Day 8. Sun. #febphotoaday

I'm a day late with this one because there was absolutely no sun yesterday. Today I got this quick perk so I took this shot. Happy Thursday!

Lasagna & a baby.

I realized I hadn't uploaded a lot of pictures today, so I am playing a little bit of catch up with back dates (again). So sorry!

Here's Micah's first experience with homemade lasagna.

I'd say by the way it was all over his face, he liked it! Our boy is an eater for sure!

This face is called, "Mommy! Let me grab your camera!"

Day 7. #febphotoaday

My life is incomplete without my music. Today's topic was Buttons. Here are the buttons on my radio.

Day 6. #febphotoaday

Today's topic? Dinner! Tonight Micah enjoyed some grilled chicken, lima beans, yogurt, and cheese. Mama had chips, and Daddy went to bed.

Sunday, Sunday. A weekend update. Some big news!!

This weekend was pretty relaxed. Mr. C grilled some amazing chicken legs for the family on Friday night, we went to get some Sheridan's Custard, and then the boys went to bed. Mommy, as usual, stayed up by herself. When your husband works night shift and your baby goes to bed by eight, you actually get a lot more alone time that you'd think. (Good and bad things about that, honestly.)

Sometime late Friday night, I realized that a men's conference Mr. C had a ticket to was actually this weekend! He forgot about it, so I encouraged him to go on Saturday to at least finish the conference after he got off of work. He hesitated thinking he'd missed "too much", but came back raving about all he learned.

Saturday evening we headed to our friends the Beauchamps to spend some time eating dinner & talking real estate. We may (big big may here) be trying to sell our house soon. More on that and some other big news in a moment.

On Sunday morning, we were a little lazy and slept in from early church. Micah actually slept until 9 am! Wow! Since Mr. C had stayed up all day at the Bible conference & hung out Saturday night with friends...he needed some rest. So we headed into church at 10:45 instead of 9 opting to go to Sunday school instead of the service.

I continued my effort to take the perfect Sunday morning photos to try to document Micah at least once a week as he's growing. I guess we'll see how long it lasts since he was wiggling to run around while we were taking this shots.

We spent Super Bowl evening with some other friends of ours, and we enjoyed some great fellowship! Micah enjoyed running Mommy ragged as he got into absolutely everything at our friends' house. Then he was cranky by nine because it was a good two hours past his bedtime.

Isn't that the best picture of my two handsome fellows?

Anyway, moving on.

And now for the BIG news which I eluded to above.

After about two years of praying for a full time position with his company, Mr. C received word this weekend that he was promoted to a full time job and into a higher level of management!! We are so excited and thrilled about this news especially in this economy which hit our little family in many unexpected ways. We've continued to be very, very blessed by the Lord over the past two years throughout this journey. Our circumstances weren't what we wanted them to be, but we have done fine despite that. I mean, I stayed off of work for eight months with a husband who only worked part time to support us. How amazing is our God?? That's just incredible when you think of it that way! However, it is so nice to say, "My husband has a full time job!!!"

Obviously, this has been in the works for a couple of weeks. I've had to be extremely closed lipped about the entire situation which is really hard for me. He's been on many job interviews in the past trying to move up in the company, but this was the first one we thought might have some potential. I'm super proud of Micah's daddy, and we've got lots of exciting new decisions we'll be making with this news which may or may not include attempting to sell our home.

And yes, I will continue to work next year for various reasons. I don't want to put all the info out on the internet, so feel free to ask me about details of our "plan." However, after two years waiting for a full time job, we are well aware the "plans" we make really don't have any effect on what God is actually going to DO. So far 2012 is shaping up to be a great year for the Confident family!

I know I get "down" sometimes on the blog, but honestly I just need an avenue to vent. Praying for something for two years can get a little exhausting, slightly discouraging, disheartening, and monotonous. I think this (besides praying for my husband) has been one of the longest continual prayers I have had almost daily. Not to be mean, but the trial part of Christian life is sometimes hard and stinks! Although, growth is significant and wonderful. This has been my personal struggle for the last two years finding contentment in our circumstance as we are right now. I also struggle holding onto the Lord and knowing that everything comes in His timing for some kind of reason.

At any rate, that's some huge news in our house, and I'm glad to finally share!!

Day 5. #febphotoaday

Today's photo of the day inspiration is Ten AM. I'm really liking this photo of the day thing! It's given me some much needed blog material, much needed motivation to take more weekday pictures, and hopefully a whole lot of memories.

This morning at ten am we were getting dressed for church. My husband had been at a men's Bible conference all day yesterday after working all night. We then went to our friends' house, and he had a limited amount of sleep. So this morning we "skipped" the first church service and went late so Daddy could sleep.

At ten am, I captured this little gem of Micah as he was running away from me while I tried to get him dressed after his bath. (We're not usually a morning bath kind of family, but we got in too late last night for his "Saturday evening bath".) He's so active these days that I have to close all of the doors to keep him contained in an area or from entering an area. He kept running around me and madly rocking the ottoman that goes along with his rocking chair from his baby days. It just amazes me how he's running around the rocker in circles when I used to hold him & nurse him in that same rocker.

Right after the above shot was taken, Daddy came in and scooped Micah up. Micah pointed/grunted for his bear in his crib. He proceeded to hug "Mr. Bear" tightly as he laughed with his daddy.

