What We've Been Up To Lately: Quiet Book//Birthday Presents//Weddings//New Job

This is going to be a mash up post of our life happenings as of late.

First of all, I finished the first page of the boys' quiet book!  I'm solo slow when working on this stuff, mainly because I haven't done a lot of sewing before, so it takes me a while to figure things out so that I don't sew something upside down or inside out or what not.  But I'm excited about how this first page turned out, and can't wait to do more!

Just in case you can't tell, the page has a little 3d rocket that is attached to a zipper.  As you pull the rocket up towards the moon, the fabric opens into what is suppose to look like flames coming out of the back of the rocket.  I did make my orange fabric piece a little too small, as it does not come down all the way to the edge of the page.  Oops.  I didn't want to redo it, and I don't think it looks bad enough to warrant a total remake.    

Let me know what you think!  It's my very first time with doing anything like this, so be nice.  

Jeremy's birthday was back in August, and I thought I would share his gifts that I got him, because they're pretty awesome.  First of all, I got him these:

If you know Jeremy at all, you probably know that he is a huge Star Wars fan.  We always make fun of the typical stick-figure-family details, so I thought these would be awesome instead for our car!  He loved them, and was so excited to put them on the back of our car.  

The other part of his birthday present was a surprise date night to The Price Is Right Live Show!  The show came to Nashville a couple weeks ago, and I thought it would be fun for us both to go.  Unfortunately, neither of us got chosen to play, but we had fun watching! (sorry for the dark pics-my cell phone is all I had!)

This past weekend, I had the awesome privilege of being a bridesmaid in one of my best friends' wedding!  The wedding was perfect and beautiful.

Since I had to leave early in the morning the day of the wedding, Jeremy was left to work, pick the boys up from daycare, feed them, clean them, get them dressed and make it to wedding on time...all within like an hour and half.  But he made it!  And the boys looked super cute!

Foxx

Judah

 

                      

The boys had so much fun.  They did awesome, especially since they were out way past their bedtime that night.  They were very good during the  ceremony, loved hanging around all the people, and especially loved dancing with us on the dance floor.  (So wish I had photos of that...but I was busy actually dancing with my boys and not able to take the pictures).  We all had an awesome night.

And lastly, we're excited about Jeremy's new job!  He is now going to be working at The Well, a coffee shop that was started by a few people from our church.  This coffee shop has done surprisingly well.  It is an awesome little shop that gives away all of their profits to a couple different organizations that build wells for people in other countries who do not have access to clean water.  

This coffee shop has really opened my eyes to how much other* coffee shops are just pocketing money.  This place can afford to pay their baristas (not unfairly), keep the place open and thriving, charge cheaper prices for their coffee (not compromising on quality or taste), and still afford to give away a whole lot of money to people who really need it.  

We're so excited that Jeremy has the opportunity  to work for such an awesome place.  He starts in a couple of weeks! 

If you haven't been yet, you should totally go check out The Well.  It's located in Green Hills, right on the corner of Richard Jones rd and Hillsboro.  Not only will you get a great cup of coffee, but you will also be helping people who are less fortunate than yourself.  

  

Mr. Mom

So I just got handed this computer and told to write about my, Jeremy, journey thus far as a stay-at-home dad.  I must admit, I haven't been alone with them too many times.  My mother has been good enough to come up most of the days that Sarah has worked and helped me out.  On the longer stints, I have taken the boys down to my parents.  I have, however, a few days of it being just me and the boys.

I will begin with the fact that I can only do this because I don't have to work.  That doesn't mean I don't want to work, but it just happened to work out that it would be best for me to stay at home with the boys.  Most of this is because my degree has yet to give me any return on my extremely large investment (If you want to make money out of college, get your degree in something other than Bible.  At this point, it seems that art and philosophy would grant an easier list of job opportunities).  I digress.  This was difficult at first, because I like to work.  This is mainly because I like the relationships that are built by working beside people.  That is what I miss the most.  On the other hand, I have never felt so much pride in what I do on a day-to-day basis as I do now at home with my boys.

