Catching up

Let me begin by saying that my New Years resolution is to post something on here at least once a week! :) I'm such a slacker! Anyway, I wanted to catch everyone up on our busy lives these past few months. We had a great October and Halloween. Jonathan dressed up as an elephant (roll tide!) and was the cutest one I've ever seen, if I do say so myself! It was fun for me and JP to do Trunk or Treats and other fun kid stuff like that with him for the first time since we were kids.

Thanksgiving was also good. JP's parents came to our apartment a few days before Thanksgiving day and then we traveled up to Birmingham on Thursday (I had to work Thanksgiving eve). We laughed, ate way too much, shopped at ungodly hours and even had a Wii bowling tournament (Aunt Kassi won!).

We've had a great Christmas season so far. JP finished up his first semester of PhD work and we're all still alive! :) Hopefully we've all learned some things to make the following semesters easier for him and us. I was worried that Jonathan would want to play with our Christmas tree but it's really more of the presents under the tree that he's interested in. He's already mostly unwrapped one! Fortunately he's clueless so we're ok. :) We took him to see Santa last night and he did good. He looked up at him like "who are you?" and then got upset when he saw me and JP just standing there looking at him from far away. Oh well, we got a cute picture. :) He's SO active all the time! No wonder he sleeps so well! I've thought back several times this holiday season to our lives last year. I was big and pregnant and we had NO IDEA how our lives would change! But I'm SO glad they have! Jonathan is such a blessing and the most precious gift we've ever received. Thank you Lord! Merry Christmas everyone!

Making noise

Jonathan's Gran and Pop (JP's parents) gave him a stack of blocks that sit on top of a plastic disc. He has discovered that it's way more fun to just throw the plastic disc around than to actually play with the blocks! He throws it (preferably on the tile floor), screams at the loud noise, chases it down, picks it up, and does the whole thing all over again and again. He started screaming at loud noises this weekend while we cheered for the Bama game. It's a happy scream, like he's trying to join in! :) I caught a little bit of this activity on video this afternoon (about 15 secs), but he kept busy with it for about 20 minutes!

Fall day in the Frech Quarter

My parents came to town this past weekend and since it was a BEAUTIFUL fall day on Friday, we decided to spend the afternoon in the French Quarter. Since people who live here in New Orleans really only go to the quarter if visitors are in town, it was a special treat! We walked through the French Market (not very stroller friendly), around Jackson Square, and then down the Riverwalk, where Jonathan got to see his first boat. After finishing the night off with some seafood (my mom and I had shrimp, the only seafood we eat) we headed back home and kept Jonathan awake in the car so he would sleep in his bed instead :)! We didn't have any beignets but sometimes you just can't stop at Cafe du Monde when you have a sleepy 8 month old! That's just one of the many ways our lives have changed as parents. But if you see the sweet, handsome boy in these pictures, you'll understand why we are MORE than ok with the life change!

He was curious about the grass...he hasn't played in it much because the grass behind our apartment has lots of ants in it :(

Fun balloons

As part of our birthday celebration weekend a few weeks ago, we went to eat at Pancho's, a newer restaurant in town. It was yummy (especially the sopapillas!) but the best part was the balloons they gave Jonathan when we left! Your focus sure does change when you have kids. :)

We wish he would have gotten them before we left because it was a great distraction and would have enabled us to have a slower, longer dinner, but he had a good time playing with them when we got home. Ironically, I had just read the night before about how you shouldn't let babies play with balloons because they're a choking hazard, but we just really supervised him with them and kept them from his mouth because he loved them so much! They died the next day and he had forgotten all about them by then, but they sure were fun while they lasted!

