mothers...
believe in us more than we believe in ourselves
do more for us than they do for themselves
worry about us more than we realize
pray for us more than we'll ever know
value us more than anything else in the world
give us more than they can afford
love us more than anyone else can
matter more than words can express
Happy Mother's Day
We as a family have been getting into the Christmas spirit by decorating, creating and sewing! Early last week we had my parents come over for dinner and some decorating of our tree. Charlotte had a blast decorating, Oliver loved playing with the ornaments and all the adults loved watching the kids be kids at Christmas! See if you can find the mittens that were required for decorating the very spiky Christmas tree!
Between the constant snow and the giant tree in our house the kids have been having a great time! They have really used the Christmas tree as the biggest toy. We have let them take select ornaments off and put them on about three times a day, needless to say the tree looks like a toddler and a baby have decorated it!
This is the perfect time of the year to get crafty! One of my bestest of friends came in this past weekend and besides going to a craft show we also did a good bit of chatting and eating, we had a chicken pot pie with her name written all over it!
Charlotte and I have also been busy sewing! She has taken a pretty big interest by sitting on my lap and helps lock my stitches and directs the fabric through the machine. This is what we have been working on the past couple of days... burlap monogrammed stockings for all four of us and two pillows with the left over fabric!
We hope that you are able to get into the holiday spirit by decorating and redecorating, creating and sewing like we have!
-melissa
I love a good grande finale they are loud and dramatic, showy and memorable. A good grand finale can really stick in your memory. I have seen and heard a lot of grand finales in my life from my marching band days to fire work shows. Who doesn't love a good grand finale, they may even leave you with the chilly willies! It seems I am currently in the middle of my own little grand finale.
Ever since we have had a family Jay has traveled for work. He loves his job and I love that he really enjoys what he does. It does mean that at times I am at home to hold down the fort on my own. I remember a certain trip he went on that was ten days long when Charlotte was just a couple of months old. It was memorable to say the least. This is one of the major reasons we decided to move back to Cincy. All of our family lives in Cincy and it will be really nice to be close to them especially when Jay is gone on very long trips.
We move in just a couple of short weeks and Jay saved the longest trip for last. He is gone for a total of fifteen days, stopping in twice for less than 24 hours each time to wash clothes and then he is off again. Fifteen days is a long time, but it is easier to know that this will be his last trip before we move. I had decided that I was going to do a picture a day and do a post about all the ways we kept busy while he was gone. But after much consideration I decided that this would not be an accurate way we have spent our time. That is why we have a family blog, to scrapbook and journal the adventures we go through as a family. I surely can not put up fifteen pictures like these to show how our last few weeks were spent, they are not an accurate depiction.....
It seems that like with any good grand finale this is just the cumulation of all the events that I have experienced as a young mother. We are in day number four of the fifteen day grand finale and we have already experienced so much that pictures will not do justice. Just in the past twenty four hours I have experienced a baby who refuses to nap, a jealous toddler who is tired of her momma spending so much time with the baby who doesn't sleep. A little girl whose imagination just took off and is apparently afraid of the dark. Thus why she stripped off all of her clothes and woke up from her nap extremely early yesterday and also woke up screaming her head off this morning at 4:15. I have always wanted a child with an active imagination. Pair that with a jammed swollen toe from running into the side of the couch, a swollen lip from my fearless daughter jumping off her changing table and me catching her with my mouth and stickiness that I keep discovering all over my body from a well intended ice cream run yesterday ending with a passionate toddler squeezing the cone until it exploded all over her whole family, we are really living up our grand finale in a grand fashion.
So although I could post fifteen sweet pictures of our sweet little family, that is not what I should remember. I need to remember that at times life is simply crazy and you survive. This will not be the last big trip of Jay's or the last time I could have produced a kids gone wild tape and sold it to make millions of dollars, but this is the grand finale at our current stage of our life. Although it is a little bitter sweet, I would like to remember it.
-melissa
For years I have been saying that I wanted to teach college... in the future... when I thought it would be possible. In December I heard of an opportunity at CCU and although I thought it was a long shot I decided to first figure out what a curriculum vitae was and then try my hand at writing one. By trying my hand at writing one, I really mean Jay and myself pored over a computer for hours one night figuring it out together. Anyways, several months later I was given the opportunity to have a phone conference with part of their eduction team and I was thrilled. It was scheduled for a Friday night and I was going to be ready and available no matter what! Now, some of my family members will say that I had the good old fashioned flu that week and some say that the week of my big interview I was having the you-are-about-to-have-a-baby-flu, either way I was dead dog sick that week. So much so that on Friday I refused to eat just about anything due to fear of getting sick during my phone interview.
That night was a big night for our family. I had a great conversation with the two people that were interviewing me, we finally got to celebrate Jay's birthday dinner and I began the process of bringing our son into the world. We ended the night by timing my contractions. Oliver was born the next morning!
Well two months later, serval trips back to Cincy with the presentation of a social studies methods lesson and several interviews later and a flight back on Thursday night with Oliver in tow I was officially hired and signed a contract with CCU yesterday. It was a great feeling and I am so excited to be member of their team this coming fall. Now, all I had to do was get me and Oliver back home to Charlotte (thanks Smith family for always being there for us!) in one piece without disturbing too many people on the airplane with an infant. On the way out to Cincy he was wonderful, but I have learned as a parent never to assume anything when it comes to children!
My parents and Jenanne dropped me off at the airport in Cincinnati and I was really looking forward to flying through security as I had done less 24 hours before. I knew that by carrying Oliver on in a baby carrier that I was subject to a hand swab to test for explosive residue....but seriously I had no worries there!
So I make my way through security and luckily the airport was fairly empty for a Friday night. I follow one of the guys on duty over to the machine that they swab your hands with, he places it in the machine and after about thirty seconds the machine lights up with a big red light that says TEST NEGATIVE...EXPLOSIVE RESIDUE DETECTED.....really?! That is actually what I said when the machine started going off. The guy informed me that I probably had just touched fertilizer earlier in the day and I replied that I wasn't sure if it helped me much, but I definitely hadn't touched any fertilizer that day! To make a long story short, I got to tour some back rooms at CVG, got to chat with some really nice ladies and then they evidently decided I was no threat to fly the friendly skies and let me and Oliver go on our way!
What a whirlwind of 24 hours! Two flights, a contract and explosive residue! -melissa
here are some pics of our little traveler on his first two flights!
