Becca's Shoes

Maddie is a typical girl and already into shoes at 18 months old! Sometimes it amazes me how innate the girlyness is. While Rebecca was here Maddie kept putting on her shoes and walking in them! She's tried to put our shoes on before, but never attempted to walk! What cracks me up is that one of them is on backwards!

A few pics

Tonight Maddie had her first taste of PB & J. I think she liked it, it was all over her face! She's been a bit of a picky eater, so hopefully this will be a winner.

Maddie also likes to dump things out of baskets and sit in them....reminds me of a certain uncle :) My next chore for tonight is to see if I can get a video uploaded on Brandon's computer! So stay tuned!

This one's a doozy!

*Disclaimer for this post*  I have had no more than 5 hours of sleep each night this past week, and it is currently 1 am.  I apologize for rambling, or incoherent thoughts, but I must vent! 

This past week has been quite a shock to my system.  I have never experienced something that has caused this much fear, anger, anxiety, and sadness.  The first night after we returned from Thanksgiving vacation to find out house burglarized we stayed at our friends house nearby.  We were very thankful that they were home, and willing to open their house to us!  

Honestly I wouldn't have cared if we ever went back to our house.  This was our first house, and we've done a lot to it since we've moved in to make it ours.  It's been a blessing to make this our house while Brandon's in school.  Having a home, a sanctuary, a peaceful place to rest and live is very important to me.  I don't function well if I don't have that place that I can go to to feel safe and grounded.  Now I feel like that has been taken from me, and I don't know if I'll ever feel that way about this house again.  Next year we will be moving to Raleigh, and that time can't come soon enough!  It will be hard to get past this and still live here for another year.  Every time I walk in the door I remember the feeling when we saw our tv gone and the living room a mess.  The panic, the shock, the confusion, the anger...and so many emotions I can't even put words to.   The feeling of having one of your deepest fears come true.  

Last year for Christmas my mom had given us a year of monthly cleaning service.  If you know me, you know I'm not the cleanest most organized person in the world.  And after having a baby, it really became a struggle for me to get everything done.  So this maid service (who are very "merry" but shall remain nameless) has been coming since January.  I'm usually home when they are here b/c the idea of someone being in my house when I was not did not settle well with me.  There were a few times when I was out of town, so they kept a key at the office.  The last couple months the same lady has been coming and a few times she was by herself, and took an unusually long time to finish.  This has been a lesson learned in trusting my own instincts.  I didn't say anything, and though it seemed a little odd, I as usual talked myself out of it....fast foward to last week and our house is broken into.  Well, not exactly broken into, walked right into.  The police and us determined the only way they entered the house was with a key, and they locked up after themselves.  When you think about, even though the keys are "locked and safe" at the office, what is stopping them from making a copy of the key on their way.  It is frustrating to know that I could tell the police 99% for certain who did it or who was involved, but they can't do squat.  And they probably won't do squat.  All I can pray for is that this lady is questioned by them and gets caught!  

Since we know it wasn't "random"  and we know who and how the got in, I'm not quite as scared, but it makes me so angry.  Angry is not even a strong enough word to describe how I feel.  Perhaps I will create a new word.

There are however many things to praise God for in this situation.  For one, obviously we were not harmed physically.  The people who did this knew we wouldn't be home, and just wanted our stuff.  Also, they could have taken much more stuff, including things to steal our identity, but it didn't seem like they were after that.  All the things they took were replaceable for the most part.  They took our video camera, which for the past year I had been trying to transfer to our computer (which also thankfully, they did not take).  The first 17 months of Maddie's life was there.  Bringing her home, all the fun milestones, sitting up, crawling, walking, talking.  Most of them are gone.  Thankfully, last night, I realized that this summer I had attempted to transfer some videos to Brandon's laptop.  I thought that it hadn't been successful, but I was able to recover videos of Maddie coming home from the hospital, and her first birthday!  

I am also thankful to my husband for hiding my purse so well before we left that even we couldn't find it!  I thought that I had put it up in my closet, and the thieves had made a mess in there, so I figured they found it.  It had my wallet, and some other stuff (no major credit cards, so that was good).  Yesterday I went to get my shoes out of the coat closet, and sitting right underneath my shoes was my purse!  I couldn't believe it was there, and that Brandon had set my shoes right on top and didn't see it!  Also, I praise God that Maddie is not old enough to remember this, or to even know what's going on.  I don't know what I would do if I had to try to explain all of this to her!

