Kindness

Kindness is one of the fruits of the spirit.
Kindness is a trait of the Proverbs 31 woman. {Prov. 31:26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.}
Kindness is not really an action as it is a disposition, a favor and grace we give to everyone we come in contact with.


Recently it has been placed on my heart that my family could be kinder to one another. That it is one of my duties as a mother to instill Godly principles into my children's heart now, not in 2-3-5-10 years from now, but NOW! And what better place to start than with kindness.


This past month I have been working with Leighton {and incidentally myself} on kindness. She's two. What do you expect from a me focused toddler. She is very rude and hurtful to me and others and it really bothers me that she displays this behavior. But on the flip side she can be the sweetest, most tender-hearted little girl. This I want to nurture and develop.

So before nap and bedtime we began memorizing Ephesians 4:32. "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another just as God in Christ has forgiven you." I am amazed that by month's end she knows most of it. And I have seen a real improvement in her behavior towards others. We have both been working on being kind to everyone. At the end of the day I ask her to name one kind thing she did and then I name a bunch more. She really enjoys this time and even reminds us that we need to say "mimmi erse" {memory verse} if I forget.


Up this month: Patience!
I am pretty proud of myself for taking the time to teach her something, because those of you who know me know I am not the teaching kind. HA!

Micah's First Year Scrapbook {Part One}

Boys are hard for me on so many levels.
I am struggling with his nursery.
I struggle with his scrapbook pages and just generally trying to make things boyish enough.
To me girls are easy. Can't go wrong with flowers, bows and pink.

Anyway, here is Micah's scrapbook pages through month 3.
I was doing so well in keeping up with his and then we moved.
Now I am so behind again. :(
And let's not even talk about Lo's. :/ Yikes way behind.

{Hospital}

~click on images to see larger~

{Month One}
This is my concept to include all his monthly update posts with his photo-shoots.
{Month Two}

{Month Three}

But I am committed to getting it all caught up by year's end.
To some I am nuts, but these are so important to me to keep up-to-date.

Family Pictures {once upon a time}

Once upon a time we took family pictures. Ginger Skillen Photography was the amazing photographer who took them. I love having her take our pics. 1. She has been my friend since I was 15, so she knows me/us. 2. Because she knows us, she knows how to capture our family in the essence of who we are. I am always amazed at the beautiful pics we get back. Here are just a few of my favorites.

These were taken back in February for Lo's 2 year, and MW's newborns. And I just realized I never shared them. :( Enjoy.

And of course the picture in my header was done by her too!

Thank you Ginger for always taking our pics. :)

{Newborns}
{Sibs}
{Two Year}




{Family}

Opinion

Today at lunch I was telling Micah that I was going over to check out a future prospective girlfriend for him. Lots of baby girls are being born and I am going to choose his future wife. I don't want his little heart to be crushed by some mean girl someday.

Chad thought this was hilarious. He can't believe how protective of my Micah bear I am.

Me: So are you telling me you aren't worried about who Lo will marry? Aren't you going to choose for her?

Chad: No, because she is going to be a nun.

Lo: I say NO!

Me: ::laughing:: Man she has comedic timing.

Clearly, writing this out may not be as funny as hearing it, but it was still funny to us.

Settling In

Where is the summer going? I feel like it just slipped between my fingers without us realizing it. So much has been going on that I want to blog about just for the sake of cataloging our lives, but I just haven't had the energy to do so.

One. We are slowly but surely getting settled into our new home. I am one of those people that work non-stop to get everything in order, however, that proves very difficult with two kids needing my attention, especially one in particular. So here we are a month later and while all the boxes are unpacked not all the rooms are finished. This is driving me nuts.

Two. The only room finished is Lo's room, I will post pics when I find a minute to take them, after I find 1o minutes to clean her room. Seriously, she makes a disaster out of every room she enters. It's remarkable really. Anyway, we finally got it painted and now it feels like home.

Painting Lo's room back to pink!

Three. I am exhausted today since MW doesn't think sleeping through the night is as much fun as having mommy son time through out the night. Oh, and Lo has up and decided in the last 2 days that 545/6a is a fantastic time to start your day. So while my wonderful hubby let me sleep in until 8a, I have been going non-stop since.

Four. I finally got around to making MW some food to eat. Sad it took me so long. He is 6 months and just now getting to eat something other than oatmeal applesauce. Bless his heart. I did break down and use free coupons on some Happy Baby pouches to feed him in a pinch or to take with us when we go out to eat. They seem to taste way better than those jarred kinds. So I don't feel so bad feeding it to him.


