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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

The Blog Wraping Up 2013

2013 has been quite a year! Here are some highlights!

2013 Highlights:

-Paul and I went on our very first ‘vision retreat’. We got the idea from Jimmy Evan’s book “Lifelong Love Affair.” It was blissful. The Coil family allowed us to use their cabin at Woodcliff. We relaxed, talked, prayed and set goals for 2013. Looking forward to going on our 2nd annual retreat this January!
-In February Theo turned 1!
-We spent the month of March in California- Paul did Google’s wellness clinics for 5 weeks so we traveled with 13 month old Theo around Cali. We made great memories, although being in my first trimester with Violet and flying with a toddler was not the best time of my life. Our friends the Grantiers met us out in Cali with their baby Wells. We are for sure life-long friends after the 6 of us crammed into 1 hotel room for a week (2 pack n plays!). We loved getting to spend some time at Bethel and be with Patrick and Courtney who still live in Redding.
-I loved having another summer with the Thomas kids 3 days a week. They are truly a second family. I remember when I started watching Meghan, Josh, Cameron, and Kaelynn, K was 7 months old. Now she is 9! She was Theo’s favorite person for sure. She did gloat about it- just a bit ;) So helpful having entertainment for Theo while I was super-pregnant…
-Another summer highlight was being pregnant with my bestie sister in laws Amy and Sarah. The 3 cousins were born at 5 week intervals- impressive timing! Loved that the Lanphier side went from 4 to 7 grandkids in one summer!
-Violets super-quick birth was very special. Both of my parents were present for her delivery.
-We purchased our first home in the Benson area.
-Paul and I started a prophetic Life Group through our church Waypoint and have loved growing in this area as well as building community with some AMAZING families.
-Our kindred-spirit friends the Grantiers came to Omaha for Thanksgiving! We had the best time!
-For Christmas 2013 all my Schenzel siblings were in town (Annie from New York and Turner from Cali). There is nothing like all being together. We had a sharing time Christmas Eve about what we were thankful in 2013 and this was so special as many happy tears and laughter was shared.
-The month of December, I spent every Wednesday with my mom and the babies. We did Christmasy activities and almost always got Starbucks. Wednesdays with my mom help me get through the winter with young children! I absolutely adore her. 

2014 you will be amazing..

Saturday, December 21, 2013

The Blog (update) about Violet

    I am not a consistent blogger. I blame it on having a baby, while moving, with a toddler. But I love to write and I think its fun to remember so if you like reading blogs I’m going to attempt to keep up better (no promises!)
   For starters, anyone who has a daughter can attest to the fact that having a girl is, in fact, all it’s cracked up to be. As I continue to rotate out the 3 pairs of yoga pants I own, Violet’s wardrobe expands and grows. I realized today that I actually don’t ever think about what I am going to wear, but I do like to play dress up with my baby doll. Now, I don’t really spend money on her wardrobe, but I’m an avid consignment sale shopper and so I trade out the kids clothes to get new ones as they grow. It’s fun and affordable.
    Next, Violet still feels like an infant at 4 months old. This is a good thing. Theo was in newborn clothes for exactly 2 seconds and Violet actually wore preemie clothes the first month (I have magic prayers- I actually prayed to have a smaller baby since my chicken legs almost snapped while I was pregnant with Theo carrying around a 9 pound baby). She is so small and petite that I carry her everywhere and use my Moby wrap much more than I ever did with her brother.
    Violet is also much more durable then Theo. It is probably do to her getting unintentionally nailed in the head with foam balls all. day. long. Yes, everyone, Theo seems to have moved on from spatulas and now loves balls. The only problem? He gets about 4 inches away from your face before he winds up and throws them- and the kid has a pretty good arm! Violet has been the accidental brunt of Theo’s games of catch. She also has received far to many binkey kisses than I care to recount. Theo ADORES her and gives her kisses all the time. The only problem being having a plastic binkey jabbed into the side of your head is painful and uncomfortable.
    I am eternally grateful to have a baby who seems to think I hung the moon and stars. “Vi Vi” (rhymes with bye-bye) looks at me like I am the most perfect, wonderful thing to walk the planet- and it melts my heart. I plan on milking it for all it’s worth because Theo seems to prefer his grandparents to parents in this stage of life.
    Violet AnnMarie, you are a joy.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

18 month old Theo

   Theo. Clone of your father. Lover of kitchen spatulas. Shunner of toys. You are 18 months old. You are so full of life. Everything you do is full-tilt. You bang your spatulas against the couch with all your might. You climb on the couch 5,000 times a day to try and reach things you know you shouldn't (like blinds or lamps). Right now you are going through a hitting phase. You hit when you are mad, you hit when you are glad, and every emotion in between. Your poor cousin Delaney asked her sister Averey to switch places with her on the couch because she feared sitting by you might result in an injury. We kinda don't know what to do except be consistent and pray that you quickly outgrow this phase.
Pressed up against sliding glass door: "Let me out!"

