Enjoying the Newborn Days

Having a newborn has turned the Acklen household upside down, to say the very least.  This little bundle of squirming sweetness has thrown us all into an alter-universe of sleep-deprived fogginess. Just now, at the beginning of her 8th week, are we beginning to regain some sense of normalcy. A new normal, as a new baby tends to change everything, in a good way of course.

Josie's siblings are all absolutely crazy about her, and can't wait for the chance to hold her and fetch things for Mama. I never run out of extra arms to hold her in a pinch. A HUGE help, they are. The poor things has been going through a bit of a colicky spell for the last few weeks, but seems to be coming out of it. To the makers of Mommy's Bliss Gripe Water, I'd just like to take a moment to say...Thank You.

Josie has been a busy little bundle, meeting some very important people....

Josie and "BB", my grandmother, at 10 days old (Josie, not BB--Ha!)

With our Paw-Paw (her great-grandfather), the sweetest man on earth!

 

 

6 weeks

 



8 weeks old

Just this Sunday, already holding her head up while having some tummy-time on Papa's (my Dad's) chest. She is growing way too fast! 

 

 

First sibling pic!

Josie Amelia Is Here!

Hello, World!!!

She arrived yesterday (Friday, Jan 11) at 8:39 am, weighing in at 7 lbs, 1 oz, 18 in long. She is like a sweet little shortstack of pancakes :). Too precious for words. We are still in the hospital, where they are being very good to us. Hope to be back home by Monday. Here's a sweet little pic of Josie with a family friend, Mallary, who came to see us yesterday:

My parents brought the kiddos up to see her and they were over-the-top excited! The girls got to hold her, but Elijah had went on to run some errands with his Dad and when they returned, Josie had been whisked away to the nursery. So he did not get to hold her. The poor thing was very disappointed. While on said errand, Elijah asked his Dad to take him to buy me some flowers. He brought back a dozen pink roses, and two of my favorite candy bars. Just for his Mommy. I'm amazed at my kids sometimes....(tearing up). I mean, it just doesn't get much better than this, does it?

 

Yes, those are socks on her hands--someone forgot to bring mittens :). 

Wrapping Up 12 Weeks

Yesterday (Friday) marked the end of my 12th week! The first trimester is almost gone! I'm gonna be honest, it was rough! I don't remember feeling so bad with my first three. Maybe it's because I didn't have 3 children and all that they entail to take care of, or maybe it's because I was 4 years younger. But, I am happy to report that each week is getting better. The ever-present nausea is subsiding, and I'm down to one nap a day instead of two. My family is so thankful! I have been one cranky Mama (ashamedly). I didn't even like myself!

The kids are SO excited about the baby and are always talking about names and monitoring my nutrition to make sure I am eating healthy for the baby. At mealtime, I can expect to get a suspicious, "Mama, is that healthy for the baby?" from one of them before we leave the table. So, I make sure to have at least one good-for-you item on my plate! They keep me accountable :).

On Wednesday (the 4th of July), we were returning from spending the day with my father-in-law and step mom-in-law when a girl pulled out in front of us and caused us to have a T-bone collision. We hit her on my side (passenger) and although everything seemed fine, the paramedics advised that I go in for an ultrasound for precautionary reasons. I was having some pain across my abdomen, which I believe was caused from the seat belt, but my husband was worried sick and insisted we go to the ER. They ordered a vaginal ultrasound, and as you can imagine, I was overjoyed at the prospect (sarcasm, anyone?). The technician was on-call and was evidently not pleased to be called into the ER on the evening of her 4th of July holiday. She was very curt and rude, not the sort of attitude you want to see in a person who is about to perform THAT kind of procedure on you.  I'd had one before, and it was pretty quick, although not quite painless. But oh, boy, this time, it was neither of the above. At one point, I was so uncomfortable and asked her was she almost done. Her reply: "What do you think this is, McDonald's? Do you want to have this done at McDonald's or a hospital?" I'm still not quite sure what McDonald's had to do with anything, but I think Ronald would have been a lot more pleasant to deal with at that moment.

Although the screened was turned away from me, John saw two little feet moving  and said it looked like he/she was sucking its thumb. I think at this point their hands are always up by their mouth, so hopefully that is the case and we will not have a 3rd thumbsucker!

We are once again camera-less, so no 12 weeks Mama/Baby pics :(. Hope to remedy that soon! But, while looking through my files this week, I came across this one of when I was about 8 months along with Emma. I love this pic! I can't believe how little my babies were and how much they have grown!

A 7 Year old In The House!

