Such an Innocent look!

    It looks to me like Nehemiah is saying, "Who, me?  I didn't do it!"

Nehemiah is Growing!!!



      I cannot believe how quickly Nehemiah is growing!!  It seems like just yesterday that he was born, and now he is almost 10 months old!!  He is getting to be quite the character.  Even though he can't talk yet, he let's us know quite clearly what he wants by using his hands and other methods that he has developed:)!!  He does not crawl, since he does not like being on his stomach at all!!!  If he wants something he scoots to it!  He keeps us laughing with the things that he does.  It took us a while to get him used to going to bed early but now he is accustomed to it and sleeps almost 12 hours every night!  It is such a blessing!!  Tyler and I have a few hours of peace and quiet every evening to work on things that we need to work on.  Nehemiah loves to eat!!  His new favorite is corn bread.  When he eats it he makes quite a mess of himself!  Yesterday after he ate corn bread I found some of it up his nose!  A couple of weeks ago we had a beautiful day and he was able to go in an outdoor swing for the first time.  We were in someone's yard, and he was enthralled with their dog.  I could barely get one picture with him remotely looking at the camera! 

 This picture makes me laugh because this is the way his hair always looks...no matter what I do to it it sticks straight up in the back!

 

 Tyler and I took him on a walk on one of our nice days and he konked out before we got home.

This is a classic Nehemiah picture...he almost always has his mouth open and is always banging very loudly on something!



 

One of the girls at church was playing with him and put all these plastic toys around him.  He sat so still for 15 minutes because he didn't want to mess this up.

Before and After

     About a year ago, Tyler began "Eating For Life" when he realized the importance of eating right and being healthy.  Since that time he has lost 50 lbs.  During the time that he started eating right and exercising I was expecting Nehemiah.  After Nehemiah was born I realized that all the weight you gain during a pregnancy doesn't just dissappear the day after the baby is born!!  I was also about 40 lbs. heavier than I should have been so I  began to "Eat for Life" and exercise with Tyler.  As we ate healthy and worked-out our inspiration to keep on going was a picture that was taken of us at our 2012 Sweetheart Banquet at church.  At that point Tyler had reached his all-time highest weight and I of course looked pretty chubby myself since I was expecting a baby.  This year we had our picture taken at the Sweetheart Banquet again and it was funny to see the difference!!  One thing we have learned is that when you eat right, exercise, and do not have extra pounds on you have much more energy and feel so much better!!  

BEFORE

AFTER

 



Our Cute Little Guy

 This picture just makes me laugh!!  I sat him in the high chair with cheerios so that he would remain entertained while I cooked supper.  I had a craft project on the table which I had set on pieces of newspaper to dry.  When I turned around he had grabbed one of the paper pieces out from under part of my project.  Then he gave us this little look that you see in the picture.  Earlier this week he also grabbed a container full of peas off the table and was dumping them as I came around the corner into the kitchen!

I just love this picture of him in his froggy towel.  Bath time is one of his favorite times of the day!

Update on the Last Month

     I know that Christmas was more than a month ago now, but I want to show a few of our Christmas pictures.  We had a wonderful Christmas.  It was especially fun since it was Nehemiah's first Christmas.  He, of course, had no clue what was going on, but it was still fun.  He was much more interested in eating the wrapping paper than anything else.  We spent the 22nd with Tyler's family doing our Christmas together.  The 23rd was our church's Christmas Cantata in the evening, and on the 24th we flew out for Indiana!  We had such a great time there!  It just seemed like we did not have enough time there!!!  I was not quite ready to get back to "real life", but time keeps moving on!

This picture makes me laugh...Nehemiah was not sure what to do with all the presents!

 



As I said before, he was only interested in playing with the paper and eating it.

 



Tyler's mom made Nehemiah a quilt...it was beautiful!

 



Opening a present from Great-grandpa and Great-grandma Johnson.

 



I tried to take a nice picture of Nehemiah in front of the Christmas tree, but as you can see I did not have much success!  He was too intrigued by the lights to look at the camera.  I also was worried that he might try to eat the lights!

 

Tyler got the blessing of carrying this chubby baby through the airports!  He was very good on the airplanes, which we were so thankful about! 

 

Reading the gun magazine with Uncle David

 

With Grandpa on Christmas morning 

 

Aunt Lorena had a grand time with him!!

 

When we got home from Indian, Nehemiah seemed to have a little cold.  After a few days it got a little scary because he was barely breathing, no matter what I tried to do to help him.  I had to take him to the doctor.  They gave him steroid shots to try to open up his airways, and also put him on a nebulizer.  Thankfully after about 3 days he started to get better!

 

A new development in Nehemiah's little world was the addition of "real food"!!  He LOVES to eat, and would eat all day long if I let him.  He gets so excited every time he sees me carrying him over to his high chair.  He gets very impatient when Tyler or I pray with him before its time to eat!  So far he has gotten to taste: bananas, carrots (his favorite), avocado (another favorite), peas, green beans (least favorite), apples, applesauce, cereal bars, rice cereal, cheerios, beef & barley soup, frosting, and ice cream.  Cheerios are his "comfort food".  No matter what is wrong, cheerios make him happy again:)!

 



First time eating carrots

 



"Bad Guy" Nehemiah

 



 Happy Nehemiah! 

This is how we like to see him!

 

 

Only To Me!!

     As I go through life, my days are often peppered with what I would call my "Mary moments".  They are crazy things that seem to happen only to me.  I like to think it is just a coincidence, but I have a feeling that it is because I am a little ditzy.
     Today I had one of those moments in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and I think my friends who know me well will appreciate it.  I went to make some purchases for the church, and paid for them myself and was then going to be reimbursed by the church finance office.With that in mind I kept telling myself to make sure I returned with the receipt.  I put the receipt into the front of the cart, with something heavy over it so that nothing would happen to it.  Half-way through the parking lot, I picked up the very thing that was holding down my receipt without thinking.  Of course, my receipt quickly "took wings" and began to fly away.  Leaving cart and all, I began to frantically chase it through the parking lot.  Hey, someone may run off with everything I had just bought, but at least my receipt would be safe...maybe!!  As I chased it, I saw it take a dive under a van.  I got down on my knees to try to get it, but it was too far for my reach. I quickly ran back to my car and pulled out the ice scraper.  When I got back to the van (hoping that the owner of the van would not show up at that moment), I was able to  successfully retrieve my receipt!!  Victory at last!!!
     Thankfully no one ran off with my cart of groceries, no one hit it with their car, or any other such disastrous thing that may have happened!!  I am still wondering if anyone saw me (which is very probable in a busy Wal-Mart parking lot), and what they thought of the crazy girl in a skirt chasing a receipt.

Little Friends

     We are enjoying our time in Indiana with friends and family.  We have been very busy fellowshiping and eating (of course)...I'm afraid I added a couple pounds:).  Ashley was over here yesterday for a few hours with Emily and we enjoyed talking and catching up!  When Nehemiah and Emily saw each other they screamed with excitement...it was pretty funny! They became fast friends, and  sat together contentedly for quite a while "talking" to each other and playing. A couple of times a problem arose when they wanted the same toy, but we tried to quickly resolve the problem. I snapped several pictures, and wanted to post of one of my favorites.  Later I will do a post with more pictures.