Happy birthday John!

Psam 143

This Psalm has been on my mind a lot lately.  It's probably a favorite because we were learning it at GPC at the same time John and I began courting so it brings back memories of a very happy time in my life.  Also the words/prayer have been helpful to me in various things that have been going on in life lately.

1    Oh, hear my prayer, Lord,
          And unto my desire
     To bow thine ear accord,
          I humbly thee require;
     And, in thy faithfulness,
          Unto me answer make,
     And, in thy righteousness,
          Upon me pity take.

2    In judgment enter not
          With me thy servant poor;
     For why, this well I wot,
          No sinner can endure
     The sight of thee, O God:
          If thou his deeds shalt try,
     He dare make none abode
          Himself to justify.

3    Behold, the cruel foe
          Me persecutes with spite,
     My soul to overthrow:
          Yea, he my life down quite
     Unto the ground hath smote,
          And made me dwell full low
     In darkness, as forgot,
          Or men dead long ago.

4    Therefore my sp'rit much vex'd,
          O'erwhelm'd is me within;
     My heart right sore perplex'd
          And desolate hath been.
5    Yet I do call to mind
          What ancient days record,
     Thy works of ev'ry kind
          I think upon, O Lord.

6    Lo, I do stretch my hands
          To thee, my help alone;
     For thou well understands
          All my complaint and moan:
     My thirsting soul desires,
          And longeth after thee,
     As thirsty ground requires
          With rain refresh'd to be.

7    Lord, let my pray'r prevail,
          To answer it make speed;
     For, lo, my sp'rit doth fail:
          Hide not thy face in need;
     Lest I be like to those
          That do in darkness sit,
     Or him that downward goes
          Into the dreadful pit.

8    Because I trust in thee,
          O Lord, cause me to hear
     Thy loving-kindness free,
          When morning doth appear:
     Cause me to know the way
          Wherein my path should be;
     For why, my soul on high
          I do lift up to thee.

9    From my fierce enemy
          In safety do me guide,
     Because I flee to thee,
          Lord, that thou may'st me hide.
10   My God alone art thou,
          Teach me thy righteousness:
     Thy Sp'rit's good, lead me to
          The land of uprightness.

11   O Lord, for thy name's sake,
          Be pleas'd to quicken me;
     And, for thy truth, forth take
          My soul from misery.
12   And of thy grace destroy
          My foes, and put to shame
     All who my soul annoy;
          For I thy servant am.

Be like Jesus

This was my response on facebook to all the annoying "be like" posts, and a handful of tearing down husbands posts. That stuff really drives me crazy, especially when the people posting profess Christ. The fall out from posting it (tho over 8o women I don't know did like it!), brought this poem that I shared on my old blog a long time ago to mind. It was an encouragement to me in what turned out to be a kind of stressful week.

"You see the back of her
Because she faces Jesus.

You see her while she walks away
Because she follows Jesus.
You see her on a lonely road
Because few find
The narrow way that leads to life.
You see her, perhaps, half-dead
Because she is in the business
Of dying everyday.
You see her forsaken
Because she has left all
to follow Him.
You see her struggle along the way
Because she takes up her cross.
You see her lost
Because she loses her life
To be found by Life.
You see her in a wilderness
Because that’s where God
Plants vineyards."
Hillary McFarland

Birthday party

On Saturday we went to Lydia and Janie's 3rd birthday party. Can I just say it is crazy that they are 3 now? Luke and Caroline ate like crazy, and Caroline had a wonderful time saying, "That was a good party, Mama!" She even got to bring home a Daniel book :-)

The kids room

Recently we moved Luke into Caroline's room, making it the littles' room. I've finally been doing some work on fixing it up and decorating a little as I have ideas, or come across deals I like. Though it's not finished and far from perfect with hand me down, non matching furniture, it is comfy and cozy, and the kids and I like it :-). It'll definitely continue to be a work in progress, and I'm sure things will change again soon when Caroline graduates to a big girl bed. Here are a few pictures of what it looks like now.

I found this frame at Goodwill and used it to frame pictures of all of the cousins on my side of the family. I suppose I need to work on framing the cousins on John's side next.

A shadowbox I made with some of Caroline's baby memorabilia.

Luke's shadowbox. These were fun to make and I found the frames for only $10 at Target.

This is rather country which isn't necessarily my style, but some cute bunnies that Caroline was given displayed on a shelf I found for a dollar at Goodwill. As you can see I've used my love of white painted wood a lot in this room :-)

The kids baptism certificate are framed on the wall with small pictures of them from their baptism days.

This bunny was a gift from Grammy to me many years ago and I stuck it on the changing table. we actually never use our changing table. It's just there to store all our cloth diapering stuff.

Caroline's sign which was a gift from one of her aunts and uncles. I plan to find something similar for Luke and hang it on the other side of the window.

Rocking chair, Luke's dresser, alphabet cards, and bunnies.

We took the door off of the walk in closet which made a kind of alcove where we put Luke's bed so they can't see eachother and play when they are in bed.

Caroline's bed and dresser. The shelf over Caroline's bed was mine as a girl, but I haven't decided what to put on it yet.

