pretty eloquent for 6 and a half months, don't you think?

hi everyone, it's me again. i haven't blogged in a long time because i've been super busy. just ask my mom.

i am getting so big! i get to eat big boy food, like pumpkin, pears and carrots. (mmm, i love carrots!) i even get to sit in my highchair to eat now, because i figured out how to climb out of my bumbo...(the bumbo was sitting on the dining room table when i figured it out, too, so i got a major conk on the head when i fell off the table onto the floor, but i'm tough so nbd.) mom sometimes lets me hold the spoon when i eat, which i really like because she doesn't seem to know how to get it all over my face and in my armpits the way i like it. seriously, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

i can roll over both arms now, instead of just over my right side. what does this mean? i'm mobile. i can roll wherever i want to go. like over to mom's plants, or to the drapes, or under the bed. it's just not quite satisfactory, though, so i'm working on my crawling...i can get my knees up under me and can rock back and forth. i know this is supposed to get me moving, but i just can't figure out what the missing piece is to crawling. maybe it has something to do with moving my arms and legs? i'll figure it out soon enough.

i have not been eating in the middle of the night for a week and a half now! mom took some good advice from makenna's parents and has been feeding me an extra three ounces before bed. sometimes i wake up around 5:30 because i have serious pee-pants, but once i'm clean and dry i snooze until 7:30 or 8.

as has always been the case, i'm a huge talker. i love saying bababa, gaga, tatata, and mmmmmmm. i also love making raspberries, making oinking sounds, and making kissy noises. i don't laugh a whole lot, but i smile all the time, and when i'm really happy i like to squeal. i'm ticklish on my legs and in my armpits, and i have a sensitive spot on my back that daddy likes to rub - i turn all red and tense and my birthmark turns purple when he does that.

i started sitting up by myself! after about an hour of practice, i'm now a pro and hardly ever fall over. my favorite thing by far is STANDING!!!! standing fixes all boo-boos and all grouchy moods. i love to stand straight, then plop down and pick myself up. i love holding mommy and daddy's hands while i walk around. i can even hold onto the couch by myself, and last night i stood for a few seconds without holding onto anything!

i'm a really, really mild-mannered kid; i hardly ever cry if there's nothing to cry about, and i LOVE LOVE LOVE people!

my favorite toys are my snake pal, my singing alphabet worm, my 'bear loves opposites' book, and my red plastic cup. i also love my pimped out ride and any old magazines mom gives me to destroy.

well, i should probably go take a nap. (not to toot my own horn, but i'm an awesome sleeper - usually about 11 hours at night and 4-5 hours during the day.) it's garage sale season and all the deals tucker me out.

atticus.

*looking sheepish*

the plan i made...two weeks ago...about blogging more often...

yeah.

didn't happen.

a lot has been happening around here lately, though. spring cleaning had been at a stand-still for some time because i had spring cleaned from one side of the house to the other, meaning the last part of the house ended up with all the junk in it and no place to put it all. (actually, the real reason spring cleaning had...paused...was because i was unmotivated to find a temporary spot for all the stuff.)

you see, we were planning on getting a garage in august, so the stuff just needed a temporary resting place until it could be moved out of the house and into the garage. but i was having such a hard time living amidst all the chaos. i'm a person who can live with clutter, as long as at the end of the day the clutter has a home to go to - meaning, when stuff is put away, the house isn't cluttery. the problem was that everything was in its place, but it was still ridiculously cluttery. i was going nutso.

so todd called me from work on friday to tell me he had gotten me a father's day present. (yes, i said the same thing: father's day? i'm a mom.) he said his father's day gift was being able to give me a gift (isn't my husband awesome?!) and that we could move into our garage on monday!!! so i spent monday moving stuff out there, and on tuesday todd picked up some pallets to put on the floor under our stuff to protect it from water and cold floors and whatnot. i also put all of the stuff we'll be donating to our connection group garage sale in there, instead of packing it into the back of the van and hauling it all around until july. (yes, we are THAT white trash.)

i also spent tuesday cleaning out our hall closet. what's left? the laundry room. that's it. then spring cleaning is finally OVER, and only about two months after it began. not too bad.

i also painted our bathroom. when we moved in, all our walls were bare, white, and all around unfriendly. so we painted our living room and kitchen a buttery yellow, our master bathroom a pale green, and the bedrooms a taupe-y/tan-y/grey. but the guest bathroom stayed white. and somewhat cluttered. and all around unfriendly.

