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Little baby is as usual too cute to resist taking pictures of! This is how he comforts himself at night when he is sleeping. He hasn't learned yet to make his fingers in a fist, and so he ends up jamming his thumb into his mouth and poking himself in the eye once in a while when he is especially aggressive in his thumb sucking!
He is sleeping really well these days, but I don't want to jinx him! :) He likes to go to bed extra early...around 5:30 or 6:30pm. Then we wake him up before I go to bed to feed him around 10:00pm. He will then usually sleep until 4:30 or 5:00am and will lay in his crib talking to himself until I come and get him. His favorite words are "ooooo, Owwww, ahhhhh" (repeat ad nauseum).
I feel very blessed that little baby lets me sleep in a little more (on occasion) and that his crib can entertain him until I am more awake.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Here is our special little Santa this year! He isn't bringing a bag of toys, but some dirty diapers, happy smiles, active feet and hands and tons more blessings to the Carpenter household!
We had a little "mishap" as we were getting these pictures taken, but luckily he took good pictures in the first few photos because he wasn't going to give anymore smiles after he bonked his head on the box he was sitting on. They didn't have a very good set up for babies that can't sit up on their own yet and so I was trying to hold him from behind.
At one point I had him adjusted and then he moved really quickly and fell forward and bonked his nose. This was NOT very popular and he wouldn't be consoled for a while afterward! We were very pleased with how the pictures turned out though!
Merry Christmas to all of you!
Although Josiah isn't the greatest at sitting up yet, he can sit pretty well in his high chair and so we have started feeding him in it so that he will get used to eating there. He is wearing a bib that Grandma Betty gave him that says "New kid on the Block" and he is too when it comes to eating solid foods!
David fed him a pretty good sized bowl of oatmeal with banana (the baby version kind) and he seemed to like it. He would open his mou
th really wide (see picture
below) when David would make an airplane sound as it came close to his mouth. David tried other sounds, but it was only this SPECIFIC sound that would make his mouth open. It was pretty funny!
Also...Josiah likes to "help" with his hands, so you can see that Daddy is holding his hands so that the helping doesn't interfere with eating. When Mommy has tried to feed the baby, he will almost always get oatmeal all over his hands at some point.
So I read the instructions for the bouncy Tigger seat that we have and it turns out it is for 4 months and older, so I had him try it out today. He loves it! I have it close enough to the ground where he can walk around in it. He doesn't bounce too much yet, but he is definitely using his leg muscles to turn around and practice this assisted walking.
Thanks to my friend Lin for getting it for us, it will bring lots of joy to this little one I am sure! Not to mention that Mommy gets a kick out of watching him play in it as well!
In honor of going to Uncle Mike and Aunt Genny's farm for Thanksgiving, I thought it would be fun for him to put on his "cow coat" prepare for his trip into cow country! Mara got this little jacket for him and it is just TOO cute!
He wears it whenever we go out now. Still when we take walks it seems he is not the happiest camper. He always has a sullen look on his face or that he is uncomfortable when I take him outside. I know he is warm enough, but I think he just isn't fond of being away from home. He gets really quiet until we come home again and then he is his normal self.
Today was the big day for all my students. There were 19 of them that performed today (though one is not in the picture). I was really proud of them that they all played through their pieces without stopping. We still have to work on bowing with some of them, but that is OK!
We had cake, cookies, & nuts with pink lemonade & 7 UP punch for the reception. It was held at Spokane Valley Baptist Church.
It was really nice to have a big recital again. The last time I had this large of a
studio was when I was in high school! Since I have moved around so much, it seems that just when I get a good number of students I am moving again. We hope to stick around here for a while though, so I hope that it works out that we do. God may have a different plan for us though, and I am open to whatever he has for us and know that he will provide the students for me wherever I go!
Mara came over for a visit for a couple of days and we went to see her parents who were in Coure d'Alene, ID for a craft show. They live in Tacoma, so it was kind of neat that while Mara was here on the east side of the state that she got to visit with her folks.
Mara is a thrift store shopping genius and brought me a whole bunch of clothes that she got for a buck each and now I have LOTS more clothes to choose from. I had been lamenting the fact that I don't fit in most of my old clothes now after the baby and Mara took pity on me and found some that work! Thank you Mara for all the lovely clothes! She has been such a WONDERFUL friend to me and I am truly thankful to have known her all these years!
