Estella

My sweet little girl,

You are beautiful inside and out. I love the way you play hide and seek but are not very good at hiding because you give yourself away when you laugh and giggle. You give ear kisses and bunny kisses. You love to read and to be read to. I think you could be an actress because you remember the stories and recite them out loud. Even though you don't have much for hair, you enjoy when I put barrettes or a headband in it. You love to dress up and have me paint your nails. You tell me I look pretty when I am doing my makeup or hair and tell me I smell good when I spray on my perfume. Then I spray a little on you so you can smell good too. You are so helpful to me. You try so hard to help care for your baby brother and run to get diapers or a pacifier if it is needed. You love him so much and it shows through his smiles when he sees you.
I think it is so cute when you say "I tooted" even though it isn't very polite for a little girl to do. When you wake up, you sneak into my bed and snuggle under the covers. My favorite thing about you is your kindness. Even when you are naughty, you look at me with your teary eyes and say "I'm sorry Mommy" and make my heart melt. I could never be mad at you for very long because I love you so much. I love the way that you remember songs and sing them over and over and over and over...and your dancing makes me grin.
When you were just over a year we took you to Disney World. There was a whole audience watching a band playing music. Before long, the audience wasn't watching the band anymore. Instead, they were watching this tiny baby girl dancing down the middle of the street. You didn't even look back to see if I was there. You just knew I was and you were so bold. You walked all the way up in front of the stage and kept dancing. It was so cute.
Another time, when you were a few months old, a woman came up to me in Wal-Mart. She told me "Your baby is special. She just glows. She will do something wonderful." I believe so too. I think that God has a huge plan for you and I am amazed at how my small, little girl could have such a big spirit inside of her. I pray for you everyday. I pray that you stand up for your beliefs and for your Faith. I pray that you continue to grow to love the Lord. Be bold, be outspoken, be loving and kind. I pray that you know right from wrong and make good choices. I pray that you have a love for people and give yourself to help others. You are my baby and I am so proud of you already. You are a blessing to me.

Love,

Mom

Weston

My baby boy,

You are my little bundle of joy. I have only known you for just a few months but you could have been a part of this family from the start. I couldn't imagine what life was like without you in it! Just now, you are showing your little character and it is a character indeed. You seem to know just what makes me laugh and smile and when I need both. You are so happy. You squeal and laugh, giggle and give me the "hey mom, it's gonna be OK" type grin. I told your Dad that his expectations of a quiet giant of a kid wouldn't quite work in this family, especially with Stella as your sister and me and your dad for your parents. So it is understandable that you are already babbling away and doing so with so much presence.
You snuggle next to me and want to be held close. I really love that about you. As you grow, you show more personality. At the moment you are just rolling over, beginning to sit by yourself, eat baby food, sleep through the night and grasp things or reach for things you want. You have this tendency to grasp my hair whenever you can and MAN you have a grip! I think I may have developed a bald spot. You do this, especially when nursing. I think it is a way of comfort because as long as you have it or my finger, you are calm.
I will be praying for you to grow into a man of integrity and a man of faith. I want so many things for you, but most of all for you to know the Lord and to live your life through his word. I love you my son. Each day with you is a blessing.

Love,

Mom

A new year

As we get near to the end of 2009, I must say that it has been a pretty good year.

I am thankful for my family. Mike and I have had our ups and downs and it has been a year of learning in our marriage. I am praying that 2010 brings over these learning experiences and unifies us as a couple. I think that life brings trials so that we experience areas of growth. If we never have hardships, do we really learn anything otherwise? I am learning everyday how to be a better wife and a better mother. Estella is two and I find myself wondering how I get by day to day without feeling completely exhausted. She is a tornado of energy and it is hard to keep up with her, but I manage to do so. She brings much happiness and joy and I am thankful for this bubbly child that God has blessed me with. My other blessing is Weston. What an amazing baby! God must have known that in order for me to keep up with Stella, I needed a baby that would be laid back and happy in demeanor. He seems to know that just a little raise of an eyebrow and open mouth smile melts my heart, because he does it regularly and at the most needed times.

