Time Flies!

Ok, yes I have not blogged since the one entry I did for Joanna's birth but I have thought about it often. With a new baby, homeschooling a 9 year old, gymnastics competitions, teaching a college Sunday school class, and just the everyday tasks I have to keep up with, blogging just gets pushed to the end of the list. I am sure there are a long list of things I should be doing right now but I will at least do an entry of our Easter weekend. A friend has challenged herself to blog every weekday for the next 6 weeks and I am going to attempt to at least blog several times a week so that I can keep family and friends updated on the growth of our sweet Joanna. She has grown so much and she is such a doll that I need to be getting pictures and videos of her on here. I have so many pictures I want to include that I am going to do my posts in themes as opposed to trying to cover all that has been going on in the last 3 months. So the pictures will be a range of ages but that way you can see how she has grown and see her personality. Of course the other kids and their endeavors will be in there as well!

We had a great Easter weekend with my parents. My brother and his family was originally supposed to come down but he got shingles and we decided it was best to wait until everyone was healthy. We sure did miss them and are looking forward to seeing them soon. Friday my parents came in and we all went to see the Earth Day movie "African Cats". The cinematography was amazing! Saturday we had our neighbors over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt and then Sunday was church, brunch, and a relaxing day at home.

By the time we finished dinner and got the eggs hidden, it was almost dark so a few eggs were not found!

Easter Sunday at church

She is such a happy baby!

It was time for Joanna to eat but she fell asleep while she was waiting for me to finish lunch.

There was a little egg hunt for the kids that stayed for the brunch after church.

We are so blessed!

We truly enjoyed the weekend celebrating our risen Savior! We had a great time with friends and family and worship was full of the spirit. My parents left today and we are back to the grind. Caleb is working on math and Joanna just finished a nap and is ready to eat. My work never ends! But I wouldn't trade it!

What a blessing!

*** I started this blog entry the week after Joanna was born and as you can see it is now a month later and I am finally finishing it! Life has been busy around here so I finished what I could so that I could post and move on to more recent events. I kept the entry just as I wrote it a month ago and then added the pictures. Enjoy!

 For weeks we had been preparing for the arrival of our little blessing on February 4 and lo and behold she arrived January 27! I got the January baby I had been praying for. She surprised us last week by coming in her own timing. It took a few days to wrap our heads around her coming early and shifting everything we planned around her arrival. She is a great baby already sleeping 4 hour stretches at night and rarely fussing about anything. But I will get to that...I might as well start at the beginning.

Last week was a crazy week beginning with Elizabeth getting sick on Saturday the 22nd and proceeding to have a temperature by Sunday of 104. It was difficult to keep down and then on Monday Caleb had it. The two of them were pretty sick through Wednesday so I took them to the doctor Thursday. Elizabeth got on meds and we were to watch Caleb but he already seemed on the mend. Thursday was busy and by that night I was tired and we were resting together watching tv. I was feeling a lot more pressure than usual but I was chalking it up to the baby shifting or being on my feet too long. I laid down on my side on the couch for a little while and when I went to get up I felt like I peed on myself. I knew I had just gone to the bathroom so I wasn't sure why I was feeling that way. I went to the bathroom and sure enough my pants were wet, more so than if the baby had kicked my bladder. I think I just sat there for a moment as I tried to process what might be happening. Had my water really broken? How do I know? What do we do with the kids? I'm not ready, I need another week. I went out to the kitchen where Heath was washing the dishes and I still laugh about what I said. I looked at him and said, "I don't want to freak you out but I think my water just broke." That statement alone freaked him out so I am not sure why I prefaced it with that. His face turned to stone and he just stared at me. "What does that mean?"

I immediately got on the computer and checked how to tell whether my water had truly broken because it had been such a small amount. It told me to lay back down and if it happened again when I got up, it was really my water. Sure enough after 30 minutes on the couch, when I got up there was no question. My water had broken and it was time to go to the hospital. We had called Heath's mom after the first episode and she was on her way. The doctor was called and he said he would meet us at the hospital. The next 20 minutes were sheer confusion. I couldn't even think about what to pack and what we needed to do next. I threw a few things in the bag and managed to remember to throw the cameras in there. The kids who had been ready for bed were watching us with a mixture of worry and confusion on their faces. Heath's mom got there and we said our good-byes and off we went. We drove in almost silence as we were still trying to wrap our heads around what was happening.

