Medicine of Immortality "It's a cold, and it's a broken, 'Hallelujah!'"

Kyrie’s 11 months oldPosted by Rachel on August 30th, 2006

You know what this means? It means that next month, we’re going to be celebrating our daughter’s first birthday! Am I ready? No. Am I excited? Yes. Do I want another baby now? You’re going to have to convince Rick for that to happen. Haha.

My little girl is 11 months old. She’s 22 lbs. (72nd percentile) and 28½ inches long (39th percentile…little shrimp). She walks, she talks, she has FOUR teeth now (two bottom, two top – I just love how orderly she is about it), and she makes me so happy every day! Don’t worry Mommy, more pictures are soon to come. It’s been a slow picture-taking week because she’s gotten lots of bumps & bruises lately, but they’re healing and her face is starting to look more presentable again.

Today was a beautiful day. It was only 88 and the humidity was almost not there. They’re predicting another nice, warm & dry day tomorrow, and the rest of the 7-day forecast looks promising. Yeah, it’s an exciting life I lead.

I got a chance to read a bit more of Bob Webber’s “Renew Your Worship!” today. So far, so great. I’m also reading “Parenting in the Pew.” Not too impressed, but she does bring up good points here and again. The really big turn-off for me was when she mentioned that her toddler son wanted to be able to stay in for the entire service but she made it a rule to wait until he was 4. I just don’t see the point of that, especially when he wanted to participate.

Kyrie is at home snoozing and Rick is hopefully getting lots of needed reading done. Life’s been a bit crazy at the Capezza abode, but a good crazy. I guess that’s it for now.

My niecePosted by Rick on August 30th, 2006

is freaking cute.

Children of MenPosted by Rick on August 28th, 2006

This trailer looks interesting.

Classroom anticsPosted by Rick on August 28th, 2006

Well if you haven’t heard about the pranksters in my classroom last Friday, they’ve put their videos on the Internet.

Superman in the classroom
Singing in the classroom
Dancing in the classroom

Kyrie montage and walking videoPosted by Rick on August 26th, 2006

Click “save as” or open in Windows Media Player by clicking:Kyrie montage

This one is Kyrie walking around while we were working on her montage at ULM.

Prayer requestPosted by Rick on August 24th, 2006

If you have ever benefited from a Bob Webber book, give a minute or two to utter up a prayer for him today. His wife just sent out an email that said, “He is in the hospital and tests are being run to determine what might be wrong. He hasn’t been feeling well and has had severe digestive problems. He also appears somewhat jaundiced. They think it might be his gallbladder or liver. His liver enzymes are very elevated.”

Update: Today, Bob was diagnosed with a pancreatic tumor, probably cancer. He is being moved to the University of Chicago Medical Center and will be seeing a specialist there. If the cancer has spread, it is inoperable. If not, he probably will be undergoing the same operation his brother-in-law, Dr. Bill Wood, had last month. It is a complicated procedure with a lengthy recovery. But, it seems to also be the favored option.

videosPosted by Rachel on August 24th, 2006

Kyrie says hi.
Kyrie responds to discipline.

Old friendsPosted by Rick on August 24th, 2006

So when I was a sophomore in high school, we used to have “study parties.” These parties consisted of football players, cheerleaders, and the smartest people in our classes. One day, we decided to have a chemistry study party at my house (I was not the brains in this subject; that’s for sure.)

My buddy, Travis, gave directions to my house to two junior cheerleaders in our class. He said, “You’ll turn left at Spencer’s, take your fourth right, your first left, and it’ll be the fourth house on the right. My little red Buick will be parked out in front.” We got a call from the girls about 15 minutes into the party, “We can’t find the house.” So Travis jumped into his Buick SkyLark and drove to Spencer’s Short-Stop gas station to direct them to my house. As he pulled in, one of the girls says, “We saw that car, but it didn’t say Buick; it said SkyLark.” rolls eyes

Well, these two dears graduated high school and went off to do what all pretty girls do: they became cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys. Well, one of them climbed the ranks and became an “actress” (she was in a 20 minute short with Zooey Deschanel [the girl from “Elf]) and a Playboy playmate that likes to hang around an old creepy guy named Hugh Hefner. The other cheered for Dallas for a couple of years, and I heard nothing about her until I got an email today from Travis.

The email was talking about Tulsa’s new restoration project. Apparently, a drunk driver ran into the centerpiece of the project, a giant fountain, causing $43,000 worth of damage. The culprit: little cheergirl #2.

Oh, memories.

ThoughtsPosted by Rachel on August 23rd, 2006

I’m so excited. It rained yesterday. It rained today. It’s not nearly as hot as it’s been. I felt a leap of joy in my heart as I thought of the possibility that fall will come this year. Yes…first Halloween with oodles of candy, then Thanksgiving with too many pies, then Christmas when we make our trip up to see the magical fairyland of Spokane. Rain makes me feel rather hopeful.

On the not-so-cheerful side of things, Kyrie has been teething, and it’s been brutal for both of us. The highlight of her day is taking tylenol, and the highlight of mine is her naptime. Of course, she still does cute things throughout the day. Most recently, she’s taken an interest to the pictures on our walls. She walks back and forth pointing at them and saying “Ah? Ah? ReeAy?” I think “ReeAy” is her name; a lot of the pictures are of her, after all.

I think she’s going through a growth spurt. She’s stayed within a pound of her weight at 6 months, but lately her pants & shorts have been looking shorter on her. She’s also got quite an appetite lately. She loves plain boiled potatoes (I take some out for her before I mash ours with all the bad stuff like milk and butter), and finally lets me spoon feed her from time to time. Cheerios are still the favorite.

Rick isn’t so happy about this one, but I taught Kyrie “Uh-oh,” even though she usually just says “Uh!” She’ll “drop” an object as an excuse to say it. She also says “hi” and “yeah” in their proper contexts now. Too cute.

Two storiesPosted by Rick on August 21st, 2006

So this morning, I went to our church building to pray before the first day of school. As I pulled up, I saw a white van, and as I walked towards the building, I noticed a vacuum in the back. Cleaning dude. As I got closer to the doors, I heard this loud music: “They say the chicks are something else awn Braawwdwaaay!” Nothing could have been weirder and so unlike my church. Ha.

The second story is much cuter because it involves Kyrie. We were having some family time on the bed before Compline. Kyrie kept on touching the blinds, and we would gently discipline her. Then she started to inch her finger as close as possible without touching it. We trying really hard not to bust up laughing. I mean, she’s ten months old. Do they really start to test your limits at that early of an age? She’s done similar things with outlets, but this was just sooo obvious.

Anyways, after a little more discipline, I said, “Kyrie, we don’t touch the blinds, do we?” And she shook her head no in the cutest little way. I thought, “Okay, that was a fluke,” so I asked her again, and she shook her head no again. So we grabbed the camera to try to get it on film. Well, she didn’t do it quite as clearly again, and the fifth time I asked her, she broke out into tears, and I realized that she wasn’t just answering a question, but really felt sad…so I quit, so no good video. Oh well. It’s truly amazing to watch your kids grow in that sort of knowledge at such a young age (she’s 10.5 months old). I mean, I really didn’t expect her to be this smart at this age. Parenting is really getting to be fun.