watch out below

So my last post was a "raise your hand if" post. I had one shout out with a hand raised. I'm going to try again with this one and see if anyone else wants to jump in and respond. Raise your hand if you are superstitious? Or, raise your hand if you've heard that things always come in 3's?

Well, I don't know that I would say I'm superstitious per say, but I won't open umbrellas inside or intentionally walk under a ladder. And, I do always knock on wood. So maybe I have a slight tendency to be supersitious. You may wonder why in the world I am bringing this up. Let me recap yesterday. . .

Being the super Mom I am, I would know to never leave a baby in a bouncy seat on the kitchen table. Especially if the baby is a crazy bouncing baby. Well, I being the terrible Mom I was yesterday, I did just that and it ended with Miles splat on the floor. It was horrible and dramatic and only by the grace of God is he okay. The Lord had him land on his very round and full--just plain chubby cheek and he was fine. My heart was not. Still might not be. Not a good way to start the day. Fast forward to later in the afternoon. I hear yet another crash, with my nerves already shot, and find that my dining room chandelier has fallen from the ceiling, smack onto our dining room table. What in the world?? By the end of the night I was kinda laughing about things, completely delirious and thinking a strong drink might do me some good!! I started thinking, hmmmmm, isn't there something about 3's, like bad things coming in 3's??

My mom called me today wondering what else had happened. Oh nothing at that point. But then this afternoon when I was bathing Luke, Charlie ran in to tell us that Mocha (our Beagle) was eating something. In. Miles'. room. Do you know what that was? Nope, not food. We don't have food upstairs. Hmmmm. Yep, sure enough, Mocha was eating one of Miles' dirty diapers. It was disgusting. I really can't think about it. And the clean up was terrible!! Uuuuggghhh, moving on.

So, that was thing #3. Surely we are all done, right? Anyone else have stories like this?? Please tell me you do!!!
***This is posted on March 31st, so you know I am not pulling an April Fool's joke!!!

6 months already!

Raise your hand if you can't believe Miles is already 6 months old. I know! Me either!!! I feel like I say this every day, but really, time flies. Yep, our little chunk chunk is half a year old, plus 2 days, since technically his 6 month mark was Monday!

He's still living up to my favorite nickname, Milesy Smilesy! He gives out the sweetest, melt your heart smiles and turns me into a puddle on the spot! At this point, he's chugging along on sleep, a morning nap, an afternoon nap and a catnap (which he's close to done with). And then he's good to go through the night (with a dream feed around 11)! As far as food goes, Miles is kinda wishy washy with his breakfast. Some mornings he gobbles down his oatmeal and fruit, other mornings not a fan. He certainly loves his veggies though--carrots, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes and squash! Yummmmmy! Though his first feeding of carrots he wasn't too sure about . . .

He has a blast in his bouncy seat and loves to get his groove on in that thing! His exersaucer is also quite fun, but it doesn't beat watching his big brothers run around and act like the crazy kiddos they are, which can sometimes be annoying when Miles is trying to drink his bottle and he's distracted is really sweet! ;) He has rolled over both ways, but doesn't do this on a regular basis. Miles is much more into showing off his incredible ability to do push ups, something I'm sure he learned from his Daddy. He enjoys books, though he is especially intrigued by Moo, Baa, La La La, where he looks at the page and then up at me, back to the page and up at me with a smile! Precious! And lately, after waking, he squirms his way out of his swaddle in search of his feet or a random paci in his crib. He doesn't even take a paci. Just likes to play with it!

Miles we love you so and are very excited about the next half of your first year of life! What a treasure from the Lord you are!

hoorays and boos and God's plan

Lately, I've tried to focus my morning prayers on thanking the Lord for the day He is laying out before me. Praying that His will be done. Praying that when I have hiccups in my plans for the day, that I might realize they aren't really my plans, but in fact are His. So here's the start to our day. . .

