Here we go again...

I had a follow-up ultrasound last week (Tuesday), which showed very little growth and no heartbeat. The doctor called me and apologized for my loss. I was still clinging to some bit of hope, so I requested additional bloodwork to confirm the results of the u/s. My labwork came back today showing that the hormone levels are VERY low and are decreasing. We are having another miscarriage. I would be eight weeks pregnant this week, but the baby stopped developing sometime before last week. I'm not bleeding or anything and my body still feels pregnant.

Due to the history of molar pregnancy, they have scheduled me for another d&c for tomorrow morning. We won't hear back the results from pathology regarding whether there is molar tissue again for another couple of weeks. It would be highly unlikely for that to happen. But stranger things have happened (like....oh...say...getting pregnant while preventing). ;)

I've been awfully sad over this loss. But I still have lots of joy flowing out of me as well. I have two little miracle babies that I get to kiss and hug on every day! :) I'll post more when I know more about all of this stuff.

A few pics...

Some random pics from the past couple of months...

Naomi putting sticks into a small hole in a travel mug. She did this over and over and over and over...I was surprised at how intent she was with this activity! :)

Another of Isaac's favorite activities...the bean box...


And watching TV...

The BIG news...here it is...

I will be posting this on my photography blog next month:

I have gone back and forth about how to share this news with the world. Do I keep it simple and professional? Or do I let everyone know what is REALLY going on? I have decided to be real, because I know of no other way to doing things. So if you want the short story, then here it is: I am stepping away from my photography business for awhile, and will no longer be accepting clients for 2011. If you want more information about the journey of this decision, then read on.

I need to start by saying that I love...I mean LOVE what I do. Photography has been such a wonderful creative and emotional outlet for me. I love being able to bless clients with images of their precious babies that they will treasure for a lifetime. It comes SO easily to me. And it doesn't usually feel like "work" as it is a passion of mine.

I will follow that by sharing that I NEVER intended to be in business right now. It started as a hobby when I started snapping photos of my own new baby boy. I slowly and steadily became obsessed with it. I spent MANY hours online, researching and learning. And when I was nearly six months pregnant with my daughter, I started practicing on family and friends, not realizing how quickly things would unfold. Before I knew it, my expensive hobby turned into a business...and a thriving one. I found myself constantly putting every dime I earned right back into the business. And, in fact, lost QUITE a bit of money that first year. Ask any legitimate photographer, and they will all agree that this is completely normal.

So now I'm in my second year. And things are going great, business-wise. But if I'm being completely honest, my family life has taken a major hit. I am perpetually exhausted and grumpy with my family. We are experiencing behavior problems with my almost 3-year-old son (mostly due to a severe lack of quality time and attention from me). I have been staying at home full-time with my kiddos AND working a full-time job on the side. Who does that? Seriously? I have found myself working nearly every waking hour of my life. If I'm not with my kids, I'm with my photography. And I'm tired.

I'm tired of missing family time because I have committed to capture someone else's life. I'm tired of spending countless hours on my computer while my family needs me. I'm tired of crawling into bed in the middle of the night, long after my husband has gone to sleep...because I was up late working...after a LONG day of working with the kids. And then I wake up and do it all over again. I have completely mismanaged my time, which has led to a lot of unnecessary stress. I've tried to make some changes over the past several months, but no matter how few clients I have, my heart is still torn.

I will begin to close with a quote from my family blog from January 1st, 2009 (two months before launching into business):

"Anyway...this is beginning to get long-winded! Sorry! :) All this to say...I want to be a better mommy to my kids. A better wife to my husband. And a better (shiver) homemaker for my family. ;) I want to put my all into this new job of mine {being a mommy}. I can become a wonderful photographer over the years. But that's not my 'job' right now. Though it makes me feel great to get such positive feedback, I need to just keep it at that. I need to focus my attention on the most important job I have...raising up healthy, loving children who will one day have families of their own! I hope I do better with this in 2009!! :)"

And then my ding-dong self went into full-time business two months later! How crazy is THAT? :) I have agonized over this decision. Many tears have been shed. The "right" thing to do is obvious...but it is SO hard to give this up. I have LOVED developing, maintaining, and creating this business. I love photography. But more than anything in this world, I love my husband and my children. And without a doubt, they come first. My deepest desire is to honor God in whatever I do. And as I look at my mess of a life right now, I cannot believe for a minute that I am honoring Him. The Lord has graciously shown me that I had been using my business to fulfill me...rather than Him alone. And I am SO ready for that to change.

