What I Am Excited About...

I am so excited to travel to the States this summer! I am counting down the weeks and am almost to the point that I can tell you how many days until we leave. There are many, many things, people, and events that we have missed over the last 3 years of living outside of the USA and I can not wait to experience some things and share them with my girls, such as:

4th of July
Baseball Games
Publix and Target.
Family
Good Food
Family
Running outside..in shorts!
Dogs
Grass
Thunderstorms
Rain
Real cold weather
Filling up my own gas tank- haven't done that in 3 years!
Long drives
Visiting my grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Lots of time poolside
Seeing my sister and Ian's brothers with our girls.
My cousin's wedding
Family
Going for walks
Kissing my husband in public
Holding Ian's hand in public
Hugging in public
Lots of date nights (thanks in advance, grandparents, for the babysitting!)
Drive up ATMs and grocery stores that are not in malls
Waiters that are from America
Short sleeves and Shorts
College Football
Seeing my sister's house
Sophia's 1st Birthday- with family!
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Decorating a tree with family!
Christmas carols on the radio and in stores.
Christmas
Getting my hair cut
Disney
Universal
The beach- we have beaches here but it just is not the same

Then there is a whole other list of foods  and restaurants that I am missing like:
Chick-Fil-A
Panera
Tijuana Flatts
Jason's Deli
TooJay's
MiMi's Cafe
Publix subs, chocolate chip cookies, and sweet tea
Barbecue!!!
Smoothies


Pork, in any and all forms, especially deli ham and breakfast sausage
Good beef and steak
A variety of cereals
FROZEN foods- you don't realize how nice it is to have a good selection of frozen foods until you don't have it!
Little Debbie snacks- I have no idea why I am missing this, but I am
Banana pudding and sweet tea

Five Years of Writing

Five years ago, I sat down at the keyboard of my college laptop and breathed in.

It was just 10 days before I was going to get married and I wanted to chronicle my life and have a way to express myself through those early days of marriage life. I had read several blogs for months and was addicted to how they would forever have moments of time captured in the lyrics of their lives melody.

My first three posts were not much of anything, just getting my feet under me really. A New Beginning quoted Proverbs 31 and gave the backstory for my blog title and url (Far More Than Rubies and Witheagerhands.) A Deep Breath...And Begin was my first stream of conscious post and was followed by my nearly panicked A First post about moving my things to our apartment and getting it set up for when we returned from our honeymoon.

I love those early day posts. So simple. So like me. List making. Planning. Dreaming. A heaping portion of sarcasm with a side of irony. I loved to share my funny moments and learned to really laugh at myself during that first year.

Funny how much I still enjoy writing. I may not have a ton of readers, but I love all of you who faithfully stop by. I don't do ads or giveaways or sponsors, but my blog is where I can share with family and friends, both near and far about what is going on in our lives.

I invest in my family by taking part of my down time in the evenings and chronicling our lives. I have no clue how long this will go on but I am so thankful that technology allows for this.

And I am ever so thankful for five years of YOU, the readers. You give me advice, pray for us, encourage me, and make me laugh with your comments. A community that I never expected to partake in.

So, here's to five more years of blogging. Of laughing over, crying about, and sharing the joy that is my life with my family.

I'd love to hear from you....How long have you been reading Far More Than Rubies?

Grace's Broken Arm

Last Thursday, the girls and I met some friends at a local mall to play. Grace loved the blow up rock wall and slide and the trampoline that was set up outside of Toys R Us and she spent nearly an hour climbing up slides, riding bikes, and pushing cars inside of the store.

Of course, the moment I began digging around in the stroller for something is when disaster struck.

I looked up to see Grace falling backwards off of a one foot high platform (where the bikes were displayed,) and her right arm was straight behind her.

Before she even hit the ground I knew it would not be good. The security guard tried to catch her but we were all just too far away.

She screamed and cried and immediately asked to go "night-night," and asked for her paci. It broke my heart. I snuggled with her and tried to figure out if she was hurt or just freaked out. My friend ran off to buy some candy (I know, we are awesome, but we couldn't get her to stop crying and we didn't know if it was because she was hurt or not!)

Of course, five minutes and a fistful of jellybeans later and she was fine. We headed home and put her down for a nap but when she got up, she was favoring that arm and wasn't putting weight on it. She would move it and even use it, but I knew she wasn't using it like she should.

We really wrestled with whether or not to take her in to the doctor. I even called my mom to ask her opinion. In the end we decided to see how she did the following day.

