The Norvell News

7 months

2012-01-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

I'm in shock and disbelief that I have a 7 month old baby on my hands. Where did time go?
Calvin has developed so much over the past month. He's eating solid food like a champ...sweet potatoes seem to be his favorite. Over the past month, he has mastered sitting up on his own and I can actually leave him to play on his playmat for a while by himself. He entertains himself and is stable enough that he only falls over when he wants to try and reach a toy that is too far away.

Calvin has outgrown all of his 6-9 month clothes and is comfortably wearing size 12 to 18 month. I know he's grown because we had to raise up his jumper and move from an infant seat to a standard car seat. Here's his growth picture.

6 months

7 months

It's hard to see with his pants on, but his legs are much longer and his torso is longer too.

Such a big boy!

Calvin's first Christmas

2011-12-31T06:24:00.000-08:00

We started with a pre-Christmas celebration with mom and Mike. Calvin had his first gift opening experience, and with a little assistance from mom and dad, did really well tearing into the paper...

... but really he just wanted to chew the ribbon.

Thanks Yia Yia and grandpa Mike.

Dave and I exchanged gifts for one another that evening, too. Dave always picks out great clothes for me...always things I wouldn't pick for myself but end up loving!

mom and daughter :>).

On the 23rd we packed up and headed to Arkansas for Christmas day. Calvin had a great time with Nana and Grandad Norvell.

Calvin's first Christmas Morning!

mama and baby feet.

After Christmas day we packed up (yet again!) and headed to Branson, Missouri for a Norvell family tradition...Silver Dollar City. Mom and Dad Norvell got us a fantastic house in Branson and we met up with Uncle Jon, Aunt Lydia and cousins Caleb and James.

The coffin at SDC. To understand the significance of this picture...Gandad Norvell has a picture of him in this coffin, and Dave has multiple pictures of him at various ages in the coffin from all their family trips growing up. We have pics in the coffin of the two of us from when we got engaged, the two of us when we are married, and now the three of us. I imagine there will be lots more coffin pictures for our family in the coming years.

Bundled up cousins!

Merry Christmas!

Ramblings

2011-12-19T05:21:00.000-08:00

My Early Morning Riser is still on my work schedule. Hoping to break the habit of waking up at 5:30 over the next few weeks.
The past week we took some Christmas card photos. I didn't go all out for these. No corresponding outfits or formal poses....nothing too professional looking. Several weeks ago, I realized that the Christmas cards I most enjoyed getting are the ones with the collage of snapshots from the year...you know the ones...where there's a pic of the kids at the zoo, a pic of the summer vacation, a pic of Thanksgiving all rolled into one Christmas card. I really like those. And while I didn't have the time, energy, or patience to sit down and create a beautiful Christmas card, I did want to capture us as a family and have that to share with everyone.
A friend of mine, who also happens to have a photo degree from the Art Institute, graciously agreed to take a few snap shots of our family in exchange for lunch one day after church. I knew that the likely hood of getting a good shot where Calvin was looking straight on at the camera was slim to none (cause this boy gets distracted!), which was another reason I didn't stress too much about pics, so my favorites are the ones where Dave and I look good and you can sorta see Calvin :<).

I only got 30 Christmas cards. I'm not sending cards to everyone I've ever met...just family and the friends that mean the most to us. I've been thinking alot lately about my motivation behind what I do. Am I doing it for me or am I doing it so that people will give me feedback that boosts my ego? Do I post pics on facebook, this blog, or any other place to share with my friends, or in hopes that I'll get 10 comments back that all say how cute my kid is? Do I send Christmas cards to everyone I've ever encountered because I want to wish them a Merry Christmas, or is it so they will see pics of us and remark about how what a beautiful family I have, or how I've lost the "baby weight"? What IS the point of this blog anyway? I say it's to keep up with my family, but I think I have more friends that read it then family. Anyway...all that to say that I've tried to scale back my vanity, and a relaxed Christmas card is the first way I'm attempting to do so. Not that there is anything wrong with the above things, but for me, personally, I think my motivation is not what it should be. If the "chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever " (how's that for a kick back to old catechism questions) then all that I do, from Christmas cards to raising my son, to my performance at work, needs to come from a motivation of glorifying God, and not for my personal vanity.

So...not really what I was intending to write about this morning, but thoughts on my mind regardless. Merry Christmas, and not just because I want you to wish it to me back, but because I sincerely wish that you and your family glorify God this season in all that you do.

2011-12-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

We can hardly believe that Calvin turned 6 months old this past weekend. What a fast 6 months it has been. Here's an update on our little guy:

Calvin has his two bottom teeth and they make a little snaggle tooth appearance every time he smiles. His front top two are also coming in. When he chews on our fingers we can feel the edges starting to push through the skin.
We tried solid foods for the first time this weekend, and his reaction was priceless:

We're going to keep trying. The Dr. said it could take as many as 15 tries before he understands what to do when we put a spoon in his mouth.

Sleep is still an issue. He's getting better at falling asleep on his own....most of the time he whines for a good 10 minutes or so, we go in and rub his back and pat his little tushie, and then he will fall asleep. Nap times are easier. But sleeping through the night is a rarity. Usually he wakes up once around 2 or 3, and then is ready to get up around 5 or 5:30. Most of the time he will go back to sleep around 8 or so, but by then I'm wide awake. I'm hoping this is just a developmental thing like the doctor said, because I'm ready for him to get through this phase. Really...all I want for Christmas is to sleep from 9:30 to 8 with no wake ups or interruptions. Can I put that on my amazon list?

Calvin LOVES his jumper and his exerscauser and is a rolling machine! He lays on his back on his play mat and will roll all over the living room exploring. He can sit up on his own for about 10 seconds or so before he slumps over. He's good at playing on his own, too. Most evenings we can put him on the floor and he's content for a good hour or so before he needs some adult interaction.

I can't believe how much he's grown. He's off the charts in height and pretty close in weight. He's wearing anywhere between 9 to 12 month clothes.

5 months

6 months...(and a camera strap in the middle)

those legs just keep getting longer and I can see alot of change in his chest and torso too.

Judging by all of the bottles he's taking, I think 7 months is going to be a big growth spurt.

We love our little guy and he loves and misses all of you!

Lessons

2011-11-21T05:54:00.000-08:00

I feel like the past two years have been a journey of self awareness and lessons in God’s grace. Let me explain……

In less than a month, I’ll be quitting my job to stay at home with Calvin. Words can’t explain how excited I am for this transition, yet how nervous I am at the same time. I think I’m one of the few people in the work who can say that they actually LIKE their job. I do..I like helping people find work, I like giving people hope that things are going to change for them very soon. Sure…to us a job as a cafeteria worker, bus driver, night custodian, teacher’s aide, school secretary or child care worker might not seem like a blessing, but the people whom I deal with view it as such. Several weeks ago, I made a job offer to a young girl who was going to be working in our child care center, and her response to me was “I’ve been praying for a job for three months and I’m so excited to have found such a great place to work.”

Her response melted my heart for so many reasons. First, because I had been there. Rewind two years ago, fresh out of grad school and counting the number of days it took to find a job and say adios to my thriving career as a Starbucks barista. Second, because it was so refreshing to hear someone have the right attitude about finding a job…that it was a gift from God and an answer to prayer, not a sense of entitlement that she had, but gratitude to her Lord for work. But her response also did something else to my heart and attitude…I started to worry. To fear. To regret. To second guess my decisions.

And this has been the issue. I honestly can’t remember a time in my life when I grappled with fear, worry, and doubt as much as I have the past several months. Worry: I’m going to quit my job, decreasing our monthly income after we’ve just increased our expenses with the little bundle of joy sleeping in the nursery down the hall? Worry: Is there going to be enough money for us to make all the bills? Worry: If I quit my job will I ever be able to get back in the workforce and not have to start at the bottom again? Fear: Am I going to be stuck at home with Calvin everyday because we have no extra money to go anywhere or do anything? Fear: My husband is a teacher and has gone the past two years without a cost of living raise…are we ever going to increase our income if he continues to teach?

And the kicker in the bucket…

Doubt: Is quitting my job to stay home with Calvin the right decision?

When I finally shared my intent to resign with my supervisor and team at work, something happened. I started to become very negative about my job. All of a sudden I hated my job. The people drove me nuts, I was annoyed by all the tedious detail I had to do, and I just couldn’t wait to ”get out of there.” Even Dave noticed my change in attitude. He commented several times about how things seemed to have changed with me. Having dinner with a friend during this time, I had my first self realization that I knew the Lord was trying to teach me. Two years ago, Dave and I prayed fervently for a job for me. A job that would allow us to increase our income and for me to get my feet wet in the HR world. God provided. He gave my the perfect job for both of these things. And now I was complaining? To complain about my job, to be disgruntled about it and to be negative about it is being negative and complaining about God’s provision and answer to my prayers. Bottom line, complaining about my job was sinful.

Smack in the face.

I realized this and, of course, immediately felt guilty for my actions and my attitude. I made an agreement with myself to change my attitude. And ya know what, with the Lord’s guidance and help, I have. Even Dave said to me the other day “I’ve noticed you’ve been more positive about work lately.”

Not only has my job been an answer to prayer in the sense of provision, but God has also used it to teach me some valuable lessons about myself. For example, I have a strong need to be accepted an liked. In fact, I’d venture to say that this is more important to me then to be successful at my job. At the same time, however, I’ve learned that I am, indeed, a perfectionist. I thought I was the only one of my siblings that didn’t struggle with this trait…boy was I wrong. Tell me something is wrong with my work, and I become my own worst enemy. Self loathing and extremely high expectations are my nemesis at work. I also don’t like other people to take on tasks that I have once done myself. There has been some shifting of duties at my job, and I was almost offended that tasks were taken away from me and given to someone else. It makes me feel incompetent, makes me worry, makes me feel like I’m not dependable, and makes me question my value to my team. I’ve learned that I don’t know how to stand up for myself. I’ve learned that I’m extremely non confrontational, and that I’d rather take the blame for something than defend my actions and decision. I’ve learned that I will never make excuses for myself….no one accepts them to begin with and it just makes people look weak. I’ve learned to accept who I am, to realize that I have value to add to any situation. I’ve learned how to think critically, to problem solve, to find the answers when I don’t have them, to be a positive influence no matter what the situation.

I’ve gained confidence.

All of these lessons I can take with me to my next job. Fast forward three or four years….Calvin is in preschool and perhaps baby #2 is ready for some socialization…I can go back into the workforce with confidence, remembering all these lessons I’ve learned, making me a better employee. That is something to be thankful for.

So back to the present moment. Fear, Worry, Doubt. Big scary words, big scary problems.

Regardless of how many times the Lord has answered my prayers and fulfilled our needs in the past, I still seem to grapple with these problems. Worry can be crippling. It can prevent you from feeling happy, from finding joy in all situations, from realizing just how blessed we are. I’ve been challenged lately…mainly by her, and by her. Both have dealt with worry, fear, and have come out on top. I know this is a journey that I’m not going to complete anytime soon. In fact, I can imagine it will be a journey I retravel as life continues to go on. But I hope each time that it is a shorter journey…with less pit stops.

The Lord is doing big things in my and Dave’s life. Big things. Big changes are on the horizion. And as I’ve been able to let go of that fear, worry, and doubt a little bit each day, I’ve learned to trust Him more. Such a hard lesson…one we are never done learning. What does trusting the Lord physically look like? It is so hard to surrender all my worry, fear, and doubt each day, to let go and trust. But yet, we are called to do so, and not doing so is sinful. Holding on to these things keeps us from Christ, keeps us from experiencing His blessings, keeps us from joy.

So here is where I am today: Anxiously awaiting blessings and change that I know are “around the corner,” whether that corner be a week or a year. Trying each day to realize the joy that I have and to let go of fear, worry, and doubt. Making the most of my day to day life and committing to finish strong at work. Being extremely thankful for the past two year of personal growth and reflection, and remembering that the next two, twelve, twenty years will bring even more.

Ninjas and five months old

2011-11-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Long overdue blog post, but lately Calvin has decided sleeping through the night is a silly idea, and he's much rather wake up 4 or 5 times. Needless to say, I'm a bit fatigued and therefore haven't done much more then eat, sleep, work, take care of boy for the past six weeks.

For Halloween this year, we dressed Calvin as a Ninja. I let Dave pick the costume, and I really like the fact that he picked something a little less traditional then your typical pumpkin, puppy dog, etc. It was hard to get good pictures. We were running late for our church's Trunk or Treat event that we participate in every year, and once those trick or treaters come, they don't stop! We snapped a few at the beginning, and thanks to the modern invention of photo shop, I can cut and crop them to make them better.

Calvin also turned 5 months old (well..10 days ago he did). I looked at Dave and said to him "We've kept another human being alive for 5 months. We rock". Sometimes I still have to pinch myself to remind me that yes, I do have a son, yes, I am a mom, and yes, he's mine. Craziness.

four months

Five months

Not a huge change this time, but he's definitely way more solid. When we went to the dr to diagnose his second ear infection (yes...two in a row!) he was 19 pounds. And yesterday we put him on my trusty old scale from college and he was 22 pounds. So, you be the judge! We're definitely in 6 months clothes and I'm using a bunch of hand me down 12 month pants. Silly to buy smaller pants when all you have to do is roll up the legs!

There has been alot going on in our family over the past few weeks as well. In fact, dare I say it, my next post is probably not going to be about the boy and is going to focus a bit more on Dave and I. It's a post I've been writing in my head for several weeks, and I think it will do me good to get out some of my emotions, thoughts, and feelings. And if that means baring my soul to the whole blogger world, so be it.

Close with a few more pics of the boy, though. He's really enjoyed his excersaucer lately, and like any genius child, his favorite toy on the whole contraption....the tag of course.

Little pumpkin

2011-10-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Father and son part 2

2011-10-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday Mornings

2011-10-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

Chill in your jammies with mom...

drool all over the high chair.....

laugh and giggle when mom makes silly faces....

but try and stay quiet so daddy can sleep in.

Some snuggles and kisses and hugs....

and a prayer for a good day at home....

such special mommy and son time.

One foot, two foot, red foot, blue foot

2011-10-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

four months and an ear infection

2011-10-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

I jokingly posted on facebook a few days ago...."for his four month birthday, Calvin got an ear infection"....I neglected to add that the ear infection included a hacking- gross- mucus cough and stuffy snot-filled nose.

Gross.

I'm a little late with his four month pictures, but this week was just so beyond crazy that pics were the last thing on my mind. Up all night, moaning all day, not eating, work, doctors office, nanny's house, pharmacy.....it's been trying for both Dave and I. We had a four month wellness check up scheduled this week, which turned in to Ear Infection Treatment 101 with Dr. J. So... I don't have any weight and height stats, but I do finally have some comparison pics.

notice where his legs hit the end of the lamb ....

ankles at the end of the lamb at three months...

knee caps at the end of the lamb at four months.

We're gonna have one tall boy!

My favorite times with the boy have become bath time. Up until about a month ago, he screamed during his baths. I thought little boys were supposed to love the bath tub and have a grand time playing with all of their toys and blow up boats and sink ships? I guess when he's a bit older.

Rub a dub dub!

Father and Son

2011-10-02T17:13:00.001-07:00

2011-09-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Big Sigh.
If I could only begin to express the business of the last few weeks since our three month post.
In a nutshell....

Dave went back to work. I'm working. Calvin is going to a nanny. We're contemplating some big career changes in our lives. There have been some changes at our church that have really been life altering. Oh, and on a daily basis I have to get to work early and leave late to make up the time that I take away for "mommy breaks."

Life right now is exhausting. It's busy and long and the days all run together. By Thursday morning I'm really feeling the fatigue, and Friday's after lunch I can barely keep my eyes open. Between work, home, church obligations, attempting to go to Jazzercise and finding a few spare minutes to call friends and see people we care about, it's all I can do to not go crazy. This balancing act is really difficult. And I don't feel like I'm balancing right now. It feels more like one side is tipped down really far and the scale isn't just going to tip, but fall over completely. I keep telling myself that it will become a new kind of normal, that eventually routine will set in, I'll adjust, and things won't be so crazy, but it's really hard to focus on that when it's 4:30 a.m. and Calvin wakes up to be fed.

Ah, Calvin. Such a sweet amazing little guy. He constantly makes Dave and I smile and we are amazed at how much he has moved into our lives like he was always meant to be there. He's growing and changing and developing a little personality. For instance, he HATES tummy time. Hates it. We'll put him on his tummy, he's fine for about 30 seconds, and then starts to grunt and groan which eventually turns into screams. Turn him over on his back and he is happy camper, especially if the TV is on to distract him.

Tummy time on the bed with mom and dad seems to be more enjoyable....

The Bumbo is a lifesaver right now. Calvin is generally an upright baby, preferring to be sitting up rather than laying down or even reclining. The bumbo sits on the dinning room table when I'm vacuuming or cooking dinner, sits on the bathroom counter when I need to get ready in the mornings, sits on the floor when we are just relaxing in the evening. It's magic right now.

the new favorite toy? Burpcloth . It usually ends up in his mouth. Or on his head when daddy is being silly.

I get frustrated and tired and irritable from all of my responsibilities, and he just makes it all worth it. And then I get frustrated that I can't spend more time with him. But in the long run, all of this will seem like a small hurdle. and I know God gives us grace to handle all situations. And God gave us Calvin. So, the grace to handle Calvin will certainly come in abundance.

Three Months!

2011-09-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

We survived the "fourth trimester" ...look how Calvin has grown!

