Craziness

Everything has been slightly crazy around here. The only way I know to tell the story is through pictures, so here we go.

This picture likely means nothing to you but it is the only documentation I have of the whole ordeal. It is actually the serial and model number on my refrigerator that I had to have handy since the 5-month-old appliance decided to freeze everything inside. Apparently it always thought the temperature inside the fridge was 80 degrees so it would run constantly.

Of course I discovered that everything was frozen solid the morning we were all trying to leave for youth camp. As if it wasn't stressful enough to get my pregnant self and my 15-month-old packed for youth camp, just pile on top of that breakfast became impossible with no useable milk or yogurt which are breakfast staples around here.

Anyway, we are still dealing with this saga almost a month later. The repairman made his third trip out to our house today and replaced another temperature sensor which he feels will solve the problem even though that's what he did the first time and it made absolutely no difference. Good news is, he says the next step will be to replace the whole fridge (at least I think that's good news).

Wow, that story ended up being way longer than I anticipated. Apologies.

One useful thing about the picture is, if you're in the market for a fridge, I'd avoid this model of Samsung ;)

Ok, I'm really done now.

Lela's new favorite thing is to swim in her kiddie pool. Unfortunately the set-up for it is a little more strenuous than I can handle being 8 1/2 months pregnant in the 102-degree heat, so she has to wait until Daddy gets home to go swimming.

She will ask me all day to go swimming and she'll even pull her towel out of the laundry pile to show me she's ready to swimming. But once Daddy gets home, we run and get her swimsuit on and then she'll stand at the back door and watch Nathan get everything ready. I know I'm biased but she has got to be the cutest kid ever.

Nathan's new project has been to make our entry hall presentable, which entails taking down the wallpaper and getting it painted. I started out helping him, but this is all the paper I removed before I was tired of standing.
He accomplished much more in the same amount of time.And a month later, to the date, here he is removing the last scrap of paper.Of course you have to take into account that we were out of town for two and a half weeks in there and he only worked on it during the evenings and weekends and I didn't help him a lick!

You may notice we had already put some sample paint colors on the wall. I guess when you've been removing wallpaper for a month, sometimes you just have to start another project or you'll go crazy!

He's actually much further along now and he should have it all painted this weekend. I would post a current picture of it, but it sorta looks like someone was murdered in that room right now due to the choice of wall color. But I'm confident it will look great once there are two coats on the wall, so I'll save the after shot for when everything is completed.

Lately Lela has decided she enjoys eating much more when she is in control. She will have none of this being spoon-fed or having Mom break up food into small bites. She can DO IT!
But it is really hard for me to watch her use the spoon on her own because half of the food ends up on her face or in her lap. She also has a banana sitting next to her cup that she takes bites from. Of course I have to intervene every now and then, especially when she tries to put half of the banana in her mouth at once!

Lela had a doctor's appointment a couple weeks ago and she doing good. She weighed 20 lbs. 8oz. and was 30 inches tall. Dr. Shirley always comments on how smart she is. Of course I think so but it's good to hear someone else say it.

Lela has also picked her favorite TV show. It's a show on PBS called "Super Why." She will point at the TV and I know she's asking to watch "Super Why." She dances to all the songs and is mesmerized for the whole show. Luckily we can watch it anytime since we have a Netflix free trail right now, but I'm afraid Lela's in for a rude awakening when the trial ends!

Lela is also teething right now. This is a picture of her when she was trying to eat her favorite snack, goldfish, but started crying because it hurt her mouth. It was really sad but her little face is so sweet I had to get a picture.
Unfortunately, I think the teething is also making her really picky and she will hardly eat anything we offer her. Basically she only eats yogurt, cereal bars, bananas, applesauce, goldfish and peanut butter sandwiches. She will occasionally take bites of other foods but then she'll spit it all out about five minutes later. I swear she has a secret pocket inside her cheek somewhere!

Well, I realize that was a lot of information all at once about a lot of crazy random topics but I had a whole month of material to cover! That's also why the title is so applicable.

A Sad First

Yesterday was definitely a first for Lela but certainly not one that you hope will ever happen. We had to take her to the ER after she fell and bit her tongue. Apparently her new habit of climbing on everything imaginable proved more dangerous than I let myself comprehend. She had climbed into the window sill in the living room and fell out. Luckily Nathan had just walked in the door to come home for lunch or I would have been a basket-case.

I realize a bit tongue doesn't sound serious but after 30 minutes of soaking countless Kleenexes with blood we realized we had to do something. Of course by the time we got to the ER and checked in and Lela decided to interrupt her constant screaming with a laugh and a smile for the woman behind the counter, the bleeding stopped completely. That's just the way it goes I guess.

We were mainly concerned because it was clear that the majority of the blood was coming from the underside of her tongue and she wouldn't let us see it so we didn't know how serious of a cut it was. Of course by the time they examined her I don't think they were too concerned considering the lack of blood so they didn't even make an effort to look under the tongue. We were sent home with a pile of paperwork (including a nice bill), a prescription for antibiotics, and two orange popsicles. Apparently they don't do stitches on tongues and again with no blood present I think we win the award for most paranoid parents of the year!

