Baby Pictures

 Hello,

           My wife got inspired to take some pictures of our very cute and very sweet baby. She did the setup and posed him while I ran the camera. Here are some of our favorites. 

That is all. A picture is worth a thousand words, therefore I don't need to comment any farther.

Till later!!

The Happy Things In Life

A Happy Spot on My Piano

Chicken Potpie

 

Another Happy Corner

Old friends...New friends

Fun Projects

 

And a Happy Spot

Baby Curls...

...Fingers and Toes...

...And smiles!!

Thrift Store Finds!

Yet Another Happy Place

This Person...

...And This Person.

Captured Memories and Moments.

 A Happy Spot!

And Pretty Scenes...

"These are a few of my favorite things!"

Of Earaches and Such

     My house is calling my name. Very Loudly. And I am pretending to be deaf. I have been a Good Responsible Mom for three days now, and I am tired of being Good and Responsible. So I am blogging instead of putting my house back together. I did do a load of laundry, and clear papers and stuff off the top of my table, and straighten the coffee table and comb my hair, and take a nap, and hug and feed and give my baby medicine, with a kiss of course. And I plan to be able to cook supper tonight, instead of my poor husband having to come home and fix something (he makes really good grilled cheese sandwiches by the way).  So I'm kind of trying to tell my self that I was virtuous enough to earn the privilege of blogging and doing something fun and different. Not sure what the something fun and different is going to be yet, and likely it won't happen. Anyway.
     So, Benny woke up with a fever Tuesday morning, but didn't have any other symptoms that I could find. He was very grouchy and irritable and I held him all day long. It was the same on Wednesday, except he screamed himself to sleep that night. Which was Not A Fun Experience. And his fever was 102 by then, so I and his father both said he is going to see a Dr. I was rather sure it was ears. So Thursday I called the clinic at 9. Now I have a super awesome Dr. and the nurses are great at my clinic, but the front desk was dropping the ball for some reason. Finally by 11 they said oh, we can't get him in today, but our other clinic can probably see him. Not sure why it took from 9-11 to figure that out but anyway.
     My really awesome mother-in-law had offered to take me in, since my car isn't working, and Clark felt he needed to be at work. So she came and got us and we were on our way. We had an hour to the other clinic, which gave us lots of time to chat about various subjects. By the way Mom, I researched that theory we discussed about European doctors not treating ear infection with antibiotics and that's not true. They do treat with them, they just don't treat as swiftly as most American doctors do. 
     We didn't know where the other clinic was exactly, but figured that it was a small town and we would find it. We wandered up and down the main track and a few side streets, and finally asked at the gas sation. They pointed us down a side street, we could almost see the building from the station.
      Benny decided to be quite the little charmer, and was smiling at everyone while misery looked out of his eyes. I think that the nurse and doctor first thought I was a silly paranoid mom that had dragged my baby in when there wasn't anything wrong with him. Until the Dr. went to look in his ears. The first ear Benny behaved like a perfect child and cooperated nicely. The second ear, not so much. I knew as soon as he started fighting us that ear was the culprit. I could see the Dr. knew that too. Mom said she heard him yelling way out in the waiting room. That clinic is not very sound proof, if you wanted to, you could easily eavesdrop on the patient next door. So the Dr, said yeah he has an infection and he'll prescribe antibiotics for him (the Dr. needed to brush his teeth by the way). I didn't very much like the idea that he has  to have antibiotics so young, but I am thankful for them. And I didn't think that 'natural treatment' was going to work by the time we were at that stage. He'd had it for several days already.
     So I got his prescription and gave him a dose when we got home. He is a real trooper about taking his medicine. He went to sleep and slept for several hours. He woke up feeling a little better. Last night went ok once I got him settled and he woke up with out a fever this morning. He's sleeping a lot today, but he showed some interest in playing with his toys. I'm hoping in a day or two I can have my happy bouncing baby back.
     I guess the poor child inherited his father and mother's genes for ear aches. Next time he gets an unexplained fever, I'll know what we have brewing and can maybe take preventative measures.
   This is the explanation for why I'm tired of being Good and Responsible. I'm dreaming of a puffy, flaky pastry with chocolate and vanilla filling cream and lots of whipped topping. And a pedicure.  And if you read all the way to the end of this post without getting bored, or sick of me talking about my baby, I'm proud of you.

Quote of the week:
Me to Clark at 1:52 this morning, in a not very alert frame of mind: "I want to go to the Alps and have a spa"
Clark, mumbling sleepily: " Whatever. You poor thing"
Which is what he says when I propose Mission Impossible.