I was thinking...wouldn't it be nice if someone designed clothes for women AFTER pregnancy? It seems that the maternity clothes are too big and make you look frumpy, but you still need a little extra room in the hips and stomach areas as well as the bust if you are breast feeding. Maybe noone has done it because most people just buy bigger sizes to compensate for a while? Anyway, to someone out there that designs clothes, that is my request!
A funny thing happened when I was out with Mara today. I tried to feed baby J in the car and instead of feeding he got started, but then stopped and kept giggling at me. He got Mara and I cracking up in the car and I got the bulk of his milk meal on my lap. He is a very silly baby and we had fun with him today, but later in the evening since his routine was somewhat altered, he had a hard time getting to sleep. We managed it though and he got back on track pretty quick!
So when we put baby in the crib, his head is right behind Mr. Peter Rabbit on the head board, but he has demonstrated that he has a better way to sleep and that is sideways! When I woke up this morning to change and feed him at 5:50am, this is how he was only with one sock off (he likes to work them off his feet quite often). Then when David came in to get him at around 7:10am, he was back in this position again.
I guess he takes after Mommy in that he is a wild sleeper! My mom said she wouldn't share a bed with me as a child because I would kick her and such.
When he was sick, we would prop him up with a pillow and put his sheet on the pillow and would lay him on it. He would work his way down off the pillow and the sheet would flip over onto his head. We discovered this because he made miserable "come fix this mess" baby noises following this occurrence. That also was pretty funny to see our little "ghost" baby.
God is so good! A week ago a lady from our church that I barely know called to offer 4 bags of clothes and baby things for Josiah. I was just looking at his closet thinking "hmmm we don't have very many bigger clothes (12-18 months)" and then she called and mostly all the clothes were that size!
I am so thankful that God has provided so abundantly for our little Josiah and for us as well! It is a testament to the fact that you never "have" the money for kids, but when God blesses you with a child, he will also provide the means to support that child.
Thank you Carrie and your family for giving us all these nice clothes for baby Josiah!
Recently, Josiah thinks it is really funny to spit out as much drool as he can via doing the raspberry with his lips. At McDonalds the the other day, he kept doing it to get my attention and I probably wiped his face about 15 times because of all the drool!
He makes me laugh and laugh when he does this and he does it now to make me laugh I think sometimes! He is such a sweet little boy and I love him more and more each and every day!
NOTE: I have been informed that technically this "isn't" the a raspberry lip embouchure, but rather more like a buzzing on the trumpet type of deal! Maybe he will take after Uncle Brent in more than just the drooling department (as Brent was a big drooler as a kid) and may play the trumpet too!
Today Daddy was showing Josiah all about computers. He was very interested and wanted to "help" play Daddy's game!
He is getting pretty good at holding his head up now and is also starting to try to put things in his mouth. Daddy let us hold the toothpaste tube and we tried to suck on the cap and got a weird "what is this?" face that made Daddy laugh out loud.
Josiah definitely wants to be where the people are and lets us know it if he is by himself (in the crib or under his play gym)!
His cries are getting more varied everyday. Last night, he woke up at...you guessed it 4am...and I heard him doing some little "I'm scared" cries and when I came in his room I noticed that the wind was whistling outside and also that he was trying to work himself out of his blanket, (that Mommy had tucked underneath him) but was unsuccessful in ousting himself from blanketland.
Today was the first day that feeding the baby something other than breast milk didn't result in a crying, unhappy Josiah. I have been experiementing with rice cereal that didn't seem to be popular, and so I resorted to trying applesauce yesterday with a little success, but didn't get him to swallow very much of it.
Daddy was home today and so we decided to try feeding him some applesauce again. We got him to eat more than yesterday, but it still wasn't enough to fill him up. However, this is progress and soon I am sure we will be able to feed him more as he is getting used to swallowing something other than milk!
So much to Mommy's dismay, little Josiah likes to get up at the crack of dawn, which around here is either 5 or 6am. He is like Daddy in that he doesn't like to eat first thing in the morning, but likes to be awake for a while and THEN eat.
This means that Mommy has been up playing with little baby most mornings. Not that she is complaining about playing with the baby mind you, but rather she wonders "why can't this be at 7 or 8am?" Baby seems to be the most talkative in the morning ("owww, ahhwa, owwa" are his favorite words) and so I can't help but smile and pretend I am a morning person! So I play with him for about 30 minutes, give him a feeding when he starts to get fussy and then he goes off for his morning nap and sleeps for a good 2 hours usually. This is when I get caught up on housework and/or take a shower. He seems to be back on his nap schedule and on some days (like today) he has been sleeping a lot. Maybe he is having a growth spurt! Last time we checked he was 16 pounds and about 25 inches long. He is a big boy! His 4 month check up will be on October 28th, so stay tuned!