But looking back, I don't know that we would've done things differently. All in all she bled for a good 45 minutes and if that doesn't say emergency, then I don't know what does. Lela's constant screaming (whether from pain or sheer drama) certainly added to the severity, at least in my mind.

So I think the only thing to do is end the this post with some happy pictures of Lela to represent her general disposition and to prove she's doing just fine 24 hours later.

What do I make?

One of my favorite blogs, Kelly's Korner, does a thing every friday called "Show Us Your Life" and she asks her readers to link to her blog and share different aspect of their lives. Today she asked everyone to post about what they make and I thought it would be fun to participate.

I am by no means professional and I have never charged anyone for anything, but I do knit occasionally. I would be glad to take requests if anyone is remotely interested. Here are some pictures of things I've made.

I made this hat for my daughter while I was pregnant with her.

This is a bed I made for my dog. It could also be a cat bed I suppose.

This is a piece of "artwork" that one my friends ask me to make for her wedding reception. She is very artsy and asked everyone in the wedding party to make something to be displayed at the reception like an art gallery. Very cute idea. Anyway, I just knit the letters and pinned them in a shadow box and then put slips of paper listing out the attributes of love from 1 Corinthians 13.

Anyway, like I said, I've never charged for anything but I can make pretty much anything and I'm completely open to special requests. You can email me at morganclardy@gmail.com with questions. Thanks :)

Lela Lately

Lela has been busy, busy, busy. We had VBS at church this week, so she's been at the church nearly everyday. I was able to spend time with her in the nursery on Thursday and Friday night and I was reminded all over again how much of a performer she is. She spent 100% of her time trying to get everyone else to laugh (unless she was eating ;) ). She does that with Nathan and I all the time but I had never seen her to do it with her peers. The other kids really didn't respond to her incessant performances so she apparently gets enough encouragement from the occasional laugh from an adult.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that Lela is shrinking lately! . . .

No, this is just a giant folding camping chair that we saw at Lowe's. I just thought it was a cute picture ;)

This is Lela's new dangerous hobby. She has learned it is way more fun to stand on her stool rather than sit on it. So far it has only resulted in two falls and both times I was there to catch her. She has also realized she can reach new things when she climbs on top of her stool. So she's been carrying it around and setting it down in just the right places to get into optimal trouble. She also finds all of this extremely funny. Surprising? No.

Lela has been talking a lot more too. I can tell she is really trying to say words and sing along with songs. I am pretty sure she said "applesauce" the other day but that may just be because I am convinced she is a baby genius and I think it clouds my judgement sometimes.

Lela went swimming again last night and she did so much better than she did last time. She had a lot more fun and she even let us put in an innertube with a harness so we could push her around the pool. Unfortunately, I don't have photographic evidence of this event. Clearly, I have not been good about taking pictures this last week considering I only have two pictures and one of them is not really applicable to this post. I'll make a note to work on that ;)

All is Well

I realized that I haven't posted anything since Nathan got back. Don't worry, he made it home and your prayers for his trip were greatly appreciated. Our goal is to make yearly trips to Southeast Asia and build relationships with the people. We look forward to the day when we can all go there as a family!

In the meantime we have been spending a lot of time laughing at all the little things Lela does. She knows how to make us laugh and she milks it for all it's worth. It's really hard to tell her "no" because she makes us laugh every time. She's doing this thing lately where she says "Oh!" to everything like it's the coolest thing she's ever seen. Again I think she does it because she knows it will make us laugh. While Nathan was gone my mom and I took Lela to the zoo and she had plenty of opportunities to use her new trick.We were in the monkey house when this was taken and the monkeys starting howling and Lela just kept saying "Oh!" and she had everyone around us laughing and she loved it. She's definitely a performer!

Lela's Grandma brought her a doll stroller this weekend and she really loves it. The only thing is she prefers to pull it behind her instead of pushing it and every now and then she tries to get in it >0

She is also wearing pearls that Nathan bought her on his trip. She likes to wear jewelry now and not just chew on it. She'll leave it on for a few minutes and then she's ready to take it off. But I think she actually has a sense that she is pretty when she's wearing jewelry because she makes this bashful face and leans her head on her shoulder like "Don't I look pretty?" She cracks me up!

On Sunday we went over to a friend's house after church and Lela got to swim in a pool for the first time.
She was hesitant but I think she did good. She didn't like to move in the water very much or be too far from me or Nathan but otherwise she was calm. I wouldn't say she loved it but she got used to it. But she certainly looked cute, if I do say so myself ;)

We are also getting ready for the arrival of Eli.

We set up this bassinet in our bedroom and it brought back memories of 3:00 am feedings when Lela was tiny and all I wanted to do was stay in bed all day. But it also reminds me of the miracle of life and the wonder of bringing a new person into the world and I can't wait to meet this little boy!I was able to get a 3-D sonogram when I was in Midland and I was surprised how much I could tell about Eli's face. He looks so much like Lela! Even though I have this realistic picture of my baby, it still feels so surreal to think about having two children! Even though I know it will be twice as hard, I can look forward to having twice the laughs :)