School and Work

My baby starts school tomorrow. He is going to be fine...I am the one that is going to need the prayers!

I also start my new job tomorrow. AAAHHH!!! I am going to be working for Alacare Home Health. I am really excited for this new chapter in my career.

I will let you know how both of our first days go tomorrow. We will be sure to get Lucas on his First Day of School.

How did she do it??

As I was rocking my sweet baby boy tonight (don't judge - I don't do it every night, there are just some times I can't resist) I was thinking about this upcoming weekend. We always celebrate Easter on Saturday night with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...the whole clan - which if you know anything about my family you know this is quite a lot of people. I was reminded of how much I love this time of year in the church. I love the church services on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and of course Easter Sunday.

Have you seen The Passion? I understand that you may have been living under a rock if you haven't, but I was informed by my husband who has seen probably every movie known to man that he has not seen this movie. What?? I thought everyone had seen this. I will be honest, it hurts to watch it. I remember the first time I saw this film, I walked out of the theater thinking that I did not deserve what He did for me. At all. I am so glad that He thought that I did though. What an honor.

Something that really struck me throughout the movie though was Mary. Being the good Catholic girl that I am I hold Mary in very high esteem (no this does not mean that we pray to Mary:)). I always have, but I guess it wasn't until I had Lucas that I began to fathom the sacrifices that she made to be the mother to the Son of God. Just ponder that for a minute, I will wait.....doesn't it blow your mind?? Lucas is only 7 months old next week, and I hate that he is having pain from teething, much less even thinking about him going through the same things that our Lord went through.

Did you see what she did? She stood back and trusted. She stood to the side and watched her son go through torture and did not intervene. This isn't because she was not a strong woman, just the opposite, it is because she was a strong woman. She was so steadfast in her faith that she knew whatever her son was enduring it was for God's Glory. If that isn't an example of grace then I don't know what is. How does a mother do this? By the grace of God. That is the only explanation that I can possibly come up with. Any of you who have more theology knowledge than me have another answer?

Believe me, I have not lost sight of the sacrificial gift that Jesus gave for sinner me during this season. I am humbled that He would even consider me worthy of a second thought much less go through such physical pain, go to hell to pay the price for the sins that I would one day commit, and then RISE to show God's Glory. God is good. All the time.

Thank you for indulging me...Happy Easter everyone!

Friends and Pictures

Busy weekend! What beautiful weather though! I don't know about you but I am ready for the spring weather to stay.

Friday night we went out with our good friends Jay and Sara and their precious girls, Hadley (2 yrs) and Audrey (5 mos). We went to the Villiage Tavern (yumm) and had a great time catching up. This was our first time to meet sweet Audrey. She is too cute!! Of course Hadley never disappoints and was so adorable. She has the sweetest personality. There were several groups of high school kids out for prom and when Luke and Audrey were both crying we thought we should go around to the different groups and mutter under our breath to "be very careful tonight". I swear there is no better birth control than 2 screaming kids! We of course stayed in our seats. Even with the occasional tantrum from Lucas or Audrey we still had a fantastic time. Jay and Eric have known each other since high school when they played soccer together and then they were fraternity brothers at Auburn. This is when Sara and I met and forged a wonderful friendship. We were in each other's weddings, and I am already trying to get Lucas to be a perfect gentleman around Miss Audrey although Jay isn't going to let her date until she is 40. We will see... God has blessed us with these great friends! Jay and Sal (as we like to call her) are the types of friends that we can be ourselves around and yes, they still love us! How great is that?? I am looking forward to having our families grow up together.

Saturday morning Eric drove to Anniston for his long ride. When he got back home we packed up and headed to Samford University to meet up with Jennifer who took Luke's 6 month pictures. Let's just say that she is wonderful! She did such a good job of getting Lucas to smile and knew exactly what to say and how to say it to make Lucas laugh. It is so special to have someone that I have known since I was 6 years old take these pictures. Eric and I looked like fools trying to get in every position and sing every song imaginable to keep Lucas entertained. I am just glad she didn't get any pictures of that!

Saturday night my parents came over and brought dinner. We all know that they are there to see Lucas, that is all. I am sure you that have children know that you are now knocked down on the totem pole of hierarchy. This is completely fine and we wouldn't have it any other way of course, but it is still funny. Most of the time this is how it goes: Mom and Dad enter the house and immediately run to Lucas or grab him out of our hands and proceed to make over him and then as if almost an after thought they turn our way and say "Oh Hi!". OK, so that may be a little exaggerated, but not by much. We are so lucky to have our parents who love our child so much! It was so much fun to watch my dad get on the floor with Lucas and play. Lucas loved every second of their visit.

