Corbin - One Year

I know this is late, But I really want to catch up. Corbin is now a year old. What happened to my baby? Now he's walking, "talking", sleeping through the night and done with formula! I am so proud of his accomplishments and he adds so much joy and laughter to our family. Corbin is small for his age group. He's still under 20 lb. and is 28 and a half inches long. Although his head is in the 98% so he's a little bobble head. :) Corbin says "mama", "dada", "hey" and "done" to get down from the table.  He loves "running" around the house with Alister and gets excited when Papa gets home. He's a momma's boy for sure and is my little buddy.  While we didn't plan on Corbin coming into our lives so soon, we couldn't imagine life any other way.

I couldn't get the type of pictures I would have liked, but these are still cute. :) Some are from the little birthday party we had with the Elders.

UPDATE: OH MY GOSH! I can not believe this was never published! I thought I did! Well... Enjoy!

Christmas 2014

It was our first Christmas as a family of four.  :) It was simple and wonderful.  While, again, I didn't get the Christmas pictures I envisioned, we at least have memories of it. Well, Adam and I do (maybe just me). ;)  We spent the morning of course opening gifts and spent the day relaxing and enjoying one another.

We also, had the Elders over for Christmas dinner which was a lot of fun. :)

Mother of Two

Becoming a mother to Alister was both terrifying and exciting. Becoming a mother to a second son brought new fears. Will I be able to divide my time evenly? Will I feel too drained? I now have two future Elders to teach and nurture. Will I be good enough? Will I teach them enough? Will they learn compassion and become tender hearted? Will they know charity? ... I have two future Elders. Over time, that fear has turned to excitement.  One that I'm not sure I would have come to know this early in the game if it weren't for all the wonderful Elders I've met here in Indiana.  I watched some youtube videos of missionaries returning home a while back.  A couple of them the sons raced to their mothers and embraced them and wouldn't let go.  I totally balled my eyes out.  It made me hope that I could one day know that feeling of joy, love, pride and relief to embrace my son after two years.

Being a mother of two boys has its own kind of pride. One that I'm so happy to know. I got a blessing a couple weeks ago from Adam and it was such a good reminder that The Lord has called me to be a mother.  That He has placed his trust in me.  That when I have doubt, He still has hope.  For that I am so grateful.

We get compliments everywhere we go on Alister and Corbin.  About how cute they are, Alister's hair, their blue eyes, Corbin's red hair, their good behavior.  People can't help but smile when they see those two smile.  When they watch as Corbin clings to me while sometimes flashing a smile their way.  If only these strangers knew just how much I truly do appreciate those compliments.  And while I do, I also wish they could know just how wonderful they really are.  I'll do my best to raise these boys in hopes that one day, they will both serve missions and they will be able to touch so many peoples lives.  Just as so many missionaries have touched ours. I hope that some of those returned missionaries read this.  Because I want them to know, that we love them. We miss them. We hope that they will continue to reach out and touch peoples lives with service, selflessness and charity.

No Regrets

As I sit here rocking Corbin, watching his eyes become heavy as he drifts off to sleep, I ponder to myself. Corbin is now ten months old. I still have to rock him to sleep. And while I am exhausted and sick at the moment, and can not help but think that I will never regret rocking my children. Yes, Corbin does not sleep well so I am going to start sleep training very soon, or we will all loose our minds. But still, I don't regret a single day or night of rocking Corbin. The same goes for Alister. 

Alister didn't start sleeping through the night until 14 months I believe. And I rocked him to sleep. The reason I stopped was because I was pregnant with Corbin and I was getting to big to comfortably rock Alister. Plus, I knew things had to change before the new baby. No matter how much I knew that at times, I would look back on the days when I could rock Alister and miss it. He was our first baby boy. I will always look back in fondness. I remember my first birthday after Alister was born. I got up in the middle of the night to feed Alister. When I sat in my rocker I looked over to see a wrapped gift and card. Something "from" Alister. I the card, Adam wrote as if it were Alisters words. In it read, "this is our special time". I read that and knew it to be true. Even though I was tired and worn out, it was a special time with my son. As Alister laid there in my arms, I gazed upon him telling him that it was a very special time. That I love him so much, kissing his face as he sleep. 

While it is easier to sleep train babies at a younger age, I do not regret my choices. While I rocked I got to look upon those precious faces. I could feel them breath and watch them dream. I've known people who don't ever rock their children to sleep because they don't want to encourage that habit. While logically I can agree that, that is very smart, emotionally I feel sad for them. Rocking my boys has grown to be one of my favorite things. And now, I will be sleep training Corbin soon. I will have to give up rocking him to sleep. Quite honestly, it makes me very sad. My baby is growing up. I think it makes me even more sad then when I stopped rocking Alister because we are not planning to have any more children. A decision I do not regret but I will miss rocking our babies. They are only tiny for a short time. The window to enjoy such pleasures is very small. One that I know I have enjoyed fully. 

