Legit Thumb Sucking

I just had to post these pics real quick.

This is how I found Enoch at the end of his nap just now... Loudly smacking on his THUMB.. That's right, his thumb. All other fingers and hand parts excluded, just the thumb. And apparently it was quite tasty because he let me take my time in 'rescuing' him. ;)

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Merry CHRISTmas!!!

I just wanted to type a quick update for all of our family who we won't get to see tomorrow for Christmas. For the past few weeks, we have been busy but still doing well. I took a break from blogging so much just to try and keep our family and house running more smoothly. After the beginning of January, I hope to start blogging more again, but it may be February before the posts become regular again because Hugh has a lot of things leading up to the end of January.

Anyway, Enoch has continued growing and is interacting more everyday. {so fun!} We recently bought him a jumperoo (it looks like a pony) so that he has a place to practice using his feet, and let me just say that he has officially found his feet/legs! He loves to kick and squirm more than ever now! Here are a few pictures:

"Wow! What is this thing, mom??"

"I dunno, but I sure do love bouncing in it!"

And a video that shows how much he just LOVES to kick during diaper changes:

And another video of him playing yesterday:

That's all for now on updates, but I did want to encourage all of you to read the narrative of Jesus birth. Such a great reminder of all the miracles involved with Jesus' birth as well as the ultimate reason that He had to come to earth.. to make atonement for our sin. I hope you will join us in praising God for the gift of His son as you celebrate Christmas.

Merry CHRISTmas!!!!!

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Article on Advent

I just read this great article from World Vision about Advent. Definitely a good read:

http://www.worldvisionacts.org/real_advent

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Exercising

No, not me... I will begin my own exercising soon, but I haven't really felt up to it yet since I consider building my mommy muscles enough of a work out for now. ;D

Actually though, Enoch has been exercising... We've been practicing sitting up and standing up. No good pictures this time of standing up, but here are a few of him sitting up.

Such a handsome big boy.

Usually, I hold his hands when we do this during our play time, but Hugh thought it would be fun to try it without holding his hands...

That's why it's good for little boys to have daddies. :)

I love the way Enoch is looking at Hugh in these two- making sure that Daddy's got him. So sweet.

And of course, Hugh has also been exercising a bit too...

We like to call these daddy pushups ;)

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Decision Making

So today has been a little different than normal... First of all, I didn't give Enoch his normal bath this morning before bible study. The neckrolls weren't reeking, the hair wasn't too oily, nothing was built up behind the ears. He was pretty much still clean. So no bath. Decision made.

Then, when he slept through the 1st half of bible study and ate through the 2nd half, I decided that the timing would be perfect for making a quick w-mart trip while he napped. And it was. (This has been about the only good decision so far.)

After we got home, little man was so hungry that I left the groceries in the car in order to feed him faster. I mean technically it IS colder outside than it is in my fridge, so you could say that I was saving energy, which would've been a half way good decision, but I didn't actually decide to do it for that reason, so it doesn't count.

Anyway, after I fed Enoch and got him asleep in the big boy crib, I decided to unpack the mom van so that I didn't leave the groceries in there overnight accidentally (though that would have really saved us some energy). On the last trip in I accidentally slammed the door, and since little man isn't quite so used to the big boy crib, it startled him out of sleep. Then he realized where he was- alone on a hard mattress staring at the bars in his jail cell, or at least that's what his cries sounded like he had realized. So since it was basically time for him to eat again, I decided to rescue him (that's what Hugh & I like to call it).

Groceries on the table.

Mom to the rescue.

Eating great.

Falls asleep.

Enter the usual diaper change that wakes him up so that he can finish the other half of his meal and then play... only not so usual.

When I took off his diaper, I noticed that he had pooped. This was so relieving because he hadn't had much diaper action all morning, which was a little concerning since he has just started sleeping through the night and diaper action is one way to tell that little man is still getting enough to eat. So concerned mom is no longer as concerned. Whew! :)

WARNING:: the faint of heart should stop reading now....

So as I started wiping his butt, a few farts came out. Not wet ones though, so I was safe.