Making a mess in the pantry.

  But you love with equal intensity. You give us kisses and waves and high fives all. day. long. You wave to everyone in public (even when we are in the car and fellow drivers can't see your insistent waving). It's gotten to the point that if I'm in a hermit mood and don't want to talk to strangers at the store, I don't take you because your charming demeanor makes friends and strikes up conversations.


   You also have favorites. Poppa (Paul's dad) is your favorite person on the planet. Forget us (your parents) when he is around because you are OBSESSED with him! Kaelynn Thomas is your other bestie. Spending this summer with the Thomas kids you made it abundantly clear that you prefer her to anyone when you would scream loudly should anyone try and take you from her arms...
  You have the most adorable gait. Your left leg is bowed in a bit and so when you run we get a little nervous. Dr. Douglas says you should outgrow it by the time you are 2 and so until then, we are not far behind you, holding our breath...
  Another little habit we are hopeful will disappear by 2 is your infatuation with binkeys. You love them. At your 18 month check-up, the Dr. walked into the exam room and you had two binkeys in each hand and one in your mouth. I've honestly given up trying to take them from you for now.. I'm too tired with your new sister. She, by the way, does not seem to like binkeys, but you have redeemed hers by adopting them as your own (you don't discriminate against pink and purple ones apparently)...


  I'm so in love with you. When I watch you I try and freeze time in my mind. I always want to remember you at this age. You get more and more fun with time. We are obsessed with you Theo Judah... 

Friday, August 30, 2013

Violet's Birth Story

    Violet’s birth can pretty much be summed up in the question I got asked multiple times at the hospital after her delivery. Nurses would come into our room after she was born to take vitals and say, “Are you the mom who had her baby before the Dr. could get there?” Yes, I am that mom.
   I would have never thought that I would have such a quick birth. Mostly, because I was only 37.5 weeks pregnant and assumed it wouldn’t go as quickly as my birth with Theo because I wasn’t over 40 weeks yet. Boy was I wrong!!
   I actually found out that we were going to the hospital the day of. My blood levels tested high in bile salts and evidently, pregnancy hormones block the gallbladder from effectively filtering causing cholestasis. Not being pregnant anymore is the cure so a nurse from my doctor’s office called me and said, “you need to be up to Lakeside hospital by 9 tonight. We will administer Cytotec when you arrive and then start you on Pitocin in the morning.” I was kinda in shock. “Can we wait a few days?” I asked. (I selfishly had been really looking forward to a 2 day break that I was going to have Thursday and Friday when Paul was planning to take Theo to Adventureland with his family.) I also knew this meant we would be moving next Thursday with a 7 day old newborn. “No, we need to start labor as soon as possible,” she said.
   So I did the most reasonable thing I could think to do: my mom and I headed straight to the nail place and got mani/pedis. Not until we had stopped at Starbucks of course and I got a Carmel Frappechino since I knew there were only a few remaining hours of being a gestational diabetic.
   I also rocked my 18 month old son before his nap and bawled like a baby knowing this was the last time I’d put him to sleep as an only child.
   By the time we got to the hospital I was pretty excited to not be pregnant anymore and to see my daughter. We originally planned to have my mom stay the night up with me so Paul could have a good night sleep and be more help to me during delivery the following day. The only problem was, my water broke on it’s own around midnight (only 1 hour after Cytotec). The amazing thing was, Paul called me literally within 40 seconds of my water breaking to tell me he was coming to stay the night. His phone wasn’t charging and he didn’t want to risk missing anything. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened had he not decided to come stay with me overnight…
   My mom went home, Paul fell asleep on the couch and within 1 hour I was having contractions 1.5 mins apart and they were NOT PLEASANT. No Pitocin needed! I decided to order and epidural and woke up Paul to tell him I was in a lot of pain and getting the blessed epidural… the strange thing was, I had to say his name like 4 times before he even moved and when I told him the news his response was “are you so excited?!” and then he literally flipped back over and was unconscious in 2 seconds. I thought it was a strange response and odd that he wasn’t more present, but was in too much pain to give it much thought.
   I dozed off for about 30 minutes once the epidural kicked in and then suddenly the nurse was waking me up because I was fully dilated and ready to push. “Wait! I can’t have this baby… I told my parents they could be here,” I informed her (like she had any control over when my baby would come). I quickly called my parents who luckily live 5 minutes from the hospital and re woke up Paul whose first question to the nurse was “is there any coffee on this floor?” Moral of the story: do NOT take Tylenol PM the night of your child’s birth. He didn’t tell me until after Violet was born that before going to bed at home he had taken two Tylenol PM and so I was just confused why he was so groggy. Ha! We love to joke about this now.
   My parents arrived shortly after, but the Doctor still hadn’t appeared. The nurses got me all ready to push and even let me take one practice push so they knew how fast baby would come. They actually realized how serious little Violet was about making her entrance because after one push they were trying desperately the keep her from coming. It became pretty clear this baby was coming whether anyone wanted her to wait or not and so with one push she was here!
   I cried and cried tears of joy. We all did! She was so tiny and perfect and best of all had DARK HAIR (jk!). The nurse gave her a 10 on the Apgar scale. And we all couldn’t believe how easy and quickly the birth happened. It was like a dream. My little 5 lb 11 oz baby doll!- Theo was almost 9 lbs at birth so I was ecstatic to have a petite baby.
   I will be honest and say that I would not recommend moving with a toddler and newborn. House projects have kept us from being able to move right when we closed so we are in a time of limbo. I’m actually relieved to still be staying at my parents with a newborn because they have been SO MUCH help. I honestly don’t think I could have functioned without them. Paul’s parents have been AMAZING as well. They have taken Theo so I could pack and Paul’s dad knows how to do almost everything on houses (which is literally saving us right now- we are the least handy people ever).
   You are so worth it all sweet little Violet! I cannot believe how much my heart has grown to make room to love another child. You are the perfect addition to our family and we can already not imagine life without you! You are so loved!




