My son, the fish.

Well, first, here's THAT face again! (Yes, my son is wearing a bucket on his head and yes, I put it there.)














But, now on to the real reason for this post. IT'S SUMMERTIME!!!!! We hit the ol' Dollar General and spent $7 on one of these little plastic jobies. I wasn't sure how Jude would take to it since he screamed like his hair was on fire at the fountain in town and all we did then was put his toes in.

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Simply put, Jeff rocks today for staying home to take care of me when I am not feeling well. O.k. really he is staying home to take care of the boy, so that I can mostly focus on taking care of me and only have to worry about feeding the boy. But, still, when I am sick, that is the one thing I need more than anything right now - to make sure the boy is well cared for. Otherwise I won't rest.

Practice

So, here is Jude, making THAT face again. Also, if you'll notice, he's pulling on his pant leg.














This apparently is a habit that he has fallen into lately. I kept wondering how in the WORLD every time I put pants on him, THIS:














would happen! I was always seeing him with just one snap at the bottom of his leg undone. I didn't know how it was happening until I saw that previous picture.

This is just one from our photo shoot that I really liked. Once I realized that you could see his reflection, I had to include it! Plus, I just like how he is trying to grasp something with his thumb and forefinger. This is an important development. Did I mention that he has begun to feed himself a few cheerios here and there?














And here is the latest development. I expect that it will take a while for it to completely come to fruition, but here's my boy practicing his crawl! He is kind of figuring out how to get his knees under him (a little bit) and pushing with his feet while using his arms to elevate his upper body up high. Woo hoo! Go Jude!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . .

What do you do when mom doesn't give you a toy to chew on?














Well, chew on your own lip, of course! Anytime I was just holding Jude or he was just sitting (on the floor, in the saucer, in the highchair, etc) this was the face he pulled. All.day.long!














Guess I should always make sure he has plenty to stick in that mouth!

I am losing my mind!

It is 6:33 and I was just sitting here reading one of the blogs I follow and my heart fell into my stomach and I was thinking, "Oh my goodness! Where is Jude."

Um, yeah. Lisa, he's in bed. You just put him there 18 minutes ago.

In my defense, he usually doesn't go to bed until between 7:00 and 8:00, but today we were busy, he had all three of his daily naps by 3:00 and it was hot an humid, so he was just plain old tired by the time we got back from Travis's barbecue. But OMG (goodness) where is my brain?!

See!

I told you Jude was a good photographer!














O.k. Actually, it's just getting really hard to get good close up shots of the boy these days because he wants.to.grab.EVERYTHING that comes near him! Cameras, sonic cups, reusable grocery bags, hair, faces, dog lips. . . You name it, and I bet he's had a handful of it here lately. Here's proof:

BTW, you do know that you can pause the music on the blog by going down to the music player in the side bar and clicking "pause," right?

I got a whim and put Jude's newborn hat on him the other day. Uh, it fits a little different now, don'tcha think?




























Lastly, here's the boy attempting to crawl. He really was doing a LOT more than this, but then the camera came out and he lost focus:-(

"My Husband Rocks!" Anniversary Edition

Let me tell you about the absolute best anniversary weekend that we have ever had. Of course, we always have GREAT weekends when we go to The Mountain Laurel Inn. But I wasn't convinced this was going to be a nice, relaxing weekend, spending our anniversary with kid in tow. You know, the whole, nursing baby who won't take a bottle most times thing. But Jude was a perfect angel and quite the charmer when ever we were out and about and he took GREAT naps back at the Inn.

Jeff rocked because he hauled that nearly 20 pound boy around in the Baby Bjorn all over the place. The Rhododendron Festival, DeSoto Falls, through the HUGE antique store. You name it. He also practiced the skill of eating with one hand while holding the boy with the other. This meant that I got a little break from doing this myself.

We decided to stay in the room called The Apartment this time around. We usually stay in one of the down stairs rooms, but this one, though up quite a flight of stairs, has a bedroom, a little "living room" with a day bed, recliner, and kitchenette (a small fridge, sink, two burners, and a microwave). It was perfect! We just plopped Jude down in the bedroom for naps and bedtime and we got to have mommy and daddy (er, I mean husband and wife) time in the living room.

Here's Jude charming Sarah, the owner of The Mountain Laurel. He even convinced her to hold him one morning during breakfast so that Jeff and I got TWO (!) hands to eat with!














