What was lost has been found.

So I went to Walmart yet again today, to return some microfiber towels I bought to make into doublers for D's cloth diapers. I was returning them because they were an 8 pack for $5 and I found a 24 pack for $10 at Sam's! What a deal! (and they work beautifully by the way).
So, at the customer service desk, I took out the receipt and the towels and something fell on the floor out of my sack. It happened to catch my eye because it made a little clanging noise when it hit the ground, and lo and behold - my ring! How in the world it got in to the Walmart sack, is beyond me. And why it happened to be the one sack I hadn't separated out for recycling and attached itself to the towels I needed to return is not beyond me - it had to be God. I don't always believe that God will perform a miracle when you've done something stupid. Sometimes, well a lot of times, God teaches us lessons by letting us reap the consequences of our actions. So I was all prepared to learn a lesson from putting my ring in a place that was not secure by forever losing my beloved wedding ring. It was stupid of me to do it, and so I figured, I would reap the consequences and be ringless for probably another 5 years in to my marriage. I DO believe though, that when God does work miracles, regardless of your stupidity, it is so you can give Him the glory. So blessed be!

Diamonds are a girl's best friend...

I am a very sad woman. I have lost my wedding ring. I had worn it to church on Sunday and took it off to go swimming at Steph's. When I took it off, I put it in the baby's diaper bag, in the front pocket that velcros shut, and now it is no longer there. The other ring I had on, that I also put in the pocket, was there, but no wedding ring. They were both there when I went running yesterday morning at the park and thought to myself "oh, my rings are in here, I need to remember to get them out and put them up." Which of course, I failed to do so. I went to Walmart and Sam's Club yesterday and neither store has had it turned in. It is not in my car and Mikel and I checked the parking lots at both stores just in case. It is lost.
I loved that ring. It is the ring my wonderful husband of 5 years proposed to me with and used as a symbol of our love and commitment at our wedding. I didn't wear it much anymore, because it scratches the baby, but now I feel naked without it. Mikel was patient and understanding of how upset I was. Even though he constantly is finding my ring by sinks and other precarious places, he did not once say, I told you so.
Hopefully, it has just fallen out here somewhere at the house and not out in the great big world that will probably hock it at a pawn shop. But, if I do not find it, if it does not find it's way back to me, you've been a great ring, my wedding ring. Even if you are eventually replaced, you will always be the ring I remember my husband placing on my finger those 5 years ago.

8 Months Old

Happy 8 Months to my little man! You are growing so big everyday. It is such a pleasure to be your mom and I hope we continue to have more fun as each day passes and you grow before my very eyes. I love you very very much!

Irritating

Know what's irritating about selling your house (other than "selling your house")
a) scheduling showings like the cable company schedules house calls (between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. - really?!)
b) Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and cleaning some more - only to have;
c) the people show up early
d) the people ask if it's ok that they're there early (no, not really, my kid is asleep)
e) the people ask if they can go ahead and walk through the house even if you are there (I guess..?? What are we supposed to say? NO??)
and lastly;
f) the people spend a total of less than 3 minutes walking through my immaculately clean house and then LEAVE!!!
Fine then, don't buy my house. I don't WANT you to buy my exceptionally clean house. I cleaned my oven for you people! My beautiful, clean house deserves better than a 3 minute glance over! *SOB* Did I mention I hate selling our house?

This week

My girlfriend is PURRRRTY! Here we are at Mercy, visiting Jenn and Maddie. Their birthing suites are very nice!

Jenn and baby Maddie - she has the cutest little button nose, just like her mama

Not these again...This was not such a great day at the Hancock household. This was Thursday, when his screaming began at 4:00 p.m. and has not stopped, except for nap times and night times - save for the wakefulness. You can tell he's not in the best mood.

So this week was fairly uneventful. We continued training for the 5k, which is in approximately one week, had another showing for our house (and have another one tomorrow), went to the hospital to see Jenn and her new baby (Maddie, the girl we have designated as Dunning's future girlfriend and wife), had lunch with my friend Jenny and lunch with my mentor from work, Jeryl. So I guess it was fairly eventful! The biggest event of all came this morning, after Dunning had been screaming all morning long and woke up screaming from his nap. I was on the phone with my Meemaw wishing her a belated happy birthday and had to get off the phone, it was that bad. Teething tablets were not working, I stuck my finger in his mouth to see if putting a litte pressure on his gums would help - something I read somewhere. Lo and behold I felt it - his first little tooth. It has just barely broke through the gums, but you can see and feel the top ridge of his tooth. So I am anticipating some bad nights coming up as it breaks all the way through.


I am going to try to upload a video of Dunning in the bathtub. It's really funny! He is trying to reach for the drain and gets all excited and starts rocking back and forth on his butt like he normally does when something gets him all twitter paited (that's Southern for excited). The bathtub is slippery of course and the rocking propels him forward. It's cute.


