It's Growing Season!

It's growing season all around here at apartment 307.  We decided to go ahead with doing an organic garden this year, just something small since we live on the third floor and have just a small balcony to work with.  With the early spring weather, we were able to start planting about a month and a half early!  And as of yesterday, we've already enjoyed two rounds of lettuce and one round of beans!  Normally down here you wouldn't be planting until after April 15th, so we were spoiled with a warmer than usual winter!  This year we are growing stringless bush beans, zucchini, bell pepper, loose leaf lettuce, herbs (spearmint, basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme, dill), strawberries, green onions, and two avocado trees.  We started everything from seed except the strawberries.  It is so fun to come home and slice off a handful of lettuce and enjoy a fresh salad for dinner.  So worth it!

baby beans after about 2 months of growth from seed

lettuce after about 2 months of growth from seed

first cilantro sprout

Lettuce at 3 months, after our first harvest.

beans and zucchini coming right along, planted in 5 gallon buckets

Our first meal including lettuce from the garden - topped with whole food black bean burger, roasted asparagus, and avocado.  Heaven on a plate!!!

Also growing at an extremely fast rate is our little nugget.  Austin has six teeth now!  Two on the bottom and four on top!  The top set came all together last week.  He has been handling his teething pretty well this time, we barely knew they were coming until the day they cut through.

Grandma Sarah - this turned out to be Austin's favorite new toy.  :)  Coming in a close second is a chip clip he snagged from the fridge door.

naked time on his potty  (Elimination Communication for anyone wondering)

My boys in their polos.  Love!  A's first day in 12 month clothes. (7 months old here)

Austin is also outgrowing all of his clothes.  Well, at least it seems that way!  He weighed in on Tuesday at his check up at 25 pounds!  (I forgot his height measurement, but he was in the 25th percentile for height.)  I'm sure every mom feels this way at some point of their child's life, but I've got to say I feel like I'm upgrading his clothing size every week!  Haha!  What fit last week fits no more!

We had a fabulous Easter, which started off with a gorgeous early morning breakfast and traditional service at a church we visited in South Carolina.  As we left the service, the youth of the church released a few dozen butterflies at the large cross on the lawn just outside the church doors.  It was about 9:00am and the sun was streaming down thick rays through the clouds.  It was a beautiful experience and the perfect way to honor Christ!  We then went to our church for a second breakfast at Christ Lutheran and the contemporary service to follow.  So we had quite the mix of everything on Easter, and we loved it!  Enjoyed a walk on the greenway in the afternoon and Yoforia before heading home.  I think we will always cherish Austin's first Easter and what a perfect day it was.

Austins' first Easter basket!  The cookies are for mom and dad.  ;)

crawling over to his Easter basket

pictures by the cross and lilies in the sanctuary

Couldn't get him to hold still long enough for a solo picture.  He thought it was so funny to grab the flowers.

Walking on the greenway on the beautiful Easter afternoon!

Here are a few videos of the cutie pie growing up!

Oh yes, and I must mention what happened to us two weeks ago.  We had gotten a babysitter for the first time and had her at the apartment set up with Austin.  Now I wish I could say we had a big date planned, however no.  We were in our office room working on the business plan and financial projections for our future business we plan to open soon.  We had four hours carved out with the sitter, and we had just sat down to start plugging numbers when there was a *knock*knock*knock* at the door.  Dave and I were pretty surprised, because we never get a knock at our door.  And I really mean never, like never in the 10 months we have lived here except for the occasional package from UPS.  I hesitantly answered, expecting to find a salesperson of some sort.  But it was our neighbor from across the breezeway.  She accidentally backed into our car!  Thankfully we had pulled in with the back of the car facing outward this time (usually Dave will back in to a spot with the front of the car facing out.  God had our back on this one!).  So Dave spent the next couple hours working out the details with a police office and insurance.  We drove the sitter home an hour early, because there was no way we could focus on our work after that.  And we haven't had the chance to touch our project since.  Ahhhh, parenthood.  :)

The damage.  Just a few scrapes and broke the light cover.  The light fixture was A.Okay!

