Six Month Old Brogan

Brogan cracks me up. He has picked up on a couple things that makes us laugh and so he does them a lot. One thing he loves to do is try to make himself stand up while sitting in his bumbo. He did this once and Addi laughed and that's all it took. Now whenever he is given the chance, he trys to flip out of that seat. I can't really blame him...the seat is pink. Not exactly the manliest of colors. He also likes to spit a lot. He thinks it's hilarious...he.is.such.a.boy!

Brogan also has a such a sweet dispostion. He smiles all the time. Except for the times that he is wailing...which is when he's hungry and at night. Because hey, it sure is fun to wake up mommy and daddy every single night...and it's like he has a score sheet and gives himself extra points if he wakes up his sister while he's at it. Anyway, back to his sweet disposition...he is a great baby. He laughs out loud a lot for absolutely no reason at all. He gets so excited about the simplest things and is just a breath of fresh air to everyone he is around. I love seeing the world through his eyes. I mean, who knew that a piece of lint on the floor could be so exciting? ;)

I will not be surprised if he is crawling before Christmas. While it's great to see him develop, that thought freaks me out, too. I don't know what we're going to do when we have two mobile babies. It will be an adventure for sure!

Brogie's favorite things right now are:

Daddy
Addi
Mommy
Anything he can put in his mouth
Trying new foods
His bottles
Music

His least favorite things right now are:
Sleeping
Getting out of the bathtub

So there you have it. Brogan in a nutshell. In less than a week he will be six months. A half of a year. It seems like just yesterday we were preparing for him to come into the world. Time, PLEASE, slow down. Though you can speed up between the hours of 8:00 am - 5:00 pm, Monday - Friday. :)

Awake

Brogan woke up at 2:15 this morning crying and once he stopped, Addi started. It is now 3:44 am and all has been quiet for over an hour and here I am...still wide awake.

So, it is now 4:23...still awake. I was going to write an amazing post (aren't they all? haha), but I got distracted by Facebook. Actually, I got distracted by Facebook stalking Addi and Brogan's daycare teachers. Have to make sure they're not crazy. ;) Don't even start thinking about how I could be the crazy one since I'm checking out their pages at this hour. :)

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and if I don't blog before, have a great Thanksgiving!!! :)

Addi Moments

I have often said that there are moments that I want to capture and keep forever in my memory. I had a couple Addi moments today that I'll never forget.

During the crazy rush of a typical morning out the Turner house, Jared helped get the kids into the car so that I could take them to daycare. Just as Jared walked away, Addi yelled out, "Love you Daddy!" I seriously think my heart skipped a beat. Jared and I tell each other and the kids we love them all the time, and there have been times, when prompted, that Addi has told us she loves us. I have never heard her actually say it without prompting. Even though she didn't say it to me, it melted my heart. It's like she's starting to get it. In our house we love and we love deeply. We express it in many ways, but we always make sure to say, "I love you" a lot. This morning proved she's catching on. I'll never forget it! :)

Another moment to keep forever in my memory was the pure look of excitement when Addi found and then got to play with one of her Christmas presents. I had ordered a couple of Melissa and Doug toys, one of which is a geometric shape stacker thing. Addi saw it and cried because I wouldn't open it. After a minute or so of her crying, I thought, "What's it gonna hurt?" and ripped the plastic off that toy in record time. Her eyes lit up and she played with that toy for a good 20 minutes and while I played with her, I told myself to always remember that precious moment. And now the toy is put up in a new secret place, which is where it will stay until it's time to be wrapped and placed under the tree. Unless, of course, she finds it again.

Dear Weekend

Dear Weekend,

You were WAY TOO SHORT this time around. I didn't even get to finish all of our laundry.

Please make yourself last a little longer next time.

Thank you,
Jennifer

This, That and a Bunch of Other Stuff

Do you ever read someones blog and just want to reach out and give the blogger a huge hug and tell her that you just know everything will work out in the end and God's Will is going to be even better than she imagined? I have a friend who I haven't seen in years, but I keep up with her and her husband's life through her blog. No, I don't blog stalk her, she reads mine too. :) Anyway, I just want her to know I'm praying for her. I probably should actually email or send her a message on FaceBook letting her know this, but that seems too intrusive for some reason right now. So, I hope you know who you are and I hope you know that I care.

Now diving into October...What a great month it was! We went to the zoo! At least I think that was this month, and I think I may have blogged about it, but it's 4:40 AM and I am too lazy to check the date or my blog, so there you go. We also went to the pumpkin patch! OK, so I did just check this blog and I did fail to blog about both. Oh well. We had a great time. Addi liked the monkeys at the zoo, Brogan liked the nap. ;) Addi liked running and playing at the pumpkin patch, Brogan liked observing and swinging. :) Oh and she liked the fake cow at the pumpkin patch. She ran up to it and said, "Hi Cow! Moo Moo!" Everyone who heard her chuckled, it was adorable. :) We also celebrated the first birthday of Jonah - a little boy at our church whose family we are very close to. We did not celebrate Halloween, nor will we ever. We have decided that as a family, we will do something special for the kids so that they don't feel like they are missing out. However, dressing up and going to get candy on a pagan "holiday" is not our cup of tea. We don't look down on the families who choose to celebrate this day and have deep respect for the churches that provide Christian alternatives. It's just not our thing. Anyway, we did nothing special for the kids on Oct. 31st this year though because the kids wouldn't care anyway and due to the busyness of life, I didn't really care either. So there you have it. That was October or at least part of it.

