Twenty Eight

28 years ago today, a beauiful little baby girl was born.  I have always found the story of her life to be incredibly fascinating - almost like the script of a novel or movie.  The day I met Bethany, I knew she was unlike any girl I had ever known.  She is funny, graceful, talented, beautiful and compassionate.  I am so glad that God saw fit to cross our winding paths seven years ago.  I can't imagine life without her. 

Happy Birthday!  I hope that your "Golden Birthday" is as good as you imagined.

Oh, and I can't forget a little Office for your birthday...

Matchy Matchy

Ben's Aunt Pam is always sending the boys the most darling clothes and books - some of the cutest clothes our boys wear are from Aunt Pam! This summer she sent the boys matching t-shirts and if you can believe it, they were the very first matching clothes they had. They were so cute in them and when I went out shopping for some new fall clothes today I could not help myself - I had to buy some more matching shirts! Here are two I found at Gymboree and Target - I can't wait to put them in them. I know they will look back at these pictures, rolling their eyes at me when they are older. Don't worry, I'll pay for their therapy- ha!

Worth Reading

I have recently made a wonderful new blog friend - Courtney. She runs the very inspiring biblical womanhood site, Women Living Well. She also has a blog with great articles, tips and message boards. I wanted to encourage each of you to read the post for today, something Courtney asked a fellow blogger if she could share on her site. I hope it will be the jump start each of us needs to extend the hand of fellowship Jesus encourages us to. You can find Courtney and the post here.

one of those days

oh brother. Today was definitely one of those days! I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for Ben's work and was so excited to eat one with my breakfast. Little did I know, there would only be 2 left this morning and Jackson would lay claim to both. Even though both boys slept really well last night (all night until 8 am today!) they did NOT want to nap. Luke slept for about an hour around noon and that was it for the whole day. Jackson did not nap at all. He was laying down but when Luke got up and was really loud and really fussy he got up too. I told Ben when he got home, I honestly would not care if the boys didn't nap if they were happy and playing joyfully but, as we all know, when they don't nap they are such crab apples! I had several things I needed to get done around the house today and holding Luke was not one of them - ha!

After Luke had been up and fussed for almost 2 hours I decided to lay him back down. I left Jackson playing with his cars in the living room and as soon as I got Luke situated I heard, "Mommy I just need to tell you something." So, I go in the living room and Jackson says, "I just stuck a fadesoffintouncontrollableandundetectablespeech" What? I could not understand him and the tears start flowing like crazy. After a few minutes of decoding I translate that Jackson put an orange seed up his nose and it is now stuck.

Let's go semi-off topic a little here. Praise the Lord I have been reading, "Bringing Up Boys" by Dr. Dobson so that I could have some sort of insight into WHY in the world my son stuck an orange seed up his nose!

So, I look up his nose and I don't see anything. I ask him if he is sure it's up there and he's pointing to the top of his nose, crying, "It's right there!!!" So I try to get him to blow his nose. Nope, just snot. We go about this for about 5 minutes with no seed in sight. I'm convinced we're going to have to go to the ER where my child will be traumatized by surgical tweezers probing the upper cavity of his nose when I just start praying. We go to the bathroom and I hold a cloth over one side of his nose and just keep telling him to blow. And wouldn't you know it, after a few tries, out comes a gigantic orange seed. I have no idea how he got it up so far. As soon as it came out I said, "You better thank Jesus for getting that out of your nose" and my sweet boy dropped to his knees and said, "Oh Jesus! Thank you for saving my nose!"

Needless to say, my "laying luke down" did not work. He screamed until I just went and got him. I went with the boys into the play room, completely giving up on any housework whatsoever. While we were playing I noticed Jackson had left the rest of his pumpkin muffin on his play table, you know, the one I wanted in the first place. In perfect Mom fashion, I reached over, grabbed it, took a bite and ended up with a mouth half full of sand. Evidently it went outside with jackson this morning when he played in his sand table.

All's well that ends well though, and those two precious ones are now sound asleep. Praise the Lord.

Christmas is Calling

I was so excited to find this cute outfit for Luke to wear this holiday season...here's hoping he still can when the time comes!

Through the Eyes of a Child

Today we had the closing service of DNOW 2010, a youth ministry that reaches out to youth in our area. They take part in games, service projects, worship and learning about discipleship. As a church we got to be a part of their experience and let me tell you, it was an experience! God's presence was so evident in our church this morning, it was overwhelming at times. I learned so much watching our youth worship God with all they had - carefree of anyone watching and what anyone might say. It was a moment between them and their Savior. If only all of us worshipped God with such childlike adoration.

