Snow in the South!

Well.. we survived Snowmeggedon 2014 in the ATL.  It was such a catastrophic event that it was covered in the national news so I'm sure everyone has heard all about it... how 2 inches of snow shut down the entire city!  NOW I understand how that can all happen.  It was a perfect storm of more snow than predicted, six million commuters leaving work at the same time, gridlock on the highways, cars running out of gas, inadequate equipment (I read that Atlanta owns 40 plows.  They used to own four, but apparently the city went through a similar 'storm' in 2011 so they upgraded to 40), icy roads, and inexperienced winter drivers.

Justin tried to make it home but after moving 500 yards in TWO hours, he gave up and went back to work.  Luckily he happened to be running a training class at a hotel for work this week, so despite the fact that every hotel within a 30  mile radius was completely booked, Justin was able to crash on someone's floor for the night.  In the morning, the hotel lobby was filled with people who had slept on the lobby floor or chairs.  He finally made it home by 11 am the next morning.  The highways were filled with abandoned cars.  People either ran out of gas or decided to walk home.  My neighbor left work at 12:15 pm and got home at 3:30 am.  She had to drive a total of 20 miles.  It took her 15 hours.  Kids and teachers were forced to spend the night at school.  Many children were stranded on buses the entire night.  It was unreal.

Despite the chaos, the kids were thrilled!  My neighbor had the girls over all afternoon and they had a ball in the snow.  Claire claims it was the best day of her life!

It was unreal to watch the news and see all the accidents, abandoned cars, overturned trucks, etc..  all from two inches.  Schools were cancelled for the rest of the week (despite the fact that it's fifty degrees and almost all of the snow has melted)!  We gots to recover, peeps.  This was cray cray.  

Here is a video from the road Justin took to get home.  Notice the exit ramp at the end that at was completely blocked by abandoned cars...

When Justin finally made it home the next day, there were some VERY happy girls to greet him!

What a crazy day!  So thankful Justin made it home safely.  There were tons of stories of people helping, opening their homes, rescuing stranded drivers, passing out food and water, etc..  It's so cool to see people come together in the midst of a crazy situation like this.  

There ya have it... another adventure in the books!

One month!

Charlie James is one month already!  How did that happen?  We took him to the doctor for his one month check up this morning.  He weighed in at 9 lbs, 11 oz... up 2 lbs, 11 oz from his birth weight, so he's doing great in that department.  He was 22 inches long.  He has outgrown his newborn clothes and diapers already and is moving up in the world.. into 0-3month clothes and size one dipes.  I am still just getting used to boy clothes and am already packing some of them up.  *tear*

He is following in the footsteps of his big sisters and is a major spitter.  Bummer!  I have remembered the beauty of bibs in saving clothes and am getting used to going through several burp cloths each day.  (and have I mentioned laundry for a family of five is no joke??)  I'm not sure if the spitting is a result of reflux like the girls had or just a result of my milk overproduction problem.  (I know I mentioned that it was better in a recent blog post.  Well, I spoke too soon.  It's better but still not normal.)  He doesn't seem terribly uncomfortable so I'm hoping he won't need reflux meds and that my body will get the memo that it only needs to feed one child sometime soon.

I just love this little man and am so thankful God saw fit to give us a SON.  Before Char was born, I  had no real desire to have a son (not that I didn't want one but I just didn't feel like I HAD to have one) but man, oh, man... I love it.  The Lord knew.  He always does.  So thankful.

Oh, Emma

Emma has been cracking us up, as usual.  In between her highly dramatic ways, she's quite the funny little thing.  She's been insisting on taking over the praying before dinner duty each night.  Her prayers are a combination of sweet, thoughtful, random, and hilarious.  Tonight's fell under the 'hilarious' category...

Dear God, Thank you for our food.  And thank you for our family.  And when we get to heaven, I'm gonna be nice to you.  And I'm gonna wear braids up to heaven.  And then Mommy's gonna uncurl it.  Amen

Never a dull moment (or dinner prayer) around here.

Flashback

This picture of Char Char and Emmsie....

sure reminded me of this picture of Emma and Claire Bear....

Nana's here!

Nana flew down to meet Charlie and help us out for the week.  It has been so great having her here!

