Matt's family came and visited us last week and into the weekend. It was a short visit, but a good one, nonetheless. We didn't do a whole lot - just sat around and talked while the kids played Wii most of the time. We did go down to Centennial Park in the canyon, took turns shooting Matt's new gun, and visited with his Aunt JoAnn in Burley, though. We also took them to church with us on Sunday (they were really impressed). Again, the visit was mainly centered around Robby, which is great. Even though he won't remember any of it, he's still able to know this part of his family. We all can't wait for our trip to see them in May!

Here are a few highlights from this visit:

Everyone sitting around, waiting for Matt to get home.

The kids Wii-ing. They were having a blast.Sarah with Robby, as usual. She kept trying to shove toys in his mouth.
Matt finally getting to shoot his new toy.James shooting a gun for the first time.Nate shooting.Sarah shooting. A regular Annie Oakley!Dad and I also shot, but my batteries started dying, so I didn't get pictures.Philip exploring.The Marshall kids Wii-ing.Robby with Grandma and Grandpa.

Red Envelope Day

I'm not a political person by any means, but I know what I stand for and I know what I'm passionate about. The murder of our children definitely tops my list. Abortion is an incredibly hot topic these days and many people will argue until they're blue in the face. On that note, I just want to add that I am not posting this to stir up a debate. There are plenty of forums where you can do that - this not being one of them. I am merely posting for information and education purposes and my take on this project.

I first heard about Red Envelope Day earlier this month on Facebook. Reading further about it, I decided that I would think and pray about it. The more I prayed, the more the Spirit urged me on and I'm proud to say that today I purchased five envelopes to send - nothing incredible, but at least I know I can sleep well at night knowing that three small voices in Twin Falls, Idaho will be heard all the way in Washington D.C. on March 31st. I have never in my life took a stand on anything, but I felt that this was simple, yet profound - just like the little lives of the children the project is fighting to save. As Christians, we are called to pray for for those who have authority over us. I pray that this changes the president's mind and heart about this issue.

If you'd like to find out more information about Red Envelope Day and how you can participate, please visit these links:

Red Envelope Day's Website
redenvelopeday.com

Red Envelope Day FAQ's
belonginghouse.org

Enjoying the Warm Day

Since it was so nice out today, I decided to let Robby venture out and expand his little world. I don't think he knew what to think! He was very serious during the whole ordeal, but deemed it as "enjoyable" when it came time to go back inside. He promptly voiced his opinion on the matter as soon as I set him down to play on the floor. It was nice getting some fresh air for a change!

"What...is this, Mother?"

"I'll take it out on this leaf..."

"Take that, leaf!"

"Mom, I killed the leaf. Aren't you proud?"

"Where can I find more leaves?"

"JACKPOT!!!"

I Pledge...

Eight Months Old

Eight months old. I can't believe it either. It's been an eventful eight months, yet it flew by like it was nothing. He continues to grow and blossom into the man he'll someday be. Being greeted by his sweet little smile every morning makes me glad to be alive and thankful to start another day.

He's not really interested in sitting up, but I know he's capable - I've seen him do it more than once. He's perfectly content to lay on his back and ponder a toy. He's kind of crawling, although it looks more like an army crawl/worm/interpretive dance kind of maneuver, but it gets him where he wants to go. No teeth, yet, although they bother him from time to time. He loves to stand up and is able to hold himself up if you prop him up against something his height. He thinks it's funny to see his feet so far down and will giggle at the sight. He's quite the charmer and has a following of ladies at church that fawn over him every Sunday. Understandable - he's getting his fathers deep, brown eyes.

Robby, the eight-month-old.

Overdue Update

Yes, I'm still alive. As are Matt and Robby. Trying to juggle everything has been quite the chore. I don't have a whole lot to report. We're all doing well. Matt still has a job (thankfully). Robby's still growing like a weed. I'm still doing whatever I do.

Matt and I are still doing Biggest Loser. We have both lost about 11lbs each so far and are working hard on keeping consistent on our exercise and eating smart. It's been both tougher and easier this time around in different aspects, but it's still definitely worth it. We both don't really care about the competition. It's all about losing the weight and getting healthy, now. I still remain the underdog, but am okay with that. I'm living healthier and that's all that matters.

