Micah's Skills

I have a crawler!! I don't know if you read my other post about my kids never crawling, but Micah is actually crawling on his hands and knees like a normal baby. Joshua and Luke never did that; they both did the army crawl till they walked. Speaking of walking, I don't think it will be long before Micah is doing that either. He's cruising around holding on to everything these days. He's also fond of walking with his walking toy. I can hardly keep up with him. Joshua and Luke just want to tackle him and play with him the way they play with each other. It's still too rough for me, but Micah is learning to handle it pretty well. They're going to freak when he actually starts walking. It's amazing that Micah can do anything with all the craziness around him all the time. I'm still so proud of him for actually crawling! :o)

Ode to Luke

My sweet Luke had his 3rd birthday on May 12th. He is such a big boy! He can go to the potty by himself, get himself dressed, play his own computer games, quote whole chapters of the Bible, and make everyone in the family laugh. He loves to sing and does so at will and at random times. When he's quoting his verses he has to stop and give commentary on the big words that he did not originally know but has learned from us (just to make sure everyone else knows the meaning too). He is 100% ALL BOY - running, jumping, climbing, wrestling, killing pretend bad guys, and great at being silly. His laugh is the cutest thing and is totally contagious. And though he has his trying-Mommy's-patience-moments, he is an absolute joy to all of us. In school he's been learning all the sounds that the letters make, recognizing patterns and numbers of objects, as well as lots of other things. Luke is a quick thinker and seems to be really creative. If we're making up words to a song, he can come up with his own lyrics just as fast as we can. And, of course, I cannot fail to mention his recent fascination with puzzles. He loves them! He often has extreme amounts of energy, so he jumps and runs a lot. :o) But he can also be very sweet and gentle when he tries. Though he loves to run and jump, he also loves to just snuggle up next to us and listen to books being read. Our Luke is such a special boy, and we're so grateful that God gave him to us 3 years ago!



For his birthday we had french toast for breakfast (by his choice). After breakfast we went to what we refer to as "The Fun Place". On the top floor of a nearby mall there is a huge playland for kids. It also has bumper cars and a few kiddie rides (like the ones outside of Wal-mart that you would put a quarter in). It really is a fun place, and we had a great time there for Luke's big day. Grandma had brought some fun Handy Manny birthday decorations that we had all over the house to make everything special for him. He loved the Handy Manny cake that I made. We had hot dogs for lunch and pizza for supper because that's what Luke wanted. He got to open up fun presents all throughout the day as well. I think he really enjoyed his special day.

I'm Back!

I know it's been forever since I posted an entry on here. So sorry! This entry will hopefully catch everyone up-to-date and get me back on track with posting regularly...

Well, first of all, we survived our 10 days without Daddy at home. It's always such a bummer when he's not here, and we're so grateful to have him home with us now! But thankfully we had my parents to keep us company and offer lots of help! We had a GREAT visit with them, and they seemed to have a fabulous time here as well. I must say that I was very impressed at how well they did traveling so far, spending time in a different culture, and eating lots of different foods. Granted I only took them to the yummy places to eat, but they still handled all the differences so well. What would have been an extremely difficult week for me with my husband gone turned out to be a really fun time spent with them. It was also just great to see them be able to spend quality time with the boys. The boys, of course, loved the attention and all the surprises that Grandma kept pulling out of her bag (think Mary Poppins). :o) Thanks so much, Grandma and Grandpa, for coming all this way to help us out and spend time in our world. We love you!

In other news... After two weeks of nursing pain I, along with my sis-in-law and her midwife and lactation consultant friends, finally determined that I had thrush. Oh my. Today has now been 4 weeks since the whole thing started. I've been treating it in a multitude of different ways, not the least of which was changing my entire diet and cutting out sugar and almost all carbs while only eating protein and veggies. Unfortunately the diet change caused some other digestive issues on top of everything else. :o( I would have a good day and think that it was clearing up, then the next day would be another painful day. I finally started an antibiotic and I've now I've had 3 days of minimal pain so far. It's not fully over yet, but I'm really hoping and praying that I'm finally on my way out of this. I have not been ready to stop nursing Micah, and I really didn't want to end our nursing relationship on a bad note. I have loved nursing all my children despite the painful issues I've had to deal with. I'm just so thankful that I still can nurse! And I'm thankful that God has given me the endurance to get through the difficult days.

