Our little man is changing so much! I just love how he holds his head up and looks right at me. He loves to do this when I’m holding him on my shoulder. He looks right into my eyes with his big brown eyes and I can’t help but smile! He is really into chewing on anything he can get into his mouth (you will see plenty of pictures with his hand in his mouth 
). He has also discovered our dog, Dulce, and pet her by himself for the first time this week. It was the most adorable sight! She was sitting next to him on the floor and he decided to stretch his hand out to pet her. Now, he tries to pet her whenever she walks by him. I just love it! Here are the most recent pics we’ve taken. Enjoy!
Archive for July, 2008
Check out this inspiring video that my friend Danny Parker sent me. Thought I would share it with you. Pretty inspiring.
Well, it has now been five months since our little one made his way into the world. What an amazing journey it has been thus far. Eli is now this bubbly, easy-going little baby who loves to smile, is beginning to giggle and is SO close to sitting up and rolling over (back to belly) on his own. He has changed so much since February 25th. When he was born, he weighed 5 lbs 15 oz. He now weighs 13 lbs. 10.5 oz (small in comparison to other babies his age, but great growth for him!). His car seat is getting so heavy. People love to tell me that the car seat weighs more than I do when he’s in it (I promise it doesn’t). My eye doctor actually asked me how much I weigh when he saw me picking up Eli in his seat. I think he thought I was going to fall over! So, needless to say, our little boy is definitely growing, praise God!
I took him in for two more shots this week. I’m using an alternative schedule, so he has to go every month for two shots, instead of getting all of them at one time. Unfortunately, this meant we had to go into the out patient room in our pediatrician’s office, which was really creepy (oxygen tanks everywhere, IV poles, a laundry basket with nasty looking linens in it- who knows what was on those…-pretty creepy when you’re taking your little baby in there). I quickly prayed that God would protect Eli from catching any bugs that had been carried into that room throughout the morning. He was given one shot in each thigh. He had a little reaction to one of the shots and, when he woke up from nap a few hours after getting the shot, his thigh was very swollen and red. He kept screaming and screaming and I felt terrible. It reminded me of the first few weeks when he would cry for a while and I didn’t know what to do to console him. Finally, I put him in the bath tub and it seemed to calm him down (at least enough to get some tylenol in him, which helped a lot with the pain). He ran a fever for about 24 hours and he’s been really congested for the past week, which wasn’t a great combination with the shots/fever. Thankfully, the fever is now gone and he seems to be feeling better, although the congestion is still a problem. (Dear Jesus, please take this away so our little boy can be comfortable again ).
My mom mentioned that she bought a book about prayers grandparents can pray over their grandchildren (what a neat thought!). It made me think about the prayers I pray over Eli every night: 1- Let him love God at a young age. 2- Let him not be enticed by the things of the world but be in love with the things of God. 3- Let him love the house of God and know that our lives are blessed/flourishing because we are planted there. 4- Let him grow up to become a man after God’s own heart, one of outstanding character who represents Jesus well on this Earth. 5- Let him be filled with boldness/passion for His name. 6- Let his parents be filled with wisdom and give us every tool we need to raise him in a Godly way. I absolutely believe all of these things will come to pass. If you are a parent reading our blog, have you prayed for your child(ren) yet today? It’s the most powerful act we can do for our kids! Thank God He is on our side.
Fall is almost here and we are kicking into full gear at our church. On August 2 we launch another service with our friend Christine Caine from Hillsong Church in Sydney. It will be on Saturday nights at 5p. Man is it going to be slamming. We did a Saturday night service this past Easter and it was the best service of the weekend. This will bring us to 5 weekend services. Here is the crazy thing, one year ago at this time we only had 2 weekend services. Now between our two campuses we go up to five. What a wild ride. Today we spent a lot of time discussing about international missions opportunities with Daniel Batchelder, president of an organization called Morning Star Development. Morning Star Development does a lot of work in Afghanistan, a country where there are only about 10,000 believers. Pretty amazing opportunties to minister to the unreached. Our church started an organization called Go Global a couple of months ago to help get more people on the mission field in partnership with other local churches. Man, what an awesome season for the body of Christ. I’m pumped to be serving under pastors with vision. God is good. We’re busting into Fall in style. Bring on some more Holy Spirit mojo!
