Category Archives: Family
Liddy’s Ladybug Party
Lydia got quite spoiled while we were in the states with parties for her 1st birthday. This was the first of three she had! It was on September 7th (so a month early) in Albuquerque at Gramzi and Jaju’s house. What a blessing it was to get to celebrate her first birthday in the states with friends and family.
My mom and sisters were a HUGE help with this party. I had so many ideas and things I wanted to do, however, being in first trimester loveliness (exhausted and nauseous all.the.time.) I wouldn’t have had the energy or will power to pull it off with them. So thanks guys for all your help!
We made cupcakes for the guests and of course Liddy had her first vanilla smash cake! I had fun decorating my first cake for my baby girl… looking forward to many more over the years for her. We also had root beer/coke floats, which were a huge hit.
We did a “build your own pizza bar” (got the idea from my friend Jord when she did it for her daughter’s 3rd birthday and husband’s 30th birthday party). Brooke picked up yummy gyro bread from one of our favorite Arab restaurants in Lubbock (thanks again!) for the base, then we had all sorts of toppings (pepperoni, ham, green chile, mozzarella cheese, pineapple, feta cheese, etc.), then the guests took them outside to the grill for Chase to cook up for them. This was a huge hit! We had zero leftovers!
Uncle Nate did a little mini photo session of Lydia on my mom’s red bench before the party! Love love the way they turned out!
Can’t believe our little bug is a year old!
Love spending time with these people!
Party guests
Progression of Lydia’s first kiss form Cooper Gilmore- too cute!!… yes his parents and us are working on their marriage contract as we speak- if our Arab friends do arranged marriages why can’t we?!
Happy Birthday sweet girl!
let the smash cake fun begin!
she really liked it, but needed to rest at the end!
How blessed are we to have this little girl in our life. She is so much fun and always keeps us on our toes! We had so much fun celebrating her first year of life with not only one party, but four! (and possibly one more-ha) We are grateful for all of you who celebrated with us and love our sweet girl.
We look forward to many more fun parties and years of celebrating you Liddy May! Mommy and daddy love you always and forever!
*thanks Uncle Knate for helping take pictures at Liddy’s party- we love you! (check out his facebook page- he is talented!)
17 weeks and we are having a….
We had a doctor’s appointment last week and ended up having an ultrasound and finding out the sex of baby #2!! We were not expecting this at all, so it was pretty exciting. We decided to get either blue or pink donuts to share the news over skpye with our family and enjoy with our friends afterwards! (yes, there is a Dunkin’ Donuts in Muscat!)
the predictions..
my family waiting patiently
… it’s a GRIL!!
the remkes were there to enjoy some pink donuts with us!
Nanny and Papa are excited for their 4th granddaughter!
she is one loved little girl already!
How far along? 17 weeks
Total weight gain: 7-8 lbs.
Maternity clothes? Yes and no… still able to wear lots of my tops, but lets be honesty maternity is much more comfy!
Stretch marks? Nope
Sleep: sleeping better the past week! So thankful for this… was beginning to think I wasn’t going to sleep through the night ever again!
Best moment this week: getting to see our little “mcpeanut” and know that SHE is doing GREAT! Yup, we also found out that we are having another GIRL!
Miss Anything? drinking coffee/tea in the afternoons
Movement: a little bit… looking forward to more movement as the weeks progress
Food cravings: chocolate and spicy food
Anything making you queasy or sick: feeling a lot better in this department 🙂
Gender: a GRIL!
Labor Signs: Nope
Symptoms: tired
Belly Button in or out? in, but starting to poke out… a lot sooner than last time!
Wedding rings on or off? on
Happy or Moody most of the time: still Happy, I love 2nd trimester! But I have started to worry if she is ok… I have to continually lay this before the Lord’s feet
Looking forward to: coming up with a name for our sweet baby girl! We have a few ideas that we are trying out! I will share with you soon.
Lydia is going to be a….
BIG SISTER!!
(most of you probably already know this if you saw us in the states or follow me on Instagram or Facebook – am a little behind in the blog world!)
