Seven.  As of today, that’s how many years Brian and I have lived in Louisville. It’s so very, very hard to believe that we’ve been here this long. What’s even harder to believe is that this could/probably will be our last year here. Sniff, sniff.  No, it’s more like BOO HOO!!!!

Brian is in his final year of the PhD program at Southern and he’s hard at work on his dissertation.  Lord willing, he’ll graduate next May.  And then what?  We have no idea whatsoever.  We are praying that God would begin to prepare our hearts for whatever he has next for us and when the time comes that he would make his plans for us crystal clear.

So in honor of our 7th anniversary as Louisvillians, I decided to post 7 things about our last seven years here in the Bluegrass.

1. We rented this house for our first two years here, before buying and moving into the house we live in now.

2908 Bowman Avenue.  It was a great little house for us and I do mean “little”.  It was 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, but the attic was finished as one big room.  I had about 3 feet total of counter space in the kitchen and no dishwasher.  We have some great memories from our time there. (And yes, I used to have really, really short hair. I don’t know why.)

2.  My first, and only, job here: 3rd and then 4th grade teacher at Overdale Elementary School in Bullitt County from 2002-2005.

Brian’s first job here (Nov. 2002-May 2003):

Brian’s second job (May 2003-present):

3.  It took us a whole entire year to find a church home once we moved here.  Ugh…we have some really horrible Sunday School visitation stories if you ever want to hear them.  We fell in love with Highview Baptist Church and became members in 2003.  We attend their East Campus pictured below.

4. Since living here we’ve experienced an earthquake, two wind storms, and a major ice storm which left snow and ice on the ground for two weeks. And actually, all of those have happened in the last year. While it’s been nice getting to experience snow each winter we’ve lived here, the winters in Louisville are absolutely mind numbing.  It is gloomy, dreary, damp, cold, depressingly awful.  You almost forget that the sun exists.  Seriously, it’s that bad.  That’s probably the #1 thing I will not miss whenever we move.

5.  Both of our sweet kiddos were born here.   My doctors were from Women’s First and I delivered both precious babies at Baptist East Hospital.  I was always worried about having babies away from home but I could not have had a more wonderful experience than I had here.

6. About a year and a half after we moved here, Brian’s mom relocated here to also attend Southern. It’s been nice to have family in town and really nice to have a babysitter!

7.  Number of times we’ve been to the Kentucky Derby or Thunder Over Louisville since we’ve lived here: zero.

Sad, I know.   We keep saying we’re going to go before we move.  I guess it looks like we need to go this year!

I love to sew.  I’m not an accomplished seamstress by any means but I do love to sew.  I’ve mainly made things for Lillie Kate to wear but I’ve also made curtains and a shower curtain.  Nothing fancy, I promise.

One problem I always run into, though, is fabric selection. Where in the world do all those ridiculously talented people on Etsy get their super cute fabric???? Please, please tell me!  I’ve gone to Hancock’s, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn’s…you name it; I’ve looked everywhere to no avail.

Well, tonight I was reading the comments on a blog that I frequent and I noticed several people dropping names of the places where they love to buy fabric. I immediately checked them out and my head was spinning!    Finally, the mother load of adorable fabric has been found!!! I know I have a few friends that also sew, so I thought I’d share the links with you just in case you’re in dire need of some crazy cute fabric:

Fabricworm

Purl Soho

Sew, Mama, Sew!

I  love, love, love this lotion!  It is the best I have ever used.  According to it’s label, it was developed along with OB-GYNs to help address skin issues in pregnant and postpartum women.  It’s paraben, petroleum & mineral oil- free and hypoallergenic.  It says it’s even safe enough to use on your baby.  It’s not greasy at all and smells so wonderful! If you’re a mommy or mommy-to-be, I highly recommend it!

What’s that you say? I’m turning 6 months old today?…

…Well, hip hip hooray!

Here’s a little bit about what I’ve been up to these days:

I love to eat!  I’m enjoying rice cereal & oatmeal, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, avocado and just starting to come around to liking apples. The one thing I don’t like about mealtime: having to sit still in my highchair.

I still only have two teeth.  See?

Here’s where I like to hang out.

I love bath time.  I can do some serious splashing.

And I’m finally sleeping through the night-all night, every night.  That makes my mommy happy.  Very happy.

I stumbled upon this awesome website today that has the coolest Christian t-shirts for women. If you get a chance, check it out!

Here’s my favorite …

Lillie Kate to Brian: “Momma hates Hip Hop Harry.  She thinks he’s too hip hoppish.”

