My spirit rejoices in the Lord my Savior!

Ohh how beautiful are little ones, and even more so when they do something that points to God. Last night Chris, John-Paul, and I sat down for dinner. Once we put the last plate on the table John-Paul put his right hand to head, continued to his belly, left shoulder, and his right... He made the sign of of the cross on his own because he knew it was time to say the blessing! At that moment my heart sang with joy. Our little boy is learning the faith! Thank you God for little blessings that bring such joy!

Dewberry Farm Pumpkin Patch

John-Paul and I went to the Dewberry farm pumpkin patch on Tuesday. The kids got to run through a (make shift) pumpkin patch and pick out a baby pumpkin. John-Paul thought the baby pumpkins were balls. I had to remind him serveral times not to throw the pumpkins because they could break open :0)

After a few minutes he found one and was heading back to the tractor.

After the tractor ride the kids got to play around the farm. First John-Paul crawled and jumped on big inflatable jumping bags.

Then John-Paul decided he wanted to ride the cow train that was pulled behind a tractor, play in a big black tube, and kick a big ball in a pen of hay.

What a day for a little man who LOVES to sing about farms :0)

John-Paul can talk!

This morning I was working with John-Paul on saying different family member's names. See if you can tell what he is saying :0)

John-Paul and the "Big Kids"

John-Paul LOVES to play with the "Big Kids". Each Tuesday we have a play date with some great Catholic moms and kids. John-Paul is one of the younger kids, but he thinks he is as old and as capable as the oldest ones there. Today we all met at a park and the older kids learned about the Sts. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. After the little lesson the older kids played a game of tag that went along with the lesson. When John-Paul saw the other kids running around he decided to chase them. It was soo cute watching John-Paul laugh and run after the older kids who were flying past him. He had such a fun morning!

Yogurt

Last week I made a big pot of yogurt so I decided to let John-Paul try to use a spoon all by himself. It started out ok but then he decided his hand would be a better mechanism to use.

Galveston

On one of Chris' days off we decided to drive down to Galveston. We enjoyed a morning on the strand window shopping, eating lunch,

and an afternoon in the Gulf. This was John-Paul's first time at the beach! He had soo much fun being pushed over by the waves in the big salty "bathtub" :0)

He even made friends with some locals.

Daddy's Day Off

Since Chris gets about four days off a month we try to make those days as fun, relaxing, and memorable as possible. So on this day off we started out by sleeping late... John-Paul let us stay in bed until after 8am! After a healthy breakfast of homemade yogurt and granola we headed off to the local Put-Put place. We thought going early in the morning would make it enjoyable in the excessive summer heat, but we thought wrong.





John-Paul did a great job playing his first game of put-put. He made several holes in one (by dropping the ball directly in the hole) :0)

After put-put we went to lunch at Star Pizza, Costco, and St. Arnold's Brewery. All in all we had a full day of fun with Daddy!

Heat Advisory and Saving Energy

So for the past few days we have been under an extreme heat advisory. With the extreme heat a record energy use has caused the City of Houston to ask people to cut any non-essential energy usage or a black/brown out might occur. I decided to take that to heart yesterday and refrained from washing clothes, running the dishwasher (except for once that night), opening the back blinds, leaving most lights off, and not cooking dinner :0) So when Chris got home I informed him of my decision to follow the request to save energy. We decided our civic duty would be to go to Red Robbin for dinner.

For those who aren't familiar with Red Robbin they have unlimited french fries! We tried to get John-Paul to eat some healthy avocados, but he opted for the fries. I guess I can't blame him.

Look at those cute guys enjoying the heat advisory and request to save energy. I can't wait to add one more to the bunch :0)

Strawberry Yogurt

This week I decided to try making yogurt! I found a yogurt recipe you make in the slow cooker, so I tried it. (http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html) I was a bit scared as I was making it because I was half a cup short of whole milk and had to substitute that half a cup with 2% milk. I let the yogurt sit in the fridge for a day to solidify a bit and then I tried it. I fed some plain yogurt to John-Paul and it was a bit sour. I added some blended strawberries and it was OHH SOO YUMMY!!!!!

If anyone decides to try something new I would suggest making some yogurt at home. It tastes great, it is easy (as long as you make it in the crockpot), it is better for the environment, and it is soo much cheaper than buying it in the store.

Tuesday

On Tuesday John-Paul and I tried out the local kiddie pool. I was excited to finally get a chance to watch John-Paul play on the cool slides and other water toys, but after a few minutes of "playing" (this could read "falling") in the kiddie pool I realized that he isn't old enough for those toys yet. So we gathered our stuff and went to the splash pad next to the pool.

In the end John-Paul ended up having a blast chasing the water and other kids around the splash pad. The little guy is soo cute when he finds a new water sprayer that he finds interesting.

When we got home it was time for a snack... WATERMELON time! John-Paul loves this sticky treat :0) The way we eat it at home is 1) take off all clothes except the diaper, 2) put John-Paul in his highchair and make sure it is not by the carpet, 3) cut up watermelon into little cubes, 4) give the watermelon to John-Paul and enjoy the show.

I am always amazed at how much he can eat. I bet he ate a quarter of the entire watermelon on his own. I am grateful that John-Paul is open to trying new foods. I guess I should present as much healthy food to him as possible before he gets into the picky-eater stage.

Hello Blog-isphere

Up until now I have been a pretty avid blog follower with no intention to blog myself, until today. Today John-Paul was doing his normal funny stuff and I realized I should blog this stuff for those who want to keep up with the ' Pearland Neumanns'. So here it goes...

Today Chris is on the late stay shift (this means he goes in at the normal time 6:30am and has to stay until 8:00pm) so I decided to take John-Paul to Froberg's, a local fruit and vegetable stand. We picked up some pretty veggies and a large and heavy watermelon. When we got home John-Paul tried to help Mommy by attempting to cary the watermelon to the kitchen.

(I just noticed there is a grey bar at the bottom of each picture. Does anyone know what causes this or how to get rid of them? It almost looks like the picture didn't upload all of the way).

The little guy is soo funny! I hope yall will enjoy the updates about the little guys (John-Paul and baby Neumann) and the big kids (Chris and I).

I hope everyone has a happy and blessed seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time!

No Cry Sleep Solution II

Ok so I totally spoke (wrote) too soon! About the time I clicked "post" John-Paul began crying. I now understand this is not a one day fixer. Tonight it is just John-Paul and I while Chris is gone for an interview. I started the bedtime routine at 5:30 and it took us until 9:00 for him to stay asleep in bed. I am praying that this will last until morning, but God likes to give me an opportunity to work on patience and loving service in the middle of the night... 9:35pm and the crying is starting again. Please pray for us!

No Cry Sleep Solution

After about 7.5 months of winging bedtime we finally decided to get serious. While I was pregnant I read tons of books about babies, but with the beautiful chaos of life we never put the written advice into practice until last night. A beautiful friend, Laura Barker, gave me the book No Cry Sleep Solution at a baby shower. Like all of the other books, I read it while I was pregnant, but picked it up again when we became desperate for John-Paul to sleep. The first night we began the bedtime process around 6:30pm and with sincerer effort from Chris and I and tons of crying from John-Paul we cut our loss around 8:30. At this time we let John-Paul fall asleep on Chris' chest like he had done for the past few months... But tonight, on day 2, I am BLESSED to say John-Paul fell asleep within 30 minutes of starting the bed time routine! Thank you God for people who have been there, done that, and share their hard learned knowledge!

Mother Mary, St. Anne, St. Monica, and Momma please pray for us and for John-Paul to continue his peaceful bedtime sleep routine!