Church is going well. We're settling in very nicely and making lots of friends. Nothing like The River. I love it. I actually want to and look forward to hanging out with these guys outside of church. We're still attending the small group, The Truth Project. It's fascinating and we really do enjoy hanging out with some of the couples from church every other Friday night. Other than that, I'm still planning on helping out with the VBS this summer, with the added perk of being the "official" VBS photographer. I'm really excited about it! It should be really fun taking pictures of all the kids doing their crafts and such. I think I finally found my niche at this church.

Matt's been working hard as usual. No word on what's going to change with his job with the new owners coming in. They bused all the employees up to Boise to meet the new owners last week, but it was a complete waste of time. To every question asked they either answered "you'll know of any changes well in advance" or "it's still in review". God is faithful, though. He'll provide as He always does. Other than work, Matt's been working hard on his blog, as usual, getting more and more brave at witnessing (he's found a "fishing hole" at the laundromat), and trying his best to squeeze in time with Robby every night after he's worked out and before Robby has to go to bed. I foresee that getting worse and worse as the weather gets warmer. I have a feeling we won't see much of Daddy in the summer months, but that's what the weekends are for.

Robby's been doing really, really well. We did have a scare last week, however. His eyes started getting all goopy (technical term) and we thought he might be getting pink eye, but thankfully, his eyes cleared up within the next couple of days. He's just been eating, sleeping, playing, and growing. Basic baby stuff. STILL not crawling. I wonder if he ever will, but I'm not fretting about it too much. I don't want to be one of those moms who freaks out over him being late on a milestone. He's very much my kid and does things in his own time, on his own terms.

Still working on my photography. I snap photos whenever I can, but unfortunately there's always a lag this time of year, it seems. Everything's dead and gray. I can't wait for spring and summer, especially since I'll be updating my camera very soon (ordering it tomorrow, actually). I'm starting to outgrow my Fujifilm Finepix S700 and am ready to step up to something a little more advanced. I'm so excited! I'll probably be posting about it on my photography blog in the next few days. Thankfully, God has blessed us with a nice tax return this year, and all the necessities, including the monster hospital bill (yay!), have been taken care of, leaving us with some fun money - much to the dismay of my tax auditor mother. :) We're also planning on getting a couple of study Bibles we've been wanting, which we're also quite excited about. I promise all the important things are taken care of, Cher. Breathe.

Well, looky there. I did have something to update on. I surprised myself, even! I can't promise the next time I'll be posting - probably around the 18th for when Robby turns 8 months. Yes, 8 months. Can you believe it? Maybe I'll find something to ramble about before then, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

One last thing - I just wanted to mention that I do keep Robby's photo album updated for those of you who are interested:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mattnjenmarshall/RobertDeane#

Baby 101

I just had to share this because I thought it was hilarious. Yesterday, we were walking around Walmart when Matt happened across a co-worker. When he spotted us, he walked up to our cart, pointed to Robby, and said, "Cute baby,". I thanked him, like I do everyone, but that's not the funny part. This is how the rest of the conversation went:

Him: "How old is he?"

Us: "Seven months."

Him: "Oh, so has he started talking, yet?"

Us: "Um, he's only seven months old."

Him: "Oh. Well, don't they start saying "no" or something at this age?"

Us: "Um, no? That's not until much later, thankfully."

Him: "Oh, so he can walk, though, right?"

Us: *laughing* "No. He can't even crawl, yet!"

Him: "When do they walk?"

Us: "A year or so?"

Him: "But he can at least point at stuff, right?"

At this point, I started cracking up. This poor "kid" had no clue about babies. I know I'm still learning and still very much green, but it isn't rocket science. He's seven months old! Just barely! He's still rather limited...or according to this guy, way behind! I explained to him that Robby can roll around, can get up on all fours and is preparing to crawl, and can sit up assisted. Oddly enough, he didn't seem as impressed after that.

I'll let you know when he starts juggling and quoting Shakespeare - which should be around nine months, evidently.

Walker

Baby boy got a new walker today! He really likes it!

Seven Months Old

Sorry this is late. Over the past week and half, we've all been incredibly sick twice - once with the stomach flu and then with the flu...flu? Miserable, but we're on the mend, thank goodness.

Here's Robby at seven months. I'm finding it increasingly more and more difficult to take his monthly photos. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that it would be easier to give a cat a perm than to get one nice, non-blurry, smiley photo out of him. This is the best I could do. If you start seeing duct tape in the photos, you'll understand why.

