Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is one of my all time favorite holidays.  I love that it’s the beginning of the craziness.  I love that it’s all about being thankful for what you have.  I love that there’s such a big emphasis on spending time with family.

Several years ago Joe and I decided that we were going to stop traveling at Thanksgiving and just spend the days off at home as a family.  This has become one of the best times of year for us.  No running around.  No hustle and bustle.  No packing.  No traffic.  No sleeping in a strange bed.  Just us, at home, hanging out.

This year Joe took Monday and Tuesday off so we could finish up some last minute things for the baby.  We were able to get the car seat installed and get my hospital bag packed.  We put some things in the attic and brought some things down from the attic.  All in all I feel good about where we are.  His room isn’t perfect and still has a lot of work, but all of the baby items are in their place and have been washed.  The bassinet is ready.  The crib is ready (even though he won’t sleep in it for awhile).  The pack-n-play is ready.  The bouncy seat, swing and floor mat are ready.  I’m ready.  Joe’s ready.  Ella’s ready.  Sabrina…I don’t think she’s ready, but she’ll figure it out once he arrives.  I can confidently say that this kid could be born today and we’d be fine.

Tuesday Joe and I headed over to the hospital for my weekly baby check.  We got to sit in a room and listen to his heart beat, then go have another ultrasound.  They didn’t tell us how big he’s measuring, but I’m not sure it really matters anyway.  When it comes to measurements, he’s all over the map!  One week I’ll go in and he’s in the 75% for his gestation.  The next week I go in and he’s only gained 3 ounces and is now in the 40%.  The following week I’ll go in and he’s gained 2 pounds and we’re now staring at the 90%.  I’ve decided that I just don’t believe any of it.  I’m taking both newborn and 0-3 month clothes to the hospital just to be prepared no matter what he comes out weighing.

Wednesday was Ella’s first day off school, so we were able to sleep in and spend the morning in our jammies just hanging out.  The perfect activity for a cold, rainy day!  In fact, I think I’m the only family member that actually got dressed on Wednesday.  Fortunately it’s days like this that keep me caught up on laundry.

Thursday morning is Ella’s favorite family tradition of the year.  I make a yummy breakfast (it’s the least I can do since I don’t cook Thanksgiving dinner) and we all go in the basement to watch the Macy’s parade.  She sat completely glued to the TV and if one of us left the room and something exciting came on, she would yell for us to come back quick so we didn’t miss it.  Ella’s life dream (at 6 years old) is to go see the parade in person.  She asked to go this year, but in my current state we knew that it wasn’t possible.  We’re crossing our fingers for next year.  I know she would love it!  And hopefully while we’re up there I can also take her to see the Rockettes Christmas show!

Thursday afternoon we have some wonderful friends who gladly invite us to invade on their family Thanksgiving every year.  They are a family with 7 kids, not to mention spouses, significant others, grandkids and extended family, so it’s a little like spending Thanksgiving with Joe’s family.  We always have a lot of fun!  This year was no different.  What’s funny is that Christy (our friend whose family this is) hadn’t told many of them that we’re expecting another baby.  So when I arrived, in all my huge glory, they were completely shocked to see me.  It was a wonderful meal with great company.  In true Ella form, I changed her into her jammies before heading home and she was asleep in the car within minutes.

Today the plan is to go buy our Christmas tree and get the house decorating started.  There’s a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in!  I almost have all of my Christmas shopping done and just need to get things wrapped.  I’m feeling pretty good about where we are.

I could fill this blog with things I’m thankful for, but you’ve already heard most of them.  God has given us so much.

Nesting?

One of the top 5 questions I’ve been getting lately is, “Are you nesting?”  How do I answer this gracefully?  Umm…No.  No, I’m not nesting.  In fact, I have the complete opposite of nesting, whatever that is.

I wake up every morning feeling great and well rested and with a load of things I want to accomplish.  Then I get Ella off to school and Joe off to work and I have breakfast, take a shower, and get ready for the day and decide that I need a break.  By noon I’m pretty worthless.  I go pick Ella up at 2:30 and by the time I get home with her (we usually walk to school) and help her with her homework, I’m completely done for the day.  It takes all I have to muster up the motivation to give her a bath every other day.  All too often I justify putting it off just one more day.

