We have some fun, too!

I know I complain a lot about the fussing, but we do have some fun, too! This is from the weekend. Who knew it was so much fun to have Mommy blow in your face? Those of you with babies, have you ever done this? Just blow in their face and see what kind of response you get.

We tried some big boy chunky babyfood. That is lasagna sauce all over his face. He's still freaked out by textures, by the way. He spit out all the little noodles.

It's always fun when Mommy comes to get me up from a nap! (And when Daddy comes home for lunch, but I didn't have the camera ready :( Talk about excited!)





Speaking of fun, what should Luke be for Halloween? Here are some choices, so try to vote in my poll the the right of this post.

Eight Months Old

Luke is eight months old today. What a day it has been, so far! He is not a happy camper. I just can't seem to do anything to please him. He has changed by leaps and bounds over just the past couple of weeks, so maybe he just wants to do something different. Unfortunately, I'm not doing a good job of figuring out what that is. I have already tried new teething biscuits, banana puffs, milk in a sippy cup, watching Aladdin, and letting him tear up some magazines. We even went for a car-ride and to the store. He has cried through every activity. He just went down for a nap, but only because I physically held him down and rocked him for about 15 minutes straight. I hope he sleeps at least an hour, because I need a break!

Here's some crawling footage from this morning:

This does make him happy, but he usually tries to pull up and falls over and bumps his head. Then the crying starts all over again. This look really sums up how we are both feeling about the situation:

It's Official...

Luke can crawl and pull up!! Today we had to get out of the house because we were both about to go crazy, so we loaded up to go see Denise, Mary Selwyn (MSN), and Adeline. He was chewing on a little basket that belongs to MSN, so I took it away from him and put it in her toybox. He apparently did not appreciate that because he immediately got up on all fours and crawled belly-off-the-floor to the toybox, grabbed the edge, stood up and got the basket. And continued to chew on it, of course. (Unfortunately, I did not have my camera). Oh boy, am I in trouble. As you can see, it looks like he is going to be into everything.

I can't figure out why he is so grumpy. He has fussed and whined and cried all day long! I have a few theories...teething, ear still hurting, hungry for real food? Who knows? And I guess I can forget Crossfit. Gone are the days of just sitting in his stroller and watching us workout. He has to be moving at all times.

Yesterday was much better. He watched the Baby MacDonald video all the way through twice. And he had his first real food...an egg yolk separated in my handy-dandy new egg separator I won playing Bunco. (Thanks, Jenn!) He wasn't sure about this new texture, but he did a good job of picking it up and shoveling it in!

We have our good days and bad. I wouldn't trade any of it for a second. Okay, except for maybe a "Mother's Day Out" or two...

At the end of the day, no matter how bad it's been, it's always better when Daddy comes home!

Changing Fast

Pipes are fixed! We're back in business. It is SO great to have water again. I can't tell you how many times I put soap on my hands before I remembered there was no water. We were really shown a lot of goodness and lovingkindness in this situation, though. For one, our home warranty was going to expire this month and if the pipes had not busted I would have forgotten to renew it! It has covered almost every repair (including this one) that we have done since we moved in, which is not a lot, but you never know in an older house. Also, while the guy was under the house fixing the plumbing he discovered a live wire that could have been bad news for someone. Like the termite inspector who also came yesterday and was walking around under the house in the water. On top of all that, we really didn't even get upset about it. We just filled a few containers with water for the toilet and took showers at Barry and D's (thanks again, guys). If you know me very well, you know that I can get a little bent out-of-shape over things like this, which only makes the situation worse, so this way was much better.


Aside from the busted pipes, we had another great weekend. Saturday night we went to a concert, I guess you would say, at the art museum, although I'm really not sure of the name of the band. Someone local, K-something? Anyway, it was a great time and we met some cool new people. I still can't get over how many young couples live in Dothan!

We had a great visit with my parents last week, too. I don't think Luke is any more spoiled now than he was before they came. I guess that's really not possible, though...

While they were here, I tried to work on my landscaping again. The only new addition was a Chinese Evergreen Wisteria vine that we planted next to the front porch. I have visions of a cute little vine covering the ugly columns and that scalloped overhang thing, but we'll see.



