Cherished Gifts

From the time Audrey was a fresh tiny little newborn placed into my arms, I have prayed in thanks for "this most precious gift". There are so many "things" given as gifts that hold importance in some people's lives. Aaron is beyond what I had hoped for in a husband & he will forever have my heart, but to me, the most precious gift I have ever received is the gift of life in our daughter,

Audrey Lynn.

I decided to celebrate that this year and buy Audrey her own beautiful flower, she got to pick out the color--she loved it. :) I also decided to buy some wine for the parents & a small bouquet for myself as a celebration & reminder of the gift I have received in Audrey & also having been a mother for two entire years. I whole heartily believe life begins at conception, therefore I became a mother 8 1/2 months earlier...however, on December 8th it became tangible & real & my heart expanded to allow an out pour of love.

I may do this every year on Audrey's birthday since December 8th is such a significant date to me. It was the day I truly became a mother receiving my most precious gift & the start of gifts to come....

One of my all-time favorite verses in the Bible:

"Every good & perfect Gift comes from above"

--James 1:17

Audrey Lynn turns TWO!

Our baby girl is Two years old!!!

Patiently waiting for her first guests to arrive..

Me Love Cookies.


Putting the finishing touches on the cake.

A very happy Birthday Girl!

Go Team Go!

Ducks vs. Beavers.

Big game.

Although a very close one, our beavers ended up losing... 33-37

And by "our" I mean 3 out of 4 of us that dressed up in Beaver attire. There was a little confusion on Audrey's part, as she had orange sleeves (beaver color) and a duck shirt. She is such a lover, not a fighter. Go everyone!

Daddy/Daughter rivalry

Popping Tums

"I spit up, Mommy. I spit up on floor. See it?"

Yes, I have seen your "output" several, several times in the past few days. Poor Baby. Get well soon, we've got to party hardy soon for your SECOND Birthday!!!

PS Have I earned enough "sick leave" hours? I'd really like to take a day off. Being a Mommy to a sick child & a growing, hungry baby is hard. Even harder with my own fever now.

I am VERY thankful for all the days through out the year that we are all very healthy!!!

Silva~Rothrock Wedding!

A few short weeks ago our cousin, Grace, commited her life to her new husband Andrew. It was such an amazing ceremony, so heartfelt and genuine. They are a wonderful couple who have a huge heart for serving the Lord & serving others. Their ceremony was a beautiful portrayal of that. All the sister's were as gorgeous as ever supporting their beloved sister. Unfortunately I have a "mother's eye" now when the camera is in my hands...meaning I really only take pictures of my kids now! But trust me, the wedding was fabulous & Grace was a most beautiful bride.

My very handsome date & husband. Lucky me.

Grandma Julie holding little Ellie Lu.

Auntie Lily & darling little Chloe.

Sparkler's for their departure, what a fun way to celebrate the ending to SUCH a Beautiful wedding!! We are SO thrilled for you two as you begin this adventure of marriage together!

We love you!

Lucy has got it good

There is no real reason why she is shirtless & wearing her Elmo slippers. Just one of those nights I guess.

She now can open up the spice/cracker/snack/swifter/pancake mix & syrup/cereal cupboard.

She usually opens it up and says "OoOoOooooh! Lots of things!" Then lists a few that she knows she's not supposed to touch.

There's the syrup, Mommy!

There's the pincakes, Mommy!

There's the sweeper, Mommy! etc..etc..

The quietly looking & recounting what she sees has now all changed. She has been taking the cereal boxes out, removing them from their nice cardboard boxes, and if she can before Mommy catches her, she shoves her little fists down in there and scoops out many a handfuls to our eager dog Lucy, who is growing by the minute.

I have yet to clean up tonight's spilled Raisin Bran.

On this particular day, Daddy had brought home two new cereals for us which Audrey thought was just downright silly to be sitting unopened...

PS The "water" she is refering to is the unopened bottle of vinegar. Oh she only wishes everything were a bottle of water to play with.

Eyes in Recovery

Adding to Audrey's list of "Funny new things I can say"

--She found an empty contact case, I put a few drops of water in it to satisfy her love of water, and for some reason she related it to medicine (since we were in the bathroom maybe??). She opened it up and splashed water onto her eyelids...

