My grandparents live in the DC area and I am sure most of you have heard that that area has been hit with a major snowstorm. After seeing the pictures I wish we were there! I want very badly to pick Sweet Pea up and throw him in the big pile of snow. He would have so much fun!!

The storm!

Their balcony:

Papa clearing the driveway with the snow blower:

GG in their driveway:

Their house. Isn’t it beautiful?

Speaking of my grandparents…they were here a little over a week ago and, as always we had a blast! The kids were just getting over their RSV so we had a low key couple of days.

Giggling with Papa:

Building towers with GG:

And of course knocking them over:

Baby Peanut needs a snuggle:

Dress up with GG:

Can you see me?!

Can’t wait to see them again!

Whatever it is…give it to the Lord…

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6: 24-26

Are you worried?

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Matthew 6:27

Why do you worry?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Matthew 6:28

What are you worried about?

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Matthew 6:30-32

Do not worry…

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

Are you holding on to something that needs to be given to the Lord? Give it up and find peace. Don’t let something the Lord will take care of stand between you and Him.

This morning at church this was the main focus of the message. If we have given ourselves completely to the Lord, He will take care of all our needs. By worrying about things out of our control, we are not placing our complete trust in God and we are separated from Him. Doing something to separate ourselves from the Lord can only be described as sin.

This sounds so simplistic and I have heard it before. And yet I still have a huge problem with worry/anxiety, especially since my kids were born. I feel like I am constantly worrying about something happening to either one of them or our family. But something happened to me this morning. Both kids were in child care (which was a HUGE first for us) and sitting there in church listening and worshiping I was able to let go of all my worry from the past few years and just sit there and take everything in. In the past I have sat in church but part of me always stayed with Sweet Pea in the nursery or half of my focus was on Peanut sitting in my lap. I can’t pin point what was different about this morning, but the Lord spoke to me and I was able to put my full trust in Him.

While I was sitting there letting all the worry and stress leave my body, exhaustion set in. Exhaustion from all the worry I have put on myself the last few years. I haven’t had a full nights sleep for two reasons. The first is the kids and the second is I never let myself fully fall asleep. I wanted to be in control of whatever happened to me and my family. Of course deep in my soul I knew that I am not really in control. But I wanted to believe that I was. I let myself believe that if I did A and B all would be well and no need to bother God about it at all. And then there is the stress when A and B do not happen the way they are “supposed” to. Because I want to be in control. And I would worry about it.

I do not pretend even now to have it all together. I do not pretend to think that tomorrow I will not worry. But today I am resting in Jesus. And I will let tomorrow stay tomorrow.

How about you? Are you worried about a job? About money? About your kids? About your husband? Are you worried about how you will make it through the day? Rest in Jesus and know that He will take care of you. Let Him take care of you.

Saw this at Marvelous Kiddo and thought is was wonderful!

{I wrote this post a week ago and forgot to post it…so here it is with an update at the end!}

We found out yesterday that poor little Peanut has RSV. She has been coughing, wheezing, and running a fever since yesterday morning. I was really surprised at how fast in crept in on us. She was happy and playing and then all of a sudden was sick! Last night she just groaned and whined all through the night. I ended up holding her and nursing her all night long just to keep her semi-comfortable. This morning she wanted to play a little, but mostly she wanted to be held. So I put her in my ergo carrier so my hands would be free to play with Sweet Pea and do some chores.

Our doctor (who I love and trust very much) said she will get worse over the next few days before she gets better. Since RSV is a virus you just have to let it run it’s course. I am watching her breathing and if it gets to labored or if her lips turn blue (very scary thought) I have to take her in for breathing treatments. I am praying this doesn’t happened and that this is just a mild case. But if it does happen I am very thankful there is a treatment she can have.

She also has an ear infection in her left ear, which is caused by the RSV. She is taking an antibiotic for that.

Sweet Pea also has RSV, but since he is a toddler his body can handle it better. His symptoms only present like a cold, which is why the doctor didn’t test him to begin with.

It has been an interesting few days with both the kids sick. They both want to be held more and neither one wants the other there. So we have watched way more TV than normal, that way we can all cuddle in the bed without problems.

{Here is the current update}

It has been a week and the kids are both out of the woods. We never had to go back in for breathing treatments. It seems that both kids had a very light case of RSV. We went back to the doctor this past Monday for a follow up/six month check up for Peanut. She is growing fast! She is 16 pounds 8 ounces and 27 inches long.

As for the RSV, they are no longer contagious but will have coughs and runny noses for 2-4 weeks! Yikes! And the coughs sound bad…way deep down in their chests. Sweet Pea seems completely fine, but Peanut is still having a little trouble sleeping with the cough.

I was hoping to post some pictures, but I can’t find the cord to hook the camera to the computer! I will keep looking and hopefully do that by tomorrow. Toodles for now!

