Moments I'll Never Get Back

Lately my little girl has fought hard against taking naps. Which usually involves me going into her room to comfort her and then rock her to sleep. On those busy days where I would like to get a lot done during her naps this would bother me, but lately I've come to cherish these moments. The God-given moments when my sweet girl lays her head on my swollen belly and I rock her to sleep gets me all teary eyed because as the old poem goes....

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,

Babies grow up we've learnt to our sorrow,

So quiet cobwebs, dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Sometimes I think about the little boy kicking and moving around in my belly and how precious it is to think that he already knows his sister's voice. Also hoping that because he isn't as active as his sister was in the womb that it means he might be a little easier baby...just hoping. I can't imagine what life is going to be like with 2 kiddos under 2! Ok, I sometimes do imagine and then I have a private little freak out moment. Like what do I do when I'm nursing the baby and all of a sudden things have gotten too quiet...you know the the kind of quiet I'm talking about, that kind when your little one is most certainly into something they shouldn't be getting into. These freak out moments don't last long because mostly I can't believe that God has chosen to bless my husband and I with 2 precious little ones. I wish I could go back 4 years and tell myself to remain faithful in trusting the Lord to grow our family in HIS time and to find joy in my circumstances, because GOD IS FAITHFUL!

So lately I'm learning to: stop what I'm doing and play with my daughter; give her pots and pans to play with even if it means extra dishes to wash; sit on the couch and snuggle after naps even when there is lots to do; even if the sink is full of dirty dishes after dinner, sitting on the couch with my family of 3 and playing for 30 minutes is well worth putting those dishes off.  Will I continue to get frustrated when all of a sudden its 5:00 and I forgot to get the meat out to defrost for dinner OR Oops, that load of laundry I started 6 hours ago is still in the washer? Probably, but its ok if we don't eat until 7:30 or so what if I have to wash that load of laundry again, I'll never get those sweet moments back.  So when my frustration or exhaustion sets in, I pray that I'll remember it's all totally worth it and find my strength in Him.

Oklahoma & Baby 2 Gender Reveal

We just returned from our home state of Oklahoma! It was a quick trip packed full of time with family and friends. We left Friday after Brendan got off work at 4:30 and drove through the night to arrive at midnight. This was our first time to drive straight through with a baby.  Brendan said he would do it again, let's just say I have a different opinion.

All my sisters were in town for the weekend, its always nice to have the entire family together. Well, we were missing a bro-in-law, Evan. We really wish he could of been there. The first item on our agenda was for my sister Emily and I to reveal the genders of our babies to our family! (she is due a week earlier than me! so fun!) We each filled two black balloons with the color of confetti that corresponded to the baby's gender. We kept it a secret from each other and decided to let our parents pop the balloons with us since our hubby's already knew.  Here's a picture of the BIG Reveal!

I love this picture! Especially my parent's faces! Its hard to tell because our BLUE confetti took over Emily's PINK confetti! We are having a boy!!!!! We are so excited to grow our family and Brendan sure is excited to not be outnumbered!

We did our reveal over at Emily's in-laws house and had a cookout/pool party. They are so generous to have us over. Almost every time we are in town we go to their house.  I was really excited because this would be Eliana's first time to swim. I thought for sure she would like it because she absolutely LOVES bath time! Well, things didn't go exactly how I thought.....

We tried giving her the paci to see if that would calm her
down and then maybe she would like the pool.  

This picture says it all....

Eliana loves her aunts and I'm pretty sure they love her because they fought over who was going to hold her, give her the bottle, feed her, etc.  Although I didn't hear much fighting over who wanted to change her diaper.

She would not smile and was throwing a fit, her aunts
are imitating what she was doing. 

Aunt Emily wanted to give Ellie her birthday gift
in person to see her reaction. She loved it!

Getting some practice at being a momma!

About two months prior to our trip to Oklahoma I was having some serious cravings for fried chicken, but not just any fried chicken. I needed Okarche's famous Eischen's fried chicken and fried okra.  If you aren't from Oklahoma you probably don't know about Eischen's.  Well its basically an old bar and grocery store turned to fried chicken restaurant. The place itself isn't much to look at but the fried chicken is oh so good! On weekends, its a packed house and they even have a sign that says to anticipate a 2 hour wait. They serve the chicken in paper trays and your plate is a piece of parchment paper. No utensils required! You know its just one of those Oklahoma things. :) The restaurant has been featured on Diner's Drive-in's and Dives. So if you are ever in Oklahoma and want to eat at one of those hidden treasures you should definitely try Eischen's. But be prepared, the only other 2 things on the menu are Frito Chili Pie and BBQ Beef Sandwich and no tea or coffee.

