Micah's Apron

Awhile back I picked up "My Apron" by Eric Carle at the library (I've liked Carle's books since I was a kid). Micah enjoyed this book with its bright pictures, easy concepts to grasp, and few words. He also liked connecting the book with the apron he wears when he helps me wash the dishes, which is just mine all bunched up (see photo). :-)

Since then, I've wanted to get Micah an apron that is his size. The opportunity to get him one came in a different way than I had expected. I made him one! See, my sweet husband Scotty surprised me with a sewing machine on Christmas, and after the shock of having received one, I knew what I wanted my first project to be - a kid-sized apron. So we headed to JoAnn's the day after Christmas, bought some fabric, thread and tools, and Scotty and I got to work making our own pattern, modeled after my apron. I took over at the sewing machine, and here are the results (I'm still hoping to put in a pocket and clasp for the neck ties):

Making our pattern:


Micah modeling:


The back:

Lobsters and Pizza

Micah really likes pizza...


...but is a little shy of lobsters (even when being held by his trusted auntie Amanda)

Luke Man in Town

Micah's favorite thing to say all weekend was "Uncle Luke" this and "Uncle Luke" that...yup, our good friend came in to town for the weekend and we all had a blast. Late nights talking, eating lasagna, Scotty's first 3D movie experience, visiting Amanda at work, going to church, eating pizza, watching football...

My First Ever Mickey Mouse Pancake

Micah loved it and he tasted delicious.


(Thought you'd appreciate this, Karen). :-)

Our Family Snowman

We made a snowman the other day, and I think he's the best looking one on the block. Though he is incredible, he is humble (he resides in our backyard, for only our eyes to see). Every night Micah looks out his window to say "ni-nite" to him, and makes sure to peek out every morning to see if he's "all done sleeping." Micah's absolute favorite part of our snowman is his "carwet" (carrot) nose. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to explain his disappearance when the spring comes...

Home Canning

Scotty and I picked up 1/2 a bushel of apples at Moelker's Farm a couple weeks back (for only $7.50!! A much better deal than the 1/2 bushel for $35 at the tourist trap Apple Holler in WI that we enjoyed last year.) :-) We couldn't eat through our apples fast enough, so I made up a batch of Apple Butter (that we had also made last year). I then canned for the first time! I was so nervous that I was going to break a jar and there was going to be broken glass and boiling water all over my kitchen...but all 15 jars came out sealed and in tact - woohoo! :-)

Winter Wonderland

What we woke up to this morning was nothing like the first snow I was telling you all about a week ago...

Californian at heart

Micah got this shirt in some hand-me-downs that I got and I think it's absolutely adorable. I especially like it because it resembles the California license plate. Yes, though I really enjoy living in MI, I will always be a Cali girl at heart. :-)

Grand Rapids Children's Museum

Today Micah and I headed to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum with his friend and nanny Miss Liz. Boy was it fun!! It reminded me of my younger years when I used to love going to the La Habra Children's Museum in CA.

Grand Rapids Children's Museum

Clarificatoin: God is good, regardless of my house.

I recently wrote a post on the first week in our house. I later wrote a post about a passage I had read in John during my study at BSF. I wanted to clarify that God is so very, very good, whether or not He gave me a house or healed a lame man in Bible times.

I just wanted to be clear in saying that I do not want to "elevate gifts above Giver" - I thank God for my house, but I am so much more thankful that He has gifted me with eternal life with Him through faith in His Son! Just knowing God is so much better than anything on earth!! And, if some day I lose my home, God is still God and so very good.

Psalm 73: 25-26, 28
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

These thoughts on my previous two posts were stirred up within me as I watched this clip on the "health and wealth" gospel, and I wanted to be sure to let you all know that I don't advocate it, and it is definitely no gospel at all. In other words, belief in God is not some magic potion in which I will now receive a plethora of material blessings on earth - that's not gospel. Though I do thank Him for anything He allows to place in my life (like my new house). :-)



Note: The little girl part appeared to me to be like a morbid random example, but it was actually something that happened, as said in this version:

Wrapping Paper

During my many days of bargain shopping at garage sales earlier this year, I stumbled across two boxes full of half-used spools of wrapping paper, for I think it was $.05-$.25 each. As I shuffled through them all, the lady in charge of the garage sale piped up and said, "You can have all of them for a dollar." I jumped on the opportunity and made the purchase.

