Monday, May 19, 2008

Sadness

The last few days I've received some sad news for two friends of mine. First is a man I worked with at digiChart. He mentored me the short time he was there. He helped me expand my knowledge of SQL and inspired me to keep pursueing it. We don't really keep in touch, but we exchanged emails last week and I learned that his wife has stage 5 cancer. They've been married a long time and have 5 children. She is only 37 years old. While I've never met her, I read an article in the Tennessean about her and she sounds phenominal...strong, courageous, faithful, a loyal wife, a loving and giving mother. The article headline was, "A Mother First, A Cancer Patient Second." And you know it's true with this woman. She clearly loves her kids more than anything and is fighting for them.

Today I received word that a friend of mine's husband died very unexpectedly. He was only 43. They had a great relationship and she is heartbroken and devastated.

My heart just burns and aches for these people. It makes me look forward to the day when there will be no more sadness, no more crying, no more sickness and no more death. Won't it be wonderful to enter heaven and never experience these things again...to be with Jesus forever, the One who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our sins so that we can have a relationship with God, the One who loves us unconditionally and showed us by giving His own life.

Please keep my friends in your prayers.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Milestones

Sitting up (with a little help...hehe). Ignore the red scratches on my head...I bumped it on a toy at my friend's house.





I found my toes! They went straight to my mouth.



And I don't really like peas. But squash is another story!





Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Bummed

My new favorite TV show is Design on a Dime. Primarily because I'm cheap but I want everything to look fabulous. So I thought I'd go on their website and see if they'd makeover our livingroom, but discovered you have to live in LA or Chicago. UGH! Guess I'll have to do it myself.

Monday, May 12, 2008

A Mother's Day to Remember

I woke up to a smiling little baby and an extra special card and necklace from him! Seems like he and Daddy did a little shopping while they let me sleep in Saturday morning. :) The card from Evan was so special and sweet...I totally boo-hoo'd over that. Then he got me a necklace with an "E" pendant on it. Aww...how cute! I totally felt like Gwen Stefani rockin her "Kingston" shirt. hehe

Steve gave me the nicest Mother's Day card, all perfectly worded. And then he pulled out another Jared's box and I thought, "Uh oh! Jared's has suckered him again!" They better have him on their VIP list! :) He gave me another necklace that has 2 circles inside each other with 3 diamonds, one for each member of our family. I love it! It's so sentimental and personal. He made my first Mother's Day one to remember.

My mom and mother-n-law also gave me the sweetest cards, which meant so much. And I got all these sweet text messages from my friends...it was better than my birthday or Christmas! Thank you everyone for being so mindful of my first Mother's Day...all your sweet wishes really made me happy.

I finally got to stand!

Every year for Mother's Day at church, the Pastor has all the Mothers stand up and be honored. And every year I wanted to be one of the women standing. For those of you who know me closely, you know how long I waited for the man that God had for me and how I wanted to be a Mother. Well...I finally got to stand this year! (Of course I sobbed the whole time.)

When we stood, he talked about how being a mom isn't easy and not to ever let anyone belittle the role of a Mother. He pointed out that being a Mother is the most important assignment that we as women will ever be given. I wholeheartedly agree and always have. The importance of raising other human beings properly in this world is the hardest job out there. When I look at a society that is so corrupt, I can't help but think most of it is the parents fault. Parents that don't love their children, who abuse or neglect them, or don't teach them how to function in this world. It's so sad that there's so many hurting people out there, many that stem from not having a good childhood or good, loving parents. Or some that are hurt because their parents were alcoholics, drug addicts, liars, adulterers or hypocrits.

Pastor Davis said to be a great Mother, you must have great character. He's right. That inspired me to become a better person and work on my character even more. My life will be transparent to Evan as he grows up. It will be hard to hide any character flaws, therefore I need to make sure I don't have any. I want him to be proud that I'm his Mom. I never want him to be embarrassed by my actions or character. I don't want Steve to be either. And I certainly don't want God to be. It made me think, "What type of Mother do I want to be? What are the things that I want to set as a precedent in our family?"

Sometimes it's easy to think, "I'm just a Mom. I just take care of my baby all day everyday." But I take this role very seriously. I read a lot about infant development, I play with him and help him learn, I expose him to new things, I continually pray for him, I even look up nursery rhymes and songs on the internet to sing to him because I can't remember any! :) So sometimes a thought will pop in my head like I'm not doing anything significant any more, but I know that's a lie because I'm doing something that matters for eternity...raising another person.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Picnic at the Park

Evan loved it! He just laid on the blanket and looked up at this cool tree the whole time. Hopefully we'll have lots more days like this.


Wednesday, May 7, 2008

4 months

Evster had to go to the doctor's yesterday to get more shots. Boo!! It's way harder on me than him. It about killed me when he cried. He doesn't cry. He's a fusser...not a crier. So when he cries, it's bad. But we got a great report...he's very healthy! 75% on weight and height, which explains why all his outfits are kinda short. He can easily wear 6 month clothes, but he doesn't have a thick mid-section, so they're a little big in that area. We're ready to begin baby food! I will introduce them VERY slowly, just because of the initial tummy problems he had. Andrea says to introduce veggies first...I think she's right. I'm going to introduce the yuckiest veggie first and then move on to things that taste better. :)

And he's found his feet now. This morning he was on the changing table and he grabbed his toes...so cute! That was the first time he did that. Sometimes I touch his toes to his cheek and he just laughs...he thinks that's so funny. Pretty soon he'll be doing that on his own. :)

He's such a good little baby. Everybody loves him and is always impressed with how good he is. He's sleeping great through the night and now naptimes too! I couldn't ask for a better baby. His smile makes me melt every single time.

And I've decided that if we have another baby (not that we're even close to thinking about that), I want another boy. When I was pregnant, several Mommies of boys told me, "Oh you're going to love having a boy. Just wait and see." Now I see what they were talking about.

3 month photos








Here are a few pictures from Ev's 3 month photo shoot that we JUST got back. Does anybody want to ask me what it's like to have the cutest baby in the whole world? hehe :)

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Hippity Hoppity

Our new backyard came with a new little occupant...







Thursday, May 1, 2008

Our new backyard


Steve has been working very hard around our house lately. Here's our incredible new backyard...it's gonna be our little sanctuary when we're done with it!