What a Weekend!

I am loving Marc's laid back month. For four months straight he was working in the hospital every weekday and had to be there at 6 am. That meant that for four months I got both kids and myself up and ready in the morning and then to school/work. Whew! Well, now that Marc is on a clinic month he doesn't have to be at work until 8 and he has been taking the kids to school some for me. It has given me a much needed break each morning. :) Marc has also had all of his weekends off from rounding this month which is even better. We were able to enjoy sleeping in until eight on Saturday and Sunday (thanks to our kiddos for cooperating on that one!).

We officially rented our house last week for the next year which was a huge relief for us. If we had sold this year we would have taken a loss so we will hold onto it for now and see how things look next year. We ended up renting to an older couple who are relocating from California to be near their kids and grandkids. I don't know if they are looking to buy after their lease with us is up next July, but since they don't have kids, pets, or smoke we are hoping they will only put gentle wear on the house. So, our house was withdrawn from the market on Saturday. It was so nice not worrying about the house being clean for a possible showing over the weekend. We enjoyed staying in our PJs for a good while on Saturday morning. :)

On Saturday night we went to the international medicine fellowship director's house for dinner and a quick French lesson. I really thought I was done with text books but now currently have a "French Made Simple" book on our kitchen table. :) The country we are going to next year speaks French so we are hoping to learn a few phrases and common words before we go. The Stephens are fluent in French because that is the national language in Rwanda where they were missionaries for quite some time before moving back to Wichita.

Hailey wore a new dress to go out to dinner. I almost missed this dress completely because it was hidden in her closet and she will be too big for it pretty soon!

We took Gracie her birthday present! She is turning one this weekend. Eli was really excited to give her the present but didn't have much patience waiting on her to open it up.

Dean and Dianna brought Hailey and Eli a French kids book back from their recent trip to Mali. I loved getting to hear it read with a French accent. :)

Marc woke up on Sunday morning and told me that he was craving a donut. Marc NEVER wants donuts for breakfast so I thought we should take advantage of it and head to the donut shop before church.

Hailey was just hanging out in her car seat and watching us eat. I promised her we would come back when she is a little bigger so she can have a taste. :)

After church, we brought the kids home to take naps and then we loaded them up again in the car for a quick trip to the zoo. I am thinking more and more about getting a double stroller but need to do a little more research. Until then, we will keep pushing them separately. Eli loved showing Hailey all the animals. "Look Haywee!"

 Eli and his Daddy

 After the zoo we went to a new park to play and then stopped off for ice cream sundays from McDonald's. Eli wanted his own. He is getting to be so independent these days. ;)

Well, I think that was all the pictures we had from our weekend! It has taken me three days to get this posted onto blogger. I was having the hardest time getting my pictures to load and then realized I had exceeded my space on the blog for photos. Everything is fixed now (for a small fee to upgrade my storage space!) and our next posts will be coming from Florida! Time to go pack.

7 month and 2 year pictures

We are finding out that your first child is so different from the ones that follow. You take pictures of your first child constantly and video EVERYTHING. We have a five minute video we took of Eli when he was a baby doing nothing more than hiccuping. Marc says that we used to come home from work and just sit and stare at Eli when he was a baby. Ha! Well, life it a little busier now that he is a toddler. Hailey is great and goes right along with everything, but we often feel like we have not documented her first year as well as we would have liked.. We took Eli to get pictures made at 0, 3, 6, and 9 months. Up until this past weekend we just had Hailey's newborn pictures. But, we finally made it out of the house to a portrait place down the street. You never know how these pictures are going to turn out (especially when the guy taking the pictures scares your child to death and then says, "Kids just don't like me.") but I think we got a few keepers out of the batch. A big thanks to Aunt Jamie for Hailey's dress and Aunt Stacey for Eli's shirt and shorts! You guys matched an outfit for them and didn't even know it. :)

I didn't buy this one because it wasn't cropped in the store but it looked so cute once I got home and edited it on the computer. :)

Eli loves putting his hands in his pockets like his daddy.

I think those are some beautiful babies.

Our Chilly Weekend

It was so cold this weekend for the middle of May! I would never have thought I would be turning our heater back on, but when the house got down to 65 degrees it was time to kick it back on. :) We wore jackets most of the weekend but still managed to get some time outside. Eli just about goes crazy if he doesn't get to burn off a little energy each day outside! I was glad that some of Hailey's three month jackets still fit because we certainly didn't buy her a coat for summer.

Hailey turned SEVEN months old this weekend. She is rolling all over the place and starting to scoot around a little as well. It is crazy to me that Eli was crawling at this age! I am thankful that she is taking her time. I am in no rush to have two mobile kids. :) She loves her baby food and is still just drinking breast milk. I quit pumping at work at seven months with Eli but formula was so expensive so I feel more motivated this time around to keep up with the free stuff. :)

We took the kids on Sunday to get some pictures made so I will try to post some of those later this week!

Sweet Corn

is oh so good...

until you bite your tongue.

Small Town Life

Marc and I went with the kids this past weekend to Ashland, Kansas which is just a few hours from here. I think the population is around 900. We had a great weekend meeting some new people and enjoying the country life. This town does not even have one doctor currently to run their clinic or hospital so they frequently bring people from the residency in to work for the weekend. I think they appreciated Marc coming!

