Easter Week

What a week. I'm still a bit shocked over what all has taken place. I'm praying for all those who lost their homes and loved ones during the storms. I read the stories, and it breaks my heart.



There has been so much lost. I pray that God will be a refuge for all those who are hurting right now.

I'd like to share what a joyful Easter we were able to have. Friday, we all headed to Covington for an Easter weekend with my family and to have Charlotte baptized at the church I grew up in.

We started the weekend events with a traditional Passover Seder meal. My family has done this for as long as I can remember, and I've always enjoyed it greatly. It's amazing to think that Jesus spoke similar words to His disciples so soon before His crucifixion. I hope that Charlotte will one day gladly participate in the service. And I'm not gonna lie; my mom makes the BEST unleavened bread. Thank you Henry for providing it this year.



The girls did very well through the meal and only had an occasional melt down.




Lia: "quit pinching me!" Charlotte: "I'm not doing anything."

Saturday morning I gave Charlotte her Easter basket which I am fully aware she will not remember but for which I worked extremely hard on.




The eggs are made from paper, and the flowers are actually bows snapped to the side. I figured since she can't have candy yet, I would contribute to her ever growing hair accessory collection!

Later that morning the girls (Mom, Dana, Lia, Charlotte, me) headed to a lovely Easter egg hunt at longtime friends' house, the Patton's. The babies were great and although they couldn't hunt, seemed to enjoy watching the event. The rest of the afternoon I slaved away on pink champagne cupcakes with champagne buttercream icing and pink edible pearls. I really hoped they were worth all the effort!



The rest of the day was spent enjoying the company of family...there is really no better way to spend a day.



My niece Lia is a delight, and I'm actually going to do a picture post about her but thought I'd give you all a preview.

I made Ben take pictures of Charlotte and me in our matching outfits...yes, I'm a dork like that.




Sunday morning was a little hectic preparing for the days events, but I had fun arranging flowers for the table and watching as our Easter/baptism table took shape.




All was progressing well until my mom called me to ask about my cupcakes. Saturday, we had placed them in her office. The room was cool, and we wanted to preserve the icing. Well, my brother's dog Dakota had slipped into the office and eaten all but a few of my pink cupcakes, wrapper and all. It's ridiculous, but I'll admit I shed some tears over those cupcakes. It's hard to see hours of work disappear in a matter of moments. However, I got myself under control by singing "Christ the Lord Has Risen Today". There was still so much to be joyful about.




Charlotte looked so sweet in the baptismal gown, and one of my close friends Meghan was kind enough to take pictures of the day's events. Trinity was the place of my baptism long ago and has been an integral part of my journey in Christ. It was a blessing to come back and have my own child be baptized. The service was touching, and I cried as water was washed over her head and as my father and father-in-law prayed for her. My uncle was so kind to video tape it all, and my hope is that I can write down their prayers so that Charlotte can treasure them. After the baptism, Pastor Rob had the elders come up and pray over Charlotte and our family, both for physical healing and spiritual growth. I can't begin to express how much it meant to me. The prayers of both Trinity and Riverside have been such a blessing in my life.




As I ate lunch and celebrated with my family, all I could think was how blessed I am. My hope is that both Charlotte and Lia will one day know the risen King and celebrate Easter as daughters in Christ. I praise God for His Son's sacrifice and rejoice that He arose and reigns on high. Oh, that these two girls would realize this at an early age and dedicate their lives to His glory. That they would sing:

"In Christ alone my hope is found; He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, may all in all-Here in the love of Christ I stand."

"Just us kids hangin' out today; watching our long hair turnin' gray. Not so skinny maybe not so free. Not so many as we use to be"

I had a hard time turning 25. I know it sounds silly. I really liked being 22. It was a good age; young, but without all the hoop-la of 21. And now I'm 26...closer to 30 than 20, yet I'm cool with it. Life is good, and I wouldn't want to go back, even with the wrinkles that are starting to show up and the energy level that is quickly dwindling! Plus, my parents came up to celebrate birthday weekend (my mom's was Saturday) and to squeeze on their granddaughter.

They arrived Thursday, and in honor of our birthdays I baked up brown butter sponge cupcakes with brown buttercream frosting. The consensus was that they were delicious, but it might be awhile before I endeavor to try them again. With a baby, I like to stick to recipes that do not require more than 30min at a time!



