Celeste Elisabeth Williams, April 26th, 2012

On April 26th, 2012, at 3:30 pm, we welcomed with love, Celeste Elisabeth Williams.
Her name means 'from heaven' or 'heavenly' and we truly feel heaven blessed to have this sweet little girl join our family.  

Rebecca, Joseph and Theo could hardly wait to meet their little sister. 

They were proudly wearing their "I'm a big brother/sister t-shirts." 

 As soon as Theo walked into the room he took possession of the baby and said: Gimme baby.  He held her, kissed her, shushed her, pointed out her ears and head and nose and was so excited he could hardly stand it.  Rebecca and Joseph, too, savored their first moments with Celeste.  Joseph loved her hands and toes, just like he did when Theo was born.  When Rebecca, Joseph and Theo walked into the room Celeste opened her eyes (it was my first time seeing her eyes opened) and looked straight in their direction.  I felt like she knew exactly who was entering.  It was an emotional moment for me, having my whole family together for the first time. 

 

 

Celeste is adjusting well to the love of her brothers and sister.  We're happy to have Grandma Julie here helping us. 

The birth went well.  Not quite as shocking as Joseph's 911 fire department delivery, and not quite as fast as Theo's 1 1/2 hours of labor.  I did labor at home as much as possible (starting about 6 in the morning), praying that I would know the right moment to go to the hospital.  That moment eventually came, and we arrived at the hospital just in time.  Celeste was born 45 minutes later. 

It is such a blessing to be able to participate in bringing life into this world.  We're grateful for everyone who assisted in making Celeste's birth a wonderful experience, including friends (who helped out with the other children at home), family and the doctor and nurses. 

Happy Birthday, Celeste! We're so glad you've joined our family. 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

In the last few months I've been thinking about how ironic it is that I've been having some of the sweetest times of my life interspersed with some of the hardest moments.  Unemployment and pregnancy being among the hard things for me, with the relationships with my family, especially my husband and children being among the sweet things of life for me. Motherhood itself brings with it its own challenges, don't get me wrong.  But there have also been many smiles along the way. 

As we are completing our 4th month of unemployment I have come to the conclusion that life is going to be full of challenges, and even once we overcome this one new ones will arise.  I do believe that we don't have to endure the same intensity of challenges every single year, we probably couldn't handle that, but there will always be challenges. 

So the task is to find those sweet moments in between all of the challenges we face.  Because if we're always waiting for the challenges to be over in order to be happy we will never be happy.  The challenges will never be over in this life. 

Something I read by Julie B. Beck in a recent "LDS Living" Magazine really struck me.  She writes:

"I've learned that the world teaches us that we can have the dream now.  They express the dream as what Adam and Eve had in the garden-you don't have to work for anything and everything is peaceful and happy.  That's really where the adversary still is.  But we chose to have a mortal experience to prepare for the real dream, and that dream is eternal life.  Eve was willing to go through a long, hard mortal experience in order to work toward the promise of the dream-I don't think most women realize that.  They're trying to make it be the dream now.  We don't get that here.  What we get here is the experience." (LDS Living, March/April 2012, pg. 55)

If we expect to live the perfect dream, the perfect life while we're here on this earth, we will never be satisfied.  But if we understand that this life means challenges and joys scattered together and if we can learn to endure the hard times and be grateful for the good times, we will live the life we came to earth for and we can have joy here and now, while looking forward to the eternal joys to come. 

Warren's birthday and Medieval Times

 

April is filled with birthdays in this family!   

For Warren's birthday we went to an Arts and Crafts Festival in our town, where Rebecca made a clay butterfly and the boys played with bubbles.

 

Everyone helped blow out the candle and helped play with daddy's presents.  

 

The celebration continued the next day with a visit to Medieval Times.  My whole life I have driven past that place and wanted to see what it was like inside.  Some friends of ours offered us free tickets, so we finally got to experience it! We all had a great time.  We especially enjoyed watching our kids get into the act, cheering on the "Blue Knight" and booing for the other knights.  It was a great day.  

Theo is 2!

 

For Theo's birthday we celebrated with cupcakes, presents and blowing out candles over and over again.  Theo definitely knew it was HIS day and had a great time.  One of his best friends, Lydia, came over to play.  

I loved how into his presents he was.  He really enjoyed every single one.  And so did Joseph! 

We love you, Theo! 

 

Some of Theo's favorites at 2:
Beetyear (Buzz Lightyear)
Budda Brown (Charlie Brown)
Star Wars

Budda Why (Super Why)
Kiss George (Curious George)
Candy

Chocolate

Jo-jo and Becca

His polka dot blanket

Milk

Superman/Spiderman

pens and paper and drawing on the walls (yikes)

balls

swords

nursery and his friends at church "Carker and Lilly" (Parker and Lydia)

Scissors Cut and Electricity is Real

The willing client

 A couple of days ago I walked into the kids bedroom to find the setup you see above.

Theo turned to me and said: "Haircut!" Joseph was literally ready to snip away at Theo's hair.  Suffice it to say, the hair cutting things are now out of reach.

