Friday, January 29, 2010

A Quick Blog About Haiti

So we're all glued to the TV and news watching everything unfold with Haiti. It brings me back to the tsunami days. Amazingly, they have lifted most of the red tape involved with adopting from Haiti- and a lot of couples who were already "pre approved" for adoption have been able to adopt kids. I'm proud that the place I interned, Bethany Christian Services, has been so involved in helping that process!

Jen Kroll was the second photographer at our wedding. She was amazing then and has honed her talent even MORE since then. She was able to photograph some of the reunion between parents and kids- check out her blog here- amazing: http://www.jenkrollphotography.com/blog/page/2/
I just had to share that!!!

In other news, Brennan has started to walk. Post coming later.

Monday, January 25, 2010

For the Grammy's in Michigan!



I was on the phone with Mom A (Grammy Ackerman) telling her how Brennan, for the first time, walked beside me as I held one of his hands. She told me I had to post a video of it on my blog for her to see. We were at the park today (Jon has the day off, and the heaven's rejoiced!!), so he took this short video- isn't B a stud muffin!!!? :)

We did a movie swap with friends this weekend- they watched Brennan on Saturday so Jon and I could go to a matinee and we watched their kids on Sunday so they could go. It worked out great! They have a trampoline and Brennan LOVED it. He was cracking up the entire time.


Thursday, January 21, 2010

Show Us Your Life Part II

This week is on your favorite shopping spots- stores and on-line. I'm not that big of a shopper. After about 2 hours, I start to feel overwhelmed and my eyes start to cross. . . a whole day of shopping would wipe me out. But here's the majority of where I shop:


A place I go to a lot to get out of the house with Brennan is Target. I think it's the stay at home mom's haven. We get the pop and popcorn deal for $1.50 (thanks to my sis in law, Kym, who told me about that!) and peruse the aisles. The first time I went to the Target here and asked for the "pop and popcorn" combo, no joke, the cashier did not know what I was talking about. She asked me to "please repeat" what I wanted. Then it dawned on me, "these people have no idea what 'pop' is!". So I asked for the soda and popcorn deal and we were all good. haha.


Marshall's is a great place to find Jon's favorite Express jeans and shirts for me. I would say we buy most of our clothes at Marshall's (or Ross and TJ Maxx).

Gap is one of the few places I can find jeans that fit me. I can't wear normal sized jeans- they have to be petites, or ankles or short. Love myself some Gap jeans!


And no joke- this is where I get about 85% of Brennan's clothes. The rest are from clearance racks. I love myself some baby clothes, but I refuse to pay retail prices!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

It's about 73 degrees here today. I have the windows open and the ceiling fans on- it is just gorgeous! Houston may suck in the summer, but it's awesome this time of year and I am soaking.it.up! I took B to the park twice yesterday because we just couldn't stay inside.

I went to a new Beth Moore Bible Study this morning at the Met- this one is on our Inheritance. I'm pretty excited about it- and I'm very thankful the Met has free childcare! Hopefully B is better now and I wont get called every single time. . . we shall see. . . Check out Living Proof's (Beth Moore's ministry) blog here: Living Proof Ministries Blog. I'm hoping to go to one of her live tapings this spring on her new series. She does tapings at her home church here in Houston. (am I spelling "tapings" wrong. It looks weird. But then so does "tapeings". Where's Jon when I need him?). She and one of her daughters live in this area and I'm like a starstruck tourist- always looking for them. Ha!

Ok, I need to run. I think Brennan is getting a cold and he's been a whine bucket all morning. I need to get things done now or they'll never get done!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Marathon and weaning


This weekend we went to the Houston marathon to see our friend, Cathi run in it. I told her I wouldn't post any photos of her, do you blame her? Anyways, we had a fun time driving around different spots to see her and it was a cool way to see the city (not to mention, gorgeous outside!). I cried when we were at the finish line watching the racers come in- just to know what mental strength the runners had and to imagine what they were feeling. I told Jon I respected these people- not just for today- but for the countless months before when they got off their butts and trained day after day.