Here are some of the pics we have take along the way as we told family, friends, and the social media world our news….
can’t wait to see miss Liddy May as a BIG SIS! She has already been practicing giving baby dolls hugs and kisses…. melts my heart.
We gave this to Nanny & Papa (Chase’s parents) to tell them the news since this little peanut will be their 9th grand-baby!
Lydia shared the news at the airport with my family by wearing her BIG SISTER t-shirt!
What a blessing it was to be in the states when we found out about baby #2 and that we got to share the news with our family face to face. We were not expecting another baby, but couldn’t be more excited about it. Lydia and this one will be about 18 months apart– I love that they will never know life without each other.
“For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:13
Stay tuned for growing belly pics!
Easter
I know this is several weeks late, but I still wanted to document Lydia’s first Easter!
A few days before Easter we went to Drew and Jord’s house to dye eggs (Liddy napped- next year she will want to be involved!) and of course we had to make deviled eggs with them… Chase and I’s Easter fav.
After the Good Friday service in her Easter Dress!
love this grin of hers
Our 3rd sunrise service in the desert! I love going to this service, one of the most encouraging days of the year! Praise be to Jesus for He has Risen and Lives!
Amazing the difference a year makes! This was taken after the service, Liddy went down for a 3 hour nap after getting up at 5:30 am. (notice Chase is wearing the same hat, but it is a bit more worn out after a year!)
Our delicious Easter breakfast that we enjoyed with great friends!
Easter basket time! Lydia got so excited about it… I was pleasantly surprised about it, I wasn’t sure if she would react, but she got totally into it…. it was so cute. She got a book that changes colors in the bathtub, a light up stackable toy and I made her a little bunny to chew on and covered 3 plastic eggs with yarn and filled them with beans- she loves shaking them. I also made a pacifier clip. I had so much fun putting together her basket, I look forward to many more baskets for our sweet little bug!
Here are two other spring crafts Lydia and I made! Since we don’t really have a spring here, Jord taught me how to make flowers to bring spring to our house!
“And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” 1 Corinthians 15:14, 20
lots of firsts
this is a post that I have been wanting to write since Lydia’s first bath! Better late than never right? And now I have lots more “firsts” to share! So crazy/fun to see how tiny she was and how new everything was… and continues to be as we encounter all her firsts!
first manicure… looking forward to the days of doing nails with my baby girl
we were so nervous to cute those teeny tiny nails- thanks Gramzi for the help!
first bath on October 6th
Gramzi teaching me how to do it while daddy video taped… super hard when they are so tiny & slippery
excited first time parents! (looking lovely at 3 days postpartum…)
oh so sweet, cuddly, clean, and smelling good!
first time in bouncy chair- not interested in her toys yet…
first walk and ride in the stroller
loved getting out and enjoying the weather as it was starting to cool off especially with my momma
first playdate with her buddy kg
first halloween- she was the life of the party!
first thanksgiving
first plane ride… and best of all it was to America to go home and meet our all her loved ones for the first time
1 Samuel 1:27-28 I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.
christmas pjs
every year for as long as I can remember my mom has gotten us girls matching pjs for Christmas and so of course this year Landon & Lydia needed matching pjs from Gramzi!
Here are a few pics from our photo shoot today…
Merry Christmas Eve from us in Albuquerque! Today and tomorrow we are celebrating our Christmas together… it is such a blessing for us all to be together in the same place at the same time!
Happy Thanksgiving…
…to you from our little family!
We have so much to be thankful for this year. To name a few.. our sweet little turkey! We are so in love and could not be more thankful for her, my sweet little nephew Landon, wonderful family whom we can’t wait to see in a few short weeks, great friends, the ability to communicate (depends on the day how much, but at least much better than we were this time last year) in Arabic, and each other. I am so thankful to be on this journey with Chase- thankful for the husband he is and the dad he is becoming.
