Dr. Seuss would be proud

After Kurt read my previous entry entitled, "Not in a box, not with a fox," he commented that people might not get the reference to Green Eggs and Ham. My response was that everyone knows Green Eggs and Ham! Sadly, I was mistaken. Poor Kurt said he had never read the book before Joshua came a long. In fact, he claims the only Dr. Seuss book he had ever read was what he keeps referring to as "Cindy Lou" (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas). Doesn't every 1st grade class in America have a green eggs and ham day where the mommies come in and fix this special meal? This is one of my earliest memories of the lovely (and somewhat smelly) cafeteria at Sullins Academy.
In an effort to make up for this loss of early childhood, I threw a green eggs and ham party for Kurt on Saturday morning. He was thrilled. Okay, maybe thrilled is an exaggeration but it's a lot nicer than to say he was grumpy. We read the book (well, a few pages before Kurt begged to eat) and ate green eggs and ham. The verdict according to Kurt: "I will eat them here and there, I will eat them anywhere." (After his belly was full he got into the spirit of the occasion. )

Yummy!

I'm curious who out there remembers this being a part of their childhood? Am I the only one? Leave a comment and let us know.

Joshua's Dedication

Joshua was dedicated at our church on Father's Day. Our parents came out to support us in this. The pictures were taken by our buddy Mike. You can check out more of his great photography at www.Riverhomephotography.com Thanks for the great pictures!

So before I tell you about the dedication ceremony, I thought I'd give a quick overview of what baby dedication is. Basically, our church does baptism for people once they have decided to give their life to Christ. In the Bible, it talks about people repenting of their sins and being baptized. Baby dedication is an opportunity for parents to proclaim their desires to raise their child in Biblical truth and to know the Lord. Hopefully Joshua will be baptized one day when he accepts Christ's free gift of grace & salvation.


We decided to have our own little ceremony so our friend Cliff could dedicate Joshua. Cliff is the head-honcho for the International Group we work with on campus.

Our friend Brandon played a little diddy for the occasion. ("Only You" by David Crowder) Friends Chris, and Laura & Chance read scripture (Proverbs 3:1-12 and Joshua 1:8-9).

The ceremony was in our church's prayer chapel-this is a shot of the group making their commitment to support us. A tradition at our church is that the father's says a prayer for their child. I thought I'd share Kurt's sweet prayer:

"Father in Heaven, we recognize you as the one true God and creator of all things. Joshua truly is a gift from you and we are grateful for the opportunity to offer him up to you today. We also know that we can not raise Joshua well without your guidance.

"Despite our best efforts, we know that we can not give salvation to Joshua or that he can earn it on his own. We are thankful that you sacrificed your only Son on our behalf, so that we may have the opportunity to live forever in heaven with you. We are grateful that your Scriptures are rich with wisdom and that the Holy Spirit guides and directs. We are grateful for our families that have surrounded and supported us even from afar. As far as our Austin family, we are amazed at the community you have raised up around us and we are thankful for their friendship.

"Lord God, you have blessed Joshua richly with an abundance of joy. It is infectious to see his smile, to hear his laughter, and to know that he already brings joy to others. You have answered our prayers for health and even good sleep. Joshua is also more beautiful that we could have ever imagined.

"We pray that Joshua would accept your free gift of salvation at a young age and that he would be of great service to your kingdom. As Joshua from the Old Testament was a mighty man of God, we pray that Joshua Leighton would also be a mighty man of God. We pray that you would be the center of his focus for all of his days and that you would bless him with great health throughout his life. We ask for wisdom as parents in letting go of our desires and enjoying your will for Joshua's life. We ask for discernment in the difficult times of raising and disciplining Joshua. We pray that Joshua would continue to exhibit much joy as he grows in wisdom and stature.

"Lord God, we ask all of these things in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen. "



Afterwards, we had a reception in the courtyard, under the big oak trees. It was fun-thanks for coming out ya'll!

Oh, I forgot to mention that we had to wake Joshua up from a nap for the occasion. Hence, blank stares and no smiles for the camera.

Trying to Crawl

Joshua's been working hard at crawling. He's almost got it!

He can get up on his knees too, but I have yet to get a picture of it!


We figure he's old enough to start doing some chores around the house. Here he is helping me shred our old office papers.










Tummy Time with Daddy!




We are heading to California for vacation in a few weeks...Joshua has his tourist outfit ready to go!

Farewell my friend...

