My Little Huddy Buddy - 10 weeks

*This boy's smiles and coos just melt my heart. They light up his whole face! His eyes, especially, as so expressive. As my brother put it, it seems like he is looking into your soul. :) His first smile was on the day of his baptism, Feb. 19th.

*He's not really on a schedule yet. Generally he likes to eat about every 3 hours, but it seems like that's starting to stretch to 3.5/4 hours sometimes if he's asleep.

*I was super nervous about changing a boy's diaper because I'd heard so many horror stories of being sprayed in the face, curtains, etc. But, I think there were only 2 times that it happened, in the first few weeks. Once he got the wall and once our bed (quilt, blanket, sheets, and mattress cover!) Now, I'm happy to report that this little dude never pees on me!

*I'm not sure how he feels about the paci. He's definitely not addicted. Sometimes, if he's overtired/overstimulated it helps him fall asleep, but most of the time he just falls asleep on his own. We have to hold the paci in his mouth for quite a while before he'll actually hold onto it, and sometimes it seems counter productive because then he'll cry when he drops it.

*He slept 6 hours at 6 weeks; 7 hours at 7 weeks; and 8 hours at 8 weeks. Now he really only wakes up once to eat in the middle of the night. We've been putting him down around 7 pm, so I don't hear from him until around 3 am. Then, he's ready to eat again sometime between 6-7 am.

*He LOVES his car seat. We tend to run errands and get out most mornings, and that's when he takes his best naps.

*The first few weeks I actually had to remind myself that he needed to eat or get his diaper changed. He just doesn't fuss much. Really the only time he gets upset and cries is when he's overtired at night, and that's only started happening in the last week or two.

I cannot get over how easy this child is! Praise the Lord!

26 months

More snapshots of what this girl is up to lately:

*She's been asking "Huh? What?" after everything we say. We've grown tired of repeating ourselves, and realized that it's not that she doesn't hear us. Once we started asking her "What did I say?" she's able to repeat back verbatim what she's heard. Perhaps this is her way to process new vocabulary or concepts? (Any suggestions on how to break this habit are welcome!)

*Her sentences are becoming much more complex. Instead of saying "Ellie hand dirty," she now says, "My hands are dirty, Mommy." She's using 7-8 word sentences and pretty much blows me away every day with her conversations.

*She loves to sings her ABC's and can pretty much sing them on her own. She can identify an "E" for Ellie.

*She can count to 13 (often skipping 8) and her new way of asking for more is to say "four, five, six, seven?"

*In the car she's been asking "Where did --------- go (Trader Joe's, Daddy, church, motorcycle, etc.)? "

*This girl still LOVES to eat. She asks for snacks constantly! Some of her recent favorites are almonds & cranberries, peanuts, grapes, strawberries, and "moo-vees" (smoothies). Plain, European-style yogurt is still her all-time favorite thing to eat. She eats her dinners pretty well, but we do sometimes have to bribe her bite-by-bite with something like bread or grapes.

*She's discovered running, jumping, and is getting more and more confident doing up/down steps independently.

*She likes to use a pen and draw on the back of junk mail envelopes that we use as scrap paper. She says, "I color."

*Ellie is *mostly* potty-trained!!! She rarely has an accident for #1, and accidents for #2 are becoming less and less frequent. Last week I dropped the diaper during naps and her overnight diapers are dry about 1/4 of the time. While I still ask her if she has to go, she's starting to tell us much more often now, and when she says she doesn't have to go, she really doesn't. Yeah!!!

*Current favorite night-time song is "Come Thou Fount". She calls it "water fountain". It's so sweet to listen to her try to whisper-sing along in my ear while I'm holding her during our little bedtime routine. She knows many of the words now. I also discovered that she knows the words to "Jesus Loves Me". I heard her singing it during a time-out yesterday (hee hee)!

*She is such a sweet big sister to Hudson. Sometimes, as expected, she gets a little carried away and is too rough with him (he's already got a scar from her scratching him), but she has definitely included him in the family, often asking as soon as she wakes up, "Where's Hudson?"

Is she cute, or what?! I love this kid!!

Economic Freedom & Income Equality

Amen! 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/8B_btJT8kzw?fs

Reformation Appropriations of Creedal Theology and Contemporary Methodology for Understanding the Past: Calvin’s use of Chrysostom in the Institutes of the Christian Religion

Curran Bishop--Calvin’s use of Chrysostom in the Institutes

Introducing Hudson Davis Bishop!

Digital scrapbooking design generated with Smilebox

23 months

*We've taken potty training to the next level, and Ellie is doing great!! For the last 5 months we've given her "potty practice" and she was to the point of peeing in the potty every single time we put her on it. However, I hadn't had a chance to put her in undies to help her learn how to stay dry in between potty times. So, school ended Wed. and Thurs. we put her in the undies. Day 2 she was in about 8 different outfits, and then days 3-8 (today) she hasn't had any wet accidents at all! We're still putting her in diapers for nap and nighttime, and she doesn't like going #2 in the potty, but otherwise, she's doing great. We've even taken her out this week and she's gone on the big potties in a couple different stores! I'm still reminding her every 1-2 hrs (though she has told me a couple of times that she needs to go), but this is SO much better than changing diapers. :)

*Her vocabulary just blows me away. She is saying 5-word sentences and really communicating, even on the phone w/ grandparents.

*We've begun time-outs, about a minute and a half. It seems to help-- she got one for touching the tree/ornaments and then didn't touch it again.

*She calls us "Ellie's mommy" and "Ellie's daddy" often now, because she recognizes that other kids have a mommy and daddy too. I'll hear her call from the crib "Where did Ellie's mommy go?"

*Twinkle-twinkle is still a favorite song, especially before bed. When she sings along with us she knows many of the words. But, when she sings it on her own, to put her babies to bed, she sings "kinkle, kinkle, kinkle sar, how-I, how-I, how-I kinkle."

*We talk about the baby a lot now. She likes to put both hands on my bare belly and feel it, and will kiss it too. If we ask "Where's the baby?" she will either point to my stomach or her own. :)

*Her sleep schedule is still pretty much the same: 7 pm-7 am with a nap from 2-3:30 or 4 pm. She's still a great eater too and has gotten really good at feeding herself, even wiping up her chin/cheek with her spoon when she gets yogurt on it. I still call her my bottomless pit, and she weighs almost 30 lbs!

Another Keeper - Potato & Pork Soup

1 diced onion

2 tsp. butter

2 tsp. minced garlic

5 potatoes, peeled & diced

1 tsp. Better than Bouillon

1 lb. ground pork, browned

1/4 package frozen peas

1 c. heavy cream (maybe more... I just eyeballed all the ingredients until it looked good)

1/2 c. cheese

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. parsley

Saute onion in butter, add enough water to cover the potatoes and boil until tender. Add rest of the ingredients and let simmer.

Verdict: Oh my yumminess! It's hard to go wrong with such rich ingredients, but this was amazing, and very filling.