I made it!

So, I skated 45 miles total. 15 miles on Friday night, and 25 miles on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the skate. It was slow (not a race). We would skate a few miles and then stop, re-group, get water and bananas, then go another few miles. I'm not sure why it was like this. I'm thinking it was for the police escorts. Either way, it was fun and a long way to go. I feel good, my legs are just a tiny bit sore today, but nothing to bad.

I did not fall, Praise the Lord, but I did cry the whole way down the big tall causeways (if you've ever been on a cruise out of Miami and you remember the bridges...that's what I skated up and down. It was pretty terrifying blading down the bridges. I called Jeremy crying when I got to the bottom because I knew he would help be breathe again, hahaha. I was safe though...just scared. Isn't it weird that I will jump out of an airplane, but rollerblading down a bridge terrified me. What a weirdo:-)

Well, I'm hoping to be able to post pictures soon that my friend took. She hasn't sent them yet. I need to go to bed. Good night:-)

The Great eSkate

Today I am going to Miami with my friend Katie to skate in an in-line (rollerblading) marathon event. We will be skating 15 miles tonight and 21 miles tomorrow. It's actually not quite as far as I first thought. I am excited but will miss Jeremy and the girls. They are staying home. It will be a fun time though. I'm looking forward to skating, eating and reading in the room (and sleep of course)

Look how cool I am in my skating clothes and protective gear. I went for a quick skate last night. I did 4 miles in 2o minutes. Not to bad I think. I'll post pictures next week of the event if I have any.

*Pray for me as I drive over on the alley.

*Pray for me as I hang out with Katie...we don't know each other well (and mom, you know how I get when I'm around someone for too long!)

*Pray that I actually finish, this sounds like a long way to skate for me

*Pray that I would be protected and safe

The Mommy Dance

Tonight I performed several different renditions of "The mommy dance". You know what this is, slyness of an undercover detective, acrobatics like a dancer, slowness of a sloth all with the goal of getting a baby to sleep then slipping out of the room before they know it. You know the dance, and probably do it too. There are several types, all performed to different music, such as whimpering, screaming at the top of the lungs, painful cry, and the most difficult of all, silence. yes, silence is perhaps the worse because you must keep your own beat, and pray there is nothing on the floor that a slipped foot will hit. Occasionally your performance is disrupted by another person's noise, yes, the other...usually older child. It is most difficult to integrate the other child's music into the song of silence. All you can do is freeze your dance, in hope the babe will sleep.

What on earth am I talking about? Hannah is such a crummy sleeper! It's so hard because I know what she wants...ME! She wants me near. She is fine if I am next to her bed, touching her back, but the moment I walk away, she simply looses it. How on earth did I create this in her? Or did I? I have done everything I know of to help her learn to sleep. I really don't mind waking up, that's not the point. I will go on tomorrow and A-OK fine. I haven't been up all night, just an hour or so. I'm just bummed that she is still not a good sleeper.

And....tonight Nicole actually woke up with the crying. Or should I say, After. This was frustrating because she was wide- awake. She's so sweet and cute, "Mommy, me take biiiiiggg nap". She's so proud, only for me to squelch that and tell her she needs to go back to bed. She got up two more times until I *think* I've convinced her to stay in bed (of course purely through guilt...I pretended to be her dog crying, wanting to go back to sleep, but I can't because Nicole is out of bed, hahaha. I wonder how long this will work). *edit* It didn't last long...she's back up again. OK...now the big threats are coming out. No more Mrs. Nice mommy...

Every attempt to put Nicole back to sleep forced me to continue the dance. Every crack of my bony feet and sound of my toes sticking to the floor threatened to awake the sweet, sort of sleeping babe, and force me to perform all over again. For now, it seems, they are both back to sleep. It's 5 and I'm suppose to "wake up" in 30 minutes. Do I dare go back and lay down? Perhaps.

But, I will say this....I love my girls. I love the way Hannah snuggles into me when I pick her up. I love how cute Nicole looks in the dim light of morning with her messy hair in her face. I love the way Nicole smiles with pride after sleeping (almost) all night. I love the way Hannah instantly stops crying when I pick her up. I am so blessed. I love my life. I love my family. I wouldn't trade them, or any part of them, for anything in the world....not even more sleep.

9 month check up

Hannah turned 9 months old on Jan. 29. Truly, I can not believe how quickly she is growing up. She is such a sweet little girl and I am looking forward to watching her grow many years to come. Hannah had her 9 month check up today. Everything looks great. She is 18lbs 4 ounces and her height is 28 inches.

Hannah is doing wonderfully developmentally. She is sitting on her own, pulling to standing, waving, babbling a lot, saying a few words...sort of. I don't know if she can clap because I've never really seen her, or worked with her. So...we'll work on that. Her eating habits are good and the doc says she see two more teeth coming in soon (I am so NOT looking forward to that!).

I just went to compare Nicole's stats at 9 months and I thought for sure Nicole would be significantly bigger. But, she wasn't...they are pretty close. At nine months, Nicole was 17lbs 14 oz and 28.25 inches.

