Ponderings from 2 Days in the Life of a Mom of Three Littles

This week is my first week back to my normal 80% schedule at work after taking 3 1/2 months off to spend with our newest addition and his big sisters. My schedule includes working half days (mornings) from home on Mondays and Tuesdays. Here’s a rundown of those two days this week as well as my ponderings to follow. Note that James works late both of these days, so I don’t see him until after 9pm.

Monday: Nathan wakes up at a good time, feed him, get going on work early around 7am. Stop work around 9:30 as the ladies in my Bible study had planned a small outreach that morning. Completed our task by 10:45 and was back to work by 11. Finished up work at 1, fed Nathan, got birthday presents ready, scarfed down my own lunch and went to get Emma from school. Played on the playground between pickups and chatted with friends, went to get Ellie from school. Straight home to change clothes for gymnastics class and off to a sweet little friend’s birthday party. Stayed at the party for 45 minutes (where I fed Nathan) and then jetted over to gymnastics class. Watched gymnastics class and then scooted the kids to the gym child care so I could attend my Turbo Kickbox class. Punch out my stresses, finish, get kids home, make the girls dinner, feed Nathan, scarf down some dinner for myself and start bedtime. Kids in bed by 8:30, kitchen cleaned, and take a bath while watching one of my silly tv shows. Ahhhh….

Tuesday: Work from home from 8-12:30 stopping once to feed Nathan. Nathan rejects that feeding all over our bed on the sheets we just washed. Strip bed, James starts sheets, I keep working. I think I’ll have from 12:30 – 1:30 to get lunch and get some things done around the house while Nathan sleeps, but he wakes up right at 12:30 screaming. I quickly make myself a lunch and eat while nursing. Out the door at 1:40 to go get Emma from school. Talk with friend on the way and decide to cancel Bible Study which was supposed to be at my house at 8pm. (What a blessing that will turn out to be.) Play on playground again and chat with friends again. Off to get Ellie and on to a friend’s house for our standing Tuesday play date. Nathan who was asleep during Emma’s pickup and playgrounding wakes up on the way to get Ellie and screams all through the waiting and drive to said friend’s house. The screaming starts to wear on me. I feed him at friend’s house and then go to change his diaper to learn that he’s had a blow out onto his clothes. Excellent. Grateful for change of clothes in the diaper bag. Change him. After 20 minutes of happy, the screaming starts again. Finally get him to sleep right before we leave and pray for a long nap in the car seat. While at friend’s house, check email to see that Ellie has soccer practice at 5:45. Ack! James mentioned this, but it didn’t make it onto my mental Tuesday calendar. Load kids up, leave friend’s house at 5:15, race home to get some soccer clothes, make it to soccer practice about 10 minutes late with no camping chairs to sit in. Stand and watch practice. The baby screaming starts again about 6:20 and continues until 7. Leave practice with screaming baby, hit up McDonald’s drive through, get home and again eat while nursing. Yell at the girls for arguing and fussing. Get kids to bed, lament the fact that I still have to put the sheets back on our California King on my own, and wish I’d had the energy to give the kids a bath. Can you imagine if I then had to host Bible Study? Eeek!

Kudos to anyone who actually read through all that madness, but here’s my point. Monday was insane, and I clearly packed too many things in. Yet, I finished it feeling like Superwoman. A supermom who kept it together and even got a great workout in at the end of the day. I thoroughly enjoyed my children and felt like I got my work accomplished well. But…don’t worry. I didn’t pat myself on the back too much about this, as I know all too well that the Tuesdays come. The days where you’re exhausted by noon and don’t even know why because you got pretty good sleep (considering you have a 3 month old). The days where you yell at the kids and regret it the second it’s out of your mouth. The days where you’ve also packed too much in but you don’t even know it yet because the surprise soccer practice pops up out of nowhere. The days where it seems like the kids whine and fuss more than is normal. The days where you baby who has been in a pretty good routine decides to scream three times more than normal.

The amazing thing, though, is that my blessings were the same both days. This is what I will choose to focus on as I close the books on a challenging day. Both days, I had a great husband who helped me with the kids especially in the mornings. Both days, I worked a job I enjoy and get paid well for. Both days, I spent time with my precious children who, amazingly, love me unconditionally even when I’m unkind to them. (Literally, two minutes after I yelled at them for not moving quickly tonight, Ellie says “Mom…I love you.”) Both days, God calmed my heart and was with me. Both days, my little clan was healthy. Both days, my kids had fun. I could go on and on.