Yesterday, my little man turned seven! We celebrated with a day off from school, a trip to Party City to ride bumper cars and....angry bird cupcakes! He had a great day! He is the goofiest, quirkiest, craziest little kid and I'm so proud he is mine!

 I stole an idea off Pinterest--to interview him every year on his birthday, and then look back on the answers the following year to see how his opinions and interests have evolved. So here is his 7 year-old interview:

My favorite food: pizza

My favorite sport to play is: basketball and football

The best show: Adventures in Odyssey

The coolest person on earth is: Emory

My favorite thing to learn about in school is: Phonics

The thing that I do most awesomely: Drawing

If I could go anywhere in the world, I would go to: The zoo

My favorite color is: black

When I grow up, I’m going to be a: window washer

My current favorite song is: Father Abraham

The book I am loving right now: Huckleberry Finn

Three words that describe me are: crazy, jumpy, grumpy

When I was little, I used to: sneak and steal Mama’s glasses off the nightstand in the

Morning [he did]

My favorite season of the year is: Christmas because I get a lot of presents but sometimes I just want to act like the Grinch

The absolute best thing about camping is: fishing

The snack that I like best is: popcorn

One food that I really dislike is: broccoli and cheese

My best friend is: Micah

If I had one wish it would be: to have a thousand elephants I could sit on

My best memory is: when I spilled crackers on the floor and ate them, when I lived in Farmerville [he was about 1 1/2 and I have a picture of it...somewhere.]

How fun is that?? 

Elijah's Big Milestone

First he turned six, and now he springs this on me.

"Mom, I've got a loose tooth."

I wiggled it. Sure 'nough. "Wiggle it around and it'll come out in a couple of days", I said.

10 minutes later: "Look, Mom! My tooth came out!"

Indeed it did. That was fast. Slow down buck-a-roo. Stop growing for just a few minutes.

We had several phone calls to make:

Daddy, (who got a little choked up because his little boy is getting big faster than he would like)and then grandparents who talked up the tooth fairy til the boy thinks he's gonna be able to go buy out Toys 'R' Us tomorrow. Maybe they'd like to contribute to the tooth fairy fund? :)

Speaking of which, "fairy" sounds a little girly for such a manly little man. How about tooth frog?

Ribbit.

These Kids of Mine

Anyone who says that being a stay-at-home-Mom is nothing but boring has not met my three bright, funny, crazy kids. Their quirky, innocent remarks and antics keep my days entertaining. It is anything but boring. In the last week or so, they've been especially full of nonsense :).




Emma, my spunky, busy 2-yr-old is usually ready to eat her vegetables. But Monday night, when we I served broccoli casserole for supper, she took one bite of the broccoli, spit it out and said, "Yuck. Chicken poop!" I attempted to ignore the reference, hoping the older two would not catch on and make an issue out of it. But it was stuck in her brain. When her Dad sat down at the table, she pointed to her bowl and said, again, "Chicken poop!" I sent him a message with my eyes that said, "Nuh-uh. Don't acknowledge." I mean, who wants those words to be a part of their toddlers vocabulary? I can just picture us in church and her shouting out the words at the quietest possible moment. After supper, we walked over to a neighbor's house for a visit. When asked what she had for supper, Emma replied, "Chicken poop!" Stinker, I tell ya. Rotten.

Gracie, the middle child at 4 1/2, is going through a phase of talking about what she is going to do when she grows up. She recently excitedly told me, "Guess what, Mama! When I grow up, and all my family dies, I can ride in the car all by myself!" Well, I'm glad she'll be spared the pangs of grief. Ding, dong, the family's dead! Let's go for a ride in the car!



Elijah, my eldest and most impressionable, never forgets anything. He has a photographic memory like his Father, which makes it of the utmost importance that we shelter him from viewing anything we don't want to be stuck in his brain for the next 25 years. After our last trip to the library, I will now be scanning any books prior to his viewing them. Or maybe I'll leave them all at home and pick their books out myself. Anyway, he chose a "No, Dave" book, which {I did not notice until it was too late} has an illustrated picture of the incorrigible little tot running down the street in his birthday suit, from the backside. Elijah looked at the book for approximately 1 1/2 minutes while we drove from the library to church. Upon sitting down in the service, he promptly picked up his notebook and drew the exact replica of little Dave's exposed backside, plain as day. You can imagine my shock at glancing over and being mooned from off the page! :) In church, no less!



Yes, there's always something to laugh about, which cancels out those frustrating moments when I feel like I don't have an ounce of energy or patience left. These moments are like little doses of strength giving me encouragement to keep on going. "The joy of the Lord is my strength."