Here is a picture of Hannah I took yesterday

And Nicole at 9 months.I love this picture (and others that go along with it) of Nicole at the beach. We need to get Hannah down there soon.

Praise the Lord for healthy little babies. Aren't they great?!?

Camping and random things

We work with the college/career ministry at our church. This weekend, we had a camp out. Let me preface this by saying, last year we camped at the same time of the year and it was sweltering. We were literally sweating at night, so in planning, we were hoping for slightly cooler weather. Well...we got it. It was in the low forties..maybe even high thirties at night. I chose not to camp out on Friday for various reasons, but I missed being there. Jeremy called me Saturday morning and asked if I could bring the girls out that night and camp out. So...we did. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so no photos. It was FREEZING!!! but we all snuggled up together, sort of, and it wasn't to bad. Hannah ended up sleeping on top of or next to me. Nicole was in her sleeping bag about half the night, then she moved over ans shared a pillow with Jeremy the other half. When light finally broke and I saw them, it was precious. I would have risked waking them up to take a picture, if I would have had the camera. Oh well. Nicole was super duper excited and her face was adorable Sun morning when she woke up and remembered she was in a tent. We will be going camping again very soon (maybe minus Hannah until next year).

Nicole loves to cut paper. My friend Teri introduced me to these really cool books called Kumon. They have several geared towards 2, 3 and 4 year olds. One is just for cutting. It's been fun for Nicole and I see her progress as she learns to use scissors. The first page was simply cutting slits to make whiskers for a dog. It progresses to cutting the page in half, and now she is making several cuts on one page. She is very good at following the grey line. They also have tracing, mazes, coloring, stickers and other sorts of work books. The pages Nicole cut today needed to be taped together to form a rocket (and of course she loves using tape, and is getting much better at it too).

And, I posted a video of Hannah last week. Nicole watched the video and asked where she was, so here is a video of Nicole from last Friday I believe. Her Umbrenannana is really an umbrella. And, it was sprinkling just a bit, but stopped before she got her umbrella open:-) Enjoy

Dreaming of some Zzzzs

***UPDATE***
Last night I went to bed at 9 and slept until 6!! Yay! I feel better. Hannah's fever is gone and her teeth have arrived.

Last night was perhaps the worst night I've had, ever, with both of the girls. They both went down fine, except that Hannah's fever spiked to 103.8. I gave her infant motrin and she went to sleep. The guys had their Bible Study and I hung out in the room and went to bed around 10:15. About 10:45 (just as I fell into a great sleep) I awake to hear Hannah screaming (not crying, screaming). Jeremy ended up getting her and tried putting her back down to sleep. I went back to bed...5 minutes later, screaming again. So, I got up and decided to stay up because I hate to lay down and get back up. It really messes with me. The guys left a little after 11 and Jeremy went to bed. Before I go further, let me say that Jeremy would stay up with me if I asked him to, but I believe that it is important for him to get sleep because he has to work the next day. If I'm tired, I can just lay low around the house, he can't. So it makes me happy when he goes to bed at night.
Anyway....Hannah screamed and cried for about an hour. Since she was no longer feverish (completely gone), had a dry diapers and I even *gasp* nursed her, so she was fed, I let her cry it out. So, about 11:45 Nicole gets up and says she has to potty. This happened a few more times. Hannah is still screaming, Nicole keeps getting up to go potty, and I'm awake. Hannah finally falls asleep at 12:30, Nicole had been down again about 15 minutes, so I head for bed. 5 minutes later, here comes Nicole. We go potty, lay her down, I go back to bed. 10 minutes later (of course I just fell asleep again) here comes Nicole again. I decide she doesn't have to pee, so I rock her in the living room. Something I haven't done this late at night in a long long time. I decide to cherish the moment and I truly enjoyed rocking with my sweet -growing up to fast -baby. She however was wide awake!!! It took me close to 45 minutes to rock her to sleep. So I transition her into her bed about 1:30 or 1:40. I decide not to go right back to bed, just in case. About 2, I crawl back in bed and head to sleep. At that time, I had decided not to get up at 5 and go to the gym...I knew 3 hours wouldn't be enough sleep for me for the next day.

5:45, Hannah is screaming again. There is NO consoling her or getting her back to sleep. I lay on the couch with her for about 30 minutes, give up and start playing with her. Jeremy gets up at 6:30, Nicole gets up when she hears the shower turn on...and alas, the day has started with me only getting 3 1/2 hours of sleep.

I was cranky this morning...I can not lie. But, by about 8:30 I was having normal conversation and making some sense. I've had a good day with the girls and even visiting with a few friends. I am sooooo sleepy and didn't get a nap because sweet Hannah decided not to take one yet this afternoon (she did sleep about 3 hours this morning, which was good I guess since she didn't sleep much last night).

Why did I post this...not to complain, although it may have sounded like it. I was actually cool with everything and submitted to the fact that I am their mother, and this is my job...until 6:15 this morning when I held Hannah up and told her I didn't know what to do with her, hahaha.