The trick to taking care of twins by yourself is by retaining control.  This is done by getting them on a schedule so as to easily predict and control their feeding and sleeping times.  Our boys take food roughly every three hours.  Their naps usually last forty-five minutes, and they spend about 2-2 1/2 hours awake to play and eat.  The problem with this schedule is that at the beginning of the day, the boys are both hungry.  This is where you have to guess which one is hungriest, feed him first, and ignore the other one that decides he can't go without food three minutes into a feeding and proceeds to cry his head off until it is his turn.  Once he does eat, the next hurdle is the first nap.  Again, you find the most tired and try to put him down quick.  This usually sets up the schedule for the whole day.

Recently, however, Judah has decided that he doesn't want to sleep. . . ever!  So when he is tired and ready for sleep, it is usually easier to rock Foxx to sleep and let Judah cry away, as he will until he's worn himself out whether I am holding him or not.

The rest of the day I am usually playing with them on the ground, or rotating them through their various swings, seats, and toys that they have.  The hope is that they won't get bored with all of their stuff and be happy throughout the day.  (Again, recently this hasn't worked as Judah has taking up pitching fits as his favorite passed time.)

The hard part comes at the end of the day.  You see, they both get tired at 6:30.  This is when we usually give them baths, feed them, and rock them to sleep.  I can't do that.  It has worked out that way, but the last time I did that Foxx fell asleep in his pack-n-play while screaming.  I was rocking Judah to sleep upstairs.  While I hated letting Foxx cry so much, it was kind of nice being able to pick him up and lay him in his crib without having to fight him fighting sleep.

At the end of the day I am more tired than I ever was throwing 100 80lb bags of concrete in the back of a truck 10 times a day for 8 hours while working at the Home Depot.  I clean up just as much poo as I did while working in the Neuro ICU at Vanderbilt in a job whose primary job description was cleaning up poo.  I also don't get any adult conversation.  All of this would usually mean that I hate my life and want to go back to work, but I don't.  There are rare days where I would rather be working.  The truth is that I love my job right now.  I don't know how long it will last.  It could last up until they are in kindergarden, or depending on the final count of children, it could be much much longer.  I guess I hope that it lasts a long time, because even if I do ever get to use my degree I'm sure it will never be as fun or rewarding as being a house husband.



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Thanks² Day 11

I'm thankful for a husband who loves our boys so so much, is willing to be a stay at home dad and can make them laugh like this!

Thanks² Day 05, & 06

I was a slacker and missed the post yesterday, so today is 2-in-1.

I'm thankful for friends with babies the same age as my babies so they can have playmates!  

My friend Rachel had her little boy, Reiter just 2 days after my guys were born.  I'm excited that they will have at least one other little boy their same age to play with growing up!  We went over to her house the other day and had a great time hanging out.

I'm thankful for this.

2 (of 3) of my awesome boys.

Bowties and Ceiling Fans

Jeremy is obsessed with bow ties.  I got him a few for Christmas last year and he wears one almost every week to church.  When we found baby bow ties, he freaked out.  Unfortunately, we only had one collared dress shirt, so Judah was chosen to match daddy on this certain Sunday.  

Jeremy went parading around after church with Judah just like this, saying, "look at my son's awesome bow tie!".  Everyone freaked out and exclaimed how cute he was.  

Foxx did get to wear a sweater vest, which is still pretty cute.  (he did not want his picture taken it appears).

Also, let me take a moment to talk about ceiling fans.  Both our boys are in love with ceiling fans.  Any and all sorts.  They are completely mesmerized by them.  They will even turn their heads around and almost upside-down to try and look at the fan while eating.  It's pretty ridiculous.  There is a fan right above their changing table, so there is no crying during diaper changes, just coos and smiles.  I think that they smile at the fans more than they smile at us.  

Below are a few pictures of them watching said ceiling fans.  

