Zoo time

Caleb had his first trip to the Nashville Zoo yesterday. He loved it! His favorite parts seemed to be the petting zoo, the alligators, the big rocks along the path he could climb on and the freedom we allowed him to walk instead of sit in the stroller. We must have seen 75% of the stay-at-home moms who live in Nashville there with their kids. It was the land of strollers, Baby Bjorns, sippy cups and sweet faces.

The giraffes seemed to be getting a little frisky. A little boy turned to his momma and said, "Momma, what are they doing?" Without skipping a beat, the momma replied, "They're hugging."

Caleb loves "wocks"

Caleb spent a lot of time at the alligator exhibit. Later, we found out one reason was because he had some business to take care of that required some concentration and an environment of relaxation.

"Al-e-gay-tor"

Caleb has observed us move a number of "wocks" around our yard, so he logically thinks anytime he sees a rock, it is his job to move it. Or, at least attempt to move it.

These goats were either 100 years old or had been given some major downers.

Cute, cute kid. No pun intended.This was Caleb's favorite stance to take with the goats- drop down face to face and look them right in the eye. Then, maybe point in their face and say something bossy, however unintelligible to humans and by their resopnse, also unintelligible to goats.

Merely emerging from the Meerkat viewing tower.

Coming out of the bamboo forest.Prior to exiting, we had to purchase a stuffed animal as Grandma requested that Caleb pick one out "on her". He chose this cute Tiger and immediately upon rescuing it from the gift shop, he had to feed his hungry little tiger some mulch. Seriously, the kid loves animals- real or stuffed!

Remembering

Okay, so no new pictures because we broke the camera.... I'm sorry, I broke the camera. Anyway, I thought I'd go back and post some old pictures just for memories sake. I just can't believe Caleb's almost 2! And I can't believe Jeremy is in his last year of pharmacy school- Yay!!!. It's funny, when you start out on something new it just seems like the "end" is forever away but in reality it gets here a lot quicker than you expected. And when the end does finally arrive, you realize you're now at the start of something new. That's the perfect way to describe pregnancy. Those 9 months seem like forever and well, when the "end" arrives, you realize the real work has begun! These are some pictures my brother took when Caleb was 6 months old.

In the one above, Caleb so reminds me of the Rugrats Baby.

The Trinity, Parts 2 and 3

Two weeks ago I blogged about our pastor Rob Morgan's first sermon in his series on the Trinity. He has continued the series with Parts 2 and 3 the previous two Sundays. Pastor Morgan resumed his discussion from the previous week with Part 2. His premise for the sermon noted that as we are created by and in the image of the Triune God, we are created for communion, fellowship, communication and community. He talked about how the Trinity is revealed progressively in scripture, which is quite obvious if you think about it, but something I had never thought much about previously. He noted that the doctrine of the Trinity is implicit in the Old Testament (not stated plainly). He referred to these scriptures as "Us" passages (Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:6-7 and Isaiah 6:8) and also noted scriptural references to "interesting Triads" (Isaiah 6 and Numbers 6:24-26). He also noted in Isaiah 61 that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct. His sermon continued by noting how the doctrine of the Trinity is more fully revealed in the New Testament. Scriptural references included the Baptism of Christ (where all three are present and distinct: Father, Son and Holy Spirit), The Great Commission, John 14:15 and 1 Peter 1:1-2. Pastor Morgan concluded Part 2 by referring to his initial point that we are created for communion, fellowship, communication and community with other people and with God as seen through the communion, fellowship, communication and community that is seen in the Trinity. This is readily noted in John 16:32, when Jesus is about to be deserted by his disciples but He says he will not be alone for My Father is with Me. WOW! What a revelation to me- I don't know why this struck me so excitedly, as I have read and heard this scripture numerous time before, but to think that there is such community, communication and belonging amongst God. I mean I know somewhere previously that the thought ran through my brain that there is a relationship between God the Father and God the Son, but this time and even now it is sitting there- being weighed between the neurons. Sometimes it seems that we can hear scripture over and over and not really pay attention, but this time and even more so now, I feel like it is sinking into my bones. He also referred to 2 Timothy 4:16 & 17 where Paul is imprisoned in Rome and has been deserted by his friends but states the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength. WOW again. Pastor Morgan also noted that there was only one moment when the communication lines within the Trinity where shutdown- do you know that moment? It brought tears to my eyes thinking of it as Pastor Morgan talked about it, because it made me realize just how much God loves me. It was on the cross when Jesus took upon the sins that separate us all from God and He was therfore separated from God Himself..... do you remember His cry..... My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Pastor Morgan stated it this way, "It was as if He had to unplug Himself to plug us in."

