Happy Halloween!!

What a beautiful day!!! We raked leaves during the day (9 huge garbage bags full) and went visiting this evening. E dressed up as a Pikesville College Cheerleader. Jut and I were Pikesville bowlers...for those of you who aren't aware of this wonderful fact, the Pikesville lady bowlers have been the national bowling champs for several years. Enjoy the pics documenting our day...

A very long day....

Jut had a 'fun' day yesterday with Elizabeth while I went subbing. I think he's more thankful all the time that he's back to work full-time and I'm staying home...especially with days like yesterday...

The day started at 8:45 receiving a call from Alma to sub in 1st grade music. They were desperate for a warm body, and so I accepted the call. Jut actually had Friday off this week instead of Thursday. But, he still had some work to do at the church so he dropped me off at the school.

He and E went to the church. E did fairly well playing, but Jut didn't get too much done before lunch time came around. They brought me some Wendy's and went home to eat their lunch. Upon arriving at the house, Jut finds out that he's locked out. There is a door between our back door and kitchen, which we don't have a key to, and sometimes it gets locked. All of the easily accessible windows to the house are, of course, locked. Well, Jut tries to take the window out in the door to the kitchen, but that is unsuccessful. He then pulls the car underneath the breakfast nook and hops on the hood and both of those windows are also locked. Meanwhile he's trying to keep track of a wandering 1.5 year old. So, none of this is done in a timely fashion. Luckily at this point in time, the neighbors come home and offer him a ladder. So, he uses the ladder to check the windows on the other side of the breakfast nook. Luckily they are open! However, the window is only 18 in x 13 in. He didn't even think he'd really fit through, but after some precarious moments he did manage to hoist himself inside. First challenge of the day is conquered...and it only took a 1/2 hour or so.

E doesn't go down for her nap very well because she's overly tired due to the delay in getting inside the house, but she finally goes down.

I arrive home around 3. Thankfully, a very nice teacher from the school brought me home. Jut tries to open the front door and it won't open. The metal thing on the door frame has come loose. So we monkey around with that and in the process wake up E...We finally get the door to open, and find the wood inside the door frame has rotted. So, Jut, my "Bob Vela" goes to the hardware to buy some long screws to fix it by just drilling it in to the good wood behind the bad wood. After several frustrating attempts to get it to work, we call in the reinforcements...namely my dad. He's got more tools and more 'fix-it' skills. I was thankful that it was raining, so that he'd have time to come by. Because Jut had had enough...I think there was steam coming out of his ears by this time. His frustration level had definitely been attained!

So, Dad shows up. Fixes our door so that it would lock. We put E to bed and think its been a long day...little did we know it wasn't even close to being over.

Just as we were getting to go to bed at 11, E wakes up screaming and having trouble breathing. I couldn't get her calmed down so I took her out in the cold to help her airways. That worked. Then, she decided that she was hungry. So, she ate. I decided that we needed to clear her airways better. So, we give her a Vick's bath, which she played in for at least 40 minutes. I kept adding hot water and more hot water and more hot water as the bath cooled. She had a great time. She didn't care that it was after midnight.

Jut hunts down the humidifier and gets it going in her room. We go through her entire bedtime routine, put her down...and she cries, and cries and cries. Long story a bit shorter...I didn't get her to sleep until after 2! We finally figured out that the humidifier absolutely terrified her. Poor girl.

Now the blessing in all of this is that Jut was suppose to be gone to a high school retreat this weekend. Luckily for me, it was cancelled. I'm glad I didn't have to do the 11-2 shift by myself!!

My funny girl...

We've been sitting E on her potty quite often in the last couple of weeks. Not that we think she'll be potty-trained anytime soon, but as a preventive measure from peeing on the carpet. She's had a nasty diaper rash and we like to give it some good quality air-time. However, I don't like cleaning the carpet numerous times a day. Hence, now when un-diapered, E sits on the potty. Well, she thinks its pretty cool and so she sits on it diapered too.

Today after she had finished lunch, she went over and sat on the potty. I sang her our little "potty" song, and then turned back to my lunch. A bit later, I turned my head to check on her and she was backing up to my stock pot that she pulled out of the cupboard. She then proceeded to sit in it, like she would her potty. The look on her face was priceless as she sunk in and didn't just stay on the top like the potty chair...then it was even more funny when she realized that she couldn't get out. She was not impressed that I had to run and get my camera to record the incident. But, it was hilarious!!!

Fall is definitely here. Jut, E, and I took a walk yesterday to enjoy the beautiful weather, but it was rather chilly. E had lost the mittens by the end because you just can't hold on to leaves and be your own little parade when your mittens are on. However, the cold didn't bother her a bit. She is our little outdoors girl!

Daddy's Girl

For those of you with us at Statewide '07, you may remember Jut buying this ridiculously overpriced onesie for our baby-to-be Sri. At the time, we didn't know if she was a girl...Well, Elizabeth has finally grown into that silly onesie. (Hint: she is wearing a transformer onesie, if you are not up on your '80s culture...)

Just a little of life with a toddler...

Nothing too much newsworthy has been happening around here this week...or last week for that matter. However, that is a good thing, in my opinion. Newsworthy items are not always good things.

