Learning to Crawl

Maverick has yet to crawl (forward) so we keep trying to encourage him to get moving.  The things that are most encouraging are items he should not have.  In this case, a flower.

 Just getting started and all is well.

 Up on my knees now.

Uh oh!  I'm slipping!

Now I'm just mad!

Just give me the flower.

I'm still mad at you.

Finally!

*Note, there was no actual crawling done in this series of shots.  Baby and parents gave up and will try again tomorrow.  Baby is happy in mommy's arms and about to break another of mommy's necklaces.

New Baby Lunch

Although Maverick is hardly a "new baby" anymore, we were invited to the annual new baby breakfast lunch at our church.  Pictured above is also Sam and his mommy, Jennifer.  I had hoped to get a picture of the three boys that were all born within a nine day span, but Cameron was already down for the count.

We all had a nice time and we sat with the Pfanmiller Family 

Their new baby, Parker, is just over one month old.  He was such a cutie pie and made me wish my baby was tiny again.  Although, I do enjoy my uninterrupted sleep these days!

Owls!

Today we took the boys to a local garden center that was putting on an educational talk about birds.  It was mainly owls and other birds of prey.

An owl is Brighton's favorite animal, so this was especially a treat for him.

Chandler was happy that one of the owls lost a feather and Daddy was able to catch it on the breeze.  It was a fun time all around.

Maverick's New Trick

So here's my darling baby and his super cute new trick.  I know I'm biased, but I could just eat him up.  He is so cute and so smart too.  You can see that grin he has after I ask him to blow the whistle and then he does.  Just priceless!

If you notice in the video, you can see how close he is to crawling.  He reaches forward and gets ready to crawl, but then just belly flops (normally, not this time).  He'll get it soon, I think....

11 Months

Say it isn't so......how can there only be one month left until my baby turns one?  Maverick is 11 months and is rapidly approaching his first birthday.  He weighs right at 19 lbs and I'll have to add the length later.    He is finding his voice and has been quite the little screamer lately.  It's okay when he's "talking" but can grate on your nerves during dinner when he's just bored.

Maverick has 6 teeth total, 3 on top and 3 on bottom.  He loves to eat!  He will still eat some "baby food" but mainly eats table food that isn't too processed.  I really need to work more on his sign language.  He picks it up quickly, but I often forget to show him new signs.  I'll need to drag out my book as a reminder.

Maverick is still a stationary baby.  He doesn't crawl, roll, or scoot.  This makes life for me pretty easy, but I know that's all about to change SOON.  He almost has crawling down, but has yet to go forward.

Maverick loves being outside, swinging in the swing or going for a walk in the stroller.  We all can't wait until it warms up and stays warm so we can be outside more often.  He still takes a morning nap of about 1 hour and most days will nap from 1:30-3:30 or 4 p.m.  He is ready for bed by 7:30 p.m. and usually sleeps 12 hours at night.

Maverick loves his stand-up tables and especially likes to play with anything he's not really supposed to have like paper, trash, or something of his brothers'.  We are so blessed to have this little guy in our lives and can't wait to see more and more of his personality develop this coming year.

**Edited to add that Maverick has started waving this month to most everybody.  He likes waving hello and bye.  He is not saying any "words" but is still babbling.  He recently started screaming as a form of communication (as mentioned above)  So when he sees you you might get a wave and a scream hello :)

House Updates!

We are so excited to finally be making forward progress on the house.  Here is a sketch of what the front will look like once we are complete:

Now the fun part begins.  We have to select everything we want for the inside including flooring, paint, fixtures, and the list goes on.  It can be quite overwhelming at times.  It feels so good to make a few decisions!  Luckily I have an expert (my mom) in the flooring department.  She helped us select the following for most of the flooring in our new house.  The picture is hard to tell exactly, but the wooden floor sample at the top is a bamboo floor that we really like and hope is in our budget.  We also like the two carpet samples that are furthest right near the bamboo.  The vinyl flooring (at the bottom) is what we think we like for the new mud/laundry room.

 
Here is a slice through the house that shows the current great room and new dining room extension as well as the new, larger, covered front porch (where man is standing).  Notice the new doorway to the left of the fireplace where the addition will be.

 

This is a direction that we like for the master bathroom.  Disreguard the tiled table it's sitting on!  The stripey blue tile near the bottom is what we want as a feature wall in the shower and for the bottom of the tub surround.  The yellowy-creamy colored tile (to right) will be the floor, shower walls, and tub decking.  The fish border will go above the tub with smaller yellowy-creamy tiles also.  

The pictures really don't do it justice.  I was surprised that Derek liked the fish.  Fish have always been a favorite of mine (one current bathroom is already done in fish) and I just fell in love with these cute hand-made tiles.  Luckily we won't need much of it, so I really hope we can fit that in the budget too!

SAT Prep

It appears my vocabulary is increasing or at least my use of my vocabulary is increasing.  As a side note, I tutor two high schoolers 1x per week on a regular basis.  One of them is a Junior, thus the SAT prep.  Maybe this is where my increased verbiage is coming from.  The conversation went like this:

Me:  Sweetie, I had to move several things around in the shed today, so it's a little disheveled at the moment.

Sweetie:  Disheveled?  Is that even a word?