So unlike most moms I have talked to, I don't give Josiah a bath everyday. For one thing...he doesn't get that dirty and what DOES get dirty is washed 8-10 times a day with baby wipes. Also, I had read somewhere that babies skin has its own oils and such and if you wash them all the time then you wash away that natural oil that mosturizes their skin. However, this makes for a very disoriented baby when I do give him a bath (about once a week) because it is pretty new everytime I do it. Not to mention, it seems most everytime after I wash him, he decides to pee on the towel afterwards which is always fun.
Today I brought a metal bowl to bathtime and poured water on his hands. His expression was pretty static and he was a little worked up, so much so that he got the hiccups. I would like to enroll in one of those baby/mommy swim classes, but I probably will wait until he can hold his head up better. He can hold it up now of course, but it still wobbles a bit.
Today baby Josiah was on a mission to stay awake and he lost! I took him to Women's Bible Study with me this morning and the ladies in the nursery said that he didn't really sleep much even though they knew he was tired. When we got home, I tried to get him to sleep as well, but he really wanted to be up.
Daddy was home today too (a surprise day off) and while I was taking a nap, Daddy put baby J in his Pack and Play and after working his way around it as is our usual style, (to end up as he is now rather than his head over to the right of the picture) he finally fell asleep!
One of my nicknames for baby Josiah is "my little pumpkin." Though we don't celebrate Halloween, I couldn't resist dressing him up as a pumpkin at least for the pictures! My friend Joy from the westside loaned me this costume as her little guy was too big to fit in it already. He was born a month before Josiah. When we went to the fair with my parents a while back, we took a picture of him sitting on (with the help of mom and grandma) the "biggest pumpkin" at the fair. We also took a shot of him amongst some smaller pumpkins too as you can see below.
Today Josiah woke up extra early (5am) and wouldn't go back to sleep, so I used it to my advantage to get some things done whilst I entertained him as well.
I decided to put away his 0-3 month clothes and got out all the 3-6 and 6-9 month stuff for this growing boy. This oufit was just TOO cute not to put on him and I decided it was a Kodak moment! The first picture reminds me of him saying something like "OH NO" and then I got him to give me a big smile for the second. Thought you all my enjoy see
ing this cute little guy today!
Today, my friend Renie came to visit with her 5 month old daughter Olivia. Renie and her husband Aaron went to my high school and we recently reconnected at our 10 year high school reunion.
It was fun to watch Olivia and Josiah interact. Olivia immediately wanted to grab onto him at first when she saw him. Later they sat in front of one another and "talked" to each other with their baby noises. It was really cute! The picture to the left looks like Olivia is saying "Ewww boy cooties!"
Renie gave me some great ideas on how to help Josiah learn to roll over more consistently and I have been working with him ever since. Josiah doesn't like to be on his tummy much; he gets really grumpy when we make him practice holding up his head this way. Usually he just hunkers down and vigorously sucks on his wrist when we lay him on his tummy. Today he was distracted with a cute chick in the house however!
This was the first time that my grandparents on my Dad's side got to see little Josiah. They travel around a lot in their RV and were far away when he was born. Today the drove up from the Tri-Cities to see him. First thing when Grandpa got seated he held his arms out to hold Josiah. It was really precious!
We had a nice visit with them as well. Grandpa was telling me how he is writing down his biography and asked me if I would be willing to type it out for him so that he can edit it properly. I said I would if he would send what he has written to me.
Grandma and Grandpa plan to head down to Desert Hot Springs in November and will stay there for 6 months. They plan to take some writing classes together twice a week and Grandma also plans to take a swimming class as well. They usually move every two weeks, but decided this year to just stay in one place for 6 months to see how that goes.
I was glad to see them again as it had been 2 years (at our wedding) since we had seen them last.
Today I went to meet my Aunt Genny in Cheney to pick up the cloth diaper covers that she finished sewing for me (the washable velcro wasn't so washable after all), but before I met with her for lunch, I stopped off to see Josiah's Great Grandma & Great Grandpa! We had a nice time visiting and they were just thrilled to see little baby again. They had seen him only twice before, once in the hospital after he was born and then at their 60th anniversary celebration in August (see post). Grandma was singing him a Norweigan song that she knew in this picture and Grandpa was all smiles as he was holding the little one. He also whistled a tune or two for baby and Josiah liked that a lot.