The weather was icky on Friday, so we lounged around. Unfortunately, that means my pictures were all taken inside. I much prefer natural light and have hardly turned on my flash...probably cause I don't know how to use it properly :)

It's awesome to see my dad interact with his granddaughters!



She is such a little goober.




And let's not forget about ChiCha. I think she is starting to prefer my mom to me! ...She is more fun...




We dined at Salt for our birthday meal, and I would highly recommend it. We then stayed up way to late watching funny YouTube videos...yep, that's how we role.

Saturday, we had an awesome day planned visiting plant nurseries in Huntsville. I was in the market for vegetables. We hit Bennets first, and although we nearly froze, we did not come out empty handed. Then it was on to the Greenery. If you haven't been there, GO! When we lived in Hampton Cove, I used to go and just walk around like you would at a park. It's lovely.






I mentioned I was looking for vegetables. I did get some, but I also cam home with a couple of annuals and two rose bushes. I have a rose addiction...I can't help it. I see their beautiful petals and revel in their bouquet, and then I start envisioning how lovely it will be in my yard. I need help people...is there a hotline for this??



Sunday, our church held a picnic and Easter egg hunt. What better way is there to spend your birthday than eating a smorgasbord full of food, lounging in pristine Spring weather, and watching as joyful children scramble about to find yet another egg.





Honestly, it was hard for me not to grab a few eggs myself! My other addiction is candy...oh yeah, and then there's ice cream and...well I have a lot of addictions I need to get control of :)






Ada, a child after my own heart. She searched for ONLY pink eggs! LOVE IT!



Bubba got a bit over heated in all the excitement



Best treat of all was a visit from Kay Kay and Bob.



All in all a very delightful Birthday!

However, it was followed by not such delightful times. Monday and Tuesday Charlotte fussed almost non-stop...and woke up at 4am. I did manage to catch a few fun and happy moments.




Charlotte takes after me. She loves corn!



Cute, right? Unfortunatley most of the day looked like this:



But I can't complain too much. She does know how to make my heart melt...

So, I'm going to do something I'm not prone to do: picture posting!!! I've been delving into photography ever since Charlotte was born and finally decided to get a new camera. I LOVE it!!! And I thought my friends and family might want to take a peak at my meager photography skills. Yesterday the camera came in, and in between playing with Charlotte and scrubbing the bathtub (my arms are still soar- I HATE soap scumb!), I played around with the settings on my camera.



I thought the roses in my garden would be a good place to practice.



After Charlotte woke from her ten second nap, she was rather grumpy, but I was dying to snap away...




You would not believe how hard it is to get a clear shot of batting hands!



MANY pictures came out blurry!



She finally gave up the go, and photo session ended long before I was ready. We spent the rest of the day cleaning bathrooms and making a tablecloth for my dining room.

Mike (PawPaw) and Mary (Nana) came over for a quick visit before dinner and of course I once agian started clicking away with the camera...in my PJs. Fortunately, my in-laws are great and forgive me when I don't get around to putting on something other than pj pants and worn out t-shirts.



I think Charlotte is starting to look a good bit like her Nana.



Charlotte loves hanging out with her Grandparents



She did get a little sleepy; probably because she was up at 4am yesterday!



She loves her Nana to pieces!



Whenever I look at pictures that I have taken of Charlotte, I have to laugh at how huge her cheeks are! To borrow from my brother's girlfriend Nadia, "She looks like a chipmunk storing nuts for winter."



Yesterday evening, Ben and I decided to polish off the oysters he had brought back from a fishing trip with my dad and brother. We ate outside on the back porch and enjoyed the last rays of the sun. Charlotte was a trooper and seemed to understand we needed a little time to enjoy the air. She watched the commotion of shucking oysters from her bouncer and occasionaly cracked a smile as Lilly ran around chasing bumble bees.




My wonderful husband did all the dirty work of shucking the oysters and let me sit back and enjoy the bounty.




I know many are disgusted by oysters, but for me, it was a perfect meal.




The corn wasn't the best I've had but it didn't stop me :)



Before I know it Charlotte will be asking me to pass the cocktail sauce...it all happens much too quickly.