We were blessed with getting to worship with the Jeff Johnson Band and listen to a very profound message by Ed Newton. I wish I could adequately put into words what I experienced today. I love our new church. It seems like each week I learn something new about God and about myself:  things I need to work on and things He is so gracious to forgive and continue to work on in me. But today, it was different. Instead of learning something new I was reminded of something I've known all along: how much I love Jesus. I remember when I rededicated my life to God back in 2003. I was SO desperate for Him and I'll be honest, it's a great place to be. Over time, even though you love God just as much, you forget the passion, the drive and the awesomeness that loving Him really is. It can become the norm even when you never intend for it to. God is so good, so faithful, so abundant and as I was leaving church today I just wanted to jump on top of the nearest building and preach the same message I heard this morning. "Run to Him! Please, everyone, PLEASE run as fast as you can into the arms of Jesus! He is waiting for you, loving you and interceding for you." I wish I lived every day feeling like this.

As I watched our church worship and heard the message with open and willing ears, I lifted my hands to God in praise it dawned on me. I love Jesus so, so much but it has NOTHING on how much He loves each of us...me and YOU. I know the world does not like for us to say it but Jesus is it. He Is. And He is ours joyfully. I pray that each of you reading this knows that.

At the end of the service the youth choir sang Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty Who Was and Is and Is to come and it was like I caught a glimpse of Heaven. Fellow Christians worshipping, my heart filled with so much joy and peace it might explode and our God being Exhalted as He and only He deserves to be. I hope I live to see the day when my own boys are down there on that altar praising God - I can think of no greater thing for my children than that.



~ Bethany

9 months and counting...

Luke turned 9 months on the 1st of September - where has the time gone? I mean, seriously, it blows my mind some days how fast time is moving around here! He had his first illness this past week - he was so pitiful! Jackson has never even run a fever so to have one so little be sick was a new one for us. It's so fun for me to see the differences in Jackson and Luke's personality as the grow. Luke is such a calm, quiet baby, perfectly content to play by himself. There will be times when we are all in the living room and Luke will just crawl back to the play room by himself and start playing. Jackson would have NEVER done that!

He is over baby food. Completely. If I try to give him any, whatsoever he will spit it out and clamp his mouth shut. Some people react to this by saying, "Oh, that's good!" but really, it's not. It is really difficult to prepare food for him in a way that is healthy and in a pure form but is also soft enough for him to eat safely. Most of the time, I just give him whatever we are having (pre salt added, of course) and he gobbles it up faster than I can keep it on his tray. He has started standing on his own and will walk a step or two between furniture. I was kind of hoping I could delay him in some way by not encouraging him to walk but no luck so far. He loves to clap his hands and wave bye. If only they would stay this sweet and innocent forever!

He loves it when Ben calls us on the phone and will immediately come over, grab the phone from me and say, "Hey Dada!" Super cute stuff.

He is overall a very mild mannered, easy going baby. I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "He's just such a calm, laid back baby!" And 99% of the time that's true. But let me tell you this, if you tell the boy 'no' his world falls apart! He has such a little temper on him! It's so rare that I see it that for now, I think it's kinda cute :)

He just fits into our little family so perfectly and I can't remember life before him or imagine it without him.

I love you sweet Luke bug! We all do :)

What are these faces?

Finally Friday!

I'm so glad it's friday! Not only is it a long weekend, but today was absolutely glorious outside! We ate a picnic lunch with Ben and then enjoyed most of the rest of the day outside. We even ate dinner outside tonight - chili and potatoes, yum. Luke is slowly but surely feeling better. Wednesday night was by far the worst. We went to the dr on Thursday and he said his right ear was not infected yet but full of fluid so he anticipated it would be at any time. He said he also saw some signs of infection in his nose so he sent us home with an antibiotic to take. I'm not big on antibiotics unless they are absolutely neccessary but in this case I thought it was best going into a long weekend. Did you know that children do not develop sinuses until age 4? Me either!

I finally got a shot of Luke standing by himself. He's starting to take small steps between furniture so who knows what the next month will hold!

We're really excited about SEC football. We're a pretty small voice up here in Hog Country but we'll still be cheering for our Rebs - Hotty Toddy! Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend :)

Happy 9 Months Luke and a Prayer Request

This was my sweet 9 month old boy this morning and tonight he is just pitiful and sick. I think he has an ear infection and we will be at the Dr in the morning to find out. Would you pray for him? He is usually such a happy baby and loves to play, laugh and eat but tonight he just wanted to be held, whimpering all the while. Bless his heart. I was hoping to be writing a 9 month in review post tonight but snuggling a sick boy trumps all.