Thank you all for you comments on the previous post …Grace does sometimes use a night light, but not all the time, usually when she has a scary moment, then we pray and leave it as that. I really would looovvveee to baby her, since it seems like time has flown by since she was one, but I know that isn’t going to help any. As for Matt, well, he will lay with her, he says he doesn’t like to hear her whine but I know he just want to be beside his little girl. The funny thing is, if he falls asleep in there, I hear him whine because he didn’t sleep well. Hmmm????
I did find a movie that VeggieTales has out. It’s called “Where is God, When I am S-Scared?” We watched it like a hundred 20 million times (that’s what Grace would say). It seemed like a cute movie and Grace really liked it.
I did watch Grace Sunday after Sunday School (Her teachers are AWESOME) playing with her stuff animals and singing a sweet song to them. I really wish I would have taken a picture or had it on video. She had them all lined up on her bed and had made instruments (made out of paper) for them to play and she was the conductor. She was signing “God is with you, always with you. Even if you don’t see him”. The rest of the afternoon she seemed calmed, happy, and not once raised her voice. She didn’t even back talk, which is really rare. And we have been trying to keep that Happy Heart with us. So far, so good.
As for Izabelle and the “Potty”. When I got to the babysitters yesterday, she said that Izabelle wasn’t too happy after her nap and wouldn’t use the potty, but knew when she went in the diaper. We were both kind of concerned when Izabelle would start crying and tugging at her diaper after she would go. I thought maybe it was the diaper, so I let her run around without a diaper, to air her bottom out. But when I put the diaper back on she would pee and then cry out again.
So, this morning I called the doctor because I thought Izabelle was on the verge of a UTI, because of the smell of her pee and her crying after she wetted her diaper, so off to the doctors we went. They did have to cath her; it took three nurses and mommy to hold her down. I sooo didn’t like to see that and I know she didn’t like it. It ended up that she didn’t have a UTI, all that for nothing, but grateful that it wasn’t nothing. So the doctor asked if she has had a pooped in awhile, well the last one was Sunday, so he said that sometimes the intestines can push on the bladder and cause it to spasm, so we are on a stool softener to help that. So, hopefully we can get that in control and be able to officially start potty training.
So we are going to be in Potty Training Mode starting TONIGHT!!! GO IZABELLE!!!!
Have a Great Day:)
God Bless:)
Jess
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
100th Post, Potty Training, and Fashion Show
I can't believe that this is my 100th post:) Okay, well I guess it is actually my 98th post, there were some posts that I felt I couldn't post publically that are drafted and saved and I went through some others that were drafted that were not finished and deleted those, so I guess that doesn't make it 100 posts, Right??? Well, anyway I love blogging and sharing our stories and reading other bloggers' stories too.
Although, I don't have any major announcements like being pregnant, although sometimes I think that the girls need a little brother to pester them, I also think that Matt needs some testosterone in this house full of girls, maybe in the near future...Anyhoo, we were thinking/going to get a new dog, but Matt didn't see like it would be a good fit for us right now, so I think we are going to look around for a smaller type of dog that the girls wouldn't be afraid of.
Well on to the 2nd topic of the post...POTTY TRAINING! We have introduced the potty to Izabelle. She has used the potty a couple of times at our house and at the babysitters, so that is a good thing. We haven't totally committed to the whole Potty training schedule, yet. Izabelle does know when she has to do number 2...She does a little dance (not the one seen on the Pull ups commercial, but close) and yells "Potty, Potty, Potty" and off to the potty we go, most of the time we don't quite make it, but she gets the idea. The other day, I made the mistake of moving her potty to a different location within the girls' bathroom and I left Izabelle's diaper off and before we knew it she was in the bathroom moving her potty back to where it was and right when she was getting ready to turn around she peed on the floor. Poor girl:( She definitely is starting to know what to do. So, I am hoping the next day I am off, we will commit to Total Potty Training regiment and be potty trained.