So I threw out the idea for a sibling dinner date with the grandparent's babysitting. Of course everyone agreed! It was just as good as I remembered.  After Eischen's we stopped at a little cafe and had some famous Okarche cinnamon rolls and milk to wash it all down. I think I'm drooling just thinking about it again!

Lord, Thank you for the chicken that sacrificed
its life for my dinner. Amen!

Pregnant girl's dream come true

All the Simpson Siblings and spouses,
minus Natalie's hubby Evan.

The sister's!

We had a great time in Oklahoma, and of course not enough of it! Already miss my family, but it is good to be home.

Father's Day

I am so blessed to have a wonderful man in my life who is an incredible father to our little girl.  Everything I am not he makes up for it. When I'm uptight or worried about something for our baby, he is easy going and speaks common sense to the situation. Its so fun to see our daughter and her Papa together now that E is older. Sometimes when he gets home from work, she is so excited to see him. Its so cute!

Anyways, we had a fun and relaxing day, starting with church and then a picnic and walk at Pioneer's Park. Followed by free custard at Culver's and then a nap!

Eating peas off a plate like a big girl 

Such a good Papa!

She loves mom's water bottle

Takin' a snooze on our Father's Day walk

In December I attempted to make hand and footprints for a Christmas gift for Brendan. I got a good set of footprints but I underestimated how difficult it is to get a 3 month old's handprints. So I put it off until Father's day.  It still took me three tries, but we got a decent set of smudged little hands.  Anyways, thanks to Pinterest and Micah 6:8 Ellie made a cute wall hanging for dad's office.

Memorial Weekend

We enjoyed a long weekend in Kansas for Memorial Day. I got to relax and have fun while Brendan worked his you know what off.

A month ago Brendan and his brother, Brook, were discussing what to give their dad for his birthday. His mom and dad have wanted to build a pergola over their back patio for several years, so the brother's decided to help build it for their dad's gift.  Brook flew in from Georgia and brought his son Shepherd. The guys worked all day Friday and finished up Saturday night at 10p.m.  It looks awesome! I think they had a good time together bonding. With all of us spread out over the country it's not often they get together to work on a project. Here are a few pictures:

Progress at End of Day 1

The Williams' Boys

The Finished Project

Eliana and I were excited that she got to meet one of her 9 cousins for the first time! Shepherd is 7 years old and was such a great help with his little cuz and was really good at playing with her. Grandma got all of Ellie's daddy's old hot wheels and other toys out to play with. Both Shepherd and Eliana had fun with them.

Playing with Daddy's Old Toys
(anyone recognize the Pound Puppy's?)

He was very proud of his Hot Wheel's Parking Lot

Playing with Hot Wheel's

Battleship with Grandma

Messy Sweet Potato Girl

On Saturday Eliana got to go to the Zoo for the first time! She loved it and did so good! We went to Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure in Hays, Kansas.  Its a smaller Zoo, but was so nice and clean! I highly recommend it if you are ever in the Salina, Kansas area.

The Cousins

Scary Mountain Lion!

Hmmm, I think we need to see the Monkey's Mom.

Oh, this sweet girl just melts my heart!

She passed out on the tram ride!

Sacked out little girl!

It was so fun to meet Uncle Brook and Cousin Shepherd! Eliana can't wait to meet all her other cousins and Aunt!

Williams Family Camping Adventure

We just returned from our little family's first camping trip, and boy was it memorable! We have been wanting to go camping for some time now, but last summer was not an option for this preggo momma since I started having back pain at around 8 weeks with Eliana.  You might be thinking, wait your pregnant now.  Yes...yes I am.  I told Brendan, we better go camping now or its going to be a while. Originally I agreed to "primitive" camp. Primitive in my dictionary means no bathroom facilities. That's been my criteria from the beginning, as long as they have running water and a bathroom, I'll go camping. My new preggo citeria is that I must have a bathroom and an air mattress. Don't misunderstand me, I enjoy camping, but we both realized that camping is A LOT different with a baby.

Camping Lesson #1: Bring a pac and play, so baby can be mobile in a confined space!

