URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

I need all of you prayer warriors, and those of you who believe in the fragility of life to pray. I am a part of an online message board for moms with babies born in the same month as James. This week one of the moms posted that her 16 year-old sister just found out that she is about 2 months pregnant. The teenage girl is very seriously thinking of aborting her baby, because "she doesn't think she could give the baby up (for adoption) once it is born". I am SO incredibly angry that the devil has made this girl think that her "unseen" baby is worth nothing. I am praying for a change of heart in this girl, and for protection for the little unborn child. Please, please pray with me - I believe a miracle can happen. I won't let this little baby die without a good Spiritual battle first!

If you support my cause, please ask for prayer on your blogs as well. Consider this a blogger prayer-chain request.

I Hate It When...

... I get a hole in my favourite jeans.

This one was worth it though - crawling around after James is one of the most fun ways to wear out a pair of pants. It also seems to be a good weight loss technique. I've lost 5 pounds in the last month! Woohoo!

Spirit-Lead

Do you ever wonder if you are being lead by the Spirit? Today I was feeling like I should write a post about being Heaven-minded or Earthly-minded, and I thought maybe it was the Spirit leading. When I sat down to write it - my mind went blank. I couldn't think of what I wanted to say, or how I wanted to say it. Is that strange? Or maybe the Spirit actually wanted me to write about being Spirit-lead instead! Hahaha! He tricked me! Anyway, I'm learning a lot about allowing the Spirit to lead me - and trying to learn to be more open to that leading. It's hard! Sometimes I don't want to do the things I feel lead to do... like call a particular church committee to tell them I would gladly participate. I don't really want to get too involved right now, on this particular committee - but I feel a strong push from the Spirit to do it. Ironically, when I was asked to join the committee I prayed about it. I asked God to give me a strong feeling about whether or not to join... and now He is! In any case, I don't really know where I am going with this post, because really I'm just rambling. Maybe the Spirit really has inspired me to write something though that will inspire you today to become more Spirit-lead. I have to go and make a phone call to that committee now!

P.S. The posted photo is actually my nephew Thomas. The picture was taken by his mommy, who thought he looked very angelic - so I used my Photoshop powers to really take the angelic photo to the next level. I thought it was an appropriate photo, and too cute not to share!

Blogger Brunch Report

The Blogger Brunch was a total flop. We didn't have any fun, and I will never do it again....

HA! THAT IS A COMPLETE LIE! It was SO much fun! I'm really sorry that many of you were forced to miss it due to family events, illness, and things like that. We had a really great time, and there was no lack of things to talk about - but mostly we talked about blogging, the small world we live in, and... KIDS! It was so neat to put some faces (and voices) to the names and writings of some of my favourite blogging women. I was inspired to keep going in my blogging - and enjoyed hearing other ladies blogging stories. This is DEFINATELY going to happen again, and hopefully more of you will be able to attend.

What started out as being a fairly large expected group of about 20 turned into a small group of nine of us. This was not all bad though, because we really got to connect one-on-one a little more. We had a great meal together, and then were privileged to hear Darlene share a few thoughts. Door prizes were donated by Blessings and Darlene's own book. Very cool! Next year we'll go even bigger I hope!

Of course, it wouldn't be a true blog post without the photo...

From left: Stacey, with Bria, myself, Ruth, Darlene, Sara & Jobina

(Missing: Heather & Lindsey - sorry girls!)

Results of Ten Month Photoshoot

"Ah! No James! Don't come to Mommy!"

"James. James. J... nevermind!"

"Hello? Why are you looking at the wall?"

"Oh you are a goof!"

"Okay, well at least pose with mommy."

These photos pretty much sum up life with a ten month old!

Happy 10 months James! We love you so incredibly much!

Rainy Day Fun

Chocolate pudding in the sink!

Time to clean up!

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Tink! Tink! A New Tooth!

He's been a little fussy, occasionally pouty, extremely drooly, somewhat whiney, very chewy, a bit swollen, and doing lots of biting... so, today we did the "spoon test". It went "tink, tink". And wouldn't you know it! There is a new top tooth peeking out! Way to go James - soon you'll look just like a hillbilly beaver!

(I am so mad that this picture is blurry. He was posing perfectly, and the lighting was beautiful. Oh well, still cute).

Girls Morning Out

I just had to document my great weekend! It started out on Friday afternoon when my mom came to look after James, and I went to get my hair cut and coloured! Woohoo! I had pre-decided to do something different. I splurged, and got BANGS! I have not had bangs since Grade 3, I think. Of course, my hair looked fabulous the way the hairdresser did it, and it will never look exactly like that again... but oh well! You will see it in one of the photos below.

On Saturday morning I woke up early, left James with his daddy, and headed off to Winnipeg to meet up with five of my girlfriends for Girls Morning Out! We all got manicures/pedicures, and then went to prime Winnipeg shopping destination to shop and have lunch. It was SO much fun, and much-needed girl time.

The girls at the salon.