This morning I woke up to my alarm, set at 6:48, hooray, because it means a certain newest member of our family didn't wake me up before that. Usually it is set earlier because I like to be up, showered, dressed with make up on before tending to the kiddos. However this morning, my lovely sister ran carpool, hooray, because my car is in the shop, Chad is out of town, and it takes a good 30 minutes to get all 3 kiddos buckled in his non-SUV, meaning I didn't have to wake as early. So, the aforementioned little one decided to sleep until 7:30, hooray normally, but today boo, because as I am quickly trying to get Lukey down for breakfast and feed Miles his bottle, Charlie also wakes up and decides THIS morning, boo, is the morning he will tell me for the first time that pee-pee is about to come out, hooray, and runs to the potty, hooray! So that means Miles' bottle gets put on hold, boo, Lukey's breakfast is cold and uneaten, boo, and we all parade into the bathroom to see if Chuckles will finally produce in the potty. Sure enough, he did, BIG hooray!! So, I, elated, jump for joy and knock down the shower curtain, scaring poor Charlie with his arms protecting his head, boo, and quickly check to see if there is any emotional damage. There is none thus far, hooray, and we give hugs, high-fives and dole M&M's out! We then all rush downstairs and Luke devours his breakfast, while Chuckles is on and off the potty another half dozen times, partly out of pure amazement that pee-pee came out, hooray, partly motivated to wear big-boy underwear like Lukey, hooray, and partly for M&M's, boo, but hooray too--whatever works! Luke heads off to school, Miles finally get his bottle an hour late, boo, but he was fine, so hooray!

And our day continued with a poop explosion so big it went all the way up to the back of baby's neck and was deep under my fingernails, BIG boo! It was also filled with doggy throw up all over our kitchen rug, boo--why do dogs always find the carpets or rugs??? But on top of that, our day was filled with elation when an old, funny board book was found, hooray--we read it 50 times over and yogurt with dinner, hooray (so easy to please sometimes)!

Today made me laugh--it was pretty comical all that went on. It's so nice and comforting that even the small details in life are part of His plan! Sometimes though, there are big hiccups in life. My friend, Jennifer, has a close friend who is having a MAJOR hiccup, to say the least, right now. I also pray that should we have a MAJOR hiccup in our life, I may be able to trust and remember the same thing. . .please pray for this family, whose 5 year old little girl has cancer. Sometimes it seems that Jeremiah 29:11 can become cliche, but it says the Lord has plans for us--to prosper us and give us hope. Let's cling to this. . .that the Lord has everything worked out already!

St. Patty's Day kiss

Our little charmer, Charlie, hopes none of you were pinched today, though he and his big bro were quite excited to discover that Daddy wasn't wearing green for St. Patrick's Day! Ooops! So, if you were pinched and are feeling a little blue (instead of green), here's a sweet Irish kiss for you. . .

Thanks, Charming Chuckles!

no rush

It's Spring Break where we are, but we are having a staycation! We aren't going anywhere dreamy, but it sure feels dreamy not to have to set my alarm to get up and get ready before the kids are up. Not to have to rush around feeding a baby, making breakfast, getting kiddos dressed and out the door for school at super early o'clock! It's also nice not having to rush them to bed to ensure good sleep for school or just for good attitudes. What it all boils down to is that I like not rushing. I like not having to be anywhere if we don't want to. I like playing around the house and doing much needed odds and ends, which is what we did all day yesterday. I like playing with friends when we want to, which is what we did today and have arranged for a couple of days this week. I am thankful for Spring Break, even if we aren't heading out on a vacation, because staying home certainly feels like a vacation sometimes! You feel me?

Last night we kicked off the Spring Break week with a pizza and movie night with the boys. We sprawled out on our den floor and ate, sang, danced, cuddled and answered thousand of questions about Beauty and the Beast (our boys first ever viewing)! The big boys stayed up later than usual and nothing felt rushed, just lots of fun! Thanks, Honey, for a super night!