Two Months

Three Months

Two months

Three months

The growth spurt wasn't as big as his one to two month growth spurt, but according to our bathroom scale he's just over 15 pounds. What a big guy....he's definitely a Norvell!

Cousins

2011-08-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

My favorite cousin memories (which really all revolve around one cousin in particular).....

Playing with our Barbies in the pool waterfall at Grandma's house

Making mud pies out of all the berries, leaves and dirt we found in grandma's garden around the pool

sleeping in the dining room on the pool floats and reading Bearnstein Bear books at night

painting our nails every color of the rainbow and using puff paint to add flowers

the time I went to visit and made her clean her room because it was too messy for me. yes..even in my tender youth my OCD about cleanliness had begun to set in

going to CA for her wedding but really having just as much fun bonding with her brother for a few days after they left for their honeymoon.

and there are many, many more.

I wonder what these guys will say are their favorite cousin memories when they are adults.

A post not about Calvin

2011-08-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Dare I say it? I think I will.

Dave and I really enjoy healthy eating.
We do. Honestly. Not that I don't indulge in a burger and fries and, my favorite, a milkshake every once in a while, but we really like what it feels like to eat healthy.
A couple of weeks ago, we decided to make some healthy eating goals for ourselves and for the fall. The idea was simple...make some goals that won't put us on a strict diet but would encourage us to get back on the track of healthy eating. Back on track, you ask? Well...yes. When I could finally eat after my first trimester, I ate whatever I wanted. I'm not ashamed to say that during one morning staff meeting at work I ate 5 donuts. All this to say, we had let many of our healthy eating habits fall by the wayside when I was pregnant, and we were both ready to get back on track. I had my last 10 pounds to lose and Dave had some fitness goals of his own he wanted to accomplish.

So...Goal #1- Exercise at least 4 times a week.

For Dave, this is a bit easier. He's taken back up with jogging (yes..even in the extreme heat). His jog takes him about 45 minutes total, and it's located right outside our front door. For him, it's easy to fit in. For me, it's going to be a bit harder. I started back to Jazzercise about 4 weeks ago. Jazzercise is offered once in the morning and once in the evenings. While I love it, the class time is not particularly ideal for me when I go back to work. If it was just 30 minutes later, then I'd have an easier time making it there. But, alas, it's not. So, making it there in the evenings after work will be hard to do. It looks like I may have to adjust my goal to three times a week...twice during the work week and once on Saturday.

Goal #2- Drink at least 64 ounces of water per day.

When I first checked into the hospital to deliver Calvin, I was pretty dehydrated. They pumped me full of fluids and I had a pretty convicting conversation with the nurse. I knew water was important, but I thought that, in reality, it was just fluids you were supposed to get. Let's just say the nurse, in her kind way, told me I had been irresponsible about that and that I would need to improve. I agree.
A trip to the Dollar Tree, and Dave and I bought these to help us with that goal.

They are 32 ounces, so we just need to drink down two per day. Not hard! And we've always purchased Cyrstal Light drink mixes, which really help when we're needing a change. Can I just say...I've already seen the benefits of this. My lovely case of postpartum acne has started to clear up, I'm less tired, and 3 of the last 10 pounds have come off as well. I've discovered, through some online research, that water is gasoline for your metabolism. If you're not giving it the gas to run on, its not working as hard as it could be in burning off your extra calories. So...if you're looking for a way to get over that hump of weight loss like I was...drink water.

Goal #3- Eat at least 6 servings of fruit and veggies a day.

This is perhaps my favorite and most fun, as well as most challenging of our goals. My favorite and fun because I really do love fruits and veggies. Fruit is just so stinking good, and the perfectly cooked and seasoned veggie is wonderful. Challenging because, well, fruits and veggies are not ready to eat all the time like good ole prepackaged chips, granola bars and other carbs. Dave and I both admitted that we would eat more fruits and veggies more often if it didn't take so much prep work. Lettuce has to be cut and washed (and it is way too expensive to buy the precut bags!), as do all the veggies that go in a salad. Most fruit needs to be washed, strawberries need to be cut...all this just takes time. Despite this fact, we've been doing well with this goal. We've gotten over our laziness and washed, chopped and prepared fruits and veggies at every meal. But...with work starting back up again for both of us, I decided I needed to go the extra mile to ensure that we keep these goals during the fall semester.

So...this weekend I turned all of this....

Into this...

That's washed, cut and prepared tomatoes, lettuce, grapes, bell peppers, strawberries, broccoli, mushrooms and cucumbers. Not pictured is our bunch of bananas, apples, nectarines, bag of spinach, baby carrots, and green beans. I think we're ready to master goal #3.

While I wouldn't consider myself a health and fitness guru, I've always been interested in it and aware of the benefits of a balanced diet. So, don't be surprised if you see me sharing my favorite fruit and veggie recipes on here over the next few weeks. In fact...let me share one now.

A great way to get 2-3 servings of fruit in the morning is a smoothie. And this non dairy mama has figured out the perfect one.

1 banana

1 handfull strawberries

1/2-2/3 cups Vanilla Almond Milk (it's better then it sounds!)

Ice cubes- about 6

1 pack of zero calorie sweetener.

Blend it up and you get this pretty colored and delicious tasting morning breakfast, all for around 250 calories!

I've got 7 pounds to go before I get back to my prebaby weight, and hopefully these goals will help me get there. I'd love to hear your recipes for your favorite fruit and veggie dishes or for you to share your healthy lifestyle secrets and tips. And, if you have time, check out my healthy mother inspiration here. She maintains a great balance of health with the slightest bit of indulgence.

And finally, because no post is complete without a pic of the boy.....

The past few weeks...

2011-08-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

Warning: Prepare for a long post filled with tons of cuteness.

I can't believe summer has already come to and end. Dave started back to work today, which means that Calvin and I will be home by ourselves for the next two weeks before I start back to work.

Work. More on that later.

We've had quite the fun and exciting last couple of weeks. First off, Calvin took his first dip in a pool, which I'm sure will be followed by many more dips and long afternoons as he gets older.

We dressed him to prevent sun damage, of course!

He didn't like it when I submerged him up to his waist, so I ended up sitting on the edge and dangling his feet for a bit. I was nervous about having him so close to water, so I had all of my friends stay around me and I didn't stray from the shady step. All in all, he was only in the water for about 10 minutes, but it's a start!

The next day, we attempted our first extended car trip down to Houston so that Calvin could meet his future best friend, Luke Young. Don't they both look enthused to meet one another.

Luke was just precious and he felt so little compared to Calvin. Luke had a bit of a rough start, spending almost a week in the NICU, but you wouldn't know it looking at him. Such a brave and strong little guy. And his mom is pretty awesome, too!

Best friends holding future best friends.

Luke: 3 weeks Calvin: 9 weeks

Calvin did really well on both legs of the trip. We only had to stop once on the way there. And on the way home he slept the whole time (about 4 hours) so we just drove straight home. It was great. We'll test his car abilities again in a few weeks when we go to Arkansas, but more on that later.

I'm so thankful that Lauren and I had this experience to go through together. While we both had very different experiences, the Lord really allowed us to grow closer together in a way that we hadn't experienced in a long time. She truly is my bestie and we love her family dearly. Now...we just need our other bestie to jump on the child bearing bandwagon and produce some wives for our men!

This has become our new trick for keeping Calvin occupied while we need to do something. I can plop in him his "seat" and turn him towards the window while I'm cooking dinner, changing laundry, or just need to give my arms a break. We've really started to see a difference in his periods of contentment. I can let him sit by himself for a good 30 minutes now before he needs interaction, needs to change positions, or needs a pacifier. I can remember thinking when he was two or three weeks old that he couldn't just sit and be content, but now I realize he was way too young for me to expect that of him. Little tiny babies need interaction almost 24/7...I'm thankful for this time now when I can leave him be for a few minutes and continue on my daily routines.
We've also had our first few occurrences of Calvin "sleeping through the night". Twice now he's gone a good 6 hours before needing to be fed. Once from about 11 to 7, and then last night from 9:30 to 4:20, and I woke him up at 4:20 to be fed because, well, let's just say mama needed to feed him and leave it at that. But, I'm sure if I had let him sleep he wouldn't have continued to sleep even longer. I'm hoping these nights will become more common as I prepare to go back to work.

Work. Sigh.

Dave has the uncanny ability to capture Calvin's little face perfectly in pictures. He just seems to know exactly when to press the shutter button on his iPod. Here are a few of the good expressions he's captured in the past few weeks....

I've got a lot more to write about and share, but will stop here for now. I'm sure in the next few days I'll need to get a few things off my chest and revisit the blog, so stay tuned!

Visit from Nana and Grandad

2011-08-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

Just before Calvin turned 2 months old, Nana and Grandad came to visit. It was great to get to see them again. They had to leave soon after Calvin was born, so we were so glad to have them back to see how he's grown. I could definitely see Norvell features in him when he was being held by Grandad.

Nana was a so wonderful helping us with Calvin and giving Dave and I a much needed break.

We spent the few days just relaxing around the house and running errands. We spent one day at Ikea while Grandad looked for new furniture for his redecorated office. Dave and I lost our self control and bought Calvin a bunch of toys that he won't be able to play with for at least two years....but we just couldn't resist. A wooden train set a wooden puzzle/block set. It will be fun to get them out when he's a toddler, which I'm sure will get here before we know it. What a great little boy we have and what great grandparents he has.

Checking out his namesake.

2 month check up

2011-08-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

Calvin is definitely going to take after his daddy!

We took Calvin for his two month check up today. He weighs 13.4 pounds and is 24 1/4 inches long. That's the 91st percentile for weight and 94st percentile for height. Needless to say, he's a growing boy.

I was a bit anxious for this appointment for the past week or so. I knew that our little man was going to get his first set of immunizations today, and I wasn't sure how he (or me for that matter) was going to react. Crying was inevitable. But what about later in the day...fussy? tired? more crying?

And how was I going to feel? Sympathetic? Indifferent?

The appointment started out just fine. Dr. J checked all his range of motions in his arms and legs. Then he explained to us all about the vaccines that they recommend at two months of age. He talked about how some of them were not mandatory if we were not going to put him in public school (which we are, of course) and how only one of them was completely voluntary...the roto virus vaccine. We went ahead and ordered them all and waited for the nurse to come in...

Happy baby waiting for the nurse. He has no idea what he's in for.

Three shots, one crying baby and two heart sick parents later, the little guys was unconscious with sleep

the look of shock and disbelief that says "how could you let her do that to me?"

the initial stages of recovery.

We took advantage of Calvin's shot induced sleep to go out for lunch. When we got home, he slept for another hour or so, and then woke up.

Matching battle scars

Remember that question I had asked myself about how he was going to react to the shots? Well...upon waking he made it pretty clear what the answer was.

Screams.

Loud, hurtful, pitiful and frustrated screams.

A dose of baby Tylenol and a good 30 minutes of crying later, this was the only thing that would soothe him.

I have never let him sleep on my like this for very long. I've heard too many horror stories of what can happen in these types of positions...everything from SIDS to suffocation....but this time my pitiful heart let him sleep all he wanted. Besides...it gave me a chance to watch the finale of the Bachelorette on hulu :>).

I eventually got him off my chest and resting on the side of the bed.

Again...I never let him sleep on his stomach without me supervising (see above reasons), but once again, my pitiful heart gave in. He stayed this was for a good two hours in a deep sleep.

The rest of the evening was a bit of the same pattern....wake and fuss, cat nap, wake and fuss, cat nap, until he finally went down to real sleep at 11:30.

Now...just two months to recover from this before we got to do it all over again :>).

Two Months Old!

2011-08-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

See How I've Grown......

One Month Old

Two Months Old

One Month Old

Two Months Old

Preparations

2011-07-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

A big ole pile of outgrown newborn clothes.

This means two things: 1. My boy is growing FAST!

2. My maternity leave is almost over

It's hard to think about going back to work, but it's inevitable. Over the past couple of months we've talked and talked about this decision till we are blue in the face and have reinvented the wheel. We've made some progress and believe that we have a plan in mind that will serve us best, but more about that later. Right now, I've decided that I need to start making some preparations for going back to work. I'm very thankful that Dave will be able to take three weeks off after I go back to stay home with Calvin. He has enough personal days and obtained permission from the administration to make this happen. The district has a policy that an employee cannot use more than 5 personal days in a row without it being classified as some kind of "leave". Luckily his principal is so very understanding and granted his request. This will allow me to have an adjustment period for going back. Not only will I be at peace knowing that Calvin is with daddy, but it will make it easy getting just one person out the door by 7:30, and not three! I've been trying to think ahead about the things that will be different when Calvin is home with daddy all day versus mom. Feedings will be different...more bottle feedings and the introduction of formula. Comfort will be different....mom smells and feels different then daddy does, so I'm sure it will be different for Calvin in that sense. In an effort to make the adjustment easier, we're starting early.

Yesterday we had our first try at formula. I've heard that some babies can have aversions to different types of formula, so I wanted to start testing different kinds early. I can just picture Dave's first day home with Calvin, giving him formula, and it giving him an upset tummy or him not liking it and then not having enough to eat. Plus, I've been off dairy for almost two weeks now, and most formula has some milk, so I wanted to test that out. We had our formula bottle around three yesterday afternoon, and he was pretty fussy in the evening. but...yesterday was an odd day in general...he slept differently so I'm not sure if the fussiness was the milk in the formula or from being a bit "off schedule." We're going to try again today to see what happens before I declare it a success. We also split the day between bottle feedings and nursing, which requires me to be more disciplined about some, eh hem, activities that make that possible. This is hard as it requires lots of time and it's not something I particularly enjoy. But I want Calvin to have what's best for him, so if that means I need to buckle down, then I will.

The other preparation has to do with me. I need to start getting out of bed at a consistent time. So....this week I'm starting with an alarm at 8 a.m. Regardless of the night, I'm going to get up at 8. I know this isn't super early, but I've gotten really bad about going back to bed after Calvin's morning feeding and sleeping till he wakes up again (usually around 10:30). It's going to be quite the shock to get up at 6, if not earlier, when I go back to work. So, I figure if I start this week at 8, next week switch it earlier to 7:30 and keep bumping it up bit by bit till I go back to work, it won't be as hard. I'm also trying to not take a nap during the day, or at least a shorter one. If I can get by with 30 minutes of rest in the afternoon, rather the the 1.5 hours I had been taking, then this will make my long days easier come back to work time.

So...not the most exciting post, but an update on how we are doing none-the-less. To close, here are some pics of the boy, cause he is oh so cute!

Happy Baby

2011-07-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

My nickname for Calvin has become Happiness. Even though he is still fussy (although much improved!), when I go get him up from bed, nap, or when I come home after having been gone, I greet him with "Hi, Happiness."

Looking at his namesake comics. He does this often when we are changing his diaper.

Eyes only for daddy!

Calvin as of late...

2011-07-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

...is fussy. Dave and I are not quite sure what is causing the fussiness. Gas? Colic? Normal infant adjustment? He's mostly fussy (and WIDE awake) in the evenings. Some evenings are better than others. He's wide awake starting at around 6, and the earliest we've gotten him to go to sleep is 11:30. I'm thankful that these wakeful hours are not in the middle of the night, but when he's fussy in the evenings, after a long day and mom and dad are tired, it does try my patience and make me a bit frustrated. I've managed to keep my head level and not get too upset. Dave and I usually take turns trying to manage him, so it helps that we each get a break. I'm hoping this stage (if it is a stage) won't last too long. Dave seems to think that Calvin is having some digestion issues. We've got a call in to the doctor to see if he can recommend anything, or if he is concerned to the point of wanting us to come in. I have my theories about the causes of the fussiness...I don't think Calvin does well when I thaw a bottle from the freezer. We've done this several times, and depending on how long the bottle sits in the fridge after it thaws, I notice he is extra fussy and has some other symptoms that I won't describe that make me think the thawed bottles don't agree with him. We'll see. We're trying a number of things to see if we can help the little guy be a bit happier.

This hold seems to help calm him down when Dad holds him. Mom...not so much. He does better resting against mom's chest. The good news is, even though he is Mr. Supperfusspants in the evenings, he's sleeping good chunks of the night. I've gotten at least 3.5 hours, usually more, at a time the past couple of weeks, and I only really have to wake up once before the morning. Not too bad.

Calvin has officially moved into size 1 diapers and I've had to put away all of his new born sized clothes, some of them he only got to wear once! I'm thankful for all of the 0-3 month onesies that cousin Connor loaned us....and I'm thankful for a drawer full of 3-6 month clothes that will fit in probably just a few short weeks!

Calvin is beginning to take to his bouncy seat (Thank, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Mike and Cousin Connor!). It can usually calm the fussiness for a good 10 minutes, giving our arms a break from holding him. He also likes his swing, and it's become his favorite place for a short morning nap. Plus, his face gets extra squishy when he's in it and mom can't resist taking tons of photos...

"quit disturbing my slumber"

"I know the answer to the question!!!!"

Over the next few weeks, we will have a visit from Nana and Grandad, our first time using Yia Yia as a babysitter, and a visit to the pediatrician for our two month check up. Stay tuned for more!

Birthday Dessert

2011-07-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what would happen when you mixed this....

with this?

I'll show you.

top with these

and you get this!

Happy Birthday to me!

A man and his grill

2011-06-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

Dave has been getting into grilling this year. He's trying new things and experimenting with recipes. I wanted to get him a new grill for this birthday, but alas, it wasn't in the budget. So, I settled on some swanky new grilling tools. His favorite...the pepper griller.

I give you...Stuffed Jalapenos by Dave.

Start by coring your jalapenos using the awesome corer and seed remover that came with your awesome pepper grill kit given to you by your awesome wife :>).

