Joel is half a year old!

I can't believe it. He's 6 months old!!! Joel still is super sweet and smiley. He loves to jump in his Jumperoo and play with his big brother (pinch his big brother mostly). He had his first taste of cereal recently, and that didn't go well as you can see in the photo. But I'm 100% confident he'll eventually eat something besides milk. ;-) He now weighs 18 pounds, 8 ounces (75%), and he's 28.5 inches long (95%). He has light colored hair (almost blonde I guess) and hazel eyes (blue, grey, green, brown). I secretly hope he has hazel eyes just like the rest of us. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I think Clark and Joel look different. Here's Clark at 6 months too (above).

I didn't need my fairy godtoad after all

I confess I like a clean house. Or at least I like it to look clean. And having kids has really challenged my character as far as letting go of my "rights" to have a clean house. Today has been a great day for God to grow my character. I'll explain the fairy toad thing in a minute.

This morning, I got up extra early to have some quiet time (which hasn't happened in a LONG time). I made a cup of coffee and sat down to enjoy some ME time. As I soon as I sat down, Michael brought me Joel. He was hungry. Then Clark woke up and was hungry. After making oatmeal (our everyday staple), I ran upstairs to deliver to my husband his breakfast and spilled his milk on the carpet. Then when I came back down, Clark has flung his oatmeal all over the kitchen and living room. Joel was screaming his head off. So I started taking deep breaths and trying to keep myself focused. (yes my hormones are raging today too).



So I calmly had Clark "clean up" his mess. Then I looked up and saw it. My house was in utter disarray. (I've got the pictures to prove it.) Okay, here's where the fairy god toad comes in. Usually when I find myself in this unhappy place, I take a few breaths and do something to make myself laugh. Lately, I have been telling fairy tales about a beautiful princess mommy and her fairy god toad out loud. The princess finds herself always in a messy house because of her two boys. She consults a fairy god toad about her problems, and he always fixes it by taking the boys away. She loves her clean house, but soon misses her boys. The princess mommy always learns a lesson that it's better to have a messy house with her precious boys than a clean quiet house without her darling children.

Well I was at the point that I needed to start telling my story out loud, when Clark did a number in his pants. NUMBER 2 that is. Okay, I'll clean up him and then tell my fairy tale later. So we go to the bathroom, and I do what most sane people WOULDN'T. I try to savage his underwear. On my knees before the toliet with my hands in the brown toliet water trying to scrub off the most disgusting, stinky poop I've ever seen, my sweet two year old, four month old son bends down to my ear and says.....

GOOD JOB, MOMMY! GOOD JOB!!!!

I started laughing and crying. It was the most beautiful, funniest thing I'd ever heard. I finished up the clean up and found myself not needing my fairy god toad after all.

My cup of coffee is over half full and cold, but I sit in awe at how AWESOME our GOD is and how precious every day is no matter the craziness.



Here's my sweet angel with the oatmeal juice still on his shirt.