I am thankful for still having a great job where I feel I make a difference in the daily lives of the people I serve. It is very rewarding, even on the most stressful days. I sometimes think that I need more free time or more opportunities to get out with friends, which I probably do, but I am at a place in life where being a homebody is ok with me. This job has made me grow into an adult and has shown me responsibilities over the lives of others, which prepared me for parenting more than I could have guessed. On the plus side, it has allowed for us to purchase our cabin, travel to new places, meet some amazing people and spend more time together as a family. I have the wonderful opportunity to stay home with my children as I work from home and Mike can choose his hours working on side jobs and at the cabin.

Finally, thanks be to God! How the Lord has shown himself through this year. Maybe it is a sign that I am growing in my faith. What once seemed so important has faded into the black and now in place is a light and warmth of God's love. Please Lord, give me the strength to live my life through you and let your love touch the heart's of those around me, so that they can come to know you too.

Things that I pray for 2010:
1. Closeness in my family. This being between my husband, my in-laws and my children.
2. One really good Christian friend who will be bold in their faith.
3. A church home base for fellowship.
4. Good health for family and friends. My grandma to recover from cancer.
5. Less stress in my job.
6. Self appreciation and self worth
7. For the lives of my family~keep my brother Shawn safe over in Afghanistan. My sister's marriage to be blessed. For my brothers' to find the love of the Lord. To renew the relationship with my sister.
8. To have financial freedom. Money is a heavy burden to everyone and I pray for ways to lessen this hardship.
9. Teaching my children to be obedient, loving and God serving people.

In these things, I give to you.

Love,

Deb

August pictures

I know that things are way behind on pictures and what not. I will just have to post things when I can. Here are a couple of miscellaneous pictures from this last August. Most were from when my Mom was up from Arizona. Weston is about 3 weeks in most of the pictures.


Weston Sleeping...zzz

My Little Estella Jean

These last 2 are from early on, about a week after he was born.

Computer Failure

I am posting a quick blog to let everyone know that we haven't fallen off the face of the Earth or anything but that we have just had some major technical difficulties with our computer. I have tried at least 3 times to post some pictures but it is so slow that the page defaults and then loses my pictures. Very sad. Luckily we are getting a new used computer today so I am hoping to transfer some pictures to show you Weston. Keep tuned in for more updates.

Deb

Top 10 List

As the date gets nearer for little Weston to make his big debut, I have started to get the labor jitters. It's not that I didn't have a great labor and delivery with Stella, because it did go great. I think it is because of all the horror stories I hear from everyone else and how "they" say no two labors will never be the same.

Here is my top 10 list of concerns that have been floating around in my head:

1. Healthy Baby- my biggest prayer is for a healthy baby boy. That's it. As long as he is healthy and makes it into this world safely, Mike and I can take care of the rest.

2. Healthy Mommy- I know that the risk is low, but a part of me gets so scared that something will happen to me during the pregnancy and I won't be there to see my children grow up. Again, prayers are the best remedy for this fear because I know that God will take care of me and my baby.

3. C-Section- This wouldn't be so bad because I know plenty of people who have had one. I am just a little nervous about the procedure and being put under since I have never had any major surgeries before.

4. Complications with the placenta- When Stella was born, I had trouble delivering the placenta and the cord snapped. I am praying that everything will go smoothly in this department. Again I do not want to have any surgeries.

5. Tearing! With Stella, I had a tear but not the common perineal tear but a labial tear, which was a painful recovery. I am freaking out about being ripped from one end to the other and it is not a pleasent thought at all!

6. Poop- yes I am literally afraid of shitting myself during labor! I know it is practically normal but what do I do if I make a mess all over the baby. Ahhh!

7. Breastfeeding- Again, this department was pretty good for me except for the fact that I got mastitis and suffered some serious swollen boobs. Along came the fever, the chills and the large lumps in my breasts that took a lot of massaging and anitbiotics to get rid of. I am not looking forward to the chapped or blistered nipples either. Hopefully I won't have either.

