Merry Christmas!

Have I told anyone lately that I adore my son? He absolutely cracks me up and is the light of my life!!

It's 5:15 pm right now on Christmas day, and my son has not had one bite to eat today. He's been up since 7, but is just having way too much fun playing with his new toys to stop and eat anything! Patrick and I have offered him all of his favorites, (including sweets and candy!) but to no avail!

Today has been so special. Patrick and I are just soaking in the last Christmas we'll ever have as a family of three. We're so excited for Presley to get here in March, but oddly enough it seems bittersweet that it won't just be Tucker Bear any more. My poor daughter! I'm sure that sounds terrible!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! May the joy of Jesus fill our hearts today and always!

Happy Birthday Patrick!

Today is Patrick's 38th birthday, and the 8th anniversary of the day we met. :o) I'm so blessed to have this amazing man by my side each and every day. He is a hard worker, a good provider, an incredibly involved daddy, and the biggest support system I've ever had! I just love this man!

Happy Birthday Schmoopie! (No your Schmoopie!)

The Magic of Christmas

I've always loved Christmastime. I've loved the hustle and bustle of last minute shoppers, Christmas music taking over the radio waves, bundling up in the car to drive endlessly looking at Christmas lights, seeing all the beautiful nativities spring up around us, Santa everywhere you go, listening to, reflecting on, and pondering the Christmas story.... But my new favorite and best thing about Christmas is experiencing it with my three-year-old son. Every moment this year has been so precious, so beautiful...I'm just so blessed!

Tucker is loving Christmas this year! He'll walk over to our tree randomly all throughout the day and say, "Mommy, isn't it beautiful?" Anytime he sees a house covered in lights he'll say, "Look Mommy! Christmas!" Which is always followed with "Are you happy?" (He knows I love it.) We talk about how the whole world is celebrating Jesus' "happy day" (not birthday, mind you!) Then he likes to spout off how Santa brings toys to celebrate Jesus "happy day" because "Jesus likes to share." And I swear he remembers that we bake Jesus a "happy cake" and sing to Him before we do gifts because he asked me if we were going to do it again. He likes to hear about how God loves us so much he just had to be with us here on earth. He's just mesmerized with the whole season. And I'm just enamored by him. His excitement has brought back all the magic and wonderment of Christmas to Patrick and me.

I have friends who's kids are older and the magic is slightly lost. I'm praying that somehow Tucker and I will be able to hold onto these feelings forever.

A Cowboy Room in the Making

We decided since Presley was getting a room make over, Tucker should too. Really, I just wanted to give him a little boys room. I loved his sports room, but I figured he could always have a sports room, and I wanted to do something that only little boys want. So I asked him if he would like a cowboy room, and want it he did! We still have a lot to do, but here's one wall that's almost done! Obviously we haven't hung anything on the walls yet, and I'm also going to hang rope where the colors meet the white border in the middle, but it's getting there! And that's one proud cowboy!

Painting Presley's Room

Tucker loves to be a little helper, so he jumped right in to help Poppy get Presley's room painted. As much as Patrick would hate that I'm telling the world this, Tucker's favorite color is actually pink, and as he was painting he said, "Mommy, I don't want the cowboy room. I want the pink room!" Patrick spent the rest of the night explaining that "pink was a girl color."

The Fruits of the Spirit...Revealed...

On Fridays, Tucker goes to what we call "big school" with his babysitter and all of her family. In his class each week this semester he's been learning about the fruits of the spirit. He's getting quite good at remembering all of them, and this week he just make me laugh out loud as he explained one of these gifts...

He was sitting in the backseat of the car finishing off his fruit snacks and I asked "Tucker, which fruit of the spirit did you learn about this week?"
"Self-control," he confidently replied.
"And what does that mean?" I questioned, to which he matter-of-factly replied, "NO more fruit snacks!"

Best Friends

Tucker and I headed over to our dear friends The Roseberry's house on Wednesday night for a play date. Since Patrick and Jed were both working late, Stacy and I enjoyed a great evening with the kids--they played so well together! (As they do most of the time!)

