Andy + Jaime - This is true love

The Kitchen is Done

2008-08-18T07:00:17-06:00

Sort of. The Corian people are coming this afternoon with a 37" piece of countertop, and that's the last piece to install. Well, besides the shelves for the upper part of the pantry that somehow didn't get ordered. However, there are still a few things that need fixing. Our installer told us he's been doing this work for 34 years, and we've decided he's apparently been doing it poorly for just as long. We had to point out crooked cabinet doors, pantry drawers that wouldn't pull out, and a few other small things. After he left we realized there were a lot more completely unacceptable mistakes. Screws that went through the edge of the wood, an entire cabinet that isn't level, a random piece of plywood visible behind the refrigerator. They'll just have to keep coming back until it's right.

Another fun mistake they made has left us without power to our computers, home phone, and washer all weekend. They had to install a new outlet for the refrigerator, and in the process cut off power to those other outlets. We don't blame them, we blame the completely random wiring of this house. Why would outlets in the kitchen, office, and utility room all be on the same circuit? Because the electrician was high, that's all I can think of. I suppose our installer might have noticed that the line he was tapping into wasn't just a single line, but he didn't. Of course not. A funny coincidence - the guy who was here to help with the install, who did the wiring, used to work for the company who installed our HVAC system when we moved here 4 years ago. Andy started to tell him how to get to the crawlspace, and he said, "I already know, I've been down there." Crazy.

On a side note, it's hard to believe we've been here 4 years this month! Happy Anniversary, house! I'll post pictures of the kitchen after it's closer to satisfactory for us.

Toddler Hygiene

2008-08-07T15:20:35-06:00

I tried to take Noelle to the Frist Art Museum here in Nashville today, they were having a free admission day. The first thing we did when we got there was try to use the potty, since we're in training. Noelle was refusing to go, and I told her if she didn't go, we'd have to go home. Since I said "tried" in the first sentence, you might guess we didn't get to stay.

Daddy Can

2008-08-04T11:33:33-06:00

Noelle and I got McDonalds today due to our kitchen being completely blocked off while the hardwood floors are redone. In her kids meal she got a Polly Pocket doll that came with a little thing that is pretty hard to open for a kid. She asked me how to open it, and after I explained it to her and showed her she said, "Oh! So if I want to open it, I ask Daddy!"

The Bee Game

2008-08-02T19:25:09-06:00

This week Andy reminded me of a game website that I used to go to all the time back when I was working. The job I had didn't keep me very busy, so I spent lots of time finding free online games to play and trying to master them. One of my favorites was the bee game. Andy actually mentioned this game back in December 2003 on our website, saying I got a high score of 22,460.

Well folks, today I got 34,820. Take that, bee game! If you find yourself in a situation that affords you a lot of free time, check out orisinal.com to find some fun little games. Some of our favorites (besides Bubble Bees) are Sunny Day Sky, Bugs, The Runaway Train, and Snowbowling.

The Great Name Debate

2008-07-26T10:20:28-06:00

The polls are finally closed, and we've come to a decision on what to name this baby! We have a really hard time agreeing on names. We had picked Noelle's name by the time I was 25 weeks, this time I am 28 weeks, so not too shabby.

Some Things Never Change

2008-07-21T06:38:36-06:00

When I was growing up, I never wanted to go to school on Monday. I had a stomach ache or a headache or some other kind of ailment pretty much every Monday morning. I hated school, for the most part. I wasn't challenged, I didn't enjoy being with the other kids, and I just wanted to stay in bed!

Now that I'm a mom, I feel the same way. I don't want to go to work on Mondays. I always wake up wishing it was a school day for Noelle. I just want a chance to recoup from the weekend, get the house back in order, and SLEEP. Especially being this pregnant, it takes a lot to roll my big belly out of bed and get going. Andy said the other day that it's too bad I don't like coffee because I'd be a good candidate for its wake up power. Maybe I should try a little harder to like it, because I doubt that me and Mondays are ever going to get along.

I'm scared Daddy...I'm scared.

2008-07-14T09:20:53-06:00

It always amazes me when kids "learn" to be sneaky.

The other night, Noelle was having a rough time going to sleep. She kept calling for me and calling for me with these silly requests. "My blanket is on the floor.", or "I can't find my picnic basket." or my favorite "baby doesn't have her shirt on.".

