A Great First Year

Well, folks. It's been a whole year since our little [er, big] man was born! I blogged about our birth story a month after we came home. While reading through that post this week and taking time to reflect over the past year I feel overwhelmingly blessed. Last night I was writing a "one year letter" to Luke and, as I wrote in my letter to him last night, I feel like from the moment Luke was born the heavens have been declaring the greatness of God. The story of Luke's recovery is a testimony of His greatness and the story of God changing and pruning Billy and I this past year is a continued story of Grace. I am so thankful for all that He has been teaching us, even though some lessons are harder to swallow than others.

Last night we celebrated Luke's birthday with some dear family and friends. Luke wasn't too fond of the cake and icing - in fact, he shivered with almost every bite. Too funny :)

Today we finished up the year with his 1 year well visit and the results are in:

Height: 32 in (97%)

Weight: 23 lbs 14.5 oz (60%)

Head Circumference: 18 3/4in (90%)

We have a very tall string bean that is now able to reach the countertops, hang on door knobs & pull things off the kitchen table. Life looks very interesting/cautious these days! He took his first solid steps on Monday and is getting the hang of walking very quickly. His vocabulary is increasing and he's now trying to mimic two syllable words. He's still sleeping relatively well, though in the past few weeks he's been waking up in the night which is very unusual for him. Hoping we'll snap out of that soon enough :) He's officially done with bottles and only drinks milk with his 3 meals a day. My not-so-picky eater has been testy lately and will sometimes sit at the table with us for half an hour before he decides to start eating. He's still obsessed with blueberries. Luke is a perfect blend of his mom and dad in all areas. Mostly in his independence/stubbornness and determination ;) He is a bundle of fun and we love having him as part of our family!! What a truly great first year of Luke's life this has been, and a great first year as parents for us! We did it!

Now, here a few pics from the last 12 months - Happy Birthday to our little man, Luke :)

Day 2

1 Month Milk Belly

2 Months, Easter

First Smiles :)

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

11 Months

"I'm One"

The 1 Year Old Birthday Boy

Everyday Chinese...

just so happens to be my new favorite cookbook.

For the past two years of my marriage I have learned two things. 1. my husbands love language: food. 2. His sub-love language: chinese food.

Every now and then I like a good Asian dish but it's not typically my go-to food. I try and keep our monthly menu pretty versatile but let's be honest, I've never come close to choosing to add Chinese food to the list :) One afternoon while diddling around in World Market with Billy we came across this little (literally...it's about the size of a post card) Chinese cookbook...hence the title of this post, "Everyday Chinese." At first I was a little skeptical and expecting a not-so-great attempt at this Chinese dish. But boy was I wrong! Our first dish we tried was chicken stir fry with rice & veggies. It was DE-LISH. Again, thinking maybe it was a fluke we tried another dish this weekend and I was blown away at the yumminess and authenticity found in our giant wok of food! This time we tried beef & broccoli with soba noodles...mm so good.

So if you like Chinese cuisine and have a chance to go pick up a good book, I highly recommend this $4.99 find at World Market.

Chicken stir fry with rice & veggies

I will not be silent

My heart is heavy tonight after I read a nauseating article and letter from a victim of human and sexual trafficking. She is pleading to the Super Bowl Host & National Football league to take a stand against the horrific increase of sexual trafficking that is going to take place this year. Did you know that last year during the 2010 Super Bowl, it was reported that there were tens of thousands of victims. My heart dropped to my stomach. As I continued reading her plea my soul grew angry...weary...sick and saddened for these silenced women that are being forced, abused, threatened, and even killed all for the sake of guilty pleasure. These girls are in their young teens...they are being fooled and tricked into a life of slavery. They are in our country. They are in the most populated city of the year. For what? For the Super Bowl. To be sold for sex. And the men who are visiting these women, these young girls... couldn't. care. less.

So tonight I cannot be silent. I must voice this to my KING. I must cry out to Him on behalf of these precious daughters. I must beg that He would put an end to this, that He would create a movement among these people that are receiving the letter. That they would NOT GIVE IN to promote the human trafficking industry. That redemption would be found for these girls. That the pimping industry would be NO MORE. So I ask you tonight, would you join me? Would you pray over these women and men in the coming days?

You can find the article and letter here. You can also find a prayer guide for the campaign, Traffic911 here.

For more information on human trafficking you can visit change.org or www.warinternational.org.

These children, teenagers and women need a voice....

Gotta love updates

I just love a good home update. And thanks to my ever-so-handy husband we got to do that very thing to our kitchen. Our kitchen is relatively small so counter and storage space is very limited.

Here is before:

This cabinet was a hand me down from Billy's parents which we were so grateful for. It's served us well in the past 2 years but as our family is growing (along with my cookbook collection...) we needed something more practical - storage space, counter space, display space and of course kid friendly. So how do you do this on a budget? You buy some wood from Lowe's and cut, sand, nail/screw, paint, sand, paint some more...and voila! You have this lovely gem!

(I'm sure my husband would beg to differ on the simplicity of the above process!)

