It's a beautiful day!

Don't let it slip away:)

When someone offers you a meal, you take it

I remember in college my step dad asked if I needed any money. I told him I was good, no thanks. As I drove away it hit me...what was I thinking?!? The man just offered you money! Take it girl. I think I said no because none of us wants to appear needy, or weak, or like we can't support ourselves. But as I've grown with Christ, and learned about God as our helper in times of need, and also learned about my role as a helper, it has become much easier to accept help. We were created for community. We have a need for each other, so it's ok to let others help us when we need it. I also lend my help when I can give it. I think that's what led me to be a doula as well.

Another thought that may seem random will connect here shortly: this past year at our small church there have been 9 children born. NINE! And one more was born last week! And another is due in two weeks. I'm not making this up. Anyway, because of our difficult experience with Mary, Ian and I have a soft spot for new parents so we usually send diapers, meals, or ourselves to babysit and help however we can. Well we got a little behind and sent a meal to one of the families when their daughter was 3 months old. I found myself apologizing to the dad about it taking so long. He was grateful anyway, but I had another epiphany as I walked away: when you have multiple kids it is ALWAYS a good day to have someone else provide dinner!

All of this came together for me last Friday when a neighbor brought over a meal for us out of nowhere. At first I thought, 'why did she bring this meal?' And then I thought, 'who cares! It's one less meal I have to make and I am so grateful! If someone brings you a meal, you take it!' Her kindness and thoughtfulness was so timely and I am very grateful for it. We like to help others but we don't always like to be helped. But in order for others to help, there needs to be someone in need, someone who gets served. It's ok if that is sometimes me:)

Hikes

We have gone on a few hikes lately since the weather has been amazing! A few great quotes from our trips:

Noah: hey mom, can I go hike in that tree?

Mary: Oh no there are crocodiles! (pointing at trees)
Noah: It's ok I have a stick and I will hurt them!
He then proceded to hit every tree with his stick and say, "hurt" each time. I thought he was being pretty manly and then he fell in some mud... And cried for 10 minutes because it got on his pants.

 They sleep good after a long hike and some reading time with daddy! I believe he started with just Noah on his lap, but that never lasts for long.

Thomas 11 months

I know I say this every month but it's hard to believe how old he is! He will be one next month! I still don't know what we're doing for his birthday. We are moving two days later but we still need to celebrate.

Education
I really feel like his mind has grown a lot lately. He just seems to understand things more and make actual decisions now. We have started to call him tenacious T. He sets his mind on something and it is sometimes pretty humorous what he will do to get it. Sometimes he "karate chops" us if we are in his way or if he is done eating and we are still trying to feed him. He can twist his body so quickly when he wants to get down. And, much to Mary and Noah's dismay, he is becoming interested in more complex toys and in what others are doing. He always follows them around now and they just want to play with their legos without him destroying them!


Physical Growth
Around 9 months and then again around 10 months a stomach bug went through all of us so he didn't eat a whole lot. I remember getting nervous he was losing too much weight. But he is back to his champion eater status and is looking like a little chunky monkey once again. He is cruising well now and crawling on all fours instead of dragging himself. I think he will be so happy once he can walk so he can reach things Mary and Noah put out of his reach! We are working on getting him to be more independent when it comes to eating. He will eat anything off a spoon but will only pick certain things up to feed himself...

 

Spiritual Growth
I feel like a slight failure in this category. Not that you can expect a ton from a baby...but I haven't been praying for him as much as I would like. So this will be my goal this next month. Step it up! I have a journal to write prayers for him in and I have all the power of a praying mom prayers typed up on cards. I just need to be diligent in prayer for him. I know how important it is, but it can be so hard when I don't have much quiet time to  myself. I guess I just need to get in the habit of praying all the time like scripture says and not be distracted by everything going on around us constantly!

Social Development
He is still pretty sociable. He has certain favorite people... but mostly he is content with anyone holding him. And he is becoming more content when you put him down too! Since he is a good crawler now and can move freely I think he's ready to explore. And I'm grateful for that so I don't have to hold him all the time! He will reach for people and chat it up with them in his little baby talk.

In that last picture he got tired of crawling on that rough surface so he started the hands and feet crawl. He is mostly a happy little man, but definitely is starting to have more of an opinion on things when you tell him no or try to stop him from doing something.

Noah's blanket

Well he's almost 3 and I just now have a blanket finished for him! That gives me two more years to finish Thomas' blanket:)

The bittersweet feelings continue

The sign below went up in my yard today. I keep wondering how can I leave this house I love and have so many memories in?!? And then Pinterest shows me all the awesome things I can do in my new house and my hesitations start to fade.

Moving on

We are in the process of moving! And it has been a crazy process. We put our house on the market a week ago, got an offer the next day, and accepted the negotiated terms the day after that. Then we went house hunting, which is not as fun as it sounds. I guess I thought it would be like going to the candy store, browsing around, then picking your favorite! But the problem is, unfortunately, houses are not like candy. None of them are perfect. Some are in great shape but not in the right place or not the right price, and some are trashed but at the right price. So it's a process of deciding what you want to deal with and what not.

Anyway, when it comes down to it I will miss my current house. After 7 years it is finally just the way I want it and now we think it's time to move. We are pretty sure this is what God wants us to do, but at the same time it's scary because as of may 25 we will be out of a house! We put a bid on one but I'm not sure that's going to work out, we will know sometime today. We also have our inspection on our home today so that could be a game changer too! Who knows! There are so many unknowns in this process. I think that's why I didn't handle it well the first week. That and the speed the process is taking. But I am confident again that God is in control and he will provide for us!

I copied the pictures of our home because they look awesome and because I really will miss this place. My kids probably won't remember it at all so I want to have pictures to point back to and say this is where you were brought home after you were born. This is where you slept. Etc. and they probably won't care:) But I do!

School work

Does anyone ever know what to do with all their kid's projects? Somewhere I read that one thing you can do is take pictures of the projects so that you don't have to find some way to store all these paper crafts. And since we are getting ready to put our house on the market I have to kick my butt into gear in this area! No more displaying artwork all over the house. So here are my favorite things Mary did last year:

Time to say goodbye to all these projects because they are already at Rumpke! We began a new curriculum last week and it has been really good for me so far. I don't think the kids know anything different is going on, but I think it was money well spent for me. It's called My Father's World and I love how everything is integrated together. Our first unit was on creation so we covered numbers 1-7 as we learned what God did on the 7 days of creation. We also reviewed all the letters. It is nice to have everything laid out for me so all I have to do is look at the sheet. Saves so much time!