fridays letters

Photo courtesy of Christa Prince

Dear Kristin and Julie,  Thanks so much for coming over last night to help pack!  It was AMAZING to come upstairs and see so many more boxes filled!  Dear Julia, Thanks for watching Phoebe on Monday so I could have a couple hours to put things in boxes without little hands taking things back out or playing with the cutter on the tape dispenser...  Dear Chris, Date night was so fun!  Thank goodness for  Chick-fil-A coupons, free babysitters, and movie passes.  Dear Hannah, Thanks for babysitting!  I'm serious, I really want you to come to SuCo with us next Summer to watch the girls.  Dear Matthew, You are not very good at your job.  Really, I'm sorry that is rude, but I have never worked with someone as incompetent and unprofessional as you are.  Wells Fargo should have never hired you as a mortgage officer.   Dear Christa, Thanks for taking such amazing pictures last week at Summer Conference.  Can't wait to post about it!

fridays letters

Dear Chris, I love you.  I'm excited to be going to the beach with you next week.  Yikes, Laguna Beach with 2 babies...it is going to be interesting.  I'm excited though.  I do love Summer Confrence!  I'm glad we're going.  Thanks for watching Phoebe yesterday for me!
Dear Anna, You are THE BEST!  Thank you SO SO SO much for all the breast milk!  It was so fun to see you and catch up!  Miss. Sadie is adorable!

Dear Craig's List, You have served me well again.  Cheap moving boxes- score!  We will re-sell them in Rock Hill.  Only problem was we forgot to empty out the trunk before we went to pick them up...

Dear Laguna Beach Christian Retreat Center, You are a dirty place, but yet I am bringing to kids to run around and stay in you.  Please be good to us.
Dear Packing, Will you magically do everything yourself? 
Dear Starbucks, I am enjoying your Frappuccino Happy Hour!  Actually I've only indulged a couple times, but I am a big fan of the new Carmel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino.

fridays letters

Dear Chris,  We are a family of four now.  Wow.  I really hope that Haddie Grace loves her momma.  You already have a daddy's girl; I want HG to be a momma's girl.

Dear Phoebe, Please, please, please learn to ask to hold Haddie Grace before dragging her across the floor to try to pick her up.

Dear Mom, I'm not sure what I am going to do when you leave tonight.  Thank you so much for all your help and support while you've been here.  It was a HUGE help to have an extra set of hands while Chris was at work.  Next week the "new normal" begins as I will be out-numbered by babies. Dear Body, Get with the program.  Don't you know that women's bodies are supposed to produce milk after they have a baby?  Why can't you just do what you are supposed to?  It is highly frustrating. Dear Reglan, Please work to increase my milk supply and please don't make me crazy in the process. Dear Christa, THANK YOU for taking some amazing newborn pictures of Haddie Grace.  I'm going to save my favorites for the birth announcement, but I'll post a few next week.  In the meantime, here's a little teaser.

Dear Dad, We LOVE Phoebe's rocking horse!!  It looks professional (even with the minor alterations you had to make).  And Phoebe loves it too!

Dear Christopher, So glad you got to come down and visit.  Phoebe will miss her "Uncle Chris"

Dear everyone who has brought us a meal, Wow.  Again it has been such a blessing not to worry about food.  We can't thank you enough. Dear Wendy and Robby, This makes me smile a lot.  Thanks!

Dear Bloglovin,  My goal is to switch everything over to you this weekend and figure out how to use you.  I hear it is easy, and I hope that is correct...

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fridays letters

Dear Chris, I'm glad you didn't go to Mississippi this week.  Even though you had to do a lot of work for your classes, it was nice having you home for dinner every night this week.  I'm glad you're almost done!  Looks like you are going to be able to turn in all your class work before the baby gets here, phew!  Oh, and thanks for going out to get me cookies when I was craving them the other night.
Dear Aubra, Thanks for teaching Phoebe to make this face.  I was wondering where she learned it from...  Glad y'all have had a good week at the Palmer Home.  Praying for safe travels home today.

Dear Phoebe, You are ridiculous.  You love to be held, fed and babied.  You can be quite manipulative to get your way.  When I walked into the room and saw Mac holding your water for you while you drank I was floored.  You are about to me removed from you throne.  Sorry.

