Confused

I am not sure exactly how to fix things... Not that Charis was ever the queen of relaxed, quiet feedings, however, now feeding seems to be more complicated than ever. She fusses before I feed her unless I am already "prepared" prior to her even thinking about eating. She fusses and kicks during her feeding and after usually. There are happy times when she does finish contentedly, but... I can't tell whether or not she is just teething or actually hungry. I am just hoping that my milk supply is OK. I feel that I am keeping diligent about not doing and doing those things suggested!?! I would appreciate any helpful hints or bits of wisdom from those moms who might have or are experiencing similar situations!!! Should I just begin Charis on cereal??? She is 5 months and 1 week, AND she grabs at everything we eat. (She has even pitched a small tantrum when we didn't give her some.)

Of course, the whole problem could be because my little girl is very opinionated, it seems, about everything. I am surprised she has not yet intimated her feelings about the outfits I put on her! :)

Snow Day!!!

I can't believe how time flies. My dear little girl is already 5 months!!! So, I thought that I might just post some more pictures. I do know that I also promised some pics of the home to those folks in GA and elsewhere who requested that I do so, but please understand that we have not been here very long. I wouldn't want to embarrass myself too much with the disarray. It is difficult attempting to put things together when I have only been present less than half of the time since we moved to MI. So, at present you must be content with the outdoor shots... :) Enjoy!

Mummy's Favorite!

The Many Faces of Charis

Posing with Daddy

My Dear Little Snow Angel

Posing With Mummy

P.S. Many thanks to Grandma who allowed this snow day to be possible! :)

Curse or Blessing!

I have realized that certain acquired abilities are not so wonderful in time... such as: perfect relative pitch, strength, etc. I do bewail, yet also thank God, for all with which He has blessed me. However, I was thinking how much nicer it would be if I simply was not strong enough to lift sofas, tables, love seats, etc. My body feels like someone used it as a punching bag, bike ramp, or... I am not certain. However, I am grateful because we simply did not have the "man" power and thus had to improvise (side note: who needs a stair-stepper when they have three flights of stairs and lots of boxes and heavy furniture... woohoo, perhaps I will patent this idea???). We will be officially moved into our house as of tomorrow. I will have to come back and do some cleaning later in the week, but this will not be too much of a hassle as I will have to travel to work on Thurs, Fri, and Sat at least for the month of March. Some friends of ours are being very gracious and allowing Charis and I to "crash" there two nights a week!!! The main object of my prayers at this moment are that Charis would please sleep for a whole night. She has had a bit of a nasty cold and has allowed Mommy to sleep only about 7 hrs in the last two nights, if that. :( Oh yes, and the weather here is not exactly suitable for moving at the moment. So, please also keep in your prayers our safety as we transport belongings across slick surfaces and drive in not so wonderful conditions. Thank you all, once again, for listening to my chatter!!!

Home Sweet Home!!!

After living in an apartment for what seems likes years, Sean, Charis, and I are so excited to finally live in a location with a large yard, large kitchen, .... Well, everything seems large comparatively. :) Anyhow, we drove by today just before leaving MI and took some snap shots of the outside as we do not have a key for the indoors yet. The indoor shots will be sure to come, depending on how long it takes me to unpack!

Our Front Yard

We are on a main road, but these rather beautiful trees serve as a great barrier!

Our Cozy Home!

Play yard and ready made dog pen!!!

The Large Back Yard

News!

Dear All,

I cannot believe how time flies. Charis is almost four months old! I guess that is my new way of measuring time around here as most of my time is centered on our sweet little girl. Anyhow, I thought that I might give a brief update on what is happening here in Dayton, OH. I currently teach Tuesday from 2:30 -- 9, Thursday from 4-9, and Saturday from 10-4. Every other week or at least once a month I have been traveling to Indy, IN to teach some college level students -- not the easiest task when caring for a baby!!! As Sean has accepted the invitation to pastor a small church plant outside of Detroit, MI (don't worry Canton it is one of the top 20 safest cities), we also travel there Sunday morning and don't arrive home until sometime Monday evening. Sean and I are both currently using our Mondays to locate work, hand out resumes, meet with perspective employers, and in the past, look for housing. We just located a remarkable home, sitting on a one acre lot for a very reasonable price!!! We are so excited, and I am SICK of living in an apartment between school and marriage. God has really blessed in answering prayer in this area, and we are confident He will also provide financially upon our arrival if not in the next couple of weeks before the move!