For now, I'm trying to savor every moment, even the one's where she gets me up at 5am to start the day. That's why God invented:

Emotional Baggage

I meant to write this blog last week…then I tried to write it yesterday so I could say that I actually got a blog out in under two weeks. Looks like two weeks is the best I can do! I don’t know how you bloggers write every other day and even daily?! I am impressed. Of course, no one would want to read my meager words that much, so maybe it’s for the best!!!

Two weeks ago I was feeling hurt and angry. Try as I might I couldn’t let things rest. I was allowing things to fester. That’s NEVER a good idea. Then these words by Elisabeth Elliot pierced my heart:

“I am thanking God that unto us a Child was born. I am thanking Him also that there was a pure-hearted woman prepared to receive that Child with all that motherhood would mean of daily trust, daily dependence, daily obedience. I thank Him for her silence. That spirit is not in me at all, not naturally. I want to learn what she had learned so early: the deep guarding in her heart of each event, mulling over its meaning from God, waiting in silence for His word to her.

I want to learn, too, that it is not an extraordinary spirituality that makes one refuse to do ordinary works, but a wish to prove that one is not ordinary- which is a dead giveaway of spiritual conceit. I want to respond in unhesitating obedience as she did: anything You say, Lord” (Keeping a Quiet Heart, Elliot).

I cried as I read about Mary’s obedience and her silence before the Lord. I wondered when the last time I had been silent before the Lord was. How often I come to Him with lists of requests or begging Him to take me on a different path. Many times I plead with Him for my desires and asked Him to change the actions of those around me. But here was a woman who didn’t fight or plead. She said YES and silently obeyed the Lord.

My father often reminded me in high school that I was choosing to be upset, and I could choose a different path. Mary chose quiet obedience. I had been choosing to be hurt; to continue on in anger and self pity. I would say that as women, we are often led by our emotions, thinking they are the controlling factor. We think because people are hurtful and trials are frightening we must succumb to our feelings. We cry and tell the world how hard it is. We swing from emotional highs and lows at the drop of a hat and blame all of it on our circumstances. We proclaim that it is better to lay it all out on the table no matter what destruction we might cause. I have often left my husband hurt and bewildered by my emotional purging. I want to learn the beauty of silence before God.

I am not saying that circumstances aren’t hard, and I think that fellowship and confiding in Godly friends are blessings in the life of a Christian. Yet I feel that we use those terms to cover up what we truly are doing, gossiping or asking for self pity. I also believe that crying is important at times. Trust me; I have done my fair share of it! Yet we deny the importance of self control. We claim our emotions are a separate entity and follow wherever they may lead. But aren’t all things, even my emotional reactions to how others treat me, under the Lordship of Christ? If all that I am belongs to Christ, and if I allow Him to rule my life, shouldn’t He rule my emotions as well??

I had been hurt by the words and actions of others, but I had to painfully come to the realization that my continually choosing to be upset was sin, plain and simple. Christ didn’t cry “you are mean to me” or “that’s not fair” as people mocked and abused Him. He forgave again and again. And He was content at all times in His earthy role. He loved perfectly and continuously. That is His calling for my life as well. I am to glorify Him and bless others. That means learning how to forgive, how to hold my tongue, how to let go, how to be at peace in any and all circumstances and how to love.

I truly want Christ to be Lord of my life. I do not want to be a slave to my emotions or my circumstances. It seems every trial and hardship leads me back to the same place; deny thy self. It is a hard thing to learn, the hardest of things; yet I know it is the most important.

"This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive.
Love is not possessive.
Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.
Love is not touchy.
Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen” ( Elisabeth Elliot).

Sleepless in Scottsboro

I have to thank my dear mother for giving me the apt name of my blog. It perfectly describes the last few months of my life. Charlotte was a pretty good sleeper when we brought her home from the hospital. She immediately new night from day, and for a long while I fed her two and sometimes only once in the night. I was ecstatic when I thought night time feedings where over. At around four months, she slept through the night. She did this for about four or five days…such blissful days. Then she started to wake again, and things got progressively worse.

I could handle the middle of the night feedings. It was tiring, and I had a hard time falling back asleep but I could survive. However, Charlotte was refusing to take naps. From birth she has been more of a cat-napper, but she started to have to nap on me. And then it got to the point where I couldn’t move, and if my stomach gurgled or I tried to hold in a sneeze she would wake up screaming.

