Have a Blessed Memorial Day

Pray for our soldiers and their families, that they find comfort and strength in Him.

Pray for our nation and its people, that it would strive to serve God in all things.

Pray for our leaders, that they know wisdom and truth, and have the courage to stand for nothing less.

And may God Bless America.

"And if my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray,
and seek my presence and turn from their evil ways,
I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and revive their land."
2 Chronicles 7:14

My Current Happy Place

I can't help but smile when this song comes on either the radio, Pandora, or my iPod. And if the Doodle is around, we totally dance :)

Prayers Needed

Sadness was waiting for me this morning in my email inbox about the new mother I asked y'all to pray for earlier this week. Emily went home to the Lord. Her husband and newborn son are walking a path I can't even begin to conceive of journeying.

I don't know her or her family but found this news so heartbreaking. Heartbreaking for those left on earth ... Emily is in the presence of our Savior. Her heavenly joy is their earthly sorrow.

Please take time to lift this sweet family up to Jesus. Pray for their peace and acceptance of God's plan for their family. May they find strength and comfort in Him, and through his Mother. Pray for Emily's husband in his suffering, and for her newborn son who will never feel the embrace of his earthly mother's arms.

Hail Mary, full of grace,

the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women,

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for us sinners,

Now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

This & That

The weather has been creep-creep-creepin' up the past few days, and we had our first 100 degree day on Friday. However, on Monday we had the most glorious, perfect weather. Quite cool for an Arizona May day, but so lovely. If we had weather like that every day, I would never complain.

If we had weather like that every day, we'd have more people living here than we could handle, so I guess it's a trade-off.

Maggie has really gotten the hang of walking. That girl is everywhere! We discovered another big plus for the cloth diapers that she wears: padding! I don't know how her bum isn't black-and-blue from all the falling, but up she gets and off she goes.

The girl did manage to pull a tray table down before I could get to her the other day, and it landed right on top of her left foot. I knew that one hurt her, and there were lots of tears. The hardest thing to do when she hurts herself is to get a good look at the banged-up body part - she kept pulling her foot away from me and kicking it (I'm sure because it hurt) but hello! Mommy needs to assess the damage. The foot is pretty well bruised but all the digits worked just fine, and 3 minutes later she wanted back down to get to her push-car and hasn't looked back since, so all is well.

In just about 3 weeks or so, my parents are leaving for Alabama to pack up my Aunt Sister and bring her out here for good. Yippee! She's so great, and I'm excited that she's going to be easier to visit. My Southern accent is probably going to come back with a vengeance, with is fun (I've lived away from AL for so long, my accent seems to come and go depending on who I'm around) ... Aunt Sister has a rural accent that just lends itself to sayings such as "well butter my biscuit" and "slap full". She's a hoot, and will have us in stitches with her family stories. I can't wait to introduce y'all to her. Life around here is going to be alot more chatty :)

Maggie loves the sound of the velcro on her diapers, and we went through a time when she would end up nekkid on the bottom from pulling at them, but we got past it without any real issues. Until yesterday. Hubby got whizzed on and it didn't make him a happy camper. Maggie had pulled the velco apart under her shorts and when he went to pick her up, she whizzed. All over herself. All over Hubby. Maggie was happy and smiling and overjoyed that she was getting a mid-day bath. Hubby, not so much. All I could tell him was "welcome to parenthood, honey". Is it bad that it totally made me laugh?

I forgot to mention that after the James Taylor/Carole King concert last week, Hubby and I were in the elevator when Brett Hull got on. For those of you sitting there saying to yourselves, "who?", Brett Hull was a hockey player for the Phoenix Coyotes, our hometown team (and a few others, but I only got into hockey after moving to AZ). I must say, out of that padded uniform, he's much smaller than I thought he'd be, though I'm sure Mr. Skinny could kick out booties, no problem. He was very polite and quiet, and it was just kind of cool.

Lastly, I'd like to ask y'all to pray for a lady named Emily, and her husband and new baby. She delivered earlier this week and the baby is perfect, but she developed a condition called HELLP, and her prognosis for survival is not good at all. They are doing comfort measures at this point and just praying. If you would please lift this family up to God, I know they would appreciate it. All things are possible through Him. Thank you for being such sweet faithfuls.

