Noah is 9 Months Old!

Noah is 9 months old today!  What a crazy 9 months it has been.  Noah was our little "surprise" from God and we are so lucky to have him in our family!  He has proven to be such a sweet and mild-tempered baby; the easiest of all three of mine.  The last 2 months have been a little rough for him as he started teething in December and then it turned into a nasty cold that took him over a month to finally shake.  That left him pretty whiney and needy; but now that we are over all of that, he is back to being his sweet and calm little self!

A few fun facts about Noah:

• he has a smile that lights up the room
• he weighs almost 20 pounds; whew, BIG boy!
• he is in full crawling mode; gates went up this week
• he can pull himself up, but doesn't very often
• starting to cruise just a few steps
• refuses to roll over; I know he can b/c I have seen it, but he is a sitting duck on his back
• has an amazing ability to find the one itty-bitty tiny thing on the floor that I don't want in his mouth!
• has 2 teeth on the bottom with no signs of more coming anytime soon
• Still nurses to sleep for naps and bedtime; these are my favorite moments with him each day
• takes 2 naps (9am to 10:30am and 1:30 pm to 3pm) and then to bed by 8pm and sleeps thru the night until 7am!  I love the predictability!
• loves to chase after his big brothers and go after their toys
• is WAY too big for baby toys, he would rather gum up his brothers toys which are too little for him; this has been an adjustment for me
• loves to be held and cuddled; he is a very physical child and enjoys that intimacy
• Mommy is WAY better than Daddy; he will do anything to get out of Daddy's arms and into mommy's!
• LOVES to be naked; his favorite part of the day I think!
• says "All Done" or at least imitates it
• starting to babble a lot and make various noises; he likes to experiment with his mouth to make different sounds
• Feeding himself very well!  He loves black beans, crackers, puffs and cheerios are his favorite.
• still breastfeeds for about half of his nutrition.  
• loves all solid foods
• his brothers can make him giggle so hard
• Baths are fun but a little dangerous as he thinks he can scoot and move all over the place.
• has such a sweet disposition and easy going personality; not too much bothers him!

Here are a few pics of Noah in action:

Yep, I'm cute!

 Noah found the toilet and the toilet paper; fun fun fun!

 He loves to look at himself in the mirror!

 You want me to stay on my tummy?  No, I think I'll crawl off the couch!

 Haha!  Just kidding!

 Aren't I just the sweetest little thing?

 Loves the dogs bowl!

 Yeah, I'm big!

Watch out world, here I come!

 Brothers!

A letter to my boys

My dear boys~

It is still surreal to me that my journey as a mother began over 4 years ago.  Little did I know how much you three boys would change me, for the better.  You have helped me immensely in my journey to be a better Catholic, more patient, compassionate, loving, strong, happy, creative and so much more.  I set out on this journey with your father to help you become the best people possible; and somehow you have changed me along the way.  I had no idea that I would ever be a stay at home mommy and yet I wouldn't trade the time with you for all the money in the world.  My job is to help you come closer to Christ and develop a deep relationship with Him, and yet you have guided me closer to Christ.  I am starting to realize that me changing was necessary to help you become the best version of yourself for Christ so that you can change the world.  My father once told me that successful parenting is about caring, consistency and consequences.

1.  Loving you is the easy part!  I look at your sweet faces and can't help but love you more and more each day.  My love for you comes so naturally and it is what keeps me going each day.  My love for you allows me to laugh with you, be silly with you, comfort you when you are hurt, guide you in making good decisions, teaching you how to share and play with your brothers, rocking and cuddling when you just need some mommy time, and being there for you no matter what.  It has taught me that through self-sacrifice, I can find my joy and happiness in yours. There is no better person in the world that can take care of you other than me.  I truly believe that God picks each child for the parents.  There are days that I wish I could send you to a pre-school so that I could get 2 hours to myself; whether to read or clean or just take a nap.  But I know that you need me more than anything right now.  You need my love and guidance and assurance that the world is a good place and all of your needs will be met; maybe not instantly, but they will be met.  This neediness can be exhausting, but as with all things, this too shall pass.  I don't want to ever have regrets that I wish I had more time with you.  So I take each moment and I embrace it; I am thankful for each day and strive to get the most out of it; for your sake and for mine. 