I am not quitting. I am not giving up. I am making a very difficult decision to step away from a business that I love to care for the family that I ADORE. I am not going to cease being a photographer. I will continue taking photos of my precious kiddos (and any more that we may have). I will enjoy documenting their lives like I should have been over the past two years. I am certain that I will return to being in business again some day...I just don't know when. And in the meantime, I will enjoy every bit of my life raising my beautiful children and being the loving wife my husband deserves.

Thank you SO much for all of your wonderful support. I appreciate all of the encouragement over these past couple of years...it has truly carried me through! It is with tearful eyes and a joyful heart that I write...so long for now.

So there it is! THAT'S the big news. Pretty major stuff. And it feels SO freeing to know that I only have four sessions left to finish out this year...and then I'm DONE (with business). :) The more I have wrestled through this decision, the better I feel about it. I am SO ready to have my life back...to be the wife, mother, daughter, friend that everyone around me deserves! I have NO clue when I will return to business...and that's okay with me. I'll wait until I feel like the time is right next time. :)

Oh...and in case you were interested in reading that post that I referred to, you can find it here.

Peace.

Isaac: He who Laughs

I happened to stumble across some old videos of Isaac when he was a baby. And I was just struck at how he's changed over his short lifetime. One thing has been consistent, though...and that is his wonderful laugh. I LOVE that his name means "laughter" or "he who laughs" as it is SO fitting. So I decided to do a little montage of clips of him laughing. Get ready to smile big time...and maybe even laugh a little yourself! :)

All about Isaac...

I seriously love this kid. It always amazes me how much one little guy can drive me to the edge of insanity one moment and then make my heart do flips within me the next. Here's a couple stories to show you what I'm talking about...

A few weeks ago, from another room, I heard the kiddos giggling together and thought, "Oh how nice...they are playing so well together." I soon keyed in to the laughter and noticed that it was more of a we're-doing-something-we-shouldn't-be-doing kind of laugh. :) I came around the corner and was horrified to find this:

I didn't know whether to laugh or scream. It was a MESS. But the good news is that soot is pretty easy to wash with soap and water. :) I smiled but let Isaac know that it was indeed a bad choice.

Then we come to last night. I hear lots of giggling coming from upstairs as daddy is getting Isaac ready for bed. Then I hear Isaac yell, "Mommy, look...we're sister mary's!" I come around the corner and look up the stairs to find this adorableness happening:

SO. Fun. And it's moments like this that make it all SO worth it. :)

All about Naomi...

Seriously love this little lady. She may be small, but boy does she love a lot! She gives GREAT hugs. And can have a little attitude from time to time. She enjoys doing this squealing/screaming thing that absolutely drives us all bonkers. But then you look at those sweet, big, blue eyes, and can't help but smile. Just check them out...

They get me every time. And another thing about Naomi: you will not likely find her without her beloved baby. She has to have it with her all. the. time. We have not let her take it to bed with her (except on a few occasions), as we found that it just keeps her awake longer as she plays with the baby. We've also tried not allowing her to hold the baby while eating. This one is hit and miss, and really just depends on how big of a fit she throws to win the fight. Haha! I will admit that sometimes it's just easier to let her keep the sacred baby in her arms as she eats, rather than listening to a screaming toddler throughout dinner. :) Pick your battles, right? :) Here are just a couple of pics of Naomi with her baby...

The other thing that this little lady is obsessed with is climbing up onto our kitchen table. And it drives me crazy. She gets consistent discipline EVERY time she does it too. Sometimes she'll turn around right after getting disciplined and do it again and again. Sometimes she sits on the table, other times I'll look over to see her standing up, and sometimes she just lays down up there. Here's an example of that...

