Quote of the day

"It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases."
- Bono, rock star and anti-poverty activist

Almost Half a Year Old

Seriously...where does time go? It's like it gets sucked into a tornado - so fast that you can't stop it or see where it goes. My little Jude-bug is 5 months old today...for those of you that are math-challenged, that's almost HALF OF A YEAR!!!



Some things that Judah is doing at this age:
*He can roll over from tummy to back
*He laughs out loud when tickled
*He grabs at EVERYTHING & puts EVERYTHING in his mouth
*He can halfway sit up when leaning over his legs
*He has a low, raspy voice and I love it!
*He follows Elijah everywhere with his eyes
*He pushes up almost into a crawling stance
*He loves to play in his exersaucer
*He is a wonderful student at school on Mondays & Thursdays - I'm so proud of him!
*He just learned to go to sleep by himself
*He likes me to read to him (just like big brother)
*He drools all the time and loves to bite things
*Drum roll please.............he can sleep 7 to 9 UNINTERRUPTED hours at night!!!! Woohoo!!!
*He is a wonderful blessing from God - We love you, Judah James!

And since most posts lately have been about Judah, let me post a picture of his muscular, super-human like brother. Sorry buddy...you're special too. :-)

Payback

Judah has never been a good sleeper. At almost 5 months old he has never slept through the night (never slept for more than 4-5 hours in fact), still eats at least twice in the middle of the night and has to be jostled almost to death in order to fall asleep.

This weekend I decided I'd had enough. This mama is tired and needs some sleep! I've never been a big of fan of letting them cry it out, but after trying numerous other things I decided that was my last option. He cries when I try to rock him or comfort him anyways - the bottom line is that he just plain doesn't like the falling asleep feeling, and has no idea how to self-soothe himself. Since Elijah was gone and there was no risk to waking him up, I decided to go for it. My mom generously offered to help me so I didn't go completely insane!

The first couple of times he cried for 35 minutes straight! It was torture. However, we are on the road to sleeping much better, and he barely cried at all when I put him down this evening. YAY! That is not the point of this post though. Judah got payback for me allowing him to cry for so long...while we were at church this morning.

Like I said, I was all by myself this weekend, so at church it was just Judah & I. He was great the whole time - loved the music, quietly fell asleep on my shoulder for 30 minutes during the sermon without putting up a fight (which he NEVER does!). All was going well my first time at church alone with him...until it was time for communion. You know, the quietest time during service. There I was taking my little cracker, when he decided he needed to go #2 VERY LOUDLY! Everyone around me heard him and turned to look...I was so embarrassed. But wait, it gets worse. I picked him up to shift him so that I could make sure all was well and drink my grape juice before going to change him, when I noticed that there was poo ALL OVER ME! Oh yes, all over my pants, all up his back and on his pants, practically running down my leg! I was mortified and froze. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I had to get out of there fast.

I quickly stuffed everything back in my diaper bag, grabbed his burp cloth to wipe up as much as I could off of me to keep it from getting on the floor & pew, wrapped a blanket around his lower half to keep that from getting everywhere, stood up and walked out with my head down. I THINK I pulled it off without causing too much of a scene, but WOW. I went to the bathroom, changed him, cleaned me up a bit more, wrapped up the poopy things and walked out to my car with Judah in his diaper.

He got me back, that's for sure. But that's okay, because I'm winning the sleep battle and that's all that matters. Here's to my friend SLEEP...I hope to see more of you than I've seen in the last 4+ months!

(Almost) All by myself

Jason is on a camping trip with some of his buddies.

Elijah went to Austin with Nana & Grangoat to visit Aunt Lauren in her new college-town.

So it's just me here...and Judah, who's sleeping right now. What will I do with all of my time between now and Sunday afternoon??? Anything I want! Within reason, since I do still have my 4 1/2 month old with me. :-)

My plans are to catch up on some SLEEP (if Judah will let me - please oh please), finish reading "The Shack" (I highly recommend, it is a life-changing book), grab some Thai food, call some friends I haven't talked to in a long time, go get groceries at Walmart (boo!), put up fall decorations, watch some Aggie football on TV, go to church and the rest is all up to ME!!

I'll miss my two biggest boys while they're gone, but it's nice to have some (semi) me time every once in a while.

Playing with big brother's trains

A New Look

My sister-in-law, Lauren, finished our blog header and we finally have a new look around here...the first time we've changed it since we started the blog last April. We'll probably be tweaking it a little here and there, but overall, whatcha think???

In the past few weeks...

We took the kids miniature golfing for the first time





My niece Katherine babysat Judah for the first time (I think they had fun :-)



Judah turned 4 months old - WOW! (and is still not sleeping through the night)




Elijah learned to make homemade play-doh with friends Ellie & Brant (and made a mess!)







Jason took Elijah ice skating (okay, maybe this was my idea and I got in big trouble from Jason for it....I think his legs are still killing him from that!) I'll spare you the videos...I think I'd get in trouble for that too.





Judah went for his first swim in Nana & Grangoat's pool (and loved it for about 5 minutes)





We all learned how to fly









And we perfected our family trick....oh yes people, we ARE that talented!



Random-ness (is that a word???):

1. Thank you for your prayers for the Carder family - baby Ella is doing fantastic and her surgery went amazingly well! Please continue prayers for her recovery (she'll be in the NICU for at least a month probably) and for her sweet mommy Amy's blood pressure to go down - she is still in the hospital because her BP is so high.






2. If anyone knows how to get pictures to be side-by-side on the blog with a border around them, please let me know. My sister-in-law is working on a new header for our blog so it will look different around here pretty soon.

3. I start a new job on Monday as an assistant at Elijah's preschool - just Mondays and Thursdays from 9-2. I'll be helping none other than my BFF since the 5th grade...Lori. I am super excited and know that we're going to have a blast teaching together! We'll have a 4-year old class but Elijah will be in another class with my wonderful friend Jennifer, and Judah will be with a very sweet lady, Brandy, right down the hall where I can go and feed him anytime I need to. I'm a little nervous about leaving Judah so please say a quick prayer for us on Monday around 9am.

4. Last night, Jason and I went on our first date BY OURSELVES in over 4 months! Wow...that was a long time coming. Why has it been so long, you ask? Hmmmm.....what happened a little over 4 months ago? Oh yes, Judah James came along and turned our world upside down. Thanks for babysitting Kaki!

5. Very random, but I'm just curious....what did you all think of possible VP Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican convention the other night? I've read some heated discussions of this on others' blogs and want to know your opinion. I, for one, was not too impressed.

Please pray...

for Ella Hope Carder, our friends' baby girl that was born on Sunday, Aug 31st. Several of her organs are on the OUTSIDE of her body and she is in surgery right now to put those back INSIDE her body. The surgery is very delicate and she is tiny at only 4 lbs, so please pray for the surgeon and for healing for her, as well as strength for her parents Rick & Amy, and big sister Eva. To read more about their story, please go to their blog: http://thecarderfamily.blogspot.com/ .

An update on our family to come soon!