Its FALL :)

Hi Everyone, I know I have not posted for a little while but our house as being bursting with energy. I am now back to school which takes up a lot of my time in fact I have spent most of the evening studying for a midterm tomorrow and soon will be heading to bed. Jethro has grown in leaps and bounds over the last couple months and is now 9 weeks old or is it ten weeks, I am horrible at math. His new thing this week is cooing and talking away to everyone or anything that comes into his line of vision. I forgot how much I like this age. Watching him turn into his own little person is amazing. Josiah is also growing a lot and is now wearing size two clothing. I can not believe how big he is getting it makes me want to cry as I do not want my baby boy to grow up. Honestly his first year of life I did not think he would make it this fare. He was so hard to feed and get to gain weight I feared everyday that he would be taken from us. I am so grateful that God saw fit to leave him here on this earth with us. He is truly a gift from God. I have never seen Josiah without a smiling on his face. James no longer likes to be called Jamie as his big cousin James told him the nick name Jamie is for babies. This also makes me sad as it shows a sign that he is growing up and becoming more independent. James has not grown as much as his brother but he defiantly is getting older as he now enjoys going to swimming lessons and is looking forward to playing lacrosse in January. I can not believe that my little boy is almost four years old. However he still loves Mommy cuddles :) My husband Jesse is the best husband a girl/women could ask for. He does everything for me I think I am spoiled and I am sorry to say I do not always appear as grateful as I am. He is the best father three little boys could ask for as he always finds time to spend with them even when he has just gotten of off night shift and is extremely tired. He is always willing to watch them so that I can study and he makes the best dinners ever. I love him so much and am grateful to God for him everyday. I am also doing quit well. I am just a little overwhelmed with school and need to get more confident and be able to show that I am confident in what I do as a nursing student. Psyc is not my favorite semester but I am deffenitly learning a lot and have been able to use my faith within the clinical setting. I thank God that I can be in impact in some of my patients lives. God made sure I was in the right place at the right time to make a positive impact on someones life and he allowed me to see what I can do to impact a patient with a mental illness. Overall this has been an amazing couple of months as a growing family of five which is mostly boys but as the only girl there are many perks. One being Jamie calls me pretty every morning and I can be the only Jesse's girl in the house :)

Welcome home Jethro!!!

This past week we have welcomed our newest addition Jethro Earl Richard Rolland. He came into the world on August 2nd via c-section at 3:11PM weighing 7lbs 11oz. Apart from me worrying that he is not getting enough food unless I give him a bottle every now and then he is doing amazing. He has been an awesome addition to the family and we all adore him.

James is always wanting to hold his little brother. However he did ask me today if I could put Jethro back in my tummy so he could see how he got out :) Josiah, on the other hand, seems to forget that we even have a baby until Jethro is put down somewhere were he cant be missed. Then Josiah has to be kissing him or poking him while he repeats "Baby, baby"....

Summer 2012 has been going amazing. I have been able to enjoy being a stay at home Mom and spending much needed time with my growing family. Thanks to Jesse jobs he has been able to participate in most of our family activities. These activities have included planting a deck "garden", going to the park, going on nature walks (not as many as we would have liked), and spending lots of time with family and freinds. James is even proud to show that he has grown some potatos in his very own garden.

And now we are working on tomatos. Josiah has grown in leeps and bounds over the summer and soon is going to be a big brother. The baby is going to be born by c-section on August 9th, which is in 8 days. He/she has to be born by c-section due to the fact that the baby is a footling breech and refuses to turn. The baby is already showing his/her stubborn side before he/she is born.

I forgot to mention that we are all very excited to welcome this little one into are hearts and home. In fact James is getting very impatent since he wants to play with the baby right now! :)

2011 comes to a bitter end

Hello all as you can tell blogging is not my thing and I have not kept it up to date. This is not because of pure laziness it has been because life throws us curve balls every now and then. Unfortunately for me I have had quit a few over the past couple months and I was just getting by. In end of October/early November my eldest son, who is only two, had a grand mal seizure. This was extremely scary for me and I found it hard to even leave him for a second for several weeks following his illness. Thankful we have since learned that he is perfectly fine however when he is sick since he is a small child we need to ensure that he gets fluids and food into his system even if it is just juice. Not long after this incident my youngest had his first lung infection. This was also scary and he kept me up many nights with his breathing.

