Future Math Nerd

Austin & I took a field trip with Auntie Suz to the land of IKEA. Austin came back with a souvenier. (Yes, apparently I'm that mom that buys her kid something whenever they go to the store - I need to work on that.) The moment I saw the abacus, I just knew he'd love it and sure enough, he went crazy for it in the store. It didn't cost much and really, any son of a math nerd deserves his first abacus by the age of 8 months, right? I can only hope and pray that it instills a love of numbers!



See? I think he already learned how to count to 2,113,445,100!

Blawble Blawble Blawble!

Austin has a new trick. I don't know quite how he picked it up. He's been fascinated with playing with my lips for a few weeks and then with his own this last week. He discovered you could make cool noises. It quickly turned into this...



..which, needless to say, cracks us up.

Crafty

I finally finished this quilt. It only took me 9 months! Granted I was only working on it one or two days a month at quilting group and at quilting group we have a hard time balancing quilting with talking. It also didn't help that it's huge and one of the most frustrating patterns ever.

I love and hate this pattern. I love how it looks, but it's mathematically impossible to make it correctly with good seam allowances. It just barely goes together. Someday I will re-engineer it to make it good.


(Ignore the fact that I'm holding it upside down. Just imagine all the little baby turtles swimming upright!)

Someday I'll post pics of the other quilts I've made. I'm quite proud of them.

If You're Easily Overwhelmed By Extreme Cuteness, Look Away!

A few weeks ago we took Austin's 7 Month Photos. There are more than usual because I'm submitting pics to a modeling agency. Maybe Austin will be the next E-trade kid! I'm just posting them now because we were hoping to do another shoot, but Austin got sick and then Jack got sick. Thankfully we got so many good ones from the 1st shoot that I was able to submit his portfolio.










And I'm pretty sure this is his "If you take one more picture of me, I'm gonna punch you in the face" look.


And that's not all the photos! Click HERE for the rest!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Sunday was my first official Mother's Day.

I don't think I've enjoyed a holiday more.

It wasn't because of the very wonderful present my sweet son (with a serious assist from his even sweeter daddy) bought me. He's a very intuitive child and knew that my back is killing me from carrying his not so light cute body in his even less light carseat and he got me a gift card to Burke Williams. That's just a present that keeps on giving!

It wasn't because we did anything extraordinary. In fact, we didn't. We stayed home and had a lazy day. We got up late. We ate left over pizza. We played with Austin. We went to church. Not incredibly different from a normal Sunday, except for a visit with Grandpa Kevin & Great Grandma Crowley and dinner with my parents.

But every moment of it was pure bliss.

I've looked forward to being a mother since I was little. And I'm darn good at it! So to get to celebrate the one thing I feel like I've been made for was just heaven. And to get to be mommy to the absolutely cutest kid this side of the Mississippi AND that side of the Mississippi, for that matter too, just puts the icing on the cake that I eat in heaven!

Goodbye Sweet Little Kayleigh

It breaks my heart to share that Little Kayleigh passed away yesterday. She went directly from being in the arms of her adoring parents to the arms of her adoring Heavenly Father.

Please please pray for comfort and strength for Adam and Aimee and their family in the days and months to come.

You've Got Mail!

I apologize to anyone who has been seeing blog updates from me, only to read very annoying test posts. I've been trying to set up a widget that allows you to subscribe and receive emails about my posts. I finally got it to work right! I'm so relieved. I was about to start punching random strangers on the street. It actually wasn't hard, I just wasn't being very patient, nor observant.

Here's how it works. Sign up on the right hand side of my blog and give it your email address. Once a day it will send you an email if I have posted in the last 24 hours. I was hoping for something that would email you every time I posted, so you'd get an instant update, but I couldn't find a free service that does that. For now you'll just have to be satisfied with one email a day. I haven't set up the time for the email, but I'll probably either set it overnight or about the time that I usually post. I haven't decided yet, but I'll let you know.

In the meantime, sign yourself up! Some cutie patootey pics of my ridiculously adorable child are coming soon. Probably tonight. You're not going to want to miss them. Seriously. They're that cute!

Now I'm going to go delete all those random posts. =D

Post #3 of 3: 7 Months Old!