We were blessed to get to spend thanksgiving this year with some of our dearest friends out here plus some Brazilians and Costa Ricans! We had all the traditional foods- turkey (we found one in Dubai), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, homemade rolls, pecan pie (pecans came America) and even cranberry sauce (yes it was found at an import store). And in my family Thanksgiving and Christmas is not complete without 7-layer dip! The only things that were missing (and were greatly missed) were the beauty of fall outside and our family & friends back home.
Thank you Jesus for all your blessings, your salvation, grace, and mercy you extend to us each day.
God is good…
A year ago yesterday (November 11) my niece Blair Nicole went to be with Jesus.
And this year my sister and her husband go to celebrate her first birthday in Glory with Blair’s little brother in their arms. They celebrated by visiting her gravesite and releasing pink and purple balloons. (We were going to do a balloon release here as well, but due to the small town we live in we were unable to find any store that had helium… we hope to find some “on the other side” this week and do it another day.)
On November 2, 2012 at 5:56 pm (same time as Lydia) my sweet little nephew Landon Steel Schuelke was born!
What a year it has been. This time last year I was getting ready to board a plane back to America to mourn with my family over the loss of my niece. And this year I got to rejoice with my sister as she gave birth to a beautiful healthy little boy while cuddling my sweet angel. God truly turned ashes into beauty. He is faithful and worthy of our praise. This last year has been tough, probably one of the toughest years of my (our) lives, but God never ceased to be near to us. I have been amazed while watching my sister and her husband trust in the Lord and walk by faith as they buried their first daughter and anxiously awaited the birth of their second born child. My faith has grown because of their faith and trust in the Lord.
We will always miss Blair and wonder what life would have been like with her, but I am so thankful that God blessed us with her little brother and Lydia’s cousin this year. I CANNOT wait to meet him, hold him, kiss him and spoil him in a few weeks! Lydia and Landon are sure to be best of friends- they are just one month apart! So fun. Isn’t Landon the cutest!?! I love him so much!
Thank you Jesus for being faithful and for the gifts you have lavished upon our families. We praise you!
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand – when I awake, I am still with you. Psalm 139:16-18
One special day…
Today is a very special day for many reasons…
1) It’s Chase’s birthday! So thankful that he was born 29 years ago so that I could marry him and have a baby with him. Happy Birthday Babe- I love watching you gracefully fall into the role of a dad.. I love you more with each day.
2) We got to take our baby girl home for the first time since she was born! We have been hanging out in the UAE (where our hospital was) waiting for Lydia’s birth certificate, passport and then stamp to cross back over. Yesterday Chase spent 2 hours, while mom, Lydia and I were in the car, at the Immigration office trying to get the right paper work and stamp in order to make sure we could cross the border today. However, we still weren’t 100% that we could cross… but Praise the Lord we were able to! Lydia put her charm on, Chase gave the ladies at the border our paperwork and the Lord did His thing and we got a stamp in her passport to go home! I teared up when I saw them stamp it!
God has been so good to us through this whole process- we give Him all the praise for the smooth transition into parenthood that we have had so far.
Tonight we are enjoying a delicious bowl of soup from Jord, watching Parenthood (we have missed it!- ha) and eating Chocolate ice cream to celebrate! Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts during this time. Hope to finish the labor story and share more pictures soon!
we are going to have another…
NEPHEW!!!
Yup, that’s right little Liddy is going to have another little boy cousin BFF! And we couldn’t be more excited…
The way we found out what my sister is having for their second little bundle of joy was through the opening of a box with BLUE balloons floating out of it. Such a fun idea… and we got to be part of the special moment by waking up at 5:30 am (totally worth it) and watching it via Skype… oh how we love you, Mr. Skype!
I love how happy my sister’s face is in this picture! It has been amazing and so encouraging to see the Lord shine through this couple even in the midst of something so difficult as having to say goodbye their sweet baby girl far too soon. We are praising the Lord for the new life inside of my sister (and me!) and continue to ask for His hand in both pregnancies and births.
Congrats Brooke & Clint! We can’t wait to meet and hold baby boy Schuelke in December and for our babies to grow up together. Love you all.
“…that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being.”Ephesians 3:16