Those two boxes of wrapping paper sat in my in-laws garage for months before we moved into our house, and Scott would tease me about them. Yet I still knew this garage sale find would have a moment of greatness. We moved into our house in October, and those two boxes found their way into a corner in our basement, hardly visible to anyone who may find their way down there.

Then on one crisp November afternoon I arrived home from the mall after some Christmas shopping and thought it was time to pay the ole wrapping paper boxes a visit. What I discovered was such a variety of papers (70+!!), that I could successfully wrap gifts for each of my family members with a different kind. The photograph shows the papers I chose for my sisters' packages, fitting each personality perfectly...

I think birthdays and Christmas are going to be fun this year with all the wrapping choices I have!!

"I got it!"

As you can see, our refrigerator is super old school, but it's still kicking. Our fridge, along with 18" dishwasher, range top and built in oven all share a common bond - the beautiful "harvest gold" color of the...70's? Yes, and except for the dishwasher and a burner on the range-top, they are all still in working order.

On occasion these appliances make noise - especially our fridge. Scott has discovered that older things are more mechanical and less electric, and with a simple kick you might just fix the thing. So, whenever the noise of the fridge is infringing upon conversation during mealtime, Scott may be found getting up, going over to the beast and just kicking it...or nudging it...or shaking it.

Anyhoo, tonight Micah and I were in the dining room coloring and the fridge, as usual, started making some loud vibrating noise. I kept coloring, but Micah had another idea. Without a word, he stood up, walked over to the fridge, braced himself against the big gold monster and started kicking it. In a moment the fridge stopped making it's noise, and Micah (thinking it was he who silenced it) said, "I got it!"

ZhuZhuINFO.com

Hey everyone, check out this website that Scotty and I worked on this week!

It's all about Zhu Zhu Pets, what they are and where to find them!

I'm sure you know of someone who's trying to track down a couple of these hamster toys for their kids.

So check us out and pass on the link to a friend if you would! Many thanks!

ZhuZhuINFO.com

FIRST SNOW!!

As I went in to Micah's room this morning after a good night's sleep, the routine started like any other.

Micah: Micah's all done sleeping...puppy's all done sleeping [his stuffed animal]...mommy's all done sleeping...daddy's still sleeping.

Mommy: Yes, Micah's...[and I repeat something similar to what he said - yes, family, you can laugh at my repetition now]

Then mommy reaches for the curtains to pull them back and she freaks out:

Mommy: SNOW! Whoa, our first snow...look only a little bit, but sure enough, it's not frost, it is indeed our first snow [giddy with excitement, not sure why].

Micah: Up! Up! [Mommy still hadn't gotten Micah out of the crib]

Yes folks, there you have it. November 27th 2009 is the day of western Michigan's first snow of the season. Of course I simply had to go outside and take a few pictures...



How much is that doggy, er I mean Micah, in the window? I sure hope that Micah's for sale...

Tubby, our backyard squirrel

We have some very, um, how would you say it?..."healthy" squirrels in our neighborhood. Living in an area with so many trees means there are just so many acorns to feast on. The squirrels are nearly gluttonous! I have NEVER seen such chunky little squirrels in my life. There is one in particular that frequents our backyard which I have named "Tubby." Though it's hard to capture active little critters on camera, here are the best shots I could get:

Neighborly Neighbors

A few weeks back Micah and I were taking a walk down the street when I ran into another young mom with a two year old boy. I was just going to smile and nod and go my merry way, but I thought, "Come on, Bekah, introduce yourself! She only lives a few houses down from you, so get to know your neighbors!"

Sure enough, we only needed to tell one another our names and then we were in a casual "getting-to-know-you" conversation, and Micah and her son were playing while we chatted. We discovered we were both stay-at-home moms, and she invited us to come over and play whenever. We wrapped up the conversation and Micah and I finished our walk. I wondered if I'd get to know her better, and if we'd actually get together for her kids (she also has a little girl) and Micah to play. Sometimes we as humans say things and mean it (like, "come on over anytime"), but don't always follow through with actually acting on that.

