First Fruits

As my mother's daughter, I love gardening.  Today's my mom's birthday, so I must brag on her.  She is a wonderful gardener.  She has an eye for what will be beautiful, plans ahead to make flower beds right, and her yard always looks amazing. 

Last year about this time, my mom and I redid a large part of my backyard garden.  Our house is in an older neighborhood and we have like 8 huge oak trees in the back yard.  The people here before us did a great job on the gardens so for the first 2 years we lived in the house, we did our best to maintain!  There are a ton of beautiful large leaf hydrangeas, mature bushes, perennials popping up everywhere...it is a beautiful yard...it's a big part of why we bought the house!

One part of the yard had kinda become a drainage area, so mom and I set about changing that.  We built a huge 8x8 raised flower bed box, and installed some galvanized tin watering troughs for a few more raised beds. 
 It was quite a project....especially with me being 6 months pregnant!  Ok, ok, mom did most of the work...

Last year the boxes were pretty...this year it's just beautiful!  The perennias that we planted last year have come back and look gorgeous, and I planted some annuals that are so bright and cheery!  I love to have fresh herbs around, so I added cilantro, basil, thyme, curry, and Italian parsley to the evergreen rosemary, perennials oregano and lemon balm.  I also planted a tomato plant, a strawberry bush, and a hot pepper plant.  Now, if you remember, last year, I had a tomato...a lone tomato that met an early end...what I didn't blog about was that one day, I went to check on my lone tomato and it had been snatched by a squirrel!  If that happens again, squirrel and I will have words. 

And over the last few days, as I peruse the garden, I've noticed these
It's a pepper...
...and a tomato...
and a strawberry!!

My First Mother's Day!

It was great.  I wish I had more pics, but of course, I don't.  When will I learn!

Jack gave me some cool crafty things that I'll show you later, and he Jeff transcribed the sweetest card from him!  :)

At church they made these adorable Mother's Day crafts!  I know Susan was in charge...she's my craftiest friend.  PS I had some problems scanning it....my scanner was being a freak and wouldn't scan the whole thing...that's why his name is chopped off...but you get the point...



Jack didn't have a great day on Sunday.  He was fussy to the max...those top two teeth are playing hide and seek and I'm about to have a throwdown with them.  So here's the non-blurry unhappy pic....
and here's the blurry happy pic.  I need to take more pictures.  And ignore the shine...I ran out of foundation, ok?

Reality is...

Do you ever think back on points in your like and think, "Gosh, I was so prideful, and just a selfish, rude person!  Man, I'm glad I'm not that way anymore!" and then really sit back and think, "Um, yeah I am," and sit further back and think about all the times that same day that I did stupid things, thought I was better than I was, acted like I owned the world. 

I'm just saying...thank you Lord for those wake up calls.

The only thing...

that made Jack happy yesterday was sitting in his high chair, sucking on a frozen apple and looking out the window.  So, guess what we for a large portion of the day.


We'll see how today goes...could be a lot more gazing out the window and apple sucking in our future!

Teething, take 2

Remember back here where Jack got his first tooth?  And it was so exciting!  And still is.  They're growing in and you can really see them!  I just can't imagine what he'll look like with a mouth full of teeth!  I'm kinda sad to see the toothless baby go, but teeth are, for whatever reason, an exciting milestone!

Anyways, we're working on the top two front teeth now...and it's been a beating.  Jack is such a happy baby!  So content...until teething enters the picture.  And this makes him a very unhappy baby.  Poor thing!  I can only imagine what it feels like to get teeth (thank the Lord we don't have to remember) but it's obviously very uncomfortable! 

The teething waves kinda come and go.  We're in the middle of the longest one yet for this set.  It started Sunday...and hasn't stopped!  I checked his mouth on Sunday (which is no small feat) and could see the white nub that I just knew was going to pop on through that day!  Well, I still see the white nub. 

I put him down for a nap at 8:45 and he's been struggling to go to sleep ever since...and as I type it's 9:45!!  Prayers for Jack, that he can rest and that that tooth will do it's job and get on out here!

Things I Love

1.  Peeking over the crib rail to see Jack's face light up when he sees me...even if he was fussing 3 seconds before!
2.  Listening to him learn his voice...it's loud, no doubt!  I think he'll be a talker.
3.  Watching Jack learn how to use new toys, and learn how to use old toys differently.  There are a few toys that he got for Christmas that he played with then, and is still playing with now, but he's totally figured out how to use them, where as before, he didn't really get it.  It is consistently amazing to see how God forms us.
4.  Watching Jeff be a daddy.
5.  Hugging and squeezing Jack while he laughs.
6.  Hearing Jack laugh at his daddy from the other room.
7.  Introducing him to new foods.  His latest and greatest is pasta!  I cooked up some whole wheat spiral pasta and he noms on a few spirals at dinner each night...and he loves it!!
8.  Playing peek a boo...his favorite game!  In fact, Jack loves to be startled!  We have his jumparoo in a door way that you can access from two halls.  So he might be facing one way when we walk out of the room and so we walk in the room from the other hall and say boo...he LOVES it!  Jumps up and down like crazy, screaming like a banshee!!
9.  Watching Jack squirm around on the floor, trying to figure out this whole crawling thing...
10.  Saying bed time prayers and kissing him goodnight.

Travelin'

Friday afternoon we packed up the house, put it in the car, strapped Jack into his big boy car seat (which I'm still not sure he loves) and started the 2.5 hour drive down to Palestine for the weekend.  I grew up in Palestine...the East Texas one...not like Middle East one...and you're probably only pronouncing it correctly if you live in Texas. 

Jack is a pretty good traveler, slept about half of the way and just played for the rest...which is a far cry from our first trip to Palestine back in October where he basically just cried the whole way.  Ugh.  Glaaaaaaaaaad we're past that stage!  


We had a great weekend hanging out with my dad, Barbara and Grandpa. 

Didn't do much, ate a lot, visited a lot, and went out to the lake!  Jack took his first trip out on a boat and watched Jeff, Dad and Barbara fish...ate some grass...you know, nothing big!  
He did a little contemplating...
played with some favorite toys...

and acted all cool in Daddy's sunglasses.

We had a great time, pretty relaxing, and Jack slept for 13 hours last night!  I woke up before he did!  That never happens...

 And PS, aren't those pic's cool??  I took them with my IPhone!  It's the hipstamatic app recommended by Beth and it's well worth it's $1.99 price.  If you don't have it and you have an IPhone you totally need to get it.