Friday, February 17, 2012

Working Out


I love this picture.

Studly wrapped the rubber seal of the pressure cooker around his feet and pulled, like he was resistance band training. By the time I pulled out the camera, he was just chewing on it.

Chewing has become a new sport for him. He chews on everything. Shoes. Bamboo. Metal chairs. Cords. If an object sits still for long enough, he's bound to chew it. He's like a puppy. His bottom two teeth are getting bigger, and I am becoming more wary of putting my fingers in his mouth. Ouch!

Other fun things this week:

The sister missionaries (we have 4 in our ward) came over for V-day, and we made Chinese food and had a "mustache" party. Mr. Graff has an awesome mustache, and the sisters came over sporting their own furry lip covers. Awesome.

Half awake one morning, I gave Studly his pacifier. He looked at the pacifier, took it, and ...put it in my mouth. Smart baby.




Friday, February 10, 2012

Highlights and Milestones




We've had an adventure week. Raeford went to get his second flu shot. Apparently, babies need two doses of the flu shot. So, we played with all of their cool toys. Here's Raeford in the dump truck.




We had popcorn in our food storage, but we don't have a popcorn popper, and I didn't want to pan fry it, so Mr. Graff and I decided to do Freestyle Popcorn-ing. There were too many kernels for the measuring cup, so they shot out from the spout underneath like a rotating turret. Awesome.


We went to Michael's, but Rae was so tired that he didn't wake up when I pulled him out of his car seat. So, he slept in the bottom of the cart. I like how his legs fold up like a frog.








Laundry time! He figured out how to pull himself up to standing on furniture and now he's pulling himself up on everything, even the laundry detergent. Baby-proofing note: put the detergent lid on firmly!


A good friend taught us how to do the "African baby wrap". It's super useful and we can use all kinds of fabrics to wrap Raeford. I wrap him like this to do dishes when he's tired and needs to be convinced that he wants to take a nap.

The big milestone is: RAEFORD IS CRAWLING! He started yesterday when he got mad that I left him by himself in his room, so he crawled out of his room to play with daddy's weights in the study. He's crawling even more today, and he let me get a video of it, too.

Hooray for mobility!

`

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Squid for Dinner; Helper Rae

We had squid for dinner!
Well, sort of... it sort of looked like squid. And it was tasty.


It's been oddly warm here, so we went for a ride outside. Rae's hair is getting fuzzy and long, and my favorite part of this picture is how the sunlight makes it glow. His grandmas say it looks like a halo. I say he's no angel at three in the morning. Mr. Graff says it's dark at three in the morning.



But, when it's not three in the morning, Rae's quite the helper. I set him in the kitchen and ran off to do other errands, when I came back, Raeford had crawled over to the oven, pulled down the broiler door and pulled out the broiler pan.


Ah, the glories of my filing system. Behold, I even got myself a professional (un) filer.



Helper Rae to the dishwasher-rescue! You can see that I did put toys out in the background, but Rae wanted to help so he scooted over to be a part of the action.


This last picture is probably my favorite of the bunch, simply because of what happened post-picture taking.

I finished putting dishes away and looked down to find that my helper was holding tightly onto the lip of the dishwasher door because he had wiggled his body underneath it. His huge eyes begged, "help, help, help", but he hadn't made a noise.

I laughed a lot.

Then, of course, I helped him up.


The Big Picture


At my monthly seminary in-service, we talked about "The Big Picture" of the Old Testament. Perhaps, in all my other readings of the Old Testament, I missed the big picture. The big picture is that the story is not only about those people way back then, but it is about me, right now.


The story starts with a good guy named Abraham. God covenants with Abraham to give him three things: family, priesthood, and land. Not only these things, but ETERNAL family, EVERLASTING priesthood, and the PROMISED land, or exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom. Pretty amazing things.

Isaac, Abraham's son, gets married in the covenant. Again, celestial marriage. Jacob has 12 sons, 12 sons = 12 apostles = church government. Joseph (of whom most of us descend through his sons Ephraim and Manasseh) is sold into Egypt.

Egypt. Anciently it was the hub of all the activities of the world. Knowledge, medical advancement, mathematics all centered there. It's worldly and represents the world. The children of Israel are put into bondage for 400 years. Because they are slaves, Egyptians don't intermarry with the Hebrews and because they are slaves, the Hebrews form a solid identity as a people. They become a holy nation.

Moses arrives and with power that can only be attributable to the Living God, he frees the Israelites from Egypt (or the World) and takes them into the wilderness. Six months later, he goes up to Mount Sinai to converse with Jehovah. Jehovah wants to reveal himself to the people, but they are not ready. They are still whining about having to leave Egypt.

God commands that the people wander for 40 years--40, meaning a really long time and the number of spies that went to Canaan. The old whiners die off and the new generation of Israelite fed exclusively on manna from the Lord are allowed into the promised land by Joshua, a derivation on the name of Jesus.

This story is about me. It's about my life.

God wants to lead me to the promised land. He can do it. Sometimes, I feel like I am still stuck in Egypt trying to figure out who I am. Sometimes, I feel like I am wandering and although I know God is leading me, I just feel lost.

Right now, I feel like I am one of the spies sent to promised land. I look out on the land flowing with milk and honey and feel inadequate to be there. I wish I were like Joshua or Caleb, faith-filled, wanting to be in the promised land, knowing that the Lord will make a way. But, as I stand with my binoculars I wonder,

How is it done?

Maple Syrup Festival

  We went to the Maple Syrup Festival @Cunningham Falls State Park today. The weather was *gorgeous* and the crowds not horrifying.  We star...