We stayed with a very sweet couple at their bed and breakfast for the weekend. They have a brand new beautiful home and were such wonderful hosts to us. We had two separate rooms in their walk out basement which worked much better for us for sleeping arrangements. We put Eli on a blow up mattress in one room which was a whole new adventure for him since he is still in his crib at home. I think it was actually more freedom than he knew what to do with. He was a ball of energy each night before bed and having a mattress to jump up and down on seemed to only add fuel to the fire. :)

I really enjoy small town life. I know lack of access can sometimes make things difficult but the slower pace is so refreshing to see. Less traffic, noise, and pollution are just a few perks, but the sense of community is hard to beat. We enjoyed sitting around, sipping on tea, and making some new friends. Eli seemed to make friends with everyone except the very old dog, Bandit, at the house we were staying at. Bandit was very glad to see us packing up the car on Sunday and putting this wild man in it. :)

Although Mother's Day was spent away from home and traveling, it was great spending some time enjoying my family. On Sunday, I got to open the sweetest gifts that Eli and Hailey had made for me at school. Marc picked up the kids on their last day last week and was able to hide their gifts from me until Sunday. Eli was SO proud to see me open his present. It just warmed my heart. I love my babies dearly and can't think of any other little ones I would rather be mother to. They are simply the best there is....

especially when they are covered in peas. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to our moms and our Mama Reenie and Nana. We feel SO very blessed to have you both in our lives! Thank you for all you do for us and your grandbabies. :)

Tummy Tickles

Eli had fun blowing on Hailey's tummy at the end of their bath last night. He gets so mad when Marc does this non-stop to him that I think he decided to pick on someone his own size. :) This video is probably one that will embarass these two when they are bigger, but I knew that their grandparents would get a good laugh from it!

Eli's Birthday Recap

I figured since May snuck up on me I needed to get in my last post from April on Eli's birthday weekend. We had such a great time with family and friends celebrating Eli turning two. Eli won't remember this birthday when he is older (except through pictures) but he had the best time ever on that day. Since the party was at 4 pm we spent most of the morning making food and decorating. I put Eli down for his nap and when he woke up he saw this...

He was so excited to see Elmo everywhere and was also very fond of these big posters of himself. :)

My mom brought the cake from a little bakery in Missouri that they pass by on their way to Wichita. It is the same person who made my sister's wedding cake and she makes wonderful sweets.

I had these pictures blown up at Walgreens for decoration and thought they turned out really cute!

Right before our friends arrived we hid around 200 eggs in our backyard! I had envisioned a very organized "egg hunt" with parents and their children, but then I walked outside to see that Eli had taken off hunting eggs ahead of schedule. Oh well, I figured it was his party after all! He had so much fun finding eggs and putting them in his basket and then he realized after shaking one that there was candy inside. He quickly went to cracking eggs open to get out the chocolate treasures. This boy loves chocolate!

At one point we didn't see Eli in the yard any more and found him sitting on a step on the side of our house unwrapping Hershey chocolate eggs. His cheeks were puffy from all the chocolate he had in his mouth and he had chocolate saliva dripping down his face! Marc said it looked like he had a mouth full of chewing tobacco. Ha! I had really wanted to get some cute close-up pictures of him in his Elmo shirt but by the time I got a chance it was already covered in chocolate. So, I might have to dress him back up another day to get pictures. :)

We loved having everyone come and celebrate with us. Thank you! It might have been the last time we will see many of these families in our residency before everyone goes their separate ways after graduation in June. Marc and I both feel very fortunate to have been a part of this family medicine program over the past three years and know that the people in our class that we have shared life with are a bit part of why we feel this way.

It amazes me how many children we have added to our class since we started residency in 2008. We have 14 married people in our class (I think) and if I added things up correctly today, we have had FOURTEEN babies amongst our class alone in the past three years (and there are still two girls in our class who are currently pregnant!).  Marc and I have contributed 14% of that group with our two. Ha! It certainly has been fun and we will miss everyone.

On another note, there has been so much suffering that I have seen around me lately. When I get the energy (and time), I will try to process out my thoughts about what God is teaching me through it all. In the mean time I would appreciate you continuing to pray for my aunt. I think she is on her fourth week in the hospital today. She is doing much better.. breathing on her own, ambulating more, and her kidney function is returning. However, she is still very much in a recovery process.

I have also been following this mom's blog for the past few months and admiring her strength and beautiful faith in God as she watches her daughter, Lucy, battle cancer. Lucy is a patient at St. Jude and currently in the radiation phase of her cancer treatment. Pray for God's mercy on this sweet child and that the treatments she is going through will be successful.

And lastly, please pray for this family. Patrick is a friend of mine from high school and his newborn baby was just diagnosed last week with a condition known as Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Their baby has Type 1, the most serious type, and usually results in respiratory failure before the age of one without pursuing aggressive medical care. I can't begin to tell you the pain I have in my heart when I think about this. Being a mom, has, and forever will, changed my ability to sympathize with a mom having to watch her child suffer. This family will be making some tough decisions in the coming months, and I know that only God provides the peace they will need during this time.

Sorry to end on a somber note, but these families have been occupying much of my thoughts lately so I wanted to ask you to pray for them with me. God provides the rest our weary souls need when we take our burdens to Him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”   Matthew 11:28-30