"My eyes are sick. I need medicine, make Audie feel better."

Happier times

Literally taken about 5 seconds apart...

This is such a hard age. For the parents, with out question, yes. But more so for the toddlers themselves. Audrey is almost 2 years old, and I think between age 1.5-3 is the most amount of changes, learning and growth that their little brains go through at such a rapid speed. That is not scientific at ALL, just my personal opinion. Audrey literally goes from being a sweet, pleasant, well-mannered, totally verbal and smiley girl to the complete opposite...screaming, waving her hands frantically and yelling baby babbles usually accompanied by throwing herself onto the floor or doing something intentionally wrong while staring you down in the process of doing it. It is exhausting. For both she and I.

Some days I wish someone would make me take a nap.

Her meltdowns usually occur if she's hungry or really tired. On a good day we have one meltdown. Ellie on the other hand is at stage where she does not necessarily require as much personal attention as Audrey does. She needs to be changed, fed and held. Only problem is I cannot hold her all day long like I wish I could, and like I used to with Audrey. Therefore, little Ellie dear has done a lot of crying lately due to the fact that I have had to put her down so much lately and tend to the toddler needs.

So what it comes down to is...balancing two children is hard!!!! :) I have so much respect for all those good attentive Mom's out there with multiple children...let alone having multiples (twins,trips..). I love being a Mommy to my two little girls 98% of the time. I have a lot of patience and enjoy being super silly....but wow, that 2% (or more on some days...), that are so difficult are truly exhausting. Physically & mentally. And my spirituality tends to increase with how much assistance I need to rely on from God to be the Mother to Ellie & Audrey He has called me to be. Truly the hardest job there will ever be. But on the flip side, so many beautiful precious memories are being created all the time... and I Love knowing that.

Today, both girls took turns crying their little eyes out. At times they were both crying, but that's life lately. It was the almost constant crying all day long coming from one of them that is the reason for this post. I have seen some very sad faces today, so I thought I would go through some recent pictures I've taken to remind myself how happy it does get around here...despite how today went. All of these pictures were taken within the last 2 weeks or so... Already I'm smiling at the possibility, the hope, the prayer! that tomorrow may look something like this........ :)

Ellie's First Smiles!

Little smirks.....

Just before she was 6 weeks old, Ellie began to smile! That has got to be one of the biggest highs to see your child smile for the first time. Truly. It is addicting. You get them to smile that first time, or eventually laugh, and you continue to do anything and everything to make it happen again and again and again... It's intoxicating and beautiful.

Such a simple joy to marvel at the ability to smile. :)

Appropriately enough, Grandma Lu was the first to be able to get her namesake, Ellie Lu, to produce such a joyous smile. Luckily I was there, and even luckier I had my camera with me!!

A true, intentional, looking straight into your eyes--Smile

Ebby buddy dancing!

"Audie like dancing..."

one at a time she picks up nearby "friends"

"bunny you wanna dance?

...baby you wanna dance?

...dis baby dancing too?

...come on Millie, we dance toget-her."

proudly holding all of her friends in her arms...

"Ebby buddy dancing!!!!" :)

on an adorable side note..........

I wanted to put it on record that my husband, Aaron, the ultra masculine, man's man who, on occasion dresses in full on camo, coming home with leftover war paint smeared across his face & carrying more ammo & guns than most people would be aware of...

elite member of the Oregon State Swat team...

by request of his oldest precious daughter, put

pigtails in her hair today.

I won't mention this to the guys................Many more to come, sweetheart :) I meant pigtail requests...not girls... although we ARE on track with the Silva 4 ;)
Also on record....he did a GREAT job with her hair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gold coins in my shoes!!!!!

This post is for my Mom, as she might be the only one (besides my family), who would understand what I'm talking about...

So the other night at around 3am, I sleepily stumbled out of our room & into the kitchen to refill my water cup. On my way, I glanced over into our dark mess-of-a-living-room, toys sprung everywhere, blankets, animals and random socks laying about. Some (okay most..) nights I decide to go to bed rather than pick up what will inevitably return to the same state, this was one of those nights. As regular of a sight it may be, something caught my eye. My shoes were laying right in the middle of the floor, obviously for me to find...or so I thought. Since I was:

a) Sleepy

b) Couldn't place what the date was, or let alone the month at 3am..

c) Wasn't wearing my glasses, therefore could BARELY see my own hand in front of me (I'm blind)

I immediately thought my Mom -must have- snuck into our house to fill my shoes for St. Nicholas Day!!! The shoes were clearly placed so that I could not avoid them, and they seemed to be carefully filled up with little gifts.

