Bits and Pieces

I'm back from an unintended super long blogging break! Aren't you excited?? :-p Sorry, I've just been lacking inspiration and motivation to blog!
So, what's been going on in my life? Most recently, I took a fun filled vacation to beautiful Arkansas to hang out with my wonderful sweet mom. (how many adjectives can I use in one sentence?? Yeesh) Levi got sick the first night we got there, but quickly improved after a trip to the pediatrician. While he wanted nothing to do with Grammy while he was sick, once he was feeling better he quickly fell in love and she was *almost* as good as mommy. :-)





While in Arkansas, I did lots and lots of shopping, since in my mom's area there are endless thrift stores and resale stores. A bargain hunter's heaven!! I finally found some place mats and a table centerpiece that I've been looking and looking for. I'm really happy with what I found, and you can't beat this: I paid a whopping $4 for the centerpiece!! What a deal. :-D




In other news, I can now say Levi is walking!! Here he is, showing off a few steps for ya: You'll see at the end he still prefers scooting as his fastest, main mode of transportation, but he's definitely getting the hang of walking. Way to go Levi!



In case you haven't followed the story of baby Stellan, from my previous post, he's finally home again after 5 weeks in the hospital and a major surgery. God is good!!
That'll do for now, I promise I'll blog more regularly now again!! (I hope)

Praying for Stellan

Among the blogs I enjoy reading, there is one by a sweet lady nicknamed MckMama that I keep up with. She is an amazing Christian lady and her blog is such a great testimony.
Anyway, Stellan is her youngest baby, I think he's about 5 months old. When he was in the womb, he was diagnosed with a very serious heart condition and the doctors said he would never survive. Miraculously, he was born healthy and well with no signs of the heart condition.
Sunday night, MckMama took him to the ER because he had a cold and difficulty breathing. Something happened there, and things have quickly gone downhill since. Stellan's heart condition (Super Ventricular Tachycardia) has reappeared, and nothing is helping to stabilize him or get his heart rate slowed down. I encourage you to read the latest updates HERE. Even through this difficult time, MckMama's faith is strong, as you will see in her recent posts.
I post this because baby Stellan needs all the prayer he can get. I know none of us know this family, but I feel like I have gotten to "know" them through blog-land, and my heart is breaking for what they are going through, so please say a little prayer for Stellan as you read this. Thank you!!

Finally, the kitchen!

Finally, my kitchen is *nearly* done! I LOVE it, it is absolutely beautiful! Great work, Jeremy. Thank you so much!
It is not 100% done, there are a few little finishing touches, but I couldn't wait any longer to share pictures. :-) If you need a reminder of what it used to look like, go HERE

Looking from the dining room here. The china hutch on the left used to be on the right wall. I like it tons better here!
I want to get matching placemats for the table and a pretty centerpiece.


Walking in and looking right. The back of the peninsula here obviously still needs finished. I may eventually go with an above-stove microwave but don't want to spend any more money for now.


Looking straight ahead at the sink. I turned off the lights so you could see the light fixtures better. I'm going to get a nice plant to put on that shelf above the windows. I may also get a nice wooden trash can that looks better in here at some point.
We still need knobs on the doors on this side. I haven't decided yet if I'll put any curtains up. I would put up a valance and not a true panel curtain if I did.


Lights on:
I LOVE my sink!!!!!!!!!!!! And the faucet!


Looking left of the sink. Nice tall pantry...love that!


Fridge is now on the opposite side of the room. This spot looks funny above the window but there will soon be another shelf up there, just like the one above the sink. You can see we still need to install the toe kick under the edges of the cabinets, too.


I LOVE the floor too!

Family Likeness?

One of my aunts recently sent me a picture of my dad as a tot. As soon as I saw it, I was shocked to see how much Levi looked like my dad in this picture!! How about you? Can you see a resemblance? It was hard for me to find a picture of Levi to show it as clearly as I see it....you may have to kind of know him and his expressions that are hard to catch on camera in order to see the likeness. But, whaddya think?

Blogging just to blog

Eeeks....it's been a while since I've blogged huh? Guess I really haven't had any inspiration or anything too exciting to blog about. How about some boring randomness?