Updates - still not crawling or sitting up on his own, but he's very, very close. He can get up on all fours and sit up with assistance for a few seconds. Other than that, he's eating anything and everything. He loves all food equally. He has, however, developed an aversion to juice all of a sudden. He used to love it, but then he got the stomach flu. I was desperate to get fluids into him that I kept trying to give him juice; now he won't touch it. And WIC gives us 15, 4oz bottles of juice a month. I guess we'll just start stock-piling for when he likes it again. I can definitely see his little personality really starting to bloom - his stubborn, head-strong, so-much-like-his-parents-I'm-in-trouble-when-he-turns-two personality. Thankfully, he's incredibly sweet and playful the majority of the time and so curious to explore his little world and all the items (i.e. papers, CD cases, etc.) in it.

Did I really have a baby seven months ago?

Selfish SAHM's (Stay-at-Home Moms)

The nerve of us stay-at-home moms!!
(Click to enlarge.)

Week Wrap-Up

Geesh. I'm so behind. I'm sorry.

Let's see. Last week in a summary - Matt and I worked our tails off (literally) and managed to lose 6lbs each, we attended a great Bible study at our pastor's house called The Truth Project and are looking forward to the following 11 weeks worth of learning and growing in the Lord, Matt and I celebrated (more like quietly observed) our 6th wedding anniversary on Saturday by spending the day together as a family, Sunday we went to church as usual, but a friend tagged along, and I was offered a possible desktop publishing/webmaster/blogging job for the VBS and I'm REALLY excited about it, and now Matt and I have some sort of chest congestion that has made working out and walking around very...winded. *Whew!* I hope I remembered everything. Busy week!

I'll leave you with this because I thought it was funny: Matt and I were discussing purchasing a jogging stroller for Robby for when we go to the CSI fitness trail last night. I sat and thought about it for a moment, thinking of the two strollers the kid already "owns", and thought about what his strollers' "car equivalents" would be (because my brain works like this). Here's the analogy I came up with:

Travel System = Ford Excursion


Jogging Stroller = Jeep Wrangler

Umbrella Stroller = Geo Metro

What Robby's Been Up To...

A couple of new "Robby developments" are:

Getting up on all fours (temporarily) and...

...sitting up (with assistance)!

And yes - the "binky" is unfortunately becoming a permanent fixture on my child's face. Not my plan, but how often do parent's plans for their children actually follow through?

Also, I wanted to mention that Robby had his first illness last week - the stomach flu, of all things! Poor kid had horrible diarrhea for almost a week. This miserable thing about it is that all three of us were sick at once! Yuck! But we're all better, now.

And yes - my living room is trashed. That's all I have to say.

My 10 Reasons

For Biggest Loser, our challenge this week is to write down 10 reasons why we want to lose weight. I thought I'd post it here for motivation:

1. I want to glorify my God by taking better care of the gift of life He gave me.
2. I want to be a better Christian example to those around me.
3. I want to see my son grow up, get married, and have kids of his own.
4. I want to be able to roughhouse with my son and husband without getting winded.
5. I don't want to have serious health problems when I'm older.
6. As much as I yearn for Heaven, I want to live this life to it's fullest.
7. I want to feel better about myself and I don't want to feel embarrassed to leave my home.
8. I want to look better for my husband, even though he still loves me no matter what size I am.
9. I don't want to break into tears in the middle of a store everytime I can't find something, anything, that will fit me.
10. I want to finally be rid of this sin and burden I have been bearing all my life.

And just for kicks:
11. I want more kids in the future!

Happy Birthday Kathy & Belated Birthday Dad!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHY!!!

AND BELATED BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Biggest Loser - Week 1

Biggest Loser is officially in full swing and I'm feeling as optimistic as ever about losing this weight once and for all! We all weighed in yesterday and I weighed in at a whopping 311.6lbs - only 4lbs less than my heaviest. Yikes. Again, I'm the heaviest contestant in the competition and am staring down 100lbs+ to lose to make it to my ultimate goal weight. That's so embarrassing, but it drives me to try harder than everyone else. So, my goals this week are to do 30 minutes of cardio three times a week, 20-30 minutes of strength training twice a week, making smarter food choices, and watching my portions. We bought a stationary bike this weekend. It's great and I was actually looking forward to using it this morning. I never thought I'd be so excited about buying exercise equipment.

Please pray for Matt and I and all the contestants competing and expect lags in posts for awhile. I have a lot of my plate right now.

Time-Lapsed Baby

I found this video on YouTube. It's a time-lapsed video of a nine month old baby boy playing for four hours (the parts with "human interaction" have been edited out). This kid reminded me of Robby - rolling around everywhere and into everything! Anything he can reach is fair game! Enjoy!

