Lord, You Hold Me Together

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17

This is a video my friend, Greta, forwarded me. It's a snippet of Louie Giglio's "How Great Is our God" talk:

Mac Mania

I have to keep reminding myself of the reasons I chose my new laptop. Everywhere I go I hear people talking about Macs. I keep questioning my final decision. My indecisiveness drives ME crazy and my poor husband, bless his heart!

Here's what we got for $749:
http://shopper.cnet.com/notebooks/hp-pavilion-dv6835nr-core/4014-3121_9-32976297.html

Here's the comparable MacBook with only 2GB of memory, not 3GB and is $2794:
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/new~dp~7406527~family~macbookpro.asp

Now why I am questioning my decision, I do not know. The Mac is cool. Super cool. But is it $2000 cool? We don't an extra $2K sitting around, no matter HOW great and seamless and virus-free and fun the MacBook is. And yes, I agree it is better. Much better. But I am $2000 happy that I have my HP Pavilion. Maybe I'll have her for 7 years, too. I need to start naming my computers! We spend a lot of time together. Any suggestions?

Sydney Invades the Lipstick Drawer

No commentary necessary.

Solo Gateway 3500 RIP

My 7-year old laptop has been limping along for several months now. Only has 50 MB of disk space left. I've deleted everything I can, including the calculator that comes with XP.

The new computer decision has not been easy. At Best Buy, my stomach was in knots. Macs are cool, effecient, fun and great. Laptops are great because they go anywhere. I don't really know which one I preferred. Got an HP with Vista even though I know Vista is subpar. I couldn't make myself spend the extra $800 it was going to cost to get a Mac. Hoped the Apple lady last night on the phone could give me a better deal than was online. It didn't happen. Hope I made the right choice. If not, maybe when this one dies we'll get more free money from Uncle Sam again.

Installing everything has been a little bit like moving in our house. I'm determined to stay up until it's all "unpacked" and put away. I have four frappucino drinks in the fridge. May drink them all in the morning. Stephen just walked past me and called me a computer geek. Has he SEEN my old computer?!?!

Brody Is 6 Months

Brody's 6-month birthday was April 17th. He is so stinking cute at this age, I could just eat him up.

He is very active. He doesn't gently "bat" the toys on his play gym, he grabs the bar, rips it down, and covers his head in the process!

He doesn't just reach for the toy bar on his bouncy seat, he kicks it as hard as he can until it shoots across the room.

I have started just lying him on a blanket in the floor, but does he stay on the blanket? No, sirree. He's halfway across the room before you realize it. He's not crawling, mind you, he's just figured out how to use put his legs up into a "bridge" to scootch around. It's quite the sight. I love it, though. He's all boy!

Brody loves to talk. It is so cute how he tries to have "conversations" with his sisters. Sometimes Abby will fake laugh to get him to start laughing at her. Sydney will make high-pitched noises that he can imitate. I really need to video that and post that.

I love everything about having little girls. I love bows and dresses and pink and purple and princess stuff and cooking - the whole kit-and-caboodle. But I have to tell you there is something special about my little boy. I am a girly girl but I love my little boy in a way I didn't know I could! God just knew that I needed two sweet precious girls to love first and then gave me a sweet little boy that I could savor every moment with next. If I could change my kids' birth order or gender, I would not at all. God gave us exactly what we needed. He always does.

I am going to do my best to not turn Brody into a Mama's Boy but I tell you now - it will be a challenge - I just love him to pieces. Mmmm!

I have to tell you. I have been in denial that he is 6-months old. The routine we're in with our 6-feeding-a-day schedule is working just fine, it is predictable and it is simple! We're happy, he's happy. However, I have officially been told by the pediatrician to start rice cereal. That was yesterday. I started today.

He ate the cereal like a champ. He is going to be a good eater, I think. I wanted to post a video of Stephen giving him the rice cereal at lunch. I fed Brody cereal at breakfast but couldn't figure out how to video myself holding him and feeding him at the same time. When Stephen came home from lunch I handed Brody and the cereal over to him to shoot the footage. I was wearing an orange t-shirt. Now, I don't want to be in one of Brody's videos wearing orange. I wouldn't want to send the wrong message. None of that matters NOW, though - I accidentally deleted the video off the camera. It has to do with my no disk space issue. Another story for another day. I'll video Brody eating rice cereal on his third attempt and post it later, God-willing.

Sydney Turns Three

Sydney turned 3 on Friday. One of my friends said she thought her birthday was on April 12th. That's probably because she was born at 11:58 pm on April 11th. The doctors wouldn't let me wait to push. It's just another one of those things I tried to plan and God had the last word. I laugh now every time I think about that! (For those of you that didn't know, April 12th is 11 days after Stephen's birthday and Abby's birthday is 11 days after mine - I know, it's lame.)