Well, I will leave you with this photo of Izabelle when we first kind of used the potty, I really could not come up with a good caption (except for the one below), so if you want to leave a comment with one that would be great:)
Although, I don't have any major announcements like being pregnant, although sometimes I think that the girls need a little brother to pester them, I also think that Matt needs some testosterone in this house full of girls, maybe in the near future...Anyhoo, we were thinking/going to get a new dog, but Matt didn't see like it would be a good fit for us right now, so I think we are going to look around for a smaller type of dog that the girls wouldn't be afraid of.
Well on to the 2nd topic of the post...POTTY TRAINING! We have introduced the potty to Izabelle. She has used the potty a couple of times at our house and at the babysitters, so that is a good thing. We haven't totally committed to the whole Potty training schedule, yet. Izabelle does know when she has to do number 2...She does a little dance (not the one seen on the Pull ups commercial, but close) and yells "Potty, Potty, Potty" and off to the potty we go, most of the time we don't quite make it, but she gets the idea. The other day, I made the mistake of moving her potty to a different location within the girls' bathroom and I left Izabelle's diaper off and before we knew it she was in the bathroom moving her potty back to where it was and right when she was getting ready to turn around she peed on the floor. Poor girl:( She definitely is starting to know what to do. So, I am hoping the next day I am off, we will commit to Total Potty Training regiment and be potty trained.
Well, I will leave you with this photo of Izabelle when we first kind of used the potty, I really could not come up with a good caption (except for the one below), so if you want to leave a comment with one that would be great:)
Is this how you do it?
On Sunday Izabelle was invited to be in a fashion show (for Knickers and Petticoats) at the Baby Expo at the Hospital and when we got their a friend of ours saw that there was a dress that matched Gracie's dress she had on, so Grace and Izabelle walked out together in there matching dresses. To cute:) They did very well:) Watch out Miss America!!!:)
Walking the "Cat Walk":)
For all those experienced moms out there, if you could help me out with this. Grace has been going through, I guess you can say a Stage, she has been saying she has been "Scared". She is scared of the dark, wants someone to lay with her, she is scared to go in another room to get a brush. Pretty much, if she doesn't want to do something she is or gets scared. I don't know if maybe she is realizing she is getting older and is no longer a "little" girl, but still wants to be a little girl. I don't know, so if you have any advice I would greatly appreciate it.
Until Next Time...
God Bless
Jess
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Gracie's Preschool Fieldtrip
I was able to go to Gracie's Fieldtrip to Mr. Gattis yesterday...Thanks Patty for watching Izabelle. This week they were learning the letter P and what better way to do this but by learning about Pizza. So, I met the kids at Preschool and loaded some of Gracie's friends in my van and headed to Mr. Gattis. Of course I had to quiz them about where we were going and I told them we were headed to McDonalds and of course they corrected me by saying "Mr. Gattis"...Oh, I thought we were learning about Pizza don't McDonalds have Pizzas. They just laughed and we headed to McDonalds, I mean Mr. Gattis.
The lady at Mr. Gattis took the kids into a little room and showed them how they made dough and let them feel the dough (don't worry they threw the dough away). Then she took them back to where the BIG fridges were. Then the kids came around a buffet style table for them to make the pizzas. The kids took turns and were able to put the sauce and toppings on the pizzas and then they put them in the ovens.
Here are some of the pictures that we took:
Learning how to mix the dough
Feeling the Dough
Patiently waiting to make PIZZA 
Gracie's turn:)
Gracie rolling holes into the dough
Eating their fruit of Labor: PIZZA:)
Later in the afternoon the weather was nice, so girls and I were able to take a quick walk to get the mail and played out in Daddy's shop for a while.God Bless...
