Can All My Shirts Say This Inside?

I found this on the inside of my daughter's shirt, and was slightly jealous. If you can't read it, it says Gorgeous and Talented. I wish all of my shirts had a compliment stamped right inside of it! There has to be some little tags of some sort that you can order that you can customize with little phrases on them. I mean if you can custom order your M&M's now, why not the tags on your shirt?

Thought for the day....

"There's no better place to be than living in the palm of God's hand.
That way life comes at you filtered through the fingers of God."
~Pastor Jane Allen;
New River Community Church of God

A Face Lift!!!!

When I think back to January and how unsure of blogging I was, and now look at me! I'm completely head over heals into it! I have been so satisfied with my experience, that I have been getting dissatisfied with the appearance of my page. So, it is time for a face lift.

Only, I am not really a computer friendly person. Remember my blond post? Yah. I'm pretty blond when it comes to computers too. Like a friend was telling me last week, keep that dye bottle handy! For some reason, the instructions that are out there for doing basic stuff just seem to be written in Greek the second I start to read them. Or written in "brunette" should I say?

So somehow, on my own, I figured out how to download a different blog template from a website and get it onto my page. It took several tries to get it right, and in the meantime I lost all of my previous pics that customized my original page, but I remembered to save everything!

So, what do you think? How does my page look now?

And because I am a creature of change, I'll probably keep this look for a week and then do it all over again!

10 Years later...

I had the opportunity to attend my college reunion this weekend. It was so much fun seeing old faces and reliving some old memories. Better yet was showing my wonderful husband a small part of my own history and background, and sharing some of the past with my children. My years at Longwood were such an important time in my life.

I found out that the school is condemning my old dormroom....It's sad, but true. It was the oldest building on the campus, and it survived the big fire from a few years ago. But because of it's old age and the need for progress, they are tearing it down. I was unable to go inside the building while I was there, but I did get to take a picture of it. There are a lot of memories in that old building. An interesting fact... the view from outside my old study lounge window was the tennis courts. My mother used to play tennis on those same courts during her college days at Ferrum.

Things that go "burp" in the night....

For some reason, I'm horrible at burping the baby. I just can't seem to get the bubble to come up...so I pass off the wee one to my husband, who magically makes the baby burp in about 5 seconds.

And now I figured out why.

Last night, I was awakened in the middle of the night not by a fussy cry of an infant, but by the sound of rhythmic thumping. I looked around for what was making the noise, and it was my husband! He sounded like he was trying to burp the baby. ONLY, THE BABY WAS IN HER CRIB ACROSS THE HALL!!! My DH was patting the side of his leg, IN HIS SLEEP, for about a full 3 minutes! I didn't dare wake him, it was just too funny watching him trying to make a bubble come forth from an imaginary baby!

Yup, my husband is such a great baby burper, because he practices it in his sleep when I'm not looking!

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Forgive me if my posts have all seemed to be leaning on the "baby side of life" these days. Having this little one in my life seems to be all that I think about. I can't think of anything more interesting than my little girl these days! I'm sure I'll be posting more stuff that is more interesting to all of you later.

But for today, it's about the baby again. Sorry!

I was taking a quiet moment to study my new daughter yesterday. I mean really study her...memorize her little features. The curve of her nose, the dimple in her right cheek, the little tiny earlobes, and her long long toes. It was such a pleasant and quiet moment, just watching my little angel sleeping.

And then I got to her knees. Such perfect little knees. Not a mark on them! And then came the realization that in a very short time, those perfect little knees will be marked up, skinned, and bruised . Eventually, she'll be crawling. And then walking. Then running. And riding a bike, swimming, dancing, and playing soccer. Then I got to thinking that ALL of her little body was flawless, unmarked by the outside world. And the further and further she gets from me and closer to her own independence, there will be more bonked noggins, broken bones, scrapes, bruises, stitches, and countless tears.

And my only defense? Prayer! Being a mother is really hard. My only shield between my child and the rest of the world is prayer, and I don't do it nearly enough.

I'm am proof that mothering kills brain cells!

I knew it and I am proof. Scientists need to use me as a case study.

Now that I am a mother of three, I have very few brain cells left.

Here is proof...I signed and addressed and stuffed 40 envelopes with birth announcements in them. And I have misplaced them. No, I didn't mail them. They have vanished. I put them down someplace so that I wouldn't lose them....and I lost them.

