The real deal

Ok. Here is the cutest little video of Eli crawling. I'm actually shocked at how much better he already is! Yesterday he was not that great at it, but today he's like a rockstar! so sweet...

And we're mobile... almost

So yesterday Eli made his first actual crawl! I was dangling my sister's necklace in front of him (sorry Ams...) and instead of his usual rocking, he moved his arms forward one at a time. I was like WES! WATCH THIS! I THINK HE'S ABOUT TO CRAWL! And sure enough, he moves one leg forward and on the next try he moves the other one, and on the next try he crawled! Of course immediately I start crying and his entire life flashed before my eyes! I was so blessed to be present in that moment and I just could not believe how proud I was of him! He's now crawling about maybe a foot or two, not all around the room yet, and I am so excited! We do have a video, but it's on Wes' computer so I'll have to get him to email it to me this weekend while he's gone! To my facebook friends, it's on my facebook now. :)

I have a new thing to put in his baby book now! Along with this patch of hair I cut off the side of his head...haha... for some reason it was super long and it would not lay down, so off it went!

My first week of school was fantastic and all of my students seem truly wonderful! No school Monday and who doesn't love a short week?

We also celebrated Jeff's birthday this past Monday evening. I absolutely love birthdays and I'm always sad when I can't throw a party for every single person I know! We all had a really fun time eating and laughing, mainly at Jeff. The grand finale was when Jeff stuck an entire piece of his leftover lemon peppered chicken into his mouth. Sick.

I was going to go with the band this weekend to their concerts but decided against it after I saw their schedule. There wasn't a lot of downtime and sometimes it's more frustrating to be around a lot of people who are busy and can't help me than to be here at the house alone with Eli. It's weird, but it's true. But Jeff was dying to see Eli crawl so this morning I followed Wes up to the church and let Eli show off his new skills. gosh I love Napoleon Dynamite.

Jeff had a surprise for Eli, which was an adorable new hat and the cutest dang shirt I have EVER seen! They were Eli's reward for crawling... haha...

Look at the back of this shirt! Isn't is SO cute?!
My pastor from Levelland and his wife are coming down this weekend because I believe they are moving to the area, so I'm so excited to see them. I LOVE West Texas and miss it so much it actually hurts sometimes.

I hate to end with such a mind blowing horrifically awful piece, but if you happened to catch Dateline last night, you know what I'm talking about. The pictures on the site don't do this story justice, you'll have to watch the videos on there if you missed it. Wes and sat on the couch and just cried for what is happening there. In reading the message boards after the show, there were a few comments here and there about how we should focus on the horrors of our country and take care of our own. And while I certainly agree with that, it is impossible for me to think that just because we have problems of our own in America that we should turn a blind eye to the horrors of the rest of the world. I'm not talking politics here. I'm talking about literally just treating people humanely at the least. I hope this story never goes away from my mind and that it propels me to action because this type of thing should not be happening.

Wow. ok. I'm still kicking.

Hello friends! Geez... that was way too long for me to be gone! I have missed you! I don't really know what to say! Let's keep this short and sweet so I can go read all of the stuff I missed on your blogs! Here are some things, in no particular order...

1. Teacher Inservice Week was last week. It was ok and I had to be at work all day (and not getting paid for half of it) BUT I love seeing my teacher friends at work so it was worth it!

2. School started Monday, Aug. 25. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE my new schedule. I have to be there at 8:20 and then I get to leave at 12:32. It has already been a tremendous blessing for my little family and so I know it will continue to be!

3. My kids at school are such sweethearts! I love all of my classes and already the kids are talking and responding and they seem to have a good sense of humor, which makes so many things worthwhile! Love you kids!

4. Eli is now 8 months old! yikes! He is desperately trying to crawl. He's well into the rocking stage but hasn't made that leap to crawling forward, although he's really good at going backwards! He's doing really well. He sleeps in his crib now instead of with us, which was actually really sad, but no one was getting any sleep (except Eli) since as I have previously mentioned, he is a giant.

5. I finally finished my summer graduate courses and now I have 4 more classes and then a pre-practicum and a practicum to finish my school counseling degree. Yay! One of my professors was extremely gracious to me because I bombed a test and rocked the next two, but it was still mathematically impossible for me to receive an A but I still did. Either she curved the first test or threw me some grace, and I'm pretty sure it's the later one. Thank you!!!!!

6. Wes and the band are doing good. I'm hoping to go with them this weekend since I don't have to work on Monday. And we just celebrated Jeff's birthday at Cheddar's and it was a lot of fun!

ok. really those are the big things I guess. I'm back in the saddle so I'll be better at posting again! I'll post some pics on here when I find the camera! Off to read your blogs!

ewww and awww

So today was a first for me. Eli woke up from his nap and I do what I always do, which is get him and lay him on my tummy for some big hugs. All is well until I see this stuff coming out of his mouth and I'm thinking, "what IS that?" Well, nanoseconds later (?) I found out.... it was a little mixture of green beans and peaches. mmm... all over my shirt. shout out Tri Phi

so that was the ewww. you probably could tell though huh.

and before we get to the awww, I have a little story to tell you. Today I got myself all geared up to go work out, which in itself is really kind of hard because Wes left today but I want to stay committed to my goals...blah blah blah. But what made it even harder was taking Eli to their little Kid's Club they have at the gym so Wes could pack and run errands. I put on my big girl face and dropped Eli off at the club and left to go workout, and not just any workout: spinning class. My all time favorite arch enemy. It's half way through spinning class and we are in a "recuperation" period and a lady leaves to go check on her child so I do the same. I go down there and as I'm walking up I can hear Eli screaming and crying and as I get closer I see him sitting all by his lonesome surrounded by toys while all the "big kids" aka, those who can walk, are running and playing, etc. Now, I know he's not hurt or anything like that, but it broke my heart into pieces to see him so sad! So, we left. The end.

and now for the awww...

