He Did It!

Just wanted to share the good news that last night, on the eve of turning 13 months old, Augustine slept through the night!! (Not the 6 hour "through the night" that baby books tout...we are talking 10 hours!).

His night sleep is usually 12 hours, but that includes [at least] two nursings--so 10 hours straight is a good start! He went to sleep around 7 pm as usual but woke up at 5 am for the day! Needless-to-say, Augustine is well rested, but Luke and I are ttiiirreeedd! That (10 hours) is the longest he has EVER gone without nursing!

Let's keep up the good work, Little Man! I love you!!

My Little Mischief Maker!

When I shower in the morning ,everyday when I get the chance, Augustine has free reign of his room, my [and Luke's] room, the hallway connecting the two...and our bathroom. For the most part, I don't mind letting him roam free for 10 minutes--within shouting distance of me--while I take a quick shower. After all, he has little opportunity to get into trouble in the bedrooms or hallway, and if I ever want to shower, it's my only option [aside from putting him in his crib, which would NOT go over well].

But our bathroom isn't exactly babyproof! Shutting the door isn't an option because I need to know that I could hear him if he really needed me...but keeping him out of trouble in there is also tough. I often find myself making silly faces at him through the glass, singing songs to him...and saying, "No, no" whenever he heads toward any number of hazards, including the toilet. Sometimes he heeds my warnings...and other times he ignores me, as I watch [defenslessly] from behind the shower door.

Take yesterday morning, for example. When I got into the shower, Augustine was happily playing with toys in his room. Five minutes later, however, he had made his way into my bathroom [despite my best efforts to keep him out, our bathroom has become one of his favorite rooms in the house]. As I shampood my hair, I watched my little rebel get into the cabinet under our sink and pull out the nail polish remover--perfect, I thought, a call to poison control is not on my list of things to do today. Then I watched as he maneuvered, polish remover in hand, toward the toilet bowl [seat up].

"No, no," I said, and he amicably backed away from the toilet. Good boy!

He got distracted by the scale for a bit, then back under the sink to see what else he could find! Meanwhile, I finished washing my hair, shaved my legs, lost track of the little bugger...and looked up just in time to see him pulling up on the toilet. "No, n-..." Splash! There goes my nail polish remover --nice.

I quickly rinsed my hair and got out to put an end to the maddness. I glanced in the toilet on my way out of the bathroom [knowing full well that the nail polish remover would remain in the toilet until my hubby got home to fish it out], and what do you think I saw?

A GIANT bobby pin was my first thought--my mind was playing games with me. So I looked a little closer. My glasses! What a sneaky [and funny] little boy I have!

Lacy Jo

In memory of my great friend, Lacy Jo, who passed away eight years ago today, I wanted to share a prayer that she wrote:

Dear Lord,

First, I want to thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I love you so much Lord. Thank you for blessing me with such a wonderful family. They have been here for me and shown me how to love you, how to have faith and how to be a Christian.

I pray that I would be nice, considerate and treat them the way you would want me to treat them.

I pray that you would be number one in my life, that no person or thing would come before you. I want to be satisfied by your love and grace and not long for other things but you.

Sometimes I don't always know you will in situations in my life but I pray that I would understand that there is always a purpose and you aren't trying to make my life difficult.

I pray that when challenges come up in my life, that I would look to you for your guidance, love and support.

I pray that you would give me comfort knowing that I am going to heaven. It is okay. Nothing matters that much in life except for you.

I pray that you would use me to be "God in the flesh." I want to be a light to other people. I don't want to go unnoticed. Give me strength and courage to be able to share your word to my friends and others that I come in contact with in my life.

I love you.

Amen.

Love,

Lacy

I really love that prayer. I feel like it embodies the childlike faith that each of us should have, but at the same time it addresses some very deep concepts. It is of great comfort knowing that Lacy had a sense of peace concerning death--that she acknowledged the insignificance of this life compared to what we will experience with God in the next.

I also love how she wanted to be a light to others. In an email to me, sent just one week before her death, Lacy wrote this:

so, i was thinking... if you are interested... maybe we could go to some sort of church college group thingy... i have been needing someone to go with! if you are interested let me know... i don't know what is out here but i feel the need to find some nice christian type of people our age and what not!

I think we all have that "need"--that longing for God and for fellowship with others. As Saint Augustine said, "Our hearts were made for you, O Lord, and they remain restless until they rest in You."

And although we never got the chance to explore a "church college group thingy" together, you can tell Lacy was hearing and attentive to the whispers of God in her life, and that makes me smile.

Lacy's story is a hard one to hear. But it is also an important one. There is much to be learned--both from the story and from Lacy's Mom. Wendy and James (Jason's--the man who killed Lacy--brother) have worked together to share this story with thousands of people over the past several years. To listen to the story, you can follow this link to the 2 Hearts 4 Lacy page...and then in the videos section, there is Part 1 and Part 2 of "Both Sides: Lacy's Story."

