The Valley of Vision

Chris and I have been reading a prayer from the Valley of Vision every evening, and I thought I would share a few snippets that have impacted our thinking and have enriched our praise of such a great God:

There is no comfort in anything
apart from enjoying thee
-From "GOD THE ALL"

I rejoice to think that all things are at thy
disposal, and it delights me to leave
them there. Then prayer turns wholly
into praise,and all I can do is to adore and
bless thee.
-From "GOD THE ALL"

O God, it is amazing that men can
talk so much about man's creaturely
power and goodness, when, if thou
didst not hold us back every moment,
we should be devils incarnate. This,
by bitter experience, thou hast taught
me concerning myself.
-From "GOD THE ALL"

Thou art all my good in times of peace,
my only support in days of trouble,
my one sufficiency when life shall end.
-From "THE ALL-GOOD"

For I was no more ready to receive Christ
than were others; I could not have begun
to love thee hadst thou not first loved me,
or been willing unless thou hadst first made
me so.
-From "THE MOVER"

Help me to honour thee
by believing before I feel
-From "THE DIVINE WILL"

Teach me to believe that all degrees
of mercy arise from several degrees
of prayer
-From "THE DIVINE WILL"

I know but a part, but
that part exceeds all praise
-From "DIVINE MERCIES"

I bless thee that thou hast made me capable
of knowing thee, the author of all being,
of resembling thee, the perfection of all excellency,
of enjoying thee, the source of all happiness.
-From "GOD ENJOYED"

While Jesus is representing me in heaven,
may I reflect him on earth
-From "GOD ENJOYED"

Another Milestone

Just a few days after learning how to crawl, Charlotte has learned how to pull herself up. :-)

And yes, things are definitely more fun around here now that Charlotte is crawling!

Sewing Projects

That's a lot of batting! Let me explain...every fall, there are two fairs that are popular among ex-pats in Bahrain. Chris and I didn't go to either last year, but from talking to others, there's apparently not a lot of Christmas stuff even though the fairs are held around the holiday season. I had the idea to sew a bunch of Christmas stockings and other Christmas-related things to try and sell at the fairs this fall. I'm starting early since it's going to take awhile to sew everything. The picture above is the batting I ordered from JoAnn's...it's huge! Charlotte was climbing all over it the other night. She was also eating the batting before Chris noticed it and stopped her. Haha!

Below are a few pictures of other sewing projects I've been working on the past two weeks. Besides the pictures below, I've also made another shirt and dress. They're not pictured because I forgot to have Chris take pictures when I wore them. You'll have to trust me when I say they're cute!

A dress I made for Charlotte. Below is her wearing it. It's a size 2, so it's a little big for her yet. Okay, it's a lot big!

I didn't make the dress Charlotte is wearing, but I thought this was a cute picture!

And Away She Goes....

Fun days are ahead of us because....Charlotte is officially crawling! Chris was on the floor with Charlotte tonight while we were watching TV. He was holding the remote in his hand and Charlotte started crawling towards it. She loves the remote and is always reaching for it, so it's no surprise that the remote is what finally got her moving! When she started crawling, I could hardly believe it. She's been working on crawling for a couple weeks now. Before tonight, she had managed to take one or two "steps" before collapsing, and she'd even figured out how to get into a bear crawl stance, but I just knew that one day she would figure it out and take off. Well, today was that day. After Charlotte crawled to Chris and grabbed the remote, he took the remote and backed up further to see if Charlotte would crawl towards him again, and she did! After the second time, I got out the video camera. :-)

A Different Side of Our Little Darling

Just about all the pictures of Charlotte I post are of her beaming from ear to ear. She is a very happy baby but she does have her moments. She can be a rather "clingy" baby and loves attention. I hate to say this, but so far she's a mommy's girl. If she sees me walk out of the room, she'll have a breakdown...even when Chris is home and is holding her. Other times she'll just start crying because she wants our attention or wants us to play with her. It's a little ridiculous! And I don't want you to think that we've made her like this or indulge her...we usually don't since we want her to learn to play by herself! So here are some photos of a side of Charlotte you haven't seen...during one of her many "I want some attention" breakdowns. :-)

Once a Wiggle Worm...

When I went to get Charlotte out of her crib the other morning, I found her like this:


I still can't figure out how she managed to wiggle her arm out of her pajamas without unfastening any of her buttons!

Another Old T-Shirt Dress

I told you I'd be making more of these! To see the first one I made, click here. I need to remember to take "before" pics of the t-shirts so that you can better see the before and after. Before making it into a dress for Charlotte, it was a baby doll t-shirt from Gap. I added front ruffles, which took off some of the length. So instead of a dress, it's more like a long t-shirt. Ah, it's so nice to have such a cute model!