That said, I have had little to no motivation to blog.  I feel guilty about it…honestly.  But when I sit down to type the motivation just doesn’t come.  Sure, lots of exciting things have happened over the past month, but I’m not really sure how to put them all down, so they just get left undone.

Here’s a quick summary, just so I feel like you’re at least kept up somewhat.

On October 24^th Paw Paw flew into town, and on the 25^th the 4 of us headed up to New Jersey for the east coast premier of “What Were We Talking About?”  In case you don’t remember, in the summer of 2012 my mom and her 3 best friends wrote and performed a play to raise money for Debra.  Here's the link to the blog post from last summer:  What Were We Talking About?  In total this play has raised nearly $80,000 from our 2 home towns!  It was wonderful to get up to NJ and see so many family and friends, as well as watch this wonderful play again.  I am so proud of Joe’s mom, my mom and the rest of the Wyoming Magnolias for their hard work and dedication to raising money for EB.

Of course Ella went Trick-or-Treating on Halloween.  This was the first year GiGi wasn’t able to make her costume, so I had to come up with the costume.  Since I wasn’t gifted with the same creativity gene my mom and grandma have/had, I was really crossing my fingers that Ella would choose a costume I could easily pick up at the local party store.  We had several ideas come and go.  At first she was going to be Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) and Sabrina would be Toto.  Then she decided she wanted to be a cowgirl and Sabrina would be her horse.  There were a few other ideas thrown in here and there, but ultimately she decided that she wanted to be a ghost (a friendly ghost) and daddy would be a vampire.  I’m going to blame school on this costume choice since we don’t really talk about ghosts, vampires, mummy’s and witches around our house.  One day Ella came home from school with a drawing she had done of these 4 Halloween characters.  I assume another kid at school was talking about these and Ella just jumped on the bandwagon.  Anyway, Ella wanted to be a ghost.  The kind of ghost that was just a white sheet with eyes cut out and draped over her head…think Charlie Brown.  While this costume would have been really easy, I had fear of her tripping over the sheet, or the eyes getting off-centered and her not being able to see clearly.  So I convinced her to still be a ghost, but one where her face was actually shown.  After a quick google search I found the perfect costume that didn’t involve any sewing.

Ella and vampire daddy

 

 Ella and her Mummy To Be

Ella has started attending Wednesday night activities at our church.  Every Wednesday we go to church at 5:00 for church dinner (always delicious!), then at 6 she heads upstairs for Children’s Choir.  Yesterday her choir had their first performance during “big church” so Ella practiced all week to make sure she had the motions and words down perfectly.  All of the kids did a great job!  I did get it on video that I've posted in the November folder on the right.

On Wednesdays Ella has also started attending GA’s.  For those of you not in the Southern Baptist world, GA’s stands for Girls in Action.  Think of something similar to Girl Scouts, but at church.  This was a big deal for me since I was very active in GA’s all growing up.  My first mission trip was through Acteen’s which is the teenage version of GA’s.  My mom was my GA leader and those Wednesday nights and the mission activities we did are some of my fondest memories growing up.  So I was thrilled that Ella gets to be a part of the same activities.  So far she loves it and every Wednesday night on the ride home I get an ear full of what they did or talked about.

I guess the most exciting news of the past few weeks is that Ella has lost not one but two teeth!  Her two bottom teeth have been really loose for a long time, but Ella was afraid to let me pull them.  Finally the first one was so loose that I was afraid she was going to swallow it, so I convinced her to let me just try pulling it and see if it would come out and not hurt.  Sure enough I put my fingers on the tooth and Ella pulled her head back, leaving the tooth in my fingers.  The VERY generous Tooth Fairy stopped by and left Ella $5.  The second tooth came out just a couple of days later, but this time the Tooth Fairy only left her $2 since it wasn't her first tooth.  All of this makes Ella feel very grown up.  Loosing tooth is a big deal when you're 6.

