My confession...

I officially 'resigned' from my job as an RN at Nationwide Children's Hospital.  Sigh;)  A couple of months ago when I spoke to my manager about the job I said to her, "you'd have to be crazy to not do this job. it's just perfect!"  Well. Foot in mouth.. I guess I'm crazy.

So here come my rationalizations.. er.. list of reasons..  Joel and I are in a weird place right now in life.  It seems as though all of a sudden time is more valuable than money.  This is a hard concept for me to get used to but honestly, its true.  In this situation, 1 16 hour day a month would give us a substantial cushion in our checking account.  but it would also pull away me from the kids, from getting any work done around the house or for the ministry, and it would also take away the opportunity for Joel to get any work done that day at all as well.  (Joel is unable to get anything done at all when having both kids for a full day. I can usually get 1-3 things done.)  I am already falling behind drastically on my ministry responsibilities.  I just realized the other day that I only have 4 free hours a day to accomplish what I need to accomplish.  I have started to keep track of those 4 hours in order to be a better steward of my time.

Here's how I spent my 4 hours yesterday -

1pm - 3pm nap during kids naps (we stayed up until midnight the night before doing taxes and I felt like if I did not nap I would be snapping at Joel for silly things by dinner time)

8pm - 10pm 10 min shower, 20 mins cleaning up house to an acceptable standard (being able to walk from 1 room to another) 1 hour eating dinner while reading chapter 3 of Joel's book and commenting, 20 mins phone conversation with Joel, 30 mins plugging in support data for ministry, 15 mins surfing web about starting solids and skin related issues in babies (Judah having rashes like Joel did at this age)

yeah it doesn't add up, I went to bed late.

Yeah, so I know everyone is busy.  We are just finding ourselves at the height of a lack of free time and that is forcing us to look at our priorities and cut what is not a priority.  Working at the hospital just isn't right now for us.  Also, then there are the added variables of the stress involved the day before and day of for me .. it's not as enjoyable when I seriously don't know what I'm doing because I work so infrequently.

Another manager of mine spoke to me about the decision and the family.  She agreed with me that at the rate things are changing at the hospital it is very hard to keep up with only doing 2 shifts a month, she admitted that sometimes she doesn't even feel totally comfortable working only once a week.  She also let me know that if things ease up a bit I can be rehired at NCH within the next 3 years without having to go through full days of hospital orientation and paperwork.  That conversation was comforting.

Would I like the extra money? Of course. Would I love the cultural admiration and value (from others) that is placed on being a pediatric nurse? Big time.

This is a great reminder for me.  I need to find my significance in Christ.  My fulfillment is in Him.  Teaching my sons according to His word glorifies Him.  Serving and submitting to my husband glorifies Him.

Making more money really only glorifies myself.

Plus, I know my husband is a man of the Word. He will provide for the family (1 tim 5:8) and I trust that the Lord will provide.

Joel's ponderings...

Joel has no ponderings.  He is good at almost everything, but he is not a writer. at all.  (ok, I know you are thinking, "didn't he write a book?" yeah..  but it was a long process.. and he had some help... ) Sometimes when he gets me a card for my birthday or our anniversary and it has 1 or 2 sentences written in it I get really excited.  So, I decided to finally give in and name 'our' blog "Penton's Ponderings" instead of "Pentons' Ponderings." Because, Joel is never gonna ponder. so sad.

Hawaii Trip - no kids

Mid-March, Joel and I dropped the kids off and headed to Hawaii! He had a speaking engagement there and we figured having me come along and taking an extra day there to celebrate our 6-year anniversary would be good. Judah stayed with the Groskopf Grandparents and Joel was with the Penton Grandparents. We felt like dumping both of them on just one family would be too much.

The 10 hour flight from Atlanta to Honolulu was pretty rough. The distance between the seats was about 2 inches less than normal and I didn’t really notice but Joel suffered a bit with his knees wedged pretty much the entire time. We were slightly (well, ok..moderately to severely) disappointed that there wasn’t internet on the 10 hour flight but other than that we are super pumped to have this huge amount of time to read the Bible, talk, watch movies and just be together. It was fun. Oh yeah, and then at the end of it we get to be in Hawaii for 2 days! Woo hoo.

When we got to Honolulu it was 3pm but 9pm our time. We were pretty exhausted but it was easy to wake up with the awesome jeep wrangler with the top down and glorious weather!

We checked in, then went to Waikiki beach for a quick swim and then headed to Cheesecake Factory for Dinner. 

The next day we woke up at 3am to catch a 5am flight to Maui. We were slightly disappointed with the ‘island hopper’ flight, as we both thought something would be easier about them. .. like less security, ability to check in later, free checked bags.. something! But it turns out they are just like any other flight, just shorter. We got to Kahului, Maui and rented a mustang convertible then headed East to take the Road to Hana. We stopped at scenic views, and for a short hike during the sunrise.

