Moving On

D's mom usually gets us a gift card to Christianbook.com for Christmas each year. And I love getting it because we find some pretty neat stuff there, especially during the after-Christmas sales (we got stuff for $0.49 and free shipping this time!). Included in our order is this Chronological Study Bible (copyrighted by Thomas Nelson 2008) I found. It is the neatest thing. Here, I'll show you how part of the Introduction describes it:

The Bible was not written at one time nor by one author. The books of the Old and New Testaments were written over a period of more than 1,000 years, and their contents over a variety of ancient peoples and cultures. If we are to understand and appropriate the Bible's message today, we need some sense of the historical and cultural context in which its diverse parts appeared. We read the words of the Bible today under entirely different circumstances than those under which they were written. To neglect the historical and cultural background of the biblical books is to risk misunderstanding them.

Unfortunately for modern readers, the individual books of the Bible do not always provide the information necessary to understand the Bible's historical and cultural background. At the time that these books were written, readers would have already been familiar with the world the writings describe. But thousands of years later, the events and customs that the original readers would have recognized immediately are often confusing and only dimly understood by modern readers.

This study bible will take you on a journey through the history and culture of the Bible. It will allow you to step back into biblical times and discover the world out of which the Bible grew. It will help you follow the flow of events in the Scriptures and see where sacred and secular history converge into one story of salvation. You will learn how sacred history fits into the context of secular history--why an event happened, how events relate to each other, as well as the cultural, religious, political, and geographical background that influenced the events.

This Bible also includes several handy features:

• Transition Commentary ~ since different passages are pasted together, this explains how they relate to each other
• Epoch Introductions ~ how this particular Bible is divided, i.e. Epoch 1 is from creation to Israel's patriarchs
• Historical Overviews ~ explains secular history going on during biblical times
• Background Notes ~ explains events, customs, religions, cultures, politics, etc.
• Daily Life ~ duh
• Time Panels ~ timeline of events happening inside and outside the Bible within specific time periods
• Time Charts ~ visual overviews of important chronological topics in the Bible
• Maps ~ duh

D and I are really excited about reading the Bible this way. They have one- and two-year reading plans available online, so we may follow that.

Auntie Yana captured this video of Micah eating his cereal in the Bumbo seat (love that thing!) yesterday.

He's a very good [messy] helper when it comes to cereal time. He likes to grab the spoon and shove it in his mouth, usually pushing all the food out in order to make room. This morning he took the mug that I put the cereal in and started biting it, making it look like he was drinking out of the thing. Never a boring moment with our little man...

Our little man is rapidly outgrowing the shortened baby stage he was in. He seriously thinks he's three years old, instead of three months old. I'm just going to list a few things he has done in the interest of time:

• He has started teething which equals drooling and everything-going-in-the-mouth. His shirts are always wet and his little hands are always cold and red from being in his mouth.
• He reaches for e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. now. If it crosses his peripheral, it's not safe. Fortunately his arms aren't that long, so even if our reaction time isn't that great, we're still generally safe.
• Included in that reaching for everything, he has started to reach for anyone who holds out their arms to take him. He'll go to certain people more readily than others, but he will still hold out his hands to pretty much everyone.
• He likes to watch TV. It'll hold his interest for a good twenty minutes. His grammy got him a set of Baby Einstein DVDs for Christmas, so I will be popping those in our new DVD player in the near future.
• He's now in 6-9 month clothing. My goal (today) is to change over his closet since he got so many pieces of clothing for Christmas.
• He is napping SO much better now. He'll take a short morning nap, a long afternoon nap, and a few short naps before going to bed.
• He is talking, talking, talking now. He has to make eye contact before he starts his conversations, though. Once he sees that you're interested, he'll belt out a series of vowels sounds in different pitches so earnestly that I almost feel bad that I don't know what he's saying because he seems really intentional in his word choice.
• I think he's been doing this for a while now, but he seems to recognize the people he sees almost daily and is more comfortable around them. Ryan was saying on Christmas day, when our parents' house was abuzz with activity (mostly centering around Micah), Micah was overwhelmed with the amount of people hovering around him, so Ry took him from whoever was holding him and he calmed down immediately. It didn't surprise me since Uncle Ryan and Auntie Yana make it a point to see him almost daily!
• Oh, and we've started to put him in the nursery at church now. The first few times fell within a feeding period, so I'd only manage to stay through half the service, but the last few times he's been there the entire time by himself. I always expect to hear him crying, but only once did that happen (service went long and into his feeding time). When he was in the nursery this past Sunday morning, he was asleep in the swing when I came down to get him. I didn't pick him up right away, so in the meantime I played with another one of the babies. I guess Micah had woken up, so the nursery worker picked him up and was playing with him on her lap and they were in this position when I turned around to see how he was doing. Well he was smiling and playing with her until he saw me and his face broke into his poochy-lip pose, like oh-my-goodness-where-have-you-been-I've-been-miserable, Mom...it starts so early!
• He's also developing a sense of humor. He has always laughed and smiled when stimulated, but now if I make a noise or a movement he finds funny, he'll belly laugh. I love the sound of his little laugh and how his entire face lights up in a big gummy smile.

