Pullen Park

Now I don't want to sound all me-me-me, but Pullen Park is a magical part of my childhood.  When Ben and I moved back to NC it was being remodeled and I was slightly depressed that we couldn't take the kids there.  But now it's open and the magic is still there.  There are still the paddle boats, the 100 year-old carousel, and best of all -- the train. 

 

We loved it so much that we had to go two nights while Ben's parents were in town.  We brought a picnic for dinner (while discouraging the kiddos from feeding the ducks NC BBQ.... sorry if we killed any of them....) and enjoyed the time together.  Here are some pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 This picture cracks me up.  I love how Mum's face is hidden behind Lily and so it looks like Ben's wearing capris and a Samoan shirt.  Love it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Things I Love

 

Things I Love

 

Babies who grin when they're drinking a bottle and have milk oozing out the sides of their mouth.

 

How Lily calls me "Little Mama" when she's happy with me and "Mommy Macbeth" when she's mad.

 

Chocolate.  Lots and lots of chocolate.  Especially chocolate moose tracks ice cream.

 

When I'm cold in Sacrament Meeting and ask Ben if I can hold Ella and he gives me the "I don't want to share" look.

 

That with the new video monitors we have set up in both kids rooms, I can also talk to them through the camera.  When we first set it up we watched as Skyler got out of bed.  I turned on the mic and said, "Skyler, get back in bed."  He freaked out and said, "Okaaaay!!!!  Where are you???"  It's nice to know that I can scare my kids every now and then.  :)

 

Fun get togethers with fun friends.

 

That Ben loves his new job.

 

That Ella has four rolls on each thigh.  Yum.

 

Discovering fun new books.

 

When Ben brings home surprise flowers, just because.

 

That I actually let myself believe that all calories consumed during night feedings don't actually count.

 

Witnessing touching moments with my Primary kids.

 

Having paid off Ben's student loans making our house our only debt.  Woot!

 

Having the three cutest kids on the planet.  Seriously, what are the odds?  ;)

 

 

Nursing Controversy

You'll never guess who gave Ella her whale jammies.  Thank you Nanni and Papa. If clothes are the only thing "Whale-ish" that are passed on to my kids, I am so so happy for them.  They'll never have to deal with people saying, "Your name is Heather Wally?"  "It's pronounced Whale.  Just like the animal."  "Really?  WOW." *Blank stare*

 

If you feel uncomfortable reading about controversial topics, DO NOT READ THIS BLOG POST. 

 



 I have been really fortunate.  All 3 of my kids picked up nursing within 5 minutes at the hospital.  The starts of nursing were all easy but the continuation proved to be a different story.  I had to be re-hospitalized 2 weeks after I had Lily and was put on non-nursing medication.  Luckily, she picked up formula feeding easily.  Skyler on the other hand refused taking a bottle at all costs and solely nursed for 10 months. 

 

This time around, I planned to nurse Ella for the full first year, not because I enjoy nursing, but because it's free.  Does that make me shallow?  Probably. 

 

I really did have a goal to enjoy everything that came with having a baby this time around.  I didn't enjoy nursing Skyler so I made it a goal to try to enjoy nursing this time around.  And in the beginning, I thought my change of perspective was actually working.

 

But then my experience with Skyler started repeating itself.  When people ask me why I hated nursing so much, I usually just say that it's because both Lily and Skyler took about an hour to nurse each time.  So that was literally 8 hours of my day sitting and feeding a baby.  I knew that was ridiculously long and not normal.  But Skyler continued to do that all the way up to 10 months. 

 

But that's not the main reason why I hate nursing.  I usually don't like to talk about the real reason:  no matter how positive I try to stay during the day, I get a panic attack every single time I get let down.  Then I get hit by a wave of depression. I don't even have to be nursing to get pulled under -- just get let down. I've tried to control it, but I can't.  I can actually tell about 20 seconds beforehand that I'm going to get let down because I'll go from happy and smiling to panicking and holding back tears.  WEIRD.  It makes no sense to me, but then I've given up on trying to make sense of the human body and all of its craziness. 