Hope y'all have a great day!

The Precious and Adorable Maggie

(That's her Official Title per my "sister", Misti, btw ... and really, I can't argue with that!)

Her Sweetness is having so much fun walking! She's getting better each day, and I know before long she won't need to even hold my finger or leg to steady herself.

Is motherhood always bittersweet? I love that Maggie is growing and learning, but it's also something else that she doesn't need me for. Does that sound crazy? She's just growing so fast - but it's wonderful, and seeing her have so much fun is, well, fun :)

Here are a couple of videos for the friends and fam in a galaxy far, far away (otherwise known as The South ... can you tell I watched a Star Wars marathon this weekend?)

Enjoy! Happy Monday!

 

Two Lil' Toofies

Do you know how hard it is to get a picture of baby teeth?

I've been trying for about 6 weeks now, and this is the first good shot of them I've captured. Seriously.

Of course, I finally get a good picture of those sweet little toofies and my child looks doped up. Lovely :)

Also ... drum roll please ... we have a walker! Maggie has been taking one or two steps at a time for a bit but would always sit down or grab onto something, but it's like something finally clicked this past Tuesday and she realized she could do this ... and she been doing nothing else since! It's so cute! We have had a couple of face-plants and noggin'-knockers, which I've been told to expect, but on the whole she is doing so well. She's so proud of herself that she squeals when she walks, which is the funniest thing.

I am trying to capture this momentous feat on video but, as you may know if you've visited here often, Maggie isn't the most accommodating child when it comes to documenting her life. So far I have lots of crawling footage (because she can get to the Flip faster that way than walking) but I'll keep trying. Hopefully we'll have walking video footage before she starts kindergarten :)

Happy Friday everyone!

The Best Concert. Ever.

Ah, James and Carole.

Hubby and I had the best time last night at the concert. THE. BEST.

We heard 2 hours plus an encore of some of the best songs ever written. No opening act, just an evening of James and Carole.

I pretty much smiled the whole way through the concert, I was just so happy to be there.

I would complain about the atrocious traffic-directing by the Glendale police that nearly caused us to be late (due to a graduation in the football stadium next door) but right now I'm floating along, tired but happy, ruminating over last night's memories and I don't want to ruin that with mean thoughts.

I like my happy place and I'm staying there as long as possible.

It was truly the best concert I've ever attended.

P.S. I just wanted to note that security didn't check my purse and the metal detectors where turned off. The security lady at the door said they were using the honor system last night. So apparently it works like this:

*James Taylor and Carole King = Honor System
*Snoop Dogg or Metallica = Checking Every Pocket and Even Places They Shouldn't Touch

I'm sure it's an age-related thing. Hubby and I were definitely in the minority last night with regards to history :) It is actually part of what made the show so enjoyable - everyone was there to listen to music. Well, everyone except one woman about 4 rows behind us who, during the 2nd set, started screaming during the songs to the point no one in our area could hear, but she got put in her place. She ignored a few "shut ups" but when the mature lady behind us yelled back "Be respectful, please", the screamer put a cork in it and only opened her mouth in between songs. So, to the nice motherly lady sitting behind us: our section thanks you :)

P.S.S. James Taylor and Carole King were awesome!!

Mother's Day ... It's All About the Food, Right?

We had a lovely Mother's Day yesterday. Hubby, my brother and I bought and cooked dinner for the family. We all gathered at my mom's house after church for grilled Polly burgers and hotdogs, grilled cilantro-lime corn on the cob, baked potato fries, and strawberry shortcake.

(My mom provided deviled eggs and Hubby's brought homemade whipped cream for the shortcake, because really, they are both better at those things than I am.)

Quite the way to tell moms that you love them: feed 'em fit to bursting.

We then had a Wii Golf Tournament, in which the lone female (moi) was triumphant ... it cracks me up, really, because Hubby is a pretty good golfer, but I kick his booty on Wii golf and it rankles him.

Our daughter enjoyed a day of Pass the Maggie with the grandparents, but unlike Christmas, she did much better with having so many people around and noisy and busy. (She'd have to get used to it 'cause that's a normal family gathering for us.) Plus, she has a walker at my mom's so that allowed her some unheld, free-time which I am sure helped tremendously.

