Baby Names

(** I totally stole this idea from a blog I just read**)

All the time I explain to people how we came up with our kids names. I wish I had some really great stories but I really don't but I am going to tell you anyways.

Emma Elizabeth

 



 

Emma Elizabeth. I just love this name. Emma is a name that I have loved since I was a little girl. Just a name that has stuck with me. Elizabeth is my grandma's middle name. And since my grandma is pretty amazing I decided that my daughter should be pretty amazing too. And when I say "I" decided the name I pretty much did. I was very lucky that my husband (the first one..LOL) was pretty great with letting me get my way with her name. Honestly I would found a way to name her this no matter what. Emma Elizabeth.....just amazing.

 

 

Landon Alexander

 

Baby number two - Landon Alexander. This name took us FOREVER to come up with. This is my first child with husband number two. He was not as laid back in the name department as the first one. I received an awesome baby name book and we literally went through the WHOLE ENTIRE BOOK. I made a list of names that I liked, not loved, but liked. Then I took the list to Matt and he pretty much vetoed all of them. Landon's name wasn't even on my original list. So I made Matt look in the book. He said the only one he sorta liked was Landon and I said "DONE". End of story. Landon is his first name. His middle name was a no brainer. Alexander. That was my grandpa's name. Just like my grandma, my grandpa is one of the most amazing men I have ever known. I am honored to have Landon have his middle name. Many, many men on my side of the family have the name Alex or Alexander. Right after he was born he totally looked like a Landon Alexander.

 

Chase Allen Lee

 

Now this one was a doosy. Since my first two children had some name from my family, Matt DEMANDED to have his middle name for this child's middle name. And there was no changing his mind. I had all these great names picked out that I loved. The only problem is I had used the middle name of Joseph (a prominent family name for my husbands side). I thought if I gave him Joseph he would be ok. I picked out Ethan Joseph and Aiden Joseph, neither name would of went well with Allen. Boo. He would not back down on the use of his middle name, Allen. And then I find out he does not care for names that begin with vowels...LOL. I really can't remember how we came up with Chase. I think we both saw it, liked it and that was that. I filled out all the paper work with the name Chase Allen. I had it all ready to roll for when the big day came. Well the big day came. We named him. I stayed hooked up to some IV drugs because I was having surgery the next day. Fast forward to next day after surgery. I was all drugged up and not thinking clearly. I called down to the records office and asked if I could change my babies name. I did. Chase Allen Lee. I added the Lee in honor of my brother. This is his middle name. Oops. And I kinda didn't tell Matt about it. Oops. He didn't find out until we got Chase's social security card in the mail. Oops. Luckily I have a great husband and he didn't kill me.

 

 

***Just some funny notes about my kids names

 

Emma's name is perfect. I didn't even have a back up name in case she turned out to be a boy. Her initials are EED, not to bad either.

 

Landon's name would of been Grace Irene. Grace being another name I love and Irene is the name of my grandma and one of Matt's grandma's. Landon's initials are LAW - this can go either way. He can either do good for the law or end up in the system..LOL

 

Chase's name would of been Isabella Grace. Those are just two names that I love. Chase's initials are CAW..and this just makes me laugh. The best part about Chase's name is filling out paperwork. I learned that when you fill out papers you only use the initial of his first middle name. So this would be Chase A. Wolfe. Wait for it to sink in. Wait. Wait. Wait. Did you get it yet??? Yep, this constantly cracks us up. Chase A. Wolfe.

 

And that's it. That's the story behind my kids names. Hope you were all entertained.

I hate resolutions.....

Well this New Years Resolution is not off to a great start like I hoped it would :(

I had a short list of things I would like to accomplish and dates to have them accomplished by.

It is now January 23rd and I have done squat. The two things that come to mind are that I wanted to write two blog posts per week and to lose another 40 lbs by June 1st. Well, writing is sporadic and so is my diet.

I lost my weight loss partner because she decided to go have another baby. Without the accountability I just suck at it. I lost my first 40lbs with her and that's it. Nothing more. I'm cheating left and right. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to lose another 40 by June 1st. I need to get some will power and just do it!!! I could sit here and tell you that I'm trying but the truth is, I'm not. I am a little but not like I was when we were doing it together. She is a really great motivator. She pushes me. She tells me when I am eating like crap. She is honest. She  holds me accountable. Without her I can do whatever I want because I have no one to answer to.

I've tried to make other friends online through the weight loss sites I belong to but it's not the same. She knows me. She knows all my bad habits. Now I'm all whiny and need cake.

