The latest happenings

It's actually been a little while now since I've made a real post so how about some updates? Hmm..what's been going on around here. Well, David and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary last Thursday. We didn't do anything in the way of celebrating, but he did make me breakfast. By the time we got the kids' breakfast, changed their diapers and broke up a squabble over a hotwheels car, our bacon and eggs were nearly inedible they were so cold, but we were hungry so we ate it anyway. Half way through our meal, David was finished eating and begging to get down and play. We foolishly let him. Two bites later he was back with an anniversary present for us. "Chocolate spilled" he said. Umm, yeah, that did spill out of your diaper, but honey, that isn't chocolate. He had delivered a poo nugget to our breakfast table and set it between us. We just stared at it for a minute as he took off running and then looked at each other. "Happy Anniversary, Hun. I can just feel that this is going to be a good one." I said. I got up from the table and followed the trail off poo nuggets through the living room to find my dear sweet boy.
Here's us then....
....and us now. Wait we don't have any pictures of us now. Our camera is jam-packed with pics of our super cute kids though. How about one of them?

Last Friday, I took the boys to the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary in Augusta with some of our friends. David loves feeding ducks so I knew he'd have a good time. My camera batteries died so I only got 2 pictures though. :( But I guess it's probably better that way anyway. It made me focus on having a good time with my kids and friends instead of hanging out behind the lens the whole time.

Max is getting cuter and cuter every day. Proof...

He's learning new things every day too. He's added army crawling to his list of skills now. He can scooch with the best of them. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks too. He's super close to movement there too. For now he uses his forearms and toes to push himself along. There really is no stopping him now. He's moving onto some 18 month clothes now (like the blue outfit in the picture). It's mostly the one piece outfits, onesies and jammies that fit a little more snugly than others. Jeans and shirts are still 12-18 months for the most part. He is in the same size diaper as David is now too!

We recently made the trip out to Paw Paw's Wine and Harvest Festival. They have a really good fireworks show and parade that the boys loved. We even made it through the super noisy fire truck section without tears or fears. David was pretty stoked about the candy throwing part. He's just recently discovered how tasty candy can be. He was out there with his little bucket scooping it all up. Too cute.

David also hit two little boy milestones recently as well. He succeeded in hiding "treasures" in his pockets that mama didn't know about (I accidentally put a rock through the washing machine) and he learned the phrase "watch this". He now shrieks "watch this, mama" and jumps off of anything he can climb on. I love his little adventurous spirit!

Just one of the reasons that little boys are great.

David has just started pretending and imagining when he plays. Yesterday he started a "fire" in my living room with a pile of shoes. He got a plastic ladle from the kitchen for a "stick" and sat for a good half hour at least pretending to tend his fire. He'd poke around a bit and then back up saying "Whoa! Hot!" then, when the fire died down a bit, he'd get back in there and poke around some more.

His "stick" caught on fire. See that little bit of "fire" on there? :)

He blew it out. My living room was spared of any harm.

This is way more fun than baby dolls and tea parties.

Housing update

It seems that the Lord wants us right where we are for a while longer. One of the two houses we were looking at renting is now not available. It was posted online for less than 24 hours before being taken down. The other is actually a duplex not a single family house and we've decided that just isn't what we want.

After looking over the finances and determining a budget, we've decided that it just isn't possible for us to move at all. We have a little extra because we aren't paying on David's school loans right now, but it's not enough to make up the difference in higher rent and cover the rise in utilities too. We also have installation fees to think about for our phone and internet at a new place and those aren't cheap either. The price we are able to pay for rent is so far below what people are asking that we are going to abandon the moving idea for a while. We will keep our ears open for that once in a life time kind of deal, but we are keeping our expectations low.

War paint

I really don't know where, but David has now found used coffee grounds and is rubbing them on his face and hair like war paint. He can't reach the trash or the coffee maker so I'm really baffled by this one. He's tricky!

It just keeps getting better...

He just ripped a tire off of a hotwheels car....with his teeth. I don't think I'm feeling strong enough to brave the library outing I had planned.

Parmesan cheese anyone?

