More Julian

Here are some more recent pics of bubba!



Cool Dude!




Decided to let Julian feed himself!



First trip to the park! He loved the swing!


I can explain! Jamie thought when Julian just wore jeans he looked like the guy from Twilight that turns into the wolf (sorry I don't know the series well) so he thought all that was missing was the Abs! This is Jamies attempt to give Julian Abs!

All things Julian

Jamie has been working at best buy part time now, for several weeks. One of the perks of working there is that he gets a great discount. When my lovely parents gave me our new camera for graduations it came with a 2 gb memory card. Needless to say with a new baby, we filled that really quickly! And it was hard to take video's with that small of memory. So Jamie decided to get a new 8 gb memory card. Lets just say, something that usually cost $50 was only $15! So we were excited. Anyway now that we have the new memory card, I thought I would unload all the pictures on the old one. So This post is dedicated to all things Julian!!

Julian is getting so big! He still a lean muscular baby, but he has gotten a lot taller! He crawls really fast. I thought by now he would be walking since he has been crawling and cruising for the last 3 months, but he seems very comfortable getting around this way, and has not even really tried to stand by himself. Which is fine with me, I am still trying to keep up with him crawling, I dont know what I would do with a walker. He still has only two teeth, but I think some others are coming because he is having trouble sleeping and that happened last time.

I cant get him to say momma, no matter how hard I try, but he does say dadda. He is definitely a daddies boy. He loves to hang out with Jamie. I officially have one of THOSE kids that LOVES to get into the bathroom, pull out the toilet paper, and play in the toilet water. Julian also loves music. I can usually get him to quit yelling or crying from singing. Funny thing is that he loves to hear his name to music. So I will often sing his name over and over with some familiar tune!

We are slowly mastering eating. Over the last several weeks he has learned to use his pincher grip and feed himself. He loves to hold his spoon, but has not figured out how to get the food to his mouth.

Well I will just post the pictures now. I might add some comentary with them,but for now enjoy the Julian show!


/>
I love his smile!



At our friends house Julian enjoyed looking outside and squishing his face against the window!




This is for grandma James. She made this sports blanket for Julain!!

I had more pics but my computer is being dumb, so I will add them later

Food for thought

Over the last year I have really started getting into cooking! I feel it is almost therapeutic. I have really enjoyed learning to cook new foods and learn new terms and the science of cooking. When Jamie and I first got married I struggled with making meals for us, unless it was some special occasion, mostly because I have spent the last several years just feeding myself. And those meals consisted of a lot of Oatmeal and peanut butter sandwiches. So I have really made an effort to build up my recipes and really take time to prepare delicious and healthy meals.

One thing I have noticed through this journey is how I am lacking in kitchen supplies! I never realized how annoying it is to have only two frying pans (one really small), a few good pots, and only three mixing bowls! Plus you also start to realize how nice it would be to have some of those "gadgets" that you see in the Bed Bath and Beyond catalogs! When Jamie and I got married we had a few gift cards to Bed Bath and Beyond, and I remember walking through the kitchen area, and thinking how I could go with out a lot of the stuff there. But I wasn't really cooking then, and now I would love to have many of those cool gadgets! Even if some of them aren't completely necessary. Like take a garlic press for example. Could I just cut up the garlic with a knife? Of course, but when you see how many recipes have garlic in them (and I do love garlic) you start to get sick of always smelling garlic on your hands.
Other things I dream of having... Food processor, a really nice cheese grater, Food thermometer, all those fun pampered chef things you see!

Any way I have decided that I am going to slowly start to stock up on some of these things. I just feel that if I am going to continue to cook,and enjoy it, it is going to require me to have more than one pan... and perhaps a garlic press

Christmas... Finnally!

So I have finally uploaded the pics from Christmas! I will let most of the pictures do the talking, but I will say that we had a wonderful Christmas season! My mom and older sister came to visit, we went to a Christmas party with a polar express that actually pulled us around three different yards and backyards, Julian got to meet Santa for the first time (and was a bit confused), Julian got many great present from family and friends, We had our traditional German Christmas dinner, and just relaxed and enjoyed eachother

Enjoy the pics

True Forgivness

I have always prided myself on being someone who forgives, or gives people second chances, sees the good in others. In high school and college, all my friends would tell me that I always gave people second chances, or I saw the good in them. So naturally I have felt that I was the forgiving type.

However, over the last several years, I have realized something about myself. I am a hypocrite! Sure I still give people second chances, I try to think there is something good in everyone, but the truth is, I really don't forgive people. I tell myself that I have forgiven them, but really I store all the anger and pain deep inside myself. Therefore I don't truly forgive them at all. In fact the opposite happens; I find myself alone having all these feeling of anger inside, not directed at a specific person at the time, but just the remnants of all the people who I have "forgiven"

If I sit and think about it I am still angry at high school students, I have anger towards the poor six grade boys that followed the little 3rd grade Stephanie around the playground taunting her telling her she was useless, ugly girl day after day, and the teachers who did nothing about it! I have anger for a family who didn't understand, and friends who looked the other way.

But most of all I have anger towards myself. I am angry that I didn't stand up for myself, didn't care enough for myself. I am angry that I couldn't form the words to make people understand. And I am angry that I let this cancer grow inside of me for 20 years.

A wise women told me 4 years ago that I should write this, but I didn't because I wasn't ready to let go of the anger. But today I am. From this day forward I am living a life of true forgiveness.

And it starts with me.

Stephanie you are forgiven.