We ended up taking our little brood to Indian Cave State Park in Southeast Nebraska along the Missouri River.  This park was so pretty! I couldn't believe I was still in Nebraska. There were lots of trees, valleys and beautiful views. I highly recommend taking a drive to this park, I know we will go back!

So we arrived on Friday around 3 in the afternoon, hoping to claim one of the 10 tent sites with electricity. There was only one other camper when we arrived. This is a campers delight (or at least my husbands) because privacy is key to an enjoyable camping experience....or so we learned. Out of the 30 surrounding campsites, wouldn't you know another family decided to pick the spot right next to ours. I won't complain too much, but let's just say I learned all the kids names (because of their parents yelling at them CONSTANTLY), I realized you can tell a lot about a person by the tone in their voice, and I love my family. :)

Williams Campsite

My New Nemisis
I.HATE.TICKS! Shortly after we arrived and setup our campsite, I spread out a blanket under a tree for Eliana to roll around on. I sat down with her and discovered tick after tick after tick on the blanket and on my BABY!!!! These suckers were huge! Fortunately I found them all before they bit her. Our poor Dog found the majority of the ticks. On the first night I had just got in bed and was laying there. I thought I felt a leaf or piece of grass on my back so I picked it off and just to be sure got my flashlight and discovered it was a Mammoth Tick!

Camping Lesson #2: Bring tweezers to remove ticks

Our First Miserable Night
So after the discovery of my little tick friend, I think I laid there for an hour feeling like there were bugs crawling all over me! We also were freezing! I'm not sure if the temperature was lower than expected or we are just weenies. So we froze the whole night. Then Eliana woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep unless in bed with us. The next morning we joked it was the worst night of sleep we ever had....or so we thought.

Camping Lesson #3: Bring your sleeping bags, just in case.

Exploring
There is a lot of history at Indian Cave State Park, what they are most known for is the cave with ancient petroglyphs. We drove through the park and arrived at the cave. We couldn't take Ruger up to the cave so I took Ellie to explore the "cave" while Brendan stayed with the dog.

That is the "Cave" behind us

Missouri River near the Cave

There are two landings you stand on to look at the petroglyphs carved into the side of the cave/cliff.  Unfortunately, over time people have made their own mark on the cave and it was really hard to find the petroglyphs through the "So&so loves so&so" and "Dave was here" carvings. We didn't get the chance to hike any trails but wish we could have, I'm sure they were beautiful. There is also a great area of history about a small Indian Trading Post, including a log cabin and one-room school house.  We didn't get to explore since we had a sleeping baby in the car. Also along this road is a beautiful scenic view of the Missouri River.

The Second Miserable (and scary) Night
All week they had been predicting storms for the weekend, but we've learned to take everything the weathermen say with a grain of salt. We tried to keep updated on the weather with our phone apps, and knew there was a possibility of a rainstorm Saturday night. We were so tired from the night before that we got in our tent at 8:30. We put Eliana to bed on her pallet around 9 and then we went to sleep around 10.  Of course, since I'm pregnant an hour later I had to go to the bathroom. I couldn't go back to sleep after that, the wind seemed to pick and I was getting concerned. Around 12:25 I woke Brendan up just as this huge thunderstorm blew in! It was crazy windy and pouring rain. I scooped Ellie up off her pallet just in case our tent collapsed, I didn't want to go searching for her. Brendan was literally holding on to the top of our tent because he thought we were going to have lift off! The really bad storm lasted for about 15 minutes and our baby pretty much slept through it all.  Of course I had to make a run for the bathroom in between storms. It basically rained all night, although it wasn't as bad as the first storm. Our tent withstood the storm! No damage and no water leakage! Our neighbors didn't fare so well, they spent the night in their cars when the wind took off their rain guard. I was so exhausted that I slept most of the rest of the night, but poor Brendan didn't sleep much at all.  He slept the rest of the night on his back with his glasses on worried that we might have to run for the car at some point.

Camping Lesson #4: Get a weather radio

Sunday morning we woke up and both agreed to not fix breakfast but just pack up and head home. We were so ready for showers, no bugs, bed, and a real roof over our heads.

We had quite the adventure and enjoyed our time together as a family, here are a few other photos from our trip.

Just Chilln'

Outdoor Kitchen

Master Griller Hard at Work

Our little Family

I love them!

Hi Papa!

And this is why I'm always laughing. She makes the funniest faces!

First swing ride