My brother and his girlfriend, Sarah, came over today for a short visit. It was so good to see them. We love Sarah and she is so much fun. She cracks us up and is very sarcastic so she fits right in with us. You have to have a pretty thick skin to be in our family and so Sarah is a welcome addition. My dad has even said that he thinks he has met his match in her. Good job Sarah!

Other than their visit it was a pretty lazy Sunday, which is always welcome. The next few weekends are going to be packed, so I guess we shouldn't take these for granted.

WAY BEHIND!!!

OK, so I am so far behind on the blogging bit! My last post was Lucas' 1 month stats. Let's just say we are well beyond this point. Our sweet little boy is 6 months old!! WHAT??!! Where does the time go. Everyone told me that it would fly by, but I never thought it would fly by this quickly. Below are some blogs that I had written a long time ago, but didn't have the pictures to go with them so I didn't post, then I forgot....and so on and so on and so on. My goal is to be much better with blogging!

Lucas:
Like I said he is 6 months old. He is such a joy and is so funny. Eric and I still just stare at him sometimes and we can't believe that he is ours. Believe me the surreal feelings of when he was first born have passed (he has broken us in pretty good), but we just love to look at him. He is even cute when he cries!

My mom and mother-in-law have been wonderful and have kept Lucas all this time. We wanted to keep him out of school until flu season and passed. (I say school because kids have to go to school, they don't have to go to daycare - this helps me :)) He will start on April 1st. We LOVE the place he will be going. They are so sweet. We went last week and I took Luke so that "he could see where he would be going", but let's be honest it was completely for me. The child isn't going to remember going to this place last week. It helped me though because when I set him down with the other children in his class he just took it all in and had a good time playing. This made me feel so much better. I know that he is going to be fine there...will I though is the question??!!

He is sitting up really well on his own - until we get distracted by something that is a little to far out of reach then it is TIMBER. He can't get to the sitting position by himself yet, but will stay there for a while when we sit him up. He is trying so hard to crawl. He is able to get up on hsi hands and knees, and often he will stand doing what I like to call the downward dog yoga pose. If those hands would just move. I swear it is like they are glued to the floor. It is so funny to watch because he gets so frustrated that he won't move.

The boy loves to eat!! Do not let him get hungry because he will let you know that he is not happy with you. It is one of the only times that he cries. He is eating stages 1-3 of baby food and cereals. He is still getting his bottles too. This boy does not miss a meal and his cheeks are the proof. Oh I could just eat him up!

He LOVES his Daddy! Eric can walk in the room and Lucas gets a huge smile on his face and starts getting so excited. They are so cute together. Lucas is a mini Eric with my nose. Some of their facial expressions are even the same. I love seeing them together. Eric is such a wonderful dad. I am lucky, I hear friends say that their husbands don't feed, change diapers, or bathe their children. Eric does all of this and more. I am very blessed. This isn't to say that Eric and I haven't had our stressful moments, because we have. Life is still good and we can laugh at those times.

We are getting Jennifer to take Luke's 6 month pictures this weekend so I will post some as soon as we get them back. I am so excited.

Eric is still going strong with the training for Iron Man in November. I am so proud of him!! He is working so hard!! You can catch up with him on his blog - there is a link to the right.

I am starting a new job. More on that later though.

Mom is doing well. She started back on chemo for maintenance at the end of December. A couple of weeks ago he CA-125 count went up to 23, which is still within normal range, but she had a PET scan to see what was going on. The results came back that there were no tumors (PRAISE GOD!!), and the only change was a very small sac of fluid around her liver which is where her doctor believes has ovarian cancer cells. He changed up her chemo and she started last week. This chemo is a little rougher than the previous one in that she has had passing nausea and fatigues easily, but she will not lose her hair this time and she does not feel as sick as she did. Her doctor continues to say that she has many many years ahead of her. This is so sweet to hear. She is no longer considered in remission because of this small fluid sac, but she is very close. Please continue to pray! We appreciate all the prayers we can get. God has been so good to us!

OK, that catches up for a little bit, but I will be better about posting!! Have a great day!