House Construction Work

So, since the top window of our house was leaking, it caused mold and mildew to grow behind the stone and brick on the front of our house. The workers came today to fix it, and they said they'd bring an air filter with them to plug into our house as they were working on the mold/mildew issue.

Well, I had in mind this small, de-humidifier sized filter! Was I wrong! Here are the 2 filters they wheeled in this morning (after taping up our front door/entryway area!)






And what the front of our house looks like right now... (It's a brand-new front door, and the painters will come after all of the house is put back together and paint the door. It will match the shutters!)



Lizzie doesn't know what to do with herself! She's terrified of the filters (which are LOUD and BIG), the plastic on the door scares her, and the workers are banging away at the brick/stone! Poor dog!!

More Shots of The Boy

One of his first times eating Cheerios...



He's sitting up! And drooling! ;-)...



Watching football with Daddy...

Funny Quote

I saw this quote on an exercise site and thought it was appropriate! :-)

"Better your legs feeling like Jello after a hard run than your butt feeling like Jello after eating cheesy poofs!"

Vote, People!

Okay, so, do y'all *see* the poll on my blog? Look to the far right of the screen -- that's a POLL. If you see it, why don't you *vote*?

This whole not-voting thing I don't really understand - I am *asking* for your opinion, and you can give it anonymously - sounds like a good solution to me! So, now there's a poll on WHY you don't vote.

So, vote, people, vote!

And, if you're the ONE person who *did* vote in my last poll - thanks!

Poor Little Man!

Can night terrors start in an 8-month-old? And can they happen during naptimes, not just night time? For the past 3 or so weeks, Grant will often all-of-a-sudden start screaming in the middle of his nap. I mean *screaming*. Full-blown, real-tears, SCREAMING. But, his eyes will be closed, his pacifier will be in, he'll just be very upset. I can't calm him down at all - you just have to wait 3-4 minutes and the screaming will gradually decrease, and then he'll sleep for another hour or so. I just don't know what's going on!!! He doesn't appear to be in pain. I feel so badly for him, too!!

I might call the pediatrician Monday and run it by him. Although, sometimes I think they've blacklisted me at the ped's office - I think I have big, upper-case red letters across Grant's chart that read "Warning: High-Maintenance Parent." Sigh.

It's beautiful!

It's a g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s night out tonight!! I'm loving this weather for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest is that I get to run outside! It was just beautiful out tonight - almost perfect running weather. It's was cool, with a nice breeze - it was just one of those runs that I felt like I could go forever. (30 minutes later, my legs were falling off, though. )

On my cool-down lap after running, I caught up with one of my neighbors and we chatted a bit. It was just a wonderful end to the day.

Soldier Blog

I've always deeply respected the Armed Services, probably due in part to the fact that my father served in Vietnam in the Air Force, and my maternal grandfather served in WWII. I think it's so honorable to serve your country, and I support our country's troops deeply.

Here's a link to a blog that an American soldier in Iraq is writing. It's filled with lots of day-to-day stuff and fascinating pictures. It seems as though this solider is a Christian, too, as he writes of the hope he's found through Christ. He's on a 15-month deployment, which I cannot even begin to imagine how hard that would be. How heartbreaking to be away from family for so long!

Regardless of my opinion of the Iraq situation (mess!), I pray that all of the soldiers may have what they need to get their jobs done quickly and come home safely.

Soldier Blog

Ah, the Vacuum cleaner!

Oh, the vacuum cleaner, a sweet, sweet sound to Grant.

He'd been having some difficulty going to sleep last week as his naptimes were changing, and I had been vacuuming and vacuuming his room to get him to go to sleep. So, Matt, with his new ibook, or macpro book, or imac, or whatever the new mac laptop is called, recorded the vacuum cleaner for me! he then looped it so it plays for 60 minutes.

So, as I type this, Grant is going to sleep in his crib, and I'm downstairs listening to vacuum sounds over the monitor!

Whatever works, right?

Shout Out!

As we went to our neighbor's house this evening, it reminded me that I'm still getting to know people here, and how much I miss some of our friends that are now scattered across the country. So, here's a shout-out to our "Dallas" friends, as I call you. ;-)

I miss you all, and think of and pray for you often!!

Betsy, I am so glad that your pregnancy is going well, and am so, so excited for you. I hope we can see you before Baby T. arrives!!

Laura - can't wait to see pictures of Baby M. #3, and I hope the last couple weeks of pregnancy go quickly. Has your heartburn been as bad this time as it was with Noah?

Kristy - we need new pictures of your boys!! You need to start a blog, I think!

