Another Episode....

OF PACIFIER AND BABY!
WE NOW JOIN BABY WITH THE FAMOUS PACIFIER...

Hey dad, look what I have...

I have a pacifier and you are not getting it from me!

But what shall I do to keep dad from taking my pacifier?

I have heard that if you lick or bite on something, other people will not want it...hmmm....that's not too bad.

I have never tried a pacifier like this before.

It kind of tastes like lemons (well it is yellow)

I wonder if the purple one tastes like grapes?

I shall find that out another day. Now to move on to my thumb...

Dr. update

Went to the doctor yesterday for her 4 month well baby check-up.

Doctor said "she is perfect"....well I knew that already ;)

She weighs 11 pounds 3 ounces

She is 23 inches long

And she started on food last night...
More came out than went in, but that is to be expected. We shall try again tonight!

Just a Picture

Just a quick picture for today's blog.

A Sigh of Relief

Ever since August of last year (when I finished my degree at Longwood) I have been working to get my teaching license renewed.

I needed to change my name from Kiser to Daniels. I needed to renew it so that I could teach for another 5 years (if I choose). And I needed to add on my librarian degree.

Any one of those might have been easy enough to do, but all three were confusing and I was unsure if I was doing any of it right. So I called in for some help and advice.

At the beginning of the school year I was employed at Herman L. Horn Elementary school for Roanoke County. I ended my work there right before Thanksgiving, but I stayed in touch with the teachers and the school (thank goodness!) So when I needed help the principal offered to help me. I had a meeting with her, and actually I stumped her too. So she sent me off to the school board office.

Have I mentioned that this all happened in January and February, when I was not employed with them? They were so nice to help me!

So I had a meeting with the school board office renewal person. She made sure that I had everything, checked and double checked my forms. Then she even sent it in for me! That was big because if there were any problems she would be the one to answer for them, she was my go-between for the Department of Education (people that I do not like to talk to often).

Well that meeting happened in February. Long time passes, and I am starting to worry because I do not have my license....

I got it today!
Sigh of Relief....

Lunch Date

Today Grace and I did something special. We went to GE at about 12:00 noon and picked up Matt. Then the three of us headed off to the bank to open a savings account for Grace. Then off to the fun part...
We had a lunch date with Matt at Firehouse Subs!
Can you tell how excited Grace is to be there? She is already ignoring me, the camera, her wonderful date (Matt)...well, maybe it is not as bad as all that. Maybe she is just interested in all of the pictures of the firefighters on the wall.

I am just happy that we had a cool spring day where she could dress up in another one of her beautiful outfits from Tennessee, and we could get out and enjoy the day.

New Bed

It has been strongly suggested that I start adding more pictures of Grace onto my blog. So before I start, here is a picture of Grace today.


Now for the blog...
When Matt was on his own he needed a bed. He somehow acquired a beautiful bird's eye pine waterbed frame. It was beautiful, it was decorative, it was a wonderful set, but it was also a bed that you had to pole vault into and usually in the action of jumping (or in my case pole vaulting) into it you usually got multiple bruises on the lower half of your body.

When we moved into the house that we are in now, we somehow decided (I am not sure why) to make the smallest bedroom in our house the guest bedroom. And you got it...the large, tall, behemoth of a bed the guest bed. So when you walk into the guest bedroom you have a small vanity, and a small dresser, and a HUGE bed and not much room for anything else.

After moving the bed this last time to this house we started thinking that we needed to get rid of it, or do something with it. Two years later....

Matt and I decided to go on a evening out and we ended up at one of our favorite places, Goodwill! While looking around for treasures we found a Hollywood Frame for a queen size bed, this is the start to something very good! We took it home and decided that we were going to tear apart the frame of the bed (keeping the beautiful headboard, I am not quite sure for what yet). Use the very nice table saw that we have acquired
Make a lot of saw dust as you can see. We cut all of the side pieces of the bed frame into long strips which would eventually turn into the braces for the bed.
The we started to make some lap joints for the bed. My dad came over for the night and he decided that it might be fun to work on this project. He began to work on it around 6:30pm and Matt joined him soon after. Together they worked until 10:00 pm and carried it up to the room, put on the mattress, I put sheets on and dad slept in the bed that he made that night.It fits so much better in the room, there is actually some room to move around in. The height is about as tall as a normal chair (very lovely to sit on). The bed finally also match the other furniture in the room since the new headboard is part of the set that the dresser and the vanity belong to. I am so happy with this change, but what makes me happier is that we reused something to turn it into something that we needed. It was a good bed frame and it still is a good bed frame, in a different form.