Night time routines also seemed to get worse. At first I nursed Charlotte and held her till she fell asleep. Then I started to have to stare at her till she fell asleep. I’m not kidding; if I didn’t look at her, she would start to fuss. Then Charlotte wanted me to sway (standing only, rocking chairs where a no go) while I did the above. I had to wait until she was totally knocked out and then gently put her in her crib while praying that she didn’t wake. Sometimes screaming commenced, and the whole routine had to be started again. She was starting to wake at least twice in the night, and three to four times was becoming more typical. When Charlotte woke after 3am I would have to let her sleep on me for the rest of the morning. I even tried co-sleeping, but it did not work well since Charlotte wanted to be on me. She ended up getting little sleep while I got none. It wasn’t just me who was suffering. Charlotte’s sleep issues where affecting the whole house. She is a good natured baby but started to become easily fussy and never seemed to play hard. Charlotte and I were just flat out exhausted most of the time.

My sweet mom, seeing my state of fatigue gave me a book she had used when I was having trouble sleeping: How to Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. As I read it I laughed, because it seemed Dr. Ferber had interviewed Charlotte for the book. I also laughed because it made SO MUCH sense. I resolved to start the process of graduated extinction (cry-it-out).

We went on a women’s’ retreat this past weekend with my home church, Trinity. It was wonderful, but Charlotte and I were still exhausted from sleepless nights. After talking to many women and my mom, I resolve to start Sunday night. People had prepared me that the first couple of nights can be tough, but it would all be worth it to Charlotte and me when she was sleeping. I also had many people praying for me. I prayed as well, and decided that I really didn’t think this is how God intended me to spend the rest of my days. I also remembered my mom’s favorite saying: “The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.”

Sunday night seemed to creep up on me, and I was extremely anxious. I’m terrible at letting Charlotte cry. I was afraid that she wouldn’t love me anymore. I know that’s crazy, and I also know that just because she cries or tells me she hates me in the future does not mean I should cave. Isn’t sleep deprivation just as bad for her as a diet of all sugar or bad TV?! I got all weepy before I even put her in the bed (thank goodness she is still too young to understand her mommy crying) and prayed the Lord would bless my decision.

The book says at first to let them cry for 3 min and then go reassure them that you are still there. She cried, and I cried upstairs while I listened to the monitor and waited for Ben to let me go back down. I told her how much I loved her, and I told her it was hard for me too. Charlotte, one day when you are my age, we will laugh about this together. I went back upstairs, and she proceeded to scream. This time I had to wait five minutes before rushing back down stairs and once again promising her this was what was best. After the 5 min wait comes a 10 min wait, and it is 10 min every time after that. If the crying dies down, the book says not to go in, because it would be interrupting their learning to settle themselves. I went back up stairs where Ben comforted me and told me she would be fine. At around the 8 min mark Charlotte began to die down. I honestly thought she was just taking a breather so she could really let me have it, but she whimpered for about 10 more minutes and went to sleep! I was shocked! That night she had one session where she was up for about an hour before settling back down and sleeping till 5:30am!

I couldn’t believe it! I honestly felt kind of stupid about my anxiety. Naps are not going nearly as well, but I really think we’ll get there. It’s just going to be more of a process. Last night when I put her down, she cried for about 2min and then fussed off and on for 10min, so I didn’t even have to go in. She slept through the entire night without a peep! We are both like new people. I think both of us still have sleep to catch up on but the road ahead looks much brighter. Thanks to all who prayed; man, did God answer!!

No two children are alike, so I don’t think there is any book that can solve all problems and give you all the answers. I fully believe that parents have to pray and do what seems best, and many times the paths are different. You might think I will do it differently the next go around, but I’m not so sure. I’m grateful for how much I held Charlotte as an infant, and I will always cherish that time (trust me, she is still in my arms plenty!). I hope to do the same with the next. Hopefully, the next go around I’ll know what to do when not only am I exhausted but the baby’s sleep is suffering as well.

I hope that those parents who are still having trouble with sleepless nights will find solutions that work for them and until then, that God would give them grace and strength through the fatigue. I’m sure I have many more sleepless night ahead of me with stomach viruses, nightmares, sleep-overs, etc., but I can rest much easier knowing that Charlotte is developing good sleep habits now.