Grandma's 90!

This weekend we celebrated my Grandmother's 90th birthday! It was a surprise party/weekend at Spring Mill Inn in the state park in southern Indiana. She was super suprised and we all had a great time! It was a perfect place to just hang out and relax (as much as you can with a 20 month old). It was good to spend some time with family. It was pretty cold outside, so for the most part we stayed indoors. We got to go swimming, which Emma hated at first, but she finally had fun towards the end. She was shivering the whole time, even though the water was quite warm. The only mishap we had was that Emma got her finger slammed in the bathroom door. It was pretty bad, half the morning was dedicated to tending to her ouchy finger. Poor little girl! I think it still hurts a little bit. Emma befriended a stuffed wolf that was at the gift shop, it looked really scary to me as it howled in the air, but she loved it and kept hugging it and saying "doggie, doggie". She also liked the huge life like stuffed Smoky the Bear, he was pretty cool! Emma had a great time hanging out with her cousins, especially Sammy. She really liked being around him, and tended to mimik everything he was doing, including sticking her hand down Smoky the Bear's pants! :) They were very cute together! For Easter, Emma got an Elmo Easter basket with lots of eggs in it that she loved playing with. She also got a mini Elmo see and say and a mini doodle pro pad. We stopped at the Cheesecake Factory in Indianapolis on the way back home. It was yummy as usual!

Video! I know, I'm behind the times!

This is a couple of months old, but I finally had time to figure out how to add video to our blog.

Emma's 20 months old

Wow! I can't believe a whole month has gone by since I posted anything! Time just gets away from me! We are really enjoying the spring weather. The last week has been super nice and we have been able to go outside and play everyday. Emma loves to be outside. When she wakes up from her nap she usually grabs our shoes and her shoes and wants us all to put them on so we can go outside. Today it got colder and was rainy, so we didn't get to go out today. I think it's suppose to be cooler now for a couple of weeks. Bummer. The weather has been super crazy, a couple of weeks ago we went to the park and it was 74 degrees. Then the next day it is 30 degrees and we woke up with snow on the ground. What kind of psycho state is this??? OK, maybe it not so psycho after all, it's just typical Indiana spring weather. Emma really enjoyed the swing and the slides. She went down the really tall slide with bumps in it all by herself. She cracks me up, she's very much a girl, she HATES getting her hands dirty, so she would climb up the playground steps using her wrists with her hands up in the air so she wouldn't get them dirty. And if by chance she does get her hands dirty, she will wipe them off on her jeans immediately.
She's saying all kinds of words now, and we can almost understand all of her "babbling". I have finally found the secret on how to get her to eat broccoli and peas (frozen, not canned): add salt! She loves them now. One of her favorite things right now is washing her hands. Everytime I lift her up to wash them she says hi to herself in the mirror. It's so cute! Another favorite thing is playing with any kind of phone. As you can see in the picture, she likes them!

She is doing great in her new bed. I was worried at first. The first week or so she would get out of it at night and play but then end up in it to sleep. There was one night that she didn't want to go "night, night" and cried when I left. She ended up settling down and when I went to check on her she was in the rocking chair asleep. It broke my heart! But now she stays in her bed and goes to sleep with Tiger. I think Tiger has helped alot! The mornings are great because when she wakes up, she just gets up and plays in her room, mostly sitting in the rocking chair reading books. It seems to have been a very easy transition.

She has also decided that she's too big of a girl for her high chair and would rather sit in the booster seat that we had borrowed from friends. She's so excited to sit at the table now in her "big girl chair". It really is amazing how much they learn and change in the first two years. Our little girl is now officially no longer a baby. She has went though a growth spurt in the last month, her 18 month pants no longer fit and are way too short all of the sudden. So we had to go to the mall and get her new jeans--really cute and really inexpensive at Children's Place and they are an expandable waist, so as long as she doesn't get too tall they will fit for awhile.

She is starting to go through the terrible twos, but they are a little more managable when she's well instead of sick. She's also starting to get her two year molars. I think they hurt her alot because she is constantly chewing on her fingers.

Big Girl!