8. Pads and mesh undies- You know when you have a heavy period and you think "I might just have to wear a liner today with my tampon, just for the extra protection." Yeah, no tampons allowed after having a baby. Just super huge pads. These are the kind of pads that your Grandma would wear for her incontinence. And not only are they the super huge grandma pads where you think they will last a little while, no, they have to be changed almost hourly. And to make the deal even sweeter, they give you these lovely little mesh undies which don't hide your huge grandma pads at all or your new recently aquired huge ass.

9. Pee Bottle- This would be the little bottle that they give you to squirt yourself with while going pee. Thank God for this bottle because it would hurt like hell otherwise, but just the thought of having to use this bottle again makes me shiver.

10. No Sex! Self Explanatory Except who is really thinking about having sex after just having a baby except for a horny husband. :)

Cascade Falls

Last weekend we had our annual July family pictures taken down at Cascade Falls in Osceola.

Becky Walstead with TellaStoryPhotography did an awesome job! If you want to see more photos or enlargements, just visit her website at www.tellastoryphotography.com and go under clients. From there our password is DM628. We can order pictures up until July 28th so let me know if there are any you are interested in!

Here are a couple family and belly shots.

Stella was such a cutie and loved the waterfall. She was just in awe by everything around her and we got so many great pictures. I loved that Becky did so many candid shots because it made the pictures turn out 10x better than I thought.

These are a few of my favorites! She took over 200 pictures overall and then she narrowed it down to her top 80 for editing. Now we just need to narrow it down to our top favorite 25 pictures. They were all amazing and it is going to be really hard to decide which ones to pick!

June Update

We have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks so I guess it is about time for an update. Thanks Tee for the reminder! Mike and I spent our first official weekend at the cabin, with Stella and I spending the night. I had asked Mike what he wanted for his birthday, which was Monday the 15th, and he said that he just wanted us to spend the night out at the cabin as a family. It was actually fun and relaxing. Poor Mike didn't get much done with us out there but it wasn't entirely our fault. You see, he went to Steven Boucher's graduation party and had a little too much to drink with his buddies Jon, Mark, Mike and of course Dan. He was feeling pretty lousy come Sunday morning. :)

This upcoming weekend should be eventful at the cabin if the weather is permitting. Mike and Jolene Boucher are giving us a great deal on some brand new Anderson windows and we are purchasing a bay window which could go in this weekend. Our goal is to get the front and porch side of the cabin ready for siding soon as well as get the roofing worked on. Then we can focus on the back section of the house. It is a long process, but after a good chat with Judy and Jolene last weekend, I feel very fortunate to be where we are at. Mike does such an amazing job and really does work with such speed for being the lone man on the job. Well, almost lone man. We have had some great help here and there from some family and friends.

As for me, I have just been trying to keep it as easy going as I can. I was having some contractions and was a little worried about going into preterm labor. Thankfully my midwife said that things are still ok, but told me that I should be resting more than I am. There just is too much to do and sometimes I forget how worn out I become after such piddly activities. Yesterday I was in a crazy cleaning mood and felt like reorganizing all of the baby room and also going through boxes upon boxes of Stella's clothing to give to someone having a baby girl. We will see who the winner is on that one. ;) Other than that, not much new. I had my 33 week check-up today and found out that my midwife is going to be in Iran for a month to visit her family. She will not be returning until July 26th! So, who knows who I will have delivering my baby if he comes early. To top it off, St. John's Hospital is under construction and they only have a few rooms available at a time. I might get bumped over to Regions Hospital if all of the rooms are full. It will be an interesting outcome and I am hoping for the best.

Finally, I will update you with a few fun pictures from the last couple of weeks. We just got a new camera so we were trying it out on all sorts of subjects. Enjoy!!

Channel 4 WCCO

http://wcco.com/local/money.found.garage.2.1024300.html

If you didn't get a chance to watch the news, my coworkers thought they would call in the local station (WCCO Channel 4 News) and get me an interview about those darn boots. If I knew how to post the video, I would do that instead but for now, here is the link that will bring you to the article and video.

One for the movies

I couldn't believe what happened to me today. It was just like something you would see in a movie!

Here is the story.

