My Ebenezer

Would you believe it's been 10 years since I graduated high school?! My reunion was Friday night, but being as it was on Cape Cod and I am in Florida, I had to forego. I have mixed feelings about missing, but mostly I just can't believe how quickly time goes by! Does it pass this quickly for everyone? I am still without a voice, so it's probably good I couldn't go, as I wouldn't have been able to really converse. I managed through my Sunday School lesson today, but only because I had the kids tag-team tell the story. They did a great job with Daniel in the Lions Den, and knew all the details anyway. It was fun to hear them tell me the story for a change. :) Hopefully soon my voice will return. Finally I just want to say what a great holiday weekend this was! From the time Josh got home on Wednesday night until today, we've had a great time as a family just relaxing, resting, and enjoying each other. It has been refreshingly unhurried, and Josh has spent some one...

I mentioned that Josh has been sick since Monday. His fever is gone, but he's left with the end of a cold. As for me, I have had no voice since Tuesday. I have felt fine, but my voice has been MIA. I have never before lost my voice without other symptoms. Well, now I have a sore throat and headache. Except for a fever, this is what Josh had. Goody! I'm just praying Noah avoids it. :)

The only pic I got of our Thanksgiving dinner. Shame on me! Josh thought a ride on his "machine" would be a fun Thanksgiving treat. Trying to fill Mama's shoes He loves wearing our shoes!

Or should I say, Thanks living ! That was the main thought at our Praise and Thanks Fellowship on Monday night. Giving thanks to God should be my way of life, not only reserved for one day in the year. But I am thankful for this one day in the year to dwell on all the richness and blessings that the Lord has given me. Deut 28:1-11 tells about the real first Thanksgiving. The pilgrims may have started it for us in America, but on Sunday Pastor Masitto pointed out that they no doubt had the Old Testament in mind for their celebration. God lays out for us in this Scripture how He wanted to be thanked: with our Hands and our Hearts. Giving of the firstfruits of the land that was harvested, and giving thanks verbally out of an overflowing heart. I will be bringing Green Beans to the Bennetts tonight for dinner, and maybe some cookies or a pie. As for my heart, well, I thought I'd share a few of the blessings that the Lord has given to me, and remember Him in thanks. 1. Probably ...

We were at the library checking out books yesterday and as we were leaving, the children's librarian said "Have a good Turkey Day!" I have heard this expression a lot and everytime I do, I think how sad it is that Thanksgiving has turned into merely Turkey Day for a lot of America. But it makes sense; those who don't know the Lord aren't really celebrating Thanksgiving. Who would they be thankful to ? I am rejoicing that God is real and that He is worthy to be praised and thanked for all that He is and all that He does. It's also a pointed reminder to me to share my knowledge of Christ with the lost, so that they too will have reason to be thankful and a proper Recipient to whom they can direct their thanks! In other news, Josh has been feeling a little under the weather lately. He came home Monday night with a fever, headache, and sore throat. I'm praying that whatever it is stays away from the rest of us, and that he will feel better soon.

Guess who forgot her camera? :( Nonetheless it was a great time of fellowship with our church family. I can say family because we really have become one over the last year. (That is what I would have said had I come up with the courage to stand up in front of everyone and give a testimony.) Victory has changed so much in the last year, all for the better! When our previous pastor left and our interim came in, it was like a new spirit was breathed into our church. There was life again, and people started loving each other again. I can't explain much more than that without going into the whole long story, but the best analogy I can give would be if you've ever seen the movie Pollyanna (I'm guessing the book would have the same effect too): There was a whole town being squashed by one person, and it took a girl with a positive outlook and the grace of God to turn it around and make them a family. Testimony after testimony was given last night, and it was great to hear the tha...

I haven't posted in almost a week, and I find when I let it go like that, I have too much to say and my thoughts are jumbled. So follow along if you can, I'll try to cover everything! The picture you see is another one of the ones we didn't choose for our Christmas photo. I think it's so cute! :) Our photos are ready to pick up at Sears, so I plan to do that this week. I'm excited, but I'd be even more so if I really LOVED the family shots we got. Trouble is, I don't. In years past, all our portraits have been waist-up shots, so it doesn't matter what we wear on our legs. Until this year. As usual, we wore whatever we wanted on the bottom (which meant jeans for me and shorts for Josh), only to discover that the man taking our pictures thought it would be really nice to get full-length shots of us all on the floor, and barefoot! This would be all well and good if we were all wearing khaki pants and had really nice tans, but since neither of those were the...