Emma is already 19 months old and getting to be such a "big girl"! Just last week she climbed out of her crib and went thump on the floor during her afternoon nap. Daddy came running upstairs and found her on the floor crying, probably more out of surprise that she did it rather than being hurt. Then this Saturday morning, she did it again, except this time she was really quiet about it and we didn't realize she was out of her bed until we heard her playing with the monitor that was on the floor. So we had to take drastic action, we didn't want her to get hurt trying to climb out of her crib. Her crib converts to a day bed, so we took the crib rail off and had to make a trek to Babies R Us in Mishawaka on Saturday night to get a bed rail. Then we had to make sure her room was super baby proof, we don't want our precious little girl to get hurt when she crawls out of her bed in the morning and starts playing with the fan! So everything is now up out of reach that can hurt her. And she loves her "new" bed! She loves the new found freedom of getting in and out of bed all by herself. She'll get in her bed and say "night, night" everytime we're in her room.

It's so cool to look back and think about what she can do now compared to even what she could do just a month ago. She runs really fast through the house now (without falling). I see her catching herself alot now, instead of falling. She's starting to have super good balance. One of her favorite things now is taking a bowl and putting her megablocks in it to put them away in her toybox. She's really good about cleaning up and loves to help us clean up all of the toys and books. She's starting to recognize colors. She can say how old she is (sortof--she actually says two, but holds up 1 finger) She has never said one, when she counts, she says "Two, Two, Three"! By the time we get her to say one, she'll be two! She can say a whole bunch of words, but hardly any are really complete, but we still know what she means! Daddy had to figure out today that "she" meant "fishie" (she wanted a fishie cracker--aka goldfish cracker)

There's still snow on the ground, in fact we're having another winter storm tonight. Look at that super duper snow drift! It was all the way up the side of the car door! And the jeep even had trouble getting out of the driveway. Needless to say, Jerrod had to shovel the driveway, but he left that snowdrift because it wasn't in the way of any cars getting out of the driveway. But my dad decided to shovel it when he came and visited, I guess he was bored :) A couple of weeks ago we went outside to play the one day that it actually was around 30, rather than -10. She had a lot of fun in her sled and making a snowman.

Go Colts!

We were so excited that the Colts even made it to the Super bowl, and then they won! What an awesome game! We've been waiting for them to go to the Superbowl for a long time. It's so cool how the Colt's gave all the glory to God. We taught Emma to say "Go Colts!" It's soo cute! It's more like Go Col! She loves to watch football and got really excited when it came on on Sunday. She dances and shouts "Football"!


In other news, Emma went for her 18 month appointment last week. She is very healthy. She only had to get one shot and she didn't even cry! She's such a tough girl! Her head circumference is in the 50th percentile. Her weight is in the 35th percentile, she weighs 24 lbs. And her height has finally caught up and she's in the 95th percentile. It looks like she's going to be tall and skinny. What a shock! :) She is becoming so independent, yesterday we went out to eat and she insisted on holding her own kid's cup (I always hold it for her because I'm afraid that she'll squeeze it really hard or take the straw out). She did great and there weren't any major messes. Her new thing now is if she needs help with something she'll come over and grab our hand and pull until we get up and figure out what she wants. She is way smart and becoming very inventive, there has been a couple of times I have caught her trying to stand on her tricycle and reach something on the kitchen counter. So dangerous!

Emma is 18 months old!