{Click image to make larger}

This is funny to me for two reasons. The first one is obvious: this just reminds me of something my 16 year old brother would say. He is pretty tech saavy and while my dad is too, my mom is not (sorry mom). He constantly gets frustrated with her for asking him how to use programs on their computer or ipod.

The second is because I constantly get “butt calls”! Because my name starts with “A” I am at the top of a lot of peoples phone book and when their phone decides to call someone it is always me. So let the be a lesson to you, lock your phone!!

My mom has been visiting the past few days and while we were at the store yesterday we decided to wander through the flower section. Sweet Pea got very excited and asked Nana if he could have a plant of his very own. Much to his excitement she got him one!

We thought it would be fun to make a craft out of it so we went and got a flower pot for him to paint and put his plant in. Before bed tonight we got out all the paints and watching him create his masterpiece!

After he painted we went onto the balcony and scooped some dirt from my flower pot into his.

In goes the plant!

It is now proudly sitting on the shelf next to his bed.

Also, I saw this great movie trailer on the blog Mommy Life (which is one of my favorite blogs). It is a documentary that follows four babies, each from a different country, through their first year of life. It looks really interesting and I can’t wait to see it!

The last month or so Peanut has been ready to go to sleep at night around six. This is not good for me because if she goes to bed at six then she is ready to get up for the day way before I am. So we have had a find ways to keep her awake AND happy until seven.

So at six we eat. She must be my daughter because food definitely makes her happy. After that we strip her down and give her a bath. She loves, loves, loves taking a bath. She isn’t even six months old yet and the second she gets in she splashes and giggles. We go back and forth between bathing her in the bathtub and bathing her in the sink. Tonight the sink won out. I fill the sink with water and bubbles and then plop her in. It could probably keep her happy until late at night if I let her stay in the water. Anyways, here are some picture my mom took of the occasion:

When Sweet Pea saw that Peanut was getting a bath he HAD to take one too. So we plopped him in the sink next to her!

The past week or so we have had a horrific time getting Sweet Pea to go to bed. I have only seen his behavior in one other place, the show Supernanny. Yup, it got that bad. I always watch that show with the comfort of knowing that my kids don’t (and won’t) act like that. But this week something was different. What was happening to my child? He was fine during the day. We played and laughed and he obeyed like he normally does.  But then he turned into a little monster at night — screaming, getting out of bed, and fighting us at every turn.

When stuff like this happens, we don’t just shut him in his room and let him cry. We really try hard to think about what could be going on. There IS a reason for bad behavior. We like to try to fix it, not just let him cry and hope that works. We realized that the only major thing that has changed in the last few weeks was us moving Peanut back into our room. That and he is getting older and he is really testing us and pushing boundaries.

So here is what we did: We have two bathrooms in our apartment, but we have almost zero closet space. So we use the bathroom in our bedroom as storage and we all use the bathroom in the hallway for our needs. I simply moved around the boxes in the “storage” room so Peanut’s pack’n'play fit in there. Then I had Sweet Pea help me move it in and told him we were making Peanut her own room. He was VERY excited about this. So now they both have their own room (even though Peanut is still basically in our room…I can open the door to the bathroom and touch her from my bed).

Also, on our way to bed I grabbed a piece of paper and a crayon. When we got to his room I told him he was going to help me make a list of things we do before bed and then we were going to follow them. Here is what he came up with (with a little prompting from me):

1. Go to potty and brush teeth.
2. Read two books.
3. Sing our song (we always sing Old Rugged Cross before bed)
4. Pray
5. Pick an animal to sleep with
6. Cover up with blanket
7. Hugs and kisses
8. Mommy and Daddy go to other room
9. Go to sleep

Each time we did something we would refer to the list to see what was next. He was so excited and got a grin on his face every time. And tonight he went to bed without any fuss at all and fell asleep instantly! Tomorrow we are going to make a more permanent list and hang it on the wall for future reference.

It is such a great feeling to know we FIXED the problem, and not just put a little band-aid over it. Our kids are real people with real feelings. We can’t just ignore bad behavior and hope it goes away. We have to figure out what is going on and fix it. It is hard sometimes to figure it out and can be even harder to solve, but it is always worth it.

After everyone woke up from nap today we went on a walk to the duck pond. When we got there a butterfly family was following us. Then they all got lost and we had to find them. Sweet Pea searched and searched through the leaves and grass and finally found the brother butterfly. Then he found the mommy and daddy butterfly hiding in a pipe. Then the sister butterfly appeared as if from nowhere. Then the family decided they wanted pancakes from McDonalds, so they got on a BIG airplane and it took them there. Then Sweet Pea and I turned into butterflies and we flapped our wings all the way home.

{FYI — This is fictional, all from Sweet Pea’s imagination.}