Jake's Hiding Place

Yesterday I told Ty I had seen Jake put a toy inside Ty's guitar, and I couldn't grab it fast enough before Jake slid it inside the hole. I'm trying to clean the upstairs this afternoon and thought I would retrieve the toy. Here's what I found inside Ty's guitar:

Two pacifiers, one bar of soap, Jake's toothpaste (which I have been looking everywhere for!), 8 sticks to an erector set, one tube of bubbles, a contacts case, a penny, and a nickel.

He must have been hiding his "treasures" in the guitar for sometime now. I promise I do watch my son, but he is one sneaky kid. I retrieved all of the items without breaking a string and promise I'll watch the guitars more carefully Ty!

Here's Jake with his loot and incidentally only one shoe on...who knows where that is hiding?!?

Baby Mac

Everything is going very well with "Baby Mac!" I am 15 weeks along today and here's a picture of our sweet baby from week 13. Our scanner is broken so I just took a picture of the picture...sorry for the poor quality! I realize August has pretty much ended and I haven't blogged much this month. I am still fighting morning sickness although it continues to get better. I'm working really hard on drinking enough liquids...I was scared when I had that ultrasound that the baby would not be healthy since I had been dehydrated, but they said everything looks perfect! I'm still quite tired, but getting great bursts of energy as well so my house is clean about half of the time :) I'm learning to let go of worrying about the clutter and mess though...

This time around I'm blessed to have two of my sister-in-laws pregnant as well. My brother's wife, Crystina, is due the end of November with their second baby. Hendrix will have a baby sister for Thanksgiving! We'll all be home in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving this year, and we will have MUCH to be thankful for! Ty's sister, Destin, is pregnant with their first baby. She is due exactly one week after me in February which is just so exciting! We got to go visit them in Ft. Worth this weekend and do some maternity clothes shopping together. Both Crys and Destin have had bad bouts of morning sickness as well. It must be a family thing :) This baby will be blessed with cousins all around!

Jake is busy and fun as ever. He's fairly convinced he has a baby in his stomach as well which is so cute. He loves to kiss my belly and touch the baby and then he lifts his shirt so we can see his "baby" as well. He loved the Olympics this year and was especially enamored by the diving. He now "dives" off the fireplace and then throws this hands up until we applaud. Of course we are constantly clapping for him so he repeats the process over and over and over! His favorite game now is peek-a-boo which he also plays incessantly, but you can't help but love it. He also loves to hide from us now. When Ty gets home from work every night, they play chase around the downstairs and Jake does his best to hide behind doors, but then loves to get caught. His favorite book is Brown Bear which he carries everywhere with him. We're working on learning the animals and the animal sounds. I just feel so blessed to get to stay home and take care of him.

Here is Jake showing me his "baby"

Playing Peek-a-Boo

At the park

My Grandma

I have been thinking about my Grandma this week quite a bit. She passed away two years ago today from a long, long battle with breast cancer. She was such an amazing woman! Grandma literally was the woman straight out of Proverbs 31. She loved the Lord with such a passion and wanted everyone else to know Him like she did. She prayed continually for all of her grandchildren to know God. My Grandpa died when I was just 5 years old so she lived by herself for 25 years as a widow. Most of that time she lived in a small town, Lindsay, Oklahoma. She was so funny...she wouldn't let any man from town or church step into her house for fear that her neighbors would think she had a boyfriend :) She was fiercely loyal to my Grandpa for those 25 years. I loved going to visit her, especially when I could go by myself. She always made me feel special and loved. She never drove so she walked pretty much everywhere in town. We would walk to the store for groceries and then she'd always buy me lunch at "the chicken place." She spent any extra money she had on other people. Her ministry was World Bible School, and she corresponded with hundreds of people across the world teaching them about God and sending them Bibles. She was a die hard Republican...she always gave me pictures and calendars of Ronald Reagan she would get in the mail. I'm pretty sure that's why he is my favorite President. I think the Lord spared her in that she didn't have to watch Hilary run for President this past year. She was NOT a fan of the Clinton's! She was such a modest woman that she always wore two slips just be careful and never wore pants to church. She was very proud of me for becoming a teacher as that was her profession before she married. I loved listening to her stories of teaching in a one room school house. I guess today I just wanted to share some of those memories of my Grandma mostly for my own sake. I am so sad that she will never get to meet my children. I was five months pregnant with Jake at her funeral. Her last few years were really hard as she battled cancer and her last few months she was very sedated to keep her pain levels down as the cancer spread. She was incoherent much of the time, but I did tell her as soon as I got pregnant with Jake the May before she passed away. She knew how much I wanted a baby and had been praying for me. My mom said she forgot a lot those last few months, but she always remembered that I was pregnant which is special to me. So today I just want to honor her memory...Thelma Childress was a great Grandma, a faithful Christian, and a wonderful woman!

