I Don't Have Time To Write Intelligent Posts

But there's (almost) always time to post a cute picture!

Playing Wears Me Out!

This is one of the most entertaining things to watch Captain do: He will take a toy or two and bat it across the floor and then go to it to do it again. With these particular toys, he makes me think he might be good at air hockey!

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Every day he's a little bit closer to walking on his own!

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After a long day of playing & learning how to walk, Captain likes to be rocked to sleep on the glider ottoman. P-Paw started this and Captain can hardly keep his eyes open when he does it!

Henry says he looks like a dwarf tap-dancer in his homemade baby-legs & Robeez!

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Back In Butterville - Scattered Thoughts

We've moved in with the folks! It's going VERY well and we are sooo grateful.

In case you were wondering, it takes LOTS of boxes even to move just a few things.

There is no way we'd be able to put our house up for sale if the Gardeners weren't willing to let us live here. We started school today and I just can't imagine doing school in the house back up in Bridgeport while trying to get/keep it show-ready.

If you are a pray-er, would you please pray for a quick sell for us? A sign will probably be in our yard by the weekend!

Thoughts are a little scattered right now but I wanted to make a little post so you'd know I was still alive.

OOh....my sis, Uma told me that she started a blog today! She didn't give me the URL (cuz I had to cut her off -- sorry, sis!) but I'm hoping to see it soon. Maybe she'll let me share it! She's hilarious and I know you guys would love reading her.

Captain's crawling (even more today than yesterday!) He's so doggone cute. Can't wait to take some new pictures and show y'all.

Lastly, look at this Harvard article discussing the latest "babies need touch" research.

Have You Missed My "What's Up With Us" Posts?

I know I've slapped a few posts around here lately but none of them have been the personal, what's-going-on-with-the-fam type posts. Tonight I figured I'd try to hit the highlights and share a few pics to get you all caught up!

In Captain news, he has his first tooth and is scooting around all over the place. He's not technically crawling but he's definitely covering some major square-footage. He makes the big kids crack up when he bounces back and forth on his hands and knees. The 13th marked his 6 month birthday. How'd that happen so fast!?

In family stuff, we went to the beach last weekend and returned Tuesday but because of our busted camera, didn't get any good pics to share. Pa Trippe took a couple but they were either fogged up by the humidity or showed my too-bouyant and scantily-clad (not really) body from a top-looking-down-into-pool-angle and I just didn't want to show you. The weather was great...hot at the right times, cool-ish breezes when needed, and a torrential downpour late in the afternoon when we needed a break from the sun. We had a great time.

In crunchy-Mommy love, I am working very hard, and starting to see success, with getting Ricki Lake to town, along with her Director Abby Feinstein for a pre-release showing of "The Business of Being Born." It hopes to be the "Unfortunate Truth" of the childbirth industry (childbirth & industry don't even deserve to go together but that's what's become of everything...) Anyway, I can't believe I'm actually getting so close to rubbing some major elbows with some real-life celebrities! More info on this soon, I'm sure!

In the "Make-A-Reservation-For-Me-In-The-Looney-Bin" category, I will share a crazy little development. Ready? We are preparing to sell our house and move back to Butterville! And if you think that's crazy, get this ... We're going to move in with my parents during the transition! I'll try to get a longer post on here about the 'hows' and 'whys' but just know that if I'm a little quiet, it's cuz we're pretty busy.

And BECAUSE of all of this, and one of the several reasons we are moving in with Ma & Pa Gardener is because of homeschooling. We haven't started yet but will start immediately after moving in with Mom & Dad. Ya see, as crazy as this might sound to non-ball-playing families...we'd REALLY like to be in a house CLOSER to the ballfields this year when we have 4 (yes, FOUR) playing. And I know that if we start school in our house NOW, I'll never get the house ready and we'll push back the selling. SO if we get OUT of the house and school elsewhere, we can have this house on the market very soon.

We're SO thankful my parents are cool enough for us to be able to hang with them for a little while. It will really be nice to be back "in town" and close to everything again. And I believe that being out of our house will prevent me from having too much more gray hair through the process.

In closing, I'll share a couple of pics from the week. Of course the first is Captain but then there's a couple showing the kids playing outside with their race track pieces dumping cars off the roller coaster into the water table. It's child abuse to send the kids outside without at least a little water to play with!