On this anniversary of Lacy death, I feel compelled to ask you to please be cautious when being pulled over. Educate yourself on ways to ensure that you are not being pulled over by an impersonator.

Finally, please pray for Lacy, Jason (who has been sentenced to life in prison), and for the continued healing of both of their family and friends.

Heard Around the House

I have seen this topic floating around a few other blogs, and I heard something today that I thought I would share.

Most people report about things their kids say. From Augustine, I hear lots of adorable "Mamas" and "Dadas"--and recently, a piggy squeling whenever he doesn't get his way (it's pretty cute acutally).

But today Luke said something ridiculous and funny.

Our conversation went something like this:

Luke: "I mixed Coke in with my coffee today."
me: "Yuck, that sounds gross..."
Luke: "Yeah, it wasn't good. I thought I would like it, but I was thinking coffee and beer."
Me: "Really? Coffee and beer? Why would you do that?"
Luke: "You know, an upper and a downer. It's not bad."
Me: "You've done that before?"
Luke: "Yeah, in college a few times. My brother used to do it. He would eat his cereal with beer if he could!"
Me: [laughter]

What a silly husband [and brother-in-law] I have! And, for the record, Luke would not eat his cereal with beer if he could!

One of my new year's resolutions is to laugh more this year. I am off to a good start! And by "laugh more," I really mean, "be more joyful!"

Augustine's Safari Party

Whew! We have made it through Augustine's first year of birthday parties! He had a great party in Colorado with family and friends on December 29th, and yesterday we threw him a party at our house here in Virginia. It was a great time had by all. I really enjoyed preparing for it--and Luke even admitted the party planning was more fun than he thought it would be (check out his crafty contributions in the pictures!).

He's a squirmy little one year old!

Our theme for both parties was elephants (surprise, surprise). But we generalized a little bit to include all jungle animals for his party here in VA.

I began visualizing what I wanted for the party months ago...but the preparations really all came together in just a matter of days.

Dessert/Favor Table

I made the banner on the morning of the party. I purchased rectangles of felt from Michaels and was able to get three pennants out of each piece. Then I free-handed the letters with black Sharpie onto the felt pieces and cut them out. I used jungle animal barbs (also from Michaels) to fasten the pennants together and to attach the letters.

Luke was the artist behind our "pin the trunk on the elephant" game. I googled an elephant picture, showed it to him, and he did the rest! For the record, just one year-olds do not understand pin the trunk on the elephant, but it's still cute to watch them try :) (and, no, we did not blind fold them OR spin them around in circles first!).

We kept the food simple, but fun--and yummy! You can't go wrong with cheese and crackers, espeically cheese cut in the shape of an elephant (I forgot to take pics before the party, and by the time I got to it, there were few elephants left, but Luke cut some more...squares are nice, too:)). We also had fruit and veggies with spinach vegetable dip. And we had a tray of food especially for the wee ones, with Cheerios, puffs, arrowroot cookies, and garden vegetable munchies. To eliminate the chance of spilled cups in a room full of kiddos, we went with bottled water and juice boxes to drink.


And who can forget, the cake! Or in our case, the CUPcakes! Two of my great friends, Amanda and Nicole, came over the night before the party to help me decorate about 40 cupcakes. We made buttercream frosting and marshmellow fondant from scratch. Working with the fondant was actually a lot of fun and not as intimidating as I thought it would be. In the end, we had the perfect amount of fondant left for me to use on Augustine's smash cake. I think everything turned out really cute!


One of my favorite parts of Augustine's party were his party favors! I saw a similar idea online months ago and just had to recreate it! After months of online browsing, I found clear boxes at a price I could pay without feeling guilty. :) The animal (i.e. Safari!) crackers came in a way too large tub at Sam's--I sure hope Augustine likes them because we have enough to last us a very long time! I bought round printable sticker labels at Michaels, and my husband, once again, went to work to produce exactly what I had in mind! I ordered the animal toppers from Oriental Trading Company, and tied them up with ribbon from Michaels.



For some reason, I just had to have M&Ms (for those who don't know, I LOVE M&Ms). I looked into ordering customized ones online, but they were super expensive...so I bought the 56 ounce bag from Sams and picked out at the blue and brown ones instead!

It turns out my son doesn't really like cake (but he will eat blueberries until he poo literally turns black) ...I'm not complaining. He looked super cute anyway.

A tradition was started when I bought Dr. Suess' Happy Birthday to You and asked everyone to sign it. It is a fairly long book, and I think it can hold a childhood's worth of birthday party signings, so we will continue to get it out every year. Luke also made the prop for the jungle animal finger puppet favors (you can't see it, but they had Tootsie Pops in them).

Thank you to all our great friends who celebrated Augustine's special day with us!!