MOMs Group at the Library!

MOMs Group went to the Library last Friday. We went to "Story Time". Here's a little taste of what we experienced. I LOVED it....I mean, Julia LOVED it! We now sing Where is Thumbkin as one of our night time songs before bed.
















We went into the kids section of the library afterwards and Jen Bishop (the one on the left) spotted an open section with "big people" seating. YES! We were all excited about the section and made ourselves at home. We even had the "Family" section bookshelf at our fingertips....only the "Family" section bookshelf was not so "Family" oriented (a little more PC than we liked!).














It was like a Seinfeld episode...seemed every book we would pull off the shelf was awful for our age kids. One book said their cat was DEAD (not something you can or even want to explain to two year olds), one book was about fighting, one book had pictures of a bra in it (an animated kids' book with this kind of stuff in it!), and the others were ones the kids were pulling off the shelf, not knowing what they were about. Here are a couple of them:

I thought this book plus my two pregnant friends (Jen Bishop on left, Angie Schroeder on right) was fitting!














Then we had lunch outside and took some cute pictures of the kids. We had several moms and kids missing this day but here are pretty much the "every weekers": Starting from left: Addison Smith, Bailey Bishop, Georgia Schroeder, William Bishop, Jackson Schroeder, and Julia.














Aren't they all so presh!? That's MOMs group for ya!

Seven Month Comparisons

Here are the pictures from when Julia was 7 months old in 2006 and Johnathan at 7 months now:






























Holy Smacks! Where does the time go??? I remember when Julia was 7 months old, I wanted her to stay that way forever. It was the most fun age. ((Of course when she'd turn one more month older, I'd think the same thing))

September 4th Johnathan turned 7 months old!

He is sitting up all by himself with hardly any falls now. He tries to do crunches when he's laying down because he prefers to sit up, that's for sure! He isn't crawling quite yet (Julia was crawling just a few days after her 7 month birthday), but we haven't really encouraged it either. We do "tummy time"....well, he does his own tummy time turning over, turning around, moving to all four corners of the room, and he even does that bending his knees thing. But he isn't crawling....THANK GOD! I'm not ready for him to grow up that much yet.

I'm still feeding him the homemade stuff. Going on a month now, which isn't as bad as I thought it would be. We do still buy some of the fancy stuff, but I do the veggies and the fruit. It gives me that Proverbs 31 woman feel. It may not be considering buying a field for my family....but I consider buying foods I can puree and save money with! Speaking of pureeing....Jason isn't a fan of my deceptively delicious dishes. I was secretly trying to get some veggies in him too and it didn't go over too well. I am not giving up just yet, but maybe I shouldn't puree EVERYTHING (especially chicken!).













Back to the little whipper snapper: He still takes a great morning and afternoon nap and lets you know when he needs one. He's got some lungs on him, but once you put a bottle in his hands, he's good to go.

He is holding his own bottle, which Julia never did. It's still amazing to me (I know some of you moms are thinking, "what?!"), but to me it's our first time and oh so great. He probably got to the point and was thinking, "if I don't do it, I may never eat!"

He's still got his purdy blue eyes and I still consider myself a "boy's mama"! (see my post when I talk about this), and he's just as sweet as ever!













Julia is really good with him, although she thinks she's his momma sometimes! Just the other day Jason said that Johnathan kept "walking" over to her (in his walker) touching her and she kept saying, "No no no Bubba! I'm sick of it! I'm sick of it!" Um, I wonder where she's heard that!? Whoops! Anyway, she is very loving to him and loves to play with him.

So, Johnathan is just growing and growing! We are blessed to have him in our lives. We can't imagine life without him, that's for sure. Happy 7 month birthday, my cute mans!

Yearbook Pictures!

Jason and I just have too much time on our hands! I have never laughed so hard!! Oh the internet....what fun things you can do!!

Starting from 1960 all the way to the year 2000....here are some "yearbook" pictures. Ha!

We dare YOU to yearbook yourself!

My New Favorite Place

Okay, I stumbled on to this new website called Junk Market Style. It is a place where people from all around the country post their trash to treasure projects.

Right up my alley! Check it out. Here is one of favorite things from there...

No Lights, No Camera....No Action!

For my family, stop rolling your eyes! No, I didn't leave my camera in some restaurant or drop it from the bleachers of a 90,000 seat football stadium.

And for my friends, you can start answering your phones and the late night texts again. I won't be asking if your kids picked up my camera thinking it was a toy or if you can check your garage ONE MORE TIME or anything of the sort.

I'm convinced my camera simply grew legs and walked off! Straight from the mouth of my sister-in-law, Shannon..."How does someone so organized lose their camera!?!?"

I DON'T KNOW! And I'm sick about it. There were pictures on there that I'll never get back (that's unless my camera decides to come back). I'll keep you posted!

Okay, so anyway. That is why I haven't blogged in the last week or so. I like to include pictures when I blog and well...no pictures, no blog.

But! I do have one pic to share with you and that is why I'm blogging now: I want to say, "we're proud of you, Jason!" Jason got ordained as a deacon in our church this Sunday. His mom and dad came in for the ordination and thankfully they had THEIR camera.

It was a special time. The pastor had all of the new deacons and their wives go up on the stage. He talked about what a deacon means....servant...and just perfect for Jason since he is a servant at heart! Then he talked to each of them telling them to serve the church well, to be men of God's word, to be the hands and feet and heart of the church. He had the elders as well as any man who has been ordained in the past to come lay hands and pray for each of the deacons.