It is hard for me to believe that day was three years ago. I was secretly hoping for a boy up UNTIL the time that I started to labor...I started thinking about all the things I loved about little girls and all that I didn't know about boys. I was so excited Sydney was a little girl! She is such a blessing to us!

Sydney is so full of energy! She is our little performer. She loves to make people laugh, to sing for them or to dramatically react to something that happens. She puts all her energy into what she does, whether it is hugging you and telling you how much she loves you or just going to her room - it's full speed ahead, so watch out inanimate objects. She does fall a lot and scrape her knees, but she comes by that honestly. Her mother is quite clumsy!

We allowed her to choose all her favorite things for her birthday. This was her meal plan for the day:

• Breakfast: pumpkin oatmeal with milk (and she had a little coffee in her milk).
• Lunch: macaroni and cheese (with deceptively delicious cauliflower puree), broccoli, green beans, chocolate milk and a mini chocolate ice cream cone.
• Snack: PEANUT BUTTER and a Reese's cup
• Dinner: Boston Pizzeria - Two large adult-size pepperoni pizza slices, a sprite, half of her complimentary birthday cheesecake AND a lollipop

**Disclaimer: This does not reflect a normal day of eating in the Fowler household. :)

We told Sydney when she turns 3, she can eat peanut butter. She responded, "And when Abby turns 3, SHE can have soy butter!" :)

When the big day came, she was hesitant because we had been so strict about it before. I'm not so sure she trusted me when I told her it would not make her sick. And I wasn't sure it would not make her sick. I am grateful that she loves peanut butter and we did not need to borrow an epipen, afterall. She's started asking for it by the spoonful after her first taste. And since she loves chocolate so much, we would not be good parents if we deprived her of discovering the beauty of tasting chocolate and peanut butter together - enter Reese's cups!

Sydney's birthday party was a whole event in itself. She's been planning her party since before Christmas. The problem was that her party theme was ever changing. Since I couldn't ever "pin her down" to one theme, we threw her a "My Favorite Things" birthday party! This consisted of Dora invitations, a Care Bear cake topper, butterfly birthday hats, My Little Pony plates and My Little Pony napkins and pink princess cups. The menu consisted of chocolate frosted cupcakes with sprinkles and a little chocolate ice cream to wash it down - see messy pictures below:

haley, tess and sydney - lots of chocolate, everywhere!

sydney in one of her favorite gifts - a "horsey" dress (a.k.a. polo ralph lauren) that mimi gave her

macy (left) laughing and sydney and abby (right) "cheesing" for the camera

sydney cautiously blowing out her "fires"

macy and dayleah thoughtfully assisting sydney in the present opening :)

sydney's put her shoes on the wrong feet - i was so busy that morning i didn't notice until she was opening presents!

The Return to City Life

I really didn't think we lived in a "city". I still think of Greenville as being a town. But the kids and I just returned from a 4 day visit at my grandmother's house in Fountain Inn. Life is a little simpler there and a little slower paced. It was a nice break! Did you know you can still get a really good pizza for less than $10? Yeah, we ordered a large pizza at Tony's and it was only $8.99. And it was really good pizza!

Today, I was looking outside to see if it was raining and caught a glimpse of the horses, just hanging out, right by the fence where we could watch them. And we opened the windows in our bedroom and it was just woods all around. In some ways, Gran's house is like a little B&B, family style.

I so enjoyed the visit! I found out things about my grandmother I didn't know. I saw a picture she had given my grandfather for Christmas right after they were engaged. She was so beautiful in it! She had penned, "Because I love you, Christmas..." and then the year, which I do not remember- sorry!

I also found out when she was a little girl she realized all her brothers got to go outside and play when dinner was over but she had to stay and help clean up the kitchen. She told her mom that she was a boy and her name was "Jack" so she didn't have to do dishes anymore. It's a simple story that really makes me laugh. I can just see her walking into the kitchen with her hands on her hips making that declaration!

It is such a great feeling to hear stories about those who came before you. I love hearing stories about my grandmother's parents and siblings. I feel like I get to be transplanted to another time. At lunch, Gran was telling me they had cornbread and milk for dinner sometimes. I asked if they had anything with it, because cornbread and milk sounds more like a snack to me, but she said they ate huge lunches and would sometimes have leftover vegetables with their cornbread and milk. She was going to eat cornbread and milk tonight when we left - she took it home from the Coach House restaurant in Simpsonville. It IS good cornbread.

And did you know that loaf bread didn't exist back then? They never ate sandwiches or toast!?!? She said they just always ate biscuits - dripping with butter. Oh, I bet they were good biscuits, too. And everything they ate, with the exception of sugar, tea and coffee, was grown at their house - or they hunted it. Life was harder but simpler then. It's fun to think about what it would have been like.

Anyway, I feel like I was treated the last few days. Praise God for my 90 year old grandmother. She is still so healthy and plays with my kids like she's 65. Thank You for that gift, Jesus, You have been so good to us. Amen.