Saturday, December 24, 2011

Take Two: Little Bits is a...


Graciously, The Source for Women, a crisis pregnancy center in town that my mother-in-law is involved with, agreed to do a second ultrasound for us to hopefully tell the gender of Baby Ince.  At first, I felt bad taking up their time since we are not the type of clients they would typically see.  We quickly found that it blessed them as much as it did us to do an ultrasound for a married couple who were thrilled about having their baby, and they gave us the red carpet treatment, a thorough 3D/4D ultrasound in their beautiful facility in addition to be confidently sure of Little Bits' gender!
Here is their website if you want to check out their ministry.


We are proud to announce that Little Bits is a...






Pink or Blue? (Taylor is being "British" by not smiling...)



 GIRL!



Seth was already asleep during the reveal, so he had his cupcake for breakfast...


He couldn't believe I gave him a cupcake for breakfast and savored every bite!

Sister!



Happy Christmas Eve, Y'all!

Love,
Taylor, Robin, Seth and Baby GIRL Ince!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Facing Fears (even when they're silly)

As I've mentioned in the past, I can tend to be a bit of a hypochondriac.

Sometimes I feel like germs are out to get me (especially when raw poultry is involved), so if I can avoid possible adverse medical mishaps (food poisoning, possible allergic reactions to certain foods, catching a cold from the sneezy not covering her mouth child at baby and toddler group etc), my knee jerk reaction is to do so at all costs.

However, the cost proves to be extremely expensive:

Become home bound vegetarians.

And let's be serious, I'm from Texas, so that surely isn't going to happen.

Taylor is very grace-giving with me in these situations.  He doesn't push me.  He bought the Costco-sized hand sanitizer after Seth was born and made everyone use it if they were within 100 feet of the baby. He gently reminds me that sharing slobbered on toys in the church nursery builds immunity, and that if we don't have food allergies, Seth probably won't either.  And we all know with the raw meat neuroses, he is a genius.  He handles all raw meat passed his way without complaint.  This is a man who over the past five years has learned quickly to pick his battles.

So today we are celebrating a milestone that most of your children reached at one year old:

Eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

It may not seem like a big deal to you, but I have been carefully calculating how to go about this for the past 6 months - since Seth was cleared to try my long time nemesis. Don't get me wrong; our mutual dislike isn't because I'm allergic; I'm not.  But as a former teacher, you are taught to fear peanuts in all forms.  School is a nut-free zone People!  (At first I accidentally typed "nit-free" - don't we wish that were true?!) Plus, I was the kid that talked my mom into making me one peanut butter only half and one jelly only half because I couldn't stand having the flavors combined.  And truth be told, I threw away the whole un-eatened peanut butter half nine times out of ten.  

Taylor on the other hand is in LOVE with peanut butter.  And to his credit, he never pushed me to make Seth try it sooner.

So I've been trying for the past 6 months to get the courage up (and to get my darned baby brain to actually remember to implement the plan) to do this.  The plan came to me in early September.  At 15 months, Seth finally was ready to join our baby and toddler group at church now that he could stand missing his morning nap once a week.  It was perfect.  The group ended right around lunch time, and our church is steps away from the children's hospital in town.  My plan was to bring the PBJ sandwich with us to the group, drive home an alternate route so we'd pass the children's hospital, park in front of it, and feed it to him there. Just. In. Case.

3 months went by and I would forget every week to make the sandwich ahead of time.  This week, I realized would be my last chance, and I was bound and determined to find out once and for all if my fear of peanuts was founded.  Especially since we are going on an airplane soon - and we all know there are peanuts everywhere in airplanes!

Here are the results of my very scientific study:


It was love at first bite!


And I have to say, I walked on the wild side and didn't bother driving in front of the hospital while he ate it.  Progress!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Turkey Day 2011

It's taken me a week to recover, but, I did it.  For the first time, I prepared the whole thanksgiving meal 

All.By.Myself.  

Taylor may or may not have been called in during the de-gibleting of the turkey. Because raw poultry is one of my biggest fears.  I'm not kidding we're talking like I texted him after I attempted to, "what?!  I have to stick my hand where and pull out what?" 

My S.O.S. text read something like this:

Taylor! You must come home now there is a Turkey Emergency.  I cannot bring myself to pull out the turkey guts.  Please give me grace. Love, robs.

And the kind, patient, and understanding husband I have, high-tailed it home to be my own personal Thanksgiving hero.  This is big y'all because he couldn't care less about turkey.  He not so secretly loathes Thanksgiving because he feels like it's a holiday centered around overeating (and to add insult to injury the main course is not even a meat he prefers) and watching football.  That's when I call him, Pastor and remind him we celebrate because we are grateful to God for the provision in our lives.

Here were the provisions for the Ince Clan Turkey Day 2011:

Sweet potato casserole complete with pink marshmallows (I have no idea why the Brits have an affinity for  marshmallows of the pink variety only - made for a colorful casserole though), double batch of corn casserole (we're still working on that bad boy), scalloped potatoes (not a Thanksgiving meal staple in the past, but may become one), Aunt Ann's famous green bean salad (the only way I will eat a green bean from a can), Mom's stuffing (why I love Thanksgiving), and of course turkey (in the form that doesn't make me want to crawl into the fetal position while hyperventilating into a brown paper bag).

3 pies for 6 adults and 2 children: buttermilk, pumpkin, & my personal favorite, apple.
And this is the photo that will render a comment from my dad that my apple pie is not even close to tall enough (I followed Mom's recipe, Dad - I promise)!


We invited our Scottish friends, Bruce and Catriona and their 2 year old daughter Elliana, to join us for their very first American Thanksgiving.  The pressure was on!  I have to say, there weren't any major mishaps (thanks to Taylor's clutch turkey intervention) and Bruce immediately put me at ease when they walked in the door, looked at the spread, and he exclaimed, "This is the best day of my life!"

Talk about a great dinner guest!  They all were - Elliana even happily gobbled up all of the foreign trimmings.  We even let Seth partake this year (last year he was fed a bottle and put to bed before the feast even began - ahh, the fate of being 5 months old on Thanksgiving!).  

Look at Bruce's plate - love it!

Seth particularly liked the corn casserole and cranberry sauce
Here we are in front of our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree tired and full from our night of overeating giving thanks.
Taylor Ince, I am thankful for you, my Thanksgiving Turkey Hero.



We didn't have a chance to skype with our parents on Thanksgiving Day due to meal prep and time differences, but you better believe I sent a text (via Viber) to my mom promising to do everything next year as long as I don't have to get anywhere near a raw turkey.


"Let us come into His presence with Thanksgiving!" Psalm 95:2a