Here at the Justison Home We Share

Here are a few things that we've shared recently:

1. Groundhog Treats for Groundhog Day - Shared with the Sullivan family. Their kids shared some cool Groundhog Day artwork with us. Super cool.

2. Nora shared her cold with us all (and probably some other people, too). Andy, Silas, and Nora have been sick...I have had a little stuffy nose, but nothing like them.

3. Sleepless nights...with the feedings for Silas, congested coughs with everyone, and Nora's double ear-infection we've all shared some sleepless nights. This is nice family time and all, but not really conducive to getting everyone well. What we need is sleep!

4. Hugs. Around here we share hugs. Everyone is so sad that everyone else is sick. So Andy, Nora, and I hug Silas when he coughs; Nora hugs Andy when he coughs; Andy and I hug Nora when she coughs...there's a lot of love here.

So, the house is horrible. We need to work on finishing our ABWE applications. (Andy can barely think, and I fell asleep with it in front of me a couple nights ago.) I need to get Nora's new room ready for her to move into. I think there is a ton of other stuff, too. Andy is starting a class for "Christ-centered preaching" and has interviewed for a couple of different positions at work. Busy...and sick. Hopefully things will be more of a normal busy soon.

Recent Life

Since Silas was born it seems that Nora has become increasingly prone to injury. Why? I don't know. And, the accidents are random. I thought I'd hurt her wrist several weeks ago and we ended up in the Urgent Care - just a soft tissue injury causing the swelling, etc. She seems to fall down more frequently...maybe just for attention? Who knows. Saturday while Andy was at work, I was nursing Silas and Nora decided to use a wipe container for a step stool (bad idea, Nora), she fell, crashed into a speaker, and started crying. I thought she just fell and started crying for attention since I was feeding Silas, but I laid Silas down, and went to see what was up...and as I went to hug her there was blood all over her arm, face, mouth...Ahhh. First step - find out where the blood was coming from. I decided it was her mouth, but I couldn't tell if it was the inside or the outside. Grabbed a washcloth and cleaned her up, lip swollen, gave her a popsicle to help with the swelling and figure out if we needed a trip to Urgent Care again. Couldn't decide, fed her lunch, laid her down for a nap. Sent a picture to Andy, called our pediatrician's after hours clinic, talked to the nurse who said to take her because they would probably stitch her up, fed Silas sometime in between everything, packed up everyone (hiked the hill to the car in the snow and ice with baby and toddler) made it to the Urgent Care, was sad to see the waiting room packed and a 3 hour wait, blessed by God to get in immediately just to see if we even needed to wait, doctor did a quick check - no stitches, and since not a "real visit" no payment even necessary. Crazy yes, but obviously God was in the middle of it. You have no idea how happy I am that I signed up for Aflac's Accident insurance at work - it's fairly cheap, obviously we will use it, I get to keep the rate even if I leave my job, and I can take it to Africa if I want/need to...
Pictures of Nora's little injury *then, Monday she got 3 immunizations and ended up not walking on her right leg, large bruise, and a decent sized knot where the shot was given. Rough week for my girl.



Now, Nora is still very intent on helping to care for her new brother. She's gotten a bit better about attacking him with her love, but close supervision is still required of course. Yesterday I took the bouncy seat into the kitchen while I tried to cook supper. Silas was hanging out and Nora came to "make him happy". She decided to pull the clean laundry out of the basket and put it on Silas. Strangely enough, this seemed to make Silas pretty happy. Maybe they have some strange bond. I know Nora will be very excited when he's a bit bigger and plays with her. He's almost 8 lbs now...it seems like he's growing so fast. Next week we'll be separated as I return to work. I'm totally excited about the kids being with Christi -another amazing God-thing. I'm so grateful that God shows me how He works in my life in the everyday little things.

The end to a lovely thing...err, at least a yummy snack

I found these fudge covered Ritz crackers, bought them, and then loved them. When I went back to the store I looked for more, but alas I could not find them. The box did say "limited edition" so I suppose that's the end. Perhaps it's for the best :)

He Came

Silas Andrew Justison

Monday, December 20, 2010

2:24 p.m.

