Liam's teeth

Two little sharp teeth.

Car update

The weird sound was from a heater vent that the deer knocked loose. Nothing is leaking. The shop returned our car to us this afternoon for $35! We didn't even need the rental. :) Praise God.

Moral: Don't drive in the dark in the MidWest.

All we wanted was some good authentic Indian food. And last night was our “date night” so we put Liam in the car, called the Indian restaurant in South Bend to place a carry-out order, and drove to pick it up. We enjoyed a really nice drive all the way there—Liam playing and napping happily in the backseat. But once we got there, the trip got a little more interesting.

The food wasn’t ready for us. And Liam was ready for his bedtime snack. So Ryan waited inside for the food and I sat in the backseat of the car and nursed Liam. He wasn’t quite finished when we were ready to go, so we ate our semosas in the car and let him finish up.

On the road again, now it’s dark and rainy. Liam, full from his meal is sleeping peacefully in the backseat. We get to the toll gate for the freeway (they charge tolls in Indiana) and the automatic ticket machine is malfunctioning. Great. So one attendant is running back and forth…well sauntering is probably a more accurate description of her movement, but anyway…between the four open gates to manually calculate each person’s toll and open the gate. Thankfully Liam is asleep in the backseat, and we’re not in a big rush (except that we are very hungry!) and have no choice but to wait, so we do.

On the road again, Liam is sleeping, we are having a great discussion and all is well. And then I see a semi-truck parked on the shoulder with its hazard lights on and another car pulled over as well. Ryan changes lanes to the left lane to give them more room. And then I see blood in a big streak on the pavement. And so does Ryan.  I say out loud, “what the?” and we hit an animal. It was already dead. It was  in the middle of the freeway lane. The truck must have hit it and the police hadn’t cleared it yet. I thought it was a pig, but Ryan says it was a deer.(The truck had pigs in it, we saw it at the toll gate.)

So we pull over. A little shaken that we hit ANOTHER deer in this car. (I mean seriously!) But OK. Ryan gets out and tries to look under the car. It is dark and we don’t have a good flashlight. Turns out his iphone doesn’t work very well in that capacity after all. We need to put a flashlight back in the car!

Then, THUMP another car hits the dead deer. And pulls over behind us. A woman was driving this car alone and is a little freaked out. She has a flashlight. Ryan checks her car (which is fine) and then ours (which is leaking something). Liam wakes up and starts crying because it’s dark and he’s not in his bed and is scared (I assume). I calm him down.

We drive home very carefully. The car is making a weird noise.

This morning, Ryan called the insurance agency and explained the situation. They sent a tow truck.  Ryan is going to get the rental car at 1pm today. After the last bout with the deer, we decided to opt for the rental car insurance. (Enterprise will pick him up.) Our deductible is $500 for the repair, hopefully it will cost less than this and we can just pay it out of pocket.

Fun No Matter What!

The fallen leaves that jewel the ground...

All the trees are beautiful. The leaves are falling down. It's gorgeous here and I have October Song stuck in my head--hence the poetic title, it's a lyric from an old folksy song--google it. This is the prettiest fall I've ever seen. I'm trying to savor every minute of it--the crisp air, the pretty colors, the (very) occasional blue sky. Because once it's gone it will be winter.

And I'm told that winter will last until April. Still I have my new, bright green, puffy, down coat. If that coat can't brighten the winter then nothing can! I look like a giant granny smith apple in it, but I don't care. It's SO warm and it was a fabulous price--probably because people are generally not excited about looking like a giant apple. But I don't mind it. I love green and I hate being cold so it's the perfect coat for me.

But enough about my coat. Sheesh. I haven't blogged for a long time and I spend the first two paragraphs waxing poetic about the season and then writing an ode to the granny smith apple coat. You all want to know about what is happening here!

Well Liam--always the star of this blog--is doing well but still not crawling yet. I hope he gets motivated soon. Not that I am really excited about him being mobile, but he's almost 9 months old and just does not seem interested in crawling at all, so I'm a little worried. Instead, he has this cute rolling technic going. He scoots and rolls himself over to his toys and then is happy. Or he just sits up and plays with them and is happy. No ambition to go places! Perfectly content to stay in one spot and look cute. It's not a bad thing, I'm just wondering why he's not even interested?!

He does have two teeth now though and is biting on everything he can. But I must say, he hasn't been too fussy about the teething thing. A few days have been tough, but teething tablets and Tylenol have solved those days with one or two doses. It is very cute to see his little white teeth sticking up when he smiles. I'll try to get a photo.

For those who care, he is onto the third section of Your Baby Can Read series, and enjoying it. Of course, he can't read yet, but it's good language development--at this stage he's mostly just learning that things have names and that we use letters to represent those names.  He really enjoys it and that's what counts. I want him to love reading like Ryan and I do.

Ryan is doing well with classes, studying a lot of course, and liking the majority of his classes. He had a big presentation yesterday that went well and has done well on the midterms he took. He still has a lot of projects and papers to finish up before the end of the semester.