It was special because Jason's dad was able to come up and pray for Jason. What an honor to have that kind of family line. Thanks Pop for being such a godly example to Jason! He has said more than once just how much he respects you and thinks the absolute world of you. You are such an incredible role model for him and he adores you. Thank you for not only teaching your son, but showing your son what it means to serve. He serves his friends well, he serves his co-workers well, he serves his family well, and he certainly serves us three well. May God bless you as much as you have blessed Jason. We love you!

Congratulations to you, Sweetie! You'll be the best darn deacon this side-a-the Mississippi! Wink!

So here's the pic. Sharon's camera was acting up, but I don't care because she has a camera and I don't:

I Got Tagged

Okay, my friends Courtney and Valinda tagged me. I am supposed to tell you 6 of the quirkiest things about me:

1. I brush my t e e t h in the shower. It's great, you don't have to worry about it getting all over the place!

2. I take my contacts out right first, then left. BUT in the morning, I have to put them in left first, then right. What is that all about?

3. I HAVE to vacuum the whole house and clean everything before we go out of town. I don't like to come home from a trip, where you are unpacking things only to make a mess. If there's already a mess, I'd get overwhelmed.

4. I do little piles of laundry instead of great big ones. If I have too much laundry to do, it takes DAYS. If I have little piles to do, it only takes a couple of hours to do the WHOLE thing: wash, dry, fold, put away. Great!

5. My desk at work has to be completely all put away before I leave each day, even if I still have tons to do. It's all put away, then pulled back out again.

6. I have to drink m i l k out of a glass and not a cup. It seems to turn warmer in a cup. Yuck!

Now I tag (which means you have to put a tag on your blog or comment with your 6 things):
1. Boppy
2. Shannon
3. LaShay
4. BMom
5. Kelly
6. Jenni

Have a great day!

Going Green?

Well actually, I'm not quite going green like you think I'm going green. I'm pureeing sweet baby boy's food! Can you believe it? For those who know me, know this is NOT like me. Just give me the easiest and fastest way to do anything and I'm there.

But! I can't get a vegetable other than corn or green beans into Julia (OR Jason for that matter), so I thought I'd finally put my Deceptively Delicious cookbook into practice and try some things. What you do is puree vegetables and then "hide" them in your favorite recipes.

So far, Jason and I have hated everything I've made.....except Julia! Which is good because she is half the problem. Now we (we as in me and....myself and I?) are still working on Jason. I made some meatloaf with turkey meat. I like to call it a "turkeyloaf", but I made it in a pan too small for the recipe and it came out mushy. YUCK! I threw it all away.

Then came the tofu nuggets (like her chicken nugget recipe) with hidden ingredient, broccoli. Jason? Not a fan. Julia? Thought they were cheese and pretty much ate them all. The next night was chicken "cigars" with cream cheese and chicken with hidden ingredient, carrots and cauliflower. Jason? Absolutely hated it (does not like cream cheese). Julia? She ate them all. So far Julia is deceived and eating her veggies; Jason will take a little more work. By the third night he sweetly said, "Jenn, I really don't want to eat EVERYTHING pureed".

Now, Johnathan loves the sweet potatoes, carrots, green peas and the bananas (see pic below for proof). He isn't a fan of the squash or cauliflower, however I still feed it to him with lots of sweet potatoes smoothered over the top. I'm waiting to introduce him to the broccoli.

Anyhoo, it really isn't that bad. It has only been a few days, so ask me how it's going in a couple of weeks.

The Olympics

Eight/Eight/Oh Eight.

Ahhhh, the Olympics! We (Jason and I) are so excited. I have checked the schedule and have my own favorites ready for the TiVO.

I love the diving, gymnastics, swimming, cycling and track and then I even love the synchronized swimming too. I think I secretly envision myself doing these things.

Jason and I went to Las Vegas almost 3 years ago and went to the Cirque Du Soleil O Show. It's an amazing show that really depicts how all of your training in gymnastics, swimming and synchronized swimming can pay off after your career ends with the Olympics. Incredible what these athletes can do!

So enjoy your own favorites from the Olympics this month.

Mistreatment #1

Okay, here is my first mistreatment. First let me just say that this was originally a shower curtain that I just had to have for Julia's new big girl room! It had little puffy things on the shoes and cute little sayings all over it, the colors in the curtain matched her baby room colors already and the whole thing was just simply delightful. I didn't want to buy two because one was enough money for me, plus it was wide enough to cover her whole window. If only I was brave enough to cut it...

So my sweet friend, Laura Washburn, took it, cut it down the middle and sewed (GASP!) black-out curtains on the back of it. Then she added some jewels to the purses that are on there. Sooo much fun!

I bought the valance at Habitat for Humanity a while back for $10. It was MINT GREEN at the time, but once I sprayed it with chocolate brown fabric paint ($12), it was like new. Sooo I got my (shower) curtains, put them on a tension rod...actually I put it on a shower curtain rod that you can twist to make it shorter or longer, then I hoisted those bad boys up under the valance. Well, you can't tell from picture #1 that the rod was hanging at the very bottom of the valance. This was okay until it was nap time and Julia wanted it darker in there. Her window is one of those that has a curve at the top. So lots of light would beam down from the top because the curtain didn't go up that high.

Well, then I got introduced to Nesting Place (again, thanks to s-in-law, Shannon and friend, Courtney).

So I went to Hobby Lobby, got a yard of black fabric and some ball fringe thingies (all on sale - total of $8) and headed home. I got the ol' hot glue gun out, the iron and went to town (not literally....I was at home). I am still working on this, but here it is. I think I'm going to put some big black ball fringe on the bottom of the valance and some small white ball fringe going on top of that....all hanging from the valance to tie in the brown, black, whites and pinks.

Please give me some advice on what YOU think I should do. The one who gives me the best idea might just get a little surprise in their mailbox soon!