Sarah's dog, Lickety-Split (Lickety for short) is the best greeter any B&B could ask for.














You would thinkn that they call her Lickety because she is always LICKING.



















But, no. It has something to do with her taking off lickety-split the day the trainers brought her to Sarah for the first time.














Here's daddy fixing Jude's sock after Lickety licked it off!














I think Jude might have a future in clothing ads. He kind of looks like a CK Jeans model here:-)














Daddy and Jude hanging out in the "living room"



















Oh, I forgot to mention the bean bag chair. Jude loved that thing and I bet he would have stayed there all weekend if we had just left him to his own devices.















































Here's a self taken photo as Jude and I were getting bored waiting for daddy to come down from the room. Jude is a darn good photographer, huh?














This was the best family shot we could get. Jude was just intent on grabbing for mommy. I think he looks hungry, if you catch my meaning!!!














Here is the top part of the falls and the dam at DeSoto Falls State Park. If there's been a bunch of good rain, we often take a drive into Mentone just to see the falls. Too bad since we've lived in LaFayette (less than an hour away) we've been in an extreme drought. As you can see, the drought has broken. This will make for a fun summer!














This is the bottom part of the falls. Jeff and I went swimming in this lake a few years ago, but it is a loooooooooooooooooooooooong hike down and I'm pretty sure Jude's not quite ready for that yet. Last summerr Vickie, Jeff, and Daisy swam in the upper lake on the other side of the dam. I sat in my lawn chair in the shade because it was 90+ degrees, I was 7 months pregnant, and likely to fall on my face in the mud.














Jeff and Jude hanging out by the guard rail in front of the falls.














Jeff and Jude infront of the upper lake. Every shot I got here either Jude was looking somewhere eles or Jeff was;-)














Mommy and Jude took a breather to pose with a weird tree above the lower lake.














Jude stole Daddy's hat when we went back to the van for lunch.




























So, it's not that we always plan on taking the kid along on our anniversary weekend trip, but this year it went very well.

The Reason I Blog!

Do you remember back when I wrote this post, and this post? (This post was written on that same day, but just because the photo was so great!) I never told anyone this before. Even though I really DID want to share those fall leaf photos with my mom (because I know how much she loves the fall leaves) but I really was just looking for an excuse to start a blog because I knew that we were going to start attempting to get this in the works.

(Pssst. . . If you didn't click on the links, do it now. It's worth it, especially the last one!)

80 - 450 Years

What a lovely weekend the tree of us had at our favorite getaway, The Mountain Laurel Inn. But more on that later (I promise!) because I HAVE to discuss something else right now.

As Sarah, the owner of the B&B came out to take us up to our room, she handed me these two water bottles as a "thank you" for coming to her place year after year.

Sounds pretty UNinteresting, right? There is an interesting part. Wait for it. . . The water bottles are biodegradable. The company, e-green.bz claims that while it takes normal plastic 80 - 450 years to break down in a landfill, this plastic will break down in 1-5 years in a "properly maintained landfill."

This idea sounds really cool to me. I was a little worried that it might break down in use and that some weird chemical or enzyme might leach into my water. However, the company claims that the "shelf life" is indefinite until put into that properly maintained landfill or compost pile.

I did not become passionate about recycling and not using unnecessary chemicals until, of course, I had a child. Now, all of a sudden, the importance of these matters sits on me like a lead balloon. Will I leave in my stead a trash heap for my children to deal with? How is that honoring to God who trusted us to be good stewards of the resources he allots us? I lie awake at times thinking about stuff like this now.

So, I don't know if this plastic water bottle will really make a difference in the scheme of things, but I am tempted to buy one and throw it in the compost bin, just to find out:-) If nothing else, it is a number two plastic, so I CAN take it to the recycling center here.

It's not that Jeff doesn't rock. . .

It is not that Jeff doesn't rock, but we've been getting ready to go away for our anniversary weekend and I didn't get time to think of what to say.
Jeff planted a rose bush for me for Mother's Day and now we are off to The Mountain Laurel Inn in Mentone, AL to celebrate 7 great years. If that doesn't rock, I don't know what does!

(Now, if only I fit in my wedding ring right now. . .)

The Grass is Always Greener. . .

