Easton Brooks Duty

Let me just start by saying...

I am overwhelmingly blessed by God to call these precious little ones my children and also by all of you. Thank you for all your sweet emails, comments, phone calls, visits and prayers.

The labor was swift, easy and I am recovering quickly as well. Easton is getting acclimated to his new home and only woke up twice during the night to eat. I haven't slept as well as I did last night since I was probably 7 months pregnant. Praise the Lord for that! He always knows what we need when we need it.

Well, without further ado:

Our life in pictures these past few days...


Make a Smilebox photobook

And a picture in color for good measure. I know everyone is dying to see his red hair, which, in actuality is not red like Taylor Joy's (as the guest blogger below stated), but is a very light reddish blonde. And there's not much of it. Check it out!

Our baby is here!

(This post penned by guest blogger Allen Duty. Allen is not a professional blogger, but merely a stand-in at a very important time.)

Kendra gave birth to our third child around 4:10 p.m. this afternoon. The delivery was very quick and very easy, and both mom and baby are doing great.

What's that you say? You want to know whether it's a boy or a girl?

Ok, I suppose I can tell you. Kendra gave birth to a healthy baby...BOY! Easton Brooks Duty is big and healthy and has red hair like his sister, Taylor Joy. I have no stats to report as of yet because he hasn't been to the nursery, but he seems to be a little smaller than Beckett, which of course isn't saying much. My guess is around 8 lbs, 8 oz. I'll keep you all posted! Thank you for your prayers!

Here We Go!

Some search phrases you might have seen in my Google history in the past few days:

"How to induce labor naturally"
"Exercises that induce labor"
"Labor-inducing 101"

Some activities that you would have seen me engaged in if you lived here:

Doing the Wii fit like a madwoman (hula hoop, advanced step, squats, lunges)
Eating spicy salsa and chips
Cleaning like nobody's business

And here we go!

I've been in early labor (3 cm. dilated) for the past few days and now we are heading to the hospital!

The newest member of the Duty family will arrive today sometime and I am completely overjoyed to find out who is in there.

We'll post updates on the blog throughout the day.

Please pray for the delivery, the baby's health and our little ones at home.

Kendra

Taylor Tidbits

Just wanted to post this cute picture of my family... (nothing to do with the post, really)


A few more Taylor Joyisms that I want to remember:

Riding in the car and Beckett blurts out "Bah!" (Ball)...he may have seen one or something that looked like one.

Taylor Joy: "Beckett, did you say 'Ball' or 'Bah', like a sheep?
Beckett: "Bah!"
Taylor Joy: But there's just no sheeps around here and there aren't even any shepherds!

Seriously, how cute is that little conversation?


While Allen was out of town last week on a mission trip, he told her that he was going to the beach one night and would find her some shells. Well, she took that to mean that was what he was actually DOING there, as in that's what he went to do. So, anytime someone would ask her where her Daddy was, she would say, "Oh, he just went to the beach to get me some shells."

Her prayer one night went like this: "I pray for Daddy as he plays in the sand and gets me some shells and I just pray for no crabs."

One day when Allen and her were about to play a game, she told him, "Daddy, I'm going to dominate you!"

Hmmm...wonder where that came from?

The same is true for the phrase she uses when we are leaving somewhere, "Mommy, why are we peacin' out?"

And lately the little sweetheart has been telling me every time I put her down for bed or a nap, "Mommy, you are my special girl, you are pretty and you're a good maker (cook)"

Talk about melting my heart.

How sweet the Lord is to me to encourage me through these precious children!

Crayon Rolls

I got this idea from Skip to My Lou, a blog that I frequent when I'm feeling crafty and want some new ideas.

This is great for us to use during church stuff, when the kids need to be quiet, entertained and kept from making a huge mess. They can only pull out one at a time! Sheer genius.

Beckett stays entertained pulling them out and putting them back in. Hey, whatever works!

Here are pictures of one that I made:

Baby Poll

Vote on the sidebar!

AND

If I haven't already told you our girl name, take a guess!