Anyway, I finally got really fed up with her and told her not to call for me again unless you're scared, or hurt, and to just go to sleep!

Next morning, what do I hear? "Daddy...I scared. I'm scared Daddy" in the happiest, most cheerful voice you've ever heard.

Kidsitellyou!

Sunday

2008-07-06T20:19:13-06:00

I didn't take any pictures today. Deal with it. :)

Saturday

2008-07-05T18:48:05-06:00

Here's the breakdown for today...pics are here

Friday

2008-07-04T20:40:13-06:00

Today's pictures here.

Thursday

2008-07-03T19:57:05-06:00

Today's pictures here.

Wednesday

2008-07-02T20:00:42-06:00

Today's pictures here.

Tuesday

2008-07-01T21:05:27-06:00

See pictures from our day here.

Monday

2008-06-30T22:00:44-06:00

I've decided to blog a week in the life of Noelle. Starting today, my goal is to document the week's daily activities in words and pictures to have as a keepsake for us and to give our family and friends a glimpse into our everyday lives. One picture is posted here to the right, the others you can see on our Picasa Web Albums page here. I hope you enjoy it! Mondays are long because we have no planned activities, so sorry for the novel!

Imagination

2008-06-25T12:17:44-06:00

I have to admit that I get really tired of my child's imagination sometimes. The amount of time I spend speeding up the car because a dragon is behind us, rolling down the window at a stop sign so she can pet a hippo, making up activities me and the monster I'm leading out of her room at naptime are going to do, eating invisible food, and especially being told I'm doing it *the wrong way* is more than I ever thought possible. It is all so real to her, though. This morning she went to get her baby doll a snack in the living room, and when she got out there a song was on tv. She ran back to me in the bedroom and held out her empty hand, saying, "Can you take this for baby? I'm going to go to the living room to dance." I couldn't believe that her imaginary snack had so much importance to her that she had to deliver it before stopping to dance.

Don't get me wrong, I love that she is creative. I guess the imagination itself is not what sometimes wears me thin, it's more that I have to have a role in it. I would love for her to imagine all day long if I didn't have to do it, too. It's just been so long since I imagined. A friend of mine suggested that I use a technique from improv comedy to handle imagination, which is to "accept and further." Accept that what Noelle is saying is true, and take it up one more step to add to the story. That really does work for the most part, if I'm doing it purely for fun and not with an agenda. I guess that most of us just lose that ability to look beyond what is really there and imagine what could be.

I'm in a Bible study going through the book "Strong Women, Soft Hearts" and the chapters we've read so far talk about how we lose our passion and our hearts because of pain and other life experiences. I tend to not try things or put myself out there often because I fear failure or rejection, among other things. Pain is a part of all of our lives, and it is only when we begin to accept it as our companion that we can have true joy and peace. Today in my group we talked about how God pursues our hearts, and how it makes us feel that he cares for us in that way. I shared that I so often try to protect my heart by not letting it carry me away, but although that might help me hold onto every piece of my heart, it's a dead heart that I'm holding. Whether we choose to give our heart away to follow a dream, and risk failure, or we choose to "protect" it by keeping it locked up, we are going to lose heart either way. God desires for us to give Him our heart, and promises that we will be even more wholly ourselves if we do so. He wants us to be fully ourselves and fully alive, the way he created us to be. Only through pouring our heart out to Him can we be our true selves, and do and be what He planned for us.

The author writes that if you follow your tears, what causes you pain or stirs passion inside of you, you will find what is dear to God and how you should live your life. When you are raising children, it can be easy to just put off your dreams until "later." When they go to school, maybe I'll do something for myself. God wants me to realize, though, that my life is now, and he desires for me to live it. Being a stay at home mom is not just a thing to get through. God never gets tired of my imagination, in fact He has dreams that are so much bigger than mine I can't comprehend them. His call for us to be childlike in our faith is something I hope to understand more every day that I spend with Noelle. I hope she never stops imagining.

SLEEP

2008-06-24T01:57:02-06:00

So I'm up at 3 AM. I'm hoping this is a fluke and not the beginning of pregnancy insomnia already, something I *so enjoyed* with Noelle in the third trimester. I did get a lot of e-mailing and work done in those early morning hours, but really, I would rather sleep! People try to tell you that this is your body's way of preparing you for taking care of a new baby. I say that's C-R-A-P. If my body really wanted to help me out, it would let me sleep as much as possible up to delivery day. You don't ever get used to sleep deprivation. Believe me, having a child who didn't sleep through the night for 13 months, I know.