Another calendar month has clicked by at a ridiculous pace. They're getting faster and faster. My kid did some serious growing this month. He doesn't look like a baby to me much anymore. He's a little kid. Makes me wanna cry! But we're still having so much fun!





New stuff Austin is doing this month:

• Pretty much has sitting down to a science. He still falls over occasionally but it's getting fewer and farther between.
  
• Absolutely adores his "Try-Angle" toy. I'll have to post about this later. It was a present from my cousin Joanne and it's awesome. My kid has a serious attention span (did not get that from me) and can play with this thing for an hour or more at a time.
  
• Is getting closer to crawling, but not quite yet. He can certainly scoot quickly to where he's not supposed to be though. He can support himself on his hands and knees for a second or two, but doesn't really know what to do from there. I'm guessing it will be soon though.
• Loves anything that would be considered a choking/strangling hazzard. Will ignore every and all legitimate toys for long pieces of string, cables, straps to bags and good old fashion plastic bags. I already have to watch him like a hawk and he's not even that mobile!
• Loves big boy food. He's such a cute little birdy. He hasn't really found anything he doesn't like. I mean, he'll shutter really good, but always opens up for more. I think he's like his parents - not too discriminating...just likes to eat!
• Is getting closer to talking. Blabbers Mamamamama all day long. I, of course, am flattered! Sometimes it sounds like he's saying "my mama" and sometimes it's at quite appropriate times. Watch, his first official word will be something completely different. Like Boomer. Or Milwaukee.
  
• He's one very aggressive little kisser! Especially when he's tired, he'll grab my hair on both sides and attack my cheek. He's going to have to tone that down eventually, or he'll scare off the chicks!
  
• Still as sweet, silly and easy as ever. And getting even more so by the day.
  

Post #2 of 3: Sharefest

Sharefest rocked! For those of you that aren't familiar, check out their website (www.sharefestinc.org) The short version is that a bunch of the churches in our area get together and do service projects at schools and community centers, all on the same day. It's a very special day and so many people are blessed by it.

I was in charge of our church's project. This year all by myself. Normally I have my trusty side-kick, Nicole, but she's swamped with two cute kiddos and so I attempted to handle it myself. Thankfully it went off with hardly a hitch, but I can't claim any of the credit. It's all God's doing. I always say that the Sharefest workday is a success in spite of me, not because of me, cuz there are always things that I don't plan for or leave enough time for but it always comes together.

This year our project was painting two very large occupational therapy rooms for a local special education preschool. One of the children in our church used to go there and it's such a blessing to families of special needs kiddos. Here are some before and after shots.

Room #1




Room #2



Me painting beautifully and skillfully!


Before and After of some benches



And check out this Lock Board made by one of the guys in our church. It's something for the kids to practice their fine motor skills on. Didn't it turn out beautifully?


We (and by we, I mean other people) also cleaned all of the mats and toys. That included all the balls in a ball pit! That was a huge task all by itself!

Huge huge thanks to everyone who came and helped out. The director and the therapists were soooo excited. I can't wait to hear the reactions of the kids when they came to school this week.

Post #1 of 3: Tag, You're it!

I had a crazy busy weekend, and rather than posting a little something every day for the next several days, I figured I'd squeeze them all into one day. So make sure you read them all and not just the last one. Otherwise, I'll be sad! =P

Friday I got tagged. I got tagged by two people. Both Rebecca & Jen tagged me so I guess I have to do it. The game is to take a photo of yourself immediately upon being tagged and post it. While I took my photo on Friday, I didn't get the chance to post it until today. So I got some of the rules right. And the rule was that you couldn't take time to freshen up or anything - You just had to take the pic. So I apologize for my disheveled and unkempt look. I did photoshop it just a touch. Hey Rebecca photoshopped hers and there were no rules against that.




Okay, okay, so I may have edited it slightly more than a little. Trust me, you don't want to see the real version. Not nearly as attractive!

Now I get to tag people!

Laurinda
Robin
Danielle
MckMama (Not that I know that MckMama reads my posts, but a girl can hope, right??)
Ali
Karen
Amanda
Ana
Malia
Bethany
Nicole
Steph
Nicki

You gotta do it. Mostly cuz I said so. But also cuz you won't be cool without doing so. Oh and Rebecca will nag you incessantly if you don't!

Plus, I can see if you visited me and read this. So you can't hide. So there. No excuses.