teaching joseph to sleep

i secretly kind of love that joseph will try really hard to fall asleep on his own and be just about there but still squirming a bit for about 15 minutes and then fall asleep within seconds when i go in and pick him up.

usually.

when it does happen this way, it is one of the sweetest moments as a mother that i experience.

the other is when he's looking at me and not yet smiling and his eyebrows go down and his lips form a smile at the same time. those eyebrows. sigh. what am i going to do with this handsome boy?

currently:

making
falafel. and tzatziki. well, i'm going to make these. for dinner tonight. it's about time. i think i started craving falafel in mid-december. i attempted to purchase falafel at a restaurant only to discover, according to our server, that it's not actually a greek food. even though i ate it in greece and have since thought that it was greek. but it's not. so, the greek restaurant on broadway, felini, does not serve falafel. just so you know. but i'm making it tonight! i'm excited. and so hungry.

praying
for the Lord to expand my horizons. i find myself so often thinking "there has to be something else i could be thinking about.." as i'm stuck in a mental rut of relational worry or confusing littleness of thought. i just want to think about bigger things. more significant things. i'm thankful that God is "not a God of confusion but of peace" (1 corinthians 14:33).

reading
a book sarah gave me for Christmas, extremely loud and incredibly close. this is the most unique book i have ever read. it's enough to make me feel crazy at times. but i'm halfway through. and i like it. i think. it's really really interesting, a story of a boy who loses his father in the september 11th attacks and goes on a quest to discover the meaning behind a key he finds in his father's closet. and more than that, but that's the concise summary. some of the pages don't even have words on them. others have pictures. it's good. i'll let you know when i'm done. because, it's 2010, and i read entire books now.

feeling
pretty relieved to not have a Christmas tree up anymore. does anyone else ever find themselves letting out a big sigh of "finally, back to normal" when the holidays are over? i took the lights off the tree, took it outside (realizing as i was just about to put my foot on the outside ground that i was not wearing shoes and snow from last night has gathered on our welcome mat), and vacuumed away the evidence. all while wearing joseph in the ergo carrier, might i add. it's nice to not have a tree in our home. mostly because jeremy and i were both allergic to it, but also because it's nice for it to be january and winter and snowing and all that those things are without Christmas. does this make me a scrooge? hope not.

enjoying
this day. it snowed so much last night. and i have really enjoyed watching the light snow be swirled over the heavier snow each time the wind blows. two cups of coffee this morning and joseph taking three naps so far haven't hurt either. i spent half of the third one resting next to him and thinking and the second half typing this entry that i began composing during the first half. oh, fractions.

hope you have a wonderful thursday.

today

sometimes when i think about my life, i feel like i'm spinning.

and when i think about the phrase "think about my life" i am reminded of my sister, megan, asking one of her middle school students to think about his life and then him actually doing it and the face megan makes imitating what a middle schooler thinking about his life looks like.

the other night, i was making a grocery list, and i looked over to see joseph rolling to get to a stack of books and his carseat. i instinctively said "joooseph" and as the word came out of my mouth, i had to say it again, marvelling at the fact that the little baby rolling around (we've gone mobile, people) is my son and his name is joseph.

i remember my friend, jess, saying that she tried really hard to cherish specific moments with her son, finn, and i've found myself doing the same thing at times with j.bourne. following last night's dinner, jeremy, joseph, and i played with his infant-sized royals hat for about twenty minutes. it was so wonderful. i think that after a whole day with the babe, sometimes i figure time with dad and only dad is a must for both of us, but i realized in the twenty minutes of hat-on-dad, hat-on-joseph, hat-on-mom, peek-a-boo, repeat that it's pretty fun for the three of us to hang out too.

today's goal and prayer is to spend today joyfully and not at any point have the "ahhh... why did i go on facebook??" feeling. so far so good. i woke up at 6:45 to little boy making happy noises, enjoyed a cup of coffee after fasting from coffee and sugar yesterday (didn't realize i was that addicted..), played a bit, ironed a shirt, put the boy down for his first nap, started some diaper laundry, read john 8:1-11 (um, amazing), folded laundry, played some more with sweet boy, put him down for nap number 2, took a shower, and well.. here i am.

