Dishes...

Whitney does a LOT of dishes, more than any other guy I know. He does a lot less than me, but he's really good at trying to help out. Especially when he cooks, which is amazing in and of itself. I think that gene may have been passed... For the last two days, Eli has really wanted my cereal bowl and spoon after I am finished eating with them. He has carried them into the kitchen, and pulled down the dishwasher, then loaded the spoon in the utensil bin and with significant difficulty, loaded the bowl in the top, because he knows where they go. Then he closes everything back up and tries to start the dishwasher. It's a little annoying, but REALLY sweet! I have been frustrated up until now that he can open the freezer, start the dishwasher, etc. But it kind of changed my perspective to see that he's trying to help, or at the very least, just trying to do what he sees us do! What a cute little fellow...

Bridget

WELCOME TO BABY COLIN!!

Just a few minutes ago, in a land far, far away (namely Houson, TX), my brother Clint's beautiful wife gave birth to their second child--a son, named baby Colin Robert Stuckey! Welcome to the family--we love you!! He's a tiny guy- 5lbs, 15 ounces, and 17 inches long. HOORAY!! Good job Linsey!

Bridget

More Sledding...

So it has snowed a few times between our last sledding post and now, but not enough to sled on (or Whit was working while it was here--I can't take Eli out by royal decree of the house doctor--he says the risks of bumps and falls are too great for little sister...)

Anyhow, Eli has liked watching the videos from the last sledding adventure almost as much as he liked sledding. We went again yesterday, despite the snow being REALLY powdery and only about 2 inches thick because it was Whit's day off. He works today from 8 am until 1 am! Yikes... so no sledding today even though there's more snow and it's probably not as powdery. Poor Eli. He really liked it. I will throw in a few still shots, but we mostly took little video snapshots. I need to use my really nice video camera, but it's so much easier to just use my regular digital and take these crummy videos!

The first video is just in our front area, before going around to the back.

The second video is his second run down the hill. He is having a fun time, although it's pretty cold. I feel bad--his little snowboots look really big, but they were actually so padded inside that they're too small--so he's just wearing his new shoes (size 7 oooh, ahhh)... Oh well.

The third video is when he fell face first into the snow. Yes, I DO feel pretty bad about this in hindsight. This is one of Eli's favorite videos to watch or I might not put it in. Basically, Whitney takes a break from sledding and stands Eli up. I was videoing to see how he likes the snow and he just falls face first, like a pancake, into the snow! His little bum is still straight up in the air. I know it makes me partially evil that I laughed, but now every time Eli watches this video he covers his face with his hand and laughs and laughs... like he's mimicking falling into the snow. It's almost as funny as the video...

Here's another video of a sledding run. I wasn't down far enough when I started so I had to move before the end and it gets a little blurry for a minute--sorry. But he's having a good time and I thought it was cute.

Okay and here is the last video... I promise. It is just us kind of fooling around in the front driveway after our sledding. I am only including it because you can hear Eli say "more" at the end. When he wants to do something again, or wants more of something, that's what he says. He kind of uses it as a multipurpose word for anything he wants. It's cute, though, I think!

Screwtape Letters

Whitney posted his first blog!! Wow, and all it took was my being on death's door. Ha. Eli and I have been really sick and the only nice thing about it was that I had time to do some reading. You can only lay around for so long, but I didn't have the energy to do much. One of the things I read was C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. Most of you have probably already read it--but I hadn't. I loved Mere Christianity, and as a child, all of the Narnia series, but had yet to read the short "compilation" of letters from an "Uncle" Demon to his nephew, a Tempter Demon. If you haven't read it, I recommend it highly. You can't really categorize it as a church book (although C.S. Lewis is widely quoted by general authorities), but it is certainly inspired. I liked all the letters (which are numbered), and I also enjoyed the "Screwtape Proposes a Toast", which the recent Harper publication includes at the end as a bonus, but my favorite letter was number eight. I thought I might quote a few parts of it to get some of you interested in reading it yourselves...

