EWOW- Reconstructing Beauty

Most of you know I love art. Well it has seemed that circumstances have allowed and encouraged me to not give this up. About a month ago I was back to my hometown and saw they were having a Fall Fest and Arts and Craft vendors were wanted. I thought this would be a fun thing to try out, well within that following week I met a new friend Jenni, who is an artist. She said she would want to set up a booth with me. This got the ball rolling. It has been so fun and refreshing to work on paintings, mixed-media, jewelry and a few other things. There is a greater purpose behind it too. Check out my new blog to read about it! http://reconstructingbeauty.blogspot.com/

3 months!

So I started this post last week, just never posted it! So he's actually 2 weeks past 3 months! Anyway here it is...........

I use this blog not only to share about life with friends and especially the grandparents, but also I print them off to put in Zanders baby book. Like a journal, sorta-kindaish.
Zander is now 3 months old! I was just talking to Andy on our date last night, how my love for Zander has been changing. When I laid eye's on him for the first time. I was in complete amazement of God's miraculous design (process of being pregnant, birth process, and now a little baby! AHHHHH, it seriously blows my mind thinking of this. It is so hard for me to relate to people who think we are here by chance. That we weren't created by The Creator? I truly believe we were created by God, for God. I trust that God has big plans for our Zander man!
Because already he's doing some pretty cool and fun things :)



Lots of smiling! He laughs a little too, but 2 people (chelsey butler and my mom) have made him laugh out loud funny giggle type. It's hilarious! I just wish I could make him do it :)
I caught him with Chelsey here:

Batting at toys. Grabbing sometimes.

Holding his head really good.


Drooling A LOT!

Going on road trips! Here we went to Peoria last weekend to visit Uncle Al and Aunt Jenn.Lots of talking. Have you seen the movie "Look who's talking" I'm sure you have, but if you haven't seen it since having a baby, you must see it! It's funny to now imagine what the babies are saying to themselves when they start babbling!

Lovin' on Grandparents and Great Grandma!

Honestly he's pretty lazy! Usually he just kinda sits around! Not much movement! In this video, he's moving pretty good. (Don't pay attention to the dork mom!) But thought it would be fun for you to see a little real action!

Some other tid-bits:

• Not sleeping in car seat anymore. if he's really tired and we are in car he will. But not like he used to!
• usually needs to be rocked before taking naps
• we still swaddle him
• has better days when they are consistent (as far as naps and feeding go)
• loves to cuddle! Doesn't matter with who, he's a lover boy!
• doesn't use paci, but is finding thumb (or fingers, or fist)
• he has had cradle cap for past 3 weeks, I think it's finally going away
• We decided not to cut his hair. It's funny, but he has some long hairs on the top of his head it's just so thin. So get used to seeing his little patch of hair on the back of his head.
• We let him cry for a while in his pack'nplay. Usually he cries between 5-20 mins before falling asleep. If it's longer than that I go up and rock him. Put him back down. If he still cries for 20ish mins. I feed him.
• Sleeping well at night- last couple of nights 8-6ish
• Still not on a complete schedule. Patterns and routines, but everything else is very flexible. Which is nice for us right now. But soon I hope to have more of a nap and set bedtime. Little by little I guess :)

Thank you for letting me share. We love this boy so much!

Take the poll!

For many weeks now, Zander has been slowly losing his hair. Except for his sweet little mullet. What do you think... Should I buzz it off? Yes or No, please take the poll on the right!

EWOW- Purpose of Life

I received this email, and had to share it. Something about this struck me. Deep. These are words that I needed to hear from a faithful man. But here's the email, and the EWOW for the week.......

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said: People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity..
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems: If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD..

Complete Randomness

These are just a collection of pictures from the last two weeks, and fun times we've had!

High School Girls! Katie, Mandy, Bri, Erin, Laura, and Lacey
at Erin's Iowa Reception

Me and my honey love!

Zander's first shoulder ride

Faith in Action- Our Faith Family went to the Neighborhood Center at Pheasant Ridge to clean classrooms. Here's more info on Faith in Action... http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/52834782.html

Zander is such a good sport. He's used to me putting all my stuff on him when we are getting ready to leave the house. What a gentleman! He must have learned that from Daddy, whose also used to me asking, "Can you put this in your pocket?"

Crazy Storm coming in last week!

Big Highlight was going swimming for the first time last week. Well as you can tell from the pics, more like lounging! He was awesome!

Just chillin'

Thanks Bridge and Liam for asking us to go, and letting us use your little floaty raft!

The very next day we did it again! Playgroup at Missy's. Forrest was such a good babysitter.

I swear I heard Zander laugh out loud yesterday! He's been such a joy to be around!

Zander also starting sitting in the bumbo this week. He looks like such a big boy in it! Can you tell what Andy wants Zander's first word to be?