Another Shot: Where We Are Now

I've been trying to blog for over a month now, and keep finding myself stuck. Stuck without a computer. Stuck without any energy to think clearly enough to write. Or, stuck trying to figure out what to write about. Do I try to catch up on everything I've wanted to write about for the past month and a half, or do I just start where I am now and get going again? I've chosen the latter, but I will give a quick update as to where we are now.

March turned into a crazy month. My brother Tyler came for a visit during his spring break. We saw the St. Louis sights and had fun just hanging out watching The Long Way Round. Then, the morning after he left, we moved back to the extended stay hotel for the county to finish lead abatement work on our house. By the time we got back into our house, we had around 24 hours to get ready for a 10 day trip to Seattle. Our trip was wonderful! Just what we needed in this busy time of life. It was a great balance of relaxation and activity and we are so thankful for the time we had to connect with family and friends. After returning from our trip, our landlord and her family arrived to do some work around our house for a few days. The following weeks have just been attempts at catching up. Most of you know that after travels, moving in and out of the house etc you just have a lot of work to do around the house to get back into the flow of things again. I think we are finally getting there!

Now, we are heading into finals, which basically means I'll see Russ in 2 weeks. Final papers and tests take every last free min that's not spent in class or at work. We are both feeling a little discouraged and overwhelmed with this, but we've survived every other semester, I imagine we will survive this one!

Our housing situation is still up in the air. There is someone we know considering the purchase of our house, which means we would not have to move, but he has not decided yet, so we are waiting. If you think of us, pray for speedy decision making and wisdom in choosing a new place to live if we do have to move.

I think that's most everything for now. I will attempt an update on the girls soon!

Relearning the EKG, a Life Lesson?

This morning, following a rather busy night at work, I had to attend a mandatory class about EKG's. The hospital is going through some department changes and more units will have remote telemetry, so they decided to re-vamp the whole heart monitor system to make it easier to keep track of who does what while we monitor patient's hearts. Now, my unit has used remote telemetry since I started two and a half years ago, but I've always been a little intimidated by the whole process, afraid of misinterpreting a heart rhythm or missing an important detail amidst all those P, QRS and T waves. Cardiac issues scare me. Heart problems just seem to make things go from okay to bad must more quickly than kidney problems. Anyway, the dreaded class ended up being fairly interesting (I can't believe I just admitted that!). We reviewed the physiology of the heart, it's anatomy and how electrical impulses are timed just right to cause the cardiac muscles to contract and send blood throughout the body. And then, when we looked at the EKG strips, it just clicked like it never had before! All of a sudden it just made so much more sense than it ever did before. I know I've studied the exact same material numerous times, but for some reason, it didn't quite make sense to me the way it did today.

That experience made me wonder, what other things should I go back and re-study? And I'm not talking about just medical issues. What things do I need to sit down and examine again? I have a sense that soon I will be learning and re-learning many things as we face graduation, job placement, ministry opportunities, moving etc. I'm honestly just as scared of dealing with these changes as I was of cardiac arrhythmias in my patients.

So, what I'm getting at is this. What do I need to learn to make this whole process less scary? How can I gain back a confidence in Christ and His plan for my future like I gained a new confidence in my understanding of EKG's? I think I need to be spending more time in though in prayer to figure this out...

(A short disclaimer, I've written this having not slept in 24 hours, so bear with my grammatical mistakes and ability to make sense, or not...)

Spring is Here!

Finally! Today it is so beautiful outside. I have a ton to do around the house, especially laundry, since we're having company and then traveling soon, but I couldn't resist going to the park for some time in the 70 degree sunshine! We went to Creve Coeur Lake and walked for a bit, ate ice cream, and then cried all the way back to the car. Well, I didn't cry, but I bet you can guess who did! :)

Morning Hair

Gotta love that little mo-hawk!

Surprises

Russ came home with two surprises for me last night:

The dog is a sweet Australian Blue Heeler (we think) who ran up to Russ as he was coming home from work. She has tags, but apparently someone stole them because we have been unable to find the owner. Unfortunately, that means she'll be picked up later today by animal control. She sweet, gentle and good with the kids, but we just can't have another dog right now. And, I just don't have time to track down the owner. Poor Belle! :(

The flowers are sunflowers that Russ brought home for me! I love having fresh flowers out, it just brightens a room! Thanks love!