We somehow passed by the Black Sand beach and figured that out by the time we reached Hana. Oops. However, We stopped at a beach with black
sand that wasn’t the official ‘Black Sand Beach” but we thought the
official one was probably exactly the same.

In Hana we stopped by the Hotel Hana-Maui to eat breakfast that was
surprisingly good but very expensive. My cup of coffee was $4.25! The
Breakfast helped wake us up. The next stop was Hasegawa's General Store
to pick up some snacks and drinks for the rest of the day. Then we
headed to Hamoa Beach. Hamoa beach was pretty gorgeous, the waves were big, the sand continued throughout the water without any rocks. The
beach sand was so pretty with browns and blacks and tans like some type
of granite counter top in an HGTV episode. Joel played in the waves the
entire time, I joined him for a bit and then laid down and fell asleep. Ahh:)


Then we headed to Kipahulu Falls and Haleakala National and went on a 2.5
mile hike. It was soooo beautiful and a great workout and a lot of
fun. Of course, near the top of the hike, we realized we were running
out of time. So we turned around and quickly rushed back down and headed to the West side. We wanted to eat there and catch our flight back in time.

We decided to continue on the road we were on instead of backtracking on
the Hana Highway. Suddenly we were on a dirt road ..then it was a dirt
road that was on a cliff.. not an uncommon thing in Maui, except this
time when I looked up I noticed that the mountain just beside our car
did not have a fence against it to keep the rocks from falling. In a
convertible with the top down this was a little scary.. Oh wow, what the
heck did we get ourselves into? The road continued on like this for
about 10 miles and it was so bumpy that we could only go 15 miles per
hour. It took us 45 minutes. We were considering turning around which
we really didn’t want to do but we continued to press forward.(these were the only 2 options for us.. Hawaii in general doesn’t have many roads, but especially Maui) but just when we had almost given up hope we came upon a paved road with even some white edge lines! Praise God. However, we were still very far from civilization and we were almost out of gas. We pushed ahead (I would have been asleep by now if it weren’t for all the excitement of almost getting pummeled by rocks and possibly running out of gas and ruining our rental car) ..and Finally we encountered a very small town with .. A GAS STATION! Praise God again. We continued the much easier drive to Lahina and caught the sunset while we were eating dinner.

We fell asleep in the airport and on the flight back to Honolulu. We slept in the next day until 9am.

The next day we ate breakfast at Lulu’s and spent 1.5 hours at the Halona Blowhole lookout (scenes from the movies From Here to Eternity and Pirates of the Caribbean were recorded here)where we encountered some crazy locals and watched them dive between rocks and stuff. It was nuts.

Then we had a late lunch at Dave’s and Joel had to leave for his speaking engagement. I spent the rest of the night relaxing at the hotel. Yeah, I know I should have gone shopping or something, but I was just so tired! Joel came back we had another ‘date night’ and then woke up the next morning, had breakfast again at Lulu’s and hung out at Waikiki beach for an hour. Then to the airport. So Sad.


We both agreed just 1 more day would have been perfect. We made numerous comments about what to do ‘next time.’ I really hope there is a next time!

March - thank goodness it's here!

Wow am I relieved to finally be in the month of march. Ok yeah, I realize it's almost over now. Thankfully, things slowed down just a little bit for the ministry and Joel has been home a little more. Judging season is over for me. And..we got to take a trip to Hawaii in the middle of the month!

March didn’t start off that great though..we began with a flooded basement, broken pipe in the front yard and broken garage door. All of that happened when Joel was away and I think I did an ok Job of taking care of it. But..it was horrible to have to go through it again when we JUST dealt with a flooded basement 2 years ago. A combo of problems caused the failure this time as the first pump went out, the alarm did not go off and the battery back up pump was installed wrong so it did not work either. In fact, Joel III and I both discovered the problem almost simultaneously as we both heard the pump make a weird noise and he looked at me and said “You ear dat?”

I sadly had to start Judah on solid food at the beginning of this month. He was totally ready, and my pediatrician actually suggested I start him even earlier due to his reflux. I waited until after the Florida trip. When we got home and things settled down a bit I noticed him grabbing my food and also crying when I would take a drink of something (but not when I would lower it .. he liked to look at it and try to grab it I guess?) We started with Oatmeal and then moved onto bananas, avocado , then carrots. He, of course, loves it. Here’s a video of his very first day of solids. Notice how Joel does not like Judah getting all the attention.