God & Details

Check this out!!
        Don't let anyone tell you that God doesn't care about details!! To think that every single one of those was a little bit different. Well.......... Don't let me explain, look for yourself!! These are frost patterns on our dinning room window. The morning sun is behind them giving them a nice color.

       
Our God is an awesome God!!

This Christmas

Hi,
        I will try to sum up my thoughts on this the best I can. I hope I don't lose you. My mind went, (Does your mind ever do this?) Any way my mind went down an interesting path, and I got to thinking about what it would be like to be in Joseph and Mary's shoes when Jesus was born. Things come into perspective when you have a child of your own. What would it be like to come into town and not have a place to stay? What would it be like to have a baby in a barn? What would it be like to have your quiet invaded by a bunch of shepherds and then some weeks later by some very prominent individuals from a far away land? What would it be like to have a child like this? I wonder if Joseph and Mary understood what a precious gift to the world that they had in their keeping? Did they know that this little baby would change the entire world? Did they know that 2,000 years later He would still be the most influential figure that ever was and ever will be? I'll think I let your imagination take it from there.
       Kind of aside but along the same line. If you read those passages where men of God encountered God and all His majesty and holiness, it is really hard to wrap your mind around the fact that this same God was, by His own choosing, born in the lowliest conditions and was crucified like a criminal and three days later rose as conqueror. I am so glad He was willing to do this and that His blood is still more than enough to cleanse every sinner and make him new.
        Anyway these are few of the scattered thoughts I have had in the past couple of weeks.
        Here are a few Misc pictures from over Christmas time. They are by no mean an exhaustive and complete documentary of the past week, but just a few favorites. Well maybe not even related to Christmas in the exact sense........ Anyway here they are.

Gwen sleeping in Marmee's arms.

Observing the surroundings.

A new book for Christmas.

How does this work mom?

The family got a train for Christmas.

We did some snowmobiling.

The ladies scrap booked.

We had pizza for supper one evening. It was yummy!!

Much more I could say and more pictures I could post but I will stop for now. 

 Till later!!     

From Our House To Yours

 

Merry Christmas!

God Bless Us Every One!! -- Charles Dickens 

How My Good Intentions Died

     When I became a Mom, I had all kinds of good intentions. I still have quite a few, but sad to say, I think they are going to leave, one by one.
     One of my Very Good Intentions, was that I was never going to feed my baby that powdered cereal stuff out of a box. I didn't see how it could be healthy, and I wanted his first experience of real food to be good, solid nutrition. I had visions of introducing him to mashed banana, or pureed oatmeal or rice when he was six months old or so.
   Well, I was moaning to my mother-in-law about his awful sleeping habits, and how I struggled to get him to settle for the night. "It sounds like a meat and potatoes issue to me," she said. "He wants more than what you are giving him. Get a box of baby cereal, and mix up a tablespoon or so before bedtime. It'll settle in his stomach and give him something to digest. I know it's cardboard, but it works, and a little bit like that won't hurt him. My mom gave it to her babies at six weeks."  I was desperate enough for advice, but at the same time I resisted the Idea slightly. After all, he's not THAT old yet, I told myself. Surely I can still satisfy him. I don't want to lose my baby that fast. But the more I thought about it, it seemed like a solution. After all, if it didn't work, I didn't have anything to lose, besides my sleep, and maybe my sanity. And I didn't think that mashed banana or real rice or oatmeal was going to work in a three month old tummy.

     So I swallowed my good intentions, and my pride,  and bought a box of cereal the next time we were in town. It sat in my cupboard for a few days while I tried to convince my self that feeding him cereal was a good thing, after all we do want our children to grow up and be independant of us. Just maybe not at three months old.

Shoveling it in.

      I fed it to him for the first time Saturday evening. The first spoonful was tentatively tasted. The next spoonful was eagerly swallowed. You've heard the expression "...Dove into his food."  That's the most accurate expression for the spoonfuls after that. He grabbed the spoon and tried to help me shovel it in. Both little hands got thoroughly involved in the process. It didn't make much difference in his sleep and eating habits through the night the first time. The next night I did it again, except fed a little more. He scarfed that down as well. He went to sleep better, but still woke up about three times to eat. By now I was feeling sort of like a guilty mom, because obviously he hadn't been totally satisfied, and was likely a little hungry.

More, Mom More.!!

      The nights since have ranged from mediocre, to fairly satisfactory. One night he refused to eat it, so I didn't force him. He had a tummy-ache later, which explained the non-interest that night. It hasn't really made a difference in how often he is awake at night to nurse. Which I suppose some people would say because the cereal doesn't contain anything anyway, and doesn't make a difference. It makes a difference in his level of contentment. I think he just needs a little extra boost every now and then.