{For those of you who have seen these stories already on Facebook, please forgive the redundancy. I wanted to post them on here for the sake of record-keeping :)}

Preserving Children's Art

My little boy Elijah has a fervent passion for drawing. The first thing he does in the morning is grab a notebook and a pen, and at bedtime, we have to double-check in on him to make sure he has put it away. He draws for literal hours during the day, and we go through notebooks and packs of markers like toilet paper (if you have kids, you understand this analogy). I want to save his best drawings, but it gets overwhelming.



I started a binder for this purpose, but he wants to add/remove drawings as he thinks appropriate. It kinda defeats the purpose. An aunt of mine suggested I take pictures of them and keep them on a disc, and my husband recently suggested I scan them (which makes great sense).








Has anyone else had this challenge? Do you have any better ideas than the ones I've mentioned?

Being Frugal, Part 2

So, last post we defined what it means to be frugal. Since then, my senses have been most keen to the frugality of MY life. In actuality, just about EVERYTHING I do revolves around the mantra, "How Little Money Can I Spend To Get By?" I go grocery shopping, and find myself scratching things off the list, and in my head going, "Don't really need that. Save $1.50." When I'm not thinking about how NOT to spend money, I'm thinking about how to MAKE money. I find some .25 cent in-great-condition baby clothes at a yard sale, and even though I don't have a little boy in size 0-3 months, I know they will sell for at least $5 each at the local twice-yearly consignment sale. Grab 'em!

I turn my nose up at sales racks that sport "30% OFF" signs. That does NOT impress me. Speaking of which, I've noticed that's as low as Target's sale racks go these days. What's up with that? Anyways, I loathe going to a yard sale where people are trying to turn their front yard into a Dillard's department store. If I wanted to pay $10 for one garment, I'd go to the mall. And it would be brand new. Truthfully, I rarely pay $10 for a garment at the mall. It has to be UNDAH TEN DOLLAHS to go home with me. Yep, I'm a tough customer. But people are always asking me where I buy my kids clothes and commenting on how cute they look. Savvy. That I am. I have to confess, though, I spent $25.00 on this dress at the consignment store last year:


It was still in the Strasburg garment bag, y'all. Brand new. Check out the original price on this lovely item: $134.99. Definitely worth the exception. I told myself I would resell it on ebay, where Strasburg dresses go for about $50 bucks. But after trying it on Gracie, I decided to hang on to it for a while :). Doesn't she look precious?




Which proves, no matter how frugal you are or try to be, it's OK to spend a little bit more sometimes. It feels good to unclench the fist every now and then.

A Plethora

(Just to clarify)--Plethora:

–noun
1.overabundance; excess: a plethora of advice and a paucity of assistance.

LOOK-"paucity"-a new word! It means "smallness of quantity". Therefore, paucity and plethora are antonyms! Ya learn somethin' new every day! (and if you're scratching your head at "antonym", try wikipedia, and if you're wondering what in the world is wikipedia, well....figure it out :).

Here's another interesting definition:

2.Pathology Archaic . a morbid condition due to excess of red corpuscles in the blood or increase in the quantity of blood.

Obviously totally unrelated to this post, so...moving on...

A plethora of events and sweet memories over the past few weeks...

We had a wonderful time celebrating Memorial Day with two of our church "families"-- one where we attended and served as youth pastors for 5 years, and the other our current home church.



Elijah, using his water gun to keep cool on Memorial Day at the park.


We spent two weeks in Sweet Home Alabama, also known as L.A. or Lower Alabama (not to be confused with LowEST Alabama, which would be the coast). My, I'm informative tonight. Bear with me.

We were able to spend the weekend as a family lounging around the family pool at my Mom's..aahh...


We said goodbye to Dad on Sunday (sadly) and geared up for some busy, fun times!

The first week was filled with youth camp activities, also known as "church camp" to some. This camp was started at my home church when I was 17, 13 years ago (now you know how old I am!), so it is a special yearly revisiting kind of thing for me. It was indescribably influential in my spiritual growth as an older teen. The services were phenomenal! LOVED seeing the youth of today (the future church) getting blessed and encouraged!