What a precious moment caught at ten am.

I'll leave you with one of my last favorites of the day. Micah is really into hugging or "loving" everything right now. He does it to his animals, the dogs, his daddy & I, and I love the expression on his sweet little face. I caught this as he was "loving" the moose.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! =)

Day 4. #febphotoaday

Today's photo of the day subject matter was Stranger.

Um, I had a hard time with this one. I was trying to think outside of the box all day long for my shot. It was hard to not literally think of walking up to take a picture of a stranger.

My initial idea was to take a picture of the Little Caesar's pizza guy standing on the corning with his sign dancing at the stop light. Then tonight, I watched my son playing with my friend's son. We hadn't seen them in a month or longer, and I had this thought, "Children will play with any other child. They never meet a stranger."

Just like that, I knew I'd found my shot. Even though technically Beau is not a stranger to Micah, it's been a month since either had seen the other. To a one year old that's an eternity or just another "stranger" to play with. I wish we could all keep life as simple as children do, don't you? Children remind me all the time of how God sees life. Literally, a child never meets a stranger.

Happy Saturday!

Day 3. #FEBphotoaday

Day 3 of the February Photo of the Day Challenge.
Today's inspiration was Hands.

I started the day out with a photo I thought I'd use (the last picture of this post), but tonight Micah decided he wanted some independence with his meal.

He's grabbed his spoon before, but tonight was the first time he did pretty well aiming at his mouth. So I thought the title "Hands" was fitting since he was using his hands to self feed. Then I captured this photo.

His smile says it all.
This was the one that had to be my photo for today.

But just for fun, we also captured a few more.





The other version of today's photo came in the form of a sleepy toddler on the way to his grandma's house before I went to work this morning. His hands are his comfort.

So what did you capture today?
Join in the fun! I missed the first day, but I have to say this has been a neat challenge.

Happy weekend!!

#FEBphotoaday

I've never even read this blog before, but I've seen this hashtag on Twitter quite a lot over the past two days. Many people are participating in this February Photo a Day challenge. Since my blogging/picture taking could always use a good challenge, I decided to jump in a day late. I've got an iPhone now which means readily available pictures on a moment's notice. Although, I'm going to challenge myself to using my "real" camera, too.

Today's picture category is Words. Here's the picture (iPhone) I took for this. These are the most readily available words in my life recently. 1. My Bible study, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall by Jean Stockdale. 2. My Bible opened to the book of James most nights trying to keep up with my MOMS friends & the podcasts by Jean every Thursday. 3. A baby book to represent all the glorious time I get to spend with a little one curled up in my lap begging for books & snuggles.

Happy Thursday! Can't wait for tomorrow & the weekend!! Whoo-hoo!

Micah meets Cousin Eddie.

So how many of you have seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

Oh, it isn't Christmas without that movie. Too bad it is almost Valentine's Day.

Well, I was going to share the You Tube video of Cousin Eddie & the hat he wears in that video. However, there is one cuss word in every clip I watched. Since this is a family blog, I'll refrain from doing that. Feel free to google it, and you can watch it for yourself if you like.

Anyway, Cousin Eddie came to visit us in the form of this hat.

Micah loves to wear hats. He's obsessed with putting them on and off his head. Then he tries to put them on and off your head. I found him last night playing with his winter cap in his pajamas. I couldn't help it, but the get up of tool man pajamas mixed with a Cousin Eddie hat just made me laugh and laugh.

So I kept taking pictures of him as he ransacked the house in this stylish ensemble.

Here he is saying, "Dis?", showing me a book, and begging for me to read to him. (Which, of course, I did.)

What beautiful baby blues my little one has, huh?

Also, notice his nose. Yesterday was his first official "face plant" where he fell on his nose resulting in a nose bleed for thirty minutes. Don't worry, he's ok.

He's also found the light switch to the lamp in his room.

Now I'm wondering why I wanted to be a boy mom with all this busyness?

Although every once and a while he will sit down to read a book with me.

(Please excuse the pile of towels--now folded--on the couch and me in my pajamas. Just keeping it real for ya hear on the blog.)

Cousin Eddie got on his nerves after a while so it turned into Daddy's MSU cap.

Uh-oh. Anyone who knows me well will notice that particular DVD set that Micah has now found. Yes, I'm a HUGE Friends fan, and I own them all.

But don't worry. He sure isn't going to watch that show! Although he can be allowed to be fascinated by the box.

Oops. You might also notice that my "Merry Mail" canvas with Christmas cards are still up in the living room. Yeah, we're all about keeping it real in this post apparently.

Now I'll leave you with this little gem of a picture I shot of Micah & Snickers. I think it is the cutest picture ever. This boy loves his dogs, and of all his words various ways to say dog appear the most. He now says "puppy", "pup", "Cop Cop", and "Copper".

Sometimes when prompted (ok, twice) after I say, "What does a dog say? Cop Cop says 'woof woof'." I have gotten him to say, "Woof."

We're currently working on "gently" petting the dogs since he tends to want to grab them by the neck with all his might his two hands will allow full of fur. Snickers has had a problem with that and barked at him. Copper is sometimes running away from him. Imagine that? A sixty pound dog running away from a toddler.

There's nothing like a boy and his dog, huh?

And his Friends' dvds.

And his Cousin Eddie hat.

And his baseball cap.

Happy Wednesday, all! Have a good rest of the week.