Jess
Monday, March 2, 2009
Manic Mondays
Once again it's a start of yet another work week. The past couple of days we had some sick kiddies at home. Grace started saying her throat hurt, so when I picked her up from Treva's she was pale and had a fever, so we pushed fluids and Motrin throughout the night. On Friday, Grace had Kindergarten round up which she had to miss (they did say that she could come another time to check out the rooms, so we were happy with that). We did end up going to the Dr. office to see his nurse to check for strep, which was negative. So, the prognosis was more fluids and continue the Motrin. By Saturday, she was feeling much better. As for Izabelle, she is still hacking up stuff, so we got some Mucinex for Children to see if that works.
Sunday, was Matt's dad's birthday. The kids made homemade cards and gifts for Papaw. Happy Birthday Jake!!!!
So, yesterday Matt and I were in our room, watching TV (hey, it was a really good episode of Untold Stories of the ER on TLC). When all of a sudden I hear:
Matt: “Are you watching her?”
Me: “Who?”
Matt: “Izabelle”
Me: “No” this is when I took a quick survey of our room.
When I saw this:
Sunday, was Matt's dad's birthday. The kids made homemade cards and gifts for Papaw. Happy Birthday Jake!!!!
So, yesterday Matt and I were in our room, watching TV (hey, it was a really good episode of Untold Stories of the ER on TLC). When all of a sudden I hear:
Matt: “Are you watching her?”
Me: “Who?”
Matt: “Izabelle”
Me: “No” this is when I took a quick survey of our room.
When I saw this:
Then I followed it out to this:
And I found this hiding in our bathroom closet:
Silly Girl:)
*There were no cases of lost toliet paper...It was all safely accounted for.
God Bless...
Jess
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, July 7th, 2008...A day that will never be forgotten
On Monday, July 7th 2008, a day that most of us were going back to work, from a long weekend of celebrating 4th of July, the day known as independence, but somewhere in the deserts of Iraq, was a day that he will probably never forget. This day might not been told to anyone, until he decided on the day he returned home on December 9th. It was mentioned in an “Oh, by the way” attitude, to his mom and girlfriend, giving them a uneasy feeling. It was on that day that he released in small detail of what happened to him on that particular day, the day that earned him a Purple Heart. Some of you may not know what a Purple Heart is: a Purple Heart is issued to the soldier (or the family) that was injured or killed during combat.
I don’t know the whole story and quite frankly, I don’t want to know ALL the details, so I am going to do my best to make a somewhat of a true scenario that happened that day. This is only from my account and how God worked in my and my families life.
It probably started as a same ole routine, getting up, getting his army fatigues on, breakfast and getting his soldiers together for the mission ahead. They headed out in the heat of the day, his military truck probably the first in line, as they guarded the vehicles that were transporting cargo to their destination, when his military truck was struck with an IED (improvised explosive device), also known as the roadside bombs we hear on the news. His truck was equipped with a safety feature that would hit an IED before the truck itself would. Imagine a lint roller in front of your son’s toy dump truck; this is what the truck looked like. This lint roller hit the IED first, causing an aftershock, rattling the truck and the soldiers in it. I am unsure of the injuries of the soldiers, none of which were serious. I know the passenger, the Sargent of this group, sustained a concussion, causing ringing in his ears, and problems with his vision. Although he doesn’t know the long term effects of this, he doesn’t keep him down. He came home for some R&R with the rest of his group in August, not mentioning to anyone what had happened no more than a month before. He just visited with his family and enjoyed LIFE at home. He went back to Iraq and continued on his missions. Protecting and securing our freedom.
On Sunday, February 22nd, Sargent Grant Mattingly, my brother, and my hero, received the Purple Heart for his injuries sustained on Wednesday, July 16th. There wasn’t a time that I wasn’t scared for my brother, I prayed for him, for God to stay beside him, to give him the strength and comfort to get through this. I knew there was a possibility of him getting hurt or killed, but I knew that God had a plan for him. When I heard that he got injured, I first felt mad that he didn’t tell us when he was home for leave, but I knew that he didn’t want us to worry (I guess he knew us all too well, because I would have been worried myself sick), then I turned angry because he got hurt and I wasn’t there to be with him, to comfort him (it’s the big sis in me), then my angry quickly went away and a peace came upon me. Not knowing that my brother was injured, I had a heavy heart for sometime and I knew that I needed to do something extra to help him through this tour of duty. So, I knew that I need to pray (and have others prayer, too) more than ever that God would be with him and he was. He was there that day his truck hit that IED, God had protected my brother and the other soldiers in that truck. And I Thank God for that. What a marvelous God we have.
