Valentine's Weekend Project

What did we do with our valentine's weekend (which also happened to be the first weekend that William spent away from home- in Tupelo with Gigi and Papa)? We renovated the hall bathroom...I know, romance at its best. Here are the pictures. HJ convinced me that the floors, in fact, did not need to be redone, so we left well enough alone. They are speckle painted ceramic tiles...which I'm not crazy about, but they are also well done, easy to clean, and durable. I wanted to make this bathroom colorful and fun, so I decided to paint the vanity...it took five coats! We are still looking for a mirror/medicine cabinet to cover/fill the hole in the wall, but things are coming together. We also had a near disaster when HJ dropped our marble sink (which was about half of the budget of the project) and it broke. However, the nice, nice lady at Lowe's let us exchange it for an unbroken one!

Firsts

William had his first haircut today. I was sad to see so much of those blond locks go, but his hair grows straight down and was getting in his eyes. (Also, a lady at target thought "she was so cute" and HJ decided it was time for a cut). The mullet is gone, but William looks like a big boy now...so sad. He has also finally started walking. He is not late to walk, but we had seriously been thinking he would walk any day for the last 3 months. He would take about 2 or 3 steps and then get down and crawl. He decided at a birthday party this weekedend after seeing some other one year olds walk that he would also start walking. I guess he just needed a little peer pressure.

Before

After

More lessons to learn

Where to start? The last few weeks have been busy, busy and a little stressful, too. Last month was a long and tiring one for us due to a combination of factors, but we have made it through. I try to remind myself that the difficulties we are dealing with (long work hours, sick kiddo, etc.) are difficulties that I would never trade. I am so grateful to be able to do my job (even though I am seriously looking forward to July when I will switch over to derm!), and I am also thankful for our sweet, sweet little guy. William has had a blocked tear duct on the right side since birth, and if you see him often, you know that his eye is in a constant state of goopy messiness and that his skin around his eye is usually pretty red. Well, on Tuesday we had the probing procedure because it did not seem to be clearing up on its own. The doctor took a thin metal probe, stuck it in William's tear duct, and "probed" it through to his nose. It sounds terrible, but it took a total of about 45 seconds. Thank you to everyone who was praying for him and us. God truly answered our prayers because William just rested calmly on the exam chair until the very end of the procedure. This, in itself, is a miracle because he is never still! And, for the last 2 mornings, his eye has not been matted shut when he woke up. The doctor said we would know in about a week if it is permanent, so we are still praying that the effects will be lasting.

We have been praying for months for his tear duct to open up on its own. We know this is a small thing compared to other illnesses and even the procedure is small. But as we have been waiting for God's answer, we are learning anew the lesson of God's timing, not ours. I have definitely been learning humility, even in this small way, through my inability to fix this on my own, and through the fact that William looked like his face had never been washed everyday due to goopy tears running down his face (seriously hurtful to a mother's pride :). And, we are reminded that God has his own better and sovereign plan that He will work in his wise and kind way. We are grateful we are not in charge!

I did want to share a few pics of the last week or two...

First outing with the bike trailer...we picked up Dakota for little trip around the block

William loved the helmet...

I just had to share this....William definitely takes after his Papa (who very much dislikes peas). Here is the assortment of veggies that we give William:

Here is his plate after he eat them...notice he eats all the carrots and green beans, but no peas. He will eat the corn, but only after the the first two favorites are gone. Once he finishes what he wants, he points to the bowl for more of the favorites. I just think it's funny that he can so readily pick out the good stuff.