Just the normal every day life

David is back to school this week! Working 40 hrs and taking 2 classes should make for a fun semester :) He is taking Advanced NT Theology and Advanced Greek Grammar. He's pretty pumped about both of them and feels they will be very profitable for both life and dissertation work ;-)

Caleb and I are holding down the fort at home each day. Well, trying to anyway :) Seems like Caleb does something new about every day. He's *so* close to rolling from back to tummy. I think he would have done it yesterday but he was holding a big toy that kept him from landing on the tummy :) It would be SO nice if he could learn that skill so we don't have to get up in the night to roll him back onto his tummy once he's rolled over and can't go back to sleep on his back. Silly boy :) I'm sure if we left him long enough he'd go back to sleep, but the noise he makes keeps us awake so its faster to just get up and roll him back over so we can get back to sleep. Sleep is very important for me. :) Since getting up early in the mornings, I've come to really sleep well and love it :) I'm also enjoying my early morning Scripture memory walks. This has helped me immensely in memorizing and retaining what I learn. Wonder how I ever memorized without doing this before?

Here are a few pics of my little snuggle-muffin! LOVE him! :)

Loving on the monkey before mommy changes my diaper

"Finally something new to chew on!!"

"Who me? I was just holding it for you, mom!"

 He's learning how to reach for things, handle new toys, bang his head with larger toys that he insists on having, turn pages, chew on spatulas, spit up all over daddy's dress clothes, and all the other fun things that come with being an almost 5 month old! :)

"Why do you always interrupt my study time with that camera?"

Today was a glorious day for this book loving mama! While I was reading to Caleb he kept reaching for the book. I gave it to him and he must have spent 15 minutes figuring out how to turn the pages and look at the pictures. :) Clearly he has no idea what its all about, but board books will definitely be part of his daily play toys now and I hope he will learn to love learning from them at an early age.

Well, I hear the monkey stirring so I'm going to try to get a few more things done before he wakes up for good :)

*sheepishly* Hi, it's me!

And . . . . . we're back! I'd like to say that the only reason I haven't posted is b/c we've had major issues accessing the blog the past few weeks since we put a new internet filter on. The truth is, that is the biggest reason. But, there were a few opportunities that I just didn't take. :(


Caleb is our 17lb monster and is getting sweeter and cuter every day! He is so active that I'm about to think he's going to skip the crawling stage and go straight to walking. He LOVES to stand up with our help. And he's never on his tummy long enough to learn how to crawl :) He immediately rolls onto his back, and scoots around with his feet. Who does that?? Such a cutie pie!

Caleb loves this little gym the Swansons loaned us. The red ball is his.

Happy to be sitting up and moving!

First piano lesson-- ok, really he just watched me play

Yes, this is my son who has to *see* everything! I leaned back to take a picture, so he leaned back to see what I was doing. Love this kid! :)

Our neighbors (the Swansons) had their baby Friday night. David and I spent the night over at their house with the 3 older kids. Today while Jakey was at school I had the girls over for a tea party. I even dressed up with them, but forgot to get pics :( Liz doesn't tend to take people up on their offers for help, so I invited the girls to a tea party. We had a peach/banana smoothie for our "tea" and oatmeal cookies.

Daisy's attempt at a smile (she's 2)

Princess Ashley (4)

Not much else going on here. We'll be at mom and dad's for dinner tonight. Josh and Amber get back from Turkey,  etc tomorrow.  David will hopefully take his German proficiency test this week and start school next week!! We're enjoying the last of our "slower-ish" summer days. The Lord has given David and I some really sweet times of fellowship this summer during our evenings. I'm so very thankful for the godly leader, and best friend the Lord gave me in my husband!
 I am so very blessed!!!

"If you're grateful and you know it, then your life will surely show it! :-)"

Clearly I haven't posted in AGES, but I fully intend to do much better in the future.

Since NBS and Cola Wars things have been fairly calm. Poor little Caleb got a cold this past weekend and was NOT a happy camper. He's still having trouble sleeping. I've been up more with him this past week then I have been since probably the week he was born. :(
 He has his 4mo check up on Monday so we're excited to see how he's growing! He's putting EVERYTHING in his mouth these days, loves rolling over, and is sleeping much less in the day time. He's SO much fun!! :)

 I tell David often how grateful I am that he lets me stay home and care for our home and family, but I've lately been trying to make sure that I really show him (and the Lord) my gratitude. I can do that, of course, by keeping the house clean, dinners ready, etc. but also by trying to save money wherever I can. This week I learned how to make rice milk! Since I can't have dairy (thanks, Caleb! :) I have been using Almond Milk or Rice Milk (the Lord provided both of these for us at the Sav-Mor sale last week!!) which can be quite pricey (around $2.75 for one of these). By making my own rice milk I only use about .20 worth of supplies to make the same amount. Very quick and easy to do-- and delicious! I used white rice this time around since we have so much we want to use up (we like brown rice much better, but bought white out of habit :/), but I think in the future I'll do all brown, or maybe a mixture of both since the brown has better flavor, but i still want to use up the white.

Rice Milk in the making! :)

Also used some "ugly tomatoes" (that's what the Tomato Vine calls their over-ripe, discount stuff) to make our spaghetti sauce this week. Time consuming, but hey, what am I home for?? :)

 Next on the agenda is making our own laundry soap. I've been doing TONS of reading up on that and am very excited to give it a go! :)

This is what was going on outside while I was making spaghetti sauce :)

My lil' helper!! The BEST part of the whole day! :)