Confession

Confession/Confliction: (I'm not sure confliction is actually a word. Its probably not because blogger is underlining it in red. I don't really care. I'm making it a word. So there!)

I love my boys so much and they completely keep me busy and I can't imagine having more than two to take care of. (I break a sweat every time I have to grocery shop with both of them. Whilst shopping I repeat things in my head such as "you CAN do this" and "many people have two or MORE children to grocery shop with, surely you can do this successfully!"

Sometimes the thought of not having any more children makes me physically ill.

:)

The end.

Because I want to remember...

I just thought this text from Pastor Mark's sermon was excellent...and I wanted to keep it in here so I could reference it again some day. He has spent the last two weeks speaking on finances and giving...and I loved this thought: (copied from the PDF download at www.yourchurch.com)

When you live with the same kind of people who all have education, jobs, insurance, nice homes, and good schools you start to think that this is the normal way to live. In fact, it is easy to think forget the most people in the world don’t own their own homes with multiple cars in a garage and money for education for their kids. Money and affluence makes us feel normal.

6This is what money does. It makes us feel safe and normal. No one really intends for money to become their trust; it is just the way that money works. It brings security. It can become our trust. So how do you fight this? You give!

Money will create security and it will create trust. Therefore, giving is the only antidote to this natural trend. Giving money away is a powerful statement that your trust is in an economy that you cannot see and in a God who owns it all.

So here is what that means: if you don’t give; you really don’t trust God. Serving money doesn’t have to look like you are a workaholic or a miser or even have a lot of stuff. Rather it is simply finding security in stuff rather than God. It’s that simple. It’s that easy.

Owen, 4 years

So, I don't know when I got off track with keeping updated with Owen. But I'm going to do better. :)

Owen is four!

Stats:

Weight-31 lbs

Height- 39 1/2 inches

Head- Ha. When do they stop measuring your head? :) No clue

Sleeping: Owen has always been an amazing sleeper. Bedtime is between 8:30-9:30 (unless he has a "campout" with dad :)) and he wakes between 7:30-8:30 AM. He still takes a solid 2 hour nap every day. If he skips a nap, it is very rare and he is very grouchy. I have taught him that sleeping is good for your body and its when your body "heals itself" (where do I come up with this stuff!? I'm sure its true, yes?!) and he has actually caught onto this. He told me the other day that some of his friends don't take naps anymore, but he does because sleep is good for your body and it helps keep him happy! ha! Yes! I told him that he would take naps until he went to school all day every day. He seemed ok with that! We'll see :)

Eating: Owen still eats like a bird and is somewhat picky. Although I don't think we give him enough credit a lot of times, because when I do push the issue and make something out of the ordinary, he will try it without TOO Much of a fuss (most times) but...I think its really, really normal for kids his age to be picky. Probably. At least in my family. We have to take into consideration here: 1. His father is Josh Brown. Josh eats: steak, cheeseburgers pizza, hot dogs, french fries, subs, potatoes, some pasta and corn on the cob and occasionally chicken. 2. His Uncle is Curt Barnard. My brother ate: corn dogs, chicken nuggets and pizza for a good 10 years of his life. (he has done a 180 and now even eats sushi ) I think some of his picky eating is in his genes. Although I do make him try other things, he doesn't like too many things that are not typical kid food. His reigning favorite food is macaroni and cheese...and recently he has started to eat apple slices (will eat most other fruit, but not apples?) and peanut butter and jelly. He does not eat beef :) Unless it is ground up in spaghetti sauce. Some of his standards are: chicken nuggets, turkey franks (if he is at my house :) I make him turkey franks instead of hot dogs), ravioli, chicken noodle soup, peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, bananas, strawberries, grapes, baby carrots, peas, and green beans.