The last few nights I have stayed up as long as I can, and have read through most of Psalms.  As soon as I lay down to try to sleep my mind starts going, and I can't stop thinking about all that has happened.  For the two of you who read this, I would really appreciate your prayers for peace of mind.  Since I've started reading Psalms I can feel God calming me and taking away many fears.  I would covet all of your prayers!

Some long lost pics

I guess I forgot to post these pics! This is of Maddie and Hazel at Halloween! Elmo and Piglet weren't too keen on posing for the camera!

It can happen to you

Here are some things that I learned over our Thanksgiving holiday after our house was broken into and burglarized:

-Write down and store in a safe place all the serial numbers to your major electronic items. (They can track down anything sold to a pawn shop and find who sold it and who bought it)

-Don't trust anyone who is not a friend or family member in your house.

-Don't give anyone a key to your house (i.e. maid services)

-Pay the extra money for a better security system.  What is the point of paying monthly if people still know how to get around it. 

-Know your neighbors.

-Make a recording of a loud dog barking and have it play randomly while gone for long periods of time.

-If people call your house and hang up repeatedly over a period of time get a caller id or dial star 69 and write down the number.

-Don't leave out suitcases for burglars to put all your things in and steal even easier.

-If you think something is suspicious or out of the ordinary trust your instincts and let someone know.  Who cares if the cops think  you're annoying for reporting suspicious activity.  

-Take pictures of every room in your house, and your important belongings and keep in a safe place for insurance purposes.

-Keep EVERY receipt of your purchases.

Since moving here I've been scared to death of someone breaking in.  Luckily we weren't home, they waited until we were gone, but it's still terrifying.  I've never really thought it couldn't happen to me, yet I didn't do all the things my instincts were telling me to do to protect us. Most of the things that were taken were just things.  I really don't care about the things that can be replaced.  I will probably never get the videos back of my daughter being born and growing up. I tried for weeks to transfer the videos to my computer and onto a disk, but it wasn't compatible with my computer, and I just never had the time.  I will probably never really feel safe and happy in this home again.  Who knows how long it will be until I can forget what it was like to walk into my house and see what happened. Who knows how long it will be until I am not angry at these people for taking away my peace of mind and my sense of security.    I suggest you think about what you should do to protect yourself and things that are most important to you.  I hope that my experience  may help someone else in the future.

Random thoughts

I have finished my first leg of travels for the rest of this year.  I am home for two whole weeks before traveling again!  It's good for me to have a change of pace, especially when I'm home with a toddler most of the time, and  Brandon is so busy with school.  But, I like to just stay put sometimes too and get into a routine.   I have learned that flying with a toddler is never a good experience.  It is worth the extra money to buy them their own seat!  

I'm starting to get into the holiday spirit.  I feel like I have to decorate weeks before the holidays to enjoy it b/c we are never actually here to celebrate!  This will be the last Christmas that we have a whole 2 weeks off to visit family.  Next year we'll be moving to Raleigh (woot woot!) over the break, which with a 2 1/2 year old will probably take forever! 

I am in the mood to make creative things for gifts this year.  Sometimes I can be sort of crafty.  If someone shows me exactly what to do, which I guess isn't super creativeness on my own, but I like doing stuff like that.  I have a couple ideas, but if anyone reads this and has any ideas let me know!  I would rather make something for people b/c it's more meaningful  (and cheaper!) than spend X amount of money on a gift card.  

In a couple weeks Maddie goes for her 18 month checkup!  I can't believe she's getting so big!  I love listening to her babbling with random coherent words thrown in.  One of these days I'm going to go into the Apple store so they can teach me how to put my videos on the computer!  We have an issue with compatibility between our camera and computer. 

I am thinking about going to Haiti in February with Hopegivers.  Shaun and Melissa just got back from a busy 4 day trip, and hopefully I can convince them to go back with me!   I'm not really excited about visiting Haiti, never really been on my top 50 places to go, but the idea of being able to be a part of the Hopegivers ministry and loving some orphans without flying halfway around the world to India is amazing.  Sam (the Pres of Emmanuel in India)  really challenged us this summer to not only fall in love with the kids, but to fall in love with the ministry.  If anyone is interested in going on a trip click on the website, or talk to me!  It's only 4 days and it will change your life!