If you have read this and I have confused you or you just can't understand my ramblings, please read or view the sermons

I had hoped to post about Part 3 as well but a review of Part 2 was enough for me for tonight.

Fruits of the labor, Psalm 128:2

This has been a great year to start gardening, according to my parents anyway, as this has been my and Jeremy's first year to do anything besides flowers and herbs. This is just some of the variety of stuff we've harvested. The peaches are from two 3-year old trees Mom gave Dad for Father's day and they have been loaded down, literally so much so that one of the major branches broke (so unfortunately Dad said they wouldn't be this bountiful next year). We've made peach butter and preach freezer jam and we're planning to can some when they ripen up a little more. Yum yum, delicious!My nephew Radnor is turning 2 this week and his party was this past Saturday. Caleb thought it was a blast getting to play with someone else's toys and Radnor obviously enjoyed the chainsaw cake his mother made. It was finger-licking good. What a cutie- Happy Birthday Rad!

Baby Shower Cake

This is a cake I made for my friend Kat's baby shower. She is due next month and is having a baby boy and they are naming him Griffin. I was overall pretty pleased with the end result as far as taste and presentation, but I need to work on my icing and decorating skills. I wish I had been able to smooth the sides better and I wish I had rounded out the beading around the top and bottom layers of the cake. Actually, I wish I had just asked my sister-in-law Karina to decorate it- her cakes are so cute and so much more professional looking than mine! She did offer me a great tip on smoothing out the beading, so I'll use that next time. The shower was really fun and I got to meet some of Kat's friends that live around this area. Kat got lots of cute gifts for the baby too and we played a great game of "Name that baby food." Congratulations Kat and Andrew!

The Trinity

Our pastor Rob Morgan (of The Donelson Fellowship) has begun a series on the Trinity, which is something I have always believed, but my understanding of it has always been poor to say the least. It is one of those things I would find difficult to articulate or explain to someone. For lack of better teaching, or perhaps for lack of better comprehension on my part, I have thought of the Trinity as God in 3 persons as I am one person but I am a granddaughter, sister and cousin (therefore God is one God, but has the role of Father, Son and Holy Spirit). For some reason, however, that analogy has never completely set well with me- it was far too simplistic. Pastor Morgan did present this in fact to be false and his sermon was by far the best I have ever heard related to the subject. He basically made three points which I will state briefly:
1. The Trinity is the Most Unique Aspect of Christian Truth
2. The Trinity is Easy to State
There is One God who eternally exists in Three Persons- Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
3. The Trinity is Impossible to Understand

You definitely don't get the benefit of the whole sermon here as the meat of it was in his discussion, but I am hoping to entice those of you interested or curious on the subject to read or view the sermon from the following links. I think you will find it worthy of your time and effort. Even those of you not Baptist might enjoy it! I am hoping part of his discussion in future sermons in this series will shed light on the relationship among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as another reason this subject is so intriguing to me is because I read The Shack last month and while the book is controversial to some, for me it opened up a whole new understanding of the Trinity.

Here is a link to read it and then also one to view it

Caleb's artwork

Caleb has started coloring this past week so I wanted to post a couple of his "drawings." We actually bought him the bigger, triangular shaped crayons and they are much easier for him to use than the skinny round ones. I was really excited when he colored these because he did them completely by himself. I didn't even have to start him on the page as I had on previous attempts. He is so funny because he is good for one drawing and as much as I try to get him to do a second one, he's like, "Mom, one was enough, be happy and let me down now." And he likes to use every color at least once, which I think is good for some reason. On another note, I was recently left in charge of my parent's garden, of which Jeremy and I have a small section of that contains corn, peas, green beans, squash and cucumbers. Well the week my parents were gone and I was in charge was quite the harvest week- for both our garden and my parents. Thankfully Pat is here with us and she has shelled so many peas I am sure she is quite tired of them (although she shelled some more tonight). Well, anyway, I had so many cucumbers they were overtaking our kitchen so I decided to try pickling them. I have previously made and canned peach butter with the help of my mom, but I was nervous to try something on my own. It was a pretty involved process, though not one of those recipes that takes days and days. The end result was 16 pints of bread and butter pickles and a kitchen that smelled of vinegar and strong spices. We haven't tried the pickles yet, so our fingers are crossed that it wasn't a huge waste of time. After the pickles I decided to try relish because I found a great deal on red peppers and onions at the local Kroger. We've actually opened a can of it and while it's okay, it is nothing compared to what my mom and aunts have previously made and shared with me. Now, after saying all of that, let me take a moment to say to my mom, my sister and my aunts and my friend's parents (James and Mary Cox), thank you for all of your previous gifts in the form of home-canned foods. While I enjoyed them all, I was clueless to the time and effort involved in making them. Any future gifts will be treated as the treasures they truly are.