Development: He's a genius. Just kidding :) Actually, I've slowed way down on pushing school stuff. He can identify all letters of the alphabet and knows their sounds. He can write probably close to half of them. He writes his name fairly well. He knows how to spell Mom and Wes. He can count to 30 (sometimes he misses 16, weird, I know :) and probably higher, but I've heard him count to 30 in the car without any assistance. He is curious about anything and everything. At first I thought I would really work hard on teaching him how to write all of his letters and maybe even work on reading, but I just decided that he has all the time in the world for that. Not that there is anything wrong with doing it, but he is going to school ( meaning we aren't homeschooling) and Josh and I both agreed that we don't want him to be so far ahead of his peers that he is bored. This advice also comes from my first grade teacher sister in law :) I won't get into all the reasons that we believe sending him to school is the right decision because there are many, but we know it is. I'm so excited for him to go to school. He is going to Traders Point Academy in the fall for preschool. He will go Monday, Wednesday and Friday from, 9-12. I know he will LOVE it. So excited for him.

He has been amazing me lately with how completely articulate it is. He is really good at communicating an idea or thought...and his vocabulary is really taking off. (I think :)) His memory is comparable to his father's (really good) and his maturity and insight is pretty amazing for his age, I think.

I mean, I guess its pretty natural to assume your child is amazing. And, I do. I could be wrong, but I don't really care. haha.

Summer activities: Two weeks of swimming lessons the middle two weeks of June, Lil Kicker soccer every Saturday starting June 18 until August, and preschool camp at Traders Point in July. I'm excited. We are going to have a fun summer. Its the first summer Josh and I will both be home together every day...and we are going to try and really fill our days with fun stuff. Pool, park, zoo, picnics, etc. We are hoping to take a weekend away somewhere (probably the Indiana Dunes again) and we are excited to welcome our twin cousins, (niece and nephew) this July! What a fun summer!

I think that about covers it! I feel pretty blessed to have such sweet, lovey healthy boys. God has been really good to us.

Wes 7-7.5 months

Ok, I'm behind on this post. Wes is well into his seventh month :)

Stats:

Weight: 16 lbs 3/4 oz (we are calling this: 17 lbs :))

Length: 27 1/2 inches

Head: I have no idea. Normal.

Wes transitioned to a size three pamper about two weeks ago. He is wearing 6-9 month clothing and his legs are nice and chubby.

Sleeping: He sleeps all night. Generally bedtime is somewhere between 8-9 PM and lately he is waking up between 6-6:30 AM to nurse and then goes back to sleep until about 8-8:30. He takes a solid morning nap and a solid afternoon nap. These naps are getting longer and more consistent. He will still fall asleep easily in the car if we are out and about.

Eating: He nurses about every four hours now. Really, he is nursing a WHOLE lot less these days. We get in a really good session in the morning and before bed, but during the day is more like snacking. I am not consistent with solids ever. He gets oatmeal some mornings, not all. In general, I share a little bit of whatever we are having with him (unless its french fries or something...although a member of our family who shall remain anonymous did decide to give him a french fry :)) Giving him a little of whatever we are having has made me do a better job of cooking health(ier) food. So, that is good. As long as what I'm making isn't terribly high in sodium (and I've really been working hard to cut back on sodium) then, I share. For example he has had:

kiwi

strawberries

blueberries

bananas

sweet potato fries

bread

cheese

black beans

yogurt

baby carrots

green beans

peas

corn

spinach

chicken and noodles

pasta

cheerios

and I have given him some purees as well from Ella's kitchen and he loves those...and its fun because they mix a whole bunch of different stuff together like...parsnips, carrots and apples (shew!) so I know he's getting a wide variety on taste!

He has chewed on things like:

carrots sticks

apple slices

celery

raw broccoli

I didn't feed Owen like this at all. I did the mainstream thing. Rice cereal first. Then rice cereal mixed with fruit. Then stage one baby foods. Then stage two baby foods. Then at nine months a bit of table food. You get the idea. Anyways, from everything I've read...there is no reason a baby can't have what you are eating within reason (unless you have a history of food allergies in your family...we have none that I know of). Wes has done really well. Clearly, he likes food. We have had a few instances of gagging and ONE time where I had to save his life a little bit during a choking episode...but, Owen gagged and choked on purees. Its just really important to be with your baby while he is eating..no mater what it is...he could choke on a dissolvable snack or a banana slice really....and the theory behind letting him try more solid food is that he will learn how much he can put in his mouth and how far back to move his food. Its really amazing to watch him learn...he's really getting the hang of it :) Anyways, this whole theory is based upon the fact that babies don't need anything except breastmilk or formula until they are a year old and older. So "under one? just for fun". :) My pediatrician has affirmed this for me and she's happy with the way things are going food wise...so we'll stay the course :) (clearly, he doesn't have a weight issue...so no worries there!)