You know what though...there are many mothers and babies who do this on a nightly basis. I'm thankful nights like this are somewhat uncommon for us. I enjoyed rocking with Nicole. I did not enjoy listening to Hannah scream, but I was happy when she finally fell asleep. I'm thankful my girls are healthy, strong little people that can take a bad night and make it into a good day. And, I'm even more thankful that God's grace is sufficient for me. I could not have made it through today without his grace in my life, I would have been a mess. So, Thank You Lord for showing me abundant grace today.

FIRST WORDS!!!!

Of course my mom thinks Hannah has been saying 'Yaya' lately (her name from the girls) and Jeremy thinks she's been saying 'dadda' (which is quite likely), but I think I can absoluetely officially say her first words are ' bye bye'. She said it several times just now (while waving bye bye). Of course on camera it wasn't quite as purposeful...but I'm putting it down in the book. Here's the video.

2 Prayer Requests

I have two prayer requests I want to pass along.

1. Please pray for Rick, Justin's girlfriend's father. He was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer just before the new year. We got to see him and his wife, Debbie, on Sunday. They came over for pizza for my birthday. It was great to see them both. Rick seemed in good spirits and looked great. He's receiving treatment.

2. Also, please pray for our friend Nathan. He is a Navy Seal that was just deployed again. He'll be gone for 16 months! That means he's scheduled to be back August 2010. He is on a very dangerous mission (obviously, we don't know what but I'm sure it's more dangerous than we can even imagine!), and we just ask that you pray for his safety, and the safety of his team (most of whom are married and have children!). We met him a few months ago while he was home and he's a pretty interesting guy. He loves the Lord and His Word. I just figured the more prayers, the better for a soldier who goes in where others can't or don't.

Thanks for reading this and adding these two men to your prayer lists. I'm so grateful we can approach the Throne of God with confidence and pray for our friends. What a blessing.

4 kids under 4, whew

Yesterday I got to watch our friend's kids, Peyton(3) and Caulder (1 1/2). They are sweet boys, but wow...what a difference 2 more children make, no...make that 2 more boys. I had some activities planned, which was good. We read a book called "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie". Then we talked about circles and the kids got a sticker every time they found a circle. Unlike Nicole, the boys weren't really into that idea, so it got scrapped. Then we glued together a paper mouse, which actually went really well. However, by 9:30, I had used up all of my tricks and I had till 4:00. hahaha. After Hannah woke up, we walked to a little park in our neighborhood. This was good because it took up a good hour of the morning. Then, we came back and Peyton and I washed my car while the other kids watched, we had lunch and nap time even went ok (I snuck one in too...I'll tell you why in a minute). Looking back on it, it wasn't a bad day at all. In the moment, I felt a bit scattered. Here are some observations and thoughts from the day.

1. Boys are different than girls (and I don't' just mean on the potty...although I was scared Peyton was going to pee all over the bathroom, he didn't). Boy are louder, faster, and more intense. Peyton didn't stop talking all day, and he talks loud. He plays loud, he is loud. Nicole is loud sometimes...but not all the time.
2. I got a glimpse of what's to come. In one word....TATTLING!!!! Uh, this was the most draining part for me. But, now I know what to pray about and read about over the next few months as I'm sure Nicole will pick this habit up. Any advice on dealing with tattling would be much appreciated.
3. Bathroom and diapers are the most time consuming part of the day.
4. It's really hard to meet all the needs of each of the kids all at the same time.

I love Peyton and Caulder. They are the closest thing to sons that Jeremy and I have. We have been a part of their lives since day one, and hope to be for a long long time. They are wonderful little boys. However, I've never spent this much time with them as the caregiver before. And it's definitely harder than just being fun "Aunt Michele" when we get to play when we're just hanging out. I think I get to watch them every Monday as Brooke (their mom) finishes school this year. I am looking forward to it. But, I definitely need to be prepared and have a plan. And, hopefully Hannah won't be teething every Monday either, which brings me to my next point.

Hannah's two top teeth are coming in, and bless her little heart, it is NOT easy for her. She has been running a fever for about 30 hours now. It got really high yesterday for about 2 hours, but the rest of the time, it's been bearable. She's pretty happy for the most part, with a little extra fussy in there. This complicated yesterday because I really just wanted to hold her and comfort her, but I couldn't because of the other three...so that was tough. Her teeth still haven't broke through yet, hopefully today. Oh...this was why I needed a nap yesterday, I only slept about 3 or 4 hours the night before because she was crying so much:-( But, she slept all night last night.

Well, I suppose this post is long enough. My point....we had a good day yesterday with the four kids, but I need help dealing with tattle tales. Hannah is teething and hopefully will be better soon. And, I'm caught up on sleep.

Record Lows

So...it is frigid!!!! hahaha. For my northern friends and family....here was my car at 8am this morning (it's already melted). However, I believe we had record, or near record lows last night....low thirties near the coast, mid twenties inland. It should warm up to a beautiful 60ish degrees. I love Florida winters:-)