Mother's Day Weekend

I love this baby :) A few pics from my first mother's day weekend. What a blessing to be a mama - just look at this sweet baby!

Kate's Birthday Party

Here are a few shots from Kate's first birthday party. So many family and friends were there. It was such a great day. Kate is so blessed and so loved!

I promise she's mine...

Kate is clearly her own person. She is an individual, not just "half me and half Brett." She is unique and precious, created by God. One apparently unique trait - she doesn't want to try cake! Nikki offered her angel food cake a few weeks ago and she was not interested. We thought it was a fluke. On her birthday we tried to give her a cupcake, but NO! She was not having it. This video is perfect... It's hard to believe given those wonderful thighs. Give me the carrot please!!

Kate is One Year Old!

Wow. I can't believe it's been a whole year!

We had Kate's one year check-up today. She is 30 1/2" - 90th percentile for height! They said it's still too early to say that she will be tall; we need to wait until about 2 years before the growth chart stabilizes. But she's not going to be short! And she weighs 22 1/2 lbs - 75th percentile. Everything checked out well - she's very healthy!

More pics to come from her birthday, but a few thoughts on who Kate is:

Joyful - so full of joy! others are joyful around her

Loving - loves to be hugged and give hugs; a snuggler

Great sense of humor and silly laugh

Adventurous - curious, and loves to explore

Smart - a good problem solver

Loves to dance - can't help but move to the beat

Kind - cares for others (and her baby dolls :)

We love her so!

Discipline

I’m at a conference for work.  It’s a business conference where the focus in “Front End Innovation.”  The keynote speaker this morning was Jim Collins who’s written several books including “Good to Great.”  He is a great thinker & “business scientist” – he loves asking questions and studying data.  I found his talk very interesting, and there were several personal implications I walked away with which I thought I’d share.

DISCIPLINE was the most interesting principle.  He wrote a new book called “Why the mighty fall.”  It’s very relevant right now – he talks about tumultuous, difficult times and why some succeed and some fail.  What he found was, the key differentiator was discipline, people who are disciplined in good times are revealed as great in times of trouble.  Discipline enables you to be prepared for what you can’t predict. 

I feel like this is my new season.  I came out of a season of Rest, and I feel like the new season I’m being called into is Discipline.  I was reading a book called “Celebration of Discipline” which I’ve never finished.  My life lacks discipline.  Interestingly, Jim Collins found that often company’s goals are over-reaching, swinging big for home runs, instead of consistent, base hit after base hit.  He went as far as to say that mediocrity is driven by chronic inconsistency.

So, Discipline.  I don’t get excited about this.  It doesn’t sound fun.  But then, he brought it home for me when he connected Discipline & Freedom.  I’m VERY interested in freedom, so my ears perked up.  Collins said that the big win is marrying DISCIPLINE WITH CREATIVITY.  He believes that when you create a disciplined framework, freedom and creativity are enabled.

I need to think through ways to bring consistency and discipline into my life to 1) enable creativity, which leads to freedom and 2) to prepare me for what I can’t predict. 

Anybody interested in sharing some disciplines in their life?

Collins shared one he recommended – many people have “To Do” lists, but he thought the power was in a “Stop Doing” list.  Interesting, huh.

Wow - this amazes me!

Clearly, babies undertand more than I give them credit for...

Most of the calls I get are from Brett, and whenever he calls, I say to Kate "It's Daddy!" A few weeks ago she started putting her toy cell phone up to her ear and saying "It's Da-da!" It amazes me how much a 10 month old brain can process!

I caught her doing it one morning, so I got it on video.

What do you know about love?

Today I heard two songs about love.  See if you can guess which one I liked better...I'll give you a clue - one paints an absurd, unattainable, unrealistic picture of love.  The other one is real.  Here are the lyrics-

Natasha Bedingfield, "Soulmate"

"Who doesn't long for someone to hold?  

Who knows how to love you without being told.  

Somebody please tell me why I'm on my own.  

If there's a soulmate for everyone."

Alli Rogers, "Closer to the moon"

"My grandpa says commitment is the key to love.  

50 years of sometimes twilight, sometimes dawn.

He's says there were the years he wasn't sure about

But the love they chose was worth the pressing on."

