Four month update

Tuesday January 26 Temperance went for her four month check up. She's growing great! She is now 25.5 inches long and 14 lbs 1 oz. She's in the 84% for height...which is down from the 93% she was at her 2 month appointment! She's always been long, and as a result there's always been some speculation as to her future. After last week, I'm very curious myself. It was a Saturday and she had just gotten up from her afternoon nap. Bert had a basketball game on the TV, and don't you know she was GLUED to it!! She's always liked football, but we've been always been able to distract her from it somehow. Not that day! We did everything. I called to her, talked to her, played the music of all her favorite toys - nothing...until commercial break!!!! When a commercial would come on, she would look around the room and talk to us, play with us etc. All the while though she would be glancing back at the TV to see if the game was back on. As soon as the game came back on...she was done with us! At one point Grandma Lynn got in between her and the TV and she craned her neck to see around her. It was hilarious. Mind you, she had not eaten in a while or anything. She's never been that glued to anything before. Now, before you Kentucky people get too excited, it was a Duke vs. Georgetown game. The colors were black and gray. Nothing to get too excited about...but she liked it anyways. So, we'll see. Perhaps it is not coincidence that she is crazy long (with two average height parents) and born in basketball crazy Kentucky in the year they finally reach the #1 spot...even if only for a week or two. We shall see!

Prayers for Haiti

I have a friend who grew up in an Orphanage in Carrefour, Haiti, which is very close to the epicenter of the earthquake. He is in the States now studying engineering at the University of Kentucky. So naturally we have been praying for Haiti a lot. Especially the children of this orphanage. The name of the Orphanage is the Good Shepherd Orphange. This is their website if you'd like to check them out http://gsohaiti.org/index.php. My students have been taking mission trips there over the past year and plan to return in March. It can be so hard to pray over situations like this one where the loss and the devastation seem beyond hope. I found a prayer to pray over these kids the other day while Temperance and I were doing our daily Bible reading.

We read an Old Testament story and a New Testament story most every day.
* Side note: She LOVES her Bible!!! I am so very excited and hope this is a life long love.*
I have learned as much through our daily Bible readings as I have from my own quiet times. I have been able to see so many connections between the Old Testament stories and the New Testament ones. I'm not sure if the editor of this Bible did this intentionally. Well, sometime last week we were reading and the Old Testament story was of God providing manna and quail for the Israelites while they were in the desert, and the New Testament story was of Jesus feeding the five thousand. It inspired me to pray for the children of the Good Shepherd Orphanage (and others in Haiti who are also hungry) that they would be able to say that they have truly been fed by the hand of God! While this is a terrible tragedy and nothing is worth the loss of so many lives, I do hope and pray that God is making believers out of this situation. Believers because they have seen the hand of God in the midst of such tragedy. I am praying for miracles to happen and for God to get the glory for them. I know God gets many questions and doubters out of situations like this, and I'm not blaming anyone for doubting. If there ever were a cause to doubt...this would be one of them. But I choose to believe that there is more than I can see or understand. And I am praying that He will get as much glory as he gets groans out of this situation.
Lord may you raise up missionaries out of the Good Shepherd Orphanage. Missionaries who don't even have to go far. Just children who grow into adults with full faith in you, and the urgency to share it with everyone they meet. Always remembering that in 2010 they were fed by the hand of God.

Picture update

So Temperance is 4 months old now!!! The past two weeks have not been very fun with the whole teething process. Sometimes I wonder if steak is really worth it, or if we could all just deal with mashed potatoes for our whole lives to just not experience (or put our moms through) this pain of teething.

I have learned two things in the past two weeks:
1. It is a very good thing babies do not remember this part of their lives.
2. I have learned how much my mom loves me. Not for anything she's doing now...which is a ton...but for realizing what she has done. And just finally understanding the love between a mother and daughter, and to realize she feels the same way about me. I love you too mom!!!!!!
Well, here's some pictures, some recent, some not so recent.
Here's Temperance on her four month birthday...such a big girl!

