Josiah--5 Months

Josiah is 5 months today. (I promise I'll only keep up the monthly Josiah pics for a year!) He rolls over, eats veggies, pushes way up, talks a lot when Aliza is quiet or sleeping and likes to swing. This is about the time when I start feeling like he is growing up too fast! And one of these months he's actually going to be smiling in a picture!

This is wedding week! Lots of fun stuff happening around here...well, some not so fun stuff too. Jeremy and I decided to pull up the grass that is growing in our driveway. I guess that is one advantage to having people come from out of town. The house and yard gets cleaned up! It will take us a couple evenings to complete that task. Aliza was quite the cheerleader..."good job Mommy. Whoa Daddy, that's a big one!" But I didn't see much pulling effort from her. haha.

Fun with Cousins

(Let's pretend that Aliza doesn't really have her finger up her nose!!)

My cousin Bea and her daughter, Katelyn, visited us for a couple days this week. We had fun going to the zoo and the beach and Bea and Katelyn did lots of other things while my kids slept!
I especially enjoyed dinner out and a round of mini golf and ice cream one evening!

It was fun having them here! Notice the girls' matching band-aids. That was the theme of the week. What Aliza did, Katelyn did and what Katelyn did, Aliza did! =) The only lasting influence of a 5 year old on this 2 year old....Aliza says "Awesome" now.

Playing Piano with Grandma

For me, there is nothing better than hearing Aliza singing Jesus Loves Me. It's a little bit hard to hear her, but you can get the idea. The faith of a child is something very, very special.

Tonight's Thoughts

• Josiah recognizes Jeremy now. When Jeremy comes home, Josiah lights up. His eyes sparkle and he starts kicking, smiling, and making little noises until Jeremy picks him up. So special. I get a little jealous, but it's ok.
• Do children ever learn to stay in bed once the rail is taken off their crib? Still frequently regretting that decision.
• It is still SO much fun to take Aliza to Panera Bread and watch her dip bread in her Broccoli Cheddar soup. Tonight she wore her rubber boots with her shorts. She got plenty of attention for that.
• I can't decide if I should keep working towards my Master's or not. I wish I could see the end from the beginning and know if it is going to be worth the work.
• I hate it that I had thyroid cancer. I am reminded of the C word every time I go to my endocrinologist. Today he ordered a neck ultrasound since reoccurence is most frequent between years 4 and 6. This year is 4 years. Ultrasound will be looking for "shotty" lymph nodes. Lymph nodes would be the most likely place of growth.
• I really like my Cricut. I'm using it now.
• We are hopefully meeting our architect tomorrow. That means that we could have blueprints within 6 weeks. I try not to think about that too much.
  
• I just finished reading Wild at Heart. It is always good to be reminded about the power you have to totally ruin your kid's life AND the power that you have to encourage them to be a secure and confident adult. I hate it that it is inevitable that I'll scare my children for life!
• I'll be starting to read up on homeschooling to see if it is for our family.
• I need to find a friend whose husband owns their own business.
  
• Josiah is on a good nap schedule. I hope the craziness of the next two weeks doesn't ruin it.

I wondered what has been on my mind. Now I know.

Baking

She was a mess, but the brownies were yummy!

My Gramma gave me a subscription to Paula Dean's cooking magazine. Since my subscription hasn't started yet she gave me Paula's special chocolate issue on my birthday so I thought that I needed to try a recipe from the magazine. Let me tell you...Paula does not have health in mind when she creates her recipes!!! This was a chocolate mint brownie recipe. The recipe called for 3 sticks of butter, 3 cups of sugar and 4 eggs! The mint part is a layer of Andes chocolates in the middle of the batter. Yummy indeed!

7 Years....

....of marriage to Jeremy! I love how after seven years I feel like I know him so well, yet know that there is still a lifetime of things to learn about him.

(I think we need to take a picture of the two of us at Janell's wedding!)

One Small Step Towards Independence

Yes, she is sleeping. She was like that for almost 2 hours. I was just praying that the click of the camera wouldn't wake her up. It didn't.

This is day 2 since taking the rail off of her crib. Yesterday I was wholeheartedly regretting the decision. The first night it took her an hour and a half to fall asleep and she woke up 4 times calling for me. Yesterday she didn't take a nap. Last night she slept good. Just woke up once and today she fell asleep and took a good nap. If you can call a nap standing up a good nap!

