - 6) for the next month (they promise it'll be only a month, but the official special assignment is for 60 days) with his days off being Monday and Tuesday. And, go figure, he starts this new schedule TOMORROW. Did I mention he just found out today? We're not sure how the whole sleeping thing is going to work. The room we're using for our master bedroom doesn't have a door on it and gets really bright during the day. So I think we're going to move Kirk back into Shiphrah's room (their nap schedules are somewhat close now) and make Avery a temporary bed in Kirk's room so he can sleep. I wish we had an extra twin mattress or something though...I don't think he's going to want to sleep on a camping cot for a month. Poor guy, I hate that he's going to be exhausted for an entire month...he doesn't do well on night shifts...he can't seem to sleep well enough during the day.

Well, I'm off to bed. Goodnight, all!


Sunday, January 17, 2010

Two outta three ain't bad.

Thanks for the prayers, y'all! I actually had a really good day yesterday...just a light headache for part of the day! And my queasiness was minimal too!! I'm thinking part of that had to do with the fact that I was out of the house all day and in and out of the fresh air (friend's wedding). Maybe the stuffiness of the house is making my headaches worse. Today I had a pretty ugly headache on and off all day, but it let up enough for me to get a few things done here and there.

Like I said in my last brief post, aside from how I've been feeling, everything really has been going wonderfully around here. Kirk has finally gotten a reprieve from teething, so he's been sleeping much better and his overall mood has improved dramatically. Shiphrah is keeping me on my toes with her need to touch and get into everything. (Which she typically does when I'm holding Kirk...little booger.) She also is establishing herself in her role as Big Sister and loves to boss her little brother around constantly. I want her to interact with him, so I'm torn as to how to teach her to play with him without trying to play for him. You know what I mean?

In other news, Avery got his vacation requests for the year approved this week so we are all set for our mini-getaway in May and his two-week vacation over Christmas! I'm soooo looking forward to our getaway...it'll be the first time since our honeymoon that it will be just the two of us. We haven't decided where we're going or what we'll be doing yet, but I'll probably start looking into that soon. Is it bad that I'm going to be away from my kids on Mother's Day weekend? I didn't realize we were planning it over that weekend, but now I'm feeling a little guilty. Oh well, I guess they'll see me that night anyway.

So life is grand! The only thing that's really been bothering me is my inability to balance everything appropriately. I look at my "occupation" as three-fold: wife, mother, and housekeeper. They're pretty much prioritized in that order too, so when things get tough, the house is what falls apart first. But that irks me to no end because I feel like I should be able to manage. I want to be a "Domestic Goddess" like the book Fascinating Womanhood talks about and be a wonderful wife, mother, and keep my house looking beautiful. I know it's probably just God keeping my pride in check because I would have a HUGE head if I had it all together. But, like my title says, two outta three ain't bad, I guess. I did get about half the dishes in the sink washed this evening before my back started screaming at me...so maybe by tomorrow night I'll have a clean sink again (for the first time in two weeks...sad, isn't it?).

Well, I'm getting sleepy sitting here and I still have to stay up until the laundry finishes in the dryer.

Friday, January 1, 2010

I Resolve...

I don't usually do New Year's Resolutions...at least, not since high school...but I figured there were some areas in my life that need improvement that would be beneficial to make public. For accountability and all.

In 2010 I resolve too...
- read my Bible and pray more
- soften my tone when I respond to my husband and children
- love my husband more
- supress my negativity and strive to be more positive
- appreciate the little things
- be more laid back and less up tight about everything
- be more merciful, graceful, joyful, and patient