14 months old

Luke is 14 months old now! He keeps getting bigger and stronger, but is still very much the snuggly baby most of the time. This past month he started walking and is now walking about half the time. He's quite proud of his accomplishment, but also kind of lazy about it and will choose to crawl because it's faster and easier. It has been quite cold since he started walking so I've been keeping stuff on his feet to keep him  warm, I think once it's warm enough to go barefoot again he will probably really take off. We'll see! Speaking of being proud of an accomplishment, this month he seems to have turned a corner in getting excited about learning new things, and actually playing instead of just picking up toys and putting them in his mouth :-). He will build his own block towers, drive around his cars, set up his animals, and even throw a ball back and forth pretty well.

Sleeping has not gone so well this month. He had been sleeping through the night, but then sickness and traveling messed that up. After we got home  from the trip we moved him out of room (which is wonderful btw!) and he does do better when he can be in a room by himself since he is a very light sleeper. Sadly right now we're going through a phase where every time I put him in bed he cries, but only for about two minutes. I'm hoping he'll realize the futility of that soon and go back to sucking his thumb and settling down well. It's very hard keeping him covered and warm  with this new habit which I'm sure then leads to more wake ups.....sigh.

And just to prove that he is still our little Dukie challenge, he's been developing quite the temper and gets mad and kicks whenever he is told no :-(

Luke still doesn't talk much, but he can say a lot of words when he wants to. He'll repeat all the words in his Baby McDonald farm video, and will randomly repeat words we say, then won't ever do it again. His new thing is that he has picked up Caroline's first catechism question and if you ask him, "Dukie, who made you?" he says, "Gah," very proudly :-). Also he is now able to answer, "uhon, and unh,unh," for yes and no which makes communicating with him so much less frustrating for everyone! He's taken to talking baby type gibberish all the time these past few days so if I had to guess, I would think he will be talking for real soon, but we'll see....

Nursing is going fine. The past couple days we've been going through a phase of less interest, but he's done this before so I'm not too worried about it. Plus he has 3 teeth coming in and often he has some trouble nursing with teething pain. On a typical day he nurses 3 times, and I have pretty much cut off any night feedings. I'm hoping we can keep nursing all winter, but Caroline weaned herself at 14 months so again - we'll see. The thought of weaning makes me sad though so I hope he can stay my baby for a bit longer.........solid food is also going great. He eats 3 good meals, and usually 2 snacks every day.

The only other new thing that I can think of about this month is that he has become a real Daddy's boy and will almost always choose to go to John over me. That's a new one for me.

Just for the record since some of this monthly report has been a little negative, I'm enjoying going through this age because it feels like it passed by in a first trimester pregnancy sickness phase with Caroline. This time around I'm not pregnant and feel more present!

Indoor swings

The crazy things we do to keep kids occupied and busy during the long, cold Wisconsin winters. Our kids are blessed with a wonderful play area!

Modeling a new skirt

Luke is walking....

.....kind of! Since New Year's day he has been taking anywhere from 2 - 6 steps at a time. He's so different than Caroline. She just started walking and took off with it very matter of factly. Luke is approaching the whole thing much more slowly and gets very excited about it. You can see the excitement on his face when he is going to try and then he'll squeal, and or grin when he actually does it. So cute! It's fun watching their different personalities develop :-)

Caroline said

 When we very rarely buy Little Ceaser's, Caroline gets all excited and calls it, "Pizza in a box."

"I want you to help me do it by myself!" This is wanting to try to dress herself, but her way of putting it is just a little ironic.

We were discussing her wearing a new outfit from Grandma to church the next day, "And I will look beautiful!"

"I'm your little girl, Mama. And you love me." Yup, even when you drive me insane....;-)

"Duke isn't being have, Mama." She was telling me in her way that Luke was not behaving. Side note, I remember when I used to think having two children would be easier because they would play together and entertain each other. All I can say now is, haha. Then again I do hold out hope that once Luke is a little older that they will actually play games together. Right now Caroline's method of play is setting up toys, Luke's is knocking things over.

While playing in her toy kitchen, "I'm mixing up cake battery!" That took me a minute before I realized she meant cake batter.....:-)

When Caroline heard I was making corn for dinner she requested, "Big corn." After a little discussion I realized she meant corn on the cob. She was told she would have to content herself with frozen corn until next summer so I was later told we were having "Little corn" for dinner.

It's the little things.....

December days

Luke's camo hat. Even though it was cold out we HAD to get out of the house for a walk.

Caroline's "farm." Notice the pens she built for her animals.

Play is exhausting. Sometimes you have to have to take a break and suck your thumb.

Squash for lunch.

Caroline's first Flexi clip.

One of my new flexis!

Hurray for a warm, sunny day in the 40s in December!

Sometimes you gotta throw some food to the hungry tigers.

Because I can't remember the last time I saw gas prices this low!

Dukie takes his job as kitchen helper very seriously.

Caroline having fun checking out our new Lilla Rose order.

A little bit of baking.

The kids "napping" at Grandma's.

He climbed in with no help and was very pleased with himself.

Giving baby milk out of her tummy. "Just like you feed Dukie!"

Awww

An attempt at catching a picture of Luke playing peek a boo through the fridge box window.

Morning snuggles. I love my snuggly boy.

The kids love the Melissa and Doug reusable sticker pads.

When you see this you know it is either very cold, or I'm sick.

It's snowing!

It's cold out.

Watching a video of her cousin.

I found one of my old hairclips!