What Gets You Through?

I was talking to my Mom the other day and we began discussing how different people react to hard times and tragedy. Our conversation got me thinking about the ways God has ministered to me in times of difficulty, specifically through music.

I stand in awe of the God who works through the words of a songwriter to give me the exact encouragement I need when I need it -- or to put into words what my heart wants to say, but doesn't know how.

A couple of years ago, when DH was deployed last and I was going through a bit of a rough time for various reasons God really used the song Praise You in This Storm by Casting Crowns to remind me that He is always there -- even when it feels like He is far away.

For the past four or five months, No Matter What by Kerrie Roberts has never ceased to remind me that God is faithful, and even when I don't understand why I am having to go through a certain situation, God knows what I am feeling and understands the pain. It is such a beautiful -- if not bittersweet -- reminder of God's trustworthiness and faithfulness. It is the cry of a broken, confused heart reaching out to a loving, merciful God -- acknowledging it's need, deep love for, and dependency on God no matter what.

Anyhow, I was just wondering: when something goes wrong or when you feel like your world is falling apart, what gets you through?

In awe of His faithfulness,

Miscellany Monday

One: This is my first Miscellany Monday, and first blog hop ever! Pretty exciting stuff! :-) I've been meaning to do this for forever.

Two: I started following the Curly Girl method of hair care as of Saturday night! No more shampoo or hair brushes for me! For those of you who haven't heard of it and are naturally curly, wavy, of have always wondered why your hair is what I call "foofy" (a mix of poofy and frizzy) and wouldn't lay as nice and flat as 'all the other girls' hair', I would recommend checking out YLCF's 'Got Curl?' page to learn more about the Curly Girl method. I'd never heard about it until I clicked on the Got Curl? link one day after thinking, "Hey, I'm part of the curly 'club' now!" After reading through the links and then getting a copy of the Curly Girl book for myself, I decided to give it a shot and see what happens. From what I've read, CG doesn't work perfectly for everyone, and I may have some discouraging 'bad hair' days in the process, as my hair has to get used to not being stripped daily by the sulfates in most shampoos, but we will see in six weeks what kind of an impact my new routine has had on my hair. I'm hoping it will be quite a bit less foofy. I'll keep everyone posted, and will try to post pictures along the way! If you decide to give it a try, please let me know!

Three: Peanut Butter Cup experienced the wonderful world of crayons for the first time yesterday! Boy, was he excited about coloring! Obviously he doesn't quite have the concept and coordination down yet, but he make some scribbles. :-) He only tried to put a crayon in his mouth once (that I saw), but I'm sure the more he plays with them the more often that will happen -- for a while at least. It was exciting to see how his eyes lit up when I first gave one to him and showed him how to draw on the paper. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to leave him alone with the paper and the crayons (since I already know he likes to eat paper, ha ha). Hopefully next time!

Four: I pulled my fiddle out of it's case and played it for the first time in about a year a couple of weeks ago! It felt good! I've missed playing it . . . I just wish I had more time -- and could find all of my sheet music, as currently I'm only able to play whatever I can remember. I think I know the general area where my sheet music is hiding, but haven't had a chance to go digging for it as the only time I have really is after Peanut Butter Cup goes to sleep for his naps or bedtime, and searching for it would make too much noise.

Five: DH should be done with his progression as of tonight -- as long as the weather holds! Basically what that means is that instead of always having to fly with an instructor pilot (IP) he will be able to fly with any (progressed) pilot. That is pretty exciting for him! So, we are hoping and praying that the weather will clear so he will be able to fly tonight (he's been flying nights lately) and be DONE. It will take a LOT of extra stress of of DH to be finished with progression . . . Lord willing it won't be dragged out for another week.

I hope everyone has had a good start to their week! :-)

P.S. I'm such a Ditz!! I went to link up at Lowercase Letters and titled my post as "Miscellany Monday" instead of the title of my blog! :-p HA HA!! I was wondering how everyone else's links were the title of their blog -- I just read "Post Title" and took it literally! Well, at least I know now! :-)

Nap Times and Party Times

Peanut Butter Cup has been taking his naps in his crib for over a week now, and it has been going really well . . . at least is was until yesterday when he decided that he wasn't going to take a nap after falling asleep in my arms a couple of times and then waking up when I put him down. He's doing the same thing today (though I'm going to try to convince him to go to sleep again in a little while) -- and he's done it off and on in the past. I'm just hoping that he isn't at the stage where he has decided to not nap AT ALL anymore (kind of like when he decided he didn't want to take two naps a day anymore). In a way it wouldn't surprise me. I've read that the older High Needs (Fussy) Babies/Children get, the less sleep they seem to need -- they just have SO MUCH energy.

Nevertheless, I am hoping that this is just a stage that he is going through due to discomfort from teething and another bout of separation anxiety. I'm not ready for him to be done with nap times!! He hasn't been sleeping very well at night again as well, and I am usually up with him for what I call "Party Time" -- due to the fact that most of the time he is wide awake and simply wants to sit/stand up, squirm, and chatter away in my arms -- though sometimes he will fall back to sleep quickly, he just doesn't stay asleep when I put him back down and so then we have to start all over again. He usually has one Party Time each night lasting anywhere from as little as 40 minutes to 3 hours (like last night's!).