Dear Baby Bowen, If you would like to make your appearance Sunday evening that would great.  It would give me a chance to enjoy my massage Saturday morning and have a quiet evening (probably sewing velcro tabs on cloth diapers).  Chris could preach Sunday morning and we could head to the hospital that afternoon/evening.  Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
Dear house, You are dirty, and it is driving me crazy.  You are not awful, but I am used to you being clean and I get a little on edge when I see dust and dog hair and finger prints everywhere.  I am paying to have someone clean you on Monday afternoon.  I have never paid anyone to clean my house, but this will be well worth the money.  I don't have the time or energy to do it myself right now and it will be glorious to have the entire house clean at once.
Dear readers, Your comments make my day.  Really.  Thank you.  Please bear with me over the next couple weeks.  I probably won't post a lot the first couple weeks after the baby is born.  I'm sure you can understand.  You see I've had big plans and intentions to have a bunch of posts ready, but that hasn't happened yet.

fridays letters & March Goals

Dear Febuary,  I can't believe you are over ALREADY!  Those 2 extra days at the end of the rest of the months make a huge difference
Dear Chris, I'm glad you got home safely from South Carolina last night and I'm glad Baby Bowen didn't decide to make a scene while you were away.
Dear Baby Bowen, You gave me a bit of a "scare" earlier this week.  I was having uncomfortable contractions and wondering if I was going to meet you soon.  I got a bit nervous, you see, because we have no place to put you.  The car seat and cradle were still in the attic.  Those are down now and I have the car seat cover washed and put together.  The cradle sheets are washed, but we do still need to put the cradle together.  I even found some the newborn diapers.  We went ahead and packed a hospital bag too, so I'm feeling a little bit more prepared now.  That being said, as much as I am ready to not be pregnant anymore, your daddy and I would really appreciate you waiting another week.  There are just a few more things we would like to get done.  Thank you.
Dear Aubra, Thank you so much for watching Phoebe yesterday while I went to the doctor!  I can't tell you how amazing it was not to have to entertain a toddler in the waiting room for an hour and then try to keep her from touching everything in the exam room (yuck!).  And I even got to have a conversation with the doctor! (This normally doesn't happen because I have a screaming toddler by the time the doctor actually comes in to see me.
Dear Phoebe, Please stop coughing and feel better soon.
Dear Ambien, You were amazing last night.  It was the first full night of sleep I've had in awhile.  I only have a few of you so I will have to ration you out, but man oh man I feel good today :)
Dear new readers, You make me very happy!  Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you stay awhile.  I really do love all your comments.
Dear Meghan,
I realize that y'all are not doing this "go for the goal" link up anymore.  I promise I will make my own button/logo for next month.  But for now I am going to use yours again.  Thanks.



February Goals
1.  Complete 2011/2012 family photo book AND pre-kids photo book.   Done!  Well I did the 2011/2012 book with My Publisher! And it looks amazing!  We love it!! I was also really impressed with the company!  It was really easy to use (easier than Shutterfly) and in my opinion gave me a superior product.  I have a 50% off coupon that expires March 7th so I might try to finish the pre-kids book in the next week to use that, but we'll see.

2.  I want to try for another DIY project.   I'm thinking liquid hand soap to fill up my mason jar soap dispensers I did it!

3. Get a pregnancy massage Chris gave me a gift certificate groupon/living social deal for a massage for Christmas.  I think it is getting time to redeem that :) I have it scheduled for Saturday, March 9th.  So again, Baby Bowen I need one more week.  I wanted to schedule it on a Saturday so Chris could watch Phoebe and this was the first Saturday that he was in town and I wasn't working!
4. Exercise- walk, walk, walk!   I'm certainly past the point of hard-sweat exercising, but I really do need to get outside and walk or get on the treadmill at the gym and walk at least three times/week. I did well with this goal for the first two weeks and then I had no more extra energy.  I started having trouble sleeping and walking sounded awful.  And then this past week I started contracting more, so I'm trying to take it easy now.
5. Slow down and enjoy more "down-time"! I would say we kinda failed here...  Whoops.  We maybe slowed down a little bit, but because I'm not sleeping as well I'm just exhausted all the time!

March Goals (all pre-baby goals.  I have no goals post-baby)
1. Wash and vacuum cars and vacuum out all the cheerio and cracker crumbs from the car seats.
2. Re-sew the Velcro tabs to my size small cloth diapers for the new baby to use (The cloth diapers I recommend are the bumGenius 4.0 One Size with snaps.  We do have a few size smalls of of the Velcro 3.0s and those are the ones I need to replace)
3.  File taxes
4. Get new tires for my car


Have a great weekend!!  