All in all, she's a sweetheart, though. I love her to pieces and hope with everything I have that she doesn't end up being more strong-willed that her older brother! :)

Behavior Breakthrough...

Just a short one for now...

So we've been having more and more break-throughs with Isaac's behavior lately. He can still be challenging at times, don't get me wrong. But as each day goes by, I feel like something is actually starting to "click" for him. For example...today at lunch, for some odd reason, he thought it would be funny to conk me in the nose with his dirty fork. I was not ready for it and it actually hurt me. I reacted more harshly than I'd like to admit, exclaiming that that was NOT a good choice and that we don't hit. He laughed and continued acting out of control, so I had him go sit in time-out for 3 minutes. He walked, teary-eyed to the bench and sat there quietly. When the timer went off, I told him he could come back to join us for lunch. He walked right up to me, gave me a hug, and UNPROMPTED (this is huge), he said, "I'm sorry for hitting you with my fork, mommy." And I could tell he totally meant it! Wow! Something we're doing just MIGHT be working!! :) I thanked him for apologizing and let him know that I forgave him. The rest of lunch went wonderfully.

I have some new photos and stories to tell, but it's getting late and this tired mama needs her sleep! :) More later...hopefully sooner than later! ;)

Some of OUR homeschool activities...

I have been meaning to put up these photos of our playroom...or classroom. I love the environment in there...at least right after I get around to organizing all of the materials. The paint color in the room is what came with the house and we've just never gotten around to changing it. So rather than painting the walls, we just decided to decorate with brightly colored accessories. :) Anyway...here it is:

A couple of activities...

We made J's out of buttons. Isaac enjoyed this, but really preferred to just hold and play with the little buttons. I found myself growing frustrated with this, but need to learn to allow him to have more freedom with his choices in activities.


And this is one that I just made really quickly. Isaac is still really struggling with his numbers. He's so verbal and in-tune with people's feelings and the world around him, yet still cannot count correctly. He does sometimes, when he wants to. But most of the time, if you ask him "how many?" he'll answer with something along the lines of "three, four, six, nine, fourteen..." Just rambles off a bunch of random numbers. So I developed this activity for him to get better with his numbers. He didn't get it AT ALL. And actually showed NO interest in the actual activity. Again, he just wanted to carry around the pieces. :) But after reading a wonderful blog post (in my previous post), I am no longer going to push him in this area. I will continue counting things with him, but I'm not going to stress about it anymore. He's just not into numbers right now...no big deal. :)


The kiddos LOVE playing with fresh coffee beans. They enjoy playing with it like sand...scooping, pouring, sorting, etc. And the best part is that it smells SO lovely (I got a french vanilla roast). :) Here's a couple of Naomi doing her coffee bean "work" on the activity table...




And just a random one of Naomi wearing a bow made by one of our good friends. :)

Last week we also made peanut butter playdough, and enjoyed that as a snack for a couple of days! I also made some scent jars for Isaac to work with. He loved that activity. I was surprised that he was able to correctly identify five out of the six scents. Very fun!

This just KICKED my butt!

Wow. It's not too often that I come across something that really hits home for me...as in giving me a HUGE ah-ha moment. But I just read a blog that gave me some REALLY good (and much needed) perspective. It can be found here.

It's titled "what a four-year-old should know." And it might as well work for any age really. I confess that I have a tendency to push Isaac in certain things. He has always been a little advanced, verbally. And while it's been fun for us, we've also had really high expectations of him and what he *should* be able to do. Don't get me wrong...having high goals for our children is fine. But just read that article...and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Things may start looking a little (or A LOT) different around our home very soon! :)

Loving this weather...

Here we are in the middle of November in Indiana...and experiencing highs in the mid-70's. And LOVING every minute of it!! :) Isaac has developed a serious love of hiking with daddy. I snapped some photos the other day while the kiddos played outside. Yes, our backyard looks like a zoo! But it's fun! :) Here they are...

She looks SO thrilled here, doesn't she? :)



















And our beloved Mona Lisa...still going strong! :)