The next day was Friday, our church day here. We went to church, Grace played in nursery, and then we had our church's annual luncheon at a hotel. Grace ran around like a maniac and played hard, but she was still not using that hand. She had a sad moment when she was running in the ballroom and tried to run outside and ended up smacking into the glass door. Poor baby. She got a big bruise in the outline of a circle on her cheek!

We came home and she napped but when she got up from her nap and I was changing her, she cried out a couple of times. That was the last straw for me. I knew something was just not right. I took Grace into our local ER and we were able to see the doctor after a 2 hour wait. The doctor didn't know what was wrong but sent us for x rays, which were traumatizing. Grace cried and said "All done!" over and over.

By the time we got back to the doctor, the x rays had been developed and sent to the doctor. Immediately she saw the fracture, at the top of her right humerus bone, the upper arm. They couldn't find a sling small enough for her so they wrapped her up in an ace bandage and said that we should see the orthopedist within 10 days.

Grace hated the bandages the first day and I had to rewrap them every 10 minutes until I figured out a way to wrap it to cover her hand and keep her upper arm parallel to her body. We got into the doctor on day four after the ER and he downgraded her wrap to a fabric triangle sling and said she has a green stick fracture.

She isn't in much pain but keeping her off of it is a definite challenge! She misses using her hand but I hope to only have to use the sling for another week!

Hopefully this will not be the first of many breaks!

{33, 34, 35, 36}

{29, 30, 31, 32}

One Month From Today

One month from today, we will get on an airplane, travel for 26 hours, then step foot into America.

For the first time in over 3 years.

It will be the first time my girls have ever been to their "home" country.
The first time they will meet much of their extended family.
The first time they will experience American food and traditions that we hold near and dear.

I'm excited and I'm nervous, all at the same time. We have alot of things planned into our time there and we also have alot of scheduled down time. Our main goal is to spend time with family and to reconnect with the people we love so much.

We could be there for almost six months. And that's a long time to be living out of a suitcase. We've arranged to stay in a home near my parents' house near Nashville, TN, for 3 months and a home near Ian's parents' house in Orlando, FL, for 3 months. Hopefully that will give us a little more of a permanent feeling and that it will feel more like "our place."

We'll be trying to stay in those two places for most of the time, except for when we have speaking engagements in churches around the South. We also have a trip up to Pennsylvania and Washington DC for my cousin's wedding and to spend time with my sister!

I can't explain how much we are looking forward to this trip and how long we have been counting down to it. I have a feeling that this last month is going to inch by and fly by, all at the same time! As I count down the weeks, I will try to share what I am excited about and what I am nervous about!

Did You Notice?

Did you notice?

There was something different about Sophia in her 8 month post.

Did you spot the difference in her?

She got her ears pierced!

We meant to get it done when she was six months old, like we did with Grace, but the time has just slipped by us! We choose to get our daughters' ears pierced at an early age, rather than letting them do it later in life for several reasons:

1.) Mine were done as an infant and I am so thankful that I never had to choose that on my own. I've seen so many girls and teenagers stress themselves out after seeing other girls with earrings. They want them, they know it is going to be painful, and some girls hem and haw for months or years until they finally work up the courage! This way it's already done and they will never have a memory of that pain! Also, I think it's not as painful when you are little (or you can't be as dramatic, either way.)

2.) It's really culturally appropriate here. Most baby girls get their ears pierced at birth or shortly after.
Not really a reason, but this is a bonus. It would make me think twice if we would really stick out.

I was shocked when doing some research. I found out that there is some people out there who despise when babies get their ears pierced. They talked about how it shows you are of low socio economic status and how trashy it is. I was really heartbroken. I couldn't believe people could say and think that about a baby! I was hurt even more when I read about how they thought the parents were horrible human beings for harming their child.

Anyways. The government here change the law between when Grace got hers done and when we did Sophia's, so you can only get your ears pierced in a hospital with a doctor. We went and saw an ENT who was able to do Sophia's ear piercing.

We were lead into the exam room after choosing her earrings (heart shaped with a little "diamond" in the middle.)

 The doctor cleaned the ear and then marked the point for the hole and had me approve it.

 Sophia couldn't figure out why they were touching her ears! She wanted to make eye contact and laugh with the nurse!

 Then the doctor used the little ear gun and we paused between ears to soothe her. She cried longer than Grace did, but only for a minute. Since then, she's been fine! She hasn't pulled on them or cried or anything!

 I love that all of us Galloway girls have this in common now! Grace was with us in the room and she freaked out when Sophia started crying, but Grace has a big doctor phobia anyways.

 Pretty baby! I just love her little earrings on her tiny, little ears!