Judah's Friend

We had our friends Justin, Jenna, & Ellianna over for dinner the other night. Judah, being the little social bug he is, wanted to touch her and play with her. Ellianna, on the other had, was being shy. Every time Judah would even come near she would start crying hysterically. Judah would give us a confused look and then crawl away. This same thing happened several times until finally we had to stop Judah from going near her.
I can already tell Judah is going to make friends easily and be quite social. Hopefully, he won't have this happen with the girls for too much longer. Yes, he's already making the girls cry. The cute boys are always the heartbreakers. :)

Vote for Judah

Judah's in a photo contest!! Vote for him by going to this link:

http://www.photowow.com/new1/?directory=frames_contest/index.asp&page=/new1/templates/photocontest/%3FcontestID=
Then, enter his number: 31164
And, give him a 10!!

You can vote for him everyday until 1:00pm on Tuesday. So, friends and family vote away!!

Hot Chico Summers

Yesterday my husband brought me these beautiful irises home after work. They were for no reason other than that he loves me. Isn't that sweet? Eric is a romantic, even if he won't admit it.

My friend Christina is a missionary in Bulgaria. Right now she's here visiting Chico and Judah & I got to hang out with her. Her main job in Bulgaria is working with orphans. We went out to coffee (Bidwell Perk, my fave :) then she showed me pictures of Bulgaria & the orphans. There were kids that were literally tied them down to their beds by the orphanage workers. Someone discovered it and now the orphans are better taken care of, but will never fully recover from the abuse. Bulgaria is a beautiful country, though. She lives in Sophia a city with a million people.

Other than that we're just trying to stay cool in this crazy, hot weather. Having a baby gives me a whole different perspective on the heat. Eric & I used to just drive up Bear Hole with the windows rolled down in the truck. Now I'm always concerned about Judah staying cool. Oh, how things change...

I'll leave you with this:
Pedro: Do you think people will vote for me?
Napoleon Dynamite: Heck yes! I'd vote for you.
Pedro: Like what are my skills?
Napoleon Dynamite: Well, you have a sweet bike. And you're really good at hooking up with chicks. Plus you're like the only guy at school who has a mustache.

HERE I AM!!

I'm sure you're all wondering where the heck I've been. Don't you worry, I'm alive. A lot has been happening & I have a lot to say, but I've been distracted by myspace.com All of you should go join and don't forget to add me to your friends list. You can check out my profile at http://www.myspace.com/morganf7 Eric even has one, too (but I had to make it for him)

The little man now has 4 teeth. The 4th one came in the middle of the night. He started crying at about midnight and I finally went back to bed around 2. I had no idea what to do, so I went on the orajel website and some other ones looking for help on teething. The other 3 came painlessly, so this was a whole new experience. I tried to get Eric to go to the store and buy some at 1 (Walgreens is open 24 hrs, right?), but he wouldn't go for that. So, we got through and Judah's doing great now.

My aunt, uncle, and their two kids have been visiting from Virginia. On Saturday we were having a family bbq. Well, Judah decided that would be the perfect day to crawl into the door hinge head first and get a fatty bump & bruise. This is his second "goose egg." The first was right before Kim (my sister-in-law)'s grad part. Yeah, always before the family parties, so we look like abusive parents. My poor little man!!! Everyone says that it's going to happen a lot from here on out. I guess I'd better brace myself because I flip out a lot more than Judah does. He's fine after a few minutes and, obviously, I'm still stressing about it days later.

Judah had a lot of fun swimming, as you can see in the pictures. You can also see the bruise.
Well, ladies and gentleman...Happy Monday! We'll talk to you soon!

Judah is 9 Months Old!

Happy Birthday, Baby!

Water Baby

Mohawk Baby @ Swim Lessons Isn't Judah the cutest little thing?!