Last week we said goodbye to my Jeep. It was affectionately dubbed "The fickle pickle," which was later shortened to "The Fickle." Although we gave the fickle a hard time and talked bad about it, it was a faithful (sorta) car. I hoped it would get me thought grad school; it did. Then I hoped it would get me though miles and miles for CPS; it did. Then I hoped it would last until I won a new car on The Price is Right; apparently that was too much to ask.
I wanted to share my two favorite fickle stories in an effort to bid him farewell. The first was when his name was actually derived. The day was in this high 90's and I was out running errands. The air conditioner was not working. I got back into the car after one stop and started him up. I pulled out and then tried to put the windows down, but they wouldn't work. Talk about suffocation. When I stopped at a light I opened the door for some air. When I closed the door, I tried the windows again and they worked! What a relief. Of course, when I got home, I couldn't get them up again so I had to go straight to the mechanic.
The second story, paints me as a bit of an airhead. However, I am willing to incriminate myself for the laughter of others. It was a Friday night in my first year of grad school and I was studying at home. For my big Friday night excitement, I decided to drive to 7-11 for a Dr. Pepper. I came back home and parked the fickle in the normal spot, which was on a hill. I headed into my apartment. The next morning, I decided to go for a run down on town lake. I walked out to the parking lot to find the fickle was gone. The motions of the previous night went through my head to reassure myself that I had indeed parked it in the normal spot. After scanning the parking lot, I found the fickle down the hill, smashed into a Hyundai. And when I say smashed, I mean that car was smashed. What do you do in a situation like that? I knocked on the door of my pal Kelly. They recommended I leave a note on the car. This didn't really seem appropriate, you leave a note when you scratch someone's car. This car was smashed. After some debate, I call the cops. The officer that responded must have really felt bad for me. He came up with a great story for how the event occurred. See, I had a recall notice from Jeep that they had some cases where jeeps were popping out of reverse gear when left running. There were some skid marks up the hill from where I parked. There was no indication that someone had broken into the car or any other monkey business. This cop came up with a scenario where the fickle popped out of park, rolled up hill (?), leaving skid marks (?), then popped into drive and rolled down hill, smacking into the car. What was the point in arguing when his scenario made me out to be an innocent victim rather than a ditz who didn't put her car into park? Dispatch called the owner of the other car who came out frantic in her pjs. She was a graduate student in government. The officer had to explain to her 3 times the difference between civil and criminal court and that we wouldn't be going to court unless someone brings it to civil court. Fortunately for me, that was the end of it. I guess good ole USAA took care of her. The fickle didn't even have a scratch on it.
Despite no A/C and a transmission fuel leak, we posted the fickle on Craigslist and had it sold within 24 hours. Can you believe we got over 10 calls of people interested in buying it? We are loving Craigslist.

Mom Mom, and Mimi, and Papa, Oh My!

We had Joshua dedicated at church on Father's Day. We were very excited to have all Joshua's grandparents down for the occasion. Mom Mom rolled in on Wednesday. Thursday we took her to San Antonio. We forgot to bring our camera, so use your imagination with the pictures...we went to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. Then had some Mexican for dinner outside on the riverwalk. It's always fun to eat with pigeons. It was a good time (and yummy!)




Friday Mimi and Papa arrived. Joshua enjoyed having so many folks to entertain him. I enjoyed having mini-breaks here and there as well. Sunday was the dedication. We were blessed to have great friends and our family come to support us. We had a little reception afterwards under the big oak trees in the courtyard. Joshua did pretty well, but not his best behavior. He was asleep when the ceremony was suppose to start, so we had to wake him up. That's not usually such a good thing... I will post pictures from the dedication in the next day or so.

That evening we went to Brushy Creek Park (which I highly recommend for you North Austin peeps...) We attempted to burn off some of the food we had been snacking on all day. It was a little bit hot, especially for the Eastern folk...

Monday we sent Mom Mom off to Colorado to visit Kurt's bro and family. Tuesday we headed to the LBJ Ranch and Fredricksburg. We had never been to the ranch, so it was cool to see the "Texas White House." After spending most of the day at the ranch, we only had about an hour before the shops closed, but it was still fun. Then we had a great dinner at one of the German Restaurants.



While in Fredricksburg, Joshua got to ride "Ol' paint." He laughed and seemed to enjoy the ride. He also made friends with a memorial dedicated to the peace treaty between the Indians and F'burg settlers. Apparently it is the only peace treaty made between the Natives and white folk that actually lasted.

This is really mean, but I just can't help it. When we were in the gift shop of the ranch, I put Joshua in a bonnet. We got a good look at what baby sister might look like...isn't he cute?

Here are some other fun shots of our week with the grandparents. Thanks for coming out guys-we love you!