November 6th

Today I am thankful for naptime. Not for me, Lord knows I can't fit in a nap anymore. But I am very, very, very thankful for my children's naptime.

Elijah completely conked out this afternoon and took a 3 hour nap. It might have had something to do with the multiple bare-bottom spankings he got before the nap (that's an entirely different story...). Whatever it was, it was great because I got a little me time and Elijah was much happier when he woke up :-)

Zoe, on the other hand, doesn't take naps unless she is being held, rocked, and bounced simultaneously. And don't think you can stop for longer than 2 seconds because she will wake up again. But thankfully she is small and light and most of the time doesn't get on my nerves when I'm holding her. Granted, I can't get anything done around the house, but I can at least have some time to play on the internet, watch a movie, read, whatever quiet activity I enjoy that I can't do when Elijah is awake. Zoe does sleep at night though, bless her heart, so I haven't gone completely insane yet... :-P

Oh yes, I am thankful for naptime :-)

November 5th

Again, forgot to post during the day and running out of time before bed, but I am determined to keep this up!

Today I am thankful for coupons. I've never been a coupon-clipper in the past, but being broke and having to feed 4 will change that real quick. Today we had to go to Brainerd and I happen to get the grocery ad for Cub in the paper every week.

So, thanks to some fabulous coupons I got buy one get one free on bags of chicken breasts, packages of pork chops, boneless half hams, and 5lb bags of potatoes. Awesome. And also some other really great deals, but those were the best considering on the pork chops and ham alone I saved 27 dollars! Yes, 27 dollars!

Yes, today I am very thankful for coupons :-)

November 4th

I forgot to write a blog earlier today and now I am getting ready for bed, so I'll make this a really quick one.

I'm thankful today that my sister invited us over for dinner and made beef stroganoff - one of my favorite meals. Yum! :-) Oh and she also made rice krispie bars - delish!

(And I snuck some Oreos out of her snack drawer...)

Thanks Sis!

Today I am thankful for...

I've decided to partake in an old tradition and write about something I'm thankful for every day of the month leading up to Thanksgiving (thanks to my sister-in-law Steph for the inspiration). Granted, I've missed a couple days, but I think it will all be ok in the end :-P

So, on November 3rd I am thankful for my husband, Christopher, who is the most amazing man I have ever known and I am continually blown away every day that I got so lucky. Granted, he probably didn't know what he was getting himself into... :-P

This post would have been more meaningful had I written it yesterday because that was the six-year anniversary of our first kiss. Not only was it the same date as our first kiss, but it was the same day of the week (Tuesday) and it was also an election night and we also spent the evening at the same restaurant we were both at six years ago celebrating my dad's election victory. The kiss didn't happen at the restaurant (it happened later, when he brought me home and walked me to the door... I know, cute, right?), but it was still pretty darn cool that we ended up in the same place doing the same thing six years later. Only this time life was quite different :-P

Six years ago I never would have guessed we would be where we are today. We were fresh out of high school, I was going to college, Chris had just gotten home from Basic Training, we had both just gotten out of different relationships. But that fated night of November 2nd, 2004 changed everything. Six years later and we're married with two beautiful children and have been through our fair share of ups and downs.

Now we have certainly had our moments, no marriage is perfect, but through it all I could not ask for a better friend. That is why I am so thankful for my husband. He is my best friend, he's always there for me, always listens to me, is honest with me, encourages me, and loves me more than I deserve. He works all day to provide for our family and never complains about it. He comes home tired, but works up the energy to roughhouse with Elijah who absolutely adores him, and is always willing to take Zoe if I need a little break. And he never fails to make sure that "I love you" is one of the last things we say to each other every time we part.

And of course I am thankful for his personality and sense of humor because nobody gets me like he does and every single day with him is just plain fun because of how dorky we are together. I'm pretty sure we were made for each other... :-D

Did I mention how good-looking he is??? Yeah, definitely thankful for that too ;-)

One to Two

I keep thinking I really need to blog about what it's like to go from having one child to two, and only two years apart at that! I guess I can sum it up in four words...

What. Were. We. Thinking??? Well, the truth is, we weren't thinking. We were actually doing something entirely different, but this is a family-friendly blog so I won't go into details ;-)

It's funny to me because Zoe was not planned or expected in any way. I had always thought that when I had kids I would want them to be close together, and I figured 2 years apart was just right. Well, after I had Elijah that idea drastically changed :-P Anyways, it was shortly after I had come to grips with the fact that Chris and I were going to wait and spread our kids out a little further that I found out I was pregnant again! So much for that idea... But it is what I always wanted, right? Right! :-)

As hectic as it is and as tired as I am I wouldn't trade my beautiful, precious, lovable children for anything. Even after Elijah whines and cries and disobeys, and after Zoe poops and pukes all over me and never lets me sleep... I just love the darn things :-D Thankfully I only have two! :-P

Here is Elijah's caption for the picture, "There's baby Zoe's and Lijah's juss watchin a mooobie!"

4 More Weeks

I just realized it's been 2 months since my last blog. I am terrible at this. I often think "I really should write a blog post soon" but then I can't think of anything really funny or interesting or insightful to write about and the last thing I want is to bore people to death... But I guess you are reading this on your own accord so I really have no reason to feel bad for you.

Let's see, what shall we talk about today? Pregnancy? That is what is consuming all my time and energy (literally) right now. My due date is in just about 4 weeks and I am ready to go! Chris and I are both definitely nervous to go from being responsible for one human life to two, but we are trusting that God will take care of us every step of the way. Mostly I am just excited to meet her already! And of course I am excited to be done being pregnant. Those of you who know me know that I haven't had the most pleasant of pregnancies. Although this one seems to be going pretty well right now compared to when I was this far along with Elijah, so that is a definite plus.

Now I am just really hoping that my nesting instincts will kick in because our apartment is in dire need of a cleaning. Also, we need to get a new bed for Elijah so we can turn his current bed back into a crib for the baby. And that also means rearranging his whole room and probably ours too because I'm sure we'll have the crib in here for a while until she starts sleeping through the night. Luckily we have all the necessities right now (carseat, co-sleeper, stroller, swing, etc...) so we don't have to go out and buy anything in a real hurry (well I guess we will need to get some diapers). Also, we have been really blessed to have friends with little girls that have graciously given us all their old baby clothes so we aren't going to have to buy any clothes for her for quite a while.

So, in short, we are ready for baby Zoe to come! As Elijah puts it, "Baby Zoe gotta get out Mommy's belly!"

Sleepwalking?

I'm starting to think Elijah might be a sleepwalker...

Occasionally he will get up in the middle of the night and come stumbling into our room, and we'll lead him back into his room and back into bed and he'll conk right out again without a problem. Now this is no big deal and he may be awake and just needs to be put back down again, but it's what happened the other night that really makes me wonder...

From my point of view: I wake up because I hear Elijah crying and I look and see that Chris is up and is already picking him up and bringing him back to bed. What a great daddy he is, responding to his son's cries so quickly.

From Chris' point of view: I wake up needing to go to the bathroom. I get up and walk around the bed and see a pile of Courtney's clothes on the floor. Trying not to be annoyed that she has once again not put her clothes in the laundry basket, I begin to step over the pile on my way to the bathroom. However, my foot grazes the top of the pile and all of a sudden it starts whimpering. That's when I realize this pile of clothes is actually Elijah curled up with his blankie in the middle of our bedroom floor, sleeping. At least he was sleeping until I kicked him in the head and woke him up.

How did he come into our room and fall asleep on the floor without either of us noticing? Now he definitely has a gate up outside his door every night, who knows where he would go next!