Into Fall

Fall is finally upon us. My favorite time of the year. Especially in Florida...there is no better place to experience fall, in my opinion. It's been a while since I've updated our blog (as my husband pointed out to me today) and we've had a lot going on that would be blog-worthy, so I'll get right to it.

Braelyn turned 3! However, she lost her best friend and playmate when Emily started school. She tends to follow Mom around all day making it almost impossible to get things checked off of my to-do list each day. I am trying to keep things in perspective, knowing that this is just a season. I remind myself that it is a good opportunity to spend some quality time with my 'middle child'. Braelyn started Cubbies a couple of weeks ago. She goes each Wednesday for about an hour and a half and has a great time learning about God, doing crafts, playing with other kids, and memorizing scripture. Her favorite part is picking a prize out of the bag when she says her memory verse for the week. What I enjoy the most about Braelyn is the randomness of her conversation and her love for snuggling. A friend was watching her for me while I was in the ER with Grady (we'll get to that later) and she later told me that Braelyn asked why she had plates on her wall. My friend responded 'they're pretty for me to look at.' Braelyn said, 'I don't have plates in my room- I have underpants in my room.' On the way to pick up Emily from school today, Braelyn saw a turtle in the grass and she said 'the turtle is going to school just like Emily.' Usually a day has not ended without me smiling at something she's said. Makes me wonder what goes on in her little mind.

What a ham!

Ok, back to the ER with Grady. Now that Grady is mobile... let me digress. He's definitely mobile, but he looks more like a lizard than a baby when he moves. I guess it's a form of 'commando crawling', but he moves so fast and alternates his arms and feet that his form resembles that of the lizards that bask in the sun on our windowsills. Anyway, now that's he's mobile, I have constantly been nagging the girls to pick things up off of the floor that he could swallow. There always seem to be little scraps of paper from crafts or hairclips that don't make it back to their place of belonging laying on the floor. Apparently on one of Grady's morning excursions through the house, he attempted to swallow something he found on the floor. I didn't see what it was and after a call to the pediatrician, we ended up in the ER for an X Ray to make sure his airway wasn't compromised. After a 3 hour wait in a small space crammed with people infected with the swine flu (oops... the H1N1 virus :) ), we finally made it into our own examining room. As I was nursing Grady, I saw what looked like a piece of paper lodged in his throat, so I went out to the nurse's station and told them I didn't think an xray was necessary because paper wouldn't show up on the film anyway. They insisted... just to make sure. When they were done with the xray I ended up feeding him again and could see that the paper had moved around a little bit. I kept him on his stomach and eventually I saw him 'chewing', so I flipped him over, pried his mouth open, and caught just the edge of the 'foreign object' and pulled it out. I'm still not sure exactly what it was and where it came from. It looked like the plastic wrapper from the straw on the back of a juice box. It was such a thin plastic that it formed a vacuum against his throat so he couldn't get it out and just continuously gagged on it. Lots of praises coming out of that- that Grady managed to get it out himself, and I consider it a true miracle that we did not end up with the H1N1 flu. Needless to say, mykids are learning that if anything lays on the floor for more than 30 seconds, it is liable to end up in the trash :) All is well that ends well.

Grady at 8 months

Braelyn loves to snuggle with Grady

Lastly, and maybe most monumental in our lives... Emily started Kindergarten. Ok, let me take just a second to vent about a random pet peeve. If someone can't spell Kindergar'd'en right, they should not be allowed to homeschool their children! Back to school... Emily is loving it! Over the summer, we were given the option by the school to request a teacher for our child. I prayed about it and came to the conclusion that God knows so much better what my child needs than I do, so I would leave it in his hands. I am so glad I did not try to stick my hands into his business. We all just love her teacher. Without coming right out and asking her, I am assuming that she is a believer. Emily told me last week that she used to teach preschool at Fruit Cove Baptist- where Emily went last year. She is organized, but not in a way that will exacerbate Emily's type A personality and she is firm and clear in her expectations and consequences. We get the run-down from Emily each day of who ends up on yellow and red... so far she's been on green each day. Public school has definitely given me some additional opportunities to take Emily back to God's word and help her apply it to specific situations. This week we had our first 'incident'. Instead of biking, I picked Emily up in the parent pick up line by car. As she opened the door to get in, her teacher said, "we had a little incident today. I put an envelope in Emily's folder for you, but before you freak out, read the note." I have to say I was a little alarmed by the 'before you freak out' part. Of course, I couldn't look at the folder right away since I was driving, so I was trying to pry some information out of Emily, who I might add wasn't volunteering much. My first question was, "did you stay on green today?" The answer was 'yes', so I figured it couldn't be THAT bad. I was too curious to wait until we were out of the car, so I had Emily get her folder out and I read the teacher's note. Apparently Emily had misused her scissors to cut her hair. Inside the envelope were the curly locks that she had cut off. Her teacher did tell me that she believes it was a one time thing since Emily is usually so well behaved and she also said that she believes Emily was 'encouraged' by a friend to do it. After asking a few questions, I ended up with the full story. I took the opportunity to remind Emily of the scripture that says we are to be different from the world. The lesson learned: even though our friends are doing things that are wrong, God expects us to obey him. We were made to please God, not our friends. It made me realize how easily swayed children can be and even though I feel like I am constantly beating them over the head with God's word and what kind of heart Jesus wants them to have, this was a good reminder that I can never be doing too much of that. I sent a note back to her teacher, thanking her for sending home the hair. I told her that she was a 'hairless' baby, so now I have some for the baby book :) It's all about perspective, right? At least she didn't cut the hair off of someone else's head.