We were putting on a garage sale (fund raiser) for the company I work for. Someone had donated a pair of rubber boots and Mike was looking at them thinking, "Hey maybe they would fit me." Unfortunately they were only a size 9 and too small for his big feet. I thought that maybe I could use them at the cabin so I could pull weeds without getting wet in the lake. I was about to put my foot inside the boot when I noticed something white in the bottom of the boot. Now mind you, these boots come up to my hips so I really had to dig down to get out whatever this white thing was. It was an envelope.

I opened up the envelope and saw a pile of cash! It wasn't just a small pile either but $8000 tied neatly together. I thought I might just go into labor right then and there or have a heart attack. My breathing stopped and I just thought "this has to be fake!" I turned to my boss Jeannie and asked who had donated the boots. She thought that they had come from one of the residents family members who had died recently in the last year. Then she asked why, because apparantly my face had a look of shock on it. It did! I walked slowly up to her and whispered "I just found $8000 dollars in that boot!" She couldn't believe it! I handed her the envelope and tried not to scream as their were garage sale shoppers nearby. She got the same shocked look on her face as she opened up the envelope and saw the hundred dollar bills in their little bundles. Mike was still there and couldn't understand what we were doing and I just said "Oh my, oh my!" I went over to the boots, grabbed them and looked inside. What did I find? Another envelope! This one only had $500 in it this time but it was crazy! I just couldn't believe my eyes. Where did this money come from?

I would like to say that I shoved the money in my pocket and ran or even that we were able to use the money towards the fund raiser, but I felt like it wouldn't be fair to the family if we had kept it without so much as a phone call. So being the good people that we are, we tracked down the family and notified them that we had found some money in their dead uncles boots. Bear in mind, this uncle had been dead for a little while and was known to have stashed cash around his house. Apparently, they had found $1000 under his mattress. The family was never told just how much we found but I am sure they will be just as shocked as we were.

To put an end to this story, I would have really enjoyed spending $8500 but I feel pretty good knowing that it is in the right place. The moral should be that whomever the shoe fits, finds the cash.

Mommy's Belly! 28 weeks


Stella's Belly! 21 months

More pics

The view of the lake from the cabin

Mike's work of laying down insulation. Ready for concrete! YEAH!!!

Estella playing outside in her new activity center.

Stella's new "Big Girl Bed"

The Cabin

This weekend we spent time out at our cabin. Actually, we are calling it our lake home but either way, it isn't much of a retreat quite yet. Mike and I purchased it last August and over the winter have been tearing down walls, digging up flooring and working hard at demolition. We are now in the process of remodeling it. Mike is really the one doing all of the work and I am so amazed by his strength and determination. I just try to help where I can.

This is the start of the demolition process. View from the kitchen to the front door.

Next weekend is the big concrete floor pour. In order to get to this point, Mike had to gut the house, redo all of the footings because they were rotted, level the house (using car jacks I might add), add a bunch of sand, add foam insulation, wiring, pex tubing and plumbing. I am really looking forward to seeing the concrete because I will feel like we have made it over one big hurdle. There is so much to do after that but seeing those floors will make it feel like we are finally getting somewhere.

The living room view

Another view from the kitchen to the front door

This weekend we finished up all of the loose ends for the pour and enjoyed sitting outside with a bonfire in the back. My sister and niece came over and we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. They came and dug up some trees for their new home and I planted a small vegetable garden and some flowers. The lake is starting to look beautiful with all of the greenery in bloom and the flowers on the trees are finally blossoming too. We tried to clean up the yard because even though the house is in destruction, it still is relaxing to have a place to sit and enjoy the day. I can't wait to show the progress through the next coming months. It should be fun!

Baby naming

Before I was pregnant with Stella, I told Mike that if we ever had a little girl, we should call her Estella Jean after both of our deceased grandmothers. So, even though we played back and forth with the idea of what to call our little girl, when she came, I knew right away that we were going to call her Estella.