Then we added some shelves above the top in order to provide the display space I was looking for. Thanks to Billy's hard work we now have 4 more feet of counter space, a longer shelf for my cookbooks, a big basket full of tupperware (Luke's distraction while I cook) and more storage space for our bakeware in the drawers. We found really fun blue knobs at World Market - a set for just $4.

So here's a big shout out to that most amazing-creative-talented-hardworking-husband of mine :)

Home Planning Notebook - Section 1

As promised, here's the first section of my Home Planning Notebook (a day early, at that!). I feel like a dork writing this...but as I said before it's been a big help to me. If you didn't read the previous post, check it out here before reading ahead. I didn't like any of the clip arts or free planning pages that I found online so I decided to make my own with some clipart I found on etsy. It's amazing what you can find on there!

The first section in my notebook, my calendar, is the smallest but for me the most important. I am very forgetful and tend to commit to something or think of something that I need to do and then forget what it was that I needed to do or who I made plans with. What am I, like 80??? It's been helpful for me to look the night before at what I have going on the next day and write down anything that needs to be done instead of starting my day wondering what's going on....

Here's the front:

This verse really spoke to my heart as I was working on this... my plans are ultimately to submit to the Lord, whatever that may look like for the day/month/year.

Next is my daily list of to-do's.

As I saw in another blog I broke it up into three sections. This was to help with feeling overwhelmed with one long list and realistically breaking it up into what will work for my day. Of course things come up and sometimes what's on my list doesn't get accomplished, but it helps having it laid out in small clusters of the day.

The last section is my monthly and yearly calendars:

I keep track of everything we have going on for the month here and reference it often. At first I thought I'd have to have separate calendars for different things - one for my notebook, one on the computer, one in my purse to schedule appts. and so on. But it just so happens that one of the perks of carrying a big purse is being able to carry my notebook with me :D So, sweet husband of mine, there is indeed a purpose to my "luggage" as you like to call it ;)

After the calendar is the rest of the year to keep up with things in coming months and then I keep blank daily to-do sheets after that.

And there's the start to my notebook, folks!

The Pursuit of Time Management

I've found a new blog called Passionate Homemaking that has inspired much needed organization in my life. I've always thought I was pretty organized as Billy gives me a hard time weekly about my obsession with baskets and bins for our spare baskets and bins :) But for many months my days have left me feeling unaccomplished and quite frazzled to say the least. My finances in one place, my coupons in another place, grocery lists in one room while family calendar in another... I found myself getting frustrated and annoyed over the little things and one day in stillness before the Lord I realized what a [negative] impact it was having on my family. The Lord has been showing me how to conquer this and I am grateful for His guidance. One of the biggest problem areas was how my week was planned (or not so planned). God has been teaching me so much about my role and how praying over and planning out my week can radically transform the tone and feel of my home.

Inspired by this lovely post, Building a Home Planning Notebook, I've been organizing my life and home little by little. At first I was skeptical thinking there was no room for spontaneity, no room for random opportunities or any flexibility. But as I've prayed through each day and each week God has proven me wrong and shown me that 1. planning ahead of time makes our home much more peaceful; and 2. God is sovereign and He leads me to people and opportunities in the midst of the daily plans. It's really been neat to see His plans for me and how getting organized has actually given me more opportunities to see Him in the midst of my day. I feel like there is a pep in my step and a little more peace in my soul!

Each Friday (hopefully) I'll post a new section of my notebook and how we got a little more organized... I hope this helps bring a little more organization into your new year!

GREAT find: DAVE of Brier Creek

One of my goals this year is to cut our grocery bill but still buy local, fresh and all natural foods. So in my mission to find a egg/milk/meat provider I came across Dave. I know, sounds a little sketch. But let me just tell you about Billy and I's new favorite person. I found him on Craigslist when searching for local eggs. He is a software engineer in Chapel Hill and moved to 2 acres of land about 2 years ago. He decided he needed something to put on his land so he randomly bought chickens. Luke found them fascinating and wanted to catch them so badly... maybe it will motivate him to walk ;) So back to Dave. He's been doing research and has learned how to feed his chickens off of his gigantic garden in the summer and uses cracked corn in the winter...resulting in beautiful, large, fresh and hormone free eggs! We worked out a deal and he gave me 18 eggs for just $2 today. Woohoo!

THEN we found out that he keeps a fantastic pesticide & fertilizer free garden in the Spring, Summer & Fall. He uses special red worms that create a natural fertilizer for gardens and double the size of your veggies. What's even better? If you use the compost of the worms (which is the natural fertilizer) and mix it with molasses and water then spray it on your plants, it kills several diseases and pests that tend to ruin gardens in the south. Sounds kind of crazy, but pretty amazing! He is going to show us how to raise our own worms (a little gross..but worth it) so we can have a great garden and he's going to help us get our garden started this Spring! We are very excited and thankful for our new friend, Dave. Last night Billy and I spent about an hour planning out our garden plots and what vegetables we'll be growing where...I'm very excited :)