Facing My Sin

As the countdown to Biggest Loser wains, I'm preparing myself for the task at hand. Workouts, weigh-ins, calorie-counting, temptation, healthy eating - yikes! Here we go again! Yesterday, I sat thinking about why I wanted to lose the weight once and for all. Of course, my mind immediately went to Robby and Matt - I want to be healthy and live longer for them, I thought. And then I selfishly thought, so I look better and to be able to wear better clothes. But then I was struck with conviction from the Holy Spirit. In my past spiritual growth, I've learned to focus on what God is trying to point out to me instead of being quick to anger or ignoring it, so I sat and prayed.

The conclusion I came to made me want to drop to the ground. Despite being saved and being a firm believer, I was still living in sin and had been all my life, but had refused to realize it. I found the most important reason why I had to lose this weight - because God gave me this life, this precious gift, and I spat in His Holy face on a daily basis with my gluttony and slothfulness! Abusing this body He so lovingly blessed me with by filling it with nothing but junk for so long and doing nothing about it - what a disgrace! That is like someone handing you the keys to a brand new sports car and you promptly running it into a wall over and over and over again on purpose with no remorse whatsoever. I felt no remorse for selfishly stuffing my face, nor any remorse for not making any attempts to get off the couch and go for a simple walk. What a sickening feeling I had when I realized all this! But the important thing is that I realized this before it was too late, have since repented of my sins, and will make the necessary changes with God's will and strength.

Thank you, Lord, for your sanctification, mercy, and loving-kindness! And thank God that I am apart from this world, even though I was happily basking it in not too long ago. As it says in the Bible about this world:

"Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things." Philippians 3:19

So, as I embark on this journey to face and destroy my sin, please pray for me. This has been my lifetime weakness and only God Himself can help me be strong enough to overcome it!

Matt's Birthday Cake

I just finished up on Matt's birthday cake (aka "truth cake") and I have to say I am, for the most part, pretty proud of it. Considering this is only the second layer cake I've ever made (the first didn't turn out too great), it didn't turn out half bad. Watching too much Food Network and Stumbling across various baking blogs, I decided to take pictures of the process and post about it.

I decided to be ambitious and try a chocolate and vanilla swirl cake with chocolate pudding filling and vanilla frosting. Here, the cake is ready to be constructed.Here's a close-up of the cake itself. I love the pattern it made!Mmm...a layer of chocolate fudge pudding.Put together. Now it's time for frosting!Frosting in progress. I'm never good at this part....and a little in the chef. Maybe this is why I'm not good at frosting?Viola! We have our finished product. I know it's not perfect, but I would like to think that it reflects it's creator - no, not blindingly white and packed with fat - imperfect, yet full of good intentions. :)

What would I do differently next time? Buy a cake. And if I ever had a cake store (yes, a cake store), my motto would be "Eh, it's edible..." Needless to say, I think I'll stick to my mommy career. I hope Matt likes it, at least.

[Edit] I had to wait for Matt to get home to show a slice.He loved it! :)

Stats & THE DUCK

Just a quick (maybe?) update. Robby had a health screening appointment at WIC, yesterday. They said he's 16lbs., 10oz., and 27in. long and looks great! My checks changed, also - no more milk and cheese for us, but Robby does get baby cereal and juice added to his formula. Kind of bummed about that, but oh well. It wasn't going to last forever! It was just a huge help. They also told me that he can pretty much eat whatever we're eating, just as long as it's mashable, can't give him an allergy, etc. We also got the go ahead to start him on the 2nd foods. I'm not too thrilled about the thought of pureed meats, but he's got to try them. I'm debating whether it's worth taking him in to the doctor for a checkup, considering the WIC people (as undependable as they might be) checked him out and my car very well might completely roll over and die on the way there. There's nothing wrong with him. Just another wellness check. Thoughts?

[Edit] Thanks for reminding me, Sara - he's scheduled for his six month shots next Wednesday.

Also, my step mom requested that I share a picture of "THE DUCK". We call him "THE DUCK" because this is the toy that Robby always yells at. We still don't know why, but now he's started yelling at his Panda that Matt gave him. Weird kid. The only toy he's perfectly quiet with is his photo album, which is filled with all "his people" - aka all his family members. He'll lay there for a long time just flipping through the pages and staring at everyone's face. It's so cute. So, without furter ado, I present...THE DUCK:

Happy Birthday Matt!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTY!!!

Robby and I are so thankful that you were born today! We love you!