Fish

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Little Dude {3 Months}

My little dude, you are already 3 months old.

Sizes

Clothes:
You are still wearing 3 months size. But your footie pjs are getting to be too small, I think 3-6 month clothes are in our near future. {Slow down!}

Diapers:
Soon you'll be wearing cloth :) but right now you are finishing up the size 1-2 disposable diapers we have.

Sleep:
You are usually asleep for the night between 8 and 9p and you wake up twice to nurse, once at 1a and then around 4a and them back to sleep til 8 or 9a! {If only we could convince big sis to do the same! The sleeping in part, not the musing part.}

Activity:
You love to lay on your play mat and look up at the dangling toys. sometimes you hit or kick them. Mostly you just wiggle, smile and coo.

Character traits:
What I notice so far is that you study very intently. I've already noticed that you've found your feet and you will twirl your ankle and just study your feet when we sit you up. You hate to be held facing in, as long as you are facing out and can see all around you, you are content. I've become very good doing everything with one hand. The other arm is occupied with you, my sweet baby boy.

Social. You will start 'talking' or cooing if anyone holds you close and talks to you. You'll do it for long periods of time too. And smiling, you smile almost constantly. It's no wonder you started laughing so early on, you are a happy boy!

What people say:

That you 'look just like your daddy' AND that you 'look just like your mommy.'
Guess you are a perfect mix of both of us!

Challenges:

Honestly, you are a very 'easy' baby. Besides the challenges of having two young children, you really don't add any challenges. It's gotten to the point that when you are crying I can figure out pretty fast what you want because the list is short! Usually you are pretty content just being around us.

The only slight challenge that as actually become just the norm is that you still wake up twice in the night to eat, but even that is easy because you take about 10 min to eat and then I put you back to bed and you stay asleep, so that means I can go right back to sleep too!

Verse:
"...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Ephesians 3:17-19

One of those days....

I'm having one of those days. The kind where I can feel a spiritual battle taking place, just this tug of war between my flesh and my spirit. I woke up in a less than great mood. Just feeling tired an worn down. Feeling like everything and everyone is against me. You may know the kind, where it's "Watch out!" to anyone who crosses your path.

Well this morning it happened to be my husband. Bless his heart, he couldn't do anything right to save his life. And the crazy thing is I knew I was wrong in my actions but it kind of felt like I was walking and thinking in a cloud. I just couldn't snap out of it. That only frustrated me more.

After hubby left for work I decided to get out of the house. The cold weather we've been having mixed with illness has kept us locked up and I'm not too sure that's good for anybody. So while I drove the kids to our local indoor play place I was privileged to listen to some teaching of God's word on the radio station our church started recently. It can be heard all over the area and can be heard anywhere in the world from here.

It's Bible teaching all the time from different Calvary Chapel pastors all across the U.S. Plus worship music mixed in. And it's tuned in on my radio dial in the car so I can listen in to who ever is teaching whenever I'm in my car.

And today, after listening in for the several times I was in the car, I felt a significant change in my attitude from this morning. And looking back I can clearly see that I had a veil of darkness over me. An oppression of the evil one. And I know thats what happened because of the obvious freeing feeling I have this evening. I just feel like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I don't have any of those same negative feelings or thoughts that I had this morning.

And I can't tell you that anything significant happened today. There wasn't any one thing that I heard on the radio station today that caused me to suddenly snap out of it. I would describe it more as God gradually changing my heart and drawing me back to Him with all the things I heard today. The one common thing I heard today was God's truth and simply put, His love. More specifically His love for me, even though I don't deserve it. That He has forgiven my sins. All of them. Past, present, and future. even future sins that I haven't even sinned yet. Wow.


Now that I think about it, the overwhelming theme that I heard and that really spoke to me today was God's grace. The fact that He grants favor and love and mercy towards me even while I'm not deserving. Incredible. It's so amazing it's hard to fathom or understand sometimes. Even today, while my attitude and behavior was much less than graceful towards my husband, God made a point to speak to me about His grace towards me. Amazing.

So that was my day today. Nothing real huge or significant, at least to anyone else. But it has ended up being attitude and perspective changing. And while it's worn me out it's also been the refreshment that I needed. And God new that. He always does.

"As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."

Psalm 103:12

Little Dude's Nursery

We've made a lot of head way on hubby's Dr Seuss room Little Dude's nursery and I'm too anxious to share it to wait any longer! I decided I'll just post as we make progress.

{You can see the play mat that I made for him before he was born! The picture on the right best portraits out of all these pictures the blue color his walls are. They look white in the others, but they are really blue.}

{The bow is hiding the words, it says "For This Child We Pray"}

{The bumper pads I made!}

{He and Little Lady got several Dr. Seuss characters for Christmas.

They will come out of his crib when he starts sleeping in it.}

{His closet, still being organized. But it's already filled with hand-me-downs from a friend who blessed us with the clothes her boys have out grown.}

       

{This was made by hubby's grandma who has since passed away but we both agreed that it belonged in Little Dude's nursery.}

{A gift from a friend and it will be hung on the red wall once we figure out where we want it to go. So cute!}

{I love these two pieces! I found them at Hobby Lobby and instantly fell in love with how well they match the Dr. Seuss theme but also that they will be a reminder to him and to us to praise the Lord for everything.}

{Little Dude got these adorable Converse shoes for Christmas from his Uncle's, my brothers! Love 'em and I can't wait to see these on him :)}

{I couldn't leave out the red wall... but we haven't done anything with it yet. The dresser is going to go against this wall, once hubby gets it re-finished to match the crib. Some friends of ours gave it to us for free! But the wood is a really light color right now. I also have a couple of black multi-picture frames my mom gave us that I plan to hang on these walls. And I want to find some black shelves to put up too.}

 I still plan to make a bed skirt for the crib and curtains for the windows and we plan to get blinds for the window too. I'll update again when we add more.