We tried mashed nanners again, and didn't quite get any in our mouths, but I think he's warming up to the idea of finger foods. He played with them alot and I put some in his mouth to equate what he was playing with to food. Doubt it made that much of an impression, but every little bit can help I guess! Then I noticed something. My kid has enormous hands! Hmmm. Wonder if I am breeding little giants.

Last, but not least, my Meemaw and her man Allen have been crowned Heber Springs Senior Citizen King and Queen of 2008! They get to ride in the Heber Springs County Fair parade and be crowned at the fair, and later, ride in the Christmas parade! Congrats Queen Margaret and King Allen!

Scoot your boot.

Mashed nanners and giant baby hands. If you listen close, you can hear my dog going psycho outside. This is his new thing. He refuses to be outside for more than 5 minutes and goes crazy scratching up the gate at the top of the stairs on our deck. It's very frustrating!

Cloth Diaper Update

Ok, so we've now been in cloth for almost two months. I have purchased 8 more Yucky Ducks from Ebay, more velcro, two Imse Vimse cloth diaper covers, terry cloth towels to use as doublers and a Snappi. The Yucky Ducks are kind of a disappointment. They do ok, they're cute and soft. However, D has been eating more food and wets more. He is one heavy wetter! We've been having a lot of leaks lately because he also has learned to sit up and "rock" on his butt, effectively wringing out the insert in the pocket of the diaper, soaking through the "waterproof" layer and on to his outfit. So, I bought some terry cloth microfiber towels to use as doublers because they are only $5 at Walmart and I read somewhere that these make good homemade doublers. They work really well, except they make the diaper a little bulky, so we may work on cutting them in half, folding the half and sewing it together for a less bulky doubler. I also purchased more velcro because the velcro on the Yucky Ducks is cheap and they just put a small little square on it. We purchased the Imse Vimse diaper covers because they are cotton and breathable to replace the vinyl pants which were trapping heat in on top of it being wet in his prefold and giving him diaper rash bad. They work great, are so easy to get on, and can be used at least twice without any dirties. The Snappi keeps the prefold shut under the cover and replaced the pins. I actually like it better than my prefold velcro creation because it is more flexible for his comfort but keeps the diaper secure.
All in all, we've learned some valuable cloth diaper lessons. We are going to save up and purchase some more expensive Bum Genius pocket diapers and see how we like those. His diaper rash is gone and hasn't come back and I really like the fact that I don't have a full diaper pail of disposables to toss each week, even though it means more laundry for me. We are enjoying our cloth diaper experience more and will do it from birth with our next one.

Mama's Milk

If you haven't gathered by now, we are breastfeeders and proud of it. However, we are not boob snobs. I don't look down on those who don't choose to breastfeed, it's your choice not mine! That being said, I found this really cute and funny breastfeeding tank on Ebay (my newest addiction after red bell pepper hummus from Sam's Club). Mama's milk is GOOD!

Sippy Cup

Mikel is going to kill me for posting this pic of him without a shirt on, but it's a good picture of D. Sorry babe!

In order to make it fair, here is a picture of me with no makeup and clean, but undone-just-air-dried hair. Oh and the baby is in it too.

Mmmm. Condensation...

A little help here mom.

Since D doesn't like bottles, we've been trying the sippy cup. He hasn't quite got the coordination down to pick it up and get it in to his mouth, but he gets really close. He likes to gum the plastic, I think because it is cold and may feel good on his gums. He really likes drinking water, again, I think because of the cold factor. Yesterday morning, I got to go run without Dunning and his stroller for the first time. I was anxious to see if it would be harder or easier and what my time would be, if I could run the whole time (because I can't while pushing him), etc. I was thrilled to discover that not only did I complete the distance withtout having to stop and walk, but I increased it by a tenth of a mile (a full 5k) and did it all in 30 minutes! Mikel has stepped up his distance to 3.5 miles and did it in 35 minutes! Our goal is to start running 5ks together as a couple and take a picture together at each race and hang the pictures up in a "race wall" collage. Our first one is September 1st at the Promenade. It is the Run for a Child 5k. One of the best things about this whole running is that, combined with breastfeeding, I have the metabolism of Wonder Woman. But that means I am hungry about 5 minutes after I eat, so our grocery bill goes up yet again from all the food Mikel and I are eating. My goal is make Mikel gain weight because he lost 8 pounds over the past year. It wasn't a bad weight loss, it was from cutting something out of his diet, but he is SUPER tall and needs some muscle on his frame to stay healthy. So hopefully I can get him up to a good fightin' weight without gaining weight myself!


