Ohhh... you didn't say you were gonna kill it!

Well, we carved our pumpkin last night. It turned out pretty well. We didn't even mess up! There were a couple of moments when the teeth could have been cut out and we would have had a toothless pumpkin. However, we sat and looked at our lines a little more closely and were able to figure out which part was coming off and which part was staying.
I am trying to put a picture of the finished pumpkin... but it is currently not wanting to be uploaded! Stupid internet! (I, Sarah, fixed it after Andy left for work!)

Also, we watched It's the Great Pumpkin and enjoyed it as usual. It's always great to watch Linus pontificate about the qualities of a pumpkin patch that the Great Pumpkin is looking for.
I'll try to get the picture up later... I hope.
Also, Theo weighed in on our scale yesterday at 14 lbs. 4 oz. He is currently only three ounces lighter than our dog! (of course we have a rather small dog)

Harvest Festival

Let me just start by digging into the name of this event...."harvest" festival. As Andy put it, "Do we have any agricultural families in our church? What exactly are we harvesting?" Our friend Kyle reminded me today that we all eat, so we're connected to the agriculture culture and it is the season of harvest. That made it a little more understandable, but I know it's just a great way to avoid saying Halloween!

We all had a great time. There were about 100 more people at this year's event than we had last year. The kids all enjoyed the games (and the candy) and looked so cute (especially eating the candy). Theo, Andy, and I had a family costume theme. We were all characters from the Wizard of Oz. Andy was the Scarecrow, Theo was the Tin Man, and I was Dorothy. Wearing our costumes was fun, but the best part was coming up with the idea (Andy), shopping for the costumes and supplies (all of us), and making Theo's costume (mostly me, but Andy cut out the hat and the heart). We were the emcees of the event, so we were in charge of drawing the raffle tickets and steering people toward games that no one was using at the time.

Theo was a real trooper. He never really cried while we were there. He slept for the 1st 1/2 hour and then enjoyed being carried around by either me or Andy for the rest of the time. He did start to lose it around the last 1/2 hour, but he sucked on Andy's shirt instead of crying for me. I fed him before we left for home, but once we got home all he wanted to do was nurse and rock. I didn't mind at all. He konked out at about 8:00 and is still sleeping peacefully now (it's 8:45).

On actual Halloween, I will be teaching my dance classes and Andy and Theo will be hanging out at home and passing out candy to any trick or treaters who stop by our house.

There are several Halloween traditions at our house: the harvest festival, watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, carving a pumpkin, and roasting the pumpkin seeds. One down and 2 or 3 to go (I'm not sure if we'll go to the trouble of roasting the seeds when I'm sure it will be different enough to carve a pumpkin with a tiny baby around, but we'll see).

It's wonderful to share old traditions with our son and to start new ones. I can't wait for next year when he is up and walking and able to enjoy more of the fun games (and the candy! No wait, are we going to let him have candy?????? I guess that's another case of "we'll see").

Ask my parents what "we'll see" meant to me as a little girl. There are stories of me asking for something, my parents answering with "we'll see" and me crying while announcing that "we'll see means no!". We'll have to wait and see what "we'll see" ends up meaning this time.

Halloween Hints...keep guessing

Theo's costume is a gray sleeper (that I designed and made myself; really fun), a little gray hat with a small tube-like, pointy part on top, and a red heart pinned to his chest

Andy's costume is a flannel shirt, brown pants, floppy hat, and paper bag pieces taped to the inside of his cuffs and hat

My costume is a blue gingham dress and braided pigtails.

Any guesses now?

Todd's costume is.....well, himself, but he sortof does look like a miniature one of these

The precious extra hour of the day

People are always saying that they wish there were more hours in the day. The day before time does the "fall back" is the only day that we really get to experience this. Unfortunately for Andy, he's still feeling kindof sickly, so he went to bed at 9:30 (current time) which means he really went to bed at 8:30! What an old fogey! I know it's best for him though. Theo wasn't sleepy yet, so we cuddled, nursed, and rocked until 10:30 (current time) and I just put him down in his bed next to Andy. This last hour together has been so precious. He wrapped his little hands around my neck and I could bury my nose in his warm, baby-smelling hair. He has grown so much and is so heavy, especially when he falls asleep on me. I had a blanket wrapped around the two of us and I would've been happy sleeping there all night, but I know I would've felt stiff in the morning and he tends to wiggle when he sleeps, so I probably wouldn't have slept soundly anyway. Just wishful thinking on my part. I know his tiny baby stage will be over before we know it, so I really appreciated this special hour to savor this time. Motherhood is such a pendulum, ever swinging between uphoric love and frustrated loathing. There is comfort in knowing that, if I'm not there right now, I'll always be on the upswing soon! Now I'm off to bed to cuddle with my other favorite boy, Andy. Goodnight. DON'T FORGET TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK!!

