The Joy of the Lord is My Strength

Because, God knows I don't have any of my own right now! This weekend was miserable and nuts and hot and sticky and sweaty and just...YUCK!

We moved. In learning what I did about this move, I have realized we have too much "stuff". We have a 10x10 storage unit which is almost full. I think we filled a total of something like 30 boxes that currently are mostly parked on the patio in the back yard. We'll be moving in mostly this week. Need to clean up areas in the garage to put the boxes so they're out of the elements and away from birds and squirrels. Oscar and I are so exhausted! I think Thursday-Saturday night I got about 11-12 hours of sleep combined.

Poor Oscar had to work Saturday at 6:30 a.m. and got off around 1 and then had to work moving out of the apartment. I was up around 6 to continue packing/start moving and both Oscar and I didn't get to bed until around 2:00 the next morning. Thank God for such wonderful friends like our friends Steve, Rob, Hans, Leigh, Colleen and Shelby! They really made such a huge difference! They're the best kind of friends – the ones able to help out and help hard, even when there's really nothing in it for them. I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful they all are for being willing to help.  I [we] am blessed by the gift of their friendship.

This is the time when we will be going through everything and figuring out what we need to keep and what we can do without. That's going to be mighty hard! But neither one of us wants to move that much stuff on our next (and hopefully final) move.

So, you've already read about Nate pulling himself up in the crib. EEP! It gets even better! He was following me around my mom's house Friday morning by crawling after me and focusing on my feet. Really was just sooooo cute! When I stopped he'd grab for my big toe and hold on to it. I guess the polish color caught his eye. LOL! Burnt Orange - GOOOOOO HORNS!

On top of him learning to crawl this week, he now has 6 teeth in. 4 on top and two on the bottom. And the final bit...Nate was standing just holding my fingers and took about 6 steps forward when I took a couple small steps backward while holding onto his hands. Now, when you hold onto his hands and he's standing he does NOT want to sit, he wants to try and walk.

Oh, and, at his school (I'm sure this is b/c we read to him almost every night) he has gotten to where he will surround himself with books and "read" them. He'll turn the pages, "read", go through all the pages and then put it down and reach for the next one. LOL! I believe the comment his teacher said was "ridiculously cute!" LOL! You know how most babies are with reading. They look at it, teeth it, slobber all over it and then toss it. Not Nate. LOL!

So...in one week we've gotten:

1. His 4 top teeth in
2. Him crawling everywhere now
3. Him pulling up on everything
4. Him taking his first tottering supported steps.

He's growing so big and too fast. It seems like just yesterday he was all cuddly and snuggly and now he's really becoming Mr. Independent already. Makes me alternately happy and sad.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics taken last week for your viewing enjoyment

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails – as well as sugar and spice and everything nice!