Five. We have been spending a lot more time at the splash park since it we are in a heat wave here. Man it is hot. Lo wants to spend all day every day outside. Evidently, little kids have no thermostat. HA!


Six. Back to the move. We love it here. We have fabulous neighbors. Two families next door with kids Lo's age. We have already spent a few evenings playing in the sprinklers or riding bikes with them. I am just beyond thrilled how God worked this out. You never really know what kind of neighbors you will end up with and it isn't something you can plan for, it just happens. I am just glad we seemed to hit the jackpot. Plus, it is so fun to me to be at Target, or Dillons and run into people I know. That never happened in D-town. Anyways, I am just so glad to be here, not a day goes by that I am not thanking God for working in these details.

Lo seeing her new friend "cole" outside and begging to go even though it was bedtime, what was a mommy to do...I mean it is summer.

She got to go play!

Micah 6 Months {Watch Me Grow}

Micah bear you are 6 months old today. We have made it half a year. I won't lie, it has been a rough six months on all of us, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I heard that country song "you're going miss this" by Trace Adkins today and while most days I am ready to get past these days, I realize one day I am going to miss your baby days and all the screaming and crying that came with it. One day it will be quiet here and I will want these days back. I love you Micah bear, you light up my life. I never knew how much I could love a little boy.


Milestones:
You haven't really done anything new. Still working on sitting. You would probably have mastered it by now, if we didn't have to hold you all day long just to keep you happy.
You really just seem observant rather than master big skills. So different than you sister who was on the verge of crawling by this point.


Language Skills:
Not really talking as much any more, still just coos. Wondering if you should be saying more vowel sounds by now?

24 weeks today.

Eating:
We are nursing every 2, maybe 3 hours on a good day still. You are on cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The funny thing is you will oink down your real food and still want to nurse right after. Weaning should be fun seeing as you love to nurse so much.


You have had applesauce, yogurt, mango, and squash. You love it all. So glad you are a good eater.


Not really taking a bottle anymore, that lasted all of 2 weeks. :(

Sleeping:
Well after 5.5 months you are finally sleeping through the night {aka 7+ hours}. You usually go down around 730p and wake anywhere between 230a-6a. We have recently had several 10 hour stretches as of late. I am hoping we can keep this up. This is my favorite milestone.

sleeping in the tub.

Naps are two decent ones each day with a catnap or two sprinkled in. You are a good sleeper and put yourself to sleep which is so nice. You just snuggle up with your giraffe blanket and throw your arm over you stuffed elephant and off to sleep you go.

Favorite Toy(s)/Book:
You love all the dangle toys we give you and starting to play with soft blocks. However, you spend so much time crying every time we put you on your play mat you don't do too much playing overall.

first swim

Anecdotes/Quirky things you do:
You smile a big clown smile just like your sister use to do.
Your little personality is starting to emerge.
You laugh at us and smile every.time. you spit up all over everything.
Mommy has to go into stealth mode if I want to get anything done without hearing you cry. The nanosecond you see me you burst into tears and full on screaming until you are picked up. Fun.



Temperament:
You are a very fussy cranky baby. You have given your daddy and I a run for our money. Nothing we do makes you happy unless we are walking/pacing around the house with you. I hate that you cry so much. I wish I knew why? Is this just who you are or is there something wrong? However, just over the last 2 days you have been much happier, so maybe we are finally turning the corner {knock on wood}. We actually could lay you down to play and you did, you didn't throw a fit because mommy walked by. You were happy and cooing. I hope this will be our new normal.


Stats/Dr Appt: Micah goes in for weekly weight checks because he still spits up a TON. He actually dropped weight two weeks ago and we are slowly gaining it back. The doc changed his meds up to prevacid and put him on singular for his serious allergies he had. I can't tell if the prevacid is working yet. Some days I think yes and other days not at all. Our doc told me at one of our recent visits that in all his 12 years of practicing that he has never had a baby this difficult to "fix." Not sure how that makes me feel yet, but good to know he realizes how difficult this is for us.

Wt: 13# 8z {July 11}
Ht: 23.75 {July 5}
Head Cir:
Diapers: Pampers Swaddlers 1-2
Clothes: 3-6mo clothes

Happy 6 Months to our Baby Boy!