Ten Months - Corbin

At ten months. Wow wee! Two more months until his first birthday. I just can't. He grew up too fast. But at ten months Corbin doing really well. Other then sleep still. But he's crawling and climbing up stairs. His favorite thing to do is to practice walking. Which Is great! The more he does it the sooner he'lol start walking in his own. I truly believe he will be walking around his first birthday. He's a smarty pants. He knows that the t.v. remote turns in the t.v.. He has turned it one a few times and when he does he'll hold the remote up towards the t.v.. He tries to turn movies on I guess. Hahaha! It's pretty cute to watch. It shows is that he's pretty observant. Oh! Corbin's hair has also really started to come in. And we have learned that he is not blonde like we have thought for the last several months. He is a red head! He's our little Irish boy. Which I must admit I'm pretty excited about. 

For a long time while growing up, I was always jealous of Cameron (my twin brother) for having red hair. I mean, it was RED! Thick and beautiful. Corbin's so far is a lighter red. Like a strawberry blonde. I must point out (brag) that he also has blue eyes. Which I'm sure you have already noticed. This means that Corbin has one of the rarest combos of hair and eye color. The rarest for red heads. While red heads are the rarest anyway, it is even more rare for a red head to have blue eyes. So that's pretty freakin' awesome. :) 

Corbin is an adorable baby boy who like his older brother steals the hearts of strangers every where we go. People are always calling him blue eyes. Saying how cute and precious our boys our. I love to see strangers faces light up and their hearts melt whenever they smile at them. I must say, it's an extra bonus to have adorable kids that the world loves. :) 

Corbin - Nine Months

Well, only three months until the first birthday... My goodness! Our baby is growing up so fast. Corning can now crawl! Which is awesome. He seems to be happier. :) Although, he still doesn't sleep through the night so there's that factor. If he did I'm sure he would be even happier. We all would. ;) He gets very distracted while eating so much of the time I have to take him to the nursery and make him eat. He does better when we're alone. Corbin is a big momma' boy. He wants to be held by momma. He wants to be near momma. He wants to sit with momma. He was to play with momma. He wants to wake her up several times a night so he can be rocked backed to sleep by momma. As tiring as it all is, I'm okay with it. He won't be little forever. He's my little buddy.  

Corbin also, adores his dad and brother. When Corbin does something that Alister can do, he gets all excited. :) He gets so excited when dad walks through the door. If I'm holding him, he'll get all four limbs going. 

Corbin has also started spoon feeding himself. :D He loves to do it. And when he does need help, I'll load the spoon and he'll take it, feed himself then give me the spoon back. Now, if I could get him to take a sippy cup...

Poisoned

Yes. You read the title right. We we're poisoned. Adam, Alister and I got food poisoning. The most likely culprit: Nectarines. We believe they weren't waded properly of pesticides. 

Now, depending on the bacteria, or in this case chemical, as how much it can take anywhere from 12-72 hours before the body starts to reject the poison. For us, it was closer to 24 hours. 

First, I just want to thank The Lord for watching over my family. He warned us that something was going to happen. Thursday morning I felt anxious. Like something was wrong or would be wrong. I tried calling Adam but he was busy at work. I texted family and friends to ask if they were alright. I called them. I even went to my neighbor, Bob, and knocked on his door (no answer) to see if he was okay. Finally, Adam called me. He explained that he wasn't sure if he should call me or just wanted to call me. So he called. I explained how I had been feeling and he felt the same. He ended up coming home because of it. Within 2-3 hours we starting feeling bad. And it got worse and worse. Then Alister got sick, too. We figured it was good poisoning and didn't know what to do. Later that evening, Adam asked the missionaries to come over and give us blessings. I am so grateful to them for that service. They then went to the store and picked up some items for us and our sour tummies. 

I won't give any horrific details, but there is one other thing I really want to say. It is one thing to be poisoned yourself and have to go through the process of getting the poison out. It is also another thing to watch your spouse go through it. At least they can communicate and let you know they feel sick. But, to watch your young child go through such a trial is an entirely different experience. Now, Alister has been sick before, but never like to this extreme. He wanted to be held more then normal. He would become fussy and cry while nauseated. He ended up sleeping in our room on our floor. Now, Alister doesn't talk a lot still. He doesn't have a big vocabulary or say simple 2-3 word sentences. So he can't tell us when something is wrong. But we have one brave, strong boy. After all he went through, he could still find moments to be happy. He still laughed and played and smiled. He has one of the sweetest, genuine souls we have ever known. And we are so proud of him.