Yes, that was my explanation to Lillie Kate for why she was not allowed to watch Hip Hop Harry: he’s too hip hoppish. Not that she has any idea what hip hop is. But I couldn’t find a better way to explain to a 3 year old that a giant rapping bear who wears baggy clothes, a sideways hat, and a big round “H” on a chain which reminds me of Flavor Flav’s clock is not an appropriate role model. We’ll just be sticking with princesses and ponies, thank you very much!

This is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Even though my den looks like this …

and this…

 and my bedroom looks like this …

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It’s hard to believe that the Mister is turning five months old on Tuesday.  Talmage’s fourth month was full of big milestones.   Five days after he turned 4 months old he got his first tooth, followed by his second one less than a week later.  He also starting sleeping better at night and during the day.  In fact, today one of his naps was an hour and 15 minutes which is the longest he’s ever napped by himself.  Definitely progress!  He started eating rice and oatmeal cereal this month and loves them! He grabs the spoon and the bowl the entire time I’m feeding him which makes one very messy baby by the time we’re done. (Notice the cereal on his legs, too!  I’ve even had to dig it out of his ears before!)

But, perhaps the BIGGEST milestone of his fourth month was this …

 My big boy starting SITTING UP on his own!!!  I just can’t believe it.  He’s always been so strong and has loved sitting up since he was about 8 weeks old.  Whenever he would get fussy as a little baby, we could just sit him upright and he’d calm down. So I guess I’m throwing my baby books away because so far Talmage has been anything but a texbook baby.  Two teeth and sitting up at four months old?! I best just buckle my seat belt!

Now, on to the Sister …

I love this picture of Lillie Kate because I think that it captures so much of just who she is.   She is so much fun and has this free spirit about her.  Her favorite things right now are playing outside, playing with her brother, and playing “ponies”.  She is OBSESSED with My Little Ponies.  See …?

She keeps Brian and I in stitches all the time with the things she says.  We often ask ourselves, “Were we this funny when we were 3?” Brian got a haircut a couple weeks ago and he had spiked it up kinda like a mohawk.  She thought it looked hilarious and called him “Mr. Pointy Head” for days.  She’s currently back into a phase of being on a first name basis with me, but for some reason Brian’s still ‘Daddy’. Today I poured her some milk and after she drank it she said, “Thanks, Steph.  That was delicious.” And a few weeks ago I was on the computer and heard her rummaging around in the kitchen.  A few minutes later she came to me and said, “Bless my heart.  I was so hungry I had to sneak into the kitchen and eat some yogurt.” Classic Lillie Kate.

When I started this blog, I created a category titled “Favorite Things” with the intention of blogging about what else…my favorite things.  I was looking at my blog recently and realized I’ve only written one post under this heading.  So in an attempt to do justice to this poor, underrepresented category, here’s post #2…

Have you seen the commercial for this product?  It shows two of the exact same shirts: one washed 30 times in Tide Total Care and one washed 30 times in “a leading detergent”.  The shirt washed in Tide looks brand new and the one washed in the other detergent looks faded and worn.  I’ve used the same laundry detergent for years and I was a little reluctant to try this one because I usually like to use a “free & clear” detergent without the perfume and dyes.  But, I’ve noticed for a long time that some of our clothes look faded and some of my sweaters had terrible pilling so I thought it was worth a shot.  I guess since it’s in my “favorite things” category you can easily figure out that I LOVE it! My clothes feel so soft, the smell is not overpowering, and the new clothes I’ve washed in it still look brand spanking new.  The only thing I don’t totally love is the price, but I figure it’s a trade off considering my clothes will hopefully hold up better.  You can click here for a free sample.

Another new friend in my laundry room is Clorox Oxi Magic.  I tried this several months ago when I was trying to get a stubborn stain out of a pair of LK’s pants.  It was the only thing that finally got it out.  It works great on all kinds of stains. Sometimes a stain might not totally come out after the first wash, but usually if I spray it again and run it through a second time, it always comes out.  There hasn’t been much it hasn’t gotten out.  And just in case your wondering, it works wonders on baby poop stains.

It was this time last year, April 4th to be exact, that we found out we were expecting our second child. We were excited about this new little life but a few weeks later that excitement was majorly dampened by some stressful financial news. We found ourselves unexpectedly without maternity insurance and had no idea how we would pay the medical expenses. Long story short (you can read the long story here), a month later God provided us with insurance that included maternity benefits and a huge burden had been lifted.

Now, I said that God provided us with insurance but I didn’t say that the insurance was ideal. It had a HUGE deductible and once the deductible was met, it only paid 80% of the expenses. We were very thankful to have this insurance because it beat the heck out of paying for having a baby totally out of pocket. But, it still meant that having Talmage was going to cost us a pretty penny…and it’s not like we have lots of extra pretty pennies lying around, especially since we live off of Brian’s salary alone and we are also paying for his tuition at Southern. God had always provided for us in the past and we just had to trust Him that he would do it again.

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