New(s)

Jordan: Things are starting to change significantly within the Littrell family. Meagan has recently accepted a position as a teacher at a church nearby for infants. This is a VERY significant change for all of us but she and Jude are the ones who are most impacted as Jude will now be going to the very same daycare she will be working in. Obviously we need the income, desperately, but in a perfect world we would both like for Meagan to be able to continue to stay home with him. 

On the food front, I have committed to Meagan that I am going to eat better. I am cutting down on my cokes from around 4 a day right now to 1 a day until this current case of cokes runs out, and then no more. THIS IS HUGE! To those of you who are blown away by this (I say this on the assumption that people actually are reading this) let me explain. Today Dr. Oz was on Oprah (normally I don't watch either person, especially Oz) and he was talking about diabetes and I honestly got scared. All of my life I've been told about the horrible effects that my diet can have on my body, but for some reason things really hit home with me today. He showed one of his patients who is 34, only ten years older than myself, who was diagnosed with diabetes at 27ish and recently had most of one leg amputated and half of the other foot... and it showed them both. GROSS! More sickening was hearing her talk about everything that she ate. THATS EXACTLY WHAT I EAT!!! I've always been told, "You're going to die from what you eat," and honestly that didn't really bother me, but what bothers me is having to live like THAT because of what I eat. All that said, I'm not exactly sure what my diet is going to look like yet, but I like my (hairy) legs too much to not change it.

(side note, I saw a stat a few weeks ago that said that Christians use 30% more punctuation marks than non-Christians... I thought about that after re-reading the above paragraph.)

On the lighter side of things, I honestly believe that Jude will be crawling very very soon. Jude has been "scooting" for several weeks now, winding up in places very different from where we originally placed him, but now Jude is really getting extremely close to figuring out how to crawl. Tonight we placed Jude on the bed on one corner and Meagan sat on the other and then called for him to come to her. It was somewhat annoying because Sadie thought we were calling for her and kept jumping on the bed... I'm sure she was very confused. Jude however worked very hard and got about halfway there using both his arms and legs, he just lacked the coordination to get them both going at the same time. Soon. I hope I'm there to see it.

Stay tuned!

Jude Update- 4 Month Check-Up

OUR LITTLE BOY IS GROWING UP TOO FAST!

Jude turned 4 months old on June 23, however he just had his 4 month check-up today. Here are the results

Height- 27 inches (95th Percentile)
Weight- 16 lbs 9.5 oz (75th Percentile)

Jude is teething... he is CONSTANTLY drooling and tries to put everything in his mouth. This has actually been going on for several weeks and still none of them have cut, but we're still enjoying his toothless smile while it lasts. He is also starting to "scoot". We aren't sure that he realizes that he's doing it, but when he's on his belly, he'll push himself up and try pulling his legs up underneath him and ends up scooting forward, just a tad. Jude also is sitting up extremely well, and demonstrated this with the doctor today sitting on the table unassisted for a few seconds. He is rolling over easily from front to back and on occasion from back to front.

The doctor was thankfully very impressed with his progress. She said that a lot of the things that he's already doing are the things that they look for from 6 month olds, which is obviously exciting for us.

Travel + Lack-of-Sleep = No Fireworks

By Jordan:

Several things have happened since our last post... Saturday the June 26th (also my birthday) I drove what felt like the trail of tears to Bowling Green KY to meet Meagan's parents for them to take Meagan and Jude back to Louisville for the week while I was going to be out of town. Meagan can confirm that I wasn't the happiest person during that drive and pretty much ruined my birthday surprise (a delicious cake from Julia's Bakery) but in my defense it's upsetting to know that not only will you be away from your wife, but you will miss an entire week of your baby's life. Thankfully Meagan was extremely understanding and still went out of her way to observe my birthday... we celebrated with the cake + a happy meal from McD's.

Sunday I was introduced at Cooks in Mt. Juliet as the new Assistant Youth Coordinator just before we left with the youth group for our summer mission trip, although hopefully by the end of summer I will be the Youth Coordinator. The trip was a huge success. We spent 3.5 days working on the house of a Cherokee Native named Villy. Villy's house was in extreme disrepair... we spent the week priming and painting the inside and the outside of his house, shingling his roof, and tearing out his bathroom which had severe water damage. The obvious focus of our labor was to repair Villy's house, however the underlying effort was to connect with the Cherokee who remain highly unreached (only 3-5% are Christian) and show them Christ which they unfortunately haven't seen much of from "Christians" in the past. We also spent the week doing various fun activities with the youth including a Thursday afternoon tubing trip and white water rafting on Friday. I so enjoyed getting to hang out with the youth and the other chaperons who went on the trip and I'm so glad God has opened this door and given me an opportunity to serve here.