Only a couple days later my doorbell rang and it was Joanna with her two little munchkins, asking if Micah and I wanted to go on a walk with her and her friend (another stay-at-home mom), who lived a block over. Micah and I bundled up and off we went. I just thought that was so nice of her - to invite me along with her friend, when she really didn't have to.

We headed off an a good long walk in the Buck Creek Nature Preserve (near my house - it's beautiful!!), accompanied with some more great conversation. Wow, I was so excited and blessed to be getting to know 2 more moms in the neighborhood, who both had boys just a little bit older than Micah. Yet another reason to be thankful to God for placing us where He has.

The Buck Creek walk turned into a park play date the next week, and some more interaction the following week. I am just so thankful for some fellow stay-at-home moms in the neighborhood with which to fellowship, glean wisdom from, and get to know. I am truly greatful for neighborly neighbors.

Here are some photos of our park play date :-)

Millenium Park with new friends!

Family Photos

Scotty, Micah and I got professional photos for the first time last week (if you don't include the photo we took with my family in CA back in June). There's a lady at our church who is a photographer and she was offering a super discounted session fee ($10), with all proceeds going to our church. Here's her web-site: http://www.memoriesbybeca.com/
and here's some of our pictures! :-)

Homemade Pizza

Scotty and I were craving pizza on Saturday. Instead of ordering out, Scott said, "Let's make our own!" After he surfed the web for the perfect recipes, we discovered that among the cheese, sauce, and dough recipes, we were only missing 2 ingredients, and we even had a pizza stone that his mom had given us a while back. So, after a quick trip to the store, we got crackin' in the kitchen. Scott took care of the dough, and Micah I whipped up the cheese and sauce mixtures. We overcooked the first attempt. But we perfected it the next day, and it was delicious!!

Homemade Pizza

"I have no one to help me"

Right now I'm in a Bible study with BSF going through the Gospel of John, and it is phenomenal. To actually take time to study Jesus through the testimony of one of His closest disciples (John), is absolutely incredible. For the study this week, I read this miracle of Jesus, and I found it to be so amazing and kind, that it brought me to tears. I mean, this man had been invalid for 38 years, and I bet he was really lonely!! For Jesus to take the time to be with him, heal him, and then later find him again is so compassionate. Jesus is such a wonderful Savior!

John 5:1-15
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

"Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' "

So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"

The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves!!!

Even after our lumberjacks paid a visit and cleaned up some of our trees, we still have oodles of oaks, which shed lots of leaves in the fall. I have already begun to mentally prepare myself for the loads and loads of snow I know we're going to have to shovel this winter as Michigander homeowners, but I overlooked fall. Hm, shouldn't have done that...

Sometime early last week I stepped out back with a rake, and Micah at my heels, to attack the backyard with it's blanket of leaves. An hour into it I had filled 3 large trash bags to the brim, and had only raked about, well, maybe 1/6 of our backyard? I called it quits and retreated back into the house. It was quite the chore!

So on Sunday Scotty, my mother-in-law Lisa and I stepped out to take this job full-on. I married into quite the line of "machines" - Scotty and Lisa stuck to it until the job was done. We all put in 4 hours (12 man-hours total!!), and just barely got the job done (the last 20 minutes or so of raking the front lawn was done in the moonlight - and our car headlights pointing at us). We could NOT have gotten the job done without Lisa.

When it was all said and done, we filled about 50 brown lawn and garden bags full of leaves. The following photo album is just a whole lot of leaf action, so not the most exciting slideshow ever. :-) I didn't get an "after" photo of the front yard, because it was too dark when we finished...but already more leaves are falling so it's too late for that picture. I think I need to go buy more leaf bags...

Leaves!!

California Vacation, II (August 26th-31st, 2009)

Once again, though I took hundreds of photos during this CA visit (I'm usually camera happy when I go), these 30+ photos will have to do. This is the trip to CA that I've wanted to go on for over a year, back when I found out that my childhood best friend's wedding was going to be that weekend (after 4 years of engagement, this was indeed going to be a long anticipated celebration)!! Scotty and I didn't think we could wing it financially, but on Mother's Day he surprised me with a round trip ticket to CA for Beth's wedding. I was overjoyed! So bright and early Wednesday morning, August 26th, Micah and I began our 10 or so hour day of travel to get to CA. He was a super good traveler, and I was SO thankful for that.