40 Day Renewal

Austin is officially 6 months old today!  What a big boy!  He is happily jumping in his Jumperoo, looking outside, and gnawing on his fingers.  I'm sure we've got similar weather to you, unseasonably warm and beautiful.  We'll definitely be going for a walk this afternoon to soak up the gorgeous rays!  If you were here, you'd see us looking like this walking down the street:

I think I forgot to mention last time about Dave's latest project to help our community.  He is co-hosting, along with our pastors, a 40 Day Renewal series at our church.  It goes through the 40 days of Lent.  You can check out the daily blog here to take part (sorry I dropped the ball, we're already on day 22, but it is never too late to make changes to bring you closer to God!).  While it is about losing weight and regaining health (or whatever changes you need to make in your life - meditating more often, reading your Bible, talking to God, organizing your weeks, etc), it also isn't at the same time.  The bigger focus is on your "Big Why" and the changes that need to be made to renew your focus and bring it all back to God.  We're also diving into what is your Purpose.  Why are you here?  You can read about that at the bottom of each daily post.   Hope you can plug in!  We've got people from all over the world taking part -- it's really neat to see the impact that can be made from what started as just an idea earlier this year.

While the little man is occupied for a few more minutes, I just wanted to upload a few recent videos we took of him.  Hope you enjoy!  He has changed so much since the last round of videos were shared.  And thank you for the emails last week, loved to catch up with some of you guys!  Lots of changes for so many great families in the last year.  :)!  What an exciting spring and summer to come!

 

Austin is about 3 months old here.  This was the first time he really had an all-out giggle fest.  Our friend Justin is facilitating the giggles.

 

4 months old

5 months  -  learning to crawl

  

5 months -- ready for a nap, slap happy

5 months  -  night of his baptism

Austin's Baptism

Austin was baptized at church this past Sunday.  He did great!  Loved the water!  Wish we had a better video to share.  A couple used our camera and Flip so you could see.  However, we were told that the service would be recorded and available for free on iTunes.  Turns out only the sermon was recorded!  Bummer. (But Pastor Scott's message was great this week, so we recommend downloading it anyway and tuning in: http://sermon.net/rss/christlutheran/main)  We're glad we took our own video after all.  :)  We all sort of look like ghosts, but you can still see Austin's smiling face!

Austin loved the water

Happy child of Christ!

Austin waving to Grandma S & V and his Godparents "Wish you were here!"

This is the handmade chest he was given to store all of his church keepsake items over the years.

It's really nice, such a great idea!

In his Sunday best for such a special day!!

Austin will be 6 months old next week.  MY how time flies!  He is getting big, as you can see, and I have many more pictures and videos to share.  I'll try to keep it to only the cutest ones, as you know we just love to show off our little boy and would upload all 100 videos we have of him if we could!  :)  More to come soon, have to catch the time during naps!

His latest developments: he can now roll over back and forth and likes to do barrel rolls across the living room floor until Dave comes to tickle him.  He knows his name now and turns to look at you when he hears you say it.  He reaches up to be picked up and reaches out to grab toys.  He also likes to grab noses, mouths, and any other part of your face he can get his hands on.  He likes to pull mommy's hair.  During bath time, daddy dumps a stream of water in front of Austin's chest and he likes to reach out and let the water run through his fingers (so cute!!).  And, it has started.  Teething symptoms have been emerging in the last few weeks and we can feel three little bumps on his gums. 

Quick update on the happenings of Dave and Elise.  Dave is up to the usual, practice is going well and he's just loving every day that he gets the opportunity to serve.  We have set a goal to have our own practice doors open by October of this year.  So we're just starting the beginning steps of all that.  The plan is still Greensboro, NC.  It's about 2 hours north from Charlotte.  I'm sure more news to come as we make strides with build out and the move and all!

For me, life as mommy is a thousand times more pleasurable than I could have ever imagined!  It's so SO amazing to watch God's little creature grow up, and to realize He chose me to care for him is something I think about and cherish every single day.  Austin and I have fun while daddy is at work.  We go for at least one walk every day and fill the rest of the time playing on the floor or reading books in bed.  Ahhh, life is so good!