One Year With Micaiah

Well, this time last year we were getting our house painted, putting our house on the market, planning a move...and having a baby!  All 6 lb. and 8 oz. of him.

I can't believe it's been an entire year.  It seems like forever ago, yet, just yesterday all at the same time.

Micaiah has been such a trooper this year.  He has been through a lot of transitions in his one year of life.  He's shared a room with his music rehearsing daddy, a washer and dryer, learning to sleep in a room all by himself to sharing a room with his two older siblings.  He's done excellent with all of his transitions!

His personality is really starting to show through and he is learning new things every day.

Here is what he is up to lately:

Signing all done, more, and please very well. We're working on thirsty and hungry (although we all know he is ALWAYS hungry! Honestly, the boy weights 23.2 lb. now)

Continues to make all other babies cry (except his little girlfriend, Eliana.  She just kisses and loves on him regardless of his actions) because he steals all their food, pacis and toys:)

Following simple instructions. He actually "helped" me put his legos away the other night.

Says: all done, uh-oh, hot, mama and dada to us

Another tooth came through on July 21st.  He is now up to 5.5 teeth!

Walking like a champ. Every day of July he would take more and more consecutive steps together until he could walk across an entire room by the 20th!  Now he is walking laps around the entire house.

Loves him some meat! This boy eats more than Zeke at this stage in his chunky little life. Size 18 month T-shirts are a little snug around his belly.

Beginning separation anxiety. He definitely loves his mommy. When he's tired he'll cry whenever I walk out of the room. If I'm not around he does much better. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.

Does NOT like me to scurry around and clean up the house or work on projects.  Darn!

He is beginning to help me get him dressed.  He'll pull his arms through his shirt holes and transfer his toy from one hand to the other to get both arms through.

Cloth diapering is going GREAT!

He is down to nursing for just his first feeding in the morning.  We are giving him organic cow's milk for the other 2 meals and he has transitioned wonderfully.  We went straight to sippy cups, so no more bottles!

Loves anything with buttons: ie. amps, cell phones and remotes, but prefers the more expensive ones...of course.

Sings along with his daddy!  I love this one:)

"Gentle" is far from Cai's vocabulary!  He is SO rough and LOVES to wrestle.  He's been known to knock Zeke off his feet on occasion.  Shhh...don't tell Zeke I told you that one;)

What do you do with him during rehearsal?  Well, the same thing we did with the other two.  He is going to master the drums and guitar just like Zeke!

Starting to play games.  He likes to drop things and wait for our reaction.  He likes to splash water in his own face.  We have an on-going game when he wakes up in the morning or at naps.  We cuddle together until he has completely woken up.  Then, he makes an "mmmm" sound.  We'll copy each other back and forth until it gets faster and faster and then he picks his head up, takes his thumb out of his mouth and is ready to get down and play.

He has learned the difference between his and Zeke's bubbies and tries to steal Zeke's to make him mad. Usually Zeke does pretty well with it:)

Balls are a favorite lately.  He likes to play "fetch".  Who needs a dog when your one-year-old does all the drooling, plays all the games, and chews on everthing that a dog would?!  At least I can put a diaper on a baby, ha!

He loves people.  He hardly ever puts up a fuss while strangers "ooh" and "aww" over him.

We are so grateful for this third little life that God has blessed us with.

Happy 1st Birthday my sweet Micaiah Joel!

Recipe For A One Hundred Degree Day

What You'll Need:

Kids - it always helps to have an excuse to get creative and dirty:)

Clothes - optional

Tupperwear and spoons for playing with water teaching 

your little brother how to play the drums

Paint Brushes - you can't beat water and grass painting

Water Bottles - it's always safer than licking the water off the concrete

Good thing that never happened;)

One Sprinkler

A Super Hero is a necessity - for safety, of course

Now... get creative ...

...and don't worry about getting water in your face...

...because you can always get your bicycle helmet on to keep the water out of your eyes.

Just remember, though, teamwork is the key to happy hearts in the sun!

I'd Rather Do Anything Than...

Sometimes, as a parent, there are tasks that I'd just rather not have to do.

Some days it would just be nice if my kids didn't have to be sustained by food. I mean, I feel like the majority of my day is spent running around the kitchen filling up sippy cups, cutting up fruit, grabbing an extra napkin, and cutting up meat for my little carnivorous toddler.

Don't get me wrong, being a mom is awesome, and I love my kids, so don't even go there!

I'm just saying, if I were to have one job to give to someone else it would be fixing meals for my kids:)

What about you? Do you have any specific task that you'd love to pass on to someone else for a day?

Little Corners Of My Mind

My mind has been a whirlwind lately and I can't seem to follow through on a single idea or thought.

So, it's your lucky day.

I've got a post filled with random thoughts from my mind that have been circling around for the past couple of weeks.

So, fasten your seat belts and rid yourselves of any type of organizational expectations you may have had while coming here today:)

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It's August! Where in the world did the summer go? In fact, where in the world is 2010 going and why does it seem to be in such a hurry?

The weather was so nice yesterday. We kept all our doors open all day and the kids played outside, happily (well, most of the time), for about 95% of the day. The other 5% was spent eating and yes, they all finally got a bath last night!

Micaiah turns ONE on Friday. I'm not even going to talk about that one yet...

This past Sunday was "transition Sunday". I may or may not have teared up a little bit as I dropped Cai off in his new TODDLER class;) And I may or may not have snuck into Kidz GIG to peak in on Areyna as she danced and sang to Jesus with her new class (which she has been talking about non-stop, by the way!). Zeke, well he didn't transition much, seeing as he's been going to Areyna's class the whole time because he couldn't manage to stay put in his own class without her. But, now that he is familiar with his room and teacher we are working hard to make this transition pleasant for him as he ventures into life without his older sister and cousin in class with him.

