Decisions

There are many important decisions in life. Who to marry... Where to move... Who to be friends with... Where to work... Etc. I won't say all my decisions have been easy, but most of them just fall in my lap. God is good to me that way. A lot of the time I will think about something ahead of time and be like, "I would like to do that" and if I'm suppose to do it a door will open up or something will happen out of the blue.

For instance, in 2007 I was doing my Accounting Clerk job duties and all of the sudden, I'm think "the next time an A/P position opens I'm gonna go for it, cause I'm ready to do something else." I didn't tell anyone about it. It was just one of those "that would be nice" things. Probably like 2 days later LaDeborah came over to me and said, "Someone is leaving, when the spot opens up, you should go for it". It was perfect... I knew I was suppose to apply for the position.

So now, I have a decision to make, but it's not one of those easy "I already know what I should do" decisions. It's one of the harder ones and I'm really at a crossroads of what I should do.

So I wrote this whole big vauge note just to ask for prayer that I make the right decision. Thanks a bunch!

I'm out.

Movie Monday

Here is an oldie, but a goodie.

He fell asleep a couple times after this, but this was the first time he had done it. I had my first "mommy moment" that day. I heard him jumping and stuff, then all of the sudden things were just a little too quiet. I walk out of the kitchen and find him asleep.

ABC Challenge Letter P

Today is the 16th and that means a new challenge for Digital Freebies.

The prize is pieces to a kit by Maria LaFrance and GM Designs called Winter Memories:

The topics for this round are Pets, Pregnancy or Party

The optional things are:

Designer: Personal favorite

Technique: Paper Blocking (using blocks of different paper)

Element: Paper clips, patterned paper, pins, photo corners

I had a good turn out last round, hopefully it will be the same this round.

Movie Monday

Welcome to Movie Monday! In honor of the Ravens winning on Saturday and going to the next round of the playoffs to play the Steelers (Booooo), this entry is all about Matt Stover, my favorite football player.

Joe, Elijah and I saw him reading at the Festival of Trees in November. At the end of his reading he talked about how he points up and what it means. It was really cool to hear him saying what he was saying. I video taped part of it:

Afterward we met him and got his autograph.

I was silent the whole time. Joe talked to him about how he likes hearing him on WRBS (the Christian radio station in Baltimore). He seems like a really nice guy.

But anyway... GO RAVENS! This week will be interesting in my house...

Birthday Poem

Someone on my baby board posted this poem. It made me get teary, so I thought I would share.


Just 12 short months ago I made my big debut and now I'd like to celebrate my 1st Birthday with you.

My little hands play patty-cake, they peek-a-boo and wave. They catch me while I learn to walk and splash me as I bathe.

They hold your fingers tightly and touch your heart so deep. My little hands reach out to you for hugs before I sleep.

My little hands are tiny now but yours will serve to guide me, and when I'm grown I'll still reach out and know you're right beside me.

Birthday Festivity Pictures ~*~Pic OVERLOAD~*~

We celebrated Elijah's birthday with a small party at our house that night. Reach, my dad, my mom, Mike, Azalea, Joe and I were there. He's going to celebrate with Joe's side of the family tomorrow.

He's ready to PARTAY!

He got another Elmo. We should start a collection...

He also got a fish bowl that plays music when you put things in or take things out of it

Playing with his shopping cart

Riding on his Winnie the Pooh toy

He's getting the hang of this present opening thing... His 5-in-1 gym

Reach bought him a bear that has Washington DC on it

Giving the bear a "hug"

Reading his new book "B is for Bear"

And "Rainbow Rob"

Opening -the- chair

Giving Aunt Reach a kiss for all the presents

Trying it out before it's time for cake

He did NOT like the bib or the hat... What a party pooper...

Before...

Figuring out what to do next

What a mess

... After

After he got all fresh and clean he opened one more present... A spout cover

Elijah watchin him some Game Show Network

The adult cake

The day ended with daddy reading bedtime books to Elijah while he was in his new chair.

First Birthday Already?

Today is Elijah's first birthday.




Man, I can't believe it's been a year already... I feel like he was only born a couple days ago. Next thing you know I'll be posting that he's starting his first day of school and he's going into high school... graduating, going to college... getting married. Geesh, I don't want to think about all this.

I'll post pictures of the festivities sometime either tomorrow or Friday. Whenever I get a spare minute amidst the chaos.

OLW - Start

I'm participating in a blog challenge, this year, called One Little Word. Every other Wednesday they post a word to use in a layout or to do a project with... The word this time is "Start". This is my entry:

The picture was taken exactly one year ago, tomorrow *sniff*. I used Amy Bleser - Little Boy Blue for all except for the photo corner... That is Karen Lewis - Lil' Mister.

Model Baby?

We picked up Elijah, yesterday, from the nursery at church and, as always, asked if he was good... Cause ,with him, you never know. The lady was like, "Yes, he was good the whole time and we were just playing 'where's Elijah'... He's a model baby." We were shocked when she said it, but at the same time I was a little proud.

Our little Elijah... He can be an angel

However, this is what the model baby decided to get into later that day:

I'm out to get ready and go to bed. Ttyl.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope you and yours will be safe and happy. While waiting for Elijah to awaken from his nap, I decided to do a post.

Last night was very interesting in the Raymond household. Elijah was apparently excited about it being New Years Eve, so he decided not to go to bed until 11:30pm. So we all (except Elijah) did the whole stay up til Midnight thing and rang in the New Year. By the time I ate and got settled it was about 12:30 or 1am. Guess who decided to wake up at 4am? Yep, you guessed it and he decided that it was time to play. We were having none of that, so he finally fell asleep in bed with us. Then he woke up again around 7:30. He ate and went back to sleep with us again until about 9, so I'm a little tired today. I slept in until about 10, then I let Joe take a nap, so we're feeling a little more rested now.

Since today is the first, that means I have to do my "second job". I host a challenge on a digital scrapbooking site, Digital Freebies, called the ABC Challenge. I basically go through the alphabet picking topics starting with whatever letter I'm on. The participants do a layout about that topic, post a link on the forum and they get a prize. I do this every 1st and 16th of every month. This month the letter is O. The subjects are Outdoors/Outside or Ordinary Day. If they complete the layout they get a piece from this kit:

That's about all for now. I'm gonna go back to watching the Looney Tunes Marathon on Cartoon Network. Elijah was cute watching it earlier, Road Runner was on and everytime Road Runner would go "Meep Meep" Elijah would go "Gee Gee". Ttyl.