We've had a busy one

We've had a busy day with lots of fun and lots of kids.

Today our friends John and Patricia visited with their little boy Alex, we haven't seen Alex since he was a couple of weeks old and now he's ove a year old. He loved to give Max hugs and it was great to catch up with friends we used to see every week and haven't seen over a year. John is a youth pastor in Iowa and they only live 2.5 hours away, if you don't get lost. :)

We also babysat our friends' little girl Elin today. Elin's daddy, Dave, went to M*ch*g*n. Well in honor if it being opening day of college football we took this pic amongst others.


Then my mom came into town to visit for the weekend and brought along with her two of my younger cousins, Amber and Cailynn, 7 and 8 years old respectively. I had a dish drier, Max watcher, and toy pickerupper. We also made chocolate chunk chocolate cookies. They didn't look very good but they are delicious. Each girl got a pan and a spoon and Adam got to lick out the bowl. Fun was had by all.

So now we are watching Mary Poppins and the girls are trying to keep their eyes open as they've never seen it. How could you be 7 & 8 and never have seen Mary Poppins? My guess is they've also never seen, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Greatest Show on Earth, or Gidget. How sad.

Chairs, Slings, Visits, Max in two containers

Parents
Adam's parents were here this weekend and we had a great time. Both Grammy and I forgot the camera all weekend. But we had lots of fun going around town and spending Sunday at church.





In the shops on the square we found an old fashioned high chair (we are unsure whether it's an antique or not) for us to use with Max. I just have to fashion a belt for him to use it. I may even paint it black so it matches our dining room chairs. We'll see.


This weekend my mom will be in town with a couple of my little cousins. Should be fun!

Crafting
I've also been a little crafty this week. Two little girls at church have both shown interest in the sling I carry Max in every Sunday at church. One little girl (a first grader) made her mom tie a towel around her so she could carry her baby doll around like Max. And the other (almost two year old) put on my sling while I was in the nursery and I showed her how to put a baby doll in it. She didn't like that, and took the doll out and walked straight over to one of the ladies that was rocking Max at the time and kept saying, "Baby Max" over and over wanting him to get in the sling. At least she knew who belonged in it! :) So this week I took some of the large amounts of fabric that I have and made each girl a little sling of their own. They are really cute, I hope they like them.

I've also been working on little baby girl stuff. :) Since I don't have my own, I've got to make cute stuff for Baby Lucy being born in Texas around Thanksgiving.

Max
This past week we've had to move Max to mostly formula, he's been gaining weight alot since he's started. It was a tough decision but he really made it for us. He refuses to nurse except at night and in the morning. He's been also getting juice once a day and absolutely loves it! We go to the doctor next week for his checkup (and to meet his new doctor) and we'll be asking about starting rice cereal. He's getting so big!

He's a mover and a shaker now. He kicks himself around in a circle and rolls over everytime he's put on his tummy, even though he enjoys being on his tummy a lot more now. He's also grasping toys intentionally and giggles when we talk to him now.

Playing with the monkey


Hanging out with Daddy


Just like Daddy, playing in the laundry basket


For those of you who loved the mixing bowl. He's too big for it now, but he loves to pretend he's soup.

My Community Weekly

Here are some pictures of our current home. No pictures on the walls or anything like that but I've been trying to use what I can as I open boxes, which means that most rooms do not have things that coordinate, but oh well, that's always kinda been my style anyway.

View from across the street at the mailbox


Our Living Room- Complete with Adam talking on the phone with our friend Lenny. Hi Lenny and Steph!



View from the livingroom to the dining room and kitchen



The kitchen



Our bedroom (it's laundry day, that's why there's no sheets on our bed



Max's bedroom (taken quickly while he was taking a nap



The spare bedroom (and craft room)



We call this room "the box room" because it's where we are keeping all of our unopened boxes

I'm so bad at this...

I know it's Friday, but I didn't take pictures of our house and anything I take now that it's late will be poor. So I'll take the pictures tomorrow and post then, but just in case you are checking, there is a new header featuring my model son. He likes to talk to the camera now when I get it out. He hams it up when he sees the orange warning light before the flash.

In other news about me, I'm discovering it's hard being a mom. Gosh I'm just tired, and when Max decided he needs to be up all night (which isn't often, but he is a baby afterall) it's just a drain on me all day and I get frustrated when I don't get things done that I think I need to.

Today when Adam got home from work and done spending an hour and a half on the phone with Verizon, just to find out that they can't fix our voicemail and we need to take our phones to the store, I gave him Max and put in my headphones to my MP3 player and actually enjoyed 25 minutes of doing the dishes (as we are without a dishwasher) and not being able to hear him cry or scream or anything. Just me and my music and some soap. Sadly, that was the best 25minutes I had all day.

It's also hard, because I've got all these great creative ideas and projects I would like to complete and no time to complete them, Max's good naps are spent catching up on laundry (which is never cought up on) and trying to pick up toys and blankets and binkys strewn about. Maybe I just need to start a sketchbook because I'm never going to remember these by the time he's od enough to not need constant care.

I love motherhood, sometimes I just wish it was only a 12 hour a day job instead of 24. But then as every mother says, when he smiles at me or is sleeping contentedly in my arms, it's all worth it. I just hope tonight he sleeps contentedly, in his crib, until say, 5-6 am.

Wow time flies

I've meant to do a little monthly thing about Max on his monthly birthdays, so far I've not been so good at it.

So Max turned three months over a week ago. He's such an active and fun little baby. He loves to play with his Mama and watch everything his Daddy does.

He's started to giggle more and is ticklish. He loves to eat and gets angry when you stop him.