Only about 8 more months in Memphis! Woohoo!  Anyone know where we can live in Raleigh next Christmas?

A semi-political post

This will be my one and only sort of political opinion post.  Mostly because I am so fed up that I just need to vent somehow.  I admit I do not have a whole lot of knowledge about either candidate and I'm not the most eloquent writer.  

 I watched 12 whole seconds of anything election oriented last night because I pretty much knew how it would end.  I don't watch a whole lot of commercials thanks to Tivo, but I don't recall seeing many negative adds about Obama.  I remember in years past that's all adds were.  I've heard plenty of negative things about him in every day conversations with people who know more about him than I do, but why were there not any on tv?  I saw one on Monday that was about the church that he went to and that was the first one.  Is this because the media was so enthralled and captivated by Obama and him being black?  I know there's dirt on him, but I guess I'm just surprised that it wasn't  brought up much.  And again, there may have been more out there, but I didn't go looking for it.  

So anyway, the thing that I am most angry about is from the whole 12 minutes of coverage I've watched today.  Any interview or any scene on the news showing Obama fan's reactions obviously conveyed happiness and in my opinion way to much emotion over him getting elected.  I understand it's historic because he's the first half-black president, but is he going to do any good for this country?  What makes me so angry is that it seems that these people only voted for him because he's black.  Everyone is going on and on about that, and it seems as if they have no idea if he's actually a good candidate, or if he has a good plan for this country.  He is a very good speaker, but you need more than that in a President. 

It seems that so many people were blinded by the color of his skin, and regardless of what he said or did people would vote for him just because they want to see a black president.  How is that not racist?  I really don't care what color of skin our President has, but I'm not going to vote for the first black schmuck that runs just because he's black.  I would be really curious to see what percentage of people who voted for Obama would say they voted for him mainly because of that reason.  

That's the end of my ranting. I don't care if anyone agrees or disagrees.  I didn't blog about this to start an argument, it's my place to write my opinion, so there. 

Hello again!

It's been a long time since I've posted last.  That's mostly because I've been at home for the last few weeks where nothing much exciting goes on!  With Brandon busy studying, Maddie and I like to travel to see friends and family.  I will try to post some more pics from our adventures this summer, but I'm having issues with downloading them for some reason.  So since life has been pretty boring here, this post will be some random boring thoughts! Enjoy!

It's hard for me to believe that it is fall already.   Mostly because we live in Memphis and it still feels like summer.  It's been 80's here lately, but I still wear jeans as I deny the summer temps.

For the past few years that I haven't been teaching, I feel so out of the loop.  I miss all the activities for pointless holidays and teaching about fall weeks before it's actually fall.  

  I'm looking forward to going to Iowa next week and breaking out the hoodies and socks and sitting around the fire-pit!  I'm also excited about going to 5 college football games in the next 4 weeks.  Next Saturday Iowa State plays Nebraska where me and some awesome CU friends will enjoy the sweet box seats, and then hopefully head down to Drake to see Campbell play some football!  We'll be the only CU fans there!  Then I'll be in NC for CU homecoming, and then back in Iowa for an Iowa v. Penn State game.  Brandon will actually get to go that one! 

Maddie is growing every day.  She's such a little girl now, it's so much fun.  She is picking up words like crazy...Brandon and I have to be more careful of things we say because she often repeats the last word she hears us say.  We've had to start spelling things too!  She's still very obsessed with shoes, and her new favorite word is shirt.  It actually sounds like shirt, and not another similar word :)  She is getting more defiant and likes to say no no.  But it's so stinkin' cute the way she says it, it's hard not to laugh!  Overall though she is very sweet, and knows what she can and can't get into.  

This week we are going to a pumpkin patch with our MOPS group!  Last year she was too small to go, so we'll see what she does this year.  We also got her Halloween costume the other day!  We tried it on and it's a little big, but ADORABLE!  Stay tuned for some Halloween pics!  I would also try to post some videos if someone wants to tutor me on how to do that!  

Well that's just a glimpse into our boring life...hope I didn't bore you too much!