How time flies by! I look at these babies around me and think hmm... I hardly remember when she was that small. Was she really that small? She's such a big girl now! She can do so many cool things. One of her favorite things is walking around the house with our shoes on. It's especially funny to watch her try to walk in Daddy's shoes! She absolutely loves books, I think that she would be happy if those were the only things she had to play with. As you can see in the picture above, she can even use the books for blocks! She knows all of the sesame street characters in her sesame street book. She adores Elmo and she absolutely loves to watch Barney. She dances nonstop during the entire show. It is absolutely hilarious to watch. I remember in high school, vowing never to let my child watch Barney. Actually he is quite fun and educational, the scary thing is that I don't see anything wrong with him now. Oh well, I'm sure there are several things I said I would never do and I do them now. Hmmm...like letting my child eat off the floor. When she was a baby, I wouldn't even lay her down on the floor without a blanket. Now she eats her cracker, sets it on the floor and comes back to it later. And I don't have a problem with this? No, not really!
She can say almost all of the animal sounds and she is starting to say several words. Even though she is not an expert in the English language, I can almost always decipher what she says and what she wants. And she understands very well what we tell her to do and does it most of the time!
She's starting to eat with a spoon and fork really well. She can scoop things up very well with a spoon and she's starting to get the hang of stabbing things with a fork. She loves to wipe her hands and her face off with a napkin after she's done eating. So, mealtime is beginning to be a little less messy.
She loves to get her picture taken and she's beginning to be such a hamm when I get out the camera! Emma is at such a fun age! As long as she stays well, everything is great! She is our sweet pea, we love her sooo much!

The monster is gone and our little girl is back!

What a hard and horrible month with Emma. She started out with a fever for a week, and then it moved into a cold for 3 weeks. Every little thing set her off and she would have tantrums within a blink of the eye. The last two days have been wonderful, our sweet little girl is back. She is feeling much better, she just has a cough left. We thought we were going through the horrible TERRIBLE two's. But it was just a horrible TERRIBLE cold. It's amazing how much feeling bad effects her mood. Today she giggled all day long, I love that she's back to her old sweet self. I'm praying for no more colds for awhile!

In other news, two things have happened that we thought would never happen.
Number one: Goshen is moving up in the world. We couldn't hardly believe it when we heard it! Goshen now has a Cold Stone Creamery!!!!! How exciting!!!!! I think we're going to get to go on Fri night! MMMMMM!
Number Two: The Zile's have a blog! I'm so excited to be able to see what's happening in their lives! We went down right before New Year's and visited them. It was so great to see them and catch up on life!

What a great Christmas!

We have a spoiled little girl! She got so much for Christmas! She got lots of big gifts this year for Christmas. She got a pirate ship house, a wagon, and a tricycle. All from the Grandparents! We got her megablocks and some books. She got a whole bunch of other stuff too. She surprised us, by actually playing with the toys more than the boxes! Although, she loved sticking the bows on her and the stickers that we placed on all of her packages. Despite having a fever, she really enjoyed the whole day and was in a great mood. I was really afraid that she would be overwhelmed, but she took the whole thing in and loved every minute of it. And this was all on Saturday.

On Christmas day we went to Grandpa and Grandma Crum's. It was a good time. Santa Claus brought her a really cool chair. We exchange names every year, this year Aunt Kathy and Uncle Danny had Emma's name. They hooked her up with a really cool nursery ryme book library set and a dolly.

I had my mom's name and made her a quilt and hot pads. I am really proud how well it came out, but probably won't ever do another one!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is almost a week away. It will be so much fun watching Emma tear open the paper and play with the boxes (not the toys, just the boxes). We all know that kids like the boxes the toys come in more than the toys themselves. Here's a few Christmas pictures that we had taken. It is very hard to decide which is my favorite they are all very cute!

I'm trying really hard this year to keep the focus of Christmas on Christ, rather than getting caught up in the hustle and bustle. We are tight on money this year, so lots of gifts are being made instead of bought. I never knew I could be so crafty, and all of it is pretty cool too! So each time I'm making an item, I really try to pray for the person I'm making it for. Please remember that this is Christ's birthday, an awesome holiday to celebrate Jesus! Let's not forget to do that this year.

Jeremiah Thane

Congratulations to Andy and Nichole! Jeremiah was born Dec 6. What an adorable little boy!

Christmastime

It's Christmastime already. We finished decorating the house this afternoon during Emma's nap. Our last thing to do was to put up the tree. We put up the outside lights last weekend when it was warm. Now it's 24 degrees and we are so thankful that we put them up when it was 60 degrees! We really contemplated where we would put our tree this year. It's so hard when Emma wants to touch and explore everything new, so we knew that we would be setting her up for failure if we put it where she could touch it. We ended up putting it in the front office area where we have it blocked off with a gate. We can still enjoy it's beauty, but Emma can't touch it. When Emma got up this afternoon, she discovered the tree. She thought it was really cool. Immediately she went into the other room and gathered some toys and handed them to her daddy to put on the tree. She kept going back and getting more toys to put on the tree. It was sooo cute! She wanted to contribute to the decorating of the tree. I guess she thought if Mommy and Daddy can have their pretties on the tree, so can she.