Charlie meeting his Nana

Nana brought a book about Princess Diana and the girls loved hearing about a real princess!

Charlie trying out the activity mat.  He's been awake a lot more lately so he enjoyed looking around.. for about five minutes.  ;)

We had beautiful weather on Monday so enjoyed some time outside. 

The kiddos on Char Char's 4 week bday!

Charlie boy

Such a sweet guy little Char Char is.  Now if he would just get the memo to sleep for longer than two hours at a time at night, that would be fabulous. ;)

10 crazy years

As we start a new calendar year, I have been doing some reminiscing about the 10 years Justin and I have been married.  I realized that we have had at least one, if not more, huge life changes every single calendar year...and that 2013 is the first year since we got married that Justin DIDN'T start a new job!

 Because I love to look back and see how far the Lord has taken us and what He has brought us through, I thought I'd review some of these crazy years..

2003: We got married..  we were living in Iowa City and Justin graduated.
2004: I graduated, we moved to the burbs of Chicago and both started new jobs. (me - teaching 4th grade and Justin teaching high school science)
2005: Moved to Chattanooga, bought our first home, and both started new jobs. (me - teaching 4th grade and Justin teaching middle school science)
2006: Justin started a new job selling life insurance.  I changed from teaching 4th grade to teaching 2nd grade.
2007:  Got pregnant, lost the baby, sold our house, and moved to Atlanta.  Justin started a new job - inside sales with Sciele.  I started teaching 1st grade.
2008: Got pregnant again, moved back to Iowa City, bought a house, Justin started a new job as an outside sales rep with Sciele, and we had Claire.
2009: Justin was laid off from his sales job and we got pregnant.
2010: Justin started a new job at IDT as an account manager and we had Emma.
2011:  Justin started a new pharmaceutical sales job with Arbor.
2012:  Justin started a new job as a sales trainer with Arbor, sold our house, and we moved back to Atlanta.
2013:  Bought a house, got pregnant, and had Charlie.

It's amazing to me to read that all... I knew our life was crazy but reading that makes it sound REALLY crazy.  This is what happens when two spontaneous, youngest children get married.  ;)  Love living this crazy life with my man... and can't wait to see what happens this year.. I think...

Funny

Emma saw this picture and was fascinated.

Emma: Grammy and Babu getting married.  They ARE getting  married.  I knew it!  I wish I was married to Babu.  They look so cute in those clothes.

Happy 3 Weeks!

2 weeks in

Charlie is two weeks old and I'm so thankful to be done with pregnancy and enjoying my sweet newborn.  Last night he did two 4 hour stretches, which felt like heaven after several nights of two or three hour stretches.  I'm enjoying this sweet, short-lived newborn stage so much more this time around.  Even though I'm still carrying around a lot of extra weight and living in leggings and yoga pants, I'm so glad this is done...

12 weeks.18 weeks.20weeks.24weeks.35weeks.38weeks

It's interesting... I feel like I didn't get much bigger towards the end of my pregnancy and several people told me I looked smaller towards the end then I did weeks before.  (I mean.. check me out the day I delivered giant Emma baby....)  After reading more about cholestasis, I'm convinced Charlie's small size was due to the lack of nutrition he was getting towards the end of my pregnancy.  Cholestasis can be very dangerous and even fatal to a fetus because they stop getting nutrition from their mama..  PRAISE THE LORD we caught it in time and were able to safely bring him into the world.

In other news, remember the other major issues I had with Emma?  I was terrified that my body would way overproduce again and guess what?  It did. I was super painfully engorged for the first couple of weeks.  I did some serious online research, desperate to avoid a  full month of engorgement again.  I came across this case study  which gave a detailed description of how to handle overproduction.  I'm happy to report that it WORKED!  I'm finally feeling better and I think the engorgement is behind me.  Whew!

I survived my first outing with all three kiddos this morning.  We met friends at the mall play area and it feels good to have that first outing behind us.  Next week is the true test, though, as Justin will be heading back to work.  Having him here has been SUCH a blessing.  The girls have been getting plenty of attention, he has finished lots of house projects, and I haven't lifted a finger in the kitchen.  (Other than putting a frozen pizza in the oven last night. ;)  Hoping and praying for lots of extra patience next week and thankful for friends who are delivering meals for us.  ;)