Place peppers on super cool pepper griller thing.

Stuff with cream cheese, shredded cheddar, garlic powder and salt. You could also include bacon. Next time, we're going to try adding some chapped caramelized shallots.

Place on grill for 10 minutes or until cheese start to brown on top. Then eat and enjoy!

Three Weeks!

2011-06-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago, I had a baby. When I think about it, it kind of blows my mind. While I do remember life without a baby, I will say that I'm loving life with a baby. Week three has had it's surprises. We've officially entered the stage of spit-up, and more than just a little dribble out of the mouth. Gross. I think I'd change a thousand dirty diapers then deal with spit up. It really grosses me out. But I'm sure, like other things, it won't phase me after a while.While he still sleeps most of the time, Calvin's wakeful periods are becoming a bit longer, and thus a little fussier, but we're managing. Everyone has said that the first 6 weeks are all about survival. We're half way through and still surviving, so I think that deserves a high 5.

Lydia shared with us her newborn photos of Calvin she took. I think he was 5 days old when she took these. It's crazy how much different he looks already.

Happy Three Weeks Calvin!

My Friday Morning

2011-06-25T13:29:00.000-07:00

In a rare turn of events, Calvin went right back to sleep after I fed him around 7 on Friday morning. Dave also slept in a bit (at my encouragement) and so I had a couple of hours to myself. Most new moms would have gone back to bed, but I'm still holding to the belief that I can be a mom and have a super clean house, so after I mopped the kitchen floor and cleaned the top of the fridge (it gets so dusty up there!) I did this...

All Clean!

This cabinet needed to be organized so that it could house all of the baby and toddler feeding supplies. So this is the before......

and the after. Notice that I have bottles on the bottom because that's what I'm using right now, and all the sippy cups, bowls, spoons, etc on the top since we won't be using them for a while. I think it's pretty efficient if I do say so myself!

The top shelf of the pantry is where most of the stuff from that cabinet needed to go to make room for the baby and kid stuff, but it wasn't in very good shape either. This is the before....

And the after. I actually moved a few things into our storage closet in the guest room, like my big roasting pan that I only use at Thanksgiving, to give us some extra space.

Organization makes me happy and gives me a sense of order in my life when other things are crazy. Ya know...like when you have a three week old baby dependent on you for everything, it's nice to know exactly where your bottles and bread machine are :>).

Two week update

2011-06-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

Happy two weeks to Calvin!

Yesterday we had our two week pediatrician check up. Last time we were there, Calvin weighed an even 7 pounds. He lost about 10 ounces after birth, which is very normal. Of course, I was fretting a little during the past two weeks about whether or not he was getting enough during each feeding. Our doc appt yesterday confirmed that he was.

He's a hefty 8 pounds 4.5 ounces! Woo Hoo! Go Calvin!

Dr. J was very pleased with the weight and said everything was right on track. Our first appt with Dr. J was all business...the office was very busy and running behind as many patients were there for camp physicals and summer immunizations. Yesterday we got to see a little of Dr. J's personality, and I think I'm going to be very pleased with him. Calvin was a little fussy during the appt yesterday, and it was so sweet to see Dr. J comfort and soothe him. He also showed me a trick to help reduce incidents of spitting up, and each time I've done it, Calvin hasn't spit up, which is great for mom who thinks spit up is grosser then dirty diapers!

We've continued to have a good stream of visitors, with a few days to ourselves in between.

Our dear friends, Lauren and Nate Young, came up from Houston for a quick trip to meet Calvin. It meant the world to me that they would make the trip. Lauren is preggers as well and due mid July, so I know traveling for her isn't the most comfortable thing. It was great to see them and I can't wait to go down to Houston in July to meet Luke.

Here we all are...me and my besties with my son.

We also had a couple of people from work drop by (with dinner!) to meet Calvin. For some reason I didn't get their faces in any of the pics, but this is Stephanie and Nancy, each with Calvin. It was fun to see them as well. I'm planning on taking Calvin up to work next week to show him off.

Last night, the Sapps came out for a visit. Dave has know Matt and his family since he was in elementary school. According to Dave, he and Matt got in lots of trouble all throughout school together, and the Norvell family and the Sapp family did all kinds of things together as the boys were growing up. Matt kept encouraging us to name Calvin Thor Skullcrusher Norvell. Sorry, Matt....but for some reason that just didn't take :>). Matt looks great with the boy.

We also were very excited to have a photo shoot with my cousin Lorie Beth this week. Lorie and her mom, my Aunt Carol, had planned a trip out to TX from where they live in CA several months ago, and as things panned out, Calvin's due date fell on the dates of their trip. Lorie is a fantastic photog extraordinaire, and so I was thrilled to have her take some pics of Calvin and of our new family. I had to post these few pictures of her going to great lengths just to get the perfect shot.

We've actually had TWO newborn photo sessions, the other with my sister in law, Lydia, who is also a photog extraordinaire. Lydia and Lorie have different styles, so I'm pumped to have such a variety to choose from.
Other updates on the babe this week...
We've introduced Calvin to his swing, and he seems to enjoy it. We've also had our first successful bottle feeding, which is very encouraging because it means I can actually plan to leave the house for more than a couple hours in the future :>). Dave also let me go out alone and run some errands. I cherish alone time. Often, when Dave has a meeting or is getting together with friends, I look forward to just a few hours alone in the house to myself. I realize my alone time will take on a different tune now, but it was nice to go do a few things on my own terms.
I'm continuing to feel better and better each day. I anticipate to have made a full recovery by the end of week three. I'm still taking it easy and trying to rest my body as much as possible. I have to give glory to God on this one. I prayed intently for a delivery that would not leave my body traumatized, and He answered that prayer. Compared to many people that I've spoken with, my personal injuries were very minor, and I'm so thankful that the Lord had mercy on me and has allowed me to get back on my feet sooner rather then later.
That's it for now. Check back later for a special First Father's Day post!

Reflections

2011-06-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

It's been one full week since we brought Calvin home. A week that has flown by and has been, dare I say it, way better than I anticipated. We've had a good mixture of visitors, family and alone time. Had a few outings, all successful! Had some great time of reflection and praise. Had many thoughts going through my head that I wanted to share and release.
I know right now my I'm "not myself" and that my hormones are causing me to feel certain emotions stronger than others. I get that. But at the same time I also believe that some of what I'm feeling is true in itself. That it's not influenced by hormones or lack of sleep. That it's just feelings from the Lord of blessings and happiness.

I had so many people tell me that I needed to be prepared that I might not feel an instant bond with my child. That, perhaps, there would be a few days, or a few weeks, where he would feel like a stranger and I wouldn't feel a bond to him.

Hogwash.

I've never felt a connection to another person like I do to my son. I've never instantly felt love like I did that first night in the hospital room. I love Dave fiercely. But loving Calvin is different, as it's supposed to be. Calvin instantly opened a new spot in my heart that I had no idea existed. And over the past week at home, I've only felt that love grow stronger and that spot where he belongs become more full. While I'm thankful for the advice from my friends about the possibility of some mixed emotions when I met Calvin, I'm even more thankful to the Lord that my experience was different. That instead of reservation and hesitancy, I felt love like I've never experienced. If I love Calvin this much, I can only imagine how much Christ loves me.

Happiness and Joy. While these two emotions go hand in hand, I think they are very different also. Being home with my husband and my son makes me happy. I'm content and satisfied in every way. Part of me wishes Calvin would stay a sweet bundle of infant loveliness for the rest of his life. I'm already wondering how I'm going to manage going back to work in 11 weeks. The Lord has overflowed my cup with Joy. Joy. I feel like there is nothing more I could ever want right now. No other blessing that could top what I have. A million pairs of new shoes and a closet full of new clothes topped off with the most sophisticated kitchen to cook in to my hearts content couldn't bring me more joy then looking at my sleeping babe. Cheesy? Of course. True? To the heart. Overly dramatic? I don't think so. Not when you are experiencing it yourself. Not when you feel the Lord's presence in every moment. Not when you've experienced the notion of "family" in a new way. Growing up I had a family. Now the Lord has allowed Dave and I to create a brand new one. One that is completely my own and, to it's core, a part of me.

Secretly, in the back of my mind, I always poked fun at my mom friends whose every post on facebook was about their kids. Who didn't seem to have a life outside of play dates, dirty diapers and frustrations about naps, or the lack thereof. But...dare I say it....I get it now. I understand now that these little people fill up your entire world, that you can lose yourself, in a good way, in their existence. While I will always strive to be a balanced mom, I am sure that, in the back of my mind, I will always be the mom who takes more pride in her children then in any other thing I might accomplish.

I'm not naive. I know that in a few weeks when the sleep deprivation has set in, when I'm tired of being my child's only source of food, when all I want is to go somewhere and shop without worrying about making it home in time to nurse, that I might feel frustrated. I might feel stressed and worn out. I might feel stretched thin. I know that it's not always going to be roses and sunshine and rainbows. I get that, too. I get the fact that, eventually, Calvin will do something that makes me angry and that it's going to be hard disciplining him. I know that he's not always going to just eat, sleep and poop. Eventually he will become a real person, and I'll be challenged and tried in a whole new way. My response to that?

Bring it on.

For there is nothing...no situation or event or fierce toddler....that I will encounter that the Lord will not equip me to handle. His grace for tomorrow is a big lesson I've learned over the past 9 months. My sister in law was the first person to remind me of this back in the fall. And I've clung to it. I've made it my motto. It got me through my pregnancy when all I wanted to do was quit, it got me through my hospital stay (both of them!), it's gotten me through the past week, and it will continue to get me through the coming years. He will get me through. The Lord will be my strength.
I hope that all who read this can have that kind of comfort in the Lord. If not, ask me how you can. I'd be happy to tell you.

"For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my should knows it very well"

Psalm 139: 13 and 14

2011-06-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a few friends over for dinner (don't worry, I didn't cook anything except for heating up a can of beans) to celebrate Calvin's one week birthday. And because we love these people and will take any excuse to visit with them. Although I don't think we have to make excuses at all :>).

Ronelle Tallant (husband David Tallant was there in spirit!), Dad and Calvin, Amanda and Cliff Kapka, and me behind the camera.

Happy One Week Calvin!

And for his birthday, Calvin decided to gift mom and dad with being wide awake between 3:30 and 5:30 a.m. this morning. Unfortunately there is no gift receipt so I'm stuck with this somewhat lousy present. But that face makes it all worth it.

Calvin's first week

2011-06-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

My first week has been very eventful. Once mom and dad were settled in the recovery room of the hospital, I had many visitors.

This is Brooks and Pierce Beckmann. We're all going to be buddies in the future. I can foresee lots of play dates and church functions that we will spend together.

This is Ronelle Tallant and Amanda and Cliff Kapka. They are some of mom and dad's best friends from church. I know they will be like second parents to me and will be a big part of my upbringing. Ronelle is due to deliver my best friend, Alexander, in October!

After a few days in the hospital, mom and dad got to take me home!

Mom and Dad were very emotional when they packed me up in the car. They said they weren't nervous about being home with me, they just loved me so much and were so excited to be beginning a new part of their lives as my parents.

When I got home there were even more visitors!

This is Brooke and Patrick Christensen. They are very good friends of mom and dad's from college and have known my parents for a very long time. I'm sure they will also be around alot as I grow up.

I was very excited to meet the rest of my family at home, too.

Auntie Sarah

Grandpa Walt

Auntie Rachel

and cousin Connor. There was also uncle Mike and Aunt Lydia, but we missed photos with them.

Mom and Dad gave me my first bath to get ready for my first doctors appointment.

The next day we ventured out of the house for our first outing. Mom and Dad took me to the pediatrician and I had a great check up. Dr. Johnson said I had good color and no signs of jaundice. He also said the my weight loss was average and I should start to gain back the few ounces I had lost within the next few days. After a month I should be back to my birth weight. Dr. Johnson said I should just eat, sleep and poop over the next several weeks and that he wanted to see me again when I was two weeks old.

But more than anything, mom and dad have just been enjoying having me around the house. The last two days have been quiet and peaceful. I've had some trouble sleeping through the night, but mom and dad are handling it just fine. I'm nursing like a champ, and I can burp as loud as dad! Dad wants to nickname me Super Soaker 500, because I've managed to pee on every changing pad and changing pad cover that we have.

This weekend I'm expecting a few more visitors. I'm really looking forward to meeting Lauren and Nate Young. They are going to be giving me my other best friend, Luke, in just a few short weeks. I'm really excited that they are taking a quick trip up to the area from Houston before Luke gets here. I also think mom and dad are going to try and take me to the grocery store tomorrow. Mom is ready to get out of the house again, and she thinks short outings are best at first. I'm sure there will be lots of people at the store who want to see me since mom used to work there.

Thanks for reading about my first week.

Love, Calvin

First Bath!!

2011-06-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

Here is a little video Dave put together of Calvin's first bath, here at home. Mom had to give me a lesson on how to give him a suds bath while all of his cord and circumcision stuff is healing. Dave sped it up, so it's funny in some parts to see us scrub in full speed. Enjoy!

Pics of C-Dub

2011-06-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

Dave has nicknamed him C Dub, short for CW. I don't know if I'm gonna let that stick.

Taken right after birth and over 24 hours of induction drugs. whew!

Anticipation

2011-05-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that tomorrow, Tomorrow!, I'll get to meet sweet Calvin Walter Norvell. It's early morning, I'm sitting with a finished cup of coffee, good morning america on tv, and a day of alone time and preparation ahead of me.
The past few days have been a whirlwind. On Thursday I had a doc appt. My blood pressure had spiked, and there were other signs of my high blood pressure making me not well (I'll leave the gross details out!), so it was decided that we not wait too much longer to bring Calvin into the world. Because I wasn't showing any outward signs of preeclampysia, and because there was no stress on the baby, my doctor let me have the long holiday weekend to prepare. I had strict instructions that if I had any symptoms of preeclampysia, to go straight to labor and delivery at the hospital. While this news was a little disconcerting, it was also exciting. I had been getting more and more uncomfortable by the day, work was wearing me out physically, and my attitude was getting more sour by the day. I had given up on seeing friends or leaving the house after work. I felt like I needed a vacation from being pregnant.
And even in times when you feel like you can't go on, the Lord gives you strength, meets your needs, and answers your prayers.
With this new plan, my last day of work all of a sudden jumped up a week. I wrapped up my job on Friday, not quite as neatly as I had been anticipating, but enough to help my part time sub this summer ease in, and headed home to the anticipation of four days of rest, relaxation, and time with the hubby before Calvin came. A vacation from being pregnant...the Lord provided it to me!
It's amazing what not having to think about work did for my attitude. It's not that I wanted to quit my job or anything, its just that having to be engaged and active in something all day, when my mind was in a million other places, and having to wear work clothes (ugh!) was exhausting. All of a sudden, knowing that I didn't have to reserve my energy or worry about not having pregnancy brain at work and forgetting things, gave me a burst of energy and enthusiasm. I've been getting rest, been seeing friends, and feeling more and more prepared for the changes that are about to happen.
Saturday was a great day. I slept in, did a little laundry, and then went and got a deluxe manicure and pedicure with a friend from church. That evening Dave and I went out for a nice dinner and saw a movie with other friends from church. Sunday, we didn't go to church, and I drove out to meet mom at North Park mall to shop for some nursing essentials. It was nice to have some time with mom alone. Afterwards, I ran a few errands on my own, relishing the time to myself. Dave cooked dinner that night and we watched a movie, again just enjoying being home with one another. We met some friends that evening for a Rita's Italian Ice treat in the evening, then went to bed early. Yesterday, after sleeping in a bit and doing a few chores, we met some friends for a great Memorial Day cookout. We finished the day just relaxing at home. Dave was a hero and mopped the floor, cleaned our master bathroom, and cleaned out the car so it is ready to bring out little guy home at the end of the week.

This evening I go into the hospital for an overnight procedure that will, fingers crossed, help my be ready for a smooth induction tomorrow. What am I doing today? Finishing up my house cleaning, putting the last few things in my hospital bag, meeting a friend for lunch, and then probably watching a girly movie while I wait for my in laws to arrive. It's been a lovely several days. I feel refreshed and rejuvenated. Still a bit nervous and anxious for everything that's about to happen, but with a renewed sense of peace and comfort from the Lord.

Lord willing, my next post will have some pictures of our new family of three. I covet your thoughts and prayers over the next few days as I make this transition, as I do something physically I've been scared of since I realized how babies were born :>), and as the Lord brings Dave and I our next big adventure and challenge as a couple. Blessings to all of you who have read, commented, and supported me across this blog and in person. May the Lord allow me the opportunities to serve and support you when you need it most.

it's raining, it's pouring!

2011-05-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

My mom and I have had this little inside joke between one another for several years now.My mom truly is my best friend. I tell her everything. I call her to talk about my day, to vent, to catch up on the happenings of the family. Over the past few years, we've noticed that when one thing of a particular category happens, it is usually followed by a load of other things along that same line. For example, 10 years ago when I had graduated high school and was off to college, I was dating alot! After never dating in high school, all of a sudden I had a plethora of boys interested in me. My mom and I would joke that "when it rains, it POURS!".
Or, sometimes I'll call my mom after a particularly bad day at work to vent and share my HR experiences with her, only to find out that she, too, has had a bad day. Again, when it rains, it pours!

Right now, I feel like I can use the same expression in my life to talk about what the Lord has taught me in regards to provision, blessings, and faith.

