Friday, December 30, 2011

My little Moo turned 2!

The day before Christmas Eve my little girl turned 2 years old.I really do sound like a broken record, but time is moving so fast. I'm ready again for the long, lazy, slow days of summer time. My girl had a low key actual birthday, and we are celebrating her party in January. She wore a birthday girl shirt and princess tutu and proudly proclaimed that it was her birthday and she was 4 like her sister. After telling her, no Raiggie, you're only 2, she's followed it up with a compromise and say, I thwree (her version of 3).


I love this little girl to pieces. Here she is blowing out her candles of her birthday cake on her actual birthday.
 

We had a visit this week to Cincinnati Children's to see a pulmonologist about my girl's lungs. Things went really well and we are just ruling things out at this point to cover all the bases. There is nothing acutely wrong with her little lungs, but she seems to have more issues than your average two year old and that is why we landed this consult. I'm really glad we did because the doctor was fabulous and Raigan loved him. They measured her and she is a wopping 27 lbs and stands at 2 ft 11 inches tall. I learned in Pediatric Nursing that at a child's second birthday you double their height and that is what their adult height will be, so looks like both my girls will be towering above me.

On a totally different note, we got a new roof put on our house this week, because we had some wind damage from some storms this late summer/early fall. It looks great, and I'm proud to say our house isn't the sore thumb of our street anymore.

Things have been working out kind of on the crappy (I cannot come up with a better word at the moment) side of things until recently. We have had good and bad things happen, but it seemed to be weighted on the bad side a little more heavily. I think it was just our timing, because we have had things go so well and smoothly for so long, and that it was our turn up to the plate. I am really grateful to say that things are slowly starting to climb back into a great place for our family and our lives. I am glad too, because I was starting to ignore my self peptalks and "this too shall pass" chants.

Another thing that is pretty strange for me is to fall into a new routine that does not include class or studying. Normally I'd be scrapping up the last moments of winter break and be preparing for a new semester at the start of the New Year. It's going to feel a little strange for me when I don't go back, and I think that feeling is going to last awhile. I'm trying to find a nice healthy balance of work, play, housework, and all the other things that I've been neglecting because of nursing school. Housework has always been on the low end of my priority list because I always had tests, my girls ballet class, or whatever else that trumped it for such a while that now I'd really like to get into a routine of having a house that I'm wondering can even exist with a 2 and 4 year old little girl living in it. Some days it feels like I'm plowing snow while it's still snowing or climbing up the down escalator when I'm cleaning up after them.

The end of the year is quickly approaching which gives opportunities for fresh new starts and clean slates which I am gladly welcoming.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Dreamers Welcome

My university's motto is 'Dreamers Welcome."


I accomplished one of my dreams this past Saturday.


I graduated with a Bachelors in the Science of Nursing 


from Northern Kentucky Univeristy. 


After many years, a lot of sacrifice, a wedding, and two children later I am a college graduate.


I am blessed to cross one more thing off my bucket list:


Get Married to the love of my life
Have children
Buy a house with a large back yard
Plant a tree
Impact someone's life
Graduate college
Leave the country
Go on an African safari
Visit Paris
Donate my first paycheck as a nurse to St. Jude
Make money taking pictures
Understand organic chemistry
Hike a mountain
Run a marathon
Go white water rafting
Go snorkeling
Shoot a gun
See the seven wonders
Go to carnival in Brazil
Take my girls to Disney World
Visit all 50 states
Be a big sister
Milk a cow


I am so thankful that my children will know that through perseverance and hard work anything can be accomplished. I hope they know that all the hours, days, and years I spent achieving this dream was more about them and providing a life for them than it was ever about me. That they were my drive. It wasn't all just my hard work though. It was with the help of my very supportive husband, an awesome mother and mother in law that helped me with my girls, friends that gave me words of encouragement, my peers that helped me study and were a support in itself because we were all after the same dream, a best friend next door that provided a quiet study environment, and many other factors.

I made it. I graduated from college.

I'm really excited about Saturday being the start to a new chapter in our lives. In so many ways it feels like this season in our lives resembles spring; birth to new beginnings, new dreams,  and a lot of life to enjoy. 

Life Moves Way Too Fast

I don't really even know what to write, so this is going to go stream of consciousness style.

It's already December of 2011, almost the end of it for that matter, and so much has changed this year. I'm not really even sure how we got here because it seems to all have happened in this crazy flash instant.
 The kind that people tell you about when you're a kid, but because you have endless hours of free time to spend with your friends, little responsibility, plenty of hours to playing video games or spend your time however you wish, you just can't relate to it for it to mean anything.

It seems as though the older my girls get, the faster time goes, and that is scary.

Now that I'm finished with school I hope that this crazy life can slow down a little bit, and that there are more hours in the day spent not doing anything, except soaking up life and enjoying it, because it is for sure short for certain.

I really hate to share anything that is not directly my story because I feel like it's not my place to share other people's story on my blog. When I write things on here that impact my husband in any kind of way I run it by him before I hit publish. My girls, they just don't really get a say so become it's not yet their job to determine what's best for them, it's still mine. This is a long explanation to get to the point that my family lost someone this past month that has been hard on all of us. Nearly two weeks ago my husband's grandma joined Jesus in heaven. I don't know if it's appropriate or not to write about this on my blog, but I feel as though I should. I should because she read my blog and I'm sure she still does from above. It's been hard to publish pictures of my girls here without a call from her to tell me how much she enjoyed reading here or thanking me for sharing pictures of the girls with her this way. She loved my husband and my girls fiercely.

It just sucks. It sucks because ever since eight years ago when my husband and I started to date and I met her for the first time and was nervous as ever, she hugged me and accepted me into our family like I had always been apart of it. She showed me love, grace, patience, and to smile my way through life. The way she passed was very fast and yet another reminder of how fast life happens, how fast it's over, and how that much more we should enjoy the short time we have here.

I'm going to try my best to enjoy the moments when my girls love to play with their favorite toy; the laundry basket.



I'm going to make time for the birthday parties and this sisterly love that they share:


I'm going to try to enjoy it when my Riley acts like a monster when we bake:


I'm going to enjoy hanging every last one of our Christmas ornaments:





I'm going to love our gindgerbread house even if it looks nothing like it's supposed to:


And embrace the fact that it's looks exactly the way it's supposed to because it's ours and made from love.
 
 
St. Nick Day 2011:


I'm going to enjoy potty training this little bundle of life, because it will most likely be my last time getting to do it. I'm even going to love and enjoy right now darn it while I'm writing this blog post and my kids are still up running around out of their beds for the tenth time crying and it's 9:30 at night.


I love their love for one another and feel privileged to capture moments like this.


My girls at my Nursing Pinning Ceremony:


My husband was most likely taking this very picture of my mom pinning me when our second born took off and was lost temporarily.  When we found her, she was on the stage, must have just missed her on my way back to my seat.

There are nights when I don't feel like enjoying anything and just want to retreat to my room and catch up on sleep, but I make the conscious choice to go to the Zoo;s Festival of Lights with my girls even though it's 40 degrees out on a cold December night, because we are going to keep family traditions and make memories dammit!


I'm going to snuggle these naked babies like it's no bodies business and I'm going to love every last second of it.



I'm blessed. Blessed beyond measures.


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