To explain, though, when Screwtape, a Demon who has moved up the ranks to an Undersecretary, says "the Enemy" he is referring to God. C.S. Lewis uses the premise that a Demon and a guardian Angel are appointed to every human being living. (Interesting concept) ... Anyhow, just wanted to be clear on who "the Enemy" actually is. In the letter I am quoting from, Screwtape has just explained that humans are amphibians--half spirit, half animal. So, since we inhabit time due to our animal half, we are in continual change or "undulation", which means we live in a series of troughs and peaks (or good and bad times). All of our desires and interests vacillate or change over time, waxing and waning. Now to the quoted sections:

"Now it may surprise you to learn that in His (God's) efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than the peaks; some of his special favourites (he's British, hence the u) have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself--creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below (Satan) has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct."

It goes on and I wish I could just type it all, but I don't have that much time and you probably don't want to read that much on my boring blog! Here's another neat passage or two, though.

"Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo... Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs--to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best... He cannot tempt to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles."

I guess I should bear my testimony here that I know that God wants us to walk and even though I stumble a lot, I hope my will to walk lets those stumbles please him. I know God loves me and sent his Son and I am so grateful for that every day of my life.

My posts will probably return to just updates on Eli (and soon Dora), but I thought before Isadora makes her appearance, I might do one that wasn't about kids!! Hope all three of the people who read my blog liked it! HA!

Bridget

AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

ELI and BRIDGET are sick. Please stay away from our house unless you want to have the same fun we are having. If you love the smell of vomit, diarrhea, A&D ointment, and curdled milk, or if you love to hear Eli Cry and CRY and CCCRRRRYYYYY, please come over. After all, we would love help steam cleaning our house, carpet, walls, floors, ceilings, and washing our clothes, sheets, blankets etc.

Blog pictures are great, we will not be sharing these photos, also Pictures fail to capture the overpowering aroma associated with half (and sometimes completely) digested milk.

Harrisburg Farm Show

So we went yesterday (Whit had the day off) to Friendly's for breakfast and then after Eli's nap to the Harrisburg farm show. It was pretty fun!! Unfortunately we couldn't stay too long because Whit surprised me with a maternity massage yesterday at 2 pm...

Anyhow, here are a few photos--I was pretty negligent in taking photos. The food was (expensive, but) great, and we ate potato donuts, soup and french fries. Yum. Eli especially enjoyed dipping the french fries. My only complaint was that due to the HUGE numbers of people there, there was no where to sit, which for a pregnant lady is hard. I finally just sat on the ground next to Eli's stroller! Ha.

You take a shuttle to get over to the show, and Eli looked cute on the way in his giraffe jacket!

Then once we were there, Eli's favorite thing was the cows. We also saw horses, goats, a buffalo, etc. He loved the cows, though, and kept Mooing at them. They didn't really take any notice!

Also, Emma babysat for us twice in the past few days so we could go to dinner. We are trying to have some fun before baby two comes!! Anyhow, she got this video of Eli playing with his train while we were gone. Pretty cute. You can also see Eli's "blanket", the one he can't live without, and the faux blanket my mom made for him (in the vain hope I had that we might be able to trick him and trade them out so his ratty one might not get rattier...) So far it works (sort of) at night, but during the day he still wants to carry his around.

You can also see how many toys this little stinker has. He certainly doesn't need anymore... Grandma Stuckey!!!

Bridget's Christmas Present

This year Whitney bought me exactly what I wanted for Christmas, and as a surprise!! Props to him... Anyhow, I finally took a photo of it so everyone can see how pretty it is!! We have a red wall in our family room and have been sporting a nice fruit photo with a kind of old school gold frame from my dad... Thanks Dad...

We went by a town called Leavenworth in 2007 when we went to Moses Lake (Eli was 4 months old). We saw the cutest shop there called the Metal Waterfall Gallery. It had this really NEAT art--mostly wall sculptures and such. They use a few processes to turn the various metals they use different colors. I loved all of it! My favorite was the "patina" finish, which is red, especially when mixed with the lacqured copper (which looks gold).

They have a LOT of neat things, but Whitney picked a leaf and butterfly combination that is really pretty for our red wall!! I am so excited. Doesn't it look nice?

-Bridget

Dads Say the Darndest Things

Ah, the things dads say... Whit works nights this week, and he went into the bathroom to, you know. Anyway, I am cooking in the kitchen (around the corner) and I hear, "Eli, to most people the bathroom is a private thing."

