I am so in love with my kids. They bring out every emotion possible. They drive me crazy. I get tired. I get exhausted. I get impatient. They make me smile, laugh. I am amazed. I am impressed. I am proud. I am in love. I keep trying to change my perspective in this season of life. Because my emotions are up and down, I want to maintain the joy that comes from the Lord. I want to be 100% for my kids as much as I can. I've read a lot of perspectives from mothers that talk about how it is impossible to "carpe diam." Seize the day! But, I think you have to do that! Ellie is now 2 years old. She is changing. She is learning to control her emotions, or rather I am trying to help and train her to. I am laughing to myself because when am I able to truly control my emotions, 100% of the time??? She is learning to express herself. She is learning how to be social. She is learning to be alive. It kind of makes me excited. It kind of makes me scared to death. However, God did give me the responsibility to do the best I can to raise her to love God and love people. BE AN EXAMPLE - its the best way. I am thinking forgiveness and grace is priority to teach her, and Gemma, and Calvin, and any others as well. Ellie is developing fast. Potty training may have failed, but she is excelling in everything else crazy fast! Her speech is growing and she is developing sentences and is able to communicate really well. She loves to run and jump and spin. She can color, play with playdough, thread beads. My favorite phrases - "See how it works" "No you do it (when she wants help)" "Bless you Mama" "Bless you sister" "May I have crackers" "thank you mama" She loves to help me put the dishes away and she loves to set the table. Discipline is often changing, as new things are always coming up. Finding out the heart of the matter is tricky. i wish I could read her heart like God knows our heart in order to be the perfect disciplinary. hmm....I need to pray for His wisdom in this.



Gemma is also growing at rapid rates! She isn't quite walking yet, but is so very close! She is talking a lot too, much quicker than Ellie had started. She can say dog, all done, mama, dada, night night, hat. She can sign more, all done, dog, bird, please, help, hat, drink, eat. Now, the thing about Gemma is she has a screech!! Boy is it loud! She screeches when she is happy, frustrated, sad, mad, excited. Oy, is it ear piercing!! Taylor and I think she might be a tad bit more emotional than Ellie, not bad at all! Just different. But now that we know her screeching is trying to tell us something, we have been working a lot more with teaching her signs, which she is picking up easier and using more often. She is a stinker, but goodness I love her so much. Gemma and I have actually had this past weekend to ourselves, well with Daddy too. My parents took Ellie to their house to spend with her for a few days. Its been good for us because Gemma has gotten to play with her toys without Ellie taking them away from her. It is kinda funny because every time that she does try to take something from her, Gemma uses that screech and holds on for dear life!

Birthday Party

I am embarrassed to say that I am just now posting about our girls' birthday party that happened over a month ago! Our Gemma Bean is 1 and Ellie is 2! We had a great time with some great friends! Thank you everyone for your generosity! It means a lot to have people love our girls!

Den Renovation - Beginnings and Frustrations

Our den renovation has started! And stalled...and begun again, and has stalled again... But I understand that is how these things go. Some friends of ours came over and helped with the demo of the den. We are so thankful for their help! Not only does it get done faster, but the company is awesome as well :)





My wonderful dad came and helped with a lot of different stuff, including electrical and putting the wall up, which helps to make things more real.




Now, we are waiting on the contractor and his crew to put up wallboard and and replace the windows and stuff. I know these things take time, but I was really hoping that this would be done before the baby got here, but it isn't looking like that is going to happen. But, "Do everything without complaining or arguing..." (Phil. 2:14). I live in a house - we are able to make repairs - the renovation isn't even in the mainstream of our house, so not in the way. It'll get done. So no worries.

Powder Everywhere!