As far as my other resolution, writing 2 blog posts per week. Um, yeah, I suck at that. It's not that I don't have anything to write about because believe me I have plenty. Ever since I made this blog kinda of known to all my friends and family there are just certain things I can't write about. Boo. I am going to start putting more of an effort into writing though. I love it. I may not be good at it but I love it. I write as if I am speaking, no seriously, like a little voice in my brain in talking and my fingers are typing. It's kind of creepy to me.

Oh well, it's about time for me to call it a night. I will leave you with one picture from this past week though.

I did complete one project on my yearly todo list. I bought a crap ton of photo storage boxes and organized every single picture I had. They are all nicely organized and labeled in their boxes. As I was organizing I came across this beautiful card. I have no idea when this was given to me or by who. The day I found this is the day I REALLY needed to find this. I keep it beside my bed now. I read it often. This card keeps me in check. This card renews my faith in Christ every single time I read it. This card keeps me focused. Keeps my eye on the prize. I am eternally grateful for this card. I just wish I could remember when and who it came from. Maybe is really was from Jesus.

Housebound

Ugh. We have pretty much been housebound since Thanksgiving. It's been a blast!! NOT!!!

I will try to keep this story short. We found out the Tuesday before Thanksgiving that my daughter had a head FULL of lice. Like I am talking FULL of lice. I shudder thinking about it. We treated her that night, kept checking her, treated her again, treated me, kept checking.

We stayed pretty much away from people :( That means hardly any parties, no church, etc.

By Christmas Eve I thought we had the problem solved. It was great. Being with humans again. Being around friends and family.

Well, the day after Christmas we found out she had lice again, along with Landon and Chase. UGH.

So after treating her and it not working and discussing it with Matt, we decided to take her to a local  professional lice removal place. It was 100% guaranteed and she gets checkups every week for a few weeks after. So we dropped a crap ton of money and got her treated. We shaved the boys heads and picked all the nits out by hand.

We kept Emma home for almost two weeks. No friends. No dads house. Almost nothing.

After that we decided it would be ok for her to go back to her dads. That was just this past weekend.

She will get one more checkup Tuesday or Wednesday at the lice removal place and if she is lice free will be given the green light to reenter society. We can go to church. We can hang with friends. We can do sleepovers.

It's been a long month. I feel so out of the loop. I feel disconnected. I watch my church's service online but it's just not the same as going and seeing everyone. I love to talk and catch up with everyone. I love the fellowship. It's been hard.

So please be patient with us. We will be back at church soon. I know deep down they appreciate me NOT bringing me or my kids to church with LICE.

2012 n- A Year in Review

Just like last year I am proudly giving you a year in review month by month......

January -  The very warm January. It was so great. We played out outside with hoodies on almost the whole month. We even went to the zoo on January 30th in t shirts...craziness for Ohio. We also took the kids to see the Lorax.

February - Hmmm, Matt and the boys went to go see the Harlem Globetrotters and we have Valentines Day on which we had no sitter so we all went to Roadhouse for some steak. Blah. This is also the month where I decided to lose weight because of an incident that I will never talk about.

March - Spring Break and Easter......

April -  Emma's big 10th BIRTHDAY BASH!!! We had a HUGE party for her. Like huge. It was alot of fun!!

May -  Month of VACATIONS!! We went to Florida in the beginning of May. We drove. It was long. But while we were down there we spent alot of time with my brother, sister in law and niece and nephew. We also went to Magic Kingdom, Sea World and Coco Beach among other little things. It was completely awesome. Then we came home for 10 days and hoped back in the car and went to Ocean City, Maryland for 5 days to celebrate Memorial Day. A ton of my family was there, we have so many crabs (some of which my hubby caught, yep, they went crabbing), we had a blast at the beach and the boardwalk. It was probably the best vacation ever!!!

June - My baby Chase graduated from preschool!! We also celebrated my grandma's 85th birthday!!!

July - Ran my first 5K ever!! We ended up doing the Color Run in Columbus and it was soooooo awesome!! And since we were kid free we decided to have ourselves a fancy adult dinner at the Melting Pot. BEST.MEAL.EVER.

August - My 32nd birthday and the start of football and cheer season..ugh, but on a high note my kids got in to be the Light Parade, right in the front...

September - Kids went back to school. Chase in K, Landon in 1st and Emma in 5th. And of course football and cheer..ugh..again. We went on a mini trip to Lima, OH. Matt was working a car show so me and the kids went exploring. We ended up at the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum and it was actually pretty cool.

October - Pumpkins, Halloween and all that jazz. Landon and Chase were ninjas. They were the same one because they said that no one would be able to tell them apart..LOL. And of course football and cheer...ugh

November - oh November, how I love thee. This month was crazy busy. We had Chase's birthday, Landon's birthday, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and a whole bunch of other parties and events including Emma's cheer. Since they made it into the playoffs they were still going strong till mid November.