We returned from the trip Saturday afternoon, July 3rd, so as soon as I was able to head that way, I drove up to Louisville to get my wifey and my baby. Once I got to Louisville, Gritsy and Grandy had prepared a feast that honestly made me think twice about possibly staying another night in hopes that I might get another meal that was just as good. We decided to come back so that I could be at church this morning. We didn't get home until around eleven, but thankfully Meagan offered to drive so that I could start to catch up on all of the sleep I missed while I was on the trip.

Today, July 4th, was a bitter sweet day... we had a great morning at church and enjoyed getting to meet several people that we hadn't had the opportunity to meet yet. Today was also sweet because it's the day that my sister Lindsay became full-term meaning that we are now on high alert for the arrival for "Baby" Lecklider. The bitterness comes from missing my Paw Paw... today would have been his 86th birthday however he passed away May 15th of this year. Typically on this day in the past, we would go to Lawrenceburg and spend the day there with him and sit in the driveway as it got dark waiting for the fireworks to start at the local high school nearby. Instead, this year Meagan and I enjoyed trying to catch up on some much needed rest and we were able to see some fireworks through our bedroom window at a nearby house.

Although this has been a very eventful week with hardly a moment to relax, I can honestly say that the highlight for me has been having Meagan and Jude back and not just having to hear about their day but actually being able to be a part of it.

Happy 4th!

My boy is 4 months old.

by meagan:
I can't believe Jude is 4 months old. It seems crazy that 4 months ago a doctor pulled him from my belly. Here is an update that will only interest some of you...

*He has more control of his hands. He will pull the charger cord out of my computer. Or my earbuds out of my ipod.
*His poop has changed. It stinks now.
*He will roll from stomach to back as soon as you put him on his stomach.
*He LOVES you reading stories to him. He likes the pictures.
*He used to lay with his hands under his chin while he nursed. Now he kicks and moves around. He will occasionally stop to smile and talk to me.
*He freezes and opens his eyes wide when you try to take a picture of him.

*He holds his own bottle sometimes
*He laughs so much more. I will do anything to get him to laugh. Even if it means making a fool of myself in public.
*He is eating cereal in the morning and half a veggie in the afternoon.
*He is usually asleep by 8. It leaves time for me and Jordan.
*He loves to hear himself.
*He loves to see himself.
*He has just found his feet and is working to put them in his mouth.
He is a wonderful, precious, beautiful boy that we are so blessed to have in you lives.

Things are really starting to look up for us as a family. Jordan is now a youth director at a church here in the Nashville area. I am so happy that he is doing something that he loves and that he was called to do. I love seeing him excited about his work. I also love that he is no longer traveling. I see him much more.

It seems that retired life will be ending soon. It was nice while it lasted.
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Father's Day- First

By Jordan: We're nearing the end of the first Father's Day with me being a daddy. I think it's pretty safe to say that it's the best yet. It started off with Meagan waking me up unable to wait any longer for me to open the card she made. After a few minutes of trying to make her think I was still sleeping, I got up and enjoyed sitting in bed with my wonderful wife and smiling baby boy. Meagan also bought a shirt for Jude to wear that said "I <3 my dad" which I have to say was pretty special.

Later on after church we went out to eat with my dad and Marie, as well as Lesley, Chris & Isaiah. I had chicken strips. While we were there we realized that Jude and Isaiah both had the same shirt so when we got back to dad's house we had a photo shoot.



After the tiring morning/early afternoon, this retired couple (+ baby) decided we were due for a nap... four hours later we all woke up ready to eat again. Once our tummies were full, we opted for a relaxing evening that included the creation of this new blog and Meagan doing a taste test of Jude's teething tablets. She then decided she would try to eat ice cream with a numb mouth. I'm sure you can imagine how well that turned out.

Well, I guess that's it for my first post. Happy Fathers Day!

Start

This is the start of our new blog. We have been avoiding starting a blog because so many friends and family members have them but we gave in. We are now like everyone else. Our main goal is to update friends and family members about our life... and Jude (we know that is who you really want to hear about). We hope you continue to come back and read about our life.