Last night I made applesauce out of the apples we got from the farmers' market and he made the funniest face when we fed it to him with his dinner. He ate it all. Then, while he was nursing to go to sleep, I could hear his tummy rumbling and I thought, oh, applesauce before bedtime could be a bad idea. A very very bad idea. But nothing happened and he slept all night long except for his one nursie so we are a very happy little unit today.

Update

Big boy tub. We think the drain is magic!




Playgroup! We are fascinated with dogs right now. Or "arf arfs" as I call them. Saying "arf arf" makes him laugh.



Nummm numm, anything we can figure out how to get in our mouth gets chewed on.



Eh?






Farmer's Market this morning!



the last onions






Steph's bday-off to Crabby's



Photo op



I love my sissy!



The three amigos (usually there is four, but she was at the lake house. :P)






Going swimmin' at Aunt Stephie's

Mashed nanners anyone? Nope? Me neither!


Welcome to the gun show missy.


Jordy, D and Granny!

Caleb's sweet mohawk






Sorry sorry. It's been a while since we've updated the blog, mainly because I've just been too tired and busy to do so. Dunning has been teething something awful and we haven't been sleeping much at night. So it's hard to motivate myself to update the blog when I just want to nap when he's napping!


Ok so the last two weeks in a nutshell:

Went swimming twice


Had Stephie's bday party and ate at Crabby's


Had mashed nanners (didn't really eat them)


Went to the library


Graduated to the big boy tub


Harvested onions


Went to playgroup



Went to the farmer's market today and got apples, pears, cucumbers and a "sugar baby" melon!






Tomorrow is Suzy-Q's bday - so happy bday Suzy (if you are reading this)!!!

Garden Update

This is what I got off last night! You can see all the tomatoes in the back ground. This is about half of what I have gotten off. I have made several batches of salsa now. I made one batch last night with the tomatoes in the platter, all the onions I pulled up, serrano chiles from my first year garden that were frozen in the freezer.

Last night after Dunning went to sleep, I went oustide to work in the garden. I just intended to spray my squash plants down with a little soap and baking soda mixture to neutralize the powdery mildew that seems to be attacking them. I ended up out there for a good hour! I trimmed the tomatoes, which also have a fungus, because of all the rain we got at the beginning of the summer, picked green beans, tomatoes, onions, a few bell peppers and cleaned up the squash. The tomato plants now look really bare because I had to trim off most of the leaves in hopes of getting rid of the fungus and encouraging new growth. I accidentally cut off a good branch of romas that haven't ripened yet. I was so mad! I have more tomatoes and green beans than I know what to do with!! I thought the squash plants were done for, but they are amazingly resillent and have started to grow new leaves so I buried the stems in the dirt so they will put down new roots. As the stems grow out almost like a vine, they put down roots to stabilize the plant and get nutrients from the soil. I even have a few more little squashies that are starting to grow! God's design is amazing! I also have more green beans than the jolly green giant. They grow so rapidly that not even the japanese beetles are putting a dent in them. Of course it's so hot that I think most of the beetles just gave up and went back to Japan. I don't use any pesticides since I don't think the garden is big enough to really warrant it and I'd just rather not since I am using some of the veggies for D's baby food. The bell peppers are slower and just now starting to produce. I got three small peppers off. I have four plants right now, but two of them look like they need some help. Tonight I will water and fertilize. I'm also going to plant my fall crop of peas, snap peas, beets, lettuce and spinach. It's my first fall crop. I wanted to do pumpkins too, but you almost need a whole garden just for pumpkins because they are vines. I would love to have more land and do more! Maybe some day! Some day we may all have to do that because of grocery prices!!

Missouri

A Pizza Hut, A Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut!

You don't have to worry about me crawling any time soon!

The Three Amigos



Jim and Kelsey


Watch out mom and dad! I'm almost there!

Rose and Elmer with Dunning and Carson

Me and Kelsey Belsey


This weekend I headed off to Steph and Brad's cabin for a girls' weekend with Steph and a few of her friends. It was my first night away from D and I was nervous, but ready to take the plunge. Dunning is breat fed and has rejected the bottle, only taking it a very few number of times. I thought surely he would take it over a period of 24 hours. Wrong. He only drank a few ounces each time Mikel offered it - 1-2 ounces at a time. So Mikel just fed him yogurt. He apparently ate one full yogurt cup in one setting. He must have been really hungry. As soon as he saw me on Saturday, he went straight for the boob and nursed for a while.



Anyway, we had a good time, eating lots of food, drinking wine and talking. Saturday morning we went to Branson and shopped during Missouri's tax free weekend. Branson the city did not participate in sales tax free, but the state did - so I guess that means we had a partial tax free shopping spree. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. :(



Sunday, the two Hancock families went back up to Missouri to see Elmer, Mikel and Jim's grandfather, and his wife Rose. We packed all the babies in to Jim and Bridget's van and ate at Pizza Hut and then played at their house.