Happy 7 Months to the Mark Man!!

Full of joy, you are such a sweet sweet boy!

Right now you are rolling EVERYWHERE! Gone of the days of leaving you on the bed or couch to step away for a second, you are all over the place!

You talk constantly too! I love to hear your babbling and I think Zachary is ready for you to talk back to him.

Still no teeth but he drools like there is no tomorrow so I keep waiting...

Such a precious little boy. I truly cannot believe that we are on the downward slide to 1!

girlfriends

Tonight is wine club book club. Although nothing has personally happened to me this week, I am still so very saddened by what the Barkers are going through this week. The funeral will be tonight. My prayers are with them....

I am so thankful for some of my "sisters" who I will be with tonight. I am truly blessed to have such a close knit and dependable group of women in my life. There are a couple of other "sisters" out there who aren't in book club and I am just as thankful for them too (Kerri, Ginny...just had to let them know that!!) :) But I am thankful for this once a month respite that I am given to be with JUST women and talk, rejoice, bi*ch vent, cry, share, pray, and drink wine with...and of course discuss the book we read this month! I am also thankful for the husbands who watch our children so we can have this rare time off and/or parents who are also often stepping in to help out (like my momma tonight!). Anyway, it is a great break from the day to day to just be with my sisters and be girls!!

This month we read The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. Wow, what an amazing book. Here style of writing is just like talking with an old friend. So easy to read and totally relatable to this 30something momma. the story is Kelly's memoir of her and her father's diagnosis/treatment of cancer and everything that goes along with it. it is also just her story of marriage, children, struggles...life! So good and so many times where I was bookmarking and note taking. I am really looking forward to discussing it tonight. If you haven't read it, you totally should. I zipped through it in about a week because I really wanted to read it.

Anyway, I am just glad this week is almost over. The nanny seems to be going well too and I am thankful for that too. More details on all that another time!

Heavy Heart

I got an urgent prayer request from a friend of mine Monday night. She and I have grew up in church together since elementary through high school and have always stayed in touch via email, etc despite not seeing each other in years. Her 2 year old niece passed away Monday evening. I have been overcome with such an overwhelming sadness and just cannot stop thinking about their loss....I mean, I have a 2 year old! A horrible random accident, and just gone. I cannot imagine what all their family is going through. I cannot imagine hvaing to call our parents to tell them. I cannot imagine life without my babies, my heart, my life!! It brings back all too painful memories of losing Rachel and Jake almost 4 years ago. How does one go on??

I am a Christian and I have faith, but I will never be able to come to terms in my mind with the loss of a child. Parents just are not meant to lose their children. I read something yesterday when searching for words of comfort to a parent who loses a child..."A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But...there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that's how awful the loss is! - Neugeboren 1976, 154"

Please keep the Barker/Drover/Knuckols family in your prayers as they deal with the sudden loss of their sweet Ella...

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

eeeeewww!

Saturday night Mark leaked through the old diaper, up the back and onto Kelly's shirt. Today, I was the lucky one! Eeeww! Does that mean time to go up a diaper size? I can't imagine that my almost 7 month old would be in size 4 diapers?!?! :-0

Happy Mother's Day!

Hope all the mommies, mommies to be, and mommies in waiting all had a good day today! We had a pretty nice and relaxing one and I am thankful for that. My dad is out of town so mom headed over early to come to church with us. Man, I want her to do that EVERY sunday!! Getting myself and the boys ready was much easier with her around and we actually were to church early not sliding into the parking spot at 10:59am!! :) It was nice to have her with us today too as we finally officially became members of CUMC! We have been visiting for over a year, but with small ones and all of life's other issues, it just took us awhile. They have some membership classes that they have you attend before hand and we always seemed to have conflicts, but the last month, we committed to it and completed them all. It was actually really nice and interesting so I am glad we did it. Anyhow, we are now members and also finally have Mark's baptism on the books for June 6th!

After church we headed back home and I had made a nice breakfast casserole, blueberry muffins, bought a BIG fruit filled watermelon and had matt cook us some bacon. It was quite a tasty and stress free meal. Chris and KA and their pup, Bailey, joined us as well. Zach entertained us with his different tricks and antics and Mark smiled and babbled and laughed at everyone so life was good ;-) Oh, and the Astros won too. So all and all a pretty good Mother's Day!

In other news...let's see? Mark is finally sleeping through the night in his own crib. Can I get a hallelujah?!?! Wow. We had him in our room up until about 3 weeks ago and he was sleeping pretty well. And then we moved him to his room and all went down hill. Well I am proud to say that the last 3 nights have been good and he has not woken up until the morning. Hopefully I did not just jinx myself! ;-) He is also sitting up, rolling EVERYWHERE, pushing up and scooting and I am afraid before long he may be mobile. Zachary started crawling right at 8 months. Mark will be 7 months in a week.....Oh my, here we go!!!!!