Sunday, July 14, 2013

Opps! When you don't blog 1/2 your pregnancy...

   This poor baby has had much less blog coverage than my pregnancy with Theo... I told myself this would never happen when I was looking through my own family's baby photo albums and noticed the pictures severely lessen after my sister Annie was born, and then come to a near desert once Turner arrived. I can't say I blame my mom... her pregnancies were so painful that when I see long-time friends of the family they all get a far-off look in their eyes when they say, "I remember how sick your mom was when she was pregnant with ______ (insert any of our names)..." and then they snap back to present and are full of extra compassion for me.
   I am not a martyr and know billions of women are probably pregnant, but I have to document all this so I can recall how I felt and show our daughter that I did make an effort. Pregnancies for me are hard... look back through my past blog entries and you will see that I was very very sick with Theo and in the midst of a lot of life changes. It was a amazing/stressful time of life.
   I must admit that when I was less sick 1st trimester of this pregnancy I thought I'd got off scott-free. I chalked it up to baby boy hormones making me more sick than a girl and then: BOOM! I got slapped in the face with gestational diabetes. I was so sad that I couldn't eat desserts that I spent a good week feeling sorry for myself, another week mad at my mom (she had GD with Tyler) (jk I know it wasn't her fault), and then a third week making a list of all the food I wanted my family to bring up to the hospital after this baby is born. At the top of the list?: a midnight truffle blizzard from DQ... anyone who has spent more than an hour with me knows how obsessed I am with this... I dream about them at least once a week (I know I write dramatically, but that is not an exaggeration). Luckily, I am delivering at Lakeside Hospital. What to know how close the nearest DQ is? 0.15 miles away. Across the street. I wish I could say that the proximity of my labor and delivery room to DQ had nothing to do with my hospital decision, but sadly, that would be a lie.
   Another factor of this pregnancy has been the even greater amount of change and transition in this season of life. Another little tid-bit is that I am not the greatest with change. I'm getting better, but it is still hard for me. Paul and I are closing next month on our fist house and while this is super-exciting, my pregnancy hormones don't seem to help with the ups and downs that come with becoming home owners. Oh, did I mention that my due date is Sept. 2? Literally 3 days after our closing date...
  The stress of house stuff (and having a toddler whose personality seems to be tipping precariously closer to his father's childhood temperament than mine) sent me into possible pre-term labor this last week. I'm serious. This is not a joke! At almost 33 weeks you evidently DO NOT want to have contractions 3 mins apart for several hours. And I, CERTAINLY, do not want to go into preterm labor ever again if it means 3 different nurses jabbing needles in my arm trying to find a suitable vein for an IV and using language like "her vein blew out", "she has small vein," or "good luck, her veins roll." This is my idea of torture! Especially when you realize the next day at your OB visit that you weren't even having preterm labor if you're not dilating. He classifies it as "uterine irritability." I almost blacked out cold thinking that I let those nurses poke and prod me and give me shots of anti-labor drugs for nothing. I have, however, told Paul several times that I am so emotional this pregnancy that even my uterus is irritable...
   Seriously though, I am so excited for this baby to come. I feel like it will be a smooth transition because I know more what to expect. I remember after having Theo and feeling like I would never have a 'normal' life again. The newborn phase is so all-consuming that I had days where I felt overwhelmed. This time, I have grace for myself because I now know that the newborn stage is a few months. It goes so fast and you never get it back. Sure some days are hard, but it is the most intense/ magical time I've ever had. 
  So here is my blog at almost 33 weeks. I love you Baby Girl Lanphier and all this seems trivial to go through compared with the privilege of getting to be your mom!