 

The trip to NJ was our last trip for the year.  We’re settled in at home for the time being and getting last minute things in order for this baby to arrive.

We ordered the car seat last weekend, and that was the last piece of the puzzle to getting things ready.  We have diapers, clothes, a crib and bassinet, and now a car seat (that’s on order but it should be here in a couple of weeks).  So this kid is able to come anytime and we’ll be ready for him.  It has been fun pulling out all of Ella’s old toys and baby items.  6 years is a long time and I had forgotten about so many things.  She loves to hear stories about what she loved and didn’t love, what clothes were hers, what blankets were hers, etc.  She often takes her baby brother doll and will put him in the bassinet, cover him with a blanket and give him a stuffed animal, then gently rock him and sing.  Her other favorite preparation activity is to rock her baby brother doll in the rocker and sing to him.  She’s been brushing up on her lullaby’s and plans on singing to him as often as possible.

I will ask that you continue to pray for our new addition.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous.  I really just want him to be here sooner rather than later so that I can see his little face and know that he's safe and sound.  I tell Joe, I know I'm not going to stop worrying about him, but at least I'll know that he's ok.

Picture Day

Today is the big day!  Quite possibly the most important day of the school year.  Last night Ella picked out her clothes specifically because the hearts on the shirt match her new hot pink glasses with hearts on them.  She got to bed early so that she would be good and rested.  I meant to give her a haircut, but didn’t get around to it, so it looks like she’ll be wearing a pony tail.  It doesn't matter...she'll look cute anyway.

In honor of this important day for kids across America, here’s is a special song written and performed by Ella’s uncle Curby.

Hello out there

Hello out there in Blogland.  Things at the Murray house are pretty low key, so I don’t really have much to update you on.  I just wanted to make sure you knew you weren’t forgotten.

I realize that I haven’t yet done an update on Ella starting first grade.  Yes, our girl is in first grade and so far she loves every minute of it!  Thankfully she’s in the same school and has the same aide as last year, so she has a lot of consistency, which is good.

Unfortunately Ella’s primary teacher has been out of school with health issues, so she started school with a substitute.  Luckily the sub has experience teaching first grade and has been great for Ella.  Ella’s primary teacher is expected back in the classroom full time in October, but she’s been making visits to the classroom periodically this month.  When we went to the school for Back to School Night Ella told me ahead of time, “Mom, Ms. K is SO pretty!  I’m not even joking!”  When we left, after I met her teacher, Ella said, “See mom, isn’t she pretty?  Was I right?”

Ella was sad that she didn’t have many of her friends from last year in her class this year, but I am confident she’s going to make a lot of new friends.  Most disappointing was that her best friend isn’t in her class, but they see each other at lunch every day and wave to each other in the hall.

Today is Ella’s first field trip as a first grader, as well as her first field trip without mom tagging along.  I would have gone if they needed another chaperone, or if Ella’s aide wasn’t able to make it.  But truth be told, I’m glad I don’t have to go on this one.  It’s going to involve a lot of walking and I’m not sure my 30 week pregnant body could handle it.

Just a short update on the baby front, I’m almost 30 weeks, which puts me officially in the third trimester.  Only 10 more weeks to go and we have A LOT of things to get done before he arrives.

Truth be told, we haven’t done much prep work.  We have an awesome crib that has been given to us, but it’s not put together yet.  And we still have the rocker from when Ella was a baby, but it needs some simple repair work.  Before you get too worried, let me say that Ella was born on Thursday June 21, 2007.  I worked on Tuesday June 19^th and on Wednesday June 20^th my parents and I spent all day setting up her room.  My attitude on the whole thing was that she was going to spend the first several weeks of life sleeping next to me in a bassinet, so why stress about the room.  It worked out for us.  We still have the bassinet (granted, it’s in the attic, but at least we have it) and we have a little Moses basket that was given to us.  We have plenty of clothes and a pack of diapers to get us started, so even if we don’t get the room ready by the time he arrives, at least he’ll have a place to sleep and a clean bottom.