And, Kara, aren't you due sometime soon? September 30th is a good day. ;)

And, I just realized that 3 of y'all are pregnant! :-) Can't wait to meet your new miracles.

Thinking of you, all my Dallas friends.

Random Thoughts

Here are some random blog-thoughts for you:

1) We just got home from a birthday party of one of our neighbors' son. (neighbor's son? neighbors' son? hmm...my grammar fails me on little sleep!) It was fun! We hadn't really talked a lot with these neighbors before now, so it was fun to chat with them. It was a small, low-key 1st birthday party, and the little kid had more fun *throwing* the cake than eating it.

2)The woman gave me a tour of their house (which she's decorated beautifully, by the way), and it was fun to see, because it was a floor plan that Matt and I really liked as we were thinking of building. After living in our current house, however, and walking through theirs, I like our floor plan better. We, for the most part, spend the majority of our time in the kitchen and living room area, so when that part of the house is small, it makes the whole house feel small, however much square footage there is.

3)I can't get the emoticons to work on this post, and I'm bummed about that. :/

4) I'm teaching the 4th - 6th grade Sunday School class tomorrow, and I need to go prepare for it. Last week's class went okay, and I want to be better for tomorrow. There were only 5 kids there last week, but it reminded me of being in my classroom in Dallas. I was *right* in the middle of a sentence when all-of-a-sudden this 6th-grade girl burst out with, "Do you have a baggie? I need to take my earring out because I'm allergic to metal."

I'm serious. She totally interrupted me to ask for a *baggie*. What in the world? I stared back at her for a second, trying to process what she was telling me, when I finally told her to put her earring on the table and moved on. craziness!

5) The couple's house we were at had just gotten a puppy, and it was adorable! It was an English Spaniel (English Springer Spaniel??), and just so cute! It reminded me of when Lizzie was so small, so here's a picture in remembrance:



6) My neighbor, M., who had a baby boy early summer, is so super nice. She brought me homemade chicken noodle soup when I was sick, and she's bringing me homemade granola later! Just super, super nice.

7) I have *got* to go work on my Sunday school lesson, so have a great evening! (or day, or afternoon, or whenever (if ever!) you read this!)

Grant, almost 8 months old!

One of my new favorite pictures - I just love his little expression!

And another cute one:

Crazy Hair!

New Pictures

The backgrounds of these are kind of dark, but they're still great.

I Feel Like I Won the Lottery!

OMGOSH!!!!!! Have y'all seen the Pottery Barn line of "smart technology" furniture?

I have been complaining for *months* - MONTHS! - about all of our electronic stuff (phones, MP3 players, cameras, PDA's, etc, etc, etc!) and how there's never any place to keep it nicely plugged in, and then I just get this email from pottery barn!!! They came out with furniture pieces that have places to hide the cords to keep the stuff!! I'm so excited!!!!!! AACK!!!! You could just keep everything nicely plugged in in one place and it would eliminate the need for crazy cords all.over.the.house. Uggh!

I like things so over-the-top organized, that I feel like I won the lottery!!!!!

Check it out and let me know if it excites you as much! I'm so excited about it, I might not be able to sleep!

http://www.potterybarn.com/gift/thm/...t%20shop%20all

Just for the record...

...I was the one vote for "the spicier the better". Mmm - spicy salsa!!!

VCast Music

...is my new favorite hobby. I got the new LG Chocolate Phone about a week ago, and functions as a MP3 Player. It's *very* cool. It came with the Verizon Version of iTunes - "VCast Music". So, I've been surfing it and playing with it and finding new musicians, and rekindling old favorites. So far, my VCast favorites:

• Michael Buble
• Jim Brickman
• Josh Groban
  
• Il Divo!

Food!

So, I realized I haven't blogged about Grant's feeding habits! Here's the scoop, for those of you dying to know what a 7-month-old eats!

We started giving Grant some food on Friday, July 13th - when he was 6 months and 3 days old. We made it to 6 months exclusively breastfeeding, a feat that I'm proud of since we had such a rough start to breastfeeding. Grant's first food was homemade baby pureed sweet potatoes, which he *loved*.

So, now he gets about 2 cubes of baby food in the morning for breakfast (2 cubes = 1 Gerber jar) and maybe 1 cube for an afternoon snack, if he's hungry.

His favorites are by far sweet potato and banana - he LOVES bananas. Loves.loves.loves!!!! He ate a 1/2 of a banana yesterday, and would definitely have eaten more.