There are lots of other things to blog about, particularly my sweet Luke's 3rd birthday! But I'll have to save that for another post. For now, I'll leave you with a picture of my cuties with their grandparents.

Gingerbread

Last week was "G" week, so one of the things we did was talk about gingerbread men. I told them the story of the gingerbread man. Since I needed a refresher, I'll fill you in as well. A lady makes a gingerbread man, but when he comes out of the oven he jumps up and runs away. So, she chases him, but he says, "Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." So the husband and several farm animals chase him, but he says the same thing to them all. He gets to the river and can't swim. A sly fox offers to take him across. In the end, the fox tricks him and ends up eating him. You probably so didn't want to know all that, but just in case you didn't remember the story, I thought I'd share. So when I told the story to the boys, they were totally into it with all the different animals chasing him and all. When I got to the end of the story and said the fox just ate him. Both boys just looked at me like they couldn't believe that was the end of the story. Surely he didn't get eaten!!! Maybe they're just not used to hearing stories that don't have happy endings. The looks on their faces were priceless, really. I don't think they liked the story.

To redeem myself, I did make some gingerbread cookies and decorated them for the boys. This was the first time I've ever made gingerbread and they turned out pretty good, especially considering I had to substitute a few things for items I can't find here. We still have a few left, and I think they're actually tasting better each day. We should finish them off tomorrow. The boys have loved them this week. Here is a picture of some of my labors.

Pipe Cleaners

Tonight Joshua was asking me about a crafty thing we had done a few weeks ago and what had happened to it. To clarify exactly what he meant, he referred to the pipe cleaner we had used as the "spiky yarn". I got a big kick out of that and couldn't stop laughing. Thankfully he thought my laughing so hard was funny, so he started giggling too, which only made me laugh longer. Good times. :o)

We're doing okay without Daddy here. Joshua keeps telling me how sad he is that Dad's not here. I've tried to do fun things with the boys since he left. So both boys keep saying how much they wish Daddy was here to do those things with us. It's very sweet. They love their Dad! So do I. :o)

My parents arrive tomorrow night! Totally can't believe they're going to be in my house on this side of the world. Please pray that we will all stay healthy. We have lots of fun things planned for the next two weeks while they're here. Will hopefully keep you posted!

Micah on a Mission

He's only 9 months old, and he is trying his best to get around by himself. He's not quite cruising (walking while holding on to things), but he's getting there pretty fast. Just yesterday I could sit him on the floor and count on him staying there for a few minutes. Now, as soon as I set him down, he's off slithering and scooting away. He's starting to pull up on things too, which is really fun to watch. Of course, as I'm writing this he just fell down and busted his lip open. Poor guy! He's braver than his current abilities allow sometimes. He's already got a few bruises and bumps on his forehead. :o) He really enjoys pulling himself up on me or Daddy when we're down on the floor with him. It's like he can't wait to be as active as his big brothers. And they, seeing this new mobile Micah, want to "play" with him more. They think that he's ready to wrestle and run around with them. Unfortunately, he's not quite ready for all they want him to do, and sometimes ends up getting hurt by them. I often have to remind them that he's still just a baby and it won't be long before he can do everything they can. In the meantime, Micah is often un-phased by what's going on around him as long as he can find something his height that's right to pull himself up. He'll be running around here before I know it!

Update

It's been a while since I posted. Sorry. This past week I've been having nursing issues again. :o( In consultation with my sis-in-law, we thought we had it narrowed down to a clogged duct, but today I have a new symptom that is not indicative of a clogged duct. I won't go into the gory details. But suffice it to say that I'm hurting a lot now and this is very, very difficult. Please pray that this will clear up quickly and that I'll know how to treat it. Daddy leaves this Thursday for another trip, so I'm really praying for this to be healed before he leaves. It's not just hard physically, it is also very difficult emotionally for me. Pray for Daddy and I both to know what to do this week. He still has a lot to do in preparation for his trip.

On a positive note, my parents are coming this weekend!!!! We are all very excited about their trip here and can't wait to see them!