My brother is settling in to civilization (home), something I know will take time to get used to. Something that I am sure all soldiers have to get used too. They (all soldiers that have been deployed) were in extreme conditions over there. Something that we take for granted. They have to be on alert all hours, minutes, and seconds of the day. Not knowing if a simple bag would have explosives in them or a sweet child having explosives wrapped around them. They are always on alert, so when they come back home, they are still in that alert mode. The last couple of months we have all been trying to adjust having him back full time, we are trying to spend as much of our time with him. With a lot of the time he loves on his family, especially his nieces and nephew. They know very little about what happened to their Uncle Grant, especially the 2 littlest ones. Tristan and Grace know that their uncle is a soldier and went over the ocean to protect us and that is all they know. During the awards ceremony on Sunday, Grace saw his Purple Heart and thought of Valentines Day, her words were “It’s a Valentine’s Heart, Mom”. She doesn’t know what that heart really meant and probably won’t until she gets older and asks what that Purple Heart really is about. But every time I see my brother, I know what he endured for my freedom and the safety of this country. I am grateful to our Almighty God for being with my brother and bringing him back to us. We know have more time with him and being able to share the blessings God has given to us.
My brother is truly amazing, and my Hero.
I love you Grant and Thank you.
I don’t know the whole story and quite frankly, I don’t want to know ALL the details, so I am going to do my best to make a somewhat of a true scenario that happened that day. This is only from my account and how God worked in my and my families life.
It probably started as a same ole routine, getting up, getting his army fatigues on, breakfast and getting his soldiers together for the mission ahead. They headed out in the heat of the day, his military truck probably the first in line, as they guarded the vehicles that were transporting cargo to their destination, when his military truck was struck with an IED (improvised explosive device), also known as the roadside bombs we hear on the news. His truck was equipped with a safety feature that would hit an IED before the truck itself would. Imagine a lint roller in front of your son’s toy dump truck; this is what the truck looked like. This lint roller hit the IED first, causing an aftershock, rattling the truck and the soldiers in it. I am unsure of the injuries of the soldiers, none of which were serious. I know the passenger, the Sargent of this group, sustained a concussion, causing ringing in his ears, and problems with his vision. Although he doesn’t know the long term effects of this, he doesn’t keep him down. He came home for some R&R with the rest of his group in August, not mentioning to anyone what had happened no more than a month before. He just visited with his family and enjoyed LIFE at home. He went back to Iraq and continued on his missions. Protecting and securing our freedom.
On Sunday, February 22nd, Sargent Grant Mattingly, my brother, and my hero, received the Purple Heart for his injuries sustained on Wednesday, July 16th. There wasn’t a time that I wasn’t scared for my brother, I prayed for him, for God to stay beside him, to give him the strength and comfort to get through this. I knew there was a possibility of him getting hurt or killed, but I knew that God had a plan for him. When I heard that he got injured, I first felt mad that he didn’t tell us when he was home for leave, but I knew that he didn’t want us to worry (I guess he knew us all too well, because I would have been worried myself sick), then I turned angry because he got hurt and I wasn’t there to be with him, to comfort him (it’s the big sis in me), then my angry quickly went away and a peace came upon me. Not knowing that my brother was injured, I had a heavy heart for sometime and I knew that I needed to do something extra to help him through this tour of duty. So, I knew that I need to pray (and have others prayer, too) more than ever that God would be with him and he was. He was there that day his truck hit that IED, God had protected my brother and the other soldiers in that truck. And I Thank God for that. What a marvelous God we have.
