Well, There Goes 10 Years...

Dad remembered that he hadn't checked on Anna like he had promised. He came back out after a minute and asked,

"Where's your boy?"

"Isn't he in his bed? He was sound asleep when I left his room."

"No, he's not there."

"In the top bunk? Anna's room?"

"No. No."

I figured he was just squished up in the corner under the covers. I go to check it out. No Jacob. I pull the covers off his bed. Nope. I look in the top bunk...not there either. I'm getting mildly concerned. If Jacob wakes up, he comes and finds us right away. And we were all sitting in the TV room the whole time so he hadn't come this way at all. All four of us are searching for him. I looked in his closet, under his bed, all over Anna's room. I'm starting to freak out a little bit on the inside. All I can think of is that the windows are open-someone broke the screen and took him. We've looked everywhere we can think of so Mom and Aaron start looking outside. Suddenly Dad says,

"Here he is!"

GOOD GRAVY!!! This is his and Anna's "secret hiding place"! He had to have been half asleep/sleep-walking. He's never done anything like this before, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I used to sleep walk. At 3, I took a midnight stroll, in the middle of winter with snow on the ground, barefoot in my nightgown. I got stuck between the storm door and front door and woke up screaming. It took them a bit to find me. After we found Jacob, Mom said "now you know how we felt!" Sure, except you could FOLLOW THE SOUND of my crying! Needless to say, we will be dead-bolting the door now-not to keep people out, but to keep Jacob IN! The adventures of parenthood!

Blessed

I'm feeling beyond blessed tonight (well...this morning). Many reasons. Jacob woke up (scared me half to death) so I took him back to bed where he, of course, requested to play with my hair. I obliged (I'm not sure there's much sweeter than feeling those chubby little hands run through my hair!) but Isaac was screaming and had been for a long time. So when I thought Jacob was asleep, I slipped out of bed. But I knocked my knee of the wood floor and woke him up. I told him I had to take care of Isaac and would be back. I got some cuddle time in with my baby and went back to check on Jacob. He wasn't in his bed so I checked Anna's room. There they were, snuggled up sound asleep and Jacob had his hand in Anna's hair.

I'm beyond blessed to see those two so close, the best of friends.

I'm beyond blessed to have a sweet baby (who is growing too quickly!) that loves to cuddle.

Sometimes I look around our house and it just feels surreal that it's ours. So many people have said something along the lines of "You guys really deserve this!" And part of me agrees wholeheartedly that YES! We DESERVE this house...we waited a long time and we worked really hard to get out of debt so we could afford another house and etc etc etc. But really? We don't deserve anything. But God, in His grace and mercy and love, blessed us with this new house. And I pray that we will use this blessing to bring glory to Him, to spread His love, to be a haven to those He puts in our path.

I'm beyond blessed (those are only a few of the reasons I'm blessed! I could go on and on...). And it's only by God's grace, mercy, and love that I am beyond blessed.

Kids' Bathroom: Before

I say this a before photo because I think this weekend we're going to put tile down. Lucky for us, the previous owners left plenty of extra tile from the master bathroom! So it will be a fairly inexpensive re-do!! The only thing I've done to it is add the shower curtain and rug. I think I'll also get new knobs for the drawers.

 Mom has the coolest fishy bathroom and the kids just love it, so I decided to go with a fishy fishy theme :) No wall decor...not sure if I'll do anything or not.

 This cute decal was already here. I love this vanity because it's the perfect height for kids, but there's still the mirror above the sink that's tall enough for adults.

 It's a very small bathroom, but since it's not the only one...I don't care! ;) There's a floor to ceiling storage cabinet behind the door that holds a ridiculous amount of blankets and towels.

This little guy is a stinker! He loves playing in the bathroom, which usually amounts to a) trying to get into the toilet (GROSS!) b) trying to dump out any soap bottle he can grab, or c) trying to get in the tub! Speaking of which, I think he's eating a stick right now so I better go! Hopefully by next week I'll have the after pictures, as well as the cloffice pictures!!

Jacob's Very Own Room!

Finally got another room decorated (for the most part...are you noticing a theme??)