fridays letters

Dear Potty Training Boot Camp, You did not work as well as I might have liked.  Oh well.  Like I said I did not have high hopes or expectations, just thought it would be worth a shot.  We will try again in a few months after the new baby is born.
Dear Knox, Now that your gas is better we can both live under the same roof.  So why are you trying to run away? We have always let you run around out back and walk out front to pee without a leash and you have always been so obedient and come right back inside.  You have now run away three times in the past two weeks.  Not cool.  Obviously those privileges are being revoked.
Dear Roger and Judi, You are the best neighbors ever!  Thanks for taking care of Phoebe while I went to search for our delinquent dog.
Dear Chris, I love you and will be very happy when life slows down.  It feels like we are two passing shadows right now.  Thanks for my present :)  Hope you have a good weekend at Winter Confrence.
Dear Aubra, Thanks for letting us store our mattress and box springs in your storage room so they aren't sitting in front of the book shelves anymore.
Dear Baby Bowen, You are huge!  I'm not crazy!  I went to the doctor yesterday and you are in the 88% percentile for weight.  They think you weigh 6lbs 12oz at 35 weeks.  Yikes!  (PFB was 6'14 at 40 weeks...)  The doctor even suggested inducing labor at 39 weeks for suspected macrosomia (big baby).  That is definitely not going to happen; I am against labor inductions unless it is medically necessary and a possible big baby is not a good medical indication in my professional opinion.  But yikes!  This makes me a little nervous...
Dear Ice Cream, I blame you for the above predicament. 

fridays letters

Dear Chris, I'm so proud of you for working to get your DMin.  Although I don't like you being gone for classes (and all the extra work you have to do to be working towards your doctorate...) I guess it pays off for a straight A report card :)  
Dear Mom and Dad, Thanks for driving down here to bring down all our Christmas presents!  Thanks for watching Phoebe while I went into work yesterday and for taking Knox on long walks to tire him out.
Dear Cobb County Superior Court, Thank you for exempting me from jury duty.  I've never served on jury duty before or even been summoned before.  Maybe this is weird, but there is a small part of me that was excited about it.  I don't think it would be awful and I'm happy to do my part; however, I really don't have a reliable source of childcare so unfortunately it is not really an option right now.
Dear Weekend, I am glad you are finally here.  I don't have anything planned and I am very happy about that.

Have a wonderful weekend!!  
Linking up with Ashley 

fridays letters

Dear Week, I am so glad you are almost over.  You have been incredibly busy- today and tomorrow aren't looking much better.  Sunday please come soon so I can rest!
Dear Matt and Courtney, Y'all are awesome!  Thanks so much for everything!  We really appreciate it.
Dear Chris, I'm proud of you.  It was fun to see you in your element.  Oh, and thanks for being so thoughtful and remembering that I had wanted to see Hope Springs several months ago.  Even though it was not at all what I was expecting (it's no It's Complicated) I appreciate you picking it up from the RedBox for me.
Dear Elf for Health Challenge, I started off doing pretty well this week, but admit that I have failed the challenges the last couple days. Hoping to get out with some friends to "hike"the mountain today.
Dear Bed, I miss you.  We have not spent nearly enough time together this week.  Hoping we can make up for lost time soon.
Dear everyone who decided to have their baby on 12/12/12, Congrats.  I'm glad I was off on Wednesday.  Yes, that was a conscious decision.

fridays letters

Dear Chris,  YOU ARE COMING HOME TONIGHT!!!!  Oh my goodness, I am so excited.  I've missed you. Dear Knox,  You are a bundle of energy and were driving me crazy so you went to board on the farm for a few days, and you know what?  I actually missed you!  Your puppy energy is a handful sometimes but I really do love ya (and so does Phoebe). 

For the record I found them like this in the crate together.  I did not put
them in there together and lock it...

Dear Chelsea, Hannah, and Philip,  You guys are AMAZING!  Thank you so much for coming over Sunday afternoon to watch Phoebe and give me a little break!  We have the best and most thoughtful RUF students EVER! Dear Phoebe,  You make me laugh.  I love seeing you and Knox play together.  He really is your best friend.

Dear Ice Cream, You have been the death of me this week.  Remember my moderation goal?  You are not helping me out...  This is no excuse, but I think with the stress of Chris being gone and having nothing better to do in the evenings I might have over-indulged just a little bit, ok a lot.  I should have left you sitting in the freezer section at Kroger. Dear Mom and Dad, I'm not sure if you can still call Delaware home if you spend more time out of the state than in the state. Dear everyone, I just need someone to listen to this story, and you are the lucky audience.  I was picking Phoebe up from Mom's Morning Out yesterday morning and after I got her strapped in her car seat I went to start the car to go home and MY CAR KEY IS NOT on my key ring.  How does a key fall off your key ring?!?  Do you know how many nails I break trying to purposefully get keys on and off of that darn thing?!?  I turn the car upside down looking for my key.  Nothing.  I get the baby and re-trace all my steps in the church to the MMO wing.  At this point we are both in tears (she is cranky and over-tired) and I am having a mini-panic attack thinking: "my husband is out of town and I am stranded at the church with my baby, car, and no way to get home.  What am I going to do?"  The MMO ladies help me search that wing and even go out and help me search the car AGAIN.  No one has turned in a key at the front desk.  More tears.  A sweet old lady comes over to my car to talk and help me search the car/purse/diaper bag (again) and offered me a ride home.  God Bless sweet old ladies.  At this point Phoebe is playing with my keys (what is left of them) and drops them on the ground.  When I bend down to pick them up I see this UNDER the car!