He's not really a huge eater, though. He still nurses about every 2 1/2 - 3 hours, and sleeps from about 7 at night till 6:30 - 7 the next morning, with a dream feed at 9:30 p.m. He's just so fun to feed, though, because he's so cute as he raises his little eyebrows and opens his mouth and leans forward for the spoon!

Mmmm.....Feet!

Oh, to be this limber again!

Changes

Wow, well, I got with the program and figured out how to do neat formatting to my blog, hence, the different look. I like it! What do you think? For those that don't know, I like change - when I was teaching full-time I re-arranged my classroom at least 2x a semester. Kept the students on their toes.

And, I think it should be a rule - if you vote in my poll, you must tell me who you are! Because now I'll sit here and wonder who voted.

Parent Love

Well, I'm still sick, battling pneumonia, but fortunately The Boy is feeling better. He's not sleeping the greatest yet - waking up crying - so you know he's not feeling the greatest, but better.

Fortunately my parents came down yesterday evening and really helped out. The took care of me, took care of Grant, and took care of our house that was bordering on a disaster zone after a week of both momma and baby being sick. My dad went grocery shopping for us, and it was wonderful, because that meant there would be food for Matt to eat this weekend!

I opened the fridge this afternoon, and seeing one item in the fridge made me feel so super loved. See, my dad has a great way of remembering and doing special things for people. When I was little, he would bring me tapioca pudding when I was sick. I can still remember what it came in - those clear plastic deli cases. He'd bring me a small serving of it when I was feeling well enough to eat, and I sit up on the couch and talk with my dad and eat it. Just a special way of trying to make me feel somewhat better.

So, when I opened the fridge this afternoon, and saw a container of tapioca pudding on the top shelf, I was reminded again of how much my dad loves me. So, thanks to BOTH of my parents for helping me out so much again last night. My mother scrubbed my George Foreman grill for at least 20 minutes - so you know she loves me, too, to scrub someone else's appliance with baked-on goo for that long!

Child of the '80's

You Are 76% A Child of the 80s

Not only did you experience the 80s... you are practically an expert. You should be totally stoked!

Are You a Child of an 80s?

Hey, the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books were the BEST! And, I totally remember New Coke! The original Nintendo was fantastic - I think I could still beat my brother at a Super Mario Brothers Cart race!

Diet Coke Disaster

It was a Diet Coke Disaster in this household last night. I needed something to drink (and, though I'm trying to get in at least 64 ounces of water daily, I still *need* that Diet Coke!), and grabbed a pop from the pantry. Well, in one fluid motion, my arm went up, fingers releasing and accidentally dropping the pop can, and the pop can hit the floor on the precise edge of the can.

Diet Coke sprayed *everywhere*. I mean e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. All over me, my clothes, the pantry, the cabinets, the fridge even! Disastrous!

At least the floor got a much needed, much overdo mopping!!

My Bumper's Back...

To the tune of The Angels' 1963 classic:

My bumper's back and I'm going to get some sleep,
hey la day la my bumper's back!

After traveling for a couple of days, we discovered that some babies have their blankies - Grant has his bumper. To go to sleep, he literally buries his face in it and hugs it to himself. When I go in to check on him at night, he's moved all over the crib, but is still almost always hugging the bumper.

So, with out his bumper, he had a hard time sleeping. It took the better part of the entire evening 2 nights in a row to get him to sleep and stay asleep. Thank goodness for an old vibrating massage pad my mother-in-law had! When placed underneath the leg of the pack-n-play, the Boy was out in T-minus-2 minutes flat! Whew!

But, thankfully, we're back home, and the bumper is back.

(For anyone wondering what the bumper looks like - here it is.)

Pureed to Perfection!

So, when we were planning on adopting, I read about making your own baby food. I was intrigued, so I read more, and more, and am now doing it for Grant! It's SO easy, WAY more economical, and I LOVE doing it. I puree vegetables with breastmilk, and I *really* like the fact that he's getting the extra breastmilk mixed in with his solids.

I started making his baby food about 5-6 weeks ago, storing it up in the freezer. I started with sweet potato, and now have apples, broccoli, pear, and banana frozen in baby-sized portions. Here's how it works:

You cook the fruit or veggie, then blend it with some added breastmilk or water (or formula).


Then, when it's the perfect puree consistency, you pour it in ice cube trays to freeze.



Then, when the cubes are frozen, you can pop them out and put them into a freezer bag. That way, they're ready to grab and thaw when needed!! It's as easy as that!

Happy 4th of July!

Okay, so, it's now July 16th and I'm wishing you a happy 4th - but, the pictures are still good.