Yesterday I wanted to give the baby a bath, so I got her little tub and towel ready on the counter. I ran the water to warm it up. I ran it some more because it was still cold. After about 3 minutes of running the water and it still wasn't warm, I asked my husband what could be wrong. He asked me, "Did you try using the HOT water knob?" Sure enough, I was trying to get hot water to run from the wrong knob. I'm 32 years old, have been using hot/cold water since I could walk....and I somehow forget that the hot water comes out of a totally different knob.

Remember that commercial with the egg frying in the pan, and the announcer says "This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" Please insert the word "breastfeeding" where the word drugs is. It's THAT bad.

"Bring out yer dead"...dong!

I failed to mention in my earlier posts that my second daughter is a little different than other kids. She has the most fantastic mind for make believe, loves to sing and dance, and is a fanatic about quoting movies. She has something called PDD-NOS, and sometimes this makes my daughter very careless and impulsive when she talks to other people. In a way, this disability (if you really want to call it that!) is a blessing, because she cannot tell a lie...and her perception of how a story plays out is nothing short of fantastic.

But at other times, her impulsiveness can be a touch embarrassing. Like today for example.

The kids and I all went to our Family Doctor to weigh and measure the baby. Harmless enough trip, right? Think again. While we were in the office waiting for the doctor to come in, my impulsive middle child started opening and closing all of the doors and drawers in the room. I asked her what she was doing. She stated that she was looking for something. Good answer, right?

Enter the doctor. My child closed the drawer, looked up at the man in the white coat and asked with a perfectly expressionless face, "Where do you stash your dead bodies?" The doc looked boggled and replied, "Excuse me?" She repeated her question again. The doctor started laughing (Thank God he had a sense of humor!). Of course I was mortified and had to explain YET AGAIN that sometimes my daughter comes up with random comments, such as that one, if something catches her eye that reminds her of something else.

My daughter said that she saw someone say "Where do you stash your dead bodies?" in a movie once....although since she has only seen G Rated films (that I am aware of!), I can't exactly be sure which one. Anyone else have a clue where she got that phrase from?

The most awesome of responsibilities...

Today, our littlest was dedicated to the Lord during the church service. To some, a baby dedication is just something that you do. Kind of like baptizing a baby...it's just something that you dress the baby up for, go to church, do it to fulfill some sort of obligation, and then go out to eat at a fancy restaurant.

For our family, our baby's dedication goes alot deeper. For us it means that this baby is a gift from God, given to us on loan...and the dedication ceremony is giving her BACK to God and promising Him that we will do everything in our power to raise her the way that God would want us to raise her. And with that promise comes HUGE responsibility. Today, we promised that we would pray with her, read Bible stories to her, and teach her about Jesus Christ. And hoping through all of this that one day, she would accept Christ as her own Lord and Savior. What a huge responsibility!

Honestly, I just don't know how anyone raises a child without the help from the Lord! It's hard! One of my big issues is that I didn't grow up in a Christian home, so I have no model to go on...I'm sort of just flying without a flight plan, so to speak.

Lord, this little girl is all Yours. I will raise her the best I can and teach her to walk in Your ways. But I am going to need Your help. Alot of it! Amen.

Our newest game.....

We've been playing a new game here at our house, and it's brought us much joy and entertainment to our lives. This game is called "Quick, what's the baby saying?"

At first, it didn't quite catch on with the other kidlets in the house, I got some silly fluff answers from them like "All the baby does is cry, how can she be saying anything?" So I had to teach them the game. Our new little bundle is very expressive in her face....she smiles and pouts and makes all sorts of cute gestures. So I started "talking" for her.

While sitting in her carseat sleeping, she had one of her little hands raised over her head in a fist. She "said" in her sweet little voice, "Baby power! I've got it now! This whole house is now under my supreme control!"

With her lip stuck out and a very sound "wah!" she says, "Hello?!?!?! How does a baby get something to eat around here?" or she says "Hey, Ma! I've got a present in my diaper for you!"?

So the kids have started playing along too, and we are all really enjoying the game. While nodding off after a feeding yesterday, my big girl doing her best baby sister voice said, "I'm too lazy to burp! I think I must sleep now and barf on you later." And then made a song about it.

And the younger girl interjected with her own monologue of the baby's thoughts on clothes and socks yesterday. "I like to wear pink and only pink. Pink in the morning, pink at night. And I don't like to wear socks. I like to kick off my sockies."

Yep. A game to tide us over until the baby gets a voice and a mind of her own. Heaven help us all.

*Update* I am removing the picture from this post because I believe that people are coming onto the blog and "stealing" it. I don't want my baby's pic everywhere doing who knows what. This post gets twice as many hits as any other of my posts on a given day, and I believe it is because of the picture. Too bad.