A long overdue update

So apparently I'm very bad at blogging! It's been 3 weeks since I've written anything, and my child has changed so much! He's 7 1/2 months old now and pretty much changed overnight a few weeks ago. He started crawling, pulling up and got 2 teeth all within a week! So needless to say, our lives have changed as well (including slowly baby-proofing the apartment!). He now sits up at the table while we eat, and does great when we take him out. He's graduated to the 2's of baby food and has even started eating some rice cakes and fruit out of his handheld strainer thingy (a person favorite of mine!). He sleeps great at night and takes 2 naps during the day. We're just enjoying watching him grow and develop a little personality!
Here are some recent pictures and a couple of videos. One is a little snippet of him crawling, and the other is my absolute most favorite video of him. He's laughing as I bounce a ball and make a noise in front of him. I don't know what was so funny about it, but we haven't been able to replicate it! Enjoy!

showing off my 2 teeth

handsome blue eyes!

first time he stood up in his crib

trying to eat a banana AND drink my water at the same time :)

Four years ago today...

August 29 probably isn't a very significant date to most people I know, but to anyone who was living in New Orleans or the gulf coast 4 years ago, it was a life-changing day. Four years ago today hurricane Katrina hit and changed thousands of lives. Since I'm home sick and Jonathan's sleeping, I thought I would retell some of the thoughts from that experience.
JP and I were engaged and had just gotten back to seminary from a summer at camp. (We'd been back here a week and a half to be exact!). Although we knew Katrina was out there, they kept saying it was going to hit Florida, so we stayed with our plans and came up to Gadsden to get engagement pictures made.
I still remember waking up at my parents' house in Gadsden and walking downstairs to see pictures on CNN of water. Water everywhere. It was really hard to even imagine that this had really happened. We searched online for pictures of the seminary. Every picture they showed on tv we tried to figure out where it was, hoping to maybe get an idea of what it looked like on campus. It was a nerve-racking, frustrating, hopeless few days as we searched for information. Eventually we learned that the campus was covered in several feet of water (like the rest of the city), but still had no information about what would happen next. I'm a planner. I HATE not knowing what will happen next. But that's one of the lessons God taught me through this experience.
James 4:14 says "yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." Since apparently I couldn't learn that lesson from scripture alone, God used this object lesson of Katrina to drive the point home. :) I'm not SO much of a planner anymore. The next verse, 15, says "Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'"
There are so many things in life, most things actually, that are out of our control. So instead of stressing about things I have no control over, I try to rest in God's providence and peace and trust that He knows what's best and wants what's best for me and my family. We eventually made it back down here to NOLA (1 year later) and have an immediate connection for ministry with so many people here just because we've been through the same experience. We didn't loose as much stuff as other people, and I know we weren't as emotionally or mentally scarred as others, so I consider us blessed. God has shown Himself faithful to us as individuals and as a seminary family. No, it wasn't fun and I wouldn't want to do it again, but I know God has used it for good (Rom. 8:28). So even though I'll take important papers, pictures, and memories with me for any other evacuations, I know that our lives are in God's hands and that He's in control of all the storms.

Sleepy Mommy

I'm sure all new parents have funny stories about silly things they do because they are so tired. Well, I've decided to share mine and hope no one reads this and calls Child Protective Services or anything! One morning last week I came home from work and stayed up with Jonathan until his morning nap while JP went to work. This is our normal routine for days after I work so I don't know why this day was different. Jonathan slept from 9-11 and then we get up, I feed him, he plays and then we both go back to sleep from 1-3. I always change his diaper when I get him up at 11.
Well, I was so tired and just kinda stayed asleep and was in this fog until after I fed him. Before I put him in his jumper to play, I couldn't remember if I changed his diaper or not so I took him to his room to check. As I opened the diaper, to my surprise I saw that I had put one diaper on top the other! Talk about leak protection! I have laughed hard about this several times, but not nearly as hard as the other night I got to wondering about what Jonathan was thinking. He was probably very confused why we were doing the diapers a little differently and his bottom was still wet!
Fortunately I started working part-time this week so maybe we won't have any more of these kinds of problems! But I understand where you are coming from new moms, night shift nurses, or just anyone who doesn't get enough sleep! Hang in there and just be glad you're not having to wear 2 diapers!