Getting Started

This is my first post on this blog, and I am so excited! I won't post names except for those of my immediate family because I know there are some people who don't want the world to know who they are and where they live! This is a place I will come to write about exciting things that have happened during the day or week, prayer requests that I have, cozy moments spent with my family, recipes I love that I want to share, and my personal journey of weight loss and building healthy eating habits. So, here goes...

I discovered yesterday that Griffin (2 years and 4 months old) knows more than I realized! I was curled up on the sofa and he brought me My First Truck Board Book and snuggled down in my lap and proceeded to tell me what all of the trucks were. "Roller (his favorite truck of all time), dump truck, scraper, fire truck, crane, pickup truck ("DADDY drive the pickup truck," he informed me, "and Bippin drive the van!!"), monster truck, car carrier, and on and on with me just sitting there with my mouth open. Normally we'd sit down and I would proceed to read through the book -- an event that occurs at least twice a day if he has his way -- with him repeating the truck names quietly, or not so quietly, after me. So I really didn't know just how much he really understood until I let him talk. I should do that more often!

My husband Mike and his friend cut down ten trees yesterday, and they will finish chopping them up and hauling them away next weekend. It is a huge amount of work, and they were both sore today. They worked from 9 am until almost 8 pm. No wonder they were worn out!

We had a leadership meeting after church this morning. The pastor and another leader in the church discussed how important the volunteers in the church are, and it got pretty emotional. Quite a few of us shed tears as he talked about the rewards that God has planned for those who serve Him and are good stewards of everything that He gives us. It is hard to see -- especially if you just live day to day and don't look at "the big picture" -- how what you do affects others' lives. Just this morning I talked to the father of a little boy whose family has been visiting the church for a few weeks. He told me that his son starts running to the nursery as soon as he sets him down inside the church (we meet at a local high school). He was just amazed and said he has never seen his little boy so excited to go anywhere. I almost cried, being the emotional person that I am. Mike and I were so blessed to be asked to take this position of leadership! We have been the coordinators for the Baby's Life program (0-3 year olds) for a month now, and it is a lot of work and stress and trying to find people to cover for other people in the nursery, but it is so worth it! Plus, we get to go to the Christmas dinner for free this year, and it normally costs $50 per couple. Yippee!!

Sammy (8 months old) is cutting his 7th tooth. He started teething when he was 4 months old, and I can't wait until he's done! Of course, by then he'll be 2, and that's a whole other set of difficulties. It seems like he has had a runny, stuffy nose for a solid 4 months now. And he has taken to burying his sweet little face in my shirt and wiping it on me! He is also quite mobile, not walking yet (unless he's holding on to my pant leg and I am tugging him along) but he can crawl so fast that he keeps up with me all day long. His 20 minute nap in the morning -- the only nap he takes all day -- just isn't quite long enough for me to get all of the cleaning and laundry and dishes done, so I have to sneak it in here and there when he is distracted. Really, though, he is the sweetest little baby in the world. He just wants to cuddle all day, and I am much too... something... to just sit there and let the world pass me by. Maybe I should slow down and smell the Johnson and Johnson's, but it is SO hard for me! That's something I'm sure I'll regret later in life. I'll probably wish I had sat and stroked his baby-soft skin and buried my nose in his fuzzy hair and let the laundry sit. On the other hand, there are those who would say that I usually let the laundry (and dishes!) sit far too often, and I need to put more effort into my homemaking skills. There is a balance there somewhere, perhaps I should try to find it! In the meantime I will just write about it.