I'm a little jealous of Mr. Ceiling Fan.  True Story.

Lullabies from Dad

I realize this is awful, awful picture quality.  It was taken with my very low-tech cell phone camera.  It was the only thing I had on hand to capture this moment.  Sorry.   

If only I had video on my phone and you could hear the audio.  This is Jeremy, singing Foxx to sleep.  The awesome thing is that Jeremy is not singing your typical lullaby songs.  Instead, our boys get sung to sleep with songs like "Bohemian Rapsody" by Queen and "Round Here" by the counting crows.  Both songs work quite well to make our boys fall asleep.  

We're just awesome like that.  

Is a mini-van knocking at our door?

This is the question that haunts my thoughts these days.  If you know anything about me, then you should know that I love cars.  Cars have become my vice over the last few years.  This bothers my mother, but the fact of the matter is that if I don't have something to take my mind away from the brokeness of the world I will surely fall into a deep depression.  This poses a problem, however, that has sprung up ever since we found out that we are having twins.  That problem is the mini-van.  You see, buying a mini-van would be the equivalent of rolling over and dying for me.  I love driving cars that are built well, can hug corners, and put a smile on my face.

A mini-van can do none of these things.  That are utilitarian vehicles with no character that focus on the things that people with children think they need.  I don't need a dvd player in my car, because this is a relatively new innovation for cars.  My parents and their parents didn't have this available but somehow managed to raise three healthy children, and so I'm sure we can do the same without it.  I don't need my seats to fold up under the floor because I'm not going to be transporting any inflated rafts in the back of the thing.  I don't need buttons that open the sliding doors for me, because I have muscles in my arms that allow them to move objects from side-to-side.

What I need is to have a vehicle that carries TWO children and all of the items needed to go shopping, on trips to grandparents, and to the park.  As far as I can tell, I can do all of that in my Jetta.  There will be a time, God willing, where we will have a third child.  The answer to that dilemma is either an SUV  (which is almost as bad as a mini-van), a station wagon with a third row (which Mercedes still make, but we could never afford the thing as they always break), or a classic VW Bus.

The VW Bus (or Samba as its called) is our dream family vehicle for a number of reasons.  The reasons we want it are mainly involving items that the mini-van lacks.  While the Samba wouldn't be especially fast or good in the corners, it would still be fun to drive because it is a classic and classics are almost always fun to drive.  Most importantly, it has character.

There is one problem with the Samba though.  The character seems to scream HIPPIES ON BOARD.  That is an issue because not only am I not a hippie, I really can't stand hippies or what they stand for.  (When I say the word "hippie" here, I am referring to the type of person that stands for free love, sex and drugs-not cool.  I am however ok with the term hippie when referred to the outdoor-loving, recycling and living with minimal luxuries type.)  The key to keeping this bus non-hippie is to keep the peace signs and flowers off of the body.  That will be increasingly hard throughout the years as Sarah will probably not be able to keep herself from plastering those items all over the bumper.  Still, I'd rather look like a hippie than dead inside.

And so, to all of you who are going to give us advice on how to raise our children.  Please, for the love of God, don't tell me that we will need a mini-van.  I really don't care how you feel about it, because I'm sure you aren't as impractical or stubborn as I am.  Just do this one thing.  Pray for Sarah, because she will be the one who has to deal with me fighting this to the death. (Whether that is literal or metaphorical)

Preparing for Kids! - By Jeremy

And so, now we are in the heat of preparation for the twins.  Our kitchen is finished and its on to the twins' room.  We have decided to go with a The Giving Tree theme as it is my favorite childhood book.  Actually, the only other book that really rivals it (other than the bible, I feel forced to say) is Dante's Inferno.  I don't think that Inferno would be a great theme for the babies' room though as all the babies stuck in Limbo may be incredibly depressing to explain.

We have a crib and a dresser now thanks to my mom, which is a huge financial load off because that stuff is EXPENSIVE.  We are also starting to accrue a large amount of clothing and are having showers scheduled for the near future.