How did she get in with out us hearing??

I couldn't believe it was already St. Nicholas Day!!

Oh boy, what kind of little gifts did I get this year??

What day WAS it........... Isn't St. Nick day in December?..??

My mind was racing...with excitement!!

However....at a closer look there weren't any candies, chap sticks or even the traditional chocolate gold coins in my shoes.. As I got within inches (I'm blind remember) of my shoes, I began to laugh out loud at myself....

My shoes were carefully lined with little plastic animals. These were not the "gifts" I had hoped for at 3am, but it definitely gave me a good sleepy laugh. :)

Tiny Baby

We don't quite know where she picked up the term, since we usually use "little" or "small" as terms to describe something of a certain size...But somehow, with out being prompted, Audrey took one look at her new little baby sister in the hospital and made a very accurate description calling her

"Tiny Baby"

You hope your older child would have an easy adjustment to this new little being taking up a good part of the attention they've been getting...but you never truly know until the baby arrives...

She loves to help change diapers by handing us wipes.

She loves to try to tuck her in....while being closely supervised. (The phrase: "Not her face, just her body" is something Audrey now repeats when tucking in her animals since she hears it so much...)

Without fail, first thing in the morning or after a nap, she asks "Where Ellie Lu go?" wanting to see her baby sister.

She loves to lean in real close and look at her face-to-face.

She loves to "hold" her...

(Mommy holds her, just places her onto Audrey's lap)

She loves to help Mommy pat her back gently after a feeding.

She loves to collect baby socks from around the house to put them on her "tiny toesies"

She loves to soothe the crying baby by similar terms Mommy uses: "Baby, why you so sad? It's okay Ellie Lu. I pick you up. Come-mere..."

She loves her "Tiny Baby", and we love that she loves her.

See you in the Spring!!

Well....after another long overnight stay in the hospital this past weekend, we've once again decided never to let Audrey leave the house. This time we mean it. What starts as a little cold that the average toddler would get over after a few days turns into pneumonia/respiratory problems/dehydration...There really is nothing we can do to prevent this from happening again. Last October is when Audrey was first hospitalized for pneumonia, then two months later had some respiratory issues combined with ear infection combined with stubbornness to eat & drink thus making her once again totally dehydrating & needing an IV.....Well it's October folks, which means here we are again at the start of the cold sick season....

Let's look on the bright side, shall we?

At least it was only one night instead of two or three like the last visits...

At least Aaron was in town & was able to stay with me, switching off girls with whoever needed care/feeding...

At least Ellie was able to sleep in between feedings, thus giving us more time to care for Audrey...

At least Aaron isn't sick (all of us girls are now...)

At least it wasn't swine flu (they checked her for it..although that may have been easier to treat than getting pneumonia..)

At least she only needed to have 8 IV pokes attempting to get it in her tiny dehydrated veins this time (15 the first visit, 9 the second visit)

At least having worked in the ER gives you some benefits, like getting seen right away..having prompt care..having Ellie's congested nose checked out with out being checked-in (shhh...)

At least we've almost met our max limit for out of pocket expenses with hospital costs...

At least we're home now..

*

Audrey is doing much better, so we are very thankful for that. But we're getting awfully tired of going through these same motions. We continue to pray that her body will grow stronger and eventually be able to recover from simple colds on her own. We are thankful for modern medicine and the ability to heal her through antibiotics, and also for wonderful neighbors who care enough to, once home, bring us food each time we've had to go through this.

Aaron has since banned me from taking the girls to library "story time"...although her Doctor and I both think she got sick playing with all the toys in the waiting room of the doctor's office at Ellie's last visit--the day before she got sick. If the Dr is willing to admit she probably caught the cold there, you know those things never get washed. Eww.

So, we'll see you in the Spring when we shall remove the bubble from around Audrey we're about to put her in!!

Swiping, Wiping and Soothing makes you Super!