we're running low on v5's and burt's bees. at the same time. it's a tough life i lead. i intend to fix this very soon.

i'm working on new year's resolutions. thus far, i resolve to eliminate hurry, read complete books, and make an intentional list of crafts that i want to do and do them. i should probably stop there, now that i read the growing list. oh, and i'm going to try to write here more often. maybe every week if you're lucky.

i think i just realized that i have ended my type two spaces after a period habit. thank you very much, jeremy. it feels good.

i'm hearing some awake noises from the other room.. i love this life. have i said that?

and i--
i changed out of the black sweatpants and the shirt that joseph spit up on a few hours ago
and that has made all the difference.

contrary to popular belief, if you ignore something long enough, it will not in fact go away.

this includes 18 dirty cloth diapers and a mediacom modem from 2006.

and all of the stuff that's still in the basement of our old house on again street.

oops.

just do it (yourself)

did i mention i made a leaf mobile?

i did.

and i realize that although the leaf mobile is pretty cool in itself, the reason that i was/am so excited about it is that i made it. i can't tell you how many do-it-yourself projects i have looked at since discovering my all-time favorite makes my brain explode with overwhelming too much to handle amazing ideas website, design*sponge, but i can tell you how many i have actually done: two.

the first was inspired by this clever way to reuse security envelopes. i opted to cut out whales from the envelopes and made them into garland for my sister's birthday with the words "have a whale of a birthday" at the end of the chain of whales. it took me at least two of joseph's naps to cut out all of the whales, which i remember actually turned out to be a really fun use of time. also, the extra whales have become magnets on my fridge. jeremy and i realized recently that families should have magnets on their fridge. so now we do. whale magnets.

and, of course, the second do-it-yourself project was the leaf mobile. actually, now that i look at the original project again, mine is like five of what they suggested all linked together. oops. i think it took me an hour to put it together after having the leaves and branches in my home for a good two weeks and a couple of to-do lists mentioning the mobile assembly. okay, fine, i'll post a picture. i mean, it's not like i haven't been secretly wanting to post a picture the whole time anyway. :)

so there you have it.

the leaf mobile.

and a peak into the linneman dining room. we framed some pictures of joseph before his dedication open house so that our home would look settled in. not that i have to substantiate myself or the picture of me with my son that you can see in the background of this leaf mobile picture.

and the tea set, a wedding present from miss sarah linneman, has been a fun way for me to attempt to have our table/home decor possess some femininity. usually there are stacks of books in the corner of the table you see pictured. the tea set is intended to offset the books and obtain a balanced feel of both a man and a woman live in this home.

but anyway.

i was thinking today that if it brings me this much joy to make little things such as whale garland/magnets and leaf mobiles, i should do it more often. my next project is wine bottle vases. maybe. i just saw the word hack saw in the instructions. i don't want to get too ambitious, although i do have two bottles collected for this project already.

in other news, jeremy, joe bourne, and i returned from a trip to louisville, kentucky early this morning. very early this morning. both joseph and i slept the entire drive home while jeremy drove and conversed with the other two guys in the car. yep, four adults and one baby in a honda accord for six hours. it can be done. we originally expected this trip to be the finishing yes on a decision to move to louisville for jeremy to complete seminary at southern, but it's not looking that way as of right now. we may just continue living in columbia until God calls us to india, but that's another conversation/post altogether. i'll let you know. :)

november thus far

so,

-my hands smell like joseph's burt's bees baby bees wash
-chocolate chip ice cream with a cookie dough ball mixed into it sounds delicious
-jeremy is eating donut holes and just asked if it was okay
-life is better with ten inches less hair
-i just witnessed my husband close a carton of donut holes, open it up, sneak another one, and close it again. and i don't think he knows i saw it all happen :)
-fun-size halloween candy is actually pretty fun
-i should probably consume less sugar in life
-hmm
-i made a leaf mobile last night
-for the first time in marriage, i emptied the dryer of clean clothes and immediately folded them
-i do think that existence is just that much more enjoyable when you drink coffee because when you get to take it with you in the morning to drop off your husband at work, it's just so fun to have your coffee with you
-i think that's all
-love