Observing Joshua

Joshua and I have been a part of a play group for sometime now. I wanted to be sure Joshua would have friends his age to grow-up with and play with and for me to have the commonality with moms of kids the same age. However, I've noticed, especially lately, that he tends to play by himself even in the presence of his friends. He prefers to do his own thing. I wonder how normal that is. On the positive side though, it shows me that possibly he might be a leader and won't be one to "go with the flow" just because everyone else is.

I've been trying to give Joshua more and more time alone (when at home) these past couple of months in preparation for Jenna's arrival. I often find him in his room reading to himself. I'm really impressed with his ability to entertain himself!! It makes me wonder if I've been letting him play alone too much though since he's not really expressing an interest in playing with his friends. I'm not sure. Any advice/tips?

I anticipate that Joshua will do well with his little sister. I bought him a baby doll just so that we can practice. He really loves the doll and tries his best to be gentle. He's very caring and sensitive; he always seems to know when I'm bothered or upset. I try not to show my discouraged feelings too much in his presence, but his little arms around my neck sure do make everything better!! I'm so blessed :-)

a big step in the right direction

Well, I did something that needed to be done AGES ago. Today, I e-mailed our pastor and his wife and requested counseling. I've been allowing my past to attribute to my unhappiness for far too long; it's having an impact on my marriage and how I treat others and I'M OVER IT!!!

So, hopefully you'll see me smiling more in the near future, but most of all, hopefully you'll see me growing in the Lord :-) I'm looking forward to being happy and not allowing the enemy to succeed in defeating me. I'm sure my friends and family will be happy to be treated better as well.

Freebies and Lawn Mowing

Sunday evening, we accquired a free piano!! We heard through the grapevine that the former owner of a foreclosed home in our neighborhood said we were free to take whatever, so we took full advantage. Thankfully my brother offered his muscles and gave Nick a hand ;-) We rewarded him with dinner, and of course ice cream!!

We also brought back a Little Tikes play house for Joshua. Once it's properly cleaned and fixed-up, I'll post pictures. Our greatest find though is an antique Singer sewing machine. Complete with cabinet and foot pedal!! Our neighbor is going to do some research to see if she can figure out what year it is. We're having trouble finding the serial number.

This evening, Nick mowed the yard and Joshua took his first tractor ride! We had to borrow our neighbor's mower since ours decided to spring a gas leak *groan* Joshua also enjoyed the warm weather and played with his cousins next door :-)

ultrasound pictures

Click on the images to see a larger, more clear picture.

Sorry I haven't posted these sooner. I didn't see any sense in it unless I could explain what you're seeing. I finally started dabbling with Adobe Photoshop, so I was able to point-out what you're looking at :-)

pictures as promised

Park time! Joshua was crawling through a tunnel and I stuck the camera lense in through one of the holes and caught him by surprise!










Our little GQ baby! Grandma said he looks very "James Dean" in this picture. What a cutie :-)










Joshua's friend, Addison, had a birthday party at Nothing But Fun Kidz. It's an awesome indoor play area. They also have party packages which are too expensive for my pocket-book, but it was fun to go and see all of the toddlers playing together.







Addison had an Elmo cake. Can you tell? Grandpa said Joshua look like Ho-Ho the Clown!! All of the moms told Tiffany (Addison's mom) that we would all be sending her our cleaning bill *haha*

long time no post

Well, I've been a little bummed about posting again. My new post was going to be pictures of Joshua's first hair-cut and somehow the computer deleted them all. I'm DEVASTATED!!! Time to move on from that...it's been 3 weeks since that happened.

Not much new on the baby front. I'm hoping to find-out when we will be having the c-section at my next OB/GYN appointment (April 4th). A friend of mine just had her baby girl this past Tuesday and it was so awesome to get to hold her!! She came out with a full head of hear and long finger nails!! Poor little thing had been scratching her face while in momma's belly.

Jenna's Baby Shower will be on April 26th. I so wish family lived closer so we could all be together. A dear friend of mine, Johna, is having the shower at her house and the hostesses are too many to mention. I'm so blessed with awesome friends!! I've started registering, but haven't finished yet. I began my registry with Target online, but there are things I will need to scan in the store that aren't showing-up online. I registered for very few things at Babies R Us. They're just so pricey!!

Tomorrow is Easter and for the first time EVER, our family won't be doing anything. So, Nick, Joshua and I are planning on going out to eat. We're trying to convince my mom and dad to join us :-) We'd really like to go to Guthrie to eat. For those of you not familiar with Guthrie, it was the first established town/city in Oklahoma. It's very historical and very fun to just walk around and enjoy. So many little antique shops and boutiques. I absolutely love it there :-)

Today, we went to a birthday party. One of Joshua's friends, Addison, turned 2. It was really cute to see so many toddlers interacting with each other. One complaint...Elmo cake...red icing...big mess!! We all told Addison's mother, Tiffany, that she would be receiving our cleaning bill *haha* My fingers are still stained! I'll have to post pictures of Joshua's face once our camera battery has charged :-) It's too hilarious!!

Well, Nick and I have made a very big, yet difficult decision regarding the future of our family. We've decided that Jenna will be our last. This pregnancy has been very difficult on me; knowing Jenna will have many needs and the high possibility of our next child having cleft also helped make the decision. Nick will be getting "the big snip" since his recovery will be much more well received than me getting my tubes tied. Plus, I'm the one forking out the babies *hehe* So...sorry everyone...that's it from us ;-) Someday though, I'd like to adopt. Nick's still thinking about it, but I think he'd be open to it as well.

I guess that's it for now. I'll have more to say in the next post. Sorry for the huge amount of info!!