As it seems to be tradition for us, we always end up throwing the kids in the bath tub at the end of the night before saying good-bye, and I had to post these precious pictures of our precious kids! We love our Haley girl! (Hopefully I'll be able to figure out this picture posting stuff!)

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Patrick and I have realized lately how much we have to watch what we say, because little ears are listening! Mostly it's harmless stuff, like how Tucker says "Oh my stars" like we do, or how he likes to play with the button in the car for the windows and shout out "Everybody downstairs" like he hears his babysitter say into her intercom every day. :o) But last weekend just cracked us up...

My parents were over and Tucker and his Poppy were wrestling. Tucker was getting frustrated because Poppy's a tough competitor :o) and he was shouting at him to stop. Finally he stood up and said "Poppy stop! You have to be careful--I have a baby in my tummy!"

I guess he's heard that around our house a time or two lately!

Life's Changes...

So much is going on in the lives of the Chamberlains right now! It seems that life always changes dramatically with us, it's never subtle.

First of all, we are finally moved and settled (well, almost settled!) into our new house! We are very happy, and very exhausted! We are happy to be small town folks again, and are looking forward to Tucker starting school in a small town in two years. (That's right--in only two years our little baby boy will be a kindergartener!) Tucker has been so great about the move. It always amazes me how kids adapt to change better than we think they will. He loves his new room, and that the park is about a two minute walk from our house. He loves that he can have races with Patrick down the hall and really pick up speed! He's just been great.

Our other exciting news is that Patrick's club finally opened! I am just in awe of my husband right now. He's had so much input into what the club should be like, and he's been in charge of just about everything, and to see how his hard work has paid off is amazing. The men and women that came out to golf this weekend gave very positive feedback, and his staff loves him as usual. He's a great Head Pro! I'm just so proud of him!

As for me I feel as if I haven't slept in weeks! With the club opening in the exact time frame of our move, I've been on my own a lot to get boxes unpacked and things put away, and to chase Tucker around. I'm a little ashamed to say he's watched more than his fair share of TV, but I can't get it done otherwise! Between moving, working, being with Tucker, and being pregnant, I'm wiped! The baby is doing great though. It moves all the time and I just can't wait to find out what it is. We'll find out at the beginning of November.

Hopefully life will settle down at least for a little while. But at least it's interesting!

Third times a charm...

We are finally ready to tell the world...we're pregnant! After two unsuccesful pregnancies we are so excited that on March 19th the Chamberlains will finally have their foursome! Now Patrick will always have enough people to fill up a tee time!

So far it's been so good. I'm giving myself (actually Patrick is giving me!) two shots a day, one in the morning and one at night, to thin my blood, and it's working to keep our baby healthy. I'm thirteen weeks now, so past the scary time, and happily into my second trimester.

I feel like it's just now that we can get excited and start getting attached. I already feel guilty over this one (so surely it's a girl, right?!) It's just so different with the second one. We were over the moon when we found out about Tucker. It was all we could think about and talk about. But with the second one, sure you're happy, but your world doesn't stop or slow down like it seemed to with the first one. I'm assuming that will change... :o) And if I'm totally honest, we're really can't imagine how we could possibly love this one as much as we love our Tucker Bear! I mean come on, this baby is going to be splitting our time with Tucker--is that fair? I keep telling Patrick, "Don't worry--we'll like this one too" mostly for his reassurance, but partly to reassure myself!

I'm saying this half jokingly--all my friends say that you just grow a new heart. I know this will be true, it's just that Tucker's will have been our world for four years by the time this baby comes. We just can't imagine it any other way. But, on the other hand, I haven't felt like our family has been complete with just the three of us, and I already feel like a hole is being filled just knowing this little one is coming.

We should find out in early November if it's a boy or a girl. I know I should just want a healthy baby, but I really want a girl! Thankfully, God knows what I need, so I'll be happy either way.