It doesn't help that I'm feeling tired anyway, even though I had a nice relaxing weekend in Tulsa with Beth and Mike Arroyo. I got to sleep in, didn't have a toddler to take care of, went out to eat, and spent some great time with wonderful people. It was an excellent getaway, that just happened to be capped off by a terrible evening at a really awful airport. As it was, I left Tulsa at 5:30 PM then had a scheduled 3 hour layover in Kansas City. I wasn't going to get home until 11:10, which is already a good hour or so past my usual bedtime. When I got to KC, I looked on the screen for my gate number and saw that instead of "on time", it said "11:30" next to my flight. WHA? Apparently some weather on the east coast caused basically every flight in the airport to be about 2 hours delayed. And that airport is so weirdly layed out, and so lacking in the food department, it was not a great place to be for 5 hours. Most of it was closed anyway, I guess because it was Sunday night and they hate me. My back hurt terribly, my legs started to hurt as they do when I'm tired, and by the time I finally landed in Nashville at 1 AM, I was sobbing. Andy had to bring Noelle with him to get me, luckily she could care less about sleep and loved to be up in the middle of the night.

This mom gig (pre and post birth) has definitely put a large cramp in my sleeping style. I will definitely say, though, that even on the days that I don't know how I'm going to make it through, it's totally worth it. Noelle is an amazing child, so funny, smart, polite, and creative. I'd rather be losing sleep because I'm taking care of her than for any other reason. And I'm sure I'll lose sleep when she's older for much different reasons! So for now, I will just grin and bear it, and relish hearing her say "I love you, too."

Happy Father's Day

2008-06-16T07:57:18-06:00

So Father's Day was this past weekend and I had a great time. This is only my third one (as a Dad myself) but this was the best one. We had lots of good food, I got to spend lots of time with Noelle and Jaime (and the coming baby), and I even got lots of time to myself. All in all it was a great weekend in general, but even better as Father's Day.

Saturdays are Jaime's day to sleep in, so when Noelle woke up at 6:45 I jumped out of bed and went to get her. She was in a great mood so we talked while I got her dressed. You might recall that the Matthews' have joined a CSA program (think farmer's co-op), which we share with Brad and Heather Daugherty. Sat is the day that Eric and Cher (from Bugtussle farms) are in Nashville, and it was the Matthews' turn to go pick it up.

Noelle and I headed over to pick up the produce, singing and laughing and talking the whole way. When we got there she helped me collect our goods, and even helped me weigh the peas. After we got back in the car, I decided that Jaime hadn't had enough chance to rest, so Noelle and I sacrificed our time and went to eat at Fido's.

All in all, my weekend with Noelle was great. We had so much fun playing and talking and laughing. It's a special blessing to have a child who's so good-natured, and bright, and clever. I'll leave you with this little story about Noelle to tie it all back together. We planned on calling both my dad, and Jaime's on Sunday and so we trained Noelle to yell "Happy Father's Day" on cue. "Okay Noelle, when they pick up the phone what do you say?" "Happy Father's Day!". "That's right Noelle...good job." Right before we called Jaime's dad, Noelle let's out a huge toot. Jaime looks over at her and says "Noelle...what do you say?" to which Noelle responds loudly "Happy Father's Day!!!"

I hope everyone had as good a Father's Day Weekend as I did.

Bug Lover

2008-06-04T15:12:16-06:00

Noelle loves bugs, she has no fear of them and will stop everything to just watch one walk by. If she has one on her body and it flies away or falls off, she continually asks what happened to it and looks around for it. One day recently she found a ladybug, and the only way I could convince her to put it down and move on was to let her find it a "home." She's definitely not a girly girl when it comes to bugs.

Just now we were out in the pool and a moth fell in and of course was dead. She picked it up, asked all kinds of questions about it, then asked if she could touch the wings. I said sure, and she sweetly said, "Aww, it's gonna be okay buggy" as she pet the wing. Then she said, "Can I rip his arms off?"