I am enjoying work. It's been very busy the last couple of weeks and I expect to be busy now until the beginning of December as we head into finals and have some big accreditation meetings for the Seminary that I'll be helping the dean prepare for. I wish that I could spend all my time at home with Liam, but the few hours a day that I am gone give Ryan time to bond with him. And I like my job, I have a really great boss and my schedule is very flexible--which is great because sometimes I need time off if Ryan has a school project or something going on.

OK, well that's it for now. I'll try to post some photos of the cute baby soon.

Soft sheets and other morning musings.

I have new sheets. They are amazing. I may very well never get out of bed again. I did get out of bed this morning. But it was hard. Really, really hard. And only because Liam required it.

Allow me to tell you about these sheets. They are soft. They are warm. They don't come off of the mattress. And they were included in a wonderful care package from my grandma that I received yesterday. Apparently they are made from beech wood...crazy!
OK--enough about the sheets. I can tell that you are bored. But seriously. LOVE them!

Liam didn't sleep well last night, he woke at midnight and wanted to nurse for an hour. So that could also have contributed to the difficulty I had getting up this morning. Poor little guy is teething big time, two teeth are poking up through his gums on the bottom and he's chewing on everything he can get his little hands on. Including, sometimes, me. I've been giving him teething tablets and Tylenol when it gets really bad. I hope he's good today in church.

Today we are going to visit another new church. This one is a church plant in Edwardsburg.  I hope we really like it because I hate being the "visitor" and want to find a good place to stay. So far I haven't been able to see us as part of any of the communities we've visited.

For now I'm going to sit back and enjoy my hot beverage (decaf soy latte, thanks Ryan!) and do some devotional reading before I get dressed and get Liam up from his nap and ready for church.

Update-heat

Just for those who have not heard. We got our heat working Friday afternoon. Praise the Lord!!

Liam at Church

Playing with toy keys on daddy's lap at the village church in Berrien Springs this morning. A little blurry, but still cute.

DIY Pancake Syrup

Tasty. Easy. Cheap.

1C white sugar
1 1/2 C brown sugar
2tsp maple flavoring (in the spice isle, with the vanilla)
1C water
1tsp butter

Bring to a full boil and keep it there, stirring often, for 10-15 minutes or until it's the desired thickness. Done! This is enough for 4-6 people for breakfast--about 16 pancakes depending on how much you use. Also very tasty on french toast and waffles.

 Put the rest in the fridge and warm it back up in the microwave for next time. Double or triple the recipe and keep it in an old syrup bottle or other squeeze bottle in the fridge!

A couple pictures

Cloudy with a side of rain

It's cold here and raining. But I refuse to let this ruin my day. Even though we still have no heat. (Thanks Michigan Gas!) The truth is that winter lasts until May here, or so I'm told. So if I let bad weather ruin my day the next few months are going to be, well, ruined.

Today Liam is wearing long underwear, jeans, a onsie, knee socks, and a sweatshirt. Yes he is inside. It's that cold. I felt terrible because I had to give him a bath today. Really. I had to. He was stinky. But he cried as soon as I took him out and was all shivering! So now he is bundled.

I wanted to take a video and send it to the gas company to make them feel bad for taking so long to come out and turn on our gas. But then I remembered what the people I have talked with are like and realized that they do not have feelings. At least not for customers--though techicially I am not a customer I suppose because they have not actually sold me any of their product yet. I'm a little frustrated.

Still, not ruining my day. FUN NO MATTER WHAT!

I really wanted to eat chocolate and watch Chocolate last night. But they don't have it for rent on itunes and there are no video stores in Berrien. So we watched an episode of Heros instead. And then I had super weird dreams. Note to self: Lindt and Heros = weird dreams.

I realize that this is a totally random post. Sorry about that. It's a random day. And although I am at work right now, there isn't actually any work to do. But I have to stay because I need the money and also someone might call me and then there will be work to do.

I will post some cute pictures of Liam later today. Keep an eye out.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless, and other puns.

OK, now I know not all of you are as excited by puns as we are, but here are a few that I think are hilarious! Ryan, this post's for you. :)

1. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
2. I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.
3. A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.
4. Atheism is a non-profit organization.
5. When William joined the army, he disliked the phrase, "Fire at Will."
6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it's still stationery.
7. Opening a new funeral parlor can be quite an undertaking.
8. The magician got so mad he pulled his hare out.

Hope these put a smile on your face!

The doer of the undoable

A couple weeks ago, my Spiritual Formation class took a day-long spiritual retreat. As part of that retreat, I wrote a short Psalm in the Hebrew style based on Psalm 103:1-5. I don't consider myself to be a poet or even artistic, but I thought I would share this anyway. It parallels my own experience with God, and, no doubt, the experience of many others.

First, Psalm 103, then my Psalm.

Ps. 103:1-5
   Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.


Praise the Lord, my soul;
Everything that I am, praise his name forever.
Praise the God of heaven,
for his glory is never extinguished.
He is the God of forgiven debts and cleansed hearts.
He is the Lord of healed wounds.
He is the God of those he creates;
the Father of those he recreates.
He is the Lord of those he calls,
the enabler of those he sends.
He is the God who does the undoable;
who restores the unrestorable,
and buys back the worthless.
His passion has redeemed me
and his tenderness has won my heart.
He is the God of unlimited mercies
and his glory reigns forever
Praise the Lord.
Praise his holy name.

making cookies with Liam