And fabulous parents that Hubby and I are, we realized as we were driving home that Maggie should have eaten dinner about 40 minutes prior. Oops. She wasn't fussy or anything (seriously, we have the most laid back baby on the planet) but still ... you feel bad. So, Hubby and I congratulated ourselves on our top-notch parenting skills, blamed the Wii and the Suns play-off game, and raced home to feed the Doodle.

Needless to say, Maggie ate well.

She didn't seem to be harboring any ill-will towards us and gave us our usual slobbery kisses at bedtime. So glad she's not the type to hold a grudge :)

And finally, to all the women in my life, in honor of Mother's Day:

"Some people try to separate womanhood from motherhood. But, I believe, at heart each woman is a mother. Even those women who are not married yet, who may choose to remain single … yet they are “mothers-at-heart” to their nieces, to the neighbor’s kids, even to those children who have been left orphaned. We are mothers when we smile at children we don’t know who are just passing by, when we take time to chat and interact with “children of all ages”, including those adults entering their second, or perhaps third, childhoods. ... Mother's Day is for all of us." ~Nancy Russell Catan

SUYL: Baby Names

Today over at Kelly's Korner, everyone is sharing the names they chose for their children (or future children) and why.




So far, Hubby and I have chosen our names on a pregnancy-by-pregnancy basis.

Our first pregnancy ended in the first trimester and we had not discussed names ... I call this baby Angel. It just seemed to fit at the time, and is how I still refer to this little one.

For our 2nd pregnancy, I was pretty sure we were going to name the baby Grace Marie, if it was a girl. Hubby's favorite girl name was Samantha, but I didn't want to use that name because I'd already had a Samantha in my life. However, when our baby was born suddenly at 19 weeks gestation, I was in recovery while Hubby was having our baby girl baptized. The name he chose? Samantha. I added the Michelle (my middle name), and am happy with her name. I would never have chosen it before-hand, but it seemed to fit her, once I saw her.

For our Peanut pregnancy (our 3rd), we again decided not to find out the sex of our baby. Hubby said if it was a girl I could choose whatever I wanted, since I hadn't really been in on Samantha's :) I had fallen in love with the name Maggie and decided that would be her first name, but wanted her to also have what I call a "Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Name". One that, as she got older, she could use professionally if she chose. So, while we call her Maggie, her full name is Margaret Grace. I used Grace because I just think it's beautiful and didn't use it with Samantha.

Right now, my favorite girl name is Sophia Grace - Sophie for everyday. I'm thinking of giving all our girls the middle name Grace just because I think it's beautiful and seems to go well with every other name. Either that or a middle name that is one of the Fruits of the Spirit (probably Faith or Joy). Only time will tell, though.

(Harper was actually very short-listed for Samantha - as Harper Grace - because I am a huge fan of Harper Lee, but then it seemed like that name was everywhere, so I marked it off the list.)

You'll notice I haven't discussed boy names with you. I almost hope we only have girls so Hubby and I don't have to argue over boy names. It is a tradition in Hubby's family for the first-born son to have the initials JTW. I don't know when it started, but I know that Hubby, his dad and grandfather all have the same initials. I'm of the opinion it is time to let that go, but Hubby is adamant about continuing it. It is further complicated by the fact that Hubby is determined that the boy baby's middle name be Truman, after his grandfather. I appreciate the sentiment, but I just do not like that name. It's the source of our biggest argument, actually.

Hubby's boy name choice: Judah Truman

My boy name choice: Matthew Daniel

I like Judah, actually (how about Judah Matthew, for a compromise?), and would be fine with that except that, realistically, our next pregnancy is likely to be our last, and I just don't want to waste an opportunity to give our baby the best name possible.

And that name does not include Truman.

For a "J" boy name, I actually really like Jasper, too, but Hubby's not sold on it yet.

Maybe we'll both compromise and have a Jasper Truman. The poor little boy :)

What about y'all? Favorite names? Ones you just can't use?

Wishing I Could Be Friends with the Sun But Alas, I Broil Like a Lobster

The high today is 97 and super sunny.

Weather and I are no longer friends, as is the case every year from about May to October.

I shall be hibernating until fall.

Bring on the sunscreen.