Too much fun going on = behind on everything! I’ll try to catch up with fun stories and pictures this week. Above –We planted a dogwood tree in our front yard for Analise so she can watch it grow as she grows.

My younger (not little, bc she’s taller than I am!) sister, Kat, came to visit last week during her spring break. Analise thoroughly enjoyed her time with her aunt. Every time she woke up, she was looking around to see if she was still there. She found Kat to be particularly funny, and she giggled and laughed more while she was here than I think we’ve ever heard! Kat made herself comfortable on the floor, and Analise quite enjoyed climbing over her like a living jungle gym.

  
The Saturday before Easter, Analise attended her first Easter Egg Hunt at our church, Lakeside Baptist. It was held in the playground area for ages birth-3 years. There were eggs EVERYWHERE! So we sat Analise down on the sidewalk with an egg in front of her. She wasn’t quite sure what to do, and she just kept reaching out and touching it, but not picking it up. We added another one, but she still just kept touching it and getting distracted by the other kids (she loves kids!). We finally set several eggs right in front of her, and she just looked at them. A 3 year old girl came over and reached down to pick them up saying, “Look! Here’s a couple more!” We managed to fend her off, since she had upwards of 30 in her basket already. After all was said and done, Analise came home with 5 eggs. (The infants sleeping in their seats had more in their baskets thanks to their quick parents!>
All of us, including Kat, drove up to Indiana on Wednesday to meet up with my family. Analise sure knows how to be the center of attention:) She did catch onto the easter egg concept, though, when we put a whole bunch around her at Grandma’s house!

I honestly think we humans will never fully understand love. Some days it’s hard to love Brian, but I always choose to do so. I love Brian dearly, but loving Analise is different. It’s baffling how we can love something so much. Thus far, I’ve never had a moment of struggling to love her. She’s got a cold and keeps burying her drippy-drooly face on my pants and shoulder. Last week, we were both all dressed up and ready for church, and she unloaded an entire feeding of milk all over both of us (and the glider rocker, blanket and floor). Late again for church… She still wakes up in the 2-4am hours hungry. She wakes for her morning feeding around 5-6, which is not when I’d choose to start my day. And this morning, she woke at 5:30, sniffly, tired and hungry. And she kept trying to nap from 8:00 onward, miserably unable to sleep until finally she collapsed in my arms at 9:45. I know these are all little inconveniences, and I’m sure we’ll face real challenges eventually. But somehow, I just feel like this love for my daughter is different from my love for my husband.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! –1 John 3:1

It’s kind of the tiniest glimpse of God’s love for us. We’re His children, and His love for us is unwavering – even more so than ours. Amazing.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– children born not of natural descent,nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. –John 1:12-13

Alabama is an interesting place. As we were watching some severe weather coverage on TV last night (in place of our fav Extreme Makeover: Home Edition… Grr!), I was reminded that Alabama has some interesting names for towns. Among them, Oneonta (pronounced On-e-on-ta), Eutaw (pronounced, amazingly, like the state Utah! Maybe this spelling looks more southern?!?), Fenix (pronounced like it looks, or like the Arizona town Phoenix), and Pintlala (not sure how it’s pronounced, but we just love saying it!). Technicallly, we live in the city of Hoover, though I prefer to write Birmingham as our address, in spite of the extra letters:) Other interesting names in my new home state include several that are also more well-known in other states: Ashville (also in North Carolina, and pronounced here as “Ash-vul”), Cleaveland, and Athens (Georgia or Greece, take your pick). I know there were several others I noticed while driving a few weeks ago, but that’s all I can remember for now.
If you’re interested in more comical commentary on another interesting state (Iowa), my brother-in-law wrote a great editorial for the Demoines Register. CLICK Here

As a sidenote, it’s nice to know so many of you are following my rather quiet life by checking in on a regular basis. I know that it’s probably largely to see pictuers of my smiling baby, though. I’ll get a couple up this week, but she’s not been very photogenic in the past couple weeks! I’m glad we had her professional pics taken when we did, because she’s taken to wrinkling her face up into a gummy-tiny-toothy grin, that’s only a little cute. She’s also had a terribly runny nose for the last week, and I can’t keep her face dry. (I used to think it was so gross when kids were out-and-about with runny noses and wonder why their moms couldn’t keep their noses wiped. Now I know… and I’m one of them! Analise gets so mad when I try to wipe it!) Anyway, thanks for reading this far and I’ll post some pics this week, so check back!

Wish you were here! The sunsets over the hills here in Birmingham, and the other evening it gave everything a pretty pink hue. We’ve got a beautiful camellia bush on the right side, where Brian and Analise are standing. We like being homeowners!