Me:  Yes, disheveled.  You know, it means unkempt.

Sweetie:  Unkempt?  I think you meant unkept.

Me:  Unkept?  Is that even a word?  No, I meant unkempt.  I'm pretty sure there's an "m" in there.

Sweetie:  No, it's unkept.  No "M"

Me:  Look it up then.  I'm pretty sure there's an "M"  At least that's how I pronounce it.  I obviously get that un-kept means "not kept" but I think the word here is unkempt.

Sweetie:  (looks up unkempt on handy i-phone and reads definition) Unkempt - having an untidy or disheveled appearance.

Me:  (just smiling)

AWANA Crazy hair

Not sure how well this picture actually shows it, but the boys have purple pink hair.  I would say it's purple as the can claims it is, but it came out looking more hot pink to me.  Anyways, the boys enjoyed having "crazy" hair last week at AWANA which meant a shower before bed.  Chandler also has a "crazy" hair day for preschool, so this dye can do double duty!

XOXOXO

Happy

Valentine's

Day

The Bathroom!

The floor plan for the house is FINALLY coming along.  We seem to be back on track and headed in a good direction.  The master bathroom has undergone many, many changes.  We just can't seem to get it "right".  Here are a few of the trials.

If you can find the master bath in this design (upper left) you can see that the toilet adjoins the shower wall and is basically in the middle of the room exposed.  Derek (mainly) was the one who didn't like the openness of this plan.  

In this design the overall flow was nice.  The main problem was the shower size.  This shower would require Derek to not extend his arms and rotate in on central point in the shower.  Too small....

Another design, was almost there.....  We added a linen closest and increased the shower size.  Now we decided we wanted the bathtub (and window) more towards the back of the bathroom.  Easy fix.

Hopefully you can see this final design.  Take a look at the overall house too, since this is pretty close to what we will build.  Now the bathtub is in the back and the shower is larger, and the toilet is "contained".  The last change (okay, better not say last) but we think with the size of the vanity as drawn (6 feet long) we should make it a dual vanity.  Then we will be happy!

Overall we are very pleased with the design and even though we couldn't get a garage it will work out for our family just fine.  We could start construction as early as April.  I'm excited!

A Teachable Moment

A teachable moment, yes, that is what I stumbled upon yesterday.  

Telling your children the right thing to do is one thing.  Showing them the right thing to do through your actions is even better.  God gives us teachable moments and how we choose to use them is up to us.  I was fortunate enough to have one of these moments yesterday that I was able to use to help show my children what the "right thing to do" is.

Granted, this moment did not come at the most opportune time.  It came at a time when I could have easily given up, and said, "not today, God".  But I didn't.  Yes, the children were cranky and hungry and ready to go home.  I was finishing up errands at Target and putting my buggy away when I noticed the following items in the buggy in front of mine in the outdoor stall:

A coupon wallet, perhaps?

Yum, strawberry wafers!

Of course you can probably recognize that the first picture is of a ladies clutch purse.  When I saw it in the buggy it was partially opened with various receipts and coupons sticking out of it and because of the pattern and material, I thought it was a coupon organizer.  There was also this package of cookies.  What an odd combination of stuff to leave in your buggy I thought.  I announced to the boys to get back out of the car that we needed to go back inside Target to return these so that whoever lost them could hopefully come and claim them.  They weren't happy about it, but I explained we needed to do this so that we could help this person out.

I discovered that the thought-to-be-coupon-organizer was actually just a regular wallet with credit cards, money, and an NY drivers license inside.  I inquired at the customer service desk if they could take these items so that they could be claimed.  It was then that I started to put myself in the shoes of the woman that lost these items.  I wondered what would happen if she couldn't remember where she lost these items.  I asked what would happen if nobody claimed this wallet.  The Target person said that after 24 hours, the items are trashed.  Okay....now what should I do??

I decided to ask for the items back that I would find the owner myself.  I did leave my name and number with the Target desk incase the owner came their before I could track them down.  I could continue writing this story for many, many more paragraphs, but basically what it boiled down to is that I had to call in a favor from my former boss, a private investigator, to get a cell phone number to try and call the woman whose wallet I found.  I left a message with hopefully her husband stating I found a wallet and to please call me.  When I woke up this morning a very happy woman had left me a message  wanting to know where she could meet me to get her wallet back.

When I opened the door to meet her this morning she had flowers, a gift card, and a nice Thank You note for me.  Granted I did not do this for any "reward" but it was certainly nice of her.

It was a great lesson to teach my boys that we always try our best to do the right thing even when it's not the easiest or most convenient solution.

Such pretty Tulips!

Pay it forward!

I'm finally making good on a promise to myself to pay-it-forward!  I have made 3 gifts for some blog commentors and plan on delivering them soon.  I was able to drop off two of the three today.  One was for a new mommy, Megan.  She just had her second son 8 days ago and I was at her house dropping off a meal.  Hopefully it was good.  I made her "fiesta salad" which is one of my family's favs.

Seeing her new little guy made me realize that my baby is hardly a baby anymore :(

Brighton refused to be in the picture, and I wasn't going to push it.

Here's the cute gift I made:  I thought it turned out nice. 

Sorry Jen P, if you see this post before you pick it up from church.  I had hoped it would be a surprise!