Do you ever have one of those days that just everything seems frustrating? Me too. Today I felt like I said, "Don't touch," "Stop fussing", "Not now," "Shh", "Be still," and "No!" about 1,000 times. Each. All day I've had a song running through my head: "Don't quit! There's a job to be done......Don't quit, weary Christian, don't quit!" Josh sings this often to me, and I have to say it at least puts a smile on my face. Lord, let tomorrow be better! :)

My good friend Carrie and her family are about to start deputation to be missionaries to New Zealand. They leave us Dec 30 this year, which is SO sad (and so happy!). Over the weekend they had a huge moving sale, and sold almost half of their belongings. We stopped by on Saturday and scored a few toys for Noah and hung out for a while. The two toys pictured are definitely the new favorites around here! The train is rarely put together, since Noah likes to drag it around and rearrange the blocks on it. And the airplane! A whole paragraph should be devoted to this cute toy. It's Rocking-Horse-Meets-Airplane and Noah drags that around so he can ride on it in the same room Josh and I are in. He LOVES it! He hasn't quite got the hang of how to push the buttons by himself (they're squishy buttons and you have to hit them just right), but riding it is second nature already. Watch him have fun on it in this video. As a bonus feature, at the end you'll get to see him use the sig...

Wednesday night after church (I can't believe I forgot to blog about this!) I went to the nursery to pick up Noah. Carrie Bennett was in there and pointed to me and asked him, "Who is that?" With a big smile on his face, Noah said "Mama". It took someone asking him, but he finally said it! Now I'm sure it won't be long before he says it over and over to get my attention. But I hope I never get sick of hearing it! Also on Wednesday, we went out as a family and got our annual Christmas photos taken at Sears. The pic above is one of the ones we didn't order, that's why I'm posting it. Over the next few weeks I'll post some of the others we didn't choose. Sorry, but you'll just have to wait til Christmas to see the ones we picked! We send them out with our Christmas letters and I'm not about to ruin the surprise. Not that you need to hold your breath waiting or anything, they're not THAT spectacular!

Hope those of you with the day off are having a fantastic day, and that those of you who don't have it off (like me, ha ha) are enjoying it too. I decided to get festive and dress Noah in camouflage pants, which happened to be the only ones he had clean, so I guess I can't take credit for his outfit! Laundry day, you know. Today we went to the Salvation Army to look for some more long-sleeved shirts and pants for Noah, since I have been coming up to Laundry day short on clothes for him lately. He has "enough" in that he has at least 7 outfits, but if he spills something on himself or plays in the mud while my back is turned, or or or... (the possibilities are endless with an active little boy) we run short. After the Salvation Army we went to the park to let off some steam, and then came home. Now Noah is down for his nap and I'm folding laundry, blogging, and cleaning house. Pretty typical day for us, but I hope each one of the veterans out there will have a spec...

The last time I nursed Noah was Oct 31, one week ago. Therefore I think it's safe to say Noah has been weaned! *Sniff* *Hooray!* I have mixed feelings, but mostly a sense of freedom that he doesn't need Me And Only Me at night time. Now, if I so choose, I can be out in the evenings and have Josh put Noah to bed with no worries. Like that's ever going to happen. But still, it *could*, and that's the important thing. For those interested (and I think I can safely say I've scared away any men reading this by now!), it was easier than I expected to wean Noah. I thought it would be difficult because Noah had begun asking to be nursed, and I couldn't think of an alternative that would be fuss-free. Finally I just decided to handle it the way I put him down for naps: I give him about 8oz of diluted juice, read him a few stories, and put him in bed. It's that simple. It works for naps, and now I'm happy to report it works at bedtime too. Since Oct 31 he has only...

