30 Years Old

Yesterday I turned thirty. I don't feel as old as it sounds to me, but as I've been thinking about turning thirty, I have been getting excited. As my brilliant sister-in-law Ashley told me, 30 is still young, but old enough for people to listen to what I have to say! 

I was thinking about all the adventures my 20's had for me: I met D., I served as an RA for 2 years in college, I graduated from college, I spent a year in China, I went to graduate school by myself, I got married, I started a Ph.D. program, and I had 2 kids. I had eight different mailing addresses during one decade. Wow. No wonder I can't wait to see what the next 10 years will hold. I am hoping it holds fewer mailing addresses, just so you know. 

Yesterday was a wonderful day. We went to the Bottle Tree Bakery for breakfast, I hung out with my boys, D. gave me a beautiful present, and I received some pretty fun gifts in the mail, D. wrote the sweetest blog post about me, and Isaiah and I made banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Yum. I feel so loved and celebrated. 

I am so grateful for all the blessings in my life and I am ready for some new adventures to come my way. (My two favorite blessings are in the pictures above, by the way.) 

Quote of the Day

Me: "Did you enjoy your nap?" 

Isaiah: "Yes. I did enjoy my pi-whoaw." 

I enjoy my pillow too. Yes I do. 

Happy Earth Day

So today is Earth Day. Did you know that? I always thought earth day was kind of silly until a friend in graduate school challenged me. Do you recycle? She asked. Recycle? Where? How? I had no idea where the local recycling center was. I asked myself why she cared so much and began to think that maybe, just maybe somebody who loves Jesus should care too. Maybe I should care MORE but probably for different reasons. That was the beginning of my path toward becoming more earth friendly. 

Friends, I like to think of it this way: If someone gives you a REALLY awesome present, shouldn't you take good care of it? Shouldn't you teach your kids to take care of it too? Then I learned that perhaps my passion for social justice was tied to this issue of caring for our planet. Did you know that the poor are the first people to suffer when there are consequences for our irresponsibility in caring for the earth? It's true. 

So I started to learn more and care more. 

Today I was thinking about the changes we've made in our family to be more earth-friendly. Here are a few: 

Recycling--we let Isaiah help with the sorting. He thinks it's great fun. 

Reusable Shopping Bags--this is SO easy. All you have to do is take your bags to the store. Yes, we can recycle those plastic bags, but we would use fewer resources if we re-used instead. 

Cloth Napkins--we have made an effort to stop purchasing one-time use items like paper napkins, paper plates, etc. It's that re-using thing again. 

Buy organic or buy local--Organic foods are more nutritious (studies show, I promise) and fewer resources are used to grow them. Local foods don't require lots of fuel to transport them from California. It's also just fun to walk to the Farmer's Market on a Saturday morning. 

Earth-Friendly Diapering--okay so I am not using cloth diapers right now. We can barely keep up with our regular laundry, but we are planning to use them again when I am done with my comps. We use Seventh Generation or G Diapers, and we get them for a great deal with amazon.com subscribe and save. 50 Million diapers enter landfills every day. That's a lot. 

Finally, we planted a garden last week. We are going to try growing our own tomatoes. They're organic, AND they're local. Hopefully they will be tasty. These are just a few of the changes we've made. 

So here's my question: Can you try to make one small change each month? That is what we're trying to do. Hopefully small changes become habits and maybe they'll stick around. I do want to take good care of this gift we've been given. For 40 suggestions, (it's okay to try just one each month, I promise!) see this article. 

Peek-a-boo!

As if you could stand to look at something this cute after my last post... 

something to make your day a little happier

Easter Sunday

Bible Stories

We enjoyed reading the Easter story with Isaiah this year. It is the first time he has really been able to talk about it and think about the story. It was kind of exciting. We do not skip over the death part--we think it's important to go ahead and talk about it even if he can't understand everything. When we get to that part, we talk about how it is very sad that Jesus had to die. Isaiah has been able to talk about it and connect with it because he understands what sadness is. 

He has been talking about Bible stories a lot lately. He's even been "reading" them to Ezra. It's pretty cute. 