I am enjoying a peaceful afternoon nap. House is "mostly" cleaned, no dinner to be prepped right now, and kids are asleep. At least that is what i thought. I heard something fall to the floor, and a little "uh-oh" then "mama i stuck". Oh gosh. I walk in, and lo and behold, there is baby powder EVERYWHERE!! I am thinking "go ahead and laugh now or you won't be able to get through this." Ellie looks at me like she is mildly pleased with herself. She had moved the bed to the changing table, which she knows NOT to do. I am thinking, "Well I am at least going to spank her for that..." It is all over the floor, the rug, the changing time, at least 4 dolls, at least 5 shoes, all in the diaper/wipe holder, all over her face and hair, and it is just everywhere. I soon discover you can not sweep this stuff up; it is everywhere! Ellie wants to help clean it up, and carries the dust pan to the trash, trips over the carpet, and yep, drops the powder even more on the rug. Oh boy. As I am sighing at my failed attempt to clean anything up, she is asking "What happened mama?" WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT HAPPENED??!!! Aahh!!

Why am I awake at 3:30 in the morning? I am so tired, yet here I am, my mind is spinning of too many crazy things. I woke up about an hour ago trying to figure out where our camera was. I haven't been able to find it for the past couple of weeks, tearing the house apart to no luck. So I got up and went outside into the cold pouring rain to check the truck, and lo and behold there it was!! So I am here awake, still, went to get a glass of water, and the smell of dirty dishes is getting to me, ick. The unending chore of dishes... I am getting a dishwasher on Friday! Glorious! Our house has shifted. So some of our doors don't close all the way at all. Our bedroom door now does close. This all brings me to the main reason I am awake, or at least think I am awake - house renovations. We are planning on a pretty big project in March. We are redoing the den, and making it into two rooms, and my biggest fear is fire. A house down the street from us caught on fire. I am not sure of the damage, but it looks like it started in the garage. I really hope everyone made it out - I need to find out. So my fear has increased since this accident. My trust in the Lord is once again being tested. I confessed a while ago that I have a hard time completely trusting the Lord with my children. Can He protect my kids and our house from fire? Absolutely. Will he? Who knows?

Of course, what would a Norton blog be without an update on my children? Haha - once again this is for me mostly! I want to remember because sometimes the time just goes by so quickly, everything seems like a blur. This time I will start with the middle child :)

Our Gemma bean is growing, and I know she knows way more than she is letting on. She isn't quite walking yet, but is standing up, and can sometimes stand on her own. She can wave good bye. She knows the signs more, eat, and all done. She can say uh-oh, mama, and dada, and we think dog. She knows how to brush hair. And I think she was feeding her baby doll a bottle yesterday :) Her biggest thing is necklaces and this silly hello kitty purse. Now that I found my camera, I will get a picture of it. But she constantly has this purse on and the necklace. I love it. She has a really high pitched scream, and it gets pretty bad at the dinner table. I keep warning her once she turns 1, that the spanks will come and she better straighten up. I wonder if she is waiting until then...?

Baby Cal is growing, and I am feeling him more often now, which brings me relief. I was kinda worried there for a little while because I didn't feel him move at all. Taylor thinks he is going to be a little guy. I think he is just chill. I am so looking forward to meeting him. I know the time will fly by, especially with this huge house project we are planning on completing before he gets here. The preparation for that will make time go fast. I just can't believe its a boy. A boy. We are going to have a .. son... I am in awe. Strangely, I am looking forward to the few days we will be in the hospital, just us. It is getting pretty crazy around the house making sure I am spending individual time with each child, and it probably won't happen often that I will be able to snuggle him in without competition.

Ellie is growing my leaps and bounds! She is now 2 years old. Wowsers. We have completely given up on potty training, not that she was horrible, but after 3 accidents within 30 minutes yesterday, I threw in the towel. She is talking and talking and talking and I love it. Her "cuss" word is 'gosh'. I said it one time when I dropped something, and it stuck. So when she drops something, or something happens unexpectedly, its 'GOSH!' Haha. It could be worse. I can't even say everything she knows, because it is SO much. She knows the signs to the alphabet, and can recognize most letters. However, her colors are really weak. Oh well, we will work on it. It is just funny she hasn't picked up as fast as letters. She says "oatmeal" in a really low voice, and it cracks me up. When we were eating breakfast a couple of weeks ago, she was concerned that my cereal was to hot, and she would look at me with a concerned face and ask "is it hot again? Okay, I blow." and she would insist on blowing on my cereal. I love it. She recognizes people a lot better. On her birthday, she kept saying "Happy Birthday!" She did really good blowing out her candles on her "new years eve" cake that we bought because it was on sale. We are starting "school" where we work on the numbers, letters, colors, shapes, etc for a solid minimum 15 minutes a day and we are going to start increasing time of focus as she gets older in preparation for the real deal. She is a little mommy. Watching out for her sister mostly. Whenever Gems cries, she fetches her "keek".