So today it’s been kind of cold, down in the lower 30’s at night. (Note: I said “kind of” for my NORTHERN friends, who know what the word “cold” actually means.) Since we now pay to heat a whole house, we’ve learned that it’s kind of expensive to keep it nice and toasty warm:) Thankfully, we have a nice fireplace in the den, where Analise and I spend most of our time. But with a curious, active baby, a fireplace could pose a real problem. Well, our much debated solution was to invest in a Hearth Gate (by Kidco). Kind of pricy, but we’ve found it be be invaluable since she LOVES the glowing, crackling fire, and she would probably climb right up onto our low hearth and right into the fireplace. So all that to say, that’s the thing in the above picture that you see… not Analise in a cage:) I just started a rip roaring fire, and it’s been a challenge to keep her away… but when she’s away she’s off exploring the kitchen while I’m tending the fire. Or at the moment, she’s unloading the bookshelves. Gotta go!

Since this is my blog, I figured I can post anything I’d like… and today I’m inspired to share how much I’ve enjoyed this book. The Busy Mom’s Guide to Prayer by Lisa Whelchel has been a great way to organize the many things that are on my heart to pray for (probably including you!) It has 6 categories per day of areas to focus your prayers, including scriptures, prayers using the scriptures and an extended prayer. It’s also got 6 areas per day for other prayers. I, personally, have used many different manners to get organized praying in the past, and they all work for a season. This works for this season, and I’ve especially enjoyed the scripture references.

As you probably know, we take a lot of pictures… specially of Analise. We were very blessed to have our friend Corrie around for Analise’s first 6 months to take great nearly-professional quality pics of her. Because of that, we’ve not had any professional pics taken… until yesterday!

She was a darling, as usual. The photographer was suprised at how mobile she was, and we couldn’t keep her still for some of them. She was determined to crawl off to get the toys behind us. Anyway, it was terribly hard not to buy ALL of them (over $273 worth when we had picked our 17 favorites!). But we did narrow it down to two for a reasonable price. Here you go! (BTW – these are pics of the pics, so they’re not super-high quality!)

The one above was so funny… the photographer was surpised Analise could stand when I asked for her to stand beside a block. Well, she didn’t want to stand… she’s in the process of sitting down, though the rest of the pictures from that series were more of a squat! The picture below might not have been the 2nd best of all of them, but it reminds me so very much of a picture of me from when I was about her age, I had to get it. Doesn’t her smile just melt you?? (And if you’ve got one of your own, I’m sure his/her smile does the same thing… there’s something about baby smiles that just makes your heart melt!)

Here’s another picture from yesterday:)

Analise is slowly “breaching” the borders in our house. She and I mainly stay in the carpeted den where her toys are and it’s completely childproof, but she enjoys crawling into the hardwood kitchen to find me when I step out there. And if I leave the doorway to the hall open, she’ll venture that direction.

Yesterday, she reminded me of the Prayer of Jabez from 1 Chronicles 4:9:

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.

I was in the bedroom and came back 30 seconds later to find her in the foyer – a place she’s never been. She was sitting there with a big grin on her face and her hands up in the air. I think Analise has been praying that God would enlarge her territory, and she was pretty excited when He answered and she found the foyer!

So I was relaxing in the glider doing some bible study on one side of the den, and Analise was roaming around the room, crawling, pulling up and just playing on her own. She was on the other side of the fireplace, out of my sight, making some little noises like twinging the doorstop and rattling her keys. It got quieter, and I heard her moving around the small end table that was near her, but I imagined she was just pulling up. Eventually, I heard some little “ug, ug, *sigh*” (Analise’s frustrated noises) so I went to check on her. I found her under the coffee table, wedged between the table and the wall!

Analise has been keeping busy getting into everything:) She’s crawling all over, her favorite destination being out of the den into the kitchen. She also enjoys the bookcase, see above, where she’ll pull herself up to standing. Then she proceeds to take books off, one at a time. She’s just recently decided to move UP a shelf to my books, which she finds to be more fun to EAT than her board books.

I’m relieve that we’re finally over the teething and mobility problems, and Analise is napping and sleeping very well. She even sleeps through the night (at least until 5:00am is through the night by my standards!).

The pictures, below are of her latest accomplishment – climbing stairs! Life is never dull, and I’m sure walking isn’t too far down the road…

Here’s my little girl… she’s just ducky! Believe it or not, after only a week of army-crawling, she’s started full on crawling on her hands and knees. Now it seems she wants to be EVERYWHERE – including looking at herself in the fireplace glass, sliding across the kitchen floor, and pulling herself up on the bookcase (which is well anchored to the wall!). She’s such a fun one!