My brother is settling in to civilization (home), something I know will take time to get used to. Something that I am sure all soldiers have to get used too. They (all soldiers that have been deployed) were in extreme conditions over there. Something that we take for granted. They have to be on alert all hours, minutes, and seconds of the day. Not knowing if a simple bag would have explosives in them or a sweet child having explosives wrapped around them. They are always on alert, so when they come back home, they are still in that alert mode. The last couple of months we have all been trying to adjust having him back full time, we are trying to spend as much of our time with him. With a lot of the time he loves on his family, especially his nieces and nephew. They know very little about what happened to their Uncle Grant, especially the 2 littlest ones. Tristan and Grace know that their uncle is a soldier and went over the ocean to protect us and that is all they know. During the awards ceremony on Sunday, Grace saw his Purple Heart and thought of Valentines Day, her words were “It’s a Valentine’s Heart, Mom”. She doesn’t know what that heart really meant and probably won’t until she gets older and asks what that Purple Heart really is about. But every time I see my brother, I know what he endured for my freedom and the safety of this country. I am grateful to our Almighty God for being with my brother and bringing him back to us. We know have more time with him and being able to share the blessings God has given to us.
My brother is truly amazing, and my Hero.
I love you Grant and Thank you.
Sargent Grant Mattingly
The Purple Heart
God Bless...
Jess
Thursday, February 19, 2009
12-year-old speaks out on the issue of abortion
**I forgot to add that my Uncle is out of the hospital and recuperating at home, Praise the Lord...Thank you for praying along with me**
I heard something on the radio that caught my ear on Focus on the Family on my way to work the other day, so I took some time today to look it up. There is always and will always be controversy regarding abortion, but I don't think I ever heard it from the view point of a 12 year old. This amazing speech about abortion came from a 12 year old, who presented this to her class for a class project. I thought it was only give you some statistics or just say that abortion is wrong, but she goes into great detail, she truly did a tremendous amount of research and studied what she was going to say and how to present it.
At age 12, I don't think I ever thought about sex or pregnancy it wasn't ever discussed among our peers (truth of the matter, we were nervous just sitting by the boys), but NOW the crazy thing is that there are several 12 year olds (or other teens) out there, that are thinking about having sex (protected or unprotected) and probably decide to go for it just because some of their peers say “yes”, “it’s the cool thing to do” or better yet “this will show me that you love me”, then possibly get pregnant and chose to abort their unborn child, so seeing this 12 year girl taking a stand on abortion and delivering this speech, may help someone decide that the risk of doing something that they are truly not ready for, is not really worth it. That they will be able to talk to their parents or seek the Lord when facing all trials of life to ask for guidance, comfort, and security.
This speech is about 5 minutes along, so you may want to watch it at home or during breaktime for those that are at work.
Jess
I heard something on the radio that caught my ear on Focus on the Family on my way to work the other day, so I took some time today to look it up. There is always and will always be controversy regarding abortion, but I don't think I ever heard it from the view point of a 12 year old. This amazing speech about abortion came from a 12 year old, who presented this to her class for a class project. I thought it was only give you some statistics or just say that abortion is wrong, but she goes into great detail, she truly did a tremendous amount of research and studied what she was going to say and how to present it.
At age 12, I don't think I ever thought about sex or pregnancy it wasn't ever discussed among our peers (truth of the matter, we were nervous just sitting by the boys), but NOW the crazy thing is that there are several 12 year olds (or other teens) out there, that are thinking about having sex (protected or unprotected) and probably decide to go for it just because some of their peers say “yes”, “it’s the cool thing to do” or better yet “this will show me that you love me”, then possibly get pregnant and chose to abort their unborn child, so seeing this 12 year girl taking a stand on abortion and delivering this speech, may help someone decide that the risk of doing something that they are truly not ready for, is not really worth it. That they will be able to talk to their parents or seek the Lord when facing all trials of life to ask for guidance, comfort, and security.