Mobility: None yet really. He sits unassisted really well. He has recently taken to diving from a sitting position onto his belly, but has not yet gotten himself up to a crawling position. He does roll...but doesn't really scoot yet. Soon, I'm sure. My pediatrician told me that they don't even consider crawling a milestone yet. I'm not worried at all.

Personality: He's a momma's boy :) We knew that early on :) He is just a bit more dramatic than his older brother. He has a streak of fiery red-headed passion...its going to be interesting to see this develop! He is also very sweet, very smiley and generally happy. He just wants to be entertained and not ignored, ever.

We love him. He's great. I'm so glad my boys have each other!

Too busy to blog (or too lazy?)

I have things I need to get caught up on here. Owen's birthday. He's 4. (FOUR!)

Wes turned seven months old on the 9th! If I don't do a recap soon, I'm going to forget.

We had a fake offer on our house that got us all excited and we were ready to pack up and make an offer on another house in B-burg. But, as I mentioned before, it was fake. We've had one showing since the fake offer :) God is good. Our home continues to be cozy and meets our needs. We are fine. Maybe God will bring us a buyer. Maybe not. I think we're getting to the place where we are fine either way. (also, our last showing, the people left us feedback and told us that we had a lovely home but we would never get what we were asking in this market/economy due to all the foreclosures. Hello. We KNOW the market. We aren't dumb. However, we DIDN'T foreclose on our house and don't have the luxury of selling it for 90k when we owe 118k. Seriously people. We know. Don't state the obvious. Don't look at our house if you can't even do 110-115k! Sheesh! Ok. I'm glad I got that off my shoulders.

Josh has one week of school left. ONE WEEK. I think that I can't wait for him to be home with us every day. EVERY DAY! I think it will be fun. I think :) Club soccer is insane and its totally consuming Josh's life, but its almost over. And, it wasn't even a normal season because of the crazy amounts of rain. Ah well. Soon, we will have him back for dinner and weekends. Soon.

Summer is upon us. We are not vacationing anywhere but the Brown's pool. (sad, but trying to save every penny to make up for what we are potentially loosing on our house when we sell it. IF we sell it. You know.) Owen is taking swim lessons and doing a preschool camp at Traders Point in July. I imagine that Wes will be crawling around soon and eating things like grass and dirt...and getting heat rash from the 100000 degree weather that will no doubt be upon us soon.

Lastly, if Owen keeps sleeping...its 9:30 and he's still asleep, then I'll come back and do some make-up posts.

Just know that we are well, the baby is continuing to grow and Owen had a nice birthday with pictures that I will post eventually. :)

That's all for now!

Um, I'm trying to update our blog picture and clearly I'm having problems. Its not supposed to be gigantic! :) I may need Josh's help on this one. Stand by. Also, the Easter post will have pictures soon!

Living He loved me, Dying He Saved me

A few pictures of the eater egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Brown's....

I went back to look at the pictures we took as a family for Easter and they are just pitiful. Wes had an emotional breakdown that day and I cooked Sunday dinner...and I was disheveled, Wes's eyes (and face!) were blotchy from crying and we are basically a mess. Project for next week: Dress the boys back up in their Easter clothes and take their pictures! ha! :)

One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwelt among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealed

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He’s coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

One day they led Him up Calvary’s mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now He’s ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him
From rising again

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming
One day the skies with His glories will shine
Wonderful day, my Beloved One, bringing
My Savior, Jesus, is mine

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Father God--thank you for the Cross! Thank you that in life You loved me and in death, You Saved me!

Happy Easter Everyone!