SO Proud!!!!

I am in no hurry for Judah to grow up. Both of my boys, for that matter, but this is about my big boy. I nursed him until he was 12 months old and I was 3 months pregnant, he took his first step at 12 months, but didn't start walking until 14- I was quite content with carrying him, we converted his crib into a toddler bed after he turned 2 because he started climbing out. And, potty training? Well, we're starting that today. Starting about 6 months ago he would go pee-pee and poopy in the potty chair. Eric would encourage it, but I wouldn't. Not that I discouraged it, I just didn't push the issue at all. He was probably 100% ready and able to potty train, but I wasn't. It's inconvenient to have to run to the toilet, bring changes of clothes, etc.. but more than that it's just another step towards Judah becoming a big boy. I love having a big boy, but I miss my baby, too!


Yogurt for breakfast

This morning I put Judah in his big boy undies. He picked out red elmo ones! As he was eating breakfast he started going pee-pee in his undies a little bit. He immediately stopped and told me he had to go pee-pee. I took him in the bathroom, put him on his potty chair, and he finished going. I ignored the fact that he went on his chair (no biggie!), but made a HUGE deal about him going on the potty chair. Samuel and I clapped and cheered, and seeing as I didn't have any treats, I gave him a bite of his favorite mint chip ice cream.


Judah with his #1 Fan

After breakfast I got the boys dressed and ready and headed out to Kmart. (Not the same as my favorite store, Target, but much closer to our house). Our mission was to buy potty training supplies: apple juice and chocolate (for chocolate milk) because you're supposed to have them drink a lot, to give them lots of opportunities to know how it feels to go pee-pee, two toy motorcyles- one for Judah as a prize for the end of the day and one for Samuel (Judah insisted), a bag of m&ms as a treat each time he goes, a new sippy cup, and Superman big boy undies (picked out by Judah himself).


Happy Boy

When we got home I took off his pants and started doing something else. Judah came in and told me he went poopy in the toilet. I went in there and saw that, indeed he did, without even telling me he went into the bathroom and went all by himself. I made a VERY huge deal about that! He stopped and said, "It's a hotdog poopy." Too funny!


"my mommy loves me"

I took a handful of m&ms (suggested by a friend) and threw them on the floor like a pinata. The boys picked them all up and had fun with the poopy reward.


More fans

He went pee-pee one more time right before going down for a nap, with the total being (3) pee-pees and (1) poopy on the big boy toilet. YAY JUDAH!!!

**5 hours after posting a picture of Judah in his big boy undies I've already gotten over 50 views on flickr. I decided to put it on private, so if you want to see it, become my flickr friend.

Baby Shower

Saturday I went to a baby shower for two o girls, who are due only 5 days apart, in September. Laura, with a girl, on the 6th and Jodi, with a boy, on the 11th. So much fun! It has been so much fun to watch them from the time they both found out they were pregnant (a few days apart) to now, and very soon with little babies. So many of my friends either just had babies or are pregnant right now. Hard not to get baby fever! :)


Katie (top), Me, Laura (right) at the shower
I need to upload more of the pictures from the shower. Check flickr soon is you want to check them out.

The boys are learning to be flexible, but moreso, I'm learning to be flexible. I know I love schedules and I love planning, so I'm learning to be more go with the flow. I think it's necessary with a 1 and 2 year old.

Sweet Sammy

Samuel eating some cream cheese at Panera on the way home

AY, the Movies, Consolidate

So, does anyone remember Announcing Yours? We've totally put it on the back shelf while Eric has been building his pool business. He's up to about 35 pools and doesn't really have much time for AY stuff. So, I'm going to be taking over most of the work. Don't worry, Eric will still be doing the design work, but I'm going to put together the announcements and invitations and work more on marketing. Might as well, huh?

By the way, thanks for all of the sleep advice. I'm going to try it all out and see what works best for us. Today Samuel is at Eric's mom's house, so Judah went to sleep so quick and easy for me. I also took him swimming at the gym, which wore him out.

Samuel is with Ellie today because Eric and I took Judah to his very first movie at the movie theatre. At the theatre they have dollar movies every Wednesday and Thursday morning. This morning they showed Curious George. Unfortunately we had to leave about 45 minutes into the movie. The security guard and the museum owners son (I forget their names) would yell and Judah did not like that. He's never really heard yelling, which I'm extremely thankful for, and to hear it on the big screen freaked him out. He started crying and said he wanted to leave. Poor baby! So, we walked across the parking lots and got a Jamba Juice instead, then went swimming in both the cold pool and the hot pool. :)

This weekend we're leaving to go out of town again. We've been gone to much lately and it's so fun! This time just Judah will be staying at Eric's parents and we'll be taking Samuel with us. I'm sad to leave Judah, but I know he loves hanging out with Grandpa and Grandma and even tells me "I don't want you here!" when I go pick him up sometimes. (It doesn't hurt my feelings, I don't take it personally. I know he's just telling me he likes it there and that's a good thing!) I'm not sure how Samuel is going to do, but I'm sure we'll figure it all out. And, we'll bring lots of toys and snacks!

