Thankful for May 11, 2013

So today, before I forget, I just need to say Thanks God for Kyler and the gift you gave me in him.  He gave me tears in my eyes today at Kohl's.  We went shopping for Mother's day since I've been out of town at a conference and haven't really had time to sit and do much of anything.  Kyler brought some of his own money (reluctantly) with him to be spending on the important "mothers" in his life.  As we were walking through Kohl's he kept saying, Mom, I'm gonna buy you a ring, a necklace, and a bracelet.  Won't you like that?  It was too cute.  Then we got over by the jewelry because he was so intent on finding something for his mom for mother's day that he could spend his own money on.  He kept picking up really gaudy stuff and I kept trying to convince him along with Nate that we should keep looking.  Nate finally found a "packaged deal" of 5 bracelets that was on clearance.  He decided that would be a good gift and took them, but continued to look around at the other jewelry.  He kept saying, but mom, I just want to buy you something.  Then he said but mom, I want to buy you everything!  It made 2 other ladies in the store say awwww and it brought tears to my eyes!  Lord knows I needed that little blessing today, so Thanks Lord for the little reminders that you're right here with me!

Thankful March 16, 2013

Again I'm thankful for a few things...

1. A GREAT husband and dad!  He got up to pat Lena on the back at 3:30 and let me go back to sleep til 6!  I got more good rest...just wish I wasn't sick!  Nate also got up and made green breakfast in honor of us celebrating my FAVORITE holiday...St. Patrick's Day!  We had green eggs, green pancakes, and spam.  It was GOOD and filling!

2. Time with family...even if it was in the FREEZING cold!  We got a couple good pictures of me with the kids sitting waiting for the St. Patrick's day parade to start!  and then we went and celebrated lunch at Florentine's with a GREEN drink!  It was fun.

3. Extended family!...Had my nephew over tonight while my sis and brother in-law went to a comedy thing...and it was fun!  We got 3 kids fed, changed, and in bed (well, Kyler wasn't asleep, and it was hard to get the other 2 to sleep), but we did it!  Also, I got a message from my aunt on facebook and hopefully my words were encouraging to her as well.

4. a post about my dad on facebook and how he was such a faith filled man and so influential...I guess after all these years, I never really thought of my dad quite like that, but it was nice seeing someone else recognizing him for what he did...and it made me really think about how I was raised as well.

5. Saturday nights!  I'm so full right now with everything the LORD has given me this week and I can't wait to go to church tomorrow and just spend my time in worship!  I'm so relaxed from what this week brought me and now I'm ready to go back to God's house and praise HIM!

6. More encouraging and uplifting messages from friends (again, thanks Pam...and hopefully some day you read this!)

Thankful March 15, 2013

Today, I'm thankful for MANY things...

1. Waking up feeling rested.  I slept for a 6 hour stretch last night and can feel a difference this morning.

2. Godly people I am surrounded by who encourage me and push me forward!  (Thanks Pam!)

3. Fridays (and payday Friday at that!)

4. Radios in the car--I swear some days God is speaking directly to me through the songs that come on the radio--it's eerie!

5.  A WONDERFUL husband who is SO loving and caring, and a GREAT dad!  Sure we have our differences and challenges, but I'm so glad God brought Nathan and I together and can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him!

6. A great daycare provider for my children who is not only their daycare provider, but a friend.  She is also very informative!

7. My daughter is SLEEPING!!!  We'll see how it goes tonight (she was/is sick and didn't sleep much at daycare today).

8. Sunday is St. Patrick's Day...my FAVORITE holiday cause of the color!  Can't wait to spend a little down time celebrating with my family (even though we're not in the least bit Irish!)