On to my reason for being up and blogging so early, simply put, I'm in pain. I had to have my gallbladder removed yesterday. It was my first time under anaesthesia and that part freaked me out more than the actual procedure. I don't know why I was so scared, and felt silly for even worrying, especially after I came to and realized all was well. :) Anyway, the recovery time should not be that long, but can I tell you how excited I am that the weekend that I am basically being forced by my husband and doctor to sit around and do NOTHING happens to be the weekend of the Hallmark Channel's Christmas Movie Marathon??? I LOVE Hallmark Christmas movies. They are some of the best out there! I'm sure half way through the marathon I will want to get up and get the Christmas decorations out, but I'm going to resist the urge. Not because I think it's too early for decorating, but because I have a goal of being back to work on Monday just because I'm stubborn and everyone says they doubt I will feel well enough to be there. Anyway, the one downside to my exciting weekend is that Addi is in Virginia with my parents and I miss her like crazy! She has been there since Wednesday evening, so not even 48 hours and I feel like it's been a month. Jared feels the same way and I am pretty sure that Brogie is missing her, too. I must admit that it is nice to be able to let him play without having to constantly make sure that Addi isn't trying to play a little to rough with him, but still the house is just a little too quiet without her here. To add to my grief, she is now sick with a stomach bug. So, she's not here, she's sick and because of my surgery and the stupid fact that I have to take it easy to recover, there is absolutely nothing I can do to help her feel better. I take that back, I can pray. I have prayed and keep praying and I am so thankful that she is in great hands (God's hands first and foremost, and my parents' hands while she is there). Unfortunately, Brogan is sick, too. He started throwing up yesterday evening. He doesn't have a fever and hasn't thrown up since about 7:30 pm, so we are hoping to send him to daycare today. That makes me feel like a terrible mommy, but hey, the kids caught it at daycare and while I'm not a proponent of allowing children to share germs and make each other sick, we are quite desperate. I can't even pick him up and hold him today and Jared is working so we don't really have a choice.

Can I just say that my husband is incredible!! The man is seriously holding this house together. He works well over 40 hours a week, he helps me clean (sometimes he cleans more than I do), he always takes out the trash without my prompting, he helps with taking and picking up the kids at daycare, packs my lunches (which I know I've blogged about before!) and helps in 100 other ways every single week. I could not do this without him. Jared - you are amazing!!! :)

I'm closing this now, because I'm pretty sure this blog is even more discombobulated than normal thanks to being up since 2:00 AM and my earlier mention of Christmas made me want to check out the Black Friday ads. :) I hope you all have a great weekend! Try to take the time to watch a Christmas movie and don't forget to go to church! :)

Phases of our Lives

Addi is in the "no, no, no" - "mine, mine, mine" - cry in hysterics and throw myself on the ground because Daddy and Mommy are making me (brush my teeth, lay down while I get my diaper changed, put my coat on before I go outside, wait to eat dinner with the family, quit hitting, sitting, pinching my brother) phase. Brogan is in the "I use to like to sleep at night, but now I think sleeping is overated" phase. Which means Mommy and Daddy are both in the "We still cannot believe we have two children under the age of two...we are just so overwhelmed and tired...does God really think we can raise these children well...we are so blessed, but we are so stressed" phase.

So even though these are the phases of our lives, we sing, we dance, we laugh, we play, we blow bubbles, we color, we read and we hug. We get together in a huddle - which looks nothing like a football huddle - and we kiss our kiddos on the cheeks and they kiss us back and we make sure to kiss each other too and we all say, "FAMILY!" (Well Brogan doesn't say it yet, but one day he will). We pray, we cry, we clean, we work, we learn. And we get up and do it all again the next day.

Childhood is magical and one day, even if Addi and Brogan don't remember these exact times, they will remember the love and the laughter and the screeches of joy that come when Daddy pretends the kids are footballs (but doesn't actually throw them) and Mommy shuts the glass door on the cabinet while the kids are inside (which doesn't lock and can be opened easily from either side) and when Addi hides behind something and says, "Addi!" because she doesn't quite get that she's supposed to be hiding from us quietly and Brogan laughs in hysterics just because at 5 months old everything seems funny to him and life is just simply amazing.

Parenting is magical, too. The hugs just because, the sheer look of glee that comes on our babies faces when they see us, the slobbery kisses, the sticky hands, the sweet heads laying on our shoulders, the looks of satisfaction when they conquer a new task and the joy in knowing that we really are right where God wants us to be.

So, Addi and Brogan - We promise that no matter how many fits you throw, how many times you pee all over mommy after she has already gotten dressed (Brogan!), how many times you yell "no, no, no!" (even when it's well over 25 times a day), how many nights you don't let us sleep for more than a couple hours at most, how many doctors visits we have to make, how many baths we have to give, how many diapers we have to change and how many times we have to get on our knees before the King because we are clueless on the best methods to use to raise you, we will ALWAYS make sure to make your childhood something special to remember because you sure are making your childhood something special for us to remember. We love you!!! :)

Faith vs. Sight

Jared and I were talking about something this afternoon and after telling him how tired and overwhelmed I was with a certain situation he told me I should just trust in God. While I agreed, I told him that was just so difficult because, "I don't see an end in sight." He said, "That's the problem right there. You are not walking by faith, but by sight." That's so true. My prayer is that I can start taking my eyes off of this situation and place my eyes on Jesus. I am so thankful I have such a great man of God in my life.