Glad I'm not an elephant

We have made a couple of fun trips to the Pittsburgh zoo this summer. Michael loves to see the animals and it gives us a fun day outing to keep us from getting shut up in the house too much. Recently, there have been two baby elephants born at the zoo. They are so absolutely adorable and I just can't get enough of watching them.















Well, today I went to their website to find out some more information on them. First of all the two babies were born weighing 298 and 248 pounds. Can you even imagine?! How in the world does one even hold something that heavy in one's body? Wouldn't gravity just make life miserable? Then I read this: "Zuri's mother Moja, was pregnant for 688 days, the longest pregnancy recorded for an African elephant." Now I know I'm glad I'm not an elephant!

Welcome to the world....

Jonathan! This little one likes to make an entrance. My contractions started at 4:30 on Sunday morning and by 6:00 we were on the way to the hospital. So there we were, making phone calls to family to let them know we were on the way, calling friends who were going to watch Michael, and calling people at church who would need to cover for us, and waking up all of these people in the process! But after all the commotion of him choosing one of the busiest days on our calendar, he made his debut into the world at 8:45am, only 4 hours after labor started! :)















And it was a good thing we got this new wonderful baby, because our first child seems to have grown up overnight. For an early birthday present Grandma and Grandpa bought him a two wheeler and he is already riding it like a pro!

Ever changed a diaper on a baby boy?

For those that have, you probably know instantly where I'm going with this. Let's just say that you can get "sprayed" in this endeavor. It's happened to me a couple of times as I suppose it has to any mom of a boy. :) Well, I was just online tonight and came across these: PeePeeTeepees. I simply could not stop laughing. Check them out and make sure you scroll down to see the little hat ones with the pompom ball tops!
Oh, and a comment I saw earlier was, " I heard that they can shoot off like rockets if your LO has a strong enough stream." I am just cracking up over here!

Exciting News

I am so proud of my hubby! He has been a worship leader for many years now and during that time has written some songs to help lead congregations in worship. We just found out that one of his songs, Hallelujah Forever, is going to be published in a book of modern worship songs. I'm so excited and so proud of him that I just had to share! :) I don't know anything else at this time about the book, or I'd try to presell it to you! I told Tim that even if we get a free copy of it, we should buy another so that we can use one copy and frame his song from the other.

I'm in love

I have lots of fingerprints and marks on the walls of my house - well I did. I'm sure you will tell me as I would tell others, "When you have children, that's just what happens." I have tried all sorts of soaps and sprays to clean them with very little success. I had recently resigned myself to live with them until we repainted or something. When this man came into my life:

These magic erasers are amazing. Put a little water on them and scrub and fingerprints and marks just disappear. It was addicting.... Each time I tried to stop, I saw the line of clean wall which made the uncleaned wall look all the more dirty. I have found that it also works great to take scum off the shower walls and tub. Wow - I'm in love.

One caution, I have heard that some children have shown up at the hospital with chemical burns from these things, so don't try to clean your children with them! And you might want to be careful if you let them use it too.

So while this whole cleaning frenzy was going on, Michael kept pointing to the box and saying, "What is that." I told him it was Mr. Clean and when the question was repeated, that it was a special cleaning sponge. This conversation repeated for 10 minutes or so before Michael said, "No Mommy, his legs!" I couldn't help but laugh. We settled on the fact that Mr. Clean's legs were hiding which mildly satisfied him although he kept looking strangely at the man.

Today's Treasure

I just started a Bible study at church by Beth Moore called "A Woman's Heart." In the lesson for today (which the kids I sit for allowed me to do in the early afternoon by all napping at the same time!) :) Beth introduced the lesson with the verse from Exodus 14:14, "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." How cool is that!
With all of the crazy things in life and the enemies that come against us, trying to keep us from living for God's kingdom, we don't have to worry. We don't have to run ourselves ragged trying to fix everything or hold everything together. We just need to give it over to God - He will fight for us. Praise God!

The Baby Moving

So many people tell me that they either hated being pregnant or absolutely loved it. For me, I really don't have that strong of a feeling about it. With Michael I felt fine with being pregnant but didn't figure I'd miss anything about it. For the most part I was right, but then I started missing the feeling of a baby moving inside. OK, let me back up:
The first week or two that I felt Michael moving around inside my belly, I was intrigued, but pretty weirded out. It was like having an alien inside you. It was real that there was a live being, separate from me, living inside me. Then I got use to it and started to really enjoy feeling him move.
This time around I'm absolutely in love with it! What an amazing blessing that God has placed a life inside of me. Every time I feel him move, I'm reminded of how much I already love him so much. I just love feeling him and know that he is doing well and growing strong.

And did you catch the pronoun? Yes, we found out that the new baby is a boy! We are so excited about it and hope that he and Michael will be great friends. The only time it freaks me out is when I see a rerun of Home Improvement and realize we have the potential to be like that some day. :)