Our Cute Easter Boy

So firsts things first, raise your hand if you watched the royal wedding this morning? Ok, so maybe I have been in school a little too long (try everyday this week!), but honestly I hope you got a chance to see it.  Seriously worth the 5 A.M. morning!  I didn't mean to watch it, but Reid was stirring around and I was awake, and decided this is a possible once in a lifetime thing to watch live so I turned on the television.  Just in time to see Kate make her entrance into Westminster Abbey.  One word, stunning. . .  The ceremony was beautiful, the singing was beautiful, everything was beautiful. . . However this is a post for another day and not what you click on to read about.  So I will give you what you want!

The church put on a community wide easter egg hunt.  Here is Reid with Daddy!

Haha, "No mo pictures!"

First egg hunt!

He did pretty good!

He had a great time

And is sitting up like a champ now!

Just in time for cute easter pictures!

It's a bird. . .

No, it's a plane. . .

No, it's SUPER BABY!

Yes that would be daddy chunking his first born as high as he could.

This is Lisa, my mom's best friend.  He LOVES her, and her hair!

Mark and I sang in the choir for our Easter Musical

This is our new music minister and his family who did so much work to get it all ready!

And this is the cutest Easter boy around!

Aren't the vest and tie just adorable?!

We aren't very dressy because we were in robes for the musical at church.

Eating carrots 

And making a mess.

Then going for a little swing.

And spending some time with his great great grandmother. . .

All in a good Easter day!

Mission FIND A HOBBY!

So I have been watching my little man that is supposed to be napping in his crib on the video monitor.  He has been scooting all around his crib, getting up on all fours and rocking, and looking around, basically everything but falling back to sleep.  In fact mere moments ago I looked and he was completely turned around, up on all fours, with this blanket over his head.  Geez Louise, what is a mom to do?  Seriously any suggestions would be great.  He is getting to be more mobile, which might mean more defiance, which in turn means parenting is really about to kick in for Mark and me.

I think I have also hit a turning point in another area, I decided I need to blog more.  While this is an obvious thing, I know it is something I will either look back and be grateful that I took the time to get it all down or look back and say "I wish I could have remembered this" or "why didn't I ever chronicle that?"  I have not been in the habit of becoming a consistent blogger and I know I need to be, especially if I want more people reading this then just my family.  It is going to take time and effort to transform the blog into what I want it to be, sometimes this may not be what I exactly want to spend my time on, but I know it will be worth it in the long haul.  My preliminary goal is to blog at least twice a week to start with.  While this may not sound like a stretch to many of you, it does to me, because let's face it, I don't believe that my life is really that exciting.  However, there needs to be something I can talk about on a semi daily basis, so in order to make that happen I must make sure I am doing SOMETHING.

This brings me to my next issue, mission FIND A HOBBY.  You might remember me asking for suggestions in one of my previous posts (that I cannot seem to find for the life of me!) and I did get a few.  However I think I have a few things in my head that I might be willing to try out.  I want to learn to do something productive/creative but for this very uncreative gal it is going to be a struggle.  I have a list of things I would like to learn how to do but at the top (a.k.a. the things I am going to give a go at first) are sewing/embroidery and scrapbooking.  Not at the same time though!  How am I going to do this you ask.  Well my Noni has just about everything under the sun including an embroidery machine that she no longer remembers how to use.  I am hoping to get the instructions and teach myself.  We will see.  It would be nice to make some more personalized shirts, burp rags, and other things for Reid as well as other babies.  I am hoping this will be easy(ish) to do since the machine does most of the thinking for you!  As far as the scrapbooking goes, my mother, grandmother, and aunt are all avid "scrappers" who have many tools and paper and all at their disposal that I believe they will let me try.  I have been told you don't have to be completely creative to be a scrapbook queen, you just have to be able to copy a picture out of a magazine, and this girl can copy like nobody's business :-)

The thing with me is that I want to be good at something right away.  I desperately want to be one of those people that something awesome just comes naturally do and I am able to do it, and do it very well. However, this is not me.  No, I am a determined person who is a hard worker.  Most things don't come completely natural to me.  While I might have some ability at many things I have to work hard to become one of the better players.  I just pray I am able to stick something out and not become discouraged and quit!

My Problem

Today is yet another quiet mid-morning in the Clifton household with the baby asleep, the bathroom cleaned, and the kitchen and bedrooms, well they are a work in progress.  I have been enjoying my time here at home, I praise God for the blessings it has given me.  Time with my family, time with my little man, time with the dogs (however irritating that can be), time to get things done, time to be rejuvenated, time to rest, just time.  However, perhaps I am not using it as wisely as I should.

I go around and I read all my other friends' blog posts and they are all going through this seemingly great "spiritual revelation" time.  They have scripture, devotions, discoveries, and it all seems so nice.  And it makes me wonder, "Am I missing something, and if so, what is it?"  The thing is, I know that it is all my fault, that I am the one to blame for the whole "missing it" factor.

Since I have identified the problem, I know now I need to fix it.  It must become habit for me to sit down and read my bible, I repeat it MUST.  I also feel the strong need for more scripture memory in my life.  There are times when I think, "I could be pondering on God's word while I am doing ____(put in whatever task I happen to be doing at the time)" but I really do no know that much scripture.

Also, I need to be engaged in more constant prayer, not just when I feel like it, it is time for bed, Reid is incessantly crying, or I have lost something.  I long for conversation daily when I am in a house alone (or with someone who can't understand me yet, for which I am grateful most of the time), and yet I am missing the opportunity to have it with the One who deserves it most.  I know prayer is another area I am lacking in.   I long to be closer to my God, yet constantly find "better things to do" then to work on the relationship.  I know this is a dead end road.