I'm officially a mom!

For many reasons:
a) I spent time today making a Halloween costume for Theodore
b) We need that costume tomorrow (very mom-like to do things at the last minute)

*We'll send pictures of him actually in the costume from the harvest festival tomorrow after it happens.

P.S. We are having a family costume...any guesses as to what we will be going as?

Mountains of leaves

We just got home from taking Todd for a walk to the park up the street from our house. There are tons of old trees there and most of them are maples. They have most of their leaves already and there are huge piles of leaves all over the park. It was so delightful to stomp through them and hear the crunch crunch of leaves under our feet. Todd loved running circles through them at his top speed. Theo slept in the baby carrier and we just enjoyed being together on a lovely fall day. I wish we had taken some pictures, but they wouldn't have captured how peaceful and enjoyable it was. The park is called Memorial Park and has a large, circular marble memorial in the center of it. Each marble slab is dedicated to the Whatcom County residents who died in each particular war. Further on in the park there are more trees. I have to be honest and say that we seldom walk this far into the park. We usually just walk Todd up the street, pick up his poop, and walk as far as the garbage can near the marble memorial. I have looked at the trees before, but I never noticed the small, rectangular stones at the base of them. "They aren't headstones?" I thought, but I knew they must have some kind of information on them. They had people's names on them. The trees were pretty big, so they must've been planted a long, long time ago. Andy and I read a few of the names and memorized them so we could go look them up on the memorial. All of the soldiers' names we read were from WWI. It is amazing to think of the sacrifices that were made by people in our community so long ago and now I live here peacefully. It really struck me. Well, my son needs me, so it's my turn to make sacrifices for him so that he can live peacefully, too!

Theo in his first starring role!

On Tuesday, our children's director from church had me bring Theo in to take his picture. We took off his sleeper and wrapped him in a white blanket and put a little crown on his head and laid him in a manger. She is making a Christmas Eve slideshow that uses kids from the church as the characters from the Christmas story. Theo was so content while we took his picture (it took about 20 minutes) and actually cried when we took him out of the manger. It was so moving to imagine that Jesus himself was actually a tiny baby once. He cried and cooed and, I'm sure, made his parents feel crazy and overwhelmed when he wouldn't sleep at night. Thank goodness for us that stage is over, but I do remember it well. He just finished his breakfast and fell asleep on my knee while I was typing. I am choreographing a couple of dances for Mary & Joseph in our Christmas production at the dance studio. I feel very connected to them and to the whole story of the baby Jesus this year. Last year was very difficult for me...I couldn't imagine celebrating and entire holiday that focuses on the joy of a new baby when we had lost our little one just 7 months before. I had to learn (in the months prior to Christmas) to focus on Jesus and his character, not the fact that he was a baby. By the grace of God, we discovered we were pregnant with Theodore just a week or so before Christmas. What a miracle. God is good.

Why don't we go to bed earlier??

Here is documented proof that I am not the reason we don't go to bed earlier and neither is Theo! Theo went to sleep at 9:00 and I have been ready to go to bed since 9:45. It is now 10:20 and Andy is still playing football on the Dreamcast! He says he only has to make 1 more touchdown and then we'll go to bed. I'm glad we still have time for our ridiculous pursuits of entertainment even though we are now parents!

Here's what the other three are up to

Of course, I have spent the afternoon sort of watching the Seahawks self-destruct. I'm not even watching it now.
Not only am I feeling under the weather, but my afternoon of football watching has been thoroughly unenjoyable!
I'm glad that Sarah and Theo both are napping. I don't care if Todd takes a nap, he sleeps all the time anyway.

Early Riser

*This is a picture of the bedroom door. My two wonderful guys are sleeping in there. I would've taken a picture of them, but it's so nice and cozy and dark in there and I didn't want to risk waking them with the flash!