Since we only semi-have a boy name, leave your suggestions for that as well.

We'll see who is right in a couple weeks!

Dresser Revamp

BEFORE


AFTER

My mom bought a dresser for Taylor Joy's room awhile back and, though semi-cute in a tacky sort of way, I decided it needed an overhaul.

I painted it white, attempted to paint the knobs, ditched that idea and decided to cover the knobs with cute fabric and bows. A novel idea!

So far they have been low maintenance...I hot glued the bows so that they can't be undone, which would be our little guy Beckett's idea of fun.

Simple, chic, and perfectly fitting for our little princess room!

Evian Babies

This is stinkin' precious and hilarious!

Picture Time!

I realize that I've been slacking in the area of pictures lately, or so my family has told me. Here are some semi-recent ones to hold them over until I can upload a few more from my camera:


My beautiful shower cake, courtesy Sweet Memories


Brittney, Mom and Me at the shower


Me and Allen at the pool (a rare moment without kids)


The kids playing with play-doh (Beckett sneaking a playdoh snack, no doubt)


The Duty girls


As far as an update on the kids, here are some funny tidbits:

Taylor Joy has become quite the prayer warrior. Her prayers go on for several minutes and during that time you would likely hear a sweet little girl just talking to God, like so:

"And God I just like to play with my Leapster and sometimes I take pictures with my camera phone and sometimes I just don't feel like it..."

"And God please please God please just help Beckett to not wake up"

"And help me and Beckett to play sweet together"

"Thank you for a wonderful day"

God must be delighted to hear such pure, simple prayers.

The other day Allen asked Taylor Joy what she had been doing and she didn't know. He prompted her with asking if she had been playing with Beckett and she responded, "Oh yeah! I forgot about that!" As if she does much else during the day.

We were in the car yesterday and she informed me that "Me and Beckett are going to get married. But first Beckett has to go to work. And I have to go to work too. He works in McKinney and I work in Dallas." Oh really...

As far as Beckett is concerned, he has been up to quite a bit himself. He jabbers constantly and has begun stringing up to 4 words together at a time. He ALWAYS knows what he's saying and we FREQUENTLY are puzzled by the jibberish that flows from his mouth. He sings "Holy Holy Holy" (just those words) and the B-I-B-L-E song as well. He is growing up to be quite a big boy, yet still a cuddly little guy. I'm so thankful the Lord granted me a cuddler. There's nothing like it!

The new baby in my tummy is doing great as well. Nothing much to report except that I have 3 weeks left, according to my due date and we will just have to see if that really comes to pass with the many contractions I am already having. This baby needs to stay put at least another week and a half. I'm going to post a poll soon to see who everyone thinks is in my tummy!

Stay tuned!

Disciplined by Grace

Yes, I am back to hammering my favorite book, Discipline of Grace. Such an amazing read that I will have to read it every year, for sure, if not more often.

Here are some notes that I have:

God administers discipline in the realm of grace

• in love
• for our spiritual welfare
• never angry, though grieved
• no condemnation
• no counting sins
• on basis of unmerited favor
  

He uses the illustration of scissors as demonstrate the "put on, put off" that Paul talks about in Ephesians. Two blades are necessary because they work in conjunction with each other. A single bladed pair of scissors would simply be useless, just as putting something off without putting something in its' place is ineffective as well.

"We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone"

-As the unbelieving world becomes increasingly hostile to true Christianity, it will be even more eager to find inconsistencies in our lives so it can ridicule God and His Word.

This hits home because its so true. People will notice when we mess up way more often than when we do everything perfectly. Why not humbly accept responsibility for your behavior, knowing we all fall short, and give thanks to God that you don't have to sink into despair? Allen hit on this a little at church the other day about being an example to unbelievers because they already know we aren't perfect. Instead of taking responsibility for the inconsistencies in our lives, we pretend they don't know or we turn the other way and then they are given the opportunity to slander us and the God that we serve. Own up, ask for forgiveness and point them to the lovingkindness of our Savior.

Check out my hubby's latest sermons from our Malachi (Genuine) series:

Genuine