But he's also sweet and likes to cuddle on the couch while watching the Olympics and Friends.

But most of all we love that he's ours.

Happy Friday!

Per Mamaw's request, here's a little bit about the church for this week's around my new community.

This month Grace Bible Church is celebrating it's 50th anniversary. It's been an exciting time for us to start our ministry here and especially helpful to learn the history of the church as we go along. The church averages a little over 100 people a week and we have Sunday morning service, Sunday evening Bible study, and Wednesday night prayer group. We have a great AWANA program during the school year and Adam and I are looking forward to helping out with that starting in the fall.

The Sanctuary


A blurry picture of Adam playing Thomas Doubtington the great, great, great, great, great, great, very great grandson of Doubting Thomas at VBS a couple weeks ago.


A picture of the church from the front, taken in March when we were here to visit.


A side picture of the church from our March visit.



Next week: The Parsonage

Video of Max

Pictures of Max

Here's Max in his new Bumbo seat


He's so sad


I think this is one of my favorite pictures of him


Happy baby playing on the floor


Lifting up!


Earlier Blogger wouldn't let me upload pictures of Max, and I know the grandparents and aunts and uncles want to see them. Here are those pictures.

Oops I missed Friday

Yesterday was a busy day, but here I am with the next installment of my new community.

This week's installment is the Farmer's Market I went to this past week. It was in Peoria and there were a string of booths with local farmers bring their freshest.

I ended up with some Transparent Apples, Yellow Plums, and Orange Tomatoes. They've all been delicious. The apples are super tart, much more than Granny Smiths, and the plums were really sweet, and the tomatoes, were well, tomatoes. I just love tomatoes.

I missed out on green beans, I wish I would have got some.

I heard this week of a Farmer's Market in Metamora, I'm going to try for that one next weekend.


Max
Max is just growing and growing. He thinks he's a big kid and won't stand to lay down unless there are toys or people to entertain him. He loves to sit up and stand, so I went ahead and got him a Bumbo seat last week. He loves to sit in it and look around. He's been pushing up and rolling over a lot when placed on his tummy. He giggled on Tuesday for the first time, but hasn't done it since. I've been acting like a crazy fool trying to get him to do it again.

Movie and Book Reviews

I've been getting back into the swing of life. It sure is hard when you have a baby to get back to the things that make you, "you". I've always loved reading, crafting, and watching movies but all those things have gone by the wayside. I'm slowly learning that I feel more human (and less like a feeding, burping zombie) when I do things that I enjoy while Max is asleep or otherwise occupied (like eating, I spend hours during the day feeding him).

These past two weeks I've gotten the hang of feeding while holding a book, before I was only previously adept at magazine flipping, but now I have mastered the art of novel holding and even flipping pages without breaking a stride (come on people, this is what my life is like now).

I also don't know if I mentioned it, but Max (ahem, Adam) got me Netflix for my birthday. We've been missing great movies for, oh, five years now and so we have a lot of catching up to do. I've also worked a system to where I can watch 2-3 movies a week if I'm good about watching and returning them. It's been really nice, I just have to keep Adam from rearranging my que all the time.

I've also discovered the joy of the library here in Washington. In Dallas the library was really far away and was downtown where there wasn't any good parking and you had to pay for parking as well. It was in general a bummer, but here in Small Town, USA we have a wonderful library. I've been randomly picking up novels to read (mine are still packed in poorly labeled boxes) and I have been enjoying our church library as well (which is surprisingly well stocked with fiction). I've also restarted reading a couple novels at a time (I used to do this alot, a talent that proved very valuable in college when I was taking multiple English classes at once). I don't know why I like to do this, but it seems to make both books more interesting to me and I tend to read them both more actively.

Let's just say, I look forward to nap time every afternoon where Max has been consistently sleeping for 1.5-3 hours. That's also when I do the dishes.

So I'm taking recommendations for good movies and good books. Any Suggestions?

Here's what I've seen and read recently....

Recently Read

The Storekeeper's Daughter (first in the series of The Daughters of Lancaster County)
Wanda Brunstetter

Really good. I love learning about the Amish.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group
Neta Jackson

Also pretty good, made me think about how much I expect God to do for all the wrong reasons.

First Impressions
Debra White Smith

Cute book, and you know I'm a sucker for anything regarding Pride and Prejudice.

Currently Reading

The Quilter's Daughter (second in the series)
Wanda Brunstetter


The Southern Belles of Honeysuckle Way
Linda Bruckheimer


Recently Viewed

Miss Potter

Completely enjoyed! I highly recommend it.

Ratatouille

Adam and I both enjoyed this one!

PS I Love You

Eh, I could have done without seeing this one.


Oh yeah, and there's been some crafting going on.... but I'll have to talk about that later.

My Neighborhood Part 1

I've decided on a new series for the blog, you know, just to keep things interesting. Every Friday I'm going to try and post about my new town and neighborhood. It's an interesting transition for me to move from Columbus (750,000) to Dallas Ft Worth (6.1 million) and now to Washington (13,000).

While Max and I were walking back from having lunch on the square with some friends on Tuesday, we encountered this:

A low flying plane. If I had not been nearly as well read, I would not have known, but this is a crop duster and they are loud! I had heard the sound before, but didn't know what it was. Well now I know. It was fun to watch as it circled the field quite a bit. One person was out getting their mail and gave me a weird look for taking pictures of the crop duster. Sorry! I'm a city slicker I guess, as I thought it was really neat to watch.

PS- yes this is the corn field I have to get by to get into town....

Well Max is up and we are venturing into Peoria (112,000) today to do some shopping and stop by a farmer's market. I'm really excited and hopeful I'll find some good tomatoes.