One More Room

Another room is completed! Silas' room has been waiting on its finishing touches for a number of months now. I finally took some time to do the little projects I wanted to do for his room. His room ended up with an Eric Carle/animals theme.

We found the Brown Bear, Brown Bear wall stickers at Target. They are what started the room's theme. My mom made the quilt hanging over the rocking chair, which I bought off of Craigslist.

The picture on the left was something my mom made for my sister's and my room when we were babies. I recovered the lampshade with brown dotted fabric. It previously was blue with little white hearts. I made the two framed animals on the wall. They were super simple just two different fabrics and some heat 'n bond. The frames I purchased for $1 total at the thrift store in town.

Mike's mom had found these Eric Carle number flashcards at a garage sale not knowing that Silas' room had Eric Carle wall stickers. The set of cards is now missing three! I used the matching fabric from the lampshade and animal pictures to make little ribbon hangers.

And, one last picture. I had posted previously about our finished living room, but the flooring was still carpet. This is the living room now that the new floor is in. We LOVE it!

Our Poor Kitty

Gloria has had a sad week. She had to go to the vet to be groomed. We don't know what caused it, but Gloria had an area of fur matted together on her lower back that we had tried to clean and have cut out in the past. Nothing has worked to take care of it. So, we moved on to the last option - having her shaved. It was a rough experience for Gloria. She didn't like being at the vet and had to be sedated to be groomed. She was not a happy kitty. Gloria is finally becoming herself again now two days later. I think she may be a little self-conscious about her new 'do. She is our little lion!

Our First Garden Produce

Yum! Since this picking, we have gotten one more tomato and one more meal of green beans. The other night, it was so wonderful to pick the beans then clean, cook, and eat them within an hour. Can't get more fresh than that!

What I Want To Remember

There is no other way to say it than this, we are in a difficult season of instruction and discipline with Jonah. Yes, he's 2 1/2 and there are stereotypes of what a 2 1/2 year old is supposed to be like. But, we aren't giving him any excuses. He has an amazingly sweet heart and is so teachable and malleable. So, we are trying our best to be diligent in our responsibility to train our little boy to know and love the Lord and to walk in his ways. Yet, this season is difficult. Thankfully, we have a few friends who have been such an encouragement to us - ones who have seen the fruit of their instruction and discipline in their teen and pre-teen children and one who is right there with us in the trenches fighting the battle (from a spiritual perspective)!

I hope that we come away from this season of life with things we have learned and, prayerfully, with a boy who will grow to walk with the Lord, but I don't want to think back on this season only remembering the constant instruction, the repetitive discipline, and the frustration that comes when we forget the reason why we are doing what we are doing. I want to remember the amazingly sweet heart our Jonah had at 2 1/2.

This is what I want to remember:

+ that he LOVES people. It doesn't matter their age, their gender, or their cognitive level - Jonah loves them. At our church, there is an elderly MR man. Every Sunday, Jonah runs to the door to shake his hand and say hi to him. This is completely unprompted by us, and this man enjoys seeing Jonah. He says to us every week, "Your boy likes to shake my hand." What a joy to us and to him!

+ that he LOVES greeting time at church. Jonah will go around the sanctuary shaking hands with everyone...even if his hands are sticky from a sucker.

+ that he can sing all three verses to Before the Throne of God Above and will correct me if I make a mistake on any of the lyrics.

+ that he is very social. We had people from church over for lunch on Sunday. During a lull in the conversation, Jonah tried to start a new conversation by saying, "My favorite show is SuperWhy!"

+ that he LOVES having people over to our house. If he knows people are coming over, he will stand at the door to greet. This past spring when I hosted a Bible study, Jonah stood at the door welcoming everyone into his house. It gave me the freedom to continue getting ready or to talk with the ladies who were already there.

+ that he seems to think he belongs with the teens at church. A couple of weeks ago, I watched him follow two teens into the youth room for Sunday School. When I went to get him for his class, I found him sitting on one of the chairs waiting for the class to start. This week, he was telling the teens about our new minivan and was pushing one of the girls around in a wheelchair that belonged to another one of the teens.

+ that he was so excited to wear his first stick-on tattoo last weekend and went around showing it to people calling it his "tat" even though we had never referred to it by that slang name.