Emily on Picture Day

The morning before the hair cut :)

I think that about covers the highlights of the last couple of months. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things that I should have remembered to include, but this will have to do. We're looking forward to a trip to Guatemala, probably in November. That should in itself provide plenty of blog-worthy material for our next update.

Growing Up

It happens so fast, doesn't it??? When you have your first child, the passing comment you get from just about everyone is 'enjoy them, because they grow up so fast'! And you never think you'll take it for granted, but here I am astonished that I am writing about Emily's 5 year check up and Grady's 4 month check up.

Both of them are growing quite nicely, although quite differently! Emily is still close to the 100th percentile for height and around 50% for weight. But, hey, at least she's ON the chart now for her height! On the other hand, Grady appears to be taking after Braelyn's body-type. He measured between the 25th and 50th percentile for both height and weight. Rob and I were joking that he must be taking after his father in the brain-department since his head only measured at 10%. Ha!

Grady had been sleeping through the night for a couple of weeks and is back to getting up once to eat. I'm hoping it is just a growth spurt and we'll both soon be back to an undisturbed night. (Note: by the time I actually published this entry, Grady has made it through the night again for 4 nights!) Our pediatrician recommended waiting to give him cereal until closer to 6 months. She said he looks just wonderful and really doesn't need anything other than breastmilk until around then. That's when a baby's supply of iron depletes and they either need cereal, which is iron fortified, or a supplement of iron. Grady loves to squeal (like a girl!) and talk to his sisters when he can get a word in for himself. He adores his big sisters! He is getting around pretty well by rolling now. I have to think about where I put him instead of just laying him down and expecting him to be where I left him when I come back. He really enjoys splashing in the pool when we go swimming in the afternoons.

Emily has become quite a proficient swimmer. She can swim the entire length of the pool with just one breath! I am currently looking for a class of some sort to get her in for the summer- maybe dance... she could use a little more grace and coordination with her long legs! More importantly, Emily has been asking a lot of questions about God, heaven and yes, even hell. We started a nightly devotional with her that goes through the Bible and then has a devotional that includes praise, prayer, an example using someone from the Bible and then an activity to apply the truth to her life. It's something she looks forward to each night and it brings forth lots of questions that I didn't know she was thinking about. The best part is that between the devotional and her questions, it gives me the opportunity at least once a day to lay out the gospel as easily and plainly as I can for her 5 year old mind. She always insists to me that she's already asked Jesus into her heart and that he's given her a 'new' heart that wants to love Him. I trust that if it is God's will, one day she will see the wretchedness of her heart as God does and that she will then be able to understand what it means to need Jesus as her savior.

Braelyn is doing well too- her turn for the blog spotlight will come in August when she turns 3!

Rob and I also celebrated our 10 year anniversary last week. We celebrated with a quiet dinner at the Melting Pot...a wonderful place for conversation. Thank you, Lord for blessing me with a wonderful husband and father to our children who loves You first!

Grady at 5 months and looking a lot like Grandpa Leaman!

Emily showing off her new pool skills

Beating the heat in the pool

Surviving Disney- the RIGHT way!

