Things That Make You Proud & Things That Make You Laugh

First, the things that make a mom proud is listening to her 3 year old son quoting scripture he's learned to himself. Jadon has gone through this stage of saying "I can't" a lot. So, we started teaching him, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Everytime we heard him say the words "I can't" we would remind him of the scripture. On a Friday, after Jude was born, we were at home and I heard him say "I can't", then out of his mouth came those sweet words of I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and he continued to repeat those words until he was able to do what he thought he couldn't do. I sat there so proud and thankful that the Word of God has already made an impact in his life. One of the things we pray daily for Jadon is that he would be a lover of God's Word.

A couple days after that my mom and grandma came to visit us and Jadon was asking her to do something and she replied to him, "I don't know if I can do that." His response to her was, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Preaching to his Great Gram, way to go son!

Our Haven already has a weird fetish, she has to clean out her toes everytime we change her diaper. If she has socks on she yanks them off to clean out her toes. If you don't have socks on she will come over and clean out your toes. We all know this about her, even Jadon comments on how she likes to clean her toes. The other day Jadon had sock fuzz in his toes and I watch as he goes over to Haven and asks her to clean out his toes. He has dirt in his toes and would she please clean it out. She sits down on the floor in front of him, grabs his foot and proceeds to clean out his toes. When she's done Jadon thanks her and they go off to play. I think with all the weird things my children have done or do this is by far one of the weirdest. So, the next time your around you might want to keep socks and shoes on or you may have a Haven cleaning your toes.

Family Update

We are still doing great and Jude is doing a wonderful job getting into his schedule. He is a great baby that barely cries, only when he's hungry. Jadon and Haven are still in love with him. They are still understanding of the time Jude demands of me, which is very helpful. Jadon loves to help me change his diapers and Haven likes to sit next to me when I feed him and kiss on his head. I think she only sits next to me so the minute I'm done feeding she can hold him. The minute I pick him up to burp him she grabs the boppy and puts it in her lap and says, "hold Ude". Here are some pictures of Jude one week old.

Love

There's a lot of love flowing through our house right now. The love of a newborn being around, the love for Jadon and Haven, my love for my husband who is the most amazing man in the world and the love we've been experiencing from our church family and friends. God's love shown to us through the people around us.

Here's some of my favorite pictures showing the love Jadon and Haven have for Jude. I don't know how many times I've found Haven standing in Jude's nursery just staring at him.

Our New Toy

We've been saving up for a new camera for about 2 years now. We researched different cameras, talked with a lady at church who is a photographer and finally decided on the camera we would like to own, the Canon EOS Rebel SLR. Best Buy gift cards have been the gift of choice for us lately with hopes to have enough to buy the camera this summer. Well, our want came a little quicker than we thought. It was on sale and we had the gift cards to get it. Todd went and picked our new toy and since then we have been learning all the new and exciting things this camera can do. I am also planning on getting with Jen, the photographer from our church, to do a little hands on learning.

Right now the thing I love most about the camera is when the frames per second. It takes the quickest pictures and with Haven that is an important feature. She will stand still for almost 1/2 a second for you to take her picture. I am really excited to learn more about the camera and the cool features it has.

Here are a few pictures I've taken with the camera. An added bonus on getting the camera so quickly is that we had it for Jude's birth.

Haven smelling the pretty fake flowers at the hospital.

Haven loves brushing her teeth and when she's done this is how she shows me her pretty teeth.Jadon playing in the tunnel Uncle John got him and Haven for Christmas.

Happy Birth Day Jude

Our little Jude is officially here. He came at 1:54pm on February 13, weighing a healthy 7 pounds and 3 ounces and 19.5 inches long. He is absolutely beautiful and has hair. The delivery was good and uneventful, which is always good for us. I even got to have an epidural, ladies I highly recommend it! With Jadon and Haven I went too fast to have an epidural so I had yet to experience the wonderfulness of an epi.

My water broke at 7:00am on the 13th and so I called Todd because he had already left for work. Then I called my wonderful sister who had volunteered to watch Jadon and Haven for us. My contractions were not close together yet so we were able to drive to the hospital without the fear of having to deliver in the car. (In the past we've barely made it to the hospital right before time to start pushing.) We get to the hospital around 8:00am and see our wonderful nurses who will be with us for the day and I get hooked up to everything. Then we wait, we actually got to the hospital before we were in active labor. At around 10:00am our contractions are between 5 and 6 minutes apart, but still not very strong. I get up and walk around for a little while and they decide that at noon we are going to hook up a small drip of pitocin. After 15 minnutes of that I ask for an epidural and for them to stop the pitocin. I get the lovely epi at 12:41pm and the nurse kicks everyone out at 1:15pm and at 1:35pm I start pushing and little Jude is born at 1:54pm. We are both doing great and my recovery is doing very well. We actually went home on Valentine's Day, after we had our special going home lunch. So, we're all home and getting adjusted to our new life.

It has been extremely easy adjusting so far. Jadon and Haven absolutely love their brother and the fights are over who gets to hold him and kiss on him. Haven can sit for a very long time and just hold him. Haven goes around saying constantly, "hold Ude."

Jadon thinks he's the best big brother of all time and talks about how he will protect his Jude and his Sissy. I am amazed at how they've taken so well to a huge change in our family. It just reminds me how good God is.

So, enough about the details and let's get to the pictures. Again, I think I have the most beautiful family. Thank you to those of you who have prayed for us and little Jude. We have felt your prayers over the last 9 months and the last few days. Special thank you to Kim who was my mommy prayer partner. I am blessed to have had you praying for us during this time.

My Beautiful Sister

Friday night was Pleasant Hope's Courtwarming. My sister, who is a Senior, was one of the candidates. I got to go with her when she picked out her dress and couldn't wait to see her in it with her shoes and her hair all done. As always she was beautiful! She didn't win, but I would dare say she was the prettiest one there. Both on the inside and outside. I wish I as godly of a woman in high school as she is.

Here's a picture of her and her man, Matt. He's a true gentleman. He would have to be to be with my sister!

Snow, Snow, Snow

Jadon making a snow angel.
He's a HUGE snowman, oh wait, he's actually very tiny. Jadon wanted one that he had to reach to touch his head. This was as big as I could do.

Imagine saying the title, Snow, snow, snow, like Bing did in White Christmas. That's the effect I was going for anyway. Well, we finally got enough snow on Thursday that the kids could go outside and play in it. We were even able to build a snowman. Jadon had a blast and this was Haven's first memorable experience with the white stuff. She loved watching it snow, she was mesmorized by it. I asked Haven if she thought the snow was pretty and Jadon thought it was handsome like him. Jadon's favorite part about the snow was eating it. Everytime I looked over at him he had a handful of snow eating it and would say, "mmm, snow is good." Daddy said he used to like to eat snow when he was younger too.