ELSIE
Elsie turned 1 last month! We had a little party for her and enjoyed that. She is a delight to us, though VERY different from her brother. I'm not sure they could be any more different actually. Pretty much you say "Ethan does this" and Elsie is the opposite. Or "Elsie does this" and Ethan is the opposite. We pray that they will learn to work together and be friends through their differences. The differences are neither good nor bad, simply different.
Elsie is a great eater. She has been eating solids for a while now, and for example, today had french fries, some of TJ's hamburger (bun and all!), yesterday she ate apple slices, she eats mandarin orange slices whole if I let her. She isn't interested in walking yet but gets what she wants nonetheless. She loves her brother and when I open her door in the morning and walk in she smiles at me but keeps standing there looking at the door till Ethan comes in. She's had 8 teeth for a while now. She is still nursing and still waking at night, though we're generally down to once a night. Sleeping is not her favorite thing - one nap a day is all she will really sleep for unless her first nap was in the car.
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| Elsie with Mrs. Martin, a friend of my grandma Henrietta (Elsie's middle name). Elsie crawled right over to her and began to grab things off her plate! Mrs. Martin was kind though and shared some of her food. :) |
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| Daddy and his little "pumpkin." She loves snuggling and reading books and getting kisses. |
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| The pretty table my Aunt Irma arranged for Elsie's party. |
Ethan is three now! He was very slow to begin talking but is now nice and chattery. He loves anything with wheels, the cat, Elsie, his grandparents, and going to MOPS, new sunday school and new bible study. He is very active and very social, we're so thankful that Elsie will soon be able to play with him more. He has two friends here he talks about, "cousin Caleb" and Josiah. We're looking forward to getting him outside more this summer.
In the past few days Ethan has potty trained! I've been working with him on and off for a while now but really haven't focused on it at all. Today is Tuesday, so Saturday I just felt like wow, he is ready to be done with diapers. We had his undies on all day including naptime and he did great! Sunday he went to sunday school and church in undies, had a three hour nap in the afternoon and went to church again in the evening for an event (where he got his first fat lip!)(he's fine) and was totally dry that whole time. We went on a long long car drive yesterday and had put a diaper on him about half way through the drive but he refused to go in his diaper. Thus we were acquainted with several roadside bushes, the car tire and some public restrooms. It's great!
Ethan got his first bicycle with training wheels and helmet yesterday also! We were at a thrift shop and found a very nice set VERY cheaply. He keeps asking to go out and ride his bike, although now that means pushing him and trying to explain how to move the pedals. He thinks that is great fun!
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| Big brown eyes. |
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| Making "scary faces!" |
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| Mommy is learning to cut my hair...straight funny bangs will not always be my style! |
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| "Take my picture! Take my picture!" (and then "let me see! let me see!") |
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| This is a photo of Elsie that Ethan took! He loves taking photos and sometimes captures a really good one like this. |
TJ is doing well all things considered. In the new year he has been working on reading through the Bible in 6 months and at his current pace (if he can slog through Leviticus and Numbers!) should be finished within the month. It does a wife's heart good to hear him say, "can we just turn the tv off for a while, I'd really like to read my Bible." :) He hopes to join a Men's Bible Study at our church Wednesday nights and enjoys attending Sunday morning services.
Unfortunately on February 11th he injured his low back. His job is very physical and his back is often sore, so he had gone to a new chiropractor. He saw the chiropractor Monday, went to work Tuesday and hurt really bad, and when he went back to work Wednesday by the time he sat down for a break he was in so much pain his co-workers had to help him stand. He's been off work since then, walks with a cane and can't lift more than about 5 lbs (including the children - he tries, then doubles over in pain).
He will go see a "board certified specialist in physical medicine, rehabilitation, electrodiagnostic medicine and independent medical examiner" in two weeks (two weeks!!) to try and help get him healed. Today we saw a good chiropractor who believes he may have one or more disks that have possibly fragmented. The chiropractor wants him to get an MRI before he will work on him, lest he damage more, and was not at all encouraging (and apologized that he couldn't be more encouraging!) about the road ahead. We spent the entire rest of the day trying to get TJ an MRI, including a visit to the ER (they did give him some shots for the pain) and several calls back and forth to the doctors office.