But until then world, it's a "she"!

Back to Buisness

The school year is offically back in full swing, and I am back to the grind in my new first grade classroom. Oh, my first graders...I could already fill up a whole other blog with things that go on in my room! I'll save that for some other time. :o)

Me going back to work each fall is always an adjustment for Bear. This year it was even more so because three days before the year started, our nanny left us! It wouldn't be our house without drama I guess, and we were left scrambling to find someone to keep Tucker. But God is good, and our history with Him in these exact situations enabled us to have a sense of peace over it. We knew He would provide the perfect person, and provide He did! Our dear friends gave us the name of a lady that watches their kids occasionally, and we called her up and she readily agreed to keep Bear. She is such a blessing! She lives right in the neighborhood where I work, pretty much right down the street, and she is precious! She is the proud mother of seven kids, (that's right--SEVEN!), she loves the Lord and she adores children! She homeschools all of her kids, and she keeps a couple of little ones around Tucker's age. She does a Christian-based preschool curriculum with Tucker and the little ones from 9-1 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on the other days they go to the park, play with her millions of toys, and sometimes they bake! She is supermom! They've already made blueberry muffins (Bear's favorite) and chocolate chip cookies. We are just singing His praises for sending us Miss Melinda and her precious family!

Thankfully there haven't been many tears when I leave him in the mornings (well, I should say there haven't been many tears for Tucker in the mornings, but always tears for mommy!), and he usually throws a fit when it's time to go so we know he's having fun. Only 172 more days til school's out! I think I may have to step up my game next summer or Tucker's going to start to realize my mommy-short comings now!

The One Whom Jesus Loves

I wrote this entry in my journal this summer and just had to post it...

I've been having a conversation with Tucker that spawned from a book I had recently read. The author brought to light how difficult it is for me to accept that Jesus loves me. I totally buy into Him loving everyone else, but I always imagine that I will be on the outskirts of His interactions with everyone else when we get to heaven. (I've been praying over this, and my spirit is starting to see the truth, don't worry!) But the author pointed out how sure John, Jesus most loyal disciple, was that Jesus loved him. In fact, it became John’s identity. When he was writing books in the bible, he didn’t say, “and Jesus said to John…” He would write, “and Jesus said to the disciple that Jesus loved.” “The One Whom Jesus Loves” is how John saw himself. And the author made me realize that we should all feel that way. That should be the identity of every Christian yesterday, now, and forever. So I made the decision to make sure Tucker grew up knowing that Jesus loves Him completely.

I started to do what the author did. I would ask Tucker, “Do you know who you are?” And he would say, “What?” (Not “who”, mind you, but that cute toddler talk again. “What?”) And I would tell him, “You’re the one whom Jesus loves!” And I would smother him in hugs and sugars and talk about how special he was. That was on Monday. He only needed about 48 hours to accept this, praise God!

On Wednesday night, the night of the morning he confessed his fears of “being died”,(I'll post that story soon) Patrick, Tucker and I were laying on the bed watching some TV before it was time to read books. And as we were watching I snuggled in close and repeated our exercise. “Tucker, do you know who you are?” I whispered in his ear. “What,” he asked. “You’re the one whom Jesus loves.” He nodded, and what he did next made my heart want to burst. He turned over to see his daddy and he exclaimed, “Daddy, I’m the one who Jesus loves!” He was so proud! Then he turned to me and said, “I’m the one who Jesus loves!” and he gave me a proud hug. I smiled and laughed and held him tight, and silently praised God for this precious realization for him. His new identity had been confirmed. “The One Whom Jesus Loves” may have been John for centuries, but for now, it’s just for Bear, “The One Whom Jesus Loves.”

Blessed be His name!

Five years later....

Today is Patrick and my 5th wedding anniversary! Here's my Top 10 reasons I love Patrick...

10. He makes my breakfast
9. He likes to quote movies/TV shows
8. He's never met a stranger
7. He has a tender heart
6. He likes to go to the mall
5. He's my best friend
4. He cleans the house
3. He an incredible father
2. He's loves the Lord
1. He knows everything about me, and he still loves me!

