Baby Gear

Here are some photos of Everett testing out our baby gear. I got it out for our playgroup and to get it ready for the new baby too. Of course Everett can't resist playing with them.

Exercises

Today Everett and I were out in the car and he saw a man walking down the sidewalk. He asked, "Mommy, what he doing?" To which I replied, "Oh, he's exercising." At which point Everett began to raise his arms up and down and count, "1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7!" (He always skips 5 for some reason.) I have no idea where he learned about exercise...definitely not from me! So, just now as we were playing blocks he began to do his exercises and I decided to capture it on video to share with you. Don't mind the mess in our playroom...after all we were playing, right? :)



I think this is some form of a jumping jack.

At the end of the video, you can hear Everett say, "Let's play blocks now, Mommy." And after I turned off the camera he said, "No more cheese, Mommy, Let's play blocks." To Everett, "cheese" means me taking his picture. So, now I'm heading back to play blocks...

Everett's First Snow!

It actually snowed fairly significantly in Atlanta on Wednesday. Here is a photo Allen took of our house Thursday morning with what snow was leftover:



Here is a cute video of us playing in the snow just after Allen got home from work. I apologize for my commentary. :)

Our kitchen

Per Alayna's request, below is a photo of our newly painted kitchen. I thought it turned out very nice. We don't have a lot of wall space in there so the red isn't too overpowering. We have a lot more work we want to do in the kitchen, like painting the cabinets and redoing the floors, but this was a first step towards those improvements. The rest will be done as our budget allows. After Allen finished painting this room we realized that we have now painted every room in our house and most of the the trim too!

Christmas 2007

We had a wonderful holiday this year. We got to spend a lot of time in Augusta with Allen's family. My mom came with us too, which was nice.



Then we spent some time at home. My dad and his wife, Karin, came to visit from Missouri. We hung out with them and my brother and his family. We also got to go to the New World of Coke.



Then we had several days just to chill at home, which was much needed. We painted our kitchen and did some more work on Everett's new room. We also spent a lot of time working on our budget for 2008. We are attempting to save money for a bigger car of some sort since we'll soon be adding a baby girl to our family!

Please Pray

Our dear friends from church, Allen and Gillian, just found out on Wednesday that their 3 1/2 year old son, Joseph, has a large mass in the back of his brain. He is having surgery this morning to have it removed. You can read more about what is happening and how to pray for them here. They also have a younger daughter named Holly. Please be praying for this family.

Why Oh Why?

I've been thinking about something a lot lately that I think has to do largely with living with a toddler, but also just deals with life in general. I've been wondering why my child always has a poopie diaper just after I've gotten him completely dressed and we're about to leave the house? Why is it that the shirt I pull out to wear for the day has a grease stain on it right in the front? Why is it that today, for instance, on my way to bible study at church, does Everett's sippy cup of milk decide to explode and leak through the cooler, through the diaper bag, and create a puddle on the front seat of the car?

Why is it that on days where where I have a ton to get done at home does Everett decide to take the shortest nap ever, but on days where I want him to just sleep for a short time he decides to hibernate for the afternoon? It seems like these thoughts can just go on and on. I know that these are all petty things but they seem to all collect and grate on me. It's amazing how these little things greatly effect my attitudes and emotions.

I was telling a dear friend about this today and she said that when things like this happen to her, she thinks, "Either God hates me or Satan is trying to attack me." She said she knows God doesn't hate her so it has to be the latter. In my bible study we're doing on Thursday mornings, there is a quote in the book we're reading that goes as follows:

"The truth is that we can trust a wise, loving, sovereign God to control every circumstance of our lives. Joy, peace, and stability come from believing that every circumstance that touches our lives has first been filtered through His fingers of love and is part of a great, eternal plan that He is working out in this world and in our lives."

I will say that my faith is really growing in this area right now. I'm being stretched to believe that God is just as much in the small things of every day life as he is in the big things. And that is encouraging to me.

Fall Happenings

Everett has begun to make the silliest faces lately. I don't know how he learned this one...but it was hilarious when I caught him doing it.

We are looking forward to having my sister and her family come to stay with us next week. We'll all be together with my mom and my brother and his family for Thanksgiving. It will be great to spend some time with them. I'm looking forward to the holidays and Allen having some time off.