Thankful March 3, 2013

Today I am thankful for my son's conversation.  The first time in the car on the way to Muskegon to my parent's house, Kyler told me that he prayed today in his children's church and he said he was thankful for "his baby" (aka, Lena).  We talked about being thankful and praying and how we need to do this daily because no matter what, God is GOOD!  We also talked today after lunch when we got a call that my Grandma Ritchard (dad's mom) had passed away.  Kyler painted such a sweet innocent picture of Heaven and that he would be going to Heaven someday to see Gigi Elvie and that she was now flying on the clouds.  He made us laugh and lightened up a very dark, sad occasion. 

Thankful March 2, 2013

Today I am thankful for Fun down time with my family.  We took Kyler and Lena to go see Disney on Ice today and enjoyed 2 hours of watching some of Kyler's favorite Disney characters dance around on ice skates (or as Kyler likes to say, roller skates!).  It was a fun and relaxing time with family!

Thankful March 1, 2013

Today I am thankful for FRIDAY!!!  It has been a while now since we've had a full week of school, and I can feel it.  I am exhausted and tired, but I have made it, and I am happy.  I am also thankful for an administrator who backs me up on controlling my class and helps step in when needed.

Thankful February 28, 2013

Today I am thankful for time to work on and finish my MASTER'S!  My husband took the kiddos so that I could finish up and submit my paper by my end of February deadline to my professors.  I technically haven't fully completed the paper yet since I still need to format it and add my abstract, my title page, cover page, and works cited pages, but I have the bulk of my project done and my paper is written and turned in for feedback.  Hopefully now, my professors will look at it, get it back to me, I will make corrections in a timely manner, and then submit for a final grade! YAY!  I'm in the homestretch now!

Thankful February 27, 2013

Today I'm thankful for parents...My daycare lady is gone on a Disney Cruise (lucky her!!!) and my parents and Nate's parents grouped together to cover ALL 5 days of the week to take care of my kiddos.  Nate's mom was with them Monday and Tuesday, my dad was with them on Wednesday, and my mom is with them Thursday and Friday.  I am SO thankful for parents that are willing to also take days to watch my kids so that I don't have to use up sick days!

Thankful February 26, 2013

Today I'm thankful for medicine (tylenol!).  I spent the day mostly in pain because I was being part stubborn and part not wanting to take something and mess up my dwindling milk supply (I've gotta make it 3 more months after all!).  I sat working with a few coworkers on some 1st grade science/social studies stuff (actually I'm thankful for GREAT coworkers too cause they did most of the work today cause I was in SO much pain!) and couldn't really concentrate since I hurt so badly.  On my way home I hurt so badly I found it hard to focus, but I made it home safely and took some medicine and after about an hour, started to feel better.  I'm thankful for the meds too cause now I can get my butt in gear and finish up my last section on my master's (hopefully) and submit it before Friday to my prof! (fingers crossed that that will happen!!!).

Thankful Feb. 25, 2013

Today I am thankful for Javi...I must say Javi is an interventionist in my school.  I have a particular student who is VERY difficult to deal with and gets me oh so frustrated, but Javi gladly takes the challenge to work with him/her everyday...sometimes 2 and 3 times each day...AND, he does it with a smile!  Javi, if ever you read my blog and I don't tell you enough in person, thanks again!  You're a lifesaver!

Back to 365 days of being thankful!

Well, I just looked over a few posts from last year...LAST year wow.  That seems like forever ago, but we are QUICKLY approaching my daughter's first birthday...what???? and I want to start up blogging again each and every day about something that I am thankful for...so, here goes:

Today, I am thankful for a break.  My mother-in-law came over so she could watch the kiddos tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday because our daycare lady is on vacation.  She got here and took us out to eat at Red Robin.  Normally I don't really like Red Robin, but I went along because that's where she wanted to go and I was hungry.  I ended up eating ALL of my food (chicken and fries) and then we came home and I got to work a little more on my Master's paper.  I'm really hoping to have it finished by this week Friday 3/1.  We'll see....but today, my mother-in-law came at the perfect time.  I was getting frustrated with Nate and the kids because they hadn't taken naps, and I was worn out.  Leaving our house and frustration behind could not have come at a better time...so, thanks mom-in-law for taking us away!  Now, I need to get up to bed so I don't miss my sleep window!

