Where has the time gone?

I used to be SO much better at this whole blogging thing than I am now!  I used to have fun topics and creative titles.  Now, I struggle just to blog more than once a month!  This was such a great tool for us the first two years of Malachi's life and now I'm completely letting it go to the wayside...which I'm VERY sad about.  This is basically Malachi's baby book, because I just haven't been so great at keeping his up so I really need to get back with it to record some of the hysterical things he says and does on an (almost) daily basis!!!

As you can see with the last two videos I posted, he really is a ham!  As has always been, he's obsessed with music still and LOVES to dance and sing!  He's also been doing really well memorizing his memory verses for his new Sunday School class and got his first prize last Sunday for saying Colossians 3:20 all by himself!  They do the verses every month I think so in between, I think we're going to try to memorize some of our own.  Any suggestions on the next one we should work on???? 

As I mentioned (briefly) in my last post, we transitioned him to a big boy bed and he's done absolutely fantastic with it!!! He's only gotten out of bed once or twice after we've put him in...although for a couple weeks we dealt with constant yells of "MOMMY" or "DADDY" from his bed for a while after we put him down.  He figured it out pretty quickly that we weren't playing and he's done SO great since then! 

 

Although, it must be said, he doesn't always sleep the way I would!!! 

He's also a major blanket hound...the more blankets, the better!  haha

We also had a birthday party for my grandmother in January at my Aunt's house and then another, SURPRISE party for her in February so my aunt from Dallas could come!  For 70 years old, I think she looks fantastic and I'm glad that I have good genes to look forward to when I'm her age!!!

We've spent a few days at the park feeding the ducks and enjoying our time there and we've created a new tradition...Donut Stop - every Saturday morning!!!

 And yes, those are cheetos!  It's tradition in my family - Ducks LOVE cheetos!!!

 

Here's Malachi and Kadi Jo at the park with Lolli one pretty (albeit windy) day!

 

We've enjoyed beautiful days at the playground waiting for Daddy to get off of work...

  We've gotten our first baseball cap... 

 We've participated in Crazy Clothes Day at Daycare...

 We've helped Lolli and Pops at Sams... 

 And yes, we've had our first ankle sprain...which led to our first trip to the doctor for a possible broken bone and an X-Ray! 

Finally, we got our family pictures made for our church directory and LOVE them!!! Here's a sneak peek...we didn't want to pay an extra $20 just to have the CD so here's a picture of our family picture...you get the idea though!!! 

We did meet our goal of getting completely out of consumer debt by March 15th (I need to update that) and March 15-19 were some of the BEST days for us!!  However, on March 19, my car died, as in the transmission completely went out!  So, we made the painful decision to get a VERY affordable used car which still required us to use credit.  We bought a 2006 Stratus with 70K miles for about $8,000 so hopefully we'll be able to have that paid off within the next few months.  However, we're going to split half our extra income to go to the car and the other half to go to savings to build our savings account up!  Of course, if the Lord chooses to bless us sooner rather than later with another pregnancy, we'll put that debt on hold until we get our fully funded emergency fund.  (So, if you want to pray specifically for that, I wouldn't mind!) 

We are constantly amazed at our sweet son and his heart!  He never fails to say "bless you", "please" and "thank you" and reminds us constantly to do the same.  His new thing is saying "May I..." instead of "Can I" or answering us, "Yes you MAY."  He has a very proper teacher who is teaching him SUCH great things!!!  Although he's a typical (almost) 3 year old in most ways...we haven't really had too much of an issue with behavior.  Of course, that doesn't mean he's perfect - in fact, the other day, he hit three times at daycare and the consequences were dire for him!  I showed up and he told me what he did at Lolli's prompting, so I took his favorite stuffed monkey away (Frosty the Snow Monkey...can you guess when he got that?) and put it on top of Lolli's filing cabinet.  I told him Frosty would have to spend the night at daycare all by himself - and, though that bothered him, it didn't seem to affect him as much as I was looking for.  So, I threw it away in her trash can.  Of course, THAT got his attention, but that's exactly what I was going for.  I felt like I had to make an impression on him and the next morning, he woke up saying he wanted Frosty back and he wouldn't hit anymore (without our prompting, I might add) so it did the trick.  (Of course...5 seconds after we left, Frosty was taken OUT of the trash can...I may be tough, but I'm not MEAN!)  Well...that was last week and two nights ago, Thomas heard him in his bed talking to Frosty saying "It okay Frosty, I not hit, you not go to dumpster okay?"  I guess it worked...and though it broke my heart to hear that, I'm glad that we can get his attention that easily!  Other than that, he's a VERY sweet, VERY happy, VERY handsome little boy and I feel SO blessed to be his mommy!!!!