Cowboy Up!

Recently, on one of his late night snowboarding trips, Russ managed to score some free rodeo tickets off a drunk guy who had won them earlier that day! He lived too far away to attend, so after Russ spent some time boarding with him while he sobered up, he just gave them to us. So, this afternoon, Russ and I ventured off on a date to see the Professional Bull Riders compete downtown. Having grown up in Texas, I have managed to make it to a few rodeos here and there, but never have I had the privilege to see a show of just bull riders. I actually kind of missed all the other events, especially barrel ridin' and calf ropin'. I didn't really feel like I fit in with most of the crowd as I didn't have wranglers, boots or camo on. I used to have some cowgirl attire, but over the years most of it has been outgrown. Never-the-less, it was a fun show, complete with pyrotechnics and the return of my Texas accent!

So Grown Up!

I've decided I should start doing a monthly post about the girls and their developmental milestones. I'm horrible at keeping track of things, so maybe this will be a reasonable way to keep track of how they are growing! I've given up on the baby books...

Little Tori is our "big" girl in the house. This month she has advanced quite a bit in her speech. I've been worried about her because she hasn't started saying too many words, unlike our neighbor who talks a ton! I know you are not supposed to compare, but sometimes you just can't help it. Just when I was really starting to get worried, she started saying a whole bunch of new words!

Here's a list of what we hear regularly: Hi, bye bye (which she also says when going to bed), mama, dada, yeah (apparently we say "yeah" more than "yes"), no, uh-oh, please ("eeee"), Jude, car, woof woof (whenever Cosmo barks), head, nose, eyes, mouth, and mole (while pointing to the one beside my nose.

Most of her communication includes gestures, her favorite include pointing, waving, flapping her arms and blowing kisses. She really understands quite a lot, it's just a matter of time before her babble is understandable.

Tori also enjoys helping me around the house. She likes to help bake cookies, get spices out of the cabinet (I often find spices stashed in random places), vacuum and sweep. We're working on putting things away and now after she empties a cabinet, I can often coax her to fill it back up! Thank God! :)

Baby Sophie is also growing fast! She has almost outgrown her bouncy seat, so I'm going to borrow an exersaucer from a friend for her to sit in while I cook etc. This is necessary for two reasons, one because I don't quite trust her older sister to take great care of her, and two, because she is now mobile! When I lay her down on the floor, she rolls and scoots all around! Often she ends up under the coffee table.

Sophie is definitely a people person. She loves to interact and smiles so big when Tori or Jude give her attention. She looks you right in the eye and coos and squawks quite intentionally. She also loves exploring faces, which is often painful because her nails are constantly in need of clipping. Her bottom two teeth are in, and I suspect more will arrive soon based on the amount of drool and hand chewing that occurs. She is really quite sweet. We ofter refer to her as our "jolly baby."


The girls have been getting along pretty well. Sophie loves it when Tori gives her attention and talks to her. This has started happening more and more. Now, when Sophie is laying on the ground scooting around, Tori will end up laying down next to her for a little while. Sometimes in the morning I let Tori sit in her high chair eating a leisurely breakfast and Sophie will sit next to her in her bouncy seat while I work in the kitchen. This month, they've started "talking" to each other during these interludes. It's so cute!

As well as they get along most of the time, as sisters, of course they have their moments of jealousy. As of now, this is occurring more on Tori's part than Sophie's. If I'm sitting holding Sophie on my lap, Tori will come up and squeeze her way onto my lap between us. Recently, she's especially wanting attention while I feed Sophie. I try to talk and sing with her and teach her that she doesn't have to be in my lap to have my attention. Tori also finds it difficult to share toys with Sophie. If Sophie touches something she is playing with, squawks and arm flapping are sure to occur. To combat this, I've had her bring Sophie a toy instead. This seems to be working well. Working on sharing will be a continuing project.

That's all for now, more milestones to come next month!