Steve and Sue (and all of our guests for that matter), I think that you will like this bed a lot better!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from our family to yours!

I had to add this picture....
New way to use a pacifier?

Study

While driving to Richmond, or maybe home from Richmond...I do not know...Matt and I had a wonderful talk. It started when we were talking about churches. I do not know how or why we got on that topic (who knows how topics start when you have conversations like this) but we did. Matt mentioned that the "perfect" Sunday School would be where the first half of the Sunday School would be where the scripture for the church service would be read, discussed, compared to the sermon title, analyzed, and guessed upon what the pastor was going to talk about that morning (much like what Glendon Blosser did for our Sunday School class at Weavers). Then the second half of the class would be to read and analyze another part of the Bible. Piece by piece so that in the end the whole Bible would have been read and (mostly) understood...I believe there are parts of the Bible that I will NEVER understand!

So we were talking about this and mentioning how neither of our churches have this exact Sunday School (yes, we attend two churches depending on what part of the month it is and what town we are in) and would not have this Sunday School unless we make it. Then it came to me, why can't we have that, just not on Sunday mornings? I suggested to him that we do his idea (well the second half of it at least) together in the evening. We would have a little Bible study of our own where we read, analyze and discuss a chapter of the Bible. I suggested that we start with 1 Samuel which is one of my favorite books.

Friday we had our first session. We read 1 Samuel chapter 1. First we talked about the story in general and our first thoughts about it. Then we went through the questions that his Bible asks for each chapter (it asks 3 questions: Open, Dig, and Reflect in which each of the questions get deeper and more personal). Our first short session ended up being about an hour and a half of talking about the story and our relating to it. I talked about how Samuel reminds me of Sampson, Matt talked about how Sampson reminded him of Hammurabi, then we ended up talking about personal stories.

I think that if we keep this up we will learn a lot about the Bible, history, and each other. We were very happy and also excited about our first study, I think that this is going to continue and I am so glad.

First Date

Our original first date happened on October 30, 2007. However, I think that this one is pretty memorable too. It was the first date since being parents.

First of all (and most importantly) I was able to get a shower that morning (my third shower in three days!). We had breakfast, then I was told to get ready and take as long as I wanted. So I primped and took my time (I even put on make-up!) I think it might have taken me 30 minutes to get ready (yes, that is a long time for me). I felt like I was looking pretty good, and Matt looked so very handsome I just needed to get a picture. Amy, thank you for being such a great photographer.
We handed Grace over to some good (and very willing) hands of my mom and my sister. Then we said our good byes and headed out for the interstate. A couple of hours of driving, singing, talking, and laughing (and concentrating hard on our iphone maps) we found ourselves at Firehouse subs in Richmond.

Now Matt had been raving about Firehouse subs for awhile to me. He had eaten them at work before. So finally I got to try this place. It is much like Subway...but better. The best thing though was we were there one and a half hours early, in Richmond, about three miles from the play, and able to sit and relax and not have to rush or stress.

After a great lunch, we got into the car and started to drive toward the play. This was a challenge since we happened to be in the one part of Richmond on the one day that they were holding a 5K race so roads were blocked, police officers were everywhere and people were walking like they owned the place. But we got to our parking spot with little stress. This is because we knew that we were close, we knew where we were and how to get to the end point, and we knew that our seats were assigned so we did not have to fight for the best seats in the house.

We finally found a parking spot and just as we walked toward the building where the play was being held the doors opened up so we did not even have to wait outside (timing!) We got to our seat and talked about what we thought of the play, what was to happen in the play, the stage, the decorations, etc. It was great. We went to see Wicked. Which is the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of OZ. The story is told from her birth to her death and you get to see how and why things happened in the story as they do in the Wizard of OZ. Also you get to decide if the Wicked Witch is really wicked....hmmmmm....

Wonderful show, I would recommend it to all.

Then we went to the Strawberry Street Cafe to try to get some supper but found out that it would be an hour wait for a table. I was not willing to wait that long, or have that kind of delay away from my baby. So we got to the car and headed home. A few calls went back and forth from me to my parents, all was going well but as the day drew on I was getting more and more ready to see Grace again.

By the time we had been away for 10 hours ( which was about Staunton...30 miles away) I needed to be home. So Matt took us to a Burger King got some combos, then high tailed it to my parents for a tearful reunion between me and Grace.

It was a wonderful date. I am so glad that we did it. I look forward to doing it again. Matt, Grace, and I all survived. Though at the end I think that we all needed to reunite as a family unit again.

I think that dates are good. They help the parents reconnect, but they also remind the parents of how much they miss and love the children that they have left for a bit. I want another date, but not too soon, and not too often.