5lb, 15oz

19 1/2 in. long

My winter baby

A deal's a deal - and, Andy told me that if we make it to 37 weeks we can do an "end of the pregnancy" picture thing. (I was wanting to do it several days ago because I was afraid that the baby would come and I wouldn't have any photos of the end.) So, I made it to 37 weeks...and then it snowed. This lovely bundle of joy I'm carrying is my winter baby, so how appropriate to have the photos taken in the great, snowy, chilly outdoors. It was fun and very quick. But, I like the pictures, and it makes me smile to think about how fun it is to be a little silly and not so serious sometimes. I'm ready for the baby now. Okay, okay. There's still stuff that could/should be done, but it's not important stuff -like, cleaning the upstairs to get Nora's new room complete, moving the cradle to my room, etc. All the washing, cleaning, car-seating, bag packing stuff is done. And we're ready. And waiting. And, hopefully I can kind of just sit back, relax, and enjoy our family of three before our littlest one comes along. It's been a good but adventuresome pregnancy and I'm ready to move on to the next chapter.

Happenings in December

Dec 6th - A hunt around Evansville to find Lexie and tell her "Happy Birthday"...we finally caught up with them at the junior high :) This was also the day that my bed rest order was cancelled and I was free -err, sort of free- to move around again.



We got our tree finally on Monday - our little salesman was quite hilarious. These boyscouts are funny. The guy that sold us our tree last year was funny, too. At least our "money is going to a good cause". You may ask what that cause is - to send this guy to the Grand Canyon. He's excited.

Thursday - after much frustration with lights, we have lit and decorated our tree. Nora helped. It was funny (and at times slightly frustrating). She's excited to have a tree living in the house with us.

Stockings - after asking Andy if we should put up 3 or 4 we decided on 4. If everything goes well our 4th member will be here for Christmas...and we wouldn't want them to feel left out of the celebration, huh?



And, today I had another BPP done to see how the baby is doing. Fine is the answer. Everything seems normal, and yet because it's small if I'm still pregnant next week an induction will be scheduled. In my head I need the baby to come on it's own before then so I'll know it wasn't a decision made but something I couldn't control - just in case the baby's really not ready to come. Does that make sense? On a different note, the pictures I got today made me think that this baby looks a lot like it's sister. The scanner isn't working right now so this is a picture of a picture...but maybe you can see the resemblance as well.

Cloth Diapering in the Twenty-First Century

Okay, so when I was pregnant with Nora my manager gave me a days worth of cloth diapers for a newborn. I was intrigued, but Andy and I merely diapered Curious George and never looked back from the quick and easy disposable diapers. A couple of weeks ago I read an article written by a lady that was totally not into cloth diapers -too gross, too much work, and disposables are too convenient. She had to do a test run on several of the newer cloth diaper systems because she's a writer for a baby magazine and that was her assignment. So, she tried them on her daughter, wrote a bit about each one, and then graded them related to her experience. This made me think about cloth diapering again. I've got nothing against "being green", but my main objective is cutting costs. The fact that it's better for our kids really helps out, too. So, then my researching began. A couple of days later I was put on bed rest with plenty of time to research more. I ended up buying several diapers from Craigslist and got them over the weekend. I stripped them and then waited for them to dry so we could do a test run. The first one Nora wore she pooped in. It wasn't really that bad, though. The real test for me was overnight. I put extra padding in it originally but Andy told me that would be too uncomfortable for her to sleep in, so with nothing extra the diaper was put on her and off to bed she went. She slept through the night and the cloth diaper remained on her for 11 hours - the next morning: a wet diaper, but no leaking. What?!? This is cool. And, the washing process wasn't that hard.
I think I'm in love. In love with cloth diapers and feeling like I'm doing something good for my babies (and then the Earth, too). Who knew? No doubt this is a cakewalk compared to the cloth diapering my parents did with me. I'm not sure what the babysitter/daycare will think. But, I'm excited. It also gives me a chance to try other new projects like trying this wetbag tutorial :)
(the above picture is a few of Nora's new diapers. They are supposed to fit babies 8lbs-35lbs...so, maybe we can use them on both kids)