Happy Birthday

to my 4 year old.....i can't believe that my little bitty boy is now four....he is such an amazing human being....he is fully of life....full of energy....such a trooper....loads of passion....loves to sing....gives the best hugs....has come such a long way in the almost 8months he's had his tigger ears....just one special little boy....and all boy too
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET SWEET BOY! I LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH!

Renew

the CrazyJoy word this week is Renew. immediately when i saw the word i knew what my photograph would be of....my Bible. during Christmas break last year we were visiting my parents and attended the church that i grew up in. there i came across a read the Bible in a year pamphlet. in my 30 years i had never actually committed to reading the whole bible in a year. will i sort of had since i did go to a Bible college and took the classed Survey of the Old Testament and Survey of the New Testament and reading both were required. but i had never decided on my own to do this. something else you may want to know about me is that I'm not a big fan of new years resolutions, i try goals. so this was my goal. but not just to do it to check it off but to have my heart in it and really enjoy it and i really have. the first half of the year has been great and as i am a few weeks into the second half of the year i am excited to read more. so i feel daily renewed with my Bible reading.

Blueberries

shoveling them in
happy to be eating, this girl loves to eat

was he new face for just about everything. i think she may have stopped doing it, so i am glad that i got this picture.

keep them coming mom

Overwhelmed

i am struggling to do what is right when it comes to my little guy.

i am a stay at home mom so there is a reason that i stay at home, to be with my kids and i want to be able to teach him things and be that kind of mommy to him but am having a really hard time with it.

even trying to work, at home, on the things that we do in speech therapy, is a struggle and i can't really think outside of the box to come up with some other way of doing it.

my husband has said before that if we can't do something 100% then we sometimes just don't do it at all and i hated that when he said it but am now feeling like it is so true. no one ever said that being a parent was easy and if someone had then i think i would have a jaw dropping, shocked face, because for sure it isn't easy, especially with a special needs child.

i know that more days in preschool is going to be something that is good for him but hate the idea of it. more days away from me and then i think, what's the point of being a stay at home mom. but then with him home i don't really feel like i am teaching him anything or making a difference in preparing him for kindergarten.

i just have this inner tug of war going on and then to top it all off he has a hearing disability and i have to go up to bat for him. i am the least most assertive person out there and now i have to EXTREMELY stretch myself to make things better for this little guy. and the crappy part about it is that I'm not doing it. i totally asked my husband (who is very assertive) to handle the latest school decisions and while i am thrilled that he is doing it, don't want to do it and love that he wants to be involved in his son's life and decisions i know that he won't be able to always be the one to advocate for our little guy and that scares me because i will have to do it. i am terrified too. i am totally feeling like Moses when he told God that he couldn't be the one to speak to the Israelites because he wasn't eloquent.

if anyone is reading this please pray that whenever and wherever and whoever i have to speak to, to help my little guy in and during his schooling years that i will have the words, thoughts, ability, courage and assertiveness to do what needs to be done for the good of my son. I'm not ready for all of this and i need to be brave.

Liberty

Webster says Liberty is...
1. the quality or state of being free
a. the power to do as one pleases
b. freedom from physical restraint

seeing these two girls (one my niece and the other my daugther (8months apart)) playing on the fourth of July(the power to do as one pleases), in their red, white and blue garb, and if you notice my daugther with her grimice and letting me know to let her hand go (freedom from physical restraint) i guess she wasn't feeling very free at the moment. i feel so blessed to live in a country were my children can play and have fun without a care in the world. (the quality or state of being free)

to participate in this CrazyJoy challenge or future ones check out this site.

Mysterious

this first picture is for theCrazyJoy challenge.

this weekend we had a baby shower for a friend of mine. it was a secret weather the baby was a boy or a girl. she found out last weekend at a shower with her family and she kept a secret from the rest of us for the last week. we had a pink and blue themed shower this weekend and her cake revealed boy or girl? take a look at some of the set up for the shower.

linds hadn't really been craving much but she had been eating a lot of cereal. we had four different types of cheerios and some granola cereal. people could eat it with milk or yogurt or plain.
jules made these cute baby passi's

half of the table was pink and half was blue. i wish i would have gotten a picture from the blue side. we even had pink and blue punch.

linds made her own cake so that she could hide the color of the frosting in the inside. she also made these cupcakes.

so here you go. baby j.crew is a boy. we are so very excited.

this was a big part of my weekend and i chose the first and the last pictures as my CrazyJoy:Mysterious post because it was a mystery to all of us if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl and there is something about pregnancy that is mysterious as well. it's amazing that these little human lives can grow and form and live inside of us for 9 months. it's a mystery as to what this little one will look like. a mystery as to their personality. pregnancy is a mysterious, wondrous thing.

Comparison

this weeks photo challenge with CrazyJoy is Comparison. I wish i would have been creative enough to get one of me standing at 9 months and then of me holding baby girl up against my belly at nine months but it didn't happen. this is what i have and i think captures comparison pretty well. for me i much rather have my girl in my arms instead of in my tummy. me and pregnancy did not get along.

Room Update

i made a couple of these paper pompoms for baby girl's birthday party and they just to happen to go great in her room as well.

so getting a little room inspiration from AshleyAnn, i decided to hang some paper pompoms in my little girls room as well. we love them. they go perfect with her room.

Forbidden

the first picture is just to show you her attempts to get into the pantry. our pantry door doesn't latch when it closes. now i need to go and get a new door knob that will latch because she can still get it open even when it is all the way closed. those little fingers can get in the cracks around the door and pry it open. she's going to be mad when we get the new door knob and she realizes she can't get in there. so i wish that my pantry was neater but for the challenge purpose here is my girl getting caught in the pantry.

for-bid-den: not permitted or allowed.

the pantry along with the bathroom are two places that she is forbidden. she loves those places too. funny how that happens.

to participate in the challenge, check out this post

12 months or 1 year

whatever your prefer

totally late on posting this but glad that i got it up here. this picture was by far the hardest of all of them to take because i couldn't get her to hold still. i think i will continue to take pics of her every month but maybe i will attempt a chair for the next years set.