Just something to remember

So there are a couple things that happened yesterday that I want to make sure I NEVER forget.  One was just so precious and the other one made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants (and they both came from my son!).  First the precious cute one:

• Yesterday I had my 93 year old Grandmother over just for some company.  Sometimes I think it's a little hard on her getting out of the house, but I know she just adores her great-grandchildren and you can see it every time she sees them.  Yesterday I was busy feeding little Lena and so Kyler asked her to read to him.  I thought oh no Kyler, Gigi can't read those words, they are too small...but she said nevermind and made the words out the best she could.  She may not have won any speed reading awards, but she won world's GREATEST grandma in the whole world award from me.  I had to run and grab my camera it was just too precious!  (I never upload photos on here cause I always forget my camera and by then the post is created, but check out my pics on facebook if you want!)  I caught Gigi reading to Kyler in the kitchen.  I even had a small tear in my eye.
  and now, the funny laugh out loud one!...
• Yesterday Kyler found a string on our back porch while playing that had 2 beads one on each end.  When I looked over at him, he was trying to stick the beads in his ears.   I asked him Kyler what are you doing.  He replied I'm like Zackie mom!  I'm listening to my music.  I thought what on earth are you talking about.  Well, then it clicked.  Zack is our daycare lady's son and he listens to his i-pod a lot and Kyler watches him almost daily.  Well anyways, I decided to say to Kyler oh, you're listening to your i-pod with your ear buds.  He says yeah mom.  Well then later I told him I had a pair of ear buds that he could use and to please stop putting the beads in his ears.  He took them out and proceeded to ask me the entire rest of the afternoon where my i-boobs were and could he please have my i-boobs.  This is for some reason the funniest thing (and maybe it's just a parent thing that all parents go through with their children--that you had to have been there sort of thing) to me and when he kept saying i-boobs I could NOT stop laughing.

Alright, well those were just to remind me of silly little things that Kyler or Lena do...I know I still have to record Lena's birth story on here yet, but for now she's asleep, Kyler's asleep and I NEED desperately to get some sleep!  I'm running on complete empty right now!  I'll try to get her birth story up soon!  Thanks for checking back.

January 2, 2012...so thankful I'm alive and baby girl is kicking!

Today I am thankful to be alive and to be at a stage in my pregnancy where I can be pretty sure I'm feeling baby girl move! We had a bit of a scare today when Nate decided we needed to take Kyler out to use his new Christmas saucer and snow tube on the hill at Mulick Park. I wasn't going to go with them at first, but Nate convinced me to just come that they wouldn't be there long and I figured I should probably get a few pics of Kyler sledding anyways...so we loaded up in the car and headed to the hill.

We got to the park and there were quite a few people there sledding already and the hill seemed a bit big for Kyler to go on by himself yet so I made Nate get on the tube with Kyler and I said I'd wait at the bottom and take pictures. Well, I zoomed my camera in to take a picture of them at the top of the hill and the next thing I knew I hear Erin look out! Well I guess I was out of it or my camera was zoomed in too far and then BAM! Nathan clipped my legs out from underneath me, I was thrown over top of them and then landed pretty hard on my left hip. Nathan ran over to me and said Erin you're bleeding. Sure enough I had had blood on my gloves. I sat there for a second, felt fine other than my throbbing pain in between my eyes and my nose so I got up and decided to go to the car to call the doctor. The only problem was that the doctor's office was closed so I got to talk with the on call doctor. She said to watch for any cramping or bleeding and to just sit tight. Well, after getting home, talking with my mom and Nate, I started to just plain worry. I prayed that God would give us the peace that we needed to get through this and that he would make sure everything was ok with our family and baby girl! and let me tell you, did he EVER! God is SO awesome.