But the preparation I am most interested in, for this blog post, has to do with discipleship.  I believe very strongly that we should all be disciples of Jesus, but the problem comes when Jesus is not physically here to disciple us.  The Rabbi/disciple model died out long ago.  Most of the time when we talk about being disciples we have no idea what we are talking about.  Essentially, a disciple went wherever their Rabbi went . . . even to the bathroom.  They would mimic everything their Rabbi did so that they would in essence become their Rabbi.  The point of this was so that the Rabbi's knowledge and interpretation/teachings of the scripture would be passed on and expounded upon over time.

Sadly we don't have that set up for ourselves today.  We may have mentors throughout our lives, but never the intimate relationship seen between a Rabbi and his disciple.  On the other hand, we become our parents.  It is a fact that is extremely hard to take.  We become the good and the bad of what we see day in and day out until we leave the house.  This can be a huge problem for people who come from volatile homes, but it can be a huge opportunity.

The answer to the brokenness of the system is for parents to disciple their children.  This adds a huge amount of pressure on us as we must now imitate Christ so that our children may, at some point, become us.  And so, for our preparation to be parents we must start practicing speaking the scriptures over and over as well as living in a way that reveals the redeemed reality set in motion by Jesus that is at odds with the world we live in.

You may think that this is impossible, and you are right in one aspect of this.  We cannot be perfect mirrors of Jesus, especially on our own merit.  We must, however, rely that God will be strong when we are weak, perfect when we are imperfect, and holy when we are secular . . . and that our kids will somehow see that when they leave home.  We don't need to turn this into a legalistic method either, as we will be building another form of the Law. (And since we are not God, that can only lead toward terrible things.)  We just need to focus on the ministry of Jesus as read by Jesus in Luke 4.  We must act out love in all things with all people.  We must put away the harsh judgments we make on the rest of the world, and instead show those called sinners the love that Jesus showed tax collectors and prostitutes.

Sorry that I got preachy there, but I guess as long as I'm preachy toward the right people it's o.k.

Adding ourselves to our new house.

There is no such thing as a house that is perfect right from the start.  Whether you are buying a house that had a previous owner or having one built, there is always a lot of work to be done to make it "your" house.  Before I start going over the renovations of our new house, lets take my parents as an example.  I grew up in a house in southwest Huntsville.  It wasn't the prettiest house, but over time my parents did a little bit here and a little bit there until it was something they were comfortable living in.  That took 15 years, and then they promptly moved.  They bought a house that was a new build, and it is a beautiful house.  They have lived there for three years and have finally put pictures on the walls.  They screened in the deck and put in a patio, along with doing some landscaping.  My parents take their time to make their house their own.

We, on the other hand, are hitting the ground hard and fast with our (24 year old) new home.  Paint is easily the fastest, cheapest, and possibly best way to make a new house feel like a home.  So we painted the day of our closing.  Now, we are still taking down wallpaper in the kitchen.  I have decided that I want to refinish the cabinets and have started the stripping, sanding, and staining process.  I have to do the stripping and the staining while Sarah is out of the house due to the fumes.   That, combined with the sheer time it takes to sand the cabinets down, means that this process will take some time.  That is hard for us, as we want it done as quickly as possible.

This is especially hard for Sarah.  The first day we started messing with the wallpaper, we were both tired.  That mixed with Sarah's ridiculous pregnancy hormones caused her to go from laughing to extreme crying while we were pulling wallpaper off the walls.  I had to call my mom for her to come up the next day and help with all of this so Sarah would have some relief.  After the call, she was crying about not being able to pull the wallpaper off easily and preceded to cry out, "I just want to cook dinner!"  I had no idea why she said this as it was 10:00 at night and still don't understand why she would yell such an absurd comment.  It has been a week and we still aren't done with the wallpaper.