My two little days mimic our lives in general, do they not? The characteristics of the days (or months or seasons) are different, and the blessings are different, but it’s all still there. Even in the worst of situations, I believe God is still there and there is good to be found. My little rough day on Tuesday was nothing, but I’m grateful God showed me the blessing in it. I pray that He’s grooming me to see the blessing in my next crisis and to be able to walk through it with Him in full faith that He’s working it for my good no matter how painful the road may be.

Hair Bows

With 5 and 3 year old girls, we have a lot of hair bows….a LOT! The kids’ bathroom only has two drawers in it, and all of the bows took up both drawers completely. While Nathan really doesn’t need any space NOW, someday he will and the bow situation has been driving me crazy. I searched pinterest for ideas and didn’t find anything that was exactly what I wanted. So, I created my own. Here’s what I came up with and how I did it:

I got an 18” x 36” piece of cork board from Hobby Lobby along with some cute fabric and some batting. I picked up some coordinating ribbon, and then went to Home Depot and got a few hooks for the bottom. Using James’ staple gun, I stapled on the fabric and the ribbon. I got some pink spray paint (because really, what’s a fun project without spray paint?!) and turned the hooks pink. Then James helped screw the hooks into the board. (Tip: If you try this, cut the fabric and the batting first with an exacto knife before you drill the holes. Otherwise, the batting bunches up and wraps around the drill. Don’t ask me how I know this. I just do.) Last, I added the ribbon loops on the lower corners to hold headbands also just with the staple gun. Screw into the wall, and voila! The empty drawers make me happy, and I think this looks pretty cute. (James was a little concerned about having something so girly in what will ultimately be a bathroom shared by a boy. I basically told him Nathan is going to have to get used to being around some girly things. It’s not like the whole bathroom is decorated girly. Ha!)

Wiebe Christmas 2011

As I mentioned in my last post, we decided to go to Detroit for Christmas since it had been so long since we’ve been with my sister and her family. We started our drive on Sunday the 18th and made it the 8 hours to Springfield, MO for the night. While we do have the pleasure of having the DVD player in our vehicle, I wanted to add some fun non-TV elements to our journey. We’ve been having fun with our Elf on the Shelf Peter. (He has done such shenanigans as eating our cereal and using a sharpie to draw mustaches and glasses on Ellie and Emma’s photos in our living room!) Peter decided to make the journey with us, and he left the girls some surprises in their car seats. They were excited to have some new coloring books and a new movie each. I also put up a count down line in the car with milestone cities along our trip. The girls had fun taking turns pulling them down as we reached each city.

There’s Peter just “hanging out” and our little milestone banner.

And let me take just a moment to brag on my kids. All 3 kids did SO great. We had a super rough night with them before we left, but they were great travelers. Nathan cried maybe a half hour total on the whole way up there! The girls did great taking turns choosing videos and coloring, etc. I’m so glad our little family can handle long road trips, because I’m pretty sure we won’t be shelling out the money for 5 flights to anywhere anytime soon! :)

The next morning, we took off for Indianapolis where some of our very best friends the Cornwell’s live. We made it by dinner time and had SUCH a great 36 hours or so with them. It was so nice to let them get to meet our little guy. We played games (one of our favorite things to do!) and decorated cookies. I just love that even though we’re miles apart and only see each other every year or two, we can fall right back into a super comfortable friendship in no time at all. Those kinds of friendships are rare, and we’re super grateful for this family. It was fun to get to celebrate Paul’s birthday with them while we were there, too. Here are some photo highlights of that visit:

On Wednesday morning, we left fairly early to get to Detroit. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on those sweet nephews of mine! Jennie had her fourth son just 3 days after we had Nathan. (It was an eventful week!) I hope these little guys will be good buds. Here’s their first meeting:

Their size difference makes me smile, but it will be gone in no time, I’m sure.

Here’s our first attempt at getting a photo of the 7 cousins. If this doesn’t make you laugh, I don’t know what will:

Here’s the best shot from that session:

For sleeping arrangements, we started off trying to sleep the 4 oldest in the same room in two twin beds. Ellie with little James and Emma with Georgie. It didn’t quite work out. HA! We ended up deciding that little James was our biggest challenge, so he spent the rest of the week in with his grandparents. The other three had some challenges but succeeded generally speaking the rest of the week. We tried to be laid back about it in hopes that they were making some sweet memories.