Unfortunately we seem to be in insurance/doctor limbo now, where the doctor won't do more till the specialist sees him, the specialist won't order more tests till they see him or the doctor orders them, the insurance won't pay for an MRI recommended by the chiropractor because the chiropractor is not with that insurance company, the ER with the MRI machine down the hall won't give him an MRI unless the doctor orders it and in the meantime TJ waits in pain. It makes me feel angry to see him in pain and know that one simple test could get him on the road to recovery and yet somehow no one will make it happen. It brings to mind how helpless I felt working in HR when I could see what would help someone but just couldn't get the pieces to come together to help them. Ugh.
On the bright side his company offers short term disability, so next week we should be getting some sort of check, which means that we were only without a paycheck for two weeks!
While TJ is home we are trying to keep him busy. We've cleaned out a large upstairs closet for him to use as a workshop and he now has a model car to put together along with some other small hand work. It's a bummer because usually when he's off work like this it's because he is laid off, and in that case he can do large heavy indoor and outdoor projects. This time is a little more challenging and he's already going quite stir crazy.
I know TJ would appreciate any prayers, for pain levels, for a cancellation at the specialist so he can get in sooner, and just for general encouragement.
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| Ethan took this one...note the cane TJ is holding. :( |
ME
I'm all good! :) I've been working on round one of purging our house of all the things that are not "beautiful or useful" to us anymore. We still have one more large load to move from my parents and then should be done moving! I have two large areas to finish sorting through and then should be done with round one. After that I can start working more on fun projects like crafts and hobbies.
I'm enjoying learning new skills like yogurt making, bread baking, butter from heavy cream, vanilla extract, teething cream, diaper cream, and the latest...kombucha! I'm really excited about that one though still sourcing a place to buy bottles. I have several small business ideas floating around that I am researching. One of these is to become a daily money manager helping people pay their bills (like a housecleaner would help clean a house). I love working with money!
I have extensive plans for our backyard this summer and am still debating what I should focus on. Eventually we want to have a large garden, save our produce and have some sort of animal for meat. And berry bushes and fruit trees and flowers and herbs (for beauty, food and medicinal purposes). It's hard to take it a step at a time when I have so many large dreams!
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| Snuggling with my little girl. Isn't her grin great! |
OUR FAMILY
As a family we are doing well overall in this last year and a half since our move. We still miss our Oregon friends and family something fierce, but are slowly putting down roots here.
Lately we've begun attending a new church and are happy to have found a place now where our hearts feel at home. It is so hard to leave a church you love (or anything... we're finding this is true with every aspect of our lives here) and forgive every church after that for not being the one we left. We've only been attending "new church" as Ethan says for a few weeks but are excited about going each week and looking forward to finding ways to meet people and get involved. The new schedule also works much better around naptimes, which is so important when Elsie only takes one nap a day anyway!
We also made the permanent choice to be done with our biological family. Although we're not fully sure we're done having a family we wanted to be sure that if we wanted more children we would adopt. Also, TJ says he never wants to see a baby born purple again with the cord around its neck like Elsie was (she was fine though, it must have tightened in the canal). There are sooooooo many kids out there that need a good home, I'd love to adopt them all! We'll see what the future brings, but in the meantime I've given away all the cloths the kids have grown out of. If another one comes along we can get more and in the meantime I don't have to store them!
We're also joining the ranks of people who are thinking more about food choices and sources. From videos like "Food, Inc." to cookbooks like "Nourishing Traditions," we're slowly beginning to eat healthier and more humanely. We're also focusing this year on sourcing things locally. There are Wal-Mart's here, but why should we support their corporate structure when we can support many great small local business (which in turn directly supports our community) for about the same cost. And some things should be more important than a price tag anyway. In the process we find out great things, like the local grocery store will bag our food and take it to the car for us and ask us not to tip! With two kids and a gimpy hubby that rocks!
Thanks for reading our little update! Blessings to each of you.
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| Homemade pizza including crust and mozzarella cheese! |
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| Homemade sushi! Ohhhh so yummy! |
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| They love to stand and look out the window, though Elsie can't quite see it all yet. |
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| Ethan helping Elsie. |
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| Beautiful sunset, photo taken from our porch. |
