If you are reading this, please stop and take a moment to say a prayer for the Farley family in Tennessee.  Boothe Farley is the sister of one of Clay’s friends from work, Chelsea.  A couple of hours ago they lost their little girl – Copeland – at 8 days old.  We’ve been following her progress through their blog.  If you have time, I think you should visit their site.  I don’t know if I could have such encouragement and hope in a time like this.  It has made me want to hug my children a little tighter and little longer.  Praise God for the hope of heaven.

I have no idea why babies love this game so much, but it is a lifesaver for us between 5 and 6 pm when we’re anxiously awaiting Clay’s arrival.  Before last week she would try to pull on whatever object I had in front of my face (sometimes this was a magazine so I could get some light reading in while playing), but last week she started playing with me.  Her favorite thing to hide behind is the mail – a girl after my own heart – and she’s so cute and proud of herself.  Ethan and I will sing, “Where is Rachel?  Where is Rachel?” until she pulls it down with this huge grin on her face.  Cara and I decided this morning that while she doesn’t really crawl or have any interest in feeding herself, she’s socially advanced. 

Me: Ethan, what would you like for lunch?

E:  Nothing.

Me:  E, you have to eat something.  What would you like?

E:  Hmmm, how ’bout some candy, some fruit snacks, and then a little bit more candy.

To the outside world, today probably seemed like a very ordinary day for the SFB.  However, it was anything BUT ordinary – Ethan wore the same underwear ALL DAY LONG.  Yes, he’s almost 3 and still not potty trained (I don’t want to hear about all of the amazing children out there who were potty trained at 18 months).  So, tonight as Rachel and I were celebrating his victory in true SFB form, she just popped up on her hands and knees and did a little crawling dance by scooting a couple of inches in the forward direction (up to this point, she’s only been going backward).  So, today was a very memorable day for us, and hopefully tomorrow will go just as well!

Yesterday was Ethan’s very first ‘first day of school.’  We had been talking about it all week, and he was so excited to get his lunchbox and his backpack, drop Rachel off at Nana’s and go to Mrs. Shawn’s class at school.  Ethan said he liked Stretch-N-Grow the best (probably because Sophia was in there with him), ate all of his lunch by himself, and that he didn’t pee-pee in the potty because he doesn’t like the potty at school.  It’s going to be a long year. 

Subsequently, it was my first day at school as well.  I’m teaching one of the pre-K classes at Ethan’s school, and the 7 boys and 2 girls entrusted to me for 4 hours every Tuesday and Thursday seemed to think I was okay (apparently I made some hilarious faces while singing about the babies on the bus so I scored major points for that).  I also gave them a snack at 10:30, and then found out at 11:30 that pre-K classes don’t really get snacks.  Oops.  I was also working in my room at 8:45 and realized all of the other classroom doors were closed.  Of course I peeked in several to find them empty and then found my way to the teacher’s meeting and devo time.  I think I made a really good impression by being late to the very first one.  But as far as I know I’m still needed back there on Tuesday. 

Inspired by my friend Josh, I have decided to create my own blog. Jump on the wagon, if you will. I needed an outlet for some of my random thoughts that just didn’t seem to go with the format of the starrfamilyblog. If you want, you can find it here:

starrchitecture.blogspot.com

See you all on the flip-side.

-Clay

Oops.  I completely forgot to put up pictures from our Labor Day reunion with Clay’s family.  We always have a great time hanging out with everyone and just relaxing.  Unfortunately, a lot of people weren’t able to be there this year, but we still had a great time catching up.  This was the first time for most of them to meet Rachel, so that was neat.  We met up at Clay’s uncle’s brother’s house (uncle by marriage – you get the idea), and this is such a cool place out in the country.  They have an amazing outdoor kitchen area, pool, outdoor bath, creek, 4 wheelers, etc.  Ethan was in heaven!

Clay and his Mom

Notice Ethan needed floaties AND a ring

Our beautiful niece

A new record time on the 4 wheeler – 2 minutes!  Ethan did NOT enjoy riding on this…apparently it’s way too loud.

The tractor was much closer to his speed. 

We realized that we have a city kid – he wasn’t sure what to do with the creek at first, but Anna Claire (in her bikini and flower flip flops) quickly showed him the dos and don’ts of playing in the mud.

Lunch time

Sweet Cole enjoying dessert

Ethan was fascinated by the outdoor bath

It was also a big hit with Cole and Anna Claire

…a 7 month old.  Besides being the happiest baby I’ve ever been around, here are some wonderful things about Rachel Ryan at 7 months old:

1. She scoots around the floor on her bottom
2. She waves hi and bye
3. She loves playing peek-a-boo
4. She’s just started getting up on her hands and knees and rocking
5. She hasn’t hit the “stranger danger” phase so she’ll still smile at absolutely anyone
6. She’s definitely a momma’s girl, but she eats better for dad
7. She still sleeps great at night, but only power naps during the day

We’ve begun the weaning process, and it’s going pretty good.  Ethan was about 7.5 months when I weaned him, so I guess we’ll just stick with that course.  I guess I need to start dusting off those formula checks I’ve been getting in the mail.  I really love this stage she’s in – able to sit and play for longer periods of time, loving reading books, enjoying Bible class, interacting more and initiating play, etc.  While I do think it will be great for her to crawl and explore her world, I’m really not pushing it – I remember how much work it is keeping up with a crawler!  Rachel has a big week ahead of her…tomorrow she’ll start staying with my mom on Tuesdays and Thursdays while Ethan and I go to school (I’ve been blessed with teaching a pre-K class at Ethan’s preschool).  Will post school pics later this week.

I love this quote by Helen Keller – My friends have made the story of my life.  And we added a few chapters to Ethan and Rachel’s story this past month.  Even though it was hot, August was so much fun around here.

A few weekends ago, we got together with our old small group from Prestoncrest Church of Christ in Dallas.  It sounds ridiculously cheesy to say the standard ‘we had a great time,’ but it just felt good for all of us to be together again.  And we just picked right up – Kirk was annoying as always, Krista was busy with a kid, Sonal was getting ready to have a baby, Bryon was talking, etc.  And the kids had a blast playing together.  Rachel & Krista – thank you SO much for hosting, and we can’t wait to do it again.

A couple of weekends ago we went with the Pilgrims to our first Fort Worth Cats game.  Minor league baseball is SO much more fun than a major league game (in my opinion).  It cost a whopping $9 for our family to get into the game, and we sat so close that Lauryn and Ethan were able to throw a baseball right onto the field…in the middle of the game…oops.  Thankfully the nice outfielder threw it back to us. 

We were also able to spend some time with the Davis crew as they welcomed sweet baby Kate into the world.  She’s beautiful and perfect and came with a full head of hair!  We had fun hanging out at their house letting the kids break in the new playground set.

Thursday the Glover girls came over to brighten up our day.  Macy and Ethan had fun throwing everything under 40 pounds down the stairs (thankfully Paige and Rachel were not in sight or I’m sure they would have had a turn as well).  And Tracy – I can’t believe you haven’t been to our house since last October…shameful.  We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again because Ethan took a 2 hour nap that afternoon.  You’re a godsend.

And tonight we had a great time hanging out with Luke and his parents in Highland Village.  Well, actually we just had fun hanging out with Heather and Luke…not so much Marc.  Burned weiners – curly, burned weiners – seriously…BURNED.  But the burgers were excellent.  Ethan and Luke had a great time “swimming” in their clothes in the muddy water they created – gotta love boys.