2.  Consistency is tough and challenges me on a daily basis.  I don't want to discipline you but I know that I must teach you right from wrong.  When I am tired, being consistent is so difficult and yet I know that this consistency is what gives you a sense of calm and security.  When I am consistent, you obey consistently because you know exactly what will happen if you do not.  It is through consistency that a more peaceful home is achieved.  Consistency takes a lot of work on my part; it means that I must put my needs and wants on hold if you are acting out and need to be redirected.  This means that I may need to get off the phone during an important conversation or leave the park even though I want to stay and visit with other moms.  It means that my needs must be put secondary to yours; this form of self-sacrifice is not always easy!  But God always gives me the strength to persevere.  He will never give me more than I can handle; my trust is in Him.

3.  Consequences: this is my least favorite part of parenting.  I know that I must give punishment when you have sinned.  I must teach you how to obey God and that begins with obeying your parents at this point.  I don't take pleasure in removing your privileges or sending you to time out.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  It breaks my heart to watch you struggle, but I know that you must struggle in order to realize the importance of obeying.  It is through these struggles that God gives us, the we are able to grow as a person and develop compassion for others.  One of the greatest struggles in parenting, is coming up with creative punishments.  I don't believe in just spanking or time-out.  I think there is a time and place for both, but there are times when the loss of privileges can make more of an impact.  I believe that before a consequence is given, parenting must be pro-active.  It is through positive reinforcement that we can guide our children to obey with a happy heart, all the time.  I must look for the positive and guide you to obey out of desire to please God, rather than to avoid punishment. 

Someday, I hope to look back on my life and feel that my greatest accomplishments in my life were my marriage and my children.  Your father and I have the opportunity to help you become faithful and obedient Catholics who can help to change the world.  Through your love, you can share Christ's love with the world.  You can make a difference and leave a piece of this world better than you found it.  That is our dream for you boys!  God has a plan for each of you, and as long as you obey Him, your happiness and salvation shall be achieved.  This road in life is not easy, but we will always be here and love you, no matter how much you stumble.  The love that your father and I have for you is infinite and never failing.  We love you and will support you along this journey!  I am so thankful that God gave each of you to us!

With love,
Mommy

Caleb's Speech

Caleb has been doing speech therapy for 3 months now and I am happy to report that we are starting to see some progress!  For a while, I was not noticing much difference, though the speech language pathologist kept telling me that she was hearing subtle changes.  About 2 weeks ago, he went from using only one word at a time to more phrases with 2 to 3 words.  His clarity has not changed.  For example, when Caleb says "Monkey" he say "Muh Muh".  He often takes the first syllable and doubles it up.  However, Monday was an exciting day because he said something I had never heard before.  Normally he would say "mouse" as "Mow".  But on Monday, he said "Mow-sss".  He had added the "s" on at the end.  I noticed again when he said "yes".  I jumped for joy, literally, when I heard this!

I recorded a few phrases he has been saying lately that show a big progress in his speech:

1.  have grapes please

2.  me stir Noah

3.  you have mom?

4.  mac mac cheese

5.  very dark here

Most people have a difficult time understanding what Caleb says, even Brian.  Caleb is naturally shy but he doesn't really talk around other people because he is aware of his speech problems.  He is content to just observe and engage me when necessary.  Caleb is an intelligent little boy and all the thoughts are there, just getting them to come out clearly is an issue.  Last night he completely surprised me in the bath tub as he named off his letters.  I had no idea he knew any letters, but apparently he does.  I have to give Super Why credit for that as I have not worked with Caleb on letters; he has many years ahead of him to accomplish that.  Caleb's learning world is all about play right now!