Bert has really gotten into the weather since we've moved to KY...seriously. But of course if you are on Facebook, you know this. Well, here's Bert trying to get our Tempie into weather...they're checking out cool weather maps on the computer.

And here's Temperance with her Great Grandparents over Christmas.


Well, I hope you all have a great weekend, and enjoy all the solid foods you eat. It was hard work getting to this point...even if you don't remember it!

Guess who bit me today!!!

That's right! My little girl bit me this morning! I was so excited. I've never been so happy to have someone bite me. She's been pretty obviously teething the last few days. Everything from the heavy drool to the diaper rash and let us not forget the crying!! Well, this morning she grabed my finger and put it in her mouth (nothing unusual!) and I felt something sharp. It was the corner of a tooth making its way through the skin! I was so excited I ran upstairs and had her bite Bert:) It's not big, or even very visible yet, but it's definitely there. I hope this means a slow down to the fussing...we'll see.

I love her so much! She's growing so fast and learning so much right now! She's just started laughing in the last week or so. We're still working on getting a good video of that. Which means we have lots and lots of video of us doing silly stupid things and her just staring at us! Yesterday she also rolled over from her stomach to her back for the first time generally unassisted. She's definitely making progress in rolling in both directions. Soon she'll be mobile! We'll upload a video of her rolling skills (or attempts) soon. I love you all friends and family! May you have a blessed week. And may you find joy in the bites life gives you!

Yummy Muffins

So, Bert likes to let Temperance smell things. He did this with the dogs before Temperance came around. Only the dogs didn't get to smell food, they got to smell things like the mail. They were always up for it though, wondering what it might smell like today! Bert has been letting Tempie smell things since the very beginning. Funny story...the first week Bert went back to work, he came home with a candle from Yankee Candle Store. Of course not wanting to leave our daughter out of anything, he holds it up to her nose as well to smell. She was only a week old at the time. She produced the most violent gag we had seen up to that time, and I think since! It was far too strong a smell for her! Well, Bert still lets her smell things, just not such strong things. I made these muffins the other night. They are apple cinnamon muffins. This video is her smelling the muffins. It is the first time we've gotten a reaction from a smell since the Yankee Candle. Only this time it is a good reaction. She is just too cute!

New Year's Resolutions

Well, this year I probably have more resolutions than I ever have before. I'm not sure why that is. I guess I know I have a lot to work on. One of my resolutions is to start a blog and to update it weekly. If with nothing else, then at least a picture of the week of Temperance. I have heard that some blogs can be bound into a book if you want. I hope this one can. I think it would be neat for Temperance to have later when she grows up. All the stories and pictures of her that I may otherwise forget. I hope never to forget these years, but already I have forgotten so much. My resolution to journal failed miserably last year...so maybe with the journaling being in the form of typing, and the subject being my favorite of all (my little girl!), I will keep it up. I'm sure my mom and the rest of my family will give me great encouragement to do so!

The name of my blog site comes from a quote from one of my favorite Christian Saints of old: St. Augustine. He describes the four cardinal virtues as four forms of love: temperance, fortitude, justice and prudence. Temperance he defines as "love giving itself entirely to that which is loved." I'm not convinced Bert had this quote in mind when he chose the name for our daughter. I'll bet he hasn't heard this quote till he reads this blog :) but I like it.

I'll go ahead and give you the definitions of the other three because they are equally wonderful and they describe very well some of my other resolutions. "Fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object; justice is love serving only the loved object and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it." Augustine goes on to say that "This object of this love is not anything, but only God, the chief good, the highest wisdom, the perfect harmony. So we may express the definition thus: temperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God, fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man; prudence is love making a right distinction between what helps it towards God and what might hinder it."

As most women, I fight off worry and fear nearly every moment of the day. The last virtue, prudence, is a great description of my other resolution. To be wise in knowing what is worth worrying about, and what will hinder me from God by my worrying about it.

My daughter is beautiful. Temperance Grace Parham. She will remind me by name and virtue to give my love entirely to God, "the chief good, the highest wisdom, the perfect harmony."