enter: my dear friend megan, whose husband is a house painter. meaning, they have a lot of unused paint from old jobs. so we went shopping in their basement and found an AWESOME grey.

granted, i had a fever and a massive headcold, but i was bound and determined to finish the bathroom walls, and i'm so glad i did.



so...long blog short. our house has been turned topsy-turvy, turned right-side-up again, and is all-in-all a nice, happy place to be.

mother's day

yes, i said mother's day, even though father's day is in just a couple weeks. here are photos....we spent the day with todd's parents and my parents, and we all went to reiman gardens. (i'm going to need to get the pictures off my mom's camera, as well as jacqi's - there were a lot more pictures, but i forgot i don't have them!)

in other, more up-to-date news, atticus and i both have horrible head colds. lovely.

working on catching up...

he wonked his head, but wouldn't sit still for the ice pack...

...the solution?...

...a cling-wrapped ice cube between two hats.

we love to read!!!

the book won the wrestling match.

the standoff between the baby and the vacuum.

bath time!

wearing his awesome garage sale hat.

get outta my weh, eh.

my apologies.

i admit it, i'm really behind on posting photos. so, for the next couple of days, i'll be working on catching up...considering i haven't posted his 5 month pictures and he'll be 6 months on friday, and i haven't posted mother's day photos and father's day is in a couple weeks...yeah.

i'm behind.

so here goes.

helping me brush my teeth. and what a big help it was, too.

in his funny bathrobe


developing his sea legs.

what up?! just waking up. (and, no, he didn't stick his finger in a socket, although it would be an understandable assumption.)

fun with the van voorst boys!

where my dutch boys at?

and a little sum'n sum'n for those of you who think atticus never gets upset (although, that would be an understandable assumption as well.)

what kind of mom takes pictures rather than comforts her kid? who knows.

getting his first haircut.

(not sure if i've posted this or not...he's had two haircuts so far)

all done, and looking much better kempt.

the cutest picture EVER of him cuddling with dad.

he's starting to look more like a kid and less like a newborn. i think, anyway.

so there you have it. more pictures coming soon!

repentance

a hundred and three is forever when you're just a little kid
so cyrus jones lived forever.
- dave matthews

i heard these lyrics this morning and was totally kicked in the pants.

i will die. even if i live "forever" - so long from now it's unfathomable - i will still die. so what am i living for?

todd told me the other day about a pastor who always signs off by saying, "have a good and godly day, because of what eternal consequence is a good day if it is not also godly?"

i think i have been living for the good days - the ones when atticus takes good naps, and when my husband and i connect on a deep level, and when my house is clean, and when i get to connect with friends. i've been living for sleep and staying home with my son and being productive and relaxing and date nights with my husband.

all of these things are good things, don't get me wrong. they're all great gifts from god. but they're not god. and of what eternal consequence are the good things if they're not also godly?

i've been pursuing fulfillment in people and activities. i've been pursuing fulfillment in my passion to see moms stay at home, to be a better wife, to foster relationships, to grocery shop on a tight budget. some seem trivial to others, but these are the things i'm passionate about.

i would not say that i'm passionate about god.

i'm passionate for the things he gives me, even for the things he commands me to do, such as submitting to my husband and focusing my energies on my family.

but i haven't been passionate about him.

and of what eternal consequence will be a clean house or even a good marriage or a well-mannered kid if they don't come as a result of my passion for god? i have been living for such temporal things.

but i can tell you this: even if you have a great marriage and great friends and a great kid (all of which i have), you will be lonely and directionless unless you seek your fulfillment and purpose from the only One who can give you fulfillment and purpose. it is a HUGE lie that once you get married, your spouse will fill that lonely hole, or once you have a kid their dependence on you will fill it. you will be lonely. because we were meant to be missing something...searching for fulfillment...and finding it in god. he will not let you fill it with anything or anyone else.

pouring yourself out for anything other than christ means that someday you will face yourself, your God, or both, and realize that you have poured yourself down a drain. for nothing. i have been pouring myself down a drain. i have been going nowhere and living for things that are nothing without god.

but i'm ready to be committed, to be passionate, to be focused. first and foremost, because i want to know my creator, to find my purpose and direction and meaning in him. to know who he is and who i am in him. but besides that, how can i encourage my husband, or be patient with my child, or raise atticus to know and love the lord if i don't know and love him myself?