Good stuff.  Real good stuff!! Yummy!!

     I dreamed the first night after the cereal that my baby had suddenly grew into a much bigger baby from the cereal. I was relieved the next morning when I woke up and he was still that same small size. I still had my little boy, even if he does have to eat food independently of me.
     So that was the death of My Good Intention. We are both happier for it. Sometimes you have to do what's best and what works, even if the "experts" tell you otherwise.  I wonder which Very Good Intention will die next?

I'm happy now!

A Few Questions

     5:30 am is way too early to be starting a blog post. It's also way too early to be out of bed as well. A certain son of mine needed to have his diaper changed, and he doesn't sleep through diaper changes as well as he used to be able to. So he is currently lying on the floor beside me halfheartedly playing toys. In a few minutes he will be sleepy, and we will head back to bed for a few hours of sleep.
     We had our snowstorm. It wasn't as dramatic here as they had predicted at one point; the main thrust of the storm went south of us. Sometime I want a storm to hit us with a foot of snow. But we did get about 8 inches out of this storm, which was a nice amount. It's terribly cold now. We ended up going to Mom and Dad's for the storm because Mom needed Clark's help to reformat her computer.

*************************************

      Well, that was as far as I got yesterday. So let's see... what else. Oh, how does one get a three month old to go to bed at a reasonable hour of the night? We're really struggling with that, and even when I keep him awake through the evening, I still struggle to get him to settle before 11. Last night I was SURE that when he went to sleep at 9:30 or so, we were looking at an early bedtime, because he hadn't napped for more then half hour stretches through out the day. But nope, at 10 he woke up, and so I fed him, then it was up, down, up, down, up, down for the next hour, literally at least that many times. So.....sigh. Last week I decided that he's old enough to reschedule to an earlierbedtime, and it worked beautifully one night. Not so since. Arrrgh! And two hours is all he can handle being awake at one stretch, after that we have emotional meltdown time. So, any ideas from any experienced moms out there? Please? Or isn't he big enough to do this yet?

*************************************

     Let's see, what else? I found a few recipes that I want to try for holiday baking yet. I found a recipe for making peppermint patties, only I need to see if in the end it's going to be "cheaper" to make my own rather then just buying them. I found a recipe for thumbprint jam cookies that I want to try. I got that inspiration from Kay's blog.

*************************************

     We have ladies Bible study tonight, and we are going to start the book "Having a Mary Heart In a Martha World". I read through the first chapter (barely had time for that, HA!), and I'm looking forward to discussing it tonight. I have a few questions though.  I'd like to know why everyone thinks I have "so much time on your hands, why you only have one child". Ha! I realize that life would be busier with more children but still...  And why do we place expectations on ourselves that certain things are good and Godly and Biblical to do, when the Bible doesn't say anything about it?  Like homeschooling, and raising your own food, and nursing your baby instead of bottle feeding, and having lots of children, and stuff like that? (So I thought I'd pick close-to-home subjects.) I mean, that's all stuff that I do/would like to do (not sure right now about the lots of children part), but in the end does it really matter?

*************************************

Benny has been sleeping for the last few hours (it's afternoon now). He needed to. I hope he cooperates tonight though. I think I shall publish this post now.

Anticipating a Snow Day!

     We're supposed to get a big snow storm tonight and tomorrow! First one of the season! I can't wait!! You should have heard Clark and me when we saw the forecast this morning; we sounded like a couple of kids with a new toy. We had projects and stuff planned for tomorrow, but I'm afraid that we'll just decide to play all day instead. I'm dreaming of hot chocolate and games and books and stupid movies and yummy food. We'll see I guess. I have no way to get to the library for the books and stupid movies, so maybe that part of the dream will be slightly crippled (though there is always Youtube!). I told Clark we need a majorly competitive game like Monopoly or Catan or something to play against each other. We also need to do family protrait for the Christmas letter. Ha! Like we'll even get out of our PJ's tomorrow! Maybe we can put a new spin on Christmas pictures.....
      I decided to do my Saturday cleaning today, and it's finished except for vacuuming and mopping the bathroom floors. I need to make something for church on Sunday sometime as well. And wash dishes of course.
      Benny is getting more alert and active. He rolls over all the time, if he feels like it. He's also at the stage where he is bored, and he thinks Mom should have all day to play with him. Which she doesn't. I'm trying to decide if I should think, "I can't wait until he's crawling," or not. I do think he's growing up WAY. TOO. FAST! I guess I'll always say that.
     We're enjoying the seasons activities, Christmas carols on the radio, cookie baking, and caroling planned for Sunday. I need to do my Christmas shopping as well. What do men like? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Clark says that ladies are just as hard to shop for, which I can't imagine!
     Anyway, this is a summery of my life on a wintery Friday afternoon. I'll let you know what we actually did on our snow day after it happens!