It's starting to snow tonight, it's light and fluffy. So pretty. But cold!

Emma is getting to be so much fun. Tonight she was making Ohhh faces at Grandma and laughing and kissing. When I was rocking her for bedtime she kept kissing and hugging me, it was so sweet. I love when she's that sweet. The other day I came home and Daddy was pushing her around in a diaper box piled with toys on top of her. How fun was that!

We recently changed to a different family Dr. The reason we were at this Dr.'s office was because of an awesome Dr. that ended up moving to Terre Haute. So, by default we stayed at this Dr.'s office and was adopted by another Dr. So, this Dr. told us that Emma shouldn't get a flu shot because she wasn't at "high risk". Later I learned that the CDC recommends that all children 6 months to 6 years get a flu shot. This Dr.'s office has done other things that I have not been happy with as well, so it was time for a change. I love our new Dr., she seems like she really knows what she's talking about. I love having a Dr. that I trust and am happy to go to.
So, needless to say Emma got her first dose of flu shot last week and will get the second dose right after Christmas. She didn't even cry when she got the shot, such a tough girl!

"I like Big Bibles"

The children's ministry at the Lighthouse put on a dinner theatre to raise money for Christmas Presents for Basher Home, a juvenile facility. The youth participated and did the rap "I like Big Bibles" (to the tune of "I like Big Butts") As you can see, Jerrod was the big Bible. They did an awesome job! It was very funny! And all of them were really into it!

"Church of the Dome"

The last couple of days I was thinking how odd it is that we now live in a place that we so made fun of 3 years ago before we even knew that we were moving here. On our missions trip to Goshen, IN 3 years ago we passed by the "Church of the Dome". Mary-Frances made this famous with how she said it with her southern accent. I can still hear it. Ironically, I pass by that church EVERYDAY on my way to work. It's only a couple of blocks from my work. Or, how about "Mullet's Auto Sales"? I just went to the dentist last week and passed by that and all the memories came flooding back to me. On our missions trip we stopped and we all got out of the van to take a picture in front of the sign. We couldn't believe that someone would name their business after a hick haircut. It's kindof cool to live in a place that we have memories from all our youth in California and all our youth in Goshen. It makes me really miss everyone out in Cali, Jerrod and I catch ourselves often saying "Do you remember when....."
It was so much fun looking through the old pics to find this picture, that I decided to post them all to our shutterfly account. You can get there by going through www.40rods.com and clicking on pics at the top.

April's first cavity

I've went 30 years without a cavity. I found out Tuesday I had a cavity and I got it filled today. My mouth is still throbbing from where he stabbed me with his 3 inch needle. It was in the very back of my mouth, so my jaw is very sore. The numbness finally wore off this afternoon, I went right before lunch and forgot that I wouldn't be able to eat anything afterwards. Well, I guess I could have, but it would have been pointless because I would not have been able to taste it and I would have risked biting my tongue or cheek or something.

I'm crushed! No longer can I use that I've never had a cavity in the "I never" game. Bummer.

Winter comes early this year

We had our first significant snowfall today. It has actually snowed before now, it just hasn't stuck. It is really pretty, but I'm not sure I'm really ready for the cold that goes with it. It's a little early, we still have pumpkins out! Emma still is wearing her winter coat from last year, which still just barely fits her. We have not had much luck finding her a new one that we like.

We just changed clocks this past week, like everyone else in the country now (except Arizona). It doesn't seem as hard to gain an our than to lose it. It hasn't been near as hard this time to get Emma on the same time schedule as it was in the spring.

Emma is now 15 months and busy, busy, busy. Jerrod thinks she has ADD, I just keep telling him this is normal for this age. She understands now more than she can actually say. She follows directions very well, usually. She can say lots of words. She's starting to pretend. She feeds her baby doll her milk and cookies that she's eating at the time. She also is figuring out how to smile, when I take her picture and tell her to smile, she gives this goofy grin with her eyes half shut. I don't know where she got that!













