Indiana Jesus????

Emma Grace is talking about everything these days! She's super sharp and picks up on way more than I would expect! We've spent the last year and a half talking to her and it's fun that she's now talking back to us! One thing we try to talk to her about as often as possible is Jesus. We read the Bible and sing songs and pray together. After a year of seeking to share with Emma Grace the greatness of Jesus, she's started to talk about him herself. She mentions his name from time to time and even knows that Jesus and God somehow go together. But we still have some work to do on her theology. This week she found a video tape in our house and upon looking at the picture said, "JESUS!!!!" "No honey, that's not Jesus. Do you know who that is?" Then she said, "DADDY!" So it's evident we need to sort out the difference between Daddy, Indiana, and Jesus. Andy, however, is enjoying the fact that his daughter thinks he's a muscular tan whip-toting hero. Actually his nickname as a child was "Indy Andy" because he was so obsessed with this guy! He had the whole outfit and even toted a whip, which he once used to swing from one of his mother's standing lamps. That didn't go well and his whip toting days ended abruptly!

She's also confused Jesus for a woman on our colonial print bathroom wallpaper as well as the Panera Bread lady. Though I'm thrilled that Jesus is on her radar, I am also reminded that we need God's spirit to open our eyes to see who Jesus really is. I pray that God will use our meager efforts in her life to open her eyes to the WONDER of her Savior! Will you pray for that as well?

In other news, Jack is just precious. He's a super sweet, quiet, smiley little man and I love love love him!

As you can tell I'm getting close to falling off the blogging bandwagon. But this is my attempt to stay on. Pictures to come soon!

Noises

Here’s a list of some of the noises in my life as of late:

“Baby…bed…in there.” This is a phrase I hear at least once a day. It’s EG’s way of telling me she wants me to put all of her babies in her bed. She picks each one up from the toy basket and we place them in her crib one by one. After Elmo, Cookie, Monkey, Rena, Heavy Baby, Peanut, Bow Wow, Gou Gou, Bear, Green Bear, Tiny Bear, China Bear, and Julian have all been named and placed in the crib, then she gets in. Today, after that was done, she said, “Jack…bed…in there!” So Jack joined Emma Grace and all her babies in the bed! She is really growing in her love for her little brother and it’s so fun to watch. She kissed him and quickly pushed him off her lap. Like I said, her love is growing!

Grunting. Jack is a grunter. When he eats, when he is falling asleep, when he wakes up. I can just see him when he’s 30 at a rib eating competition - I know he’ll scare away all the other competitors with his manly grunts!

Running Water, VERY LOUD. running water coming from my kitchen. It got down to -4 here over the weekend and we had a pipe burst in our kitchen. The pipe was in the ceiling! While eating lunch I started to hear a very loud gushing sound, much like a torrential downpour coming from my kitchen. I went in to see water pouring out from the light fixtures and two spots in the ceiling. EG starting saying, “Raining!” I freaked out and starting yelling that we should leave in case the ceiling collapsed. My cool headed husband decided we should instead stay, turn off the water, and clean up the mess. The ceiling did not collapse and they were able to fix the pipes on Monday. We are now back in our house.

The aftermath of our flood

Running Water – a babbling brook to be exact – coming from EG’s room. This sound is thankfully not from a busted pipe but rather from her sound machine which we run all the time! It helps to block out the other noises coming from our house so our eldest can sleep peacefully. Andy’s parents gave us this sound machine when she was born and it’s been a lifesaver more times than I can count! From Andy’s snoring to Jack’s crying, there are lots of noises that need to be drowned out.