This past week, Dave and I had our last two baby showers, making the grand total 5. Five baby showers. And not just shabby little baby showers....big showers with lots of people and gifts. There is literally not a need that we have for Calvin that has not been met through the generosity of our friends and family, co workers, and even Dave's students!

When He rains, He pours.

I have a shoebox full of gift cards to Target and Babies R Us. A shoebox full. They total an uncanny amount that I won't disclose here. To give you an idea, the Target gift cards, if we decided to save them exclusively for groceries, would pay for our weekly grocery trips from now until Christmas. At Babies R Us, we could buy out the rest of our registry and still have money left over.

When He sends the rain, it pours.

I've had to turn down multiple invitations to social occasions with friends. Why is this a blessing you might ask? Well, first of all I'm about at the point in pregnancy where my desire to be social is about as big as my desire for a natural childbirth (haha). But, all jokes aside, our local friends have been calling, emailing and inviting us to these events that we would love to go to, but our schedules are jam packed full! The love that people have for us, the care and concern they are voicing for us as we make this big step into parenthood, is amazing.So often our (people in general, not specifically Dave and I) lives get busy, and we kind of shut ourselves up in a cocoon and forget about the rest of the world. It can be a lonely feeling at times. But then things like this happen, and you feel the love and blessings from your brothers and sisters in Christ, and you know that no matter what, people care about you. Christ cares about you.

Bring on the rain. It's gonna pour!

Maybe its because I'm hugely pregnant and my hormones are going crazy. Maybe it's because when I see it all spelled out on "paper" the reality of it all hits me hard, but I'm overcome with emotions of gratitude as I write this blog. Maybe it's because one of His promises has been so blatantly laid out before me that I'm finally having an opportunity to digest it all. But here is what I've learned over the past 8.5 months.

God. Will. Provide.Everything.

From a pacifier to a pack n' play. From strength to get through a day of work when you feel yucky, to the energy to attend your final shower on a Friday afternoon after a terribly long week. From friends and family support, to advice from the most unexpected people. My God Is My Provider.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for being the Ultimate Provider. Thank you for taking care of every need we could possibly have for Calvin. Thank you that our friends and family love and support us. Thank you for your unending blessings. May we never forget that everything we have first came from You, and ultimately belongs to You. May you remind us of these blessings each day. Show us how we can meet the needs of our friends and family in return. Bless them for blessing us.

Amen

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I wanted to end with just a few quick pics of my surprise baby shower at work on Wednesday. Dave kept a good secret from me for about a month. After work on Wednesday, my dear friend Stephanie stalled me from going home and steered me into a conference building where many of my fellow co-workers were waiting with gifts, presents, and lots of applause.
Here's a few pics Dave snapped of me upon entering and seeing the surprise for the first time.

We had several people in the building taking pictures while I was opening gifts. I'm supposed to get those on a disk next week. I'll share them with you soon. But I did want to show you pictures of this amazing cake. My department found this blog link (thanks to my hubby) and sent it to the cake decorator so that they could create a cake to look like the nursery. Simply put....it is amazing!

This is the whole thing. It wasn't huge, but the detail was incredible.The bottom layer matched the wall behind his crib, complete with his name and stars (see nursery tour for comparison). The second layer matched the crib sheet with blue and white stars. Perched on top was a fondant Calvin draped in blankets that matched perfectly the patchwork plaid bumper in his crib. I couldn't believe how accurate it was!

Another view of his name.

Baby Calvin sleeping soundly on top.

the stars from his nursery wall (this was after we brought the leftovers home)

It truly was the highlight of the shower. Everyone kept coming up to me the next day talking about how impressed they were by the cake. So cute!

2011-05-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the virtual nursery tour.

Let me begin by saying that I don't have many natural talents when it comes to decorating. I tend to impulse buy and get stuck in a rut or pattern and have a hard time thinking outside the box. I get the idea in my mind that everything needs to match, and then I have a hard time putting anything in the room that doesn't. I'm pretty good at copying, but coming up with original ideas is hard for me. Anyway, all that to say that I am super super super pleased with how Calvin's nursery turned out. I wanted to create a room that was sweet and innocent enough to be a nursery, but had the ability for him to grow into as a toddler. So, that being said, the nursery tour begins below. I hope that you take a few minutes to look at all of my pictures and leave me a comment.

One thing that I love most about Calvin's room is all the different people who helped make it so beautiful. Both sets of grandparents contributed time and money to making it a success, close friends gave us some of the special touches, and there are bits of Dave and I in the room also. So...let's begin.

Here's the view standing in the doorway, so you get an idea of what I see when I will open the door each morning to get our little one out of his crib.

And a different perspective from the corner next to the crib.

To the right of the door is our changing table and first wall decoration.

Right above the changing table we hung six different vintage Calvin and Hobbes comics. We have an old comic book that was my brothers as a teenager that we looked through together and picked out a few of our favorites. It was easy to take the book to Kinkos, color copy the comics and then frame them all alike. I attempted to paint the frames the primary colors in the room, but it didn't work out so well. There were these great raw wood frames at JoAnn's that I could have painted easily, but I needed 6 and they were 10 bucks each. Alas, I went with the economy pack of 4 frames on clearance for 10 bucks. Still looks cute though.

Just to the left of the changing table is our crib and Calvin's name. I've shown this off before, but couldn't resist throwing it in again. I just love our bedding, his name, the colors...everything.

On either side of the window on the next wall are two shelves. I wanted to have a place where I could just simply display some cute decorative items. I found this great tin sign at Hobby Lobby...there's a coordinating one on the other set of shelves you will see below. The wooden train is just a cute toy that matched all the colors, and of course we have a waiting empty frame for me to display a snapshot of our little Prince.

In the middle of the bottom shelf is this little guy....Yoda. Dave made this ceramic jar shaped like Yoda when he was in 5th grade..so about 10 years old. He's held on to it all these years, and now it gets to sit proudly in his sons room.

This is the second set of shelves....my two favorites here are the HPU bear that my mom gave me when I went away to college. A nice reminder of where Calvin's parents fell in love. And our piggy bank, a gift from one of my besites who is due to deliver a little boy that is destined to be Calvin's best friend at the end of July.

Next to the closet is dresser and bulletin board.

Oh the saga of our blue dresser. Let's just say that, because of one of my decorating ideas gone wrong, Dave had to sand and paint the dresser twice. And it wasn't an easy job. Thanks hunny. I love how it turned out. Good ol Craigs list.

Above the dresser I put a bulletin board that I covered to correspond with some of the colors in the room. I realize this isn't a very traditional thing to put in a nursery, but I really enjoy having a place to put cards, notes, pictures and other reminders of all the people that already love and support Calvin and his parents. I decorated it with some little boyish wooden decals, and I'm looking forward to covering it with even more special mementos.

The chair and ottoman were given to my by one of my sweetest friends at work.It's super comfy and adds a great touch of color to the room. She also gave us the side table, and I had some expert help making the table cloth to go on top. It's fun to think about rocking and snuggling with Calvin in this chair.

While not the most exciting piece in the room, this little cubby organizer is probably one of the most useful pieces in the room. As we started to have baby showers and collect all the things we "need" for our little guy, I realized that I didn't have near enough storage space. I took some of our gift cards and picked out this piece and quickly began to fill it up. I'm sure I'll need buy more canvas baskets to go along with it, but for now we've got all of Calvin's board books, baby rattles and toys and linens under control.

On top of the cubby organizer is this wonderful basked of personalized burp cloths. Another good friend of mine, who is the craftiest of all crafters, made these for me at my family shower. While I look at them and think they are too cute to use for spit up, I love the idea of even Calvin's regurgitated food having a cute place to be wiped!

So that's the nursery! A combination of a couple of months of work, patience in between paychecks, and lots of helping hands. I hope that each of you will get a chance to see it in person.

A post of lists

2011-05-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

Things I'm looking forward to doing once I'm finished being pregnant:
1. Jazzercise....I really want to go back to class and jump and stretch myself back into shape
2. Putting on a cute summer dress and going to dinner. Let's face it, at this point all dresses look like moo-moos.
3. Being able to bend down to do simple things, like buckle my shoes, putting on my pants, or picking up something off the floor. Also being able to roll over in bed and not feel like I'm about to suffocate mid turn.
4. Not having to explain to every cashier I encounter at a store when I'm due and then listen to them tell me about their mom/aunt/sister/cousin/any other female relative who is also pregnant.
5. Putting on hip hugger jeans that don't come up to my boobs or a shirt that doesn't tie around my back.

Things I will NEVER say to a pregnant woman
1. I will never share my labor and delivery story, no matter how pleasant it might turn out to be, without being asked
2. I will never utter the words "oh just you wait....you're life is about to change"
3. I will never tell a pregnant woman that once they have kids they have to let go of their current standards of living
4. I will never make comments about how much sleep they are about to lose. I'm sure they are well aware of that fact, as am I.

Things I have loved about being pregnant
1. go with me on this for a moment...but I've realized just how strong my antiabortion stance is. Having never been pregnant, I never knew the personal reasons behind the arguments for and against it. Now, after housing this little boy in my tummy for 9 months, I realize just how ludicrous the argument is women have the right to "my body". If anything, it's the other way around. For 9 months, I'm Calvin's body and all decisions I make have nothing to do with me and my rights, but they have everything to do with him and his right to live.
2. Experiencing God's creation first hand. His creation miracle happened inside me. Amazing
3. Guilt free eating. Enough said.
4.Baby clothes...they really do make me happy
5. Growing closer to my husband as we prepare for this journey together.

Things I'm looking forward to about being a mother:
1. I know there is going to be that one moment when I can see in Calvin's reaction that he recognizes me as his mother. I remember when a child that I babysat in high school recognized me for the first time and came to me with open arms to be picked up. It was a pretty cool feeling. I can only imagine how it will feel when that child is mine.
2. Watching Dave interact with his son. He's a great uncle already....he's going to be a top notch father.
3. Picking out special occasion outfits...like an Easter Sunday baby suit, birthday clothes, clothes for pictures, etc. I guess this goes along with #4 from the list above.
4. Watching Calvin grow to love his cousins
5. Learning what it truly means to put someone else's needs before my own.

Things I've learned while being pregnant
1. God really does give us graceto handle every situation.
2. God provides for everything. Everything. There is nothing I can need or want or desire that He cannot provide for.
3. I give myself excuses to be a wimp when it comes to comfort, feeling good, and anything that has to do with the doctor. But, in reality, I'm one tough cookie. I've gone to work when I've felt less than stellar, I've put on a happy face when all I wanted to do was cry, and I've allowed myself to be stuck, swabbed, poked and prodded repeatedly without having to call my mom each time to congratulate me (yes...I still do this as an adult).
4. I have an amazing husband. He is exactly everything I need, is the perfect person for me to go through life with, and without a doubt, will lead our family on a path that will glorify God.

In a few days check back for the virtual nursery tour!

Nearing the end...

2011-05-03T16:13:00.000-07:00

34 WEEKS!

The end is in sight…but at about two each afternoon, it seems like I can only see the end if I squint really hard, make sure I’m not looking into the light, and stare really hard. If you ask me how I’m feeling, my coined response has been “well, I’m hanging..” (short for “hang in there”). My feet hurt when I stand for too long (probably from the 30 extra pounds I’m carrying), I have these little skin stretching feelings all along my sides, and I just feel heavy.

But, I know it’s all worth it.

I knew I wasn’t going to be one of these women who just love being pregnant. I don’t like being uncomfortable, I don’t like not feeling like myself, I don’t like being tired. I’m a wimp when it comes to all things medical and doctor related. Pregnancy includes all these things and more, and I knew that it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park for me.

That being said, I think the Lord has been very merciful to me. Despite my rocky first 15 weeks or so, I really haven’t had it so bad. Everyone tells me how they had heartburn, reflux, constipation, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, swollen feet, etc. I’ve been blessed to have none of those symptoms. I didn’t even have a technical case of morning sickness. I think the Lord knew that, if I had too much difficulty with this whole pregnancy thing, that I might fight the plan to do have more kids. I’m thankful for that mercy, and thankful for this experience I’ve had. But I’ll be honest, I’m ready for some relief, ready to not waddle when I walk, and ready to meet my son.

Last week I had a doctor’s appointment. Dr. Cope said that, because of my history of high blood pressure, she didn’t want me to go past 39 weeks. So, if there was no action going on by week 39, she would induce. That puts my delivery date a week earlier, around June 6 or 7. On top of that, we started to talk about my preferences for the delivery room. She confirmed that both mom and Dave could be in the room during the actual delivery, pending no complications. We talked about all of the nitty gritty, and somewhat gory details, and put a lot of my fears at rest. It was good to be able to get my mind ready for all that’s about to happen.

Additionally, this past weekend I was able to have some much needed alone time. Up to this point, I had this idea that pregnancy was going to be a super spiritual experience. One where I was going to be reading scripture about babies, praying all the time, and just feeling super connected to the Lord. And while I’ve had moment’s of these feelings, in all reality I’ve been so distracted that I haven’t had the time I would have liked to pray and spend time with the Lord. So, I decided that, at this point, this wasn’t going to happen unless I made it happen. So I told Dave that, this past Saturday, I needed him to leave for a while. And he did. And I spent a good 3 to 4 hours alone in Calvin’s nursery praying for him, for me, for Dave, for the labor and delivery, for our lives together, for all my feelings and fears and thoughts that I have had about being a mom, being pregnant, and the changes that are about to take place. I finished the morning feeling much lighter, less burdened, and ready to finish out the next few weeks of preparation. I gave my fears over to the Lord, and in return, He gave me peace.

The nursery is almost done! I’ve avoided posting any pictures so that you can see the “big reveal” all at once. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to give you a tour (if you can call it that) of Calvin’s nursery, completed and finished and ready for him to come home!

Showers galore

2011-04-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend Dave and I conintued to feel the Lord's blessings and provision in our lives as we prepare for this sweet little boy to come into our lives. We were blessed with TWO baby showers this weekend.
Friday night was a shower given to us by our friends at churcn. It was held at La Madeline and was complete with coffee and french desserts. I think at the final count there were 25 people there! The room was decorated with blue and white star balloons to match some of the decor we had used in Calvin's nursery, all kinds of blocks, books and baby toys as center peices on the tables, and hanging on a clothes line were five custom made onsies from my sweet friend Leslie. We received multiple hooded towels, washcloths, bathing gear, clothes galore, and our baby swing! Something neat about the shower also....in lieu of cards, everyone included a book with their gift, so we also received many board books to start a great library for Calvin. Pictures below....

Some of the girls from my church

My four great hostesses...Miranda, Leslie, Amanda and Ronelle

The custome onsies that Leslie made....from left to right it's a dump truck, a monster face, a robot, a tie and a whale...So Cute!

the table and diaper cake.

Not the most flattering pics of me opening presents, but the best of the bunch. I seemed to have a severe case of sitting with my legs wide open that night...all the other pictures do not have the best angle....guess the belly was getting in the way.

On Saturday afternoon I had, what I've come to call, my friends and family shower. My besties, Brooke and Lauren, along with my mother, wanted to give me a shower for some of my old college friends in the area and for any family that might want to travel in town for the occassion. I knew from the beginnining that this would be a smaller shower, but it turned out to be a wonderful afternoon. Lauren came in all the way from Houston, and my sister in law, Lydia, came all the way from Arkansas. Also in attendance was my mother, two old college friends Jennifer and Kati, and my mom's sisters in law on the Breard side of the family. All in all, we had 8 people. Mom made a great brunch complete with ham, mixed fruit, and a spinach and grueye fritatta. After a casual lunch, we opened gifts and ate amazing cupcakes. Some gift highlights include a tummy time mat, baby safe sleeper (meant to protect baby when they stay night in bed with mom and dad), Baby's first piggy bank, custom made onsies, burp cloths, and receiving blankets, lots of cute clothes, a bouncer, changing pad and cover, and several different slings/carriers for being out and about.
Not only were the food and gifts incredbile, but Lauren and Brooke made some incredible decorations, many of which I will repurpose in Calvins room for decorations. Pictures below...

My besties and hostesses, Lauren and Brooke

My sister-in-law, Lydia, traveled all the way from Arkansas to attend the shower, and she brought my nephew, James. It was so so so great to see her.

Another great friend from college, Kati, and her four month old daughter Karlyn

Just some of the cute decorations that Lauren and Brooke created. There were blocks, initials, and stars everywhere to coordinate with the nursery.

I continue to be amazed at how the Lord gives us exactly what we need. at the exact time we need it. The bounty of blessings we received at these showers is proof that, no matter the need, the Lord finds a way to provide it. He tells us to ask, and we shall receive. I hope that all of my readers feel His blessings like we have over the past few weeks.

nursery additions

2011-04-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

Detail after detail...the nursery is coming together. Here are two new additions.

We've got Calvin's name up on the wall. The picture here makes it look a bit crooked, but I promise it's not. I took my time and Dave and I measured everything out. I will say that some of the letters aren't equal to each other....and they can look a little lopsided if you look close (like the A and L in the pic for example). But I love the way it looks regardless. When dad was here, he helped me pick out the letters and stars. I painted them to match all of the colors in the bedding and it's really eye catching when you walk in the room.

My curtain! Oh...the saga of the curtain! I spent all night last week making a curtain, and it was terrible. Just terrible. Enter my bestie and amazing seamstress, Brooke. She came over on Friday, and in half the time whipped up this cute valance to add to the room. And a bonus....I have enough fabric to cover the lamp shade to match (when we buy a lamp).

So here is what's left to do:
Table cloth of the night stand
finish repainting the dresser we bought on Craigs list
decorate shelves
Comics for the walls
Other wall hangings (a few pictures to add to the mix)

Oh...and of course, I need to have the baby to put in the crib. But I'm still working on that :>).