Theo woke up this morning around 7:30, so I got up with him. He wasn't hungry, so I put him in his bouncy chair in the kitchen and got to work on the dinner dishes we left from last night. There's nothing like being the 1st ones up in the morning while Andy gets some more rest. Normally on the weekend, Andy gets up with Theo and I get to sleep while they hang out and do dishes or laundry or whatever needs to be done. It feels good to get to do the same for Andy. It's 8:30 now and Theo just ate and went back to sleep. He'll probably be up around 9:45 or 10:00. That's his usual routine when we don't have anywhere to be too early.

Yesterday morning Andy made me pancakes and brought them to me in bed. This morning I can't decide if I should make him eggs or oatmeal. I suppose I will finish the dishes first and then decide what would be faster. I now know that life with a baby can sometimes be tiring and hectic, but there are still those sweet moments where time seems to stand still and the things that are truly important in life are all the I can see.

I thank God for this morning. Time for me to connect with Him, time for me to play with our son and then nurse him back to his sweet sleep and time to give my husband the much needed extra rest that he deserves. Life is beautiful.

We can watch actual current TV shows!

Is this an indicator that most of the excitement in my life centers around our son or what! I am excited about being able to watch TV on the computer? We were excited over the summer because we realized we could watch old episodes of really old shows (ex: Chico & the Man, Perfect Strangers, Head of the Class, you get the idea, right?). We were so overly excited! We watched lots of Chico & the Man (that is actually a surprisingly good show). I guess it's understandable to be excited about reruns when all we get is KVOS. On a somewhat related note, KVOS started showing reruns of Quincy, M.E. in the afternoon. It's my new favorite rerun show (taking the place of my beloved Diagnosis Murder with Dick Van Dyke).

Back to internet TV.....now we have an even more exciting development. You can watch real, current TV online now...the whole shows!! Both ABC and NBC have the current episodes of most of their shows available.

By far, our favorite is 30ROCK with Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan from SNL. It's actually really funny. I had prepared myself to be underwhelmed, but it is good. Unfortunately NBC only has the previous episode online, so you've already missed the 1st show, but you can watch the 2nd one.

Another good show is Ugly Betty on ABC. I would never plan my life around being home to watch it during its prime time slot, but I will watch it online and it's actually funny and clever. The most strange part is that the actress who plays Betty is named America Ferrera. I have to admit that when we were compiling lists of baby names, America never came up. She is quite funny and unique. Very likable.

Just wanted to give you all of this information in case you needed another new use for the WorldWideWasteoftime.

It's affirmative....parents are crazy!

It is more evident to me everyday that I act like a complete lunatic when I'm playing with Theodore and....I completely love it. Here is a cute picture I took of him this morning while playing one of our most crazy parentesque games. It involves me running my fingers down Theo's cheeks while saying, "cheeky, cheeky, cheekies" over and over. It almost always results in the cutest, biggest smiles. I must do it often because he will now smile at me, when I'm not even touching his face, when I talk about his pudgy, cute cheekies. We are so blessed to have him in our lives. He has brought us so many wonderful times and some really difficult ones also, but I do think we are honored to be able to help him grow and learn. Andy just came home and I am really excited to have the weekend for the 3 of us to spend together. We don't have anything especially thrilling planned, but I know we'll have lots of fun. Theo is so smiley and happy in the mornings and early afternoon and I'm always bummed that Andy has to go to work and miss it all! Todd also enjoys Theo's smiles. Todd was trying to sniff him yesterday while he was in the swing and he made the swing stop. That confused both Theo and him. I know that Theo will pull on Todd's ears and tail soon enough, but I'm sure they'll be good friends.

A safe, germ-free kiss from Theodore

Theo sounded a little bit stuffy last night and I thought/think maybe he has a tiny bit of a cold, so we just stayed home today and ate, played, sang, rocked, and napped. He is just starting to stir and wake up from a nap right now. I know some people who read this have never met Theo and others don't get to see him everyday, so I thought I'd send you some pictures of his cute angelic little face. I don't want you to get his cold (if he even has one), so I sent this picture of his cute little mouth, so you can give him a kiss if you're missing him and wishing you could give him a big hug and a smooch! He is quite plump and wonderful to snuggle and hold. We will be visiting soon (for those who are part of the Port Orchard/Olalla clan), so it's only a couple more weeks until you can give him a hug and kiss in person. For now...print out this picture in life-size and smooch it all you want. Sorry I can't send a picture for you to hug. Hugging a picture is hard...you know, without 3-D and everything, the hug isn't very satisfying.