I not only got to attend Beth's wedding in CA, but celebrate with my sister Hannah at her 21st birthday pool party at my parent's house. Good times, great memories. Micah, as always, loved the time with his cousins (Anne and Lillyann), and all the food he got to eat. :-) I loved being with my parents and sisters for a few days.

Then the following Monday he and I headed back to MI, Micah as a last time free "lap-child" flyer (he was going to be 2 years old the next week), totaling 18 flights! And again, I was so thankful for the empty seat God always gave beside me on the airplane, so that Micah actually had a seat of his own, though he should've been on my lap the whole time. Much appreciated, God, my lap is thankful to have not had 30 lbs on me for hours. :-)

California Vacation, II (August 26th-31st, 2009)

Micah's friend

Shortly after moving to MI, Micah and I became acquainted with the local library. We faithfully attended library programs starting in January. We met another boy about Micah's age, and they enjoyed seeing each other at storytime. Now almost a year has passed, and their friendship has branched outside of the library. Here are some photo albums with our trip together to the fair and the zoo:

Hudsonville Fair (August 24th, 2009)

John Ball Zoo (October 29th, 2009)

Pancake Breakfast

This morning my two men got busy in the kitchen making delicious and healthy pancakes. What a treat for mommy to just sit down at the dining room table and enjoy a homemade breakfast!

"Two Daddies"

We had our first overnight guest last week! Our good friend, Luke Patin, made his way through Michigan on his weekend journey north to New England, and stayed a night at our place. He showed up after Micah had already gone to bed, so Micah was clueless to anyone else being in the house besides his usual family of 3 when he woke up the next morning.

When I got Micah up that morning, he noticed Scott in our bedroom (still in bed, about to get up), but also Luke down in the living room (still sleeping on the couch, about to get up). Now, Micah has seen Scott resting on the couch before, so when he saw a male from a distance sleeping on the couch, his little mind thought it must be his dad. But at the same time, he saw Scott in our room. Micah put two and two together, and in his little mind, this was his conclusion...He declared "Two daddies" and went on his merry way. It just cracked me up.

California Vacation, I (June 20th-27th, 2009)

Though we are already deep into the fall, I still wanted to post pictures from the summer! I'll pick up where I left off in June. Right on the heels of our NE vacation, we flew out to CA for the week. We enjoyed an awesome Father's Day at the Pacific Ocean, followed by a week of family, friends and food! We finally got to meet our youngest niece, Lillyann (born in January) for the first time. Micah loved the "baby," as well as his beloved cousin Anne. I've put captions on the photos to help narrate our trip. I took over 200 photos, but these 40 or so photos will have to do, uploading was taking awhile, and I need to go to bed soon. :-)

California Vacation, I (June 20th-27th, 2009)

Lumberjacks in our backyard!

Scotty and I have a lot of foliage in our yard - big, beautiful oak trees, shrubs, bushes, oh yes, and poison ivy (we need to take care of that sometime...). Some of the limbs from several of the oaks were encroaching upon our roof, there was an enormous pine in our backyard, and several overgrown shrubs. So Scott and Lisa, as an early x-mas present, offered to hire a tree service to clean things up.

ProCare arrived on Thursday morning, before we had even gotten up! I heard my cell phone ringing downstairs, and then heard big trucks out front. The call had been a "head's up" from Lisa, and the trucks were parked right in front of our house. After turning on some lights and throwing on some clothes, Scotty and I met the crew, showed them around and let them get to work. We had told the guys (a crew of 3) that we had a toddler, and he may want to watch. They said no problem, it's usual. I had no idea that I would be just as fascinated by the whole shebang as my 2 year old son was. :-)

The 3 guys were amazing! They climbed trees, went up in lifts, picked up huge logs as though they were weightless sticks, and really got to work on our yard. We had genuine lumberjacks! When the pine fell, I was amazed at the fearlessness of the feller - he got down on he's knees with a chainsaw and just took it down, allowing it to fall right beside him.

Before:




During:


Felling the pine:


Micah in awe of the "big trucks":




We have yet to have a finished "after" picture...they had to wrap things up when it started to rain, so they'll be back to tidy things up this week.