My Ebenezer

When we put up our Christmas tree, I thought for sure Seth would be all over it; climbing it, pulling on it, etc.  Nope!  He barely touches it.  This was a rare moment of ornament exploration.  He does from time to time throw things at the tree, which I think is him trying to hang more things on! My view of Noah's class singing "Go Tell It On the Mountain" at a special breakfast they had.  My apologies that I also had a great view of this mom's "A" tattoo. :( The next few photos are from our annual Ladies' Christmas party.  Jen, you have a cookie on your face!  This game you see here is called "Face the Cookie."  You have to put a cookie on your forehead and try to get it to your mouth...using only your face!  This is quite hysterical to watch. :) Alice playing "Use Your Noodle" Mary trying to keep 3 balloons in the air for 60 seconds Marcy unscrambling the front of a cereal box One of our tasks t...

I thought that before Seth turns two on me, maybe I should record what he was like at one year old. So here he is in a very small nutshell: He weighs 26lbs (80th percentile), and is 32" tall (97th percentile).  Seth walked at 10 months old, so now he is running and climbing and is pretty much everywhere .  He has 8 teeth, all in the front (4 on top, 4 on bottom).  He says just one word: "hot" which I think he learned as a result of burning his hand a while back. He does quite a few signs: "please," "all done," "bye-bye," "more," and "eat."  His favorite foods these days are fruits, but really he will eat most anything I put on his tray.  He is an all-or-nothing eater, grabbing fistfuls of food and shoving it all wholesale into his mouth, which often causes him to choke.  Seth still spits up occasionally, which we're all hoping he outgrows asap. :) His favorite toys are bottles of any kind (see the one in the pho...

This coming Tuesday marks the end of this year's 49th week!  What have the last few weeks been like for us?  Well, busy.  I've not been taking a whole lot of photos, but I've been dying to blog again.  And while my inner perfectionist cringes at the thought of missing whole weeks at a time of this 365 project and doesn't know where to begin to get back on track, I think I'll just jump in and start here. This little man turned ONE YEAR OLD on November 19! This was his cake.   This little man went swimming on Thanksgiving Day and lived to tell about it! :)  The air temp and water temp were about the same: 62ish degrees.  Brrrr!! I affectionately call this Seth's Downward-Facing Dog (that's a yoga position which looks just like this).  He does this an awful lot for reasons I can only begin to guess. I made this for a family in our church who asked me if I would.  They asked in July and I just now finished it.  *h...

I wish I could be one of those bloggers who actually has the time to keep up their blog.  You know the type; there's always something new on their page--a fantastic photo they took, a funny true story from their daily grind, the best new recipe they've tried, or some witty and well-worded glimpse into their lives that leaves you saying, "yeah, me too!"  Most of my blog posts have to be content to set up shop in the recesses of my mind because I am just too busy to sit down and type them out.  Or find my camera and capture them... Tonight we went over to Matt and Jen's for pizza and a little fellowship.  We were supposed to go to the Fair, but it was raining, and who wants to pay $8 a head to walk around wet fairgrounds with a bunch of wet kids, not riding the wet rides?  Didn't think so.  Anyway, so there we were in the living room, talking, and we look up and the whole couch is full of kids; Noah in the middle, and he's reading aloud a story to the res...

Being Seth The disaster that was my kitchen... transformed during naptime, only to revert to looking like the above picture once again by suppertime.  *sigh* There's gotta be a verse in Ecclesiastes about that! This is an online class I am taking to become a real estate agent! (gulp!)  We have hired a babysitter for T/Th mornings from 8:30-11:30a.m. so I can focus on this class. Poor baby!  He burned his hand on our hot car muffler.  Talented, that one--it's even in the shape of a fish!  Thankfully it's healing quite well, and I don't think it will leave much of a scar. This year's Dress Like A Character From A Book parade at school.  Can you guess who Noah is?  The mouse from If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.  (P.S.  I have an entire post that I want to devote to that book and why we love it, so somebody remind me, okay?) We took advantage of a day off from school to get some things done around the hous...

So, in our backyard, these are referred to as "prickly pears".  Probably not the scientific name for these spiny, very prickly, painful-to-step-on seed pods that fall from our backyard trees in prolific amounts, but it's what we call them nonetheless.  And Seth eats them.  No, wait, maybe you didn't read that right:   he eats them.   Actually eats the prickers off and swallows them, until the pod is almost smooth.  I found this out one day when I had to pry I-knew-not-what out of his mouth, and vaguely recognized the soggy mess to be the remains of a prickly pear. Don't believe me? Now, what I don't understand (and somebody please clue me in!) is this:  Why does he eat those ghastly things, but will not touch a grilled cheese sandwich? One of life's mysteries....

I gotta admit I'm losing steam with this project.  I'm the marathon runner who wonders at mile 22 what he was thinking when he signed up.  BUT.  This is good for me. This IS good for me.   This is good for me .  I find myself wondering if I can just take a bunch of pictures all in one day and get away with not taking a week's worth of pictures...for example, every one of these was taken on Saturday, and I didn't get a single other shot from the other days in the week. Who needs scary Halloween decorations when you have your very own, very creepy, very real spider who has taken up residence across the front of your house?  He's been there for over a week, and I don't have the guts to get rid of him.   We have been enjoying campfires in our own backyard recently, complete with s'mores Seth at Noah's soccer game Saturday morning. Noah going for the goal! I had to take a picture of this!  It was 9:20am on Saturday morning, ...

These photos are in no particular order because, frankly, I don't have the time to put them in order.  How about that?  These weeks are busy and blessed! We were able to score this couch on Craigslist as a replacement for our formerly red ones.  It's leather, folks.  Seth can spit up all he likes now! :)  Praising the Lord for His goodness in allowing us to buy it! Fire ant colonies have invaded our grass, making it risky to walk about barefoot. This boy has taken to the slides like a pro! Never met a boy who didn't love him a truck "Why help yourself, Seth! Of course you can get the carrots out of the fridge and spill them everywhere!"  said no mom ever.  At least carrots are good for him! Noah playing hard at his soccer game Noah, attempting to kill some fire ants he found on this paddle.  He's not the kindest captor ever, choosing death by drowning.  On the other hand, they are fire ants, and ...