A couple of weeks ago, right after we miscarried, we decided to go to shopping and pretend like everything was great in our world. It actually did help and worked pretty well. We bought Emma the tow truck from the "Cars" movie to ride on. It is so cool! I think it's her favorite toy right now.

Emma is just so smart and so cute. She surprises us every day how smart she is, she learns so much, she's like a sponge and soaks up everything she sees. Maybe we're just biased because we're her parents, but we think she's over the top smart for a 15 month old!

We went to the library yesterday for the second time and got new books to read. Emma LOVES reading books. We love how independent she is becoming. We were downstairs in the children's section and we had to go upstairs to check out. Emma followed us the whole way even into the elevator. Her first elevator ride standing all by herself, she didn't even hold our hands. When it stopped, she kindof lost her balance, but caught herself very quickly. The out of the elevator she RAN! She was so excited about the elevator ride. It was soooo cute!

One of Emma's favorite things is looking at pictures on the computer. Yesterday, we were looking at Jacob and Sharon's blog. She just kept saying "baby" everytime she saw a new picture of Issaac. Then we went to Matt and Carrie's blog and she loved the pictures of Lorelai too.


It's so fun having a little girl!!

We had a miscarriage. We’re sad.

We had a miscarriage. We’re sad.

A life, a beating heartbeat, and a spirit was created, and then taken 2 months later. One could dampen the thought by pacifying the situation, but the truth that life existed is inescapable.

Having shared the news of life coming, we must also deliver the news of life going. It’s the worst-case scenario. I looked it up in my book “worst case scenario.” However, they failed to include this event. I suppose when writing the book they didn’t consider difficult family issues.

So, here are some thoughts.

We are grieving. Our trust in God, our faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It is not too much for us to believe that God provides for and lives within us, therefore it is not a stretch for us to believe in his timing, care, and control in such a time as this. If anything, this very situation is easier, clearer and more peaceful with the very faith in Christ we brought into it.

We’re not upset that we shared with you this new life, nor do we wish that we had held off with sharing the news. We believe in community, the sharing of good and bad times, and living those moments out with each and every one of you.

A situation like this, shared, is met with awkwardness, pauses, silence and often an inability to communicate. Knowing that, we don’t expect answers, or “lift-us-ups” with common flippant antidotes. It’s hard enough to describe the event, let alone be provided some misguided solutions, reasons or thoughts. However, there are some things we would ask at the risk of seeming selfish.

Pray for us grieving parents. Ask us over the next few months what you can pray for, and remember to pray for it. We’d love this support from you over the next couple months.

Shoot us a personal note, but avoid the temptation to preach or provide a reason. Just love on us (the selfishness brews over), we could use it.

We love you, and care for you deeply, and are grateful that you share in our lives.

Jerrod & April Furlong

Time flies when you're having fun!

Oh how time flies! I can't believe that we haven't updated this in over a month! Emma is now 14 months old. She went for her one year appointment a couple of weeks ago. She is in the 50th percentile. Everyone always tells us how petite she is, especially for having such a tall mommy and daddy. She got three shots. Since she was late getting her one year shots, they just went ahead and gave her the 15 month shot too. Hurrah for grumpiness all at once instead of twice!

Last weekend we went to Ft. Wayne and took the youth to the mall and laser tagging. Emma got to ride the carousel in the mall. It actually frightened her a bit. She held on for dear life and was on the verge of tears. But afterwards, kept pointing to it, like she wanted to ride it again. Maybe next time!

This weekend we went to Alysa's (a roomate from college) wedding reception in MO. We had so much fun! Alysa and Jake look so happy together! It was a Hoedown that had to be experienced to be appreciated. All of the family welcomed us in and treated us as one of their own. All of April's college roomates were there. It was so awesome to reconnect with old friends. Emma got to play with Jaden who is about 7 months older than her. Jaden is Diane's, April's college roomate's, little boy. They had so much fun!