Now that I am pregnant again, we are having trouble coming up with new names that both of us liked. The harder part is that we are having a boy so all of the great girl names we had listed from last time really don't work for us. Mike likes traditional names where I have a flair for more uncommon names. That isn't to say that I am a fan of the Hollywood craze of naming your baby after fruit or inanimate object. I just like names that are unique and haven't been widely used. With a common last name like Meyer, it is easy to find lots of Deb's and Mike's or Jack and Jills. I pride myself with knowing that Estella is the only Estella Meyer at our clinic, which makes her easy to find and the doctors remember her when she comes to visit.

As it comes down to the nearing months, we really wanted to have a name for boy Meyer so that we can get Stella used to his name. She already refers to my belly as "baby brother" and sometimes points to her belly and does the same. Mike and I were lying in bed the other night and he said "I think we should settle on his name and stick with it." I totally agreed but was a little wary as to what Mike was thinking of settling on. We had a long list. We both liked Thomas, Benjamin, he Charlie, me Emmett. But, we did have one name that we both really liked and hadn't had too much opposition to. The name Westin.

Westin James. I really like it and so does Mike. It isn't very common but not too crazy for Mike's tastes either. It has some family lineage, taking on Grandpa Jim's (James) name for his middle name. After much thought, it reminds me of a verse in the bible that I really like too. It is Psalms 103:12 - "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." I have my little Eastella and now will have my Westin with the knowledge too that God has taken away my sins. I know it is a far shot but it was kind of a neat coincidence. Two of my bible study ladies pointed that out and told me that there is a song from Casting Crowns called East to West. It is a great song and is pretty popular on KTIS.

What do you think? I hope you like the name as much as we do. I don't think there will be any changing of it this time either. The only changes that we were having trouble with was the spelling. Weston, Westin or Westen. Any thoughts on that?

Texas

Naomi, Stella and Jazmyn drinking out of the Denny's cup!

Me, Mom and Alicia at Sea World

Stella riding the pony at the Lackland Mini-Mall

Proud of our Air Man!

Steve and me

Shawn and Jazmyn

The parade at graduation-Steve's 3rd row back on right

He is in front of the yellow flag

Last Wednesday, my Dad and I decided to take a road trip down to San Antonio, Texas to watch my youngest brother Stephen graduate from boot camp. He joined the Air Force and left around mid to late February so I hadn't seen him in a while. I should have thought more about taking a 23 hour road trip at almost 7 months along. To top it off, I decided to bring Stella with me. It was such a long trip and I barely slept at all and when I did, it was in some of the most uncomfortable positions. To make things worse, I had just been in Florida the week before with my work girls and had suffered severe burns to my legs. They had become so swollen that I had to go the ER. I was supposed to have them elevated for most of last week but being in a car for that long is really hard to do. So, as uncomfortable as I was, we made it down and Stella did great during the whole trip!

When we arrived in San Antonio, my Dad and I got to our hotel room and relaxed before heading to the base to see Steve. I felt so good after resting that I didn't even think about my legs or sore back. My mom, brother Shawn and sister Alicia came to Texas as well. Alicia brought her two little girls so Stella had some play mates. We headed to Lackland Air Force Base and met Steve at the mini-mall. He looked so handsome in his blues! I swear he was taller too, probably due to the fact that his posture had become perfect. I was very proud of him and so very happy to have most of my family together!

During our trip we went to Sea World, the malls and to downtown San Antonio. Both places were a lot of fun and I have to give a huge thanks to Shawn for buying all of us tickets to get in to Sea World. We watched Shamu and saw the sea lions. Stella and I went on a kiddie ride and she was so excited. Her mouth was in an "O" shape the entire ride! I was sad when we had to leave because my Dad and I had to hit the road early in order to make it back by Sunday night. We said our goodbyes at Sea World and then got ready for another long trip back. Thankfully I did much better on the ride back. My Dad and I purchased extra pillows to make things more comfortable. It really helped a lot.

As for Steve, he is heading to Keesler, Mississippi for his schooling. He is going to the top training base for electronics but his expertise will be in computer systems and analysis. Good for him! I am happy that he is going to be right on the Gulf of Mexico. It should make his weekends fun and much cooler than most other areas there. Please wish him the best.