So, we decided to get back in the car and head to the ER just to see if they could put me on monitors or something to make sure baby girl was ok. I got to the hospital and there were quite a few people in ER already, but I must have been pushed through and I was seen relatively quickly. They took me back to a room and a doc came in maybe 20 minutes after getting to the hospital. The doc took all my information and actually seemed more concerned about the gash in my forehead and my hip than my baby. When the person from registration came in, we finally said to her that I really wasn't in much pain other than the gash on my forehead but that we REALLY wanted to make sure baby girl was ok and was there anything they could do to check her out. The lady asked the doctor and they got someone from ob to come down and just listen to baby girl's heartbeat (thankfully she found it right away!). It was between 153 and 160 and she said it sounded really good. At this time I started feeling baby girl moving all around again so I knew God was again comforting us in that small ER room. The doc came back after checking with some colleagues and decided we wouldn't need to do an x-ray of my hip because I was able to walk on my own and there was no real pain there, just stiffness. The doctor did tell us to go home, rest, and take it easy. I decided to take tomorrow off with a little bit of hesitation only because I hate taking days off, but I am really quite stiff and achy and when we got ready to leave the ER I felt so completely exhausted and tired that I figured I could use one more day to rest up before heading back to my classroom.

So, that's my story...crazy Iknow, but man could I EVER feel God's hand present today and it is such an amazing feeling! I KNOW he listens to my prayers and he answered them today!

January 1, 2012

Today I am thankful for bedtime and routines! Kyler has had such an exhausting holiday break and REALLY needs his sleep, however the past 2 days he's been REFUSING to go to sleep. He keeps himself awake somehow and just cries for either Nate or I to go in his room to turn on the monitor light. I don't know what it is about this monitor light and why he keeps calling us because he knows he can reach it and turn it on himself, but he wants US to come in and do it for him and then he's fine...but he's NOT SLEEPING! AHHHH I'm gonna pull my hair out if he does this next week. I NEED my sleep! How am I ever going to manage with 2??? Tonight I'm thankful for routines and bedtimes cause hopefully after tonight we'll be getting back on track and getting Kyler in bed and sleeping by 8pm!

I'm also thankful for Sunday sermons (again a good one from Pastor Steve on Ecclesiastes 3--a time for everything), naps and cuddling with my baby, I love yous from loved ones, and a new year. I'm thankful that God has brought me into the new year with health and the hope of a new baby on the way! Now, if only May would just hurry up and get here!

December 30, 2011

I'm thankful today for GREAT and when I say GREAT I mean GREAT!!! doctors. Today I went to my regular OB appointment hoping that my doctor would just take a peek to see if she could determine gender since we didn't get a clear picture because baby wasn't cooperating...we didn't quite get that, we got even better! I started talking with my doctor about the scan the day before and how it went fine but we couldn't determine gender and then we got off talking about how I felt this other doctor wasn't really giving me her expert medical advice on what I should be doing in this pregnancy. My doctor not only said she didn't like that and stop, she started looking to refer me out, even out of the Spectrum Health unit because she was so upset at the care and lack of follow ups. Then, I got a call in the afternoon about an appointment for an ultrasound...so we have a gender, but I won't share til tomorrow...sorry. We're VERY busy getting prepared for our gender reveal party with family and I can't wait to post on how that all goes...I'll probably write something about that first later tonight OR tomorrow morning and then post about the baby's gender in cyber world. For now, I've got food labels to make.


and here's a pic that we got from the first scan on Thursday...I'm already in love!