I have writers block. So I'm going to be cheap and do a copy and paste. Here is my Christmas carol of the year so far.

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born;

O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.

So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,

Here come the wise men from Orient land.

The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;

In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,

Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

 

And I really like 'Little Drummer Boy ' too. So what if it's imaginative? It's a really neat song I think.

So those are my thoughts on a Saturday morning. I could do a nice long rant on how tired I am of people demonizing Christmas, but I guess I'll be good and not be controversial. Have a good weekend everyone!

Thanks to God

Thanks to God for my Redeemer,
Thanks for all Thou dost provide!
Thanks for times now but a memory,
Thanks for Jesus by my side!
Thanks for pleasant, balmy springtime,
Thanks for dark and stormy fall!
Thanks for tears by now forgotten,
Thanks for peace within my soul!

Thanks for prayers that Thou hast answered,
Thanks for what Thou dost deny!
Thanks for storms that I have weathered,
Thanks for all Thou dost supply!
Thanks for pain, and thanks for pleasure,
Thanks for comfort in despair!
Thanks for grace that none can measure,
Thanks for love beyond compare!

Thanks for roses by the wayside,
Thanks for thorns their stems contain!
Thanks for home and thanks for fireside,
Thanks for hope, that sweet refrain!
Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow,
Thanks for heav’nly peace with Thee!
Thanks for hope in the tomorrow,
Thanks through all eternity! -- August L. Storm

Maybe it's rather cheap to copy and paste, but this song expresses it all so well. Tonight I am especially thankful for my husband and son, and a nice warm house when it's cold and snowy outside. I love living in a place where the changes in the seasons are so obvious. Happy Thanksgiving to you all as well.

PS

Thought I would add these. We took these this morning. He's pretty precious. I think we'll keep him.

 Right now the poor child is sleeping on my lap. He's sick with a cold and gets grumpy in the evenings.

A Benny Bear Post

Cause a never ending subject for blogs is about the kids, right?

 Most of these are from the same series because he was being particularly photogenic at that moment. And they capture a lot of different expressions.

He's a happy little boy most of the time.

These were taken the day he was two months old.  This one is my favorite.

Looking like his Dad again.

I like this one too.

 The family at the Creation Museum.

And good-bye to you too.

Home Again

     We are home from a two week trip. We took several young people to a Youth Bible School in PA. Which was fun and enlightening. Were we ever that silly when we were that age?  And energy drinks CAN'T be good for you. And how on earth can you stay up that late every night and not pay for it? I guess we aren't as young as we used to be. I remember when I went how the older students would go to bed early and I couldn't figure out why. I know now.
     We had a nice time in PA with various friends and relations. Another interesting thing was that the people I recognized or know from my years of going to the YBS there, were mostly married and had children of their own. Hmmm.
     Benny got to meet two of his great-grandmas. Which was very good. He did very well on the trip, except for getting exceedingly tired of his car seat. He's terribly grumpy this morning. He's also starting to throw fits. Why can't he wait to do that for a few months/years yet?
     There was snow on the ground when we got home. I think winter is pretty much here to stay. I love winter, especially here in the woods. I absolutly HAVE to listen to Christmas music when I see snow. So I've spent the last several days doing that. The only problem being that I am afraid I am going to run out of time on my Pandora Radio.
     I collected home making ideas on this trip. I feel like I've been AWOL to my house for the last year while I was doing baby. So, I'm going to clean corners. I'm going to finish painting the second bathroom. I'm going to buy potpourri and make my rooms smell good. I'm going to find a cabinet or shelves for the empty cubby hole in the main bathroom. I'm going to decorate for Christmas after Thanksgiving. I'm going to make cheery table runners, or find them in thrift stores. I'm going to recover the nasty living room pillows. I'm going to burn candles more often.  I'm going to spend more time at menu planning and purposeful grocery shopping.Maybe I'll get a start on painting my bedroom. My grandma gave me a quilt top that I am being severely tempted to put in a frame and quilt on winter evenings.  I am sounding WAY too ambitious.
     Well, seeing Benny Bear is sleeping, I had best get to work. Laundry, dishes and finishing unpacking. There is a nasty smell wafting around this morning, and I can't figure out what it is or where it's coming from. I remember it from last winter when I was pregnant. Yuck. So I want to find the source and eradicate it. See you all later.