I'll give you three guesses whose room this is...and the first 2 don't count! ;) Once again, Mom and Dad made some awesome garage sale finds for me! (the decal, for one)

I didn't take any before pictures of Jacob's room...I should have. We painted it, with John Deere colors of course! I was wracking my brain trying to come up with a way to paint it those colors without doing the entire walls yellow/green. Thankfully I found this idea online (the stripes). I found the fabric for the curtains at Hobby Lobby. The toy box and stickers, a garage sale find (as well as the pictures...more on those later)!

 The top bunk has become the stuffed animals' bed :) I need to get some paper and re-do Jacob's name, but I wanted to get it hung up.

 Have to get the black & white collage up! Bookshelf-garage sale. Tool bench-given to Jacob by a neighbor. The roller cabinet thing is where his train stuff is kept. The little peg hanging thing is that picture of the two little farmer boys that says "Been farmin' long?" :)

 The birth announcement plate my aunt & uncle got for Jacob (it has his birth date, weight, time, etc "hidden" throughout the nursery room scene). Love it!

 Closet door to the right, with another decal Mom found.

 No truer words were ever spoken, as far as Jacob is concerned! ;)

 When I saw this at Kris's booth, I had to get it for Jacob's room. Talk about perfect!!

Another great garage sale find! I can't remember who the artist is, but Mom found these 2 prints. Perfect for my little farmer boy! :)

Next up, the kids' bathroom before pictures!

Jacob the...Scholar??

Jacob's enthusiasm for school has waned...dramatically. I'm not really surprised, and I'm not concerned. He won't start kindergarten for 2 more years because his birthday is so late. He knows all his letters and sounds and numbers, can count to at least 30, can write his name with a little help (knows how to spell it), etc etc. So I'm not pushing it and let him decide when he wants to join us (except Bible time...that's mandatory). He does great with his Awana verses! The other day was a day he was more interested in doing school. I think it had more to do with the fact that he didn't want to play by himself than it did with the fact that he actually wanted to do any school! :) He said he wanted to do "coloring school" so he got out his pencil box and Case coloring book and started working (he turned to a maze). I turned back to work with Anna on Phonics and laughed when I looked back at Jacob and saw this...

Silly boy! I guess he needed 3 pencils to do this maze! :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Heart Check

Isaac had his 3rd checkup with his cardiologist this morning. Everything except the hole and murmur are gone. The murmur is barely there-the PA said she had to really concentrate to hear it (a 1 on a scale of 1-6). The hole is still there, but it's smaller than it was last time (6 months ago). So, he's still not "cleared" but Dr. Mo doesn't want to see him for a year! Dr. Mo said everything else about his heart looks great. And obviously, it's not effecting Isaac in any way! :) God is so good!

Isaac Jayden...growing too fast!

It's been so beautiful outside and I finally grabbed my camera to get some pictures of Isaac. He's changing so quickly and is becoming more little boy than baby! :( He's so very ornery and wants to be right in the middle of everything his big sister and big brother do...including the Wii!! He got so mad this morning that nobody would let him have a controller! He used to be happy with just chewing on the sleeve, but he's observed enough to know that one of those little controllers is the real deal!

He's in 12 month clothes now. I think he's had a growth spurt since his 9 month checkup. He basically went from 6-9 months clothes to 12 month clothes! Yes, that's a piece of pizza he's holding. He polished off 1.5 pieces of pizza at lunch today. He's taking after Jacob!! :)

The other day, I put Isaac on the tractor while I unplugged it for Jacob. He got so excited so I let him sit on it while I "drove" it out to the front yard. He loved it (as my previous post shows!). Now every time he sees the tractor, he starts bouncing and reaches for it. Look out world!

He's not usually so somber, but he was ready for a nap and very distracted watching Jacob drive the tractor! I cannot believe he's almost a year old already :( His sleep is off and on better. For almost a week he slept 9-12 hrs at night and took good 1+ hr naps morning and afternoon. The last couple days...not so much. I'm at a loss since my other two were such good sleepers. More of a schedule would help, but it's also hard to stick to a rigid schedule when you've got 3 little ones and a ton of things going on! This, too, shall pass. I just hope I'm sane by the time it does! ;)