Once we got to the hospital everything moved pretty quickly. I was hooked up to everything, forms were filled out, questions were answered, doctors were notified. All we were waiting on was an anesthesiologist to get there. For those of you that didn't know, I was going to have a c-section as I had previously had two others. As we waited, Heath and I started to panic because we had not decided on a boy name. There were several on our list but none that we were sold on. Even as we were talking about names, we just couldn't settle on one that we really liked. It was looking as though the baby would be nameless for a time if it was a boy!

At 11:30 p.m. they were ready for us and took me back to the operating room. I got a spinal block instead of an epidural like I was used to. It was essentially a shot of medicine into my spine.The results of that would rear its ugly head later. At 11:58, Joanna Faith entered this world screaming like neither of her siblings did. It turns out that she was nicked by her ear during surgery and the nurses were vigorously rubbing her head where she was bleeding not knowing she had been cut there. Heath said his favorite moment was when they brought her to me and she stopped crying when she heard my voice. I was just happy that she was healthy and whole and finally with us!

I won't go into all the details of the weekend but it was long and miserable for me. I ended up with a spinal headache as a result of my spinal block that pounded whenever I was vertical. By Sunday I was miserable and the anesthesiologist came to perform a blood patch. They extracted blood from my arm and inserted it into the location of the spinal block to compress the leak. I had to lay flat for an hour before they slowly raised me back up again. The results were immediate and I felt like a new woman! Unfortunately I had not been able to enjoy visits with friends and family all weekend due to my headache but I was going home feeling a lot better.

We were able to go home Sunday afternoon and the kids were thrilled. They had been so sick the week before, they only came up to the hospital once and we were being very careful about how much they were around her. We were thankful for grandparents and great friends to keep them busy while we were in the hospital. Having had a c-section and then the blood patch, my body was hurting but I was so thankful to be at home where I could be comfortable. It was time to adjust to life as a family of 5!

When Joanna was first brought to us after birth. Notice what time the clock says!

Joanna reminded us a lot of Elizabeth when she was born.

The kids came by Friday afternoon and brought the bear they made her. They couldn't wait to see her.

Our first family photo!

Grampa's first look at his 8th grandchild

Gamma's (Heath's mom) first look

Grammy couldn't wait to get her hands on her!

Getting dressed and ready to go home!

Joanna's anal daddy is delinting her feet!

Loaded up and ready to go!

 

 

 

 

 

Get me out of this joint!

Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning

I went to a ladies evening at our church tonight called Joy in Every Season. It was perfect that it fell today as it is the one year anniversary of our sweet Gabriel going home to be with the Lord. It has been on my mind as the day approached, but today came and I did ok. I have thought a lot about him today and thanked the Lord for being our strength through that time. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of him at least once. Today has been a good day to reflect on all that the Lord has done in the last year and how good He is. As we remember the blessing Gabriel was to us in his short life, we also anticipate the arrival of a new baby. We sang tonight about how God "gives and takes away" and it rang so true in my heart. The speakers talked about finding joy in the midst of our circumstances and looking ahead at the hope God has for us. I thought back to our circumstances a year ago and the despair we felt in losing the baby. But we clung to the Lord's promises and His hope and He got us through each day.

The scripture in the title, Psalm 30:5 is so true for me. There was much weeping but joy came and in 3 weeks we will meet our newest family member. I am so thankful for all the Lord has done, how He has provided, His immense love for us, and the work He has done in our lives. I am reminded of the Psalm I prayed through during that time, Psalm 34. Verses 17 and 18 say, "The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." That Psalm speaks to me now even as I look back over all that He has done. He knew the plans that He had for me and I am so thankful that I clung to that and had faith to rest in where He would lead me. Because one year later I am sitting at the computer feeling a healthy, strong baby move around inside of me. God is so good and He brought us joy in the morning!

I don't even know where to begin!

Ok, it has been way too long and way too many things have been going on in our lives to continue letting that slide. Unfortunately because so much has been going on in our lives, the last thing I seem to want to do is blog. But today I will make up for that. I will update life in the Lockhart household and include some pictures to go along with it. It will have to be a summary of sorts as this entry could go on forever!

