so long Snag

I interrupt the posting of irresistibly cute pictures of the kids for this:

I like to call him Snag. My husband broke his tooth this week while eating pizza. Unfortunate but quite appropriate for him, I suppose. I'm surprised it wasn't a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich. I digress.

So Unfortunate Tooth Incident #1 occurred when he slammed the heck out of his face with a tennis racket in high school. They had glued the original broken tooth back on and said it would probably last a year. He's lucky the glue lasted until now, and we're extra lucky the dentist was willing and able to reglue his original tooth back on this week, thus saving us a small fortune from the dental expenses that could have been.

This was quite a look for my lovely husband, but I think we are both grateful to have his full dentition back.

what a difference four months makes

Today is Mary Grace's four month birthday. In honor of the occasion, I decided to take some celebratory pictures. Here is what transpired...

maybe he really is listening...

This morning, my heart just about melted.

We were playing in Carson's room with his Hide 'Em In Your Heart CD on when Carson abruptly halted what he was doing and started chanting "me book me book me book". He ran to his bookshelf and went on a rampage looking for a book that clearly was in his mind. Finally, he found his book the Lord's prayer and brought it to me when I realized that the lyrics of the song we had been listening to were... yep you guessed it... the Lord's prayer.

We read the book- Carson's hands clasped the entire time- and as we both said "amen" at the end, I thought to myself... "maybe he does pay attention after all."

I want Carson's little mind to be so saturated with scripture that even in the midst of piles of toy trucks and trains, he will be acutely attune to "our Father who art in Heaven." This was just what I needed to press onward.

snowed in

Top Five Things About Our Weekend Snowed-In:

5. Whoopin' Matt's tail in Scrabble... again.

4. Successfully implementing a new potty training reward system. We're detoxing our rotten toothed son of the "get candy every time you pee in the potty" bribery plan and are now rocking the Blues Clues potty sticker chart. Wild success so far.

3. Staying in sweats/PJs for an entire 48+ hours.

2. Having family church at home yesterday. Yeah, JD's online sermon was sweet, but I think it was the "sermon" that I "preached" entitled "Be Like Jesus: Perform Acts of Service" that really shook things up. :)

1. Spending more unhurried quality time with my family than I have in a long, long time.

a sad goodbye

Last night was a somber night in the Allison household. As we downgraded our DirecTV to the barebones "Family" package, we bid farewell to hundreds of channels including ESPN (gasp) and TLC (so long Duggar family). We knew this day was coming. Our year and a half of a good promotional price was up, and we couldn't justify paying the full price for the best channels when we have little mouths to feed and my stinkin grad school loans to pay back.*

As I was activating our new account, I was told that our new plan would take effect within five minutes. When Matt heard this, he sprinted into the living room to savor five last minutes of ESPN. As I pushed the "activate" button, I heard Matt sigh and say "well, that was fast".

Some of you naysayers might be thinking to yourselves, "If those Allisons are so sad about dropping their satellite plan, how are they going to last living with some tribe in Africa?" And to that I say... oh hush up! I never said this was going to be an easy process for us.

And for the record, I still am not willing to give up DVR. I just can't yet. I will if God tells me to, but I think He likes it just as much as I do. :)

* The IMB requires that we pay back at least half of my student loans before we go on the mission field. This is a bit overwhelming for me to think about, but I know God provides. In the meantime, if any super benevolent rich people are out there reading this and feel compelled to give to the cause of "Operation Pay Back Catherine's Student Loans Because She Saves the Lives of Precious Little Sick Children Every Monday and Thursday" please feel free to contact me. Just kidding... sorta.

preparing for the workforce

Carson explored potential career paths this morning. Current options include:

1. Bus (or truck/race car/boat/anything that goes) driver

2. Nurse practitioner (who needs their MD anyway?)... one that kisses booboos away

3. Sous chef (one who serves cheese, goldfish crackers, fish sticks, and cookies)4. Marine biologist5. Missionary (I asked him to point to the part of the world where he wanted to live. He pointed to some super remote island I've never heard of. Yikes.)
Meanwhile, Mary Grace was content just sitting and looking cute. Except when she started freaking out and getting hungry. Since Carson was content playing with blocks, I decided to hide away in a quiet corner, grab my nursing cover and feed the chunkster. About thirty seconds later, Carson took off as fast as those two little legs could carry him, thus forcing me to pull a Michelle Duggar and nurse on the fly. The excitement never ends around here.

pics and things

Randomness, in pictures...

1. I love my girl in some hot pink.2. And I'm loving these shoes that The Giver of The Pearl Bracelet also bestowed on Mary Grace. Matt says they are "gangsta", but I kindly informed him that nothing made by Laura Ashley can ever, ever be gangsta.3. Mary Grace is a porker. I stuck her on the scale the other day and it said she weighed over 18 pounds... BUT she was fully clothed and in a wet diaper, so we shall see at her 4 month visit soon.

4. "Bear" apparently has a hole in him. This is how we have found Carson's room every morning. I hope my son's love of "de-stuffing" his beloved Bear is not pathological behavior.

5. This is how Carson left the house yesterday, shades and all. He thinks he's hot stuff or something.