December - And one of my favorite months...December. Christmas was awesome this year. We were busy almost every weekend and sometimes during the week. The kids really got into the holiday spirit. We made sure they learned the true reason for the season. And they did, go ahead, quiz them..LOL (oh and I hit my goal of losing 40 lbs!!!)

I'm sure a whole bunch of other stuff happened this year but my brain hurts from trying to remember it all. If I think of something I might edit this and add it.

Random Act of Kindness.....

This is a post about a random act of kindness. No, I did not do one (yet), my hubby and I were the very grateful recipients of one.

It happened almost 3 hours ago and I am still in shock and awe.

Every Christmas Eve we go out to dinner. We like to hit up a local hibachi spot called Otani's. It's a hole in the wall, small, dim, needs a good scrubbing but the food is good and the price is good. You basically get a BOGO with the Entertainment Card.

So this year we went back. There was practically no one in there. A few minutes after we were sat the hostess brought a little but older couple to sit with me, Matt and the boys. We chatted for a few minutes about the kids, about Christmas and about the restaurant. Other then that, we enjoyed are meal and talked between our family.

When the check came the waitress handed me back my Entertainment Card but not the little plastic thing the bill comes on. I just sat there like "huh". I looked at the waitress hand BOTH of them to the couple sitting with us. They told us we have a beautiful family and this one is on them.

I sat there completely shocked. I felt my eyes tear up. I had a few run down my face. At that point it was kind of a blur. I know Matt and I both asked them if they were sure. I asked them if they were serious.

Lately you have been hearing about all these random acts of kindness. I have heard of so many awesome things my friends and family are doing. It felt weird to be on the receiving end. I was extremely grateful and humbled. I felt more alive. I felt my spirit in people renewed. I felt Christmas. I'm not sure if you can feel Christmas, but I'm telling you, I felt Christmas.

I know these people don't follow my blog but I just have to say a HUGE THANK YOU!!! Money is tight. I saved and budgeted so we could go out to dinner like we always do. I dislike breaking tradition. Now our bank account can breathe a little. We only have $40 in the account and I know the dinner would of been close to $30, then we hit up McDonald's to get the boys a Happy Meal (they don't eat our kinda food). Our bank account would been left with literally a few dollars till Friday.

With that being said, I am going to talk to Matt and discuss how he wants to pay it forward. We now have an extra $30 (we still stopped and got the boys some grub). I want to spread it around as far as it will go. We have everything we need till Friday. We have gas in our cars and food in the fridge. We are set. So now I want to go spread some Christmas. I want someone to feel as good as I did tonight.

It's that time of year again......

Yep, Christmas time.

The joyous time of year where I am reminded that I don't have a father (here on earth). Yep, Father's Day and Christmas are really good of reminding me of that fact.

My dad left when I was about 7 and was in and out of my life from then. He had a pretty rough life with drugs, alcohol, jail and so on. It really didn't bother me (too much) until he died in 2010. Before he died I always knew he was around. Always knew he would pop in again. That was comforting. After he died I knew I would never see him again. Never get a chance to build a real relationship with him. I didn't so much mourn his death but I mourned of what I would be missing. Missing the chance to be with him. Missing the chance for him to meet my kids. Missing everything. At least when he was still alive there was a chance I would see him on Christmas. I know your probably wondering why I even cared so much anyways, why I loved a man I barely knew. Back in 2007 I met with my dad at his place of living, a local homeless shelter. We had one of the best conversations. My dad admitted he screwed up, he admitted that drugs and alcohol took over his life. He said it was never his plan to leave his kids the way he did. We said the I love you's and we never saw each other again. I found peace with my dad that day. I saw the remorse in his eyes. I knew he had addictions and some addictions are so powerful that you find yourself doing things you never thought you would.

My dad passed away on May 15, 2010. From the moment we found out it was a whirlwind piecing together the last few years of his life. He died coming home from the dentist. He got off the bus, walking towards his home, had a massive heart attack and died instantly on the side of the road.

My dad had a case worker that was helping him get his life together and she did. When my dad died he had an apartment with clothes, food, furniture and even a small flat screen TV. My sister and I spent a couple hours cleaning it out. It was so weird. I felt like I was in a strangers house but at the same time I was saddened because I knew this was my dads house. I kept a few things from his house and have them set around my house. I wanted something of his to remember him by.

About 8 weeks after he died I was able to call the coroner and find out cause of death and toxicology reports. I found out that my father has passed away with NO DRUGS and NO ALCOHOL in his body. This was a major thing for me. I have heard all my life that he was getting clean, he was going to be different, blah, blah, blah. This time he actually did it. He did it. I have never been prouder of my dad. He took a 30ish year addiction and broke it.