Thursday, April 11, 2013

Baby Girl Reveal

    So by now, everyone knows that Baby Lanphier #2 is a GIRL! We had a gender reveal party Monday night with both sides of our immediate families. We had had our ultrasound earlier in the day, but asked the technician not to tell us the gender, but write it in a note card and we would bring it to our friend who was going to fill cupcakes with either pink or blue icing depending on the results! It was SO much fun! I seriously was nervous right before biting into the cupcake. 

Thanks to our amazing cupcake maker Lexie Freshman for such GORGEOUS cupcakes!!
Pre-reveal...
 We also made our families guess the baby's sex:

Family guessing GIRL

Family guessing BOY
   It was one of the highlights of my year so far having a gender reveal party. There is just something so special about sharing in the excitement of a new life with those you love the most- plus, I love any excuse to have a celebration!

About to take the bite!

Sheer joy! Pink frosting in the middle!
Disbelief! I was convinced it was a boy.
SOOOOOO excited


Hug from my dad :)
Results that the ultrasound tech wrote in the card.
    It was extra-meaningful to find out our baby is a girl because Paul and I have both had dreams about our daughter even before Theo was born. I actually had a dream about my future daughter when I was in high school and when we described to each other what we had seen in our dreams it was remarkably similar. We know that she has an amazing destiny and purpose and couldn't be more thrilled to meet her in a few short months...

Sweet baby girl.


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Baby #2: 17/18 weeks

   So I seemed to have lost my knack for blogging... This is my first post in 3 MONTHS! I can't say that I'm completely on board, but I keep feeling like this baby #2 will be sad if I have weekly updates with Theo and none for him/her. So here we go... but disclaimer to baby #2: I do not commit to weekly- I'll do my best.
  What has life looked like the lately? Busy! Paul, Theo, and I just got back from a month in California (Paul was doing wellness clinics for Google so T and I tagged along). It was a great time in many ways. We loved seeing friends from ministry school last year at Bethel, and traveled to many cities in the Bay area. However, a major draw-back was my "good sleeper" baby because a co-sleeper and there was NOTHING we could do about it. I wasn't about to subject the entire hotel to him crying it out. So coming home has made for a rude awakening (for parents and Theo- sleep training sucks). Oh, and did I mention we've hit the tempter tantrum phase?! Pray for me. Seriously.
   Oh, back to the purpose of this post: pregnancy. Ahhh pregnancy. What is there to say? If you followed my first time around you know I'm not the model of a happy pregnant person (in all fairness, I only know a few of those girls). Luckily, for Paul's sake, #2 is going more smoothly in many ways. For example: I'm not bedridden for months at a time, no trips to the ER have been made for dehydration, I have NOT been woken up in the middle of the night because of my pelvis feeling like it was splitting apart, and most importantly I can eat Chinese food this time!
   Now to get real: I didn't ever feel hyper emotional with my pregnancy with Theo (maybe I was too sick to notice. But this time?? SOS... call the prayer chain... get me shock therapy. I'm sorry if this offends you, but I feel plain violent at times (kinda kidding, kinda not). On one occasion, Paul and I were having a disagreement and I was feeling so upset I had to stop the conversation with "I'm sorry, but all I want to do is punch you in the face right now." For the record, this is not normal for my temperament. I hate UFC, hockey, and seeing people in pain in general. I must just be having a "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" phase. And for the record no husbands have been harmed in the making of this baby... Mostly, I think this side comes from months of poor sleep with my Bubzie.
   So here is a pic from last week at 17 (I'm 18 weeks now, but am too lazy to snap a pic)


    Stay tuned next week: I will be 19 weeks and find out baby's sex. We are having a gender reveal party with our families and will only know the result after biting into a cupcake... So Pink or Blue??!! you can leave your guess. I'm not even guessing because it changes every week. With Theo we were positive it was a boy and feel uncertain with baby #2. We will be thrilled either way! Although I have to say I think I only have (maybe) one more pregnancy in me...