Seriously. I can never keep up and then when I do type, I feel like I just blabber on. I read so many blogs many of which are really funny, well written, etc. Nope, not mine, but oh well.
Since this is supposed to be an online journal of sorts - this will be a quick run through of all the cute things that have happened these past few days.
My birthday was much better than expected. Jason made the morning special, which I knew he would. We went out to breakfast (my favorite) and then just relaxed at home. He got me a giftcard to get my nails done. One of my favorite things is having fake nails and I haven't had any since Jonah was born. He also got me a new desk chair that is extremely comfortable because "I'm an author now" -- best of all he gave me a vacation! Yeah! We are leaving for St. Joseph a week from Monday. I'm so excited that I've already started packing. haha.
He had his normal stretch of 4 days off after my birthday and we spent those days doing the typical splash park, zoo trips, and the like with the kiddos. I'm also very happy - Jason had social things planned for himself during every day he had off. Lunch, waterskiing, and Bible study with his guy friends. That is so refreshing for him and I'm so happy he has that edification back in his life. Jason and I had a long talk last week about how right the move back to Louisville was for us and our family. We had a lot of hard times up in Indy not only with all the infertility/miscarriage drama, but just in general. It was a rough few years and the last few months were the worst. We hit a huge struggle in our marriage, we both struggled with depression, and were spiritually dry. It has been the opposite since moving back. We are refreshed every single week at church, through the fellowship of other believers, and I could go on and on... we are bot extremely happy. Looking back we can see how miserable we were up in Indy... we didn't even know it at the time because you have to just function in survival mode, but we've quickly gotten back to the "old Jason" and "old Darby" and couldn't be happier. :)
Now on the cute stories of our kiddos. Havana is improving with her language skills. The other day she started playing pretend that she was on the phone and would put her hand up to her ear and say, "ello" for "hello" -- so cute. When I ask her who she is talking to she normally does the sign for "daddy." And speaking of daddy... she is getting really close to saying it. For about a week now she has been saying, "gaggy" when she is talking to him or he walks in the room. It is obvious she mean him. We love it. In the backseat the other day she yelled "Gaggy!" and when we looked back she wanted to play peek a boo with him. We were very thrilled that she was using verbal communication. We try daily make her say new sounds, but love that she communicates so well with signs. Soon I am going to post all the words she can say and sign just for my own benefit.
Today she really impressed me at the store. We went grocery shopping this morning which is never my favorite activity. Usually, Jason will take Jonah and Havana in one cart to the toy section and I'll get the groceries as quickly as I can in another cart. I am determined to do "Mommy School" with havana instead of preschool and so I told Jason to be on the lookout for educational toys that I can teach with. Well, he found different animal figurines that we could use not only to teach her animals, their sounds, the Creation story, and Noah's ark, but also to help her with her imaginative play. He picked out several: a lion, elephant, zebra, and a few others. She was loving playing with them in the cart and then was a little sad when we had to put them up on the conveyor belt, but explained that we had to buy them first. Well, it turned out to be a mess... they each rang up for 36.00 dollars. They were in the dollar section. So, long story short... we didn't get them. Havana looked like she was going to cry as I told her to say goodbye to them as the manager took them away. I felt horrible. My heart wanted to break. But she overcame her disappointment like a champ and while I know she was sad... she never lost it or threw a fit. I kept telling her how proud I was of her that while it is okay to be disappointed... she did a great job not letting that emotion rule her behaviors. Perhaps I could learn a thing or two from her! :)
She is getting bigger and more beautiful each day. She loves praying! Her favorite thing to do is just clasp her hands together and pray. Sometimes I will pray for her when she does that - doesn't matter where we are - I'll just stop and pray with her. Other times I'll just let her pray on her own. I always praise her for this. Saying "family prayers" is a must before we eat - no matter where we are or who we are with. I love that she is developing a heart for the Lord at such a young age. Her other sweet thing she is doing lately is wanting to hold my hand a lot. Not just when walking out in public, but when we are just sitting on the couch. She'll snuggle up to me, take my hand, and place hers in it. My heart just melts. I love those moments. I love all the moments... :)
She is such a great big sister. Yesterday she invented a new game. She would roll a truck down a slide and then Jason and I would clap for her (she of course would clap for herself too!) Then she ran to Jonah (who was sitting in Jason's lap) and did her sign for "Jonah" -- so we made Jonah clap and say "Yeah Vana" and after that she wanted to make sure Jonah clapped every time she made the truck go down the slide. It was very sweet. I was so happy that she wanted to include him.
Jonah is getting big. At three months he weighed 17 pounds! Wow! And he was only 8.7 when he was born... so it's not like he started out as a 10 pound baby. I love him. He has such a sweet spirit. He enjoys any moment that Jason or I can just look at him. He breaks out into a huge smile. He has become a thumb sucker which is funny to me as Havana never was. They are actually quite different. :)
He has started inching himself across the floor when he's put down for "tummy time" -- he hates it, but it is cute to me! :) Not rolling over, but lurching forward. He's sleeping 12 hours at night without waking up at all. I love that. :) And he's gotten a lot better at putting himself to bed without having to cry himself to sleep. That's nice too. He is getting into stories that we read now and wanting to look at all the photos and he's become more interactive with his rattles and other toys we give him during room time.
Room time for both of the kids is going well. They play in their rooms for 15 minutes without any crying. Some days Havana still likes to throw all her toys over the gate - other times she is content to play with the toys. Either way, it is a nice refreshing 15 minutes for all. We'll most likely move it to 20 minutes here soon.
Jason is, as always, amazing! I am so blessed to be his wife. He is an incredible spiritual leader for our family. He's my best friend, someone who makes me laugh daily, and someone who is capable of deep conversation and lots of fun. While not perfect, he is pretty close. :) He loves Jesus with everything in him, he's faithful to me, and such an great daddy. Wow. I'm so proud of him.
Please be praying for him to have wisdom for us. I told him that while we are on vacation we need to have a talk about our involvement level in church. Before we had children - we were both very involved in many different ministries. It was not uncommon to be at church 5 nights a week. Now that we're back at southeast we are wanting to get involved in many different ministries again and it is different now that we have children. We talk about how other families make it work, but we realize that jason doesn't have a scheduel where he can be home every night to help with the kids if needed. But we also know we can't use that as an excuse to not be involved because that will be our situation for the rest of our lives. So, what does being involved look like? What can we do? What can we not do? I don't know yet... but we're going to discuss it on vacation and I'm praying for him to have wisdom to lead our family in making this very hard decision. Thanks, friends. :)
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