He started doing that months ago, but stopped a while back and was actually starting to sleep through the night off and on (which was lovely!). As of almost two weeks ago though, everything changed. He started being fussier/more clingy, drooling like a fountain, eating less, sleeping more fitfully, and having Party Times during the night again, of course. All of those things point to teething, but so far no new tooth has broken through. So, in the meantime, Peanut Butter Cup and I get what sleep we can, and I try to stay awake during the night while he is bouncing off the walls -- in my arms. Hey, it's hard to stay awake when sitting in the dark in the middle of the night with the same song playing on repeat the entire time. Ha ha! :-p

I'm very grateful that he hasn't been in such extreme discomfort during the night that he will cry inconsolably like some teething babies. He is actually quite a chipper little Munchkin and will try to give me hugs and kisses in the dark. :-) He's such a Sweetheart and such a little Trooper -- even when he is sick he is still such a cheerful little guy! Oh how I adore him!

Even though I would really like to get more sleep most nights, I know I will NEVER look back on these times and wish that I hadn't held Peanut Butter Cup as much or spent these nights 'sleep training' him so that I could get more sleep and he would be more convenient. This is just a season that will pass in time (whether it be a short amount of time, or whether it takes a longer amount of time).

Now, I'm not trying to paint a picture of myself bouncing joyfully out of bed when he wakes up in the middle of the night -- because more often than not it takes me a couple of minutes to groggily pull myself together before I head into his room and then oftentimes I will petition Abba (Father) that my little Peanut Butter Cup will go back to sleep quickly. However, I can't help but to constantly remind myself that there are childless women who would gladly take my place during these nights of sleep deprivation because it would mean that they have been blessed with a child -- and when I think of things like that I think of how I should be just as grateful for the blessing that I have been given -- and not take him for granted just because I am uncomfortable in some way. I was going to say more, but I've lost my train of thought -- must be due to the lack of sleep! Ha ha!! :-)

Eventually he will sleep through the night (of his own accord) and will no longer need me in the middle of the night to help him back to sleep, so I treasure these moments of time spent with him in the middle of the night, and I won't begrudge him the comfort/closeness he needs during the night in this season.

I am truly a blessed Mama!

P.S. As I was writing the above, Peanut Butter Cup was 'bouncing around' in his crib expending some energy (if we leave the nursery during the time when he is supposed to be taking his nap, it's almost a 100% guarantee that he won't ever get back to the point of falling asleep during the day -- without the help of going for a drive anyhow. So we have to stay in there in the dim light so he'll eventually get tired again) . . . he started to get more and more subdued and then the next thing I knew he was laying down and starting to fall asleep -- ON HIS OWN. He is now slumbering peacefully, and he did it all himself this time. So, you see what I mean about his needing my help to go to sleep only being a season? Who knows how much longer it will last. He's already growing up.

Ladies: treasure your babies in all aspects no matter what stage they are going through . . . they won't stay babies for long and will quickly become independent. Don't take their current need for you for granted!!

Okay, I'll get off my soap box now!! Hope you are all having a blessed day! :-)

New Accomplishments!

So, like most babies his age, Peanut Butter Cup has been changing and growing by leaps and bounds (not so much physically, as mentally, but he has gotten bigger!). Yesterday for instance he did an AMAZING job of feeding himself with a fork!

Want to know what the funniest part of the whole thing was?

We were eating fish, green beans, and rice, and every time he would get a green bean or some rice on his fork he would pause for a second, shake his head 'no', and then continue to move the fork toward his mouth. Then when he was about ready to put it in his mouth he would stop and shake his head again, then he would wiggle his fork so it would fall off and he wouldn't have to eat it! We thought it was hilarious watching him 'argue' with himself -- it was like he was telling himself, "Eat it!" "No, I don't want to!" "I really should eat it!" "NO! Yucky!". :-)

He didn't have a problem with the fish at all, so I guess he's going to be a 'meatatarian' like his daddy!

Yesterday was also the first day that he has taken a nap in his crib. He usually takes his nap in his swing, but eventually he is going to outgrow it, and he has been waking up more lately when I first put him down in it, so I decided to see how he would do with napping in his crib. Today has been better than yesterday so far. Yesterday he only slept for about 50 minutes because a truck with a high-pitched hum of sorts was sitting somewhere on the road in front of our house for a while and it woke him up. So far today he's been asleep for about an hour and 20 minutes. So, we may be done with the swing! That would be nice as it would open up a good chunk of the nursery if we could put it away. Don't get me wrong though, I have been VERY grateful for the swing! Sometimes (especially when Peanut Butter Cup was a newborn) that has been the ONLY way he will go to/or stay (a)sleep.