Hope you're all staying cool!

The Non-Scheduled Schedule

Since I rarely use the word "scheduling" when talking about an infant, for fear of someone thinking I follow or promote Ezzo's teachings, I will say that today was a good day in the "things-working-out-in-a-predictable-sort-of-way" department.

Captain and I went to Sunday morning services for the first time since his birth. We made it pretty much on time and if we didn't have such a long hallway to walk down (where we got stopped by lots of oohs and ahhs of wanting to see this new little dude) we would have totally made it into the sanctuary on time. We had hoped to make it early enough for Henry to sing in the choir but I messed that up by not being happy with my first outfit at home.

It was the being up early and at a scheduled time that was a big goal for today. I needed to let Captain nurse and then had to get up and showered before Henry needed to get up and showered, so that he could stay in the bed and keep our 1-month-old cozy and asleep.

After getting mostly ready, and getting the older kids awake and taking care of themselves, I was able to get my hair dried before the Captain woke up and was ready to nurse again. If I fit into my nicer clothes a little better, and if I had some more clothing articles that allowed for discreet nursing, I would have been ready in time to get Henry out the door earlier but it was the lack of trying on my choices last night that caused the blip in our time. But I must give a shout-out to the girls for helping entertain and even finish dressing Captain while Henry and I finished with our primping.

At church, Captain stayed quiet and dozed off and on during the whole service. He didn't even make one of those terribly embarrassing poop sounds! And he looked so cute the whole time, too! He was wearing a darling little cashmere jumper and would smile at me whenever he opened his eyes to see where he was...I wish I could have taken his picture!

In Sunday School (or as the current trend is turning, "Small Group") he was getting a little cranky so I nursed him. I was so pleased that no one (especially the teacher) seemed to think a thing about it. Of course, the seating arrangement was such that it's possible no one even knew I was nursing him but I think most did.

So he did GREAT on his first day at Sunday church (he's been on Wednesdays a couple of times so far.) If he seems to stick with this "routine" (ick word) it won't be long before I will be able to let the nursery keep him during Sunday School. I will give it a few more weeks to work him (and me) into it, though.

After church we went to the Trippes for lunch and visiting with some of the Trippe family that came in from out of town. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow.



Since Mama Gardener emailed me some pictures from yesterday's visit at her house, I will post some of those today. The fishing pictures are from a morning trip down to the neighborhood pond where Leland has been wanting to go fishing with Papa Gardener for a while. All of the kids caught 2 fish (except for Rocky who was still camping with Henry at the time) and He-Man was the winner of "biggest fish."

Here are some cute pictures of Captain and his admirers from yesterday, too.

Below are a couple of Leland:

Stalling My Bedtime

We're home after visiting with the Gardeners for a little while. Henry & Rocky are camping out (just one night) in the COLD and the rest of us are ready for them to be home. Even the dog knows they're not here. I am trying to make myself very tired before turning off all the lights because I don't want to lie awake for any length of time. Lying awake in a house without Henry makes my mind wander too much and I'd much rather just go to sleep the second my head hits the pillow.

Lucky You gets the benefit of my attempts to stall bedtime.

The house is a WRECK! It's so bad that if someone was in an auto accident, they could call their insurance agent and say, "I had a Stacy's house!"

Sigh...

I'm actually typing with two hands, tonight. Captain is sleeping soundly in the bed beside me and I'm staying up way too late with this laptop going through some email and, of course, blogging.

I'm not quite back to perfectly streamlined thought patterns so you'll have to continue muddling through random statements about the things going on 'round here for a little while.

You know I've mentioned the coolness of answered prayers numerous times before but let me just say it again. GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS! Remember that missing glove & helmet from a couple of days ago? Well, Henry and I (and probably the kids) prayed for the discovery of their location. We were hanging on to the hope that someone we knew picked them up from the ballfield and was going to get them back to us but after several days passed, we got discouraged. Well, we shouldn't have given up any hope because on Wednesday afternoon, before going to church, I got a call on my cell phone from a friend saying that a mutual friend had picked up Rocky's stuff and gotten it to her to give it to us! When we got to church that night, his helmet, glove, hat (that we didn't realize was missing) and Indie's shoes (that we thought were lost in a separate incident) were returned to us!! I can't tell you how good that felt. I know it might have been silly to be so upset about that equipment being gone but it was truly heart-wrenching. So we PRAISE GOD AGAIN for answering our prayers!!

