Penny's Pink Pedal Car

A few months ago, Penny recieved this adorable little pedal car from a sweet friend of ours. We haven't given it to her yet because she was still a little too young for it. Recently though, we've noticed her pulling herself up on everything she possible can and may be even getting close to walking!! We decided to see what she would think of the car and she was SO EXCITED!!

Feel free to ignore the laundry on the couch as well as my husband's foot which manages to find its way in the majority of the pictures.

Here daddy brings it to the top of the stairs...

Here's her expression as we bring this little bit of pink magic into her life. (In case any of you are gagging at what she is playing with, its clean, we don't use it on her and there are no boogies in there.)...

Then total freak out excitement takes place...

Here it is along with my husband's blurry, pasty white leg :)

"Wow! This thing is amazing!!"

If you'll notice, this picture is smaller than the others. I decided to bless each of you by not including even more of my husband's leg. But look at her face!!

Penny riding the car for the first time (sorry its blurry) ...

SO HAPPY!!!!

She loves her car! (another blurry pic, but she kept dancing so it was hard to get a good shot)

One of my all time favorite pictures!!!

The End!!

Crafting Attempt #1

I don't want to scare anyone, but I think I may be on my way to crafting! If you'll remember, I wrote a blog post a couple months ago about my inability to do most things domestic. I've since tried to remedy that and I think I may be approaching a little success! Maybe.

I was totally inspired by my mom who made these super cute birdy pillows for my brother & sister in law as a wedding present. I don't have a picture of them but I do have some pictures at my attempts to expound on the idea.

I realize that some of you expert crafters (is that the word to use?) will probably fall out of your chair at how easy this is, but cut me some slack, drawing stick figures takes great effort for me.

I first traced this little guy...

Then I outlined him in blue

Then I filled him in with purple french knots which took me FOREVER!

After Eddie, I decided to do another bird in navy blue...

So this is where I'm at so far...

So it doesn't look that good yet. This one is my practice one. This is what I'm hoping to accomplish, something that looks like this...

Or something along these lines...

Those last two pillows are being sold for $100 & $125!! Isn't that crazy! I would love to get good enough at the birds to put them on Etsy but I could never justify trying to sell them for that much! You would have to be high on crack to buy a pillow like mine for that much!

Anyway, I'll show you later how it turns out. Feel free to offer any suggestions too to make it better (which I know there are probably millions of ways to improve on my sad looking little birds :)).

Somewhere Out There, A Hitchhiker Thinks I'm Crazy

Nice blog title huh? Well it's true. If we're friends on Facebook you've already seen me cry over what happened last Sunday. If not, I'll tell you what happened.

Last week as we were getting Penny in the car for church, I'm pretty sure that I set my journal and Bible on top of the car. I always have a ton of stuff and I had my breakfast in my hands too so I think that I must have just forgotten to get the journal and Bible off of the car and we just took off.

When we were sitting in the service I asked Jona if he knew where they were and immediately I had this sinking feeling, knowing what I had done. We looked and looked and even redrove the route but we couldn't find them anywhere.

As bad as it sounds, I was far more concerned about the journal than I was the Bible. The Bible was just a random one that we had and I hadn't written notes in it, I figured it could be easily replaced and whoever had the old one (Mr. Hitchhiker) would hopefully be better off because of it. I can't say the same about the journal. I was SO SAD.

I've been writing in that journal for over a year. I found out I was pregnant with Penny and I wrote all my thoughts over the course of the pregnancy. The night before she was born, both Jona and I wrote her notes that we hoped she would read some day.

I would say this last year was by far the hardest year of my entire life. I cried many times while writing in that journal. I wrote while I was in labor with Pen and I wrote her notes after she had been born. I don't know, maybe people won't understand, but to me it was such a precious treasure. I can honestly say that I value that journal more than any other material possession that I own.

Anyway... It's lost. I wrote about it on Facebook and received several sweet and sympathetic comments from friends and other mom's who totally understood the significance of it. As I was reading their comments, there was a couple who said, "maybe someone will find your journal and get saved through what they read there." I'll be honest, I about choked when I read that. Not because it was stupid in the least bit, but because it convicted me so much.

I started thinking about what I had written. If some random person (Mr. Hitchhiker) picked it up on the side of the road, what would they learn about me? Here are some things I came up with...

1. They would see that I love Penny

2. They would see that I love Jona

3. They would see that I can sometimes be impatient with Penny or angry with Jona for selfish and completely insignificant reasons.