This year was the first year of corresponding Junior Camp, for ages 5-11, where I dedicated most of my time. My kids had a blast! Here's a peek at some happy kids with their crafts from "Super Hero Training Camp":



Monday, June 14th, we celebrated Grace's 4th birthday! I am so proud of my baby girl. She is truly a joy to have as a daughter. She is smart, sweet, and thoughtful of others--always willing to share with her siblings and friends. I'm a very proud Mommy! In celebration of her 4th year, we had a small family party on Monday and on Tuesday, I took her and my niece, Erin, to see the play "Willie Wonka, JR." at the local Ballet & Arts Theatre. It was really cute and the girls loved it!


The rest of the week was spent lounging around the pool, reading, and just enjoying being near dear friends and family. Here is Emma with her namesake, my great-Aunt Emma. Please excuse the cloudiness, as there was a smudge on the lens of my camera.



Now we are at home and back into the swing of things again! I am on the verge of beginning a Master Bedroom Makeover, which I hope will come together quickly. I will keep you updated!
It's so good to be back and catch up on everyone's blogs.

I leave you with a request: please remember our family in your prayers as we have some family issues that have escalated into a legal matter, and a court hearing will be held on Wednesday in an attempt to settle them. I am praying that everything will work out for the best for all parties involved. Love you, my blog readers!

Weekend In Review (Lousiana Purchase Zoo)

It seemed like forever since our family had done anything FUN. So hubby decided to use one of his vacation days and take the family on a little get-a-way on Friday. We drove about two hours East to The Louisiana Purchase Zoo in Monroe, LA.



Our entire family of 5 was admitted to the zoo for $15.00! Can't beat that with a stick!

Hubby & I had visited the zoo about 6-7 years ago, as newlyweds, and even then, it was not in the best of shape. And it's located right in the heart of the "quarters" if you kwim. So, we knew we weren't going to a huge, state of the art zoo and we were OK with that. We just wanted somewhere to take the kids for a short, enjoyable outing and they were tickled pink.

We kicked things off with a little picnic lunch:


Then posed for some silly pics:

That's a really fierce expression there, Hon. Yikes!


It didn't take us long to realize it was HOT, so when we spied the (covered)boat tour, on we hopped and away we floated to view some of the interesting and beautiful creatures our God made...

A Mom with her new baby. She was a little protective. Can't blame her for that!

I think we fit into the category of 'interesting and beautiful' :).

Next, we strolled around and looked at the many different kinds of monkeys. It's amazing how many variations God made of the same species!


This couple kept giving one another sugar. Get a room already! :)



The kids & hubby visited the Reptile house. I declined. No, thank you, little snakies.




One of my favorite things about the zoo were the peacocks and ducks that roamed freely around the zoo. We also got to touch and feed a hippo, which was probably the neatest thing about the day. Didn't get any pics of that, though. :(

We left the zoo and headed to Wal-Mart to meet with some dear old friends of ours, but on the way, we spotted a Dirt Cheap! Hubby slammed on the brakes and whipped the truck around faster than you can say "bargain" :). Dirt Cheap is a salvage type store that we love to shop at back home, but there have never been any here in Louisiana, to our knowledge. So we were SUPER excited to find it! Got some great deals!



We ended the day with supper at Cracker Barrel and a three hour visit with an older couple who have been wonderful mentors to us over the years. We don't get to see them as often as we would like, though.


This will probably be my only post for this week, as we are in revival at church and there will be no extra time available for such leisure activities. Unless I get really inspired by one of the services and feel like preaching a sermon :). Look out!

Have a good week, my dear readers!

His First Crush (Tuesdays Unwrapped)

Do you remember your first crush? I do. I was in kindergarten.

He was adorable.

Glossy brown hair and puppy dog brown eyes, fringed with thick lashes.

Siiighh...

Unfortunately, every other little girl in the class thought he was adorable, too. Worse than that, my best friend was the prettiest girl in the class and she was the one who caught his eye.

I slipped him the "check yes or no" letter, and opened the reply with eyes squinted shut.

He checked "no".

Gloom.

Despair.

Agony.

You'd think I would've taken that lesson into the teenage years and kept it to myself when I liked a boy. But I didn't. And that's another post.

Now, my adorable little boy is 5. He has little girl friends that he likes to play with and tease. But this one is different. Sunday, he went to church with his Beamie (paternal g'ma) at a sister church about an hour's drive from here. When he came home, he told us about Children's Church and his teacher, and then...

"There was this girl. Her name is Cassidy."

"Yea? Did she talk to you?"

"No, she just winked her eyes at me."

(trying to hide a smile).."Did you talk to her?"

"No, I was too shy." ...hhmmm...

"Well what did she look like?"

"She was like one of those blonde-headed girls."

"OOoohhh..."


He's not going back to that church. :)


p.s. Who could resist this face?



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