The biggest news in our family is that we are having a baby! God has been so faithful to us after losing Gabriel in January. It was a difficult few months but He filled me with peace that His plan was perfect whether or not we got pregnant again. We left it in His hands and exactly 5 months after losing Gabriel we found out we were pregnant again! It was actually a surprise to me because with my other three I have been able to figure out I was pregnant long before I could take a test. This time we were on Beach Retreat with our church youth group and I had no idea whatsoever.We came home and took a test and we were thrilled!

I will be honest, the first few months I had to overcome a great deal of fear. Especially through week 10 when I lost Gabriel. Going in for our first appointment to hear the heartbeat was the most nervous I have ever been. I was so afraid that time would repeat itself and it would be silent again. The nurse even said, "Don't worry if you don't hear anything. That is normal at this stage." I wanted to tell her, "No it is not and please don't patronize me!" It was a long 30 seconds but the sound of that heartbeat was like angels singing! God has been so good and our baby is healthy and everyday that I feel the baby moving inside of me is a blessing! We are 25 weeks and will be meeting our new addition in early February. With the holidays around the corner we know it will be here before we know it.

The other big change in the Lockhart household is that I am homeschooling Caleb. It is something we knew we would do eventually, it just came sooner than we thought. Last year with Caleb going to gymnastics 3 nights a week, we felt like he had no life and that it was affecting who he was. I felt God nudging me for awhile but I struggled because I knew Elizabeth wanted to go to Kindergarten, but how would she feel if I homeschooled Caleb? She seemed fine when I approached her with it and she has had no problem since we started. She is in LOVE with Kindergarten so it doesn't faze her a bit that we are at home while she is at school.

Once we made the decision we had to start looking at curriculum and how we wanted to handle homeschooling. We had a great friend from gymnastics, who also homeschools, loan us the curriculum from Sonlight which was my number one choice but was over our budget. It is an amazing curriculum centered around literature and the level that Caleb is on focuses on US History. We have truly been enjoying it and learning so much together. We are also part of a local homeschool group that we do field trips with as well as once a month he takes a science class at the Museum of Science. I have enjoyed having Caleb home with me and it has been great for his schedule especially since they added another day to his gymnastics schedule. He is competing on level 5 again this year but he is training with level 6 so it is 4 nights a week! We are very thankful for a great friend to carpool with!

As I mentioned earlier, Elizabeth is in Kindergarten. I was interested to see how she handled it as she is a mama's girl but she got on that bus like it was no big deal. I, of course, cried like a baby! She has wonderful teachers. They jobshare so one works in the morning and one in the afternoon. Her morning teacher goes to our church and her afternoon teacher had Caleb last year in second grade so we were blessed with two teachers that know our family and have great spirits about them. Elizabeth has made some great friends and she is reading a little bit more everyday! She is growing up before our eyes. In fact she lost her first tooth just this morning!

On the church side of things, Heath was just asked to be the new college director for our campus. Our college ministry has great potential to grow with our youth ministry growing so much as well as the fact that our campus is next to a fast-growing commuter college. We are both excited about this new role although Heath is a little nervous as he feels a big responsibility to grow this ministry. I know God has big plans as we waited on His timing and feel strongly that this is where He wants us. Please pray for this ministry and for Heath to rely on God's strength as he takes on this role.

On the business side of things, God has been so faithful yet again and has been providing more and more business. When I first started this blog, business was struggling and we weren't sure what was going to happen. God grew us in our faith and in our relationship and we made it through those tough months. Heath says business is up 50% from last year and we are truly thankful for that as we have to pay for this baby out of pocket. We are trusting God to continue to provide the finances for this baby and for our end of year taxes. Heath has also been looking into the opportunity of moving into an office with someone and that is something he has wanted for a long time. We are seeking God's will and praying about whether this is the right decision and the right timing for it.

I think that is the majority of the BIG news in our family. As you can see, we have had a lot going on but we are enjoying the ride and trusting in the Lord through everything. He is ALL that we need and He continues to prove that to us everyday.

In June we bought the kids a new pool since the other one had fallen apart. Heath got a canopy for another use but decided to set it up over the pool so the kids could enjoy playing but not in the hot sun.

