Something I'm listening to

An angry baby trying to escape from his room. Must be time for a nap!

Judah's Money

He keeps it in a pickle jar. This kid is fancy.

Something I ate

After a walk with Judah, a crazy bloody nose, cooking dinner and cleaning the kitchen I needed a treat to keep me from passing out before Judah went to sleep.

Midnight snack

I pump right before bed which makes me too hungry to sleep so I have a snack every night. Tonight it's a mini sweet potato pie and probably just the nectarine. I'll save the orange for Judah to share with me in the morning

9 months

My baby is 9 months old! He's 27 inches long and 14 pounds. We went to see the specialist on Friday and he said he's pleased with his weight gain and I don't need to bring him back. I certainly never gave him any sugar and I only added a little butter to his vegetables right before I pureed them. In the 2 months since we saw him, I only used one stick. It certainly isn't necessary to make your child gain weight and I won't be adding any more. He is so busy and vocal these days that hardly feels like a baby anymore. He plays independently in his room for quite some time now, but we have to put the gate up because bolts for his door and goes to the railing. He gets really mad if you try and save his life and keep him from falling through the railing. He also lunges off the side of our bed to get whatever he sees on the floor. I spend a lot of time holding him by his ankles as he fights to hit the ground. Two weeks ago he started saying mamama and last week he added bababa and Friday he started dadada to his sounds. I've stopped pureeing his foods, now I just coarsely mash them and the other day I started dicing them. Starting this week his breakfast will be egg yolks, yogurt or oatmeal with diced fruit, his snack will be diced fruit or veggies and cheerios or puffs and dinner will be brown rice/quinoa/lentils with a veggie mixed in. He's had diced pears and diced mangoes so far and I think I'll get some carrots to dice for him. He can feed himself his cheerios but the fruit is too slippery for him to grasp correctly. Since his momma is too cheap to buy him a push toy, Judah uses a pampers box to "walk" across the room.  He can shift from holding the box to grabbing on the crib or whatever else he wants to mess with. He is such a smiley and happy baby and he laughs a lot. It makes my heart happy that he is enjoying his little baby life. He's been going into the nursery on Sunday for the past few weeks and he does great. He doesn't cry when we drop him off and they've been able to get him to nap when he does get fussy. He's only nursing every 3-4 times a day and it kind of makes me sad because breastfeeding has been a sweet time for me. I will be enjoying the freedom of not having to stop what I'm doing every 3 hours though. Perhaps an overnight visit to his grandparent's is in order soon!

Green bumbo seat

Sometimes meals around here get out of control. Judah enjoyed his mangos and oatmeal so much, he wanted his entire face to join in.

Cabinets

I have 2 bathroom cabinets. One is dedicated to my daily items and the other is hair/shower. I'm debating  taking down one of the cabinets and putting up shelves. I'm going to paint them first to see if that makes me like them a little more. 

Shoes

My shoes hang in my shirt closet. I rarely wear any of these because if I put on anything other than sneakers my joints swell. I finally got some new shoes last weekend because MrC and my ma were clowning my run down new balances.

Work

I work sitting at the foot of my bed watching Judah. God willing, my next job will allow me to do the exact same thing.

7 for 1

Since my picture of myself post is a day late, I included all my favorite pictures to make up for it. The left column is our wedding day right after our first kiss and college graduation. The center column is high school graduation, middle school, and wedding again. The last column is prom and my 18th or 19th birthday.

Judah was giving me the blues yesterday, last night, and this morning which is why I never got around to posting yesterday.

Handwriting

I've been reading through the book of John this year. I don't do scheduled readings well because sometimes I need to sit and chew on a verse for awhile and schedules don't allow me to do that. Sometimes I'll read the same chapter everyday for a week and just allow God to speak to me. I have a feeling I'll be in John 11 again tomorrow. This chapter is right on time for me today since I'm about to research doctors and try to get some appointments set up. I've been having a sjogren's flare up for the past week, so I've been exhausted and achy and my lymph nodes are huge. Reading about Jesus and his interaction with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus  has immediately changed my thinking and how I talk to God about how I'm feeling these days. A few months ago a pastor came to our church and preached on and prayed for healing. During his message he said that as we receive our healing from God, we need to ask Him what we need to change in our own lives to maintain our healing. For example, if God heals you of high cholesterol/diabetes/high blood pressure and you go back and keep eating the same things and not exercising, your body will begin to manifest the same illnesses again. God's grace is not a license to have a free for all. When I finish in John, I'm going to do a study on grace. That'll probably take me all the way into 2013! When I finish grace, I'm going back to the fruits of the spirit. I started last year and got through love, joy, patience, and kindness.