No day like a snow day!

The kind where we stay in our pj's all day.

{Except for a dr appt I had this morning.}

And the fridgid 12 degree temps outside keep us snuggled up inside.

Until after nap time...

Little Dude got in on the action too! 

But for much less of the time, it was cold!!

Our snow day play was followed up by hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookie bars both made by hubby! Yum :D

And just for good measure:

New Year Blues.

Am I the only one who has a difficult time finding motivation after the holidays? What is that about anyway? My theory is that the hype building up to Christmas and all the activities and food and vacation time and family and friends and parties, we anticipate it so much. Then after it's all over there's just a natural coming back down to the everyday routine of things that has to happen. It's just hard sometimes.

It helps me to have things to look forward to or even projects to work on. Even setting some new goals. Perhaps this is where making New Year's resolutions came from.

I came across a list of "50 Guilt Free New Years Resolutions" in my Thriving Family Magazine. It's really pretty creative, at least a few of the ideas are. I'm going to file it away for the future, when the littles are a little bit older.

Some of the ones I liked were:

• Create your own family holiday. Set a specific date. Invite each family member to help with planning a unique celebration.
• During family TV/movie night, press the mute button. Make up your own dialogue. The wackier, the better.
• Start a prayer jar. Each family member can write prayers or draw prayer pictures and leave them in a jar. At the year's end, look through the prayers together and talk about God's faithfulness.
• Give something away every month this year. Be looking for the needs of friends and how their needs may overlap with what you own. Give freely.
• Say "I love you" to your spouse at the start of each day.
• When your child shares something with you, stop what you're doing and look them in the eyes. Ask a follow up question.
• Stop communicating in only 140 characters or less.
• Put all your Christmas cards into a pile. Draw one card a week, and pray for that family.
• Pick a night of the week to be "No-Screen Night." Turn off all computers and tv to do something fun as a family.

I'm also looking forward to reading a book about parenting that I've wanted to read for awhile now, just waiting for our hectic schedule to slow down. It's called "Shepherding a Childs heart" by Ted Tripp.

I'm really looking forward to this biblical perspective on parenting and learning more in depth what God has in mind for me as a mommy. I want to be purposeful with my parenting, knowing my time with them is short. To me the most rewarding part of this job will be seeing the fruits in their life of the time I took to pour Jesus in to them! Watching them grow up and choose Jesus and His way for life, thats what being a parent is all about. They are His babes anyway, I want to be faithful to return them to Him as saints!

And I just love how God uses the things I learn about being a parent and applies it to my relationship with Him, my Heavenly Father. He loves me so much, just the same as I love my littles. Actually He loves more! And sometimes that is hard for me to believe. But I'm so grateful to be loved and cared for so deeply!

What plans or activities do you have planned to ward off the New Year blues?

Christmas 'Round Two' & growing in faith

We have had a pretty full house these last couple weeks! 

And we've really had a blast visiting with everyone. :)

This week it's Nana {my mama} visiting us. 

We had our Christmas last night!

We've had a good time of relaxing, visiting, eating, watching home videos & playing games!

Today was a fun day of shopping, just me and my mama!

We left daddy at home with the napping babes.

 He was more than willing.

And I was excited to have a shopping buddy.

I've never been one for making resolutions.

I usually can't see that far in front of me and a year is long time,

I always think a lot could happen in a year.

But what I really want to do this year is have a spiritual focus, something I commit to being challenged by and grow in character for the Lord.

I know to the depths of my core that this year's focus is directed and ordained by Him.

Obedience.

I'll be honest, I've been fighting it.

Because I know I'm weak.

And I know that this challenge is going to hurt and be hard.

I will have to face truly denying my flesh in ways I never have before.

But I'm excited for the growth that will come of it.

And it's interesting to me because I'm the typical first born, rule follower.

Growing up I was the bossy one. {I have the home videos to prove it.}

I loved playing school and giving directions.

I thrived on doing things exactly, to a T, as I was told to do them.

I was an honor graduate at basic training.

I can {almost} perfectly replicate craft projects.

On the outside it wouldn't appear that I have a problem with obedience.

But when it comes to following Christ there's a big difference when it comes to doing what your told just because you're told, treating faith like a check list of completed tasks, but instead having a submissive spirit and truly being obedient to my King because I am grateful for what He has done for me. 

And my struggle is with trusting God with what He asks of me.

And just doing it.

Along with obedience God is asking more,

to obey: immediately,  willingly,  and completely. 

These things are not easy for me. 

Especially when I don't understand, or when I think I have a better or easier way.

"Now by this we know that we know Him,

if we keep His commandments. 

He who says, 'I know Him,' 

and does not keep His commandments, is a liar,

and the truth is not in him.

But whoever keeps His word, 

truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we are in Him.

He who says he abides in Him ought himself

also to walk just as He walked."

1 John 2:36

To me this verse is telling me that the proof that I know Jesus is in my obedience, which becomes a natural out come of my relationship with Him and not that I would just follow a list of 'rules.'

It easier for me to just focus on the list, but I want to focus on Jesus instead.

If you find it in your heart to pray for me, that God will do a great work in changing me to be more like my Jesus!

Hope you all had a blessed New Year's day!