Thus, I do ask for all of your prayers with such a busy schedule only to become more so with moving and tying up any loose ends here in dayton. I just realized today how soon we are actually moving. Next week I have my regular teaching plus rehearsals from 7-10 every night along with a trip to Indy on Wednesday. The following week we plan to attempt to move most of our belongings mid-week. Yikes!!! Oh yeah... one does have to put things in boxes at some point, right??? :)

Well, I do hope all is well with all of you. Thank you for posting all of the juicy tidbits on your lives. I appreciate it more than you know!!!

Love in Christ,

Katie

Question or... Wondering...

Hmmm... So last night I awoke horrifically over-heated and shaking. I don't remember a bad dream, but I do remember those times right after having Charis where I awoke quite warm. Last night I actually had to get something to eat and cool down. Btw I always wear light clothing, turn off the heat at night (it gets down into the early 20's and or teens), and only have one cover on the bed. So, I am not sure what happened last night but pray that it will not happen again. Any thoughts from those who have had children? Is this common? Just thought I would share and ask! Thanks for contemplating! :)

Photo Shoot!

Ok, so, I am just a little proud of my little girl despite certain aspects of babyhood. She is definitely strong willed and not exactly quiet about her likes and dislikes. She in fact can be quite defiant, and at this age... well, there is not too much to be done other than not to "hop to" her every desire. We decided to take more pictures of her, and here is the product:

Charis desires to post a disclamer stating that these hats were not her idea!!!

"Phew! They finally took those awful things off!" (Honestly, Charis really seems not to like hats unless it is her fuzzy, pink hat that feels exactly like her blanket, even then...)

"Come on guys!"

Just one more pose! Sorry it is a bit grainy.

Family Time

I have been quite delinquent in posting these pictures -- Sean, Charis, and I went down twice to GA for various reasons. We had a lovely time, and after each visit I was that much less enthusiastic about returning north, but it seems that God's will is for us to be living even further north as we will be shortly preparing for a move towards the suburbs of Detroit, MI at the end of February. Thankfully, it will put us quite close to my brother and his family but further away from everyone else. :*( Nevertheless, I am grateful for God's leading and am learning to be content within His will for me. What a blessing it will be finally to have a supportive and loving church home despite other geographical disappointments!!! ~~~ Please enjoy in no particular order:

"These toys are so heavy. How do you release again?"

How sweet!

Aunt Martha and Lukey's favorite gift -- wrapping paper!!!

Family Portrait Time -- Just "Gardners"


McCurley Family

Everyone!!!

Waiting sweetly for everyone to get in their places!

Charis and Grandaddy playing after her baptism.

Australian?... no!

My dear husband recently drove Charis to work in order for me attend to her desires during my scheduled break. He commented that it was most odd, but he actually had to honk at a long line of cars who just ran the red light. Sean mentioned that he pulled forward to go assuming that they would get the idea and then decided to honk before weaving in between two of the slowly moving vehicles. I laughed for quite a while once I figured out at whom he was honking, but felt also a little bit horrible! Can anyone figure out why?

Ever Growing!

My dearest little girl is getting soooo big. OK, I do know that this might seem somewhat amusing to those of you whose children are much larger, but to me, Charis seems to be maturing by leaps and bounds. She loves to play with Daddy, and her eyes light up especially when he sings her the "ABC" song. AND mommy, well, I am her food source, what can I say.

So, posted below are some pictures of Charis. Enjoy!

Bathing time and... Fun facts!