If you have kids you will know my reaction! I couldn't stop laughing. Mostly because of the way he said it, but also because I have not have a private moment in the bathroom in ... well ... since I can remember!! Eli wants to be wherever I am, so I am never left alone!! It was hilarious, at least to me. I thought I would share...

Isadora's Nursery (Still a Work in Progress)

One thing before I get going on nursery photos--Whit's brother Golden and his wife Julie gave us matching custom shirts this year for Christmas--they said "Whidget Industries". Indeed, that we are. We are cranking out kids as fast as we can! Ha. Anyway, mine is a small, so it will have to wait for us to have a group photo, but here's Eli in his shirt--it's a little big!! I thought it looked hilarious on him, though!

Now to the photos of Isadora's nursery. I still need to paint the walls over the crib. When I did Eli's nursery, I didn't realize that I couldn't put ANYTHING over his crib!! He pulls his quilt down and is a little hazard!! So you will notice that in her room, there is nothing over her crib. That was by design... but when Lila comes out I am going to have her paint a rainbow and some care bears (to go along with the theme.) In case you don't know this, Lila is a master artist. I thought about trying to paint the carebears stuff myself, but she does such a great job! She already painted Eli's room and our kitchen. I feel bad using her, but then both grandma's will have contributed to the nursery...

In the photo above you can see her shelves, the bed, with the quilt I made and the pillow sham my mom made. You can also see her little carebears mobile and the word "dora" in letters up by the shelves. You can sort of see the crib, but I have a better photo of that, too, where you can see the crib skirt, which might be the prettiest part of the bedding set in my opinion.

Here's the changing table and crib--Eli was helping me by pulling things out from under the changing table... Also, you can see the first quilt my mom made. It has a BEAUTIFUL peice of embroidery with Isadora's name on it that you can't make out very well in this photo. (It's under the pink carebear). I may have to do a photo of just that later!

Here's the lined clothes basket my mom made for me, complete with pink bows on each end...

Isadora's room is smaller than Eli's--it just worked out that way. So, you will notice I have a crib, with changing table and dresser, as well as a glider and a single bed and she is OUT of space!! You can see her second quilt in this photo. I mentioned to my mom that I wanted two and she got right to work on this one!! Impressive... You can also see the three wall hanging blocks she made (cute, right?) and the pink rack she got me from Babies R Us to go over the closet door. I hope I got a better photo of the curtains, but I can't remember. They are in this shot a bit--the fabric is glow in the dark (the clouds!) neat, huh?

Here is a photo of the hangings right by the door as you enter the room. My mom found them at a consignment shop and they match the carebears backgrounds great!! I thought they were really cute.

Also, here is a better shot of the bed quilt I made Dora. It's pretty bright, but I really like how it turned out, too. I just finished it yesterday. Whit was working through New Years so I had a lot of time to work on it. Incidentally, this is the bed my dad made me and Jesse finished for me years ago...

Here is a photo of the crib. I should have pulled the latch up, but I wasn't thinking. It kind of messes up the shot of the bed skirt. My mom let me pick the pattern and the fabric--I was talking to a friend who apparently paid over $900 for custom baby bedding. I got all mine for free from my mom! She even paid for the fabric (almost all of it!) I am so spoiled!! Thanks mom!! In my own defense, I did mostly make the flowers on the bumper and help with the quilting on the two wall hanging quilts. I also did the binding on them... (So I am not a total slacker...) I don't think you can tell, but the bed skirt is pleated--looks SO cute!

Here is the last nursery shot (I know, I included too many probably!!) But I felt like you couldn't really see the shelves with all the carebears Whit and my mom have gotten me (mostly my mom, but Whit has pitched in a lot too!) And Angela got me the green one! Also, the embroidered carebear on the wall is from my Uncle Sherry. I am hoping he will make me a second one (he said he might!) There is also a moon and star book end set on the lower shelf my mom got when she got those wall hangings (hanging hooks), and a set of matching frames on the top that say "mommy's little angel" and "daddy's little angel". The three photo frame was from Clinsey for Christmas... The nursery has certainly been a group effort.