Photo of the Day: {birth order}

{birth.order.6.2012}

My children constantly make me laugh. If I would have tried to intentionally get them to walk this way there is no way it would have worked out.

Someone would have been complaining about how it is not fair that they were born after another person and would have wanted to petition God for a "re-do". Ultimately, at least one of them would have ended up in tears.

Yet, I look up and there they are. In their birth order. Perfectly spaced. Not one complaint. Not one tear.

Finally Posting { Easter } Photos!

It seems like Easter was forever ago doesn't it? It is hard to believe that it was less than a month ago. Sadly I am behind on SO MANY blog posts right now and this happens to be one of them.

Before you view the photos I have to explain how things work in our family on Easter. Because my husband is a youth pastor his day begins before the sun is up. He is out the door before we are even awake to be one of the first ones at the church to start setting stuff up. I then get up and get the four kids ready and head to the church in order for them to make the egg hunt. This is all typical for our family on most Sundays  except for the egg hunt of course and J does head in earlier than usual but that doesn't really affect us much - just him. But here is where things get interesting....

The way the egg hunt works at our church is that they divide it up by ages. So I have 3 kids in 3 different locations. My oldest (because he is too old to participate) accompanied his  youngest brother to one area, I took my baby girl to her location, and I solicited the help of one of the youth group kids to take my middle boy to his location. All good.... Except..... that means I have a ton more pictures of Kearyn than I do of the boys....

This does not mean that I love her more or anything... it is just a crazy hectic day for our family and as a solo-mom I do the best that I can do. :-) So, I just wanted to explain that before you started scrolling through to see a ton of her and not so many of the boys... I hope you all had a very blessed Easter (even if it was almost a month ago). Enjoy!

Beware of the {Joy} Robbers!

I feel like I am pretty joyful in my life. After all, I have a lot to be joyful about. Hey, I woke up this morning - it is a good day! :-) That is pretty much my perspective after what I just went through.
But, I am a mom of four kids - five if your count Jason. (Just kidding - kind of.) So sometimes I just feel like the joyful juice just seems to run out. Anyone with me? Probably not - I am sure I am the ONLY person who goes through this.

Right now I have the "pre-teen". Don't get me wrong - my "pre-teen" is a really good kid. We are so very blessed to have him for a son and I know that my issues with him are really pretty mild compared to what a lot of parents deal with. After all, my husband is a youth pastor so we are aware. I will just leave it at that.

Our issues with Cale are like - stop reading so much. I'm serious. The child would read 24 hours a day if he could and I love the fact that he loves to read so much. But there are other things in life that must happen. Like showers and eating. We do get the occasional "pre-teen" attitude from time-to-time but most of the time he is an excellent kid.

Then I have the 6 year old, the 4 year old, and the 19 month old. That is where things start to get a little busier.... (understatement)

Most of the time things are what they are. We go with the flow. Not life or death obviously. But then there are these moments... I call them the "joy robbers". For example, every time we go to leave our home I feel like there is an invasion of the "joy robbers". I will get Kearyn (19 months) ready to go and go to find the 4 year old. I will look over every square inch of the house to only find him a half an hour later hiding in a cupboard that only a mouse could fit into. (Small exaggeration but you know what I mean.)

Then, I turn around to find the the 19 month old has completely undressed herself - tights, dress, hair bow, and yes, even the diaper from time-to-time, completely gone!

That is when I feel it. My blood pressure goes up a notch. I just want to sit down bury my head in my hands and tell them that mommy doesn't want to play this game anymore... stop hiding in cupboards and keep your close on. Please! And that is only 2 of the 4 children I have.

However, as I have recently felt the "joy robber" invasion I have decided to do things differently. It is basically the equivalent of "stop-drop-and roll" - you know what the firemen told us to do as a kid... Well, mine is STOP - THINK - CHOOSE. (Hey, I have to keep it simple or I will never remember it. Then  my blood pressure would go up another notch for not remembering.)

I stop whatever it is that I am doing in that moment. (Even if it is being curled up in the fetal position and crying in the corner.) I think about what it is happening. Someone is trying to rob my joy in this moment. Then I make a different choice. I choose to see the joy in that moment and I choose to keep my joy. I refuse to let the "joy robbers" steal it from me.

