HUGE Responsibility!

I've been working on cleaning out our house, which is different from cleaning up the house. We just have too much stuff! Anyway, while I clean I like to listen to music, because well, without music it's just boring. :) So Kaitlyn and I were in the back room (office/guest room) and I had on 94.9 which is the Christian station here. The Casting Crowns song, "Slow Fade" came on. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this group. All their songs are just amazing! The kid singing at the end always gets me, but today it was a different line in the song that stopped me in my tracks. There is a line that says, "Be careful little feet where you go, for it's the little feet behind you that are sure to follow." Wow. That says it all right there. Kaitlyn will be watching Cody and I to learn about life. How we interact with each other, family, and friends, how we eat, how we keep house, how we worship, how we talk, - everything. What an amazing responsibility! I've been "looked at" before being a teacher and I've seen kids imitate me. (You find out real quick what phrases you use a lot when you teach kindergarten!) :) But now I'm not Mrs. Bush, the teacher. I am Mom. That word hasn't even sunk in yet. Maybe it's because Kaitlyn isn't using it yet, but somehow it hadn't hit me yet. But Mom - that's me now. And Cody is no longer just Cody - he's Dad. We have such a job ahead of us! I am thankful I have a wonderful, loving, and Godly husband that is here to help me with this job. This is the most important job either one of us has ever held! It scares me and thrills me all at the same time. I know the years ahead will be full of laughter, tears, and prayers as we figure it all out. And we will be watching what we do because Kaitlyn will be watching us.

Too many toys!!! (And she's not even 4 months old!)

Well, it's finally happened. It didn't take long for Kaitlyn's toys to overflow the storage we had in her room. And because Christmas was just here, we now have way more toys than we have storage for. So instead of buying more small baskets that match the ones we already have, we decided to buy her a toy bench. I looked and looked and had so much fun doing so. There are some really cute stores online that I never knew about! But most of the pink and brown ones were either way more than we wanted to spend, or just not the style we were going for. I finally picked one out that sort of matched her room. It's not pink and brown, but we have some of the Love Bug collection from Babies R Us in her room, so it sort of matches that too. The colors are a bit different, but not everything she has is going to be matchy matchy. :) Cody liked it too, well, honestly I don't think he cared all too much. ;) So we ordered it and it should be here in about a week! I can't wait! I know she won't be using it for a good long while, but me, being the organizational freak that I am, will be so happy that the toys will have a good place to be!

The Case of the Serial Comma

After getting several Christmas cards that "bothered" me I looked up the comma rule. (I know, I am SUCH a teacher.) But here's what I've come up with:

The Mystery Solved

Dear Readers,

Many thanks to all who responded to my plea for help in tracing the origin of the Wrong Rule about omitting the final comma in a series ("red, white and blue" instead of "red, white, and blue").

Your letters and my further research have revealed this: The only authorities who advocate omitting the final comma are newspaper style guides (which wish to save column space) and some English writers (who waffle on the rule).

My original assertion stands, with minor qualifications: Except for journalists, all American authorities say to use the final serial comma: "He went to the store to buy milk, butter, and eggs."

The reason for the final serial comma is to prevent the last 2 items' being confused as a unit (butter-and-eggs).

From Grammar Girl:

Although the serial comma isn't always necessary, I favor it because often it does add clarity, and I believe in having a simple, consistent style, instead of trying to decide whether you need something on a case-by-case basis. I also think using the serial comma makes even simple lists easier to read. Really, unless space is incredibly expensive, I can't imagine why anyone would decide the best method is sometimes leave it out and sometimes add it in*.