Yesterday was Judah's last swim lesson. We learned all of the tools to continue to work on swimming with him...or so they say. Well, we had a really fun time and that's all that matters. Judah is the best little back floater in his class. Most of the other babies don't like to be on their backs, but Judah totally relaxes and floats so well. It is so cute!! He's also so strong and can hold himself up on the side of the pool. I let go and he completely holds on. When the class was over he got a little certificate!
Judah used my friend's baby pool floatie the other day and he really liked it. So, I was on a quest to get one myself. I went to Target, Walmart, Kmart, Rite Aid- nothing! I finally found one left at Walgreens. I was informed by a Kmart employee that all of the summer stuff is sold out to make room for back to school. Back to school stuff will be done around the end of August to make way for the Christmas stuff. WHAT THEY HECK!?!? It's always kinda bugged me that the Christmas stuff (and everything else) is put out so early. But, all I wanted was a summer toy in the middle of the summer. Is that too much to ask for? I guess so.
So, the moral of the story is shop early. Really want that special Christmas something? Head out to the stores at the end of August and you'll be sure to find it. It you actually wait until the weather cools down it will be much too late!

Mommy and Judah at swim lessons

Judah and his baby floatie

Happy Birthday Grams!!

Today is my Grandma Nancy's (and Judah's Great Grandma's) Birthday!!! I won't tell you how old she is, but I'll just say that she looks and acts about half her age. My Grams is definitely the best grandma possible to have. She used to take us swimming at the Durham Pool. She wouldn't just sit on the side, but she would get it and play games with us. She would let me swim under her legs, then she would swim under mine.
In high school when Grams picked me up from school she didn't care how long it took me to come out to the car. (My mom wanted me right out when the bell rang.) She would bring her book or the newspaper and read while I stopped by to pick up my stained glass project or chatted with friends. And, just like she does for Miranda now she would get me a snack after school. Also, she's not afraid to have fun. She'd always say "what's up homie?" when I asked her to and would do other crazy/funny things just like me. That must be where I get it.
The reason I call her "Grams" is because it just fits. She needs a cool nickname for a cool Grandma. Grams is the most giving person you could ever meet. She gives freely of her time, her money, her resources, whatever. She takes me out to lunch, buys Judah clothes and diapers from Costco, and so much more.
The thing that I appreciate the most about Grams is that if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have a relationship with God. Who knows where I'd be. When I was little I would spend the night at her house. She would pray with me and tell me about Jesus and in the morning she would take me to Sunday School. She kept taking me to church until I turned 16 and could drive myself. THANK YOU!!!
I'm so thankful that Judah has gotten to know his Great Grandma so well. I love you so much Grams!

Big Boy

Well, more milestones. At Judah's 6 months appointment the pediatrician said that in the next 3 months he would be going through A LOT of changes and boy, is he ever! When we go back for his 9 month appointment we'll have lots to report.
Judah is waving bye-bye (did I already say that?), giving kisses, and babbling saying (dada). His kisses are so cute! I say "give mommy a kiss" and he leans over and opens his mouth to give me a kiss.
Most mornings Judah wakes up between 7 or 7:30 and Eric wakes up with him so I can sleep in until about 8:30. Well, this morning we all got up early to go yard-saleing. We got Judah a lot of new toys for super cheap!! We also got him some board books and a "Baby Signs" book. I've always thought it is neat when babies do sign language, but we'll see how consistent we can be with it. I'm just excited about all of our great finds. The early bird definitely gets the worm. (Sorry..I have a thing for cheesy, cliche sayings on this blog)


Dancing Baby

Marriage 101

There is no handbook on how to be married. When you get your marriage licnse they don't hand you some information, say follow xyz, and then you'll be on your way to wedded bliss. In my unscientific guess I'd say 99% of marriage are NOT great. They are good, ok, or horrible. Most marriage probably fall into the "good" category. The "sure we get along, we do fun things together, we like to watch movies, and sometimes we talk about our day" category. Yuck...

Tonight Eric & I went through the second chapter of the Marriage Encounter book. We are getting together with our pastor to go through it. It's really meant to be a weekend "retreat" (encounter) for couples, but for now we're the only ones going through it. Hopefully soon we will do a marriage encounter.
Anyway, we are covering so much amazing stuff. Eric and I don't just have an "ok" or "good" marriage. We have an amazing marriage. I'm so glad to be married to Eric. I'm so glad that we are bestfriends and can talk about anything, but still have passion in our marriage. At the end Pastor Scott had us affirm eachother. Eric said to me "I miss you when I'm not with you." That's what love is...you can spend all your time with someone and when you're away from them you want to be with them again. You can't get enough of eachother.
I was 20 when we got married and Er was 23. Now we're 22 and 25. A lot of old friends say to me, "isn't weird that you're married?" or "isn't it weird that you have a baby?" My answer: no. I feel incredibly blessed to have such an amazing family at such a young age. I know most girls my age are wondering where their Mr. Right is. I've found him!!!
The fullness of the blessing of God comes when we're in relationship with Him and in a marriage relationship. Proverbs 18:22 says "He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord."
So, our time tonight with Pastor Scott was great and we're already looking forward to meeting with him again. There's always more to learn when it comes to marriage. More about the other person and just more in general...and that's what makes it so exciting!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