 

A little over a week ago Ben and I decided that enough was enough.  Yes, I know that breast milk is nutritionally best, but honestly, formula is pretty dang awesome, too.  Unless of course you accidentally get some in your mouth (don't ask) and then it's not so awesome.  But in this case, formula is a saving grace to me.  I absolutely love bottle feeding. 

 

So ever since that day, I have been weaning Ella slowly to a bottle and she has been doing great.  This in turn has lifted my spirits immensely.  It must be something chemically or hormonally related, but I can feel emotional freedom now. 

 

So sorry when I kind of roll my eyes whenever people say that breast is always best.  I don't really agree.  I don't think that Lily and Ella are going to stand out just because they were bottle fed.  I think they'll be fine. 

 

One thing that I think is better than giving babies breast milk, is having a happy environment at home.  And if bottle feeding is the way to do that, then I don't feel any guilt whatsoever.   



Home

Lily does this every time Ben and I have to get ready to go somewhere.  Does she ever share her blankie with Skyler?  Nope.

The other night I was holding Ella in my arms.  It was probably sometime around 3 AM and I was rocking in her recliner.  It was dimly lit by her night light, which was just enough for me to see her cute little eyes wide open and staring directly at me.  At first my thoughts were, “Okay…. you want to go to sleep now, right???  Doesn’t that sound soooo nice???”  But as I kept staring at her it hit me.  This is amazing.  What I normally refer to as “The Little Bundle of Cuteness” is this huge spirit in a tiny body.  I wondered if she was homesick.  I made her room a nature theme for a reason, and for that same reason, I love taking Ella outside.  

I think it was her second day home.  We had just put Lily and Skyler in bed and Ben wanted to show me how big some of the watermelons were getting in our garden.  So I picked up Ella and we went outside.  She had the same look in her eyes as when I held her that one night.  Her eyes were wide and focused, just staring at the sunset.  

I don’t remember who said it, but I read an article written by some general authority, and he said that the reason why every human being is in awe by nature is because it reminds us of home – our true home.  Because there we had flowers and sunsets and mountains and oceans, too.  All of this is just a reflection of our past.  And our future.

When I get a rare chance of quiet alone time with Ella, sometimes I catch myself tearing up.  She was just there.  And I’ve learned not to feel guilty for transporting this little person from one world to another.   I’m sure our last home was incredible.  I’m sure there was beauty beyond description.  But you know what?  Even though this world is so imperfect, I get to see the beauty of each day through my children, since they are Heavenly Father’s greatest creations.  

I don’t know how Heavenly Father can trust us to parent His children.  I can barely let my own kids hold Ella without blinking to make sure that she stays in one piece.  But I’m grateful that I have this opportunity to see the beauty of His creations, even if it does come in the silence at 3 AM.  

Funemployment Coming To An End

WARNING:  Lengthy post.

Last time we were unemployed it was hard.  Really really hard.  And I stressed out to the max.  As in I lost about 20 pounds within a few months.

But this time around we felt a ton of peace.  Which, really, made no sense because we have to be a little more financially responsible now since we have extra bills plus a mortgage now.  But I'm so grateful we felt that peace.  I think that part of it was because as soon as we made it public that Ben was unemployed, our phone was flooded with calls and texts, our inboxes filled with emails, and whenever we were out people would come and give us love and/or leads to possible jobs.  I don't even know how many job leads we were given, and how many temporary jobs we were offered from dear friends.  So if you ever need to know how much you're loved, just get laid off.  Or maybe you should just keep your job.  Yeah... that'd probably be best.

But once it became clear to Ben and me that unemployment wasn't going to last for too long (more about that in a minute) we decided to turn unemployment into "funemployment" and treat it like vacation.  So we took the kids to the dollar theater.  We went out for ice cream and BBQ.  We played at the park.  We walked around the temple grounds.  We had lots of picnics (or "pick-a-licks" according to Lil and Skyler) on our living room floor.  Basically we have had a blast and we're lucky enough that Ella's all for going along for the ride.