The point of all of this is that it is hard work to create a home.  You can buy a beautiful new house like my parents or an older one like us, it makes no difference.  You are going to have to either shell out a small fortune having someone else fix it up for you, or you can do it yourself. (And still spend quite a bit of money)  I recommend doing it yourself.  Not only do you have the satisfaction of doing something that you get to enjoy for years to come, you also get great stories about your pregnant wife screaming hilarious statements!

Growing Up

When do you become an Adult?  I first thought that it was when I turned 18, but I definitely wasn't an adult when I was 18.  I thought that when I graduated college and got married, that then I was an adult.  But soon after that I found out that I still wasn't an adult, and true adulthood comes with kids.  Now, we are pregnant and trying to buy a house.  It would appear that I am on the eve of adulthood.  This seems ridiculous to me.  I spent my entire adolescence wishing I was a "grown up" so that I could eat what I want, do what I want, and say what I want.  Now that I am an adult, I sort of wish I wasn't.

First of all, the responsibility we crave when we are teenagers sucks when you're outside of your parent's safety fence.  Paying bills sucks, going to work sucks, and cleaning the house sucks.  Secondly, I can't do all the things I wanted to when I was a child.  If I eat whatever I want, I will become 500 lbs. in little over two weeks.  If I do what I want, I will end up in jail or with no friends.  This is because you realize that as an adult, people suck.  This is mainly due to the fallenness of creation.  I wish I could say I desire to be a redemptive force in the this world, but really I just want to yell at everyone for being so incredibly stupid.

Finally, becoming an adult makes you feel old.  Here on the eve of adulthood, I have strong memories of myself reaching up to my mother and asking to be held.  I remember being terrified of clowns (which some of you never grew out of).  I remember getting my first car, then my first speeding ticket, then having my first reck.  I remember graduating and going to college.  All of this feels like it just happened, and it did just happen.

I am only 25, but I feel old.  I know some of you who are in your 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s (if you are in your 70s, kudos for knowing how to use a computer) will say that I'm still very young, but you're just too old and senile to remember how old you felt when you were 25.  I remember my family getting our first computer in 1992.  Now, my 7 year old niece has her own laptop.  1st graders are walking around texting on their cell phones.  I didn't have my own computer until I left for college.  My first cell phone was given to me when I turned 16, and I didn't text on the thing until I met Sarah.  All of this makes me feel old because I don't understand why any of these kids need this stuff.  I didn't need this crap as a kid. As of right now, (and this may change as I am still not an adult) my kids wont get this crap until they actually need it.

And yet, I still feel young sometimes.  This usually happens when someone five years older than me starts to give me advice on life or wants to be my mentor.  I don't want to hear a 30 year old tell me how to be a successful human, as they probably have no idea what they are actually doing.  I find myself wanting to actually hear what my parents have to say on matters.  I especially want to hear what my grandma thinks about things.  When I was a kid, I would have never listened to an "old" about life.  But now, on the eve of adulthood, I realize that I know so very little about being an adult.  That ignorance is youth, but it withers quickly as the experience of adulthood forces itself into your life.

Growing up sounds so exciting as a child.  It is exciting, but it is also extremely scary.  Sarah and I, barring any unforeseen disaster or sickness, still have many, many years left to live.  There is so much we can do with our lives.  The fear is that when we are 50 we will look back and wonder how we got there so quickly.  It will happen quickly.  We will all grow old fast, so we must live.  We don't have to fill our lives with a bunch of stuff to keep us busy, but choose a few things that are important.  We must be the very best parents that we can possibly be.  We must be the best Christians we can possibly be.  And we must rely on God to fill in the gaps between our abilities.

So while we feel old now, life is just around the corner.  This is not some cheesy heaven metaphor, its about our soon to be born twins.  They will be our reason for living for the next few decades.  They will rule our lives, and I cannot be more happy about that.  The joy I feel for them overrides the old that is quickly creeping inside of me.  So, not all that comes with being an adult is bad.  As it turns out, the prospect of youth is what keeps us young at heart.

-Jeremy