This was supposed to be my handwriting photo post and I ran off with it because Judah is taking a long nap and I miss writing actual blog posts. I'm going to make time for it more often now that he can play independently for a while.

I hate it!

I hate having to wake MrC up. He sleeps hard and he wakes up incoherent. Sometimes I have to physically assault him to get him to open his eyes. I can't lie, I do enjoy punching him in the chest and knowing he won't remember it in the morning.

Drink Up

Bedtime bottle: 6 ounces of milk and 6 tablespoons of rice cereal. The blur in front of the bottle is Judah's hand waving.

3:08

Today I spent way too much time on my hair. I finished at 2:30 and now I'm pumping before bed. I am about 3 steps past tired.

Innerdiva: we've had no issues with choking giving Judah the cheerios. Gums are pretty efficient.

50% off

My something new is the vase I got from Target today. I'll be pulling it out for Valentine's day 2013.

Busted

Texting in church.

Ignore that I'm sending this in church.

Tasty Heart

MrC left me a sweet message this morning.

Blue fail

This was supposed to be a picture of Judah sitting up, holding his blue lid with his cheerios showing the blue feet with his blue sippy cup. Judah decided to shovel the food in his mouth like a glutton. Maybe he wanted to show of my blue pajamas, or daddy's blue jeans. He learned how to feed himself last Friday. It's amazing, Thursday he couldn't get one piece in his mouth successfully and on Friday he did it with no trouble.

here's a blue fun fact: my ma thinks I'm colorblind because I can't tell the difference between blue and green a lot of the time.

Closet

Don't y'all dare tell MrC I posted this! I own everything in this house, so this is my closet that I let Judah use. MrC put Judah's clothes away today and he caught me trying to capture this rare moment.

My joy

When Judah wakes up, he crawls to the edge of his crib to "call" us to get him. Makes me smile every time.

Last one to the party

Here I am all late to the tag. InnerDiva tagged me a few weeks ago, but I'm just now getting to finish it. Here are my randoms:

1. I'm typing this during a meeting where I find out I lost my job. No worries, I'm still employed until at least May. I've been a contractor for 3 years. The company I'm contracted to said they want to hire me, they're checking for positions. 

2. I've battled acne for 14 years. I tried almost every topical remedy and a few pills over the years, no improvement. I tried removing foods from my diet, no improvement. I started adding flax meal to my oatmeal to help with my breast milk production and my skin cleared up. I stopped eating it for a few weeks, and acne came back. So, black soap, yes to tomatoes skin care line, and flax meal finally has my skin looking lovely.

3. I don't like bananas, but I love banana candy. I love watermelon (even though I had to make myself not be allergic to it) but nothing watermelon flavored. 

4. I'm a horrible dish washer. MrC just told me he would take over the dishes because I do an inadequate job. 

5. I always think I'm pregnant. I buy store brand pregnancy tests in bulk. I have a 5 pack from Walgreens under my sink right now. Well, there are only 3 left. When those run out (probably by April, lol) I'll get some from the dollar store. 

6. I'm a prude. I don't like watching people kiss and I rarely watch se.x scenes in movies. I feel like I'm intruding on a private moment! I spend a lot of my time watching Nickelodeon and Disney, although I do have a beef with Nickelodeon about the show Vic.torious. Her skirts are too short and they just had an episode where the kids got really trippy after eating "tacos." It was really inappropriate, if you took out "tacos" and inserted "weed" the episode would make perfect sense still. Not cool.

7. I always think people are going to get Herpes. I've worked in pharmacy related jobs for 11 years. A lot of people take herpes medication. Be careful who you kiss.

8. I don't like being questioned. 

     Me: I'm going to the grocery store

     MrC: For what?

     Me: Grocery, negro. why does it matter?

or

     Me: I'm about to fix dinner

     MrC: What are you making?

