Happy Valentine's Day

It may be a Hallmark holiday, but it's a day I will always try to make special for our kids while they are young and under our roof. It's another opportunity to teach them about God's unconditional love for us, show them the tangible love of our family, and demonstrate for them a marriage that- although far from perfect- remembers how important it is to keep the romance alive. Our kids are watching us. And the greatest gift we can give them besides Jesus while they are under our care, is a husband and wife who keep on moving toward each other, and a love that is built on the grace of God. And maybe a few stolen kisses here and there that make them giggle now and will someday soon embarrass the heck out of them!

8 months

Happy 8 months old to this sweet little one! The time has flown by as well as dragged on painfully slow, depending on which day you are asking me. This handsome boy continues to charm us with his steely blue eyes and ever-emerging personality. He is the world's best snuggler, hands down. Just put him up on your shoulder with a soft blankie and his binkie, and he will mold into the crook of your neck like he's been glued on. It is my favorite thing.

I noticed that in most of the pictures I capture now, Gavin is sans hearing aids. That would be the result of two very determined little hands being on continuous ear patrol and immediately ripping off foreign offenders as soon as we get them in place. Usually by the time we turn around, Gavin is happily sucking away on his $3,000 teethers. Its been a bit challenging to say the least.

We are keeping busy with multiple weekly doctor's appointments and therapies in preparation for Gavin's upcoming Cochlear Implant surgery, which will hopefully be in June. Eli and Norah have really been troopers through it all as I drag them to doctors all over town in support of getting Gavin the best care that we can. They only want to know 1. "Do they have stickers there?" and 2. "Can we play a game on your phone?" Everything else is pretty okay as long as I answer yes to those questions. 

Gavin's genetic testing for hearing loss came back negative, which lets us know that we did not pass on any recessive hearing loss genes to either Gavin, or our other kids. This was a huge relief for me. While it would have been nice to have an answer as to the "why," I can live without that knowing that our kids shouldn't need to worry about this in the future with their own children.

And while I could go on and on with boring details and all the research I've been tackling on hearing loss, Cochlear Implants, surgeries, and the like, I will spare you of all that and just leave you with the cutest little face you're ever going to lay eyes on.

All Things New

We finished up 2012 with two lazy and wonderful weeks of celebrating Christmas and spending time with family. John didn't have to report to the office during the holidays and not having him rush off every morning when we've barely just woken up is one of my favorite parts about December. I got to snuggle in bed a little longer and enjoy my morning coffee a few times while he got up with our early birds and fixed breakfast. Ahh, if only it could have lasted forever. Today I was running around like a crazy person trying to get the kids out the door by mid-morning because I apparently have forgotten how to do it by myself. Oh how I miss you already, two-parents-at-home life of leisure.

Christmas was so fun with such excited little ones and their equally excited cousins.
 It just gets better every year. Here are a few of the highlights.

                                   

 

As John and I celebrated New Years this week, we both agreed that we are more than ready to say good-bye to 2012. See ya later! It was a good year, but one with a great deal of sorrow and trials. God has stretched us and tested us, and yet we have found Him to be so faithful and loving to us amidst the heartbreak. We are eagerly anticipating the new things that are coming in the year ahead. The biggest being that Gavin will HEAR this year! Whether God chooses to heal him through His miraculous power or through the medical miracle of cochlear implants, we are giddy with the thought of our son hearing our voices in only a few short months from now. It just can't get here soon enough.

My verse for this year that God has really been laying heavy on my heart is this:

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a NEW thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the dessert and streams in the wasteland."
-Isaiah 43:18,19

That is just some powerful scripture, no matter where you find yourself starting out this year. God is going to do big and amazing things, because it's in His nature and, well, He just can't keep Himself from being Himself. He loves us way too much.

Happy 2013!

We Are Family

I've got all my sisters with me...

A Christmas tradition, the annual Costello sibling's dinner. Hosted to perfection this year by Chris and Rebecca. Well done you two, we were treated to a mouth-watering feast. You make having a 6 week old and throwing a dinner party for 12 look like a cake walk.

Day 18

When your kids are too sick to go into the church nursery and your advent calendar's activity of the day is to "set up your Christmas manger" (which you don't have), this is how you spend your Sunday morning improvising:

 

A big thanks to all the Little People, animals, and construction men for making this scene come alive. And especially to cowboy man, for stepping into the role of baby Jesus. You were the only one small enough to be swaddled in toilet paper and placed in the trough. I'm sure you understand.

6 months

So I've apparently gotten into a bit of a writing slump...