We found some bunk beds for Everett's new room on Craig's List and we (mostly Allen) have been working on stripping off the paint (they were white) and sanding them down and we're now in the process of painting them navy blue. We're hoping to have them put together and in the room by the time my sister and her family comes. We'll probably move Everett into his new room after Thanksgiving. Hopefully he'll enjoy the new space! It's going to have all navy blue furniture and be filled with cars, trucks, & planes. We're going to keep his old room ready for baby #2.

So far my pregnancy is going well and I'm really starting to show. Luckily I'm through with feeling nauseous, for the most part, and I've had a lot more energy. I've actually been cleaning the house again! Allen is happy about that. We'll be able to find out if we're having a boy or girl on December 4. Allen kind of wants it to be a surprise, but I really want to find out...so we'll see what happens.

Halloween 2007

For Halloween this year, Everett was a fireman. We had a great day. First, a party with our playgroup in the morning and then a neighborhood party in the afternoon and then trick-or-treating! We also had fun the night before Halloween making spiders and a spider web and also carving our pumpkins. Everett sort of helped us. :) There are a ton more photos on our flickr site.

Playgroup Kids:

Our Pumpkins:

Baby #2 on the way!

For those of you that don't know, we are pregnant (sorry if you're finding out this way rather than in person)! That is the main reason I've been such a slacker about blogging lately. I've felt very yucky for the past month or so. I'm 13 weeks now and hoping that it's getting better but I'm still having definite bouts with nausea. It's been much worse this pregnancy than with Everett. Everyone says that's because I have a toddler to take care of now, which I think is partly true. Sweet Allen has been such a servant to me during this time. He's really picked up the slack when I've been ill or just plain worn out. This has also all coincided with Everett climbing out of his crib on his own, which has led to him getting out of bed as early as 5:30am morning after morning! We're in the process of training him to stay in his crib until we come and get him, preferably after 7am. The past 3 mornings he's done much better. Hopefully we're moving past that, at least until the time change. :)

I have two sets of ultrasound pictures, one set when I was about 6 weeks along and one set when I was about 8 weeks. Of course with this baby, unlike with our first, I've hardly even gotten them out or showed them to anyone, much less even thought about scanning them. Isn't that horrible? Especially considering I was a 3rd child. I hope to be good about taking pictures and scrapbooking with each child though...I just figure it's important to set reasonable goals for each one, rather than go way overboard with the 1st and then totally bail with the others. I'll try to get Allen to take the ultrasound pictures to work and scan them in...not that any of you really care about seeing a black and white blob. :) We'll find out whether it's a boy or girl, at 18 weeks, which is the week of Thanksgiving. My due date is April 20.

I just have to say that right now our house is so peaceful. I've got Mindy Smith on in the background and Everett has been playing quietly by himself, which he rarely does. Normally if he's quiet, he's hiding somewhere in the house destroying something or dumping something out. My friend today called him a 'silent but deadly' kid, which I think describes him perfectly. Just this week he's dumped out a bottle of salad toppings I had in the fridge all over the coffee table and floor, he's dumped out a bag of crackers all over the steps going down into our playroom, and he destroyed one of the baby shower invitations that I had ordered for my sister-in-law's shower, etc., etc. I was asking my sister when this stage ends and she said soon...I'm hoping so!

He's also become quite the climber. Usually this is displayed at the playground, but a couple of weekends ago Allen was outside with him and Allen was blowing off our back porch and Everett was at our fence in the back of the yard, playing with our neighbor's dog. Then next time Allen looked up, Everett was climbing over the chain link fence and into our neighbor's yard. He's quite amazing sometimes.

He really is a sweet kid though and is such a joy to be around. He's got such a great disposition and is a pretty easy-going kid. I'll close with a funny story: One day when Allen was changing his poopie diaper, Allen opened the diaper and said, "How about them apples?". Since then whenever Everett has a poopie he says, "apples in there" and points to his diaper. In his MDO class the past few weeks they've been learning about apples and apple trees and how God made them. So, last week when I was changing his poopie diaper, Everett exclaimed, "Thank you God for apples!" I cracked up.