visiting with friends

A whole week ago, Lewis and I took a journey down to Nashville to visit with our friends the Morozovs. Our friend, Tasha, was visiting from North Carolina to see a Bon Jovi concert (random!). Another friend, Yura, was visiting from Lexington so we had a little Belarussian reunion. We had a chance to catch up and try out the full capacity of our new minivan. It's always nice when my close friends gather together nearby.

Here is little Val and Lewis (who we caught chewing on a french fry).
















Heather and baby Annabella.






















Yura and Tasha in deep discussion.

















Tasha, Heather, Annabella and Shelley.

another tag

My friend Carrie Powell tagged us a while back on the profound topic of "Five things you want your kids to know before they grow up." I've been thinking on it for a while and it is a tough one, but here's a start:

1--To see themselves honestly as fallen creatures in need of a Savior, and know that Christ is the only one who can fix the situation.

2--They are not going to be great at everything, but they have a unique purpose and can take joy in what they are good at........(in addition, they'll never know if they're good at something until they try).

3--To eat a variety of foods. :)

4--The joy of traveling. Our world is a big place to explore first hand.

5--To think for themselves and make wise choices.


Tagging others is hard too, but I can tag Heather Morozov, Nicole Martin, Sarah Wilson, and Darla Oglesby--all moms of TWO babies now.

climbing!

Lewis has never been much of a climber, but the last few days he has worked really hard to get in and out of our little rocker all by himself. Here are some pictures of the proud boy.

getting in to the chair.





















turning around





















getting down





















A random picture of Lewis out and about downtown with brave escort Derek Holt. Derek offered to walk with Lewis while I got some iced coffee at Spencer's. Little did he know how fast and independent our boy can be!

Tagged

I've been tagged by my friend Heather Morozov so here is some interesting info about Shelley.

Four jobs I've had:
1. Purchasing Coordinator for Commonwealth Brands, Bowling Green, KY.
2. Campus Crusade for Christ staff doing campus ministry in Minsk, Belarus and at WKU.
3. Shipping Clerk for Spalding Group in Louisville, KY during the 2000 presidential election. Thank God I'm not doing that anymore!
4. Fast food--I did time at Chick-fil-A and McDonald's.

Four movies I've watched more than once:
1. Back to the Future
2. Karate Kid
3. Fargo
4. Napoleon Dynamite

Four places I've lived:
1. Louisville, KY
2. Minsk, Belarus
3. Bowling Green, KY
4. Hampton Beach, NH

Three TV Shows I watch:
1. Lost
2. The Office
3. Law & Order SVU

Four places I've been:
1. Lithuania
2. Hungary
3. Israel
4. Switzerland

Four people who email me regularly:
1. My sister, Ellen
2. The group of moms I meet with regularly.
3. Kelly Morgan
4. Facebook

Four of my favorite foods:
1. mint chocolate chip ice cream
2. angel food cake
3. meat--I love steak and shrimp especially.
4. salad

Four places I would like to visit:
1. Egypt
2. Great Britain
3. Czech Republic
4. Austria

Five things I'm looking forward to in the coming year:
1. Meeting and getting aquainted with baby #2.
2. Lewis' first words (I hope!!).
3. A new Sixpence None the Richer EP.
4. Our new church plant getting started in Bowling Green.
5. Potty training (just kidding!).

Four friends I'm tagging:
1. Carrie Powell
2. Kelly Morgan
3. Heather Spencer
4. Glenda Jones

hello good buy

My faithful Nissan Altima has been a great car for the last 5 years, but we sold it this week after just a couple days of listing it in the classifieds. Since we found several nice used vans online in Louisville, Lewis and I made the trek up on Thursday evening to check them out. Lewis got to spend some quality time with his grandma (Martha) while dad and I went all over on Friday.

Oddly, the van that we picked was the first one we saw on Thursday night when we first got to town. It's a 2001 Honda Odyssey with low miles. The Odyssey was by far the van most recommended to us by other parents out there. It's going to be wonderful and we got a great deal in our price range. And because we are getting a nice tax refund and sold my car we get to avoid the dreaded car payment.

Lewis did not have a good night on Thursday night when we stayed with my sister, Ellen. He had a terrible time getting to sleep and woke up around 2 a.m. upset. He was up off and on until 4 a.m. when he finally gave up and got to sleep. It felt like I had just fallen asleep when the earthquake hit. I was so delirious by that point that I was rather unsure what was going on, especially since that is the first earthquake most of us ever experienced. I was afraid the painting on the wall over the bed was going to do some damage, but just as I got pretty worried, the shaking stopped. What a weird thing!