As this is the first week Aaron has gone back to work since being on Family Leave, we girls have decided to be busy little bees. To the Park, to the Dr. for Ellie's check-up, to Library "Story Time" one morning & to the Library for "Busy Hands & Feet" Music Time the next morning...going going going. It has been a lot of fun, and a lot less work than I imagined it would be. So far anyway....most likely due to the fact that I just strap Baby Ellie in my front pack and she sleeps the entire time we're anywhere...but still, even getting them both in & out of the car has been a fairly easy new adjustment.

However, our little sickie, Audrey Lynn (Who, Praise God, hasn't been sick in months!!!) can only handle so many new germs before her body decides to be sick again. Therefore, one of those visits outside of the home has given Audrey a little bug. No fever, which is great, but she has been a snotbucket for the past day and 1/2, but has been a very cheerful girl for the most part! (Again Praise God!!!!!!!!!!!) So yesterday when we were in need of some things from the grocery store, I fed Babycakes Ellie, stuffed my pockets full of kleenex and off we went.

It was a very successful trip, until we arrived at the check stand. My little trick when going grocery shopping with Audrey is to first stop somewhere and get her a small fry, we eat one or two on the way, but save the majority for when we are in the store.

When the fries are out, Mommy needs to be out of the store.

We arrived at the check stand and the fries were out.

Happiness quickly turned into frantic "Up on Mommy! Up on Mommy! Up on Mommy!" meaning the Big One was tired of patiently sitting in the shopping cart.

The Little One was beginning to wake up and was indicating she was hungry (as were my lactating "girls") with small little cries...increasing the more awake she became.

I felt like I had a fever all of a sudden, my pulse was racing, I started to feel anxious and hot.... I'm unloading groceries onto the belt, stealing grapes out of the bag at the demand of my toddler, I'm patting the tush of my tummy tag-a-long, Ellie in the front pack, swiping my debit card, wiping miss snotty nose with loads of kleenex falling out of each pocket, both dirty and clean (which were completely mixed up by that time) all while trying to make a pleasant small-talk conversation with the nice checker man about who knows what...

Then out of this chaotic fog he says:

"Wow, you're pretty much Super Mom!"

Thank you check stand man--I needed that.

Art School

Painting....Although more intrigued about the water changing different colors than actually putting paint onto paper.

We've all been there.

Non-toxic...right?

The Princess & the Pea

Mommy continues to firmly tell her to plant her little tush back on the chair, and to quit standing up

Mommy realizes she is still too little to accurately see her own masterpiece because of her shortness

Mommy creates a make-shift booster chair out of multiple chair pads from around the table.

Audrey sits still for 25 minutes, painting, not trying to stand up once.

Audrey loves having "Art School"

Mommy is finally able to enjoy "Art School"

Introducing Miss Ellie Lu

With open arms we joyfully welcomed

Ellie Lu

September 12th at 6:18am

Weighing a perfectly healthy 7lbs & measuring 20.5" long

A blessing to many including her Daddy, Mommy

&

Big Sister Audrey

Audrey-Pie

1 month old

2 months old

21 months old--today

My Dearest Audrey,

You have grown so much, you have learned so much, you have so much personality and have brought SO much joy into my life. How could it be that just a few short months ago you were a tiny newborn who I adored looking at? I could have studied your face for hours.

Your face is still my favorite sight. I adore looking at you even more now that I know you so well, my precious. I used to whisper to you all the time, "Do you know how much I love you?" I think you know now, but in case you have even the slightest doubt once your little sister arrives I want you to know that the spot in my heart for you will never be replaced, filled, or forgotten. I have a hard time understanding what it will mean for my heart to expand even more with another child. I know it will happen since I already love Ellie so much. We will all have to make room in our hearts for little sister. She already has such a huge advantage having you as her big sister. What a gift to her! You loving her could never be a better gift. I am so excited for us all to meet her, but I'm more excited for Ellie to meet you and to get to know you as well as I know you. You could not have been a more precious love to me in the past 21 months. We'll get through the next few months together, welcoming home baby sister. This could be one of our very last days together, just the two of us, so I wanted to thank you, sweet Audrey, for making me love being a Mommy so much more...

I'll Love you Forever,

Mommy