The Long Road Home: 2014

Hey All!

Just a quick drop in to let you know that you are on my mind and heart. I am scheduling in time, hopefully this week, to update you all on all that is Wicker.

Preston is doing well, I have lots of pictures to share. What a beautiful CURLY headed boy I have! Love that he has Mamma's curls.

We have some stuff going on with Brooks. He goes into the ENT doc in a couple of week to schedule the surgical repair of his posterior tongue tie. Nooooooo. I hate this for him. He most definitely gets this from me. Poor thing. He is also fairly delayed in his speech. So we have started speech therapy with him and he will have an assessment in the next couple of weeks. But, he's a smarty, just physically motivated. So I have been working with him individually at least twice a day for " learning" sessions and also incorporating all kinds of different things in our days to help him get caught up. God gave us each other purposefully. Brooks is anointed. And I love my babies relentlessly and fearlessly, so any set back is only temporary. :)

I have done a soft launch of my Etsy Store! There is still much to do, but, yes, we are up and running and fully operational! ( Progress is slow with two little ones that keep you busy) We would be incredibly honored if you would check us out.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LifesEssentialsCo?ref=hdr_shop_menu

We love and miss you all. I hope to update very soon with lots of pics! Hope you all have a wonderful Halloween! Love.

I feel like I'm always so far behind on blogging! Oh man, I wish I had more time. There really are so many great things I want to share everyday! But I have to tell ya, finding both the time and the energy after a long day to upload and sort/save the hundreds of pictures I take on a weekly basis, then write, seems like a looming task most days. Ahhhh the life of a busy Mom with two littles at home. It could be far, far worse than not being able to get to our blog, I know, Life is marvelous.

So much has happened in the last month...!

Okay, lets begin with Preston

He is struggling a little on school these past couple of weeks. Initially it began with him having a potty accident at school to which he responded very emotionally. He became very distraught at school over it, and it took a long time for the teachers to console him. I'm not sure if this just kinda threw things off for him at school or what, but the next week he had lots of crying and " missing Mamma" and telling the teachers he was tired. One of those days he had to spend most of the day stuck to the lap of his teacher, and the other day he was in hysterics for a long while and was inconsolable, so I went to pick him up. Brooks, as you know, has a long history of lots of crying at nighttime. We know this does wake Preston to some extent. We're thinking it is waking Preston more than we thought and he really is not getting enough sleep and is tired and just not able to fully take on the day at school. But this week at school was a lot better. A little crying at drop off, but apparently he settles quickly and has fun all day. But we still don't know why the sudden change, as Brooks keeping his awake at night is not a new thing. I have talked to his teachers and they say all is the same and well at school and he is very well adjusted and gets along well with all of his classmates and teachers. They have no idea what could have triggered this change.

We have our conference with his teacher to go over their assessment of Preston at the end of the month. ..Slightly awkward. I mean, don't they know Preston is perfect and should have no deficiencies or "goals". LOL...After all. he is two.

Preston will be dressing up at school and having a Halloween parade. He will be the lion from the Wizard of Oz. :)

Preston is still doing pretty well with potty training. He will have accidents if at home and you have to remind him regularly, but he does excellent when at school or when out and about. Thankfully.

Preston is like a suuuuper sponge. I just cannot say enough how wild it is to watch these littles grow! Of course, I think everything he does it just brilliant, but, really, WOW!

He still loves his teacher Mrs. " A Man Da" a lot. He talks to her on his play phone and talks to her in his crib and comes home from school telling me that " Mrs. A Man Da happy to see me".

Mr. Brooks:

He is 8 months old and 21 pounds!

And he has TWO TEETH!

We are doing a hybrid of baby led weaning and purees with him. Very minimal purees, mostly eating whole foods once or twice a day, and we're being sure to be conservative with this, as we really want him to stay on breast milk and not self wean earlier than he normally would because of an overabundance of food in his diet. He is doing great!

He was weighed last week and weighs 21#, so def not missing any calories. Just for comparison, with two years apart, Preston is only 5# heavier than Brooks. One small and one big. It's hilarious to see the two of them side by side.

He is MOBILE! And oh so close to walking. He is cruising all over the furniture helping himself to toys inside the toy box, and right under our feet constantly, Preston is not too keen on this new development, as this means he has to share all of this toys now, and Brooks is able to go help himself to whatever he wants. And so it begins. :) He can push the walking push toys and he climbs on top of things and uses them as leverage so he can climb on larger things, such as the couch. He is a wild, strong little dude. Is God really giving me TWO Preston's??

He is quite the Mamma's dude. I love it. I know all this snuggle and holding him time will be gone before I know it, So I really do try to soak it up.

And the best, most amazing, incredible, The- Lord- loves- us-update about Brooks----he is sleeping through the night!!! Right at the 8 month mark this glorious amazing little gift fell down from Heaven for us. oh.my.gosh, it's glorious, Buuut, I will say, we did help him a little to get here, literally, over night. Even though he was sleeping in his crib in our room, I finally realized it was just not working for us all three to be sleeping in the same room. Whether we were waking him, or I was just being too responsive to his whines at night and going to him, which was creating a night waking habit---whatever was happening, it just wasn't working for our family as a whole---no one was rested, ever. . It was completely taking a toll on the entire family. So Kevin and I did a trial of sleeping in the guest room one night, so Brooks would be in his crib in our room all by himself---it worked! There was no crying, and he slept for 12 hours! If you know Brooks and his sleeping, this is unheard of. He was usually up 4 times a night and there was tons and tons of crying every single night when we initially put him down, and tons of exhaustion and frustration on our part. So needless to say, very sadly on some level because I was not ready for him to not be close to me at night---but we are no longer all sleeping in the same room. But sleep for all of us is more important than having him in the room with us.

Me and the Hubs:

We are fantastic. Fall is beautiful here! The leaves and trees are just gorgeous, nothing like we have back home. Although I am very sad for winter to be headed our way.

Kevin's been staying busy with " President-esque" HOA responsibilities, and working on decorating for Halloween and a few more house projects before winter shows it's not so pretty face.

I am launching a new online Etsy business! We have been working super hard on it and hope to have an official launch day of November 1st. We will sell organic, chemical free essential oil health products and hand crafted skin care products, such as antiaging serums, lotions, scrubs, etc. This has been a ton of work--more than we anticipated, I think. But I love doing it, and I totally believe in the benefit of avoiding chemicals and healing the body through alternative means. Sooo I'm opening up all my recipes to share with everyone! Whooo hooo! We are so excited!

Kevin has to travel more than we thought he would with this job, and definitely more than I like. So the boys and I have some long, hard days when he's gone. I've learned that some days, just surviving is A-ok!

It's pretty lonely here. I can't wait to go home, whenever that will be. I've joined a Mother's of Preschooler's Group, but so far it hasn't really added much in the way of friendships or an outlet like I was really really hoping. So lots of long exhausting days in general. Ha! But I know this will definitely be a time of exceptional growth if I allow it. So that's my saving grace at the moment. Just hanging on to God's promises and keeping my focus on serving Him. All else I have no control over.

We miss and love each of you!

Here's some updated pictures!