This weekend I have two showers, complete with friends and family coming in town to help me celebrate. I'm excited to have the support of so many great people, and you can expect one mondo blog post to celebrate it all!

Dad's Visit

2011-03-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that March is almost over. I knew it was going to go by fast, but I had no idea I would blink and it would be over. March started off with a great visit with my two besties, peaked with a fabulous anniversary trip, and ends with the opportunity to see all of my parents in the same week. This morning, through a few emotional pregnant woman tears, I dorpped my dad off at the airport to catch his flight back to Oregon. He came in this past Wednesday for a nursery decorating weekend extravangza! And boy, did he and Dave work. In one weekend they painted the entire nursery, hung shelves, visited about 100 garage sales, cleaned up the front yard, replaced a ceiling fan and had lots of conversation, coffee and apple pie. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for my dad. Having him here to play such a special role in Calvin's life. I know it will be special for Calvin to know that his Dad and Grandfather helped make his place in the world special. And, a big thankyou goes out to both my Dad and stepmom, Pam. They were generous enough to purchase all of the paint supplies and things that we needed to fix up his room as a gift to us! Between them, my mom purchasing the bedding, and mom and dad Norvell getting the crib, Calvin's room really is a mixture of love from all his grandparents.

Dave getting started on painting

Dad laying down on the job! Acutally, he's painting. He did all the detail work that Dave prefers not to do....what a trooper.

Hanging shelves Hanging curtain rods...I'm gonna make the curtains, so they are still to come

You can kind of get an idea about how the nursery will look from these pics. I'm going to wait and show you the rest when it's more finished, but I'm just in love with my crib and bedding. I had to show you.

Dad made a new friend... we seriously considered letting Dexter go home to Oregon with Dad. Maybe this summer......

Dad's legendary apple pie...he actually made two while he was here.

San Francisco!

2011-03-22T18:13:00.001-07:00

After an eight hour delayed flight ended up being cancelled, Dave and I finally arrived in San Fran on Tuesday afternoon. I was exhausted and starving from the long day, and it was raining pretty heavily. We decided to see what we could explore on foot around our hotel. The concierge gave us directions to a strip with lots of restaurants and shops, so we set out in the rain to explore. By the end of dinner (which we ate at 4:45 Cali time!) we were so tired we ended up back at the hotel, watching tv and going to be at 8:30.
An early night for us, though, was exactly what we needed, because on Wednesday we got up early, took our first adventure on the Muni bus system downtown, rented a car and drove to Carmel down Highway 1, The Pacific Coast Highway. This was one of my favorite parts of our trip. Despite the overcast day, viewing the scenery and beaches and ocean along the highway was so refreshing. It made it feel like we were really and truly on vacation. We stopped at numerous rest stops and took pictures along the coast, enjoyed amazing scenery and, despite a few traffic jams, spent a lovely three hours just enjoying one another’s company. Dave is a trooper and drove the whole time (not that he’d let me if I had wanted to) and when we got to Carmel, we had a blast walking on the beach, shopping, and eating at a fantastic Greek café. We took the 17 mile scenic drive and saw some of Pebble Beach and it’s famous golf course and Del Monte forest.

What a great, cloudy beach view!

28 weeks!

We got really good at the self portrait!

One of the Pebble Beach stops!

On the drive home we opted for the faster route and got home a little quicker. For dinner that night, we had our traditional soup in a sourdough bread bowl…Clam Chowder for Dave and Crab Corn Bisque for me.

The next morning we got just a bit later so that we could catch our ferry over to Alcatraz Island, the second highlight for me! I was fascinated by Alcatraz. Little did I know it was so much more than a jail. Before that, it had a long history of being a military fort, then after it’s prison days it became a crucial part in Native American history. When we got to the cell house, we took the audio tour which was narrated by former inmates and guards. We walked around all of the gardens and watched a Discovery channel video about the history of the island and the amazing plant and animal life that was there. Dave even let me splurge on a tshirt from the gift shop! We were there almost 4 hours, and by the time we got back on the Ferry to go back to the mainland, we were starving. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening walking around Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli square, etc. We quickly figured out that most of these spots are just shops and restaurants, so after an hour or so, we ended up calling it a day and going home to rest before dinner.

The view of the island from the ferry

This is where I send Dave when he misbehaves

I loved all of the gardens and foliage that had grown in around the jail.

The view from the island

The Pier 39 sea lions

That night we ventured out to dinner to a restaurant recommended by a friend, The Stinking Rose. It specializes in garlic! We ate amazing food and came back pooped and ready for a good nights sleep.
On our last day, we woke up to rain, rain, and more rain. We had plans to do the Golden Gate Bridge and Park, Chinatown, Hate Ashbury (where hippies originated) and Union square that day, but the rain really prevented me from being comfortable. Pregnant, wet, and cold….not a good combination. We ended up taking the bus to Golden Gate Park, where we spent the afternoon in the California Academy of Science. We saw there vast aquarium, their indoor rain forest exhibit, and watched a movie about evolution and life on other planets in the planetarium (hahaha). In the late afternoon, the rain had calmed down, and so after a little rest at the hotel, we went down to Chinatown for a real Chinese food dinner.
By the time we left on Saturday, we were tired, sore (all those hills!), full of seafood and revealing in our new memories. I’m so glad we took the time to take this trip and make it a priority before Calvin is born. While Dave and I are perfectly happy just chilling at home, it’s important for us to experience new things together as a couple. We both agreed that this kind of thing needs to be a priority for us in the future. We live in a great city that has lots of opportunities for us to do things together, and we’re going to try and do some of the tourist type things that Dallas and Fort Worth have to offer. I know there are lots of things to do in Dallas that I don’t even know about, and if we don’t take advantage of that now, sooner or later our time will run out.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for us on our trip. Next week I’ll have a blog post all about our nursery. Dad comes tomorrow, and Calvin’s room is going to begin to take shape.

Nursery

2011-03-13T16:34:00.001-07:00

Many of you have asked about our bedding/nursery decor. Well...here it is above! I'm not really a theme person....no jungle themes, sports themes, space or dinosaurs. I really just like color schemes. Don't get me wrong...these ideas are very cute and work well for many people. I just tend to feel limited when I do a theme. If I chose something sports themed, I'd have trouble putting anything in the room that wasn't sports themed, and then I'd miss out on tons of cute things. So, when I found this patchwork plaid nursery set at Pottery Barn, I was sold instantly. I've got a few ideas to accompany it. We're going to do blue walls with a dark blue accent wall behind the crib. As cheesy and overdone as it can be, I really want to do Calvin's name on the wall in big block letters, too. I really like the stars in this picture, so I might have to copy that a bit.
Probably what I'm most excited about is my comic book idea. We have a few Calvin and Hobbes comic books. I've been thumbing through them, picking out my favorites. I'm going to take them to Kinkos and have them photocopy and print them real nice, then frame them for the wall. I think it will be really cite and make a fun focal point.
I also want to do some shelves on either side of the window and do a collage on one wall of family photos. All in all, it's going to turn out really cute and I welcome ANY ideas or things to add to his walls that reflect the bold, primary colors you see in his bedding. Should be fun to plan and execute.

One last thing....our registry is up! Search for us at Target and Babies R' Us!

Two down, One to go!

2011-03-12T06:02:00.000-08:00

So many things to talk about in this blog post. So many exciting things and scary things and wonderful things…..where to start!
Today, I “officially” enter my third trimester. I’m not sure week wise that I’m really there yet, but month wise I am. March 12-June 12 is three months…..eek! So exciting, but scary too. So many things to think about. This is the time that everyone tells me I’m going to start feeling the aches and pains of pregnancy. I’d say they are right :>). At work this past week, my ribs and lungs really hurt, and in between my shoulder blades. Nothing a few Tylenol couldn’t fix, but still uncomfortable. Must have been all the organ relocation and squishing that comes with a human growing in your abdomen. I have hip pain now just about every night I sleep. Some nights it really bothers me. Others, I’m too exhausted to even notice. It has totally inhibited my ability to sleep in. I wake up at about 6:30-6:45 each weekend morning just cause my hip hurts and I’m hungry. I’ve become really disciplined about going to bed on time so that I’m still getting plenty of rest. Other than that, I feel like I’m adjusting really well. There is part of me that doesn’t feel HUGE like I know I’m about to be. I saw a pregnant woman at the store the other day who was beyond huge. I looked at her and thought to myself “oh geeze, is that what I’m in for!?!?!”. Then I saw the two other rugrats running around next to her and I quickly had to look away or I would scare myself from ever having more children. All in all, I feel pretty good about myself right now. Trying to stay positive and hopeful for continued comfort.
I guess the most exciting thing to talk about was our appointment this past week. As most of you know now, IT’S A BOY!!! I, honestly, couldn’t be more thrilled. I do have a confession to make. We sort of held back some of the details from our last sonogram….the one where Calvin wasn’t cooperating. When I was wiping off all the jelly from my belly last time, the sonogram tech looked at us and said “ If I had to call it right now, I would say that I’ve seen enough evidence to call it a boy at 70% assurance”. With the cord and crossed legs, however, she wanted us to be clear that it wasn’t a confident guess. We understood, but of course we began to think in that direction. Yes…I wanted a girl, but purely for selfish reasons. It would be the first girl on both sides of our family, making her very special. And, I would get to live out my fantasy of making a completely girly nursery, complete with ribbons, bows and lace! But….God has a better plan, and He already knows that Calvin, Conner, Caleb and James will be the best of cousins growing up, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. A lot of people asked me if I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t a girl. No….not at all. And Dave feels the same way. We’re just excited to finally know so that we can move on with the whole planning process.
I have to take a few moments to give a shout out to my doctor, Dr. Cope, and talk about how pleased I am with her. The more and more I talk to her, the more pleased I am with her. She is definitely the right doctor for me. As many of you know, I hate anything and everything that has to do with doctors. Now, to my credit, I’ve gotten A LOT better as an adult. But, I still feel like I am the best patient when I’m ignorant :>), especially when it comes to pregnancy. It’s funny….my models of pregnancy at this point in my life have been my two sisters-in-law, both who view this whole preggo thing very similarly to one another, yet completely opposite then I do. Both delivered their children a la naturale, both chose to have an advocate alongside in the form of a dula or midwife, and both wanted to know every little thing about pregnancy and all the details about what was happening. While that is a perfectly fine viewpoint to have, most of you know that is NOT how I am. The less I know, the better off I am. Along those lines, I was concerned about needing to take a birthing class. Everyone who I had talked to that took classes at Baylor said that the birthing classes were very detailed. They made you watch multiple videos, gave you diagrams of everything from delivering the placenta to an episiotomy, and told you every little detail of labor and delivery. Nope….not for me! No way jose! I do not want to know every detail, and I have very strong feelings about Dave remaining at my shoulders facing me the entire time. No husband of mine is going to be assisting by grabbing a leg or cutting anything! So, I had decided not to take a birthing class because all it would do was scare me to death. Dave agreed, but wanted me to check with our doctor just to make sure. While I want to be prepared, I also know that you can over prepare yourself. When I approached my doctor about this, she totally agreed, and I was so thankful. If she had said that she really felt like I needed to take a class, I would have taken one. I trust her. She’s a doctor! I’m not! I know she will do what’s best for me. I told her that I wasn’t going to have an elaborate birthing plan or come in with the idea that I knew exactly what I was doing. I totally trust her to make the right decisions for me, but I also know that anything can happen while you deliver, and that when that time comes, I’m going to be looking to their wisdom to guide me along. Now don’t get me wrong….I certainly have my preferences. I would prefer not to be induced or have a C-Section, but again, I know that no matter what, the doctors are going to be there for me as an advocate, not to push their own agenda. And Dr. Cope and I have the same agenda….which is a safe, healthy, as close to pain free delivery as possible (wink wink).
There are so many things I could ramble on about right now. Dave and I have our big trip to San Francisco in a few days, so our next blog post will be all about that. Then, the following week, The Norvells come for a few days, and then Grandpa Vendsel comes for our nursery weekend extravaganza! But I’ll close with a few pictures. Last weekend, I took a MUCH needed weekend trip with my bestie, Brooke, to visit our other bestie, Lauren, down in Houston. Lauren is preggo, too! She’s about 6 or 7 weeks behind me. Her tall, athletic build hasn’t revealed it too much yet, but she had just the slightest bit of a tummy while we were there. We had a great, relaxing time. Saturday, we didn’t get out of our sweats or PJ’s until the evening when we decided to go to dinner. I really do enjoy our time together and I hope that we get to do it again with our kids. She’s having a boy, too, and if I keep my fingers crossed, Brooke might not be too far behind us :>). I love these girls, have been blessed by them and challenged by them and encouraged by them consistently over the past 10 years (yes….10 years we’ve known each other!). I’ve never been one to have a ton of friends. I seem to pick out one or two and become close to them. No matter how many people I meet along the way in my life, these girls will always be there for me and will always be my litmus test for friendship.

A bounty of blessings

2011-02-26T09:15:00.001-08:00

25 Weeks!

This weekend has been a bounty of blessings. One after another, after another, after another. Let me start from the beginning.
On Friday morning I started getting dressed for work, only to open my closet and feel like I had exhausted all of my clothing options. Men don't understand this, but women get to a point where they just get sick of their clothes and need something new to wear. Well, I've been wearing the same dozen or so maternity outfits for the past 15 weeks, and I had just had it with my wardrobe. On top of that, I had a wedding to go to the following night, and not a thing to wear! I sighed a bit, wishing that we had the funds for me to do a little shopping, and picked out a top and some jeans for casual Friday and went about my day. That morning, my mom called and asked if she could meet me for lunch, stating that she had a surprise for me. My reply? Of course it was yes. When we met at La Madeline that afternoon, I was beyond excited and touched when I saw her walk in with a box from the maternity clothing store in town. A beautiful top, sweater, and slacks awaited me (modeled in my belly pic above) and I was excited to have the opportunity to wear something new to church and work the next week.
Later that afternoon, a friend from church texted me stating that she had just gone through a box of her maternity clothes and had some things that she wanted to share with me, and could I drop by after work and pick them up. My reply? Of course it was yes! After work I stopped by her house and had a full box of spring clothes awaiting me. Short sleeved tops, some summer dresses, shorts and dressy capri pants that I could wear to work...I had a regular fashion show when I got home trying them all on. Then, Saturday afternoon while Dave was running some errands, I was at home reading when the door bell rang. When I opened it, awaiting me was a big box with the return address of my dear sister in law in Arkansas. I opened
the box, and behold, more spring clothes! Multiple dresses that I can wear to work and lots of casual tops and shorts for our upcoming trip to San Francisco! I was overwhelmed. I actually have run out of hangers to put everything away in my closet (I even stole some from Dave!). What a blessing to have some fresh clothes to wear and so many people in my life willing to bless me in such a way.

If you thought that was great....keep reading....

One of the things Dave and I wanted for our nursery was a glider/rocker. I didn't want a traditional rocking chair and was really hoping to find something more modern. Have you looked at gliders? They are EXPENSIVE! I knew we could find a used one, but most of them that I had seen used looked really worn and awful. I was expressing this desire to my friend at work when she said "Well, I have a glider and ottoman sitting in my room that I'm holding for a friend. I'll bet she'd let you have it." 15 minutes later, my friend at work had confirmed that the glider was, indeed, mine for FREE if I wanted it. FREE!!! Dave and I stopped by on Saturday morning to look at it, and it was perfect....

Its hard to tell the color from the terrible lighting in our nursery, but it is a soft baby green, perfect for a boy or girl, and it is high enough in the back that Dave can be comfortable. I absolutely love it and it is exactly what I had in mind. And it was FREE!!!

In addition to a glider, and probably more of a priority, was a crib. I'll spare you the long saga of our desire to buy a used crib and just say that we were hoping to buy one from a family I work with, however when I finally got to see it, it just wasn't what I had pictured. I want to be a smart shopper, but I also want to buy things that I like and not just settle for whatever people want to dump off on me. Well, after being highly disappointed that the crib wasn't going to work out, I came home to a very generous check in the mail from Mom and Dad Norvell. Combined with some of the money we had budgeted, I was able to get the crib of my dreams.... It is absolutley everything I had wanted. I had searched website after website looking for the perfect crib, and this is what I had pictured! It wasn't cheap by any means...but thanks to the blessings of our family, we were able to get it.

I've struggled alot lately with how we are going to provide for this baby. I mean, Dave and I do an excellent job managing our money, but I know it's going to be more of a challenge once Little C gets here. This weekend has helped me remember, and realize in a whole new way, the we aren't going to be providing anything for Little C, God will. It all comes from Him. Every diaper rag, bottle, crib, maternity shorts, and gesture of love comes from God. Without Him, we would have nothing. But more importantly, without Him, all of this means nothing. Thank you, Lord, for providing me new clothes when I wanted them, for giving us the furniture of our dreams, and for reminding me that You are in control. I hope that each of you can be blessed by Him as I have.

24 Weeks

2011-02-20T15:42:00.000-08:00

24 Weeks and a much needed haircut (hence the ponytail in last weeks pic)

Not a whole lot to post about this week..just anticipating our next appointment on March 8. Hopefully, next week, I'll be able to post about our crib! Stay tuned.....

Meet Little C

2011-02-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

Here he/she is pointint at us. It looks likethe foot, but it's really the pointer finger. The blob at the bottom is the the hand, with the long part being the pointer finger and all the other fingers are bent under.

Profile of the face. The large arc at the upper left is the forehead, and you can follow the profile down the nose and chin, and see where it dips down under the jaw to the neck.