Theo is growing!

We weighed Theo last night and he was 13 pounds 1 ounce. He hasn't quite gained a pound this week, but he was pretty close. He is obviously a healthy, growing boy! He has been having "tummy time" a couple of times everyday and seems to like his toy mat that we put him on. It was a gift from Jana and Amanda. I want to send them one of these pictures of him using it so they can see how much we all enjoy it. We also used some of our Wal-mart gift cards to buy him a small, portable swing. Our friends and our church has big, full-size swings and he really seems to like being in them, so we thought a small one would be just fine. It folds up to about 6" wide and fits pretty nicely next to our piano. It even has handles to carry it safely from room to room while Theo is still in it or when it's all folded up. It wasn't very expensive either. All around, it was a great find. It doesn't have any toys attached to it, but we figured we can create some kind of toy bar for it. Here are pictures I took this morning of him using his play mat (official name: Fisher Price Kick 'n Crawl Aquarium). I hope you like them.

Our Lord Provides

I was offered a great interpreting job today (about 3 1/2-4 hours) here in town in early November! The requester left a message giving me the detail and asking if I was available. I called back and left a message requesting more details because "I would need to schedule breaks to feed my son if possible". The requester called back and gave me the details and it looks like there will be lots of opportunities to have someone bring Theo to me when he needs to eat or snuggle! What a blessing! The Lord continues to amaze me with his ability to provide for us and bless us with exactly what we can manage and need. Please be praying for me to locate the right childcare person over the next month to come care for Theo on this fairly long day. I have several people here in town who I trust and who take such good care of him. I just can't believe these small opportunities for extra income keep working out. Maybe he'll even be taking the bottle by then and he'll be able to be away from me most of that time. If not, it's nice to have the option to feed him. Here is a cute picture of Theo and his Daddy hanging out yesterday after church. Don't they both look so handsome!!

A Fun Family Saturday

Today is Aunt Jenny's (my sister who lives in Albuquerque) birthday! I can't believe it was 3 weeks ago that she was here. It seems like it was just yesterday. I miss her being here. Here's a cute picture of her holding Theo when we all went to dinner at Anthony's in Edmonds the night before she went home. Andy, Theo, and I enjoyed a whole day of just the 3 of us today. We didn't do anything spectacular, but we had a great time running errands together. It was also nice to have a nice slow start to our morning. Theo had some "tummy time" on his duck blanket and is holding up his upper body so well (...see picture above). He rocks back and forth when he's lying there. We think he'll roll over pretty soon. He just has to figure out where to put his arms. I got a haircut today and I'm really happy with it. I took a picture of myself, but Andy says it doesn't really capture what a good haircut it is, so I'll try to post some better ones soon. Well, Theo's been napping for an hour, so Andy and I should start getting ready for bed....then Theodore will wake up! Hope you're all having a great weekend. Welcome home to Dad! I hope you have some pictures from your trip. I can't wait to hear all about it.

Community Friends

We took Theodore to meet our new Japanese friends from the AUAP (Asia University America Program) -WWU group of students who are at Western this quarter. We met a group of 3 girls and a guy. They were really nice. One of the girls is Deaf and uses Japanese sign language, but she is learning ASL while she's here at WWU. They all loved meeting Theo and each took a picture of themself holding him. I can't wait to get some of the pictures from them and post them here for you. I'm sure they're pretty cute. This was Theo's first international relations experience. He was quite the ambassador for babies! Even the Japanese students commented on how much Theo looks like Andy. Well, we just put Theo to bed after a very, very busy day, but Andy says his eyes are open again, so I'd better go check on him. Here's a cute picture of Theo and my mom from her visit last week. I hope you enjoy it.

Inspired

A friend sent me this story and video this morning. I have never felt more inspired and convicted simultaneously. To think that I sometimes say that being a mother of an infant is "hard work". Frankly, I have now realized that I have no idea what hard work truly is or what it means to sacrifice for your child. This father and son really are a picture (to me) of God's unfailing love for us. To think that a person's actions (very difficult actions, too) can be motivated by simply seeing his son's smile....wow. I hope you take the time to check this out and enjoy it. I'm off to pray about how I can truly serve my God by better serving my family.


http://cjcphoto.com/can/

More visitors!