 In July we went to Lake Somerville with some friends and enjoyed a great day on the lake. Our plan was to do it more often but I think this was the only time we made it!

Elizabeth's big moment in early August was getting her ears pierced! She cried initially but she loves them!

 In August we also took a spontaneous trip to Austin as a family. We had a great time! We went to Barton Springs which is a natural spring downtown where the water is a brisk 68 degrees year round. Needless to say the water was literally breathtaking but we had a great time nonetheless.

We also got to walk around downtown and ended up walking through the capitol building.

 Our big girl on the first day of school! She was so excited she woke us up that morning!

Getting on the bus with no fear! I was crying at this point. We ended up following the bus and watching her get off at school and making sure she made it to class.

 In September we went on a field trip with our homeschool group to see a presentation on snakes. I was surprised I stayed in the room but I ended up with great pictures of Caleb doing what I couldn't dream of doing!

We also did a month long experiment with planting radishes. Here he is measuring the weekly growth.

 In October we went on a field trip to a local ranch that was set up with different periods of Texas History. A local wildlife park was there with baby alligators and this was Caleb petting it. We even saw some wild adult alligators in the river going through the ranch.

Here is Caleb sitting in a log cabin from the 1830s. He liked the bed covered in animal skins. We have been learning a lot about early American History and he enjoyed seeing some things straight out of what we had been learning.

 Last Saturday was the annual Fun Run in our district. This was Caleb's 3rd year and Elizabeth's first. It was hot but thankfully there was a breeze that made it bearable. Caleb ran a half mile and finished around 13th. He did a super job pacing himself and passing everyone at the end. Here we are waiting for Elizabeth's race.

Elizabeth surprised all of us when she stayed solidly up front and finished 7th! She ended up winning a medal and convincing us we may have found her new sport!

Well that is just a sampling of some of the things we have been up to. I would have liked to have posted more pictures but I would be here all day! Hopefully I have motivated myself to blog more and not get so behind!

Grocery Savings

I've talked about this before in my blog and people have asked about it in conversation, but I am a big saver when it comes to shopping. My friend Christy introduced me to The Grocery Game about a year and a half ago and I have become a sale nazi. My kids have learned that if it is not in the house then it is not on sale! It has helped us tremendously with our grocery budget and has made me aware of what are good prices and what are not. I used to be the person who just bought everything at Walmart because it was the cheapest or just bought generic. Well, Walmart has us all fooled because they are definitely not the cheapest if you pay attention, and if you watch sales, you don't always have to buy generic.

The basic concept of The Grocery Game is that you choose the store or stores that you are going to shop at, and each weekend, they publish the sale list from that store. Along with that, they list all the coupons that are out that correspond with those items on sale so that you can stock up while things are at the low prices. These coupons are from the newspaper as well as from internet sites. When I first started, I was all about stocking up as much as I could but found that I was still spending a lot. Yes I was getting everything on sale but my bill was still high because I was buying more of everything. After a few weeks, I realized I needed to set my weekly budget and then stay within that range. My budget stays around $50 a week, sometimes less sometimes more, if there are sales on some bigger items (i.e. toilet paper and paper towels). I have the Sunday paper delivered every week for the coupons but also get several off the internet. My friend Christy who introduced me to this, gets several papers so that she can have multiple coupons and stock up more, but she also has a larger family and this works for her. I haven't found a need for that yet.

Some items that I keep stocked are definitely cereal because we eat a lot of it. We have had as many as 12 boxes at once and I never spend more than a $1.50 a box (that is the high end...usually it is around $1 or less). Condiments, spaghetti/sauce, snacks, rice, brownies, canned goods, are some of the things I regularly have because they go on sale often and cheap.

When I went shopping this week, I decided to take a picture of all that I bought just to show the amount that I was able to buy for our weekly groceries for a great price. There are people out there that get even lower than I do, and I am working to figure out all the secrets. But for now, we are saving a ton of money and I enjoy doing it.