In high school I always made sure that any plans on Friday nights were after 8pm. That's when "Kids Say the Darndest Things" was on. I don't think the show was ever a huge hit, but Bill Cosby sure did a great job. The whole point of the show was for Bill to get the kids to say hilarious things. Usually about their parents.
Last night Eric and I went to a birthday party for two of our friends. We had a really good time. Judah tried pineapple (whoops, the ped said no citrus. is it a citrus?), cantelope, and honeydew melon for the first time. On our way out I was carrying Judah and Eric was carrying the baby bag. The son of one of our friends came up to Eric and said something. I heard Eric say "yeah" to him. When we got in the car I asked him what he'd said. He had asked Eric "is that your man purse?" Ohmygoodness!!! That is too freakin funny!!! Where did he learn that? Does HIS dad have a "man purse." Too hilarious and too dang cute.
For now Eric and I are enoying Judah's babbles and our privacy!

More Pictures

Well, Eric came to swim lessons and took 99 pictures! This is only a small sample. Also, I did a "photo shoot" with Judah, so here is a couple of those pictures too.

This is Judah and his friend Ellianna

Doing the backfloat

Pulling up on the side


Judah's Photo Shoot

Judah spent the last two days hanging out with Auntie Kim while she was in town and with Grandpa Robb & Grandma Ellie. Judah even got to swim in the famous Kim pool. He has been swimming a lot lately. Today we went over to Jenna & Ellianna's to swim again.
More big news: His top left tooth broke through- that makes 3 teeth. The right one looks like it's going to break through any day. Also, Judah can officially crawl. While playing with Ellianna he crawled over to all the toys he wanted. I'm glad he's crawling, but it's definitely making things more challenging. I have a big ceramic vase that Eric gave me for Christmas and Judah knocked it over today. Good thing it fell backward or he would have been a baby pancake. I moved that in the other room. He also knocked over our floor lamp. I have a feeling things are going to get exciting around here....
Just wanted to post these pics real quick, I'll write more and post more pictures soon.

Joy and Praise

Judah and his friend Mateo

In the jogging stroller

Judah is changing so much everyday. I just want to take all of him in. So many times I just hold him and cuddle him and kiss his neck and breathe him in. He is making so many new sounds - clucking his tongue, lots of different vowel-constanant combos, blowing raspberries. It is so cute and he is encouraged to continue whenever we do it. He can also feed himself cheerios as of today. It is too cute!
Our neighbors have twin baby boys who are 2.5 months old. The little baby with Judah is one of them, Mateo. He was very curious about the baby, but didn't want to get too close. I think Judah was just thinking "Finally, another boy!" All of my friends have girls, so Judah is used to being the only boy!
When I was pregnant Eric & I listened to tapes that talked about prophecying over your baby in the womb. We loved the idea and so Eric printed out all the verses with the words "joy" and "praise" in them. Everynight in bed before we went to sleep he would put his hand on my big belly and pray these verses over the baby. God has definitely made this baby full of joy and praise. He loves to smile and laugh! We have videos of him laughing hysterically....I'll just have to figure out how to upload them.

To Nap or Not To Nap

Eric and I officially have no control over when Judah naps. When we lay him down in his crib he has the option of actually going to sleep (not likely), sitting up and playing with his mobile- he figured out how to push the buttons and turn it on, or as of this morning to pull up on the side and stand up.
This morning I could hear him starting to wake up, so I planned to check on him and let him fall back to sleep. But, oh no, he was wide awake and standing up. I woke Judah up to show him and they two of them stayed up and played. I bet Judah was happy about that.
He took his regular morning nap after sitting up and me laying him back down. But, for his afternoon nap he pulled himself up and stood up. I waited about an hour to lay him back down and now he is finally asleep several hours after his usual afternoon nap.