Well, Sarah and the boy just got back from the nursery meeting at church and are talking to me right now. They brought back cookies, yum!
Theo had more grandparent and uncle visitors yesterday and today. He was his usual charming and googooing and crying self. He still manages to endear people to himself while he acts like a baby (wait a minute... he is a baby!).
Here he is enjoying time outside and eating a burp rag!
Everyone had a great time! I just wish our school observed Columbus Day (even if he may not have been the nicest guy or really found anywhere that wasn't already discovered).

Celebrating Fall

My mom came to visit us yesterday, so we thought we should do something fun today. I had the weirdest dream last night that my dad and my cousin moved all of my mom's dishes out of her kitchen and filled all of the cupboards with huge pumpkins. They weren't your normal, everyday pumpkins either. They were squished into the cupboards and looked more like pumpkin-shaped sponges. I woke up and guess where I thought we should go today.....a pumpkin patch. We found a great one in the paper that is out in Everson (about 1/2 hr. away). We dressed Theo in a Halloween outfit (ghost sleeper and black cat hat) and off we went. The pumpkin patch was way cooler than I had thought it would be. We took a hay ride out to the fields and started out by making our way through a very confusing corn maze. We picked apples (the most delicious I've ever had), gourds, pumpkins, and even got some sugar pumpkins for pie baking! On the hay ride I asked Andy, "Why haven't we gone to the pumpkin patch every year?" He responded with this very typical (and completely crazy sentiment), "We didn't have a baby before!" I'm sure Theodore will remember every moment of our pumpkin patch trip! At least we'll have pictures to show him that he was there. He slept part of the time and was fairly content when he did wake up. We were starving (and wanted to eat some pie, but thought we should have lunch first), so we each got a hot dog and sat down on the grass to eat. Theo was so cute. He laid on his blanket and stared at the trees while he cooed and wiggled all around. Lots of people stopped to say hello to him. After lunch we did have pie and apple pull-aparts. They were the perfect end to a delightful celebration on the beginning of fall. Mom just left to go back home and Theo is taking a nap. Some days with a baby feel very full of soothing and crying and laundry and work, but today just felt like fun and family and memories and cuddling. I think God gives you these days so that the harder days don't seem so rough. How can we love someone who requires so much effort from us? That is another great mystery.....Christ's sacrifice and our salvation......the unity we experience in marriage......and working so hard to care for a baby and loving every minute of it!
Today's baby calendar quote "A baby is someone just the size of a hug!"

Friday Morning

As I type this with only one hand, this is what Theo and I are doing...

He woke up at 6:22 this morning so he was my own little alarm clock. Sarah brought him out to me because he was just fussin' a her. So now he is staring and making gurgling and cooing noises at me.
It's pretty crazy to see him do all these new things.
These mornings I spend with him really make not want to go to work! I guess I'll just have to wait 'til the weekend... oh, that's tomorrow!

Theo's 1st day in the nursery

"We can do no great things...only small things with great love." ~Mother Theresa~
Today was Theodore's first nursery experience at church. I was a nervous wreck about leaving him, not because the nursery workers aren't wonderful, but because I really just want to be with him. Motherhood is life's greatest paradox. I want nothing else but to be with him and nurture and snuggle him, but sometimes I also want nothing else than to be away from him and have some measure of autonomy. Last night he wasn't too in to sleeping, so he and I stayed up for about an hour from 2:00-3:00. This morning he went to the nursery and was fairly content and even napped for a while when he was there. Andy was playing drums and I went back to interpreting, so we had to be neglectful parents and leave him while we were busy. I am so pleased that it went so well and he had such a good time. I know he will have his hard days and his easy days, but it's very nice for his mom when his first time doing something goes smoothly. Now he has been napping for 2 hours and is just starting to stir. We managed to do dishes, grade Andy's math tests, shower, and finish up some stuff around the house while he slept. As a parent, every moment of napping is either valuable chore time or valuable nap time for the parents to get some rest too. I can't believe how much he's grown already and I somewhat already miss his tiny boy stage now that he is a slightly larger than tiny boy. I know there will be many more stages to go through and eventually miss. I am still praying that I am able to focus on the here and now and enjoy our son.