"Please," the lake, and good nurishment!

Okay- happy mama gush! Roman started signing "please" on Tuesday! We hardly ever give him sugar, but I was going to give him a small bite of a cookie and I told him to say "more please." He started signing more a while back but hasn't been using it lately. Well, to my surprise, instead of "more" he started signing "please!" Now he is the "please" king! He points to things he wants and signs "please!" I tell him, "No, don't climb on the chair," and he signs "please!" It is so cute! It makes saying no to the things he is doing wrong very difficult! It is just so fun to see his communication expanding! He now tries to copy the words we say and he really watches our mouths! I love it! It is like having a little friend with me all day! Umm... the joys of motherhood!

On that motherly note, I just got the most wonderful book (and a new Bible since Roman had done quite the number on my other one!). The book is by Lisa Whelchel (ya know, Blair, from The Facts of Life?) and is called "The Busy Mom's Guide to Bible Study". It teaches moms how to really get a lot out of the abbreviated times we find to spend in the Word. She has such loving and practical advice for mothers and is a beautiful writer. I have read a few of her other books also, "Taking Care of the Me in Mommy" and her book on homeschooling- both were wonderfully helpful and I highly recommend them! In fact, I plan on reading them both again because they were just so packed with awesome information and insight!

My goal is to start waking up earlier in the morning so that I can really have a chunk of time that I can just focus on getting myself prepared for the day. To just be able to sit in my rocking chair, drink a cup of tea, read my Bible and truly spend time with the Lord, without the distraction of a zillion other things, would make such a difference to my day! To also be able to maybe do some yoga and take care of a few little things before Roman emerges from his slumber would just be so nice! If I only didn't feel so tired every morning! Oh Lord, give me the grace to get my butt out of bed!

And now, onto an entirely different subject- the lake!! Yesterday I headed up to Coeur d'Alene with a few of my friends and their kiddos who are all around Roman's age and we had so much fun! It started off kind of rocky when I was supposed to go meet the mama I was car pooling with and discovered I had a very flat tire (which Jer went and got fixed this morning, bless his heart!). But the other mama graciously drove all the way across town (about a half an hour out of her way) to come pick us up! After that things got much better! The kids chatted hysterical baby jabber to each other the whole way there, while my girl friend and I compared our possible pregnancy symptoms (we will be testing within two days of each other!) and just got a chance to chit chat rather undistractedly!

Once we got there the kids had so much fun playing in the sand and water! Roman was the craziest of the bunch of course! That boy always keeps me on my toes! While the other mamas were even able to sneak a few minutes here and there to lay on their towels and read magazines I was constantly chasing a (hmmm, shall we call him adventurous?) toddler! But when it comes right down to it, would I have him any other way? He may be more work then some, but I love his personality and know that he is destined to be a leader! Plus- he makes sure I get my exercise, right?!