family mission statement

In our hurried culture, it's easy to go through the motions of life without ever thinking about how and why we choose to spend our time and resources. In an effort to live intentionally, Keith and I decided to develop a family mission statement. This exercise gave us an opportunity to talk about why we're here and how we should use our gifts to glorify God. We were able to develop a concise statement that we can look to for accountability as we make decisions and that will encourage us to see the big picture as we live day to day. The idea and inspiration to spend time developing our family mission statement came from one of my very favorite blogs, simple mom. I've never been great at time management, and on her blog, Tsh shares ideas on how to manage your time and home more efficiently, so that you have more time to enjoy what's most important. This post provides discussion questions and a framework for applying your answers to craft a comprehensive statement about who you want to be as a family. She encourages you to display it in your home as a reminder of your family's priorities. We hope our family mission statement will provide direction in our lives as Jesus-followers, in our ministries, our marriage, and our parenting.

nine months

may 2, 2010

21 pounds 5 ounces

28.75 inches

Sweet Carsy,

Nine months sounds so old! Time is flying and you’re growing up on us, Precious Boy! We are so very thankful to have you in our life! We love to play with you and watch you investigate your expanding world. We enjoy sitting with you and reading you books. You still love to touch and help turn the pages. We love watching you play with your blocks and puzzles. You have one stacking puzzle with different colored shapes, and every single time you play with it you take off the purple rectangle first. You love that purple rectangle and carry it with you all around the playroom. In fact, there used to be two purple rectangles, but you took one of them somewhere and hid it, because we can’t find it anywhere! You look like such a big boy sitting up and playing all by yourself. You aren’t at all wobbly anymore and quickly learned to sit up all by yourself from your belly. In addition to the toys in your bedroom and the playroom, you also have baskets of toys on the bottom shelves in the living room and kitchen. You like to sit and take each toy out of the baskets one at a time. Granny got you some letter magnets for the refrigerator and you love to sit and play with them while I’m cooking. We find those magnets all over the house, because you take them with you as you crawl from room to room. You also like to open the bottom drawer and take out the plastic lids while I’m cooking. The kitchen seems to be one of your favorite places.

You have become an expert crawler! You’ve increased your crawling speed this month and crawl from one room to another a lot more frequently. You are a busy boy with lots to see and do! Sometimes you still crawl with your belly on the floor, but recently you’ve begun crawling on all fours more and more. Sometimes you crawl with your right knee down and your left foot up; as if you wish you could start walking.

You started pulling yourself up to standing early this month and it quickly became your very favorite thing to do! You pull up on anything and everything including the open dishwasher door, open dryer door, shelves, dressers, the coffee table, chairs, stools, in your crib, the bathtub, the toilet, and even some flat surfaces like the oven door. The other day I left the toilet lid up and you pulled right up and stuck your hand in the water before I could get to you, oops! Since then, I’ve been more careful. You like to take magazines, phonebooks, and cookbooks off the shelves and crumple the pages. We attempt to redirect your focus to your toys, but you sure do love to pull them down. Usually we get to you before you start crumpling too much, but you have pulled the covers off a couple of them! You’ve tumbled to the floor a few times after pulling up, it startles you sometimes, but doesn’t bother you too much most of the time. One day, though, you fell forward on to the front of the rocking chair and got a knot with a bruise right between your eyes. As the month progressed, you gained more control and got better and better at going from standing to sitting. You like to cruise along the side of what you’re holding on to. You also learned to roll over from your back to your belly this month and you love it. It has made changing your diaper a bit challenging, because you flip over and try to escape!

Another milestone this month was teeth! After lots of hard teething work, two little bitty teeth finally broke the surface on the bottom middle, but you don’t show them off too much and would prefer we didn’t try to peek at them! You still eat three times a day. You love fruit and will eat quite a bit of it. You can easily eat two bananas at one meal! You tried blueberries for the first time this month, and they quickly became another favorite. You still don’t love veggies, so we usually mix some apples or bananas with them to make them more appetizing! You like to sit in your highchair and chew on cold celery or eat puffs while we’re eating. You’ve gotten better at using the pincer grip to pick up puffs, and sometimes you eat 30 or 40 during one meal. You started experimenting with a sippy cup this month. You are really good at getting the water out, but you usually get more on your bib than you swallow! All of this eating has really made you grow! You now wear size 4 diapers. Many of your 6-9 month clothes are getting too small, and you’re wearing more and more 9-12 month clothes. You’ve had even more full nights of sleep this month, but most nights you still wake up once during the night. You don’t have a regular bedtime, but you usually go to bed between 9:00-10:00. In the mornings you normally wake up around 8:00. We love to listen to you playing happily in your crib when you wake up in the mornings. When we greet you in the mornings or after a nap, you are often sitting up or standing up now. You take two naps a day, usually totaling 2.5 hours. We had to move the mattress down in your crib because you were pulling up to standing and we didn’t want you to climb out.

You nurse five times per day, and I am thankful for this sweet and still time with you. Sometimes, after you nurse, you give me sweet kisses and let me snuggle you close for a few seconds before you’re off to play and explore!

You are talking more and more this month, too! You are still saying “mama,” and I am confident you know what it means! You say it most often when you want me to hold you or feed you. Your talking transitioned from cooing to babbling this month. You say “aba aba aba.” You can wave and say “hi” and “bye bye,” though you don’t always do it at the appropriate time and certainly not on command! You’ve also had lots of fun learning to make new noises with your mouth, including one that sounds like a motor. We absolutely love to listen you to, Baby Boy!

You still love your church family and usually handle being passed around from one person to another really well. We’ve had a lot of fun company this month! You were able to spend time with both sets of grandparents this month. They all love you so much and really enjoyed playing with you and watching you learn! We’ve loved and treasured each stage of your sweet little life, and this one is no exception. You are at such a fun stage of development. We can already tell that you’re loving, sociable, determined, curious, and independent. It is exciting to see you grow into the person God created you to be!

We love you, love you, love you!

Mama and Daddy