At the time I found this out I was so incredibly happy and so sad. I was happy  for the reasons above but sad because now that he was completely sober I would never get to reap the benefits of it, never. It still makes me so sad.

With all that being said, my grandpa, had always stepped in to take over the dad role. From my earliest memories, I always remember being with him and my grandma. Most of my childhood pictures are with my grandpa and grandma. I spent so many nights there. I went on so many vacations with them. I am not going to go into the reasons I was there so much, that's for a nother post. Every major event or decision revolved around them. When I would oversleep for school my grandpa would come and pick me up and take me but not without a pit stop at McDonald's first. Sometimes I would over sleep on purpose and I think he knew that. We would run errands together. My grandpa walked me down the aisle when I married my first husband. He dressed up and looked so handsome. I have many pictures of us two that day that I proudly display even though I have since remarried (only pictures of me and him, not the ex..LOL). There is just so much I could write. I just can't seem to get my thoughts in order right now.

My grandpa died May 18, 2001. That was a horrible horrible day. I don't think I have even felt pain like that before. It was all such a blur. The whole weekend.

So with these two men gone what do I have left. Pretty much nothing. And, yes, I know that I do have my heavenly Father and I am so thankful for that, but it's just not the same. I have no one to buy gifts for. No one to ask for advice. You know, that sorta thing. I don't have a great relationship with my father in law. There are only two men who are really there in a father sense. One is my uncle. He walked me down the aisle at my second wedding. He gives advice. He is great to talk to. BUT, he has his own family, his own kids, his own grandkids. I have to try and not overstep my boundaries. The other person is my ex father in law. He really has done a alot for me. I can't tell you how many times I've called him in a pickle and he helps me out. I could go on and on about him but again, I have to watch my boundaries. This is my ex father in law. He has a new daughter in law.

So for the past two years I have spent the holidays honoring my husband. He is a father, but not mine. He is a great man who deserves to be honored.

But it's just not enough. I have some kinda hole in me. I have a yearning for a dad. I think I had better just give up this hope. It's so hard to let go of the wanting and needing a father.

Here is my and my dad in September 2007, the last time I ever saw him.

Here is me and my grandpa (photo taken by grandma). We are celebrating my birthday. One of my favorite pictures ever.

Trip down memory lane.....

Both the boys birthdays are in November. Chase is the 6th and Landon is the 29th. My boys are 11 months apart.

I've spent alot of time this month thinking about when they were little. Remembering how I felt like we were never going to make it through alive. I remembered all the crying. All the poop. All the sleepless nights. All the poop. All the bottles. All the poop. All doctors appointments. And did I mention, all the poop. I nicknamed our house "Poop City". Seriously, I did because seriously it was.

I remember all the people telling me it would get better. Sure, certain things got better but with each new age came new issues and problems.

As I was looking for the boys birthday pictures this month I got a chance to look at the thousands of pictures I took. I sat on my bed thinking about how much I missed those little babies. Those cute little chubby faces (well, Chase, not Landon, Landon has always been a twig..LOL). My uterus aches for another baby. But Matt and I cannot have anymore babies. (well, truth be told, Matt can but I would kill him). After Chase was born I had my tubes tied the day after (which I DO NOT recommend if you have a vaginal birth!! If you have a c-section then fine, your already cut open but DO NOT give birth vaginally then have them cut your stomach open. This equals double recovery time. Trust me. Don't let them fool you. And even LONGER recovery time when your incision gets infected). If this was the only thing stopping us, we could fix it but in August of 2008 I had to have an ablation of my uterus. So basically they just burned it all out. I still have all my girly parts and I know sometimes the tubal can reverse naturally and sometimes your uterus can heal it self but odds are not looking to good for me. Oh, well. I have my 3 babies and I am so happy with that.

And now I leave you with some really cute pictures of my kids..... ENJOY!!

Emma at 2 1/2 

Emma at 2 1/2 and me

Just a few hours after Chase was born - First photo with all 3 kids.

Right before Chase was born. Landon is 11 months and Emma is about 3 1/2

Yep - Chase is my belly and got my girl right beside me.

Still at the pumpkin patch...

Just after a bath at the new house. Chase is about 6 months old and Landon is 17 months old.

Landon about 17 months old.

Chase about 6 months old and yes he is playing with cords.

First Christmas card with all 3 kids. Emma is 4 1/2, Landon is 1 and Chase is about a month old.

I could go on and on with adorable pictures of these three. Honestly as much as I loved the baby stages, I am so happy to see them grow into their own little people. And they are all pretty awesome.