Van shopping is not that fun anyway, but being so exhausted made it worse. Still, looking back over the week......selling my car, finding a van, getting the price we can afford, and several other details that worked out in the nick of time.......it is obvious that God walked us through this process and it is a huge relief to move on.

We have to give a shout out to my sister Ellen, my dad and Martha for chauffeuring me around, providing hospitality, childcare and moral support. Thank you!!

Here are some pics. Goodbye Nissan!

















Hello Honda! Here are a couple of web pictures of the van. We got it from the nice people of Acura at Oxmoor.
















and the view from the front.

kangaroos + cave= fun!

We took advantage of the County Days at Kentucky Down Under on Saturday to get some cheap entertainment. Personally, I think the regular adult rate of $22 is a bit much, but the discount rate of $5 is very affordable, especially if you have a toddler who has a short attention span.

Justin's dad was driving through the area and met up with us for the fun. Here are the highlights.

Grandpa and Lewis in the cave. We made it through about 5 minutes of the tour before Lewis got tired of all the tour guide's interesting, yet lengthy rambling about cave history.



Lewis meets the dingoes.



A kangaroo takes interest in Lewis. He was somewhat scared of them, but they seemed to like him just fine!


Just hanging out with Grandpa.

lewis' shenanigans

Lewis continues to develop his creative side, coming up with his own fun games. This week in particular he has taken an interest in our shoes, specifically he likes throwing them in our clothes hamper. Anytime we are looking for a pair of shoes and can't find them, if we check the hamper, they are always there. Strange, but he loves it!

Lewis has also begun dragging me to the window in his room anytime he hears the train coming. He loves getting in position before the train comes into view. Then a huge smile appears when the train does. His window is the only one in the house where you can actually see the train tracks. We are going there quite often lately!

Another new love is for candy. Lewis' grandparents gave him some M & M's for Easter which we hesitated to give him. The first one sat on the entertainment center for several minutes before he worked up the nerve to try eating it. Once he did he fell in love. He even had one crying fit when he realized they were all gone (several days later). John Paul, his speech therapist, uses Smarties to get Lewis to follow simple instructions. Lewis is very motivated by sugar!

Finally, Lewis absolutely adores his "Hokey Pokey Elmo." Our friends (Brice & Julie Boyer) have one for their kids, and Lewis always insists on playing with it anytime we are visiting them. We found the same toy at a consignment sale for $5, much to Lewis' delight. He can squeeze Elmo's hand by himself which activates the dancing.......and he does it over and over and over...you get the idea.


Otherwise, Lewis continues to love music and turns our stereo on as soon as he gets up or we come in the door from being out somewhere. He can dance and shake his "booty" on command. Here's a video of his skills.

therapy news, etc.

Today we had a review of Lewis' therapy. He's been enrolled in First Steps for 6 months now, and today we looked over our original goals to see how Lewis has progressed. In the areas of gross and fine motor skills we've seen a ton of progress. It's amazing to look back to our original meeting when Lewis could not stand up on his own. He was easily entertained because if he was sitting and playing on the floor, and a toy rolled out of reach, he just had to find something else nearby to entertain him. Now he goes where he wants, when he wants. He drags us around when he needs our help with something. He's really basically caught up in this area and functioning at his age level, which is amazing!

Speech was a much different story. While he has not had tons of progress, he has gotten much older which means what is expected of Lewis is much greater than when we started. As a result, his scores in communication actually went down from where he was 6 months ago. He is vocalizing more lately, but he mainly sticks with a few limited sounds. It's hard to know how to motivate him to branch out verbally.

After discussing Lewis' situation at length, our coordinator and therapists came up with a plan to petition the state for more therapy time for him. Ideally he will end up with 2 hours of speech therapy a week (up from 45 minutes now), and an hour with his developmental interventionist. We are praying that this request will be granted and soon! It was certainly disappointing to know that our 21 month-old is communicating at a 9 to 10 month level, but we feel so fortunate to have a team of people working on Lewis' behalf since Justin and I are so limited in our abilities. Keep praying for Lewis to catch up, and for us to know the best ways to motivate him.

Regarding the next baby........here's my latest belly shot. I'm 27 weeks pregnant, which means the baby should survive from this point on should I go into pre-term labor. And I'm officially in the 3rd trimester too. Fun times.