Survival... that's what we were hoping for when we set out on Sunday for a 4 day get-away to Orlando including 2 days spent at Disney World. We booked a 2 bedroom suite in a Holiday Inn Resort that was about 5 miles from all the attractions. The resort was wonderful... the section we stayed in (the resort was huge-many different villages, each with their own ammenities) had a beautiful pool with a lazy 'river' that weaved it's way around the pool and a water slide and an inflatable Hippo slide (which was out of commision while we were there). The girls could've had a wonderful vacation by never leaving the hotel! On Monday, we met the guy who got us free tickets into Disney at Hollywood Studios. We decided that's not where we wanted to spend our time, so we packed up and took our free park hopper passes to Animal Kingdom. We had a good time looking at different animals on a safari bus ride, a train ride, and Emily got to go on the white water rapids ride twice- first with Dad and then with Mom. I'm still not sure how Dad managed to come off the ride completely dry, and Mom ended up soaked! Doesn't seem quite fair! Braelyn had a hard time understanding that she was 'just too little' to go on that ride. We assured her that we would come back and ride it again when she was big enough. Even with no naps, the girls did very well. Of course, there was a lot of 'stop poking me' phrases that escalated louder and louder until mom or dad intervened, but what can you expect when two sisters are both riding in a single jogging stroller? Braelyn sat in the back and Emily sat on the step in the front. It was just too hard for Braelyn to resist the temptation to poke and irritate when the opportunity was right there in front of her... literally.

Our second day was spent at Magic Kingdom- what Rob and I know as Disney World. It's amazing how much everything has changed since I last went to Disney in 3rd grade. It's also very surprising what you DO and DO NOT remember. The two things I remembered from my childhood vacation were the 'Country Bear Jamboree' show and the 'It's a Small World' ride, so those were definites on our to-do list. The girls got to meet Donald Duck, walk through Mickey and Minnie's houses, ride the carousel, go on another train ride, wear really cool glasses to watch a 3D movie complete with scents and puffs of air, see a parade with all the characters including Mickey and Minnie, and probably the highlight of the trip- meet and have their pictures taken with 3 Disney princesses.

The reason I titled this entry 'surviving Disney- the RIGHT way' is because through the course of Day 1 at Animal Kingdom, as we knelt down by the stroller, struggling to patiently deal with issues of the heart that presented as greediness, disobedience, selfishness, grumpiness, unkindness, etc in 2 very overtired girls, I found myself tempted to follow suit of what most other parents did to survive: 'buy your kids everything they want and let them eat anything they ask for'. However, as we explained to our children, vacation is not an excuse for poor behavior. We are children of God no matter where we are, and just as they are expected to have hearts like Jesus while they're on vacation, as parents, we are expected to continue to obey God's word in shepherding our children's hearts- we NEVER get a vacation from that responsibility! So, I can officially say, we survived Disney the RIGHT way!

Emily and Daddy on the River Rapids Ride!

The girls get to meet Donald Duck (I think!)

Braelyn's silly 3D glasses for the Philharmagic Movie

.......And Emily......

On a bridge at a local park Easter afternoon.

Braelyn and Grady

Are You A Pirate?

Well, it's time for our first 'story' to be published on the blog... leave it to Emily to be the main character!

We went to a grocery store today that is not our usual since it was on our way to a friends house that we were to drop off dinner for. We've been there several times, but as Emily gets older, her awareness of people and circumstances changes. As we steered our cart through the produce section, an employee walked by us and said 'Good morning, girls.' Emily took one look at him and the patch he wore over his eye, and said 'Arrgghh... it's a Pirate,' in her most 'piratey-like' voice. I gave her one of those looks that is supposed to communicate 'hush, right NOW' without words spoken, but she didn't seem to get it. She continued to make a few pirate comments which were all quite loud enough for the man to hear. I realized my looks weren't going to cut it, so I then said to her 'Emily, that's enough... That man is not wearing his eye patch as part of a costume or because he's trying to be silly.' I was embarrassed that he had heard that she called him a pirate and knew that I had to take the opportunity to teach her a life lesson. I prayed for wisdom and grace as I addressed her comments with her. It went something along the lines of this; "God has given you a healthy body that has 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 ears, 2 eyes, but sometimes babies are born different than you and their bodies don't work as well as yours does. Sometimes there are accidents that happen after we're born that hurt parts of our bodies and then they don't work the same as before." I explained to her that the man's eye was different than hers and that it didn't work the same as her eyes. When she asked me what happened to his eye, I responded that I didn't know. I remembered having a conversation with a friend of mine; her son has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. She told me that she would much rather have children come up to her and ask her why her son was in a wheelchair than to have parents cause things to be more awkward by hushing their children with shame and emarrassment. So, I asked Emily if she would like to know why he needed to wear an eyepatch, and she said she would. We made an extra loop around the produce aisles and approached the 'pirate man'. I first apologized to him for Emily's comments and then told him that I wanted to use this as an opportunity to teach her that some people are different than her and that God made each of us special even if our bodies don't work the same way. He told us that he was not offended by the comments (he hears them a lot since he works in a grocery store in a community jam-packed full of kids!), but he also said that he REALLY appreciated that I was taking the opportunity to explain things to her rather than just ignoring it like most folks do. He told Emily that she was very lucky to have 2 eyes... he used to as well, but about 15 years ago, he was in a situation where someone was very jealous of him and pulled a gun out and shot him in the face. He said that even though he didn't have his one eye anymore, he was very lucky to be alive. I could tell that Emily was really thinking that through. I thanked him for his willingness to share with us and told him the next time we see him at the grocery store, we would call him Mr. Andrew instead of the 'Pirate-Man'. He smiled and said, 'I'll see you soon'.