' Same as above, only mouth open. He/She is saying "Hi mom and dad!

Midway points and an exciting finish!

2011-02-13T14:40:00.000-08:00

23 WEEKS!

I’m over half way through this nine month process of growing another human. I can’t believe it. Of course, the first 4-6 weeks you pretty much don’t even know your pregnant, so when you find out, you’re already a good way into it. I have a feeling the latter half is going to go by much more steadily. After all, the days won’t be a blur of naps, sickness, fatigue, and food aversions. When you’re actually living in the moment, it’s amazing how different your days feel.

I feel like the past two weeks or so I’ve really “grown”. Things aren’t fitting like they used to, including my maternity pants and some unmentionables :>). I’ve now taken two pairs of Dave’s pj pants to sleep in and raided his tshirt drawer for relaxing clothes. Even my sweat pants with elastic waist bands feel snug by the end of the day. I’ve also noticed that I get full from a meal so fast. I’m going to have to learn how to manage this. When I sit down to a meal and begin to eat, I’ll get about a third of the way through, sometimes half, before I start to feel full. I then think to myself “but I haven’t eaten very much….I’ve got to eat a little more for the baby”. So I’ll take a few more bites, and then it hits and I’m so full and uncomfortable that I’m miserable. I think it’s time to officially make the adjustment to multiple little meals rather than three bigger meals per day. I also notice that my morning hunger pangs seem to wake me up before my alarm! Mornings I’m the hungriest. In fact, at work this week I was running late and only had time for a banana in the morning. By the time lunch break rolled around, I was shaky and weak. I almost didn’t make it into the store to buy lunch from the parking lot. A bit scary, but I learned my lesson to not skip out on having a normal amount of food at breakfast.

I’ve taken to tracking my weight on my scale at home rather than trusting the doctors office. This past week, when we had our apt, she weighed me so fast and her scale said I had gained 12 pounds in the last 5 weeks!! According to my scale, I had only gained about 7-8, so that didn’t seem right at all. Total, I’ve gained somewhere between 18 and 19 pounds. Feels like a lot, considering I have lots of friends who only gained 20-22 through their entire pregnancy. But, then again, they aren’t 5’7”, 150 pound women like me when they aren’t pregnant (speaking of which, I’ve noticed that most of my friends are petite little things….how did that happen!). If I really think about it, then I can let these numbers really bother me and get me upset. But, then I remind myself that this is ME, not anyone else, and what applied to me health and weight wise 23 weeks ago does not apply now. As long as I’m eating a good blend of fruits, veggies (which have FINALLY started to taste good to me again) grains and low fat protein, then I’m just not going to worry about it. I do feel like I need I need to increase my exercise a bit. I’ve been very sporadic with jazzercise, and with all of the crazy weather, I’ve probably only been 5 or 6 times in the past two months. As much as I love Jazzercise, I don’t think it is the right exercise for me while I’m pregnant. Many of the moves are uncomfortable and involve a lot of jumping. Dave made a good suggestion today….he suggested that I jazzercise one night per week, and then start going with him to the actual fitness center and walking on the treadmill two other nights per week. I think this is a really good idea and will be beneficial to me in many ways.

I want to close this blog post by talking about all of the fantastic things that I have to look forward to in the next few months, particularly March. The first weekend in March, my bestie, Brooke, and I are taking a weekend trip down to Houston to visit our other bestie, Lauren. Lauren is about 17 weeks pregnant (and by the way, she already knows it’s a boy!) and so it’s been fun to have her to share this experience with. March 8 is my next doc appt, which includes another sonogram. Cross your fingers and say a little prayer for a cooperative baby so that we can find out if it’s pink or blue! The following week is the last week before spring break and that includes our 5 year anniversary on March 11. Wow…5 years….I feel old! To celebrate ,on March 13th, Dave and I are taking a trip to San Francisco! We are so excited!! We have never taken a vacation just he and I. We’ve always gone to visit family, and while that’s fun, cause our family does live in some fun places, it’s high time we had an adventure of our own. We get back the following Friday, and on the 21st, Dad Norvell will be in town for a quick trip. He’s coming to shop at one of the great stores the metroplex has to offer, IKEA. Even though it will be fast, I’m looking forward to seeing him. The 23rd, Dad Vendsel arrives in town for a long weekend of nursery decorating! I’m so so so excited about this! It will be so fun to have dad here for a few days and for him to have such a fun part in this experience. He leaves on the 28th, and then the following weekend, the first weekend in April, we’re hoping to schedule a maternity photo session. After that I have a feeling all of the baby shower’s will begin, and of course there is Easter. June 12 is going to be here before we know it!

Green and Yellow

2011-02-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

Those are the only colors we can anticipate for our bundle of joy right now. We had a fantastic doctors appointment today. Little C is healthy, has a good, strong heartbeat, and seems to be growing very well. I'm doing well, too. My blood pressure is under control, I've gained a nice amount of weight, and if all continues to go according to plan, we are on tap for a healthy little one in June.

Of course, my biggest excitement for the day was finding out if we were having a boy or girl. What's funny is, going into the appt today, I had this gnawing feeling that we were going to be in this exact prediciment. I mean, it would only make sense that the child of Karen Vendsel and David Norvell would be just as stubborn as their parents and refuse to give us a good look. At the beginning of the sonogram, Little C had managed to sweep the cord right between their legs, blocking all access to the needed regions in order to determine one's sex. After moving all around my belly taking multiple pictures, having me turn on both sides, jiggling what little slack there is in my stomach, Little C had managed to move the cord, but then crossed their ankles ever so perfectly to continue preventing access. So, after a good 30 mins of sticky goo being rubbed all over my stomach, we had to give up our spot for the next set of anxious soon-to-be parents.

The up side to all this?? In addition to not being able to tell the sex, the tech also couldn't get a good view of Little C's face. When I brought this up to my doctor in our appt later, she was gracious enough to order another sono for when we return in 4 weeks under the guise of needing more face pics. This way, we have another chance of finding out pink or blue without having to pay the massive fee ourselves. In reality, she did say that it's important for them to get a good look at the face, and the she probablly would have ordered another sono even if we HAD seen the sex today. So, either way, we will be getting another look at Little C before June.

Thanks to everyone for being so excited for us today. It is nice to share our anticipation with our family and we appreciate all the support. We got some great pictures today, but I'll have to scan them for posting at work. We got two of a profile, one with little C's mout wide open, and one where they are pointing. We also saw them wave multiple times and kick a few times, too.

More later....

tomorrow...

2011-02-07T17:54:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow is the day! I'm so excited I can't stand it! I just hope and hope and hope that Little C decides to be cooperative. Can't wait to share with everyone if we will be having a boy or girl!

2011-02-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

What a crazy week it has been! If you live in Texas, you know exactly what I am talking about. One day of work this week, followed by 4 snow days means a 6 day weekend! Dave and I love working for the school system during days like these. While I must admit, there were a few minutes of boredom that started to creep up over our long, cold, stuck in the house snow days, I tried to tell myself that when I’m at work, I really wish that I could be at home just resting and relaxing. And so that is what we got…four weekdays just to rest, relax, and anticipate our doctors appointment on Friday.

But, of course, when schools close, doctors close too. So alas, our appointment on Friday was cancelled, and we have to reschedule before we can find out if this little bundle will be Colleen or Calvin. Many people have asked me when our appointment will be rescheduled. Well, just like the schools, the doctors office was closed for 4 days, so all those people who had appointments on Tuesday , Wednesday, and Thursday will get to reschedule theirs before I get to reschedule mine. So, at this point, who knows! I’m trying to remind myself (as my dad so reminded me earlier this week as well) that for years, people have had to wait till delivery in order to find out, but when you have your heart set on something, it is that much harder when it is unfulfilled. I’m just going to pretend that he or she wouldn’t have been feeling cooperative at our appointment anyway, and we would have had to reschedule.

One thing that did help with the let down of missing our appointment was getting finalized plans for a special trip my dad will be making to Grapevine at the end of March. Since Dave and I don’t have much family close by, we have struggled with how we can make everyone feel like they have a part in this event. One thing that I had imagined and thought would be nice would be if my dad could help Dave and I with the nursery. Let’s face it, I won’t be “helping” as much as I’ll be supervising. I envisioned a beautiful room for our son or daughter put together with lots of love by their father and grandfather. When I expressed this desire to my dad, I knew it would be difficult for them to arrange their schedules for it to work out. But, thanks to the amazing support of my stepmom, Pam, my dad is going to be able to come down for a long weekend in March to help Dave prepare our nursery! I’m so so so excited about this!! Not only does that mean that we will have a beautiful nursery, but it means my dad will get to share in this experience in person, not just through photos and blog posts. I’ve already started making mental list of things that I want to do, and have even included a few household things that I know Dave could use some extra hands with (we seriously need a new ceiling fan in our bedroom….only one lightbulb socket works!). It will be a special time for me, for Dave and my dad, and for my family as well. Can’t wait!

One thing that has caught me by surprise during pregnancy is my dreams. A few of the books I had read told me that dreams can be more vivid during pregnancy, and I’ve had some friends attest to this as well. My dreams, in general, are usually one of two things: so extremely random that you wonder what on earth must have I been thinking when I fell asleep OR straight out of a CSI episode…with all the violence, death, blood, suspense and horror you would expect. Well, during pregnancy, both of these categories seem to have increased in intensity and vividness. Let me give you a rundown of some of the more interesting ones I remember:

· I was invited to go on tour with Katy Perry for the sole purpose of making her cupcakes after each show
· A flock of rabid beavers and ducks had moved in under our house and were slowly eating away at the foundation in attempts to attack Dave and I while we slept
· Driving late at night in the car, I crash into a mechanics shop because I start having an asthma attack and can’t breathe. The mechanics working there don’t know what to do to help me, so I end up dying in their parking from suffocation.
· I’m the curator of an old clock tower and part of my job is to kill all of the mice that like to make their homes in the very top part where all the big gears and mechanics of the clock are
· I’ve been asked to conduct Choir Camp (remember participating in this at Memorial Baptist, Sarah??) for the summer, but no kids show up and I end up putting on a one woman show

And this last one is the most recent and probably the most vivid and scary

· I go to get in the car for work in the morning, and under my car is a murderer who shoots my ankles so I can’t run away and ends up leaving me in my garage to die

Now, I know these are just dreams. Just my mind releasing all of its pent up thoughts from the day. In fact, I would probably be the first to agree that most dreams have meanings and are projections of your subconscious. Maybe my thoughts and fears about what the next few years of our life hold are escaping in these dreams. But, when you wake up at 3 in the morning after just having been shot in the ankles in your mind, it’s really disturbing and creates some very interrupted sleep patterns. I must say, the frequency of these dreams has tapered off in the last few weeks. I used to have them every night, but now it is more of a twice a week thing, and that’s been really good for my sleep patterns. But, when I do lay down at night I am starting to wonder what pictures I’m going to create for myself while I’m asleep.

Well, that’s enough for this week. I’ll leave you with these few pictures below. When we were stuck at home for 4 days, my nesting instincts were really starting to kick in, so Dave and I tackled all of the closets in our house, including the pantry. We spent a good hour pulling out all the food, cleaning off all the shelves, throwing out old stuff and combining like items. The results are pretty nice, and we have a pretty functional pantry now….even with some room for a few canisters of formula, should we need it :>).

The empty pantry ready for some organization.....

all the junk we cleared out.....

The finished product!

21 Weeks

2011-01-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

So this week you will get a cute belly picture, cause I’m feeling much better. The coughing is pretty much gone. All that is left is the stuffy nose, which is always the last thing to go. By the time I got home from work this past Monday, all the ickyness had pretty much subsided, and I knew that I had survived yet another winter cold.

This next week is very exciting…on Friday, we find out if this little bun in the oven will be pink or blue! Needless to say, I’m chomping at the bit to know. Secretly, I’m hoping for pink. The Lord has blessed me with three nephews. I’ve bought all the blue and green clothes with cars, trucks and dinosaurs on them to keep me satisfied for a good while. I would really love to add the first granddaughter to the bunch and buy the pink and purple things with bows and lace. But, if it is a boy, then I know I’m going to be excited, too. After all, he will have three cousins very close to his age that he can tag along with and be good friends with on vacations.
Many people have asked if we have names picked out, and yes, we do. While every once in a while we come across a name that Dave and I both like, we just keep coming back to these:

Colleen Eleanor Norvell Calvin Walter Norvell

What do I like about these names? Well, to be honest, they remind me of my name in a way. There aren’t many Karen’s in the world between the ages of 20 and 29. Most Karen’s that I have ever known have been much older then me. In fact, I have only known two close to my age. One in high school, and right now an extended sister in law of mine is named Karen. Colleen and Calvin are both names that everyone knows, they are classic and traditional, but they don’t sound “old”. They can still be modern, but also have a sense of class. I was very conflicted with the idea of not passing on my middle name if we had a girl. Multiple generations of women in my family share the middle name Christine. It had always been my intention to pass on this name, but Colleen Christine doesn’t really roll off the tongue. We may still change our minds, but for now, we call the baby Little C in preparation for these names.

Lots of people have asked me if I can feel the baby move. Well, my quick answer to this is yes. My long answer is I think so. At around 17 weeks, I did begin to feel some flutters, but the patterns behind them made me feel like maybe they weren’t Little C and instead just a tick or random pulse in my stomach. At other times, I feel the sensation of a bubble popping in my stomach. Very quick, very subtle, but it could easily be described as gas as well. So, is this Little C moving? Who knows? My doctor said that if I think it is baby movement, then I should let myself believe that it is and be excited about it. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. I haven’t felt a strong flutter in a while, but the bubble sensations happen just about every night. In fact, I’ve felt one since I’ve been sitting here typing :>).

This month (meaning Feb) Dave and I have started what we have nicknamed the Pre Baby Budget. My close family and friends know that the word budget usually makes me roll my eyes and get a negative attitude. However, in an effort to be prepared for all of our bills come June, and in an effort to be prepared to take on a day care expense, Dave and I have rearranged and reallocated much of our monthly spending so that we can be as prepared as possible for the hospital and doctor bills. This is going to be a HUGE adjustment for me. While we had a budget up until now, it did allow for a bit more freedom then this current budget allows for, and it was very easy for me to stick to. Plus, if for some reason we couldn’t stick to it that month, it was very easy to adjust for those circumstances. Not so much with the Pre Baby Budget. Not much wiggle room, and we have to plan way further in advance. We’ve just about got all our monthly bills to fixed amounts, so we can anticipate very easily all of our utility expenses. Since Dave and I both get paid once a month, we’ve started paying all our bills the week of pay day, and then we divide out the rest amongst the number of weeks we have till the next pay day, giving ourselves a weekly budget and helping us not spend everything right away and be left with two weeks till pay day and only 10 bucks in the bank. Well, the new budget reduces our weekly allotments and increases the amount we save each month so that when the multiple thousand dollar hospital bills start arriving, we can be “prepared” as much as possible. Sure…we understand that, more than likely, we will never be fully prepared for the financial expenses of having a baby, but we can be prepared for being not prepared, if you get my drift. And that’s our goal. Simply put…we want to have a little money set aside for those first few bills so that when the bills come that we aren’t expecting, we won’t panic quite as much. I would appreciate your prayer in this area, especially for me. It seems like right when we begin to make headway in areas like this, we get hit in places we weren’t expecting. Starting in 2011, we lost a significant amount of money from our paychecks due to the Obama stimulus package being over and to the increase in our health insurance costs at our jobs. Plus, we found out that we owe quite a chunk of money in taxes as well. This is really disconcerting, but we know that first and foremost, it’s not our money, it’s God’s, and everything that we have belongs to Him first. And second, the Lord has ALWAYS provided for us. There has never been a time in our lives together when we have had to go without and been unable to pay bills or meet our needs as a family. And we expect the same from God now, and we know the He will deliver. Because we serve an all powerful God who never changes.

Let me close with the pics below. Another question I get asked is about cravings. While I haven’t had many cravings, there are certainly foods that I enjoy more now then I did 21 weeks ago. Chinese food is so amazingly good to pregnant me, as are sausage rolls from the donut shop and cake. In fact, if I have to say that I crave one thing, it would be cake. And not generic birthday cake, but rich, moist, gooey high class cake. The kind you would order for dessert from a nice restaurant or get at a wedding. Something with lots of layers and filling and icing that is to die for. So, the other night, this craving hit me HARD, and Dave was happy to help me satisfy it. After his meeting with some friends, he came home with what you see below. Now, this piece of cake was about the size of my head, and even though I wanted to eat it all in one night, I didn’t. We both ate on it for three to four days, but the hilarity of me with this enormous piece of cake was too much not to capture on film.

Check back next week for a special addition of The Norvell News when we share with the world if Little C will wear high heels or shiny loafers to the senior prom.

2011-01-23T07:47:00.000-08:00

You're not going to get a cute belly picture this week......