My husband (whom I will be referring to as DH from now on, unless I think of something more appropriate! Ha ha!), taught Peanut Butter Cup how to say 'Hi/Hey" on Monday! He doesn't do it very often, but he's always so cute when he says it -- he'll say it with a big grin on and then he'll get all shy and bury his face for a few seconds into the shoulder of whichever one of us is holding him. :-)

Last weekend it sounded like he tried to say "buddy" a few times over the span of a couple of days, but we aren't sure if he really did or if it was our imaginations. So, now I don't know whether to consider "bubble" (which he only said once, several months ago), "buddy", or "hi/hey" to be his third word. :-p

Oh yeah! Peanut Butter Cup had his 12 month well baby appointment back on December 23rd (yeah, I know that was more than a month AFTER he turned one, ha ha). The doctor didn't tell us where he stood in the 'percentiles', just that he was on the lower end, but she wasn't concerned because she could tell he just takes after his parents. :-) Thank the Lord! I was worried she would be one of those doctors who wouldn't take that into consideration and would tell us that we needed to start supplementing him or something. Anyhow, he weighed 18 pounds 2 ounces (if I remember correctly -- it may have been 18.2 pounds instead), and they measured him at 29 inches long, but the nurse that did that kind of went down underneath his head instead of making a mark even with the top of his head, so he is actually a bit taller.

The doctor was also pleased that I am still breastfeeding him, which made me like her even more. I think maybe the fact that she was German had something to do with her being so laid back about that. . .after all, the minimum recommended breastfeeding age in Europe is two years old, unlike the American recommendation of only a year.

Peanut Butter Cup also got some cream for his ringworm spots that he's had since early December (we aren't sure if he got them from Copper -- who didn't have any sign of them -- or if he got them from the sand at the beach. His original spots are clearing up now, but a few more smaller ones have popped up, so we have been putting cream on them as well. If they don't go away soon I may end up having to take him back in to see what the doctor has to say again.

I'm Alive Still . . . No Worries! :-)

Whew, I have been SO awful about updating the blog lately -- as I'm sure y'all have noticed! SORRY!!

What with Peanut Butter Cup being so mobile now along with my trying to get settled back into some sort of a routine after my hubby returned to work, I haven't had much extra time or energy to sit down and write an update . . . plus everytime I would contemplate doing so, I would quickly become overwhelmed at all of the things that have happened since my last update that I've been wanting to write about. So, I guess in the interest of maintaining my sanity, and not boring you to death with an extraordinarily long post, I will either just skip a few things altogether, or break them up into individual posts (as I have time). I haven't entirely decided which I will do yet, but extra time seems to be one thing I've been lacking lately, so it is somewhat probable that I may skip over a few things.

*Side note* Please pray for all of us as we seem to be coming down with some sort of a cold/flu. Peanut Butter Cup started showing some symptoms the night before last, then last night I started to get it, and now my hubby is getting it as well! :-(

Okay, back to the post!

As those of your who are friends with me on Facebook may already know (due to the pictures my husband posted), we have a new family member: her name is Abby, she just turned a year old on January 1st and weighs about 140 pounds.

We came across an ad for her back in December, went and visited her a couple of times, thought and prayed hard about her, weighed the options carefully, and in the end we decided to bring her home. Peanut Butter Cup adores her (though that may not come as a huge surprise since he loves dogs in general) and he loves to give her hugs. She is so sweet, gentle, and calm . . . she usually just lays there while Peanut Butter Cup tries to give her a hug while laying/leaning on her (don't worry I keep an eye on them to make sure Abby hasn't accidentally sat on Peanut Butter Cup!). The other day Abby was laying near the front door while Peanut Butter Cup and I were in the kitchen/living room area . . . Peanut Butter Cup disappeared down the hallway and it suddenly became very quiet and still, so I peeked around the corner to see what they were doing. Peanut Butter Cup was sitting on Abby's back, just behind her shoulders, facing her rear, and Abby was just laying there! Ha ha ha! A few seconds later Peanut Butter Cup lost his balance and slid off, and I went down the hall to get him so he wouldn't do that again (we don't want him to hurt Abby's back -- she's already likely to have some other health issues down the road without adding that one to it, but that's another post in and of itself!). He looked so proud of himself! :-)

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On another subject, my hubby has started playing around with Photoshop (the above picture of Abby being one of his edits), and in my opinion he is pretty good (he's a lot braver than I have been with experimenting with all the different actions and tools!). He also has a pretty good eye for photography as well (same as with Photoshop, he's more brave about experimenting--but that is probably a good thing because then he inspires me to try new things as well).

Here are some of his first Photoshop edits with a mixture of our photos . . . we are always taking turns with the camera so sometimes it gets confusing to remember who took what photo when looking at them out of context--though these particular photos should be pretty obvious. ;-)

 We couldn't decide which edit we liked best on these two photos, so he did it both ways. :-)

Anyhow, I think he's awesome (both as a husband AND as an amateur, hobbyist photographer), so I wanted to share his talent with you. :-)