From the left: Jeryn, Rebekah with Isaiah, Robin,

myself (front left), Jamie and Sherisse

I then headed home early to go to a baby shower. From there we dropped James off at his grandma and grandpa Plett's for the night, and headed BACK to Winnipeg. We went to a potluck at our friend's place, and the theme of the night was "Beer Recipes". All the dishes had to have beer in them. I made beer & cheese bread in my breadmaker and it turned out AMAZING! It was so good. Around midnight someone decided we should go glow bowling, so off we went. It was a really fun time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I actually bowled really well!

Glow bowling!

On Sunday Ryan and I slept in, as we had no James to wake us up before 7:00am! That was a nice little break for us, as we just celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary last Thursday. We were eager to go pick up James though, and the three of us enjoyed the beautiful weather all afternoon. What a great weekend! What did you do?

Vote for James

Please vote for James in the Future Photo Summer Photo contest! Feel free to enter your kids as well. Here is the link: http://pix.futureshop.ca/en/contest02.php

Had to Post

Just a disclaimer about the following video: I just happened to fall upon this video today, and I can't stop crying. It is not heartwarming, and it will not make you feel joy. However, the faith of this family, and their trust in God is uplifting. I am making today a prayer day for little baby Kaleb, and I hope you will too... be blessed today, and hug your children extra close. I know I will be.

I'm a Good "Mum-Mum"

I felt like a good mom today. I'm not particularly sure why. Perhaps it was because I finally remembered to start my day off with prayer, and had positive thoughts about what the day would be like before I even got out of bed. In any case, it was a good day.

Here is a run-down of our day. It started out a little sketchy, with James being in a very whiney mood (pretty sure he's teething). I was quite relieved when he went down for his nap at 10:00am. I then made plans with two friends to order lunch for take-out, and then let the kids play together while we had a "picnic". I ended up having to wake up James so that I could get him fed before I left. He napped for over two hours - and was in a great mood after that! He had a good lunch, which consisted of green beans mixed with wheat germ, bologna (his favourite), pieces of fruit cocktail, and pear juice. Finally we were able to head out the playdate luncheon. It was so nice to be able to visit with friends, and let James crawl around and play with other kids. We had a great time, and a good chat. By the time I got home it was time for James to nap again. We both had a nice 1 hour nap. After the nap, we went to the store to get food for supper - and grandpa Kroeker was there! He took James while I did my shopping. We headed home, and played for a while until it was time for James to have supper. Unfortunately, during this time I went to the sink to rinse something off and James climbed up the back of my legs (one of his new discoveries). This lead to a slip, and before we knew it he had bonked his head on the floor. We had to have some cuddle time after that. Once he was back to his happy self, he had a lovely supper of beef vegetable mix, pear puree, animal crackers, and homo milk. Then it was back to playtime until daddy got home, and then we had some supper. I then put James down to bed for the night at 8:00. Just a good day, and it made me feel good when I looked back on what we did together today.

James now gets just four bottles a day: one when he wakes up in the morning, one before his morning nap, one before his afternoon nap, and one before bed. This photo of him in the basket also proves that he DOES have hair, it's just hard to see! The one above is his playing in his box fort that "we" made "together".

Some of James' latest accomplishments have been saying "dada", "mum-mum", waving bye-bye, shaking his head to say "no", riding his Dora the Explorer car, standing unassisted for a few seconds at a time, and occassionally taking a few steps when going from one person to another. It is amazing, absolutely amazing how fast they grow up. He is getting more and more fun now, and I just love being able to spend all day with my little boy. He certainly is ALL boy, it will be interesting to see what the next stage (walking) will bring!

Up and at 'Em!

Now that James is finally (thank you Lord) sleeping through the night, he has developed a new habit... waking up way too early! The waking up too early isn't NEARLY, not even CLOSE to being as bad as being up numerous times a night. However, it is still somewhat frustrating. He usually gets to bed between 8:00pm and 8:30pm. He'll sleep ALL night (thank you Lord, so very much for sleep) but then wake up around 6:15am. If it is past 6:30am, we will get up with him, but if it is early than that we let him CIO until we are ready to get him. I read somewhere that if he is consistently sleeping a 10 hour stretch, I should just try to slowly move his bedtime back so that the 10 hour sleep would be from 9-7 instead of the current 8-6. Well, I tried that, but it made NO difference. In fact, it just made things worse because he was so grumpy and overtired by the time we were putting him down. So, we've just gone back to putting him down around 8:00am, and hoping that he'll learn to sleep later in the morning. He still has two naps a day, which is nice - and he is otherwise doing great in the sleep department. I just wonder if anyone else has had this experience, and if you had any luck in helping teach your child to sleep longer? Oh, I did also try to put him to bed EARLIER, but that also made no difference - and it was hard to get him to go down!

RSVP

Hey ladies! The RSVPs are slowly rolling in for the Ladies Blogger Brunch - I'm getting really excited! However, I don't think I have RSVPs yet for everyone who will be attending. I've had a few verbal RSVPs, but I would love it if you would still email me to let me know for sure. It's going to be a really good time, and looks like a lot of you are going to be there! I can't wait! I'm also working on putting together some "goody bags" for the first 25 ladies that arrive. If you have something you'd like to contribute (if you happen to be a business-owner for example), please let me know!

Please email me, or send your RSVP to: bloggerbrunch@hotmail.com

Chase!

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