This speech is about 5 minutes along, so you may want to watch it at home or during breaktime for those that are at work.
Jess
EXTRAVAGANT LOVE
Tuesday night, I had the privilege to attend one of Women’s Ministry gatherings at Providence. It was the PMS Club: “Praising My Savior” (gals between 18-40, if you are interested). This is a great opportunity for me to meet with these wonderful Christian women and enjoy fellowship and of course the food (thanks ladies).
This gathering was Chocolate Boutique and In-dulge yourself in God’s extravagant love.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8.
Mandy did such an awesome job in decorating, the women that brought in food was sinfully delicious. We had a special guest that Mandy invited, Holly, to come and speak with us. Mandy and Holly got to know each other through work. We started with prayer and Holly gave a lesson from the Bible. Just listening to what Holly was saying was awesome…to hear her speak about God’s extravagant love for us. She started with putting a drop of Honey on the tips of our fingers and she told us to try to resist the urge to lick our fingers until later (which I will tell you in a minute). She started off with a story from the Bible about a man’s wife that committed adultery, but he continued to take her back over and over again because of his love for her. Our God’s love for us is wonderful that he is able to continue to love us even when we do sin. When we steer toward some other love (money, social status, or whatever), his love is still there, it is EXTRAVAGANT. We/I need to realize that his love will always be there for me. I need to love God as much as he loves me and not worry about chasing after false loves. Holly also brought two friends with her and they sang the most amazing song. This is where the Honey came in. Back in time, Honey was a luxury and not many could afford it, so when they did they savored that sweet flavor. So, she said to when we feel the love that our Lord feels for us, to taste the sweetness of honey, the sweetness of love that we have for our savior. What an amazing moment this was for me personally. I can’t describe what I felt hearing this song and the love that I have for my savior.
Below is the song Extravagant Love from Casting Crows:
God Bless…
P.S. Please keep my Uncle Guy (my dad's brother) in your prayers, my cousin told me yesterday that he has been in the hospital since Sunday, and found out he has pancreatitis, then he was moved to the ICU on Tuesday for night due rapid heart rate. They should or have met with the cardiologist to make sure his heart is okay, but I haven't heard any more news. Thank you.
Jess
This gathering was Chocolate Boutique and In-dulge yourself in God’s extravagant love.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8.
Mandy did such an awesome job in decorating, the women that brought in food was sinfully delicious. We had a special guest that Mandy invited, Holly, to come and speak with us. Mandy and Holly got to know each other through work. We started with prayer and Holly gave a lesson from the Bible. Just listening to what Holly was saying was awesome…to hear her speak about God’s extravagant love for us. She started with putting a drop of Honey on the tips of our fingers and she told us to try to resist the urge to lick our fingers until later (which I will tell you in a minute). She started off with a story from the Bible about a man’s wife that committed adultery, but he continued to take her back over and over again because of his love for her. Our God’s love for us is wonderful that he is able to continue to love us even when we do sin. When we steer toward some other love (money, social status, or whatever), his love is still there, it is EXTRAVAGANT. We/I need to realize that his love will always be there for me. I need to love God as much as he loves me and not worry about chasing after false loves. Holly also brought two friends with her and they sang the most amazing song. This is where the Honey came in. Back in time, Honey was a luxury and not many could afford it, so when they did they savored that sweet flavor. So, she said to when we feel the love that our Lord feels for us, to taste the sweetness of honey, the sweetness of love that we have for our savior. What an amazing moment this was for me personally. I can’t describe what I felt hearing this song and the love that I have for my savior.
Below is the song Extravagant Love from Casting Crows:
God Bless…
P.S. Please keep my Uncle Guy (my dad's brother) in your prayers, my cousin told me yesterday that he has been in the hospital since Sunday, and found out he has pancreatitis, then he was moved to the ICU on Tuesday for night due rapid heart rate. They should or have met with the cardiologist to make sure his heart is okay, but I haven't heard any more news. Thank you.
Jess
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)