On our arrival day, we just laid low and ordered dinner in. It was a nice time for everyone to reconnect. On Thursday, our main activity was decorating cookies. We also ventured out for dinner that night but ended up deciding to split up where Jen and I went to Olive Garden with the babies and the guys took the big kids to Burger King to play. (Yes, I know we got the better end of that deal. To pay us back, Nathan screamed pretty much our whole dinner…)

This one just makes me smile…

Georgie showed Ellie his video game skills

Emma and John playing with Uncle David

And another sweet bedtime scene

Friday was our big photo shoot day. We all went to a park (yes – outdoors in Detroit in December!) to take some photos. Stay tuned for another post with the highlights from that, but let me just say that the photographer was AWESOME about going fast. It was in the 30s, so we were all bundled up. She did great about getting the photos as quickly as possible. I think it went well and can’t wait to get the photos back. Here are the candid highlights from Friday:

Post photo-shoot cookie treats

Saturday was Christmas Eve. We had a nice day hanging around the house before heading to David’s Aunt’s house for a lovely Christmas Eve gathering.

Our crew at lunch

Little James is such a sweet little love. He kept wanting to see “that cute little baby”.

Georgie and Ellie were good buds the whole time

This photo captures the difference in our babies’ temperaments while we were there. :) Nathan was just off from the trip in general, I think, and was fussier than normal. Joseph, meanwhile, was pretty much a perfect baby and never made a peep. I love them both to pieces, but the difference was funny!

Our crew at Aunt Ann’s that evening. The food was great, and the family was SO nice. We felt so welcomed.

We did our gift exchange here, so this is when all of our family opened their PJs that I made.

Ellie and James changed immediately and were pretty cute if I do say so myself.

And of course that leads us to Christmas morning! Here’s the scene before the kids woke up (oh – and did I mention that we had to WAKE them up around 8?!?! Most mornings they woke up Jenn’s in-laws in the 6am hour – nuts!)

Our sweet babies before they came around the corner to see what Santa brought them. Are we blessed or WHAT?!

Emma with her Sleeping Beauty doll from Santa

Ellie with her Tangled doll from Santa

Guns and dress up :)

All of our babies in their matching little jammies

Outtake!

Peter the Elf adopted the Brady boys upon our arrival. They ate it up, so I’m pretty sure they’ll have their own elf next year. He wrote them notes and even turned the milk green while he was there! Here’s his goodbye note on Christmas morning:

Ellie and Georgie wrote Peter a note on Christmas Eve asking how the elves make all the toys. How cute is that?!

The boys got a fun trampoline that all of the cousins enjoyed immensely.

Cousins playing

In the afternoon, we were invited to a family friend’s house for a Christmas gathering. The host has 8 children and an AMAZING home. We were blessed to be included.

Georgie didn’t want his picture taken, but Aunt Amy didn’t care. :)

One of the traditions at this home is to do a play of the Christmas story. All of our big kids participated and Baby Joseph was even included as Baby Jesus. They did so well – it was super cute.

Baby Joseph/Jesus :)

Georgie as a shepherd

Ellie was one of the wise men

The whole cast including James as the leopard. (John was dressed as a cow but opted not to participate in the actual play. He was still a cutie, though!)

My tired little man at the end of the night. He was coming down with his virus by then, so he slept a TON while we were there.

This is the home we were at….just wow.

We left the next morning to head back. We were sad to say bye to the Brady’s, but we had SUCH a great time. So good to see you guys, and we pray it’s not another year or more until we see you again! Our trip back was less fun that the one there mostly because Nathan came down with a virus. He started running a fever and breathing unevenly on Monday, so we stopped in Bowling Green, KY to take him to an urgent care to get checked out. They thought it was still in his head and not down in his chest and gave us an antibiotic and some instructions on what to watch for. We were thinking about driving straight through but decided to stop and get some rest given his illness. We stayed overnight in Nashville where Nathan slept well and then made our way back home on Tuesday. Nathan clearly improved, so we were grateful for that. We made it home by bedtime and were so glad to have all of our kids in their separate beds for the night.

Throughout it all, we kept our focus on Christ and the true meaning of Christmas. What better way to celebrate our Savior’s birth than by building on the relationships of great friends and sweet family that he’s placed in our lives. We are immeasurably blessed and are grateful for yet another fabulous Christmas!