Netflix and Month Six

Below is a list of news around Tribe Malone.

1. We got Netflix and watched our first movie (Sherlock Holmes) two nights ago.  We don't have cable and don't like spending money on going to the movies, so we felt $9 a month for hundreds and TV shows and movies was a deal.  We highly recommend it.
2. Eli is now 6 months old.  He tries to crawl, but does a much better job scooting.  He has mastered pushing up with his feet, but keeping his head on the floor.  He has also become quite the trickster - twice now he has pulled his diaper away from his body and pee'd on me (yesterday it was at Chick-Fil-A).  He will now grab anything in sight - and try to eat it (including my glasses).  He babbles a lot! We've tried finding a translator, but are pretty sure he only says, "I'm hungry", "I'm sleepy", or "I have poop in my diaper".  He has his daddy's thighs.  We still don't know who he looks like.  He had some respiratory issues, but they've been taken care of by our good friend, Dr. Chapman.  Eli bites real hard - even without teeth.  Lastly, Eli is a mini-me of Michael Phelps in the swimming pool.

3.  I (Gary) went off staff with Young Life and has been the Pastor to Students at Parkway United Methodist Church (Sugar Land) for a month now. My van has surpassed the 244,000 mile mark.
4.  Allison finished a painting she's been working on for 3 years.  
5.  We spent Memorial Day weekend in Paris for Allison's mom's wedding.  The weather was great, food was great, decorations were great, hanging out was great, it was a great time of celebrating a new beginnings for the both of them.

For Allison's first Mother's Day we celebrated a few weekends later (I was at camp).  I surprised Allison with a nights stay at The McKay House - a bed and breakfast - in Jefferson, TX (www.mckayhouse.com). Jefferson is a special place for us because it's where we honeymooned.  We ate dinner at the same restaurant (same table) we did 2 1/2 years ago, but this time we had company (see picture).  At one point we told our waitress we honeymooned there and in an act of generosity she brought us a piece of cheesecake.  We decided not to tell her it wasn't our anniversary. -- The room was called the, 'Garden Suite', and had his and  her claw-foot tubs.  The food was incredible and the only other guests were an older couple whom was the weatherman for Dan Rather a while back (he did TV and radio for 30 some odd years).  The breakfast was incredible (everything from scratch) and we definitely plan on staying there again.  
                                                            

                                                                    Mother's Day 2010

                                                                      Honeymoon 2007

                                                                         His/Her Tubs

 Our Free Cheesecake

For my first Father's Day Allison got me a grill and a book called, 'Raising a Modern Day Knight'.  I've yet to cook on the grill, but I'm thinking July 4th weekend would be a good time to break it in.  I left with Parkway the Sunday of Father's Day to spend a week in Canton, TX with 12 high school students and some adults from the church for UM ARMY.  It's a mission type camp where we, and 80 others, painted and fixed houses, built wheelchair ramps and front porches, and did various work projects.  It was one of the best trips I've ever been on.  We had terrific adult leaders with us and the attitudes from kids (even though they were working all day in the heat) were great.  God did some great things through all the workers and I'm positive everyone left a little different than how they came.

Four and A Half Months and Some Change

"Time flies like the wind, fruit flies like bananas."

Our baby boy is 4 1/2 months old.  I (Gary) am 26 years old.  Allison is 24 years old.  That means if we don't have another kid we'll be empty-nesters at 44 and 42...still in our prime!  However, our first pregnancy and first baby has been easy - which makes us think they'll all be like this - which makes us want to have more.  I know we're naive, but it's hard not to be.   We're having a lot of fun right now.

Change is a coming with our family - mainly myself.  I've spent the past two years working with Fort Bend Young Life and it's been a great experience.  I was approach a while back about taking a job with a church here in Sugar Land as their Director of Student Ministry.  After much prayer, thought, talking with Allison, and interviewing I decided to accept the job which begins June 1st.  I'm excited and the opportunity and look forward to working with the pastor, other staff, and volunteers.  Young Life has been great to Allison and I, and we'll still be involved, but it will sorely be missed.  Shout out to Tig, Ali, Dana, and the committee for taking care of us so well.  

I'll post more about the new job later. 

Climbing Mt. Everest...sort of

Love for your children should never be performance based, however, is it ok to get really, really, really, really excited when they do something awesome?  Some people climb Mt. Everest, some scale the Himalayas, other may swim the English channel.  Eli climbed over his 'Boppy'. 



Eli Update
Eli is 3 months old and we're finally getting the hang of this parenting thing - too bad they keep changing.  Since last week he's made life a little easier on us by deciding to sleep through the night.  We'll put him in bed around 9p and he doesn't wake until 8:30ish.  It's GLORIOUS.  He smiles more, laughs a lot, and enjoys talking to his mama (goo-goos and gah-gahs obviously translate to 'I love you mommy and daddy').  The worst thing about him getting older are his poops.  They smell very bad.  Overall, we'll give him a 10 out of 10 on the awesome baby scale and we're very fortunate to have such an easy baby (I'm told they're not all like that). 

Gary and Allison Update
We're doing great - most of the time anyways.  I suppose any day you wake up to a job, smiling baby boy, food, a roof over your head, and people who love you is a great day.   Allison is beginning to work on concocting her own recipes for a future cook book.  She made some sort of lamb/croissant role tonight that might add a few pounds to the posterior, but it was finger-lickin good.  I'm finishing up the semester with Young Life and getting ready for the summer.  Along with taking students to camp two different weeks, I have an assignment this summer at Frontier Ranch (YL Camp in CO) for a month that I'll be able to bring Allison and Eli on.  Apart from Young Life we've been enjoying our church (Grandview Fellowship) where I teach high school kids on Sunday morning.

Our good friend and fellow YL leader, Nicole Prosser took some great pictures of our family that I'll leave you with.

Pee On The Wall

In light of General Larry Platt's new hit, 'Pants On The Ground', we've decided Eli's theme song right now could be, 'Pee On The Wall'.  Reason being he successfully shot a stream of urine onto the wall while laying in his changing table (I'll post a picture soon).  Here's the whole song (click here for original lyrics).

Pee on the wall

Pee on the wall

Looking mighty cool shootin pee on the wall

With the poop in my diaper

paci in my mouth

Pee hit the wall

Call myself a cool cat

Looking mighty cool 

Layin on the changing table with pee on the wall

Get it out, hey!

Get my pee on the wall

Lookin mighty cool

Cryin' lyin' on the changin table with my pee on the wall

Back on Dec. 4th I wrote a blog titled, 32 Weeks And Counting.  I wrote something about not wanting our blog to turn into a baby blog.  After having Eli I understand why people want to blog so much about their newbie.  THEY ARE AWESOME.  haha.  Seriously.  So, I'll try to keep thing fresh on here, but there's really nothing more exciting or interesting going on in our lives right now than our little boy.

February Update:

We've been in our apartment for a little over a month now and really like it.  We miss having a yard, wood floors, and a second living area, but we don't miss the draftiness of it - or the human-sized cockroaches.  That reminds me: When I was seven or eight we used to find the small cockroaches and dare each other to bite off the head...and we did.