Mesmerized!!

musically inclined

Music moves me. It motivates me. It comforts me. It engergizes me. It soothes me. It makes me speed. Well, I guess music doesn't technically make me speed, but I would swear that it sends a signal from a brain to my foot that makes me put the pedal to the metal when a favorite song comes on! I'm not sure if my passion for music came from my piano lessons (though I was really into Madonna and Michael Jackson long before piano started), or if it came from my Dad's love of the Grateful Dead that he so annoyingly made us suffer through on long road trips when we were younger. Ha!

Anyway, Chad is the same way with music. Maybe he doesn't speed to a good song, but he's moved by music too. His love for the trumpet and jazz music has made a big impact on our kiddos. When Chad was in grade school, he started playing the trumpet, taking lessons, was in all kinds of ensembles and still played while we were in college. Then, life got busy and he put the trumpet down for a bit. However, he has always picked it up and played around here and there, especially at Christmas. This past Christmas, he played a lot and really rekindled his passion for the trumpet. Our boys LOVED it and became much more familiar with Christmas songs, a lot quicker this year, thanks to Chad! Recently, he started taking lessons again. Now, we have concerts in our home almost everyday, ranging from the Star Wars theme (our boys #1 request) to Chris Botti, from Glee Songs to Les Miserables. I love that between our iPods, CD's and Chad's intimate concerts, our boys are also being introduced to all genres of music!

I think maybe my love for music came from early exposure to it. I'm hoping that our boys' exposure to music will do the same for them. And, I'm thankful for my hubby who moves us with his music daily! We've been pondering the age at which we should let or encourage our boys to take lessons. Some of our friends are doing the same. Did you play an instrument growing up? When did you start playing?

time for a change. . .

So March is here. Once again a new month--a perfect time for a change! I've been contemplating a blog name change for a while now. A few things have led me to this. One, I've been blogging for about 4 years with the same name. Time for something new. Another reason is that I didn't really want our name in our title. Our blog has been linked to several others through friends and other blogs and through my photography, so I just wanted to take our name out of it. I don't mind it being in our blog address for now, because often people just click on a blog name or through their Reader and don't even remember the blog address.

But my main reason for changing our little blog title is to recommit why I am blogging. I started this as a journal for our family, a place to keep records for our boys and us, and also to keep friends and family updated on the goings on of our lives. The everyday stuff and the milestones. But, I feel like our little blog has evolved some, and I'm realizing I'm sharing lots more about who our family is. I want to make sure that I am clear on what our family stands for. Or who. So, Morning Glories, came to mind.

When I was little, not even that little, my mom would always come in and wake us up in the mornings. She would, in a very sing-song voice come into my room, open the blinds right beside my bed and say, "Rise and Shine, Morning Glory!" Occasionally, on my grumpier mornings, this would annoy me. But, more often than not, I loved being her Morning Glory. It wasn't about the name she called me, but it was that she had a name for me (one of many) and more importantly, that she loved me--I always knew it and I still do. The care she took to greet my sister and me with cheerfulness and sunshine in the morning was not lost on me. So, Morning Glories is a tribute to my mom and that place of love she created for me!

It's in that same way, that Chad and I want to raise our children--to grow them up (not as flowers, but like flowers grow). We have been blessed to both be raised in love and to love the Lord. We want our children to know our love for each other in our marriage and our love for them, and we are confident they already do. And just as importantly, we want our boys to know of our love for the Lord. Our purpose in our marriage, in our family and in our lives is to glorify the Lord. The word, glory, means adoring praise or worshipful thanksgiving. And, while life is not about glorifying the Lord only in the mornings, starting our day giving glory to Him is what our family is striving for.

So, when I was thinking of a new blog name, Morning Glories, just seemed to fit us.

Hope you like the name change and if you don't, I hope it grows (I just had to) on you! I have no idea if this will change in your Reader or not, you may have to do it manually, or not. If I decide to change our blog url, then I will let you know! And, finally, since you read through all of that, here are a few pics, you know, since words can be boring alone and pics spice things up! Little Miles was baptized a week ago and it was such a special time. Just another step for our family to dedicate him to the Lord and to declare that we will raise Miles up to know Him!

Sweet Mimi loving her grandson!