Anniversary

2008-05-31T22:05:05-06:00

Today we are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary, as well as the 1 year anniversary of the day Charlotte was born. Celebrate almost seems like the wrong word when thinking about Charlotte, but after looking it up in the dictionary I think it's just right. The definition of celebrate is "to observe a day or commemorate an event with ceremonies or festivities", or "to make known publicly; proclaim." It comes from the Latin word celebrare, which means "to solemnize, celebrate, honor," but also "to frequent, to fill together." Times of celebration remind us that we are part of a community, we are not going through this life alone.

An article I read online today said that celebration "fulfills a human need in two ways. First, we all have the need to escape the pressures of everyday life and the responsibilities which absorb so much of our time. We need to distance ourselves from this pressure in order to grasp the depth and fullness of daily life. Second, celebration allows us to enter into a more profound communion with the social groups that define us. Our relationships define each one of us as a social entity and help to integrate us more fully into the body to which we belong."

As I get older I find myself caring less about my birthday, Mother's Day, and all those other holidays that put the focus on me. I tell myself that although a break from responsibility and recognition of the day are appreciated, I don't need anything. What I forget, though, is that God created us to need each other. He made all believers a family, brothers and sisters, and His son prayed many times that we would be one as the trinity is one.

The same article referenced this passage in the Bible:
Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he had possessed was his own, but they had everything in common ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made to each as any had need (Acts 4:32, 34-35).

I'm not necessarily suggesting that I'd like to go back to communal living, but there was a lot of good in that way of life. We try to do entirely too much on our own, and we're all frazzled as a result. This has lended itself to us having a much harder time understanding the concept of dependence on God. We can do for ourselves what needs to be done, we're told to take control of our own lives, set boundaries, get as much out of this life as we can. All of that is well and good, but it too often sacrifices community in favor of "personal growth."

The author also wrote that "those who champion individualism think of freedom as the absence of interference from outside forces. In contrast, ...think of freedom as the ability to make our lives a gift through which we deepen our relationship with the community. A person is a being-in-relationship, and to exist is to be in a relationship. To deny relationality is to hover on the brink of non-being. But the more we belong to one another--the more we are able to make ourselves a gift--the more fully we exist."

What does all of this have to do with Charlotte? When she died one year ago, I had a choice. I could have shut down, kept it inside, let it alienate me and weaken my faith. Or, I could see it through God's eyes, and ask "to what end." Andy and I decided from the first moment we saw Charlotte's little body on the ultrasound screen with no heart beating that this had to be something that drew us closer together and closer to God, or what was the point in the suffering? I had to allow myself to need my friends and family, even though it was really hard at times. I saw all of those people coming together to surround us in prayer, fill our refrigerator, care for Noelle, and help me grieve, and it reminded me that I was not alone.

I have always believed that it is best to share my struggles openly instead of keeping them locked away, and many times people have thanked me for my candor. They often open up themselves afterward, and a depth is added to our friendship that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. When I read the part of the definition of celebration that said, "to make known publicly; proclaim," my first thought was of my committment to claim Charlotte as my child to everyone I meet. I don't often let an opportunity pass me by to say that I have another daughter. Noelle knows her sister's name, and knows that she is in heaven. Every time I share her story, I am celebrating her existence, her role in my life. I am thankful to her for teaching me about reliance on God and others, and for giving me an opportunity to build deeper relationships with those in my community. Happy Birthday, Charlotte Mae Matthews. Your mommy loves you and will be with you again someday.

Happy Fifth baby!

2008-05-24T14:12:20-06:00

No no...not our fifth baby. Maybe that should have read "Happy Fifth, Baby", as in Happy 5th Anniversary? That's right...Jaime and I are coming up on the 5th anniversary of our wedding day back in May of 2003. Hard to believe that it's been that long, yet it also seems like longer.

So we're currently sitting, well laying, on a bed in Louisville, Kentucky chilling. Watching a little TV, doing a little net surfing, and waiting for it to cool down before heading out to do some shopping, and some mini-golf, and then some dinner.

Tomorrow, we're driving up to Illinois to attend the wedding of one of the girls who was in OUR wedding. Then we head back to Nashville on Monday.

Lucky for us, my parents are watching Noelle for us while we take this short weekend to spend some time together. So, here's to you Jaime...5 years, then another 5, then ten, and then 20 more. If we're both still alive then, we can renegotiate.

Mwa.