Yesterday was an especially fussy morning for Luke, and I tried everything to keep him entertained. He loves to stand up, so this worked for a little while. And I know this is awful, but he is finally starting to watch TV a little more. He seems to like that Little Einstein video.

He hasn't quite mastered crawling yet, but he does pretty good with the army crawl. He has perfected sitting up on his own.

He just seems to be changing so fast. He went from just learning to sit up without support at 6 1/2 months to dragging himself around, getting on his hands and knees and then plopping over on his butt. Now it's not just dadadadada. There are all kinds of noises that sound like words. The other day my dad was asking him "where's Dada?" and he started looking around saying "Da! Da!" He's been cruising around on the furniture for about a month now, but yesterday he pulled himself up without my help. Now he gets up on his knees and grabs onto the edge of the crib and cries when he wants out. Time to lower it even more! That didn't last long.


I don't even know when he grew all this hair. We just started noticing that he has enough to spike now! He's working on growing more teeth now, too. (Probably part of the fussiness. That or the unexplained hives he has had for about 4 days...) I can see the very tip of a top front tooth coming in.

When we got back from Mexico, he started grabbing for the spoon while I'm trying to feed him. Now feeding him is almost impossible. He has to do it himself. It's not messy at all.

I know everyone says it and we'll say it a million more times, but it just goes by so fast! He'll be eight months old in 3 days!!

Bearing Fruit

In case you didn't read my last post, John Riddle is the minister who married Kyle and me. I don't know him as well as Kyle does, but I do know that he is an awesome person and disciple (Diane, you need to figure out how to set up a google account so you can post corrections to my terminology...) Anyway, I promised I would share with you what I learned from him during dinner last Saturday, so here's what I got.

One of the biggest things we wanted to know was what in the world should we do about all of the craziness going on in the country today. For me (and I know it goes back MUCH further than this), but for me, it goes back to my senior year in high school. That year, one of my best friends and I were SGA president and vice-president, which really just meant that you got to do announcements and the devotion over the intercom every morning. Except...that year, no devotion. We were allowed to say the pledge of allegiance, but no prayer and no "Wind Beneath my Wings" or "El Shaddai." I remember being a little upset and angry, but I guess I was too young or naive to think about what was happening on a bigger scale. I wish I could go back and do something then, but at the very least I want to do something now.

I am a very honest person, even if to my own detriment, so I will tell you the reason I decided to go to Mr. Riddle for advice. I love to watch Glenn Beck. Think he is great. He suggested that if we wanted to get involved, the first thing we needed to do was go to our pastor, minister, spiritual counsellor, etc. You may think Glenn is crazy, but that is some good advice. (You should try to watch him this week, see what you think).

Here's what Mr. Riddle said:

1. You must be a good sheep first! You must be abiding in Him and bearing fruit. If you try to accomplish anything without doing this first you will be unsuccessful. The enemy will knock your legs right out from under you!

2.Be at peace and know that God is in control. He knew this was going to happen. Realize that our time here is just a "parenthesis in eternity."

3.Once you have established your abiding relationship and are bearing fruit, then you may be called to do something on His behalf--spiritually, politically, whatever. And if He calls you to do something, you will know it.

Makes perfect sense, right? Mr. Riddle actually wrote a discipleship series that included steps to an abiding relationship. I can get you a copy of that part if anyone wants it. Also, he wants to come back to Dothan to do a workshop for us. I'm not exactly sure what all that would include. He said he wrote it for men, but would be glad to give the workshop to couples. Let me know if you are interested so we can get it set up. It would probably be sometime in October, I'm guessing. The workshop takes 9 hours and he is willing to break that up into two saturdays. I'll get more details for you, but I think at least part of it will teach you how to invest, rather than spend, your life here.

Also, girls, since it came up several times during our study of the "Praying Wife" about how many times you are supposed to pray for things I asked him about that, too. There wasn't really a direct answer (i.e. pray 7 times and in 3 days it will be revealed to you...), but here's what he said.

First of all, if you are praying for something that you know is His will, then go ahead and thank him for it because He's going to give it to you.

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. If we know that He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have that which we asked of Him." --1 John 5:14,15

When you are praying about a problem or in times of trouble:

1. Thank him for the problem. He allowed it to be there for a reason, for you to grow from or for you to be enriched by. We benefit from negative circumstances. From Mr. Riddle's Discipleship Series..."Negative Circumstances are usually for one or more of three reasons: Discipline, Deployment or Development. Probably 80% of the time they are for our development and if handled correctly develop our Christlike character and we are protected from the negative impact of them."

