Festivals and Big Boys

We went to a family festival today at the county fairgrounds. Found out about it on facebook. Amazing, huh? $10 per family minus a $2 coupon… then we bought pizza. Still, it was totally worth the $20 we spent today for a much needed holiday! Every “vendor” table had a candy or toy or activity for kids that was free. You could purchase tickets for a bouncy house or other games, but we had plenty of fun getting faces painted for free, building a lowe’s craft for free and then eating pizza while watching a silly man do a science demonstration for us with dry ice.

I thought at first that we’d have to leave early, because Jordan was immediately overwhelmed by the sights and sounds in the large, packed fair building. I tried the ergo (again) but this time pulled the hood up to cover his head and then bounced and bounced and bounced. He did calm down then and put up with us wandering around. There was really loud music playing over where we were eating and I was worried about him at first too. But we set him down on the floor… right on the edge of the big floor where a good 20+ children under the age of eight were dancing and stomping freestyle. And he was happy! A bit overwhelmed, perhaps, but not upset by it. He watched and crawled around. He didn’t eat a bite, which didn’t surprise us; his willingness to eat is pretty closely tied to his comfort level. All in all, it was a lot of fun. We forgot our cell phones and our camera…. sorry!

Here are the girls playing with some of their loot:

One person there gave us a card about public alerts. If you don’t have a home phone any more, if somebody wanted to contact people in your neighborhood about a public alert, they couldn’t. Well, unless you sign up your phone number to be associated with your address. Go to www.publicalerts.org. It works for the Portland, OR general area… not sure what you do if you live somewhere else.

Look at Jordan! He is standing up in the middle of the room… of his own initiative and at random times more often! He was really on a roll this evening, standing up three or four times in an hour. (I mean, he could just crawl around or balance on the couch, but he… well, he just decides to stand up sometimes!) It’s wonderful. His balance is really excellent. He can stand completely upright (not just bending over balancing) and he rarely “flops” onto his bottom when he’s tired. He knows to put his hands down first or to bend his knees to a partial crouch before sitting. We love to see our little boy learn.

(please forgive the funny bare legs here – we changed his diaper and didn’t put him all back together right away)

We went to our first midwife appointment on Friday! This is one of the few appointments Brian will take time off work to go to and it was a pleasant visit and nice trip. It’s good to reconnect with my friend/midwife who we only know during pregnancies! haha We got to meet her new apprentice and we both liked her. I do miss my old Kelly though. Kelly… if you read this… hello and I’m going to miss you each time! Anna even asked about you. 🙂

Things here are going well. I’ve struggled with this morning sickness quite a bit, so you can pray for us. I was given some sweet quiet time alone this morning and it was so encouraging to spend time in prayer and the Bible, remembering that God loves me, God is good, and God is able! A friend suggested that the book of Joshua was about encouragement and so I read the entire book. It is! Joshua believed God without hesitation and: Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)

Here’s a short video of Jordan standing: