Sally Jean 11 Months

Mustang Sally! Girl, you better slow your mustang down!  I mean that... You are something else!  Your personality is exuberant.  You are an opinionated little thing.  You make all your likes and dislikes known.  You are going to put up quite a fight with your sister when she irritates you and you give THE.BEST.SMILES.AND.GIGGLES.  Everytime I look at you an instantaneous grin appears on my face. 

You enjoy tummy tickles and when I tickle you with my hair.  You enjoy bath time.  You get all giggly when you see your bottles being prepared.  You love toys and studying everything.  The kitchen cabinets are a source of contention for me.  You are way more determined to get into them than Ava was and I told Daddy that we HAVE to do something about them. 

You are getting much better at sleeping through the night...AGAIN!  We decided that I was just going to have to let you cry it out.  After doing that all last week, I was able to stay in bed all night long going on over a week now. 

You take 2 naps per day.  One around 10 and one around 2pm.  Your typical wakeup time is between7:30 and 8 am. 

You eat about 22-24 ounces of formula per day and 3 meals per day.  You do not enjoy any food that comes in the color green. You know where some of Ava's snack foods are and you can open the drawer. Just today, you opened the drawer, grabbed a fruit and veggie pouch, and crawled over to me with it in one of your hands and you knew that you were suppose to eat it.  I opened it for you and you sucked it down and got very upset when it was all gone.  From then, we moved to the high chair and you had a container of fruit and about 2 tablespoons of cereal mixed with some bananas, mangos, and carrots.  You like to eat, I think. 

You wear 12-18 month clothing.  You are a little chunky but I love it! You have rolls in all the perfect, most adorable places!

You celebrated your first Christmas this year.  You were very blessed with your family's generosity. 
You were also a participant in your  big sister's 2nd birthday!  This time last year, we were anxiously awaiting your arrival and mommy was extremely big and a bit uncomfortable. 

You prefer to be held, but you don't want us to sit down.  That would mean you aren't going to be on the go and that is just not okay in your opinion.  And believe me, you make that WELL known.  You pull up on everything and you are getting very brave by letting go.  It is only a matter of time when you decide to take some steps.  You like to talk.  You jibber jabber all the time and you say uh oh.  It is so cute.   


Fun Facts about you:

• you love to play peek-a-boo
• you don't like toys being taken from you
• you enjoy the Tupperware cabinet
• you HATE being put in the car seat
• you can soothe yourself to sleep
• You despise socks and tights
• You still suck on a pacifier
• You are like changing 10 octopi all at once
• You love to tip Winston's water bowl over
• You are obsessed with getting ahold of the dirty diapers

We just love you so much.  You are a light in our lives.  There is never a dull moment with you because you are such a curious little thing and get yourself into predicaments quite easily.  You watch Ava like a hawk and want to do all the "big kid" things she is doing.  Sally, we are blessed beyond measure.  I put a chalkboard in your room and I wrote that "you make me happy when skies are gray" and I picked that out especially for you because you truly do.  You can lift my spirit anytime.  I love you. 

xoxoxo,
Mommy

winning the battle over fear

Can life get any better than that?

Are there ever times in your life where you are just breathing in blessing after blessing.  You know, when you look around at the toys strewn all over the place, the plates in the sink mounting, trash that hasn't ended up in the trashcan for one reason or another, blankets tossed all over the family room floor, miscellaneous items not put in the place, but you find yourself loving it? 

That is where I am this morning.  I am so blessed.  I have a loving, kind husband who is so patient with me.  Who loves me for me, moodiness and angst ridden included.  I have 2 beautiful, healthy, growing, developing normal, and well loved little girls.  I have had constant companion in my little dog who can't seem to stand being anywhere but in the same room as me.  I have my parents, sister and her family and brother and his family who all live within 15 minutes or closer to my house.  I am surrounded my loving friends and I get to go to a church where I have met so many kind people who accept me for me and help me to grow spiritually and in so many other areas.  I have a God who knows my sin but calls me by name.  I have a God who will fight every battle for me and my family. 

I tend to get wrapped up in the scary and evil things going on all over the world.  I tend to dwell in those things and forget all of the loving kindness God has shown me.  But I am fighting alongside God right now and He is winning the battle for me.  Because this morning, I am seeing the great and wonderful things that I am surrounded by...so much of it is within the very walls where I live. 

I am blessed.  So.Very.Blessed. 

Thank you God for helping me to fight the battles that loom over me when I hear the evil news of this world we live  in.  I thank You that this is not our permanent home.  I thank You for blessing me immensely in this temporary home You have given me.  Father, help me to win the battle over fear and anxiety and to trust in Your ever-present help and Your powerful and loving arms. 

Ava starts Tot school

 

First Week of "Tot" School has commenced! All in all it was descent.  I realize that homeschooling looks so different than teaching inside a classroom.  The schedule with a 2 year old is not going to go according to plan. Hardly.Ever.  That is ok.  I am already seeing Ava learn new things and talk about the things we are learning.  So, this week we did several things. 

We color sorted buttons. She found this activity a lot of fun.  She still seems to struggle with recognizing her colors, so it is a work in progress.

 We did creation days 1-4 this week.   Not sure where my picture of day one is. But it is a number 1 with the top half white and gold glitter for the day and the bottom half is covered in construction paper for the night.  Ava put the gold glitter on the day part. 
Day 2 is the sky and water.  Ava dot painted the sky and glued cotton balls on for clouds.

Day 3 is the creation of plants and flowers.  So Ava placed all the stickers on the number 3.  This was one of her favorite activites. 

 Day 4 God created the Sun, Moon, and Stars.  This activity went south when Ava got mad when I helped her shake the glitter on the dots of glue.  She may have ended up in her room for timeout. 

 Here are days 1-4.

 Ava also covered a snowman in little sequins.  She loved this too. 

 

She also started drawing lines this week.  It use to be just a bunch of scribble and circles, but yesterday she was intent on drawing lines. 

She also did some dot paint art.  A favorite.

And I can't forget her sticker art for daddy and Mimi and PopPop.

Because they feared God

In Exodus 1, the Hebrew midwives were instructed to kill all the baby boys they helped to deliver.  But BECAUSE THEY FEARED GOD, they did not follow the king's commands.  And because they feared God, He blessed them with families of their own. 

It is amazing the blessings we receive when we fear our maker.  Fearing the Lord doesn't mean fear in the sense that we are scared of Him and His power.  It means we submit to Him, revere Him, worship Him, respect Him, stand in awe of His power, majesty, glory and sovereignty. 

I think that we often forget (or at least I do) that following God will always turn out best.  We may not understand it, we may not believe it, we may even fight along the way, but we always end up in a better place when we do what He says and wants for our lives. 

It means we may have to make choices that go against what the rest of the world is telling us to do.  It means we may get weird looks, or put our jobs on the line for the sake of our faith in God.  It means we may have to look unpopular or unsuccessful in the eyes of the world.  It means we may have to trudge through a storm to get to the promised land.  It means we may have to embrace our weaknesses so God can redeem us through them.  It means we may have to give it all to God and let Him take the reins. 

It is not always easy to take the narrow path and Jesus warns that the few people will enter through the narrow gate.  But, the narrow road is the road less traveled, but it will get you to best place you could ever dream to be. 

Fearing God reaps unfathomable blessings...

Fear God and let His blessings wash over you!