My mom got Isaiah The Jesus Storybook Bible for Easter. I have to say that it is amazing. It includes retellings of many of the important stories in the Bible and connects them all to Jesus. We believe that every story in the Bible is part of God's big story of redemption, so we love how the author connects everything. It is still a little old for Isaiah--the stories are too long--but we look at the pictures together and talk about the stories anyway. It has beautiful illustrations. We are actually thinking of getting prints of a few of the pictures in the book and hanging them in Isaiah's room. We highly recommend this book for families, and if you're not a parent you might like to read it anyway. 

News

I have started two blog posts in the past week and not been able to finish either one... We are a little busy right now. Here's a little bit of what's been going on with us: 

We had such a fun Easter. Isaiah went crazy for the Easter Egg Hunt while his Nana and Poppa were here. The next weekend (Easter Sunday) his Mema and Pop came to visit. I had a lot of fun putting together an Easter Basket for both boys, and I even made a special bunny cake which deserves its own blog post. 

On Easter Sunday, Ezra was baptized. This was a very special day for us as infant baptism is very meaningful to us. This is the time when we recognize that God is doing a work in Ezra's heart even now, and we are trusting God to draw Ezra to himself starting at even this very young age. We are emphasizing the work of God in salvation rather than the work of the individual by choosing to have our children baptized as infants. (That is a little bit of theology for you.) 

My parents have been visiting all week, giving me some extra (very needed) time to do some schoolwork. 

This weekend D. and I are in Jackson so I can present a paper at the Eudora Welty Centennial Conference. I got the chance to visit her house today for the first time. It was really neat to see where she lived for 76 years. My paper presentation is tomorrow (Saturday) morning. 

That's all for now. Pictures will come later. I promise. 

balancing act

Just in case you were wondering, I am still working on school. I am currently working on my written comps. What that means is that I have to write a 25-30 page publishable paper. It is due at the end of May. 

I spent today reading, studying, and writing an abstract all while either nursing Ezra, trying to get him to stay asleep, or with Isaiah jumping on the bed (only for the last 10 minutes). 

This is the balancing act that is my life, but I have to say I love it all too much to let any of it go. 

Just in case you want to know (or if your name is Heather Lowcock) my paper is entitled "Where is my little one?": Race, Power, and Motherhood in Kate Chopin's Fiction.

27 Months Old

Today Isaiah is 27 months old. It's not really an even number, but he is growing up so fast that I wanted to write about the way he's changing. 

He's pretty tall for his age. He is the tallest in his age group at his babysitter's house, and he is about the size of several of the three-year-olds at church. He is about 36" tall and 32 pounds. 

His vocabulary is amazing. I am a biased mom, but he really is very verbal for a 2-year-old boy. He speaks in complete sentences most of the time. Here are a few things he said today: 

"I hear a bird." "I hear a dog." "I hear a fire truck." --we are learning about hearing, obviously. 

"I want to play outside." "I throw the ball for Rigby." 

He really does a good job of creating sentences and using the parts of speech properly. Something else that I think is really cool is the way he can contextualize vocabulary. For example, the other day he told D. that he wanted a granola bar for lunch, and D. suggested something else, like a sandwich. Isaiah said, "No. I want a granola bar first." That was the first time we heard him use "first" in the correct context. We've noticed this with a few other words as well. 

Things Isaiah likes: Clifford the Big Red Dog and his owner, Emily Elizabeth, granola bars, blueberries, playing outside, tractors, dogs, our friend Matthew, and baseball. 

Things Isaiah does not like: being told what to do, staying in bed, getting out of the bathtub, time outs, and putting on pajamas. He often says "I don't like it" in order to express his opinion. 

So we have a strong-willed, opinionated 2-year-old on our hands. But really, is anyone surprised? We are both slightly opinionated ourselves. 

Uncle Miles

Uncle Miles is really great. Sometimes Isaiah calls him "Michael" which sounds like Uncle and Miles put together.

Uncle Miles is very talented at silly voices and fake accents, which makes him an excellent person to read the book Skippyjon Jones. If you heard him read it, you might crack up. I did.

Uncle Miles is very cuddly and sweet. He loves babies, and he is great at changing diapers. Even really stinky ones.

Uncle Miles is a talented guitar player, but he is also willing to play silly songs that inspire dancing.

I think this might be "Father Abraham."

Doesn't this look like fun?

We are so glad you came to visit us! We had a blast.