First of all this was my greatest savings of the week. 12 big rolls of Bounty paper towels and 24 rolls of Charmin toilet paper are anywhere from $14.99-17.99 depending on the week and where you shop. This week at Randalls they were on sale for $9.99 if I bought two things listed (meaning I could have bought two paper towels, two toilet paper, mix and match, or one with something else on the list.) On top of that already good price, I had a $3 coupon for each one from pgesaver.com (Proctor and Gamble website) which made them $6.99 and then a .25 coupon for each which is tripled to .75 which made them $6.24. I also had a dollar coupon for the Charmin which I got in the mail so the toilet paper was $5.24. Instead of spending a total of $32.98 (Randalls regular price), I spent 11.48! That is a 66% savings!

Above is everything I bought this week at Randalls and Kroger. 9 boxes of cereal, 2 Eggo waffles, two boxes of Nature Valley Granola Bars, 2 bottles of Lea and Perrins Worchestershire Sauce, Sara Lee Bread, 2 Dole 4 packs of peaches, 3 boxes of Crest toothpaste, 4 bars of Oil of Olay soap, 2 bottles of Old Spice Body Wash, a Jennie-O turkey loin, milk, 2 16 oz containers of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, 6 granny smith apples, 3 peaches, a container of cherry tomatoes, grapes, broccoli, 6 cucumbers, 24 pack of water, 2 packs of Orbit gum, and of course the paper towels and toilet paper. Total cost, full price would have been $141.88. I paid $69.68! That is a 51% savings!

That is more than I would normally spend but I restocked all my cereal because we were down to 1 box and then of course I had the toilet paper and paper towels which are something I get every 6 weeks or so. The sale on the cereal was not as good as it can be but we were low so I got what I could for as little as possible. I also bought a lot of fruit because we all eat a lot being home this summer. I have included two more pictures a little more close up so that you can see what I got.

So here was a little view into one of my hobbies I guess you could call it. I have learned a lot and would love to share with anyone who is interested.

Sarah's Garden

I recently finished another book from Thomas Nelson Publishers, Sarah's Garden, by Kelly Long. Set in the Amish country of Pennslyvania, Sarah's passion and natural gift is for the garden she nurtures throughout the year that provides so much for her Amish family. This year though she must step away from what she is most comfortable and run the farmer's stand for her family. It is there she meets the new veterinarian in town, Grant Williams, who has come to run his practice among the Amish community.They are immediately taken with each other but this is a relationship that is forbidden among her family and community. What follows is a struggle between what is right and the feelings that are so real. Can anything come from a love that is so forbidden? This story was an easy yet enjoyable read. For me, I enjoyed learning some of the rules and and reasons behind the practices of the Amish. The story took me into a community that I was unfamiliar with and made it real to me. The characters were well developed and kept me rooting for them throughout the story. The only thing that I was frustrated with in the story was the ending. It ended a little more abruptly than I thought it would. I was hoping the author would develop it better. All in all it was a good story and I enjoyed it!

Love on a Dime by Cara Lynn James

Another great book by Thomas Nelson Publishers, Love on a Dime by Cara Lynn James. The story set in the 1890s in Newport, Rhode Island centers around Lilly Westbrook and her family doing their best to maintain their status in a society where money means everything. During a time when the Astors and the Vanderbuilts were people everyone aspired to be like, there were certain rules to be followed in order remain in the upper eschalon of society. No one in Lilly's social circle, including her family, soon -to-be fiancee, and long-lost beau who has just reentered her life, knows that she pens dime novels under another name. She feels God has called her to write these books but to reveal that she does would destroy her reputation as well as her family's. Two problems arise as Lilly must face protecting her secret as well as her family and choose the man that truly has her heart versus the one that is "socially" right for her.

Cara Lynn James does a great job of quickly establishing the characters and the storyline and keeps your attention until the very end. I enjoy reading historical novels and this was interesting in its revelation of society life in those times. What was required to be in the upper social circle, the rules that must be followed, and the ease it took to quickly fall from grace. James wove a good spiritual lesson into the story with folllowing God's will for your life but that it could come at a cost. Lilly had to make the decision about what was most important: writing these stories and sharing her faith or protecting her family's reputation. The only place I felt the story fell short was developing the spiritual aspect of it. There were times when Lilly prayed for God's guidance but never truly looked for Him to guide her. She constantly handled things on her own, which could be considered a lesson in itself. All in all it was an easy read, entertaining, and I enjoyed it all the way through!