OK, let's see...what else to blab about? Oh, the weight thing. Blech. I am at the stage where my belly is super-flabby and it just disgusts me. I was much happier with my body a couple of weeks ago when there was still some relative firmness (thanks to not completely-shrunken and re-positioned internal organs) but now that everything on the inside has toned up and squished back to its rightful place, the fat and skin are just reminders that I am SO much a Mom.

So, I have actually exercised two days. I've DVR'ed several episodes of "All-Star Workout" from FITv and have worked through MOST of it. Both exercise sessions were cut short because of a needy baby (I apparently have poor timing of when to start trying to exercise) but I think they were a good start.

I am trying to be more dilligent with my phytosterols to help me fight off the chocolate cravings but I've gotten slack on some days just from sheer busyness. I hope to keep going with the exercise thing but am aiming to start back with A3 when Captain gets about 4 or 5 months old. I'm waiting until that age because that's about when I remember all the other children became pretty predictable with a routine and became a little "easier" (for lack of a better term.) Since I believe with all my heart that A3 will be fine for me to take while nursing (doing own research and speaking with others who have looked into it as well) I'd still like to wait until that time so that I don't falsely accuse the supplement of any of Captain's frequent behavior changes. After the 4 or 5 month mark, I'll be better able to fairly judge how he reacts to me using it.

And I am very much looking forward to giving it another go. I had actually started the product for one month before I found out I was pregnant with Captain and REALLY liked it. So I'm trying to be patient with my body and remember that this fluffiness is just a sign that I have been blessed beyond measure and that if I can hang in there for a few more months, then maybe I can start to see myself fitting back into normal clothes.

The Trauma We Caused

We went to Mom and Dad's house yesterday to eat their yummy grilled lunch and watch the Bama game (no comments on that part, ok?) He-Man is in a stage of wanting to take some sort of toy to every place he goes. We're fine with that if we're going to see family but it's the FORGETTING to bring the toy home that is the biggest problem with the phase.

So when He-Man took Ninja Turtle Don (the dumbed-down version of the new turtles -- no more trying to teach kids the tiniest fragment of art history by keeping his original name, "Donatello") over to my folks' house, I knew it was probable we would forget him...but we'd get him back later like we always do.

I guess the frequency of leaving toys at their house got Mom and Dad into a silly mood and they decided to email the following picture to us:



Then Mom and Dad called us to tell us to check our email.

So we all gather around the computer and chuckled. All of us EXCEPT He-Man.

We all have a good time laughing at the photo and decide that it probably wouldn't be a good idea for He-Man to see it. But when he came running around the corner to see what was up, our curiosity about his reaction caused us to show him the focus of our enjoyment.

The poor boy had the most panicked look on his face. Goodness. We are so mean!

We started doing some serious damage control and because he heard his G-Jo and P-Paw on the phone assuring him Don was safe now, we were able to keep him relatively calm about it.

But Rocky thought it would be funny to continue messing with his baby brother's little mind.

Grr. Big brothers can be so mean sometimes.

Henry finally convinced He-Man that Don was fine because he's a Ninja Turtle and was able to beat up the bad guys (thankfully he doesn't know that is G-Jo's hand in the picture!!!) and is now safe and sound. But we think there is still a little bit of internalized trauma he is working through. He wandered into our room and bed last night saying that he had a bad dream. Today after nap, he started to immediately ask if we could go to G-Jo's house to get Don. We think he is still worried about him.

So G-Jo is bringing Don to Henry at work tomorrow. Hopefully having the Turtle back home will relieve a little bit of the anxiety we have caused this poor child.

Fall Field Trip

GJo went with us on Indie's field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. It was fun but let me just say that the owners of that thing are making a KILLING! $15.50 per kid for a couple of hayride things and pony rides and petting zoo and bouncey toys. Not to mention concessions.....wow. 

Mom and Dad's wedding with Granny & PaPaul.