I'm not sure what has gotten into this boy.  Is it the age? Is it the new baby on the way?

Unfortunately not all the scissors were put out of reach.  Here's what happened next:

After years of wanting to learn how to sew and 5 years of owning a sewing machine, this new baby soon to arrive, combined with Pinterest, got my creative juices flowing and I decided to attempt some projects that were a little bigger than I had attempted previously.

Lessons learned: when you are 1) 9 months pregnant, 2) have two little "helpers" and 3) are a beginner, a project that says it is going to take 30 minutes takes more like 3 hours.

That was the minky blanket.  After that things got a little better and I made a few burp cloths, a diaper clutch, a car seat canopy with peek-a-boo window and last but not least, today I whipped up a nursing cover.  

My first real sewing projects!

I had so much fun doing everything and really felt like I was progressing.  I was finally accomplishing one of my dreams.  It brought me so much joy.  Unfortunately I had one more lesson to learn.

The kids came home today just as I was finishing up my last project.  Joseph was once again fascinated by the sewing machine and all the accessories.  I had already lectured him the last few days about not touching anything.

He asked if he could cut up a scrap of fabric and I decided to let him.  But then he took my fabric scissors and cut my ruler in half.  But I wasn't smart enough. I hadn't learned my lesson.

I went upstairs for some reason, and a couple of minutes later Rebecca was upstairs complaining that Joseph had cut her shirt.  Joseph came into my room and said: "There were fireworks downstairs and smoke. Do you want to come see?"  I ignored those comments, figuring he was pretending some game.   Warren and I calmly explained to him that cutting your sisters shirt was not okay etc. etc.

Joseph talked about the smoke and fireworks one more time.  We finally went down where I did indeed smell smoke and saw, lo and behold, my good fabric scissors suspended from the sewing machine electric cord, with the cord almost completely severed.  I took the scissors off to find the electricity had melted the metal.

After my initial shock, my pregnancy state of being kicked in and I burst into tears.  When I had calmed down we talked to Joseph, discovering that he had indeed gotten shocked and he truly had seen fireworks and smoke.   He even had the presence of mind to remind me how I had talked to him about the toaster recently, and how you don't stick anything metal in it or you could get shocked.

At the end of our talk with him, we asked, "Joseph, was there anything else you cut or did?"

His response: "No, that would be all."

I guess he had had enough smoke and fireworks for one afternoon. 

Electricity is stronger than metal!

Ready or not, here I come!

Rebecca, 2003

Joseph, 2007

Theo, 2010

Last night I had a mild scare. Well, it's not really a scare, but I was having enough contractions that were a little painful that I did start wondering whether this would go somewhere.  Given my history I just have to be careful. 

With Joseph labor was two hours total and I had to call 911. With Theo, labor was 1 1/2 hours total and we made it to the hospital with 18 minutes to spare. 

So naturally, when I start feeling contractions that are coming every few minutes I start to wonder. 

Warren, as always, was my rock. He reminded me, that even though I'm still 3 weeks away from my due date, and my mom isn't here yet, if the baby decides to come everything will be okay.  The contractions were "painful" enough that I couldn't get to sleep till they subsided, which was after 1 am.  They definitely brought back memories of my last two, natural deliveries.

There are still a few things I want to get done before she comes. I especially want my mom to get here. Deep down I feel like I will not give birth for a few more weeks, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. I have a few phone numbers of friends on my white board, just in case.  I'm going to pack my bags today and try to get those last few things finished that are top priority. 

And then, come what may and love it! We're excited to meet our little girl. It won't be long now!

Joseph is 5!

Joseph had very specific requests for his birthday this year. It was the first time he planned a party for himself.  He wanted:
-2 friends

-a pinata

-a helium balloon attached to his chair

-a Toy Story cake with figures on it (we already owned the figures)

-a game

-lots of desserts: cake, brownies AND chocolate chip cookies

-and a present that was new (NOT something we already had at home, he said)

The pinata was a small miracle find.  I didn't want to spend $20 on an empty pinata at Walmart, so we went to Party City, where they only cost 12.99. But then the clerk showed me one that was on clearance for $5. I'll take it, I said.  I went up to the cash register and she almost in a whisper said: "It's 50 cents! Oh, plus tax, so 54 cents." What a deal. I was going to cover it with Toy Story pictures, but Joseph was fine with the GI Joe Ninjas-so no extra work for me.  

He had a great day and loved his birthday.
We love you, Joseph!

 

Easter

 For Easter we had a simple, beautiful day with some friends of ours.  I was the organist at church, Warren shared some thoughts with the ward...We did an Easter egg hunt, had a great dinner and just relaxed.  My favorite moments from the day were seeing how proud the boys were to wear their new Easter outfits and watching Joseph wear his Easter bunny ears from pre-school.  I love that about pre-schoolers. 

 

We're grateful for the Savior and his Atoning sacrifice and resurrection.  We took some time to share our thoughts about Christ with our children.   It was a perfect Easter.