It seems almost every day Noah learns to say a new word or convey a new idea. A few of the recent words are: Bug Choo-Choo Burr (it must be the season for them! He's constantly picking them up) Bus Daddy (FINALLY) For some reason he has an affinity for words that begin with B. Must be easy to say! Still waiting for him to say Mommy, but at the rate Noah's been acquiring words, we may not have to wait long! :)

After church on Sunday, the Bundys gave us this duck toy for Noah. As tired as he was in his post-church-haven't-eaten-lunch-yet-and-way-past-naptime state, he lit up and wanted to play with it. He even started quacking! Have you seen these? Apparently they have been around awhile, but I've never seen one. I think it's hilarious! It waddles JUST like a real duck, and it has kept Noah occupied much over the past day. Thanks, Mr and Mrs Bundy!

We went to the Dr today for Noah's 15 month check-up. He's now in the 60th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight. He was 27.2 lbs and 31 1/2 inches tall. He's a pretty healthy little guy, and I'm so thankful his percentiles are averaging out. I think I've mentioned before, but I was SO worried he'd be big all his life when he came out of the womb in the 99th and 97th percentiles for weight and height! My friend Ruth asked in the comments section what signs I've taught Noah. Those would be (in order that I taught them and he picked them up): More, Please, All Done, Eat, and Thank You. These signs have served us pretty well, though there are plenty more I could use and don't. These are the ones that have cut down on the whining a LOT, since he's able to at least communicate these ideas. And the Thank You is just for common courtesy. Now that he's picking up words by mouth at a quicker rate, the need for signing should start...

This year for the time change, I decided to try a new strategy; instead of wait for the actual day and try to get Noah's inner time clock to abruptly add an hour, I worked with him all week long so today wouldn't come as such a shock. And I'll be honest. It was also so he wouldn't wake up at 6am this morning! Selfish much? :) Every day last week I began shifting Noah's bedtimes later by about 15 mins, so by the time we got to yesterday, his schedule was on track to change times. For the most part it worked!! Noah woke up this morning at 6:50am (7:50 old time), and adjusted much better throughout the rest of the day. You think I'm a little OCD about schedules? Maybe. But it sure makes life run smoother when the little kid isn't all out of whack and exhausted! :)

"If it's doubtful, don't do it", so goes the Patch the Pirate song on one of the many cds we have. I've been thinking about that in relation to Halloween "festivities" lately. On the one hand, I would love to be able to dress Noah up as some adorable creature (can you imagine him as, say, a lion or a puppy dog? I'd just eat him up!) and parade him around the neighborhood collecting candy from the neighbors. And who are we kidding here~at his age he wouldn't (or shouldn't) be able to eat all the candy by himself, so his loyal parents would just have to step in and help him out of his Pile-Of-Candy Dilemma... :) On the other hand, Halloween isn't rooted in innocence and full of Christian virtue. It's rather a dark (Satanic?), gruesome day and part of me wonders whether we as Christians should even dip our toes in participating in such a thing... Pastor Masitto has been preaching lately on Forming Convictions and Standards, and I...

Just wanted to record that Noah has learned a few new words this week: Bubbles Yuck All Gone (but it doesn't sound anything like the English version that you and I say; It sounds like "awee awee". Does it count as learning a word if no one else would understand it?) and he learned to sign "Thank you" which is always appreciated! If you count "All Gone", this brings his total to 10 verbal words/expressions, and about 5 signs. He can also tell you what sounds the following animals make: Dog, Cat, Pig, Cow, and Monkey. :) This verbal development is so exciting to me!

Three months ago we had our first date night since Noah was born, and last night was Date Night #2. I don't need to tell you it was wonderful! :) Again, there are no pictures except what is in my mind, but that's okay. The picture above is just for effect, and was taken on my birthday. Due to heavy traffic, we ditched the idea of getting back on the highway to go to Olive Garden, and instead ended up at the same place we went to last time: Perard's Italian. Daring soul that I am, I again had Chicken Parmigiana. Hey, it was good last time so I figured I'd go with a known. Josh had an Italian sub. And just like last time, it was heavenly to enjoy my hot food without cutting into teensy pieces and feeding it to someone else first. (Sidenote: When I was telling this to my mom this morning, she interjected, "But you wouldn't have it any other way, right?" Of course right! I wouldn't go back to the way things were without Noah. He adds so much to our lives t...