6 mos old...

It is hard to believe but my baby boy is now 6 months old. I am not quite sure where that time went. Slobber Rocket is now crawling, sitting up, getting from his knees to sitting or laying down to sitting. He also gets up on his hands and feet and moves around like that. He is not a great sleeper but neither was big brother until about age 1. So... I am trying not to get too frustrated. He eats all night long. Sometimes that makes for one tired mama. Everyone tells me how big he is but I still think he is a bit of a peanut. Just getting into size 3 mos. He is very grabby and feely too. He loves to snuggle and loves to grab, manipulate and feel things. He may be starting to teethe but I am not sure when those first teeth will poke through. He is gnawing on everything but has no signs of a tooth erupting just yet other than the slobber. He has very sensitive skin and most likely already has allergies (what a thing to inherit). But mostly he is fabulous and beautiful and fun to be around. Smiley and happy most of the time. Easy to calm... I am in love with him.

This weekend we are moving on to a big thing in the lives of babies... solids. First up: avocado mush thinned out with a little milk. Delish! I will be sure to take pictures for all to see! :)

Random stuff... :)

We went to the combined church service tonight and learned about a really cool Activity Center in East St. Louis, IL. It is called the Christian Activity Center and wow, they do so much for the very poor children living on very dangerous streets. They are set up right in the middle of these rough neighborhoods and provide a place all day and most of the evening/night for the children of E. St Louis to come and DO. They have activities, tutoring, meals, health and nutrition education... and they just keep a ton of kids off of the street and safe. It was really cool to hear Chet talk about this place that just... loves on children and protects them from the rough streets they live in. So, if you want to check out the website, there are a few ways to get involved from short term mission projects to donating money to send a child to camp in the summer. I hope to go visit at some point. The children there are so beautiful and precious.

Stellan is very ill again and in the hospital. He has been riding out today with a heart rate pretty much hanging around 230 beats per minute. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

People at our church are cool... that is a freebie ;) I just had a good day hanging out with a lot of really neat people.

Tomorrow we play softball (7 &9... I play at 9... if you are interested, at Dodds) and I will get weird looks for keeping the kids out until 10. But Super Muscles loves it! And babies can sleep anywhere so its all good.

That's all I got.

Summer Splash... the sequal

Well, I should be cleaning considering I have company in a bit. BUT I think most people know I hate cleaning so I am procrastinating! Yippee!

Anyway, we had a pool party on July first with our church but it was TOO COLD to swim. So we still grilled out and then we just hung out. Well, the owner of the swim club said we could come back so yesterday we grilled out again (yum) and then we swam. It was pretty chilly. Low 70s probably and the water was cold (so I am told, I didn't get in). My friend, Joanna, let me play around with her camera. It was fun. I really can't wait to get a dSLR. The time is coming. Anyway, here are some pictures from the party!Here is sweet little Super Muscles playing by he pool. It took him a good long time before he would get into the pool. But eventually, he did. And I was kind of proud because he was scared and he did it anyway.
More cuteness in some silly goggles. He loved these things!
It is me! With Baby J... hes trying to give me a kiss. I am a luck girl ;)
And we can't forget my Pumpkin Head! So cute!

Not My Child Monday

If you want to participate in Not Me Monday... head on over to MckMamas blog to see what it is all about and take a crack at it...

My child most certainly did not run into our bedroom the other morning to tell his Daddy "my penis growed overnight!"... Our child would never do something like that.

He also would never ask his mommy when he was going to die. (He is also not crazy obsessed with death right now because that would be a bit morbid).

Super Muscles would never ever kill a butterfly in Sunday school class and convince all the kids in his class to help him finish off the poor thing (not that said kids would ever help destruct any life of any kind... ever).
Slobber Rocket isn't mobile yet. 5 mos old are too young to scoot and crawl...

My big kid would NEVER be such a poor sport to tell someone who struck out at the softball the other night that they "FAILED"... he wouldn't scream "FAILED" at the top of his lungs when someone messed up. That would just be mean. And it certainly was NOT his father who taught him such things and that same father would never laugh when our 3 yr old said something so mean.

That same child didn't say "I love you" you the other day and when I said it back...he didn't reply to me "I was NOT talking to YOU Mom, I was talking to Mike"...

War

The good, the bad, and the ugly... all in one day.