I also got to show them how he can roll over now (he actually did it on cue for them) as well as how he plays with his toys. His special favorite of late is his little driver's console toy. It makes sounds when you pull the gear shift, turn the key, honk the horn and so on. When he first started playing with it and "accidentally" pulled the gear shift his eyes would get really big wondering where that sound was coming from!
Today we took our first major trip with baby Josiah. We had promised our old church choir back in Bothell that we would come and visit them after the baby was born (as we moved right when we got pregnant). We stayed with one of our friends in the choir, Lana, for Friday and Saturday night and went to Northshore Baptist church on Sunday. We also got to visit the choir members on Saturday at their choir retreat and had lunch with them as well. It was great fun to see them all again and I think they enjoyed meeting our little one also.After church on Sunday, we visited lots of friends on the way down to my parent's house. We saw Melissa, Darcy & her husband, & Abby for lunch at the Olive Garden. Then we went to my Great Aunt Gen's house in Seattle. We then went to see our friends Marc and Katie in Renton. Following that, we went and had dinner with Mara & Jeff in Bonney Lake. We ended our journey that day in Eatonville at my parent's house. It was a long day and all three of us were very tired.
On Monday, we went to Olympia to visit with our old friends from the Young Careers group (where David and I met). There we saw Brett, Katie, Charlie & Janice (who incidentally got engaged THAT day), Gina (my old roomie), and Betsy, Becky & Mari (teacher's from my old school). We also visited my old school before dinner that evening and I saw some of the kids all grown up that I used to teach.
On Tuesday, we went with my parents to the Puyallup fair. It was a nice day for it and we looked at all the craft exhibits and mainly just did a lot of visiting and fellowshipping with my parents.
It was Wednesday morning that we left back for home and we made it just in time for me to teach some lessons at 3:30. It was a long journey and both Josiah and I ended up getting sick for a week afterward. Lucikly, it was nothing too serious and we are better now.
Today I performed the Fantasie Pastorale Hongrosie by Doppler on my flute for the Spokane Music Teacher's Association meeting. My friend Ann accompanied me on the piano. I had committed to do this last spring when I was pregnant and did most of my practicing then and just a little touch up work after the baby was born. I had performed this piece in college, so it was just a matter of reviewing it for this performance.
It was a good experience for me to get out there and perform again. It wasn't as intimidating either because most of the people there were piano teachers and weren't familiar with the piece. A couple of the teachers also teach flute though and did know the piece and I think they enjoyed hearing it.
The Spokane Music Teachers Association (http://www.midilab.com/smta/default.asp) has been a good resource for me. I have met a lot of nice people and have picked up some new tricks and techniques for teaching the piano along the way.
Due to sharing my testimony for church, the Sunday School director called me to see if I would be willing to teach the 3rd grade Sunday School class. She asked me to pray about it and get back to her. I knew that I would be gone for at least a couple of weekends and told her that, but she said there were 3 substitute teachers this year and so it would be OK if I had to leave a couple of times.
As it turned out, it was a great opportunity for me to serve in the church and another lady named Dionne was also interested and so she and I are team teaching the 3rd graders. This works out nicely for the times I need to be gone and for her when she needs to be gone too.
We are teaching them about Joseph and are doing a precept study for children by Kay Arthur. It is pretty in depth for 3rd graders, but it is really fun to teach and I think we will all learn a lot about what God can teach us through Joseph's life.
I got really creative and cut out a multi-colored tunic to hang on the wall and then took each of the kid's pictures and asked them some basic questions and posted these on the tunic. I also made each of them some nametags from the same material (glued onto tagboard) in the shape of a tunic as well. It was really fun to do. Dionne designed a rewards system where the kids get stickers each week for attendance, bringing their book, completing the lesson during the week, memory verse and bringing a new friend. This has proven to be a great motivator for the kids as they get a piece of candy every 5th sticker and will get a full size candy bar after 25 stickers.
Teaching this first day was really rewarding and I am looking forward to getting to know these kids better and learning more about God's word myself through on this journey!
David and I became members of our church today along with around 10 other people. We all attended a class to learn more about our church as well as what they stand for and believe in. It was also a neat way to meet other people who are new to the church as well as get to know the senior pastor.