I officially weaned Brennan completely this past week and woke up the next morning feeling so RELIEVED. I could wear whatever darn bra I wanted to (those nursing bras are kind of hideous), I could drink as much caffeine as I wanted or eat spicy foods and not have to worry about it- I was excited! I don't know if there are hormonal changes after you quit nursing or what- but I was super cranky ALL weekend. Like, not myself, PMS cranky x 100. It was like I seriously woke up on the wrong side of the bed and could not shake myself out of it. WEIRD. Anyone else had that after weaning? Poor poor Jon this weekend.

We move (again), in less than a month. And two weeks after that, Jon's parents and the Zuberts are visiting (holy crap, so excited) and then we have Brennan's first birthday party! It's a lot, but I'm pumped!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Show Us Your Life

So one of my favorite blogs (kellyskornerblog) is hosting a Show Us Your Life link. I love her blog- she had her first baby a month before I had Brennan so I love to see what her daughter, Harper is doing and knowing that Brennan will be there soon. And everything she's going through with parenthood- I totally related to. So every Friday she hosts this Show Us Your Life and every once in a while I may join in. I just happened to join in today because she's doing this week's on Weight Loss Ideas. I love this smoothie and JUST made it last night and noticed that it would work well for her link! This smoothie is full of protein and fruit and would be a really good weight loss supplement. Back way long ago in my former life when I used to work out :), I would drink one of these after my workouts. I got this recipe from a nutrition/diet book but I can't remember which one. . . sorry! Here it is:

1 bag frozen fruit (I prefer strawberries or raspberries)
2 cups water
1 banana
Two scoops whey or soy protein
2 Tbsp flax seed oil
2 scoops Super Seed (I added that myself)
Mix in blender for 1-2 minutes.

Let me know if you tried it!!

In other news- this is where I find Brennan most of the days. He loves the cupboards in our bathrooms.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I was going through some old pictures and saw this one- crazy huh? That was me one year ago. Hi huge belly, how are you?

Anyways, I'm popping into my blog to hi to my big ol' pregnant belly and to say that if having children did not require you to be pregnant or to have them the first six months, I'd have ten more. Some woman love pregnancy, not me. Kill me now. Maybe that's why B came early- I'm so short, there was no where else for him to go! Anyways. . . here's a photo of my two loves. That's all. Bye.

Monday, January 11, 2010

weekend recap

TheMet has this great program called Parents Night Out. They offer babysitting at the church on Friday nights for a low cost (and even lower if your on staff!!). I think we've only missed on PNO since we've moved here, ha! This Friday night we dropped off the B man and got sushi (I got chicken teriayki which was amazing because I hate sushi and you can't talk me into it cause I don't like it never will). Then we capped off our ultra romantic date with a trip to Target to buy baby formula cause that's how we roll.

Saturday we walked through the rental house again to take measurements and figure out some things. After lunch at whataburger with our friends, Justin and Rachelle, we spent the rest of the day at home. I worked out, made a shepherds pie for the first time and then we rented a movie.

Sunday we barely made it to church on time, went grocery shopping and worked on some side projects.

I'm about to give myself a little pat on thte back for all the blogging I've been doing lately but I don't have time- Brennan is attempting to eat computer cords again, adios!!!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

My New Year's Resolutions (+ our new house)

1. Take a calcium supplement every day. I'm at a really high risk for osteoporosis- I'm Caucasian, petite, and my grandma had horrible osteoporosis (I think she shrunk at least 7 inches in her older years). I bought yummy Viactiv vitamin chews and am 10-10 so far, ha!

2. Get back into a workout routine. I've worked out three times this first week, and I'm going to attempt to keep that going. I want to lose the last 5 baby pounds that keep sticking around. So far it feels as if my life is going to end about 15 minutes into the workout- I wonder how long it's going to take to get past that? :)

3. Do another Beth Moore Bible study and keep up consistent study time in the Word. When I do her studies, I always have consistent study time and that's my goal.

