Our church and Luke eating noses and losing the paci

Right after Luke was born, I remember talking to my sister-in-law and mother-extraordinaire Becky. Luke was screaming his head off in the background :) and my niece was eating my brother's nose in the background of their end. I remember thinking, I can't wait for Luke to eat Josh's nose! Luke has been very fussy the last 3 days- cold and teething. It's these moments that I TRY to meditate on as I contemplate running away! (Rebekah is showing you Mickie in the 2nd pic).

Side story- R and I went to swing. Against my better judgment I allowed her to take the precious Mickie. Her paci is precariously attached to her by a flimsy string and we have already retied it a million times. Anyway, off we went and as we got to the swings I hear growling and see a huge dog running at my baby! Instincts kicked in and I scooped Rebekah up just in time to see the owner call him and the dog immediately stop. I have actually seen him a bunch and he's a really sweet dog- his "growling" was just his excited noise as he chased down a ball. The owner and his girlfriend waved an apology for my obvious reaction and took the dogs (there was another smaller one) farther away. Well, R was interested in playing with the dogs. We have taught her that she has to ask before she touches a dog. So, as they saw us approaching, they leashed both dogs and said yes. The smaller one was hyper and jumpy and made R nervous. We talked for a while and said good-bye. As we were walking away, I realized the paci was not on the string. As we doubled back, I didn't realize the dogs were unleashed. The smaller dog saw Rebekah and playfully charged her, knocking her over- hard! Rebekah was terrified and we still didn't have the paci! The owners were super-apologetic, but it wasn't their fault- they thought we were gone. We came upstairs without the paci. Luke had finally gone to sleep for his 3rd nap and R's crying over the paci woke him up. :( I was less than patient and almost in tears over losing something so special to my little girl. As I finished dinner, J went down to look for it, no idea where we had been. I finally went back down and FOUND it!!!!! Thank you, Lord, because I did pray about it. We needed that. Needless to say, Mickie is on house arrest until further notice.

The inside of our church. I wish I had taken pics of the ceiling! It's gorgeous!

The front- I crossed the street, but it wasn't far enough to do Gilcomston South (aka Gilc south) justice. It's lovely.

Last night I spent a lot of time placating the baby. Rebekah was very sweet, but the second I put Luke down, she sweetly said, "Mama, I want you." She wrapped herself around me and we had one of those moments my friend Sarah Parr calls Sweet Cream Cheese-Covered moments.

Funny one- Rebekah just noticed we have a French door into the living room. She happily said, "I liiike these little windows!"

Rebekah likes to pretend she is a puppy and obeys most commands. My favorite is when I tell her to wag her tail Instead of shaking her bottom as I expected, she put her hand on her bottom and waved with it.

Rebekah makes me pause her movies while she tee tees- doesn't want to miss a beat!

She has 2 kids' knives that she pretends to butter things with, such as my leg or Josh's backpack.

While watching a new Veggie Tales (thanks Nana!), R kept talking about Twippo. We were clueless. She even showed us which character she meant. Josh finally figured out that the song talked about "Twippo" as a musical band and that's what R was referencing.

Rebekah is also very intrigued about time of day and routine. For example, "It's day time" or "Is it night time? It's dark." When we were leaving the other day, R said, "It's leave time for me." She frequently says "It's nuh-night time for me" or "It's wake-up time for me." She prefers the latter. We tried bribing her with a popsicle to stay in bed later than 6am- no bueno.

She is also really into jumping off steps. So, EVERY curb, bench, bottom stair, she says "I am going to skip off this step."

Rebekah just grabbed a puzzle after tee-teeing (We of course had paused Veggie Tales). She sternly told me, "I don't want to turn off veggie tales. I want to do this puzzle in the living room. I just want to watch Veggie Tales and do this puzzle." Fair enough.

She is starting to make comparisons- she saw a chocolate bunny and said "It's like a bunny, but it's not." She makes TONS of connections that really impress me. For example, a character in a show was named George. Rebekah said, "Like Curious George, but he's not a monkey!" She also has a friend who broke his leg from falling down stairs. Rebekah stumbled down a couple stairs (I had her hand) and said "I fell down stairs like Ethan did. I did not break my leg like Ethan did." I wish I could remember more. As it is, I feel brain-dead. I am confident she is smarter than Josh and me combined- seriously. It's humbling.