Last time we went to the Win Conference and this time it's the Consolidate. What "consolidate" means is to take care of a new Christian. Once someone gives their life to God we teach them how to have a relationship with God, how to read their Bible, we fast and pray for them, and take them to the Encounter. We're going to learn how to more effectively do that. I'm really excited! I'm also excited to do some shopping in San Jose. Yay!

Toddler Sleep

I'm excited about my new blog layout!

Right now it is 2:00pm and Judah is in his room playing. We've been having challenges with Judah's sleeping schedule. Basically, he doesn't want to sleep. He's so social that he doesn't want to miss a minute of fun. Whenever anyone is over or we're at someone's house he'll stay up as late as we're there without acting tired or fussy or grumpy. He's such an extrovert!

So anyway, he doesn't like to go to sleep. If he stays in his room he'll play with his toys. If I threaten him and make him stay in his bed he'll talk and sing. Even when Eric lays down with him it will take him up to an hour to fall asleep because he has fun with his Papa. When I lay down with him I close my eyes and don't respond to him...not as much fun.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get a 2.5 year old to fall asleep, I'm all ears! We've tried laying with him (which can be frustrating if you have things you need to do), spanking, standing at the door saying "lay down Judah." One lady suggested to Eric to get a kitchen timer and give him 10 minutes to play. When it goes off lay down with him for 5 minutes. When it goes off again leave the room and make him go to sleep by himself. Eric wants to give that a try.

I've already started looking up crib tents for our little climbing monkey (aka Samuel) to keep him in his crib for as looonnnggg as possible. It's so much easier when they can't get out. Samuel has no choice but to go to sleep. :)

Tucker and the Ministry

Congratulations to Jenna, Justin, and Elliana on the birth of Tucker Justin! Tucker is even cuter in person than he is in his pictures- if you can believe that. I'm so excited for them. Yay!

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. I don't always know what to say. Do people really want to hear about what I'm doing? (I guess it doesn't really matter. I can't wait to print out my blog and have it for ME to remember!) Really all I do is take care of my family and minister to women. I know I've said this before, but I feel so incredibly blessed to be doing what I'm doing. After changing my mind about a million times, I think by my senior year of high school, I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. I wanted to help people. Now, as a cell group leader, I get to do just that.

It's hard to explain exactly what a cell group leader is. A lot of times I just say leader. You could say pastor. I don't just lead a Bible study. I take care of the 12 women in my cell group and all of the young women in our youth cell. I spend time with them, encourage them, buy them things, take them out to coffee, am their friend, their mom, I discipline them, give them advice. These girls call me every single day. I hang out with them every single day. I'm a part of their lives, their families, their problems. They tell me things that they've never told anyone before. I am so blessed!

I'm glad I never became a psychologist. I've been to counseling. I've been to a lot of counseling and, to be honest with you, it never did anything. I paid $60/hr to talk, to stir things up, and then to go home. Sometimes I felt better after talking about all of it. Most of the time I felt worse, because everything would be stirred up, but nothing would be change. They gave me coping mechanisms, ways to deal with it, but that's about it.

Now when I'm counseling (I do a lot of counseling!), Jesus partners with me to heal hearts and change lives. Like Katie, like Laura.

So, that's what I've been up to lately. Seeing lives transformed. I guess it really is amazing, isn't it?

Lots of Pictures

Matthew and Katie praying for communion


The Bride



Cell Group Girls!
Top- Laura, Jodi, Baby Anabelle
Bottom- Me, Katie, Miriah


Vaughn, one of the guys from Eric's cell and Eric


Self-portrait of Samuel and I

Laura took so many good pictures of the 4th! Here are two:

Patriotic Judah


Look how cute Samuel is in the boat!

The 4th

We had a fun 4th of July, but unfortunately my camera was MIA.

In the morning we went to the park with some friends and their kids. We walked around the booths where Judah got an adorable patriotic star temporary tatoo on his bicep. We had a yummy picnic lunch. Then, we let the kids swim in the one mile. I worked there as a lifeguard and swam all the time. Some people think it's gross, but it's probably less gross than a regular pool. The whole pool gets completely cycled either everyday or every hour. I forget which (big difference, I know). I never, ever let Judah swim in there, but now I'm over it. I'm over my anal, fear thing* and they had so much fun (so did I!) and they're perfectly fine. Eric was working, which is why it was just the girls.

After the boys had a nap we headed over to a bbq. Lots of our friends were there and so was my mom (which was sooo nice because she helps watch and play with the boys). Where we ate and did lots more swimming. We didn't end up watching any fireworks, which was fine. The boys have never seen them, so have no idea what they're missing. Maybe next year. And, they slept SOOO good that night from being completely wiped out with all of the sun and swimming.

Today was a crazy day! We met my dad and sister at Barnes and Noble, then we went out to lunch with them. We needed to be home in time for Eric to leave for work at 1:30. He was going to convert a pool from chlorine to salt water and said he'd be home in 1-1.5hrs. So, I tried to get the boys to go down to sleep and neither of them would! Eric's truck ended up breaking down, so they needed to call a tow truck. The tow truck got dispatched to an accident, so they needed to call another one. To make a long story short, he finally got done at 8:30.