4. They would learn that I hate exercising and dieting.

5. They would learn that I love my friends Rachel, Michelle, Beth and Lisa and that I wanted to be more like them.

6. They would learn how much I miss Washington and my family

7. They would read about the people I struggle with and they would learn that I am rarely content in my circumstances.

8. Maybe they would, every so often, see sermon notes or maybe even a spiritual quote that hit me here or there.

That's about it. That's what they would learn about me. Then they would probably burn it because they wouldn't want anyone else to read about how neurotic I am :)

But in all seriousness, they would learn about ME. Every single statement is about me. If they became a Christian through this loss it would have to be solely because of the Bible with the journal. The point is, they would learn nothing about who God is. It made me kind of sick to think about.

My journal contains my most intimate and emotional thoughts, few of which are about my Lord and Savior. I isolate my devotions (when I have them) to think about God during that time, but it doesn't often permeate the rest of my thoughts or struggles or joys.

I'm not sure that I am thankful that I lost my journal, but I am thankful for the lesson it taught me. It was such a humbling lesson. My sweet sister Julie bought me a new journal. I'm excited to fill this one up with my thoughts and who knows, when I'm done maybe I can dump it somewhere on the side of the road for Mr. Hitchhiker to get the rest of the story.

Six Months!!

This is just getting stupid. I'm done with her growing up!! I know I say that every month but I REALLY mean it this time. She is getting so big, I just want her to freeze! Blah blah blah. I know, she's got to get bigger, and I will love the next stage. Blah blah blah....

She's so fun! Her personality is really coming out, and I've got to be honest, she's a little spaz! We love it though. She just had her 6 month appointment last week and she is SO tall!! She now weighs 16 lbs (50th percentile) and is 27.5 inches (95th percentile!). The doctor was really pleased with her growth and development and we praise the Lord for it!

She is crawling which is a blast, although sometimes her little wires get crossed and she starts crawling backwards. It's pretty funny to watch because she is trying to get to something and she gets more and more confused as she moves herself further and further away. She sits up unassisted and is eating solids, which she seems to really enjoy (minus the squash).

She adores her daddy and loves cuddling with her mommy. I can't wait for her to start talking. I am dying to hear what is going on behind her funny expressions.

I was really thrown for a loop with the whole sin nature thing. I think the one piece of advice I would have liked to get before I had kids, was that I was gonna have to discipline so soon. I thought it would be at least a year. Boy was I wrong. She really wants to march to her own little drum, which would probably be cute except for that little drum wants to kill her. She has repeatedly tried to kamikaze herself off her changing table. She honestly has done a great job of responding to correction (as mild as it is) and gets a huge smile on her face when I tell her "good girl!". Man I love this kid!!

Here are some pictures of the monkey...

Newlyweds!!

I have so much blogging to catch up on I don't really know where to begin. I guess we'll have to start with the most beautiful wedding of the year! My awesome brother married Miss Julie Zeller (now Zimmer).

We traveled down to San Diego for the weekend and got to watch them commit the rest of their lives to each other. It really was beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, my sister-in-law is quite possibly one of the most beautiful girls on the planet. She is kind, godly, loving, funny and so many more things that have made my family just fall in love with her. She's beautiful on the outside too which is actually a little annoying. People keep coming up to my sisters and I and say "how do you feel having such a beautiful sister in the family now?". Isn't that a weird question? Apparently we were a bunch of uglies and now Cinderella made her way in. :) Just kidding, although I have admitted once or twice that I hope she gets fat. Ok, this blog post is going down hill fast!

Anyway... the ceremony was precious. My brother wrote and sang a song to Jules that was gorgeous. My sisters and I were so dehydrated by the end of it from crying so hard. That boy can write a song! Both Julie's dad and my Papa married them and really did a great job challenging them to have a marriage that honor's the Lord.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was that my Aunt Carol and cousin Bethy came from Georgia to celebrate with us. THEY ARE A BLAST!! I wish they lived closer.

Here are some pics from the event!! (I have no idea why the pictures downloaded like this, but you get the idea)

My parents, David & Jules

My sisters and I

Our little family

David's song. (Ignore the pom pom coming out of her head :))

The Ladies (Aunt Carol & Bethy)

Precious!

Sorry, I just had to throw this in, she had a blast with her daddy :)

I can't get enough!

The Happy Couple

Sleepy baby!!

I am so thrilled to have Julie as my new sister! Love them!!