The only reason the rail came off is because it is the first step towards potty training. We'll adjust to this and then we'll take the next step.

Potty Training Ready?

Has anyone had an experience like this? Aliza is 28 months old and not potty trained yet. Yesterday she all of a sudden came running to me saying "hurt, hurt." She was trying to pull her diaper off of her and immediately laid down for me to change her. My Mommy antennae were on high alert for a urinary tract infection, but she didn't show any signs of discomfort all day. Then again this morning she did the same thing of saying "hurt", grabbing her diaper and wanting me to change her. Is it possible that she is just becoming aware of when she is going to the bathroom? I can't imagine that she has an infection at this point and of course you don't completely trust what a 2 year old says hurts or doesn't hurt. I was going to hold off on potty training until this fall, but I'm starting to think the time is NOW.

Picture Post of Weekend Fun

Family Picture: Meghan, Janell, Jeff (with hidden mouth), Brian and Caleb, Laura (she just got off work hence the Stucky's t-shirt), Pansy and Earl, Carla, Jeremy and Josiah, Van (on his tip toes to be taller than Jeremy) Karen and Aliza. Linda was working so she couldn't be there for my birthday.


Jeremy and Josiah. Josiah loves to be held especially if you let him gnaw on your thumb.


Priceless.



Grandma and Aliza


Aliza and Grandpa. Look closely....Pop-pop's watch is balanced on her head. I'm sure it was momentarily a "hat."


Help with candles.


Josiah talking to Aunt Meghan.

I took Josiah for his 4 month check up today. He is 26 inches (90%) and 16lbs 5oz (70%). The Doctor told me to start him on vegetables and fruit. He's a strong healthy boy. Aliza played with her Pop-pop while Karen and I went to the doctor. Boy did she have a ball. They were all over the yard and counted cars as they drove past our house and talked about what color they were. I know this because I played the same games this afternoon! We sure are thankful for Grandmas and Grandpas who can keep up with her.

Happy...to you

That's what Aliza was singing all day today. Today was my birthday. I don't think Aliza really knew it was my birthday and not hers, but that's ok. I just pretended that she was singing to me. Jeremy's parents are visiting us and Matt and Chrissy joined us at my parents for lunch. Mom makes a birthday meal for each of her children. We always have the option to choose our meal, but at this point in my life I choose what I eat every night so I have turned that privilege over to her and for one day I don't have to worry about what I will cook!

For all you scrapbooking fans, Jeremy got me a Cricut. I will quickly add that he got it off ebay! I won't have to worry about gift ideas for him for awhile....just a new cartridge for the Cricut. It will arrive later this week so I will be carving out some scrapping time for sure.

There was another gift that got quite a reaction from those watching me open gifts. My parents gave me a trash can. It is a very nice trash can. In the picture below I placed the old and new trash cans together. The white trash can is the one we have used for the last 7 years. I put a Wal-Mart grocery bag in it and I thought it was fairly dirty, but quite functional. The spring had broken so the gray lever no longer worked. You had to press on the back of the lid for it to open. A little annoying, but ok. Well, I opened up this new trash can and people practically cheered. They proceeded to talk about how horrible our trash can was and you would have thought my in-laws were ready to disown me for having such a lowly trash can!!! Anyway, I have now entered the world of highly functional trash cans and it will now be worthy of being moved into the new kitchen! Thanks for the trash can Mom!

Grocery Shopping

I guess one could assume that there is nothing more interesting in my life to talk about besides grocery shopping, but today wasn't any ordinary grocery shopping trip. This was the first time I went grocery shopping alone with two children. I'm not sure what possessed me to attempt this today. I had dinner with a friend last night and had a good night's sleep so I was ready to face the challenge. Actually it went really well. I'll do it again soon. I put Josiah in the front pack facing out and Aliza was in the back of the cart as usual. I guess having Josiah facing out looked funny to shoppers because we got a lot of attention. And it wasn't "cute baby" attention it was looks at me like I had lost my mind! Looks that said "boy you have your hands full." The great thing was I had my hands full, but my kids were great. Aliza behaved and Josiah was quiet. I had everything under control.

Aliza was a little squished when I put the bags in the back of the cart with her. The bag of corn beside her was a little tipsy so I told her to sit down and hold the corn. Next thing I know she is holding the bag of frozen corn saying "ok Mommy." I guess I didn't specify what corn. But how did she find that frozen corn so fast?