Eli, like most babies I'm sure, loves loves LOVES for you to sing to him. His favorites are: Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old Macdonald had a farm, and You're the One that I want from Grease

Now, please do your best to focus on Eli during this clip instead of being blown away by my awesome voice.

Isn't that SO precious? You can easily tell which are his favorite parts of the song, but he's usually a little more into it when I don't have just one hand available for the motions. gosh. I love that kid.

Extreme Home Makeover...

...minus the extreme (smile) is what Wes and I are going to try to accomplish over the next 12 months. We decided to pick a project a month to tackle, which makes me laugh because we really aren't "project" people, but when we get obsessed about something we usually end up doing it.

There are several reasons we want to do this:
a) we've wanted to change things ever since we moved into this house and after 4 years, we figure we should probably do it
b) we know someday we'll outgrow this house and we'd like to fix some things while we're here so we'll love this house even more and so hopefully someone else will love it later
c) we love doing new things together and this seems fun to us
d) I get super annoyed at complainers (ahem... myself) when they complain about things and don't change them (I'm going to be a great counselor huh.. haha...)

So over the next 12 months we will be changing a room at a time. We/I decided to start with our bathroom (which Wes calls "my" bathroom since he usually uses the guest bath) because we haven't done anything to it since we've moved here except clean it and it needs some love. I made a list, which I LOVE to do, and by the end of August I will have a much improved place to stare at myself in the mirror and take baths! yay! Here are some before pictures:I love this house for so many reasons and I think the house is happy that we're going to tweak it here and there this year.

Oh. Did I not mention the Bodybugg yet? thanks Ashley for bringing that up! Well, I now wear a Bodybugg. When you explain to people what it is who have never heard of it, it sounds kind of lame. In fact, in reading the reviews online (written by people who have never owned one and therefore really shouldn't be reviewing it...) I stumbled across loads of hilarious negative comments such as "how fat do you have to be to have something count your calories for you". haha.. now that is super rude but funny.

The short of it is, it's a thing you wear that calculates the number of calories you burn at any given time so you can know how many calories you should eat in order to lose weight, or whatever program you choose when you sign up. It does several other things too, but that's the main thing. Obviously it is relatively easy to keep up with the amount of calories you are taking in, but kind of hard to figure out exactly how many calories you are burning off. So this takes the guess work out of everything. On my program I told it I want to lose 1.5 pounds per week, so it sets goals for you and if you meet those goals daily (or the big goal on average per week) then you'll lose the weight. And, so far, every single time I've met my weekly goal, I've lost my precious pound and a half. I absolutely LOVE this thing. I like to meet goals so this little device is perfect for me :)

Giving birth to a giant

So, I realize that Eli is a big kid. He's 7 1/2 months old, weighs 23.2 lbs., and a little over 30 inches long. Yes. A giant. Now, there really isn't anything wrong with that, it's just that people have expectations of kids that look like they are 10 years old (kidding). We are definitely into the well meaning stranger world of "is he walking" "does he talk yet" "can he eat this chip" "shouldn't he be crawling by now" "can he wave, no?, shouldn't he be able to wave by now"

The answer to all of those questions is NO. or I don't know.

For all of my friends and family that ask questions, bring them on! I know that all of my friends and family love me and love Eli and are just wanting to know to keep up with us. But to the random people on the street that entice you in by saying "oh what a cute baby!" and then jab you with their seemingly harmless questions but followed by their looks of horror when your answer is no, could you please give me a break? can you tell I've had a lot of that lately? :)

I finally got to see my sweet friend Anna from college. I missed her wedding and still hate that I couldn't have been there due to getting sick and a doctor telling me I was contagious and they don't want me at the wedding... haha... so, I didn't go. But, she and her husband came in town and we met them at Cheddar's for lunch! Her husband Ryan is just SO nice and absolutely perfect for Anna. I love seeing friends! We got into a fight with the lighting in Cheddar's. Anna won and I lost. haha...

So I've been really trying to work on my selfishness/pride/ego lately. I have this overwhelming sense that I can do everything for Eli better than everyone else and truly, it's disgusting. Leave it to God to continue to bless our family even when I think I am almighty and to use His gifts to knock me to the ground. He gives so much to us and humbles me and makes me step way back to see that my selfishness/pride/ego has got to go. I've moved from "I need to work on that" to actually working on it, which is always a good thing. :)

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that Wes is in a band, Jeff Johnson. We recently got some news that literally makes us want to cry (in a good way) and would just be another huge blessing in our lives. When we find out that it is for sure, I'll let you know.

In other news, I am SO excited about this upcoming school year! I feel no stress, no tension, no worries, and no sorrow for going back to work. I got my schedule and I'll be teaching AP Psychology from 9:00-11:32 (which is 3 classes) and then I'll be on conference from 11:32-12:32 and then I GO HOME! Can you believe that?? wow. I still can't stop smiling every time I think about it. And with Wes probably traveling more and more this year, that just makes things for our family a lot easier.

Ok- I have to go to Ethics class. I've been reading, outlining, and making note cards on one chapter each day up until the test (next Tuesday). remember... I seriously MUST make a 100 on my tests! yikes! I'll leave you with one more picture of the sleeping giant. (World War II reference anyone?)