For example, right now I am very thankful that a pipe underneath our house busted this weekend and we discovered that all the pipes under the house are rotten and need to be replaced. We turned the water on to take a shower for church yesterday morning and found that the leak is so big we have zero water pressure. I'll let you know how it turns out...




God will not let any circumstances into your life that you can't handle. It is comforting to know that "anything that happens to you today has gone through God's filter and he has said 'yes' or 'no.' You can either depend on Him to get you through and benefit from it or struggle through on your own and waste that opportunity to grow. Mr. Riddle said that he went through a 10 year period of time in his life that was the worst he has been through, but it didn't seem like it because he had figured this concept out.

"Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long." --Psalm 25:5

And, of course, "...all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. --Romans 8:28

2. When having problems or negative circumstances, know that we can always count on Him for goodness and lovingkindness, and thank him for it.

"...no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly." --Psalm 84:11

"..he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him." --Psalm 32:10

Ask God specifically to show you goodness and lovingkindness in these difficult situations. Write it down when you do, so you can go back and remember all the times He has. Just remember that this has to be done within the context of an abiding relationship!

Please let me know if this does not make sense. Being a clear communicator is not one of my gifts!

A Very Good Day

Before bed last night Kyle and I were talking, and we decided that we had just had a very good day. Well, a pretty good weekend, really. Friday night, instead of going out to eat, we had leftovers. Since we ate kind of light and didn't spend any money, we treated ourselves to ColdStone!! That right there would be enough to make the weekend great for me. (And don't get too excited, because while it does get a little better, it's still pretty ordinary...)

Saturday morning, since we went to bed at 10:30, we were up and at 'em around 6:30. We (I) have decided that sleeping more that eight hours a night is just a waste of time, especially on the weekend. We made a good breakfast, straightned up the house a little, then went outside to work in the yard. This part was surely not very exciting for Kyle, because he HATES yardwork, but I think that when he saw how good it looked (relatively speaking) he was glad we got it done. Besides, he knows how excited I get about things looking good around the house. It had been several weeks since our last yardwork day, so it took most of the day. The two hour lunch to hang out with our friend Ed set us back a little, but that's ok. I think Ed was procrastinating...he's supposed to be studying for an exam. We didn't mind.

I have been trying to decide how to landscape the side of our house for about 6 months now. For some reason, I have the desire to be creative. Unfortunatey, I'm not. I've been riding around the Garden District for months to try to come up with a landscaping design, but the only thing I'm sure of at this point is that I want some Crepe Myrtles. So, when we finished the yard, we loaded up Luke and went to Dothan Nurseries. Before we left, Kyle says, "We're just going to run in and buy a couple of trees, right." Oh, yeah, shouldn't take long. That place is like a botanical garden. We were only there for about an hour, but it would have been longer if we weren't supposed to meet someone for dinner. Which brings me to the next great part of our weekend.

John Riddle is the minister (is that what you call him?) who married Kyle and me five years ago. He has his own discipleship ministry and Kyle's family first met him when they worked at the Big Oak Ranch many years ago(right?). He has counseled Kyle and his family a lot over the years and me a little. I think he has God's cell phone number. Such a neat guy. He came through Dothan Saturday night on his way home from St. George Island where he has been working on writing a book this summer. We met him at the Old Mill Restaurant where he bought our dinner. (We will have to physically restrain him so we can pay next time.) He always has encouragement and advice for us and this time we wanted to talk about all of the craziness going on in our great nation these days. He, of course, knew just what to tell us to get us on the right track. I'll just say here that what he said made perfect sense, so I can continue telling you about our weekend. I'll give you his advice in another post...

After dinner on Saturday, we came home to put Luke to bed. We kept him up late the night before, so we were sure he'd be exhausted when we got home. Not so much. Lots of screaming when we put him down. I'd like to think it is because he has had an ear infection this week, but I think it was just because he wanted to play:






He has really gotten the hang of that walker! Loves to crash into things and is already rolling up to the cabinets and trying to open them. Oh, boy. I'm going to have my hands full! At sometime after 9, I finally gave him an extra bottle and had to hold him down and rock him to sleep.