THE SIMPLE PATH
The fruit of silence is PRAYER.
The fruit of prayer is FAITH.
The fruit of faith is LOVE.
The fruit of love is SERVICE.
The fruit of service is PEACE.
I’ve been reading a small book called, ‘A Simple Path’. It was written about the life of Mother Teresa. The book was written some time ago, and in it Mother Teresa outlines her simple path, her way of operating in life. A lot has been said of Mother Teresa. For years she has been regarded as the ultimate woman of God. And in my mind her heart was extremely devoted to the things that are dear to God’s heart. She cared for the poor, the needy, the sick, the lonely, etc. At the end of her life many letters came out that she had written to friends of her doubts about God and her work. Many times throughout my life I have doubted everything and still do every now and then. But I always come back to the resolve that no one else can love me or enable me to love like Christ can. So for any of the would be critics of this woman of God, let it go:)
An Indian admirer of Mother Teresa, a businessman, once had five lines printed for her on small yellow cards. These she called her “business cards” and she offered them freely to people because they clearly explained the direction of her work, her simple path. This path is one that she has distilled from her long experience of working for the love of God with her fellow human beings. It is composed of six essential steps:
- Silence
- Prayer
- Faith
- Love
- Service
- Peace
Familiarity with one will naturally lead on to another. If one surrenders to the nature of the process, life will inevitably run more smoothly, more joyfully, and more peacefully.
The 6 steps are simple, but really powerful and have proved true in my life.
We spent the last week and a half on the road, traveling from New Orleans, LA to Mobile, AL and, finally, to Destin, FL. We had an awesome time visiting with our family. In New Orleans, we had the pleasure of meeting our new niece, Sofia, for the first time. She is SO beautiful! She and Eli are 6 weeks a part, but they were almost exactly the same size. Emma, our 2-year-old niece kept thinking Eli was Sofia. They look so much a like. It was adorable to watch them playing and sitting together. It was the beginning of many memories that the two of them will share together. Mundo’s parents flew in from Houston to spend time with all of the grandkids. It was the first time we had all three of them together. Besides visiting with each other, we spent much of our time eating and eating and eating. The food in New Orleans is like no other. It just so fantastic.
We left LA and drove to Mobile, AL, to meet my family at my Aunt Donna’s house. She lives in an amazing 100-year-old home in downtown Mobile. She was kind enough to accompany Mundo, Eli, my parents and me to visit my grandmother, “Granny”. I wanted to introduce her to her first great-grandchild. What an amazing, emotional moment it was for all of us. Unfortunately, she suffers from Dimentia as well as the side effects of several strokes, so she doesn’t know who I am or who Eli is in relation to her. However, it was a great moment for all of us to see her holding and loving on Eli.
We finished our vacation with an awesome week in Destin, FL, in a house on the beach. It was beautiful. We spent our time laying on the beach, swimming in the pool and shopping a the outlet mall as well as eating and eating and eating :). Mundo and I were blessed with the opportunity to vacation with my brother and my parents. They enjoyed every minute with Eli and were kind enough to give Mundo and me a few hours on the beach together.
Eli was a trooper through all of the traveling. He loves to play with toys now, so mom was well-equipped with three different toy bars that I was able to trade out throughout the drive to keep him busy. He talked to us, played, ate and slept throughout all of the drives. It was awesome!
We are glad to be home and have already enjoyed an awesome Sunday in God’s house as well as a fun party and dinner to welcome a new intern to our church staff. I look forward to a nice relaxing week, adjusting back to life at home. I love that I get to come home to my job as a stay-at-home mom and not the stress of teaching. I’m always on vacation!
Below you will see two slideshows of pics from our vacation. The first slideshow will give you a glimpse into our visit with Mundo’s family. Some of the pics were taken at his uncle’s house in Metairie, LA. The Meneses family was so excited to meet the first boy of the next generation. Right now, Eli is the only one who can pass on their name, so he seems to be respected in a special way. They couldn’t wait to meet “The BOY”. The second slideshow is pictures from our time with my family (my Uncle Keith and Aunt Donna, my grandmother and my parents and brother). Enjoy!
