7 months

 My little man is 7 months old! For his 6 month post I wrote how laid back he is and how I can leave him somewhere easily and not be worried about him...gone are those days! Probably the day after I wrote that he started to scream whenever he couldn't see me. I actually think he's starting to get a little better with it, but it's still an issue. Lately I've been calling him my chunky monkey, for obvious reasons:

It's so sweet how Mary will run up to him and say, "How's my chunky little monkey?!?" I'm finding him very fun to play with now. He's very engaging and loves to laugh. I love this age for that reason: they laugh at everything! I think he may be getting his first tooth! I'm categorically bad at determining that. So I try not to make predictions until the tooth is visible beneath the gum...but I'm going to go ahead and make that bold claim. He LOVES bath time now and he still jumps like a champ. He started reaching for people this month too. Lots of growth going on in this home:)

Christmas 2012

Since I figured out how to create posts right from my iPad I will probably be making a lot more posts with horrible pictures:) That's what you get with an iPad! We had a great week of Christmas! Got to see lots of people and catch up.

This year our ornament exchange was more fun and meaningful for me. Mary and Noah both helped pick out Ian's ornament and they were so excited to open theirs. And I think Mary really understood (or at least, she can repeat back to me) that all good gifts come from God and that Christmas is about Jesus being born. The funny- or ironic- thing is that she would never know any different if it weren't for the books we've read about St. Nick, candy canes, etc.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our Christmas Day. Ian and Mary took a nap midday, and we all sang happy birthday to Jesus!

Cute hat gifts

Here are a couple coordinating hats my niece and her (soon to be born) baby sister will get for Christmas! They were super quick to make so I thought I would share the patterns. Not sure where I got the big hat pattern actually...but the little hat one is here:
http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/hats-hats-hats.html

And the flowers are from this cute blog I found:
http://allicrafts.blogspot.com/2012/08/free-pattern-no-sew-rose-large.html?m=1

Fun fun. Now I will attempt to make this scarf for my niece in time for Christmas:

http://idesignadventures.blogspot.com/2011/10/mustard-colored-ruffled-scarf.html?m=1

Passing gas

Strange topic for a post, but I have a couple funny stories. Last night at dinner Noah stands up in his chair really quick and while doing so he passed gas pretty obviously. Then he got this, "oh-crap"/surprised look on his face and looked behind him. Turns out he lost a gambler and a HUGE poop rolls out of the leg of his pants. Of course he starts to cry. Ian starts laughing hysterically. I put my head down on the table. Under ordinary circumstances I would find that hilarious, but it had been a long day.

Well this morning he is at the table again and he lets out a loud one. He immediately looks up at me and says, "excuse me mommy! I mean...that was Mary." Boys.

The best way to make Christmas cookies

I always feel overwhelmed at the thought of making Christmas cookies. This year we took one night to make LOTS of dough, we balled it up and froze it all. Now all I have to do is take some out for each Christmas event and bake them up as I need them. The problem I always run into with taking one day to make dough and bake everything is I end up with stale cookies! No longer:) We made chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, peanut butter, and chocolate crinkles. All freeze very well!

The beginning of the Lubbers family

The other day I was rummaging through our closet and came across a box full of mementos from the beginning of mine and Ian's relationship. I thought I would share a few of those mementos here because they are awesome. First up we have the NOTE that he used to ask me out. Yes, a note folded into the shape of a paper football. Like middle schoolers use:

 You're going to want to click on this next picture so you can see the full size image that I, for some reason, can't get to turn portrait style... The "no" box is tiny down at the bottom and outside of it says, "check here - Poseidon" HAHAHAHAHA

 I absolutely love that letter. It was so hilarious to me then and still makes me laugh out loud. The next note is one he wrote me, I believe, before a fall weekend when I was leading at Ross. It is a drawing of how we met.

 

The next picture is two index cards which my MOH used, along with gifts, to tell me that we were going to Rockbridge (AKA the greatest place on earth) for my bachelorette weekend. It was insane, and probably the best planning that Lindsey has ever done.

 The program from our wedding, which was put together by my (crazy mad graphic skills) sister in law:

 And the engagement announcement my mom put in the paper:

 Do people still do these? I haven't read a newspaper in like 10 years, but I still think it's awesome to be in one. Even if my mom put me there. Anyway, these were such great memories for me! I hope I can show them to my kids one day when they understand just how meaningful all these things are.