Sometimes I just have to laugh at the moment. Or I find something to be grateful for in that moment - like the fact that my 4 year old son is so creative that he even thought of that cupboard as a hiding place. Or that my daughter is even here with me in this moment at all. When I fill my thoughts and my heart with gratefulness my perspective changes almost instantly. The blood pressure goes down and I can resume whatever it is that I am doing with joy in my heart.

How are the "joy robbers" treating you lately?


The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. ~ John 10:10

Funny of the Day....

I haven't posted a "funny of the day" from one of my kids in a while. This one I just couldn't resist.

Creide, my 3 year old, was taking his before bed bath. I hear him get out, which is unusual because he usually screams for me at this point. Then he comes running as fast as he can into the kitchen. He gets a chair and climbs up onto it to where we keep our fruit snacks.

In the meantime, he doesn't know that I am in the next room. I say, "Creide, you don't need another fruit snack today."

(Insert deer in headlights look here.)

"Mom," he says sweetly, "I was just going to put one in my pants pocket......"

"Creide...." I chuckle, "you're not wearing any pants."

(Insert Creide's cute little smile here. For those of you who know him know which one I am talking about.)

Kearyn's Story....Part 2

For those of you just reading for the first time or at least reading about Kearyn for the first time I just wanted to give you a little background. Kearyn is our 6 month old little girl. Up until now, I have not posted much about her. There is just so much emotion that comes forward when I try to put what a blessing she has been to our family into words. I am now making the attempt with anticipation of falling very short. If you would like to read the first two posts you can select the links below:

Kearyn's Story....

Kearyn's Story....Part 1

Kearyn's Story....Part 2

Previously I shared the events that happened for us to make the decision to try for another baby. After the loss of our son this was not an easy decision and one that required a great deal of prayer. Finally my husband and I agreed that this was indeed what God wanted for us. 

It didn't take long for us to conceive. I remember reading the pregnancy test and I actually had this sinking feeling in my heart. Can I really do this? What if I lose this baby too? I know the saying well, "God will never give you more than you can handle," but that was not real to me at the time. I just knew I could not survive anymore loss. I was still grieving for my son and to lose another one would have been more than I could bare.

Walking through her pregnancy was difficult. In fact, I actually don't remember a lot of it. It was kind of a blur as I really was just going through the motions of life. I just couldn't wait to get to the next stage or the next milestone, and because of that I never really enjoyed the current one that I was in. I couldn't wait until I could feel her move. Each kick, roll, and back-flip I would relish because that meant she was okay. At least for that moment I knew she was okay and that is what would get me through to the next moment. 

Even though this should have been a time of joy for me, there was actually a lot of darkness. There were days that I would just spend the entire day in prayer begging God to keep her safe. I repeatedly asked for His protection over her and to keep her from any harm. I begged him to just keep her here with me. 

I felt like I could barely function normally. Of course, I never communicated my struggles with anyone else with exception to my husband and I don't even know if he realized how much I was struggling. Maybe he did, I don't know. This made things even harder. Everyone expected me to be "normal" and in some ways, beyond normal. They expected me to have that "pregnancy glow" about me. After all, what did I have to be sad about. I was expecting baby, what more did I want. They had no idea the day-to-day agony that I went through just waiting for my baby girl to arrive. 

With each doctor's visit I would hold my breath while they found her heartbeat. With each ultrasound I would anxiously search for her heartbeat. Thank God that I had a very patient doctor and his staff was equally wonderful. If it weren't for their reassurances and just openness for me to come in whenever I needed to I don't know what I would have done. 

About half way through our pregnancy we did find out that we were expecting a baby girl. It seemed like everyone's focus shifted to the fact that we were finally having a girl after three boys. I can tell you though that I really didn't care whether she was a boy or a girl as long as she was going to be in my arms and healthy. 