please pray for me. i need to be continually broken - and if that's what it takes, that's what i want. it scares me a little, but saying that something is worth fighting for means that it may actually require a fight, right?

spring cleaning and pantry challenge

so, if you know me at all, you could probably guess that i'm a firm believer in spring cleaning. at least for me personally, i love the feeling of living in a freshly deep-cleaned house - it makes me feel almost like we're living somewhere new, but without the ridiculous effort of actually having to move.

that being said, it's not the most fun process.

as i've been cleaning and PURGING (more on that later), i've also been preparing to move some of our stuff into storage starting in august. so we're needing some rubbermaid totes and things like that in order to better organize our stuff to go outside, as well as some other odds-and-ends that come with spring cleaning, such as a machine-washable mop (made a big mistake buying a disposable-headed mop), shelves for the hall closet, etc.

but i didn't want to spend the money.

so i decided, with todd's go-ahead, to do a pantry challenge for the next two weeks. the benefit of buying in bulk is not only that stuff is often times cheaper, but you have stuff on hand. so for the next two weeks, i will be cooking from what we already have. granted, i did spend 18 bucks on stuff like milk, eggs, bread and bananas, plus a huge package of toilet paper, but the rest of our food is already here. (9 bucks a week for groceries isn't too bad in my opinion!)

the rest of the money we had budgeted for groceries can go toward things related to spring cleaning and storage.

not to mention, it also aids the cleaning process by forcing me to weed out those cans of soup, various cuts of frozen chicken, frozen homemade applesauce, and myriad betty crocker potatoes that i bought on ridiculous mark-down but haven't used yet. the result? tons of free space, less to store, less to have to pull out of the cupboards to clean under.

i think we'll be doing a pantry challenge every six months or so; it just seems like a good amount of time to go in between.

stay tuned for updates and potentially disgusting recipes cooked up during the pantry challenge. (tomato soup-pumpkin puree-chicken-rice casserole? anyone?)

baby you can drive my car.

i'm not the only one who got a schmancy new car recently. check out atticus' hot new ride. features include a stick shift, windshield wiper lever (although, he doesn't have actual windshield wipers), a compass, a fan (no A/C for this cool cat), a spoiler, rear turning signals, personalized plates, and (my favorite) baby hydraulics.


he has proven himself to be a really good driver, despite his need for speed and his leadhand when it comes to honking the horn. (honk if you like pureed carrots.)



he still has a lot to learn before hitting the open road, such as keeping both hands on the wheel in a strict but comfortable 10-and-2....

...servicing the engine regularly to keep it running at its maximum potential...

...and abstaining from *ahem* reckless driving behaviors.


once he gets a handle on these lessons, he'll be hitting the highway and cruising the strip like the coolest baby on the block.

chez van voorst

after a week and a half of not taking any nighttime feedings, we've gone back to a single middle-of-the-night feeding. he definitely was not ready for going that long without eating.

other than that, life has been peachy at villa van voorst. the weather is beautiful, garage sales are a-hopping, and atticus is so cute. what could be better?

here's what's been going on at our chateau:

..atticus has learned how to put his own pacifier in. a major milestone.

..he decided he likes bananas, just not the ones from the jar (i don't blame him)

..my friend tara and i have planted her garden and are eagerly awaiting our homegrown nummies.

..i have been reading avidly, and have devoured about 15 gardening books, many free magazines from the library, and am currently reading "tales from the teacher's lounge" (which is mediocre at best; i may not finish it) and "love and respect."

..i've been working on memorizing galations with lisagrace

..atticus was dedicated on saturday night. both todd's parents and mine were able to be there to celebrate with us.

..atticus has started doing this thing where he punches himself in the head over and over, followed by pulling violently on his ears, then scratching the side of his head.

..he has also discovered his fascinating, fascinating hands.

..he bit me so hard the other night with his tiny sharp teeth that i bled.

..he continues to babble nonstop. it's like he was spawned from talkative parents or something.

..his hair is getting blonder and blonder, and his body is filling out.

..he continues to be the absolute cutest kid on the face of the earth. no offense, other mommas.

never in a million years

did i think i'd hear myself saying this sentence to my child:

"gentlemen don't kick ladies in the throat."