Konnichiwa?

One of the few Japanese words I remember from our trip to Japan a few years ago is the general greeting Konnichiwa (pronounced Koh NEE chewah), meaning good afternoon. Well, it seems Caleb has decided to speak Japanese or some other foreign language as opposed to learning his parents native tongue of good ole' American Southern English. We're not complaining, however, because we're just glad he is finally saying something!! He might be saying "birthday" in this video because we had just hung up the Happy Birthday sign for celebrating Jeremy's birthday and I'm sure I was saying something about Daddy's birthday, but I couldn't tell you anything else about his ramblings.

Happy 5th of July!

So we're those crazy people who didn't get any 4th of July plans together early enough that anybody could come, so we had to move our plans to the 5th of July. We had a cookout and invited some friends and family over. The kids got to try out Caleb's new sandbox and play on his little playground set. We were also planning on getting out Caleb's pool but somehow we adults just forgot(oops Allie, I'm so sorry, but we'll do it next time!) . Everybody was kind enough to bring a dish to share (yummy- good tea, good pasta salad, good beans and good dessert) and Jeremy did a great job on the grill (except for the two hot dogs he forgot- a little charred as I had requested turned into a thick, crispy black coat). The kids were hilarious to watch and we really look forward to doing it again- hopefully we can have something better set up for bug control next time. Some of my pictures turned out very fuzzy, so they weren't worth posting and so not everyone is pictured. The Wakefields- Eric, Ethan (26 months) and Robyn

Radnor (23 months) and Brian (~396 months)Allie-girl (almost 4 years old!)Caleb (20 months), who decided he had to eat on the run so as not to lose time
playing. He carried his hamburger patty around taking huge bites here and there. Everything was going well with the "eating on the run" routine until
Caleb ended up on the same end of the playset as his cousin Radnor.

Radnor saw Caleb's plan and thought to himself, "I must get in on some of this action of

eating and playing at the same time," and with that the burger quickly changed hands.
Ethan showing off his great smile and enjoying some time on the swing.
One of the funniest things was keeping the kids drinks separate, which proved most difficult concerning Caleb and Radnor as they both love to eat and drink (and Caleb is also allergic to milk). Here poor Allie looks on as Radnor finishes her juice box. She was such a good sport about it though! She even shared her fruit with both Caleb and Radnor. What a sweet girl!

Family Reunion

Caleb and I recently attended a family reunion with my parents. Jeremy and the rest of the gang had to work! It was great to see all of the family and spend time catching up with them.

Cousin Stella and her daddy Matthew (my first cousin). She is just 2 weeks
older than Caleb and what a doll! She has the cutest hip shake!
She will soon be a big sister too!

Caleb and Stella hanging out in the hammock. Thank goodness there are no
pictures of me in the hammock with Caleb- we about tipped over!

Trying for a posed picture with Stella and Caleb... even after his
much needed 2 1/2 hour nap that Grandmama was very
strategic in achieving, the boy was still not into posing.

Granddaddy, Caleb, Papaw and Mommy

Caleb wanted both of his grandparents hands when we stopped at the rest area.

Caleb sharing his rice cake with his lion in the car-
after all lions get hungry too and it was a long ride!

Good Friends, Good Times

We recently got together with one of my college friends and roommates. We had a great time and their little girl Allie is so cute! She knew about Caleb's food allergies and so she asked me if he could have pretzels. When I told her he couldn't because he's allergic to the wheat in them, she then asked if he could have yogurt. I again had to say he couldn't have it because he's allergice to milk. She was so sweet to be concerned for Caleb!The Wells

How our lives have changed from those carefree college days!

Fun in the Sun

My mother recently kept 3 of her other grandchildren for a week. We took them all swimming at the Lake and Caleb had a blast.

Caleb climbed up on his float like he was an experienced rafter. Thank goodness
my nephew Ethan was there to keep an eye on him!

Caleb acting like he's one of the big kids.

My wonderful niece Abby.

Jeremy thinking he's on the lazy river ride.

Double Trouble

Scared of water? Uh, that would be a No.

I'm a fish!

Really, I'm a fish!

Nobody was really into a group shot, least of all Caleb!