Today has been an interesting day. My friends mom died recently and I really wanted to attend the funeral but didn't end up going (putting Super Muscles in the car for 3+ hrs and then expecting him to behave seemed a bit much for my kiddo). So I needed something to do to keep my mind off of things. Super Muscles stayed dry all night in bed in his undies so I decided to have a special day with him and reward him for such big boyness. I took him to a local park where they run sprinklers from 11-3 and 5-7 everyday. It was fun. He had a BLAST. I enjoyed just watching him run through the water and scream his head off in excitement. Then we went to McDonald's for lunch. We had a great time chatting and eating. We shared some ice cream. It was a good morning.

After nap... we went to schnucks where Super Muscles sees some balloons and since he did so well last night, I told him he could have one. Who knew he would pick out a balloon that costs 6.99? A see through spider man balloon. *sigh* but I told him he could pick one out and it is a small one like the others' I showed him. So I ended up spending way too much at the grocery store (like $5.99 too much at least... which is a big deal to us crazy strict budget people). But he is enjoying it. I guess I will just make up for it next week. I am going to tie it around Slobber Rockets ankle after the big kid goes to bed (he would spaz if I let the baby TOUCH his balloon while he was awake). So... maybe I will get my moneys worth?

I started a roast (with potatoes and carrots of course) a bit late today thinking me and my handsome husband could eat after the boys were in bed tonight. The big kid usually doesn't each much roast, if any, anyway. So I thought I would take advantage of that situation and Mr. Wonderful and I could have a nice, quiet sit down dinner that didn't involve messy faces, food on the floor, or a small child burping and laughing furiously. Yea, not so much. That handsome husband came home with a migraine headache, bowed to the porcelain god and promptly sacked out.

So once he came home sick, I decided to take the boys with me to go for a walk with some friends. I figured the house would then be silent and Mr. Wonderful could sleep off the migraine. I get the boys packed up and out to the car and... my car won't start. We just replaced the battery last week so I have no clue what is wrong. It is going to cost more than the $60 battery to fix though which stinks... bad. At least the battery was a good investment. We had the other one tested and definitely needed a new one.

So, I am going to eat dinner after the boys are in bed by myself. And I am going to cling to my big kids smile and forget the rest of the day. Because really, figuring out how to pay to fix my car is just not worth my worries tonight.

I am here...

but I am not here. I have been deep in thought this week but haven't been able to put most of it into words. Maybe at some point I will be able to. I have been confronted with some things that just haven't been a part of my life before. I am turning to prayer to deal with it.

I have never felt so pulled to prayer until this last year or so. I had an internet friend whose little boy was born in a very bad situation. She was attempting a home birth and something went very wrong. She raced to the hospital and her son was born with some very big complications and had a pretty dismal outlook for the future. But she asked me to pray for him. And I did... I would wake up every night, multiple times a night with an urge in my heart to pray for her and her little boy. It was unreal the pulling I felt toward prayer. I have had an isolated instance of this before but nothing like I was experiencing. Every single night I would be forced out of sleep to pray. Every day, this little boy consumed my thoughts and I prayed for him. And he was healed. And then when I was pregnant with Slobber Rocket and found out about Stellan, again, I was lifted out of sleep to pray for him. And... he made it through his moms pregnancy and is a beautiful 8 mos old boy right now who was not supposed to live. Do I think my prayer alone helped to heal these kids... I don't know. But I know that God says prayer is powerful and the implication that I get from the Bible is that prayer is effective on many levels from giving us peace to healing the sick.

I guess I bring this up because recently I have been drawn back to my knees to intercede for many of my friends and that is one of the reasons I have been scarce (oh and I pulled a muscle in my neck and can hardly move my head). But this last week has been so rough around my neck of the woods. I have had many friends get news of deteriorating health of their loved ones. We have gotten this news as I said in my last entry but I can think of 4 friends in the last week who have been presented with rough news about their loved ones. I hate to see the suffering. And, honestly, right now I am hurting with two of my friends and all I have to turn to to help is prayer. I guess sometimes you feel so inadequate in life but as I get older I realize that I really can be there with and for my friends even when I can not BE there. Eh, I am not sure that this makes a lot of sense but this is just what I happen to be thinking about right now. I guess I will close with one of my favorite verses that helps me get through a lot in life:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).

not really sure

I am not certain what I want to write just that I would like to. I have been thinking a lot lately about suffering and how I really don't understand it.