Oh, yeah! Forgot to say that before dinner we got in a Crossfit workout. I finally got the hang of Kipping pull-ups and I did 45 in nine minutes!!

On Sunday morning, we took Luke to the nursery for Sunday School and big church. It was the first time for both. He was fussing when we came to pick him up, but they said he did great. Since we started going to First Baptist, we have been going to Dr. Ken Clark's class. He is such a great teacher and we love the group. I recently did a study of "The Power of a Praying Wife" with my friend Denise and some girls from her class. We decided to visit that one this week and it was really great, too! So now I think we have decided to join First Baptist, but we're not sure which Sunday School class to join. There are more couples who have just started having babies like us in the new group we visited. Maybe we should stay with those guys for now and move up to Dr. Clark's class together later...

One thing about Sunday that made it so great was the food we ate. For lunch, we used leftover rotissere chicken and made it into wraps with tomato, turkey bacon, lettuce, avacado, feta cheese, bruschetta (got it at Sam's, it is SO good) and greek dressing. Oh my gosh! We decided that we need to open a little Italian Bistro one day. It was that good! Our dinner could be on the menu, too. We just took everything in the refrigerator and pantry that could be considered Italian and mixed it with some whole wheat noodles. We had artichoke, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, bruschetta, italian seasoning, garlic and chicken strips in there. YUM!

After lunch, Kyle was so sweet to plant my new Crepe Myrtles. Just as soon as we got started, though, we noticed a huge dark cloud coming our way. Wouldn't you know that the only rain shower all weekend was while he was planting those trees. And it stopped just as soon as he was wrapping it up. The rain didn't slow him down though. Here was my and Luke's view:



When that was all done we took Luke for a run at Westgate. I've been running a little lately, so this time was much easier than the last. I think I'm ready to do a 5K! Barry was at our house waiting for us to do Crossfit when we got back. Five rounds of 7 muscle-ups and 21 Burpees. Needless to say, after running 3 miles, I decided to sit that one out!

By then it was dinner time and we got Luke to bed a little easier. That's when we decided that it had been a very good day and that we needed to start assessing every day at the end. We only have so many! That may sound a little depressing, but as Mr. Riddle put it, our time here is just "a parenthesis in eternity." What a great parenthesis it can be, though. Every stage of Luke's life so far has been so much fun. Trying at times, but fun. And I feel like every stage will be. Lots of coloring and drawing, reading, doing math, playing sports, college years, getting married, then start it all over with grandkids! So much to look forward to. Even on the short-term. Our friend Josh Parrish is the offensive coordinator at Northview, so when we go to his games we can get a little preview of what highschool will be like. Also, my parents are coming to visit this week and we plan to go see Kyle's parents in September to see their new place in Mentone. We hope to get to see the Roden's and Warren's in Albertville next month, too!

Speaking of stages, we lowered Luke's mattress last night. He just didn't realize that he could have climbed out for a while now!

ADHD Housewife

This post is for you, Denise, not only because we were talking about it the other day, but also because you are the only one who reads my blog! Ha ha!

Tell me if this sounds familiar. So I'm folding clothes on our bed and I come across the bathmats. Even though I'm in the middle of the load I go into the bathroom to put them down. Before I can put them down, though, I have to sweep the floor. When I get back with the broom I notice that the sinks and mirrors are filthy. I put the broom down and go get the Windex and Scrubbing Bubbles. I cleaned the mirror and sinks then realize I need to take Luke's bouncer that he sits in while I'm in the shower to his room. When I get to his room I see that the trash is overflowing with dirty diapers, so I of course have to empty that, which reminds me that I should empty the trash in our bathroom and laundry room while I'm at it. At least now I'm back to our bathroom, so I sweep the floor and put down the mats. When I look around, our bed looks like the dryer exploded, there are cleaning supplies scattered around every room, Luke has peas all over him and on most of the clean laundry and the den could be a showroom for Toy's 'R Us. About that time, Kyle comes home. He doesn't say it, but I'm sure he wonders what I have been doing all day. Well, at least when he brushes his teeth tonight he will be standing on a clean bathmat!

Thanks for the sweet verse earlier!

Just as lotions and fragrance give delight,
a sweet friendship refreshes the soul. Proverbs 27:9