4. Blog more consistently to keep up with friends and family all over.

What's yours?


Oh, and here's a photo of our new house we'll be renting come February! It's a God thing because we swung for the fences on our offer to her and she agreed to all of our contingencies! It's in a nice neighborhood on a cul de sac (and the thing I'm most pumped about- there are banana trees in the back "yard"!!!!!)

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Books!



I love to read. And having a stack of books ready for me, is like, Christmas day for this chica! Here's some books that I've got ready to read. "With Justice For All" is a social justice book sent to me by one of my former co-workers. "Super Baby Food", "Praise Habit", and "The Year of Living Like Jesus" were Christmas Presents. "Three Cups Of Tea" I picked up at a garage sale and the rest are from my book-supplying mother in law! I'm also reading through a cookbook I got for Christmas but that's in my kitchen.

I'd love to get any book recommendations from you all- if you've recently read a book that you LOVE, let me know!

Here's one for you:


My friend Cathi gave me this book to read and it was one of the best books I'd read in a long time. Go read it!! It's about African American maids living in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960's. I was hooked by page 2! Here's the amazon summary of the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Help-Kathryn-Stockett/dp/0399155341

You can thank me later. :)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

I thought it would be fun to write down what my day looked like today- I'm sure in 6 months or a year it will be totally different!

8:15 Brennan wakes up and so do I (I'm shocked and delighted he slept in so late- hooray!). Jon was up and at em' at 6 this morning because he's so busy at work. B and I didn't even realize he was gone!
8:15-8:30 Pick B up as he smiles, laughs and beats on my chest with his hands (he always does this when he's happy). Change his diaper. Feed him. Give him a bottle.
8:30-9:30 Make coffee, eat breakfast, feed Brennan his breakfast, unload dishwasher, make bottles.
9:30-10:15 Give B a bath.
10:15-10:30 Play with B in his nursery.
10:30 He seems tired- put him down for a nap and hop in the shower.
10:45 Get out of shower- notice B is talking and making noises over monitor. Glad I got out of shower when I did because there's a maintenance man in my apartment in the living room yelling, "HELLLOOO".
10:45-11:30 Quickly get dressed. Greet maintenance man. Show him to B's room where the blind is broke. He fixes blind as I get B up from his non-existent morning nap. Feed B a bottle.
11:30-12:30 I need to get some things done (i.e. pay bills, call insurance company, etc.). I stick B in front of a Praise Baby DVD (Thank you Grammy Ackerman, he loves them!!), and get some work done. Honestly, this is the only way I can get things done if he doesn't nap!
12:30-1:00 Attempt to wash dishes as Brennan plays with new toys. He ends up whining because I wont let him in the cupboard with the cleaning supplies.
1:00 Lunch for both of us.
1:30-2:00 playing on the floor with Brennan- playing, "I'm gonna get you!" and watching him laugh and crawl away. Work on teaching him how to wave "hi" and "bye". He does it for me and I scoop him up in a big hug.
2:00-4:00 He goes down for his afternoon nap. I'm blogging. I'm trying to decide if I should blog more this year.

Assuming all goes as planned. . . .
4:00-5:30 Target and Hobby Lobby.
5:30 Jon gets home. I go workout. Then a night of dinner and Modern Family- BEST new TV show HANDS DOWN.

How's your day going?

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Half walk/ half crawl??

The candle story:
We came home New Years Eve and walked into our lovely apt and about passed out it was so hot. Literally, I took Brennan out on the balcony because it was so hot we were worried about him. Jon went to check out the thermostat and it was as high as it could go: 92 degrees (and we think it was hotter than that).

So we opened all the windows, tried to get the HEAT to turn off and called maintenance. After about 15 minutes, the heat finally shut off and about a half hour later the apartment cooled down enough to where we could at least be in it!!