That pretty much sums up Micah's three-month update. I've also started him on cereal twice a day and he has rolled over from his belly to back a number of time. I went to get him from his nap at my parents' house the other day and was totally shocked to find him on his back and his arm hanging out of the side of the crib (they don't have a crib bumper, yet). I thought I had a few more months before I had to worry about him rolling over, but he had yet another surprise in store for us!

I will have to get our Christmas post up next. I can't believe how busy we've been, I've never been this busy in my entire life! I always wonder what I did when I was working outside the home, how I got everything done. I love it, though, life is good!

I have a lot of posting to catch up on, but I couldn't resist this quick one. Micah received quite a bit of Christmas money on this, his first Christmas. The first thing I bought was this Bumbo seat (it also comes with a tray). I got it new for a very good deal on ebay and Micah seems to really like it. He's at the point where he likes to be sitting up basically all the time...even his bouncy seat is at too much of an angle for him. This seat keeps him propped up at an acceptable angle all by himself. I like it for that reason and because I can use it as a traveling high chair, since it has a tray and all. I fed him his cereal in it tonight and it worked out just great. He wasn't really looking at the camera in any of these pictures because the TV kept distracting him. He sat through an entire episode of Word World on CPTV yesterday (actually, so did I. I like that show!). Anyway, more updates in his three-month old post. I feel like he's grown up so much this month...now, I have to try and remember all he's done!

Micah would like to say something to everyone...


The back of his outfit says, "Merry Christmas" in case you couldn't tell. I got it off of ebay (along with a Baby's First Christmas outfit) for a few bucks, with the tags still on it. The original price was $36, who pays that?!? This is what the front looks like:

It has little teddy bear faces with holly. The faces are little pockets, why they have pockets on baby clothing, I do not know. Anyway, I loved the outfit and am making sure he gets some use out of it before it needs to be retired (like most of his 3-6 month clothing!).

I figured I should get my Thanksgiving post up before Christmas, and since Christmas is this week, here it goes!

2008 has been everything we hoped and prayed it would be....and the busy year we knew it would be. This time last year, we didn't know what state we'd be living in, if we would be living in our own home or another apartment, didn't know we'd be having a baby boy, and didn't know if D would be a Radiologist. Now, one short year later, we are living in our own home (close to our parents and D's work) with a beautiful, healthy baby and feeling like this is how life has always been. Quite obviously, our little family has so much to be thankful to the Lord for and not a day goes by that I say thank you to Him.

Thanksgiving 2008, our first as a family of three, was very memorable!

And what does winning mean? We don't have to make our January 2009 mortgage payment to our mortgage company...it'll be "on the house!"

This is the email D received just today: "CONGRATULATIONS, your entry for the On the House Contest was one of 500 chosen. We'll be making your January ING DIRECT Mortgage payment. We will automatically post the payment on January 5th. Feel free to log in to ingdirect.com the next day to see for yourself.

We had a great turnout for our On the House Contest, with 5,445 Customers entering for a chance to have their January payment "on the house". We received heartfelt, personal stories and appreciate the time you took to tell yours.

To view a list of our selections, visit onthehousecontest.com. And thanks again for sharing your story."