+ that he has overcome all of his fears of playground equipment. He will slide down the tallest slide and go across the unsteady bridge. Last night, we ran into friends at the park that is kitty corner to our house. It only has a couple of swings, a jungle gym, and a merry-go-round, so we don't go there very often. But, he wanted to play there with his friends (a 7th grader, 3rd grader, and 1st grader!). He climbed to the top of the jungle gym - it was only as tall as me, and he rode on the merry-go-round STANDING UP!

+ that he thinks we live in "Kenbraska" (Kentucky+Nebraska)

+ that he calls two of the girls that have babysat a few times "cool."

+ that today when I came home from work, he opened the door to the garage to see me and exclaimed, "I have a special song for you!" Apparently, he had been waiting for me to come home all day so I would play a certain song for him on the piano.

+ that he is super ticklish and has the best giggles (and occasionally even a snort) when being tickled!

+ that he tries to delay nap and bed time as much as possible and will often yell, "I want to tell you something" just as we walk out the door. If we stop and ask him what he wanted to say, his response is usually, "I love you."

+ that he loves to listen to any kind of music and seems to especially like a song by David Crowder called "Our Love is Loud" as he often requests it.

+ that he LOVES the Berenstain bears and often says he lives in Bear Country and wants to go visit "Gramps and Gran." He also thinks he needs to go outside "bearfoot"  because that is how the Berenstain Bears do it.

+ that he is learning to hide God's word in his heart and is excited to recite the scripture he knows.

What a blessing Jonah is to us! That is what I want to always remember.

A Few Pics of Sy

Silas Pictures

I decided to try my hand at taking Silas' one year pictures on my own. Because of our busy month of July and weather not cooperating, it took us until last Sunday night to get them done. I know next to nothing about photography and even less than that about photo editing. So, the pics aren't great, but we had a fun evening out together on a beautiful evening, nonetheless!

Here's our sweet Silas at 1 year old (actually 13 months) --

Jonah Funnies

Jonah has an amazing imagination and is really developing in his cognition/reasoning skills. Everyday he says something that makes me wonder how he came up with it. I love these developing abilities. Life is never dull! Here are a few of the things he has come up with recently:

Evidence of Reasoning: We were all going to watch a video together the other night before bed. Since Silas was watching too, I was suggesting videos to Jonah that Silas might like. Our conversation went like this:
Me: "Would you like to watch Baby Signing Time?"
Jonah: "No. Baby Signing Time is for babies. I am not a baby. I am a boy. It's not called BOY signing time. It's called BABY signing time."
He was right on. No arguing that one!


Evidence of a Continued Need for Development of Reasoning:
A brief conversation while dealing with an issue of disobedience-
Me: "What can you do when it's really, really tough for you to obey Mommy?"
Jonah: "Disobey."


Example of Jonah's Imagination:
When we went in to get Jonah out of bed this morning, the first thing he said was...
Jonah: "I brought Mommy to the earth."
Me: "What did we do then?"
Jonah: "We flied to the moon."
Me: "Oooh. Cool! What did we see there?"
Jonah: "Planets, stars, and a rocketship!"


A Bit of Jonah's Humor:
The other day at nap time Jonah requested to have his stuffed animal Cookie Monster in bed with him. He usually sleeps with 3-5 stuffed animals. When I gave it to him he exclaimed, "Now there is a MONSTER in my bed!"


Irregular past tense verbs are really difficult for Jonah right now (as they should be). We have had a few funny conversations with them recently.

First one: Jonah is now able to "read" simple 3-4 letter words by saying the letter sounds and then blending them. I was writing some on the driveway for him to figure out. He is really good at familiar words and has to take a little more time with unfamiliar words. One word I wrote was "SOD." He sounded it out and blended it correctly. Then, he got so excited and said, "Mommy, I sawed a car go by."

Second one: A teen from our church named Doug came to our house last night selling something as a fundraiser for the school's football team. Jonah is really into knowing people's names, so he asked and confirmed Doug's name a number of times during our short conversation. This morning, Jonah picked up the fundraising card off of the table and asked, "Mommy, is this from Dig?"


It is amazing to watch and be a part of Jonah's development at this stage in life. Although there are things that are difficult about 2 1/2, I love each day with Jonah and am soooo thankful that I am blessed to be a mostly-stay-at-home mom!