Apparently, the power went out briefly on Christmas Eve and the thermostat must have reset itself and turned to full blast heat. And yes, your math is correct- our apartment was running at full heat for a WEEK. Our candles melted. Our doors no longer shut (door jams expand? no idea), my bags of chocolate chips melted into liquid. . . it was crazy. Can you imagine what our electric bill is going to be? I spoke to the leasing manager and then her manager and am sending our bill to the regional manager of the apt. complex and am TRYING to get them to pay the difference in our bill. I'm really hoping they help us out because in our minds- it was their system that failed. Plus, we intentionally stopped by the front office before we left to let them know we were living for two weeks and to ask them to check on our apt. It will seriously suck if they dont' help us out.

But moving on to better things- Brennan has this new way of crawling lately- he keeps his knees straight and kind of walks on his hands and feet, instead of his hands and knees. It cracks us up- check it out:

Saturday, January 2, 2010

I Want a Hippopatamus for Christmas. .

I'm inspired to blog tonight because really, it's been far too long!! And I apologize to my dear friend Trisha (who just had a baby girl, Olivia Nadine!!!) because I told her I would blog while we were in Michigan and I just didn't get around to it! Sorry girl! But a huge congratulations to you and Justin on your new baby girl- she's adorable!!

Ok, moving on. . . here's what we've been up to the last two weeks:


My MOPS table had a Christmas cookie exchange. YUM. It was the day before we left for Michigan so I gave the cookies away to some friends- Jon was slightly offended and angry that I would do such a thing and complained for three days afterwards. Sorry honey!! :) And I've got to say, MOPS at TheMET is done SO so so very well- I really had low expectations of it and really, it has been such a blessing to me. I love it!

We had a family Christmas before we left- we decided to give away most of our Christmas money we would have spent on each other and instead gave very low-key gifts- and we both ended up giving each other a bracelet!


I know this might be a bit controversial (but please don't give me your opinion on this blog), but I have been SO excited to wean Brennan for many reasons. I finally weaned him the first few days of our trip. I'm still nursing in the morning and evening so he's still getting (hopefully) some breastmilk goodies- but I am so happy to be (mainly) done!! And I'm proud we made it this far, woo hoo!

We then flew home to Michigan for two weeks. We stayed with the Ackerman clan for a few days and had a delightfully relaxing time. We ate lots of Judy's chocolate covered pretzels/nuts, played in the snow, went to Grand Rapids for an evening and celebrated Christmas Eve with the Gampels.



Of course, Michigan was nice and snowy. I love this photo- it is a classic baby's first snow picture! He wasn't really a fan at first, but after a while he was "okay" with it (if you know Brennan, the child is pretty skeptical of any new experience :)



Mark, Erin, Westin, Lincoln and Marli in the snow

Baby Lincoln with Grammy

The boys on Christmas morning

After spending several days at the Ackermans- we drove to Grass Lake for Christmas with the O'Neills where we got to see these cuties from DC- Meg and Seth.

And these cuties from Sparta

And these cuties. . . . . . . .

And this guy, who no one is willing to claim right now :) Just kidding daddy-0. He's sporting his MichiganAwesome shirt Meg and Seth got him, love.it.

One of our presents from Mom was a pedicure- so Saturday morning, Meg, Mom, Kym and I got ourselves some pedis and coffee without any kiddos. Suhweet. Especially the parafin wax part, that was really suhhhweet.

We also went to O'Neill Christmas (extended family christmas party), Jon went to Lansing to walk through the house (which is rented out, HOOOOORRRAAAYY), Mom and Dad took me and Meg out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant, Dad and I beat everyone at ping pong and Meg and I played some mad Sequence.

Then we drove back to Bridgman to see this woman who fell and broke her femur while we were in Grass Lake:

Jon with Grandma Honey

And then, after having a wonderful night filled with fire in the fireplace, wine and skip-bo, we left early Thursday morning for a flight back to Houston. Jon got us upgraded to 1st class for every flight this trip, the flights were on time and B was awesome- I am so THANKFUL for smooth trips both ways!

However, we came home to this: (which is an entirely 'nother post)