Holidays

Wow, let's pretend that November 12th isn't the date I last posted, please?

Life has been great, hectic, nerve-racking, joyful, warm, uncertain... all sorts of things since my last post. Since then, I have quit my job, gone through the end of harvest, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Deer season, my birthday, my first dance class, and my first week to really be at home as a "stay at home" mom (who incidentally don't actually stay at home much). 

Quitting was wonderful, a little sad, but mostly wonderful. I ended on a good note with the staff and the church and felt that I had adequately prepared the woman taking my place. It was a good feeling. I wasn't even too nervous about the whole lack of any more pay checks coming my way (until later). I think Kanyon has really loved me being at home more because sometimes I actually cook something for breakfast and lunch. It's thrown a whole lot more variety into his every day :)

Right before I last posted, we had Brindle's first birthday! I'll give it its own post, though.

For Thanksgiving, my parents came up here. We had Kalith and Vaughn over that afternoon and had a great time. I love Thanksgiving meal! I could eat it throughout the year. I thought this picture of my mom making dressing was typical of both of them - Mom's eyes are closed and Brindle is dancing.

After that, it got a little crazy. We had a church Christmas party, training the woman taking my place at work, a small group Christmas party, three family Christmases in Welch, drove to Houston for Christmas Day with my family, hunting at the deer lease and my birthday. I've technically not been working since December 13th but feel like I haven't noticed until last week!

Christmas was so fun and such a whirlwind! We see so much family in such a small amount of time. I wish we could have a whole week to visit with them. In a 36 hour span, we had our immediate family Christmas with Kanyon's parents and siblings and their kids, then Mama Brown's that night, and Meme's the next afternoon.  

After that weekend, we left to go to Houston - a 9 hour drive with a 13 month old and a dog. It actually went a lot better than I imagined! Even with me realizing after a few hours that I completely forgot to pack any diapers. At all. I found out diapers are really expensive at the convenience store in the middle of nowhere.

Being in Houston was so relaxing, we did little besides eat, sleep, and visit - besides opening presents. We did leave the house to go play our annual charades night with friends and the boys went skeet shooting. Brindle did a lot of sleeping. I guess she was exhausted from the weekend before.

Sorry for the quick post on Christmas but I guess since it was a month ago now, I'm not remembering many details! We had a great Christmas, though, and are always so excited to see family. Hope your's was good, too!

Next, going even further back to Brindle's first birthday party...

Croup

Even though my mom assures me that Brindle is not a "sickly" baby, I feel like we have have dealt with some ailment every month. And reading through her baby book confirms it.

She deals with allergies at all times and is on Zyrtec every night but we've also had reflux, thrush, RSV, double ear infection, sinus infection, and last week, we had croup. Through all of them, she recovered quickly (RSV being the exception by a little) and still had a smile on her face all the time. So I am, by no means, complaining because they are all normal and I am SO THANKFUL that those are all we've had to deal with.

She came down with croup the weekend before her first birthday - also opening weekend of deer hunting season, so needless to say, Kanyon was at the deer lease. I told Kanyon I could tell something didn't feel good but I couldn't put my finger on it. That mommy intuition is good stuff. Within a few hours, her voice got steadily weaker.

At the height of it in the middle of the night, when she could hardly breathe and wouldn't be anywhere except on my chest, and I bundled her up in fifty blankets and walked up and down our driveway so that the cool night air would help relieve her swollen airway, I thought to myself "this is what motherhood is." 

One of my strongest memories of childhood is my dad walking down our street, my head on his shoulder, in the humid Houston air in the middle of the night to help me breathe during one of my many bouts with croup. I remember not thinking the words exactly but feeling grateful for him taking care of me, even though I was very young.

As I held Brindle at 3:00 am on our driveway (which is a LOT darker without the City of Houston street lights), I remember being so grateful. Grateful that I was getting to show my baby girl the same love and provide the same comfort to her that my parents did for me. She had her eyes closed most of the time but occasionally, she would open them as she laid her head on my chest tilted up to my face and smile behind her paci. I thought my heart would burst every time she did. I knew that she knew what I was doing for her. It may be one of the sweetest, best moments as a mom that I have experienced so far.

Life is about to change.

(No, I'm not pregnant again.)

Blogging has been put on the back burner, as if you hadn't figured that out, for me in the last year. I have a weird relationship with it. I really enjoy writing and I had great aspirations that blogging for me would be this great outlet. But then when I sit down to actually do it, and it was this way before I even had Brindle, I get all nervous and self conscious about just letting my thoughts flow and my posts end up being more informative than anything. I've had one post in the three years of blogging that I feel was really up to my aspirations and that frustrates me. So maybe that is in my subconscious when I think "man, I really need to blog, it's been a while" and then don't do it.

Well, here's my attempt at breaking the rut.

This week, I told the staff at FBC Lamesa that I will be leaving mid-December. There are several factors that are going into me finally making that decision, all of which are more about me and less about "them". I am leaving in good relations with the church and everyone has been supportive, although sad enough to make me not feel like I am easily replaceable, ha. In all honesty, I feel good about this for both me and the church. We (the church staff) are in a transition stage and it felt like a good time for me to seamlessly transition out. A part of me has wanted to do this for a long time now but something in my Spirit kept telling me to wait and it finally feels like its time now.

I am so incredibly grateful for the almost 4 years that I will have been there and truly feel that God placed that opportunity in my lap right when I needed it. In a time when most college graduates have had to settle for a job that their degree doesn't apply to, I got the awesome "luck" of being hired in a small town with little to no ministry jobs available to do a job tailored to my strengths. I grew and matured a lot because of it, the highs and most definitely the lows.

I am very much looking forward to what this will mean for me. I am excited about the change. I don't know exactly what it's going to look like yet. I have had several thoughts bouncing around in my head ever since I became pregnant from expanding Kanyon's leatherwork business, to teaching work out classes, to expanding my own Mary Kay business (this one is a definite), to teaching dance in Lamesa again. So by no means will I be trying to "slow down", which isn't the problem. I'm excited about the variance that will become available to me.

Of course, I'm leaving out the most beneficial part of leaving a job - being with Brindle more. But honestly, I haven't really felt like I've been "away". She is with her Nana one and a half days a week, and that is extremely beneficial for her, I believe. I will most likely still have Vaughn keep her a little during the week so she gets her Nana time and I can do some Mary Kay work without someone wanting to rip up my order sheets. And then the rest of the week, I have had her.

I chose mid-December instead of end of December so I wouldn't be rushing back from Houston after Christmas day to work two days and then be done for good. I am relieved that this all happened at the end of the year. It just feels right to finish off a year and start something new in January. (I don't count mid-December as my "start of something new" since it will be crazy town as always during the holidays and I probably won't even notice I'm not at work).

So there's the latest concerning any big news. We've got a big week ahead of us starting tomorrow. Opening day of deer season, Landon competing for Tech's Rodeo Team in Abilene (making a quick day trip there Sunday - yikes with a baby), BRINDLE'S FIRST BIRTHDAY on Monday, harvest beginning, Brindle's birthday party on Wednesday, and then I am working a Walk to Emmaus Thursday through Sunday. Wow, I hadn't really laid it all out till just now... I have to go to bed.

But I'll leave you with a picture of a cute bunny...