JOB!

I've got a lot of homework to finish in the next few days, but I had 4 things I wanted to share:

1. My boy got a job!! He starts in December, and we are PRAISING GOD for this answered prayer. Thank you to everyone has been praying with us, and sharing your thoughts and concerns for our family.

2. Benjamin reached the year-and-a-half milestone on Sunday. Read about him here.

3. Madeline reached the one-month milestone on Sunday. Read about her here.

4. The rain has started in Oregon. I don't think I'll be going outside again before April, if I can help it. (Really, I can't think of a #4.)

My sister was up here with us for an extended weekend, so I'll be posting some pictures from that visit soon, and I'll be in class for the majority of this weekend, so I'm sure I'll be posting some whining as well. In the meantime, enjoy my children!

popping in

We have had an interesting few days over here, which I'm sure I'll write about soon. But in the meantime, there's FINALLY an update on Grammy's visit here and a ton of pictures here. Hopefully I can finish the rest tomorrow!

happy... all saint's day!

OK, I'm a little late on Halloween... but I think next-day counts as pretty good, considering. We had a relaxing day, with a visit to the mall and some Mommy/Daddy time in the afternoon. (Did I mention Grammy has been visiting us this week? Hence, the possibility of Mommy/Daddy time!) Benjamin, probably not a big surprise, was a monkey this year:

(complete with tail)

"What does the monkey say??" "Oooh ooh oooh!"

We were going to send Grammy, Daddy, and Benjamin out around the block for his first trick-or-treating experience, but our little monkey had a bit of an explosion during nap time and his costume ended up in the washing machine for the duration of the evening. Oh well! We improvised with a little camo-gear (see picture at top for hat, the pants match but aren't visible) but since it was pretty cold and wet outside anyway, we figured we could hold off for another year. Madeline borrowed a costume from our little friend Ryan (who was a month old last Halloween) and debuted as a pumpkin:

(obviously it's a little big on her!)

Since she spent most of the day sleeping anyway, she showed her spirit with this little get-up:

(awwww. so cute.)

I wanted to take some pictures of the monkey and pumpkin outside, since our trees are starting to look like this:

but the only sunshine we saw all day was the 5 minutes when I stepped out to take the above picture... and naturally Benjamin was napping. If the sun comes back out this week, I'm taking advantage!

As I said, Grammy was with us this week -- and I have a lot to post about! I'll be updating the kiddos' blogs in the next little bit, but probably pop back over to say they're done. My head is spinning a little with the fact that it's NOVEMBER already... I realize I had a baby in October, but where the heck did the month go?? So I'm also trying to play a little catch-up with schoolwork, bills, cards, and housework. You know, all those things I've been able to (mostly) ignore for the past 4 weeks thanks to major nesting pre-Madeline. Whew!

it gets better...

(more here and here.)

I started to write this post one week ago, and I'm glad that I never got around to finishing it. What I had written was basically a comparison of my first-week experience from Benjamin with one week of Madeline... and it was pretty depressing. I don't remember much from the first time around, which is probably why I decided to have another baby, but somehow I expected things to be so easy with #2. I couldn't ask for an easier baby than Madeline, but even easy babies need to eat every 3 hours (that means, with feeding and burping and changing and cuddling you're lucky to get an hour and a half of sleep between feedings...) and no matter how good your baby is, your body is still undergoing huge hormonal changes. So I've decided to ditch my frustration-filled downer post and focus instead on how good I feel now.

Because really, I feel pretty good. After the first few days at home I've been able to move freely with minimal abdominal pain, my body is starting to adapt to a broken (and somewhat non-existent) sleep pattern, and I don't *quite* feel as brain-dead as I did with Benjamin. Those are huge improvements from a week ago!

I think the biggest difference in my experiences this time around has been an ability to acknowledge that I'm in a stage of transition right now. When I'm feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, or even blue for no reason at all, I'm able to recognize that my body is adjusting, my little guy is trying to figure out his new place in the family, and it definitely won't be this way forever. I'm anxious for Madeline to grow and start sleeping for longer stretches, but I'm trying to remind myself that she'll be hitting the one-month marker before I've blinked. Or the one-year. Or fast approaching on 18 months. Yeesh.

The other big difference this time has been an abundance of love from our church family and friends. My "moms" group at church has been bringing us dinner every other night, and many of my friends have stopped in for the day (or flown in for a few!) just to spend time with us. It's strange to say that Corey's current job predicament is a blessing of sorts, but even having him home with me has done huge things for my morale. We've been able to take both kids out a few times, and my life is starting to feel normal again.

Now, if I could just focus enough to get back into the swing of my homework...