Joel loves to watch his brother eat and just recently the two have become quite entertained with each other. I say to Joel, "Joel make Judah laugh." And he does this fake laugh right in his face. Judah laughs and squeals in delight and tries to grab his face. Then it gets dangerous as Joel believes its time to wrestle or something. But, its fun and cute and gives me hope for them entertaining each other in the future. Along those lines, ironically it feels like Joel is getting less busy and Judah is getting busier. Of course, Knowing Judah’s age and remembering, I knew this was coming with Judah. At around 6 months its all over, and just gets worse and worse (the amount of work/supervision/feeding/diapers/laundry/discipline) However, we are quite pleased with Joel lately and how he is ever so slightly acquiring the ability to play well by himself and keep himself out of danger. I, of course say this only 4 weeks after he sliced his head open on the back of one of our metals stools that fell over..don’t worry, we got rid of them! Anyway, back to my point… it seems like he can actually stay in one room and behave a bit better at this age. Aside from a couple meltdowns per day, maybe a few spankings( for direct disobedience) per week, him being extra clingy when he gets up from his nap and killer disgusting poops in the morning.. he’s really not too bad.

Florida Trip

Wow! I have some blogging to catch up on!

In February we took the family to Fort Walton Beach, FL for various assemblies and the Danny Wuerffel (it has been 6 years and I still have to look up how to spell his last name!)Trophy presentation. By the time I arrived, Joel III was pretty much back to his normal behavior and schedule, however, the first 2 days were pretty horrific, so I heard. He took a late flight with emily and had a hard time sleeping and getting back on schedule supposedly..lucky for me, I didn’t get to experience any of the crankiness! Judah didn’t have a hard time adjusting at all and soon it was just the 3 of us in a foreign land… with no GPS. We did have a great condo on the beach, and an awesome car to get all of us around. Joel just loved going to the beach and every time we would pass the elevator to go into the condo he would say “Go Beach! Go Beach!” and then he would often cry in disappointment when we came into the condo instead. (no amount of preparing/explaining would prevent this) The condo was really nice but we didn’t bring many toys from home and so Joel III kinda hated it in there. Judah however, getting bigger and older was having a hard time falling asleep in his new car seat. He preferred being in the condo and specifically in his crib..asleep.

It was tough to please them both. Ultimately, as always, I think Judah lost the battle and by the end of the week he was falling asleep in his car seat just fine.

Joel had 3 full days of assemblies and evening concerts, so although I was in the same state as him, I still did not see him until Thursday. (got there with Judah on Sunday, and we did have some time together that day) Thursday and Friday were great. We got to spend some time with friends with whom we have much in common.

The banquet seems to get bigger and bigger to me but everyone said it was the same size as the previous year. Judah didn’t do great at the banquet ..he likes to go to bed earlier now and so keeping him up until 10 just didn’t work too well. Ultimately he fell asleep with a large amount of rocking both nights and all was well. Joel did just awesome on the potty when we were in florida and seems to now be fully potty trained. We are still a bit nervous to take away his reward (usually a skittle or a teddy graham) but we will tackle that soon.

We were able to take Joel to the heated pool one morning and it was fun. Here's a video of Joel in the pool.

The last day Joel and Daddy had some fun on the beach and Joel III finally got over his fear of the waves..turns out he actually loves waves and was having a blast right up until the time we had to fly back!

Joel and Judah's First flight!

Joel left on 2-11 with Emily Holliday to Fort Walton Beach, FL. He was so excited for his "air-pane trip wif Em-bulee" that he only slept 1.5 hours for his nap instead of his normal 2.5. I warned Emily that he was a little sleep deprived. Here is a pic of him holding his 'care-we on bag' and waiting in anticipation for his trip. so cute.

Emily wrote the following about Joel's first flight:

Joel did very well on his first flight. He was excited to ride in the stroller and loved looking outside at the airplanes. The only time we even came close to a cry was on the way into the first plane. It was a super small plane with small isles so I grabbed his hand to follow me. He didn't want to come on and kept saying "no, no." All the way down the isle he was letting out tiny whimpers. He wanted to sit on my lap when we got to the seat, but the cheese and gummy bears quickly distracted him. He was very good about keeping his seat belt on.

He loved the take off. We talked about it going fast and with wide eyes he said "again" when the loud noises stopped and we hit cruising altitude. The layover in Memphis was tricky. When we got off the plane he said "see Daddy!" and I had to explain to him that we had to get on another plane, and then when we got off that one we would see him. In Memphis, It was very quiet and he was a bundle of energy! He wanted to continually spin the stroller around and say "Hi" to everyone around him. He also wanted to pick up the things that people had with them..... hat, water bottle, etc.

Soon he was back in Daddy's arms and very tired in Fort Walton Beach airport. Here's a pic taken minutes after their reunion.