I am so blessed!! Here's to 55 more years Schmoopie! (No, your Schmoopie!)

Standing on Watch

Tucker's imagination carries him to the strangest places and most random scenarios. I love it! He's always role playing, making up stories, using different "voices" when he plays with his toys, and it just cracks Patrick and me up. Last weekend was prime example.

My brother was in town and we were hanging out at my parents. My dad moved the coffee table a little so Bear could have more room to play, and Tucker immediately dropped to his knees and began examining the little indentations the tablelegs had left in the carpet. Finally he shouted, "Look! Tracks! We better look for more!" So off went Uncle Paul and Tucker on the hunt for the mysterious "tracks". Finally Paul asked him, "Tucker, who do you think made these tracks?" And Tucker matter-of-factly responded, "Jesus!" Then he quickly added, "Shh!! We have to keep looking--He might be coming back!"

Look on son! He will most definately come back!!

Pitter Patter of Little Feet

I love Sunday mornings for a million reasons. I love that Patrick is always home on Sundays, that we get to "sleep in" til 6:30 when Bear gets up, that we always make a big family breakfast, and that we linger in our jammies until it's time to go to church. I guess that's our new Sunday morning tradition. But the best part of Sunday mornings is literally the pitter patter of little feet.

We always know Bear is up because first we'll hear his door creak open, which is followed by these little pitter patters of his feet walking down the hall to our room. When I hear those little feet, I just light up inside, no matter how tired I am. Then he pats us tenderly with his chubby little hands, (or "pets" us, as he calls it), and when we open our eyes he's right there in our face, smiling at us, right at eye level because you know that's just how tall he is, and he says "Good morning Mommy/Daddy!" Of course, Tucker thinks we don't wake up until he reaches our beds, but I'm always up by the crack of his door. But I always lay in my bed like it's Christmas morning, smile on my face but squeezing my eyes shut, because I don't want to ruin his surprise for us. My heart races like I'm about to get the biggest most expensive gift ever and I can hardly stand to keep my eyes shut. When he "pets" me, and says "Good Morning Mommy" and I open my eyes to see his precious face right there, I just melt every time!

I'm so blessed that God picked him for me. I'm hoping his little face and tradition will stay imprinted on my heart for the rest of my life.

Lessons Taught, Life Learned...

I love the idea of being important enough to take up webspace. Think about it. Just about everyone can access the web now, the "world wide web" now, and here the Chamberlains are marking their spot, staking their claim in the vastness of it all! We're awesome!

Anyway, I (Valerie) thought mostly that this would be an easy and fun way for me to record our precious memories of Tucker Bear. He's getting so big now. How did that happen? One minute we're finding out we're finally going to have a baby, and the next we looked up and he's three-and-a-half!

I love my son. I love his mind. I love that every day he is truly learning something new. Right now it is the letter T, for Tucker of course, but also for Thomas the Train. Somehow T's have fallen in place all around him, and he loves to discover them and proclaim them solely for himself.

He has also, like any good Texan would, discovered his beloved state. The shape of the state is proudly displayed on his "Native Texan" birth certificate, (framed and hung ceremoniously in his room!), and I suppose that's where he saw it first. But lately we've seen it quite often. In buildings, on highways, and probably most imporantly on an episode of "The Backyardigans"! So as it should be, Texas is engrained in Tucker's heart, and whenever we see one he gets so excited. We have them carved in the sides of a lot of our highway overpasses, and today on the tollway he squealed with delight in the backseat and shouted "Mommy, I live in Texas! I was born there!" And then he giggles when I tell him that I, in fact, live there too. I mean of all the coincidences!

Oh to be three again! Tucker is learning so much about the world around him, and he's teaching Patrick and I just as much about life. Drink it in! Enjoy every minute! Play hard! Love shamelessly! And of course...fight for what's yours!

What a kid!