Throw the wipe awayand put the new diaper down, just in time for a few wet ones. Wet farts usually mean poop, so I grabbed a cloth wipe to clean up the mess and "catch" whatever else came out. As soon as I put the cloth wipe in place, sure enough he fired out a shot of poop. Poop that the wipe caught though, so the new diaper was still clean. Success.

BUT... not even a split second after the shot of poop, a fountain of pee shot 10" up and started spraying everything in sight. Shirt, diaper, legs, feet, changing pad, everything.

You know how when something unexpected happens and it takes you a few seconds to respond? Yeah, it happens to me too. I finally pulled the other end of the diaper up and over the fountain to stop it, thus ruining the new diaper I had been trying to salvage. :)

When I thought it was safe, I pulled the diaper back to survey the damage. Not too bad... definitely makes a concerned mom feel much better...

BAM- another shot fired. Much bigger this time though. All concerns about diaper action have now been washed away as far as the Mississippi. Now I just need to figure out how to recover. Oh, but wait, another fountain.

This is what remained...

So at this point I decided that there is no recovery other than a bath. Unfortunately, we're in the mid-feeding diaper change, so little man is still hungry. Plan: diaper, eat, bath, clothes, nap, groceries.

Sounds oh-so simple.

I decided to throw a tiny cloth diaper on little man "just in case" (saving the big ones that we're actually using for later). After about 2 minutes of Enoch chowing down, I realize that the tiny cloth diaper really doesn't cover all that much.

Oh well, that's okay. Surely he just pooped & peed everything out of his not-so-tiny body.

NOT.

Sure enough, he peed right through that cloth diaper onto the blanket I had him semi-wrapped in and onto my jeans. :(

But then he gave me this face and everything was okay...

After eating, I readied the babytub, filled it with water, put in the quite dirty little man, and prepared to wash. Sure enough though, that fountain was STILL not done.

Bath water contaminated.

Emptied and refilled the babytub while holding a wet sixteen pound dirty boy... groceries still staring at me from the table...

And then we finished the plan: eat, bath, clothes, nap, groceries. And might I say that after all that action, Enoch slept great in the big boy crib while I did the groceries, laundry, kitchen, and a little picking up. What a great little man!

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Daddy & Enoch

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago, but I wanted to post them anyway because they are too cute. This was just before Hugh left for a conference, and he was saying good bye to our little man... So sweet!! :)

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Don & Patti's Visit

Don (Hugh's dad) and Patti (Hugh's stepmom) visited us the weekend of Thanksgiving. They drove down from Minnesota to spend time with us and meet their new grandson. :) As you can tell, they each got to spend some quality time holding and rocking Enoch.

Patti and I also ventured out to shop a little on Black Friday. She found some great deals on a few things she had been looking for. I wanted to find a casual cardigan so that I could wear a few of my good summer breastfeeding tops a little longer, but I had no such luck. I brought home a nice grey cardigan, but I soon decided that it wasn't quite cheap enough for me to keep (will be returned this coming week if timing with the little one ends up working out).

This made me realize that I've been blessed by having such great thrift stores around here with prices that are much more reasonable for our budget. Of course everyone knows that it is near impossible to go to a thrift store when you have something specific in mind (a neutral colored, light weight cardigan, to be exact), so I had been putting off the trip to look at a few of my favorite shops for at least a few weeks. Well, let me say that amazingly enough God was gracious in not only providing a wonderful grey cardigan but also in providing it for $0.50!! Granted, it is missing a button.. but I never use the bottom button anyway. :)

This experience spurred me on in many personal aims that I am attempting (and oftentimes failing) to live by:

• live within or below our means
• consider the value of money in an eternal perspective (...more on this later)
• portray with my lifestyle that the earth is not my home
• live humbly and sacrificially

This is one of the passages that encourages me the most in this attempt:

¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. ¹⁴ For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

(Hebrews 11:13-16)

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Forsaken

This was my advent reading today:

Psalm 22:1-8

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
² O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.

³ Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
⁴ In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
⁷ All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
⁸ "He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!"