We do, however, have to purchase a new car seat.  One of the frustrations of having children 6 years apart is that car seats expire after 5 years.  That means that we can’t use the car seat we used for Ella.  I feel like it’s such a waste!  It’s a very nice car seat, has never been in a wreck and is in great, barely used condition.  It’s sad to know that we have to just throw it out.

Yes, we have a name.  No, we’re not telling anyone.  When I was expecting Ella we got a lot of negative feedback on the boy name that we had picked out.  So much so that we ended up changing it…well, not changing the actual name, just the nickname.  No one liked our nickname and you can only hear “Oh, that’s different” so many times before it echoes in your head for all eternity.  This time around we’ve decided to keep the name a secret so no one can taint it for us, and no, it’s not the same name we had chosen for Ella.

I have gained A LOT of weight!  In fact, I’ve already gained as much weight as I did with my entire pregnancy with Ella.  While this is not ideal, we are praying for a big baby so at least the weight gain shows that he’s well on his way to being a BIG boy!

That’s about it for us.  I wish I had more exciting things to report, but at least for now things are pretty low key.

A True Friend

Since the day Ella was born there’s something I’ve been secretly scared of.  I’ve never actually verbalized this before, but it’s something that has always been there, in the back of my mind.  The killer question that I’m sure all parents face…will other kids like my kid.  Ie. Will she have any friends?

I like Ella.  Not just because she’s my kid (although that definitely helps) but I genuinely like her.  She has a great personality, she has a good sense of humor, she’s easy to get along with, and she’s nice.  But she’s also shy.  And I can’t help but wonder if the awesome kid I see at home translates to school.  I also get nervous because since Ella can’t physically keep up with the other kids, how do they actually get to know her?  Unless they are willing to stop running around and sit with her and play a calm, sitting game, the likelihood that they will get to know her is pretty slim.  As great as kids are, lets face the facts…most of them like running around.  Skipping recess to sit and play a calm game is not a choice many kids would make.

Ella had friends during preschool.  In fact, during Pre-K a little girl in her class declared that she was Ella’s best friend.  But these friendships pretty much ended once school finished.  If they have continued, it’s because Joe and I are friends with the parents and have made an effort to get the girls together.

Ella also has friends at church, but most of these kids have known Ella her entire life.  We are also friends with their parents, so in a way, their friendship was forced upon them.

On Friday night the PTA at Ella’s school had a hot dog picnic.  While we were waiting in line I saw a little girl from Ella’s kindergarten class last year.  (Ella declared that she was/is her best friend.)  I turned Ella around in her stroller so that she could wave to her friend.  As soon as her friend saw her she ran away from her mom and over to Ella to say hi.

She was genuinely excited to see Ella!  It wasn’t a fake, ‘I’m just trying to be nice’ hello.  It wasn’t a ‘my mom is forcing me to come over here’ hello.  It wasn’t even an ‘I’m just being nice to you because you’re different’ hello.  It was a genuine, ‘I’m excited to see my friend’ hello.  It took everything in my pregnant, overly emotional body not to start crying.

We spent the picnic sitting on a blanket with this girl and her mom, and it was great to see Ella and her friend.  The girl would do things she knew would make Ella laugh, and Ella would oblige.  In return, Ella did things she knew were funny and her friend laughed.  They talked 6 year old talk, and just hung out together.  When we left the girl once again ran over to us to wave goodbye as we were walking down the sidewalk.

This was an awesome thing to see as a mom!  We did not know this family prior to kindergarten.  And even then, I didn’t meet her parents until after our girls had already established a friendship.  They are both only children, so they kind of speak the same language.  When Ella had to stay inside during recess because it was too hot, this girl often volunteered to stay inside with her.  On field trips this girl was always so excited to be stuck with Ella and me for the day.  She was willing to take a slower pace and would volunteer to push Ella’s stroller so I could have a break.  She never seemed to mind that we operate a bit differently than the rest of the kids.  She was just happy to be with Ella.

This girl is a true friend to Ella.  She likes her for no other reason than she just likes her.  She’s not forced into it.  She’s not guilted into it.  Any they aren’t friends because there’s no one else around.  They are just real, true friends.  And that makes me one VERY happy mom.