December 29, 2011

Today I am thankful for an absolutely PERFECT ultrasound! Praise the LORD! Though I couldn't share with you all anyways what Baby Studer's gender is until after January 1st, I can honestly say I don't know. Baby S wouldn't show us the goods. Everything was all squished down there and we couldn't get an accurate shot...so....hopefully tomorrow at my regular OB appointment the doc will take a quick sneak peek to see if she can determine our baby's gender...otherwise we'll just have to have a party just because and won't know the gender 100% til D-Day! Other than not finding out the gender the ultrasound was PERFECT! The ultrasound tech kept commenting on how great everything looked and then when we talked with the doctor, she ever went as far as saying as long as nothing else pops up that we wouldn't need a follow up ultrasound because baby looked spot on! YAY! and Praise the LORD for a healthy baby!

December 28, 2011

Today I'm thankful for God's safety and laughs. Today started out like a normal day with cleaning up after Christmas. I got the tree and decorations down, but then when I went to go bring them downstairs to put them away, Kyler wandered away from me and hopped on the treadmill by himself and turned the speed up to full blast! All I heard was a loud thud and then a HELP ME! I ran out to see Kyler laying flat on his belly and the next second as I was reaching to turn the treadmill off he flew off the back and hit his head. I was SURE we'd be seeing blood and using LOTS of bandages, but thankfully because of God's hand Kyler escaped with only a minor (and I mean VERY minor) bump on his upper lip. When I went upstairs to get Kyler a boo-boo buddy to put on his lip, I tried to explain to Nate what had happened and I couldn't help but to laugh at how I saw Kyler and him yelling help and the next thing I knew he was thrown back against the wall and escaped with only a small bump on his lip. I was laughing SO hard I almost peed my pants and I had tears in my eyes like I was crying. Don't get me wrong, it was VERY scary and I hope Kyler learned his lesson, but it was also pretty funny.
The next thing that happened that made me laugh uncontrollably today was a few minutes after giving Kyler the boo-boo buddy, he went in his room. We thought he was playing with his toys while we were cleaning the house some more for our party on Saturday, but when Nate went in his room to check on him, he said, "Erin you're gonna wanna go check on what Kyler is doing." I went in the room to find Kyler had gotten himself dressed to go shopping, except he put on his shirt backwards and he (OMG I am laughing uncontrollably now typing this...) couldn't find any pants to put on, so he put on another shirt around his legs like a skirt. When I walked in the room he threw his hands up and looked at me with this HUGE smile on his face and said "I did it all by myself mom!" You can bet I snapped a picture of his ensemble before taking the bottom shirt off his legs and putting pants on him. I let him keep the other shirt he put on by himself we just turned it around. I am SO thankful today for laughs! Tomorrow is a BIG day...we find out (hopefully) what baby Studer #2 is...but I won't be posting on here til January 1st...so check back then.

December 27, 2011

Today I'm thankful for time to clean my house...I know it seems so crazy and actually it WAS, but having the time to sit and go through things and pull things out that I no longer need really makes me appreciate what I do have. I know I have WAY too much! I'm working on it, but for now, the little time that I have to go through what I have and get rid of stuff is wonderful!

December 26, 2011

Today I am again thankful for grandparents that REALLY love Kyler. They enjoy seeing him when they can and WANT him to stay over longer. I really like the fact that even though Kyler is 2 hours away from his one set of grandparents, they make an effort to come over and visit him as well as try to check in with him throughout the weeks through Skype. I'm thankful Nate and I could stay an extra night on the other side of the state...even if it does mean we'll have to get up early and we won't get as much cleaned up in our house...we're making family happy and that's what the season is about too right?

December 25, 2011

Today I'm thankful for our Savior. All day I kept reminding myself that the day was NOT about me, it was about my Savior! We had a VERY busy day...one in which we started on one end of the state and ended up on the other side of the state. I got frustrated in between the 2 get togethers because I thought it was going to go one way, but then all of a sudden it wasn't and instead of getting so upset and angry, I just reminded myself it was about Jesus and HIS day and that I should be celebrating him with family and friends. I was able to look past the bitterness and just be flexible! That's something that is NOT easy for me to do! We made out alright...Kyler was a bit grumpy from the lack of sleep, but we dealt with it and so went Christmas 2011.