While this was going on I was also attending nursing school doing my psychology rotation. Unfortunately due to these stressful events my grades started to slip. It also didn’t help that I had an instructor who did not appear to like me very much and proceed to give me a hard time. It is no secret that I do not get psychology and have no idea what to do with a patient when they tell me they are suicidal. I hate it when I cannot fix something. Helping people get well is why I am becoming a nurse. It is easy to give people a band aid, help them learn how to do something like breast feeding, or give them medication but when it comes to their mental wellbeing I am at a loss. There is no easy fix and everything we do has long term implications into that person’s personality. Meaning if they say, “I can’t go on like this”, I cannot just reassure them that “Yes you can” I have to come up with an answer like “why can’t you go on?” or “what is making you feel like you can’t go on?”. For me these are hard questions to come up with on the spot when I am at the top of my game and near impossible when I am not. Sadly due to the circumstances I was unable to pass my nursing courses this past semester and will have to repeat them. On a better note, even though it is ironic, I was able to pass math with a good grad. This is ironic because as many people would say ‘I can’t do math to save my life’. However thankful they are letting me continue into nursing research next semester which will lighten my load come September.

I said in my title that 2011 came to a bitter end because as you will find out ironically as I go when I say my husband and I can’t seem to ‘catch a break’ it literally comes true. As we neared Christmas this year we learned yet again that our youngest had a lung infection which is also known as pneumonia little did we know that this would make are Christmas not just busy but crazy. Our 2 year old has finally discovered that at Christmas time he gets to open all the presents under the tree, he even helps the rest of us. However with the baby being sick and wanting to be held his older brother being sick and not get the attention that he wanted, which as many parents know this is unacceptable, the morning went on they both got more and more demanding. By the time I was getting them both ready for church not only was the baby screaming but so was his older brother and my husband. Normally when this happens I get mad but I have no idea how I did it but I took the two little ones in my arms kissed their tear stained cheeks and said “Mommy loves you”. Amazingly they both stopped crying long enough for me to get them in the car, the remedy for car screaming turn up the radio. Unfortunately as the day wore on it got worse. To climax it the next evening, as a late Christmas present, my husband insisted on slipping in the mud and breaking, not spraining like most people would, but breaking his ankle. As I told you earlier this is ironic because I said to him about a week earlier “we can’t seem to catch a break can we” and little did I know how literal he would take it. So currently I still have to sick children and a husband with a broken ankle. However next week I will have some good news to share. Like that saying goes “when it rains it pours” but all I need to do is remember “this is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” Psalm 118:24.

Thanksgiving

Most people think that Thanksgiving weekend is suppose to be a break. A time to relax and spend with family and friends. This is not true when you are attending nursing school. Thanksgiving is a time to lock yourself in a room and prepare for midterms, assignments, presentations, and anything else the professors decided will help you have an enjoyable weekend (can you tell that I am being sarcastic). Really I have no idea why things need to take place all in one week but they do, lucky me.

I am also blessed to be a wife and mother (I am not being sarcastic here I am really blessed). Being a Mom and a wife on top of this does not help my studying efforts because unlike most of my friends who are not married, have no children, or both I can not lock myself in a room and pretended that I have no life but school. In fact while I do my school work I need to make sure that James has something to colour or he might attempt to colour on my school work, I need to prepare and feed Josiah a bottle so that he is content to play and I need to prep dinner so my husband has something to eat all while I study for midterms and complete assignments. No I am not complaining I do truly love my life just sometimes I wish it did not have to be so crazy. But 'sniff' that is the life of a wife, mother, and nursing student.

But enough of that this is a time to be thankful for what we have and I sure have a lot to be thankful for; two beautiful baby boys, a loving and supportive husband (who puts up with me and my moods), supportive family and freinds and the reminder that "I can do all things through Christ who strenthens me" (philippians 4:13). I could not ask for more and I thank God every day for blessing me with all these blessings.

I need to get back to studying now :)

Starting Out

Bear with me I have never done a blog before but have decided to try it out so that freinds and family can follow our lives and watch our family grow.
As most of you know I am attending nursing school and am now in my third year of studies. In addition to this already full schedule I have two young boys James, 2, and Josiah, 8 months, who keep me constantly busy when I am not at school making life an adventure.
I also have a very loving and supportive husband, Jesse, who puts up with me on my good and not so good days. To be honest with you I am stressed a lot and I mean a lot. Life has its many challenges and I need to learn, like most of us, to take it one step at a time.