E is getting more creative in her attempts to cause trouble these days. One morning while I was in the shower, I hear a "thud, thud, thud". My first thought was that I hadn't secured the baby gate and E had fallen down the stairs. I raced out of the shower to the stairs, but the baby gate was still sitting at the top. I popped my head in E's room and then our room, but no E was to be found. There was also no sound coming from her, which lead me to believe that the fall that I had heard had knocked her out somewhere. So, I raced back into the bathroom and grabbed my glasses so that I could actually see something. Still, no E in either room. Just then, I heard the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs click. I went down the stairs and there was E and Pumpkin playing with the baby gate. The little munchkin must have slid UNDER the gate at the top of the stairs and rolled down a few of them before picking herself up and finishing her way down the stairs. Crazy girl. I now secure the gate as low to the floor as I can. I am learning!!

She is also finding ways to climb up to get things that she wants. She loves to constantly try and climb on the Jut's stereo speaker from the coach. And yesterday, she pulled her little green car that she sits on to ride over to the bookshelf. She then proceeded to stand on top of it to try to reach something that was up high on the bookcase. She also pulled the small step-stool that I have in the kitchen over to the sink, and Jut found her playing with some dirty dishes in it. Persistence and ingenuity are wonderful qualities as an adult, and she's exhibiting them right now. I'm working on reminding myself of that when I get frustrated with her actions.

She's constantly on the go, dumping toys all over the floor, throwing her food off her tray, eating crayons, climbing all over the house like its a jungle gym, but at the end of the day, she still loves to cuddle, and sleep in my arms. She's such a little cherub when she's sleeping. That's the reward for all of the crazy toddler behavior. (Yes, I realize that those crazy toddler antics are only going to get worse!)

The Little Things...

E is becoming quite the little investigator. Anything that is new or different needs to be studied and examined. She is noticing the little things in life more and more. Birds get her 'oh'ing and 'ah'ing and pointing every time that she sees them. Birds are amazing and wonderful to her. We live in the flight path of geese. Several flocks go overhead daily. As soon as E hears them, she's looking and pointing. Yesterday we were at a park, and a flock landed in the little league field on the other side of the park. Off E went to see those geese. She was marching very purposefully toward them. She was very perturbed when they took off on her when she got too close.

She loves playing on the soccer fields near our house. The field is huge and there are a couple sloped inclines on the edges of the field. She could spend hours going up and down and running around. I also never knew that a soccer goal could provide so much entertainment to run around and reach your hands through. Plus, there are always interesting things left on the ground to investigate. It is a favorite place to spend time.

Another fun place is the park. She loves to climb through the big tube and slide back down. The steps are fun to go up and down. There are those silly animals on the springs that she loves to climb up and down. And of course her favorite is the swings. My girl loves swings! Plus, she gets to watch the ducks on our way there and home. She likes to watch me feed the ducks, but she eats the old, dry bread if I give her any to feed the ducks. I haven't been able to convince her that she doesn't need to eat it.

It is amazing to watch the world through a one-year old's eyes. Everything is new and amazing. Everything needs to be investigated. The little things that we take for granted is mesmerizing to her. It is so much fun to see her become more aware of her surroundings and just enjoy life.

A theological illustration/thought that struck me...

Last weekend my sister, Stacey came home for the weekend. Mom decided that we were going to make an apple pie and applesauce from the apples in her apple trees. So, we dodged raindrops and ventured outdoors to pick the apples.

Mom filled her bucket within minutes. She was done before Stacey and I even got outside. We grabbed our bags and headed out. Stacey and I picked the first few apples and they were gross. They were full of worm holes and just looked nasty. We chucked them into the cornfield and tried for a few more. They all looked gross. We decided that mom must have gotten all the good apples. So, we watched Elizabeth jump in a few mud puddles and inside we went.

Later in the evening, Mom brought out the apples for us to core, peel and slice. Her apples looked as gross or grosser (is that a word?) than ours had that we'd thrown into the field. We kind of made a stink about it, and Mom told us to core and peel the apple and cut away all the yucky parts...it was going to make a good pie. Amazingly, for a yucky as the apples looked on the outside, they looked pretty good on the inside. The corer took out all the center, which was where the majority of the worms resided. So, we just had to cut out the worm holes. Sure enough, after a while, we had peeled enough apples for the pie and the applesauce. My only thought was "I hope it tastes good and Mom's not crazy and that no rogue worms got in"

For lunch on Sunday, we had the delicious pie and wonderful applesauce. It was better than I had even thought it might be and no one found a rogue worm...

Now this leads to my theological thought. It reminded me that we are all flawed. We each have different types of 'worm holes' running through us. We have rotten spots in our core. Yet, God can take all of our 'nastyness' and turns us into something wonderful, if we let Him. The question then becomes, will you let go of your worms so that something wonderful can be the result???

I liked that applesauce so well that I brought home 2 bags of those dirty, rotting, wormy apples. I have been making applesauce all week after Elizabeth has been in bed. We have several bags of it in the freezer so that we can enjoy the fall apples in the middle of winter when the sun seems far away...and it will serve as a reminder to me to self evaluate for any worms that have squirmed into my life recently...