A friend of mine lost her job. She has helped me a lot since I moved here. She has no family close. Her kids all live out of state and she is a widow. Now she has no income. I worry about her. I worry about her being lonely and sad and suffering. I don't know what to do for her or what to say to her when she comes to see me next week. I just know that I don't want her to hurt.

I read a caring bridge page today about a little girl who has a brain tumor. She is beautiful. Now she is very ill. The tumor is affecting the parts of her brain that control speech, emotions, and some motor skills. Brain tumors in children are rare. They removed a little bit of it but much of it remains and the course of treatment is tricky and long and... sadly, this child will suffer, a lot, before it is all said and done.

I have a friend who is really depressed and is having a hard time functioning through it. She is suffering with something not quite tangible but it has a strong grasp on her.

I know people going through infertility and child loss. I have seen people want more than anything to be able to create a child and be unsuccessful with no real explanation. Or, sometimes worse, with an explanation but nothing that can really be done about it.

The list just goes on and on and on of people all around me suffering and I wonder why. My own mind is tormented about some things constantly and about them, I suffer. I know in my head why but I just can't come to grips with it.

I guess it has just been one of those days. We got some sad news today on top of a lot of other things I have been thinking about and it seems to be piling up for me. Please pray for our family, esp Mr. Wonderful. One of his family members has lung cancer as well as some other things going on in his body. He is a man my husband really respects and cares about (me too). I just really don't want him to suffer. I have no clue what that means as it plays out in his life. But I pray he does not experience a lot of pain and that the pain he is experiencing now is healed. May God reveal himself in this and all situations we face.

Bran muffins... yum

Mr. Wonderful recently recalled something we ate often in Mexico (not its not traditionally eaten in Mexico but American Missionaries apparently eat it in Mexico)... Bran Muffins. I haven't made them in about 5 yrs and I totally did not recall how to make them. So we bought a box of bran cereal and I sorta used the recipe from Banana Bran Muffins to make something a bit different. I don't like bananas and had no desire to make muffins I would not eat. SO... here is my different bran muffin recipe that kind of followed the box but not really.

Carrot Apple Walnut Bran Muffins (see how that works... all stuff I like!)

I cook and bake like a spaz so some of my measurements aren't exactly measurements... be forewarned.
Ingredients:
2 Carrots
1 med-large apple (I used golden delicious because it is what my husband prefers)
Some walnuts (maybe a cup??)
1.5 cups of bran cereal
1/2 cups of milk (I ended up adding a bit at the end to make it a better consistency)
1 egg
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup flour
1/4 cup of sugar (I didn't use that much though... but sometimes I don't measure)
2 Tsp baking powder
1/4 Tsp baking soda
some nutmeg
some cinnamon

Peel and grate carrot, peel and dice apple, make whole walnuts a reasonable size to use in muffins.Combine deliciousness in a bowl with cereal, milk, egg, and veg. oil. Then beat or mix vigorously or something until it looks like this.In another bowl... mix together your remaining dry ingredients. Maybe you are lucky enough to have a cute chefs assistant like I have?

Then poor the dry ingredients in with the wet ingredients and mix it all up until its wet. Don't beat the snot out of it or anything. This is where I had to add just a bit more milk to give it a better consistency.Then, put the batter into greased (or lined) muffin tin.
Put them into a 400 degree preheated oven for 20 minutes. They may need up to 25 depending on your oven.
Super Muscles and Mr. Wonderful both approved. Best news is that there is very little sugar used (if you use a sweeter apple you could probably get by with no sugar or if you used other sweeter fruits or you could sweeten with a bit of apple sauce instead) and you can put all kinds of yummy stuff your children won't normally eat inside! SM is not a very big fan of carrots or walnuts by themselves.

I will be periodically sharing some recipes of things I make for SM for snacks and dinners and stuff because we love cooking together and I am a little obsessed with what my children eat. I am also probably going to post some easy recipes for babyfood as I figure that all out soon.

The 5th of July

We had a very soggy 4th in central Illinois. Parade and festivities were all canceled. So we went to rescheduled fireworks last night. Super Muscles was very excited about the fireworks but we knew that he'd likely be afraid of the noise. So when a friend invited us to join them about a mile away (where the booms wouldn't be so bad), we took them up on the offer.