I blame 90% of it on the crazy busy, unending job of feeding and watering 3 little people; and the remaining 10% on my own laziness once those 3 little people finally close their eyes at night. But at least I'm being honest right?

Life continues on here as the days blur into weeks, which blur into months, which continue through holidays and family feasts, and thankfulness, and replacing pumpkins with garland, and filling up the calendar with so many events you start to sweat a little when you face your Monday morning to-do list. I love this time of year, even more now that Eli and Norah are old enough to be transfixed by all the magic and the twinkling lights. But it does still get a bit overwhelming at times trying to cram it all in.

Gavin will be 6 months old this week. I would say that the time has flown by, because that's what you're supposed to say as a parent. But sometimes when I look back at all that has happened in our little guy's short life already, it seems much longer. And I don't mean that negatively. Certainly, these months have been emotional, and heart-breaking, and difficult. We would never have chosen to watch our son struggle to hear us, to meet milestones that should come without effort, to deal with an uncertain future. But this boy has wrapped himself so tightly around every inch of our hearts, that it's as if he was never not here. We still are in the waiting phase, faithfully keeping Gavin's hearing aids in for as much of the day as we can, practicing simple sign language with him while we bathe him, play with him, feed him. We still don't know how much language he is getting. We probably wont for a few more months still. And the waiting is so hard.

But I do know that Gavin (or God rather) is changing me through all of this. I look at Gavin and I see perfection. My mother-bear protective nature over him is something fierce. God has been teaching me so much about my own pride, about waiting for His timing, about releasing the death grip I hold on things I cannot change. And he has also been revealing to me the beautiful heart of the man I married. John cares for Gavin so sweetly, tenderly helping him with his hearing aids, getting up with him during the night, patiently working with him on his development, never complaining about what isn't. I am so thankful for a man who is much stronger than I am at showing grace in difficult circumstances.

The Bible verse we chose for Gavin's nursery wall when I was pregnant has become the powerful words I pray over him each night when I put him to bed. What a perfect reminder of just how much God thinks of each one of his children.

"The Lord your God is with you.

He is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

He will quiet you with his love,

He will rejoice over you with singing."

-Zephaniah 3:17 

Fun in the Kitchen

One of my New Year's Resolutions for 2012 (yes, I'm a nerd) was to work on being more relaxed and easy-going. Now you may be saying to yourself, "hey, wouldn't an easy-going person NOT make New Year's Resolutions based on the fact that resolving to do something is, in principle, kind of uptight?" And to you I say, "baby steps, my friend, baby steps"

Anyways, here we are in mid-October and I'm questioning the amount of progress I've made toward my goal. So today, with John working at the office all day and my only plans being to remain in my pajamas for as many hours as possible, I decided it was time to get cool, and be that mess-loving, easy-going mom my kids never knew they were missing out on.

I saw this idea on Pinterest a while back to create a fun, kid's cooking/baking experience for little ones who love to be involved in the kitchen. And mine do. Whenever I try to sneak away in the afternoon to start whipping up dinner, it's never more than 10 minutes before I have two little helpers sitting Indian-style on the counter arguing about whose turn it is to dump ingredients and whose turn it is to stir. And while its fun bonding for us all, my mild germaphobia along with a tendency to get overwhelmed by a huge mess, make it a continual growing and stretching experience for me personally.

So for this project, you basically take a muffin tin and fill each cup with all different textures and types of food/spices from your pantry. I used dried rice, marshmallows, spices, pasta, sprinkles, sugar, beans, cinnamon sticks, etc etc. You get the idea, just use whatever you want. Then give each kid a bowl with some flour in it. Spread out measuring cups, spoons, spatulas, whisks, a few spices for shaking and water for mixing, and let the chefs go to town creating whatever their little hearts desire. This blog-which I would link you to if I could only find it again!- suggested putting all supplies in one of those under-the-bed long storage bins to help contain the mess. And I would say this is a must! Thankfully I had one of these bins hanging around still from my college dorm days.

The kids LOVED this, and once they realized it wasn't actually an all-you-can-eat buffet of "these taste spicy mommy," they got pretty serious about their cooking. They played and played until they had used up all the ingredients and created big soupy, delicious looking concoctions of goop. I convinced them both to taste their yummy creations, to which they both ate heaping spoonfuls, and then quickly spit out in disgust. But I enjoyed a good laugh. It was only once they came up with the brilliant idea to move each other's "soups" back and forth into different containers by scooping it up with their hands that not-so-easy-going mommy came back and we had to call it a day. But it was a great, tactile learning activity for a rainy morning and one that I'm sure they will be begging to do again in the future. And I feel one step closer to being that easy-breezy girl who laughs in the face of that big, giant mess.