Hm, I am sitting here trying to decipher how I am. I am good. At times I feel like I am not making an impact, but I try to remember my biggest impact I can make right now are the two little ones that I am having to give 100% care to, three to count the one in my tummy. But at the end of the day, I can't help but think about my little contact with the rest of the world. Let alone impact on it. I have my friends, whom I treasure. I know I don't call a lot of them often enough...

Anyway, on to tomorrow. Or today, which will begin in a few hours, and I know I need to get a couple more hours of sleep.

Our baby boy

We found out we are expecting a boy! As soon as we could tell in the sonogram, I was kind of in awe - like really, a boy? I was even more thankful to see that little boy squirming and moving so much on the screen. I have not felt this baby move as much as I did the girls, if at all. And although I tried not to worry, and to trust all was in God's hands, in the back of my mind I was worried. Life is so fragile (yet so complex and has the will to survive). But I know that life is temporary, and that it is not guaranteed. Having gone through a miscarriage and having so many I know go through a miscarriage or even inability to have children, I often struggle with the whys and reluctance to give my children completely to the Lord. Or even when I hear about bad things that happen to children. Why would God allow such an evil thing to a child so helpless and unable to defend themselves? Yes, I know there is evil and sin in the world, but still I struggle with this at times. When I confessed my unfaithfulness to trust God with our kids to my husband, he looked at me bewildered, and asked what else would we do? We have no control. Only God does. He is the Creator of the world, and the Maker of each fiber of me and my children, so why wouldn't I completely trust Him with His children? And with that, I realized that he was right. God is God, and He is ultimately in control. But to see him kick and move and toss his hands back and forth, I was so thankful and relieved that he was alive and that his heart was beating.

We are probably going to name him Calvin Locke. Calvin is Taylor's grandfather's name, and Locke is my dad's middle name. So Calvin Locke Norton, I think a pretty strong name. I am super excited to meet him. I have not been taking pictures of my "belly progress", and I hope he isn't offended. I don't think he will be, and it is silly of me to think of something so insignificant as that, but I feel kind of bad. The whole next child without as many pictures thing going on.

My night while my husband was away

Thought I would share this. This was a couple of weeks ago while Taylor went to band practice. He leaves after dinner. I get kids cleaned up, and think no to the baths tonight. just a video night. So, I get to washing dishes, and Ellie runs in yelling POTTY. So I say okay let's go potty! And begin to rush her to the potty. Oh no...she had already GONE potty, and as go down the hallway, there is a MASSIVE puddle, and Gemma is playing in it. Oh yes. So I decide bath time it is. Throw both kids in the bath. I take Gemma out to get her dressed first. And tell Ellie not to throw water out of the tub. Of course I know yeah right. So I run to get Gemma dressed and come back and there is a pool of water on the floor. Palm to the face. So give her a swat. Then go to get another towel to clean up, come back and Ellie is pouring more water on Gemma and her nice clean DRY pajamas. AAHHH!! So give Ellie another swat. DRAIN TUB. Change Gemma, and put her in the crib much to her dislike. Then go and get Ellie and get her in pajamas. Meanwhile Gemma has pulled herself up to the standing position! Yay! Go Gemma! SO I hurry to celebrate with her. Then I went to get Ellie's blanket, come back and Ellie is saying oh potty and pulling her pants down. I try to tell her not to worry she is wearing a diaper, but she pulls her pants off, and much to my dismay....oh no she isn't because mom forgot to put on her diaper. So now pee all over the rug and floor. So after throwing both kids into bed both screaming and I sit down. I think okay that was all kinda funny. So I went and read books and sang to Ellie and then went and did the same with Gemma. How single parents or one parent does it while their spouse is deployed is beyond me. That was crazy and one night was enough for me.