We can't quite locate David's winning entry, but if we do, and he gives me permission, I will post it here. Here is the email D received back in October about the contest: 500 Customers will get a mortgage payment "On the House." It's not easy out there these days. And we know it. So, our Customer contest couldn't be more timely. Our "On the House" contest will pick 500 ING DIRECT Mortgage Customers to get a free January mortgage payment - no matter how much you owe! To enter, just tell us in 250 words or less why you think you deserve to get a financial break. Maybe you're going through tough times. Or you can't seem to make ends meet and need this payment just to get by. Doesn't matter - we want to hear about it. We appreciate your confidence in ING DIRECT and now it's our turn to return the favor.

Not only is he a great doctor, he's obviously quite good with words, too!! I'm so proud of you, David!!

This ornament is hanging on my parents' tree. I thought it was so cool. Mom had to order it off the Internet because the mall kiosks didn't sell a nine-person ornament. This year Yana, Kristina, and Micah were added to our family!

And this is our first full-sized Christmas tree that fits oh-so-nicely in our new living room. I was originally going to just keep our tabletop tree for one more year for two reasons: a) we just moved in and I didn't really want to shift things around when we just got things all set in their places and b) I didn't want to pay full price for a tree when, in just a few short weeks, they will be selling at severely discounted prices. Well, D's mom knew this and offered us their tree since they would be downsizing, which was extremely thoughtful and we were really excited about having a full-sized tree. We didn't exactly end up with their tree (and it actually worked out because now that I think about it, it would have been way too big), but their generosity allowed us to get this tree. We also got some jingle bell ornaments to supplement the ornaments we already have and D picked out these really cool lights that have different settings. For example, only the red lights will show for a few seconds, then only the blue lights, then only the green ones. And there is a fast flickering mode and a chasing mode, amongst others. D has really been enjoying them, which is quite cute (he's on vacation this week, so he changes up the modes every few hours...).


And these are our Baby's First Christmas ornaments that our parents each gave to us this year to go along with...


...Micah's Baby's First Christmas ornament. I found this on ebay. It actually came with another similarly-themed, but differently-styled ornament, both for .99 cents plus a few dollars shipping. There were other cute ornaments that I would probably have preferred, but you can't beat the price, especially for two. And the boy has Micah's hair color and is holding a teddy bear...and teddies are the theme of Micah's room. So anyway, it all worked out and both ornaments are up on our new tree in our new living room in our new house!

This is why I don't want to go to a professional studio for Micah's pictures:


Ry took this picture with Dad's new camera and it came out amazingly well. All for free :). Here are some more pictures from the shoot:

Oops, almost forgot to mention--that dapper looking outfit he has on? An early Christmas gift from his Auntie Yana and Uncle Ryan. He looks so old in it :(, but quite handsome! Thank you, Auntie and Uncle, you sure know how to dress me!!

This dude was up for six hours straight on Friday, so you can probably imagine his miserable state by the fourth, fifth, and sixth hours. Daddy won, though, and soon Micah was fast asleep. So asleep, in fact that he was snoring...loudly...

Just realized that I didn't blog about our first Thanksgiving as a family of three. I guess I should do that before Micah's first Christmas comes and goes. Ok, that's now added to the long list known as "To Do."

Anyway, Micah's newest thing is watching TV. I know, I know...bad Mommy. However, it keeps him mesmorized and entertained for a good twenty minutes, if not longer. Do you know how much I can get done in 20 minutes these days (including a power nap)?? And he really does watch it. He doesn't care about content, he'll watch the Today Show just as quickly as he'll watch CPTV Kids. It's the movement and lights and sound that he's really attracted to. The other day he was in his bouncy seat in front of the big screen while I was getting ready and he started talking to the kids on the screen, which was a first.

Watching the tube with Uncle Ryan



I'll do a three-month update at some point, but he's getting so big. I think he thinks he's bigger than he actually is, which makes it hard to keep him entertained. The other day he went six hours without a much-needed nap...SIX HOURS! And he likes to be entertained. Fortunately he's very easily entertained by talking or playing or tickling and when I need to do things, I'll plop him in his bouncy seat for his self-amusing time. Speaking of the little guy, I hear him waking up, so I guess that's all for now!