Our Journey To Gideon Video

I finally sat down to compile all of the photos and videos from our whirlwind of a journey to Gideon. Not a day goes by that I don't break down in tears in awe of the story God is writing for us. We serve such a kind, personal, generous Father who adopted me out of sin and darkness when I deserved death. Thank you Jesus for salvation and thank you for Gideon Aaron.

Lucy 1st Year Videos

Below you will find two videos, the top one is Lucy's Project 365 video and the bottom is a compilation of videos I took her first year of life. I hope they bring you as much joy as they do for us!

Lucy's First Food

Today is a crazy day in Austin. It hasn't stopped raining since early this morning and there is flooding across our city. For a city who has experienced a multi year drought, it is great, but man it's intense! Since we planned on staying home all day, it was finally time to start Lucy on solids! In typical 2nd child fashion I have been meaning to start them this week but then time gets away from us and I postpone. I spent a whole day last week making a bunch of homemade baby food. Like with Ford, we plan on doing purees for a couple of weeks then transition into baby led weaning. Lucy has shown major signs that she is interested... grabbing our food, opening her mouth, and loving puffs and mum mums. I decided to give her sweet potatoes since that was Ford's favorite and I used a store bought Gerber brand because it is really thing and pureed (my homemade food is thicker). She was funny about it and got over it pretty quickly. I assumed she was going to plow through it but that wasn't the case. She did want to grab onto the spoon to gnaw on. I am in no rush to go full force into food but we will try again tomorrow! And just like Ford, Lucy had her first food off of a beautiful silver spoon gifted to us by my grandparents (and they gave me one when I was a baby too!). I love incorporating family traditions into any experience for my kiddos.

Googly eyes for her daddy

WEDGiTS

I've mentioned many times before that Ford is my little engineer. As he gets older I love watching him grow physically (that boy can throw a ball far!) but watching his mind expand is incredible. Blocks, Lincoln Logs, Legos, puzzles... he is constantly building and creating, something I know I wasn't into as a kid. One of the cutest things to watch is him problem solving. He builds a tower and it falls over quickly so he heads over to the basket of toys to figure out how to make it sturdier. Then he'll add some of his animals or cars in the mix, he has such a great imagination! Not like our house needs anymore toys (and the thought of adding little girl toys in the next few months stresses me out!) but the weeks leading up to his baby sister's birth, I've been getting him a few new toys that will make him feel special and keep him busy, mostly the latter! Funny enough, the company I used to work for (software development) had a set of WEDGiTS and they are quite entertaining so I knew Ford would love them!

WEDGiTS blocks are fun and challenging blocks for kids (and adults!) of all ages that introduce the spatial world of angles, shapes, color patterning, and matching. Basically there is no wrong way to build with WEDGiTS. They can be nested, stacked, linked, and wedged together to create hundreds of designs. This is perfect for a perfectionist child like mine who often gets mad when he can't get something put together. We got Ford the Imagination Starter Kit that we can continue to add on to because all WEDGiTS sets are 100% compatible. Ford has no issues with self confidence and is pretty proud of his creations!

Looking for an interactive, educational, fun gift for your little one? WEDGiTS!

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Mama, airplane!

I may be biased but Ford is just super cute and fun these days. He is so vocal and physical, learning tons of new words a day and exploring his abilities as a little boy. He still plays it pretty safe but has been really enjoying spending most of our days outside now that the weather is nice. His recent obsession is airplanes and anytime he hears one in the sky he says "MAMA! Airplane!" and covers one ear (he actually does this when he hears lots of noises- mowers outside, cars driving by, etc.). And airplane sounds like "pair pain". He flaps around so excited and waves hi and by to the planes. Last weekend the weather was beautiful and we were grilling burgers on the deck and he had a blast jumping on our outdoor sofa and waving to the airplanes. He just cracks me up! Last summer he basically lived in a diaper and I look forward to my diaper booty boy this summer! There is a video below of him playing, he is a party of one. 

Monday morning

Ahhh Monday morning. Each week you come way too soon. Another weekend is in the books and we had such a great one that I figured it deserved it's own blog post. Friday night we ordered pizza and watched Gone Girl... wowzas! I never got around to reading the book and heard the movie was incredible and holy smokes, it was. It's funny because even not pregnant, I can fall asleep within minutes of turning on a movie whether it is 8pm or 8am but y'all, I stayed up until 11p because Gone Girl was so intense! Jon loved it too. We really had no idea what it was about and it was completely shocking so it kept our attention. It's on Redbox so you should rent it.

Saturday started out perfect because I slept until 9am and then Jon took Ford out on errands for a few hours and I kinda just relaxed. I was caught up on chores and laundry so I finished my bible study, did some embroidery, and watched How To Get Away With Murder without the buzz of a baby monitor by my side. Jon is busy busy working on rebuilding his 49 Ford truck so normally Saturday mornings he has guys in the garage and Ford and I do our own thing so I loved having some time to myself, even if I didn't do much. I got out of PJs at 2pm just in time to welcome my grandparents for the afternoon. We spent the rest of the day at The Austin Zoo and there were so many times where I thought, "man being a parent is just the best!". It was 75 degrees and beautiful. I am so glad we went onthe weekend because Jon was able to join us. Ford and I do a lot of fun stuff with other mommies/babies to stay busy during the week and I always wish Jon could see Ford in action. Now I love animals but Jon is on a different level with his love for furry, slimy, swimming things. Ford had THE time of his life and had the crowd of me, Jon, and my grandparents who just adore watching him in his element. Ford is very into animals right now (just yesterday we were reading a book and he said dolphin and turtle... he is smart!) and squealed from habitat to habitat. He helped me feed goats, laughed at the monkeys swinging, and growled with the lions.