It is like getting back into the swing of working out again.  About two weeks ago I told Mark he was to be my personal trainer and motivation in my head to get into shape again.  This is something I have honestly never had to worry about before, so it was hard for me to get started.  But after some encouragement from him and from another Mommy friend, I have been working out 5 days a week or so.  Nothing strenuous, just the elliptical for 30 minutes or so, or tennis, or just something to get me up and moving.  Let me tell you the first day was HARD, my legs hurt, my chest hurt, I was nasty and sweaty and red-faced, but I did it.  And you wanna know what, I felt good afterwards.  Accomplished.  That was helpful the next day when I knew I had to go back and do it all over again.  Now I enjoy it for the most part, I know it is needed.  I have made better choices in what I eat because of the change, and I have liked the falling number on the scale.

I feel like I am spiritually overweight, and not in a good way, spiritually lazy.  I have been relying on what I did in college to just get me by, but that just wont cut it anymore.  We are in a new era in life, and it is time to buck up again and become spiritually disciplined.  It is time to work out, and even though it might be hard at first, and it might hurt a little, I know I will feel good afterwards, I know I will realize how needed it is, I know.

So this is me, this is where I am.   I am not proud of my problem, but I am admitting it, and telling you I am going to change.

Californ-i-a

I had a little bit of down time while the boy is napping so I decided to post a little somethin' somethin' on the blog.  Well I say he is napping, he is in his crib talking, trying to keep from going to sleep. . . We will see how long that lasts.

There are many things I want/need to blog about, but I am not sure where to begin.   Let's see, maybe we should start with our trip out to California to visit our college friends Matt and Sarah Arnett.

Matt and Sarah at Santa Monica Beach

We really had a great time.  To get there we flew, which was interesting with a 5 and 1/2 month old.  The first flight was early so Reid actually ended up sleeping, in a seat that wasn't being used for the first 2 hours.

Reid sleeping 

We got there and started our adventure.  However, I knew Matt and Sarah had a really nice camera, so I just took along our little point and shoot that doesn't take very good pictures, so I have precious little here in Texas to show you.  When I get them from Matt and Sarah however, you can bet there will be more.  Here are just a few things we did and I have pictures for.

The Santa Monica Pier

Reid and Daddy 

It was unusually cold for Cali

Reid being chauffeured to the water

Pretty pier

pretty sunset

We went to a local Farmer's Market and the Rose Bowl (where the longhorns beat USC for the national championship)

Dark picture of me and Reid at the Market

Family at the Market in still cold Cali

Rose Bowl

All in our Longhorn gear

We also went to Hollywood

Reid and Daddy with the hollywood sign to the left in the back ground

Mommy and Reid and Hollywood

The Family

We are pointing to the Hollywood sign. . .you can barely see it

 We went to the Chinese Theater where there were all the handprints of famous people

Add caption

Now for those who don't know, I absolutely L-O-V-E(ed) The Wizard of Oz movie when I was little. . . Like had an identity crisis in thinking I was Dorothy.  I would introduce myself as Dorothy Gail from Kansas.  So when we got there there was a mad search for Judy Garland, the actress who played Dorothy.  After consulting a map we finally found her.  It was on of the biggest highlights of the trip for me.

So happy

Like I said, I don't have many pictures with me, we took a bunch, just not with our camera.  Hopefully I will get others up here soon.

This Week and PICTURES!!!

This past week has been a little off for the whole family. . . For starters I have been up at the school since Monday helping give the TAKS test.  For those who don't know what that is, it is the standardized test that Texas gives out to all their students, grades 3-12.  It stands for Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.  Anyway, I have been having to be up at the school by 7:30 everyday (Mon, Tues, and Wed).  Because of this Reid has had to make other arrangements.  He has had two daddy days and then took an adventure with my grandmother and aunt (his great grandmother and great aunt)  to visit my great grandmother (his great great).  Anyways, he had a good time, got in some good lovin' from different people, and has been thoroughly spoiled in my absence.  However, this small hiatus has led to a major break in schedule.  Daddy is good, but he isn't like mommy in making the little tike stay in his crib even when he wakes up screaming in the middle of a nap.  And you can just forget sleep if you're with Aunt Lori, so he did!

So that leaves me with today, trying my hardest to get a schedule of some sort while also trying to get myself rested and feeling a little better.  This is no easy task!  Seriously!  Like today when I had him sound asleep in my arms and when I laid him down he just started screaming.  I just left him there to have him cry it out. . . Poor guy, he is just like me, it takes him a while to get to sleep and OH DOES HE FIGHT IT!  I guess this is what they call paying for your raising. . .

On another note, to end the week Mark's family is coming down to practice for Cliftones.  It will be a good time for us to host them and them to get to play with Reider!  In fact instead of sitting here doing this blog, I should be cleaning and preparing for their arrival, making a shopping list, etc.  However, I can take a breather for a minute because I have a wonderful mother who after 3 days of coordinating TAKS and teachers, and subs, and students came and watched my baby and CLEANED my living room and did some of my laundry!!!  Yes I know people, I have the best mother in the whole wide world!!  Be jealous!  Seriously though I need to get up and get moving because he s actually staying asleep!  Come back though, I hope to get a chance to put 6 month pictures up as well as those from California!

5 months old

6 months old

Yea for being big!