I do everything I can to encourage him to talk more and when he does, I praise him for it.  I am able to figure out 99.9% of the time what he needs or wants as long as it is in context.  I am so proud of him for continuing to try and I think that within the next year, we will see marked improvements!  Praise God because I know it could be so much worse!  

Our New Home

We are building a home!  I can't believe I'm typing these words and as I do, it still seems so surreal.  I got home last night around 1am from a whirlwind trip to Greenville that began at 4am Saturday morning.  Noah and I flew down to Greenville at 6am out of Hartford and got to Greenville by 9:30am.  Brian had the pleasure of some quality time with Jacob and Caleb for the weekend.  We got our rental car and headed to meet the Realtor before going to the builder.  We got to the builder about 11am and began to tour the model home and go over all the details of building.  We got a tour of the neighborhood and by 4pm we were on our way to look at some other homes.  By 6pm, we were done and I was not impressed with what I had seen.  For the price, we could get a much better home by building.  I was quite pleased that when they ran the estimate to build our house, we were still 10K under our budget! ;-)  So after talking to Brian and showing him more pics, we made up our mind to build.

Sunday morning came early at 5:45 am and I was up to get showered, eat and head to St. Mary Magdelene's which will be our new church when we get to Greenville.  They have over 3000 families. a women's bible study of 80 women, a very active Knights of Columbus and so much more!  I am so excited to get involved with the church and start to make some good friends!  After church, I drove around and got acquainted with the area, timing how far it would be to church, the YMCA and to the hospital for Brian, from Plantation Greene, our new neighborhood.  Everything was no more than 10 minutes away.  All of the fabulous shopping is about 5 minutes away, depending on traffic!  It all just seems to be a perfect fit for the lifestyle that we want to live!  

Plantation Greene is a gated community with a pool, lazy river, fenced in playground, stocked fishing pond and plenty of open green space for the boys to play!  The neighborhood is flat so it will be perfect for the boys to ride their bikes.  We were able to get one of the few couldesac lots still available and there is a fence behind our property with some town-homes about 150 feet behind the fence!   There are sidewalks throughout the community and the pool is a short walk away from our house.  The house should be done the first week or two in July!  I am thankful that the cost of living is so cheap in Greenville, otherwise we would not be able to afford to live like this!

Our house is  called a Dorchester and will be the first one built in this development.  They do not allow the same house to be built next to you or across the street from you, so that is nice!  The home is perfect for our lifestyle and what we were looking for.  The upstairs has 4 bedrooms with a large bonus room and the laundry room.  This was important for me as I will be spending the majority of my time upstairs with the boys.  The bonus room will serve as a playroom and a classroom as I start to do more structured homeschooling.  Downstairs, there is a formal dining room, living room (we are going to turn into a library/reading area), an office for Brian, a family room with a fireplace, a dream kitchen, walk in pantry and a breakfast room!  The garage is a 2 1/2 car garage so plenty of space to store things.  We have a large front porch across the front of the house, which was important for both of us!  Prior to looking, Brian and I had made a list of all the things that were most important to us and this home fit all the criteria!

To say that I am excited is an understatement.  It is nice to have the relief of house hunting behind us.  The next few weeks will be busy getting to pick out colors for our flooring, cabinets, countertops, etc!  Not to mention, I get to start dreaming about how to decorate.   We are excited to start this new chapter in our life.  We have plenty of space to accommodate guests and we are excited to share our home with others.  We will have a great  play room and large yard to share with friends when they come over.  Brian and I would like to do a couples bible study again which we could do at our house.  Our home will be open to any and all visitors and we hope to share our blessings with as many people as possible!!!!  Please come and visit us, we would love to have you!!! ;-)

I have posted some pics below!

This is looking into our living room off the right when you first walk in the house.
This will be our library/reading room!

This is the formal dining room which is off to the left when you first walk in.

This is in the kitchen looking out into the breakfast room which will open up to the back yard!