Cai slept almost ALL DAY yesterday. He woke up at 8:30am, we put him down for a nap at 10am and he slept until 2:30pm! He was ready to go back to sleep by 4pm and slept until almost 6pm and was still ready for bed at 8pm. Not sure what all that means except for the fact that we've worn that sweet little boy out this summer!

School! AAHHHH...I don't even know where to begin. It's August and I need a plan...and fast!

I feel as though I'm veering more and more into the "simple life". I now dry my clothes on a line outside, I cloth diaper my child, I am working on getting our compost going, I feel the need to rid myself of all unnecessary appliances that "help" me do things more efficiently because I don't feel like they are all that much help anyway. My sister-and-law and I are checking into to a farmer's co-op to buy our meat and produce from. The world probably thinks I'm crazy!

Cai walked a full lap around our whole house yesterday without falling.

Radical is literally kicking my butt! All these feelings and convictions I've felt over the years are surfacing at once and this book is convicting me, even more, to put them into action. So many things to think and pray about.

I'm so glad we don't have to go to the beach this week. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the beach, the ocean, the salt water, the sand, looking for crabs and seashells, cleaning beach remnants from the creveaces of my soon-to-be-one-year-old's chubby rolls, but I am VERY thankful to be at home this week and get caught up on the normal, everyday things, that go weeks without getting done around here, like: mowing the grass, watering the plants (I'm down to 2 live plants inside...pretty sad), laundry, normal cleaning around the house...

Stuff...stuff...stuff...sometimes I just want to get rid of all our "stuff".

We think Areyna may be lactose intolerant. She's been getting really bad stomach aches and we decided that we'd try to weed out milk. She went all dinner and night without a stomach ache and no milk. We'll give it a few days to see what our next step should be.

Yesterday was a super-productive day! We finally got our newsletter done, Josh worked on the yard (it took him 5 hours!), I got caught up in the office...I LOVE productive, relaxing days:)

This weekend will be our church's last weekend in our current space. Josh and a slew of other people have and will be working around the clock, in the new space to put the finishing touches on it so we can get going in full swing right away. I LOVE that Josh gets to be a part of this. I kind of feel like I do when we are able to give, financially, to someone going on a mission trip. Even though I can't physically go myself (you know, with three kids and all the "help" they bring to the table) I still get to be a part of it. I don't get to go on the mission trip, but we can help enable someone else to go, therefore being part of the trip ourselves. I can't physically help out at our new space all that much, but allowing my husband the freedom to come and go is allowing me to be a part of the bigger picture!

I suppose that's all my mind has the capacity to process at the moment, so I'll stop for now.

Have a great, happy heart"ed", fun, productive, motivated, relaxing Tuesday!

Not Me Monday

After playing with the cousins in the hot, steamy yard all evening...

...we would never comment on the stench wafting from our children...

...and just run to the kitchen to Febreze them off instead of rinsing them off in the bathtub.

That would just be lazy and inhumane.

Isn't bath time supposed to be one of the highlights of parenthood?!

Words Of Wisdom

Me: "Hey guys, what should we do for Micaiah for his birthday next weekend?"

Zeke: "We should build him a sweet cake!!!!"

Hmmm...I think I've heard that one before:)

Fun Facts For Friday

1 - This is exactly how we are all feeling. We got back from our last beach retreat yesterday after 4pm and then had rehearsal for this weekend at 6:30. We are all pooped! I think we've had enough Myrtle Beach for one summer. We can't let down yet, though. We have a full weekend ahead of us and then Josh is going head-strong at Journey's new space to get it ready. We'll be in our new building in about a week!!!

2 - Did you figure out what my "Story In Pictures" was? A couple of minutes after tucking him in to bed one night Zeke cracked the door open and threw his bubby in the hallway, saying that he "didn't want bubby to tempt me to suck my thumb". Totally unprompted! Areyna stuck bear out their too, but shortly came and retrieved him, with tears in her eyes, saying she just couldn't do it. Anyway, when Zeke got up, his fingers had NO prunage and they were completely dry! So, at 8:34am we had an ice cream celebration in honor of his first night with no thumb. Areyna was feeling pretty sad that she didn't have the same accomplishment so Zeke shared with her:)

3 - The day Zeke woke up with un-prunaged thumbs we had to go to the mall they asked if they could have a big bubble gum ball. I had a GREAT idea! I told them they could pick out ANY gum ball they wanted to, but they had to go three nights without sucking their thumb to obtain their prize! Zeke didn't make it, but bear spent the next three nights in the hallway (and cuddled up with Meme and Poppie) and she didn't suck her thumb. She's been smacking that gum all day today! We're not making a big deal out of it, but if they choose to try super hard and succeed they get to check off another box on their "No Thumb Gum Chart" to try for another prize.

4 - I'm reading David Platt's, "Radical". I'm speechless. Each word is leaving me with a tightness in my chest and an ache in my heart. If you have read, or are reading, that book you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't...you need to!

5 - Meme got Zeke a new costume. He loves it so much that he has been known to sleep in it on occasion. The kids at the camp were making over how cute he was all week! He was pretty cute, if I do say so myself:)

Happy Friday Ya'll!

It's Loose

Areyna has, not one, but two loose teeth!

What?! It's not time for that! That means she isn't little more.

That means she truly is growing up...

...and refusing to stay small like her daddy keeps demanding her to do.

A Story In Pictures

Can you guess what special occasion we celebrated at our house this morning???