A rare exotic bird being tortured. That’s our other sound machine. Also courtesy of Andy’s parents, we have their 1980 sound machine to use in our room, which we are sharing with Jack. They got it when Andy was born. It’s a vintage treasure and works great once it gets going. But it takes a while to get to the white noise stage. As it’s getting cranked up, it makes this terrible screeching noise that really does remind me of some kind of rare exotic bird being tortured. Just when it reaches the highest pitch tolerable to the human ear without causing serious ear drum damage, you have to tap it ever so gently with a balled fist and it will move into normal white noise mode. It took me a while to get the technique down. Once it’s stopped bird-torturing, it produces incredible white noise-great for blocking out snoring, grunting and the sound of running water.

No birds were harmed in the making of this photograph.

Amazingly it’s totally quiet in my home right now. No snoring, grunting, running water or birds being plucked alive. So I think I’ll head to bed.

Jack is One Month Old

Jack is One Month Old! What a busy month it’s been! We had such a great time with the Month by Month shirts that our great friend Stacy made for Emma Grace so we decided to make them for Jack as well. So here’s the first one!
We hope you enjoy watching our little man grow. And here’s EG when she was just a month old. Do you think they look alike? Not really.



This month has been full of a lot of things-poopy diapers, spit up, big sister kisses, joy joy joy as we are getting to know Jack, and lots of laundry. We have been lacking a few things though-namely sleep, blogging and showers. It’s hard to keep everything together with two kids and still find time to shower! Oh well. I am sure I will get back into showering eventually.

Jack is very alert these days and quite smiley. He’s moving out of newborn clothing and into 0-3 months gear. Emma Grace has adjusted well to her little brother Dack, though she hasn’t been getting as much attention as normal from me. That would explain how she managed to drink a little perfume while I wasn’t watching. (It actually worked out quite well for her. After talking with Poison Control, they decided that she didn’t drink enough to harm her. They told us that the only risk was a drop in blood sugar and that we should give her a sweet snack and drink. Two Hershey Kisses and a glass of chocolate milk later, she was no worse for wear. Actually, she was thrilled! I am glad she didn’t make the connection between the perfume drinking and the sugar binge!) The grandparents are happily picking up my slack in the attention-giving department. I am thankful for this time they have to really get to know and love our kids.

Well, a poopy diaper on my youngest is calling my name.

Dear Julianna and Lydia

Hi Julianna and Lydia! This is Emma Grace here, writing to you from America! I thought you'd like this picture! I had a great time hanging out with your grandparents! They told us all about their recent trip to see you. Hearing what you guys have been up to lately made my family really miss you! We are excited to get home and see you! I am also excited for you to meet my baby brother. He's really cute and he smiles now and even knows how to roll over! Here are a few pictures of us.

I miss you! See you soon!

I'm glad I had my camera for this...

Here are a few moments in which I thought, "I'm so glad I have my camera for this!"



EG is learning to count. She can count to two and she often finds two of the same item and says, "two balls" or "two penguins" etc. Yesterday she said, "two Peanuts" when I found her holding both of her stuffed elephants. You see, Peanut is her elephant that she is very attached to. She sleeps with him every night and gets really upset if she doesn't have him. We bought a TOP SECRET back-up Peanut because we were terrified of losing him. The problem is that EG has formed a really bad habit on chewing on Peanut's trunk while she falls asleep. This makes him really stinky so now we switch the two in and out so we can wash them regularly. Cleanut, as we call him, comes out just when Peanut is getting really stinky. On a couple of occasions EG has discovered our little secret and come running to me, grinning from ear to ear, holding both of her Peanuts. Yesterday when she found them, she said, "two Peanuts." using her counting skills to let me know that she is aware that there is more than one Peanut in our family! Oops! I am hoping she'll forget this ever happened!

These pictures are blurry, but I just had to post them!

I think the caption for this one should be, "Mom, you've got some explaining to do."



Can you tell she is overjoyed at her discovery?
EG received an Elmo Alive for Christmas from her Kacki and Poopaw which she liked...But as you can see, Elmo was even more of a hit with the big kids! And here is my final "I'm glad I have my camera" moment. Check out the second photo and tell me what you think the caption should be!