As a Family
April was a lovely month, although it was not without its struggles. My mom and step-dad came to visit us for Easter, along with my younger brothers, JJ and Rylan and my twin sister, Dominique. Damian took the guys on a hike up in Arkansas, and we girls had fun just spending time together.
We spent one Saturday planting our garden. It's not huge, but we always try to plant a few things every year. We planted lots of tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers, cilantro, and I've got basil that we planted from seeds one week at MOPS. Our blackberry vines are huge this year, and judging from all the flowers, we should get plenty of berries. I'll post pictures of our little garden at some point.
I experienced quite a bit of grief as I watched another mom deal with the death of her baby. She and I delivered our baby girls together on December 21, 2008. Seeing her lose this new little baby boy was so hard. I don't quite know how they cope, but it must be purely the Lord's strength that gets her through each day.
We made the 5 hour trip down to Lake Charles for my brother's wedding. We had a great time and loved getting to see old friends. Isabelle had too much fun with her aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
We spent one Saturday in Shreveport with our friend Liz and her daughter Autumn. Her hubby is serving in the Air Force, and he's finishing up his deployment in Iraq. Once Bobby gets home, they'll go back to Washington, pack up their home, and eventually move to England. We've been friends with this sweet family since college and have seen all the important milestones in each other's lives. Hopefully we can see the whole family again before they move, but we wanted to at least try and see Liz and Autumn.
The three of us also participated in the Walk for Life, which benefits the First Choice Pregnancy Center here in Texarkana. It's an incredible ministry, so we try to do the Walk for Life every year that we can.
Isabelle
If March was the month of picky eating, then April has been the month of adventurous eating. Isabelle has finally decided that she wants to eat whatever Mommy and Daddy are eating, so mealtime has been much easier. We still have moments of pickiness, but she's gotten much better. During all the pickiness, I asked my mom for suggestions for getting Isabelle to eat, and she told me to just keep trying. Keep trying the same foods, and one day your child will probably eat something that she wouldn't touch yesterday. This is totally true! Mom is amazing when it comes to child rearing. Her advice always proves to be excellent. And after having seven children, there are few things that she hasn't seen and experienced.
Spaghetti anyone?
Isabelle took her first steps this month! She does a great job of walking short distances to Damian or me, but she won't walk consistently on her own. She'd much rather get around by crawling because it's much faster. At 16 months, she's definitely a late walker, but our pediatrician says she's perfectly normal developmentally and that there's nothing to be concerned about.
After dealing with three weeks of teething as four molars and another top tooth made their appearances, my happy girl has finally returned. Isabelle would deal with bouts of fussiness off and on, and I sometimes needed to give her Tylenol or Motrin to help her with the pain. The top molars are finally poking through her gums a bit more, so I think she's much more comfortable now.
Favorites
Food: Hummus, salad. She will whine for lettuce and tomatoes with Vidalia Onion dressing.
Toys: Lots of things, especially random objects like bowls and spoons. She likes to stir small toys in a bowl. I call it her roux, and I keep it on the counter in the kitchen so that she can stir her roux while I prepare dinner (I have fond memories of standing on a chair at the stove, helping my mom stir her roux until it was perfect). She also loves the tricycle that Liz and Autumn passed down to her for Isabelle to grow into, even though it's too big for her. Isabelle's biggest frustration is that she can't ride it yet, so she loves to just sit on it for a while, eventually getting upset that she can't reach the pedals to make it go. We finally parked it in the garage. Isabelle still loves to "read," and books provide great entertainment. Her favorites are "lift the flap" books, but she also loves Goodnight Moon. She points to pictures in it and waits for me to tell her what things are.
Songs: "Baby Bumblebee" is her favorite. She asks for it by clasping her hands together and saying "ba."
New Words: Shoes, socks, uh-oh, and clean up ('nup!). Isabelle loves to clean up things, but that means we have no idea where things will end up. To her, cleaning up is putting random objects in a basket or container, so sometimes shoes end up in the laundry basket, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere! Her attempts at cleaning are music to this mama's heart.
One thing I love about being a Christian is that life never gets stagnant or boring. There are constantly areas of growth where God changes me and (hopefully!) makes me more like Christ. He has definitely been growing me this month.
He's showing me areas where I need to be more disciplined, and as a result, my home is cleaner, I'm still losing weight (slowly!) and exercising, I'm making better use of my time, and learning to be more disciplined in meal planning and the grocery budget. I think these are areas where I should be able to say the same thing next month--in other words, He's not done with me, and there will continually be room for growing in these areas. This will probably be true through all of life and motherhood. As family dynamics change, we moms have to make adjustments. What works well one month won't always work well next month or year.
I've enjoyed doing a few crafty things in the past few weeks, and I hope I can do more in May. Some are gifts or surprises for friends, so I won't divulge them right now. One craft project I plan to do is a makeover on a cute garage sale item my mother-in-law bought for Isabelle. I had so much fun sewing Jordan's apron that I'd love to do more sewing, but right now it's more important that I finish a Mother's Day gift for my step-mom and take care of a few other things first. I'd love to spend much of my day sewing or scrapbooking, but those things often have to take a backseat. Cleaning the house, working on dinner, working out at the gym, MOPS, Bible study, or playing with my baby are all more important activities. But I do plan on finally finishing my quilt!
I finished a couple of books in April, and I plan on plowing through one or two others in May. I read about 15 pages or so of Grudem's Systematic Theology, but I never got around to picking up the Jonathan Edwards biography that I started a while back. That's one book that I plan on working on in May. It's really a great read. If you're a fiction junkie, try reading a couple of biographies, especially biographies about missionaries or other giants of the Christian faith. Like a fiction book, it has a story line, but you'll be challenged and encouraged as you read about their lives. My favorites have been a biography of Susanna Wesley, The Autobiography of George Muller, and Through Gates of Splendor.
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