Okay, okay, I know I'm being tacky, and hopefully not too on the rude side, but I hate it when I don't see a serial comma before the word and!!! Unless you're a newspaper editor you should be using it! (I'm sure I'll get lots of folks telling me I don't use proper punctuation after this.......haha......I like my ellipsis so don't even start with that................... :)

And if you did send me a Christmas card and didn't put the serial comma that's fine. I still love you for sending me one. Just next year keep in mind that it's great to sign them as follows:

Merry Christmas!
Love,
Cody, Heather, and Kaitlyn :)

Updates

I am FINALLY posting some updates, but I'm changing the dates on them. Even though I didn't actually write the posts on those days, I'm putting some closer to when the events happened because...well, I'm OCD and don't like things out of order. So look for the updates in the "older" parts too. :) Oh, and just for grins, here's another picture of my oh so cute daughter! :)


We thought she looked like Lady Liberty here. :)

Away in a Manger

Today Cody, Kaitlyn, and I got to light the advent candles at church. It was a pretty exciting time for us as a family. I was really nervous that Kaitlyn would be crying or fussy, and she was right before. We ended up having to feed her in the pew right before we went down to the candles. But we got her fed in time and she did wonderful! The song right before we came down was amazing!! It was called, "Here With Us" and there was a part when it talked about Mary rocking her savior to sleep. I looked down at Kaitlyn and how small she was and how much she needed me - for pretty much everything. It's hard to believe Jesus was ever like that, but that's part of what makes Him so amazing. I am so thankful that God decided to send his Son and I cannot wait until I get to teach that to Kaitlyn!

We went down to light the candles during Away in a Manger and I almost lost it. Being caught up in the amazement of God and then thinking of my sweet family just choked me up. I thought of how Kaitlyn's coming into this world was not easy - right from the beginning. Then I looked around and saw so many faces from my loving church family smiling down and us and I realized how very blessed we are. We've had so many people praying and loving us and I cannot express how thankful I am for that. This Christmas will be the best one I've ever had. I have so many blessings including my precious little daughter. And I think back to that manger that had the biggest blessing that this world will ever receive. Praise God for his Son!

Stroller Struggles

Well, here's my first attempt and catching up with the blog! Hopefully I'll get to do a lot of that over the Christmas break, but there are a million other things I need to catch up on too, so I'm not making any promises! :)

One of the things I wanted to write about when it happened, but never got around to was the very first time I used the stroller with Kaitlyn. I was on maternity leave at the time and decided to go get envelopes for Kaitlyn's birth announcements. I was going to go to Office Depot and it was right by my house so we wouldn't be gone long. It was a weekday morning so I knew not a lot of people were going to be out, and her doctor had said I could take her on short little shopping trips as long as nobody touched her. So I thought this first experience would be perfect. So I get everything ready and packed the car. I get to Office Depot and pull the stroller out of the trunk. I had managed to fold it up and get it in there just fine at home, but stupid me forgot to look at how to get it unfolded. I started pulling and tugging on anything I could think of and the dumb thing wouldn't budge. This seriously went on for about five minutes, and one lady even stopped and asked me if I needed help. "No thanks - it's just stuck," was my answer. Like I was really going to tell her I was a stupid mom that didn't know how to work the darn thing. Then I finally got it opened and got Kaitlyn out in her carrier and went to put the carrier on the stroller. Somehow before it had "snapped" in, but of course this time it wouldn't. I tried and tried...I had to put Kaitlyn back in the car several times until I FINALLY figured out how to push the bottom down. At this point I had tears in my eyes and was so embarrassed. I wondered who in the store was watching (I doubt anyone, but that's how my mind works) and I really almost didn't go in because I felt so dumb. But I did go in - went right to the envelopes and then the check out. Literally I was in the store for all of two minutes. That's it. Two minutes. I fought with my stroller for about fifteen minutes in the parking lot so I could be in a store for TWO MINUTES!!! I could have just carried the dad gum carrier in the store and not had any problems. What was I thinking???

I went home feeling like one of the dumbest moms ever, but I sure did practice with that stroller so it wouldn't happen again!! And it hasn't...but I'm sure there will be plenty of dumb mom moments in my future!

Short and Very Sweet!

It's been so long since I've "blogged." Hmmm...wonder what could be taking up my time! :) I'll try to post over the break (and maybe some this week, but who knows!) because Kaitlyn has had so many firsts and what nots that I need to put on here. But for now, I'm beyond exhausted, almost finished with laundry, and the pillow is calling my name. So I'll just post one of my newest favorite pictures of my little angel! :)