On the way back to Columbus Joel did ok on 1 out of 2 flights. I think that is how it went for Emily. So all in all, 2 out of 4 flights went well for Joel III. I guess thats not too bad for a 2 year old. However, these were short flights!

Judah also did well on the flights. I took him in my baby bjorn carrier and he loved being able to see the action and everyone's faces.

We were able to rent two great car seats at FWB so we traveled light. Judah likes to be awake when he is held so he can laugh and smile and play. Of course that means he does not want to sleep. This caused some problems on the flight there. However, on the way back, I think he was so exhausted from the week and he got used to sleeping in odd situations that I was able to nurse him to sleep on both flights. So, overall Judah did well on 3 out of 4 flights.. but He's only 5 months old so he's much easier to deal with!

Crazy start of the year!

Neglected Judah.


January was insane. I mean crazy. In the past January was a nice and slow month for us. Definitely not this year. Joel's traveling picked up mid-January and has not slowed since. I have been judging quite a bit .. at least 2 times a week. We had Joel III's birthday. Then Potty training. I started a kickboxing class and church bible study. Joel III started a gymnastics class. And discipleship meetings for our church have taken up any available 'free time.' Insane. Something has to suffer when things get this busy for sure. I would say our spiritual life for one. We make time to read the Bible each day and are going through Bible in a Year for the 2nd (for me) and 3rd (for Joel) year in a row. However our readings and prayer time gets cut short when there are so many other things to do. It is times like these I am thankful for things like Discipleship, which continually pulls us back to the Word and making time for our Lord. (who, of course, deserves so much more than 20 mins of our daily lives.. right?) Especially since we are supposed to be 'leading' the relationship so we need to set a good example!

Another thing that has suffered: Judah. Poor Judah. He has discovered that life goes on around him and is therefore less interested in feeds. Joel is usually loudly playing while I'm trying to nurse him. And pretty frequently when daddy isn't home I have to interrupt a feeding for discipline or to clean Joel up after a meal. He also doesn't nurse too well on the go because he hears different sounds around him and is curious. And of course the colors of my nursing cover up are just so intriguing and it must be grabbed at all times. At his 4 month dr. appointment we discovered the consequences of these problems: Average weight gain from months 2-4 is 3 lbs and average height is 1-2 inches. Judah gained only 2 lbs and grew 3 inches. Hm.. His Dr. wasn't too concerned because we talked about how we might have just caught him after a height growth spurt and he hasn't put on the weight. I am hoping that his reflux symptoms will also get better, because that seems to hinder his nursing quite a bit as well. Poor little guy.



This video is one of my personal favs.




January 17th we celebrated Joel III's second birthday.


We had a few close friends over and the grandparents for lasagna and cake and presents. It was nice and laid back. I think Joel though was a little overwhelmed by all the adult attention and was acting up a little bit. (making mean faces, crying, and not listening very well) But that is to be expected I've heard. With the exception of his not-so-stellar behavior the night was a great success.





The next three days we began another potty training adventure that soaked up both parents time in huge ways. We literally got nothing done other than taking care of the boys. I guess that should have been expected too. Ohwell. At least this time it worked! seriously. I am shocked myself. It has been 2 weeks since we started and Joel has gone 5 days in a row without an accident. He doesn't like to go in front of other people (i.e. babysitters) and he doesn't like to go on the 'big potty.' Oh yeah, and he also doesn't tell you when he has to go. I have to put him on the potty at the right times. But other than all of those things we are doing very well! Next week we will all be traveling to Florida for assemblies and the annual Danny Wuerffel trophy extravaganza. I will not be bringing the little potty with us.. shocker. So, I am going to put the little potty away and see how it goes with the big potty at the beginning of the week.



Next week will be our first time flying with either child. I am kinda clueless about the whole process. I am excited to see how Joel will do. I think he will really enjoy it, other than the loud sound at take off and landing. Emily Holliday (who is in her 3rd trimester) will be flying down with him and then Judah and I will come a couple days later. (Don't ask me how I got away with that one!) The whole family will fly back together a week later. We decided a man-to-man approach might be best since we are all new at this. Thanks Emily!!

Joel III is soaking up new information like crazy! He is starting to put together sentences and even express his own ideas! The other day in the car he asked me to repeat a song, which he frequently does, by saying "do gain, do gain" but then he said out of nowhere, "like dat song!" I was blown away. Joel says he can even tell a difference in his language when he comes back from a long 4-5 day trip. It is so fun. Right now we (we this time being Joel III and I) are learning a Bible song to all of the new testament books of the Bible and he knows the first 6! Which, sadly is probably better than a lot of Christian adults. pop quiz/guilt trip: can you name them?

Please pray for safety during Joel's travel right now and the upcoming 2 weeks - he will be/is in: California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.