Christmas books and birth

I got this book from the library to read to the kids. Along with a few others. As we were reading I remembered something I read a few years back about how Mary road that donkey to bethlehem while nine months pregnant then had her baby in a stable! Obviously the bible says that already, but since being pregnant and giving birth myself, I have a new appreciation for what that meant for Mary.

Imagine a pregnant woman showing up at hospital and being told, "sorry, we're out of rooms. Go have that baby back by the dumpster." Unheard of! And it was equally repugnant during those days. I'm sure it wasn't a silent night. I'm sure that barn was filled with birthing sounds, bodily fluids, animal smells, you get the picture. If you've given birth before, imagine riding a donkey at the end of pregnancy and possibly while in labor. Then giving birth in a barn!

All that makes me so much more appreciative of Jesus. He didn't just come to earth. He came to poor people, in poor circumstances, and lived a poor life. No one can say he can't relate to them. He lived life at rock bottom according to our standards but he never complained. He lived a life characterized by JOY! Then he died for our sins even though he didn't have any. Crazy.

So I do actually like the book pictured above, even though it is not exactly historically accurate;) That would probably be pretty traumatic for my 2 and 4 year olds. Someday I will share with (my) Mary what it was actually like. I hope a mom will let me bring Mary to a birth with me when she is much older. Then she can understand that (Jesus' mom) Mary wasn't sweetly slumbering in the midst of gentle animals after she had Jesus! She was probably praying those animals didn't break out of their stalls and stampede the place!

6 months

Thomas! My baby Thomas is getting so big! He's a serious man in this first picture:

Then he reveals his true goofy self:

His favorite things in the world are jumping or being tossed in the air. He just laughs and laughs! I love his chubby cheeks and the softness of his baby skin:) Babyhood is such a short period I've been trying to soak it up as much as possible lately. We cuddled for a long time this morning before I finally dragged myself out of bed to get ready for church. He is as laid back as they come and still a pretty good sleeper. His nights can be a little wacky still...but overall he's just easy. I wish all babies were like this:) It would be easy to have a bunch!

His personality is really starting to come through as he's been more able to show excitement about things. He's in one of my favorite stages right now. He's generally happy, everything makes him smile, and he will still go to anyone. I know we're coming up on curiousity, crawling, and separation anxiety. But for now...I'll enjoy the relative ease!

Thanksgiving

The past 5 days have been wonderful. Just WONDERFUL! Ian has been off and it's been so nice to be able to just spend time with family and get some things done around the house. No meetings. Nothing we "had" to do. Just time to be together! I feel like we really maximized that time so I'm going to miss it the next few weeks. Then he will have more time off for Christmas:) On Thursday we went to my dad's and got to see my granny. She lives in Kentucky so I rarely see her. It was a really special time for me. And I think she made a new friend:

He seriously LOVED her. He just stared at her and kept giggling over and over. One time my dad had him and he started to cry, granny walked over and he smiled wide and started to giggle! I hope that it was a great moment for her too.

Then Friday we went to my mom's for a more traditional american thanksgiving meal. We have non-Turkey themes each year at my dad's, so I generally plan for a regular american thanksgiving meal some time too. Here's the whole fam:

And the cousin besties:

Those two are so loud fun together! It was another great night with family. I made some of my personal favorite dishes and we got to feast together and remember the things we are thankful for!

Megafort!

Ian is off a few days over thansgiving...which means he's got some time on his hands...which means that this is what has become of our basement:

 

 

6 months

Happy Thanksgiving! And happy 6 month birthday to my sweet Thomas!

Mary took that picture on my camera the other day. Well, that's the edited version but I was pretty proud that she got both of us in the picture! I plan to do an actual photoshoot with him within the next week like I did for these two at 6 months:

 

The white backdrop just says cheerful to me?? Anyway, more pictures and a full update to come!

Halloween 2012

This year's halloween was a bit...blustery. We made it up our street and back. Noah only made it a couple houses before he climbed in the stroller and burried himself in blankets. If someone had a stroller for me I would have climbed in before we left. It was the first day I really felt like winter was a coming. Mary was game for anything though (like usual). I think she could have kept going even though she was freezing. It's like it doesn't effect her when there's candy on the line?

As we got to our driveway Mary said, "Mommy I have so much candy!!!" I didn't bother telling her she had 10 times as much last year:)

Candy isn't the only reason that Halloween is the best day of the year. It's also my birthday! My mom made a cake and brought it over with dinner and presents! Mary helped put the candles on (and blow them out).

Selah

That's the name of my friend's kid:) It means to pause and reflect. In mid-october me, that friend, and our other friend went on a mommy's getaway overnight! We went up to Oxford and hung out for the day, then stayed the night at Hueston Woods Lodge. It was SOOOOOOOO awesome. I cannot add enough o's to stress how awesome it was. The best thing was the time I took to pause my life. To read God's word, pray, and just be in His creation. It was so so great and reminded me of how often I used to do that. In college or even leading YL we went on weekends all the time. We got away to where there are few distractions. I rarely do that now. On my days without kids you know what I do? Sleep. And when I wake up I grab a snack, then sleep some more. Or try to cram 5 errands into two hours so I don't have to bring three kids with me.

But on that weekend I got to spend some much needed time with my Savior and felt really convicted that he wants more of my time like that. Here we are resting by the lake:

Is it just me or can you actually see our smiles stretching all the way to our ears?? Our view from our room, with some slightly bad editing:

I'm still working on the fill function in photoshop, which is incredible.

Note to self: plan more weekends like this in the future. Soon.

I'm back!

Since I bought photoshop last week I got all the pictures off my camera! Ironically the ones I'm posting today aren't edited or anything special...they're just fun! Sweet Thomas man had his first taste of solids a couple weeks ago.

He eventually worked through the yucky face:

He eats like a champ now. I remember the learning curve being a lot longer with the other two. Maybe because they were younger? Or maybe because everything seems like forever with your first kid?

 

Thomas also LOVES to bounce/jump now. I put him in his jumpy seat thing today and he literally jumped non stop for 45 minutes. If I can figure out how to get a video from my iPad to this blog I will post the one of him jumping. It's not 45 minutes long, don't worry:) He's almost 6 months! I think this is my favorite time in babyhood. Such a happy man.

Fun with daddy