So here's where our story starts: Ben's old boss recommended Ben to a recruiter, and he contacted Ben the day we had Ella.  Since we were a little busy, we told him we'd talk to him later.  So he came to the hospital the next day and met up with Ben.  He already had a perfect potential job in mind for Ben that needed to be filled ASAP.  So an interview was scheduled for a few days later.  In the meantime, Ben was contacted by a second recruiter who found his resume online.  She had another job that needed to be filled ASAP.  A phone interview was scheduled.

The best thing we did was make sure that both recruiters knew that we were looking at two different jobs. So they both contacted their own companies and basically told them that they had to offer top dollar to try to sway us.  You can imagine that we didn't mind at all.  ;)

The phone interview came first.  It was on a Friday.  Ben was offered the job on the spot.  Ben told them he wanted to wait to give them an answer until he heard back from the other company.  Fortunately, they were understanding and agreed.  Ben's second interview came on the following Monday.  He was the first of three guys being interviewed for the job.  We weren't sure if he would even get an offer because the other two had MBA's but zero experience and Ben had the opposite.  The final candidate was interviewed on Thursday morning and that afternoon Ben did get the offer. 

So we had two choices.  It was pretty much a dream.  Their offers were completely different but equally incredible.  We were torn.  So we spent a lot of time on our knees, making lists of pros and cons, we even measured the distance it would take to drive to each job.  Both came out even. 

But then we started to have really good feelings about one of the jobs.  When we made our list of pros and cons we noticed that one was the "now" job and one was the "future" job.  We decided to go with the future job that held the best potential. 

What I didn't mention was that before we decided, we contacted both recruiters again to let them know that we had offers from both sides.  The job we eventually chose upped their offer even more.  We were thrilled.  So when Ben called them back up to accept the offer, he said, "If you can guarantee that pay, we will accept."  The recruiter said she'd make sure 100%.  She called back and for some reason beyond our belief, told us that actually, she could offer more.  WHAT?!?!  What kind of dream world are we living in???  Ben immediately accepted the offer and now that the papers are signed, he is officially Cisco's newest contracted employee.  He will be managing military databases and technically, that's all I'm allowed to know.  Haha. 

I can't say how excited we are for this new road.  Ben will have the choice of working from home or going into the office.  He can choose his own hours.  And we're getting a significant pay raise from his last job.  It's more than we could have ever dreamed of.  We know that the Lord has blessed us and we are so grateful. 

Another thing to be grateful for?  We still have 2 weeks left of funemployment.  :)

The First Week

The first week home with Ella has been....

Family-oriented.  Nothing says support like family tummy time.

Sweet.  Watching siblings fall in love.

Precious.  Watching my 2 girls in their night gowns as Lily sings Ella Primary songs in her lap.

Calm.  This little angel is the sweetest baby I've ever met or heard of.  Tears are hardly ever shed and snuggles are always welcome.  Ben and I practically fight over who gets to hold her.

Snuggle-licious.  Lily and Skyler also fight over who gets to hold her.  This baby hardly knows what it's like not to be held.

So so good.  This has been one of the best weeks of my life (well, technically 9 days...)  We are completely in love with Ella.  We are completely in love with how in love Lily and Skyler are with Ella.  And we're completely in love with how much Ella loves and trusts all 4 of us. 

Mmmm.  This week has just been yummy.

3

 Toy Story anything is a huge hit with Captain Handsome Pants.

Nanni and Papa gave Skyler legos.  I'm pretty sure that's a must have for boys.  Needless to say Ben spent the next morning teaching Skyler in the ways of all things legos.

Tip: If you have candles, but somehow misplaced them in the midst of your family's birthday season, sticking matches in your cake (or in this case, Krispey Kreme donuts) is not a good back up. 

Here are some things I love about Skyler right now:

• How he calls Lily "Liwwy" and Ella "Ewla."
• How snuggles are never unacceptable.
• How he loves all things cute and fuzzy.  Usually this just includes animals and stuffed animals.  But in the last week we've learned that this includes Ella, too.
• How he builds or shapes letters (instead of writing them) out of anything he can find: blocks, twisty ties, sticks...
• His smile.  With  his cheeks.  And his belly laugh.
• How he says "No sure" instead of "No thank you."

I don't know what I would do without my Little Handsome.  He is such a blessing to have as a part of our family.  We love you Skyler!