A Few Updates

I've been meaning to post a few different blogs about different things over the past week or so, but never got around to it on those certain days, so I thought I'd try to combine all of them into one blog now. Of course now that I'm actually getting around to it, I feel like I can't remember half of what I wanted to write about. Figures. I'll at least try to recap this past weekend.

First of all, we FINALLY took our Christmas tree down Friday night (what?... Christmas wasn't THAT long ago...). I had already taken all the ornaments off a couple of weeks ago and boxed them up, along with the rest of the decorations (stockings, nativity scene, etc.), but the tree is too tall for me to try to disassemble on my own. And as I've mentioned several times before, Jordan stays really busy working his two jobs, so we basically have to pull out the calendar and schedule every single thing we do, no matter how insignificant it may seem. So, Friday was pretty much the first chance we had to finally tackle the chore of taking the tree down (ok, so maybe it wasn't the FIRST chance since Christmas... but it was the first chance we had when we actually felt like taking it down). Packing up Christmas is always a little bittersweet for me; it's my favorite time of the year, and I'm always a little sad when that special day comes to an end. For me, it signifies another year gone by, and as weird or silly as this may sound, I always sort of yearn for my childhood during Christmas time. I absolutely love Christmas music, but there are certain Christmas songs that make me cry every single time I hear them (one example being Kenny G's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas") because they always bring back vivid memories of when I was little. I hear one of these particular songs, and suddenly I'm five years old again, back at my old house in central Florida, watching ice skating with my mom and brother while carefully threading popcorn and cranberries on some string to hang on our Christmas tree. Sometimes I would give anything to go back to those days. Other times, I'm glad that those days are now years in my past, and I'm thankful for all that God has done in my life since. And now, I'm sitting here reading back over the last few sentences wondering how on earth I got on this tangent. All I intended to do was say that we finally took our tree down. So yeah. Moving on now.

Rylee turned seven months old on Saturday. Yep. She has been sitting up by herself for almost two months now, but she's not crawling yet (I can tell she's trying to figure it out, though). She still doesn't have any teeth yet either, but surely one will break through soon. I mean, it seems like she's been teething for three months now! She's been saying "Mama" for a while now, and it sounds like she's starting to say "Dada" as well... or something closely resembling it, anyway. I recently let her try a bite of mashed potatoes... she gagged them down. We'll have to try those again soon. I gave her some juice (diluted with water) for the first time the other day, and although she made lots of funny faces, she seems to like it for the most part. I attempted to feed her a jar of chicken with chicken gravy ("infant meat") last night, and she took one small bite and started gagging and crying as if I'd broken her little heart. Needless to say, I didn't make her eat anymore of it. That stuff smells like cat food anyway. As usual, she keeps me busy from sun up to sun down, but I love every second I get to spend with her.

Also on Saturday, we got the information packet for our Compassion sponsor child, Findley, in the mail. I was so excited. Now we have a picture of him that I can look at every day. He's just so precious. I pray that someday we'll have the opportunity and the means (financially, etc.) to meet him. I love the fact that I've only "known" him for a week or so, but I already love him so much. I will forever consider him part of our family, and he will always have a very special place in my heart.

Finally, Saturday evening one of Jordan's co-workers, his wife, and their two sweet little girls joined us at our house for dinner. It was the first time we've had anyone other than family over for dinner, and we really enjoyed the company. I made "Chicken Stuff" (chicken casserole), garlic mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and rolls (ok, so I didn't actually MAKE those last three things; they were already prepared... all I had to do was heat them up...), and as far as I know, everyone liked it. It was so nice to visit with another young, married-with-a-kid (or in their case, two kids and another on the way) couple. Fellowship with friends our age who are in the same stage of life that Jordan and I are currently in is something we have longed for since we got married (and even more-so since we had Rylee). We are planning to get together with this family again soon, and I am really looking forward to it.

Ok... whether or not I've mentioned everything I wanted to, I'm going to wrap up this post here before it gets any longer. Since I mentioned it, though, I wanted to include a quick clip of Rylee's first sip of juice... for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!