...because here I sit, a horrible case of bronchitis, boxes of tissues, bags of throat losanges, movies on tv, cuddled up with my dog. I usually get one bad cold each season, but this one has iced the cake. I was really trying to avoid getting sick while pregnant. Taking extra precautions to use sanitizer and disinfect the house as much as possible when I could. But….when Dave started feeling bad last weekend, I knew it was just a matter of time before it came my way. We took precautions, but sometimes it just isn’t enough. Thursday I woke up with that dry, tight cough that you feel when you know you’re getting sick, and by the end of the day all the grossness of the wet, hacking cough and everything that accompanies had settled for a nice long nap in my chest and nose. I took Friday off, and was running a nice low grade fever by the end of the day. A trip to the after care clinic told me I had bronchitis, and a few hours later I had taken my first dosage from my Z-Pack antibiotics and was anticipating an uncomfortable recovery.
Normally, I’m not the kind of person to run to the doctor for every stuffy nose of sore throat. I know that, most times, you have to let those things run their course, and there is not much the doctor can do. In fact, my doctor usually doesn’t prescribe anything for colds. He comes from the mindset that if you can control it with over the counter drugs, you should, and avoid putting useless antibiotics in your system. I totally agree with this. But, since I am now 20 weeks pregnant, and with the quickness and severity that this “cold” came on, coupled with the fever, my smart husband said we should probably go to the after care clinic. Between my blood pressure and being pregnant, my medicine options are limited. But, the doctor, and several other sources including the ever resourceful nurse and best friend, assured me that what she had prescribed was safe for both. So, here’s hoping that I can kick this thing in but butt this weekend, and by Monday be ready to conquer the world again.

While I thought that being sick while pregnant would be the worst case scenario, I’m reminded of a story my parent’s told me once. When my mom was pregnant with one of us, I can’t remember which one, she broke her ankle at 7 months. Yup…..she hobbled her preggo self around on crutches while she was 7 months pregnant. Now, for someone with my size and stature, that would still be a nightmare, but my build would make it considerably easier. When you’re 5’1” like my mother and are carrying around a baby belly that is probably as big as the rest of you, this would be a nightmare x 10 to the 25th power! I must give her mad props for surviving that time in her life. If it had been me, I would have just given up right then and there.

On to other topics….

All this week I’ve been thinking about certain issues related to pregnancy and I’ve come up with some opinions. Me with opinions. Shocking, I know.

Maternity Clothes: To my surprise, I actually like maternity clothes. To be honest, I think I’d dress like that all the time if I could. Pants and jeans with elastic waist bands designed to grow with you. Flowy tops where you don’t have to worry about holding your stomach in after indulging on too much lunch. My one complaint…..they are all the same. It’s hard to find a top that doesn’t have an empire waist with a ribbon that ties behind your back. I mean, how many of those shirts can I really buy. I have been fortunate enough to have two sister in laws around my same size who have given me lots of things to choose from! I’m so thankful for Lydia and Rachel and their willingness to share with me. I actually haven’t had to buy too much, which has been nice.

Pregnancy books: I avoided reading these books when I first got pregnant. Knowing me, when it comes to medical issues, ignorance is bliss. I will certainly stew over things for long periods of time if I know too much about them (like all the glories of labor and delivery…but that’s another post). I knew that if I started to read too much, gain too much information about all the craziness of pregnancy, I’d start to overreact and….dare I say it…flip out. But, over the Christmas holiday, I told myself that it might be a good idea to just browse through them. So, on our way to Arkansas, I did just that. Big mistake. Case in point….in one of my books I read that, after week 16, women should stop laying flat on their backs to sleep or exercise. Well, I’d been doing this the whole time! The book said that it cut off the blood vessels that delivered nutrients to your baby. Holy Cow! I’d been sleeping on my back a lot. Had I hurt our baby already? As I begun my freak out session, the ever logical Dave reminded me that our doctor hadn’t said anything about it, so it must be ok. While that did put my mind at ease, I of course obsessed about it the whole time until our next appointment. Low and behold, when I asked her about it, she explained this old “wives tale” to me and assured me that I could lay on my back as long as it was comfortable. She also cautioned me against reading too many of these books. She felt like they could really rob women of the joys of pregnancy. Most of the things in those books, she said, are based on very little research, and most of them are thicker then her OB books from med school. She assured me that if there was something I need to do or not do, she would tell me. Her three absolutes: No drinking, smoking, or recreational drugs. Well….Luckily I’ve got those covered.
I will say that, as I read a few of those books on my drive, they did mention some things that had been happening to me that I hadn’t attributed to pregnancy, and it was comforting to know that some of the symptoms I had been experiencing were indeed symptoms. But, I think if anyone asked me, I’d tell them what my doctor told me...enjoy this time, don’t make any drastic changes to your lifestyle, and everything will be safe, happy, and fine.

Birthing plans: So many people I know have tackled this in so many different ways. One of my sister in laws had a schedule printed out for her first delivery of all the therapies and techinques she wanted to do while she was laboring. My other sister in law used a midwife to get her through that time. While both of them have shared with me their opinions about the whole thing, they have also told me that this is a personal choice. I’ve decided that, for me, the best plan to have is to have no plan. I do know that I want all drugs that can be offered to me. I’m not in this for a gold star or to “experience” anything. I’m sure I don’t get a closer spot to Jesus in Heaven because I had a natural child birth. I also know that I would like to avoid being induced, and I really don’t want a c-section. C- sections have become more “common” these days with women actually scheduling their births. And, I’ve heard that the longer you labor, the more likely your doctor is to suggest a c-section. But, I also know that my doctor will respect my decisions, and if I want to avoid these things, she will do what she can to help me. But, ultimately, I want a safe and healthy baby, and so however God wants him or her to come into the world, I’ll do my part.

Ok...next week I promise something more happy and less snot coated :>).

2011-01-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

As of Jan 15, I’m officially 19 weeks along. Today, Dave and I took our first official “belly picture.” While I started showing around 14 weeks, now I’m at the point where people are really starting to notice. Let me quickly get you up to speed on the past 19 weeks:

For those whom I haven’t shared this with, Dave and I had originally decided to start “trying” in October of this past year. Due to my blood pressure, I had been off birth control for almost a year, and we felt like the Lord had lead us to the time in our life where we were ready for a family. Our expectation was to start trying in October, not expecting to get pregnant until sometime around the new year. Well…that didn’t happen, and low and behold, we found out we were pregnant in September of 2010.
In October we went down the Arkansas to visit our new nephew, James Elliot Norvell, and see the Norvell family. I had a feeling at that point that I might be pregnant, but I wasn’t ready to deal with it just yet. When we got back, I took a test before work one day, and here we are!

The first 12-14 weeks were NOT fun by any means. Sure, they had their happy moments. I loved the day that we told our family. I confided in one friend at work so that I had a confidant for my bad days, which turned out to be much more often then I though, and the excitement from others was very joyful. We had decided to wait until our first doctor’s appointment before we told the family. I know so many women who have had failed pregnancies, and I wanted to do what I could to protect myself from the emotions that might come from that. After we got our clear 8 week sonogram, we spent the rest of the day telling our families. My mom did actually find out about a week or so before, and I must applaud her for keeping the secret. After one particularly bad day when my stomach was churning all day and my emotions were out of control, I broke down and called my mom. Ladies, what is it about your mother that, no matter how old you are, they just know how to make things better?? She was able to comfort me and give me some advice that made things seem much better, and she promised in fear of her life to keep our secret till we were ready to share. After our appointment, the first person we called was my dad. I was very excited to tell him. I have a huge soft spot for my dad, and I knew that his excitement would be so fun to share. After that, we alternated between calling a member of Dave’s family, then a member of my family, till we had told everyone by the end of the day.
Those moments of joy really helped me as I struggled through my first trimester. The biggest challenge was feeling awful all the time. I was not lucky enough to only suffer from “morning sickness”. Nope…I suffered from “all day sickness”. I’d wake up in the morning, eat a few saltines, and struggle my way through work. I don’t really know how to describe it except that, ya know that feeling when you know you have a cold coming on, when you can feel that at any minute your body is going to shut down? I felt that way for 14 weeks. Add on top of that the inability to eat any food whatsoever and extreme fatigue, and you’ve got one moody mom to be. To top it all off, by the end of the day, when I hadn’t been able to eat anything and I was so tired I couldn’t see straight, my emotions would start to get the best of me, and I’d have these breakdowns of tears, fear, and yes, even feelings of regret. I asked Dave a couple of times “do we really have to have this baby?” He deserves the husband of the decade award. He would just sit next to me, rub my back, and promise me that it wasn’t going to be this way forever.
And you know what? He was right. Since about week 14, I’ve felt better than ever. I still have some crazy symptoms (my gag reflex is extremely sensitive and I sneeze all the time), but at times I forget that I’m pregnant. When everyone tells you that month 4-6 are better, they aren’t kidding. My energy is back, finally! And I can actually eat pretty much whatever I want without any upset stomach issues to consider.
I have much more to share with you about the first several months, but we’ll get back to that in later posts. For now, let me share with you our first purchases for the nursery. Our school district has a “For Sale” website that is exclusively for employees. It’s called the Unclassifieds, and several weeks ago, I found a posting for a car seat set. It was the basic Graco infant car seat set that has the gray base, car seat, and cart that the seat attaches onto to make a stroller. This was the set that I had wanted to get. I’ve seen several of my friends with it. Well, the person was selling two bases (one for each car) the car seat and the stroller base for $50.00! What a steal! It retails for over 200 with only one car seat base. So, needless to say, I swiped it up as fast as I could.

It needs a new, clean car seat cover, but that will be cheap compared to getting the whole set.

And I am most excited about this….

My before mentioned friend at work sold us this awesome, beautiful changing table for $50.00. I love the see through drawers and the large changing area on top. Dave is anxious to get his power tools out to sand and restain it. She also threw in this side table for free.

While the two don’t match, I think the side table would be really cool looking if we painted it a color to match the room.
After this, we just need to purchase a crib. We’d like to get some shelves, too, that we can display pictures, toys, baskets with clothes and supplies in as well, but that isn’t as immediate as a crib. We are considering buying a brand new crib. They make cribs now that will convert into a real bed when the child is ready, and we feel like that would be a good investment of our money, but we will see. Fortunately, we’ve got some time:>)

Ok…that’s it for this first addition. For those of you that read up till this point, thank you! Stay tuned for more updates!

Simple Celebrations

2010-03-12T05:31:00.000-08:00

Anniversary Carrot Cake...complete with a candle representing our number of years married.
Anniversary Lillies....from my sweet hubby.

2010-02-12T06:12:00.000-08:00

Thursday, Feb 11 we had a record snow fall in the DFW area.

In one day, we had 9.5 inches of snow, creating a new record for all time for our area.

The snow started at 3am on Thursday,and continued strong into the night.

This is what we awoke to on Friday morning.

and this is my movie! Forgive the shaky camera...it was hard to navigate in all the slush with such a small camera. And we had tons of technical difficulties getting it to upload correctly. If you see green on the bottom...we do too....don't know what it is, but wanted to show you anyway.

Trading spaces

2010-01-31T15:44:00.000-08:00

So I know I committed to blogging once a week, but this subject of this blog has taken two weeks to progress, so instead of doing a part 1 and part 2, I opted for one big blog devoted to our trading spaces plans.
Dave and I have had many friends begin families over the past couple of years, and we have seen them all struggle with "fitting the kid" into the house. For one reason or another, they didn't feel like they had the space they needed for a baby, and they spent most of the pregnancy trying to solve this problem. Some were brave enough even to buy houses and move during the time. Well, even though our time to begin a family won't start until the end of 2010 (Lord willing, of course) we wanted to start thinking in that direction now to avoid some major surprises and headaches when the time came.
We have a three bedroom house. It is the perfect size to start a family. Currently, one of those rooms is ours, one a guest room, and one an office/hobby room. But lately, some of our extended family dynamics have changed and we wanted to be able to support those dynamics at all times. On the Vendsel side, two additional people are going to be added to the mix (one adult and one child!) and onthe Norvell side we have our amazing nephew. Not to mention, all of these people live somewhere other than the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area. So, needless to say, our desire to have a comfortable place for them to stay when they decide they are homesick for Texas is a high priority. I've always told Dave and a guest room isn't something I want to do away with. So, when we get to the point of starting a family, we decided the office was going to be the room that would be converted into a nursery.
Our office is the main location for two big items in our house: Our computer and Dave's gaming hobby. We had a large computer desk, a hobby table where Dave paints his game pieces, and the closet is almost totally taken up with my sewing stuff and all of Dave's gaming accessories. So, we were faced with what to do with all of this stuff so that we can be ready for a nursery when the time comes ( again, let me reiterate, especially for the grandparents, that time won't be till late 2010). So, here is what we decided.

This is a picture of our eat in kitchen (notice Dexter's tail and hiney in the bottom left). We used to have a kitchen table here, but two weekends ago, we took it apart and gave it back to my mom. As we sat around figuring out how to rearrange our house, we realized that the only time we eat in our eat in kitchen is when it is just Dave and I grabbing a quick bite to eat alone in the mornings or when our evening schedules cause us to not have dinner together. Any other time, we always eat in our dining room. So, having a kitchen table that seats 4 wasn't the best use of our space. In addition, the desk that we had in our office was massive. We bought it when I just went back to school and needed allot of desktop space for papers and books. No need for it anymore. So, we got rid of the computer table on Craig's list and bought this

Welcome to our eat in office! And we still have plenty of room to get a small, two sweater table to sit right behind it. It may be the slightest bit crowded, but, ultimately, I think it will be a better use of our space. So the next project to tackle was the closet. We decided that Dave's gaming stuff needed to find a new home so that we could begin to clean out that closet area.

This is our garage. It is "clean", meaning everything was put up, but not organized by any means. So, on Friday night last weekend, we got rid of everything we didn't need and were able to free up an entire cabinet to put some of Dave's gaming supplies.

See....much improved! We took all of the old paint cans to the hazardous waste drop off in Fort worth, got rid of a bunch of dried out paint brushes, etc. It is much cleaner and more organized. And, you can see the left cabinet is full of Dave's gaming stuff. So that got us thinking "where else can we stash some of Dave's gaming stuff:

Dave's closet. Like and true man, it was a mess. But, like any true lover of organization, it only took me 20 minutes and one trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get it in tip top shape.

A shoe rack to clear off the floor, and repurposing the plastic drawers for sweaters, we now have extra room in here to put gaming stuff as well.

Now....if only I could start picking out colors for a nursery.........

Declaration

2010-01-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

I hereby proclaim myself the worst pancake maker in history. I might be able to make a mean pork loin, grill you a steak or mash you some potatoes that will blow your mind, but put a box of Bisquik in my hands, and you will get what is pictured above. I don't know what it is with pancakes that always causes mine to turn out brown and misshapen. This past week, the school district Dave and I work for had a delayed opening thanks to some frozen rain. So, like any young 20somethings, we went back to bed for an hour or so, and then I cooked up some breakfast. My first pancakes always turn out ok. Maybe it's because I'm paying attention cause it's early in the process, or maybe it's because the pan hasn't totally heated up yet, but the first few flapjacks always turn out well (like those on the top of the picture). By the end of the batch, they are burnt and misshapen (like those on the bottom). What's even worse about this inability is that breakfast cooking is in my genes. My dad makes the absolute best scrambled eggs on the planet. And for years while I was growing up, on Sunday mornings I'd come downstairs to perfectly grilled French Toast for breakfast, courtesy of Dad. So, it's embarrassing to think that I can't even execute a simple pancake. I've tried everything. Turning the heat way way low so that the pan doesn't get too hot. Making them smaller so they don't slosh around when I try to flip them. Making the dough thicker so that they are easier to spread in the pan. But, without fail, we usually end up with hockey pucks in the morning. So, fellow bloggers, I beg you for some advice on how to make my pancakes turn out better. Pancake making is an essential quality of all women and mothers, and one I must master before I become the latter. How do you make your perfect pancakes?

A change of Christmas pace

2010-01-10T11:53:00.001-08:00

I know it's a little late to be posting about Christmas, but in an effort to keep my new years goals (see previous post) I thought this would be a good way to start. And really, Christmas was a lot different this year then it had been in years past. I guess, at this point in our lives, Christmas is going to continue to be different each year until we extend our own family and develop our own traditions. Last year, Dave and I stayed home and had a Christmas just the two of us. The year before, we went to Branson with the Norvell family, and the year before that, we celebrated with the Norvells in Fort Worth. This year, for the first year since Dave and I have been married, we spent Christmas Day with my mom. I don't know why we haven't celebrated on Christmas day with my mom before, but this year we did, and it was really delightful. Not only was that different, but I was no longer working retail and Dave and I were both able to enjoy two whole weeks off from work together.
Christmas Even started out wonderfully....sleeping in. We had an extremely lazy day not doing much of anything until we left for church that evening. As many of you know, while we were lazing about around our house, the weather in Texas decided to dump heaps of snow and ice on our streets and, to add to it, the wind just felt like blowing at the speed of light that day also. By the time we left for the 5o'clock service at church, the weather was completely miserable (not the snow, dad, the weather. I loved the snow, hated the wind and ice). We made it to church, driving 20 mph the whole time. Afterwards, we packed up and went out to mom's in Dallas. I was so thankful that Dave had experience driving in the ice. It took us over an hour to go 25 miles, and we must have seen at least 10 cars that had slid off the road or stalled out because of careless driving. By the time we made it to Dallas, we were both on edge from the crazy drive and beyond ourselves with hunger. Enter my wonderful mother. Not only was her house warm and carefree to ease our crumpled nerves, but there was a huge turkey dinner waiting for us when we arrived. And, she had even made me, by request, a small serving of my all time favorite holiday food....Cranberry Yam Bake. We ate and ate, and then mom surprised us all with an activity!

She said that it was kind of a last minute idea. She had some dough mix left over from a Christmas party she went to, but it was so much fun and made me feel like I was on a Christmas Eve TV special. I do think this will have to become a Breard family tradition,whether we are there on Christmas day this year or not. But next time, we have to go all out.....different colored icing, bigger cookies, more candy to decorate with. I'm already excited.

This is Dave's angry gingerbread man. He said it represented

how Mr. Norvell looked when his 5th graders were misbehaving.