announcingyours.com

Well, most of you know we're in the middle of starting a web-based business selling birth announcements. It's definitely been a trip and a lot more than we ever expected. Eric is learning all about html, metatags, being "search engine friendly," etc... Our plan was to officially open June 1st and now here is it July 7th. We're really not that concerned because Eric continues to have a steady stream of tile jobs and we want the website to be GREAT and not just ok, but done.
So, the last few days Eric has been writing long descriptions for each announcement, so that we have a lot of context. The more context you have the more search engine friendly your page will be. That will give us a lot of hits!! (So, does that mean that my blog is search engine friendly?)
He finally finished his descriptions yesterday and had me read over and edit them in the evening. I was also making dinner and washing the dishes. Eric was playing with Judah. He casually mentioned to me "Are you enjoying your evening off?" WHAT?!?! It would have been sad if it wasn't so funny. My evening off? I'm making dinner, I just did all the dishes, and I'm editing your webpage....my evening off? "Well, from Judah..." It seems now that taking care of Judah is the only real "work." So, I told him that when he gets home from work that I'll ask him how his "day off" was.

(I'm really not that mean. I appreciate all of Eric's hard work for my family!)

If you love these pictures...

Oh yeah, you can check out all our pictures that we've uploaded to the net by clicking on the little Flickr icon on the right. Pretty nifty, huh?

Future Olympian

Yesterday Judah had his 2nd swim lesson and went underwater 3 TIMES!!! My friend had a hard time putting her daughter underwater, but I thought anything would have to be better than our last underwater experience when we just dunked Judah with no warning. This time they had me say "One, two, ready ready under. Tight lights." Then blow in his face and put him underwater. This is after I had gone underwater and played peekaboo with him. Peekaboo is one of his favorite games, so I got lots of smiles and laughs. But, when it was time for him to go under he game up with a look on his face like, "what are you doing to me?" He blinked back the water and didn't smile, but didn't cry either.
We made it through fine. THEN, they told me next week the babies would "swim" underwater. We would pull them foward and keep them under for three seconds. WHAT!??!! I do not want to traumatize my baby. So far, he's a little fish that loves the water. As my grandma told me the other day my great uncle taught swim lessons, my dad was on swim team & a lifeguard, and I was on swim team & a lifeguard. It's only fitting that Judah carries on the family tradition of being a swimmer. I don't want any horrible experience as an 8 month old to cause him to hate the water.
Oh well, I guess I get kind of carried away....

Happy 4th of July!!!

Well, we had a fun time this morning at the 4th of July Pancake Breakfast at the One Mile. My grandparents go every year. The first year I was at the 4th of July celebration I was lifeguarding and Eric & Scott came to visit me. The next year I went with a family I babysat for (a 3 yr old and twin boys who were a year & a half). So, this was my third time. We left the park, so Judah could take a nap at about 10:30 and it was already HOT!!!! I'm guessing about 100 degrees. Tonight we're going to go to my Aunt & Uncle's for bbq, so we'll take more pics (of course, Eric is always camera happy).
Here's some great pics of Judah in the Combi Savvy Soho Sport (ask Eric to say that if you want a laugh), dressed up all patriotic, and a 4 generational pic with J, me, my dad, and my Grams.

A box for Judah

Here's a picture of our gift still inside the box. :)

Well, I finally got the Combi Savvy Soho Sport (aka a lightweight stroller) I had been hoping for. Judah loves it as much as I do. We've already taken him downtown twice and for two walks around the neighborhood in it.
This morning Judah woke up at 6am!!!! I fed him then put him back to bed at about 6:15. After he fussed for 15 minutes and seemed totally awake I told Eric to get him and bring him into our bed. After asking him several times he finally did. Then Judah just hit Eric and played with his Eric, so the two of them finally got out of bed at about 6:30. Eric says Judah needs to stay up later. Especially because tomorrow is a holiday and we're looking forward to sleeping in. It's not even 6pm right now and he's already tired. We'll see if he can make it to 8pm...probably not.

Happy Day!!

I just wanted to take a moment out of my quiet evening (Eric's at church, Judah's asleep) and a break from my book on Amish people (that's a whole different post) and say HAPPY CANADA DAY!!! to the cutest little people in the world. They say toque (not beanie), eh, and my all time favorite instead of the letter 'z' it's the letter 'zed." I never did get how there can be spelling for a letter...but, whatever. You Canadians are adorable, polite, and just so much fun!!!
(I admit I've run out of blog material today. I'm tired...back to my book)