Normally, people are asked to give their testimony when becoming members in front of the congregation, but in the past many people decide not to do so. This time we were all "strongly encouraged" to do so since the elders of the churh as well as Pastor John thought it would benefit the congregation to hear about how God has worked in our lives.
David and I wrote out our testimonies to read & then when we discovered we were the only ones with a written script, David improvised his testimony. I am not good at improvising, and so I read mine and of course started crying in the middle of it, true to form!
Everyone before me that shared was either a pastor's kid or a missionary's kid and so before I spoke Pastor John jokingly said, "Didn't you know that to be become a member here at Valley Fourth Memorial that you have to be from a Pastor or a Missionary's family?" Everyone laughed and then I said, "And to follow the trend, I also am a Pastor's kid!" The man that spoke after me said, "I hate to break this pattern, but I didn't grow up in a nice Christian family like these folks." Pastor John then pretended that he wasn't going to become a member after all and again we all laughed.
As a side note, becoming a member of the church has nothing to do with our salvation into the Kingdom of God, rather it is just a public commitment to serve in our church and be under the leadership of our Pastor there. David and I both do not like to be pigeon holed into a specific denomination, but rather go to churches that preach what the Bible says and hope to grow spritually wherever we are planted.
Today Josiah had his 2 month appointment at the doctor's office. We found out that he is now 14 pound and 2 1/2 ounces and that he is 24 & 3/4 inches long. According to the growth chart, he is proportional to where he started and so that is good. Heis 90-95th percentile in height and weight for other boys his age, though his head size is at 50%. Apparently he didn't inherit Daddy's big head (David wears a size 8 hat).
He got his immunization shots today and that wasn't very popular however! I think this actually made him cranky for a little while after the appointment too. But all is well with little baby according to the doctor; Josiah is very healthy and happy!
Today we had little baby Josiah dedicated to the Lord at our church. My family was there including my mom and dad as well as my brother and his girlfriend.
My Dad was given the opportunity to pray for the baby in the service and this what he said,
"Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for David and Heather and for blessing their lives, (and our lives) with their precious baby boy, Josiah. We pray that you will give them the wisdom of Solomon, the courage of David, and the strength of Samson, as they seek, with Your help to raise him up to be a godly man. Thank you for the tremendous potential that Josiah has before him. Lord, God, we lift this child and his parents up to you now, and we pray that you will bless and honor them with the touch of your mighty hand. May your blessings follow Josiah all the days of his life. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen."
It was a really special moment! I too said a little something about why we picked his name, though I forget now exactly what I said. Something to the effect of that we want Josiah to be a godly man like his namesake and that he might be a light in a generation of unbelievers like King Josiah was also.
My Grandma and Grandpa (my mom's parents) had their 60th anniversary celebration today. We met in Cheney at my Aunt Genny's church and all the relatives from my mom's immediate family were there along with their children.
We sang some of G-ma and G-pa's favorite hymns as a group and my Dad did some commentary between each song.
I played my flute for G-ma (as I knew she would like to hear it) and my Aunt Debby accompanied me. We played "His Eye is on the Sparrow" and then 2 classical selections, one by Bach and the other by Faure.
Everyone was thrilled to see little Josiah and it was nice to see them all as well. Only my cousin Karla was unable to attend and we missed seeing her.
One funny note...on one of the songs there was a part for a baritone singer and soprano (as it was written as a duet rather than a chorus) and my Dad was "directing" all of us as to when to sing, which is really funny because everyone in the room knows how to read music.
Today David and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. We went to the Black Angus for lunch and then after feeding baby took him over to my friend Mary's house so that we could go see a movie.
This was the first time that we had left him with someone. I brought some breast milk for her to feed him, but apparently didn't know how to use the drop in bottle liners and tops correctly and all the milk leaked out of the bottle into his diaper bag. It was a huge mess.
My friend Mary's neighbor also has a baby and had some extra breast milk frozen that she offered us in place of my "spilt milk". I incidentally understand "crying over spilt milk" now as pumping the 4 ounces I had that were wasted made my stomach drop. It is HARD to pump milk and you don't want it wasted!
Needless to say, we got to see our movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and made it back to here that he had taken the bottle and was a good baby for her. She told us that he likes to be sung to...a musical child!
So winter has officially begun! And we started it off with getting a new battery and alternator for our new (to us) Chevy Trailblazer. We were getting ready to go to our small group last Monday night and it woudn't start. We had it checked out and the above diagnosis fixed the problem. We are thankful to God that it didn't die on the freeway during this lovely snow storm that followed in the week!