Mom eating her gingerbread candy cane. Like she would ever do that in real life....it's totally staged. In real life, she'd pick off little bits throughout the entire evening (which is what eventually happened)

And my candy cane cookie. By far the best and most artistic!

After cookies and a rousing game of UNO (in which Mike smoked us all) we headed off to bed. I was so thankful not to have to drive home that night and instead could just fall asleep with visions of sugarplums in my head. The next morning, mom once again out-did herself in the kitchen with Christmas breakfast.

And then the present opening began.

Mom surprised Mike with this lego set of the Empire State Building. Apparently Mike has been wanting it for some time. I hear that he has made some pretty good progress since that morning.

Dave and I got mom a mandolin so she can make us some of her sweet potato chips!

Ah. The Nerf Gun. This was not a Christmas present for Dave. Mom and Mike's grand kids had bought it for Mike when they were down visiting them a few weekends before. But, like any big kid, Dave loved it. He shot at things (mostly me) the entire morning. And, with some of his Christmas money, he eventually bought one for himself. Now, every night before we go to bed, Dave has target practice with the mirror in our room. Needless to say, I don't love so much.

And once again, my husband picked out some super cute clothes for me. I had a wardrobe Christmas this year...my favorite kind.

A few days earlier, Dave and I got together with Jon, Lydia, and our nephew Caleb to celebrate Christmas with siblings. Neither of us were going to see each other on the actual day, so we had our own Christmas on the morning of the 23rd. To make it authentic, we all wore our pj's and ate breakfast together. But first things first. Lets all take a few minutes to coo at my nephew who really was the star of the whole morning. Seriously, presents didn't hold a candle next to him.

Caleb says "ho ho ho"

Dave loved helping Caleb with his stocking.

And of course, Dexter was captivated by this little human in his house.

My favorite pic of the morning.

Our breakfast spread. Monkey bread and fried bananas.

After breakfast we all opened presents and visited for a while. We had a fun morning, but it was bitter sweet knowing that in just a few short weeks, this branch of the Norvells would be moving to Arkansas to follow the Lord's call. Jon has just accepted a ministry position at First Baptist Church Norflet (sp??), and while every time I think about it I start to tear up, I know that nothing makes all of our family happier then pleasing the Lord and following His Will.

My Christmas gift from Lydia. She made this purse! Seriously, it's too wonderful for words.

Some new Pyres for Lydia.

Ending the morning with some steaming hot cocoa!

The day after Christmas, Dave and I trucked it out to Arkansas to see his parents. As always,we had a wonderful relaxing time full of rest and family. I'm really bad about taking pictures whenever we are there...with my new years goal I'm sure it will change the next time we go.

Whatever you did and wherever you were, we both hope you had a very Merry and Blessed Christmas!!!

New Years Goals

2010-01-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

Instead of setting goals to stop doing things, I'm making all my goals about things I want to accomplish and start doing this year.

2010 goals:

1. Take more pictures
2. get back into blogging (hence goal #1)
3. Read more classic books- I actually think I'm going to start with the Lord of the Ring series
4. Spend more time serving others. I find I'm happiest when I am helping other people. I'd like to try to do one thing for someone else a week, whether big or small.
And the biggest one of all.....
5. Take the initial steps to start a family (although this probablly won't happen till fall 2010).

The best way to accomplish goals is to have a plan, so now here is my plan for accomplishing goals 1-5:
1. Leave the camera out on the mantle so that it is easily accessable. But probablly most importantly, try my best to live in the moment and not look towards the end of the day. I think I'll find more and more picture opportunities if I can learn to chill out a bit.
2. Use the first weekend of every month to blog about the past month. This ensures that I have at least one blog a month, and if I get more motivation, I can always do more.
3. Find a list of American classic books, pick 5 to start with, and Read Read Read! I'd love to read more, but I also have a ton of books by my favorite current authors that I want to read too.
4. Spend Sunday afternoons thinking about my friends, family, coworkers, what is going on in their lives, and determine how I can serve/encourage one of them. This also means that I must increase the frequency of my correspondence with said people so that I know more about their lives and their needs.
5. Well.....I'm not going to elaborate on that plan :>).

2009-10-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

You're looking at our celebration dessert we devoured the evening I accepted my new job. Starting October 26, I will be working for Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District in the Human Resources department. I am beyond excited and anxious to start. After two interviews, multiple phone calls to discuss references and background checks, I was finally able to put in my two weeks notice at Target, something I had been wanting to do since January of this year.
It has not been the easiest journey since graduation in May to get to this point. I have had "ups and downs" all summer concerning my post-graduation position in life. While I have always been happy and blessed,I was anxious to begin this new chapter, something that I had been waiting to do for over three years, and it felt like it just wasn't happening fast enough. Before GCISD, I had been to three different interviews which didn't turn into jobs, and so I was feeling pretty beat down. On top of that, everyone I encountered wanted to give me career advice. I had people telling me "You should really go into finance, that's where the money is going to be at after everyone has lost all their retirement in the economy crash" or "Ya know, it took my daughter/son a year to find a job after graduation" or my personal favorite "You should really take some education courses while you are job hunting. You could always fall back on teaching". Sure...after three years of graduate school the first thing I'm going to do is re-enroll in school to take some education courses. NOT!!!!!
Through all the rejection, disappointment, waiting, impatience, frustration, screaming and crying fits (not my best moments), I was blessed with a supportive and steadfast husband and a Father who had it all under control. This position at GCISD is absolutely perfect for my lifestyle, for our financial goals as a couple, and for my personal goals for a career. I received encouragement from many likely and unlikely sources, and was supported by prayer from our church family.
To make this experience even better, a few days after accepting my job, Dave and I packed up and took a much needed relaxing vacation to Mom and Dad's house in Arkansas. We love going to visit his parents for many reasons. They live in small town Arkansas, so it is quiet, relaxed, and slow paced for us...a much needed change from our day to day routine in Grapevine. Plus, they always seem to find fun and different things for us to do. This time, we watched some killer volleyball games at the college and, of course, at dutch oven cobbler. They manage to "spoil" us without even trying, and we are so thankful for the rest that being at their house provided. This was the first time we were able to visit them while there were students on campus. I managed to snap a few pictures of their volleyball team, of which the coach and his wife are good friend's of Mom and Dad Norvell.

I must close by saying Thank You to all my family and friends who have prayed for me and encouraged me during the summer and early fall. I am so thankful to my Lord for the blessing of family and friends who want to see me succeed and will walk the path with me.

2009-08-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

I want you to know that I've started to write a blog multiple times this week, but haven't been satisfied with what I have produced. I think I have too much going through my mind and am having difficulty processing it all. I'm hoping that when school starts for Dave and I have some time alone, I can write down the summer wrap-up in a blog.

I promise

2009-07-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

that there is a blog post in the making. I have a weekend off coming up, and blogging is on my list. keep holding your breath faithful readers.

The weekend I became a Master of the Universe

2009-05-25T05:44:00.000-07:00

Well...not really a Master of the Universe, but a Mater none-the-less. I realize that it has been over a week since these events took place, but during that week I have been "detoxing" from all the fun and celebrations, as well as toying with some life decisions, disappointments, and anxiety about what is to come. Those thoughts will come in a later blog, but for now, I want to run down and share some pictures of what a fabulous and wonderful graduation weekend I had.

First things first, I must admit how absolutely spoiled I was to have my whole family commit to coming to my graduation. Everyone came....my Dad from Oregon, my sister from California, my brother and sister-in-law from Philadelphia, my in-laws from Arkansas. I wonder how many miles total everyone traveled to get to Grapevine for little ole me! I felt blessed and overwhelmed to know that they were all coming, and a little bit guilty. Of all my siblings (6 total from the Norvell and Vendsel side) there are a total of 5 Master degrees, and I have only attended one of those ceremonies (which just happened to be in Fort Worth). So, to know that I had skipped out on the other four ceremonies, yet they still decided to travel to come see me was exciting, but I was very humbled also. When they all graduate with their PhD's, I'll be there with bells on!

So, the weekend started with everyone arriving on Wednesday afternoon. I picked my dad up in the early afternoon first, and was delighted to have a few hours to myself with him. It has been over a year since I had seen my dad, and during that year he had recovered from colon cancer. I must admit, I was a bit nervous about seeing him. I was afraid his appearance may have been altered from all the treatment, or that he had some lingering side effects that I didn't know about, as this was the case with a very close friend of mine who died of cancer when I was in college. But, my dad, ever the worlds strongest man in my eyes, looked fantastic and as healthy as ever! It was great to see him, as I cherish all of the time we get to spend together. My sister and grandmother arrived later in the afternoon, so we picked them up from the air port and proceeded out to my mom's house in Dallas for a "family reunion". Mom made a wonderful buffet dinner and everyone had a great time talking and visiting...

Sarah and Rachel, wine in hand and girly talking to their hearts content

Sarah and Dad.....

Mike and Rachel, who just celebrated their 6th anniversary!

My husband and my brother. Not quite sure the story behind this photo......

My mom holding the marvelous Lemon Meringue Pie she made for dessert.

Thursday afternoon, all the "kids" on the Vendsel side came out to Grapevine for the day. This picture below is after a full day of fun. I made a simple lunch, and then the girls went out to the spa for mani-pedi's and the boys went.....book shopping! Afterwards, I cooked a birthday lunch for Rachel (which just happened to be the same day as my graduation) and we ate (some more) and laughed and talked (some more). It was a great day to spend with family.

I love this picture of the Vendsel kids and dad. I don't think one like this exists besides this one. Despite our weariness from two long days, we all are smiling and happy to be together.

My sisters and I at the table

And then Friday was graduation day! And what a day it was. My in-laws came over in the afternoon, who had arrived the night before, for lunch and we visited. The ceremony was at 4, followed by dinner at an awesome Mexican restaurant close by our house in Grapevine. The ceremony was very....surreal. It was very anti-climatic. Walk across the stage, get handed a flower (in lieu of handshakes to avoid swine flu) from the President of our University (who I had never seen before that moment), walk a few more steps, get handed an (empty) diploma folder with a letter stating I would have my diploma mailed to me in six weeks, sit back down, and it's done. I spent the rest of the two hours goofing off with my friends from school, trying to be patient when all I could think about was the amazing Mexican food waiting for me to consume. I was glad that I did walk, but was a little disappointed no fireworks went off when my name called (just kidding).

My best friend and college roommate, Brooke, came to see me graduate. Again, I was spoiled and humbled to have her there

After the ceremony with my mom and Mike

And with my dad...I'm such a daddy's girl!

And with my siblings.

At the restaurant with my nephew, Caleb. He's not even six months old and has already been to two graduation ceremonies. And, he didn't cry the entire time at both. Such a good boy!!

Me and the bestie!

The best in-laws a girl could ask for. I am constantly blessed by their generosity, support, wisdom and the unconditional love they have offered me from the very beginning.
Daddy-o!

And the Vendsel/Bardes women. Such beauties.

Saturday, Mike and Sarah come over to see Dad off, as he left that afternoon for home. I made brunch and we said our (tearful for me) goodbyes. That evening, the Norvells came over and prepared the most amazing cookout ( I have pictures of this event,but can't seem to locate them). They grilled shrimp, kebabs, and made a triple berry cobbler in Walter's dutch oven that he brought all the way from Arkansas. Sunday, after church, we had a family photo session with Lydia (who, I realized I don't have a single picture with, or my brother-in-law John. It must be because Lydia we behind her own camera most of the weekend). Lydia took us out to the seminary for professional family photos that I can't wait to see! By Wednesday, everyone was gone, and I felt more fulfilled, care-free, and humbled than I had in a long time.

Tagged again.

2009-05-09T19:54:00.001-07:00

I was actually tagged a few days ago, but as my tagger so aptly pointed out, I've been a bit busy finishing some last minute (in the very literal sense) school work. But here I go...

8.
8 things I am looking forward to
1. Becoming a Master next Friday
2. Seeing all my family from all over the country in one place next week
3. The day that I can finally quit my job at Starbucks (just wish I knew when it was)
4. Summer and having Dave home more often
5. Mothers day tomorrow and spoiling my mom
6. Finally getting the call that says "you're hired!"
7. Watching my nephew grow up
8. Hopefully seeing my bestie sometime this summer

8 things I did yesterday
1. Made dozens of coffee drinks for complete strangers while acting like I knew them
2. Shopped for Mothers Day for three people
3. Ate an awesome Chicken Fajita Baked Potato
4. Bought my dog a toothbrush
5. Shampooed some of the carpets in my house
6. Took two showers
7. Worked on my last graduate assignment ever!
8. Dreamed about a vacation

8 things I wish I could do
1. Eat whatever I want without the repercussions
2. Not freak out every time I went to the doctor or dentist
3. Be really really good at something rare...like hieroglyphics or playing the harmonica
4. find my dream job
5. Be more confident in myself and not worry so much about what others think
6. Relax about the cleanliness of my house
7. scrapbook really well
8. Be a rock star

8 shows I watch
(tv has taken a backburner this semester, so I'll just post 8 shows that I like)
1. The Office
2. Lost
3. Jon and Kate plus 8 (how ironic)
4. Little People, Big World
5. Deadliest Catch
6. What Not To Wear
7. The Millionaire Matchmaker
8. The Food Network (all of the shows)

8 people to tag
1. Lydia
2. Robin
3. Lauren
4. Janice
5. Jessica Carey
6. Katie Decker
7. Catherine in Hungary
8. Stephanie Turner

2009-05-06T08:59:00.001-07:00

It's "Teacher Appreciation" week at Dave's school, so this morning,

he asked me to come pick up this

which is really bad for me, cause over the weekend,

I bought this for graduation day

Oh the dilemma.

My plans for Friday, May 8

2009-04-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

sleep in as long as I can possibly stand it
fix myself a calorie laden breakfast that includes some sort of fancy pancakes with whip cream
Go to Jazzercise (maybe)
Lounge in my pajamas till noon
Take a bubble bath
pat myself on the back for finishing grad school
Watch Twilight, followed by Pride and Prejudice and Becoming Jane, all while eating ice cream
Take a nap on the couch
Order pizza for dinner
Revel in my new found freedom
Go to bed

Tagged

2009-04-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

This is after an eight hour work day at Starbucks that began at 7 am and included wearing a hat all day, a 45 minute nap, some house cleaning, and dinner at the local pizza buffet, but I was true to the game and did not primp. Not so bad, if I do say so myself.

I tag:

Lauren

Lydia
Robin
Janice

The rules: Take a picture of yourself at this very second....no primping allowed...stay true to the game!!!

A California Easter

2009-04-15T20:02:00.001-07:00

As many of you know (cause I told the whole world!), I spent a long Easter weekend visiting my sister in Los Angeles. I was so excited about this trip for many reasons. Not only is it LA (the pop culture capital of the world!), but I knew Sarah and I would have tons of fun. My pictures don't go in chronological order ( a pet peeve of mine), but here they are none-the-less, with a breakdown of our weekend.

On Easter Sunday, Sarah and I went to church in the morning. It was so refreshing to be in a church out of the Bible Belt and that had a different atmosphere then mine at home. We packed a picnic lunch and a change of clothes and went to the beach afterwards. I love this picture below. It was windy by the water, and a little chilly. I think it depicts the day quite well, despite all the hair :>).

The beautiful sea shore!

Sunday night, all of Sarah's roommates collaborated to make a huge Easter Greek Feast! We had leg of lamb, ham, Greek salad, spanikopita (sp?), rice and herbs wrapped in grape leaves that has a Greek name that I can't remember, mousaka, baklava, and hava....all home made! It was truly delicious and was a true display of hospitality as they invited many of their friends from school over.

We also went to visit the famous Rodeo Dr, home to all of the best known designers and a huge celebrity hot spot in CA! I, of course, wanted to see someone famous, but alas, they all must have known I was coming and stayed home (wink). We took a trolley tour of Rodeo Dr. and Beverly Hills, driving through some of the neighborhoods. Our tour guide pointed out lots of houses and told us who used to live there. My favorite was Julie Andrew's home!

Sarah and I on the trolley

I must say that one of the highlights of the trip was reuniting with these two women.

My aunt Carol and my cousin Lorie live in Bakersfield, just a couple of hours from Sarah. They were sacrificial enough to make the drive down to Pasadena to visit and spend the day with us. I hadn't seen Lorie since her wedding six years ago or Carol since my wedding three years ago. We went to a wonderful lunch and then shopped around Old Town Pasadena.

And of course, getting to see Lorie again meant that I finally got to meet her son, Henry! I had only ever seen pictures of him. He is so handsome and such a bundle of joy. It was very inspiring to see Lorie in her element as a mother. Knowing some of my own fears about motherhood, I felt peace in seeing her still be the same Lorie that used to talk all about boys with me in high school while being a loving mom as well.

Lorie is also a very accomplished photographer with immense talents. Ever since she started a blog and has been posting pictures of all the people she photographs, I have been wanting to have my own Lorie Chambless photo shoot. Well, I got my wish! Lorie brought her big camera and took tons of pictures of Sarah and I. I don't have them here, but find her blog on my blog roll....her blog is the one called My Cousin in California. I can finally scratch that dream off my life long "to do" list.

Overall, the weekend was a perfect balance between fun and rest. Sarah and I went to a fancy dinner on Saturday night (courtesy of mom....thanks mom) and I introduced her to Twilight. Conversation flowed, laughs were abundant, and I left feeling blessed for her presence in my life.

The results of my fresh picked strawberries

2009-03-30T17:09:00.001-07:00

(it's a pie....the filling kind of ran once I cut into it, but man oh man is it good!)