Well, It is difficult to choose out the photos we have been taking, but I decided to post a few during her bath time which I find pretty cute, though Sean wasn't as taken with them. :) We will let you decide!

I think that I might have surprised her on this one...

I had to be somewhat amused though the below picture does not do her justice, but Charis really LOVES to have something in her mouth to suck on at almost all times. She started to fuss while "sleeping" in her swing. I assumed it was because she had lost her pacifier. However, by the time I reached her to amend the situation, I found her furiously sucking away at the end of it. I found it even more amusing because it was pulling at the side of her mouth like one of those dentist tools they use to keep your mouth open during cleaning...

To complete this post, I thought I would give some details about Charis (and ME) that you might find somewhat funny.

1) I cannot seem to spell her name on these posts. It always comes out as: "Chairs."

2) Charis likes to sleep with me, even if she is the only one sleeping... The antics that keep me awake: punching me in the eye (which actually was slightly painful), pulling my nose, kicking me in the stomach repeatedly, etc.

3) I was sitting, feeding her the other day only to find the process somewhat painful after a period of time. Looking down I found that she wasn't even latched on correctly. Far from it... !!!

She was simply attached to me on the "side" which left a large red mark! :) This was not the only time, as I also found after one nap together, a few red marks on my arm. Charis simply loves to suck on .... well, anything! :)

4) One of her most recent, favorite pastimes is to look at the drawing we have of an Australian coastline on our wall. If I am sitting anywhere near the drawing, she cranes her head at any direction required to stare at it and smiles and talks to it! Hmm...

Reading already???

Well, we decided to begin Charis early in regard to her theological reading. We sit her behind these books for at least five minutes daily... one never knows what she might take in!?! Right? Just kidding, she did look awfully cute though, and we thought we might share the pictures with you. Sean chose her reading material. :)

This is our favorite!!!

Hmmm....

"I think that this might be a little over my head, Daddy!"

"Woohoo, finally, a concept I can grasp!"

"This Bible seems to be a little heavy!"

Oops... Apparently, Charis has not yet arrived at the portion of Scripture which explains that women cannot be pastors or teachers ... or very little girls for that matter. We will have to enlighten her.

I LOVE My New Bouncer!!!

Thanksgiving!

AND.... it is turkey time!!! Doesn't it look fantastic??? Ruth, my brother's mother-in-law was gracious enough to let us all hang out there and eat to our hearts' content on Thanksgiving day! We had a great time eating, playing games, eating desert, playing games, and just hanging out!

What a beautiful turkey! To bad I completely forgot to have some during the actual meal. :) Oops! I got to the end of my ability to place anything else in my mouth and than realized, I FORGOT to have turkey!

Sean enjoyed playing with some one's digital device. Others of us sat around, cooked, opened the much anticipated sparkling, Welch's grape juice....

What a gorgeous spread. Well... it looked better in person. Sorry about my camera skills.





Here we are playing "forgot-the-name". Sean is supposed to be the human tool with which my brother moves arms, legs, etc. in order to get his team mates to guess: changing a diaper. As one might anticipate from the below picture. Sean was not exactly comfortable with the proceedings and did not quite move correctly.

Above, and to the right is Sean's attempt while blindfolded to draw a kilt. His team guessed it. Hurrah!


Having a good time!

The day after Thanksgiving we went back over to Ren's mother-in-law's house and played more games, ate more, and even played some music together. I played a little violin but had more fun attempting to play the piano accompaniment to some cello repertoire. Ren did an awesome job, especially as he had not played since last Thanksgiving!!! Meghan loved it too. She tried to peer in the "f" holes and asked her Daddy," What's in there?" The next cute remark was her surprise at the size of Daddy's "violin." She was even more amazed at my "baby violin!"

Meghan even willingly shared her beloved Pooh sofa with Charis. When we first got to MI, Meghan was so sweet. I had to laugh. She asked me, during a diaper change, if Charis needed to borrow her "bootie cream" so that Charis would not get a "sore bum." :)

And last but not least a couple more baby pictures!!!

Hope you all everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! May God bless.