Finally, I came to the end of my pregnancy. I wasn't due until June 11, 2010 but I knew she would come early as all of my children have. As time ticked on we still had some trials ahead of us. I ended up getting very sick the beginning of May and ended up in the hospital. Then a week or so later my husband got extremely ill as well. This was only two weeks before her birth. We were desperately trying to finish things up in preparation for her arrival as we had just purchased a new home a couple of months before. With Jason being as sick as he was for as long as he was it did add a lot of stress to the mix. It was so close to her birth that I was wondering if he would in fact be better by the time that she was born. He ended up losing 25 pounds in 9 days but God graciously placed a hand of healing over my husband and he did get well in time for Kearyn's birth. The birth of our precious baby girl. To hear about that stay tuned for more of her story. Kearyn's story....

Kearyn's Story....Part 1

Most of our friends and family know the struggles that we have gone through having our four children. I have not hid the fact that we have lost 5 babies due to miscarriage and the pain that we have experienced through those losses. Many of you were there when we lost our little boy last year half way through my pregnancy and witnessed and even experienced some of the heartache that we went through. Many of you may be asking yourself at this very moment what this has to do with Kearyn as this is suppose to be her story. A story of joy and laughter not one of such heartache. My answer to you....everything.

I am often  asked why we didn't give up on having our children. Why we didn't stop trying after our second, third or fourth miscarriage. My answer....God didn't let me. I tried to give up, I really did. There was a point where I said that I could not take anymore heartache and that I was done. I remember having that very conversation with Jason, my husband, as if it were yesterday. I told him that we were very blessed to have ours son, Cale, and that he would probably be the most spoiled child on the planet but he was our blessing and I was going to cherish every minute that I could with him. A few months later I surprisingly found out I was expecting Ky, our second son. Twenty-two months after Ky was born we had Creide, our third son.

When I found out I was expecting our fourth son in February 2009 our heads were spinning a little but we had a great deal of joy in our hearts. When we lost him my world was rocked to say the least. I found myself in such a dark place of grief and sadness. A despair that I had never known before. I had let my guard down. We were well past the first trimester. I had allowed myself to fall deeply in love with this baby and then so suddenly he was gone....

To make things even worse I had physical complications that went along with the loss and it was the only time in my life where I truly wondered if I was going to make it. I remember praying to God over and over that he keep me here for my boys. God was faithful and kept me here for my boys. It took me four months to recover physically but much longer to recover emotionally. (I am not sure if that is a journey that I will ever actually complete to be honest with you.)

Then there was that whisper I began to hear once again. A whisper from deep in my heart. A promise that God had placed there years and years before. A promise that I would have four children. As we read in Isaiah 7 about the promise of  the birth of Jesus it was like He wrote his promise to me to have my four children just as clearly in my heart. I just kept feeling this tug to try again, try again, try again. But every time I would talk to my husband about this he was not so agreeable. You see, he was the one that had to scoop me up that night and rush me to the hospital. He was the one left waiting in the waiting room as they took me back to the operating room. As I was put under he was very much awake. He not only lost his baby that night but he had so nearly lost his wife as well and he did not want to risk that again.

But as time went on God spoke into his heart as well and he agreed to try one more time. That was only the beginning of this journey. The beginning of this story. Kearyn's story.....

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our precious baby girl's story....

Kearyn Jaedance Gressman

May 31, 2010

the gressman four....

I think there is a point with the addition of each child that I have said to myself...."Wow, I have X number of kids now..." You just get so use to taking care of one child, then two, then three that when you add another one there is a bit of an adjustment period. These are the first pictures I remember taking of all four of my children together. And let me tell you it was quite interesting as you can probably tell from the pictures! ;-) (And these are only about half of the pictures taken! :-)

I have always dreamed of having four children. I believe that it was a promise placed in my heart long ago by God himself. This promise was what got me through all of the hard times and all of the losses. Don't get me wrong, there were several times when I did just want to give up but as I stare at the faces of my four beautiful children I thank God with all that I am that I did NOT give up. I can't imagine living my life not knowing each of these precious little ones that God has so graciously blessed me with. Thank you God for my Cale, my Ky, my Creide, and my Kearyn.

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Stay tuned for more conversation on the adjustment to having four children....