-Levi has been sick since Tuesday night. He came down with a really high fever, then got a nasty, nasty cough. For 3 nights, he only slept 10-15 minutes at a time and had to be held all night. Needless to say, neither Jeremy or I got much sleep those nights. Jeremy was awesome though-- he took Levi for half the night every night so I could get sleep too. :-) Levi slept better last night but was up at 5 am this morning. Maybe tonight will be better!

-The kitchen is completely put together and I have put all my stuff away again. YAY. The only things left to do are some trim around the windows, a light above the sink, and some other minor trim work. Once that is all done I will get some pictures up. It is looking gorgeous!!!!!!

-Remember my resolution to lose weight? I've lost 8 lbs so far. Doesn't seem like much, and I have a loooong way to go, but at least it's something, right?

-My lovely, lovely sister has moved back to AR. I'm glad to have her out of my hair, really....but she still owes us money. I wonder if we'll ever get it all. She left a nice big mess for me too...she was renting our rental house and left several bags of trash, all kinds of junk, dishes, food, furniture I'll have to do something with, and dirt/mess everywhere. I'm glad she was so grateful for everything we did for her. :-p :-p :-p I have most definitely learned my lesson about helping people out.
Oh, and when I griped at her tonight for leaving a mess I was going to have to clean up, she tried to say "It's not that bad" and she "didn't have time" to clean it up. Then she told me, "Oh, you need to get out of your house sometimes and do something different anyway." What a @#$%#!

-When we put the dishwasher back in the kitchen and I ran it the first time, it puked water everywhere. Then I attemted to run it again, and it did the same thing again. We have had trouble with that dishwasher right from the start....and have only had it 3 years!! It's time to take it to the dump. It was even a Maytag...I thought they were supposed to be a good brand?? Now we get to spend more money on a dishwasher. :-p (I insisted that Jeremy not get me another one, and we just wait a while to spend that kind of money, but he's insisting that he gets me one, so he ordered it last night. I think my husband spoils me.)
Since we've been married, we've had a washing machine die (in a rental house, so it didn't belong to us), a dryer, a vacuum cleaner, an upright freezer, and a dishwasher all die. I hate appliances!!

-Right now on the left armrest of my chair, the kitty is asleep. On the right armrest, Dolly is asleep. It's very cute. :-)

What a Boy!

I haven't bragged on blogged about my sweet son for a while, so it must be time. :-)

I think it is so funny to see how he is "all boy" right from the get-go. It doesn't take any encouraging or teaching for a little boy to be a little boy. ;-) He's all about trucks, cars, (anything with wheels!), tools, hats, and noise. Without any help, he started making truck/car/motor sounds and he makes that sound over and over at the first sight of anything with wheels. He loves to watch the races on TV, look at tool or farming catalogs with daddy, and haul things in the back of his toy trucks.

He's a little behind when it comes to gross motor skills (walking, crawling) so he is currently doing physical therapy once a week. I've already seen an improvement too. He gets around ok in his own way, and is very happy and content, but I'd still like to see him progress and catch up to where he's supposed to be.
Levi is really smart, and the p.t. lady comments on this every week. He mimics everything, and figures things out so quickly. He can point out his head, nose, and ears. He can say the sounds for lions, bears, tigers, cats, and monkeys, and can identify those animals.
His vocabulary consists of "mama" "daddy" "puppy" and "baby", as well as lots of babbling and asking questions we can't understand.
He has turned into quite the little socialite too. *Everyone* he meets gets a big, cheesy grin from him, and even the cranky-looking people in Wal-Mart can't help but smile and laugh when they see him. :-)
He has the cutest little gestures! If you head towards him in silliness saying "I'm gonna get you!" he covers his eyes with both hands and squeals. If something surprises him, like the other day when the toys started "avalanching" out of the cabinet, he'll make an "o" with his mouth, cover his mouth with his hands, and his eyes get all big. Soooooo cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He'll also pucker his lips and make smacking sounds when you blow him kisses, and he loves to surprise me sometimes by leaning in and giving me big sloppy kisses on the face.

Look closely:



Cousins: