Chosen of God

Lucy. Today we are celebrating her very first birthday and I've been thinking a lot about just how special she is and how blessed we are to have her. I had always wanted 4 kids: 2 boys and 2 girls.. but after 3 ROUGH pregnancies I was ready to give up on that dream and hoped to never go through pregnancy again.

We should have been thrilled on July 28th, 2009 when we found out we were unexpectedly having a fourth baby.. but all we could think about was the long hard road in front of us. I started getting sick between 4 and 5 weeks and was so sick I could hardly take care of myself, never mind the 3 small kids I was responsible for. I lost more than 20% of my body weight very quickly and took three trips to the hospital for IV fluids. I felt like I was dying and sometimes wished that I was. No part of me was excited about having another baby.

Pregnancy was loooooong and miserable in so many ways. We decided the baby would be named Henry if a boy and Lucy if a girl.. but were still not totally on board with the idea of having 4 kids (in the span of 5 years). What will we drive? How will we provide? How will we give everyone enough attention? How will we get to school on time? How will we get ANYWHERE on time? Will we ever leave the house again??

April 7th, 2010 I woke up around 7am in labor. Pretty uneventful until she was born early that afternoon. From the very second we saw her we loved her immediately.. in a shocking, almost painful, overwhelming way. We named her Lucy Rae (Rae after my sister, who she looks just like, and Lucy because we liked it) and spent two days in the hospital starting at her and wondering how we could have ever not wanted her.

God had a plan all along with Lucy. Turns out the very meaning of her name is "Chosen of God". Of course I believe ALL children are chosen by God, but there is something overwhelming about that being the MEANING of her name, especially since we didn't CHOOSE her. We didn't even want another baby. But He gave us one anyway. He gave us her. And I feel overwhelmed with love every single time I think of her. I can't even count how many times over the past year that I've stood over her while she slept and cried as I thanked God over and over and over for her. She is literally a dream come true... even though I would have given up on the dream of 4 kids myself, God loved ME enough to see it through. He gave me a baby I didn't think I wanted. Even though I fought it all the way and was sooooo ungrateful... He let me have her anyway. His plan is infinitely better than my plan. She is a constant reminder of how much God loves me... He allowed all that sickness and all that struggle so we could get to here. So I could look back and say, without any hesitation, His plan is better. Always better. Even if the path is long and painful and miserable... the end result is so. much. better.

Lucy Rae, there aren't words meaningful enough for me to tell you how much I love you. I feel like the luckiest person in the whole wide world that I get to be your mom. I don't know why God chose me and you to be together, but I thank my lucky stars everyday that He did. You are just a little ball of sunshine and happiness and every day with you brings me so much joy. Happy Birthday Sushi! I love you so much.


"Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?" (2 Sam. 7:18)

Fun with Farm Animals

Some friends of ours have a petting zoo (Cricket's Mobile Petting Zoo.. if you're interested!).. they invited a bunch of friends over to take pictures and play with the animals yesterday and we had a BLAST! The kids loooooved the animals... especially Brock!

There was a photographer there that took family pictures.. but here are a few ;) I snapped with my camera...

The boys (and one top-less little Lyla) all hopped in the creek when pictures were done... such a fun place!

Family Movie Night

A Friday night favorite in our house is watching movies together. Lyla was extra excited about this one... Tangled.. it was the first movie her and I ever saw in the theater together.

Caught up!

YES! Finally, after two straight days of blogging, I am caught up. I hope I never get that far behind again! Whew.

Few things:

I went to Brock's parent teacher conference last week and she was again singing his praises: "...so well behaved.... plays so nice with his friends... so polite.. works so hard... always obedient...." I was of course shocked (super proud, but shocked). Then she goes to say that she asked him if he's so well behaved at home and he whispers (with a smirk), "no.. I am crrrrraaaa-zy at home." I laughed so hard! At least he's honest.

Took Brock to the dentist and overheard this:
Dentist: "What is your name??"
Brock: "Brock-y"
Dentist: "humm.. Brock-y, do you have any brothers and sisters?"
Brock: "Yep, Brodey, Beans and Sushi"

Brock is still REALLY traumatized over frosting. He runs screaming when I put Lyla in cupcake pajamas, has asked me several times if I'm going to put frosting on Lucy's birthday cake next week.. and today when I told him it was Uncle Myles' birthday he got a horrified look on his face and asked if Myles was going to eat frosting. I bought him a "frosty" from Wendy's and he wouldn't eat it because he thought I said "frosting" and he couldn't stop thinking about it. Poor buddy. I wonder if he'll ever get over his queasy-ness to frosting!

Lucy's new favorite things: emptying the dishwasher onto the floor, and playing in the toilet. When we bust her and she hears us coming she really starts splashing.. it's almost like she's trying to jump in there. So gross. Even grosser... Jeff doesn't think it's gross! Last time she did it he wasn't even going to change her wet shirt! Gross.

Beans sometimes says words with all her letters mixed up. And it's so cute that I never correct her! (I know, terrible.. I can't help it) My favorite right now is: Pa-chack, would you ever know what she was saying??? Chapstick! I love it.
She also loves to have her fingernails and toenails painted. Also loves playing in mud and jumping on the bed.

Last night Brodey sat down and read a whole book to me. HE read to ME. Amazing. The book was: How do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon. (Thank you Clint and Kristin.. it's still a favorite!) I'm so proud of him and can't believe he is reading! And loosing teeth left and right, and according to our giant ruler.. he seems to have grown 3 inches since school started. 3 inches!

Anyhow.. can't end without a picture! Jeff found Lyla like this last night... asleep with her feet on the floor and her head on her bed!??? Sweet girl.

Lucy 11 months!

I can't believe we are about to celebrate Lucy's birthday! Her 11th month has been pretty exciting. She's pulling up on everything and walking behind anything she can push. She's starting to wind down with the shrieking and loooooves to play with Lyla. They are sharing a room now and the best part of my day is getting them up in the morning! Lyla is almost ALWAYS climbed on top of something so she's nose to nose with Lucy (who is standing up in her crib) and singing to her. And Lucy will just giggle and smile and dance along. Really unbelievably cute. I hope I can catch some video of it one morning!

Lucy also really loves some spaghetti...

and emptying the dishwasher.... (if only this were a video! Just try and imagine the cutest giggle you've ever heard!)

and she loooves tomatoes! She pulled this tomato out of a grocery bag and ate the whole thing!

Touch-A-Truck

What a fun way to spend a Saturday! We headed out Kennesaw to touch some trucks and ran into so many friends! The kids had a blast climbing through some trucks, having a picnic, playing with friends and eating snow cones... in MARCH! I love Georgia.

I hope this is the last time EVER any of our kids is in the back of an Ambulance. (or "hos-ti-bull truck", as Brodey called it)

Check out our little fireman!

Our little buddy Ryder

No worries.. those boys in the middle are brothers and GREAT friends of the Culp boys!

Culp and Ostell boys driving a huge tracker

Lucy slept the day away, but I think she still had fun!

I just though this last picture was too cute to leave out. Sweet little Lyla playing play dough out on the deck all by herself. Love her.

Baseball Weather!

This first photo I took with my phone.. how cute is our little catcher!??

Look at those half naked redneck kids playing in a bucket of mud in the front yard!

And my Brodey.... minus one front tooth! (Pulled it out himself! He was laying in bed on night and yelled... "mom! I pulled out my tooth!" ha!)