I have a feeling there will be many more opportunities for life lessons as Emily grows older and her awareness of people and their differences from herself becomes more astute. I pray that everyone who finds themselves at the expense of my child's learning process will be as gracious as Mr. Andrew was today.

Here's a picture of Emily in a real fire truck. She took a trip to the hardware store with Daddy and was so curious about the fire truck that the firemen invited her to sit inside and try on their hats.

Grady Update

Grady hit the two month mark this past weekend and had his check up on Thursday. Dr. Irene says he is doing well... growing just as he should be. After our struggles to get Emily to gain weight at this age, that is always music to my ears. He is now over 11 pounds and has grown an inch since his 2 week check up. He is right around the 50% for height, weight, and head circumference. He did great- didn't fuss the entire time he was examined until the nurse gave him the shots. I think they should add a class to the pediatric nursing programs on how to give shots to infants QUICKLY. I have never seen someone move so slow while giving an immunization. One needle would go in and come out, the band-aid goes on and by the time he finally stopped crying about the first one, then she would start the second one....same thing with the third. It breaks my heart to see his little face get so red. He was very sweet with the doctor until she forced his mouth open to 'take a peek'. Then Doctor Irene got to see the pout that gets Grady his way every time with Mama. I'll have to get a picture of that one some day: then you'll see what I mean!

Here are a couple of pictures of Grady. If I can post them in the right order, you'll get a pretty clear picture of what we see between each feeding: Smiling Grady, Yawning Grady, and Cranky Grady. I haven't snuck into his room yet to get a picture while he's sleeping... you'll just have to imagine that one!

Smiling...

Yawning...

Crying...

And this one, just because it's so cute!

And the last one because it can't ALL be about Grady!

Smallest Stettler Stalk

Braelyn holding Grady

Emily and Braelyn sharing a rare hug that wasn't followed by 'I'm sorry'

Emily's castle

Displaying our fingernail polish and makeup all done with markers!

Grady Leaman Stettler became our newest 'stalk' on January 22, 2009. He is now 6 weeks old and is growing 'like a weed.' It's hard to believe that he's been with us a month and a half already! Emily and Braelyn are wonderful big sisters to their new brother. Emily loves to hold Grady and entertain him, while Braelyn (our snuggle-girl) loves to rub her cheek on the top of his head while saying "soft hair" and "I love him, Mama." It melts my heart to see their expressions of love for him because I don't as often get to see those loving sentiments expressed between the two of them.

Emily's creative mind is growing and expanding by the hour, it seems. From 'painting' fingernails with markers to building castles with her blocks, she is constantly pretending and creating. Her artistry tends to leave a path of destruction behind her which, like a typical creative-mind, gets her in trouble when it doesn't get cleaned up. Her most recent accomplishment is learning to ride her bike without the training wheels. That was Daddy's idea, and now he's paying for it as he has to run along side of her bike as she cruises the neighborhood.

Braelyn is busy trying to keep up with 'na-na' (her nick-name for Emily-not sure where that one came from!). We often say that Braelyn went from 2 to 5 years of age, skipping the years in between. As soon as she could keep up with Emily, she became her shadow...doing all the things that 4/5 year olds do. That can make Mama a little nervous at times; especially when she gets the scissors a little too close to her hair while cutting things out, or asks to take the training wheels off of her bike too! I don't think we're quite ready for that!

I've posted a few recent pictures..... enjoy!

Blogging Fog

What in the world is a blog?... was my response when I first heard about blogs a couple of years ago (I know, I'm a late bloomer in the techno world). However, as our family continues to become more dispersed across the world (yes, world...my parents just moved to Guatemala to begin a 2 year missions term. You can follow their journey through their myspace link on this page) I am making my first attempt to join the blogging society in an effort to keep everyone up to date on our family happenings. We are excited about the wonderful things God is doing in our lives and in the lives of our three children: Emily, Braelyn, and Grady. Stay tuned for pictures, stories, and updates as our three little 'stalks' grow.