Not another one!

Saturday night Ty and I had a wonderful date night while his parents kept Jake for us. We went to eat at Mi Luna and then saw Get Smart. It was our first movie in a LONG time and we enjoyed our date. Sunday morning we got ready for church and just before we started to leave, my back pain started. It was the sharp, shooting pain in my kidneys, and I knew what was coming next: the dreaded kidney stone attack. Ty suggested we go ahead and go to the ER before it got too bad and especially since I'm pregnant. Al and Jonesa were going to meet us at church with Jake so they just went ahead and took him with them which was such a blessing! When we got to the ER, I told them I was having a kidney stone and remarkably, they got me right back. I was so thankful Ty had encouraged me to come right away because by the time we got there, it was bad! Since I am pregnant, I got a smaller dose of pain medicine, and the first round didn't work. They did an ultrasound since a x-ray was out of the question, and also took a peek at the baby whose heartbeat was strong...thank God! After about 4 hours they got my pain under control. Ty was SO patient with me and so good to me...the nurse even commented on what a wonderful husband I had. The doctor came back that afternoon to tell me I had a UTI infection and kidney stone probably brought on by dehydration. I knew last week when I got so sick that I also had become dehydrated...What a cycle! He gave me some antibiotics in my IV and then released me. Jonesa and Al kept Jake last night too which was wonderful so I could rest some more. The moral of the story is I must drink more...even if I don't feel like it. I will survive and I will be 12 weeks on Thursday so I'm hanging on! Here's a picture of me at 11 weeks...definitely already showing!

At the ballgame

Friday night we went to the Astro's game to watch them take on the Met's. Jake had a fantastic time for the first four innings or so. He had sat through an hour of the pre-game warm-up and by the time the game started he was really into clapping with the crowd. We saw two home runs so the train in the stadium went back and forth on the back wall which he liked as well. He got bored with the game and soon tried to entertain the crowd around us. If someone is not paying attention to him, he has started coughing or laughing loudly until they look at him. Nothing like always being the center of attention! Halfway through the fourth inning, he started frantically waving at us. I looked at the clock and sure enough it was 8:30, his bedtime. Our kid loves to go to bed each night and each night at 8:30 he begins waving which besides meaning "bye-bye" also doubles for "night-night." He was finished with the ballgame at that point and ready for his bed. We left soon after that to get Jakers home and unfortunately missed the 8th inning game winning grand slam. The sacrifices a father will make for his son! We did get home in time to see it on TV though and by then Jake was happy and fast asleep in his crib. Here are some more pictures from the game:

Encouraging my husband

Last week my friend Randi had an entry on her blog about being more encouraging to her husband instead of being the "nagging wife." When I read her entry, I automatically could see myself in what she said. I've been quite bossy since I was a small child--just ask my little brother! My bossiness probably was at the root of most of the fights we had growing up and even in college. You could also ask some of my good friends from high school and college--especially my guy friends. My friend Kyle always teased me about bossing him around. Of course when I went to college I majored in English education and became a high school English teacher. God used this trait in me in a positive way as I worked with teenagers for eight years...and most of them need some bossing around :) But as a wife, I see how this trait has manifested itself at times into becoming a nagging wife. Instead of building Ty up and encouraging him, I often find faults or tell him what I think he should be doing. I am SO blessed with a husband who is devoted to me and to Jake. He loves us unconditionally and is good.

After reading Randi's blog, the next day I read my friend Stacey's blog, and she had an entry about the 30-Day Encouragement Challenge for Wives. You can read about it at http://www.reviveourhearts.com/pdf/30DayChallenge.pdf. It challenges wives to only say encouraging, uplifting things TO and ABOUT their husbands for 30 days. After reading both blogs, I was indeed convicted to take the challenge. When I was younger, I always said I Peter 3:3-4 was my goal: "It is not fancy hair, gold jewelry, or fine clothes that should make you beautiful. No, your beauty should come from within you--the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit that will never be destroyed and is precious to God." The older I get, I believe this is harder to obtain. I want my words to be sprinkled with salt and to be carefully said. I want to have a quiet and gentle spirit especially in dealing with my husband and son. I hope by trying to encourage Ty with kind words, it will inspire me to think about my words in general.

By the way, I'm on day 2 and day 1 was hard! I wasn't entirely "nice" :) But, day 2 went better! Its also encouraging to me knowing that several woman are also taking this challenge. May God strengthen our marriages and our hearts!