I can't help but wonder if these words were brought to Jesus' mind in the time leading up to the crucifixion... Here is why I wonder:

Verse 1: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

"46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"... 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit." (Matthew 27:46 and 50)

Verses 1-2: Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

³³And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. ³⁴And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch." ³⁵And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. ³⁶And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." (Mark 14:33-36)

Verses 3-5: Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

What strong affirmations these verses would have been for Jesus.. God's holiness was the very reason that Jesus needed to live a sinless life and die a sacrificial death in order to bring sinful men back into a right relationship with God. I would also imagine that these verses would have reminded him of the numerous Old Testament accounts of the Father's faithfulness, thus giving him hope and confidence in the Father's purpose for his life and death.

Verses 6-8: ⁶ But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; "He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!"

⁴¹So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, ⁴² "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. ⁴³ He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (Matthew 27:41-43)

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Learning to Fall Asleep

We've been working on teaching Enoch to put himself to sleep (after lots of playing and then some rocking or something similar to make him calm & sleepy). After a few weeks of training, he has gotten pretty good at it, for the most part. Normally though I have to rock him for at least 5-10 minutes to get him calm before I lay him down to fall the rest of the way to sleep. Well today, he actually fell asleep during tummy time. :)

As the next step in our sleep plan, we've also started putting him in his crib for 1-3 naps each day for the past few days. At first we thought it was hopeless because he wouldn't fall asleep at all, no matter how sleepy we got him before putting him in.. In fact, we could put him all the way to sleep, and he'd STILL wake up... crying! :( but perseverance has really paid off because he is getting more used to it, and he is now (sometimes) able to comfort himself back to sleep when he partially wakes up. :) Definitely not a completely mastered skill yet, but an exciting step of progress nonetheless.

Anyway, back to today's story... So after he fell asleep in tummy time, I carried him to his crib, where he woke up...

And then within 10 minutes of wiggling, hand sucking, and fussing he had put himself back to sleep!

Enoch is used to sleeping in a rock n play sleeper which we park beside our bed at night and move around the house during the day. I highly recommend this product to new moms for these reasons:

• quite portable
• comfortable for baby (kind of envelops/snuggles him)
• has a beneficial upward slant to help with digestion (avoid spit up)
• can easily be rocked with your foot or hand (especially nice when laying in bed half-asleep trying to rock the baby back to sleep... just rock it with your finger!!)
• washable
• easy to assemble
• great place for baby to sleep when traveling out of town

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Videos of Play Time

Here are some videos from the past week. Again, this post is mainly for grandparents who want to keep up with what we're doing. :)

This is Hugh "teaching" Enoch how to roll over. Pretty cute daddy, huh?

This is Enoch and I practicing our vowels. Sorry for the obnoxious mom kisses at the end... that's just his reward for getting all the way to "u." :)

And this is an incredibly long video of us playing ball with a soft ball that was sewn together out of fabric. Grandma Mary saved this ball from when Hugh was a baby (28 years ago!!), and she brought this for Enoch when she visited. Enoch really likes looking at it while he's on his tummy, and he also likes to "play" with it like in this video... He has also just about figured out how to get his thumb in his mouth, as this video also demonstrates. :)

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Isaiah

So for the past few days, my advent readings have been taken out of the book of Isaiah. These passages have encouraged me to praise God for providing so many prophecies about the coming Messiah that Jesus would fulfill while He walked on the earth. (Though I will definitely admit that sometimes Isaiah is hard for me to understand.) Here is one of the passages that really caught my attention.. check it out:

⁴ Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)

As I read this passage carefully, I noticed that all we bring into the picture is nothing but bad and yet Jesus takes our bad on Himself and brings us good... Let me show you what I mean:

Here's what we brought:

• griefs
• sorrows
• transgressions
• iniquities

Here's what we did:

• esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, afflicted
• went astray
• turned to our own ways

Here's what Jesus did:

• borne our griefs
• carried our sorrows
• was stricken, smitten by God, afflicted
• was wounded
• was crushed
• took on chastisement
• marked with stripes
• took our iniquity

Here's what Jesus brings to us (after all of the bad we brought):

• peace
• healing

How amazing is that? Such a clear picture of Ephesians 2:4-9 --

⁴But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

As a last side note, this is a word cloud of the Isaiah passages that I read through this week. I think these are very neat visualizations because they are created so that words appear larger the more often they are repeated.

So you can see that in these passages, the word Lord appeared far more than any other word. Which words stand out to you the most? Which ones surprise you by how large or small they are?

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