David found and dumped out an entire jar of 'cheese sprinkles' this morning. He's only been out of bed for 12 minutes and he's already getting into trouble???? This is going to be a long day.

Dare I dream?

David and I have been looking for a house to rent all summer. So far nothing has turned up. We REALLY want and need more space for our boys. This little apartment feels really cramped at times. There are lots of factors to consider and lots of things to think about when deciding to uproot your family and move, the first one (in our minds) being location. We really want to move to a bigger place and then stay there for a few years or until we can buy our own place. We want to be closer to our families while not losing the convenience of being close to work, school, church, stores and all that stuff. We've narrowed down our prime location into 2 little areas.

Right now there is a house for rent in each of the 2 areas we've been keeping our eyes on. We have yet to contact the owners so I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it would be sooo fabulous if it worked out for us! It doesn't seem that either are exactly what we've been looking for in a house, but it's hard to tell that from just a picture and a few sentences. We would have to meet the people and walk through the house to be able to tell more. We have a long list of things we'd like in a house, but we understand that we'll need to be flexible and take what the Lord provides as well.

We're going to try to contact the owners this week. Pray, pray, pray!

Sunday family time

It's a fall Sunday which, in the Sager house, means football, comfy pants and snacky foods. Today we've chosen pizza so I don't have to cook. Yay! We started off by watching the last half of the Lions/Bears game then we moved on to the Packers/Eagles game. The Redskins/Cowboys game is on too late for us to actually watch so we'll have to skip out on that one. There is nothing I love more than my three boys. They make me so stinkin' happy! As you can see they are all decked out in their game day gear. David is showing his love for the Lions, lil Dave is sporting a 49ers jersey and Max is wearing Packers green and gold.

This video was supposed to be David telling you all about a touchdown and saying "Go Packers", but by the time I got the camera he had gotten caught up in the game again and all I could get from him was "David watching football game". Still pretty cute as he insists on going back to watching the game. He thanked me when I put the camera away. :)

Though there are still a few games to go it looks like we can pretty much determine winners already of our family's fantasy football league. David and I wanted to create teams to play against each other, but Yahoo fantasy sports has a minimum of 4 teams per league. We created teams for Max and David too so we could play. :) Yeah, it's silly, but it makes us happy. Right now it looks like David and David have defeated Max and I for week one. Rats. I guess there's always next week.

A Simple Prayer

There is something so sweet about the simple words of a child's innocently spoken prayer. A few days ago, David was (literally) bouncing around the house and just being David. He stopped in the middle of his bedroom, knelt by his bed and assumed the "prayer position". With his eyes shut tight, his hands folded and his nose scrunched, he prayed the sweetest prayer I've ever heard. "Jesus, sorry for naughty. Amen". With a quick hop he was back on his feet and playing as if nothing utterly adorable had just happened. I was amazed. He really is too much sometimes. It makes my heart so happy to see him grasping the concepts of Jesus and prayer. I really wonder sometimes what is going on in that little noggin' of his.

I have found myself in more prayer than usual lately (not that it's a bad thing) too. It seems that most of mine are confessions of a heart that isn't on track with God's or pleas for patience and mercy when it comes to my boys. I have missed so much church this summer and I'm really starting to feel it. I'm finding it really hard to plug into the Lord right now in my busy everyday life so I really look forward to the service on Sunday. With David's work schedule and the change in service times at our church it's been a lot of stress on me on Sunday mornings. Out of the last 14 Sundays I've heard only 1 message. We've been sick 3 times and missed church altogether, I've had nursery obligations 3 of the Sundays, we had an overwhelming weekend once and chose not to go to church and the rest of the missed Sundays I spent in the nurseries consoling crying boys, relieving separation anxiety fears or nursing Max. I...miss...church.

I am thrilled beyond belief that our mid-week life group is about to begin again. I am also planning on attending a once-a-week women's Bible study as well. I need me some Jesus.

Hungry and independent

I started Max on cereal at 4 months old. He moved onto pureed fruits and veggies at about 6 months old. This last weekend I gave him his first graham cracker and he LOVED it! The only problem is that now he thinks that 7 months old is big enough to feed yourself every time. Looks like the pureed phase is over! Bring on the chunky foods and crackers! It's not bad for him at all and I really don't mind it coming this soon, but it's just a little sad because he's growing up so stinkin' quick!