Zachary just amazes me all the time lately. I think its just the age but I LOVE watching their discovery! And he has a memory now and we can carry on real conversations, just so much fun!

On the way to church, we always drive by some horse stables and he points out the horses, etc. Well today it looked like the stables were having some sort of church service outside which I commented on. Zachary says "horses go to church?" LOL. Funny kid. My other fav was last week he was being a bit of a..."pill", shall we say? I told him "hey kid, you are not the boss, mommy is the boss!" Zach's reply, "no no mommy, I AM the boss!" Muuuwahahaha! As much as the snottiness of it was not appreciated, I could not help but laugh. And very much into the "WHY?" which can leads to some funny conversations too.

Anyway, that is what's new with us. The nanny will start full time this Tuesday and I am just SO excited about it that I can feel some of the stress sliding away already. And in about 2 more weeks, it will be time for our TENTH annual beach trip! Wahoo!! :)

ch ch changes!

Hello bloggy world, so sorry for my absence! I swear, working and mommying and wifeing....it keeps me busy! I feel like we have been just go go go lately so by the time I am home from work, played, fed, and bathed boys...I am just too pooped to post!

Well hopefully that may change a little...the hectic part at least. We have found and hired a nanny and she is starting tomorrow! She is 28 and getting her master in Special Ed and we are excited about having her with us. She will probably only be with us for up to a year and half. Once she is finished with her degree she will get a teaching job. But in the mean time, she will be lovin on and watching the boys Tues-Fri! YAY! Getting the boys up at 6 am every day and not picking them up until 530 has been wearing on us all. We can tell a noticeable difference in them both on Saturdays to Mondays. They are not as whiny and fussy in the evenings and therefore life is a lot easier!! I am hoping it will make the evenings better for us all by allowing them to wake up when they want, etc. Zach will still go to day care 2x a week for some interaction and in the fall, he will be moving to a MDO program at a church. I am really happy about the change and am hoping and praying it has the desired effect we are wanting! :)

K's first day will be tomorrow...and as it goes with everything, things have to be a little crazy! I am leaving for Ft. Lauderdale for work at 530am and M and I are headed to the after hours clinic tonight. He has been off and on fussy this weekend (which is NOT like him) and spiked a fever this afternoon. I am thinking its an ear infection...and I did not want to leave daddy and nanny home with a sick little man! Hopefully that is all that it is and some antibiotics will make him start to feel better. And I am also wondering if this could be the cause of his middle of the night wake ups too?? PLEASE let that be the cause because I am tired of waking up at 2am every night! ;-)

Anyway, that is all that's new with us. I am going to try to be better on keeping updated! :)

Half a year

I truly CANNOT believe it...but my baby boy is already 6 months old. I know everyone says it, but where has the time gone?? He is just such a joy and I can't imagine our family without him now! :)

Today we went to the doc for Mark's 6 month check up. First good thing, not even all the way through the antibiotics and the ears are all cleared up, WHEW! Mark charmed the ladies in the office and Zachary kept me entertained while we waited. Everything seems to be right on track for Mark so we got the all clear! This past week he has been sitting up unassisted A LOT and rolling everywhere! Definitely have to be much more cautious on where I put the fella down cause he is not apt to stay there any more.

Here are Mark's 6month stats:

Height- 28" - 90%
Weight - 18 lbs 6.5oz - 60%
Head - 16.9 in" - 25%

compared to Zachary's:

Height- 28 1/2" - 95%
Weight - 18 lbs 12 oz - 60%
Head - 17 1/2" - 75%

WOW, I am totally shocked how close they are! I feel like Mark is just HUGE and do not remember Zachary being this big, but obviously he was! Maybe their frames are just shaped differently, who knows?? Very interesting though. I will be curious to see if the trend continues!

The shots must have worn poor Mark out though, he took a 4 hour nap and was a little fussy this evening. I still think teeth are on their way but havent found any yet...

So I guess that is about it for us for now! :) Here are some comparison pics. Everyone says the boys look just alike...what do you think?

Zachary (6months):

And the Mark Man (6months):

And the handsome older brother again:

Night time Fun...

Silly Boys

Funny Video of Zach and JP at the Zoo....ignore my ridiculous talking and just chuckle at the boys!

Randomness

Two random things I had to pass on....

On my way to work this morning, i was listening to some XM country station and the DJs started talking about "car staches"....as in, a mustache for your car. My imagination immediately went to Chick Hicks from the movie Cars. (clearly I live with a 2 year old boy....)

When I finally had some down time to google it...sure enough, there is such a thing that you can purchase....that will look like this....

WOW. Dont you want that on your car??? Who does this?!?! Prob the same people that hang balls from their truck tow(which I find totally gross) and dice on the rearview mirror

The second is equally as strange to me. I get random emails from Payless about shoe sales....and on the cover of today's email was this lovely pair of shoes... Seriously? I think I had these in the 5th grade. Holy 80s!! Am I this out of the loop or are people actually wearing this stuff??