Praise Jesus!  I mean really, how crazy is that?!?  I have NO IDEA how the key broke and fell off my keychain like that.  But at this point- 40 minutes later- I am crying tears of joy and driving home with a passed out baby in the back seat. Dear readers, Thanks so much for visiting.  It really does mean a lot to me that you would visit my little blog (and listen to my sob stories about lost keys).  Y'all make my day!

fridays letters

Dear Aubra, You are a lifesaver!  Seriously.  Thank you for taking Knox to the dog park on Wednesday.  Poor Phoebe wasn't feeling well at all just wanted to cry and be held all day and he was driving me crazy!  You are the best.  I really don't know what we are going to do when you leave.  Probably cry.  A lot.
Dear Chris, You've only been gone 3 days and I miss you already.  The next 7 are going to be VERY long.  Don't get me wrong, I love being a mommy, but sometimes I just need a break.  Is that bad?  You are really good at giving me that "break."  But now I don't get a break for a whole 10 days and I am trying to keep my sanity.
Dear Christmas decorations, You make me very happy.    Dear East Cobb Presbyterian, Thank you for choosing Chris to fill in for pulpit support for the next 6 months or so while you search for a permanent Pastor.  We are really excited to be "joining" your congregation for the next several months.  I know Chris is going to enjoy getting some more preaching experience from the pulpit.  It is just different than preaching to a room full of college students (which he does love)
Dear Phoebe, Please feel better soon.  I don't like it when you are cranky and sick.
Dear Washing Machine, Why do you have to break when Chris is out of town?  Seriously?  Can we work on that timing next time?

fridays letters & doggie seat belt

Dear Chris,  It is hard when you don't get home until after 11pm on Tuesday nights and after 10pm on Wednesday nights.  I am glad you have re-instituted our Wednesday morning dates so that I at least get to see you some in that busy 48 hours.  We've been missing you in the middle of the week.   I made homemade cinnamon rolls with fresh milled flour for our "date".  I will have to tell you about my new toy soon.  But in the meantime, look at these and drool.

Dear Jamie,  First of all, thanks for my kefir grains.  They have almost doubled already!  Crazy!  We are enjoying them and I'm looking forward to finding more uses for the milk kefir.  And thanks for kicking my butt into gear to run up those hills.  I would totally walk them without your motivation.  Its fun to see the kiddos playing together too.

Dear Amazon, I don't know what we would do without you.  Prime might be our best friend.  Two day shipping is amazing.  I kid you not, we get at least 3 packages/week from Amazon.  I should bake some cinnamon rolls for the UPS driver.

Dear Dr. Bob, I love how quick and easy it is to walk over for Phoebe and my chiropractic adjustments.  Although I certainly can't prove it, I really do believe that you help make my pregnancies easy by keeping everything aligned.  And I'll even give you some of the credit for my labor "easy" (relatively speaking) last time too.  

Dear Knox, Thanks for being a trooper and cooperating to wear your seat belt.  Yes, seat belt!  Did you know that there are doggie seat belts?  I had no idea!  My mom (the safety queen) found them and insisted on purchasing one for Knox.  I will say it is nice to know he's secure and not wandering and around the car- that was quite a distraction for me.  Knox's seat belt is from a company called K-9 Outfitters.  They make some pretty interesting claims about the importance of doggie seat belts and the safety of your pet.  We've had ours for several months now and are pleased with it.  Knox doesn't seem to be bothered by it.  It still gives him freedom to move around to get comfortable.  He slips on the harness that is then connected by "cable" to the car's seatbelt.  A couple weeks ago I saw a report on the news from the Centers for Pet Safety that showed the complete failure of canine restraint systems to safely restrain pets in the event of a collision.  (In other words the dogs were still injured despite the restraint system.)  However that being said, in the unfortunate event of an accident I think it would be better for Knox to be restrained rather than flying into myself, Chris or the baby.  So we will continue to use it.

Have you ever heard of a doggie seat belt?  Does anyone else use one?