He really won't eat from a spoon anymore. He'll be hungry as can be and still refuse the spoon. It's kind of cute really. He will fuss and cry about it and I'll shove food in his open mouth just to get food in his belly and make him happy. Then he'll catch onto what I'm doing and he'll cry with his lips pinched closed real tight. It makes his big ol' cheeks stick out even farther. :) As soon as I pull out a cracker box or give him food on his tray, the tears instantly shut off and he's happy. He doesn't have the best pincher control yet so he tends to get frustrated easily, but he's too independent to let me help. Poor boy. I know from experience that life can be very difficult that way. :(

Good News, Bad News

Let's play a little game called "Good News, Bad News". For every piece of good news I share, I'll also throw in a bad or not so good one free of charge. Sounds fun right?

Good news: We had to take lil David out shoe shopping tonight. I found super cute skater sneakers (size 9!!!) for him at the very first place we stopped. Bad news: They weren't on sale. :(

Good news: David went the WHOLE day without getting a spanking yesterday. I really can't remember the last time that happened. Bad news: He made up for yesterday's missed spankings today. :(

Good news: The NFL season is about to start. Whoo Hoo! I love snackin' on Sundays and cuddling in front of the TV with my huz. Bad news: We only get Fox so we'll only be able to catch a fraction of the televised games every week. We're seriously considering cable again.

Good news: I bought some new cloth diapers and LOVE them SO much! Bad news: David can undo velcro so he can get the covers (though not the diapers themselves) off of himself and Max. Nothing messy has happened yet, but he talks about trying to get them off all the time. He like to pretend to change Max's diaper. He lays him down and fastens and unfastens the velcro straps over and over. I have to make sure they have clothes on now (we're pretty anti-pants around here in the summer) so he can't get to the velcro part.

Good news: Max has 3 teeth now. Bad news: He likes to use them. Chomp, chomp.

Good news: The whole fam went out tonight without a single meltdown, tantrum, fit or bout of screaming....little David and Max did well too! :o) We made it through Target and the Mall and it was relatively painless. Bad news: We had a little 'incident' on the way home. David was driving. He was trying to merge onto the highway in the construction zone and was busy checking the cars in the lane closest to him on the highway. They weren't moving to let him merge and he was moving too quickly to slow down. We plowed into the construction barrels and took off a side mirror on our grocery getter. :( Off to the junk yard we go....

Did you know...

...that cinnamon is dried tree bark? I did not. It was a fun fact on the back of my apple cinnamon cheerios this morning. I had to Google it because I didn't really believe General Mills, but sure enough all top 5 search results agreed that cinnamon is dried and processed evergreen tree bark. Who would have thunk it?

Focusing on the good things

Ok, ok, so I know I've been complaining a lot lately about David. While he's still driving me crazy every moment of every day, I've tried really hard to focus on how cute and sweet he can be. I know when he's older I'm going to miss this time, terrible 2's and all. It's seems nearly impossible to believe right now, but I'm sure it's true.

Super sweet moment #1: Playing army men with Max. I was doing dishes and David ran to get his box of army men out. He picked out 2 men, a jeep and a tank for Max to play with. That's pretty sweet. I like unprompted moments of sharing. Max loves and adores his big bro and I know David loves him too even though they sometimes fight like...well, like brothers.
Super sweet moment #2: Reading his favorite monkey book (Curious George) to Dog. He was flipping through the book telling Dog about everything he saw on the pages. Every now and then he'd stop and tell Dog "Shh, David reading.". He seriously loves that dog.

Bath Time!

Mama's Prayer

Written 9/1/10

I asked the Lord for patience
And then he gave me you.
How can you be so stubborn
When you are only two?
I battle every moment
As you fight to get your way.
Still I count it as a blessing
To spend, with you, my day.

My strength comes from the Lord alone.
This is my daily prayer:
My heart cries out to you, O God!
I know You're always there.
Show me how to act in love
And help my words be fair.
I open up my heart and home
And ask You make Your presence known.
Be by my side the whole day through,
And teach me how to show him You.