Part 1 of my kitchen...the kitchen is what sold me on the house! 

This is standing in the family room looking into the kitchen! 

Our kitchen...can't wait to start cooking in it!

Love love love the kitchen.  Ours will not have the double ovens and will be slightly bigger than this one.  I have enough stuff to fill about 1/5 of the kitchen!  After the house we are living in now, this is a huge improvement and will be a blessing to have too many cabinets!  I am definitely appreciative of it!

Our kitchen will have the pantry in a different location but I completely fell in love with that island. 

My walk in pantry!

  The living room.  Our fireplace will have stacked stone and be raised up.  The best part is that is gas and you flip it on with a switch.  No more messy ashes!

Looking down our couldesac.  Our house will be on the left.  

There will be one lot in between us and the house you see.

This is looking out from the back of our property into the couldesac.

This is open space for the boys to play and run!

Our lot!

The clubhouse!

The pool!

The lazy river!

More open space for the boys to play and run!

The stocked fishing pond for the boys!  When I was in the model home, the builder told me to look out the window and it was the perfect Hallmark moment.  There were three boys walking down the street with their fishing poles returning from an afternoon at the pond.  It nearly brought tears to my eyes as I could picture my boys in 10 years!

Home sweet home!

The playground!

This is what our house will look like when it is done...though a different color brick and flipped!  Garage is a side entry to the left there, though will enter our garage from the right of the property!  Our house will not be raised like that though, it will have one step to get up to the porch!

I am back!

I am back.  Whew...the last 2 months have been a whirlwind and it is hard to even remember why I have been so busy.  I am finding that managing a household with 3 kids is far more work than I ever imagined.  That is exacerbated by the fact that Brian is working more now than he ever has.  I have lost track of the hours, but I do remember that he was not around for most of December!  Fellowship has proven to be very difficult for both of us.  Brian is stressed and over-worked in a way that I have never seen.  He can't seem to get ahead and the work load just continues to pile up.  3 boys keep me moving and some days it is relaxing to just sit and play with them because feeding, bathing, cooking, cleaning and all the home maintenance takes so much energy! 

December:  This month was busy preparing our hearts for Christ's birth!  We did not celebrate Santa this year and instead focused on the true meaning of the season.  I know that Jacob was a little confused, but in the end, he didn't miss out on anything.  My parents came to visit for a week and we drove 16 1/2 hours to LaSalle, IL to see Brian's family.  Everyone was back so it was fun to see everyone.  We almost didn't make it as CT got hit with its first big snowstorm on December 26th.  We got a foot of snow and crazy winds, so getting out of CT got delayed for a day.  Since then, we have gotten pounded with 80 inches of snowfall total for the year.  UGH!  At first the snow was fun and exciting, then it was still pretty and appreciated and now it is completely dreaded and painful to look at it.  I don't think we will see the grass before April.  We have at least 3 1/2 feet of snow on the ground...too much for the boys to even play in.

January:  Brian signed a contract with Bon Secours St. Francis in Greenville, SC shortly after Christmas.  The reality of it all has begun to sink in and we are excited for the new opportunity.  We are down to less than 5 months in CT and then we can plant our roots in SC.  The job was too good to pass up and Brian feels that it has the potential to be a lifelong career there in Greenville.  We have begun house hunting and I will be flying down to Greenville next weekend to determine whether we will buy an existing home or build a new one.  We are pre-approved through the bank, so it is now just a matter of finding what we want!

So that leaves me with February.  More house hunting and soul searching.  The last 7 months in CT have taught me a lot of lessons and life has been anything but easy.  I am thankful for a few good friends who have supported me along the way; they are truly a blessing!  I have done a lot of deep digging with my faith and trying to understand exactly what my role in this world is.  I have only begun to get answers, but it is exciting as I start to really embrace this new role!  More on that later.  For now, I am thankful for good health, a husband I get to spend a few hours a week with and 3 beautiful boys that keep me going and give me a reason to get up in the morning!