I wasn't sure how he would do... he was very excited to be going. But he does have pretty huge issues with sound. He is afraid of "loud" noises... or even louder than we talk noises. He shrivels up into a crying, ear covering mess if someone yells or talks to loudly or if the hair dryer is turned on. It has been a rather large issue for us lately because it is preventing him from trying things and it just really upsets him. So, that sets the stage for why I was kind of hesitant to even take him. But he was excited, anticipated liking them and asked if we could go... so we went.
See... super excited!
We even got a family picture before the show :)
And I am pretty darn sure its the ONLY one we have.
Ooooh and I got a nice one of Mr. Wonderful with my two beautiful boys.
And even one with me and the boys...
That is why it is good to do things with friends... you can get pictures that include yourself!

So how did the fireworks go...? Not as bad as last year. lol. Last yr I was a few mos pregnant and nauseous and Super Muscles spent the whole show in the car, on my lap, screaming, hands over his ears, my hands over his eyes, begging for the booms to stop... pretty much anything is better than that... right?

He did actually enjoy the show this year but not without a bit of help from the headphones or his hands...
Really, if anyone has an idea on how I can make my older sons life a bit more bearable with the whole... "I'm deathly afraid of loud noises" thing... please, let me know how.

Not all Christians are Republicans,... what?!

And the ones who aren't, may not necessarily be Democrats either. Mckmama posted a blog last night about her political views and it prompted me to share a bit about mine... in a nice, civil kind of way.

I think, generally speaking, most people really only see two ways to believe politically. As my views started to form and change from what I learned as a child, I realized that I just did not fit into either of the two main party platforms we have going. I am very much a small gov. kind of girl but I am starting to realize that the things most Christians care about being legislated, I just don't agree with. I don't agree with legislating personal morals and freedoms (as an aside so people don't misinterpret what I say, I don't think abortion falls into the realm of a right or freedom women should have.. more on that another time but I don't want to get too heavy today). I think that goes against the core of our country. People came to and formed this country based on the ideal that a government only served a very minimal role in society and that role was definitely not police peoples moral and religious views. And please... lets not get into the whole "this country was based on Christian principles" stuff. Most of the founding fathers were deists and I think understanding that alone allows us to see the intent was not to funnel everyone into the "christian way" of doing things. Not saying Christian principles are unimportant (obviously, since I choose to live by them) but I think belief and faith are very personal things that should not color what our nation was founded on. And that happens to be individual freedoms. Ideally we should remain free to do as we please unless it causes harm to others. Now, granted, this requires a great deal of personal responsibility but I also believe that is another founding principle. A principle that I believe is no longer in tact and that fuels a lot of the current socialist motives.

So... where do I land then? I am firmly in the Libertarian camp on most issues. Small government, lower taxes, more freedom. There are a few things I disagree with. But I want the government out of my business and life. I want a return of personal responsibility. I want personal freedoms. I don't care to legislate things such as homosexuality, where the 10 commandments can and can't be displayed, or gun control (as heavily as it is anyway, I disagree with no legislation at all though). I think parents should be able to decides for themselves what they do and don't do for their children. Basically, if it doesn't threaten anothers' physical well being, I am not too worried about it. I think bailouts are crazy and ridiculous and I am all about the free market. Really, I think most of my views are a return to true conservatism (conserving what our country was founded on) but that is just my humble opinion ;)

During the last presidential election (only my 2nd presidential election), I decided to hang up the idea that I will ever agree with a Republican or Democratic representative as things are. And I voted 3rd party. I am assuming this will be a trend for me as Republicans seem to get further away from small government and embrace legislating things I feel they have no right legislating. I am often asked why I am willing to vote 3rd party because it is like I am casting a useless vote. I don't feel that way... I feel like we need to build up a 3rd party and my votes can help do that. My vote can help get the party to a point where they receive government funds that would allow them to actually compete with the 2 main parties. And plus, I feel like it is my responsibility as a voter to actually vote for the person I think would do the best job for our country.

I definitely have my opinions on many political issues and I plan to share them at some point but I actually just really enjoy discussing politics. I know it is one of those taboo subjects but I think it is fascinating and interesting to look at how people come to their conclusions about what is best for a country we all love and call home. As always, comments are welcome... Have a great day!