     Me: Food, negro. Why does it matter?

I wish I was joking. We have that exact conversation every week. I always ask what he wants from the store of what he wants for dinner and he says whatever I do is fine. If whatever I do is fine, don't ask me what I'm doing. He just shakes his head and asks God why He gave him such a crazy wife.

9. I want to get thrown out of somewhere for brea.stfeeding so I can riot and have a sit in.

10. Pray that you are never my neighbor. I spy on them all the time and make up stories about their lives. Maybe I'll get to blog about that before the end of the year. If anything ever goes wrong, they'll thank me because I'll call the police if they're off schedule. The house diagonal from us is giving me a run for my money. They are so unpredictable. I don't like it.

11. I love planning parties. I have always talked much trash about not giving Judah a 1st birthday party, and how I don't believe in parties for babies. I still don't believe in parties for babies, butI thought of such a good theme, I can't let it go to waste!

These are the questions from Inner Diva

1. iPhone, crackberry, or droid? Droid
2. In your Lifetime original movie, who would play you? KeKe Palmer 
3. This is a question I ask my husband all the time when we're deciding what's for dinner–if you were on death row (jail, not the record company), what would your last meal be? Curry Chicken, pizza, cheese fries, cookies, watermelon and fruit punch
4. Under what circumstances, if any, would you be a guest on the Maury show? I'd go to be a therapist. I like to tell people what's wrong them
5. What's your favorite movie? Return to Me
6. How did you decide to live where you live right now? We needed to move closer to my parents since we were having a baby. This town was the only town I was willing to consider in the county. This was the best house for our requirements and budgets.
7. If you were a celebrity, what would you be famous for? I'd like to be famous for my singing and dancing. I can do neither, so if I were catapulted into celebrity tomorrow, it would be because I'm the mom of a really cute kid!
8. Will you miss the Twinkie? I have never had a twinkie. It will not be missed by me.
9. What's on your nightstand? Video monitor, 2 nail clippers, teether, earrings, hair clips, bible, 2 journals, 1 book, a party bag, 2 magazines, ni.pple cream and 4 ink pens (my night stand has 3 shelves. I like clutter. Stoop judging me)
10. How old were you when  you got your driver's license, and how many tries did it take you to pass the road test? (I just want to know if I'm the only weirdo) 16, just once
11. Are your ears pierced? If they are, did you get them done when you were little, or when you were older?I got them pierced for the first time as a baby, got an industrial bar at 18, got a second hole at 20, and I think I'll get another at 27

I'm not going to tag anybody since we're way past this now! 

Pretty in pink

Unfortunately this awful drawing looks better than I do today. My twists need to be taken down, I need new glasses, and I look tired. There was no way I was going to post myself looking this way.

My 16 minute late door

There is a bag of pine cones hanging on our front door. Why? I don't know.

A told B and B told C...

My plan was to capture the sun setting from my bedroom window but thanks to the rain, that's a no go. Here's the sun from Judah's favorite book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" setting by the coconut tree.

Buttons

I went shopping with my ma today. She bought this coat but hated the buttons. They are a bit much, but I still thought it was cute.

Dinner?

I made lazy woman eggs and rice for dinner. I cooked some eggs with salt, garlic, and pepper then added rice, soy sauce and sesame oil. I was so hungry that I didn't remember to take a picture until I was finished. How embarrassing. I finish every meal these days with these cookies. Since we're watching Rio tonight, I'll also be having popcorn in a few minutes.

10:00

Judah decided that he didn't want to sleep from 3-5 this morning, which means I didn't go to bed until 5. Our service starts at 9, and I refused to get out of bed until 9:30. while I was getting ready we watched church online.

Strangers

These strangers have been hanging in our house for months. They even hung in our apartment. One day, these strangers will be replaced with pictures of my family.

Hands

Little hands that steal apples.

The Word

Verse 59 had me cracking up when I did my Bible Study this morning. In my mind, when they bent to pick up the stones, Jesus said "shoooot ain't gonna get me today. I'm out." Then He threw up the deuces and left. I'm 76.6% sure that's what happened.

My view today

I won't be left out! Even I can remember to post one picture a day. I didn't even have to leave my bed to do this.