Guest blogger, Jude here today. I want to tell you about a totally amazing new experience I had today. Of course, most of my experiences here lately are new ones! After dinner this evening, mommy, daddy, and I went out to the back yard to enjoy the spring weather that actually felt like spring instead of being 80 degrees. Well, before you knew it, mommy put me down on this green fringy stuff. It was kind of tall (everything is tall when you are only two and a half feet) and daddy said that was because of all the rain we've been having.














At first, I wasn't too sure about this stuff. Mommy said it was called grass, and she seemed pretty excited that I was sitting in it. She's a little loopy.














After a minute or two, I figured out that I could squish it between my toes. That was pretty cool!














Until I realized that it was kind of itchy! Plus, can you believe this?! There were BUGS in there. Mmmm. Bugs.














After my dingle-head parents realized that they had placed me facing into the sun, they decided to use their shadows to help me look at the camera. I decided just to look at daddy instead.














Then daddy tricked me and stepped behind mommy. This picture only looks like I am cooperating.














Over all, I rate this experience a 9.5 on a scale of 1-10.














Mommy back again. WHEW! Jude totally hijacked my computer! That's one sarcastic kid I've got there, huh? Well, I know watching a kid wiggling his toes in the grass isn't that exciting of news, but his daddy and I enjoyed watching him enjoy it, so maybe you will, too.

Sittin' Pretty

Jude wanted you to know his BIG NEWS!

Look, Ma! No hands!!!










































Now, crawling. . . we're still working on that one. He just started today getting his little bee-hiney up about an inch or two in the air. So, since he usually progresses quickly once he starts figuring things out, I am guessing we'll have crawling down by 8 months. We'll see.

Please pray for the Freeman family

One of the blog babies that we pray for, Kayleigh Ann Freeman, went to be with Jesus after a courageous 10 month long fight. Please pray for her mommy and daddy and her siblings. You can find their story here

or if you are home tomorrow at 10am, eastern, you can watch them tell their story on The Doctors on your ABC station.

Please, please lift these parents up in prayer. Sweet Kayleigh was supposed to be making great progress then last month had a surgery that caused her to lose oxygen, rendering her brain dead. Now they are going home to a house filled with baby stuff, but no baby. Ask God to mend their broken hearts.

pflbbt! pflbbt! pflbbt!

Well, folks. It looks like we have a little copy cat on our hands. All morning long, (and eventually, all day long) Jude wanted to copy a noise that Daddy makes at him. We're wondering if this is Jude's new nick name for Daddy.

Don't tell me my kid doesn't have talent!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

This week, Jeff rocks for something that hasn't even happened yet. I am pretty sure I wrote about it in a previous post. Saturday, he has an excursion planned with Jude and I get the house to myself for a couple of hours! Ahhhh! Quiet. I love my guys, but I also love a little alone time now and then.

And for something completely unrelated, if you think of it, please pray for Jude. He started a new medication on Monday, but he still spit up today. Pray that the new medicine will work for him so that his reflux will be under control again.

Do you tweet?

If you're a twitter-er (tweeter?) feel free to follow us. (jroerdink is our name but we're under Jeff-n-Lisa Roerdink. Sorry, Ann. It didn't even occur to me that's why you couldn't find us.) Most likely, if you link to us, we'll link to you:-)

Baseball and Prevacid

Jude is ready for baseball season!

































Looking at these photos, it is hard to believe that Jude is STILL struggling with reflux related issues. In February, the doctor upped his dose of Axid because he was starting to spit up and do the fussy thing while nursing again. Then he was o.k for March and most of April. But then came the frequent night wakings, back arching, coughing, whining while nursing, and crying out in his sleep again.

Oddly enough, he gained almost a pound and a half during this last 4 weeks. Some babies will nurse more often when they are dealing with reflux. It's their comfort thing. And those solid foods he started a few weeks ago don't hurt the weight gain either.

So the new plan is a new medicine. Thankfully, it is NOT Zantac. We tried that back in February and he wouldn't touch the stuff. For a whole week there was more medicine on the outside of the boy than on the inside. That is when the dr. put him on a higher dose of the Axid. So, now it is Prevacid. This was day one and I am really hoping this works for him because it's a pill that dissolves in his mouth. This makes things a lot easier, quicker, and cleaner since there is no measuring and pouring of liquid.

Anyway, so much for the hope that Jude would grow out of the reflux by 6 months. I will be happy now if we don't have to keep up meds into the toddler years.