Okay, in case you couldn't guess, I like the second song.  Unfortunately, I'd bet none of you have heard of it.  (I heard Alli Rogers at a concert - she was the opener.)  The first song, however, is all over the airwaves.  

The key theme for me is that LOVE IS A CHOICE.  This picture "you know what I want and need so I don't have to say it" is crap.  It's over-romanticized and sets up poor expectations.   It keeps us from actually CHOOSING love, which is what we have to do.  Choosing love looks like forgiveness, joy, pain, suffering, celebrating, etc. etc.  I guess it looks like choosing to keep going through the ups and downs, the good and bad.  I want to be making the CHOICE everyday, when it feels good and when it doesn't.

Decadence

Lately I've been doing some things that I felt in my head were "decadent."  Then, I felt like God said to me "Why don't you look it up and see what it means?"  So, I did; hold onto your cupcake...Here's what decadent means -

1.  characterized by decadence, esp. culturally or morally: a decadent life of excessive money and no sense of responsibility.  

2.  unrestrained gratification; self-indulgent.

Wow.  So then I looked up decadence - 

1.	the act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay: Some historians hold that the fall of Rome can be attributed to internal decadence.

2.	moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.

3.	unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.

Interesting that the fall of Rome was attributed to decadence.  America better watch out...or, wait, are we too late??

Playing for change

This is sweet...watch to the end to see the Mamelodi shout out.

http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/2/Stand_by_Me

"Super" hero?

Cincinnati has a "super" hero??  funny

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30445254

What a great Easter

We are so blessed to have such a great family. The video is one minute long, but for those who can't see videos, I thought I'd post a few pics...

A fun walk -

As an early birthday present, Kate received this red wagon from my grandma, the "rodeo flyer." It was from when Nikki and I were kids.

The egg hunt was a great success...

Kate found 2 eggs! (She had a tiny bit of help from me & Dora :

What snugglers!

Kate and Grandma love to read

Two people who love fun!

What characters we have here!

So sweet :)

Here's the one minute video..

-

Our brains are fascinating...

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Cutie pie

Look at this cutie pie with her Easter eggs :)

Thirst for life

You saw in the last video that Kate isn't a huge fan of spaghetti right now. But no one could question her love of water - look how excited she is in this video!

Adventurous

I love that Kate is so adventurous. I think that is a wonderful quality. One of the ways she shows her willingness to try new things is with food. To date, there isn't a single food we've given her that she hasn't tried. She does has preferences of course (cheese is her favorite food - she agrees with Auntie Em that everything is better with cheese.) You'll see in this video that her least favorite food so far is spaghetti...we'll see if she grows out of that.

Easter Fun

We had the best Easter.  We spent time with all of our family and friends.  I'll upload the pics soon, but I'm behind in my blogging...I will catch up, but I'm not sure when.  In the mean time, for those who want to see some of our Easter fun, copy the link below into your browser (Steven did a fantastic slide show.)

http://www.stevemanuel.net/Steven_Manuel/Photos./Pages/Easter_2009.html

What fun!

Here are my 2 favorite people, playing with a balloon. So precious!



Kate thought it was so funny!

The best toy ever!

When the weather got warmer, we took Kate outside to play. She had more fun with this stick than any toy we've given her to date!

What's new with Kate?

What's new with Kate? Lots! Here are a few new things -

She has 2 teeth

She has curly hair, just like her daddy

She is VERY expressive!She loved Valentine's Day

She knows how to crawl (at first she could only go in reverse, but now, look out world!)

Funfetti

Kate is taking an extra long nap (who knows - sleep issues abound, but I won't go into that now.)

Today I have a very important thing to say - there is nothing better than Funfettit cake! I discovered it in college at the Tri-Delt house (boy that could be a good post too - what it's like to live with 45 women in one house - yikes, what fun!) Anyhow, Funfetti cake is my very favorite cake. Don't give me Bon Bonnerie Opera Creme Cake (well, okay, you can give it to me :) but Funfetti is my fave. Nikki and Emily made it for Kate's birthday (her actual day of birth - one year is coming up soon!) Tonight we're having friends over, so I made up some Funfetti cupcakes.

Yum.

Kate is now up, so I don't have time to go into all the details, but YAY - Tara is taking care of Kate starting tomorrow! Yahoo! Can't wait for that goodness!

AND - Happy Birthday to Emily!!! We love you!