We grabbed Italian for dinner and hung at our house, games included. If you have a good memory, Ford is named after my dad's dad, my Papa (his name story here). My grandparents come in from Chicago for a month every January/February and it is so fun to watch Ford get to know them. He is smitten with them and loves when his Great Papa tells him stories and tickles him.

Sunday was church, followed by Sabbath rest, and community group. I think I mentioned that while we were in Mexico we started watching Breaking Bad from the beginning again. We watched it on Netflix while I was pregnant with Ford and felt the urge to start it again. It is so much less exciting knowing what happens but I like it that way!

I turned 30 weeks pregnant on Saturday, man that was fast! I see the doctor next week and then every other week until she is born. 9 weeks from today! Let's just say we are really trying to savor these weekends when life is a little bit easier than it will be come April 27th. This weekend is my "baby sprinkle"...how am I already at this point of my second pregnancy?! Last week we did a lot of catching up and immersing ourselves back into the real world post vacation but I plan on blogging more this week!

Hope you had a great weekend yourself and are enjoying your Monday!

Ford's first snowfall in the Windy City

My birthday was last month and Jon surprised me by booking a trip for our little family to visit Chicago. Yes Chicago is a fabulous city but we were so excited to spend a few days showing off our big boy to family (I was born there and my entire family, minus my intermediate, still live there). We took Ford up in April but so much has changed in the last 7 months and I couldn't wait for my family to see how he's grown....as cheesy as that sounds. Jon always says I can figure out any surprise so it is up to him to rock my world with certain surprises, which is has excelled at the past few years. I loved not having to coordinate schedules, look up flights, figure out where we would stay...he did that all for us and I only had to wait a few weeks for our trip. 

It was pretty darn cold last weekend in Illinois, although Texas wasn't much hotter. The first two days we were there, there were constant snow flurries that never really built up on anything but cars and light dusting on some roofs. It was technically Ford's first time to see snow! Basically the whole 3 days we were there were spent watching Ford be cute, eating, playing games, and relaxing. Gosh I wish we had basements in Texas. There is nothing better than cozying up in a basement with family.

Ford's namesake, James Ford

All he wanted to do was sit in the dog beds

I didn't take many pictures but we had such a great time. We visited the Dupage County Children's Museum and it was incredible. Ford had THE time of his life. There was a point that he was in a wind tunnel with one of my aunts and I had a frog in my throat watching him laugh and shriek as the wind blew on his face. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

We love getting to share Ford with our extended family!

Ford 13 months

New this month

• Walking everywhere, doesn't really crawl anymore
• Blowing kisses and even making a smacking sound, too cute!
• Dances all the time
• Praying hands during prayer time
• When asked he will point to his head, eyes, nose, teeth, belly, shirt, shoes, feet. He will also point them out on mommy/daddy
• Clicks his tongue and he thinks it's hilarious
• Favorite word is "Papa". Also says mama, dada, ball, ni-ni (night night), blue, dog. If we ask him to say words he often echoes
• Answers "ya" and "na" to questions
• We've started putting him on his plastic potty and he has yet to pee in it (he's a master at peeing on the floor). I am not trying to potty train him, just get him used to it.
• Very good problem solver...seeing a toy out of his reach and finding a way to get it it, etc.
• Climbing on and off the couch/ottoman/high things
• Climbing up stairs (ours are gated at the bottom and top so I usually carry him but I also let him climb so he knows how to do it safely).
• Very intrigued with daddy's nipple
• Loves his Little Tykes slide and climbs up and goes down all by himself
• Favorite toys are his Cozy Coupe, shopping cart, and play kitchen. 
• Very clingy to mommy, this has resulted in lots of Ergo piggy back rides
• Throws fake tantrums, shrieks and fake cries when you take something from him
• Loves to FaceTime and laughs and smiles when he hears the FT ring. He also gets mad if I am on the phone and he can't see someone. 

Videos

Ford play

Ever since he turned one, we feel like Ford has totally embodied what it is to be a toddler. Answering questions, talking, problem solving, climbing, whining, fake crying. It is such an exhausting, fun, cute, and sometimes trying stage. We've been very lax about him climbing on his slide and he will crawl over to it and start climbing up the slide part and look over at me and start babbling as if he's saying, "Okay mom I know what I am doing so don't be scared". He is already trying to bargain with me. He has such a funny little personality and has mastered giving people the stink eye when we are out and about (those eyebrows are intense!). He squeals with delight at the mention of Jon, claps and says, "Da da!!!" with so much joy. He says mama and wants me when he is sad, typical huh? He loves dancing and knows he can do certain things to make us laugh. I've been trying to be more intentional with him as he plays and trying to capture these fleeting moments via memory and video. I could sit and watch him play for hours! He loves attempting to put his 3 piece puzzles together and has so much fun stacking his colorful donut toy. He crawls through his tunnel on his own and spends countless hours opening and closing the compartments of his play kitchen. It is really one of the greatest joys I've experienced to watch Ford grow into a little person. The first year of life I spent trying to keep him alive and healthy, and now there is so much I want to teach him! I don't want to forget these simple moments of Ford playing so here's a glimpse into 90 seconds of Ford land.

I wouldn't say we have a walker just yet but Ford has mastered about 10-12 steps, solely on carpet and soft floors. He is so proud of  himself and looks pretty darn cute toddling around!

One last note. Ford had his 12 month shots on August 13th and yesterday woke up with a rash all over his body and face. We ran into the doctor who confirmed it was a reaction to the MMR vaccine which is normal because it contains the live virus. Praise God it is not contagious and Ford seems fine, just looking like a little leper! This is his first reaction to any of his vaccinations (also thankful for that) and it doesn't scare me one bit/change my views on vaccines, just wanted to let you mamas know that this is normal after the 12 month shots! ....so please no anti vax comments please